#it's not about inventing it's about putting things on a board and forcing a connection

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

How do you manage to just come up with whole new environments/ecosystems?? I still come back to your "i think you're so good (and i'm nothing like you)" because I was so impressed by the way you portrayed the abyss there<3

my brain knows no rest

[tensaiproductionz]

I know I have really no right to mention this as I’m not solely in the Chainsaw Man universe, but I just realized something that I wasn’t sure would connect.

The original invention for a chainsaw had nothing to do with wood or violence - but I had everything to do with trying to help someone give birth.

Around the late 17th century, Scottish doctors by the name of John Aitken and James Jeffray, created an item that was to be used in symphysiotomy, which was to widening of the pubic symphysis. What this means is that it was suppose to force open the canal opening/cut it open because babies had often had trouble being able to get out of the birthing canal due to their heads. This instrument was a prototype that was a hand cranked chainsaw with a chain like from a watch, specifically for this medical purpose, and would be later made into a more refined version of a chainsaw by orthopedist Bernhard Hein in 1830s. It wasn’t until 1883 when the chainsaw would be used for the purpose of only for board cutting, with later inventions going to what we know as straight wood cutting as time passed.

Yet another thing I’ve noticed is that when Pochita/Chainsaw man actually eat someone, they disappear from existence - does not matter if you’re a devil or a mortal or a concept - you are erased from memory, history, and from the face of the planet. The funny thing about life is that you cannot stop life from being born - every generation before and after will continue on until the end of days - yet because of that it has put pressure on living beings to adapt or die in the process. Many species have died and have been forgotten about from this, and while there are the rare skeletons and impressions left in dirt or rock, to show they existed, they cannot tell the story of how they got there, and the way they died. Nature will take and often bury those that came before us, along with the history and knowledge they once had. It would be appropo to assume that even certain concepts and ideas have been lost and forgotten to time and history, and there’s no way to be able to get them back even if we have books, documents, fossils, etc that we could look at and judge an estimate. Life, even if it’s abundant and constant, has always taken and removed metaphorical ideas and objects, and made us unable to remember them unless we actively try to preserve their history, or try to seek them out.

So it made me think of the idea of Pochita - and maybe another devil - had fused together to create an entity that both erases but also allows life to flourish. Why they refer to him as mainly Chainsaw man because he is neither the former or the latter anymore - they had created a new entity, and that’s what is present as of right now. Heck, even the organ scarf I’ve seen him have makes me think of an umbilical cord - something that often happens to babies while they’re still in the womb - and desperate to get affection like a baby that lost its mother cause the dude just wanted a hug.

Idk, maybe I’m bullshitting and maybe this theory doesn’t come out as true, but it’s a pattern I’ve noticed, and was curious if someone else thought it up.

[niseamstories]

10 Lessons on Realistic Worldbuilding and Mapmaking I Learned Working With a Professional Cartographer and Geodesist

Hi, fellow writers and worldbuilders,

It’s been over a year since my post on realistic swordfighting, and I figured it’s time for another one. I’m guessing the topic is a little less “sexy”, but I’d find this useful as a writer, so here goes: 10 things I learned about realistic worldbuilding and mapmaking while writing my novel.

I’ve always been a sucker for pretty maps, so when I started on my novel, I hired an artist quite early to create a map for me. It was beautiful, but a few things always bothered me, even though I couldn’t put a finger on it. A year later, I met an old friend of mine, who currently does his Ph.D. in cartography and geodesy, the science of measuring the earth. When the conversation shifted to the novel, I showed him the map and asked for his opinion, and he (respectfully) pointed out that it has an awful lot of issues from a realism perspective.

First off, I’m aware that fiction is fiction, and it’s not always about realism; there are plenty of beautiful maps out there (and my old one was one of them) that are a bit fantastical and unrealistic, and that’s all right. Still, considering the lengths I went to ensure realism for other aspects of my worldbuilding, it felt weird to me to simply ignore these discrepancies. With a heavy heart, I scrapped the old map and started over, this time working in tandem with a professional artist, my cartographer friend, and a linguist. Six months later, I’m not only very happy with the new map, but I also learned a lot of things about geography and coherent worldbuilding, which made my universe a lot more realistic.

1)  Realism Has an Effect: While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with creating an unrealistic world, realism does affect the plausibility of a world. Even if the vast majority of us probably know little about geography, our brains subconsciously notice discrepancies; we simply get this sense that something isn’t quite right, even if we don’t notice or can’t put our finger on it. In other words, if, for some miraculous reason, an evergreen forest borders on a desert in your novel, it will probably help immersion if you at least explain why this is, no matter how simple.

2)  Climate Zones: According to my friend, a cardinal sin in fantasy maps are nonsensical climate zones. A single continent contains hot deserts, forests, and glaciers, and you can get through it all in a single day. This is particularly noticeable in video games, where this is often done to offer visual variety (Enderal, the game I wrote, is very guilty of this). If you aim for realism, run your worldbuilding by someone with a basic grasp of geography and geology, or at least try to match it to real-life examples.

3)  Avoid Island Continent Worlds: Another issue that is quite common in fictional worlds is what I would call the “island continents”: a world that is made up of island-like continents surrounded by vast bodies of water. As lovely and romantic as the idea of those distant and secluded worlds may be, it’s deeply unrealistic. Unless your world was shaped by geological forces that differ substantially from Earth’s, it was probably at one point a single landmass that split up into fragmented landmasses separated by waters. Take a look at a proper map of our world: the vast majority of continents could theoretically be reached by foot and relatively manageable sea passages. If it weren’t so, countries such as Australia could have never been colonized – you can’t cross an entire ocean on a raft.

4)  Logical City Placement: My novel is set in a Polynesian-inspired tropical archipelago; in the early drafts of the book and on my first map, Uunili, the nation’s capital, stretched along the entire western coast of the main island. This is absurd. Not only because this city would have been laughably big, but also because building a settlement along an unprotected coastline is the dumbest thing you could do considering it directly exposes it to storms, floods, and, in my case, monsoons. Unless there’s a logical reason to do otherwise, always place your coastal settlements in bays or fjords.

 Naturally, this extends to city placement in general. If you want realism and coherence, don’t place a city in the middle of a godforsaken wasteland or a swamp just because it’s cool. There needs to be a reason. For example, the wasteland city could have started out as a mining town around a vast mineral deposit, and the swamp town might have a trading post along a vital trade route connecting two nations.

 5)  Realistic Settlement Sizes: As I’ve mentioned before, my capital Uunili originally extended across the entire western coast. Considering Uunili is roughly two thirds the size of Hawaii  the old visuals would have made it twice the size of Mexico City. An easy way to avoid this is to draw the map using a scale and stick to it religiously. For my map, we decided to represent cities and townships with symbols alone.

 6)  Realistic Megacities: Uunili has a population of about 450,000 people. For a city in a Middle Ages-inspired era, this is humongous. While this isn’t an issue, per se (at its height, ancient Alexandria had a population of about 300,000), a city of that size creates its own set of challenges: you’ll need a complex sewage system (to minimize disease spreading like wildfire) and strong agriculture in the surrounding areas to keep the population fed. Also, only a small part of such a megacity would be enclosed within fantasy’s ever-so-present colossal city walls; the majority of citizens would probably concentrate in an enormous urban sprawl in the surrounding areas. To give you a pointer, with a population of about 50,000, Cologne was Germany’s biggest metropolis for most of the Middle Ages. I’ll say it again: it’s fine to disregard realism for coolness in this case, but at least taking these things into consideration will not only give your world more texture but might even provide you with some interesting plot points.

 7)  World Origin: This point can be summed up in a single question: why is your world the way it is? If your novel is set in an archipelago like mine is, are the islands of volcanic origin? Did they use to be a single landmass that got flooded with the years? Do the inhabitants of your country know about this? Were there any natural disasters to speak of? Yes, not all of this may be relevant to the story, and the story should take priority over lore, but just like with my previous point, it will make your world more immersive.

 8)  Maps: Think Purpose! Every map in history had a purpose. Before you start on your map, think about what yours might have been. Was it a map people actually used for navigation? If so, clarity should be paramount. This means little to no distracting ornamentation, a legible font, and a strict focus on relevant information. For example, a map used chiefly for military purposes would naturally highlight different information than a trade map. For my novel, we ultimately decided on a “show-off map” drawn for the Blue Island Coalition, a powerful political entity in the archipelago (depending on your world’s technology level, maps were actually scarce and valuable). Also, think about which technique your in-universe cartographer used to draw your in-universe map. Has copperplate engraving already been invented in your fictional universe? If not, your map shouldn’t use that aesthetic.

9)  Maps: Less Is More. If a spot or an area on a map contains no relevant information, it can (and should) stay blank so that the reader’s attention naturally shifts to the critical information. Think of it this way: if your nav system tells you to follow a highway for 500 miles, that’s the information you’ll get, and not “in 100 meters, you’ll drive past a little petrol station on the left, and, oh, did I tell you about that accident that took place here ten years ago?” Traditional maps follow the same principle: if there’s a road leading a two day’s march through a desolate desert, a black line over a blank white ground is entirely sufficient to convey that information.

10) Settlement and Landmark Names: This point will be a bit of a tangent, but it’s still relevant. I worked with a linguist to create a fully functional language for my novel, and one of the things he criticized about my early drafts were the names of my cities. It’s embarrassing when I think about it now, but I really didn’t pay that much attention to how I named my cities; I wanted it to sound good, and that was it. Again: if realism is your goal, that’s a big mistake. Like Point 5, we went back to the drawing board and dove into the archipelago’s history and established naming conventions. In my novel, for example, the islands were inhabited by indigenes called the Makehu before the colonization four hundred years before the events of the story; as it’s usually the case, all settlements and islands had purely descriptive names back then. For example, the main island was called Uni e Li, which translates as “Mighty Hill,” a reference to the vast mountain ranges in the south and north; townships followed the same example (e.g., Tamakaha meaning “Coarse Sands”). When the colonizers arrived, they adopted the Makehu names and adapted them into their own language, changing the accented, long vowels to double vowels: Uni e Li became “Uunili,” Lehō e Āhe became “Lehowai.” Makehu townships kept their names; colonial cities got “English” monikers named after their geographical location, economic significance, or some other original story. Examples of this are Southport, a—you guessed it—port on the southernmost tip of Uunili, or Cale’s Hope, a settlement named after a businessman’s mining venture. It’s all details, and chances are that most readers won’t even pay attention, but I personally found that this added a lot of plausibility and immersion.

I could cover a lot more, but this post is already way too long, so I’ll leave it at that—if there’s enough interest, I’d be happy to make a part two. If not, well, maybe at least a couple of you got something useful out of this. If you’re looking for inspiration/references to show to your illustrator/cartographer, the David Rumsey archive is a treasure trove. Finally, for anyone who doesn’t know and might be interested, my novel is called Dreams of the Dying, and is a blends fantasy, mystery, and psychological horror set in the universe of Enderal, an indie RPG for which I wrote the story. It’s set in a Polynesian-inspired medieval world and has been described as Inception in a fantasy setting by reviewers.

Credit for the map belongs to Dominik Derow, who did the ornamentation, and my friend Fabian Müller, who created the map in QGIS and answered all my questions with divine patience. The linguist’s name is David Müller (no, they’re not related, and, yes, we Germans all have the same last names.)

[snackleggg]

City of splintering hopes: Chapter 2 "Cave of stars"

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Ao3

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Danny woke up Saturday morning feeling well rested and refreshed, so he was immediately suspicious about what the day would bring. The last time he had woken up feeling so well was before The accident so roughly 2 years of either nightmares, insomnia, or a ghost waking him had him jumpy at the prospect of a good night's sleep.

He did all his usual checks to make sure nothing was wrong but as he headed down for breakfast it seemed that everything was perfectly fine. Suspicious.

Danny just shrugged though as he ate his almost certainly ecto-contaminated cereal before leaving the house as quickly as possible to avoid helping his parents test any new inventions. Of course he always kept an eye on whatever they were creating, in case it was anything actually dangerous he would need to destroy but the day had started suspiciously well and he wanted to keep that good times streak going for as long as possible. Not getting hit in the head with the boo-merang was something he was eager to do.

He quickly met up with Tucker and Sam at the Nasty burger but as they talked about school and which ghosts they were betting on appearing today Danny felt weighed down as the events of yesterday found their way back to the forefront of his thoughts.

"Hey, earth to Danny" Sam said, snapping her fingers infront of his face. Oh, he must have spaced out.

"We know you wanna be an astronaut dude but don't you think it's a little early?" Tucker joked between stuffing his face full of fries.

Danny chuckled at his friends attempt at humor but it came out more forced than anything "Sorry, just thinking about some stuff. Can I get your guys opinion on something?" Danny asked and both Sam and Tucker gave him their full attention as he started explaining what had happened yesterday.

At the end of the recounting Tucker exclaimed "Yes! You should totally go!" Loud enough to get a few heads turned but he quieted himself down and soon everyone at the fast food joint was once again minding their own business.

"It does sound like a good opportunity. Plus it's not like anything bad is guaranteed to happen. My prediction is worst case scenario you come back with nothing new" Sam said with a shrug.

"Yeah, I guess your right. I mean it's just some old abandoned buildings and stuff they might've left behind, nothing that can hurt right?" Danny reasoned, finally he was starting to get over his slight paranoia.

"Exactly! But if you do find anything cool be sure to tell us about it" Tucker added and Danny nodded along. Of course he would tell his friends, they knew pretty much everything about eachother and would always come to eachother when they needed to talk to someone.

"Well if you want to go today then you should get going, the Far Frozen is a 2 hour flight and you don't know how long you'll need to travel from there to get to these ruins" Sam said. Danny had also explained to them his feelings on not wanting to wait too long if he did decide to go and she could tell that Danny's curiosity that he inherited from his parents wouldn't let him just walk away from this one.

"Oh, yeah you're right!" Danny shot up but before he could move he looked at his two friends with concern "You guys gonna be okay protecting Amity on your own?" Danny asked.

"It's all good. We have our thermos' and some Fenton anti-ghost weapons that actually work so we should be fine!" Tucker waved off Danny's concerns.

"But, if anything does happen that we can't handle well call you. That ease your worries?" Sam asked with a smirk and Danny rolled his eyes fondly before waving goodbye and heading home.

It was the same as what he did yesterday. Go through the portal invisibly, make the long fly to the Far Frozen and go see Frostbite. Of course now it was for different reasons than a check up or just the usual friendly visit.

Danny's thoughts had nearly spiralled three times on the flight over to the Far Frozen but he had been getting better at grounding himself so he managed to catch any worries or doubts that may have caused him to turn around.

Finally he landed in the freezing tundra and almost immediately was engulfed in a hug from the large Yeti. His white fur made him blend into the surroundings so well Danny hadn't spotted him initially.

"Great One!" Frostbite yelled happily as he put Danny back down. It didn't matter how many times or how often Danny visited Frostbite was always ecstatic to see him.

"Hey Frosty" Danny gave his old mentor a smile before awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck, a nervous habit he had for as long as he could remember.

"Have you... thought about what I suggested?" Frostbite asked, immediately understanding why Danny was here. It was always easy to forget that Frostbite was alot smarter than he seemed, he had given Danny wise words of advice on more than one occasion and it was obvious when he was around his tribe how great his leadership skills were.

"Yeah I have and... do you think you could? Take me to the ruins? I want to know more about people like me and this might be the only way..." Danny rambled a little. He didn't know why he felt like he needed to justify himself to Frostbite. Frostbite knew why he was here already, he had suggested it, so why did Danny feel like this was something he needed an excuse for?

"Of course. I can't show you to the ruins themselves unfortunately but I can show you how to get to them" Frostbite said as he turned around and started walking away from Danny, making a 'follow me' gesture.

Danny was as stiff as a board as he followed Frostbite. Hypervigilant and examining all his surroundings closely like he expected something to jump out and attack him.

They walked down a path Danny hadn't seen before, it lead away from where Danny knew the Yeti tribe to be living, leading further and further into the tundra and up the ice mountains.

After maybe around an hour of walking in silence, only the wind and crunch of snow under their feet filling it, they came to a stop on the mountain side. Infront of them stood a large entrance to a very dark cave.

"Through here, on the other side are the ruins" Frostbite gestured and seemed to wait for Danny to go in but Danny hesitated.

"Why can't you lead me the rest of the way?" He asked.

"This cave leads to the hidden lands, as some call them, it is where the Halfas once lived. Only a Halfa or those given special permission to pass can make it through the labyrinth of the cave, I have tried but I always end up coming back out this side despite never remembering turning around" Frostbite explained and Danny just gulped nervously.

"If only a Halfa could get through then how did Pariah Dark attack the Halfas, shouldn't they have been safe in these 'Hidden lands'?" Danny asked nervously.

"I... do not know. Many of the allies of the Halfas thought the same thing. There was a legend- no, a rumour that a ghost that had the ability to track Halfas helped Pariah Dark but that's all that was, a rumour" Frostbite shrugged, a thoughtful look on his face.

Danny nerves weren't calming down but something in his core urged him to go through the cave. He didn't know what it was but ever since The accident Danny's instincts had always been trustworthy so he took a steadying breath before walking forward into the cave.

He heard Frostbite wish him good luck as he entered.

The cave was alot warmer than he was expecting. Of course thanks to his ice core he couldn't get cold necessarily but the change in temperature didn't go unnoticed by him. The light from the snow white tundra quickly disappeared the further in he went until he was engulfed in complete darkness, apart from the soft glow he himself was giving off. The sounds of the howling winds had faded until they could barely be heard anymore and Danny was really considering turning around and leaving because the idea of stumbling around in a dark labyrinth cave wasn't exactly the most appealing.

Then he blinked as he noticed something, a light.

Not really it was more like a dot, a small dot of light in the dark.

He decided to continue walking and the longer he walked the more of these small dots of the light appeared until there were so many it lit up the icy cave in a pale glow, the lights all reflecting off of the ice.

Danny stopped as he stared in wonder at the sight.

The first thing that came to Danny's mind were the stars, the night sky. It was beautiful how the small points of light work together to illuminate the dark cave.

Then Danny noticed something as he continued walking. The dots were disappearing behind him but appearing infront of him as he walked. Then he took a turn and the dots stopped appearing.

"Huh..." Danny backtracked and took the other turn. The dots started appearing again, lighting the way for the young Halfa.

"Cool" Danny whispered into the silence of the cave was he followed the direction of the dots of light. Finally Danny turned a corner and he saw the end of the cave, an end that even from the distance Danny could tell didn't lead out into the cold tundra of the Far Frozen. As he closed the distance he could see the green swirling clouds of ectoplasm only they were lighter? A much lighter green than that of the normal sky of the Ghost Zone.

Finally Danny exited the cave and found his core humming nicely at the sight before him.

A city.

A large and grand one, made of a pale sandy coloured stone that reminded Danny of the housing they had in Egypt. The city was still a distance away so Danny couldn't see the architecture too closely but he could see a path leading down the no longer snowy mountain side to a bridge between the city and the cliff drop of the mountain.

A strange thing Danny noticed was the fact that the city didn't rest on an island that was floating, suspended in mid air. Instead the island stretched downwards into the dark abyss of the Ghost Zone, as if connected to solid ground all the way down in it's depths.

Danny was ecstatic.

He quickly flew down to the bridge, and walked it's length up to the gates of the city.

Standing at the city's ground level made it all the more grand and imposing.

But it also made Danny now notice the ruins part of it. The gate, that Danny had no doubt was once grand and tall standing, was nothing but rubble and fallen stone.

Danny took a fortifying breath.

Up until then Danny hadn't really thought about what he was truly walking into. This wasn't just a museum or some natural history tour. These were ruins, this was the home of a slaughter people. This place wasn't just their home, it was probably their grave as well.

He needed to be careful.

He couldn't go walking into this like a naive child, he came here to understand and to understand he needed to treat this place with the respect it deserved.

So he flew into the city, hopefully he could learn something from what was left behind.

~~~

First | Previous | Next

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I'll be tagging all content do to with this story with the tag City of splintering hopes so if guys want to you can follow the story easier. You can also use that tag for any questions or content you guys make of the story!

[rubykgrant]

RVB High School AU, where everything is just slightly more normal-

Church; english and history teacher. always looks like he’s tired. got fired from his job at a different school for getting into a fist-fight with a dad after Church suspended his kid. had an accident in his teens, woke up with memory loss (this happens again, like 5 times). hates most of his family except for 2 cousins who are OK. finds out some of his students have bad home situations, and signs up as a foster dad so they don’t have to move away. tells his students not to swear, then drops F-bombs

Tucker; student who got held back (so he’s still technically a freshman). keeps wearing shirts with inappropriate phrases to school, and is forced to put on something from lost-and-found. his foster family sucks, so he winds up living with Church. he gets Church into playing video games and stuff like laser-tag/paintball (this becomes a huge thing later with everybody). writes “bow-chicka-bow-wow” on all his books

Caboose; new kid and freshman who is big for his age. he came from a crowded family, and when the system heard Church was signed up as a foster parent, they sent Caboose his way. he’s a little accident-prone and has a tendency to bring home stray/feral animals. Church has been trying very hard to NOT YELL at him, but it is a challenge. once Caboose decides to be friends with you, that is it- you have no choice

Sheila; social worker who helps Church with some of the legal nonsense involved with being a foster parent. she winds up working with him a lot, because his boys keep getting into trouble (she knows they’re actually good for each other, despite being dysfunctional)

Tex; substitute teacher. Church calls her in for help at one point, due to the school not having enough staff. they used to date, and maybe kinda-sorta still do. Church honestly digs how scary she is, and he doesn’t say anything to deny it when the staff make whipped jokes. Tex has also had some kind of military training, and passionately tells the kids “Do NOT join the military”. she’s very tall and intimidating, but has a softer side and the kids like her. rides a motorcycle to work

Sarge; PE teacher who got nick-named because of how he acts during class, telling kids to drop and give him 20. started being the shop teacher as well because of the lack of staff at the school. he mostly acts gruff and grumpy, but when he found out some of his students needed better homes, he asked Church how to go about becoming a foster parent. also gets into the laser-tag/paintball thing, and takes it VERY seriously

Simmons; previously a “gifted student” who skipped 2 grades and attended a strict boarding school, but it became clear he was being pushed too hard and couldn’t handle it. he’s been placed back as a sophomore in public school and now has an easier class schedule. has an unstoppable need to be a teacher’s pet. he’s socially awkward but also can’t shut up when he’s nervous, so he gets a lot of unwanted attention. winds up living with Sarge

Grif; sophomore who got expelled from his old school. skips class a lot to go sleep in the back corner of the library (Simmons found his spot, but so far hasn’t told on him). Sarge used to yell at Grif a lot during PE, until he found out that Grif used to be literally bullied and harassed by a previous teacher, and so he eased up. Grif is the king of lunchroom trades, and gets as many snacks as possible. eventually moves in with Sarge, and Simmons bothers him constantly about not cleaning his room

Donut; new freshman, immediately placed with Sarge as a foster kid. his hometown was hit with a disaster, so several of kids got shuffled around. despite dealing with a lot of difficult situations, he has a very positive attitude. gets really into creative writing. the theater kids and the cheerleaders all like him a lot. people can’t tell if Donut is making jokes or if he just... accidentally talks like that? has a weekly argument with the art teacher about “lightish-red”

Lopez; Driver’s Ed instructor, as well as the Spanish teacher. if you’ve never taken his Spanish class, he’ll occasionally speak to you in english, but if you are one of his language students, he wants to make SURE you learn, and will only say anything in Spanish around you. one of the few teachers who can stand to be around Sarge outside of work, and they fix vehicles together

Doc; sophomore who plans on becoming a doctor one day, but he keeps failing the practice tests to attend an early program. is the student assistant for the infirmary at school, so kids wind up calling him Doc. brings his own home-made healthy lunches to school, and always has enough to share. he’s also a junior secretary for the office, and the other kids know he has answer keys for tests, so they trick him into coming to their houses for a sleep-over, and then they raid his backpack

Kai; Grif’s little sister, freshman. they got split up a few years back when social workers realized they were living in a run-down house alone. she finally had a chance to go to the same school as her bro again, but got placed in a different foster house (Church just had more room at his place). used to be very shy and awkward, and is trying to re-invent herself at her new school by being more confident and flirty

Wash; junior transfer student. previously a military school kid, but the school was shut down. he’s gone through a few phases; feeling like the dork in the group, having an anger problem, and now finally starting to figure out who he really is. when Church has another accident and is stuck in the hospital, Wash forges a bunch of papers to make it seem like Church is still at the house so the kids can stay there. even though he’s the oldest, he has too much anxiety to learn how to drive a car

Carolina; another junior transfer student that went to the same military school as Wash. seems to hate Tex and Church on sight, but Tex doesn’t know why and Church forgot the reason. she’s been neglected by her family and has both anger and trust issues. without even realizing they have a connection, Church winds up bonding with her (since he’s had some practice dealing with a handful of troubled kids). reconnecting with Wash and spending time with the other students in this weird group helps her chill out

Flowers; Vice Principal of the school. the kids started a rumor that he’s secretly a serial killer... the staff is like 50% sure it might be true. generally very cheerful, but somehow still off-putting (secretly knows thing’s about Church’s family that Church doesn’t remember, and while his motives aren’t clear, he’s still manipulative)

[jadoue1999]

Wanda and the life she deserved (she’ll make sure of it) Chapter 9

Summary:  This chapter is about Monica and why she wants to help Wanda so much. It also follows the post credit scene of episode 7 and a little of the finale.

Previous part: chapter 1,  chapter 2 , chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 5, chapter 6, chapter 7, chapter 8, chapter 9, chapter 10, chapter 11, epilogue

Chapter 9: Rambeau

Ever since her talk with Wanda, Monica was even more determined to help the woman. She had had her own painful experience after finding out her mother had lived two more years, only for her cancer to come back. It had taken her multiple days to really accept that she could have had more time with her, had the blip not happened. Also, adjusting to a universe that was five years ahead of her had been a challenge. Everything was different, not only culturally or technologically, but even in spots she had thought untouchable. Her favorite shop her and her mom used to go to escape the everyday stress of life was now gone. The owners were blipped, they had come back to find an empty lot that once contained their whole life. Monica, not one to dwell too much, decided that it would be better to move. Her apartment only served as a reminder that her mother truly was gone. Maria had probably wandered the same walls trying to convince herself that her daughter would come back only to succumb without finding out she was right all along. So, she had changed town, one closer to S.W.O.R.D. headquarters, that way, she could concentrate on more assignments. She had tried going to therapy, the world had offered counseling for those who came back. Monica had found it unfortunate that no one seemed to consider that some needed more than just talking out their feelings. As much as she understood why they limited their service to this, the entire world was grieving after all, she just wished there were more options.

She had instead focused on getting herself back together and forming a new world for herself. She had tried socializing, but every conversation eventually ended up talking about lost opportunities and the grief people or their loved one had endured. She bought books of the latest invention and discovery, trying to understand the world who moved on without her. She had eventually settled her finances with the bank, her position at S.W.O.R.D. gave her priority over the everyday citizens. She was part of the lucky ones, her mother’s hope had kept her from claiming her life insurance, which made things a lot easier since she didn’t have to restart her life with a debt. While she wasn’t at peace with what happened to her mother, she decided to come back to her work. She couldn’t take the days alone, being assaulted by advertisements about fake opportunities offered by scam artists looking to make quick money on the web.

So, after three weeks of trying to adjust in a grieving world, she was back at S.W.O.R.D. headquarters. She was then assigned to the Westview anomaly which opened a whole new world of weird. Being mind controlled by Wanda had been one of the strangest things she had ever experienced. She was expected to hate her once she had been pulled out; but she couldn’t bring herself to. The avenger wasn’t doing this out of hate, but out of grief. She had felt her pain, one that was so similar to her own. The whole experience only made her more certain of her future: she had to help Wanda Maximoff.

...

That’s why even after being clearly shown that Wanda didn’t want her help, she decided to stick around. Agnes was definitely suspicious; she knew Wanda was grieving and seemed to want to keep it that way. Luckily, Wanda’s brother had intervened. That was another thing, who was he? He wasn’t on the resident board and he definitely wasn’t the real Pietro; she had seen the footage of Ultron. They didn’t even look similar. Yet Wanda seemed determined to keep him at her side and he seemed convinced that they truly were twins. She felt for the man, the mind control of the town definitely wasn’t a pleasant experience.

There were whispers of newcomers on the base the same day she, Jimmy and Darcy had been kicked out. She didn’t have time to learn much, but Hayward didn’t like them. Then again, he didn’t like most people that wasn’t directly on his team or that obeyed him without questions. Still, their arrival had ruffled some feathers, the identification process was made even more of a priority. She guessed that they were part of the many agencies that dealt with insurance and were trying to prepare for the storm of paperwork coming after the Hex would be brought down. As far as she knew, the counseling offered only covered the effect of the blip, not the after effect of being mind controlled by a grieving avenger.

After being pushed away, Monica wasn’t sure where to go. She walked around aimlessly; last time she was in town it was the 70s. Now, the advertisements were different, and everyone were dressed in the 2010s. She had to admit how impressive it was that Wanda was able to rewrite reality like that. She saw Herb, or John Collins, according to the citizen chart. He was watering his backyard and taking care of his garden, something he’d been a fan of even when she was part of the town. She didn’t see many other of the ‘main cast’, but she did see a few couples. Still no children, like Vision had pointed out on the last episode she saw on the base. The Halloween one didn’t count since she missed most of it trying to hide on her own base. After about half an hour, she decided that Wanda had probably calmed down. She had to talk to her again, she had begun to form a connection, she knew she could make Wanda see reason. She walked over to her house, but soon realized that nobody was there. Instead of going after her, she decided to investigate Agnes’ house. She looked through the windows, but not much was happening. The TV was on, but no one was watching it. She went in the back, perhaps she could find clues there. After watching through the windows and still not finding anything, she spotted a cellar.

She walked over and examined the door before opening it. She found what looked like vines that escalated the walls. She could see them glowing a deep purple, probably had something to do with her newfound powers. They seemed to give her the ability to see energy field that surrounded her. She was about to step inside when she felt a sudden gush of air.

“Snoopers gonna snoop,” came a voice next to her.

She gasped as she took in the person. It was the man who was cast at Pietro, only, he seemed off. Like he was doing something he didn’t want to. Before she could ask him anything, he grabbed her arm and the back of her neck. In a blur, they were in the house. Nausea suddenly hit, she grabbed onto a nearby table to stabilize herself.

“Give it a few minutes, it’ll pass,” reassured the man. “Happens with everyone.”

“W-who are you?” She asked once her head had stopped spinning.

“I’m Pietro, I thought you knew that?” She stared at him; something was strange about him. He seemed so kind, why would he help Agnes?

“That’s not what I mean,” she started. “It might be hard, but the mind control usually let you access a few memories of your true identity. You just need to concentrate.”

The man looked at her with a confused look. Seeing that she wasn’t getting anywhere, she tried running out of the room, but he stopped her only a few steps away from the window. He put a hand in front of him, with one finger, she was catapulted back onto the couch. The force of the impact knocked the breath out of her.

The man looked at Monica, “I’m sorry, I can’t let you out of here. T-the witch, whatever she is, she has my nephews. I have to keep you here or they get hurt.”

She smiled at his comment, relieved he wasn’t just another villain. “You truly care about them, don’t you?”

The man turned to look outside the empty street before answering, “of course, they’re family.”

“You truly can’t remember?” Monica looked at Pietro, who once again looked confused at her questions. “Nothing here is real, Wanda is giving everyone fake identity, giving them roles to fill. You’re no different.”

“What? Of course not, Wanda’s not like that.”

“Please, think about your life before Westview. Pietro Maximoff died; how can you be here if you were killed?”

“I-I,” He stammered. His confusion was a good sign, he was starting to wake up. He looked at her once again. “Look, I know my sister, she wouldn’t-“

Suddenly, his necklace glowed a scarlet red and his eyes glazed over. He looked disoriented for a second before shaking his head. “I’m sorry, I can’t let you out, my family’s lives are on the line.”

Monica didn’t react to what he said, she was all too focused on the necklace. What was it? It seemed to be controlling him, but what could the jewelry piece do that the Hex couldn’t?

She reached for it but stopped as the man backed off. Realizing how rude she was being, she cleared her throat, “may I?” Hesitantly, the man nodded yes. As she was about to touch it, it glowed red and sent a burning sensation through her hand. She gasped and put her hand in a fist, “I’m sorry, I can’t remove it. Do you remember when you got it?”

He seemed lost in thoughts for a moment before shaking his head, “I’ve just always had it.”

Monica had more questions but screams in the street made them both turn towards the window. Agnes was somehow floating in the air, holding both of the boys with a magical rope. She saw Pietro disappear, only to reappear a second later.

“I can’t get out, there’s a sort of barrier keeping me from leaving.”

She quickly got down the stairs, she was surprised he let her go, considering that his nephews’ life was on the line. She supposed the real threat compared to possible one was a good enough reason. She opened the front door, only to come crashing into a purple barrier. She put her hands on it, it felt strange, it was like... an energy field. She knew she could get rid of it, but she didn’t know how.

“So,” said Pietro, appearing beside her, “how to we get out? Considering we can’t even see the barrier.”

She pushed against it once again, the magic bending to the force but not letting them pass. “I can see it, but I don’t know how to break it.”

They both contemplated their options, but they couldn’t think of many. That is, until Pietro spoke up. “What... what if you synced your powers with the frequency of the barrier?” His eyes seemed slightly foggy, like he was remembering something from long ago. “You keep your hands there, and you concentrate as much as you can. You can match the strength, and slowly increase it until it becomes too much, and it breaks.”

She did as he told her, feeling her way through. Her fingers began to slightly vibrate, increasingly speeding up as her fingertips began to glow blue. After a few seconds, the barrier shattered, and they were free to go. She turned to the man, both surprised and excited that it had worked. “How did you know that would work?”

The man shrugged, “I think I did it once... on glass? Not sure but I definitely remember using this technique.”

She nodded and they ran to Wanda, Agnes, and the twins. The final battle was ready to begin.

...

Notes:  So, we are close to the end! I promise that we will be back to Wanda's point of view after this one, I simply thought more context on Monica couldn't hurt. Also, she doesn't remove the necklace, I figured that if someone had to remove it, in the context of my story at least, it has to be Wanda. Props to those who understood the days of future past reference! Thanks for reading, reviews are appreciated!

[erin-bo-berin]

The Game

MASTERLIST

I wrote this with season 13-15 Spencer in mind. The more confident Spencer that would shoot his shot (no pun intended) because this one gets a little crazy. But I’ve always imagined Spencer could be a little wild in bed at times, even be up for a game or two. ;)

Spencer Reid/Reader

Rating: Mature (smut)

Word Count: 4,888

Objective: Whoever can withstand any form of teasing the opposite partner dishes out, the longest, wins.

Rule 1: No sexual activities allowed i.e. no sex, foreplay or kissing on the lips.

Rule 2: Normal touches are allowed, no matter the body part.

Rule 3: You may tantalize in whatever forms you please as long as it doesn’t break rule number one.

Rule 4: The game is over whenever one party gives in to his/her desires.

Rule 5: Winner is treated to whatever they please (sexual or non sexual).

Let the game begin.

•

You and Spencer had this little game you liked to play occasionally. Simply nicknamed, The Game, it had become a part of your relationship. It wasn’t often that you played, but when you did it was always played with high intensity. Sometimes the game could get nasty.

Currently, you were in the middle of it.

Working at the FBI had not only tuned your attention to details, but it also made for a monotonous work schedule with little or no free time. Somehow with the invention of this game it seemed to spice things up both at work and in your relationship respectively.

It’d began the previous morning.

After a rough month of cases, there finally seemed to be a lull long enough for the entire unit to catch their breath. Staying so busy obviously led to little to no time for intimacy, so it had been a few weeks. This would make the game much more exciting. Spencer was competitive, always wanting to win and you had to hand it to him, he had won more times than he’d lost.

It was on the flight home when you felt your phone buzz in your pocket. Pulling it out, you saw a text from Spencer.

Ready to lose again? 

You looked across the jet towards your seated boyfriend. He shot you a wink, knowing his request was automatically met with a yes.

That all you got pretty boy? I’m shaking.

You didn’t watch as he answered, instead you watched the three dots appear that indicated he was typing.

His answer was only three words.

You will be.

A tingle of desire shot through your body.

Bring it.

•

Today had started off slow enough. You had some work to catch up on so you’d arrived at work early. It was already a tough morning as Spencer had purposely slept shirtless the night before. It was early yet, but you somehow knew this time around things would be even more intense.

His personal best was 6 and a half days. That was as long as he’d lasted before you jumped his bones. This time you were determined to win.

Your glance at the clock revealed that it was 7 in the morning. You only had an hour and a half until the currently deserted bullpen would be filled with bustling activity. You picked up your mug and made your way to the coffee machine. That was something you and your boyfriend definitely had in common, you both ran on coffee.

You were just about to pour the leftover day old coffee down the sink drain when the sound of the doors opening startled you. You weren’t expecting Emily in until at least 7:45.

You yelped, jumping at the sudden noise, the coffee spilling all over your blouse. You heard the sound of chuckling.

“Great start to your morning, huh babe?” Spencer walked over, handing you some paper towels.

“What are you doing here so early?” you asked, blotting the stain.

He shrugged, “Just felt like being extra productive today.”

Your eyes narrowed suspiciously. It was more likely he thought it would be a good opportunity to mess with you.

“Uh huh,” you said disbelievingly, “Thanks for making me ruin my shirt.”

“Anytime,” he grinned, walking away from you and towards his desk.

“Damnit,” you mumbled, realizing you wouldn’t be able to blot this stain away.

If you were lucky, you might have a spare shirt in your go bag. You paused, an idea forming in your mind. Since you were sure Spencer had an agenda of his own, you decided to pay back the favor.

“Spence?” you called across the room, “Is my go bag still by your desk?”

Your fingers unbutton your ruined shirt, trying hard to keep the smirk off your face. It was an ingenious idea, really. 

“Yeah, why?” His back was still turned to you, his attention on the files he was flipping through.

“Can you grab my extra shirt please? I’ll just wear that today instead.”

You walked to his desk, your shirt dangling out of one hand, your upper torso clad in only your bra. The moment he turned to hand you the garment, his jaw about hit the floor.

“Figured it’d be faster to just change here. You don’t mind, do you?” you smile sweetly.

“That isn’t going to work,” he muttered, forcing his eyes back to the file after you took the shirt from him.

You shrugged, purposely leaning across the desk when you kissed his cheek to thank him, so he could get an eye full of your cleavage. Lucky for you this bra was just a hair too snug and you had to admit, your boobs looked amazing today.

“Get to work big boy, it’s gonna be a looong day” you called, pulling the shirt on as you walked away.

•

“Kid, I see the wheels turning. Just spit it out already,” Rossi said.

The team was currently in the middle of working a case, everyone working their hardest to catch the unsub. Everyone was spread around the briefing room, you at the round table with JJ and Penelope. Your boyfriend stood in front of the boards that held all the case information, one hand resting on his chin as he studied the information laid out in front of him.

You never knew how, but there was a place Spencer went when he thought. He would space out and focus on nothing but the problem at hand. It was always extremely attractive to you.

“Okay, I think I’ve figured out his pattern. He started in the western part of Virginia right? Then headed to—”

You’re not gonna lie, you ended up missing over half of what he said. You loved when he showed off his knowledge and that brain of his, even just in his job. Your eyes wandered as he talked, eyes lingering on his hands. They moved with his words and you couldn’t help but think of other places those hands had been rather than just used at a crime scene or flipping through case files.

“Right, Y/N?”

You were completely zoned out and missed the fact you were being spoken to.

“Y/N?”

You snap out of it, realizing the entire team was staring at you awaiting the answer to JJ’s question.

“Oh uh- sorry. What was that?”

“I asked if you received the coroner’s report from the latest victim.”

“Right, yes.” You pull out a paper from a file and hand it over to her.

“I know your man is dreamy and all Y/N, but you gotta stop zoning out,” Penelope smirked to herself.

“Hush,” you chuckled quietly, turning back to the rest of the team.

Apparently she wasn’t the only one to notice your staring. Spencer’s smirk made your stomach flip. You weren’t going to let him win again.

•

An unspoken rule of the game was that when it was time to focus strictly on the case, you obviously did. The game would be put on hold until the case was finished. It was one of those days where you were rushing against the clock to catch the killer.

The team was split up, everyone doing different tasks. You, Spencer and Matt were currently sat around a table trying to make connections with an old case, to the one you were currently working on. It seemed to be the same M.O. 

“In 1989 Lila Long was found dead on the doorstep of her house,” Matt said, laying out the photo once again, “Stabbed 14 times.”

You nodded, chewing on your lip while you thought. It was presumed that she managed to escape the unsub who had grabbed her just blocks from her home. She had managed to make it to her front door where she died. It was unclear whether the unsub had caught up to her and stabbed her again or if she had succumbed to her injuries.

“I don’t think he found her again, as there isn’t any blood splatter here,” Spencer motioned to the picture, gesturing at the door, “We know there would be a specific pattern, but it was never recorded for sure because of the amount of blood found there.”

“Fast forward 30 odd years and another woman shows up dead on her doorstep in the same neighborhood,” you say, setting the most recent crime scene picture next to the older one.

“Rosalie Brewer, 51, blonde hair, blue eyes,” Matt reads off the file, “Exact same type of injuries, a dozen or so stabbings.”

“Are we sure it’s not just a copycat? The story does seem to be the local legend. Maybe someone decided to recreate the murder?” you ask, tapping your pen.

“I don’t think so.” Spencer rubs his jaw; you can tell his mind is whirring.

Matt and Spencer throw around some theories, your eyes focusing on Spencer’s fingers twirling his pencil as he thought. 

Maybe because it’d been a longer dry spell of no intimacy than normal for you, but your thoughts automatically turned sexual. Memories of how those long, slender fingers of his had traced your bare skin flashes through your mind. How they’ve dug into your hips and slid down your thighs before parting them and—

You snap yourself back to reality quickly. Now is definitely not the time to be thinking of such things but damnit did it set your stomach churning in desire. Thankfully, a distraction came in the nick of time.

“Guys, we have a suspect!” Luke rushed into the room, Emily on his heels, “I think he just might be our unsub.”

“Garcia’s on the phone with intel,” Emily set her phone on the table for all of us to hear. 

“So, turns out, Lila Long has a son. Yes my dears, you heard me right. Apparently she gave birth secretly 18 years prior to her death while out of the country. She gave said baby up for adoption and never looked back. Fast forward 18 years later little Adam, all grown up, goes looking for mommy dearest and let me tell you it wasn’t for a nice and cozy reunion. According to his adoptive mother he was always a difficult child with a very bad temper. It was so alarming to his adoptive parents that they made him see a therapist. The therapist notes that he showed bipolar symptoms, had a definite anger problem and at times seemed unhinged and out of touch with reality. It wasn’t until after his 18th birthday that he found out the true story about his birth mother; that she’d basically left the country to have him, secretly give him up for adoption and come back to the States like it never happened.”

“Let me guess,” you said, “That didn’t bode well with him?”

“Right you are. Adoptive parents said he made passing remarks about “hunting down the bitch”. They knew he was angry about how he came to be adopted but they never suspected he’d actually find her and kill her.”

“But he did,” Emily said.

“But how does that relate to our current case, Garcia?” Spencer asked.

“Get this: Rosalie Brewer was Lila Kong’s best friend and helped arrange for her to have her child in secret and even found the adoptive family. She just moved back to the neighborhood a few months ago. There was a witness report in the police files that she’d been seen at a local coffee shop talking to a man that no one seemed to recognize.”

Garcia rattled off the description of the man and sent over a picture of Adam. It was a dead ringer. Everything was a go from there.

•

Hours later, the case had come to a close. Adam, who had turned out to be the correct unsub had had so much resentment toward his birth mother and her best friend—accompanied with his unstable mental health—decided to hunt them down and kill them in cold blood. The reason for the 30 year difference between murders was the fact he hadn’t discovered Rosalie’s existence and role in the secret adoption until he was much older. In his mind, the job wasn’t complete until she, too, was dead.

You were exhausted; physically and mentally. He gave up pretty quickly and it could’ve been a worse take down, but the prior days of working hard had taken a toll. Currently, you were relaxing in one of the chairs on the jet, a blanket pulled over you. You thought you were the only one awake, when you heard your phone buzz in your lap, underneath the blanket.

You retrieved it and open a text message from Spencer.

Don’t think I didn’t notice you staring at my hands today.

Another text popped up.

Don’t forget what I can do with them, sweetheart.

Like you could.

You text back, ignoring his provocative texts.

Come over here and keep me company. I’m lonely and cold.

A buzz came slower this time.

Giving in already? Thought you’d last longer than this.

You typed your answer at lightning speed.

In your dreams, Dr. Reid.

You hear a soft chuckle as he walks over to join you in the seat next to you.

“Why are you even still awake?” you asked.

“Just wide awake. You?”

“Same.”

It’s quiet for a bit and you’re sure he’s asleep when you hear him shift positions next to you, alerting you that he’s still just as awake as you are.

A wicked smile slowly spreads across your face as you get an idea. You’re grateful for the dark so he can’t see your expression clearly or predict what’s coming.

“Spence?” Your hand rests on his knee gently, innocently as if it’s just a typical lingering affection.

“Mhm?”

He looks over at you and you can barely see the outline of his face in the darkness.

“Remember the mile high club?” you asked nonchalantly, as if you were simply chatting about the weather.

“The mile high club?” he repeats, clearly confused.

“You know,” you bite your lip, even though you’re not sure he can see it and lower your voice just in case anyone else happened to be awake.

“That time on the way home from a case? When you were having a little problem?”

Your hand slides barely an inch upward and you hear his sharp intake of breath, whether from your touch or the memory you’re unsure.

It had been before the game had been invented. Spencer was extra worked up that day on the way home from a case, so you decided to sneak into the jet bathroom with him to give him some help.

“When I gave you a blow job right there in the jet bathroom?” Your voice is low, your lips by his ear.

“I-I remember,” he croaked.

“That was extremely hot. Trying to make sure you stayed quiet so no one heard us.” 

Your hand slides up his thigh and you smirk satisfactorily when you hear his breath hitch.

“But I could tell how hard it was for you. All you wanted to do was moan my name out loud and grab my head to push me farther down on you.”

He’s silent, his breathing becoming heavier. You’re turning him on and it feels good to be winning for once. You’re not one to dirty talk much, but for this situation, you were pulling out the big guns.

“Admit it. Part of you wanted the entire jet to know just how good it felt with my pretty little lips wrapped around your cock, driving you absolutely insane.”

A low groan escaped his lips and you find yourself having to muster up all the strength you have not to kiss them right then. His hand grabs your wrist, stopping your hand from moving any further.

“Give up now and you can have your way with me when we get home,” you grin triumphantly.

“Never.” 

He places your hand back in your lap, before moving to get up.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a matter to sort out,” he grumbles, making his way back to the bathroom.

You can’t help it, you laugh as he half limps toward the back of the jet.

You didn’t see him for quite awhile after that.

•

“Gotta admit Spencer, I’m impressed you’ve held on for this long.”

It’d been only a week. Usually the games were over pretty quickly as one—usually yourself—gave in after only a few days. But you were so determined to crack him.

“That’s just because you have no idea what I have up my sleeve. Points for you for getting creative lately though.”

You snickered. His most recent jet bathroom escapade had involved him and his hand only.

“I’m still waiting to see what you got.”

He was picking up files to be delivered to Emily’s office when he turned and nodded to your phone.

“I’d check your phone if I were you.”

Your brows furrowed, confused as you reached for your mobile device. You press the home button, lighting up the screen to reveal a slew of messages from Spencer, which seems to include several pictures.

Opening them, you see that it’s a variety of selfies only showing his face from the nose down, his lips the center of attention in every one. The last message was actual text.

I seem to recall your little fascination with my lips. Thought you might enjoy. You especially like it when they’re in other areas too.

You could kill him. It was one of your weaknesses, that’s for sure. You look up and see he’s halfway to Emily’s office now.

“Not gonna work!” you hollered towards him and he sends back a huge grin as if he knew you’re full of shit.

Which you are because now you’re beginning to weaken. But you’re still far from giving up.

-

You get him back at lunch.

You’re eating at your desk with your legs propped up, clearly giving Spencer a good view of them. He’s purposely ignoring you though, doing paperwork, much to your amusement.

You finish your sandwich and reach for the banana you’d packed earlier that morning. You’d been wanting to try this one ever since the game began for the first time. He just happens to glance up as you finish peeling your banana and you shoot him a wink and give a sly, suggestive lick to the side of the banana.

His tongue flicks over his lips as his eyes flicker from your mouth to your eyes, the determination still strong in them. The desire is there alright, the will to give up, is not.

•

Fuck you, Spencer. No actually, fuck me.

The thought floats across your mind. It’s another day at the Behavioral Analysis Unit but damnit if Spencer doesn’t look extra good today.

He always looks good in his work suits and ties, but this one is beyond belief. Or it may just be the fact that you’re wound up and in need of release, but you’re pretty much drooling from afar.

His pants were probably the best part cause his ass looked amazing in them. You’re pretty sure if any of your other teammates were to notice you staring at your boyfriend across the room they’d see you practically in a puddle of your own drool.

“You’re not playing that game again are you?”

You jump at the sound of JJ’s voice nearly sending your pile of files, documents and paperwork flying off your desktop. You turn around in your chair to see her standing at the edge of your desk, an arched brow and amused expression on her face.

JJ was the only one of the team you’d actually relinquished details to about your teasing escapades. Being the one female you were closest to on the team, sometimes sex life talk came up and it slipped out once. She found it creative and intriguing, saying it was never a bad thing to spice things up. But now, apparently you’d been a bit too obvious.

“How’d you know? Is it that obvious?”

“Not exactly. But it was my first guess when I saw you ogling Spence like a dog after a steak.”

You chuckle snort, the simile quite an accurate description of yourself.

“Yes, but the stakes are high this time. It’s been over a month since the last time we..you know had time for anything.”

“By all means, continue on. Win this one for us ladies,” she joked, heading for the stairs.

I plan on it.

•

Okay, so, that plan is not going so well after all. 

It’s a slower day than normal and it’s barely past lunchtime. Spencer isn’t even actively doing anything other than existing and you feel like jumping out of your skin. How the hell he’s keeping his cool is beyond your comprehension.

You glance at your phone when you notice it light up in the corner of your eyes.

Hey, Y/N.

Are you a tardis?

Your brow raises and you reply.

A what?

A time machine. Just stick with me here.

Another text arrives while you’re still reading his initial reply.

Because I’ve heard being inside you will take me to magical places.

You stifle a giggle. 

That’s a pick up line made for you, Spencer.

Ooh baby, you make my floppy disk turn into a hard drive.

You laugh out loud causing a few agents to glance in your direction and you quickly hush.

Give me the chance and I’d be happy to turn that floppy disk into a hard drive.

The gray dots linger on your screen from some time before his answer comes.

Well, shit.

-

You can feel Spencer’s eyes on you all afternoon and you’re entirely grateful that you decided to wear the nicest, form fitting skirt you own along with a button down that shows just the perfect amount of cleavage to still be considered professional.

You cross the room to make copies and you feel his eyes follow you making you shiver. It’s been 12 days since the game started, a personal record for the both of you. The sexual tension between you and Spencer is so high you’re sure it’s gonna boil over at the most inopportune time. 

Instead of focusing on reports you need to file, your daydreams have become more prominent. All you want is him and you want him bad. You’re on the verge of begging just to be able to feel the amount of bliss he puts you in.

You almost groan out loud when you hear Emily ask him if he minds staying a little later to finish up the final reports. You’re not really up to being home alone so you decide to stay with him until he’s finished.

The number of people in the bullpen starts to dwindle until it’s just you and Spencer left. You’re swiveling in your chair, watching him, his face a mask of determination, his tongue poking out the side of his mouth. 

Oh, how much you want those lips on yours, on your skin, those hands roaming your body, squeezing the right places. To have his body pressed close against yours, so close that you can feel his erratic breathing and spiked heart rate against your own chest. You wanted him to make you moan, make you scream even, the building was practically empty at this hour anyway.

You weren’t sure when you got up, but you were halfway toward him when you croaked his name weakly.

Whether it was because of your tone of voice or he just could sense it, he looked up, jaw going slack when he saw your shirt half unbuttoned, your fingers fumbling on the bottom half.

“You win alright?”

In a quick as lighting movement, he’d stood, picked you up and deposited you on his desk, his lips firmly attached to yours.

“Let’s call it a truce, okay?” he murmured against your lips before resuming kissing you.

The kisses were hot and wild, all the pent up sexual frustration being released finally. His teeth scraped over your bottom lip, tugging on it gently before twirling his tongue simultaneously with your own. Your shirt was all the way unbuttoned and your bra pulled down before you comprehended Spencer performing the actions.

He moaned into the kiss, his hands cupping your breasts. You automatically arched into his touch, lavishing in it after going so long without it. His thumbs rubbed over your nipples eliciting a ragged moan from you. Your inhibitions were out the window at this point and you could care less what you sounded like, you just wanted more of him.

“If I knew you’d be this reactive to me, I would torture you more often,” he smirked, leaning down to place his lips around one nipple, sucking gently.

“Oh my god,” you moaned, a hand tangled into his hair.

It was like you were super sensitive to his touch because every little thing he did set your nerve endings on fire. You were throbbing with need and he was enjoying this way too much.

“You son of a bitch, you’re enjoying this aren’t you?” you half growled, pulling his face back up towards yours, pressing a kiss to his sharp jawline, attempting to kiss him again.

“I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about,” he grinned wickedly, denying your lips of his.

His hand pressed flat against your stomach, pushing you backwards on his desk while hiking up your skirt. His lips pressed against the soft skin of your inner thigh as his hands spread your legs and pushed your panties to the side.

“Spencer, please- fuck,” you moaned, his tongue licking a slow path up you.

“Oh I’ll get to that eventually, just you wait,” he chuckled.

Your ability to form coherent words had vanished, so no remark came in response from you. All you could focus on was his mouth on you and that you wanted more.

You could’ve killed him when he stopped just on the brink of your undoing. 

“Darling, if I had to listen to you much longer I would’ve been done for,” he commented, kissing you again, helping you unfasten his pants before you climb in his lap.

The mutual feeling of ecstasy was all over both your faces the moment you lowered yourself down on him. You vowed then to always let him win the game after this because this was too amazing to miss out on.

“Oh fuck, Y/N, fucking hell,” he groaned into your neck, his slight stubble scratching against your neck giving you chills.

It was rough and border animalistic, your lust and need for each other more than either of you could handle. Your hips rocked roughly against his, fingers digging into his biceps. Your eyes may have rolled back in your head at one point.

One hand is on the small of your back to steady you as you move up and down on him, your back arched as the pleasure rippled down your spine. His lips trail down your exposed throat, marking you as his, his other hand squeezing your hip.

Your hands grip the back of his chair to aid you in your rougher and harder movements as your orgasm builds, the sensation of a pit of lava in your stomach increasing.

A sheen of sweat coats his forehead, stray pieces of his brown curls sticking to his forehead. Your own hair has partially come out of its ponytail, stray pieces hanging in your face. His hand moves from your hip pushing some stray strands from your face before giving you a brief kiss. 

His own release is quickly approaching as his head falls back against the back of his chair, teeth scraping his bottom lip.

“Oh yes, baby, yes,” he growls deep in his throat.

A hand snakes towards your core, his thumb circling your clit. Your climax hits you hard and fast causing your vision to nearly go white. Your breath catches, interrupting your ragged moan of his name.

He lets himself go then, his groans filling the empty room, his expression of blissful pleasure the sexiest thing you’ve ever seen him do.

As you ride out the aftershocks, his lips return to yours, kissing you more gently this time, the action full of love. Your hips have slowed then stilled when he breaks the kiss.

“God, you’re amazing,” he whispers, nudging his nose playfully against yours.

You smile, wrapping your arms around his neck so you can stay in his lap for a moment longer before you have to stand and clean yourself up.

“I think I have a new rule for the game,” you commented.

“What’s that?”

“Spencer always wins.”

[turtlethon]

"A Thing About Rats"

Season 1, Episode 3  

First US Airdate: December 16, 1987   First UK Airdate: March 11, 1989 (Premiere) / April 20, 1991 (The Movie Channel)  

Shredder aligns himself with inventor Baxter Stockman, leading to the construction of a robot army that poses a threat to Splinter and the Turtles.

“A Thing About Rats” is the third episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. David Wise and Patti Howeth are credited as writers for this adventure, which picks up immediately after the events of “Enter the Shredder”.

After leaving Splinter to rest in the Lair, the Turtles reflect on their anger over his prior abduction by the Shredder. Raphael announces that he wants to turn Shreds into a (possibly radioactive) mutant hamster. Donnie adds that the masked villain will be forced to turn Splinter back into a human before the team leave to track the Technodrome again.

Shredder drills a tunnel directly from the Technodrome into an abandoned, run-down old house, where he sets up shop. Deploying a group of flying, robotic drones, he begins his search for new technology to aid him in his war against the Turtles.

The drones wind up in the offices of Ajax Pest Control, where they watch as inventor Baxter Stockman pitches his Mousers to the company’s boss. One of the robots is seen pursuing a rat around an elaborate maze, eventually chewing through the walls before gobbling up its prey. The boss turns out to be appalled as the invention is simply too effective: if it were widely adopted, it would put everyone in the pest control industry out of business. He hurls Stockman out of his office. Shredder waits in the shadows, announcing to the inventor that he sees the value in the robots and wants to begin a mass production run.

Shredder takes Baxter back to his shabby hideout, where Bebop and Rocksteady emerge with a pile of circuit boards. The inventor is tasked with assembling a master control device that will control the vast number of Mousers that Shreds intends to produce. Returning to the Technodrome, Shredder is summoned by Krang, who repeats his demands that he be provided with a body. Shredder is adamant that his feud with Splinter and the Turtles must take priority. This agitates Krang further, and he declares that he hopes Shredder will fail again and again until he has no choice but to assemble a body for the alien brain.

Returning to the production line, Shredder watches as the first twelve Mousers are completed: exact replicas of Baxter’s design right down to having his name imprinted on the feet. Shreds announces that while he should wait until the full army of robots is assembled, he can’t contain himself: instead he brings up a picture of Splinter looking like the shifty-eyed dog from The Simpsons and orders the Mousers to hunt him down.

While the Turtles continue to putter around in search of the Technodrome, April leaves a still-recovering Splinter to return home. Moments later, the Mousers begin chewing through the walls of the Lair, encircling the mutant rat as the first act draws to a close.

Following our first commercial break, the Turtles are seen returning to the Lair and taking out the Mousers. After spotting Baxter’s name printed on the feet of the bots, the team determine that he must be connected to Shredder; Splinter suggests that they might need April’s investigative abilities to help them in tracking Stockman down, and so the reunited group head off to her apartment. Meanwhile, Shredder learns that his first group of Mousers has been defeated, but is undeterred, declaring that while the Turtles may be able to defeat twelve mousers, they won’t fare so well against 1,200 of the bots.

April is recharging in her immaculately co-ordinated purple and cream apartment when the Turtles and Splinter show up at her door. After they explain their current predicament, she heads into a back room to print off a file about Baxter from her computer; while doing so, the Turtles each manage to create chaos in their own way, setting fire to the apartment and flooding it at the same time. Two particularly notable moments in this sequence include Michaelangelo opening April’s fridge, which appears to contain nothing but stacks of boxed pizzas, and resident genius of the team Donatello apparently not knowing how a telephone works.  

Baxter works through the night to assemble a giant computer that will control the entire army of Mousers. Exhausted, he announces his intention to go home and rest. Shredder allows this, but after the event declares to his Foot Soldiers that Stockman “knows too much”. He orders them to use a Foot motorcycle to pursue the inventor on his way back to his home, and “put him out of the way”. Act two closes with Shredder issuing orders to his completed Mouser army, ordering them to track down April, Splinter and the Turtles.

Baxter arrives outside his home and is about to be confronted by the Foot Soldiers until the Turtles step in, destroying the robots. They go on to tie Stockman to a lamp post, demanding that he cough up the details about Shredder’s plan. Baxter reveals that Shredder has an army of mousers but refuses to reveal his location. Raphael steps in, pointing a sai in Baxter’s face and threatening to get “sarcastic”. This is enough to get Baxter to change his tune, and he reveals that Shreds is stationed across town. Facing a lengthy journey, the Turtles help themselves to Baxter’s van, which it turns out is full of sophisticated tracking equipment. (Mikey ends up behind the wheel, not about to let his total inability to drive get in the way of their journey.)

April is cleaning up the messes left behind by the Turtles when she’s forced to alert a sleeping Splinter to the fact that something is trying to eat through the walls of her apartment. Waves upon waves of Mousers soon force their way in. The odds don’t look good for the duo, but the Turtles soon arrive and begin fighting back. Our heroes soon find themselves forced to escape, using a rope to flee as the damage caused by the mousers leads to the entire building collapsing in upon itself. (Given the size of the building, I hope everyone else who must have resided here was able to make it out in time.)

The team arrives in Baxter’s van outside the house occupied by Shredder. Michaelangelo sneaks inside, using an underground tunnel to make his way back up through a vent but immediately getting captured. Realising the rest of his enemies are assembled outside, Shredder deploys his mousers, who end up encircling our heroes. Back inside, Mikey is freed from the ropes Shredder used to tie him up thanks to an unlikely saviour. Krang provides Michaelangelo with instructions on how to reach the master control panel for the mousers, urging the Turtle to act quickly.

Shredder soon finds himself confronted by Michaelangelo, who taunts him into opening fire. In the process, Shreds manages to accidentally blow up the control panel. This provides Donatello with a chance to take control, redirecting the mousers to begin chowing down on the old house. Shredder quickly returns to the Technodrome as the Turtles watch the building collapse. The team rush to find Mikey amongst the wreckage and are relived to discover he’s still in one piece.

As the group set off to implement their next move – the modification of Baxter’s van to allow them to fully utilise his tracking equipment – Michaelangelo excitedly recounts meeting a talking brain inside the old house. It’s a concept that even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles find hard to believe.

“A Thing About Rats” is the odd one out of the five first season TMNT episodes: while I wouldn’t go so far as to call it filler given Baxter’s prominence throughout the second season, there’s a definite sense that this one is intended to give everyone at home a bit of breathing room between the busy two shows that preceded it and the ramp up to the big finish that’s about to begin. The stellar animation of “Turtle Tracks” and “Enter the Shredder” takes the day off here, and instead we get beady-eyed Turtles and a much plainer Shredder who looks closer to how he’ll appear through season two. Fret not, for the best is yet to come.  

The destruction of April’s home will be glossed over moving forward; by next season she’ll be established as living next door to Irma in the same apartment complex. Speaking about people whose lives end up getting ruined due to the Turtles/Foot conflict, Baxter isn't really depicted as a bad guy here, but rather a down-on-his-luck inventor that was unfortunate enough to encounter Shredder. He’ll re-emerge next year to become Shredder’s right-hand man before being ousted in favour of Rocksteady and Bebop from “Enter the Fly” onwards, the beginning of a run of tragic misfortunes that will snowball throughout his occasional appearances across the rest of the series.

NEXT TIME: The Neutrinos make their series debut in “Hot Rodding Teenagers from Dimension X”!

[pynkhues]

Hi ! I just wanted to say that I love your writing and I wanted to ask how you go about doing research for all your au's. Thanks!

Hi! Thank you so much, anon! And what a fun question! I could talk about researching all day, haha. My undergraduate degree is actually in history too, so research is something that’s sort of fundamental to my education in a lot of ways. 

To talk about researching is kind of hard though, because while the steps are more or less the same, the approach is really different depending on what it is that I’m writing. For instance, the answer’s pretty different if I’m writing a modern day au where I can shorthand certain things because my readers know what I’m talking about vs an historical au where I really have to think pretty deeply about everything if I want to submerge a reader in a storyworld. 

So I thought it might be fun to answer this question using my two biggest au’s as sorts of case studies! This is probably an extremely nerdy answer, I don’t know, haha, and it talks about both researching and incoporating research into the creative process while writing, so I hope that’s okay! 

Generally speaking, all my writing starts with a question: 

What’s the story that I want to tell? 

This is always a process that tends to vary for me, but I rarely actively ask the question to myself prior to getting ready to write it? Usually it ends up as me sort of thinking over a concept then getting to a point where I know I’m going to write it, and it’s only when I really start to think seriously about that that I ask myself that question. 

In both of these cases, it was pretty typical for me, haha: 

And well, then we get to the next question.

What background do I need to know to be able to tell that story? 

While this question might seem AU specific, it’s something that’s actually a step in everything I write. I was working on the second part of the Christmas fic today, which is technically canon divergent, but has made me think a lot about Beth and Rio’s canon cultural backgrounds. 

I’ve always liked the headcanon that Beth and Annie are Jewish, but disconnected from their heritage (Marks is a traditionally Jewish surname, Annie’s used some yiddish slang before), and Rio’s obviously Latino, but of Mexican heritage if we apply Manny’s background, and wears rosary beads on the show which indicate that he’s Catholic. I wanted to embrace both of those things, so I’ve tried to thread them through the story where it’s appropriate to do so. For instance, there's a scene of a Las Posadas celebration at Sainte Anne de Detroit which required a LOT of research on my part and hopefully reads well! 

The point is that those things felt important to me to include in a Christmas fic about Beth and Rio in the C&C ‘verse because the entire series is about their lives entwining and getting to know each other fully. I want to include detail that feels specific to what we know about them and embraces and (with any luck) deepens our connection to the characters in my fic. 

What I’m getting to in a really roundabout way is that once I have a story idea, I start to think about what I’m going to have to understand if I’m going to do the story justice.

In the case of the pornstar and pirate aus, this couldn’t look more different: 

Annnnnd so on, haha. 

As you can see, sometimes that background research is really clear and straight forward, as it was with the pornstar AU. I looked up how it worked, and because I knew that I wanted it to steer clear of the seedy and toxic parts of porn, I basically researched ideal environments and best practice, put those in place, and then focused on how to get Beth from her suburban home into a legitimate studio. 

The pirate AU was extremely different and much more of a mutable process. Without a clear sense of the era from the get-go, I had a much wider scope to explore when and where the story could take place, and when I realised that dating the story would inevitable force me to contend with parts of history I might not want to (i.e. the lead up to The Civil War), it let me re-shape a world around an era, but not feel entirely beholden to it. 

In that sense, the research process for both of them involved me choosing fantasy over reality – I negated certain realities to focus on the things I wanted to write (I highly doubt you will find a porn set anywhere near as ethical as Thank You Ma’am after all) – but if I can’t do that in fanfic, where can I? The aim still is for there to be enough that is real that you feel grounded in the story even if I’ve taken certain creative liberties for the sake of telling the story I want to tell.

That’s the beauty of research. Once you know enough about it, you can make informed choices about what you use to shape your storyworld, and make it feel authentic even as you’re fictionalising it.

The point of that though is that this background research is so fundamental to the DNA of the story itself, that it can’t even begin to exist without it.

Loose plotting

It’s usually around this point that I’ll put together a loose plot. This is generally pretty thin, but I’ll start to put pieces into a bit of an order. 

The pornstar au is, again, a really easy example of this. Three parts felt right for it, the shooting of the porno itself was always going to be in the final part, which gave me two chapters to get Beth there. I knew she was going to submit herself through an amateur talent callout which I’d discovered in my background research, so the question of it was more around why would someone like her sign up? Canon plot points help – Beth needs money! Fantasy kicks in again, haha – because she and Dean are finally divorcing.

On the other hand, the pirate au is pretty much unrecognisable from it’s first loose plot.

In it, I’d pencilled in Beth travelling on a ship with Dean and the children, pirates boarding, and Rio kidnapping Beth as collateral to help him escape. 

My loose plots change a lot and usually grow in detail, evolve and change shape as I start to ask myself why, and there are a lot of reasons why the pirate au changed so much, but I’ll get to that a bit later. 

The point is, once I have a loose plot, I’ll usually throw some more words down, see what I’ve got, and then get to the part of the research process I like to call: 

Question time

With background research done and a loose plot and some draft scenes written, I hit a much more specific part of the research process where I don’t need to know broadstroke background detail, I need to know the answers to really specific stuff. I usually write a list and try to do it all at once so that the writing process isn’t too much stop-start. I bullet point the answers in my creative doc then too, so the information is right there when I need it.

Again, the questions I asked of the pornstar au and pirate au were pretty different (although there were a few similarities, haha). Some of the questions I asked were: 

This is actually a case where the pirate au was, in a lot of ways, easier. History is well documented and fact checked after all, but current porn industry standards are, y’know. Not quite as transparent, haha. I’ve mentioned it before, but I actually started to fill out an amateur porn application (with a false identity of course, haha), so that I could see the full form and get a genuine sense of the questions they ask, which is hilarious, annnd brings us to sources. 

Sources

In researching, there are definitely things I’ll just Google, but I also like to utilise sources pretty widely. In particular, Google’s not really going to give you a great sense of what - say - the life of a pornstar’s like, but there are some great podcast series where performers talk about their lives in their own words. Similarly, Google searches are great for the cliffnotes of an answer, but don’t hold a candle to era-made drawings, letters and newspaper clippings. 

For the two, I’d probably say my sources looked something like this: 

How do the answers to these questions affect the story that I want to tell? 

Annnd of course, the answers to these questions frequently end up re-shaping and re-framing my story, both directly and indirectly. Originally for instance, I wasn’t going to have condoms at all in the pirate au, because I naively assumed they wouldn’t be invented yet in a loose 1800s-set fic, only to discover that some version of a condom has been around since Ancient Rome (it was made using the bladders of animals! Gross!). 

Other times it’s indirect. The idea for instance in the pirate au to have Beth realise the houses that the men had robbed through certain items they were wearing came really from looking a lot at antique store sites and image archives and seeing how much was custom made for families and individuals. That in turn made me think how for someone who’s ability to think on her feet and observe are her strengths, that could really come into play as a plot point. 

Re-Plotting and Writing

It’s usually around this point that everything comes together and I start to really map out a fic in a firmer, more meaningful way, and also just throw myself into the writing of it. I generally feel like I’ve got the tools at this point in the process, and start to talk to the story in a bit more of an informed way. 

It’s also really where I start asking myself why? and what does this mean for the next scenes? a lot. 

Jumping back to the original pirate au plot, this was really where it pivoted as drastically as it did. There were too many tropes in that premise that I didn’t like. I didn’t like that Beth had no agency in the act that connected her to Rio, I didn’t like the trope of the MOC kidnapping a ‘helpless’ white woman, I didn’t like that Beth would be taken from her children by force and how that would impact any connection her and Rio formed and ensure that a major part of the story would have to be devoted to Beth trying to get back to them.

Immediately that made it a case where Beth had to choose to go with Rio, but why would she leave her family? And why would Rio let this upperclass lady onboard his ship? So she snuck on. So she had to, because Dean lost everything again. Okay, but would Beth just leave the kids with Dean after he’d done that? No way, not with the implications of the time, so who would she leave them with? Annie or Ruby - no, I want Ruby on the pirate adventure. Annie. But what on earth could put Annie in a secure enough position that Beth would willingly entrust her children to her? 

Thus the subplot of Greg wanting to legitimise Ben was born! Which I doubly liked, because it kind of mirrors canon, haha. 

In that case, the research really helped me flesh out a story world that let me explore character storylines in a way that I wouldn’t always do, which is insanely fun to me, haha, so I forever am left hoping it’s fun to read too. 

But yes! In a nutshell, that’s my research process. :-) 

[strangeandforlornbooks]

best books with morally ambiguous narrators!

all y’all’s problematic faves and villains! :) also included are third person narrators but in books with morally ambiguous leads/themes 

Sci-fi

Scythe by Neal Shusterman: in a future free from pain, disease, and war, people can live forever. ‘scythes’ are given the power to decide who lives and who dies to preserve the balance. sad and kinda gives of hunger games vibes, if you like that.

Neuromancer by William Gibson: basically invented the cyberpunk genre. strange and removed protagonists. (a team of computer hackers have to face off against an evil AI). you kind of dislike everyone and suddenly you’re crying over them. one of those trippy sci-fi classics.

The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut: very beautiful and very very sad (same author as slaughterhouse five). the richest man in america has to face a martian invasion. more about free will and bad people doing good things than a plot that makes any kind of sense.

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick: set in an alternate universe where the germans and japanese won world war two. not really like the tv show at all- it’s not an action story, and there’s not really the hope to somehow fix the world that drives a lot of dystopia stories. instead its about how people survive and connect to one another in a hopeless society.

The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow: a supercomputer convinces the leaders of the world to keep the peace for hundreds of years by taking their children hostage and obliterating any city that disobeys. what happens to the hostage protagonists when war seems inevitable? lots of morally fraught decisions and characters slowly losing their identity. (plus a fun lesbian romance)

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson: a brilliant mathematician and a dedicated marine fight to keep the ultra secret in world war two. fifty years later,  a tech company discovers what remains of their story. one of the most memorable sequences in the book is a japanese soldier slowly becoming disillusioned with his nation and horrified by the war even as he continues to fight.

Blade Runner by Philip K. Dick: another one of those sci-fi classics that’s not at all like the movie. there is a bounty hunter for robots, though, as well as a weird religion that probably is referencing catholicism and a decaying society with a shortage of pets. kind of a trip.

Wilder Girls by Rory Power: girls trapped in a boarding school on an isolated island must face a creeping rot that affects the animals and plants on the island as well as their own bodies. the protagonists will do anything to survive and keep each other safe. very tense (and bonus lesbian romance whoo)

The Fifth Season by N K Jemisin: three women are gifted with the ability to control the earth’s energy in a world where those who can do so are forced into hiding or slavery. some veryyyy dark choices here but lots of strong female characters.

Historical Fiction

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters: two victorian lesbians fall in love as they plot to betray each other in horrific ways. lots of plot twists, plucky thieves, gothic settings, and a great romance.

Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiwicz: a powerful roman soldier in the time of Nero plots to kidnap a young woman after he falls in love with her, only to learn more about the mysterious christian religion she follows. very melodramatic but some terrific prose. 

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr: a blind girl in France and a brilliant German boy recruited by the military struggle through the chaos of the second world war. ends with a bang (iykyk.) very sad, reads like poetry.

Boxers by Gene Luen Yang: graphic novel reveals the story of a young boy fighting in the boxer rebellion in early twentieth century china. the sequel, saints, is also excellent. beautifully and sympathetically shows the protagonist’s descent into evil- the reader really understands each step along the way.

Fantasy

Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake: three triplets separated at birth, each with their own magical powers, have to fight to the death to gain the throne. lots of fun honestly

Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo: everyone in these books is highly problematic but you love them all anyway. a ragtag game of criminals plan a heist on a magical fortress. some terrific tragic back stories, repressed feelings, and revenge schemes.

The Dark Tower series by Stephen King: idk how to describe these frankly but if you can put up with King’s appalling writing of female characters they’re pretty interesting. fantasy epic about saving the world/universe, sort of. cowboys and prophecies and overlapping dimensions and drug addicts galore.

The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud: lots of fun! a twelve year old decides to summon a demon for his cute lil revenge scheme. sarcastic demon narrator. lighthearted until s*** gets real suddenly.

Elegy and Swansong by Vale Aida: fantasy epic with machiavellian lesbians and enemies to lovers to enemies to ??? to lovers. charming and exciting and lovely characters.

The False Prince by Jennifer Nielsen: an orphan boy must compete with a few others for the chance to impersonate a dead prince. really dark but very tense and exciting and good twists.

The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu: fantasy epic. heroes overthrow an evil empire and then struggle as the revolution dissolves into warring factions. interesting world building and three dimensional characters, even if they only have a small part.

Circe by Madeline Miller: the story behind the witch who turns men into pigs in the odyssey. madeline miller really said, i just used my classics degree to write a beautiful gay love story and now im going to write a powerful feminist retelling because i can. queen. an amazing and satisfying book that kills me a lil bit because of the two lines referencing the song of achilles.

Heartless by Marissa Meyer: the tragic backstory for the queen of hearts in alice in wonderland. a little predictable but very fun with a compelling protagonist

A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) by George RR Martin: ok I know we all hate GRRM and rightfully so but admittedly these books do have some great characters and great scenes. they deserve better than GRRM though. also he will probably never finish the books anyway....

A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket: not really fantasy but not really anything else either. plucky, intelligent, and kind children fight off evil plots for thirteen books until suddenly you realize the world is not nearly as black and white as you thought. 

Classics

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier: gothic romance!! a new wife is curious about the mysterious death of her predecessor in a creepy old house in the British countryside...good twists and lovely prose.

A Separate Peace by John Knowles: not really morally ambiguous but one awful decision suddenly has awful consequences and certain people are haunted by guilt forever.... really really really beautiful and really really really sad. boys in a boarding school grow up together under the shadow of world war two.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: while imperial russia slowly decays a beautiful young woman begins a destructive affair. a long book. very russian. the ending is incredibly tense and well written.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding: I think you know the plot to this one. the prose is better than you remember and the last scene is always exciting.

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie: one by one, the guests on an island are slowly picked off. one of Christie’s darkest mysteries- no happy ending here! very tense and great twists.

Contemporary

The Secret History by Donna Tartt: inspired the whole dark academia aesthetic. college students get a little too into ancient greece and it does not end very well. lovely prose but I found the characters unlikable.

Honorable Mentions

The Dublin Saga by Edward Rutherford: has literally a billion protagonists, but some of them are morally ambiguous ig? follows a few families stories’ from the 400s ad to irish independence in the 20s. beautifully captures the weight and movement of irish history.

Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer: how morally ambiguous can you be if you’re, like, eleven? a lot if you’re a criminal genius who wants to kidnap a fairy for your evil-ish plan apparently!

Redemption by Leon Uris: literally my favorite novel ever. the sequel to Trinity but can stand alone. various irish families struggle through the horrors of world war one. the hero isn’t really morally ambiguous, but the main theme of the novel is extremely bad people suddenly questioning their choices and eventually redeeming themselves. sweeping themes of love, screwed up families, redemption, and patriotism.

The Lymond Chronicles and House of Niccolo by Dorothy Dunnett: heroes redeem themselves/try to get rich/try to save their country in early renaissance Europe. if I actually knew what happened in these books I'm sure it would be morally ambiguous but its too confusing for me. in each book you spend at least a third convinced the protagonist is evil, though. lots of exciting sword fights, tragic romances, plot twists, and kicking english butt.

Bonus: Protagonist is less morally ambiguous and more very screwed up and sad all the time

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt: you know this one bc its quoted in all those quote compilations. basically the story of how one horrible event traumatizes a young man and how he develops a connection to a painting. really really really good.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro: hard to describe but strange... not an action novel or a dystopia really but sort of along those lines. very hopeless.

[chattegeorgiana]

Not meaning to sound rude/offend(I’m truly not) but why post about USA politics instead of Romanian ones? Ngl I know the 45th isn’t the one true problem to it all (though he still fanned the flames) but after living with 4 yrs of T**** damage(lucky for non-USA people you didn’t have to live with that) it’s just good to have him out of the WH. Also it’s not just the president in charge, decisions are also made by the house of Congress, the senate, and surpreme court. President does have power, just not 💯 % or else it be dictatorship.

What is going on with Romania?

I do post about Romanian politics as well. It’s just scarce. The same way that post was scarce.

I don’t post politics all day on Tumblr or social media. I try to stay as much away as possible, because people are too invested into this to see that the picture is waaay bigger than Trump or Joe or any other politician.

The political system is an abomination of a system made to divide people to their core.

The political system has divided people and extremized them to their goddamn core and you guys think this is a joe vs trump issue.

Congrats, you just fell into their trap. It’s what this system is meant to do.

You think non-USA people weren’t affected? Have you heard about NATO? Have you heard about international relationships?

Don’t think that you lived in a vacuum and there weren’t ripple effects of this thing.

US is/was a world superpower. Everything the US does has ripple effects. The same way those other big players also leave ripple effects.

As for him being out of there, of course, I am not even going to say that it’s good or not. You guys should know better. 

What I would say is that careful with the mass media, ya know? Because some of the words he had said, were true. Some related to China, for example.

How do I know? Because little Romania, a country u guys have no idea about, or better said, my little hometown has been under the effect of Chinese MO.

A single thing has stood to me out of all the limited things that I saw about Trump and your guys’ politics: how he manage to raise employment rates again. 

How? By putting people back to work in the very factories the Chinese bought and then closed.

How do I know that? Because that’s the Chinese MO from Romania as well. From my very hometown.

We had factories of corrugated board (3nd best in the whole wide world), factories that gave the 2nd most purest water in the world and whatnot.

These were the very basic factories that sustained the local economy in my little hometown. Know what happened after Chinese business people came and bought those factories?

Everyone was out of job and my county became the 2nd poorest region in the country, because the factories were closed. People unemployed that had to just flee the city if they wanted to survive. Because those business they did with the Chinese were pure corrupt businesses.

My hometown is mostly a ghost town right now, run by local mafia who got rich after doing those businesses.

So you see, in some respects Trump was right. And I know he was, not because he said he was. I don’t trust a word coming from any politician’s mouth. 

I know he was because I’ve seen it happen with my own two eyes in other sides of the world. All you had to do is connect the dots for yourself. 

The media tried to paint him as crazy for spewing some truth.

So before you believe everything the media tells you about him or how you should think about him, try to detach a bit and do your own research.

I’ve worked in the media. My very first job actually. I learned there how the games are done behind closed doors.

Now, you’ll say I’m a Trump supporter or idk what label you will put on me. Because that’s going to be probably the easiest way to explain this.

Well, I’m not. I won’t support anything political in my entire life lol.

Trump said some truths, but he has some issues as well. He’s a goddamn narcissist and that’s what it was his downfall in politics.

Politics nowadays is shrewd. He’s not. He’s full blunt direct force. The perfect ammo for the system to paint him whatever they want to. In that respect he’s stupid and I would’ve expected him to  be smarter given all the shit he pulled in the past.

Like the thing with the banks and taxes that everyone blames him for.

Do I say he did a good or bad thing? Nah. I say he did a smart thing.

He found a way to give people jobs, while in the meantime getting himself rich. He found a loophole, yeah. But it’s not like all those instances with him not paying his taxes were done on his own. Nah. He had an agreement to people in power.

I often wonder... Do people hate him for not paying his taxes or for not having first the idea that he had to make money? 

Because in the end it’s all reduced to money. Because money is power and it’s what makes the world go round.

He found a way to grab power and be outside of the locks of banks.

Don’t you guys have those credits ever since you’re in school? That’s literally chains on your future.

You spend most of your lives trying to pay back the banks who lock you in an eco system that generates money to them, while keeping you in chains.

He just found a way to be out of those chains. Out of that wretched system.

Because you see, that’s the issue... It’s a system issue, not a Trump issue.

I don’t have the moral authority to say if what he did is right or wrong. After all, he did create thousands of jobs for people as well while doing what he did.

But are you guys under the impression that Trump might be the only one who did that? Lol, tell me you’re not that naive.

Those kind of people have armies of accountants around them to make the papers look good.

It just so happened that Trump probably disturbed someone. 

Because at those levels there’s a looot of power play. I mean, it’s not like in the past they didn’t all hang out together.

Come on, tell me you’re not that naive. It’s a move done by politicians ever since they goddamn invented that wretched system.

And since you asked by Romanian politics, what I’ve just written until now about Trump, is the same thing that happens in Romania.

It’s a global phenomena. It happens in every country. Here it’s the same, lol.

They all used to hang out together, and then whenever the elections come they start being at each other’s throats, posing as if they’re the biggest enemies.

But then you see clandestine pictures of them dining together at a restaurant. Or not even that. Just them hanging together.

You know, when the media isn’t there to be telling the story they want to tell to the audience.

Because if you think that the media isn’t politically subservient, you’re OH SO wrong.

Told you my first job was in the media.

You know what someone I worked with told me about some discussions they used to have in the USA on some sort of workshops or whatever u called them back in the day?

That US media hasn’t been free media since the 70′s. And that Romanian press was still free at that time (this was a discussion back in the 90′s).

But, there will come a time when the press won’t be free in Romania either. That they will write under political command.

Well, guess what happens nowadays? Exactly what that person said. It started somewhere back in 2008-2010.

In the pandemic for example, Romanian government gave the media 70$ billion in funds.

Which makes me wonder, why would the media need something like that, if it’s not an essential domain, like we oh so started labeling?

But hey, they did it in the pandemic so they are now free of any suspicions because if they did it now, all they wanted to do is “help”, right?

To write good about the political party in charge, while admonishing the others.

Despite people knowing all too well how the games are played.

So at the end of the day, all I’m saying is before putting your trust into politicians, look around you.

Now that it’s Biden, you say it’s a senate whatnot problem. Back when it was Trump, everyone blamed just him, as if he was the only one in charge.

Which is it after all? Is it a single person problem or a problem of senate/president/everyone else?

See what I mean?

Anyway... I’ll stop here. I am sure this thing won’t be understood in its true nature so I won’t bother anymore.

All I know is at the end of the day I have my conscience clean, no matter what.

So yeah, hope that answered your question. Basically to sum it up in Romania it’s the same shit as it is in other countries, only adapted locally, ofc.

But it’s still there to divide people, at the end of the day, so that’s that.

[chaoswillfallrpg]

SEVERUS SNAPE is TWENTY-TWO YEARS OLD and a POTIONEER in KNOCKTURN ALLEY at MR MULPEPPER’S APOTHECARY. He looks remarkably like VIVEIK KALRA and considers himself aligned with THE DEATH EATERS. He is currently TAKEN. 

→ OVERVIEW:

Bitter and arrogant, Severus Snape always thought of himself as the smartest person in the room. The only child born to Muggle, TOBIAS SNAPE and Witch, EILEEN PRINCE, he grew up in Spinner's End which was located at the poor end of Cokeworth. A curious boy, his thirst for information could not be quenched by the neighbouring children, but instead by the books piled high in every crevice of his small terraced house. Severus grew up alone, not because he was an only child but because that was the way he liked it. Thankful that he didn't have an annoying sibling following him around, he thrived by himself in his room. His mother pestered him constantly to go out and play with the children outside, but to her dismay he stayed put with his abnormally large nose in a book. Eventually she left him to it, much easier to allow the boy to stay in his room than to be under the feet of his father. Tobias Snape was a cold man, not one fit for fatherhood. What little time he spent at Spinner’s End was wasted in his armchair by the fire, taking no notice of his son and only acknowledging his wife when she did something worthy of a scolding. Severus grew to hate his father but was never bold enough to say it out loud. He kept it to himself, identifying further and further with the Prince side of his family rather than the Muggle side he grew to loathe year upon year. 

His father forced him to develop a growing disdain for Muggles and what he thought they represented. If they could be this cold and cruel towards their own kin, then what must they be like towards others? Severus enjoyed his sheltered life, not even realising what he was missing. Happy in his home-made solitude he spent his days in his room drinking in as much information as he could. To Severus, knowledge was power and he who yielded it correctly could do just about anything. His solitude ended however on the day he met LILY EVANS. Walking down the street on one unusually hot September afternoon, he spotted her walking home from the Muggle school just round the corner. Meeting Lily opened up his life to an entire world he had been missing, and he opened hers in turn. A Muggle-Born witch, Lily had no understanding of the Wizarding World, and Severus was more than happy to tell her all about it. Usually one to shy away from others, not having a high attention span for other people's lack of intelligence, Severus found Lily strangely enticing. Teaching her about the magical world and all it contained was the happiest he could be, as she sat in awe. Ever since that September afternoon the pair were inseparable, Severus would spend his days no longer in his room, but reading by the lake near Lily’s house while she was at school. They discussed magical creatures, wizarding politics and most of all Hogwarts. September 1st came around quickly and Severus boarded the train with his second-hand trunk filled with his second-hand books. 

Sorted into Slytherin, he watched from his table as Lily made her way towards her new house, Gryffindor. He sulked as he saw her make new friends who would become his biggest enemies in the years to follow. Dreams of the pair spending their Hogwarts years together quickly dwindling, Severus made friends or rather acquaintances with some fellow snakes he was to be sharing a dorm with. JASPER AVERY and LARKIN MULCIBER were friends from before Hogwarts, but were happy to welcome him into the fold if he matched their Pure-Blood ideals that had been handed down to them from their fathers. Taking this new chapter in his stride, he became close to the pair and got involved in their more light-hearted jesting of the other students. Only able to take them in small doses however he often found himself alone. He got a reprieve from the loneliness the following year when REGULUS BLACK joined Hogwarts and was sorted into Slytherin alongside him. A quiet and sullen boy much like himself, the pair got on exceptionally well, often reading in silence and discussing more intellectual subjects than Avery and Mulciber were seemingly capable of. What little time Severus wasn't spending with his nose in a book he would spend staring across to the Gryffindor table. He watched throughout the years as Lily made friends with the Marauders. JAMES POTTER, SIRIUS BLACK, REMUS LUPIN and PETER PETTIGREW slowly became famous at Hogwarts, shining in the foreground of Lily’s life while Severus felt himself slowly fade away from her life. 

What started as small glances here and there became an obsession with the boys who occupied Lily’s day and bitterly disliked him as he took up whatever little time she had left. James, the ringleader of the group despised Severus and encouraged his little minions to join him in the torment. James’ dislike for Severus however was nothing in comparison to the Slytherins' dislike of James; his arrogant egocentric personality made him an easy target for Severus’ disdain. Severus truly despised the boy due to his total and complete ability to capture the attention of Lily, who whenever he would glance over to the Gryffindor table almost seemed to be softening towards the scruffy-haired boys clear attention-seeking antics. His friendship with Lily had become strained over the years, both tried to keep it alive and thriving but the influences of their different friendship groups led to tension between the pair. Severus spent most of his free time investigating the group of misfit Gryffindors that were stealing his friend away, adamant they were hiding something, their cruel taunts, ‘Snivellus’ jokes and their closeness to a certain redhead only adding fuel to his fire. It all came to a head when a prank gone wrong masterminded by Sirius ended up with Severus owing a life debt to the one he despised the most, James Potter. He had followed the group one evening with a personal invite to do so by Black to find Lupin turning into a werewolf in front of his very eyes, a stag jumped between the pair and led the beast away. 

Severus later found out in PROFESSOR DUMBLEDORE’s office that the stag was none other than James in his animagus form when the headmaster was swearing him to secrecy about the matter. After the incident Severus tried to keep away from the Marauders and Lily consequently. The time he used to spend watching them he would now spend in a foggy potions room working on elixirs that were far beyond the capabilities of a normal Hogwarts student. He thrived in the subject, along with DADA and when it came to revising he would seek out Reg rather than Lily more and more. The last thread keeping their friendship alive was cut the day James Potter decided to use one of his own spells against him. Severus had a knack for inventing new spells, and the Levicorpus spell had taken Hogwarts by storm, not knowing he was the creator of the charm, James used it to humiliate Severus in front of Lily and his friends. On this occasion, like so many others, Lily defended the boy, still under the illusion he was her best friend even though they hardly spoke these days. Severus was not a boy who wanted to appear weak, he didn't like the idea of people thinking he couldn't defend himself, and so he took his annoyance out on the only person he truly cared for and before he could think the words ‘filthy mudblood’ were out of his mouth. The next thing he knew he was hanging upside down by his ankles from a tree and watched as Lily walked away from him and their friendship. After that Severus fell further into the crowd of Slytherins, following the path his housemates pathed for him, he and his friends would use the word ‘mudblood’ with much more frequency, so much so that it drew the attention of Larkin’s older brother who had a proposition for the trio. 

The three boys were introduced to THE DARK LORD, a man who had ideas about blood purity and what to do with mudbloods, fueled by his annoyance of the Marauders and Lily, and the fact it would seem Regulus was already part of the fold, Severus signed himself up to the cause. Severus finished Hogwarts with exceptional grades, the best potioneer PROFESSOR SLUGHORN had seen in all his years of teaching and fell in to working at Mr Mulpepper’s Apothecary as a potioneer. When not working at the shop, Severus is usually at The Death Eater headquaters meeting with his mentor of sorts LUCIUS MALFOY, a man he had heard of but never met before, Lucius guides and informs him of the needs of their leader. Through his job Severus was also reintroduced to a woman he knew from school, several years his senior, PATRICIA RAKEPICK was a curse breaker for Gringotts and had a specific interest in the subtle art of potions and so would frequent the shop several times a week. He had found the girl annoying and gaudy at school but had found his feelings about her confused since. His love/hate feelings for her intrigued him greatly and with each visit she made to the shop he became more aware of the spark between them. Scared that his interest had everything to do with the girls flaming red hair and fiery personality Severus was at a loss for how to proceed, especially in a world where he has to worry about his supposed unwavering loyalty to a cause and a man he does not quite know if he supports.

→ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Blood Status → Half-Blood

Pronouns → He/Him

Identification → Cis Male 

Sexuality  → Greysexual

Relationship Status → Single

Previous Education →  Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Slytherin)

Family → N/A

Connections  → Lily Evans (object of affection), Patricia Rakepick (potential love interest), Regulus Black (close friend), Jasper Avery (close friend), Larkin Mulciber (close friend), Lucius Malfoy (mentor), Clarence Mullpepper (boss), James Potter (adversary), Sirius Black (adversary), Remus Lupin (adversary), Peter Pettigrew (adversary)

Future Information → Traitor to The Death Eaters, Eventual Member of The Order of the Phoenix

SEVERUS SNAPE IS A LEVEL 7 WIZARD.

[aion-rsa]

Godzilla vs. Kong Writer Talks About Spending 8 Years in the MonsterVerse

https://ift.tt/3uiXJ5q

This article conatins spoilers for GODZILLA VS. KONG.

Aside from studios Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures, and certain behind-the-scenes executives, the four MonsterVerse movies to date have embraced largely different creative and directorial visions for each outing. This includes the latest installment Godzilla vs. Kong. But even though all four movies have had different directors, somewhat different tones, and mostly different casts, one of a handful of constant names has been that of Max Borenstein.

Borenstein has had a writing credit on all four MonsterVerse movies, starting with penning the screenplay for 2014’s Godzilla. Since then he’s co-authored the screenplay for Kong: Skull Island (2017), gotten a story credit for Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) and is back to full screenplay credit (with Eric Pearson) on Godzilla vs. Kong.

Of course Hollywood screenwriting is a tricky field: many projects have multiple writers come and go during development, production and even post-production, with the issue of who wrote what and how they’re credited an often complex negotiation between producers, agents, and the Writers Guild. But Borenstein (whose other projects include executive producing the TV series Minority Report and The Terror Infamy) has legitimately had a hand in the evolution of the MonsterVerse since the start.

With Godzilla vs. Kong off to a–yes, we’re going to say it–roaring start at a still-reopening and recovering worldwide box office (including nearly $50 million in the U.S.) and streaming away on HBO Max as well, Den of Geek got on Zoom with Borenstein shortly before the movie’s launch to discuss the development of this fourth–and perhaps final?–entry, its relationship to the other films, and what these iconic monsters mean to new generations of fans.

Den of Geek: You’ve been involved in each of the films up to this point. What was the process for this one? How many iterations of the story were you involved in?

Max Borenstein: I’ve been involved in the franchise in different ways from the beginning. I helped with Godzilla, the first film. It was a kind of a rebuild of the script from brass tacks when Gareth Edwards came on board to direct, and we worked really closely together. And I stayed more or less on that movie from then through production.

It was in post-production on that, that the head of Legendary at the time, Thomas Tull, and Mary Parent–who was then a producer and is now running Legendary–and Alex Garcia, who’s the exec there who’s really been overseeing the whole franchise, first came to me and asked if I was interested in being involved in writing a Kong movie that would sort of bring Kong into that universe. For Thomas, who was really the big fan and the kind of driving force behind it, it was always about creating a universe where ultimately we can bring those two together, like the Avengers, in Godzilla vs. Kong.

So those were kind of the marching orders from the very beginning, at least for me, once it was clear that we to some extent had cracked the code on the new American version of Godzilla. And through the years, I was involved on and off in every one of these films, but Godzilla vs. Kong was the one where I at this point, had become part of the brain trust, so to speak.

How did Godzilla and Kong change from the previous films?

By this point it was clear we had done the groundwork in terms of filling out what these monsters were, how we envisioned Godzilla, what level of anthropomorphic attachment they had to people, and how unknowable our Godzilla was. There have been so many different Godzillas over time. So we developed that and we developed an idea of how our Kong fit into the spectrum of different King Kongs over time.

Really for me, the mandate of this film was: how do we finally allow Godzilla and Kong to carry their own movie? In the previous films, because we were sort of establishing them, we always had these human characters who were our way in, and they still are. But more and more in this film, Godzilla and Kong are the stars, and everybody else is a supporting character.

Is it a challenge to come up with interesting human characters, especially when you know that people are there to see the monsters fight?

Yeah, it is. It’s always a challenge. And I think one of the challenges of it is scale. It’s very different from the superhero franchises, because in superhero franchises, your characters are actual people who also have superpowers. But in the case of Godzilla and King Kong, particularly Godzilla and Kong in this iteration, you’re operating at a scale that’s not human. It’s societal, it’s global. When they do something, it has a much larger impact. It’s much harder to have a human character have too much agency with these creatures without stepping into inventing devices that control the creatures. We do some of that, but on some level, it becomes boring if people are just piloting these guys.

So the challenge is how do you create human characters that allow us to experience that while not taking too much of the spotlight? I think we honed more and more as we went forward, that if you see the human characters less as protagonists in the traditional sense and more as supporting characters in the stories of Godzilla and Kong, they become crucial in storytelling. They’re not carrying the movie, but they might be like Simon Pegg in the Mission: Impossible movies, where there’s charm and there’s humor, and there’s emotion that comes from those characters. But they’re not being asked to carry the movie in the way that a star would, because our stars are Godzilla and Kong.

Did you know early on that Millie Bobby Brown and Kyle Chandler would be coming back from Godzilla: King of the Monsters?

Yeah. By the time I came into this project, those kinds of bones were in place. It evolved somewhat, but we knew largely what the cast of characters was going to be. They were kind of Camp Godzilla, and then Camp Kong was the main characters, Alexander Skarsgård and Rebecca Hall, and those guys.

Read more

Movies

Godzilla vs. Kong: A Brief History of Mechagodzilla

By Don Kaye

Movies

Godzilla vs. Kong: Where The MonsterVerse Should Go Next

By David Crow

Was Mechagodzilla always the secret villain?

Well, it’s funny. Because like I said, a lot of the bones for this one were in place by the time I kind of came in, in terms of those decisions. But I had originally written Mechagodzilla into [Godzilla: King of the Monsters]. It was very similar in the sense of being an opportunity for the human characters to have some agency at the scale of the monsters, which is one of the hardest parts of these stories.

It was something I really quite liked, and ultimately [KOTM director] Mike Dougherty, as they were developing it, kind of put it aside. But I was really happy that we had brought it back in Godzilla vs. Kong, because it felt like one of the main challenges of Godzilla vs. Kong is neither Godzilla nor Kong is a villain. We’re rooting in different ways for each, we’re connected in different ways to each.

So it felt essential to have a third thing. Round one goes to Godzilla and round two goes to Kong. The question is in round three, rather than having one or the other win, how can we have the two of them develop a grudging respect for one another and go up against the third thing. Mechagodzilla felt like this perfect route into that.

It’s fun how you tied him back to King Ghidorah by using Ghidorah’s skull as a control panel.

Yeah, totally. It had different kind of evolutions and expansions as we went along and then contractions, but it was always those two characters, Serizawa and Simmons [the Apex Cybernetics scientist and CEO, played by Shun Oguri and Demián Bichir respectively], who both are interested in this idea of being able to act at the level and the scale of the creatures. But each has a very different kind of perspective on what they want to do with that power and how that can corrupt them. Ultimately it got slimmed down, but still I think retained its fundamental sort of core.

When it came to the final battle, was there any point where one of them was going to lose or was it always planned that both of them would survive?

No, neither Godzilla nor Kong were ever going to lose. There were different moments of how far we took it in terms of Kong taking a beating, but the two of them were always going to gang back up and work together.

Have there been discussions about what comes next? Do you have ideas for a fifth film?

There have definitely been ideas thrown around. I can’t say I’m appraised on the absolute latest right now, but I know that it’s all about this being the kind of Avengers moment and hopefully people respond and audiences will dig the way that we’ve kind of wrapped up this initial chapter of the Monsterverse.

What about a Monarch TV show where they would chase different monsters around the globe?

Again, I couldn’t speak to whether anything like that has been discussed, but that’s something I’ve always thought would be really fun. It would allow you to get into a different kind of storytelling in a different kind of scale that has a little bit more X-Files vibe within that universe. I’ve always thought that’d be cool.

Over the course of the four movies, what elements do you feel the most ownership of?

These are such collaborative endeavors, as are just movies of this scale in general, and in particular movies like this that are so reliant on what you’re building in post-production in terms of creatures and everything. But every now and then, in the actual writing, there’s some dialogue here and there that makes you think, “Oh, that was mine. I’m proud of that.” The “let them fight,” moment from Godzilla is one, and there are a couple of moments in this one, like when Rebecca Hall says, “Kong doesn’t bow to anyone.” Things like that are moments that I’m proud of that made it into the movie, because those are the kinds of moments of dialogue that you look forward to in a movie like this.

The thing that I’m proud of is what you feel when these two characters finally come together–the emotional investment, I think, that we’ve built. When you get to that moment at the end, when Godzilla and Kong square off, not as enemies, but as allies, it’s the kind of thing that I feel proud of because I think we’ve done a lot of work to get to a place where we’re invested in these two characters and we feel kind of thrilled at the fact that the two of them create this grudging alliance.

What are your feelings about the original King Kong vs. Godzilla?

I had watched it when we started working on this, and it’s super campy and fun and hopefully we did it justice. It’s one of those films that it felt a lot like playing with your toys on the floor where you take the two toys that don’t go together, and suddenly they’re together in the same story. I always thought that one of the best parts of that whole franchise is the playful quality of just taking Kong, who has nothing to do with that world, and throwing him in there. That’s why those films always captured my imagination in that way.

What do you think that these monsters represent nowadays?

I think they’re both vessels. Godzilla certainly over the course of the decades has been a vessel for, at times our fears — whether it be fears of nuclear annihilation initially, or environmental degradation, the anxieties of the moment have been sponged up by Godzilla in different iterations over the years. Certainly Kong has evolved from his earliest days of being kind of a somewhat problematic kind of colonialist metaphor for “the other,” and over time has become just an iconic beloved character.

When these characters take on this scale, there’s this philosophical term, “hyperobject,” which this philosopher Tim Morton talks about–something so large that it touches everything and everyone all the time. You can’t have any conversation about anything without kind of also talking about it. Climate change is one of those things that’s just ubiquitous and everywhere. So is the pandemic. There’s not a single moment of any day or a single thing we do right now where COVID isn’t having some kind of impact because it’s on a scale that touches everyone around the world.

So [Godzilla and Kong] reveal to us the fact that we’re all connected, which is easy to forget when we live in big glass skyscrapers and we ignore the other people around the world. Hyperobjects bring us into connection. Godzilla and Kong, creatures of this scale that can hop around the world and touch everyone haphazardly and create tumult and chaos, reveal that in our globalized world, we are all connected for better and for worse. To me, that’s really what this movie is kind of all about.

Godzilla vs. Kong is out in theaters and streaming now on HBO Max.

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The post Godzilla vs. Kong Writer Talks About Spending 8 Years in the MonsterVerse appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3dDoPNV

[permian-tropos]

Brendol Hux for the character ask.

1. How I feel about this character

I’m really fond of a version of him that absolutely doesn’t exist in canon, though it’s based on some canon elements. He has a particular position in canon that I think is cool -- being a link between the problems/evils of the Jedi Order and the evils of the First Order -- and there’s no way to take that really good content and bestow it to a different character because it IS Brendol’s thing. So I’m remodeling the mean dad man. I can make other mean dads but I can’t make many other architects of the stormtrooper program.

But basically, as a guy who is ideologically descended from the Jedi, he’s the sort of villain that ought to have been more accessible. You should be able to read about him doing appalling things but be invested in what’s going on so you can understand those appalling things in a wider context. It should be engaging to get stuff from his POV. I don’t think we’ve had any Brendol POV content in canon at all, and canon writers seem like they’re not particularly interested in making him someone you want to see more of. Plus, I don’t think they ever want to talk about how messed up the clone program was. Brendol being inspired by the clone program only implicates the Jedi if Brendol is relatable enough that you can see how the Jedi playing fast and loose with morality could have a corrupting effect on others.

Besides that though his British boarding school aesthetic is good actually, and the times he’s allowed to be affably evil really sold me.  

2. All the people I ship romantically with this character

As most of you know, Armitage’s mother, but an OC named Moira who is Palpatine’s daughter and is a powerful Dark Side user who was an Inquisitor for a while and then hides out on Arkanis doing her own thing. She and Brendol are gross and sappy together, even though they do have some pretty major relationship troubles. Evil power couple.

Maratelle, in the sense that she used to be in love with him back when he was hiding the worst of his ambitions.

I’ll put Sloane and Rax on the same line here because I lowkey like the idea of either of them having a thing with Brendol, sort of an X with benefits situation because they’re all having depressed midlife crises.  

3. My non-romantic OTP for this character

This will be hard to convey without a lot of context but I created another OC, a FO officer around Finn’s age who used to be a trooper, that would have a relationship to Brendol kind of intentionally paralleling Rey and Luke in TLJ. Brendol survives his canon death but lives in exile (no longer evil) with Moira, and then this OC discovers them while trying to save stormtroopers on Starkiller from this supernatural disease that is connected to/caused by reconditioning. It’s like when Rey discovers that her hero wasn’t what she expected but worse, but in the end my OC and the Hux parents have this very tentative, pained familiarity… I was inspired by in canon Brendol sort of approving of Zare Leonis for being nicer than he thinks is appropriate, so my OC comes along aggressively trying to do the right thing and Brendol is disillusioned with his old career and he lets himself care about one more person, someone who he once terribly wronged (by, you know, kidnapping). Yah he get redeemed in that story im just fukcing rolling with it u know how it is... it’s also inspired by the idea of redeemed Vader sticking around long enough to have quiet domestic scenes especially since this version of Brendol has a very damaged body (considering how he canonically died). But instead of being a cyborg he’s a, uh, sea monster chimera for some bonus Lovecraftian vibes and because Moira is a monsterfucker and she put him back together.

4. My unpopular opinion about this character

Most of my opinions about him are unpopular but it’s not like there’s a ton of discourse around him though, since he’s not  seen as a seductive threat to morals like Kylo Ren lol. I don’t think the people who have strong negative feelings about Brendol because, say, they love Armitage, would really be offended by my version. So my opinions are not super contentious, just unusual. Also, it’d be hard for other people to come up with the same ideas about Brendol as me since I’m inventing so much of my own content for it. 

5. One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

Would prefer canon not do anything more with him because I want to keep my playground of ideas going.

However, I think he could have been in TLJ as part of the arc that culminates in Finn and Rose vs Hux and Phasma. He could start off with Armitage as a parallel to Leia with Poe, and he’s not really Armitage’s villain because I want to make sure to emphasize how his villainy affected Finn and Rose (Finn is obvious, and the Order kidnapped kids from Rose’s homeworld too). So he wouldn’t be abusing Armitage for his failures, in fact he’d be forced to watch Snoke doing that, and Armitage is clearly hurt and angry that his father won’t/can’t protect him but it’s not that they completely hate each other. But later Finn and Rose could clash with Brendol in that execution scene, so they get to talk about their backstories a little more, and Phasma could shoot Brendol as part of that deleted scene where she kills the troopers after Finn reveals her treachery, and then Armitage actually watches his father die but he’s not ok with it actually and I think all that would be solid drama. 

[shy-magpie]

RQG 151

Moving the patreon names a good idea but changes to structure take up more brain space than they should. I hope they keep the reminder they moved it as a substitute, at least for a while. The rest of the structure is the same and I can feel my shoulders coming away from my ears as the theme plays. I choose to interpret that as Alex saying his players being fine is his highest priority. Borb Under the sea bed🎵. 1)its great when I barely start a thought before a player says the same thing 2) we will get our musical one way or the other 3)I know they're from an improv background but it never ceases to delight how joyfully they support each other's unexpected bits. 4) Alex seems like he gets a kick out of playing up his annoyance at the musical idea more than actually being frustrated it keeps coming up. I thought so but nice to confirm. Bless this cast, it wouldn't have been a huge deal if they let Alex's description stand but its so nice they not only corrected it, they did so without hesitation and Alex seemed to appreciate the help in getting to better phrasing rather than take it as an accusation. Not that I thought he would but feeling grateful for RQ not falling into behavior I see elsewhere. Also hearing everyone chiming in; with Bryn being the one to name check the trope instead of it being on Helen to always take the lead is nice to hear. "he was very encountered" Have I mentioned lately that I love literally everything about this show? Even when he thinks he knows exactly what the party is going to do and certainly knows what he is guiding them towards Alex checks instead of putting anyone in the position of having to derail. Cel! I wonder if cis people get anywhere near my joy in Cel having that kind of control over their body. I mean its just objectively cool even without the gender aspect so I hope they at least enjoy that much. I need cancan art. Did Alex know how delighted Lydia would be with the image of being popped out like a cork before he said it? Coo coo ca chu, thank you Ben Zolf remains 200% done and doesn't bother checking the door Ben don't! 92 HP, well that would be comforting if it wasn't Zolf. Like I don't think it's actually a death wish/that he is suicidal but well, see not checking the door. He is far too comfortable with the idea of being hurt. Alex:Chill sea dude Ben: sounds of objection Lydia: chill environment neutral dude Still love Alex's set design. A person! Bryn sounds alarmed about implications of the walk ways. Cel can shield themselves. Yes Hamid can armor himself! Also casts fly on himself & Azu. Thank you Ben/Zolf. This show does get deep into moral quandaries sometimes but unless these guys are as drugged as the Kobolds they objectively need to die. The dice love us Altruism run Darn it Alex, are you hinting they are drugged against their will? Azu feels tapping their shoulder then killing them is better even if they don't have a prayer of defending themselves. Oh I see Helen has our back and is checking for mind control before we do Kobolds 2: the guilt continues. Well yes they are surprised Bryn sounds so pleased as goes through exactly how many ways the odds are in Hamid's favor. Then he rolls 6,6,5,5 on D6s for 26 damage so no kill like over kill. Watsonian explanation: emotion is at least partially fueling Hamid's magic especially anything fire/desolation aligned, and there is no way he isn't overflowing with emotion after the last few hours. Zolf is happy to let Azu handle the last one and uses his action to ask if Cel knows what (something, the equipment in this room?) does. Cel determines its a notification board for the cell cavern. So these guys were directly aware and involved with the mistreatment of the Kobolds. I officially am dropping the last tiny part of me that cared if they were drugged/otherwise forced into the work. If they were cognisant enough to read that and still did it then its time to find Zolf's old bucket. Glad the table is having fun! I wonder what the face Alex pulled looked like.  Raw terror? The equivalent of a neon sign reading "I'm screwed"? I shouldn't have implied Alex would leave the listeners out, this is a wonderful description. Helen is more thorough than I am. There you go, time to die. Oh episode name drop. That's my Zolf, killing who needs killing doesn't mean we ignore collateral damage. And Cel just invented the departures board. Zolf: not worth destroying? Cel: If you'd enjoy it Priorities Heading towards the shore I like how Alex sounds pleased they broke his dungeon Vital info for visualizing this. Poor Azu is trying to swim while Hamid & Cel are zooming elegantly and Zolf is walking because boots or no he is ungainly. Hamid enjoying flying & Azu being adorable even under the circumstances is endearing. Correction Cel is walking Lockers & propaganda posters I can't put it in words but there is a connection being made between how little these mooks care about messing up shared spaces & the rest of the mundane evil that led to them being bucket worthy. Thank you all for the taking water breathing potions I'm not sure how I feel about Alex giving us stuff for free Oh Dear! Are the mooks heading to the village? Zolf is reassuring Never over the little touches Alex has to make the world feel more real like the water proof flares Oh Cel dear, 1)you don't know that, you don't need mourn your village while they yet may live 2)what kind of trauma have they been through? "Again"? Lydia gets a quick dig in about the party not being allowed to sleep. Cel shifts into a creature who can see. ~Break~ Nevermind just enlarge person Somewhere Babs is begging for a simple answer. I don't think we got a simple answer Hamid is reassuring Cel. Something both relateable and possibly a bad sign that "don't worry they have been spending all their time preparing to kill us, so they can't be attacking your people" is legitimately both the line Hamid took and probably the most effective possible. The others help too. I love how they openly care, reassuring Cel without telling them to repress or that they are wrong to experience the emotions in the first place. Lights and colors flashing in the water. The dice seem to be favoring Bryn today. There's a fight up ahead. They all run to the fight, Cel leaves them in the dust. Hamid flies after Cel since he couldn't catch up on foot The dice do know I promise I will appreciate the set design on relisten,  but for the love of god who is fighting who? Mooks vs who? Humans Yes! Alex hasn't quite gotten there but the cast sound convinced its Barnes & Carter. Ah is Wilde with them? Did Wilde tear his hair out worrying then send back up the second Zolf was overdue? Bleeping Carter Barnes sounds like he is having fun Carter is throwing knives at people. Odd knife & dagger are basically synonyms but not getting Sasha feels 2 vs 8 Ben points out Carter stole Sasha's gimmick Ok warming to Carter will take a minute but I already like Barnes Natural 1 on bomb throwing. Thank you Alex for not being a "death by nat 1 is funny" GM Alex keeps forgetting what a bad bum Cel is. Giblet heavy day Moving quickly past possible misgendering of Cel. Best way to handle that I think, no distracting corrections but Lydia doesn't let it stand. Thank you for being safe Hamid! Hamid protects Barnes. Love the extra extra pew. Finger guns! Alex is 3rd person level stressed Cel gets out the crossbow and punctuates their correction on pronouns. I love this podcast. I really, really, love this podcast and stuff like that shows they love their listeners back. Cel: Pronouns. Are. They. Them Helen: the dice say they/them rights Not sure if dead but 13 damage against one misgendering mook Hamid continues to shoot very well in support rather than endangering himself needlessly. Azu, spotting Carter: You! You? Accidently restarted the episode when I unpaused and now my phone is acting up, and is doing strange things when I try to fast forward to where I was. The annoyance at the above is cancelled out by hearing "Pronouns. Are. They/Them" 4 times Zolf: great seeing you again I love Barnes Alex the fandom appreciates this description Ah Zolf got Barnes into the Campbell books And they attempt to flee badly Carter finally rolls decently but not impressively Cel shoots one in the neck they're still moving Hamid mutters in draconic:  this is for the Kobolds Thank you Bryn Barnes successfully seduced <Azu> Helen I love that the trained mathematician is the one who participates in dice superstition Ben! Huh patreon names still make my brain happy. Wonder if it's something deep about community or I just got pavloved by it being before RQG & TMA for so long

[theculturedmarxist]

The New York Times is literally a propaganda outlet and Timothy Egan is a deceitful chode. His every word drips with the anxious desperation of the Democrats who know their goose is cooked.

Watching “Succession,” the HBO show about the most despicable plutocrats to seize the public imagination since the Trumps were forced on us, made me want to tax the ultrarich into a homeless shelter. And it almost made a Bernie Bro of me.

That’s the thing about class loathing: It feels good, a moral high with its own endorphins, but is ultimately self-defeating. A Bernie Sanders rally is a hit from the same pipe: Screw those greedy billionaire bastards!

Sanders has passion going for him. He has authenticity. He certainly has consistency: His bumper-sticker sloganeering hasn’t changed for half a century. He was, “even as a young man, an old man,” as Time magazine said.

But he cannot beat Donald Trump, for the same reason people do not translate their hatred of the odious rich into pitchfork brigades against walled estates.

Because powerful oligarchs that own their government murder them with impunity when they do.

>March 7 was a bitterly cold day in Detroit, and a crowd estimated at between 3,000 and 5,000 gathered near the Dearborn city limits, about a mile from the Ford plant. The Detroit Times called it "one of the coldest days of the winter, with a frigid gale whooping out of the northwest". Marchers carried banners reading "Give Us Work, "We Want Bread Not Crumbs", and "Tax the Rich and Feed the Poor". Albert Goetz gave a speech, asking that the marchers avoid violence. The march proceeded peacefully along the streets of Detroit until it reached the Dearborn city limits.

>There, the Dearborn police attempted to stop the march by firing tear gas into the crowd and began hitting marchers with clubs. One officer fired a gun at the marchers. The unarmed crowd scattered into a field covered with stones, picked them up, and began throwing stones at the police. The angry marchers regrouped and advanced nearly a mile toward the plant. There, two fire engines began spraying cold water onto the marchers from an overpass. The police were joined by Ford security guards and began shooting into the crowd. Marchers Joe York, Coleman Leny and Joe DeBlasio were killed, and at least 22 others were wounded by gunfire.

>The leaders decided to call off the march at that point and began an orderly retreat. Harry Bennett, head of Ford security, drove up in a car, opened a window, and fired a pistol into the crowd. Immediately, the car was pelted with rocks, and Bennett was injured. He got out of the car and continued firing at the retreating marchers. Dearborn police and Ford security men opened fire with machine guns on the retreating marchers. Joe Bussell, 16 years old, was killed, and dozens more men were wounded. Bennett was hospitalized for his injury.

> All of the seriously wounded marchers were arrested, and the police chained many to their hospital beds after they were admitted for treatment. A nationwide search was conducted for William Z. Foster, but he was not arrested. No law enforcement or Ford security officer was arrested, although all reliable reports showed that they had engaged in all the gunfire, resulting in deaths, injuries and property damage. The New York Times reported that "Dearborn streets were stained with blood, streets were littered with broken glass and the wreckage of bullet-riddled automobiles, and nearly every window in the Ford plant's employment building had been broken".

The United States has never been a socialist country, even when it most likely should have been one, during the robber baron tyranny of the Gilded Age or the desperation of the Great Depression, and it never will be. Which isn’t to say that American capitalism is working; it needs Teddy Roosevelt-style trustbusting and restructuring. We’re coming for you, Facebook.

Yeah, just look how well that’s worked out, you fucking idiot.

The next month presents the last chance for serious scrutiny of Sanders, who is leading in both Iowa and New Hampshire. After that, Republicans will rip the bark off him. When they’re done, you will not recognize the aging, mouth-frothing, business-destroying commie from Ben and Jerry’s dystopian dairy. Demagogy is what Republicans do best. And Sanders is ripe for caricature. 

The same Republicans that got their breakfast ate by the dottering windbag cheetoman? The same Republicans that are unpopular with over half the fucking country? The same Republicans which have shown majority support for Sanders’s policies in the past? Those are the Republicans you’re talking about, right, Timothy, you fucking asshole?

I’m not worried about the Russian stuff — Bernie’s self-described “very strange honeymoon” to the totalitarian hell of the Soviet Union in 1988, and his kind words for similar regimes. Compared with a president who is a willing stooge for the Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, a little vodka-induced dancing with the red bear is peanuts.

Nor am I worried about the legitimate questions concerning the candidate’s wife, Jane Sanders, who ran a Vermont college into the ground. Again, Trump’s family of grifters — from Ivanka securing her patents from China while Daddy made other promises to Beijing, to Don Jr.’s using the White House to leverage the family brand — give Democrats more than enough ammunition to return the fire.

This is fun. Due to a complete lack of incriminating conduct, little Timmy has to invent wrongdoing to libel Jane Sanders. I suppose he’s relying on his readers being too stupid to read the article that he himself links, another NYT hitpiece that desperately tries to paint Ms Sanders as a shady character without anything in the way of tangible proof.

>Federal prosecutors have not spoken publicly about their investigation, though late last year, Ms. Sanders’s lead lawyer said he had been told it had been closed. And while doubts remain about the contribution pledges claimed by the college, the lawyer has said that neither Ms. Sanders nor her husband was even questioned by investigators, indicating a lack of significant evidence of a crime.

>After Ms. Sanders’s ouster, the college’s troubles worsened. It abandoned a promising effort she had undertaken to sell some of its new land to improve its finances, interviews show. A few years later, when it did begin selling, it was to a consortium that secretly included at least one member of its board, raising conflict-of-interest questions.

>There is little question that the college’s 2016 demise can be traced to Ms. Sanders’s decision to champion an aggressive — critics say reckless — plan to buy the land. But with potential students put off by the lack of a campus, and with many such colleges struggling at the time, her move was the academic equivalent of a Hail Mary. Her allies said she never had a chance to fulfill her vision.

>“Jane made an audacious gambit to save the college,” said Genevieve Jacobs, a former faculty member. “It seemed to be a moment of ‘change or die.’”

>In interviews and emails, Ms. Sanders expressed frustration at her dismissal and the college’s failure to continue her rescue plan.

>“They went a completely different direction in every way than what we had proposed and decided upon as a board — with the bank, with the diocese, the bonding agency,” she said. “They didn’t carry out any of the plan. It was very confusing and upsetting at the time.”

The TL;DR seems to be: Jane Sanders tried to save a struggling school with an audacious but risky plan that ended up being aborted when she was let go by by a board, some of the members of which may have had a stake in seeing it fail. At the very least, a much more complex situation than the aspersion of “running it into the ground.”

Trump bragged about sexual assault, paid off a porn star and ran a fraudulent university. He sucks up to dictators and tells a half-dozen lies before he puts his socks on in the morning. A weird column about a rape fantasy from 1972 is not going to sink Bernie when Trump has debased all public discourse.

No, what will get the Trump demagogue factory working at full throttle is the central message of the Sanders campaign: that the United States needs a political revolution. It may very well need one. But most people don’t think so, as Barack Obama has argued. And getting two million new progressive votes in the usual area codes is not going to change that.

“Ah jeez, ah fuck, he has no sexual indiscretions that I can dredge up and his Feminist polemic against pornography and the rape culture that it engenders is old news, and if I actually reported on it honestly people might actually read it and support his ideas. Oh, well, you see, despite the incredible groundswell of support for just such a thing, Barack Obama, the man that gave the banks trillions of dollars and then allowed the state apparatus to function as their gestapo-cum-storm troopers, says we don’t need one!”

Timothy Egan wants to dismiss “two million new progressive votes” after doing a little gaslighting. His Democrat masters don’t want people to remember that it was Obama’s promises of Hope and Change after 8 years of Republican tyranny that generated a record breaking voter turnout. They would also like you to forget that 2016 was a 20-year low in voter turnout. Do you think those things are related, Mr Egan? Do you think that there might be some connection between Obama taking advantage of the desperation of millions of people, betraying them, and then those people not fucking showing up next time, causing your party to lose to the dimwit that they themselves boosted to the position?

Give Sanders credit for moving public opinion along on a living wage, higher taxes on the rich and the need for immediate action to stem the immolation of the planet. Most great ideas start on the fringe and move to the middle.

But some of his other ideas are stillborn, or never get beyond the fringe. Socialism, despite its flavor-of-the-month appeal to young people, is not popular with the general public. Just 39 percent of Americans view socialism positively, a bare uptick from 2010, compared with 87 percent who have a positive view of free enterprise, Gallup found last fall.

“Just” 39 percent of Americans, up 4% from 2016. This is ignoring for the moment that due to Americans’ piss-poor education system they have no idea what “Socialism” means aside from “more government.” Looking at the breakdown of results, it seems as though they just asked people off the top of their head what they thought about X, no definition or elaboration given. Unsurprisingly, when you look at the actual numbers on specific issues, you can see exactly why Egan has to play this deceptive bullshit: of respondents 18-34, 52% have a favorable view of “Socialism,” as opposed to 47% supporting “Capitalism.” This is in sharp contrast to the 35-54 and 55+ cohorts. 65% of Democrats have a favorable view of “Socialism.” Those with a “Liberal” ideology are even more in favor at 74%, Timothy Egan, you massive shithead.

What’s more, American confidence in the economy is now at the highest level in nearly two decades. That’s hardly the best condition for overthrowing the system.

"The highest level in nearly two decades.” That’s faint fucking praise right there.

You can see the tremendous fucking crater caused by the crash in 2007/8, a reversal of a whopping -81 points from the previous year. With many economists forecasting recession beginning either this year or the next, we’ll see how long the confidence lasts. 

So-called Medicare for all, once people understand that it involves eliminating all private insurance, polls at barely above 40 percent in some surveys, versus the 70 percent who favor the option of Medicare for all who want it. Other polls show majority support. But cost is a huge concern. And even Sanders cannot give a price tag for nationalizing more than one-sixth of the economy.

A ban on fracking is a poison pill in a must-win state like Pennsylvania, which Democrats lost by just over 44,000 votes in 2016. Eliminating Immigration and Customs Enforcement, another Sanders plan, is hugely unpopular with the general public.

“Medicare for all is really unpopular, except when it isn’t.”

Hmm, you know? Hmmm.

As for fracking, from his own link:

>A November poll conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Cook Political Report found that only 39 percent of Pennsylvania swing voters saw a fracking ban as a good idea, even as nearly 7 in 10 of those same voters said they supported the idea of a “Green New Deal” for the environment.

Democrats are whinging on the jobs “lost” to a fracking ban as though it exists in isolation. 39% might support a fracking ban, but 70% support the GND, which could potentially offset the “job loss” with industry that has the potential not to leave their state as a fucking environmentally ruined horror show. I haven’t run the numbers on this, but not living in a cesspool of polluted air and water tends to be pretty popular, Timbo.

More shellgames from Mr Egan regarding abolishing ICE.

> Only 1 in 4 voters in the poll, 25 percent, believe the federal government should get rid of ICE. The majority, 54 percent, think the government should keep ICE. Twenty-one percent of voters are undecided. 

That sounds bad. Maybe it’s not such a good ide

>But a plurality of Democratic voters do support abolishing ICE, the poll shows. Among Democrats, 43 percent say the government should get rid of ICE, while only 34 percent say it should keep ICE.

Oh.

Sanders is a rigid man, and he projects grumpy-old-man rigidity, with his policy prescriptions frozen in failed Marxist pipe dreams. He’s unlikely to change. I sort of like that about his character, in the same way I like that he didn’t cave to the politically correct bullies who went after him for accepting the support of the influential podcaster Joe Rogan.

Democrats win with broad-vision optimists who still shake up the system — Franklin Roosevelt, of course, but also Obama. The D’s flipped 40 House seats in 2018 without using any of Sanders’s stringent medicine. If they stick to that elixir they’ll oust Trump, the goal of a majority of Americans.

Democrats lose with fire-and-brimstone fundamentalists. Three times, the party nominated William Jennings Bryan, the quirky progressive with great oratorical pipes, and three times they were trounced. Look him up, kids. Your grandchildren will do a similar search for Bernie Sanders when they wonder how Donald Trump won a second term.

“Failed Marxist pipe dreams.” Aaaaay lmao. You should also have an inkling something is wrong when you have to go all the way back to FDR to find someone that supports your point. Talk about “poison pills,” Obama proved himself to be as much of a snake as the rest, and the effects of that resonated in 2016 when the Dems ran on a platform of “that’s a nice country you have there, you wouldn’t want Trump to get elected, would you?” How did that work out? You ran one of the most unpopular politicians in the country—after very blatantly rigging the primaries against Sanders to do so—against one of the most unpopular capitalists in the country, and lost, dipshit!

Ironically, I think Timbob’s closing statement will prove true, though not in the way his clown ass intends. Shills like Egan are doing everything they can to try and poison public perception against Sanders and his policies, who only proves increasingly popular as time goes on, so much so in fact that the DNC is already biting its nails and muttering to itself about ways it can try and cheat his supporters again.

In conversations on the sidelines of a DNC executive committee meeting and in telephone calls and texts in recent days, about a half-dozen members have discussed the possibility of a policy reversal to ensure that so-called superdelegates can vote on the first ballot at the party’s national convention. Such a move would increase the influence of DNC members, members of Congress and other top party officials, who now must wait until the second ballot to have their say if the convention is contested.

They deny it in the article, claim that changing the rules would be “bad sportsmanship,” but one would be a fool to believe them. If anything, their ambivalence towards relying on Superdelegates would make me even more nervous at this stage. Politico wants it to seem like the DNC is bent on playing fair, but more likely than not they have no intention of changing the convention rules because they believe there’s no need. With Warren’s flagging support and the luke-warm response to Biden, I doubt they’re overcome with optimism of beating Sanders in an honest primary. With all the shenanigans from last time’s primaries in mind, it’s likely that the machinery to rig the results their way is already in place—the primary could already be over before it even begins.