#i should make another post of Shane being friends with alex

[i-demand-a-good-username]

Uh, anyway, Shane is actually besties with Sam (he'd rather die than admit it though) and they constantly do things to spite Joja and Sam can actually get a good reaction from Shane with some of his jokes. Sam and him were kind of awkward at first, but after a while Sam saw him at the saloon one day and went "HEY!! MY BUDDY SHANE!! COME PLAY POOL WITH US!!" so loudly across the building that everyone turned to stare and Shane almost sped-walked out of the place out of embarrassment (he def stayed and played pool but kept his head down to avoid stares).

Sam constantly talks about funny things Shane does and Abigail and Sebastian are like, "??? The quiet, grumpy town drunk??" But after Sam dragged Shane into so many pool games, Shane loosened up and started a tournament with the old arcade games between the four of them (he kicks everyone's asses at it) and now Seb and Abbi are starting to get it.

There's a competition between him and Sam on who can steal the largest item at Joja without getting caught (Shane has the lead with the pizza he gave farmer)

After Shane stops drinking, Sam is adamant on getting Shane to like joja-cola with him (he's not winning, unfortunately)

One time, Sam bet Shane that he could drink a 12-pack of Joja-cola during one break at work and threw up everywhere from the crazy amount of carbination it has (Even though Shane cried actual tears from laughter, Sam still owed him a pizza because Morris made Shane clean it 😭)

Shane will leave Sam maple bars in his work locker when Sam is having a hard time with his family and denies that it was him (Sam knows) His excuse when caught is that he and Jaz prefer the other donuts in the pack

Shane SUCKS at comforting others, but Sam appreciates the awkward conversation because it just means his buddy is trying to be a good friend.

They both run a secret page that basically makes fun of Morris by posting bad photos or just making a meme out of him

Uh, yeah, anyway. Sam and Shane are besties

[alfvaen]

Novel Chaos

October is a month, all about fall, and Halloween, and (in Canada) Thanksgiving. In some years I've done Janelle Shane's Botober daily AI-generated writing prompts, though the shine is off of AI right now… (This year she recycled some older AI-generated text for the prompts and I don't blame her.) This year I didn't try to do daily writing, though I have been trying to do weekly writing at least, and post some of my writing exercises.

But right now I'm here to talk about the books I read during the month. (I started these monthly posts last November, so now I've been doing them for a full year!) Potential spoilers within for Jessie Mihalik's "Consortium Rebellion" series, Diana Rowland's "White Trash Zombie" series, and Jane Lindskold's "Firekeeper" series.

Jessie Mihalik: Chaos Reigning, completed October 3

I grabbed this one on impulse, and didn't think too much about it. After all, it's SF and not fantasy (even gaslamp fantasy) like the last book, and it would close off another trilogy. I've been kind of linking these books with the Rachel Bach trilogy in my head and trying not to read those too close together. In hindsight, as I was writing up the C.L. Polk book I read before it, one thing that these series do have in common is the romance elements. But thinking of it more, that's not enough to make them overly similar.

I'm not a huge romance reader. I have dutifully tried a few, but I have never felt particularly comfortable with the genre. I'm not saying that it's a bad genre, that romance books are bad and nobody should read them, or any of the wilder anti-romance viewpoints I've heard out there, but nonetheless the inclusion of romance tropes can detract from my enjoyment of a book. And maybe it's just the female-hetero-POV ones, appreciation of the male form and stuff, that gets me, maybe it's a lot of cultural conditioning on me, maybe it's a character flaw in me. But I don't care for it that much. I'm reading this anyway, though, aren't I? (Even if it's "in spite of" rather than "because of".)

Anyway, the series is about three sisters from one of these high-tech corporate Houses. This book focuses on Catalina a.k.a. "Cat", the youngest of the family, prone to being underestimated and acting all superficial, but as a child she was given secret (and illegal) genetic modifications to make her fast and strong. Her house, Van Hasenberg, is at war with a rival house, and Cat ends up going to a high-class multi-day party to try to get some more information. Her sister Bianca (from Book 2) insists she bring along a couple of bodyguards, and that she fake-date one of them so he'll have better access. Cat drags her feet but reluctantly agrees. (So it's not only a fake-dating romance and a bodyguard romance, but both at once!) Said bodyguard, Alex, also appeared in Book Two, though I only vaguely remember him.

During the party, assassins show up and try to kill Cat and several other nobles (including her friend Ying), as part of what turns out to be a coordinated attack on all the noble houses, and Cat is forced to go on the run and try to save the day, with Alex (and Ying's) help. In the process she finds love (though the full physical consummation gets interrupted several times before they finally manage it) and herself.

The romance feels a little…I dunno, smooth? I never get the sense that there's that many obstacles in their path, apart from perhaps Cat's own self-doubts and paranoia about her illegal mods being found out. And getting over her annoyance at Bianca foisting Alex and his partner on her in the first place. They didn't feel like serious problems. But it's okay, because I liked the SF plot well enough, so I enjoyed the book overall, and maybe I'll try the other trilogy we have of hers at some point.

Stephen King: Different Seasons, completed October 9

Now I realize that I have already read a Stephen King book this year, Under The Dome back in April. And it was technically two books, in paperback, at least. But you know, the guy doesn't stick to only publishing one book a year, so I'm not going to feel too bad about this. I wanted a book by a male author, and it's October so it's spooky season, and what with one thing and another, in my current schedule it'd be like seven more books before I could get an untyped male author slot to stick this into, and October will almost certainly be over by then.

It may seem surprising that I haven't read this one already. Well, as I may have mentioned before, I didn't really start reading King seriously until the 90s, by which point he already had a few books out, and I confess that I was mostly concentrating on novels. I did like Four Past Midnight, though, and I have been meaning to get to this one. I think we didn't even have a copy for a while, which may have held me back. And I ended up reading Skeleton Crew and Night Shift first. But now, here it is.

I'd consider this to really be the last book in my Stephen King backfilling. After this, I will have read everything up to, like, well, Lisey's Story. (Assuming you don't count Thinner. Or Black House. Shut up.) I've been trying to alternate backfilling with forward progress, but after this it will be full steam ahead! Ish.

I am already somewhat familiar with most of this book anyway. After all, three of the novellas were made into movies, right? Definitely "Shawshank Redemption", and "The Body" became "Stand By Me", and I think that I remember seeing ads for a movie called "Apt Pupil" which I'm assuming is the same. Only the fourth one, whose name I can't even recall offhand, I know nothing about. I haven't actually seen any of the movies, but quite frankly I'm pretty sure I remember the twist in "Shawshank Redemption", or least the movie, from some Cracked article years ago. I actually knew very little about the plot of "The Body", though, so I was looking forward to that one. The fourth one, I hadn't even heard of before.

What I guess I hadn't realized about this, though, is how mainstream these stories are. "Shawshank Redemption" (after hearing about the movie so much it seems wrong to call it "Rita Hayworth And Shawshank Redemption", too wordy) is a story about some guys in prison; "Apt Pupil" is about the teenager fascinated with Nazis, and "The Body" is just about some kids going on a cross-country adventure. "The Breathing Method" has some vague supernatural implications, in the mysterious nature of the gentleman's club our protagonist joins, so it is at least "uncanny", I suppose, and the story within the story has definite horror overtones.

So to some extent it's a bit of a letdown. "Shawshank Redemption" is mildly clever, I suppose, though once again I knew the twist at the end. "Apt Pupil" was mostly just sordid, with a pair of unsavoury characters who both take to killing off "winos" (revealing picture of how homeless people at the time were perceived--"winos" or "bag ladies", all of them the dregs of society who won't be missed), and while they get their comeuppance at the end, I did not enjoy following them for 180 pages. "The Body" was okay, I guess; I had seen the train bridge excerpt from the movie, and I was vaguely aware of the pie-eating contest scene as well, though I had no idea that was just from a story and not part of the actual events. (Yeah, two of Gordie's stories are included, and I couldn't tell you why he put in the other one because it didn't fit at all.) "The Breathing Method" is a story about an offbeat gentleman's club where they tell stories, which is a reasonably common trope, with an even shorter story about the titular method encapsulated inside it; the inner story is macabre, the other story a little light on conflict if heavy on atmosphere.

So now I guess I'm slightly more interested in the movies "Shawshank Redemption" and "Stand By Me", though probably not "Apt Pupil", and at least I've read it once and maybe that'll be it.

Jack L. Chalker: The River of Dancing Gods, completed October 12

I first encountered Jack L. Chalker through one of my friends reading one of the Well World books, and it looked kind of interesting so I tried it out. I loved it and read the whole series. I read his Four Lords of The Diamond series (though out of order at first because it was based on what the library had), and his Flux & Anchor/Soul Rider series, and basically everything of his I could find. His work was mostly based around transformation--whether it was the Well of Souls transforming you into some alien race, or some wizard from Flux, or whatever, people were constantly getting transformed, sometimes into animals, sometimes into sex slaves, sometimes into the other sex, whatever. I particularly liked the Well World because it was a planet made up of different hex-shaped artificial environments for a sampling of alien races, and I spent many happy hours trying to fill in the complete map and populate them with alien races from other books. I even tried to draw one or two of the aliens, though my artistic ability was never great.

At some point it all began to pall a bit, and I never finished his last series, and then he died shortly after that (I had the opportunity to meet him at the one Worldcon I attended, but I was too late to sign up for his Kaffeeklatsch so it didn't happen). His series did get a little samey, and later ones a little perfunctory. And it's been a while since I reread any of them. In recent years, with pressure to weed my collection a bit, I ended up just getting rid of some of the books and series I hadn't gotten as attached to (like the Changewinds series and Web of The Chozen). But some of them were kind of on the bubble so I wasn't quite sure.

This all heavily mirrors what happened with Piers Anthony, who was also one of my favourite authors around the same time; the big difference is that Piers Anthony didn't die (yet) and instead kept churning out books I was progressively less interested in, not to mention getting a little bit too interested in writing about relationships with young teenage girls. I reread his Incarnations of Immortality series a couple of years ago (and ended up just keeping the first book, I think, at the end). And now it's time for me to re-evaluate an old Chalker series.

The Dancing Gods series was intended as light fantasy, I guess. Most of what I remember about it is that our main characters are a couple of people from our world who cross over (making it a portal fantasy) to a fantasy realm where the rules are written down, literally, in a huge series of tomes that basically encapsulate all the fantasy clichés and tropes Chalker could think of. (Which reminds me a lot of Tom Sawyer's insistence on adhering to all those tropes and clichés in the prison rescue in Huckleberry Finn.) And those rules literally become the way the world works, like laws of nature. So it's intended to be a literal parody or pastiche or something. But I remember one or two elements from the books that have lingered with me over the years, so I decided to reread them and see if they had any overall redeeming value.

It's not particularly madcap or anything, this isn't Craig Shaw Gardner or Robert Asprin here, and it takes a while to get past the part where the fantasy realm wizard (Throckmorton Ruddygore) convinces our protagonists (Joe and Marge) to leave their world behind (where they were about to die in a road accident anyway) and cross over. And then they need to acclimatize to the world and train (Joe as a barbarian, Marge as a sorceress, ho hum--this kind of thing is why I was pleasantly surprised in Barbra Hambly's Darwath series when the woman became the fighter and the man became the wizard). Then we get some transformations--Joe because he runs into a Circean witch and gets turned into a bull, and Marge because she's been infused with faerie blood to speed up her training.

Our actual quest has to do with retrieving a magic lamp that grants wishes (though the twist is that it only grants you one wish for free, and if you make a second wish then you swap places with the genie), and it's also a little slow to get going, with a few random incidents, but the genie section is nicely interesting, and then we get the climactic battle with the dark lord's armies at the end. And the promise of sequels, of course, which is also in The Rules.

It's kind of on the bubble as far as keeping it goes. It's kind of short and isn't particularly funny, but it feels like it has something going for it other than trying to be funny. I guess I'll see how the other books in the series hold up. But I can tell that this likely won't be the only one in the series I keep.

Wesley Chu: The Art of Prophecy, completed October 19

After a reread, according to my cycle, it's time for either trying a book by a new author or reading a diversity book. I knew it was supposed to be a male author, and so I ended up grabbing one of the few male diversity books I have available right now, from the recent Wesley Chu series, The War Arts Saga. And only belatedly did I think to myself, wait, was it supposed to be trying a new author instead? and sure enough, it was. But oh, well, it'll be fine.

I've tried a few other Wesley Chu series, but I don't know if I've finished one yet. I read Time Salvager, but haven't been able to get a copy of the sequel Time Siege yet. I read The Births of Pi and The Deaths of Pi, but I wasn't sure about continuing to The Rebirths of Pi so I don't have that one. But this one looked interesting and I decided to pick it up, even in trade paperback. My wife has already read it and we've bought the sequel (we thought it was just a duology, but apparently there's a third one, which I suppose is not unexpected), so the chance that I will finish it are pretty decent, as long as this one doesn't suck or something.

The basic premise is that there's a teenage boy, Wen Jian, who has been prophesied from birth to be the one who defeats the Great Khan of the Katuia, but when warmaster Ling Taishi checks up on his training, she discovers he's being pampered and pulled different ways by too many competing masters, so she takes over instead. And then…the Great Khan gets killed in a random skirmish while he's drunk out of his mind, and the ruling Dukes decide that the prophesied hero is too much of a liability and they need to dispose of him, and Taishi and Jian go on the lam to try to figure out what went wrong with the prophecy.

The setting seems fairly medieval-Chinese, at least at first. And then we get POV from some of the Katuia refugees, on the "Sea of Grass"…which has grass blades large enough to climb and jump off of. And frequent sinkholes into what seems to be an actual sea underneath the Sea of Grass. And also the nomadic Katuia travel around the Sea of Grass in some kind of mechanized cities, possibly with steam technology? Also there are three moons. So it seems at least secondary-world, and an outside chance that this is one of those supposed secondary-world fantasies which is actually an SF colony world? So the setting is interesting, and by the middle of the book we end up cycling POV between the three main characters (Jian, Taishi, and Salminde of the Katuia), often with good chapter-end cliffhangers, and I didn't end up finding any of the POVs a real slog to get through (always a risk with multiple-POV books).

In the end it's pretty satisfying, with plenty of high-energy martial arts fights with bonus magic powers that work well on the page. My biggest gripe is that while there is a lovely illustrated map at the front, it has some huge omissions. Where's the Sea of Grass, for instance? Any time there's a map, it should have all the places in the story on the map so that you can always look them up.

Diana Rowland: White Trash Zombie Apocalypse, completed October 23

Time for another non-male author, and I felt like in honour of the spooky season it should be something…with zombies, maybe? Which either meant the fourth Mira Grant zombie book, Feedback, or the next Diana Rowland White Trash Zombie book. And I feel like I have kind of been neglecting the Diana Rowland (even if her zombies are less horror-y), so I went with that one.

Diana Rowland is on the (very) short list of authors that I discovered when I went to the World Fantasy Convention when they were in Calgary and ended up at the banquet sharing a table with a number of strangers--and since this was WFC, most of them were authors. I guess I don't remember everyone who was at the table, but Carrie Vaughn was definitely there (I had read her first book already so I didn't technically discover her there), as well as Mary Robinette Kowal (as I believe I mentioned previously) and also Diana Rowland. Her first book hadn't actually come out yet, but I made sure to pick it up as soon as it did. That was the first book of her Kara Gillian urban fantasy series, Mark of The Demon, and I've been following that closely since it came out.

It's reasonably common for an urban fantasy writer to start a side series, either with a different main character in the same world (like Patricia Briggs and Faith Hunter have done), or in a completely different world. (Yes, I suppose in general it's not unknown for a writer to have two series going at the same time, but work with me here.) If the series are in the same world, when I will generally try to keep up with them in chronological order as they relate to each other, like with the Patricia Briggs "Alpha & Omega" series relative to her Mercy Thompson books. (Publication order often works too, of course.) Otherwise I'll tend to stick with the one series as long as I'm enjoying it, and then maybe jump ship for the other one if the first series starts to pall. In this case, it was more that the Kara Gillian books were coming out more slowly, so I had time to go and read the White Trash Zombie ones in between. (I was following Rowland on Facebook back when I was on Facebook, and it sounds like she had a lot of crap going on in her life, so no judgement.)

Anyway, the titular character of the White Trash Zombie series is Angel Crawford, a low-income high school dropout (in Rowland's home state of Louisiana) who one day wakes up and finds out that she's been turned into a zombie. These are not supernatural zombies, as far as I can tell, nor are they mindless zombies--they've been infected with a parasite that requires them to consume brains to stay healthy. If they consume enough, then they can even have some super-strength, -speed, and -healing abilities, and the potential for outright immortality. (And, of course, if they don't, then they are overcome by insatiable cravings until they start attacking people and trying to eat their brains.) It turns out that she actually had gotten in an accident and a good samaritan had given her the zombie parasite to heal her; later she got hooked up with the ideal zombie job, working in a morgue, where there's lots of discarded brains for the consuming. She meets up with her saviour and other powerful zombie figures, and has to deal with those who want to use zombies for their own nefarious ends.

So yes, zombies are being rehabilitated into "they're also people with special nutritional needs". And unfortunate instinctual behaviours if those needs aren't satisfied… Does that make them allegories for drug addicts? So far, at least, it seems that they can't just "kick the habit". And it seems like a harmful stereotype to say that drug addicts turn into ravening monsters when denied their fix. But perhaps it's drawing some parallels here anyway? Angel was a drug user before her zombification, and now if she does drugs or even drinks or smokes, all it does is use up her supply of brain prions faster.

The titles from this series are often references to other titles--My Life As A White Trash Zombie, Even White Trash Zombies Get The Blues, How The White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back, even White Trash Zombie Gone Wild… This one is more of a stretch. After all, this is not the last book in the series, and there's no apocalypse. Angel does get caught in a flood at some point after days of torrential rain, which I suppose is mildly catastrophic, at least, but mostly I guess the title is justified by the fact that, in the background of events, there's a movie being filmed at a nearby high school, "High School Zombie Apocalypse!!" (I know titles are hard, especially when you establish a strong theme and then you have to stick with it even when it doesn't apply…)

Overall I liked the book; Angel is starting to feel less like just "white trash" and integrating into a new community (of zombies) that accept her for what she is. She goes through a lot, but comes out stronger. But I still want to finish the Kara Gillian series before I go on to the next one…

Jane Lindskold: Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart, October 31

Time for another female author, and I felt like maybe it was time for one of those big thick epic fantasies, possibly one that has been sitting on my shelf for a while.

Jane Lindskold has been around for a while, but I haven't actually read much of her. I'd first read Marks of Our Brothers from the library, which I seem to recall was SF, and not much else about it. She did a collaboration with Roger Zelazny called Donnerjack which I think we have but I haven't read. At some point she started coming out with this big thick fantasy series about a girl raised by wolves or something, and eventually I read the first book, Through Wolf's Eyes. It was somewhat on the bubble for me, which is why it's not until nine years later that I'm getting around to reading the next book. (It is also, as I mentioned, big thick fantasy, almost 800 pages, and Goodreads Challenge has been skewing my reading choices towards shorter books, so maybe that hasn't helped.) And this book also came out a while ago--in the acknowledgements section the author talks about how difficult the past year has been, and it turns out that that past year was 2001 (in which, famously, things happened), so it's not a classic fantasy series from the 80s or anything, but it's still less recent than a lot of the books I read these days (2010s vintage, in particular, for the urban fantasy).

There seems to be a trope out there, not all that common but still not unknown, of having a character with an interesting background, perhaps raised in solitude or something, who then ends up getting dropped into what seems like a fairly generic fantasy scenario. C.J. Cherryh's Fortress In The Eye of Time, for instance, or Michelle Sagara's "The Sundered", maybe Gwyneth Jones's Divine Endurance (it's been a while since I read it), Rebecca Bradley's "Lady In Gil" series… Sometimes the fantasy scenario gets a boost from the interesting character, and sometimes it drains away all their interestingness and results in generic plot.

Anyway, it's been a while, obviously, so we'll see how easily I can get reoriented into the actual story. It turns out that our wolf-girl, Firekeeper, showed up in the human kingdoms with her giant wolf friend, she encountered human civilization for the first time, made some friends, and meanwhile in local fantasy politics there was some strife which ended in a regime change, and that's book one. In general we seem to spend as much time with Firekeeper's friends as we do with Firekeeper herself, but the reintroduction here was pretty good. We have Elise, the minor noblewoman who's kind of in love with a lower-class healer guy who everyone calls Doc, and we have Derian, the son of a successful stablekeeper who now has the ear of a king. We also have some bad guys, not least the deposed leader from the first book. There's some weddings, there's assassination attempts. And there is, apparently, a history of colonialism.

See, the kingdoms here are actually more or less colonies from overseas, though I think they've lost contact with the original kingdoms. There was a big plague which happened a century ago and preferentially killed people with magical talent, and as a result magic is generally distrusted and magic-users considered evil. And also, the sentient animals (not just wolves, but all sorts of birds and mammals and maybe even reptiles, idk) were kind of driven out of the coastal realms by the humans, particularly the mages, back in the day. Oh, the animals fought among each other, too, but they're very ashamed of it. (Totally not First Nations-coded here, oh no.) The humans have mostly forgotten about them and while they did want to see Firekeeper back with her people, they're not particularly eager to remind the humans at large about their existence.

Meanwhile, deposed monarch took some magic stuff with them when they fled. The new monarch kind of wants it back, and the animals want Firekeeper to confiscate it from the humans and bring it to them for safekeeping, and there's our plot. They end up having to go to the neighbouring realm of New Kelvin, where sorcery is much more respected, though it turns out they don't have any of it themselves. The primary antagonist, Lady Melina Shield, is seen in the POV of a couple of vaguely villain-coded characters, but we don't get her POV directly, which I think is quite effective, since she is clearly an accomplished (and possibly magically-aided) manipulator.

Firekeeper is a central character, but not necessarly the main one, though she does have a character arc, as does Elise; Derian, not so much, but it's fine. The main climax of the book seems to come about two-thirds of the way through; there's one after it, but it has lower stakes and is more of an anticlimax. Overall I found the book charming and almost cozy in the early parts, with more action and tension coming later. I feel better about the series now and am more inclined to continue on, perhaps in less than nine years.

For nonfiction, I'm about halfway through Ed Yong's An Immense World, but I took a break to read some more Marvel comics (up to May 1994), and cut down on the puzzle games a bit. Hopefully I'll finish An Immense World before the end of the year at least, and I'm also feeling like reading some more from that Love & Rockets bundle sometime soon.

Also, we did watch "Stand By Me" on Halloween, and now I'm beginning to think that right after reading something is not the best time to watch the movie adaptation. I enjoyed River Phoenix and Wil Wheaton's performances, but mostly there was a lot of trying to remember if it was exactly the same as the novella or not. (And similar effects with our watching the "Under The Dome" TV series. That's on the back burner now as we power through Series Seven of Doctor Who from the library, though.)

[ihatebnha]

You're probably swamped so no pressure at all to do mine, but if you have a chance to do a matchup for me I like dying my hair, stardew valley and minecraft, and basically any creative hobby. I'm a sensitive bitch and tend to give all of my friends advice on emotional stuff, I value loyalty, and tend to think very realistically about relationships. I'm also introverted, my favorite color changes pretty much on the daily, and my music taste is all over the place.

I hope you have a nice night, take care of yourself 🥺

i hope in the time its taken me to get to this, you've taken care of yourself, too! <3

matchups: closed!

-

Please don't be mad at me, but I'm getting really big Aizawa vibes from you!

I really feel like Aizawa needs someone equally as realistic as him, but not necessarily as uptight, so with you being emotionally aware enough to understand relationships as well as more introverted + sensitive (and LOYAL)... you guys would really end up clicking.

I also think he'd really admire the way you're able to help your friends and enjoy the more leisurely side of things with your creative nature, too... especially because he's such a workaholic with no time to explore that side of things himself!

Plus, as much of a hardass as he is... he'd probably enjoy participating in your hobbies, too. Helping to dye your hair, grading papers while you game... watching you marry someone else on Stardew Valley as he cuddles you...

Yep... I'd say he'd love your presence.

[stardew-saloon]

Weird headcannon request: what would your favorite villagers do in an apocalypse

Listen listen listen. I fucking love anything to do with the apocalypse, especially when zombies are involved. So I’ll write about that !!

This one took a while, sorry ! I wanted to include at least all of the bachelors, and then bachelorettes in another post maybe if I’m not lazy.

Also I follow someone on my other account and I really liked how they like, used different colors to highlight names, so I think I’m gonna do that ! It’s just cute okay :)

Bachelors in the Apocalypse

Alex

Alex thinks of himself as the most ready for the apocalypse. He’s got what he and his family need to survive for months. Food, weapons (Mostly just old baseball bats), clothes, and the Will to Survive.

The zombies probably come from Zuzu city. City people are dumb and get infected right when the virus hits. Everyone in SDV is safe. For now, at least.

Alex, unlike the other villagers, refuses to interact with anyone but his grandparents. He keeps contact extremely limited with people. The only time he ever interacts is when he goes to drop off cookies at Haley’s house, per Evelyn’s request.

He does miss his best friend, though. He misses everyone. He misses that time where he didn’t hear zombies going around the town, banging on doors and smacking their heads against windows. It sucks!

Alex takes a number of zombies down. He’s easily one of the toughest bachelors, plus he’s super strong. He wants to eventually take out all of them, make the valley a safe haven like it used to be. There’s still a long ways to go, but he’s slowly making progress.

His grandparents, especially Evelyn, help out by cooking for him and others. Alex helps out other villagers by dropping off little care-packages. It’s cute! It’s also his way of keeping in contact with everyone and making sure they’re okay.

Alex is the one in a zombie apocalypse movie to survive until the end. He makes the smartest choices and keeps his family safe. He can’t afford to lose anyone else.

Harvey

As a doctor, Harvey’s first thought when he hears about the zombie apocalypse is that he needs to find a cure.

And so he tries to. For about a week. Maru is in the office with him for a while, going back and forth from her house to the doctor’s office. It’s tough experimenting on zombies and it feels.. wrong.

Even though they’re a zombie, Harvey knows that there’s a person in there. Was a person. So he gives up on the cure and instead focuses on keeping the citizens healthy.

Harvey is a goddamn tank. Were he to be partnered with Alex, the zombies would be gone within two days. However, they have different concerns. Alex keeps the zombies away from the valley, and Harvey keeps them away from houses.

They have a good system. Harvey goes around the houses to do checkups, trying to keep some form of order in the new world. He makes sure the oldies stay healthy, despite being cooped up, and that the people that are out fighting stay un-zombieified.

I think Harvey would almost last to the end, but makes a careless mistake and gets bit. Fortunately, a cure comes around! He still did research on the zombies during the apocalypse, and his notes came in handy.

Elliott

You’d think by now that Elliott would be used to being cooped up in his house. He’s practically a hermit! The only time he used to go out was to sit by the ocean or see Leah at the bar.

Now that he has to stay in, he doesn’t like it. It’s the same as all of us with quarantine. Elliott never went out much before, but now that he can’t, he wants to.

He feels like dying of boredom within a week. Fortunately, the sense of impending doom creates a good writing atmosphere. He finishes at least three books during the span of the apocalypse.

However, Elliott isn’t very smart about his survival. He either forgets to eat the food that Alex drops off, or eats it before the week is up. It’s tough.

Eventually, Elliott decides he can’t survive on his own like this. He feels like he’s going mad. It makes for nice poetry, but for now, he needs to prioritize his health.

So he makes his way to Leah’s! He figures it’s probably a good idea. Nobody ever said that you couldn’t hang out with friends, or stay with them.

While going to Leah’s, he’s not very careful with avoiding any zombies. He’s not attacked, but he is followed. Leah let’s him in of course, and then end up holed up in her house. She’s lucky enough to have the forest near her house, so she can rely on that.

Elliott probably trips up somewhere and ends up dying first, joining the rest of the zombies. He’s not very good at being a zombie, though. Which might be for the best! He doesn’t run around very much and usually just hangs back by himself.

Sam

Sam thinks he’s going to be good at the whole apocalypse thing. He’s like “I’ve played enough first-person shooter zombie games to know how to fight them off.” Then the second he’s put into combat, he falters and doesn’t know what to do.

Lucky for him, Jodi is good at fighting. Kent knows how to defend the house. Vincent knows how to ask dozens of questions about what’s going on.

And Sebastian knows how to sneak into Sam’s window at night when they haven’t seen each other in a while. They still try and keep close, but most of their conversations are over the phone. It gets lonely, sometimes.

Sam isn’t necessarily smart about the apocalypse because he doesn’t need to be. He feels bad about relying on his parents, but you would too if you had his kickass parents.

He knows how to keep Vincent safe! Vincent is taken out at least once a week, mostly to see Jas. He misses her a lot. Sam likes to see Shane, too! He misses working with his buddy, even if his body was a grouchy alcoholic that waved him off whenever Sam got within ten feet of him. Good times.

Sam really wants things to be normal again, so he tries to stick with Alex whenever he sees him out. They’re good at fighting, but Sam is very chatty and often gets distracted by other things.

Other things are usually Abigail waving out of her window and whisper-shouting for Sam. Sometimes she’ll whip out the Samson!!! just to get his attention. It usually works. Alex will take a minute just to tease him.

Sam either survives until the end of the apocalypse, or dies about halfway through while on his many night trips to see Sebastian and Abigail.

Sebastian

Apocalypse? He doesn’t even know her.

Sebastian’s life is literally the exact same. Aside from hearing less people upstairs, nothing has changed about his life. Demetrius is upstairs working on a cure or something (Seb tuned out the second he started talking) and Maru goes off with Harvey sometimes.

He heard Robin say something about building a wall or something to keep the zombies out. He wasn’t planning to help very much, seeing as the others mom and some other villagers wanted to help out. Really, the only place the zombies are coming in is through the tunnel for the bus, so if they block that off, they’ll be fine.

Sebastian is more focused on other things. Like staying in contact with Sam and Abigail to make sure that they’re still kicking. Demetrius doesn’t let anyone outside of the house, so Sebastian sneaks everywhere, whether it’s outside to go smoke or to see his friends.

He’s pretty good at fighting, though. He can defend himself a whole lot better than Sam, who he thoughts would have more experience. They both thought his video game theory was true because they’re both dummies.

Those few times where Seb does get out of the house, he’s like a zombie killing machine. It’s too bad he’s doesn’t do it very often. He’s good at sneaking around, too. Those years of tiptoeing around the house to avoid his stepdad yelling at him are really paying off.

Honestly, the whole apocalypse could end and the zombies could dissapear, and Sebastian would have no idea. He'd still be down in the basement, messaging his friends and working on his coding.

Or, for a worse ending, zombies could storm his house, saving him for last, and he wouldn’t know until it was too late and he was surrounded by a horde.

I think Seb would end up surviving, though. He’s not necessarily good at the apocalypse, he’s just good at avoiding it.

Shane

When Shane thought about sobering up, he never imagined he’d have to do it like this. The apocalypse is pain in the ass for him.

He stays with Marnie and Jas, rarely leaving the property. He doesn’t like being holed up inside for so long because then he’s just alone with his thoughts, so Jas keeps him going most of the time.

As much as he hates to admit it, he misses his old life. He hated being employed at Joja, but it gave him something to do. And yeah, he misses his annoying coworker. Lucky for him, he gets to see him one a week when Sam and Vincent pop in.

Shane can act like he’s annoyed all he wants, but now? It’s he apocalypse. Why should he be so bitter?

I’m not going to say that the apocalypse changes Shane’s attitude, but he definitely has some revelations about himself that he wouldn’t have had under different circumstances.

Shane doesn’t like fighting zombies. Not as much as Alex does, anyways. But he still helps him out if it’s ever necessary. Shane is infinitely better at defending than he is attacking. He makes sure to keep the zombies away from their house, and the town in general.

Sometimes, Marnie will ask him to deliver stuff to Leah’s house, or Sam’s since they’re awfully close. It feels like a job to him, so he actually enjoys it. He’s surprised to see Elliott at Leah’s and immediately assumes they’re banging. He doesn’t ask any questions, though. He doesn’t care.

Shane probably ends up dying after a tiny mistake that could’ve easily been avoided. He doesn’t see it as that bad, since Jas is still safe. That was all that mattered to him, really. He either dies after a few months, or an entire year into the apocalypse. Either way he does not go down easily.

I would like everyone to know that I wrote these thinking that Lewis holes himself up in his house and does not help anyone out, so they kick him out and elect Alex as mayor. It was a silly thought I had, but then I just went with it.

Alex for Mayor 2020.

It’s not necessarily like, an official position, but they all kinda trust Alex to protect them, so he just assumes the position. He’s not the smartest, which is why Penny was elected to be Vice-Mayor (Alex’s words). They do a good job running the place.

Anyways that’s all! Hope you enjoyed! Sorry this took so long, it was a lot to write hah.

[harvestdew]

Hi! could you talk more about Kiki's friendship with Haley, and Cleo's friendship with Linus? They seem to have a cool dynamic :D

OMG of course i actually have a whole post here but i love haley so i will ALWAYS elaborate on anything about her ^_^ i’m sorry if this isn’t long i’m on my last week of school + finals

haley + kiki dynamic

i’ve already said this before but haley is one of my favorites because i enjoy her development. i think that mean girl with issues turned best friend is one of my favorite tropes and works with haley really well, and kiki works really well in terms of breaking the tough girl exterior because she’s WAY nicer than cleo (probably why haley takes longer to get around to liking cleo even though they’re dating)

haley didn’t get around to liking kiki that fast - i mentioned this in another post but kiki stayed in pelican town around middle school - freshman year, but she couldn’t have been that close to haley because i think haley gives me 19-20 year old vibes and kiki is 23. if she was a 13 year old in middle school, haley would be 9-10 and they wouldn’t be in the same grade. given i’ve finally nailed down their ages after writing that post i wouldn’t have kiki crush on haley to overcompensate for ME wanting to marry her, i have cleo who is haley’s age

SO why does haley come around to liking kiki? when kiki first moves back to pelican town, haley is kinda nosey and tries to figure out why someone would move away from the city without showing much interest. she’s also distrustful being haley, so it doesn’t really seem like it’s going anywhere. kiki also doesn’t get haley’s deal until emily (who she befriends faster) tells her it’s not haley’s fault she’s insecure, so she starts to feel bad for haley. but i feel like haley isn’t really won over by a lot of gifts even though kiki probably gifted her daffodils or expensive clothing she doesn’t want anymore. the only actual tipping point is when (in my funny little universe) kiki found haley crying over ALEX (no shade to him, but he does avoid haley and tells you not to tell her where he is) and talked to her about how she feels like everyone thinks she’s shallow. the whole convo ends with haley figuring “oh she’s not that bad,” warming up to her, and them becoming best friends

i also like to think kiki is just as overprotective of haley as she is over her but just not overtly. she has a pretty bad impression of alex for a number of reasons, but 1 of the biggest contenders is the haley thing. she gets defensive or mad when sebastian, abigail, sam, EVEN SHANE points out incorrect stuff about haley because it’s annoying when people make assumptions about haley

kiki does try really hard to bridge the gap between sebastian and haley, but their differences seem so disparate that it feels like she’s trying to make a bird and a cat friends. it doesn’t stop her from trying to and they both hate it like it’s the worst experience in their lives until they learn to tolerate each other

haley seems like a good cook, so she bakes with kiki frequently to spend quality time together. sometimes kiki also hangs out with haley by the river so she can forage/fish (before cleo comes to take over fishing) while haley takes pictures. when she unlocks the movies, she also takes haley a lot. i’m 100% sure that kiki hangs out with haley the most out of ALL of the villagers including sebastian because haley is less of a homebody

haley gave up on figuring out what kiki’s beef was w/ joja and zuzu city until she accidentally finds out. haley convinced her to go shopping in a district in zuzu city without knowing kiki is technically a missing person, and kiki only went because haley really wants to. like she figured, okay i dress differently and my hair is dyed, it’s fine. also, it’s some random shopping district where rich people wouldn’t go. they hit a department store anyway until kiki, being paranoid, freaked out because she thought she saw her mom and hid in a bathroom. but haley, feeling bad for her, bought kiki a hat and sunglasses to cover her so they could go back home, then figured out what happened afterwards

tl;dr: haley for best friend of the year. she is what she is and eric barone should let me rewrite her

linus + cleo dynamic

this one seems weird (?) probably as weird as kiki and shane being friends. cleo being 19 and linus being an old man seems like they’re on opposite sides of the spectrum and she’d probably hate him. in actuality linus is 1 of the first people she befriends. she gifts him the fastest, and rather than willy teaching her, linus helps her get better at fishing

cleo frequents fishing at the mountain lake more because it’s less boring. linus stands by the river at certain times of the day and she fishes according to that schedule so they can chat or she can drop food off at his tent

also if it wasn’t obvious, cleo’s 100 times harder to befriend than kiki. she’s rude asf and has an issue with being blunt, plus she thinks everyone around her only gives a fuck abt themselves. but if you’ve played the game you can tell linus is a nice old man, minds his business, etc., right off the bat. it’s his down-to-earth attitude and non-judgmental advice that makes him the least annoying and she takes his wise advice SUPER seriously. so instead of hating linus, he’s a positive grandpa/dad figure in her life

and whenever haley + cleo get married (FAR future they’re both 19 and 20), she is probably not going to invite her dumb as balls dad to walk her down the aisle, it’s 100% going to be linus. he’s probably the only old person in the valley besides evelyn that she thinks wouldn’t be awful about her being a lesbian

also, cleo is not out to her family, prior friends, or really anyone before stardew valley. she doesn’t trust her parents, actually dates a former male bandmate to stop speculation, and thinks it’ll be negatively publicized if she does. cleo might exude sapphic energy, but she doesn’t say anything about her sexuality when she runs away either. it’s not that she feels particularly unsafe with kiki or even sam (her best friend) knowing it either, but she just feels like she’s better off never saying anything. linus, oddly enough, is the person who talks cleo through dealing with this

and b/c linus gives me super “got his shit together” and calm energy, which levels out cleo’s impulsivity and anger streaks. it’s probably not a good idea to bring this up to abigail and sam because they’d hype her up more and she’s just go ballistic. so if alex pisses her off, linus gets her to cool down. she could be annoyed because pierre side-eyed her and linus would say 5 words to make her stop fuming

i also really like the headcanon that linus used to be like? a huge business CEO whatever and gave it up to live in the nature. cleo would hear that and be like are you fr? that’s so cool. i too hate capitalism

what’s even weirder is linus definitelyyyy goes to cleo’s band performances as moral support. no one knows why this old man is hanging out at a venue with young adults, but cleo says it is what it is and it’s no one’s business

anyway that’s it for now! this was a fun exercise/break for me, thank you sm for asking!!! i always have fun doing these

[corancoranthemagicalman]

New Year’s Wrap Up!

I decided to do this again this year! This year, I don’t think I wrote quite as many small ficlets on Tumblr, but I wrote a shitload of unposted things between a few friends of mine. I won’t even begin to try to give the word counts on those, so as last year, I shall be using my stats on AO3 strictly. I might mention one or two WIPs that I had hoped to finish this past year, but probably not overall.

Fics that you wrote in 2019:

I Dream In Wishes And Triangles (Found on AO3, Gravity Falls, 2.3k, T+)

Steal The Stars (And Put Them In Your Eyes) (Found on AO3, Voltron, 6.6k, M)

Can’t Fight the Moonlight (Found on AO3, Voltron, 2.9k, G)

Traces of You (Found on AO3, Gravity Falls, 2K, T+)

A Long Walk Home (Found on AO3, Teen Wolf, 2.8K, M)

Take A Deep Breath (We’re Doing Just Fine) (Found on AO3, Voltron 1.9k, G)

Death’s Discrimination (Found on AO3, Voltron, 2.1K M)

Where Sleep Never Comes (Found on AO3, Voltron, 1.2K, G)

Something Understood  (Found on AO3, Supernatural, 2.9k, T+)

The Names Are Coal For My Furnace (And It Burns, Burns) (Found on AO3, Critical Role, 800, M)

Dragon’s Gold (Found on AO3, Voltron, T+, 3K)

A Rolling Stone From Texas (Found on AO3, Supernatural, 20k, M)

Lighthouse On The Shore (Found on AO3, Stardew Valley, 2.8k, M)

In Darkness She Is All I See (Found on AO3, Stardew Valley, 1.3k, T+)

Putting On The Ritz (Found on AO3, Good Omens, 3.3k, T+)

Age It 6000 Years, Then Let It Breath (Found on AO3, Good Omens, 2.5k, T+)

Talk To Me (Like Victorians Do) (Found on AO3, Good Omens, 3.5k, M)

My Life Is Very Lonely (For I Want You Only) (Found on AO3, Good Omens, 2.7k,  T+)

You Only Want To Socialize (But I Don’t Think We Should) (Found on AO3, RPF, 5.5k, T+)

With a Good Omens WIP that is currently at +20k and several fan fics in the Game Of Thrones fandom with my friend, one of which. between. the both of us resulted in 60k words in just the month of June. I have a few pieces here and there that are all WIP as well, but as before I’m just gonna used what I posted. (And possibly that one Good Omens fic because I had planned on it being done already but school happened.)

Total Fics: This year including that WIP but not including my self indulgent and unpublished works, I’ve done 20 fics! Last year I did 19. But, to be fair on myself, I did not have college last year.

Total Words: This year, including those precious 20k words on that WIP, I’ve hit 95,661 beating last year’s 75,533 by 20k words! HA. Definitely counting that WIP in my records for this year.

Ship/Character Breakdowns: Percival De Rolo, Crowley/Aziraphale, Original Characters/Original Characters, Bill/Dipper, Bill/Original Character, Shane/Original Character, Sebastian/Alex, Dean Winchester/Castiel, Jack Kline, Stiles Stilinski/Derek Hale, Sheriff Stilinski, Shance, Svance, Hunk, Klance, Lotura, Pali/Nick, Cee/Tom Holland, PJ/Aquabats, Pali and the Crew.

Best/Worst Title: My Best Title (because obviously, I’m so great at that) Talk To Me (Like Victorians Do) cause I am a bitch weak for a pun. Gonna go with The Names Are Coal For My Furnace (And It Burns, Burns) because it’s just so lengthy for a title. :/

Best/Worst First Line: Putting On The Ritz definitely has the worst. “It was a fancy restaurant. Suzanne would give it that.” It fits the comedic sort of narrative I was going for, but if I’m being hypercritical, it’s not very attention-grabbing. For my best, I’m going to go with a favorite. I love beginning lines that are picture-esque and my most picture-esque was from You Only Want To Socialize. “The wind howled on this fine October evening. It sang the tune of skeletons coming out to socialize. Ghouls and creeps from the depths sauntered and laughed their way into the moral realm. Candles hidden in the mouths of grinning pumpkins lit the way into town from the graveyard from which they all had risen from. As the undead crossed the threshold of the graveyard, they were given human form on this one night as the moon hung overhead.”

General Questions

Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?

I wanted to write more this year but was worried about school getting in my way. What actually happened was instead of writing fics that I published, I wrote shameless self inserts with one of my best friends to help me relax in between my very busy schedule. I wrote way more than I thought I was going to be able to just because there was absolutely no expectation on an unpublished story.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?

I’m gonna be honest, I think the most unexpected one was writing porn for Stardew Valley, fam. But also Good Omens? I had always seen it on the outskirts being a Supernatural fan but falling in love with the televised series so heavily made them own me completely and I don’t think I had truly expected it.

What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.

Another year where it’s not my most popular but I enjoyed writing it. I loved writing A Rolling Stone From Texas. That piece of work took me three days to write and it’s the most I’ve written in the span of three days. So out of pride, that one. Out of just... the most love I’ve had for a fic is My Life Is Very Lonely if I’m being honest. A trope I’ve fallen in love within the Good Omens fandom is the Outsider POV, and researching a very specific year in American history just so I could write Irving Berlin understanding pining was just so much fun! And the reception of it was something I was woefully underprepared for and every ounce of attention I’ve received to it has clenched my heart.

Okay, NOW your most popular story.

I’d say A Long Walk Home is my most popular story with Putting On The Ritz as a fairly close second. The day I had posted A Long Walk Home that Teen Wolf fandom devoured it and I love that fandom so dearly.

Story most underappreciated by the universe?

Uh, this question is always hard. Maybe A Rolling Stone From Texas? My Life Is Very Lonely is like, my lowest kudo’d and hit Good Omens fic but the love I get for it is overwhelming whilst I’ve never really had any attention to A Rolling Stone. Maybe A Rolling Stone isn’t that great (spoiler: it definitely isn’t). At the time it felt underappreciated, but at the moment I can’t think of any that I feel are underappreciated. 

Story that could have been better?

A Rolling Stone? The Names? I would say I Dream too but I’ve just evolved in my writing style since then. I’ve evolved so much since I’ve written everything, since I’ve written what I wrote last week, so I feel like there’s no point in thinking about what could be better now when I know that I did the best I could at the time.

Sexiest story?

My sexiest story this year did not get published. I’mma be honest. Actually, this year I’ve both written more sexy but also more sensual. I’m a fan of the sensual. My Life Is Very Lonely would probably be sexier if it wasn’t so sad. Lighthouse On The Shore and Steal The Stars were both fairly sexy. (If you wanna know my really sexy writings, Ask C Something and maybe I’ll drop a line or two from some very sensual self-inserts that include Jon Snow, other GOT characters, or a certain Mandalorian ;)

Saddest story?

Last year I answered this with “I don’t like sad.” This year, my saddest piece is hands down - without a doubt - My Life Is Very Lonely. Can’t Fight The Moonlight was more bittersweet than sad, as was Steal The Stars and Traces of You. My pieces all had more diverse emotions, I think, but overall I myself felt so sad and as if I was actually the one pining while writing My Life Is Very Lonely.

Most fun?

Jeepers, the most fun to read? Putting On The Ritz? It was definitely fun reading my first anon hate! I’ve never gotten any anon hate (bless) but the first and only time I have it was the most resentful piece I’ve ever received and I am telling you I was so flattered and my ego so boosted that I had made someone so infuriated that instead of doing something enjoyable with their time they just sort of cooked over what to tell me I was doing wrong with my writing.

(oh wait maybe that one Destiel ficlet I wrote on Tumblr about Dean calling Cas nicknames? That one was light and cute.)

Story with the single sweetest moment?

You know I’m going to cheat and pick three again this year.

That dangerous four-letter word that Crowley had warned Warlock about reared its head like an angry bull in the China shop of his heart. He swallowed the broken pieces, tears stinging at his eyes. “Aziraphale.” Crowley gasped, clutching at the lapels of his coat and pulling him forward. “I’d wait six more millennia for you.” He confessed. He felt dirty. Dirty in the gaze of this pure being. This being of pure light, love, encompassed him in this rapture of a dangerous, four-lettered word. - Talk To Me (Like Victorians Do)

His words still Cee’s movements as she moved back to look at him. Her soft expression melted into something fond and adoring. It was enough to make Shane feel overwhelmed again, but this time it was in a good way. Slowly, this overwhelming radiance was a good thing. No more nights of a cold, chilly companion. Now his sunshine laid in bed, wrapping itself around him in warming beams. - In Darkness She Is All I See

Jack nodded and swallowed the forming bitter-sweetness on his tongue. He turned to the picture frame beside his bed. He paused as he reached for it. Sparing Uncle Dean one more glance, Jack took the picture reverently in his hands. He turned and took two steps toward his uncle before holding out the picture.

“This belongs to you.” Jack’s voice wavered for a moment and perhaps he hadn’t done as well swallowing that emotion as he had thought.

Uncle Dean shook his head. “Nah,” he pushed the picture frame back toward Jack’s chest, " take him with you.” Uncle Dean took in a deep breath before nodding. “He always wanted to see the world.” Giving a half shrug, Uncle Dean gestured with his chin to Jack’s suitcase. “Take care of him for me.” - A Rolling Stone From Texas (going back, this was a completely rushed fic that I wish I had bitten the bullet and taken my time with, but overall it was littered with a few small and sweet moments.)

Hardest story to write?

Mhm, probably the WIP I’m doing now? Just because I’m at the sad part near the end (yanno, the Day of Darkness or whatever the proper writing term is) that’s always the hardest part for me. Everything else was an experiment for fun. Maybe like functionally all the Good Omens fic since I’m teaching myself HMTL so I can make footnotes, but like anything else wasn’t too hard.

Easiest/most fun story to write?

The easiest was probably any of the ship focused ones. I just get into a “this makes me happy” mood set yanno? I definitely had fun writing A Rolling Stone, My Life Is Very Lonely, and actually most probably the WIP I am trying to finish up. I keep counting it since most of it was written in the previous year.

Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?

As in like did I project pining so hard that I completely understood heartache but also happiness in knowing who owns your heart in My Life Is Very Lonely? Cause yes. I think also writing A Rolling Stone really helped me understand how old Dean Winchester is since I felt like I didn’t even have to age up his character. RIP Dean, man.

Most overdue story?

The WIP that I’ll finally maybe drop hints of? I want to drop hints but I’m also so afraid of someone beating me to the punch and doing it better. My one true fear. It was supposed to be done back in October but unfortunately the holidays and such took everything over that my school didn’t already own. Anyways, it’s a Good Omens fic fused with my literal favorite movie of all time. So there’s your hint.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them? I think I took a lot of risks in creating lore this year. It’s always so hard to know whether your lore will take off or not and I think I took a chance on that. Not only in my published works but in my unpublished works as well. I learned that if you take the time to really just dedicate yourself into that lore that it doesn’t matter as much if other people enjoy it because you’re putting down those ideas and creating art. Creating a world of your own and it’s amazing.

What are your fic writing goals for next year?

To complete my writing goal of last year and write a piece of work longer than The Cat and the Shadow. To work on writing more things to be published to really share what I love so that hopefully encourages other people to share what they love! And, maybe, eventually start a fic that has weekly updates because I crave for that validation of someone waiting eagerly for an updated chapter.

Last year I had the goal to have a more popular story than Eat A Little Dream Of Mine. Eat A Little Dream Of Mine still has the highest hit count, being one of the first few dozen Monster Prom fics to have ever been published to AO3. A Long Walk Home wasn’t too far from matching it, though. Only off by 300- or so hits. But Putting On The Ritz beat A Little Dream’s kudo count by 19!! Goal accomplished!!

I don’t know if anyone wants to do this, but my followers and mutuals are more than welcome to! I’ll specifically tag @paliseizy @damejudyhench @yuzuling @revasnaslan @ineffablefool @isthatbloodonhisshirt And I’ve probably missed someone in my post-holiday haze and I apologize. Thinking is hard.

[geek-gem]

The Predator 2018

So it's 12:02 am and it turned 01 on the journal when I posted it on Deviantart. Now it's 12:03 am and I have a lot to say also I put tags first before typing I had this copied. 12:04 am.

I've actually seen the film.....even though I talked about mainly on Tumblr of not seeing it. But I went with my bro and his friend......but I've seen it.....

I thought it was okay. But I'm gonna be honest including thinking more about it. I don't want Shane Black to never direct another Predator movie again. Including a actual quote from my brothers friend and I asked him quite some times or three to remember. He described the movie as a, "One Big Meme" I just seriously went into my brothers room and his friend is staying the night I actually asked him in case and I mentioned one big and it seems to be that.....which says a lot about the movie in a way I suppose.

Yet I wanna talk about something. After the movie and eating some ice cream when I called Uber over time my phone died and we weren't at the right place so the Uber cancelled. So after some stuff my mom decided to pick us up I guess after my bro tried to download Uber or whatever. I'm grateful for her for picking us up and told her it was because I didn't charge my phone all the way and that I should of been prepared. Even though these days it's been dying quick. Seriously I was stressed out and paranoid but I'm supposedly better now.

Now back to the movie.

Yeah I seriously thought it was okay. But again as time went on especially when I was in the shower I kind of gotten more angry.

I'll admit it made me laugh or whatever quite a bit. Even though I think I didn't understand some jokes. In fact I've been thinking I seriously agree. I'm a causal fan of the MCU and you know what the film weirdly feels like that. This film seriously feels like a R rated MCU film in a way. Especially while I like humor but the thing is this being a Predator film. While yes some serious moments but especially towards the ending. Their was a lot of humor. Honestly my theater laughed a lot.

The action was pretty excellent on quite some parts. I felt some parts should of been more brutal but that's just me. Especially just the action works most of the time.

Now the characters especially the Loonies basically all of them. They were enjoyable, they had their moments. But they were some nice characters to see interact with each other.

Henry Jackman's score was great in some parts too or whatever. I also liked those nods to the score of the original Predator.

Now really I wanna get to the negative parts and.....I forgot to talk about this.

Before this movie I was thinking of the worse. Especially what I was gonna say. I was gonna say this shit and I'm gonna tell you this stuff.

I was thinking of saying shit like I'd wouldn't just have Zack Snyder work on a Predator film or AVP. But I'd also would rather have the likes of Rebecca Sugar and the Crewinverse(Steven Universe), Ian Jones Quartey(OK KO Let's Be Heroes), Matt Burnett(Craig Of The Creek), Craig McCracken(Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends) and shit even Alex Hirsch(Gravity Falls) even if I don't like his work much. I'd rather have these folks. Or shit even thought of these Michael Bay which would be horrible so God no or Collin Trevorrow and I like him.

Also shit like Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom is better then this, The Meg is better then this and I personally liked those films. Especially the Sonic movie next year will be better then this crap.

Even after seeing this movie....I weirdly feel like that. Especially yeah I'd would weirdly rather trust some cartoon creators then what Shane Black did.

I'm gonna be talking big spoilers especially what they did it being Shane Black aka Hawkins from the original Predator film. Also after the Zack Snyder mention my bro and his friend just being weird wearing purge light up masks they went after quite a lot of seconds.

Basically with the humor being a bit much. But it's the biggest thing that pisses me off. Especially I was thinking I'm feeling what Alien fans went through with Alien Covenant.

The idea that the Yautja in this movie even with fun little easter eggs like shots of Diablo(which they some what have) and Ghost. But the idea of making the story about the Yautja are not a species and this is basically hinted for all, the sport and honor is not a thing. It's thrown away with this stupid bullshit that they want to evolve as a species but hybridization being the answer to their survival. Especially the spinal cords of the strongest is where they get them at. Despite the fucking fact even the first film and even Predator 2 is referenced shows they are a clan based society. Also the idea that they wanna invade our planet so it could be their new home.

This is bullshit. Especially as the last half of the movie goes.

So Rory our autistic 12 year old kid. The fact they seriously fucking say that being on the spectrum is the next step in evolution....are you fucking kidding me. Especially I'm an autistic person. Listen all autistics are different. But seeing it for myself that the Upgrade/Assassin Predator wants to take this kids spine. The idea of that is so fucking crazy that I thought no offense to autistic people it would make the Upgrade go fucking insane in ways if he was even successful.

I'll be honest I'm shit at writing autistic characters. Especially their have been stupid ideas from me. Including I want more representation of people like me in more media. But when it's treated like this I don't know. The idea of treating it like a super power like people have said. I honestly don't want to see something like this in a film like this ever again. Unless it's dealt with respect but maybe it's just me and it was a kid. But I basically hated it I'm sorry. I'm not trying to sound like a SJW or say we shouldn't have autistic representation. Especially Rory was alright but seriously never again.

Also the film is paced too quick and for some reason while it helps in the end this fucking Predator dog is pretty alright with our characters.

Including the fucking ending. While it seriously feels like an MCU film but seriously if I remember correctly I was just disappointed seeing what I read about. I think my mouth was opened and I was just shocked with disappointment or whatever by the Iron Man like Predator suit seriously called The Predator Killer.

Especially what's amazing it seriously looks or remind me of that Mecha Predator idea I had.

What was interesting after the movie ended I actually talked with my bro and his friend about the movie. While not going extremely deep. But I told them about how I didn't wanna see this film because of Shane changing the lore. Yet for some reason my brother said this stupid shit twice that I should try new things. But that's bullshit because he didn't understand what I was talking about.

Including I mentioned the scene with the first Predator. Basically the Fugitive Predator was the best thing of the movie or something. Even if it had human dna but it was more of a Yautja then the fucking Upgrade Predator.

You know even though I said this film was okay. But this film is basically not a Predator film. It's just using the species as some sort of placeholder. Because what I witnessed wasn't a Predator film.

Too much humor while funny but some humor was weird or maybe off not needed, the ending, some of the writing especially some moments that weren't needed. Especially some stupid fucking dialogue or whatever. Also Fox indeed cut out shit and they seriously did reshoot stuff I remember the old set photos with Yautja wearing military pants and teaming up with humans bunch of shit was different which I basically remembered.

But those fucking lore changes. I'm gonna say while AVP2R isn't my favorite at least that respected the Yautja lore. Including as such a big fan of these creatures you don't fucking do that.

I'd don't give a shit if people are tired of hunt films I'd rather have more of those instead of this. I almost said this instead of those uck. Especially I'd rather stick with ideas of mine and other expanded lore that doesn't treat the Yautja mythos like shit. Seriously I'd rather I've been thinking of it and it couldn't be in line with the Alien timeline or maybe. I'd rather have some story where all of Earth knows of the Yautja probably because of Bad Blood's fucking up. People on Earth shit themselves and prepare to be ready but the Yautja still hunt on Earth despite it's more difficult now.

Especially the Upgrade/Assassin Predator isn't a real Yautja. Real Yautja are ones like Diablo(Predator 1), Ghost(Predator 2), Scar(AVP1), Wolf(AVP2R), Broken Tusk(AVP original comics), Scarface(Predator Concrete Jungle game), Prince(AVP2 2001) and many more. Even the Bad Blood(Predator Bad Blood) is even a real Yautja despite being a psychopath.

I think I've said enough.

[renewingagain]

wednesday 13th april 2022 // 12:23am

i just had a read through one of my last posts and it said at the end that because this is the first time i am ever experiencing a break up, my confusion and the way i feel and the heartbreak is so valid and real. its all new and you wont fully understand these feelings and so how you are feeling is perfectly valid (within reason of course, you aint finna do anything stupid)

but i also just feel fukin dumb like why am i still not over alex, its been almost two months now and hes still on my mind all the time and i fucking hate it

we havent spoken really since the break up, ive tried texting him a couple times since we did but he didnt really reciprocate so i understood that he doesnt really want to talk to me which is fine of course. i thought we would and could still be friends but that obvs wasnt gonna happen if he aint texting me back. fair enough

but he texted me earlier today about the show we were meant to go and see together in may, basically asking if i would give my ticket to someone else cus he assumed i didnt want to go now (he was right ofc)

but the manner of how he texted me was all ... normal and jokey / bantery. but like why tf would he text me like that, he hasnt spoken to me for two months and all of a sudden hes coming across very 'pally' and joking about stuff we would joke about in our relationship

like respectfully, get fucked ??? do u really think im gonna wanna talk to you after you not reaching out to me for two months and then text me as though everything is normal again? i do not think so

but why am i so angry and pressed? the anger makes sense i suppose cus its like he hasnt acknowledged me at all and now hes only messaging to sort something that suits him (its a bit complicated)

but idk, he didnt have to be the one to text me, it could have been aaron

its just fukin shit as well cus i feel so lonely, not only he doesnt talk to me but none of his friends do either or none of them have really reached out to me (understandable bc they are his friends) but i thought they cared about me too. because i was meant to go to this show with the friends too it just reminded me of how they arent in my life anymore

the whole thing is just shit and him texting me just threw me off as i wasnt expecting to hear from him again, im not over him at all and idk it just felt a bit disrespectful too. im angry and upset and i dont know why im letting it all get to me

i feel so stupid as well because again on the flipside its like everythings just normal for him now. like hes with his mates and hes just been on holiday and hes back on grindr and its like eurgh idk, hes moved on and i havent

how do i stop feeling sad about it :( i just wish he and all of them never existed in my life, i wish i could just forget about it all and just move on and keep living my life. i cant let this hold me back and i feel so fucking pathetic that im letting this hold me back and make me upset

but i have to just carry on, yes ive been sad all this time and theres nothing we can do about that now because the past is the past. but from today we can try to get over it and start over again and just get on with life and meet new people and experience new things

i also have no fuckin idea what to do about shane either because hes such a sweet and lovely boy and hes so bloody cute and i enjoy talking to him and with him, taking all of the complicated romance stuff out of it, he is a good friend and good company

but im not ready for another relationship but i also cant help but think im just hurting him all the time

i also just dont know at this stage whether i can see myself being with him, but again, i think that may be because im still not over someone else and maybe im comparing him to alex

im thinking for his sake as well as mine that we should just strictly be friends, but has this gotten too deep

plus i like being affectionate with him and making him feel cute and loved

ugh

:(

[10paezinhos]

Imaginary San Diego Comic Con 2018

On Monday, we go to the airport in the middle of the afternoon, as most international flights leave at night. So, it's rush hour traffic for close to an hour to get to the airport. We get there three hours before the flight. We don't like to take chances. We already lost a flight at LAX back to Brazil (or Houston or Dallas or Panama, I don't remember where the first layover was). We almost lost our flight to Angola, and had to carry our baggage with us inside the plane because check-in was already closed for twenty minutes. We eat some crappy airport food, because it's going to be around midnight by the time the flight attendants bring dinner to the passengers, and by that time we'll be starving even if we did eat at the airport, and the airport food will be as crappy as the one we had close to the gate. We always bring something to read on the plane, and we might read a little of it, but inevitably we'll choose a movie, preferably a movie both of us have not seen (usually a super hero movie), and watch it while we eat the plane dinner. After the movie, we'll try to get some sleep, but if we struggle to find our way to slumberland, we'll choose another movie. Sometimes we can finish this second movie after we wake up at the crack of dawn when the flight attendants serve breakfast. And then we land on Houston. Usually Houston, anyway. There are no straight flights from Brazil to San Diego, and we usually get better deals on our tickets going through Houston. We usually meet other brazilians on the same flight, also going to Comic Con. Once we met all of Jeff Smith's Cartoon Books crew coming from Columbus, meeting up with Terry Moore's Abstract Studio's crew on the gate so they could all go to San Diego together (Jeff and Terry weren't there, it was just their entourages). We arrive in San Diego before lunch, sometimes just after regular breakfast hours in California, and we go to our hotel. We could easily have a second breakfast, but we try to remind ourselves we're not Hobbits. It's Tuesday on the A.M, and we check in at the hotel. Now what? --- Tuesday is our free-pre-con-day, so we can take it easy and recover from the jet lag. With the four hour difference from São Paulo time, it's very easy to get up early in the morning while in San Diego, even with little sleep the night before, but we need this first day to be low key because our trip is long and before 10 pm on Tuesday we're already dead tired. We usually meet some friends for an early dinner (we're not the only international artists that arrive one day early to recover from jet lag, so there's always someone about, and our friends who work at many of the publishers arrive earlier to set up the publisher's booth on Mondays and Tuesdays), have some drinks at the hotel bar and crash at the room early. Wednesday is when our job begins. Before Comic Con became this crazy giant thing, we did all sorts of different things on Tuesdays. For some years, staying at the Hostel, we would hang around with foreigners from all over the world who came to San Diego because of the beaches and the weather. We would have to explain to them that we were there for this comic book convention that happened around the corner (the Hostel is right there on Fifth Avenue at the Gaslamp District), and the ones we managed to leave curious would say over the course of that week that one day they decided to try out that Comic Con thing, went there and bought tickets right then and there and got in. They had fun. We, too, went to the beach some years on Tuesdays. When we started going, Shane (Amaya, who wrote Roland and lived in Santa Barbara at the time and would drive down to San Diego) would drive us to the nice beaches and we would admire giant American biquinis and think about Brazilian biquinis instead. Back then, we would go back to that part of town even at night, after our Comic Con days, to try our luck on Pacific Beach bars, karaoke and pool included. Once, I don't know how, we ended up on a rooftop party of some local indy cartoonists. All that, and it was only Tuesday. --- You can read here the announcement of the Hellboy Winter Special 2018. We're back at Mike Mignola's backyard for a little while, writing and drawing a short story revisiting the B.P.R.D Vampire world (don't know B.P.R.D Vampire? It well be reprinted soon). Mignola did a knock-out cover for this issue, and we both did variant covers. With two other stories in this comic (one by the uber-talented Tonci Zonjic), it should be a fun read. Maybe a little scary, but fun.

---

We don't want to wake up too early on Wednesday, but the jet lag is still on full swing so we can't help it. Bá will probably hit the gym, and I'll try to join him (at least this early in the week). We have a quiet breakfast, probably our only meal for the rest of the week which isn't also some sort of meeting. I'm probably finishing a drawing I'm going to hide later as part of my Moon Art Hunt game. I'll consider going to the hotel pool for a swim (I prefer the Hyatt when it comes to a suitable pool for swimming). At lunch, we'll probably have our first meet-up, usually with our brazilians friends. This year, we would go meet Rafael Albuquerque, who's a guest of the convention and has just released a beautiful adaptation of Neil Gaiman's A Study in Emerald (with Rafael Scavone and Dave Stewart). A talented Brazilian artist going to San Diego for the first time this year is Eduardo Medeiros. It will be good for him (and for the comics' world) to widen his horizons and experience a little bit of the craziness of SDCC. This will be a long lunch, with drinks, that will last as long as it takes for the line of people waiting to get their badges to get smaller (the Brazilian posse won't mind spending an afternoon drinking). Then we'll go get our badges so we can get in for a light, commitment-free preview night. If there's some book I really want and made a mental note to track down during SDCC, I try to find it on Wednesday, because I might forget during the week, and if I don't, by the time I go back there it might have already be sold out . Last year, I stopped at the beginning of the con at the Fantagraphics booth and got some books they had published, and forgot to get the new Jason book. I went back on Sunday, and it was all gone. Saying hi to Terry Moore and Jeff Smith is usually part of our preview night. Wednesday is still preview night, so it isn't so crazy to find places to have dinner. We usually choose as we walk around the Gaslamp, depending on who we're meeting for dinner. Still, it's a relaxing dinner with friends. The calm before the storm. --- From Thursday on, the con game is on. After a breakfast meeting with one of our publishers, we usually have a signing. If we don't, it's my first chance to hide a drawing and start posting pictures online and giving people clues so they can find it. Lunch is also a meeting, probably with a foreign publisher. Our foreigner publishers from France (Urban Comics) and Italy (Bao) usually go to San Diego. In fact, we met both of them in San Diego years ago, before they were our publishers, and now, besides being our publishers, I think of them as friends. Signings await in the afternoon, and we also usually stop at the Comic Book Legal Defence Fund (CBLDF) booth to leave the original art we brought for the art auction on Saturday. Their booth is near the DC comics booth, on the way to the Drawn & Quarterly booth. Alex Cox will probably have a lot to say about their relocation to Portland, and if he doesn't, I'll simply ask. I'm curious. We leave the artwork  personally on the first day because we are not mailing it from Brazil in advance, and because we know they'll display all the artwork they got on Thursday night at the party so people can get a good look of what is available and get excited about the auction. Thursday night, the rooftop CBLDF Welcome Party at the Westgate Hotel is the party to go. It's traditional, and in this modern day of Entertainment World takeover, it's your better chance to hang out with the cartoonists you know and/or admire. And to meet new ones. It was at a CBLDF party that Bá and I saw Neil Gaiman for the first time, relaxing in a hallway before he had to go back inside to read something for everyone to enjoy. It was at a CBLDF party that we hung out next to Frank Miller in an outside balcony while he smoked a cigarette and talked passionately about comics, standing tall in his red Converse sneakers. This party has always been about the shared love for comics, and about the people who love them: the fans and the creators, interacting together and having a good time. Maybe we'll have energy to go to a second party, probably with Sierra, and probably at the Bayfront. The Boom Studios crew have good parties at the Bayfront bar. If all goes right, the night might end in pizza in the lobby. (the Bayfront bar has a brazilian bartender who makes some great caipirinhas) Friday begins with another breakfast meeting. Maybe with someone from Vertigo/DC to talk about the Absolute edition of Daytripper and decide what sort of extra material would be fun to put in this oversided deluxe edition. Maybe to talk about something else. (See, the same way I forgot to mention that every morning before breakfast, we'll try to go to the hotel gym, in real life we'll also probably forget to go to the hotel gym before breakfast) After the Hall-H celebration of Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Reunion (which I'm not going, as I have never been to Hall-H in my life), I would probably stop at the Dark Horse booth at 12pm to get some of the posters they'll give away, because I think they turned out pretty nice (hint: I did the artwork). During the week, we usually have a signing at the Dark Horse booth, next to a panel or announcement we're involved. After the panel, Dark Horse normally sets up interviews from media outlets. Lunch meeting, but all day on Friday we're thinking about the Eisner Awards later that night at the Bayfront Ballroom. I hide another drawing across town, and we're thinking about the Eisners. I meet some friends for drinks around six and I try not to think about the Eisners. If these friends happen to be Skottie Young or Jason Latour, their jokes alone will keep me busy laughing and I'll forget everything. I'm still going to the Eisners afterwards. Mainly because of the Umbrella Academy Netflix show, Bá got an invitation for the Universal party. The Umbrella crew is still shooting in Toronto, so I don't think we'll be able to make it this year. We arrive at the Bayfront, where they're presenting the Eisners. Every awards ceremony is boring, I know. Still, we like the Eisners. We like to see people get happy about how other people love what they do enough to vote for them. We like the celebratory aspect of it. We miss that the ceremony doesn't have a keynote speech anymore, or a keynote speaker. We heard some earth-shattering-life-changing speeches at previous Eisner awards that motivated us, and still do, to try harder, and do more, and to do it better. There's some drinking after the awards are all delivered at the Bayfront, and then we'll probably head back to the Hyatt bar and catch up with our gang of idiots. The convention night scene is definitely more spread out nowadays, to all sorts of places and hotels and bars, but there are a bunch of us comics' folk who still hang out the the Hyatt bar. There's a panel on Saturday I can't help but think we would be in if we were there. We're usually invited to those kind of Dark Horse panels. Here's the description:

3:00-4:00 PM:  Artists Who Write: The Craft and Creation of Comics (Room: 7AB)

Whether it's a superhero adventure, a colorful fantasy world, an ultra-violent crime noir, or a new take on an old classic, creators put a lot of thought into the sequential art that drives stories told in comics. Join an all-star lineup of Dark Horse creators including Frank Miller (Xerxes: The Fall of the House of Darius and the Rise of Alexander, Sin City), Dave Gibbons (The Originals, The Life and Times of Martha Washington in the Twenty-First Century), Joëlle Jones (Lady Killer), Wendy Pini (ElfQuest), and Rafael Albuquerque (EI8HT) as they discuss turning an idea into a full-fledged story and how they continue to keep their writing fresh.

I would be interested to be there just to listen to Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons talk, but Albuquerque and Joëlle are so talented that it's no surprise they've reached the success they have, and I also want to hear they talk about how they got there. Saturday is the big hollywood day. It's crazy. It's fuller. We usually hide in the green room for lunch.  If I haven't run into Joss Whedon up until this point at a hotel bar (I like that he started going to Comic Con again after two giant Avenger movies), then on Saturday he's easier to bump into, relaxing and having a good time. We stop by Mike Mignola's booth to make sure we say goodbye to him, as he doesn't do Sundays anymore. Close by, we might try to walk around artists' alley for a bit, but nothing sticks out. A lot of crazy talented creators with original art, prints and commission lists. People who sells books usually have booths on the other side of the convention floor, where we used to have our booth, and we have always been book people. We make comics so people can read them. For the past few years, we have tried to have at least one signing at the CBLDF booth as well, where they have a great selection of our work from all publishers we work with. You'll find there (signed) copies of Daytripper, Casanova, Umbrella Academy, Two Brothers, How to Talk To Girls at Parties (with a special signed bookplate) and much more. At the end of the day, the CBLDF live art auction will take place at the Bayfront, on the Sapphire AB room, starting at 8 PM, where you'll be able to bid for some amazing original art from your favourite creator. There are some pretty neat Frank Miller, Jeff Smith and Howard Chaikin originals being offered, among many other incredible pieces of art. The night is full of wonders. We have a much better time at dinner, usually catching up with old friends. For the past few years, this has been editor's dinner for us, so to speak. Bob Schreck, Diana Schutz, Karen Berger, Sierra Hahn, Pornsak Pichetshote, all great editors, dear friends, and during the craziness of Comic Con, we catch up with them, and they catch up with us, and we start our night just right. We met some great cartoonists while on those dinners, which always involved big tables and lots of people. I'm pretty sure I met Scott Morse and Jim Mahfood in one of those dinners with Bob. I met Eduardo Barreto in a dinner with Diana (actually, Eduardo Barreto comes from Uruguay, and was the very first "international" comic book artist I met when he went to São Paulo for a book fair to promote his Batman book, and I was around 13). I met Jeff Lemire in a dinner with Karen. I met John Cassaday in a dinner with Sierra.

Saturday is the night that never ends, no matter if California law says otherwise, and we all meet up at some point after the Hyatt bar closes. The backsteps crew doesn't disappoint. (Will Dennis always has our backs, fellas). One of the recent topics I ask my friends is when are they coming to Brazil, as the Brazilian convention, Comic Con Experience (CCXP), as well as the Brazilian audience, would welcome them with open arms (I'm trying to convince myself the reason I didn't get Skottie Young to come last year was because, on a very energetic Saturday night, I didn't agree to go have matching tattoos made the following Sunday – he got an amazing Alfred Newman). The spotlight panel on Rafael Albuquerque is at 10 AM (room 24 ABC) on Sunday morning. We'll need breakfast before going to the panel. I'm not sure Albuquerque will wake up in time to get anything to eat, but at least he's a special guest of the convention and there will be people who will go to his hotel room and make sure he attends his own panel. (the convention organisers have a volunteer who speaks Portuguese, who took care of me when I was a guest in 2009. He was taking care of Eduardo Risso last year. I bet he'll take care of Albuquerque).    ​Our last stop of the Con is the Dead Dog Party, organised by Bob Chapman and the Grapphitti Design crew. Every friend we didn't have a chance to talk to during the convention will stop by, have a few drinks, have a few laughs. Things start to die out earlier on Sunday, like the magic pixie dust starting to wear off. The Hyatt bar is still open, and some other friends are there. It might close soon, tho, and so we'll cross the street and stop by the Lion's Share. When will we ever go to sleep? Probably on the flight back home, the next day, and for the entire following week. --- Maybe now it's a good time to say Bá and I didn’t go to San Diego this year. We have been going since 1997 every year. We didn't go in 2013 to focus on work (making Two Brothers, specifically), and I went alone in 2014 (Bá was still drawing Two Brothers) to negotiate which publisher would publish the book in the US. Aside from that, we've been there every year. It's our safe port in the american market, where we know our way around, where we see our friends. This is one of those years where we decided to focus on work. And, like those years, we did miss San Diego greatly throughout the week. I recommend the experience. I still think it's a special show. You don't have to go 20 times. But do it at least once.

[warmbeebosoftbeebo]

are you still gonna support them even if they never address anything/the accusations turn out to be true?

depends which accusations. a lot of them are misinterpretations or regurgitating what others have said as Truth (eg about the stage gay with ryan being “ryan being sexually assaulted by brendon every night,” “fetishizes lesbian/bi women” when he’s attracted to confident bi women who know what & who they like, jokes, using barsexual to describe some women when he’s used it to describe himself and guys he’s made out with too, saying him repeating the word tranny to explain what an asshole the guy who used it was him using it himself as a slur against someone). a couple accusations are mild, nonsexual, in a public context touches that people were ok with for years until this summer.

some of the accusations are by men saying they know women/girls who say they were assaulted by b. one of them is homophobic, misogynist, and racist himself, and the other is shane morris (more of the same, plus violent including rape fantasies that he’s spewed on fob and panic fandom, plus he’s been caught in serious lies before) so... i question their honesty. a lot. 

i used to be more angry at b not addressing the accusations, but it seems there’s a lot of them, and the accusations of in person inappropriateness and assault have all been anonymous and most have been drive-bys that the accuser no longer stands by, has deleted, etc. leah’s story honestly reads like fanfic and there are details that defy credulity eg that she was loitering inside after, that some guy came up to her and invited her back into a room with b. kam’s story was... that b, drunk and/or high, hit on him rather mildly for his drunken state eg *looked at him* in a sexual manner?, asked if he was into dudes. the reaction to it eg wanting to run off, feeling sick, running off, feeling disgusted with himself, seems over the top, unless he was previously sexually abused/traumatized by an older male and/or if he was under 16 (if so, it’s understandable and b shouldn’t have tried anything if he was under 16). it says he told him he was a minor, but how old? minor could even be under 21. even if 17, b just turned 22 the day before. he was able to easily get away. (i suspect unresolved trauma from someone else sexually abusing them is what’s really going on here and that this meeting either didn’t happen or happened very differently from how they claim. some have challenged the possibility of it happening at all given the where of a train station, the timing, etc..)

prettyoddfever, who has followed them since fever era, also explained in another post that these accusations have been cropping up from the get go, but would be usually quickly challenged by other fans there who saw eg girls saying they were touched inappropriately/sexually by a band member during a meet n greet, waiting outside the venue to see them, etc. 

the most solid ones they should address is breezy’s revelations about zack, because those are undoubtedly true eg sexually harrassing her, bullying dallon. the worst of his tweets should be addressed too as they are undoubtedly true too eg telling a pregnant woman’s friend he only helped her because he thinks “preggos” are hot, the nude wallpaper (even if he’s saying don’t send nudes, screen-shooting them before they disappear and posting them, blurred or not, is not ok), that very misogynist one saying that females control males with our vulvas/vaginas from young girlhood.

i actually think b’s friendship with zack is the strongest piece of evidence against b, so far anyway, because most of what zack’s accused of is verifiable (breezy’s screenshots, the tweets, him being a dick to dallon in a periscope, what breezy has said is also very very credible and in line with what we’ve seen). guilt by association isn’t always on, but in clear cases like this, of repeated “bad things” over a decade, yep, it is. the question is how much he knew. obviously he’s not stalking zack’s twitter or phone or breezy’s phone. but he’d know/hear/see some things. and i think zack probably gaslights and lies to and hides from him some too, although i don’t think it’s a pat “zack groomed and was abusing b since he was 16!!!!” like some claim (eg he didn’t meet him until he was 18 or 19).

lana was the closest for the b accusations, because she had a casual sexual relationship with him in 07, but she stepped back from things once she realized a catfisher, probably chelsey, was duping her and others online until 2016. if she decided to speak out now about what happened in 07, i’d absolutely believe her, but what actually happened there is up in the air eg she still stands by the open letter being mostly untrue, written by someone else, with inside jokes. 

if anyone else actually puts their identity out there in discussing this, i’ll default believe them too. ciara did, but current and former friends quickly challenged her as i explained in a couple other posts, and she herself backed out on accusing him of doing anything purposeful. i’d also probably believe someone who came forward by name as a witness. cash cooligan and alex from the cab have hinted at things, but nothing concrete has come of it aside from blaming b for capitalism and the music industry and fbr, maybe b did something to alex but who the fuck knows what, and alex’s declaration to do violence to b.

depending on what it was, and how far ago, i may or may not continue with this blog/writing smut about him. considering who i do listen too, i doubt i’d stop listening to his music. think of all the rapists, abusers, etc we listen to on the regular. if i didn’t, there’d be A LOT of men’s music i couldn’t listen to eg david bowie, led zeppelin (jimmy page what the fuck), michael jackson, iggy pop, red hot chili peppers, tupac, aerosmith, paul mccartney and john lennon (although lennon became pro-feminist and improved greatly throughout his relationship with yoko ono), alice cooper, james brown, elvis, sex pistols (sid vicious, the band also defended child pornographers), motley crue, and on and on and on... check out the dreamworlds documentary series (three of them, but the third would probably be easiest to find) for some eyeopeners on male musicians from the 90s and 00s abusing women eg snoop dogg (he was a pimp before he was famous and even when famous still pimped women in pornography), limp bizcuit (literally threw lunch meat at the groupies they demeaned). kid rock is another scumbag. of course: r kelly. kid rock is just bad music too, so no hardship not listening to him. r kelly is currently a sadist daddy dom who trafficks women, makes porn of them, literally pisses on them to degrade/humiliate them, makes them ask permission to go to the bathroom even, and controls them in a cult, and has managed to be charged for some of his abuse of underage teen girls a couple times, so i don’t support him in any way, listen to his music, etc. 

edit to add: found another https://twitter.com/Zapuda/status/1294069508282494980 this one says he was groping 14 year olds behind the bus on his first tour. b himself would’ve been 18 or 19 at the time depending on what he considers b’s first tour. how does this guy know this at all? how does he know that they were only 14 (and not 15 or 16)? who the hell is zapuda? why didn’t more people see if it was to the side of a tour bus and happened repeatedly? 

[slightly-nerdy-rambles]

SDV Prompt: Drinking Contest

So I’ve been dinking around with @dwarva‘s story prompt generator and ended up with the characters Emily and Lewis and the theme “Drinking Contest.” I got the idea for where I wanted this to go pretty quickly, and manged to write it out into a silly little ficlet. Not my most well-polished work, but it was a fun prompt :) I plan to continue doing little prompts like this and posting the finished ones from time to time; they make for pretty good practice. Enjoy!

Friday night at the Stardrop Saloon was always good for a chance to unwind. The Saloon regulars, who during the week often found the place to themselves, were joined by only-slightly-less regulars who counted on the place for a celebration of another workweek finished, and more often than not, they were joined in turn by random townsfolk who had decided they needed a chance to relax and catch up with the neighbors. All told, this was just the time and place for as much relaxing and catching up as anyone in Pelican Town needed.

Maybe a little too much of the former at times, Lewis thought to himself as he sat near the door and nursed his drink. Marnie was busy with a cow birth tonight, and would probably be hovering over the new calf and its mother until early morning, which left the town mayor without his usual drinking buddy. That was quite all right, he supposed -- he was a grown man perfectly capable of finding his own fun, and he had a pretty good relationship with most of the people in town. It seemed he had gotten a little too used to taking the front table with Marnie and chatting the night away, but it would be simple enough to break away from the habit and move.

It was quite possibly thanks to his attempts to figure out who to talk to that he noticed the disaster in the making. Shane was sitting at the bar in his usual corner, but at some point in the past few minutes he had been joined by Alex, Sam, Sebastian and Abigail. They were all having an... unusually lively conversation, at least for Shane, and from the cocky grins on half their faces, Lewis was beginning to get a distinctly bad feeling about where this was headed.

The mayor almost didn't tear his eyes away when Emily swept up to his table, notebook in hand and dazzling waitress smile at the ready.

"Hi, Mayor Lewis!" she chirped. "Would you like to order some food, or are you waiting for Marnie to get here?"

Lewis waved a dismissive hand. "Marnie can't make it tonight, but I think I'll wait on food anyway, thank you." His gaze drifted back to the group of young folks, and he frowned.

"Do you know what they're all planning? Please don't tell me it's a drinking contest."

Emily's hair whipped through the air as she turned to look at the group, and then she shot him a sheepish smile. "Umm," she tried, "Okay. I won't tell you then."

Lewis let out a low sigh. Those three could get loud on their regular 'Saloon Nights' as it was -- he did not want to see them all liquored up along with Shane and the local blustering jock.

"I'll just take this to the bar, if you don't mind," he told Emily, picking up his ale. "I want to keep an eye on those five in case I have to run damage control.

Emily's smile broke, and she put out a placating hand. "Oh, you don't need to do that! I already promised to keep an eye on them if anything looks like it might get out of hand. Besides," she added, a note of confidence returning to her voice, "I think they can pretty much handle themselves. They're more responsible than you think."

Lewis raised an eyebrow at the waitress. "Responsible," he repeated, a note of flat disbelief in his voice. "Really."

Emily nodded. "Mm-hmm."

"Abigail isn't even out of college yet."

Emily shrugged. "So? A lot of people don't get through college in four years, and I for one think it's very mature of her to see it through."

"That's not my point."

"Mayor Lewis, if you're implying that being a college student somehow makes her an irresponsible drinker, I'll have you know that I hardly touched a drop when I was in school!"

Lewis snorted. "Fine. But aren't they all noisy enough when they come here?"

Emily's face darkened for a moment. "Well... Shane doesn't really say much in any case, but I don't think that's really a good thing for him." Her expression quickly lit up again. "But for everyone else, I think that just means they're having a good time! And I think participating in a group game like this would be good for Shane... even if it would really be better if there wasn't alcohol involved."

Hmph. Well, Lewis supposed the girl had a point, but he wasn't about to give up that easily. "Emily, do you even realize who all we're talking about? Even without Yoba-knows-how-many drinks in their systems, these kids have been responsible for balls going through windows, town-wide prank wars, rotten egg tosses, ruining the Luau soup for a lark --"

"--And all those things happened many years ago, Mayor Lewis. They've all had a chance to grow since then," Emily replied gently. She shot him another smile. "Look, I know these things can get out of hand, but that's why I'm going to be watching them. All I'm asking is that you try not to worry about it, okay?"

Lewis took a deep breath and let it out, his mustache ruffling in the breeze. He really couldn't argue with Emily there, as much as the whole thing bothered him.

"Fine," he finally said. With a small smile of his own, he added, "but I'm still moving to the bar. No point in keeping a table all to myself, eh?"

Emily beamed. "That sounds just fine. I should see if somebody else has an order yet -- I've been chatting too long already!"

With that, she swept away. Lewis chuckled to himself as he watched her go. That girl had so much energy, he didn't think any impending disaster would be enough to sway her.

*  *  *  *  *

Some time passed, and by Yoba it seemed Emily had been right. Gus had let her more-or-less take over bartending duties while he kept an eye on the tables, but it seemed that running damage control wouldn't be part of her repertoire tonight.

Not for lack of anyone getting drunk, though. Lewis was pretty sure that Sebastian had given up after his first glass of mead, and by now he'd turned his full attention to keeping Sam and Abigail from falling off their bar stools. Those two had collapsed against each other in a fit of giggles several minutes ago, the competition apparently forgotten. Alex and Shane were the only two still going, the former shooting the latter a too-heavy glare and the older man just staring ahead with a kind of grim satisfaction as Emily brought them another round.

"Are you sure you haven't had enough?" she chimed in as she set the pair of beers down. "It looks like you've already beaten half the group -- we could always call this one a tie."

Shane offered her a tiny smirk. "Emily, do you really want to deny me a chance to prove myself with one thing I'm actually good at?"

Emily clicked her tongue and shook her head, but left the men be. She caught Lewis's gaze as she did so, and offered him an encouraging smile. He returned it along with a small nod, glad that Alex and Shane were too caught up in their competition to notice. (As for the other three, they seemed to be caught up in some sort of joke Abigail had just made. Sam had started cackling like a hyena, while Sebastian was clearly less certain of the joke's humor, and Lewis ultimately decided that he didn't really want to know.)

The remaining competitors were about halfway through their beers when the door to the saloon opened behind Lewis and a newcomer joined him at the bar. He glanced over to see Elliot eyeing the competitors with a cool curiosity.

"Well, they certainly seem to be enjoying themselves," the young man said. "Might I ask what is going on over there, Emily?"

Alex overheard him and grinned, raising his drink in challenge. "Drinking contesht!" he bellowed. Jabbing his thumb to the side, he added, "We already beat theeeeshe nerds, ya think you can handle it, book man?"

It was at this point that Sebastian officially gave up, rolled his eyes, and grabbed his friends by the wrists to drag them back into the game room. Meanwhile, Elliot considered the challenge with a thoughtful little smile on his face.

"Hmm... Well, I suppose I could use the distraction. If you don't mind me joining in late, of course."

Shane shrugged in concession, Alex whooped, and Elliot moved over to their end of the bar. Lewis managed to catch Emily's eye one more time, and the expression she allowed herself once she was out of the writer's field of view was enough to tell him that she too remembered the time Elliot had unknowingly drank spiked punch at the Egg Festival.

Shooting one more inconspicuous glance at the far end of the bar, the mayor stood up to stretch and casually sat down a few seats closer to the competition area. Emily offered him a grateful smile as she went to fill a new mug for the latest contender.

After all, just a little extra caution never hurt.

[multiplefandomfics]

Grimes sisters chapter 2

Hey guys sorry it took me so long to upload chapter two but to apologize properly chapter 3 is following suit.

Warnings: character death, angst, fighting

Fabienne POV

After I made myself at home in my cell to relax a little, stood suddenly Shane in my door. He had taught me a lot over the past few weeks. Everyone thought he was a hothead maybe that even was true but he only tried to save the group from being killed. “You wanna go have a little look around?” he asked. I nodded, sat up and put my shoes back on. On my way out I grabbed my knife, which I had put aside when I went to lay down. Outside we venture around the perimeter and ended up at a high watchtower. This was perfect to post guards on. The only problem were the biters inside the fence that surrounded the tower. But of course Shane already had a plan. Somehow he was able to pick the lock of the gate. “Stay behind me.” he whispered. Even if I was able to handle my knife I wasn´t as good as my sister or the others in the group. We killed them all and even I killed my fair share. Always aim for the brain, right? Even if that sometimes proofs to be very difficult especially in panic situations. As we stepped from the staircase onto the platform, we noticed the perfect view over the whole prison yard. I felt relieved about our new discovery because I still didn´t trust the peace. We decided to tell the others the good news and began our journey back down stairs. We ambled back to the prison when my brother stormed over to us with a facial expression that said “I wanna kill you badly”.

“Shane goddamnit what were you thinking? You went in there alone?? Why on earth would you do that and to all other things endanger my little sister at the same time??!!” Ricks voice was shaking in anger and you could tell it took everything he had not to pounce at Shane.

“Rick chill out, man. We just had a look at it. Nothing we couldn´t handle on our own. And we made it out alive. Didn´t we? I would never purposefully endanger Fabi. You of all people should know that.” Shane made calming gestures with his hands. I was happy and smiled a little to myself that he had said “nothing WE couldn´t handle” maybe he finally took me as a woman not the child my brother always makes me out to be. But then I get pulled back to the situation at hand and snap at my bother: “I am a grown ass woman, Rick. I can handle myself!” Of course I got why he was angry. He just wanted to keep me safe but if that wasn´t annoying as fuck sometimes. I mean the possibility that I was alone at some point was omnipresent so I should be able to defend myself if necessary. Ricks eyes turned to slits and he growled lowly “You stay close to me, understood?” We had had a lot of fights in the past before and it had us on edge all the time but enough was enough. I stormed past him up through the gate and inside to my cell. Why did he always have to play Mother Theresa?? Sometimes it was hard for me to understand why he made such a fuss about everything.

Ricks POV

When Daryl came to me and told me that he´d seen Fabienne and Shane enter the Watchtower that we still hadn´t cleared of walkers yet I was alittle taken aback cause I never thought they would go behind my back like that. Turned out I had been mistaken. I felt the anger cook up inside me and stormed down there to get to them. What did Shane think sometimes? He could be such an idiot! Sometimes he brought people in jeopardy without any kind of reason behind it. But that time he went to far. It was my sister we were talking about here! No way was I going to let him get through with this. He´d have to answer for that one.

When I saw them heading my way looking happy I snapped. I went directly to them. My hands balled into fists. I wanted to punch Shane badly but in the end I decided against it. I was the leader of this group I couldn´t look irrational. As I started reasoning with Shane I noticed there was no real point in doing so. He didn´t see what he had done wrong and my sister was fully backing him up. It was a lost cause. As my sister storms angrily away I repeat myself: “You put her in danger damn it!” “Rick I don´t want any trouble.” Shane looked tired from fighting and just walked past me without a second glance. I made my way back inside to talk the others through my plan for the day tomorrow. “Tomorrow we are going to start our expedition through the rest of the prison. I am going to take Daryl and Shane with me” I stated.

“Fabi and I cleared the Watchtower outside. You have a great view from up there. Can keep everything under control. We can position guards in shifts on the tower” Shane threw in.

I could see Fabienne watch us from upstairs. She still seemed upset about earlier.  

Glenn and Maggie claimed the first shift after a little dinner. We didn´t have much left hence the venturing deeper inside. That night we had canned carrots and peas with ravioli in tomato sauce.

I looked over at Lori, she looked more than exhausted. I was sure the baby wouldn´t be too long. Softly I stroked her cheek and smiled at her. She needed all the reassurance that everything would  be fine that she could get. Alex stepped in behind be “Did you fight?” of course I knew that she meant Fabi and me. “Not really. But Shane put her in danger today. I was just so angry at him and a little at her as well. She must have sensed that. I know she´s an adult but I just can´t not worry about her.” I replied. “Maybe I should have a talk with her later.” Alex agreed with me. “Have a good night you two. See ya tomorrow.” She hugged me good night and smiled at Lori who had watched our conversation with sleepy eyes and then she went back to her own cell.

Alex POV

Of course I had also noticed the differences my brother and Fabienne had had over the past months. But Rick was kinda right. She had to be careful especially when it came to Shane. He was a nice guy. Protective of our group. Sometimes maybe a little too much. I entered our cell. “Hey can we talk?” I asked her. She was laying on her bed staring at the ceiling. I didn´t get a response from her. “Listen, don´t you think Rick is a little bit right with how he behaved? Maybe he was a bit much today but Shane is a complicated guy and Rick just wants the best for us.”  I said understandingly but still with a bit of an edge to my voice. “Honestly Alex, I don´t really wanna talk about this. It´s my life, my decision to make. As much as you want to, you have no real say in this matter. Shane can be hotheaded but he is a good guy. He always puts everyone before himself. Can you still count how often he helped this group in a really bad situation to stay alive? Why is Rick always hanging on my ass and not on yours? It´s annoying.” She claimed.

Of course she had a point as well but it was our brothers best friend and colleague. “Don´t blame him for wanting to keep you safe okay?” I almost begged her.

“I´m goin´out again.” said Daryl who had just poked his head in. “Jus´so ya know if Rick should be searchin´for me” he added. Yeah maybe Daryl was sometimes a little strange but he was a good guy. He always seemed so tough and hard but inside he was a big softy. At the beginning he came off as a loner but honestly he was equally as good a team player if he had to be. I had liked him from the beginning all the way back at the camp outside of Atlanta when we still thought Rick to be dead. Even then he always seemed to be the most stable one when his racist and misogynist of a brother wasn´t around. Since Merle was gone he was so much more calm and started to show the good personality treats he really possessed. I only nodded and smiled at him in acknowledgment and he pulled his head out of the door. He was probably off to find some more squirrels to eat. `Maybe he´ll bring some deer` I thought to myself. We probably wouldn´t have survived that long without him I thought as I slowly drifted off to sleep.

The next morning came and I felt just amazing. I hadn´t slept that good in ages. Nothing ached and I felt relaxed the first time in a long time. A bed was so much better than the floor or the backseat of a car. Outside on the hallway the sounds of the others getting ready to launch.

At first I really wanted to go with them but in the end I decided against it to keep an eye on my sister she looked really done with everything and maybe she wanted to talk at some point.

I took a look from the gallery down and saw them already packed up. “Be careful.” Lori said to Rick lovingly and gave him a kiss. Rick nodded and got down on one knee to talk to Carl. “And you take care of your mom alright?” Carl agreed eager to please his dad and make him proud. If he knew how proud Rick already was at his soon to be eldest. After that I could see them walking through a door and disappearing behind the next corner. I hoped they´d find something edible my stomach grumbled constantly.

“G´ mornin´” came it from behind me. Fabienne pushed herself past me and then outside. Maybe she already wanted to plan where to plant the veggies when we finally got the seeds.

Shane POV

At first we had a lucky streak we hadn’t encountered a lot of walkers. The hallways were almost endless. We walked around without much of a plan. Sometimes we saw a sign to another cellblock or a bureau. “Almost like ol’ days right Rick?” I tried to loosen the mood a little and Rick smiled at me. We broke through a door that looked promising. Unfortunately we only found some old guard uniforms. As we ventured further we came into a bigger room and even found a first aid kit. Daryl immediately took it down and raided the contents. While we were looking through some boxes I started to hear some biters heading our way. I looked around the corner and saw about a dozen undead coming toward us. “Shit. We have a slight problem.” I shouted towards the others. “we´re trapped.” I cursed. The hall was the only way out. “I got an idea. let´s turn the shelf sideways to block their way then we can stab one after the other.” said, done. It was a good idea until the shelf slipped under the pressure of the pushing biters and fell directly on my foot. “hmpf” I bit my lip to keep from screaming. Daryl and Rick killed the last of the bastards while I tried to break my foot free. After the rubble was over Rick asked me if I could walk. I nodded because we would definitely not end the tour before we even found something, I was tough. I could take it. Hershel could have a look after we got back. We grabbed our bags and kept going. “Hey guys, that sign says cafeteria. Let´s head that way.” Daryl noticed. Maybe we would find some food and more meds. “Hey look at that!” Daryl exclaimed. He had already walked ahead of us Rick stayed behind with me because of my foot. We found canned food, dried fruits and vegetables, water bottles, gas stoves and some more. “I am sure we can live on that for a few month.” I said. Looked like our little trip really was worth it in the end. “We take what we can carry and come back later for the rest.” Rick marks on. My foot got worse on our way. “Stop I need a break.” I said with a pained expression on my face. “No way we have to keep goin´” Daryl snapped. “Let me stay here. I come after you when I’m rested.”  to me that sounded like the only alternative we had. After a minute of convincing on my side they agreed and I sat down inside a room and closed the door while they went back to our cellblock.

Fabienne POV

I had another careful look around outside. If the others really found some food with seeds it was good if I already had a plan where to plant them. Looked like there was finally a silver lining.

I sat down in the grass to enjoy the sun a little. The sun was already strong despite the wind blowing. Suddenly I heard Alex calling out to me from the distance. She sounded distressed so I got up and ran towards her. “Whats wrong?” I asked her out of breath from running. “Did you see Hershel?” she asked in full panic mode. “No I haven’t” I respond “Why?” “Lori is having the baby right the fuck now. We have no time to find him. Come on let’s go!” As we arrived inside Lori was laying on some blankets on the floor while Carl was standing a few feet away. Maggie was already by her side and together we took of Lori’s pants. “Calm breaths” we tried to help her relax. Maggie did everything she had gathered from her fathers lessons but soon we noticed that something wasn’t right. She was bleeding profusely. “This can’t be normal” “where the hell is my dad?” We had to keep calm. We could do it. But somehow the baby seemed to be stuck. Because of the blood loss Lori was turning white as a sheet. “You have to do a C-section.” Lori musters with her last powers. No one of us had ever done something like this before. I mean, cut in a walker to keep them from killing you, alright but cutting into a living human being that you love and care for without anesthesia? No thank you. But we knew we had to. “You see the scar on my belly? You have to just cut there and get the baby out. Save him or her at least.” she stuttered under tears. Carl jumped over to his mom and cried and we were also tearing up. “It’s fine” she mumbled. “I love you Carl. Take care of your dad and your new sibling alright? I am so proud of you! Always listen to your heart. You’re stronger than you think.” Slowly her eyes fell close. “I love you too mama.” Carl replied sobbing. Maggie takes the knife with shaking hands and cuts the old scar open to take the baby out. At first we were all worried cause it was not breathing, but suddenly a cry echoed loudly from the cell walls. Relive flooded us. Maggie cut the cord “It’s a girl” she adds. We wrapped her in a blanket. We couldn’t have let Lori lay like that she would have turned. “I’ll do it. She’s my mom.” Carl said sure. “You don’t have to do that.” Alex looked pitiful at him as did we all. But Carl hat already drawn his gun. We turned around and left the cell. Not a second later we heard the shot ringing. It was over.

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

Biden 'asked President Obama not to endorse' him, but people aren't buying it

Joe Biden is officially running for president in 2020, and from the looks of his first day in the race it's going to be a long, awkward journey.

As you may remember, Biden served as Barack Obama's vice president for eight years, and the two men were exceptionally close. Their "bromance" was talked about constantly, they exchanged friendship bracelets, and Obama even awarded Biden the Medal of Freedom. But because they were such genuine pals, Obama's in a pretty strange spot right now.

On Thursday, a reporter asked Biden why Obama had yet to endorsed him for president, to which the former VP replied, "I asked President Obama not to endorse, and he doesn’t want to. Listen, we should — whoever wins this nomination should win it on their own merits." That's when things got awkward.

Here's the video of Biden telling reporters he asked Obama to not endorse him: I asked President Obama not to endorse and he doesn't want to — whoever wins this nomination should win it on their own merits. pic.twitter.com/9qAmfyuSI4

— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) April 25, 2019

SEE ALSO: Creepy Joe Biden fails at sensitivity training on the 'SNL' cold open

As a former president it makes sense why Obama wouldn't want to weigh in on the race — especially considering there are currently 20 Democratic candidates. But because of his past relationship with Biden, a lot of people were expecting some sort of comment.

As Obama continues to remain neutral, Twitter users have taken it upon themselves to troll Biden's "I asked him not to endorse me" claim, comparing it to other classic, untrue excuses.

Biden: “I asked President Obama not to endorse”

— Shane Goldmacher (@ShaneGoldmacher) April 25, 2019

you don't know him, he goes to another school https://t.co/m6WxYACOZT

— Kevin McNamara (@KevinMPMcNamara) April 25, 2019

I asked Rihanna not to DM me https://t.co/p3TytePAjH

— Steadman™ (@AsteadWesley) April 25, 2019

in other news i asked the pulitzer committee not to give me a prize this year https://t.co/tC6bYE7JtR

— Alex Roarty (@Alex_Roarty) April 25, 2019

"Actually my girlfriend lives in Canada." https://t.co/OkLgGUWKnK

— Micah Meadowcroft (@Micaheadowcroft) April 25, 2019

Biden has a past presidential endorsement but it lives in Canada https://t.co/HvRwmvpTlr

— Kathryn VanArendonk (@kvanaren) April 25, 2019

Translation: Biden: "When do you think you'll endorse me?" Obama: "I think it's better [for my own sake] not to endorse you." Biden: "I agree, I won't ask you to endorse me." Biden: "I asked him not to endorse me" https://t.co/hUPyndMBP1

— Robert M. Cutler (@RobertMCutler) April 25, 2019

I asked Chrissy Teigen not to follow me https://t.co/4se4smOC5A

— Grace Segers (@Grace_Segers) April 25, 2019

Of course I have presidential support..you just don't know him cuz he goes to a different high school. https://t.co/XemGbshzAE

— smoketinged (@smoketinged) April 25, 2019

Biden is saying.... out loud where people can hear him.... that he asked President Obama NOT to endorse him. Me right now: pic.twitter.com/Nd9QvH98Rb

— April (@ReignOfApril) April 25, 2019

BIDEN: vote for me! I’m friends with barack obama! VOTERS: does he endorse you? BIDEN: ... VOTERS: ... BIDEN: here’s a photo of us on a ferris wheel!

— Jesse McLaren (@McJesse) April 25, 2019

When announcing his candidacy on Instagram on Thursday morning, Biden included a photograph of himself and Obama, and photos with the former president are already being included in promoted tweet ads for Biden's campaign.

View this post on Instagram

#Joe2020 Join our campaign! Link in bio.

A post shared by Joe Biden (@joebiden) on Apr 25, 2019 at 3:06am PDT

Image: screengrab/twitter

Even former White House photographer turned Instagram troller/author, Pete Souza, is sharing photos of the two men together.

View this post on Instagram

Two good men.

A post shared by Pete Souza (@petesouza) on Apr 25, 2019 at 10:50am PDT

So while Obama might not publicly endorse Biden during the course of his campaign, it seems he'll have a very tough time escaping his association with the 2020 candidate.

WATCH: Kamala Harris announces 2020 presidential bid

[theshootingstaryoosung]

Admin Answeres

Tagged by: @just-simply-aging /@mysplaced-pen

Rules: Answer these 92 statements and tag however many people you want

THE LAST: 1. Drink: Coca-Cola!!! 2. Phone call: V (aka m y Mom) 3. Text message: To V? It just simply said “Yep” 4. Song you listened to:  Love-Lost Elegy (Piano English Cover) - Rachie 5. Time you cried: This morning tbh??? I kind of cried bc I couldn’t sleep.

HAVE YOU: 6. Dated someone twice: Yes??? It was complicated. HE BROKE UP WITH ME BECAUSE HE WAS FORCED TO THEN WE GOT TOGETHER AGAIN 7. Kissed someone and regretted it: Yes. I regretted kissing this one dude??? Like I didn’t actually kiss him he just walked up and kissed me and I was too shocked to stop it??? 8. Been cheated on: Yes. 9. Lost someone special: To death or what? Because in general yes! 10. Been depressed: 24/7 since I was like 8. 11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: I’ve gotten drunk but never thrown up.

LIST 3 FAVORITE COLORS: 12-14: blood red, black, lime green

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU: 15. Made new friends: YES 16. Fallen out of love: I fell out of love with my pillow and got my pillow husbando 17. Laughed until you cried: Not exactly?? I laughed until I choked and then cried because I choked. 18. Found out someone was talking about you: Yes but it wsn’t in a bad way??? 19. Met someone who changed you: Y e s. Maybe I’m not so sure I’m more into guys anymore-- 20. Found out who your friends are: Dead kids with superpowers? 21. Kissed someone on your Facebook list: Y e s. Alex-kun~!

GENERAL: 22. How many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: Most of them??? And like someone are fam I haven’t met yet. 23. Do you have any pets: Currently have three cats. Somerone take one of them. 24. Do you want to change your name: Legeally changing my name to Seto! 25. What did you do for your last Birthday: I think I cried for a stupid reason such as I just wanted my presents and a good day please don’t bully me. 26. What time did you wake up: 1:30pm since I didn’t sleep at all last night. 27. What were you doing at midnight last night: Making icons tbh 28. Name something you can’t wait for: THE NEXT KAGEPRO LIGHT NOVEL!!! THE NEXT KAGEPRO MANGA!!! 29. When was the last time you saw your mom: I think it was around 7:15am?? Before I passed out. 30. What is one thing you wish you could change in your life: Reddy. 31. What are you listening right now: Lost Time Memory (English Cover) - JubyPhonic 32. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: I don’t think so??? But I have a really bad memory. 33. Something that is getting on your nerves: Anons. 34. Most visited Website: Tumblr, sherv.net, ao3 and youtube??

LOST QUESTIONS. I JUST PUT IN RANDOM INFO ABOUT ME 35. Mole/s: None 36. Mark/s: Does my many scars count? 37. Childhood dream: Being a writer!!! 38. Hair colour: Mostly back to a dark brown with some blond strains still there lolololol 39. Long or short hair: Short, thinking of getting another cool haircut like where half of my hair was buzzed. I might post some pictures of it tbh??? 40. Do you have a crush on someone: Yes 41. What do you like about yourself: My writing skills! 42. Piercings: Ears?? Or maybe I should say one ear since the other one is closed up by now lololol 43. Bloodtype: I have no idea! I never checked lololool 44. Nickname: Seto-kun, Yoosung, Shane, Kou-kun 45. Relationship status: Single 46. Zodiac: Libra 47. Pronouns: he/him                                                                                     48. Favourite TV Show: Zoo?  49. Tattoos: I want one. 50. Right or left hand: Right. 51. Surgery: N o. 52. Hair dyed in different colour: I do it often, I kind of want to bleach my hair blond again or lavender. 53. Sport: I hate sports lolololol 55. Vacation: Japan maybe??? idk 56. Pair of trainers: Johto Trio lololololololol

MORE GENERAL: 57. Eating: Nothing??? Or cookies??? Seaweed??? The taste of death. 58. Drinking: Coffe, Tea, Orange Juice, apple cider 59. I’m about to: Make more icons or cry 61. Waiting for: Jumin, V and human Elly to get here (My older brother, Mom, nephew) 62. Want:  The sweet release of death. 63. Get married: Maybe??? 64. Career: Writer!!!

WHICH IS BETTER 65. Hugs or kisses: I like kisses and hugs the same!! 66. Lips or eyes: Eyes-- The are the windows to the soul 67. Shorter or taller: What about around same hight? 68. Older or younger: How about around the same age??? 70. Nice arms or nice stomach: Nice strong arms! 71. Sensitive or loud: Sensitive!                                                                     72. Hook up or relationship: Doesn’t matter to me sadly lololololol 73. Troublemaker or hesitant: Troublemaker.

HAVE YOU EVER: 74. Kissed a Stranger: Yes 75. Drank hard liquor: I drank champage.                                                           76. Lost glasses/contact lenses: Yes. 77. Turned someone down: Yes. A bully tried asking me out. 78. Sex on the first date: It wasn’t exactly a date... 79. Broken someone’s heart: Probably.                                                         80. Had your heart broken: Yes. 81. Been arrested: I was detained and almost charged-- 82. Cried when someone died: Yes. 83. Fallen for a friend: Yes.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN: 84. Yourself: Not really. 85. Miracles: A bit. 86. Love at first sight: A bit. 87. Santa Claus: A bit??? 88. Kiss on the first date: Yes.

OTHER: 90. Current best friend name: Dakota 91. Eye colour: Dark brown 92. Favourite movie: Deadpool

[gabriellakirtonblog]

[The Best] Why Friends and Family Sabotage Your Clients, and More

Want to put great fitness content on our radar? Post on Facebook and include #PTDCBestSubmission. 

Best Content of the Week

This week’s best content covers a wide range of topics:

An article about why the people closest to our clients are most likely to undermine them.

A video about how to incorporate weightlifting in a powerlifting program.

A social media post explaining what sciatica is and how to improve the condition.

A podcast on how to stay productive while working from home—a challenge that won’t go away anytime soon.

— Esther Avant

Best Article

How Your Clients Are Undermined by Their Friends and Family — Alex McBrairty, tonygentilcore.com

Your clients, with your support, are primed to crush their health goals. They’re training hard, paying attention to how they eat, and feeling great. Then they go out to dinner with friends or family, and the questions and comments begin. Why are they drinking water instead of a cocktail? Why a salad instead of fries? Why salmon instead of a steak? They might not mean to be unsupportive, but the microaggressions do add up.

Alex McBrairty explains why this behavior is hard-wired, and what your clients can do to resist this common form of sabotage. 

— Shane McLean

Best Video

SuperTotal Training – Adding Weightlifting for Powerlifters — Max Aita, Juggernaut Training Systems

Powerlifting and Olympic lifting both involve moving a heavy barbell, and if you or your clients are interested in one, it makes sense that you might also be interested in the other. Max Aita explains how to combine the two disciplines in the same program without losing strength, and offers a sample program to get you started.

— Esther Avant

Best Social Media Post

View this post on Instagram

⚡️SCIATICA⚡️ Leave a ⚡️🙋‍♀️ if you’ve ever experienced this crippling nerve pain. Sometimes it stays in the bum, sometimes it shoots into the hamstring, and sometimes it even stems as far as the calf or foot. Here’s the thing with anything NERVE related: 1️⃣ They MUST be treated and progressed with care. Nerves are not muscle tissue. Don’t treat them the same. 2️⃣ These irritations are much better assessed by a physical therapist in person who understands the neurodynamics of what your current state, pain, and condition need! Your body is WORTH getting assessed. Also, with ANYTHING nerve related, I urge you to look at the environment around you as well. Nerves can get inflamed, stop moving as well, develop restrictions, and ultimately, lead to this thing called “radiating pain” or “sciatica.” THINGS TO CONSIDER IN YOUR ENVIRONMENT: 💤 Are you getting adequate rest? 7-8 hours preferred 💧 Are you drinking enough water throughout the day? Half your body weight (lbs) in ounces 🥘 Are you eating foods that leave you feeling inflamed, bloated, tired, fatigued, upset stomach, GI distress, or more? Helps to work with an RD or functional med doc to see what could be happening to reduce the inflammation you could be adding to your body 🏃‍♀️ Are you moving enough daily? Walking, biking, swimming. Maybe working out hard has to be modified due to pain. Are there other creative ways you can keep moving? 🌬 Are you being mindful of your breath? Stress increases our inflammatory response in our bodies. Address how you’re breathing (we talked about this in depth on episode 11 of The Optimal Body Podcast) to manage your stress, tension, and tightness. Okay, if you’ve addressed all these, made an appointment with a nearby PT and just want to start moving and doing SOMETHING to feel better… TRY THESE 👆 🔸Standing Nerve Glides 🔸Supine (Lying) Nerve Glides 🔸Core Awareness/Stability 🔸Glute/Core Awareness/Stability 🔸Core/Spine Awareness/Stability/Mobility! (pssst – this is the most advanced one!) Self-assess, don’t guess. Keep moving. You got this 👊 #docjenfit #move2improve #theoptimalbody

A post shared by Dr. Jen Esquer, PT, DPT (@docjenfit) on Sep 9, 2020 at 8:28pm PDT

Posted by Jen Esquer on Thursday, September 10, 2020

Physical therapist Jen Esquer’s Instagram account is filled with advice for combating the common aches and pains you or your clients may experience. This one addresses sciatica—what it is, why you should be cautious with any client who has it, and what you can do that might help without making it worse. But don’t stop with one post. You’ll want to follow the page and refer back to it often. 

— Christina Abbey

Best Podcast

The Art of Remote Work: How to Stay Productive While Working From Home — Ted Ryce with guest Nishadi Ranasinghe, Legendary Life 

Even though we’re more separated from each other than ever before, most of us have one thing in common: figuring out how to work from home. It’s especially stressful when we have kids taking remote classes while we’re trying to do our own jobs. Podcast guest Nishadi Ranasinghe offers advice on how to stay focused and why you should think about managing energy instead of time. She also has some meditation tips for beginners.

— Mike Howard

More Great Fitness Content 

[Article] Get Better Results on Instagram: 10 Common-Sense Tricks that Are Often Overlooked — Meghan Callaway, meghancallawayfitness.com 

[Video] How to Write a Full-Body Strength Workout — Anders Varner, Barbell Shrugged

[Podcast] Writing Like a Pro to Influence and Build Your Business — Luka Hocevar with guest Nate Green, Vigor Life 

[Social Media] The “Eating for Two” Myth — Girls Gone Strong

Tired of training clients at 5 a.m.?

We all have to pay our dues. For many fitness pros, that means training clients or teaching classes or opening your gym long before the sun comes up.

But if you’ve been paying those dues for years on end, maybe it’s time for a change. Time to try something different. Time to consider another way to make a living while still doing what you love.

That’s why we created the Online Trainer Academy.

Since 2016, we’ve helped thousands of personal trainers, nutrition coaches, and gym owners—serious, passionate fitness professionals like you—launch online training businesses.

Some now do all their coaching online. Others do a combination of in-person and online training. Still others work part-time with online clients to supplement their income from another business.

They all have one thing in common: What they were doing before wasn’t working for them.

They needed a change, and their Online Trainer Academy Level 1 Certification gave them the knowledge and skills to make it happen.

If you love coaching but hate doing it on someone else’s schedule, maybe it’s time to try online training.

Consider this your wake-up call.

  ​

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[saadullah-faisal-world]

Joe Biden is officially running for president in 2020, and from the looks of his first day in the race it's going to be a long, awkward journey.As you may remember, Biden served as Barack Obama's vice president for eight years, and the two men were exceptionally close. Their "bromance" was talked about constantly, they exchanged friendship bracelets, and Obama even awarded Biden the Medal of Freedom. But because they were such genuine pals, Obama's in a pretty strange spot right now.On Thursday, a reporter asked Biden why Obama had yet to endorsed him for president, to which the former VP replied, "I asked President Obama not to endorse, and he doesn't want to. Listen, we should -- whoever wins this nomination should win it on their own merits." That's when things got awkward.> Here's the video of Biden telling reporters he asked Obama to not endorse him: I asked President Obama not to endorse and he doesn't want to -- whoever wins this nomination should win it on their own merits. pic.twitter.com/9qAmfyuSI4> > -- Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) April 25, 2019SEE ALSO: Creepy Joe Biden fails at sensitivity training on the 'SNL' cold openAs a former president it makes sense why Obama wouldn't want to weigh in on the race -- especially considering there are currently 20 Democratic candidates. But because of his past relationship with Biden, a lot of people were expecting some sort of comment.As Obama continues to remain neutral, Twitter users have taken it upon themselves to troll Biden's "I asked him not to endorse me" claim, comparing it to other classic, untrue excuses.> Biden: "I asked President Obama not to endorse"> > -- Shane Goldmacher (@ShaneGoldmacher) April 25, 2019> you don't know him, he goes to another school https://t.co/m6WxYACOZT> > -- Kevin McNamara (@KevinMPMcNamara) April 25, 2019> I asked Rihanna not to DM me https://t.co/p3TytePAjH> > -- Steadman™ (@AsteadWesley) April 25, 2019> in other news i asked the pulitzer committee not to give me a prize this year https://t.co/tC6bYE7JtR> > -- Alex Roarty (@Alex_Roarty) April 25, 2019> "Actually my girlfriend lives in Canada." https://t.co/OkLgGUWKnK> > -- Micah Meadowcroft (@Micaheadowcroft) April 25, 2019> Biden has a past presidential endorsement but it lives in Canada https://t.co/HvRwmvpTlr> > -- Kathryn VanArendonk (@kvanaren) April 25, 2019> Translation: > Biden: "When do you think you'll endorse me?" > Obama: "I think it's better [for my own sake] not to endorse you." > Biden: "I agree, I won't ask you to endorse me." > Biden: "I asked him not to endorse me" https://t.co/hUPyndMBP1> > -- Robert M. Cutler (@RobertMCutler) April 25, 2019> I asked Chrissy Teigen not to follow me https://t.co/4se4smOC5A> > -- Grace Segers (@Grace_Segers) April 25, 2019> Of course I have presidential support..you just don't know him cuz he goes to a different high school. https://t.co/XemGbshzAE> > -- smoketinged (@smoketinged) April 25, 2019> Biden is saying.... > > out loud where people can hear him.... > > that he asked President Obama NOT to endorse him. > > Me right now: pic.twitter.com/Nd9QvH98Rb> > -- April (@ReignOfApril) April 25, 2019> BIDEN: vote for me! I'm friends with barack obama! > > VOTERS: does he endorse you? > > BIDEN: ... > > VOTERS: ... > > BIDEN: here's a photo of us on a ferris wheel!> > -- Jesse McLaren (@McJesse) April 25, 2019When announcing his candidacy on Instagram on Thursday morning, Biden included a photograph of himself and Obama, and photos with the former president are already being included in promoted tweet ads for Biden's campaign.> View this post on Instagram> > Joe2020 Join our campaign! Link in bio.> > A post shared by Joe Biden (@joebiden) on Apr 25, 2019 at 3:06am PDTImage: screengrab/twitterEven former White House photographer turned Instagram troller/author, Pete Souza, is sharing photos of the two men together.> View this post on Instagram> > Two good men.> > A post shared by Pete Souza (@petesouza) on Apr 25, 2019 at 10:50am PDTSo while Obama might not publicly endorse Biden during the course of his campaign, it seems he'll have a very tough time escaping his association with the 2020 candidate. WATCH: Kamala Harris announces 2020 presidential bid

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://yhoo.it/2W6MtbS