#m. juneau

[prcspero]

@alessiathepath ; @alrikhart ; @vuldak-juneau ; @zagreusx ; @zelihatheflight ; @froyofthe-ironwood

[mydaddywiki]

Tommy Thompson

Physique: Average Build Height: 5′ 8″ (1.73 m)

Tommy George Thompson (born November 19, 1941) is an American Republican politician from Juneau County, Wisconsin. He served as the 19th United States secretary of Health and Human Services from 2001 to 2005 in the cabinet of President George W. Bush. Before that, he was the 42nd governor of Wisconsin (1987–2001) and Republican floor leader in the Wisconsin State Assembly (1981–1987). He is the longest-serving governor in Wisconsin history, holding office from January 1987 until February 2001, and is the only person to be elected to the office four times.

Whilst he didn't quite do it for me when he was at the height of his fame. Not that I didn't find him attractive, because I did. Its just that there were a lot politicians back then that was ahead of him. But I could tell that he was going to still be very fuckable when he got older. He dresses nice, has great hair(now gray) and one of the nicest set of lips I have ever seen. Man, I'd love to do things to him that would make him blush.

Born in Elroy, WI, Thompson graduated from the local high school in 1959. In 1963 he received a bachelors degree in political science from the University of Wisconsin. He entered the law school at Wisconsin that same year, completing his J.D. degree in 1966. He plunged into politics in the summer after he finished law school, first elected to public office in 1966 when, at the age of 24, he won election to the State Assembly.

Of course he's married, to Sue Ann Mashak in 1968, and together three children and five grandchildren. Thompson has dedicated his life and career to public service, but now is more or less a farmer working on his family farm in Elroy. So since he's a farmer now, he wouldn't mind taking me around the farm. If you know what I mean.

[runwayrunway]

No. 52 - Alaska Airlines Xáat Kwáani and Salmon-Thirty-Salmon Liveries

Did you think I was done with Alaska Airlines?

No, this is actually my last post about them for now (though, mark my words, you will be seeing a post about the Gold Nugget Jet in the not-too-distant future - I just feel like we need a break from nothing but consecutive posts about the same airline, and I have other things I want to cover). But it's something that's both requested and which I've wanted to talk about for some time.

In my last post I discussed the identity of the man on the Alaska Airlines tailfin. It wasn't a major part of the story, only taking up a small piece, but I did touch on how ChatGPT apparently will lie when asked about the background of the livery. Not only does it falsely attribute the livery to Fred Kabotie, who I'm sure had more important things to do, but it also falsely claims Fred Kabotie, who was Hopi, to be Tlingit. As it turns out, though, Alaska Airlines does have a livery designed by a Tlingit artist.

image: Brandon Farris

Crystal Kaakeeyáa Rose Demientieff Worl is a Tlingit artist known for large public artwork which heavily incorporates indigenous artistic traditions and visual motifs across many mediums. Some of her previous work includes large-scale murals in Alaska and throughout the world and guardrail panels at Juneau International Airport. She feels like the most natural choice possible to design an airliner livery, given the scale and diverse canvases she works with, and in May of this year the airplane you can see looming behind her was unveiled in a brand new livery that I, and a lot of other people, immediately fell in love with.

It's safe to say that this is one of the most ambitious and unique special liveries out there. Xáat Kwáani (which means 'salmon people' in Tlingit) is a beautiful and one-of-a-kind take on the often-noticed resemblance airplanes have to fish.

Salmon fishing is huge in Alaska, both now and historically. Today fishing is a major part of the Alaskan economy and something many people making a living off, but historically they were even more directly responsible for making the difference between life and death for those who lived beside them. A major source of food, they were literally life-bringing to indigenous societies, necessary to survival. Humans and salmon were part of the same ecosystem.

Independent of this fact, airplanes seem to lend themselves to comparisons to sea creatures. They may be called 'birds', but time and time again other people confirm that I'm not just imagining it, they do distinctly look like cetaceans and fish. Very early on in this blog the fact that 747s look like Humphead Wrasse was discussed. Amakusa Airlines, Japan Transocean Air, and Southwest Airlines have all leaned into this fish resemblance, and I'm sure over time my sea creature plane tag will continue to grow. This genre of livery will never cease to delight me.

I think it's fairly predictable that I always loved N559AS, the brilliantly named salmon-thirty-salmon plane. I was devastated when I learned that the livery was going to be removed. I mean...just look at her.

The salmon-thirty-salmon was a very unconventional take on the fish-plane, using a much more realistic drawing than any other attempt. It doesn't even try to transform the plane itself into the fish, which I think is potentially a smart way of accepting the limits of doing so. Instead, it fully displays the honestly hilarious and adorable face that salmon have while providing a nice canvas, a bit of water for the salmon to be carried on. At the same time it incorporates thoughtful details like the scales on the interior winglets, and the way the salmon's body is aligned with the empennage and nose feels very precisely done. It can create a somewhat uncanny doubling effect from a few angles, but by no means is it enough to rob the livery of its charm or elegance.

The salmon-thirty-salmon gets an A.

I've lived near the ocean my whole life. I love fish. I loved this plane. I was heartbroken when I learned the livery was going to serve its final milk run before rolling into the hangar for the very last time, coming out repainted and lost forever. It's always a bitter pill to swallow when airlines retire special liveries, particularly when it involves the plane being repainted into the standard colors. A lot of other people were sad to see this design go too.

What we didn't know was that this was not the end of the salmon-thirty-salmon. She was not lost, but transformed. When she emerged from the hangar again she was not wearing Alaska Airlines' default colors but something even more eye-catching, a livery honoring the same fish but with extra layers of meaning added by means of an intricate and beautiful new design.

Costs, materials, and man-hours used to paint an airplane vary dramatically from case to case, livery to livery, model to model, airline to airline. The numbers in my description are somewhat conservative estimates used for comedic value. Alaska Airlines actually gave some numbers for Xáat Kwáani - twelve days, 117 gallons of paint. The colors used are Midnight Blue and Atlas Blue for the background, White for the fish themselves, and Pink for highlights, and a clear coat has been applied over the top in order to preserve the livery. Alaska Airlines has every intention of keeping it intact for as long as possible.

The use of colors is beautiful. The waves of darker and lighter blue keep it from ever looking too light or too dark, adjusting to the lighting in order to always remain saturated and vivid, and the irregular wave pattern keeps any part of the livery from looking static. The use of the pink as a highlight is sparing but effective. The white, though, is what makes this livery so fantastic. A central tenet of this blog is a disdain for the dominant trend of livery design in recent history, Eurowhite - that of an almost entirely white fuselage. And there is a legitimate sense of general derision for white, but it can be so powerful as a design feature. There is no contrast more powerful than a stark and complete absence, a space carved out fully from the world and color around it. It is the color of bone and snow.

The balance of each color is just perfect, the blue never overpowering the white, the white never fully blocking out the blue, the pink subtly adding depth throughout, and the shapes of the salmon are placed perfectly, not feeling cramped or confined. They are free to wander the fuselage and they have an amazing sense of movement to them, as if caught mid-leap. I've seen salmon swimming upstream to spawn, and they are so startlingly large and vivacious. The fish on this plane, though stylized, perfectly capture the way that these fish look in motion.

Formline is a style of art historically created by indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest coast of North America. It was a common and versatile visual element, present in everything from painting to carving to weaving. It is defined by its use of continuous, curving lines which may change in angle, width, and direction but do not terminate. Though it was diminished in quantity by suppression of indigenous culture by US and Canadian settlers it never went away, and from the second half of the 20th century onwards it has been surging back as more and more indigenous artists are able to produce and display their work. Worl has worked with formline many times before. She is quoted as saying:

Every time I looked at an Alaska plane, I couldn’t help but visualize the salmon being in formline [...] I can’t help but look at things and see how to Indigenize them.

And the idea has now come to life in this absolutely unforgettable livery. I wish I was within the range of the 737-800 from Alaska Airlines' hubs so that Xáat Kwáani could pay a visit to my home airport, because this is among the most beautiful planes in the world right now. And beyond just nice colors and pleasing shapes it represents something important - indigenous artists being given a 40-meter-long flying platform on which to honor fish which have provided countless centuries of life to the people who live beside them.

Worl's work is above and beyond what I would have ever expected for a custom airplane livery. Even the 'Alaska' wordmark is neatly incorporated into the formline, blending into the background to the point it's hard to notice in a good way.

Most liveries are designed by graphic designers and branding firms. Landor Associates design liveries and logo, but they aren't building monuments or putting their work in galleries. I don't mean to diminish their work - obviously I'm passionate about it, I have a blog about it - but it's just fundamentally different from what Worl does. It has different priorities, a different philosophy, and a different level of personal investment.

From my perspective Xáat Kwáani feels less like branding material and more like a piece of artwork. This isn't something designed to go on letterhead, to be put in a press kit, to be widely reproduced. It's something to be looked at, thought about, and remembered. This is a mural that flies.

I mean...A+, obviously.

There is just about nothing else in the sky which has the same visual power as Xáat Kwáani. As far as I'm concerned, every gallon of paint was worth it to give us this flying tribute to the people and wildlife of the state Alaska Airlines takes its name from.

[mapsontheweb]

McDonald's Restaurants by Magnitude of Mountain Backdrop / Rut

by u/Gigitoe

Eating a Big Mac® while gazing at Big Mountains is an experience that millions of Americans can relate to. But little do we ask ourselves, which McDonald's restaurants have the biggest, baddest mountain backdrop?

So I set out to answer this question, using rut, a topographic metric that does particularly well at identifying cities with badass mountain backdrops. (For more info, check out this Mercury News article by John Metcalfe, or my research paper)

Roughly speaking, this is how rut works:

The higher the mountains rise above a restaurant, the more impressive they appear, and the greater the rut.

The more steeply the mountains rise above a restaurant, the more impressive they appear, and the greater the rut.

Here's a tier list that shows the rut of the ruttiest McDonald's restaurant in various cities. The cutoffs are rather arbitrary, so please don't poison me with a Grimace Shake if your city doesn't get the tier you like :)

S tier - rut > 400 m (i'm lovin' it. would visit just for mountain views)

Palm Springs, CA (647 m) | Weed, CA (624 m) | Springville, UT (609 m) | Lone Pine, CA (521 m) | Rancho Cucamonga, CA (503 m) | Kailua Kona, HI (432 m) | Salt Lake City, UT (404 m)

A tier - rut between 200 to 400 m (impressive, but probably wouldn't visit just for mountain views)

Colorado Springs, CO (383 m) | Gatlinburg, TN (273 m) | Tacoma, WA (267 m) | Tucson, AZ (246 m) | Juneau, AK (223 m) | Tucson, AZ (209 m) | Albuquerque, NM (215 m) | Las Vegas, NV (209 m)

B tier - rut between 100 and 200 m (mountains nearby, or distant big mountains, or very distant huge mountains)

Anchorage, AK (192 m) | Seattle, WA (185 m) | Manchester, VT (166 m) | El Paso, TX (160 m) | Los Angeles, CA (153 m) | Portland, OR (144 m) | Denver, CO (126 m) | Boise, ID (106 m)

C tier - rut between 50 and 100 m (big hills nearby, or distant mountains, or very distant big mountains)

Rutland, VT (99 m) | San Diego, CA (84 m) | Asheville, NC (75 m) | Middlesboro, KY (70 m) | Phoenix, AZ (67 m) | Roanoke, VA (46 m)

D tier - rut between 25 and 50 m (hills nearby, or distant big hills, or very distant mountains)

Billings, MT (40 m) | Rapid City, SD (37 m) | Dalton, GA (38 m) | Hot Springs, AR (37 m) | Pittsburgh, PA (33 m) | San Francisco, CA (30 m) | Portsmouth, OH (26 m) | Greenville, SC (26 m) | Huntsville, AL (25 m)

E tier - rut between 10 and 25 m (small hills nearby, or hills in the distance, or very distant big hills)

Syracuse, NY (21 m) | Concord, NH (20 m) | Duluth, MN (20 m) | New Haven, CT (14 m) | Cincinnati, OH (13 m) | Wausau, WI (13 m) | Portland, ME (10 m)

F tier - rut between 0 and 10 m (flatter than a patty)

Nashville, TN (8.5 m) | New York City (4.3 m) | Kansas City (2.8 m) | Miami, FL (1.7 m) | Houston (1.6 m), TX | Chicago, IL (0.6 m)

For more locations, here's a spreadsheet with the rut of every McDonald's on this map.

----------------

Note: a rut of X doesn't mean the surrounding mountains rise a height of X above the restaurant. Instead, a rut of X means that a restaurant's mountain backdrop is as impressive as a restaurant at the base of a vertical cliff of height X. The less steeply the surrounding mountains rise above the restaurant, the lower the rut.

Also note: rut only considers rise above surroundings (relative height differences and angle of elevation). it does not consider absolute elevation, nor the "aesthetics" of a mountain, nor visibility (or lack thereof) due to weather or smog.

Attributions: Gavin Rehkemper (locations), FABDEM (elevation model), Google Earth Engine (calculations), ESRI (basemap), Kai Xu (rut metric and map)

If you like rut, you'll probably like its older brother jut even more. Jut measures how impressive, spectacular, or badass a mountain is—considering both its height above surroundings and steepness. If you want to find the most impressive mountains near you or worldwide, you may find the link above to be useful.

Let us know if you have any questions or comments—I'm happy to address them!

[twosides--samecoin]

Hi!! Happy weekend! I’d love to hear about some of your ocs headcanons 🍬🌻💩 :]

Here's Jack and Olivia, 2/3 of Long Time Running's main cast - with a bonus heacanon unique to my Dogmeat! You can read the fic -> here <-

Jack Ward is my canon M!SoSu. He was a professional boxer and retired when he was conscripted for the Anchorage campaign and sent to FoB Juneau.

When Med-Tek failed, Jack pushed RJ on a vertibird destined for Vault 150 - a remote Canadian Vault that tested Duncan's illness on its residents. Two weeks later, Olivia Dallaire, my OC F!SoSu, stepped out of a vertibird and onto the hill overlooking Sanctuary and Boston. She'd be an Olympic judoka if there was still Olympics.

🍬On the topic of family: One of the themes in my fic is about the intersection and contrast between found family and adoption as well as miscommunication. Jack sees a younger version of himself in Olivia, but in a subversion of the failed-coach-training-his-actually-promising-protege trope, Jack had the title fight successes and Olivia really never will. All the same, he takes a shine to her. After meeting Father at the Institute, Jack let go of the idea of recovering his family. When he met Olivia, he felt like, "My god, this is the child Nora and I were supposed to have". Problem is, she's uh, a grown-ass 23 year-old woman. Who just immigrated to a different country and has her own trauma to unpack. And the sudden reemergence of his want to be a dad is moving faster than his ability to discuss being family with her. He faces serious role strain between his best friendship with RJ and the fatherhood he feels toward Olivia when he sees RJ differently as he begins to feel protective over her.

💩 Something ridiculous: My Dogmeat can break the fourth wall. The characters cannot hear him in the fic, but the reader can read his thoughts. One of my childhood fave movies is All Dogs Go To Heaven. The main dog is a German Shepherd, voiced by Burt Reynolds. This is how I hear him.

I was born in '94, so those 80's-90's "talking animal" genre movies were really formative for me. Anastasia, An American Tail - themes of lost family, adventure, immigration. Even RJ's story has strong Secrets of NIMH parallels. I'd reached a point where my fic felt self-serious, like it was so grounded in harsh reality and dumpster fire mental health that I forgot to have fun. Saluting Don Bluth by imagining Charlie B. Barkin and Anne-Marie the Orphan as Dogmeat and Olivia was me throwing my hands up and saying, "Fine! Fuck it! We can have fun!"

🌼 Happiness, how'd you get to be happiness: Lately, getting to know each other has been a source of happiness for both Jack and Olivia. Jack as the canon SoSu has all the problems we do when we play the game - wrangling several warring factions that all expect his presence; ignoring Father/the Institute; managing a small empire of settlements. Olivia as the SoSu of her own Vault is navigating immigration and being around people again. The heart-meltingest fluff I have published so far is father-daughter moments. Excerpt below the cut!

Long Time Running Chapter 13: Sabré Olvidar:

Jack glanced at Olivia���s marigold cable-knit sweater and jeans, rolled up at the cuffs. He realized most of her clothing from home that wasn’t her Vault suit was oversized and patched several times over. 

A deep flush of sadness erupted within. He coughed and returned to the topic of conversation. “Well, um.. What.. What do you think of the animals you let go?” 

“I just thank them for giving me a pretty view. I mean, just look at them.” She let go of their hug and stepped back. “If you look at it like this, the window makes them look like a painting.” 

She beamed at the radstag pair - four heads and too many legs. 

Jack obliged the request and stepped back. The window framed the radstags, trees and tall grasses well, like a living photograph. He appreciated the scene with the same intensity as a painting in a museum.  

He broke his gaze away and looked around at the cabin. “Well.. What brings us down here today, anyway?” he asked.

“I was thinking,” she turned away from the radstags. “Um, there wasn’t anyone here last time I visited, and there’s no one here now, and.. Y’know, it’s pretty close to town.. Does anyone own this place?” 

“Truth be told, Miss Olivia,” he replied. “I don’t think anyone’s taken interest in this cabin since the bombs fell. Doesn’t seem to me like anyone owns it.” 

She wrung her hands and shifted her weight as she looked around. “Um.. can I..” 

Jack awaited the question with patience and a smile. “Yes?”

“Can I have it? Please?” she pleaded.

His heart melted anew. Oh, Jesus, not that face, not that face. He decided to mess with her and put on an apprehensive tone. “I dunno.. It’s a big responsibility, being a homeowner..”

She hung on his every word with wide-eyed worry. 

“The cost for materials, the labor.. In this economy, too.. Ouch.” He grimaced, both to ham up the theatrics and to force his mouth away from a smile.

“I-I’ll work, I’ll get a job, I promise-” 

He could no longer keep up the act. “Oh, fine, sure. It’s yours!” 

Olivia gasped and threw her arms around Jack’s torso. Coffee spilled out of her mug with a graceful dive and landed on the floor with an audible splash.

“Thank you thank you thank you thank you- Oh, I have so much work to do-” she let go of Jack and listed the repairs. “I need a door and I have to clean the fireplace and I need to find new windows and-” 

Jack beamed as she bounced around the room. Her braid whipped through the air as she tallied up her needs. Getting to know his little bundle of contradictions was fun. 

“-nails and lumber and.. And that spot on the porch that’s sagging.. I have a lot to do if I want this ready for winter.” 

“Alright, then, that settles it,” he said. “Let’s get a move on.” 

“Where to?” she asked.

“Well, like you said, winter’s on the way. Let’s get building.” 

She smiled, somehow wider than her smile already was. “Yeah! Let’s do it!”

She ran out the door and jumped off the stairs instead of walking down. “Where can we go shopping for supplies?” she asked, turning back to him.

Jack followed and took the steps as normal. “We’ll see what we have in Sanctuary before we look elsewhere. I’ll have to get you a workbench down here.” 

Olivia hopped and skipped ahead. “My own workbench, I-” 

She wasn’t watching her step and nearly tripped. 

«Tabarnak!» she swore. Olivia threw her hands up in mock-offense. “Who put this root here, eh?” 

She laughed off the transgression, tucked the stem of the hubflower behind her ear and turned her pirate smile toward Sanctuary.

Jack Ward, ol’ 111 himself, was thoroughly charmed. Miss Olivia Dallaire contained multitudes. 

Sweet, funny, capable, sensitive. A reader, a fighter, an animal-lover and an occasional jokester who stopped to smell the roses.  

He remembered the leadup to Arturo’s last title fight, when he lived at the house with Jack and Nora. 

One night in the later stages of her pregnancy, Nora laid on the couch as Arturo and Jack sat on the floor surrounded by the pieces of a yet-to-be constructed crib.

Arturo lectured their unborn child on the syntax, phonetics and style guide of French Canadian cursing.

«Esti de câlice de tabarnak!» Arturo exclaimed. "That is what we say when the baby crib is hard to build! You better like it!"

Jack wiped a tear from his cheek as he followed Olivia to Sanctuary.

Arturo would have been so proud to be your uncle. So proud.

[frangipanilove]

"Home" is North o’clock

Through this entire first season on TWDDD we’ve seen Daryl on a mission to find a way to get back home. He’s been desperately searching for a functioning radio in every episode, and has managed to stay laser focused on traveling north, to find a way home. Despite constantly getting sidetracked along the way, he’s now nearing Le Havre, where the people of Union of Hope have promised to help him find a ship to America.

In TWDDD 1x5 Deux Amours we see Daryl, Laurent and Azlan make their way up the river, heading north, to The Nest. We get to know Azlan, whose story involves a tragic loss which took away his reason to live.

We also heard how a clock represented a turning point for him. It saved his life, he explains, and gave him a purpose to live. I took one look at that clock and realized it was the French equivalent to Beth’s DC spoon from 4x12 Still.

I’ve written a lot about the intersection between Sirius symbolism and North Star symbolism (here and here), and once again, in TWDDD Deux Amours, we see a representation of how “north” represents “home”.

In TWD season 5 we saw it explained by Carl to Judith; that if you’re lost at night, just find the North Star, it’s at the end of the Little Dipper:

Of course we all remember Beth picking up the DC spoon/Little Dipper in Still…

Daryls entire time in France has revolved around traveling north, to the place called The Nest, where he’ll deliver Laurent and get a ticket to a trans-Atlantic cruise in return.

When Azlan dies he gives the clock to Daryl, tells him to follow the river north, until they arrive at the place depicted on the clock, The Nest (which in reality is Mont Saint Michel). When Genet’s people catch up to Daryl and Laurent, Daryl gives the clock to Laurent and instructs him to follow the river until he sees The Nest.

So the navigational themes are strong around both the clock and Beth’s DC spoon. The DC spoon for obvious reasons; the North Star is at the end of the Little Dipper, as Carl explained. The North Star will help you find your way, it’s a compass in the sky.

Azlan’s clock on the other hand, is pretty much a regular compass, in that clocks can be used as compasses. I’m not making that up, a clock can be used as a compass. That is an actual thing that people do.

Basically, what we’re seeing here is that Azlan’s clock is synonymous with Beth’s DC spoon.

And remember how all of Daryl’s efforts of getting to the north involves constantly searching for functioning radios? He’s been talking about radios non stop since he washed ashore in Marseille.

Well, in 1x5 we finally saw him get a hold of a radio. It was in a flashback from right before he was taken aboard the French Research Vessel of Horror, where we also saw a character randomly named Grady!?!???

Totally side-eying that, particularly because we also met another dude named Juno, which @wdway brilliantly recognized as a reference to the Alaska state capital Juneau! Which, again, ties right into the north symbolism because of this license plate from 5x16 Conquer:

That’s the Big Dipper and Polaris (North Star) there on the Alaska state flag!

And remember how I in this post from last week talked about how tptb sometimes uses silly word plays as symbolism? Words and phrases that phonetically sound similar? Like serious/Sirius, beer/bear, Monet/money and the classic Del Arno Foods/"there are no foods"… (which was interestingly also taken from 5x16 Conquer, where we saw the Wolves luring walkers into trailer trucks, in a perfect parallel to what we saw in Daryl’s flashback from Maine,..)

Yeah, speaking of phonetical similarities...

In TWD 10x17 Home Sweet Home we heard Beth's name for the first time in a very long time...

Maggie has no reason to believe that Beth isn't dead so I wouldnt worry about that part. What's interesting is what she's calling her sister; Bethie!

If I was ever instructed to find a name that phonetically sounds like Bethie...

...Bessy sure as hell would be among my top contenders...

Bessy, as in the name the radio operator has assigned to his radio...

I have talked about how radios are Sirius symbolism, right? (that's a rhetorical question, I have talked about it ad nauseum)

And I think I have explained that Sirius means "return/resurrection/coming back" a couple of times as well...

Bessie the Radio sure seems to be well tuned into the symbolism around "returns" and people "coming back"...

You’re free to do with that as you please...👀

[las-microfisuras]

mador

Del lat. mador, -ōris.1. m. Ligera humedad que cubre la superficie del cuerpo, sin llegar a ser verdadero sudor

  " [...] el mador noctámbulo de la hierba ofrece una ficción de lágrimas para la inminente angustia; todo ello me es ofrecido en obsequio: yo lloro, yo escribo, yo me consumó y atenúo, camino, ininterrumpidamente medito, me contaminó de mí mismo, ininterrumpidamente muero, y delego mi amor, que me da vida para matarme, en la noche, en el bosque, sonidos y silencios."

- "Amore", Giorgio Manganelli. Siruela, Traducción de Carlos Gumpert.

-  Ansel Adams, Trailside, near Juneau, Alaska, 1948. Gelatin silver print, printed 1973-1977.

[detectivereads]

Halloween/Fall Season TBR 2023

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to write down my TBR for the fall/Halloween season and mention some of the new books that are coming out this year. These titles are the ones I read every year and I highly recommend them to anyone who is looking for a scary book to read (or really any murder mysteries, it feels like this is the prefect season to read Murder Mysteries).

~Books that are on my TBR~ : (Pretty much I recommend everything on this list)

Coraline by Neil Gailman

Halloween Tree by Ray Bardbury

Pumpkin Heads

Nancy Drew (This and the next few are perfect for the cozy weather)

Judy Bolton

Dana Sisters

Connie Blair

Hardy Boys

Scary Godmother

Edgar Allen Poe

The Invisible man

Nightmare Before Christmas Long Live the Pumpkin Queen

Bunnicula

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Frankenstein by Mary Shelly

Garlic and the Vampire

Garlic and the Witch

Halloween Party by Agatha Christie (first time I am going to read this)

Sherlock Holmes

Then there was none by Agatha Christie

Addams family

Goosebumps books

Mirror Lake By Juneau Black

The House of Lost Horizon Sarah Jewell mystery

Sleepy Hallow by Washington Irving

Harry Potter (I also read these around Xmas time too)

~OP Books I recommend~

The Shady Hallow mysteries. I love this series and it feels like you can read this series no matter what time of year but the big ones that I recommend from this series are Cold Clay & Mirror Lake.

I love Mirror Lake the most out of the series and the description of food and the autumn ambience is wonderful.

~Soon to release books (I hope)~ :

DeepHaven by Ethan M. Aldridge- I saw the artwork that this author has been posting and I thought it was gorgeous. I did some digging but did not really want to spoil it too much for myself. I am getting very Eldritch horror vibes from the artwork.

Unfamiliar vol 2 by Haley Newsome- I am in love with this series, it has magic it has witches it has food. What more could I ask for.

Twilight Falls by Juneau Black- This is one of my highly anticipated books that are coming out this year. I love the Shady Hollow Mysteries series, this come out after November, but I am still super hype for it.

 Tim Burton’s Nightmare before Christmas the Battle for Pumpkin King by Dan Conner- I have been collecting anything really Nightmare for a few a years now and when I saw this I freaked, I can’t wait for it.

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree- I loved Legends & Lattes and when I found it there was going to be a 2nd book, I was thrilled I can’t wait for it.

Catch me If you Candy by Ellie Alexander- Recently I have been wanting to get more cozy mysteries and this series is like one of the biggest series I have seen. I am hoping to start collecting the series soon.

~New Books~ :

Most of these books are going to be Cozy Mysteries. I love Mysteries and Cozy Mysteries are right in my alley. First of all, I will not spoil mysteries for anyone if I can help it, so I will keep description vague. Most of these books are new to me and I am keeping myself blind incept for like the over storyline. (These are not new releases they are just new to me)

Fatal Fudge Swirl by Meri Allen- this is the third book in the Ice Cream Shop Mysteries books, I am trying to collect the others and read them in order. So, this mystery takes place around Halloween and there is a wedding, and tragedy strikes at the wedding.

Murder at the Pumpkin Pageant by Darci Hannah- this is another cozy that takes place around time Halloween time. Halloween time is here, and our MC Lindsey is not really jazzed about it, because she lives in the town spooky haunted lighthouse, so teenagers make it a test of courage to come up and scare each other silly.  However, this year her best friend asked to do a spooky episode for her social media what was supposed to be a night of ghost hunting and fun scares turns sinister.

One Poison Pie by Lynn Cahoon- Now this one doesn’t take place on around Halloween (as far from what I know I haven’t not read this book yet, so I fix this later if I am wrong) but it’s having to do with witches and what’s better she is an amateur detective kitchen witch. Mia is our main character and right now she has hit a rough patch in her life when boyfriend has left her greener pastures and she is now jobless. So, she heads back home to her grandma’s house. It’s the first book in this series so I don’t know too much about it.

A Batter of Life and Death by Ellie Alexander- the only thing I know is that this book takes place in fall and I just starting to get into the Bakeshop Mystery series. So, I am keeping my self-blind and I can’t wait to read it.

No Parm No Foul by Linda Reilly- this is the second book in the grilled cheese shop mystery, and it takes place around Halloween. I read the first book and I like it, so I want to try to get the second to see how it is.

[jimhair]

On Sunday afternoons, @vickiknits and I sit on the front porch and play a game on her iPad that is supposed to help with memory, and we get to see our neighbors as they walk their dogs to the park. This last Sunday, everyone came by at the same time, so I thought I’d make a group photo. It was pretty hilarious trying to get everyone to sit still for 1/60th of a second. Front Porch Pooch Party, Portland, Sunday, September 25, 2022 Pepper, Walt, Juneau, and Scruffy 🇺🇦💔🌎💔🌏💔🌍💔🇺🇦 #earth #america #human #family #photographer #dog #dogs #dogsofinstagram #home #party #photography #mediumformat #120 @hasselblad #camera #bnw @ilfordphoto #film #blancoynegro #blancetnoir #Hēiyǔbái #siyahbeyaz #白黒 #shirokuro #blackandwhite #istillshootfilm #photojournalism #pdx #portland #nw #northwest #oregon @hasselbladfilmgallery 22093605v07 FP4 Hasselblad 500 c/m 120mm Makro-Planar https://www.instagram.com/p/CjDWiTuLSeB/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[mountain-in-springtime]

i was tagged by my darling @loser-user-noaccuser (thanks for the tag love) so let’s go!

(i’m also gonna tag @takenbythelightfantastic @shutupdevvie and @myfriendtheghost but if you see this and i didn’t tag you, feel free to participate anyway!)

what book are you currently reading? i just started shady hollow: a murder mystery by juneau black. i’ve been meaning to read it for ages, so i’m excited to finally get around to it. 

what’s your favorite movie you saw in theatres this year? this is really hard to pick because i did see a lot of films this year, most of them screenings of older movies. my top three are probably labyrinth, goodfellas, and rear window. i do feel that elvis deserves an honorable mention as well because i did really enjoy that and it made me cry multiple times. 

what do you usually wear? it depends on the day. if i’m at home i just wear athletic tights and a t shirt, but if i’m going to class i’ll throw on a cardigan as well and sometimes wear jeans instead of tights.

how tall are you? i’m 5′3″ 

what’s your star sign? do you share a birthday with a celebrity or historical event? i’m a pisces! i also share a birthday with johnny cash and victor hugo (and i’m one day away from sharing one with george harrison)

do you go by your name or nickname? they’re pretty interchangeable tbh. some people call me mallorie, but just as many call me mal. 

did you grow up to be what you wanted to be as a kid? yes and no. i think that who i am as a person is the type of individual that i’ve always been and wanted to be, but in the tangible sense of a career, lifestyle, etc., i’m still in a transitional period of my life and can’t say yet if i’ll reach the more material goals set by my childhood self. 

are you in a relationship? if not who is your crush if you have one? i’m not in a relationship, and i don’t really have any crushes aside from my multiple famous/fictional/tumblr mutual babygirls. 

what’s something you are good at vs something you are bad at? ever since i was a child, i’ve been pretty talented in the arts (singing, acting, visual art, etc.) and i did really well in school, but i am absolutely terrible at sports or really anything atheltic. 

dogs or cats? both! although i don’t know if i could live without a dog.

if you draw/write or create in anyway what’s your favorite picture/favorite line/favorite etc. from something you have created this year? it’s definitely this (technically unfinished) painting that i did of george harrison at the beginning of the year. i consider it one of my best works to date, and it was done at a time when i was really deep into a beatles phase so i think my love of the band and george really manifested into the work. 

what’s something you’d like to create content for? oh my gosh there’s so many things. i’m really big into any kind of pop culture/media so i draw a lot of celebrities that i love and things like that. i’d really like to continue to make art that shows my love of the beatles, but i would like to branch out into making art for some of my other loves like john denver, gvf, and the muppets. i’d also love to give writing fanfic for any of the fandoms i’m in a try.

what’s something you are currently obsessed with? well i’m obviously obsessed with the beatles and gvf, but i also adore john denver, the solo works of all the beatles, the muppets, the simpsons, film (particularly old hollywood and 80s films), and a million other things. i’ve also been hyperfixating on seinfeld a bit lately bc that’s the show i’m currently watching. 

what’s something you were excited about that turned out to be disappointing this year? i think every year i convince myself that i’ll make new irl friends and finally have a full friend group or even get into a relationship, but that never really happens much. (although i am thankful for all of the darling friends i have made on tumblr. y’all mean so much to me.) i also went see paul mccartney in concert this year and while it was amazing and by no means disappointing, it didn’t hold the life-changing gravity that i thought it would, and it almost made me a bit sad because it reminded me how much time has passed since the beatles and that the people that i really care about won’t be around forever. 

what’s a hidden talent of yours? i’m pretty good at impressions! i can do a lot of them, but some of my favorites are miss piggy, cher, bob dylan, chubby checker (specifically singing the twist), a ton of simpsons characters, jerry seinfeld and jimmy stewart. (the last two aren’t always great but they really make me laugh.)

are you religious? yes, but it’s a bit complicated. i was raised catholic, but i find that i don’t agree with all of the teachings of the catholic church, so now i’m trying to find where i stand in the religious community and where my beliefs and morals fit. it’s something i’m working on and figuring out as i go along. 

what’s something that you wish to have at this moment? happiness, love, and peace

[sagaofstardustmkg]

holly

Thick, milky manchineel sap paints the chateau walls as Victoria Bitter goes to work on the snapdragon. It drools out of its broken stems as it throws its massive body at her; when VB feels her knuckles push not just against but through a peduncle, she’ll pull them back covered in the stuff. 

It burns like hell. In the wild, this would be the end of VB’s day. Her life might follow if she touched her nose, eyes or mouth with her hands still contaminated.

Here, she feels it bright and brief, like sparks on her skin, before Janelle’s ward sweet-talks her body into a fast recovery.

All of the snapdragon’s eyes are trained now on VB. All its menace has been redirected into their duel. It circles, snaps its jaw, lunges, and occasionally barrels through other sections of the battlefield — but it is, like all faeries, catastrophically vain and myopic. It cannot rest until it has repaid the indignity of being struck by a human hand. 

(killyoueatyoutearyou, its blossoms say to each other. growinsideyou. unfurlourpetals. inthegardenofyourskull.)

It doesn’t even know what Australia is, or it would be mad about that, too.

Dionaea, meanwhile, opens her body like an umbrella as the Leslies multiply, casting a wide shadow over the arena. Her human silhouette is almost entirely lost in the action — she is closer to the thicket of briar that surrounds Sleeping Beauty’s tower than anything. Appraising the illusion, some of her eyes crinkle in condescension. And the next thing she says makes it clear that she may have gained more than passage into Juneau’s chateau as she traveled between worlds. 

“Little fool-princeeeess.”

Just as you knew Janelle’s story entire in the moments she spent away, Dionaea’s learned a few things about you. Not many. Nothing Janelle’s mind did not carry. Little snatches of information, whisps of thought.

And nothing like the truth. The truth is transformed beyond recovery when it enters a mind like this.

“Spreadest thou thy infinite failure among these shadows?”

Her vines sweep out at the various Leslies, passing through them in search of the real ones. But the ploy is working — as her pet chases VB, Dionaea’s attention is split dozens of ways by a single woman. 

“We should hardly be able to stand the sight of ourself, had we squandered as much as thou. Let us put out thine eyes as a kindness. Replace them with —”

Little white flowers and tiny red berries bloom all over the spindly distorted form. Holly.

(Known in Gaelic as celyn.

Holly-garden is laes celyn.

And many centuries ago in Scotland, that phrase ran together into a single word: Leslie.

Mortals have always been so envious of their masters, the queen thinks. Rightly so.)

“Something beauuuutiful.”

Her leaves fan into something like a smile. 

And that’s exactly when Nevros shouts.

Dionaea pulls herself back in. Not all the way, still a looser approximation of human shape than before, but most of it. The Leslie clones are so loud and abundant she has to search for a moment to identify the source of the taunting.

They’re entertaining me instead! 

She’s still searching when Nevros’s teeth sink in deep, spilling more of that milky sap all down their chin and front.

And she does, in fact, 

S C R E A M. 

It is not like a human scream. There is no instrument on Earth that could replicate this sound, nor would you wish to invent one. 

And although she had come to know, in the days before her banishment, the stories of magic-eaters that even faeries feared —

She has never met anyone like Nevros.

“THIEF!” she howls, thrashing against their teeth. This only aggravates the wound, tearing it open further. As much as she bucks and twists, she cannot dislodge Nevros. “BARK-BORING INSECT! EATER OF BROKEN MEATS! Thy touch — augh!“

The iron hurt her badly, sent its cold fire lancing through her. Nevros’s power is something else entirely. Her leaves are spotting. Her petals are falling dry off the bloom.

And she’s still talking shit.

“Thou — thou striketh ever at the heart of thine envy,” she says, continuing to struggle, wrapping them in thorns. “We should pity thee, were thou not beneath it. Fighting on behalf of the fleshthings? Coveting their affection as thou coveteth magic, undeserving of both and incapable of holding onto either?”

The thorns tighten.

But speaking of love, Baku is here.

The faerie queen raises her vines to defend herself from the bakemono, then. Freezes entirely for the first time since her arrival. The eyes all go still. 

She is lost in a dream.

Lost being the operative word, here. These fond memories of warm intertwined hands and tender quiet moments are terra incognita. Nothing could be more disorienting than expressions of human love. 

Human friendship.

The experiences of living in a littler-than-usual human body (awful, wretched constructs, full of blood and worse) that is being held, crying with joy, savoring the feeling of sand against its fleshmitten hands.

“What is this?”

The voice she uses to ask it is quite small, but the question echoes among all her mouths. 

(whatisthiswhatisthiswhatisthis)

“STOP IT STOP THIS WE WILL NOT SUFFER THE INSULT OF HUMANITY ST—“

Mayumi, shining like a valkyrie, cuts into her midsentence. She attempts to shrink away from the blow but doesn’t know which direction to move, mind still spinning at the gala. Her form dodges into the next blow instead of away from it, and her attempts to course-correct are hampered both by Nev’s bulldog-like grip on her and the litany of Leslies still jingling all around.

(“Huzzah!” Adelaide shouts suddenly from the sidelines, no longer cowed into silence. Her fists are clenched. “Strike clean and true, champion!”

A moment later, too overwhelmed by emotion to continue filtering her speech: “You guys are so fucking cool!”) 

Dionaea retracts into herself, clearly in agony. The scream is building again. It hums through the room and presses on your eardrums. Her remaining vines all curl at once. Her petals snap shut. 

Then they seem to bulge from inside. 

“Enough!”

The flowers explode open. You are showered in lush, dewy petals like confetti. 

And something else. 

You might spot the spores before you breathe them in. You might instinctively blink, catching one between your eye and its lash.

There’s no avoiding them no matter what you do. They float through the chateau like motes of dust, so thick in the air that you are likely to find your visibility suddenly limited. 

The more you breathe, the more you feel your body reacting to them. They burn you from the inside. Your thoughts start to run together and strength begins to drain from your body.

Of course the plant lady can send out poison spores. Of course she can.

[jayhorsestar]

re.snow the product, 'michiokanota.. dale gas.. who's got the sauce (naika), and 'uchimite, then previous year, by 2023, 'dale gas.. they all drop by JMB RO 'juneau kronstadt.. and Nepal Himalaya ladies were wrapping wafers until April or May 2024. 'maria isabel was too, 'dove cameron dropped twice at least!! mebbe would 'makuhari and jess of Korea (must be the million 'US dollars). m

[anchorageroleplay]

ETHAN ELSHER is looking for their YOUNGER SIBLING.

SUGGESTED NAME:

UTP Elsher, but I headcanon their name starts with E as well (optional)

AGE RANGE:

32 - 36

PREFERRED FACECLAIM:

UTP! Ethan's fc is Chris Hemsworth

CONNECTION:

Younger sibling

DETAILS:

Ethan was always the responsible one, while Y/M was the younger, less responsible of the two due to being more babied by their parents. Usually Ethan would cover for Y/M's shenanigans, but when he left Juneau six years ago after an engagement fell through, Y/M had to figure it out on their own. Now, Y/M has popped up on Ethan's doorstep without warning claiming to want to make up for lost time while he's been away. Do they really miss having their older brother around, or is there more responsibility they're running away from? Up to you!

CONTACT:

Please contact NIKO on @ethanelsher to discuss this connection.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Deux ans de bagne," Le Soleil. April 28, 1943. Page 7. --- M. le juge Laetare Doy a condamné, hier, à deux ans, de pénitencier Jean-Paul Vézina, le jeune homme qui avait plaidé culpabilité, lors de sa comparution, à deux vols avec effraction commis aux magasins des bijoutiers Paquet et Juneau et J.-A. Langlois, de Québec.

Vézina est un récidiviste et c'est en vain que son procureur Me Philippe Ferland a demandé au juge de suspendre la sentence de l'accusé pour lui permettre de s'enrôler dans l'armée canadienne.

Chez Paquet et Juneau, Vézina avait pris une montre d'une valeur de $35., cependant que chez Langlois il avait raflé des bagues et autres bijoux pour une valeur de $135.

[copblaster]

LAPD Sergeant Guy M. Juneau https://copblaster.com/blast/57005/lapd-sergeant-guy-m-juneau?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

[azuisreading]

Max was ambling down the stairs when the door swung open. “Need any he—Hey, watcha got there?” He cut himself off at the sight of the two girls cradling the kittens.

“We found them,” Chloe said, “Obviously abandoned. We couldn’t leave them.”

“But we need you to go back down and get cat food and stuff. The tourists were appearing,” Madi complained distastefully.

Max plucked the kitten from her arms, “Sure. I’m supposed to meet Charlie halfway back later to get some gear. I’ll grab it then.” He turned and marched back up the steps with Madi’s eyes glaring daggers into his back.

“That’s my fucking cat,” she muttered, ripping off her boots, and stomped up after him. “Max! Give me back my kitten!”

“I think her name should be Muffins,” I heard him say.

“No, Max, her name is Juneau,” Madi retorted.

“Yeah, I don’t like it,” his voice carried over the ledge.

I could hear shuffling feet and the sound of a pillow being tossed across the room. “Jesus,” Theo muttered, then trudged up the stairs behind them. “Stop. Don’t… Don’t freak out the cat,” he called wearily once he got up there.

Misinformation by J. M. Leigh.