#it’s really engaging and if you’re interested in mysteries and the kind of *female rage* narrative you would definitely love this show

[theweeklydiscourse]

One of the things I like most about Sharp Objects is the way it does flashbacks. It conveys memory and the pasts of the characters so creatively, it doesn’t smash-cut to the past or re-play clips whenever they need to show a character remembering something, it weaves the sounds and images together in a way that flows. As a viewer, it makes me feel like my intelligence is being respected and that the makers of the show trust the viewer enough not to spoon feed them information and create a really clunky image

[rantheon]

the bakarina anime is done! it’s just a drop in the ocean that is the otome isekai genre so these are some recs + what you need to know about them. i just listed most of my favs otherwise it’d be too long :p

in no particular order. includes some non-isekai ones too. needless to say most of these aren’t completed yet

my next life as a villainess: all routes lead to doom

using this to plug that there’s more bakarina content in the form of light novels, manga and 3 spin-offs

an observation record of my fiancee - a self-proclaimed villainess

told in the pov of prince cecil, whose fiancee bertia straight up tells him she’s a villainess of an otome game from her past life

if you ever wonder what jeord from bakarina might be thinking half the time, this is probably close. cecil is the same kind of prince who initially finds things bored and predictable until they met the mc

the things cecil would get up to for bertia? hoo boy

also the way the mangaka draws hair is addicting to look at

the villainess cecilia silvie doesn’t want to die so she decided to crossdress

the title speaks for itself~ after remembering an otome game she played in her past life, cecil (previously cecilia) is now the one capturing the hearts of the academy ladies instead

it’s fairly new so there’s not much of it yet :c but it’s pretty interesting

the original otome game had a whole rpg combat system going on and i’m hyped to see how it’s gonna lead the story

the Angelique vibes are strong in this one

the villainess wants to marry a commoner

isabella used to play an otome game in a past life, but she was really only interested in a side character named ursch. and then one day she finds him in her mansion garden

her past life self is such a mood - i too have 100% otome games in hopes of side characters getting hidden routes but alas

definitely deserves the ‘video game’ tag. isabella can see status screens and character stats/skills etc, and all the gacha rewards and grinding transferred over after her reincarnation. she’s the isekai female protag we’ve always wanted

seriously the main ship is too op for their own good aha

deathbound duke’s daughter

in a past life, erika only managed to finish 2.5/7 scenarios of an otome game thanks to an unlucky encounter with knife-kun. with the different flags of her impending doom approaching, she takes things into her own hands years before the game events start

very fantasy-oriented (the most on this list) and pretty action-packed, once you get past the game exposition in the first 3? chapters

the world building is brilliant, from the hafan mages to the aurelian alchemists, and there’s beasts and wands and spells and dnd stuff sprinkled in

the cast has quite interesting dynamics and interwoven plotlines, and they’re all dorky in their way :>

beware of the villainess

melissa remembers a novel from her past life and desperately tries to cut off contact with the male leads, but they still make her life hell & she rages

she’s just so done with everyone and you can’t help but relate to her

definitely the funniest on this list XD melissa and her reactions takes the cake but even the shit characters are hilarious in their own way

there’s also a lot of parodies to memes etc & best of all, there’s cussing. all the shits and fucks. a whole lot of it

it’s great

death is the only ending for the villainess

penelope wakes up as the villainess from a game she’d been playing in her past life, only right now it's on the hardest difficulty where death is literally everywhere. thus she tries, well, not dying

what’s cool about this is that penelope has access to the original game system. she can see menus, choice options etc. the male leads even have affection percentages floating above their heads :> which is always cool to see (and what i’m a sucker for)

but it’s definitely one of the darker ones on this list. iirc there’s depictions of violence, abuse, drugs and then some. just a fair warning

the daughter of albert house wishes for ruin

upon realizing that she’s the villainess from a past-life otome game, mary decides to stay as one. chaos ensues

i love this manga so much, everyone is so quirky and there’s something to laugh about on almost every page. the story almost feels self-aware of itself and just lets the characters do whatever. like ride bikes

addie is so cute ;o;

it’s definitely something everyone should experience

i’m a villainess daughter so i’m going to keep the last boss

one of the finished ones!

post-annulment, aileen pulls a Lisa Tepes and asks the demon king claude to marry her. he refuses. hijinks ensues

mostly on the fantasy side, as it builds on the world of the monsters

the cast is pretty fun! aileen’s smart, funny and pretty competent in her own right. plus she and claude are positively adorable together

milady just wants to relax

post-annulment, ronia decides to open a cafe in the countryside. it later becomes the frequent hangout of a beastmen mercenary group, who are intensely feared by the townsfolk

well... beastmen. that’s all you need to know /wink

okay, that aside, it’s just as chill as the title suggests. ronia slowly makes friends she can trust, and the beastmen find a second home in the only cafe that’s willing to accept them. it’s pretty wholesome

the banished villainess! living the leisurely life of a nun making revolutionary food

despite actively trying to change her ‘villainess from a past-life otome game’ fate since childhood, elizabeth gets annulled, her noble title stripped, and is sent to a church in a neighboring kingdom. she enjoys it more than expected, despite the appearance of the ever watchful leonid

there’s plenty of 21st-century food like sandwiches, cotton candy leonid’s muscles <3

the entire cast is lovable, and can chris get an f for all the heart attacks leonid keep giving him

seduce the villain’s father

yereninovica (or just yerenica) realizes that she’s in the world of a novel she read in her past life, but as the aunt of said novel’s mc. after thwarting a kidnapping that’s basically the mc’s origin story, she takes it upon herself to also prevent the tragic death of emperor belgoat

a bit different since it switches the roles around (side character x side character) and goes into the “parent generation” of the original work

there’s also an interesting bit where the world seems to recognize her as a hijacker, and where that takes her, we’ll see in due time :o:

plus the way yeni habitually calls him ‘father’ cracks me up every time

transferred to another world but i’m the savior of an otome game

after a ritual gone wrong, “yamada tarou” (fake name) is stuck in the world of an otome game. the only way back is with a magical ring, normally obtained after becoming the lover of one of the male leads. he of course says no i’m going adventuring but the game doesn’t like that

it’s absolutely hilarious - the leads treat our mc like a heroine, and there’s a lot of otome tropes that are called out on/parodied. like the seiyuus’ names oh my god

tarou’s reactions are great and his appraisal skill is the funniest thing alive

endo and kobayashi’s live commentary on the villainess

in modern japan, endo and kobayashi start their playthrough of an otome game, which becomes a bit glitchy and odd. they discover that siegward, a male lead in the game, can hear what they’re saying. they use this chance to finally give lisolette a happier ending

much of the story’s focus is on the characters slowly warming up to lisolette, and a bit on endo/kobayashi’s irl relationship. despite being the primary drive of the story, lisolette herself hardly moves the plot - if you know what i mean

regardless it’s undeniably adorable

tearmoon empire

no isekai, more of time travel? chronoskimming?

mia wakes up 10 years in the past after being sentenced to death. now afraid of guillotine-kun, she strives to solve the issues in her kingdom that had previously led to her doom

a bit similar to bakarina in terms of concept: avoid death flags, unknowingly recruits the people she meets into her little saintess cult. the misinterpretation is very strong, and in brilliantly funny ways

it has really fun narration ngl especially in the light novel

of course, i’ll claim palimony!

to prepare for her annulment, yulia starts scheming recording her fiance’s meetups with the heroine to use as evidence. if you’re gonna lose a suitor, might as well get some money out of it, right? along the way she gets involved with rudonik, one of the male leads

no reincarnation. rather than an otome game, the villainess story comes from a book written by a side character, and the “heroine” just decided to play it out in real life

the cast together is a riot, and it’s entertaining to watch yulia only think in profits and every connection she can make to achieve it

the villainess’ slow prison life began with her broken engagement

no isekai, just a plain old villainess

post-annulment, rachel is sentenced to imprisonment. which she enjoys and is thoroughly, hilariously prepared for

everyone’s a little afraid of rachel and for good reason. it’s better to find out yourself through the LN or manga, but let’s just say that even the king doesn’t want to deal with her XD

the holy grail of eris

now this one is interesting, putting the villainess trope into a mystery ghost story. that said, no isekai either

our innocent heroine constance attends a party and encounters scarlet, an executed villainess from ten years ago. a body possession and some public embarrassment later, they decide to team up to solve the mystery that might be behind scarlet’s death

i mean, ghost villainess? sign me up

+ some honorable mentions

i favor the villainess (the heroine goes for the villainess- girls? girls? yes)

a bellicose lady got reincarnated (a delinquent reincarnates as a heroine; what a concept :o unfortunately there’s not a lot of english content for it yet)

it seems i got reincarnated into a yandere otome game (i like that the mc actively makes it so that game can’t ever happen the way it should; plus, yanderes are always interesting to study)

inso’s law (modern isekai, and quite cute!)

the reincarnated young lady aims to be an adventurer / holy guardian tiger (similar to deathbound duke’s daughter in that there’s more of a focus on the fantasy aspect)

expecting to fall into ruin, i aim to become a blacksmith (so far the only one with a shounen tag that i like; its main charm is probably the cast and their interactions with each other eliza best girl)

since i’ve reincarnated as the villainess’ father i’ll shower my wife and daughter with love (big big wholesome vibes)

level 99 villainous daughter (severely op lady who takes no shit from the people looking down at her, and regularly thinks about blowing up the academy within the first 4 chapters? hell yeah)

may i please just ask one last thing? (post-annulment, the mc literally punches everyone in the room; it’s great)

this is getting long now oops

edit: i also made a visual-friendly personally-tagged-by-me bookshelf here!

[soulvomit]

I mostly care about people’s praxis, far more than their analysis or their fandoms. You will reach that point, too.

I feel like a lot of the culture of young Millennials and Gen Z hitting “cancel” on friendships with people who aren’t ideologically identical, is kind of interesting, because there are only a few ways that could have come about. This filtering is something I can apply to *new* friends, certainly - I have, and I do - and my newer friends are much more “like me” in terms of how I presently am. But it’s harder with legacy friends, and it’s harder with people who are clique members. There is very little way I could do this because of what the general social shape of my life is like. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of you feel the same way in your 40s, once you’ve had a chance to make a bunch of different friends in the non-digital world - at your jobs, in your neighborhood, etc. - and once you find that your same-age friends that you had in your teens and 20s, have either changed, or *not* changed (and *you* have changed). One of my groups of mismatched, imperfect people goes back to the 1980s. We are in our mid to late 40s now. This is the group I run into the most issues with, with politics. Many of them were oddballs or even radical in their day.  It’s not that they are now Trump supporters or anything. They aren’t. They largely either voted for Bernie or Hillary and not a single one of them voted for Trump. But after I moved away, I got involved in LGBTQ culture... and they simply stayed the same. Being actually in LGBTQ culture in the Bay Area, in the 90s, isn’t the same as being a hetero person in a heterocentric world who doesn’t hate gay people. Most of my friends up here are actual allies or activists. Most of my friends in LA, who I grew up with, are simply not haters. Most are super progressive by 1990s LA standards. They support trans rights and gay rights and bi rights and women’s rights at the most basic and active level I actually require from cis het middle class people: as a non-hating outsider who will back up LGBTQ people at the polls and who will back up their LGBTQ friends when there’s trouble. They call people out when people tell gay jokes. They use people’s preferred gender pronoun, respect trans people’s identities, and probably even have friends who are trans. But they have no idea what’s actually going on in the LGBTQ community or what conversations are being had or even what those conversations are being called. I’m pretty sure they don’t “get it” about any gender identities besides male and female, on a deep internalized level. But they will respect your identity despite not “getting it.”    They are not the perfect kinds of 100%-validating all-accepting friends *now* that I needed as a teenager and 20something. The funny thing is, they *were* the 100%-validating all-accepting our-politics-100%-match friends when I was initially friends with them. But people change. They meet the minimum requirement I have of family members, to be able to sit at the same dinner without me raging and walking away. There are things I simply don’t talk to them about, because I feel like they live on a different planet from me and just don’t get all the finer points of political or social stuff I’ve dealt with since leaving LA. While they don’t particularly do anything that is harmful or racist by today’s terms, I also can’t really talk about them about that stuff, because they just Haven’t Kept Up. It’s annoying sometimes, because I love to talk about that stuff and think about that stuff and a lot of them seem like they’ve closed themselves off since their early 20s.  And that’s the thing - lots of people, particularly people who are not that marginalized themselves, simply Do Not Keep Up with the latest discourse around every new movie or piece of media or every new offense. And even older marginalized people don’t necessarily have the same analysis as younger marginalized people.  The group I grew up with, knows what’s on the ballot, they support their real-life friends, but it is the kind of thing of “I don’t know your life experience, but I love *you.*” No, that is not the same at all as “hate the sinner but love the sin.” The shape of this is more like, in real life, “I support your rights and I support *you* and I voted for the right things, but I don’t get what’s wrong with the representation in that movie nor do I even know what people are saying about it.” They have no problem with analyses of racism and other forms of prejudice as a more binary thing but aren’t up on the latest analyses of it as a pervasive cultural thing or The Invisible Knapsack or 2019′s construction of cultural appropriation. I can’t even talk with some of these people about these things. They don’t even know these conversations are happening any more than they know what music the young people are listening to. Their whole world consists of other people their age, older people, and their own children. Actually the ones with teenagers more up on the issues. This will happen to you, too, because chances are, you will either politically drift from your high school and college age friends, or they will drift from you. Some of you will “keep up” more than others have.  Sometimes you’ll educate them - but sometimes you’ll just leave those topics alone. Most of the time, you’ll just leave it be. Especially since so many people past their 20s have just frozen in place, culturally and socially (those of you who are a little older know this, just think about your high school reunion).  There gets to be a point at which you just end up accepting that there is such a thing as Woke Enough.  Here is the thing: It’s a stark truth that a lot of you, in your 20s, are probably at the peak level of engagement that you will ever be. And some of you who go on being activists, will be burned out by this age. Even those among you who are LGBTQ may find a partner then just kind of close yourself off inside your world of partnered friends, and move to the burbs away from where all the discourse is taking place. And with the discourse swinging younger and younger - you may eventually find yourselves totally out of the loop. Eventually, you will find that your friends that once matched you on everything, no longer match you on everything... but provided they don’t do anything too horrific (and you get to decide what your limits are, and yes you will probably have to pick and choose your causes because by your 40s you’re going to find that it’s impossible to be all things to all people and “not being a dick” is the best you can offer.) You won’t even know it’s happening until it’s happened. And it WILL happen and there is pretty much nothing you can do about it. There are a couple of them whose politics infuriate me, because of how oblivious they seem to be about anything that has happened since 1999.   Honestly, these people do piss me off, and I feel like there is a lot of willful ignorance among a lot of cis-het white middle class people in my age group. Especially the ones who didn’t lose privilege in some major way. And honestly. I have to just hold my nose. Because after 30 years of friendship, they’re still the group in which I’m most likely to find a place to live should I need one, or a kidney donor.  It would be almost impossible to “cancel” them for not being perfect. For not knowing the newest and most woke terms. Here is a way that in your teens and 20s you get to more play “pick and choose” - if your friends are all individual people whom you met as an individual person. None of them know each other. You aren’t in some enmeshed group with a lot of overlapping, intersecting interdependencies. Small town and clique and workplace dynamics almost always have a little bit of “Geek Social Fallacies” to them, because it’s not like you can just push someone out of the group, not when they’re married to your other friend and their wife is your kids’ babysitter.  I have a couple of legacy friends from the high school days who were progressive for the 80s and 90s. Not a single one of them would ever vote for or support Trump and plenty would defriend you over the same. They’re not progressive by Gen Z standards. I just have to be okay with them not being transphobes, not being racists, not being homophobes or biphobes. I have to be okay with them backing me at the polls and boycotting problematic companies, even when their analysis is not all that. There is a lot of indirect problematica in 90s progressive politics. People just didn’t have as much information. Here’s an example. You get a lot of political analyses that are the product of people who know about the Civil Rights Movement, who generally are the most generous definition of what the 90s thinks of as “not a racist.” They voted for Obama, are great with their kids marrying a black person (or they married one), are great even with living in diverse communities. They may even be against police brutality. They grew up in upper middle class communities that weren’t necessarily ethnically or racially exclusive. But they don’t have the analysis that Gen Z leftists have, or that the LGBTQ community has, or that poor marginalized communities have. They don’t use the same framing or same words to talk about these issues. They don’t think they are racist, because their main connections with POC are with other second-generation middle class people. Their analyses almost always exclude generational poverty.   So what happens is because they’re so clueless, they support policies that they think are not racist, but lead to racist results. Because this cause and effect  can be almost invisible to someone not actually living in poor, diverse communities. They genuinely think gentrification is awful but at the same time they don’t actually know anyone who’s ever been gentrified out. Or their friends moved away who were poorer, but it’s “a mystery,” because the thing with Bay Area gentrification is that it was happening one family at a time as far back as the 90s and no one was talking about it. Most of them are well-intentioned but the particular set of issues are so incredibly nuanced that somebody on the outside just probably won’t understand unless they’ve grown up around that group or put a lot of time into learning the problem. Like, I’m pretty sure that a lot of them, as good as they are about relating to other ethnicities, don’t really get Native issues. I’ll have to settle for the fact that they know enough to only buy Native art from Native people, and they know not to wear war bonnets. But I don’t expect them to know a single thing about S’Klallam land management crises. It’s only recently that any of them would’ve had any context regarding residential schools like the one my grandfather was in. And yes I like when people listen and actually grasp what I’m saying from real empathy and understanding and interest in knowing. But you’d be surprised how short this is, about so many things, in the real world. Most people are not that interested in my long stories about ANYTHING unless that’s what they actually came for. I have to be okay with the fact that my friends that I grew up with, are not “with it” as much as I’d like them to be, and decide how “with it” I require - then once I have decided, I have to be okay with the fact that they would probably give me a kidney. My more recent friends are the ones who are more “with it” about the same things I care about.  But you’d be surprised how little a lot of subjects ever, ever actually come up in a conversation of longstanding acquaintances - when the acquaintanceship runs a decade or more. And the main metric for “listen” is, “if it DID come up, would I be able to tell them? Would they get it?” A lot of them won’t Get It to the degree that someone just like me would get it. And I’m so many things in one person, that nobody is ever going to be Just Like Me. So others’ empathy and understanding, for the purposes of my own life, has to be Good Enough. Everyone has to make an individual choice on this one and decide how much sameness they need in certain areas, how much empathy. The people who really fucked up - like the couple of people who really did turn out to be racists - I’ve long since canceled. I’m no longer friends with any radfems, either.  And what’s more is that I have a big extended world of people, but I also have a “circle of trust” that is only a few. Those are the handful of people who know me, get me, I can fully be myself with. And these are not my high school or college era friends. These are worth three times their weight in gold. But most of what younger Tumblrians expect in their dealings with people - that’s stuff I only really get out of the people in my circle of trust.  For everyone else, Good Enough will have to be okay. What’s more is that I bet a lot of you will come to the same conclusion one day.  I realize this sounds like middle class white normie neoliberal apologia. But there’s a difference between “people who are my very best friends, who I can tell everything to” (which is not actually THAT many people, but it’s enough) and “people I generally otherwise enjoy and wouldn’t kick out of an AD&D game, but can’t talk about EVERYTHING with.”

[traincat]

If you don't mind giving more comic character advice, Do you have something for core personalty traits for Mary Jane? I'm asking to better understand how she and Peter work together.

I feel there’s a bit of a catch-22 with getting to the core of Mary Jane’s characterization. And it’s a good one! It’s one with a lot of pay off. The issue where Mary Jane’s backstory is revealed in full – Amazing Spider-Man #259 – is an amazingly written piece that throws all of her actions up until that point into stark relief, while simultaneously shaking up the fact that we have, with a few exceptions, been seeing her through the lens of Peter’s perceptions, and Peter has a bad tendency of assuming things about people and then sticking those assumptions, even when contrary evidence is thrown in his face. Mary Jane’s beautiful, Mary’s Jane’s vivacious, Mary Jane loves a party, and so despite several people in his life, his aunt, and even Mary Jane herself telling him there’s a bigger story afoot, he still doesn’t see it until she tells him everything. 

(ASM #97 – seriously, the way the real story fits together at the end is nothing short of brilliant writing, which is extra admirable when you’re not the person who wrote the character’s initial appearances. That someone sat there and connected all these different little scenes and made up this really perfect backstory is, in my opinion, some of the greatest comics writing of all time.

”I don’t want to love him. Can you dig it? I like the guy too much for that kind of scene.” ASM #131)

And she tells him everything as a trade – her biggest secret for his, because in Amazing Spider-Man #257, two issues before, Mary Jane reveals that she’s always known he was Spider-Man. But the problem with the reveal, as amazing as it is, is that for the full effect you have to have been following along from the beginning.

Mary Jane tells us something very important from the start, in Amazing Spider-Man #43:

I’ve talked before about how I feel like separating Peter and Spider-Man is, in my opinion, a shallow read on the character. He’s always Peter and he’s always Spider-Man and while the anonymity of Spider-Man may allow him more freedom than the average everyday social scenario, he doesn’t really act that differently whether masked or maskless. Not true with Mary Jane, though her mask is metaphorical. She is an actress. Carefree party girl Mary Jane is an act, and she’s a carefully cultivated one, and Mary Jane knows exactly what she’s doing, in a much more careful and practiced way than Peter knows what he’s doing when he pretends there’s just no way he could be Spider-Man. Mary Jane says it herself much later in the aptly named Amazing Spider-Man: Parallel Lives:

“He wore a mask, too.” So you have this really incredible reveal, but it’s so much better if you’ve been following along and letting things unfold. And I feel like a lot of understanding Mary Jane early on depends on tossing Peter’s notions of her out the window – he might be Spider-Man, but when he first meets her, he’s still an 18yo boy, and this is the girl he spent months dodging because, and this is literally in the text, he thought she might be ugly. And this gets tossed aside a lot in adaptations because we currently don’t like our heroes to be flawed, but Peter is very flawed, and because of that he’s very real, and he thought when his aunt said Mary Jane had “a nice personality” she meant she didn’t have a face to match, because he was an 18yo boy, with everything that comes with being a fairly good looking 18yo boy and only child who was raised by an aunt and uncle who adored him beyond measure.

“And you know what that means!” (ASM #259) And then he does meet Mary Jane, and not only is she beautiful, but she’s vivacious and fun-loving and seemingly carefree, and he’s simultaneously very attracted to that and put off by her devil may care attitude because he thinks she’s flighty.

“You know me – I’m never serious about anything… Never.” (ASM #244) High school gets a lot of gravity in Spider-Man adaptations, for some reason – because it was when Peter was bit by the spider, I guess, or when Uncle Ben was killed – but the college years aren’t really afforded the gravity they deserve, because that’s where a lot of who Peter is and maybe most importantly who the most valuable people in his life come in, and Mary Jane’s a very big part of that.  College is where he meets her, and Harry, and Gwen, and where he and Flash start to move past their high school rivalry, and you have this great little friend group that, some issues aside, actually functions really well, with Peter and Gwen’s romance very much at the center of that. And then Gwen is murdered by Norman Osborn.

The Door Scene is in my own opinion one of the most powerful moments in Spider-Man mythos. Gwen’s dead, Norman Osborn’s been impaled on his own glider, and Mary Jane is waiting for Peter. When he arrives, she tells him she’s “real torn up” about what happened to Gwen, and in response, consumed by his grief and his rage, he yells at her and tells her someone like her wouldn’t be upset if her own mother was dead (Mary Jane’s mother is dead, and as ASM #259 will tell you it had a huge impact on her life) and tells her to leave. Despite everything he’s said to her, she stays. 

One thing I see get used in comics discourse that erroneously twists things from film adaptations is the idea that Mary Jane loves Spider-Man, the masked hero, the mystery of it all, the drama!, whereas (as she’s always painted when these comparisons come up) good girl Gwen Stacy loved Peter Parker, the real boy underneath. On top of it being a cheap argument meant to pit two complicated female characters with a lot of history against each other, and on top of the fact that it’s an argument that’s always going to be unfair because in comics Gwen didn’t know Peter was Spider-Man, it’s also always going to fall flat for one big reason: at first, Mary Jane hates that Peter is Spider-Man and that he risks his life. It’s what caused her to break off their engagement the first time. 

(Spectacular Spider-Man #113) There’s an interesting parallel in the early days – Peter can’t run away, and Mary Jane can’t stay, no matter how much they might want to. Mary Jane is very much about masks, about playing on preconceived notions, about events in your past defining your current actions and the identities you create out of them, the different facets of yourself. I would say that she and Peter work together because as characters they both really grew together; she’s not his first girlfriend, he’s not her first boyfriend, there were times when they were in and out of each other’s lives, and even before he knew it, she was keeping his secrets.

“Because that’s what I do. I keep people’s secrets.” (Amazing Spider-Man #511) I’ve said all this – and I could say a million more words, because I think Mary Jane’s fascinating and complicated and that she’s one of the best written characters in comics – but I really suggest reading for yourself Mary Jane’s appearances from Amazing Spider-Man #42 through when she breaks off her first engagement with Peter in Amazing Spider-Man #183, then when she reveals she knew Peter was Spider-Man all along and tells him her the story of her own past in #257-259, and then their second and successful engagement in Amazing Spider-Man #291-292. It’s a lot of comics, but they’re so good and the way information about Mary Jane is revealed and how it informs her actions in older comics is amazing. 

One final note: Mary Jane never met a blunt object she wouldn’t bash over a man’s head.

(ASM #261 – a favorite Harry moment, too.)

She’s not afraid to use her fists, either. Love it. (Spectacular Spider-Man #163) 

[ayearofpike]

Master of Murder

Pocket Books, 1992 198 pages, 14 chapters + epilogue ISBN 0-671-69059-0 LOC: CPB Box no. 1081 vol. 14 OCLC: 26075926 Released July 28, 1992 (per B&N)

Everybody’s reading the thrilling Silver Lake series by Mack Slate. With the last book due out in a few months, fans are excited to finally find out who killed Ann McGaffer. Only problem is, Slate — that is to say, twelfth-grade nobody Marvin Summer, hiding behind a pen name  — has no idea himself, and hasn’t even started writing the book. It’s only as he works to close the distance between himself and his crush, Shelly Quade, that the grand finale starts to make itself clear to him, in ways that unexpectedly and gruesomely parallel his own life.

This might not be my favorite Pike book, but it has certainly had the most influence on me. I’ve always called myself a writer, since a fifth-grade teacher recognized my ability to craft a narrative and pointed out that somebody had to make books and I should think about it. In high school, it was my defining trait, and it wasn’t until I’d almost graduated from college that I realized it didn’t make me special. Everybody has a story, as Marvin finds out, and some of them are even better at telling it in an engaging way. It’s sad, in a way, that I identified with this book so much (like, I literally carried it in my backpack for my entire senior year) and it still took me so long to get that theme.

What I did get was an intense sense of connection with Marvin. Shy loner? Check. Separated parents who didn’t get along? Check. Younger sibling who wanted to be like me? Check. An English teacher hung up on prescriptive strictures of language who quietly cared about her students, and a language teacher who was more interested in building a classroom community than sticking to a scheduled curriculum? Check and double-check. Writing ability revered by peers? Check, even if my work rarely made it past my immediate circle of friends. Subconscious inclusion of issues I was going through in my work, to the point where it got me in trouble with the girl I liked? Well, not directly observable, but I mean, it’s hard to not come off creepy if you’re writing a love story to a girl instead of, like, actually TALKING to her.

I also really enjoyed the way Pike works with language in this book, and honestly, I still do. Modern YA gets a lot more respect, and deservingly so, but a lot of it is written in a direct, almost sparse way. It makes sense, considering how many contemporary authors write in the first person, and most people don’t actually think in metaphors and syllogisms and even (to some degree) descriptive adjectives. Master of Murder kind of goes hog-wild on this, kind of a leap from representational art to impressionist art. And I buy it. As Marvin is our POV character, it makes sense that as a writer he’d put some more florid prose into his observations and understandings of the world. Plus, this style kind of helps to establish him as an unreliable narrator, as we slowly learn how much he actually doesn’t know and, in fact, how much maybe he’s repressed.

That said, this story does have some holes. Let’s jump into the summary and I’ll get there.

We start out with Marvin in his English class, watching Shelly read his most recent book and thinking about their relationship. They’d gone out a handful of times a year before, but it stopped after the death of Harry Paster, another flame of Shelly’s who’d jumped off a cliff into the nearby lake. Marvin figures enough time has passed that he can ask her out again, but first he has to read the short story he’s dashed off for their creative writing assignment. Man, remember when creative writing was an actual COMPONENT of high school English class? And the only reason I got to do it was that I took a creative-writing-focused senior English course. I mean, I get it — public school English is about preparing you to pass the SAT or ACT, not teaching you how to reach and grab an audience. They save that for us, in post-secondary ed, by which time the interest in writing has already been drilled out of kids by making them do repetitive five-paragraph essays. Most of my students still don’t want to write, but I at least try to give them some room in the assignment structure to flex their creative muscles.

But anyway, “The Becoming of Seymour the Frog” is a legitimately good short-short story. It gives us a sense of Marvin’s author voice straight away, which is of course the same as the narrative, and it legitimizes how much Pike uses what modern writers would call excessive description. The teacher grades it right away (what? I give everything two reads, and this teacher is just going to LISTEN one time?) and tells Marvin he might be a writer someday if he learns to control himself. We both (the reader and Marvin, that is) know he’s already there, and Marvin completely discredits this advice. He writes best by giving up control and going into a state of flow, one where he can’t stop writing but also doesn’t necessarily feel that what’s going onto the page is coming from inside his own head. This is important later.

After class, he catches up to Shelly, but their talking is interrupted by the arrival of her current squeeze, Triad Tyler. Triad is a big dumb football jock who wants to buy Marvin’s motorcycle, which Marvin would never dream of selling. Before he can get around to asking her out, she ducks into the bathroom, and Triad complains that it seems like she’s always trying to escape. This is probably important later too. So already in the first 15 pages, Pike has nicely set up the major characters and their interplay with each other.

We jump to speech class, and I call BS. Like, we learn later that Marvin only has four classes as a senior. Why is one of them speech? My high school only required a half-day of seniors, sure, but our classes were English, math, world history, and economics. It turns out this class would be better called “communication skills,” which was required in ninth grade, but I’d still buy that more than speech. The teacher basically has them engage in conversational debate, and this day the topic they choose is Mack Slate’s Silver Lake series. It’s a good framework for sharing Marvin’s story, and showing the corner he’s painted himself into: Ann McGaffer’s body was found naked and tied up with barbed wire floating in Silver Lake, and five books on we’re no closer to figuring out who did it or why. The description grosses me out a iittle bit, but on the heels of the last two super-tropey thrillers, I’m going to choose to believe that Pike is poking fun at the intentional shock attempts of the genre.

After class, Marvin finally successfully asks Shelly out for that night, then goes to his PO box to pick up his fan mail. His little sister is already there, and once again we’re subjected to the jaw-droppingly beautiful small child. It was gross when it was fifteen-year-old Jennifer Wagner, but Ann Summer is ELEVEN and Marvin’s SISTER. Pike, isn’t it possible to describe a female one cares about without making it all about her looks? He does it with Marvin’s mom in a few pages too, when they get home. We get it — girls we care about are hot. Only problem is Marvin’s mom is an alcoholic who almost never leaves the house except to buy more booze. Dad is an alcoholic, too, but he’s not at home and his child support payments are erratic. Good thing there’s a best-selling author living in the house! But Ann’s the only one who knows, and it kills her to not be able to sing her brother’s praises and brag about how great he is.

They go upstairs to Marvin’s room to read his mail, and one of the last letters makes him pause. It has a local postmark, and the letter inside simply says “I KNOW WHO YOU ARE.” It starts to pull the book into more general thriller territory, but before we can think too much about it, the phone rings and it’s Marvin’s editor, asking about Silver Lake Book Six, which is four months overdue. I have some serious questions about the timeline of this series, but we’ll get there in a little bit. Marvin soothes her concerns, then goes to take a walk around the lake, trying to figure out where to start his book but not actually ready to start it before he picks up Shelly.

The date is successful, by most measures. They have dinner, go to a movie, and then stop on a bridge crossing a raging river because Shelly wants to look at the water. They sit down on the edge, Marvin landing on an old and weathered piece of rope, and watch the waters pound away down to their final destination — the lake. Then Shelly invites Marvin back to her house to sit in the hot tub, where they get naked and make out, but she suddenly gets sad and pulls away. I give Marvin props for being respectful and apologetic here rather than trying to force her to continue. Woke in 1992! But as he’s getting ready to leave, he learns the reason she’s sad: Shelly is thinking about Harry, which he expected, but he didn’t expect to learn that she thinks he was murdered. And she wants Marvin’s help to figure it out and clear Harry’s name.

There’s no basis for this belief, but Marvin figures he might as well listen and do some research, seeing as he can’t figure out his own murder mystery. He checks his PO box first, and finds another ominous letter that’s been mailed there directly rather than to his publishing house, so maybe somebody really does know him. He calls his agent (whose name is one letter away from a real literary rep, maybe even Pike’s) to ask about it. This insert, plus the editor whose name was close to the woman in charge of YA at Simon and Schuster at the time, made so many of us so sure that this was as close to autobiographical as Pike had ever gotten. I seriously chased leads from this book to try to figure out more about him, back before he started answering questions on Facebook and there was so much less mystery about it.

So then Marvin goes back over to Shelly’s house to talk about Harry. She has the police report and autopsy report, and Marvin looks them over, along with articles about Harry’s death from newspapers at the time. What it boils down to is Friday night a year before, a night when Marvin had taken Shelly out for her birthday, Harry and Triad were drinking beer together. Triad said that he dropped Harry off at home, and that was the last time anybody saw him until a fisherman found his body in the lake on Monday morning. Marvin starts to question the narrative that Harry jumped, because there are several physical symptoms that indicate maybe he was held captive. He talks to the fisherman and to Harry’s mom, and takes a look at the jacket Harry was wearing, and makes note of definite rope burn marks around the back and under the armpits. So Harry was tied up somewhere for a long time  — but where? And how?

Marvin goes home to rest and digest this info, and has a dream about his book series that shows Ann McGaffer hanging from a bridge by a rope around her waist. He’s startled awake by Ann, who says that their dad is breaking things downstairs. Marvin gets down there just in time to watch his dad shove a lamp into the TV, and the resultant cuts to Ann and his mom from the exploding picture tube send Marvin into a fit of rage. He starts to beat the shit out of his own father, and only stops when Ann tells him to, even though the dude is unconscious. Like, holy shit, buried violent tendencies that will make you like your father? So Marvin gets the hell out of the house to give himself some space.

He ends up back at his PO box, even though he knows there couldn’t have been another delivery, but there sure is a letter in it. He follows this back to Shelly’s house, where he finds her making out in the hot tub with Triad. Marvin overhears her say that she was using him to get him to do something, and Triad tells her not to go out with Marvin anymore, to which she readily agrees. So now Marvin is scared, he is heartbroken, and he has unlocked some deep-seated rage that will allow him to strike back. He ends up on the bridge, where he starts to figure out what must have happened a year ago. There’s a rope, there’s a giant oil stain on the bridge right behind it, and there’s a dead boy with rope burns on his jacket who was maybe hanging from it rather than being tied up. Marvin figures that Harry was jealous of his relationship with Shelly and decided to stage a little motorcycle accident, but accidentally slipped off the bridge and ended up hanging himself, slowly suffocating to death until the rope broke and he washed down to the lake.

And it occurs to Marvin that this would be a perfect way to get back at Triad.

After a misadventure with two girls in a bookstore who accuse him of trying to pick them up by pretending to be Mack Slate, Marvin buys a new car and a bunch of motorcycle-dropping gear at Sears, then takes the bike to Triad’s house to sell it to him. Marvin says that he left the helmet in a motel in the town across the river, and that the manager said he was going to throw it out if Triad didn’t pick it up tonight. Then he hikes to the car, which he’s had delivered around the block, and goes to stake out the bridge. While he’s waiting, he starts to think about the parallels between his own series and how Harry died. And we learn that the first Silver Lake book only came out after Harry’s death — in fact, that Marvin didn’t start writing it until then.

So this is my timing issue. Master of Murder does have some gaping inconsistencies, I’m not gonna lie. There’s the variable height of the bridge over the river: it’s 150 feet when Marvin and Shelly stop on their date, and maybe 60 when they have the final showdown two nights later. Also, later apparently Shelly knows details of a book that Marvin hasn’t even written yet? But this, in my mind, is the biggest problem. We’re supposed to believe that in a year, five books have come out about Ann McGaffer and her loves and hates. We’re also supposed to believe that he’s four months late with book six, and that it takes at least three months for the publisher to turn a story around and get it into bookstores. We also have the information that the fastest Marvin’s ever written a novel is eighteen days. So by that logic, there’s no way he could have finished and submitted Silver Lake Book One before mid-December. So five books have somehow appeared between probably March and let’s say November (they say the fifth one just came out) — five books in seven months — but they’re going to wait another three months to release the sixth? Also, how does an author, even an experienced and acclaimed one, sell a six-book series to his publisher without knowing the beats and especially the ending? There are too many inconsistencies and timeline impossibilities for me to buy it. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Pike was a new author writing publication fanfiction.

But anyway, Triad races across to the other town. Marvin is too far away to see him, but he recognizes the sound of his motorcycle. He grabs his rope, his knife, his can of oil, and his binoculars, and hustles the probably mile to the bridge to set up his death trap. But as the motorcycle is coming back, he gets his first good look — and sees Shelly on the back. So he drops the rope, but Triad is already braking, stops short of it, and shoves Marvin off the bridge.

So now it’s Marvin hanging from his armpits by a rope under the bridge above a raging river that leads to the lake in his town, and did I mention he’s wearing Harry’s jacket? Shelly’s more annoyed than angry — it turns out she’s expected this from Marvin the whole time. In fact, she DOES know who Mack Slate is, and she’s already read about this scheme in the Silver Lake books. But Marvin doesn’t even remember writing it. She wants to turn Marvin in to the police. But Triad wants to untie the rope and drop him into the river.

And suddenly Marvin knows what actually happened. Harry wasn’t alone on the bridge a year ago. Triad was with him, and shoved Harry just as he shoved Marvin. Shelly doesn’t believe it until Triad knocks her out for trying to stop him killing Marvin too. Marvin manages to get hold of the underside of the bridge just as Triad unties the rope, then he kicks Triad in the face when he leans over to look and see whether Marvin has actually fallen. The semi-conscious wedged body of the football jock gives Marvin a ladder to climb back up onto the bridge, and he stomps out Triad’s bad knee when the dude wakes up and threatens to go after him again. Only the knife falls out of his pocket as he does so, and Shelly picks that moment to come to, and it’s a simple matter for Triad to grab both her and the knife and threaten her death if Marvin doesn’t help him get away.

What’s in it for Marvin, though? The guy who tried to kill him is holding the girl who tried to frame him for a death the guy is responsible for. He gets on his bike, where Triad has courteously left the keys in the ignition, and drives away. I don’t like that he’s left a vulnerable girl at the almost-complete mercy (he can’t stand up) of a confirmed killer. What I like least is that he doesn’t even call the police. But then again, he’s abandoned his new car in the woods near the scene and surely doesn’t want to be implicated if somebody dies. So Marvin drives to a seaside town, rents a house and a computer, and writes an entire book in five days, only stopping to eat and sleep. Of course, within a few pages of the end he has to stop, because he doesn’t actually know how Ann’s best friend, left in the clutches of the boyfriend’s jealous best friend, is going to escape, or whether in fact she does.

Marvin calls his editor and tells her the story is done and he’ll express-overnight it to her. He also asks her to set up a reading from it at his high school that afternoon. More BS? Like, how are they going to allow an author to read from a book that the editor hasn’t even SEEN, let alone put through proofs and galleys? Marvin has to physically print and ship the manuscript — remember, this is 1992 and most people don’t have email yet (and when it would become widespread in a few years, it still had a hyphen). But she does it, and Marvin goes home first to find out that Dad’s in jail and Mom hasn’t touched a drop since. More good news! He takes Ann with him to school, where the entire student body is in stunned disbelief about the identity of Mack Slate, and finally gets some personal acknowledgement from his peers and teachers.

But Shelly doesn’t show up. Neither does Triad. The kids he does ask say neither has been in school all week. Marvin can’t dwell on this, because he has a major book series to finish, but it’s precisely this reason that he hasn’t made it all the way to the end yet. He knows that he needs someone else’s story to finish his own. So he goes back to the lake, and makes his way to the top of the cliff that everyone thought Harry jumped from. As he’s thinking, Shelly shows up with his knife. She tells Marvin that she suspected him of being Mack Slate back when they were dating, and he would tell her stories that had the same voice as Slate’s published work. So she sneaked into Marvin’s room one day and snooped in his computer for proof.

When the Silver Lake books started coming out, she saw the parallels immediately, and figured the only way Marvin could have known so much about how Harry died is if he had killed him. She got Triad, Harry’s best friend, to help her set up a situation where Marvin would implicate himself, not realizing that Triad had always wanted Shelly and been jealous of both of the other guys and didn’t care who hurt if it meant nobody else could have Shelly. That includes Shelly herself: if Triad couldn’t be with her, nobody else would. He didn’t tell Harry that Marvin and Shelly were out together that night, and when Harry realized Shelly was on the back of the motorcycle he did like Marvin and dropped the rope. So Triad pushed him.

Triad obviously has told Shelly all of this, and Marvin figures the only way he would have is if Shelly somehow overpowered him. It’s an interesting twist that she told Triad about using Marvin to get him to figure out Harry’s death and Triad never realized she might use him for the same purpose. (I feel like Shelly has more strength than even the story gives her credit for, seeing as Pike describes all her agency as coming at the hands of her feminine wiles.) Marvin suspects that here, the spot where it all began, is the spot where it has all ended as well, and that the soft soil where he’s sitting is Triad’s final resting place. Shelly doesn’t say as much, but elicits Marvin’s silence before throwing the knife into the lake. But of course Marvin still has a book to finish, and Shelly’s OK with that as she’s apparently the only one who’s figured out the parallels anyway. The book closes with them in Marvin’s car, Shelly driving to Portland so they can get the manuscript on a flight to New York while Marvin writes the last few pages longhand.

I have to admit it: I still really like Master of Murder. Obviously I’m not in high school anymore, so I don’t relate to Marvin the way I used to, but I do connect to his being trapped in his own story and having to listen for others. The book has a lot of holes and inconsistencies in general that either I didn’t notice when I was a teenager or I glossed over in the excitement of having a character I could relate to so well. In particular, the YA publishing description is not without issues, and the ways the industry has changed after the Internet and Columbine and social networks and Trayvon Martin and #MeToo don’t jibe with the already-shoddy impression of how it works that Pike puts on display. The story is consigned to be a relic of its time. But for those of us who were there, who were trying to make our stories heard the way Marvin wanted to, it carries some warm nostalgia. Maybe I only like it so much now because I liked it then, but I’m OK with that.

[la-fille-en-aiguilles]

Andrew Garfield x Female Reader: Forty-Fucking-Three

A/N: I’ve promised myself that I wasn’t going to write anything until I’m finished with my thesis. And I really tried to keep that promise. But I guess that when your imagination hits you, it hits you bloody hard. Also, I’ve been looking for any Andrew Garfield imagines since my undying fangirling for Young Remus Lupin seemed to have generalized (fuck you very much, Desmond Doss, I blame you), and all i found was maybe a couple of short paragraphs. So here’s to you, beautiful people looking for something, centered around Andrew Garfield. He probably deserved better, but I felt stressed and angsty and I had to spill it all out. Also, I don’t mind writing more parts of this (although it might take time), so hit me up if you’re interested in what might follow. I really hope you enjoy, lads xx WARNINGS:  2448 words of hideous English, a third of which are probably curses. And the stuff is kind of angsty. Oh, and I respect Emma, everything’s that’s written is purely for plot purposes.

Theodore “Teddy” Buchanan was easily the most sought-after professional in the industry. His broad-shouldered, bold-headed persona seemed to retain an aura of mystery no matter where he’d be or what he’d wear. Rumors were clinging to him the way busy bees would hang on to their hive. Some said he had worked for M6 before giving up his governmental missions for the sake of becoming a bodyguard; others argued that after all the horrors he’d seen during the war in Vietnam he wanted to engage in something more down-to-earth, even though the flashes of the paparazzi cameras must have driven him nostalgic, forcing him to recall bombs exploding a couple of meters away from where he stood.

You, on the other hand, didn’t give a flying fuck about where one of your favorite persons in the world came from.

When Teddy first started working for you, he kept his professional distance. Eventually, the two of you became rather close – soon enough the menacing, bloodthirsty-looking man became nothing short of your unofficial father, saving your ass from especially eager journalists and other crazy-ass folk. When after a particularly nasty day he first gave you a nice hug, his nickname was born – Teddy, a huge, fluffy, sweet bear of a man.

As you walked back and fourth in the empty VIP Lounge of the LAX airport, downing your third champagne glass and struggling to keep your dry eyes open, Teddy sat back in one of the huge leather chairs, wearing a beach holiday attire. The agreement was that once he accompanies you to LA, you meet up with your friend and then he leaves for Majorca, where his lovely wife and three kids had been waiting for him since yesterday.  

As usual, it was your friend who had been fucking up the entire situation.

Trying to keep calm, you pressed the phone so tightly to your ear it was sure going to leave marks. The sound of apathetic lady’s voice, suggesting you should leave a message, had you questioning whether she was your real friend, answering your calls more often than that motherfucker did lately. Suppressing a growl, you threw your head back and drained your glass. Gulping down the last mouthful of the bubbly liquid, you sent your phone flying into your beast of a Valentino bag, scattered, open, on the floor.

“I’m so sorry, Ted,” you finally said, placing the empty glass on the table. Burying your face in your hands, you sat down in a chair next to his. “You could honestly leave with the next flight, I’ve got it covered”.

Teddy’s brown eyes sparkled with sarcasm as he gave you a kind once-over. You hadn’t slept for nearly 24 hours by now, arriving from Paris, and all the consumed champagne wasn’t exactly making you feel energized. You barely had any strength left to be mad – all you wanted to know was whether the idiot was going to show, and if you needed to reserve a Presidential Suite at Ritz if he didn’t. Because a king-sized bed, more champagne and a good tear jerking chick-flick movie sounded a lot like heaven right now.

“You need to stop straining yourself over this”, you heard Teddy speak. When your eyes met his, he gave you a warm smile. “He must have been held up by something, or maybe it’s a weather condition issue, fuck knows”, he shrugged, looking calm, cool and collected. “I’m sure he’s gonna show any minute now”.

You eyed him skeptically before shifting on the chair next to him, trying in vain to make yourself feel comfortable.

“What kind of asshole promises to put you up and then refuses to appear?” you said, massaging your closed eyelids. “I swear this is the last time I’ve ever believed anything that Garfinkel says…”

Teddy laughed out loud, throwing his head back. You opened your eyes, curious to know what had put him in such a merry state.

“Bringing out the legendary family name I see… You must really be pissed at him then”, you wondered again and again how Teddy managed to stay calm when all you wanted was to throw things around and murder people. You clasped your hands tightly together, barely keeping yourself from gritting your teeth in yet another fit of irritation.

“Pissed doesn’t even begin to cover it”, you muttered under your breath, closing your eyes again, your head resting firmly against your hand.

And that was when the shit had hit the fan.

It was safe to say you first felt Andrew calling you, rather than heard – your iPhone’s vibration sent shivers up your leg, as your Valentino bag fell over, smashing against your foot. Then you heard the ringtone blast within the four walls of the lounge. You bended over, gripping your cell tightly, seeing the moron’s shit eating grin light up on your screen. 

“Give him a chance to explain, Y/N”, you felt Teddy’s gaze and rolled your tired eyes, as you took the call. Inhaling deeply, you half-closed your eyelids, leaning back in your chair.

“Let me guess, your airplane crashed and you somehow got away alive. And you’re now on your way here, with at least one broken leg,” you stood up, pacing in front of your bodyguard, probably making him dizzy. God knows if you stopped, the anger inside you would have tore you apart.

“I am so sorry”, the minute you heard his voice coming from the other end of the line in waves of British accent, you immediately regretted not being able to strangle him. Desperately trying to keep your armored streamliner of rage behind a mental gate, you bit your lips, saying nothing, stopping dead in your tracks. “I swear I’m the biggest assholic idiot out there. I am also insensitive, irresponsible and completely unreliable. A fucking pathetic excuse for a man for leaving you stranded, Bee’s Knees”, your head still fuming, you felt your lips curl in an involuntary smile at the mention of the nickname. Whatever, you thought. You still had it in you to kill the moron, even if he was your favorite so far, despite all the stupid things he had done.

“I really wish I could call you sooner”, Andrew rambled on and on, and you could almost touch the guilt in his voice. But this wasn’t even nearly enough for you to forgive and forget. “Are you mad at me?” he finally asked in a tiny voice, trying to assess your current state of mind. You could almost picture him biting his lips, his dark eyes barely blinking as he stared at the wall, waiting for your answer.

You puffed your lips, and the sound seemed to break the tension, which had built up in the room. Torturing him by not saying anything, you returned to sit in a chair, Teddy’s eyes still following you. 

“I’d say mad is so three champagnes ago, but you know I’d be lying. Where the fuck are you, Garfinkel?” you narrowed your eyes at Teddy as he smirked at you heartily. “In case you’re wondering what the right answer sounds like, it’s the noise of your steps as you walk into the VIP lounge.”

The line went silent. You felt your stomach drop, a sharp sting of something you couldn’t quite place hitting you like a runaway train. 

“I won’t be able to make it tonight”, he whispered your thoughts in your ear, as you exhaled sharply, biting your lip till it hurt. 

“Of course you won’t”, you muttered, covering your eyes with your free hand. “Why am I even surprised”, you reprimanded yourself bitterly, staring in Ted’s now darkened, rigid eyes.

“No, no, no, don’t do this to me, Y/N”, Garfield maundered, as if trying to save you from the disappointment, already sitting on your chest. “I swear to you, if I only knew… Listen, how about I pay for your hotel room? And anything you’d like? And tomorrow morning, when I land, I’m gonna come get you and I’m going to take you out for breakfast and then we’ll go to Ellen’s together. And after that, I’ll…”

“You’ll go fuck yourself!” you exclaimed, brushing your messy, entangled hair back, feeling a wave of nausea hit you. Andrew went radio silent, probably shocked at your sudden outburst of emotion. “You promised me”, you tried to keep your voice leveled but failed, “I sure hope that wherever the fuck you are, it’s worth losing my faith in you, once and for all”, you noticed Teddy furrow his brows at your stone-cold facial expression. He’d probably break Garfield’s nose if a) Andrew were here, b) he weren’t English, thus eliminating all possibility of national solidarity. 

And right then, a soft murmur reached your ears.

A faint echo, no more than a reverberation really, you might have even imagined it for all you knew. 

“What the fuck was that?” your eyes grew wide as your heart skipped a beat. It can’t be, a tiny hope crossed your mind, but deep inside you had an answer for your question already. Andrew didn’t speak, and the feeling of dread consumed your entire being.  

“Y/N, I had to stay. She needed me.”

This ain’t a secret that Hollywood loves shitty chick flicks, disguised under the pompous name of independent drama, a genre involving a pseudo-bad tragic hero and a weeping girl. It’s just how it is. You still remembered that very Jane Austenish historical motion picture you starred in along with your ex Dane Dehaan – both the guy and the movie belonged to your mile-long list of wrong choices, but both seemed to be the manifestations of God’s largesse at the time. Just like any other independent drama, the movie had those life-changing words that were supposed to ring in the air and make the audience cry for their mothers at a given moment. When the time came, you thought you did a fantastic job showing the emptiness Dane’s words left you with when, following the script, he told you he didn’t love you anymore. You thought you knew how it ought to be played because you could imagine what it felt like. You’ve got a Golden Globe nomination for that scene alone, for fucks’ sake.

As you stared blankly at Teddy’s alarmed face, feeling that treacherous pinching in your nose, you suddenly realized you didn’t know shit. It felt like the weight of the entire universe fell on your shoulders and you could almost hear your spine crack under it. Something just broke in you, no longer functional, making it hard for you to catch your breath. With your temples pulsating in the deafening silence surrounding you, you realized you were about to deliver the performance of your life, worth so much more than a fucking Oscar, at least because you weren’t on Stage fucking 9 anymore. 

“Twenty-fucking-six, Andrew”, you said, your expression unreadable. “That’s the number of premieres, presentations and charity galas I accompanied you to this last month alone, pretending to be your girlfriend so nobody learns how much of a fucking heart-broken sissy you are. Fifteen, wanna take a wild guess what this number represents?” tears of anger and irritation, but mostly fatigue welling in your eyes, you let you question hang in the air, met with complete and utter stillness. “Yeah, I thought so. That’s the number of times I had to put my personal life on hold, so you and I can be caught on photo playing happy couple somewhere in the streets of Rome. Six,” you looked up, fighting an urge to let your self-pity tears out, and finally conquering it, “That’s the number of times I had to turn amazing guys down because we are fucking fake-dating and there’s no way I’d compromise your image and the Breath movie the contract for which I was stupid enough to sign”, you were avoiding Teddy’s stare at all costs now, looking down at your feet. You therefore missed him tapping something on his phone. “I did all that, as it turns out, for forty-fucking-three times you left me explaining to my own publicist and press what the fuck my supposedly loving boyfriend was doing, coming out of his ex’s place in New York in the morning, looking thoroughly fucked!” you finally spit, your speech transforming into a full-blown scream. “I have no fucking idea why I was waiting on a different kind of story this time!” you jumped back on your feet, as if it was going to make you feel better to actually feel the ground under your feet. As if the sensation were going to assure you this wasn’t a just a bad dream.

“Y/N, please, just let me explain…” you heard Andrew speak as though he were standing right next to you, in a voice too strong for someone who had just fucked up big time. “She really needed me this time, okay? I couldn’t just…”

“I needed you too!” you screamed bloody murder, tears rolling down your cheeks freely now as you felt your head blaze with a mind-numbing pain. “Just like all those forty-three times before tonight! So fuck you, Andrew!” you snapped, your anger reaching its apotheosis. “I’m out! And I hope that will fucking damn near kill you! I am gonna come to Ellen’s show tomorrow, because I promised, but that’s gonna be the last you’ll see of me! And if you’re gonna try and contact me again, I will have you castrated! Oh and say hi to Emily for me, asshole! You’re all hers now!” before Andrew could say as much as a no or a fuck you back, you hit the end of the call button and threw your cell on the leather chair you had been occupying for the last three hours, waiting, as it turned out in vain, for your friend to show. 

Hitting the leather surface like a rubber ball, your iPhone landed on the floor right next to your bag as you just stood there, in the middle of the lounge, looking at Teddy, your safe boat, like he, out of all people, knew what to do now, after the world had finally ended.

“I’ve gotten you a suite in Ritz. The limo’s waiting outside”, he stood from his chair, his holiday attire contrasting sharply with the determination his eyes were exuding. You were thankful to him for not wanting to give you one of his bear hugs like he would normally do, because God knows, this small act of kindness would have turned you into dust. He grabbed your two leather suitcases, and handed you your bag, having slid your phone inside. You watched him silently, biting the inside of your cheek. 

“Ready to go?”

You nodded, not producing a sound.

Who fucking cared how many people Teddy might have killed in his past, when the reassuring sound of his voice and one look was all it took for you to feel safe and peaceful again?

[hermanwatts]

Sensor Sweep: Genre Magazines, Mort Kunstler, Vampire Queen, Boris Dolgov

Publishing (Forbes): Today, the number of science fiction and fantasy magazine titles is higher than at any other point in history. That’s more than 25 pro-level magazines, according to a count from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, amid a larger pool of “70 magazines, 14 audio sites, and nine critical magazines,” according to Locus Magazine.

Publishing (Jason Sanford): For the last few months I’ve been working on #SFF2020: The State of Genre Magazines, a detailed look at science fiction and fantasy magazine publishing in this day and age.This report is available below and can also be downloaded in the following formats:  Mobi file for Kindle,     Epub file for E-book Readers, PDF file. For this report I interviewed the editors, publishers, and staff of the following genre magazines. Many thanks to each of these people. The individual interviews are linked below and also contained in the downloadable Kindle, Epub, and PDF versions of the report.

Science Fiction (New Yorker): In her heyday, Russ was known as a raging man-hater. This reputation was not entirely unearned, though it was sometimes overstated. Of one of her short stories, “When It Changed,” which mourns a lost female utopia, the science-fiction novelist Michael Coney wrote, “The hatred, the destructiveness that comes out in the story makes me sick for humanity. . . . I’ve just come from the West Indies, where I spent three years being hated merely because my skin was white. . . . [Now I] find that I am hated for another reason—because Joanna Russ hasn’t got a prick.”

Comic Books (ICV2): Blaze Publishing has reached an agreement with Conan Properties International that will allow it to publish U.S. editions of the Glénat bande dessinée series The Cimmerian, ICv2 has learned.  The Glenat series adapts Robert E. Howard Conan stories originally published in Weird Tales into comic stories that Ablaze describes as “the true Conan… unrestrained, violent, and sexual… just as Robert E. Howard intended.”

Fantasy (DMR Books): To cut straight to the one-line review: Jamie Williamson’s The Evolution of Modern Fantasy (Palgrave McMillan, 2015) is a must-read if you’re at all interested in how the popular genre now known as “fantasy” came about. Even if it’s a little difficult to obtain and get into. Williamson is both an academic and “one of us.” A senior lecturer in English at the University of Vermont, he’s taught a number of classes that I’d love to audit (Tolkien’s Middle Earth, Science Fiction & Fantasy Literature, King Arthur).

Historical Fiction (Jess Nevins): Hereward the Wake was written by the Rev. Charles Kingsley and first appeared in as a magazine serial in 1865 before publication as a novel in 1869. It is a fictionalization of the life of the historical Hereward the Wake (circa 1035-circa 1072), a rebel against the eleventh century Norman invasion and occupation of England. Although he became a national hero to the English and the subject of many legends and songs, little is known for certain about Hereward, and it is theorized that he was actually half-Danish rather than of Saxon descent.

Art (Mens Pulp Magazines): During the summer and fall of 2019, we worked with the great illustration artist Mort Künstler, his daughter Jane Künstler, President of Kunstler Enterprises, and Mort’s archivist Linda Swanson on an art book featuring classic men’s adventure magazine cover and interior paintings Mort did during the first major phase of his long career. That book, titled MORT KÜNSTLER: THE GODFATHER OF PULP FICTION ILLUSTRATORS, is now available on Amazon in the US and worldwide. It’s also available on the Barnes & Noble website and via the Book Depository site, which offers free shipping to anywhere in the world.

Gaming (Tim Brannon): Palace of the Vampire Queen. In the beginning, there was a belief that all DMs would naturally create all their own adventures and there was no market for pre-written ones.  The only printed adventure out at this time was “Temple of the Frog” in Blackmoor.  Seeing a need, the Palace of the Vampire Queen was written by Pete and Judy Kerestan. Yes, the very first adventure was co-written by a woman. The first edition was self-published, followed by a second and third edition by Wee Warriors (1976 and 1977) and distributed exclusively by TSR.

Fiction (DMR Books): Last summer, I was fortunate enough to acquire the copyrights to Merritt’s material from the previous owners.  Along with the rights, I received a few boxes of papers, which I’ve enjoyed going through during the past few months, and which I anticipate will provide me with many more enjoyable evenings perusing them.  Among these were papers relating to Merritt and the Avon reprints.  Some of this takes the form of correspondence between Merritt’s widow, Eleanor, and the literary agent she’d engaged for Merritt’s work, Brandt & Brandt.  Others are contracts with Avon, as well as Avon royalty statements.

Pournelle (Tip the Wink): Here, all of Pournelle’s best short work has been collected in a single volume. There are over a dozen short stories, each with a new introduction by editor and longtime Pournelle assistant John F. Carr, as well as essays and remembrances by Pournelle collaborators and admirers.” My take: I enjoyed this a lot. It had been a while since I read any Pournelle (and then almost always with Niven). I’m now tempted to reread The Mote In God’s Eye.

Gaming (Reviews From R’lyeh): Ruins of the North is an anthology of scenarios for The One Ring: Adventures over the Edge of the Wild Roleplaying Game, the recently cancelled roleplaying game published by Cubicle Seven Entertainment which remains the most highly regarded, certainly most nuanced of the four roleplaying games to explore Tolkien’s Middle Earth. It is a companion to Rivendell, the supplement which shifted the roleplaying game’s focus from its starting point to the east of the Misty Mountains, upon Mirkwood and its surrounds with Tales from Wilderland and The Heart of the Wild to the west of the Misty Mountains.

Art (Dark Worlds Quarterly): Being an artist for Weird Tales was not a fast track to fame and fortune. It is only in retrospect that names like Hugh Rankin, A. R. Tilburne, Hannes Bok, Lee Brown Coye and Vincent Napoli take on a luster of grandeur. At the time, the gig of producing illos for Weird Tales was low-paying and largely obscure. Some, like Lee Brown Coye, were able to establish their reputations in the art world after a long apprenticeship in the Pulps. Most are the select favorites of fans. Boris Dolgov was one of these truly brilliant illustrators who time has not been as kind to as should be.

Tolkien (Karavansara): But what really struck me in the whole thing was something that emerged from the debate: some fans said the novel should have been translated by a Tolkien fan, and by someone with a familiarity with fantasy. But other have pointed out that The Lord of the Rings is not fantasy. And my first reaction was, what the heck, with all those elves and orcs, wizards and a fricking magical ring and all the rest, you could have fooled me.

Tolkien (Sacnoth’s Scriptorium): So, I’ve been thinking back over Christopher Tolkien’s extraordinary achievements and wondering which was the most exceptional. A strong case can be made for the 1977 SILMARILLION. In retrospect, now that all the component pieces of that work have seen the light in the HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH series we can see just how difficult his task was, and how comprehensively he mastered it. Special mention shd be made of one of the few passages of that work which we know Christopher himself wrote, rather than extracted from some manuscript of his father: the death of Thingol down in the dark beneath Menegroth, looking at the light of the Silmaril.

Art (Illustrator Spotlight): Many of you have seen some of the pulp covers he created; most likely those for The Spider, Terror Tales, Dime Mystery or Dime Detective. I was recently reading a blog post about David Saunder’s book on DeSoto (I can’t find the link to the blog anymore), and one of the comments was about how the commenter didn’t believe that DeSoto deserved a book, having painted only garish, violent covers. My reaction was immediate; I felt like telling the commenter to go forth and multiply, in slightly different words of course.

Martial Arts (Rawle Nyanzi): Yesterday, I put up a blog post where I showed videos discussing Andrew Klavan’s comments regarding women and swordfighting (namely, that women are utterly useless at it.) As one would expect, this has been discussed all around the internet, but much of it involves virtue signalling. To cut through a lot of that fog, I will show you a video by medieval swordsmanship YouTuber Skallagrim, in which he discusses the comments with two female HEMA practitioners — one old, one young.

Fiction (Black Gate): Changa’s Safari began in 1986 as a concept inspired by Robert E. Howard’s Conan. I wanted to create a heroic character with all the power and action of the brooding Cimmerian but based on African history, culture and tradition. Although the idea came early, the actual execution didn’t begin until 2005, when I decided to take the plunge into writing and publishing. During its creation I had the great fortune to meet and become friends with Charles R. Saunders, whose similar inspiration by Howard led to the creation of the iconic Imaro. What was planned to be a short story became a five-volume collection of tales that ended a few years ago with Son of Mfumu.

Gaming (Sorcerer’s Skull): The Arimites have the gloomy environment of Robert E. Howard’s Cimmerians and elements of a number of hill or mountain folk. They’ve got a thing for knives like the Afghans of pulp tradition with their Khyber knives, though the Arimites mostly use throwing knives. They’re miners, and prone to feuding and substance abuse, traits often associated with Appalachian folk. I say play up that stuff and add a bit from the Khors of Vance’s Tshcai–see the quote at the start, and here’s another: “they consider garrulity a crime against nature.”

Sensor Sweep: Genre Magazines, Mort Kunstler, Vampire Queen, Boris Dolgov published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

[theconservativebrief]

This week, critic at large Todd VanDerWerff (who hasn’t read any of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels) and culture writer Constance Grady (who has read the first one) got together to discuss the first two episodes of HBO’s adaptation of the first book in that series — My Brilliant Friend. Beware! Spoilers follow!

Todd VanDerWerff: As someone who’s never read the Elena Ferrante Neapolitan quartet that inspires the new series My Brilliant Friend, what most surprised me about the series’ first two episodes was how borderline pulpy they were.

Don’t get me wrong. This is still a show that puts its best “coming of age story” foot forward. It is, above all else, the story of Elena and Lila growing up as poor girls in an out-of-the-way Naples neighborhood. But mixed in there are darker, pulpier elements, like murder and horrifying cellars with strange shadowy figures in the corner and hints of organized crime. I’m starting to see why these books were such a phenomenon — they both capture certain truths about female friendship that aren’t always well portrayed in culture and they wed those truths to storytelling elements that carry an air of popcorn fiction.

I mean, I assume! Again, I haven’t read the novels. And every single one of the pulpy elements I’ve listed above turns out to have a completely logical explanation that mutes it somewhat. That shadowy figure in the basement? Just the local pawnbroker! Though as you learn about said pawnbroker, you start to realize that he, too, is a story in and of himself.

That sort of realization is what the first two episodes of My Brilliant Friend evoke so well, I think. When you’re a certain kind of literary-minded kid, everything that happens to you feels like the start of some fantastical story or voyage. Elena and Lila are that kind of kid: intelligent, but also too young to fully understand every aspect of the world around them. So they fill in the gaps with stories. What they don’t yet realize is the most important story they’re involved in is the one centered on their friendship.

Constance, you’ve read the book that My Brilliant Friend’s first season is based on. One thing that some critics who’ve read Ferrante’s novels have said about the show is that it can occasionally feel like a perfunctory adaptation — taking bits that sang on the page and literalizing them onscreen in a way that works for those who don’t read much, but falling just a little flat if you know what’s coming. How do you feel about the series’ adaptation choices? And can we talk about how remarkable its child casting is?

Run, Lila, Run: A film by Tom Tykwer HBO

Constance: I am ready to talk about those child actors all day. You get such a strong sense of their personalities from the way they’re shot, and the continuity between the child actors and their teen counterparts is honestly astonishing.

In terms of the adaptation: I think that the pulpiness you pointed to is actually one of the biggest changes we see from page to screen. On the page, Elena describes the murder and violence and horror around her so matter-of-factly that it doesn’t quite register as violence.

We know that Elena is afraid of Don Achille, for instance, and that she thinks of him as a monster — but she writes about that fear as though he’s just a creepy old neighborhood man who the local children have made up some stories about. When I was reading the book, it wasn’t until Elena was well into her teens that I finally put together that oh, okay, Don Achille is a local crime boss who got rich off the black market during World War II. He runs the neighborhood like it’s his private fiefdom, and he is ultimately killed by another local crime family who want to get rid of the competition. In the book, Elena just doesn’t think of her neighborhood in such terms, so I didn’t either.

But the TV show makes it clear who Don Achille is almost immediately. There’s a kind of doubled vision here: We see Don Achille as Elena and Lila see him, as a fairy tale ogre who goes around stealing dolls and putting them in a black bag — but we also see him as he is in “reality,” as a petty crime boss.

The TV show also makes the rest of the violence around Elena and Lila a lot more vivid and concrete. There’s a scene in the second episode in which Lila’s father throws her out a window in a fit of rage. Onscreen, it’s horrifying: You hear voices shouting and crescendoing, and then you see Lila’s tiny child’s body crashing through the window to thud painfully on the ground, shards of glass everywhere. It feels like a monstrous act of violence.

But on the page, the violence of that scene is muted. You have to dig for it. It’s almost comic: “Suddenly the shouting stopped and a few seconds later my friend flew out the window, passed over my head, and landed on the asphalt behind me.” Listen to how peaceful those verbs are! Lila is flying, passing, landing; you don’t get a strong sense of brutality from this language. The horror here is subdued, below the surface, and it only dawns on you gradually how terrible and violent the thing you just read was.

As a result, the TV show feels a lot bleaker and more harrowing than the book does in its beginning. Elena and Lila still have their sense of childish wonder and delight at the world, but now overlaying it we can always see the reality of how terrible their world is, and how difficult it will be for them ever to escape. In the book, you have to work for that realization. The shift in emotional register isn’t necessarily bad, but it is noticeably different.

Todd: That’s really interesting to me! As more and more acclaimed novels are adapted into TV shows instead of movies, and as those TV shows tend to streeeeeeetch everything ooooouuuut, I’ve been thinking a lot more about how onscreen depictions have a tendency to make everything blunter than it would be on the page.

To be sure, that’s not always the case. No Country for Old Men is magnificently blunt both on the page and on the big screen. But your highlighting of Ferrante’s verb choices makes clear that a mini-arc within the book must be Elena’s slow realization of how the world around her actually works, as she loses her childhood innocence and observes more nuance as she gets older. (Obviously, this is something all of us experience.) That’s difficult to portray onscreen, where a small girl flying through a window is hard to depict as anything other than brutal and horrifying, unless you’re deliberately going for comedy.

That also speaks to another adaptation problem I think My Brilliant Friend gets around beautifully — namely, even though Elena is the point-of-view character and one of the two leads of the story, she doesn’t really do much throughout the first two episodes, which makes Lila feel like the more dynamic and engaging character.

I sometimes think of this as the Harry Potter problem. In the first few books of that series, Harry is the point-of-view character, which means that we’re getting a fairly vivid portrayal of the wizarding world through his eyes. But onscreen, the point-of-view character is almost always going to default to the camera. A skillful director can change the audience’s relationship to point-of-view (as Alfonso Cuarón did in the third Harry Potter film and Chris Columbus… pointedly did not in the first two), but they’re always working against the way the audience on some level just wants the camera to be an impartial, unseen observer. So how does My Brilliant Friend avoid this issue?

Well, director Saverio Costanzo (as well as writers Ferrante, Costanzo, Francesco Piccolo, and Laura Paolucci) is always cognizant of how we understand the world through Elena’s point-of-view. When she first becomes aware of Lila in class at their school, Costanzo films the revelation in close on actress Elisa del Genio’s face as it cycles through frustration, irritation, and intrigue. Who is this person? Who does she think she is? And more importantly, when we see Lila, it’s from the perspective Elena would see the girl from — seated at a desk.

Costanzo returns to these filmmaking tricks throughout, at moments of emotional importance, so that we are firmly with Elena. Even when we see things that Elena couldn’t possibly have seen — like the murder of Don Achille — they’re presented almost abstractly, as a small child might imagine them. (The murder is revealed via a knife popping in from offscreen to sink into a neck that gouts blood. Not only does it obscure the identity of the murderer, but it also underlines the way a little kid wouldn’t quite understand how all of this works.)

Adult Elena is telling us this story via narration, which also shoulders some of the point-of-view burden, because we’re always reminded that these are her memories. Elena’s narration also subtly frames the story as something of a mystery about who Lila is. (It would seem something bad happened to Adult Lila in the present.)

When Kid Lila takes those dolls and pitches them down the chute into the cellar, it’s presented as impetuous and rude, but also as something almost impossible to understand. The moment underlines one of My Brilliant Friend’s themes, and one of the reasons point-of-view is so important to its success: No matter how well you know someone, they’ll always be a mystery to you on some level.

This theme also extends to how the little plaza where the girls live is presented almost as an entire fantasy kingdom when they’re kids, full of odd nooks and crannies and adventures just waiting to be uncovered. How do you feel about the “world-building” of the show, for lack of a better word? And do its places match up to the ones in your mind’s eye from the book?

Elena and Lila enjoy reading Little Women, another realistic fiction novel that employs wonderful world-building as it follows girls from childhood to adulthood. HBO

Constance: The world-building is another great example of how My Brilliant Friend has to reconcile the reality of the larger world with Elena’s childish understanding of it. In the book, the neighborhood doesn’t really register as filthy and squalid until Elena has a chance to get out of it and catch a glimpse of the rest of Naples; she’s just living her life in the only place she knows. And we see that onscreen, we see what it is about this neighborhood that would be fun for a kid to play in. But we also see that it’s cramped and impoverished and the light is always gray — and in a way, that raises the stakes. We want these girls to go to school so that they can leave this place, before it seems to have fully occurred to them that they might like to.

One of my favorite things about the friendship between Elena and Lila is just how much of it revolves around their shared desire to escape. Elena first decides to befriend Lila specifically because she can see that Lila is smart enough to get out, and if Elena follows her, she’ll be able to leave as well. She won’t live the life her parents lead, and, as she puts it, her mother’s limp will stop chasing her. (What an image that is!) And Lila, in her turn, seems to be drawn to Elena both because she can see that Elena is the only one in the neighborhood who is almost as smart as Lila is, and because Elena has an ability to please the people in charge who can be useful to Lila.

Their teacher, meanwhile, deliberately sets them against each other as friendly rivals, because she can see that they motivate one another to do better — and when it becomes clear to her that Lila is a lost cause, that her parents will not allow her to go to middle school, she drops Lila, and encourages Elena to do the same.

So much of this friendship is built around utility, around the idea that this person, this one, can be an escape route, a way out of the neighborhood. But what’s fascinating is that even as it becomes clear that even if both Elena and Lila are getting out, they’ll be taking very different paths, the friendship never quite curdles. There are moments of profound resentment — that scene where it becomes clear that Lila orchestrated Elena’s punishment for going to the ocean in the hopes that her parents would be too angry to send her to school is just heart-stopping — but there is never any question of the friendship breaking apart.

They mean too much to each other for that to happen. Each one is the other’s “brilliant friend,” and so their bond keeps evolving and mutating but stays forever intact.

Todd: In my review of the season overall, I described Lila as the “brilliant friend” of the title and was met with a degree of pushback from readers who feel that each of the girls is the other’s “brilliant friend.” And, yes, that is obviously where the series is heading (though it feels to me like it will take several seasons for Elena to get over her Lila-themed inferiority complex), but it also strikes me as something very true about friendships between kids and teens.

We’re so often drawn to people who mirror the things we value most in ourselves, and we’re so often drawn to people who — to us, at least — seem to do those things just a little bit better, to the degree that we can make it to adulthood and still be racing against our childhood best friend just a little bit. I mean, I’m sure there are some people who don’t have this complex, but Lord knows I do, and lots of the people I know and love do as well.

Every brilliant friend, on some level, is also a brilliant rival. Elena and Lila seem to have a pretty good balance right now, but I wonder how that will change as the two are separated by their parents’ decisions, by aging, and by time. They can make each other better, but they can also make each other worse. That dynamic is bound to pay dividends the deeper we get into the show.

My Brilliant Friend airs Sundays and Mondays at 9 pm Eastern on HBO. Previous episodes are available on the network’s streaming platforms.

Original Source -> How HBO’s My Brilliant Friend translates Elena Ferrante’s beloved book to TV

via The Conservative Brief

[aion-rsa]

15 Best Episodes of Batman: The Animated Series

When “Batman: The Animated Series” was first announced, many people assumed it was just a grab for popularity from the movies, but it was much more. First airing in 1992, the TV series was a groundbreaking show that ran for 86 episodes and achieved critical acclaim for its dark tone, film noir visual style, complex writing and faithfulness to the comics.

RELATED: The 15 Best Villains in “Batman: The Animated Series”

It had a lasting impact, launching the DC animated universe, leading directly to “Superman: The Animated Series,” “Justice League” and others. It also set a new tone for children’s television, showing how an action series could be exciting and well-written while pushing boundaries. It was also just a lot of fun. Here at CBR, we decided it was long overdue to run down the 15 best episodes of the groundbreaking series.

THE DEMON’S QUEST

Written by the legendary Dennis O’Neil and Len Wein, and directed by Kevin Altieri, “The Demon’s Quest” was a two-part episode that first aired in May 1993. When Robin was kidnapped, Batman was confronted by Ra’s Al Ghul, who had figured out his secret identity as Bruce Wayne. Ra’s claimed he needed Batman’s help to track down his daughter, Talia. When Batman agreed, they were led on a global chase that leads to dark secrets.

“The Demon’s Quest” introduced Ra’s Al Ghul, a legendary villain in the comics but not well-known in any other adaptations, and showed the great intelligence and power he wielded that made him a threat to the Great Detective. It took the Dark Knight to other countries and made him a more global hero, and also showed how the series was dedicated to bringing the comic book world to life, not just showing Batman in an animated form. Besides all that, it was just plain awesome.

I AM THE NIGHT

“I Am The Night” (written by Michael Reaves, and directed by Boyd Kirkland) aired in November 1992, and focused on the motives behind Batman. Set on the anniversary of his parents’ death, the escape of the Penguin left Batman struggling with whether he had actually done any good in his fight against crime, especially when he tried to stop an escaped mob boss known as Jazzman. Along the way, he came across a young boy who scorned Batman, but later came to understand and appreciate his influence.

“I Am The Night” was one of a long line of surprisingly emotional episodes for the series, which wasn’t afraid to explore the psychological tone of Batman. His constant struggle against crime took its toll on him and he was plagued with uncertainty over his motives, but it also worked as a fun and exciting story. “I Am The Night” was a haunting and moving episode, unlike anything we expected to see in children’s television at the time.

ROBIN’S RECKONING

In February 1993, “Batman: The Animated Series” aired the two-part episode “Robin’s Reckoning,” written by Randy Rogel and directed by Dick Sebast. In the episode, Robin came across a mobster named Tony Zucco, the man who caused the death of his circus-performer parents, leaving him an orphan. Despite Batman’s efforts to stop him, Robin set out to get Zucco, and was forced to confront the man and see whether he would kill for his revenge.

“Robin’s Reckoning” was a surprisingly powerful and dark episode, exploring Robin’s grief, his origin and the price of revenge. It also tied into Batman’s own grief and pursuit of revenge for his own parents’ death. The episode has been critically acclaimed, earning the animated series an Emmy award for “Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming Less Than One Hour).” It’s also just a great treatment of Robin and one of the few Robin-focused episodes of the series.

IF YOU’RE SO SMART, WHY AREN’T YOU RICH?

Written by David Wise and directed by Eric Radomski, “If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich” aired in November 1992 and introduced the Riddler to the series. When the frustrated computer game designer Edward Nygma was fired by his company, he was taunted by his boss with the title phrase. Nygma returned as the puzzle-obsessed criminal the Riddler, determined to punish his old boss for stealing from him. It was then up to Batman to match wits with him.

The Riddler had become known as a chaotic and hyperactive villain in the 1960s Batman TV series, but the animated series made him a much more deadly and stable enemy. Instead of a series of bad jokes, the Riddler used a wide variety of puzzles and games to exact his revenge, and the riddles were much more sophisticated and clever than the ’60s version. It was another great villain made better by the animated show.

READ MY LIPS

Written by Joe R. Lansdale, Alan Burnett and Michael Reaves, and directed by Boyd Kirkland, “Read My Lips” brought Scarface and the Ventriloquist into the animated series. In the May 1993 episode, Batman is fighting a crime spree led by a mysterious man known as Scarface, who turns out to be a ventriloquist’s dummy. Yes, in this episode, Batman’s nemesis is a wooden dummy or at least the meek man who controls the dummy and treats Scarface as if he’s alive.

The writers on the animated series did a great job on the big bads like Hugo Strange, but also had an amazing gift to take some of the worst and least interesting characters in Batman’s rogues gallery and make them the best. The Ventriloquist is a perfect example, a bizarre and demented villain who shines in this episode. When Batman stumbles across Scarface lying in bed, alone, there’s a moment where he watches it as if waiting for the doll to come to life. In a world of human crocodiles and evil clowns, a living doll kind of made sense.

JOKER’S FAVOR

The seventh episode of the animated series was “Joker’s Favor,” written by Paul Dini, directed by Boyd Kirkland, and airing in September 1992. In the episode, an average guy named Charlie Collins cursed out a car in traffic, only to discover the driver was the Joker himself. When Charlie begged for his life, the Joker made him promise to do him a favor. Years later, even though Charlie changed his name and left Gotham, the Joker tracked him down to collect.

The idea of a road rage incident making someone a target of the Joker is funny enough, but the Joker’s dogged pursuit of a normal man makes this one of the strangest things he’s ever done. The episode is also noteworthy as the first appearance of the Joker on the show, and also the first appearance of Harley Quinn in any medium. It’s a great episode and one of the Joker’s best on the series.

PERCHANCE TO DREAM

Directed by Boyd Kirkland and written by Laren Bright, Michael Reaves and Joe R. Lansdale, “Perchance to Dream” aired on October 19, 1992. In the episode, Batman was knocked out and woke up in a world where his parents never died, and he never became Batman. He’s engaged to Selina Kyle (who never became Catwoman), and seems to be a happy man. While it seems like his fondest wishes have come true, Bruce began to suspect something was horribly wrong and finds the disturbing truth.

For an action series, this was a bold move for the show, since there really wasn’t a villain in most of it. This is also a particularly emotional episode, showing how Bruce Wayne would trade all his skills and power for a happy life, and shows how much he lost in his pursuit of his war on crime. It’s a favorite among fans and even Kevin Conroy (who voiced Batman in the series) called it his favorite episode of the entire series.

NOTHING TO FEAR

“Nothing to Fear” aired in 1992, and was the 10th episode to air overall on the animated series. Written by Henry Gilroy and Sean Catherine Derek, and directed by Boyd Kirkland, “Nothing to Fear” introduced one of Batman’s most feared enemies, the Scarecrow. When a university in Gotham went through seemingly horrific attacks, Batman discovered a madman dressed like a scarecrow was behind them. A former professor who specialized in the study of fear, the Scarecrow was trying to get revenge on the university for firing him. When Batman was exposed to the Scarecrow’s gas, he began having hallucinations of his own greatest fear: his parents being disappointed in him.

Like many other episodes on the animated series, “Nothing to Fear” nailed and brought to life a villain from the comics. The Scarecrow’s origin was really good and his hallucinations scary. Batman’s hallucinations also really took a dramatic twist to the story, showing what the man who brings fear to evildoers actually fears himself.

HARLEY AND IVY

Written by Paul Dini and directed by Boyd Kirkland, the episode “Harley and Ivy” aired in 1993 and made a huge impact. In it, Joker’s sidekick girlfriend, Harley Quinn, broke up with the Joker and decided to strike out on her own. When she met Poison Ivy, the two went on a crime spree. As they proved to be surprisingly effective, the Joker tried to get her back with Batman set to take them both down.

This episode teamed up Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn for the first time, a pairing that’s proved so popular that they continued to be partners in the show, and even in the comic book continuity. The two will probably also be partnered on the pending “Gotham City Sirens” movie coming soon. The episode was also fun on its own and way more female-centric than others with a moment where they blew up a car full of catcalling men, making female viewers everywhere cheer.

FEAT OF CLAY

Written by Marv Wolfman and Michael Reaves, and directed by Dick Sebast (Part 1) and Kevin Altieri (Part 2), the two-part episode “Feat of Clay” aired in 1992, introducing Clayface. When the actor Matt Hagen is attacked by mobsters, he is forced to drink an experimental drug that turns him into a clay-like creature, able to change his shape and appearance at will. Calling himself Clayface, he set out to get revenge on the mobster, while fighting Batman who was trying to stop him from going too far.

Once again, the animated series showed a surprising range for action shows at the time with a dark and mature tone, even while staying safe for kids. The scene of Hagen being held down while the thugs poured the Renuyu into his mouth, even in silhouette, stood out as a horrifying scene for any show. The episode also made Clayface a sympathetic villain, reminding us of how the series reached for compassion even in criminals.

TWO-FACE

In 1992, the series aired another two-part episode, “Two-Face.” Written by Randy Rogel and Alan Burnett, and directed by Kevin Altieri, the episodes introduced the villain Two-Face, formerly known as district attorney Harvey Dent. Successful and well-respected by Gotham City, Dent’s face was scarred by acid, which caused his personality to warp. Originally a beacon of justice, he now was a man who flipped a coin to make all his decisions. He used his skills and knowledge to get revenge on the mobster who disfigured him.

Brilliantly voiced by Richard Moll, the episode took the time to introduce the villain Two-Face in two episodes, and also introduced the idea that Dent was schizophrenic before his accident. Setting Bruce Wayne and Dent as friends, it’s more tragic when Two-Face tears them apart. The episode has drama and emotion on a level we had rarely seen in children’s television, let alone a Batman show. Just like the Riddler, the animated series was able to take a classic villain and make him even better.

BEWARE THE GRAY GHOST

In 1992, “Batman: The Animated Series” aired “Beware the Gray Ghost,” an episode (written by Dennis O’Flaherty and Tom Ruegger, and directed by Boyd Kirkland) about an aging actor who once played the superhero known as the Gray Ghost on TV, but was now long forgotten. His life changes when he gets a visit from Batman, who’s trying to track down an old episode because someone is copying a crime committed in it. Along the way, Batman gives the old man his dignity and his heroism back.

The episode delved deeper into Batman’s origin, revealing how his love of a pulp character inspired him to become Batman, something that had never been a part of his past in the comics, arguably but should have been. At his heart, Batman was just a fanboy like all of us. As if that weren’t enough, the episode had the 1960s’ Batman, Adam West, voice the Gray Ghost, bringing him full-circle into the Batman franchise.

THE LAUGHING FISH

In 1993, “Batman: The Animated Series” aired “The Laughing Fish,” where the Joker used a toxin to deform Gotham’s fish with hideous smiles and threatened the patent office to try to copyright them. Written by Paul Dini and directed by Bruce Timm, Batman had to protect the people whom the villain targeted while trying to track down the clown, and the episode ended with Batman fighting a giant shark. It really had everything we wanted from a Joker and Batman story.

“The Laughing Fish” was actually based on three different Batman comics; “The Joker’s Five-Way Revenge” from “Batman” #251 (from 1973 by Denny O’Neil with art by Neal Adams), “The Laughing Fish” from “Detective Comics” #475 and “Sign of the Joker” from “Detective Comics” #476 (1978, both by writer Steve Englehart with art by Marshall Rogers). It was funny and scary with great action sequences, and stands above all other Joker stories in the series, of which there were many.

ALMOST GOT ‘IM

In 1992, “Almost Got ‘Im” first aired, written by Paul Dini and directed by Eric Radomski. The episode was a frame story with five of Batman’s villains (Killer Croc, Penguin, Poison Ivy, Two-Face, and the Joker) all playing a poker game and telling a story of how close they came to killing Batman. The stories they tell range from funny (Killer Croc’s “I threw a rock at ‘im”) to the bizarre (Penguin covering him in nectar so hummingbirds would peck him to death), but all are very entertaining. The episode even had a twist ending.

“Almost Got ‘Im” was like five episodes in one with a wide variety of concepts and tone, giving each villain a chance to shine. The episode even managed to give the origin to the Batcave’s famous giant penny. It was a wonderful chance to show how the “BTAS” was willing to explore different story structures, not just “Batman meets villains and fights them.” No, this show tried to keep it fresh and interesting, and it succeeded in doing exactly that.

HEART OF ICE

Written by Paul Dini, and directed by Bruce Timm, “Heart of Ice” aired in 1992, and was about the origin of the ice-powered villain Mister Freeze. When a series of thefts go down in Gotham City, Batman discovered they were pulled off by Mister Freeze, a man with a gun that instantly freezes anything and is forced to wear a suit that keeps him in sub-zero temperatures. As Batman tried to fight Mister Freeze, he discovered the tragic origin of his enemy.

Throughout his incarnations prior to this episode, Mister Freeze was always a minor villain in Batman’s rogues’ gallery, a gimmick who was overshadowed by more popular villains like the Joker. “Heart of Ice” changed all that with a backstory involving his lost wife who was cryogenically frozen and an accident that gave Freeze his new icy curse while trying to save her. The origin was so moving that it was copied shot-for-shot in the 1997 movie, “Batman and Robin.” It was also a game-changer for “Batman: TAS,” an episode that won the show an Emmy for “Outstanding Writing in an Animated Program.”

What did you think of “Batman: The Animated Series?” Let us know in the comments which episodes were your favorites!

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