#like not just fantasy mystery but straight up this is noir but in a world that looks like lotr

[orpheuslookingback]

i want more stories that mix and match genres that are rarely ever paired up together. idk like. hard boiled detective character archetypes and storylines but in a high fantasy setting. full on political thriller but its also a musical. cyberpunk setting but with a rom com plot. like they dont even have to end up working. i just want to see someone try some really out there concepts out, yknow?

[marimeetsmischief]

Wishes & Wands (and other miraculous adventures) - Part I

The first chapter of my fic for the @mlbigbang 2022 is ready! I'm so happy to finally share this with you all <3

Read on Ao3

Tags: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Fantasy, Summoned Heroes, Magic Powers, Fluff, Mildly Sarcastic Narractor, Rivals to friends to lovers (eventually), Plagg is a book, Tikki is also a book, Actual Cat Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Slow burn, Ladynoir, ML Big Bang 2022

Summary: Wishing upon a star has been something Adrien grew up doing, but he never imagined it would end up like this. Sucked into a world of fairy tales that need to be brought to completion, he faces stories that are far more different than he's ever heard them told, and the endings aren't always quite what he expects. He'll have help along the way, though, with his trusty (and lazy) magic storybook, and a mysterious girl who seems to always be one step ahead of him.

Part I: Wish Upon a Star

The first chapter of our tale, in which Adrien finds himself in a strange place, with a strange man and an even stranger talking book.

“I wish… I wish I could have a real adventure. Be a real hero… be anywhere but here.”

And just like that, he was.

The forest that had appeared ahead of him was unfamiliar and open. He squinted, looking up at sunlight filtering through the trees. One second he’d been standing in his room, leaning over the windowsill and looking up at a starry night sky; the next second he was on his back in something soft, his lungs filled with the cleanest air he’d ever inhaled in his life.

Glancing downward, he could see that his clothes were different too. Designer quality items had been replaced by weathered but rough fabrics in a style he could only compare to something straight out of a fantasy movie, or a medieval history book. He pressed his hands against the ground below him and, feeling soft grass and moss, used them to push himself upright.

“Where am I?” he mused out loud, for plot convenience.

“You’re in the enchanted forest of Ever After, Adrien,” an aged voice said from behind him.

He whipped his head around, nearly breaking his neck as he faced the robed man behind him.

“Enchanted forest? How-what? Who are you?” he questioned, his spine straightening as he managed to get to his feet, overcome with confusion as he looked around further. It was true that the forest did look… magical, if he were to characterize it. In fact, upon a closer look, enchanted was about the only word that seemed to suit it. There were flowers and vines twining around everything, and they glowed with light. In fact, almost everything seemed to glow, even the air itself. “I don’t understand. How did I get here?”

The old man smiled, mirth in his eyes as he started to walk down one of the paths away from Adrien. “You wished for it.”

Adrien stiffened in place. “But that was just… talking to myself. It’s not like I could actually wish myself somewhere else.”

“No, not exactly. We heard your wish and brought you here. I am Master Fu, a member of the Order of Fates. And you, Adrien, have a quest to begin. Come along.”

Scrambling over his own feet to follow him, Adrien hurriedly caught up and walked just behind the cloaked figure. “A quest? What kind of quest? Do I get a sword? But I don’t know how to use a sword. Will I have to use it?” he said, nearly tripping over his own tongue.

“All of your questions will be answered in time.”

“That’s not really an answer,” he mumbled in a half pout, folding his arms over his chest.

The old man only chuckled and continued walking forward. Soon enough they came into a clearing occupied by a large, gnarled tree aglow with orbs of light and a mossy stone dais in front of it.

“Step up to the dais to receive the Storybook of Ages,” he said quietly, standing aside and gesturing Adrien forward. “If you’re worthy, you may yet save us all.”

Frowning, Adrien nudged his own feet forward, not even remembering when he’d frozen in place. A few short steps later he was standing upon the carved stone. As his hands came to rest on the edges of the podium, he closed his eyes, waiting in fear and anticipation.

And nothing happened. In fact, he thought he looked almost idiotic, standing silently and waiting for something to happen even though no one had activated the thing he was waiting for.

“Oh, right. Thank you!” the old man mumbled awkwardly, remembering that he was supposed to be doing something instead of just standing around like a lump on a log. “It’s been so long since we summoned a hero that I’d forgotten, old friend.”

He stepped forward, knocking in a particular rhythm on the stone of the podium. As soon as he finished he stepped back and…

Nothing happened.

“Fates be damned, did I get it wrong?” he whispered to himself. If he’d have some patience, however, and give it just a moment more…

Finally, a low thump sounded deep under the podium and the air began to sing with energy, the glowing lights of the tree condensing over the top of the podium. Adrien, unsure of what was happening and startled by the noise, picked the worst possible moment to open his eyes and was blinded by a flash of light centimeters from his face.

All at once, the lights disappeared again and in their place, he could only hear the faint ruffling of pages. Opening his eyes again tentatively, he glanced down at where a large leatherbound book lay atop the stone.

“Woah,” he said softly, reaching down to pick the volume up.

“Hey, hey, watch where you’re putting your hands, kid,” yawned a voice as the book fluttered open on its own, seeming to come to life and stretch itself out.

“Oh, fates. Not him. Take him back, do you hear me?” Fu called out, quite uselessly into the open air because no one was listening to him.

“It has been a looooong time since I’ve gotten to run free,” the voice spoke, and now Adrien was sure that it was the book, as if that hadn’t already been obvious. “What’s your name, Chosen?”

“Uh… Adrien?” he answered, not sure it was best to question why exactly a book was talking to him.

“Not a bad name, kid. Where are you from?” the book asked again, pages fluttering every time it spoke somehow.

Adrien, to his credit, didn’t hesitate nearly as much upon answering this time. “Paris, France.”

“Oh, France! They’ve got good cheese there, fancy stuff. I don’t suppose you’ve got any cheese on you? Camembert maybe?”

“But you can’t eat cheese, can you? You’re a book. I don’t really see how you could eat anything.

The book seemed confused by his confusion, ruffling as it spoke again. “Of course I can have cheese, I- wait. I’m a what?”

This time, Adrien paused and seemed to consider his options, not that he had many. “You’re… a book?”

“A book. A book?” All the sudden the book floated up into the air, spinning in circles and flipping through its pages from cover to cover. “Where’s my ears? And my beautiful tail? Fu, this was not the deal, you old badger!”

Fu blanched slightly, failing at hiding his guilty and perturbed look. The situation was surely not… ideal, but there was not much about it that could be helped now. “Plagg, I would not have brought you out by choice. It seems the fates have decided that you are needed.”

The book somehow looked… irritated, if that was possible. Even without a face, the crinkle of pages and bend of the cover suggested annoyance. Adrien seemed at least less surprised than before. “Plagg? Is that your name?” he questioned, head tilting towards the weathered black volume.

“The one and only, kid. Spirit of chaos and destruction, at your service against my will,” the book drawled, every drop of enthusiasm leeched from the words.

“At my service for… what, exactly?” Adrien asked, glancing between Fu and the talking book. So far, all he knew about what lay ahead of him was that it could be considered a quest, and unfortunately his brain could conjure up a vast number of possibilities that fell under that umbrella.

“Adrien Agreste, you have been brought to Ever After for the purpose of saving all happy endings. Plagg, your Storybook Spirit, will accompany you and serve as a guide as you navigate the tales ahead of you. His energy embodies the Storybook of Ages to help you along your quest. In the pages, you will find many tales, some familiar and some very much not so, and you must guide them all to their proper endings, whatever they are meant to be.”

Pausing to take it all in, Adrien stared silently at Fu, the gears of his mind visibly turning behind his eyes until the quiet became unbearably awkward.

Fu sighed slightly, frowning upwards at the sky. “Adrien, I know it sounds like a monumental task-”

“So what’s first?” Adrien cut in abruptly, as if his mind had just finished parsing through the information.

Stammering to a stop, Fu managed to quell his shock and stumble into an answer. “That choice is mostly yours, but I did have two pieces of advice for you, and a warning that I hope you will heed. I can tell the temptation to rush headfirst into this is great, but you must exercise caution and restraint.”

“What do you mean?”

It was something in his eyes that made Adrien listen. The concerned tilt of his brows, the way his pupils darted from side to side, looking for interlopers to the conversation.

“The stories may not end the way you think or remember. You must be ready to bring them to whatever ending the Storybook presents you with, or Ever After as we know it may fall apart. Listen to its pages.”

“I understand. How will I know what to do, to guide the stories to the right endings?” Adrien asked, uncertainty lacing his voice.

Humming quietly, Fu stroked his chin in consideration. “Follow your heart and I have the feeling that it will lead you best.”

Nodding, Adrien could only look over at his Storybook, still floating above the dais. “But which story do I start with?” he murmured to himself, gingerly plucking the book from the air, hoping not to annoy the spirit possessing it again.

“Well, kid, don’t you have a favorite fairy tale?” the spirit asked, his pages ruffling back and forth slowly.

“I’ve read plenty; I just don’t know if any of them are my favorite. I guess I just like anything that ended happily. I’ve always wanted to find my own true love.”

“Oh great, you’re that kind of sap,” Plagg grouched.

Adrien frowned, the insult obvious in the book’s words. “What’s wrong with wanting a true love?”

Plag huffed, pages fluttering as if real air had been released. “Nothing, nothing, kid. Let me just take a guess here though. Sleeping Beauty?” he questioned, flipping to a page labeled Little Brier-Rose.

“That one is a little questionable, isn’t it? I mean, the princess is asleep for most of it. And isn’t there a dragon? I don’t think I’m ready for that.”

“So picky. Snow White then? Oh, or maybe the Glass Coffin. Haven’t had anyone try that one in ages. Maybe even Allerleirauh, if you’re interested in sticking out, though that one is… odd.” Plagg rambled, flipping through pages faster than Adrien could read them. Suddenly, his eyes caught on one story in particular, the cursive C standing out before it flickered away in the rush of pages.

“Wait, that one, Plagg. That’s it. Cinderella,” he said with surety in his voice finally. “It’s simple, no magical evil to fight, just… a bad parent.”

“Hmm… that could work,” Plagg hummed, flipping back to the appropriate page. “And it looks like someone’s already started it for us and never finished. Probably got bored, ha.”

And so, filled with overconfidence and self-assuredness, Adrien and Plagg chose their first story. Though unfortunately for them, nothing about it was simple as it appeared.

“Adrien,” Fu interjected, interrupting with more obvious foreshadowing. “You may not always find yourself playing the role you expect in these stories. They have a way of tricking Heroes. Above all else, never reveal to anyone your true, full name. There is power in possessing it.”

As he spoke, the wind in the forest picked up, and Adrien could feel himself drawn to the pages before him. Despite the gale around them, the paper was stone still, and it was almost as if the illustration under its title shimmered with movement.

“Time to go, kid. Hope you’re ready!”

“Wait, Master Fu, what did you mean by-”

Before Adrien could even start his next word, the ever-impatient Plagg had rushed forward to meet his grasp, and suddenly the pages under his fingers were not paper at all, but open air, and all at once he was free-falling through it.

[dragonbookhoard]

Mini Book Review

Whooo!  I took my adderall for the first time in probably a year or so, and then went and finished three books.  Just literally sat and did a reading marathon for eight hours straight.  Two of which were in the dark because I didn’t wanna get up and turn the lamp on, so I just up’d the brightness on my ereader.

Granted, they were ebooks sitting at 64%, 91%, and 70% - but still.  It’s the most I’ve read in years, it feels.

91% - Reliquary (Book 2 of the Pendergast Series) by Preston & Child

Not bad, bit dense and leans a bit into a science-y/police procedural vibe.  Little dry, slower.  I did enjoy it for the most part, and I think I ended up giving it 4 stars, even if it took me forever to get through it.

70% - Blood & Ice (Book 4 of the Silk & Steel Series) by Ariana Nash

Not gonna lie, this is some dark fantasy m/m dragon shifter/elf romance, lol.  Comes with a ton of trigger warnings, a là The Captive Prince - so if that’s not in your wheelhouse, might wanna skip this series.  Sometimes, you’re just in the mood for some dark romance set in a weird fantasy-but-actually-post-apocalyptic-world dark romance.  Honestly, this got somewhere between 3.5-4 stars.  I devoured the first three books in the series, but got stuck on this one for some reason (probably nothing to do with the book itself).

64% - Shadow of a Dead God (Book 1 of the Mennik Thorn Series) by Patrick Samphire

Saved the best for last.  I’ll probably do a separate review for this one, but holy shit I loved this book.  A murder mystery with our POV character being a snarky, self-deprecating, down on his luck, second-rate mage.  The humor in this is just A+, but it manages to weave it into the tension and mystery really well.  Think sort-of noir detective who’s found himself in way over his head and smack in the middle of a conspiracy that he’d really rather not be dealing with.

Sometimes mysteries are super fun and then fall apart at the end - I don’t think this one did.  Overall, I think it was a pretty damn good one.  I even found myself hopping back to check for clues and sure enough.  As the book goes along, you can certainly guess at what’s going on - and you might even get it mostly right.  To me, that’s the sign of a good mystery.  None of these last-minute, bullshit shock-value-only forced twists.  This one made sense.

Also, I just really really loved Mennik.  I’ll be pre-ordering book 2 the moment I’m able.

I might do proper reviews for some of these later (definitely will for Shadow of a Dead God), but there’s my quick rundown.  Now, my eyes hurt, so I’m gonna go lay down.  Remember kids, take breaks and let your eyes rest!  Don’t be an idiot like me, lol.

[theradioghost]

I don't know if you're still doing podcast recs, but if you are, I really like dramas, horror, sci-fi, honestly anything that gives you the feels (especially if it has lgbtq+ rep). I am not much of a comedy person though unfortunately. The only podcast I finished was tma and I really loved it.

The recommendations are always on tap here, whenever my askbox is open! You might wanna check out:

Archive 81, for a found-footage horror about mysterious archives of tapes full of encounters with otherworldly horror, dark rituals, cults, and a long-suffering archivist with the same name as the show creator who plays him, which despite all that could not possibly be more different from TMA and yet easily matches it as one of the best horror stories I have ever enjoyed. The sound design on this show is basically unparalleled – where TMA has fairly minimalist sound design, A81 goes all out. Quite a few lgbtqa+ folk also.

I Am In Eskew, for a surreal, Lynchian horror about the city of Eskew, where it’s always raining and the streets are never the same twice, as narrated by a man who is trapped there and the woman hired to find him. Take the most viscerally disturbing episodes of TMA as a baseline for how intense this show is, then imagine the Spiral built a city and invited all the other fears over for a party. Also right up there as one of my favorite horror things ever, and recently ended, so you can listen to the whole thing right now.

Within The Wires, for a found-footage scifi dystopia, telling stories from an alternate-history world. Three of the four seasons focus on lgbtqa+ leads, and the first season, a set of instructional meditation tapes provided to a prisoner in a shadowy government institution, is still some of my absolute favorite creative use of medium and framing device ever.

Kane and Feels, for a surreal noir-flavored urban fantasy/horror hybrid, about a magically-inclined academic (and sarcastic little bastard man) named Lucifer Kane and his demon-punching partner with a heart of gold, Brutus Feels. They share a flat in London, they bicker like an old married couple, and they fight supernatural evil. This show WILL confuse the hell out of you and you will enjoy every second of it.

Alice Isn’t Dead, for a weird Americana horror story about a long-distance truck driver, criss-crossing the US in search of her missing wife. Along the way she discovers that both of them have been drawn into a dangerous secret war that seethes in the empty and abandoned expanses of America, and that inhuman hunters have begun to follow her. Also finished! And as the title kind of gives away, the lesbians do not die!

Janus Descending, for a sci-fi horror miniseries about two scientists sent to survey the remains of a dead alien civilization on a distant planet, only to learn all too well why the original inhabitants have disappeared. You hear one character’s story in chronological order and the other in reverse, with their perspectives alternating, which is done in an incredibly clever way so that even technically knowing what will happen it still holds you in suspense right to the end. Also, it made me cry, a lot.

SAYER, for a sci-fi horror with a touch of dark comedy, and probably the single best use of the “evil AI” trope I have ever seen. Tells the story of employees of tech corporation Aerolith Dynamics living on Earth’s artificial second moon, Typhon, in the form of messages from their AI overseer SAYER. The first season is great, the second season is okay, and the third and fourth seasons are fucking amazing.

Tides, for a really interesting sci-fi about a lone biologist trapped on an alien world shaped by deadly tidal forces. It’s different from just about any other sci-fi I know, focusing more on the main character’s interactions with and observations of this strange new world, where she’s very aware that she is the alien invader. (Also I don’t think any of the characters are straight.)

Station to Station, for a thrilling sci-fi mystery where a group of scientists and spies on a research ship (the ocean kind) discover that the time-warping anomaly they’re studying might be causing people to vanish from existence. Corporate espionage and high-stakes heartbreak abound. (And once again I’m not sure anyone is straight.)

The Strange Case of Starship Iris, for Being Gay And Doing Crime IN SPACE! Or, decades after a war with an alien species leaves humanity decimated and under the control of totalitarian leaders, the lone survivor of a research mission joins up with a ragtag crew of rebels and smugglers to figure out why the very government she worked for tried to kill her, and to stop them from inciting a second war. 100% lgbtqa+ found family in space heist action and it’s glorious in every way.

Unwell, for the horror-ish Midwestern gothic story of a young woman who returns to her hometown to help her estranged mother after an injury, and discovers that there is something just a little bit wrong, not just with her mother, but with her mother’s house, and with the whole town. Subtle and creepy. The protagonist is a biracial lesbian, one of the other major characters is nonbinary, the cast in general is super diverse.

The Blood Crow Stories, for an lgbtqa+ focused horror anthology! The four seasons so far have been the stories of an ancient evil stalking the passengers of a WWI-era utopian cruise ship, a dark Western mystery about a group of allies trying to stop the mysterious killer known only as the Savior, a 911 operator in a cyberpunk dystopia who starts getting terrifying phone calls from demons, and strange and deadly goings-on at a film studio in the golden age of Hollywood. Everyone is Very Gay and anyone can die, especially in season 1.

The Tower, for a melancholy experimental miniseries about a young woman who decides she’s going to climb the mysterious Tower, from which no one has ever returned. Quite short and very, very good.

Palimpsest, for a creepy, heartbreakingly sad and yet incredibly beautiful anthology series. Season one is the story of a woman who suspects her new home is haunted, season two is a turn-of-the-century urban fantasy about a girl who falls in love with the imprisoned fae princess she’s been hired to care for, and season three is about a WWII codebreaker who begins seeing ghosts on the streets of London during the Blitz.

Mabel, for a part-horror, part-love story, the kind of faerie tale where you feel obliged to spell it with an E because these are the kind of faeries that are utterly inhuman, and beautiful, and dangerous. Anna, the new caretaker for an elderly woman, leaves messages for her client’s mysteriously absent granddaughter Mabel. An old house in Ireland has a life and desires of its own, few of them friendly. Two women fall in love and set out for vengeance against the King Under The Hill. Creepy, strange, and gorgeously poetic.

Ars Paradoxica, for a sci-fi time travel Cold War espionage thriller. Physicist Dr. Sally Grissom accidentally invents time travel, landing herself – and her invention – in the middle of a classified government experiment during WWII. As the course of history utterly changes around them, she and what friends she can find in this new time must struggle with the ethics of what they’ve done, and the choices they’ll have to make. An aroace protagonist, Black secret agents, time-traveling Latina assassins, Jewish lesbian mathematicians, two men of color whose love changes the course of time itself, this show says a big fuck you to the idea that there’s anything hard about having a diverse cast in a period piece and it will break your heart, multiple times. Also finished!

The Far Meridian, for a genre-bending, poetic, at-times-heartwarming-at-times-heartbreaking story about an agoraphobic woman named Peri who decides to begin a search for her long-missing brother Ace after the lighthouse in which she lives begins mysteriously transporting to different places every day. I can never forget an early review that described this show as “the audio equivalent of a Van Gogh painting.” Suffice to say it is beautiful, and fantastically written and put together.

What’s the Frequency?, for a Surrealist noir horror mystery set in mid-20th-century LA. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I can really explain what goes on in this show, but it features a detective named Walter “Troubles” Mix and his partner Whitney searching for a missing writer. Meanwhile, the only thing that seems to be playing on the radio is that writer’s show Love, Honor, and Decay, which also seems to be driving people to murder. Fantastically weird, deliciously creepy.

Directive, for a short sci-fi miniseries about a man hired to spend a very, very long trip through space alone, which doesn’t seem all that sad until suddenly it hits you with Every Feel You’ve Ever Had, seriously I don’t want to spoil it so I won’t say anything more but listen to this and then never feel the same way about Tuesdays again.

Wolf 359, for honestly one of the best podcasts out there, containing all of the drama and feels, seriously this show ended over two years ago and I still cry literal tears thinking about it sometimes. It has definite comedic leanings, especially in the first season which reads a bit more like a wacky office comedy set in space, but it takes a sharp turn towards high stakes, action, and feelings and that roller coaster never stops. Take four clashing personalities alone on a constantly-malfunctioning space station eight light years from earth, add some mysterious transmissions from the depths of space, toss in some seriously Jonah-Magnus-level manipulative evil bosses, and get ready to cry.

or, may I suggest Midnight Radio? It’s a lesbian-romance-slash-ghost-story completed miniseries about a late-night 1950s radio host in a small town who begins receiving mysterious letters from one of her listeners, and I have been assured by many people and occasionally their all-caps tweets that it provides ample Feelings! (also I wrote it.)

[davidmann95]

How were this week's comics? (01/20/20) And happy Trump-Get-Fucked Day!

pretenderoftheeast said: Comics this week (1/20/2021)?

My store got a delayed shipment this week, so no Avengers #41 or Stillwater #5 until next time (though I did pick up M.O.D.O.K. Head Games #1-2 for my dad, which turned out to be a lot of fun!). Otherwise:

Once & Future #15: Mora keeps it going even alongside Dark Detective and soon Detective! While it probably remains my least-favorite of Gillen’s major stuff, I continue getting progressively more into it with time.

Abbott 1973 #1: I recall enjoying the first book and thankfully it was easy to fall back in with this, still a neat little noir urban fantasy mystery.

We Live #4: It was a bit hard to keep everything straight last issue but this reoriented me pretty well, glad I stumbled onto this.

DCeased Dead Planet #7: Ultimately this was way more about the aspects I was uninterested in than the best of what Taylor had to offer with this premise, but there are still a couple really good moments here and it feels clear to me he left just enough dangling for a final installment.

Legion of Superheroes #12: A damn good redesign can’t overcome this still being Bendis being unable to resist haphazardly throwing Rogol Zaar into what’s otherwise been his best book at DC because he can never stop trying to put an idea over once it comes to him, but thankfully it only throws things off so much and I’m still looking forward to what’s next.

Future State: Superman: Worlds of War #1: The big introduction of PKJ as the head Superman writer as he kicks off with a big statement of intent, and...the more I think about it, the more I think this is the best Future State book so far? Not that there’s nothing I would have changed, but it seems to do by far the best job of balancing A. Telling a story that could only be told in the way it is within the future setting with the appropriate weight behind it, B. While acting as a prelude plotwise and thematically to his run on the regular books, C. That can reasonably and satisfactorily fit within the framework of the space provided for it, and D. Is actually good. I can live with an expected eye-rolling ‘and the American Way!’ - heck, Bendis did that too - when the rest of it is packed with high concepts large and small and a ton of interesting little sideways looks into aspects of who Superman is and how he’s perceived, realized exactly as well as you’d want and then some thanks to Janin. The thesis it builds up to is one lesser writers have tried and failed with in the past, but the way Johnson handles it here and his acknowledged influence from Morrison and Waid makes me think that even if he fumbles some aspects along the way, Action Comics and briefly Superman will be in good hands. Unfortunately the backups suck this time around (Midnighter is a real standout disappointment even with that Melnikov art), but I could honestly see the lead feature here making it into a few ‘Best of Superman’ collections someday.

Future State: Immortal Wonder Woman #1: Sucks! Sorry! I’m real disappointed, because most crap Wonder Woman comics have the dignity of being clearly awful wastes of the character up front, while this promised “hey, instead of her fighting Cheetah alongside the military yet again she’s going to go on a cosmic journey through the destruction of all that is!” In practice while Bartel’s work here is absolutely GORGEOUS and I’m going to get #2 so I can see her drawing the end of the universe, the dialogue is stilted, the characters are either bland or completely mishandled, and of the two threats here one falls into said mischaracterization while the other is revealed as something utterly dumb. The Nubia backup is decent, but this has immediately flipped me into skipping Cloonan and Conran’s proper Wonder Woman run. Real shame, I recalled their issue of Doom Patrol: Weight of the Worlds being good and I expected far better of them.

Future State: Catwoman #1: Nice issue; not a huge amount to say beyond that, not quite as playful as V’s standard Catwoman but it makes solid use of the setting to tell a decent heist story that seems to have some interesting twists lined up for its second half.

Future State: The Next Batman #2: Laura Braga acquits herself admirably against the impossible odds of ‘not being Nick Derington’, and along with continuing tapping pretty well into the Year One flavor Ridley gives the first major hint as to Jace Fox’s origin - if it’s what it looks like it’ll probably prove divisive, but I like it the more I think about it. If nothing else it’s a ballsy move to make with a character who’s probably being created with eventual movies and Happy Meal toys in mind. This continues to impress, though there’s one scene with Batman’s thoughts regarding the cops he’s fighting that’s a bit hard to parse given the lack of tone or given his mask facial expression; maybe it’ll be clearer later, but I’d *hope* you’d be able to get away with an ACAB Batman in an outright dark future police state. Unfortunately the Batgirls backup is tepid and Gotham City Sirens is actively unreadable.

Future State: Nightwing #1: The first half is the pretty standard ‘oooo, it’s Dick in the dark future, he’s tougher now, he’s sad Bruce is gone, he doesn’t like there being another Batman because Bruce was the only Batman even though he himself was also another Batman like three times’ stuff you’d expect, if competently written and obviously well-drawn by Scott. But the second half of the issue introduces an additional element that instantly supercharges the dynamic of the book and has me excited for the next issue’s conclusion.

Batman/Catwoman #2: The feel here does come a bit closer to convincing me that this actually was meaningfully reconceived as a prestige format title the way King’s been saying, rather than simply being the next issue of his run with Black Label thrown on the cover. Either way I’m still liking it, it’s Tom King Batman and I like Tom King Batman.

Rorschach #4: I don’t like it as much as I did the previous issues, but I did still like it. No clue where this is going.

[three--rings]

You should listen to...

The Penumbra Podcast...

Okay, so I have this whole sideblog at @gentlysociallypinned​ and when I made it this main blog was almost entirely YOI and I was getting really into a bunch of podcasts/web content so it made sense.  It’s where I have posted The Adventure Zone stuff (almost only reblogging art), my Penumbra thoughts on episodes and my Penumbra fic, and when I was HEAVILY into Critical Role for those few months two years ago,  it was mostly that. 

These days it’s mostly DEAD, but I’m still actively a fan of TAZ and TPP and am going to just bring them over to join the multifandom shitshow this main blog has become since it transitioned from YOI to The Magicians to MDZS mostly.  Whatever, this blog is Shit I Like Right Now.

So I’m going to occasionally be posting and rb-ing TPP stuff.  And since I’ve kept that fandom so much off this blog, I feel like maybe a lot of folks who follow me here might not be aware of it.  Especially if you’re not in any other podcast fandoms.  (Because all podcast fandoms are ultimately one, and NO I have not listened to Magnus yet. Big RQG fan, though.)

ANYWAY, so consider this my VERY LONGWINDED (ALREADY OMG IT’S 5AM WHY?) intro post about The Penumbra Podcast and why you should listen to it. 

It’s Queer.  The End.  

Ha.  But no, really, it is.  Very.  Queer.  The mission statement of Penumbra is to tell tropey genre stories but Very Queer. 

So there are two main fictional universes/storylines that currently make up TPP (at the very beginning of S1 there were one-off episodes but those stopped pretty quickly.)  The main one, the one that starts at episode 1, and that most people think of when they think TPP is the Juno Steel series.  Juno Steel is a noir private investigator who lives many centuries in some nebulous future.  On Mars.  It’s very light, pulpy sci-fi, totally uninterested in explaining its sci-fi-ness.  But it’s also set in a world without our current understandings of gender and sexual categories.  I.e. everyone is just very casually queer and it’s not talked about.   Juno himself is NB and bisexual, though those words are not used in-universe.  The master thief who becomes his potential love interest is an homme fatale.  People are trans and NB without it being a Thing worth commenting on.  It’s...lovely. 

(Above: Official art by Mikaela Buckley.)

It’s also very noir.  Juno is a broken, broken lady at the start of the series, for reasons that very slowly come to light over the course of two seasons.  The end of the first season was enough of a downer to make me literally cry myself to sleep for three nights straight the first time I listened to it.  (At which point I wrote fix-it fic because I was COMPELLED.)  The series, while often silly in the episode to episode mystery plots, also touches on extremely difficult and dark subject matter like drug and alcohol abuse, childhood abuse, mental illness, suicide, etc.  So I feel like I HAVE to put that out there.  All episodes have trigger warnings in the description and you should read and mind them if needed.  Some episodes can fucking WRECK you, in frequently utterly brilliant ways, but still, be mindful.  Ultimately, I will say there is light at the end of the tunnel (though the series is ongoing in the third season atm) but it’s a long, painful road to get there.  But JESUS CHRIST I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a narrative about a mentally ill and victimized character actually working through their shit in real-time in this way.  While also being a show with a hyperintelligent car that communicates in beeps and whistles, and giant killer rabbits that live in the sewers.

The second ongoing universe is The Second Citadel.  This one comes in part way through the first season.  It’s set in an Arthurian-style fantasy universe, but one set in a jungle with all POC characters.  The first few episodes all focus on different characters within the same world, most Knights of the Second Citadel, mostly ones that somehow have broken the stereotype of the usual knight.  (There’s a female knight, a physically disabled prospective knight, etc.)  The first few episodes aren’t that popular and are a little weak, but eventually it all comes together, right around the time that Sir Damien, his fiancee Rilla, and Lord Arum the anthropomorphic lizard monster are introduced as one of the strangest and most instantly charming love triangles ever. 

This is where I started getting actually more invested in Second Citadel than Juno Steel.  Because star-crossed queer love between a knight who kills monsters and one of those monsters and the scientist/doctor girlfriend who ends up also developing feelings for The Lizard....yeah.  It’s Everything, y’all.   I love all three people in this ship SO VERY MUCH.  I even play one of them as a DnD character (Lord Arum.  He’s a Dragonborn Fey Sorlock. )  Sir Damien the knight-poet with terrible anxiety, Lord Arum who desperately doesn’t want to admit to having Actual Feelings for a Human, much less Two Humans!! Fencing while developing Queer Lust!  Rilla the scientist who doesn’t know why she has to have fallen for not ONE SILLY BOY but TWO?! 

This series is much lighter in tone than Juno, so it’s a nice balance. 

So anyway, the show is really filled with excellent writing and fantastic characters.  The acting is also generally Very Good, but that’s more true the longer it goes on.  Some of the actors are INSANELY good.  But it’s not without its faults, especially towards the beginning of the show.  In particular, the sound editing/design isn’t very friendly to the ears, especially if you’re sensitive to loud sound effects and like...blaring alarms and stuff.  If it bothers you I recommend not using headphones and/or listening via an app/device that lets you adjust levels.  It’s literally the one flaw that still annoys me with the show, though it’s gotten better.

So if you’re looking for a new fandom, or something to listen to in these trying times, something fun but also REAL, tropey and sincere...check it out.

And also I have six fics in the fandom, in case you didn’t know that.  I feel like I could always just spontaneously produce more TPP fic at any time, too.

[backofthebookshelf]

Book Recs for Magnus Archives Fans

I was just rambling in tags the other day about how my avatarsona was "the Archivist, but a public librarian: Oh, you like dirt?? Let me tell you all the dirt stories I have!!!!" so, uh, here I am I guess.

I'm gonna spare you all the M.R. James and Algernon Blackwood and House of Leaves and Blindsight; you know all that already. These are my horror backlist recs.

The Bone Key by Sarah Monette Y'all. Y'ALL. Kyle Murchison Booth was absolutely the Archivist before Gertrude. He was poached from the Parrington by the Usher Foundation and the Eye glommed onto him at once, because the Eye loves disaster queers who can't people right (and also Gertrude). This I believe to be true, and so will you.

Kyle Murchison Booth is an archivist at the Parrington Museum, which is somewhere in New England, sometime in the early twentieth century. He also has a lifelong entanglement with the supernatural which is almost entirely not his fault, and he would very much like it to stop, but he also feels responsible and he can't just let evil mirrors and cursed necklaces and possessed dressing gowns randomly eat people who have no idea what's happening. Even if it means he's going to suffer for it.

(This collection doesn't contain all of the Booth stories, so here I am going to link to "White Charles", which happens to be my very favorite Booth story.)

For you if your favorite part is: honestly everything about MAG, from the modern sensibilities about early twentieth-century-horror, truly eerie ghost stories, to suffering eldritch librarians (thanks to whoever tagged my most recent fic with that you're so valid), monsterfucking and soft gay pining. No happy endings here, sorry.

Bedfellow by Jeremy C. Shipp You may or may not have heard that Macmillan-Tor is launching a horror imprint, and I don't know how long it's been since a major publishing house has had a horror imprint, but I am EXCITE. This book is part of the trend that's the reason why: Tor.com has been publishing these kickass novellas for a couple years now, and their horror books are top notch.

One night a stranger knocks on a family's living room window and asks to be invited in. They ask him to stay the night. He's an old friend, after all, he needs a place to stay. You can't kick out your twin brother when he's just gotten divorced, no matter how much Gatorade he spills on your two-year-old hardwood floors.

For you if your favorite part is: the Stranger, this is all Stranger, it's terrifying and good.

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll A graphic novel, some of these were originally posted as webcomics (have you seen His Face All Red, and if not, why not???) and the only disadvantage to having them in book form is they can't blink at you. Probably. Very folktale-ish, with all the death and violence that implies, and also the slightly eerie feeling that you know this story already, and then it turns around and slaps you.

For you if your favorite part is: looking over your shoulder when the foley gets good; Once Upon a Time in Space (I know that's not technically part of the Magnus Archives but shush)

Universal Harvester by John Darnielle I am not usually a fan of artists who jump media. Just because you can write songs doesn't mean you can write novels. Apparently writing good songs doesn't mean you can't write good novels, though, because John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats (pretty sure that's his full name at this point) wrote Universal Harvester and I love him for it.

Jeremy works at a video rental place in Nevada, Iowa (it's pronounced Nah-vey-da, and yes it’s real, I've been there, and yes, it's probably haunted). It's the 1990s, and someone's been returning their VHS tapes with something on them that isn't just the movie. Footage that includes a barn that he recognizes, just outside of town.

Fair warning: this is not the kind of mystery that gets tied up in a nice bow at the end.

For you if your favorite part is: Jon losing it with paranoia in S2, The People's Church of the Divine Host, the Lonely

The Good House by Tananarive Due If this author's name is unfamiliar to you, RUN, do not walk, to your nearest internet bookseller and purchase every single one of her books immediately, you will not regret it. She also just came out with a documentary on black horror, Horror Noire, on the Shudder streaming service. They've got a free month if you aren't a horror movie person, it'd be worth your while. This book summary sounds like it's full of tropes. It is, but Due has the cred to write them well.

Angela Toussaint hopes to salvage her suffering marriage and her troubled relationship with her teenage son with a trip to her grandmother's house, a home so beloved the locals in small-town Washington state call it "The Good House," but tragedy strikes instead. Two years later she returns and finds that the tragedy isn't over, and it's not going to stop on its own.

For you if your favorite part is: the very practical statement-givers who know what's happening to them and Will Not Put Up With This Shit, the Desolation, the Hill Top Road statements

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins Is this horror disguised as fantasy? Found family disguised as horror? Grown-up Neil Gaiman? Less grimdark George R.R. Martin? Honestly I have no fucking idea, but it's amazing. Fair warning, unlike Magnus Archives, this deserves all kinds of trigger warnings, including but not necessarily limited to: sexual assault, torture, mental manipulation, dysfunctional families, incest(?)

Father is missing, and his twelve children (though extremely talented in their own ways, and not strictly speaking children any more) are at a loss without him. But also, without him, things are starting to seem different. He might be God? They might not be human? (They were probably human once.) He might not be God but maybe one of them might be next? If any of them survive.

For you if your favorite part is: slowly turning into a monster, the relationships between entities and avatars, monsters hot (not kidding about the trigger warnings)

The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley I have to keep reminding myself that Magnus Archives isn't really folk horror, there are two separate (if related) strains of British horror here and folk horror is not the one we're on, but at the same time I really want a good creepy rural pagan cult to show up in the series, you know? Anyway.

When he was a child, our narrator used to go with his family on an Easter pilgrimage to shrine on a bleak stretch of Lancaster coastline locals called The Loney. His Catholic mother was searching for a cure for his older brother, and she was convinced if they kept going long enough she would be granted her wish. The locals, however, are not huge fans of her annual visits, and even less so when the boys become involved with the goings-on of a pair of glamorous tourists.

For you if your favorite part is: the Lukases, I didn't realize until I was writing this up that I'm picturing Moreland House in the exact place described by this book

Eutopia by David Nickle One thing I love about the historical statements in Magnus Archives is just how truly historical they are. There's almost nothing in "The Piper" that isn't historically accurate - yes, Wilfrid Owen spent several days in a trench underneath the shredded bodies of his fellow soldiers. Like. You can't make up horror worse than that. But then you add monsters and it gets good. And I'm a sucker for early-twentieth-century history, it's such a bonkers time.

It's 1911 and the new Eugenics Record Office is sending agents out to catalog the disabled, infirm, and otherwise undesirable members of society so they can figure out what to do about them. In the utopian town of Eliada, Idaho, Dr. Andrew Waggoner runs from the racism of American society and straight into the influence of Mister Juke, the most troubling patient in his new practice. (Trigger warnings for, obviously, a whole lot of ableism. Treated like the monstrousness it is, but there's a lot of it.)

For you if your favorite part is: learning history through horror, the Flesh

A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay I hate male writers writing about teenage girls, so you are going to have to trust me when I say that I had to check, several times while reading this book, to make sure that Paul Tremblay is actually a dude. He's very good. This book was kind of his breakout, so if you follow horror you've read it already, but if you don't necessarily then please do not miss it. His newer ones, Disappearance at Devil's Rock (Stranger, Spiral) and The Cabin at the End of the World (Slaughter, Extinction), are also good but not as good as this, I think.

Fourteen-year-old Marjorie is having a rough time - outbursts, hallucinations, paranoia. Treatment is difficult (and expensive) and her family ambivalent; they turn to a local Catholic priest, who recommends an exorcism and, to help manage those medical bills, a production company who's interested in filming a reality TV show about the process. Fifteen years later, Marjorie's sister deconstructs the now-famous show and wrestles with her own memories of childhood. Trigger warnings for ableism on the part of many of the characters, but not the narrative.

For you if your favorite part is: the Spiral, metafictional analysis of horror tropes

[da-tasuky]

Ok, guys let’s get this straight! What about me and my projects now?

Some of you know that things are getting easier for me. Slowly but surely! First of all: Thanks to everyone who has been worried, cheered me up and texted me. Honestly, you are golden! Now that things are more or less settled into something resembling normalcy, I am taking things back into action.

Regarding Art/Commissions: I haven’t been able to do much. During all this time I couldn’t carry around my drawing tablet and well, that happened. Just yesterday I was able to try a sketch of Ladybug from my A Feral Lady fic and I’M SO SLOPPY! Suddenly my desk feels so uncomfortable and hard to draw in. Just give me some time to get used to it again and I’ll finish pending commissions along with art I feel I owe myself and to you all, dear wonderful people who still follow me for my art and I haven’t posted much *sobs*

Zines and other collaborative projects: Luckily some were on hiatus or during process that didn’t need me so they weren’t hindered much if not at all by my absence. Anyway, I’ll join again during the next days and share whatever I’m allowed to about them in due time. I’m very grateful of my friends from those projects for being so understanding over my situation and I’m very sorry for my absence, I’ll return... with weapons!

Regarding Fics and AUs: NOW THIS IS FUN! While I couldn’t take my huge drawing tablet, I certainly was able to take my laptop with me! And you see, I did a lot. I’m not a fast writer at all. And I try to get everything betaed now since I don’t completely trust I’m translating my ideas from my mother language correctly to English but I do what I can to be able to share it with yall ♥ Let me name them, give a summary of it and then tell you what I have in store for it!

Princess Scoop: Pairing: Marichat “A new superhero joined the party. Rena Rouge is a passionate ally with scary reporter and fox tendencies. She was starting to get used to her newfound lifestyle when she discovered something incredible called Marichat.”

Now, let me remind you this was written before Rena Rouge was introduced so it has a non-canon origin to Rena. I honestly have a lot written about this but the third chapter was a huge challenge and ended up split into three parts. And yeah, that’s why it’s been eons and I haven’t posted it yet. But soon, guys, soon. All that writing won’t go to waste. Besides, when I started it I had too specific expectations and I kind of messed up, but now I’m working it in a more relaxed way.

I know you better than that: Pairing: Daminette “Years ago, Marinette started exchanging emails with Damian as a favor for her uncle Alfred. Her first impression of the kid? Annoying and cold. Today, she wouldn't change him for anything. His friendship helped to keep her afloat during hard times especially after becoming Ladybug. Now, Marinette and Alya prepare for a flight to Gotham to meet the frowny bird.”

Chapter 3 is ready and soon to be posted! I have a lot of ideas for it and actually made a huge and wonderful document to plan the story so I’m pretty pumped up! Little secrets from the document along with future sketches will be shared in my Patreon!

A Feral Lady: Pairing: Ladrien “Mister Adrien Agreste has moved to his father abandoned estate in front of a gorgeous forest in the hopes to make new friends, connections, good business and hopefully meet a lovely woman to marry. He never expected this to be the start of close encounters with grievous dangers, witchcraft and fantasy stories becoming real. Who is this mysterious disappeared Miss Marinette he keeps hearing about? And most importantly, does the Werecat that lives in the forest mean him ill will?”

The first chapter is- finally- ready! Actually, it’s been for a long time but I was just very unsure of it, I did some minor adjustments and I think I just should go with it. The second chapter is half-written and I have several original songs for it written too. So what is this fic about? A Feral Lady is basically Beauty and the beast with Jane Austen's influence BUT taking everything from Beauty and The Beast and kind of inverting it. Like I mentioned above, I am doing art for this and will be posted in Patreon before being released here along with the first chapter.

Akumapocalypse: Pairing: Lovesquare Since this AU is kinda huge and I want every single miraculous active, I decided to wait for more info about the characters on S3 to dive into it. Now that there are few miraculous we don’t know about, I was able to easily readapt what I had done with the new info and I can get creative with the others (unless we get leaks while I work in this!) Basically, this AU is pretty much what the name implies, the end of the world at the hands of Akumas. I’ll keep everything else as a surprise!

Oneshots/Other multi chapters: I miiight have mentioned some but honestly, I’m not big into those as much as the others mentioned above. Still, I might finish some one-shots soon and post them between the others, between those there is an akumanette idea, one about Master Fu, another cool and weird one idk how to describe but is basically about Marinette in a hard position and having to create an awful web to protect her identity (?) And I got one very cool multichapter Marichat! But before these, I want to prioritize the others first. Still, if anyone is hungry for the Marichat one, I might be swayed to jump from my headcanon document to a full first chapter. As a very loose way to put that one, I think I’ll call it “Chains” And it will be about an Akuma called The Chainer actually “winning”. Paris is severely damaged and people try to live the aftermath of the Akuma permanent magic. One of the big consequences is that Adrien “disappeared” leaving only Chat Noir and he is forced to live a new life as Chat 24/7. 

Well, that’s about it!

Which one catches your interest the most? My ask is open if anyone wants to know a bit more about my stuff too ♥

[thefloatingstone]

Hey C-Puff! So I know I keep saying that I love your taste, but I'm curious, what would you consider essential scifi movie viewing?

Oof! (and thank you! 8DD) It really depends what kind of mood you’re in. Because “sci fi” is essentially a weird genre, because it can be mushed with literally any other genre and still work without straying too far from the ‘sci fi’ concept. Sci fi is a genre the same way fantasy is a genre or horror is a genre. You can make a horror-comedy or a fantasy comedy, but you can’t make a drama-comedy (At least without some major tonal dissonance). So it REALLY depends what you feel like watching or what mood you’re in or what tolerance level you have in some aspects.

I can list a few though which I feel are super essential viewing but are vastly different from each other. I’m not gonna give a full summary break down of each one because it’ll take me like 3 hours to write (these things take a while sometimes) but I’ll give a little indication!

Edit: oops…. I ended up spending 4 hours writing this….

1: Alien (1979)(Sci-Fi horror)

These days the Alien franchise seems to automatically = Xenomorphs. So it can be hard to remember the very first movie that not only started the franchise but literally changed sci fi as a genre, you barely see the Xenomorph on screen, and when you DO the film does its best to hide what it actually looks like with lighting, camera angles and editing. Because the first movie’s Alien costume was not really good, and the movie had a VERY small budget comparatively speaking. So it literally has the opposite goal of trying to show off the xenomorph as much as possible.

Originally sold as “Jaws but in space”, the whole idea of the film was “What if you were a bunch of truckers in the middle of space and nowhere to run, and something unknown started picking you off one by one. Where can you run? Who can you contact? What can you do?”

The original’s entire focus is on fear. From long sequences of Ripley running where it’s filmed facing her so you can’t see “behind you” as the audience to instill paranoia, to hearing what sounds like extreme amounts of gore off screen where you can’t see it, the entire film is designed to be terrifying.

It’s difficult to remember that with what the franchise is known for today.

Also noteworthy is that so much of what is Alien came from Jodorowsky’s “Dune” which was never made, but nevertheless still achieved Jodorowsky’s goal of changing sci fi forever.

2: Blade Runner (1982)(Sci-Fi Noir)

in 2012, Ridley Scott said in an interview; “30 years ago, I saw the future”.

As far as I am aware, the first movie to ask the question “where exactly does ‘being human’ start or end?” regarding robots. The original Blade Runner is filmed in a way to replicate a 1940s style crime noir story, complete with brooding detective and femme fatale. However, it is set in the FAR OFF FUTURE of 2019.

The story follows our detective, known as a “Blade Runner” chasing down a specific class of robot which is illegal on Earth (but used in off-planet labour deemed too dangerous for human work) after the model number started a riot on one of these off-world labour camps. Detective Decker is tasked in finding and “retiring” a group of robots recently landed in futuristic Los Angeles, especially since the robot group is tracking down and murdering the designers in charge of creating their line.

However, the further Decker investigates things, the more uncomfortable questions he finds himself asking. How are these robots so much more different than us humans? What are their motives? Are they really just machines gone berserk? Or is there something very very human they are trying to achieve.

A film that exploded in Japan and essentially caused every anime between 1982 and 1995 to be in some way a Blade Runner fanfic, it changed the genre even more than Alien did. This time letting philosophical questions and atmosphere do most of the work, as the cyberpunk aesthetic of future Los Angeles was as important a character to the story as any of the human players. It was the first time we truly saw Cyberpunk, and literally EVERYTHING we consider “Cyberpunk” these days came from this movie’s direction and cinematography.

Watch the Director’s cut. DO NOT watch the Theatrical version. The Theatrical version was forced to add narration to the long stretches of silence as the movie distributor thought audiences would be too stupid to handle a movie with so little dialogue in it. The Director’s Cut is how the film was meant to be watched, doing away with all the needless talking and letting the film’s visuals and music speak for itself.

3: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)(Sci-Fi Mystery)

Yes yes I’m biased because it’s my favourite movie. But even if it wasn’t it’s an essential film to watch in the Sci-Fi genre.

Some people will think E.T. holds this title, but E.T. came out 5 years AFTER Close Encounters and so, Close Encounters is one of the first movies if not THE first movie that came out and asked… “What if the Aliens came and were our friends?” Because up until this point, All the “Big-Eyed Grey Aliens in Flying Saucers” movies portrayed them as invaders trying to take over the planet. And the sci fi stories and movies that DIDN’T have this narrative, the aliens were always human looking (Star Trek, The Day the Earth Stood Still etc)

And so, this is one of the first movies that suggested that maybe the weird looking space aliens from another planet who look nothing like us could be our allies. Would want to speak to us. Would want to know us.

Not that the movie is full of love and friendship. in some places it feels more like a horror movie than anything else. But that’s because the film thinks its audience is smart, and it doesn’t have to have a character EXPLAIN things to us. We can understand what’s happening by WATCHING. And if something is strange and doesn’t make sense, it either will by the end of the film thanks to context, or it was never that important to understand anyway.

Also a giant part of the film’s power and influence comes from its visuals, but even more importantly, its soundtrack which I can’t communicate in a gif. And so I am left linking a trailer.

I think it says a lot that it was THIS movie, not Star Wars, that helped the first Star Trek movie to be made a few years later, and with that, helped give us Star Trek TNG. Not bad.

(You can watch any of the 3 cuts of the film. I’m most familiar with the Director’s Cut so that’s my fave and what I would recommend but I haven’t heard of any of the 3 cuts being “the bad one”)

-

4: Total Recall (1990)(Sci-Fi Action)

It was only a matter of time before Arnie showed up on this list, being in no less than 3 Sci-Fi game changers in the 80s and 90s.

What makes Total Recall Unique, however, is that we have Paul Verhoeven as director, who likes movies that have a little more to say than “Arnie shoots a bunch of bullets at things” (as great as that is, don’t get me wrong) And I think the fact that people will STILL debate this movie says a lot about it.

The story is set in the far future, where normal construction worker Arnie is bored with his normal life (which is weird considering he’s built like a truck and married to Sharon Stone but I’m not here to judge). He’s been having reoccurring dreams about going to Mars, as well as a strange woman he meets there. One day while traveling home on the subway, he sees an ad for a copany called “Rekall” who can use a sort of brain implant machine to give you instantaneous fake memories. Basically, you can take a vacation that lasts 6 months in your memories within the span of 10 minutes real time.

Arnie’s character decides to visit, and asks that his fantasy take place on Mars, and describes the woman he meets there. However, during the fake memory implant something goes wrong. VERY wrong. The machine drags up suppressed memories Arnie has of being a sleeper agent, put on Earth until needed, as well as images he’s been seeing in his dreams. The Rekall employees have to sedate him and send him home, refunding him for the poor experience.

However, Arnie can no longer just forget what the machine dragged up from his subconscious, and starts to question if his life really is his life. If his wife really IS his wife. (after all…. Someone who looks like Sharon Stone married to a construction worker who looks like Mr Universe living in a very cushy apartment? Something doesn’t add up.)

Arnie finds himself suddenly dragged into a massive conspiracy plot revolving around Mars, the corrupt governor running it, the rebellion and its mysterious revolutionary, as well as who the hell WAS he before he was who he is now?

That’s the movie’s plot at least. But as many people who watch the movie has pointed out, despite the movie itself never making a point of it, funny how all this adventure and conspiracy hits Arnie right after he’s plugged in to a fantasy machine at Rekall. Convenient.

Nobody to do with the film has given a straight answer as to how real the movie’s events are supposed to be, and film fans have been arguing to this day of it was all real as the movie shows it to be… or a meta narrative.

5: Robocop (1987)(Sci-fi Satire)

The movie that very almost got an X rating for its violence, also directed by Paul Verhoeven and even more biting in its meta-narrative than Total Recall.

The STORY of the movie is that future Detroit is a complete shithole so full of crime that the police force just can’t keep up. After a police officer named Murphy is blasted to fuck, his corpse is used by the CPO company to create a “robotic law enforcer” meant to be put on the street to handle crime. Robocop is his name, and if he proves to be effective, CPO is planning to mass produce them. During the course of the film, however, Murphy learns to regain his humanity through the help of his police partner, and uncover the scrupulous CPO company’s hand in the city’s crime wave.

So that’s the STORY of Robocop… but it’s not what Robocop is “About”.

Robocop is essentially an enormous criticism of Corporate America in a way that’s basically come true since the movie came out. Robocop is one of those rare movies that is BETTER now than it was when it came out.

OCP is essentially Apple or basically any current American company. Focused on rushing out products for the good press it’ll give them before ironing out the problems and bugs, and taking MASSIVE and inhumane shortcuts in development to meet a deadline, uncaring who gets hurt in the process.

This message is further highlighted by the fake commercials peppered into the movie, a very clear criticism of everything from America’s extreme focus on its military and racism of other countries, American manufacturer’s disregard for what is environmentally safe in favour of “Status Symbols” in its fuel guzzling cars, America’s obsession with defending people’s ownership through unethical violence, Medical and health advertised on television like a luxury product, as well as just the inane meaningless garbage that is/was American television.

As a native of the Netherlands, Verhoeven pours so much cynicism and criticism towards American culture, both in the jokes as well as the core theme of the movie, that the film as a whole is less “Watch Robocop shoot his handcanon at bad guys” and more a dystopian nightmare, and finding humanity in it despite it all.

The only movie to top Robocop in its criticism of American culture would be “Starship Troopers” also directed by Verhoeven. But that movie is so depressing I almost can’t even reccomend it, despite it being GENIUS.

It’s the movie where the human race wins a war against giant bug aliens… and that’s the worst ending that could happen.

6: Enemy Mine (1985)(Sci-Fi drama)

*leans forward and smiles at you* hey there, friend. Do you like aliens? Do you like enemies to friends to lovers? Do you like found families? Do you like “Racism is bad” narratives? Do you like non-binary aliens who have no gender? Do you like romantic undertones between non-binary aliens played by a male actor and a cis white dude also played by a male actor?

Because BOY DO I HAVE THE MOVIE FOR YOU.

You think I’m joking with that description…. I am not. Not even a fucking little.

I very rarely see anybody talk about “Enemy Mine” and that’s a fucking crime because this movie is friggen AMAZING. The fact that it exists at all, let alone was made in the 80s is borderline absurd.

The movie takes place in the future. Humanity is in an intergallactic war with an alien race called the Dracs. Battles and skirmishes between the two races explode throughout the galaxy on various planets whenever the two species run into each other, and we follow our human main character Davidgewho, during a spaceship confrontation with the Drac, crash lands on an uninhabited planet, along with the Drac pilot named Jeriba Shigan.

The planet they crash on is a violent world battered by meteors and storms, which forces the two pilots to seek shelter in a cave near their crash site (and there was only one cave!). Despite them both needing shelter, the two absolutely despise each other, completely prepared to kill the other one the second they make a move. It’s a tense and paranoid stand off where each one waits for the other to move first. Neither of them do.

They find out that the planet is sometimes used by human miners for its rare ore (who use captured Drac as slave labour) but they only visit the planet periodically when the years- long bad weather settles. And so, Davidge decides to wait for rescue, despite knowing it may take several years before any human comes to the planet. Until then, he just has to survive and NOT get killed by the Drac he’s sharing the cave with.

So… the two wait. And a weird truce is called. And they wait… and time passes… and with literally no other life to turn to for company… well…. they start talking. First spitting and insulting each other. Then, slowly, learning more about each other. Then, slowly, sharing cultural information with each other, learning about their different species, learning about what each’s species have been telling them about the other. And well…. after several years… it becomes very hard to see the only living person you have been talking to for years as an enemy.

And then, after a while, Jeriba (nicknamed “Jerry” by Davidge) brings up a tiny problem.

He’s pregnant.

Davidge asks how the fuck that’s possible. Jerry explains his race has no gender or binary sex, and they produce asexually. So… ok…. Now you’ve got an alien you don’t FULLY trust who is pregnant and going to have a baby on this hostile planet.

…..oops.

Also, as time goes on another problem arises. The humans who will eventually show up to mine this planet use Drac as slave labour. This wasn’t ORIGINALLY a problem…. but it’s kinda become a problem now.

This movie is fucking amazing and nobody talks about it. Go watch it. Although be prepared for tears and feelings.

7: Galaxy Quest (1999)(Sci-Fi Comedy)

In modern day America (or rather 1999 America) there use to be a show called “Galaxy Quest” which DEFINITELY WAS NOTHING LIKE STAR TREK OK???

It was a very big show, but it eventually got cancelled. However, it is still considered a massively popular and influential tv show, enough to have its own conventions and dedicated fanbase. (AGAIN. IT’S NOT STAR TREK STOP SAYING THAT!)

The actors who starred in it many years ago now struggle to get work in other roles which they all deal with in different ways. Our Kirk Character played by Tim Allan is an egocentric selfish asshole who bathes in the “glory” of his role as the captain, despite it having been years, in complete denial that he’s a has-been and the fact that none of the other cast like him. Our Spock character is played by Alan Rickman who wants to know where his life went wrong. He use to be a REAL actor. He use to star in Shakespear plays. How did it come to this? He hates all of you. As well as Sigourney Weaver who had the important role of “Sexy Girl” in the show (a fact she resents) and a handful of others.

One day at a convention, they are approached by some super awkward and weird cosplayers, who ask them in-character if they could help their alien species, the Thermians, who are getting decimated by a warrior race lead by a General Sarris. As the Thermians are peaceful and have no experience in battles, they’ve come to ask the “Crew of the Starship Protector” to aid them. Alan Rickman agrees, believing it to be a promotional gig, and signs up his co-stars (only telling them after the fact which they resent him for)

The next day they play out their roles as they did on the show rather unenthusiastically, ordering the Thermians to simply shoot at General Sarris to defeat him, and then take them home.

Things turn complicated tho when the Thermians show up again and say “uhm… it didn’t exactly work. general Sarris is still alive and killing out people.”

And then our motley crew find out… the Thermians are NOT actors. They are in fact a real alien race. An alien race who are unfamiliar with the concept of “lying”. Their species had picked up the radio waves from the Galaxy Quest TV show and, believing it to be a historical record, modeled their entire civilization after the show. And now they need the crew of the “Protector” to help them in the face of this threat that could wipe them out as a species.

So our washed-out has-been actors find themselves pretending to really be their characters in a real space mission to save an alien race. Which is kind of a problem considering they have no idea what they’re doing at any point during this adventure.

8: Terminator 2 (1991)(Sci-Fi action)

I could have put the first Terminator movie on here… but I didn’t. Beause although both are excellent I personally prefer the second one. You don’t really need to have seen the first one to understand the second one either. I saw the second one first and it’s pretty easy to follow since the first movie’s plot wasn’t that complex.

10 or so years ago, Sarah Conner was visited by a time traveler who revealed he was from the future, and that in 1997 an AI known as “Skynet” would launch all the world’s nukes, causing the human race to almost become extinct. But Sarah Conner is the mother who will one day give birth to John Connor, the human rebel leader who will one day vanquish the machines. The machines know this, and Skynet sent back a robot called a “Terminator” to kill Srah Connor before she can give birth to humanity’s last hope.

Fast forward to this movie, Sarah Connor has been put in a mental institution (for rather obvious reasons) and her son, John Connor now 10 years old, lives with his aunt and uncle and is what we call a “problem child”. With no father figure in his life and his mom “going nuts”, John is a kid who smokes, steals bikes and is constantly in trouble. Then, one day, a robot from the future shows up to kill him. An advanced NEW kind of terminator sent by the machines, made of liquid metal, it is another attempt by the machines to kill John Connor before he can grow up to be the rebel leader.

This time however, Humanity has sent someone else to protect John. The exact same model of Terminator who tried to kill his mother, repurposed and reprogrammed to protect John from this lethal machine.

John, being a child, has to cope with the fact that not only is a killer robot trying to murder him, but ALSO his “nuts” mom turned out to be right. And he also starts developing a weird relationship with the robot sent to protect him. Looking for some kind of father figure to fill that hole in his life.

Although the first Terminator might have been more impactful in terms of visuals and ideas, the second Terminator is the one people remember as a movie. This is where “Hasta La Vista Baby” come from. This is where “Made from Liquid Metal” comes from. This is where THIS comes from

and where this comes from

and this

I don’t know if I can call it a BETTER movie than the first Terminator… …except it kinda is…. And one of the very few sequels where it ended up having more of a cultural impact than its predecessor.

9: Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan (1982)(True Sci-Fi)

One upon a time there was a show called “Star Trek”. It then had a movie which did kinda of ok at the box office but many thought was rather boring.

And then they made Star Trek 2.

Set several years after the original show, where all the main characters are off living different lives. Kirk is an admiral working on Earth behind a desk. Spock is a training instructor to students who will one day be pilots and crewmembers in the Federation. The rest of the Enterprise’s former crew are all scattered across the Federation, either on Earth or on other Starships.

Far off in space, a Federation ship is looking for a dead planet to test a brand new technologcal creation called the “Genesis Device”. While doing so, they find Khan and his crew, who 15 years ago were left on a lifeless planet by Kirk after they tried to take over the Enterprise for use in Khan’s mad plans revolving around Genetic engineering. Khan and his crew take over the ship and learn of this “Genesis Device” with its power to destroy all life when unleashed on a living plan. Khan only has one goal in his mind; Revenge.

While on a 3 week long training mission under Kirk and Spock, the Enterprise picks up a distress signal, and go to investigate.

This movie honestly has no right to be as good as it is. Even if you have 0 knowledge of Star Trek (as I did when I first watched it) it makes complete and perfect sense on its own, and its extremely easy to understand what’s happening and why. It helps if you’re familiar with the characters, but the film on its own portrays their friendships and relationships with each other so perfectly that you completely buy every scene with them together, and WHY they’re friends. And how LONG they’ve been friend, without having to watch seasons and seasons worth of episodes to catch up. You don’t even need to watch the first Star Trek movie.

The film is a story about revenge… but it’s main core theme is about grief. Grief in many forms. Khan’s grief over the death of his wife which he blames Kirk for and his burning fiery hatred. Kirk’s grief as an aging space captain, unable to cope with himself growing old and the fact that he never truly learned how to handle loss, as someone who ALWAYS believes there is a way to save the day. Grief over lost relationships with his ex-lover and a grown son he never knew about and lost an entire relationship with.

Despite being about spaceships in space shooting at each other and long drawn out tension filled scenes between Kirk and Khan, it’s a movie about mortality, and the need to face it.

10: The Last Starfighter (1988)(Sci-Fi Adventure)

I could have put many things down for “Sci Fi movie about having an adventure”. I could have put ET or Explorers or Flight of the Navigator, but I decided to put The Last Starfighter. Even though ET may be the better known adventure film, it’s also the movie most people will have already seen, and Flight of the Navigator might look better, but it’s story is far weaker. So Last Starfighter it is.

In backwoods tiny-ass American town there lives completely normal teenager Alex Rogan. He doesn’t have that much going for him. He lives in a trailer with his mom and younger brother and has just recently had a scholarship rejection. Frustrated with his life and with little else to do in the trailer park, Alex spends most of his time playing the only arcade machine called “The Frontier”. After a lot of play and effort, Alex manages to get the high score on the machine.

After doing so, he is approached by the creator of the machine called Centauri, who is there to offer him a ride in his fancy car as a prize for holding the grand score. Having been taunted by the other teens around the area, Alex decides to take Centauri up on his offer, only to get abducted. And not in the “Teenager kidnapped by a creep” kind of way, but the alien kind of way.

It turns out there is a very real intergalactic war going on between Rylan Star League and the Ko-Dan Empire. And the arcade machine had been placed on Earth as a sort of recruitment tool for new pilots to fly for Rylan Star League.

Given the chance to actually have something happen in his Life, Alex has to learn how to be a Starfighter with the help of Centauri who reveals himself to be an alien, and the rest is simpy fighting the Ko-Dan Empire and saving the day.

Most notably, The Last Starfighter’s space battles were all done using early CG and it has… .not exactly aged that well tbh.

But is still incredibly impressive for 1988 and helped paved the way for special effects, leading to their peak in Jurassic Park in 1993. But although the CG might be why the movie is important to the genre on a technical level, the reason most people remember this movie is nostalgia in its purist form.

Who wouldn’t want to be so good at a video game that aliens come and give you a spaceship and ask you to save the galaxy?

I personally find the scenes on Earth without the CG to be the better parts of the movie, but it does what it sets out to do. To be a sci fi adventure film for teenagers and kids to watch and enjoy and see the hero win. Uncomplicated, fun, and easy to digest as a movie.

I was gonna leave it at that but I gotta add one more

11: 2010: The Year we make Contact (1984)(pure Sci-Fi)

in 1968, a year before America landed on the moon, Stanley Kubrick made the groundbreaking movie “2001: a Space Odyssey”. The movie is a sort of horror movie in space, but also not quite. It tells the story of an enormous black rectangular monolith being found on the moon in the year 2001. Upon human astronauts touching it, it sends off a signal into space. Not long afterwards, another monolith, this one more than several kilometers in size appears orbiting Jupiter.

A crew of 5 men and an AI computer are sent to investigate. But the AI, called the HAL 9000 goes mad and kills off all the crew except for one, named David Bowman, who takes the HAL 9000 offline before leaving the spaceship and entering the Monolith.

The original movie is a masterwork of film, suggesting that the monoliths are responsible for jumpsarting human evolution. But it is also a very SLOW film. Famously taking 40 minutes before the first line of dialogue is spoken. And its horror of distrusting computers maybe be seen as rather old fashioned by today’s standards.

Then in 1984 they made a sequel. 2010 takes place 9 years after the first movie (obviously). Several American astronauts and scientists are approached and recruited for a secret mission joint sponsored by America and the Soviet Union. Their mission is to travel to the long abandoned space station, find what information was retrieved from the monolith, and try and discover what caused the HAL 9000 to malfunction. Time is of the essence as the abandoned space station will crash on Jupiter’s moon Io soon. The Soviets want to know what caused the disaster, but they need the Americans’ help to get into the space station, and an uneasy joint mission is formed, lead by Dr Floyd who was in charge of NASA when the original disaster occurred and had since been disgraced, but who would prove the best person to find out what happened to cause the disaster.

The movie, although perhaps slow by modern standards, moves at a much better pace than the original, and although you could say its plot is more basic, it’s also easier to follow and understand. There are moments of extreme tension from multiple areas. Reactivating the HAL 9000 and having to try and NOT repeat whatever it was that caused it to murder the original crew. The time limit before the space station is set to crash on Io, the mystery of what happened to David Bowman. The presence of the silent monolith orbiting Jupiter. And the seemingly unimportant political differences between the American crew and the Russian crew, despite being hundreds of thousands of miles away from Earth.

It also has some of the most incredible space cinematography I’ve seen in a film. Rather than the modern depiction of space in movies as a swirl of navy and stars and colourful nebulas, the space of 2010 is pitch black, with endless stars and enormous looming planets in the foreground, and nothing but a wall between you and the endless void.

Anyway those are my reccomendations.

Please consider donating to my kofi…. this took like 4 or 5 hours to write.

☕️Buy me a Ko-fi ☕️

[gokinjeespot]

off the rack #1303

Monday, March 2, 2020

 This is a public service announcement. You will be ticketed for parking on the street during a parking ban even though the snow has already been cleared from the roads. We got a ticket parked in front of our house last week because we couldn't get into our driveway after the grader left a big snow bank at the end of it. I hope to spare anyone from being dinged with what I think is an unfair fine.

 Amazing Spider-Man: Daily Bugle #2 - Mat Johnson (writer) Mack Chater (art pages 1-12) Francesco Mobili (art pages 13-20) Dono Sanchez-Almara, Protobunker & Peter Pantazis (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). I can't read the rest of this 5-issue mini. The art really bothered me this issue. It was hard to tell what was going on the first few pages and then seeing Peter Parker in civvies looking almost exactly like the bad guy confused me further. There are interesting mysteries about Spidey's webbing and a Wilson Fisk involvement with an explosion, but this story probably won't matter in the grand scheme of things, so I don't think I'll miss anything if I bail out here.

 Punisher Soviet #4 - Garth Ennis (writer) Jacen Burrows (pencils) Guillermo Ortego (inks) Nolan Woodard (colours) Rob Steen (letters). Frank and Valery go after Konstantin by kidnapping his trophy wife. She's amenable to divorce by Punisher. Thank Garth for improving my mood.

 Basketful of Heads #5 - Joe Hill (writer) Leomacs (art) Riccardo La Bella (additional pencils) Dave Stewart (colours) Deron Bennett (letters). Everything leading up to this issue has been circumstantial. Now the villain tells the complete story. I'm rooting for June to survive this mess.

 Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen #3 - James Tynion IV (writer) Steve Epting & Javier Fernandez (art) Nick Filardi (colours) Travis Lanham (letters). Heh, it's the Joker who helps Lex beat the Batman Who Laughs. It looks like next issue's pulse pounding conclusion will be Lex and his super villains versus the Batman Who Laughs and his infected super heroes. It's been a while since the Main Man has been in a comic that I've read.

 Avengers #31 - Jason Aaron (writer) Gerardo Zaffino, Geraldo Borges, Szymon Kudranski, Oscar Bazaldua, Robert Gill & Mattia De Iulis (art) Rachelle Rosenberg & Mattia De Iulis (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). I haven't seen Tony Stark in a while so I assumed he was dead. Nope. He was zapped a million years into the past by the master manipulator Mephisto. The devil tries to get Tony's soul. This is a wonderful full issue of Iron Man and if Jason wrote an Iron Man book, I'd read it.

 Amethyst #1 - Amy Reeder (story & art) Gabriela Downie (letters). I remember reading the original Amethyst book when it hit the racks in 1983 with the Ernie Colon art. It was fun and weird with a plucky heroine. This new Wonder Comics book has the appeal of having art by Amy Reeder who wowed me with her work on Madame Xanadu and Rocket Girl. Here she is writing as well and the art and story is tight and concise. This is a nice substitute for the dearly departed Naomi book.

 Avengers of the Wastelands #2 - Ed Brisson (writer) Jonas Scharf (art) Neeraj Menon (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). It's the origin of Captain America of the Wastelands. His name is Grant. I think this is a great way to change tried and true Marvel characters to make them fresh and new. Having them fight an evil Doctor Doom is nice and simple. Four Avengers may become five but they have to contend with a super villain first.

 Suicide Squad #3 - Tom Taylor (writer) Bruno Redondo (art) Adriano Lucas (colours) Wes Abbott (letters). The new Squad's first mission under Lok's leadership does not go according to plan. Neither are these super villains what they seem. This is why I read Tom Taylor books. Forget about any new Crises and DCeased and pick up this most excellent comic book for some straight up action and skulduggery.

 Kill Lock #3 - Livio Ramondelli (story & art) Tom B. Long (letters). I get why the calligraphy font is used in the Wraith's word balloons but man, is it hard to read. This issue explains why The Kid is innocent and shouldn't be branded. The four droids find the one who can lead them to the Kill Lock's off switch but she betrays them. This universe of sentient robots is pretty cool.

 Jessica Jones: Blind Spot #4 - Kelly Thompson (writer) Mattia De Iulis (art) VC's Cory Petit (letters). Each issue has started off with Jessica held captive by the bad guy. The end of this issue reveals who that is and how she was killed and resurrected. I am looking forward to the conclusion to see how she defeats the villain.

 Batman Superman #7 - Joshua Williamson (writer) Nick Derington (art) Dave McCaig (colours) John J. Hill (letters). A new story starts here. Part 1 of "The Kandor Compromise" pits the World's Finest duo against Ra's Al Ghul and General Zod. One of the bad guys is working with the good guys. I got bored of the fight between Superman and Rogol Zaar so what happened to the city of Kandor was a surprise to me. I'm interested to see the final fate of the shrunken city.

 Giant-Size X-Men: Jean Grey and Emma Frost #1 - Jonathan Hickman (writer) Russell Dauterman (art) Matthew Wilson (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). This mostly wordless $4.99 US one-shot will be a quick read but I read it twice just to soak in the beautiful art. The story starts with the discovery Storm's body and ends with a problem after Ororo is resurrected. This leads into a story where Jean, Emma, Logan and Scott will have to save Storm again.

 Leviathan Dawn #1- Brian Michael Bendis (writer) Alex Maleev (art) Josh Reed (letters). Leviathan succeeded in shutting down every spy agency and the leader has been revealed to be an ex-spy named Mark Shaw. The good guys are still trying to fight back but they're going to need help. Time for Kingsley Jacobs to start up Check Mate again. I like the players he's gathered. I'm looking forward to watching this game unfold.

 Finger Guns #1 - Justin Richards (writer) Val Halvorson (art) Rebecca Nalty (colours) Taylor Esposito (letters). And now for something completely different. This new urban fantasy introduces two teenagers with a weird power. Wes discovers that when he shoots people with his left hand he can make them angry. Sadie can calm people down when she uses her right finger gun. They meet by accident at the mall and try to get a handle on their newfound powers. It's a cool concept and I wonder where these kids are going to end up.

 Fantastic Four: Grimm Noir #1 - Gerry Duggan (writer) Ron Garney (art) Matt Milla (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). This one's all about Ben's bad dreams. I thought the bad guy was Nightmare but it's another one of those mystical villains that generally mess with Doctor Strange. I expected some sort of Mickey Spillane type story but there's no murder, just a pretty dame needing rescue. It's a nice character study of the ever lovin' blue-eyed Thing.

 Detective Comics #1020 - Peter J. Tomasi (writer) Brad Walker (pencils) Andrew Hennessy (inks) Brad Anderson (colours) Rob Leigh (letters). Two-Face is back and he's more bipolar than ever. This is what I like to see, an old villain presented in a slightly new way. We still have the scarred coin dictating how Harvey acts but there's a new twist with a cult of fanatics and the Church of the Two Strikes. I love how the first page hints at the return of the Court of Owls too.

 Falcon & Winter Soldier #1 - Derek Landy (writer) Federico Vicentini (art) Matt Milla (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). This 5-issue team-up starts off with a heavily armed and armoured hit squad attacking Bucky Barnes in his home. The Winter Soldier emerges unscathed and hops his motorcycle to find out who sent the killers. Meanwhile Sam Wilson is searching for a missing vet. The two meet at a government agency office where all the staff are dead. Wanting to know who's doing all the killing has got me interested in reading the rest but when a preppy killer shows up and kicks both of the heroes asses I decided to put this mini on my "must read" list. The kid's name is the Natural. Picture a blonde Damian Wayne in a pair of Chuck Taylors.

 The Amazing Spider-Man #40 - Nick Spencer (writer) Iban Coello & Ze Carlos (art) Brian Reber & Peter Pantazis (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). The fight between Spider-Man and Chance had to do with a bet that Chance could get one of Spidey's web shooters. What bothered me was how easily that was done and Spider-Man's lack of urgency to get it back. There's a couple of foreshadowing scenes that will keep me reading however. One involves the Clairvoyant device and the other is who Norah Winters is working with.

 X-Men #7 - Jonathan Hickman (writer) Leinil Francis Yu (art) Sunny Gho (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). This issue is dedicated to a new Mutant Ritual called the Crucible. It's a lot shorter than calling it the Arena of Death and Rebirth. It shows how mutants who have lost their powers can get them back. But first we have to endure a deep philosophical discussion between Cyclops and Nightcrawler. It's a real snoozer if you're an action fan.

 Action Comics #1020 - Brian Michael Bendis (writer) John Romita Jr. (pencils) Klaus Janson (inks) Brad Anderson (colours) Dave Sharpe (letters). I wish they would stop with the deceiving covers. It looks like Superman is trying to come between Lex Luthor and Leviathan but what actually happens inside is Superman fighting Lex and the Legion of Doom. If it weren't for Young Justice helping out I would have found this issue boring.

 X-Men/Fantastic Four #2 - Chip Zdarsky (writer) Terry Dodson (pencils) Rachel Dodson, Karl Story & Ransom Getty (inks) Laura Martin (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). There's a lot of heroes accusing heroes of shenanigans concerning the disappearance of Franklin and Valeria. They are actually guests of Doctor Doom. Victor wants to reverse what Reed did to his son and I want to know why. With the X-Men converging on Doom Island, good old Doc Doom is prepared for an attack.

 X-Force #8 - Benjamin Percy (writer) Bazaldua (art) Guru-eFX (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). Why did Oscar Bazaldua stop using his first name in the credits? Domino and Colossus attack the flesh factory making assassins using Neena's DNA. The organisation funding the flesh factory has a mysterious benefactor and I'm hanging around to find out who that is. I wish they would change either Sage or Jubilee's costume. I keep getting them confused.

[lovelivingmydreams]

Lukanetteweek Day 4: Miraculous Part 2

Day 1 Day 2&3 Part one is here When Luka got to the fight, Chat Noir was in a tight spot. Two of Tallemaja’s followers were holding him down. The akuma was walking over slowly, savoring her prey. “Ladybug’s precious kitten as my faithful servant. I wonder, would she give up her miraculous in exchange for releasing your heart from my hold? How fond is she of you really I wonder.” Chat noir struggled to get free. “My lady would never give in to blackmail like that. She’s too smart.” Luka had to step in. He strung his lyre in a way that wouldn’t set of his power, but would very much draw the attention of the akuma. He started to sing. “A beauty before me, behold, such wonderful sight, My world covered in darkness then she brought the light.” It was ridiculously cheesy but in this mind state she just might fall for it. He figured she’d dreamed of being serenaded before. Giving her that fantasy might just give Chat the opening he needed to break free. “Hello there, my fair lady,” Luka greeted once he locked eyes with her. He bowed for her, hoping to please her lovesick heart. Indeed she seemed dazed by his actions. He knew he didn’t have much time before Hawkmoth realized that she was being distracted from her goal. “I was passing trough and couldn’t help but notice what grave injustice was done. A girl like you should never be this upset.” The akumatized version of his classmate smiled, elated at her mysterious admirer’s words. Behind her Chat took the fact that her servants were distracted by the fact that she’d seemingly abandoned them for this new guy to floor them. She seemed unconcerned by this though. Luka expected chat to pounce right away. But instead he saw him look up at the building behind him, smile and then he gestured for Luka to keep going. Sadly Luka wasn’t that great at improv and he got nervous. He assumed that Ladybug had arrived on the scene. He took comfort in that. There were two experienced superheroes who had his back. It would be alright. He probably should try to grab the akumatized object or at least communicate to Chat what it was. “Such a beautiful dress you are wearing. But what it that strange accessory on your belt?” he wondered casually, hoping this was enough. He didn’t dare risk another glance at Chat Noir to confirm that though. “Don’t mind that. Who are you, handsome stranger...” her voice was a strange kind of sweet. It felt like honey dripping down his back. Not a pleasant feeling. He smiled though. And, deciding that his superhero name might snap her out of her little fantasy he said: “I can be whoever you need me to be darling. I’m completely at your service,” he swore. When he looked up at her eyes he saw a sharp glint. O crud. She’d regained her wits. “No, not yet at least.” He shot up and got ready to defend himself, she got ready to pounce, behind her Chat Noir prepared to restrain her if needed. Before any of them could do anything thought a familiar yoyo wrapped around the victim who screamed out with a yell as she was tied up. “This situation clearly needs a lady’s touch,” Ladybug smirked as she jumped down from one of the nearby houses. “My Lady so glad you could join us,” Chat said relieved while he fought off the horde of servants who’d jumped back into action now that their mistress was in clear distress. Luka ran in to join him, using his lyre to knock out the transformed civilian boys. He was slightly disturbed to find that each of them resembled him in small or big ways. Whether in his looks, clothing style or the fact that they were carrying a guitar. He’d have to talk to Annelie once all of this was over. He wouldn’t be able to give her what she wanted, but he could offer her his friendship. “Sorry boys, I got held up,” she explained. “No problem Ladybug. Though I am glad you came when you did,” Luka admitted. He wasn’t too sure he’d last very long in a straight up fight with Tallemaja. “Let’s get this butterfly taken care off...” Ladybug said as she reached for the akumatized flyer. “Noooo!” Tallemaja screamed as she literally sank trough the ground, leaving the yoyo behind on the surface. So apparently she got two powers. Mind control and going underground. Considering that the Tallemaja in the story belonged to a race of creatures that lived beneath the surface, that made sense. Luckily the army of admirers came to a halt when the akuma disappeared. It seemed like they depended heavily on her to function. When she was distracted they barely put up a fight, when she wasn’t here they didn’t do anything at all. The three heroes grouped together and Luka could see that Ladybug was thinking something similar. She called for her Lucky charm now that she had the time. Earplugs. “Meouwch, I know most cats don’t have the best reputation when it comes to singing but I swear I’m not that bad.” Chat joked. Luka could see that Ladybug was trying to concentrate so he let her be. Chat was probably already on the point where he could judge how much he could play around without being a bother. He however should let the more experienced fighters do their thing. He caught her glancing at a stack of flower bags on a pallet near a delivery truck, chat and himself and smiled. “Got it. Let’s hurry before she get’s here.” She looked at Luka. “Wait for my signal and give her all that you’ve got. Then you have to go for the akumatized object and release the butterfly. Okay?” Luka nodded. Signal, use power, destroy object. No problem. Once they saw the earth move where Tallemaja was about to emerge chat destroyed the flowerbags, Ladybug used her yoyo as a fan to blow the cloud of flower in their direction by the time Annelie was back above ground she couldn’t possibly see what was going on. Neither could Luka, but he didn’t have to. He could hear Ladybug’s signal just fine. He called forth his special attack while charging towards the spot Annelie had stood in. When he got there she was dazed, a relaxed smile on her face. It was only a matter of snatching the flyer and tearing it up. The moment the butterfly appeared above the cloud it got snatched up and purified.The cure washed over them and once again they all had a clear view. The horde of boys walked off dazed, just wanting to get back to where they were before the attack. People had gotten way too used to these things. The heroes pounded their fists together right when Alya arived on the scene. Ladybug went to comfort Annelie while she let Luka introduce himself. Which was fine and all but Luka really wanted to check up on Marinette. “The akuma kidnapped Marinette Dupain Cheng. Do you have confirmation of her status for my viewers?” Luka smiled. She tried to be professional, but naturaly her first concern was finding out where her best friend was. “I personally escorted the young lady to a safe place.” “Same goes for her friend, Luka something?” Nice one Chat Noire. As if you didn’t say my full name less than an hour ago to make the delivery of the miraculous sound more official. Alya then proceeded to ask his name and other generic stuff for on her blog. Once she was done she was instructed to wait here for her friend to find her. They promised to send Marinette straight here afterwards. He looked down and picked up the flyer. It was covered in hearts and initials everywhere, except for his picture and one of her she’d glued next to it. He walked over to Ladybug and Annelie. “This is yours,” he stated calmly. The girl blushed as she grabbed the piece of paper and held it close. “Thank you,” she whispered. She was clearly ashamed of what happened. “You look anxious, I thought snakes were supposed to be coldblooded,” Ladybug teased. He just shrugged. “I left the girl on a nearby roof, I just want to get her down before she tries to get down herself;” he admitted. “That would be a very Marinette thing to do. She isn’t one to wait around when her friends might be worried about her. At least that’s the impression I got from her from our earlier encounters,” Chat said casually. “Oh, no. I didn’t hurt her did I?” He’d never seen Annelie like this. This was actually a person he could be friends with. “No worries, she doesn’t have a scratch,” he assured her. “Thank you...” she frowned. “I don’t know your name...” she admitted. “Viperion,” he told her. “Thank you Viperion. And thank you Ladybug and Chat Noir. I should get going,” she said. Right when the girl walked away Ladybug’s earring beeped. “Yikes, gotta go! Bug out!” “We should get going too. We’ve left Marinette waiting for too long already,” Luka stated. Chat chuckled. “You’re a great friend huh?” he mused. Luka gave him a serious look. “I hope I’ll be more than that at some point.” Chat was taken aback by that. What? Had it not been obvious? He supposed not. All Chat saw was that the focus of this Akuma’s obsession was willing to run after his friend who was kidnapped by said akuma. They hurried to the building Luka had taken Marinette to. They found her pacing the roof. “There you guys are! Is everything alright?” she worried. “The cure fixed everything. All’s good,” Chat ensured her. “We’re here to take you down. Your friend Luka was released from his rooftop too and is on his way. Together you should go back to the square where you were held. Your friend Alya is worried.” He held out his arms. Asking permission to carry her down. She hesitated and then gave in. He picked her up and then went down jumping between the buildings until they were safe on the ground. Once he put her down his bracelet gave an insisting beep. He bowed, kissed her hand and with a final “Until we meet again,” he and chat hurried a few streets ahead. Luka handed Chat the miraculous and after a quick thanks and goodbye he ran back towards where they left Mari. She too was running towards him and once they set sights on one another they ran into each other’s arms. “I was so worried,” Luka admitted. “I’m fine, but you. She was after you, are you okay?” He nodded. “Not a scratch.” They both laughed in relief. When they pulled away they locked eyes. And for a moment the rest of the world didn’t exist. Luka carefully bent down, hesitant. Not wanting to push too much. Mari just tightened her hold around his neck and started to slowly close her eyes. He continued his path and started closing his too. He’d hoped this moment would come and while this weren’t the circumstances he’d wished for, this felt right. Then the sound of a camera flashing followed by a muttered curse interrupted them. Alya stood there, phone in hand ready to record their moment that was now officially over. “Pretend I’m not here?” she tried. Neither could bring themselves to be mad, they just started laughing. The tension of the day coming down. Maybe it was for the best that they didn’t do anything impulsive while riding an adrenaline high. They were young, they had all the time in the world.

Day 5&6 day 7

[benbarnesescape]

You Do Something To Me

Billy Russo x Curvy Reader 

A Billy Russo AU

Summary: You own a bakery in Brooklyn. He’s a private investigator that comes in to enjoy your baked goods. What happens when the stars shift and your paths intertwine? Will love be enough to handle the dangerous world that Billy’s life is?

Warnings: M for Mature (Language, Sexual Themes)

This story is created in celebration of Ben’s Birthday 

Chapter 1 – Mad About the Boy

Private Investigator Russo was the kind of trouble your mother warned you about. He was all parts that 50’s black and white films stirred in you – dark and brooding and mysterious. Enigmatically charismatic but always kept that part of his personality hidden for the rest of the world, glimmers of it rising to the surface when he was around close friends and colleagues that he trusted. The sort of man that knew what he wanted and knew how to get it, that suppressed his intelligence under quick wit humor and was the kind of handsome that made you believe you were in a 1950’s Noir film. Perhaps that was the biggest tragedy of all of this.

He was so wretchedly handsome that he should be illegal. Hickory eyes that felt predatory always twinkled with intellect and amusement. A shadowed beard that he always kept maintained, his stylish haircut that would look like a hipster on anyone else made him distinguished, his thick dark mane and buzz cut sides balancing his look in all the right ways. He had the kind of lips that you just wanted a taste – just a small one – and a lean muscular frame that you knew when he moved revealed his sculpted muscles, the strength contained by the seams of the button ups he wore. He reminded you of a panther.  A dangerous, dark panther that you wanted to be hunted by.

But that was the fantasy. Because desire or not, that wasn’t your luck.

So you lied to yourself. It was a lot simpler to tell yourself that you didn’t care about Billy then to say it out loud. And it seemed to work. Your natural pride winning over the fact of your heart; that when Billy entered a room you felt like your tongue went twisted and your legs turned into melted butter. But better that then admitting out loud to yourself that you were so love struck after a man and not just any man, the handsome popular detective that most women this side of the island lusted after. Forget about it.

“I don’t know Y/N,” your best friend and co-owner of the restaurant you owned Valerie would say anytime the topic arose. “I think he might have a crush on you.” Oh the fanciful thoughts that spread through your mind after she would tell you that.

A Forbidden Taste was the name of the restaurant you both owned. In the mornings, it was a busy bakery, attracting a clientele of different New Yorkers that were either already living or willing to venture to Brooklyn for, and you were quoting a review from a magazine ‘The best chocolate croissants and coffee this side of the Hudson’. That was how you killed time between the hours of 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. Then it closed for five hours, before it was opened at 6 for dinner and any late night caps to amuse the people. Where they could sip wine and enjoy tapas or the pleasure of a full meal. When you and Valerie had saved up for the restaurant fresh out of college, promising each other that you would make it happen, you had thought it would become a lofty dream. That you would be lucky enough to work in a prominent restaurant anywhere in America that would make you happy.

But now you were thirty and though you slept less hours than you did even in college, had flour constantly in your hair and spent more time worrying over paying the mortgage versus your own rent, you had somehow done it. You owned a restaurant that fused both good evening dining with delicious breakfast tapestries and all it cost you was…your personal life. Sacrifice worth it.  

Which was why the deep crush you had on one Billy Russo had taken you off guard.

It wasn’t that you didn’t date. You had, plenty of times throughout the years especially through the luxury of apps making it even simpler. It was nothing ever too serious – the men in your life didn’t like that you were so involved with your business, that you earned more than them and was more ambitious and, did they never forget to mention, how somehow a middle class thirty year old was able to own their company. It was fine, you could take affection where you could. Except Billy made you think more on the possibility.

It had been eight months ago. Frank Castle, his partner, had heard of your place through Curtis. Curtis, who had sold you insurance for your property and become one of your favorite people, had been the best marketing team you and Valerie could have ever wanted, and all it cost was an occasional box of his favorite peanut butter cookies or croissant or dinner on the house. Curtis was the kind of man this country had been founded on – a vet who knew the sacrifice of being a good man. He had told his best friend Frank, had been mentioning it to him for months and it had resulted in Castle and Russo coming in on a cool, autumn morning.

Valerie had noticed them easily, too handsome gentleman who walked with confidence and grace. They wore suits, the kind of suits that you saw on shows like Madmen and fedora hats to match, their hands stuffed in their pockets as they surveyed the menu. They had settled on something savory, you remembered because you had come out of the kitchen with a fresh batch of whatever it was and had looked into his eyes.

Deep, dark hickory pools that barreled into your soul and made you trip, barely dropping the fresh batch of whatever as you caught your breath as you mumbled your apologies to Valerie who had thrown you a side eye.

That had been the beginning.

At first, they would drop by every other day for coffee and the same sort of savory pastry – Monday through Friday. You spent most of your time in the kitchen, in the back supervising and baking so Valerie always had the delight of seeing them.

And then they changed their schedule.

For the days they wouldn’t come in the morning they would come in at night, typically around 9:30 or 10 and always for tapas and drinks. American Whiskey straight and the variety sampler of tapas. Sometimes Curtis would come with them. Other times Frank’s wife, Maria.

Billy always came alone.

You knew because in the evenings you were at the register, helping to wait tables and manage the front end and bartend, if needed. You always, somehow, ended up making small talk with Billy. Typically while refilling the tables glass with water or when he would check out or was too impatient to wait for a waitress to replenish his glass of whiskey.

The talks were always brief, insightful and made you pant for more.

This is what you’re thinking about Saturday night, the late night rush slowly dwindling down as you sit in a corner, a glass of chardonnay beside you as you looked over the menu for the upcoming week. Really you were glossing over the paper, sketching small designs delicately on the side of the ivory paper, your mind a million miles away.

The balcony was open and diners were enjoying the late evening breeze, how the humid wind mingled with the air conditioned restaurant as they spoke lowly, whispering to each other that it almost felt like secrets once the words hit your ears. You’re too focused on your writing, too enraptured by the couple you were sketching out that you almost don’t hear the clearing of his throat. It nearly makes you jump out of your skin as you move your hand from resting on your chin, startled eyes snapping up to meet the dark lobes that was watching you with mild interest.

“Didn’t mean to startle you,” his voice is like the expensive whiskey he always orders, smooth and husky as he clears his throat. “I just wanted to ask if you wanted company?”

He’s not wearing his normal attire, at least not completely. He still has on the suit pants, midnight black today, that is kept up with suspenders that stand out against his startling white shirt though the sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. . He’s holding his jacket, thrown over his shoulder that reveals his gun holster though currently it’s empty. His hair is still smoothed back in that stylish coif that makes you want to run your hands through it but somehow he looks less business like, more casual. There’s a glass of what you know to be whiskey in his other hand and his eyes look hopeful as they look down at you.

You find your breath and nod, motioning to the seat on the other side of your booth and he scoots in with finesse as he lays his jacket on the cool leather beside him.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you not working. You’re always moving around when I come in.” his voice is amused and curious as he takes a sip and you chuckle as you fall back into your seat, hands still doodling at your drawing.

“I should be working,” you give a sigh and shrug. “But it’s been a long week. Valerie was out for most of the week, back to see her family so I’ve been working unforgiving doubles. Which had been fine but I guess it’s just caught up with me.”

He gives a small grin and nods before gesturing to the menu,

“You re-designing the menu? Didn’t knew you drew.”

You laugh, shaking your head.

“No, nothing like that. Just doodling. I’m not good or anything – it’s a hobby. But it’s fun to doodle, to spark my creativity in way that’s not intuitive for me.”

You motion toward his suit, grabbing your wine and asking,

“I’ve never seen you here on a weekend. What has been so important that you’re still working on a Saturday evening?”

He laughs, relaxing into his seat before shrugging.

“Observant are we,” he take a sip of his drink, “I was working a case and got what I needed a lot quicker than I thought. I was so close and….never really had the courage to drop by on a weekend I figured why not. A night cap would be refreshing.”

You nod as you take another sip, looking over him cautiously over the rim of your glass. You want to ask him more, want to ask why he never had the courage and what new case could he reveal some details to, like Valerie was always trying to pull out of him but that insecure part of you that always closed down the conversation stops you. It’s not the insecurity that you’re not good enough – you know that you’re beautiful and intelligent and smart. It’s that small piece of you that always stops you when you like someone more than you are willing to let on and you instead give him a small smile as you flicker your eyes beyond him.  

You both fall into an easy silence, drinking in the sounds of the late evening before he clears his throat again, causing you to look back over at him.

“Soooo,” he asks, trying to break the silence. “Do you like music?”

You lift a curious eye brow. Of course you did. He knew that. One of your first conversations had been around the kind of music you liked, what you would play in the restaurant even if Valerie wasn’t a fan of it.

“Yea. Doesn’t everybody?” he chuckles again, nervously as he lifts a hand, rubbing it behind his neck.

“Ah yes, I guess they do. The thing is, I got these tickets to a ummm…..Herbie Hancock at the Concert Hall for next Saturday. And I know how much you like jazz and Herbie in particular so I figured if you wanted….I know you work a lot, you work hard but I figured I’d ask if you wanted to go. With me?”

It takes you a minute to comprehend what he’s asking, to fight the urge to look behind you and not ask, “Who – do you mean me?” You play it cool instead, opting to instead taking another long sip, slightly tilting your head to the side as you drink him in. You’d never seen Billy so nervous – he was the kind of man that flirted with any women who gave him a second look or didn’t, the kind of man that spoke with confidence and surety. Now, he looked at you like any other man who was asking someone new out on a date and wasn’t sure what they were going to say. You knew the look – saw it every day in New York.

And he was being this vulnerable for you.

“You asking me out on a date Russo?”

His face heats up, tomato red and your stomach lunges as he smiles wider, his eyes avoiding you, his right hand rubbing the back of his neck even more furiously.

“Ahhhhh I guess I am. I mean, I am. I…would you want to? I’d treat you to dinner and everything.”

He has that New York accent that just drips with a confident SWAG, the kind of voice that always makes your heart lunge. His eyes flicker back to you cautiously and you smile as you get up, gathering your paper and throwing back your chardonnay. You walk a few meters before you stop, bending down and whispering,  

“I’d love to. I’ll leave my cell with Kelly at the register. Shoot me a text and we can work out details, I need to start prepping for closure.”

And then you walk as quickly and coolly as you can back to your office because you’d be damned if you don’t text Valerie what just happened.

Tag List: @binbonsadoration @la-fille-en-aiguilles @delos-mio @just-nikkii, @ladyblablabla, @drinix, @youveseen–thebutcher, @marauderskeeper, @thesandbeneathmytoes, @cutie-bug, @banditthewriter @presstocontinue @benbxrnes @hxbbit @padfootagain @fortisfiliae @benbarnesfanforever @lafemmedemon @giggleberts @barnes-ben @iheartbinbons @goblackhatwithme @geminimoonbeamx @that-bwitch

[theradioghost]

what books did u get ? i rly need to get back into reading more now school is over

oh man. so I’ll give you what I bought & then I’m also gonna throw in some similar books that I have already read just because I can actually vouch for the quality of those

(brief note that my main qualifications when I was looking for books, besides not wanting YA, was that 1. they were not about straight cis white men and/or 2. they had particular appeal to one of the areas of sf&f that I have a particular fondness for and/or 3. they cost under five bucks. so there’s a lot of diverse lit, and a lot of novellas, and a lot of urban fantasy wizards who are also detectives/rebellious angels and or demons/necromancy/dragons/stuff that is explictly Lovecraftian adaptations but takes the piss out of Lovecraft/anything on this list/anything published by Tor)

new books that I have read:

(coming back to update this as I get through these books)

the Lovelace & Wick series by Jennifer Rainey – this is the Demon Husbands one I’ve been yelling about. Two gentleman demons in love – a Faustian tempter and a bringer of catastrophes – are growing increasingly dissatisfied with the work they do for hell, while also being forced to contend with new and dangerous enemies. Set in a vaguely-steampunk 1890s Massachusetts. Also includes monster-hunting steampunk scientist lesbian wives.

Deadline by Stephanie Ahn – fourteen months after a disastrous failed ritual, disgraced blood witch Harrietta Lee gets offered a ridiculously lucrative job quietly recovering a stolen artifact for a young member of a powerful magical family, and promptly finds out that this is too good to be true. Also she keeps meeting scary, hot women. Instantly the only wisecracking urban fantasy PI named Harry that my heart has any room for. (This one’s a bit Spicier than my usual fare but the author actually includes a list of content warnings including page numbers at the front of each book, which you can view with the preview option on the Amazon page.)

Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw – A kid hires London PI John Persons to kill his stepfather. The first catch is that the stepfather is a Lovecraftian horror. The second catch is that Persons is too. This is like, the noir-est horror I’ve ever read and that’s something I am very into. 

The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djeli Clark – An urban fantasy police procedural set in an alternate 1912 Cairo, in which two government officials are sent to deal with a strange, malevolent spirit in the midst of political upheaval as Egypt’s women demand universal suffrage. There’s a free short story prequel to this on tor.com called “A Dead Djinn in Cairo“ that’s worth reading first.

Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone – high fantasy with a black protagonist, in which Tara Abernathy, a disgraced magic user and rookie associate in an internationally renowned necromancy firm, is assigned to resurrect a city’s murdered patron fire god – but first, with the help of a chain-smoking priest and a vampire-addicted servant of Justice Herself, she has to track down his killer.

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey – in an alternate history where the 1910 “Hippo Bill” passed, Winslow Remington Houndstooth, an ex-rancher out for revenge, is hired to travel north with a ragtag crew – a con artist and pickpocket, a demolitions expert with a proclivity for poisoning, the most dangerous contract killer in the country, and the very man who ruined his life – and take on the dangers of the massive swamp that was once the Mississippi river, a place ruled over by deadly feral hippos and a homicidal riverboat gambling king.

or, essentially, a swamp-based heist Western with a cast including a British-East Asian bisexual man, a black nb person, an unashamedly fat woman, and a pregnant Latina lesbian, and also their pet hippos. Listen just go ahead and get the version with both stories in it

Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh – Tobias has lived in the woods as long as anyone can remember; long enough that the nearby town tells stories of the Green Man, the spirit-king of the forest, who dwells in the trees. These stories are truer, and far more dangerous, than anyone but Tobias knows – so when friendly, handsome, curious Henry Silver buys up the neighboring Greenhollow Hall and starts investigating the local folklore, Tobias will have to decide whether to sacrifice the only life he has known for centuries, or the first person he has loved in all that time.

not-new books that I have read:

idk if you don’t know about the Wayfarers series, the first of which is The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, but it is an absolutely stellar bit of sci-fi very much based around ideas of found family and discovering your own identity and place in the universe and love and compassion and stories based around sweet slice-of-life stuff in a scifi universe with lots of fun aliens and it is so very queer and so very heartwarming and all three books (which each have different casts, although the characters in all three are connected to one another and sort of cameo across all the books) are fantastic.

Urban Dragon by J.W. Troemner – Dragons are supposed to be ruthless, unpredictable, deadly, selfish creatures. So why is it that Rosa Hernandez seems to be able to keep her best friend Arkay in check? How did Arkay, a shape-changing dragon with lightning at her command, end up being found alone and starving and with no memory of her past by a homeless woman? And as evidence mounts that someone is hunting down supernatural beings, who can they trust? (I stumbled across this while looking for urban fantasy on TV Tropes and BOY am I glad I did. Good if you like close friendships between queer women or the enemies-to-lovers trope)

The Merry Spinster by Daniel Mallory Ortberg – of course I was going to read Daniel Ortberg’s short story collection, are you kidding me. Not “””darker””” fairy tale retellings, but fairy tales as often very surreal, psychological horror. Read this if you want to totally ruin “The Velveteen Rabbit” for yourself.

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker – historical fantasy set in the early-20th-century Orthodox Jewish and Middle Eastern immigrant communities of NYC, about the strange friendship that springs up between a bitter jinn trapped in a mortal body and a masterless golem living among humans. and it gave me feelings.

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle – a retelling of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story “The Horror at Red Hook” from the perspective of a black man. One of the better pieces of horror I have ever read.

Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff – a very different take on a similar concept to The Ballad of Black Tom, wherein a mid-century black Midwestern family find themselves mixed up in the plans of a bunch of cultists and set out to disentangle themselves from this whole cosmic-horror mess. Apparently Jordan Peele is adapting this into a TV show, so I’m stoked for that.

new books that I have not read:

(& also a couple that are just books I want, and some that I just haven’t read yet but got free from the Tor monthly ebook club, which is very much worth joining)

Armed in Her Fashion by Kate Heartfield– I’m just going to let the official blurb speak for this one because there is absolutely no way I could improve on it

The Black God’s Drums by P. Djeli Clark – New Orleans-based steampunk fantasy about an airship captain and a stowaway who talks to orishas.

Rupert Wong, Cannibal Chef by Cassandra Khaw – Apparently several authors have written standalone works in this series, and Cassandra Khaw’s aren’t chronologically the first, but I love Cassandra Khaw and “chef for ghouls and pencil-pusher for the Ten Chinese Hells is forced to solve an inter-pantheon murder mystery” just sounds so good to me.

Bones and Bourbon by Dorian Graves – Cursed half-huldra PI is forced to help out his little brother and the demon who shares his body, and then everything goes wrong. Feat. carnivorous unicorns.

Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova – reluctant bruja attempts to rid herself of her magic and instead plunges her entire family into magical trouble. YA.

Robbergirl by S. T. Gibson – WLW retelling of The Snow Queen from the perspective of the bandit princess. YA.

Passing Strange by Ellen Klages – slightly-fantastical historical lesbian noir novella set in the burgeoning 1940s gay club scene in San Francisco.

The Black Tides of Heaven by JY Yang – admittedly caught my eye because the cover art reminded me of Moribito, which I adore. East-Asian-inspired epic fantasy which I believe has a nonbinary protagonist.

Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire – I’ve been neglecting getting around to October Daye way, way too long considering how much I love Seanan McGuire and urban fantasy, but my mom started reading this and that pushed me over the edge because damn it, yes I want to read her take on the Wizard Detective genre that I have such a weakness for.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson – this was recommended to me in a Tumblr post listing interesting, diverse fantasy, and I’ve been into high fantasy political intrigue lately.

The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg – came across this in a Twitter thread about fantasy worlds with unconventional and interesting magic systems. A newly graduated student of magic is bitter about being sent to learn paper-crafting magic rather than working with metal, until Murder Stuff Happens. YA.

Miranda in Milan by Katharine Duckett – queer fantasy sequel to The Tempest, with Miranda as protagonist.

Witchmark by C. L. Polk – post-WWI gaslamp fantasy MLM romance about a male witch in hiding, working as a doctor; the reviews seem to indicate people think it’s more ‘delightful’ than ‘literary’ but apparently it is pretty fucking delightful.

In the Vanisher’s Palace by Aliette de Bodard– East Asian WLW retelling of Beauty and the Beast and also one of them is a dragon.

Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys – another one of the rash of new Lovecraft adaptations that are turning perspectives around, this being one where the citizens of Innsmouth are the protagonists. Also has a really good short story prequel you can read for free on tor.com.

also I just feel like mentioning that I’m stupidly excited for Gideon the Ninth by Tamsin Muir to come out this fall because the review they’ve decided to put at the top of every blurb is “Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!” (not my exclamation mark) and I don’t know how anyone could more perfectly craft something to my tastes.

[grimelords]

I finally finished writing up my February playlist for your enjoyment but mostly mine. It’s 48 songs ranging from italian screamo to Celine Dion and you have my personal guarantee you will enjoy at least one of them.

Halftime - Young Thug: There's two parts in this song that are maybe my top two Young Thug moments ever. 1) when he says "I got water I look like I'm fresh from Hawaii" and then makes a noise like a dog shaking himself off 2) the world's longest tyres screeching sound, at about :47, it goes for fully 12 seconds and is absolutely perfect.

Hydrogen - M|O|O|N: Hotline Miami is a good ass game and this song is great but I've got to admit that I only really know it because someone edited a video to make a dog bark the melody line and I think that's very good. 

Vale - Bicep: The way the fuzzed out bass rhythm contrasts against how crystal clear and plastic futuristic everything else in this song is is just great. This song reminds me that I should probably listen to Kelala because I've only heard her in features so far and they've all been great.

Sittin' On The Edge Of The Bed Cryin' - The Drones: This is a sort of atypical Drones song because it's not about about a particular thing, it's just about a bad feeling and not being able to see your future because of everything lurking ahead of you. I think that's why I like it so much, because it's just sort of a song about saying 'I feel bad!!' and not having to give a reason.

Golden Dawn - Gospel: I really do think that The Moon Is A Dead world is an all time great album and that it rarely gets talked about anywhere is one of the greatest crimes of underappreciation in music. It's understandable, because it takes a lot for an uncool genre like screamo to get mainstream critical attention the way something like As The Roots Undo did, and mixing that kind of aggression with extremely uncool lengthy 70s prog keyboard solos... look, I get it. But somehow there's nothing uncool about any of this music; it's just deeply felt, radically composed and authentically performed. It's absolutely one of my favourite albums of all time and this is the centrepiece. I was taken with a fantasy this month of doing something very cool and transcribing the drum part of this song just to see it laid out in front of me because it is really a masterpiece. Also there is something very special about imbuing a lyric like 'hey you, you got a cigarette man? you know I know you got one on ya.' with so much gravity that you can't help but yell along.

I Know There's Gonna Be (Good Times) (feat. Popcaan & Young Thug) - Jamie xx: Young Thug says he's gonna ride in that pussy like a stroller in this song and that’s when I knew I was in love.

Crow Jane - Skip James: Yet another good song in the pantheon of songs about shooting your wife for being too proud and then immediately regretting it because now you have no wife.

Le Merle Noir - Olivier Messiaen: I think it's really funny that in the classical music canon there is about one hundred freaks who got singularly obsessed with putting their best approximation of bird song in their music. Birds don't even sound that good but in the old days its the closest you had to a markov chain I suppose. Anyway this is a really nice piece that my girlfriend did as one of her flute performances in her music degree and I like it a lot.

Obsession - Animotion: I started watching Comrade Detective this month and the soundtrack is all sorts of very good 80s synthpop. This song especially stood out because in the show it was being performed with accordions in an illegal Romanian casino, but this version is good too.

Back To The Trees - Adele H: Nothing worse than being a musician named Adele and having to go by Adele H because Adele is well and truly taken. I found this album on a random blogspot and it truly felt like 2011 again. This song is like a primitivist hymn sung with a loop pedal, and if you're in the right state of mind it's very moving.

Aries - Lynx: I was doing some googling and ended up finding the band that Dave Konopka from Battles used to be in. This band is good because they're called Lynx and they have a song called Mrs Lynx, and I think it's both prudent and wise to write a wife for your band. This song however, is called Aries. I was hooked from the start-stop drums right at the start, but this is some of my favourite type of math rock. Clean, clear, concise and purposeful and never losing sight of the structure of the song as a whole.

Westham United (live) - Tera Melos: This is the best version of Westham United I've ever heard, and you can hear the lyrics a lot better here than the album version. Tera Melos live are so unbelievably tight it's insane, This is ferocious, god bless Audiotree.

You Let My Tyres Down - Tropical Fuck Storm: Tropical Fuck Storm is Gareth and Fiona from The Drones' new side-project and it sort of just sounds like the Drones with more female harmonies in the background which is good as hell. I love the weird little guitar frills in this where it's mostly pretty chordy and then he does these little hammery runs now and then that really liven the place up.

Fool - Mia Dyson: I have a big thing about Mia Dyson because she made three incredibly good albums and then left Australia to try to make it in America and unfortunately failed, and ever since then all her music has felt like she's aiming toward some kind of crossover appeal instead of just doing what she really wants. But luckily it's finally paying off because this new song sounds like Haim's first album and it's really good so everyone wins.

Are You Ready For The Country? - Neil Young: This is the song I envision playing over the air raid speakers through the city when it all goes down.

Living Through Another Cuba - XTC: Continuing that theme, Stereogum had a very good playlist of the other day called 80s Nuclear Anxiety and I discovered this incredible song in it. This song is good in headphones because someone's doing some very restrained zither playing every 4 bars and once you notice it it's impossible to stop hearing it. 

Release - Christoph De Babalon: I found out about this extremely bleak album from the really good reissue review pitchfork had the other day, and this is probably my favourite song on it because I'm basic and it's the most straightforward dnb on here. This album reminds me of Zomby a lot, not only in the music but in the approach where the structures seem to simultaneous reflect someone putting a lot of care into their music and not giving a fuck about it. The individual sounds are so meticulous but the structures of all the songs here are very meandering and feel like they could end at any time or go another ten minutes and you wouldn't notice.

Preachin' Blues - Son House: The idea of joining the preisthood as a way to get out of having to get a real job is a timeless idea that appeals to the teens of today more than ever.

1 di 6 - Raein: What I love about the internet is the way you can just type words in and it will manifest whatever you wish, like a sort of cursed wishing well. In this instance the words I typed were 'italian screamo' and the gift it bestowed was this incredible one-long-song album from Italian screamo band Raein that completely kicked my ass.

A Little Change Could Go A Long Ways - City Of Caterpillar: I've been investigating early 2000s screamo, and in particular Circle Takes The Square's contemporaries and it seems crazy that I've never heard this City Of Caterpillar album until now because at long last it's something that sounds comperable to As The Roots Undo. The extremely brooding, crescendocore post-rock intro that dominates more than half of this 10 minute song gives way to a complete storm. I am absolutely desperate for a screamo revival but it seems like nobody else is.

Jupiter - Cave In: This song is good but it also sounds like it's from a musical, I think it has to do with the clarity of his lyric delivery. It sounds like the difference between American Idiot and American Idiot: The Original Broadway Cast Recording, but it's also a very good song.

I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho) - Pitbull: I woke up with this song in my head one day which is always a very good song. Also this song has a good sample chain: the beat's sampled from 75 Brasil Street by Nicola Fasano, which samples the horns from The Bomb! (These Sounds Fall Into My Mind) by The Bucketheads which in turn sampled the horns from Street Player by Chicago. How good is music!

Introduce Me To Your Family - Otoboke Beaver: My friend sent me this song because it came up mysteriously in his Discover Weekly and I'm so glad he did. It's good to know that japanese punk has been continuing on and getting more and more insane without me noticing.

Part 5/ The Sun's Gone Dim And The Sky's Gone Grey - Johann Johannsson: RIP to a good man. I was so sad and shocked to hear that Johann Johannsson had died last month. This album is a favourite of mine, and while this song doesn't have the weight it should outside of the context of the rest of the album it is still an incredibly heavy mood and a beautiful piece of music.

Heart - Bertie Blackman: This song feels like the alternate, evil version of Single Ladies by Beyonce to me and I get it stuck in my head all the time.

Acetate - Metz: I'm obsessed with the rhythm of this song, how it just tumbles over itself over and over in this lopsided way and the way that plays against the big straight forward power line of this song: I. WANT. YOU. TO. TAKE. IT. AWAY.

Bodysnatchers - Radiohead: It's funny to think of Johnny Greenwood as a film composer, and especially as the composer of the Phantom Thread when he does songs like this. This song is just straight up Riffs. The most air-guitarable Radiohead song outside of Creep.

Nameless, Faceless - Courtney Barnett: I'm so glad Courtney Barnett is back and her new song is an absolute killer! I can't get enough of it and I cannot wait for the album.

Can't Fight The Moonlight - LeAnn Rimes: This is a song written from the perspective of a vampire, and a banger. The instumentation in this is a perfect distillation of everything good about 90s pop. Especially the bizzare chunky guitar and orchestra stab that starts it off. The big bass sound and orchestra stabs in the chorus? I'm kissing my fingers like a chef right now.

Lava Lamp (Chopnotslop Remix) - Thundercat: It sounds strange but the chopped and screwed version of Drunk is fast becoming my favourite version. Firstly because it's very appropriately named Drank and secondly because the biggest obstacle to me getting heavily into this album was that it was just way too busy sometimes, a flaw that has been perfectly surmounted by chopping but NOT slopping the entire thing.

Someplace - Yamantake // Sonic Titan: I am desperate for more from this band. I absolutely love this mix of airy guitar and vocals suddenly moving into very classic metal. It's very theatrical and I absolutely love it.

Jejune Stars - Bright Eyes: Remember how Bright Eyes last album had extremely heavy Rastafarian But Not Reggae influences for some reason? I loved that. The guy talking about Pomegranates at the end of this song, and especially the way he pronounces pomegranate has become a staple of my inner monologue.

New Coke - Health: God Health are just so powerful. I want them to score a film some day soon, because they did a great job with Max Payne 3 and their sort of singular aesthetic is just so intoxicating. I go through stages of not listening to Health for months and then it's all I want to listen to for hours and hours very loudly.

3AM - Matchbox Twenty: Check this out: Rob Thomas has the exact same voice as Gerard Way from My Chemical Romance

Is That All There Is? - Peggy Lee: I was thinking about Trump's weird brain, which I believe to be a sort of smooth pebble covered in mashed banana, and so I googled his favourite song, and it is this. He says "It’s a great song because I’ve had these tremendous successes and then I’m off to the next one. Because, it’s like, “Oh, is that all there is?” That’s a great song actually, that’s a very interesting song, especially sung by her, because she had such a troubled life.". Listen to this extremely nihilistic song and imagine him swanning around with his weird body and singing along to it please.

New Town - Life Without Buildings: Life Without Buildings reinvented songwriting and nobody even cared. It's unbelievable. This song is an incredible end to their incredible album that feels like it was written just for me. I love Life Without Buildings!

Music For The Long Emergency - Policia & s t a r g a z e: Polica's new album with the stargaze orchestra is unfortunately kind of mixed but luckily the title track is very, very good. It feels like a real textural expansion of everything Polica's been doing before, to have so many more layers to play with really benefits them but the songs are thankfully still rooted in the drums, bass and vocals combo like usual and haven't gotten lost in the possibilities of playing with an orchestra. The synth sound that begins about halfway through this is so thick and so nice and really takes the whole thing in a different direction for the second half.

Carnival Of Sorts (Boxcars) - R.E.M.: I'm really loving R U Talkin R.E.M. Re: Me? and so far and the main difference I've found between it and UTU2TM is that every single R.E.M. song sounds exactly the same. They're very good, but it's one song. So when they go through the album track by track and talk about what the love about each one it almost sounds farcical. They could be playing the same song 12 times in a row and I wouldn't notice. That said, this one differentiates itself by starting with a weird circus organ before beginning The R.E.M. Song so I appreciate it for that.

Give Me A Smile - Sibylle Baier: As I understand it, Sibylle Baier was warned about the existence of music blogspots some time in the early 70s and started living her whole life from then on in the hopes of being the source of a good post. This album was released in 2006 and is made up mostly of reel-to-reel recordings she made at her home in Germany in 1970-73, except for this track which was included on a 1970 compilation called Folk Is A Four Letter Word 2 which I think was the only commercial recording she ever made before quitting music and acting entirely, moving to America and starting a family. 30 years later her son made a cd of the songs to give to family and friends and somehow one made its way to J Mascis of all people and he had it released on his label Orange Twin.

III. Toccare - John Adams: This piece came up in my Release Radar playlist because of the day a couple of years ago when I listened to Nixon In China twice in a row. I don't know anything about it but I love it a lot and am particularly in love with the bass guitar that comes in about a third of the way through and then disappears entirely. What a choice.

Saturdays (feat. Haim) - Twin Shadow: On Twin Shadow's last album he made a swing at Big Chorus all-out commercial pop and it didn't go perfectly so I'm very glad he's back to his old ways because this song is just amazing. Every part of this song is catchy. The chorus is so satisfying because it has about it has about three different sections and it builds beautifully. Haim are here doing great. It's just perfect and I can't wait for the album.

Because I'm Me - The Avalanches: Wildflower didn't get the respect it deserved in my opinion. It quite literally sounds like it could have come out the year after Since I Left You, which is a very good thing! I'm also a huge fan of fading a whole song down right in the middle just to play a sample of someone quietly saying 'hello?' like they're answering a phone.

Bats In The Attic - King Creosote & Jon Hopkins: I've never heard another album that sounds like this one. Every part of the recording just sounds so beautiful it's like it was handmade from silk or something. Listening to this after literally anything else feels like a chilled glass of water on a hot day. King Creosote's voice also has the very beautiful paradoxical qualities of a scottish accent mixed with incredibly clear enunciation and I really love it. I'd love them to do another album together.

Another Man - Barbara Mason: Check out this song. First of all it sounds extremely good. Secondly it's about when your man turns out to be gay. It starts out good but by the last verse it is straight up hateful, calling him defective, not entirely a man and a 'facsimile of a man' which is unbelievably cruel. The way she says it is very good though because she says "Because in my case what I thought I had was not a entire whole man, but a facsimile thereof. Wasn't a clone or nothin', you know, I'm not.." and then she trails off. Glad she clarified this wasn’t a clone situation. Weird, mean, good song.

Monument (T.I.E. Version) - Robyn & Royksopp: The original version of this song is long as hell and a lot more on the ominous side of the ominous/menacing scale, whereas this version pushes the slider all the way up on 'menacing' with the huge distorted bassline leading the whole thing. A perfect song for obelisk worship in the grim electronic future, or even for carving your own obelisk in preparation.

Everybody Knows - Leonard Cohen: Hey remember when Leonard Cohen died and bleedingcool.com had the best headline of all time "Genius Songwriter Of Music From “Watchmen” Sex Scene Dead At 82". I think about that all the time. Anyway this song is great but that's obvious.

E-Mail My Heart - Britney Spears: Britney Spears first album is good cause Hit Me Baby One More Time is about pagers and this song is about emails. Teens love to communicate, and they've only grown to love it more since this song came out. In Britney's own words in 1999: "E-mail My Heart is a song that everyone can relate to, everyone’s been doing e-mails and it’s “e-mail my heart” so everyone can relate to that song.“ True.

It's All Coming Back To Me Now - Celine Dion: This song is deluxe. This song sounds like it was recorded in an expansive marble bathroom and I feel like I should have to be wearing a suit just to listen to it. This song has 15 cup holders and comes with power windows as standard. This song sounds like someone paid November Rain $100 to attend a fancy party with them and pretend to be their boyfriend but then they accidentally fell in love for real. 

listen here

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basilouija

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Guys I’m rewatching Outlaw Star

HELL YES, convince me to watch it with your liveblogging. Though it won’t take much. SPAAAAAAAACE

OKAY THEN! I’m actually already 8 episodes in, so here’s a quick summary of what is basically the prologue to the rest of the show:

A breakdown of some key elements and character introductions follows below the cut.

1) THE THEME SONG IS AMAZING AND 100% HOLDS UP. For a show from 1999, nothing about it feels terribly dated (except the lampshade hair styles, which are so intensely late-90s-anime you have to love them). There is one shot where the girls are all sitting on a pink cushion together that COULD lead you to believe this show is a harem anime. It is not.

2) THE ENDING THEME BY AKINO ARAI IS ALSO AMAZING. Her voice sounds enough like Melfina’s too that you can easily imagine Melfina singing. The ~soft fantasy space art~ slideshow that goes with it (and the 2nd theme too) has nothing to do with the show but is still lovely. I never skip the end credits.

3) Gene Starwind is pointedly NOT Spike Spiegel. Where Bebop’s protagonist is effortlessly cool, classy, and mysterious, the protagonist of Outlaw Star is a brash, sassy optimist with a snatched waist and a body covered in battle scars. Gene is not especially virtuous, and unapologetic. He is rude, but not unkind (except to poor Gilliam II) and his bullshit detector is always running. He’s basically a ginger Han Solo.

4) Jim Hawking, the sidekick character is a genius child who is also, pointedly, Not Radical Edward. Jim is frequently the voice of reason on the show. He keeps Gene grounded, keeps their business running, and generally does all the work that actually needs doing. He’s a catch-all responsible character without being bland or tedious. 

5) Hot Ice Hilda. I mean, was her last name Bengay? She IS an effortlessly cool character and serves as the catalyst for the rest of the show to happen at all. Thank you for your service, Hilda.

6) Melfina- okay I hated this character a lot. A LOT. when I first watched the show. I hated that she cried, and was quiet, and was so weak and femme- but watching now, I understand her a lot better. She’s just a lost girl, trying her best. I love the gentle way that Gene and Jim adopt her. Asking her to cook feels less domestic and servile now, than Gene wanting her to cultivate real-world skills. Also note, I will never forgive Joss Whedon for stealing the Suitcase Reveal. Despite Melfina getting naked in nearly every episode, I’m pretty sure we only ever see Gene’s nipples, so that’s something.

7) Aisha Clan-Clan is the reason you should watch this show subtitled. Otherwise the dub is perfectly passable. For whatever reason, her english dub voice acting is the screechiest, most annoying thing ever. I really want to love this character, being the goofy brawler- basically, imagine Prince Zuko in his HONOR phase as a catgirl. Yeah, she’s a catgirl, with jiggly boobs and oversized jingle bell and everything, but she’s a WEREWOLF catgirl wrestling champion so just.. yeah. Her transformations receive some of the most loving and meticulous animation in the show, but.. yeah.

8) Twilight Suzuka has the most obvious theme song of the whole show. You know immediately when she is on screen because the opening flute strains of her theme are unforgettable. Everything else about her kind of is though, as she’s a pastiche of Japanese-export-historical-heroism. She’s essentially a female Goemon from Lupin the 3rd. She’s a stoic, kimonoed, boken-wielding force of nature. Her modus operandi is to find the highest possible point in view of her opponent, stand up there, gloat mysteriously, mention sunsets, and then run in circles. Her battles inevitably end with the iconic samurai-slash of Kurosawa fame. All that aside, she’s actually likable because when her grandstanding is set aside, she is playful and coy in the way only such a self-assured character can pull off without being cheesy.

9) PIRATES! Outlaw Star’s definition of “pirate” is significantly less Yo-ho-ho and markedly more What-Is-This-Sorcery. They straight up use magic. Like, real actual magic. Magic so wacky that Gene has to shoot them with a Magic Gun to have any effect.

10) THE MACDOUGALLS. Keep your eyes on these fuckos, Trust me.

11) Fred Luo, is problematic in a way but you can’t help but love him. He’s a canny businessman who uses people’s prejudices to disarm them. He says some upsetting stuff, but in the end he’s a successful, openly gay business owner, so that’s a net gain. 

12) GRAPPLER SHIPS! Okay so space ships have arms in this show. Keep in mind this happened before Gurren Lagann, so space ships punching each other was a little more novel. They have guns and things, but also arms. For grappling. In Space. It’s a thing. In the neon-drenched, tech noir, multi-planet cosmopolitan setting of this show, having space ships getting into slap fights offers the opportunity for some really engaging and dynamic fight scenes. Enjoy it for the gimmick that it is! Also worth noting is that more care is given to the actual operation of space craft in this show than in most other anime. Launch sequences are executed, disaster scenarios are trained for. It’s made clear that not just anyone can hop in the pilot’s seat and joyride, and I appreciate that a lot.

my next post will begin the liveblog at episode 9, which marks the true beginning of the group’s journey together.

[theamazingsallyhogan]

Recommend me stuff

Mediums I’m looking for: TV shows (especially anime since it’s more likely I wouldn’t know something), movies, podcasts.  Books and comics are appreciated, just a little harder to get around to these days.

Genre I’m looking for: Fantasy preferably, Action is great, sci-fi is also nice. This includes “it’s like the real world, except for some fantasy/sci-fi stuff” variants and more over-the-top action stuff.  No straight-up horror please. 

Tone I’m looking for: At least somewhat serious, and not massively depressing. A little silliness or darkness is fine. Anywhere on the Star Wars/Game of Thrones/Ghostbusters/Harry Potter/Daredevil/LOTR/Blade Runner/TAZ/Die Hard/Steven Universe/Attack on Titan/Princess Mononoke spectrum is fine. 

The caveat that will probably make this result in very few recommendations I haven’t already come across: I want stuff that has girls among the main characters, and I want them to be every bit as essential to the cast as the guys, and I want them to be able to kick as much ass as the guys.

No stuff where they’re there but only providing “emotional support,” or there but with a massive gap in how much butt they can kick compared to the guys, or show up only once in a rare while. If the women fade into the background when things get really serious I’m not interested - it might still be good, but that’s not what I need help finding (I’ve already got plenty of suggestions that don’t fulfill the last requirement).

I’m just trying to track down some equal footing fiction, please. 

My own examples:

Podcast: The Adventure Zone Amnesty, (K)Nights, Dust, & Commitment, Critical Role, Brute Force, Join the Party, Film Reroll.

TV: Game of Thrones, Jessica Jones, Defenders, Avatar, Voltron, Gargoyles, Star Trek, X-Files, Battlestar Galactica, Stranger Things, Firefly, Babylon 5, Farscape, Buffy, Cybersix, Ghostbusters Extreme, Teen Titans, Transformers Prime, She-Ra (2018), Steven Universe, Doctor Who, Young Justice, Sym-Bionic Titan.

Anime: Most of Miyazaki’s work, 3x3 Eyes, Appleseed, Attack on Titan, Battle Athletes, The Big O, Birdy the Mighty, Black Lagoon, Bubblegum Crisis, Card Captor Sakura, Claymore, Cowboy Bebop, Dirty Pair, El Hazard, FLCL, Full Metal Alchemist, Ghost in the Shell, Gunbuster, Magical Shopping District Abenobashi, Michiko and Hatchin, Noir, Outlaw Star, R.O.D., Slayers, Tenchi, Tank Police, Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, Kill la Kill, Kino’s Journey, Nadia, Napping Princess, Patlabor, Psycho-Pass, Sailor Moon, Utena.

Live Action Movies: Star Wars, Harry Potter ,Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth, Labyrinth, Jurassic Park, Mystery Men, Alien, Guardians of the Galaxy, Kill Bill, The Terminator, Mad Max: Fury Road, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Speed, Dredd, The Fifth Element, Edge of Tomorrow.

Animated Movies:  Kubo and the Two Strings, Coraline, The Secret of Kells,  Incredibles, Big Hero 6, Monsters vs. Aliens, Brave, Mulan, Atlantis, The Dark Crystal, The Secret of NIMH,  Zootopia, The Dark Crystal, WALL-E.