#''the author didnt know how to end the novel'' YEAH THAT WOULD BE MY BUDDY AKIRA AKJDSFHLKSJDFHMLKSJFD

[yume-fanfare]

today's procrastination strategy are scp

[bigskydreaming]

Some of the X-Men novels from the 90s were actually pretty good, now that I remember it. They were original stories, not novelizations of already existing comic book arcs, which tends to be my preference when adapting characters to other media, but the downside is sometimes they come up with stuff that you’re like ugh, dammit, why can’t that be in the comics now too.

Like Smoke and Mirrors was this one novel I read in high school where Sinister was the main bad guy, and it had some pretty great stuff in it, and also probably my favorite Betsy POV stuff, though it hopped around to a bunch of characters’ POVs.

Including these five original teenage characters who were like the most adorable little nerds ever. They called themselves the Ohio Mutant Conspiracy to sound cool, but they were basically like the Breakfast Club and were these five high schoolers who nobody knew were mutants until one of them, Slapshot, set up this message board online in the hopes of trying to figure out if there were any other mutants like him in his area. And they eventually met up and started out hanging out every week in this abandoned warehouse after school and talking about how they should totally do something cool or fight crime with their powers. But mostly they were just bored lonely teenagers who were all really bad at admitting that they just wanted to hang out with other ppl like them even though they were from totally different social circles. And the main plot of the novel was this goon squad (hired by Sinister) busting into their warehouse and capturing three of them because kidnapping innocent mutants for nefarious purposes is like, his thing, and the other two got away and then were like okay we’re gonna rescue our friends! We have no idea what we’re doing! This will absolutely end badly! Ready, let’s go!

And meanwhile of course the X-Men were like oh hey, Sinister is kidnapping innocent mutants again, we need to find them and also spank him. Okay not that last part but I’m just saying, I’ve always felt like they could stand to put a little more effort into just like....plain old murdering the dude. C’mon Logan, what are you even doing, you pat yourself on the back for being the best at that like ALL the time.

Anyway, yeah, the kids the author created just for this storyline were really fun. I remember the youngest of them and most gung ho about being a mutant and wanting to be a superhero team and always trying to convince the others they should do that, she was a black girl who was a couple years younger than the rest, I think a freshman while the others were all juniors and seniors. I can’t remember her real name, because she was always insisting the others call her by the codename she’d come up with, Charade. Her power was she could convince anyone that whatever she was saying was true. Like anything from ‘you don’t want to hurt me’ to a bad guy or ‘you didn’t see me here’ to boosting one of her friend’s powers by telling them they could totally do the thing they were trying to do even though they’d never tried anything like it before. 

And she was closest with the oldest of the group whose name I also can’t remember, but who was this tall awkward white guy who she’d basically adopted as her surrogate big brother and he just kinda shrugged and went okay, and was super protective of her, it was way cute. He had some kind of basic super strength and enhanced senses power, and could never settle on a code name and tried a bunch of different ones throughout the book until finally settling on Red Rover, which one of the others called him as a joke and he was just like yeah I know, but I kinda like it.

And they were two of the three that were kidnapped, with the other one being Slapshot, the one who found the rest of them and kinda always defaulted to being the leader even though he was this shy nerd in school and always getting down on himself and the remaining two of the five were way more popular than him. I think his name was Jason, and he was this short Asian kid who was really into hockey for some reason, and that’s why he picked Slapshot for his codename. He was convinced he had a lame power, like all he did was change the trajectory of things that were already in motion. But when the three of them were locked up and didn’t know what had happened to the other two or if anyone was coming to rescue them, he figured out how to bust them out when he realized they thought his power was too small to bother making sure he couldn’t use it. So he took a quarter he had in his pocket and threw it, and started reversing its trajectory in mid air back and forth, over and over until the constant change in direction was like, building momentum, so when he finally let it go it just punched straight through the door lock like a bullet. He was very proud to discover he was secretly a dormant badass and it gave him a total self-esteem boost. Also way adorbs.

And the other two of the group, the ones who got away initially were both white seniors and one of them, Peyton, was a cheerleader and she called herself Rewind, and the other Adam was the quarterback and called himself Pipedream. His power was to just project this dream state on people so whatever they were doing, they just stopped and stood there and were stuck in some lucid daydream for a few minutes, though he couldn’t control what they saw, just initiate it. 

And everyone was always constantly looking at him to know what to do because he was supposed to be the popular football captain and have all the answers and he’d get all frustrated like ‘how does any of that make me qualified to know what to do here’ and Rewind was on the verge of a breakdown and screamed back ‘well fine if you dont want to help I’ll just save them myself’ and he was all ‘I didnt say I dont want to help, I just dont have a clue what that looks like!’ and she was like ‘FINE, I guess I’ll just figure it out myself and you just come along and do what I say” and Adam was all “Yes, finally! That’s what I’ve been saying, that is a much better idea than me being clueless and in charge, god!” And then this was where usually they’d realize they have Feelings for each other but haha no, they were actually just awkward road trip buddies and when they eventually found the others breaking out as they were breaking in and were like oh hey, we were just coming to rescue you, Slapshot was like oh yeah, sorry, you took too long so we kinda just did it ourselves. 

And Rewind was very impressed in his newfound leader-ness which Adam was more than happy to also concede to him when Jason was worried he was gonna want to be in charge now, and so she was basically like, okay, new plan. I’m still gonna be Prom Queen, because duh, but now you will be my Prom King. Everyone on board? Excellent. Let’s blow this popsicle stand. Which they did, mostly via Peyton’s power, which was to rewind time in her area, but like, nothing longer than thirty seconds back, just enough for her to correct recent mistakes. 

But then she found out it also worked if she told everyone to stand back with a scary gleam in her eye that had Adam and Jason like ‘we feel that whatever you’re about to do, you should probably....not’ and she was like, ‘are you going to stop me?’ and because they were not dumb they were both like ‘no ma’am!’ And then she hopped in one of the golf cart kinda things the security guards in the place used to drive around, revved the engine, Adam whispered ‘hold me, I’m scared’ because she drove the whole way there and they almost died like twenty times a minute. Who knew the girl with the ‘its fine, I can fix it’ power had a tendency to be reckless, right? But she just like floored the golf cart and drove straight at the big giant locked doors blocking their exit and they were all “PEYTON NO!” and she was all “PEYTON YES!” and crashed right into the doors, denting them a little and like, totaling the golf cart. Except then she rewound time but just around the golf cart and not the doors, so they were still just as dented while the golf cart was good as new and ten feet away again as she barreled into the doors all over again with “PEYTON YES” (well, whatever she was actually screaming, I forget, it was 25 years ago) playing over and over again on a loop as she kept crashing into the doors, rewinding time to fix the cart and crashing into them over and over with them getting a little more busted each time until finally she busted all the way through them.

And Slapshot was like “How did you know that would work?” and she was like “Huh? Oh, I didn’t.” and he was like “Holy shit, marry me” and Peyton was all lol slow down, you’re cute but I have a Life Plan, that’s not happening til we’re at least 25.

Anyway, yeah, the Ohio Mutant Conspiracy were adorable and honestly some of the best X-characters ever and its a shame they never made it into the pages of an actual comic as X-Men students. Oh, also, that book had a female clone of Wolverine called Mantrap who was hunting Sinister for Reasons also, but not like a clone clone, obviously, as she was also Native American, I think? But clone-ish. There was a kinship. This was pre X-23 and might have been part of the inspiration for her, who knows.

But yeah. I lost that book years ago and could never find it anywhere, lame. It was def my fave of the X-Men novels though there were a couple other good ones too. 

[2019laura]

books i’ll read in 2019

one of my new years resolutions is to read as frequently as possible. normally i only read on holiday, but i should read more often of that due to all the benefits of it. i’ve decided to start off slow and say one book a month. so, here are the twelve books i’m going to try and read in 2019.

1. “the sailor who fell from grace with the sea” by yukio michima

i watch a lot of pewdiepie, and recently he uploaded a video talking about the books he read in 2018. one author he heavily recommended was yukio mishima due to his facanating backstory and excellent writing skills, and this seems to be his most popular book. if felix loves it, then i’ll try it too.

2. “brave new world” by aldous huxley

again, this is from the pewdiepie video. something he spoke about was his dislike for the book “fahrenheit 451″ - a book i’ve been told to read many times. however, his strong opinion swayed me otherwise. the book’s age concerns me, but i’ll try my best to read it, even if it is a little old.

3. “1984″ by george orwell

i can’t tell you how many times i’ve read the opening to 1984. countless english teachers think they’re being original by getting the class to analyse the beginning to this text, but in reality, every teacher i’ve had for the past four years has done it. still, my granny recommended it to me, and i’d trust her with my life.

4. “the da vinci code” by dan brown

this book is supposed to be excellent. however, i have absolutely no idea what it’s about. the name is very cool, i must admit. my dad doesn’t read much, but he said this book was incredible.

5. “la belle sauvage” by philip pullman

not too long ago, i read “the northern lights”, and i probably would have really enjoyed it if it wasn’t for the fact that it was for a reading club and i’d left it to the very last minute. i forgot about that series until christmas recently, where my aunt gave me “la belle sauvage”. i know you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but DAMN is that front cover gorgeous! i’m excited to read this one.

6. “everything, everything” by nicola yoon

whilst forming this list, i asked my friends for their favourite books. my buddy lottie said this was her favourite non harry potter book, and boy - that’s high praise. i saw the trailer for it and thought it looked pretty cool but i had no idea it was a book! i do love a good YA novel.

7. “simon vs the homo sapiens’ agenda” by becky albertalli

oh man, did this film trailer look good! i haven’t seen the film yet, me and my buddy elliot are going to watch it together at some point, but i feel like i should read the book first. i’m a sucker for a good romance novel!

8. “the picture of dorian gray” by oscar wilde

this was recommended by elliot (can you tell he’s lgbtq+ lol) and from the brief review i read from the artifice (whilst avoiding spoilers), it sounds brilliant. oscar wilde is supposed to be a “wordsmith” - a word i had to google the definition of - and if there’s anything i love more than good cinematography, it’s good word choice.

9. “paper towns” by john green

is it really a book list if john green doesn’t feature? though his work is seen to be for “basic white girls”, i find it really enjoyable. maybe it’s because i am a basic white girl, but i think it’s because he’s a great writer. however, i watched the movie a while back, and though the first hour was great, the ending sucked. i really hope that’s because it didnt work well as a movie and not because the book ending sucked. oh well, i’ll find out.

10. “hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy” by douglas adams

another recommendation from a friend, ben. when he gave me the recommendation, i said “oh yeah i forgot about that!” and he instantly replied “how could you forget about hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy?!”. though i’ve read the start of the book plenty of times (unoriginal english teachers ruin everything) i’ve never got past the first chapter or so. i think i’ll love this one.

11. “the catcher in the rye” by j.d. salinger

now this book interests me. this is the book that inspired mark chapman to assassinate john lennon. i’m curious to find out his thinking process - how a book could cause a man to kill. 

and finally:

12. “the perks of being a wallflower” by stephen chbosky

one of my favourite movies ever is tpobaw, so when i found out there was a book behind it, i instantly wanted to read it. i wonder if the book will make me as emotional as the film will? or, will it make me more emotional? i’ll never know until i read it.

that’s all the books| if i read any different books that i’ve not mentioned, i’ll post about it. see ya :D