#long story short i did not vibe with the humor at all. this was deeply unfunny to me and the tonal whiplash was crazy

[kikuism]

i finally finished the heart’s invisible furies

[ellana-ravenwood]

Why don’t you visit my dreams anymore ? - Jason Todd x fem!reader

Synopsis : A story about grief, and how to (try to) overcome the pain of losing a loved one. 

Please, do not repost my stories anywhere else, under any other form. Do not translate and then repost them either. Thank you.

My masterlists : @ella-ravenwood-archives​

__________________________________________________

Jason had been your first love. And you were sure he would be your last. It was impossible to replace someone like Jason Todd. 

Never before did you love someone like you loved him. 

And oh, oh he loved you back so beautifully. 

Some would say it was a young and silly love, that you were both still too young to be sure you had found “the one”. After all, it was rare for people to stay forever with their high school sweetheart. 

But you both felt it. You were both adamant that this was it. You’d never find someone else, who could love you as deeply as he did, and vice versa. 

True love, it was. 

And whomever saw you two together, couldn’t doubt that. 

And so what if you were just fifteen ? (Almost sixteen !) It was just so obvious to you two, that you were destined to be together. Your relationship was still young, but you had always been best friends, since as long as you can remember. And things were still very much at the “teenage cutesy love” stage, but it was such a profound love. 

Your love was the kind of love that happens once every century, the kind that is so strong and deep, it inspires great stories that will never be forgotten. 

That’s how it felt to you. 

Forever. 

Only, Jason’s forever was cut short. One night, you received a call from Alfred...

“Master Jason is gone.” From the way the butler’s voice cracked, there was no doubt in your mind what this meant. Never before, did you feel such a visceral pain. 

DENIAL

“No. You’re wrong. It’s not possible ! Why are you lying to me, Alfred ?”

“Lady (Y/N) I-” 

There’s a short pause, and a tiny sliver of hope grows in your heart. Yes. This must be a joke. A sick joke, yes, but maybe this was just that “British humor” so many people spoke of ? 

“Lady (Y/N), I’m sorry. I do not know what to say...” 

Alfred ? Speechless ? No. 

“This is not possible. He can’t be gone. We’re supposed to celebrate his birthday next week. I bought him a gift. How can I give it to him, if he’s gone ? He can’t be. You’re lying.” 

Complete refusal. This wasn’t possible. Your Jason would never leave you. He would never. HE WAS JUST FIFTEEN !! 

“I’m sorry...” You hear again, before slamming your phone against the wall. You didn’t want to hear any of it. Those were blatant lies. You didn’t have time to waste with that. 

Decidedly, you put a coat on, and went to Wayne Manor. 

************

You never even rung the door. 

When you arrived, you felt a certain vibe. Like something was not right. Like something was missing. 

Someone, was missing. 

There was light in the library room. A place you knew for a fact, only Jason used. And once again, you felt hope. Those dark feelings were just your imagination ! You were going to run up to the window, and scare the hell out of him by tapping on it ! Now that, would be an actual funny joke. 

Not like the one Alfred made. 

A smile on your face, you go on your tip-toes, and you peek into the room and-

It’s not Jason. 

It’s his dad. 

He’s sitting in that same armchair Jason always sits in. He holds the blanket Jason always wrapped around himself while reading, and he-

He holds it against his face. And you don’t have to see it to know that the man is crying. 

Bruce Wayne is crying. 

This isn’t a joke. 

Jason is really gone. 

But in dreams 

You cry yourself to sleep, of course. But then-

Then a miracle happens. Because he’s there, right in front of you. And he reaches a hand towards your tears...He touches your face. Wipes the tear away.

“You’re really here.” 

You tell him, and he smiles at you. But it’s a sad smile, one full of guilt and regrets. One that you’re not used to see on his face. 

“I’m sorry (Y/N), but I’m not really here. This is a dream.” 

“Don’t say that.” 

“It’s the truth...I don’t really know how I came here. I just really wanted to see you one last time.”

“Don’t say that, Jason. Please.” 

“You know, if I had become a grown up, I would have married you. I mean it. I don’t think the day would happen, that I would stop loving you.” 

“Why are you telling me this ? You can be such a jerk...”

You turn away, tears once again welling up in your eyes. Your heart is bleeding, and in that dream, you’re not sure whether it’s literally, figuratively, or metaphorically. It’s confusing. But he’s here. He’s here. 

“It’s just- I don’t know if I’ll be able to come back. I have so much I want to tell you. I have so much-”

“Stop it !” 

You throw your arms around him, and squeeze him against yourself. Not about to let go. You don’t want to ever go. He doesn’t finish his sentence, sighs, and squeeze you back. 

“Guess I’ll just have to come back...” 

He says, and then you don’t remember what happens. You just wake up in your bed, and the overwhelming feeling of sadness almost gets the better of you...

ANGER

Why you ? This wasn’t fair. THIS WASN’T FAIR ! Everywhere, you see him. He’s all over the news, and everyone talks about this “tragedy”. 

None of them knew him. None of them. Journalists want to talk to you, as it was known you were his girlfriend...But then, they suddenly disappear, and you’re sure it’s thanks to Bruce. 

Bruce. 

You used to spend a lot of time at the Manor. When you lost Jason, you also ended up losing his dad and Alfred, who had become akin to a family for you too, who never really had one.

That’s how it clicked so fast between you and Jason.

Two children who had to grow up too fast. But you were both lucky. He was adopted by Bruce, and you by the most wonderful parents you could hope for. After all the hardship you went through together, you deserved a happy ending !

So this wasn’t fair. THIS WASN’T FAIR !! 

You were pretty sure you had always loved Jason, even if, when you were children, you never realized it. The feelings weren’t the same, of course, being kids. It’s only recently you admitted to loving each others...Only recently...

Too soon. It was too soon ! You barely had anytime together ! 

You were so damn angry. At everything and everyone. You started to isolate yourself, not talking to your parents, or to any of your friends. 

You lost your appetite, you lost sleep (which was a nightmare, as only during your sleep could you see him again), you lost all will to do anything. 

And you were so angry, all the time. Angry about everything. 

But most of all, you were angry at Bruce Wayne. He didn’t even call you, or come see you !! You thought he cared about you, you thought he-He was Jason’s dad. You were close because of that. And he didn’t even tell you himself. He didn’t even come see you !! 

You could talk about Jason together, or reminisce good times. He could tell you exactly what happened, as the explanation you got were somewhat shady. He could- Why didn’t he want to talk to you ?? 

So angry. So angry it hurts. It hurts...

You couldn’t wait to be asleep, so Jason would visit you again. You knew he would come. He came to you every night. And then, then you could pretend like none of this was real. Like he was alive and well. You talked, kissed sometimes, and just enjoyed each other’s presence...It was such bliss. 

So much better than this waking nightmare, in which you felt so alone. 

************

Bruce couldn’t face you. 

He felt so guilty, and angry at himself. He was the reason Jason died. He was the reason Jason died !! The boy was just fifteen !! HE WAS JUST FIFTEEN !! 

He had such a long life ahead of him. With you at his side. Bruce’s boy always talked to him so much about you...

Ever since he first came in his life. You used to be “his best friend (Y/N)”, the “most wonderful person on earth !”. And then one day, you became his girlfriend, and Bruce saw his kid smile so much. He almost believed-

He almost believed he succeeded. That Jason wouldn’t be like him, that he would have a better life, that he would be allowed to be happy. 

And then he got killed. Because of him, because he let him be “Robin”.

Fifteen. 

His boy was just fifteen...

BARGAINING 

You could see him in dreams. 

Surely, it meant he wasn’t truly gone, right ? 

“My life for his !” You’d ask-Anyone. Anything. 

God. Gods. Entities. Any higher powers who could help you. 

They could take you, if they brought him back. They could-

But then, he would be in your place. He would be the one suffering. And you couldn’t bear that very thought. You couldn’t- 

“Please. Please just, make my dreams last longer. Or make it so I never wake up again, and I can stay with him forever. Please. I beg of you...” 

DEPRESSION

It lasted a long time. A year or two. 

You just, went by. 

Feeling numb, tired, hopeless, helpless. 

You lost all perspective of a future. Everything was a struggle, and living in a world without Jason felt like torture. 

It was as if you just floated through life. High school graduation came, and you had no memory of it. You weren’t planning on going to college. And those past two years, were spend mostly alone...You hated how people looked at you with pity. You hated it. 

One year. Two years. It had already been two years, since you lost Jason. Time was suppose to heal all wounds, no ? Absolute bullshit. It felt as difficult and hurtful as when you first received that phone call. 

Jason was gone. How could you ever feel happy again ? 

It was only at night, that things felt right again. You’d spend a lot of your time sleeping, because Jason would visit you every single time. He would come in your dreams. 

He said he shouldn’t, that you had to move on. He said he should stay away...But he couldn’t. He didn’t have the heart to never see you again. He couldn’t leave you alone, he said. 

Yet whenever you would wake up, and come back to reality...He wouldn’t be there. 

He would never be there again. 

And then one day, Bruce Wayne knocked on your door. You would learn later, that your parents called him for help, hoping he could bring you some comfort as you both went through the same kind of pain...

************

“Jason would’ve-He would’ve liked for you to have this.”

It were journals. About ten of them.  

Jason’s diaries...You knew he wrote, a lot. You knew. But you never imagined you’d be able to read those. 

Bruce knew, that by giving you those journals, he would reveal his secret identity. But he felt he owed you that much. That you needed the closure. 

You needed to know it was his fault. Bruce, in a way, was trying to punish himself. If you hated him enough, then maybe it would makes things right. Maybe you’d be able to move on. 

He stayed with you, as you read pages and pages of Jason’s neat handwriting. Most pages had a least one paragraph about you. From age 8, and his approximative writing, to age 15, dated on the day of his death...he talked at least once about you, every single day. 

It made you heart so warm. 

Ah. It’s as if you almost forgot, so obnubilated by your dreams. But your Jason was so full of life, and love, and kindness. He was so-

Jason. He was the most incredible man you ever met (although he would never become quite a man). He was-

Tears. But this time, it wasn’t as much tears of sadness, as it was relief. Happiness. Born from countless good memories, and the knowledge that you would never forget him. 

You would love Jason Todd forever. You knew that. He couldn’t fully leave your heart. 

“Thank you.” 

You say, and Bruce is confused. He was so sure you would hate him ! After all, it’s because he was Batman, that his son died ! 

“Thank you for giving him the love every child should have from a parent. And for giving him a home. For taking care of him.” 

He feels his throat squeeze painfully. No. No this wasn’t- How could you look at him with such a gentle smile ? 

Holding Jason’s last journal against your heart, you dried some of your tears before saying : 

“It really sounded like, he was so happy with you. So, thank you. Thank you so much for being there for him. Thank you, Bruce.” 

What is this ? Why are you being so kind to him ? He’s-He’s the reason his boy died ! He doesn’t deserve your thanks. He doesn’t-

He feels the tears welling up in his own eyes, as he stares at you in disbelief.

And you understand. You know how he feels, how he thinks it’s his fault. You know. But you cannot hate him. Because he did, love and care for Jason. And he did, give many great years in a warm home to him. And-

You were certain he couldn’t stop Jason. Your boyfriend was born to help others, you always knew it. He couldn't stop him from becoming Robin. On the contrary, letting him take that mantel fulfilled Jason’s true purpose, you were sure of it.

The fact the man came all this way here, fighting his own grief, just in the hope to make you feel better. To actually save you, and help you move on...It was enough for you. Even now, Bruce still looked out for Jason. 

Because of course, Jason would hate for you to be so sad. He told you himself, in your dreams. He couldn’t bear to see you sad, defeated, heartbroken...He said he would do something for you and-

Ah. Did he send his dad for you ? Did he visit him in a dream, and ask for him to give you his journals ? That was entirely possible. After all, it’s been two years since every single night, your dead boyfriend would invite himself in your dreams. 

And you were sure it was him, and not just a figment of your imagination. Call it a gut feeling. The world had seen weirder things...

Yes. 

Hating Bruce wasn’t the way, you knew it. 

And ah, little did you know that this knowledge lodged in your heart would one day save a certain man wearing a Red Hood... (but that’s, for another story ;))

ACCEPTANCE

“Why don’t you visit my dreams, anymore ? 

Please. Come back. I love you. I miss you.” 

It’s been weeks, and weeks, and weeks. He hasn't come back to your dreams, and it felt like this time- 

He was truly gone. 

“Why don’t you visit my dreams, anymore ?” 

A question you’d ask yourself many times. Was it because you finally started to find some peace ? Because you finally started to heal, in a way ? 

You could never truly heal. You would never forget him. But you felt like...You still had a lot to live for. That he would’ve wanted you to keep goin. After all, he told you himself, in your dreams. 

But he wasn’t coming anymore. Was he trying to finally let you move on ? Was he sacrificing his own wish to see you, so you could move forward with your life ? 

Could be. Or maybe it really were all dreams, and you finally accepting his death unlocked something in your subconscious, that made it think you didn’t need to see him anymore ? 

But you missed him. So much. 

“Why don’t you visit my dreams, anymore ?” 

A question that would remained unanswered...For now. 

A love that transcend death. 

Finals week. 

After Bruce’s visit, you finally slowly came out of your depression. Finally slowly came out to the world again. 

And you applied for Gotham’s college, hoping to get a degree in forensics (maybe feeling a little inspired by a certain “Batman”). You wanted to keep Jason’s legacy on, you would carry the torch for him. 

Jason never got to grow old, never got to do so many things...You felt like i was your duty, to also live for him. 

And so, that’s why you were coming home very late that night, after you spend hours and hours at the library, studying. You had to nail those finals ! 

Maybe that’s why you didn’t notice those less than amenable men walking towards you ? Engrossed in your revision, you only saw them too late. 

But of course. A mugging in Gotham City. How original. 

However, before they could even utter a word to you, a big red mass fall on them. 

You didn’t have any other words to describe what just happened. It really felt like a giant in red just stomped their face. 

Said giant turns to you, and you know you should feel fear, yet-

You recognize that stance. The way those hands lay on his sides. And though you cannot see his face, as he’s wearing a mask, you know the shape of his eyes, as he looks at you. 

You know who this is. It seems impossible, and yet...The world has seen weirder things, right ? 

Explanations would come later. Or never, really. They were not important, right now. 

“Ah...That’s why you disappeared from my dreams.” 

************

In the night, two silhouettes runs towards each other. 

Their hands find each other, their lips too. 

A tight embrace between two beings who had always been destined to be together, so much so that even death couldn’t keep them away from each other forever. 

Because their love, was forever. 

In the night. 

Two silhouettes embracing each other, never letting go again. 

And this time, it wasn’t just a dream. 

__________________________________________________

Here we are. Wrote fast (didn’t re-read myself or I wouldn’t post it..), not very well in a way, but I hope you still liked it. Yes. A short story I felt like writing, as I had a dream about someone I lost long ago, and it felt so nice, to see them in my dream, that...here we are :).

I hope you liked it. Comments and reblogs are always welcomed, as per usual. 

[sehnsuchts-trunken]

Good evening! I hope you're doing well. May I request a matchup for Harry Potter? Would you be so kind as to match me with someone from the golden trio era and marauders era? My pronouns are she/her and I'm straight.

Personality: Leo, Ravenclaw, 1w4, INFJ. I unintentionally come off as intimidating, although I'm a very gentle person. Since I'm a bit reserved, I take a long time to open up to others. I'm adventurous and have completed a dream of mine - living/working in a country that doesn't speak my language. I'd consider myself to be witty with a sarcastic sense of humor, as well as conscientious and clumsy. I can get easily flustered. Despite possibly having described myself as uptight, I often go with the flow to show I'm lighthearted. I really enjoy having me time but like being with those close to me from time to time. I'd also see myself as encouraging and supportive. Even if I don't particularly like someone, I don't want them to fail at something.

Hobbies/Interests: I enjoy writing short horror stories, listening to music, singing, reading, and practicing languages the most. In terms of exercise, I love doing yoga, dancing, going on hikes, exploring my surroundings (It involves lots of walking so it totally counts as exercise, right?). Since I've been experiencing a lot of emotional turmoil recently, I've spent more time than usual playing video games to distract myself. The vast majority of TV shows and movies I enjoy relate to the occult, victorian history, and animation. Animated movies are for sure a guilty pleasure of mine. Coco is 10/10 for a good cry. Genealogy, demonology, and biology are deep loves of mine, too. Not sure how strange this will sound, but I am deeply fascinated with death and seeing that the Ministry of Magic has the Department of Mysteries, working within this department would be my ultimate professional goal.

Appearance: I have long, auburn hair and my eyes are more of a golden brown. I always wear round glasses. I'm pale with freckles on my cheeks and nose. In summer I typically wear long dresses, jean jackets, and combat boots. The rest of the year I much prefer wearing sweaters, slacks, and combat boots.

Thank you so much in advance! I'm sure I'll love it :)))

hello darling, of course you can have a matchup!

for golden trio era,

I ship you with...

Fred Weasley

(i genuinely do not know just why i immediately had the vibe, but for some reason it was there, so let me tell you how it'd fit)

- First of all, Fred definitely matches your character, even if you are quite different. He brings out your adventurous side more than anyone else, he definitely encourages you to “go with the flow” more than you already do, and he adores your support so much. When he’s on the Quidditch field and you’re cheering him on even though he’s on a different team, he gets the biggest confidence boost, and if you’re alright with it, he’ll absolutely want you to run up to him once his team has won so that he can swoop you up in his arms and kiss you. He also really enjoys how easily flustered you are and he definitely does use that to his advantage - he’ll always tease you and make you blush or stutter just because he loves seeing you that way. 

- I do believe your witty and sarcastic sense of humour, your mind that works in ways his doesn’t and your love for anything more mysterious would go well with Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. You’d absolutely be asked to help the twins out more than once, even though the first time you did was probably unintentional. Fred makes sure you’re never anywhere harm could come to you when they’re pranking someone and that you never eat anything you’re not supposed to eat (he doesn’t want you to vomit frogs or to have a bleeding nose, after all). 

- Because your usual activities are much more quieter than his, you don’t spend every hour of every day together. But you both introduce the other to new things and you both find hobbies that you enjoy that you hadn’t tried before but can now share. As surprising as it may be, Fred actually really enjoys just going on hikes with you, just talking or walking in silence, and when you’re reading he’ll just put his head in your lap or you’ll put yours in his and it’s one of the only ways he’ll truly calm down. 

- Also, Fred would steal your glasses at some point, “just to try them out”. 

for marauders era,

I ship you with...

Sirius Black

(again, the vibes?? he's really similar to fred and i'm a little anxious that im totally misreading your type here, but i just feel like it suits you-)

- Sirius does not take your “getting to know others slowly” characteristic serious at all. Or, well, maybe he would’ve if he’d even realised. Yes, he noticed that you were getting more open the longer he spent time with you, but really he just kind of decided from the moment you were introduced to him on that he liked you and then he just. Followed you around. Talked to you. Monologued, mostly. Until eventually you’d become familiar enough with him to open up. It’s not that you didn’t like him at the beginning; you had, who didn’t? But it was usual for you not to be as extroverted as he was. 

- He loves, loves, loves your long dresses, and he’ll suddenly turn up wearing one only for you to be like “Darling, is that mine?”. Also, he too steals your glasses. But he’ll always give up his leather jacket for you! You’re cold? It’s raining? Here, take his beloved leather jacket. No one else gets to touch it, but you get to wear it literally all the time. 

- All of what you do, he’ll try at least once. And turns out, he actually really enjoys yoga! Plus, he knows French, so if you do not he’ll gladly teach you, and if you do, the two of you are just constantly speaking French (or you are once you learn) and it kind of acts as a secret language because not many people at Hogwarts know. If you know a third language, you’ll teach him too, just so that you can even have that secret language benefit around the purebloods (who all know French, which makes it less secret-y). 

- As I said though, he’s very similar to Fred, so he too takes a liking to your humour, your love for strange stuff that not many others are interested in, your supportiveness and your sense of adventure. You’d get along really well with the rest of the marauders too, Remus especially (you just share that same kind of sarcasm and quite some hobbies), but James (he loves the way you encourage the Quidditch team; he always uses your encouraging and support to talk Sirius into more practise etc) and Peter as well (he absolutely relates to your clumsiness and how easily flustered you are). Sirius would love that, but he’d also pull you close now and then and repeat that you’re his girlfriend and not theirs. 

[patricksmusicblog]

DMX Discography Overview

It's Dark and Hell is Hot(1998): DMX's distinctive growl, aggression, and arresting flow is fully formed and at its highest potency here on It's Dark and Hell Is Hot. It's Dark and Hell is Hot is, for the most part, a dark menacing and street-orientated album. Some tracks even lean toward a horror-core vibe, "X is Coming" being the bleakest and most unsettling of the bunch. Still, there are deeply emotive tracks like Let Me Fly, Look Through My Eyes, and Convo, where DMX gets introspective and lets us in on his struggles internally and morally/spiritually. There are also hits here, like the hard but catchy "Ruff Ryders Anthem" and the chill summer jam "How's It Going Down." The album's production is handled by PK and Dame Grease, with the album's calling card produced by Swizz Beatz. On a broader level, DMX was a presence in the rap game filled some of the space that had been vacant since Tupac Shakur was murdered, passionate, aggressive, and visceral only specifically representative of the east coast. He also was the answer to the shiny suit luxury rap era Puffy was dominating with in 1997. The album is pure classic and certainly a top-tier album of 1998. Rating: 9.0/10

Favorite Tracks: Rough Rydahs Anthem, How's It Going Down, Intro, Crime Story, Look Thru My Eyes, Let Me Fly

Flesh of my Flesh Blood of my Blood(1998): Flesh of My Flesh Blood of my Blood was released in late December of 1998 cemented DMX as the biggest rapper of that year and late 90s in general(Jay-Z notwithstanding). Aside from the Beastie Boys, the album had the highest first-week sales in a highly competitive year. As for the quality of this one, It's more of DMX's burst of rough and jagged rhymes. When he's not menacing(which is most of the time), he's as introspective and pain-stricken as he was on It's Dark, and Hell Is Hot. The apex of that would be "Slippin," an iconic song that is amongst the saddest tracks in hip-hop history as DMX open shares the trauma of his upbringing, being an addict and struggling to get out of it only to find its way back in it and everything that surrounds that in his past. It's really the fight in the song that makes the song his willingness not to quit and keep trying that makes the song "I got to get up, get back on my feet so I can tear sh*t up." What keeps the album from being the classic his debut was is that Swizz Beats takes the helm on most of the production here, which is hit or miss. DJ Shok, PK, and Dame Grease have a lot of the best beats here. They bring out that dark energy and tone that makes for X's best work. All in all, it's still a great project and amongst his best work. Rating: 8.0/10

Favorite Tracks: Slippin', Dogs For Life, Coming From, Black Out,

...And Then There Was X(1999): ...And Then There Was X picks up were DMX previously left out brutal, pummeling bone-crushing violence come is to be expected. "One More Road to Cross" and "The Professional"(one of the albums hardest tracks) are early highlights. Then there's the heartfelt but mature writing of "Here We Go Again," one X's best tracks, and "More 2 a Song," the ladder of which speaks to DMX's avoidance when it comes to rapping about the flashy materialistic side of things. While this is DMX's third full length album, it sounds more like a full-fledged sophomore effort to It's Dark and Hell is Hot while Flesh of my Flesh' plays more as an extension, too, or a very good b-side to its predecessor. This album contains some of DMX most well-known hits it including his biggest "Party Up"(Up in Here), a high energy track produced by Swizz Beatz that finds DMX being peak DMX, the chorus is both funny and little corny, there's a good touch of humor in DMX's bars on the track that give it charm. Another well-known X track is "What these B*tches Want" ft Sisqo, a silly and misogynistic track that has its charm and humor but is a bit lacking as far as the chorus in my opinion. "What's My Name?" however, is a banger that's one of DMX's better singles and meant to be played at a high volume out of your car. ...And Then There Was X is another strong album from DMX, and its more consistent than Flesh of my Flesh' less visceral and hungry than It's Dark. 8.5/10 

Favorite tracks: Party Up(Up in Here) Here We Go Again, What's My Name, The Professional, Angel, More 2 a Song

The Great Depression(2001): DMX's fourth straight #1 album finds him trying new things. There are the rap-rock efforts like Bloodline Efforts, and I'ma Bang which will always be hit or miss depending on the kind of music listener you are. To me, they're listenable but amongst the corniest of DMX records in his catalog. The worst is the silly/sad "She Was Da Bomb" where X writes a track about basically impregnating a woman and threatening to be a deadbeat. Yeah, the lows here are amongst the lowest of his career. Transversely, "Who We Be," a socially conscious record, is one of DMX's best tracks ever, and "We Right Here" has a great beat and is amongst the best on the album. Aside from the hits, you get the heartfelt "I'm Missing You" and the thoughtful "When I'm Nothing". There are also more R&B sounds here which I think is a nice change of pace. The Great Depression is solid; it's less aggressive and consistent than any of the three albums before it; some songs really work, and a few don't. I think it's worth listening to; there are essential DMX tracks here, but I wouldn't consider the LP quintessential as a whole. 7.5/10

Favorite Tracks: Who We Be, We Right Here, When I”m Nothing, I”m Missing You,

Grand Champ(2003): DMX's fifth straight #1 album is even more boom or bust than The Great Depression is. Where The Great Depression had weird moments and tracks that didn't quite work. Here X doesn't sound quite as passionate as he does early in his career. In an interview he did on 106 n Park around the time of the album's release, he'd spoken about not making what he should off his music, and I wonder how much that put a damper on writing and recording for this album. When it comes to what's here, the menacing brutality and growl is here, but it isn't as consistently visceral as it was early on. At 24 tracks, it's also a long, over-bloated album but even shorting it; I don't think the bulk of the music here holds up through time. "Get it On the Floor," has a terrible chorus, and most tracks between 13-23 are forgettable. As for the best of what's here "Where the Hood At" Produced by Swizz is a classic DMX track it's hard and has a great beat and hook. "Dogs Out" Which features Kanye on production. Then you have "We're Back" ft Eve and Jadakiss, another highlight and features pretty good verses from all three, but I believe Jada had the best performance. The international version of the album features the track "X Gon Give It To Ya" another very good single from X. This is an interesting listen, and depending how die-hard an X fan you are you may still enjoy this. I think there are tracks worth salvaging, but it isn't an essential listen. 6.5/10

Favorite Tracks: Dogs Out, Where The Hood At, X Gon Give it to Ya

The Year of the Dog(2006):This is the point where the bottom really fell out on DMX's music. The highs here aren't amongst the highest of X's career, and the lows are certainly amongst the lowest—tons of generic and lackluster production, mediocre choruses. A weird rap/rock crossover. DMX's tenacity isn't as urgent or visceral, and a lot of what's here (tracks 2-10) sounds, sadly, like a caricature of himself(with "It's personal" as the exception). The best tracks on the album are sneak in at the end where you find songs like "Blown Away" and "Goodbye"; those are the most soul-bearing tracks on the album. As a whole, it's a below-average album that, aside from a few moments, The down turn reflected itself culturally and sells wise it was his first album not to go #1 and only to go gold, and by the mid 00s DMX wasn’t in most conversations when comes to being amongst the best . 4.0/10

Favorite Tracks: It’s Personal, Blown Away, Goodbye, Life Be My Song

Undisputed(2012): Undisputed was a well-intentioned, admirable comeback album for DMX.  There are some solid moments here "Cold World" Speaks on what he perceives as the rap game getting weak.  "I'm back" is one of the better tracks on the album. You can hear the pain coming through on "Have You Eva."  I like "Y'all Don't Really Know" because it comes close to some of his early work. Still, it just isn't enough; there are quite a few missteps on this album, whether it'd be the awful "Sucker for Love" or "I Get Scared" X sounds weaker vocally, and the production is lacking. There's some charm to "I Don't Dance" with MGK but it's somewhat awkward and not among his strongest singles.  It's better than Year Of The Dog but still far from the level of X's heyday.  5.5/10

Favorite Tracks: I‘m Back, Have You Eva, Ya’ll Don’t Really Know

DMX is an undeniable legend and quintessential to late 90s-early 00s hip-hop. His music and voice, and passion transcends its era and is easily felt now. His apex from 98-00' is highly recommended. Past that, it's a lot more hit and miss, but both the Great Depression and Grand Champ have some gems worth grabbing. Past that, it's even spottier but given X's internal struggles it was great we were even able to get those LPs. Fortunately, DMX seemed to be doing well and had finished an album before passing away, so I'm eager to hear what he'd been working on.

[traincat]

I’ve read Waid and Hickman’s FF runs and am currently reading Zdarsky’s 2 in One. I’m planning on eventually reading the Lee/Kirby run. Can I ask, what other runs would you recommend? Is Claremont’s good? Sorry for bothering.

I LOVE Waid and Hickman’s Fantastic Four runs, and Zdarsky’s Marvel Two-In-One was excellent to the point where one of my lingering disappointments is that Marvel brought the Fantastic Four back in a way that prematurely cut off Zdarksy’s 2n1. I know I said I wanted them back but wow did we all get monkey’s paw’d on that one. Zdarsky did really excellent stuff with both Ben and Johnny and the multiverse hopping was honestly fun and interesting. Lee/Kirby is also, in my opinion, just a really terrific run -- it lays the groundwork for not only the future of the Fantastic Four but a lot of big concepts for the Marvel Universe in general, and I think it holds up really well by modern day storytelling standards. Lee’s sense of humor works well with the retrofuturistic vibe and Kirby’s art is always wonderful. In particular I think it’s interesting to look back on The Galactus Trilogy (Fantastic Four #48-50) as the granddaddy of all event comics, for better or worse. 

Claremont -- okay, I love Claremont’s run, let me start off by saying that. Claremont’s run follows on what is in my opinion one of the worst periods of Fantastic Four canon, and I mean bad to the point where the literal canon at that point was that to get things back on track the Fantastic Four had to be put in a bubble universe. Claremont’s run kicks in one or two issues after their return to the main Marvel universe and it’s so fun. I think Fantastic Four is one of those series that kind of flourishes in adversity and Claremont’s run starts off with the Fantastic Four trying to regain their footing in a world that had assumed them dead, their Baxter Building gone, living in a warehouse property. Claremont, in my opinion, also has one of the best if not the best handle on characterization for a lot of key Fantastic Four figures, including Johnny, Reed, and Sue. His Ben is also very good, but I think Ben in particular tends to be an easier sell for a lot of comic book writers -- the outcast, the gruff man, the comic relief. He’s easier to identify with than Reed, the Smartest Man on Earth, or Johnny, defined by his youth and beauty and queercoded since the ‘60s, or Sue, by sheer factor of being a woman. So I think a lot of writers identify with Ben first and foremost and put the most love and care into his depiction, whereas the others are a little easier for them to leave by the wayside. Which isn’t a bad thing -- I love that one of the most beloved comic book characters is also one of Marvel’s few canonically Jewish characters, but there is a wealth of truly excellent Ben canon in comparison to the other three. Especially with Johnny, there’s no one else who has written for Fantastic Four who has put nearly as much thought and detail into Johnny’s relationship with his powers, both the positive and the negative, as Claremont has, even reworking the origin story from Lee and Kirby’s joyous scene of Johnny flaming on for the first time into a deeply traumatizing incident -- being sixteen and traumatized and bursting into uncontrollable flames. 

(Fantastic Four v3 #11) There’s also a lot of women in Claremont’s run! A valid criticism of Fantastic Four canon is that by its initial core team makeup it tends to be lacking in female characters compared to some other big Marvel staples, but Claremont brings in a ton, from Reed’s college friend and fellow genius Alyssa Moy (who has been done dirty by pretty much every other writer who’s ever touched her, including Waid and Hickman) to multiversal bounty hunter Bounty to the most platonic of Johnny’s gal pals Caledonia to Valeria Von Doom, a “time dancing” teenage incarnation of the baby Sue lost back in Byrne’s run, who sets up baby Val’s eventual return. Claremont is also king of Reed vs Doom setups -- if you haven’t read his Fantastic Four vs X-Men miniseries, I highly recommend it, and he brings a lot of the two sides of the same coin energy from that into his Fantastic Four run. 

The downside of Claremont’s run is that the plot is always there and always running and I could not explain half of it if you paid me. Things certainly happen! Like all the time! For seemingly no apparent reason! Stuff gets set up and then it’s not resolved and now we are in Latveria! I don’t think this is necessarily all that detrimental -- the run is still massively fun and the characterization is always fresh and interesting. It’s just that sometimes you have no idea what’s going on and you have to roll with it. And then sometimes you do know what’s going on but in the way where you know Claremont was just writing it because it’s his kink. Which is like, whatever. As authorial ids go, you can pretty consistently do worse than Claremont’s, I’ll give him that. So I do recommend on it the whole, as long as you’re not going into expecting the kind of plots either Hickman or Waid brought the book. Claremont’s is kind of like “stuff happens and it’s either weird or fun so just don’t pay too much attention to it.” 

Aside from Claremont, I feel like I generally like far more Fantastic Four runs than I dislike -- but also I don’t hate Millar’s run, which is honestly bad, so it’s possible I’m just very forgiving with the Fantastic Four. I really like Robinson’s run, which is the last run before the Great Fantastic Four Drought of 2015-2018. It’s short, self-contained, and devoted entirely to one story, so it’s pretty tightly written, with good characterization and some very shiny art by Leonard Kirk. Straczynski’s run is decent enough for the fact that it intersects with Civil War -- I think he does his best to get into the heads of the characters re: their actions in Civil War -- and it leads directly into Dwayne McDuffie’s run, another brief one where Black Panther and Storm take over for Reed and Sue. Very fun. Marvel Knights 4 is also a fairly recent run that’s got some strong moments in it, although I feel it’s a little inconsistent in its handling of the characters. It’s still fun, though. For an older, longer run, I like Simsonson’s -- the art is very dynamic, even if the storyline kind of gets too involved with itself. 

(FF #337)

I recommend Byrne’s run with the caveat that there’s plenty to dislike about it and plenty of reasons to avoid it, not the least of it being Byrne himself as a creator and a person. It’s heavily sexist in how it deals with Sue, it retcons a huge age gap into Sue and Reed’s relationship, and Byrne’s early departure sets up my all time least favorite Fantastic Four story. (Though that one is Roger Stern and later Tom DeFalco’s fault.) It is historic as Fantastic Four runs go, though, and there’s a lot in later runs that’s built over it or references it or borrows from it. So it’s a rec with a lot of caveats and I also understand why people might give it a skip -- I think it’s more important for an understanding of the greater body of Fantastic Four canon and the impact it had than for the actual run itself. I do think Byrne has some very interesting subtext with Johnny, although it never come to fruition, and while his Sue falls victim to a lot of sexism, I really like what he does with the character of Frankie Raye, who like poor Alyssa Moy I don’t think has ever gotten really good treatment ever since.

I have mixed feelings on both Millar and Fraction’s runs, not in the least because I think they end very similarly -- and that Millar did it better, which doesn’t say great things. Millar’s run is kind of like a trashy popcorn flick version of Fantastic Four; it’s not actually good, but I can’t say I don’t like the terrible eldritch monster in Scotland Christmas arc (Fantastic Four #564-565) and I’m sort of into future Sue. Fraction, on the other hand, takes a space road trip and makes it boring, which is the greatest Fantastic Four sin of all. He’s one of the rare writers who I think actually writes a bad Ben Grimm -- not the least because his run goes out of its way to try and label it Ben’s own fault that he was transformed into a monster. I do really like his FF (just the initials) though. 

The only Fantastic Four runs I can say I really truly dislike are Tom DeFalco’s and Dan Slott’s, which sort of unfortunate because DeFalco’s is both long influential (I have no idea why because it’s honestly terrible like in terms of storytelling) and because Slott’s is happening right now. DeFalco comes onto the book on Fantastic Four #356 and stays on until Fantastic Four #416, at which point Marvel hit a literal retcon button to get out of the mess he’d made. (This leads into Fantastic Four v2, which is largely skippable -- it’s basically a mid-90s retelling of a bunch of early Fantastic Four stories that leads back into the FF heading back to the main universe.) DeFalco’s responsible for the Skrull retcon in the JohnnyAlicia marriage and for dragging that out for over 50 issues, the entirety of which feel like he was writing without a plan or outline or literally anything, and I have never felt like a comic book was attempting to gaslight me through its own incompetence or refusal to commit to things it set up itself as badly as I do with DeFalco’s run. (I like other non-Fantastic Four Tom DeFalco runs. I just hate this one.) Dan Slott’s run is just 25 issues and counting of badly written emotionless unfunny pages blandly stapled together and I so badly want Marvel to kick him off the book for its own good.

[brightbeautifulthings]

Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe

"'For the love of God, Montresor!' 'Yes,' I said, 'for the love of God!'"

Year Read: 2020

Rating: 2/5

Context: Starting two years ago, I’ve picked an intimidatingly long classic to read over the course of a year. I have a problem with trying to read books as fast as I possibly can, so if I set myself a thousand page novel, I’ll try to pound it in a week, and it will just be a miserable experience all around. So, a year is a nice compromise. I’ve hit the major Poe horror stories in the past, and I’ve been thinking about rereading them, but I couldn’t decide where to start. Reread my favorites? Read the ones I’ve heard of? What if I’m missing something awesome? As usual, my go-to answer is to read them ALL. For more thoughts on individual stories, see my monthly blog posts. Trigger warnings: character death, torture, live burial, cannibalism, decapitation, animal abuse, injury, severe illness, racism/xenophobia, anti-Semitism, ableism, slurs, mental illness, bitter ranting from the reviewer.

Thoughts: My edition, with an introduction by Wilbur S. Scott, is probably not the edition I would have picked, since I prefer more notes or even essays to help me out with books that are 100+ years old. Context is helpful. Somehow though, my dad and I ended up with the same edition, so we decided to read it together. My dad loves all things horror (I come by it naturally), and we’re both longtime Poe fans, especially if you happen to put Vincent Price in one of his film adaptations. Scott’s introduction is particularly pretentious for a book we probably found in the bargain bin, and he manages to criticize the horror genre for not being “literary enough”. This is an Edgar Allan Poe collection, right? Way to alienate 90% of your audience right from the start. You can’t snub an entire genre and then attempt to explain why people like it. Like a lot of critical writing, it tells us more about Scott than it does about Poe, and I was circling his typos to entertain myself by the end of the introduction.

It did not get better. In short, I actively hated so much of this collection, and it's my most arduous and least enjoyed year-long read to date. To be even shorter, the only stories I found worth reading for pleasure were the horror ones I had already read and loved, and I'm afraid to examine too closely whether that has more to do with nostalgia and pop culture than the stories themselves. Poe has a way of lingering on pointless descriptions and belaboring a point to its absolute death, alongside an aggressively pretentious tone that suggests the narrator (and, by extension, Poe himself), knows everything there is to know about everything and you're an idiot for even asking. His true talent may not be horror, but in turning what might have been a good story into an intellectual soapbox and hammering it the point of absurdity. It would be different if the stories actually were intelligent instead of ridiculous. I’m happy to talk Aristotelian ethics, but the point is never to intellectually engage the reader–-it’s to show how clever the writer is.

On the whole, it seems like Poe struggles with telling a straightforward story, and I can’t tell if it’s because the short story genre has changed so much since then or because he’s so busy trying to show readers how smart he is that he forgets that stories have very specific components like suspense, exposition, or rising action (or endings). Most of them consist of some narrator speaking the entire time (I have all kinds of problems with this, from, “You just ruined the twist of your own story” to “No human talks for thirty uninterrupted minutes unless some idiot gave them a microphone.”), and few of them have anything resembling action, plot/character development, strong themes, or closure. There’s an essay-like quality to some of them (“The Imp of the Perverse”, “The Premature Burial”) where he seems to be trying to tease out a concept on an intellectual level, sometimes for pages and pages, before he remembers that he’s telling a story with characters and what could loosely be called a plot. I could do without all the intellectualizing, verbal grandstanding, and narrative cartwheels; just tell a good story, please.

And he does, sometimes. It's clear why Poe remains an essential part of the horror canon because those are easily the best stories in the collection, and I don't think that's just because I'm a horror fan. Horror seems to age better than some other genres because certain things remain consistently scary over decades or even centuries--being buried alive, for example. “The Fall of the House of Usher” is permeated by a feeling of bleak foreboding, culminating in some truly terrifying images, and “The Tell-tale Heart” is one of the better examples of Poe’s rambling narrator who thinks a lot of his own intelligence and slowly unravels over guilt. Both scared me to death when I was a kid, and I’m happy to see that they still maintain a high creep factor as an adult. (I also had the Great Illustrated Classics Tales of Mystery and Terror as a kid, because all a story about being buried alive needs is an illustration!) “The Cask of Amontillado” has long been one of my favorites (because there is something deeply wrong with me, probably), and “The Pit and the Pendulum” and “The Masque of the Red Death” are both top-notch horrifying, the latter a classic plague story that's a little *too* relevant to the times just now (but, you know, also one of my favorites). The clock symbolism is some of the best in the entire collection. Why, pray tell, would you be afraid of time?

The tolerable stories are the detective ones and the adventure ones, in that order. I can see why Poe’s detective stories like “The Gold Bug” and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” spawned a genre. I was getting clear Sherlock Holmes vibes from his character, Dupin. However, it reaffirms that something is a classic because of its effects on literature as a whole and not because it’s still all that accessible. Just because something is the first of its kind doesn’t mean it’s the best of its kind; in fact, it usually isn’t because that was only a starting place. I can’t help feeling “Murders” would have been more compelling as a horror story than a detective story. Murdering gorillas are cool; listening to someone talk about murdering gorillas, much less cool. I was extremely irritated by his hot air balloon stories ("The Balloon Hoax", "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall"), but apparently Jules Verne loved them, which makes a lot of sense. I was getting a lot of Verne vibes from things like "A Descent Into the Maelstrom" and even the utterly long, boring, and racist "Narrative of A. Gordon Pym." It's clear they had influence on other writers, even if they're not the best examples of their genres.

Which brings us back around to the bad. It's not worth my time or yours to list all the terrible stories in this collection, but I can briefly summarize what I found so terrible about them. First, Poe is tragically, emphatically unfunny. The things he seems to find humorous are either in very poor taste now (his tasteless descriptions of mental patients in “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether”), or they’re outright ridiculous, almost slapstick, like the woman who gets her head stuck in a clock and is subsequently decapitated by it in “A Predicament,” which is an odd sequel to “How to Write a Blackwood Article.” I’m sensing that Poe is making fun of intellectuals or would-be intellectuals here, but with so much time and cultural distance, it’s hard to tell. In any case, it led to a running joke (“I’m going out for groceries!” “Don’t stick your head in any clocks!”). Somehow, I doubt this is the major takeaway Poe was hoping for.

Worst of all, they don't age well on representation either. Poe seems at pains to offend every single minority he possibly can throughout his oeuvre. There are a lot of horribly racist depictions of African Americans, snide comments about Jewish people (or the much more obvious anti-Semitism in “Four Beasts In One” where a mad king has a thousand Jews killed--really?), and blatant ableism (“Hop-Frog”). It's at its worst in "Narrative of A. Gordon Pym," a novella that spans over a hundred pages, that is basically a tedious, xenophobic setup to paint the native population of an island as the most horrific and duplicitous monsters imaginable. (The narrator previously ate one of his shipmates, so can he really afford to throw stones here?) For inexplicable reasons, that story isn't finished, and by that point, I was grateful.

Poe's poetry is a little easier to work through than his prose. I love "The Raven" with its lilting rhymes and dark message, and "Annabel Lee" is very pretty, both ubiquitous in popular culture. I also liked "Dream-Land," "Al Aaraaf" (where Ligeia makes another appearance), and "Alone." Most of the poetry has pretty simple rhyme schemes, the subjects mainly love and loss. There's an excerpt of an unfinished play, "Politian," included as well, but it didn't make much of an impression on me. TL;DR: I stand by my initial opinion, which is to read his horror stories for pleasure and, possibly, his detective and adventure stories for genre purposes, and to skip the rest. I'll probably be looking for a smaller edition of the stories I like. This one is a massive hardcover, more like a book you put on your coffee table to look impressive than a book you actually read (but I don’t have a coffee table, so it’s actually just taking up more room on the shelf than any one book has a right to).

[queerchoicesblog]

Cheetah (OH, Kyra x F! MC)

This OH Kyra x MC fanfic was requested by an adorable Nonny and I’m more than happy to give some spotlight to a wonderful yet unfairly neglected lady like the sweetest Edenbrook patient!

Ideally set after Kyra’s first operation, this fic is kinda fluffy and light-hearted (at first at least! OH is so full of drama that sometimes we need to catch our breath!) and, as I did in my previous Harper fic, it gives some background story info about our sweet girl. I made it up starting from what we know about her, that is to say, that Kyra was a pretty sporty girl once. In short, Dr. Meredith Valentine pays Kyra a visit before going back home and a little chat leads to sharing memories and some cuteness. Hope you all like it, especially you Nonny! 😘

Prompt: "Don't get up, I'll do it!"

Word Count: 1871

Perma Tag: @brightpinkpeppercorn @bbaba-yagaa @abunchofbadchoices @silverhawkenzie @bhavf @begging-for-kamilah @melodyofgraves @crazypeanat @kennaxval @strangerofbraidwood

Kyra Tag: @gayestchoices

_______________________________

When Dr. Meredith Valentine finally finished her rounds for the day, she quickly checked the time then headed towards the elevator. But she didn't go home. Instead, she exited at another floor and politely knocked on a half-open door before poking her head into the room.

"Hey there, can I come in?"

Kyra raised her eyes from a magazine and flashed her a smile.

"My my, two hot doctors checking on me in one day? Must be Christmas!"

"I just wanted to stop by before I go home. Thought it would be nice" the intern commented walking in and taking a seat beside her bed.

"It is nice! And so did Surfer Boy: he came to say hi half an hour ago." 

Then she threw a playful look at Meredith.

"But worry not, there's enough room in my heart for both of you"

They both giggled then Kyra spoke again, leaning back.

"How was your day, doctor?"

"I'm quite sure that was my line? Except for doctor"

"I know, I know, here it's always the other way round. And by now almost all the nurses of this floor or well, half of them as well as a couple of doctors know how my day was, how I'm doing and so on. But I wonder if sometimes patients remember to ask you how your day was. If you're okay. You wear scrubs but you're human too so here we are. How was your day, Dr. Valentine?"

Meredith sighed but managed to give her a tired smile.

"It was a long day. This competition is getting tougher than I expected-"

"Gordon is giving you a hard time?" Kyra inquired.

"Gordon?" the intern frowned her burrows.

"Ramsey" the young woman explained. "I wonder if they're related. I'll make sure to ask him one day"

"Oh my god, I wasn't expecting this" Meredith burst out laughing.

"Well, the other day I saw him roasting one of your friends, that blond guy..."

"Landry?"

"Yeah, Chicken Little"

Meredith laughed even louder this time: she had always found a resemblance between the two of them but never dared to say it out loud.

"Did you assign a nickname to everyone?"

"Almost, my favorites are Cinnamon Roll, the braided-haired girl...Sienna, right?"

Meredith nodded in confirmation.

"Gosh she's adorable! And so is Wonder Man, aka..."

"Elijah"

"That's him! He stops by too every now and then. Oh and how can I forget your boss! She waved at me the other day, I was so excited!"

"Hold on! Did you give Dr. Harper Emery a nickname? That Harper Emery?"

"It's Beyoncé in my book"

"Beyoncé?" Meredith repeated, barely stifling a laugh.

"I don't know, she gives me this 'Who run the world' vibe" Kyra explained, striking a Beyoncé pose.

"It's safe to say I'll never look at the Chief of Medicine the same way" the intern chuckled.

"You're telling me you never thought that? You disappoint me, doctor" Kyra mocked a shocked face.

"Anything else, nickname generator?"

"Well, there's also Rhianna"

"Rihanna?"

"Low knot, raven hair, incinerating gaze...don't know her name?"

"Oh it must be Jackie then. But why Rihanna?"

After a moment, they answered at the same time.

"Because all she is care about is work work work work"

They were still laughing when Kyra's phone beeped twice on her nightstand. She grabbed it and checked the notification. A smile formed on her lips.

"It's Jazmín, my sister. She sent me a picture of my nephew" Kyra showed the intern the screen of her phone. "Here, look."

A kid of four or five was standing in front of an aquarium, hands and eyes glued to the glass as a man -his dad probably- was squatted beside him pointing at a colorful tropical fish.

Meredith involuntarily read the message attached to it. "Lots of fun at the aquarium! Just wish you were here too, sis". She felt a pang of sadness.

"He's my amazing nephew, Luis. He's so little yet so smart, you should see him! Now he's into aquarium stuff: I talked to him last week and he said that he wants to study fishes. I guess he means marine biology"

They both chuckled.

"He seems a fine little man, are you two close?" the intern asked, handing back the phone.

"Of course we are! He's just a little sad we've been seeing each other less than usual lately but we're good" Kyra answered, smiling weakly.

Then all of a sudden her face brightened as she sat up on the bed, slowly moving towards the edge.

"And to prove you I'm the best auntie ever, woman of poor faith...let me get my suitcase-"

Meredith immediately stood and gently guided her back.

"Don't get up, I'll do it!"

The intern flashed the young woman a bright professional smile. Kyra returned it.

"As much as a gorgeous doctor deeply concerned over my wellbeing makes all my Grey's Anatomy's dreams come true, I can still stand, you know that, right Dr. Valentine? I literally have to stand and walk across the room to reach the bathroom so-"

Meredith placed a hand on her shoulder, the reassuring smile still lingering on her face.

"I know, but now I'm here and I'm more than happy to help. And you sure rest, by the way: Dr. Valentine's order" she insisted with a final wink. "Will you concede me this time?"

Kyra dramatically sighed and adjusted the bed. A hint of a blush on her cheeks.

"Okay, okay, you win this, doctor. But only because I don't want you to lose sleep over the missed chance of knowing my best auntie secret"

"Very much appreciated, Kyra. My sleeping schedule's pretty messed up already"

Meredith placed a floral painted trolley at the end of the hospital bed and Kyra unzipped it. As she rummaged into it, the intern moved her chair closer.

"Here" Kyra announced triumphantly.

The young woman turned and proudly showed a fluffy cheetah plushie.

"It's a gift from Louis. It comes straight from the Philadelphia zoo shop" she explained, handing it to the doctor "my sweet little man gave it to me because...well, there's a story behind this gift. I've always been into sports: a cheerleader in college, player of the softball team at college, the one who goes for a morning jog every day and eats healthy...when I graduated I took some training and became an aerial yoga teacher. In the meantime, I started to make quite a reputation in bike races. Amateur competitions, obviously, but I was quite good: I even got an offer to join a professional team once"

Kyra took an old article showing a picture of a younger self rising a small cup on the top of a podium.

"Read the title"

"'Kyra 'Cheetah' Santana is on her way to stardom'" Meredith read "'Quite good' is definitely an understatement Kyra! You rocked! And...aww, he bought you that plushie because it was your nickname?"

"Yeah, I was 'as fast as a cheetah'" the young woman beamed before putting the article away. "Long story short, one month after that race I started being sick. Went to the doctor and...well, the rest is history, I guess"

"My god, I'm so sorry, Kyra" the intern frowned and reached for Kyra's hand.

Kyra shrugged and gave her a weak smile.

"Don't be, shit happens, right? When I got my diagnosis when I heard the word 'cancer'...I felt the world crumbling under my feet. Luckily Jazmín, Robert and Luis were there. They immediately came when I told my sis what was going on. A few days later we went to the zoo to take my mind off things if it makes any sense and they got me this plushie. I had a cheetah toy but sadly I lost it during a relocation. So they got me this little cuteness because the previous one always brought me good luck. And 'even if you don't race now, you'll always be our Cheetah'"

"That was so thoughtful and sweet of them" Meredith commented as a lump formed in her throat.

"Yes. They will come visit next week to celebrate me getting out of here. No offense!" they both laughed before Kyra squeezed the doctor's hand and met her gaze.

"What I meant to say earlier...is that I'm fine. So much changes when you become sick: people start seeing you as an ill person and nurse you around all the time. And it's frustrating, you know? Sometimes you need help but when you don't, it's disappointing to see they don't change. When you become 'a patient', when you get some serious illness, all you want is a cure, obviously, but also to be reminded that you're still a person. That your previous self isn't gone and dead. Metaphorically...gosh you also get some morbid humor!"

"I get it, Kyra. At least I think I do" Meredith said, rubbing the back of her hand with her thumb. "It's perfectly understandable and I'm sorry if I was insensitive, even without meaning it. I just...I guess you could say I care for you, that's all".

The intern diverted her eyes, her cheeks blushing slightly. Kyra's gaze softened as she spoke again:

"Aw, can I get a hug, Dr. Valentine?"

Meredith looked back at her. Then she stood and pulled the young woman into a hug, gently stroking her back. Kyra contently rested her head on the intern's shoulder and snaked her arms around her waist. She could feel the doctor's heart racing against her chest as they lingered in the unexpected embrace. After a moment she whispered: "I'm gonna be fine, Meredith. The doctor smiled when he visited me: you guys smile when things are okay, right? Worry not, I'm stronger than I look"

"I know you are, Kyra" Meredith said, pulling back to look her in the eye. "I never doubted it"

The patient smiled at her.

"I don't know if I'm overstepping but you're not my doctor so...why don't you join us on our family party? If you're not busy obviously! Your wondrous friends can come along too if they feel like celebrating too"

"I'd love to. Text me the address, you have my numb-"

As if on cue Kyra's phone started beeping again.

"I guess that's my cue" Meredith smiled apologetically. "But first, this".

She carefully placed the plushie into the suitcase and picked a little notebook out of her pocket. She quickly wrote something and handed it to Kyra.

"My number. For emergencies or parties only" she winked.

"Duly noted, doc" Kura mocked a salute, giggling.

The intern headed towards the door but stopped before crossing the threshold. She turned back to the sweet patient.

"Hold on, you never told me what's my nickname! You assigned one to everyone, I'm pretty sure I have one too"

Kyra playfully raised an eyebrow to her.

"Smart girl. Of course you have one too, d'uh! Don't tell me you haven't figured it out yet"

Meredith furrowed her brows concentrating but couldn't find an answer.

"You had a long day, you should get some rest too: it's Kyra's order" the girl commented, smiling affectionately.

Meredith was about to wish Kyra a good night when the other woman spoke again:

"Thanks for stopping by, McDreamy".

[letterboxd]

Family.

“We’re trying to say: stop thinking about Manson as the embodiment of all evil. If he got a record deal, maybe nobody would have died.”

Jack Moulton talks cults, Trump and noise-cancelling headphones with American actress and screenwriter Guinevere Turner. Charlie Says is her latest film with frequent collaborator, Canadian director Mary Harron.

Of the serial-killer films currently in release, Charlie Says is the one that puts a strong focus on the women who often remain in the background of these retellings. Leslie Van Houten (Hannah Murray), Patricia Krenwinkel (Sosie Bacon), and Susan Atkins (Marianne Rendón)—the three women who killed for Charles Manson (Matt Smith)—are imprisoned in isolation in a California penitentiary, as well as psychologically imprisoned by Manson’s delusional ideas.

Then graduate student Karlene Faith (Merritt Wever) is given the job of rehabilitating the young women—as long as they are prepared to confront the horrors of their actions.

Turner co-wrote the 90s urban indie lesbian feature Go Fish directed by Rose Troche, which preceded her meeting with Harron. Charlie Says is their most recent collaboration, having partnered previously on American Psycho and The Notorious Bettie Page.

What interested you in writing a film about Charles Manson? Guinevere Turner: When the producers met with me they said they wanted to focus on the women as we definitely never got a sense of a story told from their perspective before. Once I found Karlene Faith’s book The Long Prison Journey of Leslie Van Houten [Faith’s study of the rehabilitation process and elongated incarceration of the three Manson Family girls], I saw a whole side of the story that literally never gets represented.

I got very excited that I could make a good movie out of this and it would also be an interesting commentary on what it says about society that we always treated these women like they’re interchangeable. Nobody’s ever asked “what happened to them?”, “what made them do what they did?” and more importantly “why did we stop talking about them?”. We never stopped talking to Charlie! There was a real opportunity to talk about men and women, who and when we pay attention to historically.

Did you get the chance to work with Karlene Faith in person before she passed away [in May 2017]? Yes, she was fantastic. It took a while to persuade her into talking to me at first. I slowly gained her trust via email, then we would talk on the phone, and eventually I would be visiting her apartment in Vancouver and we became friends. For about two years we were as thick as thieves.

Her book was obviously a huge resource but she was also useful for research as she was a woman of that time. She gave me a great visual, listening to her activist life outside of prison. When she met the girls for the first time she had all these assumptions that they were gonna be freaky psycho-killers and she was blown away by how sweet they were. She was immediately turned by them and she wanted to help them.

What were some of the unexpected realities of living in a cult environment that you wanted to portray? So I grew up in a cult environment as you probably knew so I assume that’s why you ask that question. [Ms. Turner spent the first eleven years of her life as part of the Lyman Family. They were devotees of Mel Lyman who believed he and his commune members would eventually live on the planet Venus. Though parted from her mother after birth, she and her younger sister were ejected from the Family when her mother eventually decided to leave. Ms. Turner considered returning at eighteen but chose to go to college instead.]

Yes, I read the article in The New Yorker. For me, I was excited to bring this knowledge in my DNA of what it’s really like living in that environment to represent both the good and the bad parts. You have those semi-orgy scenes and people doing acid, but also scenes where everyone is sitting around for dinner. That grounds it a little more. At the end of the day, it is a family—albeit an infamously weird one—but it is a bunch of people trying to live together.

While there’s the “everyday” quality to it I also wanted to show the volatility. It can be beautifully tranquil one moment and then turn on the dime into something scary and destabilizing. I feel like those things were true of my childhood. Mary Harron heard me talking about my upbringing for decades and she would always say “you should write about it”. I didn’t want to write about it specifically, but when I found this movie I thought I could bring something personal to the project that no other screenwriter could.

We’re curious about how you like to write. What music do you listen to while you work and are there any films you used as inspiration? I can’t listen to anything when I’m writing. I have noise-cancelling headphones that don’t cancel noise enough. I could live in an actual sensory deprivation tank while I write and I would be so happy, but unfortunately you can’t bring computers underwater. So, no music.

I watched a lot of movies of the era, especially unconventional movies about Jesus such as Jesus Christ Superstar (1973). Those were interesting aesthetically.

There’s a shot in the movie where they’re walking up the side of this mountain and I just loved that iconography. We were short for time on the day and I pleaded with Mary to make it happen. It made me so happy that it became one of the images they use for the promotion of the film. It does feel like this biblical journey and we were trying to capture that vibe.

What do you do to ensure the female gaze is considered from the script? I find a lot of that is intuitive. For example in this script, there has to be nudity but you notice that every time someone is naked in this movie it’s really uncomfortable. That’s one thing in terms of subverting male gaze, is that there’s no way that any person could see those scenes as objectifying the body for more than a nanosecond because of what’s happening.

It’s all about power, so I like that it’s portrayed as being uneasy. Even when Matt Smith is naked, Charlie is exerting power over someone else and she’s repulsed by him. That’s one of my favorite scenes in the movie.

How does your acting background feed into the way you write your characters? I think because I’m an actor I deeply feel the reality of what’s available for the average female actor to play. There’s tons of “someone’s girlfriend” and all the tropes, so for me when I’m writing I’m asking myself what about this is going to make an actor say “yes please, let me play that part!”.

I need to present something complex and challenging that they don’t often see. As someone who’s auditioned for many characters that I thought were poorly written, I try and give even the small parts something that will make an actor excited to play them.

What makes your creative partnership with Mary Harron work so well? It’s funny because we’ve never really asked ourselves that. Of course in the last week we’ve been asked that a lot while we’re in the same room and we look at each other like confused animals going “why does it work?”.

We realize that we have a similar sense of humor so we laugh a lot even while we’re writing all this dark stuff. The main factor is that we really trust each other. One of the hardest things about collaborating is that you’re not sure if someone is shooting down your idea because it doesn’t work or they’re jealous that it’s good. You need to trust that you can test stupid ideas with them.

When we first met in 1996 [shortly after Harron’s directing debut I Shot Andy Warhol and Turner’s writing debut Go Fish] we immediately had an affinity for each other and started writing together. It was as easy the first time we tried it as it is now. There’s not even much of an evolution. I feel really lucky for that because as a screenwriter it certainly means I have a lot more access to the movie than usual because the director is always checking in with me.

Despite all of the bleakness, it’s clear in the film that these women just wanted to be loved. There’s such a deep sympathy for them. What interests you about the line of responsibility for those influenced by dangerous charismatic leaders? I’d say everything about that interests me.

I’m drawing parallels to politics today such as the alt-right people that Trump influences, for example. We’re seeing echoes where people are mindlessly following a person who is validating evil, dangerous, and disgusting ideas. For these women I had to constantly remind myself that they did commit these horrible crimes.

I feel like Charles Manson and Donald Trump are apples and oranges except for the fact that they strike me as people where their only real fuel is power and that half the time they don’t know what they’re doing or saying, they’re just terrified of losing it. They almost have no internal life. They just feel when they have the power and when the power may be taken away and what they do to keep it makes people do terrible things. It’s like an addiction.

Matt Smith as Charles Manson in ‘Charlie Says’.

I’m sure you’re painfully aware that we have four Charles Manson films coming out in a short space of time. There’s Tate, The Haunting of Sharon Tate, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, though I’m certain Charlie Says was conceived before all of these. How do you feel about being a part of this cycle? I started writing the movie in 2014 and most of the time movies are made two years later but that’s not how it worked out for various logistical reasons. So on the one hand, I cringe that it’s the 50th anniversary [of Sharon Tate’s murder] and that’s when our movie’s coming out—it feels tacky but it’s definitely not on purpose.

Which seems to be very deliberate on Tarantino’s part… But the way independent films work is that you try and get them made until you get them produced. You don’t have these luxuries of when exactly they’re going to come out. That said, we have landed in a zeitgeist moment which is nice in terms of people paying attention to the movie. I don’t know much about Once Upon a Time in Hollywood but I’m sure Tarantino has a radically different approach from ours.

While they share some similarities, your depiction of Charles Manson doesn’t work in quite the same way as American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman. How did you decide the ways you wanted to humanize Manson? I think the first thing that’s similar between how we portrayed these two characters is that while they’re these powerful frightening people, we’re demystifying them and grounding them in an essential pathetic loserness. Mary and I don’t talk about how we can make another movie that takes down toxic masculinity, that’s just where we end up sometimes.

With American Psycho the stakes of social responsibility were different. We were asking people to put your baggage with the book away, we’re women making this, and we are trying to turn it into something that’s a critique of masculinity in a funny and dark way.

For Charlie Says we’re trying to say: stop thinking about Manson as the embodiment of all evil. We want to stop giving him that power and show that he was a conman who was just a failed musician. If he got a record deal, maybe nobody would have died.

Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in ‘American Psycho’ (2000).

I have to say, American Psycho holds up really well for the Trump era. One could argue that it works better now than when it came out.

How do you respond to the way you’ve already satirized these sociopaths in power and how that affected the increasing appreciation for the film over the years? It’s gratifying, because [American Psycho] was not particularly well loved when it came out. That’s disheartening when you work hard on a project that you think is more worthy. That said, it being more relevant now is terrifying. I watched the movie again recently and there’s a little part of you that cringes when we make Trump jokes because Donald Trump was a different kind of funny at the time.

‘Charlie Says’ is in US cinemas now, and available on VOD and digital from May 17.

[naruseii]

Myu review 5: 1996 Sailor Stars . . First impression: Of course I was excited for this Myu!! I love the Stars arc and I felt this was gonna be really wild for some reason. • • • Impressions: Actors/Actresses

Anza Ooyama (Usagi Tsukino/Sailor Moon/Neo-Queen Serenity)- I have a somewhat divided opinion on Anza. There were times where I really liked her but sometimes, she was just being unnecessarily dramatic. Her Usagi was mostly good although she can be over dramatic at times. She kept Usagi’s personality consistent from the last Myu and I really liked that! She was also really funny as Usanosuke!! As Super Sailor Moon, she was a bit over dramatic but not too much. What I loved most was her Eternal Moon (again). I just think she pulls off that version of Moon the best and I don’t really know why. When she showed hatred for the first time, it really made me fall in love with Eternal Moon even more. Love her singing, still a great dancer and acting could be somewhat better!!

Ayako Morino (Ami Mizuno/Sailor Mercury)- Ayako was better as Mercury than Ami and I can’t tell if it’s because of the writing or not. I really dislike the “boy crazy” aspect that’s given to Myu Ami and of course, it bothered me seeing Ayako act it out. Ami’s overall vibe just felt different and seeing as Ayako is a bit more timid/soft spoken (in my opinion), she didn’t really suit her character. As Mercury, she did really well especially in her scene with Uranus. Singing and dancing wise, she’s still pretty good! Her acting is decent it’s just that it didn’t really suit her/her character.

Misako Kotani (Rei Hino/Sailor Mars)- Misako was WAY BETTER in this Myu than her last one. She toned down her Rei without completely removing the loud/sass aspect from her and, her Mars was more serious this time!! The scene with her and Hiroko (doing Akuriyo Taisan) and in Sorezore no Elegy really showed how she changed up her character! Her singing is still really good and she’s better at dancing as well!! She did really great!

Emika Satou (Makoto Kino/Sailor Jupiter)- I LOVE EMIKA. She didn’t really have that big of a role but she was still really good!! Not much for Jupiter but her Makoto was so cute! I think she had a good balance of her Makoto which made me like her a lot! She has a really nice voice, good dancing and great acting!! I love her!! 💚

Kanatsu Nakaya (Minako Aino/Sailor Venus)- Just like Emika, Kanatsu was pretty good for the little role she had!! She didn’t really do much as Venus but her Minako was great!! She wasn’t as fangirly as I hoped her to be but it wasn’t bad! I can’t say much on singing (no solo) but she harmonizes well with the others!! Her dancing wasn’t too bad and I think her acting is okay! She was good!!

Yuuta Mochizuki (Mamoru Chiba/Tuxedo Mask)- Okay for starters, he was gone for (almost) the ENTIRE Stage 1 so I’ll be talking about him in Stage 2. Even in Stage 2, he didn’t really do much. He still sings pretty well (A Knight For Sailor Soldiers) and still has good movement. His relationship/dynamic with Anza is still pretty good even if they barely got to interact. All in all he was great even if his role was small!!

Sanae Kimura (Haruka Tenoh/Sailor Uranus)- Sanae was…okay!! She had her moments but she wasn’t really “out there”. As Haruka, there was nothing much. As Uranus, she was doing pretty good until her death scene. I found it a bit bothersome that she wasn’t deeply affected by Neptune’s death than she should’ve. She also seemed to be saying her lines without really feeling anything. She still sings and dances well but her acting wasn’t at it’s best for this Myu…

Hiroko Tahara (Michiru Kaioh/Sailor Neptune)- I honestly loved her Neptune/Michiru!! She had a good balance of being kind and charming as Michiru but strong and elegant as Neptune. She definitely has a talent for singing because her voice sounded so beautiful!! She’s also a really good dancer and her acting was amazing! Although it was her first time to play Neptune, it looked like she had a connection with her Uranus which I thought was really nice! She’s the first Michiru/Neptune I really like so far!!

Rei Saitou (Setsuna Meioh/Sailor Pluto)- I LOVE HER!! She was SO AMAZING in this Myu. Her Setsuna was so motherly and had a great sense of humor! She was also protective which made her portrayal really good!! Her Pluto was sooo good. The scene where she bends time really showed how much she was into her character. Her singing, dancing and acting were all great!! I love Rei so much!! :(

Keiko Takeda (Hotaru Tomoe/Sailor Saturn)- Her Saturn is really good, I really like how she portrays her character!! However, her Hotaru kinda doesn’t work out since Hotaru is a bit younger in Stars and Keiko seems a bit mature. But it was clear that her Hotaru was playful and her Saturn was serious. Her singing is still great and her dancing got better!! I really love Keiko :( . 💜

Tamaki Dia Shirai (Chibiusa/Sailor Chibi Moon)- I did feel that Tamaki was better here than she was in the SuperS musicals but, she still didn’t hit it for me. She’s still great in singing and I liked her dynamic with Keiko but sometimes her acting fell short. It was better than before, but she sounded so fake/flat like you knew she was acting. This isn’t the first time she’s done this but I’m glad she got way better for her last performance! 💖

Sayuri Katayama (Seiya Kou/Sailor Star Fighter)- Sayuri’s Seiya literally stole my heart. Her Seiya was so cool and charming and her Star Fighter was brave and caring; she carried her role as a leader so well!! Her singing and dancing were amazing and her interactions with Usagi/Moon gave me flashbacks to the manga. I really love Sayuri!! 💙

Hikari Ono (Taiki Kou/Sailor Star Maker)- 👀 . I MEAN, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT ME TO SAY. My wig was stolen and I had the hardest time ever watching this Myu because of her. Taiki is kinda like a background character in the Stars arc (manga) but she really made her stand out more!! As Star Maker, she didn’t really do much but she was okay! Since she got to do more in this Myu, she really got to showcase more of her talents which were all amazing!! :(( I love my girl.

Momoko Okuyama (Yaten Kou/Sailor Star Healer)- Her Yaten was SO GOOD AND SO CUTE!! She really showed her cool side but she gave her a playful side as well. Her Star Healer was like an “anger child” in a way. She didn’t really do much as her so I can’t say a lot. Her singing and dancing were great and she did really well!! I love her!! 💚

Saori Sara (Sailor Galaxia)- I think she did pretty okay as Galaxia!! I honestly can’t blame her for not being in her element sometimes since Sailor Stars (the anime) hasn’t explored Galaxia’s character much at the time so some things wouldn’t make sense. I do think she had late reactions and no emotions at times but they weren’t so bad! I liked her!!

Shadow Galatica (as a whole)- they were interesting!! I was surprised to see Pewter Fox and Titanium Keroko in place of Aluminum Siren and Lead Crow but they really played their characters well! Iron Mouse and Tin Nyanko didn’t really have much to them. Out of the Animamates, I liked Pewter Fox the most! Shadow Bug, Bee and Mantis were also pretty good despite not doing much! MC Fly was amazing of course (and really funny). And Sailor Buttress was kinda annoying at times and highly reminded me of Yellow Pearl from Steven Universe. . . . The story: To be honest, my only problem with this is that the story was so messy. It was good but, it was so hard to keep up with sometimes that you can’t even remember what the main objective was. Anyways, let’s move on!

Stage 1: I love how it started with Overture and it’s transition into Chasin’ After You, it really reminded me of the manga! Later on, when Ami got really upset about Usagi singing with Seiya, I was quite annoyed. I understand why everyone would be jealous, except Ami. The next few scenes were somewhat manga accurate which I can really appreciate!! The rooftop scene with Usagi, Setsuna and the Starlights was really funny and probably one of my favorite scenes in this Myu! Chibiusa’s arrival was quite sudden and marked the beginning of the messy story line. The Sailor Busters segment was also really fun to watch! And the fight scene after was quite boring to watch for me and it got better when they sang Sailor War Supreme!!

Stage 2: The Shadow Galactica meeting is something I really can’t describe. But I liked how Anza got to play Neo-Queen Serenity even for just a short time! The music festival was really fun to watch since it really felt like you were there!! All the songs were great and really catchy! But then things go bad and this is where Pluto bends time which ends up separating all the Sailor Senshi from each other. Hotaru and Chibiusa’s scene in the Edo period was really cute! Then things got darker when Uranus, Neptune, Mercury, Mars, the Starlights and Usagi were wandering the maze. Jupiter and Venus died early on but Usagi got to watch Uranus and Neptune pass as well as Mercury and Mars (Sorezore no Elegy) which was a really striking scene.

Later on, Usagi was able to transform into Super Sailor Moon and broke into the Shadow Galactica base. Tuxedo Mask finally makes his return together with Chibi Moon, Saturn and the Starlights. Moon then expresses her hate for someone for the first time then transforms into Eternal Moon which really struck me as well. Then there was a fight scene and Shadow Galactica (except for Galaxia) got defeated through the Double Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss. And since this whole thing was long and quite traumatic for the Senshi, this is when they sing Densetsu Seitan which concluded the story really well. • • • Overall opinion: This was a really good Myu!! Despite the messy storyline, I really enjoyed it! The portrayal of the Starlights in this Myu really made me love their characters even more and I also wished they had a Kakyuu and Chibi Chibi with them!! The songs were really great (although some were kinda annoying) and the plot was very creative (just not presented well)! I really hope they get to fix some of these in the Kaiteiban and I’m really looking forward to it!! . . . THE MUCH LONG AWAITED STARS REVIEW. I’ve been working on this since December but I’ve just been so busy, I couldn’t get to finish it in time :^( . Anyways, did you guys like this Myu? Do we agree on some stuff?? Please feel free to leave your thoughts! ((Character profiles are from @myu-resource , screenshot is from Sea of Serenity on YouTube, posters are from vk.com))

[miyoron]

Miyo’s Anime of Note 2018 Rainbow Edition

2018 was some kind of a year wasn't it? It was long and a pain in the ass but there was some anime out this year I really enjoyed. I'm here to write down a bunch of shows I enjoyed in no particular order. I might put them in the order I watched them in, or I might not. I guess we'll see huh?

Also, I think there's WAY more this year than usual which means I either like things easily, there were a lot of good shows, all of the above or some other reason. Hope I don't get too long winded on you! Also I'm using whatever names I feel like for naming things off, translated, still Japanese...whaaatever~

Pop Team Epic

Pop Team Epic was everything I wanted it to be and more. I've been a fan of Bkub's work since the early days so to see these two shitty girls finally show up on the anime screen week to week was a pleasure and a delight. The decision to make two separate half episodes with different voice actors for Popuko and Pipimi was a wonderful decision that let us experience things like Aoi Yuki as Popuko and Norio Wakamoto as Pipimi. It also shot the wonderful team of ACBU into the spotlight. Their Bobunemimimmi segments were so disgustingly perfect and fit the tone of the show perfectly. It also gave us one of the best moments in anime this year:

Needless to say, I really hope they are doing a season 2 like it's been rumored. I'm on board for SO much more.

Yuru Camp

This was a show I actually watched twice this year and have subsequently watched multiple episodes just on my own. It is one of my favorite things this year and maybe it's just because of how unassuming it is. There's honestly nothing deep to the show. Cute girls dress in warm winter clothing and go camping. However, the way everything is paced with nice warm colors and chill ass music nestles its way into your heart and fills you with a nice cozy feeling. It's like a blanket, the anime. Just wrap yourself up in the wonderful friend times and maybe you'll learn a thing or two about camping and friendship along the way.

Mitsuboshi Colors

Are adults letting you down? Sure, they're not up to the challenge pretty much all the time. But that's why you should just stay out of the way and let Colors come in to save the day! This trio of girls are ready to save their town and to let shitty cops know what's up. Seriously, it's a cute show with a cute group of friends getting into big adventures, even if those adventures are often due to their own misconceptions. It's a good show with kids who act like kids and are always either talking about poop or are sucking at video games. It's a nice show and has some good performances, as well as the best sunglasses of 2018 in my book.

Karakai no Jouzu Takagi-san

A series about a boy and a girl who are totally crushing on each other, even if one likes to keep it deeply hidden and the other would never admit it really. Oh, also she owns him every chance she can get with teasing. It's like a reverse Tonari no Seki-kun if Seki was not in his own world and was actively trying to make Rumi blush or stumble over herself. This premise may sound mean but it's honestly all in good fun and there's something really cute about the pair's friendship with each other. The way the manga apparently goes makes me really want to check it out sometime too.

Oh also there's a great side trio of friends with and I love how dumb of a baby one of them is.

Hinamatsuri

What happens when a yakuza becomes the dad of a psychic girl who crashed in an egg in his apartment and broke all his vases? This series! Hinamatsuri was a show that got me really hard this year at a couple points where I know I had to either fight back tears or take a few minutes to sit their with a quivering lip and watery eyes. It's an incredibly funny show from  the premise alone but when you have the put upon character of Nitta having to take care of the force of nature that is Hina it just escalates it. On top of that though, there's a good heart to it as well. Anzu is a wonderful character and I love her story and her many grandpas. Also Hitomi's story actively hit me hard to where I felt bad for a fictional child to please just be a child for a little while. It was powerful stuff and I loved it.

Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online

I hate Sword Art Online. I've only watched the first series with the original and faerie times, but I hated it so much. That being said, hearing that the new one was actually good made me seek it out and...thank God it is. Llenn/Karen is just a much more compelling character than the power fantasy that is Kirito. The story of a woman who does not like herself in the real world, but finds a new home and life in virtual reality is a nice little story. On top of that, ditching the stupid "if you die in the game, you die in real life" really helped the show out in my eyes. This show is not about stop some huge over arcing villainous plot to fuck over the whole world or whatever. GGO is about trying to save someone from hurting themselves and honestly, that's a lot more relatable. A recap episode in this day in age IS silly though for what it's worth.

Let's take a short break shall we? For a little section I'm gonna call, Fuck, You Let me Down Man.

Amanchu Advance

I put Amanchu on my list two years ago of Anime of Note because I really enjoyed the tale of friendship it told. Amanchu Advance continues that story and shows Teko slowly becoming more of her own person thanks to that friendship. She wants to become a stronger person, a better version of herself and it's through her friends she's able to do this. The series is still very good at showing these moments but the last few episodes of the show are bogged down in a weird supernatural plot with a ghost boy that I wish they would have just tossed down the shrine steps. The twist at the end with it was not worth sidetracking the story for three episodes in a 12 episode story and soured my experience as a whole. I've been told the author likes doing these sorts of things and I didn't mind the lucid dreaming episodes, but this bit just did not land for me and it's a big bummer.

Here's Another Side Category Called Old Anime I Watched And Enjoyed. Yes, that's the full title.

G Gundam

I don't know why it took me so long to watch this series, but I am glad I did. Maybe I just needed friends to be there to watch it with, who knows. Either way, I'm thankful I got to join Domon on his journey searching for the man in the photograph and to experience the Undefeated of the East in his most powerful form. G Gundam is a goofy setting with a bunch of weird but fun characters and their even weirder mobile suits. I don't know how much I can really say on it since I'm sure most people have probably checked it out years ago on Toonami. It's still fun and good and it has a Gundam who is a boxer and a football man at the same time. Gundam Fight, Readdddddy....GO!

Back to my normal list, though I have grouped the next couple shows in a block I am calling the "I wish these had a full 24 episodes even though I understand why they didn't but please make more I'd love it, ok thanks" block.

A Place Further Than The Universe

This show had...a lot of moments where I was sitting there and just processing all that was going on. A group of girls become friends and join a civilian expedition to Antarctica, one of whom is going there to basically go where her mother had spoken of years ago and never came back. It's a show that I felt compelled to keep watching even though I knew I should have stopped for the night, telling myself "I can watch one more episode..." . It just gripped me and sank its penguin fangs into me. Shut up, I know what I said. Seriously though, the cast of secondary characters are just as fun as the main ones and I enjoyed every minute of it. It definitely destroyed me in one of the more heavy moments near the end though so keep a box of tissues handy ok?

Wotakoi

Love is hard for otaku. It's in the show's translated title and everything. Let me tell you, I'm very happy seeing so many anime featuring adults in the work place these days. Wotakoi is a show I felt a very personal connection to, especially its humor levels. Not going to lie,  I am a Kabakura through and through when it comes to my anime watching and purchasing habits. It's a cute love story with a couple of characters getting together out of convenience before realizing maybe there's something more than that to it. The interactions are great and it's very relatable if you've ever had a friends' game night or anime watching session. It's a show that just feels like it knows just how to speak to you if you've been a fan of anime for a long time.

Hisone to Masotan

Hey, you into dragon vore? Then have I got the show for you buddy. All joking aside, Hisomaso is a show with one of the more fun protagonists I've run into in a while. Hisone's blunt and to the point to the detriment of anything that comes out of her mouth most of the time, but there's something about her honesty that's very endearing. The show's pilots are a great cast and their dragon friends are just as charismatic even if they spend a lot of the time cosplaying as aircraft. This show has a nice story about trying to find just where you fit in within the world and sometimes that's hard. Sometimes the best thing to do is dive into the gullet of a big scaly F-15 and ride the free skies to your heart's content. I love you Masotan.

Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight

This show I think more than any others in this block I wanted more of, even though I know why I don't have more of it. From episode one, I got Utena vibes with the music, the auditions, Hell, even the prefight wardrobe transformations. Stage girls do battle with all of their shine to prove who is truly the top star. That's the basic premise and the cast of characters really helps to flesh it out with their own motivations of what makes them keep going to be the very best they can be. I loved all of the imagery in the auditions and the music and the big doofy giraffe just watching from the stands and enjoying the whole thing. Revue Starlight is a stylish show with some amazing animation and choreography that puts most of the things I watched this year to shame and I need more things like it.

STOP IT'S PRECURE TIME

Go Princess Precure

This is me and Cheapsteak's "old Precure" of the year and it's wonderful. It's a story about dreams and fighting for them. The Princess Precures are maybe not the most relatable of characters as they attend a very prim and proper high class school. One is a business conglomerate's daughter, one's a super model, one's a Princess from another plane entirely. But there is something wonderful how they all work together as friends and work to save everyone's dreams, I don't know there's something very good and wonderful about that. I love that even when it comes to one of the villains, a character in the show goes out of her way to help him with his self esteem (and make up). I don't know, I've got a few episodes left but I just love it. Haruka is my favorite Pink Precure I've met so far and she is gonna be tough to beat.

Hugtto Precure

Very similar to Go Princess is Hugtto, with its message of hope for the future because you can't just stay in the present. There's a great cast of characters and they all work so hard to cheer each others' dreams on, all while taking care of a baby and a hamster from the future. I think this show also has the best mid-seasons Cures I've met so far and just...everything with how supportive and good everyone is to each other has me smiling the whole time. Also in the episodes leading up to the anniversary movie this year, we got some of the best big moments I've seen in a show in a while. A lot of the episodes have some amazing animation work as well and just...I like this show a lot especially what it did to show Hana's pre-show back story as well. Pink Cures are really good huh?

Back to business!

Asobi Asobase

Along with PTE, this was one of the weirder comedies that I watched this year. It's often crass or just outright weird, but that's one of its strong points I think. The show's opening is a giant fakeout from what seems like your ordinary "cute girls doing club things" chill show because you're soon hit with some of the weirdest faces and shrieks that I've run into in a while. The characters are a troublesome group of weirdoes who try to do activities like a normal club but fail horribly at it, often due to one or more of them sabotaging it with their own dumbness. It really says something that the sweetest and most relatable characters are the witch girls who practice curses all day. They're really the best though but so are all of the fucking weirdoes in this show. Also there's ass lasers so if you're into that...

Cells at Work

Learn about the human body while dangerous viruses and germs get fucking iced like they walked into the wrong anime. Follow a red blood cell make her way through the blood stream and lose her way every single time. Thrill at the amazingly adorable platelet crew as they get to work each day. Cells at Work is a weird science shounen show with some great character designs and interactions. The way the cells just are working hard and doing their jobs as best they can is great and you want to root for them so hard. Those Killer T and White blood cells and Macrophages just love killing SO much. It's a fun show that teaches you about biology and anatomy in a somewhat rudimentary but enjoyable manner.

Plus I will stress again, the platelet design is beyond cute.

Skullface Book Seller Honda-san

Honda-san is a cute little series you could watch in an afternoon due to its episode count and length, but it's one I could see myself watching multiple times easily. It's a fun window into the window of book store retail and the Japanese publishing industry. The characters have fun designs, mostly normal bodies with some kind of weird mask/helmet on but they're very relatable. Honda-san does his best to help out the customers, even when their requests tear at his very sanity some times. But that's retail huh? It's fun though, go check out this good skeleton!

Bloom Into You

I think this was the show that intrigued me the most this year because I was just hooked on the relationship between Yuu and Touko and seeing how it advanced. Yuu is a girl who wants to be able to fall in love like everyone else her age seems to be able to and when she finally meets a girl who she thinks feels similarly...that darn senpai falls in love with her. It's a very relatable tale even if you haven't been in a lot of relationships. Seeing Yuu realize her own feelings slowly grow towards Touko and the issues that come up because of was something that had me wanting to find out more each week. It also was the show that took me the longest to come to my final thoughts on too due to its ending but ultimately, I'm glad I watched it.

Zombieland Saga

Honestly, I'm glad to start and end this list with certifiable bangers. The concept of zombies becoming idols sounds like it could just go so wrong but it doesn't. It's so good and fun and goofy. The characters are all really fun and goofy but still have depth to them, even zombie brained legend Yamada Tae. I love this show and every character in it and if there were Franchouchou concerts done like a Hatsune Miku tour, I'd go so hard. Zombieland Saga is a good and powerful show and it even has a good ending with a sequel hook. Watch these girls and cheer them on, that is an order.

I normally do a "Shows I'll Watch Next Year" section but I realize I never end up doing it so I'm just going to add one of my current ones I know I'll continue watching.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Golden Wind

Come on, you knew this was going to be on here right? I'm curious where this gangster plot line is going and can't wait to continue next year.

So that's my list, I hope you enjoyed it. For a special treat to go into 2019, I leave you with the best moment in anime 2018. Peace!

Ah well I got copyright striked so here’s a mirror

https://streamable.com/87z73

[aleatoryalarmalligator]

Life Story Part 70

I quickly grew accustomed to living at Maria's, and for the most part, even though I had been psychologically enslaved, I managed to grow and develop as a person at Maria's. Perhaps slave is a bit strong. Slave implies physical restraint. There was technically no physical restraint. But that household would have fallen to bits without me, and it was hard to say no considering there was nothing else for me to turn to. Going to either parent's house seemed like a terrible chance to take at the moment. I had a little bit of freedom at Maria's in the off chance that I was not babysitting, which was seldom. Maria had me feeling pure guilt over anything I did wrong. It was funny, because she herself was not a perfect housekeeper, but she made sure that I did a perfect job. I was the one who cooked, did the dishes, scrubbed the floors and toilets, do the laundry, and anything else that needed doing. Any sort of sense of structure or discipline came from me. Maria worked or slept or watched romantic comedies, and if she was home her children acted atrociously, breaking things, attacking one another, making it impossible for anything to go smoothly. And I just tried to ignore them when Maria and her kids were being toxic. It was hard sometimes, but I had to hold back.

This had been the first time in my life that I adhered to a structure. I've often been known to be terribly lazy for one and for two I think generally, excluding specific situations, it's more important for people to keep in touch with their own wants and inner workings than it is to follow some societal clock. But at Maria's, I just sort of fell into it. Perhaps having been out of school for so many years with nothing meaningful to take up my time, I needed that structure. I had few belongings, three shirts, two pairs of pants, and about forty paperbacks that I read through vigorously. I woke up each morning and did a certain range of chores. By around noon I would sit down and play Innocent Life Harvest Moon for three hours and then I would get up and start dinner. The kids were picky, so I essentially had to cook two-four separate dinners for each of them. After dinner I mopped the floors and did the dishes and got the kids ready for bed. Then I would read until I was tired.

Some days the Mormons would come and talk to the kids. They talked to me a bit – but they looked taken aback and hurt when they discovered I didn't really believe in a conceivable knowable benevolent God with a human essence, so they mostly left me alone, hoping I might catch their drift second hand.

Kurt Vonnegut became my new favorite. His ideas were easy for me to grasp, easy for me to relate to and he was/is probably the funniest writer I know of. I feel like I owed Kurt Vonnegut direct thanks for helping me cope with a difficult life with a smile on my face. He taught me how to laugh at my own expense, and to avoid the temptation of taking myself too seriously, and that life is fleeting. His wrote about dark things at this sociological perspective of seeing society for the first time, and finding great humor in it all. And he didn't intentionally write in a way that was difficult to understand like many writers do – which is ultimately why I think he became so popular. This isn't to say that a word-heavy book isn't worthy of getting through, but I often times feel like there are writers who intentionally try to make their novel seem deep by being wordy to make up for hollow characters that represent very little. If Kurt Vonnegut's characters were hollow, they represented something and had a clear – if not bizarre purpose. Everyone in his book lead you to some perfect representative of ideas from life. I feel like writers who try too hard to be obscure and impersonal, and yet wordy, end up failing to convey a real feeling to most of their audience. I feel like it makes for very detached reading and causes people to lose interest. Of course, there are exceptions. Truman Capote's 'In Cold Blood' was a great example of a novel that was pain-stakingly thorough and articulate to every minute detail and at the very same time succeeded in pulling you very deeply in.

I would sometimes make Maria read one  of Kurt Vonnegut's humorous short stories from Welcome to the Monkeyhouse, only to watch her face contort in confusion. She had no idea what she was reading.

I eventually discovered that the apartment units that I was now living in had a computer lab that anyone could use. It was in a very weird side building. I found it extremely satisfying to sneak in late at night and have the empty lab all to myself. I certainly spent a lot of time in the computer labs, which were almost always empty and had an eerie vibe to them at times, the way empty buildings with long government building lights and carpeting can sometimes have. There was a table in the middle, with a stack of Jehovah's Witness Watchtower magazines, which I began collecting for fun. I liked looking at the depictions of heaven on earth, of families of different races all walking among African carnivores affectionately – the men all wearing Hawaiian or polo shirts. I couldn't  help but wonder if the artist or whoever's idea this was harbored a secret wish to snuggle with lions and feel safe – Jesus coming back being the only way for their dream to come true, not that I could blame someone – I wish lions were snugly and safe, but it seemed to be such a common theme in the art that I felt this key element of heaven on earth was centering itself around.

Zack joined a MySpace. I would often times go there to listen to it and to listen to a few of his personal demos on his page. But lately I noticed when I snuck over to his MySpace to spy, he for some reason had decided to grow a beard – a very dirty looking one. And that former twinkle in his eyes that I remembered so well, it wasn't there in the pictures. I couldn't help but notice that he really seemed to be somewhat transformed into someone else – very hillbilly whereas before he had been very Sonic Youth. He quoted Kid Rock, and he made a comment in all caps that pertained to Jesus and Hell – and dare I say it, it made absolutely no sense to me in any way and had I not suspended my judgment for his sake I would have admitted to myself that it was incredibly dumb. Surely the Zack I knew was still there somewhere. I really didn't understand. I was confused, and besides myself. I even wondered if he had somehow made those statements and grew that dirty beard as a joke? But I let it go. Obviously, I knew that there was a lot more to Zack as a person then a few pictures on MySpace and people were allowed to go through stages. Who was I to judge him, looking at my own self? It was shallow and silly for me to expect someone else to not change, someone I never even talked to no less. I guess I had just harbored this fantasy that Zack would be different. He would become more driven intellectually, and by his poetry and a certain ere of individualism more like me I guess. I had hoped he wouldn't culturally conform to the hillbilly culture of the town we both grew up in. I was becoming more comfortable with a more lucid understanding of gender as well. Of course, this isn't to say that I wanted to see Zack embrace being highly effeminate, which he wasn't. But there is a sort of complexity and openness that I always hope men will do more to embrace, but often times won't because they are afraid they would be seen as feminine. I had become more accustomed to the idea of men being vulnerable and complex, but perhaps it was due to the sort of music I liked, like Bright Eyes. I was hoping Zack, more than anything would be swayed by my thinking about him, and as crazy as it sounds, I would search his page to see some minute indication that he cared about me till, or that I had left some kind of mark of my existence etched into his soul in some way that could be seen. But there never was much.

One day in the computer lab, this young guy about my age came in and sat down two computers away, which instantly made me absurdly nervous. He instantly struck up a conversation with me in this incredibly cordial upbeat manner. He didn't seem to judge me at all, or see me a someone who shouldn't be talked to which I found strange. He was very nice, and I wasn't used to that obviously. So as soon as he started speaking to me, I started having extreme inner conflict. He immediately asked me if I liked music, and I reluctantly told him I did. I felt like there had to be some sort of joke revolving around him talking to me. He wanted to tell me about how much he had come to love Van Morrison, which at the time I didn't know too much about. He started telling me that he had a band and they were continuously getting warnings from the landlord for practicing and they were just in the next building over. He told me about how much he loved The Stooges, as well as a bunch of other older bands. Obviously I loved The Stooges as well, but I was afraid to tell him so for some reason. In self defense I guess, I painted him in my mind that he was a creep, and I wanted to mock him for his interests and ambitions and his appearance, which there was nothing wrong with. Mind you, I didn't actually utter anything mean to him or about him to anyone else. It was just this wave of anxious frustration that suddenly came upon me. Eventually I sort of shut down emotionally and the conversation died. I think he printed out some sheets of tablature and left.

Later that night, I heard his band playing a few units down in the distance, or at least I am fairly certain it was his band. It had that eerie far away vibe to it. They were actually extremely good. I would have listened to them if I had a cd. They sounded a bit like The Kinks, had elements of The Stooges and elements of The Velvet Underground. It was late at night when I heard them play, and listening to them play reminded me that I had once had goals not unlike him. I felt this strange longing to go where the music was coming from, and this sadness and knowing that something very cool was happening, and I was on the other side of that thing. Perhaps what I resented about this nice young stranger was that he was ambitious and vulnerable and passionate about what he loved, and I had become everything opposite to that. It's hard to look back and blame myself at all, I mean, look where I was? But I had let my ambitions die because I was too afraid to take steps, both due to an underlying extremely low sense of self worth, an innate shyness and fear of being misunderstood, which would have been inevitable for me obviously – but it would have been failure that I would have had to push myself through anyway to succeed, and the underlying knowing that even if I did try to do something cool or stand out, my family would knock me down to size immediately. Besides, my function was mostly to babysit. I couldn't even think about doing things that I had no money for. And in order to just get by I had to turn myself to stone. If I let myself feel things now, I was afraid it would have sent me over the edge.

If I was then who I am now, I would have carried out the conversation to see where it would lead, as awkwardly as it made me feel or however long I stumbled in my words. I would have befriended this person, at least initially until I found a good reason to not be friends. It would have been fun if nothing else, an adventure of sorts, and possibly I could have made long lasting new friends that way. This person with very similar interests in me who seemed caring enough to want to make a connection with me, a complete and total stranger had just walked up to me and talked to me, and it felt to some degree that I may have disregarded an opportunity that the universe had somehow provided. But I just wasn't capable of speaking up or feeling comfortable enough in my own skin then. And it all happened too quick for me to reach that conclusion in that moment had I been able to process it. I really questioned myself for the next few months about how and why I became so mean in my thoughts when he had been so friendly towards me. It struck me that perhaps I had been so saturated in the casually judgmental and discourteous chaotic environment of my own family for several years by then, that it was beginning to seep through my castle walls a bit and I was beginning to embody that ugliness even as I did everything I could to see myself as an orphan excluded from the influence of my family and upbringing. The thought of that was quite disturbing to me.

Maria's house could pick up about four channels. I would sometimes watch them just for the sake of it, or listen to the television from the other room when I was doing the dishes. I remember hearing this very clear and charismatic voice one evening coming from the television in the other room. It was Barack Obama, campaigning for presidency. I didn't know that this was necessarily political. For the few years I had been out of school, my thoughts had been more about self preservation and self analysis, and fantasy. I did feel a very strong sense that I liked this guy coming from a place of having zero political agenda or knowledge. I had no idea who he was or even what he looked like. He didn't talk with the same rhetoric and empty sanitized voice that you might typically hear from one of the Bush's.

I would sometimes try to write to Sarah about bigger things beyond our life, mostly my ideas about how I thought the world should run. Sarah had taken a job as a cook in a very busy and very rudimentary kitchen in a restaurant called The Red Rooster. They didn't have a professional flattop of anything like that. They had the same kind of kitchen stove you would use in a household and some of the burners were broken. Which, if you have ever worked in a kitchen you will know is akin to abuse towards your workers in the restaurant industry. She would have to fill forty orders herself, and she worked six days out of the week. It was interesting to hear how hard Sarah was getting beaten up by her job, mostly because Sarah had never been a fast-paced person, she hadn't enjoyed holding positions of responsibility either in her personal life or professional. She didn't enjoy any kind of pain or sacrifice. And she had essentially been thrust into a work environment that was hell on earth for her, and it was changing her a lot, much like the military changes people. Certain weaknesses and avoidant attributes in Sarah were being chiseled away. She was becoming far more leaderly than I could have imagined, and far more bold. She didn't have as much time to write or to question why she was working, or what her living in Texas had even been for. She was just working or sleeping, and was constantly overheated and sweaty. I would try to write her my ideas about class warfare and the type of slavery that we both lived in and suppressed technology and any other ideas I had, many of them being a somewhat well meaning and idealistic, albeit confused version and mixture of socialism and libertarianism. Sarah didn't really want to think about this stuff though. She was so caught up in working and not emotionally letting herself think about why she was doing anything anymore that me trying to put things into some sociological perspective was not well received.

Allison came to visit me for much of the time that I stayed in Moscow. Allison had sort of woken up into a stage of early adulthood where we could suddenly relate with one another again. She and I became even better friends that summer. I felt less and less like her older sister and more like her good friend, though we were clearly still very much sisters. Being as we came from the same place and had the same genetics, it was actually very easy for us to relate to one another. Allison was very much fresh air to me. She was generally enthusiastic, very optimistic and excited about studying the interrelatedness between people and their dramatic encounters. Allison's favorite things were InuYasha and Naruto, and she had started creating her own manga story, much like I had at her age. We spent a long time talking about anime characters and with my knowledge of character building in books and movies, I was able to give her insight on how to create a more original story for her characters who I helped her develop into having more depth, while still giving her room to put her own spin on her own inner universe. When she came to visit, her and Jasmine would go into the computer lab and watch InuYasha until the sun rose again. I never watched it with them, but I became very accustomed to the dubbed American voices crying out during battle scenes for some sliver of a jewel shard or demon related thing, and I can still hear the faint cries of 'KIKIO! When I think about it.

What I couldn't quite grasp was why she loved Twilight so much. It was trying to be supportive, but it seemed like every young girl or woman and their mother had read these books, which seemed even on the surface, totally banal. Allison would talk on and on about the characters from this book series and their relations with one another. I tried asking questions about aspects that didn't add up to me. For one, the main character seemed to have no defining personality characteristics. Bella just seemed really vacant. I didn't really get it. I had the same criticism of the series that a million and a half other people had so a great deal of my ideas about Twilight aren't exactly original content. And honestly, I didn't like Harry Potter either, and many people adored the Harry Potter series so I took into account that I might have been too harsh in my criticisms. Most of the times, I just shut my brain off while Allison went on and on about Twilight. Allison would talk on and on in support of team Jacob, and I just knew when to insert the right 'mmmhmm's. She didn't seem to think I was ignoring her and I know that the Allison of today would endorse my decision to ignore most of what she talked about repeatedly. I even tried to read the books myself. I got through thirty percent of the first book, but the moment that the vampires all started to play baseball, I just couldn't.

Sometimes Maria would randomly pay me. Once a fifty, another a one hundred and once when she got her taxes back two-hundred dollars. I blew this money to enjoy my time with Allison. I would tread in the summer with Allison up this several mile meandering bike path to Hastings to buy books and hang out there drinking the coffee. It was all day walk to and back and it left me breathless. I sometimes would walk by the old alternative school, not to be a creep exactly but to see myself in a different perspective of being on the outside of that school, where somewhere in that building Mike was tutoring on the finer points of southern gothic fiction, or teaching his students about the rise of the Mongols. On the outside there was me, basically looking and feeling like a street person who was worlds now separated from that other world. People who saw me walking around looked at me like I was a bum. The girls my age always seemed so much prettier than me, so much more well kept. I wondered what I even was sometimes. I didn't feel like I demographically belonged anywhere.

I read Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck, which I really appreciated the complex characters who seemingly seemed simplistic. What I appreciated about that short novel was the fact that high quality drama can and does take place with every walk of life, and at the same time, I was all very funny. The characters were simultaneously simplistic and would sometimes contemplate philosophy in a very real way without realizing. And I thought this was a beautiful notion and holds more truth to it. Complex ideas are not isolated to only the educated and rich. This stuff effects the poor just as much, even more so in some ways. Cinematic operas and romances of a lifetime take place in dingy bars in run down parts of town, in poorhouses, in trailer parks and huts and villages. Hollywood would have you believe that certain feelings and ideas are only explored in middle to upper class society. I read the book to Allison and sometimes just for fun, we would walk around with a jug of diet green tea in a big jug (the Arizona kind with the geisha on the front). And we would pretend that we were drinking the wine they drank all the time in Tortilla Flat. We would occasionally visit all-night gas stations and buy big liters of soda and talk until the sun came up.

I also read Lady Chatterley's lover. What drew me to this book was the front cover of this particular copy they were selling at Hastings that was a bit more expensive but the front cover was like a comic book sort of with the main characters lying in bed and from what I remember, discussing how their forbidden sexual meet ups were very interrelated to class warfare and the bourgeois. It was hilarious as it was intriguing and worth throwing a twenty dollar bill at. The books itself is a bit dry, but overall, when you get into the thick of it, it was actually pretty good. I think books in general are very interesting on how they reflect, narrate and follow the main characters and how they base the books. Sometimes you live deeply inside the narrator's mind. Sometimes you hear their recollections in a shallow way, and sometimes it's like they aren't really attached to their body at all, and they tell you only bits and pieces of what is happening around them and how they are feeling. D.H. Lawrence was likely a misogynistic ass (so many male writers of his time were), but at the same time he reflected on his main female character, Constance, in a way that expressed her as having a certain needs and desires and feelings about herself and the world around her individual from what men perceived her and her role in society. I thought it was very interesting that this book gave Constance some individuality, though in the end she did just switch from one man to the next. As for the things about the books that caused it to be banned. It was mostly softcore porn scenes where they intertwined flowers in one another's pubic hair and other rather innocent gestures that I am sure the people of the time thought was beyond vile.

When Roxanne and Jeremy received their tax money that year, they decided to of course spend it on all the meth and coke and pills and alcohol they could get their hands on, but also go on a camping trip with their drugs on hand. They bought a bunch of camping gear as well, and told Allison and David to come with, that it would be a lot of fun. Not realizing what this was going to look like for them, they went along. The trip would take about three days, and the camp grounds were about ten miles out of town. The offer had been extended to me as well, but I had to babysit. Initially I felt left out a little bit, though later I was incredibly relieved I didn't have to go. This is how the trip went, according to how I remember it. Of course, it's second hand so some of the events and specific details might be slightly off.

This trip soon became a nightmare to everyone minus Roxanne and Jeremy. Roxanne and Jeremy took all the blankets and had their own tent and kept Meliah who was a toddler by now, with them. Everybody else had to share a tent. This meant Roxanne's four kids and Allison and David had to somehow stuff themselves into a tent and sleep in it, which of course nobody fit. There wasn't enough blankets to go around. Jeremy and Roxanne were mostly interested in drinking and doing drugs. Most of the snacks and drinks they did buy went for Roxanne and Jeremy. There were no rules anymore, save what Jeremy had to say. By day one, all of the kids were starving and thirsty, Allison and David being included. Jeremy had Sagen and Roxanne massaging his feet in his hair at all times, and he tried to force Allison to fan him. There was clearly something very sexually inappropriate about the way he made his stepdaughter and tried to force Allison to do this for him.

Allison is a much more forward person than me, and she never did get enough credit for her depth. People have always seen her as chatty and sometimes superficial in her interests and didn't care to see her hardcore leadership potential or her ability to read the situations she was in. David, having no rules began to instantly take to a very Lord of the Flies approach and started acting horrendous, randomly deciding to side with Roxanne and Jeremy. He started calling Allison a slut, a cunt, and a bitch whenever he could. He had this look of stressed confusion on his face. I think attacking Allison was his way of feeling like he was in control. Jeremy and Roxanne were completely out of it drunk for much of the time, and would come back to the tent screaming hysterically at one another in a frightening manner. At one point another camper punched Jeremy in the face. By day two there was no more water for the kids, and Jeremy refused to go into town to buy anymore or share any of the supply that he had. Allison was very headstrong in this situation. She shared what she had with the kids, and demanded that Jeremy do something, but he wouldn't of course. Jeremy started making comments about how he was going to fuck Allison. It was beyond disgusting and had I been there I would have lost it. He said it in front of Roxanne who did nothing, and the kids. Allison called him a disgusting ugly pervert and that she couldn't wait till he went back to prison. Which enraged him and she could tell by the look in his eyes that he wanted to beat her to death. Allison is a very brave person.

David was desperate too, but given the situation he had pretty much lost his mind completely, either because he felt he was free to act out as he wanted, or because he too was starving and thirsty. In any case, the entire camp by the end of day two was totally hostile to Allison, as though she was now the cause of sleeping cold at night, and the shortage of basic food and water. Everyone was mosquito bitten and sunburned. There was no way for my siblings to get a hold of our father. It was far too out in the middle of nowhere for reception to work, and besides nobody had a cellphone anyway. Some neighboring campers who were also sort of lousy human beings, but at least willing to act like human beings, gave Allison and the kids what they could for water. They looked very concerned about the camp and though didn't quite want to ruin their own camping experience by calling the police or at least getting a hold of my father, they did seem to be considering it. It felt like something really bad was going to happen even to people who weren't directly involved.

David started acting out aggressively to Allison. They were by the lake, and when Allison refused to listen to him about something or other, and he decided to attack her. He started screaming in psychotic rage that he was going to murder Allison, and he began to chase her. Visions of Lord of the Flies come to mind so hard. Allison had to run for her life exhausted starved and thirsty. She ran for miles until David didn't chase her anymore, and she was exhausted. She decided she had to get out of there. Jeremy and Roxanne were acting as though they were going to tie her up or something, and David promised to bludgeon Allison to death or drown her. Eventually, she saw their van coming down the road, and she hid behind some bushes. They were screaming her name, and they looked raving mad. When she could, she started heading to the small store again. She had about three dollars, and when she eventually got there she asked to use their phone, but they refused. So she bought something to drink and she siphoned it down in one setting. She sat down, so exhausted she couldn't move anymore.

Jeremy and Roxanne eventually drove up to her, and when she refused to get into the van, they grabbed her by her arms and legs and shoved her back in against her will, David being a key helper. Everyone was telling Allison she was crazy and that she had ran away for nothing and that they had all been very nice to her. Jeremy seemed to still be fuming about how she had called him a gross pervert. He wanted some kind of revenge. But my father was supposed to pick Allison up that very same day, in fact they could have left Allison there to wait for him. They dragged her back to the camp and forced her to stay put. Jeremy acted as though he didn't now want to let Allison go back to our dad, as though he wanted to extract some additional revenge upon her. She started getting the feeling that he wanted to rape her.

In the end though, they delivered Allison and David back to my father at the appointed time and place. Allison was shaking and delusionally frustrated by this time and fatigued, and as soon as she saw my father she ran up to him crying and held onto him like a small child. Roxanne gave some half ass remark about how there had been problems and then drove away. David looked confused and frightened, so much like the boys at the end of Lord of the Flies once they had gotten themselves into that fervor. He made some mental pact with himself that the entire thing had never happened. Allison told my father about all of it. He believed it and though he knew he would never be letting Roxanne take any of his children again, he at the same time was up to his eyeballs stressed about trying to set up the pedicure shop with Trish, who was already losing interest in their relationship and was making notions that he should now just give her the shop.

When I heard about Allison's nightmare camping trip and heard about the extent that everyone had basically gotten to, I decided I never wanted to see Jeremy Frye again. I would never visit. It was too much. I would still talk to Roxanne and her kids, but if Jeremy was present I didn't want to be around. I started thinking it might be best if Roxanne lost her kids. I hated to think that, but given just how horrific things had gone to, I didn't know that there was any way I could see it differently. I wanted Roxanne to get clean and leave Jeremy, but if she wasn't going to do that immediately, I thought it would be for the best if she lost her kids. Jody was a shitty father and not my favorite person, but I didn't really worry about him killing anyone. I began talking to my mom about calling CPS on Roxanne and Jeremy. My mother is not a great person, but somewhere in her chaotic little brain, she had boundaries. She certainly didn't want to see any of her grandchildren violently murdered, or Roxanne for that matter. Roxanne and Jeremy had recently gotten into another low income apartment, and we both agreed to see what happened next.

As for David, I just didn't feel like I could trust him anymore. I felt like there were two David's. One of them I knew and the other I didn't at all. When things were good with David, they were very good. He was considerate, thoughtful careful about being fair, and smiling and happy. And then he wasn't any of those things. He was violent and wanted to really hurt you. He must have been tackling some intense emotional issues. He went farther than I ever went when I had been messed up at his age. But I did see the comparisons between him and I and I had to take it into consideration. Cruel and sadistic human behavior gets a little more confusing when you exclude the notion that someone is a sociopath. But as for day to day living, I no longer trusted David. I believed that he was capable of extreme violence and believing his own lies. I wanted him to get help, but as I have mentioned, neither one of my parents were willing to face what was happening to him to get him the help he needed. This left me in a state where I had to distance myself from him and stop seeing him as someone I could trust. I feared for Allison whenever she was alone with him. You never knew when he might snap. And once at Maria's house, he ended up shoving Allison down and trying to choke her in front of Maria's kids when I happened to not be there one day. When Allison told me stuff like this, I could feel these chills of instant rage go across my skin.

I was very attached to Maria's kids. I could tell that the kids really needed me. And yet, I felt like I had to go. I didn't feel very free and the fact that I was so relied upon was making me feel even more trapped. I tried to talk to Maria about it, but she started screaming and crying when I did that. I asked her to ask the Mormon church if they knew someone who could help. It was difficult, but they found a woman who was willing to stay at Maria's house overnight to watch the kids. She had a license and was trained by the state to babysit, so it would have been relatively cheap for Maria to pay this woman. But Maria said no. The reason that Maria refused this woman's rare and generous position to help Maria and be employed in the process was because this woman was black, and Maria is a racist and she didn't want her children to be 'exposed'. Which soured things for me, and my compassion for Maria's situation went south. Maria was in no position to be choosy, but apparently she would rather lose her home and let her life fall apart than have a black person working in her home with her kids. I fucking hate racism, and a part of me didn't want to see Maria at all after that. If her kids hadn't have been involved, I might have quit then and there.

I tried once again to tell her I was done. I had worked for about four or five months at her place. She refused to acknowledge my resignation however and pretended that it never had occurred, and I felt weird about just leaving the kids. I had brought so much stability to their lives. Ian wasn't getting any better, but I never suspected he really would. I loved little Chantelle. Jasmine and I had always been close. During my summer at Maria's, I had watched just about every episode of Little House on the Prairie, the theme song blasting in my psyche as I write this. JT was kind of an odd little boy, but I liked him well enough and had to be treated a special way as he seemed to be having some developmental issues. But Maria was taking advantage of me, like she does everyone around her. Eventually, my father agreed to tell her for me. I knew she would see my father as a position of authority, and since she didn't respect the authority I had over myself, I had him do it. Maria got the picture then. I told her I would babysit for one more month for her, just to give her some extra time. She'd already had plenty of time, and hadn't had any problems turning someone away already, so I wasn't going to be any easier on her than I had to be. Naturally, she lost her mind on me. She told me I was the reason her dreams never would come true, that I had ruined her life. She then walked to the window, and looked out forlorn, and lamented her future in a way that I coyly noted was contrived and meant to convey some theatrical sadness.

Over that last month, Maria stopped buying me food as punishment for my departure, and I lost twelve pounds. Allison would come to visit, and I would share one small box of riceroni with her a day, which I didn't mind doing because I truly enjoyed her company. I didn't know what life would bring me next. I guess I just felt this sense that none of this stuff could last forever. One evening, after Maria had taken part in this very immature back and forth with Ian in which they all threw shoes at one another (it was embarrassing seeing Maria getting drawn into this childish exchange), Maria told me she didn't want her kids anymore and she was going to find a way to get rid of them. I didn't know if she was to be taken seriously or not. I just listened and said nothing. But it really stuck with me.

Eventually, I got out of Maria's. My father helped me move out of there. Roxanne was gone from the house now, so I figured I could resume my life at my mother's for whatever that was worth. I was told however, that David kind of ran the show now, and if I lived there I would have to steer clear of him. My mother told me that, and so did Allison. It seemed strange to me that a twelve year old boy 'ran the show', and I mostly dismissed it, though I knew it was definitely true. As for steering clear of him, I already did that.

I stayed in Kendrick for a few days at my father's that late summer/early fall. I decided to take an evening stroll downtown for some exercise. Just as I was turning the corner of the sidewalk below my house I bumped into Jason. For those who don't know or remember, Jason had been one of my friends in high school. He had gotten kicked out for drugs and theft. And when I had been a lot younger, Jason had meant a lot to me. I had seen him around off and on since high school, as he occasionally did work for Sarah's mom in her garden area. I also happened to know that he has stolen my father's kayak from his property the year before, which ended up being found down the creak somewhere downstream. Jason had probably stolen it while drunk in an attempt to have some kind of fun boating experience that went terribly no doubt once he got in the boat and found it was not capable of getting through shallow rapids and he just abandoned it and waded out.

I had known Jason had been doing drugs like meth. But from what I had heard, he had been doing a lot better. He was on probation again and his girlfriend helped him stay relatively clean – minus marijuana of course. The moment Jason saw me he came up to me and gave me a warm heartfelt hug. His eyes were gleeful, and he was so genuinely stoked and very glad to see me. It was strange being in the presence of someone who was that happy to see me. He laughed at everything I said, and wanted me to tell him all about what I had been up to. He told me I looked happier than I had in school. This might have been in part because I was now blonde rather than dark haired, but even with all the fatalistic depression I felt, I guess nothing really had compared to the misery of being fourteen in the Kendrick high school, when I had been too young to reflect on what I was feeling and why. I had learned to smile more, perhaps even in self defense against what life threw at me. We talked for about ten minutes before Jason told me he had a bowl of weed he couldn't wait to smoke with his girlfriend, and he went on up the hill.

I never saw Jason again. He blew his brains out four months later. Nobody knew if it was a suicide or not. On one hand, he had been at times morbidly depressed, even in the times I knew him he had acted out and said very suicidal thoughts that he had. Everyone knew he was a risk. And he had just gotten in a fight with his girlfriend. On the other hand, it didn't seem like it was done on purpose entirely. He was in the yard messing with his rifle, drunk, and perhaps it had been loaded and he had not realized it as he made the fatal error of pulling the trigger. Either story seems equally plausible, but considering he was in front of both his girlfriend and Tammy (my father's local ex)'s now ten year old son Troy out in the front yard, it seems to me like it might have been more of an accident.

In any case, after Sarah called me up with the bad news, I cried myself to sleep. Jason had once been a friend that I valued very much. It seemed weird to me that he had died. I didn't end up going to his funeral. His funeral was filled with a lot of locals who had always hated him and whom he had always hated. It seemed really phony and put on because he died when he was twenty-two so everyone felt incensed to see themselves in the story somehow. I didn't want to go to something like that. Instead I took a walk.

PART 69 - https://tinyurl.com/yb7d8van

PART 68 - https://tinyurl.com/y8faedzp

PART 67 - https://tinyurl.com/y9lfdsop

PART 66 - https://tinyurl.com/y87dzx7z

PART 65 - https://tinyurl.com/yb22o6rv

PART 64 - https://tinyurl.com/y98zxljs

PART 63 - https://tinyurl.com/ybosu235

PART 62 - https://tinyurl.com/ybjrvccn

PART 61 - https://tinyurl.com/ybm99k8o

My Life Story in Chapters, PARTS 1-60 (this link below will lead you to a list of all the chapters i have written thus far). 

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/168782771574/life-story-sections-1-60     

[coolmiddlename]

I don't think you ever did your final write up on season 8 Kitty, you gonna get back to that?

aww man, i didnt finish it because i think ive done a pretty great job expressing my thoughts on season 8. it was freaking amazing? but im gonna write up some of what i planned for that post here.

favourite episodes:

two swords is good because it introduces us to the more violent fern and shows finn being a doctor for shits and giggles (foreshadowing?). i get good feelings from this ep. and these days, also sad ones.

high strangeness - tree trunks is pretty entertaining by herself but this episode had a glorious combination of comedy, quiet pain, and…. strangeness. seeing tree trunks be ooo’s greatest activist was nothing short of a golden meme factory. and it was a lttle sad seeing pb explain what it was all about, perhaps even questioning her own sanity here… as for the candy attacking the aliens, if you remember all of pen ward’s previous work, you sure do get a Little Pink Best Buds vibe.

jelly beans have power - yknow when they ended pb’s arc w the whole Being A Pragmatic Coldass back in the Cooler, i wondered if she was going to stay interesting or get boring. well, lets just say the AT crew have exceeded my expectations. not to mention season 8 SURE BRINGS UP A LOT OF COMPETITION in the whole “morally questionable science lady” area. after the whole King of Ooo stuff the princess has been trying to rebuild her relationship with her citizens, and to see her hot-headedness make it crumble apart… well it must have been like looking into your soul and seeing something dreadful.

All of Islands - yes this is cheating. do i give a fuck? no. uhhhh what were my fave eps? hide and seek was the part where i went “this is the best adventure time has ever been”. martin and minnie was not only realistic, making minnie my favourite side character to ever get that little screentime, it also hit all the right emotional notes as well as having a dash of humor. the light cloud kinda highlighted the differences between the humans and the oooish people, it made us all appreciate the wacky land of ooo I feel. finn could have had his life as a human and lived with his parents, but he would have possibly died during the plague, and he’d have never had all the amazing adventures that made him who he is. anyway finn’s kinda my second or third favourite character now which is a significant jump from a few years ago. 

all of elements because i just dont care. highlights: skyhooks was deeply ominous and had marshmalline humming greensleaves which is pretty gay, bespoken for looked like it was gonna be shitposty but ended up making betty of all people a compelling, sympathetic, and unpredictable character… the third one had the ice kingdom which i think is my second-favourite location… cloudy i didnt like on my first rewatch but on our rewatch i learnt to appreciate it for the heart-to-heart bro chat that it was… slime central had funky skating (slime kingdom ftw) and the BEST humor in the miniseries alongside jake fucking dying, happy warrior is my least favourite of the eps but thats because it was setup for the much more magnificient hero heart which is my favourite… the reason for that is because it’s worth the most analysis and has the heaviest atmosphere. from lsp eating marceline’s face to finn holding back his fear to pb going fucking nuts and all those chilling candy zombies, this was the climax of the miniseries for sure. skyhooks II was a cooldown after the climax and a sort of resolution. it could have been better but the way i think of it, we haven’t seen all the resolution yet. highlights? lsp being the hero (lol) and pb and marcy’s kingdom-takeover song. pb’s actions in elements make me think that the power made her exemplify all her negative, controlling traits. she tried to take over the other kingdoms to make people “happy” and they ended up losing all their individuality. remind you of The Thin Yellow Line? the same sorta goes for FP but not really cos FP’s only negative trait is her awful temper.

abstract because i fucking love jake. i know some people found this ep disappointing but i did not.

ketchup for best filler ep because it looked GORGEOUS, it made me SMILE, it had backstory and the tale of what Marceline did in Elements presented in such a charming way, we even saw BMO spin a tale about her mom…  I’m heartbroken that we probably wont be seeing any more guest animated episodes because this is my favourite one yet. 

whispers. I TOO AM DOOM. *thunk thak thunk thank splat*

three buckets is the best episode in the best season of adventure time, and i think it beats out The Lich as my favourite season finale. it’s sad, it’s dark, it’s sweet, it’s hilarious, it’s ominous, theres nothing to dislike about it. my favourite part was the last few minutes starting from when fern left finn alone in the cave. he freaks out for a while which makes us wonder if he might actually die in here, then the robot arm in a surprising twist turns out to have a pb-siri that thanks finn for what hes done which is cute. and finn discovers his salvation in the rock drill and fucking weed whacker. then he fights his clone  fern now COMPLETELY off the deep end, and just when finn is giving up,  well…

“What are you doing?”

“Weed whacking!”

“…What are you?”

“A weed whacker :D”

“It doesn’t have to have this… finnality!”

“F A T A L I T Y”

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

i think the end of this ep is more defined by what isn;t said than what is said. finn is so shocked that he can’t even talk. bmo gives us one final bout of dark humor. then we switch to…. Fern……. finally free of his shell but a mere ghost of what he was…. his look of pure rage as he gets picked up by who we believe could be a scholar of Golb…. uncle fucking gumbald. 

What a DEVASTATING finale,  and what a fantastic setup for the final arc of Adventure Time!

a comment i had to make about the last few eps is: it’s suspicious that we didnt get a followup for PB after Elements. but even though Peebles wasn’t in these eps, she didn’t feel absent either. especially with Marceline’s story in Ketchup, Fern’s remembering what he did in Whispers, and literally everything in the last 3 minutes of Three Buckets, i feel that there’s something big building up for her. we’ve yet to see the consequences Elements had on PB who was out of everyonne the most dangerous elemental, the one who took her powers to the furthest extreme. considering what happened in Jelly Beans Have Power, iiiii expect this followup to be soon. maybe it’ll be big? maybe it’ll be quiet. either way i look forward. and if i’m disappointed? well it’s happened before.

altogether season 8 is my favourite in the show for obvious reasons. i dont think season 9 has the possibility of topping it but i really cant wait to see what we get next either way, just in case it manages to be even better.  

no matter how adventure time ends, though, i think it’s going to hold a place in my heart for a long time.

[yeysal]

I Wrote A Thing

Still writing! I’m still taking my time and trying to make these stories as best as I can. They are very important to me. Currently, I’m up to speed with The Maze rewrite and should be posting the next chapter (relatively) soon. 

Below the cut is a short part of what happens after the events set in The Maze.

Just a reminder that the rewrite of The Maze veers off on an entirely different set of events. 

I hope you enjoy this! No warnings needed!

Thank you for reading. Feedback is much appreciated!

Thursday, May 30, 2016 - Gravity Falls, Oregon

Dipper stretched his legs out, the movement causing his hips to slide further down in the folding chair. The position was hardly comfortable but he couldn’t bring himself to move. After all, a body not in motion stays in...not in motion. As he stared at the ceiling of the long-abandoned spaceship, he wondered if the aliens who occupied it ever needed to change the lightbulbs.

Did they even need them? Dipper made a mental note to check for any supply closets once he was finished extracting the alien adhesive from the stones and metal plates. The substance was slower than molasses and Dipper had already been here for two hours waiting for one plate to drain completely.

He had ten plates waiting behind it.

“Ugh.” Dipper was bored out of his fucking mind.

His sigh echoed off the walls and he counted the seconds it took for it to fade away. “Cipher.” The echo of his voice nearly startled him.

No response. Dipper groaned, “Cipher.”

Dipper felt a small prod in the back of his head but no response. He rolled his eyes, “I know you’re there.”

Still nothing. Feeling defeated and slightly annoyed, Dipper rubbed the back of his neck and stood up and decided to check on the plate. Unfortunately, it still had about four inches of adhesive left and Dipper calculated that it would probably take another three hours for it to completely drip off. With a heavy sigh, he turned back to his tent and thought he would work on his journal.

Ever since he had agreed to assist Cipher four years ago, he had been detailing his findings in his own journal. While he always believed in the supernatural, Dipper’s discoveries were beyond what he ever imagined. He couldn’t decide if the conspiracies were better before or after they were proved or busted.

Some were better found than others and Dipper wondered if digging was even worth the scars. He thought if he could go back to the start, the day he decided to summon that stupid maze, and determine whether he would do it all over again knowing where he’d end up, he wasn’t sure what he’d do.

Mentally, Dipper had never been better. He wasn’t weighted by his old insecurities and, truthfully, his confidence blossomed exponentially. Obviously those results were keepers. He still cared deeply for his family, especially Mabel, and he didn’t let his ambition cloud his judgment when it came to family time. Still, he wouldn’t let himself be tied down.

The maze, as stressful and pain-inducing as it was, freed him from his ghosts.

On the flip side, it was the company that came with the finish line that he resented. Having Cipher as his mind-companion was as annoying as expected when it was pitched in its infancy. Dipper wasn’t sure if that made it more bearable. Cipher was essentially a sadistic talking encyclopedia in his head at all times. Dipper learned more about insignificant things like the fact that there are more ants on the Earth than humans; yet, was frustratingly mum on other ground-breaking discoveries that Dipper would rather learn about.

It also didn’t help that Cipher was no teacher by any means. Dipper learned quickly that any task set by Cipher was always going to be a trial by fire. Dipper was thankful to be alive despite suspecting that Cipher most likely intervened in each near death experience so that he wouldn’t have to wait around for another puppet to potentially complete the maze.

Overall, it was a “decent” relationship. They didn’t talk much, which came as a surprise to Dipper. When Cipher wasn’t nudging him in a certain direction he was usually making Dipper’s life a living hell. It was like having a silent roommate that only activated their annoying behavior during a full moon and Dipper wished that Cipher was that predictable.

Dipper hummed out a few beats of a pop song stuck in his head as he fanned through the pages of his journal. His frowned deepened when he had nothing to add and nothing to edit. He grabbed his laptop, checking on his electronic journal for anything to update and drummed his fingers on his knees impatiently as he waited for it to boot up. He groaned when he saw that he had already updated the journal only a few hours ago.

Determined to keep his mind occupied, Dipper found himself making an outline for his next article to submit to Paranormal Investigations, a website that Dipper submitted some of his more low-grade discoveries. The pay was decent and he quickly became one of the website’s most respected contributors. Currently, he was in a contract with them to produce an article every two weeks and he was, of course, up to date. He had submitted his last article a few days ago, having it approved almost immediately.

Dipper outlined the subject and within two hours, his next article was fully drafted. At this rate, he would have his articles lined up without having to do that much work each week.

Dipper sighed and figured he’d try prodding Cipher again. It felt odd to wear the other shoe for once. “Cipher.”

Silence.

Dipper pursed his lips and he smiled as an idea sprouted like a weed in the grass. He grabbed his phone and opened his music app, selecting one of Mabel’s playlists. He scrolled until he found that synthetic song with the relaxing undertones and selected it. The slow tune faded in slowly and increased an volume the longer it went. A nice, fifteen-minute instrumental.

Dipper set his phone down in his cleaned out soup bowl which amplified the sound and the tent livened up with music. While it wasn’t Dipper’s favorite song, he was willing to take the heat in order to get the prize. The prodding in the back of his head intensified and Dipper grinned. Hook, line, and sinker.

You are incredibly irritating today. It was odd to hear Cipher sound so fed up.

Pleased, Dipper grabbed the phone and lowered the volume, “Nice to know you’re alive.”

Oh please. You’d throw a party in the event of my demise.

Dipper hummed, “Can’t deny that.”

Your disappointment helps me sleep at night.

Dipper scoffed, “You need sleep?”

No.

“Okay, look,” Dipper said sternly, “You told me that I can’t leave the ship unless it’s an emergency and this is a little boring.”

Silence.

Dipper groaned and urged again, “There’s nothing to do here…”

More silence.

“I’m tempted to leave the ship to spite you…” He hoped the implication would spark a conversation.

He was met with more silence.

Angry, Dipper increased the volume of the music and then crawled out of the tent, storming over to the now adhesive-free plate, carefully picking up a new one and fixing it to the suspender so that it allowed the glowing pink substance to drain into the large jar.

Looks like you have plenty to do.

“Ugh!” Dipper threw the cleaned plate across the room and the metallic clank echoed loudly, “Will you just humor me for five seconds!” he yelled over the sound of the music, “I’ve been down here all day under the pretense that I’ve been ‘camping’ for the sake of your little experiment, which, by the way, you’ve told me nothing about!”

You’re on a ‘need-to-know’ basis.

“So if you’re not going to tell me why I’m collecting this weird alien goo, can you at least tell me a little bit about the aliens who crash landed here?!”

Why?

“Well, maybe I want to know if they crashed here on purpose or on accident,” he listed off, “I want to know if whatever’s going on in Gravity Falls caused it to crash here or if they came here because they were just touring the galaxy, or, I don’t know, just maybe, I want to know because it’s an alien ship that’s been sitting here, unnoticed, for the last ten thousand years!”

Dipper knew his face was red. He was taking deep breaths and his heart was racing. He didn’t realize how loud he was until he heard the silence that followed his rant. Meanwhile, the flowery and upbeat syntho vibes echoed beyond the tent. It was actually starting to piss Dipper off.

Hm. Cipher sounded like he was smiling. You’re not ready.

“Oh my god…” Dipper pinched the bridge of his nose, “I completed your maze, I fought and subdued a shapeshifter living in the town, I wrangled an army of gnomes by myself after you instigated them; how could I not be ready for this?”

There’s this subtle desperation in your voice.

Dipper blinked, expecting for Cipher to continue. When he didn’t, Dipper grumbled, “And…?”

It’s funny.

Defeated, Dipper scrunched his eyes shut and sank down to the floor, covering his mouth as he listened to the adhesive drip slowly into the jar. It would be getting full soon. Dipper reached for an empty jar and quickly switched it out.

Cipher wasn’t going to entertain him with anything. Not even answers. He couldn’t even get the music to work at this point. Silently admitting defeat, he stood up and walked back over to his tent, crawling inside, turning that damned music off, and curling up on his sleeping bag. He dimmed the lantern a bit and closed his eyes, hoping sleep would come soon.

The last few days were finally catching up to him and he felt the lull of slumber relaxing all of the tension in his muscles. The room was just the right temperature, the lighting was perfect, and Dipper knew that he would probably get the best sleep of his life if he fell asleep right now. Everything was quiet until...

If you’re not too busy…

Dipper groaned, “Are you kidding me?”

You looked so relaxed, I had to fix it.

“Dammit, Cipher…”

In all seriousness, you can actually be asleep for this.

Dipper groaned and buried his face in his pillow. He was tempted to ignore it but his curiosity outweighed his concern, “What is it..?”

We’ve been friends for a while-

“I don’t know if I’d use the term ‘friends.’”

Rude. Sounds like your problem. Anyway, there is one thing that you might be ready for.

Dipper bristled, “Okay?”

You know about the millions of dimensions, thousands where you and I exist, hundreds where we interact, and the very few in which those interactions are actually positive.

“This one not being one of them, I imagine,” Dipper mused as he shifted onto his back and stared at the folds in his tent. “You’re talking about your-”

Yes. The reincarnations of the energy that was taken from me. You know that when those die, they’re returned to me and I absorb that energy, soaking in everything it lived. You want to learn something fun, right? I’m going to show you one of those lives while you sleep.

Dipper didn’t like the insinuation behind Cipher’s words but he was curious, “Like a dream?”

In a way. It’ll take a good thirteen hours for that adhesive to fully finish draining. That’s plenty of time for you to take in at least half of that life.

Dipper gaped, “I’m going to be asleep for thirteen hours?!”

You haven’t slept the past fifty-two hours. You should be thanking me.

“Oh…” Dipper was anxious about seeing whatever Cipher was going to show him. It didn’t feel right. “This isn’t going to be like, mentally traumatizing, or whatever?”

Cipher actually laughed in response. Pine Tree, you are a riot. Time to hit the hay.

The next thing Dipper felt was the heavy weight of sleep.

[letterboxd]

Play Fright.

“It’s fun-scary, as opposed to you feeling scared because it's disgusting or something.”

We talk to Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark and Troll Hunter director André Øvredal about working with Guillermo del Toro, finding the line with tween-friendly horror, and the good-and-bad of anthology films. (And, yes, we threw in a few Troll Hunter questions.)

Produced by Oscar-winner Guillermo del Toro, who also has a Screen Story credit on the film, Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark is a new PG-13 horror adapted from the three-book series of the same name first published between 1981 and 1991.

Prefiguring the likes of Goosebumps and its many imitators, the original Scary Stories books, written by Alvin Schwartz and illustrated by Stephen Gammell, presented short horror tales aimed at a young-adult readership. Many of the stories were inspired by (or perhaps the source of) widely known urban myths.

Despite the stated target audience, the stories—with assistance from some deeply disturbing illustrations (see below)—struck a nerve and traumatized readers of all ages. They were controversial to the point where there was, briefly, a minor movement to have the books removed from schools.

A movie adaptation would seemingly point to a classic horror anthology film, but del Toro and his collaborators have instead constructed a singular narrative around a group of young teenagers in 1968.

After learning the tragic story of a girl who was murdered in their sleepy little town many years earlier, Stella (Zoe Margaret Colletti) and her friends start encountering supernatural events that allow for various Scary Stories to come to life on screen.

The film’s director is Norwegian filmmaker André Øvredal, the man behind 2016’s The Autopsy of Jane Doe, and the inventive 2011 found-footage fantasy epic (and Letterboxd community favorite) Troll Hunter.

Guillermo del Toro, star Zoe Margaret Colletti, and director André Øvredal on the set of ‘Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark’.

What was your relationship to Guillermo del Toro before you worked together on this film? André Øvredal: I was a big fan of his from when I went to film school, because I used to live with a Mexican friend and he showed me Cronos when it came out. I was floored by the beauty of that film. Mimic terrified me, I loved it. Even though I know there is a tough history behind that film and the cut that came out, I still found it terrifying. And then Blade II was just one of those amazing sequels that stood out beyond the original.

That didn’t really happen very often back in those days, that the sequel was better than the original. And on and on with Pan’s Labyrinth and one great movie after another, culminating with The Shape of Water. But our relationship started on Twitter; he tweeted about The Autopsy of Jane Doe, that he enjoyed it. And we had a Twitter exchange about that.

Had he seen Troll Hunter? It seems like it would be right up his alley. Yeah he had, and he liked it. Obviously I’m sure he’s paid attention to other people’s love for monsters and creatures.

Illustrated by Stephen Gammell, ‘The Pale Lady’—from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark story ‘The Dream’—is a favorite of both Øvredal and del Toro.

So how did you end up getting this job? He was supposed to direct Scary Stories himself. It was supposed to be his next movie after The Shape of Water, and then he decided not to make it his next movie and they decided, well, let’s find another director. He proposed me to the other producers on the film, Sean Daniel and J. Miles Dale, and they all agreed that I would be a good fit.

They offered me the script to read and of course I fell in love with it immediately. It’s the kind of movie I grew up loving, like an Amblin-esque movie, but the idea being to do it with a horror sensibility and make it really scary. I thought it would be a great movie for me to be able to make. And speaking of the PG-13 audience, it was what I grew up with as well. When I was a kid in my teens, those were the movies I got to see. So I felt very close to this movie through the whole process.

There is indeed a nice Amblin vibe informing this movie. How would you describe that vibe, if you had to put it into words? There is a sense of humor. It’s out to entertain more than it’s out to hurt you as a horror movie. It’s not an existential horror. It’s not out to grind you down. It’s out to use horror as fun; there’s a playfulness. It’s oftentimes several characters, a group of friends, that these movies are about. It has a high energy and it can go from intense, suspenseful, or in this case very scary and horrible, to playful banter between friends. I think that broad range creates a feeling of real life.

All the characters in those movies back then were very grounded; even though they were fun and had a lot of energy, they also had real issues in life, they also came from a background where there were serious things they were dealing with. I found that very interesting, especially about the character of Stella, who has a lot of things in her life that are profoundly affecting her. And how that also relates to the life of the antagonist, Sarah Bellows. And in some ways how it feeds into today. I think the social commentary thing is clear in Amblin films as well.

How challenging was it to make this good ’n scary without it ever spilling over into being too ‘adult’? It’s about playing with the audience. The audience should know that they should enjoy being… tormented, if you will. So it’s kind of trying to communicate both ways. So I’m like, setting something up, I’m always thinking of the audience, shot-by-shot-by-shot. How does the audience feel? If we put the camera here, what will the audience feel then? If we put it up here, how will the audience react then? And if we cut from there to there? It’s all about communication. I’m trying to imagine how it’s going to make the audience feel, so it’s about back and forth. I think that creates a playful tone. It’s fun-scary, as opposed to you feeling scared because it’s disgusting or something.

What do you think this film gained from tying together the various short stories into a single narrative, as opposed to having them play out in the traditional anthology format? Guillermo has said something that is kinda true about anthology films, which is that they’re never as good as the best [story], and they’re always as bad as the worst [story]. So you always have one story that isn’t great, and it kind of deflates the whole experience. In a way, [a traditional anthology movie] isn’t a whole experience because you never get to engage in characters for a long time and feel all their dilemmas, because as soon as you’re out of [each story], you’re on the next one. And that can work, but I’m not attracted to that as a storytelling form, it’s just a personal thing. Many other people are, and thank god for that, because then we get a diverse set of movies.

I love a full narrative. When I received the script for Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, I thought it was an anthology, so when I opened it, I was so happy when it wasn’t, because by page ten I was in love with the characters and then I saw that I was going to follow them all the way.

An image from André Øvredal’s ‘Troll Hunter’.

We’re massive fans of Troll Hunter at Letterboxd. That’s fantastic, that’s great. It’s a great site. I go there a lot to see people talking about the movies.

What kind of life has that film had since it was released? Everyone who sees it loves it, but it deserved a much bigger audience. Was a remake or sequel ever considered? There was talk of a remake. Chris Columbus [writer of Gremlins and The Goonies, and director of Home Alone and the first two Harry Potter films], and a company called CJ Entertainment, bought the rights for it years ago. So I was in awe—one of the heroes of my youth, Chris Columbus. So I was sorry to see that that never came through. We talked about a sequel of course, but I feel like I told the story of this world, and anything else would just be more trolls. The way you used scale in that film was amazing. No blockbusters made since have come close to how effectively you conveyed the gargantuan size of the creatures. That’s great to hear. I don’t know how other people shoot movies but it was shot so much in reality. I mean, we CGI-ed in the creatures, but everything else was so grounded and real with a hand-held camera. We were just running around in the wilderness shooting it for real. So we naturally had to position it, physically, in some natural way, a very simple natural way, and maybe that helped.

‘Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark’ is in US theaters now, and rolling out globally over the next few months. Comments have been edited for clarity.