#as in its less about cats (specially the real ones) and more about my desire to be a character. to somehow *be* art

[electricpurrs]

my gender is cartoon cat. i'm a cat but not like a real life cat, or really a "furry" cat, i'd like to be a cat character in a cartoon or anime or children's book illustration, or a 2009 deviantart oc. not a cat but an artistic representation of a cat, an abstraction. cute and small, friendly and kind, cat-like but with endless possibilities of looking any way and doing anything, living in an abstraction of reality where my existence is as fluid as art is. i'm also a boy

[the-cat-chat]

October 22, 2022

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Several teenagers fall prey to Freddy Krueger, a disfigured midnight mangler who preys on the teenagers in their dreams -- which, in turn, kills them in reality.

JayBell: Out of all the 80′s horror movies we planned to watch this Halloween, I was most excited for this one. I mean look at baby Johnny Depp with his little baby face and his little crop top.

This movie has more suspense than a typical slasher film, which I enjoyed. Adding in Freddy’s ability to hop in dreams provides a unique twist, and I think it makes for a more interesting watch. I like the soundtrack (very haunting). The bathtub scene I was really impressed by, and I think it’s the coolest scene in the movie.

The acting was pretty great, and I liked the female main character. Sometimes the main characters of movies like these frustrate me, but I believe her actions made sense in the context of her circumstances. There was not a single person in her corner throughout this whole movie, which made me really want to see her succeed. Glen, her boyfriend, (played by Johnny Depp) is the only person supporting her in her struggle against Freddy, and he’s just completely useless. I get accidentally falling asleep maybe the first time, but again?? Do you have a sleeping disorder? It felt like an easy shortcut to create another obstacle for Nancy, which is think is cheap writing.

The idea of the movie is pretty scary, however like other 80′s horror movies, outdated special effects do retract from its scariness. Also, I found Freddy Krueger hilarious. He has a funny looking hat and a striped uniform and helloooo?? he does jazz hands with his scissor fingers. How is that not funny? When I saw them, I couldn’t help but think of both Wolverine and Johnny Depp’s performance in Edward Scissorhands.

Finally, the ending. The father’s reaction to finally realizing his daughter is telling the truth the whole time is underwhelming and strange. The ending is what brings my rating down the most. I understand the whole desire for a sequel, but I hate the best-of-both-worlds ending. Also, that mom puppet through the window is horrendous.

Rating: 6.5/10 cats

Anzie: I wanna lie and say I didn’t have a dream about Freddy Krueger the same night we watched this but I can’t. Not that it was a nightmare, but what can I say, he’s the dream guy. I never thought in a million years I’d watch A Nightmare on Elm Street, just because I thought it was probably hyped up, but maybe a tiny bit of me thought it was really actually terrifying. And let’s be honest CHUCKY reigns supreme, and he’s enough bad scary guy for my one lifetime.

Soo, I’ll admit I had no clue what the plot was other than Freddy’s a freak and he chases kids. I was so excited to find out baby Johnny Depp was in this (more on that later- stay tuned). Umm and I was a tad nervous that what if it’s actually terrifying bc it is arguably one of the biggest scary movie franchises and characters ever?!? 🙀

The whole story is pretty entertaining and you’re invested in “will the kids fall asleep, won’t they,” plus trying to decide if the scene is a dream or real life at all- and how it will play out for each kid along the way. *Side note it did feel like a bit of a slow start for the beginning but that ends VERY quickly.*

The whole dream thing is fun for the movie- but I’m INFURIATED for the ending bc it feels just like the first time I watched Inception (a little less headache with this one, but still). I have so many unanswered questions. Are they fine? Are they dead? Was it all a dream? Is she still dreaming?? Ugggggh. But yeah it was interesting. And the tie in with the parents/mom/Freddy Kruger 👌. (Speaking of the mom- she’s a bit intense? No? Like chill out.) There’s some cool scenes and the music is nuts and creepy- and Freddy’s definitely got the looks - especially when he rips of his face that one time. (quick question: is that a requirement for all scary movies in the 80s? Bc yes -eyeballs with just meat on a face - I do find quite unsettling).

Nowwww my qualms. Freddy is an actual freak. The phone bit and his tongue and the “I’m your bf now, Nancy.” That’s the real horror of this movie. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Oh and Glenn’s (Johnny Depp’s) cute little face and his crop top does not forgive how bad a bf he was. Like ALL he HAD to DO was STAY AWAKE- he fell asleep on duty THREE TIMES!!! So it’s his own fault (if you know you know- and what you know is I’m turned off smoothies till at least next summer.) And all the parents- they all were fine killing Freddy Kruger the first time but gawdforbid their kids say they’re being haunted and chased by him. *Sigh* Poor Nancy.

All in all it was a fun, creepy movie - I am really interested that maybe if I was younger or it be the day and age it came out I would be more traumatized by Freddy Kruger- but I’m glad I’m not. *hehehehe*** 😬😬😬

Rating: 5/10 Spooky Black Cats 🐈‍⬛

[merakiui]

Half-Off Love

yandere!scaramouche x (gender neutral) reader art credit - kentasha1236 on twt cw: yandere, nsfw, unhealthy behaviors/relationship, gold-digging, implied yandere!childe note - thank you so much for 600 followers! o(≧∇≦o) I’ll work hard!

It’s strange. There’s no other adjective to describe the situation you’ve found yourself in. 

The ring slides itself onto your steady finger and it’s a miracle your discomfort doesn’t show. Your eyes struggle to meet his, but when they do you’re searching for a reason—for a meaning behind such a generous gift. You’ve witnessed this scene plenty of times before, having scoffed at the couples who decide to take their relationship to the next level. Whether it be in Mondstadt or Liyue, you’ve watched your fair share of angelic proposals. Although this is far from a proposal—at least, you hope it’s not a proposal. You’d feel powerless to decline if Scaramouche put you in such a position, and you’re almost certain he’s aware of this. 

But the main thing—you now realize—that’s holding him back is your status and his relationship with you. It’s nothing special, just mere physical attraction rather than the emotional hindrances that come with real, heart-racing love. There’s nothing wholesome in the way you regard one another; it’s just sex. 

“Do you like it? I made sure to find only the highest quality gemstone for you.”

And yet when he performs this caring charade, it doesn’t feel like loveless copulation. 

Ew, you think, plastering a smile to your face. Since when was Scaramouche so concerned with materialistic signs of affection? He’s far from loving; he’s just pent-up, frustrated from his rigorous job as a Harbinger and so he decides to use you as a means of coping. He almost sounds like Childe with his ineffective flirting methods. You’ve received your fair share of spoils from him as well, and you’ve done everything you could to cull that relationship before it grew out of hand. But now you’re stuck with the lesser side of the coin: another troublesome Fatui Harbinger. 

If you didn’t know any better, you might think to chase after Signora or Dottore next. Maybe you’ll aim for the Tsaritsa Herself if you’re especially daring. After all, your life has been nothing but deceit and faux pleasures; there’s little value to a liar’s life. If the Archons wish for your swift end, you’re positive it’ll be a result of your insatiable greed.

“It’s lovely. The color matches my eyes.”

It doesn’t, but you lie about it anyways. And he looks pleased to hear your approval. 

“Then perhaps I should get you a bracelet as well? Or would you prefer something with a little more use, such as a pocket watch?”

Why don’t you just lock me up with a collar instead? you think bitterly, already keen on pawning the ring off once the initial luster fades. Since you’re so eager to buy these things for me in hopes that I’ll return. It’s annoying.

“This is more than enough. I don’t want you to spend a fortune on me.” There’s a sweet lilt in your voice as your hand cups his cheek, and he leans into your warm touch, starved of the affection like a stray mutt. ”I only need you per our agreement. You do remember what that is, right?”

He’d be caught dead bending to the desires of someone so insignificant, but he just can’t stay away. Not when your every word is intoxicating poison he’ll readily ingest. 

“I’m aware." There’s a sigh in his tone as he pulls away, almost as if he wants to simply sit there and indulge in playful conversation. As if he actually wants to familiarize himself with the real you. But that emotion doesn’t last for long and an irritated expression crawls onto his handsome face as he silently recalls something. 

You’re slipping your silks off with grace, curiously tracking his movements. “You look upset. Was it because of what I said?”

“Of course not. You could never upset me.”

Until you get bored of me.

When you cast your robes aside, reaching for Scaramouche’s elaborate outfit, you murmur, “Let me guess. It was that traveler again, wasn’t it? I’m not sure why you’re so hung up on them.” A whimper leaks into your voice and you fix him with a pout. “I’m sad you’d think of others when I’m right here. Aren’t I the only one you need?”

It’s ironic how quickly that line hooks him, dragging him up from the murkiest depths of love that has skewed into obsession. When you tried it out on Childe, he wasn’t so easily swayed. You find their differences to be invigorating. If the arrangement with Childe was still ongoing, you might’ve considered a threesome, if only to wring more glittering treasures out of the both of them. Mora and jewelry galore, it all goes towards your stockpiled savings. And it’s times like these when you’re lucky to have avoided economic business with the Fatui. Being free of Fatui debt has its perks, a bright miracle in your dark relationships. That’s one less tether to Scaramouche and one less reason to cling to him after you’ve had enough. 

He smirks at your forced envy, easily pushing you backwards onto the plush mattress once he’s fully undressed. For a brief moment, he pictures your pliant body sprawled across an office desk while he pounds into you from behind, putting on a lewd show for his leering underlings. There’s something arousing about your secret relationship that has strange ideas formulating within his head. He entertains a simple scheme, one in which he’d shed light on your connection; however, the other side of him wants to keep your existence for himself, where no one will disturb the two of you in your pleasurable endeavors.

Perhaps you would truly belong to him if he were to expose you for the fraud you really are. Oh, the joy of trapping an unsuspecting rat in a corner, with no way out but into his open arms. You’ll hardly have any semblance of a choice, but he knows you’ll choose the option that guarantees another chance at life.

Scaramouche thinks about that as he revels in soft, tantalizing foreplay. He knows you aren’t as dedicated to this relationship as he is and he’s almost certain you’ve got others waiting for you in different parts of Teyvat. He’s just another plaything you’ve picked up for the fun of it. And in these moments where you surrender to his touch, your back arching with avaricious thoughts, you seem to forget about the power he truly wields. The thought that he could suffocate you in this very bed with his love alone should have you taking precautions to cover your vulnerability, but you only have your eyes set on one thing—not exactly minding the outcome so long as it’s monetarily favorable.

And if playing into your covetous hands ensures your weekly arrival, he’ll gladly empty his pockets of spare change.

You don’t like this new side of him. Lately he’s been treating this as if the two of you are lovers: slow, sensual thrusts accompanied with the sweetest of promises. You’ve never really minded the filth he’d moan in your ear and now you wish he’d resort to that instead. Loveless words spoken through the veil of lust—that’s what you want to hear.  

He envelops you like a smothering fog, fitting himself snugly inside of your tight hole in an embrace that’s oh so familiar. You aren’t used to such gentle treatment and as he kisses along your collarbone you feel yourself going under, having fallen victim to a Harbinger who is normally so cold-hearted. Perhaps he’s more sensitive than you originally thought. Months ago, you wouldn’t have imagined your relationship would grow into something so uncertain, where emotionless love becomes packaged and bogged down with so much feeling.

His lips ghost over yours and there’s a slight pause in his actions. You turn your head to the side, denying his choking affection before it can drag you further into a spiraling abyss of regret. Annoyance swells in his hazy gaze, but he uses your new position to his advantage.

“It’s cute,” he says in a hushed voice, breath tickling your ear, “how you seem to rid yourself of my gifts as soon as they fall into your hands. I wonder where they’ve gone. Into the harbor? Traded off for food and shelter? Do tell me.”

When his grip on your hip tightens to a threatening degree, you resign yourself, opting to hold your tongue as his pace remains brutally slow. Rather than speaking out of line, you raise your hand to his face, and he clasps your wrist in a forceful hold. 

The look in his eyes is far from loving—it’s that same obsessed expression Childe wore. And even if he still searches for you for reasons other than sex, you’re aware there’s no luck where Scaramouche is concerned. You can run from Childe because he’ll allow it—because he adores the chase—but Scaramouche hardly finds delight in a game of cat and mouse. You should’ve expected this. After all, he is just as conniving as the rest, always inventing new ways to track down and eradicate that peculiar traveler. Of course he would know about how you handle his presents when he isn’t looking because there’s no denying the stern gazes that would pierce through your backside whenever you went to the market.

"I’d never throw them out like that...” you mumble through another soft moan, hoping he’ll just pick up the pace and be done with you. “Your gifts are priceless.”

And yet the price for your own love is so hefty. If he weren’t Fatui, it might be enough to throw him into lifelong debt.

“Is that so? You seem to put a price on them whenever you visit the marketplace.” His fingers grip your chin, forcing you into an inescapable eye contact. “If you enjoy putting prices on items that you claim are priceless, you won’t mind if I collect a refund for your dishonesty.”

“A...refund?” 

Your lustful thoughts evaporate once you realize his pace has become horribly slow, his dick stilling and creating an itch of barely noticeable ecstasy. You wiggle your hips to increase the friction, wanting to get yourself off before his words can sour the mood. Though it’s already spoiled when you recognize the carnal victory shining in his twisted smirk. Your unfortunate fate was sealed the moment you welcomed his company with foolish openness, and you’ve been indebted ever since he decided to spoil you with lavish foods and accessories. 

For love that is far from cheap, interest must be paid and your very being makes for the perfect bargain.

It’s weird when he kisses you on your lips rather than on the parts of your body that are normally obscured with delicate cloth. And it’s even weirder when that metaphorical collar binds your throat in a vice. It’s more harrowing than any sort of debt you might’ve garnered and it’s just as inconvenient as his boyish adoration.

Scaramouche doesn’t have to purchase your flimsy, half-off love when it’s already prepackaged and ready for the taking. 

“You heard me. A refund is hardly enough punishment for a lying brat, but it will have to suffice for now.”

For now.

Spurred on by his own insinuating threats, he seeks to bruise your very insides with thrusts that are filled with physical vexation rather than the emotional ministrations from before. And since you’re so accustomed to him, your greedy hole eagerly welcomes him. 

[ekaterinatepes]

Nothing but the Best

Author’s note: it’s getting interesting here ;) enter prince charming Sugu-kun to save the day.

IX.

https://youtu.be/uhoiqVPmURE

Satoru was afraid of making a move, least he tipped you over the edge and made you bolt; he didn’t want that. Swallowing hard he looked into your eyes… God… he had missed your beautiful E/C eyes so much. Waking up every morning without you by his side, without you kissing him awake cause he was going to be late for work… again. Your absence had left a literal infinite void in his heart that he was unable to fill.

“I know I don’t deserve anything from you Y/N, but I love you and I cannot give up on us… We said forever when we got married. And I want that… with you” speaking from the heart was not something Satoru ever did. He always preferred to cover any emotions with inappropriate jokes and double entendres. But he knew he couldn’t play his stupid games, not with you and most certainly not now.

You pulled away in that moment, as if his touch was burning you. He allowed it, doing his utmost effort not to pull you back in. His hands itched resting at his sides, missing the warmth of your body.

|||

It was you and me, it seemed to last forever

The way you taste and I still remember… the sounds we made.

|||

“It would have been nice if you felt that way before you decided to ruin this marriage. Where were those promises of forever when you fucked someone else?” You asked piercing his eyes with yours. He cowered under your glare. Satoru had never been on the receiving end of your wrath and now he understood why most people chose (wisely) to not mess with you. Every single one of your words was chosen carefully to cause the most damage. At the same time… what hurt the most was that you were right.

“Leave and don’t ever come back… you and I… are through…” Satoru noticed how you avoided calling him by his name, he hated it. As if uttering his name would leave a bad taste in your mouth “Y/N…” he whispered pleadingly when you took another step away. But this time he didn’t have the courage to stop you as you disappeared inside your apartment and locked the door behind you.

|||

I bet you wish you had me back! Another chance to gain it, just like that. The best you ever had.

|||

Satoru was fucked.

—————

The next morning Suguru’s plane landed. JFK international airport was as busy and chaotic as one would expect. After collecting his luggage he made his way to a cab giving the driver your current address.

He hadn’t been able to sleep a wink during the trip, his mind swarmed with all the possibilities of what could be happening right now. Satoru didn’t play fair and of course… you loved (probably still love) the lucky bastard.

With a sigh he decided to focus instead on the city going by through the cab’s windows. It wasn’t the first time he was in New York and his mind was much more occupied torturing him instead of appreciating the landscape.

After 40 minutes, Geto stood before a very nice and modern building located in the upper east side called Hawthorn Park. You sure knew how to live in luxury. He approached the doorman and let him know his name and that he was here to see Miss Ekaterina Petrova to which the kind looking old man responded by using his intercom to contact you. Geto was soon granted access and guided to the elevator.

The elevator doors opened on the 21st floor, he walked to the door of your apartment which was already open and you were waiting for him. His smile fell once he noticed you have been crying “oh Kitten” dropping his luggage on the spot he surrounded your body in his arms “I’m so sorry…” one didn’t need to be a genius to know Satoru had found you.

You both moved inside your apartment. Settling on the spacious couch you buried your face on Suguru’s lap as you cried. He stroked your now darker strands of h/c hair without a word exchanged. He knew you needed to let it all out. After what seemed an eternity you sat back up. Suguru gently dried your eyes.

“He was here last night…” you whispered in a raw and scratchy voice, result of your endless hours of distress before his arrival “he told me he loved me, that he left Sookie” scoff “and hear this… he left her because the baby wasn’t his!” Talk about karma at its best. Suguru already knew that but he was surprised to hear Satoru had come clean about it to you “He probably thought I would fall for that! But I didn’t” you added firmly.

Suguru was proud of you. He knew how hard it was for you to resist Satoru but you stood tall and proud when it mattered the most. “What do you want to do now?” Where you planning on moving again?

-

“I’m not leaving…” you said looking into Suguru’s liquid amber gaze. You couldn’t help but notice once again he had such pretty eyes, like a cat. You’ve always liked them, specially when they looked at you with such tenderness. You have missed him dearly during all this time.

“I can’t keep running away from him; I mean… it’s obvious he won’t stop and I… I am tired of molding my life to adapt to his whims. I’m staying here whatever happens. Sugu… I got the part for the Swan Lake!” You added remembering you haven’t talked to him during the last week and so he didn’t know about your latest accomplishment.

Geto’s eyes enlarged before a huge smile split his handsome face and his massive frame engulfed you in a tight hug. Of course he knew everything about ballet, he was your best friend after all. This was huge! Probably as big as making it in the ballet world meant “I’m so proud of you Kitten!” He said excitedly kissing your temple. Maybe not everything was as bad as he thought.

You were upset, it was true. But then again you were not prepared last night. Satoru had taken you by surprise. Now… you knew he was here and more or less knew what to expect from your soon to be ex-husband.

“Thank you Sugu…” you stopped and pulled back just slightly to look into his eyes from your height. He was a very tall man compared to you “I missed you” you said with a bright smile to which Geto replied with one of his own before pulling you in again for another hug “I missed you too Kitten” stroking your back softly Suguru decided he was happy to be here… with you.

-

https://youtu.be/3oSXqLgoSq4

|||

She's given up, been holding on for way too long

She's had enough

He's coming home again

But it's too late 'cause she won't stay with him

|||

The sunshine hitting his face was what woke him up. With a grunt Satoru rolled over on his side only to fall unceremoniously from the couch where he had passed out last night. The last thing he remembered was warping back to his hotel after you left him on the roof. The memory of you, turning your back on him and walking away squeezed his heart in a painful grasp.

Alcohol was never something he was attracted to, he liked to keep his brain constantly alert and stimulated. It served a purpose of course, it kept his infinity barrier on at all times, even when he was asleep. But last night he hit rock bottom. He didn’t care anymore…

As soon as he got back to the hotel, hopelessness made a home in his chest, sitting heavy on his heart. Walking to the fully stocked bar placed on the corner of his suite he opened a bottle of whiskey. He started slow since most everything was too bitter for his taste, so he went through the process of trying every single bottle until he found something to his liking.

Two hours and about fifteen different shots of everything he decided to settle for a bottle of Amaretto, some fancy Italian liquor made of apricot kernels. It was sweet.

Everything else after that was blur. Moving his sore body from the floor he forced himself to go to the bathroom. Maybe a hot shower would help ease his misery. Peeling off his clothes the smell of booze clinging on them made Gojo cringe. He decided to brush his teeth before showering. Looking in the mirror he couldn’t recognize the man starring back at him. He was a mess.

|||

Are we just ghosts out in the night?

Are we just waiting for a light that doesn't shine?

Are we just faking or is this real?

'Cause I don't know how to feel

Are we just ghosts now, you and I?

|||

Last night he had been so desperate, so hopeless and broken hearted. That’s when it hit him… his wife didn’t hurt him, she didn’t cheat on him (unlike himself), she didn’t do anything to him and yet he was feeling as if the world was collapsing around him. He lied, cheated and fucked up everything for them both.

Guilt…

Unadulterated, burning and suffocating guilt was consuming him. He felt bad before but it wasn’t until last night that he grasped the concept that Y/N didn’t owe him anything at all and that HE didn’t deserve it anyways.

The plan originally had been to get back in your good graces by doing penitence, submitting to your every whim and desire by becoming your devoted slave for as long as you would have it. He never even considered the possibility that his wife DID NOT WANT to forgive him in the first place.

He thought you left to give him a lesson, that you would eventually come back to him after he had a taste of what it was like to lose you.

But even after you both shared such a searing kiss, so passionate that every cell in his body was humming, aflame with desire you still managed to walk away from him as if it meant nothing to you.

What good did it do to him to be the strongest when he couldn’t even protect his wife… from himself.

After showering, changing clothes and ordering every sweet pastry and desert from the room service menu Gojo stopped to rethink his strategy.

What?…

Did you think he was going to stop there?

Absolutely no, love!

If anything, your rejection had only fueled his need to get you back.

“Time for plan B” sighing he pulled out his phone it rang a couple times before someone answered “good morning Mrs. Mazzo, this is Gojo Satoru. I’m going to need you to forward to me Miss Petrova’s rehearsal schedule…”

—

“This is really good!” You hummed happily after swallowing a bite of your steak. Suguru sat across from you at Keens Steakhouse, with a grin he watched as you indulged yourself in what you called your ‘cheat meal’ of the month. Being a professional ballerina was a tough and demanding commitment that controlled every aspect of your life, from how you train to what you eat. Despite it all, Geto knew you always found a happy balance that worked just fine for you.

Seeing your big smile made his heart jump in his chest, you were as beautiful and alluring as the day he met you. If only he had told you he liked you before Satoru did. This question kept him up at night, playing all sorts of scenarios in his mind. If he had taken the first step… would things have been different? Would you have ended up together? Married? Shaking his head he tried to focus on what you were actually saying. Deviating his thoughts to that kind of scenarios was dangerous. He also didn’t want to push it when he was perfectly aware you were still healing; he wasn’t a low life piece of shit to take advantage of your vulnerability.

But when you smiles at him as if he was the only thing in your world, when you held his hand across the table, playing with his finger, his throat felt dry and tight.

“What do you think Sugu?” Your curious and expecting eyes caught him like a deer in the headlights “I’m sorry Kitten, I was distracted. Could you repeat that please?” He asked with an affable smile.

You chuckled and stroke his hand softly “you look tired, did you sleep at all in the plane?” He shook his head “no, I didn’t. I never can, it’s uncomfortable” he hid on purpose the true reason why he hadn’t been able to sleep “come on Sugu! Let’s go back home! I bet you are tired” you said offering him a sweet smile.

After paying your bill you walked the few blocks back home. Suguru of course would be staying with you in the spare room of your penthouse. Holding hands while you talked to him about the activities the city had to offer, your schedule and how you intended to fit the time to do some tourism with him. “You don’t have to bother Kitten, I know you are busy enough with your job, I will be fine” he insisted.

You stopped on your tracks and stood in front of him, pouting, making him chuckle. You looked every bit the kitten he knew you to be, all bothered and moody “no! I want to spend time with you too you know! I haven’t seen you in so long! I’m not going to waste this chance!” You insisted to which Suguru threw his hands up in the air “I surrender Kitten! Do with me as you will” you giggled and then blushed. “Uh… eh… ok! I will!” He took your hand again and you both resumed your walk.

-

Satoru warped to the roof top of the building adjacent to yours, the lights were out in your apartment and he couldn’t sense your presence inside. You left? Where did you go?

Before a second though he warped inside your apartment but he saw all your stuff was still there, maybe you went out for groceries or something?

After a few minutes sitting on your couch he decided to wait for you on the street so he could see when you got home.

(Almost an hour later)

Oh… he wasn’t ready for what he saw.

“That mother fu….” Satoru grinds his teeth watching you walk down the street holding onto Suguru’s hand while talking distractedly. From his hiding spot in front of your building he closed his hands in a tight fist.

Well, this complicated things… a lot more.

————-> Chapter 10

———————————-

@sleepyamaya

@cloudsinthecosmos

@jxvajxy

@satoruhooraaa

@my-reality-is-in-my-head

@dok-ja

@jscarlet06

@fiona782

@thatsharklovingwoman

@heichoustheoryofcleanliness

@syynnaaah

@shaylove418

@coldvillainess

@vampgguk

@sukuna1stwife

[hawkinsschoolcounselor]

El and Morality

I don’t know about the rest of you, but the latest teaser left me with a feeling of intense dread. We see these kids playing in a seemingly carefree manner, but then Brenner comes walking in. He greets them, and they obediently respond. They’re all very used to it by this point, and they all call him Papa. He claims to have something special for them, but then we cut over to El’s isolation room and hear Brenner asking her if she’s listening.

Why does this fill me with dread? Mainly because the previous teaser showed some similar images to what we see in this one. The 8-ball, for example, is shown on one of the monitors, only it is covered in blood. It leads me to believe that something terrible happened that day. With Brenner asking if El is ready, then the shot of who appears to be El opening her eyes as if from a nightmare, has me wondering if he used her for something that resulted in the deaths of the other kids.

It’s by no means the most likely scenario for this teaser, but it’s where my mind went. The eerie music, the heavy breathing (ostensibly El’s), the fear on El’s face, it sends an ominous message. Is El remembering something from long ago? Is this a new group of kids in Brenner’s new facility? Is it just a nightmare fed with fear and guilt since she couldn’t save anyone? I really don’t know, but the idea that El may have been used to test the “worth” of the other subjects led me down an interesting road. Whether it was a “training exercise” gone wrong or a deliberate “culling” of the weak, I can’t shake the feeling that El did something that she desperately doesn’t want to remember.

If Brenner intended to use these kids to his own ends, then they should hold no allegiance to anyone but him. Emotional attachments to anyone else would be a risk in his eyes. They would need to have total, unquestioning obedience regardless of what he may ask them to do. For El to be the tool he wishes her to be, she would need to not think twice about killing. Brenner would have instilled in her, and the others, a need to garner his approval. This is why he teaches them to see him as a paternal figure instead of a doctor or teacher. We’ve seen him try to get El to kill a cat, but she refused. This upset him. Yet, we also see her have little issue killing in other circumstances. She’s somehow developed a sense of morals despite being manipulated from birth.

Morals are an interesting phenomenon. The entire concept of right and wrong really is subjective when you think about it. It’s a very abstract concept, and the way we think about it changes as we mature. However, it is also heavily influenced by external sources. In this case, Brenner would seemingly have total control over how his “children” learn to evaluate the morality of a given situation. I’ve previously spoken about El’s mental development, and how Brenner would have wanted to nurture certain intellectual domains, but restrict others. Here I want to discuss a similar process with the psychology of morality. Specifically, we will explore how El may have been manipulated into doing something that we, as viewers, would find horrific, yet come to develop a system of morals in spite, or perhaps because, of that.

Lawrence Kohlberg conceptualized the development of morality as coming in 3 levels (Pre-Conventional, Conventional, and Post-Conventional), broken down into 6 stages . These stages are more or less cumulative, as previous stages help pave the way for later ones. There’s no clear-cut ages for these stages, but level 1 generally encompasses early childhood, level 2 is later childhood and adolescence, and level 3 adulthood. The first level contains the more “primitive” or basic moral frameworks, obedience/punishment driven and self-interest driven. This is a level defined by a more egocentric understanding of the world, as it revolves around what’s “good” being what results in a positive consequence, and what’s bad being what results in a negative consequence. For children, this means learning what’s “good” as a result of an external reinforcer(i.e. “Papa) and then developing this into a sense that it can be used for a mutual benefit (”If I do what Papa says, he will be happy, and I will be rewarded.”). Since it’s still a stage defined by self-interest, there is no loyalty here, and such relationships will deteriorate once it is no longer beneficial.

This may have been Brenner’s fatal flaw. Most individuals wouldn’t move onto the Conventional level until adolescence. While these kids may have had some basic sense of loyalty to “Papa” since it’s possibly all they ever knew, it would still be easily shaken. If you offered these kids some candy, they’d probably do whatever you said unless there was enough fear preventing them from doing so. Fear, not loyalty. El was afraid of Brenner. She may have done his bidding for a long time, but it was because his approval meant better treatment, not because his approval was of value in and of itself.

Given El’s age when she escaped, she was on the cusp of adolescence. Thus, she may have been developing some early features of the 3rd stage, which we can call the “good boy/girl” stage. Here, a person would want to be considered “good” for its own sake, and would look to society for what that means. For our purposes here, Brenner and the lab could have been attempting to be the “society” that the kids would judge themselves with. They would evaluate the morality of an action based on how the others would judge them for it. This is possibly where Brenner wanted the kids to be, only with no concept of what good or bad is beyond what he instilled in them.

That may have been something of a clumsy explanation of the relevant stages of morality, but I didn’t want to get too technical. The important things to take away from this is that El’s sense of right and wrong would have largely have been defined by what resulted in her being happy and/or rewarded. She may have wanted Brenner’s approval, but only because it meant good treatment. The problem here is that El may have been getting her needs met elsewhere: the other kids. If we presume, for the sake of argument, that El developed friendships with the other kids, then we could say that these relationships interfered with the total control that Brenner would want. If she gets older and starts caring more about how they feel about her than how Brenner feels, then his power over her weakens. This is where things get potentially scary.

Let’s say Brenner noticed this happening. El is the most promising, and most dangerous, of his subjects. He must maintain total control over her. However, she is very friendly with the other kids, running the risk of developing attachments that would lead to a more conventional morality. So, Brenner sets up a scenario. He isolates El for an extended period of time, possibly even telling her that the other kids accused her of misbehavior. He tells her that they don’t care about her like he does. El, being in those early stages of moral development, starts to see them as bad since they result in her being hurt. In a real world situation, one kid would be able to do something nice for another in this situation to smooth things over, but this isn’t possible with El in isolation. Then comes the day when Brenner has “something special” in mind for the kids. He’ll see if they’re worth the time and effort, while also finding the extent of El’s obedience.

None of this means El is a bad person, as we will generally see kids acting with such selfishness. One kid gets mad at another for stealing their toy, but fifteen minutes later they’re playing together as if nothing happened. However, kids generally don’t have superpowers they can use instead of pushes and mean words. There’s also usually adults around to help mediate such issues, whereas Brenner would probably want to encourage it to ensure they wanted his approval and his alone.

It’s possible that whatever happened that day changed El and Brenner’s entire dynamic. Whether El was responsible for what (possibly) happened or was just made to witness it, it didn’t have the desired effect for Brenner. We later see El reluctant to kill unless it was to protect (or punish). It’s still unclear where that moral distinction came from, but it suggests that she no longer saw Brenner’s approval as beneficial.

What happened after Brenner walked into that room? Why did he ask if El was listening? Is a present day Brenner asking if present day El is listening while she was remembering/dreaming? Or is the voice a past Brenner asking if past El is listening to his instructions? 

Now, this could all be nothing. A good teaser will try to get us hyped up without giving anything important away. The “are you listening” might not even be from that scene at all in reality, or it could just be for the teaser. Still, I thought it a good opportunity for an exploration of morality in someone raised from birth to be a tool or weapon.

Something happened somewhere to make El believe there were right and wrong times to hurt or kill someone, and I just think this may have been a pivotal moment. I think we first see her kill (or at least serious injure) when she breaks out of her isolation cell. That can be explained by her still largely being in the first level of morality. Being in that cell was not in her own best interest, and she reached a point where she didn’t see a way to improve her situation. She may not have intended to kill the orderlies, but it was also not of concern to her. However, we also see her be more deliberate with Troy. First, she merely makes him wet himself, which is a remarkably clever solution. Later, she breaks his arm, but it appeared to only be due to him holding a knife as she simply knocked James down. When it came to the agents or the demogorgon, though, she was prepared to kill again. When she went with Kali to find one of the Lab men, she was ostensibly prepared to kill him until she realized there were kids around. The only pattern I can really see is that she will kill monsters or adults, but she’s reluctant to harm (at least seriously harm) kids or leave them without a caregiver.

I feel like this shows her being caught in between Pre-Conventional and Conventional levels of morality. She’s still largely going off of her own self-interest, but she’s also starting to consider the thoughts and feelings of others, namely her newfound friends. El seems to really want to keep them safe to the point that she risks her own safety. One could say that their approval, particularly Mike’s, is of value to her. She wants them to see her as good, and she attempts to conceal anything that would make her seem “bad” in their eyes, such as the fact that she’s messing with the compass or the fact that she opened the Gate.

We don’t really know how much time would have occurred between the event I hypothesized from the trailer and when El breaks free of the Lab. It’s possible that something happened there to get El to see some sort of moral distinction. She will prank, or even disable, a kid, but she somehow sees serious harm or killing of them as wrong. This leads me to believe that she harbors some type of guilt from her time in the Lab. It could be survivor’s guilt, especially if Brenner made her bear witness to the other’s being hurt or killed. It could also be something far worse if Brenner compelled her to hurt or kill them herself. Regardless, something happened somewhere along the time to get her to no longer as seeing her life in the Lab as “good,” leading to her escaping.

I think this is another one of those posts that got away from me, but hopefully I got my point across. If I try to hard to edit this thing, it’ll never get posted. Again, I have no idea what the teasers are suppose to mean, but they got me started on this train of thought. If you made it this far, then I apologize for those minutes of your life that you’ll never get back.

[ask-artsy-oncie]

what kind of pokemon do you think the ducktale crew would have if they were trainers?

I'm only doing main partner pokemon bc I don't think I can flesh out teams for everyone

Scrooge - okay so this one was actually really difficult. I really see him as specializing in steel-types, because aside from his immense wealth, a major defining trait for Scrooge is how he's self-made (through his adventuring) and, less notably, his distaste for magic. I think all of this has a lot of cohesion with the steel type, but finding the right pokemon was a challenge. I was hoping for something from Galar, but nothing really jumped out to me as vibing particularly well with him, so I think the best fit I could find would be Aegislash, which is, at least, also from a European region, and fits well with his adventurer motif. If anyone has any better ideas feel free to send them in, though, cos I'm still not entirely sure.

Donald - Specializes in water-types. It would be entirely fitting of Donald's luck for him to get stuck with a magikarp. But with hard work and dedication (and a decent amount of rage) he ends up raising it into a Gyarados. He would also have the mega-stone for it.

Della - Specializes in flying-types. It was so fucking tempting to give her a celesteela, but not only would that be kind of mean, but I also want to refrain from using any ultra beasts. That being said, I think that Skarmory might be a good fit, because it still does retain the same flying/steel mix, and I do think that Scrooge has rubbed off on Della, significantly (for better or for worse). Plus I think it fits her motif very well (planes, metal flying machines, while Donald sails boats, watercraft that catch the air in their sails, and goes well with a water/flying type). I was also really tempted to give her a rayquaza, but I also wanted to refrain from using any legendaries. Mayhaps she went to space chasing a rayquaza, tho?

Huey - eclectic in his type choices, he likes to have an extremely varied team. Obviously this makes it harder to narrow down his partner pokemon, but I feel like it suits him. I also feel like Girafarig suits him - I think he initially relates to it as he ascribes his own rage to a persona he feels is an antithetical "side" to his "normal" personality that he needs to supress, yet ultimately, he learns that the Duke is simply an aspect of himself and a part to his whole, just like how Girafarig is not comprised of two separate pokemon, but is instead just a single creature.

Dewey - Electric-types for suuuure. It just fits his high-energy personality so well, and I think it also has synergy with his desire to be a media star, since iirc most reporters, interviewers, and camera-people in the games carry electric-types. I think Jolteon would work well with him, since as much as he would hate to admit it, he does tend to gravitate towards the basic and popular, which the eeveelutions definitely are. And though pikachu would have been the obvious choice in that case, I think Jolteon fits his aesthetic, best.

Louie - ooookay I am going to cheat on this one a little because I do have two pokemon in mind for Louie. Firstly, I think he favors both normal- and dark-types, though he isn't too hard-pressed about types. His main partner pokemon would be either a Meowth or an Alolan Meowth, though either way he never intends to evolve it. Cats. Money. Louie. It works. I am very adamant about Louie having some kind of Meowth as a partner. I also believe he would have an Absol. Absol just seems like such a good pokemon for anxious people to have, since it can easily sense and warn about disasters. I think Louie would value that, a lot.

Webby - with Webby's high value and priority on friendship, I think the fairy type would be a very good fit for her (especially since she is a part of Team Magic) though, I also think she would at least try to keep a varied team. Her partner would be Mimikyu - because oh my god look at this little guy, it needs a friend so bad!! Webby will be its friend!! And she'll give it all the love and attention it needs. Of course, it knows Return.

Lena - Ghosts, Dark, Psychics, Faeries, anything that exudes a magic and mystical energy to match her own. Lena would definitely be one of those "psychic" trainers who absolutely has powers of her own, but still takes the time to raise pokemon. Her partner would be a Gardevoir - a pokemon very in-tune with emotions that compliments Lena in her struggle to control her emotions and magic. It would also be a shiny Gardevoir and Lena would also have its mega-stone, because then they would share the blue-black-and-white palette. And when they're both powered-up, Lena loses the black in her palette while Mega-Gardevoir gains it.

Violet - Violet also has an affinity for the more "magical" types her sister and friend are. I think that, due to her interest in witchcraft and metaphysics as a field of study, I'm a bit torn between Gothitelle and Hatterene. She probably would have both, I'm just torn on who her partner would be. On one hand, I could lean harder into the metaphysics aspect, since that's what one of her fathers studies/teaches, and go with Gothitelle, but Hatterene also gives her more synergy with Lena because their partner pokemon would be the exact same type combination. I'm not sure.

BOYD - A Ditto!! Not just for their implied connection to science and the steel-type, but because BOYD (in-universe) was also designed to replicate (and ultimately be) a real person.

Hahahaaaa that took a lot of thinking! Thank you for the challenge!! I do have more ideas but I think I'm going to stop there before it gets too long. Also sorry if you meant "ducktales crew" literally. I don't know those people well enough to assign them pokemon, lol.

[thoroughlyskeptic]

Dear nannies/antis,

Logic, let's try logic, since nothing else gets through those thick skulls of yours. What is improbable about the scenarios that the skeptics, as a whole, present? 

For the record, the established parameters here are that:

1) Ben is unhappy.

2) This unhappiness began right around the beginning of the PR push for The Imitation Game.

3) His unhappiness has not abated despite achieving his stated goals of marriage and family.

4) No other event or person in his life correlates to that time period in exclusivity except Sophie. 

Now the skeptics disagree on the instigating factors of those same parameters. The general consensus among the skeptics is that:

1) Ben's marriage is a sham.

2) He is not happy about being a father, therefore based on his stated goals and desires there is something that he doesn't like about the children.

3) Sophie did many things that are generally discouraged during pregnancy therefore she was not pregnant. 

Now the nannies and antis(that's you all) suggest that these things can't possibly happen. That the parameters are false. While it is true that we cannot clearly prove to your satisfaction that Ben is unhappy, you conversely cannot prove to our satisfaction that he is happy. Now, people exist in all spectrums of emotion and can have several at a time so in fact, perhaps we are all right. But assuming that our parameters are true, the instigating factors are the big sticking point. 

Logically, many marriages are marriages of convenience. Whether for legal protection, not wanting a child born out-of-wedlock, dynastic reasons in general, and of course there are Lavendar Marriages. Several people have suggested in the past that Ben married and had children to hide the fact he is gay. Although the younger generation has been very vocal in claiming their personal preferences for pronouns, older generations who tend to watch the big budget Oscar bait movies Ben likes to make(TIG, The Courier, That cat movie) tend to prefer their actors straight. It's happening less but there can still be a backlash from someone coming out. I'm not saying that I believe this theory, but it is not something that is unheard of statistically. As far as dynastic reasons, although Ben is not in direct line for any titles dynastic reasons can include the purpose of furthering the family name. There is also the legal protection. Some people get married for the reason of testifying, or rather not testify.

Ben has stated previously that he wanted to become a father. Now, it could happen that someone who had the desire to have children came face to face with the full weight of taking care of a human life and balked. (He saw a loaded diaper and ran screaming, for example.) This is not unheard of in people who were raised as only children or people who have never been around babies. However, seeing that Ben has a niece around the right age to have baby-sat and has small Godchildren he was very close to, I very much doubt this is the case. Now, you can have an unhappy reaction from a parent who has a special needs child but unless all three were also in need of extra help, having another child eliminates some, although not all, of the regret and sorrow that having a child that you may be unable to help can cause. The other explanation that could account for him not being thrilled about being a father, would be doubtful paternity. This is also a fairly common occurrence, more discoverable now with modern DNA tests but it has happened since the beginning of societies.

One theory is that Sophie has faked her pregnancies. This is not out of the realm of possibility. Two separate explanations can apply and both have precedent. One is common in Hollywood circles or models. They hire a surrogate and "fake a pregnancy" so they don't lose their figure, this is known as social surrogacy. If done by IVF it's still their child, so no lying would be involved. A well-known doctor from Hollywood has stated that he has helped many actress and models "fake" a pregnancy in this way. The other possibility is sadder. Women, saddened by the loss of a child or pregnancy, substitute a "New Born"/" Reborn" Doll for their child and treat it exactly the same. Some do have more than one of these "children". Her apparent weight gain could be hysterical pregnancy common in the type of delusional personality that causes one to imagine a doll is a real child. Once she was pictured pregnant the public(i.e. tabloids) would be eager to get a photo of the baby. To maintain this from a public relations standpoint, some sort of explaination would have to be given. Of course reborns and dolls do not age. If the situation is as believed, he would need to explain why there were no children. In his position, it would be easy to hire child actors to play the parts of the children for a photo shoot and tell his wife they were doing a movie shoot or ad. If there was a surrogacy, there would, of course, be children. He may resent having gone through IVF and surrogacy. Many men believe this process emasculates them, that they aren't "real men" because they can't father a child the "natural" way. 

As to the health of Sophie when pregnant, the pictures indicate that she was drinking, riding dangerous boats, and traveling to far off locales. All of this is discouraged during the stage of pregnancy she was at. It was not prohibited but as a geriatric pregnancy, she would have been urged to be overly cautious as older mothers are 14 percent more likely to have a spontaneous preterm delivery and 31 percent more likely to have early deliveries because of labor induction, cesarean births or other interventions.  The National Women's Health Network now prefers the term Advanced Maternal Age. (And yes your mother was Methuselah, and gave birth to you at a 104, nannies. Outliers do not determine the statistical norms.) 

Now are all the things that skeptics have said illogical? Not all of them. Do we have sound logical reasons for the basis of our skepticism? Yes. We didn't just randomly decide one day that Sophie looked like the kind of person who would fake pregnancy. It's not like she hasn't faked a pregnancy for attention before. People that fake things for attention tend to feel they have not gotten enough attention and try bigger and bigger stunts to get attention. They escalate. That's not from any book. That's from personal experience. The only way to deal with them in general is to ignore them. If that is not strictly followed, they will escalate until someone gets hurt. 

This of course is where nannies/antis see threats, when skeptics aren't making them. Saying that destructive behavior leads to destruction is not a threat, its logical.

Now logically I know that I'm either preaching to the choir or to those who aren't really going to change their mind. That's not the reason for this exercise. The point, my dears, is to lay out a logical reason for what the skeptics believe, even if it doesn't change anyone else's mind in anyway.

[breynekai-tfc]

Last night, I was listening to John M. Barry’s The Great Influenza:  The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History.  In Chapter 22, Barry discusses what it means to be a scientist, and I couldn’t help but think about Jack and Maddie Fenton - especially Maddie.  I decided to transcribe those paragraphs and post them here, for use in the character development of the Fentons or just as good ol’ quotable material.

Disclaimers:  Because I transcribed these paragraphs from an audiobook, the punctuation, sentence breaks, and paragraph breaks are my interpretation.  Ellipses (...) represent omissions.  I have bolded sentences that particularly stood out to me. 

The following paragraphs are the property of John M. Barry:  

“To be a scientist requires not only intelligence and curiosity but passion, patience, creativity, self-sufficiency, and courage.  It is not the courage to venture into the unknown.  It is the courage to accept - indeed embrace - uncertainty.  For as Claude Bernard, the great French physiologist of the 19th century, said, “Science teaches us to doubt.”  

A scientist must accept the fact that all his or her work, even beliefs, may break apart upon the sharp edge of a single laboratory finding.  And just as Einstein refused to accept his own theory until his predictions were tested, one must seek out such findings.  Ultimately a scientist has nothing to believe in but the process of inquiry.  To move forcefully and aggressively, even while uncertain, requires a confidence and strength deeper than physical courage.  

All real scientists exist on the frontier.  Even the least ambitious among them deal with the unknown, if only one step beyond the known.  The best among them move deep into a wilderness region where they know almost nothing, where the very tools and techniques needed to clear the wilderness, to bring order to it, do not exist.  There, they probe in a disciplined way.  There, a single step can take them through the looking glass into a world that seems entirely different, and if they are at least partly correct, their probing acts like a crystal, to precipitate an order out of chaos, to create form, structure, and direction.  

A single step can also take one off a cliff.  

...Not all scientific investigators can deal comfortably with uncertainty, and those who can may not be creative enough to understand and design the experiments that will illuminate a subject, to know both where and how to look.  Others may lack the confidence to persist.  Experiments do not simply work.  Regardless of design and preparation, experiments, especially at the beginning, when one proceeds by intelligent guesswork, rarely yield the results desired.  An investigator must make them work.  The less known, the more one has to manipulate and even force experiments to yield an answer.  Which raises another question:  how does one know when one knows? 

In turn, this leads to more practical questions.  How does one know when to continue to push an experiment?  And how does one know when to abandon a clue as a false trail?  No one interested in any truth will torture the data itself, ever.  But a scientist can, and should, torture an experiment to get data, to get a result, especially when investigating a new area.  A scientist can, and should, seek any way to answer a question.  If using mice and guinea pigs and rabbits does not provide a satisfactory answer, then trying dogs, pigs, cats, monkeys.  And if one experiment shows a hint of a result, the slightest bump on a flat line of information, then a scientist designs the next experiment to focus on that bump, to create conditions more likely to get more bumps until they become either consistent and meaningful or demonstrate that the initial bump was mere random variation without meaning.  

There are limits to such manipulation.  Even under torture, nature will not lie, will not yield a consistent reproducible result unless it is true.  But if tortured enough, nature will mislead.  It will confess to something that is true only under special conditions, the conditions the investigator created in the laboratory.  Its truth is then artificial, an experimental artifact.  

One key to science is that work be reproducible.  Someone in another laboratory doing the same experiment will get the same result.  The result then is reliable enough that someone else can build upon it.  The most damning condemnation is to dismiss a finding as not reproducible.  That can call into question not only ability but, on occasion, ethics.  

If a reproducible finding comes from torturing nature, however, it is not useful.  To be useful, a result must not only be reproducible, it must be - perhaps one should call it - expandable.  One must be able to enlarge it, explore it, learn more from it, use it as a foundation to build structures upon.  These things become easy to discern in hindsight.  But how does one know when to persist, when to continue to try to make an experiment work, when to make adjustments, and when finally to abandon a line of thought as mistaken or incapable of solution with present techniques?  How does one know when to do either?  

The question is one of judgement.  For the distinguishing element in science is not intelligence but judgement.  Or perhaps it is simply luck… Judgement is so difficult because a negative result does not mean that the hypothesis is wrong.  Nor do ten negative results, nor do one hundred negative results.  

...How does one know when one knows?  When one is on the edge, one cannot know.  

One can only test.”

[bookshopkat]

Asian Fantasy Novels for the Lunar New Year

Photo by Thyla Jane

Happy Year of the Ox!  The Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, is a major celebration in many Asian countries.  Marking the first new moon of the lunar calendar, this celebration lasts for days and is a time for family and friends, lantern festivals, dragon and lion dances, gifts of money, fireworks, and feasts.  There’s something enchanting about the Lunar New Year, with its bright lanterns lining every street and its sparkling starbursts lighting the night sky.  At its heart is tradition, cultural beliefs, and a mixture of mythology and magic.  Simple charms are used to bring good luck and drive away evil.  The supernatural has a firm place amid the celebrations, from shoe-stealing ghosts in South Korea to Vietnamese kitchen gods to the lion-like monster Nian in China.  As such, this holiday presents a marvelous opportunity to both celebrate various Asian cultures and conjure a sense of wonder.  So, to celebrate the Lunar New Year, here are four fantasy novels rooted in Asian culture and lore.

Jade City by Fonda Lee

On the island of Kekon, jade grants those with the ability to wield it special powers, but promises pain and death for anyone lacking the right genetics who tries to use it.  As a result, jade smuggling is a profitable business and those families with the capacity to use the mineral, called Jade Bones, make up the highest class of society. But now ordinary citizens are somehow gaining the ability to use jade, and it is throwing the society of Kekon into turmoil.  As suspicion fuels inter-clan warfare among the noble class, the future of the island nation hangs in the balance.  In the midst of this chaos stands three siblings. Kaul Lan, the new, young, peace-loving leader of his family, finds himself faced with the uncomfortable necessity of bloodshed as he tries to steer his clan through these uncertain times.  Lan’s brother, the hot-tempered and passionate Kaul Hilo, is like a warrior straight out of old tales: honorable, protective, and hungry for battle and glory.  Their sister, Shae, is an independent modern woman who chose to cast aside her jade along with her traditional roles in favor of freedom and marriage to an outsider.  Added to this cast of characters is Wen, Hilo’s forbidden lover, who is burdened by the combination of coming from a disgraced family and being a rare Stone Eye, a supposedly cursed person completely immune to jade.  All four have their differences and disagreements, and the tension between them mirrors the growing strain in their homeland at large.  It will take them all, however, to find out who is responsible for the dangerous drug allowing non-Jade Bones to wield the sacred stone before it is too late.

This is a novel that bridges high fantasy and urban fantasy, weaving a tale of heroism, betrayal, and intrigue against the backdrop of a thoroughly modernized enchanted society. Lee’s narrative is intricate and interesting, her world building is exceptional, and her magical system is comprehensive and intelligent.  Running throughout the entire tale are elements of Chinese myth and culture, with folklore concerning gods and monsters playing a vital part.  Complex, well-written, and engaging, Jade City is grand and unique fantasy adventure.

Tears of the Wind by Phung Lam

This collection of short stories is a touching as it is magical.  Taking place on the fictional Island of Wishes, each tale explores human nature and the deepest desires people harbor in dark corners of their minds. From a lonely heart seeking solace to a soul hungry with ambition, this anthology explores the not only the power of wishes, but the question: what would people do if the one thing they truly wanted most could be theirs?  It’s basically impossible to find an English version of this book, and I had to rely on the Smart Book translation application for the ebook format.  That led to some odd phrasing in portions of the text, but the collection was nonetheless enjoyable. That is because Lam writes not only with imagination but also with a keen understanding of humanity.

The narratives are dreamlike, the content somewhat akin to magical realism and the tone ultimately surrealistic.  Ranging from heartrending to horrifying, Lam weaves stories about the darkest parts of ourselves, when we harbor wishes we dare not name, as well as about the unforeseen and often terrible consequences of getting exactly what we think we want.  The author explores the nature of love, the power of longing, and the baser side of our very nature. It’s an engaging collection that seems, and its core, to turn upon one basic thought: be careful what you wish for.

The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo

Set in late-nineteenth-century Malaya, on the island of Borneo, this novel sparkles with folk beliefs and superstitions.  Li Lan is a spirited girl and only child from a family wrapped in what can only be called genteel poverty.  Her life is certainly not perfect—her mother is dead, her father, although loving, has allowed his grief to lead to opium addiction, and her marriage prospects are extremely limited—but things aren’t so very bad.  Apart from occasional longings for beautiful new clothing such as she sees other wealthier girls sporting, Li Lan would be reasonably content if it weren’t for one thing: her father has asked her if she would like become a ghost bride.  He says it almost as a joke, but the moment he speaks the words, the wheels of fate start to turn. The rare tradition of ghost brides is meant to mollify the spirits of wealthy young men who died without marrying, and it presents both tempting and terrifying prospects. While accepting would mean financial help for her aging father as well as a place for Li Lan herself in one of Malacca city’s most affluent households, it would also mean giving up any dreams of love, passion, or children of her own.

Li Lan, of course, refuses, especially when she starts to develop feelings for another decided living man.  But the choice may not be as easy as the thinks.  She finds herself haunted by Lim Tiang Ching, her spectral suitor, and he is determined to have her.  Tiang Ching, the young woman soon learns, was selfish and cruel when he was alive, and death hasn’t improved him. Desperate, Li Lan seeks the help of a local wise woman, and unwittingly finds herself embroiled in a supernatural struggle where ghosts are all too real and her only hope hangs on a mysterious young man who may be more than he seems, and who is most definitely keeping secrets.  On top of that, she begins to realize that the Lim family is harboring some dark secrets of their own, and one of them may be deadly.  

Choo’s narrative is imaginative as well as brimming with cultural folklore and traditions.  A blend of mystery and fantasy, it is engaging from start to finish.  Many of the characters are interesting and a little quirky, although a couple feel less well developed and there were a few moments when I felt the protagonist was a bit too flighty for my tastes. Nonetheless, this is a fun, entertaining fantasy book, perfect for an evening of light reading with a cup of tea or coffee at your side.

When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller

This is a truly wonderful novel blending together magical realism, mythology, family drama, and a deeply touching coming of age tale. It’s a beautifully written and imaginative narrative where opposites don’t so much collide as they do interweave in a complex dance.  Dreams tangle with reality, childhood blurs with adolescence, Korean tradition intersects with modern America, folklore mingles with daily life, and stories become solid enough to touch. Through it all runs a profound understanding of emotion and the human spirit.

Lily has always loved visiting her Korean grandmother, catching stars to learn what stories they hold and listening to traditional tales from their ancestral homeland.  This, however, is different.  Now Lily, along with her mother and her sister, are moving in with the old woman because Lily’s grandmother is sick, and isn’t getting any better.  A new city, a new school, and new fears about her beloved relative would all be difficult enough, but Lily has another problem: upon arriving, she sees a tiger straight out of one of her grandmother’s tales.  This is both a metaphor for many things: words unsaid, terminal illness, fear, and long-ago mistakes.   It is, however, also an introduction of the magical real.  Upon informing her grandmother about the big cat, Lily begins unraveling the old woman’s greatest tale yet, and takes the first step in a personal journey to discover family secrets and leave her childhood behind.  As marvelous as it is heartfelt, When You Trap a Tiger addresses conflicts between generations and cultures, as well as the reconciliation of the past, through the lens myths and storytelling. At its core, this is a novel about the power of both love and stories, as well as about one girl finding herself.

Perhaps one of these books will make an excellent companion over the next several days as celebrations of the Lunar New Year progress. Blending Asian folklore with a sense of the fantastic, these works may prove to be the perfect way for those not immersed in these festivities to still capture a bit of the season’s spirit.  Readers hungry for an interesting narrative that is a little out of the ordinary will likely find any one of these to be a feast for the imagination, as well as a wonderful way to start of the Year of the Ox.  Happy Reading!

[nalufever]

do you have any more nalu fic recs?

Sorry, not sorry - you’ve unleashed more than you could’ve guessed. ^^ Always happy to Recommend a List of Fics ~ And thank you for asking! Admittedly there’s a few Recs that aren’t Nalu - I got excited to share my favs. ;)

A Girl Worth Fighting For: Natsu navigates unspeakable horrors to win Lucy’s love or Natsu goes shopping, looking for the perfect white day gift. 

A Lesson: Natsu and Lucy can’t keep themselves from expressing their passions - and the results are bed breaking. Short but smutty - smexy in fact. ;P 

A Solidly Constructed Kiss: Erza strong-arms Lucy and Natsu into working the Kissing Booth to raise funds for a school trip. Lucy’s never been kissed and Natsu acts like he’s never entertained even the idea of kissing another person. Things naturally come to a head when Lucy and Natsu are given the task to build the actual booth; will they fight over construction or build themselves some kind of relationship? 

Fairy Tail Week: A collection of drabbles from tumblr prompts to celebrate Fairy Tail. Fairy, Ladies, Lads, Magic, Guild, Ultimate Team, Stronger, Mashima, Tail. Only rated teen to err on the side of caution, family friendly content featuring most of the Fairy Tail Guild! 

Feathers and Scales: Angel/Demon AU. Devils are more than they seem and Angels no less. Pitted against each other in a never-ending battle for souls, a single Angel and Devil trade mercies and fall in love. Warning: major character death(s). 

Full Moon Secret: Natsu had wanted to tell Lucy his secrets, to share his family history with the fey…it had just never been the right time. Tonight the truth was going to be revealed, one way or another. 

Okay, I could just keep hyping all of my own fics individually - but I won’t - other than to just put in a link to ALL OF THEM. ;) Fair warning, I have a few other fandoms works in all the Fairy Tail stories - from Brooklyn 99 to The Flash, Snow White with the Red Hair, RWBY, Blue Exorcist, Teen Titans and some Hakuouki. Yes, I’m a shameless self-promoter. Speaking of that - one more I need to rec!  Natsu’s Stars in Lucy’s Sky. I swear Imma finish this. 

I also have more than a few favourite authors who write for Fairy Tail (and other fandoms) ~ some have not contributed lately to Fairy Tail or chosen to concentrate on other fandoms - but I like them and their excellent writing. 

ObsessedwithNalu: One of my first fandom friends and pretty much any of her FT stories is gold. @obsessedwithnalu  

Christmas Treats: Admittedly a gift to me and very cherished for that fact - and - it’s frigging awesome. Lucy does a little holiday baking at home before Fairy Tail’s Christmas party. Natsu, as always, is there. One thing leads to another… 

Thanks, Krov: When Krov decided to relax at his favorite bar after work, he never imagined that he’d be seeing some of his old guild members, especially since he thought they had died long ago. Nalu fluff. 

Edo-Nalu love fest: Submissions for the Nalu love fest week of 2014. But instead of regular Nalu, these ones feature Edo-Nalu. Smut-tastic and delightfully mature. 

ImpracticalDemon: Another early fandom friend who’s still writing this, that and the other thing - and she’s just GREAT. Again, a link to all her works and a few that are special to me follow. XOXOX @impracticaldemon  

May the Best Man Survive: “Gray would never have in a million years thought he’d host Natsu’s bachelor party (Nalu pairing). Why is it his job to herd the bunch of rowdy mages from bar to bar, ending up at the guild where the real surprise party is? Oh yeah, the idiot had asked him to be the best man at his wedding. Hijinks, chaos and hilarity ensue.” ^^ A prompt supplied by me and I’m smirking so wide because the fic Imp came up with delivered more awesomeness than I could have hoped for! 

A Star At His Side: “Accidentally Fall Asleep Together” for Endragoneel on tumblr. Natsu and Lucy spend the day together at a festival in Magnolia. Natsu ends up watching more than just the stars when the festival is over… 

Christmas Gifts: When Erza walks Wendy home from the Guild’s Christmas Party, Wendy realizes how alone her friend and mentor is feeling. She sets out to recruit Lucy, Natsu and the rest to break Jellal out of prison for just one night, as a Christmas gift for Erza. Meanwhile, Natsu has accidentally burned some of Lucy’s writing. Will she forgive him? 

Dark Shining Light: One of the best and most welcoming writers I have ever interacted with! I’m still gobsmacked she’s a friend! She’s a legend and I don’t know what else I could add to any discourse about her writing - but the classics are classic for a reason, yeah? Here’s a few of my personal favourites of her works and just know there’s too many to list them all! AKA @ff-darkshininglight 

Mischievous Cat: Let’s just say there have been a few incidents where Happy has come in at a bad time. 

What Belongs to a Demon: Everyone knew she belonged to the great demon lord and she would prove that she deserved to stand by his side. 

The Truth Revealing Cards: Lucy should have known if there was a card that would reveal her secrets, Natsu would want it. 

Eliz1369: Got introduced to her for her Hakuoki fics but she’d dipped her toes into FT as well ~ and this is a great fic. ^^ @eliz1369 

The Light of Fairy Tail: The members of Fairy Tail may be their own brand of crazy, but their hearts are always in the right place. 

rougescribe: Shame on me for not reading more of this author’s works! @rougescribe  

Fire Sprite No 5: For him, Heaven wasn’t a place or a single moment in time. It was a feeling built on memories upon memories, past and present and a hope for future ones all tied down together. All sharing one common denominator: Her. Nalu. Tumblr Valentine’s Event. 

Fallen Ark Angel: Admittedly I only have interacted from afar with this writer. I mainly read Nalu fics but I love her take on Mira and Laxus and her next gen offspring characters. She’s got a lot to offer and it’s all superb. @fallen029

Loving Satan: Loving Satan is never easy. But when she loves you back, its twice as bad. 

Madartiste: Another one-sided love affair with someone else’s writing. And her stories are all wonderful and prolly appear on hundreds of Fic Rec Lists - but here’s one of my Favs! @madartiste  

Hoarding: Getting interrupted gets old fast. 

UranoMetria: I added her to my stable of fav authors 05-03-2014. Wow. Eons ago and even if I’m not sure she’s still active in the fandom, I salute her. Kudos. 

The Goddess Gate: With six years of partnership, Natsu and Lucy are torn apart by a mysterious visit from a secret magic council. Lucy is kidnapped and her memories suppressed. She fights her way back home to regain her life - with a startling secret revealed as she begins to remember. The lives of all Earthland hang in the balance. **Okay, this is a wicked old fic - but amazingly written and fuelled my own desires for writing. Last updated in 2018 but who knows? Some current attention may slay any demons on her back in regards to writing - and even if not - the hours of enjoyment reading this is worth giving a comment just to say, ‘thank you for writing.‘ 

Wild Rhov: Do I even need to say anything about this author? Famous, famous, famous. Excellent. Writes a lot of pairings and fleshes every relationship into something REAL. I Can’t Even. @wildrhov  

Beastly Possession: Something is murdering people in Magnolia. When Lucy is attacked, Natsu goes on a rampage to find the culprit, and everyone in Fairy Tail wants revenge. But could this bloodthirsty attacker be someone they know? Warning: High octane nightmare fuel! Do not read while eating, and beware of red eyes in the dark! 

Shell1331: Introduced via Imp. This writer is in a few fandoms and is worth reading. @shell-senji  

Juicy: Impulsivity and poorly chosen words get Natsu into more trouble than he’d expected, which is saying something for him. 

AbsentAngel: Everyone should know this writer. Been stalking her since 2014 so that says something. Tho, it’s prolly just that I’m creepy. ;) My suggested fic here is being re-written/has been? into something original and worth being purchased when it becomes available and re-read over and over. No, I am not being paid to shill but I am open to having senpai notice me. @absent-angel  

To the Flame: She stares, transfixed, as the blood runs down his fingers and begins to pool in his palm. He holds his hand up to her lips in offering, and she tears her eyes away from the blood to study his face. He is smiling softly. “Go on Luce, I didn’t cut them for nothing.” [Vamp AU] 

HawkofNavarre: Loved for awesome and delightful Gruvia content. Looks like there’s a tumblr but I can’t manage to link it. :(

You Stole the Rain: He just wanted to be friends; fine, she just needed to change his mind. Gray x Juvia 

Ricardian Scholar Clark-Weasley: Not sure I spelled that right even after checking three times! I usually short hand that to RS-CW in my head. And she’s prolific - has a tonne of fandoms and is a tower of talent. Is anyone reading all my fangirl gushing? 'Cause she follows one of my fics and comments (sorry I haven’t updated that fic in a while) and it’s a source of happiness that someone who writes so well happens to enjoy some of my content. Okay, bragging over - back to the Recs! 

Tales of Fairies: A collection of oneshots exploring different friendships, ideas, sad themes, comical scenarios, and lots and lots of pairings…but mainly Nalu. 

snogfairy: Another giant in the FT fandom. Impressive talent. @lineffability  

naughty nalus: smutty nalu oneshots B) ***Mature content!*** 

Rivendell101: Another giant in FT and other fandoms. This author would be considered required reading if I ran a fandom course in a University setting. Just sayin’ @rivendell101  

Crave: /krāv/ Verb. To feel a powerful desire for (something). They crave each other. And satiation doesn’t come easily. He growls against her again. “Beg for it,” he demands, lips ghosting against her. 

Lakerae aka @hidetheremote : Did you think I’d forgotten you? Ha! Gotcha good! You’re an inspiration to me because you’re working so hard to publish your children’s books. Kudos to you li'l sis! You’re busy but still make it a point to talk to me and I love you for that and everything.

The Gift of the Magi: A Gajevy Twist: A retelling of the classic Christmas story “The Gift of the Magi,” with your favorite Fairy Tail couple Gajeel and Levy! It’s Christmas time and Gajeel and Levy exchange gifts. They both are surprised what they receive and learn a lesson of the true meaning of Christmas. 

I could add more and more as I search my saved favs on FF.net ~ and I’m sorry to not include all of them - but this is crazy long as it is. If you read and like any of the recommended fics, please be sure to let the author know. To the authors of these and all fanfics, Thanks for everything.

[royaidaydreams]

Extra! Extra! Author’s Notes

I don’t know about you, but I’m always fascinated by creator’s thought processes. The reasons how and why things are made. So I wrote down some notes explaining the decisions, themes, and inspiration for my 2021 FMA Big Bang story Extra! Extra!

Chapter One Notes

I struggled to write the summary. My husband said I should just say, “It’s a Newsies AU, bitches!” and leave it at that. I’m still hella tempted.

This story is a love letter to both fandoms. Clearly, I adore the characters from Fullmetal Alchemist, but Newsies holds a special place in my heart. It was my first fandom, first time reading and writing fanfic. Combining the two just made sense.

I made a very last minute, somewhat impulsive decision to join the Big Bang when my newborn was three weeks old. I was desperate to keep a part of myself instead of giving up all of my hobbies and interests to become a (willing) caretaker and stay at home mother. Writing with a newborn was super easy because baby took lots of contact naps and I typed on the ipad. This first chapter is super polished because, as a newborn, my baby slept all the time. I think if you look at the quality of later chapters, you can tell when my babe started napping less. Sorry. I plan to rewrite parts of the later chapters in the future.

A few years ago I read a crossover of the two on AO3. Looking back, I couldn’t find the story again, but I distinctly remember the fic followed the plot of the stage musical with Roy as the lead and Riza as the new female lead. As much as I appreciate aspects of the stage adaption, I’m not particularly fond of its writing. I could give an entire TED Talk on how it:

butcher’s Jack’s character by making him dumb as a brick, a whiny scaredy cat who folds at the first sign of trouble, and is misogynistic (she said no, a$$hole, leave her alone!)

butcher’s David’s character by making him irrelevant to the plot and sidelined the entire second act

allows the rich girl (and her rich friends) to save the poors instead of telling an underdog story where the kids take on the powerful themselves

uses ageism to justify the kid’s strike/taking back power

is waaaaaay more violent that the real event, which was famous for being peaceful

and murders Jack’s dream of Santa Fe (longing for a place to belong and people who accept you) and cackles while dragging its bloody mangled corpse in front of my heart.

In the stage show’s defense, the harmonies are really good.

So I started daydreaming about a Fullmetal Alchemist AU that follows the events of the film and here we are 58,000 words later.

It was really important to me that I didn’t just change the names of the characters and call it a day. The plot had to be driven by Roy and his specific wants and desire. Roy wants justice and to protect his friends, not leaving and escaping New York like Newsies’ main character. This meant I cut out one of my favorite elements of Newsies (and the motive behind my favorite song Santa Fe).

Personally, I love the turn of the century aesthetic. So I tried to describe the city and all the old fashioned elements of life within it. The clothes, the shops, ect.

This story has a strong Marxist literary lens, like most of my fics do. Exploring social and economic class and its inequality is my jam, and I genuinely think Newsies planted that interest in my 6th grade brain. You can see this in the descriptions of their worn down, secondhand possessions, dirty clothes. Roy cautioning Maes about dating Gracia when her family is financially stable and Hughes is … not.

My husband teases me how much I love the orphan trope. Many of my favorite characters are orphans, it’s not a coincidence.

I tried to be subtle about references to the Newsies film, but sometimes I wasn’t. The kid singing too early in the morning is a nod to Newsies being a musical.

I also tried not to steal lines of dialog from the film, but a few of my favorites snuck their way into the story.  “Sleeping on my back” joke is from the movie. Honest to god, I can probably quote the whole movie by memory, that’s how many times I’ve seen it.

Sig and Izumi Curtis running the lodging house was a last minute addition because I wanted to slip their characters in somewhere. They are good role models/parental figures, it only made sense. Also threw in a reference to the canon Curtis’ butcher’s shop.

Hopefully it’s made clear later on in the story, but everyone except Roy and Riza think they are dating. She’s still recovering from the abuse suffered by her father and she’d not ready for that level of emotional commitment. Roy, patient and kind, accepts it. He doesn’t need to put a label on their relationship.

The real 1899 Newsboy Strike took place in July – August. It was hot. Therefore, lots of descriptions of heat. The movie was filmed in California, which explains why everyone’s so sweaty.

Hawkeye was accidentally a lot more violent in the original draft. She was toned down by the final draft and I’ll talk about it more in later chapters.

For the record I included a cameo of Patrick’s Mother. Not even the stage adaption did that. It’s such a lovely, heartbreaking oneshot character that the Broadway cast filmed their own version of the scene to include her verse in the opening song. Also, including her gave me a lay the groundwork for Riza being a runaway.

Roy still has a pocket watch, a nod to his canon character. I’m proud to have found a way to include it. I don’t remember ever mentioning Ed’s pocket watch, but he has one too. It’s beat to hell and belonged to his mom.

Like all my fics, this story is just an excuse to write various headcanons.

I was lucky enough to visit New York when the Newsies Broadway show in 2011 when it first premiered in New Jersey. I cried in happiness. And all the original cast signed my playbill. I managed to see the Horace Greeley statue in NYC on that trip. There are in fact two of them.

“We need a good assassination. Or an earthquake or a war,” is a lyric from the movie.

Roy and Riza are so in tune they always know where one is relative to the other, even if they can’t see each other.

Normally I prefer Riza’s long hair, but it was fun giving her a short style. She’s so afraid of being found (by a family member she doesn’t know and never met) that she disguises herself as a boy. Like, her friends know she’s a girl, she identifies as a girl, but from a distance with short hair and pants anyone who doesn’t know her thinks she’s a boy and that’s 100% fine by her.

Riza dressing as a boy is also a small nod to aaaaaaaall the fanfic where a female OC dresses and pretends to be a boy. It’s a common trope. There’s always one girl doing it. Even in the stage show, lol.

Ed’s first line of dialog is repeating a short insult in all caps and I’m really proud of that. It suits him.

It was tough making Kimblee the newsies foil. He didn’t want to get his hands physically dirty doing any well ... dirty work. I don’t actually know what he does all day in the distribution office. I think he looked at a stack of newspapers and scoffed at the idea of the ink staining his clothes. He actually does Yoki’s job managing the office and ordering people around him to do the work. Yoki barely does his job and coasts in his position by everyone else doing the work for him. This suits both just fine. Kimblee wants control, and Yoki lives in his own version of reality where he is king.

The House of Refuge was a real place. Who knows how corrupt it actually was or wasn’t. It was somewhat of a halfway house where kids in trouble with the law could become rehabilitated and learn trade skills and an education before they were released.

Kimblee was arrested and sent to the Refuge for being a slimy prick. That’s the answer I’m sticking with.

I mentioned Roy’s pale skin and dark hair. In the story I was really tempted to assign characters real world ethnicities because NCY was a melting pot of immigration thanks to Ellis Island and the time period.  Ultimately, I didn’t because I didn’t want to risk describing any ethnicity or people’s physical features in a way that could be unintentionally questionable. No need to risk opening that can of racism. In my head Roy’s mother was a Chinese immigrant. He’s first generation and ended up with a French name first thanks to that mixing and melting of cultures.

I had a lot of fun coming up with ways Ed could fight despite not having two working limbs. He really didn’t want to get sidelined during the action sequences.

I don’t think I stated it directly, but I imagined the pants on Ed’s amputated leg are tied in a knot below the knee. It swings slightly when he walks. I never described his fake hand either. Originally, I thought he’d wear a glove to cover up the wooden prosthetic.

Hawkeye has the best aim with her slingshot of any newsie in the city. She’s a real threat with it.

I knew in my soul Hughes’ nickname needed to be Loverboy because he’s a smitten love struck idiot. But for most of the fic it made me uncomfortable for some reason so I avoided using it in the first draft. Ed’s hesitation saying it at first mirrored mine.

Roy’s more bastard tendencies are kept in check by Maes and Hawkeye. He knows this and appreciates them for it. If it weren’t for them, Roy would have poked and provoked Ed at any given chance for the fun of it and they never would have worked together because Ed would be ready to murder him. Ed’s strong reactions are just too amusing to Roy.

Bringing back the newsies spit-handshake like it’s 1992 ­­­–– I mean, 1899!

“My mother just called me a bastard” line is straight out of the mouth of Hawkeye Pierce, not Roy Mustang. When I wasn’t writing this chapter or caring for my newborn, I was watched  M*A*S*H* for the first time. My husband and I still joke about our baby having Korean war flashbacks. During the early days of breastfeeding it helped pass the time. I enjoyed the show way more than I thought I would.

The fic’s artist Wombywoo mentioned she liked that Ed and Roy were closer in age because it gave them a fun dynamic. I agree.

I did work with another artist on this story, for a while. I haven’t heard from them for a few months, so I hope they are okay. Not getting the art is a little disappointing, but I get it, life gets busy. If the second artists ever happens to see this, I hold not hard feelings. I don’t care how late the art is. I will be forever grateful and thrilled to see it.

I spent so much time googling to figure out the math on the prices of the newspapers. I tried guys, really. Dyscalculia sucks.

Yoki’s name is changed to Yucky (because he’s insufferable and the newsies smell insecurity a mile away) as a nod to the film where the newsies mispronounce the distribution center manager’s name because he’s mean to them. (In the original script the character calls one of the character’s a slur, so yeah, no wonder the newsies hated him.)

Yoki is such a cheapskate, pass it on. The newsies all know to count their papers.

“You little rats can barely read,” line comes from my headcanon that most newsies aren’t strong readers, at least when they start. As orphaned working kids they didn’t have the opportunity to learn. Some teach each other. Some are taught by the Curtis’ in the evenings. Havoc makes a funny (and film dialog) malapropism later in another chapter because of the lack of literacy skill. For those that don’t read well, their friends tell them the headlines or they make shit up.

At first Roy as going to ask Riza to borrow two more quarters, just like the main character of the movie asks to borrow from one of his friends. Then I realized how dumb that was. Roy’s good at being a newsie and has the quarter to spare. Also, Hughes is complicit in recruiting Ed, not Riza, so the burden to spot the extra money goes to him.

Ed’s canvas bag solves the problem how he carried his newspapers.

Inspiration for the Newsies’ Nicknames

A lot of the newsies nicknames were obvious. (At least, I think so!) Roy and Riza’s both make sense and align with FMA canon names. I headcanon that newsie Riza secretly likes the aspect of authority of Roy’s newsie nickname. They can … experiment with this one day when they are older. However, it conflicts with Riza’s distaste for male authority figures after her father’s (physical and emotional) abuse. Poor girl takes a while to reconcile both feelings.

Loverboy was more of an insult of a nickname gift to Maes by an older newsie because he wouldn’t shut up about his girlfriend. Hughes ran with it and accepts the nickname whole heartedly, just like his devotion to Gracia.

Havoc’s romantic life is such a disaster that he’s more than earned his nickname. He basically stopped trying to date, his heart flutters any girl that gives him the time of day. He’s also 100% oblivious to Rebecca throwing herself at him.

Fury’s nickname is ironic. No one has ever seen him angry before. His friends don’t think he’s capable of it. Other than Ed he’s the youngest newsie. He likes Ed but doesn’t want to be forced to be his friend because they are the same age. That’s why they don’t interact often.

The newsies think (Breda’s) nickname Rook is because he’s good at games, like chess. But it’s really because he stole the chess piece off the board from the first game he won. He thinks its lucky.

Falman has an eidetic memory in FMA canon. The newsies think that’s really cool and he explains it to them like his brain takes a snapshot of anything he see/reads and that’s why he can remember it. The newsies like to play a game where they ask him super specific questions about the articles in the daily newspaper. He’s never gotten a question wrong. This also makes him one of the strongest readers.

I’m still patting myself on the back for naming Maria Ross ‘Killer.’ This will never not be funny to me. It’s a nod to her plot in FMA canon where she’s labeled Hughes’ killer. As a newsie she’s tough as nails, though.

Denny’s nickname Tears is the only one I’m not happy with. If I could come up with a better nickname, I would. His character wiki said he’s emotional, hence, Tears.

Armstrong’s nickname is so on the nose we don’t even need to go there.

Curls was inspired by canon Rebecca’s thick, luxurious hair. Back in the day of the yahoo newsies mailing list there was a fan with the nickname Curls that always stuck out to me. Every year she was honored for having passed away from an accident well before her time. I never knew her personally, but her story has always stayed with me.

These notes are mostly for my enjoyment, but kudos if you enjoy them too. I’ll be posting one for each chapter of the fic. is it clear I spent a lot of time thinking about this story?

[allyvampirelass29]

The Hourglass and The Oracle

A NOS4A2 Review By: Allyssa J. Watkins

A spiraling staircase A bold fuchsia beauty Lights flicker in your eyes As our energies collide And, Darling, you're starting to get to me......

I'm not your Darling, John Buy a girl a drink first Before you thirst For what you can't get your hands on Throwing my head back with a laugh You're going to fall And it's going to be too fast Who said I was yours to catch? Ask me again And I'll ask you to dance

May I have a moment of your time? I don't need to be a Strong Creative, Dear To tease your mind A turn of the hourglass A trick of the sublime You're like sand through my hands Sifting too fast to touch And it's not enough...... You're the exceptional exception When I say we're hard to love.

Sparks fly Drawing you in I'll make you believe in magic again Fate's siren song calls to the Hourglass Man I guess it's my turn To show you my hand But be forewarned, My Gentleman Friend There's no telling what happens When you open the door to the static You might not want the answer Once you have it Shaking the bag Rolling the Dice A cigarette burn is a more than fair price To watch time drain from the Hourglass' eyes Clutching the hurt As your knife catches my eye Shattering your glass Scattering your sand Close your eyes, You Hopeless Flirt This is me, skipping dessert I gotta say you put up one hell of a fight Say goodnight, John You've run out of time

CHECK. FREAKING. MATE!!!!! Ladies and Gentlemen, the MATCH has been called, and the Hourglass didn't stand a chance against the Woman of the Hour, Our Dauntless Oracle, and very own, Miss Margaret Leigh!!! My GOD, Maggie seized her time to shine in a dazzling foray of sultry seduction, and deadly spectacle, and while it may have been The Hourglass' last bow, it was the iridescent ORACLE who stole the show, and she alone deserves our standing ovation!!! I LOVED this episode, beginning to end, the intrigue, the sleek deception, the intense human drama, all beautifully intertwined in this beguiling game within a game, a chess match of like-minded Creative prowess!!! Brava, Miss Leigh, and bravissimo, NOS4A2, for spoiling us yet again!!! "The Hourglass," is a violin overture of vulnerable human moments, and intellectual powerplays, reaching the fever pitch of the most ghastly, scream-bloody-murder cliff hangar of the entire series.

Where last week Charlie was the blunt force trauma, the pounding hammer, smashing everyone and everything in his path to Wayne, Maggie is the stealth strike, the seductively wielded scalpel, removing Charlie's secret weapon with lethal precision, after he proves to be the more immediate threat to her best friend, now that Charlie's absconded with her son. She's a force to be reckoned with, a fuchsia femme fatale, as lovely as she is deadly, the perfect rosé of coy and coquettish as she flirts with time and death itself. It was her finest hour, hands down, and I LOVED that NOS4A2 gave her the spotlight, and that she literally KILLED, leaving us begging for more.

Stop me if you've heard this one before. Two Strong Creatives walk into a bar........ Like an ingenue reminiscent of Old Hollywood, with every lilac strand of her rebellious florescence pinned in place, Maggie descends the long, spiral staircase, sending the lights to flicker, and drawing the eye of an instantly intrigued, Mr. Hourglass. I must say, The Hourglass Man's smooth, and tenacious pursuit of our Maggie, was a FANTASTIC blindsight, a surprise I never saw coming!!! Where I expected a smouldering duel to the death as soon as their eyes met, knives flying, I found myself drawn instead, irresistibly into the tantalizing tango between the two of them. Their witty repartee was both sparkling, and sharp-edged, as John advanced, and Maggie countered, playing hard to get, while secretly drawing him in. It's thrilling to watch, marveling at these seemingly unlikely lovers, and yet, with each move and countermove, I could see how much they thought alike, both crafty intellectuals, who knew how to play the game, and how to win.

"We're hard to love. People fall for us because of our abilities, but they always come to fear the very thing that drew them in. They tell us to tone it down, betray our gifts, like declawing a cat. It's cruel."

This is my favourite line in the entire episode, it struck me straight to the heart, tears in my eyes, overwhelmed by its tragic beauty and excruciating truth. It's also the one time that Maggie's smoky-eyed seductive veil slips, and she lets herself feel something very real. In that moment, as fleeting as it is, there are no sides, no waiting plots, or poised vendettas. There are two Strong Creatives, two kindred supernatural beings with very human feelings. Victims of their own gifts, with universal wants, and desires. Powers greater than their wildest dreams, but at what cost? In this moment, Maggie cares about John, connects with him, because she feels these words burn emblazoned, even hotter than the cigarette he's about to press into her arm.

Two Strong Creatives walk into a bar....... and only one comes out alive. These two take, "Get a room," to a whole new level!!! "I'm not going to hurt you, unless you want me to........." John says smoothly, before pressing a lit cigarette into Maggie's arm, telling her to harness the pain, let it consume her, until it's all she knows, and then whispers his question like a sweet nothing in her ear, nuzzling her close. John, with all of his scheming predilections and parlor tricks has found a way to cheat the Strong Creative check when it comes due. In event of seizures, or memory loss, you can hurt yourself...... or hurt someone else. I had always secretly suspected this proviso, I even wrote it into my own NOS4A2 Series, that my character's compassion gets punished by unknowingly hurting someone else, every time she uses her gift, but seeing John's shocking demonstration, breathing in with explicit pleasure as he burns her, watching Maggie's big brown eyes spark, both excited, and relieved that she can hurt herself and still use her powers, was an absolute ordeal. I have a feeling Maggie just discovered a dangerous new addiction........

Speaking of ordeals........ John shatters a glass table, ready to kill the messenger, when he doesn't get the answer that he wants, the fates formally denying his request for immortality. And it is here, in the midst of his ruffled, heartbroken, rage, that the events deviated dramatically from my own predictions. I thought Charlie had promised him immortality in exchange for killing Vic McQueen, and that Maggie had unwittingly unmasked this betrayal, proving Charlie had lied, offering the Creative Holy Grail that he intended to keep for himself. Immortality, apparently a non-transferrable work benefit. With our slighted Hourglass primed for revenge, and his particular fascination for Maggie, I thought for sure she'd be able to turn him against Charlie, brandish the Hourglass against his new business partner, rallying him to Vic's cause, and more or less, have him join Team McQueen to take Manx down once and for all.

I was wrong...... So, so wrong. I don't think any of us saw what was coming....... "It's rare I get such a hands on opportunity," John rasps, once he finds his stolen knife in Maggie's bag, teasing seduction climaxing into a crime of passion, as the two of them scrapple and scrape for the hourglass. "Sweetheart, give up. You're not getting out of here alive." Maggie gets choked, hurled over the shattered glass table, but you can't keep a good girl down, and The Hourglass is no Charlie Manx. "I tried to warn you, John, my tiles are never wrong." Maggie thrusts a shard of glass up into the Hourglass Man's heart, and with an anguished, hopeless cry he watches her stomp his knife into the ground, coming down on it hard, leaving nothing but shattered glass, and scattered sand. WOW........ I am speechless. I have to admit, I did not expect Charlie's new player and point man to be vanquished this early in the game, as awestruck as I am by this new fearless facet of Maggie's unique brilliance. She was elegant, badass, and beautiful, and I'm so glad he's dead, but I don't know....... I felt like his death was his third and final disappointment. Sorry John, we'll always have Parnassus.

Oh my God, if Maggie was this episode's Oscar Winner for Best Actress, Linda Freaking McQueen WINS for Best Supporting Actress!!!! She's the other sassy heroine of "The Hourglass," mouthing off to FBI agents like nobody's business, and it is SENSATIONAL!!!! "What does FBI stand for, huh? Failed. Bad. Incompetent? We're Americans!!! My husband works for the postal service, I go to CHURCH!!! Do better!!!" You TELL 'EM Linda!!! She's a delight in every scene she's in, standing up to the suits, and telling them what's what!!! She's had it with these big, fancy, feds not protecting her daughter, and she ain't afraid to get vocal about it. Aaaaaah and the whole conversation with her and Chris was AMAZING!!! There is something so fascinating about two hard knock realists, two complete skeptics talking about the possibility of the Supernatural.

"There's a difference between special, Chris, and magic. Our daughter ain't magic."

"How would you know?"

"Because I wiped her snotty nose, for Christ's sake!!! What kind of mother misses something like that?"

"The kind that's too busy hiding bruises and paying bills to look up."

Linda's emphatic disbelief is so perfect, and I just love the way she says that, "Our daughter ain't magic!" I also love how Chris is starting to believe in Vic, and it's that burgeoning faith in his daughter's abilities that makes Linda start to wonder if maybe her daughter could be magic. Chris owning up to his past mistakes, and blaming himself, for his wife's oversight, was such a bittersweet moment too, wanting so badly to let her off the hook. He's changed, they both have, and I couldn't be more proud. Another beautifully human moment that I really loved was between her and Vic, and here we finally find out why the McQueen women can't be close to each other. "I never felt that you needed me." It's a rare, deeply insightful look into Linda's heart, a vulnerable truth, and I feel like I know them both even better through it. Linda needs to be needed, she needs to have somebody to take care of, somebody that relies on her, and with a drunk, philandering husband who sought comfort elsewhere, and a fiercely independent daughter, Linda had no one. She felt listless, without purpose, and thus drowned her sorrows with a tipped back bottle.

The scene with Vic and Lou cuddling in his hospital bed also strikes a chord in this veritable symphony of human emotion, and with every new episode, I ship Team McCarmody even harder!!! Lou with a stint in his heart, and Vic with a concussion, and injured spleen, have this impossibly sweet moment, in the midst of the aftermath and ever-present horror of the abduction of their son. I love how they anchor each other, try to calm each other down, and still manage to make each other laugh.

"Han Solo ain't half the mechanic as Lou Carmody."

"Did you- Did you just refer to yourself in the third person...... and rate yourself....... ABOVE Han Solo?"

Vic's laugh in that moment is so pure, and a much needed relief, as she holds onto the love, the teddy bear of a man, that Charlie couldn't take from her, and in that moment, she decides to focus on what she has left, even while fighting for what she has lost. I'm reminded of a quote from my other favourite show, HEROES. "We're human first, and heroes second."

Charlie may take a back seat this episode, but he is still a coaxing, debonair presence with a teasing linger, and not without another clever trick up his sleeve. "There is no need to hide your cellular telephone from me, My Boy," He coos as Wayne fumbles to sneak a call to his Mom. I was SHOCKED when Charlie urged Young Bats to do just that, call his mother. "What kind of MONSTER do you take me for?" He asks silkily, feigning indignance, and with bated breath, we wait as the phone rings, and rings, and rings...... No way in HELL is Vic not taking that call, and yet, Young Master Wayne hangs his wildly curly head, defeated, as the call goes unanswered. "She's a real heartbreaker, your mother...... isn't she? Never there for you, no matter how good you are. It's not personal, Wayne. In the end Vic McQueen cares only for herself and no one else," Charlie chortles, and he knows it's working....... bit by bit, he means to turn his new favourite charge, against his own mother, convince him of her neglect and indifference. My theory? Charlie can block calls using his creative power, which would explain how he's avoided capture, and the FBI's modern trappings for so long. You sneaky, sneaky boy!!!

OH HELLO CRAIG!!!! Yes, you read that right...... CRAIG, Wayne's father who burned to death in the Wraith, like a ghastly apparition appears to his son, with singed skin, and glazed over eyes. At first I thought this was Charlie manipulating Wayne, showing what his mother did to his father, and how he wasn't ever going to be safe with her, but to my own astonishment, Charlie could not see him!!! Craig encourages Wayne, tells him Charlie's lying, gives him hope, and insists she's coming for him. I thought that was a spectacular, wide-eyed SHOCK that came out of thin air, and I couldn't help but think about how Cassie appeared to her daughter in this same way........ Hmmm can children, if they are Strong Creatives themselves, see the parents they have lost at the hands of Charlie Manx? Curiouser and curiouser........

My breath caught, everything going numb, when that bloody tooth fell out in Wayne's tiny hand. I LOVE that little boy with all my heart and soul, and I'm sorry, Charlie, but I do NOT want him to become a vampire!!! Wayne starts to change in other ways too, playing with a butterfly, as his usual cheerful self, adorably naming him Sunny, before killing it, ripping it into shreds, his sweet little face devoid of any emotion. WHAT!? I had chills like crazy, and I felt heartsick. I don't know though, did anybody else think that butterfly looked strange, almost not quite real? The way the Wraith rolled down the window to let it in...... It makes me wonder if this didn't just happen in Wayne's mind.

I did notice though, how long it took for the Wraith to siphon off Wayne's youth to heal the nasty gash on Charlie's cheek. Even Charlie starts to worry, checking the mirror again and again, only to find it slightly healed, and it's not until the near end of the episode that he looks one more time, nails resting on the side of his head, sighing into his hand with relief, when he sees his once again flawless visage staring back. It's like Wayne is fighting the car, slowing down its effects, because no child has gone this long without turning!!! All exciting further proof that Wayne HAS to be a Strong Creative!!! I also love how Charlie continues to be the perfect, doting father figure, ever so careful and patient with Wayne, and I just melted, with a besotted sigh when he asked him if he had to use the water closet!" That was precious!!! Also, my new FAVOURITE thing ever, is Charlie click-clacking his long, gorgeous nails along the Wraith's windows as he walks past it!!! Dear GOD, Handsome, WHAT are you doing to me!?

THAT ending though........ I'm crying....... I SOBBED, I'm so not okay. What the freaking HELL.........!?!? Just as we're all having cozy Charlie and Wayne feelings, fawning over them both, that DAMNED BASTARD Bing Partridge comes out of NOWHERE surprising our dashing vampire, shoving the gas hose in his face, and he goes down HARD!!!! Once he's disabled the Wraith, he abducts Charlie, and leaves Wayne behind. It's blood-curdling to watch....... knowing what horrors Bing has already committed, and what dark intention he holds for his once upon a time hero, now that Charlie's left him to die. I'm freaking scared. I was hyperventilating, and full of murderous fury even hours after the episode had ended. The wait for next week is going to hit a lot different, after that cruel cliff-hanger, and I can only hope Charlie can dangle Christmasland in an effort to thwart Bing's fat, homicidal hand. Bing Partridge, you hateful Son of a BITCH, if you disturb so much as one strand of Charlie's beautiful raven hair, I'm gonna KILL you SO DEAD!!! Time's run out for the Hourglass, will another of Vic's foes meet the same fate? Bing Partridge must DIE!!! Somebody......... SAVE CHARLIE MANX!!!!!

[neiablackwood]

Times

Mentioned: @savianblackwood​

  A group of men had been grinning and smiling for a short time, waving and whistling to get her attention. She was pointedly ignoring them and was convinced that these well-dressed men surely had better things to do than bother her. “If I ever think about moving to Stormwind and opening my own business and owning my own house, you should stop me.” She said grudgingly towards the black cat in her lap.

           The whistling and the callings faded as a female guard walked towards the group and began talking to them; they left shortly after that.

           Neia felt her whole body relax, the tension draining from her forehead. “Humans,” She sighed, stroking the feline who settled back into her lap, “You don’t see any of the other races doing such ridiculous things, at least not openly,” she added softly.

           Her surroundings grew brighter as the common sounds of the city drifted inwards. The giant tree she sat under shifted gently in the wind, the sound of seagulls cried out, the distant sound of boat horns echoed, and on occasion, the sound of men hollering from far, far away.

           “I’m glad we live in Ironforge,” she said again, looking down at the feline. Her stroking had ceased, though she couldn’t remember when she had stopped, and the cat was stretched out on her lap, paws hanging over her legs.

            A chirp caught her attention, more of a caw, and landing down beside her was a black raven, all sleek and shiny in appearance, he looked up at her with black eyes; it clacked its beak, and she stroked its head.

           The raven jumped to and fro before going still and staring off into the distance, she followed its gaze, catching the shiny sheen of a paladin’s armor. A group of them were walking on the upper levels making their way most likely to the Cathedral.

           Neia smiled weakly, as she let her eyes draw back to the feline in her lap. “You think we should get to work as well?”

           “Of course, the lady is always right.” Neia smiled warmly as she adjusted herself to give a better view of her more expensive items. Necklaces with medium size stones that were of different colors, with metal designs that were elvish in idea but had taken on a more human style. “As you can see, each color harbors a special power, that’s why you always see mages with stones on their fingers and necks. I normally only leave these for my magically gifted customers, but since the lady seems to know, she won’t be fooled by cheap imitations, and surely, she will have to depend on her own wits to find exactly what she likes. Lucky for you, I don’t sell cheap, fake stones meant for charms and enchantments, and her impression of you will clearly soar, and maybe, the lady can find some relief in knowing she can depend on you a little more.”

           The man frowned deeply as his eyes took in the new items as his thoughts were clearly elsewhere.

           Neia waited.

This customer was commonly dressed, but she saw the way he held himself, how his shoes were clean and new despite that she had decided set up in the upper levels of the harbor today, and he had a silver metal ring with mini stones of diamonds cut in the way that they shone different colors in the light.

           “You really have nothing else?” He said in a matter-of-fact tone that indicated he wasn’t at all interested, and if she didn’t pique that interest, he would find his business elsewhere.

           Neia reminded herself that he wouldn’t have come to her if he hadn’t already checked all the other known jewel crafting stores.

           “A lady knows her jewels,” she said smoothly, picking up one of the necklaces that was a beautiful opal of silver and blue. “And you won’t find any crafted in such design in a Stormwind shop. In such pure silver. With a cut that shines with both perfection and color.” Neia shifted the necklace in a way that the opal of silver and blue shifted into oranges and red.

           The man eyed her for a moment longer before drawing out his purse, “How much?”

           Two gold slithered there way into her boot. Uncomfortable, of course, but at least this way the silver and copper laid at her hip and no one would be the wiser. Naturally that was if they didn’t try to steal her gems, but she had a secondary defense for that, she thought as she looked down to the black cat sleeping on the box behind her set up.  

           The sun was beginning to dip in the sky, the air still warm and thick a good indication that it still would-be long hours before the day would be over. She scanned the area catching several guards, sailors, and an old woman with a young child running out towards the edge of street; the old woman called out in a panicked tone, but the child had already come to a halt a foot from the edge eyes wide with awe.

           “Keystone Jewelry, masterly cut gems fashioned in anyway you desire! Personal request tomorrow, walk away with a gem today. Enchanted and non-enchanted. Rich or poor, items from copper to gold!” Neia called out letting her voice carry elegantly and softly in a way that a voice could drew crowds in a tavern as music hummed in the air.

           A pair of earrings and another necklace was sold leaving Neia with two gold, and fifty silvers for the day. A good haul for certain. The docks always seemed to garner the best days, but she could tell the crowd was shifting from its normal daytime individuals to a shifter, unsettling group that roamed at night; already a group of hard eye individuals had passed no more than an hour ago setting her spine tingling with unease; the feeling hadn’t drifted away.

           Despite the sun still being an hour or so from sunset, she began picking up gems and necklaces, setting them in individual boxes, and shoving others altogether in a mess of metal and string. Her table folded in neatly, and her display cloth acted as a secondary bag for all the less important gems and simple metal designs. She tied the cloth bag to her backpack and hefted it over both shoulders; the weight was an additional ten pounds at least, but Neia was use to it and it gave her little bother, especially when from the corner of her eye she could see two individuals, one male, one female, staring at her from the shadows that they thought were hiding them.

           Perhaps it would be hiding them if she had normal eyes, but their outlines were obvious, and so were the hilts of weapon and greyish leathers.

           Her second reason to leave now than later was due to the lack of guards patrolling the area, guards and sailors.

           Ever part of her was screaming to find the closes guardsman, but the only real voice that seeped in was to go find Savian. He was her third reason for leaving. Savian would be getting off work shortly and he was at least a ten-minute walk.

           Table in hand, Neia made her way towards the tunnel connecting to the park; the two people she had spotted were talking too each other now, frustration clearly etched into their wrinkles, an argument brewing.

           Neia frowned as she entered the tunnel. They hadn’t yet followed her, still every physically part of her edged for her to run towards the sun light, while mentally her vision blurred to an image of a man with a knife in the dark tunnels of Ironforge, his breath hot on her neck and words he spoke that sent a chill down her spine.

           The smallest part of her knew running would only draw attention and reveal weakness, and that was the part that won.

           A soft meow drew her attention down too her feet. The feline was looking up with green eyes searching hers. She smiled as she stepped out of the tunnel. Her raven let out a squawk as it flapped it wings beside her, landing on the bag on her back. It gave a little caw, a clack of its beak, before it said, “Hello.”

           She chuckled, “Hello to you too, would you like to go tell Savian I’d like an escort home tonight?”

           The raven dubbed its head, clacked its beak, and stayed where it was.

“Yes, I’ll buy you some strips of meat for the deed.”

The raven buoyed up and down before taking off and flying away. She watched for a moment before looking down at the feline. It stayed in line with her steps, careful not to be in her way, ears flicking around in watchful anticipation, but it never looked back, and so, neither did she.  

[ibtk]

Book Review: THE ANIMALS IN THAT COUNTRY by Laura Jean McKay (2020)

(Full disclosure: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review through Edelweiss and Library Thing's Early Reviewers program. Content warning for violence, including that against animals. Caution: this review contains a spoiler in the form of an excerpt.)

'Well, I’ve got a secret for you, Miss Kimberly Russo.' She digs her sharp little nails into my skin. ‘What is it?’ ‘This flu means people can talk to animals.’ Her head shoots up. ‘I want the flu, Granny. Don’t you?’ ‘Grown-ups don’t wish they had diseases, and neither should you.’ ‘But don’t you?’ Outside, Wallamina and Princess Pie are nose and beak to the sliding door, trying to press their way through. Eyes shining. ‘Course I bloody do.’

I can see the wild in her. She looks and acts like any dog. Plays, wags, stares into my eyes with her baby browns; does chasey, catch, begs for biscuits. Then the dusk comes and she lifts her neck and howls the saddest song in all the world, and there’s that wild. Dingo, owl, night thing — that sound is a warning. Loneliest you’ll hear. Wraps around your face, your sleep, your dreams. She’s saying: ‘Hey, hey. There’s something coming.’ The rangers here are always telling me, don’t talk like that. They say how dingoes are just establishing territory, checking on their pack. Dingo admin. But stand on the hot road that runs from the gift shop to the enclosures, and listen to the dingo in her cage call out to the packs on the other side of the fence. Tell me that’s not special. Tell me she doesn’t know something about the world that you and me haven’t ever thought of.

Jean Bennett isn't you're typical grandma - unless you're picturing Gemma Teller Morrow, that is. Jean drinks, smokes, swears, and sleeps around, usually all at the same time, and occasionally with her gay and committed coworker, Andy. She's got a tiger tattooed on her boob, and a dingo named Sue imprinted on her heart.

A lowly guide who dreams of becoming a ranger, Jean works at an Australian wildlife park, run by her son's ex-girlfriend Angela and owned by Angela's father. Jean and her husband Graham landed there years ago, after bouncing around the world for a while. Eventually Graham left Jean to shack up with another woman; their only child, Lee, jumped ship too, but not before hooking up with - and impregnating - Angela. Now Ange mostly keeps Jean around for the free child care (and maybe also because Ange feels sorry for her).

As for Jean, she stays stuck in this weird, awkward morass for her granddaughter Kimberley - one of the few people she can tolerate, let alone love. Jean prefers animals of the nonhuman variety, and the Park's residents/captives are her found family. She has a special place in her cockles for Sue, a dingo mix who she helped rescue as a wee little pup.

Jean's precarious life is already teetering on the edge of chaos when THE FLU arrives - first in southern Australia, then at the Park's gates, thanks to none other than an infected Lee, as charming as he is irresponsible.

Zoanthropathy (from Greek: zóo, “animal”, anthroponis, “human”, pathy, “disorder”), aka zooflu, otherwise known as "the talking animal disease," allow humans to understand and communicate with other animals:

'The strain known as zoanthropathy affects cognition in humans, and it is believed that enhanced communication between humans and nonhuman animals is possible. Zoanthropathy is hosted and spread by humans. [...] The disease is very high in morbidity and very low in mortality. Infected humans appear able to communicate (encode) and translate (decode) previously unrecognisable non-verbal communications via major senses such as sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound with nonhuman animals.'

When Lee runs off with Kimberley - to commune with the whales on the southern coast - Jean embarks on a cross-country road trip to find them. Riding shotgun is Sue, whose keen nose points the way to Tomorrow (Tomorrow being Sue's conceptualization of Kimberley. Jean is Yesterday, and Lee is Never There. Scathing, yet accurate.)

As with most potentially animal-friendly tales, I was equally nervous and excited to dive into THE ANIMALS IN THAT COUNTRY. As it is, the book both thrilled and disappointed me; I almost feel like it deserves two separate ratings, one for the idea and actualization of the dystopian zooflu future - which is breathtaking - and another for the human-centered plot that propels the audience's journey into this world - which is decidedly less so.

Let's start with the zooflu. It seems like it would be awesome to be able to talk to animals, right? Think again. I mean, really turn the idea over in your head, sit with the superpower, and try to envision what this might entail. Given that most of the nonhumans we encounter on the daily are exploited, oppressed, or otherwise negatively impacted by humans -

be it the 25 million farmed animals we create, torture, and kill for food every year in the US alone; the "wildlife" (read: free-living animals) we displace, starve, and kill through habitat loss; the dogs and cats we buy, neglect, and then abandon at shelters; or the animals we unintentionally hit with our cars (or the bugs we trod on just walking down the street); etc. x infinity

- we are weapons of mass destruction. To most of our nonhuman kin (and sometimes our fellow humans, too). Instead of words of wisdom and messages of hope, we'd be more likely to hear cries of terror. Confusion. Pain and agony. Hellfire, everywhere. Created and fueled by us and our own.

Heck, I'm not even sure it would be beneficial to always know exactly what our beloved, nonhuman family members are thinking. I have a fifteen-year-old dog named Finn who's going deaf and blind and battling dementia. More often than not, I suspect that being privy to his innermost thoughts would freak me the fuck out. Not to mention break my damn heart.

And then there's the mode of communication: not just just verbal, as we're used to, but all-encompassing: "sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound." Think pheromones, sound waves, scratches and ticks. The beating of countless tiny wings, all bombarding your brain and trying to tell you something. That kind of thing, coming at you uninvited and from all directions, is apt to drive a person mad. And it does, as evidenced by zooflu sufferers who stuff their orifices with whatever's handy to block incoming stimuli - or, at the more extreme end, the pseudo-religious trepanners who invite strangers to drill holes in their skulls in a misguided attempt to relieve the pressure.

Talking to animals sounds like the stuff of dreams - but in McKay's hands, it's a nightmare.

And a pretty trippy one, at that: fittingly, the incoming messages that Jean's left to decode aren't quite what you'd call straightforward. There's a lot of translation required, and Google hasn't yet caught up:

I’m reading her body like some language I barely remember from a high school textbook. Bonjour madame, connaissez-vous le chemin de la gare? Let’s go to the station. Or, where the hell is the supermarket? I can parrot the words, but the meaning is in scraps.

Copies of this book should be sold with a sheet of acid, or maybe some edibles. I kid, but also not.

If, like me, you assumed that increased understanding and compassion would surely spring forth from this newfound ability to communicate with nonhuman animals, you'd be wrong. While some people do indeed embrace the flu, many others lash out: animal-free zones are established, and hungry citizens start hunting former pets, since they make for easy prey (apparently they've never heard of fruits and veggies?).

There's one especially excruciating scene that I don't think I'll ever be able to forget. Jean takes refuge in a makeshift church, only to catch a glimpse of how the missionaries make their sausage (stew):

A small fluffy dog has pelted out a kitchen door, thin bit of twine tangled around its legs, body blonde fire, screaming, Hello. Please. Please bite its soft. Quick. Help me. I jump up, calling the poor little bugger, but the parishioners shriek louder, climbing on their chairs like that dog is the snake from the garden of Eden. The woman rushes for her daughter and hauls her by an arm out of the room. It’s funny, for a second, until the laugh dies in my throat. The little dog, too tangled in the twine to move, slumps panting in the aisle. It’s not just m e. Where’s other me. She’s still — The god-botherers are faster than me. They grab that dog with WWF wrestling passion, using real lumps of wood, real knives. The little dog has enough time to issue a thick whiff of terror from its undercarriage, Help her, before they’ve slit it ear to ear right there in the pulpit. There was no blood with Lee. He didn’t even look that drowned. He might have come alive any moment. He might be alive right now in his grave. This little dog, though, is bleeding out on the beige carpet. The door to the kitchen is open. Matthew the soup cook leans on the jamb, then turns back. A fluffy tail on a chopping board. The steaming pots. Pain like a stab to my guts — he stirs a soup very much like the one he was serving up in the park.

Of course, this scene is so repulsive to most of us - Jean included - only because the animal being killed and consumed is designated for "companionship" instead of "food," at least in this particular culture. Chances are you've known and loved a dog or two yourself - and so the doomed beast transforms from a something to a someone. Not an unfeeling object to be used and discarded at will, but a sentient creature with her own feelings, desires, and loved ones. Had it been a chicken or pig, the result wouldn't be quite so horrifying; Jean herself eats meat, and justifies doing so, on several occasions.

Yet an earlier scene - in which Jean comes upon an abandoned tractor trailer truck packed with pigs destined for slaughter - will hopefully challenge readers to expand their circle of compassion:

I’ve seen battery hogs before — of course I have. But not out and about. Not staggering around and trying to walk, calling to whatever they think is ‘more’. Glazed eyes that strain like they’ve never seen sunlight. Skin stretched over bodies fed to the point of bursting — something between swine and meat. Saw some animal liberationists on the street in the city one time, saying factory farms were the same as Nazi camps. I called them bloody racists too. The pigs clatter past me down the ramp, fucked-up eyes on the road ahead, calling, Hello is it more. Those animal nutters were wrong, but not in the way I thought. It’s not the same as the Nazis: that was us doing to us. What’s this? [...] A hurt sow sits on her haunches, then lies down on the verge, panting unevenly under the slathering sun. Another weaves blindly over the asphalt toward her, flies spinning around her head. They push their noses into each other. Send me a postcard, the sick one says. Postcard, indeed. What the fuck. I watch more closely. The meaning bright off that tight skin. All the little bits saying, Leave me, and, I’ll hear about it, and, Don’t you see it. Move on. There’s more. The ones that can walk stretch their legs, for, More, more, more. I stand at the top of the truck ramp watching them break into a group trot toward the next paddock. Skin rippling. Hooves carolling. Know that heart-in-your-mouth run. Know exactly what ‘more’ is. I’ve seen it in Lee and I’ve had it too, at times. These pigs are half dead, they’re stumbling around, blind, mad, and fucking hopeful.

Even if many of the characters in this book resist the humanity clearly evident in nonhuman animals, I hope that readers will hold these passages close - especially at the dinner table.

Sue, our main nonhuman protagonist, is a fascinating character; like many of the semi-domesticated animals in the park, McKay paints her as a series of conflicting impulses: safety or freedom. Hunger or satiation. Dingoes or humans. She is fiercely loyal, much to her own detriment. She has wants and needs of her own, and she's often satisfied to set them aside for the good of her (adopted) pack.

And I guess that brings me to the second half of this review: the humans, most of whom are awful. Jean, exponentially so.

Initially I thought that Jean would be my people: she's a hard-drinking, mold-breaking badass broad who gets on better with animals than people. She has a mini-rescue in her backyard where she keeps some of the park's doomed relinquishments. (The public treats the park like a rehab facility when in fact it's in the business of entertainment - old, sick, injured, and "common" animals are routinely killed.) She and Kimberley spend their afternoons together designing the animal rescue they hope to build one day.

But Jean is kind of a terrible person. To call her a misanthrope is half the story: she's also senselessly mean and cruel, especially when drunk, hungover, or frustrated (in other words, 90% of the time). I don't fault Jean for her substance abuse problem - alcoholism is a mental health issue and should be treated as such - but nor is it an excuse for being such an asshole. (There's even a scene where she trolls people discussing the zooflu online, like a fucking American redhat.) She's shit to everyone around her, except for Kimberley and Lee (Lee, who could use a good ass-kicking).

And then there's Sue: Sue, who followed Jean across the damn country when she should have been settling into a dingo pack of her own. Sue, who found Kimberley and saved Jean's life. Sue, who is nothing but good and true and trustworthy. Sue, who Jean assaults on multiple occasions: kicking her in the ribs, binding her with rope to prevent her escape, and even trying to shoot her (with a gun that's thankfully empty of bullets). At one point, she "forgives" Sue for saving her life - as if Sue's the one who needs forgiveness!

Despite the abuse, Sue continues to stick by Jean's side, which galled me endlessly. Towards the end of the story, following the attempted murder, Sue gets revenge of a sort, dominating a delirious Jean and forcing her subservience. However, the book ends shortly thereafter, cutting any sense of satisfaction far too short.

I really felt cheated with Jean: I thought she might be my avatar in this world - but she's just another terrible human who doesn't deserve the company of animals.

Likewise, the whole subplot involving Kimberley's parentage is way over the top dramatic and unnecessary; it seemed like we were being plucked from a dystopia and dropped into a soap opera for a minute there. Just, gross. So yeah, there are definitely some aspects of the book that I appreciated more than others. THE ANIMALS IN THAT COUNTRY may be imperfect - but I'd still wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone looking to explore our relationship to nonhuman animals in a dystopian setting.

[recentanimenews]

From Bakeneko to Bakemonogatari: The Secret History of Catgirls

It’s a question society has asked for ages: what came first, the cat or the girl?

The catgirl is one of the most resilient images in anime today. However, even the term “catgirl” is a little vague. Close your eyes and try to imagine what that word actually means. Did you think of a girl, but with cat ears? Did she have a tail? Does she have a verbal tic? Was she — by some mystical, scientific, or by some other supernatural occurrence — able to transform into an actual cat? If you said yes or no to any of those questions, are we still talking about the same kind of “catgirl”?

The answer is no one really knows. But that hasn’t stopped people from trying to investigate the origins of this immensely popular character type. Does such a thing as "the first catgirl" truly even exist?

Black Hanekawa as she appears in Nekomonogatari

What We Talk About When We Talk About Catgirls

Broadly speaking, characters with animal ears are described as kemonomimi, which literally means animal ears. What about catgirl etymology? As expected, characters with cat ears are described as nekomimi, aka cat ears. The term nekomusume (cat girl or daughter, literally) has also been used, which is also notably the name of the character Neko-Musume from Shigeru Mizuki’s popular 1960s supernatural manga GeGeGe no Kitarō. Ralph F. McCarthy, the first to translate Kitarō in a bilingual edition published by Kodansha in 2002, localized this name as “Catchick.” This is all to say, the invented euphemism “catgirl” is just one of many used to describe the same thing: a cat-like girl who may or may not claw your eyes out with a mischievous smirk.

Mizuki's Neko-Musume is based on the bakeneko, an evil cat spirit who is sometimes able to change between human and feline form. Folklorist Matthew Meyer describes bakeneko as beginning their lives as regular house cats, but later accumulating more human-like traits as they mature. In many stories, they are depicted as lapping up the blood of murder victims, thereby granting them supernatural powers. Of course, they aren’t to be mistaken with nekomata — twin-tailed cat spirits, like Yōkai Watch’s Jibanyan. Much like the rest of Mizuki’s yōkai characters inspired by Japan’s supernatural folklore, Mizuki’s bakeneko are the byproduct of creative license. Neko-Musume doesn’t have cat ears like we might expect them today, but technically she fits the bill for a supernatural entity. Like modern-day big-eyed catgirls, your mileage may vary.

Detail from Utagawa Kuniyoshi's nekozuka print

Utagawa Kuniyoshi, a woodblock artist born in 1798, is well-known for his many cat-centric prints. One of his most renowned projects was a series of prints depicting the 1827 kabuki drama, Traveling Alone to the Fifty-three Stations. In 1852, Kuniyoshi printed a depiction of actor Onoe Kikugorō III as one of the play’s most memorable characters, the nekozuka, a cat monster living in Okazaki assuming the form of a human woman. Kuniyoshi draws this specter with two very noticeable cat ears — a statement that this is a suspicious supernatural entity. This same motif reoccurs in other Kuniyoshi works, noticeably a woodblock triptych depicting the same actor as a cat creature. Again, those notorious ears appear.

Onoe Kikugorō III illustrated by artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi

Is Kuniyoshi’s flair for fantastic flourish the missing link? The secret origin of all catgirls who ever dared meow in the modern age? Well, it’s a little more complicated than that.

Will the Real Catgirls Please Stand Up?

The bakeneko is but just one entry in Japanese folklore’s long love affair with cats. In contemporary media, the concept of a cat-influenced woman is seen in many horror films. In an entry on bakeneko for The Encyclopedia of Japanese Horror Films, scholar Michael Crandol writes: "Bakeneko tales were the single most popular subject of Japanese horror films from the dawn of cinema through the 1960s, with more than sixty such pictures released by 1970.” With films as early as 1938’s The Ghost Cat and The Mysterious Shamisen, to post-war modern classics like 1968’s Kuroneko, the bakeneko sub-genre in Japanese horror is a testament to its ubiquity. Not to mention the allure of mysterious intrigue.

Kaneto Shindo's Kuroneko asks the universal question: will my cat eat me when I die?

From this perspective, the origins of catgirls seem quite hairy. In fact, looking solely through the lens of the traditional bakeneko narrative is extremely limiting. Surely they all aren’t evil women possessed by vengeful spirits? So what else?

In May 2019, independent cartoonist Keiichi Tanaka posted a thread on Twitter asking about the possible origins of the catgirl design proper:

猫耳の元祖って『綿の国星』？ 人間の顔で頭の上に猫の耳、このデザインってそれ以前にあった？

— はぁとふる倍国土 (@keiichisennsei) May 16, 2019

Among the replies included Osamu Tezuka’s character Hecate, a shape-shifting young witch who transforms into a half-humanoid, half-cat creature from the 1950s manga Princess Knight. Others mention Kuniyoshi’s cat-eared nekozuka woodblock prints, alongside the introduction of the classic Playboy Bunny costume in Japan. At first, it seems like Yumiko Ōshima’s manga Star of Cottonland may be the point of origin, but perhaps it’s not so easy to pin down. Did Tezuka, like so many innovations in early anime and manga, do it first? Are catgirls perhaps an underappreciated relic of the Edō period? What about classic '80s shōjo manga?

Feline magic in Tezuka's Princess Knight

Like many great debates in art history, the conclusion is ambiguous. Some might say Kuniyoshi unintentionally invented “catgirls” in the 19th century. Others may say Tezuka refined the concept, but Ōshima popularized the idea of cat ears on cute girls. If we examine catgirls strictly through the lens of anime and manga, the ambiguity and debate regarding "origins" become less of a fuzzy headache. Rather, we can re-frame the question: What works possibly helped catgirls bloom into the anime and manga-centric phenomenon we know and love today?

Chibi Neko, a cat who believes she is a girl

Ōshima’s Star of Cottonland was serialized in shōjo magazine LaLa from 1978 to 1987. The protagonist, Chibi Neko, is a kitten who views herself as a little girl. Because of this, the story is illustrated from her perspective and depicts her as human, with the caveat of having cat ears. In her 1995 book, Phänomen Manga: Comic-Kultur in Japan, scholar Jaqueline Berndt points to Ōshima being the possible originator of this now massively popular trope. In 1984, Star of Cottonland was adapted into OVA by Mushi Production, the animation studio famously known for adapting many of Tezuka’s major works.

Meanwhile, another OVA debuted in 1984: Bagi, the Monster of Mighty Nature. This was an original production written by Tezuka himself in response to gene recombination research approval by the Japanese government. Most famously, it featured an anthropomorphic feline woman named Bagi, who is undeniably more cat than girl. Bagi attempts to gain vengeance on humanity while simultaneously forging a troubled relationship with the action-hero male protagonist. While the Star of Cottonland OVA saw a limited home release, Bagi was broadcasted via the Nippon Television Network as a TV special.

Twin cyberpunk catgirls from Masamune's Dominion

Star of Cottonland and Bagi couldn’t be more thematically different, nonetheless, they both depend on catgirls for their worldbuilding. Masamune Shirow’s 1985 science-fiction manga, Dominion, follows a similar trend with its portrayal of android catgirls in a gritty cyberpunk setting. Adapted into a 1988 OVA series, Dominion: Tank Police features two puma twins, Anna and Uni, catgirls created as sentient love dolls. With their wild hair and overtly sexualized design, they undoubtedly have more in common with Tezuka’s violent Bagi than Ōshima’s initial cat-eared girls. They are, for lack of a better word, an otaku’s modern catgirl with their feral bloodthirst intact.

A Catgirl for All Seasons

A feature from Kadokawa’s Davinci News’ anime department titled "We Investigated ‘Why Are Nekomimi Girls So Cute’” draws attention to the 2013 Fall anime season. Namely, ear and tail-equipped characters from Outbreak Company and Nekomonogatari. What’s the appeal of animal-eared girls, where did they come from, and why are they so seemingly trendy now? Again, Kuniyoshi’s fearsome kabuki portraits are mentioned, however with an important caveat: Kuniyoshi's cat ears were meant to strike fear, not inspire charm. The same could be said for the post-war boom in bakeneko films and their scream queen actresses. The article’s author even suggests that the prominence of the Playboy Bunny outfit, with its appeal to the uppercrust of society and cute tail, might’ve also added to a flourishing nekomimi cosplay craze. At some point, the strangeness of the concept became secondary to cute novelty.

Koyomi confronts the Sawari Neko possessing Hanekawa

This observation points out an important contemporary trend: ornamental catgirls, aka eyecandy, verus catgirls with a narrative purpose. Peak catgirl is somehow balancing both acts. Characters like Bakemonogatari’s Tsubasa Hanekawa — a high schooler who is possessed by the Sawari Neko spirit — unintentionally create the night-prowling, cat-eared alter-ego named “Black Hanekawa.” Black Hanekawa may perhaps be the modern mash-up of bakeneko tradition and otaku catgirl-ness we've long awaited. She speaks in cat-puns, obviously not human, and is most importantly a fearsome supernatural nuance. But on the flip-side, Black Hanekawa is everything we expect from the otaku’s catgirl: ears on top of her head, an eccentric personality, and a desire to exaggerate those feline quirks whenever possible for cuteness' sake.

ฅ(*ΦωΦ*)ฅ

  The modern catgirl’s sensibility is to be a girl first, cat second. While hints of this archetype is seen in Shirow’s 1980s catgirl love androids, early 2000s series like Di Gi Charat and Tokyo Mew Mew have only further pushed this specific everyday flavor of catgirl agenda. Especially considering the infectious prevalence of mascot characters like Dejiko, a chibified catgirl with lucky cat bells on character goods stores across Akihabara. It’s no wonder they’ve effectively lost all their unncanniness. But besides the cultural context — there’s no real reason why cat ears just can’t be cute in themselves.

Dejiko and company promoting a GAMERS character goods store in Akihabara

Nowadays, you don’t have to look very hard to find a cat-eared character. Series like Re:Zero famously feature characters like Felix, whose cat-like qualities are part of the lore. Nintendo series like Fire Emblem have even newly added a “beast” race of animal-eared characters. Not to mention the massive popularity of franchises like Strike Witches and Kemono Friends in recent years, catgirls undoubtedly draw massively passionate fanbases. No matter where they came from, catgirls in all shapes and sizes, clawed, and de-clawed, have never stopped turning heads. The nyapocalypse is here to stay, fur-real.

Do you have a favorite catgirl of all time? Let us knyaow in the comments below!

  Blake P. is a weekly columnist for Crunchyroll Features. He thinks Cats (the musical) deserves a proper anime adaptation. His twitter is @_dispossessed. His bylines include Fanbyte, VRV, Unwinnable, and more.

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