#the show has just started and it’s already fantastic

[monstersflashlight]

Christmas special: Santa is coming tonight

A/N: Merry Christmas to everyone celebrating! Hope Santa was good with his presents… As good as he is in this story. Here I describe Santa as something akin to a demon, and has magic, just to make it make a bit more sense. Enjoy!

Santa (monster) x fem!reader || (very light) dom/sub, (light) marking, oral sex, breeding, size kink, mentions of body modification, magic sex (?)

When you started dating Santa, you expected a lot of things, but him being an absolute himbo wasn’t one of them.

He wasn’t only a himbo, but also incredibly clumsy, to the point that on your first date he accidentally tripped and send your food (and his) to the ground. Along with the broken pieces of the table and the chair he fell onto. Having incredible strength and a body as big as a wall is not great when you have no control over them, apparently.

He was so lucky the elves had everything controlled and he only needed to show up on the big day and do the things… He wouldn't be able to do shit if it was all his responsibility. And well, you didn’t mind it. You didn’t mind it at all. It made you hot all over that he was so incredibly stupid, but also so incredibly hot.

He was pretty clear since the begging that he was in for all, that he not only wanted to date you, but he wanted to marry you and turn you into a magical being just as he was. So who could have blamed you for running away? That was insane to say to somebody you barely knew.

But you should have known better. He was magic after all…

Also, his dick was so good you could accept everything he said if he asked while he was buried deep inside. You were a simple girl after all: he gave you a good (incredible, fantastic, phenomenal… and all the good adjectives possible) dicking, and you accepted his marriage proposal. It was a good pact, you got good dick and a loving husband, and he got a wife to adore. Perfect combination.

And what you loved most about him… what how crazy he got after Christmas Night.

It was like all the adrenaline and magic high made his body bigger, stronger, harder… And he used it to his advantage, and you… you enjoyed it more than anything.

And this year wasn’t different.

He came home to find you in your prettiest, skimpiest lingerie, the one you made the elves made for you and hugged your curves in the best way possible. In a way that made your boobs stand to attention as your body tingled with anticipation when the siren alerting everyone of his arrival started ringing.

He walked into your room with his face sweaty, his red suit half undone and looking so hot you were salivating. It only took one look at you in your flimsy clothes for him to turn into the demon he was inside. He growled, his fangs elongating and his skin turning the prettiest pattern of red and white. He looked a bit like a candy cane when he got aroused, and weirdly enough, you dig it.

You stared at him as he crossed the room in less than three steps, grabbing you by the hips and hoisting you up until your legs were wrapped around his middle and his hands were groping your ass. He devoured your mouth like a starving man, grunting and scratching your lips with the force of the kiss.

His hands were all over, probing and pinching, groping and caressing until you were a mess of moans and groans on his arms and you could feel his big… Christmas present pressing against your ass. His hand found your pussy over the lace, rubbing against your needy clit, praising you about how wet you were for him already.

He was kissing your neck when he whispered: “You’ve been so good, Santa is coming twice tonight”.

You stared at his bearded face and extended canines, dumbfounded by the stupidest line he ever said to you. And then you busted out laughing. “You did- you did not say that,” you let out, still laughing. To the point where your eyes were teary and your face was probably as red as he was.

“What?” He asked, completely confused at the change in the mood.

That made your amusement die down a bit, only chuckling as you explained. “Honey, I love you dearly, but you can’t say shit like that when you are touching my pussy, it throws the whole mood off.” He looked like a kicked puppy and you couldn’t have that. You hated when he looked like that.

You pulled him down by his hair, making him groan when you claimed his mouth in a possessive kiss, trying to make everything better. He grunted against your lips, and bite down on your lower lip, drawing a bit of blood. That always drove him crazy, and this time wasn’t different.

He pulled back and roared, pushing you back to the mattress and ripping your clothes off, snapping his fingers to make his own suit disappear. (You asked once why he didn’t do that with your clothes and he simply said he liked to rip them out, and you couldn’t argue with that logic).

A blink later, you were laying on the bed, your legs pushed far apart as he drove for your pussy with hunger. He licked and sucked until you were chanting his name, just to push two of his too big fingers inside your tight hole. It was too much, too soon, but it felt so great you couldn’t stop moaning. He grunted against your vulnerable flesh when you started moving your hips, using his nose and his mouth as you pleased, your fingers pulling at his hair in a way that you knew turned him on.

“Just like that, use me for your pleasure, make yourself come, my love,” he whispered inside your head, his voice reverberating inside your brain and making you let out a startled noise. He pulled back for a second, smirking at you with his fangs out before pushing a third and fourth finger inside your pussy.

“Santa, fuck. Klaus!” You screamed as your orgasm took you by surprise, rushing over you like a tidal wave as he rode it with you.

When you came back to your senses, he was over you, holding his weight on his hands, caging your body against the mattress and making you want to bite down on his hard muscles. You did, because you could, causing him to curse and push forward, the tip of his huge dick breaching your already stretched hole.

He cursed some more as he took his time bottoming out. You never got used to how big he was, how wide he stretched you and how deep you could feel him. You knew he must use some kind of magic, because there was no way your human body could take that much dick without permanent damage, but he never said so, and you like it that way. You liked that he used magic on you, that he made your pussy so perfect for himself it drove him crazy every time you two fucked.

He gave you a couple minutes to adjust, breathing hard over you, kissing every piece of skin he could reach until you were giggling and rolling your hips, urging him to move.

And good goddess did he move.

He set a punishing pace, treating you like the naughtiest of girls as he fucked you into oblivion. He moved your legs over his shoulders, fucking you deeper and harder as his thumb found your clit. He pressed down with his palm at the same time he pushed up his dick, the pressure was so intense and so pleasurable you couldn’t hold back a second orgasm, closing your eyes and arching your back as you came messily around his dick.

“Fuck,” he roared. His head thrown back, his white hair hanging over his shoulders and making him look almost ethereal as the tendons in his neck tensed and he let out the loudest cry of pleasure known to man. You bet every part of the North Pole heard him, but you didn’t care at all because he wasn’t stopping.

He fucked you full until you felt his release gushing around his dick. With each thrust you could feel the mixture of juices coming out around his length. It was filthy, it was exhilarating, and it sent you over the edge once again.

He pressed his chest again your back and asked: “I told you I was coming twice, didn’t I?” You groaned and he turned you into your front, fucking you from behind. “By the time the night is over, you are going to get more than one present from Santa,” he promised.

If you weren’t dumb with pleasure and post-orgasm bliss, you might have laughed again, but your brain was too empty to process his words. You could only process the way his hips were bouncing against your ass cheeks, the clap clap sound sending you into oblivion.

Your arms and legs couldn’t hold your weight any longer, so you were flat against the mattress as he rutted his hips against your stretched hole. You could hear the way his come was leaking out as he fucked it back in. It was filthy in the best possible way and your body was reacting to it.

You were so close to another orgasm, your body trembling. And when he pulled you up by your hips, the angle hit you in the best way possible, his dick rubbing against your G-spot as he pounded your pussy until you were drooling over the sheets in pleasure and he was chanting your name like a prayer.

You screamed his name until you were hoarse, and he kept fucking you. He fucked two more orgasms out of you, your body sagging against him, trusting him to take care of every part of you as he pounded into your welcoming heat over and over.

“I’m going to fuck you until you don’t know your own name,” he grunted, accelerating his pace until his hips were barely a blur and your body was trembling with the force of his thrusts. It was the best experience of your life. “Your pussy is so greedy, it won’t stop swallowing me in, clenching over my length… How eager,” his words weren’t even for you, he was talking to himself, but it made your eyes roll back into your head as you orgasmed again, whispering his name because your throat was too sore to scream anymore.

Your orgasm sent him over the edge, and he pushed all his weight over you as he came and came and came. He filled you until you couldn’t hold it in anymore, his come dripping around his shaft inside of you, making a mess of your pussy and the sheets. But you didn’t care. You couldn’t care. You only had thoughts about how good it felt, how full you were and how fucking much you loved every second of it.

And how you couldn’t wait till next year to do it again.

[funhouse-mirror-barbie]

Alright I gotta talk about this one too.

I already went over the changes made from the storyboards of Octavia’s song, I Will Be Okay, to the show proper. Well, there were also storyboards of Octavia’s confrontation with Stolas at the palace.

I made the mistake of not crediting the storyboard artist in my first post—the sequence I’ll be taking about was boarded by Sophia Magallanes Morales, a phenomenal artist who also did I Will Be Okay’s storyboards.

I wanted to talk about Sophia’s storyboards for when Octavia goes no contact with Stolas because they are, in my opinion, leagues better than what was in the actual episode. I think a LOT was lost from the decision to cut parts of her storyboards, and to go over it, because I really think it’s shame.

We can actually see this change in quality within the first few seconds of the final scene in the show as opposed to the boards:

Right after the fight, Stolas runs to Via. He quickly catches up to her as she walks away, and tells her how proud he is of her and pulls her into a hug. We can tell Stolas is concerned about her and eager to get back in touch.

Now let’s look at Sophia’s boards (comparison continues below)

This scene has so, so much more tension and emotional weight to it. We see exactly how desperate Stolas is to get in contact with Octavia, how in this moment he needs to catch up with her, how urgently he needs to let her know how proud he is and how much he loves her.

He runs so fast that he almost stumbles and falls, so fast that once he does finally catch up to her he has to stop for a moment to catch his breath.

And then he pulls her into a tight hug and we actually get to see his joy at reconnecting with her. We see how proud he is of her. He’s so proud that he has a hard time expressing it first, staring with “I—“ and then just starts over telling her how brave she’s been.

These boards also give us Octavia’s reactions. We see her after the fight staring solemnly in her father’s direction, before she slowly turns away. She doesn’t react to Stolas calling out to her, ignoring him. Once Stolas finally catches her though, she turns back to him slowly, and we can see in her reaction that she is definitely dealing with a lot of feelings.

Sophia is excellent at conveying complex emotions through characters expressions. To me, Octavia expression shows her hurt at Stolas�� neglect, her disbelief that he actually came after her, her confusion as to why he suddenly acting like he cares about her now, her fear that he’ll lie to her again. I think it shows us SO MUCH about what she’s feeling in just a few frames, and that is amazing.

Compared to the final episode, I get so much more information about what Stolas and Octavia are feeling in this moment! The boards show their perspectives on what’s just happened, it shows their current states of mind given the events of the episode!

The direction and movement of the boards are also fantastic, I can tell that Octavia feels forlorn and is tired and done with waiting for Stolas to care about her. I can tell that Stolas is prioritizing Octavia above all else in this moment, that he may regret how long it’s taken him to get to her, how overjoyed and relieved he is to hug her again.

Of course these are only MY interpretations, but regardless there is so much more expression and emotional tension in the boards, as opposed to the final episode where Stolas catches up to Octavia quickly and immediately hugs her while saying he’s proud of her.

In both versions this scene is only a few seconds, but the boards just have so much more depth and in my opinion make for a much, much more impactful scene.

I have NO idea why they chose to cut these storyboards so the way they did. The only reasons that make sense to me would be due to time and budget, and if so it really sucks that we had to lose such a powerful scene.

I think I’ll be making more posts comparing this scene’s storyboards to the final episode because Spindlehorse cut so much of Sophia’s boards, and it not only makes me sad, but also makes me wonder what other emotionally engaging Helluva Boss scenes we’ve lost.

It’s just a real shame.

Again, I’m not saying the final animated episode looks bad. The animation is still stellar! The animators did a great job! I just think it’s a waste to have cut so much out of these scenes.

[boredlore]

I know this has already been said but PEOPLE ARE ALLOWED TO BE CRITICAL OF SEASON TWO OF ARCANE.

Listen, I love Arcane. Season 1 was beautifully written. The acting and animation is nothing short of epic across both seasons and the soundtrack is fantastic. But I don’t think Season 2 was as well written as Season 1.

I wasn’t expecting a happy ending and I don’t think anyone was. But I was expecting a more satisfying ending, for all of the characters.

In S1 most of the plot was the direct result of choices the characters made. And we could understand the rationale behind those choices and even minor characters like Marcus felt fleshed out. That complexity was missing from several S2 characters, ESPECIALLY Caitlyn’s task force. Maddie was Just a turncoat when Marcus’ motivation for his betrayal was clear. He wanted to climb the ranks and then he got stuck serving a kingpin to protect his daughter. Maddie is just a bad person.

And before anyone starts shouting about media literacy and analyzing the visuals given to us: I watched the show, I analyzed the visuals and I have been thinking about it for weeks. The thing is, in good writing, a character’s motivation should be clear from the first watch. Marcus’ cowardice wasn’t told to us by some obscure blink and you miss it background detail, it was an integral part of the story.

Loris was another character I wish we had gotten to know better beyond being Vi’s friend who shows up sometimes. His death should have hit so much harder but we knew next to nothing about him.

This season felt like a lot of the characters were being pushed around by the plot instead of actively influencing it. The characters that were supposed to seem powerful, didn’t because they lacked the agency season 1 characters had.

Season 2 wasn’t a bad season but I don’t think it measured up to the bar that season 1 set. Act 1 of season two felt the most like the Arcane I fell in love with.

[choosingwhatmatters]

Music in The Loyal Pin, Episode 2

Welcome back to my music rambles. Y’all, thank you so much for your kind words! I am enjoying this show so much and sharing thoughts with you makes the whole experience infinitely better.

So, I unknowingly lied to you in my last post, and I am sorry. I claimed that there was little repetition in the music in episode 1. The truth is that I just didn’t notice. I have since done my homework and I am blown away by how much depth the music has. There are so many different motives and themes, and I am beyond excited where the music leads us in future episodes. Today, I would like to talk about two pieces. I call the first one “Pin and Anil’s past” and the second one “Pin’s heavy heart”.

Pin and Anil’s past

I talked about this piece in my last post and speculated that could be connected to childhood and adolescence. It sounds a little bit likes this:

After revisiting the episodes, I realised that we have two different motifs here. My theory is that the first represents Pin and the second one Anil. We can hear the first in the beginning of the recording. It is comprised of long notes that descend and then climb up again. It’s gentle and a little melancholic. When it repeats, it is joined by the second motive. This one features shorter note values and is more playful. As different as they are, they’re beautiful together and oh, if that isn’t telling us something.

The first motif is usually connected to Pin. It appears in a lot of scenes, among them the following: Small Pin exits the car in the very beginning of episode 1. Patt embraces her after promising to take care of her. Small Pin meets Small Anil for the first time and, later in the episode, Medium Anil discovers her pinwheel in Medium Pin’s room. During the voice-over after the opening credits, Medium Pin introduces the royal family. After the night market, Medium Pin gets scolded by Patt and Anil defends her. In episode 2, Medium/Adult Pin remembers how Medium Anil showed her the designs for her small palace.

The second motif, that in my theory belongs to Anil’s past, is not featured as heavily as Pin’s. We can hear it in episode 1, together with Pin’s motive when Small Pin and Anil meet for the first time and, again, when Medium Anil discovers her pinwheel. In episode 2, the melody changes slightly, but it's still very similar to its origin. We can hear it when Medium Anil cries on her letter to Pin and, most notably, at the very end of the episode. Prik has just uttered Anil’s name, Pin looks up, and there Anil is: smiling and beautiful. The costumary cheeky glockenspiel playing her melody is now accompanied by a whole orchestra. This is a new Anil: grown up, beaming, majestic.

Pin’s heavy heart

The second piece I want to talk about today sounds somewhat like this.

It’s not 100% of what is played in the show, but the melodies as well as the harmonies should be similar enough the recognise, should we hear them again.

This piece is very melancholic, and I want to talk about two musical concepts to explain why: major and minor harmonies, as well as suspended notes. Major and minor harmonies first. So, a chord in its basic form is comprised of three notes: first note, third note and fifth note. The third is a very powerful one because it determines the mood of the chord. If we have a minor third (three half tones away from the first), the chord tends to sound wistful and melancholic. If we have a major third (four half tones away from the first), the chord tends to sound more cheerful. In the beginning of the piece, we can hear the melody swing between to different notes a lot, g sharp and b. These are a minor third away from each other and thus, evoke the sombreness of a minor chord.

The second thing I’d like to talk about is suspension. Suspension means that there is one note that our ears want the melody to go to. But before going there, the melody lands on a note that is achingly close to the one we want to hear. It’s so close that it feels like a little stab to the heart that is then soothed by the arrival of the actual note that we want. In our piece, suspension happens when the melody starts from its lowest note and climbs up again. If you want to listen out for it: there are two notes that are repeated before being suspended by a higher note.

I call this piece “Pin’s heavy heart” because we can often hear it in scenes when Pin is sad, most notably the following: After being bitten by the snake, Medium Anil tries to stop Pin’s punishment. While eating cotton candy, the Medium girls talk about what life would be like if Anil had to go away. After the night market, Medium Pin realises that Anil is serious about being punished together. In episode 2, Medium Pin gets told by Patt that Anil is to leave within the next two weeks. In Medium Anil’s memory, Medium Pin is carving a mango after a bad exam. At the waterside, the Medium girls are about to float their Krathong.

There are three more instances where we can hear variations of the piece: Medium Anil is preparing for her trip and the girls don’t meet at all. After floating the Krathong, Medium Pin is crying. And, lastly, Medium Pin puts Anil’s picture next to her on the bed.

I adore this piece of music. The melody is quiet yet haunting which I think suits Pin’s character well. And it’s not that I enjoy seeing Pin sad but oh, I’m looking forward to seeing her happy again.

That’s it for my music rambles today. Thank you for riding along! I still find it hard to put into words how much it means to me to have this show in my life, as well as humans that are as invested in it as I am. What a life!

[jakowskis]

"i hated owen for all/most of s1 i only started liking him in s2" weak. i liked owen since he got choked against a wall by an angry woman and then told her he wanted to shag her immediately afterwards. and then even more when he spent ep3 trying to intimidate and murder a rapist

[ivoryratdoggerythethird]

"princess...my valiant daughter..." SHUT UP SHUT THE FUCK UP I AM NOT WELL.

[iamthedukeofurl]

Scott Pilgrim is, I think, the best example I can think of for establishing a setting's Nonsense Limit. The setting's Nonsense Limit isn't quite "How high-fantasy is this". It's mostly a question of presentation, to what degree does the audience feel that they know the rules the world operates by, such that they are primed to accept a random new element being introduced. A setting with a Nonsense Limit of 0 is, like, an everyday story. Something larger than life, but theoretically taking place in our world, like your standard spy thriller action movie has a limit of 1. Some sort of hidden world urban fantasy with wizards and stuff operating in secret has a nonsense limit around 3 or 4. A Superhero setting, presenting an alternate version of our world, is a 5 or 6. High fantasy comes in around a 7 or so, "Oh yeah, Wizards exist and they can do crazy stuff" is pretty commonly accepted. Scott Pilgrim comes in at a 10. If you read the Scott Pilgrim book, it starts off looking like a purely mundane slice of life. The first hint at the fantastical is Ramona appearing repeatedly in Scott's Dreams, and then later showing up in real life. When we finally get an explanation, it's this:

Apparently Subspace Highways are a thing? And they go through people's heads? And Ramona treats this like it's obscure, but not secret knowledge. Ramona doesn't think she's doing anything weird here. At this point, it's not clear if Scott is accepting Ramona's explanation or not, things kind of move on as mundane as ever until their Date, when Ramona takes Scott through subspace, and he doesn't act like his world was just blown open or anything, although I guess that could have been a metaphor. there's a couple other moments, but everything with Ramona could be a metaphor, or Scott not recognizing what's going on. Maybe Ramona is uniquely fantastical in this otherwise normal world. And then, this happens

Suddenly, a fantastical element (A shitty local indie band finishing their set with a song that knocks out most of the audience) is introduced unrelated to Ramona, and undeniably literal. We see the crowd knocked out by Crash and The Boys. but the story doesn't linger on the implications of that, the whole point of that sequence is to raise the Nonsense Level, such that you accept it when This happens

Matthew Patel comes flying down onto the stage, Scott, who until this point is presented as a terrible person and a loser, but otherwise is extremely ordinary, proceeds to flawlessly block and counter him before doing a 64-hit air juggle combo. Scott's friends treat this like Scott is showing off a mildly interesting party trick, like being really good at darts. The establish that Scott is the "Best Fighter in the Province", not only are street-fighter battles a thing, Scott is Very Good at it, but they're so unimportant that being the best fighter in the province doesn't make Scott NOT a loser. So when Matthew Patel shows off his magic powers and then explodes into a pile of coins, we've established "Oh, this is how silly the setting gets". It's not about establishing the RULES of the setting so much as it is about establishing a lack of rules. Scott's skill at street-fighter battles doesn't translate to any sort of social prestige. Ramona can access Subspace Highways and she uses it to do a basic delivery job. It doesn't make sense and it's clear that it's not supposed to. So later on, when Todd Ingram starts throwing around telekinesis, and the explanation we're given is "He's a Vegan" , you're already so primed by the mixture of weirdness and mundanity that rather than trying to incorporate this new knowledge into any sort of coherent setting ruleset, you just go "Ah, yeah, Vegans".

[fable-x4]

Doing this because it makes me happy •Ꮂ•. Im making it difficult on all of you though.

1 note- I'll go drink water

10 notes - I'll set alarms to actually care for myself

50 notes - set up a daily productivity system so I stop wasting my time doing nothing.

100 notes - ask my friends to help me buy a skirt

500 notes - get a bra & a whole bunch of other affirming clothing !!!

1k - tell my dad that my gf is also trans

2.5k - ask my dad to address me by my prefferred name & pronouns 1k went pretty poorly, so I dont feel super comfortable making an attempt on this.

5k - try to get therapy/psychologist

10k - girl mode at all times (start actively wearing makeup/clothing/doing voice training around people at all times)

50k - try for HRT (0% chance) (also no guarantee on this one)

Asfgg. It feels surprisingly good to have a bunch of strangers who want me to be happy

I have now set up alarms for eating, waking up, and hygene related stuff. I seriously doubt we get to 500, but this has made me significantly happier •Ꮂ•

Doing some math... 25 notes in 4 hours. 6.25 notes per hour. 8000 hours or 333 days until this hits 50k. Hrt in a year ig.

Um. Wow. Its been a day, and we're almost at 300. Everything 500 & below was supposed to be things I'd do with minimal intervention. But now, we're getting to the scarier stuff. I am very intimidated, but also excited

My gf really badly wanted to be here when I buy some of the clothing, so the skirt will be this week, the rest of the clothing will be when she comes back from vacation

Saying that you're force femming me is so not allowed. This is unfair. You have no right to make me feel the ways Im feelingggg. Stop making me happy.

Welp. I told him about my girlfriend. And things went about as poorly as expected. He said that Im parroting what other people think. Slowly taking little parts of them, and applying them to myself. Specifically, being trans. He didnt even leave it to maybes. He said with certainty that I was copying everyone else. I know 9 trans people total. Only 2 of them are my close friends. Everyone else, Im barely aquaintences with. I should have told him that regardless of whatever theories he has, this has boosted my confidence massively. Slightly less excited for 2.5k notes. At least everything after that is very positive. And at least this lets me talk about my girlfriend for ages. I dont have to say her deadname through gritted teeth. Oh context. He already knows Im trans but was ignoring it.

I GOT A SKIRT!!!!!

Thank all of you so much. At first when I got the skirt, I was pretty intimidated by the idea of showing my legs. I thought everyone will just see me as a man. But there's a degree of confidence you all have given me. Yeah. Im pretty. Yeah, Im beautiful even. Yeah. Its a friggin fantastic skirt. And anyone who thinks otherwise is dumb. Im happy, and thats what matters.

[ozzgin]

Pyramid Head x Reader

Featuring Pyramid Head and a reader with amnesia lost in Silent Hill. This is Pyramid Head as originally intended for Silent Hill 2, so expect a lot of game-based immersion. Warning: NSFW, dubious/non-consent, violence, gore

[Horror Masterlist]

"Oh, for fuck's sake!"

You grunt and slap the wheel, hoping your defiant act of violence will somehow convince the car engine to start again. It remains quiet. You run a hand through your hair and sigh. The palm is mildly sticky with moisture and you realize you've been sweating a fair amount. No wonder, you're stuck in this shithole. You couldn't see a damn thing ahead with all this fog. The only discernible object was a rusty, run-down sign showing "Silent Hill". You've never heard the name before, but reading the letters and allowing the words to escape your lips has brought you an unexpected wave of panic. You quickly began hyperventilating and your arms involuntarily twitched and twisted, pulling the wheel of the car along with them and causing the car to swerve into a street barrier. And now it refuses to turn back on. Fantastic. 

You hesitantly grab the door handle. After a deep breath in, you open the door and step out. Given the car crashed sideways, you can no longer tell which way is back and which way is forward. You can only see the first few inches of the barrier in both directions, but everything else vanishes under the thick clouds of mist. You rub your temples, becoming increasingly upset with yourself.  What were you even doing, driving all the way to-

Wait. Where were you going in the first place? You recall leaving from...home? But where is that supposed to be? No, don't do this. Not now. You walk back to the car and open the glove compartment, angrily pulling out a thick stack of documents and spreading them out onto the chair. You scan over them, growing more impatient. You don't recognize anything. The names and words and addresses don't hold any meaning. You glance up to the rear-view mirror in an attempt to detect some trail of blood seeping from your scalp, as a concussion might explain your sudden memory loss, but your appearance is fresh. Almost as if you didn't just crash your car in a strange place in utter confusion. 

You check your phone. Even if you can't remember, there has to be someone in your contacts that will come to your aid. The screen glitches briefly when you unlock it and the menu is empty. No contacts, no messages, no apps. No matter, emergency will do. You type in the digits and lift the phone to your head, but quickly remove it when loud static assaults your eardrums. Why is nothing working properly? You're tempted to just slam the junk into the pavement, but find enough composure to stuff it back in the pocket for now. 

All that's left to do now is to find another human. You begin walking. The road has to lead somewhere, that's for certain. And soon enough the barrier is replaced with a different kind of fencing that you use as guidance. It seems to be a small bridge. Just a few steps further and you discover the first signs of modern, populated world: a bus stop. Behind the waiting bench is a brief map of the area and you trace the plaque with your fingers, mumbling the path to yourself. "Now let's see...This is Nathan Avenue...Rosewater Park ahead...Ah, the Silent Hill Fire Station should be very close."

You can't wait to be done with this mess. They'll call for a tow truck and get you out of here. You almost sprint to the next block, expectantly. In fact, you can already spot someone right outside the building. 

"Thank God! Listen, my car broke down before the bridge. My stupid phone is also...huh." 

Just as you mention it, the same static as previously erupts from the speaker. You're startled and fumble for your phone. You're about to apologize to the person in front of you, but upon lifting your gaze you instantly stop in your tracks. 

'Person' is a strong word for it. It resembles one, or maybe it was one long ago. What's crawling towards you, however, is not how you'd define it. The arms are melted into the torso, mimicking a straight jacket of skin. The bony, crooked legs are dragging themselves in an unnatural, unnerving way. The creature has no face, save for a gaping hole, a bizarre cavity deforming what should be a head. Your mouth grimaces with disgust, followed by fear. Terror. You have the choice of returning to your damaged car, or attempting to find actual help deeper into the town. You run ahead, praying that someone's out there. The dissonant sound of a siren can be heard, diffused into the persistent fog.  

By the time you reach the next building, you're gasping for air. You didn't expect to run this far. You went all the way around Toluca lake, avoiding the side streets. The center was swarming with those abominations. Each turn and each corner would eventually reveal its revolting murmur, that pathetic shuffle of disfigured limbs. Thankfully they're not fast, nor smart. A little distance and they lose their interest to pursue you. You fall against the brick wall of this small house and read the poster. "Silent Hill Historical Society". Doesn't look too promising, but it's surprisingly devoid of any monstrous being. At this point you'd be more grateful for emptiness. It's safer. 

You tiptoe your way in, wary of potential attackers. There's a faint buzz echoing from afar, but other than that no immediate danger. You examine the lobby and notice the paintings and old photos hanging from the decaying wallpaper. It smells slightly rotten. One of the art pieces catches your attention and you stop in front of it. "Misty Day, Remains of Judgement". 

The abstract character depicted on canvas reminds you of an executioner. The more you stare, the clearer you can feel some kind of guilt knotting inside your stomach. Your shoulders are heavy and you're overwhelmed by the same anxiety of a child about to be punished. Awaiting the belt. The calloused hand of an unforgiving father. Your throat is dry.

Your musings are interrupted by the static that - as you've since learned - warns you of approaching creatures. The rooms are cramped and the walls are narrow and you dislike the idea of calculating your escape within this claustrophobic maze, but it's preferable to being dead. You jog along slithering paths, unsure of where they lead. The threatening turbulence of your phone goes up and down, like a sine wave, with each turn into uncharted territory. In your frantic efforts to flee you don't see the large hole blocking your way, or at least not fast enough. By the time you figure out the outlines of this pitch black well, you're flooded with the light sensation of gravitational force, stretching and compressing your innards as you fall. Is this how you end?

It's not so easy. 

As soon as you open your eyes, a burning pain metastasizes through the head, digging deep into your brain. You grab onto your scalp and press your fingers over the skin, hoping for a small relief. In your debilitating migraine you don't hear the agitated flutter of limbs. They're minuscule, but so many. Thousands of sclerotized joints frothing around your limp form. You lift yourself off the rusted ground and yelp voiceless at the sight. Cockroaches. The pile of vermin lets out a deafening, high pitched screech with every movement. You drag your elbows in an attempt to get away, but the creepers almost ignore your existence. They seem to be running away from something, retreating in masses.

You don't have to wait long in order to witness their source of fear. Heavy footsteps, muffled by the grating friction of metal against metal. A corroded stench invades your lungs and you cough. Whatever is coming has instilled the utmost dread in your very bones. You want to get up and run, until your legs give up and your body collapses of exhaustion, but your limbs are petrified in panic. Your chest constricts and throbs, as if your heart is trashing to escape this prison condemned to unknown doom. 

Finally, the fiend comes into view. A tall, large man wearing a leather apron layered with grime and encrusted blood. His skin is scarred and discolored, and a bulky, dense pyramid structure rests on his broad shoulders, concealing his face. He seems to be dragging along a great knife of sorts, although on closer inspection it looks like a halved pair of oversized scissors. The edge is dulled and has splattered visceral leftovers mattifying its surface. You remember the painting you've seen upstairs. Is this what it is? Your Retribution? 

You lower yourself until your forehead touches the rusty floor. Like an animal awaiting to receive the final blow from its hunter, like a prisoner resigning to his fate under the guillotine. If only matters could be dealt with so simply! Your neck is clawed into a tight hold by the large gloved hand and you're crudely pulled back up so that you can properly face your Punisher. There's a vague grunt coming from underneath his bizarre helmet. 

He carries you to the nearest wall and slams you against it. The great knife drops to the floor with a loud crash, and the other hand, now freed, begins to search your lower clothing. You can feel the seams of the garments tear and snap with no resistance. You want to vocalize a protest, but your throat is crushed under the forceful pressure of his clasp. At best, you can exhale in what sounds like a whispered wail. His apron is nonchalantly flipped to the side and your thigh lifted over his forearm, so that his hand can adjust itself securely under your bottom for support.

Abruptly, a prickling ache crosses your entire body as if you've just been split in two. Tears automatically begin forming in the corner of your eyes and spill down your cheeks and over the pyramid that's now pressing tightly against your quivering form. It's too big and you want to push away, but with each renewed plunge you grow weaker. The small tears and rips that blossom around your abused intimacy turn into bleeding wounds. You want to sleep. 

A creature of pure instinct, serving as a reminder of human perversions and immoral desires. Travesty, corruption, sin. And what about it? Before you know it, a small moan escapes your dried lips. You throw your arms around your captor's shoulders. The sharp edges of the helmet scratch your skin, waking you back into consciousness. Your lower muscles start to relax around the massive member and allow for a smoother glide in and out. The numbness is gradually replaced by pleasant sensations. The throbbing reverberates inside your abdomen and your other leg wraps around the creature's hips, asking for more contact. Once your compliance is confirmed, the hand pinning you by the neck wanders to other parts of your body in starved desperation. Your voice returns and more lewd whines roll out one after another. If only you had a mirror so you could look at yourself in this moment. What shameless expressions are you wearing on your face? You're clinging to your violator in feverish depravity. And in return, the creature responds to your cravings with increased intensity. He seems to resonate with your wishes and stiffens his hold on you with newfound obsession. His thrusts become almost feral, with a certain possessiveness to it. 

As you're about to reach your peaks, your mind once again travels to the painting. You wonder if you'd be hung and framed just like the prisoners behind their executioner. Pleasure mixed with guilt. 

What sin is eroding your entrails? 

[understandableparadox]

a comprehensive list of everything wrong with hazbin hotel.

quick note before i lose myself in madness, my standards for helluvaboss are non existent because its a free show on youtube. also i kinda like helluvaboss and i will indulge in any bias i damn well please.

oh and spoilers. i guess.

the greater narrative of the entire season is "White lady civilize inner city hoodlum". ex: The blind side. rich girl, affluent family yadda yadda.

the story is set up to be like amphibia, owl house, svtfoe, steven universe, that being starting as something episodic then transforming into story driven narrative. why? because we know the benefits and drawbacks, episodic starts allows us to wander the world, it allows us to understand the dynamics, we are not forced to reckon with anything because there is no deadline. characters are allowed to bloom and shine and the audience can actually get attached.

the source material is Vary Clearly formed from remnants of something out of a middle school edgelord narrative. the usage of transformation, the big spooky grins, the "and then i smile as my eyes glow and-"-isms which in most cases i don't mind because in some instances but in a vary Particular case its astoundingly annoying and that annoyance is like a mold, shit spreads quick.

the color Red. as a lover of homestuck cherubs and karkat and aradia, as someone who fucking loves the color red, it is so painful to say but holy shit tone it the fuck down, i know its hell but their are so many other colors that you can use, its everywhere, the streets, the air, the windows, the screens, the characters, i know the pride ring is represented with red but change up the palates every so often for backgrounds

the rush, this ties into the second point made but i think the story itself is rushed. we know everything way to early. i know way to much and it makes it hard to care about anything because im still trying to digest the last chunk of info. "oh ok, so they clear out hell once a year. oh hell has a heaven embassy? ok. oh that adam the angel, i though he wou- oh its every 6 months now. wait the exterminators die a lot? then why is everyone sca- people in hell already have weapons that can kill angels? w- oh we are in heaven now, ok ma- no one in heaven except for the elites know the exterminations occur? how do-" and its that, just this incessant rush to explain everything to you. notably that's just the god damn spark notes, we need to know everything about the characters now, every single bit of their story, their insecurities, what charlie needs to fix, how she can fix them, the major bad guys, everything. you are never allowed to dwell on a character because we need to rush towards something else. it almost feels like this should have been like... season three, it would have been a fantastic season three if you dropped the introductions honestly.

the concept of redemption. for a story of redemption to work you need to look at three things. What is there crime, Do they want to change, What is preventing them from changeing? there is only one single character that has a notable path of redemption, angel dust, but if you look through their story it feels off. What Exactly is he guilty of? he has sex, does drugs and drinks. his apparent nymphomania is tied to his sad backstory as someone forced into the sex industry so how is that their fault? then if you think about it you start to spiral and notice "hey why are most of these people in hell?" like sure some of them may deserve punishment but then you see the fucking dichotomy and its like "I was a inventor in england and died of the fucking plague, i may have made evil little contraption hoohoohoo" vs "I was a cannibal, a full on cannibal, i fucking killed people and ate them and then someone shot me". ONE OF THESE THINGS ARE A LITTLE MORE FUCKING EXTREME. i'm going to go fucking nuts, the thing they went to heaven with when presenting a case to angels on the idea that redemption and becoming a better person is actually real was angel dust not drinking at a party and not having sex with consenting adults and i want to go fucking insane. WHAT IS THE CRIME, WHO IS THROWING THE BOOK, WHAT DOES THE BOOK INTEL, ARE WE ON GOOD PLACE RULES?! half the cast dont Need redemption they need fucking help, and the other half of the cast do need redemption but they do not seek it making the point moot. sir pentious acts like he has the brain of a hyper intelligent toddler tossing about toys, its almost like he did his one bad thing of spying and then got caught, sank his little diddy about forgiveness and second chances and become a null point through out the rest of the series, sure their was Some weight to him sacrificing himself, he was a decently funny character and he had good moments but him popping up in heaven felt like a fore gone conclusion, he didn't deserve to be in hell so why do i care that he is suddenly in heaven? because its working on the concept the good place already made. no one actually deserves eternal punishment they just need help processing what makes them a dick, but instead of looking at all the parts of the afterlife that make it bad, inefficient and then creating and trying ideas to see if it work instead over a few seasons, we crash dick first into all the major plot points in regards to that and say "tada, we fixed it.".

having a sub-plot about sexual assault and its victims then having multiple sexual assault related gag ruins your point.

don't make a bunch of stereotypically jewish characters into cannibals, that was a big thing, really shouldn't have to say it.

if you are going to make a character black, make them black, you can say alastor was black but sweet seren-fucking-dippity that's not a black man.

pot meet kettle but yeah the cursing could be a little less liberal. maybe just blue hair or the pronouns, not both.

there is a very distinctive art deco/jazz aesthetic which normally i love but i feel as though it is not used to its full extent and in some cases really hurts the character design in and of itself.

this is a vary obvious bit but the story is a million times more interested in gay men then it is of lesbians, which culminates in this insane thing where the writers clearly have more talent or perhaps it would be more abt to say practice writing male gay pining then they are with lesbian pining. which i personally think is hilarious because i did not know you could min max fujoshi-ism that hard.

this next section is more to do with each character on a fundamental level, for the sake of brevity whatever there is left, i'm just doing ones with speaking roles.

13. Charlie:

(see what i mean about that red thing?)

as originally stated charlie fits rather comfortably into every white saviour narrative, though that seems to be part of her joke. though i'm not entirely sure how much of a joke it can be when its rewarded and expected to advance the plot.

her character design says nothing, it has the motif of old puppets or dolls, she wears something vaguely similar to service suits, her demonic form is just some extra horns.not to say every character needs to have their life on a clothes rack but some more snake and goat imagery would be nice

its not the chol design of charlie with snake hair, not an actual problem but its a problem to me, damn you @cholvoq for ruining my ability to look at any of the characters without wishing i was seeing your designs instead.

character wise aside from the white savoir bit, i'm having a bit of trouble understanding what the arc of the character is. she is shown to be naive, someone who doesn't understand how the world works but everytime she says something its something astoundingly clear like "people can actually get better". and its treated like someone demanded faygo in every water fountain. is the joke that the world around her to cynical or is so to naive? please pick one or the other.

now if you know me, you know i fucking hate overpowered characters with a blinding passion, one that would set alit the god damn abyss but in this one special instance, i feel like its warranted, she's the direct descendant of fucking God, she can swing her weight around a little, i mean god damn. she in so many instances looks like shes cowering so often, why would the daughter of lucifer get backed down by some rando pimp? why wasn't she the one to fight adam? sure you can say she is young but how young? her parents were there since pre-abrahamic times, most of the characters showed up in hell in the 1900s, some of them showed up in the 1600s, how old is charlie??? how long does it take for her to learn how to be strong? The story does not suffer if charlie is strong and knows she is strong. it can easily be a case of "i don't believe in violence to a weird degree". fit it into her apparent naivety about the world to believe that violence is never the answer even when dealing with a being that is unilaterally horrible and abusive and monstrous.

she ga- no im kidding, i do think her romance was waysided a bit, it would have been fine to have more scenes of them togather and in love you know?

14. Vaggie

why did you name the lesbian vaggie...? Don't do that maybe?

I like how her design is almost moth like but again i feel as though you could have amped that up.

she feels as though someone tried to combine undyne and pearl from steven universe, same story beats and design elements. it makes it hard to really distinguish her as a character.

i honestly dont have much to say about her. she is fine.

christ kill me, lets just get the big one out of the way

15. Alastor.

God Damn

where to start.

"alastor is mixed race" mixed with fucking what? concrete? there is not a single black feature on that creature, now im not saying you have to make him a png of louie armstrong but it wouldn't hurt to add a curl to the hair maybe? make it a tiny bit more wavy? Something? a crumb i beg of thee?

his symbolism is all over the god damn place, native american monsters (you know the one), voodoo, radio, puppets, stitches, circuses??? and Tentacles i guess. two of those are from closed religions so if you dumped those you would actually get a more concise character focused on the concept of vox populi as a means of societal control and influence as we see in his first song. but again that gets drowned out repeatedly by all the other random toy box bits shoved into him.

tumblr sexy man bait

he serves no purpose in the story. he does spooky stuff, pretends to do things and then goes back to sitting around looking spooky. i understand that his motif is supposed to be aloof mastermind but maybe have him do more mastermindy things? if you remove most of alastors scenes, bar the songs, it doesn't change all to much. husk and nifity can still be at the hotel, they could be looking for outs in their contracts the same as angel dust. hell it even helps with the one scene where he dose some spooky shit, asking charlie for a favor in exchange for his help in the fight with the angels instead of asking him about angel weapons which should have remained a strictly vaggie scene.

his presence in a way delegitimize the story, as I noted in in the section regarding redemption, the three parts are "what is the crime, do they want to change, what is stopping them?" and alastor kinda just spits in the face of that. he is a serial killer cannibal that has no qualms about how evil he is and apparently must continue being evil due to being under the control under someone legitimately called the Root Of All Evil. show him take a slight interest in the idea that maybe shit for him could be better, make him Want Change at the bare fucking minimum or dont have him at the hotel.

his stupid little fucking horns, big shot the troll liker wants characters to have big fucking horns, make them noticeable or dont have them.

he looks more like a dog boy, which could have been an interesting thing with the collar motif but fuck me i guess.

personal pet peeve but i fucking hate characters that have a million plus powers, stick to a set number, be creative.

im getting more petty as i go on so last point: he could have been in less episodes, he didn't need to be in dad beat dad, that should have been just a lucifer and charlie episode. inverse the red and black and i think he would be fucking great color wise, his body type is the same as ten different characters, he isnt radio enough, aside from the voice and and staff if you told me he was the fucking Cat Demon i would have been just as convinced.

16. Angel Dust

what the fuck, gay spider? its hard to actully articulate all the thoughts i have on angel dust, not in the sense that he is a deeply thought provoking character but in the fact that there is not much meat on the bones.

all around i think angel dust is kinda middling. he has a decent enough romance with husk, he has a decent enough story line that revolves around battling addiction and removing yourself from an abuser (which the story tries to brand as "Redemption???")

I dont like that most of his jokes would qualify as sexual harassment, i don't mind him being sexual as a character but continuing on when clearly someone doesn't like the jokes hurts the character.

not a critique but he is pink, which honestly ill fucking take at point, as long as its not more fucking red.

i think his design is an improvement over some of the old vivzie designs but it feels like it could have done with going a few more rounds of design changes.

same thing with alastor, charlie and vaggie, there is not enough of the animal that they are supposed to be. You could have told me angel dust was a fucking bee or something and i would have had to believe you. nothing about angel dust initially says spider, hell he dosent even have enough limps to be a fucking spider.

17. Carmilla carmine

are... are you supposed to be a rabbit...?

Big Yoai Hands

ballet fighting style, could have been cool, wish she fought more like sanji or chun li.

A single mom that works to hard, who loves her kids and never stops-

her song was decent, not great, decent. it feels as though the actress has experience singing but not in the way they tried to make her sing during her two songs. they have a obvious mexican influence, honestly just let her sing in spanish in the english dub. go listen to the spanish dub, "out for love" sounds great in spanish.

i wish i had more thoughts on them, fucking rip.

18. cherri bomb

that's not a punk aesthetic that's 2010s alt

decent character, they showed up once or twice i guess, no real thoughts.

19. egg boiz

absolutely perfect, i have not notes on them, these are perfect creatures.

20. Emily

im so fucking happy to see a singular blue character

does the naive dreamer bit better then charlie

We really shouldnt have seen her until the end of season two or middle of three.

good contrast with the other angels on screen.

Wait she is supposed to be black??? Where???

21. Husk

keith david you absolute delight, Why on gods green earth did they only give you one singing part?

one of the few charecters where its clear husk is a cat, i do like the kinda... marquee design, he is a magic cat, thats neat. i still think you can toss the wings and eyebrows and still have just as good of a charecter.

has a deeply intresting story of someone who died as a nobody, became the fat cat of hell and then was forced back to the bottom by their own vices, not used at fucking all.

huge potential, little pay off.

22. lillith

I know nothing about her except she ditched her kid and husband to vacation in heaven and i think thats kinda funny.

alot of werid things floating around her, again she shouldnt have been shown in the show at all until next season.

23. lucifer morningstar

no notes, funniest charecter, did a song based on friend like me.

few notes: i do like the idea that the immortal symbol of pride is a constant emotional wreckage constantly seeking approval through grand showmanship and manic energy that threatens to take over anything they touch.

would have liked more snake stuff on him, maybe some more goat things like horns.

that is such a stupid fucking staff lmao.

24. Adam.

alex brightman you absolute fucking delight, you should have had more songs.

I wish his design was more focused on the idea of him being a glam rock wash up

I fucking hate his mask

We shouldn't have met him until the end of the season.

25. Niffty

again she is supposed to be a bug or cockroach but nothing about her points to that.

token straight

keeps rocketing back and fourth between sexulization and infantilization

you had kimiko glenn but didnt give her a single fucking song?

26. Sir Pentious

the secret season one redeemed.

the pilot version of him felt more like someone that could do a season one redemption arc, a megalomaniac constantly attempting territory grabs, there is something you can work with, actual character flaws to work through.

essentially a child after the first episode.

actually a snake which i appreciate.

no where near steampunky enough.

27. the villians of the show dont make much sense, each one feels like they should be season long deals on their own instead of a bunch of team rocket esque idiots that show up on occasion, do a bad thing and then leave.

28. Valentino

gOD THERE IS SO MUCH RED

only a moth some of the time.

sucks as a villain, maybe they need more screen time to show why they suck in a more substantial way aside from being told that he sucks.

it is interesting that angel dust is only under his magical control when in the studio, it shows that angel dust has to make a conscious choice to return, which in turn can be made to show how abusers can draw back their victims. I do not think it was done well in this circumstance as it shows him to be cartoonishly evil, constantly flying back and fourth between sweet and utter psycho, there is no actual reason for angel dust to ever actually go back to the studio, he just does so every so often.

29. Vox

legit who cares? the only thing about him that is in any way substantial is all the dope ass fan art we get.

propaganda machine angle that is not explored at all, just hinted at. no actual barring on the story whatsoever.

why didn't he try to do the same shit as alastor by the way? he knows its bad if alastor gets in good with charlie so shouldn't it be a ass kissing race?

same body shape as literally every other male character.

tumblr sexy man version of pyrocynicals fursona.

30. Valvette

the actual poster child of the shows huge problem of "Show me, don't tell me".

apparently the glue that holds the villains together. never shown.

apparently the one that makes the love potions that valentino is famous for. had to learn about that in the fuckin wiki trivias

we know so much about her from things outside of the show.

was there to call carmilla a coward, that's her plot contribution. she shows up every now and again but its never anything substantial and serves to more around take up run time for people We Don't Need To Know Yet.

im not trying to be mean, animation is animation, we need smaller studios to have success in the industry so that other indie studios can have that success, felling a tree makes it easier for others to follow. showing that its possible to number brain rot exacs helps all animators.

but this show has so much bullshit attached to it, it has so much fucking potential that it fries my brain with unyielding frustration.

this took a bit to write, im tired, thanks for reading.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Sandra Newman’s “Julia”

The first chapter of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four has a fantastic joke that nearly everyone misses: when Julia, Winston Smith's love interest, is introduced, she has oily hands and a giant wrench, which she uses in her "mechanical job on one of the novel-writing machines":

https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt

That line just kills me every time I re-read the book – Orwell, a novelist, writing a dystopian future in which novels are written by giant, clanking mechanisms. Later on, when Winston and Julia begin their illicit affair, we get more detail:

She could describe the whole process of composing a novel, from the general directive issued by the Planning Committee down to the final touching-up by the Rewrite Squad. But she was not interested in the finished product. She 'didn't much care for reading,' she said. Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.

I always assumed Orwell was subtweeting his publishers and editors here, and you can only imagine that the editor who asked Orwell to tweak the 1984 manuscript must have felt an uncomfortable parallel between their requests and the notional Planning Committee and Rewrite Squad at the Ministry of Truth.

I first read 1984 in the early winter of, well, 1984, when I was thirteen years old. I was on a family trip that included as visit to my relatives in Leningrad, and the novel made a significant impact on me. I immediately connected it to the canon of dystopian science fiction that I was already avidly consuming, and to the geopolitics of a world that seemed on the brink of nuclear devastation. I also connected it to my own hopes for the nascent field of personal computing, which I'd gotten an early start on, when my father – then a computer science student – started bringing home dumb terminals and acoustic couplers from his university in the mid-1970s. Orwell crystallized my nascent horror at the oppressive uses of technology (such as the automated Mutually Assured Destruction nuclear systems that haunted my nightmares) and my dreams of the better worlds we could have with computers.

It's not an overstatement to say that the rest of my life has been about this tension. It's no coincidence that I wrote a series of "Little Brother" novels whose protagonist calls himself w1n5t0n:

https://craphound.com/littlebrother/Cory_Doctorow_-_Little_Brother.htm

I didn't stop with Orwell, of course. I wrote a whole series of widely read, award-winning stories with the same titles as famous sf tales, starting with "Anda's Game" ("Ender's Game"):

https://www.salon.com/2004/11/15/andas_game/

And "I, Robot":

https://craphound.com/overclocked/Cory_Doctorow_-_Overclocked_-_I_Robot.html

"The Martian Chronicles":

https://escapepod.org/2019/10/03/escape-pod-700-martian-chronicles-part-1/

"True Names":

https://archive.org/details/TrueNames

"The Man Who Sold the Moon":

https://memex.craphound.com/2015/05/22/the-man-who-sold-the-moon/

and "The Brave Little Toaster":

https://archive.org/details/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_212

Writing stories about other stories that you hate or love or just can't get out of your head is a very old and important literary tradition. As EL Doctorow (no relation) writes in his essay "Genesis," the Hebrews stole their Genesis story from the Babylonians, rewriting it to their specifications:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/41520/creationists-by-e-l-doctorow/

As my "famous title" stories and Little Brother books show, this work needn't be confined to antiquity. Modern copyright may be draconian, but it contains exceptions ("fair use" in the US, "fair dealing" in many other places) that allow for this kind of creative reworking. One of the most important fair use cases concerns The Wind Done Gone, Alice Randall's 2001 retelling of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind from the perspective of the enslaved characters, which was judged to be fair use after Mitchell's heirs tried to censor the book:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suntrust_Bank_v._Houghton_Mifflin_Co.

In ruling for Randall, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals emphasized that she had "fully employed those conscripted elements from Gone With the Wind to make war against it." Randall used several of Mitchell's most famous lines, "but vest[ed] them with a completely new significance":

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/268/1257/608446/

The Wind Done Gone is an excellent book, and both its text and its legal controversy kept springing to mind as I read Sandra Newman's wonderful novel Julia, which retells 1984 from the perspective of Julia, she of the oily hands the novel-writing machine:

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/julia-sandra-newman?variant=41467936636962

Julia is the kind of fanfic that I love, in the tradition of both Wind Done gone and Rosenkrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead, in which a follow-on author takes on the original author's throwaway world-building with deadly seriousness, elucidating the weird implications and buried subtexts of all the stuff and people moving around in the wings and background of the original.

For Newman, the starting point here is Julia, an enigmatic lover who comes to Winston with all kinds of rebellious secrets – tradecraft for planning and executing dirty little assignations and acquiring black market goods. Julia embodies a common contradiction in the depiction of young women (she is some twenty years younger than Winston): on the one hand, she is a "native" of the world, while Winston is a late arrival, carrying around all his "oldthink" baggage that leaves him perennially baffled, terrified and angry; on the other hand, she's a naive "girl," who "doesn't much care for reading," and lacks the intellectual curiosity that propels Winston through the text.

This contradiction is the cleavage line that Newman drives her chisel into, fracturing Orwell's world in useful, fascinating, engrossing ways. For Winston, the world of 1984 is totalitarian: the Party knows all, controls all and misses nothing. To merely think a disloyal thought is to be doomed, because the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnicompetent Party will sense the thought and mark you for torture and "vaporization."

Orwell's readers experience all of 1984 through Winston's eyes and are encouraged to trust his assessment of his situation. But Newman brings in a second point of view, that of Julia, who is indeed far more worldly than Winston. But that's not because she's younger than him – it's because she's more provincial. Julia, we learn, grew up outside of the Home Counties, where the revolution was incomplete and where dissidents – like her parents – were sent into exile. Julia has experienced the periphery of the Party's power, the places where it is frayed and incomplete. For Julia, the Party may be ruthless and powerful, but it's hardly omnicompetent. Indeed, it's rather fumbling.

Which makes sense. After all, if we take Winston at his word and assume that every disloyal citizen of Oceania is arrested, tortured and murdered, where would that leave Oceania? Even Kim Jong Un can't murder everyone who hates him, or he'd get awfully lonely, and then awfully hungry.

Through Julia's eyes, we experience Oceania as a paranoid autocracy, corrupt and twitchy. We witness the obvious corollary of a culture of denunciation and arrest: the ruling Party of such an institution must be riddled with internecine struggle and backstabbing, to the point of paralyzed dysfunction. The Orwellian trick of switching from being at war with Eastasia to Eurasia and back again is actually driven by real military setbacks – not just faked battles designed to stir up patriotic fervor. The Party doesn't merely claim to be under assault from internal and external enemies – it actually is.

Julia is also perfectly positioned to uncover the vast blank spots in Winston's supposed intellectual curiosity, all the questions he doesn't ask – about her, about the Party, and about the world. I love this trope and used it myself, in Attack Surface, the third "Little Brother" book, which is told from the point of view of Marcus's frenemy Masha:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531/attacksurface

Through Julia, we come to understand the seemingly omniscient, omnipotent Party as fumbling sadists. The Thought Police are like MI5, an Island of Misfit Toys where the paranoid, the stupid, the vicious and the thuggish come together to ruin the lives of thousands, in such a chaotic and pointless manner that their victims find themselves spinning devastatingly clever explanations for their behavior:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/3662a707-0af9-3149-963f-47bea720b460

And, as with Nineteen Eighty-Four, Julia is a first-rate novel, expertly plotted, with fantastic, nail-biting suspense and many smart turns and clever phrases. Newman is doing Orwell, and, at times, outdoing him. In her hands, Orwell – like Winston – is revealed as a kind of overly credulous romantic who can't believe that anyone as obviously stupid and deranged as the state's representatives could be kicking his ass so very thoroughly.

This was, in many ways, the defining trauma and problem of Orwell's life, from his origin story, in which he is shot through the throat by a fascist: sniper during the Spanish Civil War:

https://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/soldiers/george-orwell-shot.html

To his final days, when he developed a foolish crush on a British state spy and tried to impress her by turning his erstwhile comrades in to her:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwell%27s_list

Newman's feminist retelling of Orwell is as much about puncturing the myth of male competence as it is about revealing the inner life, agency, and personhood of swooning love-interests. As someone who loves Orwell – but not unconditionally – I was moved, impressed, and delighted by Julia.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/28/novel-writing-machines/#fanfic

[jupiter-letters]

I can't stop thinking about Dad Jayce

(Modern-AU sort of)Jayce Talis x Fem!Reader TW: Pregnancy-mention

A/N: I've held this in for 4 days now I need to get it out. He'd be such a fantastic dad omfg, I'm giving him at least 10. This is gonna be kinda quick and not really proofread sorry y'all.) Divider Link

Jayce is already a pretty touchy guy while you're dating but imagine what a monster he turns into when you guys get married. He acts so sickly sweet with you every moment you're together. He likes to jokingly treat you like royalty, doing a slight bow when you enter a room.

The theatrics get worse when he finds out you're expecting, he won't you do anything till you tell him off. You get up in the morning? He's bringing you breakfast. You just wanna walk around the house, he'll carry you around instead. You're not moving around without him he just acts like a lunatic about it. This is your pregnancy it's OUR pregnancy. If you have nausea, it's OUR nausea. If you're feet hurt, OUR feet hurt, he stops what he's doing to rub your feet and ankles.

Now when the delivery date comes you're relatively calm about it but Jayce is actively losing his mind. Along the course of your pregnancy he has created a very detailed plan on how everything will go. In that moment thought he's floundering, he forgets all the steps and counter measures. He eventually abandons the plan and calls his mom to coach him through everything.

Once the hard part is over it's relatively smooth sailing from there. Jayce ends up completely whipped, regardless of the child's sex he's locked in. Whatever they want he'll get it for them. It makes him so emotional seeing them get older and they start looking more like you. Even though they are a new person he still loves them because they're a piece of you.

Jayce prefers the baby be in your shared bedroom just to keep a closer eye on them, 9/10 he's the one to put them back to sleep when they get fussy at night. During the day he'll always have them in his arms, talking to them about his job or some article he read the other day. He loves just talking to the baby, he likes the baby talk but seeing him have a full on conversation with the baby is hilarious.

He loves showing off the baby to his friends and literally anybody who gives him the time of day. He's got a bunch of pics of you and the baby in his wallet. Sometimes he'll just do it completely unprompted, "Viktor check out this new onesie I got for my son/daughter." He'll post pics in the groupchat with Caitlyn and Vi, he'll send them at least 5 every day.

The child does end up becoming a tiny bit spoiled, Jayce can be firm but the sight of one tear will make him fold. Over the years he gets better at it but when they hit him with the "I hate you daddy!" He gets so depressed he'll sit in his room like this:

Fortunately being the good parents you are, they don't get super bratty very often and are pretty chill. They inherited that go getter attitude from Jayce and it's interesting for him seeing that reflected back at him.

[alatariel-galadriel]

Me on my hands and knees with every MCU installment (in vain):

also the way the blip was used exclusively for comedy in ffh makes me CRAZY. peter and may had to find a new apartment while the world reconstructed itself. peter still has all his old tshirts which means that after he died either tony or happy went to their old apartment and packed up all their belongings and kept them in storage for 5 years for no real reason at all since there was no hope of return at that point. ned and mj both dusted but we don't get to hear about their families?? did they have little siblings who are older than them now too??? ffh plays it off as "very goofy how we're all legally 21 but in reality we've been frozen at 16 years old for the past 5 years and have to find out where we fit in this new reality. lol!" NOT LOL. HORRIFYING.

[lxkeee]

TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN

-PART THREE

Pairing: Lucifer Morningstar x Seraphim Angel! Fem! Reader

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel

Genre: Angst (for now)

Warnings: Daddy issues.

Notes: Fun fact... The reason I titled this as two sides of the same coin as I was originally planning on making the reader being Azrael's wife and would be [y/n] Eveningstar as Azrael's last name would be Eveningstar 🧍but decided not to lmao.

PART TWO | PART FOUR | NAVIGATION

Charlie stood nervously at the podium, angels above her already judging her. Her eyes noticed the door to the courtroom opens, a familiar angel she met awhile ago, an angel that looked like her father. Xavier was it? If she remembered correctly. She watched as the boy flew up and took his position on the other side of Sera, Emily on the other side of the woman, the older woman in between the two young seraphims.

Charlie could feel the [e/c] orbs staring at her as the boy looked down on her (literally as he was sitting above her).

The meeting began.

Charlie was really hoping to win these angels over, hopefully her brother could help.

But she was slowly getting more and more nervous as the boy looked like he was getting bored from this meeting, the meeting clearly didn't meet his expectations.

Xavier just looked down, eyes half-lidded as he looked at the girl with boredom. All he could see is a plan without enough foundation to work, baseless claims that the hotel will work.

What annoys him is that this is the very same ambition his father proposed years ago. He wasn't there during the meeting but his mother told him about it.

The idea is ridiculous. Sinners were given a chance to live an honest and good life but decided to mess it up and now they're looking for a way to redeem themselves?

Xavier was close to falling asleep in the middle of it, suddenly something caught his interest. Emily, Charlotte, and Sera were arguing but Lute and Adam suddenly butted into the conversation and managed to slip up and revealed a secret.

“A man only lives once, we'll see you in one month... gotta say I can't wait to... Come down and exterminate you.” Adam says mockingly along with Lute.

Xavier's eyes widened, jaw dropping. Looking around to see if he heard it right and base on the others reaction, he heard it right.

The rest of the meeting went by a blur, another secret was revealed and Vaggie, Charlotte's lover was a former exorcist and is a fallen angel.

Frankly, he doesn't care about that. Xavier can only cover his mouth in shock, still in disbelief that these killings are happening without the others knowing.

Heaven is a lie.

Charlie looked at her supposed brother, a slight surprised look on his face. Clearly in disbelief. She couldn't tell if he's mad or not.

Oh, he's mad alright. Mad that a lie this big has been hidden away.

Beyond furious, Xavier glared at Sera. Charlotte and her lover were teleported back to hell after a snap of Adam's fingers.

Killing of souls, damned or not they have no reason for doing this.

Xavier decided to attend the court meeting, curious what fantastic or foolish ideas his half sister had to show them. He didn't expect that this meeting ended up revealing a very heavy secret.

Currently he is comforting Emily as the girl glares at Sera, “Please, if you start to question... You could end up like Lucifer... Fallen.” Sera says, her voice trembling slightly.

Xavier's glare hardened when the older woman mentioned a certain man he hated, Xavier just glared at Sera as the woman gave Emily a kiss on her forehead, he doesn't like how the high Seraphim is hiding a secret this big.

“Xavier.” Sera calls out to him sternly, the boy just gave the woman a raised eyebrow as his face returns to being emotionless. Sera felt chills running down her spine, Lucifer's face is unfortunately plastered on this boy's face, the fallen angel was his father after all.

“I hope you don't tell anyone about this. Especially your mother.” She pleaded and Xavier scoffs, a slight mischievous smile on his face, “Or what? Gonna cast me out to like what you did with my birth father?” he asked sarcastically, Sera's eye twitched.

“Of course, not. That isn't an enough reason to cast you out. Just... Please don't tell her.” the woman explained and Xavier scoffs.

“I love my mother and I can't bear to lie to her face, she already had enough of that. Just expect that this will reach the seven's soon.” He explained before eventually flying down and leaving the courtroom, not giving the woman a chance to speak.

Sera wanted to reach out and stop the boy but he was already gone, lowering her hand slowly. Sighing. He really is Lucifer's son, stubborn.

After all, the apple doesn't really fall far from the tree.

They're just lucky that [y/n] was able to raise the boy properly and was able to inherit most of his mom's personality. The looks however, are unfortunately from his dad.

Sera sighs again. Mentally preparing about the possibilities of what will happen if the seven virtues' know about this.

Charlie's mind was a mess after that meeting, Vaggie gave her some time and space to process everything of what happened.

She can't believe the love of her life is a fallen angel and worse, an ex exorcist! She hid something this big from her! And on top of that, she has a half older brother in heaven?!

Charlie groans, going underneath the covers as she lies on the bed.

She knows the older boy didn't lie as he literally had her father's face except for the eyes and height but everything else was an exact replica. Charlie can't help but be jealous, she could tell how much better the boy was compared to her, the boy carried an air of authority around him.

She feels guilty, she's not stupid. Her dad had that boy while he was in heaven and obviously with someone else, another angel.

Charlie wonders what kind of life her half brother is living up there?

What she does know is that the boy harbors some kind of hatred for her and her family. The boy didn't fully express it but Charlie could feel it, the bubbling rage beneath his exterior when he saw her.

She'll have to ask her dad about this later, once she's mentally okay.

Xavier returned back home, the mansion empty as his mother is away, and they don't have any servants as they prefer a quiet life.

Walking to the living room, his eyes gazed at the large portrait that was displayed on the wall of the living room—a portrait of him and his mom. Him standing at her side while she sat on a regal chair, both of them matching clothes—their heaven uniforms.

His eyes softened, he felt exhausted. Training with his uncle, meeting his half sister, and a secret Sera hid was revealed.

He can't wait for her to come back home, he needed to tell her all about this.

TAGLIST:

@valerie-36 @blackbleedingrose @adaizel @xx-all-purpose-nerd-xx @thedarkkitten @selvyyr @froggybich @brithedemonspawn @kottenox @totallymitya @many-fandoms-lover @dou-dou @mezzyb0nb0n @n1chxyaaenthusiast @cherry-4200 @koirb @galaxyj3lly @crystalplays28 @luleck @scootinonyourmom @rory-cakes @mixplara @crescent-z @bitchyzombienacho @kalisha2004 @altervex @nehy019 @napbatata @kouyoumarryme @sxgacxbe @kooidoom @ok-boke @random-3455 @izzieg3987 @snoozewritezz @dreamzaremyrealityy @hcneyiced @witchbunny1210 @ghostdoodlen

[philcon-programming]

Philcon 2024!

Do you love Science Fiction, Fantasy, or Horror? Are you a Writer, a Gamer, a Costumer, or a Filker? Are you looking for a weekend of distraction in your life? If you’re in the vicinity of Philadelphia- or more specifically, Cherry Hill, New Jersey- there’s an event coming up on November 22 – 24, 2024 that we’d love for you to come check out. If you aren’t already familiar with PHILCON, here’s what you should know: * We started out as a literary-centric SF convention in 1936, but have grown to embrace all mediums of storytelling (movies, television, comics, podcasts, etc) as well as expanding to cover the Fantasy and Horror genres. Most of our participants are authors, and there will be Readings by them and Autograph sessions all throughout the weekend, in addition to their participation on discussion panels. * While many of our Literary panels are about SF, Fantasy, or Horror topics in general, we also have an emphasis on panels discussing the craft side and business sides of writing, for those looking to develop as authors. * One of our content tracks for the weekend is dedicated to Science & Technology itself, not just how it is used in fiction. * We will be screening several movies over the weekend, and Anime will also be shown in our Anime & Animation room at certain times. * There will be Workshops and Demos for Costuming (including "Fabric Manipulation", "How to Make Foam Armor", "Make-up for The Stage", and "A Pox on Patterns!") and Art (including "Using Alcohol Inks", "Block Printing With Your Own Designs", "How to Make A Controlled Color Palette", and "Making Wire-Wrapped Jewelry"), and if you’ve got an outfit you made that you’d like to show off on stage, we’ve got a yearly Costume Contest. * If you are a Filker- or just enjoy listening to other people sing and play music- Philcon has a room dedicated Filk room, and this year’s Musical Guest of Honor is Cecilia Eng. As Cecilia is not often on the east coast, if you’d like to see her play in person, now is an excellent change to do so without flying to the other side of the country. Lynn Gold, another west-coast Filker, will also be joining us this year. There are also Concerts scheduled for Sirens & Liars, Half a Slime Devil, Brenda and Chuck Shaffer-Shiring, and Sara Henya. * Since the Gaming track moved from an upstairs suite to the “Gallery” room on the first floor, it’s had the literal room to expand the number of games it can run, and we’ve got a bevy of them on the schedule for 2024, as well as a bank of games for you to choose from during Open Gaming hours. There's also a LARP Workshop Series being run by Spectacle INK. * Our Artist Guests of Honor for 2024 are Gina Matarazzo and Matthew Stewart. Each will be giving a presentation on our Main Stage on Saturday afternoon, as well as having their art displayed in our Art Show. * Our Principal Speaker for 2024 is MAX GLADSTONE, and we also have Nghi Vo as our Special Guest. Both will be doing Readings, Autograph Sessions, panels, and a main stage Q&A session. An interactive version of our schedule can be found HERE. While a simplified, static overview, organized by track, can be found HERE. Our LinkTree can be found HERE. We would especially value your support this year, as Philcon’s Covid-19 policy in previous years (which required both mandatory masking and proof of vaccination in an attempt to avoid becoming a super-spreader event as several other conventions had) has led to a slow but noticeable decline in attendance. While masking in public spaces is still heavily encouraged, neither proof of vaccination nor masking are required to attend the convention in 2024. We’d love your help in making this year a success, so that we’re in a good position to bring you all something really fantastic for our upcoming 90th anniversary. We’d also love to give you a great weekend right now, for reasons I doubt we need to explain. Here’s to surviving the next few years! ~ Lynati Head of Programming, Philcon 2024

[thisismeracing]

Brand new style | CL16

― Pairing: Charles Leclerc x fem!reader ― Warnings: mentions of food; typos. ― Summary: The one where Charles' has been dressing better and better each week. Fans can't help but tie that drastic change to a girlfriend, especially when he shows up wearing clothes from a small but very stylish brand, what they don't expect is that the girlfriend in question is the owner of the brand.

▸ my masterlist | my taglist | patreon guide ▸ support my writing by reblogging, leaving a comment (don’t forget to follow me if you like the piece), or buying me a coffee

yourusername

liked by yourbestie, istagramuser1, and others

yourusername finishing the last few touches for this season's collection ⭐️✨

view all comments

sunshinewest can’t wait to get it!! 😍

user2 I am so readyyy

switfiedirectioner I wanna be her when I grow up

⤷ 1distraction but u already grown, bestie 😭 lmao

⤷ swiftiedirectioner shut up let me dream 🤚

charles_leclerc

liked by pierregasly, sebastianvettel, and others

charles_leclerc race week's about to start 😎

view all comments

charleslerain things that aren’t my business but I wish were: how charles takes his coffee

sainzinho the lil pink mug 🥹🤏

fastandf1s where’s that lil sweater from????

⤷ bonohammertime Its from @ yourusername s brand?

⤷ userforty it def is! Most likely from last collection if I recall perfecly, I have a similar one

trackfour Im gonna prepare myself mentally to watch ferrari shit show 😭

iguser_ the pullover collors omggg and the fabric looks so soft

yourusername

liked by gigihadid, charles_leclerc, and others

yourusername I would bet on red for this season 😜❤️

view all comments

yourbestie 😍😍 I would bet on YOU this season

user01 omg yesss! I love red!

randomuser this looks fantastic, can’t wait to see the other options

charles_leclerc

liked by arthur_leclerc, lewishamilton, and others

charles leclerc 😉😉

view all comments

tifosinha I refuse to believe this was Ferrari's doing, he's been on this team for years now and they NEVER got him this stylish. there's a woman's hand on this, istg

ferrarista01 the veins 🫣🤤

leclowncircus y’all worried about charles’ style and rumored relationship meanwhile I’m just no thoughts head empty appreciating those yummy pics he’s been posting

charles_leclerc

liked by pierregasly, carlossainz55, and others

charles_leclerc Solid climbing session today.

view all comments

notyourbus HE’S SOFT LAUNCHING

sainzfan who’s that person wearing black?

⤷ lemonegasque million dollars question

lewforty LOL he’s so bad at other sports

arthur_leclerc as a climber you’re a great driver 👍

schumiwoff I love the fact that apprently him and the girl -both- fell hahah partnes in being horrible at Snow Sports

yourusername

liked by iguser_, yourbestie, and others

yourusername nobody needs to know I fell a hundred times while climbing

view all comments

user47 it’s fine bestie, I’m terrible at anything snow related as well lol

user90 where’s that sunglass from?

⤷ yourusername its from yyy.com :)

popyn she’s soft launching, I lost her 😭

yourusername

liked by yourbestie, francisca.cgomes, and others

yourusername had an amazing dinner tonight 🥰

view all comments

randomuser33 that “private but not a secret” type of relationship I WANT IT

user9 she’s so pretty 😍😍

charles_leclerc

liked by lewishamilton, landonorris, and others

charles_leclerc ma cherrie ❤️ I wouldnt have the patient to soft launch anyways

view all comments

scuderiaferrari thank goodness he's not that clumsy with car info 😅😂

yourusername you're lucky I love you 💞

pierregasly it was about time!!!!

fan44 I KNEW IT

formulaonewag welcome to the club, Yn! 🥳

────── ⋆🪩 VOICEMAIL: Hi! I hope you guys liked this piece! This is part of that convo about posting my drafts hihi so yeah, here goes another one :D let me know your thoughts!

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