#nix: Todd posting

[elpurata-victim]

Ok it’s happening people

Jason Todd everybody

[nixotinix]

spider lilies; death & rebirth

[bikinibottomdayz]

APRIL 10, 2025 RELEASE

All my videos can be found here, full release under the read more!

ORDER FORM HERE

This release includes: Boop!, John Proctor is the Villain, Oh, Mary! with Tituss Burgess, The Jonathan Larson Project, Pirates! the Penzance Musical, Real Women Have Curves

BOOP! March 26, 2025 | Broadway | 4K MP4 (9.78GB) | bikinibottomday’s master Cast: Jasmine Amy Rogers (Betty Boop), Faith Prince (Valentina), Ainsley Melham (Dwayne), Stephen DeRosa (Grampy), Angelica Hale (Trisha), Erich Bergen (Raymond), Phillip Huber (Pudgy), Christian Probst (Malcolm Carter), Colin Bradbury (Arnie Finkle), Morgan McGhee (Cheryl King), Anastacia McCleskey (Carol Evans), Aubie Merrylees (Oscar Delacorte), Ricky Schroeder (Clarence), Ryah Nixon (Mascot), Lawrence Alexander (Ensemble), Tristen Buettel (Ensemble), Joshua Burrage (Ensemble), Victoria Byrd (Ensemble), Daniel Castiglione (Ensemble), Rebecca Corrigan (Ensemble), RJ Higton (Ensemble), Nina Lafarga (Ensemble), Gabriella Sorrentino (Ensemble), Derek Jordan Taylor (Ensemble), Lizzy Tucker (Ensemble) Notes: Excellent 4K capture of this new show! Some heads are visible at the bottom but don’t block off anything. Some wandering and unfocusing throughout. Some washout on wider shots. Includes curtain call, audio fed from external source. https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjC6VcZ | ASKING $20 USD NOT FOR SHARING EXCEPT THROUGH ME UNTIL OCTOBER 2, 2025

JOHN PROCTOR IS THE VILLAIN March 28, 2025 | Broadway (Previews) | 4K MP4 (8.37GB) | bikinibottomday’s master Cast: Sadie Sink (Shelby Holcomb), Nihar Duvvuri (Mason Adams), Gabriel Ebert (Carter Smith), Molly Griggs (Bailey Gallagher), Maggie Kuntz (Ivy Watkins), Hagan Oliveras (Lee Turner), Morgan Scott (Nell Shaw), Fina Strazza (Beth Powell), Amalia Yoo (Raelynn Nix) Notes: Excellent 4K capture of this new production! Minor head obstruction on the bottom, doesn’t block off almost anything. Some wandering and unfocusing throughout. Includes curtain call, audio fed from external source. https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjC7djm | ASKING $20 USD NOT FOR SHARING EXCEPT THROUGH ME UNTIL OCTOBER 2, 2025

THE JONATHAN LARSON PROJECT March 24, 2025 | Broadway | 4K MP4 (6.38GB) | bikinibottomday’s master Cast: Adam Chanler-Berat, Taylor Iman Jones, Lauren Marcus, Andy Mientus, Jason Tam Notes: Excellent 4K capture of this show during its closing week! Minor obstruction on the far left from the speaker that blocks off very little. Increased wandering and unfocusing throughout. Includes curtain call, audio fed from external source. https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjC6FRS | ASKING $20 USD NOT FOR SHARING EXCEPT THROUGH ME UNTIL OCTOBER 2, 2025

OH, MARY! March 27, 2025 (M) | Broadway | 4K MP4 (5.52GB) | bikinibottomday’s master Cast: Tituss Burgess (Mary Todd Lincoln), Phillip James Brannon (Mary's Husband), Chris Renfro (Mary's Teacher), Bianca Leigh (Mary's Chaperone), Tony Macht (Mary's Husband's Assistant) Notes: Excellent 4K capture of Tituss in the lead role! Some bar and head obstruction on the bottom but doesn’t block off much. Some wandering and unfocusing throughout. Includes curtain call and the post-show BC/EFA speech, audio is fed from external source. https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjC72Ne | ASKING $20 USD NOT FOR SHARING EXCEPT THROUGH ME UNTIL OCTOBER 2, 2025

PIRATES! THE PENZANCE MUSICAL April 4, 2025 | Broadway (Previews) | 4K MP4 (9.19GB) | bikinibottomday’s master Cast: Ramin Karimloo (Pirate King), Jinkx Monsoon (Ruth), David Hyde Pierce (Gilbert / Major General Stanley), Nicholas Barasch (Frederic), Preston Truman Boyd (Sullivan / Police Sergeant), Samantha Williams (Mabel Stanley), Kelly Belarmino (Ensemble), Cicily Daniels (Ensemble), Ninako Donville (Ensemble), Alex Dorf (Ensemble), Rick Faugno (Ensemble), Niani Feelings (Ensemble), Tommy Gedrich (Ensemble), Alex Gibson (Ensemble), Afra Hines (Ensemble), Tatiana Lofton (Ensemble), Shina Ann Morris (Ensemble), Dan Hoy (Ensemble), Ryo Kamibayashi (Ensemble), Nathan Lucrezio (Ensemble), Tyrone L. Robinson (Ensemble), Bronwyn Tarboton (Ensemble) Notes: Excellent 4K capture of this show’s first preview! Some head obstruction on the sides during the second half of the first act, but are mostly worked around. Increased wandering and unfocusing throughout. Includes curtain call, audio fed from external source. https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjC7ScN | ASKING $20 USD NOT FOR SHARING EXCEPT THROUGH ME UNTIL OCTOBER 2, 2025

REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES April 8, 2025 | Broadway (Previews) | 4K MP4 (8.7GB) | bikinibottomday’s master Cast: Tatianna Córdoba (Ana), Justina Machado (Carmen), Shelby Acosta (Prima Flaca), Aline Mayagoitia (Izel), Florencia Cuenca (Estela), Carla Jimenez (Pancha), Mauricio Mendoza (Raúl), Mason Reeves (Henry), Jennifer Sánchez (Rosalí), Sandra Valls (Prima Fulvia), Zeus Mendoza (Newspaper Editor/Ed Wilson), Monica Tulia Ramirez (Mrs. Wright), Ariana Burks (Ensemble), Omar Madden (s/w Ensemble), Christopher M. Ramirez (Ensemble) Notes: Excellent 4K capture of this brilliant new musical! Some minor head obstruction that almost never blocks anything. Some wandering and unfocusing throughout. Includes curtain call, audio fed from external source. https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjC8uA3 | ASKING $20 USD NOT FOR SHARING EXCEPT THROUGH ME UNTIL OCTOBER 2, 2025

[fandomtrumpshate]

Unlisted fandom challenge!

Since our numbers post earlier today, we've had more than 30 signups, including write-ins for 2 more fandoms, bringing the total of unlisted fandoms to 155 ... for now ...

At the top of the list we have a 3-way tie for 1st, a 5-way tie for 2nd, and a 6-way tie for third ...

5 Danny Phantom

5 For All Mankind

5 Yu Yu Hakusho

4 Ace Attorney

4 Ted Lasso

4 Goblin Emperor Series - Katherine Addison

4 Stanley Parable

4 Tortall

3 Greek Mythology/Religion

3 Bungo Stray Dogs

3 Call of Duty

3 Dragon Ball

3 Realm of the Elderlings - Robin Hobb

3 Mummy (1999 franchise)

A single sign up could change all that ...

The rest below a cut for length -

2 Alan Wake/Remedyverse

2 Ghosts (TV)

2 Buffyverse

2 Cosmere

2 CSI

2 Detective Conan

2 Dracula

2 Dune

2 Firefly

2 Formula 1 RPF

2 Glee

2 Guardian (2018)

2 HBO War

2 Hermitcraft/The Life Series SMP

2 Imperial Radch Series

2 Mob Psycho 100

2 Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury

2 Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint

2 Persona Series: 3-5

2 Professional Wrestling

2 Riverdale

2 Saw

2 Shades of Magic - V. E. Schwab

2 Slow Horses

2 Stormlight Archive

2 Bear (TV)

2 Empyrean - Rebecca Yarros

2 Folk of the Air (Holly Black)

2 Radiant Emperor Series

2 Undertale

2 Venture Bros

2 Voltron

2 Wolf Pack

1 1670

1 a league of their own (TV series)

1 A Plague Tale (Videogame Series)

1 Adventure Zone: Balance

1 Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across 8th Dimension

1 Adventures of Tintin

1 American Gods

1 Among Us

1 Artful Dodger

1 Bendy (and The Ink Machine/Dark Revival)

1 Billabong - Mary Grant Bruce

1 Bioshock 1&2

1 Blue Beetle

1 Breakfast With Scot

1 Bunny - Mona Awad

1 Buzzfeed Unsolved/Watcher Entertainment RPF

1 Cabin Pressure

1 Cats the musical

1 Charlie's Angels (2019)

1 Cherry Magic

1 Chronicles of Narnia

1 Cobra Kai

1 Coffee Talk (Video Game)

1 Criminal Minds

1 Death Note

1 Dexter

1 Dice Punks (podcast)

1 Digimon

1 Dimension 20

1 Discworld - Terry Pratchett

1 Divergent

1 Donten ni Warau / Laughing Under the Clouds

1 Dungeons and Daddies (podcast)

1 Fallout Video Game (Bethesda)

1 Falsettos

1 Fargo FX

1 Farscape

1 Fire Emblem (4-10, 13, 14, 16)

1 Five Nights at Freddy's

1 Friends at the Table

1 Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

1 Good Place

1 Grantchester

1 Green Creek

1 Greenhollow Series - Emily Tesh

1 Grey's Anatomy

1 Grimm

1 Gundam (see below for details)

1 Hatchetfield

1 Hawaii 5.0

1 Hello From The Hallowoods

1 Higurashi no Naku Koro ni

1 Hollows - Kim Harrison

1 Honkai Star Rail

1 Horizon Zero Dawn

1 Horror

1 Inception

1 Inspector Morse

1 IT (Movies - Muschietti)

1 Jeff Satur - music videos

1 JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

1 Julie and the Phantoms

1 Last Kingdom

1 Law and Order

1 Left-Handed Booksellers of London - Garth Nix

1 Legend of the Galactic Heroes

1 Live Free or Die Hard (Die Hard 4)

1 London Spy

1 Lunar Chronicles

1 Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic

1 Magnificent Seven

1 Mechanisms

1 Mrs. Davis

1 My Little Pony

1 Nancy Drew (CW Series)

1 Narcos (TV)

1 Nine Worlds Series - Victoria Goddard

1 NU: Carnival

1 Omori

1 One Direction

1 Orphan Black

1 Outlast

1 Pacific Rim

1 Pairing (Casey McQuiston)

1 Re-Animator

1 Saint of Steel

1 Sex Education (TV)

1 Shadow Campaigns - Django Wexler

1 Simon Snow Series

1 Skins (UK)

1 Slam Dunk

1 South Park

1 Starry Musical

1 Succession

1 Super Sentai

1 Sweeney Todd

1 Team Starkid

1 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

1 Terror (TV 2018)

1 Three of Hearts

1 Tin Can Bros

1 Tower of God

1 True Detective

1 Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold

1 Wayfarers (Becky Chambers)

1 Westworld (TV)

1 Yellowjackets

1 Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters

[thecraftymagician]

*sharp inhale*

Okay so I am fully prepared for this to be an unpopular or maybe even terrible opinion BUT I gotta just put it out there, okay? Okay

SO not too long ago Nix was posting about popular picks for actors as the M6 basically and none that they chose for Julian (or most of them so far) really fit. HOWEVER.. I was catching up on Stranger Things and noticed that Jamie Campbell Bower had joined the cast (he was Jace in The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, or if you're Tim Burton/theater kid trash like me Anthony in Sweeney Todd). Long story short I had thoughts after an episode or 2 and illictic on deviantart had made this artwork of Julian that happens to look even more similar and just.

I don't know. Thoughts? Please don't toast my ass for this aaaahhhhh

[my18thcenturysource]

On International Women's Day we celebrate the social, economic, cultural, and economic achievement of women, but I would not call it a happy or quite celebratory holiday. Today we also highlight the current work towards equality, and raise awareness against bias, and this years' theme is #ChooseToChallenge (because a challenged world is a world in alert, so challenge and call out gender bias and discrimination when you see it.)

Today's post (hey! I'm back!) is a little timeline for International Women's Day, for all of us to take a look at what we have achieved, and what the road ahead looks like. So, here we go:

1909 - the Socialist Party of America created the "National Women's Day" held in February 28th in New York City. This was a the original idea of activist Theresa Malkiel.

1910 - The International Socialist Women's Conference takes place in Cophenhagen, Denmark. 100 women from 17 countries agree on an annual Women's Day to promote equal rights (including the vote), but no date was specified.

1911 - International Women's Day was honoured for the first time in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on March 19th. On March 25th the fire in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City took the lives of 146 working women, most of them immigrants, this drew attention to working conditions and it became a main focus on the next International Women's Day events. James Oppenheim published a poem in The American Magazine, quoting "bread and roses" from a 1910 speech by Helen Todd calling not only for basic rights and equality, but also for beauty and dignity, creating the "Bread and Roses" slogan that became representative of the women's fight, but also key for the 1912 Lawrence mills strike.

1914 - International Women's Day was held on March 8th for the first time. In London was held a march from Bow to Trafalgar Square in support of women's suffrage, and Sylvia Pankhurst was arrested.

1917 - On the last Sunday of February (March 8th on the Gregorian calendar) women in Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg) began a strike for "bread and piece" for the end of WWI, this demonstration eventually covered the whole city, and days later forcing the Czar to abdicate and women were granted the right to vote by the provisional Government. This marked the start of the Russian Revolution.

1927 - There's a march in Guagzhou, China, of 25,000 women and male supporters. Even though the Women's Day was commemorated in China since 1922, it was until 1949 that it was declared an official holiday and women would be given half a day off.

1936 - Dolores Ibáuri led a women's march in Madrid on the eve of the Spanish Civil War.

1967 - Women's Day is taken up by second-wave feminist, and it stops being perceived as a "communist holiday". It is now a day of activism and its sometimes refered in Europe as "Women's International Day of Struggle".

1975 - International Women's Day is celebrated by the United Nations. During the 70s and 80s, women's groups were joined by leftists and labor organizations in calling for equal pay, economic opportunity, legal rights, reproductive rights, child care, and prevention of violence against women.

1996 - The UN announced the first annual theme: "Celebrating the past, Planning for the Future", each year there's a new them and 2021's is "Choose to Challenge".

2007 - Violence sparked in Tehran on March 4th, when police beat hundreds of men and women who were planning a rally, arrested dozens of women and some were released after several days of solitary confinement and interrogation.

There is of course so much more to say about this day, but this post is getting LONG, and of course I added at the bottom links for further learning.

Finally, this is a day to take action. And the marches are not the only option, you can:

Support female-centric charities.

Raise awareness of women's struggles.

Pressure your local government to achieve gender parity.

Share and celebrate women's achievements.

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

Learn more:

International Women's Day

Remembering Theresa Serber Malkiel, the forgotten woman behind International Women’s Day, Adrija Roychowdhury, The Indian Express, 8th March 2019.

International Socialist Conferences of Women Workers, Alexandra Kollontai, International Socialist Conferences of Women Workers, 1918.

The roots of International Women’s Day are more radical than you think, Erin Blakemore, National Geographic, 2020.

Death in the Afternoon Podcast, ep 11: The Least Worst Death, 2019. MAJOR CONTENT WARNING this episode talks about the tragedies of 9/11 and the Triangle Shirtwaist factory, and it might be VERY disturbing for some. Please take care while listening if you choose to.

Uncovering the History of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, David von Drehle, The Smithsonian Magazine, 2006. - Again, CONTENT WARNING for fire, mass death, suicide,

Bread and Roses: the origins of a Mount Holyoke tradition, Rachel Nix, 2019.

Bread and Roses poem, by James Oppenheim, 1911.

From the archive, 11 June 1914: Arrest of Miss Sylvia Pankhurst, The Guardian

The Strike that Shook America, Christopher Klein, History.com, 2012.

Russia’s February Revolution Was Led by Women on the March, Carolyn Harris, The Smithsonian Magazine, 2017.

In China, Women’s Day Marches On Despite Decline, Chen Yan, Sixth Tone, 2018.

Memories of Resistance: Women Activists from the Spanish Civil War, Shirley Mangini, Signs (vol. 17, no. 1), 1991.

Iranian Police Clash With Women's Day Protesters, 2007.

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

Images from top:

Poster for Women's Day, March 8, 1914, demanding voting rights for women, Karl Maria Stadler.

Female tailors on strike, New York City, February, 1910.

The Bread and Roses strike, 1912.

Women's demonstration for bread and peace – March 8, 1917, Petrograd, Russia

Alexandra Kollontai with Clara Zetkin at International Women's Conference, 1921.

A Tehran University female student protesting against the government of Iran, December 9, 2007, Tehran University in Tehran.

[thylacinetears]

Hey!

EDITED 21/10/24: I DO NOT REBLOG OR ANSWER ASKS THAT BEG FOR DONATIONS. I don't have any way of checking whether such asks are legit. If you send me an ask requesting money, I will report you for spam.

Instead, if you're visiting my blog and you have any money to spare, please consider donating to one of these verified charities: Human Appeal Gaza Emergency Fund Minus18 Supporting LGBTQIA+ Youth Palestine Children's Relief Fund

G'day Tumblr, I'm Thyla. Like it says in my bio, I've been meaning to make a tumblr account for ages, and the Great Twitter Incident of 2022 sped that up. Lmao. So I guess I better make an introductory post? My pronouns are they/them/theirs, xe/xem/xirs, ze/hir/hirs, ey/em/eirs. I'm basically nonbinary and queer, but I also use a lot of other labels like demisexual, androgyne, genderqueer, sapphillean, mspec, etc. I am a radical inclusionist - I include all GOOD FAITH queer identities. I have ADHD, and I'm 2e. So ADHD, if fact, that I forgot to put it in this original post and had to edit this lmao. I write fanfic sometimes, but I'm not sure if I'm quite ready to link public social media to my account, lol. I am a young adult, and I'm from Melbourne. I don't feel comfortable disclosing my exact age, my exact location, my AGAB, or my race when online.

I have no DNI - if you're being annoying then I'll block you, and then you can't interact. That's the DNI, lmao. My interests (absolute favourites in italics): YouTube - I watch basically anything Grian, Mumbo Jumbo, PearlescentMoon, or GeminiTay post, including Hermitcraft, the Life Series, 100 hours hardcore, Afterlife SMP. I never got into Empires - well, not before the crossover, lol. I indulge in a bit of Stampy's Lovely World, on occasion. I also like other non-minecraft YouTubers: mostly ContraPoints, Jessie Gender, Luxander, RTGame, Philosophy Tube, Todd In The Shadows, etc. Some politics, some fun stuff. Books - I read a lot of fantasy, YA, and queer books. My favourites include the Grishaverse series by Leigh Bardugo, The Atlas Series by Olivie Blake, the Old Kingdom series by Garth Nix, the Nevermoor series by Jessica Townsend, The List duology by Patricia Forde, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda and related books by Becky Albertalli, and many of Rick Riordan's books. One of my favourite books/series of all time is the Lionboy trilogy by Zizou Corder. It's super underrated! Movies & TV - I love anything sci-fi, fantasy, or animated! Particularly Doctor Who, Firefly, Good Omens, Heartstopper, Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, Star Wars, Star Trek (Discovery, Strange New Worlds, Enterprise), Pixar, Studio Ghibli, Dead Poets Society... you get the idea. Music - Basically anything that's vaguely pop, indie, electronic, etc. My favourite artists include 100 gecs, Alice Glass, BANKS, Billie Eilish, BLACKPINK, Cavetown, Coldplay, Dua Lipa, many Eurovision artists, FKA twigs, Hozier, Lorde, Maneskin, MARINA, Mars Argo, Mitski, Olivia Rodrigo, Paramore, S10, Tame Impala, Taylor Swift, Troye Sivan, Vance Joy, Vera Blue... Musicals & Theatre - I've seen a couple, my favourite is Come From Away! Other things - As you can guess, I love thylacines! I like most animals, really. I particularly love Keeshonds and other Spitz-type dogs - I have a Keeshond and he's the most gorgeous doggy in the whole wide world. Things I haven't finished yet, so please no spoilers - The Owl House

Wow, that's a long post. If you made it this far, um, congrats?

[snorlaxlovesme]

full thoughts on the chaos walking movie? I want to hear more about it lol I haven’t seen it yet

it just...it felt like TKONLG but without EVERY GOOD PART, you know?

scene-wise, the closest individual scene we had to anything in the book was maybe the scene where Viola read Todd’s mother’s book to him? (even that wasn’t the same bc that was also the scene where we find out he’s illiterate, and he lets her read it right away, so there was no deep-rooted embarrassment about not being able to read). also it happened in Farbranch. BUT, like it captured the emotion of the OG scene a little, where Viola is reading to Todd and he’s hearing his ma’s words and getting emotional about it.

but all the stand-out scenes from the book, i.e. saying goodbye to Ben and Cillian, meeting the girl and getting hit in the head with a branch and bandaging her anyway, ALL of the Aaron fights, the bridge, the massacre of Farbranch, the song of Here, the Spackle, Todd’s illness, the waterfall scene, Haven, NONE of that was in the movie. so imagine all the really important and powerful moments gone

also all the overarching themes? those are gone too. todd becoming a man is  HUGE deal in the books. even in his horrible awful town he just wants to feel like he BELONGS and he’s the one person in the entire town being ostracized. two of the biggest secrets in Todd’s whole world are kept from him for the majority of the book because he’s “not yet a man”. it’s important to him. and once todd realizes the connection between Prentisstown maturity and murder, he spends the rest of that book WISHING he could be a killer. wishing he could have that kind of strength and seeing himself weak for not being able to kill. 

all of that?? gone. movie!Todd often chants the familiar “I am Todd Hewitt” (and sometimes “be a man”) when he’s nervous or trying to cover something in his Noise, and has a little tiff with Ben and Cillian at the beginning of the movie bc the Mayor sees Todd as a man while Ben and Cillian do not. (that’s a weird little bit though bc the movie never really explains why the Mayor had such an interest in Todd). but that’s about it in terms of coming-of-age material in the movie. and about murder. seeing as he doesn’t. kill. the. Spackle. let that sink in.

also like. the Noise is shown as a CONCEPT but not as a theme. the THEME of Noise is that, and I quote

“In this world of information overload, the ability to feel, my boy, is a rare gift indeed.”

or perhaps

“Knowing a man’s thoughts ain’t knowing a man.”

or even

“Knowledge is dangerous and men lie and the world changes, whether I want it to or not.”

in this movie, Noise would be described as like. a nuisance at worst and a superpower at best. you can hear most of every man’s thoughts in the movie, though not a constant, never ending stream. just just bits sporadically at either plot-convenient or comedic times. the Mayor (and at one point Ben, and at one point Todd) uses his Noise to construct illusions around people kind of similar to that Jake Gyllenhaal villain in Spiderman: Far From Home. 

but neither of these two main examples really SHOW the themes that Patrick Ness showed us in the books. that Noise is powerfully ANNOYING; that it can quickly break down relationships between groups of people; that it can be manipulated making large lies still possible.

like, remember when in the books, Todd and Viola get to Farbranch and poor Todd is absolutely GOBSMACKED that 1. the women are ALIVE and 2. the men and women are living together?? in harmony?? what the eff?? and you see Hildy in Tam’s Noise and just how much they genuinely love each other and Todd is like “damn we ain’t in Prentisstown anymore Manchee”. and you can just see based on the contrast that Prentisstown people are a whole different breed compared to the kindness of Farbranch?

in the movie Todd has a few moments of inner dialogue where he’s like “oh man that’s a woman. that’s nuts” and then we move on. his world should be turned upside down here and its not. and the difference between the two towns is that they kinda just made it seem like, yeah, Noise is annoying so we have the men sleep separately from the women so we all get a little peace, and it’s fine. that’s how Farbranch deals with it. it all just feels very blasé 

(i can’t remember specifically where this happens, probably either in Farbranch or cutting back to the Prentisstown men getting ready to march, but at some point a leader ends up saying something to a crowd of people and you can see how just one sentence spreads through an entire group of men and how they all start amplifying it and getting more and more panicked and i did think the mob mentality was cool. it reminded me of the beginning of The Ask and the Answer were the Mayor is addressing the citizens of Haven and you get that moment where the whole crowd flinches over the words of one man.)

and in all of this I’ve barely mentioned Viola. my wonderful girl. how they’ve massacred her story. god.

all of Viola’s development for the first half of the book is tanked from the start bc you SEE the crash, you see her stealing food from Ben and Cillian’s house (that’s the inciting incident of the movie), she talks to the Mayor in Prentisstown almost immediately after Todd finds her and his Noise helps everyone locate her, she talks to Todd a lot before getting to Farbranch after they escape Prentissown. the book does a LOT of work for Viola by having her mute and scared for the beginning and slowly showing how she comes to trust Todd. and how even after their incessent bickering in Farbranch they still choose to escape together because they know the army is after them specifically and they’re all the other has. that progression is really important in the book, as well as afterwards when we see how snarky Viola can actually be when speaking, how she thinks this entire planet is BACKWARDS and she can’t wait til her ship comes and shows them a thing or two about how to live.

movie Viola, well. she wants to find a way to communicate with her ship. she’s under the impression that since her scout ship crashed they’re gonna assume she’s dead and leave her behind. even though the Mayor brings up the settlers a lot after he learns about them, Viola curiously never really brings them up in any other context besides they need to come and get her. like it really made it sound like she planned on calling them, having them scoop her, and then they’d all just fucking leave, i guess. i don’t know what her end goal was besides CALLING HER PEOPLE which became the main point of the movie. the Mayor trying to find Todd and Viola so he could....use her to contact the ship?? that was also kind of unclear. and Viola trying to get to a communicator possibly so she could get the hell out of dodge. idk if that was her actual plan, but it was certainly what Todd was thinking, enough to where I was wondering if he was going to sabotage her mission in order to force her to stay (yeah. yeah. he had that energy about him and it was grosss)

and quickly, since all the animals couldn’t talk the way they do in the book, Manchee was more of a cute prop than anything. i could have gotten over it if he was useful in any way, but he never even like attacked a dude to save Todd or anything like that. so when he died it was sad on a dog-level but not a character level, since besides sitting next to Viola like twice while she cried he really added nothing to the story. also the shock of animal death was greatly reduced already since Todd’s horse that he used to escape Prentisstown from got a broken leg after he rode him off a cliff, so Todd used the knife (off-screen, thank god) to put him down. so Manchee getting killed was kind of lessened a little since my man Whiskey got nixed like 40 min earlier in the film.

this is getting long so I’ll cut it here since I’m gonna probably post about this a thousand more times. but yeah. if you watched it completely divorced from the books you would probably think “that was a cool concept but also what was the point of any of that” which is basically what most people thought based on the review headlines i’ve read. and if you are an avid book fan you’re gonna think you’re watching something else entirely.

[greatrunner]

Closing Thoughts - 'Stargirl' s2 (2021)

n0way10 replied to your post: Me watching the last couple episodes of Stargirl s2...

Did you finish the season? How did you think the show handled that one point you said bugged you? (Can’t say unless you finished episode 12 at least)

Yeah, I'm finished. I've been processing the last four episodes since last night (or the night before, or whenever I finally post this). I kinda woke up and completely forgot I watched them, so this is a bit rough and stitched together (b/c I'm backtracking through my impressions of each episode).

Episode ten handled the conflict between Pat and Courtney fine. It was a game of awkward, tension-filled tit-for-tat that allowed the episode to detour and introduce the next season's villains.

(I'm interested in whether or not Keith David will be voice-only like Tony Todd was for Zoom in The Flash, or if his role will also be a physical one.)

But It was like watching myself argue about the plot (if that makes sense). It felt like the writers were trying to cover their bases if they were questioned about their narrative choices.

Again, I get that the information itself (killing someone) really wasn't the point of the conflict, but the fact that Pat kept another secret (broke Courtney's trust) was. I even like the fact that the show doesn't even really have them reconcile/talk about it ever again (because that happens).

I'm saying that I wish it wasn't, because it was more in service of the "divide and conquer" aspect of the Eclipso arc than anything that might've come up between them, or in service to their connections to Cindy or the JSA, in the absence of that.

It just reaffirmed my belief that the "you lied to me 2.0" angle wasn't a strong foundation for a conflict from the start.

I did appreciate that Yolanda nixed Courtney's presumption that knowing the original Wildcat killed someone would convince her to come back to the team when Courtney finally faced her. I appreciate even more that it was Cindy playing on Yolanda's insecurities that did the trick b/c it used their previous dynamic to the advantage of the episode.

(If anything the episode itself got me thinking about how they handled Pat in the flashback sequences.*)

The last three episodes were fine, exciting even. But the writing failed to capitalize on Beth and MidNite's ability to see through Eclipso's illusions, and how it could be used to the advantage of the team. So we got filler action sequences instead of everyone tag-teaming Eclipso together.

I do like how the season introduced Jakeem Thunder and gave us glimpses of his family life. He's always been a fun character (one I'm baffled never saw an earlier adaptation in the DCEU or DCAU, but iknowhwygif). His dynamic with Mike was a breath of fresh air in a largely bleh season. I hope they don't do to him what they did to Jennie.

Meg DeLacy's Cindy Burman might have the most interesting storyline in the season outside of Beth's subplot with her parents (as a continuation of a s1 subplot). Again, if she hadn't been banished to the shadowrealm, she (among other things) might've saved a lot of the season for me.

I wish the show would've waited before having Cindy ask to join the JSA, but the decision itself feels natural to her character given what's she's been through. How she insulated herself with followers as the popular girl, and in turn, was a follower before. The shadowrealm episode wasn't my favorite, but DeLacy was the best part of it.

The final shot with the Crock family at the Dugan/Whitmore house, and turning Eclipso into a piece of burnt toast (hence the Buffy meme) were other moments I enjoyed.

I wasn't crazy about the writers casting Courtney as "light incarnate" as the reason that she (and Starman) can wield the staff. Or that her hating Eclipso was supposed to be this big moral failing for her (b/c she chooses to give people second chances).

The blue-eyed blonde white girl representing "light" in a season where the writers cast its two non-white female characters as "dark" (Yolanda) or "evil" (Cindy) was pretty tone-deaf. It's highlights my problems with the show's take on "light/dark". I wish the reason Courtney can use the staff ended at "because it chose her", not because of "light" (i.e., purity).

Like the reveal about Eclipso's intentions (which felt like a last minute attempt to add depth to a depthless antagonist), they waited too late to make Courtney being possessed matter to the story. It was over as fast it began.

Courtney being taken over feels like it happened so the show could do what Mark Hamill wanted to see happen in The Force Awakens. Starman (Luke) shows up to save Courtney (Rey) from Eclipso (Kylo Ren) as his big reintroduction.

(If Courtney was a dude, I doubt this would've happened.)

Extended Thoughts

(1): S2 really did everything it could to undermine the Green Lantern (Jennie-Lynn Hayden) in an arc where Green Lantern power would basically obliterate an enemy like Eclipso. Whether it was putting her on a bus (twice), refusing to make her an active character in the arc itself, how they handled Jennie was pretty bad.

I was really looking forward to how this character would gel with the established cast throughout the season, what her presence would reveal about the characters as it revealed more information about her. Y'know, actually develop her character?

But instead, they rush her introduction. Her episode is entirely dedicated to Courtney acting like a cop who's constantly profiling her as criminal, and just being jerk towards her. It's like, "you couldn't've teased this out?"

Story beats that typically occurred over multiple episodes for other characters (Rick, Beth, Cindy, and Yolanda) are squeezed into the last couple minutes of her episode (or info dumped), and then she disappears. And when she comes back, it's basically just to play unconscious mediator in Courtney's spat with Pat.

Jennie was only ever used to the benefit of Courtney's (and only Courtney's) storyline. Her own was pretty much neglected. The next season can't fix how they introduced her and then ditched her. That's the baseline, that's the impression they chose to give audiences.

And with everything they to set up for s3, there's a good chance that Jennie will be overshadowed by her "gotta find my brother, Todd" subplot, and eventually, Todd himself (because I don't really trust Geoff Johns/CW to make her the Green Lantern when they can just replace her with a male character).

*(2): Pat's characterization in s2's (episode nine/ten) flashbacks was odd. The show seems split on what kind've tone they want to take with him in the same way it tries to inhabit 40s/50s (white) America and "present day" at the same time.

Pat is either a "Golden Age" personality (where a name like "Stripesy" is goofy, but permissible in the late 2010s), or the "Contemporary" superhero Dad (where a name like "Stripesy" just doesn't work for a modern superhero show, and is a punchline).

s1 was constantly calling him a sidekick for a punchline but largely on the pretense that "looks can be deceiving". He's the affable, too-nice-for-his-own-good Dad cramping Courtney's style until he shows up in a giant robot that he built "with a box of scraps".

Everything the season ends up revealing makes him more of the reluctant mentor (to Starman and Courtney) and roadie historian for the JSA and SSOV than a sidekick (nevermind being the "Big Guy" to Courtney's "Rusty"). He's got insecurities about that, but the gag is more or less discarded when he faces Jordan Mahkent without the robot.

s2 seems to take a more straight-faced approach with him, but that's largely b/c the writers are artificially increasing the stakes with Eclipso (an instance of plot-over-character). And it works to the Pat's advantage the most in the scene with Rick's uncle, where he puts on this veneer of politeness, and then he adopts an attitude I've seen from my parents to bust Rick out of jail with forced consent. Without a doubt, I'll say the "I got some bad in me, too" was probably my favorite moment with Pat after he tried to fight Artemis.

But the JSA vs. Eclipso flashback presents this "golly gee willikers Batman, it's Flash!" personality that's treated like a child ("the superheroes adults are talking"). He doesn't know or isn't much involved in anything the JSA does. It's so jarring, because feels like a parody/exaggeration of s1 Pat's admiration/involvement of the JSA.

And it's hard to take the reconciliation between Pat and Starman at face value, because it's clearly not a relationship of equals, familial or otherwise. Sylvester considers Pat his brother, but the dynamic between them is basically "master and servant" (something Wildcat calls out when he dismisses Pat as a legitimate vote).

Pat's loyalty to Starman feels less like genuine friendship and more of an obligation to his station. It's meant to be a scene about "chosen families", esp. when they reinforce Pat looked after him since he was a kid (when his parents couldn't be bothered). I get the intent, and I like the scene. But everything that came before it makes Pat feel like a guy hesitant to go against his uber rich employer.

And there were really interesting ways of establishing Pat's objection to killing anyone (period). Establishing that conflict between him, Starman, and the JSA. Especially with Flash on his side.

But that would've required making Pat more assertive and present in the conflict. The show takes the path of least resistance by making Pat passive and extremely understanding to a fault. This version of Flashback Pat that doesn't feel like the guy that ran headfirst into a massacre to save some folks who didn't seem to respect him all that much.

(3): The core JSA are jerks? Or at least so self-involved or arrogant that It's hard to feel bad about the dirt nap the ISA ends up giving them outside of the context that Pat, Rick, and Jennie lost people they respected and loved. They basically treated anyone who wasn't a powerhouse pretty dismissively.

In retrospect, the ISA end up coming off as the more interesting or most human of the super groups in the show. The first season leaned into their stupid wealth, self-involved, and self-important attitudes, at the same time it humanized them through their family connections (or lack thereof) and their shaky ability to work as a team. But that's because they're villains, we're taught to expect that from them.

On the flip-side, the JSA are largely held up as noble and heroic figures are venerated in plot-necessitated death by Pat, Courtney, and the show. The writing makes the assumption that we believe that they're good guys, 'worthy' of the mantles they carry as superheroes.

But most of them turn out to be people you don't want to be in the same room for ten seconds. Dr. MidNite, Johnny Thunder, and Jay Garrick Flash seem far more grounded than Hourman, Wildcat, and Starman (who are all ego).

I'm certainly looking forward to the next season fleshing them out a little more (esp. Green Lantern and Dr. Fate, if they get story time), but only in the past tense. If these dudes all come back from the dead, then that rather renders the JSA Jr. and Stargirl kind've pointless.

(4) If I'm speaking about the season in an overall sense, then I would say it's a mess. I think it started out strong, but the Green Lantern episode was definitely a sign of how they were going to handle the rest of it.

(They could've really done something with Courtney being hyper-vigilant in her search for danger. The humor of her hubris was great, but, um, that kid was clearly not dealing with almost being killed multiple times???)

It slowly undermines what made s1 such a great gambit of Raimi-esque superhero television (but like Sleepy Hollow s1, the end of Stargirl's first season is where the problems started).

I felt like death had some real consequences in s1 (legitimized the ISA as a threat), but the final episode of that season allowed s2 to basically render death inconsequential to the storytelling, MCU style.

Doctor MidNite (I) and Starman being "actually, not dead" really bothers me. I'm fine with learning more about them in the past tense, but I think they have and will suck up time better spent on the the established cast of teens and adults.

I'm honestly convinced they were brought back to facilitate the Shade character, and not much else. MidNite (I) was basically benched as soon as he's reintroduced, and I'm not interested in mentor Starman. That's what Pat's for (unless Luke Wilson is, like, leaving the show.... which would really suck).

And if it's not obvious, I really dislike the Shade. He felt inorganic to the to the present day storyline beyond acting as means for bringing Courtney and Cindy back from the shadowrealm. Then there's the fact that, as an anti-villain, he just doesn't work. Not in the way that Sportsmaster and Tigress managed to without the writers trying to make them "complicated" via apologia (a dead sister, not meaning to strand someone in the shadowrealm, and a cold beer between enemies), or lionization of basic human decency.

I liked how things ended for him in his so-called death. That was a descent send off. I hate that the writers resurrected him to keep him around for next season. That was the biggest deflation toward any excitement for s3.

I know Solomon Grundy's shtick is never dying, but if the CGI in the last couple episodes is any indicator, they don't have the budget for his character. Cut him loose.

Like most superhero and streaming-dominant media now, s2 tries to juggle one too many balls and introduces too many subplots into the soup. The end result just feels underwhelming. I'm kinda expecting the same problems of s2 to appear in s3 since the writing is no longer trying to be all that self-contained (those post-credit stingers in s1 not withstanding).

Again, I still think introducing Eclipso this early was a detriment to the family and character drama s1 established. Characters were killed off before they could actually matter, or pushed aside (literally) to entertain the fear demon plot.

Cameron falls to the wayside, and gets a rushed cliffhanger, Isaac (Fiddler Jr.) is killed off unceremoniously, and Artemis Crock (Sportsmaster Jr.) is put on a bus until the last episode.

It's akin to Buffy The Vampire Slayer or Xena introducing their game changers (Glory and Dawn, Callisto's reincarnation, and Eve) in their second seasons instead of their fifth.

Beth and Cindy might be the only characters with some real definition in this season, because they're the only ones who got any development as characters.

[aion-rsa]

Zack Snyder’s Justice League: Joker Epilogue Explained

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This Zack Snyder’s Justice League article contains spoilers.

Despite the heroes’ best efforts throughout the four-hour epic, Zack Snyder’s Justice League still ends in scorched earth, with Darkseid’s forces decimating whatever’s left of the planet’s surface, turning it into a wasteland. Even after defeating Steppenwolf and preventing the disaster of Unity, it’s still not enough to stop what’s been coming to Snyder’s version of the DCEU since Bruce had his first “Knightmare” in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Or so it seems in an almost 10-minute-long epilogue, which includes a cameo from Jared Leto’s Joker especially shot for the Snyder Cut.

Joker’s inclusion in the movie might seem jarring to some, considering he has no bearing on the actual story being told for most of the film’s runtime. In fact, you could pretty much skip the epilogue completely and not lose much of the experience if you’re only watching for the main plot. That said, the tense conversation between Batman and Joker — as they look upon what Darkseid’s wrought on their planet — does raise some interesting questions as to what might be next for these archnemeses were Snyder to get yet another shot at the DCEU.

Ironically, Snyder actually shot the brand-new footage for Leto specifically because he thought he’d never get another chance to work with these characters. The director “couldn’t leave this universe without having a Joker/Batman scene,” according to producer Deborah Snyder in an interview with CBR. But shooting the scene in the middle of a pandemic was tricky: it involved sending a truck full of costumes to Leto’s house, who would then try them on for the director during Zoom calls to see what worked. According to Deborah, “there was a lot of Zooming and photos and things like that, but so much thought went into creating the character.”

This might explain why the “Joker Christ” look — a version of the villain wearing a crown of thorns featured in a Vanity Fair article — didn’t actually appear in the movie. It was likely one of the costume ideas that were nixed before filming. Something similar happened with Leto’s now-infamous “We live in a society” line in one of the trailers for the Snyder Cut, which the director says was ad-libbed by Leto himself while filming the epilogue. As you now know, that line is nowhere to be found in the scene, either.

So, what did make it into the epilogue? How did Snyder use his final chance to have these versions of Batman and Joker meet in a DCEU movie?

The Batman/Joker History

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For one thing, Snyder touches on some very familiar elements of their dynamic. Like with past iterations of this relationship, Ben Affleck’s Dark Knight and Leto’s Joker are truly inseparable. Even when faced with the end of the world, when all bets are off and the rules no longer apply, the hero and the villain still decide to team up instead of settling the score once and for all. Joker is especially cognizant of their connection, mentioning how Batman created him and how his beloved Bat now needs him to undo what Darkseid did, even though it’s unclear just what the clown can do against such insurmountable, cosmic odds.

Bruce’s threat that he’ll eventually kill Joker is a particularly weak one when he’s also welcomed the Clown Prince of Crime onto his team, and equipped him with a bulletproof vest and an assault rifle no less. Their tense back and forth in this scene is just another section of their eternal dance, even as the Joker dares Batman to kill him. But if Bats were to give in to the temptation and end the clown’s life, who would be there to give him a reach–

Harley Quinn is Dead

We learn a few other things from their brief conversation (and one has to wonder why they’ve decided to do this in the open where they can be spotted by Darkseid’s parademons or Evil Superman): Harley Quinn has died in this possible future, but not before expressing her true hatred for Mr. J. Whether it was always the plan for Harley to break away from her insane beau in time for Birds of Prey or Snyder was trying to connect the dots after the fact is unclear. But her death is clearly a particularly sore spot for Joker, who for a second seems to want to break his own proposed truce and take a shot at the Batman.

“You’re good,” Joker finally says when he regains his cool, realizing the Dark Knight wants the clown to give him a reason to put him down for good. Self-defense ain’t the same as murder in the Snyderverse, right?

The Death of Robin

Robin’s death is finally addressed with one of the coldest lines in the entire epilogue: “I’m happy to discuss in any way you like, why you sent a Boy Wonder to do a man’s job?” the Joker asks Batman. This is in reference to a couple of things. The vandalized Robin suit displayed in the Batcave is a stark reminder of what is likely Bruce’s biggest failure in this universe, but we’ve never actually learned how the Boy Wonder died despite the references to the meteoric death sprinkled across Snyder’s earlier DCEU work. We know the clown did it but not how (perhaps for the best) or the events that led up to Robin’s death.

Read more

Movies

Zack Snyder’s Justice League Ending Explained: The Sequels and DCEU We Never Saw

By Mike Cecchini

Movies

Zack Snyder Wanted to Make a Batman vs. Joker Movie After Justice League

By Mike Cecchini

But that single line of dialogue delivered by the Joker suggests that some version of the 1988 comic book storyline “Death in the Family” has happened in this universe. In those comics, Robin (the second one, Jason Todd) goes off on his own to find his biological mother against Batman’s wishes, and instead comes face to face with the Joker, who murders him in extremely gruesome fashion. It’s a death that haunts Bruce as much as the deaths of his parents, which Leto’s Joker also references, along with Batman’s real name.

Batman Must Die

Most importantly, the epilogue seems to exist so that the Joker can plant a seed in Batman’s head: only his own self-sacrifice will be enough to stop Darkseid once and for all. This is a storyline that Snyder had planned to explore further in future Justice League sequels, a proposed trilogy that would have culminated with the Dark Knight’s death and the rise of a new Caped Crusader.

It’s unlikely that we’ll ever see this trilogy now that Snyder and the DCEU are parting ways, but the epilogue leaves the road clear for a sequel nonetheless, with Joker alluding to a time-travel plot that would involve Batman’s new crew going back in time to undo Lois Lane’s death and Superman’s villainous turn.

The DC Comics Inspirations

This is hardly the first time the Dark Knight and the Clown Prince of Crime have joined forces to fight a greater evil. Most recently, they’ve teamed up in the DC comics by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, particularly in Dark Nights: Metal and Last Knight on Earth, post-apocalyptic stories set in nightmarish wastelands that the director might have at least skimmed while writing this epilogue. In both of these stories, Joker is a key part of Batman’s ultimate victory. In Last Knight on Earth, Joker even finally become’s his “best friend”‘s sidekick.

But in terms of what inspired the grungier look of Justice League‘s Joker, it seems that the filmmaker and Leto went back to the Grant Morrison era of the character for inspiration. Just as Morrison and Tony Daniel’s “reborn” Joker was a clear influence on Leto’s get-up in Suicide Squad, the jarring butcher (?) costume worn by the clown in the epilogue might have been inspired by a similar look introduced in Morrison’s Batman and Robin series (above). Either way, it’s a very odd fashion choice when you’re about to go fight a New God, but then again, Joker isn’t exactly your average dresser.

With this Batman and Joker scene, Snyder reaffirms his love for these characters. Regardless of whether you find his take on their relationship worthy or not, it’s impossible to deny Snyder’s attention to detail when crafting his final DCEU scene, one full of references to Batman and the Joker’s past as well as their potential future. In his own divisive way, Snyder writes a love letter to these characters and goes out with a smile.

The post Zack Snyder’s Justice League: Joker Epilogue Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[angel-gidget]

Assorted Symbiote Suit Sagas

I might be developing a thing for comparing and contrasting rehashed Spider-man storylines.

I got Spider-man: The Complete Alien Costume Saga from the library this past week and read through it. Then my bud @dayenurose was sweet enough to lend me her Gwenom tpb. Now my current stopping point in Spider-girl has Mayday dealing with the backlash of switching to a black costume.

I saw a tumblr post sometime ago--around the time the Venom movie came out--that talked about what the original alien costume saga looks like from the symbiote’s point of view. It noted that that symbiote wasn’t evil, but easily influenced, and that Peter had inadvertently set a bad example for it by treating it like an inanimate object. Then, of course, Peter made it feel unjustly betrayed by panicking and trying to off it upon realizing it was alive.

Gotta say, that definitely influenced my reading. It shifts the Costume Saga from a mystery to a really prolonged tale of dramatic irony. 

And also, drama in general bc oooohhh boy. I had seen people talk about Peter and Felicia Hardy’s original 616 dating life, but I thought they were exaggerating. They were not. Black Cat is a basket case. A really entertaining basket case of identity issues. I had expected to be impatient about that, as I knew little about her and tend to find myself rather squarely in the Peter/Mary Jane camp, but I was fascinated enough by the train wreck to actually enjoy it quite a bit.

She really brings out the procrastinator in Peter, I think. She blows off his civilian problems, and while this doesn’t nix Peter’s awareness that they are still problems, it does encourage him to put them on the back-burner in favor of cavorting in costume with her. This includes the problem of not knowing jack sh*t about an alien costume that seems to change shape by reading his mind. Cheeze whiz, Pete.

In some ways, his prolonging seemed to go on forever because the trade alternated between Spider-man’s solo title and Marvel Team-up. The Marvel team-up stuff could be fun, but not always the most relevant thing regarding the Costume Saga stuff, but at least I got to see a bit of Monica Rambeau, Cloak, and Dagger, characters I was rather curious about.

Then we’ve got the Spider-Gwen version of things. I expected Gwen’s take on events to be wildly fast-paced by comparison, because her title’s been good like that. I did NOT expect her symbiote relationship to be so... sybiotic. So positive.

I think my expectations might have been thrown off by the old Avengers Academy mobile game, of all things. Because it DID feature a Gwenom outfit+sidestory that had Gwen going a teensy bit dark-side from the suit’s influence.

But in the actual comic, Gwen might be very paranoid about getting in bed with such a mysterious critter, but she seems to catch on quick that SHE is in the lead. And then she seems to embrace and adapt to it fluidly. It felt a teensy bit abrupt to me, but ultimately, I think I dig it.

Then there’s Spider-girl. Mayday’s situation isn’t really a symbiote costume at this point, per se. When her usual suit gets trashed, she’s in a hurry to replace it. The quickest thing she can get her mits on just happens to be a black venom-style suit.

When her parents see her in it the next morning, she nearly gives Mary Jane a heart attack. Her dad gives a rather vague explanation of the venom costume history, but as sorry as May is about upsetting her mom, she still doesn’t HAVE another suit at the moment.

Later, when she DOES have options, she’s torn. In her case, it really is JUST a suit. But by being that, it’s a fresh look when May wants the feeling of a clean slate from her mistakes.

She’s also accepting resources from a shady yet helpful character named Tarantula, and while she’s on the fence about his intentions, she likes the people he hooks her up with. (Some helpful gals-in-the-chair, and Elektra as her personal combat coach.) The black suit reinforces her association with them which feels like another incentive to hang onto it.

I suppose to put the cherry on top of this trifecta, I would also enjoy reading the Ultimate Spider-man Venom storyline, but sadly, the library’s volume is all checked out.

Anyways, I find myself in the mood to do something similar with the clone saga. I did read the Ultimate version of those events waaaayyyy back when, and enjoyed it, but if I understand correctly, the original is more complicated.

But I feel like I’m constantly running into references to it, and I did enjoy Ben Reiley’s arc the giant Spiderverse compendium. (Though I largely read it for love of Ultimate Peter Parker’s clone, Jessica.)  I also read the Clone fake-out storyline of Renew Your Vows which was fun.

And apparently one of the 616 reboots of clone saga was drawn by Todd Nauck? I suppose I’ll have to save that one till the end as a final treat.

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

Fic: here and now

titans fic! ... hey. stop looking at me like that.

Summary: Dick Grayson is jaded and doubting and frequently oblivious, but he is Trying His Best.

aka: the team that cuddles together, stays together.

Warnings: SPOILERS till 1.06: Jason Todd. Set some indefinite time after that ep. Some swearing. My first attempt at these character voices, so let me know if they’re off.

here and now

By the time Dick Grayson’s (finally, finally) alone in his room, all he can think of is stripping off his costume, sinking into a hot bath, and sleeping for two weeks straight. It’s been a rough couple of days and he’s exhausted as all hell, so the world will have to make do without him swinging in in skin-tight spandex for a bit. Maybe a whole day will go by without something going FUBAR. It’s a nice thought.

(the world doesn’t owe you anything, dick, a voice whispers in the back of his mind, sounding suspiciously like Bruce. shut up, he tells the voice.)

He peels off his Kevlar and bodysuit in stiff increments, debates the merits of hobbling towards the bathroom and getting this motel’s shitty hot water to work versus flopping onto the bed that’s… right there, then nixes both ideas in favour of grabbing an old sweatshirt and pants while checking his phone.

Five voice messages, all from Jason. Well, now.

He starts playing them on speaker while he changes. Hey, Dick, Jason says, voice all belligerence and bravado, and Dick is almost too tired to deal with this now. Almost. I can’t believe you make people leave you voicemails instead of reading texts like a normal person. Like, dude. I can even picture you brooding at the window, listening to voicemails on speaker in an empty room like you’re a maudlin heroine from a movie that came out in, like, 1980 or something.

Dick scowls at the phone and steps away from the window.

Actually, you know what? This is ridiculous. Read my texts, weirdo.

Beep. And maybe reply to them once in a while? I know you’re busy with your team, but it would be cool if we could meet up soon. I mean, I guess. Um.

Beep. Or not. Fuck you.

Beep. Sorry about that. It’s just—Big B’s acting weird again, and the only way he’s spoken to me in the last couple of days is through post-it notes. God, it’s like I’m the only one living in the twenty-first century among the three of us.

Beep. I just… Dick. How did you even—with all the things I can do, the things you could do, how did you walk away, man? I just—I can’t wrap my head around it. But I’m going to make this count, Dick, I really am, and if you’re interested in joining me, let me know. And not through like fucking voicemail.

Dick sighs. Part of him is tempted to just leave Bruce to take care of this—after all, it was Bruce that saw some potential in this kid, and stubborn, opaque fucking Bruce who couldn’t take five minutes to talk to him before outfitting him with a bodysuit and a god complex and unleashing him onto the world. Then again, if Jason does go out and do something monumentally stupid and Dick doesn’t stop him even though he could… he’s never going to forgive himself.

He stares at the phone. Robin must be on patrol with Batman right now, so… he’ll call Jason first thing in the morning. That seems like a reasonable compromise.

(you can’t switch off or postpone being responsible, dick, says the voice, and Dick really, really wants it to shut the fuck up.)

He flops back onto bed, wriggles into blessedly warm covers, and is just about to nod off when there’s a knock at his door. He bolts upright, does a quick visual sweep for where he’s stashed all of his weapons, then ventures a look through the peephole.

“Sorry if I woke you up,” Kory says, sounding totally insincere.

Dick’s running out of ways to sigh without actually turning into the maudlin heroine that Jason insists he is. He opens the door, and Kory strides in with a toss of her curls and a wide smile.

“Is everything okay?” he asks.

Kory toes off her shoes and settles back on his bed. “Of course not,” she says. “The air conditioning in my room is terrible, and I figured from the way the receptionist was making eyes at you that you’d have the best one out of the four of us, so.”

“So?”

“I’m not going to drive you out of here, Dick! Come on,” she pats the bed next to her, “It’ll be like I’m not even here.”

Dick’s not sure that would ever be possible with Kory, but he complies.

Two minutes of silence pass and Dick’s almost asleep again when Kory says, “It’d be nice if we could score one of those safehouses again. We’ve been motel-hopping for a while. Rachel’s lived off nothing but pizza and chocolate milkshakes and Gar’s figured out pay-per-view.”

Dick mutters indistinctly into his pillow.

“Excuse me?”

Dick lifts his head. “We’ve still got a satanic cult on our tail. ‘Sides, Batman’s pretty much locked me out of his network. I can’t get into one even if I wanted.”

“You… could always call Jason.”

Dick tosses her a baleful glare before dropping his head back onto his pillow. Kory rolls her eyes. “It’s not like we aren’t still fighting some enemy or the other almost every other day, so I can only imagine that you continue to do this because you actually like cockroaches in the bathtub.” She shudders. “Disgusting little—”

“Careful, one of ‘em’s green and you might hurt his feelings.”

Dick almost leaps out of his skin. He jumps to his feet, wild-eyed, only to discover Gar near his door, a towel hastily wrapped around his waist. “Whoa!” he says, stepping back with one palm up. “Sorry! I came in with Kory and I promise I was going to leave without a word if things were going to… you know, get weird.”

Dick stares at him.

“You know, like.” Gar waggles his eyebrows, “If you two started to, like, have s—”

“Don’t tell me you actually came in here as a cockroach,” Kory says loudly.

“He was a frog,” Rachel says, from where she’s materialised behind Gar. “And it was my idea, so don’t blame him.”

Dick runs a hand through his hair. This is getting ridiculous. “Is nobody planning on sleeping tonight?”

“I was,” Rachel says, her voice small. “But I couldn’t. And I, um. I didn’t want to come here alone.”

Dick pauses, takes a long, deep breath. It’s been a long, hard few weeks for all of them, but sometimes it’s easy to forget that, sure, Rachel can harness demonic power strong enough to kill the planet, but she’s also thirteen, and she’s tired and scared almost every moment of every day. In another lifetime, Dick can imagine telling her to tough it out because there’s so much out there that’s worse and he can’t protect her from all of them. He keeps thinking he’s left that life behind, but it isn’t as easy as making a single choice, is it? He needs to keep making that choice every day.

He needs to make that choice now.

“Fine,” he says, hands on his hips. “Fine. We’ll… review our situation, tomorrow. Until then, for heaven’s sake, let’s all get some rest.”

Rachel beams.

Ten minutes later, Dick is back in bed and everybody else is asleep. Kory’s curled up next to him, hair tickling his nose. Rachel’s on his other side, head on his chest, bracketed by his arm. Gar, dressed in one of Dick’s sweatpants, is further down the bed, sprawled over his legs, head resting on one thigh.

Dick smiles. “Look at us,” he says, a little fondly.

“Titans,” Gar says sleepily. “We’re… we’re badass.”

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

What other fandoms are you familiar enough with to use as an AU prompt? Pokemon Trainer AU? Homestuck AU (they'd still probably die but at least there are lots of ways to come back to life)?

I’m not that familiar with Homestuck, definitely not enough to do an AU.  I read the novelizations of the Pokemon show as a kid but never saw the show or played any of the video games.  I did play the super-obscure Pokemon board game, but most of my trading cards were printed in Japanese (I had a strange childhood), so my experience there is, uh, probably not quite overlapping with everyone else’s.

Anyway, if you want list of all my fandoms… Boy howdy.  I don’t think I can come up with them all.  However, I can list everything that comes to mind between now and ~20 minutes from now when I have to end my procrastination break and go back to dissertating.  So here it is, below the cut:

Okay, there is no way in hell I’ll be able to make an exhaustive list.  But off the top of my head, the fandoms I’m most familiar/comfortable with are as follows:

Authors (as in, I’ve read all or most of their books)

Patricia Briggs

Megan Whalen Turner

Michael Crichton

Marge Piercy

Stephenie Meyer

Dean Koontz

Stephen King

Neil Gaiman

K.A. Applegate

Ernest Hemingway

Tamora Pierce

Roald Dahl

Short Stories/Anthologies

A Good Man is Hard to Find, Flannery O’Connor

The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka

I Am Legend, Richard Matheson

Dubliners, James Joyce

Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes

Who Goes There? John W. Campbell

The Man Who Bridged the Mist, Kij Johnson

Flatland, Edwin Abbott

I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream, Harlan Ellison

To Build a Fire, Jack London

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Ambrose Bier

At the Mountains of Madness/Cthulu mythos, H.P. Lovecraft

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle

The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving

The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury

Close Range: Wyoming Stories, E. Annie Proulx

The Curious Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson

Bartleby the Scrivener (and a bunch of others), Herman Melville

Books (Classics)

Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neal Hurston

The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The Secret Garden, Francis Hodgson Burnett

Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson

Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

The Secret Annex, Anne Frank

Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger

Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

Tom Sawyer/Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain

East of Eden, John Steinbeck

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison

Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut

The Stranger, Albert Camus

The Call of the Wild, Jack London

Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

Lord of the Flies, William Golding

Atonement, Ian McEwan

1984, George Orwell

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith

The Iliad/The Odyssey, Homer

Metamorphoses, Ovid

Journey to the Center of the Earth, Jules Verne

The Time-Machine, H.G. Wells

The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet, Henry V, Hamlet, MacBeth, Othello, and The Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Thomas Stoppard

Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett

Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

Books (YA SF)

Young Wizards series, Diane Duane

Redwall, Brian Jaques

The Dark is Rising sequence, Susan Cooper

The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Diana Wynne Jones

The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis

Abhorsen trilogy, Garth Nix

The Giver series, Lois Lowry

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

Uglies series, Scott Westerfeld

Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt

A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin

Song of the Lioness, Tamora Pierce

A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L’Engle

Unwind, Neal Shusterman

The Maze Runner series, James Dashner

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Patricia C. Wrede

Sideways Stories from Wayside School, Louis Sachar

Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine

Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card

The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster

Coraline, Neil Gaiman

Among the Hidden, Margaret Peterson Haddix

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, Avi

Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice

Poppy series, Avi

The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd

Tithe, Holly Black

Life as We Knew It, Susan Beth Pfeffer

Blood and Chocolate, Annette Curtis Klause

Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie

The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum

Haunted, Gregory Maguire

Weetzie Bat, Francesca Lia Block

Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White

East, Edith Pattou

Z for Zachariah, Robert C. O’Brien

The Looking-Glass Wars, Frank Beddor

The Egypt Game, Zilpha Keatley Snyder

The Book Thief, Markus Zusak

Homecoming, Cynthia Voigt

Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll

The Landry News, Andrew Clements

Fever 1793, Laurie Halse Anderson

Bloody Jack, L.A. Meyer

The Boxcar Children, Gertrude Chandler Warner

A Certain Slant of Light, Laura Whitcomb

Generation Dead, Daniel Waters

Pendragon series, D.J. MacHale

Silverwing, Kenneth Oppel

Good Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Define Normal, Julie Anne Peters

Hawksong, Ameila Atwater Rhodes

Heir Apparent, Vivian Vande Velde

Running Out of Time, Margaret Peterson Haddix

The Keys to the Kingdom series, Garth Nix

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Joan Aiken

The Seer and the Sword, Victoria Hanley

My Side of the Mountain, Jean Craighead George

Daughters of the Moon series, Lynne Ewing

The Midwife’s Apprentice, Karen Cushman

Island of the Aunts, Eva Ibbotson

The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern

The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm, Nancy Farmer

A Great and Terrible Beauty, Libba Bray

A School for Sorcery, E. Rose Sabin

The House with a Clock in Its Walls, John Bellairs

The Edge Chronicles, Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell

Hope was Here, Joan Bauer

Bunnicula, James Howe

Wise Child, Monica Furlong

Silent to the Bone, E.L. Konigsburg

The Twenty-One Balloons, William Pene du Bois

Dead Girls Don’t Write Letters, Gail Giles

The Supernaturalist, Eoin Colfer

Blue is for Nightmares, Laurie Faria Stolarz

Mystery of the Blue Gowned Ghost, Linda Wirkner

Wait Till Helen Comes, Mary Downing Hahn

I was a Teenage Fairy, Francesca Lia Block

City of the Beasts series, Isabelle Allende

Summerland, Michael Chabon

The Geography Club, Brent Hartinger

The Last Safe Place on Earth, Richard Peck

Liar, Justine Larbalestier

The Doll People, Ann M. Martin

The Lost Years of Merlin, T.A. Barron

Matilda Bone, Karen Cushman

Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger

The Tiger Rising, Kate DiCamillo

The Spiderwick Chronicles, Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi

In the Forests of the Night, Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

My Teacher is an Alien, Bruce Coville

The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles, Julie Andrews Edwards

Storytime, Edward Bloor

Magic Shop series, Bruce Coville

A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket

Veritas Project series, Frank Peretti

The Once and Future King, T.H. White

Raven’s Strike, Patricia Briggs

What-the-Dickens: The Story of a Rogue Tooth Fairy, Gregory Maguire

The Wind Singer, William Nicholson

Sweetblood, Pete Hautman

The Trumpet of the Swan, E.B. White

Half Magic, Edward Eager

A Ring of Endless Light, Madeline L'Engle

The Heroes of Olympus, Rick Riordan

Maximum Ride series, James Patterson

The Edge on the Sword, Rebecca Tingle

World War Z, Max Brooks

Adaline Falling Star, Mary Pope Osborne

Six of Crows, Leigh Bardugo

Children of Blood and Bone, Tomi Adeyemi

Parable of the Sower series, Octavia Butler

I, Robot, Isaac Asimov

Neuomancer, William Gibson

Dune, Frank Herbert

The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Emily M. Danforth

The Martian, Andy Weir

Skeleton Man, Joseph Bruchac

Comics/Manga

Marvel 616 (most of the major titles)

Marvel 1610/Ultimates

Persepolis

This One Summer

Nimona

Death Note

Ouran High School Host Club

Vampire Knight

Emily Carroll comics

Watchmen

Fun Home

From Hell

American Born Chinese

Smile

The Eternal Smile

The Sandman

Calvin and Hobbes

The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For

TV Shows

Fullmetal Alchemist

Avatar the Last Airbender

Teen Titans (2003)

Luke Cage/Jessica Jones/Iron Fist/Defenders/Daredevil/The Punisher

Agents of SHIELD/Agent Carter

Supernatural

Sherlock

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Angel/Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Firefly

American Horror Story

Ouran High School Host Club

Orange is the New Black

Black Sails

Stranger Things

Westworld

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Movies

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Jurassic Park/Lost World/Jurassic World/Lost Park?

The Breakfast Club

Cloverfield/10 Cloverfield Lane/The Cloverfield Paradox

Attack the Block

The Prestige

Moon

Ferris Bueler’s Day Off

Django Unchained/Kill Bill/Inglourious Basterds/Hateful 8/Pulp Fiction/etcetera

Primer

THX 1138/Akira/How I Live Now/Lost World/[anything I’ve named a fic after]

Star Wars

The Meg

A Quiet Place

Baby Driver

Mother!

Alien/Aliens/Prometheus

X-Men (et al.)

10 Things I Hate About You

The Lost Boys

Teen Wolf

Juno

Pirates of the Caribbean (et al.)

Die Hard

Most Disney classics: Toy Story, Mulan, Treasure Planet, Emperor’s New Groove, etc.

Most Pixar classics: Up, Wall-E, The Incredibles

The Matrix

Dark Knight trilogy

Halloween

Friday the 13th

A Nightmare on Elm Street

The Descent

Ghostbusters

Ocean’s Eight/11/12/13

King Kong

The Conjuring

Fantastic Four

Minority Report/Blade Runner/Adjustment Bureau/Total Recall

Fight Club

Spirited Away

O

Disturbing Behavior

The Faculty

Poets

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Marge Piercy

Thomas Hardy

Sigfried Sassoon

W. B. Yeats

Edgar Allan Poe

Ogden Nash

Margaret Atwood

Maya Angelou

Emily Dickinson

Matthew Dickman

Karen Skolfield

Kwame Alexander

Ellen Hopkins

Shel Silverstein

Musicals/Stage Plays

Les Miserables

Repo: The Genetic Opera

The Lion King

The Phantom of the Opera

Rent

The Prince of Egypt

Pippin

Into the Woods

A Chorus Line

Hairspray

Evita

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

Fiddler on the Roof

Annie

Fun Home

Spring Awakening

Chicago

Cabaret

The Miser

The Importance of Being Earnest

South Pacific

Godspell

Wicked

The Wiz

The Wizard of Oz

Man of La Mancha

The Sound of Music

West Side Story

Matilda

Sweeney Todd

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Nunsense

You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown/Snoopy

1776

Something Rotten

A Very Potter Musical

Babes in Toyland

Carrie: The Musical

Amadeus

Annie Get Your Gun

25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

The Final Battle

Rock of Ages

Cinderella

Moulin Rouge

Honk

Labyrinth

The Secret Garden

Reefer Madness

Bang Bang You’re Dead

NSFW

War Horse

Peter Pan

Suessical

Sister Act

The Secret Annex

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Disclaimer 1: Like a lot of people who went to high school in the American South, my education in literature is pretty shamefully lacking in a lot of areas.  (As in, during our African American History unit in ninth grade we read To Kill a Mockingbird, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn… and that was it.  As in, our twelfth-grade US History class, I shit you not, covered Gone With the Wind.)  There were a lot of good teachers in with the *ahem* Less Woke ones (how I read Their Eyes Were Watching God and The Bluest Eye) and college definitely set me on the path to trying to find books written/published outside the WASP-ier parts of the U.S., but the overall list is still embarrassingly hegemonic.

Disclaimer 2: There are a crapton of errors — typos, misspelled names, misattributions, questionable genre classifications, etc. — in here.  If you genuinely have no idea what a title is supposed to be, ask me.  Otherwise, please don’t bother letting me know about my mistakes.

Disclaimer 3: I am not looking for recommendations.  My Goodreads “To Read” list is already a good 700 items long, and people telling me “if you like X, then you’ll love Y!” genuinely stresses me the fuck out.

Disclaimer 4: There are no unproblematic faves on this list.  I love Supernatural, and I know that Supernatural is hella misogynistic.  On the flip side: I don’t love The Lord of the Rings at all, partially because LOTR is hella misogynistic, but I also don’t think that should stop anyone else from loving LOTR if they’re willing to love it and also acknowledge its flaws. 

[buckyscrystalqueen]

Still On The Road: Part 1

Pairings: Jason Momoa x Reader (AU/ SOA crossover)

Warnings: Swearing, angst, fluff, 

Word Count: 3,522

A/n: This is a continuation of the ‘Life On The Road’  series, which was a Chibs x Reader story I wrote a few months back. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hey, y’all. It’s your girls.” You said to the GoPro hanging off the rear view mirror so it could see not only you but Avery and Tink in the back seat as well. “So, Avery and I were talking today.” You started as you pulled off an exit toward the KOA you were planning on spending Fourth of July weekend at with your road parents, Todd and Stacy. “And we have a little debate going that we need your input on. As y’all know, I’m a Disney fanatic and for her fourth birthday, Miss Avery wants to make the trip over ta California ta go ta Disneyland. 

Now, y’all know how I feel about California, ain’t a secret but that ain’t the reason I wanna nix this Disney trip. My question to y’all is this. Is going ta Disney worth the price these days? I’m talkin’… at nearly hundred bucks a day, plus finding somewhere ta park the Palace, plus finding some where to board Tink for the full day at the park so she ain’t left in the house… is it worth making the trip over for a couple days in the park? Is the one in Florida a better idea? As always, leave your comments down below.”

“Let me go ta Disney!” Avery called out over you as you pulled into the KOA. You paused at the first stop sign and looked at the camera with a smile.

“But let’s be nice ta mama’s pocketbook, OK? Thanks y’all!” You and your daughter both blew the camera a kiss as you continued into the KOA to find your camping spot for the weekend. “You know your daddy’s gon’ be pissed.” Your sassy little girl shrugged as she put her books and toys away in her tote box in the back seat.

“I don’t care.” You nodded your head slowly as you pulled around the bend at a glacial speed so you wouldn’t hit anything or anyone. “I don’t like him.”

“Avery.” You said warningly as you pulled into the spot beside Todd and Stacy’s RV. “He’s still your daddy.”

“Then he shouldn’t’a left me.” She said as she met your eyes in the rearview mirror. You sighed to yourself as you put Sully, the pick-up truck you had bought a year before when Beast died, into park.

“Even still.” You said as you unbuckled your seatbelt. “You need to mind your manners when it comes to your daddy, like it or not. End’a the day, he’s still your daddy.” You looked back at her to unbuckle her and Tink’s seatbelts as she rolled her eyes. “Hey, be nice, missy or you won’t be going down to the pool with Pop for the movie tonight.”

“Yes, mama.” She said with a nod as she scooted out of her car seat. You shook your head as you grabbed your GoPro and laptop bag, and got out of the truck with a sigh.

“Hey munchkin!” Stacy said as she pulled open the back door of your truck to start in on her babysitting duties while you got your RV set up for the next couple days. “I missed you!”

“Nana, mama’s takin’ me ta Disney!” Avery cheered as she held onto Stacy’s shoulders while your friend helped her out of the high back seat.

“She is?” Stacy asked, enthusiastically as you picked up Tink and put her on the ground as well.

“We’re talking about it.” You said with your eyebrow raised as you turned on your iPad screen to put the stabilizing legs down before you unhitched the RV from your truck.

“Well, how ‘bout we go talk some more about it with Pop over some lunch and s’mores, huh?” Stacy said as she took your daughter’s hand, and turned her toward her campsite next door.

“Don’t you encourage her!” You called out as you hooked up the water line and the electricity. “You’re only gunna make it worse!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So yer comin’ ta California, an’ ye weren’t gon’ tell me?” Chibs asked, angrily not even an hour after you posted that weeks video blog on YouTube.

“Jesus Christ.” You grumbled as you worked on crystal orders on your bed while Avery slept peacefully in her bed on the other side of the living room in what used to be your garage. “Please tell me where ya heard me say that I was coming ta California…”

“Well if yer takin’ m’child ta Disney than yer obviously comin’ ta California.”

“And that’s where you’re wrong.” You said as you set the finished order to the side and grabbed the next box. “I haven’t decided if we’re going to Disney, which is why I put it up for a vote.”

“An’ ye’re no’ gon’ ask my opinion…” Your ex asked, which instantly set you off.

“No, Filip. I’m not going to ask your fucking opinion on it.” You snapped as you got off the bed to shut your bedroom door. “You fucking left us, remember? You decided that the Sons were more important than your real family, not me. That was your choice.”

“I didn’t ‘ave a choice, (Y/N)!” He retorted over you. “Ye all but pushed me away…”

“I did nothing of the sort.” You countered with a shake of your head. “I begged you to stay for your daughter. I begged you to stay with your family. But your other family was more important to you.”

“Ah, that’s bullshite!”

“No, what’s bullshit is you leavin’ your girlfriend and your two year old daughter to become a felon.” You could almost hear his jaw snap shut and you nodded your head. “Yea, ain’t got nothin’ there, do ya? Look, I ain’t the one that picked up and left in the middle of the night, here. I ain’t the one that then spent a year in jail for guns. I ain’t the one who made the choice, you did. You ain’t got no dog in this here fight, Chibs. You made your choice and ya have ta live with it. You chose the club over the chance of being a father to your daughter. No one forced this hand on you the way they did with Kerrianne. This is all on you. 

So don’t you dare think you can come in almost two years later, and try ta play daddy, again. Ain’t how it works. You get your phone calls an’ you’re more than welcome to meet us for visits, but you ain’t the parent, here no more. I am. So if I choose ta take my kid to fucking Disney for her birthday, then I’m gunna do it, and I ain’t gunna run it by you. If I do bring her to Cali, I’ll consider bringin’ her ta Charming, but again, that’s my call. I’m not legally obligated to do so, says so right in the custody papers. So I’d fucking watch your fuckin’ mouth with me, you hear?”

“Aye.” He growled in your ear, knowing that you were right in this situation. You sighed and leaned against your closet.

“I don’t want to be this bitch, Chibs.” You said with a shake of your head. “I don’t. But I can’t change what you did. This one ain’t on me.” Chibs stayed silent on the other end of the phone and if it hadn’t been for the slight tap of his whiskey glass against the phone, you would have thought he hung up.

“If ye come ta Disney for ‘er birthday, can ye come ta Charmin’? I miss ‘er.” You nodded your head slowly and looked down at your bare feet with a sigh.

“She’s really mad at you still.” You said as you glanced up at your closed bedroom door. “She doesn’t like you for leaving.”

“I know.” He breathed. “I know.”

“I’ll talk to her.” You said with a nod as you walked over to open your door since the yelling was over. “And I won’t make any promises because I don’t know if I can even afford Disney…”

“I’ll cover what ye can’t, luv.” He interrupted. “With good cash. Nothing made dirty. It’ll be from Caracara…”

“Yay. Porn money.” You sighed as you sat down on the end of your bed.

“I’m tryin’ ‘ere, luv.” He said with a hint of annoyance in his tone. “I’m fuckin’ tryin’.”

“I know.” You agreed with a nod. “I’m still thinking about it. It’s a lot to have to figure out in a short amount of time.”

“Alright, just… let me know then, aye?”

“Yea, I’ll let you know.” You agreed as you got up to look across your RV at Tink and Avery sleeping in the back room. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Night, (Y/N).” You hung up the phone with a sigh and dropped your cell on your bed. Tink carefully picked her head up off Avery’s pillow and looked over at you, bringing a small smile to your face.

“’s’a’right, Tink.” You said softly with a nod. “Go back to bed, baby girl.” She huffed at you and curled back up beside your daughter, ever the protector of the little girl that stole both your hearts. With a smile, you turned back to your bed, and sat back down to finish your orders for the week.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Mommy, I go play with the pole?” Avery asked as she pointed across the pool at the group that was playing limbo. You sighed at your daughters choice of word as Stacy snickered in the lounge chair beside you.

“Just go, child.” You said as you waved your hand at her, sending her on her way to go and play.

“So you’re encouraging her to be a stripper?” Stacy teased once the three year old had run off.

“It’s good parenting.” You said with a shrug as you shifted on the lounge chair by the pool. “Maybe she’d get her father’s attention then.” The second the words left your mouth, you sighed and mentally scolded yourself. “That ain’t fair.” You backtracked. 

“Let me guess.” Stacy said as she looked over at you. “You talked to Chibs.” You nodded slowly as you watched Avery dip under the limbo bar by barely leaning backwards.

“He called last night.” You said as you looked over at your best friend. “Tried to yell at me for deciding to go to California without even telling him.”

“But you haven’t decided, officially.” She asked.

“Nope. I have a lot to look into first. But, after a little yelling, he did agree to help pay for it with porn money.”

“Wow.” Stacy said as she leaned back on her lounge chair under the big umbrella she had brought over from her RV. “What a class act.”

“Yea, you’re telling me.” You breathed in agreement. “I just can’t with him sometimes, you know? Like, he’s become a completely different person than the man that I originally met. You know, they say jail changes people but this is almost like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type transformation. And Avery wants nothing to do with him so I’m at the point where I have to ask myself do I force her to see her father or do I just let her justifiably hate her dad…”

“Ow! Mommy!” Your stomach turned at the sheer desperation in Avery’s voice, and your head whipped away from Stacy to watch her scrambling across the grass. “Mommy!”

“Avery?!” You called out as you lurched to your feet and ran across the pool deck as a man that had been working one of the grills picked your daughter up off the ground and ran toward the pool deck. Your daughter screamed in pain as hundreds of fire ants bit every inch of her body that they could.

“You’re OK.” The man said as he scrambled to brush the ants off her limbs as he brought her closer to you.

“It’s alright, Avery.” You said as you worked around the stranger to strip the ant covered bathing suit off your little girl. “It’s OK.”

“Can you hold her so I can get her back?” The man asked as he turned Avery toward you. You nodded and took your sobbing daughter from him.

“You’re OK, baby girl.” You cooed as you watched this stranger take control of a situation you otherwise wouldn’t have known how to handle.

“I need ice.” He said to who ever asked him if everything was OK. “Lots of it.”

“Mommy.” Avery sobbed as you searched her brown, curly hair for ants.

“I know, it’s almost done, baby.” You said as you fought back your tears to keep her calm.

“Is your campsite close so we can lay her down on the ice?” The man asked as he grabbed the bags of ice the man that had been working the kids games brought over for him. You nodded as you stood up with Avery in your arms and pointed in the direction your RV was thankfully just across the road.

“I got the bags.” Stacy said as she picked up Avery’s bathing suit off the deck by the strap. You nodded your head and rubbed your daughter’s back and legs to get any rogue ants off.

“Thank you.” You said as you finally looked up at the strangers gorgeous green eyes. The handsome gentleman smiled at you, and shrugged as he followed you with the ice.

“It’s nothing, ma’am.” He stopped for a moment to tell someone from his group to grab his bag from the truck before easily catching up with you and Stacy. “Do you know if she’s allergic to fire ants?” You shook your head and hesitated for Stacy to open your RV door for you.

“I sure hope not. Look out, Tink. Go lay down. We can lay her down here, and I have a couple ice packs in the freezer.” The man nodded as he pointed to the sink.

“We gotta wash her off real fast first. Get any venom on her off.” You nodded and headed into the bathroom by your bedroom as Stacy went to grab the ice packs from her freezer as well. You washed Avery from head to toe and your heart broke with every single angry red bite on her body. You toweled her off quickly and pulled her into your arms as Stacy came back in and put her ice packs on the counter for you before getting out of your way.

“Alright, this is gunna be really cold, baby girl.” You said as you shifted Avery in your arms to lay her down on the towel of ice the man had laid out on your couch. “But it’ll make it all better.”

“No!” Avery screamed.

“We gotta, baby.” You said as you pulled her arms from around your neck, and laid her down on the ice towel.

“Hey, look it’s not that bad.” He said with a smile. “Hey, can you tell me what your dog’s name is?” Avery looked up at him with tears in her eyes as he put his hand on her stomach to keep her in place on the couch so you could grab more towels and the ice packs.

“T-Tinkerbell.”

“Tinkerbell?” He said with an air of shock in his tone. “That’s a great name! So does that make you a Disney princess?” She nodded her head slowly as he took the towels from you and started to wrap them around more ice.

“Mommy’s… mommy’s takin’ me ta Disney.”

“She is?” He asked as he laid the towel across the angry red bites across her stomach and chest. “Wow! That sounds like so much fun! Who’s your favorite princess?” You smiled at his back and looked at the man that had walked up to your RV door.

“Jason?” He called out as he held up a red medics bag to show you.

“Yea.” The man that was helping your daughter said with a glance. “Thanks, bro. I’ll be back over there in a little while. Help them find that ant pile.” His friend nodded and passed him the bag before nodding at you and heading back over to the pool.

“Are you a doctor?” You asked as he pulled the bag over to his side and unzipped it.

“I used to be an EMT.” He said as he grabbed a couple squeeze and shake ice packs. “I live on the road now like you.” He said with a glance up at you. “But my digs aren’t as nice.” You smirked as you sat down on the couch by your daughter’s head.

“This was actually a gift.” You said as you looked around the RV you had called home for the past four years. “I started out with Tink in a 19 foot Scamp about eight years ago.”

“Oh, nice.” He said with a nod as he wrapped the last ice pack in a towel and put it on Avery’s leg. “I’ve been in a cab over slide in for about two years. It’s just me though.” He smiled as he sat back on the floor. “I’m Jason, by the way.”

“(Y/N), and this is Avery. It’s just the two of us and our dog in here.”

“Nice to meet you both.” He said as he shook your hand. “Sorry, it’s under such crappy circumstances.”

“Yea, understatement.” You agreed as you ran your fingers through your daughter’s hair and squished a rogue ant. “Thank you for your help, though.” You said again. “I would have had no idea what to do.”

“Ants are tough.” He said with a nod as he leaned his side against the couch. “Your first thought is to drown them, but that makes them bite harder. So you just wipe them off as fast as you can. Rinse whatever venom is left over, off, then cold compresses on and off every fifteen minutes. Benadryl and hydrocortisone cream will help the itch, and a good serving of ice cream will help cure anything else.”

“Well, who am I ta go against the doctors orders on that one?” You asked as you looked down at your traumatized daughter with a smile. 

“If it’s alright with you, do you care if I hang around for a little bit? Make sure she doesn’t have an extreme reaction?”

“Oh, absolutely.” You said with a nod. “I’d actually be more comfortable if you did. Can I get you anything? I don’t have beer here but I know Stacy and Todd do next door.”

“Just some water is fine.” He said with a smile. You nodded and got up to grab him a bottle of water as he turned his attention back to his patient. “So, have you ever been to Disney before?”

“No.” Avery said with a shake of her head as Jason subtly put his fingers on her wrist to check her pulse.

“No? Well you’re gunna have a great time. You’ll get to meet Mickey Mouse and Minnie. And even your favorite, Ariel! They’ll all be there.”

“It would be a birthday gift.” You said as you put his bottle of water down by his knee and sat back down on the couch.

“Wow. What a special birthday.” He said as he dug in his bag for a small notebook and a pen. “How old are you gunna be?”

“Four.”

“Wow!” He breathed as he wrote down her pulse so he could keep track of it later. “Such a big girl already.” She nodded at him as he took her temperature. “I went a long, long time ago.” He told her to distract her from the itch and the pain. You smiled to yourself and watched this stranger talk to and take care of your little girl as if she was the only other person in the room. When the fifteen minutes of ice was up, he gave her a dose of Benadryl and helped you cover every inch of her body in cortisone cream. The Benadryl knocked her out before she was completely covered and he helped you get her dressed in a light sundress and a pair of pull ups and into your bed with Tink laying protectively by her side.

“I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done.” You told Jason as you cleaned up the melted ice off the floor while he repacked his medic bag.

“It’s nothing.” He said with a shake of his head and a smile.

“Can I at least make you dinner as a thanks? I was going to do walking tacos because my kid is weird and doesn’t like hot dogs and we did hamburgers for lunch…”

“Walking tacos?” He asked as he put his water bottle in his bag and slung the strap over his shoulder. You nodded and smiled as you stood by your front door in front of him.

“I’d explain but I’m just gunna tell you to come back around 5:30 to find out. How about that?” He chuckled and nodded his head.

“Alright. I’ll take you up on that one, then. Just because I’m curious.”

“Well, bring your appetite. You’ll need it.”

Part 2

[truck-fump]

<b>Trump</b> lawyer's plan: Pence would nix votes - CNN Video

New Post has been published on https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2021/09/21/exp-tsr-todd-trump-lawyer-had-plan-for-pence-to-reject-election-results-in-7-states.cnn/video/playlists/situation-room-highlights/&ct=ga&cd=CAIyGjUzM2UwMTY5ZmFhZTIwMGQ6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AFQjCNE5V4B8HfaSHRH_ZPCh22GgYjAn9Q

Trump lawyer's plan: Pence would nix votes - CNN Video

A Trump lawyer drew up a playbook for Mike Pence to toss out electors from 7 states on Jan. 6th and declare Trump the winner, according to a new book.

[ocfantasyzine]

Meet the Artist and Writer: Sari!

Hi, I’m Sariana (aka Sari), a contributor to the OC Zine for art and a story, and I like to make things! Currently a 28 yr old housewife since mid-2015 and my mother’s caregiver since early 2016. Along with art and writing, I enjoy crocheting, sewing, and cooking! I ADORE sci-fy, magical, and fantasy stories, if it has mermaids or space or dragons or mythical creatures or even aliens I’m a sucker for it (chicken as I am). My fanfiction and original writing comes from a large mix of things that I can’t readily pin down, but my current favorite novels are Anne McCaffrey and her son Todd’s Dragonriders of Pern series (they’re such nice people at the Weyr Room), Garth Nix’s Old kingdom/Abhorsen series, and DJ MacHale’s Pendragon Chronicles, to name a few currently on my bookshelf (manga/comic list not included). 

I’ve only ever written small amount for fandoms, such as Princess Tutu, Yugioh, and a few others. Much of it never saw the backlit light of day. A lot of my artistic influences stem from my childhood in the 90’s, when Cartoon Network was still new and just launched Toonami. I believe my art stems most from 90’s animation (and earlier) that I was able to watch, such as Disney, Sailor Moon, Tenchi Muyo, and Cardcaptor Sakura (CLAMP). 

I’m incredibly excited to work with this awesome group of people on the OC Zine! My favorite part out of creating is to share my works with others, so I’m excited to share with you all and witness this outpour of talent. Examples of my most recent writing lies on my AO3 SariWrites (sfw) and FictionPress SariCreations (sfw). I am on tumbler at @sariart and @sariwrites.

The piece posted is an example of the artist’s work, not the art for the zine. If you’d like to make sure you stay up to date on zine announcements, please either follow our account here, follow @FantasyZines on Twitter, or subscribe to our mailing list here.