#specifically when i wanna go fucking ham on a piece. and so

[lucabyte]

Smoliin & Lūn

[hyperfigations]

Hacketteer's Campfire Tag!

OG by the lovely person who tagged me: @lowonmelatonin

1. First things first, how did you get into writing/drawing fan content (this doesn’t have to be specific to The Quarry)?

LMAO, It all started with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and that terrible Leonardo x Reader fanfic I made that I will never reveal. Down hill since then.

2. What was the first thing you wrote/drew for The Quarry?

My first TQ Fanfic was Hallucinations! It was the first fanfic I wrote in 2 years! I was very proud with how it came out.

3. What is a work you’ve done that you are the most proud of?

Hmmm.... Idk haha. I am proud that I started writing again but I've kinda fallen a bit flat with my works. Tryna work on that. I guess my fanfic No One Escapes From Life Alive is the one I love the most.

4. Name a favourite trope you like to draw, read or write.

Angst. I love love love Angst. Most Major Character Death. Idk why LMAO. That or like protective lovers type thing. Makes me all giddy.

5. Is there any specific character/scenarios/ships in The Quarry that is a go-to of yours to write/draw about?

Usually Radioheads/Rylan. I tend to write more angsty type stuff that or pure fluff. No in-between.

6. Has there ever been a time when creating a piece that you’re just like ‘I can’t do this’, but have pushed yourself through it and been extremely proud of the end result?

The prologue to my fic No Escapes From Life Alive for sure! First time writing gore/horror! So I was like not having fun while writing cuz I was like "welp, this is pure shit" but I liked the way it came out!

7. What is one specific thing you love about creating fan content for The Quarry?

THE COMMENTS! Lord, the comments?!?!?! I love seeing people's reactions to my work. I know that is vain as hell but GODDDD any comment/feedback just makes me so freaking happy. I want to grow and be inspired and those comments just drive me!

8. Is there any specific routine you have to get into before creating said work, if so, what?

I get a vanilla iced coffee, pop on my specific playlist and go ham. LMAO. It has to be super super late like 3 to 4 am. Something about writing at those times is just soooo yeaahhhh

9. Any current/future WIPs that you would like to share with us?

Haven't finished No One Escapes from Life Alive! I also have a silly Killer Klown TQ AU called Funny Side Up. I am also going to (hopefully soon) be working on a Hocus Pocus TQ AU called Just a Bunch Of Hocus Pocus AND a Blygbank Jennifer's Body AU!

10. What do you tend to do when you’re stuck in a creative rut?

legit just wait it out. Which is terrible but yeah.

11. Any advice for newcomers to The Quarry fandom?

Make friends with people in the fandom! I know it's terrifying. I suck at social interaction but this silly game is helping me come out of my shell a little. Love it for that LMAO.

12. Name your favourite memory about creating fan content for The Quarry.

My FAVORITE FUCKING MEMORY was when the AMAZING @homohaamu DREW FUCKING ART OF ONE OF MY SCENES IN NO ONE ESCAPES FROM LIFE ALIVE!!! Dude, when I tell you sobbed myself from joy to sleep that night, I mean it. It was just so AGHHHHHHHH Idk how to describe how fucking happy I felt.

Anyways, Thank you for tagging me! So freaking fun!!! I won't tag anyone BUT if you wanna do it, consider yourself tagged LMAO!!!

[nuclearnerves]

have you ever felt like no matter what happens things can only get worse

when i was in a really shit situation i thought that, and i let my behavior match by being the most inconsiderate, selfish, spiteful, petty cunt of a motherfucker i could possibly be. I did shit to hurt people. I didn't shower or wash my clothes or give a shit about what I looked like. I burned a lot of bridges and acted out to get as much negative attention on me as possible because it was better than no attention at all. Because why not? no one cared about me when i was doing my best to be good, why would they start caring if i just did whatever i wanted? No one else was looking out for me. No one was coming to save me. So I had to either save myself. Either that, or if I was doomed from the start, I might as well enjoy what pathetic little time I had left on this earth.

I figured, if my life is going to suck to the end, I'm going ham. I'm not going quietly into the night. I'm going to sneak out of my house and go wherever the fuck I want. I'll buy a train ticket to new york and live dangerously! I didn't do that. I snuck out at night and got a slurpee at the 7-11 and sat in the swingset at the park down the street from my house. But it was enough to feel like I was one of those cool dangerous bad kids I saw on TV. No one mess with me, I'm a rule-breaker.

I met some kids at school who also wanted to sneak out of their houses at midnight to get slurpees and hotdogs at 7-11 and sit on the swingset at the park, who would bring their trading cards and we'd have an eventless but exciting time of breaking the rules. Later that month we found out anime conventions were a thing, and went together. From there, I realized there were conventions I haven't been to yet, and I needed more time on this earth to go to them. There was people out there that actually had fun with me, and theres situations out there where I'm actually having fun. They exist! And all it took was some rule breaking to get there. And theres people as fucked up and as lonely as you! Maybe together you can ease the burden.

From there though, all I've known is burnt bridges, horrible attitude, and selfish goals. How could I possibly keep going, knowing that I was the exact thing that no one wanted in their lives? I was the exact person I hated. I was becoming my parents. Why would anyone want to be my friend? I was destined to lose these ones too.

Yeah that's bullshit. You're not "Destined" for anything.

You're guarded and selfish and a piece of shit right now, because that's whats keeping you alive. It's really hard to trust people afterwards, but it's incredibly necessary and OUTSTANDINGLY brave. If you're able to open yourself up to someone knowing full well that rejection is an option they can play, you've only proven to them that you're a trusting loving person who cares about their opinion, which is a VERY rare thing to find nowadays. Have pride in that. Have pride in knowing that, despite it all, you still believe in love, and that you want them to believe in it with you. When they show you kindness in turn? When they show you patience? You start believing again. You start thinking it's worth it, and you start realizing that this is why you stayed alive. You change. You adapt. You become nicer, and more forgiving, and more patient and better and trusting because that's what people like to see and that's what people respond well to, and you realize you love people, actually. It takes time. It takes so much time. It takes so much time and patience and you need to give that to yourself too as well as ask others for it, but you also need to actively put in the work. You need to care about if your friends are hurt, if you're the one hurting them, and you need to work together with them to possibly find a solution. You need to adapt.

Humans are naturally one of the best adapters to any situation imaginable. What feels like "it's only going to get worse" is actually your body and mind going "We see horrific events on the horizon, and we know what they're like because we're currently going through them. Steel yourself and survive." Surviving sucks. Surviving is base-level keep-alive. Wanna know why your body is doing this? Because life is a fuuuuucking gift my dude. Though right now you're surviving, it's because on the other end there's life to live and events to go to and have fun at. There's swingsets to sit on and Dealers Dens to buy shit from. Theres homies to kiss goodnight.

If you need help, patience, kindness, or just an ear to listen, I can help start you out. Feel free to DM me. I really can't do much other than be a voice on the internet who offers advice on why theres reasons out there to enjoy life, nor do i know your specific situation, and this post has gotten long as shit! but i have a lot of feelings about it because i was there too. Salut anon, and sweet jimminy do i hope you realize something that proves your "getting worse" point wrong! because it sure as SHIT is out there!

[botwstoriesandsuch]

[Image ID: A screenshot of an anon asking saying “I just wanna say that your tags whenever you rb art and fics are so cute 🥺 you reblogged something of mine the other day and the tags were just so nice and innocent??? It’s like watching a little kid at an aquarium 😝so as an artist I thank you, hope you don’t take it as cringy” End ID]

- - - - - 

Cringey?? nonononono I may be a young kid watching the pretty fish swim aimlessly in the aquarium but I will

recklessly enjoy other people’s content don’t test me

I try to keep it in the tags cause I don’t wanna take away from the op’s original work, plus it makes it easier for other people to rb it from me, but I will amp up the love and appreciation when the situation calls for it. You could straight up come into my inbox or messages and just ask me to give you a reblog and I will do it, I do not care I love you, content creators.

Cringe Culture is dead it’s time to gush plus if I do this often enough people might do it more for me so it’s a win win hehe

Legit, I got a super sweet comment on one of my fics quoting something I wrote and it made me so happy so I was like “huh, guess I’ll do that more often then” and now I’m doing that, that’s how impressionable I am asdfghjk

Also hello?? specifically *my* tags helped you out?? I am a nobody, CLEARLY not enough people are doing this smh, allow me to teach the masses for a sec here

How To Make A Content Creator Happy: the world’s simplest guide to spreading serotonin through a keyboard

Step fucking one) You reblog it. I mean, that’s a given. You’ve all seen those “reblogs help creators out and likes do nothing” posts so I won’t rant too much. Likes are good, but reblogs are like handing someone a stack of a hundred dollars and all it takes is one click! 

(PRO TIP: Hold down the button and swipe for mobile, and hold the left alt button and click once for computer [though it will only rb to your main blog. if you want it for a side-blog then you’re stuck with two clicks but HEY two clicks to help out a creator you like is nothing!])

You share it! Just share stuff. Share the ao3 like, please do it. Don’t repost, don’t just mention it, give the links especially when you’re just in conversation or talking about it around plz I swear it does wonders

Ok moving on to the super simple stuff for commenting and putting stuff in the tags because I guarantee that the op will read them

write A N Y T H I N G and I literally mean anything just fucking:

!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

sdjflksdjfkjh

?!?!?!?!!?

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhghghhhhhhhhh

:OOOOOOOOO

prettyyy

<33333333333333333

just fucking go ham, go nuts, it doesn’t need to be coherent it just needs to EXIST the very existence of someone enjoying someone’s content gives so much serotonin so stop being silent cowards and give us a smiley face from time to time

uh what else what else....hmm [golden rule is treat others the way you want to be treated, so if you’re a creator yourself, just give whatever you would want seen in the comments of your stuff! I mean that’s how I came up with all this...]

Point out the details! I mentioned earlier about quoting stuff from fics (that stuff is just 👌👌👌 so delicious) but I’m pretty sure (I’m not an artist myself don’t quote me) that the exact same effect is present when you talk about details in art or something. So talk about that pretty snowflake in the background! Or that piece of dialogue that made you laugh. Just a simple nod to the details is a big difference between saying “I like this” versus “I like this thing that you took the time to make the effort you put into the details did not go unnoticed”

just ALL the feedback please and thank you

this might vary from person to person, though personally I love when people are like “The way you write imagery is so good please do more!!” so just give a little nod to someone like “The way you draw this character is amazing please do more” or something like that

I wouldn’t go as far as to give criticism (although personally I’m the type of person that loves the occasionally critique for future reference, cause it means that you care as much as I do about the quality of my work) 

But along the same lines as the details thing, a nice nod to a creator about what they’re doing right is sooooo good! makes the butterflies flutter

                ~~~~~~Did that post give you emotions?~~~~~~

   G   O   O   D

 ~~FUCKING TELL US~~

THE ACT OF SOMEONE WRITING A SET OF LETTERS, OR SOMEONE SKETCHING A BLOB MADE ANOTHER DISTANT HUMAN BEING DEVELOP CHEMICALS IN THEIR BRAIN?? SURE WOULD LOVE TO KNOW THAT BECAUSE WOW THAT’S AMAZING!?!??

just go “I’m so happy” or “I’m so sad” just “TT__TT” just fucking “:OO” or just “I hate this” [HUMOURISTICALLY] and “I can’t believe you’ve done” just give it yes tell us the emotion that you have felt we love it

I don’t think enough people understand how amazing that is???? You were once in a normal, neutral state, and then a piece of content that I created just made you smile or laugh or cry like WHAT that’s amazing omg

Ok so that’s pretty much the simple stuff right, that’s your elementary classwork right there

Just give something, literally anything and just go “I love this so much!!!!!” bam done, you just murdered the op with your love, great job

So yeah, that’s that. Pretty simple stuff, no?

...but you wanna graduate to master class?

You wanna fucking go ape shit

you wanna just

g o    t o    town?

I said this was gonna be a simple guide so don’t worry, I’m not gonna tell you that you have to write a full length essay on every post that you come across

[BUT IF YOU WANT TO DON’T LET ME STOP YOU THAT WOULD ACTUALLY BE AMAZING?? HELL WRITING OUT A PARAGRAPH OF A COMMENT IS ALREADY JUST *CHEFS KISS* MASTERCLASS OF MURDERING THE OP WITH LOVE JUST ANALYZING THE SHIT OUT OF THE COLORS AND SHADING AND FRAMING OR JUST POINTING OUT THE THEMES AND SUBTEXT AND CHARACTERIZATION --part of the reason I love betaing stuff so much because I can analyze shit and shower it with premature love while also helping fics to be even better than they were originally ugh so cleansing for my literature heart-- SO YEAH GIVE CREATORS A PARAGRAPH, DARE I DREAM OF PARAGRAPHS, BECAUSE WOW YES PLEASE YES]

...ahem anyway

the way to graduate from good to great as a receiver of content is

to do all this

any of this

any of this simple stupid amazing shit

and just

put it in an ask or message

that’s literally it

Let me tell you why that’s so amazing, it pumps up the already amazing dopamine dosage of these actions alone, and multiplies it by a hundred, let me tell you why

Let’s say you read a drabble. You loved it, you reblogged it, you gave it hearts and emojis and ranted for a few tags about how it made you drop your muffin on the ground. Fantastic work, you just made the op pass out.

Then you go about your day and that’s the end of that.

BUT

if you do all that

and then put it in an ASK

dare you even a direct message?? (probably not most of us on here are cowards I get that)

but an ASK, anon or otherwise?

The message you just sent to the op was “I interacted with the post you made, and I loved it so much that I went the extra mile of going to your blog to make extra extra sure you understand how much I liked your thing”

There’s a wordless wall with every post! You like and reblog the thing and move on with your day. 

But the fact that YOU sent a HEART a SINGLE sentence about how you liked a thing? the fact that you BREACHED that wall and just fucking keyboard smashed in the inbox? the fact that you did that is the most amazing thing in the world

you just ambush the op with good vibes. we were expecting the bare minimum in the comments and tags, but the fact you when out of your way to make it a message or ask???? superb, outstanding, the sheer SHOCK of it will shift tectonic plates

you’re my fucking hero if you do this. you’re a godsend. I would kill for you,👏people👏would👏kill👏for👏you.

AT LEAST THEY WOULD KILL FOR YOU IF THIS ACTION DIDN’T ALREADY MURDER THEM

BE A MURDERER, NAY, A SERIAL KILLER. MURDER CONTENT CREATORS WITH LOVE

BE RECKLESSLY KIND AND LOVING YOU PIECE OF SHIT, ITS IMPOSSIBLE TO BE CRINGY TO STARVING AND DYING WRITERS AND ARTISTS WE WILL TAKE IT ALL GOD DAMMIT

YOU ARE A CHILD STARING UP AT AN AQUARIUM IN WONDER.

MAKE YOUR HAPPINESS STIR THE TIDES, LET YOUR PRESCENCE BE KNOWN PAST THE REFLECTION OF THE GLASS.

THE FISH ARE LOOKING FOR YOUR SMILE. 

[ponyrepress]

All 25 for Hinata

1) Something this character is truly proud of.

Hinata is really proud of acknowledging how shitty her dad was while he was alive because she made so many excuses for his behavior for the majority of her life and just finally fully accepting he was a piece of shit and Mao’s mom has always been much more comparable to family than he ever was.

2) Who they want to please the most.

To begin with she wanted so badly to prove to her father who treated his dogs better than Hinata that she wasn’t useless but now that she’s free of that she wants to make Minene proud because she sees her as a cool older woman figure as well as Mao’s mom, her gfs, and her friends. Like Hinata just wants the best for everyone in her life <3

3) Who depends on them.

Their entire friend group depends on Hinata because she’s the most down to earth person in it, Mao & Yuno depend on Hinata for emotional support and Yuno in specific depends on her for stability

4) What they would do if they had one month to live.

Hinata would go stupid go crazy like she’s definitely the type to say “I wanna go out having done everything I set out to do and with a smile on my face”

5) A cherished personal belonging.

Hinata has a little necklace that Mao gave her when they started dating and always wears it beneath her shirt bc she’s not sappy but. She is <3

6) Something they lost, but would love to have back

Hinata sorely misses what she remembers of the period of time when her mom was still around because after she left her father only got Worse

7) This character’s favorite character

Yes Hinata is a dog girl yes she loves Garfield for no discernible reason

8) What kind of car they would drive.

Hinata with the beaten up Toyota suv..

9) What calms them when they are upset.

Hinata gets her emotions out through Sports like u see her dribbling the ball a little too hard she’s just coping <3

10) How they deal with pain.

Hinata just spends more time with friends like yes she’ll be honest if questioned about it but she’ll avoid “concerning others” if she can help it

11) This character’s favorite piece or pieces of clothing.

Hinata just adores her varsity jacket if not solely because she can drape it over her gfs

12) How they sleep.

Hinata always wakes up curled on a ball no matter how she falls asleep

13) What kind of parent they would be.

Hinata would be the type of parent who goes “lol time 2 drop off the kids at their game :]” and make signs for them so she can support them without saying “GET THEIR ASS” from the stands

14) How they did in school

Hinata did ok in school like she’s just doing her best

15) What cologne or perfume they would use

Hinata would swipe the old expensive colognes her father never touches and Mao thinks it’s so fucking hot of her

16) Their sexuality

Lesbian. Lesbiam. Girls <3

17) What they’d sing at karaoke

Hinata breaks out Money Machine 100 gecs every chance she gets

18) Special talents they have

She’s super athletic but also really good with people like Hinata is a kindhearted jock and a mean lesbian at the same time good for her good for her <3

19) When they feel safest

Mao’s house like Mao’s mom loves her and her fondest memories are of falling asleep with Yuno and Mao leaning on her shoulders on the couch

20) Household chore they hate the most

Hinata hates folding laundry she just Doesn’t See The Point

21) Their fondest childhood memory

Her parents were shit but she still thinks about her visit to the fair every now and then

22) How they spend their money.

Hinata sees a drink labeled with electrolytes and puts it in the cart. Also she has a pocket knife collection and her love language is gift giving

23) What kind of alcohol they drink

Hinata tries some of her fathers whiskey on the rocks and thinks it’s Gross but like in a redeemable way so she just doesn’t touch alcohol for a while

24) What they wish they could change about themselves

Hinata loves how she’s a kindhearted person at heart but she at the same time hates how many shitty situations it’s gotten her into

25) What other people wish they could change about them

When Mao Yuno and Hinata move in together her gfs wish she would stop going ham on the punching bag at 2am

[yourdeepestfathoms]

Catherines (part one)

[Heathers AU]

[Tour!verse]

Word count: 3469

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

-Beautiful-

  “Dear Diary,

Catherine said she teaches people real life. She said, ‘Real life sucks losers dry. If you wanna fuck with the eagles, then you have to learn to fly.’

I said, ‘So you teach people how to fly?’

She said, ‘Yes.’

I said, ‘You’re beautiful.’”

  “GOD, come ON, Elizabeth!”

A muscled, gazelle-like leg slammed into Bessie’s back, causing her to flinch and drag her pen across the journal she was writing in, leaving a black line that obscured some of the words. Bessie wrinkled her nose, then squinted up through the headache-inducing overhead fluorescence to look at the beautiful young woman now standing before her.

Katherine Howard was a sight for sore eyes, that was for sure. Completely unblemished tan skin, wavy dirty blonde hair that fell like sun-kissed silk around her head, striking golden-green eyes, muscles… The hot pink blazer she was wearing fit her body perfectly, and the black skirt she had on to go with it swished gently around her powerful thighs. Technically, they were breaking the dress code, as she didn’t have on any tights to go underneath it, but no teacher seemed to say anything about it. Bessie had to guess it was because of Howard’s father’s status and money.

  “What’s your damage, Katherine?” Bessie snapped, though her voice cracked and wavered slightly, as it always did, rendering her comment about as effective as a baby white lion trying to roar to scare off predators.

  “Don’t blame me, blame Catherine.” Howard retorted smoothly. “She told me to, ‘haul your ass to the cafe pronto.’” She looked up at the other girl standing there. “Back me up, Catherine.”

  “Yeah, she really wants to talk to you, Elizabeth.” Catherine Parr said. She was taller than all of them, but quite a bit meeker than her two fellow K/Catherines. Her curly brown hair was done in a style that made Bessie’s scalp hurt just looking at it, but complimented her even darker brown eyes well. Her skin was the shade of melted caramel, clashing well with her signature color: blue. The blazer she had on such color was as expensive as Howard’s, but slightly more wrinkled and slightly frayed on one sleeve from her messing with the threads when she would read. The skirt she wore was plaid, which most people would find extremely ugly, but Bessie thought it fit Parr.

  “Okay, okay,” Bessie said, standing up from the staircase she had been sitting on. “I’m coming. And, please, Bessie. Call me Bessie. We’ve been friends for, what? A year and a half now? Elizabeth is WAY too formal for me.”

Howard and Parr giggled, making a small smile twitch on Bessie’s lips. She liked making them laugh. Proved she could do one thing right and serve as the comedic relief for the group.

Bessie scooped her belongings up, messily stuffing her diary and pen into her messenger back, and then followed Howard and Parr down the hallway. Anyone standing in the way instinctively moved away like peasants parting for a queen. And they may as well have been, seeing as they were the most popular girls in school.

Okay, well-- at least Howard, Parr, and their quartet leader was. Bessie was more of a plus one, a special exception, a stray they found on the streets and thought was too pitiful to throw away.

Their group was called the Catherines (pretty cool that they managed to get three girls with the name Catherine, right? what luck!), and they ruled Crown Ridge High School. Everyone, from new Year 10s to long-lasting Year 13s, knew of their reign--even the teachers! Nobody messed with them, because they knew there would be hell to pay if they did.

Howard pushed open the set of double doors coming up in front of them, and the trio passed into a world of chaos.

The lunch room was always like this- noisy, thundering, booming, any other synonym for loud… Kids were absolutely everywhere, crammed into the lunch tables or sitting at the bistro or standing in the lunch lines, all talking, worrying, planning, reacting at once. 

And then, in the middle of the mess, there she stood: Catherine of Aragon.

Catherine of Aragon, or Catalina de Aragon as her heritage suggests, was like a yellow diamond in a bat-infested cave. She was gorgeous, that’s for sure, her luscious dark brown hair tied back in a perfect ponytail with thick marigold scrunchy, without a strand out of place, and her fair skin enviably clear. Her eyes were dark and challenging, like twin pieces of polished onyx poised in her sleek skull. The golden silk blazer (Bessie didn’t even know they made silk blazers until she first saw it) she wore glittered in the lights, as if it were charged with electricity, and the black skirt matching with it made her look like the queen of a wasp colony. When she saw Bessie coming over with Howard and Parr, she gave a snake-like smile that only meant she was up to something.

  “Elizabeth,” She said, the only one to never use the nickname no matter how many times she was corrected, “finally.”

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, your majesty,” Bessie apologized. She tried to sound mocking, but Aragon didn’t seem affected by the title she was given. If anything, she looked a little satisfied by it.

  “I need you to write a hot and horny, but realistically lowkey note in Anna von Cleves’s handwriting so we can slip it onto Joan Asstley’s lunch tray when she isn’t looking.” Aragon told her, but even stuttering as she laid down her plan.

Anna von Cleves was on the rugby team and so hot she could turn even the straightest women gay. Joan Astley, on the other hand, was a thin, pale-skinned, weird-eyed outcast with no friends and hair as light as Bessie’s own--but natural. The two didn’t exactly mix very well.

  “Shit, Catherine, I don’t have anything against Joan Astley!” Bessie said.

  “Watch your language, little lion,” Howard teased.

Bessie’s ears flamed red. Ever since she got a new haircut, the Catherines would not stop saying the poofy hair on her head made her look like a lion cub.

  “You don’t have anything for her, either.” Aragon told Bessie. Then, abundantly blessed with smugness, she went on, “Come on, it’s be very! The note will give her shower-nozzle masturbation material for weeks.”

Howard and Parr exchanged smirks. Bessie glanced at them and sighed.

  “I’ll think about it,” She said.

  “Don’t think,” Aragon said. “Do.”

Shuffling in one of the lunch lines, Joan was getting ready to pay for her tray of food. She was dressed in a rather ugly clash of overalls and a pink floral undershirt. Aragon wrinkled her nose at the outfit in disgust.

  “Yuck,” She said. “Overalls.”

  “I’m wearing overalls!” Bessie yelped.

  “Yes, but they work on you,” Aragon said, patting Bessie’s head. “Elizabeth needs something to write on. Catherine, bend over.”

Parr sighed and bent over. A clipboard was shoved into Bessie’s hands, and Bessie had no choice but to use her friend as a portable desk and write the things Aragon began to say to her. When she was finished, she tore the page free and folded it up for Howard to deliver, which she did smoothly and painlessly without being noticed.

  “And now we wait,” Aragon said with a pleased smirk. “Come, ladies. I brought lunch.”

The four of them gathered at their claimed table, where clean, neatly cut sandwiches were placed out in each of their spots, along with some fruit and vegetable slices and cookies.

  “Turkey, ham, and cheese, mozzarella and swiss specifically, with a dash of mustard for Catherine,” Aragon declared. “BLT for me and Katherine. And then, a grilled cheese for Elizabeth.”

They all tittered at the last named food item. Bessie grinned cheekily at them.

  “What?” She said innocently. “At least I didn’t ask for a peanut butter and butter sandwich like last time!”

  “I still cannot believe you asked me to make a damn peanut butter and BUTTER sandwich,” Aragon said. “You are a creature, I hope you know that.”

  “I do,” Bessie giggled. “And it is GOOD, okay? I like butter!”

  “I’ll bring you a tub of butter when it’s my turn to bring lunch,” Parr joked, and she and Bessie flashed each other smiles.

  “I look forward to it!” Aragon rolled her eyes at them in an amused way while Howard chuckled and shook her head. Somewhere behind their table, a pair of kids at a booth were shouting about donating to a charity for Africa.

  “Blount,” Aragon said, “Guess what today is.”

Bessie watched the older girl grab the clipboard and flip to a new page, and sighed. “Lunchtime poll? What’s the question?”

  “Yeah, so what’s the question, Catherine?” Parr asked.

  “Goddamn, Catherine,” Aragon said. “You were with me in study hall when I came up with it.”

  “I forgot!”

Aragon snorted. “Such a pillowcase,” She muttered gruffly.

  “This wouldn’t be the bizarro thing you babbling about on the phone last night, is it?” Bessie tilted her head. 

  “Of course it is.” 

Aragon and Bessie stood up to begin, and that’s when Bessie noticed someone staring at them. It wasn’t exactly uncommon, what with them being the most popular girls in the school, but she didn’t recognize this gawker. He looked...different. Different in a way she just couldn’t put her finger on. And she was so focused on trying to figure out exactly what it was that she didn’t even realize she was careening to the side until she bumped into someone.

  “Oh-- Sorry!” Bessie said, then noticed that the person she had accidentally knocked into was Maria de Salinas, an old friend of hers. “Maria! Hey!”

Maria smiled. “Hi, Bessie.”

  “Hey, I’m really sorry I couldn’t come to your birthday last month.” Bessie blurted without even thinking it. Aragon rolled her eyes at her side. 

  “It’s okay,” Maria said. “Your mum said you had a big date. I’d probably miss my own birthday party for a date.”

Bessie felt a twinge of pain in her heart. She nudged Maria with a light laugh to try and get it to go away.

  “Don’t say that,” She said.

  “You know what?” Maria opened her bag. “I was looking around the other day and dug up these old photographs.” She handed a photo of her and Bessie during Halloween when they were younger, in which Maria was a fairy and Bessie was a bat.

  “Oh, wow!” Bessie exclaimed, looking down at the picture with sparkling eyes. “This-- Wow. It brings back so many memories!”

  “Come ON, Elizabeth!” Aragon said, yanking Bessie by the arm and making her drop the photo.

  “I was talking to somebody!” Bessie barked as she was hauled towards a table with a cluster of popular kids.

  “Oh well,” Aragon said dismissively. She halted them both in front of the table. “Hello, kids. Anne. Love your sweater.”

The head of the table, Anne Boleyn, glanced suspiciously up at Aragon before smiling tightly. She ran her hand over the sleeve of the designer emerald green sweater she was wearing.

  “Thanks,” She said. “I just got it last night at The Limited. Totally blew my allowance.”

Aragon nodded like she cared, then read off of the clipboard, “Check this out: You win five million from the Publisher Sweepstakes, and the same day that Big Ed guy gives you the check, aliens land on the Earth and say they’re going to blow it up in two days. What do you do?”

  “That’s easy,” Said another kid sitting at the table, Thomas Cromwell, before Anne even had the chance to give her own answer. “I’d just slide that wad right over to my father, ‘cause he is, like, one of the top brokers in the country.”

Aragon stared at him like a hawk watching a crippled mouse until Thomas wiped that stupid smirk off of his face. Bessie snorted lightly.

  “If I got that money, I’d give it all to charity.” Anne said.

  “You’re beautiful.” Bessie said.

Aragon growled deep in her throat. Bessie sidled around her and began walking to a new table. Aragon followed after her.

  “If you’re going to openly be a bitch…” Aragon began.

  “It’s just--” Bessie sighed, hoping to catch Aragon before she broke out on one of her furious tangents. “Catherine, why can’t we try talking to other people?”

  “Fuck me gently with a chainsaw,” Aragon spat. “Do I look like Mother Teresea to you?”

  “Well, you are Catholic, so…”

Aragon flicked Bessie in the nose, eliciting a tiny yelp of pain. 

  “We have a reputation to uphold here, Elizabeth.” Aragon said. “Don’t act stupid. I know you aren’t.”

  “Does it not bother you that everybody at this school thinks you’re a piranha?” Bessie asked.

  “Like I give a shit.” Aragon answered breezily. “They all want me either as a friend or a fuck. I’m worshipped here, and you can be, too. And you’re just a Year 11.” She ruffled Bessie’s hair, earning a disgruntled noise from the girl.

  “Come on, Catherine.” Bessie said. She brushed out of place white locks out of her face and looked up at Aragon. “Please?”

Aragon gazed down at Bessie, then wrinkled her nose. “Ugh,” She growled. “Don’t look at me with those big, stupid eyes of yours. Come on.”

Bessie beamed. “Thank you!” She chirped.

And so, they went around the cafeteria, asking the lunchtime poll question to a variety of new people, most of which looked startled that the two of them were even talking to them. They got an abundance of answers, varying from normal, to interesting, to completely weird. But they were the types of answers they had never gotten before this day. By the time they were done, Joan Astley had read through the note given to her and was starting to get up from her table.

  “Come on, come on!” Parr waved Aragon and Bessie over excitedly. 

  “It’s happening!” Howard whisper-yelled.

The four of them watched as meek little Joan staggered her way over to the jock table, where Anna von Cleves and other various athletes sat, talking loudly. The girl stuttered something to Anna, then set the note down, which was immediately snatched up by Francis Dereham. After a moment of reading, he burst out into laughter, followed by everyone else at the table when the paper was passed around. Joan’s eyes filled with tears and she ran out of the cafeteria.

The Catherines were all laughing, while Bessie just frowned, guilt racing through her. Aragon noticed her expression and sighed heavily. She began to run her long shellac fingernails through Bessie’s hair, straightening and smoothing out the mess on the top of her head.

  “You wanted to be a part of the most powerful clique in school, honey,” Aragon said. “If I wasn’t already the head of it, I’d want the same thing.” She made a tiny braid, then released the girl.

  “Who’s that guy over there?” Bessie asked, nodding at the young man that had been staring at them. She didn’t know how to reply to Aragon, so she just decided to switch the topics.

  “His name is Henry Tudor,” Howard answered her. “He’s in my Economics class.”

Bessie nodded slowly, picked up the clipboard form off of their lunch table, then began to walk over to the new guy.

The first thing she noticed was the trench coat he was wearing. The second thing was that he was built like a bear- large and powerful. His hair was golden blonde and he had piercing bright blue eyes. A smirk curled on his lips when he saw her coming over.

  “Hello, Henry Tudor,” Bessie said.

  “Greetings and salutations.” Henry replied languidly. “You a Catherine?”

  “I’m a Bessie,” Bessie said. “Not in a cow way, though, Just my nickname.”

Henry chuckled and nodded. “I see.” 

  “This may seem like a really stupid question,” Bessie said, raising the clipboard up.

  “There are no stupid questions.” Henry said.

  “You win five million from the Publisher Sweepstakes, and the same day that Big Ed guy gives you the check, aliens land on the Earth and say they’re going to blow it up in two days. What do you do?”

Henry furrowed his eyebrows. “That’s the stupidest question I’ve ever heard.” He said. “I don’t know. Maybe row out to the middle of a lake somewhere, bring a bottle of tequila, my sax, and some Bach. Then I’ll just sit back and watch the fires come.”

Bessie nodded, smiling, despite the weird gut feeling she had that was saying she needed to get away from this guy. “How very.”

Before Henry could reply, Aragon suddenly grabbed Bessie by the arm and swelled up like a venomous snake before Henry. “Let’s go, Elizabeth.” She said.

  “Okay, I’m coming,” Bessie said. “Later.”

  “Definitely.” Henry said back.

Aragon began guiding Bessie back to the table, where they finished eating with the other two Catherines. As she ate her sandwich, Bessie could feel Henry’s gaze on her, burning holes into her clothes, and that gut feeling turned into full on discomfort. It got so bad that she deliberately tried to avoid his line of sight while leaving the cafeteria, which caused her bump straight into someone for the second time that day. This time, the person was a lot less understanding than the first.

  “Hey!” He roared. “Watch where you’re going, you fat fuck!”   “S-sorry!” Bessie stuttered, feeling her cheeks burn with embarrassment. She suddenly felt a lot more exposed, as if she wasn’t wearing anything at all.

  “Did all that hair bleach kill your brain, too?” One of the guy’s friends snarked.

  “Or just fucking blind you?” Another said.

And then, the Catherines were there, materializing before them like a trio of vengeance-seeking angels in the lights. Howard eased Bessie behind her while Aragon riled herself up to her full size.

  “What did you just say to her?” Aragon asked, her words like a hidden bear trap underneath a blanket of leaves.

  “She bumped into me!” The first guy blurted in a woebegone voice.

  “Oh dear, what a disaster,” Parr mused.

  “How many times have I told you, Dudley, that she’s with us?” Aragon said. “Do you REALLY want to mess with us right now?”

  “No,” Dudley muttered.

Aragon was pleased. “Good. Now apologize to Elizabeth at once.”

  “Sorry I yelled at you,” Dudley said to Bessie.

  “Us, too.” Said his friends.

  “It’s okay,” Bessie said softly.

  “Wonderful.” Aragon smiled, but her voice was all murderous stalactites, sugary-sweet and poisonous. She pointed to each of the three in turn as she continued to speak. “Anyway. He was asking for feet pics in private messages, he is cheating on his girlfriend with his sister, and she is thoroughly sick of them both and wishes she had better friends to talk to.”

With that, she turned and escorted her clique out of the cafeteria and to the bathroom.

  “Are you okay, sweetie?” Howard asked softly, massaging one of Bessie’s shoulders comfortingly. Her voice was gentle and so caring, almost like a mother’s. 

  “Yeah,” Bessie said. “I’m okay.”

  “Stupid bitch,” Aragon snarled underneath her breath, furiously pacing around the bathroom.

  “You aren’t fat, by the way,” Parr said to Bessie.

  “But--”

  “Don’t even try it Elizabeth,” Aragon hissed. “Or I will cut out your tongue, laminate it, and then pose it in my foyer, and don’t think I won’t do it.”

Bessie giggled softly at her threat. As strange and slightly violent it may have been, it meant Aragon cared about her. Because if she didn’t, Bessie surely would have been called fat again.

  “Okay,” She said. “But I’m fine, really.”

  “Good.” Aragon. “Fuckass doesn’t know who he’s talking about. You look great, Elizabeth. Even if that cardigan is questionable.”

Bessie looked at herself in one of the mirrors and saw that she truly did stick out like a sore thumb with the Catherines. If it wasn’t her bleached white hair, then it was her baby face, and if it wasn’t her baby face, then it was how she was slightly more chubby than the rest of them. Howard said it made her look soft and cute, and she didn’t ever know how to respond to that, so she would just laugh. And if it wasn’t any of that stuff, then it was her awful sense of fashion. Today, it was overalls, a black and white cardigan, and a light purple striped shirt, as purple was supposed to be her signature color.

  “I got it from the thrift store,” Bessie said proudly.

  “I am not surprised.” Aragon said. “You are not wearing that for the party tonight, by the way.”

  “What about--”

  “You aren’t wearing those galaxy suspenders, either!”

  “W--”

  “No!”

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #388

“i wanna stay inside all day  /  i want the world to go away  /  i want blood, guts, and chocolate cake  /  i wanna be a real fake”

Name three people who you'll never forget: I doubt I'd forget Jason even if, God forbid, I had dementia. That's trauma for ya. I HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHLY doubt I could EVER forget my mom, either. In many different ways, she's literally kept me alive and has done so, so much for me. Then there's also Sara, whose friendship with me matches no one else I've been friends with. Have you ever been told you are fake? No. What was the name of the last pet of yours that died? Teddy, my dog. Do you like pineapple? I do. When was the last time you wished the day would just get over with? I know this sounds seriously depressing, but that's... pretty much every day. My life is just currently such a drag that being awake bores me senseless. But it's funny, because then some nights I stay up late for like... no reason. My existence alone is confusing. Is there any specific number that has any significance to you? No. Do you remember much from high school? I remember a lot from high school. Where would you go for the ultimate honeymoon? Isn't there a black sand beach in Iceland or something? Take me there, man. I'd also love to go to the Bahamas, but ew humidity and also I'm afraid of the Bermuda Triangle lmfao. If you had to get a tattoo tomorrow, what would you get? The big piece I want to get on my left upper arm; it's called "Denialism" by NukeRooster on deviantART. I got her permission forever ago to get it tattooed. Do you have any alarms set? What time and what for? Not currently. Have you ever had to work while there was a film crew at your work place? No. Have you ever supported anyone’s Kickstarter? If so, what was it? No. What do you like in your omelet? Ham pieces and cheese. Have you ever boycotted something? Yes: Chick-fil-A. Homophobic, transphobic pieces of shit aren't getting my business. Has anyone ever borrowed something from you, and not returned it? Yes. Most notably a video game I LOOOOVED as a kid. I was mad salty and still am lmao. Do you vent a lot on social media? God no, not anymore after embarrassing the everliving FUCK out of myself with a suicide note. What was your first bill you started paying on your own? I don't pay any bills bc unemployed. .-. Do you watch ASMR videos? No. What is your favorite charitable cause to donate to or volunteer for? The Trevor Project. Have you ever received a misdiagnosis? Yes. A psychiatrist I had in middle school thought I had ADHD, which was ABSOLUTELY ludicrous. Most recently, my long-time bipolar 2 diagnosis has been questioned, but I do think I have it. I think. Does it bother you when others don’t share the same religious beliefs as you? No? Freedom of religion is a thing. What was your last argument about? Ummmm... I don't remember. Probably something with Mom. Have you found your first gray hairs yet? No. Somehow. You'd think all the stress would have me pure gray by now, lol. What are the names of all the pets you’ve had? Dude, I've had WAY too many for this. What’s the most you’ve ever spent on a cosmetic or skincare product? *shrug* Who was the last person that invited you to go somewhere? Did you accept? Mom invited me to come with her to Nicole's to get out of the house because at the time our A/C was still out. I didn't want to go, even though damn did I suffer, haha. What was the last food item that you toasted, other than bread? That's... a great question. I don't know if I toast anything other than bread. Have you ever named any of your pets after a cartoon character? I remember I had a cat named Taz when I was younger. What was the last thing that someone else recommended, or suggested you try? My TMS doctor is like SUPER friendly and makes the treatment go by so fast (it's exactly 22 minutes and 30 seconds; don't ask why), and recently she was fangirling to Mom and me about the show Once Upon a Time, haha. I saw very little of it with Jason, but Mom did check it out. When was the last time you wore a hat? What kind? I have zero idea. When was the last time you ate a bowl of ice-cream? What flavour? Oh wow, it's been a long time. It was probably vanilla with chocolate syrup? If you menstruate, has your cycle ever synced with anyone close to you? Yes. Tell me something positive about the town or city that you live in. ... You said "positive," right? Did your parents have high expectations for you to excel in school and go to college/university? Yes. They were pretty serious about going to college when my sisters and I were younger, but they opened up to the concept that maybe it wasn't for all of us (coughmecough). Are you a polite person? I genuinely think I am. I definitely try to be. Have you ever been in a relationship where everything with your partner felt natural and effortless? Sigh. Yeah. Have you ever been in a relationship where everything was difficult and rocky? No. That's not the kind I'd stay in very long at all. I mean yes, there are always bumps, but there comes a point where you gotta say fuck nah and find something better. When you were a teenager, did your parents set rules about dating? Other than keeping age gaps in mind, no. Have you ever committed a crime that directly harmed another person? No. Did you grow up in an urban, suburban, or rural area? My childhood home was suburban, but leaned towards rural. We were on the very edge of the town. Which disease do you personally think is the most horrible? After seeing my mother suffer from borderline stage 4 ovarian cancer, I've gotta say cancer. My mother is the strongest person I know and yet she cried so frequently from chemotherapy. It broke my fucking heart. The person I copied the survey from mentioned especially childhood cancers, and I have to agree. Like just... why. "Everything happens for a reason." Bull. Fucking. Shit. Just TRY and convince me why a young child has to deal with CANCER. Do you remember where you first drove to after getting your license? I still don't have my license, as I've said in many a survey before. What did you get into trouble for the most when you were a kid? Being on the computer too much. What is your biological sex? Female. Do you use online dating? Or do you use another method for finding dates? Nah. I'm at the point in my life where I wanna let love just find me and not actively search for it. What is the oldest gaming console you own? We MIGHT still have our old Atari? If not, it'd be a GameBoy Advance. Which accents can you emulate pretty well? Just British. Do you think you'll ever manage to do everything you want to? No. But then again, I think that sounds pretty realistic? I doubt most people check off everything on their bucket list. What do you fear most? Probably becoming truly homeless, living on the streets. Do you wear shoes around the house? No. Are you a good driver? If you can't drive yet, do you think you'll be good? I mean, I'm not the worst in the world. My mom's always pointed out though that I ride on the brakes (which I do out of fear) and I tend to speed up and slow down quite a bit. I also stop kinda abruptly sometimes. What is/was your favorite thing about school? Seeing friends. What are you most likely to spend money on? My own personal money, tattoos, lol. Have you ever been a complete fangirl/fanboy over anything? @_@ Do you hate how, when the public like a celebrity, they overpublicize them? I feel bad for them, more than anything. You breathe wrong and suddenly it's news-worthy. It's like your every inconsequential action is under heavy surveillance and judgment, and it seems so unfair. Have you ever became attracted to someone you weren’t at first because their personality made you find them physically attractive? That was Jason for me. I never thought he was ugly, but regardless, he became THE most attractive man in the world to me. Have you ever worked in retail? Yes. -_- Are you even a little bit racist? Nah man, it's 2021, baby. Were you more fond of swings, monkey bars, or seesaws as a child? I was all about the swings. Do you believe in a near-future apocalyptic event? I don't know or care, honestly. A gamma ray or whatever they're called could incinerate us all tomorrow. A black hole could swallow the earth in an hour. We don't know. Do you have a chandelier in your home? No. Do you have a bar with stools? No. Is your Christmas tree faux or real? If faux, what color? We use a fake green one. Do you eat the crusts of your bread? Yes; it's the first part I eat. Which body type would you say you had? Did you know whales can survive on land? :^) Have you ever flown a kite? Yeah! I used to LOVE doing that with Dad as a kid when the field across our house wasn't in use (tobacco was grown there). What’s your preferred flavour of jam? I just like grape. What kind of animal did you last pet? My cat! Name a celebrity that you admire that nobody would expect you to: I massively admire Jeffree Star's work ethic. Do you prefer to shave or wax? Shave. I used to wax my eyebrows, but now I just don't care. Would you ever have sex in a public place? Uh, no. Do you think Jenna Marbles’ videos are funny? I've actually never watched her. Your favourite pasta dish: Just your normal spaghetti with meatballs. Strangest thing you’ve ever seen? Probably what I'm assuming was a star (but it was green???) flickering and then fizzling out of the sky kind of like some sort of backwards firework. I'd been watching it literally grow over a few nights, so when this happened, it was a big "?????? the fuck??????". It honestly scared me for some reason so I went inside after that. Aliens? I say aliens. Ever had a crush on somebody of the same sex? Yes. Has anybody ever called you a bastard? I don't think so. Who is the last person you ignored? uhhhhhhh Would you wear feathers in your hair? So actually, for my first prom, I wanted to wear a blue jay feather I had in my hair, reason being Jason's nickname from his parents was always "J Bird." It ended up not working out because we couldn't make it look natural with what we had. When was the last time you were well and truly scared? Hm. Favourite member of your favourite band: Ozzy, obviously, haha. Who’s your favourite female rapper? I don't have one.

[callsigndreadfrost]

Rapid Fire Tips for New Players

You can hit a stunned partner out of their stun.

Speaking of stuns you can see when a partner is stunned, next to their name two little yellow stars will show up and they stand still while wobbling helplessly. You can also hear when someone gets stunned.

One fire? Roll 3 times on dry land and fire's put out. On water or moist surfaces you roll twice or once and the fire's out.

Sharpen your weapon between "matches". When a monster stops attacking to go to another area it'll be the perfect time to sharpen your weapon. Please do.

ALWAYS BRING LIFEPOWDER!

Unless it's an Elder Dragon always capture the monster. I know y'all wanna be edgelords and kill the monster but it's in YOUR best interest to capture the monster. Unless you want to repeat every single optional hunting quest. Plus it's safer to capture, say you're one cart away from failing the quest and the monster is finally going back to its nest. If you capture it it can't fight back which means there is ZERO chances for you to faint.

Speaking of Elder Dragons, they cannot be captured. Traps (shock, pitfall) do not work on them. There is no way you can capture an Elder Dragon, I don't care what the commander said. In fact he should've known better!

Always upgrade your weapons. Trust me, you don't wanna play catch up once you reach High Rank. It'll be insanely frustrating.

Go back to the smithy every once in a while to see if you can upgrade your armor. Don't be an idiot. More defense = less damage = less carts. Don't be cheap with your armor upgrades.

Always take some time to go gathering, fishing and foraging in all different maps. You get materials, you can gather monster clues, you learn the map, you find pets, and unlock investigations. This is also an excellent way to complete bounties which net you Research Points and Armor Spheres. Green (easy), blue (medium), red (hard).

Every time you spawn back in Astera stop by the Resource Center (place with the woman, elf and dawrf...I think it's a dawrf...).

Make use of the Botanical Center. Trust me.

Take some time to rearrange your item box. It's empty now compared to how it'll be later, especially after Kulve Taroth. You're welcome.

It's okay not to "main" a weapon. It's also okay to have a comfort weapon. Play around with all 14 and see how you do and how comfortable you feel. Some have a heftier learning curve than others. There are plenty of good tutorials on YouTube. The only weapon I can give a full tutorial on is Insect Glaive ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

However! I do suggest you get acquainted with at least 1 ranged weapon for hard to reach monsters like Rathalos, Paolumu, Bazelguese, Azure Rathalos and Legiana. *laughs in flash pods*

Hey, dual blade users, quit fucking doing Demon Dance every chance you get. It's extremely risky as you are locked in a lengthy animation and a monster can easily cart your dumb ass. You also should not do Demon Dance on a downed monster's head if you're in multiplayer. The head belongs to hammers and hunting horn users. You go for the body.

Downed/tripped/KO'd monsters can be divided in 3 parts for attacking: head, body (this includes the wings) and tail. Each weapon is "designated" for each part. To sorta give you an idea: horns and hammers go for the head. Insect Glaive, Dual Blades, Sword and Shield go for the body and/or wings. You can even divide yourselves. One on the back/wings and one in the front so you don't trip each other. Long Sword and Great Sword users go for the tail. Charge Blade and Switch Axe users can go for either the tail or body just asses the situation. Bow, Light Bowgun and Heavy Bowgun don't need to get up close and personal so they can go where they please just be mindful not to shoot your partners.

Hey, Great Sword, Switch Axe, Charge Blade, Hammer and Hunting Horn users. Be mindful of your partners and your upswing attacks. You'll send your partners flying which means less DPS on the monster which is never a good idea. Ever. Unless you're communicating and someone asks for a boost to mount the monster then go ahead and upswing that bitch and y'all can laugh about that successful mount later.

Hey, Hunting Horn users, before you even think about engaging a monster do the Improvement Song on yourself. You're welcome.

Hey, Bow users, you know the Arc Shot? Neat right? Stop fucking spamming that shit! Look, unless you got it set up to get consistent KOs all you're doing is flinching your partners out of their attacks which means less DPS on the monster and like I said that is bad, no bueno. Quit. It. Even if you have it set up right you only throw it when you can get it lined up right so that rocks hit the monster's head.

Hey, LBG users, you know your Wyvernblast? When a monster is tripped, falls over or gets KO'd run up to its head, plant 1 Wyvernblast near it and let your meelee weapon partners go ham on it. MORE DAMAGE!

Hey, Insect Glaive users, you know all those really cool aerial attacks you can do? They're practically useless! Stop it! While pretty and flashy it does less damage than grounded attacks. Aerial attacks are pretty much situational and a bit niche. Don't spam that shit!

Hey, Bow users, yes, you again! Dragonpiercer looks really awesome but you should never do it just because you can. You're locked in a long animation and the monster could aggro you and cart you because you decided to be flashy. There's other reasons not to do the DP because it has less elemental damage but I don't know the math behind that. Find some tutorials on why DP is no good really.

Wanna join a quest? Cool, do not click on "available quests". It's rude, you'll most likely fuck up whatever the host is trying to do and there's a good chance you'll get kicked out anyway. Unless you're in a squad session or someone asks people in the hall to join their quest there's no reason for you to do that. Don't be that person.

If you wanna avoid uninvited guests just change your player limit to 1 so it's just you. Or put a password so no one can come in unless they know the password. Just know that if you change the amount of players to 1 you can't use the SOS Flare.

Abandon Quest will replenish all items you used so if a quest isn't going your way you can use that option.

If you're in multiplayer and you or someone else carts DON'T BE AN ASS CLOWN AND LEAVE THE QUEST. Fucking stay, you never know, you might just make it. 4 is better than 3, 3 is better than 2 and 2 is better than 1.

Please, please, please refrain from making racist, homophobic, rape and other offensive shoutouts. It's stupid af, cringey and you look like a fucking moron. I can't believe it has to be said in the year 2019 but I've seen some really stupid shit.

When in multiplayer please fucking avoid taking every item out of the item box. Each person takes 1 pack of potions and 1 pack of rations. That's it. Everything is shared between y'all and taking everything is a bitch ass move. Share!

Don't be that person that stops in the middle of the fight to carve a tail. There's a good chance you'll get hit by an attack and cart. Do it when the monster leaves the area, is killed or is captured.

If someone mounts a monster DO NOT FLASH THE MONSTERS. If you're a ranged weapon keep attacking. If melee take the time to sharpen your weapon and heal or reapply buffs. Soon as the mounter takes the monster down it's time to go ham on it. You get a few seconds of free DPS as the monster will be down and won't attack.

A lot of people still do this shit and it's caused a lot of carts. Do not flash Lunastra. It doesn't make her fall, it just pisses her off and she spams her Super Nova attack. This is for High Rank people.

Guild cards! Send them to everyone you see but only once. There's an achievement that unlocks once you collect 50.

Need help in the arena but no one wants to help? Go to the Handler or board. Online Session - Search for an Online Session - Filter Search - Quest Preference and switch it to Arena. It can be filtered to find any specific thing you need and chances are there'll be people already hosting sessions to do a specific thing.

If you're trying to track down a monster but the scoutflies are all over the place and you're kinda lost just open the map and close it. That resets them.

You can save builds in loadouts and it saves everything you wear so it makes switching between builds easy. Everything saves. Only got 1 specific decoration that you wanna use for several different builds? That's okay, make the build, save it and then make the other builds. The game itself will remember what you had saved and it'll "move" tat one decoration to the build you equipped. Easy peasy. Though I suggest you wait till High Rank so you can save the good end game loadouts.

You can also make item loadouts and save them. You can also customize the wheel and save it to the item loadout.

There's monster poop in every map. Hoard that crap like your life depends on it because it WILL depend on it during HR when Bazelguese and Deviljho decide to invade your quests.

Investigations are perfect for farming. Need a monster piece? Check your Hunter Notes and see what part you gotta break for it and then start an investigation. Bronze boxes give you shitty parts, silver give you good parts and gold gives the best parts.

Slinger ammo is actually more important than you think. Try to always have some ammo loaded on your slinger in case you need to get a monster's attention, need to stop it from escaping or flinch it after it pinned you down and you need to make a quick get away.

Monsters have weaknesses and resistances. Check what a monster is weak to and use it. Don't go fighting Kirin with a thunder weapon! Remember Pokemon? Same concept.

When you or a partner makes a monster fall asleep stop attacking! You can tell because the monster suddenly stops attacking and the music dies down. This is the perfect time to put some bombs on the monster to do massive damage. When you see a sleeping monster don't touch it!

[suffering-and-happy-about-it]

Busy Earning (Pieces of the People We Love, Part 1.)

Description: Not many people had the chance to see a vault or to mean anything in the world of Pandora. Will a hardly built relationship in the loneliness of the desert would have the potential to change anything in the world of anarchy and chaos - or will the friends try to murder each other?

A/N: If you're not familiar with Borderlands, this series will most probably won't make any sense to you. But that's alright! I am thinking about releasing a small thing called Vault Hunters Vocabulary and I will try to explain the lore and everything used IN the story but not explained in there. Whaddaya say?

A/N 2: Also, I AM MAKING NEW-U STATIONS LEGAL AND YOU CAN'T STOP ME. So I guess this is an AU? ALSO: the Bandits, Psychos, and Fanatics will speak only in the ancient language of Vine!

Warnings: A lot of guns, violence, reader is a tough badass - not a vault hunter tho. They're badass and don't give a fuck. And Scooter is a dumb bitch, as always.

Word count: 4.5 K

Tagging: @notaliteraltoad​

Series master list:  H E R E

It was one of those days when you took a deep breath and it almost burns your whole mucous membrane. Most of the days were like that in this particular part of Pandora, yet some of these days were too much. The desert around you was dry, the rocks were so hot that you'd burn your whole palm if you'd touch it. No plants or water source insight; it was just you, the asphalt road, the heatwave, and the complete silence.

If you wouldn't be aware of sweating like a living fuck and of the fact that your trousers were pretty bloody then, you'd most likely have the suspicion that you most likely just pissed yourself. On the other hand, you also knew that you had to be dressed from your head to your toes - if you wouldn't have every inch of your body covered, the sun would burn your skin down in a matter of minutes; that was how strong the sunlight was. It wasn't the most practical choice to cross the desert in a long coat, long boots, and a huge cowboy hat; it was, in fact, very much impractical, but you really didn't have much of a choice. That big, cowboy-ish hat became your personal trade over time - you were easily recognizable. If someone would've asked you to describe your personality, the hat itself would be one of your personality traits. Ever since you started wearing it, almost everyone was calling you the Cowboy, even if you were pretty sure that you're a woman. Why would you or any of the people you've been living in this hellhole with being obeying any of society's rules if you were leaving at the edge of civilization itself? Something like grammar and other constructs didn't have any value in the world you knew and were living in.

Back to you. You were pissed at the moment; very pissed. For some random reason, the Catch-A-Ride station near your house was off for the last three weeks and anyone cared enough to repair it. You were hunting Skags for a living and believe it or not, having the chance to get a functioning car was making your job very much enjoyable. But because anything could work on Pandora, you had to hunt down two Skags and drag them to the man living in the nearest town, where you had your contract signed.

Every single morning, you had to get up super-early to track some pack down, hunt at least two of these animals, and then drag the dead bodies through the entirety of the desert. That was the pain in your ass. To drag two damn heavy animals in that goddamn weather. Not that you had a chance refuse to hunt for that day - the meat was rotting quickly in this part of the planet and also, Pintley had quite a lot of customers he had to feed - you being one of the said customers. Also, funny enough, there wasn't that much meat on Skags. It was a doubtful business, to say the least.

A sudden, quiet mechanical noise threw you out of the train of your thoughts. It was easy to tell what was the problem since you could feel your right shoulder tensing up. - "Please no, please no." - You mumbled as you felt your right arm getting stuck and letting the bag go. A hiss left your lips as you felt the metal limb giving you a slight electric shock, sending it down your body. You sighed and sat down on one of the dead Skag's body, carefully taking the coat off just enough to reach the small panel, so you wouldn't tear the arm of your body. It took you almost half an hour of sitting there with a small wrench in your hand as you re-organized the small cabled inside as the metal whole arm was made of got hotter and hotter. Just a small moment longer and you'd burn your damn fingers.

In the end, you somehow managed to connect all the cables on the upper arm and attached the small piece of metal back on its spot again, rolling the coat back on your shoulder so it would cool down a bit. You were good to go again, so you took the bags your Skags were put in and walked forward again, dragging the corpses on the road behind you. At least, the buildings of that God abandoned city could be seen in the distance.

Hell's Cauldron. That was the name the locals gave it. The barely-a-town was raided by the bandits so often that they became more of your neighbors and maybe even friends over time. You knew a mentally unstable bandit named Bernie, who sometimes gave you a drive home - a ride from a Psycho was never a good one, but do as they say and don't look on the teeth of a horse that was given to you. You also became friends with Blind Billy, who was a better driver than Bernie and his one-man crew. This psycho was the man who always tried to buy your Skags. But you were persistent against selling them for Eridium.

Just as you thought of your favorite boys, the roar of their car could be heard in the distance as the machine got closer and closer. You smiled when you heard the sounds of their cars; they were very specific sounds breaking the utter silence around. The cars themselves were... Something. It wasn't a model rentable in Catch-A-Ride stations, so their cars were working just right at the moment. Also, this meant that you wouldn't have to the last few miles on foot, which would be simply great.

"Y/N!" - It was Billy's voice that could behear through speakers placed on the back of their car. In the next moment, the machine stopped next to you. You gave him a smirk and a nod through one of the windows. - "Ya still huntin' down those bunnies, ha? Come in, Cowboy girl, we'll give you a ride, whatcha say?" - The man opened up the door and invited you in. You gladly accepted and gave him the first bag containing a dead animal so he'd help you with dragging it inside the back of the car. Blindy threw it on the ground next to two benches before giving you a hand to drag you in as well.

"I guess I do, yeah. You know, Blindy, everybody needs a way to survive. You rob and kill, and I hunt. Everyone's doing great." - With a sigh, you sat on one of the only clean spots on the bench, getting a hold of it as you felt the engine shaking with the entire car.

"TO HELL'S CAULDRON YOU FUCKING DEADBRAIN!" - Billy yelled into the microphone so it could be heard at least miles from you. The car started so abruptly that it almost knocked you to the ground. - "Ya still don't wanna gimme one of those delicious creatures? I'm sick of eating bugs and sometimes people, when necessary, of course." - Billy asked and dragged his hand along one of the Skag's body. You were disgusted to say at least, but you also were careful enough not to display it in your expression. In the end, there was nothing to wonder about - these men were classified psychopaths.

"We've talked about this more than once, Blindy. Pay me the cash and I will give you one. If you don't want to pay for the work... Well..." - You laughed and touched the Jacobs shotgun attached to your back, sending him a clear message. - "Let's say that we've talked about this, shall we?" - "Oh, yea, Cowboy! Do ya get good money from it? I told ya I can pay ya in Eridium." - The psycho smiled and leaned in closer to you. You leaned to him as well, putting your metal palm on his mask.

"Eridium is worth only if I am a siren or if I have someone who deals Eridium to someone else. So... Do I, a), look like an Eridium dealer or do I, b), look like a siren to you?" - Your metal wrist patted the mask, and right after, you leaned away. Billy chuckled at what you've said. Eridium was an extremely valuable material - for some sort of people. If you weren't that sort of person, Eridium were just violet glowy stones in your eyes. Why would you even need that shit in this hole? The most ridiculous thing in this matter was the fact that psychos of Ham's Creek had a ton of Eridium on them; piles, probably. Hyperion jerks excavated many shafts in the proximity of your homes before they left; and while Hyperion guys were gone, the Eridium was still there and ready to get mined. You've heard that the guys from Ham's Creek, the bandit colony, were trading the stones to doubtful people for less than half of its value... But who were you to judge them? You were all doubtful people, you were all doing shady things. Any of you could be considered innocent.

"You may not be a siren, but you're ma muse in everythin' I do, Cowboy." - Blindy chuckled as the car stopped right in front of Hell's Cauldron's pub. There were seven more buildings in the city if you counted the toilette cab...  The least pleasurable place in the proximity of fifty miles radius. - "Don't ever dare to repeat that, dear God. If you do, Imma shoot your ass off, okay?" - Your laughter filled the air as you watched Blindy and Rayray dragging Skags into the local.

"I SMELL LIKE BEEF!" - Rayray yelled and threw the Skag body next to the bar. It was a greeting, a very polite one if you might add. Rayray was still learning how to grasp the rules of being police and sometimes, he really hit the ballpark. With a small smile, you entered the pub as well and nodded at Pintley, the local pub keeper, who shrugged his shoulders. - "You've been making the boys busy again, Cowboy?" - Pintley, an old man with white hair and a missing eye, asked kindly and controlled the Skag. One day, Billy's crew accidentally took out a bag with a dead human body instead of the Skag one and when Pintley wanted to cook his famous Skag goulash, he almost threw up. This time, it was really the dead animal.

"Oh, yea. And I would get the bags to the freezer as soon as possible, it is probably already grilled at this point." - With a grunt, you finally took off the coat as you leaned into and took your enormous hat off to look at Pinty. The man was still looking at the animals, trying to set an amount of cash to pay for this catch. - "That's fifty dollars for each one of them... Maybe even sixty, they're huge. Good call today, Cowboy." - He hummed in the end, opening the cash register and handled you the money. It was not much... But it was something at least.

"Something must be happening out there again, huh?" - It was a quiet, suggestive mumble as you looked at the banknotes in your palm. Pintley asked a silent "What?" because he hadn't heard about anything going on. - "I mean... Marcus Munitions charges for bullets are off the charts since Jack had... You know." - You peeked behind the bar, pointing at a slice of bread. Without you having to pay for it, Pintley gave it to you to chew on it.

To your surprise, Blind Billy nodded at you as he too leaned into the countertop. Even the bandits of Ham Creek could see that something's going on when they were buying their bullets for another raid - it cost almost two hundred dollars more. All of the things you've mentioned happened over five years ago, maybe even more. Handsome Jack, the CEO of Hyperion, was allegedly murdered by Lilith and the Crimson Raiders of Sanctuary. Since then, Hyperion Corporation was filled with social climbers who tried to become the new CEO - but before everything ended, Elpis' lunar station Helios was blown up, meaning that the days of Hyperion ruling over Pandora were over. Not that any of you would particularly care about any of that.

After that, there were some rumors about a new vault key found and about the existence of many new vaults all around Pandora and its sister planets. And as you heard, it was usually a joke, the vault key ended up in a desert where two jackasses found it. That, in fact, led to the creation of a pain in the ass known as 'The Calypso twins' and their cult; the Children of the Vault. Now, allegedly, Crimson Raiders and their leader Lilith had left Pandora and created Sanctuary 3, a spaceship flying on the orbit of Pandora.

Honestly, as far as you cared, all of this could be just a bunch of made-up stories. How the hell were you supposed to know what happened in space or on the other side of the planet? Who were you supposed to be? A fortune-teller? A telepath to know all of these things for certain? There was one sort of people on Pandora about which everyone seemed to forget - normal people. Normal people like you. Yes, people who only tried to live their lives and who owned only one gun existed. People who pursued normal jobs, calm life without all of the vault hunting business.

You've personally never seen the infamous Handsome Jack (only his posters and billboards) or the alleged vault hunters scattering through Pandora, searching for new things to kill and new loot to find. You never have seen Lilith, Roland, or any of the Crimson Raiders with your eyes, nor you've visited Sanctuary, Haven, New Haven, or Helios - and you surely had not visited the Concordia spaceship. You never saw any of those rumors for yourself, thus, you didn't know what was real or fake.

"Look at it like this, Pintley... The Catch-A-Ride stations aren't working in this part of Pandora for God knows how long and now, Marcus is charging up for rounds again? The last time he did that when the last bunch of the vault hunters came to Pandora? I tell you, something's going on." - Now, you rose your eyebrows and stopped everything you were doing. A loud bang blasted through the Hell's Cauldron. There was silence for a moment, but then a loud song started to play. With a long sigh, each of you stood up and grabbed their gun to get ready for a fight. The Children of the Vault decided to pay you a late-afternoon visit.

This, unfortunately, meant a shootout in the middle of the sun-parched square of the Hell's Cauldron just for the laughs. Those guys were just fine most of the time, but on some days, they came to the town and all they wanted to do was fight with guns blazing. By now, you all knew the drill - a short shootout while letting them spawn back in their base and then, you could continue with your daily program.

No matter what you told those jackasses, no matter what you did, no matter anything - they just drove into the sun-parched square and started to shoot. They were idiots without a single functioning brain between them, to say at least. To your good luck, Blindy and Rayray were on your side. These two were pretty reasonable bandits. Billy was also unusually smart for living with psychos, midgets, and more for as long as he did, yet he still kept his brain working.

The shooting which happened in Hell's Cauldron that day was louder than usual. Maybe it was just the way you've been laughing or the COV's new summer playlist, but this one was unusually loud. People were throwing grenades just as they were yelling some nasty words at each other. Some of them dropped dead in a matter of seconds because they were just standing in plain open. A car blew up accidentally, the trunk almost hitting you in your face and the face. When everything was done, there was only you, Rayray, and Pintley standing in the settling dust. You and Pintley were usually a great team - since he had a slag sniper rifle and you had an orange tier Jacobs shotgun, you were good to go any time. The rest of the COVs slowly disappeared - they started spawning at the New-U stations back in their small cultist town fifty miles away from Hell's Cauldron.

But something wasn't right. Blindy was still laying on the ground, bleeding out with a blank stare. His body wasn't moving and there were even small droplets of blood as he coughed before he passed away. This wasn't supposed to happen. As you approached the body, you've been growing through how did you get into the town in the first place. You've driven in our of the eastern exist, which meant you've driven around a checkpoint. That led you to a conclusion that the Hyperion Checkpoint Station, those were all over Pandora, must've written his biometrical data down. Blindy was somewhere inside the database, hidden in the code; but New-U station wasn't, for a reason, reconstructing his physical body.

"What's going on? Why isn't he respawning, Pintley? Don't you tell me that he wasn't registered by the Checkpoint." - Without giving a single fuck about the blood and dust, you kneeled and took off Blindy's mask to look into his scarred, lifeless fave. He wasn't the most handsome lad you've seen, but he had a good heart and that was all you cared about. - "Billy, man, don't you play games with me now. Get the fuck up, man. Come on." - You begged silently. You couldn't lose him because of a routine shootout. You've survived hundreds of these - he was a good bandit, a good friend, and a significantly good gunman.

"I think the New-U is cut out of the electric network, Cowboy." - Pintley yelled at you, while Rayray was opening the database in the Checkpoint station next to the pub. - "We might as well put it back to use. Stop with the nonsense and get to work, come on!"

The New-U stations and Checkpoints were a special thing that Pandora needed to have any population surviving on it. It all started way back when Atlas, Dahl, Hyperion, and many more were supporting the golden era of vault hunting; those hunters got their own Echo devices to stay in touch all the time and in case they'd accidentally die or dismember, the New-U stations were meant to render a new body for them. As soon as you arrived or was born in this sector of the universe, the corporation implanted a chip to the nape of your neck; you wouldn't respawn only in the case someone would be using jammer or took the chip out of your body. There was a whole lot of things that could get you killed - psycho in a bad mood, hungry Skag, angry friend, bad food, accidental fall into a volcano... You could choose, really. Sometimes, it could take a while to respawn, it also cost you some money, and before the transaction was sent... It could be a whole lot at times.

Since there were no laws and anarchy and chaos ruled the planet hand by hand, this system came in handy at all times. The Checkpoint stations were the smaller ones, saving up your data like DNA and memories to have all of your personal information in the systems in case anything happened to you. New-U was able to resurrect a person after paying said charge - they constructed your body from the DNA and cells of your dead body, implanted the memories back into your brain, and even construed the clothes you had on. It was truly a miracle of modern age science - but also a necessity for Pandora and its moon Elpis.

Rayray nodded when he read Billy's name in the database. He was there; he was there, safe and sound. You only had to make the New-U work. Without giving any fuck, you just threw the dead and useless body on the ground, walking to the machine, next to Pintley, to look at the cables leading out of the back of the machine to the charger on the wall.

Luckily, you were quite handy with this sort of stuff. Really, you had to restore the electricity circuits inside your metallic arm; handily, you opened up the machine and started to work on it, searching for the problem. Pintley was kneeling next to you, so you were only telling him what you needed - like a wrench or a hammer - and he fetched it to you. New-U was mostly unused in Hell's Cauldron, so it was really no wonder that it wasn't working; it was out of order for quite some time now. If Blindy wouldn't have died, you wouldn't even notice the malfunctioning machine.

It probably was out of order for the last five years - since the last time Bandits provoked a gunfight was... You couldn't even remember. Maybe, Pintley himself pulled the cables out; you wouldn't let the electricity bill getting bigger if you hadn't need for letting the New-U running, right? The Calypso fanatics couldn't be considered a threat at all. Each of them was dumb and couldn't shoot for shit, so the only ones getting killed were them. Even more so, they usually started to talk about some of their damn fanatic nonsense in the middle of the fight. In the beginning, you listened to those jackshit rambles; then you just murdered them without blinking. It wasn't that easy. Rayray looked at you from the database's screen. Bandits, believe it or not, were sometimes pretty smart. Yes, they had their bright moments. The only thing they couldn't do was to speak like a normal human being.

"THAT HURTS LIKE A BUTTCHEEK ON A STICK!" - Rayray yelled at you and you furrowed - it was too late to stop the respawning process since the machine started barking loudly in front of you as it came back to life. What did he say? Someone else was written down in the system except the normies of Hell's Cauldron? You looked over to the bandit boy, but it was too late to pull the cable; the New-U already started to build a human being. And that person definitely wasn't Billy. You made Pintley step back since he hadn't any gun on him and took out your Jacobs shotgun again, pointing at the stranger. The man, it definitely was a man, was looking at his hands in wonder, opening his palms, closing them right after, playing with his fingers. He slowly pulled an Oz kid used in the vacuum off the back of his head, so he could take some normal, hot breath into his lungs. The breather was old as hell, probably six to seven years to your estimations (given it was an ultra-old Vladof Oz it). Who was that man, you didn't know at all; you just assumed he must've been dead for quite some time.

The Hyperion nice-ass lady was telling him something, but she couldn't quite finish her speech - Billy started rendering right next to the man. You exhaled and thanked God for Billy, but you didn't let the mysterious man go out of your sight - you didn't know who he was, what his intentions were, or if he was a bad guy or not. The only thing you could clearly tell was that the man was super-happy to be alive. "I'm alive! I'm alive! Would ya believe it, man, I'm alive, breathin' and stuff and I'm feelin' just fine!" - The stranger exclaimed and looked over to you. - "Wait... Wait. Man, man, ya not Lilith or Moxxi or one of their vault hunters. Who are ya?" - He tried to come closer to you, for some reason, so you only rose the barrel of the shotgun and watched the small laser light hovering on his forehead.

"Ya not any friendly folks, ha?" - The man asked and laughed your barrel off as if he barely noticed the danger he was in. There was... Something about him. You felt like you knew him from somewhere. That face was basically burned deep into your brain and it was so detailed, that it was freaking you out like shit. Those eyes, sharp lips... But his name was a remaining mystery to you; not for too long, unfortunately. - "Hey, name's Scooter. Ya know me. Most of the folks on Pandora do." - With that, he offered you a palm to shake, and because of that, you took the barrel of your shotgun down from his forehead. Scooter. Scooter. That face, that name... Jesus that man was reminding you of someone and you couldn't just remember who. Eyeing down his clothes covered in old, dry oil (which was clearly powering engines, or some other machinery), you straightened and watched Pintley approach Scooterboy. You exhaled slowly and put the shotgun on your back, shoving it back into the covering.

"Name's Pintley, young man. Come here, I'll give you a cold Dr. Bob and some food." - Pintley patted his shoulder and you carefully watched Scooterboy with a frown. You were inclined to believe him just after he looked like isn't about to kill you, yet it didn't mean you'd be particularly fond of the stranger just yet.

"Scooterboy?" - Your voice was firm and cold as you looked at him. - "Don't you do something with cars? I get the vibe you do, look at your clothes." - It was a short explanation, but it did work. Scooter looked down quickly, raising his eyebrows. Blindy was now standing next to you and he didn't have a clue about what was going on.

"Catch-A-Ride!" - Scooterboy exclaimed with a big smile. Oh dear, you got your mindset straight on who he was. It was like a blast inside your brain. You knew his face from all the commercials you've seen with his face - it was a big thing when he supposedly died on his way to Helios. Ellie, his big sister and the other big mechanic of Pandora, was paying him many respects and missed him dearly. She was mourning for a long time.

"How the fuck are you alive?" - With a frown, you stormed past him and Pintley, entering the pub first. - "This is one wild evening Pintley, I tell you. Give me, Billy and Scooter some cold Dr. Bob and some bread with cheese you have there because I'm about to faint." - You sat at the nearest chair, massaging your own face.

Scooter was alive.

[panfictional]

Some Choice DYFAM!Content

(Its been ages since I’ve written so I might as well give y’all something. This is half discussion on some DYFAM exclusive lore I’m sure you’re gonna go rabid for. The other half is some quick writing blurbs in that respect. If you wanna go full ham with it feel free. I will 100% answer questions.)

THE HISTORY

When Chuck was first coming up with the ideas for humans he decided to get the angels involved in the creation of their souls. Of course after awhile he took the reins (specifically after Lucifer fucked over everyone with his rebellion) but for those that created the souls and remember them it had a pretty profound effect. Chuck realized quickly that the angels who created a soul were linked to that soul indefinitely. He didn’t see it as a problem until the Nephilim. That’s because he failed to realize that the angels used parts of themselves to create their human’s soul. While the angels were limited to only making one human ever many of them poured their hearts out into their creations. All or nothing right? 

When Castiel created Dean’s soul they thought of the brightest stars, how they flickered and yet never extinguished. They wanted this human to be like that. Something that could be bent but never broken. It was the first time the angel known as Castiel had bled but they happily pricked and burned their fingers on their righteous man. Father hummed and chuckled over their enthusiasm. The way they lovingly smoothed what counted at their fingers over that soul until it shone. It became a comfort in the newly formed nights when darkness seemed to stretch out endlessly. That righteous man was all theirs and nothing anyone said could change that. 

Gabriel had been quiet since Father had put that little bit of Creation into their hands. It worried their siblings. Gabriel was almost never quiet, filling up the space with their voice or being rambunctious enough to make up for the lack of sounds. But now they were quiet- focused. Careful fingers shaped and smoothed the pieces. Cutting themselves on the jagged edges. The cuts formed silvery scars along the tips of their fingers. It stood out starkly against the golden glow of the rest of them. Was it wrong to cherish such things? They kept the soul jagged so that it might protect itself. Such a small thing needed as much as an advantage as it could get. They snapped at their siblings if they came too near, the soul was fragile- a stained glass mirror, they didn’t want to see it shattered by the carelessness of their siblings. Gabriel kept it tucked close, their most prized possession. 

Bobby and Crowley met shortly after Bobby’s wife died. Bobby wanted to make a deal to bring her back. Crowley said he couldn’t do it as she was in Heaven’s hands now. But he found Bobby amusing enough to stick around. It wouldn’t be the only time Bobby summoned a crossroads demon but he quickly learned that no matter how he summoned them it would always be Crowley that answered. 

The demon wasn't interested in his soul. No, he was more interested in how petty and annoying he could be to the human. It started as little things, let me have this, let me do this, you have to do this now, so on and so such. Really it was only a matter of time before Crowley thought to make unannounced visits. He reveled in the outraged shock. The surprise on Bobby’s face. Oh he’d ruined more than a few quiet nights and amateur hunts. It was cheap entertainment at Bobby’s stake and no amount of traps could keep Crowley away. A game of cat and mouse. Pity that fondness had a way of creeping up on him...

Lower class angels prefer to possess the terminally ill. Single father Jimmy Novak knew his time was running short so when Castiel asked to use his body as a vessel? He just wanted him to look after his little girl. Of course Castiel was put off by this but it was a small price to pay for what he needed the vessel for. At least Claire wasn’t a problem child. (that was until she became a fucking Winchester)

Hunter’s Wills exist. While hunters have to stay largely off the radar and travel constantly many of them know their lives are going to be cut short. Its a risk they take and a reason having children become hunters young is a taboo. While its encouraged to teach your kids how to defend themselves against what's out there it is highly frowned upon to just chuck them out into that world before they can make the decision themselves. From this the Hunter’s Will surfaced. A hunter will write down where or who gets their worldly possessions and/or orphaned children. Most keep a journal to update the will when needed. While it isn’t an actual legal document it is strictly abided by in the hunter community. A hunter’s will is sacred. 

That’s all I can crank out for now. If I think of anything else I’ll add it but my brain is tired and I’m officially moving into potato status.

[battlestar-royco]

Hey I’m interested in hearing more about your thoughts on asoiaf. How do you find the writing wonky and things like that

I’ve already talked about it a bit on this blog before, if you wanna check out some posts about why I think ASOIAF is overrated and problematic, and why I don’t like the Daenerys plotline: x x x

But I could talk about books forever so here we go. To preface, when I say “overrated,” that doesn’t mean I dislike the series. It’s grown on me, solid 3.5-4/5. I just mean that it gets unwarranted credit and attention for doing a lot of the same things for the fantasy genre as other contemporaneous writers are doing. The hype is probably what set me up to think ASOIAF was only on the better side of good rather than AMAZINNNGNGNGNGNG like everyone says.

So, my overarching issues are:

I didn’t begin to love any characters until ASOS. I only continued reading after the first two because the show was gaining popularity and other people were reading it. While I did enjoy AGOT, I was only meh about ACOK. ASOS blew me out of the water, but AFFC lost its way and I’ve been “currently reading” ADWD for five years.

I don’t mind the amount of narrators; GRRM distinguishes between his narrators amazingly and the range of POVs makes the world seem bigger and realer. HOWEVER, I cannot fucking stand being in the heads of some abhorrent characters just because GRRM wants to make a ham-handed point about misogyny or colonization. (Some examples are Theon and whatever the fuck his uncles are named and Daenerys. I hate Theon’s and the other IB POVs, and I could live without Dany.)

I really don’t care for GRRM’s writing style. It’s so extra and repetitive. If I have to read “fingers of blood” one more time I’m gonna throw hands. Just cutting words for concision could have reduced the first book by fifty to a hundred pages.

GRRM is known for his shocking deaths but I don’t think the shock factor is what makes the story good at all. It honestly makes the books weaker at points. The first few times, the deaths made complete sense for the characters and the story, but after awhile it gets tiring. Most readers want someone to root for, not to be apathetic to all the characters because we know they’re all going to die.

Also, GRRM is a white dude dealing with issues of misogyny, racism, imperialism, etc, and he started publishing the books in the 90s, so there’s A LOT of just… absolutely fucking yikes treatment of women, queer people, POC, and other minorities in the books that I wish I could put in a garbage disposal.

Specifically (vague spoilers for all the books):

AGOT did a good job of establishing all the characters and the stakes, but the worldbuilding is so ambitious that it only starts making sense on a second read. The world itself is thoroughly built and convincing, but it’s nowhere near my favorite fantasy world because of its excessive -ism/-phobia and basic medieval Europe-ness. Plus, the pace is glacial until they all get to King’s Landing about 200 pages in. The same thing goes for ACOK. These two books didn’t do much for me. I liked the Starks and I wanted them to be back together, but tbh I don’t find the Lannisters or the Targs all that cool. They’re a bunch of incestuous assholes trying to kill each other and I don’t find that relatable or anywhere near as compelling as a mourning family trying to piece itself together during a war.

ASOS made everything better. By this book, I finally felt settled with all the characters and the world and GRRM’s style, and things were actually happening. Jaime, Arya, Sansa, Cat, and Jon’s ASOS arcs are among my favorites in the entire series. This book still has its sluggish parts, but the pace and the emotional weight made it worth it.

AFFC… hm. I understand why people like this book, but at the same time I think it’s on the same level as ACOK for me. In this book, the subtle themes and central drama between the three main families (Stark, Lannister, and Targ) disappears in favor of Dorne and Brienne subplots. The Sandsnakes (from the books) and Brienne are cool, and I understand that GRRM is trying to represent the aftermath of war with them, but it was way too over the top and unfocused compared to the page-turner stakes of ASOS and the latter halves of G and C. GRRM seems to be interested in all these new characters when the rest of us just wanna know if the Starks are ever going to see each other again, if Dany will ever get the fuck out of Meereen, if the Lannisters either finally fall or redeem themselves, etc.

What I’ve read of ADWD hasn’t impressed me much so far. Again, I can’t reiterate enough how much Dany’s plotline and point of view as a white colonizer in an Asian/African fusion setting make me uncomfortable. Aside from some of the most bizarre and offensive depictions of POC in fantasy through a white girl’s perspective, her love/sex life exclusively consists of 30+ year old men sexualizing and infantilizing her. I find that abhorrent and unnecessary. Tyrion is equally as hard to take in this book, seeing as he’s mostly throwing himself a constant pity party (he does this in every book, but this one is the worst) while meandering around Essos with characters who have just been introduced five books in. The Ironborn POVs are just unneeded, boring, and overly misogynistic because I guess GRRM is trying to make a statement or whatever. Most of the Starks–my personal favorite characters–are absent in this book, and the Lannister twins only get a handful of chapters. The only narrator I’m genuinely interested in is Jon, which is ironic because I was indifferent to him until ASOS.

TL;DR I’ve pretty much only ever been invested in the Starks but GRRM is obsessed with adding unnecessary new POVs. While he tries his best to deal with issues like sexism and racism, he ultimately fails in certain respects due to his hypersexualization of young women and exoticization of cultures of POC. He needs to regain control of the story.

[aprettystrangeblog]

Doctor Strange Cosplay Tutorial (MASTERLIST)

In honor of 2k followers, here’s my Stephen Strange cosplay breakdown! I’ll post my own photos of me in said cosplay when all parts are published!

Intro/Prep

This tutorial is, for the most part, pretty inexpensive and sewing-free, meaning I’m not using any pre-existing patterns and stuff like that! I’m making this specifically for those who don’t have access to sewing machines, don’t want to/don’t know how to sew, and don’t have a lot of money (...or you have a crippling fear of needles, like me). Of course, if you want to get fancy or have your costume last longer/be able to be washed, then you can alter the instructions as you see fit! I’ll be adding little alternative steps here and there if that’s the case, but this costume process runs on hot glue and love, babes! Oh, and a lot of time and patience searching through thrift stores for cheap deals.

This may not be 100% screen-accurate, and I tend to put my own touches on things here and there, so feel free to treat this as just a basic guide and improve upon it yourself if you see fit!

Here’s what you’re definitely going to need, organized by part:

Tools:

Hot glue gun (if you’re morally against sewing or don’t have access to a sewing machine)

Scissors

Seam ripper (or craft knife, or anything that will help you remove existing seams and thread without damaging the fabric/piece itself)

Pins (sewing pins are good, but if you have a massive needle/pricking phobia like me, safety pins are better)

A fabric pencil/chalk/something with which you can trace lines onto fabric and erase them later (NO. PENS. NO!)

Ruler, yard/meter stick, tape measure, whatever you got that can measure distance well

Needle and thread/sewing machine, if you want (you can pretty much universally avoid sewing for this tutorial if you’re creative, but there is one part I would very much recommend sewing)

Something to hang your costume on while you work. Hanger + hook is my go-to, but if you have a mannequin then firstly, what the fuck, and secondly more power to you!

Makeup brushes, cotton balls/cotton swabs, toothpicks/something disposable with a fine point

PART 1: Underclothes

A plain blue collared shirt (your typical collared men’s dress shirt, they’re easy to find at a local thrift store)

Attachments (I found that the cheapest way to attach stuff is velcro, but feel free to go ham with zippers or snaps or even magnets if that’s more your style!

Elastic (the wider the better)

Indigo-colored pants. If you can’t find that stupid off-blue color Strange’s pants are, see if you can snag some white ones and dye them the right color!

Quilt/blanket binding 

PART 2: Arm Wraps

Attachments (again, velcro/elastic is cheap, but go ham with whatever you want)

Several feet of one of the following in dusty blue/grey: ribbon, binding, thin strips of fabric, you get the idea. It should be roughly an inch in width.

Several feet of one of the following in dark brown: ribbon, binding, thin strips of fabric, you get the idea. It should be roughly a half-inch in width, ie a little narrower than the light blue mentioned above.

Multicolored, braided cord (I ended up making my own by braiding several strands of different-colored blue yarn together)

PART 3: Robe

Several yards/meters of loose blue fabric, actual measurements will depend on your size (I found an old, plain tablecloth at a thrift store for like two bucks, but you can also try to find old curtain material, sheets, etc! If you wanna get fancy hit up an actual fabric store for cool fabric, but for the sake of this cheap tutorial I would advise against it)

Thin blanket/quilt binding, preferably a similar shade of blue (y’know the satiny stuff that goes around the edge of blankets/quilts?? Yeah, find some! It’s not super expensive)

Optional: foam or thick fabric to stiffen the shoulders

PART 4: Accessories and Shoes

Old black boots, combat style (again, thrift around! If you have some you actually wear or own, you can use those too-- they won’t be damaged)

Strips of fabric or ribbon in a similar or same color as your annoyingly indigo pants

Roughly four to five belts, more or less depending on availability and your personal preference to how screen accurate you wanna be. Here’s a breakdown if you want the specifics: one wide, main belt, roughly the width of your hand, in brown. Two matching braided belts, also brown. One narrower black belt, looks to be braided leather? And one thicker black & brown leather belt.

Anything else I didn’t specifically mention already, such as small knick-knacks, tassels, chain, or various attachments for the belts if you want them!

Don’t forget your sling ring!

PART 5: Putting It All Together

Undershirt of some kind to protect your costume from sweat (especially if you can’t wash it)

OPTIONAL PART 6: Hands

Drugstore foundation (in the shade of the backs of your hands)

White foundation, eyeliner, whatever you can find

Drugstore blush palette

If you want to do the absolute bare minimum, like a fool, then just get a lip pencil/eyeliner/whatever in a natural, scar-colored shade

Most advanced: invest in some liquid latex

Makeup remover

Optional: black nail polish (not screen accurate, but I like to paint my nails black when cosplaying Stephen because he would Do That™)

[captaiinobvious]

i want a tattoo but i dont really have any one thing i feel strongky enough to be like THAT ONE i want that one ON MY BODY and i need it IMMEDIATELY like my mom1 has 2 or 3 super specific tattoos that mean a lot 2 them they want i just liek the idea of drawing on yrself permanently lol im not the type 2 need meaning. im thinking of going 2 q tattoo place, giving them colors or a vibe, and then saying "go nuts show me yr best design im giving u artistic freedom" cuz then id just have liek. a unique piece of art from someone else the same way u would buy a canvas or something but its on Me. but b4 i do that i have 2 make sure i dont h8 the fuck outta the process so i need something small first. maybe a small piece of fruit or flower or something thats basically just colored lineart so itll b cheap and fast. and if i like it then someday when i have Moneys i will get the sickest tattoo eva probably from like some super cool artist lady w a million piercings or a really cool bald dude with solid sleeves on both arms. and it will b. sick. i kinda wanna do one myself but id either need the patience 2 do stick n poke (nope) or id have 2 BUY A MACHINE (moneys) and liek a bunch of ham or some shit 2 practice on 4 a million years 🙄 maybe i would get liek a perfect copy of cherubs face on my shoulder or something that would b adorable he has the cutest lil face peak oc design right there

[atleastputinsomeeffortinuroc]

Rant/Review: Ready Player One --aka-- Just Watch Wrinkle in Time Instead...

I don’t usually hate movies. 

I know that seems backwards considering that this blog is me complaining and ranting incoherently about movies I don’t like, but very few movies leave me seething. Even all of the Detective Conan movies, which are mostly terrible pieces of garbage, I don’t necessarily hate. Red Crimson Letters is a terrible waste of time and energy, but I wasn’t insulted or felt talked down to. It was just a really bad movie I wanted to talk about.

In my life, there have only been three movies who have truly enraged me. “Batman v Superman,” “Joy,” and “War for the Planet of the Apes.” 

Objectively, there are aspects that are genuinely good in all of them and are definitely better than I probably give them credit for...but I doubt it, but they just flare up an anger in me for one reason or another. They’re permanently on my “fuck that movie” list. And now…now there’s another entrant to that prestigious list.

Ready Player One.

My GOD. THIS was the book everyone’s been talking about? THIS is supposed to be the fucking bible of pop culture?! THIS MOVIE?! THE ONE THAT UNIRONICALLY HAS THE PHRASE SPOKEN BY HUMAN VOCAL CHORDS “FANBOYS ALWAYS KNOW A HATER?!!” ARE YOU GUYS--…ok. Ok, I need to calm down. 

There are several, several, SEVERAL parts about this movie that don’t work, and I could go into a lot of the problems, but instead I’m going to try to talk about three aspects of the film. And for the sake of me not swearing up and down, we’re not going to talk about that godawful dialogue. Just know that it sucks.)

1) The ham-fisted arc

2) The protagonist and his trophy waifu

3) References over content

There are spoilers ahead, and I’m going to write this with the assumption that you’ve already seen the movie. If you haven’t, you’ve been warned. Anywho, let’s get started. Put on some “a-ha,” break your nostalgia goggles and join me as we go down this road where I collectively shit over Spielberg’s attempt to adapt a supposed “beloved classic.” (CAN YOU TELL I’M MAD?!)

1)     The arc

Here’s the thing with arcs in narratives, and more specifically films. 

They need to feel earned. 

Your central character has gone through a life-altering change or point of view since the beginning of the film due to the adventures and trials had throughout the film. Good examples include “Mad Max: Fury Road” where Max finally lets others into his life and sees the value in not going through life alone as described by the part where he donates his own blood and tells Furiosa his name. Another good example is actually from the Oscar nominee Spielberg had LITERALLY LAST YEAR, “The Post.” In it, Kay Graham finally put her foot down and shows authority by stepping out of her comfort zone to release the Pentagon Papers—damn what the powers that be say. This is important to any narrative because it shows the flaws of your characters through their insecurities and hesitations to make them human rather than movie characters. Even if you have paragon characters like Superman, Wonder Woman, or Batman, they still have to overcome some kind of personal issue that is keeping them from achieving what they’ve wanted.

Now, if you look over to the main character, you can see that his arc was…what is it that was his arc? 

He’s…he’s the same at the beginning as he was at the end. 

“OH BUT HE HAS A PENTHOUSE AT THE END,” yeah that’s not a change. One could argue that the (even though the catalyst for change has no fucking relation to it) arc is about unplugging and enjoying the real world. The bits at the end with Easter Egg man where he starts going on and on and on about how he missed reality or something, and the VERY BRIEF bits at the beginning where you see people all over the VR systems, one of which is the mother neglecting a fire in the house and one where an Asian man almost commits suicide after losing all of his stuff in the game (it’s played for comedy, so THAT’S also pretty fun, because it’s not like Japanese suicide rates are a serious issue or anything OH WAIT.) So it’s about being close to reality and unplugging. Ok. Coolio.

But here’s the thing, similar to “War for the Planet of the Apes”…YOU HAVEN’T EARNED IT. There are brief moments where it kind of alludes to it (see the middle challenge with ‘oh yes, I should have kissed the girl during the Shining’ and the small bit at the middle where the main two are sitting there and the main dude has ONE HALF-ASSED LINE about how “it’s nice here. It’s slower,”) but that’s IT. It doesn’t actually give you a reason to think that staying in the Oasis and avoiding reality is a BAD thing. Sure you have abusive father obsessed with getting high scores but he’s just one dimensional asshole dad who dies and you don’t give a shit about it one second later after his parental figures are killed. 

There are no real CONSEQUENCES to spending too much time in the Oasis, it’s just because he’s good at the game. And if there are, they sure as hell aren’t focused on in favor of mindless spectacle (which looks REALLY BAD by the way. I know it’s supposed to look fake because video game, but do the main characters have to use the ugliest models in existence?!) As such, the ending and central arc of learning is lost.

So what’s the arc? Well…there is none. Nothing is really learned, nothing is really gained that MATTERS aside from the keys to Willy Wonka’s goddamn chocolate factory. 

Z or Perzival or Wade or generic-white-gamer-boy learns all of fucking NOTHING by the end. (As such, it makes the ending where he says “EVERYONE HAS TO BE OFF ON TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS” come off as BULLshit.)

But no, this is clearly the Spielberg classic. It’s not like Indiana Jones learned anything in the Last Crusade as a character only he totally fucking DID, HE LEARNED TO RESPECT AND LOVE HIS FATHER WHO HE PREVIOUSLY DESPISED AND THE IMPORTANCE OF—sorry. Sorry I’m getting a bit mad again.

Anywho, due to a lack of a real arc, it makes you think that the entire fucking plot was pointless. It was just inevitable that the good guy win because…well he’s the main character. He doesn’t say anything about anything but is instead dumb fluff, which would be fine…but here’s the thing. It also affects the main characters. And it affects them HARD.

2)     Tweedledee and Tweedledumbass

The two main characters have no personality or character due to this lack of an arc.

The main man, Wade, his personality is…what exactly? He’s just generic hero-boy who is obsessed with the 80s. “He’s like a regular Star-Lord!” I hear you say, only he totally fucking isn’t. Starlord has baggage, has character has points and instances that stretch BEYOND just quoting 80’s movie and saying the actual phrase that a screenwriter actually wrote down and didn’t immediately delete that went “FANBOYS ALWAYS KNOW A HATER” NO I AM NOT OVER IT.

...Point is, the references don’t make Star-Lord who he is, it’s the character of Peter Quill himself. Cocky, brash, and in many ways, a child running from his past. 

As for Wade, he’s got nothing. I’ve looked over this sometimes, depending on the writing or the situation, so maybe it wouldn’t bother me so much, but the actor who plays him isn’t doing a good job. I know I don’t talk about acting a lot, but the man…the man is just whining through his lines. He comes off as insufferable with his needless 80’s knowledge that I was genuinely rooting for the one-dimensional villain to kill that fucking brat.

Then we have Artemis or Samantha or Sam or its-the-pixie-cut-rebel-chick.  

There are several scenes that are etched into my brain now (including a FUCKING NUT-SHOT AND A PASSWORD FOR A HUMAN ADULT THAT IS “B055MAN69.” IN A SPIELBERG MOVIE. THE MAN WHO MADE INDIANA JONES AND SCHINDLER’S LIST.), but one of the big ones is the final image of the film in which the main character in his 80’s man-boy cave spins around with his beautiful woman sitting in his lap as they suck face as the line “reality is pretty awesome anyway” or something like that. Aside from the main character not earning that statement as previously stated…fucking let’s look at it for what it is.

The man just won a real-life walking-talking waifu. A trophy wife that he wins at the end of the game.

She’s what probably made me see through the movie the most honestly. She makes this big fucking deal about “oh, but I’m not who you think I am on the outside, I’m not pretty” and then when you go outside to the real world, of course she’s the fucking gorgeous Hollywood white girl—she just has a goddamn birthmark on her eye to be her “blemish.”

“Oh but she’s insecure about it,” I hear you say--I’m sorry, but you mean to tell me NOBODY told her she’s fine and beautiful with the eye-mark BEFORE Wade? You mean to tell me she’s insecure, but not insecure enough to feel the need to buy fucking MAKE-UP!? I’m not saying that she needs it, I’m saying that the character’s central flaw is the WEAKEST FUCKIN FLAW I HAVE EVER SEEN. YOU WANNA CHANGE THE GAME, QUASIMODO THAT SHIT. 

THEN, and this part was just fucking HILARIOUS to me, she mentions about how the ioi company fucking KILLED HER FATHER in a workshop and she has to stop him for revenge…and then it’s totally dropped. Like it’s never mentioned by the end. At all. She chucks a grenade into Mechagodzilla to kill the bossman but fuck me if it ain’t satisfying and adds physically NOTHING to her character.

Her character exists for one purpose. She is the love interest who sets the main character off on his journey. Nothing more. And I say that, because SHE’S THE CATALYST FOR HIM FINDING THE FIRST KEY. She tells him something that reminds him of something that solves the puzzle. And what’s more, I am willing to bet that THAT’S the reason they kept her Hollywood pretty. Because you need to have an attractive romantic love interest to keep the audience pleased. 

Now apparently, she does more in the movie than she does in the book. And that’s great. That’s super. She’s the one breaking in to destroy the d20 of doom. Hell yeah I guess. But I also don’t care. You wanna know why? BECAUSE I AM NOT READING THE BOOK. Superficial changes that improve certain aspects doesn’t make the movie better than it is. It’s like polishing a fucking turd. Yeah, it’s nicer than what you had, but you are still making me hold this piece of dogshit.

They don’t have characters. They don’t have chemistry BECAUSE they don’t have characters. It’s a fucking wash.

3) Drowning in References

But now we talk about the big one. The big fucking thing that everyone and their mother is obsessing about this movie over. And the thing that has gotten me from not liking this movie to fucking DESPISING it.

The references.

To quote from people who will be seeing the movie in the theater *ahem*...

“OHMYGOD IS THAT TRACER?! OH AND IT’S HARLEY AND THE JOKER! OH! OH! OH! IRON GIANT! HALO! BORDERLANDS! BACK TO THE FUTURE! BATMAN—FUCKING IT’S THE BATMAN! THEY MENTIONED THRILLER! THAT’S PRINCE! STREET FIGHTER! MECHA-GODZILLA FIGHTING GUNDAM! MINECRAFT! NINJA TURTLES! FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH! STAR TREK! FIREFLY! THE SHINING! IT’S FUCKING CHUCKY!!!”

…Ok? So what?

Not to be a snob, but seriously—so what? Why does it matter?

Listen, I like crossovers too. I remember the Avengers and what a big goddamn deal it was, and how it made everyone’s jaw drop to the ground, and how in some ways, it still does. But whereas with those it felt organic, Ready Player One with its ninety thousand references felt…empty.

I’m going to bring out two comparisons to the table that do the same thing that Ready Player One did, “Who Framed Rodger Rabbit?” and “Wreck-It Ralph.” Both had pop-culture icons throughout them. One had all of the classic cartoons all spliced together—where you saw Daffy Duck and Donald Duck in the same shot having a dual piano-off. One of them had all of these video game characters that you loved and embraced since you were a kid, running around and hanging out ala “Toy Story.” These big names are all in the background, just like Ready Player One, but they’re clearly different in terms of execution. Why is that?

Well it’s because the movies weren’t reliant on them. Sure, Rodger Rabbit had fun moments with these big names, but if you took them out and animated totally new characters with similar personalities, what would you lose? Nothing. The plot is the same, the dynamics are the same, and it can still be seen as a salute to the classic animations from back in the day to also an allegory for the Jim Crowe era just as the book intentionally was. Same goes for Wreck-it Ralph, the character goes through a fundamental change that has him accepting who he is and how “there’s nobody else I’d rather be, than me” ALL THE WHILE paying respects to classic arcade video games.

The same can’t be said for Ready Player One. The instant you take away the pop-culture references, the movie loses its protective suit of armor to reveal it’s about…nothing. 

It is. 

Nothing. 

The generic quest, the generic corporate baddie, the generic love interest, the main character has nothing to say, and the conflict is revealed to be flat—nothing about it sticks out or makes an impression.

And if you fail to make an impression without a fucking suit pop-culture references then, well, if I may use a pop-culture quote myself...“If you’re nothing without the suit, then you shouldn’t have it.”

Plain and simple.

But then…there’s the one thing I can’t really debate. 

“It’s just fun though, right?”

Yeah sure. I’ll admit around that third act, even though it was long overdrawn, I had fun watching the violence and references I understood while they blasted “We’re Not Gonna Take It” in the background.

But y’know what? It was just about as enjoyable as seeing someone adapt a piece of shitty fanfiction, because both have one thing in common for everything that they do: It’s just there for fan service. If you make the statement “well the Oasis is cool,” then you’ve clearly missed the point because you don’t like the movie, you like it’s gimmick. And it’s gimmick exists—it’s called VR Chat.

Meanwhile, screenwriters of different backgrounds, ethnicities, genders and religions from everywhere across the world are actually putting EFFORT into their screenwriting and directing. And while their action scenes for their blockbuster idea may not be perfect, they at least tried and did something new with it.

I went to see “Wrinkle in Time” today after I’d seen Ready Player One yesterday, needing to see literally anything good. And yeah, it’s not perfect. It’s got some stilted dialogue and some questionable acting on nearly all fronts at points and the conflict can be about as cliched as you can imagine, but the visuals, the costume design—you could tell everyone cared and put a goddamn effort into everything put forth. It’s much more gorgeous than the downright UGLY CG that was in the Oasis world in Ready Player One, and I guarantee you nobody had the phrase “B055MAN69” anywhere. It didn’t pander to kids or guys who wanted to feel validated for knowing a couple references. It wanted to tell the story of fighting back evil and hatred by embracing love. It’s cheesy and sappy…but fuck me, if it didn’t try to say something while having fun.

But fuck that movie right? We have Iron Giant fighting Mechagodzilla. 

If you have that, then why bother putting in effort?

That’s what kills me. It’s lazy and people praise it because it just stuck pop-culture words in a fucking blender. Don’t call it innovative. Don’t call it original. Don’t call it anything than what it is.

80’s. Prepubescent. Fucking. Fanfiction.

You can love it and enjoy it if you want, I mean I don’t like not liking movies. It sucks. And in some aspects, I can see why you can if you turn your brain off but…I’m not gonna lie, to see this get away with murder insults me.

Listen, I love Spielberg. There is nobody I respect more in the business. His work in AI, and the reason why he did so to keep a dying friend’s vision alive will always keep him as one of my personal heroes but…sometimes you gotta call people out when they make shit. And I am.

I don’t care what anyone says, don’t see Ready Player One. Watch something worthwhile. Go to Netflix and watch “Stranger Things” if you’ve got that need for an 80′s kick, or hell--”Blade Runner 2049″ is a visual goddamn MARVEL. Go see “The Post” or “Jaws” if you want some good Spielberg. Just PLEASE! Go see something that isn’t just a bunch of references that almost feel as though it’s a remake of “ctrl+alt+del.” 

(Random aside, people have told me to read the original book...but if that fucking thing is ANYTHING like this movie, I’d rather BURN IT than let it get one inch into my house. So no, I’m not going to read the book even if there are claims that it’s “better.” (Even though I believe that it’s impossible to say a book is better than it’s adaptation or vice versa because it’s two different mediums and as such it’s hardly fair, but that’s a whole other thing.) Point is, I’ve never been more turned off to a book in my godddamned life and I ain’t gonna bother.)

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #409

“when everything is wrong, we move along”

Are you a good kisser? I mean there's no way for me to actually know, but I guess history suggests I'm not bad. What question do you hate being asked the most? "What does your tattoo mean?" I'm so self-conscious of my "strange" interests that I can't stand that question and I get SO awkward. I know, I know, "Then why did you even get it?" Reason being it makes me happy and I don't want my fears to win anyway. What do you think the hardest part of surviving is? Just that very thing: surviving. Getting through rough patches with your sanity and good health intact. Do you own any clothes you wouldn’t wear in front of your mother? No. Do you honestly hate anyone? Sometimes I think I still hate the girl Jason dated after me. It's entirely unjustified, and even knowing they're not together anymore (at least, to my knowledge), thinking of her just... makes me angry and jealous and just generally uncomfortable. I also sincerely hate someone who violated my best friend. What song did you hear last? I'm listening to a slowed down mash-up of "Circus" by Britney Spears and "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga. It's actually p dope man. Have you ever walked in on your friends having sex? YIKES no. Where do you find you take most of your naps? I nap in my bed. Do you like sleeping just wearing your underwear and a top? No. I had to do that once and I was SO uncomfortable. Are you named after a parent or grandparent? No. Who was the last person to ask you out? Girt. Do you have nice legs? No. Has a boyfriend’s brother ever hit on you? No. Do you have a nice butt? That's an even bigger "no." I have like, no ass lmao. What do you have a massive attraction towards? Some short Korean dude that is the literal avatar of "chaotic good" lmao. Have you ever made a sex tape? NOOOOOOO and I never will. How do you feel about your weight right now? I am immensely unhappy and just seriously depressed by it. Have your parents ever told you that you’re a disappointment? Oh my god, no. I would die. I feel like they think that, but they've never said or acted so. Do graveyards thrill or terrify you? They give me a feeling of peace, and I find them humbling as a tiny, mortal being that's only here for a flicker in time. They remind me to try and make use of that spark. What song’s your current favorite? I've really been digging "SAVIOR" by SWARM as of recently. Do you miss any of your exes? Yes. Did you ever take pottery class in high school? They didn't offer a course for specifically pottery; it was just included in Art. I made one or two things. Have you ever felt yourself fainting? A few times. Who’s the last boy to make you cry? Guess. His memory, anyway. Did he know that he made you cry? I honestly wonder what he'd think if he knew all these years later, I still have times where I cry over him. When’s the last time you felt like a total asshole? I don't really know. Has anyone ever threatened you? Yes. Would you ever own a rat? I've owned quite a lot. I LOVE rats, and a part of me wants another pair, but I'm just not a great owner of pets that require so much cleaning. Would you or do you ever spank your kids? NO. I will ALWAYS say this regarding this subject: you do not teach your children through fear, nor do you instill in them, deliberately or not, that it is okay to hit people when they upset you. Have you ever considered being a cop? Nope. What’s the longest amount of time you’ve ever kept a goldfish alive? Not long. Fish husbandry is more complicated than people make you think, so your ordinary fishbowl situation isn't going to work long. Have your parents ever questioned your virginity? My mother has. Dad has never said anything regarding this subject, thank god. That would be uncomfortable as shit. Have you ever spent over $100.00 on an article of clothing? What was it? Fuck no. Honestly, have you ever mooned or flashed somebody? No. Have you stayed up past 3 in the morning this week? Actually, yes. I pulled the first all-nighter in eons a few days back. What was on the last sandwich you had? Ham, cheese, and mustard. Do you own a trenchcoat? Bitch I wish. Name the hardiest piece of technology you own? Christ, my iPod that I've had since middle school. Seriously, a 4th gen. iPod Nano is still running, and I use it HEAVILY. I have no fucking clue how it's still alive. Tell me the last thing you searched on the internet? A definition just to make sure I was using it correctly. Are you currently in a smoking environment? Nooooo. Ma would never allow someone to smoke in here, and I honestly wouldn't either. Have you ever owned a tire swing? No. Have you ever taken care of a drunk friend? No. How about a hungover friend? No. What’s your opinion on people who go hunting for sport? You gross me out. (: Do you know anyone who can fluently speak more than two languages? No. Have you ever gone in a sauna? NOOOOOOOOOOOO. I would hate that SO much. What animal have you always wanted as a pet but couldn’t have? ALWAYS wanted? Probably a ferret. I don't actually want one now, but the idea is still nice to imagine. They're such characters. Is there any TV show that ended that you wish hadn’t? Ugggghhhh, Deadman Wonderland. It ended on SUCH a cliffhanger. I mean the manga continued, so I could've chosen to read that, but I don't read manga. Have you ever seen your parents drunk and what was your reaction? I saw my dad drunk all the time when I was younger because he was an alcoholic for as long as he lived with us. I knew he was either going to be hilarious or volatile and withdrawn. 50/50 chance. I've seen my mom drunk a couple times, and it was always surprising to me because she drinks very rarely. She's a very social and silly drunk, and it's a rare occasion where she seems happy. What’s your biggest body worry when you wear a bikini? Hunny, you would NOT see me in a bikini. Even if no one else was around, I wouldn't put one on. If you had the chance to redo high school knowing what you know now, how would you redo it? I think I probably wouldn't have dated Jason. Do you or anyone you know have an account on deviantART? I have for many, many years, and have friends that do, too. Do you get your eyebrows waxed? Not anymore. If you draw, what's one thing you always have trouble with? HANDS. Who was the first person you made out with, and where was it? Jason, in his bed. When was the last time someone said you were attractive? WOW, who the fuck even knows. Have you ever had to pretend you were sober, even though you were wasted? How did it turn out? No. Have you ever smoked at school? No. Have you ever thrown up from working out? No. Do you think machines will take over the world? I think it's a possibility. Technology keeps advancing faster and faster that I wouldn't be all that surprised if we design them to such an advanced state that they have some sort of sentience. Is the way you typically behave congruent with your ethnic background? What the ACTUAL fuck is this question. Literally fuck off. Have you ever lived in a brand new house? No. Has the last person you kissed met your father? Yes. What’s your favourite breed of dog? I have a strong bias for beagles. As far as visual appeal of breeds goes, I REALLY couldn't tell ya. There are so many beautiful dogs. Do you think more about the past, present or future? I'm pretty obsessed with the past. Do you swear in front of your parents? Dad, freely. Around Mom, I try not to say "fuck" or "goddamn" because she really doesn't like those. I still say some words, though. It's just pure habit. What’s something that’s bothering you? I've just been having envy problems lately, and it's not an emotion I'm used to or enjoy whatsoever. Have you ever been asked out by someone you didn’t want to date? Yeah. Did any particular thing brighten up your day today? Not really. Do you know who your latest ex is dating? Nobody. What are your plans for the weekend? My sister Katie and her husband are coming to visit, and we're probably driving up to a lake that Ash and her little family stay at all the time so Katie can meet the kids. But with that storm coming through, it's questionable if we'll actually go, because it's an hour drive. When were you last in a car? Earlier today to go to the TMS office. I officially start my tapering sessions, so I won't be going every day now. Have you cried today at all? No. Have you ever gone out in public in your pajamas? That is noooot rare, honestly. Depends on where I'm going. Have you ever had bronchitis? Nope. Think back to the last person you kissed, how many times have you cried in front of them? Twice, I wanna say? What do you want right this second? To actually have motivation to draw a picture I have planned. If you were offered to smoke some weed right now would you accept? No. If I weren't so opposed to smoking because of the lung damage I honestly would, though. I'm curious how it would affect my anxiety. Can you control your dreams if you realize you are dreaming? No. When was the last time you cried really hard? I'm really not sure. Do you think you can last for an hour without talking? Very, very easily. I probably do that on a daily basis. Do you know anyone else with your name? Yes, but spelled differently.

[jennacha]

here’s a big rant about The Child Thief

ok i have a big confession to make

I’m kind of obsessed with the book The Child Thief.

It’s not a particularly good book. In fact, I would go as far to say it’s poor. The writing has the cadence of 15-year-old-going-through-their-novelist-phase. I guess I could say it reads like fan fiction. The plot is very messy. The characters are badly written. It feels like a book that wasn’t edited. The word “magic” is used a lot, and it’s embarrassing. There’s a part where a character slams their fist on the ground and yells “WHY?!” and it’s embarrassing. The dialogue feels like it came out of a 1990s teen adventure fantasy movie trying to imitate the success of a Corey Feldman/Haim movie. Several times throughout the book the thought, “Why did the author do this?” popped in my head. However, the author is a fantasy illustrator, so the descriptive writing is a plus. He knows how to illustrate the landscape with words as well as he would in painting. The book is not a special unit dumpster fire piece of shit insult to literature; in fact, as far as I know a lot of people like it and it has gotten a decent amount of praise. It’s just not very good, in terms of the surface level writing. But I can easily see a lot of people enjoying it for basic entertainment value.

So that would be my YA-focus blog summary review of the book.

My public outcry summary review of the book is this:

I’m obsessed with the book because it’s so fucking weird.

It’s so fucking weird in that it’s a perfect shitstorm of the author not knowing what he’s doing, and thinking he’s knowing what he’s doing. Like a perfect bad B-movie that exhibits textbook schlock where the director is incompetent and clueless but lacks any self-awareness, in terms of style, layout, and production.

But also, the author thinks what he’s doing is…cool.

The book is about evil Peter Pan.

I could end this whole thing right there. But I must release these hounds. I’ve been needing to let all this out.

My wretched insanity craves affirmation.

This book should be a carbon copy of every other average to below average dark fantasy novel that you see on the bookstore shelves and never heard of and wonder what the author is doing now with all their not-fame. This book should be one that could’ve been written by anybody and it wouldn’t have made a difference. This book should be one of sixty million examples of nothing special. In a way, it is definitely 100% yes definitely yes all those things. The universe decided that I would be the bearer of the burden of having much stronger feelings about it then necessary. I probably feel more strongly about it than the author ever did. It is in my life now.

The biggest thing about this book being so fucking weird is the mind boggling tonal inconsistency. There are a number of shifts in universe-encompassing moods, which go from “Christopher-Nolan-but-also-kind-of-Stephanie-Meyer-dark-gloomy-the-world-is-unhappy-and-I-like-it-that-way”, to “David-Fincher-the-world-is-ACTUALLY-awful”, to “Oh-right-this-is-a-Peter-Pan-story-whimsical-fun-Goonies-meets-Disney-Channel-original”, to “A-worse-version-of-The-Hobbit-movies-with-some-redeeming-qualities”, to “Quentin-Tarantino-literally-wrote-this.” This isn’t hyperbole. The writing language can be REALLY EMBARRASSING and straight out of a Disney movie. That tone of a fun romp for the whole family is cradled by an abundance of swearing, unsettling fantasy-horror, and extreme, shocking violence.

You know when you’re watching Beetlejuice, and you’re like “Okay this movie is for children” and then out of nowhere Michael Keaton goes “NICE FUCKIN’ MODEL” and grabs his dick.

In The Child Thief, THAT washes over you every time you finish reading a sentence. Only, it’s as if you’re watching Hook, and at one point Robin Williams slices a person’s face off, and the camera stays on the faceless person for a minute and Steven Spielberg walks into frame and points to the gurgling faceless head and describes to you how you can still see the holes where the mouth, nose, and eyes were.

(Yes that actually happens in the book.)

Or if you’re watching Neverending Story and at one point you get expository dialogue explaining how Atreyu was pimped as a boy and had to live on the streets because his mother was, uh, a drug addict or something?. 

(That also happens.)

Or if you’re watching Indian in the Cupboard and the film opens with a little girl about to get raped by her dad.

(I’m serious.)

Or if you’re watching Hocus Pocus and Bette Midler is a vampire and she preys on a 6-year-old kid and neither of them have shirts on.

(I swear to god.)

Or if you’re reading a modern re-imagining of Peter Pan and the story involves blatant themes of gore in acute descriptive detail, mass murder, torture, and scenes with naked women and perverted fantasy-creature-men.

(Oh, wait.)

You’re probably thinking, “All those themes are found pretty much everywhere in every medium, especially the naked women and perverts. Big whoop.” I’ll add, then, all those themes, involving children.

Now you’re thinking, “Jenna don’t you love that movie Drag Me To Hell which involves a child being murdered within the first 2.5 minutes?”

Just hear me out and yes.

The Child Thief is entertaining in how CAPTIVATING the strangeness is. The tonal mishmash of kid-friendly meets rated-R is something I actually like, when it's a hit. I like things that have a quality of whimsy amidst dark themes. Movies such as Temple of Doom, Gremlins, Return to Oz, Darkman have this quality…basically almost every movie from the 1980s during the period when audiences had grown up with movies after censorship was abolished and half the world said “think of the children” and the other half said “no.” There are tons and tons of other examples in every medium of how general tonal contrast makes for unique and effective works of art. My point is, this specific type of tonal contrast also can be done well.

But those movies don’t open with attempted child rape, and they don’t end with children literally being mowed down in a grisly battle scene (I’m serious). I’m making a lot of comparisons to movies because the book almost feels like a movie, in that the author isn’t a novelist, he’s a visual story-maker who wrote a book because he knew that no movie studio would pick this shit up. Maybe the films I listed didn’t intend for tonal contrast to be a calculated driving element for their stories, but the subtlety of tones in those movies allows for one encompassing, harmonious tonal blanket to wrap them in. There is no subtlety in The Child Thief.

The tonal confusion of The Child Thief is, I almost wanna say coincidental. I think the author just didn’t know how to write well, but he’s a very dark visual guy and had all these dark visuals in his head ready to be unleashed. All the horrible violence and awful themes are fine in and of itself, but they aren’t earned if the attitude of “I’m gunna turn the children’s book foundation on its head” isn’t committed to, and “I’m gunna subvert everything you know and love about Peter Pan” isn’t calculatedly plotted out. The author has a bad sense of humor, a poor understanding of what is required of an epic storyline, and treats violence, horror and revenge less like a literary device and more like a fetishization of coolness in a vulgar display of power as a writer.

The misguidedness goes as far as the character writing. None of the characters’ motivations make sense. The author couldn’t keep track of either committing to one motivation or the other, a lot of the times for the sake of the plot. Especially with the Peter Pan character. He’s basically literally the anti-christ (this is 100% canon, if the author says it isn’t then he’s a liar and an idiot) and written like a “troubled villain” but then gets these VERY polarized directions of unrelenting psychopathic Cause It’s Die Motherfucka Die Motherfucka Still, Fool villainy and ham-fisted humanism and victimhood. It’s a case of like, the author meant for him to be the charming bad guy who tricks the audience into being on his side because that’s what Peter does to the characters in the book. But the author found him too cool and wanted to be his friend, but in order to justify being friends with a character who wants to murder everybody, he inappropriately gives him remorse and forces the reader to feel bad for him.

And like all the kids in the book are supposed to super love Peter Pan but the version of Neverland is like this horrific, NIGHTMARE HELL of a place and the kids are basically being used to fight in a war, and all the kids are totally okay with it, because their lives in the real world were really awful and the whole thing is that Peter “saves” them and they’ll do anything for him. And it’s like, okay???????????????????? But wouldn’t it be cooler if the kids were like okay this guy is a fucking psycho and Neverland is a horrific, nightmare hell and I’m learning a lot about myself right now having once trusted him???? And then in their retaliation Peter would show his true colors and enforce aggression onto them in serving as his personal enslaved militia? And it becomes like this inner circle of conflict? And since Peter is the only person who can bring them back to the real world, they play ball but hope to steer their own agenda out of the situation? OH, right, that DOES happen, but with ONE of the characters. ONE. Conveniently, the main character. And god knows there can’t be more than one smart human being at a time.

But if you want to SUBVERT the BELOVED CHILDREN’S STORY FORMAT wouldn’t it be fun to do PETER PAN VS. THE LOST BOYS? Instead of MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE PETER PAN AND THE HOT TOPIC LOST BOYS VS. THE ONLY SEMI-SMART MAIN CHARACTER? Like wouldn’t it be GREAT if the characters WEREN'T DUMB? And the author put in some CONSTRUCTIVE, CHALLENGING CREATIVE EFFORT and treated the interactions like a CHESS GAME instead of a CONTRIVED MISUNDERSTANDING BETWEEN JOEY, ROSS, CHANDLER, RACHEL, MONICA AND THE OTHER ONE? Wouldn’t it be GREAT if ALL THE CHARACTERS TURNED AGAINST PETER but then Peter SLOWLY CHARMED SOME OR ALL OF THEM BACK IN, to make him MORE like an UNEARTHLY MONSTER? Like the lost boys became SELF-AWARE LITERAL VICTIMS OF THE ORIGINAL TALE FORMAT, where Peter Pain is this IMPOSSIBLY CHARMING CHARACTER THAT IS BELOVED BY THE LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE? ALSO, the MAIN CHARACTER is supposed to be the MODEL OF REASON FOR THE READER TO RELATE TO, but the main character still gets CHARMED BY PETER PAN, WHILE WE KNOW AS RATIONAL ADULTS WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING TO HAPPEN? LIKE THAT’S SUPPOSED TO BE HOW READING BOOKS IS? When we KNOW WHAT’S GUNNA HAPPEN? BUT THE AUTHOR WANTS TO BE PETER’S FRIEND SO HE DOES IT ANYWAY? AND LIKE SEVERAL OTHER CHARACTERS THAT THE MAIN CHARACTER IS FRIENDS WITH ARE ALSO SUPPOSED TO BE FIGURES OF REASON BUT THEY’RE ALSO 100% PARTISAN IN SIDING WITH PETER? SO IT’S LIKE HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO LIKE ALL YOU DUMB, DUMB KIDS?

LIKE OKAY, SO HOW IT GOES IS THAT PETER CAN LIKE WALK ACROSS THE DIMENSION BETWEEN NEVERLAND AND THE REAL WORLD AND THAT'S HOW HE GETS THE KIDS? SO AT ONE POINT IN NEVERLAND THEY ALL HAVE TO SCAVENGE FOR FOOD BECAUSE THE VEGETATION IN NEVERLAND IS DYING, AND THEY MENTION HOW PETER USED TO BRING THEM FOOD FROM THE REAL WORLD? AND IT'S LIKE, HOW ABOUT YOU JUST KEEP DOING THAT? OR LIKE, WHY DON'T ANY OF YOU WANT TO JUST LEAVE? YEAH THE REAL WORLD SUCKS, BUT IS IT WORTH STARVING TO DEATH JUST SO YOU CAN STICK IT TO THE MAN? LIKE ARE THERE PEDIATRICIANS IN NEVERLAND? ARE THERE AT-RISK YOUTH SHELTERS? FOSTER CARE? NEVERLAND SOUP KITCHENS? NEVERLAND SOCIAL WORKERS? NEVERLAND CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES? NEVERLAND POLICE? NO? JUST MONSTERS THAT PAINFULLY KILL YOU, ZOMBIE PIRATES, NO FOOD, AND LITERALLY THE ANTI-CHRIST?

AND THEN THERE’S RIDICULOUS SHIT LIKE, AT ONE POINT ALL THESE MAGICAL FANTASY CHARACTERS HIJACK A NEW YORK CITY FERRY TO GET TO THE HARBOR AND IT’S LIKE, THIS IS SO RIDICULOUS IT SHOULD BE AWESOME, BUT IT ISN’T AWESOME BUT IT SHOULD BE SO WHY ISN’T IT?

AND LIKE ONE OF THE CHARACTERS IS A FAT USELESS KID NAMED DANNY AND THERE IS NO REASON FOR HIM TO BE IN THE BOOK BESIDES TO BE THE TOKEN FAT USELESS KID NAMED DANNY?

BUT DANNY IS LIKE ALSO THE ONLY OTHER SMART CHARACTER IN THE BOOK BECAUSE HE’S LIKE WHY DID I SAY YES TO THIS WHY ARE WE STILL FOLLOWING THIS GUY WHY DON’T WE JUST LEAVE AND IT’S LIKE YEAH PUT DANNY IN CHARGE BUT NOBODY LISTENS TO HIM AND HE’S JUST COMPLETELY UTTERLY USELESS?

AND THEN CAPTAIN HOOK ADOPTS DANNY AND IT’S LIKE OH MY GOD THE AUTHOR FORGOT HE NEEDED TO GIVE DANNY SOMETHING TO DO?

AND LIKE I DON’T EVEN REMEMBER THE MAIN CHARACTER’S NAME?

AND THEN AT THE END OF THE BOOK, SO, THERE’S THIS BIG HUGE BATTLE SCENE WHERE CHILDREN DIE LEFT AND RIGHT, LIKE THE “ANTAGONIST” (NOT PETER) HAS A HUGE SWORD AND IS SWINGING AT THE KIDS LIKE HE’S HARVESTING WHEAT, OH AND YEAH, BY THE WAY, AGAIN, THE REAL WORLD IS LOCATED IN NEW YORK CITY AND THE BATTLE HAPPENS ON LIKE THE FRONT LAWN OF A LIBRARY OR SOMETHING. LIKE THE STORY KIND OF TOTALLY GOES OFF THE RAILS INTO FANTASTIC SCHLOCK. AND AT ONE POINT THE BATTLE IS ABRUPTLY INTERRUPTED BY NYC POLICE AND IT’S LIKE ARE YOU SHITTING MY NUTS THE NYC COPS ARE INVOLVED IN THIS FANTASY BATTLE THIS IS AMAZING, BUT THEN THAT DOESN’T HAPPEN AND IT GOES NOWHERE. AND ALL THE MAIN CHARACTERS ARE DYING, AND NONE OF THEM HAD ARCS, LIKE NONE OF THEM REALIZED WHAT THEY GOT THEMSELVES INTO OR WHAT PETER REALLY WAS, AND AT THE ACT 3 POST-LOW POINT THE MAIN CHARACTER DIDN’T GO OFF TO DO HIS OWN THING AND TRY TO SAVE THE DAY, HE JUST GOES WITH PETER TO DO WHATEVER HE WANTS, AND THEN HIS ARC IS BASICALLY NOTHING AND THEN HE DIES. AND *PETER* WINS. AND AGAIN HE’S LITERALLY THE ANTI CHRIST SO THE BOOK ENDS WITH HIM BRIDGING THE REAL WORLD WITH NEVERLAND, AND BASICALLY BEING THE BRINGER OF HELL UNTO THE EARTH. AND UP UNTIL THEN THE BOOK HAD ABOUT 68 INSTANCES OF THE READER SWITCHING BETWEEN FEELING BAD FOR PETER AND THEN ACCEPTING THAT HE IS HITLER NURSE RATCHED MAO STALIN. SO WHEN ALL THE KIDS DIE, HE HAS A SCENE OF FEELING REALLY BAD AND THE READER IS SUPPOSED TO BE ALL LIKE AW HE REALLY DOES CARE! AND THEN NEVERLAND GETS BRIDGED INTO NEW YORK CITY, AND HE’S LIKE HA HA HA HA I DID IT I WON. BUT IT’S WRITTEN IN SUCH A WAY THAT LIKE, THE AUDIENCE IS SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE, WHEEEEEE! LIKE THIS THING THAT HAPPENED IS THE DOOM OF MANKIND, AND THE TONE SHOULD REALLY BE “OH GOD NO.” BUT THE AUTHOR WAS HAPPY THAT PETER WON IN THE END BECAUSE HE WANTS TO BE HIS FRIEND, EVEN THOUGH LIKE FIFTEEN PAGES AGO PETER CAUSED THE DEATH OF AN ARMY OF CHILDREN (AFTER ANOTHER 600 PAGES OF ALL KINDS OF OTHER AWFUL SHIT). SO NOT ONLY ARE WE SUPPOSED TO FEEL SAD THAT PETER FEELS SAD, BUT THEN WE’RE SUPPOSED TO FEEL HAPPY THAT PETER FEELS HAPPY. HOW ABOUT GO FUCK YOURSELF? HOW ABOUT IF YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE PETER A CHALLENGING UNRELIABLE ANTI-HERO, DON’T MAKE HIS DARK QUALITIES SO INCONTESTABLY EVIL, OR, EITHER CHOOSE TO MAKE PETER HATED BY THE AUDIENCE, OR MAKE THE AUDIENCE FEEL FOOLISH FOR BEING CHARMED BY PETER AND PARTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL THE BAD SHIT THAT HAPPENED AND GO FUCK YOURSELF?

...

I’ll give a different example of both tonal incongruence and bad character writing.

So, the opening scene of the book that involves attempted child rape, so. What happens is that Peter saves the little girl in time by killing the dad, and gains her trust to go to Neverland. The way the story regards the introduction to Peter is that of wonder and curiosity through the little girl’s eyes, as if it was derived from the original children’s tale. So the opener is meant to establish: a gritty “realness” to the book (which is never earned but i digress), and Peter as a mysterious magical hero. Then, the story carries on into describing Peter’s motivation in saving (the book uses “stealing”) children, which vaguely mentions his villainous indulgence (he’s saving children to recruit them in an army in Neverland to fight captain hook because his mommy is the president of neverland and there’s almost-Oedipal themes going on). Fine. However, the cadence of Peter actually being villainous is very very…undermined. Like the actual voice of the NARRATION is misinformed. Like the narration sounds more like Peter’s inner monologue speaking in the third person. Like the third person is in on it. Like the author is painting Peter as this wicked wrongdoer as if it’s a cool thing and he wants to be his friend (Oh wait).

This is how the voice of the opener is handled: Child rape —> Peter prevents child rape and saves child —> Peter is a good guy for doing this —> Peter is still a good guy for doing this but he did it maybe not for the right reasons. As it turns out, Peter is unquestionably the bad guy. Peter was the bad guy from the start, Peter was the bad guy while he was saving the little girl.

The rest of the book is handled like this: Peter is cool and badass  —> Peter is mischievous but still the person we want to follow —> Peter is a psycho...but still cool —> Oh shit Peter has a super awful past and his psycho-ness is the result of being a victim so I forgive him —> Wow Peter’s both a psycho and an asshole—> Okay I dunno about Peter —> The author keeps having Peter save people from being raped as if he’s not an asshole but he’s still a psycho and an asshole so I still don’t know —> The plot has a a lot of stuff so I guess I’m still with Peter —> Okay Peter won but everyone is dead because of him and he’s still an asshole so I still don’t know.

Peter tricks victims of rape, abuse, slavery, etc. into thinking they’re being saved when in fact he objectifies them for his personal needs. Remember how I said this book’s insane tonal confusion isn’t subtle? Well, from the book’s perspective, putting a finger on Peter’s good side and bad side...is subtle. Problematically subtle. Which, on a literary standpoint, sounds like a good thing, but...

This is the part when I say the thing you ACTUALLY SHOULDN’T BE SUBTLE ABOUT is PETER. You CAN be subtle about his tragic backstory. Be subtle about sprinkling his good qualities over his CAKE TOWER of BADNESS. Give him some KICK. Have the flavors INTERACT. Make the audience be like “OOOH, is that cumin?? Interesting! HMMMM! INTERESTING! CUMIN! ON DORITOS! YEAh I am definitely eating Doritos, this is absolutely Doritos, but there’s some CUMIN in there! Okay, back to eating my DORITOS! OOOOH, IS THAT CAYENNE?????” But whatever you do, make it CLEAR what you are SERVING. You should not have a MIXED BAG, a MEDLEY, and try to sell it like not-a-medley. You should NOT make half your plate super spicy and half your plate super sweet and make the audience roll the dice on each bite they take. Peter Pan isn’t some complexass Faustian character study, it’s SUBVERSIVE HYPERVIOLENT DARK FANTASY PORN. IT’S DORITOS

This is how the voice of the opener should've been handled: Child rape —> Peter prevents child rape and saves child —> Peter is the bad guy.

This is how the voice of the rest of the book should've been handled: No matter what happens —> Peter is the bad guy.

I don’t have and never will have the literary criticism credentials to say anything with credible boldness, but I’m going to say this anyway: Using child rape to force the reader to feel a certain way about the tone of the world and the first heroic impression of a character is wrong. Forcing an act of heroism (especially for you to then later say “Just kidding not the hero”) in that context is inappropriate and wrong. That’s like throwing 9/11 into the background of a love story to force the audience to feel extra emotional. 1) There are many, many, many, many ways you can establish “realness” in your opener with or without violence. I’m not saying there is a hierarchy of what kind of awful things involving children are okay to write about, but opening your story with attempted child rape is an unnecessary extreme if parts of your story reads like an episode of Saved By The Bell. Revenge alone isn’t cool. John Wick is cool because of the way revenge is handled. Writing about attempted child rape and then immediate revenge on the rapist is the Epipen-shot-to-the-brain method of forcibly getting your audience to go “I LIKE PETER!”, which isn’t at all earned and probably shouldn’t be in your story… 2) ESPECIALLY if you don’t simultaneously establish with slats nailed on a wall that Peter is the bad guy. The author basically deceived the audience into liking Peter in the worst way possible, ironically, which is what he had Peter do to the other characters. If you want to cleverly deceive the audience into liking Peter, do it through his dialogue, personality, the externalized product of the relationship between him and his environment. Be inventive about it. It’s a book. You got words. Use...words to your advantage. If you want to open your story with attempted child rape at the very least as a way to tell the audience this shit’s serious, don’t.

Just don’t. It’s fine.

The Child Thief can’t be pinned as So Bad It’s Good. It’s poor, but it’s not Tommy Wiseau-acclaim-bad. The only way I can describe it is So Disorderly It’s Weird. But it has potential for being SO Weird It’s Kind Of Genius. Which makes it So Almost SO Weird It’s Kind Of Genius It’s Frustrating.

The book’s biggest detriment is that it takes itself too seriously. The author’s motivating in writing the book (this is fact) was that he recognized that the beloved original tale of Peter Pan has a lot of dark elements, but continues to be celebrated as a children’s story. And he wanted to take that notion and run with it. What happened was that he selectively fell in love with elements of that concept, and instead of writing a story that was meant to pull the rug from under us, he ended up writing a run-of-the-mill edgy dark fantasy that he was obliged to pepper with Peter Pan references. Instead of pulling the entire rug beneath our feet and hauling us onto our asses, he took a small handful of rug here and there and just occasionally tugged at it roughly, so that we’d almost lose our balance and get annoyed and tell him to stop.

The book lacks its own conceptual self-awareness that it built for itself, and the result is two different bodies trying to be forcibly shoved into the same book-sized box, when it should’ve been a new gross, satirical, humorous, unique body entirely.

In that sense, I really think this book could’ve been truly unironically awesome. I love the idea of cartoonishly exaggerating the dark elements (especially the violence) of the original tale that have been culturally ignored, like a lot of (or most) (or all) old children’s tales. My ideal solution to this book would actually be making it even more ridiculous in every way, but strung together with self-awareness and intention, where the author could acknowledge that the absurdity is instrumental, not indulgent. There are many aspects of the book that I really like thematically, and none of them are fully (or at all) seen through to their potential. These ideas aren’t really intentionally presented in the book, but: I like the idea that Peter is a sadistic volatile killing machine because he’s cursed with being riiiiiight on the cusp of hitting puberty, and his body is trapped without that natural sexual/psychological release, turning him into an aggressive animal constantly teased by unfulfilled subconscious heat. I like the idea that the lost boys element would be subverted into an inevitable Lord of the Flies esque shitstorm. I like the idea that the danger and villainy are at first generalized in adults but eventually presented in the children. I like the idea that every single possible fucking thing in the world—both the real world (mostly nyc LoL!) and Neverland—are a threat and are actively trying to kill the children, and the children treat it like an adventure before the horror becomes real. I like the idea of illustrating the outcome of blindly following fun naive figures of leadership. There are even a number of character interaction scenes that I like format wise. Just minus the embarrassing dialogue. That stuff's easy to rewrite in your head as you read it. Also I would take out that part in the book that I described as Bette Midler not having a shirt on while preying on a 6 year old. That part was really fucking uncomfortable. Seriously wtf, Gerald Brom.

I must concede this notion: The writer didn’t set out to create a masterpiece. He wrote the book to have fun. He succeeded, and his readers expected the same thing and received the experience they wanted. Of all the things that could’ve landed in my hands and tickled me in a weird enough way to make me wish it was better, for some reason it had to be this.

I could keep going, but...eh, (sigh).

But lastly—again, the descriptive writing of the world is very lush, and at times effectively horrific. The reading experience is a constant stop and start call-and-response of really great potential, really clumsy writing, and really misunderstood tonal directions. All those things put this book directly on the edge of FRUSTRATING. Uniquely frustrating. It couldn’t have been salvaged by the hands of a more competent writer, because the product came to light specifically out of the author’s unintentional confusion, not his laziness. A lazy product with potential can be salvaged through additions and tweaks, but The Child Thief cannot because the story was seen through the way it existed in the author’s head and heart. It is exactly what it...is. It can’t be imitated, or inspired by, or re-re-imagined. This weirdass fucking book is just sitting on this planet, being read by people, and shit. 

…..Anyway. This was all just meant to be the caption for my fan art. http://jennacha.tumblr.com/post/172559227502/i-made-fan-art-of-a-book-i-both-love-and-hate-lol