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drspencereidshairtie · 3 months ago

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Season Four of The Umbrella Academy was really really something for me because I had disliked lila since the very second they first introduced her. I remember being actively relieved when the show confirmed my suspicions about her, because i had felt a bit bad at first for judging her for no tangible reason.

I never really warmed up to her, in fact i actively hated her by the end of season two (which only went on to get 50x worse in season three with the whole he's our son / just kidding / whoops he's dead / haha im pregnant by the way thing) and then of course season four happened.

I actually almost kinda liked mom!lila. I was like oh, she can be human. She CAN be likeable. Maybe, just maybe, she's not a monster. I liked her new dynamic with Diego, and i enjoyed seeing her being a stressed, caring, normal mom and having a mundane life...for about two seconds. Then the whole 'book club / not book club / let him think I'm CHEATING on him' thing happened, and i was swiftly reminded that there was a reason i didn't like Lila.

Then she gets a power. It was actually a chance for her to be interesting and have character growth beyond just being a mom and wife. They could have used her to show what it's like when marigold interacts with someone who's never before had powers; they could have had some kind of fun training montage, like they did with Klaus and Reginald in season three when he discovered his immortality; and they SHOULD have done something of consequence with it, like having her accidentally hurt someone, or damage something important, idfk but, like, literally fucking anything!!!????!!!!???!!!!??? 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Instead, they just gave her stupid useless eye lasers that she uses about three times, can't control at all, and never comes up again. And it feels like they did it because they knew Lila was a weak character that couldn't stand on her own without the context of the rest of the umbrella academy, so they had to kinda 'even out the playing field' somewhat, even if it defied any and all logic and reason.*

Which, in my case at least, was an unfortunate choice. The one thing I'd actually somewhat liked about Lila was that, despite her personality and history, she was, for all intents and purposes, just an average human. I like seeing regular people in shows about abnormal folk. They give a nice context to the chaos, even if they too are 'chaotic' characters, you know?

Just when I thought she couldn't get worse.........well. I don't think i have to explain what happened. It was so much worse because Five had always been one of my favourite characters and OH MY GOD,,,,,,, HE WOULD NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER DO THAT! HE WOULD NOT DO THAT???? And you know I'm not just saying that in a delusional 'i know him better than the writers do' fan way, because pretty much everyone is in agreement.

He LITERALLY would not fucking do that. ESPECIALLY with Lila, who he's always disliked at best and actively tried to KILL at worst, and especially not now that she's his BROTHER'S WIFE and not to mention the MOTHER OF HIS BROTHER'S CHILDREN????

Anyway, that was my final nail. I no longer just hated Lila and passively wished she hadn't been added to the show, I wanted her dead. I wanted her to be killed off, or have something happen where five returned to the correct timeline but Lila couldn't for some reason, I just wanted her gone and SOON. I think it was probably what killed season four for most people, not just me. I think that if Lila had never existed, or at least hadn't made it to season four, or hadn't gone with five and................

If that hadn't happened, I think it could have been salvageable, even despite the one million and one problems with the season.

TL;DR: I genuinely, truly, deeply believe that the main issue with season four of the umbrella academy was the overarching existence of one 'Lila Pitts.'

(Don't even get me started on her almost jeopardising everything at the last moment in the final episode. I almost broke something in sheer frustration, because OH MY GOD we literally don't have time for this the world is ending infinitely and your life is not more important than the life of a single slug muchless the lives of BILLIONS of people- deep breaths, dustyn. Deep breaths.)

#lila the umbrella academy #i hate lila #i hate it here #i hate season 4 #the umbrella academy season four doesnt exist if you think about it actually #season four doesn't exist #tua season 4 #tua s4 spoilers #tua rant #tua #tua spoilers #five hargreeves #five #lila #i dont know how to tag this #and also all of you who ship five and lila please stay away from me k thnx bye #rants #??? i dont know okay bye

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astrangetorpedo · 7 months ago

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Boy Power: The Women of Boygenius on the Joys of Nourishing a Supergroup Without the Superegos

By Chris Willman

The three singer-songwriters who make up Boygenius are musing about what they did and didn’t intend to accomplish when they went into the studio to make “The Record.” The six Grammy nominations they just collectively reeled in for their first full-length album together? Not actually part of the master plan. Neither was establishing themselves as role models for a much-needed sense of community across a swath of young America.

“We didn’t set out to be like, ‘And we symbolize friendship!’” bandmate Julien Baker points out, musing about the benevolent qualities that have been attributed to the group. “We just were like, ‘Let’s make a good record.’”

Fair enough. But have we mentioned that Variety‘s Group of the Year does, in fact, symbolize friendship — to the point that the band has virtually become an iconic representation of trifold intimacy? Sharing the bond the trio developed in the studio and on the road has been a key part of the appeal for the band’s avid fan base. It’s a conclusion that band member Lucy Dacus was not avoiding when she recently told Teen Vogue that “being affectionate onstage has been really fun and sweet, and it exhibits behavior that I think is healthy and good.” They even wrote about their growing closeness in meta album tracks like “Leonard Cohen.” “True Blue,” their signature loyalty ballad, may or may not be about the group itself, it’s hard to escape the feeling that a line like “It feels good to be known so well” somehow applies not just to the trio’s interpersonal relationships but to the generally progressive, empathetic, LGBTQ-friendly, folk-rocking audience at a Boygenius show.

No wonder Boygenius seemed to consistently have the longest merch lines of 2023 (at least this side of Taylor Swift’s), with fans seeking ways to fly their colors. In what can still register as a man’s world, suddenly, it kind of felt like everybody wanted to be a boy.

A concert by the trio has its rituals. The band members describe a private rite that occurs early in a set, right after they’ve opened the show with a handful of their hardest-charging songs, like “Satanist” (another friendship song, once you get past the irreverent title) and “$20,” and are transitioning into something more reflective. “We have a little moment where we look at each other during ‘True Blue’ every show,” Dacus reveals, looking across the table at bandmate Phoebe Bridgers, “and sometimes I’ll wink at you and be like, ‘Here’s the time where we check in.’ And sometimes I feel like we can see when each of us feel crazy.”

Bridgers agrees, saying, “Or we have a weird day, and we have to look at each other and just be like, ‘Oh, my God, this day is still trudging on,’” suggesting that there are hidden cues and codes being passed around while Dacus’ soft voice is tucking an audience of thousands into a warm, communal bath.

But there’s a more public-facing ritual at the end of the show, when the members basically pile on each other in some form or another. It can look like sheer, rough horseplay, but given that everyone in the group identifies as queer, these full-body collisions also been described in reviews or fan comments as “Sapphic” moments. How would they characterize them? “It’s Sapphic horseplay!” says Bridgers, grinning, and maybe not entirely kidding. “That is exactly what it is.”

“With the horseplay,” says Dacus, taking that term and running with it, “sometimes we kiss. Sometimes we spin around. Sometimes we throw things at the audience. Sometimes we crowd-surf. Sometimes we pick up Julien or bow to her. It’s never really planned. Sometimes our tits are out.”

Bridgers remembers what felt like a signal change moment at a London show in the summer: “Someone got on her friend’s shoulders and flashed me in Gunnersbury Park. It was right after we took our shirts off the first time” at their prior show. “I was like, ‘This is so sick'” — the good kind of sick — “‘that someone feels safe enough to do this.’”

Dacus agrees. “Yeah, it doesn’t feel violent or violating in that particular circumstance. Like, if someone walked by and flashed us right now, I’d be like, Uhhhh. But, yeah, there’s something about what the show culminates in, where it does feel very safe and celebratory.”

Where we are right now is the outdoor patio of a Studio City coffeehouse, where the only things being flashed are Baker’s easing-into-autumn sweater, or slightly more provocative items like the “I Love Cuntry Music” trucker hat that Dacus has just doffed, or the Viagra Boys cap that Bridgers keeps on, maybe to deflect any possible attention that passers-by might otherwise give to her tell-tale platinum hair. The few passersby wouldn’t guess that this is a group about to play a long-sold-out headline show at the Hollywood Bowl for its 2023 tour finale, or to do “Saturday Night Live” a week and a half after that. They’re laid-back and still capable of surprising and delighting each other in conversation, and not at all giving off any America’s Greatest Current Rock Band vibes, although they’ve earned the right to some attitude, with an album that much of the indie-rock crowd and not a few critics would agree is the year’s best.

“Phoebe was the one that was like, ‘This is gonna be big,’” Dacus says. “I had aspirations; you had plans,” she says, looking at Bridgers. “You were like, ‘We’re gonna do it!’”

“We had talked about the Hollywood Bowl in the kitchen of Shangri-La, remember that?” Bridgers says, referring to the Malibu studio owned by Rick Rubin, where they cut “The Record.”

“But I didn’t have any context,” Baker says, noting that neither she nor Dacus had ever set foot in America’s most iconic venue, having grown up around Memphis and Richmond, Va., respectively, versus the Pasadena stomping grounds that’d given Bridgers lifelong access to some bigger dreams. “Our last show” — in Los Angeles, at the end of their debut 2018 tour — “we played the Wiltern, and I was tearful backstage,” Baker says, as she remembers exulting: “‘I’m so proud of us! All my dreams have come true!’ Like I’d topped out.”

The Bowl, and Madison Square Garden just before it, were milestones even for Bridgers, the most visible solo artist of the three prior to this year. She’d topped out herself locally, maybe, at the Greek. Then a funny thing happened on the way to the Cahuenga Pass: “The Record” immediately established Bridgers, Baker and Dacus as equals in every way, even in the eyes of fans who might previously have favored or just been more immersed in one solo career or another. There was magic to how evenly gifted and well matched they were as frontwomen, as songwriters, as harmonizers. They truly put the super back in “supergroup” … and took the ego out of superego, in a manner of speaking.

Strength in numbers: What a concept! Why didn’t anyone ever try it before? Well, there’ve been a few tries at bringing existing titans together over the years, and hoping they wouldn’t clash. There was Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and Asia, and the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band and … um … Well, let’s let the geniuses here come up with some slightly more contemporary analogues.

“You could look at Broken Social Scene and New Pornographers,” Baker says, but as soon as she starts dissecting the dynamics of those groups, it’s clear there aren’t really any recent antecedents that compare.

“I bet a lot of people try it, with a pretense that falls apart once they start to make it,” Dacus says, and then affirms why they’ve been able to come up with a successful joint project where others before them have bailed. “This collaboration is as important to each of us, if not more important, than our solo work,” she says. “And I bet a lot of supergroups are, even internally, thinking of it as a side project or a momentary thing.”

Bridgers agrees. “Yeah, because you’re going to make a third of what you’d earn making your own thing. So you’re like, ‘It’s my side thing — I’ll devote six months to it.’ But we put as much attention into it as if we were making our own records. The album took us so long to make, and we worked on it relentlessly. It was pretty serious from day one.”

Baker says, “It’s sick that the band has an identity that’s more than the sum of its parts.” (This maxim may be the closest Boygenius will ever come to a cliché, but they, and you, have got to embrace one that is this mathematically inescapable.)

When it came to the material they brought to the table, far from coming up with tunes that felt like discards from their solo releases, “The Record” ended up being chock-full of extremely personal and introspective songs. But it also included some of the most inherently commercial songs any of them have done, apart or together. You may recall that Bridgers had to be kind of coerced into making “Kyoto” a banger; in each other’s company, there was no such reticence.

“Definitely with ‘Not Strong Enough,’” Bridgers says, “I was like, ‘It’d be fun to have a radio song.’” (And, as it turns out, a Grammy song; it’s up for record of the year.) “With the songs that we were gravitating toward, we knew ‘True Blue’” — a Dacus-led ballad — “was gonna be such an indie smash, and fucking ‘Satanist’” — conceived by Baker — “goes so hard. ‘Strong Enough’ was the one we finished last, and I was like, ‘Let’s each write and sing a verse, because this could be the single.’” It didn’t feel like a sellout. “A lot of stuff that would feel contrived, solo, doesn’t feel contrived with these guys, because it’s just all in the spirit of fun and being together. And, yeah, it’s the first time I’ve ever been like, ‘Damn, people are gonna sing along to this part!’”

That delirious spirit stands in healthy contrast to the sad-core image some people might have slapped onto one or all of the band members. But it’s hardly all about the mirth. At the Bowl, as on every other night in the latter parts of the tour, Bridgers asked the audience to put away all phones for the album’s devastating final track, “Letter to an Old Poet,” as she walked the semicircular platform separating the front two seating areas. She says, “Every once in a while I see a phone and I fume, but mostly they’re great and they put their phones away. And because most of the show has been looking through people’s phones and not at their faces, suddenly they become a roomful of people, and it’s insanely powerful to me.”

Why that number in particular, for shutting down cameras? Is it just one of a dozen possible moments to make that request, or is there something in particular about this one’s wounded and angry spirit…

“I play plenty of heavy songs,” Bridges says, “but that one feels too dark to not be having a communal experience.”

“Isn’t that the only time that you’ve cried while doing a vocal take — during that song?” Dacus asks.

“Yeah. I had a couple years where I had a hard time crying,” Bridgers affirms. “I’m over it now, thank God. Now I cry all the time. But ‘Letter to an Old Poet’ is one of the only times I’ve cried onstage.”

“Lucky,” Dacus says. “I hate crying onstage. It happens. I hate that shit.”

These asides about tears might give a Boygenius novice the wrong impression about the band. Even their softer songs tend to have a barb in them, and others, like the screamfests “$20” or “Satanist,” are undeniably hard-ass. A cutting irreverence is the hallmark that makes the sentimental moments honest and disarming.

Their irreverence comes through in their choice of stage or TV outfits too: At the Bowl, they dressed up as the Father, Son and Holy Ghost (with Dave Grohl sitting in briefly on drums as a zombie priest). “If you think of a three-person costume,” Baker explains, “what’s three things? We were like, ‘We could be the Trinity.’” Maybe it’s just as simple as that — numbers as Halloween destiny. But the band members don’t demur when the suggestion comes up that maybe it also had something to do with the phrase that is repeated over and over again in the bridge of “Not Strong Enough”: “Always an angel, never a god.” They switched up that equation, if just for one night, getting deistic at the Bowl.

Less than two weeks later, for “SNL,” they dressed up as the Beatles in their Ed Sullivan-era early prime. The Trinity? The Fab Four? Screw CSNY and all the rest; these women know a real supergroup when they see one.

When “SNL” came around, it was clear they would only be emulating the Beatles and not, like, the Who. There was definitely not going to be any attempt on the show to repeat Bridgers’ guitar-smashing solo appearance of 2021. “Hey, I tried,” she says about not quite fully breaking her ax on that occasion; the guitar took a licking, but almost kept on ticking, a resilience she was amused, not annoyed, by.

This year, the group has been more about melting hearts than heating up flame wars — whether that’s been in their more nakedly revealing songs or taking up causes like dressing in drag in Nashville to support the trans community under political attack there, or inviting Indigenous groups to provide invocations before select tour dates.

When the band receives its Group of the Year award at Variety‘s Hitmakers event, Joan Baez will be presenting the honor to the trio. That may seem like an odd pairing if you’re only considering Boygenius’ more irreverent moments, but an utterly apropos matchup if you are keeping in mind the band’s deeply earnest side and, especially, the social conscience that flares up around their performances. As it happens, the group has also performed at Baez’s Bread and Roses benefits in the Bay area.

“Oh my God,” says Dacus. “Sometimes I have to remember how important she is, because in our experience of her, she’s just been super-kind, and complimenting us, and then it’s like, ‘You’re Joan Baez! You made music joyfully political for a whole generation of people!’ Sometimes we lament how people in media are asked to basically be politicians now…”

��Because politicians aren’t being politicians,” Bridgers interjects — “they’re being fucking TV stars.”

“But she set this example of, because you’re a human, you have to stand for things,” Dacus continues. “So, it’s not because we’re musicians that we care about these causes, it’s because we’re people, and we would be caring about them if we all had office jobs. A lot of people are afraid to do that, and she wasn’t, and it’s a great example for us. We are not very afraid to say what we believe. … Just as a person, I hope to be like her.”

Bridgers notes that Baez, in her initial heyday as America’s folkie sweetheart, “was losing opportunities because she was radical — and then that ended up being the fuel for her whole career. How radical she was was then rewarded.” She sums up Baez’s appeal in a nutshell: “Woody Guthrie was screeching this, and I’m gonna sing it.” (They crack up, with Bridgers noting that no offense to anyone living or dead was intended: “We’re big Woody fans.”)

Baker has thoughts about how they earn the right to be what might be perceived as political, whether it’s something as seemingly un-divisive as having Indigenous people do Land Acknowledgements introductions before their sets, or speaking up on trans or reproductive choice issues.

“Giving them something of ourselves in the songs is like an endearment practice, where we’re like, ‘You will trust us because you have an emotional connection to something we’ve said that resonates with you.’ So when we are in drag at the Nashville show [just after the state enacted anti-drag laws], kids are trusting our judgment, because we’ve gone to the trouble of sharing something difficult or even painful for us to communicate. Then it’s worth it for them to enter that conversation, because we’ve set the stakes of like what’s important to communicate, even if involves conflict or pain.”

The songs themselves aren’t always, if ever, aimed at the fans, though. Sometimes the target audience for the material is, well, Boygenius.

“We write songs to each other as a communication method,” Baker says.

Bridgers doesn’t think it should be mistaken for oversharing. “We have plenty of stuff that’s sacred and not shown to anybody other than each other. I think there’s this weird misconception sometimes that we don’t have a private relationship, because so much of it this year has been monetized in our performance.” And yet, Dacus says, their music is as transparently interpersonal as it sounds. “Some friendships over years don’t get to enough of a level of intimacy to share the types of fears and desires and hopes that we are saying.”

“We hang out,” declares Baker, as if this might not be a matter-of-fact thing for a working rock group. (It doesn’t go without saying.)

How long will the hang last?

In October, the band put out a four-song EP called “The Rest,” a sequel or companion piece to “The Record.” The title does have an air of at least temporary finality to it, as if the cupboard is bare. Says Bridgers, “It’s funny that it’s called ‘The Rest,’ because we absolutely do have more songs that we didn’t put out.”

But where do they go from here? In 2023, did the side hustle so overtake the main hustle that they should keep Boygenius going into 2024, when they could certainly sell out sheds or maybe even arenas they didn’t come near this year? They’ve already broken with supergroup form so much; would it be a terrible thing if they were to further break it to the point of unexpectedly doing an immediate, sequential band album? Or do they revert to their solo corners? Fans might wish there could be a multiverse in which the band never pauses, on one track, and individual careers proceed apace on another.

Conventional wisdom would suggest they will not let solo albums go unmade just for the sake of rocking more venues. But you will not get a definitive answer here.

“I don’t know,” says Bridgers. “It’s incredible to me that we have kept the ethos behind the band the whole way, which is: it just has to be fun. We’ve done a lot of shit, but there’s also shit we said no to, stuff that felt like it was like pushing a boundary as far as travel or labor and stuff that sounds like we might push ourselves into not having fun. So that gets to continue forward, after this album cycle. I think we just are gonna do whatever is fun, and remain each other to each other. These guys are as involved in what I do as they are in Boygenius. We show each other ideas, and…”

“We need each other’s brains,” Dacus says.

So is it possible to specifically say that solo albums are what’s next, or do they want to leave a bit of mystery?

The attempt to pin it down leaves them unusually cagey. “It’s a mystery,” Bridgers says.

Dacus: “I’ll just say I’m not thinking about it.”

Bridgers: “Oh, yeah. It’s a mystery to us.”

Dacus, having the final noncommittal word: “If it’s a mystery to you, it’s a mystery to us too.”

Hard to tell whether there might be any real indecision here, or whether they just don’t want to lay out all their cards for the outside world, or whether they might be having a difficult time reconciling themselves to a near-future in which they might be Zoom advisors to one another instead of daily physical confidantes.

In the immediate meanwhile, there is Grammy season, and a slew of awards to be won, or not won. Bridgers has some experience there, with her multiple nominations in 2021. “It was still very deeply fucking COVID when I was nominated, and I was pretty like traumatized last time, and like the only way I felt it was on the phone. To find out in a room full of people and be celebrating, it’s already way more fun.” Dacus says being collectively recognized is “triple the joy, right? Much easier to feel happy for them” than for herself, she says. “Much easier to feel.”

Is there a line from any of their songs that could maybe encapsulate how they’re feeling right now, between the six Grammy noms, the “SNL” appearance and the impending end-of-year accolades? At that question, they start to laugh.

“Give me your funny ones,” someone says.

Then Dacus says, “Ohhh, I have a cute one.”

“Which one?” the others ask, curious to get an earnest answer after all.

Quoting one of her own lyrics, Dacus lowers her voice, as if it’s suddenly occurred to her that it’s a secret that she’s sharing. “‘I never thought you’d happen to me,’” she says.

(x) photos by Jingyu Lin

#boygenuis #julien baker #lucy dacus #phoebe bridgers #interview #archival #variety #november 2023

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dansantat · 1 year ago

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I’ll let you in on one of my biggest fears.

When I was a kid I was worried I would be completely useless to society and end up homeless.

I used to fear the future.

I’m not joking.

When I was growing up, one of my biggest fears was becoming an adult and trusting in my own abilities to provide for myself. As a little kid I would stay up at night staring at the ceiling worried about what I was going to do with my life. In my mind I had no idea what work was. I imagined wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase filled with only God knows what and going off to an office doing random grown-up stuff and getting paid for it. The worry was wondering what that grown-up works as. What was I going to do with my life? What was my purpose?

True story, when I got my first job at a video game company and got the phone call telling me what my first salary would be I breathed a sigh of relief over the phone saying, “Thank God someone in this world thinks I’m useful.”

Thank you, Christian Busic, for my first job.

My oldest son is graduating from high school this year and I can sense a little bit of that anxiety from him wondering what he will be doing with the rest of his life. I can relate and I don’t give him any pressure to rush to any conclusions. I find it unsettling that some of us bust our humps trying to get into college and then suddenly a university asks you what major you want to do which will decide your path in the future.

Statistically, about 85% of graduating college students don’t do anything with their college degree.

“Find your passion,” I tell him. “It was what you were meant to do.”

Now, I’m at a point in my life where a few of my friends and folks around me are looking into the near future (maybe the next five to eight years) towards retirement. That golden ticket. The moment they can finally get off that train and spend the rest of their lives doing what they REALLY want to do with their lives. This all came as a shock to me. Not about about whether or not some of us can actually retire, but the fact that that time has flown and suddenly I’m nearing the other side of work life. I’ve been adulting for roughly 22 years now, which feels like nothing, and as I reflect on the past years I find myself rather fortunate that I happen to do have had the honor and privilege to do exactly what I wanted and was born to do. I understand that not many people get that in their life. I’m lucky. So, while folks around me are looking to get off the work force train, or at least dream about it, I realize that I have absolutely no interest in stopping, and that’s a good thing.

I think I did something right?

I’ve spent the last 48 years of my life worrying all these years if I’m going to be okay only to stand on the last third of a marathon called "the working life" and realizing that things just might work out fine.

When my father died a few years ago I remember him eating a hot dog as his last meal, which was odd because he was obsessed with his health to the point that he never took pleasure in indulging in fun things so this was something he would never do. All his life he just kept obsessing about eating right and exercising convinced he was going to die of cardiovascular disease when suddenly it was liver cancer. He just sat there eating his hot dog and saying to himself, “What was the point of worrying all those those years?”

He didn’t know I was listening. The best piece of life advice he gave me was something he didn't intend for me to hear, but that moment spoke volumes to me.

Now, here’s where it gets a little interesting.

I realized something recently about myself while attending a few literary conferences and festivals in the past few years.

I’m suddenly the old guy.

While 48 isn’t particularly old I’m finding myself to be the veteran on panels filled with twenty somethings. I see fewer and fewer of the peers that I came up with at conferences. The Publisher’s Weekly Marketplace is filled with young new people I’ve never heard of before. The output of some folks I had admired for years seem to have dropped off a bit and I pray it’s because they’ve willingly chosen to slow their lives down. The scariest part is that I’ve finally reached a point in my life where I question if I have enough years in my life to create all the ideas that I have in my head. It feels like only yesterday that I started out in this business and I was hustling to try to get my foot firmly planted in this literary industry hoping to be recognized by editors and art directors, and you, the readers. Now, I find myself hustling for a slightly different reason. I feel Iike I’m trying to keep up with the younger new voices. As younger generations plant their foot into the cultural zeitgeist I’ve noticed an extremely talented pool of young new literary voices who seem to effortlessly dispense this perfect voice suited to our current youth, but they do it in a slightly different way from me. Their perception of the world is slightly different than mine. To put it kindly, I’ve wondered if the perception of how I view the world has become a little dated?

Call this a self-reflecting form of ageism.

When you write a memoir about yourself you are left generally spending a lot of time reflecting on your entire life and you are left with this inner need to understand every facet about yourself. You need to understand how all the gears work and you constantly ask yourself why you are the way you are. This self-awareness has been quite useful to me. I think it’s important to stand outside of yourself and be completely unbiased as you reflect about who you are. The brutal honestly of my world is that I need to constantly be aware of how the world is changing and ask myself if I’m changing with it. This is not to say that I don’t think I have anything worthwhile to say or write, but I wonder if I’m delivering that message in the right way? In order to speak to people you need to know HOW to say something as well as WHAT you’re going to say. My childhood was filled with toys, tv shows, riding bikes into the night, and building junk forts in some far uncharted corner of town. Today’s youth is filled with the internet, Netflix streaming, texting, and Tik Tok memes.

It’s apples and oranges.

I know folks who use old vaudeville gags in their work. Pies in the face, double takes, and old puns. Tools of an old era that kids are left scratching their heads wondering, “What did the author mean my that? And what’s an anvil?” There’s a lack of self-awareness where they feed their own personal interests not realizing that the audience they serve is completely left in the dark. You suddenly look around and realize that you’re completely out of the loop and if you try to fake it then it will all just come off as awkward because everyone can see that you’re simply trying too hard.

There comes a point in life when you suddenly realize that you aren’t up with all the gossip and trends and the who’s who of social media celebrities but I think the kiss of death to any person’s personal growth is when they say, “I miss the good old days…”

The cruel truth about the world is that if you long for the “good old days” you’re suddenly going to find yourself surrounded by a world you no longer understand because the world doesn’t care if you change with it or not.

I know people decades older than me who feared computers and refused to ever touch one and now they are surrounded by a digital world and they curse it for being fully automated and they can no longer use cash. I know folks who miss old school rap while scratching their heads over what new rappers are playing these days. Do you fear self-driving cars? Too bad, because capitalism says it’s coming whether you like it or not. Does AI terrify you? I mean, yes, it ABSOLUTELY SHOULD, but it’s coming.

My attitude isn’t that I’m being forced to adapt. Now, my view is that I’m eager to see what lies down the road and where my place is in it. I see that the world is changing rapidly and I don’t want to get off this train because the moment I stop looking towards the future and spend more time reflecting on my past is when I stop growing as a person.

I don’t know how well I’ll adapt to the future but I no longer fear it. All I know is that I've done fine for most of my life and I should have confidence that my desire to grow will help me carry on.

There’s no point in worrying.

Take life one day at a time, and just savor the precious moments life gives you...

And eat the hot dog.

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infinityactual · 2 months ago

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Ngl, being (apparently exactly) half your age is fun because making people about my mom's age feel Old is enrichment for me (love u, have a nice day)

Hey man I love feelin old.

It's funny, growing up undiagnosed autistic and adhd in an abusive, authoritarian household really messed up my perception of what growing up is like. I have since officially cut contact with my abusive family (they didn't even react aside from signing the registered mail receipt lolololol) but even before that, I often thought a lot about what its like being in my thirties.

(Brief mentions of assault and abuse below he cut, nothing detailed just mentions as examples for context. This got a little rambly, I've had a lot on my mind regarding age the last few years.)

And being that old? It's. Not different. The phrase 'the more things change, the more they stay the same' never really made sense to me as a kid, but it hits home nowadays. I'm still me, but between growing and learning as I age and the realization that I'm probably not who I was told I was, it makes sense. I change. But I stay the same. It's like adding extra paint to a canvas. It's still a canvas, but there's more to it now. It will always be a canvas, but it's a canvas that is also different than it was before. It's changed, but it's the same.

My mom is one of those people who (literally at times) beat into me that if you got assaulted or raped or murdered, it was somehow YOUR fault for being too stupid or dressing too provocative or some other bullshit reason, and that I was sooo trusting and sooo stupid that I would probably end up dead before I hit 25.

And being on the spectrum and adhd and...well, a fuckin CHILD, I believed it.

It took three therapists and a psychiatrist, plus pretty much everyone I talk to going "Uh hey [x] isn't normal, that's abuse and you probably have [y] issues" for it to really sink in that my mother was wrong. That happened in 2020, right at the start of lockdown. Almost 5 years later and I still get kicked in the head with past traumas. I'm still sorting everything out. It's gonna take a while.

But I'm 38. Over a decade past the age when I thought I'd be dead. And only this year after deciding not to let the trauma and bad memories surrounding my birthday did I really understand how fucked up it is to fully expect to be dead at a young age without any sort of preexisting issues going on (it's also not a good way to live if you DO have medical issues that could kill you, but that is not what I'm getting into today).

I still feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it's not a 'my death could happen any second' feeling, it's a more insidious 'what if my death comes from my spouse, whom I love and trust implicitly?' thing, with an added feeling of anxiety because on bad brain days I try to look for red flags where there are none.

And the real kicker: that sort of trust was already violated when I was a toddler, possibly younger, and kept being violated till I left home.

It's a lot to think about. Like several boxes of puzzles all dumped on the floor at once. I pick through the pieces, sometimes things click, but mostly it's just a mess.

But I am glad I lived. I'm glad that I am still here to prove that I'm not 'too stupid' to survive. I like being the server dinosaur on Discord. I like being there for younger folks who went through or still are in the shit. Cos I'm proof it gets better. I'm proof that abusers are liars and so are the mental problems abuse instills in a mind. They're liars that tell you horrible things. I argue back. I have gotten into the habit of responding to the thoughts in my mother's voice yelling at me by telling her she can fuck off.

She can fuck off and I'll still be here loving the same shit I did in school. In fact, things I loved have been coming back to me. I'm still me, but I've changed. The only thing adult about me is my age and that I have bills and taxes. I've cultivated patience. Learned that I was never wrong to give kindness and expect it in return. I've grown. And I love being old.

#ty for the ask o childe of tumblr #really been going through it lately #but i'm getting there #idk where 'there' is but i'm goin'#i dont feel nearly forty i still feel like me #harass me for my age whenever u like i'll roll with it bc its a good 'fuck yeah!!!' thing for my brain #like hell yeah i survived!! fuck you!!#actual rambles

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1moremilgram-enjoyer · 1 year ago

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Continuing on "Haru's quest to annoy FF about every character in Milgram because they had the bad luck of getting interested in it basically at the same time he did" (/lh) Next on the list of prisoners is Fuuta. I remember you once said that he's one of your favorites along with Amane, Mikoto, and Muu, so I'm interested to hear you cover him !

Ah, so that’s why you’re doing this, your character motivation. The lore thickens. /lh

Yeah, I like Fuuta quite a bit. I’m always a sucker for protag foils, and since we can consider Es and even ourselves as the protag(s), then obviously I was going to love Fuuta. His views on justice are really interesting when considering we kinda do the same thing he ended up in Milgram for, deciding on people’s fates with horribly incomplete information and trying to justify to ourselves why we’re in the right for causing these people psychological pain. Not like it’s gonna stop me from voting people guilty when I think it’s deserved though lol.

CW: Cyberbullying, mention of suicide and murder.

(T2) Q9: How do you feel about the first trials results?

F: You’re the same as me.

Oh yeah that’s the good shit right there.

That is certainly a huge factor, Fuuta is great as a reflection to some of Milgram’s main themes and I love him for that. Even if his personality is maybe reminiscent of some other characters I’ve seen (when did Xander Matthews and Ace Markey have a secret love-child and why does he have a Bakugo complex), he’s still unique enough that I don’t see it as much of a problem.

And let’s not kid ourselves. Part of me enjoying a character sometimes comes from loving their song, and not only is Bring it On a banger like no other, Backdraft is probably my favorite Milgram song.

There’s also just a certain amount of hilarity that comes with the fact that people in Trial 1 managed to inno someone they believed to be a damn organ harvester then turn around and guilty my guy for having a Twitter account. Truly the most unforgivable of crimes.

It’s especially interesting now with Backdraft the theories around his “murder”, because I actually think it may be one of the more unclear ones in terms of what happened. You might have seen there’s a theory he wasn’t the one to start the witch hunt on the girl that ended up dying, which I find is quite believable even if we still have to explain what was going on with that photo he took of someone’s home in his Undercover silhouette thing. But what’s even crazier to me is the goddamn Undercover kill shot where his victim has both shoes on, unlike Mahiru’s and Kazui’s. Does this imply it wasn’t a suicide? Is it because whoever has the orange spray paint that shoots really straight at the one graffiti’s forehead actually murdered the girl themselves? But Fuuta still got blamed for it?

Hey remember when I said the more headache inducing a character the more I’m going to love them?

Anyways, I also think it’s cool how much Backdraft references the events during Milgram themselves. I love Es appearing in a prisoner’s song, too, especially with the whole “the one shadow from Purge March kinda looks like Es thing”-

Oh yeah Amane! I love her dynamic with Fuuta so, so much. They’re so cool and awesome and great and I hope Fuuta doesn’t get too indoctrinated but also I think it’d be kinda funny. I don’t think it would happen though, I trust big bro Fuuta will help Amane reject her cult’s teachings please I need them to have a wholesome ending where they just eat cake and play video games together you know Amane would beat his ass in any game even though she’s probably never touched a videogame in her life-

I am immensely normal about them, as you can clearly tell.

Anyways, some other things which I find really interesting.

(T1) Q1: What is a friend?

F: Folks you can get hyped over the same thing with

(T2) Q16: Do you have a lot of online friends?

F: I don't know if we were friends or not. There were times when we had fun together. But I don't know if I can call it that.

Am I reading this wrong or did my guy change his definition of what a friend is specifically to exclude his old friends? Because that’s some crazy character development right there.

(T1) Q9: Do you have apologetic feelings for who you killed?

F: I never killed anyone. Didn't you hear me? I thought you were a guard!

(T2) Q6: Do you remember the name of the person you killed?

F: I'm pretty sure I do. I saw it often after all.

So he’s admitting he did kill someone in a way. More character development.

(T1) Q10: Which prisoner do you get along with the most?

F: I'm not anyone's happy friend. Well Haruka's younger, so I take care of him.

(T2) Q2: How do you feel about Haruka?

F: This isn't the time to worry about other people. Plus it's not like he's a kid either.

More changes, my guy really is very different from trial 1 himself and I think that makes him extremely compelling.

Okay I need to stop or I’m gonna be here forever, this guy is just all kinds of silly. Anyways, love him. Please don’t get indoctrinated into Amane’s cult.

(T2) Q14: What are you thinking about now?

F: Maybe because I'm anxious, but I want something to rely on.

Please. Fuuta you’re like the only one there who might be able to reach her Fuuta please.

Anyways, I gotta go before those two rot my brain further. Hope you enjoyed! Take care!

#fuuta kajiyama

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helluvashitposter · 1 year ago

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This is the first time I'm gonna get in on reviewing the new Helluva boss episode because this was the one I was most excited for! But before I do that, I'm saying it now:

I saw a lot of negative reviews were focused around the Ozzie texts between Stolas and Blitzo and well...I'm sorry guys but my main focus is on THIS MAN RIGHT HERE

So without further a dooooooooo...

I honestly enjoyed Striker in this episode! I love seeing a wackier side of him and not just edgy edge lord, low voice, "I'm gonna eat your kids" through the whole episode. I understand why some people were super disappointed in him not being as threatening as he was in the first episode, but hey. This is a cartoon about dumb demons and sex, I try not to take it too seriously already! (⁠๑⁠•⁠﹏⁠•⁠)

(I also wanna say this now, I was also one of the people taken back by the change in voice actors, but I ain't even gonna let that bother me too much: I know folks like Norman are gonna be mighty expensive or too busy to keep around. As sad as it is, if I can get used to Stolas new voice, I can do the same for this one as long as it means more Strike!)

Speaking of Striker, the main criticism I keep seeing is that he was too egotistical, and because of that statue everyone is just saying he was another Chaz. But I honestly don't get this one?

Striker was ALWAYS just as entitled and self centered in the first episode: Did we forget this man literally made a song all about how awesome he is (That didn't even rhyme) And his speech to Blitz where he talked about how he was above the imps? The statue seems pretty in character for him! Striker has always sucked his own dick, maybe it was a little overzealous but definitely not enough for me to say he was just a full blown Chaz!

Plus, that man still took his job pretty damn serious! Never once was Striker incompetent or a dumbass in this episode. He knew his mission and he was damn malicious about, I mean if you gonna try to tell me this man wasn't just as bloodthirsty as he was last time-

This man has never once hesitated to hurt anyone who gets in his way or just for the fun of it and I think it still shows greatly here!

All and all, I have to disagree with everyone saying his character was "ruined" or "too Chaz like" Striker definitely did not spend the episode going on and on about how his dick is the biggest or how everyone wants to fuck him like Chaz would. (R.i.p Chaz, I love you sweetie!) As left field as the statue was, it definitely didn't steal from the fact that this man was once again determined to finish his job. Which got taken away from him by Stella at the last minute, which he was super bummed about, but he does get paid extra soooo! 🎉🎉🎉

(Full disclaimer: I didn't really care for the Stella part of the episode, I do like the voice actor for snowy owl though. But overall they really were just there...it's really hard to say anything about it other than the fact that she didn't want Stolas killed sooooo (⁠＠⁠_⁠＠⁠;⁠))

Now for the big stuff: The pacing.

I have to say...I do have to agree with everyone when they say the pacing was all over the place. I have to admit: With all the trailers that we were getting, I was expecting this bad boy to be long as hell! At least a good 25 to 30 minutes because we were getting all kinds of things! But man...

Even though the little vet visit was funny, and I am a huge fan of that cute lil goat doctor, it did take away from the actual tension. I came here for badass Striker! And not to mention M&M barely got time to shine as well! The pacing really was just:

BOOM! STRIKER KIDNAPPED STOLAS--

Loona scared of vet 🥺

BAM! MOXXIE AND MILLIE ARE GONNA TAKE ON STRIKER BY THEMSELVES, OOOOOO POWER COUPLE--

Blitz and Karen yell at each other 🤬

RAAAAAH, STRIKER STABBY STOLAS, MILLIE AND MOXXIE CRASH THROUGH ROOF THOUGH, IT'S TIME FOR THE MOST EPIC FIGHT--

Loona got her shot 😊

I feel like we totally got robbed on a much more epic fight and some shades thrown from M&M and Striker, especially when it was a highlight of the trailer! These two being able to properly settle a score with Striker would have really made for such an amazing tension scene since they were the main ones who were affected by him in the first episode. LIKE GUYS, LET MOX AND MILL SHINE WHEN BLITZO ISN'T AROUND, I BEG YOU! THEY'RE AMAZING TOO!! 😭

I will stand by everyone when they say: WE NEED MORE MILLIE DAMNIT!

The ending with Stolas definitely tugged at my heart strings, I won't lie! But again, I'm not here for the Stolitz angst, I was just here to see Strikey boy. WHO DIDN'T DIE, SO YES! TAKE THAT TWITTER!!! MY BOY GETS TO HUNT ANOTHER DAY, AND NOT ONCE DID HE GET HIT BY A TRAIN, IN FACT HE APPARENTLY LOVES THEM SO HA!!

All and all, I will say Harvest moon was peek Striker. It's gonna be hard to ever top that, Norman Striker will forever be missed! But at the end of the day, I did enjoy seeing my favorite cowboy again, and there's apparently some more lore behind him as well that we'll hopefully get to see in the later seasons. I'm just glad I can easily sleep tonight knowing that he wasn't just killed off in the second episode we get him in! 🙏

So it was a good time all around! Especially watching it with my favorite person 💕

#helluva boss #helluva boss spoilers #helluva striker #helluva moxxie #helluva millie #helluva blitzo #helluva stolas #Helluva boss is one of those shows you gotta watch casually #dib squeaks #I'm too scared to tag this as criticism

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rurulaura · 1 year ago

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Digimon 02 the beginning review:

it was a fun time. I had to take Uber and the fare was rather expensive after it was all said and done. But it was worth it. The Uber driver ended up being the same person there and back! He was a gaming nerd and enjoyed anime too. Theater experience was good too. Got some yummy chocolate peanuts and even extra card packs after the movie.

Now my thoughts on the movie. I’ll be putting all spoilers under the read more.

The banter between daisuke and miyako never gets old lol

Rui sounds so dang emo telling the others it's his problem and blah blah blah

Rui does says he thinks he is the first in the sub. WHich people can play around with if he really was the first or not. I still think Rui was a chosen child that just didn't realize that other chosen existed. and the digital world wasn't aware of it because Rui never went to the digital world.

Hawkmon flocking in front of Rui was hilarious. Looked like a real bird being obnoxious.

...until hawkmon actually knocked the eyepatch off showing the creepy digimon eye!

When it shows Daisuke holding Rui's hand and assuring him to let them help... I can't help but to notice how short Rui is. Holy cow

Daisuke encouraging Rui's recklessness is sure something lol

Daisuke suggesting if they fly on Imperialdramon fast enough, the humans won't see them. Reminds me of the naruto meme at area 51 XXD “ they can’t hit us if we run fast enough”

RUi running towards lil' Rui and Ukkomon gives Magica Madoka vibes with Homura trying to stop madoka from being a magical girl.

Miyako's light tinted glasses during the computer scene. Haha “all according to keikaku!”

Hikari does indeed say homeostatsis in the japanese version! tri. is Canon folks.

"Ukkomon is a special Digimon..." Heard that one before o_o;;

In the Ukkomon and Rui meeting, Rui accidentally says Unkkomon. Unko being poop in Japanese. Sadly a funny joke lost in translation.

Some wondered if the bruises are actual physical bruises... Rui covers his head. I'd say he does get hit from time to time...

When the characters are talking about the bonds with their Digimon and having to work through conflicts, it really reminded me of part 5 when they tell Meiko the same thing. Kind of nice to get a 02 version of that.

I had to hide my face from the body horror shit. THe eye. Rui's eye. GAPING HOLE IN UKKOMON'S HEAD. Just transferring an eye like it's nothing. This isn't Naruto! That's not how it works!

I had a feeling Hikari said more of "That poor thing" about ukkomon. It feels different actually watching the movie with context than reading other reviews. Hikari could just felt all it wanted to do was make Rui happy.

When Ukkomon goes big, it sings the creepiest happy birthday. Geeeez

I saw a lot of reviews saying the characcters didn't get anything and they were just there. I think they got some nice character moments. THe back and forth about killing Ukkomon for example. It's the 02 kids and they are older now. Their issues are going to be more to the point. It was still good to see. I think the movie did a really good job with that. Despite what people think.

Just a small amount of Kenyako. It made me happy.

Miyako's Bingo!

Loved the 6 way evo. Just cool to see. Glad we got to see their evolutions.

I can't get over Takeru driving a CAR. He drives and Hikari sits up front. The other two in back while Daisuke, Ken, and Rui rode on Imperialdramon. It's just an amusing image. I can't get over it.

There are many shots of this giant digimon eye sticking out of Rui's small head. It creeps me out and they show it a lot.

THe animation for the fights are so dang good. Reviews did not overexaggerate that fact.

I may need to rewatch 02, but where do Daisuke and Ken hang out on fighter mode? I know it's on the back usually but... Also really cool how the inside of Imperialdramon looks like a command room. Really cool..

HAH THE FLIRTING REMARK. Made me smile. *sighs* even after all these years.. It's still just them.

The zoom in on Rui's face and that eye. Wny...

Even as Rui and Ukkomon talk.. the comical eye is there...

The snow fight was gorgeous and fun little moments too. Seeing the international kids all grown up is wonderful. We even see Rosa! Which I think is fantastic.

I was pretty happy with this movie. I don’t think i need a grand series like tri. To flash characters out. They’ve all had their moments in various ways.

#digimon #digimon 02 the beginning #digimon 02tb #spoilers #review

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davidmariottecomics · 1 year ago

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How I Got Here

Hello,

And happy birthday to me! I got you a present! It’s a blog!

Thanks for joining me for what ought to be a somewhat unusual blog. This one’s both addressing something I’ve been asked many many times and, with luck, maybe helping me sort out a few things for myself. I’m going to be honest… I started writing this in like a fit of imposter syndrome (it’s not just a Sonic mini-series) and depression.

I struggle a lot with my confidence. I think I’m pretty good at what I do and at being a good person, but y’know, between mental illness often not being in line with reality and living and working in the same place most of the time now with a lot of my socialization being online or just through text and just sometimes really burning out from the stresses of my everyday–both personally and professionally–it’s hard. It is hard to be a person right now. It is hard to reasonably do almost anything.

That’s maybe getting away from the point, so to try to bring us back on track… I am a person in a small industry working in what is in some ways an even smaller subsection of that industry–freelancers, people creating comics on their own, outnumber the people working behind the scenes at comic companies making comics many times over. When you have a job like mine, where I work in comics and I work on some beloved properties and I have hiring power and the ability to help people get their foot in the door, you’re frequently asked how you got there? What was your path to success? How’d you become an editor or writer or artist or whatever?

The answer is always different for each person you ask, but a central thread seems to tie us all together: determination, some level of hard work over years, and a whole lotta luck.

So, this is how I’ve ended up where I am.

The Early Advantage

A disclaimer for this whole update: I am an old man (ish–let me have it, it’s my birthday). So, let it just be said that I’m working off of old information. Some combination of half-remembered facts, family lore, and stories from my childhood, that may or may not be fully accurate as I’m not fact-checking them and I may not have always fully understood.

But let’s start when I was very little. Itty-bitty even. One of the first people to know that I had been born–not the first, but certainly within the first couple dozen–was my dad’s boss… Then Wildstorm founder, and now DC Comics publisher, president, and CCO, Jim Lee. Not a bad guy to know practically from birth if you’d eventually like to get into comics. Not that I work with him, but I do and have worked with some former Wildstorm folks and I think this is very indicative of the advantage I had growing up.

So, from birth practically, I was steeped in comics and books. My dad was working at Wildstorm, where he worked in marketing and then in editorial and did his fair share of writing. My mom co-owned Mysterious Galaxy, the San Diego genre-fiction bookstore institution. I was frequently in spaces with people who would later be my peers.

It also meant that I had a lot of access that other people never had or will. I remember being in the Wildstorm offices some days as a kid, and a few years later, in the old IDW ones too. I got to go to DC back in the NY years a couple times. I got to talk to heavyweights in comics and pick their brains and look ‘em in the eye and tell them that some day I’d have their jobs. I got to grow up surrounded by comics and books and the people who made them and to get some real insight to how they work. But, I knew that to make it, I’d still have to work for it, because I saw how hard the people in my life worked too.

One specific story from that time that I think is kinda fun: I was in probably first or second grade and I did that assignment a lot of kids do about “what do you want to be when you grow up?” And while I was probably more in the know than a lot of kids at that age, I wasn’t entirely clear on the nuances of writer vs. artist vs. cartoonist. I knew comics were made by people, and that sometimes the people did one thing and sometimes they did everything, but I wasn’t super clear on what made the difference. And I remember starting that assignment wanting to describe being a writer like my dad, but not fully being able to uncouple the idea of doing the art too. And after it, when I had a clearer picture of what the distinctions were, I think that’s when I really settled into wanting to be a writer.

Gifted Kid

Do you have a period in your life that you struggle to remember? I find that to be the case with a lot of my childhood. It’s one of those things that’s probably nothing, right? The older we get, the less we remember from our youth, and the more it gets filtered down to key events and details–the things that have some major significance or that have been told to or by us enough time we feel we can’t help but remember them. But sometimes I do worry about it. I worry that hindsight isn’t as 20/20 as we say it is and that there are things that’re just slippery–that some part of me thinks I should remember, or that sometimes my mom will talk about like I do remember–but that I just don’t. And when I don’t remember these things, well, it’s frustrating even if it’s not a big deal.

Like, does it matter that I don’t remember the time in my life when I primarily wore sweatpants and cowboy boots? No, though I am retroactively embarrassed for myself. I remember wearing sweatpants–to bed or when exercising, same as I do now, though otherwise I primarily wear jeans (as an aside, since we’re getting personal this time around, my butt has gotten too big and keeps tearing my jeans in the back). And I certainly remember wearing cowboy boots–which I just don’t do anymore. I don’t have a pair, but I do still have a lot of love for a good pair of boots in the right setting. But in spite of how little I know it matters in the grand scheme of my life, I also know that it makes me worry that I can’t remember something like that–the same way I worry when I can’t remember anything. I was talking with Becca recently about feeling like my memory was worse and was it an effect of getting covid and not realizing it, and as they pointed out, it’s probably mostly the fact that I’ve been stressed out kinda non-stop for like… 3 ½ years.

Can you tell I wrote that while feeling more depressed? Anyway, to the topic at hand, what I do remember from this time in my life and that is relevant to how I got to where I am, is that I was a gifted student. I know I have a few international regular readers, so I’ll elaborate in case your school system is substantially different. When we moved from bustling San Diego to the middle of nowhere, Arizona, I went from private school to public school and two very different educational standards. I remember, as an obnoxious, snotty kid, saying at some point that it seemed like the expectations for me through 6th grade in Arizona weren’t any different than the expectations I had already met and exceeded in San Diego in 4th grade.

Shortly after I started at my first AZ school, I tested for gifted and talented and was found to be gifted. What that actually meant was that I tested really well. I had a higher reading level than my peers. I needed more of a challenge in my work–again, likely largely influenced by different standards coming in, and which I think I must’ve gotten, but truth be told, with a small staff in a small town, I don’t really remember getting that much extra attention or challenge to my assignments. I wasn’t a super genius needing to skip a bunch of grades and ready to do complex physics or whatever, but I was needing a little more because I could handle it.

Then I went to high school. I traveled about an hour each way every day because I needed to go to the bigger high school in the bigger town because they had the most honors and AP classes–a way of continuing that “gifted” education and receiving early college credit because of it. There, I ended up having a similar experience. When I graduated, I wasn’t valedictorian or salutatorian, but I was in the top percentile of my class and got to give a speech. It was… a high school graduation speech, alright.

My point, such as it is, is that I spent years working in a school system that kept telling me I was smart–or succeeding in a way my peers weren’t, needing resources that they didn’t–and then rewarding me for good performance. With the benefit of hindsight, sure, it probably wasn’t great that I was being told I was special and different and tying a lot of my self-worth to academic performance, but hey, that’s the American school system for ya!

The critical story from this time period I know I’ve told before. I think it was the summer between my junior and senior years of high school, so when I was really starting to look at colleges and get out applications. I was at San Diego Comic-Con and was at a party with former DC writer, editor, president and publisher, Paul Levitz (one of the people that in my childhood I had once told I would have his job someday). I was talking with Paul about my college plans because I knew that he did some teaching on the side and, well, I figured it’d be good to know how to move forward so I could get his job someday. And I told him that I had been looking at schools with strong creative writing programs and journalism programs and what few schools offered comics programs and he told me that his advice as a person who taught creative writing was you can’t be taught creativity. You can be taught how to refine your writing, and there are some programs that put the emphasis on focusing your skills and helping you improve your storytelling, but there are a lot of people who enter creative writing hoping it’ll foster their creativity, and you can’t teach an imagination. His advice was to pursue something that I would be able to write about–things that I could know and always refer back to as a basis for ideas. I decided to pursue journalism because I had some stories that–fingers crossed, might still get told someday–I thought knowing the real ins and outs would be helpful for. I also figured, journalism is about learning how to research and learning other people’s stories and how to tell them. It ended up being a good fit.

College Daze

It’s kinda funny. I’ve been in comics for 7 years now. Celebrated my 7th IDW anniversary in late August. Most of the people I know and interact with on a regular basis are comics creators, or other creators, artists, readers, fans, people in the community at large. But sometimes I get that shock of no matter how mainstream comics may seem, for a lot of folks, they’re still a novelty. Like when I got my haircut last and the stylist had no real idea what my job was. And without a doubt through my own doing, I had a reputation even through college as “comic guy” because both to people with a shared interest and people who barely knew me, that was the fact they knew about me.

College was probably the first time in years that I had made a full comic. And the ones I made were not very good. But, over my years there, I took a few classes that involved comics heavily (including a really amazing comics geography class that was examining comics as a tool of non-fiction storytelling) and in the course of those, made a couple little comics. Y’know, one or two page things as assignments, but something that I had to write and draw and letter all by myself. Having to do that made me really start to think about the tools of making comics. I had never stopped reading comics, I had never stopped thinking about comics, I had to read Understanding Comics and the other Scott McCloud books like 5 times for different classes, but I had so fully bought into being a writer that I hadn’t tried to make my own comics really in a long time.

I had a couple false starts as a writer. I had a series I was working on with my dad that ultimately didn’t go forward and my only regret about that is not having had the chance to work with my dad. I did a comic script as my honors thesis. I got a surprisingly good grade on it considering how weak I think it is. I have not chosen to revisit it because in hindsight, it was not a good script and was a pretty flawed premise.

But what I really got into in college was editing. In my journalism classes, and working on the Daily Wildcat, I got to spend some time learning editorial skills and in the trenches. And, as it turned out, for as much as I loved writing for myself, I also was pretty good at helping other people find their stories, find their angles, clean up and clarify their copy, check their facts, etc. It was also around that point–and around the point of my first *real* job in the home department at Dillards that I realized editorial also had the perks of regular paychecks and healthcare.

I didn’t focus on editorial in an official capacity. It’s not like I have a degree in journalism with an emphasis on editorial or anything, but I knew it was something I was increasingly interested in pursuing and really busted my chops to try to get good at it. For as difficult as it is to bust out an article in a daily paper because someone blew their deadline or turned in something unpublishable, it is actually far harder to adjust on the fly in comics because I can’t just write something and plug it in.

The other major influence on me and comics in college is, of course, it’s where I met and fell in love with Becca. When we first met, they liked comics, but had largely given up on that part of their ambitions. Like, they were a political science major that had danced around also doing theater because they loved acting and maybe wanted to be a politician and maybe wanted to be an actor and maybe wanted to be something else, but being an artist, much less a comic artist was not a thing they were really thinking. And now, that’s what they do and what they work on so much of the time and with me sometimes and y’know, I could not do what I do now without them in my corner and vice-versa, I don’t think.

My Real Secret to Success: A Broken Car

Those are the factors that really led me to comics. I grew up in it. I had connections. I learned about it myself and in school and throughout my life, and was rewarded for the work I put into learning about comics and learning everything else. I fell in love, and I fell in love with editing. And so I graduated with a journalism degree with a minor in gender and women’s studies and was ready to face the world… by briefly kind of illegally living in my friend’s back bedroom for a few months because I was unemployed and unemployable!

In the middle of the hot Arizona summer, I get a message from my friend Shannon Denton. He’s working on the Alan Tudyk webseries Con Man and they’re shooting the finale and need people for a fake comic convention and he’s heard Becca’s interested in acting. It’d be background stuff, but it could be a little something–a first step, first gig in LA. Plus, we’d get to see each other!

And so, 4th of July weekend, Becca and I drive out to LA for filming! Now, to backtrack (and forward and sideways) a little… I have not great luck with cars. My first car of my own was an old family car that was gifted to me and was rear ended only a few months into owning it. It was messed up–not actually undrivable, probably, but the extent of the damage was more than the rest of the car was worth, so it was deemed totalled. And because it was a car of little value, I took my little payout and bought another crappy car. It was fine for what it was. Except when it started giving me the check oil light. I took it in to get the oil changed and apparently brought it to the dumbest, worst mechanics in town. I say this because…

Back to LA. We’ve been there a couple of days, but the car’s starting to drive a little funny and make some funny sounds and the check oil light’s back on. So, we stop at a mechanic and say “hey, can you look at this? I just had it in the shop!” And the mechanic looks at it and does his whole thing and says that whoever looked at it last screwed me over. The cap to the oil tank was shattered, so it wouldn’t screw in properly and the car could no longer safely hold oil and the oil that had been in it had now gotten into all sorts of other parts of the engine and the engine would have to be replaced, which once again, would’ve been more than the value of the car.

Now, stepping back again for one second. We’re staying with our friend Henry Barajas while we’re in LA. And while I’m at Henry’s place, I see a job posting for an editor gig at IDW (I would later learn that it was to replace John Barber). I go through it and I’m not qualified at this point. But, Henry encourages me to apply, so ultimately he’s like making dinner and conversation with Becca while I sit at his kitchen table and fill out this application, certain I’m not going to get the job.

The mechanic sees the AZ plates and asks if we’re local or if we’re staying with anyone. I tell him that my mom lives in San Diego. He says super, that’s about as far as you can go. You cannot drive back to Arizona with this car, it will not make it there. And be careful if you’re driving this down to San Diego. Becca and I do it. We drive it down, park it in the driveway of my mom and stepdad’s place, and that’s where the car died and was eventually picked up and donated from. But through some pretty convenient timing, I hear back from IDW. I am right, I’m not qualified for the editor position. But they haven’t yet posted that they’re also looking for an editorial assistant–a ground-level opening. And if I can make it there, I can do an interview with Chris Ryall. So it was that my car dying set me up to be in San Diego and do the interview.

It went well. Chris and I knew each a little, from my dad’s time at IDW, though obviously very different with me as an adult rather than a kid. It went well, and I eventually went back to AZ and waited to hear back. I got to San Diego Comic-Con and very nervously approached the IDW booth one day and talked to Chris and he said I had it, just had to finish up the paperwork on their end, and within a month, I had signed the papers and started at IDW.

And now I’m here. I've been trained by amazing people and have worked with so many fabulous creators (and still have such a wishlist of people I'd like to work with one day). I spend 5 days a week (though honestly, sometimes it seems like more) doing editorial work, and trying to write on top of and between that. I’ve got a couple comic series under my belt and lots of stories I’d still like to tell. And I bust my ass every day to bring people comics. Being in editorial, it is a sometimes frustrating job. A job that does not get a lot of credit. And a very difficult job. But it’s my job, and the highs are the best thing in the world.

I still struggle. I think that’s evident, even in how I tell my story about whether I’m actually justified in being here and doing this and if I’m any good at it. I told a friend recently that I have an easier time inviting my peers to my wedding than asking them if they’d like to work on a silly little story with me because for some reason, it feels like that’s going to be a bother or they’re not going to treat me as a serious creator. But that’s my comics story and I expect there’ll be a lot more to come from me in the future.

Thanks for reading. Amended features below!

David

What I enjoyed this birthday: Birthday cards, gifts, art, and messages! People who bought my Kofi mystery bundles (last call)! People who subscribed to my Patreon (mystery bundles til Halloween at $10+, plus a Wreckers #1 script dissection coming this weekend)! People who sent me $$$ because it's my birthday because, boy, I need 'em (see Kofi link above...)! Blank Check (Podcast), Solve This Murder (Podcast) , Craig of the Creek (Cartoon), One Piece (Manga), Pokemon Violet (Video game), The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon (Book), Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Links (Video game), The Traitors (TV show), Mothership (This funky space "tiki" bar in town! It's themed around having crashlanded on an alien planet, so like half the bar is what's left of your ship and the other half is like the natural cave formation and the weird irridescent plant life and stuff. It's really cool).

New Releases today (10/18/2023): No new books from me this week. :C But maybe spend the money you would've spent today on a mystery bundle or Patreon membership or something in my shop or something from Becca (remember, there's even more on Becca's Patreon and itch and other things accessible via their contact page)!

Or put your money to something good like the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, Doctors Without Borders, or UNRWA. It's hard because a lot of this money is anticipatory given the situation in Gaza (and the West Bank) and at time of writing, resources are being extremely restricted, if getting through at all. Or if you want to feel like you're having more immediate action, there're still plenty of ways to give for relief in Ukraine, which is also still under siege.

Or if money is a big ask, which, like, I get it, maybe you can give some time to something important. The Jewish Voice for Peace Action has made an easy to fill out form to write your representatives to encourage defunding and deescalating the Palestinan genocide. You can still submit your comments on "Generative AI" to the copyright office (they've actually extended the submission period). You can write to your reps to tell them to stop KOSA. You can get involved with your local library, or attend a legislative session of some sort, or otherwise take action in what you believe in because, again, things are bad right now and there is so much evil and injustice to stand up against, be it book bannings (and publishers giving in to extremists) or transphobia or worker exploitation or all of the above!

Announcements: It is my birthday. See above!

Pic of the Birthday: I will post actual birthday pictures when I have them, so this weekend's blog. In the meantime, final plug for my bundles!

#comics #comics editorial #personal story #breaking into comics #happy birthday #birthday boy #comics for sale

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aureumdraconeus · 2 years ago

Note

2. What are your unpopular opinion(s) of the fandom you’re rping in? 3. What rp trends are you so over and can’t wait for it to die? 5. A ship everyone in the fandom you’re in loves, but you can’t stand? (any fandom for 5 and 2) 10. Any fandom(s) you don’t want to rp in or crossover to? 20. If you’re feeling salty right now, this ask gives you a free reign to pour out your frustration.

Late Munday Salt Asks - Featuring AD

2. What are your unpopular opinion(s) of the fandom you’re rping in?

Alright well, ya'll about to get some fun takes from the man who is known for having the best takes in the universe (this is true I made the rules):

RWBY: The fanbase can either be absolutely fucking toxic to hell and back with little to no media comprehension that makes a goddamn preschooler look like Socrates, or overanalyze everything to the point where they then get pissed that their hyper-specific headcanon isn't canon and there is BARELY any in between.

Sonic: Folks really needs to stop treating the classic games like they're some godly piece of media that cannot be considered bad and that the modern games have ruined them. Ya'll just never played Rush.

Panty and Stocking: Stocking is absolutely more of a sex-freak than Panty is and you will never change this.

Exes: Cringe culture may be dead, but by god ya'll need to come up with better ideas. Stop tryin' to be Lord X 2.0

Hazbin / Helluva: The excuse that Hazbin is for women and Helluva is for dudes is bullshit, let Millie DO something for once.

Studio Trigger: They should honestly make a sequel series to Klk and just go even more nutso than they did the first time around.

Undertale / Deltarune: People overhype Spamton and Jevil a bit too much considering they may not even be relevant in the final release. They're pretty cool though.

Persona: A lot of these games are unfortunately pretty fuckin' dated when it comes to the shit happening in them - I'm sorry folks but Atlas are kinda shitty when it comes to how they portray anyone that isn't straight.

Super Mario Bros: Dimentio is the best Mario villain and you cannot convince me otherwise.

Dragon Ball: When was the last time any of us actually had fun with this series? Like be honest.

3. What rp trends are you so over and can’t wait for it to die?

Honestly it's the fact that there's really little to no accessibility for finding icons these days. A lot of folks seem to say "Do it yourself" which like, fair dues, but at the same time...Maybe some folks kinda want to be able to do other things outside of slaving away in a photo editing program for hours on end?

5. A ship everyone in the fandom you’re in loves, but you can’t stand? (any fandom for 5 and 2)

This one I'll be more concise with, cuz there's a lot of fandoms I listed: I honestly think that a lot of ships are fine? The only ones that I can think of are those made out of spite or just seem spiteful in nature. Like erasing characters' sexualities or shit like that.

's weird yo.

10. Any fandom(s) you don’t want to rp in or crossover to?

USUALLY I'm pretty open but like...I guess the best example is fandoms for shows that are v e r y kid oriented. Like, I understand some of ya'll are enjoying shows like Bluey and that one with the sentient numbers and...stuff like that?

I DON'T THINK you wanna have some of my muses just sorta showing up and causing shit.

That being said if any of ya'll wanna ask if I'm OK with your fandom and such then just hmu in DMs.

20. If you’re feeling salty right now, this ask gives you a free reign to pour out your frustration.

Honestly the only salt I be feeling is when I go to make myself something that takes about 30 seconds and then being told to leave the kitchen by your older siblings. Like, it takes 30 second to cook this shit gimme some room damn you.

#staticmonitor #{ ;; Words of Wisdom...? | AD Speaks }#{ ;; THE STAGE OF HISTORY | Asks }

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arthuriangodel · 2 years ago

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HEY THERE (AGAIN.)

[It’s a minor improvement, but the writer has taken a little more time with the handwriting—it’s slightly neater than the last letter.]

Thank you for the tips—honestly, they almost feel kind of obvious now that I think about it. You can tell I’m not an athlete, although I did play a little as a kid. Soccer, though, and I don’t really think that counts. When you’re a kid, you’re mostly concerned about having a good time and chasing your friends around. Winning’s kind of secondary. (This is probably why they put me in the goalie box. I didn’t mind, although I’d say I let more goals pass than I did save our team from ‘em.)

I just do my best for my dorm, because we don’t really have a lot of sporty types to spare for Spelldrive. I’m not very competitive, so I’m not sure how much help I am, but it’s kind of fun. I didn’t really touch a broom before I came here, so I’m still playing catch up sometimes. I’ll put your words to use and let you know how it goes!

I wish I had a better answer for holiday traditions, but in truth, I’m usually working. It’s not that I don’t slow down to enjoy it, but it’s a busy time of year for my folks and I do my best to pitch in. I get my kicks in where I can: my dad’s usually leading the charge for decorating the shop, and I don’t really have an eye for it, but I get to set the holiday playlist up. I go out of my way to find the most obscure things I can. Shakes things up in between the classics, and I like watching customers pause for just a second to actually pay attention to a little background noise. It makes for a good conversation starter if they’re waiting, and mitigates a bunch of grumpy people hearing the same song over and over wherever they go.

Ah, that’s probably not the answer you had in mind. We do slow down a bit, closer to the new year. My folks’ anniversary is at the beginning of spring, so a lot of times they tend to defer bigger celebrations until then. Having to run a business does mean that we don’t really see a lot of relatives or have many underfoot during this time, so it’s kinda nice that our house is quieter than most. They never mind when me or my siblings have a friend or two over for dinner who wants to escape their families for a little bit.

Ha, how’s that for rambling? I can punt the question back to you, but I’ll add one to it: how do you feel about holiday food? Do you get sick of it immediately or look forward to it all year?

(I think I fall on the latter. I get sick of the flavors, let’s say, but I’ll always eat stuffing.)

SIGNED,

???

(P.S. I did try to take my time writing this one. Any improvements on the handwriting?)

Hello again, little sprout! Haha, if you wanted to make this a rambling contest, you could've just asked. I would've entertained you with all the words and conversation topics for days. I've seen your handwriting and yes, I can see the effort you've placed with the letter! A bit of thoughtfulness certainly brings more of your character in the letter.

As for the tips, it’s no problem at all. A teacher's duty to help their students see things that they may sometimes overlook, after all. Soccer has been popular during my boyhood as well, but we called it by football since it was mostly about kicking a ball with our feet. Hopefully my tips can be of good use to you for your future spelldrive endeavors!

Your business sounds like a bakery or a crafts store, especially if the holiday season is your busiest time of year. A very wonderful idea on mixing some of the classic Christmas and holiday songs with more modern songs as well. Once you hear a Christmas song enough times, there is bound to be a lot of discomfort. My little Rose is slowly making me turnaround from that opinion due to her school concerts, but the original fact does stand.

That said, having a business certainly sounds like a relaxing profession. As for inviting your friends over, it certainly sounds like an exciting moment. Hopefully those times were joyous and that your friends were able to get that brief respite! :)

Holiday food is certainly an entertaining experience, especially when it comes to different cultures! When people celebrate Christmas differently and you have the ability to travel more, there are many interpretations of the holiday. For some, there is no snow on Christmas, and Christmas is in the middle of summer. And then there are others who celebrate different holidays outside of Christmas altogether. Though I usually partake in the classics like chicken and cake, my little Rose and her guardian always send over latkes around this time, as well. I always wondered how the ghosts are always able to send it without spoiling...

Aside from that, I feel like holiday food is like every other food in moderation: too much of a good thing and it goes bad, so I usually don't eat much holiday food once the leftovers are finished.

Be sure you're keeping yourself warm in this weather, little sprout. The last thing is for you to get shriveled by the frost! And I look forward to meeting you in person, soon.

Sincerely,

Godel

#[how does one ask or submit every time without fail?] inbox #[the professor knows best after all!] ic #nru: exchange 22

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cardamumm · 10 months ago

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This motherfucker.

okay kids, I have a story about this phone. THIS PHONE, right here, got me some shit when I was but a sweet innocent babe.

What I'm about to recount had long since passed into the foggy recesses of my memory, until now, when this image randomly appeared on my dash two decades later. It's all rushing back, the guilt, the pain. I feel myself once again on trial! for a mistake I had no way to avoid making, your honour. I swear. Let me share my testimony:

Growing up, I lived on a street where most of the neighbors were friends (I understand this might be a foreign concept nowadays). My folks would visit other people's places from time to time, and sometimes these parties were 'bring your kids'.

Naturally, I was friends with a few of the neighbor kids the way you become friends when you're brought over to each other's houses often enough. Normally at such events, we would go hide away and play in the kid zone of whatever house we were at. Keep that in mind, dear reader! Parents bringing us to neighbors house = playing with toys in a quiet room somewhere.

However, on this particular day, we were at a house we hand never been to before. The couple that lived there had one kid, but he was much older than us and was hanging out with the adults, not the 7-year-olds, in the garden out back. Meanwhile, that left our usual 3-4 kiddos alone in a house where *none of us lived*. We had no guide, your honour. We didn't know.

Our search for the designated play zone ended at the attic. There was a couch up there, some books and magazines etc. This, I thought, is where we would find the toys. I don't remember if we found any, but I do very clearly remember one thing: this phone.

Now lets see. This phone:

- made out of plastic

- lights up

- makes goofy noises

- has buttons that are fun to press

Good people of the jury... is this not? clearly? a toy?

Try to understand: the mind of baby me, this was absolutely the coolest toy phone ever made. And guess what? It even had realistic voices pick up when you called a number. How I know this? Because naturally we called every number we knew.

To be fair, we were tiny, and had barely used phones in our lives, we couldn't recognize that the voices we were speaking to on the other end were in fact real humans, not a robots. On top of that, collectively I think we knew our own home phone numbers, the number of an odd relative perhaps, and of course:

911

oh.. oh yes. You bet we did. We did it. We did the thing that is drilled into the head of every young mind in the phone-using world Never To Do. We prank called 911.

Thankfully, by now one of the grownups we called had had the sense to call the house back or otherwise alert the occupants that some nefarious gremlin children were futzing with the phone lines. Our phone party was broken up in time to avert the catastrophe of the cops showing up to no emergency.

Once we realized it was, in fact, a REAL PHONE, we all felt awful. I pleaded and pleaded that it LOOKED like a toy, it wasn't FAIR that it was real. How could you expect us not to play with it??

I don't know how it happened but it turned out okay. I don't know if my parents called the emergency line back to call them off, or if someone had to pay a fine, or if they just never came, but somehow, by some greater miracle nothing materialized, no siren circus.

But I did get in so. much. shit. that the image of this phone is seared into the back of my skull forever, until the end of my days.

Thanks Nickelodeon.

#true story #stupid kid shit #Nickelodeon

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saganandkatelynindc · 1 year ago

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Farewell to DC

July 21, 2023, 11:24 PM

Yes, I am 71! Where did the time go!?!?! Our week in DC is also almost over and it too has flown by. Katelyn is back to feeling great! After our small outing at the American History Museum today, Katelyn took a rest. When she got up around 7:00 - she definitely wanted to go our our DC at night tour - but didn't know if she could make it. I assured her that all she had to do was to announce she done and we would stop the tour, get an Uber and go home, so she said "let's try it."

We had a little mix up on where we were meant to pick up our tour - but it got worked out and our guide, Joe, was fantastic!! That mix-up did give us the chance to walk through the amazing Willard Hotel. This place has a lot of history AND will be in the news a great deal in the future as we hear more about the site that participants described as a “war room” where Trump-aligned lawyers and diehard MAGA operatives working to overturn the 2020 election. By the way, folks - attempting to overturn an election is the definition of a COUP. I told the kids - when they hear and read "Willard Hotel" they will know exactly what and where it is.

This golf cart tour was fabulous and the perfect summary of our trip to DC. The night weather was ideal and the city just got lovelier and lovelier as the sun set We were all mesmerized. Joe has lots of facts and interesting stories. We all loved it. Katelyn never once thought of leaving this. It was just the 4 of us and Joe.

We toured the city seeing things we hadn't seen and reviewing places we had been. It was fun to see the Capitol because we had entered on the Senate Train and exited through the tunnel that connected it to the Library of Congress. It is a magnificent building from all directions - all of which are called "the front." (Kinda' weird, I'm not going to lie.)

We saw the Supreme Court - which is called the highest court in the land - but has a basketball court on the top floor. So IS the Supreme Court REALLY the highest court?

And the Library of Congress - Thomas Jefferson Building, a building we also had entered by tunnel.

We had fun at the Washington Monument. Turns out is it NOT that heavy - right Katelyn?

Or that big - as Daphne demonstrates.

From here we headed to the Tidal Basin and we were thrilled to see some of our favorite places in the dark.

Next up was the Lincoln Memorial

Then we finally got to go the Korean Memorial. We had talked about this - planned to visit it twice - and now here we were!

It is a beautiful place and especially at night it is stunning. The newest addition is a huge ring with a pond and the listing of the more than 35,000 Americans that were killed during the United Nations conflict.

During the day the black wall becomes a mirror turning the 19 soldiers into 38 representing the months the conflict lasted and the parallel nearest the DMZ. BUT at night the etching in the wall are highly visible. Katelyn was taken with this amazing art.

All too soon it was time to go.

I also loved the photo below. Katelyn at work

Finally it was time to head home. When the kids sent me pics, I especially loved this one:

They were riding backwards and both kids agreed this was the traffic they liked the best.

The night was a great success and the weather was the BEST we had experienced our entire trip. We got home around 10:30 but it was hard to settle down to sleep after the wonderful evening we had had.

Tomorrow we will head home - but I have a few more tricks in my bag. Stay tuned.

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mamoonde · 2 years ago

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ha ha imagine modern cultivation reincarnation au where wei ying's reincarnation gets reborn in mundane society, later owning a pawn shop, and he sometimes posts about his cool finds/authentic items for sale.

one day someone drops the long lost stygian tiger seal in his shop. and look, wei ying may not be part of the super exclusive cultivator society, but he's not dumb, he knows a few things. he knows all about the history of the sect wars, the story of the dreaded yiling laozu, the massacre at nightless city, the siege of burial mounds. he was never a good student, but he did like to read.

he also knows how many counterfeits and replicas there are of cultivation artifacts. in fact he owns a pretty damn good one of zidian, and wen ruohan's authentic poison dagger. he knows better now how to tell when a guy doesn't actually know whether they're selling something of worth, or when a deal is too good to be true.

so when some rando drops in from out of town, a *little* too desperate to get rid of some "old family heirloom rock" he knows something's up.

"so you're telling me, your family's had this thing sitting around in your basement for generations, and you're just selling this to me, just like that?" wei ying looks up from the faded talismans clinging haphazardly to the sides of the dusty puzzle box.

the young man grins sharply.

"if my folks can cut me off for not having a shitty dumbfuck cultivator's core, why can't i sell their shit after they're dead and gone?" he jerks his thumb to the door. "'sides, ain't ya the one whose sign says, 'cursed items are fine'?"

wei ying raises a brow. "if you really believe it's cursed, why sell it here of all places?"

"well, can't give all the fun to them prissy ass cultivator pricks, can we?" the young man smirks, flicking at one of the frayed talismans. "'sides, i need easy cash. so how 'bout it?"

"well, it doesn't look pretty well-kept, that's for sure," wei ying spins the box, tugs at the little brass fixtures and lock keeping it shut. nothing seems to come off except from dust. "for all i know, this could just be something you got off etsy. how much do you want for it?"

the young man rolls his eyes. "well since you're so ecstatic to receive it, i want 500 bucks for it."

wei ying snorts. "kid, no one's gonna buy this thing off me for 450, let alone 500. i'll give you 300 for it."

"that's it?"

"300 or you take it to those prissy cultivators."

for a moment the guy just glowers at him and wei ying's sure he's gonna have to bring out his little party trick for troublesome customers. but in the end, the guy backs off. "fine, fine, i'll take the 300."

so wei ying gives him the money, already sure he's gonna be paying hell for it.

"nice doin' business with ya." the guy looks back at him with a smirk. "i don't think you'll have a problem finding people who'll want it. see 'ya around, wei ying."

and then he's gone.

wei ying looks down at the old box on his counter, talismans peeling off the side and sighs.

right off the bat, he can tell the box is neither 'generations old' nor 'cursed.' well, not as much as what's sealed inside it is.

see, wei ying may not have fancy schmancy cultivator education, or a golden core, but he was born sensitive to energies:

he knows the heavy warmth of spiritual energy, the burning cold of resentful energy.

and from the moment the guy had entered his tiny shop, wei ying had felt the box practically ooze dark, resentful energy, seeping through weakening talismans.

"what have we gotten ourselves into this time?" wei ying mutters to himself as he takes out his trusty protective gloves.

over the years of handling occasionally cursed items have taught him the merits of good sturdy cloth stitched with protective talismans – especially in minimizing singed fingers and damaged items.

he attaches a clip on lens to his phone camera, self-modified with tiny energy recording and protection arrays then carefully documents his latest, definitely cursed acquisition. most run-of-the-mill cursed items he encounters in his shop and some antique stores would register a faint smokey aura about them – resentment attached with no specific goal. rarely, some objects would have a darker grey hue – full of resentful spirits that could harm people.

talismans, fueled by spiritual energy would have a glow; its brightness depending on how much of it is left.

the talismans barely holding on to the puzzle box emit a feeble light, like days old glow sticks. and where they come away, the energy that seeps out is a pitch black.

"well fuck, seems we chose death today!" wei ying says, putting his phone down. "what the hell are you hiding inside, little buddy?"

for that matter, why was whatever it is not locked inside some cultivator's vault? for all that the cultivation society strictly keep to their circles,

they've never been silent when it came to dealing with evil spirits and keeping people away from vats of resentful energy (i.e. burial mounds, old yi city). the unguarded existence of an artifact that seems to contain all the resentment of china seems like a huge oversight.

his early bell goes off and wei ying has just enough time to stuff the old box in a heavily sealed pouch under his counter before his next customer comes in.

hopefully the talismans hold on until he can close up.

he's gonna need to call wen qing up before he can play around with it.

#mdzs #modern cultivation au #reincarnation au #wwx the pawnshop owner #and his shop of old or cursed items #sometimes both #mamoonde fics #wei i'm not a cultivator wuxian #but also #wei i've know a few cool cultivation tricks wuxian #long form #to be continued

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