#sorta conveying movement is a big deal for me

[cleocatrablossy]

Some favorite recent Fords(a couple are repeats from a couple days ago, but shhh)

[kaceypink]

From: https://pinkkacey.itch.io/modern-aeon/devlog/657382/post-mortum-i-sorta-regret-writing-a-trans-lesbian-elongated-muskrat

When I first started working on this story (I think back in 2021) I approached it with a desire solely to chase the themes present in the first part. The small dom with a lot of attitude, big dog service top who likes to get pulled around (a real masochist emotionally and physically). The bodyguard and her dark evil ceo lover. I followed a desire to write something inspired by the roaring 20s and the evil but thrilling wonder if an industrialists life. Paying people to have ideas for you, is a very old industrial capitalist thing. I wanted to show the glamor and the luxury of shinny leather, designer watches, tailored suits, and flowing dresses all on rough, beautiful lesbians. I think to an extent that first part really does convey that pretty well.

I have been thinking a lot about how Flur, even though she isn't as evil or manipulative as she wants people to think she is, is a capitalist in a way that I might never write again. My stomach has been so churned by Twitter falling apart. I wanted to write Flur sorta as a response too, ya know, what would a "good" person like this look like to me. What sorts of things would make up her mindset, how would she be radicalized away from great man theory and towards equity and labor rights. But you know, for all the good she has done in the story, she's still stolen people's wages and been a land lord and stuff. I know she's fictional, but I also I don't really believe there really can be such a thing as a "good industrialist" or "good capitalist" anymore. I guess that was my radicalization journey.

I wouldn't blame people for not connecting or even understanding the choice of character I wrote here. Ultimately though, her character is one of flipping people off and grabbing a failing world by the throat to right it for the better. Murdering your r*pist half brother in front of your family so you can steal the factory out from under him and keep the family from immolating in male chauvinist related debt does feel pretty wild. But whatever, I had fun. We can be wild ass from time to time. It's fine.

The novel opens with a peak at Flur's desire for equity for dragonkind, something that's not hidden but does grow in the background across the story to the point where it's implied she's selling weapons to a liberation movement in the southern part of the country. Flur actively lobbies against removing subways in the capital where she lives and does lots of her business. It would be more profitable to force everyone to buy a car with the engines she designed, but she still makes hand over fist selling them to train, subway, plane, and boat companies. By the end of the book she asks her workers to run her company for themselves, effectively becoming nothing more than a figure head a loud mouth piece. The story conveys a lot of that in the margins however, mostly because this isn't a story about Flur's company or her political actions.

The second part is where the story turns away from what was presented in the first part. The story isn't really about these two characters as bodyguard and CEO either, it's about their relationship and dealing with history. Things coming back to get you, litterally or emotionally. I think my favorite part of the whole novel is that masquerade, the way in which Tempest comes into her own and how she proves her love. I really like these two characters, I think about them a lot still.

The last couple parts I really struggled with, particularly the train part. I really wanted to write it well, and I think for the most part it's a strong bit of story with some weak areas. I really like the intro of family in there. The ending is a favorite, particularly the last chunk of these two living together and having a family feels very special to me. If you've read it, or it sounds interesting, I hope you feel the same.

I feel like if I were to ever come back to this story I would refine it to solely be based around that masquerade. I'd revise how the antagonist and the demon stuff works. It gets a big shonin anime, but that's fine. I'd also make it more clear how Flur's an anticapitalist disguised as a capitalist. I'd make the focus solely on the power of Tempest and Flur's love, though it is in this novel as well.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Amazing Spider-Man v5 #30/831 Thoughts

I really enjoyed it but there are some tiny issues.

There are two kinda sorta continuity errors that I have to get out of the way up top.

The first one isn’t as severe as I thought. Reading it on the train home I thought Spencer had made a huge mistake when he recreated the scene of Harry’s coming home party. Namely that Aunt May was there. From my recollections that wasn’t the case. But getting the pages from the original issue (ASM #105 btw) side by side with this I discovered I was mistaken and in a huge way no less.

Not only was Aunt May there but about 95% of the whole scene plays out identically to ASM #105. Seriously even the placement of Randy and Gwen, seen from behind in the original issue, is the same.

Even the dialogue is near identical, there are very few additions to it and the changes are essentially minor, saying the same things with some tweaks to the wording.

There is that annoying 5% though, however since the scene is clear from Peter’s memory it’s entirely possible (especially since he’s in the middle of a fight) that he’s misremembering some details. Case in point Gwen’s got her iconic headband in the flashback which is absent in the original issue, and her hair is noticeably shorter. If intentional this would be a brilliant conveyance of the tricks memory plays upon us. If unintentional, hey it’s easily No. Prized and not a big deal.

The more significant error is more to do with characterization. Peter makes the point that he feels guilty and responsible for Absolute carnage because he brought the Venom symbiote to Earth….buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut David Michelinie himself did a story all about that towards the end of his ASM run. In said story a drugged Spidey does briefly believe this, but then when the drugs wear off essentially disavows this. He’ll still fight the symbiotes of course but he refutes that every evil act Venom and Carnage commit are his fault merely because he brought the symbiote to Earth without knowing what it was.

Again, you can No. Prize it somewhat.

Moving on this issue is very interesting in regards to it’s existence as a tie-in.

As an Absolute Carnage chapter it currently doesn’t seem particularly essential.

And yet Spencer uses it to propel his own story along. I mean honestly who’d have thought you’d get major movement on the Kindred subplot in an Absolute Carnage tie-in?????

In this sense Spencer demonstrates how you can turn a forced tie-in to your own advantage.

Not only do we get major clues regarding Kindred (see this really great post to look at some of those).

but we also get a pretty great examination of Norman Osborn. It’s not comprehensive but for the angle it’s going for it’s very much on the money. It acknowledges Norman as the worst of the worst and cleverly uses his current status quo to the story’s advantage.

We contrast Norman’s prior dominance and scare factor with the depths he’s been reduced to at the start of the story whilst also depicting him as technically more powerful than ever before, able to physically dominate Spider-Man with ease. And all the while emphasising the point that Norman won against Spider-Man years ago because of the emotional scars he inflicted, with the dialogue playing out in tandem to Norman’ physically beating Peter too.

That’s making lemonade out of lemons right there!

Now are Kindred’s words accurate about how Norman won against Spidey years ago?

Yes and no.

A point I bring up time and again to jackoffs who are either fans of other villains or for whatever reason hate Norman on principle and denigrate his feats, is that Norman doesn’t merely want to kill Spider-Man.

Norman in essence has primary and secondary objectives in regards to his conflicts with Spider-Man and fulfilling any of them counts as a win of somekind in his book.

Yes he wants to kill Spider-Man but more significantly he wants to break his spirit. On these fronts Norman acknowledges and is frustrated by his thus far failure. The fact that Peter remains heroic, remains having a fulfilling life for himself in spite of every nasty thing Norman and other people have done to him enrages Norman.

However Norman is if nothing else, sadistic. And for him inflicting a scar, especially an emotional one, is itself a form of victory. In PPSM #75 although Norman is frustrated that the Clone Saga hasn’t broken Peter’s spirit and that he cannot outfight Peter he vocalizes to Peter that killing Ben Reilly was still a win for him and even as he was caught up in a huge explosion he laughed about having still won because he took away Peter and MJ’s baby. In the bonus pages to that story in the trade releases he mentions how things turned out quite nicely, even though he didn’t actually beat Peter.

From the point of view of scarring Peter for life of inflicting wounds he has to live with Norman absolutely did win a long time ago. This is conveyed in the story by Peter dredging up memories in response to Norman’s presence, memories that by rights should be happy but are in fact painful BECAUSE of how Norman has tainted his life. He has of course killed Flash, Gwen, kind of killed Harry and hurt himself and MJ. It’s just a great use of classic continuity and an issue rarely revisited at that.

I also sort of like the idea of Norman being scary because he represents the cynicism of aging and the illusion of optimistic youth. Now that does kind of smack of ‘Spider-Man is about youth!’ but I dunno if that was Spencer’s intention. It’s a nice idea nevertheless as Norman in Spider-Man always represents a kind of dark father figure, not necessarily always to Peter specifically but in general. So Norman’s age is definitely an important component to who he is.

Spencer in (I think) putting all that across demonstrates that he gets this often misunderstood character.

The Kindred stuff itself is interesting as we see another side to him, see how personal this is and how a chance encounter has set him off. We have confirmed he’s modelled himself after Norman, which might be in reference to his look or his general attitude. It should be noted that his outfit does have shades of the Goblin, especially the hood.

Let’s switch over to the art.

Ottley is back and everything looks great especially Carnage!...but...I’m afraid his rendition of the V-man leaves something to be desired. I dunno what it is, maybe I’m just too used to seeing Venom drawn by Stegman at this point, but Ottley’s take doesn’t quite work for me. I think it’s something to do with the eyes.

One final little problem is regarding Normie.

I brought this up in my thoughts post about Absolute Carnage #1 but it bears repeating...does Normie know who Spider-Man is?

I only skimmed Red Goblin because...y’all know why...but I don’t recall Normie learning the truth about Peter so with that said Pete half unmasking to him seems odd if the kid doesn’t know.

I did like merely seeing Normie and acknowledging he’s Peter’s godson though as it’s something I’m annoyed went ignored for so long.

Over all another great issue with some slight problems but highly recommended.

[3k626ekful7ozxujar43keiw236in2h]

What is lsd like? Is there a difference between taking it alone vs. with other people ?

I’ve only been on it around other ppl once and it was awful but that was cus of the situation, not the people or purely the fact it was around others. Most ppl say its worse alone but I think if you educate yourself about it and are in the right mindset it can be a very positive thing (you control the trip and all that..) I initially took it because I’d read into how lsd can help with ptsd and change change your outlook on areas of your life or allow you to see and realise things you’ve struggled with & I heavily researched all the effects you should expect and be prepared for. I was sexually abused as a child which I’ve talked about on this blog before and people who’ve followed me for a long time will know it affected me a lot as a young teenager. I had alot of messedup thoughts about myself and recurring nightmares of it and I would never go as far as to say acid made me completely get over it and move on but it helped me …. observe the situation better and look at myself not as just being..what happened to me, and look at my life and life in general objectively. I dunno it made me think really deeply into myself and life and begin to come to terms with it. One thing it really changed for me is my feelings about virginity, it affected me alot for a long time despite knowing it wasnt really a big deal and virginity is a social construct and whatever, i couldnt get rid of that disgusting feeling of not being a virgin/having lost my virginity as a child, on lsd I kinda realised I was just seeing this as a way to prove to myself that it changed me and made something less of me, thinking of it as having taken something tangible from you rather than just the vague loss of control or innocence that isnt definable, and I believed on some level it sorta made me a bad person....i think I struggle with not being able to define feelings and thoughts...but yeah that really changed my outlook on how self loathing I was about having lost my virginity. This was all at pretty low doses and wasnt very visual or anything it just helped me think about stuff and explore different mindsets i suppose…I’m not really sure how to explain the mental aspect of it. Acid trips last a long time and i wouldnt just be like non stop ruminating on my fucked up past lol I would let the thoughts and realisations come to me and write stuff down and draw, I would spend a lot of it especially towards the end just listening to music and feeling at peace with the world, alot of the time I would get a sense that everybody is connected which is the only thing thats ever kinda made me feel not inferior to everyone and completely feel like my social anxiety is unjustified and not feel that way for a moment in time, I felt like I was everybody and everybody was like the universe and its all interconnected and kept thinking about how every atom is technically touching lol. I still dunno how to explain this either in a way that fully conveys what it felt like, its just overwhelming feelings, you cant really understand the mindset unless you experience it

The one time I did around others I’d accidentally been sold a much higher dose than I was supposed to have been (250mcg blotter instead of 110…..) and I was so fucked, from everything I’d read about psychedelics I knew it was a high dose lsd trip but I was confused cus i was like..why would someone overdose you its usually the opposite (the dude had actually given me the wrong blotter, and someone else mine rip, he was so apologetic about it tho) ummm but I ended up going to a girls house that im not even that close friends with and she was super cool about it but I was so embarrassed. I basically was just uncontrollably laughing and it was insanely visual, I wasn’t really scared I mean I was kinda scared cus I didnt know where it would go but I just kept reminding myself its just a chemical. I could totally understand from what I saw and the way I felt the stories you hear about ppl taking acid and getting paranoid the whole world is a simulation or that its never gonna end. Idk how to explain but I feltlike i was in a 3d animation software, everything looked fake and like 3d models, and literally even now I cant look at frost covered leaves and trees without seeing them from that mindset. Loads of fractals in the frosted ground and my friends ceiling, echoing in peoples movement and like the cmyk echoing colour thing you see on aestheitc photos if u know what i mean, wicker basket in her lounge legit looked like snakes, felt really electricy and gross and kept feeling like i was leaving my body into other parts of the room but not like physically I cant explain it. Also the apps on my phone were boncing around lol. My thoughts were like 100 a second and i really couldnt focus i felt like i was having non stop epiphanies but couldnt grasp onto any of them. I also felt very paranoid my friend was texting ppl making fun of me when she was on her phone, and just really self concious and embarrassed and kept apologising to her even though she was cool wit it. it was gross