#of course its a good idea to put old school easter eggs and characters and story and stuff of the og days

[puhpandas]

thinking abt the ggy easter eggs rn

[ccsthemovie2]

trick or treat 2021 letter

DEAR MY KIND AND HARDWORKING GIFTER,

hi there my ao3 is zagspect and thanks in advance for making me a piece of fic or art in this fun little exchange! heres some food for thought to munch on.

i loooove slice of life, character moments, outsider povs that make things we’re used to in canon seem absurd or funny or weird or scary, humor, horror-in-fluff’s-clothing, sweetness-found-in-horror, and also just plain sweetness. feel free to get weird or experimental with your writing if you think the moment calls for it :3 im not really requesting anything sexy-nsfw in this exchange so pls keep things down to a nice pg13 (high-rated gore for higurashi work is an exception, lol, like, it’s when they cry. that’s just part of the deal.)

🌸✨

cardcaptor sakura (trick or treat!)

clear card manga spoilers are fine with me! manga and anime canon are both fine, and mashing them up is cool too. no aus past that though, please!

clow reed

the big man himself! scare me with his his manipulative tendencies, his eternal pushpull fear of both being eternally relied on and being no longer needed, the way he treats other people, especially people who love him. (yue! the madoushi! i am into both of these being unrequited romantically on his end, but he’s not gonna just gonna tell them that, you think he’s straightforward like that?) what’s daily life like in the clowse? creating a new card, what’s that like? does everybody get along with the normal, non magic neighbors? 

yelan li

what’s up with her??? what’s her relationship with her children like, what are the responsibilities of a magician family’s head, how weird is it that clow is kind of back all of a sudden, what’s her thoughts on sakura? fleshing out a minor character is always fun :]

eriol & li

okay, so, we get to the end of the original series. syaoran returns to hong kong. ????????. syaoran is in cahoots with eriol to (vaguely alluding to cc spoilers in case you haven’t caught up in the manga), do some pretty serious magic behind sakura’s back.

so, like... what went down in the ?????

kero & sakura & yue 

they’re FAMBILYYYYY. magic found family i love them so much. show me the depths of their care for her, and hers for them, the way there’s absolutely some ice to break with yue but when he gets loyal he will DIE for you, the way sakura can mend the rift between kero and yue, the way the two of them are balancing this wonderful openness and equality with oh yeah, she’s eleven, we kind of said some seriously dark stuff in the haze of sleepover talk didn’t we? 

ruby & spinel & eriol 

pre-canon or mid-canon or post-canon! what’s the dynamic between them, a quiet night in, a day out telling people that you’re connected by whatever lie you find funniest. going to tomoeda and having to pretend youre a kid, a teen, and a cat, but goddd you could all go for an elegant and adult glass of wine right now (especially the cat). what horrors are lurking in that house from the clow era that no one cares to address? like emotionally and also because it’s a magic wizard house with magic stuff in it. 

touya/yukito/yue 

i am here for any and all angles of this ship- all together, your touyukis, your yuetouyas, your yuekitos if you wanna get in on a rarely seen angle! (but pls have touya and/or yukito be 18+ at a time where yue shows interest in them). i wanna see the way they interact! how they deal with, you know, the everything! pre-relationship pining, going on a date, touya and yukito in college wondering if they’ll end up having different majors, different paths for the first time. yukito seeing yue on video for the first time (OH NO HES HOT), yukito and yue figuring out internal boundaries, etc etc etc.  

naoko and touya 

the girl who loves ghosts and the guy who sees (or, used to see), ghosts! does she follow him to one of his haunts (pun intended)? does he have to go to her for ghost sensing advice now that he’s a regular old human? does he have to save her from a ghost that means her harm? how excited is she to tell sakura about the COOL GHOST I MET WITH YOUR BROTHER OMG U DIDNT TELL ME HE LIKES GHOSTS??? and how much does sakura wanna sink into the ground lololol

🌹⚔️

revolutionary girl utena (trick or treat!)

ohh, what a place of scary happenings! tell me a fairytale, even if it’s not such a good idea. pre, mid, postcanon, im fine with it all. feel free to weave a web with easter egg references to any other media you feel is right for the moment- utena is all about Genre and Stories!

shadow girls 

i love them i love their whole everything. i wanna see a play, i wanna see them interact with other characters! what if they do a play AS the other characters, ooooh.

anthy/utena 

THE GIRLS WHO INVENTED LOVE THEMSELVES. ive read a thousand stories of them finding each other and it never gets old. id love to read about their life post-ohtori, especially the not-so-happily-ever-after parts- the old wounds reopening, the fights, and how they work through it, wont lose each other ever again. 

saionji/touga

what’s spookier than toxic masculinity? both of them miserably stuck, saionji obsessed with touga, touga believing anyone who believes in friendship is a fool. bro we are taking shirtless pictures among 500 potted cacti....why does my heart hurt..... oh shit its the cactus i rolled onto it ow ow

nanami

nanami being nanami! she’s got no clue how to act ever, she’s desperate, she’s trying SO HARD. i’d love to see a nanami finally getting out of there, too. leaving home with nothing but the clothes on her back, diamonds in her necklace, and a wheeled suitcase of raw eggs.... (crunch crunch crunch)

🎲🗓

higurashi when they cry (trick or treat!)

i’m a gou/sotsu enjoyer and gonna prompt about that a lot but original flavor is, of course, great too. pls dont go too heavy on info outside the main 8+saikoroshi+gou/sotsu? i haven’t read those. ive read umineko+ciconia though so references there are fine :3

rena/mion/keiichi

college days! getting together, crushing on each other, poly relationship figuringouts? dates that are just club meetings with kissing and all the ridiculousness of that.

satoko/rika

gou/sotsu era TOXIC LESBIAN EPIC MOMENTS!!!!!! obsession and desperation and satoko putting all her emotional eggs in rika’s basket no matter how angry she is with her, rika’s love for satoko across 100 years and how that all crumbles (to satoko) in the face of rika’s Cool School. rika wanting satoko to go to school with her so so so bad. deep pain and misunderstandings and acting badly (like, murder badly), and then, we hope, atonement and something new beginning? i love character moments where someones so obsessively in love it feels like its eating them up inside.

rena & satoko

look, rena’s smart and really pays attention to how people feel and i think, before or after satoko becomes a looper but especially after, she would make an attempt to have a heart to heart with satoko. and satoko, as a looper, will politely brush her off, will go you dont know me you can’t affect me. youre just a chess piece. when i get to the miracle world where rika loves me, ill listen to you. this you is here to die, or to kill. 

eua

oh eua is just using satoko up like a bar of soap and it takes satoko way, way too long to realize. evil girltalk/crush advice from the witchmom perhaps?

shion

meakashi made me LOVE her. internal shion moments, perhaps? shion being an empath (decides what ppl are thinking and instantly believes it)? shion in gou-era wanting to talk to satoko about st. lucia’s, but she never shows up to dinner?

okay i think that’s all for now!!! thanks and i hope you have fun!!!

[found--family]

‘Supernatural’ season 15, episode 15 screener secrets: We’re ‘Highway to Heaven’-ing this bitch

[everything is from this Hypable article] 

This week on Supernatural, Amara returns and are angels solving people crimes now? Hypable previewed Supernatural season 15, episode 15 “Gimme Shelter,” so read on to find out more.

After a sweet and fun return to ease us back into the world of Supernatural last week, things are heating up pretty dramatically – I knew there wouldn’t be much more time for messing around.

“Gimme Shelter” sees Supernatural dip its feet into what the Winchesters currently believe is their big plan – eliminating Chuck by also taking down Amara, resulting in what they believe will be a cosmic-being-free balanced world. But first, they have to find her. Sam and Dean get a pretty good lead on her location, which results in a very interesting conversation between Amara and the boys – especially with her most favoritest Dean, of course.

Meanwhile, Castiel is persuaded into taking Jack to investigate a nearby case in Missouri – which all three adults suspect is probably the work of a human criminal – for the sake of humoring Jack and keeping him both busy and supervised. On the way home, they have a very interesting conversation of their own.

Spoiler Warning: This article contains generalized spoilers for Supernatural season 15 episode 15, “Gimme Shelter.” If you do not wish to be spoiled at all, do not read this article in advance of the airdate.

The official synopsis for Supernatural season 15, episode 15 reads:

MATT COHEN DIRECTS — Castiel (Misha Collins) and Jack (Alexander Calvert) work a case involving members of a local church. Meanwhile, Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) go off in search of Amara (guest star Emily Swallow). Matt Cohen directed the episode written by Davy Perez (#1515). Original airdate 10/15/2020.

If you want to know what to expect from this week’s Supernatural, here’s 10 teasers plus 15 single word clues from our advance viewing of Supernatural season 15, episode 15 “Gimme Shelter.”

‘Supernatural’ season 15, [10] episode 15 screener secrets 

1️⃣ During the filming of this episode (27 January – 5 February) Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles both spent much of the week at home with their families in Austin, a detail which was made clear on their and their wives’ public social media accounts – possibly the result of scheduled time off as they’ve mentioned occasionally requesting? The result is that the episode is weighted much more towards Cas, Jack and the murder investigation they’re chasing than towards Sam and Dean, but on the flip side, the Sam and Dean arc is more crucial to the long game of the show, so what it lacks in minutes, it makes up for in impact. 

2️⃣ However, the episode still begins and ends in a grounded family group way, at home in the Bunker – one of those “we know we should be doing this together but there are Reasons we have to split up” situations. This detail, in my opinion, really speaks to the motivation of the creative team towards honoring the four leads as parts of a whole – in earlier days, this kind of episode would have been two entirely non-touching threads. This one is, if not a tapestry, at very least a braid – tied up together at both ends, and intertwined in the middle.

3️⃣ You might have seen pictures or ominous trailer footage of Castiel and Jack digging a hole at the crossroads. We all know what that means! However, don’t worry. They simply want to talk – and the demon they summon has some really interesting – and dare I say positive? – news about the state of Hell under Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Rowena. Let’s just say the demon is actually pretty friendly… and extremely bored.

4️⃣ The two main guest stars on Cas and Jack’s side of the episode are both actors who have been briefly featured on the show before, in a couple of pretty famous episodes – one from season 2 and one from season 5. I don’t think there’s meant to be any meta or Easter Egg element to this, just the usual Vancouver casting industry cycle (see the ‘Weren’t You In Another Episode‘ reference page on the SuperWiki) but one of them is one of those cute “I appeared on Supernatural as a child and now I’m here as an adult” situations, and the other, well… the original character’s very name has become the stuff of Supernatural legend, and if I were in charge of this episode I would have put the actor in a particular piece of footwear and made sure we got a shot of it, just for kicks.

5️⃣ Castiel steps into a prayer circle when the church group members are meant to give a testimony – presumably of their journey so far and their relationship with faith. That’s what Cas chooses to share, at least – in a non-specific, humanized way – and fans of the character will be moved to hear the ways he verbalizes his own growth.

6️⃣ Speaking of growth, some of Dean’s is spelled out for him in the most miraculous way by Amara. After Sam and Dean meet up with her and have a conversation about Chuck that’s ultimately a bit of a non-starter, Dean returns to ask her another, more personal question. Her response gave me legitimate chills. It’s a very weighty mic drop and the combination of the level of impact and the level of clarity (it’s entirely airtight, no room for interpretation) feels like the culmination of all the self-actualization work the show has been doing on Dean in the last four years. (I wish I could tell you Sam got a big special moment like this in the episode, but he doesn’t. Amara’s return was always going to be Dean’s thing.) Amara’s speech to Dean… it doesn’t feel isolated, like the idea of it was invented just for this episode. It feels more like concrete evidence of what the show has been trying to prove for ages. And the funny thing is, Amara is the anti-Chuck, right, and all season, we’ve learned about the version of the story Chuck thinks is good, and we’ve been told to root against that. Chuck’s version of Supernatural isn’t how the writers really feel. But I think Amara’s might be. Dean has obviously struggled to see what she tells him, all in one piece, but here it is – this was the point, laid out on the table, from the entity behind the curtain – both onscreen and off. Amara knew what she was doing, and so did the writers. This was always, always the point.

7️⃣ Even before this massive scene, Amara’s return is just great. Emily Swallow does such an incredible job with this character – she really is the anti-Chuck even without the whole writer comparison. Swallow imbues this character with such an incredible peace and stillness in comparison to Chuck’s histrionics – this was true in the way she spoke and behaved even in season 11, but this Amara also feels kindness and patience and tolerance. She radiates power, even when she’s also slightly goofy. There’s no fight, there’s no antagonism, but the boys in her presence are like little fish in a vast ocean – they quickly realise they have no real control in this conversation. The way that we leave her indicates she’ll be back and has more to say or do, and what she shared during her reunion with Sam and Dean makes me really curious about the role she’s due to play in the show’s endgame.

8️⃣ I’m not very religious but I really like the version of a church group or ‘faith-based community,’ as they say, featured in “Gimme Shelter.” Supernatural has a shaky history in terms of how the show portrays people in-universe who believe. Sometimes they’re treated like a joke, or stupid, or dangerous, or hypocrites, but occasionally civilian acts of faith are shown as great and powerful things, even in a world where we know that what they believe in isn’t strictly accurate. That concept became an even bigger question mark for me when we got the reveal that Judeo-Christian God is not only absent, but our actual villain. However, this was a really nice look at why faith can still be a framework for a good way of life – loving thy neighbor – for some people, no matter the truth about Chuck. The episode also features a callback to writer Davy Perez’ very first Supernatural episode “American Nightmare” in terms of the way that some people have weaponized faith and religion to the detriment and harm of others or even themselves, but this factor does not negate the positive point mentioned above.

9️⃣ Supernatural alum and newly minted director Matt Cohen really got the full old-school Supernatural episode experience when it comes to leaning into the spooky horror element. The murderous case-of-the week featured in this episode is heavy and lingering on the gore and even contains a little bit of a jump scare, so view responsibly.

🔟 So, um, you know that line, in this week’s teaser trailer? The line that a lot of people are freaking out about because it seems to pertain to something important that we know about Cas’ fate that Dean and Sam aren’t aware of? Yeah, it is 100% absolutely not about that at all. It is about something super important, but it’s not that. It’s also the last line of the episode, but trust me – it’s not a cliffhanger and it’s not a red herring and it’s not a twist. The information is gleaned within the episode and you’ll know exactly what Cas is telling Dean about after seeing it – narratively, that’s the reason it isn’t in the episode, because the show clearly assumes you’ll get the picture and can skip a rehash of information. But what you were probably expecting – maybe even hoping for – it’s not that. You’re gonna have to hang on for that one.

Finally, have 15 random yet significant words from this week’s episode without any context whatsoever: Gaia, Ronald, mother, pierogies, cats, philosophy, target, blind, permission, lockdown, Kool-aid, buffet, gift, trial, choice.

‘Supernatural’ airs Thursday at 8/7c on The CW

[noblecrumpet-dorkvision]

Retiring Adventurers

When your character decides it’s time for their adventure to end, they should think about retiring. While most PCs retire their characters after completing a campaign, a character can retire a bit early if the player has become too tired of playing them.

This is a much better option than killing them off! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen that question on the D&D 5e Facebook group. “How should I kill off my character?” “My DM won’t let me kill my character, what do I do?” “I want to change characters but I’m stuck as this one!”

The answer is letting your character retire. There are plenty of reasons you can come up with to write off a PC. Try one of the following or come up with one of your own.

Reasons to Stop Adventuring

Family Needs: A character’s family might take precedence from adventuring. Perhaps a loved one falls ill and you need to leave the main quest to seek out a cure on your own. Maybe your family has had children that need to be raised, and now you must leave after your brief escapade into adventuring.

Fear: Perhaps an adventurer decides that a campaign is beyond their means and is too afraid to proceed. A simple farmer that decided to adventure because they were good at killing dire rats might back down when they are told they have to slay a dragon. It’s perfectly acceptable for a hero to decide that an adventure is too dangerous and leave their party.

Wealth Satiation: An adventurer’s life is one of wealth. A pouch of gold pieces are enough for a peasant to live comfortably for a month. When an adventurer comes across a magic item and sells it for a cool 50K gp, it stands to reason that they no longer need to worry about a retirement plan. For some, this is plenty of reason to stop putting themselves in danger by delving in dungeons.

Story Satiation: Your character may have finished its story arc in the campaign. After this, they may find less reason to travel with the party and more reason to leave them. Your character’s motivations and traits have changed such that you no longer need to adventure.

Giving Up: After a great defeat where much is lost, an adventurer might be irreparably broken. They might not believe they have anything left to fight for, or any hope of success. With nothing left to drive them, they could leave the adventure to hide from whatever calamity is threatening the world.

Injury: There are some injuries that cannot be healed normally. Your adventurer could lose a limb, or become blinded or deafened, or suffer from a curse that cannot be healed. While many heroes overcome such injuries to accomplish great things, it could still be a reason for an adventurer to leave the party. Perhaps they are seeking a cure or a fix outside of the main quest, or perhaps it has broken their spirit to throw themselves at danger and they wish to retire to safety.

Love: Perhaps a hero meets the love of their life while out and abroad during an adventure. Rather than leaving them to face certain danger, they may opt to stay behind and be with them. Love is a great motivator. It can move people to face the odds, but it can also inspire them to leave their quest.

Retired Heroes

Once an adventurer retires, they become an NPC in the world. When you retire your character, you can work with your DM to figure out what happens to your former player-character once they leave the party and go about their own way. Some of these are especially awesome to use for campaigns that follow a previous one in the same setting.

Civilians: A humble hero might become a simple merchant, farmer, barkeep or the like. This NPC might just be someone that the PCs can check in on, buy things from, or just run into on return trips to town.

Plot Devices: A retired hero doesn’t always have to be great, but perhaps they have a new role in the story that they have yet to play. An old adventurer can have plenty of connections that let them weave into a new storyline. Maybe they have a piece of information or lore that the other players need later in the same story in a new campaign’s arc.

Leaders: An adventurer may become a leader within a society, or may have started their own society to lead. Perhaps the once-paladin is now a leader of the city guard. Maybe a wizard is now a wizened headmaster of a magic school. A cleric could build a new temple to their deity and begin gathering followers. Imagine being a low-level character in a new campaign and meeting your previous character, now high-level and in a seat of power!

Legends: An adventurer from a previous campaign could have become a hero of legend that disappeared or faded into myth. Some are unsure if they ever existed. But their stories remain and they are talked about with a sort of reverence. Locations or items could have been named after them, and the new or surviving PCs can discover these little easter eggs.

Hereditary Items

A really cool idea for characters that had a signature item: Hereditary Items. Not necessarily literally passed down through family, but a character could encounter a magic item or weapon that belonged to a hero PC from a previous campaign in the same setting. After their time with that hero, the item has grown and evolved, becoming greater, and now a new aspiring hero has picked it up. In time, it will become their own as well.

Don’t do this too often as it can get boring to keep finding the same items over and over, but it can be nice to find one or two on an adventure. Perhaps it is a new item that was not originally magical, but gained magic powers over the course of the hero’s adventures. Maybe the same magic that gives bards power through stories also empowers weapons through being a part of a hero’s story.

Here are some powers that an existing item could have gained:

Imparts a weaker version of a class ability the old wielder had (like sneak attack, rage, an invocation, etc)

Grants a feat that the old wielder used to have.

A weapon deals additional damage of an elemental type

A weapon gains a greater bonus to attacks/damage (+1 becomes +2, etc)

A set of armor has a greater bonus to AC (+1 becomes +2, etc)

The item can now once per day cast a spell the old wielder could cast.

Lets the attuned creature speak and understand a language the previous wielder could

An existing feature of the item is strengthened

An ability of the item with limited uses gains more of them, or gains additional charges, or lasts longer.

The item is sentient and contains the soul of the previous owner.

Or make up your own! It’s a great way to tie one campaign to the next and make heroes into legends!

[annacwrites]

the wip list

Alright, gang. Buckle up. This is going to be a long one, and at this point I can’t even bring myself to be sorry about it. I meant to put this off but then I started thinking about it, so here we are (at 1:05 in the morning when I have to work at 8:30, what am I doing?). 

I’m going to break this down in a couple of ways—fanfiction vs. original fiction, fandom (if it’s a fanfic), series/universe (if it’s in one), and then the individual books themselves (if I have the ability to do that, because quite frankly, for some of these I don’t because I have no idea what the titles are or where I’m splitting the story yet).

Also, “WIP” is an incredibly broad term here. In some cases it means I’ve already written the whole thing but I plan to 100% rewrite it (and haven’t started yet). In some cases it means I’ve written half of the thing but haven’t finished yet. In some cases it means I have it all outlined but haven’t started writing yet. In some cases it means I haven’t really touched an outline on paper yet but I have it all worked out in my head. Take the “in progress” part of WIP with a grain of salt.

(Putting this whole thing under the cut because it is so freaking long. I apologize if the read-more doesn’t work on your dash. Idk what tumblr is doing.)  

Starting off easy—the fics:

Harry Potter: (JKR can fuck off with her transphobia and cultural appropriation and all the other stupid and fucked-up shit that she’s done/promoted but, as I said to my friends, she can pry my next-gen fanfics from my cold dead hands. Cursed Child is not canon in my life because I’ve never read it and I don’t care what nonsense she came up with.)

The “In Your Arms I’ll Stay” universe (Tedtoire/Scorose): 

The first fic in this universe is the first fic I ever finished. 110k words followed up by a ~137k word sequel. It is a disaster and a half but it’s also my baby and I fully intend to rewrite it one of these days. It is full of standard Tedtoire trope-y nonsense—best friends since childhood! two-year age gap! jealousy about other relationships! obliviousness!—and at 15 I thought it was a really good idea to try to turn it into a mystery too, which is a mistake that I have every intention of rectifying because it was unnecessary and I just didn’t know how to do drama and tension back then. 

Anyway. It will probably be two parts again when I rewrite it because one part per school year just works, yeah? We’re covering Vic’s fifth/Teddy’s seventh year and Vic’s sixth year/Teddy’s first year out of school over the course of these parts.

Within this universe we also have Heartbeat and Bone, which is a Scorose fic that I’ve written probably 75% of already but have no intention of actually finishing before I rewrite it. I want to get the stories in the right order so that I can get details straightened out, so Teddy and Victoire get the rewrites first and then I’ll be revisiting this fic. Also full of trope-y nonsense (and my continued acceptance of the headcanon that the Heads have their own dormitory at Hogwarts, because it’s just too much fun that way).  

some things were meant to be (Tedtoire):

Oh god, another fic with a cliché title taken from Can’t Help Falling In Love. I have zero regrets because it fits them perfectly.

This one is... half-done? I fully intend to finish it but I need to finish the outline first. It was my 2019 NaNoWriMo project and I am 100% just writing it for the lols (and because Teddy and Vic are like... my comfort ship where writing is concerned). I wanted to play with a different universe and change up their relationship and roles at school a bit, but once again... trope-y nonsense. It’s unavoidable with them. There is obliviousness everywhere. 

Star Wars: (it’s Reylo, okay? It’s Reylo. I don’t want to hear it about how the ship is ~so terrible.~ That is literally the furthest thing in the world from a hot take, you can’t say a single thing that I haven’t heard before, and I’m a grown adult and can do what I want. Bite me.)

looking for the map that leads me home (Reylo): 

Stole the title on this one from We Take Care of Our Own by Bruce Springsteen, because why the fuck not, right? 

To put it simply: musician AU. To put it a little less simply: he’s got a dead career, she wants to have even the slightest shot at one, Rose is the best, Poe’s a singing heartthrob, Finn is a love-struck goofball. You know, all that fun stuff. The entire thing is based on a playlist that I made and every chapter has a song that acts as its theme. I haven’t touched it since January 2018. I want to finish it eventually but it’s not really at the top of the priority list. 

There’s a few other fics from other fandoms that I’ve started and never finished but the odds of me touching them again are like... nonexistent, so I’m not including them here. I’ll update this post if anything changes on that front (but it probably won’t).

Now for the complicated part—the original fiction:

Maker’s Magic 

This is a trilogy (or at least, it’s supposed to be). This is also a rewrite of the first story I ever finished—the fantasy novel that I wrote for my first-ever Camp NaNoWriMo back in August of 2011, when I had literally no clue what I was doing at all and essentially stole the plot structure from The Obsidian Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey and built my own story around it. This is not a good way to write a piece of fiction that you want to publish, kids, but it is a damn good way to get your feet wet when you’ve never really written before.

I am reworking this story entirely from scratch. The characters are... kind of the same as the original story. Kind of. Maybe. I’ve changed a few names and merged a few people together and scrapped some others and entirely shifted the backstory of pretty much everyone, but... they’re definitely still the same, right? 

Basically, at this point the plot is really only similar to The Obsidian Trilogy in that we’ve got a trilogy, we’ve got some elves, and it’s your standard good vs. evil fantasy story (in its own unique fashion, of course). I’m still working out the details of this rewrite, but this is kind of the Holy Grail of all of my writing projects and the one that I’m most concerned about getting right, so I’m anticipating that I’ll be in it for the long haul on this one. I’m hoping I might be able to get a draft of the first book done this year, but... we’ll see.

(I also don’t want to give too many details about this project, ‘cause it’s the one that I’d really like to maybe publish one day, so...)

The Willow Hill universe

This started as a single story plus a standalone sequel set in the same universe, conceptualized when I was fourteen and missing horseback riding terribly (so yes, it is a story for all those Weird Horse Girls™ out there). I wrote a good portion of it, then deleted it, then rewrote the entire thing, then deleted it again a few years ago because I was no longer satisfied with the writing quality (after hitting top 100 on the Teen Fiction list on Wattpad way back when, so... I didn’t do too badly as a 16-year-old, but the writing still sucked). I’ve been promising a rewrite to my Wattpad followers since 2016 or something like that (2014? Whenever the hell it was that I deleted it the second time) but haven’t delivered at all.

I now envision this universe as a duology plus the aforementioned standalone sequel, except it’s not entirely fair to call it a YA duology in that the first book is definitely YA, but the second is more romance-y?

I originally just revealed the main character’s endgame relationship in the epilogue of the story, but I love both her and her boyfriend and their relationship so much that I decided that I’m going to be self-indulgent and write the story of them actually falling in love with each other, so that’s book two (so really, you don’t actually have to read book two to understand anything, I’m just writing it because I want to and it’s also kind of a present to anyone who read the original story when they were also a teenager and is now an adult who wants to read other stuff). 

Book one is now about the teenage struggle of crushes and trying to figure out what it is that you actually want out of your life and what you value (I say “now” because it was definitely way more self-insert-y the first time I wrote it and it is decidedly not at this point). It’s also sort of a love letter to trainers who are amazing and the kind of person we should all be so lucky as to be coached by.

These characters are my comfort characters where original fiction is concerned since they’ve been bouncing around in my head for the last ten years or so, and I’m hoping I can get at least the first book rewritten in the next year-ish, partly because I’ve been promising it for so long, and partly because I just really enjoy this world and I want to get back to it again.

The Coffee Shop Chronicles

AKA, I lived in one coffee shop on my university campus for pretty much the entirety of my college experience and it was a very inspiring place to be, so this has less to do with coffee shop AUs and more to do with the fact that I met several of my favorite human beings on this earth over a vanilla chai latte and mutual sass with the baristas.

(One of said baristas is very near and dear to me and introduced me to another regular who is now a very good friend with the statement “You’re both sarcastic assholes. You’ll love each other.”) 

None of the characters in this universe are based on actual human beings whom I know, but I liked the idea of the campus coffee shop serving as this thing that tangentially connected all of these people to one another, much in the way that I am tangentially connected to god knows how many people via my barista friend. Essentially, the idea is that the stories in this universe are all standalone, but the characters sometimes cross paths with one another at Caffeinated, so it’s sort of... Easter-egg-y in terms of who pops up where in which story. 

Currently I only have two stories in this universe that are legitimately plotted out, but there is room for any number of spin-offs based on whichever characters show up in those stories (or don’t—that’s the fun of it being a coffee shop. The barista is the only reliable character). Those two stories are as follows:

Chance Encounters (title so totally subject to change, also stealing the terribly summary from the Wattpad draft that never saw the light of day):

For Bennett McGuire, things with guys just didn't seem to want to go her way. From the disasters that were her attempts at dating in high school to the problem that had been Elijah Becker, she hadn't exactly had the best luck. With all that in mind, it made perfect sense to swear off dating until she finished college—that is, it made sense until one frozen day in February when Gordon Evans walked into her life. After that, who was to say what would happen?

What’s Your Metaphor? (once again, enjoy the terrible summary from the Wattpad draft that never was. I am cringing reading it but also too tired to come up with anything better):

"What's the point?" 

It's a question asked widely, for all sorts of reasons, and it's one that April Hayes didn't know the answer to any better than anyone else. All she knew was that she had her plan, and she was going to stick to it, because it was the only thing that seemed to have any sort of logic to it in her life. The things she thought, the things she believed—well, they all fell before the plan, because she didn't have time to ask herself "What's the point?"

That is, she didn't have the time to know the answer—her answer—until one guy by the name of Drew Collier showed up and made her consider things that she had never even thought of before.

High Blood

Yinz can go read my WIP introduction post for this one. It’s a fantasy story. Just for the hell of it, here’s the summary from said WIP introduction post: 

At the age of seventeen, Thessaly of Averak had a choice—take the crown of her people and her place as her father’s heir, or set it aside to become one of the High Warriors, dedicated to protecting their people and the country that her long-dead ancestor Enred built after leading its citizens out of a long and bloody war. Amidst raids and famine at the borders, she gave up her crown to better serve the people that her family rules.

Ten years later, all is quiet. At least, all is quiet until Beca’s pendant is stolen by a thief who disappears into the night on the journey back from the summer palace, Tess gets herself stabbed, and the discovery is made that the rock-solid foundations of their family’s claim to the throne—and the peace that depends upon them—are laced with hairline fractures.

(I didn’t write anything to speak of for Camp NaNo July 2020 and actually wound up deleting my project for this on the NaNo site because my dad was hit by a car while cycling the Friday before the weekend when I was planning to write like... 30k words to catch up, so obviously I gave up on that plan (he is doing well now, thank you for asking). I’m hoping I’ll get around to this one eventually because this particular universe arguably has the most potential for having multiple stories set in it, fantasy-wise.)

Emerson’s Lights

Natalie Flynn has been best friends with Evan Acheson practically since birth. They've stuck together through thick and thin, from her braces in seventh grade to his jump to stardom as a singer-songwriter their freshman year of college. 

She’d do anything for him, but spending a week with him on tour involves a lot more than she bargained for, culminating in the turn of events that is Caleb Blake, lead singer and primary songwriter of opening act Emerson’s Lights, moving into her house for the better part of a month.

She always knew there would be complications being the best friend of a rock star, but this? This was one that she didn’t bet on.

(Aka, girl meets boy in a band trope. Yay.)

(NaNoWriMo 2020 project)

The famous musician story (this thing doesn’t have a title right now and I’m not even going to try)

Stupid, trope-y nonsense idea that I came up with for my own personal amusement and nothing else. I’ve written a few chapters of it but genuinely have no idea where this falls in the hierarchy of things that I want to get done. Long story short, she’s in grad school for history, he’s a famous musician in town recording for a new album, they meet in the library, she pretends she has no idea who he is, and shenanigans ensue.

And that is where I think I’m going to leave it. There’s four other stories that I can think of off the top of my head that I could theoretically add to this list, but they are legitimately just ideas right now so they can be added at a later date when they’ve manifested themselves a little more strongly. There’s also another quartet in the Willow Hill universe that I came up with in high school that could theoretically be added but I think I might just steal those character names and give them their own little world instead. We’ll see.

Basically, if you didn’t get the point from this list: I am working on a lot of things, and when I say I’m writing, it could mean literally anything on this list (or any of the other ideas that I have floating around). The stories/universe here are the most likely candidates for my time, depending on whether I’m doing a deep dive into my writing or just playing around with something fun, and hopefully (god, hopefully) I’ll be able to move one or two of these to a “completed works” list in the next year(ish). 

(Or at least, as complete as a draft ever gets before you start going in on it again.)

[bearingwater]

March Forecast for Aquarius

March is a pivotal month for you because your co-ruling planet, Uranus, makes a major move—and that doesn’t happen often! After spinning through Aries and your communication center since March 2011, unpredictable Uranus will change signs on March 6, entering Taurus for a seven-year stint in your domestic fourth house.

Home and family get a jolt of electrifying energy as Uranus in Taurus brings unrest to your nest until April 2026. From moving to renovating to a shifting cast of characters under your roof, you could be planting AND pulling up roots quite a few times. A female relative, possibly your mother or a maternal figure, could play into events. Some Water Bearers might get a bout of “baby fever” and make a shocking decision to adopt or try IVF (Uranus rules technology) if conventional pregnancy isn’t an option. Others could experience empty-nest syndrome or suddenly require more autonomy and space to disconnect from the demands of needy loved ones. With “mad scientist” Uranus here, you might start a successful online business from the comfort of your own home. Cottage industry, anyone?

Uranus is the planet of sudden change and innovation, and as a slower-moving “outer planet,” it takes 84 years to return to each zodiac sign. Its mission is to make us think outside the box, to break up stagnant energy and to push for progress at all costs. Its energy can be jarring and upsetting at times; liberating and exhilarating at others. Luckily, you’re a sign that embraces change, despite being one of the four “fixed” signs. That said, changemaker Uranus is in “fall” in security-seeking Taurus, its least comfortable position. You may need to make adjustments and decisions that won’t always be easy.

Take the example of our friend, a Capricorn mom of four, who just experienced Uranus in her fourth house from 2011 to 2019. A couple years ago, she moved from a home she lived in for more than 20 years so her aging mom could join the household. But with independent Uranus at the helm, this arrangement cramped their style so badly, they stopped speaking for weeks! Finally, her mom moved into affordable senior housing, and our friend released herself from a lifetime of codependent guilt. All’s well that ends well…though in true Uranian curveball fashion, this was NOT the “happily ever after” she expected.

With energizer Mars also in Taurus until March 31, this new chapter could announce itself boldly. Mars can add motivation and stress in equal measure. Watch for friction under your roof. If you’ve got a beef with relatives or roomies, address it directly without unleashing a tidal wave of resentment and fury. Instead, let Mars inspire you to get a home-based business going or to tackle an ambitious decorating project that’s heretofore only lived in your imagination and on Pinterest boards.

This is all happening against the backdrop of Pisces season as the Sun marches through your productive and prosperous second house until March 20. You’ve got even more mojo to crunch numbers, craft plans or slip on the painter’s overalls. On March 6, the same day as Uranus’ big move, the year’s only Pisces new moon fires up your money and work sector. From scoring a plum project to booking a premium client to landing a new gig, this lunation opens a powerful portal for “what’s next” in your work life.

But don’t rush to accept any offers. From March 5 to 28, communication planet Mercury will be retrograde in Pisces, which could foil travel, technology and interactions—especially those related to your finances. Comb through statements, double-check your bills and strengthen your passwords. Miscommunications can flare with colleagues or clients, so practice patience and be sure to clarify all instructions and expectations. You can’t be too careful now! Job-hunting? Since Mercury retrograde rules the past, connecting with old coworkers could turn up a surprising lead.

Lightness arrives on March 20, when the Sun leaves your hardworking second house and moves into Aries, igniting your social and vibrant third house. You’ll be back to your breezy Aquarian ways, flitting among your fans and followers, hopping between spring hikes and (ambitiously) al fresco outings. What are ya, the Easter bunny? You might even rally your crew for a bigger getaway because March 20 will bring the first of TWO consecutive full moons in Libra and your globetrotting ninth house. The urge to travel and explore new horizons hits hard, and since this is the year’s third and final supermoon, your wanderlust will be off the charts. If you’ve been working on an entrepreneurial or creative venture for the past six months, your efforts could come together now. La luna in your higher-education sector may even inspire a return to school or a personal-growth workshop. Considering a leap of faith? This full moon might just be your moment to take a gamble on your dreams. But give yourself until April 19, the date of a rare second Libra full moon that can help you seal the deal. Make this one a calculated risk instead of an impulsive move by taking four weeks to think it through.

As a bonus, you’ll receive some useful insight from your own intuition! March 20 will also bring a flowing trine between energizer Mars and penetrating Pluto, which sync up in the most emotional zones of your chart. From a dream to a flash of psychic insight, you might get THE answer you’ve been searching for using logic, reason and all the left-brained tactics. With these powder-keg players activating your unconscious zone, buried feelings could bubble forth like lava from a dormant volcano. If old wounds or repressed hurt surfaces, send out an immediate SOS for support. You don’t have to go through anything alone, Aquarius. A relative could come through with unexpected advice today. Lean on your clan for encouragement and wisdom.

Love & Romance

Spring fever hits Aquarians a little early this year! Vixen Venus is grooving through your sign from March 1 to 26, putting a frisky spring in your step! You’ll be craving more independence and room to let your flirty side free. Even attached Water Bearers may need some breathing room, but that doesn’t mean you’re planning to stray. This is a liberated AND loving transit, and you want to wring every drop of passion out of it!

Yet at the same time, determined Mars is barreling through stalwart Taurus and your foundational fourth house, which could make you a bit sensitive when you don’t get your needs met. And with the cosmic lovebird singing very different tunes, you could be inadvertently sending out mixed “come here/now go away” messages.

The two will lock into a tense square on March 21, which could confuse you AND a love interest. Neither of you will want to budge on your position, so if you can’t come to a compromise, consider having a night (or a few) apart until cooler and more agreeable heads prevail.

Relief comes once Venus shifts gears into gentle Pisces and your security zone on March 26, syncing up with Mars’ grounded energy. Enjoy that week as much as possible and catch up on self-care. On March 31, the red planet races into Gemini and your passionate, pleasure-seeking fifth house. Spring fever is in full effect!

Key Dates

March 1: Venus-Uranus Square Watch the knee-jerk reactions today. They could come out of left field and catch even you by surprise. With unpredictable Uranus in your communication center at cross-purposes with the love planet, you might blurt out something you immediately regret. Unless you actually want to wreck a good relationship, rein yourself in before you unleash a world of trouble.

Money & Career

Keep an eye on those funds, Aquarius. While the Sun is in Pisces and your financial sector until March 20, Mercury will also be retrograde (backward) here from March 5 to 28. With the planet of technology and communication gone rogue, you might have a few job hiccups or misunderstandings with colleagues. Proofread before you click “send,” and aim for perspicuity in your correspondences.

Mishaps aside, the March 6 Pisces new moon could bring a fresh funding source within the next few weeks. Use this clarifying moment to look at where you would like to be six months from now, at the corresponding Pisces full moon. What actions can you take or which new habits might you adopt to reach your goals? Plot your moves now, along with check-ins so you can correct course as needed.

With motivator Mars in Taurus and your foundational fourth house until March 31, establishing a nest egg could feel especially urgent. And once innovator Uranus, your co-ruler, starts its seven-year visit to Taurus on March 6, building financial (and emotional) security will become a new adventure. Uranus rules change, and this cosmic shift could inspire a move, a property sale or even a job offer with relocation in the next phase of your life.

The March 20 Libra full supermoon could already inspire some ideas for how that could look. As la luna beams into your visionary ninth house of travel and entrepreneurship, the seeds of an indie venture could turn from a sparkle in your eye to something much bigger!

Key Dates

March 13: Sun-Jupiter Square Your enthusiasm is contagious, but don’t get carried away by something until you have proof positive that it can work—or that the numbers are realistic. Jupiter expands everything it touches, and today, as it connects to the Sun in your money house, you might be a little more optimistic than is warranted. Pro tip: You’re not “raining on anyone’s parade” if you conduct one more round of due diligence!

Love Days: 13, 17 Money Days: 23, 6 Luck Days: 21, 30 Off Days: 15, 19, 28

[randomlynormalgirl]

Joker Movie Thoughts

this is a bunch of jumbled, unstructured thoughts about the joker movie because I can’t stop thinking about it and I needed to write at least some of my thoughts down. might add to it every now and then. hope you enjoy it anyway if you end up reading it :)

MASSIVE SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT!!!!!!

watching the ‘joker’ movie felt like a very visceral experience for me. the movie manages to hold and intertwine many complicated themes alongside the plot so eloquently that I am not surprised it received an 8 minute standing ovation. I will be personally outraged if Joaquin phoenix does not receive an Oscar for his portrayal of the joker character because he manages to perfectly display the descent into madness as well as the tragedy of the movie. This movie manages to make you want to sympathise with Joker because the course of events leading up to him becoming the joker is very tragic and given the right circumstances would turn any sane man mad, yet you know you shouldn’t empathise with him because you understand he is mentally ill and that he sees violence as the only way to exact his revenge. Every scene in the movie is a trailer moment yet I didn’t feel like the movie was spoiled for me in any way.

Another aspect of the movie I liked is that Joaquin Phoenix manages to use his acting skill so well that he can subtly show how the joker’s descent into madness builds to a crescendo so spectacularly. How the first dance he does after his first kills is slow and controlled compared to that when he is fully embracing his madness and dancing on the steps so freely, because in his madness he is set free. It reminds me of Midsommar in that way slightly. Also, Joaquin’s body during the movie was also a strange sight and the dedication he put into the role to make himself look that skinny and ill simply astounded me. also, knowing that Joaquin improvised the dancing in the bathroom after Arthur's first three murders makes the scene all the more eerie to me. i hope he looked after himself after he finished filming for the movie because i dread another heath ledger situation, i don't think my heart could take it

I also appreciated that despite the amount of violence in the movie, a lot of the deaths are actually not shown. I think it’s a sign of good acting and good directing when the audience can guess what’s happened behind the scenes just from a few context clues (such as the end of the movie when he leaves the therapists office trailing bloody footprints)

I saw someone on twitter say that the joker movie is just Marxism in practise and honestly I can't fault their logic. The working class leading a violent revolution against the top 1% because they want better than the shitty lower hand they have been dealt, the fact that the newspapers in the film literally call it the 'kill the rich' revolution, the fact that Thomas Wayne literally calls them all clowns and it only ends up spurring on the revolt further. i mean, i can definitely see it.

The story is heartbreaking because it is believable. Watching as a mentally ill man is pushed to the extreme due to funding cuts for his therapy which ultimately stopped him getting the medication he needed to stay sane, poverty, an abusive childhood, a mentally ill mother whilst also living in a classist society where the working class are oppressed by people like Thomas Wayne. A good example of this to me is his first trio of murders; he only killed them because the three Wall Street type guys were going to beat him to death had he not pulled out the gun to kill them, yet it is certain that if Arthur had been killed by those men no one would care because he was not someone worth reporting on in the eyes on the media. In short, anyone below middle class in Gotham were considered nobody and they had enough. Arthur merely sparked the rebellion.

I enjoyed how the joker didn’t plan to become a political figure in the movie. He unintentionally becomes a martyr to the people of Gotham and how that tied in with the origins of batman was a very cool moment for me as part of the audience.

To add to this, the ending of the movie being dubious was an interested touch. Throughout the movie we learn that we cannot always trust Arthur’s perspective. From his fantasy of being on his idol’s TV show, down to his delusion of the romance between him and Sophie. So, the idea that the end of the movie suggesting it was all in his imagination was interesting to me. I, however, don’t subscribe to such a theory because I think the final flash of Bruce with his dead parents was the director giving us that subtle hint that this time the joker wasn’t just dreaming of being successful and loved by many, it was real this time. A slightly less important note but the aesthetic of the whole movie was just very grainy and gritty and fit the film? like the old school format, the cinematography and the fucking SOUNDTRACK. 'that's life' by Frank Sinatra is one if my favourite songs and the fact is features so heavily in this movie was a really cool moment for me? i also really liked the whole riot scene; it just felt really raw and gritty and like a true climax to the joker's story as he finally becomes the persona fully and finds his new identity as the figurehead for this revolution in Gotham

Of course, I cannot talk about this film without mentioning my beloved heath ledger and his depiction of the joker, and the references and similarities between the two. Let me make one thing clear; phoenix’s and ledger’s joker are nowhere near the same. I remember reading that Joaquin and heath were very good friends, and that Joaquin did not in anyway want to impose on heath’s legacy. He understands how legendary that role was and said while he loves that portrayal he didn’t want to be a cheap imitation. I believe he has fully achieved such a feat but I cannot help but compare. Some ‘Easter eggs’ or possible homages to heath that I recognised were:

-the scene where Arthur is in the back of the police car reminded me very much of that scene in the dark knight where joker steals the cop car (ledger / phoenix). I realise that is is also supposed to parallel the scene earlier where he is sat all sad on the bus compared to how happy he looks in the police car but i didn't quite get it straight away.

-Arthur using his own blood to paint the smile on his face (x) after the car crash reminded me of the ledger makeup look

-Arthur saying to Sophie that he ‘had a bad day’ reminded me instantly of when heath ledger’s joker said something along the lines of ‘everyone is just one bad day away from being like me’

none-Ledger related Easter eggs I noticed too were:

-the protesters laying Arthur across the hood of the crashed cop car Jesus-style to signify that he's saintly to them was a nice touch -Bruce coming down the fireman’s pole was reminiscent of the Adam west batman series where they had to come down the fireman’s pole

-the joker being attached to the death of Bruce Wayne’s parents (although less directly in this depiction)

-the font of the late night talk show is the same as batman the animated series

-I’ve seen some people say that the backdrop of the talk show is the same during the titles of the animated series too

-joker killing the host was reminiscent of the dark knight returns where joker kills the audience of a TV talk show

-apparently the look of this joker is similar to that of one of his video game iterations but I can’t find that -the sort of reference to the inspiration behind the entire joker character by having Arthur have a condition where he can't help but laugh in certain situations, when the joker was based on the film 'the man who laughs' where a man is cursed to never stop smiling no matter how much he tries -major inspiration from taxi driver, which also features Robert De Niro so its a cool touch -some kind of reference to the movie 'the king of comedy', a movie centring around a person obsessed with a tv show host which has similar plot points and also features robert de niro again which is pretty cool

[chibiauthorchan]

The Hetalian’s Guide to the Galaxy

Wow, long time no post! I heard @alifeasvivid​ talk about a crossover between Hetalia (maining USUK) and the novel The Hitchhickers Guide to the Galaxy. The source material for this project I wrote for an English class back in high school belongs to Hidekaz Himaruya and Douglas Adams respectively. For those of you who have read the latter you will notice that yes, this is strikingly similar. But I had a lot of fun writing this when I did and putting in tons of fun Easter eggs. I hope you enjoy! (P.S. Tumblr messes with the formatting, sorry)

Contents: THGttG, Preface and about a fourth of Chapter 1 (it’s really long) Word count: 2,178 Warnings: Alcohol mention, aliens, impending destruction of the Earth Summary: Arthur Kirkland woke up hungover, thinking this was just going to like any other day. Well, it wasn’t.

This is the story of a terrible, stupid catastrophe and some of its consequences. All of which except said consequences happened on a Thursday.

This is also the story of a parody of a book named after another book that was dreamt up by an 11th-grade girl set in an alternate universe from both her own and the one of the original book named after another book. The book that the book was named after is known as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy- which is not a book that originated from Earth from any of these universes nor was it published on any of these Earths. The book named after that book is in fact found on earth, but only in the universe that this 11th-grade girl comes from as this is the only universe where such a book exists. This story that parodies the book named after the other book and shall be called The Hetalian’s Guide to the Galaxy because this girl is a lover of puns. You see, the universe this parody of a book named after a book has characters from one anime series known as Hetalia placed into the world of the book named after the book. It’s a pun as fans of this anime are known as Hetalians. A pun is a joke based off of wordplay that in fact does not originate from any of these Earths so the earth fellow who thought himself clever from inventing the joke form was, in reality, reusing a billion-year-old idea that had long died out everywhere else in any of these universes.

Nevertheless, the book that the book this story parodies is named after is a wholly remarkable book.

In fact, it was probably the most remarkable book ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor- of which no Earthman has ever heard of unless one comes from the universe in which this 11th-grade girl comes from and that individual has also read the book named after the other book¹. Much of these first three pages this girl has found unnecessary to the plot and it is being skipped over. Thus one could say this is also an abridged parody of a book named after a book. The one only slightly necessary piece of information relevant to something that will come later is that there are two books. One known as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and one known as the great Encyclopedia Galactica which was only mentioned one other time in the entirety of the book named after the other book.

So, with that out of the way let’s get to the good stuff. Which follows as thus.

The story of this terrible, stupid Thursday, the story of its extraordinary consequences, and the story of how these consequences are inextricably intertwined with this remarkable parody of a book named after a book begins very simply. 

It begins with a house.

¹The 11th-grade girl writing this project would like to apologize in advance for all of the ways this parody will take twists and turns and make no sense as it talks about parodies of books named after books and the different universes the worlds these pieces of the puzzle come from. It is not her intention to confuse, this is simply the format of the book named after a book that this story is a parody of. This parody will also include plenty of British English slang as in both the book named after a book and in this parody our main character is an Englishman. Yes, long only semi-necessary footnotes such as these are found in this book named after a book and the parody will follow suit in style.

This house stood alone on the edge of a small town. It wasn't very special. Thirty years old, made of brick, and had four windows with a size and proportion with the rest of the house that was anything but aesthetically pleasing. The only person to which this house held any special value was a man named Arthur Kirkland or is it Dent? For the sake of this parody and in order to prevent confusions between the main character from the book named after a book (who's first name just also happens to be Arthur) the main character of this parody is known as Arthur Kirkland. In the universe of this parody the main character's differences with the one from the original book this story parodies don't stop at last names. Arthur Dent is about thirty years old; tall; and dark haired. Arthur Kirkland, on the other hand, is younger, twenty-three on that particular Thursday. He isn't very tall either standing in at 175 cm (or 5' 9" for those who prefer the imperial system) and his hair is anything but dark being a shade of blond that was paler but certainly not dull, and when hit with certain lights his hair even gained a golden halo. His eyebrows, however... well the best way to describe them would be thick, expressive, and surprisingly well kept. Visually they were one of his more well-known traits. The similarities between the two didn't stop at first names. For starters both characters are English. Arthur Dent used to live in London and moved to this small house as London made him nervous and irritable. Arthur Kirkland outside this universe still lives in London, but for the sake of this parody he has also moved (his reason being escaping his siblings). Their personalities are similar too, both being never quite at ease with themselves and being prone to worrying. Arthur Kirkland just being a little fierier but an English gentleman nonetheless.

The night before this particular Thursday it rained quite heavily as it is known to do in England. The ground outside was wet and muddy, however, that morning the sun was shining bright and clear as it shone down on Arthur's house for what was to be the very last time.

See, it hadn’t properly registered for Arthur that the council wanted to knock his house down and build a bypass through the rubble.

That morning at eight o'clock Arthur woke up not feeling very well. He did not enjoy the sunshine. Instead, he wanted to crawl back in his blankets and curse the sun away as it was effectively making his morning much worse. Instead, he forced himself to get up which he did quite blearily. He got up, opened a window, caught sight of a bulldozer outside, found his red, fuzzy slippers and slipped them on, grabbed his favorite dark green dressing gown and slipped that on as well, then stomped off to the bathroom for a wash.

Toothpaste on the brushㅡso. Scrub.

Shaving mirrorㅡpointing at the ceiling. Arthur adjusted it. For a split second a second bulldozer could be seen in the reflection as it was visible through the bathroom window. He completely ignored this and with the mirror now properly adjusted it show Arthur his own face and his stubble which he promptly shaved off. Arthur washed his face, dried it off, then stomped off to the kitchen to find something to eat or drink for that matter.

Kettle, plug, fridge, milk, tea. Yawn.

For a brief moment the word bulldozer found it’s way into Arthur’s thoughts. He tried to find something to connect the word to.

The bulldozer outside the kitchen window was certainly a big one. Large enough to take care of a house.

For a moment Arthur stared at it.

“What an ugly shade of yellow.” He thought before stomping back to his bedroom to get dressed. He didn’t get very far.

Before he got back to his bedroom Arthur took a quick pit stop at the bathroom in order to fetch a glass of water to drink. Then he drank another. It was at this point Arthur began to suspect that he was in fact hungover. It wasn't uncommon for Arthur to wake up with an annoying alcohol induced headache but the question that crossed his mind is why? Of course in order to be hung over one had to have been drinking. So why had he been drinking? His thoughts were interrupted by a flash of color in the shaving mirror. "Yellow..." was all that was thought before Arthur proceeded to the bedroom.

In the middle of picking out his clothes memories of last night suddenly came rushing back. “The pub,” was the first thing that came to mind, “of course it was the bloody pub! Where else could it have been?!” After that short internal argument more memories returned but in a very vague fashion. He remembered being fairly upset about... something. He’d been complaining about it to other random pub goers in a drunk whining sort of fashion. The clearest visual recollection was of the glazed, drunken looks on the faces of others in the pub. What was it that made him feel the need to become absolutely smashed over? Arthur wracked his brain trying to remember. “Something... bypass...” He mumbled. Deciding that is wasn’t extremely important he resumed getting ready for his day.

Dear God though his hangover was almost unbearable. Whatever he did he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was forgetting something extremely important. Arthur caught a glance of himself in the wardrobe mirror, proceeded to call himself an utter twat for drinking too much yet again, then attempted to fix his messy hair in the mirror. It didn’t help much, his hair was naturally a mess. He settled for the usual level of tame which meant the choppy layers of his hair laid relatively neatly. The word yellow came to mind again and Arthur tried to find something to connect the word to.

Fifteen seconds later he was outside his house laying in the mud in front of a big yellow bulldozer that was advancing up his garden path.

Mr. Raivis Galante was, as they say, only human. Which meant that he's a bipedal carbon-based life form which shared a common ancestor with apes which live on earth. Mr. Raivis Galante more specifically was in his late teens to early twenties (though he looked to be around 15), short, scrawny, and worked for the local council. On a completely unnecessary note Mr. Galante was a direct male descendant of Alexander Nevsky. He really didn't look much like Alexander and was by no means a warrior type, in fact, he was a nervous, worried man. The reason he was particularly nervous and worried that Thursday morning was his job has something go seriously wrong as Arthur Kirkland's house was supposed to be demolished by the end of the day and Arthur Kirkland was laying in the mud in front of his house preventing the bulldozers from doing their job.

“C-come off it, Mr. Kirkland,” he said with a nervous stutter, “you can’t win, y-you know. I-It’s not like you can lay in f-front of the bulldozer forever.” The small man tried to look intimidating by trying to produce a fire in his eyes but it was near impossible for him to look anything close to intimidating.

Arthur lay there in the mud unmoving as he spat back with his usual English stubbornness.

“I’m game,” he responded confidently, “we’ll see who rots here first. I know it won’t be me.”

“I-I’m afraid you have to a-accept it,” Mr. Galante said fidgeting with the hem of his jacket, “w-we have to build this bypass, a-and we’re going to do it!” He ended up shouting trying to swallow his nerves, but the effort had no effect.

"Well this is the first I've heard of it," Arthur commented casually, "why's it got to be built in the first place?"

The smaller man’s hands balled into fists but he forced them to relax. He wouldn’t be able to hit Arthur anyways. “What do you mean why?” His stutter was gone thanks to his building frustrations. “It’s a bypass, you’ve got to build it.”

A bypass is a simple structure that allows people to get to one point to another and vice versa. Arthur lived in between these hypothetical points and found no use for the bypass. Raivis wanted to be far away from any of these points especially if it meant he wasn't dealing with Arthur. However, none of this justifies the young man's logic over why the bypass must be built.

Raivis shifted his weight around uncomfortable not being able to find a suitable balance. Someone hadn’t done their job right and he could only pray that it wasn’t him.

“Y-you were entitled to make a-any suggestions or protests back when it would have b-been appropriate, Mr. Kirkland.” The small man’s stutter returned along with his nerves. He avoided making eye contact with the Brit lying on the ground as he continued to shift uncomfortably.

“Appropriate time?” Arthur mused with fake interest. “Appropriate time?” When he repeated the phrase his tone was less amused. “The first I knew about this bloody construction project was when a workman just happened to pop by my house the other day. He was the first to tell me anything about your bypass by informing me quite bluntly that my house was to be demolished. Demolished, and at first I thought he was there to clean the bleeding windows! Which I might add that he did charging me a fiver before dropping that bomb on me.” Arthur was absolutely fuming. Even laying there in the mud in his dressing gown he managed to be frightening.

"B-but Mr. Kirkland, th-the plans have been available in the planning office for the l-last nine months." Mr. Galante tried fruitlessly to reason with the disgruntled Englishman in front of him but Arthur was having none of it.

"Oh, as soon as I found out I went down to your planning office to see them. I headed straight there yesterday afternoon. They weren't exactly somewhere a normal person could find them easily. Absolutely no effort was put into calling attention to them!" Arthur's words were dripping with venom and sarcasm.

“B-but the plans were on d-display...”

“On display?! I had to go into the cellar to find them!”

“Th-that’s the display department.”

“I had to bring a torch with me!”

“Th-the lights must have gone...”

“Yes apparently so had the stairs.”

“B-but you found the notice, d-didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Arthur said seething with rage, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.’ ”

Mr. Galante frowned slightly as a cloud passed overhead casting a shadow over Arthur and his house the former of which lay in the cold mud propped up by his elbow. He just couldn’t understand why Arthur would defend such a house so feverishly.

“It’s not as if it’s a particularly nice house...” he mumbled showing off his bad habit of saying the wrong things at the wrong time. It usually resulted in making someone angry, if they weren’t angry already.

“Well excuse me, but I happen to like it.” Arthur replied with an incredibly sarcastic voice.

“You’ll like the bypass!” Raivis tried to counter.

“Oh piss off!” Arthur spat. “Just piss off and go away, and take your bloody bypass with you! You haven’t got a leg to stand on and you know it!”

Mr. Galante’s mouth opened and closed several times as he wracked his brain for something to say in response to Arthur’s outburst. His mind for a moment was filled with visions of Arthur’s house being torn apart in the most horrific of ways some of which ended in a blaze of fire with Arthur himself running and screaming from the flaming ruin. Raivis was sometimes plagued with these dark thoughts but he could never act on them being too nervous and worried to do so.

"M-m-mr. Kirk-kland?" He stuttered trying to pull his thoughts back from the dark place they accidentally slipped into.

“Yes? What is it?” Arthur had no patience left in his voice.

“J-just wondering, do you have any idea how much damage a bulldozer would suffer if I  just let it roll straight over you?” The small, trembling man had no actual intention of doing such a thing, he just wanted to see if it would scare Arthur off.

“No, how much?” Arthur asked.

“None at all.” Raivis responded with bravado before storming off.

By curious coincidence, “None at all” is exactly how much suspicion Arthur held over whether his closest friends was in fact not an earth native life form. This friend was in fact from a small planet far away from Earth somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse not from a Gildford as this friend usually claimed.

[amandajoyce118]

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Season One Easter Eggs And References

I so greatly enjoyed Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina, and I’m really interested to see what they do in season two, which is almost done filming. I still maintain that this show is like if Riverdale and Supernatural had a baby. It’s definitely creepy and not for everyone, but I found it fascinating.

I’ve got Easter eggs galore, though I didn’t go through and explain who every comic book character is like I would normally do with a superhero show. And yes, the Netflix series is based on the 2014 Chilling Adventures of Sabrina comic, which in turn was named after another comic from decades earlier. Sabrina Spellman is an Archie Comics character, but it’s not clear if her show is set in the same universe as Riverdale or not.

There are spoilers here, but as usual, I’ve broken this list down episode by episode for those who want to read while they watch. Enjoy.

S1E01 “Chapter One: October Country”

Opening Credits

The opening credits feature the artwork of Robert Hack. Hack is the artist who actually illustrated The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina comic book. A lot of his art inspires the look of the show as well.

The Episode Title

October Country gets its name from a collection of stories by Ray Bradbury. They were all considered pretty dark, and the volume mostly reprinted stories included in a different anthology, only adding a few new pieces, king of like this show.

The Very 70s Aesthetic

The show kind of has a weird timewarp thing going on like sister series Riverdale. There’s a lot of cars, furniture, and even clothing that seem to be inspired by the 1970s. That’s likely because Sabrina made her comic book debut in the 70s. It’s a way to give an homage to the original books as well as the newer series the show adapts.

Cerberus Books

Cerberus was a three headed dog who guarded the gate to the underworld in Greek mythology. We’ll discuss him more in a later episode.

Dr. Saperstein

My guess is that someone on staff is a Parks and Rec fan. This is Jean-Ralphio’s surname, and his father, was, in fact, a doctor. Of course, it’s also the name of the doctor in Rosemary’s Baby, so… pick your reference.

Sabrina’s Thermos

You’ll notice some characters on Sabrina’s thermos. Those happen to be a musical group named The Archies. Yep, they’re Archie and the gang from Riverdale, which does make you wonder if the two shows are in the same universe or if one is the fictional version of the other or what.

Sabrina Makes Harvey Forget

She does it with a kiss here, but in the 90s television sitcom, she made him forget she was a witch a lot of times. This made me wonder if she might have to do it a few more times over the course of this series, or if the next time he finds out, it sticks.

Her Parents Were Flying To Italy

This is an awfully interesting destination. Why? Because what’s in Italy? That would be Rome and the Vatican, home of the Catholic Church, which is interesting in and of itself. It’s both a very romantic and a very religious destination for a witch and a mortal to be traveling to. It also happens to be where the first Sabrina The Teenage Witch movie was set, if I remember right.

The Weird Sisters

These three get their nickname from the trio of witches in Shakespeare’s MacBeth. There’s a lot of Shakespeare references throughout the show, but I think that’s really just because writers like their Shakespeare.

Salem

The show’s take on Salem is interesting. In the Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina comic, he was Sabrina’s familiar, but that’s not became he was a goblin. Instead, he was cursed by a witch in Salem to become a cat. He was a mortal man named Samuel who got her pregnant and, because he had nothing to offer her, he didn’t want her to have to marry him. She took offense, Satan ate their kid and she cursed him to become her familiar. When she died in the witch trials, Satan renamed him Salem as a nod to what happened.

The 90s sitcom had Salem as a warlock who was cursed to cat form by the witches council after committing a crime. It seems like Ambrose on house arrest is filling that role this time around.

S1E02 “Chapter Two: The Dark Baptism”

“...a movie star like cousin Montgomery.”

I like the idea that this is a nod to Elizabeth Montgomery, the star of the series Bewitched, which followed a witch named Samantha who married a mortal. Samantha’s evil cousin on the show? Her name was Sabrina.

A Riverdale Mention

So, Riverdale is likely just across the river from Greendale here since we hear the town named.

Black Narcissus

The name of the goat snagged for Sabrina’s baptism is also the name of a 1947 film. There’s actually a ton of classic movie references, posters, etc in the show, just like in Riverdale. I probably won’t point them all out because this would be a list of nothing but movie references.

S1E03 “Chapter Three: The Trial Of Sabrina Spellman

“Conserve water. Plug it up, plug it up…”

This is a sign on the bathroom door in the high school It’s a nod to the horror movie Carrie, which was based on a book by Stephen King. The movie also inspired a musical episode of Riverdale in season two.

Daniel Webster

The lawyer is named after a character in a pretty famous short story about a farmer who sells his soul to the devil and is then defended by a talented lawyer.

Archie’s Madhouse

Another comic from the Archie world of comics. One of its covers is on the wall in Harvey’s room. He’s clearly a fan of many different types of comics.

Ravens VS Bulldogs

We get another nod to the fact that Riverdale exists. About half way into the episode, there’s a kid putting up a flyer for a bowling match between the Baxter High Ravens and the Riverdale High Bulldogs.

Dr. Specter

I just thought it was funny that an eye doctor has this name. It’s not really an Easter egg, just cute.

Side note: Ambrose asks Luke if he’s a vampire. So, I’m going to go with witches aren’t the only supernatural beings the show will eventually introduce. Vampires, werewolves, there is no limit to what I expect now.

S1E04 “Chapter Four: Witch Academy”

Gehenna Station

“Gehenna” is an old biblical term that means hell-like. I kind of think it’s fitting that the school is disguised as an old train station as well since a lot of artists imagine purgatory as a train station. Hell-like purgatory seems like a good training ground for witches.

Nick Scratch

Old Scratch is a common slang, or at least it used to be, for the devil. Here, I think it’s just a nod to the fact that Nick’s a warlock. (Also, Nicholas Scratch was the name of a Marvel villain once upon a time, but that’s a whole different publisher.)

Valac

One of the names seen in a book is that of Valac. I think fans of The Conjuring franchise will recognize it as a demon there. Another movie reference in this episode? The “light as a feather, stiff as a board” chant used by the harrowed kids. That’s courtesy of The Craft.

S1E05 “Chapter Five: Dreams In A Witch House”

Batibat

Her makeup looks pretty reminiscent of The Witches (movie based on a Roald Dahl book), but that’s actually all I’ve got for this episode. Unless we count Sabrina using the children’s string game Jacob’s Ladder as her way to get the spiders’ webs going, but I think that’s just a result of that particular game being a prevalent one in the 90s, and thus, amongst the writers.

S1E06 “Chapter Six: An Exorcism In Greendale”

Harvey As Johnny Depp

Harvey with his headphones on in the #10 tee? That’s am almost exact remake of a shot of Johnny Depp in A Nightmare On Elm Street. (Side note: I kind of feel like this shot should have been in the previous episode, the one that actually focused on nightmares.)

Apophis

Apophys is a death metal group. Apophis is the name of an asteroid, but also a derivation of the name of an Egyptian ruler, as well as an Egyption entity of chaos. Apep was drawn as a giant serpent and was an enemy of “the light.”

The Exorcist Homage

Okay, this episode really just plays as a loving homage to The Exorcist. There are so many shots that echo frames from the film. I’m not going to even attempt to list them all.

The Witches That Came Before

Okay, Sabrina calls on the power of a whole lot of historical figures as she names “witches” during her exorcism. My personal favorites? The goddesses Artemis and Luna, the queen Anne Boleyn, and the mythical first wife of Adam, Lilith. She also calls on Morgan Le Fay of the famous Arthurian legend. She actually appeared in an old Archie comic involving time travel called Jughead’s Time Police. Yeah, even Archie comics got weird back in the day.

Afterlife With Archie

This is the more supernatural version of the Archie comic book universe. Luke actually has a copy of an issue in his hands while he’s in Cerberus. It’s funny because this comic book storyline was created by Sabrina trying to bring Jughead’s dog back to life… we’ll call that foreshadowing for a future episode.

S1E07 “Chapter Seven: Feast of Feasts”

Grandpa Kinkle

TV fans might recognize Grandpa Kinkle as Michael Hogan. He’s been all over genre shows for decades. Most recently though, and where Sabrina’s target audience will know him from, he played a hunter on Teen Wolf. There, he came from a long line of werewolf hunters. Here, he’s from a long line of witch hunters. Coincidence? I have a feeling it’s not.

Ben

Poor, tragic pizza delivery boy. Okay, so the most recent season of Riverdale also featured a character named Ben. Specifically, Ben Button. Ben Button was played by Moses Thiessen. Guess who this Ben is played by? That would also be Moses Thiessen. And, guess what else? They both (spoiler alert for Riverdale fans who haven’t watched yet) died in weird ways. What does this mean? I have no idea.

Side note: The only witches in the coven who don’t seem to partake in the feast are Sabrina, Zelda, Nick, and surprisingly, Prudence. (And Hilda and Ambrose, but they aren’t invited) There’s a part of me that wonders if that will be significant in season two.

S1E08 “Chapter Eight: The Burial”

1693

Above the entrance to the mine, we see that the Kinkle’s took over, or created, the South Line in 1693. I’ll admit, my first thought was, oh, that’s when the Sanderson sisters originally died in Hocus Pocus. It’s also the year that the Salem Witch Trials took place, providing a nod to the history the show pulls from. The Von Kunkles hunted down witches and stole their land while the trials were going on in Salem, which also indirectly led to the hanging of the original Greendale witches. Yikes.

American Vampire: Lord of Nightmares

A comic book published by Vertigo, this happens to land on Harvey’s bedside table. Another vampire reference, eh? I hope we see one eventually.

S1E09 “Chapter Nine: The Returned Man”

Dr. Phibes

He’s named for a Vincent Price character. If you don’t know who Vincent Price was, he was pretty much the face of horror in American cinema for a while. Do yourself a favor and look him up.

Pop Culture Nods

I have no idea why someone who claims to be as dark as Zelda chooses a song from The Sound of Music for the Church of Night’s choir. Your guess is as good as mine. Susie tries to shoplift Orlando by Virginia Woolf. I’ve never read it, but it’s certainly the type of novel Susie, or even a witch in Greendale would be interested in. It follows a poet who changes sex (male to female) and lives for hundreds of years.

S1E10 “Chapter 10: The Witching Hour”

Mr. Loomis

This is likely a nod to the Halloween franchise, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that it was also the last name of Sidney’s boyfriend in Scream, but that was a nod to Halloween in and of itself.

Riverdale

Again, a Riverdale nod. Harvey’s dad had the funeral home in Riverdale take care of Tommy instead of the Spellman’s. But is it in the Riverdale we know on TV? Who knows?

“Let Greendale cast a spell on you…”

This is the town motto on the sign at the edge of town. (I’d like to point out the sign is designed just like the one of CW’s Riverdale, so nice consistency in set design there.) It’s cute, but I’m also wondering how the town got this motto since everyone seems bent on rewriting the towns witchy history.

Cerberus

The owner of Cerberus books? His eyes flash yellow after getting a kiss from Hilda. I’d like to think he’s something canine to go with his name, and perhaps his store stands over an actual gate to hell. Whether he’s a real hellhound or a werewolf, or the show pays off on its vampire nods with him, remains to be seen.

Madame Satan

She reveals her real name. She also reveals she’s Lilith, first wife of Adam. I find it funny that Sabrina actually invoked her during the exorcism.

Comic Book Look

Sabrina gets her comic book accurate hair in the end here. You know, I don’t think she needed it, but it’s a nice nod that there’s been a transformation in her power level.

Bonus Motifs

These things showed up a lot, and I didn’t want to have to write about it every single time.

13

Pop culture has got 13 as being unlucky and associated with magic, so I like that the show embraced it. A witch’s pregnancy lasts 13 months, 13 minutes is just enough time for a soul to leave a body, and 13 hours is how long Sabrina has to wait to see if her resurrection spell worked.

Cain And Abel

These two brothers were the sons of Adam and Eve, for those who know their biblical stories. They represent jealousy and murder, etc. We’ve got Hilda with her Cain pit in the garden, but there’s actually a lot of more subtle references to them. Cain was a farmer (Hilda) and Abel was a shepherd (Zelda, leading the way), for example. There’s a lot of focus on sibling relationships considering the show’s main character is an only child. Harvey and Tommy, Hilda and Zelda, the Weird Sisters, etc.

Suspira

A lot of the set design (windows and ceilings, specifically) are nods to the horror film Suspira. I’ve never seen it, but it got a lot of notice from horror fans on social media, so I figured I should add that here.

Real Spells

According to interviews and set visits, the crew wanted the set to be authentic, so that had practicing witches cast protection spells on the set and used real symbols around the Spellman house. The Spellman house even has a German protection spell carved into the floor.

Jughead

Also according to set visits, one of the shelves in the Baxter High library has a shelf where you can see a crown and “Jughead was here” carved into it. I don’t think it’s actually visible while watching the show though.

So, what did you guys think about the show? Love it? Hate it? Did you spot more Easter eggs?

[readygamerone]

Chapter 37 - The Knights Who Say “Kill Me”

Wade is FINALLY inside the Third Gate so the story is at last winding down to its conclusion. Like in the First Gate, he has to begin by conquering a 1980′s arcade game. This time it's Tempest, which Wade claims is somehow not one of the games he's most skilled at. Art3mis, however, expected this particular game to be here because of an extremely thinly-veiled reference at the end of Halliday's book. Wade says that he knew it was a Shakespeare quote but never thought to actually look it up:

"Come on,” I heard Art3mis whisper. “You had to know Tempest was going to factor into the Third Gate somehow. It was so obvious!” “Oh really?” I said. “Why?” “Because of the quote on the last page of the Almanac,” she replied. “ ‘I must uneasy make, lest too light winning make the prize light.’” “I know the quote,” I said, annoyed. “It’s from Shakespeare. But I figured it was just Halliday’s way of letting us know how difficult he was going to make the Hunt.” “It was,” Art3mis said. “But it was also a clue. That quote was taken from Shakespeare’s final play, The Tempest.” “Shit!” I hissed. “How the hell did I miss that?”

Even worse, he has to beat Halliday's high score with only one credit. Once again, Art3mis saves Wade's ass here by giving him a cheat code that actually existed in the original cabinet, allowing the player to get 40 free credits. She's really earning more than her share of that 25% cut.

Now equipped with a few dozen attempts, Wade is able to eventually beat Halliday's score and move on. He had claimed that he wasn't very good at this game but, of course, he's the best and we never should've doubted his ability. We also learn, via the OASIS system automatically livestreaming everyone who is attempting this final Gate, that the Sixers have also begun playing Tempest. Naturally, they're all familiar with the same free credits cheat code as well. Wade's not looking like such a singularly worthy gunter at the moment.

The next leg of the challenge is something that is sure to send chills up the spine of anyone whose time in high school was anything like mine. Like he did previously with the movie WarGames, Wade has to play a character in every scene of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Yes, the one movie that is probably forever ruined in the minds of so many like myself who heard it endlessly quoted in class and in the lunchroom. It's impossible to think about what was once a decent comedy film without associating it with the same kind of performative nerdom that defines this entire book. So it's very fitting that one of "Halliday's favorite films, and perhaps the most-beloved geek film of all time" would serve as the next tedious task. 

Wade doesn't think he needs any help acting it out since's he's watched it 157(!) times over the last six years but he has his friends feeding lines and actions into his ear all the same. Entire paragraphs of dialogue from the movie are included here, both so fans at home can join in on the fun and so Cline can stretch out an insubstantial chapter.

With the entire 90 minute performance completed, Wade then finds himself in what appears to be a recreation of Halliday's office. And since it's been a while since we last had to put up with it, we get treated to an entire list of computers and game consoles where a sentence would've sufficed:

On each table there was a different classic home computer or videogame system, accompanied by tiered racks that appeared to hold a complete collection of its peripherals, controllers, software, and games. All of it was arranged perfectly, like a museum exhibit. Looking around the circle, from one system to the next, I saw that the computers seemed to be arranged roughly by year of origin. A PDP-1. An Altair 8800. An IMSAI 8080. An Apple I, right next to an Apple II. An Atari 2600. A Commodore PET. An Intellivision. Several different TRS-80 models. An Atari 400 and 800. A ColecoVision. A TI-99/4. A Sinclair ZX80. A Commodore 64. Various Nintendo and Sega game systems. The entire lineage of Macs and PCs, PlayStations and Xboxes. Finally, completing the circle, was an OASIS console—connected to the immersion rig in the center of the room.

Keep stretching, Ernest. We're almost to the finish line.

Sorrento and the other Sixers are right on Wade's heels so some urgency would probably be a good idea. But I can understand why he wouldn't be able to resist drooling over hardware that's as much as 70 years old by this point. Composing himself, Wade determines that the Easter Egg must be somewhere in this room and begins to search. There are only two chapters left so surely something exciting or profound will happen soon!

Pop Culture References: 71 (7.1 per page)

Video Games Q*Bert I Gorf I Tempest IIIII IIIII I Atari III Black Tiger III Intellivision I Colecovision I Nintendo I Sega I Playstation I Xbox I

Movies Monty Python and the Holy Grail IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII I WarGames II

Music Rush II

Books Shakespeare III

Computers PDP-1 I Altair 8800 I IMSAI 8080 I Apple III Commodore PET I TRS-80 I Atari 400 I Atari 800 I TI-99/4 I Sinclair ZX80 I Commodore 64 I

Brands Ex-Lax I

[eenefangirlanalysis]

Eddy furiously packs a suitcase with several items such as clothes, his records, and anything of value to him.

The impact of this scam is so serious that the Ed’s need to run instead of hide. Remember how Edd stores food, water and other emergency products of need under his bed. This situation is more serious then the time Ed dressed as a monster and stuck the kids to his bedroom wall.

Eddy is scared. It’s rare whenever we see Eddy scared. He is fearless. Or so we think. He does a great job masking his inner fears.

Eddy jumps up and down on his crammed suitcase until it finally locks.

Eddy is famous for taking advantage of cartoon physics. He would have made all these belongings fit inside as if it were no problem.

Since Big Picture Show is suggested to take place a year later Eddy is presumed to be 13 years old. He’s scared of growing up. He doesn’t want to face challenges. He thinks too hard making him forget who he once was. 

The only chance audience witness at seeing the real Eddy is at the very end of the movie where he admits that he’s worn a Bro mask for a long time. 

Eddy has always been a confused and shy boy. Eddy has his own unique personality which disappeared after season 2. He became scared to face reality, ditch his true self to portray someone who could never love him.

Eddy tries to drag the suitcase off the bed and run for his life.

I love the stretchy bendy arms throughout this scene.

Were the Ed’s planning to meet up in a specific spot so they could make their escape? Ed runs into Eddy’s house. Eddy’s room is a safe place for Ed. His friend makes him feel welcome and secure. Ed relies on Eddy to be his protector because his parents won’t.

To Eddy’s luck, the suitcase explodes. A pinata of Eddy’s valuables pop out of the suitcase and fly around in viewers faces. There are a bunch of cool Easter eggs. 

I love Eddy’s valuables.

His room is very different from all the other characters. He’s more of an old fashioned person who likes records. the eighties, magazines. It’s a chance to see who the real Eddy is.

Bro and Eddy DON’t have the same taste in music. Believe me you will understand my point at the end of the movie.

Maybe this is why Eddy thought nobody would like him. He has much different interests. He also has a more unique lifestyle. Eddy has never thought too highly of himself. Every character, even Ed and Edd, have made a snide remark towards Eddy’s character. To the best of his ability Eddy ignores it. So we think.

Remember how Eddy used to juggle, play piano, and improvise nun chucks out of dice? Eddy had a much different personality in season 1. He was easy to get along with and always looked out for his friends. It’s hard to understand why the kids wouldn’t accept him. Of course the main reason is that he has been scamming them for ages, but not every day. Sometimes his scams are creative and well thought out. 

Why didn’t the kids want to befriend Eddy?

Is this the guidebook from May I Have This Ed?

Look very closely in this screenshot and you will notice a page from a calendar.

Does this film take place in May?

I always had the summer vibe because there is no mention of school. There is also a no worries feel. Ironic seeing how the Ed’s are on the run, nearly chase one another way, and witness a horrible beating. 

It may just be a random calendar page, but I hope the movie is set in either late June or early July.

Eddy hears pounding on the door.

I like that shirt hanging off from Eddy’s bed in the background. I sort of wish the Ed’s could have worn other clothing. I guess fans got their wish in season 5 when the Ed’s were dressing in different clothing every now and then. It should have been more often because their clothing reflected their personality.

Eddy’s trademark shirt is a big reflection of Bro. In the flashback of Every Which Way But Ed, Ed and Edd are wearing semi different clothing while Eddy is wearing this over sized yellow shirt. 

Hand me down from Bro? I’d say it’s possible because Eddy wants to be the perfect mirror image of his brother. He’s also trying to remain close with him as he has been gone for so long. Eddy never realized how long his brother has been gone for until the events of Ed in a Half Shell.

My head canon is that Eddy has not seen Bro for eight years. And Eddy was pretty young when Bro was around. He was not old enough to understand what was really going on. Now that he is older the events from when he was a child affect him. 

Season 5 was Eddy’s downfall. He was on edge, had a bigger temper, and looked more anxious. He mellowed out more in season 6 because he was trying to be himself. Bro was still there because he remains a big question on Eddy’s mind.

The door is about to break off its hinges.

Doors play an important role throughout this movie.

Doors are "ways in" or "ways out" of (or to) something. We usually don't think about the door when we get to it - unless it is a particularly eye catching one! When opening a door we’re brought out into the world where anything can happen. Only each character has seen a little part of the world. We need to explore what is on the outside more then what is on the inside.

Side Note: Is that a purple dress? Also, I didn’t take a screenshot of this, but there are a pair of women’s heels in Eddy’s closet. There are times when Eddy cross dresses mainly for the sake of a scam, but Eddy’s sexuality has come into question multiple times.

Eddy tries to impersonate his mother while working with a silent vacuum.

Eddy’s mother was off screen cleaning Eddy’s room in one episode. She must do this a lot.

I love Eddy’s mom. We’ll get into that more as the analysis go, but she is always a sweet woman. She and Eddy’s dad are strict, but for very good reason.

The door is thrown off its hinges!

Oh no, the kids?!

Eddy begs for the kids not to hurt him.

Eddy is terrified about getting hurt. He is also a magnet when it comes to slapstick comedy. As the series went it felt like Eddy was given all this bad luck on purpose. He always got hurt and his character was made dumber. He had no idea how to eat spaghetti! How could the writers do that to their protagonist?

No character is perfect. They won’t always have a happy ending. Eddy has been through it all and yet he’s only twelve years old. There are so many kids Eddy’s age these days who have a powerful story to share. Characters like Eddy have inspired the world. Don’t be afraid to share your past. Don’t let the past change who you are.

Ed gallops into the room.

Eddy hiding behind the vacuum cleaner reminds me of the security guard who hid behind a car in Jurassic World. This is a great opportunity for the characters to get away and yet they hide.

Ed’s massive sock-bag gets stuck in the doorway causing him to fall on Eddy.

See I thought this sock-bag was going to have a bigger part in the movie’s plot. It gets in the way.

Believing that it is the kids Eddy begs for them not to hurt him.

Poor Eddy.

Any type of pain or when he is running away is a trigger from his days with Bro. Bro tormented him. This expression and pose Eddy is in looks like Bro is playing uncle with him. Is Eddy defending himself or grabbing hold of his leg?

Finally realizing that it’s Ed Eddy calms down a bit.

Ed asks Eddy what they’re going to do. Ed and Edd rely on Eddy for everything. Eddy never minded that. He loved being the leader and leading his friends around because in season 1 Ed and Edd were so helpless. The theory about Ed and Edd being better off without Eddy was switched around. It almost felt as if Ed and Edd were the ones holding Eddy back from being friends with the cul-de-sac kids.

Maybe that’s another reason why the kids didn’t like Eddy.

Eddy never thought to abandon his friends. Ed and Edd have grown over time because of Eddy. Their social skills have grown. Still, they have never thought to leave Eddy even when his behavior was beginning to grow on the lines as abusive towards them.

The stress of being the leader starts to wear down on Eddy by season 4. The best example is in Stuck in Ed when Eddy has scam block. His friends help him out, but they never take charge. Even in season 5. No matter how Edd stands his ground he will always turn to Eddy to make sure his ideas are okay. Anxiety builds up within Eddy such as this moment here where he is running around in circles.

Eddy asks what happened to Edd in this very panicked voice.

I think separating to pack belongings must have been Eddy’s idea. He’s going to beat himself up for the rest of his life is something happened to Edd.

Here’s Edd! Phew, I thought Edd was traveling behind Ed, but then got caught by the kids when I first watched this scene.

He was inside Ed’s filthy bag.

Edd is covered in muck. Surprisingly, Edd never complains about being filthy. There is no time to.

I have a head canon that Edd gets over his germophobia in the movie. I will analyze more on that once time comes.

Edd is so dazed for a moment that it takes him a few minutes to notice Eddy put a suitcase in his arms.

Every single shot of this movie is pure perfection. Expressions, actions... all of it is amazing! Another applause to the crew of Ed, Edd n Eddy.

“We’re fugitives, Eddy!” Edd warns Eddy. “Are you aware of the consequences we're about to endure? All because of our misguided chicanery!"

Chicanery -  The use of trickery to achieve a political, financial, or legal purpose.

Lots of talk will go on about the unknown scam throughout the movie. This scam was nothing like the other failed attempts.

Ed senses something wrong.

A shadow passes along the window. This is turning into a horror movie.

This is my favorite set of animation and blocking. Something is not right. The Ed’s are in deep trouble. They have to run, not hide. 

[aion-rsa]

Star Trek: Prodigy Crew and Characters Have Deep Connections to Trek History

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The next starship crew exploring the Final Frontier of Star Trek has arrived. No, it’s not guest stars for Picard Season 2, or a full break-down of the rest of the Strange New Worlds gang. Instead, after a decent amount of speculation, the full cast and character list for the upcoming animated series Star Trek: Prodigy has been revealed. And, it turns out there are some massive deep cuts to old school Star Trek canon, specifically, The Original Series. 

Remember when Spock wore that red visor in the classic Star Trek episode “Is There In Truth No Beauty?” Well, one of the new alien crewmembers on Prodigy is a direct call-back to that alien species. Here’s the details of the new Prodigy crew and how it all connects to the larger Trek universe and timeline.

Mild potential spoilers for Star Trek: Prodigy ahead. 

Meet the Star Trek: Prodigy Crew

Paramount+ has given a full breakdown of the cast and characters in Star Trek: Prodigy, the upcoming series from Kevin and Dan Hageman, which is a collaboration between Nickelodeon and Paramount. The story will center around some adolescents who find themselves on board an abandoned starship. The series is set in 2383 (after Voyager and Lower Decks, but two years before the earliest Picard flashbacks). The show is also set in the Delta Quadrant, which means it’s pretty far away from the action of everything happening in the Prime Timeline in the 2380s and 2390s. (I.E. That Romulan Supernova in 2387, is really far away.)

We’ve known for awhile that Star Trek: Voyager‘s Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) will appear via hologram, but up until now, we haven’t known anything official about any of the new young alien crew members. That is, until now. Here’s who they are! Names and descriptions in quotes come straight from the new Paramount+ press release.

Rok-Tahk (Rylee Alazraqui) “a Brikar and an unusually bright eight-year-old girl. Rok is a bit shy, but not when it comes to her love for animals.” (Note: this is the Rock-looking character.)

Dal (Brett Gray) “17 years old and an unknown species, he fancies himself a maverick, who even in the toughest times, holds strong onto his unwavering hope.”

Zero (Angus Imrie) “is a Medusan: a noncorporeal, genderless, energy-based lifeform. Since others would go mad at the sight of their true self, Zero wears a containment suit they made themselves to protect others.” (We’ll come back to this in a second!)

Jankom Pog (Jason Mantzouka) “a 16-year-old Tellarite. Tellarites are known to relish an argument, and Jankom is no different. Regardless of opinion, he will always play ‘devil’s advocate’ for the sake of hearing all sides.” 

Gwyn (Ella Purnell) “a 17-year-old Vau N’Akat who was raised on her father’s bleak mining planet and grew up dreaming to explore the stars.”

Murf (Dee Bradley Baker) “age and species is unknown but who is an endearing, indestructible blob with curiously good timing and an insatiable appetite for ship parts.”

Star Trek: Prodigy and Its Deep Canon Connections

The species Brikar comes from expanded Trek book canon, specifically a series of Starfleet Academy YA novels published in the ‘90s. The Brikar species first appeared in a book called Worf’s First Adventure. Looks like they’re legit canon now!

Obviously, Tellarites (the pig-like aliens) have been around since the TOS episode “Journey to Babel,” and have more recently appeared fairly prominently in Star Trek: Discovery Season 1 (as well as the Short Treks Harry Mudd episode “The Escape Artist”). So, we have an idea of how Jankom Pog will act. Maybe?

Some fans think the species Vau N’Akat could be connected to the Founders (shapeshifters) from DS9, but we don’t know if that’s true. For now the Vau N’Akat and Gwyn are a mystery. 

But the most eyebrow-raising inclusion on this list is the fact that Zero — who looks like a robot — is actually a Medusan. Think of his robot-like appearance like a Vorlon encounter suit from Babylon 5. Which is an upgrade from the box that Medusan had travel inside of in TOS! 

In “Is There In Truth No Beauty?” the Medusans were established as fantastic astrogators, despite the fact that they were formless, and the visage of them would drive you utterly nuts. In that episode, the fact that Dr. Miranda Jones (Diana Muldaur) was blind assisted her in dealing with the Medusan ambassador, Kollos. Spock, of course, at one point, did fail to have on his anti-insanity visor (cool red shades) and briefly, went bananas. The Medusans have been sparsely mentioned in Trek canon since, though in the Star Trek: Picard episode “Broken Pieces,” one of the Rios holograms did mention “Medusan Astrogation.” 

More broadly, having a young Medusan as part of the crew of Prodigy is not only a cool Easter egg, but also speaks to the meaning of the origins of the alien. 

“Is There In Truth No Beauty?” is the first episode in which we learn about the Vulcan concept of IDIC; infinity diversity in infinite combinations. But, since that episode we haven’t “seen” a Medusan since. In many ways, this alien species is the most extreme version of Star Trek’s message of tolerance: a lifeform that humanoids are psychologically unable to handle. Putting this kind of character on a Trek kids’ show is already pretty edgy. And hopefully, this news indicates that Prodigy won’t be a lightened-up version of Trek, but instead, will go boldly into the great cultural and political issues that make the franchise so beloved.

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Star Trek: Prodigy is set to debut sometime in 2021 on Paramount+.

The post Star Trek: Prodigy Crew and Characters Have Deep Connections to Trek History appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[hellofastestnewsfan]

Imagine a Twilight Zone episode that goes something like this: An individual regularly takes to the internet in the hopes of making himself heard, railing against everything from the “hatefulness” of Democrats to the degradation of modern society. All he wants is an audience. But then the hapless individual complains on Twitter that the new CBS All Access reboot of The Twilight Zone is yet another beloved cultural property that’s been ruined by leftist cultural warriors. Finally, his wish has come true: He goes viral, and is subsequently roasted by journalists and internet celebrities and comedians with millions of followers. He’s dragged so mercilessly, in fact, that the individual eventually has to set his profile to private—depriving himself of the one outlet he had for communicating with the world.

Versions of this scenario did actually happen recently, as disgruntled viewers responding to new episodes of The Twilight Zone found themselves given short shrift for expressing dismay that the update, produced by Jordan Peele and Simon Kinberg, is too “political.” The Twilight Zone, of course, has always had something to say about the state of the world—not since the time of Jesus himself have center-left parables with clear moral lessons been so efficiently disseminated. Rod Serling devised the concept for the show precisely because 1950s network producers were so skittish about overt political messages in the wake of McCarthyism. On television in 1956, Serling later wrote in his book Patterns, “to say a single thing germane to the current political scene was absolutely prohibited.”

Sci-fi, though, was a different story. By wrapping his ideas in allegory, Serling could scotch the censors and say exactly what he wanted about totalitarianism, mass hysteria, prejudice, selfishness, conspiracy theorists, hate. Each episode of The Twilight Zone had a distinct message enunciated in Serling’s narration, making the moral of the story clear for even the most careless viewer. In “The Obsolete Man” (1961), a fable about a librarian in a futuristic state that has outlawed books, Serling observes how the “iron rule” of dictatorships is that “logic is an enemy and truth is a menace.” In “The Brain Center at Whipple’s” (1964), a story about a factory owner who replaces all his employees with technology, only to suffer the same fate, Serling notes that “there are many bromides applicable here: ‘too much of a good thing,’ ‘tiger by the tail,’ ‘as you sow so shall you reap.’” The Twilight Zone is essentially Aesop with a 20th-century imagination. It’s also timeless.

Oddly enough, these morals are missing from the new series, which features an on-camera Peele in Serling’s role. So is the element of grim justice that both The Twilight Zone and its modern heir, Black Mirror, have always held at their core—the kind of karmic inevitability that sees an SS captain subjected to the same torture he meted out to prisoners, or a woman sentenced to endure the fear and violence of an angry mob after committing a horrendous crime herself. Serling’s The Twilight Zone is defined by its twists, but not a single thing happens in the new series that you won’t be able to predict, at least from the four episodes made available for review. This isn’t really a reboot; it doesn’t even qualify as fan fiction. With the exception of one superior episode, “Replay,” it’s hard to conceive that an artist as prodigiously talented and thoughtful as Peele is creatively involved at all.

I attempted to decipher the messages that the first four episodes might be trying to convey, but only ended up stumped. The premiere installment, available for CBS All Access subscribers, is titled “The Comedian,” and stars Kumail Nanjiani as a stand-up, Samir, whose politically charged routine keeps bombing with audiences. (Which, really? This is the era of John Oliver eviscerations and Hasan Minhaj and Nanette.) After one especially disastrous set, Samir randomly encounters an elusive comedy great (played by Tracy Morgan), who tells him the secret to success: He has to put more of his personal life into his act. “The audience don’t care what you think,” Morgan’s character says. “They care about you.”

Samir tries riffing on new subjects—his dog, his nephew, his high-school bullies. There is, of course, a cost to those he brings into his act, and the more successful Samir gets, the more he ends up losing. Certain themes that recur in the episode seem ripe for picking at: whether comedy counts as art, how comedians can offer insight into the human condition, whether comedy is about making people laugh first and foremost. But they’re left floating in the ether, while Samir goes through a series of superficial realizations about his own grandiosity and the Faustian bargain of fame. The question of what we’re supposed to take away from his story is a perplexing one. Is it that putting your personal life into your art is bad? (Because if so, I say again, Nanette.) Is this an elaborate rant about contemporary audiences being too shallow for insightful truths? Because that’s not what Serling thought.

This particular reboot has another problem, something that bedevils virtually every streaming show: Its episodes are way too long. Serling’s The Twilight Zone tied its stories up neatly within 30 minutes, including space for commercials. The brevity of the format dispensed with extraneous waffling—there was no time, for example, to show a comedian delivering the same joke about the Second Amendment five separate times. But there was space for a surprising amount of world-building (Serling’s narration did a lot of work here), and for a tidy one-act play that zips along. “The Comedian,” by contrast, is 54 minutes long. (It’s worth remembering that in 1963, The Twilight Zone’s running time was stretched to 60 minutes, but after one season the change was swiftly reversed.)

“A Traveler,” another new episode that runs longer than 50 minutes, suffers more from this extended storytelling time than most, given that its twist is apparent from the minute a mysterious man in a suit (Steven Yeun) appears in a remote Alaskan prison cell on Christmas Eve. The questions of who this man is, where he came from, and what he wants should be the most urgent issues underpinning the episode. But because the story devolves into a series of yawning subplots—a police deputy’s (Marika Sila) odd relationship with her brother, her antagonism toward her narcissistic boss (Greg Kinnear)—there’s very little tension surrounding the newcomer, who identifies only as A. Traveler. Yeun (Burning) is magnetic as the enigmatic interloper, and the episode has intriguing subtext about colonizers and the colonized that seems to beg for more overt allegorizing. But Peele’s closing narration, the part that’s supposed to explain to viewers how to interpret what they’ve just seen, is opaque. (“There’s no difference between myth and mistruth” means nothing no matter how you slice it.)

The best of the four new episodes, “Replay,” functions so well because it incorporates tension into its setup. Nina (Sanaa Lathan), is taking her son, Dorian (Damson Idris), to college, a fictional HBCU called Tennyson. Dorian wants to be a filmmaker and to inspire people with the stories he puts into the world. But it’s the camera Nina wields, an old-fashioned camcorder, that seems to have profound power after she discovers she can use it to rewind time.

This is the kind of slightly hokey, completely implausible, suspend-your-disbelief scenario that The Twilight Zone has always aced. It’s easy to imagine, say, a character played by Burgess Meredith discovering a clock with similar qualities in a 1960s-era episode, and then trying (and failing) to go back to his glory days, imparting a valuable be-careful-what-you-wish for message about nostalgia along the way. But in “Replay,” the camera itself isn’t the point so much as what Nina uses it for. Throughout the episode, she’s plagued by a racist highway cop, Officer Lasky (Glenn Fleshler), who poses grave danger to Dorian, and no matter how she tries to escape or placate him, there he is. “He keeps pulling us over, again and again and again,” a desperate Nina says in one scene, “no matter what route we take, how nice or mean we are … There’s nothing I can do.”

The episode is so powerful because it forces audiences to feel the frustration and fear that Nina feels, but also the inevitability of antagonists like this one. No matter how hard Nina tries to get Lasky to see her as a person, to buy him a slice of apple pie and tell him about how proud she is of her son and how much he means to her, Lasky can’t be swayed. Fleshler communicates his impotent rage, his petty tyranny over a stretch of highway, his racism. In Nina’s hands, the magical camcorder feels like a device that might help her escape what Lasky represents, but it turns out to be less powerful than something else she’s been ignoring. Cameras, the episode makes clear in one of its most resonant moments, aren’t enough.

“Replay” shows what a modern Twilight Zone could really be, offering the kind of sociopolitical analysis Serling excelled at, but without the folksiness of 1950s television. For the most part, though, the new series feels like anthology storytelling by the numbers, more concerned with Easter eggs and recurring themes (“Lasky” is also the name of a street in “The Comedian,” and the number 1015 repeats across episodes) than with trying to emulate what the original show did so well—making audiences see the world with more clarity.

“Nightmare at 30,000 Feet,” a dismal episode starring Adam Scott, is the worst of the four, a clunky, cutesy “what if” story about a magazine journalist on a flight to Tel Aviv. The story is loosely inspired by a vintage Twilight Zone episode with William Shatner, in which a man recovering from a nervous breakdown sees a gremlin on the wing of his commercial plane. Scott’s character, Justin Sanderson, is similarly recovering from PTSD after reporting in war zones, but when he takes his seat on the plane, he finds a mysterious audio device in the seat pocket in front of him. It plays him a podcast, seemingly from the future, that investigates the mystery of how the flight Sanderson is on ended in tragedy.

Forget the corniness of a podcast that portends the future, or the improbability of a world in which magazine journalists fly first class. The episode has no tension, no investment in any of the characters. You might be less curious about how the plane actually goes down than in how the producers managed to nail the production of the fake podcast itself—the smug, omniscient narrator and the clinky background music. But more damaging is how totally unclear it is what the episode is supposed to do. Serling’s original episode interrogated preconceived ideas about anxiety and mental confusion; his central character has no credibility because he’s suffered a nervous breakdown, and seems to fear being crazy even more than he fears actually being right about the gremlin. The new “Nightmare” has none of this subtext. “In his final moments, Justin Sanderson made the case that he did everything he could to avert disaster,” Peele opines. “But in the end, he was an investigative reporter unwilling to investigate himself, until it was too late.” Bromide salad. Cliché. Fin. What’s strangest of all about the reboot is its defiant lack of darkness, its unwillingness to even scratch at the human psyche. This could be a possible response to the fact that Black Mirror already exists, and that its creator, Charlie Brooker, had The Twilight Zone at the forefront of his mind when he created it. The new Twilight Zone isn’t frightened of what technology is doing to us, as Black Mirror is, nor is it particularly concerned with Serling’s great preoccupation—how humanity has always found ways to torture itself. It has none of the indelible eeriness or the subconscious probings of Us, Peele’s most recent film, which is itself inspired by a Twilight Zone episode. Nothing feels sinister. Everything feels safe. In a world so weird that it’s frequently likened to a bad computer simulation, this Twilight Zone is blandness stretched into an hour-long format, storytelling that feels oddly neutered before it even begins.

from The Atlantic https://ift.tt/2WM8EUF

[ladyofmind]

January Hashtag Games

Chances are you started to follow me for one of two reasons...

1- You saw my music posts and enjoy listening to my playlists (a great reason to be friends by the way)

2- You found me through my writing, and likely one of those writing-related topics was a hashtag game. Which, was more fun than I thought it would be, so there will be more of these posts in the future.

I participated in 3 games, this past month, and pulled my answered together in one place now.

First up is one that quickly became a favorite, even if I was a latecomer to it...

#characterstell, hosted and credited to @m_arbanassi, not only set one of my favorite characters loose on Twitter, but it also made me think more about some of the other faceless faces in my crowd. It also holds the honor of being the first post I had retweeted, not once but twice. I can not tell you how much Sly’s introduction, and it’s retweets meant to me. After all, it is very easy to just like and keep going, I do it often enough, but to retweet a post about a name? Sometimes the little things make a difference to someone else, and in this case, it was like being heard even a tiny bit in my new little fresh grass patch of Twitter. All because of a character with a name I researched quite a bit to strike the perfect balance, in what is essentially just an Easter Egg type of inside joke between myself and the real Sly.

#CharactersTell

15/1- Out of all the chars, spotlight falls on "Ballentine Rajneesh Siyamak, but you can call me Sly for short." In an old-school fashion, Sly bent at the waist. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance, and welcome to this fascinating club. Are you here for a milkshake?"

16/1- (Sly) "I strive to be neutral, and my own person. I may have learned some of the finer arts of socializing from Miss Tweety, MC to you, but I prefer to be my own man." #lonewolf is an insult to *someone's* sense of self. Prefers #observer or maybe #batman

17- As host with a persona to upkeep, I find inclusion with all patrons. Gus was a mentor, Malta and Frost for dialect or brogue, Deej's comedic antics (thunderous stampede interruption of Bebe, caught by Nira) 👈 they keep us lithe and in need of disinfectant.

18/1- I like big books and can not lie… You don't get a moniker of "Dictionary" for being a music catalog. I have had some spirited debates about lyrics and… (Mechanical bat draws focus, #dancing on jukebox to play @tapefive #BadBoyGoodMan) #themesong        

19- I have been informed that I used to flirt poorly, where the person of interest was not even aware I was trying. Former covert coquet, now I woo those in low spirits, but I am not looking for any attachments. Might still be bad at knowing when I am courted...

20/1- Hotheaded? That is never me. I do not antagonize easily, nor can one ruffle my feathers as they say. If you are looking for argumentative types, talk to Nira about a duck. Or make fun of Frost's kilt. Who goes looking for that sort of trouble anyway?

21/1- If by weapons you mean a sharp wit, brilliant wordsmith talent, and the ability to make some mean drinks with a well-received boozy milkshake? Then consider me #always #armed and #dangerous

22/1- You saw me as the big lug the wee lasses took pity on, and danced with. They loved how I could toss them in the air, and I loved the respect getting the attention of Tweety, whom my snobby friend couldn't, got me. More admirers didn't hurt either ;)

23/1- hobbies? I have a girlfriend now, thanks to that one bar night, but I fix cars and love that. #classiccar fan right here.

24/1- My parents are like any other really, mom and dad are great, had a bunch of kids, some have made them grandparents. Nieces and nephews are adorable...

25/1- Yes! I'm the second youngest, with 2 brothers and 2 sisters. We're all old enough to start our own families now, and I can't wait to either!

26/1- is a story about an under confident guy (with a slick self important friend), who gets the attention of an influential woman, who opens up his love life from there worth telling?

27/1- if you asked my social status months before, I would have said absolutely not, but now? Yes, most definitely yes. 😁

28/1- broken the law? No. I may have been seen as a nobody, but I'm a good hearted nobody thru and thru!

29/1- MC: I have never said anything nasty about her as a person; I just disagreed with the business practices…

Ant: She… looks… less yellow…, and I hate you now too for making me do that.

30/1- I didn't have a story when you met me the first time, but my story continued, and I could very well be a confidante. It's not like I'm single therefore threatening to MC sensibilities…

31/1- Are we not all Main Characters in our own lives? If you act with confidence and charisma, you become important to someone else. A MC in their eyes.

Next up is #authorconfession, from  @-jm-sullivan and @jjulien25

This one was full of challenging questions, like the one about playing cards, or famous paintings? Who thinks about their work in progress that way? Super helpful, and worth the researching to play along...

1- Hello, I am a #library worker by day, #writer by night, simply putting the stories inside me out on paper. Goal is always to finish books and see about publishing them.

2- Resolutions? 1- To stop letting bestie embarrass me so 2- have the cupcake, enjoy the cupcake. 3- Not spend as much on clothing and shoe- *giggles* nope, scratch that one.

3- My @goodreads goal is 5 books, but I am always reading when I am not writing, I just don't always finish a book.

4- I just started my platform efforts barely a month ago, so actually having one is the start of my improving it. The dream is finding like minded souls who like my work…

5- Improving my writing means I have to improve my editing, but like my writing got better with practice, so too shall my editing…

6- Proud of in my writing? That there are scenes that move me, also that my test readers find emotional connections to the works.

7- If Tink were Tweet? I'd have to admit to #magic, but height, and possibly attitudes are similar. Tink would have an amazing wardrobe though. #fashionista wannabe MC anyone?

8- Diversity? I think that I have each character standing out with their culture, or wisdom, the one thing that makes them unique.

9- Ooh good one. The antagonist hits a few rungs on the sin ladder, even with henchmen. But her driving sin? Pride.

10- Weirdest place… Airplane? My hand? Oh how about when I am the adult watching library study hall? Best is when the kids don't come in, but you have to stay in case they do…

11- Mucky middle, and possibly needing to rewrite already, to shore up a big plot bunny that will only get worse if I don't fix it now.

12- Victory has to be doing #NaNo and making my 50k. Proved to myself I can do it, now I must keep up the momentum to keep #winning

13- 💃💃🕺 +  🥃🍸🍹👙🎉  = 😊😘😜🤔😳😮🤯🙄😎😇

14- So many choices! Tweety of course, because she is how I started really writing… but I have loved chars from @Lynsay_Sands, @JennAllyson, and Adrienne Basso

15- Two day #wordcount since midnight is only a clock setting…. #amediting- 5786 #amwriting- 378 plus many uncounted blog or Twitter post prepping.

17- T is totally Sweet, like the cheerleader next door, but she can be so sassy!

18- Can you measure love? Because my chars are important to me and so I honor them the best I can by trying to be present for them and their scenes.

19- This is a great question! I'm not sure, but I know Tweet would be a classics woman. #Casablanca… with #BreakfastAtTiffany's being a runner up film.

20- Tweety, Bebe, and Malta of course! They are known as triple trouble for a reason… Just bring the Cockney/English translator and you'll be fine.

21- The honesty in the memories; that was the only reason he couldn't stop reading. #spoilers if I kept going, but it's so good…

22- Famous painting? #Nighthawks by Edward Hopper is more her life, but #MadameX by John Singer Sargent is more how she feels about herself.

23- Fear GIF? Something like this… https://giphy.com/gifs/CAfSQXZj9JLQA/html5

24- Only if it's life threatening… My gals are #tinybutmighty and figure out how to get out of most things, together or apart. No woman is ever that helpless… unheard and unheeded maybe, but not helpless.

25- I have to say Tweet is the King of Hearts, doesn't matter that she's female, she rules the roost with love. Also thanks to @thecardsoflife for helping me figure that one out on their website. Going back to define a few more chars that way now…

26- My SO knows he's Nira, and already has an understanding about my relationship with fictional Woods or maybe Sly, because what writer doesn't want a dictionary brain to talk to?

27- Karaoke? Most likely find her singing #BeautifulGoodbye by Jennifer Hanson.

28- My #WIP has been with me for a long time now, and I am always impressed with its growth into its own established setting with cast of chars…

29- Transporting myself somewhere else? Or just giving a voice to the ideas and chars I love in my head.

30- Writing progress in this new year? None, other than starting social media… But in 2017, I finally finished writing book 1! January is rough to balance #work and #writing.

31- #SparkleOn to quote #AldousHuxley from my advice wall "A bad book is as much of a labor to write as a good one; it comes as sincerely from the author's soul." So just write good, bad, and ugly words. Only practicing will help you find your way of doing you.

Finally, we have that which might have been my first hashtag game find... #WIPjoy from @simmeringmind

1- Naomi aka Tweety lives and works in a bar/nightclub trying to keep a business running among a cast of strange characters, all while trying to find her self and maybe a little love too.

2- 5 things I value? Family, #music, my lessons from #librarylife, my hubs and the support we share, and of course, being able to express myself by #writing.

3- Only the legendary myths remain, sharing the stories in the Red Letters series...

4- To finish writing my books and edit them as well, to hopefully query by summer… #fingerscrossed #hardworkahead.

5- Switching to the sort of Male MC for this one. To be a #famous #rockgod of course. Maybe with the #muse of his dreams too? #spoilers?

6- (stained glass pic) Something that helped inspired depth in my bar #setting

7- The big one of 2017? Finally #finished writing the first #book! Only took more years than I would have liked… Still proud it's finished too.

8- My #strength as a #writer? The feels or #emotions you get from my characters, and my occasional bouts of #wisdom

9- "A giant Scot and a tiny Cockney drinking beyond the point of drunk? Really? So far the only thing that I can relate to is being drawn to a fine musician's arse in jeans."

10- T and B for the win here. Who doesn't have that sort of extreme friend that pushes you out of your comfort zone? Especially loves to make you blush when you're chatting with something cute.

11- Cry? Yes… a little death and heartbreak can do that to you. After all, if you don't move yourself, how can you move anyone else?

12- 1- Character growths from first book, 2- More grown up vibe, no G rating 3- Multiple stories intersecting 4- The pool scene #waitandsee 5- The direction it's taking me on it's own.

13- Without sharing #spoilers, in the first book, there is a description of the bar that feels pretty magical, any of the parts alluding to olden days really.

14- Unfortunately, my poetry days are behind me, been a long time since I wrote angst-y rhyming couplets. Yes I know that's not all poetry, but the reminders… *shivers* nope, no more cutesy dark things, unless it's music, men, or clothes…

15- I beat the #writersblock with #music… It sets the mood, first by taking me out of mine, and then transporting me to the mood I need to #write in.

16a- If someone is going to try to own me, they can and will try, simply because I seem like the ownable sort. But they never will, not entirely, because they will never be able to take away my memories. #daring #note not yet in WIP L

16b- other creative outlets? #cooking, and I like to take pictures, but do not like being in them… creative in ideas, less in execution lol

17- #WIP as food- something that looks soft, fluffy, and too sweet, like cotton candy, but in tasting it, there is depth, balance and richness to the sweetness. So… savory cotton candy?

18- too many to choose, going today's currently repeating list… @awakeatlastrock #purgatorium, Ocean Eyes @billieeilish, and @jakeowen If He Ain't Gonna Love You  

20- It's brave because under all the fluff, at it's core, it's a story about a woman overcoming obstacles meant to break her spirits and still coming out on top… somewhat

21- Halloween of course! The costumes, the candy, *shivers and rubs a spot on neck, blushing softly* the memories are the best part…

22- Goals? Is it really wrong to want a nice looking bar façade that lets the girls make all my money for me? I sing to keep the customers coming, and to show off ;)

23- Frost aka "Ach Lass" "Ah drank wi' th' wee Malta, 'n' efter ye left lest time, th' ither lass cam in. Git cried Tweety doo, 'n' she stuck wi' it. Glad tae ken a'm nae th' ainlie yin wha sees trouble wi' her. Gettin an ulcer fae her ideas..." #badaccents maybe?

24- Dress for successful day, deal with kitty carrying #coffee, why is there always soapy water near the sink? Put out cupcakes, chat, flirt, dance, avoid overzealous types, have a deep chat while #writing, barely make it to bed to do it all over again. #barlife #businessowner

25- Malta- "A day 'ha' changed me life? Da day I me' duck an' Fros' ov course. 'ah can you no' remember 'he day you mee' a bloke 'ha' doesn' lose in 'he game ov drink? so wha' if 'e's a Sco'.. cuppa?"-handed tea before memories become another Cockney/Scottish debate…

26- Relate to her? Once I got arrested because of her, and had to use my blackmail to get off, I walked away to start over. Don't care about her, and don't mention her to me again.

27- Family? Why the staff here is my family now, and there are more memories every day. I'm sure we've forgotten far too many stories, but I will always remember the Handcuffs Halloween… It all started with this band performance in the club….

28- Try to go trad, or at least chat with a #literary #agent first, got to check the iffy legal issues are only in my head… Self pub is not off the table, just got to get ducks in rows. Still understanding it being #Women'sFiction now... bye YARomance, maybe next time?

29- Write for? Myself, the friends I have made that inspired this story, just found out a family friend's youth is into writing, so more reason to test the waters first... #experience that can be taught to the next gen writers.

30- Another line from my inspiring quote boards- "Be so good they can't ignore you."

31- Twitter @ladyofmind721, Tumblr- ladyofmind.tumblr.com/ and Instagram @ladytweet721 If you think I should be anywhere else, let me know! Still debating/working up courage for Facebook…

So I had a great month, putting myself and my work out there for you guys, let’s see where February’s games will take us.... Happy Writing!!