#natch they wind up fuckin

[little-smartass]

ugh I have a les mis fic that literally just needs a quick beginning and a quick end and I’M REALLY PLEASED WITH IT so I really wanna get it done rather than just let it rot but MY BRAIN IS SO BLANK

[hopeymchope]

What if Miu Iruma had to take up the role as Protagonist in V3?

My first thought: Miu at least offers some useful information or tools during investigations, but she’s not always inclined to get heavily involved. Then she’s basically useless for 95% of the trials; she’s too busy freaking the fuck out while pretending to be confident/barely suppressing her desire to flee the trial grounds ASAP. She just winds up randomly saying really dumb shit; ergo, if she took the lead in trials, results would be horrible and everyone would die.

My second thought: ….wait, no, that’s not even the real problem. The bigger issue is that most of the rest of the cast would never LET her take over as protagonist. Very few characters in V3 would put up with her taking over the trial arguments and pushing her own final decision forward, because everyone would put the kibosh on her foolish ramblings right quick………………………. like, maybe Kaito and/or Tenko would be okay with it? Yet eve Tenko would probably have some misgivings. So… it’d just never happen.

Final realization: It finally hit me: There is one aspect of Miu that exudes a sense of calm, proud responsibility. This is what would HAVE to take center stage for Miu to become our protagonist. This is the part of her that would finally make her the ideal leader!

At last, it was so obvious! And so…..

*The V3 Cast is in the Midst of the Latest Class Trial*

Miu: *pointing at the screen* It’s there, at the edge of the rooftop, where Keeb’s AMAZIN’ telescopic-slash-microscopic vision — installed by yours truly, natch — found the evidence. Two strands of hair, trapped halfway into the goddamn scupper drain!

Kibo: Unfortunately, when we retrieved the hairs, it was obvious who they came from. Based on their length and coloration, it had to have been—

Miu: *jabs a finger at Gonta* Thicc-Bitch Bug Boy was totally on that fuckin’ roof!

Gonta: UH-WHA?? Gonta is very confused!

Miu: *ignoring him* Guess this means that Kokichi might not be the culprit. Sad, but we ain’t done yet, so everybody keep your fingers, toes and dicks crossed, mmkay?

Kaito: *slamming his hand into the podium* No way! I don’t believe for a second that Gonta could be the killer!

Maki: I’m…….. confused.

Gonta: *sweating* Gonta agrees! What is Miu saying?!

Maki: I’m not confused about what she’s saying — I’m confused that she’s the one saying it.

Shuichi: I have to agree. Miu — when exactly did you, um… change your approach?

Miu: The fuck’re you talkin’ about, Poo-ichi?

Maki: We want to know when you decided to start helping and stop being a waste of oxygen.

Miu: GAH! *turning bright red, Miu looks downward* N-not bad, ice queen… *swallows hard* …b-but I dunno what you’re babblin’ about.

Kibo: Miu, I believe that they’re trying to say that they appreciate how you’re contributing a lot more evidence and information in this trial than you did in the first few.

Shuichi: ….….sure.

Miu: Oh! Well why didn’t ya just say so?! Yeah, I figured I’ve gotta step it up a bit now that I’ve got people lookin’ up to me.

Maki: Huh… you do?

Miu: Of course! Look: You’ll understand responsibility a lot more when you’re a parent.

Maki: WHAT.

Shuichi: There it is.

Miu: Now that I’m a mom, I’ve got a new level of motivation to identify the culprit and prove my own innocence so that we can all walk outta this shithole scott-free. *looking over at the bench, she waves* Hiii, sweetie!

Monotaro: You’re doing great, mommy!

Miu: With this golden brain? Of course I am, honey! *turning back to Kibo* Go on and wave to our son already!

Kibo: *waving reluctantly* Hello. I take no ownership of you.

Monotaro: *waving excitedly* Hi, daddy!

Miu: *turning back to Maki and Shuichi* And that’s why, for the sake of our family, I’m stepping it up to my next level of awesomeness! I can’t let our little guy grow up without his parents, right?!

Shuichi: That’s…. respectable, I suppose…? Well, either way, it’s appreciated.

Miu: *confidently* You’re gonna be appreciating the shit out of me once I hit my first Psyche Taxi segment, Poo-ichi! We’re gonna blast thought it SUPER-fast, because I figured out how to inject nitrous straight into my brain!

Kibo: Maybe don’t? Please don’t.

[analogscum]

DON’S PLUM (2001, d. R.D. Robb)

Why is it, my dear Scumbags, that forbidden fruit is the sweetest fruit of all? Why is it that, when we know that we can’t have something, it only makes us want it that much more? This applies to any number of life’s pleasures, but especially to movies. Just think of the number of films that are out there, just waiting to be viewed, but because they’ve either been lost to time, or the powers that be have locked them away somewhere, we may never get to experience. London After Midnight. The Day the Clown Cried. Until recently, anyway, The Other Side of the Wind. Well, tonight, thanks to the magic of illegal YouTube uploads, I’m here to tell you about some of that forbidden fruit. We’re going to talk about a film that its stars do not want you to see (if you live in America or Canada, that is), a film that to this day they continue to try and bury via any legal shenanigans they can. So get ready, because it’s time to take a big juicy bite out of Don’s Plum.

To start, we must talk about the nineties. In the nineties, two big things happened that allowed Don’s Plum to come into existence: the advent of low-budget Indies with cool kids talking in verbose, provocative lingo (see: Pulp Fiction, Clerks, Reality Bites, Kids, etc.), and the teen heartthrob coronation of Leonardo DiCaprio. As an infamous New York magazine profile from 1998 established, young Leo ran with a gang of fellow young thespians who would be immortalized as “the Pussy Posse.” The modus operandi of the Pussy Posse was…well, you can probably guess what it was. These guys were all about scoring chicks and getting loaded and not tipping waitresses, and they lived like goddamn boy kings. Leo was the leader, with his two best friends Tobey Maguire and Kevin Connolly on either side of the pussy throne. Other members of the Pussy Posse included David Blaine, Lucas Haas, and R.D. Robb, who you undoubtedly remember as the kid who played Schwartz in A Christmas Story. Anyway, around 1995, Robb had a boffo idea: if I could get my hands on a camera and some black and white film, I could shoot my friends doing what we do every night, just hanging out acting like douchebags, and somehow this will magically congeal into a smash indie hit. So Leo and Tobey, who were allegedly under the impression that this was just going to be a short film, gave Robb a bunch of money to make this thing, which he did, casting Leo, Tobey, Kevin Connolly, and a bunch of their other friends, shooting on and off for a two year period, with the young actors improvising almost all of their dialogue. And with that, let’s get into the finished film itself, shall we?

Los Angeles. The mid to late nineties. Everything is in black and white and super fuckin’ suave, because, again, it’s Los Angeles in the mid to late nineties. Jeremy Sisto is driving a pickup truck with leopard print seats. He kicks a hippie chick out of the passenger seat, mumbling something about “I need…pleasure. And…I need…to know that with…BRUTE FORCE, I got you out of my life, mmkay?” So, uh, right off the bat, um, that dialogue. Yikes, right? The hippie chick, for her part, gets very angry and yells, “You were supposed to take me to Vegas!” Don’t worry, we never find out why she was going to Vegas in the first place, or who Jeremy Sisto’s character is, because he then promptly drives out of the movie. Bye, Jeremy Sisto! Beep beep!

Cut to Tobey Maguire, who looks like he just finished going through puberty roughly five minutes before Robb called “action!” He’s got a dopey look on his face, and an unfortunate bowl cut/chin scruff combo that makes him look like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. He’s sitting in a moody mid to late nineties café, drinking a comically large cappuccino, and half paying attention to the absolute worst goddamn music I have ever heard in my life. The end credits describe this band as “acid jazz,” but I think a more accurate description would be “music to try and swallow your own tongue to.” It’s like a fiendishly unlistenable combination of free jazz, ska, Tom Waits hobo wailing, and beat poetry, and it should’ve been left back in the nineties where it belongs, alongside Olestra and the Kosovo war. Tobey is trying to pick up some ladies to bring to hang out with his friends later, but oddly enough none of these women want to hang out with an arrogant sad sack who has all the charisma and sex appeal of Uncle Joey from Full House. Meanwhile, there’s like a full-on burlesque dance number happening to accompany this zoot suit cacophony, and the director only occasionally cuts to it for a few seconds at a time. I guess, who needs to see a big splashy musical number when you can watch a comic relief wet blanket who just got his first pubes strike out with every woman he talks to, right? Luckily, the café waitress takes pity on him and agrees to accompany him to meet up with his friends, and then does basically nothing else for the rest of the movie. Occasionally the scene will cut to her to remind us that she’s there, but, like, is she really there, though?

Jenny Lewis from Rilo Kiley is sitting facing a dude who is showing his bare ass to the camera, because that’s how real fuckin’ life just is, maaaaan, not everyone always wears pants, dude! They apparently just had sex, even though she’s fully clothed, and they get into a philosophical argument about nothing and everything, as if they’re in the worst deleted scene from Slacker. Even though they clearly hate each other, the dude, Brad, invites Jenny Lewis to come meet up with his friends, and she makes some overly hostile joke about how he didn’t make her cum earlier, because low-budget indie movie. Next we see Kevin Connolly driving down the street in his Jeep, when he encounters the hippie girl from the beginning of the movie, like a couple of star-crossed blabbedy blahs. Finally, FINALLY, we’re introduced to Leo, when he borrows a comically large mid to late nineties cell phone from this little hood rat kid who insists on telling him some boring story about a brawl at the Viper Room even though Leo is CLEARLY trying to use said comically large mid to late nineties cell phone to call up every fine young female he knows to meet up with him and his friends. This makes the little hood rat kid very very angry, and its supposed to be funny, I guess? Anyway, like they were all fated since time immemorial to do, all of our leads finally converge down at the titular greasy spoon eatery, Don’s Plum.

Now, have you ever been at a restaurant, and you find yourself sitting near a table of people who are so obnoxious, so vapid, so relentlessly annoying and unpleasant, that you can no longer enjoy your food, and just find yourself eavesdropping on every improbably stupid thing that these goddamn condom leaks are rattling on about, slowly being pulled further and further into their vortex of suck? You have? Well, then, congratulations, because that experience is the rest of this fuckin’ movie. Jenny Lewis and Brad are the first to arrive, and what do they do? They start playing a goddamn harmonica. Um, no. Hell no. I’m trying to enjoy my meal in relative peace and quiet, you know what I don’t need? Your shitty ass John Popper impressions, ok? Get that shit all the way outta here. Then, just to really up the insufferability factor, Jenny Lewis starts opining about Bob Dylan, but she only calls him Bob, which, you can take that one away from here right away, and then launches into the following diatribe...

“You know what I’m so sick of though? All that fucking commercial grunge crap. It all sounds alike. It’s like the record companies that are promoting sterile music. I mean, I love Nirvana, don’t get me wrong, but they weren’t the Beatles.”

WOOF. Mercifully, Brad interrupts her to tell her that he loves her, even though it’s their like, first or second date. She’s reasonably creeped out by this, and just by how earnest and dark and brooding Brad is in general, until thankfully Tobey and the waitress show up, soon followed by Kevin and the hippie hitchhiker. Leo gets his own grand entrance, checking himself out in the reflection of an aquarium while some mid to late nineties boom bap hip hop blares on the soundtrack, natch. For the next hour or so, the group basically just chain smoke countless cigarettes (remember when restaurants had smoking sections?), harasses their waitress, Flo (hey, it’s a mid to late nineties indie movie, were they supposed to NOT name the waitress Flo?) and talk shit endlessly. They also say the word “bro” a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Like, way too much. The world’s most date rapey frat dude would tell them to relax with how much they say the word “bro.”

Suddenly, in between all of the cigarettes and “bros,” a morbidly obese lady walks past the table, and Leo mocks her for daring to be morbidly obese. The hippie hitchhiker takes umbrage with this, and Leo, charming guy that he is, calls her a “squatty piece of hippie shit cunt.” This escalates to the point where the hippie hitchhiker storms off, throwing her Birkenstocks at Leo, and then smashes Kevin’s windshield with a bat that she found…somewhere? Anyway, she’s out of the movie now, and replacing her is Jenny Lewis’s friend Constance, who they just happen to run into. So more bullshitting and chain smoking unfolds. Female masturbation is discussed, because mid to late nineties indie movie. They play Never Have I Ever, and Kevin doesn’t understand the rules, which is kinda endearing. They almost get into a fight with some creep in a mechanics outfit and Buddy Holly glasses. A horrible ska cover of the “Menomena” song from The Muppet Show pops up for a minute of your life that you’ll never get back. Leo sends the group into more turmoil when he outs Brad as bisexual and gives Tobey shit for being vegan. He also gropes Jenny Lewis’s breasts countless times, but no one seems to mind. They all fight about this for awhile, but eventually apologies are offered and they’re bros once again. However, upon learning that Brad is into both girls and guys, Jenny Lewis begins freaking out about AIDS, because ugggh. Then she and Constance start making out for absolutely no reason other than mid to late nineties indie movie. At one point, the film fades out for no reason, and then fades up again on the exact same scene just in time to hear one of the ladies ask the table, “do you guys bathe every day and, like, wash yourself with soap?” Meanwhile, the film will occasionally cut to short vignettes of the characters each saying non-sequiturs into the restroom mirror. Why? Again, because mid to late nineties indie movie. DUH.

The absolute weirdest scene occurs when Kevin Connolly notices a lady producer whom he auditioned for the previous week. He calls her “Spielberg with a pussy,” because of course he does, what else would he call her? The rest of the table convinces him to go talk to her. To both our surprise and his, when he tentatively approaches her at the bar, she’s like, Oh my god, Kevin Connolly! It’s so good to see you! I’m sorry you didn’t get that part you auditioned for, but get this, I was just watching your tape again the other day, and I want to cast you in the lead in this other movie that I’m doing! Not only that, I have to admit, I find you and your Cub Scout haircut and thrift store bowling shirt to be super fucking sexy, and later on tonight I wanna fuck your brains out so hard, so take my number and call me, hot stuff.

WHAT?!?! Like, is this supposed to be a fantasy sequence? Is it? If it is, you have to tell me, movie! Shellshocked and erect, Kevin returns to the table and recounts the whole thing, including the line “bro, it was crazy, bro! She was on my dick so hard!” Leo, meanwhile, is wearing some fake redneck dentures, talking in an exaggerated Southern accent, and eating his own boogers. This is all real, you guys, I promise.

Anyway, some more shit happens, and everyone is yapping about some stupid, possibly offensive nonsense when suddenly a lady at the next table over slaps the guy that she’s with. Hard. Slaps him really hard. Our heroes get quiet for less than a second, before remarking on the slap that just took place. Holy shit bro, that bitch slapped that guy so hard bro, bro bro bro bro, etc. When things get back to normal, Leo is suddenly quiet and sullen. Kevin notices, and tries to coax it out of him the best way he knows how, which is by asking, “you fuckin’ thinkin’ about something, bro?” Leo starts giving all of these cagey, mysterious non-answers, and before long everyone at the table wants to know if he’s fuckin’ thinkin’ about something, bro. Leo takes a deep drag off of his cigarette, and tells everyone, “my dad committed suicide bro.”

WHAAAT?!?! I’ve gotta say, I honestly did not see this coming. In a mood, Leo storms off for the back bar. Jenny Lewis follows him, and tries to make him feel better by relating her OWN familial sob story: “My dad is gone. And my mom is a junkie. She sells her ass on the corner.”

WHAAAAAAT?!?! All of these sudden dollops of soap opera drama, man! Good gravy. For whatever reason, this turns Leo on, and he tries to bang her. She rebuffs his advances, and they get into an overwrought screaming match that plays out like a Level One improv exercise at the world’s shittiest acting school. Meanwhile, back at the table, Tobey gets mad at Kevin for pushing Leo to reveal the truth about his dead dad, and this escalates into a full on fist fight! BRO!

Now, holy shit, you guys, the last five minutes of this movie. Jenny Lewis runs into the bathroom, and begins lamenting into the mirror about how she let a “perfectly good fuck” get away. As she’s saying all this, she pulls some tinfoil, a straw and a lighter out of her purse and just straight up starts FREEBASING CRACK COCAINE.

WHAAAAAAAAAT?!?! Kinda makes all that AIDS talk seem kinda hollow, huh? Then, oh my god, she starts crying and launches into this fucking after school special monologue, screaming into the mirror about how “I was the one that came on to Uncle Jerry! I was the one that was curious!”

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!?! Excuse me, waitress, but it seems you got drug abuse and child molestation in my mid to late nineties indie movie! What is ANY OF THAT doing in here?! And in the last five goddamn minutes of the movie, no less! So now Tobey and Kevin’s bro fight has spilled out onto the street, so Leo goes and breaks it up, he and Kevin do a very intricate secret bro handshake, everyone has a good laugh, Brad lights Kevin’s bowling shirt on fire, everyone goes prancing down the street, and the movie ends.

Now, imagine that you’re Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire. It’s late 1997, or possibly early 1998. One of you is now the biggest movie star on the planet, thanks to a movie about a big-ass boat. You’ve just seen this Don’s Plum movie that your little buddy R.D. Robb made. First of all, it’s a full-length fucking movie, not a short like you both thought it would be. Second of all, both of you are in there saying terrible things about women, doing terrible things to women, and oh shit, the majority of your fans…wait for it…are women! Bro! But worst of all, our little buddy R.D. Robb, who we thought was our friend, our fellow Pussy Posse member, our BRO, is shopping this fucking movie around to distributors? This fucking movie that could possibly end our careers if anyone ever sees it? Tell me, if you were Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire in late 1997 or early 1998, would you do everything in your power to make sure that Don’s Plum never saw the light of day?

Well, according to a lawsuit filed in 1998 by one of the film’s producers, David Stutman, that’s exactly what Leo and Tobey did. Interestingly enough, according to court documents, apparently it was Tobey who was more concerned with how his performance in the film would negatively affect his nascent stardom, and therefore enlisted his much more famous best friend to help him carry out “a fraudulent and coercive campaign to prevent the release of the film.” I mean, Leo comes off as WAY more of an asshole than Tobey, who mainly just mopes around and eventually bro fights with Kevin Connolly, but in any case, both parties eventually reached a settlement in which Stutman agreed that Don’s Plum would not be released in the U.S. or Canada. It premiered at the Berlin Film Festival on February 10, 2001, and quickly faded into Hollywood lore.

Every few years, talk of this wild, black and white, mostly improvised movie with some big celebrities before they got famous will pop up again. Most recently, back in early 2016, another of the film’s producers, Dale Wheatley, uploaded the film to Vimeo and posted it to his website, freedonsplum.com, where anyone could watch it for free. Within days, Leo and Tobey’s respective legal teams had the video removed. You would think that after more than twenty years, with Leo now a respected Oscar winner, and Tobey having brought Spider-Man to life on the big screen, they’d be willing to let bygones be bygones. But it seems that they’re still legitimately concerned that they would stand to lose their vaunted place amongst the Hollywood elite if North American audiences ever got to see Don’s Plum. They still fear it. They still think it’s dangerous. In reality, it’s just embarrassing, which isn’t the same thing.

Truth is, there are a million movies out there just like Don’s Plum. There are a million other overly earnest, needlessly vulgar, navel-gazing indie movies made by overly earnest, needlessly vulgar, navel-gazing young people about the lives of overly earnest, needlessly vulgar, navel-gazing young people out there. I mean, I went to film school, fer chrissakes, I can say with some level of authority that Don’s Plum is the sort of project that my classmates and I poured our hearts and souls Into, only to be embarrassed by its messy, guileless sincerity later. The only thing that distinguishes Don’s Plum from the horde of other cringeworthy embryonic efforts like it is, as I said before, its status as cinematic forbidden fruit. Will its two stars ever allow the audience that it was made for to have a taste? Somehow I doubt it, bro.

[taztaas]

Zombies & Dragons

for @taakitzweek day 4 Notes: Date night turns into a sidequest. This is canon divergence in the sense that this takes place pre Story and Song, but Taako & Kravitz's relationship has developed much further than in the original canon. ao3 link

“Fuckfuckfuckfuck this is FUCKED!” Taako hissed through his teeth and grabbed Kravitz’s arm. To say he was a little creeped out was the understatement of the fucking century. Taako had taken Kravitz out on a date, very much hoping to bone down later. Everything had been going swimmingly, until duty called Kravitz, and because Taako was a stubborn clingy wizard, (and an idiot imbecile!) he had demanded to be taken with. Now they were in some sort of abandoned village, small but absolutely crawling with undead. And Taako was wearing his sexy boots, instead of his adventuring ones.

Fucking necromancers.

Sometimes Taako wished that his boyfriend had a more safe and stable job. Kravitz probably had that same wish about him. But that's just how it was on this bitch of a planet.

Taako flinched in disgust as one of the late villagers shuffled past them, moaning and groaning. Thankfully the zombies were docile, at least for the time being.

“What happened here anyway?” Taako asked, not even trying to keep the repulsed grimace off his face. He was hoping to avoid direct contact with the walking corpses. He had spent way too long on his date night look to let it be ruined by some unplanned shitty sidequest.

“Some kind of disease,” Kravitz said somberly, “wiped out the whole village.”

“Great. Fuckin’ beautiful.” Taako deadpanned, still warily glancing around at the zombies. Kravitz shot him an amused glance but didn’t otherwise comment.

It was just Taako’s luck. Of course, some sad dick had caught wind of the village's misfortune and fucking honed in on the chance to stir up some shit just when he and his bony beau were going to have their long overdue date.

They kept walking, Taako determinedly hanging onto Kravitz’s arm and keeping his eyes on the undead shuffling around them as Kravitz led the way towards their destination, which was, of course, the graveyard in the middle of the village. Necromancers could be so damn predictable.

As soon as the first grave markers came to sight, a terrifying, animalistic roar cut through the stagnant air of the village and Taako immediately dived into some bushes, pulling Kravitz down with him by instinct.

Kravitz, who hadn’t expected the harsh tug on his arm, stumbled and half fell into Taako, just managing to keep his balance (but not his dignity) intact.

“What-- what the hell was that?” Taako hissed, ignoring his boyfriend’s fumbling out of the sheer goodness of his heart. There was a sound of movement from above and he looked up, eyes wide and ears perked.

Taako considered himself lucky because he was already down on the ground. He would’ve fallen on his ass otherwise. He breathed in sharply.

“HOLY MOTHER OF--!”

“SHHH!” Kravitz cried, slapping a hand over his mouth in panic. Taako immediately pulled the hand off his face and glared. “Watch the lipstick, homie!”

Kravitz grinned sheepishly, “Sorry, darling.”

Another roar. Taako ducked deeper into the bushes but kept his eyes on the creature circling around in the air above the village. Beside him, Kravitz groaned in frustration and covered his face with his free hand, the other one gripping his scythe.

Taako swallowed audibly, his eyes still on the sky. “That what I think it is?”

“Depends on what you think it is,” Kravitz answered, slightly muffled by his palm still covering his face.

“Undead dragon.”

“...Yeah, it is what you think it is.”

“...Welp.” Taako stood up and brushed off the knees of his pants with a sigh. He really liked these pants. “Let’s go, I guess.”

“I’m so sorry about our date Taako, I guess we’re going to miss our reservation,” Kravitz said as he stood up beside him, and he actually sounded sorry because Kravitz was always genuine like that. Taako shrugged because he really couldn’t be mad at Kravitz for something like this.

“’s fine babe, maybe next time, yeah?”

Kravitz’s lips curved upwards, and he turned into a skeleton mid-smile, his cloak appearing on his shoulders in a cloud of black smoke. Taako grinned. “Hot.” He pointed the Umbra Staff upwards and cast Magic Missile.

The dragon landed on the graveyard with a thud that made several headstones topple over. It flapped its bony wings threateningly and belched out a cloud of purple gas that made the grass and every other living thing in its immediate vicinity shrivel up and die in a matter of seconds.

“Try not to get hit by that dear,” Kravitz said dryly and Taako barked a laugh, slightly hysterical.

“No shit, handsome!”

The fight started; Taako kept his distance, shooting spells from the sidelines while Kravitz dealt melee damage with his scythe and other abilities. Unfortunately, neither of them could really take hits, so they were wasting a lot of energy dodging and shielding themselves.

“Krav, this isn’t working!” Taako yelled after rolling away from a swipe of the dragon’s tailbone. Kravitz used his scythe to parry a claw attack. “What do you suggest?”

“Do your golem thing! Use the stones here or something!”

“And then what?”

Taako’s grin was wide enough to expose pointed canines.  “I’ll transmute ya.”

Taako provided a distraction, while Kravitz’s form melted away, and for a few seconds he was only a floating ball of light before rocks and other rubble started to collect around him and take shape. As soon as Kravitz’s form was finished, Taako transmuted the material around him into crystal. More specifically pink tourmaline.

What could he say, he was a romantic at heart.

“Salt and burn, asshole!” Taako yelled and cast Scorching Ray while Kravitz punched the dragon in the jawbone. Fuck, Fantasy Supernatural was such a great show.

It didn’t take too long to finish the monster off after that and Kravitz returned to his handsome form. As the dragon turned into dust, the necromancer crawled out of whatever hole he had hidden in, screaming about how they were going to pay and yadda yadda. He raised some more zombies from the ground below but Kravitz was quick to dispatch them with a swing of his scythe, though it had the unfortunate side effect of splashing both him and Taako with zombie innards and ectoplasm.

“Dude!”

“My bad, love.”

Taako hung back and seated himself on a rock, swinging his ankle idly while Kravitz gave his spiel about disrespecting the laws of life and death and sent the necromancer over to the Astral plane and the Stockade.

Taako waited until Kravitz was done and walking towards him. He stood up, hands on his hips.

“You know Krav, we make a great team. Wanna get married?”

Kravitz stumbled violently and stared at Taako, slack-jawed, and this time Taako laughed openly, slapping his thigh. “Hoo boy! Your face!”

“Taako, darling. Please tell me you did not just propose to me. You can’t do this to me, I had this whole thing planned out, rose petals and everything--”

Taako cut him off with a kiss, even though they’re both covered in zombie juices and other miscellaneous goop and dirt.

“I love you,” Taako crooned with a grin and draped his arms over Kravitz’s shoulders, batting his lashes.

“Dammit, Taako!” Kravitz cursed and Taako kissed him again to shut him up and just because he wanted to, goddammit. Kravitz huffed.

“Fine. I mean yes! I love you too.”

“Natch.”

[beastoftheblackhole]

got tagged by @d--t​ to do this, so here i go :>

things i read in 2020

i’m just gonna list the stuff i actually finished, bc i’m a great one for starting a book but never finishing it ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ this list would be twice as long if i included stuff i started and abandoned. stars next to rereads, stuff i liked/recommend in italics. i read more than i thought i did, dang.

harrow the ninth

monsters among us

haunted files from the edge

the hunt for the skinwalker*

snow crash*

the interdimensional universe

monsters of the sea

helter skelter

mirrorshades

a cruel wind: pandemic flu in america, 1918-1920

the indifferent stars above

the druidry handbook

backwoods witchcraft

queering the tarot

witchcraft and the gay counterculture

‘salem’s lot*

sesqua valley and other haunts*

the strange dark one*

sabriel*

lirael*

neuromancer*

wyrm (ugh)

end of october (ugh)

this republic of suffering: death and the american civil war

books of blood

burning chrome

appaloosa

resolution

brimstone

does the coffee table tom of finland book from taschen count? it’s mostly pics (natch) but there’s actual like. words in it, essays on his work from fans and some biographical stuff

i wasn’t gonna list fanfics bc wow that’d make this list too fuckin long but reach out and touch faith gets a special shout-out bc a) @d--t wrote it and b) its rly fuckin good

poss other books, but icr them. also countless fanfics, mostly for ravenous, star wars, and star trek tng. also the obligatory articles abt spanish flu, the biology o covid, an article or two abt film photography, etc. u know, special interest stuff and story research.

things i wrote in 2020

i don’t think i finished anything? i finished my blood drive/ravenous crossover, but i did that like. friday? saturday? so in 2021. fucker clocked in at 106-107 pages so far, depending on what happens when i’m done editing. it’ll start going up in a couple weeks, prob. but i did work on it in 2020, so i guess that counts. i also worked on all three o my novel projects, tho i decided to shelve the pandemic novel until covid’s over. it’s hard to write abt a pandemic while ur living in one, or at least i found it so. so: 

a fantasy pandemic novel feat. politics, crisis response, and more queers than u can shake a stick at, basically camus’ ‘the plague’ or soderbergh’s ‘contagion’ in a fantasy setting, which i’ve been working on since. 2018?? 2019??

an epic fantasy western abt Big Nature, cosmic horror, and magic-as-radiation inspired by ansel adams, the donner party, high strangeness, and nuclear disasters

a very absurd crossover that’s basically cannibal murder husbands vs murder husbands in cars that run on blood, feat. a cameo from mad science and musings on the nature o immortal relationships

cyberpunk retail trauma with necromancy and designer pathogens and more mad science and queers. so like. futuristic arcane-/bio-/cyberpunk i guess.

i also poked a few odds and ends among my wips, tried and failed to write a smutty side story abt the two leads from the fantasy western, but nothing to shout from the mountaintops abt.

things i’m gonna read in 2021

bruh idk i can’t predict what’s gonna catch my eye and be my next book. i started rereading ‘american gods’ a couple days ago and ‘the andromeda strain’ yesterday, so prob gonna finish those. i do know i’m gonna at least try to read:

tarot for writers

the spectral arctic: a history of ghosts and dreams in polar exploration

the ghosts of cape sabine: the harrowing true story of the greeley expedition

full body problem: growing up in the nuclear shadow of rocky flats

exploring the northern tradition

norse mythology (the guerber one)

history of the donner party: a tragedy of the sierras (maybe)

we’ll see how many o those i actually get thru lmao. i’m in the process o reading the norse mythology book at least, so that stands a good chance. 

anyway, i tag u, gentle reader.

[langwrites]

Tag Game: 10 Questions:

Rules: Answer the questions, then create 10 more, and tag people.

Tagged by: @owlsofstarlight

1. Would you date any of your ocs?

Hmmm.

You know, given that I’m the cause of all their misery, ultimately, that would be a terrible idea.

If I had to choose (and not die), hrm. Well, Naviyd. Probably.

2. What kind of poster(s) would your oc have on their wall?

Naviyd has his father’s rather inaccurate, theistic world maps on his wall. They’re stitched somewhat haphazardly among more accurate records, diagrams, and a wonky drawing of what might someday be a pulley system.

And one nice sketch of a family of four, made by Khalil when he was six years old. It’s more aspirational than accurate, but Naviyd kept it there throughout his son’s entire absent adolescence.

3. If your oc found a time machine, would they use it? for what?

He’d probably tell himself to fight Zahara for custody of both twins.

4. Do any of your ocs have a catchphrase? If so, what?

Naviyd doesn’t see much point. Dude used to basically kill Kaltekan generals as a sacred mission, and he sure wasn’t going to make a career of that by sticking around and monologuing.

5. Tell me about one of your ocs hobbies.

Naviyd studies maps and architecture—which is why Gabilan is a lot more cavernous, winding, and mazelike than its squad design would imply—and spends his free time hunting from horseback with a bow. He does it mainly to keep his skills sharp.

If he wants to have fun, he finds someone and strikes up a friendship if he hasn’t already.

6. What inspired one of your favorite ocs?

I couldn’t choose. So, you get four.

Naviyd was inspired by...hm. Basically, I read a section of a Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual (probably 3.5) and spotted the entry on copper dragons. My next thought was, “I’ve gotta have one of those.” Several more thoughts, several years, and one quick jaunt through CYB later, and Rikuto back-retconned his way into Naviyd’s personality, resulting in what he is today.

Oceanus was half-inspired by a wacky combination of Edward Elric and this dude named chaos (all lowercase) from Xenosaga. His affinity for storms is derived from a combination of my attempts to make a sorcerer character (D&D again), and the powers of Darker than BLACK’s Agent November 11 and BK-201/Black Reaper/Hei. He, too, has been through a lot of revisions to soften and sharpen different parts of his personality, until we get the procupine we have today.

Alena, for her part, is pretty directly derived from the powerset displayed by Tsunade back when I was first watching Naruto in like…middle school? She got a fancy coat from some bolt of inspiration I can’t recall now, and her personality ended up just being like… What I admired about people who could keep their kindness and strength in tough times. I think I read a few pretty dark stories the year I really worked nailing her personality down.

And finally, Lumina. Hoo boy. Originally, she was just a derivation—the spare, the younger twin, the goof to Alena’s mother’s stern nature. And over the years, Lumina went from the mere mirror to a stone-cold badass the more I read about some real shitty common tropes—the idea that a woman’s strength was always derived from a man, or that a queen couldn’t rule on her own, and so on. I thought, “Fuck that and the horse it rode in on,” resulting in this terrifying paladin who was just always good, regardless of what others thought.   

7. What kind of clothes does your oc like to wear?

Naviyd will wear anything that is a) warm and b) looks good on him. In that order. If he has a choice between almost dying of frostbite or impressing a foreign dignitary, he’s gonna pile on those furs and demand Lumina heat the castle somehow, dammit.

He tends to get a lot of his work done while wearing just a plain shirt and pants, slippers, and the biggest blanket he can find.

8. Does your oc believe in love at first sight?

Naviyd used to. It did not pan out at all.

Oceanus doesn’t, at least as far as it pertains to him.

Alena does.

Lumina does not, and never has.

9. If you took your ocs for one story and put them in an au, what au would you choose?

I kinda already did that, by allowing all of these Terramir kids to wander over to CYB. Granted, some of them didn’t have the longest lifespan, but I’m generally content with the way that worked out.

10. What is something your oc is afraid of?

Naviyd is afraid of bears. Does that count?

Siri’s questions:

1.What was the trickiest bits of worldbuilding you have ever done?

Tryin’ to figure out what the fuck was going on with Alanrian politics. They’re a mess of squabbling states, and I still can’t remember why.

And most of the rest of the continents are just kinda...there. Like, the Mishik come from a different continent entirely, as do the Xinfanese, but those aren’t visited during the course of the plot because the thing focuses on stopping an impending apocalypse that the Kaltekan Civil War allowed to happen.

It’s their responsibility.

2.Do you have any maps(you don’t need to post the map)? What was your favorite part of developing your geography?

Cooking the macaroni afterward.

3.Does your story have magic? What are its limitations, if yes?

They do have magic, but the upper limit varies from person to person…and being to being. It’s usually a question of what’ll kill you first. That’ll be your limit. Creatures born in the Dreamscape have an instinctive grasp of magic, though they may not be the strongest, and can generally only cross over to the real world when either stumbling through a random hole or finding a human counterpart to latch onto.

Dragons are… another story. They’re basically mid-tier gods, and they can’t walk the mortal world without a vessel.  

4.Does your main antagonist believe in god?

Well, dragons all do. They have a memory of their ancestors literally meeting the gods, wayyy back in their mythology.

5.Do you have secondary villains?

At least three, yeah.

6.How many words are your drafts?

I have no fuckin’ idea.

7.What is your favorite method of outlining?

Not to do so?

8.Which one of your ocs is queer?(if multiple, mention them all!)

Uh. The ones that I remember off-hand:

Oceanus (demihet bi)

Alena (demipan)

Khalil (aro pan)

Tirane (bi)

Riyaz (aroace)

Mitra (agender aroace)

Lumina (demibiro het)

Naviyd (aro demibi)

9. If you took your ocs for one story and put them in an au, what au would you choose? (Stealing from above cause this was a fun question)

CYB, natch.

10.Which of all the names in all your books, including characters, places, animals etc., is your favorite?

The names?

Hm.

I think my favorite stroke of brilliance was Lumina’s name in the first place. Sure, it means “light” in at least one language, but the fun part is that it’s also an unit of measurement for levels of light. Once I realized I could make a theme, I started spreading it around. Her sister became Luxana, while her older niece is Alena, both of which mean “light” as well. Her family last name, adopted upon being raised to nobility, is also an old reference to how people used to measure light: Lambert. Her sister’s last name now means “fire,” which is, again, a source of light.

And so on and so forth. There’s a theme.

I ain’t gonna tag anyone since it’s late and my brain’s fried. Night, all.