#like OBVIOUSLY weed is bad for your lungs but at least it has some positive effects

[vampirekissingbooth]

complaining post u can scroll

[seros-tonin]

Sleepy Sesh

Summary: Sleeping never came easy for you. Sero understood that, and always tried his hardest to help you get the best sleep you possibly could. 

Rating: Technically MA, really only mentions of drug use

Genre: Fluff. Just super cute and fluffy :)

The night seemed to be dragging on. No matter which position I laid in, nothing felt even remotely comfortable. I felt bad, tossing and turning over every twenty minutes. Poor Sero, the one night a week he asks me to stay at his pace and I keep him up all night. I let out a slightly annoyed sigh as I sat up. With my back slightly against the pillows I put my head in my hands. What could I possibly do to just simply sleep? Why was it such a difficult task? Exhaustion and frustration took over as I let out another sigh, this one much louder and more strangled than the last. I felt Sero’s frame shift as he lay his head facing me. Without opening his eyes he let out a deep breath. 

“Can’t sleep?” he asked without opening up his eyes. He was well aware of how difficult sleep was at times. Either getting to sleep or staying asleep. 

“No. Just one of those nights again, I suppose.” A crooked frown splayed on my face. 

“Yeah, I could feel you trying to get comfy.” Sero responded, a little muffled since he still hadn’t lifted his head from his pillow. 

“I’m sorry cariño, I’m probably going to head out to the couch. You need to do stuff tomorrow, I don’t want to keep you up.” I sheepishly whispered, beginning to remove the blanket from my legs. 

“Who says that not having you in the bed would help me sleep?” He raises an eyebrow while opening up his eyes. His hand gently reaching to grip my wrist. “Stay mi amor. I will help you fall asleep. 

“Hanta, you don’t have to. Please get some sleep, I will fall asleep soon out on the couch I’m sure.” 

“I can barely ever sleep when you aren’t next to me. I get you one night a week, I’m not letting you sleep in the next room over.” He chuckled as he sat up next to me. “Let’s get you a little sleepy, shall we?” He asked while turning the LED lights on a slightly higher setting. 

I watched him amusingly, wondering how more light would help me sleep. I kept a curious eye on him while he reached over to the small desk near his bed. It clicked as soon as he reached for the top drawer. 

“I can pitch in next time, I feel bad always relying on yours.” a small chuckle left me. 

“No worries cariño, I enjoy sharing with you.” he smirked while grabbing the tray out of the drawer and plopping down next to me. “What are you feeling tonight mi vida? I got some new strawberry papers, or a bowl that I should have cleaned like four days ago.” He slightly chuckled, obviously amused by himself. 

“Not because I think you're gross or anything, but let’s do the papers.” I replied while scooting closer to him. 

It was always so calming to watch him while he crafted,as he liked to call it. The way his fingers moved so gently yet precisely, truly beautiful. I grabbed the grinder to help him out at least a little bit. 

“Can we use some of your keef tonight babe? I really just want to get some good sleep with you.” I slightly pouted. “I promise I will buy you another one of those edibles that Jirou gave me.” 

“Deal.” he smiled while grabbing the grinder from me, laughing slightly at my proposition. 

I smiled to myself just enjoying watching him. I lay my head on his shoulder, careful not to mess him up. He gently grabs the paper, spreading out the grinded weed, and adding what keef he has left over. He has always been the best at rolling out of the whole group. Oftentimes he would try to teach Mina and me, only for us to give up after two tries, reasoning how we will never have to learn because we have him. He looked at me from the side, bringing up the paper to his lips and slowly licking the edge. The dim light only seemed to make him look even more beautiful that I seemed to remember. I smiled giddily, not being able to stop myself from cupping his face in my hands. 

“You’re cute Hanta, y’know that?” 

“I’m aware, but thank you.” He smiled at his own joke, scrunching up his nose in the process. I had no choice but to bring him in for a chaste kiss, hoping that the kiss alone was able to tell him just how cute I thought he was. He simply smirked as he resumed finishing up the joint. “Here you go mi amor! You can start it if you’d like.” He reached out the joint towards me, a big smile across his face. 

“If you insist mi vida.” I grabbed the joint gently from him, the lighter following shortly after. The pale pink paper looked so pretty in the dim light. I brought the joint to the end of my lips, the lighter in my other hand. I flicked the lighter to ignite the end of the joint, inhaling slowly, enjoying the first hit. Even though we had smoked earlier in the night, it had knocked Sero out about an hour ago, leaving me with a pretty set buzz still. We both knew that this joint would knock me out enough to get me a couple hours of sleep. I took another hit, drawing it out, just simply enjoying it. 

“I like this paper, you should get it more often.” I offered before exhaling. 

“They’re pretty good, aren’t they? I still think the tangerine ones are my favorite though.” he replied, taking the joint as I handed it to him. 

“Of course they are.” a small satirical eye roll following along with my reply. 

We both giggled at my response, falling into a comfortable silence afterwards. The remainder of the joint was spent in that silence. I moved closer into Sero, wrapping my arms around his side, his arm wrapped around my shoulders. At some point he started just passing the joint to me, allowing me to hit it while he held onto it. It allowed me to get more comfortable next to him. 

“Wanna try something mi amor?” He questioned. 

“Sure.” I simply replied, lifting my head slightly to look at him. 

“I want to shotgun with you.” a smile spread across his face. 

“Okay!” The excitement more than likely eminent on my face. 

He moved slightly so that we were facing one another. Bringing one of his hands to cup my cheek while the other brought the joint to his lips. He kept eye contact with me while he took the hit, making me blush slightly. The pure intimacy between this action was weighing down around us. Comfortable still, though. As he pulled the joint away from his lips, holding his breath, he inched closer and closer to my lips. Sero was careful not to get the joint too close to my face as he brought up his opposite hand to cup my other cheek. 

We both shared a small smile before closing our eyes, letting our lips connect. As I felt him exhale, I inhaled, feeling the faint smoke enter my lungs. The feeling of the flowing smoke mixed with the already heightened emotions from the weed only made the action that much more incredible. As I felt him back away from me, I slowly opened my eyes. I went to slowly part my lips as he broke my thought. 

“Hold it, mi vida.” Quiet, yet still impactful. I held the smoke in my lungs for a while as Sero simply watched me with an amused smirk. That damn smirk. He leaned in and gave me a gentle kiss. As he pulled away he said, “Okay hermosa, let it go.” 

I exhaled, watching as a small cloud exited above us. I gave him a small smile in return, settling ourselves back into our prior positions. Sero brough the joint back to his lips, taking a small enough hit to make sure to not clear the last of it. He brought the rest of the joint close to my lips, waiting until I parted them to bring it closer. I took a big inhale, knowing that this would most likely be my last hit before we were left with a roach. I opened my eyes after trailing away from the joint, meeting Sero’s own looking at me. I gave him a confused look, but holding in my smoke, waiting to voice my confusion. He smiled at me while taking the last hit of the joint, a small chuckle leaving his lips before he inhaled. 

“What did I do?” I asked horsley as I let the smoke leave my lungs. 

He shook his head, doing the same as me and waiting before opening his mouth. I waited patiently, simply looking up at him. I’m sure it was the mix of the drug in my body, but I was brought into the most loving headspace for the man. I smiled as brightly as possible, simply waiting for his answer. 

“You’re just so amazing. Mi todo. “ he said after slowly exhaling.  “What about me? What’s with the heart eyes, huh?” 

“A mí también.” I softly spoke, not breaking my gaze from him. He simply smiled at me, letting out a breathy almost giggle, before leaning down to gently kiss me. 

“How are you feeling mi amor?” he questioned. 

“Pretty fucking cool. Zoinked.” I laughed at my own response, in return causing Sero to laugh back at me. “Y tu?” 

“Bueno, muy bien.” He looked at me with hooded eyes, still sparkling even in this dim lighting. “Let’s cuddle for a bit,” he proposed, reaching to turn the lights back onto their lowest setting. 

We settled back into lying positions. Sero laid on his back, holding his arm up, inviting me to come lay next to him. I scooted closer to him,  laying my head on top of his bare chest and resting my hand gently on his abdomen. He brought his arm around my shoulders, both of us letting out a relaxed sigh at the same time. We just sat for the remainder of the night, relaxation taking over us. The mix of the dimly lit room and the whirlwind of feelings from the weed completely taking over. It felt as though we couldn’t get close enough to one another. We kept scooting closer and closer to one another (even when there was already no space between us). As I moved to drape my arm over his torso I felt all of his muscles relax. 

“Te amo, mi amor.” he expressed in a gravely whisper. He placed the smallest possible kiss to the top of my head while bringing me closer to him. 

“I love you too cariño.” I whispered back, resting my head closer to his chest. 

Both of us were too influenced to even think about talking. So we simply let the comfort of one another take over, engulfing us in a dream like state. The steady beat of Sero’s heartbeat only added to the feeling, and I very soon felt sleep completely take over me. The feeling of being held by Sero not leaving me the whole night, meaning that we both finally got the deep sleep that we both needed. 

[milkshakedoe]

what really bothered me about that four lung post was the way she feels obliged to actually -thank- people for participating in surveillance culture. that, to me, is really sad. it's a very good reflection, i think, of how in critiquing surveillance culture people often feel forced to concede to its self-image of greater moral purity in order to avoid inviting too much scrutiny to themselves. you can critique the form of surveillance culture -- as long as you quickly acknowledge its practical usefulness and good accomplishments, lest you be seen as sympathetic to molesters. this is different from simply acknowledging that most people participating in surveillance culture are probably well intentioned, because you have to explicitly thank people for perpetuating the culture itself. it's the same thing when people make these sorts of flippant posts that are like,

me: talking about how callouts can be abused and stuff some bad person / bad fandom shipper / etc: yeah! it really sucks cause i can't do bad things! me: i'm not associated with you

it's a form of, like, appeasement. it's a way of saying, "look, i accept the basic framework of your logic, that critiques of surveillance culture are more prone to encouraging predators than surveillance culture itself. i am not a predator and i don't support predators. i acknowledge that surveillance culture holds predators in check; or at least, that the general spirit of it is correct, even if the specifics are flawed. please don't kill me."

but surveillance culture really isn't better at this. the reason that a culture of widespread mutual policing held in check by guilt and fear, or any system that values law and order, can look so morally pure by comparison to anti-surveillance rhetoric is precisely because surveillance culture encourages abusive people to rise within the ranks and become a part of the loud and authoritative voices declaring the standards by which everyone else shall be measured lest they seem friendly to perpetrators. in short: it looks good because it says it is good, and if you think otherwise, there's a good chance that you're collaborating with perpetrators if you aren't one yourself. and if you repeat a lie a thousand times...

extremely stupid perpetrators may be weeded out, but then you're left with the people who've insinuated themselves into positions of power, who are very good at hiding behind charisma or by condemning the faults of others.

in fact, surveillance culture actually encourages this actively, not just as a side effect. because any bad action can be seen as a stepping stone toward monstrosity and exile [callout], every small bad action becomes an existential crisis. it encourages people to conceal their faults and bad actions and to develop themselves as a kind of celebrity to their peers, and even, again, as a culturally prioritized voice of hellfire and damnation, often using their identity as a tool to insulate themselves from criticism by well meaning fellow activist-types. surveillance culture loves building up perpetrators because the more "powerful" the abuser can be seen to be, the more emotional drama can be wrought out of tearing them down, and such powerful abusers being publicly condemned and/or exiled can even be used to prop up the mythology of surveillance culture itself while disguising the fact that this is all part of its normal and encouraged function. we shot down this powerful abuser! clearly surveillance is doing something right.

fundamentally, the problem here is disgust. people use disgust to build social capital, by vilifying people for minor microaggressions or simply disagreeing in an unfavored way. disgust is part of the everyday routine of maintaining social capital in these spaces. every day your eyes are assaulted with barrages of dozens or hundreds of reblogs condemning the latest (or often, several months or years old) trend in oppressive or abusive behavior or loudly consigning obviously bad ideologies or groups of people to the dumpster, or handwringing about another stupid fandom or what have you. disgust is woven into the fabric of these online social justice spaces; it's a big part of how you know you're in one at all. it's how you remind everyone that you are one of them, that you are not collaborating with perpetrators; it's a way of reminding everyone that you fear the law.

we treat perpetration as a mark of monstrosity and any bad action can be seen as part of a road to abuse. it's a vicious cycle because loud public disgust and vilification and alienation of the perpetrator incentivizes exactly what surveillance culture claims to be against. it's essentially removing any reason to be better at all, while completely ignoring why toxicity and abuse happens by aggressively individualizing it. despite social justice claims of structural critique and change, and sometimes acknowledging that structural harm can manifest as toxicity, only one cause can ever be ultimately indicted in an act of abuse or toxicity: the perpetrator theirself. this is not to say, of course, that victims should be obliged to interact with or "love" their abusers, nor that perpetrators should never be held to any sort of personal responsibility. but responsibility is different from damnation. a culture of disgust turns abuse from a problem to be addressed into a source of emotional drama to be exploited, and a kind of looming personal apocalypse that encourages people to hide their faults, to pretend to be perfect, to self-aggrandize and capitalize on popularity to always keep a step ahead of their moral debts. and the crowd eats it up every step of the way, right on to their final fall from grace. toxicity and abuse can never be seen as stemming from trauma or social conditions, but ultimately just an innate individual greed and selfishness which might be informed by trauma but really has nothing to do with it. there's just no fucking way to talk about any of this and that frustrates me to no end.

[gibzy]

heyyy I just realized like a billion of yall have been liking/reblogging that really bad kam fanfic i wrote like pre-quarantine so i’m just gonna put one of my more recent writing thingies under the cut if you want to read something with actual flow and descriptions qwq

so! you decided to read this, thank you! it’s a short story I wrote in like two days this week bc my english teacher gave me an opportunity to write fiction and obviously I was frothing at the mouth to write anything other than an essay. so. we had to write a hero vs monster story, which is pretty vague, so I had some alien eldritch fun with it. enjoy!

-----

Evelyn prefers the dark.

It’s not anything important, really— just a liking for the serene embrace of a quiet night. Things are bright too often, she often thinks, in this overwhelming world of fluorescent office lights and LCD screens. Intensity is not something she has ever been good at dealing with, so when the opportunity to just exist in a low-lit space presents itself, she takes it.

Which is exactly why she’s biking down the street at two in the morning.

The wind rushes through her lungs as she eases off the pedals down a hill, cold and bracing in the moonless winter night— or day, technically, but the distant flicker of headlights on the top of an overpass being the only thing close to celestial radiance for a long while, it’s close enough. Her hair whispers against the tops of her ears in the breeze, the sound not unlike tussocks of dry grass brushing against each other. She sighs. Her hair looks like dry grass, too, actually, if it was colored violet by a woefully inexperienced hand. 

More thoughts weave their way through her mind generally akin to that one; pointless, but more positive. Grounding thoughts. She’s too tall for this bike now, but it’s still fun. Her eyes are light grey— maybe that’s why she’s so sensitive to light. The road is smooth and easy to ride; must be recently paved.

She’s trying not to think too much about where she’s going or why she’s going there, lest the anxiety seize her heart again. It pumps with blood now, and not pain, and that’s how she intends to keep it for as long as possible. 

Trees lining the road wind just as much as it does, twisting and knotting in an organic symposium of leafless branches. They’re barely visible against the sky, a charcoal-gray to its inky azure. A gentle susurrus of cicadas and frogs drones quietly on, accompanied by the ambient clicking of Evelyn’s bicycle spokes. It’s not any warmer at the bottom of the hill, shielded by vegetation, even bundled in a sweatshirt and jacket. She shivers. She’s not sure if it’s from the cold or the slowly growing trepidation.

She can feel it stirring. Predictable, sure, but unsettling nonetheless. It sparks as she rounds the familiar bend, an entropic, feral sizzle of energy and panic. Good, she tells herself. Good, this is supposed to happen. But even so, her fingers tighten around the handlebars. 

The road grows rougher and rougher until it cracks into glorified gravel, a confluence of pebbles and weeds. She squeezes the brakes as the bike begins to bump across the sharp stones and hops off. The rocks peter off into the woods. 

There’s a moment where she just stands there, frozen. Does she go? Can she go?

But she shakes her head— of course she can. She came all this way to get here, and there’s no way she’s going back without resolving at least a little of whatever this is. She flips down the kickstand of her bike, and with a fortifying breath, she sets off into the thicket.

It’s an odd place, really.  Used to be a townhouse development, decades ago, abandoned for no reason other than the fact that there were other, better places to live. Nature had reclaimed it years before Evelyn had ever discovered it, and yet everything there was and is eerily stagnant. No animals rustle in the underbrush. No bugs buzz through the air. The only trees, though tall, are all in various stages of decay, so she supposes it’s rather vibrantly alive, but it's a different energy than she’s used to. She moves slowly. Ducking under branches, stepping over the occasional touch-tone telephone, and squinting through the darkness for the clearing that lays beyond. A flashlight would be very useful at this point. She brought her phone for that purpose, actually, but it feels wrong for her to use it now. Like it would summon the thing too soon. 

So she trudges on, her heart pounding in her chest. It’s calm here, but the mere anticipation of it thrums in her blood. There’s no shoving the thoughts down now, with such a material reminder surrounding her. She grits her teeth as another gelid blast of wind whips past her, and begins to try to organize everything scrambling around her head.

Okay. One: it calls itself Consterlevus. A fairly egotistical name, if you ask Evelyn— anything that purposefully puts latin roots in its name just to sound important is annoying on principle. 

Her foot plunges through a soft, rotting log, and her pulse spikes again. It’s fine. It’s fine.

Two: she doesn’t call it a monster. She did, at first, but she learned quickly that ascribing such universally known characteristics made it even more confident, which she learned even faster was very, very bad for her.

Her phone vibrates in her pocket. Not now. Not now.

Three: it’s probably easiest to kill it physically. She can hurt it, and she has, many a time, but it just slinks back to the burning place in her heart where it likes to fester. She needs to defeat it quickly, before it can retreat. A switchblade weighs heavily in her pocket. A last resort, to be sure. She’s not looking for a dangerous confrontation, but when it comes to that— if it comes to that, she corrects, looking for at least a shred of hope— she’s prepared.

At last, she can see the glade. It seems illuminated, somehow, despite the new moon, but when she blinks, it’s dark once more. She jogs towards it, nervous impatience vibrating through her skull like a plucked chord.

It’s exactly as she remembered it. A small field of unkempt grass and weeds, surrounding a pond, dotted with small water lilies. She hasn’t been here in years— three? Four? And yet it’s completely undisturbed. She laughs to herself. Of course. Consterlevus can’t handle anything less than perfection.

She hesitates for a moment, unsure of what to do. It had kind of been a spur-of-the-moment, last straw sort of decision to come here, The thing has a flair for the dramatic, though, so she spreads her arms and calls up to the sky. “Well? You’re always around, where are you now?” 

There’s no response other than another spark of energy in her heart. She rolls her eyes. “I know you’re here. It’s no mystery that you’re the one making me all, y’know,” she says, pointing at her chest, “panicky.”

A resonating grumble fills her mind. The voice seems split in two, speaking the same words in different tones. One, a shrill, tremulous warble, and the other a deep, jarring rasp, like a coyote with bronchitis. She had found it horrifying at first, an unnatural harmony of something utterly alien to this world, but now it was just irritating.

From her chest, a sinuous, winding light spills onto the ground, sinking into the tangle of untended, shin-high weeds. It slithers through them, sending harsh shadows beyond the reach of its blinding corona. It draws the reflections it creates on the water into itself, swelling and shuddering until it coils itself into an identifiable shape. Its body is lithe and quadrupedal, resembling a panther. Its head, long and rounded, bears the visage of a snake, and when it opens its mouth to hiss, it reveals the  sickle-like fangs of a lion. But the most disturbing thing about the creature is its eyes— or lack thereof. 

Though the entire being is made of intense, writhing light, upon its forehead is a tight spiral of absolute darkness; the kind of darkness only achieved in the far reaches of space. It is massive, dominating the majority of the clearing. She squints, eyes watering as it draws itself to its full height. When it opens its mouth to speak, viscous, pearlescent saliva drips from its jaws, rippling on the surface of the pond like gasoline in a parking lot puddle. “You think you may simply summon me at your whim, mere mortal? I have knowledge of realms far beyond your own, power you could never fathom, thoughts—”

“Aw, no hello, Connie?” 

It snarls. “My name is Consterlevus, and you will address me as such, you insolent human!”

She crosses her arms, trying to shove away the pounding distress that grips her heart like a vise. Eldritch entities are nothing too bad. She’s familiar with this one, who has been her unwanted companion for years. Ever since she visited this place, it’s been a parasite in her brain, amplifying the existing anxiety in her head. Terrifying, at first, but she’s exhausted after so many failures at banishing it. And she doesn’t think straight when she’s tired. This thing could literally be eating dimensions if it wasn’t trapped on Earth, powers tamped down by the planet’s very nature.

She shakes her head, trying to clear her mind. Focus. “Right. Anyway, you need to pay your rent. It’s, like, really overdue.”

It lowers its neck, bringing its face— if you can call it that— closer to her. “I beg your pardon?”

“Your rent. You’ve been living in my brain or heart or something for at least three years, and all you’ve done is severely worsen my anxiety disorder and convince at least one person that I have schizophrenia. I’ve been a very lenient landlord.”

It makes a piercing rasp she supposes could be interpreted as a scoff. “Are you attempting to jest at your predicament, human? Many have borne my curse before, and none have survived.”

She sighs. “Look, dude, it was a really lame metaphor, I get it. I’m just lowkey a little freaked out.”

It puffs out its chest, raising its head towards the sky. “Of course you are. My abilities known no bounds. My presence permeates your very soul. My—”

“Okay, okay! I get it, you’re an unfathomable cosmic entity beyond my most vivid nightmares or whatever. Now, if you’re not gonna stop whatever you’re doing with my brain, I’m gonna have to kick you out myself.”

It cocks its head, claws extending as it flexes its paws. “Was that a threat?”

She exhales loudly, exasperated. “Duh! I came all the way to the place where I had the absolute pleasure of making your acquaintance with a knife and an ultimatum. I’ve been way too passive all this time, and I can’t stand it a second longer. So what’ll it be?”

Consterlevus bears its teeth. “You are passive. You never tell anyone your opinion, do you? You let it fester in your mind, and then you tear yourself apart for being such a coward. Sure, they all think you are nice, but you never express any real emotion.” It swells, its neck curving down and around her neck, searing her skin. “But it is all worth it, is it not? Being so worried about what other people think. It matters, it really does, in this world. You may hate yourself for it, but you’ll succeed.”

“No!” The cold air condenses her breath into a warm mist, billowing from her mouth like the smoke of a dragon. “That’s not true. I can be nice to people without sacrificing my own needs! The fact that you convinced me otherwise is your fault, not mine, and I’m done blaming myself for everything. I feel detached from everyone because I’m not sincere with them! Not everyone will like me, and that’s okay, because it’s more important to be myself!”

Consterlevus sloughs off her shoulders, neck limp as it slithers back towards its body, a wholly unsettling movement. It shrinks in size, now about even in height with Evelyn. “You cannot possibly think that is true,” it hisses. “Everyone preaches acceptance and love, but few uphold it.”

“Well screw all of the people who don’t! I don’t need their approval; I can be happy with the people that are actually decent human beings!”

It growls, slinking closer. “No, no, do not delude yourself with these lies—”

She draws the switchblade, driving it fervently into the center of the spiral upon its forehead. “They are true! They have taken me years to figure out, but they are true. You have infested this planet long enough, Consterlevus. Be gone!”

It shrieks, a piercing sound that sends ripples through the water. It dissipates into shards of light, flickering like embers of cold white fire until it eventually disappears. 

The panic in her heart fades, and she lets out a sob of relief, falling to her knees. It’s over. It’s gone.

She hugs herself, smiling through the tears, and as she looks up at the jet-black sky, she knows that now she can truly direct her own independence— truly accept its serenity.

[preserving-ferretbrain]

Who Gives a F**k About Charlie Keeper

by Wardog

Tuesday, 09 June 2009

Wardog painfully reviews the self-published Who Is Charlie Keeper.~

I’ve had a busy few weeks. I’ve alphabetised all my socks, de-weeded the back garden and taken a vacation in Vienna but it’s finally got to the point of no return: I think I’m going to have to bring myself to review Who Is Charlie Keeper. I really don’t want Ferretbrain to become the place self-published books come to die, but thus far every self-published book I've read has only renewed my faith in the publishing industry. WICK, as you may have gathered, is a self-published young adult fantasy novel, and it’s, uhh, well...

Come back Jim. All is forgiven.

WICK is borderline unreadable and almost uncertainly unreviewable. Basically, imagine someone came up to you and said “Hey there, I’ve got you a car, come check it out.” And then it turned out the car had no wheels. Yes, maybe, the colour is rather nice, and its fitted with a CD player and sunroof, and the engine might be basically functional but ultimately what you’ve still got there is a car with no wheels.

So, Charlie Keeper is a

mysterious

sassy 12 year old girl who lives in a mysterious house with her amnesiac grandmother because her parents have mysteriously disappeared. Between having her inheritance stolen by the evil lawyer Mr Crow and buying a puppy with her best friend, she is chased into the alternative world of Bellania by the malignant Lord Bane. In which it becomes quickly apparent that Bad Shit Is Going Down and the fate of the world rests upon Charlie Keeper’s reluctant, 12 year old shoulders. There are good guys, bad guys, dragons, adventures,

Quidditch

K’changa, etc etc.

Putting aside for the moment, the fact that WICK is a car without wheels (and I will contextualise this metaphor in a moment), let me try to come up with something positive to say about it. Well, the original artwork that accompanies it is genuinely fabulous. In fact, if the book was even half as good as the art, we’d be laughing. Also Marcus Alexander has a remarkably good ear for dialogue, somehow navigating the spiked pit of accent and dialect without looking like a fool or reducing his characters to offensive stereotype. He’s a sample from Jensen the (Jamaican?) Treman: “Ah’s a Treman. Sweetheart, Ah’ can see yer education is sorely lacking. Who’s yer teacher? Whoever he is, he ain’t doing a proper job. Tell me, little Hippotomai, an’ don’t stomp yer feetsies at me, do ya know wot a Stoman is, or a Human? Eh?” You’d think it would get grating but, somehow, it never does. Overall, WICK romps along at a reasonable pace, and there’s lot of incident, danger and adventure. It’s certainly a colourful book, and it seems to be revelling in its own over-the-top exuberance. You know you’re dealing with a Proper villain when he massacres his own minions and gets all caps-locky about setbacks.

Unfortunately, all this counts for absolutely nothing because there are too many basic problems with the book. Firstly the style itself. I don’t know to what extent we’re dealing with a major slew of typos or if Marcus Alexander genuinely hates commas and wants them to suffer and die at his hands, but the grammar and the syntax through WICK are irregular at best and downright wrong at worst. I’ve skimmed about the internet looking for other responses to it and most of them are positive: “The author's odd use of justification adds extra weight and punctuation on actions, emotive points and speech patterns bringing not just the story but also the characters very much to life. Indeed the book is quite unusual as a whole entity but I would be the first to point out that it connects with today's ambience, fashion and prosetic style.” Hmmmm. Possibly I’m just hideously hidebound but the style is simply neither controlled nor consistent enough to support this interpretation. Here’s a sample:

Powerful muscles bunched and tensed. With long smooth bounds the creature took off. As it ran past the eerily silent columns it realized, with a sinking feeling that it would never reach this mysterious family member in time, the distance was too great. It sensed days of travels lay between the two and it could sense that whatever danger threatened it’s [sic] sibling, was already perilously close.

Or another:

Charlie answering his call, hurried to the lawyer’s study, she knew better than to keep him waiting. Walking straight up to the large leather bound desk she took up a pen and without needing to be asked signed the papers offered by Mr. Crow. She knew she should at least ask what she was signing but she remembered the first time she had plucked up courage to query him; Crow had fallen into such rage, striking her and screaming, that now she dared not question.

And the punctuation lightly and seemingly randomly scattered around the dialogue is enough to bring tears to my eyes:

“Fool! Grab her!” roared the giant, Crow made a lunge for her but tripped over his braces, “Idiot! Dogs come to me, come, your Master commands it.”

It’s more than commas where they shouldn’t be and conspicuous by their absence where they should. Although Alexander occasionally gets off a vivid description or a well-turned phrase, it seems more by luck than judgement a lot of the time and his writing often bogs down in repetition, cliché and an over-reliance on adjectives. Seriously, no noun connected to Mr Crow is allowed out of doors unprefaced by a “skinny”. So Mr Crow is thin, right? I get it. I get it. Please have mercy on me.

I’m no editor but there are equally fundamental issues with the structure of the book itself. The pacing is wobbly to say the least with the narrative either practically thrown into reverse while Charlie eats some spiced bread or we are forced to witness yet another interminable game of K’changa (I hate you JK Rowling, I hate you so much. I yearn for those halcyon days in which children’s books were allowed to exist that did not contain detailed descriptions of spurious sporting activities) and then speeding so rapidly through a succession of incidents that it’s enough to make you get motion sickness. The POV, equally, veers around all over the place and, dialogue aside, the characterisation – especially of Charlie – wavers too. She seems to be scared when the narrative prefers that she’s scared, and feisty when it’s time for her to be feisty. Furthermore, her famed “big mouth” barely lives up to its reputation for causing trouble. Maybe it’s just because she doesn’t have an accent but she seems like a complete void for most of the narrative. We’re told about her qualities (and, of course, her undeniable specialness) but we rarely seem them in action in a way that could make us care about her, or even be remotely interested in her. Alexander’s descriptions of scenery and action are at least nudging towards competence, but the emotional side of it all is completely flat:

Charlie, cheeks blushing uncontrollably, stared into the eyes of the woman who was supposed to be her guardian. Never had she felt such a hate so complete, never had such an anger awoken within her heart. Charlie, that very instant felt something deep within her move and change, something within her soul sickened and died and in its place something darker was born. This was a moment that would be etched eternally into her mind.

She gets over it. She kind of like de Sade’s Justine that way – ill-defined, unchanging and unaffected.

I can’t even in good conscience say that WICK has promise: until it gets some wheels, it ain’t going nowhere. I found it a real struggle to read, partially because I was mourning every tortured comma but also because whatever is good about it is completely eclipsed by its major and fundamental problems.Themes:

Books

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Sci-fi / Fantasy

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Young Adult / Children

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Self-Published

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Rami

at 12:51 on 2009-06-09Ouch. From those excerpts, it seems like a pretty painful read -- but then, I like my grammar to be in more or less the right place. There's a place for bending the rules, but ignoring them like that just makes me wonder if they know the rules in the first place. And looking like you don't know how to write is not, IMHO, a good way to be taken seriously as a writer.

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Arthur B

at 13:12 on 2009-06-09Not only does the author have a strange way with commas, he also seems to urgently need to be introduced to a semicolon or two. Harsh as I was about Jim Bernheimer, but for the most part (aside from the odd "victim's fund" gaffe) his prose was readable, at least in the sense that it was capable of being read without getting a headache.

Maybe it's just because I'm a lawgeek, but does anyone else find it odd that Charlie is asked to sign contract when she's well below the age where she can actually enter binding agreements in the first place, and when there's a grandmother handy who is presumably legally capable of doing all that for her? Mr Crow seems to be as incompetent as he is corrupt.

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Sonia Mitchell

at 23:15 on 2009-06-09I love this review. And feel pity for everyone involved.

It actually sounds a bit Neil Gaiman-ey in intention, though I'm obviously not going to read it and see.

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Wardog

at 14:52 on 2009-06-18Actually this review makes me feel guilty as hell - panning something is never fun, but really, it was all in good conscience I could do.