#i also have a bunch of old novels from high school but we do NOT talk about them they are no good and none got a second draft

[n7punk]

im sorry because maybe this is common knowledge, but your tags said something about novels?! do u have writing outside of fanfic that’s available to read? id love to support if so, im kind of obsessed with everything you do

oh, i guess i haven't actually talked about this in a while. no, it's just personal drafts rn. i've taken a couple hiatuses from fic before to work on original stuff (i think i was gone for 3-4 months last year because of it). i have one fully finished novel ive shared among friends (originally written in 2020) that i dont feel is good enough to shop and i have one drafted novel that needs to be rewritten (probably a few times) before i'll be happy with it. i started work on another but realized it wasn't working and haven't had the heart to go back and redo what i wrote since i really like it, which is when i stopped working on original work for a bit and came back to fanfiction XD

[pastafossa]

Happy Birthday and a merry 6 years to TRT! 🎂 🎁 🎈 🎉 🍰

🕯 🕯 🕯 🕯 🕯 🕯

Some FUN TRIVIA FACTS:

TRT's sun sign is VIRGO and its moon sign is LEO!

After 6 years, its current wordcount is 932k words. If you put that in size 12 arial font, single-spaced, this would come to about 2000 pages, and even more if the pages were the usual mass market paperback size!

TRT is now 40 in cat years!

The Man in the White Coat is my tribute to the Mad Scientist trope common in scifi, which is one of my favorite genres!

It is old enough developmentally to tie its shoes! Keep going, TRT!

Ciro is partially inspired by John Marcone from The Dresden Files!

TRT shares a birthday with literary great Agatha Christie! Maybe I'll introduce poison-based murder into the fic in her honor...

The idea of seeing threads came to me after seeing a meme about red threads tying soul mates together. Everything that came after - the other threads, the thread world, how it works, is unique to TRT!

TRT is now longer than War and Peace, and Crime and Punishment combined! So if you've read all of TRT so far, then you have the perfect middle finger to anyone who tries to say you can't focus on longer stories!

The inciting penguin documentary that Foggy drunkenly watched (which led to him declaring Matt and Jane 'penguins') was about Adelie penguins specifically!

Jane has a leather jacket because I love leather jackets and think all badass characters should have a leather jacket! And so you should you! EVERYONE DESERVES A COOL LEATHER JACKET.

The long hiatus between Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 was because I had life things pop up. During that hiatus, I realized the plotline/ending needed some work, so I spent those two years outlining, and I also wound up doing a bunch of additional novel writing classes just because I wanted to learn. A lot of this wound up influencing TRT!

The grey threads are one of the only threads that no one has solved yet!

There are absolutely some bad people working for Cyrus James. There is also a guy named Kyle. He is there not for Evil Purposes (tm) but instead because this was the only place he could work that would allow him to pay off his student loans.

When I started TRT, I thought maybe 5 people total would read it. I was told five people total would read it by some shitty people. So I wrote it expecting five total people would read it, and told myself at least I'd enjoy it, and I could use it to learn. In other words: I had ZERO idea TRT would take off like this. None. Nada. Zip. AND LOOK AT US NOW, BABY. FUCK THE HATERS, 6 YEARS AND GOIN' STRONG.

Based on my outline, we're a bit over halfway to the end!

I hope you enjoyed these TRT funfacts. And I hope you know: this fic isn't just me. It's you, too. This fic has become so much larger than just me. It's the TRT playlist you've sent songs in for that keeps me inspired when writing. It's the fanart I look at to give me a boost. It's your sweet comments and likes and kudos and messages that encourage me when I'm sick or depressed. It's the people who've made friends over this fic, or who've been inspired to write fic themselves, adding beautiful works to the community that we all use to keep going. It's all of this love for both TRT and Matt, and I'm so happy that I've been able to contribute in at least a small way in keeping Charlie!Daredevil love alive even after the show's been gone for years now. I love you all so, so goddamn much. I love this fandom. I love TRT with all my heart. Thank you so much for being a part of these past six years through cancelations, through your high school and college years and beyond, through my ups and downs of moving and sickness and fiberglass and pandemic craziness, through late night chapter drops and wild twists and turns.

And I hope the next few years as we enter the second half of this story are just as amazing!

[boinin]

Do you have any kunigami headcanons?

Hey! Thanks for the ask.

I'm one of those people that scours through canon for blorbo details to build on and develop in the fanfiction I write. So I actually don't have a huge amount of standalone headcanons for the individual characters? Beyond things like how they'd act in relationships, what they might do in the future, etc. That said, I have enough Kunigami thoughts to write a couple novels, so here goes. These are just general beliefs that could apply to Kunigami, personal to my interpretation of his character:

Kunigami is bisexual, but probably not aware of this while in Blue Lock. He finds it hard to differentiate between physical attraction and admiration when it comes to dudes. Chigiri and Barou particularly confuse him for this reason. Classic do I want to be them or be with them dilemma.

He's generally hopeless with matters of the heart. He's oblivious to peoples' crushes on him, male or female. He's turned a bunch of confessions down on the basis that he's too busy to date (aside from lack of interest). In true sports anime fashion, he has a one-track mind... it's all football under that orange cloud of hair.

Speaking of, he's considered shaving all his hair off to avoid sweat dripping into his eyes. His sisters talked him out of it—mostly because him being bald horrified them, but they used the excuse that with no hair to soak into, he'd have more sweat dripping onto his face, not less. His elder sister introduced him to the concept of an undercut while in middle school, which he's been rocking ever since.

If Isagi's team had chosen Reo after winning the 3v3, Kunigami and Chigiri together would have beaten Shidou and Igaguri without issue. Chigiri would have lifted Kunigami's spirits and deflected Shidou's taunts, helping turn things around. They'd steal Shidou despite Kunigami's serious misgivings about playing with him, then sail through to the third selection. Kunigami and Shidou don't get on during this process, but they do develop a begrudging respect. Shidou can't beat Kunigami in a fist fight, and Kunigami will acknowledge that Shidou is a phenomenal player.

The last few speculate about Kunigami having a mental health condition so I've tagged this for that and put the headcanons under a cut in case anyone isn't into reading those sort of takes about a blorbo. Also: post-s2 anime/chp 155+ manga spoilers below in case that's a problem.

At the time of Blue Lock, Kunigami has symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). It's one reason he's so dedicated to fitness and high performance. He experiences anxiety when he cannot complete his pre-decided training due to intrusive thoughts of something bad happening. While this was also the case for him before Blue Lock, it's really exacerbated by the dangling fear of getting kicked out and never getting to represent Japan nationally.

Him winning Wild Card is a by-product of his OCD traits in addition to his existing similarity to Noel Noa. Having confronted the reality of leaving Blue Lock post-2V2 loss, Kunigami saw the Wild Card as a second chance. Already used to pushing himself through punishing workouts, he performs better than his fellow WC peers.

It still does serious damage to his mental health, as the whole process validates the intrusive thoughts he'd previously been able to categorise as irrational. Now he could think, finish the next 20 reps or you'll get kicked out, without being able to contradict himself. Players are getting kicked out around him for not following Ego's insane training regimens.

Ego preys on Kunigami's thought patterns to reinforce the idea that he must forfeit his existing identity to assume Noel Noa's mindset. Kunigami internalises this so well, it extends beyond his footballing and training to his whole personality. Now, post WC, he refuses to even engage with his friends the way he used to, because something at the back of his mind will say, the old you wasn't enough, or, everything you went through will be for nothing if you go back to your old ways now.

This isn't how I characterise Kunigami in all the things I write—it's really just a stream of thought about why he's so dedicated to fitness and how he was able to succeed in Wild Card (at personal cost).

[ladyloveandjustice]

My favorite Manga and Graphic Novels I Read in 2022

I read 54 different manga and graphic novel series in 2022 (you can see them here, from the beginning until the print novels start with Hench. I only included one from each series for my own weird reasons but I'm up to date on everything except Adachi and Shimamura and Prince Freya, which I dropped for now). You can also see my favorite novels of 2022 here! 

Here are my favorites!

Snapdragon by Kat Leyh

A young girl gets involved with a witch who has has lots of skeletons (animal and otherwise). I’ve always loved Leyh’s work, and this is her usual super queer fantasy that has everything I adore- cute art, cool witches, animal magic, older butch lesbians with eye patches, lovable characters and lots of sweetness.

SHWD by Sono.N

It’s refreshing to see a dark sci-fi yuri about incredibly ripped adult women fighting monsters, and it really pulls off the horror of the monsters well with some gripping action. The characters were pretty charming too and there was a lot of attention paid to the trauma of the situation.

However, it does have a 'character who looks like a child', which is not my favorite trope for a lot reasons. It bothers me a bit less than other series because the art style does not do cutesy. She just looked like a short adult. The reasoning for having her there was...interesting, I'm not sure where they'll go with that, but it's original, though potentially weird?

Anyway, I like what it's doing and I'm interested to see where this goes. I hope we continue to get a variety of yuri like this published over here!

The Two of Them Are Pretty Much Like This by Takashi Ikeda

Two ladies- 32-year-old anime screenwriter and 22-year-old newbie anime voice actress- live together and navigate their romantic relationship. It’s mostly done in short vignettes, but the central couple has a fun dynamic and the art is nice, and some plot threads slowly develop as the books go on. It’s a cozy read, and it’s nice to see the ups and downs of an adult relationship where they share living space. I also find the 32 year old attractive, to be honest, I’d date her.

Until I Met My Husband by Ryousuke Nanasaki, art by Yoshi Tsukizuki

An autobiographical story of the first religiously recognized gay marriage in Japan. It’s not super lengthy or meaty, but it’s a sweet read.

Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe

You might have heard of this book based on how it was banned in a lot of places, it’s simply an autobiographical story of growing up genderqueer. It’s a breezy read with some nice evocative art, and Kobabe is pretty relatable.

Nubia: Real One by L.L. McKinney, Art by Robin Smith

I read a bunch of the DC standalone YA offerings from the library this year and found most of them to be a let-down, but this was a good one. It follows a young Nubia, a black girl who discovers she’s an Amazon related to Wonder Woman herself, and uses her abilities to confront some very real dangers and injustices, while also struggling against racism and other forms of prejudice. Satisfying, solid YA.

Who Killed Jimmy Olsen? By Matt Fraction, Art by Steve Lieber

Another library read. A fun riff on the zaniness of Silver Age Jimmy Olsen comics with a healthy does of humor, it follows the bizarre life of Superman’s BFF as he tries to avoid assassination and does some viral YouTube videos .I especially liked the weird but sweet relationship Jimmy and Clark had in this, and the gentle dunking on Batman.

Run Away With Me, Girl by Battan

Maki’s girlfriend, Midori, broke up with her during her high school graduation, saying she had to “move on” to dating guys now that she was grown up. Ten years later, Maki runs into Midori and finds she’s in an abusive relationship with a man she’s engaged to after getting pregnant. Maki asks Midori to run away with her, but will she?

This is definitely a darker yuri- the abuse Midori faces escalates, and the dude she’s with is basically an incel- but it’s handling the subject matter well so far and I’m really interested to see where it goes. There’s been a notable amount of yuri lately that’s tackled the belief that love for other women is just a childish phase, but this is the first one I’ve seen that explores what happens to a woman who believes that and forces herself into a heterosexual relationship. The abuse Midori faces is not at all framed as her ‘just desserts’ or anything, but a tragic circumstance that happened to a woman who was desperate to fit in and not be alone. The art is also fantastic and distinctive. I really hope it sticks the landing!

She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat by Sakaomi Yuzaki

A slice-of-life foodie yuri manga! Nomoto cooks more than she can eat, and she notices her next-door neighbor is a big eater and invites her over. A very slowburn romance strikes up. I got interested in this because of the authors marriage equality activism, and it’s a cute read. It’s laid back and slow paced, but there are nice moments of realism that make it very grounded- the way the women talk about being mistreated at work, Nomoto complaining that all the fashion articles she look up talk about impressing men- it was relatable! I also liked that Kasuga is large and butch and doesn’t have to look conventionally ‘cute’.

Cheer Up: Love and Pom-Poms by Crystal Fraiser

A cute YA about an acerbic young lesbian joining the cheer squad and repairing her relationship with her people-pleasing trans friend. It’s for a younger audience, but it’s a sweet romance with adorable art.

I Want to Be A Wall by Honami Shirono

I’m interested to see where this one goes. An aro-ace woman and a gay man in love with his (seemingly, so far) straight best friend enter a marriage of convenience. Yuriko’s obsessive BL fandom can get annoying, but it’s always refreshing to see the ace character represented and the manga is realistic about the struggles we face. I’m rooting for this one!

Doughnuts Under a Crescent Moon by Shio Usui

A slow burn office lady romance, it’s just downright cute. It might be a little slowpaced for some but I enjoyed it!

Catch These Hands! by Murata

I’m a huge sucker for delinquent girls, so the story of two former delinquent girl rivals who meet again as adults, only for one to challenge each other to a fight with the condition that she’ll date her if she loses? Sign me up! This is, unfortunately, a little uneven- the second volume was kinda eh and introduced an annoying side character with some questionable tropes-but the third volume picked things up again and included a wonderfully absurd training montage. Though it starts with one of the women wanting to change and appear less like a delinquent and more ‘normal’, the clear message of the series is she doesn’t need to. If you don’t like any kind of violence, no matter how weird and divorced from reality, this isn’t for you though, as there is the whole challenge-to-a-fight thing, but it’s tongue in cheek and wacky enough I don’t mind.

Continuing favorites:

Witch Hat Atelier- Can't believe Witch Hat punched the 'funny anime pervert' trope to dust like it deserves, while also exploring and denouncing victim blaming in a genuinely affecting way. This manga is legendary. Also I'm very worried for everyone.

Yuri is My Job!- Really escalated wonderfully with it’s tangled web of relationships, rich backstories, and commentary on how people, especially queer people, often put on a performance. What IS the true self? One character’s commentary on how she wanted her work place to ‘like romance without the romance’ (a la class S) yet can’t suppress her true romantic fantasies was especially well-done. There’s also a character saying ‘friggin’ heteros’. The accurate representation we need, clearly. I just really enjoy this cast of characters.

Spy x Family (A Yor arc! Finally! And there’s just as much murder and mayhem as that should entail!), My Love Mix Up! (continues to be adorable), Yona of the Dawn (dramatic backstory reveals!), How Do We Relationship? (it’s really interesting to read a gay romance where the central relationship is acknowledged as not good for both of them and they try to move on), Delicious in Dungeon (the dungeon adventures are ramping up!), A Man and His Cat (more kitty cuteness), The Way of the House Husband (more hijinks), Bride’s Story (another volume of the beautiful historical epic! It’s been a while.), The Adventure Zone graphic novels (continue to be a lot fun with fantastic art), I Think Our Son is Gay (continues to be a sweet look at a mom supportive of her gay son), Monthly Girls Nozaki-Kun (I’ll always love these idiots) and My Wandering Warrior Existence by Kabi Nagata (another entry in Nagata’s moving autobiographical series about the struggles of mental illness, self reflection, and queer exploration).

[moonnue]

It's recently been brought to my attention that people that are speaking out for me are being harassed. I'll be answering that persons ask below the cut as I don't want to fill people's feeds with more drama, but I do think it's important to discuss. There is also very helpful info on how to report on Ao3 if you have not done it before!

In any case, I strongly encourage that you block, report, and move on if someone tries to pester you about this. Be careful out there!

I am so, so sorry this has been happening to you. I just wrote a simple fanfic and it is baffling that something like this can come out of it. It really ain't that deep. I also agree with you! I can't believe the other writer and I are the same age like please i'm begging you to leave this childish behavior behind. It is so silly. We left this behind in high school.

Report Link: https://archiveofourown.org/abuse_reports/new

Thanks so much for your words of support and you're help. It truly means a lot to me. Again, I am so sorry you have gotten caught up in all this. Wishing you well! ♥

@softpastelqueer

Text version of images below:

Hey, sorry to bother you again (I know you want to move on from this), but I received a bunch of unhinged asks/harassment myself (including threats) both for supporting you/being against an obvious mass bullying campaign against you and for joking that Titanic must’ve also stolen from them. The Protag drawing Astarion really was done before both of y’all, so I’m staunchly with you there

Obviously, it’s ridiculous to claim the protag of stories being an artist drawing a character is akin to copy written intellectual property. It’s a really REALLY old idea and it’s genuinely ridiculous to claim ownership over that. Even more ridiculous to consider we’re all older adults. Shouldn’t we all be busy stretching so our lower backs won’t hurt??? Like c’mon guys this is silly

Furthermore, what’s even more ridiculous is to encourage harassment of others. Again, we’re somehow all adults? If their claims of plagiarism were provable beyond the vague hand waving away of now owning the entire concept of writing about artists drawing people, then why did they and their crowd harass me instead of trying to convince me? I am a rando who didn’t know either of you and actually found YOU through one of THEIR first posts spamming the BG3 tag with encouragements to others to “teach you plagiarism is not okay” aka harassment.

I am both an artist AND professional editor for novels, manuscripts, and the like. I was trained to spot real plagiarism. Not a single bit of your structure could be flagged as plagiarism beyond the same premise.

Now that that’s been said. They’re still harassing you (and me now I suppose) and so I recommend you and others to report them on AO3. They’ve created an AO3 post further encouraging harassing you and encouraging falsely reporting your story for plagiarism.

If you’ve never had to report anybody before, here’s what mine looks like

[IMAGE]

My full report says “This person (WanderingIsobel) has been targeting and harassing the other writer (MoonNue) and also encouraging other people to harass them and report their story under the claim it’s plagiarism to use the same generic story premise. Half of the harassment is on tumblr while the other half of the harassment is on here, AO3. The other writer has explained many times that they have never read their story and to please leave them alone, but now they made an entire AO3 post dedicated to encouraging people to report and “comment” aka harass them over a weird fake accusation. It’s making it hostile both for the writer of Portrait Of A Vampire and for readers in general.”

Link for the AO3 Reporting

But Holy shit I am so sorry you’re getting caught up in fandom unwellness the rest of tumblr makes fun of. Whatever you need, I’m here to help, including even venting. I am sorry You’re a victim of a mass harassment/bullying campaign.

[bright-and-burning]

thank u for the tag @monacotrophywife this took. too long to get around to lol

15 questions !!

are you named after anyone? my govie name no but eve yes! it’s my great grandma’s. my dad’s family has a kind of idk policy where your first name is Yours but your middle name is from somebody else. so my siblings and cousins and i have Original Names (not original as in like mackayleigheey just original as in not somebody else’s already. bc believe me some of our names are BASIC) and our middle names are all from grandparents + further back.

when was the last time you cried? i’ve been on the verge of tears a LOOOOOT lately. and i shed like five tears last week. but like Really cried was like january 11th ish when i moved out. i’ve had this stuffed rabbit since i was ~2 and my parents bought a perfect duplicate like the second month id had it bc i was so attached that they were like. we can NOT lose it and not have a backup (despite this i called both the same name). so i packed up one rabbit to take with me to my first solo apartment as a Real Adult and left one in my childhood bedroom. and that fucked me up soooo bad lol like the idea of here’s kid eve and here’s adult eve diverging paths… anyways.

do you have kids? i fuckin better not

what sports do you play/have you played? soccer, taekwondo, dance (ballet and tap for ~10 years) if you count that, running, a little bit of figure skating but like bootleg (aka my dad teaching me or me teaching myself w second hand skates) uhhhh. i feel like im forgetting something. oh gymnastics when i was very small. they had a lot of like, free/reduced cost sports opportunities for poor kids in my city so i’ve done a lot of things lol. owned a lot of second/third/fourth hand sports equipment over the years. if you’re in america (i cannot guarantee this exists anywhere else) and you’re in need of expensive sports equipment for cheap (or you’re looking to donate old sports equipment!) find yourself a play it again sports they came THROUGH for me and my siblings as a bunch of athletic poor kids

do you use sarcasm? frequently irl. probs less so online bc i don’t feel like it carries very well lol

what is the first thing you notice about people? hair!!!!! but otherwise it varies a lot. my favorite way to interact w ppl for the first time is to find something to compliment them on so i’m usually scanning everything to find like, oh they’ve got cool hair, cool tattoos, funky shoes, a fun patterned scrunchie, whatever.

what is your eye color? i Technically have heterochromia. but mostly green, i just have one solid brown stripe across my left eye

scary movies or happy endings? i don’t like Most Horror in general (tho i do fuck with a psychological thriller or black comedy movie a la the menu or last night in soho) so i’m gonna say happy endings

any talents? is it rude to say lots. lol. painting is probably my most “surprising” one. i can also still passably tap dance despite it being nearly 10 years since i stepped foot in a real studio. speed reading is another one; for some novels (shoutout pratchett for writing the world’s most readable and engaging novels) i was averaging like 550 wpm

where were you born? los angeles, baby. city of angels. la la land. tinseltown. etc

what are your hobbies? i am very good at picking up new hobbies and very bad at sticking with them for very long (until i get reinvested for like three weeks before dropping again etc). right now probably baking is the big one? writing. i’m trying to get back into painting this week actually!! we’ll see if i succeed

do you have any pets? my apartment is unfortunately pet free :( but my family pets are WONDERFUL. i have a dog who is a pitbull-corgi-mutt (so literally picture a corgi butt, legs, and the floppy baby corgi ears, plus a fat pitbull body, skull, and smile), and an orange cat :)

how tall are you? 5’0 on a good day

favorite subject at school? MATH!!!!! god bless math everybody. i had optional math homework in high school and sometimes when i was really annoyed w my other work i would procrastinate by doing the optional math work lol

dream job? i mean if anyone wants to step up and be my patron so i can oil paint photorealistic fabric folds all day… no but uhh what i do rn is my “realistic” dream job. my unrealistic but still technically feasible dream job is sports analytics. and my totally infeasible and impossible dream job is Art.

i’m gonna be honest i am so deeply behind on this that i think everyone has done it already. but if you haven’t and you’d like to, please consider yourself tagged <3

[karlyboyyy]

Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks....

Okay first of all - thank you so much for sending me this ask! I haven't received an ask since like 2018, and I really like answering questions! (are any of y'all old enough to remember Formspring? I loved that shit lmao)

Second of all - this took me forever to think of! I suddenly forgot all pieces of media that I've ever consumed. Plus I wanted to make sure I had a mix of stuff lol

Anyway, here's what I've come up with, in no particular order :)

David Rose | Schitt’s Creek

David Rose is honestly so important to me. When I first started watching Schitt’s Creek, I was just like “oh haha sassy queer man, so funny!” But then as the show progressed, I found myself identifying so much with the character. And then I decided to rewatch the show… four more times over the next few months. Like I just kept going back to it. And eventually I thought “ya know… why do I identify so much with a queer man? I’ve never thought of myself as queer and I’m not a man… so why?” Which led me down the rabbit hole of watching other queer-centric shows and doing a bunch of internet searching of sexuality and gender identity. And I honestly learned so much. Like it’s crazy how much I just assumed about a lot of stuff without ever thinking too deeply about it. And wouldn’t you fuckin know it, I realized I was bisexual. And then the more and more I thought about how I see myself and how I wanted others to see me, I decided that yep, I’m not a man… but I’m also not really too attached to being a woman either. So here we are today, just a big ol’ bisexual nonbinary androgynous blob. All thanks to David Rose!

2. Karasuno VBC | Haikyuu!!

Is this answer cheating? I feel like it’s cheating. But I’ve tried - I’ve reeeally tried - to pick a favorite character from Haikyuu, and I just cannot. So I’ve chosen the entire ‘12-‘13 Karasuno High School Volleyball Club (coaches and managers included!). I just love them each so much for different reasons. Like, Hinata is such a sweetheart and I’m so proud of him by the end of the series! Kageyama is my baby, my sweet grumpy dumb-dumb baby. Sugawara is probably the one I relate to the most, coming off as shy and calm but in reality he’s a little insane. And Asahi! My sweet sensitive Asahi, I love him so much. I could ramble on for days, but I won’t. Just know that I would fight to the death for these fictional characters. 

3. Power | Chainsaw Man

Since I’ve decided that I’d only do one cheat answer, I can’t list the whole Hayakawa family as one character. That said, I’d have to say Power is my favorite of the trio. She’s loud and obnoxious and egotistical and powerful and silly and gross and honestly everything I wish I could be. 

4. Xie Lian | Heaven Official’s Blessing

Xie Lian is so awkward, but he’s low-key hilarious. There’s a moment in chapter 6 of the first novel, where he was worried because he didn’t have any shrines or worshippers dedicated to him in the mortal realm. But then, there’s this excerpt: “And one day, on a whim, he suddenly thought: If no one worships me, I’ll worship myself! None of the heavenly officials knew how to respond to that. Who had ever fucking heard of a god worshipping himself?! To reach such tragic heights, what was the point?! However, Xie Lian was used to receiving nothing but awkward silence the moment he spoke and thought amusing himself could be fun.” Like… that whole ‘fuck it, I’m just gonna do whatever the hell I want’ attitude gives me life. On top of all that, he’s a cheapskate scrap collector, a terrible cook, and has the worst luck. But he’s a total sweetheart, he tries his best at everything he does, he’s always trying to help people, and HELLO he’s got Hua Cheng wrapped around his finger. 

5. Uramichi Omota | Life Lessons With Uramichi-oniisan

My favorite depressy boi. Life Lessons is so freakin funny and way too goddamn relatable. I think I have four different magnets at my desk at work with images / quotes of Uramichi from the show and manga. There's not much else I can say other than he speaks to my soul.

6. Kageyama “Mob” Shigeo | Mob Psycho 100

The goodest boy!! A friend actually recommended Mob Psycho to me, and at first I was a little skeptical. But by the third episode I was hooked. And by season 3, I found myself literally sobbing. Just seeing Mob’s growth throughout the show, and how his kindness impacted so many people around him… it just fills my heart. But also the moment where he almost loses himself to the ???%… just wow. The whole message of that show is so so good and I will literally recommend it to anyone and everyone. 

7. Sasaki Shuumei | Sasaki and Miyano

The sweetest cinnamon roll!! The way he truly loves Miyano is so refreshing. Sure, he has the whole “but he’s a guy…” thought at first. But he gets over that fairly quickly. He just knows that Miyano is cute and he genuinely wants to get to know him. He actively engages with Miyano to try and learn about his interests and hobbies. He reads all the BL Miyano lends him. He gives his honest feedback about each story! He stands up for Miyano’s interests. He confesses to Miyano pretty early on, but recognizes that Miyano may not reciprocate those feelings right away. He continually reassures Miyano that his feelings are strong, but he’s not pushy about it. It’s more like he wants to make sure Miyano doesn’t see his feelings as a passing whim. And when they finally get together, he’s not shy about their relationship. He talks about it to his friends and family. When the two of them start to get more physical, Miyano voices his concern about who’s going to be the “bottom”. And Sasaki’s immediate thought was that he didn’t really care which way they went, he just knew that he wanted it to be with Miyano. And my GOD I loved seeing that. I feel like discussing your sexual preferences with your partner and figuring out what you’re comfortable with doing is SO important, but that aspect of starting a new relationship isn’t portrayed nearly enough in BL stories. It’s usually just one guy being a little nervous about being bottom and the other guy automatically assuming they’re the top, with zero communication. Anyway, I digress. Back to Sasaki. My cinnamon roll. I just love him. 

8. April Ludgate | Parks and Recreation 

Parks and Rec will always be one of my comfort shows. And I first watched it when I was about the same age as April - young enough to not really know what I wanted to do in life and also not really caring about that stuff just yet. I loved her dry sense of humor and her sarcasm. And watching her grow into someone with more confidence in her career and relationships was amazing. Also fun fact, when I interviewed for my first role at my current workplace - which happens to be an Indiana government entity - I was asked why I was interested in government work. And I straight up said that Parks & Rec made it seem interesting lmao. They must have liked that answer, because I’m still there almost 4 years later and have promoted up since then! 

9. Dorothy Zbornak | Golden Girls

I first watched Golden Girls when I was in college, when my roommate was like “I promise you’ll like it, it’s so funny” and I was like bitch… it’s an old show about old ladies. But she was RIGHT. It’s hilarious. And honestly so wholesome. And ICONIC (I mean come on. This show talked about women's sex lives, old women's sex lives at that. And LGBT+ issues. And workplace harassment. And invisible illnesses / disabilities and the struggles of getting your doctor to actually listen to you. All of this in the '80s, no less!) And I feel like most people liked Rose because, duh it’s Betty White. But Dorothy was my jam. She was sarcastic and always annoyed by something (same). But she genuinely cared about her friends. And look. I ain’t gonna lie. That deep, almost raspy voice of hers? Hot. 

10. Jake Peralta | Brooklyn 99

He’s honestly so annoying, but I love him. He gives off this “I’m gonna do the bare minimum and be silly the whole time and STILL get the fuckin’ job done” vibe, and ya know what? He does just that. He’s actually a great detective and problem solver. He just also knows how to have fun. And his relationship with Amy is one of the few straight(-passing) relationships that I honestly love so much. They’re so cute and pure and goofy and relatable. And don’t even get me started on his friendship with Rosa. I mean, he went with her when she wanted to come out as bi to her parents!! Aahhhh!! Lastly, his flannel / hoodie / leather jacket combo? Pure bisexual fashion and I am here for it.

[popculturebuffet]

Into The Spider-Verse: Spider-Man, Miles Morales (Ultimate Fallout #4, Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man #1-5)

Hello all you happy wallcrawlers! It's time to once again swing into the Spider-Verse as we cover the various people who've worn the mask across the merry marvel multiverse, all building to a look at Into The Spider-Verse in time for it's sequel.

So naturally after looking at the humble origins of the first spidey as he battled with loneliness, fame, dead uncles and of course Crackers and Milk, it's only fair we look at the actual protaganist of the film, the ultimate spider-man, the one the only Miles Morales!

To properly get into Miles and his origins in the comics though we have to talk about the world he was created for: The Ultimate Universe. The Ultimate Universe was the idea of then editor Bill Jemas, who felt Marvel's massive continuity could be daunting to the new readers the company badly needed after the comics crash and marvel's subsquent bankruptcy.

So he tapped writer Brian Micheal Bendis. Starting with Spidey.. honestly makes perfect sense to me, as while a major part of the marvel universe, his corner is diverse and unique enough to carry itself and to see if this could work, something EIC Joe Quesada had doubts about, doubts he somehow didn't have later for the character when he decided "Huh you know I don't like his marriage because my ship didn't win, maybe I should just have satan break it up eh?", born of a previous attempt, not helped by Bendis famous love of using decompressed storytelling, i.e. spreading a story out over several issues instead of packing it into one or two barring big sagas.

Despite these doubts from Quesada and from Artist Mark Bagely.. the book was a MASSIVE hit. It likely helped Ultimate's stripped down back to basics peter was a RELIEF after the complex shenanignas of the clone saga nad after. It was just what people loved: a down on his luck kid dealing with usual life struggles while also having to fight crime on top of that. It had a bunch of nice updates too that would become a staple of adaptations from here on out: Harry Osborn being a close friend from the start, MJ being a high school friend of peters, and Aunt May being a cool old lady instead of on the precipice of death, something that would carry over. This success helped revitalize the main spider-man with JMS' fantastic run.. that granted petered out into Sins Past and One MOre Day, but both are stories for another day.

Ultimate Spider-Man was such a hit the universe naturally expanded.. and that became a problem. See Bendis' ultimate spider-man really nailed the idea of the ultimate universe, a clean slate allowing the writers to really play around with things, while not threatning the main universe. Death was permenant, the stakes were high and it allowed new fans a godo start. Sure it buitl up it's own complex story, but with graphic novels plentefiul, it was easy to keep up. I read a good chunk of it in my teens and loved it and it seems to mostly still hold up.

The problem is out of the three spinoffs only one really got what you could do with the concept, Ultimate Fantastic Four, which simply made the team all teens connected to a fancy think tank while keeping the tight knit "family of choice" dynamic and adventure, simply in a more grounded context.

The other two were by mark millar

I'm not a fan of his, and these books are a large reason why. Ultimate X-Men is a mixed bag, having good ideas, such as a teenage storm and nightcrawler ala evolution along with a gay colossus, and the more military costumes ala new x-men, and is a book i'd love to review sometime now i'm more deeply entreinched in x-men, especially since I read that as a teen too, on the wohle it's got a LOT of edgelord in it's dna, with Jean sleeping with a 40 something year old wolverine, Wolverine trying to murder cyclops to get to jean, and Magneto being simply a racist dickhead. It has great parts and Brian K Vaughn's run after Millar's is even better, but it's just a bit too edgy for it's own good.

Ultimates however…

Ultimates is fucking awful. The designs and art are top notch, Thor , Cap , Hawkeye and Nick Fury all got their MCU designs here, but the actual story is a bunch of edgelord bullshit. IT's clear Millar at least had SOME respect for the x-men, but he hated the avengers and it shows: Tony is constantly drunk, Thor is a new agey asshole, Hawkeye and Black Widow are black ops murderers, and grossly the scarlet witch and quicksilver are mostly defiend by being a couple.

He also pissed me off personally as a fan of the ant family by making Jan an airhead, and making Hank's abuse and inferiority complex his entire character instead of the worst moment of life and his greatest flaw respectively, and had him ATTEMPT TO MURDER JAN. As you can probably guess i'll also have to tackle this at some point, and I wouldn't be suprised if one of my patrons inflicted this on me at some point via comission. Oh and of course we have Captain America, whose a racist sexist jingoistc asshole because Millar REALLY hates the character and considered the idealistic depecition of him being a progressive "unrelaistic. " It's bad and we'll get to it.

This edgelord apporach to these books worked at first as early 2000's audeinces ate that shit up, but eventually it reached it's apex, ironically after Millar had left. He was replaced by Jeph LOeb, who I don't care for as much these days but HAS made good stories. His ultimate work.. seems to be truly awful, with the confusing mess that was ultimates 3 and the utter nightmare that was ultimatium.

Ultimatium was a crossover event.. that started the universes march to death. Granted it took a while for it to kick in, but this crossover wrecked it so throughly it never really recovered> It was an edgelord mess where magneto killed most of new york, blob ATE the wasp on panel, and dozens upon dozens of characters died, with the x-men and ff utterly decimated and scattered as a result.

It killed Charles Xavier and Magneto which COULD'VE been intresting.. but in practice it just lead to more mediocre stories, a status quo no one liked, and exttra super duper mutant prejudice that was somehow legally legislated.

So why hash all of this out. It's simple, while the Ultimate Universe was in it's slow years long death spiral that would cumilate in the universe being wiped out in secret wars, though it may be making a comeback with Ultimate Invasion, there was one part of it that caught massive attention, did great sales and was critically loved. Just as he was the one to jumpstart the universe, Spider-Man was likely what kept it alive as long as it did, only the costume, and the person inside it both changed.

Miles came from editor axel alonso floating around the idea of a black spider-man in the ultimate universe shortly after Barack Obama won presdiency, though they decided not to introduce him post ultimatium as planned to give them time to work out the story for this. Bendis was further inspired by Donald Glover showing up in spider-man pajamas during the first episode of season 2 of community, a nod to Glover trying out for Amazing Spider-Man and somehow not getting the part. Glover would continue to be an influence on the character, and got to voice him in Ultimate Spider-Man and play his uncle aaron in Spider-Man Homecoming. Artist Sarah Pichelli designed his now iconic costume, smartly giving him the awesome looking black and red look, with the two color sbecome a staple of any version of miles costume while also serving as a nice nod to spider-man's orignal colors.

So now we have the behind the scenes stuff out of the way how did a 13 year old, yes really, from Brooklyn become the Ultimate Spider-Man? What happened to the previous one? And will anyone actually accept miles in the role? All valid questions, so swing with me under the cut as here comes a spider-man.

So naturally for Miles to take over… Peter Parker had to go. In this universe he was still a teen as like most comics despite a decade and change worth of continuity at this point, time moved slowly. But his life was going pretty well: he finally got back with Mary Jane Watson after a long time hinting towards it, Gwen Stacey, his friend and live in roomate, long story, forgave him, and after ultimatium new york loved the hell out of him.

So naturally this being spider-man, this coudlnt' last and soon his precious little life.. came to a tragic and epic end. This Peter was the character who really made Bendis' career, for better and for worse, so if he was going to die, Bendis was going to have him go down epically.

Like in our universe Peter's worst foe was the Green Goblin, only here he was more of a monster man and less a creepy guy in a suit, but no less psychotic or obessive, having attempted to kill MJ, actually killed his own son and peter's best friend, and in general been the worst. So wanting to kill peter once and for all, on his sixteenth birthday he broke out of jail, took the sinister six with him, and went on a rampage, heading straight for peter's loved ones. Peter went to intercept but had to stop the punisher from shooting captain america as a war between Frank's avengers and Captain America's ultimates, which was a thing that happened but I don't care enough to find out why. I have limits.

So while nursing a bullet wound, peter stared down his foes, with aunt may assiting by fucking shooting electro, putting him in a coma and as a result casuing his powers to go hawywire and narrow the fight down to just peter and Gobby. Sadly while Peter won… an explosion and his wounds from botht he fight and the bullet meant he didn't survivie it, but he got to go down defeating his greatest foe, saving those he loved like he coudln't save ben and in the arms of the girl he loved most.

So as a result the ultimate world was left a world without spider-man, and the ultimates themselves shook, paticuarlly cap who, as is his nature, was a massive dick to peter right before peter took a bullet for him. But it wouldn't be too long…

Miles was first intorduced at the tailend of ultimate fallout, a mini dealing with the fall out of this and setting up the three comics for the ultimate comics relaunch: ultimates by jonathan fucking hickman, which would end up vitally important ot his future works, x-men by nick spender and later sexual harassment brian wood and this very comic.

Miles part of it is very brief but well done: post peters death he shows up in the costume, battles d-list villian in any univers kangaroo, and admits the costume probbaly is in poor taste while taking it off to reveal a fairly young kid. and that spider-man is black. Which naturally isn't the shocker it should be after years of the character being rightfully promoted to hell and back.. nor was it then as it got revealed in the press ahead of time and was a big deal and put a LOT of expectation on the book.T here was also of course stupid racist idiot backlash about WEH THEY MADE SPIDER-MAN BLACK and your standard "people dont' get there's multiple versoins of this caharacter' misreporting, but it's best to plug your ear. My faviorite part of this coverage is that when I was binging it a while back, the comic strip baldo naturally comented on there being a prominent latino spider-man (again but we'll forgive cantu and costelanos for not knowing 2099 existed)

Tia Carmen being judgemental aside, it showed just how big a deal it was and thankfully the book was high quality enough to match thehype. So now we finally come to ultimate comics spider-man itself.

We open issue 1 with Norman Osborn citing the myth of arachne a while ago, back when he was a respectiable industrialist. This is how ULtimate Spider-Man #1 started though it almost feels like Bendis parodying himself as this time the guy listneing to osborn is bored and then thrown off when Norman threatens to kil lhim if he tells anyone this is how spider-man got his powers. Classic norman.

Anyways they do manage to make a new spider using peter's blood, as in this universe the oz serum was used on the spider, and then on norman himself instead of radioactivity and such. One of the spiders gets loose though with no one noticin

We cut to.. some time later as the Prowler, a masked thief in purple, breaks into Ozcorp.

Yeah it took a bit of googling to answer all of this, as I was confused both by Ozcorp still being around even after it's CEO publicly turned into a monster man and killed a bunch of his own employees, and by the spider somehow being ALIVE.

The former..was shockingly easy. It's nightmarishly hard, nay impossible to peg most comic universes into hard and fast years, with character ages being "whatever we need" and holidays being thrown around, not to mention countless time skips for story reasons to start off a run (Both Spider-Man and Fantastic Four just did this for their latest volumes). At this point i've just given up and say "it takes place because shut up" Granted I still peg peter parker as over 30 as anyone should, same with the original x-men and co, but that's not really the takeaway. So while a lot of stories have happened probably not a lot of time has passed.

Adding to that spiders live up to two years average according to a quick google and can live up to 20 in captivity… and of course this is a genetically altereted super spider, so in hindsgith I have to ask myself why that was one of my questoins to begin with.

Finally as for Ozcorp it's SOMEHOW still running. I mean a ceo's bad behavior not tankin ga company isn't unheard of: Papa Johns fired their racist as hell ceo and are doing just fine, and Tesla somehow manages to function despite it's ceo being Elon Musk. Really the questions I have say mroe about me than they do abotu the actual writing of htis comic.

Point is Prowler steals some neat stuff and accidently takes the spider with him. As for who he is.. well under the mask we'll naturally meet. As for overal the Prowler is new to this universe but is an old foe turned friend of spidey's in the main universe. Inventor Hobie Brown created a super villian persona in order to commit a crime, then return the money as himself to get funding. He fought spider-man about once, but the two became friends and Hobie wore the costume on and off. Prowler is also specail to mne as I had a guide to spider-man as a kid and the costume, backstory and intresting status as a former villian when most of spidey's foes really .. dont' stay reformed for long, comic books and all, have made him a faviorite of mine, and I ended up loving this version even more.

We then cut to our hero, Miles Morales, a kid about to enter middle school… and having to rely on pure chance to get into a good one. Miles is going with his parents, Jefferson and Rio to a charter school raffle something I still can't honestly belivie is a thing. A charter school is a fancy, private style school outside of the regular school system, that will have raffle for those in poorer areas and thus a child's future can literally be determined by a plastic ball. America everybody!

I love the choice by bendis to do this: Peter got to go to a pretty nice school simply by luck and where his grandma was, if a public one. For Miles to have a better chance.. he has to simply rely on luck and HOPE he gets it, and even fi he does.. it's at the expense of other kids who didn't quite make it.

You'll also have likely noticed the "Enter middle school part", especially if your more familiar with into the spider-verse, where he's 17 (even older than his 616 self), or most adaptations where he's a year or two older , usually to match peter. Yeah Bendis decided to further crank things up by making Miles way younger, forcing a child into this. I'm entirely used to this as most cartoons use 13 as the default age for their heroes, but it , like the ultimate universe did at it's best, uses htis realistically: this is a child thrown into this. Peter was only slightly older.. and the comic pulled zero punches showing how much this fucked with him. And now we'r ethrowing a younger chlid into an ultimate universe.. that's frankly only gotten worse; at this same time the goverments being torn down, more on that if I ever do any of the followup arcs, mutants are hunted and thrown into camps that are somehow legal, and new york just got flooded b y magneto 6 months ago. And i'ts only going to get somehow WORSE from there. A child is going to have to face all this.. and starts having to just wait for pure luck to get school.

While fate isn't on Miles side in inevetibly throwing him up against super villians, a collapsing us goverment and the end of the fucking world, TWICE, it is in getting into the Brooklyn Visions Academy. What I like is that artist Sarah Pichelli takes time to focus on two kids who DIDN'T get in and miles face after. It's simple but i'ts the clear guilt of a child who simply feels bad his getting a nice school means other kids didn't. HIs parents try to ease his guilt, but he ends up instead going later that day to visit his uncle Aaron. Uncle aaron.. both has solid advice.. and looks like this

Yup for whatever reason they decided to base Aaron on Snoop Dogg, and I for one loved his duet with kirby so i'm entirely for this

So i'm fully on board with this. Naturally Aaron is the prowler, and while he swipes whatever he stole from a curious miles, the spider bites his nephew, causing him to pass out. Naturally Aaron calls his brother.. who then accuses him of drugging his own nephew, yells at him, and is generally a dick, especially since while he told him to "stay away from my family".. MIles came here of his own free will and is ONLY here because Jefferson didn't tell Miles WHY he dosen't like his brother anymore. This naturally causes the small child to flee…., and to find out something new about himself.

Next issue Miles discovers he can also jump good and zap people, doing so when some idiots try to rob him.. but we also get a sense of WHY unlike both Peters, who were naturally excited to have dope new powers, Miles.. is fucking terrified. He thinks he's a mutant, and while we know he isn't, I was NOT joking about the camps thing. Since Magneto destroyed new yorks mutants are turbo hated and feared and if you've watched or read ANYTHING x-men related, you know the regular hated and feared is bad enough.

Miles goes to one of the best parts of this book and his best friend Ganke, a loveable chubby lego loving lad. It's a funny sequence at first as miles tries to do the invsiblity thing but instead looks like he's about to take a dump (Ganke's words) and then displays his other power by destroying.. something Ganke had been hard at work on with Ganke begging him not to try it again on something that took him three weeks.

Ganke thinks the powers are dope.. and is the rational one here, realizing that mutant powers wouldn't manifest overnight, and that he got bit by a spider with the bite suddenly disappering. They don't have time to figure things out as Jefferson tries to prove to his son he's a calm reatoinsal indivdual.. by barking at him to come with him and then asking him this

While Jefferson.. has good reasons… what I like about this is while he is sympathetic, something bad could've happened to miles.. and nearly DID had he not found out he has spider powers.. Jefferson is also an asshole, often far too stern and gruff at this point for his own good. It takes him a minute to get why maybe accusing his brother of hurting him, yelling at his son, then yelling at his son AGAIN and yanking him out of somehwere he feels safe might be rattling, and as we'll learn right after this.. Jefferson is a racist towards mutants, blaming them for things. What makes it work though is that he's complicated… his reason for being so hard on aaron.. is that both of them used to be criminals, which gives nice weight ot what Aaron said earlier: NEITHER of them want Miles to end up like them and to have a better life, not having to steal and do worse just to get by. The diffrence is Aaron stayed in the game while Rio convinced Jefferson to turn his life around. Granted his whole understandable speech about "You shoudl feel you can open up to me" gets ruined by his bigoted statments towards the all new all ultimate x-men a second later I hinted at, but it still shows Jefferson is'nt just an asshole or in the case of pre-character development 616 aunt may, an obstacle just so Miles can't easily reveal his identity. Instead Miles has good reason as his dad hates superheroes and may not have a heart attack but as we've seen can be quick to rash decisions. He'd come around eventually but to a 13 year old kid already scared at what he's becoming, this may not be something he wants to risk dealing with.

At any rate the next night Ganke texts miles with a bunch of message board bits that can basically be summed up as "Your a spider-man, spider-man, genetically altered spider-man" and a bit of celing crawling confirms this to Miles horror. Onto issue 3 as Miles naturally goes to Ganke again and I like the continuing contrast, likely mirroring the two types of reader this would hit: Ganke sees the escapism element and the awesome: MIles has fucking spider-man powers and now can be a spider-man. This is so cool! Miles… is the more realistic reaction, not wanting to throw himself in danger. Ganke also easily figures out that the spider was an experiment: miles mentioned numbers, normal spiders dont' have that, case closed. While Ganke is clearly operating off of a 13 year old nerd's perspective, he's not exactly wrong. He's also got a howard the duck shirt, which adds nothing to anything, I just think it's neat.

Ganke also convinces miles to go visit Aaron. Miles is reluctant given well.. everything that just happened yesterday, but Ganke has a point: he's the only one who'd know what the hell is going on and might be able to help them, sketchy or not. Naturally though after brothegeddon, Aaron has bugged out, pun not intended, as he had other buisness to attend to...

So Miles is on his own in figuring this out and finding a way to try his powers out

Cue plot convience as a fire has broken out and Miles charges in there to help… and once again we get a nicely realistic reaction: While Ganke is , like us an observer and sees what miles did as cool.. Miles is still a 13 year old that just charged into a burning buildling so while he did good and saved some people… he also is scared out of his mind, seeing the current spider-man as having action as his reward and loving it , not getting that peter was also scared out of his mind, but hey , that's part of why you wear the mask. He cries and decides not to do it and Ganke reluctantly agrees. It shows not EVERYONE would be super hyped to do this and not everyone has to: at the time there is STILL a spider-man. Ther'es no reason for miles to use these. .yet.

Our heroes get moved in, as naturally Ganke is Miles roomate along with Judge. He's mostly around to make hiding Miles identity difficult. He's alright. He likes legos. At any rate we get a nice montage of Miles having nice classes and being encouraged to read… before a not so nice nightmare of electro killing him…. and this turns out ot be prophetic as news of peter being shot has hit.. and his death is in progress.

Taking a moment between issues , i'd like to take a moment ot discuss how much I love the pacing here. While decompressed storytelling can be bad, there have been event comics that coudl've easily been a few issues shorter and didn't need tie in one shots and shit, this comic shows why when Bendis or others using it are at their best, it works well. We're three issues in and HAVNE'T seen miles really be spider-man yet. We saw it in ultimate fallout, but that was a jump foward and maybe a few pages, pages many readres probaly don't see. Yet everything here is important: it defines who miles his, who his family is, lets us meet hima nd get to know him as a shy, inquisitive, smart young man whose DEEPLY terrified of what he's been thrown into. Some comics would try to jam in flash fowards as him as a hero to get more action in.. but Bendis gets that's not really wha'ts important. It's awesome and the superhero stuff matters, it's why the comics called ultimate comics spider-man and not ultimate comics: miles morales, but who this character is, why he's doing this and why he does things matter> He's a kind, empathetic boy unsure of his place in the world. It's the key to a good superhero comic: you have to care about the hero or heroes at the core as a person, or it just dosen't work. And this.. this works.

So next issue, Miles has Ganke cover for him to go see what's going on and arrives just as Peter smashes norman's head in and collapses, being happy he could save those he loved as htey all sob. Miles saw peter's death and it was likely planned by Bendis he'd been there the whole time, but it's a nicely done retcon, if you can even call it that, as MIles is angeld off camera and the only thing we see from him is asking Gwen who he was.

And the next day… Miles blames himself. In a nice twist of fate… Peter is his uncle ben and his reasons for not having acted are way more undrestandable.. but it's understandable why Miles feels this way: he could've done something, he coudl've helped. Ganke does help again though.. this time not with wide eyed fanboying but again showing that while Miles is emotonally and empathetic and thus blames this on himself, Ganke his logical and thus uses the logic to help miles; He could've helped.. or he could've died too. He did get these powers for a reason.. but it wasn't to pitch in not knowing his powers and to die… but that with Peter gone… Miles can take up the mantle. It dosen't come off as wide eyed as before either but just one friend helping another realize both what he can do with his powers.. and that this death isn't his fault. Peter died a hero.. and while Miles could easily share the same fate he can also do what was right.

Miles isn't convinced though and they go to peter's funeral the next day. We do get a nice moment with Gwen Stacey. In this continuity Gwen was a close friend of peters, being his best friend besides MJ. They dated very breifly in the previous volume.. but it was clear Peter was still hunt up on MJ and only lasted to just before his death, and was never really something fans liked. Still she was close to him, a major supporting character.. and will continue to be here eventually. Not during this arc, she and Aunt Man, her legal guardian and surrgoate mom hence why the romance thing also felt kind of eugh, are going off to france for a bit to mourna nd do some work for tony stark (his mentorship of peter, while breifer and less involved, was taken from this universe), Miles does have a question: Why did he do it? and her answer.. is one of my faviorite moments int he book:

It sums up Spider-Man perfectly: He does it because something that wasn't his fault he still felt responsible for, it's the right thing to do and the mask is both because he wants to protect those close to him.. and because it looks fucking cool. As are you gwen, as are you.

That night Ganke brings Miles something from home: his halloween costume from last year.. the bombastic bag man@!

No of course it's spidey and this leads into the scene we saw earlier, miles first outing where he does beat the kangaroo if barely.. but everyone thinks him doing this is in bad taste. Aftewords Miles is understandably freaked given being told your disrepsecting the dead man your TRYING to honor isn't a great start, and the boys discover they can't lock the room as it isn't policy and the dorm guy's a real dick about it. Like.. did you tell them this at orentation? and if so WHY did you put locks on the rooms? I mean I get it if a shooter comes in or something but why not have electronic locks then. Also why would Miles being seen be an issue just say he was doing some cosplay, most people arne't going to connect the dots. What i'm saying is this scene, while necessary to set up the unique challenges miles has, is very dumb.

MIles decides to try again the next night though, and we get a nice bit of internal monologuin as he enjoys this… right before a bad case of boot to the head

It's obviously spider-sense. This isn't Funky Winkerbean.. but whose boot it is… isn't good for Miles

Okay so while the comic itself dosen't explain it, i'll explain who Spider-Woman is. In the Main Timeline it's.. a lot to unpack: She's a private eye whose dad experimented on her. It's a very long story ill get into more another time, possibly next year when we do this all again for Beyond the Spider-Verse with the spider-men and women from Across. I love her and her solo series which is on my very giant to do list.

This Jessica Drew has the same name.. but is actually a clone of peter complete with memories but as a woman, woh works closely with shield and has joined the ultimates. I don't know much about her, just that she saw peter like a brother for understandable reasons.. and that she's naturlaly very pissed at the small child wearing his costume without realizing it's a small child. So we've come to our final issue for today, and the confrontation.. goes how you'd expect. Jessica demands to know who Miles is… Miles not knowing there was a spider-woman or WHY she's taken this personally refuses, and it's a comedy of errors as she webs him up , he tries to go to the cops and she takes him to the Triskeleion, headquarters of the Ultimates and finds himself in a cell.. and in front of the ultimates, or at least Nick Fury, Jessica, Iron Man and Hawkeye. Cap is missing and that's a good thing. We'll deal with him, much like gwen, if we pick this up again another day.

For now Nick questoins what he actually DID, while Tony finds out he's enhanced to everyon'es shocked.. and Clint rightly points out Jessica could've asked him instead of laying in screaming. While it's understandable why she opened the coversation with boot to the head… it also meant MIles tried to you know run and get the police instead of actually talk to her. Nick Fury shoes everyone out. Nick is a bit more of a bastard here, and given 616 Nick Fury (the older one not the one resembling this nick whose that nick's son because comics everybody) tried to buy out Tony Stark's company to force him to make weapons again and once lead a bunch of heroes on an unsanctioned black ops mission he didn't tell them was unsanoctioned, that's a low bar to clear but manipulating other universers and basically telling Peter "When your 18 your ass belongs to me" before easing up into "Okay we'll just train you and stuff), he clears it.

He's more sympathetic here, clearly having grown a bit and thus is gentle with miles. While he's frustrated with miels just kind of nervously spouting off whatever, the humor in this book is really good and makes me question why Bendis is so awful at it not long after this, he's gentle asking if his parents want to let him know, letting him know he knows aaron was the one who gave him the spider.. and it turns out while Jefferson coudl've handled things better… yeah Aaron is an fbi wanted criminal not just a small time one so.. good call on keeping his son away. Or trying to anyway. Nick understands though: With great power comes great repsonsiblity. He also gets i'ts you know a child.

But naturally things can't go easy as Electro is under sedation..a nd the nurse gave him 10cc's instead ofa 100 meaning he's awake and pissed and starts rampaging through the triskelion, easily taking out iron man and hawkeye since… well Tony's suit runs on energy and Tony gets super cocky when facing electro instead of you know.. .readying a countermeasure, while Hawkeye.. didn't think to go get any arrows or equipment. EARTH'S MIGHTEST HEROES PEOPLE.

Jessica does slightly better but still gets jobbed out and Nick Fury, no matter the universe.. is still nick fucking fury and tries shooting him. It dosne't exactly work.. but ti's clear he's more trying to distract the guy and get his people clear than actually win. Unfortunately their in the chill of the night at the scene of a crime.. and while he may not be in a streak of light.. he's certainly arrived just in time

While obviously Miles isn't really on the skill level to beat electro normally, the combination of Electro thinking h'es peter and having a breakdown over it and a Venom Blast, the electricty thing hinted at earlier, powered punch get him weak enough for Nick Fury to play count the bullets with him. Electro is down and the next day Nick Fury says they'll talk.. and MIles finds out what that means that very conversatoin as jessica shows up with a new costume for him.

It's a nice parting and with that Miles now has his iconic costume, his one shot… and as Ganke puts it as his friend swings off having finally achieved his destiny

As you could probably guess I fucking love this arc and this run on the character in general. But this story well sets up who miles is, what the stakes are him for, stealthy sets up the big bad and miles first real threat for the next arc, and is an expertly crafted story about honroing legacy. While Into the Spider-Verse's story is mostly it's own, a LOT of the dna of who miles is was there at the start. As i've hinted at I do not like Brian Micheal Bendis, his writing took a hit and it was while writing several properties I loved with no regard for how to actually do that and he's only recently thankfully stepped away from the big two. But while he was there I can't deny he created two of the best spider-man runs of all time, one total if you count both spidey tenures together, and one of the best additions to spider-man period. Part of spidey's popularity is anyone could be behind the mask.. but this story made it a glorious reality, creating a spider-man just as compelling as one with a long storied history and tons of adaptations in 5 issues.

Will I return to Miles Story? Will you guys someday see what's up with his uncle, the country disolve, venom cost miles greatly, the rise of a new group of ultimates and so much more? Probably. When I can't say, that's up to either you guys to comission or me to fit into my schedule once this arc is done. But after reading this I was reminded how great this run was and how it deserved to be shared with webslingers all across the spider-verse

Next Time, we tackle our tritagaonist of this film series, as we look into the punkstastic origin of Spider-Woman, aka Spider-Gwen! Oddly not spider-punk, totally diffrent person we'll get to in that sequel I mentioned. Thanks for reading true beliviers.

[twst-drabbles]

I know you asked about the favorite fic question a while ago. But we shall call this fashionably late!

I’ve always got a sweet spot for the Octavinelle bunch! I was the one who requested the wind up toy one and Azul’s first words.

My favorite pieces are Octavinelle 3 and Savanaclaw, Scarabia, and Pomefiore 1. Honestly I couldn’t tell you how much I read them over the span of a couple of months. It was like a nightly ritual. I’m not sure what it was about those but I’d give them a quick read before bed and be immensely satisfied.

And a new favorite addition is the windup toy one. I love how you described Floyd more as observant in that one. And every time you described one of em punching the frog I imagined a peacock mantis shrimp punches. I can so vividly see the sand being scuffled about.

I’d have to say you’re like the famous last bite of a meal. Or a tart pastry! You don’t over sugar your stuff and I love ya for it! In fact you’ve become the only way I’ve been reading fluff nowadays and am eager to see more constantly! Which is so weird cause I’m an angst reader/writer 100%.

I really admire your short formatting of writing. At first I’ll admit I always wanted more but then I thought to myself what else could there possibly be to add? Thus I discovered your talent for endings! As you can tell from this long message, I always write a bunch so seeing impactful short stuff “by my standards”, will help with that issue I hope.

And lastly I really like how the caretaker can either be their own character or a self insert! I’d never go on any trips with Vargas yet here I am giving a pat on the back to caretaker and telling em good luck! Or how while I’m not the most avid Silver or Kalim enjoyer sometimes I’m like ok caretaker gimme the wheel again I think I’m starting to “L word” them a little more. Also nicknaming the Octavinelle bunch “little shits” is always super homey to me and it feels so right!

This is just a long winded thank you for what you’ve written thus far! I really enjoy everything you put out. And I can’t wait to breach into your oc blog. If you love angst I’m a great supplier in requests!- Signed yours truly Frosty!~

No need to worry, there isn't a due date to any of it and I'm always welcoming to such essays spouting what your favorites might be! It cheers me up no matter how late they may be.

I certainly do love messing around with the Octavinelle group as one of my family members actually used to take care of fish. I loved feeding them and just watching them swim from one end of the tank to the other. While, by all means, they're not your standard fish, it's still fun to sneak in a little fun fact about aquatic life when I can.

Actually, back in the middle of my high school years, I used to write rather long winded myself, as a result of all the old novels I would read that would have such a writing style.

Example from one of my oooooold pieces of writing down below, regarding a Church Grim.

It didn't make any noise whatsoever. It didn't leave footprints in the soft grass, or even a lingering stench on the tree's bark to indicate it might be something of this living world. But, there was nothing to remember it by, beside those angry red eyes that would shift into sight from under its smoking plume of black. It would take a glance at you, and you would stare back into it. Then it would be gone by letting its form be embraced by the shadows created from leafy tree branches. You can see it again through the lush trees blanketed by the cloudy purple night. You watched it float through the flower garden without a purpose, much like a piece of paper in the wind, shifting from one place to another in an effortless glide.

Well, actually I can still write like this, but it's not a writing style tailored for my decaying attention span. I have to be in a certain mood to really get into it. But yeah, I preserve this style specifically for horror writing and professional novel writing.

And yes the self insert certainly has a personality that it won't match your actions word for word, as the reader insert is a character, a part of the narrative, so they must have some amount of agency to keep the story going less they become replaceable with a lampshade or camera.

So, instead of going down the route of keeping the reader insert as blank as possible, might as well give them a personality that people will remember. Every time I write about the Caretaker, I feel like a little unseen ghost looking over their shoulder, just wondering what they'll do next.

Thank you Frosty for taking the time to write all that to me. It really cheers me up while I'm laying in bed, under mountains of blankets.

[gentleoverdrive]

(224/?) A new goddess emerged from the mist, she took the blade from my wrist!

Right, let's talk about Hyouka...

(this is how much of the series looks in general, because the Kyoto Animation peeps extensively plan their production cycles) ---- Hyouka is a series based on (and taking the name of) the first of a series of mystery novels called "Classic Literature Club", written by one Honobu Yonezawa, that takes place in the sleepy fictional town of Kamiyama (which is the city of Takayama in all but name). While it might easy to say "If you've played Persona 4, you get the gist of it", it's kinda not like that at all. For one, there is no murderer on the loose. What's there, though? A lot of small mysteries to uncover. ---- Whenever I see a new anime with the same old "Middle School or High School" setting, I tend to be on my guard. I've been through the same ol' song and dance too long as an anime watcher, so it's easy to want to keep your distance. Hyouka, however, manages to use the high-school setting to inject the mysteries with a surprising amount of endearing investment, especially given the "low stakes" of almost all of them. ---- The series has the stable of usual suspects when it comes to the cast for a mystery series that borrows a lot from the old canon, we have our "Sherlock Holmes"...

(yes, his social skills are as terrible as the OG; how can you tell?) ---- ...one Houtarou Oreki, a disaffected young man that lives by a very simple creed: "If I don't have to do it, I won't. If I have to do it, I'll make it quick." Unfortunately for our lazy anti-social boy du jour, he has his own Mycroft Holmes in the form of his older sister, who cajoles him into joining her old stomping grounds, the Classic Literature club, and when he gets there to submit his application, lo and behold...

(this is her at her most physically threatening) ---- ...he meets one Eru Chitanda, a girl with a kind personality, many incredible talents, and the curiosity of someone around half her age. She's like the one client that will always come back to ask for help. Rounding out the main cast we have our John Watson.

(the faces this posh boy pulls absolutely make this show) ---- ...the foppish Satoshi Fukube, a boy looking for some exciting shenanigans and the predisposition for facilitating the involvement of the club in said shenanigans if Miss Chitanda up there isn't able to budge our lazyboi out of his self-imposed stupor. And whenever there's a Holmes and a Watson, a Lestrade is not far be--wait...

(I'm mostly playing this up for the post; she's awesome too) ---- ...really? Ok, well there you have it: Rounding out the main quartet, this tiny firecracker here is Mayaka Ibara, a hot-blooded gal that also brings to the club's attention all sorts of mysteries and curiosities that they can sink their collective teeth into. ---- And while I mentioned a bunch of names and how they serve as spins of sorts on old characters from the Sherlockian canon, the series itself is a weird mix between the aforementioned low-stakes mysteries and the sort of slice-of-life occurrences that could liven things up for high-school aged kids in what has historically been one of (if not the one) the most isolated places in the Japanese mainland. ---- Quiz Contests involving a huge chunk of the school?

You got it! ---- Eating toast with jam on a lazy weekend morning, bedhead included?

You betcha! ---- Angry emotional outbursts for reasons that I highly recommend you to go watch the show and not make yourself a disservice?

Abso-fucking-lutely. ---- The series goes out of its way to treat the audience with enough respect that the solutions to the mysteries never feel insulting, the framework necessitating the stakes to remain "low" also ends up adding a lot of strength you wouldn't expect, and the emotional scenes will get your old ticker wondering what's going on. ---- All of this courtesy of Kyoto Animation at the absolute top of their game in all aspects, with scripts adapted to near-perfection and the direction always leaving that sensation of just wanting to see a little more. I amply recommend it! See ya' later, alligator!

[wanderfan2000]

“Wander and Mater, How I Made My Two Favorite Animated Characters Brothers, The TRUE Story!” Written by WanderFan2000.

or WanderFan2000′s CRAZY origin story of how she made Wander and Mater brothers all the way back in high school. The Story: It was the year 2016…

My favorite Disney animated series, Wander Over Yonder was starting off with the second part of The Dominator Saga, which in this case, this tale takes place on February 8, 2016. The date when the episodes, The Cartoon and The Bot aired. (I wasn’t exactly a He-Man fan, because as we Wander fans remember The Cartoon was Lord Hater created a cartoon to impress Dominator and the whole thing was definitely a love letter to the old 80s shows we grew up with like He-Man: Masters of the Universe and even Scooby Doo.) Okay, I’m getting off topic here, so let’s move onto the part where things got interesting.

It all began after seeing the Cartoon Wander on my TV screen for the first time and the MOMENT when I saw him riding Cartoon Sylvia, this is what I whispered to myself:

“I knew it! I knew they (Wander and Mater) were brothers!” - WanderFan2000 on February 8th, 2016. 

 When the newest WOY episodes were over that night and during the next day at school, I kept thinking about Cartoon Wander, how he definitely reminded me a LOT about Mater…

Then in about one second: a brand new obsession was BORN! 

The Drawings and Fan Art: After witnessing Cartoon Wander and ever so slowly becoming obsessed with the design, I decided to draw it along with Mater, (also in a space traveler form): 

The design your looking at here is actually the SECOND design for Mater in the WOY universe. Also, the buckteeth is a reference to Cartoon Wander as well.  But aside from the newly redesign I made for Mater, his brotherly adventures didn’t begin with him as a space traveler. They actually started when I settled on the final drawing design for the tow truck, which was the Little Golden Book form: 

I kept drawing this design a lot: 

Wander worried for Mater after he ate hot Wasabi. 

Wander and Mater having fun with each other.  But Mater didn’t start out as his LGB design, Mater started out with Wander, originally in his somewhat “3D” design I did for the tow truck: 

Wander and Mater doing a crossover in Mater and the Ghostlight. 

The Disney Pixar Brothers: After drawing Wander and Mater as brothers for…quite a while in high school, I decided on giving them both a name. Hitting Wander was from Disney and Mater was from Pixar, I suddenly came up with a name that was PERFECT for them: The Disney Pixar Brothers!  During this time, I loved quoting the ending quote from Epic Mickey, because it genuinely fits for Wander and Mater, bounding as brothers: 

The Disney Pixar Brothers.

Wander and Mater: The Disney Pixar Brothers. 

I sure had fun with drawing Wander and Mater as brothers. But until noticing that it was still hard for me to draw Mater as a tow truck, I settled on a new design for him, a space traveler! 

Tow Mater: The Space Traveler: 

Mater’s OG space traveler design didn’t have a hat like he has now, but I couldn’t find ANY of my OG Mater space traveler designs, so I decided to show pictures his new current design. 

Basically, Mater’s space traveler form consists of two things, his patched up hat to his dark blue shoes. Wander gave Mater his hat after encountering the Lemon Cars for the first time in an old BW city, complete with a Disney Store. (This was actually something I had going on in my brain back in 2016, because I have a CRAZY imagination!)

As I was giving Mater’s new form a go, there was no doubt he had a BUNCH of new adventures alongside Wander: 

Mater and Wander recreating a deleted scene from Cars 2. 

Definitely every little brother with their big brothers. XD (Also, OG space traveler design of Craig McCracken.) 

Mater and Wander doing a scene from Cars: Mater-National Championship. (I watched this cutscene on YT tons of time as a kid.) 

A Bond Between Two Brothers, The Cancelled Novel: 

During my new obsession with drawing Wander and Mater as brothers, I decided on one thing: write a novel about them. The novel was officially called: A Bond Between Two Brothers, which was going to be an origin story of how Wander and Mater become brothers. I still remember drawing a book cover for the story. I was ready to set out and write it, it unfortunately never came to be and A Bond Between Two Brothers was left on the drawing broad…But who knows? Maybe I’ll bring this old novel back someday… 

Into The Dark Ages: 

As many cartoons I came across, they always had those “dark elements” I love witnessing, whenever it’s Wander getting scared by the Phantomimes in The Heebie Jeebies or Mater getting captured in Cars 2. I knew I could definitely make some dark pictures featuring the brothers, better yet, pictures that would crush their spirits… 

I always had these ideas where Wander was in the Cars 2 universe, trying to rescue Mater from his captivity, but he ends up too late to rescue his brother, unfortunately, that can’t give me the idea of drawing Wander holding Mater as Mater gives a tried and defeated expression while Wander giving a terrified and scared expression at Mater’s captives. NTM, this is a trend that I still draw today.  The Conclusion: 

As I mentioned before, Wander and Mater’s brotherly bond have DEFINITELY took them to new heights, even in my fan made series, they love to refer to themselves as brothers. It’s funny how one simple episode from WOY gave me the inspiration to make Wander and Mater as brothers.

Plus, even in this new decade: Wander and Mater will ALWAYS be brothers!  The End. 

[cru5h-cascades]

Yet another book rant...

I'm gonna be upfront about this, y'all. I have absolutely nothing positive to say about the book I'm gonna be writing about here. I had to read this specific book for school last year and bloody hell this book left me with mental scars. It was to a point where I just couldn't read a full novel for MONTHS, and I LOVE READING. I've only recently decided to pick up Stephen King's Carrie to try to start reading again. If y'all have seen one of my RBs this morning, I think you all know what book I'm about to talk about. If you value your sanity, then please feel free to skip this post and never read the book I'm about to talk about in general...

Last year, for some god forsaken reason, my English teacher made my class read Like Water for Chocolate. Now, none of us didn't expect what hell we were going to be exposed to, but right when we were reading the first few pages, we learned what we were in for. Next to nobody liked this book. It left everyone with mental scars and it didn't help that we'd have to reaccount the events of this hellish book in class FOR A GRADE.

Now, you might think I'm basically writing about a lil' creepypasta about the book that I made with how I'm describing the book, but I'm serious. I have no idea what caused the teachers in my high school to let us read this book, and frankly I'm suprised nobody stopped to question the book that, at least to me, glorifies some not-so-great things (the main character, a ~16 year old, decides to marry someone way older than she is and is perfectly okay with marrying the dude who flat out did... stuff to her, to say the least). Do they want us to get into toxic relatonships? What can I even get from reading this book besides PURE FUCKING ANGER because almost everyone in this book is a fucking dick?!

Besides me beefing with the morals of this book, the other bone I have to pick with this book is that it's a GODDAMN ACID TRIP TO READ. Case in point: towards the end of the book, the main character and her lover decide to do the dirty and the MC's lover fucking dies in the middle of it, leading for the MC to eat a bunch of lit candles to set herself on fire (not how candles work I think 'cause would the fire just go out once she are the candle) (she didn't drink any booze before doing so so yeah) and I guess causes A FUCKING VOLCANO TO BE FORMED ON THE HOUSE?! OR AT LEAST JUST A MASSIVE INFERNO THAT GOES ON FOR WEEKS ON END AND THE ONLY THING THAT SURVIVED WEEKS OF BURNING WAS A GODDAMN COOKBOOK?! I get that the book is in the realm of ✨magical realisim✨ but said ✨magical realisim✨ hardly has any effect on the plot.

My god... the fact we even had to read this book for class pisses me off 'cause like I said it's almost like they didn't consider the contents of the book it's almost like they were like "oh shit we need a piece of Mexican liturature that can show non-Mexican students what Mexican culture is like oh how about this random Mexican novel surely it's just about a girl learning how to cook or something". I could have picked a better book for this damn unit, and I will do so RIGHT NOW.

If the school wanted to stick to the Mexican repersentation route, I'd suggest reading Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier. Absolute hood classic. The Mexican repersentation in this book is pretty good (keep in mind I am the child of a Mexican myself) and it's something that I think would keep the attention of high schoolers 'cause it's a graphic novel and it's relatable. There's no confusing morals in the book, either, so it'd be perfect for this kind of unit.

If the school wanted to tackle toxic relationships, than oh boy I'm four parallel universes ahead of the school 'cause I ACTUALLY MADE A UNIT TAKING ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN MY FRESHMAN YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL. Yeah! I made something talking not just about victims of DV and what they can do to get help but also talked about the abusers as well and how to confront that kind of situation! Anyways, I accompanied said unit with a good ol' book I read during a DV unit I had in 8th grade. Breathing Underwater by Alex Flinn is from the perspective of an abusive partner after getting a restraining order from his ex and accounts his journey to rehabilitation. The book shows what lead up to the restraining order, the effects something like that can have on the lives of others, and how abusive people become the way they are as the main character is a victim of abuse as well. I highly reccomend reading this book 'cause it's pretty good. The book also has a sequel called Diva from the previous MC's ex's perspective showing how she's moving on from that relationship and I really wanna get my hands on it.

But yeah those were my thoughts of Like Water for Chocolate and how I don't think it's the best book to have in a unit for English class. Or really how it's not a great book in general.

[fizzingwizard]

Solo-ing this book ask game this time~ wish I had more variety to offer but anyway it was fun. Skipped a bunch that I don't have time for/have poor answers to.

describe a book you’ve read in the last twelve months in freeform poetry

Silverchest by Carl Phillips. Very haunting and emotive poetry.

what was the first book you read from your favourite author (and what made you come back for more)?

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I didn't know anything about it the first time I read it, so the twist took me completely by surprise. I'm always so sad for new readers who probably already know about it thanks to the movies. It's not that the twist is so unique, but the build-up leading into it lets it really land the punch, and adds an extra layer of tragedy to the finale.

But it wasn't the twist that made me an Ishiguro fan. It's the depth of emotion and his view of humanity through such an honest lens. Of course I love Remains of the Day as well, and When We Were Orphans. I expected a similar twist with Klara in the Sun, but although there kind of is one, it's so much less dramatic - but there's something about that which works for the narrative just as well. I own The Buried Giant but it's still only part-read back at my mom's house.

share a cover that made you pick up a specific book (and how that turned out for you)

I no longer remember which cover it was! But it was The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I read it when I was 16 at a Halloween party when I felt partied out. It was on a book shelf at my friend's house. I think I was intrigued by both the title and the cover. Liked it a lot.

which non-fiction book had you glued to your seat and fascinated with each new chapter?

That's a toss up between Wild Swans by Jung Chang and The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. (I assume memoirs count.) The latter is such an intriguing depiction of a family dynamic and love and toxicity. The former is a thick book of mostly exposition that follows the writers' ancestors during the transition from Imperial China to communism. We were assigned only a small chunk of it in a high school class, but it was so fascinating that I read the whole thing.

name a book series you didn’t finish (and why)

I've picked up a lot of books that start a series and didn't make it past the first chapter, so I can't really count them. There is one book which comes to mind, but I can't recall the name of it anymore. It was a fantasy series that I read when I was 18 or so. It might be YA but either way I think I was too old for it, because I remember that after finishing the whole book I thought it was so insipid and cliche. Dunno if I'd still feel that way about it now, but I can't remember what its even called, so. Definitely didn't continue on to the sequels.

do you remember the first book you read by yourself?

no lol way too young. it was probably a babysitter's club or something.

which book can you turn to whenever things get worse?

Well I know this is probably a cop-out coming from me, but I really do feel calmer when I reread a Moomin book. They're so full of peace without sacrificing an ounce of sensitivity, and because they're children's books that even adults can love, I can read them quickly when I need to feel settled down. I really want to recommend them to friends and family, but I know it's also such a personal reaction that I just can't expect them to feel the same. I don't think my dad, especially, would be able to look past the funny characters with the silly names.

share the last book that made you experience an outburst of emotion — be that happiness, fear, shock, sadness, anger...

I'm going to go with The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. It's certainly not the "last" book I read, because other than Silverchest, Moomins, Klara in the Sun, Middlemarch, and a couple Jane Austen novels, I haven't been reading much recently. And I can't keep picking those ones over and over. XP But The God of Small Things is my long-time favorite for the way it shocks you, and rips you apart, yet remains so tender. recommend three (non-english) books you read in translation Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez if a stranger on the train wanted to make you fall in love with them instantly — which book would they have to read? Never Let Me Go, maybe, but I think I'd want them to like the poetry of Mary Oliver or Walt Whitman better, if we're talking bout love. share a quote that made you read a certain book (and how that turned out) as it happens, this quote from Silverchest: "At last, he's asleep. I can look at him the way I'm meant to." And it turned out very good. I'm glad I read these poems. Sometimes the sexuality made me uncomfortable, because I just don't read that sort of thing often. But what I love is that the poetry surrounded that very blunt sexuality is as beautiful and evocative as you could ask it to be, which elevates the eroticism and puts puritanical discomfort to shame. did you ever read a book because a show/film was coming out based on it? Bonus: did you watch the show/film and how did it hold up? Technically that's why I read Lord of the Rings, the first movie had just come out and I had been putting off my two friends who were trying to convince me to read the books. We were thirteen, and my best friend gave me a copy of FotR with the movie poster as the cover, and wrote a note inside that said "May this book open your eyes to the wonderful world of Tolkien!" Well, it did. Initially I had trouble getting through Tom Bombadil, but once I did I barreled through all three books before the Two Towers film came out. Much more recently, Good Omens, which I had never read before hearing of the TV show. I love both the LotR movies and the Good Omens TV show, which is interesting since adaptations can be very hit or miss for me. But it's a combo of the care that went into making them as well as just having excellent material in the originals. share a book that helped you evolve into the person you are now Definitely His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. I read those books in junior high and they were life-changing. I always loved scrappy girls like Pippi Longstocking and Anne of Green Gables. Matilda made me uncomfortable because she was so angry and vengeful but at the same time I loved her for it! But Lyra was the one who stayed with me the most, probably because the message of "lying is good"! Not really, but I mean, there is this whole undercurrent of rebelling against authority and trusting one's feelings which becomes loud and powerful in the final book. Lyra was so subversive for me and still one of my favorite characters ever. what kind of atmosphere/topic/theme are you currently most interested in? Lately what I want to read the most is books that are both realistic and loving. I don't want the love to be sacrificed for gritty realism, but I don't want realism sacrificed for cloying fluff. I'm looking for the kind of balance I want to see emulated more often in people's interactions with each other IRL. Instead of assuming "my neighbor is a monster," finding the human there. I think this is present a lot in Jane Austen novels.

[longjoomla]

Weatherman song sea shanty

#WEATHERMAN SONG SEA SHANTY FULL#

Sea shanties are not the first pandemic example of a virtual but collective musical experience that has ascended to the big trend of the day. Maybe it’s just because “Wellerman” is a great, boisterous bop of a song in any century.īut I don’t think so. Maybe it’s a coincidence that millions of TikTokers are finding delight in a centuries-old music genre meant to bind separate bodies together into one shared, cooperative action. We’re all stuck staring at tiny screens in our own tiny individual boxes, desperately wanting to sing loudly into a stranger’s face while knowing that singing loudly into a stranger’s face is incredibly dangerous right now. Every news story is about division, deadlock, anger, and the massive gulf between the left and the right. Right now, it’s not safe to gather in groups. They are unifying, survivalist songs, designed to transform a huge group of people into one collective body, all working together to keep the ship afloat. One person is the song leader, setting the pace and singing the verses, but the engine of the song is in the repeating chorus that everyone sings together over and over again. They’re songs with simple, blunt rhythms, meant to be easy to learn and easy to sing along with while doing the hard physical work of sailing a large fishing vessel. The sea shanty seems like the strangest possible pick for this year’s new, hot music trend, but as a longtime sea-shanty fan (what can I say, I’m the type who read Horatio Hornblower novels in high school), I’m here to tell you that sea shanties make so much sense for this moment, right now. The shock of getting lit to that is what we see register on the face of the dubious TikTok brother. There’s some overlap between sea shanties and African American spirituals that deserves a lot more attention, but the default picture of the sea shanty as a genre is a bunch of white European sailors bellowing “haul away Joe” in harmony. They’re songs about whaling and strong winds, and they sound the way a bowl of New England clam chowder looks: imprecise, sort of lumpy, and, not to put too fine a point on it, very white. Sea shanties are also resiliently uncool.

#WEATHERMAN SONG SEA SHANTY FULL#

Aside from the word Wellerman, they’re full of harpoons and pierheads and the specifics of butchering whales the most recognizable lyrics are lines about “rounding the Cape” and the love of bonny brown-haired lasses. Simplistic in structure, they are deliberately repetitive and full of ideas and references that feel very, very far from life right now. They sound like prehistoric oddities, which is part of the appeal. On the surface, it’s a little weird that digital culture in 2021 would become suddenly obsessed with 200-year-old folk songs about men on whaling boats. (According to a few different sources, a Wellerman” is an employee of the 19th-century Australian whaling company the Weller Bros., and the song is about company ships that would arrive to resupply whaling vessels.) They are both so in the song by the end, singing along happily even though it’s an ancient song and the word Wellerman has been lost to history. As with many of the best TikToks, it’s the naked, transparent sincerity that really sells the video. By the end he’s all in, singing along with the refrains and offering an “oooOO” of harmony as his brother sings the verses. First he’s skeptical of “Wellerman” and then he’s entertained by how much his brother likes it. The magnetic thing about that reaction TikTok is the way the dubious brother gets pulled in. My favorite addition is the sea-shanty reaction video, particularly this one, which has the caption “when I hand my brother the aux”:Ģ021 is the year of the sea shanty /ohOAGvkbtC- Tim - Poster of Hugo Pics January 11, 2021 “Wellerman,” the song that’s gotten especially big in the past few days, has now been remixed and performed by other singers, and other sea shanties have started to pop up. It wasn’t even the first performance of “ Wellerman” I’d seen - in the past month or so, spurred by a Scottish musician named Nathan Evans and others, sea shanties have become increasingly popular on TikTok and then shared widely on other platforms. It was not the first sea shanty I’d seen on TikTok. All of them were links to a TikTok video of several guys singing a song, a sea shanty from the 19th century called “Wellerman,” using TikTok’s duet feature. When I woke up last Friday morning, I realized I had several messages. SeaShantyTok keeps getting better /yWLEHzlPlB- Peter Fries January 8, 2021

[riallasheng]

I don't remember if I already asked one. 🤷‍♀️

How about Wasted Potential for the character ask?

Thanks!

You had not, and I thank you most happily for asking!! ^_^

Wasted potential, huh? this one's gonna be fun! XD

Fireball: Venus in the Century 21 / TV21 comics is the easy one, as she (like most of the female characters, sadly) basically was non-present in the comics. Which is an absolute crime because I ADORE how competent, calm, and capable (and kind!) Venus is.

BUT ignoring that for the moment to instead look at the show proper... Lt. Ninety I think. He was a TON of fun, I loved how he bounced off Zero and the XL5 crew, and the few times he got to be in the spotlight were absolute gems. (also, only Bereznik character in any of the SHOWS and one VERY old unofficial interview said that he and Penny were cousins! Which I totally made use of for my fics XD I can't FIND the darn interview again though, and I'm not even sure if it was audio or text, it's been so long. )

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Stingray: Rather like Venus, Marina and Atlanta got written out of the comics (although Marina at least got a fairly long running solo comic in the Lady Penelope comics!) so honorable mention for two wonderful characters who done got done dirty.

In the show PROPER.... Phones. No debate. Oh my giddy aunt I love Phones so much that he became the KEYSTONE member of my 'T.I.A.M.A.T. War time destruction crew' for fics that I sadly don't think can be recovered. He's as laid back as Virgil, but he's got SO MUCH HEART. Gentle, kind, level-headed (only member of the Stingray cast with people skills....) and fiercely protective of those he cares about. The guy was a MERC (which is freaking awesome! Imagine if instead of the 3 dream episodes we'd gotten flashbacks to 'before Stingray'! Show us Phones finding out about the WASP operation getting ambushed by Bereznik forces in South America!! Show him managing to save Troy and the two becoming friends! ) He's also damn smart. He apparently was a high school or college drop out, yet still managed to become a WELL KNOWN communications and hydrophone expert, then graduated as a Lewie from the WASP Academy (which is basically college courses for naval officers) in a YEAR. That is really impressive!!

He balances hot headed impetuous Troy (and Atlanta... and Commander Shore) beautifully, always willing (and ABLE) to pull his skipper out of whatever he's gotten them all into this time. We don't get to SEE it often, but he's a skilled mechanic (Emergency Marineville should have been HIS episode dangnabit), and it's implied he's also a decent cook. Both of which are VERY much the opposite of Troy (Mr. I could set a pot of water on fire and can't tell an oven from a radio). He isn't a super genius like pretty much every tech character has been since Supercar... he's... more a jack of all trades who happens to excel at sound related matters.

I like that he has no DESIRE to be in the spotlight, in fact he seems happier in Troy's shadow... but I do wish we could have seen him get to be kickass a bit more often. He DOES get to be a bit more of a badass in the comics and annuals (Troy gets his hot headed butt captured in Bereznik and Phones just battles his way in to rescue him! In Marinevill Traitor (last comic story for Stingray) Troy gets framed for a bunch of shit and goes AWOL and Phones eventually catches up with him and HELPS HIM prove his innocence! There's a comic about... halfway? through Stingray's run where a (Bereznik it's implied) assassin tries to kill Phones and Phones KICKS HIS ASS.

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Lady Penelope: hmmm.... Richard Lyon I think. He gets to do SOMETHING in the first Penny Novel (Cool for Danger) but outside of that he borders on a cameo, which is too bad because he comes across as a rather interesting character, and we always learn a lot about Penny herself and her past when he's around.

TAG Penny: not sure I have one here. ^^

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Thunderbirds: TinTin and Grandma get honorable mentions for the once again absolute CRIME of being written out of the comics. Seriously, comics, why must you have done that?! i love so many of your stories and characters but still!!! In the show proper. John. Poor John. I know WHY it happened (heck, I even can understand it) but he was still such a fun character with what little screen time he got. As dry in wit as Scott, SNARKY as all hell, a communications expert, a bit shorter of a fuse in temper than most of the Tracy boys (not as short as Alan, but not as laid back as Scott and Virgil) and also a bit impatient and VERY stubborn. He's smart, well AWARE of the fact that he's smart, and at times seems like he doesn't like waiting for others to catch up with him. He cares deeply and feels strongly about things, and is VERY honest and forthright. He doesn't mince words, just says what he thinks clearly and plainly, no word games. He really only got cameos in all media until TAG, but we do get to see and learn a lot about him in Danger at Ocean Deep and honestly his snark, impatience, and just... EVERYTHING really made me fall in love with his character - there's a reason he's been my second favorite of the bros since I was a kid XD

TAG: Hmmmmm... still only on my first watch through of the series, but I'm gonna go with the Mechanic. I think he had the potential to be quite interesting and he (like EOS) just kinda... seems to vanish and not be used much after Season 2? ...Also I STILL think there is a MASSIVE wasted opportunity to have had him be KYRANO. I mean he SEEMS to be an adult instead of a teen/young adult (to me at least) and the way the Hood was controlling him to threaten the Tracy family could ahve been a cool evolution of the TOS AND it could have carried the Kayo / Hood interactions forward out of S1 and added a new dimension! Auuuuugh. Just. IT COULD HAVE BEEN AMAZING!!!

04 film: Scott, Virgil and Gordon. You literally could replace EVERY ONE of their scenes by having one of the other characters doing it (Jeff and John mostly). Hell it's actually a bit confusing which one is which. (Actually there were rumors that originally Jeff was missing / killed by the Hood and Jeff's role was SCOTT'S, explaining his much more active role and why he was DRAMATICALLY younger and... I kinda would have liked to have seen that)

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Captain Scarlet: (At least the Angels aren't written out of the comics all that much! Plus they had their own rather fun solo run over in the Lady Penelope comics). Hard pressed between Grey and Magenta, and gonna go with Grey just becuase I love him in Winged Assassin and afer that episode he just... basically cameos, i think he only really gets lines again in Manhunt and he only SHOWS UP in like 12 episodes in total, most of that non speaking cameos. :/ (although I do have a point of umbridge with his and Green's bios. ...both say 'newly formed WASP' when Wasp was formed sometime in 2040. That is NOT newly formed. Also Stingray makes it clear that the sub is still fresh and untested and Phones and Troy are refered to as her first crew, so Grey being Stingray's original captain doesn't... work. (Which is sadly a bit of an issue with more than one CS bio. ...Dianne has a funny one as a result of a mixup that had the CS bio writers thinking TBs were set in the 2020s, as Dianne was TRAINED by a 'retired' Penny... even though the two are only 3 or so years apart in age.)

New Captain Scarlet: ooooo another tough one. ....I ADORE nOchre and nGrey and wish they'd gotten more screen time and narrative focus! nHarmony was also fantastic and just tons of fun whenever she was on screen. I guess I'd probably go with nOchre if I had to choose just one. She's this fiesty little gung-ho rambo and I love every second she's got on screen (Harmony and Grey are in REALLY CLOSE COMPETITION THOUGH)

[tricktster]

the twilight series suddenly makes 100% more sense if you read them under a specific premise that, i contend, is heavily supported by the text:

Much like Amy’s diary in Gone Girl, the books in the Twilight Saga are verbatim reproductions of in-universe diary entries carefully and deliberately created and curated by badass unreliable narrator Bella Swan as a means to achieve immortality.

Prerequisite assumptions:

1) Bella actively and persistently wants to become a vampire, both diagetically and (I contend) non-diagetically. The average vampire novel format often fails to capture realistic human behavior in one highly specific area: the protagonists are frequently mortals who grapple with the choice of whether to become a vampire. This is stupid, because being a vampire would obviously be dope as hell; particularly in the Twilight Universe, where vampires are not required to take a human life to survive, and indeed, have the capacity to live full and rewarding lives while integrated* into the human community.

(*integrated-ish; see Assumption 6)

2. There are too many coincidences for Bella to have encountered the Cullens by sheer chance, only to be the ONE person that Edward can’t live without (due largely to the novelty factor of not being able to read her ding-dang thoughts.)

3. Diagetically, the Volturi don’t even know Bella’s psyonic gifts until New Moon, but we also know that the Volturi scour the globe for recruits to enlist into the protection of their governing body.

4. Nobody wants to be a voiceless cog in a bureaucracy.

5. Nobody, and especially nobody in high school, wants to be a high school student forever.

6. Vampires in twilight are, as a group, cartoonishly terrible at disguising their true nature.

7. Forks is a backwater town approximately 3.5 hours away from the biotech hub of Seattle.

7. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney can eat my farts and they deserve to be preserved in this snapshot of an innocent author’s mind slowly unraveling.

Proposed timeline:

In 1993, there is a key system meltdown at a improvised biohacking startup in Seattle, rendering all innovative genetic modification experiments into a puddle of brown sludge that nobody can figure out how to dispose of per Federal regs, since they don’t even know what it is.

The broke founder of the startup, who for the purposes of this timeline I will call Jeff Bezos because that’s who it was, eventually grows tired of all the discussion about what to do, and just pops it in a barrel, drives a few hours out of town, and dumps it in a pond.

Bella Swan, a small child, is hanging out at a park with her family friend Jacob Black (and a ton of his friends) when they all decide to wade in a slightly murky pond. Thereafter, they are transformed.

Bella grows up as a normal, highly powerful mutant with a +20 to deception checks and wisdom saves. She lives in Arizona, but up until 2002, summers in Forks. While in Forks, she picks up on the local lore about a family of vampires who don’t eat people.

Because Forks (population: 17 + Charlie’s mustache) is boring, Bella bones up on the only interesting thing about it, i.e. Vampire Hometown baybeeeee.

In 2000, George W. Bush gets elected president, and his evangelical politics and general bumbling ineptitude informs Bella’s opinions on authoritative governmental entities.

In 2001, the Cullens make their intention to move back to Forks known, but they take a while because they need to pack all their stupid graduation hats and volvos, etc.

Later in 2001, a psychic Volturi scout rolls through Forks to ensure that nobody within living memory recalls the Cullens, and notices an anomaly in the psychic field.

The scout goes to confront Bella about joining the Volturi, and Bella immediately clocks him as a vampire, because vampires in the Twilight Universe fucking suck at looking/acting human. This leaves the scout in a bind: she’s too valuable to kill, but she’s a pre-teen, and therefore too young to be transformed per Volturi authority.

The scout warns her he’ll have to kill her if she discusses the existence of vampires with any human. He then tells her he’ll be back in five years, and begins to sweet talk her on how good life will be when she’s a vampire, beautiful, immortal, powerful, etc. Bella asks if she has to kill, and dude says “nah, actually there’s a bunch of vegetarian vampires who are moving back here soon. Fucking nerds, but otherwise they’re doing well.” Bella is all about becoming a vampire, because Bella is a rational actor.

Bella moves to Arizona, and as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are unjustifiedly initiated, she recognizes that while she DOES want to be a vampire, she does NOT want to be a foot soldier in any war that she can’t support. She needs a plan.

In 2004, Bella is watching her step-dad’s minor league baseball game when it occurs to her. On her own, she’s a target for the Volturi, but if she had some people to watch her back, she might be okay. Of course, nobody fucks with the Volturi on behalf of some rando human. She’ll need to con her way into a coven who’ll have her back and also give her that +10 to constitution via vampiric transformation, which she desperately wants because she’s a rational actor. And where are the non-volturi vampires that might have her back? Fucking Forks.

Bella moves to Forks in 2004, and upon seeing the Cullens, she immediately clocks them as vampires even though they left their “we’re all vampires” booty shorts at home, because, as previously discussed, vampires in the Twilight Universe fucking suck at looking/acting human.

Bella notes that all the vampires but one are paired off in heterosexual bliss, and takes note of the straggler as a potential vehicle to vampyrdom.

Bella figures out that Eddie can read everyone’s mind but hers, because Edward Cullen fucking sucks at looking/acting like a human who can’t read minds. Bella further observes that Eddie has a huge undead boner for her.

She’s found her mark. Now she just needs to convince him that she’s better off as part of the coven than on her own. Problem: Eddie’s a self-pitying insufferably guilt-striken perpetual adolescent who keeps himself busy by feeling sorry for himself because he’s a vampire, angst angst angst etc etc. Also, I think he’s Catholic, so add some more guilt in. She’ll have to win him over by convincing him that they’re destined to be soulmates.

What does a vampire used to having complete insight into everyone’s mind but his crush’s want? A method to know what she really thinks of him. Bella begins writing a “diary” knowing that there’s no way in hell Eddie won’t sneak in and read it. So she Gone Girls it, and begins to lay a trap to lure him in. That first diary? Twilight.

This was just in the movie but a stoner chases her around with a worm on a stick. Nothing to do with this theory, I just like that part of the movie. Where’s my spinoff about that guy?

Eddie won’t give Bella what she wants (eternal life) by the end of book 1, even though she asks him to EXTREMELY POLITELY. Time to hit the diary with some more promises of undying love.

Bella reconnects with her old friend Jacob and the rest of the Mutated By Jeff Bezos Boys. Alas, they cannot turn her into a physically powerful sexy immortal with a bite, so she’s still stuck with plan A) win over a whole family of vampires with big Mormon energy. It’s the long con.

Edward’s angst abruptly takes a swing towards terminal. He’s absolutely your classic sadboy, perhaps because Bella now has one (1) friend that he knows about.

When Eddie begins to drift away on account of Angst, Bella conjurs up a secondary love interest who, coincidentally, is ALSO a sexy supernatural entity, and is much less coincidentally just Jacob.

We should establish here that Edward is like a 107 year old white dude and so even though Diary!Bella pretends not to see it, Metatextual Frame Story!Bella knows that dude is super racist.

Jacob Black is three things: 1. Like Bella, a mutant (although one with shapeshifting abilities), 2.one of Bella’s oldest and most trusted confidants, and 3. down to clown on an elderly teenage vampire who keeps stereotyping him. Sure, says Jacob, I’ll take the form of a werewolf. He seriously thinks we’re all just beastmen, huh? Hey look at me now, I’m Regis Philbin because this is 2005 and Who Wants to be a Millionaire is still sort of relevant. Sick.

Edward does not like that Bella has one (1) other friend. Bella and Jacob plot to use this to their advantage and lure Edward back on the wings of jealousy.

Eddie gets himself into trouble on account of Angst and poor communication, so Bella has to go rescue him from himself/the Volturi.

Aro finally meets her and gets to test her powers, which impress him. Now she’s back on the fucking radar.

I forget everything that happens in Eclipse, so i have chosen to omit that part.

Eventually she extracts a quid pro quo from Eddie; i’ll marry you if you turn me into a dracula.

We don’t really call ourselves that, Wet Blanket Cullen replies, entirely earnestly.

Bella gets married at 18 in 2006, and Eddie starts to backtrack his promise about changing her. This won’t stand.

Well, look, he’s an elderly guilty catholic/mormon teen who probably still uses super racist terms, but she’s stuck on honeymoon island, he has certain angles that work for him, and seriously what are they gonna do but fuck? Bella’s alternative is listening to her “husband” drone on about his interests, which are almost certainly Car, How Do I Post a Minion Picture on Facebook, and Licorice Used To Be a Lot Cheaper in the Good Old Days.

Whoops a fetus.

Bella recognizes that she’s GOT to have this baby: time’s running out, and Bella knows that at least two of the Vamps in her coven will cut ties if she terminates or otherwise fails to carry this baby to term because of the conservative religious subtext. She’s going to have to stick it out for 9 months, even though it’s a risky call.

Bella gets what she wants after giving birth. “My time as a human is over, but I've never felt more alive. I was born to be a vampire.” That’s a direct quote. Except now she’s got a (pretty cute and easy) baby that she desperately wants to protect from Turning Into A Vaguely Religious Cullen Dressed Head To Toe In Cream Colored Wool.

Bella decides to fake her own death and escape with the kid and Jake so they can form i guess a detective agency. Bella will get “killed” by the Volturi, move to Sydney, and open up shop, and Jake will take the kid after her a few months later.

They’re gonna need a reason why Jake gets the kid though, and there’s only one reason to do anything amongst the Cullens: a heterosexual love interest with a super problematic age gap.

Jesus, Jake sighs, is Eddie really going to believe I’m in romantic love with your actual infant? Does he really think that little of me?

Yup.

Bella tries to draw the Volturi’s attention.

Works too well.

The Cullens call up all their vague acquaintances, who are at least kind of fun. Particularly that one dude who keeps getting angry about British conduct during the American Revolution.

Well, fuck, now the Volturi are bringing an army to fight their ragtag army of Vampires Who Are Cool And Interesting Enough That We Can Safely Presume They Are All Definitely Gay. Bella can’t let those guys die, they’re the first actually compelling vampires she’s ever talked to.

Bella saves the day because she’s OP.

All the Cool Vamps start packing up to leave and Bellz almost goes with them, but the Cullens would just keep sending missionaries after her if they knew.

Bella finishes her fourth journal with the vague warning that the Volturi are still out there somewhere and they miiiight just try and get her.

Two days later, she stages a scuffle and gets the fork out of Fucks. Her journals are the only clue.

Sirius Black and baby nessie follow once edward has stopped sobbing into his cream colored sweater and moved on to Extended Power Pouting.

Bella recruits her own army of fledglings.

Bella stages a coup against the Volturi and succeeds.

Bella sits on the iron throne with a hot lady vampire on each knee and they all kiss and stuff.

Nessie I guess forms a post punk band?

Edward dies from aspiration of a brussel sprout that he ate because he just wanted to feel something.

Charlie and Billy get married.

Charlie’s mustache develops a cult instagram following, providing them with a modest retirement income.

Jacob shapeshifts into Bill Murray and is always crashing weddings.

Bella’s stepdad is off in the B plot this whole time winning the world series with the help of a kooky angel.

There. Fixed. My soul is at rest.