#larkin dominated

[aautiemiller-rockcenter]

Keira Redpath 1st overall with 299.75!! Ava Wagner 2nd with 299.5 & Isabella Jarvis 3rd with 299 😮

[larkingame]

Dominic is certainly hungry for something, you're just afraid you might be on the menu in much more than a figurative sense....romance Dominic Sokolov in Larkin! Demo out now!

[ginge1962]

Hulk magazine No.21 - June 1980 with a Hulk tale pencilled, inked, lettered & coloured by Bob McLeod! Back-up strip is Dominic Fortune with art by Howard Chaykin.

Cover by Bob Larkin.

[p21xlarkin]

Stop I love the improv walk during the scholarship ceremony

[p21blackandgold]

in honor of tda vegas being over for this year, here are some of my highlights:

Izzy Howard finally winning best dancer

Sylvie Win winning mini finals solos at the bottom of the age division

The iconic mini bd friendship that is Malia/Tristan/Ellary Day

Finley’s improvs, especially the downtempo one

The junior female top 3

Dc2’s Down to Georgia - one of my favorite discoveries of tda

Kylie Kaminsky not only making top 3 for the first time, but winning the whole damn thing

The Club and Larkin minis pretty much dominating the finals top 10/bd top 20

Jenna Johnson’s dress 😍

The gala not being 5 hours long

and now for my lowlights:

The butchering of like half the names of the the top 10s #bringbackmike

TDA’s missed opportunity of having Molly and Shannon present an award together

[demonologue]

Can we talk about the dragons some more?

I will be. Forever.

Many have already noted the care and detail that went into the design of each dragon, and I love watching the fall of Emon over and over to see new details each time.

But we also see so much of their personalities in this scene, and I love it so much?

Thordak is there to establish dominance, show his power, and accept worshipers, like a true red. He focuses on property damage (yes, people die, too, but that will happen when you nuke a mountain!) and showing off, because he wants lots of the ants in the city to survive. He needs their terrified adoration. We stan all of his "Is this your king?" speeches as he claims his throne.

Umbrasyl is doing what they've been told to do. As the least powerful of the remaining Conclave members, they are raining death from above but not overdoing it. Thordak has no domain and subjects if they melt it all. Bonus content fight between Umbrasyl and KimAllura. (P.S. they're not dead, guys!) I have a big soft spot for Umbrasyl, and I'm curious how much we will get to see the dynamic between the dragons as the story moves forward. They barely get along, and I hope we get to see them interacting with each other more. Something went down between them after Umbrasyl took over Gatshadow, and I want to know what it is that left the black dragon alone and stranded out there with busted palantiri.

Vorugal, it's been mentioned, we don't see a lot of in the fall of Emon. But that's exactly as it should be. Think about it: Vorugal is an elite hunter. They live a solitary life, always seeking more challenging prey to indulge in their favourite pastime. What is the point of destroying a city of helpless ants to Vorugal? So they go for the most challenging targets first, i.e. Allura. I'm disappointed that we didn't get the iconic shot of Vorugal perched on the side of her tower before they destroy it, but at least Vorugal still destroyed it in this version. Then it's almost like they're searching the city for worthy prey, doing the bare minimum to satisfy Thordak's orders. Of course Vorugal tracks them to Greyskull Keep. VM are worthy targets for the white dragon. I'm sad we didn't get to see Vorugal wrestle Thordak for dominance there. That was such a fantastic scene in campaign. Hopefully we'll get to see the two of them butting heads in a different way later on.

And Raishan, clever little pixie. She's just having fun with it. You see her casually flying around the city, blowing smoke here and there before she eats Scanlan's biggest fan. But she knows what she's doing. She killed Uriel with her first attack, and after that she's pretty much like a cat. What can I do that will satisfy Thordak's command but is the most amusing to me? Playing with VM, for one. She makes sure they know who she is, and that she knows who they are. After that, she's going to do what a green dragon does: be sneaky and infiltrate their keep even before they flee to Whitestone. She was a lot more subtle about it in campaign than she is about it here, but we want new viewers to feel like they've spotted something hidden, too (LARKIN WATCH!). Good job. Raishan was the first to give her name during the attack in the campaign, and of course she gave it to us here in the fall of Emon as well. We stan a queen. You'd better put some respect on her name.

Really looking forward to seeing more of her--and all the dragons--this season. Even if they just do cut-aways to their territory or Pike has dream sequences to show what's going on with them, I'll take it. We deserve more than just their death scenes. They are legendary villains and deserve as much love as the Briarwoods.

[fiddles-ifs]

who are some of your favorite ROs from other IF games?

Dreamwalker, Pariah, and Sysba from @attollogame's Attollo.

Sirruud, Trigger, Mantis, and Crave from @heart-forge's games.

Nash and Rhaxa from @nyehilismwriting's Project Hadea.

Lea and Merry from @northern-passage's The Northern Passage.

Hollis, Jacob, Celina and Dominic from @larkin-if's Larkin.

[justforbooks]

Alan Brownjohn, who has died aged 92, was a prolific and seemingly indefatigable poet and novelist. Although best known as a poet, a recipient of the Cholmondeley award in 1979, Brownjohn also wrote well-received novels – winning the Author’s Club prize for his first, The Way You Tell Them (1990), a satire set in the world of standup comedy – and two children’s books, collaborated on plays, and worked as a freelance writer and critic.

He was poetry editor for the New Statesman from 1968 until 1974, and later poetry critic of the Sunday Times for more than 20 years. He was also a diligent campaigner on behalf of poetry.

Brownjohn was chairman of the Poetry Society (1982-88) and worked on the Arts Council literature panel, drawing on a prior experience of, and appetite for, public service, first demonstrated when he and his first wife, the poet Shirley Toulson, were elected Labour councillors in Wandsworth, south-west London, in the 1960s.

In a long writing career Brownjohn was something of a rarity, arguably producing his very best work when already well into his 70s. Among an array of well-observed, various and spry collections, Ludbrooke & Others (2010) stands out as perhaps most successfully representing his blend of emotionally astute, rigorously downbeat and wittily rendered character dissection.

Written in 13-line “sonnets for the unlucky”, in the poet Peter Reading’s phrase, the suite of 60 poems shows the titular Ludbrooke’s self-defeating attempts at seduction, titivation and a resentful brand of empathy, pitched somewhere between the metropolitan tone of the Robinson poems of Weldon Kees and John Berryman’s courtly, chaotic Dream Songs.

For all their possible influence from those two North American poets, Ludbrooke is a singularly English concoction: raffish and highly attuned to divisions of class and gentlemanly behaviour. The sequence of Ludbrooke poems speak to many of Brownjohn’s own concerns and foibles but ratcheted up for – at times poignant – laughter and a kind of wounded recognition.

The roots of Ludbrooke can be found in some of Brownjohn’s previous work, especially a proto-Ludbrooke known as “the Old Fox”, who first appeared in poems decades earlier, albeit with a cannier, more malicious edge.

Brownjohn’s early poetic life was inextricably bound up with the Group, a long-running workshop run by the poet and teacher Philip Hobsbaum, which fellow poets, such as the stylistically diverse Peter Redgrove and Peter Porter, would attend to discuss and dissect each others’ new work.

They were chiefly guided by a spirit of close reading, based on the “new criticism” of Hobsbaum’s Cambridge tutor FR Leavis. The Group had as its guiding principles “rationalism, democracy and humanity”; during Brownjohn’s time as a member, his work was most visibly influenced by the Movement, another loose grouping of associated poets, including Philip Larkin and Kingsley Amis, who came to be the dominating force in mainstream British poetry in the 50s.

Larkin would remain an enduring influence for Brownjohn, who later published a critical study of the Hull poet in 1975, as well as learning plenty about form, reticence and the sometimes inadvertent comedy to be found in attempts at navigating life in modern, secular, middle-class Britain.

Brownjohn was born in Catford, south-east London, the son of Dorothy (nee Mulligan) and Charles Brownjohn, and was educated at Brockley county school and Merton College, Oxford, where he studied history. Much of his working life was spent in education, as an assistant master at Beckenham and Penge boys’ grammar school from 1958 to 1965; a lecturer at Battersea College of Education (now London South Bank University); and a lecturer in poetry, and later in creative writing, at the Polytechnic of North London (now London Metropolitan University). His experiences as a teacher fed into his poems, sometimes directly as subject material.

He also demonstrated an interest in leftwing politics, and was actively involved in the Labour party. He was elected to Wandsworth Metropolitan borough council in 1962 and stood as Labour candidate for Richmond in the 1964 general election, but did not win the seat.

Brownjohn, in his early years, and bearing the trace of the Movement’s ordinary-blokeish sensibility, wrote poems out of seemingly mundane everyday life, usually in well-organised stanzas, regularly using rhyme and a colloquial, downbeat diction. His poems were, however, more interested – even from the start – than those of the Movement in leftwing ideals and shot through by a sense of the importance of doing one’s social duty.

As Sean O’Brien pointed out: “Like Larkin, he has spent much of his career pondering the contradictions between desire and obligation.”

He could also be formally innovative, playing with reported speech, song and ballad forms and more postmodern techniques such as footnotes and other forms of self-aware commentary. He had an astute eye trained on working life, the eco-systems of the office, particularly well rendered in one of his outstanding poems of the 60s, Office Party, in which “the girl with the squeaker / Came passing” and the cruelly ignored narrator ends on a note of wry despair: “I’d never so craved for / Some crude disrespect.”

Brownjohn proved adept at writing narrative sequences long before Ludbrooke’s travails, with other highlights including The Automatic Days, from The Observation Car (1990), in which the power struggles and jostling for a fair shake by the staff at a department store take centre-stage, and Sea Pictures from the same volume, its 40 snapshot-style lyrics building an atmospheric, sepia-tinted look at memory and escape.

Brownjohn’s life was, in many ways, an exemplary version of the contemporary person of letters – a dutiful committee-man and champion of other writers, looking towards Europe and the wider literary world for inspiration and to shine a light on neglected figures, as well as ranging across various art-forms for material. He also wrote obituaries for the Guardian.

When asked to name his favourite poetry quotes to accompany a recording made for the Poetry Archive, Brownjohn noted that (leaning on Matthew Arnold) “the poetry comes first”. For Brownjohn, despite his many other enthusiastically undertaken obligations and diligent acts of service, poetry was – and remained – the heart of it all, as a way of scrutinising and documenting postwar Britain as well as his own intellectual and emotional life.

He and Toulson, with whom he had a son, Steven, divorced in 1969. In 1972 Brownjohn married Sandra Willingham; they separated in 2005.

He is survived by Steven, and by two stepchildren, Ian and Janet, from his first marriage.

🔔 Alan Charles Brownjohn, poet, novelist and critic, born 28 July 1931; died 23 February 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[regina-cordium]

trick....or treat...

First of all, the most important thing:

some candy to enjoy while reading.

This got a lot longer than it has any right to be. Whoops.

Spot wants it on the record that he was forced to be here.

Ever since returning to New York for his grad degree, Jack has been hell bent on him “getting the Boston out of his system,” or something dumb like that. Spot doesn’t get how a Halloween party in Jack and Charlie’s shoebox apartment counts towards that goal, but whatever. He’s mostly here because Charlie and Ma asked, and also Katherine pointed out it’d be hilarious to watch Jack trip over himself all night trying to impress Davey.

And the free booze. The free booze is vital.

So now he’s leaning up against the wall nursing a lukewarm beer and trying not to get crushed by what feels like the entirety of Manhattan crammed into such a small apartment. How the hell Jack even knows so many people, Spot will never know. What he does know is that he’s starting to get uncomfortable and hungry, and is probably five minutes away from snapping at someone for, like, existing.

“Three o’clock – Jack is about to eat shit,” a voice suddenly says from beside him. Spot does not jump, thank you very much, but he does lift his head in time to watch Jack trip over his own stupid cowboy hat; Davey is rushing forward to help Jack up, but is definitely also laughing at him.

“You always know what to get me,” Spot says, turning to Mack with a grin. She’s dressed as a baseball player, arms hooked around a bat she’s got across her shoulders. She’s also giving him an unimpressed lookover, rude.

“What are you even supposed to be?” she asks, brows raised.

“I’m a lumberjack.” Jack said he wouldn’t let Spot through the door if he wasn’t wearing a costume, so Spot just threw on the closest he could get to the Bounty paper towel dude.

“You wore that exact outfit to Stray’s birthday two weeks ago,” Mack points out, still deeply unimpressed.

Spot opens his mouth to make a sarcastic comment, but he’s drowned out by the sound of cheers and Jack going, “There he fucking is!”

He and Mack both look over to where Jack’s got his arms around someone Spot thinks he recognizes. The guy is wearing a red leather jacket covered in patches, black leather pants, sunglasses that look like they’re shaped like flames, and has red and yellow hair. There’s something written on his face, but he’s swallowed by a group hug before Spot can make it out.

“Who the fuck is that?” he asks.

“Hard to tell, but I think that was Dominic.”

Spot frowns. “Why do I know that name?”

“He’s been attached to Lucky’s hip since undergrad,” Mack explains, swinging her bat down to lean on. “They’re in the same math program or whatever. I think he was Jack’s roommate too? I dunno.”

“I thought he was blond?”

Mack raises an eyebrow, which Spot ignores. “It’s Halloween, dude. He probably dyed his hair. If you’re so curious, why don’t you go talk to him instead of haunting the corner.”

“I’m not haunting –” He breaks off as Mack plants a hand between his shoulder blades and shoves him, hurling him into someone. Spot turns to flip her off; Mack just blows him a kiss, because she’s an asshole.

“You good?” a voice asks.

Spot turns back to the person he knocked into, intending to apologize, but he stops when he realizes the person is Dominic. Spot sends another dirty look over his shoulder at Mack, but she’s gone.

“Yeah, I’m good. Sorry ‘bout that, my friend is a dick.”

Up close, Spot can see that Dominic has the number 9 on one cheek and 5 on the other, his glasses are, in fact, shaped like flames, and his blond roots are obvious under the red.

Dominic, for his part, looks extremely amused. “Hey, you’re Jack’s brother, right?”

“Spot,” he introduces, holding out a hand.

“Nice to meet’cha. I’m Dominic, but everyone calls me Racetrack.”

Spot is not distracted by his brother’s old roommate’s hands, because that would be weird and also fucking cliche.

Pulling himself together, because only one Larkin kid gets to be a disaster about hot boys and Jack has that shit on lockdown, Spot says, “Weird fucking nickname.”

Instead of being offended, like most people are when Spot speaks, Racetrack just throws his head back and laughs (Spot is not distracted by the long column of his throat.) “What, weirder than Spot?” he asks.

Spot can’t exactly argue with that, so he quickly changes track. “What’re you supposed to be, anyway? Ain’t you hot in all that leather?”

“I’m hot out of the leather, too,” Racetrack says with a smirk, causing Spot to choke on the sip of beer he’d just taken. Racetrack laughs again as he unhelpfully pats Spot on the back. “I think you’re supposed to drink that, not inhale it.”

“Fuck you,” Spot wheezes.

Racetrack seems to finally take pity, because he finally answers Spot’s question. “I’m Lightning McQueen!”

Spot stares at him for a moment. Racetrack grins back.

“Like. From that Disney movie?” Spot finally asks.

“First of all, it’s a Pixar movie, and don’t let Jack hear you get the two confused,” Racetrack corrects. “Second, yes.”

“What the fuck?”

“Dude, my name’s Racetrack. I had to.”

“You absolutely didn’t.”

Racetrack sighs dramatically (Spot gets the feeling he does everything dramatically).

“You sound like Albert,” he pouts and goddamn it, Spot can’t even pretend he doesn’t find it absolutely adorable. Fucker.

“I’d be offended by the comparison,” Spot says, thinking about all the dumb shit Albert got up to in high school, “but for once in my life, I agree with him.”

“Well, you’re not even wearing a costume, so I win by default.”

Spot can’t help but snort. “That’s not how that works, first of all. Second, I am. I’m a lumberjack.”

“You look like you belong at some hipster bar that’s got overpriced drinks and too much wood paneling.”

“Okay, now I’m offended,” Spot says, but there’s a grin pulling at the corner of his mouth. Racetrack seems to notice it, because his own grows.

“You wanna get something to eat?” Racetrack asks suddenly. Spot’s glad he’s finished his beer, because we would’ve definitely choked again.

Instead, he raises an eyebrow and says, “You mean ditch my brother’s party to hang out with someone I don’t even know?”

Racetrack rolls his eyes. “You’re not even enjoying yourself.”

“Fuck off, maybe I’m having the goddamn time of my life,” Spot argues, just to argue.

“You’re not.” It’s so matter of fact that Spot is taken aback. “‘Sides, Jack never gets enough food for these things and you were here before me, so if I’m hungry then you are too.”

Spot had actually forgotten he was even hungry, but now that it’s been brought up he’s suddenly fucking starving.

“Fine,” he finally relents, unable to stop his smile when Racetrack pumps his fists. “But only because I’m fucking starving. You just happened to be the first person to say anything.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Spotty!” Racetrack laughs as he leads them through the crowd. “You up for Chinese?”

[aautiemiller-rockcenter]

Lilly Anderson HOF Inductee!

And 1st overall with All That Jazz! With a HUGE score of 299.25! She is such a special dancer ❤️

[larkingame]

How old is Mc and the Ro's?

Preacher Abrams (MC): 27

Cyrus: 41

Celina: 46

Dominic: 25

Nash: 28

Rose: 25

Ethel: 26

Ace: 27

Hollis: 31

Reyes: 29

Cassidy: 38

Adam: 5800 (<- roughly)

Montero: 49 (biologically they’re only about 30 though)

Bonus! Wyatt: 59

[ginge1962]

Hulk magazine No.22 - August 1980 with a cover by Bob Larkin. Art within by Ron Wilson & Alfredo Alcala (Hulk) and Howard Chaykin (Dominic Fortune).

[talknerdytome18]

𝙷𝚂𝙼𝚃𝙼𝚃𝚂 𝚍𝚘𝚎𝚜 𝙽𝚎𝚠𝚜𝚒𝚎𝚜 ✨ 📰

In honour of Newsies being the musical done in Love, East High, I have decided to cast the characters in this show.

This cast list will only be using characters who haven't graduated so sorry EJ (still love ya)

Seb Matthew-Smith as Jack Kelly: JOE SERAFINI WOULD SLAY SANTA FE. Don't debate me on this casting choice because I personally believe that any role Jeremy Jordan has played should be played by Joe Serafini.

Ashlyn Caswell as Katherine Plumber: She's witty and values hard work. Julia Lester already has impeccable comedic timing and would nail Watch What Happens.

Ricky Bowen as Davey Jacobs: If Ricky can't play Jack, then he's playing Davey. Ricky's quite passionate like Davey and is always supportive towards his friends.

Big Red as Crutchie: THIS WOULD BE SO CUTE! He has the innocent charm like Crutchie and would bring everyone to tears with his rendition of Letter to the Refuge.

Kourtney Greene as Medda Larkin: THE ONLY PERSON WHO WOULD NAIL THAT'S RICH IS MISS KOURTNEY GREENE HERSELF. Kourtney has such a lively presence that is needed for Medda and is quite selfless like Medda.

Emmy as Les Jacobs: Gender swapped Les Jacobs is a must! Emmy is quite fearless and hilarious like Les. She's also the only character who is in the age range to play Les so yeah... also, Ricky and Emmy friendship since they'll be playing siblings.

Jet as Pulitzer: Hear me out? Jet has already played a villain before (Hans) and I think he would absolutely pull off Pulitzer. His rendition of Bottom Line would dominate the charts (literally).

Carlos Rodriguez as Racetrack: I'M DYING I'M DECEASED YES. The comedic timing would be IMPECCABLE and Carlos would have so much fun choreographing King of New York. NOT TO MENTION THE DANCING? He is one of the strongest dancers as according to his character... Racetrack is the perfect role for him in terms of comedic timing and dancing.

Gina Porter as Spot Conlon/Ensemble: Small role, but I don't really see Gina playing Katherine or Medda (However, she is playing Katherine in Love, East High). Gina does come off as quite intimidating like Spot at first but is later revealed to care about the people around her.

Mack Alana as Theodore Roosevelt: I don't know what to do with him lol. Besides, I don't think he'll want a big role since he's trying to get Mark & Spark rebooted anyways lol.

Dani as Hannah: Her acting skills need work so Hannah's a small enough role for her to work on her acting skills.

[tc-doherty]

Hiya TC, random silliness upon thy inbox: do you have a character you are especially fond of bothering? Putting not in wretched and painful situations, but simply mildly inconveniencing ones to watch them be Aggrieved.

Hello, thank you for stopping by, I always love silliness!

I suppose the easiest answer is probably Anthem Silverwood? Ithea can always be considered to be an annoyance or an inconvenience to deal with when he just wants to be focused on his own business, so he is often very tired hahahaha although they are both very arrogant and overbearing people, Ithea is especially stubborn and he's definitely found it's usually easier just to go along with her than to fight against her. This does mean that she drags him into a bunch of situations that he finds…irritating. One shots of that nature are fun for me to write!

Most of the time I'm only writing novels so there generally have to be some wretched or painful situations. Silverwood has more freedom and is partially immune from this by not being, precisely, a novel.

Of the other characters I feel like Larkin from Miracles tends to view most things as an annoyance. He is not really in any particular danger throughout most of the story other than the looming curse that will happen if he runs out of time. And Arwyn makes people irritated by nature. So even though the stakes aren't super high, he's not having a very good time either.

And I think, maybe Nyari too, just because he has a short temper.

But I really like to write female characters like Ithea, who are dominant or arrogant or manipulative or some combination of the three, characters who love bothering other people. So anyone who is around characters like Ithea (Anthem), Retta (Nelli), Keril (Sasia), Sigrid (Temitope), and Tirzha (Kadife) will naturally be aggrieved!

Turning it back on you, do you do this to any characters?

[iisoldmysoulxx]

when larkin tries to be cool and domineering... xD

[sentintheclowns]

hi, now that hall of fame st. paul 2023 is over, i’ve posted everything that i’ve recorded this weekend (103 dances!) to my larkin playlist. the only thing that isn’t there that i have is jive bunny since it is copyrighted. feel free to dm me if you’d like the playlist :)

with that being said, larkin world domination !!!