#like youre actually told whats happening and it actually feels like a dystopian sci fi with a romantic subplot

[chai-en-kaadhale]

every other day i think about the no.6 anime being more popular than the light novel and i want to cry

[on-poetry]

5 Tips on Writing Speculative Fiction

For ref: speculative fiction is any genre of writing with non-realistic elements, e.g. magic, fictional technology, or alternate history. Think Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Magical Realism, Alt History, Dystopian Fic, etc. 

For examples of the genre, as well as relevant authors and literary journals, read the full article here: 

https://writers.com/what-is-speculative-fiction

Read below for tips on writing spec fic!

1. Know Your Genre Tropes

Genre fiction tends to use certain tropes in order to tell a story. These tropes are agreed upon rules in plot, setting, and character development that set a story up for success, while making the story familiar to avid readers of the genre.

This, of course, varies widely. Science Fiction and Fantasy will have a lot more tropes than, say, Magical Realism. But, where genres like Magical Realism are lacking in tropes, they still have rules that make a story successful, such as the use of the fantastical as metaphor, as well as the focus on realism and the world we actually live in.

You can find common tropes in all genres of fiction at this site: https://tvtropes.org/

2. Use Genre as Metaphor

The tropes and conventions of different speculative fiction genres allow writers to construct metaphors for the world we live in. Science Fiction tropes might build metaphors about our relationships to technology. Alternate History plots can be metaphors for contemporary social issues, taken to their logical extremes. Whatever the case, don’t just use genre for the sake of genre—it’s metaphor that makes meaning.

Metaphor is something that happens at both the sentence level and the structural. Storytelling elements, like plot and setting, can act as metaphors themselves. Indeed, as Jeff Lyons explains, all stories, including speculative ones, are metaphors for the human experience.

3. Write Towards Complex Themes

The use of genre tropes and metaphors allow speculative fiction authors to write towards complex themes.

What is theme? Theme tells us what the story is “about.” In other words, it describes the deeper ideas, social issues, and philosophical arguments put forth in the story.

Margaret Atwood’s dystopian fiction is a perfect example of how tropes and metaphors lend themselves to themes. In her novel Oryx & Crake, a mad scientist develops a drug called BlyssPluss, which promises health and happiness, but secretly sterilizes its consumers, before later killing them in a manufactured pandemic. This story is told through the eyes of Snowman, a survivor of the apocalypse who knew intimately the person responsible for this drug.

The novel itself is a cautionary tale about technology, genetic engineering, and the climate. This drug in particular, however, represents our ambivalent relationships to things which feel good in the short term, but destroy us in the long term, and are perhaps even engineered that way. What could we compare BlyssPluss to in the modern day? Perhaps social media, disinformation, vapes and e-cigs, or even broader social issues and ideas. No, TikTok probably won’t be the end of society, but it might not be helping us, either.

Regardless, Atwood’s dystopias employ metaphors that apply to the world around us. When we analyze these societal parallels, we come across themes that concern modern society and our relationships to science and ideology. Atwood is only one example of the many ways we can use speculative fiction to write about the real world.

4. Create Rules for Your Fictional World

A fictional world needs fictional rules. Whether your protagonists are jumping into spirit worlds, navigating underground monster dens, or surviving in post-apocalyptic wastelands, there needs to be a structure to the world you’re building—a set of do’s and don’t’s, causes and effects.

In short stories, these rules don’t need to be complicated. Bradbury’s “I Sing the Body Electric” sets pretty straightforward rules. The story is set in the future, where robots have achieved a likeness to human intelligence and learning, and people might be transported in private helicopters from their own suburban homes. Additionally, this world is not dystopian—technology is being used for good here. Simple, straightforward, and allows the story to happen.

In longer works of speculative fiction, these rules might be more complicated. Take, for example, the novel Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones by Micah Dean Hicks. The novel is set in Swine Hill, a dying small town that’s been overrun by ghosts. As a result, the town becomes possessed: sometimes, houses and abandoned buildings are infested with ghosts, and sometimes it’s the people themselves who get infested.

These ghosts sometimes confer special abilities to their hosts. One protagonist gains the ability to read other people’s thoughts; the other protagonist blacks out and can build highly technical contraptions and biological machines—including a frankensteined pig man.

Finally, these ghosts have no intention of leaving Swine Hill. In fact, they can’t. If a possessed person tries to leave, the ghost will make it as hard as possible; once that person goes past a certain point, they are disconnected from their ghost, and will probably never come back to Swine Hill ever again.

These rules guide the story forward, with the threat of possession and the ghosts’ strange powers constantly looming over a townsfolk too scared (and, often, too poor) to leave. Swine Hill’s haunting becomes a metaphor for the literal ghost town. More importantly, it represents the challenges of small town America, overrun with poverty, corporate strangulation, and an “Us Vs. Them” mentality.

The rules of the novel allow these metaphors to move towards complex themes. In other words, don’t just create rules willy-nilly, but use them as a tool for moving towards theme, constructing complex meanings for the reader to interpret and disentangle.

5. Lean Into the Unknown

The above being said, don’t reveal the rules of your world all at once. Mystery is an essential force in building tension and intrigue as the story moves forward.

Let readers grapple with what they do and don’t know. We know that there’s a spirit world—but how do you get in and out? Who’s chasing you? Or, we know that robots are assisting humankind—but who built those robots? What are they capable of? Do they have morals, feelings, agendas?

Hint at these details, particularly the ones that relate to your story’s metaphors and themes. Use foreshadowing, but don’t reveal these facets all at once. Keep the reader guessing at what’s to come, and let your world surprise, delight, horrify, captivate, mystify.

[ask-mortarion-the-death-lord]

On the queer-coding of Chaos and stuff: one of the biggest factors in making that happen, I feel, is just Games Workshop being a company made up of mostly guys tailoring a product for mostly guys in the late 80's. It's definitely aged poorly by 2022 standards, but it's still a product of that time and it really shows

Imagine sitting in a conference room, spitballing ideas for how Orks should look like. They have to be "barbaric", "brutish" and "uncivilized", but the ideas they came up with were "biker jackets and helmets" and "Mongolian fur hats and scimitars"

Imagine being someone watching the culture clash of young vs old, seeing the rise of punk, demonstrations by feminist and LGBT activists, the conservatives railing against "satanic" rock music, etc. and someone asks you to describe what "deviancy" looks like. So the Noise Marines are rockstars with bright-colored mohawks and leopard/zebra print and the daemonettes are wearing tight leather straps with their tiddies out

Imagine an artist being told "draw what you think Hell is like" and the first thing you turn to look at is the cover of a metal album done by a band embracing the "satanic" reputation for shock value. So you sketch a lot of blood, skulls, chains, spikes, red demons with goat legs and surrounded by literal hellfire

On the other side of things, what does "order" look like? What about "discipline", "authority" or "strength"? So your coworkers start butchering Latin terms, drawing a bunch of buff blonde men as heroes, taking the dress uniforms of different regimes, make the leader of this faction a giant golden man keeping the darkness at bay with his bright white glow from his head adorned with Roman laurels

I wouldnt quite say its that simple, like, yeah thats definitely an important factor in designing how chaos was suppose to look and feel like. But, and i do think this is important to stress, the actual visual design of the 'order' factions by virtue of what warhammer started as are more so designed to be, well

generic

cause what warhammer started as, the explicit intent of its genesis as it were, was to effectively be a staple of rules to use as a guidline to play wargames and rpgs set in established universes like star wars or lord of the rings... andalsoheressomelorefluffforauniquesettingasbothanexampleofwhatkindofsettingyoucouldhypotheticallyplaytheserulesinandalsoprobablyforsomeformoflegalpurposesandprotection. hell, the very first thing published about warhammer 40k ever makes a point of talking up how the rules system can be applied to a star wars such as lasguns being used as blasters. so fantasys empire setting is just a generic pastiche of the holy roman empire complete with electors, bretonnia is initially just a joke about pre revolution france before being pushed into the king arthur territory it ended up being defined by, the imperium is just a generic scifi dystopian government where the joke is literally just that bureaucracy has become a state religion and the law enforcement and super soldiers are juiced up judge dredds with poor trigger fingers.

if i had to track a point where 'things went wrong' as it were, i would point to the introduction of chaos [at least in regards to the 40k setting] and how it was handled. because as i said, 40k was conceived as a parody of a generic scifi setting, but the way gw decided to handle incorporating room for some magical hell demon fun... was to just port over what was effectively a fantasy faction into the sci fi setting, and then bend that scifi setting to more easily fit the hell demons in. the warp is changed from a turbulent ambivalent natural force, to an actively malicious one. space marines the juiced up hive gangers given guns and the wide sweeping authority to live like tyrant kings, are changed to martial knights/warrior monks on a holy crusade because having juiced up gangers swearing and flipping the bird at magical demons from hell well fun would be a little toooo out there to even have the pretense of gravity [i mean i think it could work but im guessing the process here]. the administration of the imperium and the religion of the imperium are now separate entities because we need a holy church to exorcise demons not a church of literal pen pushers writing forms at them or something.

it certainly helped to create a new unique flavour for 40k dont get me wrong, id even say with the right self awareness the holy draping's and overt sacred piety the imperium tries to hammer on about combined with its violent authoritarian dystopian excess was a good ground to let the counter culture over the top wackiness of hairspray glam marines literally channeling the power of satan as a wacky self aware if somewhat nihilistic representation of the violent deplority of both order and chaos taken to horrible extremes well still leaving room for genuine humanity in-between the conflict of people discovering or trying to discover personal balance and self discovery between glamrock murders and prude self righteous crusaders and fulfillment in a universe that just does not give a shit.

but then gw would not be gw if they didnt struggle with self awareness.

sooooo... yeah ya aint wrong that a part of the problem is definitely gw taking the easy most generic approach to things it can, slaanesh in many ways being queer by accident cause glamrock was a thing and also in part being queer by malicious intent cause 80's britain was... 80's britain. but on the other hand, i do think there are other factors to consider.

[aion-rsa]

Andy Weir on Writing a Buddy Cop Story… Set in Space

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Andy Weir is all about survival. His first novel, The Martian, centers upon the attempts of astronaut Mark Watney to survive long enough on the Red Planet for a rescue mission to reach him. His sophomore book, Artemis, is a fast-paced survival story of a different kind, set among various criminal factions on the Moon. His latest novel, Project Hail Mary, raises the stakes even higher— it’s about the survival of our entire species, and all life on Earth.

In Project Hail Mary, the Sun is getting dimmer, thanks to a mysterious substance known as Astrophage, a type of interstellar infection. Humanity is facing a ticking ecological time bomb; unless the secret of the Astrophage can be discovered and the planet-wide cooling process reversed, it’s goodnight for life as we know it. There’s just one long shot left for humankind: send a starship to make contact with whoever – or whatever – is behind it all. 

Project Hail Mary is as much a mystery novel as it is an SF survival tale. The book opens with our protagonist, Ryland Grace, waking up in a medical bay with two corpses and no memory of how he got there. What follows is a constant peeling back of layer after layer of this mystery, until finally, the truth is revealed. It’s a deeply satisfying ride, made even more so for those readers who share Weir’s obvious passion for science. Surprisingly, at its heart, Project Hail Mary is also a buddy road trip story, which kicks into high gear when Grace connects with an alien partner he names Rocky. 

After bonding over a shared love of Terry Pratchett, Andy and I talked about the influences behind Project Hail Mary, and what it took to bring the world of the Astrophage to life. 

Den of Geek:  Project Hail Mary evokes similar feelings to the Robert A. Heinlein juveniles, and Arthur C. Clarke’s Rama books. Were those influences for you? 

Andy Weir: Oh, big time. I grew up reading my dad’s science fiction collection, Heinlein and Asimov and Clarke, they’re my Holy Trinity. And yeah, that sense of optimism I feel has kind of vanished from sci-fi, and a lot of science fiction ends up being this bleak, dystopian misery-scape where a teenager doing weird stuff is the only thing that’ll save the day. I just don’t buy into that. I have a firm belief that the future is almost always better than the past. I mean, 2020 kind of sucked, we can all agree, but I would rather live through 2020 again than 1920. 

Speaking of 2020, let’s talk about the Astrophage, which is basically Project Hail Mary’s nemesis. It’s a stellar virus, an infection transmitted from star to star. Did you plot the book during the Covid-19 pandemic, or was it just a fluke of timing? It seems like a very timely concept.

It does, but it’s pure coincidence. I actually finished the entire book before COVID-19 happened. This is the longest I’ve ever had a book done, but not yet published, because COVID messed with the print production pipelines. I actually finished the book in January of 2019. Astrophage was originally a technology called black matter, not a life form. It would absorb all electromagnetic radiation that hit it, and turn that energy into mass, in the form of more black matter. I thought, this is the perfect spacecraft fuel, because it mass converts. Then I thought, “Well, we have no way of creating that technology, I could not make that take place in the modern day… what if it wasn’t a technology? What if it was a life form?” Black matter takes energy and makes more black matter, but that’s kind of what life does, right? Humans take energy and make more humans out of it. That’s what we do. Cats take energy to make kittens. 

It’s the ultimate double-edged sword. It has the power to wipe us out, but if we were smart enough to harness it, Astrophage could become humanity’s gateway to the stars. 

That was my…kind of “shower epiphany.” I was thinking, “Oh, but we’d need to be really careful, because we wouldn’t want to let this shit get in our sun, because it would start breeding out of control. That’d be a disaster. We can’t have that.” Then I was like: “Wait a minute, disasters are where books come from. We can have that. We will have that!” Astrophage was… I can’t say handed to humanity on a silver platter, it was really more handed to humanity on a spiky, poisoned platter. 

That’s how the Big Three – Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke – saw atomic power, wasn’t it? 

Yeah, they did, and they’re not wrong. I still think that in the real world, our best bet for regular interplanetary travel is going to be ion propulsion, which requires a huge amount of energy, and so that’ll be reactors. This isn’t weird, way off in the middle of nowhere, made up science; this is real stuff. Humanity has put ion propulsion craft into space and used it, but if you scale that up big enough that you can have a passenger spacecraft, then you’re going to need to scale up the energy production. So, pretty much nuclear reactors are the only way to get that much energy out of such a small amount of weight. 

The novel has a very non-traditional structure, essentially starting at two different time points, and unfolding from there in tandem. Was Project Hail Mary a difficult book to plot? 

It wasn’t difficult to plot once I decided to use that structure, but it was a very difficult decision to go for that structure. I hate flashbacks. I always tell aspiring writers: “Don’t use flashbacks. Nobody likes them.” One of my main problems with flashbacks is, I’ll be really invested and interested in a story that’s going on, then suddenly we’re off somewhere else. We were over here doing neat stuff, now you’re over here doing boring stuff. This is a book, it’s entertainment, not a lesson. So, flashbacks often feel to me like you’re out playing with your friends and your mom tells you to come in and clean your room.

But I realized that this story, if told linearly, would be really weird. The whole scientific mystery which leads to the creation of the Hail Mary, and then the launch, is interesting, but it’s not a book… and so the flashbacks skip over the years. There’s this scene, and then the very next flashback you see will be two years later after that. The whole book would be really disjointed. From the second act on, it’s a completely different book. And so, I couldn’t think of any way to do this other than flashbacks. I’m like, “If I neat out the backstory bit by bit so that the stories kind of converge, and I’m constantly revealing new information in the flashbacks, then the flashbacks are compelling as well,” and just had the two stories come together at the end.

If this had been poorly executed, it would have been a very difficult read, but I felt no jarring at all due to the jumping backward and forward in time. I found myself looking forward to the next flashback, then getting back to the Rocky and Ryland show.  I was also delighted to find there’s a lot of humor in there.

People don’t know it when they start the book, but it’s a buddy cop movie, basically. I don’t know if you watched those road movies from the ‘40s. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby will be on the road to something. There’s a bunch of movies that start with Road to…and then a location. It’s always the same principal plot, these two guys are trying to get somewhere, and all the funky, comedic things that happen along the way. It’s kind of like that. 

So, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the team behind The Lego Movie among many others, have been tapped to direct the Project Hail Mary Movie. 

MGM bought the rights, and they bought them outright, not an option, which is neat, because it implies they’re much more serious about making the movie. Ryan Gosling is attached to play the lead, so that’s pretty cool. 

Wonderful! Who’s your dream casting for Rocky, Grace’s alien partner?

I have some ideas for that, but I don’t want to give them away, because there’s been a lot of discussion on how do we portray the [alien] language situation on screen. In the book, after a while, I just start using italics to indicate what Rocky’s saying, and either Grace is looking it up on his computer, or later in the book has just learned Rocky’s language, learned how to understand what Rocky’s saying. We have an idea, and I think it’s a really solid idea. Ryan Gosling came up with it, and so I think that’s what we’re going to do. But films are so security conscious, I can’t really talk about it. 

It was great talking with you, Andy, and I wish you the very best of luck with Project Hail Mary. 

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

You too. Bye-bye.

Project Hail Mary hits the shelves on Tuesday, May 3rd.

The post Andy Weir on Writing a Buddy Cop Story… Set in Space appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3gTzEik

[thesunnyshow]

Name: Mae Gi

Age: 23

Writing Blog URL(s): @mae-gi-writes & https://embed.wattpad.com/user/nutmeggu

What fandom(s) do you write for?

The Boyz, EXO, BTS, SVT, Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts

Nationality: Mauritian

Languages: French, English, Creole

Star Sign: Pisces 

Favorite color: Mint!

Favorite food: Xiao Long Bao

Favorite movie: Patriot 

Favorite ice cream flavor: Mint and chocolate chip!

Favorite animal: Definitely whales

Coffee or tea? What are you ordering? Coffee all the way! 

Dream job (whether you have a job or not): Writer 😍 

Go-to karaoke song: Breaking Free High School Musical

If you could have one superpower, what would you choose?

Flying

If you could visit a historical era, which would you choose?

The 70's 

If you could restart your life, knowing what you do now, would you?

I Would not. I believe that everything I've experienced was for a reason and I couldn't be happier where I am. 

Would you rather fight 100 chicken-sized horses or one horse-sized chicken?

100 chicken-sized horses because that would be cute af

If you were a trope in a teen high school movie, what would you have been?

I like to believe that I'd be a badass tough cookie

Do you believe in aliens/supernatural creatures?

...sometimes.

Fun fact about yourself that not everyone would know?

I am bad at maintaining eye contact so I am always conscious of it.

When did you post your first piece?

I think it was in 2012 that I started my first story!

Do you write fluff/angst/crack/general/smut, combo, etc? Why?

Fluff and angst are my go-to's because they are the ones that I relate to the most. My writing comes from personal experiences, so there's a lot of fluff and angst involved.

Do you write OCs, X Readers, Ships...etc?

YUpp!

Why did you decide to write for Tumblr?

I just started posting without really taking it seriously to be honest. But when people started showing interest, it motivated me to write more and gave me confidence. I also made lots of wonderful writer friends which I am so grateful for! 

What inspires you to write?

Life, people, relationships. Writing is also a way for me to process my thoughts of emotions, it's therapeutic. 

What genres/AUs do you enjoy writing the most?

Romcom and slice of life mainly. And my guilty pleasure is the best friend to lover AU. 

What do you hope your readers take away from your work?

That it makes them laugh, have a good time, or cry in sympathy. I want my characters to reflect real people and I hope that my readers can relate and realize that they are not alone, no matter how tough life may seem sometimes. 

What do you do when you hit a rough spot creatively?

I stop writing and listen to music. It allows me to imagine scenarios without me actively writing them. 

What is your favorite work and why? Your most successful?

My favourite work is definitely my first novel that I recently published on Amazon! It's sci-fi dystopian and is really close to my heart because every character is a piece of me stitched into them. 

My most successful on Tumblr is Deobi Playlist series, which is a fanfiction mashup of the series Hospital Playlist x The Boyz. I think people find it really entertaining and light to read. 

Who is your favorite person to write about?

Kevin from The Boyz, Jungkook from BTS. 

Do you think there’s a difference between writing fanfiction vs. completely original prose?

There's a difference in terms that some elements are already crafts for you and you approach them in a different perspective. Original prose is completely made up by you. 

What do you think makes a good story?

The storyline is important, but characters are definitely the most vital elements in telling a good story. 

What is your writing process like?

Depending on the mood, I usually put on a playlist of slow songs and start writing whatever comes to mind on my laptop. Sometimes if I need to figure out a story, I use pen and paper to quickly outline the series of events. I also usually write better at night or early morning. 

Would you ever repurpose a fic into a completely original story?

I actually already did! It was named as Entity and was a BTS fanfic that received so much love I decided to alter it into a real novel now called Terminal. It's available on AMAZON. 

What tropes do you love, and what tropes can’t you stand?

I am a sucker for Love Triangle tropes and Best Friends to Lovers tropes because, in my experience, they really do happen. I can't stand the "I'm not like other girls" trope, I just think it's overdone and is always portrayed as something that the protagonist needs. 

How much would you say audience feedback/engagement means to you?

I definitely don't depend on feedback to write because I write for myself. But getting feedback and seeing people appreciate my work definitely motivates me to believe in myself as a writer. I would not have come this far without support. 

What has been one of the biggest factors of your success (of any size)?

I just kept writing, even though it was shit, even though I was sometimes frustrated. No matter how bad it was, I always told myself that I was doing this for me and never listened to outsiders who didn't appreciate my craft. 

Do you think fanfic writers get unfairly judged?

Definitely! Just because we write fanfiction doesn't mean we're not writers. I know of so many AMAZING fanfic writers who are so much better than actual authors!

Do you think art can be a medium for change?

Yes, art has always been involved to portray what can't be said. And that is the beauty of it. 

Do you ever feel there are times when you’re writing for others, rather than yourself?

Rather than "writing for others" I keep myself disciplined by writing everyday, no matter how bad it might be or how little i write. 

Do you ever feel like people have misunderstood you or your writing at times?

Yes, I don't really understand why writing as an art form is so underrated when it is so beautiful, but there is this misconception that writers, especially fanfic writers, are just thirsty fangirls who are obsessed with their biases. No, we are content creators, we write stories because we are artists and take so much time and effort to write these amazing stories.

Do your offline friends/loved ones know you write for Tumblr?

My boyfriend is the only one and he is really supportive.

What is one thing you wish you could tell your followers?

That I appreciate every single one of them for supporting my work, and that every comment, reblog or like just makes my heart feel so full with love. I also wish to tell them to keep dreaming, keep pushing and stay safe 

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers who might be too scared to put themselves out there?

Be scared to start. Be scared because that means you're pushing yourself and that's okay. Fear is part of the process but you have to go through that to gain confidence in what you do. Throw yourself under the bus, because that's how it gets easier. And don't compare to other writers because like every artist, your story and your craft, your words and your voice will be different. So believe that you can, and you are worth it.

Are there any times when you regret joining Tumblr?

NEVER.

Do you have any mutuals who have been particularly formative/supportive in your Tumblr journey?

YES!! I'D LIKE TO THANK @pixelelf @choaticdeobi @moondustaeil @aveluant1a @atbzkingdom @thesingingfae1905 @2hyunjae @tbzhours @jenocakes ❤❤❤ 

Pick a quote to end your interview with:

There's no such thing as perfect writing, just like there's no such thing as perfect despair - Haruki Murakami 

[ihearthorror]

My Top 10 Favourite Horror Films of 2020

Every January, most people who review or talk about movies on YouTube tend to piece together a Top 10 list of their favourite movies from the year prior. In order to stand out from the crowd (and also because I was too lazy to do this sooner), I decided to wait until March, by which time most YouTubers aren’t really talking about movies from 2020 anymore.

I know what you’re thinking: sounds kinda stupid – why would anybody care about a Top 10 list of the best movies of 2020…THREE months into the new year!? Well, as you’ve likely heard, 2020 was a year like no other, and as result of the ongoing global pandemic, movie release dates from 2020 were pushed back months, sometimes multiple times. Some films that were supposed to be released last year didn’t arrive until 2021, even though they’re officially considered “2020 films,” according to their profiles on websites like IMBD and Letterboxd.

And so, some of these so-called “2020 films” were not available (at least to me) until only recently, such as Saint Maud or The Dark and the Wicked. I feel like I’ve now had a chance to see almost all of the horror films I’ve wanted to see from last year. In this video, if you care to stick around, I will share with you my Top 10 favourite horror films of 2020. So, here we go…

#10/ The Dark and the Wicked:

A sister and brother return to the family homestead where their father is slowly dying and their mother is understandably distraught but also disturbed and distant. The siblings soon realize that something evil has invaded their family home as they are terrorized by whatever is slowly killing their father. Directed by the same guy behind 2008’s The Strangers, The Dark and the Wicked is at times bleak and unsettling, and it does a good job at keeping you intrigued in this family’s unnerving conflict. However, it felt a bit rushed and undeveloped at other times, and its ending left me somewhat unsatisfied.

#9/ Relic:

Soon after Kay and her daughter Sam return to their remote family home following the disappearance of the family matriarch, the widowed Edna, they discover that something sinister has taken hold of both Edna and the house itself. Although Relic – which was co-produced by Jake Gyllenhaal and marked the feature directorial debut for Natalie Erika James – isn’t exactly offering up any enticing twists or salacious gore, or even a original concept for that matter, it relies on evoking dread and building tension to compel its audience to stay invested until the bitter end.

#8/ Amulet:

Taking its sweet time to unravel, Amulet is centered around Tomaz, an ex-soldier who is now homeless but is offered a place to stay at a decaying house in London, which is inhabited by a beautiful young woman named Magda and her dying mother. As the story moves along, we see that Tomaz is starting to develop feelings for Magda, who seems a bit…off. His feelings for her don’t wane even after Tomaz discovers that there’s something insidious going on in the attic of the house, where Magda’s mother is seemingly imprisoned. Toss in a suspicious nun and you’ve got yourself a creepy little film that seems to have fallen between the cracks.

#7/ The Beach House:

One might argue that not a lot actually happens in The Beach House and that the payoff isn’t worth the investment, but if you go into this film with an open mind and zero expectations, you should at least be satisfied. Two troubled college students head to a deserted beach getaway to spend some time together, but end up struggling to survive alongside some unexpected guests as a mysterious infection disrupts their holiday. Although it is a slow build up to the film’s climax, it is a tense and intriguing ride along the way, as a series of unsettling events give way to an apocalyptic episode that feels almost like a throwback to the sci-fi films of the 1950s. Making his feature film directorial debut, Jeffrey A. Brown elicits with The Beach House those brooding existential thoughts that lay dormant in the deep boroughs of our minds. 

#6/ The Invisible Man:

There’s always an elevated risk when making a modern film based on an old story that has already been told through cinema numerous times before. The last time H.G. Wells’ 1897 novel The Invisible Man had been adapted by Hollywood was in 2000’s Hollow Man, which was panned by critics despite making a sizeable profit. The 2020 adaptation is far superior and is perhaps the best adaptation of Wells’ classic in any medium. Elizabeth Moss gives a stellar performance that draws real emotion, so that we agonize alongside her as she is essentially haunted by a relentless ghost hellbent on controlling every aspect of her life. We live in an era when technology has advanced enough to bring this 124-year-old story to life like never before, while a polished script and an exceptional lead performance gives The Invisible Man a deeper level of emotion and terror.

#5/ Saint Maud:

For most of Saint Maud it is unclear whether certain experiences are actually happening in reality for the main character or if it’s all simply in her head, as some sort of mental breakdown caused by a work-related tragedy. Maud is a young hospice nurse and a newly-converted Roman Catholic who suddenly becomes obsessed with “saving the soul” of the woman she is currently taking care of, Amanda, a hedonistic dancer with a chronic illness. Maud’s behaviour worsens, as does her mental state, as horrific scenes and visions make us question if she’s actually losing her mind or experiencing something beyond this world. Saint Maud is an A24 feature by the way, so that should be enough to know what you’re getting here in terms of quality.

#4/ The Lodge:

Isolation is often embraced as a way to pad a horror film’s fear factor, and it works especially here in The Lodge, as a soon-to-be stepmom becomes stranded at a remote holiday home in the middle of winter with her fiance’s two children. The kids begin to untangle the dark past of their stepmom-to-be and a series of disturbing events transpire as their hope for survival fades. The Lodge is a dreary, atmospheric slow burn that leaves you somewhat unsettled. With its wintry backdrop, stylish sequences, and almost claustrophobic dread, the film doesn’t ever allow its audience to feel at ease for long, insisting that an underlying foreboding remain intact throughout. Although I found the ending somewhat disappointing, I immediately began to concoct a possible prequel that would delve into the backstory of the film’s lead character. One can hope.

#3/ Host:

It’s increasingly difficult to be innovative and original when it comes to horror films these days, especially in the particular genre of so-called “found footage.” Rob Savage’s Host, however, comes off as something different, setting itself apart from most films in this realm in various ways. It centers around six friends who hold a séance via Zoom during a COVID lockdown, guided (at first) by a medium they hired. The séance then takes a dark turn and things soon escalate into madness. Sure, there are elements in Host that are prevalent in numerous horror films, but it uses a modern and topical way to implement them, while also refusing to overstay its welcome by cueing the credits less than an hour in. Overall, this film’s popcorn-and-Saturday-night-movie fun factor is why it ranks so high on this list.

#2/ Possessor:

It’s always a treat to come across an original idea, especially when it’s within the horror realm, and Possessor is certainly unlike anything else I’ve seen in awhile. Andrea Riseborough plays an elite corporate assassin who uses brain-implant technology to take control over other people’s bodies in order to kill high profile targets, though with every mission she gets further and further away from her true self. With her latest possession, she becomes trapped in the mind of a man who threatens to obliterate her for good. It is a provocative vision by director-writer Brandon Cronenberg, who just so happens to be the son of legendary Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg, and it serves as a disturbing piece of dystopian fiction that is even more frightening because it isn’t too far beyond belief.

And because everyone else is doing it, here are five honorable mentions that narrowly missed the list:

- The Call

- Color Out of Space

- Don’t Listen

- The Mortuary Collection

- Porno

#1/ His House:

In addition to its emotional storytelling and genuine moments of terror, His House – from first-time director Remi Weekes – sheds a light on the plight of refugees in a way that feels both respectful and empathetic. After a Sudanese couple make a harrowing escape from their war-torn homeland, they are granted asylum in England, where they struggle to adjust and fit in. They are assigned a shabby house on the outskirts of London, where the couple begin to experience terrifying and unexplainable events. His House is built around a fresh concept, two fantastic leads, and some truly haunting imagery, and I wish that more horror directors would put as much effort into quality filmmaking as Weekes did here. If this is his first venture into feature filmmaking, I am excited to see what his future has in store. 

There you have it, my Top 10 favourite horror films of 2020. What did you think and were any of these titles on your own Top 10 list? Please tell me your thoughts and recommendations in the comments below.

[readersguidetotheuniverse]

What’s coming out this month – October 2020

Bright and Dangerous Objects by Anneliese Mackintosh

Release date: October 6th

Ariadna: As you may have realised by now, I’m a sucker for sci-fi and fantasy, so this book had to be here. The main character of B&DO has been shortlisted for a pioneering mission to Mars... Which implies she has to leave behind all her life on Earth, forever. She then starts to assess and confront the possibilities of any of the two lives that open ahead of her. It sounds superinteresing and not that futuristically non-plausible as many of sci-fi books seem to be. It takes decades to travel to Mars, so it is something the first Martians will have to consider (as it has been portrayed before in other similarly-set novels/movies/tv series). My only concern is that the novel ends up being just an introspective, psychological novel and the sci-fi component is just the frame for it and has no real value on the plot. I hope I’m wrong!

Humans by Brandon Stanton

Release date: October 6th 

Alicia: I very VERY rarely read non-fiction. It's just not for me. However, there is something so genuine, pure and authentic about Humans that is so captivating to me. In case you haven't heard about this before, it started as Humans of New York. A social media profile that shared photos and stories of (mostly) ordinary people around the city. It became a huge hit. I read the first Humans of New York book and found it incredibly interesting and inspiring. And I am beyond excited about this one because the stories are now told by people from all over the world. Truly one of a kind.

In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren

Release date: October 6th

Marina: Christina Lauren are one (or two?) of my favorite romance writers. Their books always make me feel so much. I enjoy their take on well-known tropes (The Unhoneymooners is THE best enemies-to-lovers, change my mind) and how they put their own spin on it. Also, it’s awesome that they are friends and decided to write a book together and it worked. It worked so well they are still doing it! Anyways, I’m looking forward to this holiday-themed read, bring on the warm fuzzies!

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab

Release date: October 6th

Marina: Who hasn’t thought about becoming invisible? Being able to slip into any plalce you want, doing whatever you like without feeling dumb? Or living forever? I for once have and the story of Addie LaRue fascinated me from the moment I read the short blurb for it. What happens when you are granted immortality but have to give up your “visibility”? I cannot wait to read more about her life!

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

Release date: October 13th

Ari: I discovered Rebecca Roanhorse in Trail of Lightning and it fascinated me. I mean, it is not a masterpiece, but I liked how she incorporated native american mithos in a dystopian slash urban-fantasy novel. Her writing is light and easy to read (not simple, don’t get me wrong), and I devoured in less than a week. I really want to see how she has introduced that native american folklore in this new series.

Alicia: This book is tagged as fantasy, queer, adult, magic, science fiction... it does tick most of my boxes. That’s the way to go with me. And I am always up for some fantasy, there's something kind of unpredictable about it, since everyone can mold it to their own interests. I don't know what to expect about this one specifically, I haven’t read anything from this author either, but it does look good. Literally, the cover is stunning!

Marina: Look, I said I wanted to read more Fantasy books and this one is right up my alley. According to Goodreads, this is “the first book in the Between Earth and Sky trilogy, inspired by the civilizations of the Pre-Columbian Americas and woven into a tale of celestial prophecies, political intrigue, and forbidden magic”. I think it’s really great that more (ancient) civilisations are being brought to modern literature because they haven’t been represented enough. I look forward to learning more about them from a person that actually knows the culture instead of some white scholar who thinks they know best.

The Silence by Don DeLillo

Release date: October 20th

Ariadna: Some years ago, I watched a Netflix movie in which the main characters met at a house to celebrate whatever, and things started going south to end up in a gore mess. In the last scene, the surviving characters run to the garden only to find out all the neighborhood was in the dark, and more than half of the houses had red lanterns lighted in front (meaning there had been a similar gore experience in all of them). Ok, this argument may have almost nothing to do with the book here, but the feeling of helplessness that blackout instilled on those characters and on the viewer made me rethink the value of digital connection, how much we rely on it and, in a way, keeps us safe and connected, while distancing and putting us in danger at the same time. Reading the argument for The Silence has made me relive that moment, those thoughts, and I have a sort of itch to find out what is discussed in it.

Together Apart by Erin A. Craig et al.

Release date: October 20th 

Alicia: I have never been a big fan of anthologies, but I am more and more interested in them as time goes by. I always thought I wouldn't be into them cause the stories were too short but sometimes a short story is all you need. This one couldn't be more appropriate for the situation we're living. Cause lockdown may be over but I will never be over it. And I need cute stories at this point of my life so this may be just perfect for me right now. I have read books by some of the authors in this anthology, can't wait to see what they came up with.

[spikeymarshmallows]

so. real talk re: writing because IDK if I’ve cried about it here or just on all my discords, but i am gonna complain about it here to, mmk.

TLDR: I am sad about writing. I hope rambling about it will help.

I’m so scared that I’ll lose my ability to write TUA fic T.T I was so so productive and guys: I’ve written >300k of TUA fic since mid-December.

But in the past month or so... I’ve really lost it.

Yeah, yeah, I know there’s a lot of shit going on.

But somehow I managed to write a thesis, amidst COVID, and a breakup... I managed through some of the worst depression I’ve experienced in about 10yrs. Like, guys, I was NOT GOOD. I didn’t realise how NOT GOOD I was until I was talking to a pal and realised I hadn’t washed my hair in 10 days and hadn’t showered in 5.

And now... Now I’m just... I’m just so tired...

And the S2 negativity claws at me. I GET IT. I understand why people are upset. Now I’ve had some time away from it.... Yeah, I’m pretty : ( about it too... I have a whole rant about that (not S2--about the fandom) but that’s not for public eyes. Just... I absorb the negativity and it’s not nice. But I also understand and empathise why people are so angry about it.

And then like... People I adore and respect... The fandom has made Klaus be such a way that a lot of people dislike Klaus now... And TBQH: I don’t blame them!! I hate the woobifying we see... People are allowed to do as they please!! But... It’s not to my personal tastes.

And really, I should just write what the fuck I want... I like writing Klaus as he is, and he doesn’t represent the fandoms id, and I like that. But for some reason it gets me down how many people dislike this character I really like....

And honestly, I probs just need to quietly unfollow the people who I absorb the most hurt and negativity off. Or I gotta get better at... IDK, emotionally shielding??

And I worry I’ve burnt out... This happens every time I do a 90k+ fic... : (

And the thing is: I have a really good writing streak going and I don’t wanna break it. And I worry... if I take a break... I’ll have writers block for another year, like I did all of 2019... T.T

So. Anyway. I’m gonna talk about some of the things I really wanna write... and maybe even include some snips... Maybe it’ll make me feel okay? IDK.

[And god, I miss writing my Museum ‘verse but I am pretty blocked there T.T]

But I’ve got a Five Times Diego and Klaus Celebrate Christmas Alone, and One Time They didn’t fic...

And I’ve got this fic... Where Klaus starts learning shibari to help with sobriety and practices on his siblings, and then Diego... well, Diego sinks into subspace so fucking fast.. And we get Diego struggling with submitting/bottoming and... >:) And smut. Much smut. And rope. I really like shibari.

And I have a few fics in the works for the Banned Together Bingo, but the one I’m most excited about involves Diego adopting a dog :O

And I was gonna write “Extra Ordinary” but... That would be sad and horrible. So I’ve decided that I wanna write Klaus’ version.

Here is a snippet:

It's always hard to tell what a person's earliest memory is. All of those years kind of blur together, and all the drugs I took probably didn't help with the memory. And then you've got those 'memories' which may not be memories at all, because they were told to you and you think you can remember them, but maybe you just created a false memory in your mind, and maybe you don't really remember it at all.

But all of that borne in mind: my earliest memory includes one, Diego "Number Two" Hargreeves, throwing his bowl of what I've been told was spaghetti-o's, right at Dad's stupid face.

If you know about Diego's powers, you can imagine why this was absolutely fucking hilarious then and is even funnier now.

If you've been off in the wild, being raised by wolves and have never encountered any form of pop culture, and thus don't know: Number Two has the ability to change the trajectory of objects in motion. No matter what he throws, it always hits its target.

And its target? Dad's face.

It was a masterpiece. Easily one of the best days of my life.

I don't know if this is actually my earliest memory. But I like to think it is.

And I just want... ridiculous stories of these kids... and they’ll be in Klaus Style, and then there’ll be a chapter where Klaus is like:

And then he locked me in a crypt for ten hours.

That’s it. That’s the chapter. So all this chaos... and then this seriousness, that’ll hopefully be so abrupt that it gives emotional whiplash.

And I wanna write a Hogwarts AU, Enemies to Lovers. I’ve got a few ideas... Like... Maybe each “year” is told from the perspective of each of the seven... Allison and Luther getting together early, but Klaus and Diego taking years to get there.... Five, resentfully, a Hufflepuff, and absolutely enamoured with Vanya. Ben, long-suffering. All of them playing Quidditch... HNNNGGGG. I have a lot of ideas here.... But no Plot TM.

And a What’s Your Number AU. That’s it. That’s the plot. Maybe... with Justin and David... Or Ben and Diego.... >.> IDK man.

And I want Demon!Klaus and Angel!Diego... No plot there. Just want it... Maybe I should watch Good Omens and see if that’d make a fun AU....

And then we have [look, I’m just going through my Scrivener rn...] a High School musical AU. Not the movie... But like... The kids are in a school, and it’s putting on a musical... Angry but shy loner Diego, who can seriously dance, and disaster Klaus, and Allison who wants to be the star of everything, and Luther just has such a crush on her and MUST be in the musical to play her love interest, otherwise he’ll never find the courage to talk to her....

And then! Another High School AU. Instead of Ben dying... he nearly dies. And Child Protection are finally like “hmmm, this is child abuse...” and takes the kids away. Allison, in a panic, Rumours that they stay together... And then... chaos. Throwing the seven into public school, when they’ve never interacted with others... God. The sheer ridiculousness... And I really love the ending I’ve got planned for it T.T

I’ve also got a few S2-inspired ideas... Klaus lands in the 60's but hits his head and doesn't remember anything. He doesn't remember that he can see ghosts and so ends up absolutely terrified, and put into an asylum. Diego lands a year later, and is also put into the asylum. He sees what might be Klaus, but no. No, it can't be… Or can it? T.T And then they gotta escape and... T.T

And then I wanna project all my feelings onto Klaus struggling with being touch-averse and yet also someone that desperately wants to touch the ones he loves, but... it makes his skin crawl. [SO MUCH PROJECTION.]

And then I have a fic idea that I can’t talk about because it’s a gift for someone...

And then... Justin and David fic..... >.>

And last night... I had an incredible idea for a sci-fi, dystopian AU... It’d be a lot more Serious than the other stuff I’ve written. And I REALLY want my writing powers back because I HAVE THINGS I WANNA WRITE... T.T And those are just the fic ideas that have words in Scrivener...

But this sci-fi thing would be.... it would be an Epic. But maybe I could do it in <30k... IDK.

Anyway. I was feeling good again, and then checked Tumblr and....

I’m going to try to crawl to bed and take a valium, because the mood is so low that it might as well be in the ground.

[skylights422]

@ace-and-aro-wlw-positivity created a Q&A for aspec authors/writers, and as an aspec author, I am excited to participate and answer as many of their questions as I can. Under a cut since it became really outrageously long.

1. What was your inspiration for your character(s)? Are they modeled on yourself, a person that you know, or a character that’s already been established?

Typically I’d say my characters are a mix of general inspiration from other stories/characters and then bits and pieces taken from myself. I try not to make any of them like a clone of myself or another character, try to mix it up, possibly with mixed success but that is the goal.

2. How much, if any, has your character(s) changed since they were first created? What caused this change?

Oh wow, okay I have characters I still use from grade school and middle school, and those characters have changed/grown a lot. Most notoriously (to me) though are my two fellas Euphranor and Kadri. I created them while daydreaming in middle school while watching those science videos in class about how I could make a more parody-like version of said videos, Kadri being the energetic and comically sadistic teacher and Euphranor being the constantly irritated and foul-tempered student. The core of their designs and personalities haven’t totally changed (Euph is still a hot-head and Kadri still likes to troll him), but they’ve become far more nuanced as characters as their story become more involved and serious. They’ve also become softer characters, with Euph having a Heart of Gold and Kadri being a bit morally grey but generally compassionate and friendly. I think the cause of this change and others comes from a mix of things, for one I simply got older and what I wanted out my characters changed a bit. But also I think it’s because I spent so much time with those characters in my head that I couldn’t help but develop them more fully, which in turn made me want to give them a good story. Also, everyone is definitely more queer now then how they started, largely because I became more aware and comfortable with my own queer identity and spent more time in queer spaces (though with Euph I actually just realized he had to be gay because I every het relationship I envisioned for him fell totally flat and yet imagining him as having crushes on guys just seemed to work better/make more sense, and that was an earlier decision).

4. Do you intend on publishing your story one day? Why, or why not?

I definitely do! I have many, many stories I want to publish, as books or comics or tv shows or films. I’ve always wanted to publish some of writing since it’s one of my main passions and have always taken inspiration from the stories I consumed. I just love writing and would want to be able to do it as my main career, the key will just be figuring out how to focus on one project long enough to finish it. xD

5. Surprise fact! Give a random fact about your character(s), whether it’s their favorite color, food, or even song!

Euphranor loves to sing! He hums to calm himself down and even full on sings to vent his feelings sometimes. Kadri loves literature and video games, and blackberry pie is his favorite food.

6. Admit it, you have a folder on your computer of the various types of picrews you’ve created for your character(s). Would you mind posting a few (or five)?

*VIBRATES* MY TIME HAS COME. I absolutely have way too many picrews of my fellas so I won’t post them all, just two each for the core four of my main novel project. First, Euphranor:

(yes he is a Hufflepuff)

Kadri:

(also since I dragged the Hogwarts houses into this Kadri is Ravenclaw)

Ena:

(I put her in Gryffindor)

And finally, Fiera:

(Right now I have her in Slytherin. She could also be in Ravenclaw though)

7. Time to get serious for a bit. There’s been heavy debate on having non-human characters identify as ace, aro, non-binary, etc., but never actual humans. As someone who’s aspec, how would you explain to someone who’s allo why this can be and is seen as hurtful?

I mean, as a sci-fi fan I definitely love if the non-human characters are queer coded, but it’s definitely important to include human representation as well, and I think there are a few simple reasons for that. One is that queer people are, in fact, humans, and therefore our stories deserve to be told as they are in reality as well as how they could be in fiction. The other is only writing us as inhuman implies you consider our identities as fictitious or too strange for a human to have, and queer people already have to deal with other forms of erasure and invalidation in real life. (Also, not everyone is a fan of sci-fi/fantasy, and they should still be able to read stories where they can see themselves)

8. It’s a sad reality that many stories in mainstream media don’t have characters that are aspec, not to mention without resorting to harmful stereotypes. Besides there being nothing wrong with IDing as aspec, why did you choose to have your character ID as such? What would you tell other authors who’re interested in writing characters that are aspec, but are afraid of offending the community?

I have a huge list of aspec characters, which definitely started happening more once I was aware of my own asexuality (and later, aromanticism), since I realized that I could make my own aro and ace characters and then just went wild with it lol. It’s also easier for me to write since I can actually draw from personal experience somewhat for it. Beyond representation having aro and ace characters also allows you to explore more facets of human emotions/the human experience, so that’s always fun.

As for how I would advise allies looking to write a-spec characters, my main advice would be to remember that we are an incredibly diverse group of people, and so while no one a-spec character will resonate with every a-spec reader, an a-spec character written in good faith will definitely speak to some of us. Write them as an character first, and when it comes to things like how their attraction does or doesn’t work and what they want out of relationships, figure out what works best for them. Really, if you’re concerned your character would be offensive in some way you can always make a post asking about it, many of us are happy to offer constructive advice and appreciate that someone is wanting to put in the effort to write about our experiences. Reading or listening to anecdotes from an array of a-spec people is also a good way of getting ideas of how to portray us, and there are various resources for that (the tags, AUREA collects anecdotes from arospec individuals, and probably more than I can think of offhand)

9. If you’re comfortable with sharing, what is your characters’ identity? Do they use any microlabels? Does theirs reflect your own?

Unsurprisingly I have many characters who are aroace (Fiera is one of them), and Ena is bisexual and gray-aromantic. Kadri was originally supposed to just be bi/pan but has become increasingly aspec, will they end up gray-aro as well as grey-ace? Will they end up as a pan oriented aroace? I don’t know yet, but they sure are a pan a-spec. My most recent project has exclusively aro-spec protagonists, Valentine is aroace, Cedar is demiromantic, Raelene is cupioromantic, and then Clematis and Hadyn are presently just Aro and might stay that way. My aroace characters are often styled after my own aroace experiences, while other a-spec characters aren’t as much.

11. Why do you think that not just representation is important, but GOOD representation? Can you offer any examples?

Well, I think there are a few ways to make ‘good rep’. There is the ‘this character helps bring awareness/educate about the community’ and then there’s ‘this character just resonates with certain a-spec people a lot’, and the main reason I think it’s important is because rep should be for the people they’re representing. So if rep hurts the community or totally fails to be relatable to anyone who’s actually a-spec, then it missed the whole point and is doing just as much to leave the community feeling left in the dust as no rep. Of course things do get complicated when the community is divided on whether the rep is good or not, which I imagine will be a common occurrence, and many examples of rep probably fall into the grey area between Good and Bad, but generally people should aim to tell stories that will help more than hinder the people you are telling your story about. (Although I also think that the long term end goal is to get to the point where there is enough representation that it doesn’t matter if some of it is ‘bad’ or not, since I feel like that is the true state of normalization, but that is sadly not yet the case)

12. What’s the genre of your most recent story? Do you always write in this genre? If so, what other works do you have? If not, why did you pick it?

My most recent story (with Valentine) is fantasy, inspired by shoujo style anime series like Cardcaptor Sakura, while Euph’s story is more dystopian urban fantasy? His exact genre has shifted around a lot and will probably continue to do so. In general, most of my works are fantasy in some way or another. A few are more sci-fi or horror based, but definitely the majority are fantasy whether that be magical girl type stories, urban fantasy, superheroes, or dark fantasy.

14. What’s a brief biography of your character? Is their history, personality, and/or looks similar to your own?

I’m going to go with Fiera here. The short version of her backstory is that she and her older brother were born to neglectful parents, and while their grandmother was attentive emotionally she also lived far away. Her brother discovered magic, long thought forgotten, but killed himself shortly after, leaving Fiera alone and confused. She then made a point to dedicate herself to studying the theory and history of magic in the hope that she may someday understand why her brother would take his own life so suddenly like that. She has a down to earth personality and is very observant, and has a great deal of ambition and focus for tasks. She naturally has a more lighthearted and curious personality, but has become more somber since the death of her brother. While she always struggled with sustaining personal relationships, it’s only recently she started using her power of observation to be more manipulative and always keep a cool, pleasant demeanor. She has a love for fashion and sewing, as well as an interest in chemistry.

She isn’t really based on me at all backstory or appearance wise, and only slightly takes after me personality wise. Our main similarity is that we both can be quietly observant and don’t tend to get outwardly angry very often, and that we are both aroace. But I am nowhere near as focused as her, am terrible at lies/manipulation, and have different interests. I’m also way more prone to energetic rants and blunt statements than she is.

15. What are the themes of your story? Is it a lighthearted adventure, or are we talking deep, ocean-sized levels of angst? Why, or why not, did you choose them?

The tone of Euph’s story is kind of all over the place due to how often I’ve tweaked it, but there are certainly oceans of angst for all the protagonists. There’s just also decided remnants of the wacky humor from when the story was predominantly a comedy, and a lot more scenes of the characters just relaxing or goofing off than might be typical in a high tension drama adventure. My story with Valentine is generally much more lighthearted, though there will be some deeper moments for character development (and also because I want it to have a slightly gothic vibe, just Because)

16. How long have you been writing? Has your style changed from when you first began to now? What are some tips you’d give to those who’re interested in writing a story of their own, be it professionally or as a hobby?

I’ve been writing in some capacity just about as long as I can remember, and so my style has definitely taken various shifts depending on how old I was and what I was taking as my main inspiration at the time. Sometimes I went for more sarcastic and whimsical narration regardless of the events happening of the story, sometimes I went for a more quick modern-ish style, sometimes I would focus more or less on descriptions or dialogue. I don’t really know where I’m at right now though.

What I would advise to anyone wanting to sit down and write is to be patient and kind with yourself. Nine times out of ten what sounds epic in your head will come out at first as clunky and all over the place. But that is pretty much the whole purpose of first drafts; the clunky first draft crawls so the second draft may walk so the third draft may walk a little faster so the final draft may run. The other thing I would advise is to absolutely experiment, and see what works best for you. There is every kind of writing advice out there imaginable, much of it contradictory, so really you just have to mess around with styles and perspective and dialogue and see what happens, which stuff you liked and which stuff you didn’t.

17. What’s your process for writing? Do you plan your story out first, write whatever you want then edit later, or both? How might this help others?

My writing process is pretty much a mishmash of writing whatever comes to me, then planning, then writing, then using a bunch of character building exercises to have fun but make no progress in the plot, then neglect the project for months, then write some more or maybe plan. I don’t know how much this would help others, though I have found when I set goals with deadlines and some external pressure (nanowrimo, reward system implanted by friends, etc) I am far more productive, so perhaps that is something others could try if they struggle with staying on track?

18. Your book’s become quite popular, easily reaching the New York Times Bookseller list, and now, you’ve been picked to lead a writing workshop. It goes swimmingly, and afterward, someone comes and tells you that your book not only inspired them to write a story of their own, but also helped them discover and accept their identity. What’s your reaction?

Mostly I would just be flabbergasted, but also extremely pleased and honored to have been able to provide any kind of help or assistance to my readers.And I would feel very happy for the person, since that sort of inspiration is great to come by.

19. Are there any published stories out there that feature aspec characters that you also read? Do you have any suggestions?

Unfortunately not that I can think of! I am peripherally aware of some ace characters, but they aren’t in stories I personally consume. I hope to find more though!

20. Just for fun, write down a paragraph of your most recent writing. It can be an action-packed scene, some witty dialogue, or a colorful description that you really enjoyed. (Be sure to properly tag any possible triggers!)

Well, my most recent finished work would be the clunky first draft of my novel. So, here’s a silly conversation that entertained me to write:

Once they had bought the food, they went back to the park to eat. 

“You know, Fiera, I have come to a realization.” Kadri said.

“Oh? What’s that?” Fiera asked.

“Store snacks are not as filling as restaurant food, nor as refined, but they are decidedly addictive.” he said, munching on Twizzlers.

“Yep. That’s what makes them store snacks. Plus, I couldn’t get any really nice stuff. I’m not made of money.” Fiera explained.

“Which brings me to my next question, how exactly are you financing our meals? You don’t seem to work a job of any kind.” Kadri said. Fiera was almost surprised that he knew about jobs, but decided not to ask about it. 

“You’re right, I don’t. But my parents leave me about sixty bucks a week so that they can do what they want without me starving to death in their absence. After yesterday and just now, I’m down to like eight bucks, and the next payment comes in three days, so after this stash goes it's dollar store snacks only.” Fiera explained.

“I see. Fascinating. And these drinks you bought us, why are they vitamin drinks?” Kadri said,looking over a vitamin water curiously.

“Because we definitely aren’t going to get any vitamins from chips and candy.”  Fiera said simply.

“There is logic to that, I suppose.” he said. There was silence for a few moments.

“Um… Kadri?” Fiera said after a while.

“Yes, Fiera?” Kadri said.

“You know you can’t eat a whole bag of Twizzlers in one go, right?”  Fiera said.

“I don’t see why not. If it is not going to give me the nutrients I need, it may as well provide me with the maximum level of pleasure it is capable of.” Kadri said.

“Yeah, but you’ll get sick. And we have limited supplies.” Fiera countered. Kadri looked at the bag of Twizzlers in alarm.

“These are poisonous in large doses!?” he exclaimed.

“What? No, not poisonous, they just make you sick because they’re candy. All candy does that if you keep eating it.” Fiera said.

“Commoners lead dangerous lives, it would seem. I shall never forget this betrayal.” He said to the bag of Twizzlers, putting it down and taking the vitamin water instead. 

[elliepassmore]

The Never Tilting World Review

4/5 stars Recommended for people who like: fantasy, multiple POVs, goddesses, magic, demons, LGBTQ+ romance, strong female leads, kick-ass women, women engineers, disability representation, mental illness representation, characters of color, complex morality I will say that for the most part I really enjoyed this book. The concept is fascinating and the characters and world were splendid. I took off a star because, as nice as it is sometimes to not have every detail of a world explained, with something like magic, it does have to be explained to a certain extent. By-and-large I understand how the 'gates' work, but we're dropped right into the terminology within the first couple of pages without explanation and it was a little confusing and took me a few tries to get at it. Then, I just wasn't a huge fan of Odessa and it does take away from the book a little when you just don't like one of the MCs or narrators, but I'll explain more about Odessa when I get to her. Lan, Tianlan, is the first narrator, so I'm starting with her. She's what's called a Catseye (also something whose we had to figure out figure out ourselves), which means she can heal people or inflict sickness upon them in a form of dual magic. Two sides to every coin, right? I really, really love this idea and think it's a fantastic spin on the typical 'healer' character you see in fantasy. I suppose, theoretically, healers could always turn their magic to use by harming people, in fantasy books healers are relegated to only healing, save for here and in Leigh Bardugo's Grisha and Six of Crows trilogy, where healing and harming are seen as two sides of the same magic, though a person typically has more strength in one than the other, so it doesn't come out quite like it does here. I enjoyed being in Lan's POV because she's caught between wanting to do the right thing by the world that's been plunged into eternal night and also wanting to keep Odessa, her lover, safe. I also thought that Chupeco writing Lan has having PTSD after a pre-book incident was refreshing considering the number of books that just skip over the psychological effects events have on characters. This was also an area where Chupeco turned the 'healer' trope on its head a little, as Catseyes can work with physical illnesses and injuries, but also mental ones, taking on the role of healer and therapist (though obviously not for themselves), so not only do we get to see Lan experiencing PTSD, but we also see her coming to terms with it and seeking therapy-like treatment for it, which is pretty unusual in most novels. Despite being in the 'healer' role and having magic that can infect and destroy if she wishes, Lan is also skilled with a blade and hand-to-hand combat and has something of a quick temper. She's definitely the 'protector' type more than anything else and is striving to make sure everyone comes out alright in the end. Odessa comes next, because I'm grouping the characters based on where they're from and Lan and Odessa are both from Aranth. Odessa is one of the daughter-goddesses in the novel who is unaware her twin is alive. She has some kind of chronic illness that prevents her from being very active without tiring out and that Catseyes have been able to treat but not cure. In the beginning Odessa seems like she'll be a pretty good character, a little too doe-eyed and teary for my tastes, but has plenty of potential. Then she starts to get bratty and doesn't seem to have the ability to logically think things through. From a writing standpoint I really appreciate how complex Chupeco makes Odessa and I think within the plot it's super fascinating. It's even explained to us toward the end why Odessa made the sudden turn from teary-but-okay-princess to brat-with-little-rationale, so I appreciate the cleverness of how the reason was woven throughout Lan and Odessa's chapters for us to find but maybe not pinpoint exactly. However, the great reasoning behind it doesn't stop me from not liking Odessa. The weird power-imbalance Odessa has going on with Lan and their relationship that I'm not a huge favor of. They love each other, great, fantastic, I believe that and I actually think they make a great couple in the beginning of the novel. They certainly have a better set-up for a romance than Arjun and Haidee do, though their 'love' is only marginally slower moving, but I'm just a teeny bit uncomfortable with the power imbalance of Odessa being a goddess/princess and Lan being the person assigned to guard and protect her. It's one thing when Lan is serving the crown in some general 'technical' sense and the two of them are in a relationship and it's another thing entirely when Lan is serving Odessa and her mother directly. It would be better, I think, if Lan wasn't serving directly under Odessa or it was like Lan's previous relationship where both girls were rangers. While Lan has no issues disregarding Odessa's commands, the imbalance is still there and becomes a bit of a problem later, but is never fully addressed, so I'm not sure how I feel about that or about some of the scenes with Lan and dark!Odessa. The relationship has the potential in the beginning and it is, for the most part good, but then once the difference in rank and power becomes clearer and Odessa becomes darker I get just a little uncomfortable with it. Haidee is the other daughter-goddess and she lives in the Golden City on the always-day side of the planet. She's what's called a 'mechanika' in the world, but what we would classify as an engineer. She's quick on her feet, fiery, stubborn, and extremely empathetic. In one of her very first scenes she's crying over a days-dead whale, if that's any indication. As much as I love her determination, smarts, and stubbornness, her ignorance of the world and optimistic attitude do grate on my nerves at times. She's just a bit too happy-go-lucky in some instances, though it largely works out for her. I will be fair, Haidee is one of my favorites, but I feel like Chupeco set things up so that Haidee would always have things work out for her and it seems a bit too obvious at times. Despite my dislike of Odessa, things go wrong for her, sometimes very wrong, and while things do occasionally go wrong for Haidee and seem like they'll be bad, I don't ever really get the full-on sense of dread like I do with Odessa. Arjun and Haidee meet by the whale and their first scene involves them trying to kill each other. Naturally, he becomes her love interest. Arjun is, hands down, the funniest person in the entire book. He has a very dry sense of humor and can be extremely sarcastic. He follows along with the idea of prophecies and with Haidee's ideas a little to mellowly for what I'd been expecting given our introduction to him, which I think says more about the whole 'everything works out for Haidee' but than about him. I also enjoy that Arjun decided to go with a prosthetic magical rifle after he lost his hand (not a spoiler, it happened pre-book). I don't know how they engineer the things they do in the desert, but I just found it amusing that instead of engineering a hand or hook or knife or something they went with a rifle that could channel his fire magic. It really fits his personality, honestly. While Arjun's and Haidee's romance is definitely more power-balanced than Lan's and Odessa's, there are still some holes in it. Mainly that they meet and fall in love within the span of the book, which I'm pretty sure takes place over, like, a month. I love fantasy and dystopian, and sci-fi, but oh my god I am getting sick of the quick romances. Chupeco did a decent job of showing why they fell in love and how they respected each other and became friends before they fell in love, but it's still only been a month. Sorry, but I know 19-year-olds, being one and being in college, and I'm just really not certain that your 'month to love' romance is gonna last. There are different depths to love and you can love more than once, but the insta-true-love, will-survive-anything has just, for some reason, been getting on my nerves lately. Maybe in a couple months or years I'll be fine with it again, but right now I'm just not a fan, even if I do like the characters together. The mythology and general world-building in the book is also something I enjoyed. Chupeco keeps the ideas of duality, sacrifice, and "a demoness is what they call a goddess that men cannot control" going throughout the book. It centers around two young goddesses whose mother(s) are goddesses and a world that somehow stopped spinning and split into only-night and only-day, so there's obviously a lot of mythology and magic going into the base of this book. Since the 'Breaking,' as they call it, neither mother-goddess has really told the twins much about previous generations of goddesses. Odessa gets more of an education about it than Haidee does, but both are still largely left in the dark about their world's mythology, which allows Chupeco to reveal it to the reader in a way that feels natural without info-dumping. There's a lot to do with goddesses, prophecies, and rituals that starts to get unpacked in this one, but which mainly sets up for the sequel. I'm super interested in learning more about the goddesses and rituals in the next book and have plenty of theories regarding them. The duality piece of things is interesting, because you don't necessarily recognize it in the beginning or even halfway through the book. It was more toward the end that I began to see what Chupeco was doing with the night-day, ill-healthy, healer-'plague-giver' sort of balance. The goddesses are twins, as all goddesses before them have been, and that set-up is a fantastic literary device for setting up dualities. You can have the good twin vs. the evil twin, the knowledgeable vs. the ignorant, and so many other varieties, and Chupeco plays with a bit of each in each twin. Odessa knows more about their past from the start, but it's Haidee who learns more about it and their world on the way. Odessa starts out as the chronically-ill sister, but Haidee ends up drained and exhausted. Odessa becomes more and more morally complex and dark but still has soft spots, Haidee is blindingly optimistic but has moments of destructive rage. They're set up to mirror and foil one another, yet each still comes together in the end and finds strength in knowing their twin. The girls are quite similar even though the book sets up a lot of their differences. Without giving too many spoilers I can say that this is 100% reflected in where the plot takes us and the things that are revealed. In terms of world-building I thought Chupeco gave us very distinct settings, creatures, and peoples. The night-side of the world is described as very rainy and cold, with threats of storms, kraken, and icebergs. Though Lan and Odessa are only in the city for a short period of time, I remember the impression I got of it. Old bookstores, tall buildings, dreary because of the rain. This is set against the next setting Lan and Odessa experience, which is the borderlands near the Abyss. While these lands are still dark, there's more foliage described as well as eerie lakes, currents made of air that are strong enough to hold ships, and creatures of darkness and shadow. It is also here where the sky begins to lighten as they move closer to the Abyss and the always-day side of the world. This is even more different from the settings Arjun and Haidee encounter. The desert is vast and deadly, full of dangerous scorpions, an acid sea, and a sea of sand complete with sand-dolphins and sand-sea creatures. The desert is full of raiders and nomadic clans instead of shadow people, but the former can be just as deadly. The Golden City is more steampunk than the night city, Aranth, is described to be. It also seems to be full of snootier people than Aranth does, and all-in-all, despite it being a city run by a twin goddess with a twin goddess daughter, Haidee's city is a very different city from the one Lan and Odessa left. Then there's Inanna's Temple and the Abyss itself, which remind me of dawn and pure darkness, respectively, but still have their own distinct feelings and descriptions. It's very easy to get immersed in the world Chupeco has created here and it's one of those rare world-building experiences that makes me wish I could see it artistically rendered. The Never Tilting World is a good book with unique, distinct characters each with their own strengths and weaknesses that are explored throughout the book. Chupeco writes the characters relatively realistically, meaning they deal with physical and mental trauma as well as tough decisions they sometimes respond to poorly. The Arjun-Haidee romance felt kind of rushed and the Lan-Odessa romance felt like it had a power-imbalance I wasn't 100% comfortable with. Since there is another book, however, and since the Lan-Odessa romance had a lot more promise in the beginning than the middle and end, I'm hoping it'll get itself sorted out. I also dinged the book's score because of terminology that we're left to figure out for ourselves that really would've been better if it had just been explained outright. Definitely think it's a good read, though and would recommend picking it up if you enjoy fantasy.

[a-man-for-hire-and-his-archives]

Q&A: Luke Arnold, Author of ‘The Last Smile In Sunder City’

Luke Arnold may be better known to some as a veteran performer on film, TV, as well as theater, but now he’s turned his creative energies towards a new career as a writer. His debut novel, The Last Smile In Sunder City, published on January 28th (Australia) and February 6th (UK) with it to be released February 25th in the US, so we took the opportunity to chat to him about the inspiration for his story, how he manages to balance two careers, and discovering a new love for the fantasy genre.

Thanks for taking the time to talk to us! Firstly, can you tell us a bit about yourself?

For the last decade or so I’ve been lucky enough to work as an actor on a bunch of great projects in Australia (my home) and around the world. Some people might know me as John Silver on a show called Black Sails. One of the quirks of being an actor is that every job ends so you often end up with huge chunks of time while you wait for the next gig. After finishing my work on Black Sails, I used that downtime to write my debut novel The Last Smile in Sunder City.

Has writing always been a passion and how does it fit in with your acting career?

The writing came first. In some ways, the acting was a side-effect of the fact that I was writing things that needed to be performed. My high school principal even warned me that while my writing was impressive, my acting left a lot to be desired. Nevertheless, when I was accepted into university courses for acting, filmmaking and writing, I decided that I’d start with acting and return to writing later. I thought that I’d be a better writer after gaining a little life experience and a career in acting has certainly given me that.

For me, all the creative energy comes from the same place, it’s just expressed in different ways. I’m sit on my own, bashing out a manuscript for a few months, then get called onto set to collaborate with a bunch of other artists for a while. It’s the best of both worlds.

How would you describe your debut novel, The Last Smile in Sunder City, in one sentence?

A hard-boiled detective gets kicked around an dystopian fantasy world hunting real monsters while running from his demons.

The Last Smile in Sunder City features magical beings in a world struggling to deal with the aftermath of magic being lost, which is a very unique concept for a fantasy novel! Do you read much fantasy yourself? If so, was this a deliberate response to common fantasy tropes?

Before writing this book, my knowledge of the fantasy genre was actually pretty abysmal. I cast a wide net with what I read, and I’d had a few early experiences with the genre that kind of turned me off. I’m doing my best to catch up and have quickly realised that I’ve been missing out. It’s an exciting time for fantasy and sci-fi where a lot of writers are breaking the mould of what we thought the genre could be.

This wasn’t a response to existing tropes but I wanted this world to feel as familiar as possible, so that it feels as easy to read as a mystery set in somewhere like Los Angeles. I’m far from the first writer to create a world where the magic is missing, but I hope I’m sitting in the aftermath and examining the idea in a way that feels fresh.

Were there any intentional references to real-life issues in this book? I may be reading too much into it, but I wondered if the issue with magic being lost and its impact on all the species was an analogy for climate change?

It’s hard to avoid the link between the broken world of Sunder City and what’s happening around us, but that wasn’t the initial inspiration. For me, it represents something more internal. As we get older, life can seem less magical than it did when we were kids, even when the world isn’t actually falling to pieces like it is now.

Of course, with things the way they are, I spend a lot of time wondering how to do some good in a breaking world and those thoughts definitely add fuel to Fetch’s journey.

If this book were to be adapted, what format would you prefer it to be, and why?

I think it would really suit a television show. Mystery has always works well on TV but in this golden-era of content, I think we could make something special. Indulge in all the film-noir elements and make something really unique.

The most exciting part would be letting other characters take the story for a bit. These book are all in Fetch’s head but a series would let us wander the streets with other characters and give them time to shine.

The story is told entirely in the first person. How easy was it to get into Fetch’s head and maintain his mindset the whole time? Did you ever have difficulty separating yourself from the darker, at times depressing mood of the book?

While writing the second book, I realised that I needed to shake Fetch out of my system at the end of a writing day. I’m put a lot of my worst tendencies into him, things that I hope I’ve grown past, and spending too much time in his head can drag me backwards. Luckily, Fetch will grow over the course of the books so maybe they won’t always be such dark waters to swim in.

How does your experience with acting and portraying other characters help with creating your own original characters?

It definitely had an effect but it’s hard to pinpoint exactly how. I hope that it had an effect on the secondary characters. As an actor, you become aware of when a character is making choices aren’t organic, but just serve the plot and the needs of the protagonist. Ideally, each character has their own internal world, wants and needs, so that they would be satisfying for an actor to play.

Can you tell us a bit about your writing process? For instance, the world of Sunder City is very detailed, did you figure out the nuts & bolts of its history and workings while you were writing or was there a bible that you created beforehand to refer to?

I started with some of the broad strokes in my head, but I first discovered Sunder City by letting Fetch walk the streets. It began with a short story and I had no outline, no map, no bible. I just set him off on a case and followed him around as he kicked over stones. Of course, there were many rewrites and expansions that took me to the final manuscript, and I now have a huge document with all the species, businesses, streets, histories, technologies, etc, but Fetch came first. I try not to get ahead of him because I want to use the world to best reflect his current state of mind and challenge him in specific ways.

Aside from the sequel, would you write more books in this genre or branch out into others?

I wish I had the time to write everything I want to. I hope to branch out and write something separate the Fetch Phillips archives soon. Not necessarily fantasy, but I do always like a touch of magic realism in what a write. So it will more likely be horror or sci-fi rather than anything too naturalistic but you never know.

And finally, what are you currently reading? Do you have any recommendations?

I’ve just digging into The Bone Ships by R.J. Barker which I am loving. Very on-brand with my pirate past. Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter was brilliant. In some ways, it felt like the exact opposite kind of fantasy to The Last Smile in Sunder City and I love that.

- The Nerd Daily

[kpopfanfictrash]

Walkers (II)

Author: kpopfanfictrash

Pairing: You / Jimin / Jungkook

Creative Content Contributors: @baebae-goodnight it’s ya girl, and she’s back with another moodboard that perfectly captures the vibe of the fic.

Rating: PG-13 (strong concepts, dark concepts) 

Word Count: 6,281

Genre: Fantasy / Sci-Fi; dystopian!AU, magic!AU

Description: There are some beings in the world who can walk in both this one and the next. They exist on two planes – one, the concrete land of buildings and people; the other, a shadowy landscape of dreams and blurred reality. Everyone thought they disappeared though, everyone thought they were gone. You thought this as well, until you began having the dreams.

Chapter Two: The Seer

With a noise like a zap, or a zonk, you burst out in a field.

Stumbling at the resurgence of gravity, you gasp out loud –

– only for Jimin to appear beside you, still tightly holding your hand.

Where he existed previous to now, you haven’t the faintest idea. His hand is grasped warmly in yours – it feels as though it always has been. You would have felt the weight of any disturbance and yet, you blink, disoriented by his appearance. It feels as though the entire universe has reshuffled or, perhaps your particles have reshuffled the world.

“Fuck,” Jimin gasps, letting go of you to drop his hands to his knees. His chest rises and falls with each breath; his forehead is rosy, dotted with sweat.

The removal of his hand is alienating and so, you stuff both of yours in your pockets – as though to hide all physical evidence of your loneliness.

This is when you realize, the world around you is purple.

Strange, varied hues of it – every shade and depth of the color imaginable. Your mouth gapes and you blink several times, as though to rid yourself of the visage. Each time that you do though, the scenery remains. Or – you can’t seem to grasp any empirical evidence otherwise, which means this must be the truth. Things without evidence are often lies. Turning around in a slow circle, your brain balks at the rejection of everything you once believed.

“Welcome to Lilac.”

With a start, Jimin’s voice reminds you that you are not alone on this planet. Glancing to him, you find Jimin has pushed himself upright; one arm of his leans lackadaisically against a tree – the trunk of which is the palest shade of lavender, in contrast to grape-colored leaves.

“I – what?” you gasp, a strangled sound. 

No part of ‘Welcome to Lilac’ illuminates your situation – one second, you were in Jimin’s house and now, well, you have no idea. Taking a shaky step forward, you spread your hands in the air. Wriggling them experimentally, they seem to obey every order. 

This all seems real, you must say. It’s just, you’ve never dreamt of such a beautiful world before. Only nightmares.

The sky above you is the color of night. Dark ink, swirled with onyx and in the middle are stamped two bright-colored suns. Overly so, they burn dusk-red on the horizon, illuminating the cavernous field that you stand in. 

There are two suns in the sky, not one.

“Oh, my fucking god,” you whisper, unable to look away.

Pushing himself off of the tree, Jimin comes closer. “I know – it is a lot to take in, the first time that you travel. I remember back when I – hey! Whoa!” he yelps, when you fly suddenly towards him and begin to pummel his chest with your fists.

“Where the,” you gasp, punching Jimin as hard as you can in the side, “fuck,” another punch, this one to his elbow, “are we?”

The words are hissed between breath, intent upon beating the shit out of him – until you glance up and realize Jimin is no longer there. Jimin waves at you, off to the side and you frown in confusion, when you realize you have been punching at nothing.

Both your hands fall limp. “I – what just happened?”

Jimin laughs at your expression – actually laughs – which makes you think perhaps you were wrong, earlier. Maybe you are dreaming, because several hours prior, you thought the surly Walker not capable of such an emotion. But then a breeze wafts past you, carrying with it the faint tang of citrus and you wonder what kind of dreams are able to produce smell. Well, the scent is probably not citrus, you reason; just something like it. There’s no guarantee this world even has food; not in the human sense of the word.

Shivering, you realize this is the truth of things. This is another world. You are standing on another world, another planet and somehow, Jimin brought you here. Grass tickling your ankles, you take an uncertain step forward. The color of the grass is mauve, another strange shade and you bend, brushing fingertips over the top. It might be your imagination, but the wind seems to whisper in turn.

“What is this place?” you murmurs; this time, the question is asked in a much different tone.

Glancing up, you find Jimin already looking at you. “Lilac,” he repeats – though this, too, he says in a new way. “At least,” he frowns, “that’s what I call it. Not a very creative name, I know but there’s no word in our language. Or, if there is – it’s long been lost to our kind. I found Lilac by accident,” Jimin confesses, looking up at the suns. The wind whips his hair, stirring it into a frenzy. “We’ll be safe here, at least for a little while.”

Slowly, you stand, marveling when the bones in your body remain silent. The past few weeks, you have been barely able to sleep. Dark circles exist under your eyes, your joints creak hazily and each motion produces aches – but no longer.

“Jimin,” you start to say – then stop, considering the enormity of what you wish to ask. There are a billion questions to think of, but none presents itself as most important. “How did you get over there?”

Jimin pauses, before reappearing before you. “Magic,” he answers. Upon seeing your expression, he laughs and adds, “Perhaps you should sit down, while I explain.”

The suggestion seems arbitrary, since you are already halfway to lowering yourself to the ground. This is an odd fact about humans: significant news is often best-received from a seated position. The strange, mauve grass parts when you sit and from here, touching the ground, you look upwards at Jimin.

He settles before you as well, dark hair blown haphazardly over his features. It is odd, the wind of this planet. It doesn’t seem to come from any one direction, or even move in a discernable pattern. It plays with Jimin’s hair as one would with a friend – it touches yours curiously, as though in exploration. Frowning, you shove strands behind your ears in response.

Jimin seems more at ease – no, scratch that, he seems just more and perhaps this is the first time you believe what he says. Jimin is a Walker. He can travel between worlds and if that is true – perhaps what he said about you is true, as well.

Twining a blade of grass with his finger, Jimin frowns while considering where to begin. “I suppose it makes the most sense, starting with the concept of Blocks.”

“Blocks?” You find yourself unfamiliar with the word and, being a person unaccustomed to ignorance, you frown. It is not so much the word in itself, but rather the way Jimin says it – shaped by his lips, as an indication of magic.

He nods, still twirling the blade in his hand. “Magic exists, Y/N.” Jimin pauses, allowing this to sink in.

Rather than be shocked, as he clearly expected, you simply raise both your eyebrows. “That seems a bit obvious,” you say, “given we’re currently sitting on purple grass on another planet, right now.”

Jimin’s face twitches, as though wanting to laugh before he thinks better. “Okay, but it’s more than just traveling between worlds, Y/N. Magic,” he states, lifting a hand – the blade of grass spins, flying overhead in response, “exists everywhere. Magic is an infinite supply of energy that anyone can use, given they have the right capabilities.”

Mouth ajar, you follow the purple grass towards the sky. “And you have the right capabilities?” you manage to ask, although clearly, he does.

Jimin nods, focused on the spinning object above. “So do you, I imagine.”

With a frown, you tear your gaze away from the blade. Squinting at the planet, you try – and fail – to move a leaf with your mind. Perhaps this is because you have no idea what you’re doing. It is as though someone has handed you a blank sheet of paper and told you to draw, but gave no utensil. Or, perhaps they handed over the pencil as well – but still, you have no idea whether to use the tip or the eraser.

Scrunching your eyes, you stare intently at a puce-colored flower.

Jimin chuckles, letting the grass drop to the ground. “It takes practice,” he assures, dusting his hands off on his pants. “For you, right now, there’s a tsunami of information pouring in through a door. It’s too much and you don’t have the time to digest it – which leads to the worst kind of sensory overload. With time, you’ll be able to separate out the strands.”

“Alright,” you sigh, giving up on the pretense that you can do magic for now. “It’s like you’re trying to confuse me. What the fuck are the strands?”

Jimin huffs, a tiny movement of his lips. “Right – strands of magic. Strands of energy, binding together the universe. Everything of consequence is made up of particles – some people can just see them better, that’s all. Some people,” he adds, a slight gleam to his eyes, “can use them.”

A strange kind of excitement unfurls in your stomach. “So,” you respond, returning to looking at the flower, “this is what you do, when you travel between worlds?”

“What we do,” Jimin corrects, arching a brow. “But yes, that’s it. We bend the strands, we move them together into a more efficient fashion.”

“Right.” Pursing your lips, you are sure your face remains dubious. “And what you did earlier, with the grass – that was a different kind of magic, than traveling?”

“Walking,” Jimin corrects, lowering both hands to the dirt. “Although, I guess we sometimes do call it traveling. And yes, in a way. But back to the concept of Blocks,” he says, even though he didn’t explain this the first time. “A Block is a magical entity, of sorts. They are magical entities which exist to cancel out other magic.”

“Cancel out... magic?”

Jimin nods, a knowing look on his face.

In response to this, you scowl, since you have always felt arrogance to be an unbearable character trait. On Jimin, though, it does not seem unattractive, which is an insufferable contradiction.

“What do you mean by, ‘cancel out’?” you prod. “How can one magic diminish another?”

Jimin looks up at the sky. “How does anything work, in any world?” he murmurs, though the question doesn’t seem directed at you. Leaning back on his hands, he sighs. “A Block can be anything – an object, a person, a building. The Earth is a Block,” he offers, looking your way.

You still. In the distance, beyond, wine-colored mountains blend into the sky. It paints a rather lovely portrait.

“The Earth, as a planet, is a giant Block for magic. It’s why we can’t do these kinds of things there,” he explains as, with a wave of his hand, Jimin sets the grass spinning. “Only certain magics work, certain patterns of of energy exist on the Earth. It’s party why the Normals won against us in the war, so many years ago.”

Staring at him dizzily, you wonder when you moved so easily from they to us. For so long, you listened to history lessons about how you won the war. A war where you, the Normals, drove out the dangerous Walkers and regained the planet Earth as your own. Now, you realize you are a part of them. You are the beings so easily stamped out and suddenly, your origin story doesn’t sound so appealing.

Dragging a hand through your hair, you turn to look at the suns.

Odd, how similar this place is to Earth. Except for the purple, of course – but apart from that, it could be a twin. One would think that, given an infinite combination of particles in the universe, molecules would not deign to order themselves the same way. With a noise almost like a chuckle, the breeze stirs in your hair.

Clearing his throat, Jimin returns your attention to him. “Only some magic is possible on Earth,” he affirms. “Walkers travel to other worlds. Seers can do this, and bring items back with them. But on some worlds,” he shrugs, throwing out both arms. Leaves and grass swirl up, between fingers. “We can do more.”

Sunlight pierces the leaves, suspended in midair before you. Staring, you wonder at the change in the air – and in Jimin, seated before you. When you met him on Earth, he was a dim, fading thing. Here, there is something wild and alive in his gaze. Jimin takes a deep breath, exhaling this slow through his nostrils.

“Not every world is like Lilac,” Jimin cautions, keeping both eyes closed. “There are bad places in the universe, Y/N; evil places. They work harder to pull others in, which is why you keep accidentally going to them in your dreams. Worlds like Lilac, these are harder to find.”

Nodding, you lift both hands from the grass – and realize, with shock, the blades cling to your skin. A beacon of energy, Jimin said about you in his attic. 

With a sigh, Jimin reaches out, swiping these into the dirt. “I should’ve realized,” he murmurs, brushing the curve of your wrist. More grass tumbles to the ground, but you are not looking at this – you are looking at him. “Even in a mostly dead world, a Seer is dangerous.”

You shiver, this time not from him. You shiver from the idea that just by being here, you are calling things to you – the notion is a frightening one, to say the least, so you push it aside. A mostly dead world, Jimin said. You don’t want to consider what this mostly part means. 

Leaning back on your palms, you stare up at the sky. Above are a million, tiny pricks of light. Eerily similar to home and yet, not. You stare, keeping your eyes open for as long as you can and there – in the single, fleeting moment before everything blurs – you think there is a pulse to the rhythm, a stark weaving of energy.

“What is a Seer?” you whisper, when you blink. The energy disappears, leaving you wanting. “I know what you said earlier,” you hasten, noting the change in Jimin’s expression. “I’m a gateway of sorts, between worlds – but what does that mean, really?”

Jimin sighs. “It means not only can you rearrange your own energy – you can rearrange someone else’s. And that is rare.”

“I guess,” you mutter, with a shrug. Truthfully, this does not seem so special. “I don’t see how that’s important, though. Why is it so valuable – why would things seek me out, when I travel?”

Jimin stares at you in amazement. “Are you serious – okay,” he exhales, scooting closer. Grabbing one of your hands, he holds it high overhead. “Let’s call this the Earth.”

Glancing at your hand, you shrug. “Okay.”

“This,” Jimin grabs your other hand, bringing it far away from the first, “is the neighboring planet, Siphon.”

“Siphon?”

“It was the first word I thought of. Anyways, Siphon,” Jimin continues, wriggling the one hand above you, “wants to attack Earth. But – oh, no! What a large waste of perfectly good resources. What a large sum of time, money and spaceships just to get from one side of the galaxy to the other! Unless,” he counters, raising a brow. “What if we simply kidnap a Seer and use them to – zap! – move an entire army from one world to the next.”

Your blood chills, wincing at the sound it makes when Jimin smushes your hands together. “I,” you exhale, then swallow. “Is that possible?”

Jimin nods, releasing your hands and letting them fall to your sides. “It’s happened before,” he states. “It’s happened often enough that Seers were deemed a threat to humanity, long ago. Many were killed during the War,” Jimin admits, a certain sadness entering his gaze. “Which is why you’re so rare, why I didn’t even know what you were. I’ve never met another Seer.”

Your mind crowds, full of noisy implications you would rather not consider. Your powers must have come from somewhere, they had to. From the way Jimin speaks, it seems as though his are hereditary – the Walkers are a people, the Normals are a people. But, if so, what are you? Neither of your parents exhibited signs of being a Seer or, at least, none you can recall. You are all alone and while yes, that is not exactly a new fact, somehow it seems much more permanent.

Jimin tilts his head. “Seers are dangerous,” he explains. “Especially you, since you’re old for a newbie and don’t know what the hell you’re doing.”

“Hey!” you blurt out, curling your legs into your chest. “Watch who you’re calling old,” you huff. “You can’t be much younger than I am. If you even are.”

“Sorry,” Jimin shrugs, though he doesn’t look it. “That’s not what I meant. What I meant was that Walkers learn to control their powers at a young age. The fact that you never did – well,” Jimin hesitates. “It’s no wonder you’re attracting big prey. Something has kept your powers at bay for a long time – it’s the only explanation, as to why you haven’t realized what you are. Now that your powers are free, though…” Jimin shrugs. “Everything is releasing all at once.”

“A tsunami through a door,” you repeat, borrowing Jimin’s phrase from earlier.

Jimin nods, dark hair pushed back by the wind. “Exactly.”

You are quiet for a few minutes, letting this all sink in. The most logical explanation is a Block – a Block, which exists somewhere in your life and hinders your magical abilities. This is too much to think about now, though, especially when you are here, and not back on Earth.

“Are we the only magical beings that exist?” you query, then frown. “Also, how are there even different magical beings, if all energy is the same? You keep on saying you’re a Walker and yet,” you wave a hand at the grass, “you’re clearly more.”

Jimin hums, lowering himself to lie flat on the world. Arranging himself into a more comfortable position, he stares at the sky. “Ah, that’s hard.” Jimin frowns, lacing his hands over his stomach. “I think it can be best explained, in terms of personality. Let’s pretend, for a moment, I’m very skilled in verbal communication.”

“Ha,” you snort.

Delicately, Jimin arches a brow. “I said pretend. Anyways, pretend I’m a great verbal communicator – this doesn’t mean I can’t communicate through a written medium. It just means I’m most skilled when I speak out loud.” Lifting his head from the grass, Jimin stares at you. “I’m good at traveling places. For some reason, on Earth, everything else becomes muted and only my strongest skill remains. It’s an odd sort of Block.”

“Well,” you exhale, settling down in the grass to match his position. “Why don’t you just stay in other worlds, then? If you can do magic elsewhere, why not just stay here?”

Jimin’s expression takes on a cast of pure obviousness. “Because those other worlds aren’t home.”

Nodding, you lower yourself flat, like he is. To some, this might seem like a silly answer but to you, it makes sense.

“Can people levitate things on Earth?” you ask, turning your head on the grass. “If that’s their ‘specialty,’ as you put it?”

Jimin turns his head as well, meeting your gaze. “In theory, I suppose. I haven’t met any.”

There’s a strange cast to his words, darker than previous and you frown. “Jimin, why are you –”

When he sits up, the movement is abrupt, breaking the moment. “I don’t want to talk about my past,” Jimin mutters. “I don’t want to talk about where I live, or why, or how I came to be there.”

There is something hard, finite to his voice. He stares at the mountains and you try not to notice the raw pain to his gaze. The moment seems oddly private, as though you are not meant to see it. His tone does not invite further conversation and, unwilling to push him on this, you don’t try.

“Okay,” you shrug, returning your gaze to the suns.

Jimin settles onto the grass, kicking one ankle over the other. He stares at the stars for so long, you think he might have forgotten you. “Before,” he sighs, sliding back into conversation. “When you were attempting to assault me, and I disappeared – that is magic I can do back on Earth.”

“Oh, sure,” you respond, turning to face him with a scowl.

He smiles, some of his former ease returning. “That’s just me, traveling – or, Walking. It’s my natural specialty and I can do it quite easily.”

“So, let me get this straight.” Frowning, you stare up at the sky. “You get to zip around the universe, you basically have the power of teleportation – and here I am, a giant doorway.”

“Along with a lighthouse, yes.”

Glaring at nothing, you wave a hand overhead. “Do you see how unfair that is?”

A puff of laughter passes Jimin’s lips. “Yeah. Look – you could have other strengths, as well. Like I said, I’ve never actually met a Seer before. You’re the first. Apparently, this means you can travel, too,” Jimin shrugs. “At least, you did earlier, when I brought you to Lilac.”

When he says this, a horrifying image begins to form in your thoughts. “Wait,” you respond, turning your head on the grass. “Are you saying… that before, when we came here... you didn’t know if I could?”

Jimin’s cheeks color. “It, uh, seemed worth the risk.”

For the second time on the planet, you launch yourself forward and begin pummeling him with your fists. Jimin laughs, curling in on himself – only to disappear, reappearing in a bush several feet over.

“Stop doing that,” you huff, pushing yourself onto your elbows.

Jimin is still laughing, clutching his shirt. “I’m sorry,” he protests, tumbling free of the leaves to wipe mirth from his eyes. “I just haven’t ever experienced my powers with someone else before. Turns out, it’s kind of fun.”

Although you’re still pissed at him, your curiosity gets the better of you. “What do you mean by that?” you ask, lowering yourself on the grass.

“Well,” Jimin muses, scooting closer to flop down on his front. “Being a Walker is kind of alienating. The whole ‘travel by yourself’ thing gets old, fast. I’ve never come to Lilac with anyone else before.”

This thought strikes you as incredibly lonely. “No one? Ever?” 

Scanning the horizon of lavender lakes and trees, you wonder if the beauty would hold true, were you to only ever see it by yourself. For some reason, the implication is unsettling.

“No one,” he answers.

“What about another Walker?” you query, turning your head.

“Time is a funny thing,” Jimin says and, when you look, he stares straight overhead. “It moves differently in different parts of the universe. The one time I tried visiting a place with another Walker – they arrived five years in the past, I got there seventy-four in the future.”

Eyes widening, you release the breath you were holding. “How?”

“How,” Jimin sighs, loosening a groan and throwing a hand over his face. “I don’t know,” he mumbles, in between body parts. “Lord – Y/N. Do I seem as though the universe has let me in on all of its personal secrets?”

“Kind of, yeah. You have that ‘omniscient, egotistical asshole’ vibe.”

The corner of Jimin’s mouth lifts. “Ha. Well,” he sighs, from underneath his arm. “I don’t know how it works. Think of it like earlier – when I took your two hands and smushed them together. Time is kind of like that, too.”

“Confusing, and full of crappy metaphors?”

“Sure, but also non-linear,” Jimin points out, finally removing his arm from his face. “Time is amorphous, has no straight lines and when a Walker travels, it is hard to control both space and time in one jump. Except on your planet of birth,” Jimin corrects, thinking it through. “You body reaches for one timeline there, for some reason.”

“Huh.” You can think of no further response – everything about today, or tonight is just one, giant question mark. The rest is just details, until the newness subsides.

“You know, you’re handling this much better than most people would.”

“Am I?” you muse.

Turning, you marvel at the sight of Jimin, bathed in violet twilight.

He nods, profile dipping in and out of shadow. “Most Walkers learn about their abilities at a young age, grow up knowing what they are – even if they have to keep it a secret from society. Anyways, most Walkers reject the concept of magic, the first time that they hear it. You didn’t.”

“Oh. That’s good to know, I guess.”

“Of course, most Walkers are around five or six years old when they learn.”

Without hesitation, you punch Jimin in the arm.

“Hey!” he yelps, though he’s laughing.

“There’s more where that came from,” you inform, folding both hands over your stomach. His laughter quiets and, as the silence stretches between you, uncertainty drifts in and out of your thoughts. “Jimin?”

“Yeah?” he mumbles, both eyes shutting. “Are you going to hit me again?”

“Not if you don’t deserve it,” you huff – but there’s a catch to your voice.

Hearing this, Jimin opens his eyes.

Before you can move, he is before you. In the blink of an eye, Jimin travels closer and you suck in a breath, trying – and failing – to adjust to the nearness of him. This proves to be impossible.

“What’s wrong?” Jimin asks, a subtle tilt to his head.

He’s so near, you almost lose focus. “What now?” you manage to ask, pushing the words into being. Above you, the world is spinning – not literally, although you can’t say that with certainty. “Now that I know what I am – what now?”

Jimin is quiet for a long moment. “I won’t lie to you,” he responds at last, oddly hesitant. “The Earth is not kind, to people like us.”

“Yeah?” you breathe, curling a hand in the grass. There still exist a few inches between you, a fact which seems significant, given how frequently you consider closing that space.

“Yeah,” Jimin agrees, his hand moving nearer. “I mean, you saw where I live. Technically, Walkers don’t even exist back in our world. Neither do you,” he reminds.

“Right.” It is a cold reminder, one which prompts your next question. “The dreams, though,” you whisper, still looking at him. “The whole reason I sought you out was because of the dreams. I keep accidentally traveling in my sleep,” you explain, fingers tightening on mauve. “And until I know how to stop it – aren’t I in danger of bringing something back?”

Jimin doesn’t move. “Yes,” he breathes, barely audible.

“Okay.” With a half-laugh, you tear your gaze quickly away. “At least you’re honest.”

Unprompted, his hand finds yours in the damp, purple grass. “I’ll teach you,” Jimin implores, oddly earnest. You look at him. The weight of his gaze feels alien – there exists a spark within it, one you have never experienced before.

There are only a few people you’ve encountered who contain such fire. Your ex-boyfriend was one of them, before time and secrets dampened that flame. Your mother was another, although she died too soon for you to fully comprehend. This, feels like more than both.

His touch burns. “Sorry,” Jimin winces, pulling back – but you stop him. “I know my body runs hotter than normal. I mean it,” he implores, “when I say that I’ll help you. Traveling in your dreams is fairly normal for a new Walker. I can help you with that.”

“It’s normal?” you respond, lifting a brow. “It’s normal, to call giant monsters to me in my sleep?”

“Okay, maybe that’s unique.” Jimin’s lips quirk. “But still, it’s just sleep-Walking. You’re astral-projecting into other worlds, which is much less intense.”

“Uh,” you blink, understanding about seventy percent of what he just said. “Come again?”

“Oh, right.” Jimin rubs at his forehead – he still hasn’t let go of your hand with the other. “When you sleep, your body is unresponsive but your mind is awake. All your defenses are lowered and when you’re new, oftentimes you travel. But,” he hastens, seeing your expression, “because your body is asleep – only your mind disappears. That’s what I meant, when I Walked in your dreams earlier and told you I was real, but you were not.”

Despite yourself, you shudder. “That somehow sounds worse.”

Jimin nods, thumb tracing over your wrist. “Don’t worry, your soul is made of tougher stuff than you think. It is not as easily – well, physically – harmed. Still, it’s probably best if you stop sleep-Walking altogether.”

“Oh, you think?” Though the response is sarcastic, you don’t move away. “Thanks,” you whisper, closing your eyes – it has not escaped your notice that Jimin does not have to do any this. You are still, by all accounts, a stranger, despite the trauma you share.

“Anytime,” he responds.

When Jimin withdraws his hand, it feels as though the world has, once again, rearranged. Opening your eyes, you push yourself into a seated position. “What’s wrong?” you ask, when he stands.

Stretching both arms, Jimin arches a brow. “We should be getting back,” he explains, holding out a hand to help you up. “Like I said, timing in other places is strange. How long do you think we’ve been here?” he asks, genuinely curious.

You pause, opening your mouth but find yourself stumped. The light around you hasn’t changed. The shadows on the ground are no longer, no less – nothing has moved in the sky, no constellations have shifted from view. 

“A few hours?”

Jimin shrugs. “I have no idea. Your guess is as good as mine,” he states – cheerfully, as though he didn’t just admit you could be twenty years in the future. “I suppose we’ll find out, once we get back to Earth.”

This is a horrifying statement, though some of your worry is alleviated when Jimin slips his hand into yours.

Only for a moment though, because then you remember the chaotic world you exited. Jimin’s attic, the booming voice at the door, the forced entrance of someone and their climb up the stairs. You still haven’t asked Jimin who that was but, based on his reaction to them, you assume no one good.

Turning around, the wind blows hair over your eyes. “Where are we going?” you ask, tightening your grip.

If Jimin notices the change, he doesn’t comment. “Somewhere you deem safe. An apartment? Safehouse? Someplace no one will see us when we enter. Just think about it,” he exhales, meeting your gaze. “Think of it, and I’ll get us there.”

“My apartment,” you respond, automatic. “No one will be there, and whoever was at your apartment won’t know that we’re there.”

Jimin’s expression flickers, unreadable for a moment. “I’ve never been to the Peak before. Well,” he sighs, licking his lips. “I guess there’s a first time for everything.”

You nod, closing your eyes as thoughts of home fill your mind. “Okay,” you exhale, trying not to feel foolish. Squeezing them shut, you visualize the hallway outside your door; the foyer inside, with a blue plastic vase of flowers.

Jimin exhales.

Everything turns dark, and you gasp – or, try to but find you no longer have a body to breathe. No blood pounds through your veins, no bones shiver in your skin, there is nothing but black, dark emptiness and when you try and scream, zap –

You stumble into the hall, nearly smacking your head on the wall.

Jimin follows, catching your waist and spinning you suddenly backwards. His entire body braces, taking the brunt of your fall. Gasping, you feel suddenly whole again – until you retch, leaning over to grasp both knees with your hands. Jimin seems worse off than you are; he heaves in slow, even motions while ducking his head to his chest.

After a few moments of blood pounding through veins, you manage to push yourself upwards. Luckily, the hallway is empty – it seems that you overshot the landing, you realize, squinting at the numbers on doors. Your apartment is down the hall, around two corners and with a shudder, you wonder what would have happened if you’d appeared in someone else’s apartment. That would have been difficult to explain.

No, there would have been no explanation. You would have been reported and – with a shiver, you cut off that next thought. What would have happened next, you don’t want to think about.

Jimin straightens beside you, rubbing his temples. “God,” he groans. “It’s harder, navigating two people at once. It’s like – you’re carrying me,” he frowns, pulling the pieces together. “You’re the Seer, so you’re taking me with you. But you don’t know how to drive, so I keep having to reach into the driver’s seat and yank the wheel.”

Rolling your eyes, you push past. “Thanks,” you huff and Jimin follows, already starting to smile. “It’s not my fault I don’t know how to travel. Like you said – something has been keeping my abilities at bay.”

“Right,” Jimin nods. Turning the corner, a distant pounding reaches your ears. Probably someone else’s music, or a broadcast show. “That’s the strange part, Y/N. I’ve been meaning to tell you, you should be careful.”

“Careful?” you respond, arching a brow and rolling up your shirtsleeve. The barcode on your wrist serves as a key to your door. Walking around the corner, the pounding grows even louder. “And why is that?”

Jimin does not respond.

Coming to a stop, you turn and see him focused on something over your shoulder. All blood has drained from his expression and Jimin remains frozen for only a moment, before he launches himself forward.

“Jimin!” you gasp, thrown sideways for him to barrel angrily past.

Now, the noise from the hallway is clear. Someone stands at your door, violently knocking – you see this for only a moment, before Jimin is there. He grabs the man by the shoulder, yanking him sideways to punch him square in the jaw.

Oh, fuck. 

With each passing second, your stomach sinks because now, you recognize who it is. You recognize their black, leather jacket; you recognize the clean cut of their clothing. You recognize his smooth white of his uniform underneath and the way his hair curls, overgrown, at the base of his neck.

He stumbles back, not having expected the punch – but re-gathers himself quickly, ducking to avoid the next blow. The man’s movement is quick, efficient countering Jimin’s oncoming punches, but this is to be expected. The man is captain of the police force and as such, is able to dismantle grown men without thinking twice.

What is odd about this fight is, Jimin seems to possess this skill as well.

He ducks the other man’s blow, weaving easily to deliver a second punch to the groin. The second man groans, doubled over and now Jimin draws back his fist – and you dart in, grabbing him with both hands and dragging him backwards.

“Jimin!” you gasp, using all of your weight to get him to stop. “What are you doing?”

Looking down in surprise, Jimin seems to notice you for the first time. “Y/N,” he growls, gaze tightening. “Get out of the way – you’re in danger!”

“Danger?” you hiss, still staring at Jimin. “What are you even talking about?”

By now, the second man has managed to push himself upwards. Standing in the middle of your hall, he regards the two of you warily. It has not escaped your notice, the way the man’s gaze lingers on your hand, touching Jimin. Instantly, you flush and drop both arms to your side.

Jimin’s jaw tightens, looking at you. “He’s a Block, Y/N,” he grunts, flinging out a hand. The point of his finger is accusatory. “Can’t you feel it? The subtle pull at your powers, your conscience, your being? He’s a fucking Block and he’s here at your door – doesn’t that strike you as strange?”

You want to move. Want to, but can’t; too consumed by the words placed into being. Now that Jimin says it, yes, you can feel it. The slow, subtle drain to your energy ever since turning the corner. 

Gaze darting to the other man – whose expression has crumpled into something like fear – you find yourself stuck to the floor. The man now has eyes only for you, completely ignoring Jimin while taking a step forward.

“Fuck,” he whispers, horrified, pushing both hands through his hair. “Y/N... what have you done?”

Jimin freezes, and you know that he hears it. The familiarity, the implicit trust in his tone. “Y/N,” Jimin mutters, not looking away. “What is going on?”

“Jimin,” you whisper, looking from him to the other. “This is my ex-boyfriend. Jungkook.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Jungkook states drily, sticking out a hand.

[ Walkers Master List ]

© kpopfanfictrash, 2018. Do not copy or repost without permission.

[fae-fucker]

Review: The Murder Complex

by Lindsay Cummings

An action-packed, blood-soaked, futuristic debut thriller set in a world where the murder rate is higher than the birthrate. For fans of Moira Young’s Dust Lands series, La Femme Nikita, and the movie Hanna.

Meadow Woodson, a fifteen-year-old girl who has been trained by her father to fight, to kill, and to survive in any situation, lives with her family on a houseboat in Florida. The state is controlled by The Murder Complex, an organization that tracks the population with precision.

The plot starts to thicken when Meadow meets Zephyr James, who is—although he doesn’t know it—one of the MC’s programmed assassins. Is their meeting a coincidence? Destiny? Or part of a terrifying strategy? And will Zephyr keep Meadow from discovering the haunting truth about her family?

Action-packed, blood-soaked, and chilling, this is a dark and compelling debut novel by Lindsay Cummings.

There’s a video on YouTube where Sasha Alsberg and Lindsay Cummings try to promote Zenith and their favorite books by speculating about what sort of books Andi would enjoy reading.

Lindsay, being the humble creature that she is, says that Andi would enjoy this book. Why? Because Andi would recognize Meadow’s methods as similar to her own? Because Andi would enjoy reading an edgy “thriller” because she too is edgy? Or even because both Andi and Meadow are beautiful waifish white girls with silver hair who don’t particularly mind killing people?

Actually, no, you absolute fool. Sasha speculates on why Andi would enjoy this book (because of the title and how both Meadow and Andi have … uh … something … in common) and tries and fails to give Lindsay a way out. Lindsay admits to not listening, occupied with her book, which she lovingly strokes while staring into the camera.

I think this says a lot about Lindsay herself, Andi’s personality (or rather, lack thereof), and most importantly, the content of this here book.

This review contains spoilers and discussions of potentially triggering topics.

The Writing

I don’t have much to say here. Zenith was far, far worse when you just compare the prose. It’s simple, bare-bones, and straight to the point. Perfectly mediocre and not memorable at all. It flows well enough, and if it weren’t for uuuh everything else in this book, I’d say it’s a quick and easy read.

It does get very melodramatic and edgy at times, but that is to be expected, and since the melodrama mostly avoids getting too purple or lasting too long, I will officially give Cummings the “I could read your book mostly without cringing at the words” award.

The story is told from Meadow and Zephyr’s POVs, and I’d have to disagree with other reviewers who said that their narration was too similar. I mean, it wasn’t spectacular and they definitely had some overlap in expressions, but I could tell that Cummings was making a conscious effort to make them distinct and for me, it worked (mostly past the first half of the book where both of them just mope around and sound very similar), so I commend that.

The Characters

Now, while Andi OH SHIT FUCK I DIDN’T MEAN TO DO THAT THAT WASN’T A BIT I LITERALLY JUST TYPED ANDI INSTEAD OF MEADOW

Now, while Meadow and Zephyr are distinct, that doesn’t really mean they’re good characters, yea? Honestly, they’re pretty much the only ones who get any type of development and the only ones who can, paradoxically, turn off their edge and just be normal people every now and then.

Meadow is supposedly this Strong Femail Charactor who does Bad Things for Good Reasons. And … I mean, yeah? Like, I don’t remember ever feeling like she obsessed over a man, and her motivations were always either keeping her little sister safe or surviving or figuring out the mystery around their society and how it ties into her own family. As far as YA heroines go, Meadow isn’t terrible. But she’s not exactly interesting, either. She’s always collected and rarely loses her cool, she displays few emotions outside of anger, and is generally cold and downplayed to the point of having barely any personality traits. I guess it’s sort of on purpose? But there are ways of making a character subtle and still interesting, and Meadow just feels like somebody packaged a Strong Femail Charactor right out of the factory without slapping some paint on her first. Idk, I guess if this is what Lindsay was going for then she did a good job, but personally I prefer my protags to be a bit more … more.

I will apologize to Meadow for calling her Andi, though. Andi is a lot more smug and obnoxious and has fewer reasons to be.

Zephyr is a harder to define because I’m pretty sure he’s intended to be more colorful than Meadow, but he comes off as even more generic than her. He’s a convincing enough teenage boy at times, because he lusts after Meadow like a puppy and thinks in super dramatic and poetic prose about how perfect and beautiful she is. But outside of that, he just sort of exists and the plot happens to him? He has no consistent personality traits and no flaws that he has control over. He’s partially brainwashed to murder on command and he’s like, sad about it, for a second, but accepts it pretty quickly and swears to help Meadow out for … reasons? Idk I guess he’s in love with her or whatever. The blurb implies he wants to keep her from discovering the truth but he pretty much helps her from the start.

He’s perfectly non-threatening — a boy next door type if next door was a war zone. Most of the time I wonder how many hands he needs to count all his braincells. One? Or mayhaps two? Whatever happens he just sort of rolls with after a chapter or two of angst and he ends up feeling like he’s a crutch for Meadow, a non-character there to fill the role of the snarky sidekick whose personal conflict is a minor subplot, which is admittedly fairly unusual in YA, but for a co-protagonist isn’t ideal, as one might imagine.

Koi is Meadow’s overprotective older brother who wants to beat up Zephyr for reasons and refuses to chill. And yes, that’s his name.

Periwinkle/Peri is Meadow’s younger sister and Meadow’s Moality Pet. And yes, that’s her name.

Meadow’s dad is an abusive asshole dad who is Too Hard On His Children but whose lessons Turn Out To Be Helpful in the end. No, it’s not his name but I can’t remember what it is and can’t be assed to look it up because he’s just Meadow’s dad. Oh and he likes torture? While Meadow acknowledges her dad is fucked up he’s still treated as this wise authority figure who gives good advice and is only a result of his environment. Society is evil, so that’s why he treats his children like shit and teaches them how to murder good. It’s to protect them, see?

Talan is Zephyr’s best friend and teenage sex worker who lost her child and now is vaguely suicidal but it’s supposed to be charming and quirky??? Talan is the only major character to die brutally for shock value and she seems to welcome it. Tbh she was the only interesting character in the whole book so I actually felt bad when she was killed off like that.

And then there’s a bunch of other characters but what’s the point of me telling you about them since they’re all generic as hell and only exist to spout exposition at Meadow and her boy toy.

There was another character I liked well enough, but only because she was the only PoC and her name was Sketch, which is a pretty neat name, but she didn’t have much of a personality except “snarky hardass” and was basically a Deluxe Edition of an existing “snarky hardass” character. She appears only in the late chapters of the book and is there to get brutalized for the sake of our two white protags. She didn’t die though, so there’s that?

The Plot

Alright, alright, I guess I have to write something.

I honestly have no fucking idea what the plot was. The blurb pretty much tells it all: Meadow meets Zephyr, they fall in love (?), Zephyr goes all Terminator on her ass and she’s like ??? and then uh … turns out Meadow’s family/dead mom are involved in the Murder Complex, which is the thing that’s making Zephyr and other random people kill others when remotely “activated” and so now they gotta find out what the heckity heck is going on, I guess?

It’s a clear enough plot but the motivations are a little weak, especially on Zephyr’s side. One would think he’d like to get rid of the whole “murder on command” thing in his brain but he seems to be able to fight it off easily once he meets Meadow and he’s more focused on helping her for reasons.

Yeah, I’m … I’ve already forgotten large chunks of the story so that should tell you something.

The “Worldbuilding”

O SHIT HERE COMES THE JUICY PART OF THE REVIEW.

*clears throat* Here we go:

The Shallows, Night Siren, the Initiative, Catalogue Number, Commandments of the Shallows, Creds, the Perimeter, the Silent Hour, Before, Rations Department, Pirates, the Dark Time, the Pulse, the Pin, the Red train, the Blue train, Wards, the Leeches, the Graveyard, the Survivors, Rations Hall, Initiative Headquarters, Wards of the State, the Gravers, NoteScreen, Evaluator, the Catalogue Dome, the Pit, Cred Orb, the Furnace Room, the Library, Sellout, the Hospital, the Believers …

Holy shit I don’t think I’ve gotten all of the Important Names yet and I’m already tired.

Y’all. This is the worst case of worldbuilding laziness I’ve seen in a while, and I’m someone who absolutely hates worldbuilding and will let authors get away with minimal effort. This? This is awful. And the thing is? I get it. I might’ve forgiven this because coming up with names is HARD and we humans usually go for the obvious anyway so this makes some amount of sense.

The problem is the fact that there are some words and concepts that are PERFECTLY REGULAR (i.e. the Hospital is literally just a fucking hospital) but still capitalized for no goddamn reason other than it being an attempt at sounding all sci-fi and dystopian without any actual effort. Everything blends together and the concepts are so generic and so MANY that it just becomes noise and you’re forced to simply roll with it and stop trying to actually imagine what anything looks like or where it’s located or how it works.

*takes deeep breath*

Speaking of how it works, let me tell you about the main premise. Basically, there was a war, a big war that tore the US apart like Lisa tears apart Johnny. Those who survived the war were infected with a plague, creatively named the Plague, that threatened to wipe out the population. One 20-year-old scientist cured the Plague, along with literally everything else, including death. Thanks to “nanites”, humans can no longer die of natural causes. This leads to overpopulation, and to stop this, the person who invented this all-cure comes up with another absolutely brilliant idea: let’s make MORE humans, but these humans have brains that are programmed to kill on command. Who gets murdered is chosen at random each and every night in a lottery, and survivors have to clean up dozens of new corpses every morning. (Meadow mentions the death rate is now 300 people per month.)

Yeah. I know. The same brilliant scientist who CURED DEATH not only fails to reverse the effects of their own invention, but decides that factory printing brainwashed humans who are then released into the world to also consume resources along with their victims is the best course of action?

Also, there are old people in this book. How are they still aging? How do you cure death but keep the aging? Why do you kill random people for shits and giggles instead of offing the semi-sentient sacks of flesh that the old people are bound to become as their bodies grow and decline but refuse to die? Surely you need young people to work in your factories? If resources are scarce, why keep old people alive past the point where they can contribute to society? If you have the technology to make remote controlled brains, why can’t you yank those bad boys out and just put them into robot bodies?

Why did nobody consider sterilization? I know this is a dangerous and sensitive topic that a white author probably shouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole, but if you’re ok with writing indiscriminate murder and pretend that shit wouldn’t become very racist very fast, then you could do the same with sterilization. You can’t tell me that the nanites are so good they could grow you a new uterus. Evidently they’re not good enough to heal bullet wounds or stab wounds or else your little “murder complex” wouldn’t fucking work, would it?

I’m not saying these are “better” options than murder lottery, because these are all terrible things, but I am saying that they’re definitely more logical and profitable if you’re an evil government. Compared to making new people from scratch to kill your already existing people, anyway.

There are also implications of this all being a lie to control the population so that the “Initiative” can remain in control, along with the usual shitty YA dystopia thing where it’s implied that Earth is fucked and we’re out of resources.

This whole thing is a mess of half-assed concepts that are never explored but just sort of jammed together into an incoherent mess. There’s a big war, there’s a big plague, there’s senseless murder, there’s an evil government, there’s child soldiers, there’s brainwashing, there’s a rebel Resistance, there’s climate change … There’s even an Aptitude Test or whatever that never comes back despite being very angsted and exposited about in the opening chapters. It’s like Lindsay read all the YA dystopias that came before and couldn’t pick a gimmick and just went for all of them.

Oh I haven’t even mentioned the funniest part of all this: the swearing. As with Zenith, Lindsay has no problem describing gory murder and calling female characters “sluts”, but actual human curse words like shit and fuck? Don’t be silly. This is CHILD AND PUBLISHER FRIENDLY. Shit is now “skitz”, “fuck” is now “flux”. Can you imagine reading this fluxing bullskitz? WE NEVER EVEN FIND OUT WHAT THESE WORDS MEAN OR WHY THEY WERE REPLACED, SINCE THIS TAKES PLACE RECENT ENOUGH THAT MEADOW REMEMBERS GOING TO BASEBALL GAMES.

Oh and there’s also ChumHead, which, you guessed it, is never explained.

I guess now we know who to blame for “fike” and “starshined”. Oh and there are swears related to the stars in this book as well. I think Lindsay needs to get off that SJM juice.

The Edgy

Allow me to feed quotes into your gaping brain mouths. Not a lot of them because most of my notes are just me going WHAT at the concepts and the names more than the phrasing.

Every night, I stay awake for as long as I can to keep my nightmares at bay.

Scars are trophies in the Shallows. They show we know how to cheat death.

In a paragraph before this one, Meadow mentions that nanites heal everything but leave scars behind for reasons, and it happens to everyone. So why would they be a status symbol?

It’s the moon. The moon that reminds me of the moonlit girl.

My moonlit girl. She’s the cure to my nightmares, the one thing that helps me feel safe when I can’t even trust my own dreams to harbor me.

Spoken like a real teenage boy, Zeph. Would you like some tissues with that spunk?

I hold the door open for [Talan], but she shrugs past me and opens the other one. Always independent. Never taking help from anyone.

Hi is this a Feminism?

I find two leather thigh sheathes and strap them to my legs. I slide two knives into them and stand, slinging the bow over my shoulder. […] Feeling angry. But feeling strong.

Convenient sexy makeover includes leather knife pockets and a cool but completely-impractical-due-to-the-existence-of-enemy-guns crossbow. I also want to mention that the book calls crossbow ammo “arrows”, when they’re usually referred to as bolts, but go off.

The Conclusion

The Murder Complex is a book that straddles the line between mediocre and bad. Its biggest flaw is how boring and shallow its ideas and characters are. Which basically means its biggest flaw is everything about it. I can’t say it was so bad it’s good, but I can’t exactly call it terrible because I’ve read far, far worse. It’s mediocre writing about bland characters angsting and murdering their way through a convoluted plot that’s based on worldbuilding as solid as half-eaten ham standwich found in a rainy alleyway. It’s not fun or entertaining to read and there’s nothing to get outrageously mad about.

In the end, I don’t think you should pick this up unless you’ve somehow read every other book in the world and this is the only one left. Don’t waste your time on this, not even as a joke. Don’t make my sacrifice be in vain.

[binkywinky]

hi! Comics rec anon here! to answer your question, I'm not entirely new to comics, have read a few but not enough to say I have a specific type. The first series I read was all the jessica jones comics which I really liked, also the miles morales series which i enjoyed and the spidergwen series which was cute but the art was kinda annoying lol. i also like a couple of dc ones like mister miracle. so i think i prefer a general rec from you since the comics world is so big. thanks in advance!

Got it. Hmm… let’s see. It’s probably easiest to break it down by publisher then. I’ll try to give a mix of ongoing, finished, and “classic” stories. 

Fair warning, I read a lot of comics (probably about 60 per month, and that’s not including manga), so even though this may feel like a long list, it’s short for me.

Marvel

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man - Relatively new series, and it’s been fantastic so far. Great art, and a bit more grounded than the Amazing Spider-Man run (which is also great). Stellar art, too.

Miles Morales: Spider-Man - A little YA-ish at times, but overall enjoyable. You get to see a lot more of Miles’ personality in this one, which is always fun.

Superior Spider-Man - Because nothing is more fun than seeing a semi-reformed Otto Octavius try to be a hero.

Captain Marvel - Kelly Thompson does a phenomenal job with this series. She has a great hold of Carol’s voice. Would highly recommend Kelly Sue Deconnick and Margaret Stohl’s previous runs to give context (Captain Marvel 2012-2017, Mighty Captain Marvel, and The Life of Captain Marvel).

Jessica Jones - Not sure if you’ve read Kelly Thompson’s recent run or just Bendis’, but hers is definitely worth a read.

Avengers (2019) - actually a solid run. I would check this out if you’re more into crossover, large-scale storytelling. They’re in the middle of War of the Realms, though… so maybe wait until like August or September?

Immortal Hulk, Daredevil, and X-23 - also good. I read them off and on (not really my fave characters to read on their own, I enjoy them in ensembles), but the stories are solid.

Rogue & Gambit - mini series that I absolutely love by Kelly Thompson (she does great character work) that came out last year. Mr. & Mrs. X is a follow-up to it and also tons of fun (nearing its end as well). 

Runaways - I fell off of this when Brian K. Vaughn left, but I can say up through his run ended is well worth the read.

As far as classic stories, Infinity Gauntlet, The Dark Phoenix Saga, X-Men: Age of Apocalypse, Secret Invasion, and Secret Wars would be my first recommendations.

I would’ve recommended Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider, but maybe wait on that. It’s about to end soon and transition to just Ghost Spider (where she leaves Earth-65 and comes to Earth-616 where Peter and Miles are). Same for X-Men. I’m currently reading Uncanny, but X-Men is about to be overhauled soon. So probably hold on that front.

DC/Vertigo

Honestly, not the biggest DC fan (I lean more towards Vertigo actually), but there are a few that I enjoy.

Action Comics (starting at #1000) - I am not a Superman fan, but I enjoy this series, which says a lot. I enjoy what Bendis is doing with him in this run.

Naomi - a new series, also by Bendis, following the story of a young Black girl who is investigating the circumstances around her adoption. Don’t want to give too much away, but probably my fave DC run at the moment. And Jamal Campbell’s art is fucking gorgeous.

Dial H for Hero - it’s fun. It’s weird. Not for everyone, but maybe give it a shot.

The Flash and Batman, New 52 runs - New 52 gets shit from fans a lot, but I thought these runs were awesome. Very good story-telling.

Dark Nights: Metal event - Probably one of the best things DC did in a long time. It’s a massive event that pretty much reworked the DC universe and all the characters. Enjoyed it immensely.

Heroes in Crisis - this miniseries ended very recently. It’s a story focused on a major event that happens at Sanctuary, a rehab for superheroes suffering from mental health issues (e.g. PTSD after doing something that nearly killed them). Not your usual superhero story, which I liked.

American Carnage - very gritty story focused on a white-passing Black man who infiltrates a white supremacist organization. It’s really fucking good.

High Level - I picked this book up randomly because the cover looked cool. I’ve been reading it ever since. I would say it’s weird sci-fi/fantasy/cyberpunk adventure. A little strong on the language, but very interesting story and great artwork.

Birds of Prey - awesome series with the DC women. A little shaky sometimes, but Gail Simone does really good character work. Her run is probably the only one I’d bother reading.

Deathbed - miniseries by Vertigo that ended maybe a year ago. It’s so bizarre and hilarious and out there. I loved it.

Batwoman (J.H. Williams run) and Batwoman: Rebirth - Kate Kane, my favorite lesbian superhero. Williams did a great job in his run (and the art is to die for). Don’t read the back half, they change writers and it’s a goddamn mess. But then Marguerite Bennett (a queer woman) picked it up in Rebirth, and it got awesome again. Also, shout-out to Greg Rucka for officially making her queerness canon in 52.

Wonder Woman - Wonder Woman’s my fave of DC main characters (along with Martian Manhunter and Wally West I & II), and my favorite run for her is Greg Rucka’s. He does a surprisingly good job of writing women. The run is over at the moment, but I’d check it out. Good stuff there.

For classic stories, Kingdom Come, Watchmen, Flashpoint (precursor to New 52), and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman are some of my faves.

Image

Image is probably what I read the most. Definitely has the most diverse pool of comics to choose from.

Saga - My favorite comic series of all-time. I’ve gotten so many people to read this and they love it. It’s weird - really weird, actually - but the storytelling is phenomenal. And it’s on hiatus right now, so plenty of time to get caught up.

Ice Cream Man - This series is so fucking weird, but I love it. It’s sorta like… Tales from the Crypt? Different stories (mostly horror) that all feature this demon ice cream man.

The Weatherman - This series is such a goddamn delight. I don’t want to ruin the plot but just… yeah. Read the first issue and it just goes crazy from there.

Man-Eaters - Sort of a niche story. Basically, this takes place in a society where when women get their cycle, they turn into giant cats and maul men, so they’ve given them pills to keep them from menstruating. Sounds weird? Wait until you read it. Probably a highlight series of the year for me. 

Black Science - You might not like the art in this one, but maybe give it a shot? These scientists are trying to solve the problem of limited resources on Earth by hopping across dimensions for new ones (infinite dimensions, infinite resources). Only problem is, their machine got damaged so now they hop uncontrollably to whatever dimension it chooses for however long it decides. It’s a wild ride.

Middlewest - An interesting take on parent/child relationships and how the consequences of abuse, anger, and depression can manifest in dangerous ways. Sounds more bleak than it is - the story actually has quite a bit of humor.

Excellence - Very new series, but with a PoC lead, about PoCs, with mostly PoC creators. A story about a secret society of Black magicians and a son whose next in line to take on the mantle, and it’s pretty fucking cool. Issue 2 comes out this week - check it out!

The Walking Dead - I don’t think I have to explain this one, do I? Zombies.

Lazarus and Lazarus: Risen - Sci-fi story set in a dystopian society where the world is ruled by like 15 or so families, and they each have a Lazarus to fight for them. This is told from the perspective of the Carlyle family’s Lazarus, Forever. 

Die - If Dungeons & Dragons and Jumanji had a baby, it would be this book. Sounds weird, but once you read it, you’ll find the description to be accurate.

Anything from Brian K. Vaughn - I have yet to read something from Brian K. Vaughn that I don’t like. Saga, Paper Girls, Y: The Last Man, Runaways, Barrier… his shit’s always good.

Independents / Not Marvel, DC, or Image

Some of these are nostalgia-based, so fair warning.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BOOM Studios) - very new series that’s out. Great art. If you were a fan of the show, I think you’ll like it. It’s a re-imagining of sorts. There’s also an Angel series that just started.

Nancy Drew (Dynamite) - Listen… I could not stand Nancy Drew as a kid. Never got into it and thought it was boring as hell. But I really loved this miniseries (another Kelly Thompson run). It’s maybe 5 issues?

Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers and Go Go Power Rangers (BOOM Studios) - Honest to God, if you had told me 3 years ago one of my fave comics would be a Power Rangers one, I would have laughed in your face. Both of these series are really good and provide the continuity, nuance, and characterization the show lacked. Fan of the show or not, I’d say it’s worth checking out if you enjoy the teenage superhero genre. Also, just some really amazing art and world-building.

Anything from Jinxworld - This is Bendis’ own publishing company. He’s put out Cover, Pearl, Scarlet, and United States vs. Murder, Inc. All of them are really good.

Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse) - This is the series the Netflix show is based off of. Right now, they’re doing Hotel Oblivion in the comics, but start with Apocalypse Suite and Dallas.

So, there you go anon. There are FAR more I would recommend, but I tried to give a good range of books for you to choose from without (hopefully) overwhelming you. And if you have any questions, I’m more than happy to talk about any of them.

[shirtlesssammy]

8x07: A Little Slice of Kevin

You’re not misreading this. We’re recapping a Buckleming episode by choice! Is it a hot mess? Yep. But does it also have literal pining!Dean, gothic romance stormy night window visions, boner scenes, roadside confessions, and badass Cas? Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

Then:

Where’s the angel? Also, Mrs. Tran is a bit of a badass.

Now:

At a playground (!), a small boy makes a mess with paints so his teacher takes him to the bathroom to clean up. Her eyes flash black for a moment before the two disappear inside (literally). A windstorm suddenly blasts its way through the park revealing the now empty bathroom.

Meanwhile, Dean is cruising around in Baby in a pine forest (while listening to The Animals’ “We Gotta Get Out of This Place”. LOVE.) He sees a dirty, bedraggled Cas walking on the side of the road and slams on the breaks. Backtracking, he sees nothing.

Well, nothing but a literal sign indicating there’s multiple pining situations happening. Dean then gets. out. of. the. car. to stare forlornly at his surroundings.

Later, at the cabin, Sam finds a case --the missing boy/tornado from the cold open. He notices similar happenings all over the world. They guess demons but have no clue how any of it connects.

Crowley is peak evil demon while he tortures poor Samandriel out of names. It also seems that Sam and Dean were right about the missing people. Crowley has collected them all in his dystopian sci-fi factory.

Kevin and Mrs. Tran are on the run, and she has 1000% embraced the mother of a prophet gig. She’s making holy water traps, hex bags, salt barriers, and has even hired a witch to make demon bombs. (Sidenote: This scene is the only time I hear Amy Wong on this show.) They check in with Delta Mendota via Skype. *insert gross Buckleming innuendos* She’s ready to help and is in no way, shape, or form going to backstab these two.

The brothers interview the teacher of the little boy who disappeared.

Later that night, while Sam sleeps and Dean googles “how to save an angel from Purgatory”, lightning flashes and Cas suddenly appears outside the window. He’s gone just as soon as he appears. Dean rushes to the window and stares at the rain in disbelief.

Sam awakens and wonders what Dean is doing. Dean confesses to seeing Cas outside, and earlier on the side of the road.

Dean then starts to replay his time with Cas in purgatory, wondering why Cas didn’t try harder (while beating himself up for the same reason.) Before finding the portal, Cas pulls Dean aside and thanks him, “for everything.”

For Science:

(Like, ouch. It’s little moments like this that make me really feel the profound effect Dean has had on Cas. This human, of all humans over the course of Earth’s existence, made such a lasting change in this angel.) Dean “Save the Hallmark” Winchester refuses to even humor the idea of Cas not making it through the portal.

Crowley is having second thoughts about abducting all these people, who believe they were abducted by aliens.

He tries getting them to read the demon tablet, but they are hopeless.

Meanwhile, Delta arrives at the Tran hideout with the demon bomb materials. *insert more gross Buckleming innuendos*

The next morning, Sam is discovering more missing people, while Dean hangs out in that liminal world between worlds where Cas and him meet so often, the bathroom (Lol, I typed that thinking it was going to be a poetic line, but that just sounds dirty.)

“Hello, Dean.”

Cas appears, for real this time. I’m not sure Dean’s eyes could pop out any further from his head.

Cut to Sam being all chatty and questioning about Cas’s return from Purgatory, while Dean continues to stand and stare in utter disbelief. Cas has been trying to reach out but hasn’t been at full power (Ahem, at this moment I would like to point out that the brothers still have the Enochian warding on their ribs and shouldn’t be detectable by angels. How strange that Cas can still find Dean though.) Cas has no explanation as to how he got out. Dean flashes back to their final moments in purgatory.

I love this exchange:

Benny: Aren't you guys all about faith? Castiel: Not particularly

Benny’s soul gets sucked into Dean’s arm via a spell, and Dean and Cas head for the portal. They find the portal at last, led to it by the delicate dance of a leaf. I love this! It's so pretty.

Leviathan arrive.

In the present time, Dean and Sam discuss the improbability of Cas being back with them, while Cas cleans up in the bathroom.

A story told in two gifs:

I mean, what the actual fuck, show? 

Meanwhile Linda Tran continues to be my favorite, chewing out the witch Delta for trying to change their deal. Suddenly Kevin comes running in. The salt line's been brushed away from the bathroom windowsill! Enter Crowley and a demon lackey, who were let in by Delta. Crowley zaps away with Kevin and orders the other demon to kill Linda. But Linda is ready!

Sam and Dean are busy tracking more demon omens. Sam lists out the names of the missing people and Castiel recites along and then completes it (as he watches TV). Damn it, Cas, stop being adorable. STAHP. 

Turns out, those are names of the prophets and they're written on the subway wall in Castiel's mind. Just like slayers, there's only one active prophet and the rest are potential prophets, who get activated when a prophet dies. There's a brief mention here of Chuck. The idea is set forth that Chuck died, thereby activating Kevin. (Chuck you got some 'splaining to do!) Their prophet talk is interrupted by a call from Linda Tran, asking for help.

In Crowley's latest dank industrial hideout, he swans around the table of prophets and bullies Kevin. If the other potential prophets can't do anything to interpret the tablet, they can at least die for it. Crowley brutally kills one of the women when Kevin refuses to translate the tablet, dousing Kevin with blood.

Elsewhere, Dean, Sam, and Castiel wait on a lonely highway for Linda to show up. With nothing more exciting to do, Dean flashes back to Purgatory again. They're fighting the leviathans and it's sharp and brutal and hard. Just barely, they manage to defeat them. Dean steps into the portal and reaches for Cas. They grasp hands, Dean trying to pull Castiel along with him, but the pull of the portal is too strong. Castiel slips from Dean's grasp as Dean zaps away from Purgatory. Dean jolts back to the present and asks Cas to step out of the car to talk. Dean shouts at Cas that he did all he could to get him out. He didn't leave Cas. HE DIDN'T, DAMN IT! Cas squints at him. “So you think this was...your fault?” (Me: Oh my lord these two are bad at words.)

Their confrontation is interrupted by the arrival of Linda who shows them the demon she has in her trunk. It's demon interrogation time!

Speaking of interrogation, Kevin's tied to a chair in Crowley's weird industrial dungeon. With no answers, Crowley chops off one of Kevin's fingers. After screaming in agony, Kevin agrees to read the tablet. He skims through the table of contents for things such as the “collective tapestry of the soul” and “demonic transport to the regions of hell.” (I love this.)

The Winchester-mobile and Linda drive off to Crowley's mysterious industrial pit. Sam cuffs Linda to the car (SAM) and Dean kills the demon in the trunk. Then they head for the compound.

While Crowley casually blows a pinwheel, Kevin discovers a section about sealing the gates of Hell. NOW Crowley is interested.

Sam, Dean, and Cas infiltrate the plant. Sam heads inside and encounters a ton of demons. He pulls out a jar and chucks it at the ground. It explodes and blasts away the demons. There goes their one demon bomb. Meanwhile, Dean and Cas get waylaid by a solitary demon, who knocks the crap out of Dean with a telekinetic blow. Castiel smites the demon, but staggers immediately afterward. His power is super low.

They find a locked door – behind which is Crowley - and while Dean tries to pick the lock, Cas flaps his way into the room alone. Crowley greets him with, “Which Castiel is it this time? I'm never sure. Madman or megalomanic?” They both pull out angel blades and when Crowley scoffs and questions Castiel's power, Cas goes full on angel. His eyes glow blue and he unfurls his wings. “You're bluffing,” Crowley shouts.

“You wanna take that chance?” Castiel asks (and I pause to fan myself). The tablet breaks in two, and Crowley grabs half of it and zaps away.

The next day, Sam bids farewell to Mrs. Tran and Kevin. He's sending them off to Garth. (Yessss I want to watch that show.)

While Sam and the Trans are off having semi-adult conversations, Dean flips out at Castiel, berating him for heading in alone. “Look, I don't need to feel like hell for failing you, okay? For failing you like I've failed every other godforsaken thing that I care about! I don't need it!” OUCH. There are no underlying issues here AT ALL.

Castiel tells him that it wasn't Dean's fault that Cas got left behind. Cas intended to stay behind in Purgatory to do penance. He tells Dean to reexamine the memory. Instead of Cas desperately trying to hang on, Cas actually pushed Dean away and told him to leave. He didn't want to be saved. “I didn't deserve to be out. And I saw that clearly when I was there. I planned to stay all along. I just didn't know how to tell you. You can't save everyone, my friend. Though you try.” GUH CAS

Sam interrupts because, of course. And then suddenly the world disappears and Cas finds himself in a white room. “Hello, Castiel,” a woman in a neat gray suit says. She tells him that he's in Heaven and asks him about Sam and Dean. Castiel immediately spills all the beans EVERYWHERE like a firehose of bean soup.

“Why am I telling you any of this?” he grits out. The woman in the suit is the angel Naomi and she orders Castiel to report on the Winchesters' comings and goings. The angels saved him from Purgatory and reprogrammed him for this one purpose. Castiel refuses, but is powerless to resist her as she zaps him back to the conversation with Sam and Dean. He looks confused, but doesn't remember a thing. Not long afterwards Cas walks off, looking unsettled, leaving a very perturbed Dean behind.

Boris: This post by @elizabethrobertajones makes me very happy.

Quotus Interruptus:

I hired a witch off of Craigslist

You know the rules. Casual encounters. That means no questions asked.

Are we on a spaceship?

I lie, I don't get lied to.

You can't save everyone, my friend. Though you try.

I was going to say that you look like you’ve seen a ghost, but you’d probably be stoked.

This hurts you more than it hurts me, so I can go on forever.

Thank you, for everything.

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive! 

[celestriakle]

I keep getting people who ask me what podcasts I listen to, what they’re about, and which I recommend, SO. Please note: these are solely my opinions, and your taste may differ from mine.

If you ever want more recommendations, check out Radio Drama Revival, which features all sorts of shows, singular and serial, and interviews with their writers and creators.

(This list is regularly updated. Last update 10/31/21.)

Top 3:

Archive 81: Dan is hired to organize some tapes about a very strange apartment building. Really ramps up in season 2. Horror. Good characters, interesting worldbuilding, intriguing plot, good voice acting, the best sound design of everything I’ve listened to so far. The whole package, really. (Ongoing.)

The Magnus Archives: An archivist for an institute of paranormal research reads aloud witness testimonials that turn out to be connected. The most tightly written podcast yet, perfectly paced, amazing use of framing device, fascinating world-building, wonderful slow-burn character development. Pay attention to the details in this one. (Completed.)

The Penumbra Podcast: There are a handful of stand-alone stories, but the two primary ones are a medieval-adjacent fantasy featuring knights facing monsters and a scifi detective noir story. Good breadth, and all the stories are fun and interesting, the characters endearing. Really excellent dialogue and genre play. (Ongoing.)

Great:

Alice Isn’t Dead: An anxious trucker is looking for her missing wife. Done by the Nightvale people but nothing like it. American Gothic variety horror. Lovely descriptions, a good protagonist, an interesting world, well-paced. (Completed.)

The Bunker: A black comedy about three guys who survived the apocalypse broadcasting a radio show to the wasteland. The episodes are long, but clearly and easily segmented for easy listening. Does an excellent job building up the world and characters and maintaining its bleak humor throughout, while going in depth on its themes and the chosen topics of each episode. (Completed.)

The Bright Sessions: People with powers in therapy to learn to cope with them. Contrary to what one might expect, this isn’t about superheroes, but the way it handles healing and growth and relationships are fantastic. A satisfying ending. Very character-driven. Sequel series are now available on the feed as well. (Completed.)

Caravan: Two best friends are on a camping trip together, when one falls into a midwestern fantasy world. So much fun, the characters are full of charm and heart, and the voice actors portray them well. Another heartwarming whisperforge work, funny too. Mildly NSFW. (Ongoing.)

The Deep Vault: In the near future, a small group escape the apocalypse by taking shelter in a legendary abandoned bunker, but they’re not alone. A 7-ep miniseries made by the same people who did Archive 81, and they’re able to develop their cast and the relationships in it quite effectively in the short span given. A fast paced adventure great for a long drive or quiet afternoon. (Completed.)

The Far Meridian: An agoraphobic young woman wakes up to discover her lighthouse is teleporting around. Gentle surrealism with a focus on story. Even the one-off characters are charming, and there are well-written latino characters everywhere. (Ongoing.)

Girl in Space: Just a girl, in space, taking care of a star with only a glitchy AI for company (for now). The girl’s very charming, and the AI is one of my favorites I’ve seen written. (Ongoing.)

Gone: A woman wakes up one day to discover she's the last person in the world. No apocalypse, everyone's just... gone. Very, very strong voice in the protagonist; she's rough and fascinating. Incorporates a mental health angle often neglected in these types of stories. Another season was promised, as season 1 ends on a cliffhanger, but it hasn’t yet materialized. (Abandoned.)

Greater Boston: In an alternate Boston, the Red Line railway becomes it's own city, and the ramifications of that. A story about community, with the focus on a group of people dealing with the aftermath of a single man's death. Both deeply emotional and very, very funny. There are cheese robots, Atlantis, and guinea pigs. A delightful and very well woven wild ride. (Ongoing.)

Kalila Stormfire’s Economical Magick Services: A pleasant slice-of-life record of a young witch’s attempt to start a business. It takes a little to get going; I didn’t get much invested until episode seven, but ever since then, it’s continually ramped up. The final season especially is a delight. The crossover specials are very fun. (Ongoing.)

Liberty: In a distant Earth colony colony, there is the city of Atrius ruled by the dictatorial Arkon, and outside are the cannibalistic Fringers. Three stories in one. Critical Research, the first and roughest, follows a crew of Atrians going out and studying the Fringers. Tales of the Tower are is an anthology of horror stories aired by the Atrian government. Vigilance is an Actual Play story where the players are Atrians trying to track down three missing persons for community service, and get stuck in a deeper conspiracy. All of them are excellent, amazing soundscaping, good VAs, and intense writing. Vigilance and Critical Research are over, but Tales from the Tower is still ongoing. (Ongoing, but has several completed stories.)

The London Necropolis Railway: A short listen about a railroad that ferries the souls of the dead. A ghost dodged their train and one of the ticketers needs to chase her down. Short episodes, exciting, funny and fun. (Ongoing.)

A Scottish Podcast: A self-absorbed asshole tries to get rich by starting his own supernatural podcast. A parody of The Black Tapes and its ilk. Hilarious and a solid plot. (Ongoing.)

Startripper!!: An alien office worker buys his dream car and quits his job to go have adventures and live his best life. Genuinely the happiest, most feel good podcast I’ve heard. An absolute pleasure. (Ongoing.)

Uncanny County: An anthology series about strange events happening in a backwater town. Mostly has a goofy, off-beat tone, so it’s all good fun. Stories range from a couple that moves into a a house with a bathtub that reduces aging to a couple trying to get over the husband’s fear of clowns by staying a clown hotel. The stories are connected by place, but there’s no overarching plot; it’s just good fun. (Anthology.)

Welcome to Nightvale: The community radio show for the small desert town of Nightvale, where every conspiracy theory is true. You probably know this. WTNV is credited with kickstarting the new age of audio dramas for good reason: it's weird and wonderful with expansive storylines and amazing characters. I first discovered it back in 2015, but dropped it and didn't revisit it until now, five years later. Even with every other show I've heard, even with its own massive backlog, it still holds up with the best of them, still evoking new emotions and unveiling new secrets. WTNV is still very much an amazing podcast worth listening to. (Ongoing.)

The White Vault: An international repair team goes up to a base in Svalbard and becomes trapped by a storm after making an amazing discovery. Arctic horror. Novel framing, excellent suspense, good sound design and voice acting, a well done show. Uses actually international VAs. (Ongoing.)

Within the Wires: Tales from another world told first through relaxation tapes, then museum guides, then a government official’s notes to his secretary. The delicate unveiling of the world, and the complex relationships depicted through these restricted forms is absolutely masterful, allowing a deep understanding in spite of hearing only one voice. It starts off very strange and surreal, but it’s worth listening through that initial bump to get to the meat. (Ongoing.)

Wolf-359: The crew of a deep-space outpost begins receiving a series of strange transmissions. A sci-fi classic in the podcast community for good reason: beautifully plotted, excellent emotional arcs, a cast of characters I loved in their entirety. (Completed.)

Wooden Overcoats: A comedy about two competing funeral homes in a tiny village. Absolutely hilarious. Each character has their trope, but they are never bound by it and all are allowed to grow and develop beyond it. (Ongoing.)

Good:

2298: In a dystopian future where human lives are guided and curated by the Network, resident 24 is haunted by a beautiful golden bird. A modern take on a Big Brother-style dystopia. Quite short, but fun. Connected to the canon of Girl in Space. (Completed.)

36 Questions: An estranged married couple attempts to reconnect by asking each other 36 questions that are supposed to help people fall in love. A musical, only 3 episodes long. Very good, excellent sound design, and this podcast would easily be in the great category if it weren’t for the ending, which I found unsatisfying. (Completed.)

Ars Paradoxica: A scientist accidentally sends herself back to the ‘40s and gets picked up by a military organization and tries to use their resources to get herself back to the present. One of the earlier audio dramas, so it’s a little tropey, but it existed before many of those tropes were established. I’m still listening through! (Completed.)

Beef and Dairy Network: A comedy podcast that made me laugh! The news from a fictitious network, like if Nightvale was about beef and dairy exclusively. Enough plot and fun to keep it fresh, that it really only wears down after 40 or so episodes. (Ongoing.)

The Bridge: The caretakers of Watchtower 10 on the largely abandoned Transatlantic Bridge are all there for a reason. There are frightening things in the water, and a wealth of stories. A little spooky, but not really horror. Big lovable cast, a good format, and several interesting plot threads to put together and follow. (Ongoing.)

Gal Pals Present Overkill: A ghost tries to figure out how she died and navigate the afterlife in a very haunted park. Sweet, does very interesting things with ghosts as a concept. All girls, everyone’s gay, that latina representation I always crave. (Ongoing.)

Kane and Feels: A pair of PIs (Paranormal Investigators) investigate a trail of subconscious strangeness. A very beautiful and surreal story that blurs the world of reality and dreams. Lovely prose and aesthetic. Episodes release extremely sporadically with no clear season breaks. (Ongoing?)

King Falls AM: Two guys host a radio show in a little town full of strange happenings. A similar premise to WTNV executed quite differently. Charming but underwhelming for the first 50-ish episodes, then ramps up sharply and becomes very intense and very good. (Ongoing.)

Lesser Gods: In a post-apocalyptic future after which humans lost the ability to reproduce, the final five youngest on earth attempt to cope with and solve a murder after one of their ranks dies. Like a YA novel in the best way. Very flawed and complex characters. Episodes stopped coming midseason. (Abandoned.)

L I M B O: A dead man meets people from his past. Manages to bring to life several interesting characters in a very short time, though it leaves questions. Connected to the canon of 2298. (Completed.)

Mabel: Live-in caretaker for an elderly woman won’t stop leaving voicemails for the woman’s estranged granddaughter and discovers many strange things in the strange house. Very narrowly got edged out of my top three, but still very good. Gothic horror. Great use of format, well-paced, mellifluous writing and good music that makes it a pleasure to listen to in sound alone. (Ongoing.)  

Middle:Below: A man with the ability to travel to the spirit world helps ghosts move on. Very cute and quirky and sweet. The cast’s charming, and the ghosts they deal with are interesting, and there’s still quite a number of mysteries about the world. (Ongoing.)

Outliers: An anthology collection rather than a narrative, each story tells the tale of a lesser known British historical figure. Well-written, well-acted--mostly--with a bonus of some learning on the side. (Completed.)

Passage: Two skeletons on a lifeboat from a ship that supposedly vanished a century ago washes up on the shore of a small town. A mystery miniseries, only 7 episodes long. Half the reason I listened to this is because it takes place in the PNW. A good mystery, an enjoyable quick listen. (Completed.)

Pleasuretown: A western about a small desert town that got wiped out, and the stories of all the inhabitants who used to live there and the strange supernatural encounters they had. It weaves together beautifully with top notch sounds. Starts out very white/male/cishet, but the stories get more diverse and inclusive as the podcast goes on. It’s episodic enough that the stories are enjoyable on their own, but the large overarching story thread never got resolved. (Abandoned.)

Radiation World: A boat full of strangers on a quest discovers a bunker full of people who survived the apocalypse and they help each other out. Shenanigans ensure. Incredibly fun and funny with a great plot and series of twists. The ending implied another season was planned, but there are no major questions left, so it stand on its own. (Completed?)

Station to Station: A researcher is looking into the circumstances of the disappearance of a beloved coworker no one seems to remember. Sporadic update schedule has made this one a bit hard to keep track of. (Ongoing.)

Alright:

Bubble: A hipster human colony that lives in a bubble on a foreign planet occasionally deals with monster attacks. A comedy that knows its type very well: I have an intimate understanding of the people it’s poking fun at, and that made it at once incredibly fun and also hard to listen to. It implied there would be a second season, but one hasn’t yet happened. The first season stands alone well, however. (Completed?)

Big Data: Seven thieves steal the seven keys to the internet to try to take it down. Each individual heist is really interesting and fun with a great thief, but the frame narrative left me wanting. The ending implied there was going to be a sequel series, but one never materialized. (Completed?)

Congeria: A detective searching for a missing girl gets caught up with cults and murderers. A well produced podcast, well acted and well plotted, this is perfect if you love hardboiled detective stories. Honestly, this is only in alright because it’s not my usual genre. It was just a heavy listen. (Completed.)

The Dark Tome: A dark fantasy podcast where a troubled young teen reads a magic, potentially evil book that sucks her into another world and allows her to witness stories. Very much has the feel of a YA novel. Each stories within the frame are written by different authors, so episode quality varies. (Ongoing.)

Deadly Manners: A classic murder mystery at a grand house party. It was enjoyable, the characters reasonably fun (with one massive racist/homophobic/antisemitic exception), but the whole thing still felt very run-of-the-mill nevertheless. (Completed.) 

Dreamboy: A depressed musician gets caught up in a conspiracy surrounding a dream and a killer zebra. Honestly, that synopsis isn’t even the half of it. This podcast is incredibly strange (and explicitly NSFW) but quite fascinating. Also, it has fabulous musical numbers. (Completed.)

Empty: Several humans and an AI wake up on a colony spaceship alone, with no memory. Interesting characters, a new favorite AI, but their season finale was more of a cliffhanger than a finale that wrapped up anything. (Abandoned.)

Hadron Gospel Hour: A comedy podcast about a scientist who broke the universe, his everyman sidekick, and the supercomputer helping them fix it. It’s episodic, and there are standalone shorts in it that are funny. Some jokes haven’t aged well, to put it kindly. At least one episode contains a racist joke. The seasons posted are complete, but the overarching plot never finished resolving. (Abandoned.)

The Infinite: The last surviving member of a deep space exploration mission receives a mysterious signal and contemplates if it’s worth chasing. It preceded many of the more popularized space operas and says many of the same things as them. (Completed.)

Janus Descending: A research team of two get killed while on an expedition to an alien planet. Told nonlinearly. There’s so much here that’s good, but the main characters are afflicted with a whole lot of stupid that diminishes the effect. (Completed.) 

Joseph: The Revenge of Opus: A far future scifi story where some dude saves the world and the girl. I'm writing this about nine months after first listening, and honestly that's about all I retained. I remember it being fun, and having very excellent sound design, but the story was very predictable and thus forgettable. (Completed.)

LifeAfter/The Message: A pair of discrete podcasts on the same feed. The Message is about a team of scientists trying to decipher a sound that triggered a pandemic, and LifeAfter is about an FBI agent offered a chance to reconnect with his dead wife through an AI. They were both interesting, though The Message hit uncomfortably close to home, since this is being written in Nov 2020. LifeAfter had a stronger plot regardless, though the likability of its protagonist is questionable. (Completed.)

Magic King Dom: One of the few survivors of an apocalypse grows up alone in Disneyland. Cute and well produced, but the pacing is very fast, and Dom’s characterization stretched my suspension of disbelief. Connected to the canon of Girl In Space. (Completed.)

Misadventure by Death: A trope-aware person is hired to take care of an almost certainly haunted house. The writing feels a little amateur at points, but it’s enjoyable and had decent pacing so far.  Updates stopped coming midseason. (Abandoned.)

Tides: A xenobiologist who has been stranded on an alien planet that’s regularly soaked by a large tidal wave. It’s acted well enough, the sound is good, and the premise is good along with the dialogue, but a bit too much time is spent on the visual descriptions of alien creatures and the pacing of the main plot has yet to catch up. (Ongoing.)

What’s the Frequency: Something strange is happening with the radio, and two detectives are on the case. Anyone who knows me knows I’m not a fan of avante guarde storytelling methods, and unfortunately, this podcast makes plentiful use of them. It took several episodes for me to grasp a basic idea of which characters were which and what the basic plot was, due to nonlinear narrative, unclear characterization, and similar sounding VAs. In spite of this, the charm of the characters I did grasp and the bits of plot I put together kept me interested and listening. (Ongoing.)

Not Recommended:

The Angel of Vine: A hardboiled PI attempts to solve a grisly murder. A very generic example of its genre, it doesn’t bring anything new or interesting to the table. Just boring.

The Black Tapes: Reporter looks into the unsolved cases of someone who disproves the paranormal for a living. Season one was fantastic, but they start to lose it in season two; the pacing and focus go astray. Season three is worse, and then the finale they put out was one of the most disappointing endings I’ve endured in years. It was bad enough I don’t intend on looking into their other productions, Rabbits and Tanis.

The Blood Crow Stories: S1 is about a malicious entity that haunts a ship, but each season is different. I listened only to s1. If you like villains who get away with all their plans perfectly and face no challenge from the protags whatsoever, then this podcast is for you. The villain is also incredibly overwrought to near laughability and relies on gore and shock value for its fearsomeness. The rest of the cast is alright, but nothing special. Uncomfortable interactions with the creators sealed my decision to not proceed with the other seasons.

Everlasting Beholders: Some aliens attempt to influence an alternate Earth. The changes made are uncomfortable, and it’s a bit hard to follow. Supposedly it connects to Empty, but not in a way I could figure out. It was never finished.

Organism: An alien of some sort learns about the world. Slow, simplistic, boring, with a very strange twist ending.

Ruby and the Galactic Gumshoe (2020): A scifi noir that's a new adventure in a series started in the 80s. Honestly, I loved the narrator and the soundscaping; the feel of this show was amazing. However, I don't recommend it solely because one of the characters is a deeply racist caricature. Ruby has a hi-tech car with an inbuilt AI described as a "big black genie", and whenever he speaks, it's with a thick Indian accent and "mystical" language.

Spines: Amnesiac survivor of a cult ritual tries to find out what happened and where her missing soul mate went by interrogating people with weird powers. Horror. The world is cool, the imagery is very cool, the story is reasonably interesting, but the voice acting is bad. Both voices we hear deliver all their lines, even ones that sound as if they should be deeply emotional, in the same flat, disinterested, apathetic, tired monotone. Not only that, but the pacing and narration destroy any sense of suspense this epic story should have.

Subject: Found: S1 was about a bigfoot hunter, and s2 was about a murderer who loved to kill women. The second story is very much not my thing--especially in light of how s1 treated its main female character--so I only listened to s1. As mentioned, the main female character, the protagonist’s wife, gets her needs constantly deferred or invalidated in favor of her husband’s as part of the story, but he’s the hero so of course he gets the girl. The plot choices that aside are very strange, a bit nonsensical, and the voice acting, main couple aside, is bad.

Dropped:

(Not bad! Just not to my specific tastes.)

Alba Salix, Royal Physician: A grumpy witch tries to keep a kingdom healthy with the help of a fairy and unwilling apprentice. Comedy. I loved Alba, but I’m extremely picky with comedies, and this one wasn’t enough for me to keep with it.

Aqua Marianas: I couldn’t finish the first episode thanks to poor audio quality. From what I heard, it also seemed a bit tropey.

Control Group: A historical fiction about a woman committed to a mental institution for a crime she didn’t commit. I can’t handle this sort of horror; it’s too dark for me.

Counter Worlds: An anthology told audio book style, with narration, which I simply can’t focus on.

Darkest Night: A horror anthology with the frame narrative of a mysterious, suspicious organization doing research into memory. Rather gruesome. Very mainstream sort of horror; some episodes were good, but others indulged too many misogynistic tropes for my taste.

Hector Vs The Future: There was a laugh track and I didn't like that. I didn't make it very far in.

Herbarium Podcasts: A collection of miniseries. Honestly, I can’t even provide an accurate synopsis. My audio processing issues made listening to more than five minutes of this impossible; the inconsistent audio quality was way too distracting and broke my immersion.

Inkwyrm: Intergalactic haute couture. Everything about the concept of this podcast spoke to me on a fundamental level, but I couldn’t even get through all of episode one. The characters didn’t appeal to me, and the sound quality isn’t great. I couldn’t understand the AI character they introduced. When I skipped ahead to see if the audio quality got better, it didn’t, and just like with Herbarium Podcasts above, poor audio is a dealbreaker.

Love and Luck: Two men in love discover they’re witches, told through voicemail. Really, my problem here was just that I wanted more angst. They’re very happy and loving and they work through every relationship problem they have very quickly, and I just plain wanted more conflict and struggle.

Otherverse: Broadcasts from another world where aliens are subjugating humanity. Enjoyable and interesting enough to keep me subscribed, but nothing special. It’s all a little basic, and the audio quality leaves something to be desired. Got bored and the update schedule got sporadic, so I dropped it.

Palimpsest: A girl moves into a haunted house and attempts to cope with the death of her sister. This podcast improved as I listened. The voice acting is solid, but the writing and audio editing in the first few episodes felt very overdone. They picked up as things progressed, and the ending downright surprised me. Season 2 switched protagonists, and the new protag had such a poorly done accent, I couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be Scottish, Irish, or Southern, and that bothered me too much to continue listening.

Poplar Cove: They made an asylum joke within the first five minutes of the first episode and that’s a hard no from me.

Sable: From the episode I listened to, this podcast appeared to be about urban legends and monsters, but admittedly I don’t know much. This podcast is told audiobook style, with a single narrator also performing the character voices and no sound effects. I have a very hard time focusing on those sorts of tales.

Saffron and Peri: Comedy podcast about a fairy godparent school. As mentioned previously,  I’m extremely picky with comedies and none of the characters pulled me in, so I dropped it.

Tales of Thattown: Effectively, it’s Welcome to Nightvale in the south. Yet another comedy podcast that failed to strike a chord with me, though the creator’s a sweetheart.

Thrilling Adventure Hour: A series of standalone stories. No real complaints; the couple stories I tried just didn't catch my interest. 

Tumanbay: A historical fiction podcast surrounding citizens of the imagined city Tumanbay, based on the Mamluk empire in Egypt. Honestly, I'm n the fence on if this should be in my outright "Not Recommended" category. Everything about the production quality was good; the voices and story were interesting. However, this podcast is written and produced by two British men who profess they invented Tumanbay as a separate place because they thought adhering to historical accuracy would be too restrictive and difficult. Little things like the escaped slave who used Slave as his preferred name, or the fact that the more intelligent/cerebral characters all had British accents, while the more brutish ones had Middle Eastern ones, when this is supposedly an entirely Middle Eastern area, got under my skin enough to make me drop it.

Tunnels: A mystery podcast inquiring about a mysterious series of tunnels under a town. The format and tone are rather closely modeled after The Black Tapes, and as I ultimately wasn’t a fan of that, I elected to drop this.

We're Alive: A surviving the zombie apocalypse story. Supposedly, another major pioneer in the rise of modern audio drama. But I didn't realize until I started that the protagonist was a soldier, and I don't care for soldier stories.

Violet Beach: Strange time shenanigans happen to teens when the sun sets purple. The monologues it’s told through tend to meander, and lackluster VAs and no sound design made it especially hard to focus, so I dropped this.

Zoo: An FBI agent attempts to solve the mystery of a traveling zoo home to a variety of cryptids. Lower production value than most other podcasts here and occasionally makes strange choices, but develops its plot steadily and does some interesting things with its premise. Unfortunately, the developments weren’t enough to keep my attention on the long term, so I made the tough choice to drop it.