#it is SO GOOD though

[specialagentartemis]

I increasingly think that Arcane fans would like Synners by Pat Cadigan.

It’s thoroughly different in setting and plot—it’s a cyberpunk novel set in 1991’s vision of a high-tech future Los Angeles—but has, I think, a very similar style and spirit to the story of a large cast of mostly well-meaning but clashing characters hurtling a city to its breaking point. Synners is vivid, kaleidoscopic portrait of a city and the interconnected people who live in it, on the cusp a major technological change that's going to force everyone to change in return.

It depicts the initial invention and early days of brain-sockets that allow people to jack directly into the internet. Following a swirling cast of characters, from homeless teens to entertainment tech CEOs, from the shifting participants of hacker communities to the middle-aged drudge-workers on an advertising agency salary, to aging rock musicians and dreamy-eyed artistic druggies, all the people whose lives are going to be different forever. Who are changing for the machines.

The cast of characters is large but four core perspectives anchor the book: Sam, a teen hacker, who runs more with her street friends than with her businesswoman mom, fiery with the creativity and righteous anger of a teen activist with nowhere to put it; Gabe, her father, who wanted to be an artist and never made it, and he ended up with an ex-wife who doesn't like him and a daughter who doesn't talk to him and a salaried career in advertising that he completely phones in; Gina, newly hired by Gabe's same company, who used to be a rock musician back when that was hot and anyone cared, sharp and cynical and burned-out but willing to take this leap to do something truly creative and new again even if she thinks it'll bring them all down; and Mark, her friend, creative partner, on-again-off-again lover, and pain in her ass that she still deeply cares for despite her own resentment sometimes, a visionary and a musician floating in his own world most of the time, who embraces the brain sockets so he can upload his ideas and feelings and visions to the world in wild new unfiltered ways.

Synners is organic and messy, wild and energetic, and feels fresh even when a lot of that era of cyberpunk no longer does. It can be hard to follow at first - the first 200 or so pages are an exploratory introduction to the characters and their world. And then around the halfway mark it's like Cadigan snaps her fingers and everything springs to life and oh, shit, suddenly everything's happening and storylines start colliding and it's a breathtaking brutal poetic machine of a plot she's built.

[daily-failboat-clips]

Hey There Danana

[brickcollector]

He is so orange

[wanologic]

sorry danny, sam will never think you’re cool

[pbnmj]

THE NOIR-HOBIE INTERACTIONS THAT I MADE UP IN MY MIND ARE VERY REAL TO ME. SONY PLEASE PICK UP WHAT I’M PUTTING DOWN!!!

[soaked-doors]

"Don't try to find a reason for somebody's love!"

[eydilily]

would you bite the hand that feeds you?

[chloesimaginationthings]

Vanessa suffered more than Michael in FNAF

[pangur-and-grim]

he almost died, so now he’s allowed to be a brat forever

[sanguine-squid]

look at my biology headcanons boy

[egophiliac]

still ruminating over Lost In the Book With Spooky Skeletons Part 1, so here's a selection of some of my favorite little bits! (...some more loosely paraphrased than others) (I just feel like Idia has no room to criticize in general, okay)

anyway, I'm sure we're just going to have a fun time celebrating Halloween and nothing bad is going to happen whatsoever! :)

[oatmealaddiction]

Okay but the weirdest thing about the whole "Brotherhood is better you should skip 03" discourse that's become commonplace now, it sort of forgets the world Brotherhood came out in and why you should watch the original Fullmetal Alchemist. When Brotherhood came out, the original Fullmetal Alchemist was one of the most beloved and most watched animes of all time. Brotherhood assumes you the audience have already seen it because of course you have, everyone has seen it, so it skips important information and speeds the story up because it doesn't want to bore you with things you already know. Have you ever wondered "hey why does the first episode of Brotherhood kind of suck, and why am I being introduced to like 50 new characters, and why are they acting like I know what the hell an alchemist is?" It's because Brotherhood thinks you've seen 03.

The first 7 or so episodes of Brotherhood constitute dozens of chapters in the manga, and the first 25 or so episodes of the original Fullmetal Alchemist. The Nina Tucker episode in Brotherhood, in FMA 03 takes up nearly three episodes. Yoki gets a backstory in 03 and it's genuinely one of the best episodes and taken directly from the manga and Brotherhood glosses over it because: duh, you've already seen it. And so if you skip the original you miss out on dozens of really great character building episodes like Ed and Al meeting Hughes for the first time and getting to spend a whole episode helping him free a train from terrorists, or Ed and Roy having a duel that expands on the relationship they have, or episodes where the brothers just help out random people in towns before the major story gets going.

The original also paces itself quite a bit better than Brotherhood and is more in line with the mangas storytelling. In the manga we don't find out about The Gate until nearly two dozen chapters in, and the same goes for the original anime. Like, that's a twist reveal in those stories, and it's weird that the most watched series is the one where they tell you all about The Gate in the first two episodes because they assume you've already seen the original show.

What's more, people don't know that Hiromu Arakawa helped write for the anime while she was still in the middle of writing the manga, and as a result was inspired to write scenes in Brotherhood that the anime did first. That scene of Edward getting impaled by a falling beam? Directly inspired by a similar scene in the original anime. There's a lot of little instances of that and they're great when you can recognize parallels and things in Brotherhood that are direct references to the original anime, but people don't notice any of that anymore. Because the original anime is just an automatic skip these days, and it's a bummer because people don't realize what a giant it was back before Brotherhood was released. They treat it as *bad,* not realizing it was one of the most beloved anime of its time and the problems people take issue with have a lot more to do with personal taste than any kind of actual flaw in the writing. Brotherhood was never meant to dethrone it, and the original anime was always supposed to be part of the viewing experience which is why those first few episodes of Brotherhood are so fast paced. So like, please stop telling people Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 is a skip, or it's bad, or you don't need it because Brotherhood is better. Regardless if you think Brotherhood is better or not, the original wrote Brotherhood's check. It was huge, it was beloved, and Brotherhood is *banking* on the knowledge you've seen all of it and loved it. And trust me when I say there is so much to love about the original series. It's still my favorite branch of the FMA franchise, and it's worth your time, I promise you.

[awakeagainstmywill]

Aziraphale portrait study - I finally finished coloring it!

I loved his posture, the colors and the lighting in this scene. There are some in-progress snapshots over here.

[mipexch]

I WAS MADE FOR YOU // YOU WERE MADE FOR ME

[marzipanandminutiae]

what's with the weird glorification of smoking that's come back lately

like

I've seen so many posts that paint opposing smoking as some impossibly Loser-ish or puritanical stance and I really don't get it

it makes you, your house, and your clothing stink, destroys your teeth, and gives you lung cancer. opposing it is. Correct. obviously addiction is very complicated and quitting can be hard, but just saying "smoking is gross and harmful as a practice (including vaping)" is True and Right actually

some of you have never grown up hearing about how some beloved family member died a slow, agonized, wasting death of smoking-induced cancer, or watching it firsthand for yourself, and it shows

[evil-cryptile]

I forgive him for being french on account of swag