#for me it was spooksville first | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lunaraen · 5 years

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I figure a number of the people following me probably do because of a shared interest in Minecraft: Story Mode, and I’m absolutely going to take the time to gush and recommend a different series with a similar sense of humor and ability to balance the jokes with emotion. I know some of the people who follow me are also interested in series like Percy Jackson and Trollhunters, and I think The Last Kids on Earth series is on a similar level to them too, in the sense that it deals with stories about awesome and terrifying adventures featuring teenagers who are just doing their best and who haven’t lost their senses of humor. The Last Kids on Earth also has the benefit of, while being presented mainly through text, having many fun illustrations.

TL;DR: The Last Kids on Earth, written by Max Brallier and illustrated by Douglas Holgate, is a delightfully fun book series that twists what you might expect from a post-apocalyptic story with a just as fun Netflix mini-series adaptation, and while only Book One is up on Netflix now, it’s an hour and seven minute long episode. The series seems to be decently stocked in most libraries, including electronically, so if you’re looking for something fun, silly, and with heart to read, I definitely suggest at least checking out book one. If you want something fun, silly, and with heart to watch, and you also happen to have Netflix, I also definitely recommend watching Book One.

(Oh, and are you a total sucker for found families like I am? This series has you covered.)

More details about the first book and examples of the art and writing under the cut!

For starters, the series has a wonderfully fun art style, and the cover for the first book lets that shine. The other books’ covers are all fun too, but I think tumblr would kill this post many times over if I tried to include them all.

[ID: Illustrated cover, four defiant teenagers stand in a mostly circular formation while grey zombie-like figures with glowing yellow eyes surround them from behind. Each teenager is wielding a weapon, some of which are partly concealed and harder to identify. The character centered at the front holds a splintered and sharp baseball bat and is wearing nondescript pouches. The teenager behind him wields a crossbow with a modified soda-bottle-arrow loaded in it. The title reads “The Last Kids on Earth” in stylized green text with a dark blue border, while in smaller less stylized white text it reads “Max Brallier Author of Galactic Hot Dogs” at the top and “Illustrated by Douglas Holgate” at the bottom.]

The main character of the series, who we meet forty two days after the start of the apocalypse in his town and the Possible End of the World as We Know It™, is Jack Sullivan, a 13 year old whose foster family kinda-sorta-entirely ditched him at the first signs of trouble.

[ID: A white, black haired teenager frowning and holding a splintered baseball bat and a hockey stick while one foot rests on top of an unusual spiny reptilian-like monster head. The text above him reads in black “JACK SULLIVAN -The Hero-” while a number of flavor-text text boxes point out and describe different aspects of his apparel. One pointing to his hand reads “Annoying hand-nail I can’t stop picking at”. Another pointing at his bat says “Louisville Slicer™”. Another for his shoe, reading “Worst. Shoes. Ever.”. The hockey stick is labelled “Hockey Stick, for conking zombie heads.” The pouch at his side are described as “Emergency Peanut M&M Pouch”, while the filled water balloons also hanging at his side are labeled as “Grapefruit juice hand grenades- a blast to the eyes blinds almost anything.”]

He’s our narrator, and he copes largely through humor- a skill he needs even before the start of the apocalypse, because he’ll put himself in danger and say things he shouldn’t if it means sticking up for his best friend.

[ID: Text that reads “I felt Quint’s hand on my shirt, trying to stop me, saying ‘Jack, it’s fine...’ But it wasn’t fine. I hate jerks- whether they’re monster jerks or zombie jerks or just regular human jerks.”

Followed by illustration of characters on bus, Jack turned around in his seat and supporting himself with the back of his chair as he asks “Hey, Dirk, why don’t you pick on someone your own size, huh?” Quint, a black teenager, is sitting behind him and is partly obscured, staring at Jack and Dirk. Dirk, a large, tall white teenager with a mullet/mohawk, is a distance away from the characters and in the foreground of the image, and replies, “Find someone my size and I will.”

Text resumes, reading “I shrugged. ‘I’m sure we can find someone your size. Right, Quint?’ Quint looked out the window and closed his eye and started humming to himself, like he wasn’t involved in this. Sonofa... I turned back to Dirk. ‘Maybe a very rotund panda bear? That might be closer to your impressive figure.’ Dirk reached out and grabbed me by the collar. ‘Hey, Watch the jacket,’ I said. ‘It’s a five-time-hand-me-down. Might even be an antique.’ Dirk growled, ‘You think you’re funny?’ ‘I do. But to be fair, I also think people slipping on ice are funny. And guys getting hit in the groin. My sense of humor isn’t exactly sophisticated.’”]

From the start of the book, Jack handles the apocalypse pretty well, spending his time cataloging the monsters he comes across, keeping track of self made video-game like achievements like knocking off zombie hats, and we first find him focused on trying to get in touch with his previously mentioned best friend, Quint Baker.

[ID: Similar to previous flavor-text text box picture of Jack, with a black teenager smiling, wearing a lab coat and cap, holding a pocket watch, and wearing a large backpack with odd looking technology sticking out of it. In black, the text above him reads “QUINT BAKER -The Best Friend-”. A box pointing to his hat reads “Old-man cap.” Another points to his hair, reading “Hair smells like movie theater popcorn butter.” The pocket watch is described as “Pocket watch for looking dorky.” The text pointing at the technology sticking out of the backpack says “Always working on a new gadget or experiment.” The text for the lab coat reads “Wears a lab coat as a jacket for no good reason.” His sneaker is labelled with “Non-athlete’s foot.”]

Actually- to give you an even better idea of the series’ humor, this is pretty much where we start with Jack, followed by him explaining what he’s been doing and how he got here.

[ID: Jack in mid-air, the bat raised above his head and his legs bent to suggest he has leaped forward, above a large multi-eyed spiny monster that has many sharp teeth, two large tusks, and a long drooling tongue. In black, text above the creature reads “Deadly Duel!” In the lower right-hand corner, all-caps white text in a small black box asks “Who will triumph?!”]

(By the by, the “duel” kind of goes the way you think it would.)

[ID: Text reading “Well, basically, he triumphs. The monster’s massive hand snatches me out of midair. I’m a thimble in his gargantuan grasp. I try to grab hold of my baseball bat blade (aka the Louisville Slicer) but the monster’s crushing grip pins my arms to my sides. He pulls me in close to his face. Thick saliva, like slime, oozes down his lips. His eyes scan me over and his gaping nostrils flair as he inhales my scent. I feel like that blonde babe in King Kong. Only I don’t think this beast wants to hug me and love me... He sniffs some more, blowing my hair back as he exhales. I turn my face. His breath, it’s just- wow- my man here needs to floss. I’ve encountered other freaky beasts over the last forty-two days, but none like this. None that examined me: looking me over, smelling me, studying me.”]

Then we get all the fun backstory end of the world stuff.

[ID: White all-caps text at the top reads “Total monster zombie chaos” while below a large multi-armed, spiny, sharp-toothed, furry monster towers over a sea of zombies, flinging one car in the air as another car sits in the background.]

The end of the world monsters include everything from weird unfamiliar creatures like the one above to more familiar weird creatures like the typical zombie below.

[ID: A zombie in ripped clothing, with black text at the top labeling it a “Classic Zombie”. A speech bubble from it in shaky text reads “Mmuhhh...” and various flavor-text text boxes surround it. The speech-bubble is labeled as “Constant, creepy moaning.” The head’s text box reads “Those empty eyes- they’re spooksville.” The mouth is pointed at and its box says “Bite you and you’re one of them. Undead!” One pointing at its back warns “Stink like hot garbage.” The feet are described as “Slow, until they get close- then fast!”]

And for all the wisecracks and jokes about how well he can handle the new apocalyptic world, early on Jack is shown to be more than just a 2-D smart-mouthing teenage protagonist. He’s pretty good at coping, but he’s still 13.

[ID: Illustration above text, showing a walkietalkie shattering as it hits a rock. Black all-caps text reads “Smash!”

Normal text reads “I stared at the walkie on the ground below. I needed to talk to Quint, but -I’m embarrassed to admit- I was too scared to go down there. Too freaked out. Too scared. Too everything. So I curled up on the floor. I pulled a jacket down over me. I put my earphones in to drown out the sounds of chaos outside. And I slept. I slept for days. It got worse. Zombies everywhere. Giant monsters on the horizon. I blacked out the tree house windows and stayed put.”]

Jack doesn’t stay alone for long, though, and the first book follows him and his friends as they help each other not only survive their crazy new world but also live in it, and maybe actually have some fun along the way. While the first book largely focuses on the group coming together, later stories ramp up the scope of adventures and the threats they face while letting the characters’ interactions and care for each other shine. There’s fun development to be had and cool monster-butt to kick.

(This was my first time writing image descriptions- if you think they can be improved, let me know!)

#The Last Kids on Earth #Last Kids on Earth

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nega-aria · 5 years

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Gyro and Mark visiting a cemetery at night

Ok, I suck super hard at keeping things short, so these may go slower than I expected, but I’m having a lot of fun with this so thanks for the request!

“You First”

Rating: SFW

Characters: Mark Beaks, Gyro Gearloose, Falcon Graves, Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera

Ship: semi Beaksloose but not very shippy

Warnings: mild swearing

“You go first.”

“Like hell I’m going in there first! What happened to youproving how oooh so much better you are than me?”

“Pfft, don’t gotta prove facts, bitch.”

“That’s literally how they become facts.”

“Look just go already!” Mark yelled, his voice quivering andshrill in the cool night air as he finally turned to face Gyro. “Unless you’drather go back to the party and tell everyone you were too chicken.”

Damn that party, and damn that smirk on Mark’s face. Gyroscowled at the outstretched arm that was extended towards the gate, hiding hisown nerves behind a demeaning attitude. “For the love of Mewton, you are such ababy!” Gyro scoffed, pushing Mark aside roughly enough to completely relocatehim. The frustration fueled anger lasted long enough for Gyro to throw themetal gates open dramatically, but he cringed in that entryway when the ironrods gave way to the inky abyss before them.

The obvious click of a phone camera went unnoticed as Gyrostarted wide eyed at the scene before him. Trees twisted in seemingly unnaturalways, their shadows casting an army of demented branches, muddled up into aportrait of madness. The hints of moon that could be seen in the cloudy skydisplayed as nothing but an ominous slice of light: a mere tease in theterrifying darkness. It was like a set, something unreal plucked out of themost cliché of horror movies, but it was real and that was enough to make tiredtropes truly terrifying.

“See, just a depository for dead people erected solely to appeasethe irrational religious beliefs of society,” Gyro stated matter-of-factly,crossing his arms over his chest casually as though his heart wasn’t literallyabout to leap right out of it.

Mark rolled his eyes at the pompous display. “Whatever yousay, professor,” he mumbled. He jumped sharply when a soft rustling in the darkthat answered him instead of Gyro. “Did you hear that?” Mark squeaked.

“What, you scared or something?” Gyro taunted. Quitefrankly, it made him feel better about his own fear to bother Mark about his.

Mark’s feathers puffed on cue. Gyro knew they would, thesmug bastard, but that didn’t stop Mark from going on the defensive. “Of thislame spooksville? As if!”

Gyro didn’t say anything, not so much as a hint of laughter,but he might as well have been cackling manically. He didn’t even look back ashe began a slow trek into the foreboding landscape, and that crude brush-offinfuriated Mark more than a real retort ever could. He didn’t retaliate –that wasexactly what Gyro wanted, after all—but his silent seething provided more thanenough satisfaction.

They occupied themselves with investigating the tombstones,argument pushed aside to allow frayed nerves to settle on something less agitating.Just to the far wall and back and this stupid bet would be satisfied.

The age of those markers shifted like fluid with each stepfurther into the cemetery, as if stepping back through time itself so smoothlythat one couldn’t even tell they were no longer in the right century. The olderthe graves got the more ominous they looked and the more it felt as if theiroccupants would simply rise from the ground and drag any trespassers with themto hell. The rows of crumbling stone were no longer organized and well caredfor. Any people who might wish to visit long were ago buried alongside theirkin, leaving nothing behind but markers of stone and iron to indicate they wereever there at all. A mossy pile of decaying rock was all that was left to markthe final resting place of many poor souls, while others still boasted toweringmonuments, guardians with their angelic features twisted by time into abstract monstrosities.

Mark swallowed at the terrified knot in his throat, but nomatter how hard he tried it proved too tremendous to gulp down. He clung to hisphone with trembling fingers, pointing its flashlight ahead of his every steplike a cross to banish evil. A boring bunch of rocks didn’t make for the bestdistraction, but Mark did his best with what he had.

“What do you suppose this dude’s story is?” Mark asked,pointing down at the grave near his feet.

“Sorry, I left my Ouija board at home,” Gyro said with anexaggerated roll of his eyes.

He scoffed at Mark when an investigation of his silencerevealed the other man to be currently predisposed with yet more social medianonsense, using a tube of red lipstick (that Gyro truly did not want to know whyhe had) to turn the dearly departed’s surname from “Buttshide” into “here liesButts”.

Gyro had never felt second hand shame so intensely in hislife. He could swear the entire graveyard was judging him from bringing such aloser into their domain. “What are you, five?”

“Yeah, wellll I wish you were five!” Mark snapped back. “Youwere actually fun when you were five! Was before you had that ginormous stickup your butt,” he concluded, turning his beak skyward in a very snottypunctuation.

In an instant the snooty demeanor was dropped to allow Markhis oh-so important task of documenting the journey via selfie timeline. It madeGyro scowl harder as he watched the parrot demean himself even further bygiving bunny ears to a headstone. “I loathe you, you know that right?” he said,but those words were not demonstrated in what came next.

A soft snap echoed in the dark. A twig rustled by an animalmost likely, but the logic of that couldn’t quite stick; in that fog filledevening, it was most certainly the breaking of bones, some animal gnawing inthe night, perhaps even a creature of such unknown horror that they couldn’teven fathom its likeness even in the most heinous of nightmares, but it was mostdefinitely something wicked.

Be it stick or monster, it had Gyro in full flight responsemode, cringing close to Mark as the other man did the same to him. “What wasthat?” Gyro squeaked.

“Totally not a horrendous monster,” Mark whimpered. “I mean,that would be super lame, right?”

Gyro actually tried to be comforted by Mark’s absurdlyinadequate attempt at a dismissive laugh, but it proved quite foolish to eventry. “It’d be preposterous.”

The night mocked him with a far more disturbing sound, likedeath itself clawing at a grave. They stood shoulder to shoulder, wanting torun but too terrified to move.

“Gyro?”

“Y-yeah?”

“Is it bad that I reallywanna hold your hand right now?”

Yet another eerie sound pierced the night, and Gyro’sfingers answered for him, quivering digits entwining tightly with Mark’s. Hegripped tighter when a dark shadow darted through the misty graves, but Marktook it one step further by clinging to Gyro’s entire arm when that same inkyfigure got closer and its hideous noises along with it.

“What the hell isthat thing?!” Mark hissed in a panicked whisper.

“N-nothing, because it’s not real!”

That entity swept closer, moved faster, and growled louder. Theywere being surrounded, voices whispering from all directions and death droolingdown their necks, famished for their flesh. A typically effeminate scream burstfree as Gyro launched himself into the embrace of the man beside him, holdingon as if his life truly depended on it.

“WHAT?!” Mark asked, the pure terror seething from his voiceas he frantically scanned their surroundings with wide, petrified eyes.

“It touched my butt!!”

“Oh, great a horny ghost! Just what we need. We can get laidbefore we die!”

Gyro did not appreciate the sarcasm. “Hey, don’t get pissyat me just because my ass is so fine that the even the afterlife can’t resistit!”

“THAT pathetic thing? It’s already living in the afterlife!”

“What does that even mean?!”

“I don’t know! I’m nervous, okay?!”

Another sound, this time louder and more sinister than allthe others, had Mark crying pathetically. “Gyro, if we die I just want you toknow that I never hated you as much as I said!” he wailed as he cowered intothe other man. “I just wanted you to think I was cool!”

“That’s stupid,” Gyro replied in the calmest tone he couldmuster, “We’re not gonna die…and I’m physically incapable of thinking you’recool.”

All at once the graveyard grew silent. Mark and Gyrostiffened in the eerie quiet, both feeling the presence behind them but neitherdaring to face it. They could hear it drooling, feel its breath, sense itsfamished growls, but it couldn’t really be there… could it?

It was Mark that actually looked first, turning slowly ashis eyes widened and his entire body quivered. It was large and menacing, andin that inky darkness it was easily eight feet tall and capable of breakingthem both in half. Blood red eyes pieced through the night and wet fangsglistened. Mark could swear he saw it lick its drooling maw, but he wasn’tabout to stick around and find out what that meant. He took off before he evennoticed that Gyro had thrown himself into his arms, but the hitchhiker didn’teven phase his stride, and they clung to each other, screaming in unison theentire way out of the cemetery. Gyro had to give Mark one thing, he was prettysure he’d win the fleeing for your life contest.

Behind them the monster cackled, maniacal laugher quickly devolvinginto elated gasps for air that struggled to allow enough room to actuallybreath.

“I can’t take it,” Falcon wheezed as he watched them, flee. “They’retoo adorable.”

Falcon pulled the mask from his face, slipping from theoversized ratty mass of fur that he normally wouldn’t let anywhere near him ashe dropped himself to the ground beside the smaller man who had been assistinghis deception. He lit a cigarette, leaning against the large gravestone behindhim and still chuckling lightly as he released the fumes into the cold night. Callit foolish self-indulgence, but when this opportunity had presented itself,Falcon couldn’t resist, and he was sure he had never laughed so hard in hislife.

“Dr. Gearloose is gonna killme when he finds out about this. You know he will find out about this right?!This was a terrible idea!!” Fenton answered, his tone growing more franticuntil he was waving his arms hysterically by the end of it.

Falcon chuckled at his partner in crime. He would likely beforever grateful that Fenton had been steamed enough at his boss to even offertechnical assistance and tipsy enough to actually go through with it. “No itwasn’t,” he answered simply. “This was bloodybrilliant.”

Immediately outside the gate both Gyro and Mark were pantingfor air, the latter asking himself how Gyro was so out of breath when he hadbeen doing all the running.

Gyro was oblivious to the annoyed look as he smoothed hisjacket and cleared his throat. “Now, when everyone else asks-”

“Oh, dude we were total badasses. Hashtag crushed it.”

“Very good.”

The wind let forth a gust, laughing at the irony as it movedthe heavy iron gate behind them just enough to make both Gyro and Mark shriekin fear and back a good distance away.

Mark gulped nervously. “…Gyro?” The other bird looked hisway uncertainly. “Will you hold my hand on the way back?”

Gyro sighed. “You do realize this is supremely pathetic.”

“…does that mean yes?”

The second sigh was even more pronounced. “Yes.”

They instantly linked fingers, both holding tighter thanthey would like to admit as they braved the dark walk back to the party. Patheticit may be, but it sure did make them both feel better.

#ducktales #gyro gearloose #mark beaks #falcon graves #fenton crackshell-cabrera #beaksloose #kinda #my stories #this was so fun #i need mark and gyro to interact more #kaylacolmanbirdqueen

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stoopsbookstore · 5 years

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The Daughter (Chapter 1)

Warnings - None

"Spooksville? A fucking town called Spooksville?!" Shinwon screeched at the Cube CEO, "how is that even a real place?"

"It's a small town, Sorn has a friend there she knows from online. The scenery is beautiful, there is a lot to do and no crazy fans to harass you guys while you're taking a break," the CEO hands the tall male his ticket, walking away as Jinho and Seungyeon come into the room.

"Jinho told me! You guys won a vacation?" Seungyeon patted Shinwon's shoulder, "that's awesome!"

Shinwon shuttered as Jinho scrolled through his phone, "apparently they have residents who dress up as actual horror movie characters and walk around the town! It's really cool, it's like Halloween all year round!"

"And how does Sorn know someone in a town like this?" Shinwon questioned as he reluctantly packed his suitcase, Seungyeon judging him for bringing a notebook called 'Won's McDonald's Adventures.'

"They met on Twitter or Tumblr, one of those places. Sorn is deep into the fandom," Seungyeon threw the notebook at Shinwon, who flinched at the object before grumpily placing it in the suitcase's front pocket, "how do you think she does those parody reactions so well?"

"And we just happened to get tickets to this place? Does anyone else find this, I don't know, incredibly fucking weird?!" Shinwon starts freaking out, "we don't know this girl, we don't know if she is even a she! We could be going into a saseang's trap and we could be none the wiser."

"You're just saying that because it's called Spooksville, that's literally just the nickname for it. It's actually called Will-"

"I don't care what it's called, Jinho! It's still related to something scary and I'm scared!"

A knock on the door startled Shinwon, Seungyeon laughing as Jinho opened the door to Yuto and Wooseok holding a Jason Voorhees mask and Freddy Kruger mask respectively.

"Car leaves in 10 minutes, get your shit together!" Wooseok cheered as Yuto waved his mask in the air.

Shinwon groaned as he continued to pack his suitcase, Sorn coming in his room and sitting on his bed.

"It's not all bad, my friend loves it there," Sorn fell back onto the mattress, "maybe she could show you around, she's really nice."

"Thanks, Sorn," Shinwon zipped up the bursting suitcase, laying on it in defeat, "but I don't think anyone who lives in a town nicknamed Spooksville is going to be nice."

"Remember that package I got full of candies? That was her," Sorn sat up, thumping the older male's forehead, "I promise, you'll have a great time. If not, I'll give you my first win trophy."

"Is that a deal?" Shinwon licked his hand, sticking it out.

Sorn licked hers as well, clasping their hands and shaking on the wager.

"Deal. I'll even bring it with me."

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

"You promise your trophy?! Dude, that's from your first win!"

Y/N scolded her transcontinental friend, the girl laughing her ass off at her reaction.

"Shinwon is just being a baby. After we land, we're going straight to the hotel where he will barricade himself inside the room for a few days, go to the pool once and say it was the best trip of his life," Sorn munched on a potato chip, "he's not going to win the bet."

"Alright, whatever you say," Y/N's attention taken away from some noises offscreen, a man's shout heard followed by a dog whimper, "I gotta go, my dad has his friends over and I think one of them just broke a vase. Love you!"

"Love you, too! I'll see you in two days! Tell Mr. V, Mr. L and Mr. K I said hello!"

Shaking her head, Y/N logged off, her friend waving goodbye.

Stepping out of her room and the downstairs, she was met with four grown men cowering in a corner, the puppy wagging her tail while holding a squirrel in her mouth.

"Oh, Muffy, did those big meanies scare you? Did they?" Y/N picked up the dog, picking her over to the kitchen sink, "I think you need a bath, yes you do, all messy from catching squirrels."

"And you guys," Y/N watched the four men untangle themselves, going back to play a board game.

"You've done worse."

#shinwon #Pentagon #pentagon smut #pentagon imagines #pentagon scenarios #pentagon au #ko shinwon #the daughter #halloween series #my writings

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you-can-be-what-you-want-to-be · 5 years

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spooky books i loved as a kid that i secretly read in the library because i wasn’t allowed to like supernatural things but i barely remember them except the fact that most of them were SUPER well written and until tonight when i just found them i always had a vague longing to feel whatever that made me feel that i haven't felt since

Stone words. This was the main one I could never remember that moved me so incredibly much even tho i barely remember it there are two specific scenes that have never left me and i never forgot what the cover had looked like

spooksville series. listen, i remember almost nothing about this one except that there was a character named watch who was the REAL mvp and was probably autistic and was as a character well written

my sister the vampire. in all honesty i have no idea if this is actually well written or not i just stumbled onto it just now by accident but i used to really like vampires and also siblings and in the second or third book the human boy was sweet i was in like fifth grade at the oldest ok don’t judge me

the poison apple books. i only read the first two but that very first one dead end was super well written if i remember right like i don’t know anything about what happened but i remember that every few months i’d think “oh yeah what WAS that book?”

the goosebumps choose your own adventure. it was goosebumps. it was choose your own adventure. thats all i have to say on that dont judge me

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chieftn · 5 years

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lil bit of detailed munday fun !

name : beth !

nickname/s : beth is already kind of a nickname , but i’ve had friends shorten it to b before !

height : 5 ′ 11 !

nationality : american & dutch !

favorite fruit(s) : grapes / strawberries / mangos / kiwi / pomegranates / bananas / i love fruit sm .

favorite season : autumn ! the cusp of it at the end of summer , like a reprieve from the heat .

favorite scents : vanilla w/ frankincense / aged books / oats / saltwater .

favorite animals : manta rays ! they’re like big giant baby pancakes w/ a side of dinosaur ! but also cats ! dogs ! birds !

tea, coffee, hot cocoa : currently i’m favoring tea ! english breakfast w/ some almond milk !

average hours of sleep : oh . oh . um . well . y’see ,

when my blog was created : tumblr’s lil april fools memory thing tells me it was right at the end of 2016 !

random fact : u play any of powell’s httyd discography for at most the first ten seconds and i can tell you what track it is by name and where it begins in each of the corresponding movies . i can also do this visually w/ movie / tv stills ? u show me a picture and i can place it , sometimes even if i haven’t seen it before . ( i’m so good w/ cinemawins’ ending preview stills for the next ep . i have a streak goin ! )

favorite food : ok so i make a mean thai chicken pizza w/ pita bread as the main dough and it’s . so good. some soy sauce , some peanut flour , roasted nuts , it’s jokingly not - so - jokingly one of the main reasons i’m not a total vegetarian ? the flavors w/ the chicken is . hoo . if i could have it every day of the week i still think i’d never be tired of it .

favorite t.v. shows : the librarians , bbc’s merlin , trollhunters ( s3 doesn’t exist tho ) , little witch academia , carmen sandiego , final space , agent carter , spooksville , i’m p easy to please thematically so this list goes on and on !

favorite movies : spider - man : into the spider - verse , httyd series , paddington 1 & 2 , laputa : castle in the sky , howl’s moving castle , literally any & all of the pokémon media ( but special shoutout 2 heroes & lucario and the mystery of mew ) , any honestly any film w/ found family / power of friendship tropes . i have such a bleeding heart for those themes .

favorite vine : welcome to my meet or greet u gotta choose . i love that he can’t even get through it w/ a straight face it’s that funny .

sexuality : we’re bi bi bi in this home !

pronouns : she / her .

favorite book(s) : and then there were none , ender’s game , all of anne carson’s works , word by word by kory stamper is all about dictionaries and lexicography and i re-read it all of the time , all of richard siken’s works , thomas malory’s le morte d’arthur , etc .

favorite video game(s) : oh gosh . so many . lately it’s mostly been a mixed bag of whatever system i have in my hands at the moment , stardew valley , breath of the wild’s master mode , hyper light drifter , moonlighter , celeste , spider - man ps4 , night in the woods , minecraft , etc .

favorite artists(s) : john powell , ajr , anima , billie holiday , c418 , ella fitzgerald , daniel pemberton , dr . tv , the franklin electric , gentle love , the entirety of joe hisaishi's discography , jon bellion , the lumineers , matt maeson , radwimps , etc . i could go on for ages i love all kinds of genres !

favorite subject(s) : really anything ! i love learning new things ! stats and math are really interesting in a language of themselves , i’m kind of slowly getting more and more obsessed w/ linguistics , i’m getting better w/ my different kinds of art , science is incredible , i read recently about eridanus’ cold spot and like . wow wow wow , i love how there is always more to learn , how there isn’t . a cap to knowledge ? the endlessness of it has my whole heart ! i’m a big proponent and fan of mixing stem & the humanities !

guys or girls : you ask me this , in my bisexual house ? you know this is an unanswerable question !

last time i cried : oh . oh . um . well . y’see ,

what i should be doing : academic journal readings . or drafts . probably moreso the drafts .

tagged by : @flyjaeldr ! tysm for thinkin of me ! 💞

tagging : are u reading this ? do u wanna do this ? then i choose you ! !

#favorite tweet should be in here bc my fav is : put paddington into the mcu you cowards !#▎「 HI MY NAME’S BETH ﹐ AND I’M BEGGING YOU TO TALK TO ME AB THE HTTYD SOUNDTRACKS ﹗ ( ooc. )

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lorewytch · 5 years

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writer questionnaire: 👀 🤲 and 🧠

👀 When writing, what do you find yourself focusing to convey? Imagery? Banter? Emotions? Actions? I think now its emotions mostly. All I used to care about was telling a story. Maybe focusing more on the lesson learned or showing others things I went through and letting them know that there’s still hope? Now though I focus mostly on emotions rather than the lesson learned. I’d rather not sound like a after school special lol. Characters emotions and the events that change them is really what I strive for. If I can make my audience FEEL then that’s important to me. Too many times I have read or watched something and felt nothing. That emptiness left me feeling annoyed and one of the reasons I stopped writing is because I stopped feeling. While morals and lessons are important still to me. I feel like more than anything emotions is what is driving me now. 🤲 Are there any authors who inspire your prose or influence how you write? Or are you an uncultured swine who has never picked up a book before?

LOL I love that last part of this question. Well yes and no. My writing is mostly influenced by the quirkiness of TV but I must admit, my fascination with Fantasy first started with books. I’ve read A LOT in my time Let;s see if I can remember at least a few. Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce. (This is a story about a girl who can talk to animals and is gifted with the ability of wild magic. Her stories always had strong female characters and I loved the journeys these girls went on) Spooksville Series by Christopher Pike (I used a LOT of the plots and story ideas from these books for some of my writing) Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison ( Some humor from this series has trickled over into my writing I must admit) Masks By E.C Blake (This one is actually really good. I loved the creative plot and it was the first thing I read in a long time after a dry spell. I still have to finish the third in this series. This helped inspire me to write again) I’ve also gotten a lot of ideas from Manga. But thats a whole new can of worms XD

🧠 How do you deal with writer’s block? Hmmm “deal” isn’t so much the right word as fight viciously tooth and nail because “I don’t have time for this!” (Bangs head against wall) Usually I have to step away. I try to do something else for a while. I have a ton to do so its pretty easy to lose myself in something else for a while then realize....I should write.. Oh look its one A.M. A lot of what I’ve been told is just to write even in writers block. Sometimes I just stare at the blank pages and wish them to write themselves. I’m finding though that going out, into nature helps. I just take a walk through my little forest backyard or go to the beach to find sea glass... it all helps a little at a time. Keeping myself locked up does nothing. My friends have said I should meditate but I can’t seem to keep my mind quiet XD. Another idea I do sometimes is I write something else. Sometimes I can’t write because something else is invading my mind so intensely I need to write that instead and I get writers block for a certain fanfic/story. But also RPing does help a LOT for me. It helps the creative juice flow and I honestly get super excited about Rping. It’s kinda like a second home for me.

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brightbeautifulthings · 6 years

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Spooksville: The Howling Ghost by Christopher Pike

"That was the trouble with most movies and books, he decided. They didn't tell the stories of all the heroes who didn't live to tell their tales."

Year Read: 2019

Rating: 3/5

About: On the edges of Springville, known to its younger population as Spooksville, Cindy and her little brother, Neil, are walking on the jetty near the old lighthouse when a howling, ghostly hand snatches Neil away. Everyone in town is convinced that Cindy witnessed something tragic, but no one believes that a ghost actually took him--no one except Adam, Sally, and Watch, who are all too familiar with Spooksville's strangeness. If there's any chance that Neil might still be alive, they have to act fast, before the ghost comes for them too. Trigger warnings: death, child death, body horror, drowning, suffocation, blood.

Thoughts: The Howling Ghost isn't quite as strong as The Secret Path, but it's still a fun ride. The science fiction elements have mostly receded here, leaving more straightforward horror. I think I didn't enjoy it quite as much because most of that horror is not in the supernatural but in the realism and some pretty on-point actual science. I was getting serious Bury Me Deep flashbacks with all the scuba diving, and while it's nowhere near as graphic, I'm pretty sure I would have been just as terrified had I read it when I was a kid. Pike seems to have a morbid fascination with water pressure and exploding lungs, and Watch and Adam don't seem to realize how much danger they put themselves in until it's almost too late. It's a bit of a weird detour from the rest of the plot, but I guess it's effective, if (cue Lemony Snicket voice) effective here is a word that means scary as all get out--perhaps even more so for adults than children, who simply trust that things will work out.

The overarching story is pretty well-plotted and, as usual, Pike puts an interesting twist on his ghostly mythology. Unlike many books in a series, the plots are almost completely stand-alone; it wouldn't be hard to read The Howling Ghost without any familiarity with the first book. I didn't so much enjoy all the jealousy and girl-hate between Sally and Cindy, and I'm hoping that's not a trend that will continue in the series. The ending takes an unexpected turn, and it's quick-thinking more than daring that saves the day in this book, which means Watch is in his element, Sally is claiming the credit, and Adam is taking most of the fall for their bad ideas. I suspect that trend will continue, and I'll admit, it's often hilarious. It's not his best work, but it's a solid addition to the series.

#book review #spooksville #the howling ghost #christopher pike #middle grade horror #middle grade #3/5 #rating: 3/5 #2019

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rwprincess · 3 years

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Electric Love ~ Chapter Twelve (Spooksville Watch x Fem!OC)

Masterlist

Word Count: 2.3 K

Synopsis: Part 2-Based on the episode Critical Care.

CW: sentient/alive tonsils, gross sound explanations, organs, surgery, hospital setting

*~~~~*

The doctor was ‘kind’ enough to bring the tonsils in a jar after she had removed them. Pre-operation, Watch told her all about his research on the topic, and just his interest in science and investigations in general. She thought he might be fascinated with this specimen, and he indeed was.

“So that’s what tonsils look like,” Adam remarked, looking at the two fleshy blobs bouncing in medicinal fluid they were presented with, “What exactly do they do?”

“The tonsils are the immune system’s first line of defense against bacteria and viruses that enter your mouth.” Dr Eck told them.

“I thought they were like the appendix,” Sally piped up, “useless...just a body part without a home.” Dr. Eck told them that everything had its home, and that the appendix might even be useful to humans. As she did, an unsettling creepy nurse joined their room. He was tall, pale, and gaunt, clad in forest green scrubs and showed no emotion whatsoever. Dr. Eck let him know that Watch could now have ice cream, which immediately perked the patient up. Watch whispered various flavor requests to Sally...only to find out that the only flavor available (even though Nurse Grott had asked for a preference) was vanilla. As she got steamed about the ridiculousness of the conversation, Adam tossed an arm around her and took over, stating that vanilla would be just fine.

As Dr. Eck was about to take her leave, Watch beckoned Sally for help once more. He whispered something to her that only she could hear and she retreated with a deep sigh and her eyes closed in disgust. “Watch would like to keep his tonsils.” She told the physician, with a hand pressed to her forehead, trying to rid herself of the headache Watch was now giving her.

“That’s rather...unorthodox.” Dr. Eck replied, to which Sally relayed more.

“He says he’s a scientist by nature, and he’s never gotten to study his own body parts before. To which I say, ‘Gross, Watch!’” He ignored her revulsion and asked for translation services once more, “...he says, ‘thank you.’” Dr. Eck agreed and set the jar with Watch’s own tonsils down on his bedside table before exiting.

He immediately picked them up in joy and started to shift and examine them. Sally suppressed a gag, but Adam and Jules just looked at each other knowingly and smiled. Watch was just...well, Watch. They hadn’t really expected any less.

*~~~~*

Even though it was the middle of the night, the group still banded together. Friendship didn’t have a time limit for their group. Watch had somehow left the hospital without anyone catching him and went straight to Adam’s house as it was the closest, demanding that they call the girls over right away. Sally and Jules met outside and crept up Adam’s stairs as silently as possible; it would be a nightmare to wake his parents, for sure. They slipped into his bedroom and Sally latched the door closed with the softest click she could muster. Adam was still in bed and Watch was facing the wall, still wearing his hospital gown and pajama pants. Sally asked why they had to gather here at this hour as she took a seat on Adam’s bed. Watch had refused to tell Adam until they were all together; it still hurt to talk.

“My tonsils are gone.” He said flatly, in a gravelly whisper.

“Yes... we know that.” Adam said, not believing he had been woken up for this.

“No. You don’t understand. My tonsils are gone.”

“We know. We were there,” Sally reminded him.

Watch sighed and looked away, thinking how else he could word it, “No. My tonsils...are gone. As in they got up and ran away.”

“Okay, I know we live in Spooksville, I know this might be a silly question, but...are you sure?”

“Yes, yes! I’m sure!” Watch squeaked back, “They attacked me under my covers and looked me straight in the eyes.”

Sally and Jules exchanged a look, thinking the same thing, “How can they look you in the eye? They don’t even have eyes.”

“My bed has always been a safe zone for me. It was awful. Don’t you understand? These tonsils have my DNA. They attacked me and now they’re loose somewhere in the hospital. What if they go after somebody else?”

“Watch is right,” Adam said, “The DNA will lead back to him, if your tonsils have been reanimated. You’re legally responsible for their actions.”

“What do you mean ‘if?’” Jules asked, “When has Watch ever been wrong before about this stuff?” It flooded Watch with relief to know that at least one of them believed him and was on-board.

Adam nodded in realization and agreement, “We have to get those tonsils.”

They slinked through the hospital hallways and searched every inch they could think of in pursuit of those tonsils. As they were pondering where they could be, they overheard Dr. Eck and Nurse Grott talk about taking another specimen to the ‘organ room,’ and concluded that they should go there. They snuck in and began looking at the shelves. While they were all focused on the mission, Watch was of course giddier than the others about it. “Focus, Dr. Frankenstein,” Sally warned him.

As they perused the contents of the shelves and the jars upon them, Adam discovered the stash of tonsils...and that every single specimen jar was empty. The others joined him to examine his find, but they were caught. The lights flicked on and Nurse Grott stalked in. “Who’s in here? I can hear you breathing!”

“Hide!” Watch hoarsely whispered, but in the panic of trying to find such a place, he walked right back into one of the shelves, causing it to tumble forward and take out more and more shelves and organs upon them in a domino effect. While the glasses shattered and released body parts on the floor, they saw that Nurse Grott was trapped under one of the heavy shelves and took this as their exit strategy.

“Ew! Ew!” Sally cried as she dodged different body parts. Just a few weeks ago, she was lamenting the time she picked up a toe on a CREEPS excursion. Now she was stepping over hundreds of body parts. The four of them rushed out and hid under a nearby desk. Nurse Grott burst through the organ room door less than a minute later, on the hunt for them. Luckily, he passed without incident. Sally posited that maybe he was taking and reanimating all of the tonsils, as part of a bigger plot.

“But to what end?” Jules asked, “I mean, no offense Watch, I know you said they attacked you, but...what kind of attack do squishy throat-blobs really do? Why would he pick tonsils?” Watch shrugged in response.

“How am I supposed to find my tonsils if every tonsil in the hospital has disappeared?”

“Well...they had to go somewhere.” Adam said. Sally reached over him at a nearby patient’s chart that was left on the desk they were under. A person they knew, that they had saved before, was due to get his tonsils out tomorrow.

*~~~~*

Little Neil was maybe nine or ten and trusted Sally implicitly. At first, he didn’t believe them that his tonsils would come to life at night and escape. It was, as he put it, ‘insane.’

“You were captured by a ghost and teleported to a derelict lighthouse. By comparison, this is pretty normal.” Watch reminded him and Jules furrowed her brows.

As Sally put a reassuring hand on Neil’s shoulder and told him that they wouldn’t be sleeping that night, that they would catch the tonsils, Jules turned to Watch. “Did I just hear you say a ghost took him?” She asked, giving him a smug look.

“I put it in terms that he can understand. It was still just a form of his grandmother’s energy.” He rasped back.

“Right.” Jules nodded and then stood on tiptoe to whisper next to his ear, “Ghost,” teasingly.

While Sally had promised Neil that they would be on alert, they all failed miserably. Exhaustion from the previous night got the better of them and they all fell asleep on the visitor’s couch in Neil’s room. Sally had tucked herself into Adam’s side and hung on tightly. Watch’s head had lolled to Adam’s opposite shoulder and Jules was laid upon him, against his side with his arm behind her head. Neil abruptly woke them up, or...at least Adam, who shrugged his friends off him in an attempt to rouse them as well. Watch sat up startled, somewhat launching Jules forward, but as he lowered his arm he caught her. “Sorry.” He muttered nervously. They turned to Neil, who indicated that his tonsils were missing. They began searching, but promptly stopped when they heard soft squishing noises.

They knelt on the hospital bed, trying to locate the tonsils via sound, looking down from their perch. Both fortunately and unfortunately, the tonsils found them and made themselves known. They leapt up in an attack motion, but were swiftly swatted away in shock. They lost sight of them again, but could still hear them. It was almost like a wet suction sound, and they looked around for the source. Watch suddenly looked down at his left shoulder in horror. “Guys.” Both of the tonsils were settled there and Sally covered her mouth to hide the gasp coming up her throat. Neil thought quickly and tossed Adam his empty water cup. “Adam, I know what you’re thinking, and it is a very bad idea!” Watch urged.

“Just hold still,” Adam said, approaching slowly with the cup raised. He took a swing at Watch’s shoulder but missed as the tonsils launched themselves upwards and into an air vent in the ceiling. Adam jarred the ceiling tiles with a metal pole he found, until he caused the tonsils to fall. Of course, Nurse Grott burst in at that moment to admonish them, but that only allowed the tonsils an escape route and they began bounding down the hallway. “After those tonsils!” Adam cried, rushing past the nurse and knocking him over, the others adding insult to injury almost trampling over him as they exited, too.

“Sorry, sorry.” Jules mumbled as she dodged him as well. Even if he was reanimating body parts for some sort of tonsil army, she felt kind of bad to almost step on him.

The tonsils were surprisingly fast. They only gained momentum as they bounced and rolled through the hallways. The kids ran to keep up, to keep them in their line of sight. Nurse Grott’s footsteps now harshly stomped behind them, too. They followed the tonsils as closely as possible, their journey leading them to the linen room. The squelching sound was coming from one of the cabinets and they believed they had the tonsils cornered. However, when they opened the steel doors, they found a writhing mass of at least fifty tonsils, all quivering together. Dr Eck burst in behind them, and as they started to try to explain this ultimate weirdness to her, she said, “Be still, all is well…” and they realized she was talking to the mass of organs behind them, as if she had tamed them. “Come to me.” She said, undoing the bottom buttons to her blouse, revealing a similar blob of tonsils upon her stomach. The tonsils didn’t hesitate and bounded towards her, joining her and their brethren. Sally insisted upon leaving, but Watch demanded to know why this was happening, as they were his tonsils, after all.

Creepy Nurse Grott lurched in and Dr. Eck held him back, “Please, we don’t want to hurt you. I know how this must look.”

“Your body is made of tonsils!” Adam proclaimed, “There’s only one way it could look: insane!”

“Perhaps, but I think when you hear my story, you’ll understand.” She explained that in med school, she burned herself in a tanning bed and lost almost all of her skin, but the elasticity within tonsils helped put her back together again. The tonsils were all that were keeping her organs in. She began using them, but now they were choosing her. Nurse Grott also knew and kept her secret, helping to keep it all under wraps. However, she said, “I understand if you have to turn me in. I won’t resist.”

The teens looked amongst themselves. Had they not seen the sentient tonsils themselves, they would never have believed the story. Watch shrugged and gestured towards Dr. Eck. “We should let her go.”

“What?!” Sally asked, incredulously, “She’s stealing tonsils, your tonsils.”

“She’s not really stealing anything. They obviously want to be with her,” he said, pointing to her stomach where the new tonsils had joined.

“Watch is right. As crazy as it sounds, she isn’t forcing anyone to get their tonsils taken out,” Adam said.

“And it’s not like they’re a life-saving organ on the transplant list...well, except to save her,” Jules added.

“Fi-Fine!” Sally acquiesced, throwing her hands up, “But if I have to get my tonsils out, I’m not coming to this hospital. No offense.”

“None taken. Thank you all for your understanding,” Dr. Eck said with extreme gratitude, “And Watch, if you want your tonsils back, I--” she started to make a move for her stomach.

“No! No, it’s...it’s fine. I have all the scientific information I need. I’m good.” Watch quickly waved her off.

“Can we please go home now?” Sally begged, “And maybe never come back?” She shuddered and led the group forward, Dr. Eck and Nurse Grott stepping out of their way, thanking them again.

#spooksville #watchxfem #watch #spooksville show #watch waverly #fem!oc #female oc #adam freeman #sally wilcox #critical care #tonsils #ya romance #the slowest of slow burns

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ayearofpike · 5 years

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Witch World/Red Queen

Witch World

Simon Pulse, 2012 521 pages, 24 chapters + epilogue ISBN 978-1-4424-3028-0 LOC: PZ7.P626 Wi 2012 OCLC: 924501501 Released November 13, 2012 (per B&N)

(HELL YES I DID take this picture in Vegas. Way back in November, underscoring just how behind this entry is.)

Red Queen

Simon Pulse, 2014 ISBN 978-1-4424-3029-7 LOC: PZ7.P626 Rd 2014 OCLC: 1030042441 Released August 19, 2014 (per B&N)

First I have to address the immediate question: It’s the exact same book. Like, down to pagination. (Yes, I read them both. We’ve already established I’m kind of a freak.) I don’t know why it has two different sets of catalog information. I don’t know why they changed the title, but I will hazard a guess that Witch World is a shitty title and it took slow or lacking sales for S&S to convince Pike/Pike to convince S&S to change it. I don’t know why they then picked a title that would be coming out shortly from another publisher, one that would go on to create a much more robust universe and move enough units to muddy any kind of search query. I don’t even really know why I bought them both. I don’t know a lot of things, and I’m not quite masochist enough to find out.

What I do know? This book is more of the same old shit. Like, OK, most people aren’t going to read all 95 of Christopher Pike’s books right on top of each other, so the connections and relationships might slide. But if you do, you start to see that this dude actually has no new or original ideas after ... let’s generously call it 1996. The beautiful girl in the California town in the middle of nowhere who goes on a weekend party outing with her friends, but then meets a dude with mysterious powers and ends up in a fatal situation, only to realize that she’s survived death and now has strength and vision beyond her prior ability or even imagination? A vision that taps her into an alternate parallel universe, where she’s had a child who has the potential to be the most powerful human ever, only evil forces know about this child’s genetics and want to use her for their own selfish and horrific ends? This is The Grave, gang. Well, mostly The Grave, with some Sita and Alosha and, yes, even Spooksville sprinkled in for flavor. But the point is, we’ve seen all of it already.

Pike has previously said that he felt rushed toward the end of his previous S&S days, and that he didn’t put everything he had into the stories he wrote because of being pulled in multiple directions. That’s fair, and it makes sense that he’d want to come back to something he felt wasn’t as good as it could be, something that didn’t get enough care and attention, and make it better. So it’s a little frustrating that this is what we get. Don’t get me wrong, it’s got a lot of potential, but then again, so did The Grave. I can’t help but feel like Pike is still just trying to figure out what has sold, what has been attractive to people who read his books and others like them, and is retreading so much old ground that it’s starting to become flat and uninteresting. (Which might be part of my reticence to finish this project.)

One thing that’s new and notable about WW/RQ: it marks the placement of Pike’s first YA F-bomb. He’s been using “damn,” “hell,” and “bitch” since the beginning, and starting with EoI (eliding maybe one or two in Whisper of Death) he began liberally (not literally, mind) dropping “shit.” But “fuck” has been sacred, hallowed ground, off limits in any but his adult novels, never mind that this is pretty much what all of his characters want to do all the time. So imagine my profound shock when I picked this book up right around its release date* and encountered the word “unfuckable” on page 18. A sign of the times, yes, and of what was becoming permissible in YA, but to someone who had grown up with Pike and expected a certain voice and stance, this felt kind of wrong and out of place. Much like my opinion of Pike in the 21st century in general.

*This was another random club store find in a rural town in southern New Mexico. I don’t know why the store where I mostly bought diapers was getting Pike in hardback on or near release when nobody else even knew these books were available, and can’t imagine I’ll ever find out.

OK, summary time. Jessie Ralle has just graduated from high school and her entire senior class is going to Las Vegas to celebrate. Said entire class is like 200 people — so not only does Pike still not get what a small town is, but he demonstrates increasing disconnect from how young people actually act. Vegas is a two-hour drive from Apple Valley, California (where Jessie’s mom relocated them after her Hollywood doctor dad bailed on them for a hot young nurse, and also where none of this takes place). I barely even wanted to drive across town to my senior party, to say nothing of paying for a hotel and a fancy dinner with a massive group that I barely know. And that was before the Internet and streaming media allowed us to prune and curate what (and who) we interact with so ruthlessly. Like, if this was a class of 40, I’d be on board, but 200?

But apparently it’s a close-knit 200 people, even though we only ever meet like six of ‘em. Jessie’s riding in a car with four others: her best friend since childhood, the uptight salutatorian, the class nerd who of course has always had a crush on Jessie, and Jimmy. Jessie has loved Jimmy from afar since the beginning of high school, and from up close for a couple of months this past winter, but he dumped her to go back to his previous girlfriend, who graduated early and hasn’t been seen around town since. That doesn’t mean Jessie is over him — far from it, actually — so this car ride is either going to work out in her favor or be super awkward and uncomfortable.

They get a three-bedroom suite at the MGM Grand for $150 over a weekend somehow. It is all I can do to suspend my disbelief. Like, I’ve been to Vegas (obviously; see top image). Pike obviously has too; his description of spatial mechanics is (mostly) on point, which is what makes this price thing so jarring. I’ve been responsible for booking hotel rooms there off and on for the last 20 years. And the one time we ever got a suite, it was almost twice that PER NIGHT and still only had one bedroom. (We split it six ways, and we all HAD jobs.) And this was in the beat-ass old Luxor in September 2006. Ain’t no way these fucking CHILDREN managed a SUITE in a PREMIER CENTER STRIP HOTEL SIX YEARS LATER FOR LESS. And Jessie has the gall to fucking COMPLAIN ABOUT THE COST.

I MUST STOP YELLING. I am so a dad, right?

But anyway, Jimmy doesn’t have a room — he wasn’t even sure he was coming on this trip. Jessie’s best friend offers for him to stay with them, which Uptight Salutatorian bitches about, but like, chill the fuck out, there’s a couch, right? He and Jessie have to talk about whether this is OK, and it turns out he left her because his ex was pregnant, but the baby died just after he was born. And Jessie isn’t OK. They’d been together long enough that this smacks of either an excuse or a manipulation, and she doesn’t like either option. She kicks him out and cries a lot, and then the gang all goes to dinner at the Bellagio, which is where this starts to get financially realistic when half the class balks at the cost of the meal and fucking bails. Yet the restaurant serves the rest, even giving these (again) CHILDREN bottles of wine, which messes Jessie up enough to kiss Nerd Crush. In front of Uptight Salutatorian, who (it turns out) likes HIM. So everyone gets pissed off at each other and takes off, and then Jessie and Best Friend go see O (the Cirque show inside the Bellagio).

It’s page 35, by the way. Almost 500 to go yet. At least from here the story gets more focused and straightforward.

After the show, they want to gamble. CHILDREN. But they have fake IDs, so they head down to the Tropicana, an older hotel with lower minimums on blackjack, where they bump into a dude who seems strangely familiar to Jessie, even though she’s sure she never met him before. This dude is in town for a medical conference ... Jessie will later learn about his genome-scanning technology and what it implies for people like her, but she’s gonna have to figure it out first. He has an uncanny ability to win, and people start asking him for advice, but he denies them all. Except Jessie. They quickly pile up hundreds of thousands of dollars, which is where she’s hosed because they’ll never let her cash out that much with a fake ID. So the dude gives her his room key (not at this old-ass dirtball hotel, at the Mandalay Bay across the street) and says he’ll get her money and bring it up in a minute, and she should order some dessert from room service while she’s waiting.

No, they don’t fuck. They almost do, but then Jessie remembers Jimmy and realizes she’s still hung up on him, even though he wronged her and left her hanging. But she learns that the dude will cop to some unnatural method of knowing what’s coming next in the deck, which is why he managed to bet properly at the right times. He doesn’t show her, but he does teach her how to play twenty-two. Not twenty-one, which is blackjack: in twenty-two, aces are only worth one, but red queens are eleven. And if you get a natural twenty-two (queen of hearts and queen of diamonds), you win instantly, PLUS your opponent HAS to try to win their bet back in full on the next hand. The dude doesn’t state why these are the strict rules, but he does imply that a portion of the winnings goes to some mysterious party that doesn’t come clear yet.

So Jessie goes back to the hotel, where Jimmy is sitting on the floor outside. He’s been sexiled from the nerd’s room, because it turns out he was OK going after Uptight Salutatorian (who I guess isn’t so uptight after all). And he’s crying and he’s apologetic, and this coupled with Jessie’s realization in Mystery Gambler’s room is all it takes for her to accept him back. They have breakfast with everyone the next day (room service, more invisible money spent) and then Jessie and Jimmy drive out to Lake Mead to splash and swim and sex. But what’s weird is that it reminds them both of the first time ... which neither of them remembers the same way. Even more awkward is the ex showing up with a warning: “They never take just one, Jessie. They always take both.” (102)

This doesn’t make any sense, right? Well, Mystery Gambler has planted a seed that things might get confusing pretty quick, and invited Jessie to talk to him about it. So she hops in a cab back to his hotel, except the cab takes her out to a creepy industrial area instead. When it finally stops at a stop sign, she bolts, only she doesn’t know where she is now. Luckily, a beautiful woman in a red Porsche pulls up at that exact moment and offers to give her a ride. Which ... aren’t you even the slightest bit concerned that a strange car brought you out here and now another strange car has just pulled up right when you needed it? Obviously not, which is what leads to her getting tased and waking up in a meat freezer, where the safety ax is of course missing. She wrestles with the door and some meat-hanging apparatus for a while, but can’t get it open and ends up spraining her ankle in the process. And even though it’s dangerous to sit, to slow down, to stop moving in this freezer, Jessie can’t help herself.

She wakes up in a hospital. Only this room doesn’t look or feel like a typical hospital room. Plus, she can’t move. She can’t even blink. She’s briefly relieved when two doctors come in, but that goes away when she realizes they’re here to perform the autopsy. The senior doctor gets called out, which is all the other guy needs to start satiating his necrophilia all over Jessie’s corpse. He’s pretty shocked when Jessie suddenly sits bolt upright and curses him out — enough that he has himself a nice little heart attack right there in the morgue. The other doctor comes back, and she seems to know what happened, and is also weirdly thrilled by the guy’s obvious pain? But she leaves without taking any action, and Jessie sees this as her chance to get out of Dodge.

The hospital is downtown, which is a long way from the MGM Grand but at least it’s an obvious straight shot on Las Vegas Boulevard. Only Jessie doesn’t recognize some of these north-end casinos. She goes inside one to get her bearings and is quickly accosted by three punks, who she casually injures like it’s no thing. What’s even stranger is how quickly they back off and the degree of respect they suddenly accord her. And even stranger than that is that the blackjack tables don’t say “blackjack.”

You guessed it. People in Las Vegas are playing red queen.

So now she has to talk to Mystery Gambler more than ever. She walks all the way to the Mandalay Bay, because fuck a taxi anymore, right? Only it’s called the Mandy, and his room on the top floor is now one floor lower than it used to be. But as it turns out, he does have some answers. He first tells Jessie the truth of why he's in Vegas: his whole medical conference story is just a front. There is some basis in reality, in that his group has identified certain genes that, when awakened, enable essentially superpowers. His genetic sensor identified that Jessie has seven of these genes — but he already knew that. He seems to know a creepy amount for some rando she just met. And also, he keeps calling her Jessica, and she realizes she's using a longer version of his name too, reflexively, even though he never called himself that in their interactions.

This, plus the hotels and the casino game and the fact that, y'know, she woke up on a fucking MORGUE TABLE a few hours ago help Jessie to realize the truth of her situation. With a little guided meditation, which helps her to remember things that never actually happened to her, she learns that there are two simultaneous dimensions happening on Earth, we live two lives in parallel, and the extra genes (when activated) allow people to experience both. These people, historically, are who we think of as witches, so for lack of a better term this second dimension is colloquially called witch world. Like, super lazy writing, right? I guess Pike blew his load inventing names for shit in Alosha and couldn't be arsed to consider that maybe twelve thousand years of connected humans might have named something themselves. (Yeah, I said twelve thousand years. Back at it again with the same timeline.)

But one of those things Jessie remembered is having a baby. This is where her father (remember, the dude who bailed on Jessie and her mom) suddenly shows up. We learn that he left (in the “real” world, not in witch world where he’s still present in her life) because he realized the importance of Jessie and her fate, and hoped that his absence would protect both her and the baby to come. (He has the "seeing-the-future" gene, I guess?) According to Dad, this baby is potentially the most important person in the history of both worlds, because she's the only one to have ever been born with all ten extra genes. It's also a weird connection, because this is the only occasion that anybody knows of where a child has been born to different parents in the two worlds. (The kid is an entirely different person because of that, so that's weird too.) But, just like the boyfriend's ex-girlfriend warned, "they" have taken both.

"They" turn out to be a cadre of witches who want to use their powers to elevate themselves rather than ... well, it's never really made super clear what the "good" witches do. Like ... hang out and be immortal? Oh yeah, I didn't mention that once you're awakened you can't die of natural causes. I guess the dad says that sometimes they'll interfere when shit is really going sideways, but for the most part they want regular humans to regulate their own affairs. It's the Telar again! Only, no, wait, they call themselves the "Tar" in this book so it's obviously totally different. And yeah, both babies have been taken; they let the boyfriend think his son died in infancy so that he'd eventually be a lever to manipulate Jessie when he realized he had two living children. But it sounds like the daughter is already causing trouble for her kidnappers, without even being aware of her ten genes, which ...

I don't know, it doesn't make any sense now that I'm writing about it. Like, I'm cool with the parallel dimensions, I'm on board with dying to become awakened, I'm down with extra powers and whatever. I'm even mostly OK with this story reusing so many assets from all these past books. But like ... how does the baby have some (even unconscious) control of her locked genetic powers when her counterpart in the real world is not only still alive, but had a different MOTHER and is therefore a totally different PERSON? The first chapter of the sequel (all I’ve read of it so far) doesn’t make it look promising that we’re ever gonna find out, so just keep suspending the shit out of that disbelief, I guess.

But anyway, now that Jessie’s connected, she’s hell-bent on rescuing her baby. Which I think she would have done even if she were still separated, but whatever. And I know, easy to think that not actually having a memory of the baby might make it difficult, but these memories are slowly bubbling up and emerging, especially strong ones like parenthood and family. She’s been warned against contacting Jimmy (or “James,” I guess) in witch world, but she doesn’t hesitate to tell him all the crazy shit that’s happened to her in the real world.

(This is another reason I have a problem with the lazy naming conventions on display. To witches, “witch world” is the most real. Each day takes place first there in their perceptions, followed by the same day in the “real world.” We’ll also see how events in witch world have a stronger effect on events in the real world; namely, if you die in witch world you pretty much always die in the real but the inverse is not true. So, once again, why wouldn’t witches have come up with some more appropriate naming patterns at least, given how old the oldest is? Just more lazy crap we gotta swallow.)

So anyway, Jimmy doesn’t believe her; he thinks someone drugged Jessie with a hallucinogenic and now she’s having altered state memories. So she gets out of the car they’re driving to the desert and picks it up to prove her new strength. Why are they driving in the desert? For some reason, Jessie is drawn to the power associated with the nuclear tests that the government ran in the barren nowhere that is most of Nevada. There’s gotta be a reason, after all, that the centers of witch power are here. So they bust into the deserted testing ground, only to discover it’s not that deserted — there’s a kid out there apparently living by himself. He takes to Jimmy immediately and agrees to come back to the city with them, where they’re going to talk more to Jessie’s dad.

The kid can’t speak, but he can write — with a prehensile tail that he has heretofore hidden by wrapping it around his waist. He tells them about the other freaks that live out in the nuked test cities, as well as the mean man who brings him food. The rationale isn’t clear, and the kid isn’t talking ... well ... you know what I mean. But this is where Jimmy finds out his son is still alive and being used as bait. And dude fucking TAKES it: as soon as his ex calls and wants to discuss what she might know about the children, not only does he refuse to step back and let the powerful people handle the rescue, but he actually wants to go through the death process in order to awaken his awareness of both sides.. They don’t let him do that, because apparently our good guys are not allowed to actively connect more witches, except when they are. So all they can do is talk to the ex and learn that she doesn’t care who she sells out to as long as it saves her son, which ... fair. But Jimmy isn’t willing to go that far, and they head back to her dad’s house to regroup, where they realize they’re being watched.

Or they were, I guess. There’s a car with two obvious spies in it, but they’re dead, and the killer is hanging out nearby. This dude is, we learn, second-in-command of the Tar leadership, a five-thousand-year-old Celt who wants to take a more proactive approach in encouraging good and deterring evil in both humans and witches, mostly with his sword. He’s a Highlander, is what I’m trying to say. He takes Jessie out to a sacred spring in the mountains, where they swim naked together, as you do when you first meet an ancient Celtic swordsman, right? But there’s some cliff writing out here, written by the ancient people in a script the Highlander knows, having been taught it by the man who turned him so many years ago. It describes a woman who will have such power that she controls the destiny of the world, and it’s essentially Jessie’s daughter. So like ... tell me something I don’t know, right? What’s more new and unusual is the Highlander’s description of red queen, how it was taught to him and spread throughout ancient Rome, and how a certain percentage of all winnings, no matter who takes it, has to ultimately return to his benefactor, who we’ll call the Alchemist because that’s what Pike calls him.

We’re going to have to wait on more description, because the Highlander takes Jessie home and we skip-cut forward to the next night in witch world, where she’s meeting the leadership council and discussing their intents to rescue the baby. Mystery Gambler is there too; he's going to act as Jessie's liaison to the bad guys, having served as a double agent since the Civil War. This scene seems like it might be superfluous, except that you mostly only retain the memories from the dimension in which you die, and so the council knows that Jessie needs some backstory. (Don't we all.) The main thing we get out of this is that they've kind of figured out that WANTING to activate their witch genes has a high correlation with witches going bad at all, especially when they try to engineer the birth of high-number witches. So Jessie's contact with Jimmy was carefully arranged so as to appear NOT engineered, because even though the future sight told them that these two were compatible and would fall in love and make a power baby, any appearance of forcing it could make things all fucked up.

So Jessie's entire life is a sham, manipulated by sources of power she was never supposed to see, one of those being her own goddamn father.

What next? Well, on to the other purpose of this meeting: prep for said meeting with the bad guys. The council expects that they're going to offer Jessie her baby back, as long as both of them live under bad-guy control, and they want her to string them along while they figure out what to do. Great fuckin' plan, guys. You've been trying to make a power baby for how many thousand years, and you didn't have a contingency plan if it got kidnapped?

But so Jessie and Mystery Gambler go to the next meeting, and this is starting to sound like work. As it turns out, the leader of the bad guys is (plot twist that surprises nobody!) the coroner who was unfazed when Jessie sat up in the morgue. She's making this deal because the baby is difficult, and they think that if she has her mother that they'll be able to control her and her powers. They let Jessie hold her, which activates even more of those mom connections, but when they go to take her away the baby cries and creates almost a physical wall, which the big strong guard man has to fight with all his might to overcome. President Coroner has no qualms with the possibility that she might have to kill both baby and mom if they don't cooperate. In fact, she invites Jessie to die right here and now, by forcing her to fight for her life against Mystery Gambler. For Jessie, this is proving her worth and her importance in being allowed into the bad-guy circle. For Mystery Gambler, it's a step up to a higher ranking of leadership. For President Coroner, it's TV. So they have a monster sword fight ... well, Mystery Gambler has a sword; Jessie has a bamboo stick that proves its power when she somehow shoots fire out the end and totally incinerates the dude. Which is cool by the bad guys, because they already knew MG was a double agent and wanted him dead anyway. And then there's another kid ... this one with a tail ... only instead of a blunt prehensile end, this one has a stinger like a scorpion's. Guess whose kid THIS is.

Back in the real world, Jessie and Jimmy go see her dad, who confirms that there was a mysterious fire on the top floor of the Mandalay Bay the night before, with one fatality. Which ... does this even come close to matching the timeline? How could it have already happened if the day hasn't happened yet? But whatever — the important thing is that the council wants Jessie to accept the bad guys' offer and go live with the baby. The tail-boy is still here, though Jessie's dad says he's riddled with malignant tumors and can't possibly live too much longer. But they realize that if he can tap into those cross-dimensional memories, the way Jessie and Jimmy were doing when they argued about fucking all the way back ... two days ago, then maybe they can use him to triangulate the area where witch-tail-boy lives, presumably with President Coroner. He leads them to a gated community at the base of a mountain, which they figure is good intel to take back to the council even if they're not ready to investigate yet.

Jessie does want to try to find the area where she got dumped and zapped the day she was killed, for ... you know, reasons. She hears cries of pain coming out of the sewer in the general area she thinks it was, and in investigating she runs into the big mean guard from the bad guy meeting. He thinks it's been a waste of time trying to get her on their side and is just about to kill her when the Highlander shows up and unceremoniously lops off his head. He has some more info about what might be going on down here, and it has to do with his dearest and oldest love: that’s right, President Coroner.

They met in ancient Rome, around the turn of the calendar, but every effort they made to procreate ended in tragedy. One son was killed in battle fighting the Huns, one daughter (and her children) died of the plague, and a final son (who, let it be known, they named HERME) disappeared during the US Revolutionary War. All this loss made the poor woman so bitter and angry that she naturally began striving for control, including supporting Hitler (like, literally helping him) during WWII. The Highlander thinks there's another dimension to her having gone there, though: somehow she can feed off the pain of misery and death, and is addicted to it. Also, it gives her another power of being able to confound people, which the Highlander experienced when trying to reason with her around the time of the Hiroshima nuclear explosion and again when the power baby was kidnapped. Is it helping anybody that he's holding out on the council with this info?

So he takes Jessie back to the hotel, where she owes her best friend an explanation — only she already knows. Turns out that this dude she's been hooking up with in Vegas is a witch too, and has explained to her the ins and outs and difficulties of what's going on with Jessie, up to a point. Turns out this dude is ALSO a double agent, here supposedly on assignment from the bad guys but just about ready to turn face, at least partly because he's found himself in love with the friend. After two days. His primary power is the ability to change his appearance at will, which Jessie learns in a jarring fashion upon waking up in witch world and finding a tall hunky dude in her suite in place of this pudgy nerd. She has that gene too, he says, and helps her start down the path of disguising herself. She quickly gets good at it and then realizes: couldn't I use this power to sneak into that gated community and steal back my baby?

Obviously it's not going to be so easy as walking into the joint and walking back out with The Special, even disguised as President Coroner as she is. First of all, she doesn't even know for sure that the baby is here now, and she does know that the actual boss is in town, not here. (Lucky thing, right, when she goes through the guard shack in full makeup.) So instead she goes to Jimmy's ex-girlfriend's place. Don't ask me how she knows that THIS is an option, or that the girl is indeed even home, or that she is living there at all. There's not even really a reason to believe that she can help, or that she even KNOWS anything about the baby. But Jessie's concerned about the competition, and fairly confident that her target doesn't have the strength gene and will therefore be easy enough to overpower. It proves true in terms of tying the girl up and throwing her in the trunk of her car, but Jessie isn't counting on being lied to. The ex kicks through the backseat and forces Jessie off the road, where they have an epic Matrix battle that culminates in Jessie punching a hole in the gas tank and exploding the thing with an emergency flare. She feels a surge of pleasure while the ex-girlfriend dies, which is ... creepy? Shows some link to President Coroner? What else does it mean?

It at least means that Jessie should be prepared when she goes to talk to President Coroner tonight. She buys a handgun at a pawn shop, then meets Jimmy James in front of the Tropicana, where the big ugly bodyguard picks them up in a limo. James takes a little while to get in the car, and he doesn't sit right next to Jessie for some reason. The car takes them back to the gated community, to the biggest house, where President Coroner is waiting. Negotiations don't really go as well as could be hoped, since the boss already knows that she's not the one who kidnapped the ex in the trunk of a car. But while they're working out their threats and measuring their dicks, who should walk in but the Highlander. He's finally talked the Tar council into using brain powers to murder his dearest love, and as one person has to be present to make it work, guess who volunteered. Only the big mean bodyguard is holding the baby, and he'll rip her in half if they make a move against his boss. This is a good time for the best friend's boyfriend, the shapeshifting teacher, to appear out of thin air, grab the gun out of Jessie's waistband, and cap the bodyguard in the head. Yeah, he was sitting between them for the whole car ride, like there's not enough seats in a limo for him to stretch out somewhere else. Cockblocker.

But here's the weirdest part: President Coroner recognizes him. That's right, bitches — Herme lives! He has seen the evil his mother is doing and has finally come out of hiding to try to help put a stop to it. And James helped him because he knows what's going on in both worlds. He's experienced it, actually: after Jessie fell asleep, he killed himself (with Herme's help) so he could be fully present and help in witch world. I have more timeline problems and concerns, obviously, starting with the question of how Jimmy could possibly be here today if he hasn't yet killed himself, but that's not where the characters are right now. Right now they're concerned with stopping this ultimate evil who doesn't seem to care about murder. So Herme and his Highlander dad point blue brain lasers at President Coroner, who generates a red bubble to stop them, because everything we have to know about good and evil energy colors we learned from Star Wars.

And now Jessie finds herself inside the red bubble. She's been the most susceptible of those exposed to PC, after all, and so she might be convertible to the pain-suckers. She relives all of the memories that our dear villain has of her children dying and of how the pain could be turned into a pleasurable sensation, and it's just hypnotic enough and convincing enough that, as Jessie finds herself back in her own body, she can be persuaded to take her gun back from Herme and shoot the Highlander. He doesn't die, but he's weakened enough that President Coroner can steal his sword and stab him in the heart.

So now what? Well, it's a good thing Jimmy's here to save everybody! What would we do without a white dude who's barely aware of his powers? But he knows that together, with Jessie and the baby, they have a strength that is impossible to overcome. So they manage to paralyze our villain, but now her scorpion son shows up and wants to murder too. Only — plot twist! — he murders his mom! Turns out that when Jimmy killed himself, he also killed tail-boy in the real world, and now HE'S got good-guy memories. This is really telling about President Coroner's parenting skills that all of her living children not only think that she has to die, but show up to help DO IT.

But now all is good and we can move forward as a family, right? Totally! At least until Jessie wakes up in the real world and finds Jimmy lying beside her, still and cold and dead.

This would have been a good place to stop, right? Of course he doesn't. Two days later, Jessie and her best friend are home from Jimmy's funeral, talking about what's going on and all the implications, when suddenly there's a sound at the door — the mail box. (Does anybody still have one of these shits in 2012? Most rural neighborhoods are going to the community box.) Jessie collects the mail, among which is a red envelope containing a letter from the Alchemist (remember that dude) anticipating a future meeting and sending best wishes from ... President Coroner.

And that is the end of Witch World! Or Red Queen, whichever one you picked up. Like, are we starting to understand how Pike has so little grasp of world-building that he has ALREADY killed his main antagonist AND the potential monkey wrench in Jessie's future relationships? Doesn't he realize none of us are going to get invested in a world where you don't stay dead after you die? I mean, except zombies. But since that's not what we're talking about, I can't possibly imagine where Black Knight is going to take us. I mean, I can, because I've read the back copy, and it doesn't look remotely related. Maybe that's one more reason I've been stalling on this entry: to keep me away from the annoying-looking next one.

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