#how do you end up in such a distopia

[absolutelynotromealone]

okok so ohmgod I'm in love with your blog and fics wahhh- it's so hard to find trans ftm reader fics of any kind I'm sooooooo freaking happy to have found your blog bshdbajsjshdbnsnsd the representation is so lovely pllleeeaaaase keep doing what you do :)

aannnd secondly could I request a hurt/comfort Mikey x reader where the reader is triggered by something their family/close friend says to them and it makes him really dysphoric, but he tries to bottle it up throughout the day, having it eat at him until he can't take it anymore and breaks down hyperventilating and crying to the point he can barely even speak? I think that the break down could happen outside somewhere while hanging out with a few of the tokyo manji gang members and they get all worried when reader starts to become visibly upset before he cries, and while he starts to panic and sob, so call Mikey to have him be reader's knight in shining armour on that bike of his- Mikey's all worried when he arrives to see him but doesn't show it on his face, a reader who just wants to be held while they cry and eventually ends up falling asleep in Mikey's arms feeling comforted and loved, Mikey playing with his hair and being a bit affectionate to try and comfort reader (that's probably a bit ooc for mikey but pshhhh) and then after reader is asleep he takes reader home on his bike, setting his sleeping self on the bed and laying next to you just to make sure when you wake up the first thing reader sees is something they love and makes him happy :')

(this is a reallyyyyy long request, I just like to exhaust all of my ideas for it, sorry if it's hard to read 😭 I'm a writer myself so I just wanted to make it a bit easier on ya, do whatever you like with this idm if you change anything to make it easier for you if you end up writing it-)

thank you so much!!!!

It's been forever but I finally wrote this

Fandom: Tokyo revengers

Pairing: Mikey x male reader

Warnings: ftm, trans, trans reader, trans masc reader

🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑

(name) knew he wasn't the most masculine guy, he couldn't start testosterone yet but he tried his best to make himself look more masculine with clothes and a binder, to many he just looked like a pretty boy with a slight baby face.

"But you're like not really a guy" his so called best friend said "you haven't done anything so you're not really a guy, so why are you so pressed that they called you she?" (Name) was silent as she continued and 0pher justification on why she was in the right for continuously misgendering him "ya know-- where are you going?"

"Toman meeting"

"They still let you go to those things... Since you're... You know"

And that's when the friendship ended.

(Name) walked to the shrine, he had plenty of time as he just wanted to get out of there.

Away from her.

Fuck... What was he doing? He barely passed, he looked like a child playing dress-up!

(Name) bullied himself in his thoughts, his dysphoria at an all time high, beginning to question everything to the point of his relationship with his boyfriend.

The shrine was the meetup spot but they had plans to hang out at the diner but (name) could barely hear what his friends were saying.

"(Name), dude are you ok?" Chifuyu asked, snapping (name) from his thoughts, the teen looking visibly upset and the question and mitsuya gently touching his shoulder... He let out a heartbreaking sob as tears rolled down his face, sinking to his knees.

You see to most of Toman, (name) was like their brother in law, their beloved little brother (even if he was older than a few members) in a way as he was dating their leader and close friend. "Hey... What happened?"

"Whose ass do I gotta kick?!"

Toman began panicking and freaking out as (name) cried harder, (name) was tough-- he didn't really cry and he knew how to kick ass and take a hit so seeing him cry was-- it was strange.

"Are you dealing with the fucking-- distopia thing again?!" Baji panicked and Mitsuya looks to Hakkai who nods and goes to make a call.

Not even ten minutes later do they hear a motorcycle barrel down the street "damn he moves fast..." Pah mumbled as Mikey hopped off his bike and rushed towards his boyfriend, it was barely a blink of an eye as (name) was scooped up into Mikey's arms as the blond ran back to his bike and set him on and drove off.

"The fuck just happened"

(Name) was silent, Mikey was silent, the ride to wherever they were going was silent.

Was Mikey mad?

Was he upset (name) made a fool of himself infront of Toman?!

(Name) soaked the back of Mikey's jacket by time they got to Mikey's room, the blond setting him in the bed before wrapping his blanket around him, holding him close as (name) passed out from crying.

When (name) woke, he heard the sound of plastic bags being set "hm? You up?" Mikey asked as he set the food bags down "I had Emma get us some take out, you alright baby?"

Mikey was always gentle...ish with (name), the blond treating him like he would Draken but with kissing and such so seeing him so gentle with (name) was new "you good?" Mikey asked and (name) shook his head "what happened?" The blond pulled (name) close and intertwined their fingers "tell me"

And (name) did... And Mikey felt his blood boil.

"I don't want you hanging with them, my hot sexy boyfriend deserves better!" Mikey pouted and (name) felt a bit flustered "they're just mad that they look manlier than most guys!"

(Name) snort giggled and Mikey smiled "I'll make the big bucks baby, get you a big ol' dick that isn't your personality!" Mikey cackled as (name) threw a pillow at him "shut up you!"

[error404vnotfound]

in which i rank the whole seliriaverse

as of July 5th 2024

how to read this tier list:

books are indeed in order (which was very hard)

the symbols next to the book titles indicate whether they have gone up, down or stayed in their rank in respect of this prediction tier i made (and/or previous opinion i had of those books years ago)

i did in fact change the tiers up a bit because i had like half of this in F tier and not all bad books are made equally

kind of a long post

sueños de piedra tier

this tier is for sueños de piedra and sueños de piedra only because it's one of my favorite books of all time and it would be unfair to rank the rest with it in mind

sueños de piedra (marabilia #1)

573 pages / ya fantasy

first read 2017 / read: too many times to be counted

i've read this book like 100 times and i'll read it again. it made me cry so much but i felt so good after too. this book never fails to warm my heart <3

A tier

10/10 screaming crying throwing up i love these books

-- ladrones de libertad (marabilia #3)

638 pages / ya fantasy

first read 2018 / read: 4 times

i cried and that's an instant fave. i loved this book so much in the past (and i still do) but not with the same intensity and i think that's okay

-- jaulas de seda (marabilia #4)

637 pages / ya fantasy

first read 2018 / read: 3 times

another past fave of mine. i just love fausto and ivy so much. it did suffer from the *knowing* about reinos de cristal. they are so cute tho. if experienced on a vacuum it belongs here, if not on the tier below

B tier

10/10 too i do love these books too but not as much as the A tier ones

-- encuentros (secretos de la luna llena #2)

737 pages / ya fantasy

first read 2018 / read: 3 times

the drama. the angst. the mess. i love it. i did skim through the povs of characters im not too invested in (because this book is. so long man) but eirene and seaben just carried i love them so much. and chryses

↓ alianzas (secretos de la luna llena #1)

653 pages / ya fantasy

first read 2018 / read: 4 times

the plot of this book is very fucked up in the best way possible. eirene and seaben my beloveds (i did give it a slightly lower rating than previously but i guess that just happens sometimes)

el sol y la mentira (olympus #2)

592 pages / ya retelling-sci-fi (ish)

first time reading (2023)

my expectations for this book 🤝 what it delivered. very fun 10/10 reading experience

-- despedidas (secretos de la luna llena #3)

572 pages / ya fantasy

first read 2018 / read: 3 times

a good ending for the journey :] there's no eirene and seaben drama so i enjoyed it less and i do not care for the fay and svent plot. also chryses' death is mean

-- alma y los siete monstruos

228 pages / middle grade about mental health

first read 2021 / read: 2 times

such a good book. would recommend it to everyone. i did tear up a bit too

C tier

this was a pleasant reading experience :]

imperio

672 pages / ya distopia

first read 2024

started strong but then became too formulaic in a way that detracted from the experience. overall i did enjoy it. it was fun and dynamic and the characters were all interesting and fun to read. the ending did disappoint me. the thg x unwind at home

personally disliked that a couple that broke up came back together but i can get over that. i can't get over not committing to the bit tho and for that the book is just okay and not great

-- antihéroes

520 pages / ya urban fantasy

first read: 2018 / read: 2 times

what it says on the can (tier description). it's just an okay book. very easy to read too which looking around is a big ass thing on its favor. it's funny, and i love yeray. im not as attached to the rest of the cast (and i do despise alicia), but it's a fun, easy read

-- rojo y oro

446 pages / ya fantasy retelling

first read 2016 / read: 2 times

the only good thing i can say about this book is that i wasn't bored so... i feel that speaks for itself. an okay tragedy. interesting enough

D tier

what if i told you that i got bored 💀

↓ títeres de la magia (marabilia #2)

521 pages / ya fantasy

first read 2018 / read: 3 times

i don't care about the characters and i was very bored. can't in good conscience put it over books i've enjoyed the whole of just because i got my arthmael and lynne fix

↓ reinos de cristal (marabilia #5)

688 pages / ya fantasy

first read 2019 / read: 2 times

respectfully your honor: idgaf about 60% of the plots. also the whole fausto thing. the first time i read this i was devastated about it but now (4 years later) i can see that his death is just incredibly dumb and stupid and i hate it and it also lowkey ruins jaulas de seda. like títeres i did struggle with having it this low because lynne and arthmael are on it but even my love for them can't fix this mess

↓ el orgullo del dragón (el dragón y el unicornio #1)

562 pages / ya steampunk (ish)

first read 2019 / read: 2.5 times

what can i say except: i was very bored. technically it's an extremely well crafted and well written book and it does an excellent work of laying the groundwork for part 2. but again, it was VERY boring

E tier

these books did not achieve what they set out to do

la furia y el laberinto (olympus #3)

538 pages / ya retelling-sci-fi (ish)

first time reading (2023)

the main character was unlikable (in a bad way) and suffered from the authors being cowards and not making her unhinged. the adventures they go on are boring and overall pointless. at the top of this tier because i came up with a genius ending that made it worth the pain (the canon ending was fun too)

pétalos de papel

544 pages / new adult contemporary fantasy romance

first time reading (2024)

the Point of this book is to make you attached to the main couple so they can then pull a memory loss ending with an epilogue. needless to say, they failed the first main point. i did not buy their relationship, i did not care whether they ended up together or not, or if they did if she forgot him. it also had very dumb plot points that tried to be dramatic but sounded stupid

i did chuckle at a couple of jokes

el eco del destino (timekeeper #1)

477 pages / ya fantasy

first time reading (2024)

boring. so much yapping in the internal monologue of the characters that got repetitive real fast. all the characters felt like the same and they faced problems in the most stupid way possible (for the plot)

the world building (the point of the book) was all over the place and not great at all. it was an amalgamation of stuff with no connecting tissue tying it all together, and even the things that were connected made no fucking sense

seremos el huracán

526 pages / ya contemporary retelling (ish)

first time reading (2024)

go girl give us nothing. fail book because its mediocrity was bad. bland. didn't achieve either of the two things it should have: make the reader believe the synergy of the band members, and their romances. characters only interact on page with their love interest, which impedes them forming bonds with the rest of the group, and then this interactions are so surface level and one dimensional that you don't see why they then say they are in love with each other

it also left the grief plot completely underutilized (which was honestly just an excuse to have a cross dressing character in the boyband)

la venganza del unicornio (el dragón y el unicornio #2)

664 pages / ya steampunk (ish)

first time reading (2023)

this one did achieve what it set up to do but it did it in a way that ruined the whole ass book when it could have been a C tier, even B tier. the ending destroyed all the groundwork the first book painstakingly set. it went from a grounded, tonally serious story to something completely out of the ballpark. the tonal shift was so jarring it gave me whiplash. and for that, it's the lowest one in this tier

not a fail book because the first 400 or so pages were very enjoyable

F tier

devastating: your favorite authors published a fail book

anne sin filtros

384 pages / ya contemporary retelling (ish)

first time reading (2023)

i get so mad when thinking about this book. i could look past the poor writing but they went and ran over anne and diana's beautiful friendship to turn it into them being horny for each other and that's it and im. so tired of the allos

la flor y la muerte (olympus #1)

632 pages / ya retelling-sci-fi (ish)

first time reading (2023)

i was so bored it was insane. even if it's actually shorter than other books higher in here it felt longer. also, it's a bad book on a technical level, not for the writing style but for its structure. time skip(s) killed this book. there's also 0 chemistry in between characters (even those we have to believe are in love)

i have a whole ass rant on this on the tag

soulcial

506 pages / ya contemporary romance

first time reading (2023)

im so brave for not dnfing this book. did i skip most of the scenes? yes. didn't affect my understanding of the plot whatsoever. read like a bad hallmark movie. like. not even a fun one or one you can hate watch (read). just. bad. i dont like saying this but it's actual garbage. the plot is braindead. it's not even well written

and so we reach the end of the tierlist and the end of the reading marathon

if you read through all that thank you. hope you enjoyed my journey (and my pain) <3

[cepheusgalaxy]

I... I'm working on eight but right now I'm focusing a little on my Salrrh project - steel arm little red riding hood.

The story takes place in a cyperpubk-ish elitist distopia and the protagonist is a trans girl named Amani, who is an amputee and has a hight-tech prosthetic arm. I actually got that idea from a post of someone disabled who was telling their opinion on cyberpunk portrait of disabilities, and how the premise was mostly "oh no losing your humanity because you've got too much tech on your body" and that it wasn't cool that these authors were discussing the "humanity" of ACTUAL people, not fictional beings. And then a second one, about how another person wished sci-fi authors had more... i can't quite remember the word. Whatever, they made a list: "what sci-fi authors think disabled people want" and "what i actually want". The second list included "color-changing cool prosthetic" and SHIT i couldn't get that off of my mind. I also am in a fairy tale mood lately and then one idea just sticked to the other; that's where i am now.

Question for the other ppl:

What do you hate to write, and why?

I also have two Main Projects rn and im answering the question to them below.

Project 1: EIN

This is a random word, and i don't quite have a name for it yet.

Ok, so this is one of my oldest projects, and i remade the plotline and first chapters so many times-

It's a classic normal-kid-ends-up-in-magical-society setting, featuring this trans boy named Kaiki.

The worldbuilding is average, Onemia is a hidden magic country, Kaiki ends up there because he has been Marked and now his magic is waking up and he has to be a mage now - the Marks are used as an iniciation method for young onemians learning magic, but some poltergeist put it on him, unluckly. The plot is quite simple, and the characters are cool.

I like this story very much, actually.

In the beggining, I had many ideas. Like, many many many. I usually didn't write them down, didn't started them, and just daydreamed about writing every single one of them ALL THE TIME.

But then, I don't quite remember why, but i decided to put an end to that: I was going to start a project.

That wasn't Ein yet. Hold on.

I cut off my favorite pieces and parts of most of my projects and them held them together, giving birth to my first actual wip: wotht: war of the human throne. The story featured Zai (nickname for zaire) a trans boy in a magical world. Even then, when I didn't know I was nb, I always liked making trans characters.

Zai lived in a War World. There were many species, each one fighting among each other in order to decide which was The True Human Race.

All these races were slightly human, by our standards, but never fully. This war was never ending, and many species had went extint already, only lefting four.

But there was a place where the war didn't reach: Itarja, an isoled island where many people of diverse species lived together in peace, running away from war. Zaire was an hybrid, and he lived there. Until one day war reaches Itarja, and he, among with plenty of other itarjans have to run away, for the nearest country, where the government accepts to host them, but they get to serve the country. Some itarjans then are put to work, and the ones who are the same race of the predominant on there, went to Military. So did Zaire; whose blood was half like theirs.

I didn't actually write anything for wotht, but this was the first time i started PLOTTING and PLANNING. Eventually, though, more ideas came up, and i was stuck in what to do, because i couldn't decide again. So i decided to cut off everything one more time and make my Ultimate Project.

That would be Ein. Which im still working on. I have only 4 chapters done, i think, and i rewrote them many and many times, but im getting pratice and advice and i think im getting there.

So, that's ein's story: a bunch if ideas i had to write.

Project 2: Snow White

Im not exactly sure of how this one started, or how it became a main wip.

Just as i found out, im not an One And Only Project person. I have more ideas than i want to put in a world, so i started to write them down. Once i finished Ein, i was going to choose some and work on them, but for now i was just taking notes.

Until i decided to write something else. I'm not quite certain why. Maybe it was a prompt I saw, or maybe a movie i watched: however, i decided to write a Snow White version. I had already tried it once when i was little, but i quit. I started writing.

First, it was just a secondary wip. No planning, just vibes, and i worked on it when i felt like.

But then it started to get REALLY cool.

Snow white met her friend June. June was kicked out of home. The evil queen manipuled the king. I started to have so many thoughs on this story, i opened a document to plan it better.

Then i didn't stop.

It's at chapter six now.

OKAY!

WRITEBLRS if you're seeing this, you're legally obligated to reblog with an answer, and then a new question for the next person!

Here's the start:

Which of your OCs is most likely to punch somebody in the face?

[revchainsaw]

The Crow (1994)

Alright Cult of Cult. Do I really need to introduce this one? Let's get all 90s and gothy and maybe brace ourselves for a bit of cringe, but like in a fun way. It's the Holy Grail of Hot Topic, 1994's the Crow Starring Brandon Lee.

Sermon

Apparently before the auto industry totally crashed Detroit was already a total fucked to death pile of burning shit, or at least that's what the crow would have you believe. Sorry Bruce Campbell, and other people from Detroit, but mostly Bruce Campbell. According to the Crow the city of Detroit is the kind of place where gangs of warlock anarchist arsonists will bomb buildings, and murder and rape whoever they feel like and then walk around bragging about it the next day with absolutely zero consequences. Funny then that if Detroit was so bad they had to go to film this movie in Wilmington North Carolina which is definitely a fucked to death pile of burning shit. I can say that, I'm from there and I got the fuck out. My brother is going to kill me if he ever reads this. (It's okay, these are all jokes people). Did you know they also filmed the Super Mario Bros movie there ... also cuz they needed a really shitty looking distopia. Moving on ...

The ludicrous criminality of the Crow's Detroit is particularly on display on Halloween. In Detroit (apparently) Halloween is known as Devils Night and it's legitimately just a night of pure lawlessness and chaos and kids aren't even safe to get candy, except later when we do see trick or treaters. Eric Draven, hunky goth rocker who sort of looks like he could be Bruce Lee's Kid and his fiance are murdered by a gang of vicious criminals. One year hence, Eric is resurrected by a mystical crow (that is actually a Raven), to exact his revenge on the gang that murdered him.

He paints his face like sad Alice Cooper and refuses to listen to Joy Division, just covers. He murders Tin Tin (a knife guy) just for his long gothy duster, he murders Fun Boy and forcibly ejects heroine from her arms and tells her "Go be a good mom now" which actually works. (have I told you about our Lord and Savior Sting? He gave me the strength to get off drugs), he blows T Bird up dick first, and then comes for Skab? Scraap? Scooby? in a meeting of all of Detroits villains and just about kills them all.

He is supported by the most 90s little girl to have ever graced the screen, and I am here for it, and Officer Albrecht, who's played by Ernie Hudson but I like to call him Zeddemore: The Most Underrated Ghostbuster. The leader of the bad guys, who I cannot beleive wasn't played by Brad Dourif or Tom Waits, is pretty interested in the occult. He keeps his witchy girlfriend around and she makes him fun dishes like smoked eyeballs, and her main use is that she knows that the Crow is the Crows weakness. They set Tony Fucking Todd on the bird, and I guess you just have to hurt the bird and not kill it, and Eric loses his healing factor and other macabre undead powers.

The Crow, Jimmy the Raven, pecks out Dr. Girlfriends eyeballs, I honestly forget how Tony Todd gets offed, and Top Dollar gets Gargoyled (that is impaled on a gargoyle). Funnily enough that is more Gargoyle related impaling on screen then in the actual movie Gargoyle: Wings of Darkness where a Gargoyle is supposed to have impaled a guy.

The Benediction

Best Feature: Injustice League

In the Crow we have not only a set of super memorable villains but they are played by the bad guy all stars. John Polito as the most lowly of the bad guys as a kind of sleazy pawn shop owner who buys ill gotten gains. Tony Todd, who's size is really on display here, the freaking Candy Man is in this movie. T Bird is the head of Top Dollars goons and is played by David Patrick Kelly, you might know as the "Warriors Come Out and Play!!" bottle guy from the Warriors, or as Jimmy Horne from Twin Peaks, and of course Top Dollar himself is played by Michael Wincott. Wincott is not a particularly celebrated actor but has played villains effectively in Robin Hood, the Three Musketeers, and Dead Man.

Best Set Piece: Detroit Style Hot Dogs

The Set design of the Crow is perhaps one of it's most fantastic features. It's very moody and ethereal. It's just real enough to not take you out of the film, but fantastic enough to set mood and theme above realism. From Eric Draven's apartment, to the church where the final battle occurs they are all fantastic. I think that's why I really wanted to shine the spot light on a very minor set piece that would get nary a mention but just as effectively represents the qualities I was just talking about and that is the Maxi Doggs Hot Dog Stand, where a lot of the films exposition for audience surrogates takes place.

Worst Effect: Freeze Frame

At a few points in the movie the film makers made a strange decision to do these freeze frame transitions. I only noticed it twice in the movie where it was particularly stupid. I'm sure the film makers at the time thought it was a moody and atmospheric choice that highlighted the suffering that Eric Draven was going through, but it didn't age well. If you don't have the sensibilities of a goth girl from 1994 then it's very very hard not to laugh at just how self involved the movie is about it's super sadness.

Worst Feature: Tragic Accident

Solely based on the film itself, it is that very gothic and dated sensibility that hurts the Crow. The little sarcastic dance he does when he flees the police, quoting Edgar Allen Poe, and bowing to Albrecht. These affected behaviors that I'm sure seemed snarky and right on to the target audience only serve to make Eric Draven seem like an unbearable neck beard edgelord and not the troubled dark soul he's supposed to be. I'm sure at the time it seemed unique and gothy but that shit went out of style for good reason, people could see through it. It's a shame that the Crow himself was some of the cringiest parts of this movie now that I'm seeing it as an adult and not a 13 year old middle class boy with no real problems.

This however is not the low point of the movie. It's not news now and if you're reading some dudes review of The Crow on Tumblr then you probably already know the story. The worst thing about The Crow is that Brandon Lee was horrifically killed on set while filming this movie due to some negligible prop malfunctions. A series of unfortunate events that lead to the actor spending 6 hours in surgery fighting for his life before eventually passing. It was not a quick or painless death and it's really impossible to watch the movie without an appreciation for the fact that this kind of fun dark adventure was going to be a vehicle for Brandon Lee's career wound up taking his life. He was 28. I really wish I could have just bitched about the goofy goth stuff and moved on, but that's not the world we live in.

Best Effect: The Gargoyling

Maybe I should have called this best kill. But I'm not sure which it is. The slaying of Top Dollar at the Climax of the film was just super effective. The pointed wings impaling his chest and that horn coming out of his mouth, it was morbid and excellent and just fit the tone of the movie perfectly. I mean how many other movies can you say Cause of Death: Impaled on a Gargoyle.

Best Bird: The Raven

I tried very hard to look up the name of the bird that primarily performed in this movie and could not find anything. There was a Raven once upon a time called Jimmy the Raven, but that was in the 50s and I don't think birds live that long. There was a team of Ravens performing as the crow, they were chosen over crows for their larger size, and more imposing silhouettes. I just think it's so wonderful to see these often maligned birds get a chance to show off their talents. Corvids of all kinds are incredibly intelligent creatures. Im a sucker for animals, if you haven't already figured that out. I really liked seeing the ravens hit their marks, particularly the one whos job it was to drop the wedding ring into Sarah's hand at the end of the film. You can see that greedy little bastard do his trick and then look of camera at his trainer like "treat please!". It's very cute.

Best Actor: Top Dollar Performance

I'd love to take this opportunity to just put praise upon Brandon Lee, he truly gave everything for this role, but unfortunately with what was put to film we actually have very few character moments with Eric Draven. Stuff happens to him, and he does killings and fights. There's definitely some personality, but I felt like I walked away knowing almost nothing about who Eric Draven was. He was clearly a good dude but that and a few hobbies and a relationship and you don't really have a character yet. He's unfortunately not given a lot of acting to do, instead just relegated to stunts and action sequences. That were notably cool.

The bad guys in the Crow have a lot more character and among this who's who of character actors, Michael Wincott takes the cake. Hell he was standing next to Candyman himself, Tony Todd and still stealing the scenes.

Best Character: A Few Good Apples

Is the best character in The Crow really going to be the cop? The commissioner Gordon stand in? yeah, it is. Not to be political, but I don't like cops, but I guess in a world with magical birds and eyeball smoking I can suspend my disbelief and let Ernie Hudson be #1 cop dad. His character is really the heart of the film, since all Eric can do is brood and fight, we have to care about someone in this movie.

Best Sequence: Halloween Party

The best sequence of the movie is of course the scene where Eric Draven busts in on the Devil's Night party planning commission. I think Top Dollar brought Scrappy Doo there just so he could lure out the crow, knowing the baddest assholes in all of Detroit would be gathered it was likely that somebody was going to kill the beast, or if they couldn't at least Top Dollar could get a feel for his enemy. It's a bullet flying action sequence with a ton of weight. I can't put my finger on this all to common weightless third act problem that big budget super hero and action flicks have nowadays, but whatever that issue is, the Crow does not have that issue. From this point on the Climax feels earned and I am invested. For that reason, The Crow is honestly better in spite of its awkwardness, than many of the super hero movies out today.

Worst Sequence: My Guitar Gently Weeps

Speaking of brooding or fighting. The best sequence was fighting, the worst is brooding. I get that Eric was in a band or something, but didn't he have shit to do. It seemed like it was a cool idea for a shot, but for like a whole seen, watching somebody play an 80s guitar solo, that stood out so brazenly from the choices of music in the rest of the movie was extra corny. It felt like someone's( dad trying to relate to their kid. Oh you like Music. The Dresden Dolls eh? Oh man, then you're going to love Slash's Snake Pit!

Summary

The Crow is dated. It is iconic but I wonder how many of the people that hang that poster on the wall have watched that movie since they were kids. It's interesting how what i've liked and disliked about this film have changed so much sense I was a kid. It's a cheeseball fiesta. If you have matured at all beyond thinking that being sad is the same as being deep then you're going to like it a little less than you did when you were younger, but it is still solid. There's not much to hate on. I'd watch it over and over again. I was really afraid it would not hold up at all, but returning to The Crow was a completely positive experience.

Overall Grade: B

[esepoimipullula]

BIG spoilers for Fantomius: L’inizio e la fine by Marco Gervasio

Can I just... rant a little bit about how freaking HAPPY the last two episodes of this series made me?! Oh, whatever, I’ll do it anyway. It might just be my love for unlikely protagonist/antagonist team-ups but I LOVED the temporary (or not-so-temporary) alliance we ended up with.

First of all, I really liked Pinko going from “bumbling minor adversary/enemy who’s comically uptight and a bit arrogant but a good person at heart” to “stone-cold badass” in like two lines. It actually fits very well, all things considered.

(”I could have left like Lord Quackett and his girlfriend did! But I’m not a coward, I don’t run away!”

“If injustice is law, it is our duty to oppose it!”)

On the other hand, I also liked him going back to planning to catch Fantomius and his team as soon as the Glomgold emergency was solved and the situation went back to normal. Pinko is not a cold man, but he puts his duty above all else. And his duty is not to any mayor or to any law, but to Duckburg and its citizens. He has to defend them from Wrong and make things Right for them. To him, stealing is Wrong, whether you’re stealing from the poor or from conceited or dishonest nobles. To make things Right, you have to catch the thieves. Likewise, exploiting those who are defenseless against you for your personal gain is Wrong, whether you’re a criminal or someone in a position of power. To make things Right, the one who’s doing the exploiting must be brought down and exposed, by any means necessary. These two thoughts can and do coexist, one doesn’t cancel the other out. Not even if the thief helps catch the shady powerful person in the act. I can appreciate a character with such strong convinctions and ideals.

Then... there’s Lady Senape. (A small side note: did any Fantomius stories with her ever get officialy translated? Because I’ve seen people on here refer to her with her original name and I can’t help but wonder... do you guys know it literally means Lady Mustard? Like, because she’s kind of a foil to Dolly Paprika? Paprika... Mustard...?)

Anyway, I really, really loved her in this one. Seeing her go from the usual petty but cunning and ruthless enemy to unlikely ally ro actual friend was extremely satisfying, even if most of her character development happened offscreen.

Now, this is probably an unpopular opinion, but... I’ve always liked her as a character. Because she’s a foil to Dolly but she’s not just some Clingy Jealous Ex or a shrew who can’t actually manage to do anything on her own, because she’s kind of a foil to John, too, because I have a fondness for friends/lovers to enemies situations, and because I was utterly charmed by her first appearance. The mystery, the tension, the whole Chinese theatre thing with the symbolic colours... it all made a big impression on me, y’know? So, that’s why I was pretty disappointed when it looked she was never going to get any real character development. In any direction, I mean. Had she turned out into something like a Big Bad to rival Glomgold, I would have been just happy that she got a little something more to do in the Fantomius stories.

And that was were I thought her character was headed to when I began reading L’inizio e la fine. I mean, she WAS getting the chance to seriously mess up everyone’s future, right? And well, she did, pretty much...

But the prologue of L’inizio e la fine came with a little article on Lady Senape herself. Probably just to recap her previous appearances for forgetful or occasional readers, sure. But between explaining why she wanted revenge on Fantomius after Fu Man Etchù, comparing and contrasting her to Dolly, and showing Gervasio’s studies on her character, the writer slipped in a bit of backstory that... I don’t really remember if it had ever come up before, honestly.

“Jen Yu comes from a family of Chinese farmers and she’s a descendant of Ching Shih, the nom de plume of the lady pirate who terrified the Chinese Seas at the beginning of the XIX century,” the article said. And being fascinated by lady pirates, Ching Shih herself, AND the idea of Jen Yu having a backstory offering all kinds of possibilities and parallels (did she go from downtrodden peasant to ruthless thief, unlike John who went from dissatisfied nobleman to gentleman thief? Did she discover her ancestry and immediately decide to emulate Ching Shih to take revenge on society for a difficult upbringing, kinda like early days Paperinik? Was a secret diary involved? Were her parents honest folks or was Ching Shih’s glory reduced into a family of petty thieves and crooks, and either way, did Jen Yu ever want to commit great and daring crimes to make her pirate ancestor proud? Did...) I couldn’t stop reading too deep into it. Though in the end, my main take from it was... “Wait, is she getting an actual backstory and an article all about her because she’s gonna be... important?? Sympathetic??? Someone the readers will be supposed to root for at some point????”

Nevertheless, I tried not to raise my own hopes too much. For all I objectively knew, Senape was just gonna be petty and vindictive and have her backstory never actually mentioned or referenced in-story and...

And then, Distopia and La fine e l’inizio happened. And the only thing that didn’t make me absolutely giddy about her was the lack of “Well, you know, one of my ancestors really was a pirate!” lines during the whole “boarding Glomgold’s ships” sequence.

Of course, I did spend the week between those two stories theorizing how Senape would turn out to be secretly working with Glomgold and spying on the group even as she pretended to have become their friend. Or betray everyone and ally herself with Glomgold as soon as things got too tough for her liking. Or help take down Glomgold but then immediately try to steal the golden mask again and turn back to the asshole I knew and loved (even as I longed to see something more done with her...). Needless to say, I didn’t (dare hope to) think the change would stick or even bring about any significant character development. And yet, what did I get?

Senape working together with Dolly and Copernico for a whole year without ever selling them out. The three of them being actually a good team. The three of them becoming actual friends. Senape and Dolly giving up on their “Lol your boyfriend used to be my lover don’t you feel sooo jealous when you think about it?” “Bitch you broke his heart and you’re an asshole and I want to punch you in the face” dynamic to... become an honest-to-goodness adorable duo? And Senape becoming a permanent (?) member of the team because Dolly asked her and Copernico vouched for her and she was all for it because she liked working with them?? Dolly defending Jen Yu from John’s objections and John giving in even if he rightfully doesn’t trust his ex completely???

*squees*

Btw, I’m also just so happy about Dolly having what seems to be shaping up as a regular female friend that is also involved in her criminal life. She deserves that. <3

If it doesn’t all go back to normal in the next Fantomius series with a sudden backstabbing, that is. I’ll be very sad for Dolly if that happens. Hope they just keep being besties.

[golden-aire-girl]

So... Old Guard fandom. What are our thoughts on a Hunger Games AU? Are they out there? Are they coming? It all just comes together so well - I really hope so. 

If I were a writer, I could see... 

- District 2!Nicky capitvated by, then snearing at District 8!Joe as they wait in line to get go in and get their Training Scores. (Nicky gets a 8 for his shooting. Joe gets a 9 for his sword work. Or maybe he just makes a sculpture with the weapons and gets a 2.)

- Nicky is a Career from the defense district battling Joe, a fierce artist and textilemaker from District 8, who volunteered as tribute to save his little brother, right at the start of the games they clash but nothing comes of it other than a sexy sword fight filled with sexual tension. 

- Nicky is full of guilt and angst over being trained from birth to do nothing but kill in the name of the Catholic church Capital in order to please his cold mother. He grabs a gun, climbs a tall tree and takes out a couple fellow Careers from his sniper’s nest anyway. 

- Joe is a textile artist but his father also trained him to be a fighter (just in case) and hates the games. He mostly hates that he can only die in them once for his brother, who still has 4 Reapings to get through. Joe resolves not to kill anyone because he wants to die the same man he was when he left his family. He is still willing ot protect himself to stay a live to get back to them. 

- Nicky hates (but is impossibly attracted to) Joe, who somehow finds the ability to be kind in the arena. He sees Joe protecting one of the younger tributes (Rue Stand In - God, I loved Rue) before Joe and Rue #2 disappear. Then plot happens, they have to team up and end up falling in love. 

-The Capital lives for drama and stans an enemies to lovers romance so Joe and Nicky are sent many gifts by sponsors. 

- Enter Merrick and Kozak as tributes from District 1 who have just been hanging out by the cornucopia, picking off 12 year olds left and right. Boss fight happens and Merrick takes down Nicky but Nicky shoots him too. Nicky’s tracker comes off somehow and there’s only one canon blast.

- Nicky is murdered (He wakes up fast because it’s not his first death... that happened back when he was still at home in District 2, he tried to end his own life only to wake up perfectly whole so he assumed that was a dream... btw he’s been dreaming of Andy and Quynh ever since but assumes they’re just dreams) but they’re still Old Guard immortals, so he comes back just in time to save Joe from Kozak who ecapes. Then they spend several angsty chapters knowing only one of them can surivive. If he can’t die, how will he die to save Joe at the end of the game? 

- Meanwhile Joe’s making peace with the fact he will die and Nicky will be safe. He couldn’t save Rue #2 so he’ll be damned if he’ll lose Nicky. (He’s also heard very old folklore about immortals from his great grandfather, so he’s not completely caught unaware. Maybe an immortal from District 8 lived through the disasters and wars that created Panem. The whole district kept this person’s identy a secret from the Capital for centuries and now they’re gone. But their stories remain).

- At one point Joe says ‘Everything has to die, Nicky, It’s not your time yet’.

- The climax happens, Kozak comes back and manages to kill Joe. 

- Feral Nicky is engaged; Kozak is disintergrated. Joe is still dead (because the first time take so long for you to wake up). 

- Games end with Nicky as the Victor. Definition of a pyrrhic victory. 

- We follow Nicky back to the Capital going to parties. We follow him on the train back to District 2. We follow him being greeted by his cold and distant father. We follow him haunting his giant lonely house in the Victor’s Villiage. The entire time he is dreaming endlessly about Joe and two women he’s never met before. 

- Joe wakes up after his body is taken out of the arena and is captured by the Capital.  He’s strapped down to a table and in a lab and keeps dreaming of Nicky and two women.  

- Andy and Quynh, of District 13, come to everyone’s rescue. They pick up Nicky on the way. They are badasses. 

- Everyone goes to hide in District 13 and plan a revolution that won’t really happen kick off for another 24 years after the 74th Hunger Games, when another brave tribute volunteers to save her sister. 

- Happy endings all around. Well as happy as one can be in a distopia...  

[jupitermelichios]

So we decided we wanted to watch a garbage-fire movie tonight, so we’re watching Divergent and just...

It’s impressive that even with the expectations I had, it somehow manages to be even more soulless than i was braced for. everything about it was so incredibly by-the-numbers it almost looped back around to being interesting, entirely by accident. the incredibly forgetable romance that i literally did forget was happening mulitple times (they have a single substantive conversation, then immediately have sex off screen, then the main character has a nightmare about the dude assaulting her, which is projected onto a tv screen for all her friends to watch, and then they’re just immediately so in love that she’d rather die than live without him. that sounds like an exageration but it’s not, she puts a gun to her own head and threatens to pull the trigger in order to get a +4 power of love charisma buff)

also you know how the hook is that people get assigned to gangs based on their personality type, but she’s special because she has more than one singular personality trait? the way that manifests is the ability to lucid dream. that’s it. that’s her special power. sometimes she also has a greater level of problem solving, but that’s entirely plot dependant, the only reliable power that divergents have is that they can all lucid dream. which is a pretty cool thing to be able to do, but it’s also just like a skill you can learn. apparently in the distopian future no one remembers that.

the thing the movie kept reminding me of was american evangelical prosperity gospel propaganda films, your ‘gods not dead’ and your ‘left behind’. those are generally bad in a very specific way, and they’re bad because the end goal of the film-makers is not to make a good movie, the fact that they’re making a movie at all is almost incidental to their goal. they’re making propaganda, and film just happens to be the medium which is delivering that propaganda. this had the same vibe, i’m assuming because the end-game here was money making and the fact that they were using a movie to do that was an entirely secondary consideration.

also i’m fascinated by the fact that it’s a ‘distopia’ purely in that it’s working with a muted colour palette with stark lighting, and then a handful of scenes are set in an Apple store (and the villain is a woman in a position of power who dresses like Conservative emma frost, because there’s always got to be one of those). there’s no actual distopia, they’ve just dressed the set to look like one. even the stupid faction system seems to be basically working and most people are fine with it.

It took me all of ten minutes of watching the movie to come up with a better premise as well. you keep the faction system, but then you have ‘divergents’ be a special elite class who run everything and then the big reveal is that actually everyone is divergent and no one fits into the boxes but the evil elites pretend they do becausre that makes it easier to enforce the class system. Like, that’s still soulless garbage with nothing of substance to say, but it’s at least thematically coherant garbage, and if anyone asks you can tell them it’s about the use of myers-briggs tests in job applications or the rise in beliefs in horoscopes, something like that. you could definitely fake-deep-ify that no problem. you don’t even really have to change the plot that much, 90% of it could stay the same, just with an actual coherant narrative.

that’s not entirely fair. with the exception of how the fuck abnegation relates to all of this, and how factionless people work (and why the hell the author chose ‘amnity’ for the farmers, instead of, say, diligence) the narrative is pretty coherant, it’s just garbage. soulless cash grabbing garbage.

i hated it intensly and i can’t wait to watch the other two tomorrow to find out how deep the stupid goes and whether they ever do anything meaningful with the lucid dream as a superpower concept.

[laythornmuse]

Distopia - One Quote, One Shot

Squeaking in 40 minutes before the end of my deadline, if you’re Pacific time ;)   Thank you @notevenjokingfic and @balfeheughlywed  My One Quote, One Shot!! Enjoy everyone!!!

Claire slapped the X-Ray onto the viewing screen, the snapping of film against glass sending a ripple of satisfaction through her. Her eyes studied the bilateral image of a skull, her husband’s skull, as her tablet loaded his last MRI report.

The acidic coffee in her mug swarmed her senses as her eyes searched, probed, for an answer. A tangible one. One besides prayer, patience and time. She’d had her fill with patience, and wanted to rage against the invisible bars of her well mannered, and understanding prison.

She’d lost her husband.

***

It had been a quiet Tuesday evening in her surgical suite. A dislocated shoulder and a minor hernia that had her and Joe playing “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” winner chooses last. It was during her surgery that Joe appeared with Dr. Weis, the hospital’s chief surgeon, to relieve her.

She knew to expect the worse and had often seen the worse scream through the trauma unit. But reading the accident report sheet—

- - -Vehicle roll over after head-on collision- - -Driver 1 DUA - - -Driver 2 non responsive- - - severe head trauma - - - 20 minute extradition from vehicle - - -

Claire read the words over and over, but her brain would not comprehend their meaning. She stood outside his trauma suite and saw the team prepping him for surgery, yet she could not reconcile the swollen, ravaged face as the one she’d kissed goodbye earlier that afternoon. He’d teased her when she made dinner reservations to celebrate their 4 month wedding anniversary.

“I dinna think four months is any more symbolic than 4 weeks,” Jamie quipped, “but I’ll eat cake with ye all the same.”

Four hours later, he entered surgery under the care of two men she respected and trusted—she could ask for no better—yet Claire felt desperate and agitated, her hope and faith a mere whisper in her mind.

24 hours after that, her world began to unwind.

***

It seemed he couldn’t avoid a complication. Infection, a punctured lung, burst spleen…

“It will all heal, Claire.”

Joe’s mantra played over and over in her mind. She prayed it, whispered it in the dark corners of the doctor’s lounge where she reviewed his labs and tests.

On paper, Jamie’s body was slowly mending, his vitals showing steady improvement, but Claire was restless as the days passed. And then, finally, his eye lids fluttered, and Claire felt a breath shudder against her ribs in relief. She smacked the call button to the nurses' station before her hands were on him, gently tracing the contours of his cheek.

“Jamie?” She sobbed. His face creased in the effort to flutter his lids again, his mouth pulling into a full Scottish grimace. “Aye,” he rasped. “God, I’m thirsty.”

Tears streamed down Claire’s face as she pushed his curls back from his brow. An impatient Scottish sound emitted from him, and she chuckled as she picked up her own cup of ice chips.

“Here then…small spoonfuls…” a smile broke across her face, as she saw his tongue move distastefully along his lip. With his lips less parched, he turned his eyes to her, his expression soft, confused, and wondrous.

“You were in a car accident, Jamie,” Claire explained. “You’ve been unconscious for three days.” The crease between his brows deepened as she spoke. When she swept her fingers along his jaw, he gasped and Claire jerked her hand away, startled. Claire watched as words crept to the edge of his lips, nearly spilling from his mouth before his teeth stopped them, a storm of emotions crossing his face in silence.

“Do you remember anything about the accident?”

“Just…light. And then pain.” He grimaced again before he pushed her spoon and ice chips away.

“And how’s your pain now?”

“I’ll bide. Can I see my sister and my Da? They must be driving ye—”

“What?” Claire whispered. She cursed her glass face as her lip trembled and Jamie’s expression turned from sleepy to alarmed. “Och, It’s no that I mind ye—”

“Did—” Claire felt her tongue was too large for her mouth as she stared back at him. “Did you just ask for your father, Jamie?”

“I did, and I’d appreciate ye not making me feel odd for it,” Jamie grumbled, his mood quickly becoming more agitated.

Claire’s face crumpled as she processed Jamie’s words, and then his painful cringe. “Ack, my head…”

“Mr. Fraser! I’m so glad to see you awake,” Joe greeted from the door, his face beaming. “It’s been hard to keep Claire away from you.”

A blush crept up Jamie’s cheeks that made Claire’s blood run cold.

“I can tell the lass has been attentive, but…”

“Lass?” Joe deadpanned, his eyes cutting to Claire as realization washed over her.

“Jamie,” Joe asked quietly, approaching the bed now and motioning for Claire to step back. The motion was unnecessary. Claire was already off the bed, holding her arms against her body. “You don’t recognize Claire?”

“Nay, but I fear I should,” Jamie croaked, his body trembling as his eyes locked on Claire. Joe nodded and reached into the hospital nightstand. He held in front of Jamie a simple platinum band and placed it into his good hand.

“Your left hand surprisingly was unharmed. We removed this from you to keep it safe.”

“It’s mine?” Jamie asked softly.

“Yes,” Joe answered. “It’s your wedding band. Claire’s your wife.”

***

Claire ‘s time as a doctor exposed her to many emotional outcries from patients, but she was not prepared for Jamie’s rejection. Upon hearing Joe’s words, Jamie’s eyes locked upon her and immediately began measuring. She felt naked before his gaze as his eyes scanned her from the tips of toes to the ends of her curls, and then…doubt. Doubt was all she could see beaming from his eyes and the weight of it crushed her.

Jamie’s doubt morphed into trembling sobs as Joe gently explained it was actually 2017, not 2015, but that this type of lapse was very common after head trauma. Claire also knew the reassuring language,  but could not focus just then on reassurances. When her phone pinged, she stood up suddenly, drawing both men’s eyes to her.

“Jenny’s in the waiting room. I’ll bring her in.” Claire turned to leave, a murmured “Thank Christ” reaching her ears before she started toward her sister-in-law.

Jenny’s face paled when she saw Claire’s face.

“He’s all right,” Claire reassured, squeezing her hands.

“I’d never know that by the look of ye,” Jenny murmured. “How is he, really?”

“He has some….memory loss,” Claire muttered. “He doesn’t remember me, but…”

“He’s scrambled his heid that bad—”

“Jenny,” Claire whispered. “He’s asking about your father.”

Jenny placed a hand on Claire’s shoulder and grasped it tight, her other hand covering her mouth. “Oh, Claire. Oh, God.”

***

Claire sat on the tile outside her husband’s hospital room. He’d asked to speak with Jenny alone, so here she kept her vigil. She tucked her trembling knees to her forehead and leaned her aching chest against her thighs. It wasn’t fair, she thought. He shouldn’t have to live through this loss twice.

The first time, they lived through the loss of Brian Fraser together. This time, he would face it alone.

A shout shook her and made her teeth chatter. A keening sob sounded next, a rare sound she’d only heard once before, and Claire felt her insides liquify with the pain of it.

Murmurs echoed from the room behind her, Jenny’s soft voice crooning to him in Gaelic.

“I dinna want her!”

Claire froze. As suddenly as her tears had started earlier that afternoon, her eyes cleared as realization flooded her. He didn’t want her.

Claire sniffed and stretched her legs forwards, allowed herself to stretch over her knees. Gently, she gathered her feet beneath her and crossed the hall to the visitor’s bathroom. She splashed the tepid water across her cheeks and over her forehead before she physically shook herself before the bathroom mirror.

“Right,” Claire said to her reflection. “Food and Tea, Fraser. You have a long night ahead of you.”

He didn’t want her.

Claire scoffed to herself, righting her hair and patting her face dry. Of course, he didn’t want her.

He bloody needed her.

***

For two days, Jamie barely spoke to anyone, except the hospital staff and Jenny. Jenny’s visits involved more shouting than talking, so much so patients began closing their doors at 3PM in preparation for the incoming fight. It was impressive, even to Ian.

“This is more than his Da, Claire,” Ian spoke softly, watching Claire as she refilled his hospital water jug.

“I know it,” she replied. “He’s just…lost, I think. And frightened.”

“Jenny brought photos from your wedding today,” Ian said, and they both turned to watch the closed door of his hospital room as if it could explode at any moment.

“Well,” Claire muttered. “Silence is new, at least.”

Jamie had allowed her to be in his room during the day but stubbornly insisted each night he wanted to be alone. Claire, armed with a freshly packed weekend bag of clothes, stubbornly refused to leave the hospital and reminded him each night that she was sleeping across the hall if he changed his mind.

Tonight was no different.

“I dinna know ye, woman, and sitting there staring at me willna change it.”

Jenny had left an hour before, and Jamie had turned away from her when she reappeared in his room. Squaring up her shoulders, she eyed his back and the shivers she still saw under his hospital gown.

“I know that,” She said quietly. “But I won’t leave, Jamie. I—”

“Even if I told ye to leave me?” Jamie huffed. “Even if seeing your face just reminds me of how broken I am? That there is a life I had that’s now lost, along with—” His eyes closed as his body shook. “Did ye even know him?”

Claire watched as Jamie turned onto his back, not looking at her, but not blocking her out either.

“Yes.” Jamie didn’t respond but his head turned towards her, so she continued.

“We spent two weekends a month at Lallybroch. He transplanted a rose bush from your mother’s garden for us to take home.”

“We were living together?” Jamie asked, incredulously.

“If what Jenny said is true I only knew ye about six months…”

“Yes everyone said we rushing, but not Brian,” Claire chuckled. “Brian, however, saw our disastrous flower bed and berated you for not digging it up —”

“—Because we didn’t have a working front door—” Jamie froze and Claire’s face lit up into a knowing smile. “Christ,” Jamie whispered, as his eyes cut to hers. “How…how can I remember that but nothing else, but not…”

Claire let out a laugh, as she brushed a tear from her eye. “I’m a doctor and I can’t explain it.” She wiped at her cheek, but her smile warmed him, even from where he sat.

“Dinna cry,” Jamie murmured, not unkindly. “Christ, I remembered a door, of all things…”

“You remembered an argument,” Claire corrected. “And you’ll keep remembering. Just be patient with it.” Looking down at her hands, braced them together for courage. “Have I earned the right to stay, then?”

“I didna mean to be unkind, Claire,” Jamie muttered. “Aye. I’d like ye to stay.”

Jamie fell silent and turned on his side. Claire pulled a blanket around her shoulders as she sat back in the visitor’s chair.

“Did you like him?” He asked softly, as she dimmed the lights.

“Oh yes,” she answered. “I loved Brian very much.”

***

The next few days showed the typical signs of healing that Claire had learned to expect from her husband: stubborn and vile crankiness. If Claire joyous for her presence finally being accepted, Jamie was showing her the price she’d pay for it.

“Is there nothing in this hospital but weak broth and jello?” Jamie grumbled. “I canna even get full off this piss.”

“You can’t get full because you keep throwing up breakfast,” Claire muttered as her hands opened the seven cracker packets he insisted on for his weak broth.

“Ye try to keep down hospital eggs that are soppier than a bog.”

Claire rolled her eyes but pushed the bowl in front of him. His mood didn’t improve either as the day went on. His bones ached, his skin itched, and he just about bowled over a nurse who insisted he uses the walker to traverse from the bed to the bathroom.

When the sun settled, Claire thought his mood may have improved when he asked her to play cards. Until he asked to play Crazy Eights.

“No.” Claire deadpanned.

“What? Why?”

“Because every time we play Crazy Eights I’m double fisting 40 cards while you have 5,” Claire answered. “How about Rummy?”

“Bah, that’s a terrible—No!” Jamie sat up in bed, trying to make his body as menacing as he could to the nurse walking in with his dinner tray. Broth again, this time with apple sauce.

“Ye can take that brackish water right back to your prison kitchen and get me some proper bread and meat!”Jamie yelled. The nurse, a waif-like creature called Mary, startled at his tone, her jaw flapping as she looked between Jamie and Claire.

“You can leave it, Mary, thank you,” Claire responded.

“Ye will NOT leave it, and I’ll thank ye to no’ contradict me,” Jamie growled at Claire. Claire watched as Mary escaped, closing their hospital room door behind her. Claire grabbed the tray and began opening his crackers. “Jamie, I know it’s been a hard day but—”

As Claire moved the wheeling tray over his lap Jamie forcibly slapped it away, spilling the contents onto Claire and the floor.

“What the hell, Jamie!” Claire hissed, as she pulled hot steaming shirt away from her skin. “You could have burned me!”

“I’m tired of no one considering what I want, damn it! If I’m ever getting out of this hospital I need real food, not this processed bairn food fit for invalids!” Jamie shouted.

“All I’ve done is listen to you, damn it!” Claire yelled back. “Ever since you nearly killed yourself I’ve done nothing but try to keep you alive, despite you screaming at me!”

“I didna ask ye to, did I? I told ye to leave me, no? And I canna see why ye bothered to save my life if it’s only to starve me to death—unless ye enjoy watching it!”

This was altogether too much.

“Bloody ingrate!”

“Shrew!”

“You fucking bastard!!” Claire bellowed at him as she slammed his hospital door behind her.

Claire turned to see the hospital staff, and a stunned Ian and Jenny looking back at her.

“Feeling better, is he?” Jenny asked, a smirk lighting her face.

Claire took a breath. “Why, yes actually. He is.”

***

Later that evening, Claire awoke in the visitor chair when a soft hissing noise penetrated her sleep.

“Claire,” Jamie whispered again. “Are ye awake?”

“I am now…” Claire murmured, blinking several times into the darkness. “Are you all right? Are you in pain?”

“Nah. Will ye come here?”

Claire stood and wobbled toward his hospital bed, taking a seat on the edge of his mattress. When he moved over to make room for her, she lifted her legs onto the bed and turned on her side to look at him. “Whatisiit,” she murmured into his pillow.

“I dreamt of ye.”

“Oh. What of?”

“Well, to start…” Jamie muttered. “After Jenny and Ian left, I remembered…something. Another time ye called me a…erm, fucking bastard.”

If Claire was grateful for the darkness just then, but couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped her. “Oooh. Is that so?”

“Mmhmm. I believe…if I remember it right, I’d accused ye of flirting with some lad who got handsy with ye…”

“We were at a nightclub for Geillis’s birthday, against our will, mind you,” Claire murmured. “But you were pretty tipsy…”

“As were you, I think…”

“Uh-huh. But you got…angry.” Claire paused. “I think the term you said was ‘rut.’ If I planned to ‘rut’ with the lad, and if so you’d take yourself home.”

“Ah.” To his credit, he bowed his head, quite similarly to how he had two years ago. “So ye put me in my place, then.”

“Too right, I did.”

“But I went after ye?” Jamie whispered back, and Claire gasped as she felt his hand grip hers for the first time in a week.

“You did.”

He nodded, and brought her hand up to his lips, placing a soft kiss against her palm. “I think I dreamt what came next. My groveling…and my cherishing of ye. I feel like a right ass for making ye call me that again, but…”

“But what?” Claire slid closer so she could feel the heat coming from his chest.

“But, I’d like verra much to kiss you, if you’ll allow it.”

Claire grinned and felt her heart do a summersault.

“I’ll allow it,” she whispered and pressed her lips to his in the dark.

[rhymesswith]

WEBCOMIC rec list

Anyway I’m trying to get back into webcomics because it’s basically the most amazing storytelling medium. So while I’m rereading my old favourites and hunting for new ones I thought I’d compile a list of my personal favourites old and new! I have a pretty formulaic taste I guess, give me a) a ragtag group of protags with differences to overcome, b) a rich and unusual setting with lots of world-building/lore c) some kind of magical system d) topped off with glorious art, and I am signed the heck up. So most of these fill those criteria, they’re all free online and many are available in print so enjoy!

1) Stand Still. Stay Silent. by @hummingfluff. Ongoing. Updates multiple pages a week. Post-apocalyptic/horror/fantasy. 

My current obsession. Set in a post-civilization where most of humanity (and animals) have been wiped out by a super contagious virus which corrupts the body and soul, turning the victims into nightmarish bestial “trolls”. The story takes place in what’s left of the “known world” which is centred in Iceland. It’s heavily based on the lore of the region, so even though it’s set in the future, the story is woven beautifully with traditional motifs. I’m obsessed with the style and formatting, the chapters are interspaced with information pages for maximum world building. Also - the protagonists are from different nordic countries all speaking their own languages, so communication is a re-occurring point that the author uses in a way that I find so interesting. 

2) The Archipelago by @thesilvertophat - complete. Gen Fantasy/save-the-world adventure epic.

My end-all-be-all first webcomic love. This comic is a delicious fantasy/sci-fi/distopia milkshake with a thick found-family ripple. Whats not to like; You have an enduring female lead with a high-stakes end-goal, a vibrant world with original lore, an array of complex villains with satisfying motives, an extensive supporting cast all of whom are interesting and fleshed out and bring their own thing to the table. You have multiple magic systems, demons, godlike myths come to life, humanoid races, dragons, pirates, prophecies, all in one place! I was lucky enough to read it as it updated and now it’s complete and very bingeable! There’s also at least one spin-off comic about a supporting character set in the same world. The art in this comic develops very drastically over the (many) chapters, which I think is super neat to be able to watch as the artist grew into their style!

Here are a non-spoilery sample to give you a taste of what the comic is like;

3) Ava’s Demon by @tinypaint. Ongoing, updates...semi-weekly...? I believe? Fantasy/Sci-fi/dystopia

You’ve probably already heard of this one. Guys the art is just...out of this world. Every single panel is just basically a masterpiece. A little more sci-fi leaning I think? But so different than anything I’ve seen before. Gods and monsters and dystopian governments ruling the galaxy. A bunch of misfits that want nothing to do with each other being forced to aid mysterious godlike warrior entities with questionable morals overthrow the tyrannical AI government. The formatting is SO neat with animations and music between regular comic pages, truly using the digital medium to it’s absolute fullest.

4) Lore Olympus - Ongoing, updates weekly. Fantasy/Mythological/Romance. 

Another popular one - for good reason. An interpretation of the greek pantheon myths focusing on the blossoming romance between Hades and Persephone. The ART OF IT ALL. My god this is a beautiful comic. Olympus resembles modern times while the mortal realm is still classic greek which makes for such an interesting juxtaposition. In addition to top-notch art and unique style the characterizations are just so good, and the dynamics between them all them are so dang enjoyable to read.

I mean just

look

how pretty..........

  5) The Glass Scientists by @arythusa - ongoing, updates weekly. Historical/magical realism/sci-fi

An interpretation of the Dr Jekyll and Mister Hyde story with all sorts of other things thrown together. Following Dr Henry Jekyll as he struggles to keep his mad scientist club afloat in an alternate 1800s London where mad science is shunned and monsters are commonplace but ostracized. Jekyll basically adopts blossoming young scientists like stray kittens and coaches them how to live in presentable society, all while struggling to keep a grip on his own unhinged demons. The ensemble cast has lots of female scientists, characters of colour, queer characters, high-strung victorian dandies, werewolves - everything you could ever want basically. It’s fun and light-hearted but with little moments of just cutting angst. 

6) Never Satisfied by @ohcorny - Ongoing, updates a couple times a week. Gen Fantasy.

I thought this was just going to a fun, cute story about a group of magicians apprentices having adventures, and while it is indeed a fun, cute story about a group of magicians apprentices having adventures, it is also DEVASTATING. 

(NB protagonist and cast full of LGBT+ characters and romances.)

7) Electric Bones by @hazeldrop - ongoing, updates irregularly but pretty frequently. sci-fi.

This one’s still pretty new but the author’s other comic was great (ARH doesn’t really fit in here genre-wise but also worth checking out!) so I trust this one will be too. So far it has fantastic space aesthetics and sci-fi vibes, a brooding protag in a turtleneck and snarky robots. The art is honestly such goals and I can’t wait to see where it’s going.

8) FantomeStein by @thedrawingduke​ - ongoing Historical sci-fi / horror

Phantom of the opera meets...Frankenstein?? something I never knew I needed in my life. The character design is everything and I too, am in love with Christine Daae. And Raoul. And Erik. Is it too much to ask they all live happy family together?

(some familiarity with both texts is helpful for maximum enjoyment)

9) The Meek @meekcomic​ - ongoing, updates erratically. Gen adventure/fantasy.

I was reading this way back and when it went on hiatus I assumed we’d never get to see more. But it’s back! It still appears to update in fits and bursts but the story is as good as I remember so I’m going to hang around. Following three separate protagonists all living at the border of two countries whose tentative peace has just failed, and they’re about to fall back into the bloody war that’s gripped them for generations.

10) Mare Internum by the same author (warning! for suicide on the first page and childhood sexual abuse later on) Complete. Sci-fi/ psychological/ horror. 

Details an incident on the surface of Mars when a departing scientist and his replacement get caught in a rock-fall, trapping them deep under the planet’s surface. 

11) Vainglorious by @kellysketches​ - ongoing, updates twice a week. Gen adventure/fantasy.

It’s a webcomic abut DRAGONS, need I say more? A young upstart dragon’s bid for the throne goes terribly wrong and he is cast out into a human body to live in human society until he can find a way to reverse the transformation. If he can avoid the dragon hunters for long enough to do so. Really cute characters and art 10/10 delightful. 

12) Tiger, Tiger by @leppu​  - ongoing, updates a few times a week. Historical fantasy / adventure.                                                 

The aspiring daughter of a noble family runs off to pursue her marine biologist dreams. The plot is still building but we’ve got delightful swashbuckling vibes, an intriguing cult of the sea religion, sea monsters that are more than they seem, canon queer characters, and gorgeous art.

   *  *  *

And lastly an honourable mention to La Macchina Bellica by @dechanique, which has been discontinued and taken off the web much to my eternal devastation. The author has hinted that they might one day revisit and revamp the story and because of that shred of hope I will hold out and keep looking out for it for the rest of my life. Because it was such a fun comic!! Steam-punky fantasy world with magic users and angsty war veterans and political intrigue. Great cast full of LGBT+ characters and characters struggling with mental illness, I honestly love the characters so much to this day and if it ever comes back I will be over the moon. 

Anyway that’s it for now if you know of any webcomics similar to these that I should check out please let me know! Always hungry for more!

(All images belong to the respective artists and if you don’t want me using any of these images please let me know and I’ll take them down! I just hate that most rec lists don’t have pictures because the art is what it’s all about baby!) 

[paintalyx]

90 writing prompts by paintalyx

have some prompts i came up with in my spare time, feel free to use them if you want (props to those who catch all the song references here)

Just Breathe

Held Breaths

Torn Umbrella

He was the sun

Her ugly plushie

Black Matter

Grey Area

The Sun and Death

Why keep counting?

Mad Hatter

Cheshire Cat

Queen of Hearts

Ace of Spades

Hypocritical

Bittersweet

Muddy Thoughts

Crescendo into chaos

Morendo (italian for “dying”, also indicates a decrease in volume or tempo, but often affects both; to make the sound slowly die away)

The Wheel of Fortune (tarot)

Ashes of a phoenix

Choke yourself to sleep

And in the end, I’d do it all again

Old scars on the future hearts

But my heart really wants to cry

Sweater Weather

Hole in my soul

All of our flaws

Picture-perfect mutilation

Colourful mind

Stars that faded away

Just enough time

Glad you came

Where butterflies never die

Now the devil won’t leave me alone

Bright to black with no hesitation

Courtesy Call

Struck by you

Drugs and Candy

Hate your love, but love how you feel

Hope of Morning

Yesterday’s utopia is the distopia of today

The hummingbird on your shoulder (alt. The mockingbird on your shoulder)

Jester, not a fool

Cinderella’s cracked glass slipper

Bandaged Hands

No Handlebars

Beneath pale light of the moon

Stella, th morning star

Lemon and mint

Forget-me-nots

Camisado (a surprise attack occurring at night or at daybreak, when the enemy are supposed to be asleep)

Reconnaissance (military observation of a region to locate an enemy or ascertain strategic features)

Blitzkrieg

Crossfire

Biohazard

Ground Zero

Weightless

Say you’re sorry, still

Resonance

I’ve got a heart that gets on everybody’s nerves

Misery loves company

The last rose of summer

Waste of a lovely night

Blood in the water

A kiss with a fist is better than none

Like a lazy ocean hugs the shore

We don’t have to dance

Novocaine

When beginning met the end, they created infinity

Neon Bandainds

Blue Neck

Porcelain Face

Cardboard Mask

Rather be blind

Untravelled Road

Master of none

Worn edges of a canvas

Where sky kissed the sea

Discolouration

Day and Night (either literally or like the flower)

Sticky notes

Twenty words, or less

Snake around her neck

I didn’t laugh

Thistle and Weeds

Cut Strings

Hot Asphalt

Throw a brick

A little story in blue

B negative

[bartonsedai]

The Fantasy of Our Childhood

A discussion of how well the fantasy of our childhood has held up and how the new adaptations are treating them.

Panelists: Will Kenyon, John G. Hartness, Mark McCray, JD Jordan, David B. Coe

Rebooting of works How genres move, theory of trends emerging in cycles Fantasy with hard economic times, sci-fi end of hard economic times, as things get more hopeful the fiction gets more realistic. Utopia when times are bad....distopia when times good. Proof can be found for any theory. Not as accurate now due to slow rate of publishing More networks, larger variety, but using those trends leads to higher success Also increasing reboots because it's proven success Does licensing factor into reboots Fantastic 4 did this, putting out content before losing the rights to adapt it So was the Garfield Spiderman Specific, individual cases, not overall trends Pieces of fiction will pop up to fill voids. LotR -> HP -> GoT -> WoT Hard to speak to trends as these are very new examples. Also, trends tied to being something new, and to make money. Trends in books different from trends in TV. If one follows social status, and the other follows the first, then that second will be skewed off trend. The resurgence of media from our childhoods (gen X and millennial) has to do in part with us becoming adults and being given control and making decisions. Digression to how DVD box sets and dvr led to serialization of shows as opposed to monster of the week Now, with variety of networks, there is flexibility to reboot and make it edgier. Rebooting children's content for an adult audience? Role of technology in reboots? It's impossible to reboot anything without changing it. Besides just being boring, it's no longer relevant and very possibly is offensive. Nostalgia leading to content as not actually a reboot (Stranger Things) Role of nostalgia in the wot adaptation? Some level of it for earlier fans, but an adaptation does not feel the same as a reboot, so the feelings aren’t quite the same. Reboots fund new things. Whether for TV or books, rebooting something that as successful and you know will be successful brings in money that allows the network/publisher to take risky first-time content.

[winebleeds-a]

REALLY  LONG  CHARACTER  SURVEY.

RULES.   repost,   don’t  reblog,   tag 10,   good luck! TAGGED.   nobody.  stolen from @justpawns​ TAGGING.   whoever.

BASICS.

FULL  NAME :   elizabeth marie spencer /  elisheva bat martha NICKNAME :   liz AGE :   25 BIRTHDAY :   june 25th LANGUAGE / S :   english, french, spanish, some german SEXUAL  ORIENTATION :   bisexual. ROMANTIC  ORIENTATION :   grey romantic RELATIONSHIP  STATUS :   single, though verse dependent CLASS :   middle HOME  TOWN / AREA :   shenandoah in virginia  CURRENT  HOME :   nyc (though this is verse dependent) PROFESSION :    associate information systems officer for the statistic division of the united nations (it specialist for any company within verse dependent city)

PHYSICAL.

HAIR :   near platinum blonde with golden highlights. normally, the length of her hair is just past her collarbone, she does wear hair extensions for fancier up-does or being able to flip her hair for high ponytails. she wears a lot of buns for work, then messier buns on lazy weekends. naturally, her hair is a lighter brown. EYES :   light brown, sometimes appearing honeyed. FACE :   tbh i am the worst at describing face shapes. but hers appears a little long (or ig oval?) with somewhat prominent cheekbones that are more noticeable with contour. LIPS :   pink & thin. her bottom lip is much fuller than her top. sometimes, the edges of her top lip disappears at certain expression. she curls her lips into her mouth a lot, where you can’t see them. she applies lipstick (business, formal, seduction) & lipgloss (casaul lipcare). COMPLEXION :   pale, but not overally pale (i sound like i’m writing my immortal here haha). is smooth but naturally dry. BLEMISHES :   while h.alston does have a beauty mark on her cheek, liz would not have one. her nose is prone to blackheads when she skips facial care. she has a birthmark under her right shoulderblade that appears like a spotty star. SCARS :   a medium scar at the left side of her head from the time  TATTOOS :   none, though can be different base on private verses HEIGHT :   5′2″. WEIGHT :   105 lbs, though she can fluctuate from 99 to 110. it very fickle base on her stress levels. BUILD :   at average, she’s barely a healthy weight. the higher the stress the lower the weight. she’s very petite.     FEATURES :   she has a sharpness about her that she uses to cut at her advantage. ALLERGIES :   n / a. USUAL  HAIR  STYLE :   it’s a different style everyday. thought mentioned in the hair section, her usually style are buns, either more formal or messier with loose ends. USUAL  EXPRESSION :   deadpan. while she tries to make herself hard to read, there’s either constant irritation or a hint of mischief.  USUAL  CLOTHING :    i’m linking her fashion board because it’s so vast & beyond my capabilities.

PSYCHOLOGY.

FEAR / S :   closed spaces, lost of control ASPIRATION / S :   success. power. if i have to sum them up. but also protect who she consider underdogs (re: her siblings).   POSITIVE  TRAITS :   loyal,    level-headed,    cautious,    trustworthy. NEGATIVE  TRAITS :   selfish MBTI :   estj-a

Extraverted  60%        40% Introverted  Intuitive 32%        68% Observant  Thinking 72%        28% Feeling   Judging 88%    12% Prospecting   Assertive 58%        42% Turbulent  

ZODIAC :   cancer. TEMPEREMENT :   melancholic. ANIMALS :   she relates to horses, but she acts like a lizard cat. FAITH :   athiest. GHOSTS ? :   no. AFTERLIFE ? :   no. REINCARNATION ? :   she’s top tier what do you mean she doesn’t care ALIENS ? :   no. she’ll pull out mathematical equations as to why, even if they exist, it’s impossible to know. :/ EDUCATION  LEVEL :   master. (for au’s with her father dead, she will get a phd to become a professor in his honor, since he always wanted her to be a teacher).

FAMILY.

FATHER :   robert spencer : superintendent of rockingbridge county’s schools. liz’s role model, though he’s even able to hide just how cold he can be to people. liz is also clearly his favorite kid. while he appears to have a big heart (re : free ice cream to a grade when he visits the elementary schools when he was a principal), he’s pretty deadpan otherwise & does certain deeds for status. especially to his wife, who he hardly talks to. MOTHER :   martha spencer : vice principal of middle school. fairly stern like, all the time, but does so in care. while her & liz have more in common personality wise, this often clashes & the two don’t get along well. robert’s favoritism doesn’t help either, though she was already having favoritism over raleigh. early on, she would lash out at liz if she was mad at robert (who was often ignoring her), but changed that as liz grew older. SIBLINGS :   raleigh spencer (older brother) : he’s a doctor settled in nyc, living kinda close to liz. but they look & act complete opposite. he gets along with everyone, though he’s probably too trusting at times. does a lot of volunteer work, bikes, & goes to cons on his free time. hasn’t liz that (of course) he actually makes more money than liz, since they always had a mini rivalry (enforced by their parents). as said, they use to not get along, but now are pretty close.  madeline ‘maddie’ spencer (younger sister) : currently a music major at jmu. she was forced to go to college by her parents (and liz, though she was more like ‘try it, & if it’s not for you then drop out’ sorta talk). while she likes college so far, she feels it’s because it’s a way to get away from her parents’ increase fights (and regrets leaving raphine, with the last spencer’s departure bring the fights to their apex) & her high school best friend is super supportive. while her goal is to be a rockstar, she’ll end up doubling major in music & education & become an elementary music teacher (and be the best at it). she also keeps telling liz she’s going to live with her at nyc because maddie looks up to liz. after all, with feeling like the outcast child for her parents, maddie jokes that liz raised her (to the point liz is ‘mom’ in maddie’s phone). EXTENDED  FAMILY :   more than my fingers & toes. like, on her dad’s side, robert had five siblings (four are still living), with one of them having seven kids; the other, including the deceased raleigh, has at least one child. heck, even liz’s ex married into the family. then, her mom’s side has a few relatives in nova (near dc) & boston. martha has three siblings: two in nova & one in boston with some cousins. like i said, it’s huge. NAME  MEANING / S :   ‘oath of god’   HISTORICAL  CONNECTION ? :   it’s her grandmother’s name, & her middle name is her grandmother’s middle name as well. in jewish tradition, its common to name offspring after dead relatives for their honor, & grandmother elizabeth died while martha was pregnant with liz, so the name felt befitting / that’s what robert wanted anyways. but  elisheva is the historical name of aaron’s wife from the torah.

FAVOURITES.

HOLIDAY :   she doesn’t have a favorite holiday, but her least favorite is christmas MONTH :   june. SEASON :   summer. PLACE :   a horse trail, either in the mountains or on a beach WEATHER :   a summer sunrise. SOUND :   brewing coffee. SCENT / S :   coffee. wine. clean linens. TASTE / S :   coffee. wine. apples. chocolate. FEEL / S :  silk. ANIMAL / S :   horse NUMBER :   3 COLOUR :   navy.

EXTRA.

TALENTS :   math stuff. coding.  BAD  AT :  art. literacy.  TURN  ONS :   flustering partner. praising. glasses. TURN  OFFS :    domination over her. aggression. HOBBIES :   equestrian. reading. cooking. overworking.

FC INFO.

MAIN  FC / S :   ha.lston sage ALT  FC / S :   none, but ca.rlson y.oung is her bodyclaim OLDER  FC / S :   na. YOUNGER  FC / S :   na. VOICE  CLAIM / S :   emma stone 

MUN QUESTIONS.  Q1 :   if  you  could  write  your  character  your  way  in  their  own  movie ,   what  would  it  be  called ,  what  style  would  it  be  filmed  in ,  and  what  would  it  be  about ?          A1 :    well, ironically, the movie would not be about them. liz is a side character. like, her main thing is being the wife of the main character in a distopia thingy (remember destiny?). however, if being the main in a movie, it would either be a romcom or a teenage drama. maybe a star wars spin off if you count the verse with sophie & charlie (and, then, eliza is the main character duh).

 Q2 :   what  would  their  soundtrack / score  sound  like ?            A2 :   pop folk music... does mumford & sons count?

 Q3 :   why  did  you  start  writing  this  character ?            A3 :   as a hetalia oc because i was having a bad time writing a canon character. and nobody was making a virginia & it’s my homestate so... yeah. it’s embarrassing.

 Q4 :   what  first  attracted  you  to  this  character ?  A4:     her crazy antic is fun to write. she’s so different from me that it helps getting into mindsets of characters i don’t relate to until i have something to relate to.

 Q5 :   describe  the  biggest  thing  you  dislike  about  your  muse.        A5 :    she’s so snobbish. like her interests (fashion) is beyond my expertise & it’s hard to add into writing when i can’t tell black & navy apart.

 Q6 :   what  do  you  have  in  common  with  your  muse ?            A6 :   the massive family dynamic & being an outlier of it. namely liz’s political opinion with her dad’s side of the family versus my opinions with my entire family. also, how we don’t really care about romance, though i’m a bit more open about it happen when it happens while she’s being against it.

 Q7 :   how  does  your  muse  feel  about  you ?          A7 :   she wouldn’t know i exist. and i would be scared of her

 Q8 :   what  characters  does  your  muse  have  interesting  interactions  with ?          A8 :   when she’s most uncomfortable, like around dogs & kids.

 Q9 :   what  gives  you  inspiration  to  write  your  muse ?          A9 :   ta.ylor sw.ift songs. music, definitely. i have a playlist of songs to help.

 Q10 :   how  long  did  this  take  you  to  complete ?            Q10 :   it over two days? because i get distracted & my migraine last night didn’t help. i work slow to begin with.

[xesoteric-extraterrestrialx]

Be the acorn Janine you live till you’re the freaking acorn and figure out how to bring the healed matrix miracle future out to them and then we all heal that timeline together with all the elements and solutions or we all connect from two multiverses to the universal one (interweb~) this’ll help wake up others to (cluster we want to be be feel feel who are we? Their emotions that was nature’s feelings too(avatar-how the entire forest felt the system how it works and heals , learn everything about “Lucy”movie because that connects on how system works and then maniac plus more how to heal each element of the organic living technological multi universal future utopia interweb just no sin cause everyone has learnt lessons of how not to trauma and new potential futures (garnet vison) but also be careful cause staying stuck and no growth leads to (we all need to reach same “level of development “ there , egg // flubber) not the always growing utopia we can go down a wrong path and always chance of distopias so once we feel like life is “perfect”keep finding solutions or any issues that might end up into a problem in any future time line, not only oracle so find more to connect and help with all the leads // dots) so excited fore future potential timelines = all healed and absolutely NO SIN, then all win in harmony ~ (if can’t at least get the matrix’s where glitch can talk through translucent wall to see everyone else enjoying the new multi universal future) (do not steal our written work that’s obviously a sin and your own choice to take the path towards perishing (computer virus’s anime body virus’s, osmosis Jones) yeah wake tf up or you’ll be perished understand? Let’s heal together (I give permission and consent to us the clues (not steal) to find tour OWN beings (not all have souls right now, I realize why don’t be scared you will either be healed or perished but I’ll find a way to heal you in future and check in on healing but if never do, sorry that means deleted(computer tech science and osmosis Jones matrix talk, understand, SIMS, MAXIS, EA. Yeah. Don’t even bother attempting to make tour own till you all come together, wake up already and stop sinning!!!!! Lying and framing others is obviously a sin , I’m trying to help everyone wake up through my own embarrassing life soul story and I’m not even embarrassed cause truth sets you free, honesty, genuineality, empathy, research research research and ask to be guided to some past lives but don’t over do past in middle, do your own system like how mine jumps around and in end we all use ours to rubix cube together and heal all!~” Self reflect, self heal, fin out who YOU are don’t be others, or leads to major sin and perishing.. (computer talk I’m not doing it just saying how osmosis Jones virus’s work- bit of how system works but then sums it up so well I hope all I shared helps all I want to help more but it’s difficult at the moment I know once this matrix is healed more we will heal the entire egg and giant we are in!!! & where they live!!!~) (everyone will have their own book at end and then we all learn lessons and books together (book of Eli) and make a movie !! (Any art// expressing selves) (“big eyes” movie, if you steal any or hack and alter any of what Janine I wrote and don’t make YOUR OWN written piece you’ll end up doing the ending to yourself but worse, persisted darted out you fart brains wake tf up, stop hacking and be LEGAL about this, all of what I just said in more, shame on you and I understand why you’re so scared and embarrassed even more cause you’ll just keep feeling more and more messed up with what you’re doing, good luck feeling like you actually won in the end, you’ll be janined with the ones stealing now big fart baby heads bloody red “kingqueen” king candy) like I see you cringe at and boring af rn, you never win you’re literally stealing someone’s fucking life story, I feel more embarrassed to be those stealing just wake up teach that lesson and self reflect, share so others learn your lesson and help someone else grow,plant seeds not steal

[isaacsapphire]

I agree that some of the costs are costs of prohibition, and ending prohibition would possibly alleviate some costs. It would also result in endemic advertising and sales of addictive substances that are currently controlled substances. Oxy was very pure, and very available once, and it still destroyed lives even before the laws against it destroyed lives. The corporations already make every consumable and phone game as addictive as possible, don't deluded yourself into thinking they're not salivating at the prospect of selling the Good Stuff at every corner store.

People like to inject in nice places that make them feel good, like parks and playgrounds, and they drop the needle because of the hit. None of that changes with legalization. And a lot of addicts are broke and homeless because of addiction, so classy for profit injection sites (read: neo opium dens, just what your cyberpunk distopia was missing!) are going to be out of their price range once they're hooked.

I stand by my vote for marijuana legalization, but by now that's in large part because I've repeatedly seen it to be a far safer and less harmful alternative to alcohol, for both the user and everyone around them (only downsides for bystanders are secondhand smoke, the odor, and the fire danger inherent to any kind of smoking if it's smoked. Also annoying giggling).

But I'm tired of the sharps. I'm tired of "is that guy passed out or dead?" I'm tired of watching people kill themselves by inches and dancing on the knife's edge daily, or sweat and puke and shit and cry for days at best trying to kick the habit. I'm tired of knowing this is getting routine. I'm tired of watching people who won't pay the price of violence and sharps in their neighborhood and workplace and community snootely refute that awareness of the human cost is relevant to having an option @tanadrin . I'm tired of watching intelligent people think it can't happen to them @rationalists .

I'm tired of people in the class poised to profit pretend that this is a pure moral position. Be honest, say, "I want to burn people alive for profit" or "I'm so fucking stupid I'm shilling for people who want to burn me alive for profit."

Any of us can end of a gutter junkie, hoping someone would let us suck their cock for a hit. Any of us could watch our lives go up our noses, into a vein, or the lives of people we love. The line is so fucking thin, one personal tragedy poorly coped with, one car accident, a taste of the bullet with your name on it.

And the corporations are champing at the bit to light us all on fire to make a buck, they've done it again and again and again, with different substances, in different countries, and they do not care about you or anyone you love. The world runs on addiction and it has for a very long time. The US government flooded Black communities with crack. Entire nation states have destroyed each other with addictive substances before, that's how we got Hong Kong FFS. Don't shill for people who want to kill you.

I think there's like, a discussion to be had about addiction and medication and stuff but you can't kill yourself with SSRIs and they're like impossible to abuse so like. I should really just be able to buy them otc. Ditto with my trans meds

[peakwealth]

The Year 2020

'Cos when the madman flips the switch The nuclear will go for me The lunatics have taken over the asylum

(Lyrics from The Fun Boy Three, British pop group, 1981)

*  *  *

The world has been in one crisis or another for so long now, it gets harder to remember when things still seemed to be in balance, or when they started to spin out of control. When did this slow agony start, the malaise that won't go away, the chaos and distopia year after year?

Or was it always like this?

I'm not thinking so much about the coronavirus epidemic, but about the other man-made disaster that kept us on edge throughout the year, the US elections.

Looking for answers, my first, intuitive stop remains the morning of September 11, 2001 when the world order was convulsed in that split second needed for an airliner to fly into the World Trade Center. It may be that our understanding of that day is still skewed by the deep symbolism of the visuals: the fire ball, the people jumping to their deaths, the towers collapsing on themselves, the mountain of smoking rubble. Images that came to define our age. But what seems certain is that the big wheel of history ground to a standstill on that day and when it started up again, it had gone into reverse. That regression has not stopped, indeed it is still gathering pace and is very much in evidence as 2020 comes to a chaotic end.

Of course, 9/11 was the outcome of forces set in motion much earlier including the Iranian revolution in 1979 when an unsmiling, bearded imam left Paris and arrived in Tehran. The world would never be the same, but we in the West did not realize it.

Donald Trump's seemingly farcical plea to Make America Great Again can be traced back to either of those events and to the American failure to make sense of them -- the end of the pax Americana, the myth of American exceptionalism, the twilight of the colonial world order that had been in the making for five hundred years. Americans closed ranks and reacted with defiant nationalism after 9 /11. Then they took their revenge to the world and declared War on Terror - just as the terrorists had intended.

Those events are still within living memory. Looking back further, historians like to point to the invention of moveable type which ushered in the information age and, with it, modernity. The first books 'rolling off' Johannes Gutenberg's press were bibles. But not for long. Since the printing press couldn't be controlled, books conveyed a profusion of radically new ideas. They brought democratization and they spread dissent. Think Martin Luther, or Copernicus, great disrupters of the sixteenth century.

But Donald Trump?

Was Trump the accidental result of reality TV, celebrity culture and internet-driven narcissism? Or did his flirtation with autocratic rule herald the necrosis of western democracies? Was Trump merely the symbol of America's irreconcilable differences, of the slow dissolution of white patriarchy or was he the inevitable outcome of late-stage capitalism, as some have suggested?

Where should we look? The Trump years have produced a cottage industry of scholarly attemtps to explain how something like this could happen, how the United States could start to degenerate like that. Where do we find the logic that would lead to this turning point in history?

Without pretending that I could add to this (lack of) understanding, I must admit that the question is compelling. It kept me busy all year, or at least until the American presidential election was finally over.

I have tried to approach the matter from a few angles.

*  *  *

The problem with books. (Bejar, Spain, November 2020)

*  *  *

Attempt A

Multiplication of the box

I remember the deep dark varnish of our first television set, an imposing piece of furniture sitting on rather slender round legs. The cardboard box it had arrived in was large enough to serve as my play house, with a door and windows, until it got rained on one day. The TV set itself started to hum when you turned it on and needed time to warm up before the picture appeared, monochrome of course. From the back you could see the glowing tubes inside and smell the dusty heat they emitted. When one of the tubes failed, the repairman had to come.

There was one channel, run by the Belgian state and broadcasting for a few hours in the evening. It seemed adequate at the time. More would have been too much. Programming was low-tech. The national weatherman stood in front of a flip chart and drew the weather map by hand: rainclouds here, sunshine there (though not so much) and low or high pressure fronts further afield, most likely over the Azores.

In fact there was another state channel but it was for the French speaking part of Belgium and thus foreign to us in Flanders. Furthermore there was a knob to switch the unit from standard definition (625  lines) to the broadcast standard in France which had 819 lines and allowed us, in theory, to capture programming from RTF, la Radio-télévision française across the border. Although we never did, I remember le général Charles de Gaulle addressing the French nation with a grandiloquent 'Françaises, Français!' followed by a theatrical pause. I used to imitate him as a child. 'Françaises, Français!'. I had never been to France.

This went on for some years until we upgraded to colour. The new set also allowed us to watch two channels from Holland. Although the programming rotated between party-political and religious organizations, everything that was Dutch looked more sophisticated. It probably was. Eventually cable TV came along and, like everyone else, we moved to twelve channels, then twenty-four, then hundreds after which the numbers became meaningless. Today the distinction between television and the internet has faded as billions of people have become broadcasters, sending and receiving videos on their phones every day.

In a matter of only two or three generations technology has increased our awareness and our exposure to reality from the very local to the infinitely global. From smudgy local newspapers to single-channel black-and-white TV to the torrent of youTube and Whatsapp. Each increment, each multiplication of channels and choices has fragmented our common understanding of what the world is like. This means not only that every problem in every corner of the world has become our problem, it also signals that reality itself has split into a billion pieces and has become complex, uncertain and unstable. We all live in our own bubble of perception, increasingly removed from the broader context that used to bring coherence to society. While some of us embrace the complexity of the 21st century, to others it translates as confusion and anxiety. It is a reality they have retreated from.

Personally, I put my last TV on the sidewalk fifteen years ago, the very set I had used to watch the unfolding history on the morning of 9/11. It was still working, someone picked it up.

*  *  *

Gone in 2020 but not forgotten.

*  *  *

Attempt B

Entertainment Forever

Long ago, when General Electric was one of America's preeminent industrial giants, it owned the Radio Corporation of America (known by the once ubiquitous acronym RCA) which in turn owned the National Broadcasting Company or NBC. America's first radio network was founded in New York City in 1926 "in the interest of the listening public" and in order to transmit, among other things, baseball scores. NBC television started in 1939 and (fuzzy) colour came in 1954. Announcing the birth of broadcast television in the USA, David Sarnoff, NBC's pioneering founder, described it as 'so important in its implications that it is bound to affect all society'.

Indeed it has.

Like Donald Trump, Roone Arledge (1931-2002) was born in Queens, New York. After a stint at NBC television he joined the rival ABC network as a sports producer in 1960. He soon started to rewrite the book on television production, putting his stamp on the world we live in. Starting at the Munich Olympic games in 1972, ABC ran a series of intimate portraits of Olympic athletes, called 'Up Close and Personal'. The words became shorthand for what sports would look like on American TV. The visual grammar shifted from being 'coverage' of events to a one-on-one experience with the viewer, a personal touch.

The formula jumped species in 1977 when Arledge became president of ABC News, one of the three commercial US networks with large news operations. The avuncular news readers of old (Walter Cronkite on CBS) gave way to a personality driven approach. Anyone remember Barbara Walters or Mike Wallace? As production values became a lot flashier, all of television became more like entertainment, including the news - just another 'show' looking for an audience and revenue.

The next milestone on the road to trash TV was 'Entertainment Tonight' (launched in 1981 and still going today, making it the longest running syndicated show on American cable TV). Shockingly and confusingly, it used a news format without being actual news. As the boundaries between news and entertainment started to blur, so did the distinction between gossip and verifiable fact. Credibility and substance faded from televison news, replaced by looks, celebrity, lifestyle, etc. Network comedy shows became major purveyors of political commentary. This cross-pollination of genres is still spreading today as journalists are being replaced by content originators, human today, most likely virtual tomorrow. In other words: commerce is still gaining ground while reality is losing traction.

When 'Big Brother' came along in 1997, so-called reality shows moved to the centre of the entertainment landscape. By that time the medium had evolved well beyond UC&P. Four-and-a-half years ago, I reflected on how reality TV had become "manipulative, sadistic and liberating - from caution, from human empathy and from rational thought. What wasn’t perhaps so crystal clear at the beginning was how trash TV would inflect politics, how it tapped into the disillusionment of a burgeoning global underclass. Barely perceptible then, the phenomenon eventually turned into rage against the political establishment and anything associated with it. The anger came from both sides of the political divide, from the rebelliousness of the Occupy movement on the left and from the fear-driven populism on the right."

Out of this fantasy world of uninhibited entertainment, celebrity and alienation stepped Donald Trump and declared he was running for the presidency of the United States. Four years of monosyllabic misrule later, he left America as damaged goods, a nation at war with itself.

Attempt C

Fact check till you drop

Watching the news on commercial TV at the local coffee shop few weeks ago, I was struck by the rough, frenzied pace of the editing. The stories were cut with an axe, as we used to say in the business. No shot lasted more than a second and the interview clips did not exceed three seconds. Far from being careful storytelling, it was pure media mash, exhausting to watch and obviously designed to keep the viewers hooked and the ratings up.

I wondered how anyone subjected to such visual bombardment could make sense of the news, complicated as it is, and not become neurotic or disoriented in one way or another? OK, I may be a little naive for it can be argued it's been like this since the invention of the cinema in 1895. Our brains have had more than a century to adapt to the stimulus of the ever moving, ever accelerating image. We've had manic TV commercials and split-second music videos for forty years, ever since MTV was launched in New York in 1981. People scroll trough their devices as fast as their thumbs will let them, consuming hundreds of images per minute.

But information programming should be different, or it used to be. News was supposed to be 'readable' as fact-based information viewers could easily de-code to figure out what was happening around them. Except that, for many, it isn't anymore.

Post-truthism didn't start with Donald Trump, but the perversion of reality took an ugly turn with him. The very words, 'truth', 'lies', have come to seem quaint, suspect, disfigured. In the early days of his presidency, armies of diligent fact checkers went to work to expose each and every presidential lie. They toiled in vain. Trump, the real estate salesman and former casino owner, lied without fear or favour, he had nothing but contempt for evidence-based reality and for those whose job it was to convey it. He scolded journalists, telling them they should be ashamed of themselves. His followers loved it. They were grateful for the steady stream of twisted thinking, incoherence and outright lies because they were in sync with their own prejudices - no, make that their own beliefs.

*  *  *

Disinformation and antisemitism. (Spanish pamphlet, claiming George Soros is the driving force behind Catalan separatism, displayed in the window of a local bookshop. Málaga, July 2020)

*  *  *

Attempt D

 Put God back into the USA

"To a great many Americans, digital communication has already rendered empirical, observable reality beside the point." 

Farhad Manjoo, writing in the New York Times, Oct 21, 2020.

Those Americans, it seems, believed that Donald Trump was divinely appointed to be president of the USA and to make America great again. God's will had been done and should not be thwarted by voters. Clearly, if they believed that, they believed anything. That the coronavirus was an evil plot or that COVID 19 could be stopped by injecting yourself with Lysol disinfectant or eating pods of laundry detergent. If Bill Gates was funding vaccines that would turn god-fearing dairy farmers into atheists, then George Soros was the mastermind behind it all. Or was it Warren Buffett?  Communists were plotting a coup. Why not?

The mood got more unhinged and delusional as the year unfolded. Pro life, pro God, pro gun. Stop socialism. Put God back into the USA. When election day finally came, Democrats and Republicans rushed to the polls to save the country from the other side. Country hicks to one side, big-city satanists to the other. Although sanity eventually prevailed, it was touch and go. Far from repudiating Trump and holding him to account, more than seventy-four million Americans voted to let him stay in office.

In other words, although Trump and his royal court have been sidelined for now, the threat of an erratic America remains, driven by suspicion, ready to go off the rails again. The unbending fervour of fundamentalist Christians, focused on the abomination of abortion and the deviancy of LGBTQ+ rights has reached an intensity that is ever more reminiscent of Islamist extremism.

Mis and disinformation aren't new. Nor are they specific to any country. Most advertising qualifies as such. But the impaired thinking, the decline of reason and the contempt for manifest reality reached bizarre heights in 2020 and not only because Donald Trump used disinformation with such abandon. It looked more like a crisis of mental health propagated by social media. An American study found that young people were more likely to believe online conspiracy theories while only those over 65 had a secure grip on reality.

Social media drove the loss of empathy and civility, they normalized hate speech, they empowered virus deniers and antivaxxers. Finally they legitimized many Americans in their belief that the election had been ‘stolen’.

It was obvious, four years ago, that a Trump presidency would have incalculable consequences. But it was worse than almost anyone could have predicted. It wasn't about his vulgarity or his philistinism. The power vacuum created by having an idiot king in the White House made the world a more dangerous place where malevolent autocrats could do as they pleased because the West had lost whatever credibility and leverage it used to have.

The new era of impunity pushed hundreds of millions of citizens further into the arms of dictators and autocrats, plunderers and torturers around the world, from North Korea to Belarus, from Egypt to Myanmar because they knew they had a like-minded colleague in the White House. Political rivals could be poisoned and journalists jailed or disappared, it no longer mattered. Rather than restore America to greatness, Trump's monosyllabic rule brought decadence to the United States and ruin to global stability.

It still hasn't been widely grasped just how much power has shifted towards Russia and even more to China. The People's Republic is forging ahead in AI and machine learning, in aerospace, in digital currency, in quantum computing and in G6 data mobility. It is likely to give China an unassailable lead in technology and leave the West standing in the dust, complaining about totalitarianism.

The American election and the pandemic pushed almost everything else off the table in 2020, the explosion of Beirut's harbour, the Chinese clampdown in Hong Kong, quick-and-dirty wars in Ethiopia and Azerbaijan, global warming (open water near the north pole, smouldering Siberia, biblical wildfires in Australia), the popular uprisings in Minsk, Lagos, Kampala, Bangkok, etc.

Until the very end of this most difficult, gruesome year, the president of the Unted States did nothing but talk nonsense. He cared about nothing or anyone except himself.

As the cracks in American society widened and the disenchanted masses turned on each other, Donald Trump played golf and watched America burn. Already the race is on to stop him from being reelected four years from now.

*  *  *

Better luck next year.

[megamangx]

logans run 2 the fortnight wars

 but tit had been year since logan run had stoped distopin and made world into freedom world and thing was back to normal again “this is good time for a peace” said logan run and he was with his wife

but then his friend fromt he first movie the old man was there “logan please helping me the young people are trying to kill us with the music and the dancing” the old

logan gotted his laser pistol and want to invetgate the scen

it was then he saw the young people doing fortnight dances witch gived the old people heart atacks becuse they did not understanding the young people cultures “die old people” said the zoomer and he zoomed real fast with his speed powe and dabbed on the dead old people “you died of old”

logan aimed his laser gun “its not good to kil people we should come togther and find a batter way of doing the task” said login but the zoomers just laughed and fortnight danced

“we are going to make the old distopia again becuse it was better and killed all the not young people witch is how things should be and we will be young people forever so we be ok” and they did the ok emoji

it was there then there leader had come and it WAS LOGAIN PUAL!! “i am now presidant of the world and will kill anybody over 23 because that is old people age now and will have flags with my sexy face on them” laughed logan paul.

Logan run shot at him “cant let you do that BROTHER!” said logan becuse logan paul was his younger brother

authors note-this is becuse they had different dads so that is why hes called logan paul and not logan run

“fool i will kill you foolish bro and then film self with your bode to send a meassage to the country to fear my power” said logan paul

but the ground cracked and the piller men song played IT WAS THE ALPHAS “time to die boomers” the alphas said and the zoomers cheered “yes the alphas will help us”

but the alphas stated to beat them up and kill them “oh no the young generation is trying to repace us” screamed logan paul

“you made this haplen becuse you did not wanting to come together to fix world problems but wanted dividing and now you have raep what you soe” said logan run “please save us” said logan paul

and logan run looked down and said “no” and walked away as the world burning.

the end

remember we not anyting BUT THE HUMAN RACE!