#its worth noting that this was published BEFORE king of the dead

[aconflagrationofmyown]

Prima Nocta (or the right of the first night) Part 1

Warnings: so so so so many for thematic material. This is dark. Quite dark. This is freshly divorced and verrrrrry bitter and disillusioned Elvis helping himself to the bride of the newest Memphis Mafia initiate. Hugely unreliable narrator, belittling and objectifying of women, dub con because of that, sanctimonious chauvinism, reference to his marriage going very south. no actual sex yet but definitely 18+.

Notes: this got so long from just lead up that I figured it was worth publishing on its own and seeing if there’s interest for a part 2. Sorry for going bonkers on this one, sometimes you just gotta tap into the villain side of yourself. Also, this was inspired by many talks with my previous mutuals about THAT picture of Elvis holding a gun to George Klein’s head at his own wedding…I’m using it for solely for vibes, sorry George

Series: Sky High Lovin -reading Honeymoon might make this even better but not necessary

Dedicated to: Sweet Christi with the wayward mind and all my thanks to Ally and Jane and Elise for spitballing this into existence.

There was a time, not so long ago, when Elvis enjoyed life affirming events like weddings, believe it or not. He enjoyed facilitating days to celebrate love and loyalty and vows before God, promising everlasting devotion. That is, until he learned that “till death do us part” meant about as much to most as a “bless you” did when someone sneezed.

It makes surveying the pink and white festooned hotel ballroom something of an eyesore for him as he lounges back, dressed in black velvet, a sore thumb of ominous derision amidst the pastels, viewing the merry reception through moody, tinted lenses. The familiarly charming table accents of champagne and flowers and paper mache hearts twist his own into something a little furious and decidedly bitter.

A man’s wife betraying him and leaving him and stripping him of his pride and his joy and all his best intentions for her and your child will do that to a man.

Couldn’t even make it a whole decade before she found fault and spread her legs for another and turned his child against the father that loved her.

Sorry for being away so much baby, I was just singin’ myself hoarse to buy you that fuckin ring and car and hair and face and keep you in the style you’d married me for.

Cause it was obvious as all hell that honoring and obeying hadn’t been first and foremost in her mind when she promised forever. Forever to riches and fame, maybe, but not forever to him. She has those now, and he hasn’t got the family he’d prayed an Old Testament God for.

Rather like the pretty lady currently allowing her rodent of a groom to feed her their wedding cake, fake giggles and batting lashes adding to the nauseating act of pretending she can stand being in his company for longer than a couple hours.

Forever, my ass.

Elvis watches her through his shades and with each passing minute the anger burns brighter and his justification steadily builds for the liberty he’s about to commit.

The groom is here for Elvis’ paycheck, the lovely bride is planning to suck that idiot's cock till death doth them part (or a good four years) for the status of being a Memphis Mafia wife, and even the guests now stuffing their faces with pasta and alcohol are here for what Elvis’ money buys.

Loyalty is dead and what’s left is the goddamn food chain, like they’re the animals school tells them they’ve evolved past. In the recent months since his divorce, Elvis has felt a near Devine calling to bring this wicked devolution of morals and motivations to light, to humiliate these homosapiens until some level of shame is regained by mankind. If this is a pack of animals that surrounds him, he is King of the Jungle, and it is a careless and heartless king who lets his subjects run amuck.

He has no appetite for pasta, the hours of frivolity pass him by and he remains aloof, crouching in wait in his chair, running off righteous indignation and primal sufferance. Good things come to those who wait.

That’s what the bride is thinking, Elvis suspects, as the reception winds down and her luxurious honeymoon full of sunbathing and spas, good food and rich wine and the obligatory playing hooky to get out of sex draws nearer. Just a little more time letting fuckin’ Ronnie feed her cake and paw at her, then she’ll be on her way, securely locked into her future of privilege. He’s got nothing against Connie, uh, Sandra, -oh hell what was her name? he consults the gold embossed invitation at his elbow,- He’s got nothing against the newly minted Mrs. Kemp, nothing in particular, except that she’s a woman. And Elvis has a bone to pick and a point to prove with the whole, whorish lot of them.

Elvis opens the limo door for the bride himself, gallantly ushering in the happy couple before joining them as arranged, the whole merry band of his boys piling in after.

The new Mrs. Kemp, unlike some of his boys wives, had had the good grace not to whine about the lack of privacy and alone time to be found in and around Graceland’s inner circle. As a result Elvis allowed her to choose the more expensive flowers and gold embossed invites and french vintages, even if he knew why knew she’d been disgustingly eager for any chance of her intended husband being distracted from her. Elvis is certain, thanks to first hand accounts from fuckin’ Ronnie himslef, that the groom has sampled the bride already. It’s the way of things in this decadent decade, and she’s no fresh outta the nest baby chick. The fact Ronnie could give no further details about his encounters with his betrothed beyond the mechanics of thrusting above her till he blew his load, made Elvis despair of humanity and suspect Mrs. Kemp had a serpentine pragmatism about this entire arrangement.

Oh my buddy my pal, he thinks to himself as the limo flies through the never dark streets of Las Vegas towards the airstrip, I gave my wife everything and that wasn’t enough, how can you compete? God gave Eve the whole of Eden ‘cept for one measly apple tree -and what did the mother of all mankind do? She took, she ate, she damned them all with her disloyalty.

Ronnie is a damn fool, and while Elvis’ warnings were not needed during the engagement and this marriage has progressed to a limo ride and honeymoon, Elvis is not to be thwarted in his determination to save Ronnie the slow disillusionment, the slow death of any pretense of love in his wife’s eyes, the crumbling of all faith in anything such as Elvis has endured. Better to rip the bandage off now, five years is a long crucifixion.

As the limo parks on the tarmac and the gleaming hulk of the private jet looms over them in the night sky, no doubt Ronnie harbors some pathetic hope Elvis has forgotten his promise.

Elvis proceeds his guests up the jet bridge, cane thumping and carefully harnessed excitement radiating through him as he enters the opulent space, watching with benign magnanimity as the newlyweds board his jet, the boys providing a rollicking group to ferry the new couple to their honeymoon destination.

This was Elvis’ treat, he had insisted the jet drop them off before he heads back to wherever it is he’s supposed to be tomorrow. He’s not lost his appetite for spoiling folks. Only this time, he is gonna get repaid in currency a little more tangible than ephemeral, transient, fleeting loyalty. And Ronnie, kiss-ass, weak-spined fuckin’ Ronnie wasn’t man enough to hold out more than a few minutes when Elvis told him his new bride was the price for being inducted into the inner circle, the intitiation to prove his loyalty to The King.

Predictably, after some pathetic and scandalized objections, some monetary threats by Elvis and some judgmental snickers by the guys, fuckin’ Ronnie had caved and betrayed his loyalty to his own wife before he’d even walked down the aisle to marry her.

“B-b-but d-did the rest of t-the g-guys h-h-have to do this?” Ronnie had protested while they were shootin some pool, leaving the gals the other rooms to wedding plan, “Is it a-a-always this w-way?”

It hasn’t always been, no. Because Elvis hadn’t always been so astute. He had allowed his taste for pleasure and innocence and childish notions of fidelity to cloud his perception of women and the men they married. Elvis once was blind, now he saw, and now there was a currency of wedding nights established in the jungle.

“No one’s forcin’ ya to stay in this group.” Elvis had pointed out while lining up his pool cue with the ball, “you’re mighty welcome to go right on out that door, never receive another check from me or a glimpse of Vegas again, you’ll lose that girl, too, cause she sure as hell won’t be stickin around when all your bells and whistles fall off and it’s just you she’s left with. She don’t want ya Ronnie, she wants what I give ya, which makes me her provider, don’t it?” he reasoned before making his shot, the clatter of the balls deafening against the green felt as the older members of the mafia held their breaths in sick fascination with this new form of hazing. “And now, if I’m her provider,” Elvis had straightened up his posture to watch Sonny mark the score on the board, “that makes me a husband of sorts, an authority, a protector. A sugar daddy. Don’t it? You gonna tell me I should throw you guys a damn weddin’ and honeymoon, buy ya the house you live in and the cars you drive, the clothes she wears and the food you eat cause you hang around me an’ promise to protect me if the time comes? Bodyguard my ass, I could turn anyone to chopsticks before you even woke up long enough to realize a threat. Face it Ronnie, there’s a totem pole in this here life, and no one blames ya for bein’ a few notches down than most in the scale of things, but it don’t give ya much leverage bein’ down there. I give you that leverage. And I’d like to compensate myself for my generosity with a lil marital privilege. Jus’ once, just first night rights.” he took a swing of his coke and watched Ronnie closely, licking the sugar off his lips with deliberate swipes of his tongue, “Or would ya prefer I just wait and fuck her in six monthes when she comes knockin’ on my door sayin’ she just got lost in this big ole place?”

Fuckin’ Ronnie was a coward and a cad and he essentially agreed that he’d rather Elvis fuck his wife on the wedding night and be done with it than always be watching his back, suspecting her of carrying on an affair. Ronnie was a little bitch, Elvis surmised. Gone was any protest that he couldn’t do that to her, that she was a good gal, that Elvis wouldn’t do that to a friend.

Kings had no friends. And tonight Ronnie was oh so close to being officially inducted into the Memphis Mafia, he’d do nothing to jeopardize that . Elvis figured he’d wait until the plane took off to sample the goods, make her husband squirm guiltily over it while his new bride puzzled over why he was so tense.

Out of consideration for her downer of a groom, Elvis handed her a drink, playing the gracious host and taking her mind off her husband's stiff bearing and sweaty pallor.

“Don’t mind him, honey,” Elvis whispered hot and wet in her ear as he handed the drink off, “Ronnie boy here’s just scared of flyin’. You’re not scared are ya, honey?”

Honey….he couldn’t recall her name, Mrs. Kemp’s name, his fatigue and apathy too strong. He stood straight and dug in his pocket for a pick-me-up as he watched her smile and blush under his attentions,

“No sir, Mr. Presley, I’m not scared.” she smiled, “One could think we’re sat in a living room, it's so spacious here.” she added a compliment.

“I’d like to show ya the rest.” he says sitting down next to her, his arm heavy and warm around her shoulders and his gaze intent on her, knowing the effect this has on an ignored woman.

He recalls using that same line on his young bride during their honeymoon, eager to show his own new wife everything he had to offer. Beauty and luxury and care and a damn good fuck in front of the mirror back there. And it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t enough.

He can feel Ronnie tense further against the back of his hand where he clasps the bride’s shoulder, knowing that the “rest” of the plane beyond this lounge is a conference table, a toilet and a bedroom. Ronnie has had the privileges of being part of the TCB and now he’s about to pay his admission fee, and Elvis smirks at the thought that the man will never ride aboard this jet again without thinking of getting cuckolded by his boss.

The Bride is trying to make sense of Elvis' sudden shift of mood along with her husband’s. Both of them seeming to have swapped bearings, changing from the reception as if the jet’s air pressure had doused Ronnie’s merriment and finally revitalized Mr. Presley from the rather sullen attendee he had been. Elvis can feel her hesitancy to agree in her body language and the way she keeps looking over to Ronnie, as if to figure out his nervous ignoring of her and the way Elvis makes up for it in touches and attention. Beneath them the jet rumbles and takes flight, her little gasp at the heart swooping feeling of take-off a taste of what’s to come, of what he’ll pull from her body, willing or not . He’d rather lure her, try that first, the other can always be resorted to.

There’s an unspoken agreement to wait on this lil tour till the jet reaches cruising altitude, and Elvis spends the wait rubbing her arm and watching her try to make conversation with her groom who finds discussing the latest baseball stats with Red far more interesting than recalling the beauteous memories of the last few hours with his now introspective and mildly panicked bride. It’s funny to hold a woman whose mind is racing, Elvis can almost feel the frantic thoughts and conflicting emotions battering her frame from the inside out like a caged bird against its bars.

Elvis allows the minutes to trickle by and work for him, the soothing sweep of his hand slowly melting her rigidity, the continued abandonment of her husband's attention going from hurtful to frustrating, the innocuous chatter of the fellas talking and laughing around them, the cool air of the jet’s cooling system kicking on, and his warm and broad chest already pressed against her, now beckoning like a little haven for her to cower inside until the confusion passes. He clocks all these developments as the minutes go by, fully aware the boys are making small talk with their minds as preoccupied as Ronnie’s about when Elvis will make his move, their anticipation mounting while her guard drops, finally accepting his closeness without question. The jet rumbles and her drink kicks in and with the wedding fever abated it leaves her drowsy, unmoored.

Elvis waits for the perfect moment to pounce and is rewarded for his patience. The cool blast of the AC has made her begin to curl towards him and he’s met her halfway and it’s not till her head almost nods weakly to lay on his shoulder that her sensibilities prick her and she jerks it back up, another little gasp. It makes his repeated,

“Lemme show ya round, honey, got all sorts of remarkable stuff up here”

sound like a gallant cover for her lapse of decorum. Predictably, she shakes herself upright and gives him a polite nod of thanks, their first mutual, unspoken communication acknowledging something the rest of the room isn’t privy to. Her loyalty is slipping and all it took was a few minutes of heating her up with his embrace, a few whispered teases and buying her a whole damn lifestyle. To her credit she looks to Ronnie as she rises, asking him to come along in a coaxing voice Elvis knows is her trying to get her new husband to even look at her.

Elvis watches her try and fail at this from the curtained doorway leading to the back of the jet, thinking it makes a striking picture. A bride still dressed in white, bending over to try to catch her husband's eyes as he watches TV in his rumpled tux, the entire plane’s worth of masculine attention directed on her, except for the man who swore to worship her. Perhaps the disillusion will go both ways tonight, maybe women aren’t all merley bitches in heat, maybe some start out intending to be faithful and good and content.

Elvis has yet to meet a woman faithful and good and content once he puts his mark on them, they spend the rest of their lives day dreaming and closing their eyes when their husbands are in them and clogging his phone lines, kidding themselves that they’re special. He’s saving her the sin of coming to his room in a couple of months or years and saying she got lost while dropping her silk nightwear down her frame, an old and familiar expression of invitation on her face. She might not know that’s in her future otherwise, but he does. And he’s gonna save her the wait. When she wants something she’ll come to him now, not her husband, and he will have the discipline to make the right choices for her.

Elvis holds the curtain aside and beckons her with his fingers, and she would be angrier that he has the nerve to summon her away from her husband if she weren’t so humiliated at being ignored by the man. Frustration at their man makes women very susceptible to comfort, Elvis knows this intimately, and in their strong desire to be understood and soothed, they’ll spread their legs for the first person who tells them they deserve that attention.

She ducks under his arm, into the shade of the conference room with an attitude written on her face. Elvis drops the curtain behind them, the prey corralled. Nothin so easy as a woman scorned, nothin’ quite so hungry and quite so fierce. He hopes she’ll take out some of that miffed little ‘tude out on his back with those fancy nails his money bought her. It makes him smirk in anticipation and he can tell she finds that unsettling, her huffy bearing faltering once she notices him just watching her move round the glossy table top, suddenly aware of their seclusion and the fact she left her groom behind for a tour of the jet. She’s beginning to doubt her choice, doubt her loyalties.

Honeymoon off to a damn good start, she thinks sourly.

It’s innocuous, standing at opposite ends of a conference table with a man who is your husband's closest friend and at whose house you’ve eaten multiple dinners. There’s nothing wrong with it, but she feels her skin prickle none the less like she’s in danger, like those eyes observing her through shaded lenses are not fully human, not fully beneficent. She curses Ronnie for humiliating her, for his weird mood these past weeks making her feel isolated, for her past making her paranoid of this assessing male gaze.

She’d met a panther in the woods on an Appalachian bike ride once. They’d stared each other down as he had crouched and observed, his eyes fathomless and intent, the muscles of its body undulating in readiness beneath sleek black fur. Her mouth had dried out exactly the same as it does now when her shy smiles aren’t met with anything besides those assessing eyes and that crooked smirk that holds no fondness for her, no pride in his jet, no amusement at her awe of his wealth. A smirk of pure and smug knowingness.

Then he calls to her and the warmth of his voice melts her fear. “Check out this icebox, honey”

Her face lights up like a kids in the yellow glow of the refrigerator light as she bends over to look inside, white stain skirt hugging her perfectly and he gathers that all that athleticism has done her good, she could probably ride a man for hours without tiring, judging by the firm curve of that ass.

“See anyhtin ya’d like?” he asks her casually, laying a light hand between her shoulder blades as she reads rows and rows of labeled refreshments.

“Oh, uh, no, no, the drink was enough for now. Thank you Mr. Presley.”

He used to correct folks when they called him that, and used to punt the honorary title to his father. But nowadays he finds “Mr. Presley” might be closer to “your majesty” than mere “Elvis” -in which case he’s stopped putting little floozies at ease by asking them to call him by the name his mama gave him. That’s a name used by a wife back when he was happy and respected and alive.

“C’mere, I wanna show ya this television back here.” he beckons again, removing the heat of his hand from her back and she breathes easier with him taking the lead, she’s able to watch his imposing figure unobserved as he leads her past the conference table and into a small hallway with a large, showbiz style mirror.

Elvis swaggers right on by the marvelous monstrosity with its low counter and doused bare bulbs, but she can’t help herself. A flicker of childish glee taking over as she flips the switch on the wall and makes the bulbs buzz to life, brilliant as a spotlight in the inky gloom, illuminating them from the knees to the ceiling in a gaudy reflection. The sudden blast of light makes him pause on his trek to the bedroom and he joins her in looking at their reflection.

“Hell, honey,” he drawls amused as he takes in her fresh little wedding set and his decadent black suit, “we look like cake toppers.”

She laughs at that, a sweet unaffected thing that is music to his ears, and no doubt a screech to Ronnie’s. Elvis finds his grin growing at that thought and she mistakes it for joy. She laughs again, aborted little chuckles tapering out.

“There’s a tv back here, too?” she asks, embarrassingly at ease with entering a bedroom in the company of Elvis Presley.

Interestingly she doesn’t even glance at the bed when he ushers her in, she’s peering at the walls and the built in furniture for a peek of a screen.

“Mhmm, keep lookin, it’s hidden.” Elvis follows her and shuts the door behind him, a quiet click she doesn’t hear as she’s got her back to him, busily creaking open dresser doors and clapping in commendation upon finding the tastefully camouflaged TV set.

“How wonderful!” She praises and his heart does something funny and nostalgic over unpretentious enjoyment of what he has to give her.

One day it’ll be old hat to her and she’ll be like all the other wives, naggin’ and bitchin’ over keeping up with each other, forgetting about what it was they ever wanted, consumed with one upping each other and dominating the pecking order, spending Elvis’ money not for pleasure but for bragging rights. For now he watches this young woman bounce in her heels over a hidden TV set and makes a pact with himself to be nice, to gentle her into this ruination.

Then he recalls she married Fuckin Ronnie, and that twists his gut in reminder she’s a practical gold digger like all the rest. And he doesn’t mind that about her, he just hates the dishonesty of pretending she’s in it for more, and her ignoring him for a tv irks him as disingenuine.

“Wanna kick back and watch somethin, doll?” he asks her and sees the exact minute his words make her back and shoulders stiffen beneath white silk.

“Uh, on this one?” she’s scared to ask, scared to sound like she’s accusing him of suggesting it, scared to suggest it and give him ideas.

“They got the damn game on the other.” he answers her smoothly, coming up behind her and reaching round her to power it up.

“Elvis.” she dares to sound reprimanding when all he’s done is stand behind her and punch a button, she’s the one who walked into a bedroom with a man who isn’t her husband.

“Gonna be a long flight, three more hours I reckon.” he is patient with her.

“Y-yes.” she hesitantly agrees, watching the screen flicker to life, “And I wanna spend it with Ronnie, exc-“

Liar! He doesn’t let her turn around, he puts his hands on her shoulders and keeps her facing the TV, keeps her away from the closed door she’s not yet noticed, he nuzzles his nose into the crook of her neck telling himself, gently, gently, tempt her, tempt her. “Doesn’t seem like Ronnie is eager to spend it with ya.” he mourns low and sympathetic in her ear and she gasps at his brutal honesty, at the fact he’d have no tact to pretend he didn’t notice.

“Elvis, t-this isn’t right.” she parrots her mother or her favorite tv show or some rote set of rules she doesn’t really embrace.

“What ain’t right, honey?” he rumbles, keeping his hands on her, moving them from her shoulders down her arms, then swooping them up again and fingering at the sides of her neck, delighting in the shiver her body yields up to him.

If he hadn’t been so aloof before, she figures she might not feel so electrified by his sudden, all consuming touch. But it’s not just that, he’s kept his distance from her since she started dating Ronnie and in her star struck insecurity she’d made no move to become friendly with him.

Now this, this intentional hovering and the petting that tastes like something she’s only ever heard about. It’s Elvis, Elvis petting her in her wedding dress on the way to her honeymoon destination and that’s simultaneously about as predictable and uncredible as can be. Elvis, who’s been the ephemeral host for countless of lovely parties, Elvis who’s been the presiding specter over all their schedules since she became part of the group, Elvis who has been the magical name on the credit card used for everything she ever wanted. Elvis Presley, the man who achieved all there was in life by 21, and has been bored by it ever since. What did she expect him to be, a fatherly figure?

“Did you like your weddin’ honey?” he asks her after her raging thoughts consume the time she should have spent answering and protesting him.

The hands descending to her hips and squeezing there hint a warning prompt even as his gentle tone reminds her of all he has done for her, his inexhaustible benevolence -which it seems something has finally exhausted. She begins to panic, no need to see those panther eyes when the heat is radiating off of him, sexual intent potent from his aura alone, no need to feel a crude gesture or have it spoken out in clunky declarations of desire. Ingrained self doubt takes hold of her for one brief moment before the scratch of his sideburn rubs against her cheeks and the hot press of his lips against her neck tells her it is not vanity making her project on him, Elvis Presley really is trying to seduce her mere hours after her vows, a few yards away from her new husband and his friends.

“Mr. Presley!” she resolutely stiffens in his embrace and tries to turn and leave his hold of her and he lets her so far as she’s spun round and facing him, her stern tone wobbling out when she’s met with the hypnosis of his expectant stare, “Y-yes it was lovely, thank you.” she stammers out, fear and primal instinct kicking in and guiding her to cower and simper her way out of this, her boldness having bounced off him like shotgun shells off cement. Nothing but damaging to her. “T-thank you for all you did.” she tries again, her tone unsure as his face remains unreadable, his eyes burning and unblinking behind his shades, lit with white hot something in the glow of the tv screen. “You’re very generous.” she admits, tacking on every obeisance she can think of while resolutely ignoring the feel of being held to his chest, near eye level with the gap of his shirt and the chains glittering on his skin. “I need to rejoin my husband, sir.” she begs, begs that she doesn’t want this, denies she’s ever hoped for this.

Idly he wonders if she’s being honest, then he watches her swallow thickly as she catches a whiff of his scent.

Suddenly he crushes her to him, her mouth smashed to the metallic, skin warmed nest of his chains, pinning her there with a hand to the back of her head as his other reaches for the hem of her skirt and drags it up and over her ass, palming it even as she shrieks in shock, “Tell me, Mrs. Kemp,” he growls in her ear, “did you go after Ronnie cause he was near me, or did ya come for the money and stay in the hopes I’d pay attention to your little self? Was you countin’ on me gettin lonely some night an’ sendin’ your husband on an errand so I could get my fill of his wife? Is that what keeps ya from gaggin when he’s on top of ya? Is that the hope?”

Elvis’ fingers find the band of her lacy panties -honeymoon lingerie his money bought her- and he snakes his hand in, down the warm curve of her ass and along her crack, dipping between clenched thighs to rake through predictably sopping wet folds. She gave the whole resistance act a good try, but her womanly body responds to dominance, and Elvis is dominance incarnate. It’s in her weak nature to drip for him, plain and simple, and so he swipes and dips and drags his fingers through her as she fights against his chest, pounding her fists impotently against the velvet of his coat.

“Shhh, shhh honey, I know, it ain’t your fault.” he is magnanimous, gracious as King Solomon. “This, honey, this is what hope tastes like.” he brings his glistening fingers to her snarling mouth and shoves them in against her tongue, savoring the way her choke distracts her from the obvious defense of biting him, “Taste that? That’s how hope tastes, and there ain’t anyhtin’ more harmful than hope. Makes a purgatory of your life. Doesn’t let ya be satisfied with what ya got, won’t let ya get dissatisfied enough to wanna change anythin. You just hope and hope and your life goes by, while you’re hopin.”

She whimpers around his fingers, wilted white silk in his arms, dress bunched up obscenely in the screen-lit room. He strokes her cheek with his spit wet hand, the ring faces of rubies and diamonds and priceless gems caressing her tears away, lulling the creature back to her basic instincts, hypocrisy and futility purged away beneath Elvis’ healing hands. “I ain’t gonna let you go on hopin for years and years,” he enchants her with whispers, rocking her now as she whimpers in catatonic fascination, “I’m gonna gift ya with knowledge.”

Everything she’s given up while fighting to get herself on a jet like this, married to a man of means, with a house and a steady future and a predictable timeline stretching out before her -security at last! -all of it crowds her mind, the devil and the angel on her shoulders whisper in a traitorous debate. Of course life isn’t how she wanted at eighteen when she expected to marry for love, yet of course her mature self is pleased with this match. Those can both exist, and she planned for them to exist in a tidy world where Elvis Presley wasn’t an option, because he’s not. He’s not offering himself, doesn't even have enough dreams of his own to bother with lying about it to buy them both a minute of reprieve from the disillusioned hellscape that is life in one’s thirties when you comforted your starry eyed twenties by telling yourself it gets better. Then to no one’s surprise -it didn’t. The one last insupportable piece of this maturing puzzle that would cement her growing up forever is tasting this then going back to Ronnie. It’s out of the question and she doesn’t give a shit what he’s going through right now, or what Ronnie thinks about her angering his boss, what she needs is the peace of mind that comes with not knowing.

“You can take your knowledge and shove it.” she snaps out of the pliant heatstroke his embrace caused her and shoves him away, only succeeding at making room between them because he’s so surprised by her sudden surfacing out of the trance.

One final thrash of the prey and he watches with amusement as she stumbles in haste across the flickering room, yanking open the closed door and steadfastly booking it to the front of the jet. Headed to the shelter of a man who promised to protect and defend her and cherish her and swore it all while counting his bonus for selling her out.

Elvis watches her till she and her crumpled white dress fly past the brightly mirrored hallway and disappear from his vantage point through the doorway. He picks at his nose and thinks about what he might like to take on this little experiment, and having procured a few items of use saunters after her at a leisurely pace. He sets them on the conference room and table and watches as she pulls back the curtain and steps into the lounge, her whole being vibrating in a way that is not subtle or discreet about what just occurred between them.

It’s warmer in the lounge, just pulling the curtain back wafts warmth into the ice box chilled areas of the plane that Elvis frequents, it makes her tremble with relief. She’s back in public, back where he won’t try anything. Ronnie, to her angry bewilderment, is still glued to watching the TV like he didn’t even register her absence. But his mere existence will still work for what she needs. She needs to belong to someone and sit beside that person for three hours while his boss cools off.

She is not prepared for the way everyone in the lounge spins round to look at her once registering her presence, looking with absolute surprise as if her reemergence was the surprise, not the lengthy plane tour to the back bedroom. It makes her seethe inside, they thought she’d go through with it, damn animals that they are, all “what happens on the road stays on the road” and carefree chauvinism inherited from their boss. She has to remind herself why she wanted this life in the first place, has to recall the perks and the wages and lavish reception.

Red and Joe now flank Ronnie and her seat beside him is taken up by those two manspreading oaf’s. Desperate, she decides to play at being cute and makes to sit on her husband’s lap, spinning round to find Elvis watching hehe from the curtained doorway as she tries to lower herself down to perch.

“Babe, I can’t see the damn screen with you like that.” Ronnie has the churlishness to complain and she wants to scream at his denseness, the way pushes at her lower back to tip her out of his lap.

To save herself the humiliation of face planting on the plane floor she chooses to stand of her own accord and catch herself from the shove. She sees Elvis’ lush mouth frown behind the cigar he’s lighting up.

“Don’t be an ass to her Ronnie, she’s your wife.” he reprimands and she gets a funny feeling of appreciation for being defended in all this. Her loyalty teeters towards the man she has to remind herself she needs to escape from. “Or have ya forgotten, ya unchivalrous bastard?”

That’s a little harsh but the memory of Ronnie not giving a damn about the fact she was almost assaulted -that’s harsh word for that too, her traitorous mind supplies- reminds her that she isn’t happy with him at all. But in fact, come to think of it, she isn’t pleased with any one them, and there’s no where to go on this damned plane. It starts to make her skin crawl, the realization that she’s surrounded by men who would either not believe or else not care if Elvis went through with the forceful attentions he was showing her back there. Who would believe her if she said he forced her?

“Ronnie I’m tired and my seat’s been taken!” she argues with him, “I just wanna sit down. Lay down, even!” she begs, thinking of how best to clear the couch of anyone but him so that no one takes liberties and sits down beside her.

“Then go lay down in back where there’s a fuckin’ bed? Why’d you come out?” he snaps.

“Cause-“ because Elvis Presley tried to take liberties, that’s why, but she feels strangled watching how all the men await her answer with a little too much investment, the way Elvis is still watching her behind tinted shades and a haze of cigar smoke.

“You get all bitchy when you’re tired, go lay down and take a nap, honey. I’m watching the game.” Ronnie suggests her worst fear and it infuriates her how he’s changed just since he slipped a ring on her finger.

“Ronnie please-“ She whimpers and would give anything to know why Joe is leering up at her with a sly grin. There’s no time to think on it as Elvis’ ringed fingers close around her elbow and tug her back towards the curtain.

“C’mon honey, ya heard your husband, let’s get ya situated.” he coos and her fingers turn to ice from the shock of it all.

“I don’t wanna!” she protests, “Ronnie!” she tries one more time while being backed away from her husband by his boss.

“Oh for fucks sake just do what he wants!” Ronnie begs with something akin to frustration but the red hot blush sweating up his neck suggests he’s humiliated to be caught saying it.

“Beg your pardon?” she hisses in disbelief, feeling Elvis’ hand clamp on her arm just a little more, maybe to keep her from marching up to Ronnie and smacking him.

“Just, just give him what he wants. Just tonight.” Ronnie spills the beans far sooner than needed and Elvis wants to roll his eyes at how fast they went from taking her for a nap to admitting to something far more sinister.

The bride’s head swivels from viewing her husband to Elvis and back to her husband and the room full of men who’s thrumming interest in her makes her wanna bolt straight out of the plane now she knows why. It’s sickening yet so strongly in character for them she doesn’t waste many moments in disbelief, it all makes sense in a horribly predictable way. Every one of these fella’s grinning at her discomfort are pathetic in her eyes, as pathetic as men who’d prefer to watch naughty movies than better themselves as lovers. Somehow in the mess of it all, Elvis alone stands out as something a little less deplorable. Even if it’s just his brash and demented honesty she admires.

“Y’all planned this?” she asks dully, scanning each lip licking face, ending with her husband’s sullen one, “This was all planned out? You offered me up? You goddamn, two faced bastard-“

Elvis loops his arm around her waist to prevent her from launching at Ronnie and clawing him to shreds. His chest is searing her through the silk on her back and his hands grab at her more than they need to in order to restrain her. It makes her pulse pound and fury swirls inside her, battling with the cold dread of weakness and helplessness.

“Ronnie made a little deal with me.” Elvis is drawling in her ear in so soothing a way it almost counteracts the nauseating confirmation, “And now, we can watch you runnin’ round this plane for hours to get away from me like a Junebug in a bottle but that ain’t gonna change how this night ends. How bout ya just be sensible, hmm? Just cause he’s a lyin’, no good sunnuvabitch don’t mean you gotta turn bad yourself, ya know? He gave ya instructions, ya can still be a good lil wifey and honor and obey him, can’t ya?”

“Why?” she persists, but feebly this time, not knowing if she’s asking her husband who keeps his face averted towards the screen or the man whose hands are mapping out her body in full view of his friends. “Why y’all gotta do this?”

“I told ya honey,” Elvis murmurs, rucking the hem of her skirt up passed her knees, “hope’s a dangerous thing. I don’t allow it in my house. An’ you’re part of my house now, ain’t ya?” he pets at the damp plushness of her inner thighs as the men stare and she struggles to find a way to empower herself while caught in such a feeble position. Hurting Ronnie, twisting the knife a little more like he’s done her is all she can think of at the time. “Don’t you belong to me, sweetie?” Elvis is prodding once more and his cheek is clammy and hot against hers, the cigar smoke pungent around them.

“Yes sir.” she agrees while sneering at Ronnie’s reddened face.

“That’s more like it.” Elvis’ voice gentles to something a little less frightening than before but all the more terrifying for how sure and smug it sounds. His hands grab at her breasts and she can’t help the whimper she lets out from the presumption, no doubt it’ll only get worse. “Since you’re so eager to stick close to ole Ronnie and include e’rbody in our private business, I reckon it’s only fair we conduct this lil interview on the conference table, hmm?”

When she cranes her neck to look behind him and past the curtain, she can see the shiny table top littered with items it didn’t hold when she made her hasty exit passed it; scarves and a strange sort of plastic wand, that stupid police flashlight and a box of cigars are clumped at its foot in an ominous hodgepodge.

Admitting to being frightened by it would strip away her last bit of autonomy in this and so in a bid to act unbothered she slips out of Elvis’ hold and walks on her own two feet into the room, turning her back to Ronnie before shifting herself to sit on the cold, hard surface of the table.

“Is this what you had in mind, Mr. Presley?” she asks him meekly and makes sure to let her legs fall apart just so. She thinks she’s going to have some control in all this, the silly little thing, thinking he’s a man with regular tastes and base preoccupations, easily distracted from the purpose of this like any other. And the purpose is not pleasure -though he intends to draw it from her till she is broken from it- but purity of intention and nature. A lie dressed in white no more, but a wanton woman giving in to her true nature. Only he has the power to bring this out in every one he meets, and to purge it all the same.

Elvis Presley eyes her, as do all the men in the lounge just past him, until with an approving little hum and smile that is almost pleased, he steps towards her, yanking the curtain closed behind him and leaving them (somewhat) alone together in the dimly lit room, full of anticipation.

And maybe dread.

[starzzach]

hello!! Can we know more about there has come a ruler? 🥰

hi!!!! there has come a ruler is a published ongoing wip by the name 'oh baby i am a wreck (when i'm without you)' on ao3 :)) i started this queen charlotte!charlos au over a year ago :')

honestly i don't feel like i've contributed much at all as it is very much a scene to scene adaptation, with extra tidbits littered here and there to add characterisation. i haven't opened this in aaaaages which makes me feel very guilty bc i do love the show and adapting it was one of the most fun things i've ever written.

here's literally everything i've written for it so far bc its SO little. like <400 words.

-

Charles awakes, in his own bedchamber, panting and yet–

–distinctly, alone.

And he knew. He knows. He was told Carlos had apparently moved back to his private estate, all traces of him wiped from the palace when Charles had arrived a little while after nightfall. He had not been aware of his own distracted movements, barely realising it before he had arrived in the library, staring at the newly replaced copy of King Lear, Pierre quiet behind him.

He had not quite believed it then, however. Even scouring through the palace from end to end, unable to find his husband, had not deterred him in the slightest. It hit him, finally, when he had thrown open the doors to their – his – Carlos’ – bedchamber, to find it clinically empty, and the windows wide open.

Charles had stared again, then. And for a beat he had wondered if Carlos had jumped out. Wondered if that was the outcome he would have preferred, knowing he was dead instead of gone and left him deserted yet again. Wondered if it might have comforted him that much more.

It is not quite morning, either, no light filtering through the windows quite yet. Charles pointedly does not think about how Carlos’ bedchamber always had the nicest morning light, one of the first rooms in the palace to see the sun each day. He does not think about how nice the morning rays had felt on his skin, and does not at think about how stingy and sour his scent feels around him, instead of the sated, content one he always had around Carlos. 

He cannot afford to think like that.

—

Esteban stands outside the door, his gloved hand hovering over the doorknob, listening to the pained, ear-shattering screams of his King, and swallows, wondering if he has failed his Queen.

—

“Pierre,” Charles says very softly. “Do you think that a child needs his father?”

He does not have to look to see his valet’s harsh swallow. “I, well– Your Majesty, I would say…” he trails off, and it is several moments before he starts up again. “I believe so, yes.”

Charles nods, his mouth forming into a thin line. “Hmm.”

-

i have 1300 words worth of notes for this chapter. do with that what you will

[churchyardgrim]

TOWER OF DOOM by Mark Anthony

[intro post]

so i was actually warned away from this book, by ppl who'd read the series and who, at the time, did not know me terribly well

bc of course it went straight to the top of my to-read list

and now, having read it, hoooooo boy dear readers let me tell you, that tower sure can doom

we've got a classic hunchback of notre dame here folks; shitty baron in a shitty provincial town, with a disabled half-brother in a tower ringing bells, etc etc etc, and also some business with a lady doctor of genuinely supernatural goodness, and something about a werecat secret agent of Azalin Rex sniffing around bc the baron's plotting against the king and whathaveyou

now i need to take a moment, right here at the top, to talk about this werecat

Jadis is.... well she wouldn't be out of place in a C-grade James Bond novelization. she's The Sexiest Sexy Lady Who Ever Breasted Boobily Down The Stairs, and also she can turn into a giant fuckoff panther bc what's sexier than that. she's a strong independent career-minded woman, and oh yeah she fucks her boss

the boss who is a lich

yeah that boss

now it's not that i object to lichfucking in principal! far from it! anyone who knows me can attest that this is in fact my brand! 

what i do object to is the fact that it's written about as well as baby's first straightguy fanfiction! and also that IT'S IN CHAPTER TWO. THEY LEAD WITH THIS. RIGHT OUT THE GATE HERE.

it's just. it's so badly written guys. it's barely five paragraphs and i am scarred by how clumsy and amateurish the writing is.

like fuck, i can do better than this! i should do better than this! hold my beer, i'm going to take a hammer and FIX the canon

ahem. anyway.

so Jadis has her necro moment and we move on, thank god, and get the rest of what passes for plot moving

to summarize a lot of faffing about and establishing the tone as Needlessly Bleak, the local baron found a magic rock that absorbs souls and makes zombies, and he's running a transparently fake inquisition to find ""traitors"" to execute in order to charge this thing up like a battery

meanwhile our resident Tower Hunchback gets tricked by someone else into carting home a really really cursed bell for the belltower

a cursed bell that kills ppl! fantastic

it's… honestly really boring to talk about lmao. our friend Wort starts doing his "you want a monster? i'll show you a monster" revenge plot, killing off the baron's inner circle one by one and being all tortured about his station in life, and it's fine, i guess. 

there's also a fancy doctorlady whose name i've already forgotten here to see the goodness in all life or whatever, ministering to the poor idiot townspeople who don't know what deafness is (i wish i was kidding)

naturally there's some hamfisted romance between them, and naturally it made me gag more than the lichfucking did. these aren't people, they're caricatures from an author with no goddamn idea what he's doing, and i can feel the pain of his editor as if it were my own

it's trying to tell a story about social rejection, and relative monstrosity, and how being ostracized should drive ppl together against their oppressors but instead only builds divisions between them, as victims tend to be myopic and very attached to their own suffering, to the exclusion of solidarity with their peers

it's trying to tell that story, but it. is not succeeding. it's so hamfisted in its writing, and so full of awkward straight dude horniness, and it's just… so bad you guys.

anyway there's even more faffing, half the cast is dead of Bell Ghosts Disorder by now, and the most interesting thing that happens is Jadis starts to realize that uhhhhh maybe not using protection when getting with a powerful arcane undead is gonna have some longterm consequences my dude

altho i don't think condoms help with magical necrosis so uh. not really sure what she was meant to do differently here. not fuck the lich? not a chance

the good news is she's mostly spared those consequences by dying in a firetrap the baron left her in! so sad, rip catgirl. it's at this point the baron's Big Evil Scheme is revealed, and he's planning to… use the soulstone to animate a big fuckoff war tower, drive the thing directly to Castle Avernus, and i guess bash Azalin to death with it?

no idea why Azzy even needed to get Jadis involved in this, given she does practically nothing to stop it and it collapses anyway under the weight of its own stupidity. Wort's mad with power by now, there's zombies everywhere, this author clearly has a Thing for lovingly described corpses and decay and i don't even know what to do with that

the eventual resolution involves something about the inherent goodness of the human spirit breaking the bell's curse, and also a very disney villain death for the baron. it's very strange, given all the needless cruelty and lurid gore that lead up to it. Wort accidentally drives the walking tower off a cliff, the doctor lady survives to haunt the moors as a ghost? angel? angelghost? maimed and ugly now by her injuries but healing ppl in mysterious silence, something something morality tale

ultimately you can give this one a pass. the quality of the writing is just too bad to put up with, and the plot is largely unremarkable except for the bizarre decision to have a catgirl fuck a lich

now if you'll excuse me, i have some free, uncompensated rewriting to do.

[ayuuria]

Yashahime Translation: Animage Magazine May 2021 Issue

Please do not repost this translation without my consent! This includes screenshots of any type and amount. If you wish to share this translation, simply link to this post.

For more information regarding the use of my translations, click here.

The Yashahimes’ Future

The three Yashahimes who carry both demon and human blood: Towa, Setsuna, and Moroha. The three of them have varying personalities, environments in which they were raised in, and goals for their actions. However, through the shared task of demon slaying, they slowly begin to accept one another. Though they are not a perfect “Close, in sync team”, trust has certainly budded between the girls who, together, have overcome any difficult situation. Even Kirinmaru’s attack that killed Setsuna in one stroke could not sever the bond that connects the three. Towa especially, who received a broken Tenseiga from Sesshōmaru, appears to have not yet given up on Setsuna’s life. Although it looks like the girls will still continue to face hardships in the future, we want them to clear the way to a happy future with their own hands.

“Hanyō no Yashahime” entered a short break, leaving behind many points of interest such as Setsuna’s shocking death, the broken Tenseiga entrusted to Towa, and the continued separation of Moroha and her parents. Let’s consolidate the existing mysteries and wait for the second chapter (season)!

Higurashi Towa

Faced with the death of her beloved little sister, Setsuna, her demonic blood awakens for the first time. Until now, she had been using the demon sword, Kikujūmonji, as her weapon but what is this blade… …? (referring to the promo picture for season 2)

Series Composition: Katsuyuki Sumisawa Q&A

The Yashahimes’ story with continuous ups and downs. In addition to reviewing everything up until now, please tell us about the backstory and hints to the second chapter (season)!

Q. Where do Towa, Setsuna, and Moroha normally spend the night?

A. Towa freeloads at Kaede’s house. Setsuna stays at the demon slayer’s headquarters. It’s just that she can’t sleep so she probably keeps watch outside at night. Moroha lives at the corpse shop.

Q. How far apart is Kaede’s village and the corpse shop?

A. Kaede’s village is in the land of Musashi so in terms of modern geography, imagine around Tokyo’s Nakano and Suginami ward. Compared to that, the corpse shop is in the harbor so around Shinagawa ward or maybe even Yokohama. It seems the three of them frequently met up but there’s actually quite a distance. Each of them had different goals behind their actions too.

Q. When Towa, Setsuna, and Moroha first met, how was Moroha able to figure out that the two of them were Sesshōmaru’s daughters?

A. Probably through “smell”. Sesshōmaru is well known among demons and Moroha knows that Sesshōmaru is her father’s older brother. However, Moroha still doesn’t know that Sesshōmaru is the one who trapped her parents within the black pearl.

Q. Does Moroha know her parents’ names?

A. She does. When Inuyasha and Kagome were approached by Kirinmaru and Sesshōmaru, Awa no Hachiemon (aka Hachi), the racoon dog, took Moroha to the wolf demon tribe where she was raised. That being said, Kōga probably told her.

Q. Doesn’t Moroha want to meet her parents?

A. She thinks her parents are dead. That’s why her thoughts are “There’s no point obsessing over someone who’s dead”. Hachiemon the racoon dog, didn’t watch the details of the incident to the end and assumed that “If Sesshōmaru and Kirinmaru were their opponents, they’re probably not alive now.” That’s what Moroha was told through Kōga.

Q. Why is the instrument that Setsuna plays the violin?

A. When creating the scenario, I wanted some sort of “gift” from the modern era as “something to connect the modern and feudal eras”. Therefore, I decided to give Moroha the giant backpack as Kagome’s daughter and Setsuna an instrument. In addition, an instrument that absolutely didn’t exist in the feudal era was better, so I chose the violin. There of course won’t be violins in Japan and even in the West, it had a different shape than it does now. Plus, before the current story was solidified, I had thought of a plot where the modern era was the setting so it’s a remnant of that.

Q. Did Mama Moe teach Setsuna the song she always plays on her violin?

A. While she learned how to play the violin from Mama Moe, the song was not something she learned (from her). Rather Setsuna is playing a song she once heard based off her memory. Where she heard it… please wait for the second chapter (season)!

Q. With Kanemitsu no Tomoe as a medium for Setsuna and the rouge being suggested for Moroha, each of them has had their demonic blood sealed. What about the seal for Towa’s demonic blood?

A. Towa’s is not sealed. Moreover, her demonic blood had not yet awakened. That’s where in episode 24, her demonic blood awakened for the first time with Setsuna’s death being the trigger. However, that was in an out-of-control state. Going forward, how “Sesshōmaru’s blood” flowing within her will manifest itself will be something worth noting.

Q. Why does everyone call Towa and the others “Yashahime”?

A. Ever since the spirit of the Tree of Ages called them as such in episode 4, everyone started calling them that, no matter who they spoke to. At first, even Towa and the others were like “We’re not Yashahime” or “Are you referring to us?” but as they got addressed that repeatedly, they gradually accepted the name.

Q. Kohaku’s* older sister, Kin’u, is a nun but what does his other older sister, Gyokuto, do?

*Translator’s Note: I think the publisher made a mistake and meant to say Hisui

A. She shoulders the responsibility of helping Sango create the weapons for demon slaying, delivering those weapons to the other slayers, accepting demon slaying requests around the area, and collecting information on demon sightings.

Q. Is Kirinmaru a demon of Japan?

A. No. I think talking like this will be easier to understand. Kirinmaru is one of the few greater demons who is aware that the earth is round. In that era, the only ones who have a sense of this are probably just Kagome, Towa, and Kirinmaru. Having circled the globe many times, Kirinmaru, who had traveled around the world, met the Dog General at the very end in the land at the farthest end (of the earth), Japan. Ever since then, he has remained in Japan so it could be said that he’s a demon of Japan, but his existence is on a bigger scale than that. Kirinmaru frequently reads Western books and he orders those from various places around the world. The one who buys them is Riku. Naturally, I’m sure that not only does Riku secretly read the Western books in the library, but Kirinmaru wouldn’t reproach him for such a small thing either. In episode 7, Riku called the apple a “Forbidden Fruit” but of course, I’m sure Kirinmaru has read the bible before. That’s most likely because he’s been alive since the era of myth so he may have seen Buddha or Jesus Christ in the flesh. There’s probably no way he saw Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit though… … (laughs).

Q. Point blank, what is the relationship between Kirinmaru and Riku? In a reflection of the past (200 years ago), it seemed Riku didn’t have any emotions. What exactly was that?

A. This will be revealed in the second chapter (season) as well but to give you a little hint, Riku started taking care of Zero after the Dog General died and as he healed her, he gradually began to have emotions. That’s why Riku’s way of thinking was influenced by Zero, such as “You have to destroy those that you love”.

Q. Zero lost her demonic powers when she created the Rainbow Pearls. Then what was the power she was using when she fought?

A. Zero was using the power of hexes. In this world, there is not only demonic power but all sorts of powers such as spiritual power and Buddhist power and each of them is separate. What she used was a power similar to charms and Inyougogyō**.

** Translator’s Note: Yin and Yang and the five Chinese elements: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.

Q. Why did someone like Kirinmaru, who values reason, have the Four Perils, who had sleazy personalities, as subordinates?

A. Kirinmaru’s mind is preoccupied with a “certain matter” that’s important so he doesn’t really care about anything else. Hence, he doesn’t remember every single demon that has challenged or served under him and he doesn’t care what kind of person they were.

Q. In episode 21, it was surprising when Towa said “I like you (Riku)!”. To put it frankly, what do Towa and Riku think of each other?

A. Towa thinks Riku is “Riku”. She doesn’t perceive him as being part of Kirinmaru’s group. On the other hand, Riku thinks Towa is “The lady Yashahime that will slay Kirinmaru”. That’s why he addresses her as “Lady Towa”. Currently, there are no romantic feelings between the two of them. Just that, there’s probably “affection” from Riku to Towa.

Q. Why does Riku think “I only kill those I love”?

A. Because “Those who are loved vanish beautifully”. That is what Zero said in episode 23. To Zero, death is sad but to Riku, there’s no difference between dying and living and that they’re the same. Based on that, Riku came to think “You have to destroy those that you love” and he chooses to “kill” as an expression of love. That might be quite difficult to understand.

Q. Why is Sesshōmaru so cold to his daughters?

A. Just as a lion drops its cubs into a bottomless ravine, a demon’s feeling is that they only raise the child that gains strength from hardship. That is the “Rite of Courage and Cowardice”. It’s a little different from the feeling we humans have. That’s why hating his daughters or purposely tormenting them is certainly not the case.

Q. Although, isn’t separating the babies from their mother immediately after birth or having them fight the strongest beast king of the eastern land, Kirinmaru, a little too much?

A. If you watch the kabuki play “Renjishi” I think you will get it immediately. Anime is fine, but I would like to recommend the traditional arts that have ceaselessly been passed down since ancient Japanese times. Even if going to see them is difficult, researching on the internet is easy. Even the phrase “Rite of Courage and Cowardice” will show up in there. It seems that in this world, there’s no people who love their children more than Japanese people. Perhaps that’s why it can’t be helped that the way Sesshōmaru is raising his children feels very cold. However, those who watched the “Inuyasha” series I think will know but Sesshōmaru’s hearing and smell are exceedingly exceptional. He has the ability to immediately rush in, no matter how far the distance.

Q. Lastly, please tell us how production for the second chapter (season) is going?

A. Currently, we’re writing the second half of the script for the second chapter (season). The whole staff are eagerly working under this difficult Corona crisis. In the second chapter (season), we would like to create a script that is particular on the details as much as possible. In the previous series, there were many self-contained demon slaying stories but for the second chapter (season), we’ve changed the structure of the story so that it progresses with the feelings of the various characters intertwining together, just like in “Inuyasha The Final Act”. Hence, I think the impression of the story will change quite a bit. Please wait until the broadcast to see what kind of story it will be!

[geshertzarmeod]

Favorite Books of 2020

I wanted to put together a list! I read 74 new books this year, and I keep track of that on Goodreads - feel free to add or follow me if you want to see everything! I’m going to focus on the highlights, and the books that stuck with me personally in one way or another, in approximate order. Also, all but two of them (#5 and #7 on the honorable mention list) are queer/trans in some way. Links are to Goodreads, but if you’re looking to get the books, I suggest your library, the Libby app using your library, your local bookstore, or Bookshop.

The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions by Larry Mitchell, illus. by Ned Asta (originally published 1977). I had a hard beginning of the year and was in a work environment where my queerness was just not welcomed or wanted. I read this in the middle of all of that, and it helped me so much. I took this book with me everywhere. I read it on planes. I read it on the bus, and on trains, and at shul. I showed it to friends... sometimes at shul, or professional development conferences. It healed my soul. Now I can’t find it and might get a new copy. When I reviewed it, in February, I wrote: “I think we all need this book right now, but I really needed this book right now. Wow. This book is magic, and brings back a sense of magic and beauty to my relationship with the world.” Also I bought my copy last July, in a gay bookstore on Castro St. in SF, and that in itself is just beautiful to me. (Here’s a post I made with some excerpts)

Once & Future duology, especially the sequel, Sword in the Stars, by A.R. Capetta and Cory McCarthy. Cis pansexual female King Arthur Ari Helix (she's the 42nd reincarnation and the first female one) in futuristic space with Arab ancestry (but like, from a planet where people from that area of earth migrated to because, futuristic space) works to end Future Evil Amazon.com Space Empire with her found family with a token straight cis man and token white person. Merlin is backwards-aging so he's a gay teenager with a crush and thousands of years of baggage. The book’s entire basis is found family, and it's got King Arthur in space. And the sequel hijacks the original myth and says “fuck you pop culture, it was whitewashed and straightwashed, there were queer and trans people of color and strong women there the whole time.” Which is like, my favorite thing to find in media, and a big part of why I love Xena so much. It’s like revisionist history to make it better except it’s actually probably true in ways. Anyway please read these books but also be prepared for an absolutely absurd and wild ride. Full disclosure though, I didn’t love the first book so much, it’s worth it for the sequel!

The Wicker King by K. Ancrum. This book hurt. It still hurts. But it was so good. It took me on a whole journey, and brought me to my destination just like it intended the whole time. The author’s note at the end made me cry! The sheer NEED from this book, the way the main relationship develops and shifts, and how you PERCEIVE the main relationship develops and shifts. I’m in awe of Ancrum’s writing. If you like your ships feral and needy and desperate and wanting and D/S vibes and lowkey super unhealthy but with the potential, with work, to become healthy and beautiful and right, read this book. This might be another one to check trigger warnings for though.

The Entirety of The Daevabad Trilogy by S.A. Chakraborty. I hadn’t heard of this series until this year, when a good friend recommended it to me. It filled the black hole in me left by Harry Potter. The political and mystical/fantasy world building is just *chef’s kiss* - the complexity! The morally grey, everyone’s-done-awful-things-but-some-people-are-still-trying-to-do-good tapestry! The ROMANCE oh my GOD the romance. If I’m absolutely fully invested in a heterosexual romance you know a book is good, but also this book had background (and then later less background) queer characters! And the DRAMA!!! The third book went in a direction that felt a little out of nowhere but honestly I loved the ride. I stayed up until 6am multiple times reading this series and I’d do it again.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon. I loved this book so much that it’s the only book I reviewed on my basically abandoned attempt at a book blog. This book is haunting, horrifying, disturbing, dark, but so, so good. The character's voices were so specific and clear, the relationships so clearly affected by circumstance and yet loving in the ways they could be. This is my favorite portrayal of gender maybe ever, it’s just... I don’t even have the words but I saw a post @audible-smiles​ made about it that’s been rattling in my head since. And, “you gender-malcontent. You otherling,” as tender pillow talk??? Be still my heart. Be ready, though, this book has all the triggers.. it’s a .

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender. This book called me out on my perspective on love. Also, it made me cry a lot. And it has two different interesting well-written romance storylines. And a realistic coming-into-identity narrative about a Black trans demiboy. And a nuanced discussion of college plans and what one might do after college. And some big beautiful romcom moments. I wish I had it in high school. I’m so glad I have it now! (trigger warning for transphobia & outing, but the people responsible are held accountable by the end, always treated as not okay by the narrative, and the MC’s friends, and like... this is ownvoices and it’s GOOD.)

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. My Goodreads review says, “I have no idea what happened, and I loved it.” That’s not wrong, but to delve deeper, this book has an ethereal feeling that you get wrapped up in while reading. Nothing makes sense but that’s just as it should be. You’re hooked. It is so atmospheric, so meta, so fascinating. I’ve seen so many people say they interpreted this character or that part or the ending in all different ways and it all makes sense. And it’s all of this with a gay main character and romance and the central theme, the central pillar being a love of and devotion to stories. Of course I was going to love it.

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir by Kai Cheng Thom. “Because maybe what really matters isn’t whether something is true, or false. Maybe what matters is the story itself; what kinds of doors it opens, what kinds of dreams it brings.” This book was so good and paradigm shifting. It reminded me of #1 on this list in the way it turns real life experience and hard, tragic ones at that (in this case, of being a trans girl of color who leaves home and tries to make a life for herself in the city, with its violence), into a beautiful, haunting fable. Once upon a time.

I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver. I need to reread this book, as I read it during my most tranceful time of 2020 and didn’t write a review, so I forgot a lot. What I do remember is beautiful and important nonbinary representation, a really cute romance, an interesting parental and familial/sibling dynamic that was both heartbreaking and hopeful, and an on-page therapy storyline. Also Mason Deaver just left twitter but was an absolutely hilarious troll on it before leaving and I appreciate that (and they just published a Christmas novella that I have but haven’t read yet!)

The Truth Is by NoNieqa Ramos. It took a long time to trust this book but I’m so glad I did. It’s raw and real and full of grief and trauma (trigger warnings, that I remember, for grief, death (before beginning of book), and gun violence). The protagonist is flawed and gets to grow over the course of the book, and find her own place, and learn from the people around her, while they also learn to understand her and where she’s coming from. It’s got a gritty, harsh, and important portrayal of found family, messy queerness, and some breathtaking quotes. When I was 82% through this book I posted this update: “This book has addressed almost all of my initial hesitations, and managed to complicate itself beautifully.”

Anger is a Gift by Mark Oshiro.  I wasn’t actually in the best mental health place to read this book when I did (didn’t quite understand what it was) but it definitely reminded me of what there is to fight against and to fight for, and broke my heart, and nudged me a bit closer to hope. The naturally diverse cast of characters was one of the best parts of this book. The romance is so sweet and tender and then so painful. This book is important and well-written but read it with caution and trigger warnings - it’s about grief and trauma and racism and police brutality, but also about love and community.

The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden.  This is a sci-fi/fantasy/specfic mashup that takes place in near-future South Africa and has world-building myths with gods and demigoddesses and a trip to the world of the dead but also a genetically altered hallucinogenic drug that turns people into giant animals and a robot uprising and a political campaign and a transgender pop star and a m/m couple and all of them are connected. It’s bonkers. Like, so, so absolutely mind-breaking weird. And I loved it.

Crier’s War and Iron Heart by Nina Varela.  I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVED the amount of folktales they told each other with queer romances as integral to those stories, especially in Iron Heart. A conversation between the two leads where Crier says she wants to read Ayla like a book, and Ayla says she’s not a book, and Crier explains all the different ways she wants to know Ayla, like a person, and wants to deserve to know her like a person, made me weak. It lives in my head rent-free.

Queen’s Shadow by E.K. Johnston @ekjohnston . I listened to this book on Libby and then immediately listened to it at least one more time, maybe twice, before my borrow time ran out. I love Padmé, and just always wish that female Star Wars characters got more focus and attention and this book gave me that!! And queer handmaidens! And the implication that Sabé is in love with Padmé and that’s just something that will always be true and she will always be devoted and also will make her own life anyway. And the Star Wars audiobooks being recorded the way they are with background sounds and music means it feels like watching a really long detailed beautiful Star Wars movie just about Padmé and her handmaidens.

Sissy: A Coming of Gender Story by Jacob Tobia. I needed to read this. The way Tobia talks about their experience of gender within the contexts of college, college leadership, and career, hit home. I kept trying to highlight several pages in a row on my kindle so I could go back and read them after it got returned to the library (sadly it didn’t work - it cuts off highlights after a certain number of characters). The way they talk about TOKENISM they way they talk about the responsibilities of the interviewer when an interviewee holds marginalized identities especially when no one else in the room does!!! Ahhhh!!!

Bonds of Brass by Emily Skrutskie. Disclaimer for this one that the author was rightfully criticized for writing a Black main character as a white author (and how the story ended up playing into some fucked up stuff that I can’t really unpack without spoiling). But also, the author has been working to move forward knowing she can’t change the past, has donated her proceeds, and this book is really good? It has all the fanfic tropes, so much delicious tension, a totally unexpected plot twist that had me immediately rereading the book. This book was super fun and also kind of just really really good Star Wars fanfiction.

How To Be a Normal Person by T.J. Klune. This book was so sweet, and cute, and hopeful, and both ridiculous and so real. I had some trouble getting used to Gus’ voice and internal monologue, but I got into it and then loved every bit after. The ace rep is something I’ve never seen like this before (and have barely read any ace books but still this was so fleshed out and well rounded and not just like, ‘they’re obsessed with swords not sex’ - looking at you, Once & Future - and leaving it there.) This all felt like a slice of life and I feel like I learned about people while reading it. Some of the moments are so, so funny, some are vaguely devastating. I have been personally victimized by TJ Klune for how he ends this book (a joke, you will know once you read it) but it also reminds me of the end of the “You Are There” episode of Xena and we all know what the answer to that question was.... and I choose to believe the answer here was similar.

You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson. I wish I had this book when I was in high school. I honestly have complicated feelings about prom and haven’t really been seeking out contemporary YA so I was hesitant to read this but it was so good and so well-written, and had a lot of depth to it. The movie (and Broadway show) “The Prom” wants what this book has.

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth. I never read horror books, so this was a new thing for me. I loved the feeling of this book, the way I felt fully immersed. I loved how entirely queer it was. I was interested in the characters and the relationships, even though we didn’t have a full chance to go super deep into any one person but rather saw the connections between everyone and the way the stories matched up with each other. I just wanted a bit of a more satisfying ending.

Honorable Mention: reread in 2020 but read for the first time pre-2020

Red White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. I couldn’t make this post without mentioning this book. It got me through this year. I love this book so much; I think of this book all the time. This book made me want to find love for myself. You’ve all heard about it enough but if you haven’t read this book what are you DOING.

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan @sarahreesbrennan​ . I reread this one over and over too, both as text and as an audiobook. I went for walks when I had lost my earbuds and had Elliott screaming about an elf brothel loudly playing and got weird looks from someone walking their dog. I love this book so much. It’s just so fun, and so healing to read a book reminiscent of all the fantasies I read as a kid, but with a bi main character and a deconstruction of patriarchy and making fun of the genre a bit. Also, idiots to lovers is a great trope and it’s definitely in this book.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. This book is forever so important to me. I am always drawn in by how tenderly Sáenz portrays his characters. These boys. These boys and their parents. I love them. I love them so much. This is another one where I don’t even know what to say. I have more than 30 pages in my tag for this book. I have “arda” set as a keyboard shortcut on my phone and laptop to turn into the full title. This book saved my life.

Last Night I Sang to the Monster by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. This book hurts to read - it’s a story about trauma, about working through that trauma, healing enough to be ready to hold the worst memories, healing enough to move through the pain and start to make a life. It’s about found family and love and pain and I love it. It’s cathartic. And it’s a little bit quietly queer in a beautiful way, but that’s not the focus. Look up trigger warnings (they kind of are spoilery so I won’t say them here but if you have the potential to be triggered please look them up or ask me before reading)

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine.  When asked what my all time favorite book is, it’s usually this one. Gail Carson Levine has been doing live readings at 11am since the beginning of the pandemic shut down in the US, and the first book she read was Ella Enchanted. I’ve been slowly reading it to @mssarahpearl and am just so glad still that it has the ability to draw me in and calm me down and feels like home after all this time. This book is about agency. I love it.

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman @chronicintrovert . I’ve had this on my all-time-faves list since I read it a few years ago and ended up rereading it this year before sending a gift copy to a friend, so I could write little notes in it. It felt a little different reading it this time - as I get further away from being a teenager myself, the character voice this book is written in takes a little longer to get used to, but it’s so authentic and earnest and I love it. I absolutely adore this book about platonic love and found family and fandom and mental illness and abuse and ace identity and queerness and self-determination, especially around college and career choices. Ahhh. Thank you Alice Oseman!!!

Leia: Princess of Alderaan by Claudia Gray @claudiagray​ . I have this one on audible and reread it several times this year. I love the fleshing out of Leia’s story before the original trilogy, I love her having had a relationship before Han, and the way it would have affected her perspective. I also am intrigued by the way it analyses the choices the early rebellion had to make... I just, I love all the female focused new Star Wars content and the complexity being brought to the rebellion.

[arabhamlet]

why you should read the heartless divine

hello guys! i haven’t used tumblr in a while, so i hope i tag this correctly, but i really needed to write this post to promote a book i think many, many people will enjoy reading for a number of reasons, and i figured i should give it a shot.

the heartless divine is varsha ravi’s debut novel, self-published last november through amazon. it is a ya fantasy romance inspired by mythology and sangam era india, and you can purchase it as an ebook or as a physical copy on amazon.

i 100% recommend it to anyone who enjoys mythology, reincarnation/soulmates, tragic but tender star-crossed romance (and not in a generic ya way either), or just anything with complex plot, character, and relationships—which, i realize, basically means everyone, but in my defence it is really good and worth a read no matter who you are.

what’s it about?

the heartless divine follows two paralleling narratives. the first is set in the distant past, and follows suri, a princess forced into being an assassin by her warlike family, as she is betrothed to the boy king of a neighbouring land after being assigned the task to kill him once the wedding is complete, only to find her plans going off-kilter when she encounters kiran, a strange prophet who predicts his own incoming death and the catastrophe soon to occur. the second is set in modern-day, and follows a reincarnated suri, with no memories of her past life, who finds her life inexplicably tied to a changed kiran, who she does not remember but who remembers her.

the plot is a bit more complex than this, and this is really just a quick summary, but more than that it’s a story about humans and our relationships to each other, to mortality, and to fate.

i highly recommend it - it can be a little slow to start off with, but once the historical plot starts going i found it pretty much impossible to put down. even though it’s been a few months since i read it, i find myself going back to it pretty much constantly. it’s fantastic both as a ya novel to read for fun, and as something far more complex with so many themes, characters, and dynamics to unpack.

but if you need a bit more encouragement:

why should i read it?

as i mentioned, the plot is incredibly engaging. unlike a lot of ya, as well, the heartless divine is super character-based and has incredibly strong characters in its protagonists. the past storyline also has a running mystery - and the reveal at the end as to who is the real villain definitely caught me off-guard on my first read. the past storyline is also deeply tragic in many ways, hitting you emotionally to great effect, and the climax is absolutely one of the most impactful climaxes of any ya book i’ve ever read—i’m making an effort not to spoil anything while writing this, because the pure emotional punch of the climax should be read completely blind.

ravi’s writing is absolutely gorgeous. she has an incredible command over the written word and wrote some incredibly amazing prose in this book. her writing is at once poetic and also incredibly versatile, fitting into beautiful romantic declarations and sharp dialogue and tense scenes of conflict. i won’t include any massive chunks, but here are some of my favourite lines:

Where does the divinity go, then? he had asked her. She had shrugged. To the sky. That is where all divinity goes after it is dead. But the sky was too far away, and there was not enough left of him, divine or not, to guarantee safe passage on a trip so long.

She had always been afraid of hope, in the same way she figured most people were afraid of black holes. Desire was something that consumed, she knew, and to desire impossibility was to let it consume you entirely. hearts splintered with love and splintered with loss, and to fear one was to fear both—it was safer to resist them both, to draw thick, black demarcations in shining permanent marker, explicit, clear lines that gently reminded her of what could and could not be desired.

“You live as though you are already dead,” she whispered. each word sunk into him, cut through his heart with clean, sharp blades. “You live as though your life is nothing but a prerequisite for death, for true purpose. Have you ever fought to stay alive? Have you ever allowed yourself to think of life as something to love?”

They had the same fine boned face, hollow-cheeked and haunted, the same air of a saint that had burnt away to nothing and held the ashes himself. And yet, they were not the same. It was a twisted, imperfect projection—it was him, but not all of him. This was his savage divinity laid bare.

What were love stories but dreams of worlds where the sun and moon could linger beside one another long enough to learn the language of the other’s heart?

ravi also has an incredible grasp on the themes that she’s writing with. above all, the heartless divine is about humanity and what makes people human—our relationships with each other and with our own place in the world. and in my opinion, she expresses these ideas with great maturity and wisdom.

however, for the most part, the heartless divine’s greatest strength is its characters. kiran is a deeply complex character, a prophet caught between his duty to die as a martyr and his desire to make his own choices and follow what he truly loves. he has a complicated relationship to humanity, but no human more than himself, as he struggles to understand the parameters of his own humanity—the place where his mortality ends and his divinity begins. at first, the kiran of the past and the kiran of the present seem deeply separated from each other, but as the story progresses you begin to understand the tragedy of how kiran became who he is in the modern-day.

at first, suri seems like a typical ya female protagonist, but as the story progresses and she begins to let her guard down a bit more, you really start to see how interesting and complicated she is as a character. she doesn’t believe in gods or fate at the beginning of either storyline, but by the end she slowly starts to accept hope into her heart—ending in two very different ways—and advocates for ignoring fate and following the life you want, desperately searching for the happy ending that you deserve. she also has a deeply captivating character voice, and was, certainly at the beginning, my favourite of the three pov characters.

but my personal favourite character is viro, the primary antagonist of the past plotline (though—no major spoilers—he finally makes an appearance in the modern plotline very close to the end). most people i know who have read the heartless divine feel similarly about viro. ravi makes him a deeply compelling character, fleshing out his motivations and reasoning and in turn writing one of my favourite relationships in the book in his complex brotherly relationship with kiran. i don’t want to spoil much about him, but he is a really interesting character and, though technically the antagonist, is just as compelling as the protagonists.

on the same note, before i talk about the romance in the book, i have to mention viro and kiran’s dynamic, as i feel it drives the past plot in many ways and is deeply interesting. the two are adoptive brothers, and find themselves butting heads almost constantly over their different ideological stances; and though it’s clear they love each other, soon enough you start to worry if love is enough.

onto the romance, and of course i have to talk about suri and kiran, because—how could i not. they’re literal soulmates! two souls who find each other in every lifetime! they’re kindred spirits no matter what, in both past and present, two people who understand each other deeply on a metaphysical level, and no matter what their scenes together were a great joy. they’re a romance where both of them help each other grow, even when surrounded by chaos and catastrophe. here’s one of my favourite lines in the book in case you need some more explanation. this is romance.

“‘Love is dangerous, blinding,’” he quoted, voice soft against her cheeks in an empty semblance of amusement. He pulled back slightly, just enough that she could see the gentleness, the raw warmth in his gaze. The clean lack of regret. “And yet, I see you so clearly.”

it’s perhaps less explicit—but bear in mind this is the first book in a series—but ravi also sets up the dynamic between viro and his guard, companion, and best friend tarak in a way that...is practically impossible not to read as romantic. i won’t spoil it because it is something you have to see in person, but some of the most emotionally charged scenes in the novel deal with their dynamic. here’s another line for good measure. they really said we do it for the girls and the tenderyearning gays that’s it.

Tarak let out a ragged sigh, lost and despairing. Viro reached up and put a hand on his, traced the lines of his fingers. he watched him do it, entranced by the movement and saddened by it as well. Finally, he asked, “If I begged, would you stay?” Viro’s fingers stilled in their movement, suddenly hyper-aware of the way Tarak’s hands shook upon the embroidered fabric of his tunic. as if he couldn’t bear to hold him tighter, as if the mere action would wrench him away.

the world building is also incredibly well done, as is the mythology ravi sets up and the folk stories she tells. also, for good measure, ravi is an indian writer and her story is, as aforementioned, deeply inspired by sangam india. i don’t necessarily have the cultural context to interact with the worldbuilding completely, but from where i stand it’s immensely well done.

the second book in the series is currently being written, and i recommend picking up your copy of the heartless divine soon before the series continues. once again, it’s available on amazon, and here is its page on goodreads and thestorygraph in case you want to add it to your tbr!

also, for good measure, shoot me a message here or on twitter (where i normally am) if you do decide to read it and want to discuss it! for good measure, here’s one of my favourite lines from the book—just as a closing statement.

“I want to hear all of your stories,” she said, fierce as fire. “Every single one. I don’t care whether they have happy endings or not.”

[davidmann95]

Comics this week (12/16/2020)?

Iron Man #4: Still good! Every issue I remain surprised that this is staying good, and yet it does!

The Immortal Hulk #41: A real good revisitation from a completely different angle of the ‘here’s why regular superheroes can’t fix what’s going on here’ thread from way back in #7, and god between this and Empyre Ewing writes such a perfect Ben Grimm.

King In Black: The Immortal Hulk: Surprised this didn’t end up a direct follow-up on the dangling thread left behind from the Absolute Carnage tie-in, but this was excellent so I’m not complaining.

Solid Blood #17: A new Robert Kirkman comic (joined by Ryan Ottley) announced right before its release like Die! Die! Die! before it, this one has the added gimmick of dropping its seventeenth issue with no preamble. The actual comic...well, the actual comic is basically 1963 for the 90s in the most fun way (it’s even printed on authentically fitting paper stock!), but the seeds of something much stranger are established and I have almost no clue what to expect next, quite literally. It must be nice to have that sort of fuck-you Walking Dead money, and I’m glad Kirkman’s choosing to do something as weird and interesting as this with it.

We Live #3: This one felt somewhat disjointed, but still an excellent experience.

Stillwater #4: I cannot believe I’m getting and enjoying so many horror comics on a regular basis now.

Once & Future #14: I keep saying I’m appreciating and decently enjoying this book while not connecting with it, but maybe it is winning me over.

We Only Find Them When They’re Dead #4: Get this book.

Decorum #6: I swear to god this series might be the prettiest comic of all time.

Commanders in Crisis #3: I didn’t review this one for AIPT, but this one’s a bit of a bridge between the first two issues tonally, both as grounded and as weird as the book has been thus far. I’m ready for it to return to something more bombastic, but I still have zero doubt this is going to be an all-timer when it wraps. No character interview with Ritesh Babu on AIPT this month, BUT in its place @deathchrist2000 has interviewed Prizefigher for Comic Book Herald on the subject of an in-universe James Bond novel written by Steven Moffat, and it rules.

Second Coming: Only Begotten Son #1: To borrow a line from @deathchrist2000, that sure is the death of Krypton as portrayed by the writer of The Flintstones. That’s the opposite of a complaint for me, but that’s sure what it is.

Superman #28: Kind of a perfect ending to Bendis’s tenure, in that it ends up totally whiffing some great ideas even if you can only mind so much given the quality of the character insight with the narration, but then there’s a Superman Moment so perfect it breaks your heart. Very glad Bendis will keep writing him in his half-announced Justice League with Marquez, and that he said today he’ll keep writing him elsewhere as well (I continue to assume he’s working on a Future State-era Jon as Superman book). Let’s see how well Action can put even more of a bow on it next week even with that art holding it back.

Batman #105: Does the ending here totally make sense? Ehhh. Am I willing to forgive any lapses in logic that get us way more Ghost-Maker? Hell yes. Speaking of which, he and Bruce totally used to be a thing off-panel, right? That’s the vibe I got from the opening in a BIG way.

Catwoman #28: I’ve been saying I’ve been loving it but also been waiting for what it looks like when it gets out from under Brubaker’s shadow, and I think I’m starting to see it, and it’s definitely my jam.

The Batman’s Grave #12: So someone either didn’t see or didn’t care that I explained I had already checked with my store to ensure my purchase of this wouldn’t result in any money going to Warren Ellis, so they messaged me spoilers for the ending of the issue in an attempt to ‘dissuade me’ from any further interest. A. Wherever the motives there are coming from, incredible dick move, for the love of god don’t do this. B. They misunderstood what happened in the ending? Wild. Anyway, it’s fine but also Ellis’s fourth-best Batman comic, strange if not at all undeserved that his now presumed/hopeful final Big Two comic, intended as a huge prestige Batman perennial (still confused why it wasn’t Black Label) and sure to forever be pushed as such if not for outside circumstances, ended up one of his passable third-tier works, destined to be remembered only as “that Batman comic DC had to finish publishing even after it turned out Warren Ellis was a piece of shit”.

Rorschach #3: Standard policy regarding my comments on this series applying: it was good.

Dark Nights: Death Metal #6: This one...kinda blew? Totally perfunctory moving-the-pieces into place issue for the most part, one or two nice moments aside. What a disappointing capstone to a story from 2017 to now I largely loved, hope it at least delivers a few haymakers with the finale.

Tales of the Dark Multiverse: Crisis on Infinite Earths: Mixed feelings. The beginning and ending are the sort of slaughter in mass of super-dopes without fanfare and on such a scale that it reminds me of World’s Funnest doing the exact same scenes for comedy, but that middle chunk? By god, Orlando makes me give a shit about the JSA, and that’s no mean feat, plus nice to see him write a few great Superman bits on his way out the door. Speaking of which, I’m mainly parsing this issue as an expression of Orlando’s bitterness over said exit and his time with DC as a comic about a big swaggering puffed-up dumbass living for destruction before whom our heroes our powerless, and a man has to sacrifice himself for a queer kid in servitude to it so that they can have a future and keep building that world. I liked it in balance, but I think I found it more interesting than good.

(Since I’m mentioning two Orlando books in here, worth noting I read this week his and Ricardo López Ortiz’s The Pull on Comixology. I’m not clear if it was released in single issues - I can’t quite wrap my head around TKO’s publishing model - but it’s basically an unholy mash between shonen manga, grungy noir crime comics, and a Crisis, and it rules and you should get it.)

The Green Lantern Season Two #10: What a strange, messy, fascinating capstone to Morrison’s DC work this series has turned out to be, and holy cow how has this been Liam Sharp lately? When did he get on this amazing Frazer Irving shit? And how is Ultrawar gonna happen and be resolved entirely within #12, unless it goes for a more abstract “The Ultrawar was really inside us all along!” conclusion?

[lokilickedme]

Writing Update, 4/17/20

Trying to get back into the groove here - recovery’s been rougher than I expected but at least part of my brain feels like it might be coming back online, so we’ll see how this goes.  I haven’t done an update post in a long time, so I made myself a new header for it on the premise that sparkly new thing = motivation.  I’m sure that’s not true but it’s worth a try :)

Worked on The Department chapter 35 tonight, which is currently at around 3800 words and will be wrapping up in about another 300.  Might be ready to post on Sunday and settle back into its designated timeslot.  Updates on that one may slip to bi-weekly until it’s finished, or until I finish one of the books I’m working on and can go back to devoting more time to it.  Chief and Greta just made an appointment for the minute Ant leaves town, but first Andy’s gotta survive one more night without being assassinated by his own guardian.

Mapped out the next pairing for Tales From Quarantine.  It’s probably going to be Chem!Tom and Anja :)  Tom is being a bit macabre, and we all know how weirdness makes him horny.

TOM:  Someone will have to find our corpses, eventually.  Unless the whole world goes down, then I guess it'll be aliens.

ANJA:  What?!?

TOM:   Skeletons everywhere, just all laying in bed, watching TV or fucking, waiting for the world to end while it slips quietly into that good night.

ANJA:  WHAT?!?!

I have chunks of Hammer Of The Gods chapters 28 and 29 put together, as well as a good part of the final chapter and some of the epilogue.  Chapter 28 could go up in the next couple of weeks.  Tate’s got Jake’s tuition money and a fierce determination to make sure his selflessness won’t be for nothing.

Jack Montague will be delayed for a little while.  This one takes a really specific mindset to write and I’m just not up to it lately and I refuse to halfass this story, it means too much to me.  Loki and Adam are still sorting wtf is keeping them flying through the portals every five minutes, but it’s pretty likely that Loki’s already figured it out.

ADAM:  You are possibly the dumbest motherfucker I’ve ever had the sorry misfortune to be acquainted with...but it’s been something of a cockassed honor to to die repeatedly with you.

LOKI:  Yeah, I guess now wouldn’t be a good time to tell you your daughter is an interdimensional anomaly that’s going to destroy the gods and the gods in question plan to destroy her first and they’ve sent me to do the job...would it?

UPCOMING BOOKS:

The second book in the Strada Trilogy is about half finished, so...not too terribly long till this one goes out.  Baltho is still an uncontrollable nutcase and oh yeah, his powers are returning...Keene is still cranky and put out about the whole situation and might be catching feels, if he believed in that sort of thing...the other Strada are crossing over and the Messenger has just arrived with a whole bunch of sticky notes to remind him what he’s supposed to tell everybody, but nobody seems willing to follow that whole “don’t shoot the messenger” thing long enough for him to do his job.  The end of the world doesn’t come from a virus, folks...it comes from big guys with wings and really bad attitudes.

Another second book - part 2 of The Carmichael Addendum - is outlined and maybe a quarter written.  The war they were expecting in book one?  Yeah, it came.  Except Kaine is nowhere to be found and Aiden’s name is on the dead list and a rogue slayer is consecrating kills - which is a big no no - and Clarissa’s gotta find the guy before Fitz and his Agents do.  She’s got a pretty good idea who it is though...because sometimes the dead don’t stay dead, and a certain archaeology dropout might be harder to kill than everyone expected.

Eidos and The Fifth King are both coming along nicely.  These will be housed together in one book.  Sexy cyberpunk sci-fi.

Wicklow House is chugging along, I’ve got the entire thing sorted and it’s maybe a quarter written.  It’s ended up being the first of a series.  Huh, imagine that.  Gothic horror romance/mystery.

Chemical Volume Three is nearly finished, this one will go to publishing within a month I think.  I rewrote bits of a few of the Prehistories and polished them up some, and did the same with Penumbraluna.

The McClary Chronicles book four is about half written.  It’ll go out at some point this year, fingers crossed.

The King’s Heart and The Wolf King are waiting their turn - they’ll be partly rewritten and then published, I haven’t decided if they’ll be together or in separate books yet.

Whisper is almost finished being rewritten, then it’ll be released as a novella.

That’s where everything is at the moment.  I’ll try to get back into posting update notices a couple times a week like I used to do.

[sparklerose222]

The Super Girls

Chapter 2

Word Count: 1,847

Characters: Moriah Heart, Noriah Heart, Julia Royal, Lara Lightwood, Vanessa Storm, Folmanus Evermore

Warnings: Minor violence, and I will edit if any more are found.

Parings: future platonic LAMPD

Summary: The Super Girls are formed.

Previous chapters: Prologue, Chapter 1

“You really think that I will accept this. She is a kid.”

“And so are Julia and you, I’m the only adult here. I mean, it is only a three-year difference between 12 and 15. She has been a hero for the same amount of time as us, fighting Folmanus alone when we are meant to be fighting him together.”

“It is not our fault that we were separated. We became heroes, we proved our worth, what has she done. I've heard nothing about Split other than the occasional robbery.”

“That is because Folmanus won't appear in any written history, none will ever be brave enough to write about him, and you know that. We thought that he will come in two more years and we were going to look for him then, but we were wrong. Because of our arrogance, we let the youngest of us fight him alone. Like it or not, she knows the most about him than any of us. You just need to talk to her like the equal she is and get to know her.”

“You guys need to quiet it down, I could hear muffled yelling from the main road, and that’s five miles away.”

“Oops.”

“Yeah, oops, by the way, my name is Moriah. I never told any of you my name last week.”

“Glad you found your way here, too bad I have to leave. My publisher wants my manuscript by tomorrow, and I still have 4 more chapters to write.”

“You’re a writer? How did I not know that? I’ve known you for seven years?”

“Even I knew that and I met her last week. I love your books, I was just too irritated that day to fangirl after you transformed back.”

“Well, good to know I have another fan. Tic, could you please portal me home. I would appreciate it.”

“Sure, even though I know that you are only doing this so that I am alone with Moriah. There you go.”

“Thanks, Tic, and you know I’m not that sneaky. I really do have to finish.”

That’s when a purple portal opened up, and Lara left me alone with TicTock. The very girl who still hasn’t told me her name.

“So, don’t you have school today.”

“I don’t know. Don’t you?”

“Smooth, real smooth. But I’m serious, I’m homeschooled, and my mom knows about me being a Super Girl.”

“Parent-teacher conference, and my mom thinks I have friends.”

“So, you don’t have friends. Maybe you should just stop being a Super Girl so you can have time to make some.”

“Thanks, I needed that, not. You’re never getting rid of me, I am a Super Girl like it or not, and there is nothing you can do about it. The reason why I don’t have friends is that I know I will be dead in two years, and I don’t need anything trying to distract me.”

“Okay, I think I struck a chord there.”

This girl gets me so angry; I don’t know how to handle it. Couple it with her irritation, and it only makes it worse. Sometimes I hate being an empath. 

“Hiya Split Yin, I’m Julia, by the way. Noriah and I were just catching up, what are you two talking about.”

“Nothing much, Nori, do you want to leave. I sure mom is going to be coming home soon.”

“So, that bad, usually my sister is very patient with people. After keeping her powers a secret since she was three, she is good at dealing with her emotions around others.”

“You’ve had your powers for that long and kept them a secret. From how many?”

“Everyone. The hardest part is keeping my powers hidden from my mom, dad, and older brother.”

Though it doesn’t help that my mom would prefer if people just didn’t use their powers at all and deny who they are. If she were to find out that I am a superhero, I don’t think she would ever let me out of the house again. I wonder if any more of these girl’s families know what they are doing or is it just TicTocks. Now an alarm is going off, which means Folmanus is back on earth. That was the best break I’ve had in six years.

“Great, why don’t you two stay here and hold down the fort? Come on, Juli, let’s go.”

With that, TicTock pulls Juli through the portal; she just open, and they were gone. Not even Noriah could run fast enough to get through before it closed. Leaving us behind.

I am going to blowout her eardrums.

Morie, come on, we need to get to the town's square before those girls get themselves killed, grab my hand we need to refuse.

Fine, how do you have a level head

With that, I grabbed Noriah’s hand and relinked our charms. Completing the symbol of balance, refusing us back together, and letting her take control so she can use her super speed. We were able to get the town's square in two minutes flat, cracking our charms along the way so we could transform. The jewelry we whare dampen our powers because they are too strong to handle on a day to day bases. I mean, I can feel the emotions of everyone in the city and pinpoint where they are. Though I’m glad that it doesn’t overwhelm me.

I am going to be giving a birds-eye view of this fight:

Just as Split ran in on the scene, Wonder was falling out of the sky unconscious.

“Yang, go check for civilians I’ll catch her.”

“Got it.”

With a sonic scream, Yin was able to slow Wonder’s fall enough that when she hit the concrete, it only left a few small scratches. Luckily, the low impact jolted her awake, albeit a little sore.

“Why are you just now getting here? TicTock said that you weren’t interested in fighting anymore. How can you think that’s okay? You are meant to be part of the team.”

Yin says nothing as she helps her up, and Yang runs up to them, not hearing what was just said.

“There were a few people trapped in their houses, but I got them out. Let’s get back to the fight and help the other two.”

With a nod, the two girls followed the other. When they got to TicTock and Storm, they were on the ground, struggling to get back up.

In front of them was the elven king, Folmanus. His skin was silver with his ears and teeth pointed. He was also wearing a Victorian like outfit that flattered him well. Almost every Super Girl thought that if he wasn’t trying to take over the world, they would try and date him, accept Morie, who was tired of fighting him. I mean, the guy even knew how strong women can be. He then saw the last three girls run-up.

“Finally, you get here Split Yin, I was getting bored with these weaklings who think they can win. Please tell me that you all together will make this fight fun again?”

“Sorry to bore you, Folmanus. We will do our best to fix that.”

Once Tic and Storm stood next to the others ready to fight alongside them as equals for the first time, not being aware of it, there was a spark that manifested into weapons. 

For Split, a double-edged katana that could break into two. Wonder received a staff that she could use to focus her energy into a blast of power. TicTock got a pendulum similar to one in old clocks that ticked to the time of the multiverse. Finally, Storm summoned a broad sword that can change its composition to whatever element that she wants.

“So you think little toys can help you defeat me? Bring it on.”

Without another word, the girls dove into attack as one. Folmanus was fast and agile, but with these five girls working better together than ever before, he felt himself being pushed back. They were far from perfect, and they almost hit each other a few times, but they were aware of each other this time, and they were winning. See, Folmanus realized there first fight with all of them together, he would have killed them without trying. Where’s the fun in that? So once they got a single nick on him, he retreated and took a break to see if they would get better. They did.

This time they pushed him back into his portal severely wounded. Storm slashing him along the length of his arm, TicTock hitting him in the head twice, Split Yin taking out his legs while Yang held him in place, and finally, Wonder using her staff to lift him and force him through the portal. It will take him a good bit to heal. But he’ll be back and was glad to have something that pushed him to his limit. Maybe he will get stronger without absorbing the Super Girls.

Once back in his house that he made centuries ago for if he needed to hide, Folmanus morphed into his human form that looked unharmed, but he was still in a lot of pain. He still got ready for the job he got six years ago, so he didn’t have to steal everything he needed. One day he will be king again.

“Did we do that?”

“Yes, Yin, we did that. We did some real damage to him.”

“Why is she so out of it? Is she really that surprised that we beat him?”

“We didn’t beat him. We just damaged him a great deal today. He is an eternal Elf that can not be killed so easily. I am surprised because the most damage Nori and I have ever done to him was a scratch. Today we hurt him as a team. That’s a big deal.”

“How do you think that we’re a team? A teammate wouldn’t just pick and choose when they help, and when they don’t.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about how she told Tic that she didn’t feel like fighting anymore and was going home.”

“No, Morie didn’t say that. Your friend TicTock told us to stay here and then left us behind. Some teammates. So TicTock does that mean that you are a liar and a sneak.”

“I’m sorry, I thought you would take the hint and go home, but I was wrong, and I am glad because I realized that we really do need you. I think you should know that I’m Vannessa. I hope you can forgive me.”

“You really did that? Nessa, that’s not okay. Why did you lie to me?”

“Because I thought that we didn’t need them, but we were getting pummeled until after they showed up. I'm thrilled you made it in time, I promise to never pull a stunt like that again.”

“I guess we can forgive you. As long as you finally see us as Super Girls.”

“Definitely”

“Yay, Best friends.”

“I don’t know about that one yet.”

“Agreed.”

————————————————–

Chapter 3 <3

Authors note: I tried to do a small fight scene, and I would really like some feedback on it. I hope you enjoyed chapter 2, thanks for reading.

[tgai-spock]

okay so before you read this a note - I wrote this before the BLM protests began

a second note, I had another almost identical slightly crazier version of this written before coronavirus. a minture of both and, bad judgement is leading my to post this.

consider this - the government is shit - why not just build a completely new one without even fighting to dismantle the other.

-----

Planned Land Name : Newski -

change available on suggestion of better name

When the Doctor was acted by David Tennent he had a line that stuck with me, all the ways we as humans could have decided to live, and this is what we choose. It wasn’t really a choice just a platform of life built over all the last ones, run with greed and fear, and a large portion of cruelty.

We took old models and added to them, and in a way if we continue this way we will deserve the destruction we get. On a singular basis most of us are mostly innocent, and yet, we won’t be for long.

I think now is the right time. Now its more blatant and obvious than ever before. Thirty years ago the government would have experimented on you, and left you for dead, without your consent, penniless. Before that they would have asked you to steadily walk into machine fun fire. The only difference now, is you know of that past. You don’t know of the decade that came next, or the one after that because it’s yet to be revealed. More information on this:

usa see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States

uk see

……..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porton_Down

is all i can find, the uk had a wiki list just like the usa, half as long (USA IS LONG) just as bad. all on purpose. this was here.. someones.. removed the wiki article?? Someone please give me the link. It must be on the internet somewhere still. Is it just me or has this … been deliberately hidden. Hidden in favour of articles on corona virus ‘vaccines’ ah.

anyway, this isn’t news, or even the whole point.

The economy, our very life and being is currently ruled by one question, which is always answered, with ease and purpose. What’s more important money, or a human life? Money or hundreds of thousands of people? The money is now what it always was, money. The prime minister of the UK has sent pople with non-vital jobs back to work. Some of these people will catch corona-virus and die, as a direct FORCED action from the government, as it is no longer an ability for people with those jobs to choose to risk themselves, and their familys. They must work, earn money for the economy (endanger their family and possibly die) or they can stay home loose their job, home (and then die.)

But was there ever a different option? Yeah. Just like the current looming global warming crisis, they were told about possible plague outbreaks. Instead of preparing for a possibility, they closed their. We will face this again when global warming makes its first attempts to claim lives.… well honestly, we’re already well past the first few, but when it starts hitting younger people, when not only the old suffer. When the temperature outside reaches 50c do you think you will be allowed to stay in your air conditioned home? Now we know at least. Not only will you be forced into an environment made uninhabitable by rich greedy bastards, but you’ll also be forced to work on non-necesery jobs (umm actually this show store is necessary because it’s technically a garden blah blah blah. Rich people are bored at home. So now, you must die.

But who wants to go war? - Note I wrote this before the BLM protests, and honestly guys, I’m so proud of you but so many innocent people are dying. Gauge their eyes out. Eradicate the police. BLM! BLM!

Who wants to go to prison, risk losing their job, their free time (oh which every second of is ever so precious because of what they’ve done) who wants to endanger their family? (BLM, heroes but you don’t deserve that. Keep up the good work though. They say all the police in the USA are the ones who are burning cars. Burn the police. burn the police.

Anyway: Instead of forcing a shitty government who takes way too long to make changes what I instead suggest is - make a new city.

Like start in the uk and then spread out, keep architecture unique to the area

Goals:

The sustainable continued existence of humans

Land that is self sufficient for all basic needs food/water/energy/medical care.

Sustaining and cleaning the environment

Creating 3 years worth of food back up for every Newski citizen in the event of catastrophe (plague/war/large volcanic eruption, dalek attack, ect.)

Sustaining and helping endangered animals caused by human interference

Developing cures to diseases that attack animals/environment in nature

Developing cures to diseases and ailments humans experience

Researching and developing cure/coping mechanisms for mental illnesses.

To interfere in other cultures that do not allow their own basic rights, for all citizens due to race/gender/religion/sexuality. (I support all different countries having their own way of life, but I draw the line at where a ‘way of life’  injures other humans. Lets not pretend to make this question harder than it is. It isn’t a hard question to answer. Volcano going to blow up and wipe out an entire civilisation of people who can’t help themself? Then help them.

To interfere in other cultures that force child marriages of those under 18. (Yes that includes the law allowing 16 years olds to get married in the uk! You know who mostly uses that now? Pedophiles, and people forcing their children into marriages. Ideally I’d raise it to 21, theres no reason anyone under that should be marrying.

Researching and creating a defence system for earth (dangerous comets, possibly aliens, mostly comets)

To create a bunker in the event of a large catastrophe where one will be needed for shelter

Creating off world self sustainable, peaceful settlements, and making sure the billionaire don’t spread hell to outterspace- can you honestly say with full certainty the won’t bring back slavery? they might even act like its not slavery if they splice humans with some other species…

To continue developing

Living in Newski

Government:

Newski is managed by 1 King or Queen, and a small Government.  (nnnooo don’t be put off by the word king it’s more like a prime minister)

The King/Queen title is passed on to people when they wish to retire.

The King/Queen may train as many people (apprentices) as they wish but they must choose one person to takeover.

In the event the King/Queen is lost before an apprentice is chosen it will be down to the citizens to vote in one of the apprentices.

A King or Queen that has chosen an apprentice may give them the title Prince/Kinglet/Queenlet.

A King or Queen may unchoose their Prince/Kinglet/Queenlet, if they feel they have made a mistake, unless it is proved they are intoxicated or suffering from a severe illness, such as dementia. Other illness such as depression although severe are not just cause for ignoring the King/Queen.

A King/Queen is not required to have biological heirs however, there is nothing wrong with them naming their own children Prince/Kinglet/Queenlet, as long as they have been through sufficient training, and have been educated.

The King/Queen may be removed of their crown, given the government first votes to it with a 100% agree rate, and the citizens then vote with a 90% agree rate.

Only King (me) may not be removed of their crown, no matter the government votes.

On the death of King (me) expect their return with another body- wow I had a whole paragraph here about resurrection. weird.

The King/Queen may be respectfully retired given the government first votes to it with a 100% agree rate, with scientific evidence to suggest that they have a strong illness relating to memory/reality such as dementia. They may keep their crown and should still be respected as such but they are no longer allowed to walk in on government meetings or throw people in the stocks.

A new King/Queen may then be voted in by the citizens from any of the previous nominated apprentices, or a retired King/Queen in good mind has the right to single rename themselves King/Queen, or narrow down the selected apprentices to five individuals.

The Government is set up of twelve people each individually voted. The King/Queen can choose one person who will enter the government regardless of vote. Citizens will be free to vote in the other 11 from anyone who has nominated themselves.

All government nominees will be asked to fill out a list of what they stand for, and do not stand for, to be published in one easy to read leaflet, next to every other nominee, so voters may understand 100% who they vote for. Nominees who have written that they 100% agree with certain ideas but then vote against them may be placed in the stocks for shameful behaviour. They may also be removed from the government if a fair trial proved they have deliberately and with no good reason changed what they claimed to believe.

The government is to be revoted every 3 years, and the process will take up only 1 month.

There is no limit on the amount of time someone is allowed to be in the government, however if they are in the government for 9 years, they must take a 9 year brake before being nominated again.

The King/Queen may nominate themselves for government, but they cannot vote themselves in.

For new laws to pass there must be a 75% agree vote between themselves.

All meetings between the government are open for the public to view, including ones discussing pandemics and catastrophe. Only meetings discussing an ongoing war may be closed of to the public if they deem it appropeit.

The King/Queen may sit on whatever meeting they wish, unless they are not in a sober state.

The King/Queen may force new laws or regulations they want to create to be discussed first on a daily basis. The government may then choose to vote in the law (75% agreeing to it) or suspend it for 1 week, but it must then be voted on. Only 1 person need ask for a law review to be suspended for a week to put forth the motion.

Justice:

Citizens have a right to fair trial.

King/Queen or Prince/Kinglet/Queenlet are only ones allowed to sentence people for up to 2 weeks in the stocks without trial or other humiliating duties for misdemeanours, given they or her guards are witness to it. Most people will be put through to fair trial, this law is only for if King Opusername is about when it is witnessed.

Laws of the land

Human rights exist, many of that already associated with UK right laws will still exist but with the following permanent addition, food, water, medical care, and electricity needed ensure environmental conditions and basic food.

Rice is out

Potatoes are in

You may purchase avocados and other not Newski food as a treat.

Exceptions allowed only for people with many allergies/intolerance where this is not personally sustainable.

3. Basic human rights for prisoners exist, more advanced rights such as the right to vote are not available to prisoners sentenced to life in prison. Humans in the stocks have a right to water and shade/jumpers, and a 30 minute brake every 2 hours.

4.  Criminal justice can vary from stocks and other humiliating duties, to re - introduction to society- to life in jail, and banishment. There is no death penalty…. ….. …. … … .. .. maybe a request for some prisoners to do the honroable thing and kill themselves. (pedos and nazis)

5. Fighting is allowed, but only within the arena, fighting outside is a serious crime, and assault. - yeah i think we should bring arenas back. I mean boxing still exists but I want to see my neighbours across the road fucking hash it out in the arena, I’m betting on billy.

6. False news, or deliberately misleading news is forbidden, reporters caught writing articles with no previous source to suggest they thought they were honestly writing the truth will be banned from journalistic jobs, spend time in the stocks or humiliating duties, jail time, and face possible banishment for being dishonourable.

7. Everyone of the age 14 or over must attend town or government meetings for at least 1 hour, 6 times a year. The 6 hours may not be ‘spent’ with in one week. This rule does not apply to those in extreme mental or physical illness that makes this impossible.

Home Owning/Renting:

All land is rented through the King/Queen.

Some homes can be rented for a monthly amount, with normal renting rules applied.

Other homes can be (“brought”) “rented” for their entire value, for an unlimited amount of years.

“Renters” who had paid the full value of their home will have full decorating privileges of the inside of their house open to them, and the owning of pets would be down to them. The decoration, or painting of outside of the house must first be granted permission, unless it redo decoration that has aged. Only the removal/addition of walls must first be granted.

“Renters” who have gardens have almost full decorating privileges to plant, whatever they like, however they wish. The only exceptions come with:

Large tree to close to houses that could cause damage

Ponds (planning permission need but most likely granted)

Pools (probably not granted.)

Covering the land with cement if forbidden

Covering the land with plastic grass if forbidden

The use of gravel in small quantities may be granted (permission needed.)

Objects that can be moved, tables, are free reign.

“Renters” who have paid in full and wish to sell their home may only do so to the King/Queen, but it being brought back is guaranteed. “Renters” will receive in full what they paid for it, possibly with the addition of inflation, or more if it well decorated. If the house is in need of repair, major cleaning, or some objects need replacing they may receive less for it.

It is down to “renters” who had paid the full price of the house to look after the house, if however the roof or something similar that will cause major damage is in need of urgent repair and they refuse to have it repaired, repairing will be arranged for them and they will be billed.

Cleaning of the outside walls of the house will be free, and mandatory, as these are for aesthetic purposes.

Home “owners” can be removed from their home in the case that they pose a threat, or are wildly mistreating their home. They will receive their money back for it. This will only happen in the case where they seem dangerous, or leave piles of rubbish in their garden, or animal poop (in the case of their own dog, this does not apply to chickens or other smaller animals) for an extended time and, have ignored 3 warnings to clean up.

Royal Businesses :

All business can be rented or “rented” from the King/Queen.

If a business is shite, the King or Queen can shut it down.

If the owners are miserable bastards their business can be shut down. Listen, I try to use small shops occasionally, and I walk in to see some ugly sad miserable bastards, then I ain’t gonna come again bitch, am gonna go to fucking tesco see wanker.

Unless the owners have a mental/physical illness that makes them appear to be miserable bastards. - a fair and just king/queen. No one else is excused, with the exception of book shop owners, and librarians, I mean I’d prefer if you weren’t but you do you. No one else do you.

All people working around food must wear hair and beard nets. Why are fast food places the only places getting this right. stop being groesss!!

OTHER

Guilds

Fish

fish

….fish? fish guilds.

Fighters guilds.

The guards are like police- but they aren’t. ACAB!!! they’ll brake up a fight. help people with shopping, keep an eye out.

detective guild for crimes commited- like the guards are busy doing day to day stuff. It may sound extreme but imagine this. You are in the uk, your stuff is stolen. You phone the police. They come to your house, they give a nod and say, ‘yep thats stolen’ thats literally all that fucking happens. No police. just guards and detectives.

guards are mostly just going to be dragging drunk people to their homes, or holding incase they throw up and accidentally kill themselves.

mental health emergency guilds - listen, you can’t have a man in fucking armour to try and talk a jumper off a roof, or to help calm down a large man have a tantrum.

what if someone takes a jewellery store hostage? Thats… that going to need different different professional people, probably the outside/talking mental health worker would be better for that than any guard.

stop criminal scum - OR PAY WITH YOUR LIFE.- newski guard catchphrase.

other notes on why creating a self sustainable news is possible - it only takes 1 acres of potatoes to feed 1 person 3000 calories every day for a year. I mean.. i guess you could have some bread or something if u wanted...

also i know I'm totally gonna get roasted for this, but consider this, i spent a damn long time writing this

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The lost audiobooks of Roger Zelazny reading the Chronicles of Amber

When I was a kid, my whole circle of D&D-playing, science-fiction reading pals was really into Roger Zelazny's ten-volume Chronicles of Amber, but somehow I never read it; for years, I'd intended to correct this oversight, but I never seemed to find the time -- after all, there's more amazing new stuff than I can possibly read, how could I justify looking backwards, especially over the course of ten books?

But I do have some time in my day to read older books: I swim every day for my chronic pain, and when I do, I use an underwater MP3 player to listen to audiobooks that I generally get from Libro.fm, Downpour, or Google's DRM-free audiobook store (the market-leading Audible, a division of Amazon, mandatorily wraps audiobooks in its proprietary DRM without allowing publishers to opt out, which has the dual deal-breaking effect of locking me into Amazon's ecosystem and not working on my underwater MP3 player).

A couple of months ago, I decided to go looking for DRM-free versions of the Amber books, which is how I found Speaking Volumes' editions of Roger Zelazny's own readings of the books, long believed to have been accidentally erased and lost forever, but which were recovered and remastered in the mid-2000s. Speaking Volumes sells these as MP3 downloads and MP3 CDs, and I bought the complete set of the former and listened to them over a couple of months' worth of laps in the pool.

Zelazny's reading is pretty much fantastic. The books are justly loved for their deadpan, ironic, noirish prose style, and Zelazny's voice -- smoke-cured by the same cigarettes that were blamed for the cancer that killed him in 1995 at the age of 58 -- and delivery are absolutely delightful. The audio quality is patchy at best -- whatever medium these recordings were recovered from was evidently in less-than-perfect shape -- and in some places there's bleed-through of other people having arguments. One book was only partially recovered and is read in places by another reader, who is competent enough, though he's no Zelazny. Despite these imperfections (or, perversely, because of them), it's pretty fabulous to hear these rediscovered lost treasures.

What about the books themselves, then?

They're...a mixed bag. The story is a set of courtly intrigues based loosely on Hindu and Buddhist scripture, infused with heavy doses of psychedelic industry as the forces of Order and Chaos fight one another for dominance over the universe, even as the royal houses of godlings who represent each force squabble among one another in succession struggles for the thrones of their respective realms. The hero of the first five books is Prince Corwin of Amber, fighting for the crown of the lands of Order, while the second five books tell the story of his son, Merlin, whose mother is demon of Chaos and who might find himself running either one or both of the great houses.

The books start strong, as Corwin awakens in a hospital in our world with amnesia and slowly recovers his memories, thus easing us into Zelazny's universe. These books sport psychedelic interludes in which Corwin walks through "shadow" (the branching, unimportant worlds, including ours, in which everything that can happen does, which the godlings of Chaos and Order can traverse to find any possible outcome) that Zelazny brings to life with deliveries that turn them into free verse poetry, heavy on delightfully weird symbolism.

But -- even with the book six reboot and the switch to a new PoV character -- Zelazny struggles to keep the story together. His multiple mystical systems of magic allow him to squeak out of narrative problems by inventing some new twist on the rules he's set up that conveniently allows characters to escape from the dead ends he writes them into. This has the unfortunate side effect of setting up characters with overpowered artifacts, unfollowably complicated powers, and an sense of anything-can-happen whose corollary is nothing matters.

The psychedelic interludes that are so much fun in the early volumes turn into self-indulgent cheap tricks for getting characters in and out of trouble the action flags.

All in all, it has the ring of a D&D game whose inventive Dungeon Master has set down all the twists and turns that were so much fun to play through in a book that's significantly less fun to read -- like dreams, D&D adventures are generally more fun to live through than to hear about (and it doesn't help that much of the action in the Amber books takes place in characters' dreams).

I nearly met Zelazny. He was scheduled to be the Guest of Honor at Toronto's Ad Astra science fiction convention, but died shortly before the event. Ad Astra was my first con, where I volunteered as a gofer, then attended as a neopro, and I remember being disappointed that I wouldn't get to meet him in person -- even if I hadn't read the Amber books, I'd enjoyed his story Auto-da-Fe in Harlan Ellison's first Dangerous Visions anthology and, more importantly, Zelazny was the mentor of one of my favorite writers, Steven Brust (previously) whom I met for the first time two years later when he was a guest of honor at Ad Astra, in 1997.

Brust's work is an instructive counterpoint to Zelazny. His longrunning, nearly complete, must-must-must read Taltos series is filled with homages to Zelazny and Amber, from the hard-boiled tone to the beautifully choreographed sword- and knife-fighting scenes, to the mystical, semi-sentient cord his hero wears around his wrist (Brust even named his kid Corwin!).

What's more, Brust's Taltos books are literally based on an RPG, with the same gods-and-mortals dynamic that Zelazny propels the action in Amber with.

But Brust's books are infinitely better than Zelazny's. It's not just that he doesn't have the same problematic characterizations of (and interactions with) female characters that plague the Amber books -- Brust's story is much more consequential because it moves very swiftly from the kind of courtly intrigue that fuel the Amber books, and onto the lives of myriad, everyday people struggling to survive the terrible fallout generated by the power struggles of the unthinking, unregarding great and noble personages who are Zelanzy's heroes and Brust's ultimate villains. Brust's "little people" are heroes; Zelazny's are literal figments of the aristocracy's imagination.

While Brust's magic and mysticism are nearly as expansive as Zelazny's, his tales don't suffer from Zelanzy's ultimately boring, consequence-free meandering, because Brust focuses on consequences for people who have no choice but to live through the aftermath of these mythic struggles in their (decidedly non-mythic) everyday lives.

Brust is nearly finished with the Vlad books, after nearly four decades in progress (!), and here, too, Brust shows that the student outshines the master. As the Amber books approach their ending, they get more chaotic, less controlled, more improvised and, frankly, sillier. Brust, by contrast, keeps getting more salient, trenchant and consequential with every volume, building to a climax that makes me shiver in delight whenever I remember that it's on our foreseeable horizon.

Ultimately, Zelazny ended the Amber books on a note so disappointingly nonsensical and lazy that I could hardly believe it -- it was a disappointment to rival the end of Stephen King's Dark Tower books; having made us slog through a Silmarillion's worth of family trees and ancient history, he just...fizzled (Zelazny didn't read the final volume for audio -- for that, I suggest ripping the CD version of Wil Wheaton's reading, which does an admirable job with some pretty weak material).

They say "the Golden Age of science fiction is 12," and perhaps if I'd read Amber when my friends were all fizzing with it, I'd have found it more interesting. Decades later, I'm glad I read them, but I'm also not planning on re-reading ever again -- unlike the Taltos books, which I sneak into my queue all the time, inevitably finding new delights with each fresh reading.

In the meantime, I still recommend the Speaking Volumes editions: for all the failings of the series in hindsight, Zelazny brings in a brilliant performance, one that might have been lost forever. And these books, flawed as they are, are important parts of the genre's history -- for one thing, without them, we might never have had Brust's Taltos books.

The Chronicles of Amber [Roger Zelazny/Speaking Volumes]

https://boingboing.net/2019/09/22/golden-age-of-sf-is-12.html

[handeaux]

Cincinnati’s Unsung (But Prolific!) Poet, Horace Williamson

Apparently poets, if they are male, should be soft and soulful and wear their hair long. At least that is the way the Cincinnati Post on two occasions, a decade apart, described poets, if only to emphasize that Horace Williamson was not like that, at all, even though he was most definitely a poet.

Horace G. Williamson was perhaps the most prolific poet in Cincinnati history. You won’t find him in English class these days, nor in any anthologies. Horace Williamson, you see, wrote for money, not for art. According to the Post [15 October 1910]:

“Horace Williamson, social secretary of the Y.M.C.A., and rough and ready high-speed poet, writes to order and not by inspiration and gets his stuff printed quicker than any of the boys who consult the Muse before they begin work. He also gets paid better.”

Williamson found his models in the Belgian poet Maurice Maeterlink who was a boxer; in Edgar Allen Poe, an athlete during his days at West Point; in the strenuous daily exercise regimen of William Cullen Bryant and in Lord Byron’s swim across the Hellespont to prove that poets were not sissies.

Williamson, it seems, built a profitable sideline writing poems for greeting card companies, sometimes ghost-writing love letters on spec. He had a lot of sidelines, it seems. While holding down the YMCA post, Williamson ran a talent agency and also performed as Cincinnatus in quite a few civic celebrations over the years. The Post was fascinated by the poetry, however, and showed up every few years to demonstrate that poets could be regular guys. Williamson told the Post:

“I sell poetry like a huckster sells eggs. The postcard printers mail me an order like this: ‘Send us ten Halloween poems’ or ‘Give us $50 worth of some Christmas stuff.’ Then I sit myself down in an ordinary wooden chair at an ordinary typewriter and grind ‘em out just like that.”

Williamson demonstrated his proficiency by dashing off the following quatrain, for which he was paid $5 – or about $140 in today’s dollars:

“With golden thread I weave your name Into a dream where all is bliss And lighting the way with love’s bright flame I set it a-wing on the dreams of a kiss”

Totally without qualms about diminishing his art, Williamson instead proclaimed that he was really helping poetry reach a broader audience in the modern age:

“The poetry about trees and the other beauties of nature is all right, but not with the large mass of the people. They demand something more virile and snappy. I am not so sure that it is a bad change, for the poetry that is now being written is read by many more people and thus serves its purpose better as an entertainer and teacher.”

Although his poetry sold well and he published several volumes of verse, Williamson seemed constantly on the quest for a better day job. He left the YMCA and joined the Baldwin Piano Company as director of advertising. In this role, he made one high-profile sale that gained him national publicity – he sold a Baldwin piano to President Warren G. Harding and his wife Florence King Harding, who had it installed at the White House. It appears that Williamson had met Mrs. Harding when he was a schoolboy. After reciting a humorous poem about an Irishman at a school function, the future First Lady invited him to her house to perform the verse for her friends.

Before and after Baldwin, Williamson served as District Examiner for Automobile Drivers. In that role, every prospective driver in the Cincinnati region had to satisfy Horace Williamson as to their abilities with an automobile. He told the Post [4 January 1917] what he believed contributed to traffic safety:

“No persons should be allowed to drive without first being examined by a doctor and questioned as to his knowledge of driving by an expert. Fines don’t hurt a careless automobile driver. Denial of the right to drive will hurt him. The worst of all dangers is the driver with a few highballs in him. The last but not least is the child who is permitted by his parents to drive the family car. No man should be permitted to smoke while driving a machine.”

Ironically, Horace Williamson died in an automobile accident in 1943. He was 62 years old when he lost control of his car and it skidded into a loading dock on East Fourth Street. He was dead before the ambulance arrived and, in a final indignity, it appears a passerby stole cash and a watch from his lifeless body.

The obituaries described his poetry as a hobby or avocation, but noted that he had performed an entertainment featuring humorous verse on the morning before his fatal accident. The Williamson Entertainment Bureau provided his major source of income throughout his life, but he confessed to passing on the Mills Brothers when they auditioned for him. The managerial fees for that act would have put him on easy street.

Horace Williamson left behind a widow, a daughter, two sons, seven grandchildren, and a pile of soppy postcards purchased by young swains hoping to get lucky with the girls of their dreams.

[shitizsrivastava]

TB#8 || Why a film director has to be a Good reader?

Reading books is a must. There is no denying the fact.

Every story you have heard about people showing up or being in the right place at the right time have one thing in common.

They are wrong and made up.

They eliminate the part where they were desperate, weak and were ready to do anything to get the job and start their stories right from where they got the job.

All those stories are hearsay which you hear from fellow struggling actors and wannabe directors.

Knowing inside stories constitutes one of the most interesting parts of the experience in the film industry and at times makes you passionate and motivate you towards cinema.

Don’t believe in hearsay. That is just random talk done to soothe your mind and it does not affect anything.

To get some verified data, try reading books.

Every great man in history has more or less been a good reader.

If you want to be a film director, a good one, then you have to be a reader.

How else you think you are going to read all those scripts and find the best one from it?

If you are not a good reader then you might end up becoming a director but not a very great one.

I have met directors who don’t even read the scripts.

They rely on their assistants to narrate them the scenes so that they can shoot it. I wonder how they started their career.

It’s either they have good connections or long assistant career.

Do you think they will make good directors?

Never.

Most of these directors are in TV field in which good content does not matter.

Since filmmaking is a specialized field so they never end up becoming a film director because filmmaking requires more meticulous preparation.

Hundreds of hours of writing, reading and re-reading go in before a good film turns out to be good.

I once interviewed the DOP of Rajkumar Hirani, C.K. Muralitharan.

He told me that Rajkumar Hirani and his writing partner Abhijat Joshi goes through more than 300 re-reading and drafting of the same script to make sure there is no fault or loophole in the script.

I believe that if someone goes through that much amount of hard work in making their movies then their films are ought to be a super hit.

None of the films of Hirani is a flop, leave flop, they are all blockbusters.

But why do you need to read books on filmmaking?

1. To know how others made their films and approached filmmaking?

2. To know what mistakes other filmmakers did and how you can avoid them.

3. To know more about films, shot taking, direction and writing.

Being part of any profession there is one thing that everyone must never forget —

The learning should never stop.

Just because you are out of film school or you have managed to make your first film does not mean that you have learned everything about cinema.

Cinema is an art form that has age beyond 100 years now.

There are things that you don’t know and there are things knowing which will make your films not only better but great.

I remember reading books on scriptwriting during my college days because I was interested in filmmaking.

There was a website called Passion for Cinema which would publish film scripts for its readers to read.

I would download them, take their printouts and read then, again and again, to understand how that script was written. Most of those scripts were from Anurag Kashyap.

There is a book by Syd field called “Screenplay: The foundation of Screenwriting” which is considered one of the best books on screenwriting which with the help of a screenplay of Chinatown makes you understand how the story should be written. According to him, the screenplay of Chinatown is one of the greatest screenplays written and he is right about it.

For a filmmaker, you must develop a habit of reading screenplays. They are ubiquitously available on the internet.

Download them and put them into your Kindle, iPad or laptop or whatever gadget you have and start reading them as soon as possible.

Before making The Shining, Stanley Kubrick couldn’t find any book or concept worth devoting his time and talent into.

In his biography written by his assistant, the author narrates how Kubrick would sit in his room entire day and keep reading new books till he found this book by Stephen King called The Shining and decided that it is going to be his next film.

I was once doing an ad film with Anurag Kashyap and one thing I noted about him was that he was continuously reading books throughout the shoot. He would always manage to find time between film direction and read books.

Ever wondered why the great and successful people are not much active on the internet.

It is because they are busy reading books to gather more knowledge and hone their skills.

Reading books gives you more visualization than watching a documentary on the same thing. Visualization is something which is a cornerstone of success for any director.

My biggest asset while reading books was that I got to know that nothing is easy in this world and everything takes its own due course of time.

Some filmmakers start early while some filmmakers start late to make their films.

Ang Lee struggled for six years from age 30 to 36. He was unemployed and kept working on his screenplays and kept polishing them. He submitted his screenplays to few Festivals and won some awards, which further led him to make his films.

The biographies had taught me a lot about film directors, their life, their struggle, their methods and their persistence to make a film.

Some of the best biographies to read are from Satyajit Ray, Andrei Tarkovsky, Kieslowski, Ritwik Ghatak, Martin Scorsese, James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, Robert Rodriguez among others.

You cannot experience everything on film sets and not everyone in the film line will sit with you, help you, guide you in becoming what you want to become.

You need mentors in life. Mentors help you guide in a certain direction and help you show you the way. Books will do the same for you.

Now coming to the practical aspects of how books can help you apart from developing your personality.

When you will be in the film industry people will talk to you about films and if you don’t know anything about the film industry it shows that you are there merely for superficial glamour purposes.

When I first went to Mumbai, I had read hundreds of blogs on filmmaking, read myriads of books and had seen thousands of films so when my first interview happened, I passed it with flying colours. Not only that, I impressed them all.

There were times when I was fortunate to sit with known filmmakers and get to talk to them. Since most of the people at the top of the film industry are avid film buffs and book readers, they were interested in talking to me about cinema theories, philosophies and how it evolved only because I had read so many books, had several anecdotes and trivia to tell.

So many times, it happened with me that due to my borrowed understanding of film writing from books I was given a chance to read scripts and give feedback based on that.

I knew about script structures and everything about them in details and a hundred percent of those times my analysis of the scripts solved their problems and they would keep calling me again and again. Later I started charging money for that. So, can you imagine, reading books helped me developed another source of living? I am not boasting about my skills here as none of this is a natural talent. I had to read numerous books and devote several hours to reach tot his point.

Book also taught me a lot about set blocking. I read a few books on the direction which I researched a lot on blocking of Alfred Hitchcock, who was a master of camera blocking and how the characters move on the screen. So imagine if you go on sets and you see a director setting the actor movements and blocking actors with respect to the camera. A normal person would be clueless about everything but if you had basic, even theoretic knowledge about set blocking, trust me, within two days you will become a pro at it.

The core foundation of developing any art is researching as much about it as possible and then explain it to someone else. If he understands it then you have done a good job. This is not me but Nobel Prize-winning Scientist and Theoretical physicist Feynman who said this.

You need to know how the art has evolved over time. It is not wise to start from beginning and makes the same mistakes that people before you had already made.

One of the best books that you can lay your hand on right now is How to read films. I borrowed the book from someone and I had finished it two times as I loved it so much. This book touches upon pretty much every topic within cinema, be it history, technique, film theory or whatnot.

You should start from reading biographies because they are light to read and then move on to the books which are technical, about art, have philosophy inside it and then read every book that comes near to your Goal.

Reading books gives you the inspiration that you can also do it. It motivates you to go ahead and do it rather than sitting on your ass and brooding how you are going to do it.

While, on one hand, The autobiography of Robert Rodriguez, A Rebel without a Crew, inspired me that I can make my own film in very less money, on the other hand, the biography of James Cameron told me that hard work always pays and if you work really hard to achieve your dream, you can get anything in life.

Reading screenplays taught me how the script must have been first read and then watching the movie on it made me imagine how and what must be going on sets to make those scenes alive. Scenes on paper are nothing but dead words which are made alive by the efforts of the film director, actors and another crew.

I realized my own screenplay style while reading those screenplays. For example, some writers write screenplays in a detailed amount of descriptions (James Cameron) while some writers (Aaron Sorkin) doesn’t write much in the description but are masters of dialogue.

Reading books about filmmaking also separates you from other people who don’t know what goes behind the screen. More than that whenever you will be on sets, you won’t be alien to the majority of things.

The biographies of film directors make you go inside their mind and then you will better understand what was going inside their minds while shooting a particular scene.

While reading the acclaimed director Ritwik Ghatak biography, I realized how great he was. He narrates a scene from his magnum opus Megha Dhake Tara. In that scene, a woman who is tormented from all sides is sitting with her lover. He is about to ditch her and there is the sound of whiplash you hear in the background.

At first, when I saw the film I didn’t notice anything but it affected me. After reading the book I again saw the film and witnessed the scene from another dimension, from the eyes of the director and understood it better.

First time I watched the film from my perspective and the next time I saw it from the perspective of the film director and it educated me with many things which I missed the first time.

Any scene in any film is an amalgamation of visuals, sound, art, acting, editing, camera and hundreds of other things which we feel but are not obvious to us so sometimes you have to get inside the minds of director to understand his film.

I am not just talking about art films but I am also talking about Commercial films where directors often shoot scenes expecting a different effect on the minds of the audience but the audience understands them in a different manner.

Here is a list of books you must begin reading with -

1. In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch

2. Shooting to Kill by Christine Vachon

3. On Directing Film by David Mamet

4. Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee

5. The Filmmaker’s Handbook, 3rd Edition by Steven Ascher & Edward Pincus

6. Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film by Peter Biskind

7. The 5 Cs of Cinematography: Motion Picture Filming Techniques by Joseph V. Mascelli

8. The Techniques of Film Editing by Karel Reisz

9. Directing: Film Techniques & Aesthetics

10. How to Shoot a Feature Film for Under $10,000

Here is a list of biographies you must read

1. Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez

2. Something like an autobiography by Akira Kurosawa

3. Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman

4. Kazan on Directing by Elia Kazan

5. Spike Lee’s Gotta Have It, by Spike Lee

6. The Magic Lantern, by Ingmar Bergman

7. Sculpting in Time, by Andrey Tarkovsky

8. Speaking of Films, by Satyajit Ray

9. Jean-Luc Godard — Godard on Godard

10. Luis Buñuel — My Last Sigh

Here is a list of screenplays should begin reading with.

1. Casablanca

2. Psycho

3. Chinatown

4. The Godfather

5. American Beauty

6. Memento

7. Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind

8. The Sting

9. Pulp Fiction

10. 12 Angry Men

[precaffeinatedsalomon]

Could You Pass the Brains Please? Western Zombies in Korean Film, Train to Busan (2016)

Could You Pass the Brains, Please?

Western Zombie Mythology Used to Reflect on Eastern Anxieties in Train to Busan (2016)

 On April 16, 2014, South Korea suffered the horror of losing over three hundred of its citizens-mostly Middle School aged children- to the neglect of what is now called the Sewol Ferry Disaster. In 2015 the Country fell into a panic as the number of Middle East Respiratory Virus (MERS) outbreak deaths increased while Governmental disclosure on the matter decreased.   In 2016, One-fifth of the South Korean population saw the release of its very first zombie film, Train to Busan. This essay argues that Film Director, Yeon Sang Ho appropriated the flexibility for metaphor the Western Zombie Mythology provides to critique Korean society, their government, and reflect on contemporary anxieties.

Though Korean Zombies may be new in the East, from Haiti to Hershel’s Farm the United States has 80 years’ worth of Zombie lore in their popular culture arsenal.  In How to Make a Zombie, Frank Swain recounts the first-time zombies entered into consciousness around the world. He explains how in 1889 well respected Harper’s Magazine journalist Lafcadio Hearn went to the Caribbean Islands in search of evidence about rumors of “walking dead” haunting which haunted the islands. When inquiring about zombies to locals, Hearn would get descriptions based on complex Haitian “Vodou tenets” which only confused Hearn, who never got to see one. The descriptions, in essence, boiled down to a “zombie cadaver” being “a physical entity that is living but has not will of its own.” ( Swain 3-7) Hearn’s article on zombies went on to intrigue the colorful William Seabrook, an American writer and explorer, as well as a drunk, sadist, abuser, and experimental cannibal. In 1928, Seabrook traveled to Haiti to investigate the phenomenon. In 1929, he published his findings in what eventually became a best seller book titled The Magic Island. In his book, he describes what he saw when locals took him to visit a sugar plantation: “My first impression of the three supposed zombies, who continued dumbly at work, was that there was something about them unnatural and strange. They were plodding like brutes, like automatons, the eyes were the worst…They were in truth like the eyes of a dead man…the whole face…was vacant, as if there was nothing behind it.” (Swain 8-13) It continues, that while attempting to make conversation with one of the zombies, he was told [blacks’] affairs are not for whites” (Swain 14), a line that would later be used in one the first Hollywood zombies in film rendition.  

What Seabrook called zombies, were likely slaves working 18-hour days in sugar plantations during the United States occupation of Haiti. In 1804, Haiti was considered a “threat to imperialism” and was vilified in the Western world after successfully gaining independence from France with a well-staged rebellion. Despite efforts by the Catholic Church to influence Haitian natives, Voodooism was a deeply embedded part of the culture. Because of this in the West, “Voodoo culture was perceived to be a signifier of the country’s savage inferiority” (Crockett)- Anxieties that would later be reflected in film. Haiti’s freedom and independence ended when in 1918 the United States invaded the country in fear of how the political unrest there would affect their business ventures in that country, particularly the Haitian-American Sugar Company (HASCO). Haiti was recolonized until 1934, with what Swain laments as “enduring consequences for the country and its people” (Swain 6-7). Zombie’s origin story becomes important in how they would later become represented in film.

From 1932 to the present; from xenophobia to extremism, zombie representations in film have morphed over time as metaphors to externalize, examine and critique the era’s social anxieties. The Bela Lugosi led, White Zombie (1932), is considered the first full-length zombie film. In it, a man convinces a couple to celebrate their wedding in Haiti. While there, the man uses a Voodoo master to steal the bride away from her fiance and keep her to himself. Unfortunately for him, she turns into an unfeeling person in a zombie-like state. Complaining to the Voodoo master only gets him turned into a zombie himself (IMBD) Luckily, “in the end, the white couple emerges unharmed, and the voodoo master is pushed off a cliff to his death” Though criticized, the film’s success saw a series of similarly plotted and themed films. Such as,  In Ouanga (1936), Walked With a Zombie (1943)VOX explains that “until the 1940s, zombies were largely a reflection of the fears of voodooism and blackness.” (Vox) In other words, an externalization of xenophobia and sense of white superiority.

After WWII, from the 1950s to mid-1960s, zombies films like Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952) Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959), The Earth Dies Screaming (1964) were used to represent Cold Ward and Space Race anxieties of the time. However, after 1968 in the midst of the social unrest caused by the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement, zombies would be changed irrevocably.

 The modern zombie was born with George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968). Though the word ‘zombie’ is never is used in the film, from this rendition on,  Leo Braudy explains how “instead of being an exotic black monster birthed in the Caribbean, [zombies] become an all-embracing metaphor for the unthinking attitudes and blind obedience of an entire society” (107) The time for zombies to aid in the protest of society begins here. 

Supporting this notion, Peter Biskind claims that by taking the zombie- a monster, outside the enclosed spaces of personal dwelling and moving them to the “backyard” … horror could reflect upon contemporary life. Furthermore, having a black hero-five months after the death of Martin Luther King Jr.- killed by the sheriff with the excuse that he thought he was monster, “changed the genre into a vehicle for social commentary”. A vehicle that now is being used by South Korea, just as it has been used in the West. Biskind argues, “zombies lend themselves to metaphoric interpretation; they are an all-purpose ‘Them’, with their significance in the eye of the beholder.” ( 77) Meaning that as a new fear arises, the type of zombie we get will change along with it. 

From Romero’s Night of the Living Dead monsters are “reawakened by changing cultural circumstances” (Braudy 107). From here on we get the new codes for zombie lore. Such as a never-ending hunger for human flesh, pack mentality and hunting in kind, inability to stop, one bite, one new victim.  Dawn of the Dead (1978) has Romero commenting on consumerist culture as raised by a capitalist society. In the era of the ‘80s to early 2000s with fears of epidemics like AIDS, Swine Flu, and Ebola virus, we get the Contagion Zombie. Braudy claims these apocalyptic zombies reflect “an increasingly globalized world in which diseases spread rapidly across continents and populations due to increased commercial contact, ease of transportation, and openness of borders.” (Braudy 107) As expansion from these fears, we get World War Z (2013). This film shows walls as an attempted tool to keep not only zombies, but humans out. A Vox article argues that the scene in which “Jerusalem is besieged by hordes of zombies, which crawl up the walls like a slow-moving bacterial infection. Unlike the creatures of previous films, these migrant zombies move at fast speeds, with a sense of urgency, riffing on our fear of rapid migration rates.” (Crockett)Fear of migration gives us the television series The Walking Dead. Biskind claims, these zombies are a representation of America’s current extremists’ views.

In Peter Biskind’s, The Sky is Falling, he notes that the way monsters and even superheroes are now represented in Films and Television are making “America great for extremism.” The main premise in his boos is that now, instead of the word ‘extremist’ being an insult, it “has become an accolade while ‘mainstream has become ‘lamestream. These extremist notions, he insists it is this extremists’ that have given us Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States. Zombies as extremists he continues, “don’t care what we want…Marauding in mobs, they huff and puff until they blow the house down”  (Biskind 2, 76). Thus, in addition to representing current extremists’ anxieties in the United States, the post-apocalyptic society currently in vogue also represents a lack of reliable government that is beholden to the people and their interests.

As time passes by, is culture change or change culture? popular culture is regarded tends to be regarded quite poorly as an agent of change, always behind in credited importance to politics or economics, however, Biskind warns, “it’s a mistake to underestimate the power of culture to inflame our emotions. “He states that, despite seeming free and innocent of political ideas, films and TV series are filled with subtle political messages. He concludes, “it’s no exaggeration to say that values, and therefore politics, are embedded in the very fabric of movies. (Biskind 6) The way monsters such as zombies in the film have indexed social change can serve as evidence of how television and film mirror cultural changes.

Watching films or television shows require the conscious effort from the viewer to suspend disbelief. For horror, however, Braudy argues that it goes beyond a simple act of believing what’s on screen, he claims it “goes much deeper, if only for the moment, [you have to believe]in the existence of evil, the possibility for good, and their eternal combat” (Braudy 32) In other words, horror films require more involvement than most other genres.

Before Yeon’s, Train to Busan, there were no zombies in their national folklore. South Koreans have their own monster lore, such as ghosts, goblins, and nine-tailed foxes, but no zombies. However, the West’s zombies film influence and their symbolic traits can be noted in the way the film chose to depict its own zombies. Train, tells the story of a man (Gong Yoo) working as a corporate hedge fund manager, who prefers work above else. He is a neglectful father to his only daughter. In an attempt to make up for missing her birthday, he takes her in a train to the city of Busan to visit her mother. As the doors of the train are about to close, a girl we soon find out is infected, makes it into the train, where chaos occurs as she starts biting people and the contagion spreads.

From this point on it becomes a story of survival and exploration of Korea’s current culture.  It is from here on that, the film uses a chimaera of history, codes, and the possibility for social criticism in its zombies and plot devices that Yeon borrows from all the zombie movies from the West and proceeds to break apart, contort, distil, and repurpose to evoke a thought-provoking social commentary in Train.

This LA Times review of the film, support’s this paper’s original claim that South Koreans are using zombies as a metaphor for their social anxieties by stating:

“It's not just the eye-popping visuals and a high-paced monster story that has made "Train" a hit: The movie is also touching a nerve by reflecting the present-day reality of South Korea, an increasingly stratified and competitive a society where many citizens feel elites can't be trusted to lead in times of crisis, and those caught up in the chaos have to fend for themselves. Cine21, one of South Korea's most-read film magazines wrote in a review that "Train" is "motivated by sadness and anger over a situation where the weak cannot be protected." (Browiec)

Two instances which exemplify South Korean’s dissatisfaction with their government are dramatized in Train are, the Sewol Ferry accident and the MERS epidemic. One of the greatest reasons for anger in the Sewol Ferry accident was how easily the children could have been saved if they had not listened to Ferry captain that it would all be alright. This combined with the long Coast Guard response time to come to the rescue and the Captain taking a boat to save himself while the rest drowned seemed like an inconceivable rude awakening to people in that country. Additionally, in the MERS epidemic case, the government failed to notify its citizens of what was happening with the virus, how to prevent it from spreading further, or even what symptoms to look for to get it treated at the hospital.

These moments of shared grief and anger are externalized in Train. In it, we see how the people do not trust the government, quickly set up factions, and it is the elitist corporate man who is willing to use everyone else to save himself at every turn. In a powerful metaphoric moment in the film, this corporate man and similarly minded others, expel from the finally secured train cart the pregnant protagonist- whose husband had fought and died to protect them earlier in the film, two teenagers, the main father and his daughter to a different train cart after they had finally saved themselves from the zombies. They are in essence, being sent to die. In a plot twist, an elderly woman whose sister had already turned into a zombie, disgusted with the mob’s selfish actions opens up the door that had until that moment served as the only protection from the zombie horde. The message of how such attitude and mentality will ultimately lead to collective doom is hard to miss.  

           It could be claimed that with the success of Train to Busan and its symbolic power, more zombie films and TV shows are being made. In Kingdom (2019) A Netflix original series takes zombies to Korea’s Joseon period, and Train to Busan 2 which is expected to hit theaters next year. Now the question is, just as South Korea learned to express their anxieties from the United States’ example of doing so, will The United States be clever enough to learn from South Korea and learn how to protest against a corrupt government and get rid of an incompetent president.

  Works Cited

Biskind, Peter. The Sky is Falling: How Vampires, Zombies, Androids, and Superheroes Made America Great fro Extremism. New York: The New Press, 2018.

Braudy, Leo. Haunted On Ghosts, Witches, Vampires, Zombies, and Other Monsters of The Natural and Supernatural Worlds. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2016.

Browiec, Steven. "Korea's Smash Summer Hit Is A Zombie Movie That Strikes a Deep Chord." The Los Angeles Times 16 August 2016. www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-korea-zombie-movie-snap-story.html.

Crockett, Zachary and Zarracina, Javier. How the Zombie Represents America's Deepest Fears. 31 October 2016. www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/10/31/13440402/zombie-political-history.

Swain, Frank. How to Make a Zombie. The Real Life (and Deaths) Science of Renimation and MInd Control. Terragon: OneWorld Publications, 2013.

Train to Busan. Yeon Sang-Ho, et. al.  Next Entertainment World, 2013. Netflix.

[duhragonball]

[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (101/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation.   This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

Previous chapters conveniently available here.

[12 December, 234 Before Age.  Tulon II.]

Guwar was a Saiyan.    That used to mean something in the galaxy, but not anymore.  

Like all Saiyans, Guwar had a prehensile tail covered in brown fur.    His hair was black, and it never grew beyond a certain length.   Some Saiyans had very long hair that went down to their knees, while other Saiyans had very short hair, which never went further down than their neck.   Guwar's hair was somewhere in between.   When wet, it would hang down past his shoulders, but it normally  stuck out from his head like the branches of a tree, paying little heed to the force of gravity.    For the most part, the Saiyans were like most humanoid life forms, though their tails invited comparison to lower primates, such as monkeys, which the Saiyans found offensive.    No sane person wanted to offend a Saiyan, though, because even the weakest of their species was powerful enough to cause widespread devastation.  Generally, the best way to deal with a Saiyan was to be very polite and give them whatever they wanted.  Guwar had made a very good living by this rule.    He wasn't very strong by Saiyan standards, but his people's fearsome reputation was more than enough to compensate for this.  

To be sure, there were other powerful beings in the galaxy, warriors strong enough to fight a Saiyan and win, but Guwar had a way of dealing with the likes of them as well.   Under the light of a full moon, a Saiyan would transform into a massive ape-like creature, and become even stronger.    This power was something of a bluff, since full moons weren't always easy to come by in the universe.   Some planets had no moon, while others had such long lunar cycles that it was impractical to wait for a full moon to appear.   A lot of Saiyans relied heavily on this transformation, but most beings had never actually witnessed the Oozaru power, and fewer still knew how it worked.   A Saiyan needed his tail for the transformation to happen.   And the moon needed to be full, and visible in the sky.    An injured tail or a passing cloud could put an end to the transformation very quickly.    Many Saiyans cut off their tails to blend into alien societies, or because Saiyan tails were the weakest, most vulnerable part of their bodies.   For them, the ape form was impossible, although most of the galaxy didn't know that.    They just knew that some Saiyans could turn into giant apes, and maybe they knew it had something to do with the moon, but that was about it.    That made Guwar's life much easier.    He still had his tail, but he didn't particularly care for turning into a giant ape.   Still, the mere possibility of it was enough to make stronger warriors keep their distance from him.  

Guwar liked to fight.   All Saiyans did, but what made him different was that he was a mathematician.  Between battles, he would hire himself out for consulting gigs, usually actuarial work, or the occasional engineering firm in need of a continuous model.   He had written a few papers, although he couldn't find any journals interested in publishing them.   When the work dried up, or he felt the urge for combat, he would fly to some unsuspecting planet and pick a fight.   It might have been more efficient to pursue mercenary contracts, but Guwar preferred the spontaneity of a surprise invasion.   It intrigued him to see how different planets mustered defenses against a single, unexpected enemy, and there were no consequences if he decided to cut and run.   When he had his fill of excitement, he would go to some other planet and use his fearsome reputation to get a little more than his money's worth in food and entertainment.   It was a good life.  

Rather, it had been a good life, but things had changed over the past several months.   There were two main powers in the Saiyan community.   The first was the Kingdom of Saiya, ruled by the Rehval Dynasty.   The royalists had never bothered Guwar much.   They believed in banding together under a single ruler for the good of the species, but they had never done much to force Saiyans to join their cause.    Guwar liked the freedom to live on his own, and King Rehval III didn't seem to want to press the issue.   Things changed with the emergence of the second main power: The Legendary Super Saiyan, Luffa.    Guwar knew very little about her, except that she despised the royalists and she might not be a Saiyan at all, but some kind of alien impostor.   Whatever she was, Luffa possessed unimaginable strength, enough to fight the entire royal military all by herself, and win.   For a time, Guwar had managed to avoid both of these powers, but when he looked back on it, he was rather surprised that the the two of them had managed to avoid each other for as long as they did.  Eventually, when they did cross paths, it led to conflict, and the rest of the Saiyans were the ones who paid the price for it.    

Guwar wasn't sure what exactly happened between Luffa and Rehval.   He only knew that Luffa had it in for the king, and that Planet Saiya had been evacuated to escape her monstrous wrath.    King Rehval had gone into hiding, it seemed, and he had taken his entire kingdom with him.    No one knew where they were now, or if they still lived.    But Luffa wasn't satisfied with that, and so she had been taking her frustrations out on every Saiyan she could find ever since.  

"Where is he?" she asked as Guwar pushed his spaceship to its maximum speed.   He had opened the hailing frequency just in case there was a chance of talking his way out of this, but he could see that it was hopeless.  

"I don't know, dammit!" Guwar replied.   "I only came to this planet for a little fun!   I don't know anything about Rehval, and that's the truth!"

"I'll be the judge of that.   Shut down your engines."

Guwar switched off his  communications system instead.   There was no point in responding to Luffa.   He couldn't tell her what she wanted to know, and if he said what he really thought about her, it would only make matters worse.  

His raid on the Tulon System had been going well, right up until he got the alert signal from his ship.    He suspected that Luffa was keeping tabs on Saiyan activity, looking for people like him to shake down for information.   He had narrowly escaped her twice before in the past, so he had begun setting his ship to warn him if it picked up any other vessels on the long-range sensors.   Most likely, someone on Tulon II had contacted Luffa and ratted Guwar out.   That annoyed him greatly.   Not so long ago, a frightened civilian would never have dared such a thing.   Now, they treated Guwar like a rodent, and Luffa was the exterminator.

His only advantage in this situation was that he had made it to his ship and reached outer space.   If Luffa had caught him on the planet's surface, it would have been all over.  She was too strong to resist and too fast to escape, and her senses were too keen to hide from.  There were rumors that she had psionic powers too, but no one seemed to know for sure.   Guwar had no intention of sticking around to find out.   He loved a good fight as much as the next Saiyan, but going toe to toe with Luffa was just asking for a beating.   Here, in the vacuum of space, the playing field was leveled out somewhat.   It was his star drive pitted against hers, and Saiyan power was mostly useless.   If Luffa tried to use her awesome strength to attack him, she would risk damaging her own ship in the process.    So as long as Guwar had a head start, he had a fighting chance to escape.   Luffa's star-yacht wouldn't have much in the way of weapons, so--

Suddenly, his entire ship shook, and the lights flickered.   His console showed damage to the hull from a plasma bolt.   Luffa had opened fire on him.  

"She put armaments on a star yacht," Guwar muttered as he began plotting evasive maneuvers.    "Because of course she did."

He didn't know why she traveled in a pleasure craft.    Guwar guessed that she had stolen it, since that was the same way he acquired his own ship, which he renamed the *Busty Bartender*, mostly because it was a stupid name, and it amused him to hear spaceport officials say it with a straight face.  He supposed that Luffa had armed the ship to the teeth, just to deal with anyone who might try to attack her during a spaceflight, where she would be most vulnerable.    Guwar, on the other hand, was always in a hurry, and so he had customized the *Bartender* for speed, speed, and more speed.   All he had to do was get clear of the star system, and then it would be safe to activate his superluminous drive, and he was sure that Luffa would never be able to catch him.  

There was the chance that Luffa might blast him to atoms with her next shot, but he was betting she wouldn't take it that far.    She wanted information, and she wouldn't get it from a dead man.   No, she would do everything she could to take him alive.   Then she would interrogate him, and once she was satisfied that he truly didn't know anything useful, *then* she would kill him.   Or maybe she would just beat him up and turn him over to the authorities.    He didn't want to find out.

Muttering a prayer to Spaceshippius, the Camelian God of Spaceflight which he had just made up, Guwar diverted power from his aft deflector shields to his sublight engines.   He performed a few corkscrews and barrel rolls, hoping to keep Luffa guessing, and he kept checking the telemetry readout on his console.    He just had to stay ahead of her until the moment he was clear to jump to superluminous.    Only seconds remained.   Luffa fired twice, but both shots missed.    Judging by the power readings from her ship, the blasts were meant to cripple his ship rather than destroy it.   Things were looking up for him.  

Then he saw something that looked like a torpedo closing in on him.    He checked the sensors for its configuration and payload, and then he realized he didn't need the sensors, because he could *feel* the torpedo's energy.   He then realized it wasn't a torpedo at all.    Luffa had put on a spacesuit and was flying after him under her own power.  

Guwar called up a visual on the aft camera, and saw what looked like a tiny spaceman burning with a golden flame.   He'd heard ghost stories about space travelers seeing things like this, but it was much more terrifying to live it.   Like most Saiyans, Guwar could sense ki, the life energy possessed by all living things.  He had sensed Luffa's power some time ago, and was duly impressed with its magnitude.   Now, she had pulled out all the stops, just to get the extra burst of speed that her ship apparently couldn't provide.   Or maybe she was going to fire at him with her ki attacks, which were surely more powerful and more precise than her ship's plasma cannons.  

Out of desperation, Guwar pushed the sublight engines beyond their design limits.    One of them overloaded and shut down, but he didn't care, so long as it gave him the extra burst of speed he needed.   He heard a strange noise in the hull, and he hoped that it would only mean a painful repair bill.   If he survived this, he swore to himself that he would never swindle a repair crew ever again.  

Then, just as Luffa had nearly intercepted him, he saw that he was at a safe distance from Tulon's star, and he activated the superluminous drive, pressing the button with both hands.   The starfield before him changed into a familiar pattern of streaks of light, and when the readouts confirmed that Luffa was no longer in range, only then did he lean back in his seat and breathe a sigh of relief.

"Too close," he grumbled.  

Now that he was safe, he just had to figure out how much damage had been done to his ship.   While he was at it, he would have to think about how was going to pay for it since he had left all of his plunder behind on Tulon II.

"Well," he said to himself, "maybe I can swindle just one more repair crew..."

*******

[15 December 234 Before Age.  Paxul's Planet.]

Guwar was pleased to find a repair crew with an opening in their schedule, but their early estimates weren't looking good.   It would cost ten thousand credits just to repair the damaged engine.  They hadn't even finished examining the hull.   Worse, they were adamant about removing all the modifications that he had paid for over the years, since most of them had been outlawed by recent safety regulations.     If that wasn't bad enough, they intended to charge Guwar for that labor.   So if he wanted to reinstall those modifications, he would have to pay the bills, take the ship to another star system where the safety regulations weren't in force, and pay to someone else to put the engines back the way he wanted them.  Guwar considered trying to intimidate the repair crew into overlooking the modifications, but after the run-in with Luffa, he wasn't feeling particularly intimidating.    Besides, the crew seemed more afraid of the regulations than of a Saiyan who needed their help.

By mid-day, Guwar was giving serious thought to stealing a whole other ship.   It wasn't like the Busty Bartender held any great value to him, especially since he came away from Tulon II empty-handed.   This was a perfect time to cut his losses and start over, seeing as reality had pretty much taken the decision out of his hands.  

He stopped at a cafe and nursed a strange juice blend for about an hour while he scribbled mathematical proofs onto a bunch of napkins.   For now, he thought, he could simply relax and clear his mind.   Acting rashly would only make his situation worse, and now that he was safe on Paxul's Planet, he could take his time and plan his next move carefully.  

This was what he told himself, right up until the long shadow appeared over his table.    

"Long time, no see, Guwar," said the person who was currently blocking his light.

He looked up to find a Saiyan woman, 70 inches tall, with long, shaggy hair that ran down to her hips.  Her dark brown skin emphasized the contours of her muscular body, as well as the triumphant smile on her face.  Her tail was hidden beneath the green pantsuit she wore, but he knew she was a Saiyan because he had met her before.  

"L-lesseri," he said.  "I didn't think there were any other Saiyans in this sector."

She laughed and took a seat next to him.    "That's the idea, Guwar.   The Super Saiyan's got it in for all of us these days, right?   Anyone who doesn't keep a low profile, they end up meeting her.   So I keep my power level suppressed, travel under false credentials, and I try not to stand out too much.   Same as you, I'll bet."

Before he could answer, she put her arm around his back and clasped her hand onto his shoulder.   She squeezed just hard enough to make it clear that she could hurt him if she wanted to.   Guwar already knew this.   His past dealings with Lesseri had made it very clear to him that her power was on a level that he couldn't touch.   Lesseri was nothing compared to Luffa, but Guwar was weaker than either of them, so it wasn't much of a consolation.

"Where's the money you owe me?" she said in a low voice.  

"Well, it's funny you mentioned Luffa," he said with a mirthless chuckle, "because that's exactly why I don't have it with me,"   His failed raid on Tulon II wasn't specifically for the sake of repaying his debts, but Lesseri didn't need to know that.  

"What a coincidence," Lesseri said.   "I had to back out of a contract a few months ago because Luffa was sighted in that sector, which is why I'm suddenly short on funds.   So I decided to call in some markers, and a buddy of mine spotted you on Paxul's, so here I am."

"Look, what do you want me to do?" Guwar asked plainly.  "I can't pay you back, and if you wanted to kill me, you would have done it already--"

"I'm taking your ship," Lesseri said.  

"Its worth more than I owe," Guwar said evenly.  

"We'll chalk up the difference to interest," Lesseri said.   She poked her finger at the scribblings on one of his napkins.    "You're a math guy, right?   You can figure it out."

Guwar already had.   He was planning to abandon the *Bartender* and the repair bills that went with it, but if Lesseri was going to take it off his hands and forgive his debts, then so much the better.   All he had to do was make sure he didn't look too happy about it.

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to give me a lift to the next system?" he said.

"The next system is Quadzityz, little man," Lesseri said.  "You don't want any part of that action, I promise you."

She was right.   The fighting there was a little too intense for his liking.   He was mildly surprised that Lesseri wanted anything to do with that war, but as she said, mercenary business was difficult for Saiyans these days.  With Luffa was targeting them for questioning, Lesseri couldn't afford to be choosy about the jobs she took.   Besides, Lesseri had a tendency to cut and run when the mission got too tough.   Just because she was going to Quadzityz didn't mean that she planned to see it through.

"I'm only six inches shorter than you, Lesseri," he said, pretending to be hurt by her words.

"Well, I'm still not giving you a ride," Lesseri said.    "If you don't like it, you're more than welcome to call the local law enforcement," Lesseri said, patting him on the cheek.    "Or you could always contact the nearest Federation embassy, and tell Luffa about your grievance.   I'm sure she'd be very interested to hear your complaints."

"Look, you've got the ship," Guwar groaned.   "You don't have to rub it in."

"You're right," Lesseri said.   "Just transfer the registration to me, and I'll be on my way."

He had wondered when she would get around to this part.   If Lesseri had planned to simply take the *Bartender*, she would have gone to the spacedock and literally picked it up.   She only needed Guwar to make the transaction nice and legal.    Well, as legal as it could be, since it was already stolen property.  Lesseri probably wanted the registration to be made out to whatever alias she was traveling under.

He sighed and pulled the identification tags from his pocket to begin the transfer.  

*******

"Time was, being a Saiyan actually meant something," Guwar moaned to no one in particular.    He wanted to find a way off Paxul's Planet before Lesseri inspected her new ship, but all of the off-world transports were booked solid.   Hijacking a ship was still an option, but he wanted to save that as a last resort.   He had come to this planet to lay low until Luffa left the sector.    Now that he needed to worry about Lesseri too, he couldn't afford to take chances.   The best possible course was to leave the planet as quietly as possible, but if that didn't work, he was better off staying put.   Lesseri might come looking for him, but that was still preferable to having Luffa on his trail.

He had found a seedy bar on the edge of the spaceport, and continued scribbling formulae on napkins while a robot served him liquor.  It was likely that alcohol would only make things worse for him, but in his current state of mind, Guwar couldn't see how he could sink any lower.  

"Used to be, a guy like me could walk into a place like this and everyone would cower before me as soon as they noticed my tail," he grumbled.   "Now what do they do?    If I so much as step out of line, they call the Super Saiyan to run me off.    Just like she ran off King Rehval, and all of his generals and soldiers, apparently."

"Query: Would you like more brandy, sir or madam?" the robot asked as it wheeled past him.  

"Why not?" Guwar muttered.  

"Precondition: This unit is not authorized to extend credit.    Service will resume once payment has been made, in the amount of--"

Guwar shooed the machine away.   He was well aware of his bill, and he wasn't interested in getting a guilt trip from an automated recording.   It was time to face facts.   The galaxy was getting too hot for fighting.   His best bet now was to fall back on his mathematics degree and find some honest work.   The next time he got the craving for battle, he would just have to stifle it, or maybe settle for a hunting expedition on a planet far enough from the Federation that Luffa wouldn't be able to find him.    Times had changed, whether he liked it or not, and he couldn't keep living his life as if the change hadn't happened.   He'd told enough of his clients that whenever he explained his stochastic models.   You couldn't predict chaos, but you could at least account for it and accept that it was real.

"Stifle it!" he growled.   "Might as well ask the wind to stop blowing.    Talk about denial.    You can't ignore the implicit parts the model either.    All math and no fighting makes Guwar a very tense boy."

"Excuse me."

He looked up from his notes to see an attractive alien woman standing by the stool next to his.    She was holding a bottle and a glass, which she pointed at the empty stool.    "Do you mind if I sit here?" she asked.

"Go ahead," he said.  

"Thanks."  She hopped onto the stool and began struggling with the cork on her bottle.    "Nnf... say, would you mind...?"

He sighed and took the bottle from her, and removed the stopper with a single tug.    

"Thanks," she said.   "I love this stuff, but they don't make it easy to serve.   Care for some?"

He looked down at his own glass and decided this was the best thing to happen to him all day.    He quickly swallowed the last dregs of his own drink, and passed the empty glass for her to fill.

"Thank you," he muttered as she slid the glass back too him.  

"Oh, don't worry about it," she said.   "I can never finish a whole bottle by myself.   I've got a rule where I always find someone to share with whenever I order one of these.  It beats drinking alone, and I've met all kinds of interesting people that way."

Guwar sampled the beverage and decided he liked it.    It was a fruity, but not too fruity, and there was enough of a kick to make it worth his while.   If the only price was keeping this woman company, well, he was beginning to consider it a bargain.

"You're a Saiyan, aren't you?" she asked.   "I noticed your tail when I walked by.    It looked like a fuzzy belt, but I saw it twitch a minute ago."

"Yeah, I'm a Saiyan," he said wearily.    "For all the good it does me."

"It sound like you've hit a rough patch."

"You could say that," Guwar said.  

"I always heard you guys were unstoppable," she said.   "Hey, what's all that you're writing?"

"Oh, this is just a theorem I was playing with.    The only proof on record is very cumbersome, so I thought I'd try to come up with one of my own, something simpler."

"I didn't know Saiyans did homework," she said.  

"Well, this one does," he said.   "Not that I'm making much headway with this either."  He crumpled up the paper and tossed it over his shoulder.   "It turns out some of us are more stoppable than others."

"Tell me about it," she said as she placed her hand on his.   "I like hearing other people's problems.   It helps put my own in perspective."

And so he did.    If Guwar was being honest with himself, he was already talking about his problems as it was.   At least this woman wanted to hear it, and maybe a sympathetic ear was all he really wanted.   It didn't hurt that the face attached to that ear was rather attractive.   Something about the light playing off her red hair was especially pleasing to him.  

They talked for almost two hours, and when the bottle was empty, she took his hand in her own and smiled at him.  "You know," she said, "I have a roommate who's interested in Saiyans too.    Maybe you'd like to come home with me, and I can introduce you."

"Is that so?" he asked.    "Another blue-skinned girl like you?" he asked.

"Not like me," she said, "but I think you'll like her.    I'm sure the three of us can have some fun together."

Saiyans were very prudish creatures, though Guwar always enjoyed the way aliens would practically throw themselves at him whenever they happened to find him attractive.   It was an obscene display, but he was drunk and lonely enough that he didn't mind at all.    After all the trouble he'd had, it would be nice to spend time with some uninhibited alien women who wouldn't try to interrogate him or shake him down for money.   He accepted her invitation, and she paid his bill and bought him a mass transit token to her apartment building.   It was actually a hotel, but Guwar wasn't familiar enough with Paxul's Planet to recognize the difference right away, and the liquor had dulled his powers of observation enough that he didn't notice things like the concierge desk on the ground floor.    

"Hey, I'm back!" she called out as she opened the door to her room.   "I met someone in town.   Thought you might be interested in some company, so I brought him over."

She turned to enter the bathroom, and gestured for him to come inside and make himself comfortable.    

"Oh yeah?   Who is he?" her roommate called back.  

"He's a Saiyan!" she answered from the bathroom.   Guwar made his way into the room and tried to follow the sound of the roommate's voice.  It was coming from a balcony at the end of the room.   Then she stepped through the patio door and switched on one of the lights.

"What a coincidence," the roommate said as her tail waved into view.   "So am I."

She was wearing yellow pants and a black shirt, and she began to crack her knuckles as she stepped towards  him.    "I've got some questions for you, Guwar," she said ominously.  

"I... I don't know anything about King Rehval!" he said in a panic.    Running wasn't an option.   He had walked right into her lair, and this time they were on a planet's surface instead of the somewhat level playing field of outer space.     Fighting was pointless.   Luffa had defeated dozens of Saiyans without even trying.  

"Who said anything about him?" she asked as she stalked closer to him.   "I'm after Lesseri."

"Who the hell is Lesseri?!" he asked.   The idea of Luffa terrorizing Lesseri for a change appealed to him greatly, but he wasn't so petty as to give away information over a minor grudge.   If Luffa really did have telepathic abilities, it wouldn't matter if he told the truth or not.    Otherwise, it was best to play dumb.   If Luffa thought he had valuable information, then it was time to find out just how valuable it was.

"Lying just makes me angry, Guwar," she growled.   "I went to a lot of trouble to find you, and now it's time to find out if you were worth the effort."

She grabbed him by his shirt and lifted him over her head.    "Tell me where she is!" she demanded.   "Or I promise the next few minutes will be more painful than anything you could imagine."

"I don't... know!" he insisted.   He was surprised that she hadn't probed his mind already, though he wasn't sure how that worked.   Maybe it took her a while to prepare for that, so she wanted to soften him up first.   Until then, his best bet was to play dumb.    He had to keep stalling until he could find a way out of this.  

"You'd better tell her what she wants to know, Guwar," the blue-skinned alien said as she stepped out of the bathroom.   She was holding a red wig in her hand, and she was wiping off the blue on her face to reveal a lavender complexion.    "She doesn't take no for an answer."

He ignored the alien woman.   Her part in this already said and done.  What mattered now was Luffa.   He tried to use his ki sense to get an idea of her intentions.   It would take only a sliver of her full power to kill him, but was she actually using that much energy, or was she only summoning enough to manhandle him?   One thing was for certain: the terror of being roughed up by a Super Saiyan was a fantastic way to sober up.    One look into those pitiless eyes of hers was enough to send chills down his spine--

And then he finally paid attention to the ki he was sensing from her.    

"You're not Luffa," he said.    

The Saiyan woman smirked and tossed him onto the hotel bed.   "Smart boy," she said.  Her accent was suddenly different.     She reached into her pocket and withdrew a small communicator.   "Come on up," she said into the speaker.    "I think this is going to pan out for us."

"I don't get it," the alien woman said.   "How'd he figure out you were a phony?   You've got the same hair, and the yellow pants and everything."

The faux-Luffa tore off her wig to reveal a much greater volume of real hair underneath it.    As Guwar tried to understand how the wig worked, the impostor looked at her accomplice impatiently.   "Ki signatures are like fingerprints, Treekul.   He must have met the real Luffa before, and when he sensed that my power was different from hers, he knew I was an impostor."

"Wow," Treekul said.   "You guys have all kinds of powers."

"Wait, I don't understand," Guwar said as he sat up on the bed.   "What's all this about?"

“This was a test, Guwar," the Saiyan woman said.   "We needed to see where your loyalties lay.   Whether you could keep a secret.    Luffa has been shaking down every Saiyan she can get her hands on, so we needed to see if you'd talk if she ever caught up with you."

"You're royalists?" Guwar asked.   "I wasn't lying when I said I don't know anything about King Rehval."

"We've got nothing to do with King Rehval," the Saiyan said firmly.    

"Who's King Rehval?" Treekul asked.  

"Listen, just finish changing out of that disguise, would you?" the Saiyan woman said.    "I don't know why you had to wear it in the first place."

"Because, Endive," said another woman who entered the room, "Luffa's wife is an alien with red hair and blue skin.   I've met her before, and I wanted to find out if Guwar had run into her."

Guwar was surprised to see Lesseri again, though her involvement in this explained why he was being tested to see if he would betray her.   "Lesseri, look," he began, "if this is about the repairs on my ship--"

"Oh, forget about your ship, Guwar," Lesseri said.    "I only took it from you to piss you off and to see how you'd react.   What do you think, Endive?"

The fake Luffa crossed her arms and regarded Guwar like a piece of meat.    "He kept his cool, more or less.   It didn't take him long to see through my disguise, but he never came close to selling you out.   Impressive, since he had no particular loyalty to you in the first place.   I think we can use him."

Lesseri nodded with approval and turned to their alien comrade.  "How about you, Treekul?" she asked.   "You talked to him all night."

Treekul shrugged as she patted her genuine hair, a layer of pine green stubble covering her scalp.   "He's broke and desperate," she said.   "He's real good at math, but he's sick of running and hiding, same as the rest of you.    I think he'll fit in just fine."

"Fit into what, exactly?" Guwar asked.   He was somewhat irritated at being kept in the dark, but he couldn't argue with Treekul's assessment of him.    He really didn't have anything better going for himself, and it sounded like Lesseri was about to offer him a way to turn his fortunes around.

Lesseri approached him and smiled broadly.   "Let's just say that we're all sick of looking over our shoulder, watching out for Luffa," she said.   "We think there's a way to do something about that, and we need your help to make it happen.   If it works, we'll all become stronger than we've ever been.   How does that sound to you?"

It took a moment for Guwar to register what she was saying.   When he finally took it all in, he nodded slowly.  "It sounds pretty good," he said.  

Lesseri reached out and took his hand in her own to pull him up his feet.   "Good," she said.    "Then let's head back to my ship, and I'll tell you everything we know about Jindan..."

NEXT: The Path to Power

[thecourtreportersportedjorts]

The Top Ten Best Hit Songs of 2018

In December of each year, Billboard publishes its list of the 100 biggest hit songs of the last 12 months. In response, I take it upon myself to decide which of these songs were the real hits, and which were the biggest misses. Last time, I tackled the worst, so we'll be looking at the highlights this time. Let's get started:

10. "Stir Fry" by Migos

Like Drake’s Scorpion, I decided to sit out Culture II. And just like that album, I was actually excited to hear what the Migos had to offer, before discovering that the album would consist of 24 tracks. Reports that the Atlanta trap purveyors only spent 20 to 45 minutes in the studio for each song only made me less interested in what would surely be a slog of an album. I figured that hearing the numbingly repetitive “Walk It Talk It” would be a perfect microcosm of the album. But just like Drake (who I will be discussing later on this list), there were singles that gave me hope, especially “Stir Fry.”

Sure, “MotorSport” was a great lead single that saw Offset and Takeoff holding their own against some excellent guest verses from Nicki and Cardi, but “Stir Fry” found the group advancing on all fronts. The flows were faster and more dynamic, and Quavo’s multiple hooks were among his stickiest to date. Of course, the song isn’t really about anything besides cooking and dealing hard drugs, but the wordplay and rhyme schemes are more advanced than usual, especially coming from Offset.

But the most interesting thing about “Stir Fry” comes from its production. The Pharrell-crafted beat is apparently a leftover from 2008, but the track nevertheless sounds refreshing, even futuristic, amidst the unending wave of boilerplate trap bangers. The whistles, buzzing synths, and boom-bap-adjacent drums are totally uncharacteristic of Migos’ usual style, and just like “Slide” last year, it’s evidence that these guys put in some of their best work when accompanied by more uptempo instrumentation. It may not be “that trap sound,” but if more artists take Pharrell’s cues, it very well could be.

9. "Call Out My Name" by The Weeknd

As much as I’ve been singing The Weeknd’s praises on these lists since his mainstream breakthrough in 2015, it may be surprising that I’ve never talked about his first solo hit “Earned It.” There’s a good reason for that: I just don’t feel strongly about the song one way or another. Sure, the song was good enough that it could make you forget it was on the Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack, but it didn’t quite match up against the harrowing atmosphere of “The Hills” or especially the infectious groove of “Can’t Feel My Face.” And now, after the release of “Call Out My Name” in 2018, the Fifty Shades hit even got an update!

To be fair, “Call Out My Name” only bears similarity to “Earned It” in its musicality. It’s a recasting of the earlier song as a more melancholic ballad that gives credence to early claims that My Dear Melancholy, would return to Abel Tesfaye’s original sound. The song is built around a well-utilized sample of “Killing Time” by Nicolas Jaar (who, by the way, dropped one of the year’s best albums with Against All Logic's compilation 2012-2017) that builds to a fever pitch with its pounding drums, mournful synths, and vocal distortion. Fitting of a track with Jaar’s imprint, it’s some of the most inventive production work in 2018’s pop landscape, and yet another entry into the canon of great singles by The Weeknd.

Oddly enough, “Call Out My Name” also recalls “I Feel It Coming” in that it subverts the persona that has become integral to The Weeknd’s music. Tesfaye, who normally plays the heartbreaker on cuts like “The Hills” or “Angel,” finds himself in the opposite situation, which was undoubtedly informed by his well-publicized breakup with Selena Gomez. The result is one of the singer’s most captivating vocal performances in recent memory. While the similarities to “Earned It” may keep this song from ranking higher, I can’t deny that “Call Out My Name” is still a worthwhile song that encapsulates everything a good Weeknd song is about.

8. "King's Dead" by Jay Rock, Kendrick Lamar, Future & James Blake

It may have been a year since its release, but it's worth reiterating that Black Panther was every bit as good as anticipated. The film featured stunning visuals, dizzying action sequences, profound messaging, and an especially strong performance by Michael B. Jordan as Killmonger. But since I’m not a film critic, I’d rather discuss the film’s soundtrack, which was expertly curated by none other than Kendrick Lamar. Fresh off the monumental success of 2017’s DAMN., the soundtrack could easily be dismissed as a victory lap where the Compton rapper highlights some budding talents, but the album is stacked with great pop songs and thrilling bangers.

“King’s Dead” immediately cements itself in the latter category with its infectious hook, where Lamar repeats key phrases like “miss me with that bullshit” and “this ain’t what you want.” Top Dawg labelmate Jay Rock, who makes his Billboard Hot 100 debut here, takes the first verse with a delivery that’s repetitive, but his flow is also hypnotic in its speed. Future takes the mic next, using his trademark Autotuned crooning before suddenly bursting into a creaky falsetto where he references iconic the rap tracks “La Di Da Di” and “Slob on My Knob.” It’s utterly bizarre, and perhaps very Not Good™, but it nevertheless captures the attention and gets a smile out of me every time.

Then, two minutes in, something amazing happens. James Fucking Blake sings a brief interlude, and the no-nonsense trap beat transforms into a freewheeling trunk-knocker with a bass that rivals Lamar’s own “DNA.” in its size. Lamar finishes the song off with a mind-altering verse that somehow works with the beat despite their decidedly off-kilter rhythms. He also refers to himself as “King Killmonger” after seemingly aligning himself with the Black Panther antagonist’s ambitions throughout his verse. It’s an absolute journey of a track that still hits hard, even well after the film’s release.

7. "Be Careful" by Cardi B

A lot of people expected Cardi B to fall off after the runaway success of “Bodak Yellow.” After the follow-up single “Bartier Cardi” treaded the same ground (with some help from 21 Savage), it seemed entirely possible. Surprisingly, the Bronx rapper continued to notch great guest verses on songs with Migos, Bruno Mars, and even G-Eazy, and her album Invasion of Privacy turned out to be the sort of all-killer, no-filler rap album that is a growing rarity amongst the likes of Culture II and Scorpion. “Bodak” was just the tip of the iceberg, and “Be Careful” immediately follows it on the album’s tracklist, further complicating the entire phenomenon that is Cardi B.

Taking cues from the flute-laced beats that were in vogue around 2016 to 2017, master producer Boi-1da approaches “Be Careful” with the same keen ear that defined earlier tracks or “Work” and “The Blacker the Berry.” On top of this, Cardi proves to be a charismatic singer in her own right, whether providing her own hook or interpolating the legendary bridge of Lauryn Hill’s “Ex-Factor.” It’s this particular reference that causes the track on the whole to sound slightly out of step with the mainstream, bearing a welcome resemblance to the pop-rap of the late 90s or early 2000s.

All of this makes “Be Careful” a standout in Cardi’s catalog, but the songwriting only enhances its quality. Where a song like “I’m Upset” or even Cardi’s own “Bartier Cardi” might feel more awkward in light of recent events, “Be Careful” and its verses about infidelity only ring even more powerfully after her particularly uncomfortable split from Offset. The second verse is one of her strongest so far, highlighting how her partner (who she apparently claims isn’t Offset) is affecting her mental health and exacerbating her insecurities. Anyone who dismissed Cardi as a one-dimensional artist after hearing “Bodak Yellow” and some spare guest verses may find themselves surprised at the vulnerability she displays so fearlessly here.

6. "God is a Woman" by Ariana Grande

Even a cursory look at 2018’s year-end chart will reveal that the genre of pop wasn’t nearly as significant as it was in a year like 2012 or 2015. You could probably tell just by reading this list, as it’s been dominated by rappers and The Weeknd, who took a turn back to his darker, alternative R&B sound. The sound of trap music doesn’t exactly lend itself well to a pop sensibility, which is why artists who attempt for some sort of middle ground (i.e. Post Malone) only end up sounding really wishy-washy and unimpressive. Of course, there are exceptions, and it comes as no surprise that one such example would come from Ariana Grande.

“God is a Woman” is a best-of-both-worlds marriage of the two sides of Sweetener: the bubbly trap crafted by Pharrell, and the massive Max Martin-produced pop that has become Ariana’s signature sound. In other words, the track has the hard-hitting drums of a Travis Scott song, paired with the momentum of songs like “Can’t Feel My Face” or “Style.” Nothing about the song feels compromised, especially as the song builds to a triumphant climax featuring Ariana’s whistle notes and a grand backing choir that make for one of music’s best moments in 2018.

The title of “God is a Woman” alone indicates that Ariana isn’t holding back here, even as she tackles the same forceful, sexually charged pop that characterized “Love Me Harder” or “Into You.” This time, she takes the familiar subject matter and infuses it with a sort of spiritually-informed feminism that’s just gleefully blasphemous enough to win me over instantly. All the while, she exhibits her full-bodied lower register, the aforementioned whistle notes, and even a delivery that transforms the Migos flow into something bigger and more portentous. In the pop landscape of 2018, Ariana Grande easily delivered on her title, easily claiming god status with this magnificent song.

5. "SICKO MODE" by Travis Scott

When I included “Love Galore” on this list in 2017, I feared that I may have given the impression that I dislike Travis Scott. I admitted that I didn’t like the song quite as much as “Drew Barrymore” or “The Weekend” (which could have topped this chart had it performed better), but it ranked relatively low on the list because I thought his verse was detrimental to the song as a whole. That said, I’ve actually been a fan of Travis ever since he refined the trap aesthetic on his debut album Rodeo, and it’s been a pleasure to see the Houston rapper continue to expand upon rap’s hottest sound to increasingly lucrative results. In 2018, he released ASTROWORLD, his biggest and best album to date, and he managed a surprise chart-topper with “SICKO MODE,” the cornerstone of the album.

The first minute of “SICKO MODE” might seem unsuspecting. Sure, the synth chords might be foreboding, but you’re soon greeted to an uncredited Drake singing about a friend struggling to make ends meet in a seemingly patronizing way. But he sounds better here than nearly any other song he made this year. The drums kick in, Drake adopts a faster flow, and as soon as he introduces Travis, the beat changes to a blend of hypnotic synths, fat bass, and whirring sound effects and samples. Travis’ flow is at its most infectious to date, and he cements his unique curator status with the iconic line, “who put this shit together? I’m the glue.”

After a cameo from Swae Lee, the synths glitch, and we’re treated to yet another sudden beat switch, this time to a more subdued, organ-laden production by Tay Keith. Drake also returns, seemingly motivated by Travis’ performance as he delivers one of his coldest flows since If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late. The resulting verse is a thrill to listen to, but Travis finishes off the track by building on Drake’s “out like a light” hook and using the same flow. Sure, Travis may be the one who put this shit together, but “SICKO MODE” proves that he knows how to make the most out of his collaborations.

It’s also worth noting that in a rap landscape ruled by the likes of Lil Pump and XXXTentacion, the five-minute runtime of “SICKO MODE” seems a little excessive. But the fact that the song is essentially a suite of much smaller trap bangers proves yet again that Travis Scott has an uncanny knack for upgrading the current sound. In a way, it’s also an answer to “Te Bote” in that Travis and Drake can at least justify the song’s length with a wealth of captivating musical ideas. When this shit is way too formal, y’all know Travis Scott doesn’t follow suit, and it’s a blessing to see him continue to innovate.

4. "Delicate" by Taylor Swift

Last year, I omitted what should have been an obvious pick for my Worst Hit Songs List: Taylor Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do.” Maybe it’s just because anything Jack Antonoff touches immediately sounds good to my ears, but I couldn’t really muster up any sort of hatred for the song. On first listen, it registered as campy and nowhere near as self-serious as so many people made it out to be. That said, I understand why “Look What You Made Me Do” wasn’t so well-liked, and I still hold that it was a terrible choice for Reputation’s lead single.

Much of this belief has to do with “Delicate,” the song that – for whatever reason – precedes “Look What You Made Me Do” in the album’s track sequence. Much like that song, “Delicate” tackles the subject of fame, except in a return to the relationship-oriented format in which Taylor excels. She finds herself anxious that anything she says can be misinterpreted and used against her, realizing that her “reputation’s never been worse.” Thus, when she finally meets a guy who’s interested in her despite all the drama, it sparks a subtle kind of joy in her that builds as the song progresses.

“A subtle kind of joy” is also a good way to describe the instrumentation on “Delicate,” which always reminded me of the sounds The xx explored on their 2017 album, I See You. It shares a lot in common with that album’s subdued tropical synths, gently building dance grooves, and vocal manipulations. I See You was widely regarded as an expansion of the low-key, intimate sound that became the group’s calling card, and the same can be said about “Delicate,” which is only given deeper meaning with the firestorm of controversy that surrounded Reputation’s rollout. If this were released as the lead single rather than “Look What You Made Me Do,” perhaps the album would have been much easier to swallow.

3. "Nice for What" by Drake

Since writing my worst list this year, I’ve tried listening to Scorpion again, and with only a few exceptions, the album confirmed pretty much all the fears I had when I heard “I’m Upset.” If VIEWS was considered a decline in quality for the Toronto rapper, this album walked right up to the line of self-parody, seeing Drake moaning half-heartedly about women and fame on top of some of the sparsest, blandest instrumentals his producers have offered up to date. In other words, I know shorty, and she doesn’t want know slow song, which Scorpion offered up in smothering abundance. And while there are some songs on the album that succeed despite their obvious formula, the only song that breaks out of the mold is “Nice for What.”

If anything, the greatness of “Nice for What” only puts the its parent album’s failings into sharper focus. With every successive project, it seems that Drake tries adding a new style of music to his repertoire, whether it’s trap on Nothing Was the Same or dancehall on VIEWS. This time around, he’s trying his hand at the energetic, largely underground style of New Orleans bounce. The genre is known for its heavy use of samples, so it’s only fitting that the track not only samples bounce legend Big Freedia’s voice, but the second sample of the bridge of Lauryn Hill’s “Ex-Factor” to hit the charts this year. Where “Be Careful” only interpolated the bridge as a hook, producer Murda Beatz makes the sample the foundation of “Nice for What,” and it sounds absolutely blissful.

Then there’s the lyrics, which have been highly celebrated for their message of women’s empowerment. Given that this is by the same guy who made songs like “Hotline Bling” and “Child’s Play,” it could be easy to dismiss “Nice for What” as a textbook example of pandering, but I’d much rather hear Drake pandering than hear him say another goddamn word about child support. Furthermore, the song forgoes the usual trappings of female empowerment anthems written and performed by men by not harping on how badly he wants to have sex with the women he writes about. Top this off with Drake sounding the most energized he's arguably ever been, and it’s hard not to believe every second of the song.

2. "I Like It" by Cardi B, Bad Bunny, & J Balvin

In case it hasn’t been abundantly clear by now, Cardi B had an absolutely tremendous 2018. Looking over the year-end charts, she made eight appearances on the list, tying with Drake for the most spots occupied by one artist. Sure, one of those was “Bodak Yellow,” and half of them were guest appearances for the likes of G-Eazy and Maroon 5 (sigh), but the fact that she managed to churn out three more hits from Invasion of Privacy is still remarkable. I already discussed “Be Careful” at length, and “Bartier Cardi” was fine enough for what it was, but it was “I Like It” that landed her a second number one hit, and possibly the most important song of her career.

For starters, it’s worth noting that “I Like It” does something successfully that far too many hit songs don’t: it uses a sample of a well-known song to a benefit rather than a detriment. The song samples “I Like It Like That,” a 1967 track by boogaloo legend Pete Rodriguez that’s become a staple of Latin music in its half-century of existence. The resulting track is a mix of traditional Latin music instrumentation with a shuffling trap beat that’s just as lively as the music it’s referencing. In a year where reggaetón had a much greater mainstream presence than usual, it’s surprising that none of the songs that landed on the charts sounded quite as good as this.

While the production is certainly some of the best I’ve heard all year, you'd first go to Cardi B for her verses and her personality, which “I Like It” delivers in spades. The beat serves as the perfect backdrop for Cardi’s verse, where she brags about her taste for luxury goods, all the while referencing her enjoyment of things like NYC street food. It adds dimensionality to her well-documented rags-to-riches narrative, highlighting her Bronx roots while also celebrating her current success. A pair of excellent guest verses by reggaetón stars Bad Bunny and J Balvin show that she clearly plans to use her success for good, giving a greater platform to other Latinx artists.

It may not have been the near-record breaker that “Despacito” was in 2017, but the fact that “I Like It” was a smash hit further cements Latin music’s place in the American pop landscape. Make no mistake, considering how hostile the current administration and its supporters have been to Latin American immigrants, this is incredibly significant. Obviously, Cardi B is a more conventional rapper rather than a reggaetón artist, but she’s still a woman of Dominican heritage who’s using her music to show solidarity with her community, and if there’s any justice in this world, it could suggest a true cultural change in the near future.

But before I unveil my choice for the Best Hit Song of 2018, here are my Honorable Mentions:

“All the Stars” by Kendrick Lamar feat. SZA, “Pray for Me” by The Weeknd feat. Kendrick Lamar: Befitting of the Black Panther film, Kendrick delivers sharp verses about responsibility and fame, SZA and The Weeknd deliver fantastic vocals as usual, and the production combines cinematic swells with glitchy electronics. The only thing keeping these songs from the list proper is that the artists’ personalities feel slightly compromised.

“Boo’d Up” by Ella Mai: Since dominating the charts in 2014, DJ Mustard has been experimenting with his 808-driven sound. Here, he crafts a gloriously retro R&B track with London singer Ella Mai, creating a joyful, lovesick track that could be best described as “Boom Clap” for 2018.

“Sky Walker” by Miguel feat. Travis Scott: It’s been way too long since I’ve been able to talk about Miguel on this list. The 2017 album War & Leisure saw the R&B virtuoso coasting by on effortless vocals and charisma, but the blissed-out vibe of “Sky Walker” proves that’s still a lot of fun in its own right. Travis does his thing pretty well, too.

“Finesse” by Bruno Mars feat. Cardi B: I was wondering when someone would revive the new jack swing sound of the early 90s, and leave it to none other than Bruno Mars to be up for the challenge. It’s no surprise that he sounds as great as always here, but what does surprise me is how perfectly Cardi B’s flow fits.

“MotorSport” by Migos, Cardi B & Nicki Minaj: I can’t be the only one who thinks this song is pretty awkward to listen to now, considering the split between Cardi and Offset, as well as Cardi and Nicki’s feud that erupted later in the year. Still, everyone but Quavo puts forth a great performance, and Murda Beatz crafts one of this year’s most hypnotic bangers.

“In My Blood” by Shawn Mendes: Look, credit where it’s due, Mendes wrote a really good song about his struggles with anxiety, and he finally has organic-sounding production that compliments the song’s structure really well. I’m still not completely sold on him as a singer yet, but he puts forth enough effort for me to like “In My Blood” quite a bit.

“This Is America” by Childish Gambino: If I were including music videos in my placement of the songs on this list, this could have contended for the top spot. The song itself, while admirably direct in its lyricism and its freewheeling instrumental, works better as an accompaniment to the stunningly layered visuals that Glover assembled to put forth his commentary about race relations and gun control.

“LOVE.” by Kendrick Lamar feat. Zacari: Well over a year after its release, Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN. is still a phenomenal album. “LOVE.” still stands as a highlight from the album, boasting melodic flows, serene production, gorgeous vocals from Zacari, and one of Kendrick’s most poignant hooks to date. It may be the most pop-oriented track Kendrick’s put on an album to date, but at least he sounds like he’s actually putting in an actual effort.

And now, here's my pick for the Best Hit Song of 2018:

1. "No Tears Left to Cry" by Ariana Grande

In my 2017 lists, I made a recurring observation that popular music doesn’t exist without context. That mentality definitely crossed over into my previous list, where I didn’t choose the worst four on the list just because they were made by abusive people, but because most of them actively reminded me of their heinous acts. Of course, that also means that great art can be made in the wake of significant life events. It’s partially for this reason that Kesha’s triumphant comeback “Praying” topped this list last time, and in 2018, Ariana Grande made an equally powerful return with “No Tears Left to Cry.”

I don’t need to explain the circumstances that led up to this point, but since the release of “No Tears Left to Cry,” Ariana has made one thing abundantly clear: she wants to use her music to spread positivity into the world. The song starts off with soft, humming synths and Ariana’s heavenly voice, boldly stating that she’s ready to move on from her past trauma. As she repeats “I’m pickin’ it up,” the tempo follows suit, percussion begins to swell, and the song becomes a shot of pure UK garage-influenced joy.

The verses feature these stabs of synths, a persistent, dusty groove, and gentle strings that have all coalesce into a somewhat tense arrangement. During the first verse, Ariana opts for a more hushed delivery, somehow suggesting that it’s difficult to try and put forth that positive energy when everything around you is so overwhelming. And yet, she puts forth a real effort, climbing up in her vocal register. Now, the chorus introduced earlier hits even harder with the help of the quicker tempo and the fuller backing. “I just want you to come with me, we on another mentality,” she sings, implying that it could be just as easy for you to adopt the same mindset and charge forth in life.

Since its release, Ariana’s put out plenty of singles with a similar message. “The Light Is Coming,” “Breathin” and especially “Thank U Next.” Had it performed well enough, “Breathin” could have easily taken this spot for its massive buildup and its lyrics about coping with anxiety. But where that song may speak to the personal struggles with anxiety I’ve had in the last few years, I believe “No Tears Left to Cry” represents something broader, a new way forward of sorts. With so much lifeless, depressing music by repulsive human beings clogging the upper echelons of the charts, somebody needed to create something to challenge it. "I just want you to come with me," indeed.

Thanks for reading!