#maybe people would like Bernard a bit more if you actually fleshed him out?

[oneeyedoctogod]

The hell do you mean DC when you say "current plans are to make Tim a supporting character in Superman: Son of Kal-El" as JON'S LOVE INTEREST?

Wow, Kon really is a joke to you, huh? 😭

[trashcreatyre]

I'm gonna explain one of my TMA playlists bc I've been wanting to do that for several months, and how else am I supposed to procrastinate my animatic project at one in the morning?

(here's the link to the playlist bc I think its pretty slappin')

General:

Body Terror Song By AJJ-

I know that it could technically be a flesh song, but I feel like its a bit more vague than that? if that makes sense?

The Afternoon By Lemon Demon-

there's gonna be a lot of Lemon Demon songs in this lol- This one is also pretty vague, but for some reason it kinda reminds me of Michael specifically? I don't 100% know how to describe it.

thrifted youth By dalynn-

Most of the descriptions/reasonings in the general section are pretty simplistic and vague huh? I guess it just kinda fits the vibe? I might be saying that for a lot of the general ones-

Aurora Borealis By Lemon Demon-

this one reminds me of the season five, kinda feels like a jmart song. (also you'll probably notice that there's not much in the ship theme in this playlist. I like to keep my ship playlists separate from my more general ones, don't know why.)

Under My Skin By Jukebox The Ghost-

just kinda fits the vibe y'know? other than that I don't really know.

Turn the Lights Off By Tally Hall-

i can't actually remember why I put this one specifically- that's a bit unfortunate-

When He Died By Lemon Demon-

This one mostly just fits the vibe, makes me think about the really old Victorian era statements.

Ancient Aliens By Lemon Demon-

again, fits the vibe.

She Doesn't Sleep By Anthony Amorim-

Feels like a random statement tbh. also reminds me of Not!Sasha too.

Nightmare Fuel By Lemon Demon-

funky song- fits the vibe- I don't know what more I can say-

Everybody Loves Me by OneRepublic-

I don't remember actually???? I think It was an Elias one??? but thinking about it now that doesn't really make much sense???? I'm gonna keep it tho, fits the vibe, at least it does to me.

Bloody Nose By Jack Conte-

fits the vibe :)

Christmas Kids By Roar-

I think I saw an animatic to this one time? now I can only think of the season one archival staff,,,, my beloveds,,,,

La nuit en matin By OH MU-

imma be honest, I have no idea what this one's actually about, but It lowkey reminds me of the intro music during end of season three- y'know, the clown vibes :D

9 to 5 By Dolly Parton-

Archival staff moment

American Healthcare By Penelope Scott-

I guess it could technically be seen as an End themed one? but I put it on bc I felt like it fit the vibes (are you getting sick of reading vibes? i'm getting sick of typing it)

Butch 4 Butch By Rio Romeo-

mostly just the rat filled piano line,,,,,, and also it fits the vibes to me.

Oblivion By Grimes-

Kinda feels like a statement?? In a way?

Murders By Miracle Musical-

the vibes. hopefully thats the last time i type that for this-

oh yeah woo yeah, we're onto the specific Entities now B) lets start with the one that probably has the most, if not, it sure feels like it-

The Spiral:

Spiral Eyes By Rewenge-

yeahhhh,,,, I know it doesn't really fit the vibes all that well, But the title fits and I like it so-

The Distortionist By Ghost and Pals-

this one is SUPER obvious, but it fits REALLY well in my mind.

Out of Her Head (Outerlude) [From The Film Possibly in Michigan] By Korban Baxter-

I can literally picture this one- I lowkey wanna do an animatic of this one one day.

A Crow's Trial By Vane Lily-

OKAY- so this last one is because it's the song from an absolutely GORGEOUS animation/animatic by Akidachi on YouTube, I ADORE this animation. please watch it omg-

again, I'm like, 90% sure that The Spiral has the most songs on this playlist, definitely not a bias or anything. next up is the mf uhhhh-

The Corruption:

Spiral of Ants By Lemon Demon-

no explanation needed.

Maggot By Slutever-

Mostly just the name, but it's a good song too so-

Sick On Seventh Street By Sarah and the Safe Word-

fits the vibe title and actual song wise.

in retrospect under my skin probably could be here-

The Web:

Redesign Your Logo (Bonus Track) By Lemon Demon-

Feels like a very web song,,,

Boris The Spider By The Who-

Spider,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Spider Dance By Toby Fox-

Yes,,, like from undertale,,,,,,,

i think thats it for the web (i swore there were more,,,,)

The Lonely:

Nobody By Mitski-

C'mon, you didn't think I WOULDN'T put this one on, did you?

This December By Ricky Montgomery-

idk what it is exactly about this one, just,,,, feels correct?

Blue Jay Way By The Beatles-

MANNNNNNN- i love this song, my mom hates it- that's unrelated- but I always just feel like there's fog or like, an eerie sea, or something- while listening to it. it feels very lonely-

I'm a Member of the Midnight Crew (1909) By Eddie Morton-

I have no idea why spotify suggested this song to me, but I will never not find it funny. Anyway- reminds me of the crew on Peter's ship :)

The Stranger:

Rattlesnake By Kabaret Sybarit-

Idk, feels like smth Nikola would sing at jon- idk how else to explain it-

A Mask of My Own Face By Lemon Demon-

pretty self explanatory lolll

The Slaughter:

War Pigs By Black Sabbath-

war.

The Hunt:

The Hunter By Slaves-

maybe this one is because it's because it's litterally called the hunter, and that they say hunter a bunch, but it is fun to listen to-

Teeth By 8 Graves-

I cannot remember my reasoning at this current moment-

The Flesh:

Body By Mother Mother-

the lyrics do be fittin doe

The Dark:

Everything Goes Dark By The Hoosiers-

i mean- everything goes dark- what more do you want me to say-

Dr.Sunshine Is Dead By Will Wood and the Tapeworms-

i think its mostly the song's vibe and the title.

The End:

The Trick to life By The Hoosiers-

the trick to life is not to get too attached to it.

Memento Mori: the most important thing in the world By Will Wood-

remember death.

YOOO OKAY NOW WE'RE ON THE ONES THAT I HAVE ACTUAL THINGS TO SAY ABOUT NOW- at least for the most part-

Characters:

i think i'm gonna go from least to most for this- (spoilers, Jon has the most ones because I care him)

Cryptid Hunt- Demo By Averno, Sushi Soucy-

this one makes me think of the WTGFs,,,,,

You're at the Party (Bonus Track) By Lemon Demon-

makes me think about Micheal Shelley,,,,,,,

Saint Bernard By Lincoln-

Alice "daisy" Toner moment-

Mary By The Happy Fits-

mary keay,,,,,,

there used to be a gerry one too, but the more I heard it in the context of the playlist and him, It just didn't fit,,,,,

Ew it's Elias/jonah time-

The Fine Print By The Stupendium-

capitalism- jk- kinda- Idk, just feels like it fits because he really just kinda,,, doesn't care about his employees-

How Bad Can I Be? from the lorax-

I had to-

Boss 3 from the terraria soundtrack-

Listen- I don't know why- but- it has elias/jonah vibes- the vibes are fowl, but the song is good.

Ruler of Everything By Tally Hill-

Panopticon/eyepocolypes time-

Ayooo it's jon time- I really hope I can write out my thoughts in a way that makes any kind of sense- /foreshadowing

A Sadness Runs Through Him By The Hoosiers-

Goddddd,,,,, he's just kinda filled with sadness and survivors guilt, just like, all the time huh?

Home By Cavetown-

the lyrics are just- very him- like- I just gjbdjgsflkjns-

Broken Crown By Mumford & Sons-

frick- the foreshadowing was accurate- the best I can describe it is that the lyrics just???? y'know??? hhh why am I like this sometimes-

Sweet HIbiscus Tea By Penelope Scott-

i'm willing to bet that he never wanted to be the main character-

Honey I'm Home By Ghost and Pals-

I saw a Jon centric animatic to this one time- I can't for the life of me remember who by, But everytime I hear the moth lines, my brain goes ":0" Because I remember there was a time when people kept drawing moth jon- I don't know where that came from but I thought it was very cool.

Who Are You, Really? By Mikky Ekko-

I'm like- actually starting to get frustrated with how poorly im articulating my thoughts right now- this just isn't funny anymore-

Sleep By My Chemical Romance-

I'm not actually sure why for this one- I just remeber putting on my black parade CD, hearing this, and being like, "damn, that do kinda be jon tho-"

I hope you enjoyed my ramblings- tbh, all this sounded and read out better in my head. My words might not make sense, but I do like how the playlist is. also im very tired, maybe this would've been written better if I wasn't struggling to keep my eyes open lol. I'm gonna fall asleep now- or maybe i'll post a spiral themed doodle dump again, who knows. I don't know.

[atlaskat]

Home for the Holidays

Hello! @zamorawrites, I was your secret Santa this year! Sorry that I’m a bit late. I hope you’ll be satisfied with what I came up with for your prompt.

"You... want me to do what now?"

Roxanne's brow twitched. "I want you to come with me to my parents' holiday celebrations and pose as my boyfriend for about two days using that light-disguise-clock of yours."

Megamind's eyes were wide as two plates, his mouth slightly open. She could practically see the overthinking which was happening in his brain. He looked borderline panicked, which was -- in all honesty -- a little rude. He wasn't the one bound to a chair, with hair messed up from the bag which had been removed from his head only moments ago. He didn't even have hair to begin with.

There was something charming about Megamind like that, though. Startled, embarrassed, unsure what to do with himself. Shocking him was always a bit fun.

"I- what," he stuttered, "your boyfriend...?"

"Yeah," Roxanne scoffed irritably, "Wayne- Metro Man ditched me last minute. Vacation, apparently. Worst fa- worst boyfriend ever."

Megamind's expression had started to look more and more desperate as he struggled to wrap his brain around what Roxanne said. There was too much new information already.

Roxanne shifted in her chair, cocking her eyebrow at one of the brainbots idly passing by with some scrap metal part in its grasp. She didn't elaborate, which stressed Megamind -- he could feel the sweat under the skintight leather. Bad choice of clothing for the occasion, apparently.

"I'm not sure I understand?" His tone went upward to indicate a question. As if Roxanne could answer whether or not he understood.

Well, she actually could. He definitely didn't understand at all. "Will you please just come with me? My mother doesn't care if I bring Wayne home or some rando off the street, as long as I make sure I don't come alone."

Megmind blinked a couple of times, still staring at her, wide-eyed.

"Psst. Sir." Minion, although whispering, did not utter the words quietly. As if a 250-pound steel gorilla with a fish brain would ever be subtle.

Megamind turned his head after Minion's third try. "Uh- yeah?"

"This does not seem like a good idea, Sir."

"Oh buzz off, Minion. How many times have you two kidnapped me, huh? How many times have I given you any trouble?"

Megamind seemed to snap out of his trance at that, narrowing his eyes at her with an unimpressed look.

"Ah, only about every single time," he underlined sarcastically. Then why do you keep doing it, Roxanne was about to say, but bit her tongue. She needed to get back to the bottom line and ensure his cooperation. If she wasted time and Metro Man found the hiding place, her last-resort plan would go to a very bad fiery place.

Roxanne quickly angled her face a little downward to make her eyes bigger and batted her eyelashes sweetly. "Please~?" She said softly -- this was a very effective trick to use on Megamind, although she didn't use it often, because it was classic damsel behavior and she was not about to play that game with him. Still, desperate circumstances called for desperate measures.

Purple blush shot up to Megamind's cheeks, even to the tips of his ears. He swallowed, tensing the muscles of his throat in a very satisfactory manner -- one might even have called it hot. Roxanne would never let him know that though.

"Sir. Sir?" Minion called.

"Aaaa..." for someone so smart, Megamind had a terrible time with collecting his thoughts. "I'll, uh, I'll help you..."

"Sir!" Minion yelled in outrage.

Roxanne gave a satisfied, smug grin.

Megamind gave a grunt from the back of his throat to indicate for Minion to shut up.

A buzz from a warning alarm made the brainbots erupt into a chaos of preparations for Metro Man's arrival.

"I'm calling off this evil plan this time, Miss Ritchi!" Megamind exclaimed with his usual extravagant confidence -- a front to save face -- as he began loosening the restraints around her wrists. "Although do not be mistaken, this will not happen twice!"

Minion sighed, picking up the bag from its place on the control panel. Roxanne sighed too, but obediently let the cloth slip over her ears.

--

Roxanne pulled the thick scarf tighter and smoothed the front of her coat again. She fumbled with the train tickets, making sure they were there. Check. Her ID? Yep. Her wallet? Also check. Somehow she was nervous.

In all reality, fake-breaking up with Wayne had been a relief. Because that meant she got to ask Megamind instead. Of course, logically, she shouldn't have asked him -- she had a few male acquaintances, like Paul from Management.

She scrunched up her nose. Maybe not Paul from Management. But other people, for sure. Still, her first thought on possible candidates had immediately been Megamind. He was smart enough to understand what fake dating meant (unlike Paul from Management), and wouldn't overstep any boundaries. Which was kind of strange, since overstepping boundaries was kind of supposed to be a supervillain's thing.

And to be completely honest, only fake dating was kind of disappointing. She couldn't put her finger on why, but the feeling was still there. And it was painful to actually have to call Wayne her boyfriend in front of Megamind -- the last person she honestly wanted to believe the whole scam relationship.

He would never know that, though. If he found out she and Wayne weren't romantically involved in the least, he would stop kidnapping her and then they wouldn't interact with each other at all.

"Um, Roxanne...?" A timid voice broke her off from her thoughts. To her side was Bernard -- well, not exactly, behind those fogged-up glasses were a pair of shining green eyes. Eyes which definitely did not belong to Bernard.

"Meg- uh, M, M, Mike!" She stammered out the new name. "Let's go, the train leaves pretty soon."

"Mike?" Megamind looked unimpressed.

"Oh, shut it. It's not bad."

"It's not my name." He mumbled. Roxanne paused for a moment. He looked a bit like a sad puppy. With really red cheeks. Which wasn't weird at all, because of the cold and all, but the slight possibility that he was as flustered as she felt was exciting. But still weird. It should have been purple blush on blue skin, not Bernard's flesh-colored-crayon shade.

"Well, I can't exactly call you Megamind now can I?"

 Megamind huffed, pushing the button by the train doors and letting her board first.

"Alright," Roxanne held her glove with her teeth as she dug up the tickets, "we're... 29 and 30 C."

"Does your family live far away?"

Roxanne pulled the scarf over her head, then fiddled with the buttons of her coat. "We'll cross state lines, but not really more than three hours. Six, on a bad day."

"Hm..." Megamind hummed, his eyes following the scenery as the train began moving.

"What about yours?" Roxanne watched as Megamind-disguised-as-Bernard's eyes widened, his muscles tensing up. A painful expression shifted quickly over his face.

"I- uh, I'd rather not talk about it."

"Alright," she nodded, "I bet the holidays'll cheer you up."

That same expression again, the way his eyes dropped, his knuckles white from balling them into fists. Then a little chuckle and a weak "yeah". There was something about Christmas which didn't sit quite right with Megamind.

"Ah, well, Miss Ritchi--" he began, but Roxanne interrupted him.

"Call me Roxanne, we're supposed to be dating."

"R-Roxanne..." his voice trembled a little, and she realized how intimate it was for him to use her first name. Somehow. Most people used her first name, so it shouldn't have been a great big deal, and yet it still was.

"Yes?" Her voice was low, breathy, expecting. Megamind swallowed again, his beautiful eyes darting around from her eyes to her hands to her lips. She tilted her head with interest, adding a very quiet "Megamind?"

He shook his head softly. "My- my name is S-Syx," he stammered, eyes fixed somewhere to the left of her face. Roxanne felt her eyebrows rise with interest.

"It- it's not Megamind?" She kept her voice very low, as to not alert any of the train's other passengers. Which incidentally also meant she leaned very close to her Bernard-lookalike companion.

"Well, I guess they're both my names. Metro Man did the same thing."

"I guess... it's an alias." Roxanne nodded a little, "do you want me to call you Syx?"

He gave a small laugh. The way she pronounced it was different from how he had ever heard it before, a little nod to the fact that his first language was alien to every human on Earth. "Probably best to keep both of my names a secret for now. I can't believe I even told you. Must be those nosy reporter skills of yours."

Roxanne blinked, a little surprised at the sudden change in mood. "Ah, well, I can't help the effect I have on people. I'm just brilliant." She gestured poshly with her hand, indicating the joke, but Megamind simply nodded softly.

"You are," he said, admiration in his voice. She felt heat rise to her cheeks.

"Uuuh-- look! Snow!" She pointed, tearing Megamind's gaze away from her. While it wasn't Megamind's face, those were still his eyes, and apparently they were enough to make her weak in the knees.

Megamind, in turn, was glued to the window for most of the ride after that. Going up north meant the weather getting colder, of course, but he explained to her that he had rarely seen snow before. On the occasion that it snowed in Metro City, the snowflakes would quickly melt on the busy streets. Living his whole life in the Metropolis meant he hadn't really had the chance to see actual snowfields for real.

There was something childlike in his total excitement, the way he marveled at the thousands of little pieces of snow in the air. It was the same sort of giddy happiness he let slip every time he had a new machine to test out, a new concept to tell her about. Because he always did -- always explained his inventions to her, in such great detail that she could foil his plans. He was so thorough in his explanations that it killed most of his evil plots, because he gave her the information she needed -- Metro Man needed -- to destroy the creations. Which was a shame. They were fascinating things, beeping with neon blue lights, covered in metal spikes and black paint. Not to mention all the work behind them; finding the raw material was the least of his worries while creating them, Roxanne knew. She had seen the complicated equations for one of his machines once. She wasn't too shabby at math, she'd gotten steady B's throughout her life, but looking at that blackboard she felt like she was looking at a foreign language.

The train stopped in Roxanne's childhood city around lunchtime. "To call it a city would be to exaggerate," she said as they stepped into the cold air. "It's more of a town, really. You want to grab lunch? There's exactly one restaurant, if you don't count the McDonald's by the gym."

Megamind snorted. "By the gym? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of having a gym?"

Roxanne smiled back at him. "Oh, but everyone knows McDonald's is great for building muscle. Start your fitness journey today."

"America." He sighed, shaking his head with dramatic desperation.

"The country of stark contrasts, clearly." Roxanne chuckled. "Hey, that's the restaurant," she then pointed out.

"It looks like a very sad Italian man. Look at those windows, they're like his sunken-in eyes.

She turned around, eyebrows raised. "Damn, that's a bit dark. But... pretty accurate, now that you say it."

"Sorry." He laughed.

Still, he was pleasantly surprised by the food, once they got it. The atmosphere was nice in the little place; the Christmas decorations made it feel welcoming and warm. There were red bows on the salt and pepper shakers, and candles on the tables. Jingle Bells playing softly on the radio.

Megamind took another bite of his spaghetti. "So... Miss- uh, Roxanne, is there something I should know about... your family?"

"Hmm..." she hummed, "they're pretty cool. You'll like my cousin Evelyn, I think, she's real smart. And my mom knows I never dated-" Roxanne bit her tongue hard. She couldn't let him know that.

"Who?" Megamind gave her a confused look.

"Uh, never mind," she said a little too quickly, heat rising to her cheeks. "Mom just wants the rest of the family to see I'm not alone, so they don't start their bullshit."

He tilted his head, brows furrowed.

"I mean, they used to talk about how I would die childless and alone surrounded by my cats all the time before," Roxanne laughed nervously.

"Why would they say that? You're-" he fidgeted, giving a "never mind" of his own.

"Well... I guess they don't handle independent women all that well. And they're not a fan of my haircut," she stabbed her fork aggressively into the food, "makes me look too masculine, they say. And, you know, no man is going to be attracted to that." She dragged the words out in a snarky voice, imitating one of her aunts.

Megamind looked almost offended. "Why would they say that? You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, I don't understand why anyone wouldn't want to date-" he snapped his mouth shut, suddenly realizing what he'd said

Roxanne sat in stunned silence for a moment. People didn't usually call her beautiful, certainly not the most beautiful they had ever seen -- most compliments were paid to her from cat callers on the street when she would leave the office late at night. They certainly didn't come from people with eyes that made her weak in the knees.

"I- what?" She finally pressed out.

"Um, anyways, this food is actually pretty good. Did you eat here a lot when you lived here?" Megamind said the words quickly, almost forcefully, filling out the silence with anything but embarrassing honesty.

"Oh, uh, yeah." Roxanne blabbed, "I ate here with my friends after school sometimes. And everyone comes here when they eat out, unless they're really craving some McDonald's after a workout."

Megmind nodded as she chuckled awkwardly. "Why did you move away?"

"Well, I got into college in Metro City. And I always wanted to live in a big city. Makes work as a reporter more interesting when there's actually things to cover, you know."

"I understand. Do you like Metrocity, then?"

"I-" she sighed. "Yes and no. Frankly, I find the entire hero versus villain thing a little... much, sometimes. It's like the people stop thinking about morals and what's right or wrong on their own, they just rely on their hero to solve everything for them."

Megamind nodded slowly.

"And, honestly, if I have to write one more article on Wayne or Wayne's family or anything Wayne-related I'm going to explode. Nobody values real news anymore."

"I liked..." his voice trailed off for a moment, "I liked your last article, the one about the mayoral elections..."

She eyed him intently. "You did? I thought no one read that..."

He shrugged. "Your writing always interests me." You make anything interesting.

The moment was interrupted by the beeping signal of her phone. She gave an apologetic look before answering.

"Hey mom. Uh-uh, we're in town. Yeah. Yeah, okay." She rubbed her forehead. "Oh, mom, make sure everybody knows there's no Wayne this year either. No, it's over this time. I'm bringing... a guy named Mike."

Megamind called for the tab. He had a small, silent war with Roxanne about paying, which he won since having both hands free made for quicker wallet-grabbing.

"Guess your name's going to be Mike after all," teased Roxanne as they stepped out of the restaurant.

The snow under Megamind's shoes gave a very satisfying crunch, and he walked in a circle to make it crunch a few more times. "Yeah yeah, very funny. What's the moral compass on this, anyways?”

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, Bernard wasn't that happy to oblige with lending his image for this purpose."

"Oh, my family never goes to Metro City. They're all antisocial hermits, there's nothing for him to worry about."

"If you say so," Megamind shrugged, giving her a teasing look. "I think you might be more evil than you think..."

"Oh, come on. I would not encourage this image-stealing body-dehydrating business in normal circumstances."

Megamind laughed. "Okay, I didn't actually dehydrate the guy this time. I just made a hard-light copy of him."

"Poor Bernard," she shook her head, "I can't believe I keep abusing him like this."

"And for your own selfish needs, no less. Tsk, tsk, tsk." Megamind clicked his tongue, faking his disapproval.

"Well, what about you? Jumping into action to save someone on Christmas? Doesn't seem very evil to me." Roxanne retaliated.

"Oh, but it is!" Megamind exclaimed. "I'm using another person's identity to trick others into inviting me into their homes, tricking them into accepting me and maybe even enjoying my presence somewhat, when in reality, I am the villain, the monster people despise. And what could be more evil than that?" He grinned at her. Behind his humorist tone, Roxanne sensed something more.

"Come on, you're not that bad." She tried, "the worst thing you've done is, like, some property damage. And even then most of it is Metro Man's fault. I mean, your death traps are never actually dangerous and you let me go if I have a headache."

Megamind looked stunned for a moment. "But I- I kidnap you, take away your freedom-"

Roxanne gave him a bored look. "I'm not a damsel, remember? Besides, being 'kidnapped' is, sadly, the most exciting couple of hours my entire week. I actually look forward to it, which says some pretty concerning things about the state of my day-to-day life."

"You- what?"

"Oh, look, that's my parents' house," she pointed at the most embarrassingly overly decorated house on the street. There were multi-colored Christmas lights on everything in the yard, and a few plastic snowmen to boot. Even though there was enough snow to make real ones. Absolutely terrible.

Megamind looked a little absent, as if off in some other world. He nodded blankly at the horrible display of holiday-exploiting consumerism. Roxanne nearly dry-heaved at the garden gnomes with tiny Santa hats by the door -- something which even Megamind reacted to, as he gave her a look of "really?" She shrugged apologetically before ringing the doorbell.

A woman with big, dyed-blonde hair opened the door. She smiled warmly, opening her arms to embrace her daughter. Roxanne's mother had the same little beauty mark by her lip. So that's where Roxanne got it.

"Hello," said the woman, "you must be Mike? I'm Roxanne's mother."

Megamind shook her hand, "I'm pleased to meet you, Mrs Ritchi."

She smiled at him. "Welcome, please come in!

He reached into his bag and took out a small package, wrapped in light blue paper. It wasn't a traditional Christmas wrapping paper, but he found it exciting to leave a little hint to his true identity. He didn't want 'Mike' to erase him entirely. "This is for you. I'm sorry it isn't much."

"Oh, thank you!”

"Meg- Mike, you didn't have to get that! I told you there was no need-" Roxanne grabbed the fabric of his coat arm with a concerned look.

"It's fine. I wanted to. It's the holidays, after all." He smiled politely at Roxanne's mother, not pulling his arm away.

"Have you two eaten lunch already?" Asked Mrs Ritchi.

"Oh, yeah, I wanted to spare Mike from the horror of Linda's lunch casserole"

"Shh," Mrs Ritchi laughed as she tried telling her daughter off, "don't let anyone hear you."

Roxanne shook her head and tugged at Megamind's coat arm for him to follow her. "You and I will be staying in the guest bedroom."

"T-together?" Megamind whispered harshly.

"Uh, yeah? Couple, remember. It's only for a night."

Megamind rubbed his neck nervously with the free hand. He wondered if his nerves would be able to handle being close to Roxanne in such an intimate situation. Maybe he hadn't thought this whole thing through properly -- but he refused to go back and prove Minion right.

"You can put your bag anywhere. And take off your coat, they'll start a fire downstairs and it gets really hot."

--

Roxanne spent the next hour gazing dramatically at the terrible snowmen in the yard, criticizing her parents' choice of decoration every chance she got. Finally, she wouldn't stand for it any longer, and pulled Megamind with her to make some real ones.

He hadn't brought any gloves of his own, so there was a bit of a fuss over glove-borrowing before they got outside. Roxanne immediately made a snowball, starting a war -- Megamind was stunned for a second when the snow hit him in the face (it was much colder than he thought, somehow), but he quickly recovered and retaliated with full fire power.

"Okay, okay, cease fire!" Roxanne could barely yell through her laughing fit. "Let's build the goddamn snowman!"

She showed him how to roll the snow, making sure it was packed hard enough to keep it from falling apart. Megamind found it surprisingly fun to roll the snow and so he made a huge globe instead of a snowman, which made Roxanne pick up her ball and throw it at him. His was way too heavy to carry though, so she won that round.

Finally, they finished the snowman.

"He looks kind of disproportionate, doesn't he?" Said Roxanne as she stepped back to judge their creation.

"Oh, don't body shame him. That's just the way he distributes the weight."

"Okay, so what's his name?" As Megamind gave her a confused look, she continued. "I mean, he's basically our son, and we need to baptize him properly or he won't go to snowman heaven when he melts."

Megamind started laughing, and Roxanne was delighted by the sound. He held his hand over his mouth -- almost as if to stop himself, to not show his happiness, but it was such a nice sound. He hadn't seemed fully genuinely happy all day, and Roxanne told herself that the giddy feeling she got was only because of that.

"Alright, I understand," said Megamind between the last few chuckles. "How about we call him... Hal."

Roxanne’ss jaw dropped. "Hal? Hal?! My creepy coworker? God, no."

"Why? I thought you liked him. What is there not to love?" Megamind poked her teasingly.

"Jesus, I really don't!"

"Fine, fine, what should we call the snowman then?"

Roxanne hummed. "He kinda looks like Minion, no? How about Minion?"

"What? No, there's already one Minion."

"Ugh okay. Let's just call him Frosty, then. What's up with Minion anyway? You didn't want to bring him?"

Megamind looked suddenly frustrated. He sat down on the porch next to Roxanne. "I... had a bit of a fight with him. He didn't want me to come. Said if I went we wouldn't be... 'friends' anymore."

"What? Oh, I'm so sorry! Why would you even come?" Roxanne looked genuinely concerned -- she didn't want to be the cause of any bad blood between Megamind and Minion. Those two were like brothers, together through sunshine and rain.

"Because you asked me." Megamind looked right at her, his eyes as open and genuine as she'd ever seen them. Then he exhaled and completely fogged up his- or Bernard's- glasses. He chuckled. "Anyways, Minion always exaggerates. He'll be fine as soon as I come back."

Roxanne's mother's voice interrupted the moment. "Hey, you two, it's nearly dinnertime!"

They looked at each other, cleared their throats awkwardly. Megamind helped Roxanne up and they went inside.

"So what did you call the snowman?" Asked Mrs Ritchi.

"Oh, um, just Frosty. You know, the usual."

"Bo-oring!" Mrs Ritchi teased, and Megamind understood where Roxanne got her biting remarks from. "And he doesn't even light up. Really, I have no idea why you dislike the plastic ones so much."

"Because they're a constant reminder of how companies in the west abuse foreign workers and exploit the idea of 'holiday spirit' to make an ungodly amount of money that could instead be used to solve social problems around the globe?"

Mrs Ritchi gave her daughter a look of "really?" and Megamind gave a snort-laugh. Roxanne shook her head and sighed dramatically as she took off her boots. "Nobody in this house understands me. You're all slaves under capitalism.”

"Oh, shut up. You've always loved Christmas decorations. Mike, has she told you about that one Christmas-"

"Uh!" Roxanne called out. "That's enough of that!"

"No no, please do tell," said Megamind, smiling cheekily at Roxanne.

"Oh no you don't," warned Roxanne, before grabbing Megamind and forcefully shoving him in front of her. "I'll give Mike here a house tour now."

They paced around the room, Roxanne sighing at every decoration. "I'm not actually a communist, you know."

Megamind laughed. "I guess even you can't withstand the allure of cheap plastic."

"Oh, oh you're one to talk?" Roxanne said, faking her outrage. "I know an underground outlet store in Romania that would beg to differ."

"Okay, Minion was never supposed to let you know that in the first place, you know! Makes my credit as a supervillain look weaker."

"Ha! As if it wasn't weak in the first place." She chuckled. "Hey, let me show you something."

They walked up the stairs, through a corridor, and landed in a small room with bare walls. The ceiling was low on one side, and there was a window through the roof.

"This used to be my room," said Roxanne.

"Why is it empty?"

"When I moved out I took some of my stuff with me, threw some away. My parents had no need for a room full of things they never used, so it's just been empty since then."

"Seems pretty out of use to me."

"They want to turn it into a studio or something." She went to the sloping ceiling and laid down on the wooden floorboards right under the window. "I used to lay here at night, especially if it was clear. I used to wonder a lot about what was out there."

Megamind went to lie next to her. "I used to stay up and look at the stars a lot, too. Or think about them, since prison cells usually don't have windows."

Roxanne turned her head to look at him. "You were in prison as a child?"

"I mean, I lived there, so yeah I guess."

They were silent for a moment. He could feel the warmth radiating from Roxanne's body.

"Were you born on Earth?" She finally asked. He swallowed, fixing his eyes on the dark sky outside the window.

"No. I came to Earth in an escape pod as a baby."

She hummed along. "What was Space like? “

It was his turn to turn to her. He examined her features; the gentle curve of her nose, the defined cupid's bow. Her full cheeks, her dark eyelashes, the little dot by her lower lip.

"Space was terrifying. Beautiful. I've never experienced anything like it."

"I went out at night once, to a lake nearby. The stars were reflected in the water, and everything else was completely black. Floating there was scary because it really felt like I was out there, unsure of how to get back."

"Yeah." Megamind said. "Space is exactly like that."

Roxanne sighed. "Sounds like you and I both were pretty lonely as kids."

"You were lonely?" There was clear surprise in his voice, and she wasn't sure if he was mocking her or not. "The kids in my class were... quite exclusionary. I never really had any friends."

"It's a shame we didn't go to the same school, then." Said Roxanne, smiling. "I was always the kind of weird one, I was too curious, had too much ambition. And that wasn't attractive." She put on the snarky voice again. "Suck it, Ethan from junior high!"

Megamind laughed. "I really would've liked to have met you as a child."

They stayed for a few more moments in the dark, before Roxanne cleared her throat.

"We should probably go back, it's almost time for dinner."

"Right," said Megamind, although he would have rather stayed there forever.

--

"So what do you do?" Asked one of Roxanne's family members. Megamind stopped mid-bite, trying to think of a convincing lie.

"I'm, uh, I'm a physicist." He bit his tongue. They would ask at which university, or which company, or something. "Kind of freelancer right now."

"That's new," said a woman, who was named Evelyn if he remembered correctly, "a freelance physicist, huh?"

"Yeah! Isn't it cool!" Added Roxanne, only slightly panicked. Megamind chugged his drink nervously.

"What do your parents do?"

His mood fell instantly. He tried to smile to cover it up, but it felt really fake so it probably looked horrid. "My parents actually, um, they died in an- an accident when I was young."

"Oh my, that's horrible! I'm so sorry for your loss." Mrs Ritchi put a hand on his shoulder as she passed. He nodded thankfully at her. Some other sympathetic words and smiles were aimed at him.

"So where are you from?" Asked another person.

"Uh, Metrocity?"

The dinner table fell silent for a moment, before erupting with laughter.

"Oh, is that a reference to that little blue dude?" Said someone else, "brilliant!"

Megamind met Roxanne's eyes, and they both had to keep their laughter contained.

"Yeah, Megamind," said Evelyn, and Megamind's spine snapped straight. "He's pretty interesting."

"What do you mean?" Megamind asked. Roxanne eyed her cousin intently.

"Oh it's nothing," Evelyn smirked, "I had my agency look into him a couple of months back. He likes to put on a show of being evil, but he's actually that anonymous donor to the Orphan Childcare Foundation. You know, the one who takes first place each year?"

Megamind swallowed, staring at his hands. Or Bernard's hands. They were an odd flesh color, when they should be blue -- but right now he was so thankful for Bernard. Now would be a bad time to have a different skin color. He watched the seconds tick by on his watch.

"What?" Roxanne's voice was almost breathless, absolutely unsure of what to believe.

"Yeah, and there's more," said Evelyn, making Megamind question every choice he had ever made -- how could someone have found out so many things? "Apparently, he's a real big deal in the criminal world. He organizes a lot of the gang activity to make sure there are less gang wars... you know how the murder rate dropped after he and Metro Man debuted? Well, if you ask me, that's not really Metro Man's merit."

Roxanne's gaze turned to him, completely baffled by her cousin's words.

"Haha, well," Megamind said, trying his hardest to keep his voice steady, "you can never fully trust those investigations! Everyone knows how important Metro Man is to Met- the city."

The rest of the dinner guests began taking away the dishes, and so Roxanne cleared both of their plates from the table and asked Megamind for a word. Alone. He sighed internally -- this wasn't a good look.

She said they would go out for a stroll, and suddenly they were outside in the cold darkness. They walked in silence for a good while, until they got to a frozen-over body of water. Then Roxanne broke the silence.

"Ugh, can you turn that off?" She asked, almost irritated. Really, she was embarrassed. "The disguise."

"What? Why? What if someone sees?" He asked, totally confused.

She shook her head forcefully. He furrowed his brows, concerned. "I don't want to look at Bernard's face, I want to see yours."

He was stunned to silence for a few seconds, only able to breathe the word "what" once more. Roxanne lost her patience and grabbed him by the arm, turning the dial on the watch herself. The image of Bernard flickered a few times, almost like a glitch on a computer screen, before it disappeared. What was left was that beautiful shade of blue, his eyes finally back in the face in which they belonged.

"That's better." Roxanne said forcefully. Then she turned around and continued walking.

"Miss Ri- Roxanne, why do you want to see my face?" He asked, forcing his voice to be calm and collected as he jogged to catch up with her. She looked straight ahead, eyes fixed furiously, on the path in front of her. "Are you... mad at me?”

Her shoulders tensed up. "Is it true, what my cousin said?"

Megamind contemplated lying for a few seconds, but ultimately decided he didn't want to lie to Roxanne. "It's true," he said with a sigh.

"Oh, god damn it." She said.

"What?" His voice trembled, panic rising up. Had he lost credibility? Why was she so angry?

"Why didn't you tell me? Why do you play the game of supervillain when you're actually helping everybody?"

"I'm- uh-" he tried to collect his thoughts, "I think... um, Metrocity wants symbols and I just... became that symbol? Someone needs to be a challenge for your boyfriend in tights too, Miss Ritchi."

She turned around, furious, hot tears burning in her eyes. "Roxanne. It's Roxanne. And he's not my boyfriend, he never was my boyfriend!"

"You- what?"

"Metro Man and I were never a couple. It was just easier like that, so no one would ask any questions." She wiped at her tears angrily. It was embarrassing, and she didn't even really have a reason to cry. "And I didn't want to tell you because then you would stop kidnapping me and then I would not have an excuse to talk to you anymore. And now I've just found out that you're actually the hero in this whole thing, aren't you? And I'm so mad at myself that I wasn't able to find that out on my own."

"Wait, wait, what are you talking about?"

"Which part?" Roxanne said in a bitter tone, the half-joke not really landing.

"Why would you want to talk to me?"

She sniffled, wiping at her face angrily once more. "Ugh, for being so smart, you're really stupid sometimes."

"I don't... understand," he said.

She dropped down into the snow, face in her hands. "Why do you think I asked you to come with me here?"

"To the lake?"

"Oh, you idiot. Here to my parents' town. Why do you think I want to talk to you, and why do I want to see your face, and why does talking to you brighten my day, and why do your eyes give me butterflies in my stomach? Why do I feel this much for someone who's never going to feel the same way, why am I so stupid?"

He dropped to his knees in the snow, too, landing right in front of her. "What are you talking about?" His voice firm and steady now. "Why wouldn't I feel the same?"

Roxanne finally looked up, meeting his eyes. They glimmered in the faint light from the moon, the only source of light by the lake. "You wouldn't, because I'm not your type. I'm stubborn and I complain a lot, and I'm not feminine or scared enough to be a damsel. And I'm boring and I always criticize you, and I'm not- not attractive or exciting or any of all the things you are... how could you ever love me?"

"Roxanne," his voice was breathy and low, "you are the most intelligent, beautiful, interesting person I have ever met. I've been in love with you for years, and the kidnappings -- they're just for show, just an excuse for me to be close to you in any way I can. Yes I enjoy making my machines and fighting against Metro Man, but I make them because I want to finally create something which will impress you. That's why I always explain them to you, because you're the only one who has ever truly been interested in me."

She took a shaky breath. "But I'm... mean, and I'm stubborn, and I-"

"Stop that. I love talking to you, because you challenge me, but you don't judge. You're genuinely interested and you listen carefully to what I say, so you can counter it well. You're so intelligent it fascinates me. And I can barely stop staring at you, because you're so perfect, you're so much my type that it's difficult for me to think about anything but you-"

Roxanne's fingers curled around the collar of his coat as she pulled him close. She tilted her head and pressed her lips to his. His hands went up instinctively, grabbing her her hair, the side of her face, going around her shoulders in an embrace.

They kissed for a long time, breathlessly and barely able to tear themselves off each other. Roxanne's face flushed with red, but she smiled faintly.

"Syx..." she said, and it sent shivers up his spine. "I love you."

Megamind rested his forehead against her shoulder, the happiness bubbling through his blood, he almost didn't believe it to be true.

"Oh, Roxanne, I love you too."

[guardianreadersofthegalaxy]

Dom’s mini Who reviews - the decent episodes

Aliens Of London/ World War Three – One of Davies’s ‘people watching the news’ episodes. The Slitheen design is good but the CGI and prosthetics have aged poorly. The Iraq allegory is solid and Jackie and Mickey get plenty to do. And Penelope Wilton is awesome.

Army Of Ghosts/ Doomsday – Yet more news watching. Torchwood are a bit boring but part 1 does a good job building mystique around the breach & sphere. The Dalek reveal blew my 13 year old mind. The scenes at the wall and Bad Wolf Bay pack a hell of a punch, thanks to Tennant, Piper & Gold.

Boom Town – Capturing the villain at the end of act 1 and having to decide what to do with them is fantastic premise. The restaurant scene is the highlight and I think it works that you never find out what the Doctor would have done. The setting is pretty dull though, as are the first fifteen minutes.

Fugitive Of The Judoon – This is just bananas. The Ruth & Cpt. Jack plots never converge for some reason. It’s not good but it is refreshingly mad. The Judoon look great and 13 gets plenty of comic moments as well as more serious stuff. Ruth Doctor is fine in the short time you see her.

The Girl Who Waited – Another solid premise. Even though you know young Amy will be alright, the drama works. Both Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill shine and the robots are fairly intimidating. My only gripe is that old Amy still has incredible hair for some reason.

The Husbands Of River Song – I love 12 doing comedy. Capaldi and Kingston have great chemistry and the final scene is really sweet. Matt Lucas’s best days are still ahead of him but Greg Davies is hilarious. The joke of River stupidly not recognising the Doctor is played out way too long though.

The Impossible Astronaut/ Day Of The Moon – IA feels like a really game changing series opener but knowing how it all turns out sours it on the rewatch. DotM is fun but crams way too much set up and it’s screwed up how they save the day. Still there are plenty of memorable moments and the setting is cool.

Into The Dalek – ANOTHER solid premise! This looks great and is actually exciting. It’s weird how they conflate hating the Daleks with goodness. They clean it up at the end but by then it’s too late. And the Dalek going rogue when they fix it is predictable. But I’m a sucker for good action and visuals.

Night Terrors – This is up there with Midnight & The Empty Child for DW’s scariest story. Those dolls are so creepy! I can take or leave everything else tbh. I only watch this on Halloween.

Partners In Crime – Great comedy. The running joke of the Doctor and Donna missing each other segues into the excellent dumbshow sequence. The Adipose CGI is rubbish but just look at those little guys! Loses points for the dull setting but earns them for giving Bernard Cribbons screentime.

Planet Of The Ood – Now here’s a cool setting! They don’t tend to do many ice planets. The scene of 10 running from the crane is unnecessary but who cares? Donna is so lovely when she sympathises with the Ood. Not all the music works for me though, bit too weird? Maybe.

The Rebel Flesh/ The Almost People – This is kinda underrated. By the end I’m a bit sick of the castle and brown jumpsuits. And I find it hard to believe that the humans would want to kill their own clones. That said, the action and mystery is solid and two 11th Doctors is fun.

Robot Of Sherwood – This is so much fun! Tom Riley shines as the swashbuckling Robin and has great comedic chemistry with Capaldi’s Doctor. 12’s grumpiness serves more of purpose here than in most of Series 8. Comparing the Doctor to a legendary folk hero is a bit wanky though.

The Snowmen – The first 20 minutes are really good. The scene when Clara follows the Doctor up the ladder is magical. The Doctor giving up on a heroics is abandoned way too soon. When he puts on his bow tie again it should have felt like Spiderman 2, not The Amazing Spiderman 2.

[mypinkchapter]

Processing vs. the process.

​"But we must not forget His presence in the midst of the process." (p.98) -- Lysa Terkeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way It's with lots of happiness that I am writing today on the other side of the dose dense AC chemo​ treatments​, aka "the hard stuff​." ​So, w​e're past the harder chemo & onto the maintenance chemo, plus the big surgery is well behind me & I'm a good ways into reconstruction -- one might think how easy it must be to relish in all these great things going for myself... but that's not been entirely true.

The past few weeks​ for me​ have been filled with finally, really, truly starting to process this whole process. It's been tough on me when the "whys" & "what ifs" start to sneak in & settle in my mind. I think that's fairly natural & normal for anyone who has stood in this place or a similar circumstance, because our flesh is our flesh. We can become a little self-centered pretty quickly. I think that ​ov​​er the last few weeks I have been a little harder on myself, completely lacking any grace or giving myself room for imperfection.​​ I feel like ​while ​watching other friends walk this journey, I give them way more grace than I give myself. As I said in my last post a few weeks ago, suffering isn't always pretty. Lysa Terkeurst discusses in her book mentioned above that sometimes we just have to sit in the seat of suffering. I guess at times I think that should be like a day or two & then I'm back to ​"​normal,​"​ but this journey entails more of a longsuffering. "Longsuffering is long because you can't sprint through it." (p.101) 

I feel like I have tried staying so composed at times that I haven't given myself room to struggle, but thank heavens God's grace is way better than my own! So with these realizations, I am doing my best to remember the grace that God shows me daily, practically minute by minute, & that I should show that same grace to myself ​(and oftentimes others) ​to accept that sometimes it's okay to struggle & it's okay to be tired, because God wants me to trust & rest in Him. There is a song that I started clinging to right before my diagnosis, which has been a staple for me since, and it has the lyrics, "I will rest in the Father's hands. Leave the rest in the Father's hands." I can't say I'm doing the best at this always, but I'm learning & I'm trying. The best part has been that I have been swept up by those at the heart of my support system, showing me grace & picking me up in the same way that Jesus picks us up when we need it the most!

I know I have mentioned this a few times here in my posts, but ​sweet ​friends, the Lord's timing... ​it's ​so good! In the midst of this season, our lives have resumed as normal as possible, including Ryan's & Elly's. Ryan has been working as a medical sales rep for about three years; he has had some of the nicest bosses who have allowed him to focus on me & my recovery or my treatments whenever needed. It's been the biggest blessing​​. But as we've spent lots of time with doctors, nurses, etc., Ryan felt a tugging at his heart to move back into direct patient care. His degree is in Interventional Radiology & jobs rarely open within that area, thus he had tossed the idea around of applying for nursing school. This summer, in between treatments, we had worked on him applying & trying to get some prerequisites going, but we kept getting frustrated with the process. It had become a headache & things were not playing out like they really should have in terms of timing. It makes me laugh when I think back now because it really should have been simple, but we fully believe the Lord threw a few road blocks in there in order for him to stumble upon a job opening in his degree field, & now several interviews & weeks later, he has landed a job back in patient care at our favorite place of care, St. Bernards. We are so excited & so grateful that God was perfect in His timing!​ He now gets to show the same love & compassion to others that we have been shown -- how neat!​ It works out perfectly that he'll be starting ​in the coming weeks​ as, like I mentioned earlier, I'm essentially starting on the downhill slide to this journey. It was a neat reminder to us that we have to fully trust in the Lord's timing & know that He places us in the right place at the right times for the right length of time. 

So, onto other topics, like hair... and how I have none! It's wild to me how this has all worked itself out for the better. Per my previous posts, I was obviously doing my best to save my hair through chemo, but it simply wasn't in the cards. I feel like I summed it up best in my post on social media ​on the​ evening of my decision, "Sometimes we step out & try things, but they don’t always work out in our favor... and guess what, IT’S OKAY! I didn’t want to seem like a 'quitter' but I had developed some major scalp pain & was continuously losing mass amounts of hair, so it was time to tell myself, 'It’s okay.'" 

Well I am happy to report that now, almost ​one​ month after choosing to be rid of what hair I had left, I feel honestly such freedom! That was a weight lifted from my shoulders that I didn't realize I was putting on myself. Hair grows back & it became so stress-inducing for me to worry over, that it was robbing me of joy. Joy that I am now embracing, just with a fuzzy head because it's already starting to come back in! Elly thinks it's great & funny enough, wants her hair cut like Mommy -- which is a big fat ​no​ because of those perfect curls, of course! But Ryan told me afterward that maybe a bald head is what I needed to add as an outward ​piece of my ​testimony ​on​ this journey. A dear friend that has battled cancer &  had to embrace losing her hair told me that she found that people tend to be nicer to someone with a bald head; I think she is right!

The treatment process continues tomorrow & I begin the new weekly drug in the morning. To be truthful, I'm anxious. I dove in headfirst to my first rounds simply because I had nothing to compare it to & I was so ready to get going. Now I'm still ready (because I'm ready to be done!), but I'm ready in a nervous way because I think of how this will compare. Will it actually be easier? Will I suffer the side effects my oncologist has discussed? ​Will even more normalcy be able to return?​ Again, it's simply that I have started to process this whole process & I now know how to question it compared to earlier in the journey. 

So I would really appreciate prayers over the next few weeks as we kick off this maintenance drug. Prayers that side effects are minimal & that I can easily function on this drug, because hello, SCHOOL is around the corner! :) And I want to be as normal of a teacher as possible. Just a teacher that goes one afternoon a week for a bit to get some chemo​...​ no big deal, right?! 

We are so appreciative​​ for the prayers, kind words, & sweet gestures that continue to come our way​ -- thank you​! 

All my love from my pink chapter,  Erin 

[rorykillmore]

i feel like i send u this every time i cant decide on new characters lol but do u want any canon mates for your charas rn, which ones?

uhhh let’s see... i ALWAYS want canonmates. though first of all a disclaimer: i might do a bit of character cleanout after the revamp and on the chance that you’re considering any of these i don’t want you to like, commit only for me to drop them, so let me know if you are thinking of picking anyone up.....

lucille... idk. it’d be complicated if she got canonmates because she’s already had significant interactions and developments with previous iterations of edith and thomas. so idk. it could be interesting??? but it really depends on the angle

siobhan, i’m gonna be real, i have ALWAYS wanted a livewire for siobhan. livewire would make, like, the perfect addition to the denny guardians. and she 500% deserves better than what she got in canon, so everybody wins!

otherwise maybe a winn?? i think i’ve talked about this before but i have a soft spot for winn and siobhan’s dynamic, and i think it’d be interesting for them to interact now that she’s developed a lot...

(also a cat grant even though her and siobhan hate each other because i’m just like, CONSTANTLY in a state of “denny needs a cat grant”,)

for sara... hm probably one of the legends (idk if i can narrow down favorites, kendra, snart, zari, jax maybe...) or most definitely an e-1 laurel! which would, y’know, cause a lot of catastrophic conflict, but also sara and e-1 laurel deserve their reunion, so,

bramblestar... you know i’d really love to see one of the journey cats on denny?? we had a few of them at various times -- squirrelflight, feathertail, giz tried out crowpaw briefly. but man i would LOVE to have bramblestar interact with tawnypelt, or really... any of his half-siblings, because he and hawkfrost obviously have a lot of conflict, and he and mothwing. never get to fucking interact and there’s so much potential there. anyway if bramblestar had any kind of sibling on denny it would definitely be super interesting, given tigerstar’s presence and the conflict tigerclan presents in general.

or you know who i’ve always thought would be a really interesting warrior cat to see on denny? goldenflower. because i have a lot of questions about her relationship with tigerstar that the books never answered. and also, give bramblestar his mom back,

for dolores.... i think it’d be really interesting to have a teddy!!! they have so much unresolved shit they need to deal with, and it’d be... sad and complicated with dolores dating laurel now. otherwise, virtually any of the characters you apped/tried out were fucking great, or i would love to have a bernard sometime especially with their mounting conflict.

or i’ve always thought dolores would have really interesting conversations with emily....

for sophie-anne.... idk [immediately forgets all the true blood characters]

no but i would definitely love to have a hadley!! that’d be one of those like. “basically expanding a lot of headcanons for a ship we really didn’t get to see much of in canon” things but. what we saw of them was great, and i like my “hadley would ask to be turned” headcanon. or maybe someone like pam or tara??

camille.... well you’ve mentioned wanting to try out jackie and obviously i would LOVE that. camille and jackie’s relationship is really. poignant to me but i also think they have a lot of unresolved, sad stuff going on. i think camille... forgives jackie or is trying to because she’s also trying to forgive herself for what happened with marian, and she loves jackie so much and jackie was sometimes the only thing that made her childhood bearable, but yeah. also there’d be a lot of potential for funny stuff obviously but there’s something legitimately impressive about jackie’s ability to get dirt on EVERYONE so i have to wonder like, what else she’d get into,

and then.... jay tried her out for a bit (and was wonderful with her) but i would fuckin kill to have an amma long term. i think amma is a wonderfully. painfully complex character who you could do a lot with in rp and admittedly i also just, want to give her and camille some kind of closure arc because they REALLY deserve it, 

i don’t know if anyone would ever try her out because she’s only in one episode but maybe alice too?? although i might cry too hard for that,

sly’s answer is surprisingly like, “too many to count”, because i realized how many sly cooper characters i would LOVE to see on denny. obviously there’s carmelita but i think fate is still planning on apping her eventually?? so besides her... definitely bentley or murray! how could i not want sly to have his best friends... and i also think someone like neyla has a hell of a lot of potential (good balance of ‘scary villain who would do shit’ and ‘potential to flesh out some legitimate complexity’) and that clockwerk if played right would be a TERRIFYING threat and.... someone like dimitri could make a fun comic relief character, or i have such a soft spot for the panda king

or really, honestly, ANY of the cooper ancestors, and so many of those are fan favorites so i’m always holding out hope that someone will pick one of those up! consider: rioichi and nyssa would get along INCREDIBLY well,

for nightcloud.... hmmm honestly i wouldn’t mind having a crowfeather as much as there is to complain about with that relationship because. i’m always here for rping things out in a more satisfying way than canon,

but also like... god i don’t know. feathertail or... i’m trying to think what other female characters Deserved Better because i would love to give nightcloud a ship with another she-cat that kind of. deconstructs a bit of that jealousy thing she does

for susie i would be SO fucking stoked if someone apped someone else from the suspiria movie, actually. specifically like... madame blanc or sara because obviously susie had very poignant and important relationships with both of them (and i think they’re both great characters in their own right). and like. aren’t we all here for sad gay stuff,

also this might be a weird answer but i’m like... weirdly attached to the remake’s version of olga?? she has like 10 minutes of screentime so idek why except for the fact that i was like, previously attached to olga from the original movie. probably no one would ever care enough to flesh her out and app her unless they were like BIG into suspiria like me or fate or jemi are but, y’know

cordelia.... already has/or has had some great canonmates on denny; obviously i already REALLY love your myrtle. if you’re not still planning on apping her... idk i know you also said you were interested in coco or queenie and they would both be amazing to see. basically any of the coven witches!! or uh... christ idk i don’t have the energy to sort through the other seasons of ahs characters now but, any ahs characters would be really interesting i’m sure

for alana, barring the two you’ve already tried out.... i of course think having hannibal around would be both catastrophic and extremely interesting for everyone involved. or also, possibly a weirder answer, but jack??? idk you know we need some like. Solid Law Types for the mld maybe, and i have a weird soft spot/interest in alana and jack’s relationship. or like... obviously getting an abigail would be really sad and complicated (but also, give abigail a shot at a normal life,) or i’ve always thought bedelia could be super interesting on denny...

but naturally the REAL answer here is matthew brown,

for villanelle... i mean i should preempt this by saying that i can’t think of a like, major or supporting character from killing eve who isn’t fucking delightful and i would be thrilled to see ANY of them. if you continue with irina i would rp with her more in an instant

but also..... i would lay down my life for an eve, i gotta be real..... idk what else there is to say.  eve is another character who would be interesting with the mld (though. not for the same reasons as jack. the mld has had corrupt characters and it’s had lawful characters but it hasn’t really had someone who’s... slowly spiraling off the rails yet??) and of course i would throw like 15 million plots at her with villanelle (and my other characters, i guess, >__>). villanelle deserves to have the rug pulled out from under her with eve showing up, so,

okay and then laura.... idk american gods is. SUCH a universe. there are so many potential characters from that who would be fun on denny. to narrow down a couple, obviously shadow and laura have... a lot of unresolved issues to work out and i would kind of really love to play off a shadow because i have a thing for like. sad unresolved ex plots?? and they’d be great for that, nevermind the fact that shadow would have a lot of potential on denny...

ooooor mad sweeney because i have to admit i am becoming a LITTLE bit of a sucker for him and laura as a ship and how could i RESIST the opportunity for things to spiral into disaster if/when she finds out about his involvement in her death. but also like. give me them working through that and becoming better people together.  or mr wednesday!! i mean any of the gods would be INCREDIBLE to see on denny but i think mr. wednesday really stands out as far as... how much overall plot potential he has because he is really such a driving force. and i both love him and love to hate him,

[aion-rsa]

The Last Kingdom’s Historical Advisor on Accuracy: ‘It’s a Constant Compromise’

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After completing his PhD in Early Medieval History, Ryan Lavelle picked up a novel dramatising the events of King Alfred’s early reign. The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell was the first in what was then known as the Saxon Stories saga. It told the story of Uhtred, a fictional 9th century Northumbrian warrior raised by Vikings who, despite a conflicted relationship with the king of Wessex, became Alfred’s military tactician. Lavelle lapped it up.

In the following years, Cornwell published another, and then another and another. Lavelle read them all, delighting in their inclusion of real historical events and use of a central character whose divided loyalties allowed a perspective into the very different worlds of Saxon and Dane.

“There were certain things in the novels, details that made me think ‘this isn’t quite right’, but I was impressed with Cornwell’s engagement with historical records and places,” he tells Den of Geek over Zoom, pointing out his editions of the Saxon Stories on the bookshelves behind him.

A decade after reading the first of the books, Lavelle was contacted by fellow historian Dame Janet ‘Jinty’ Nelson, to ask if he’d be interested in advising on a new historical TV drama. Filming was due to take place in Hungary, explained Professor Nelson, and she wasn’t keen to travel. The drama, she said, was an adaptation of a set of novels by “some chap called Cornwell”. 

Bernard Cornwell makes a cameo in The Last Kingdom season four

Lavelle laughs at the memory. “To me, Bernard Cornwell was a major figure in my consciousness! He wasn’t just ‘some chap called Cornwell’, this was the Bernard Cornwell. I was enormously excited. I still have an element of that initial excitement of thinking that this is a world that I’ve tried to inhabit in my mind, and it’s being paid enough attention to be able to put flesh on the bones of characters who’ve been dead for 1000 years.”

Six years later, and Lavelle has served as historical advisor across five seasons of The Last Kingdom, the hit Netflix drama that Cornwell’s book series has since been renamed for, which plans to start filming its fifth season in late 2020. On set, he’s felt the heat of a burning Viking hall and heard the battle cries and clashing swords of medieval warriors. Off set, he’s used the show as a talking point for undergraduates at the University of Winchester, looking at how its representation of events differs from historical evidence.

When that happens on The Last Kingdom, says Lavelle, it’s the choice of creators who are informed about the historical context but are choosing to serve the drama. “I have to be pedantic. I have to let them know when things aren’t right, but they have to make the decision, and they make those decisions from a perspective of being informed of the actual history.”

‘The historical clock moves faster than the clock in the drama’

Lavelle found his job relatively straightforward on The Last Kingdom’s first season. It retold the events of King Alfred’s reign from around 871 to the Battle of Edington (or Ethandun as it’s styled in the series) “reasonably closely, with a certain amount of licence.” That licence commonly involved condensing the timeline to cover more story over a shorter period. “In the first year of Alfred’s reign there were lots of different battles against the Vikings and in the series, that basically gets boiled down to two encounters.”

The most recent season took more liberties with the timeline. “Edward the Elder’s reign, on which the fourth season is based, was from 899-900 through to 924. Some of the things mentioned in season four actually happened quite late in Edward’s reign, so you’ve got the battle of Tettenhall, which took place in 910. Aethelred, the ealdorman of the Mercians, died in 911. Aethelflaed receiving the submission of the men of York didn’t happen until in 918… there’s a lot of things they’re having to change.”

Read more

TV

The Last Kingdom: How Historically Accurate is the Netflix Drama?

By Louisa Mellor

TV

The Last Kingdom Renewed for Season 5

By Louisa Mellor

There’s a very good reason for the drama to condense these events: the age of its cast. If the series stuck slavishly to the historical chronology, its characters would have had to have aged almost two decades over the course of the last eight episodes. According to a lay-person’s timeline like this one, that would leave lead character Uhtred (played by 37-year-old Alexander Dreymon) nearing his seventies by the finale, which clearly wouldn’t do.

“You’ll have noticed that Alex Dreymon’s still a good looking young man,” laughs Lavelle, “so we can’t push Uhtred’s age on too far! The historical clock moves on faster than the clock in the drama.”

For Lavelle, the most startling change to historical chronology in season four is the continued existence of King Alfred’s widow Aelswith, played by Eliza Butterworth. “Historically, she’s meant to be dead by 903! But she’s such a great character that I would have been very sad if she wasn’t there in season four. Aelswith, as a device, allows the family tensions to play out. If she wasn’t there, it would be difficult to get that to work.”

After being poisoned by the scheming Lord Aethelhelm in the season four finale, Aelswith was looking a bit peaky the last time we saw her, I point out. Lavelle laughs. “She’s not looking well at the end, no indeed! Maybe this is the historical clock catching up with her!”

‘You can’t have something as momentous as the Black Death and it not have a long-term affect’

Season four included a storyline that felt particularly timely when it arrived on Netflix in April 2020 mid-coronavirus pandemic. A deadly sickness was passing through the kingdoms, cutting a swathe through villages. The original idea from the writers was to portray it as “a full on bubonic plague,” says Lavelle, but that was dialled back for the series.

“Where the story eventually ended up, it was a small-scale epidemic in a confined area rather than being the Black Death, which would have totally changed the storyline. Bubonic plague happened much later, in the Late Middle Ages. You can’t have something as momentous as the Black Death and have it not affect life for the next fifty years, but the way the story was panning out, it only affected the drama over a short period. I hope I had some influence in this, because historically, that would have been a big change.”

Lavelle was able to reconcile himself to the sickness plot because there had been an outbreak of a plague in the period, just 10 years earlier, at the end of Alfred’s reign. “It was a case of history catching up with the storyline a little bit.”

‘We always have to play with history to some extent’

As an Early Medieval historian, Lavelle is accustomed to using his imagination to bridge gaps between what is and isn’t known from historical sources. “The evidence for our period is limited so we always have to play with history to some extent.” The Last Kingdom does the same, he says. It’s by no means a documentary, but demonstrates “a respectful acquaintance with the history of the period, a tip of the hat to historical events, you could say!”

Part of Lavelle’s advisory role involves making the Medieval character and place names accessible to a modern audience. He researches the names and spends a few hours practicing the pronunciations before making recordings that are interpreted by a dialogue coach and taught to the cast.

“People who are real experts in Old English would probably have me over a barrel in pronouncing them wrong, but it’s no use having the names beautifully pronounced in Old English or Old Norse if the viewers are constantly baffled by them. There are necessary compromises to get these names over the line and to allow viewers to talk about them too. There are constant discussions about what form the names should take.”

Lavelle admires the series’ place name captions, which appear in the original language before transitioning to the modern version. “Eoforwic is one of the most difficult, because there’s the old Norse name of ‘Jorvik’ which became the predominant place name form. What appears in historical documents is often a form of the name that’s been affected by its role in a sentence of historical record. In Old English there are particular forms of words according to what they’re doing in a sentence. What I’ve tried to do, in my imperfect Old English, is convert those to the nominative version of the place name in order that it reflects a version of the historical place name. We do think about these things,” he laughs, “they’re not just plucked off the back of an envelope!”

If he had his way, he laughs, the series would use the Old English letter ‘Thorn’, but it’s a matter of accessibility. “It’s a constant compromise. These things are… oh dear, I just fell into a pun,” he laughs, “a thorn in the side!”

Author Bernard Cornwell describes his books as a gateway into the study of real history, and Lavelle hopes the TV series is the same. On that note, outside of Cornwell’s novels, where might fans go looking for a hint of what’s to come in season five?

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“It’ll be based on books nine and ten – The Warriors of the Storm and The Flame Bearer. Uhtred is charged with training King Edward’s first-born son Aethelstan as a warrior, so Aethelstan is one thing. Read a little bit more about Edward. If you do the homework of looking at the historical sources then it could allow the possibility of seeing some of the faces that might appear on screen! History has its own spoilers!”

Read more from Professor Lavelle on The Last Kingdom at History Extra.

The post The Last Kingdom’s Historical Advisor on Accuracy: ‘It’s a Constant Compromise’ appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3fR47La

[kingofthebats40]

Death //from drabble meme

Henri-Bernard placed a few flowers on Severus’ grave. He picked lilies, and he wasn’t sure why, but he had a feeling Severus liked them a lot. They were from Henri-Bernard’s wife Eliza’s garden. She had grown them herself, and with the circumstances, she agreed to give her dear husband a few.Henri-Bernard was kneeling next to the grave. It was a quiet night in the middle of June. Of course, Severus had died almost a decade ago, but the old man couldn’t bear to see the younger man’s grave until today. His therapist and his substance abuse counselor both had recommended that he go and get the pain out, and give Severus the goodbye he needed. Today, Henri-Bernard felt like he was ready.He was alone. He was wearing a loose cotton black shirt, along with newer jeans and some mahogany brown Oxford shoes with black laces. He didn’t mind brushing off dirt if he needed to. If Severus could deal with it, so could he.“Severus.” Henri-Bernard tried to smile, almost as though they were just old friends who got into a fallout a long time ago. His smile was painfully forced, and he could feel it. Therefore, he decided to skip out on the smiling and just get on with what he needed to say.But then he couldn’t figure out exactly how.How exactly could he apologize for causing Severus’ death? The Dark Lord never would have suspected a nice hit on the back of the head with a plank, but then that…that damned snake appeared. She was about as big as the one he kept seeing in his dreams, with teeth as sharp and a glare just as hateful. He took one look at that demonic creature and he just…froze.Just like in his dreams. It would bite his neck and he would fall to the ground, and the snake would…Henri-Bernard started to choke on his own breath, and he put a hand on his chest. He started to heave a little bit, and he held back tears. He thought about what Severus would have done if he were actually alive and looking at his former companion in that moment. The Potions Master would most certainly sigh and shake his head and tell the Werewolf to stop being such an overly emotional dunderhead, as he was a grown man. The thought at least made Henri-Bernard smile for a bit. Most people thought Severus was needlessly a jerk, but for whatever reason Henri-Bernard found that Severus understood him more than anyone else.Henri-Bernard’s smile faded once he looked at the gravestone once more. He was worried that someone would have vandalized it at some point due to his controversial nature, but considering he was buried quite a while after death, in a hasty ceremony, and there were also most certainly protective charms, he was glad that the stone was left intact.He absentmindedly started to trace the date of Severus’ death. He didn’t even make it to his fortieth birthday, and yet the two men looked like they were around the same age if they stood side by side. Now Henri-Bernard was nearing his eightieth birthday, as long as he continued to follow the advice of his doctors, and made his wife happy. He thought about how Severus died with perhaps no family left, no children, and Henri-Bernard being his last friend, the only living person who knew that he wasn’t the ruthless, cold Death Eater everyone had thought him for. He thought about how his own fears and disease had betrayed both Severus and himself. He wondered if Severus felt any more pain after being attacked and murdered and yet not being able to see his so-called friend in sight. But then he thought about how Severus’ death kicked his ass into gear and finally urged him to get treatment, just as Severus had suggested. Granted, Henri-Bernard decided that the Muggle way was probably more effective, something Severus probably would have turned up his nose at, but would have also been happy that Henri-Bernard was at least trying to be more productive.He took in a deep breath. “I hope you know what happened. And I hope you know that I never wanted your death, Severus.”It would be impossible to tell. Maybe God told Severus everything he ever wanted to know, because Severus would most certainly be in Heaven if God was at all merciful and kind. Maybe Severus was in another plane of existence and his past life was trivial and meaningless in comparison. Maybe he was gone for food, like the mist, and he would never know why Henri-Bernard didn’t rescue him, because he simply just wasn’t alive, anymore.Either way, the tired and withered flesh was gone from Severus’ bones, and all that was left was the skeleton. His wounds were gone, his broken heart was gone, and his mind that was wracked with evil spirits was gone, too. No matter what ended up of Severus’ soul, his suffering was surely over.Henri-Bernard pat the grass, feeling quite uneasy that his friend was six feet away from him, lying in the warm dirt in his coffin, unaware of anything that had happened in almost a decade. But he knew that Severus, at the same time, wasn’t there.“Are we both at peace, now?” He asked the stone, almost as if he had expected an answer to be written underneath. It wouldn’t surprise him in the world he was in.He decided that he didn’t need anyone to tell him the answer. He knew.“Nice seeing you again, mate.” Henri-Bernard rose. He left the flowers with Severus. They two would wither away and die, only to be carried away by the wind, and disintegrate into nothing. How lucky were they?

[pod7]

Fall Anime* 2016 Lightning Review

*Just the shows I watched of course

Shows Included: 3-gatsu no Lion, All Out!!, Bernard-jou Iwaku, Bishoujo Yuugi Unit Crane Game Girls Galaxy, Cheating Craft, DAYS, Drifters, Fune wo Amu, Getsuyoubi no Tawawa, Kaijuu Girls: Ultra Kaijuu Gijinka Keikaku, Keijo!!!!!!!!, Kiitarou Shounen no Youkai Enikki, Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku, Nanbaka, Nazotokine, Nobunaga no Shinobi, Occultic;Nine, Okusama ga Seitokaichou!+!, Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan, Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume, Sousei no Onmyouji, Soushin Shoujo Matoi, Stella no Mahou, Teekyuu 8, Tiger Mask W, To Be Hero, Udon no Kuni no Kiniro Kemari, Watashi ga Motete Dousunda, WWW. Working!!

A really mixed bag this season, though a much better season than the summer!

3-gatsu no Lion As expected of SHAFT, a great character driven coming-of-age story that is practically flawless. I really enjoy any time the three sisters are on screen, but I also appreciate the appearances that his step-sister has made. She’s just sympathetic enough that you feel bad for feeling bad for her, but she’s also cruel enough to make you tense up the moment she comes on screen. The one thing I don’t like about this show is the thing it seems to get the most hype for, which is it’s intro song. I just don’t feel like it fits the attitude of the show. Otherwise though, yet another home run from SHAFT. Series continues! Highest recommendation

All Out!! This isn’t the best show, I wouldn’t even say it’s better than DAYS, but it was enjoyable enough. If the retired pro player turned coach hadn’t of shown up, I might have dropped it, truth be told. Once he shows up the, the season really picked up. The show is continuing, so hopefully that upward trend is here to stay. Series continues!

Bernard-jou Iwaku I’m not much of a book nerd, so a lot of this was lost on me, but there were still some great laughs to be had. If you’re into science fiction and novels in general they have a lot of interesting factoids about books and you could probably pick up some good recommendations from it. 7/10

Bishoujo Yuugi Unit Crane Game Girls Galaxy The series got a budget this time around, so it was actually pretty well animated (for flash), and they were able to have a lot more detail as well. I loved the inclusion of Dark Cherry, they were great foils to CRANE GAMU. It was more of a nonsense comedy this season, as opposed to “crane game tips as brought to you by an idol anime” that the first season had. Ended on a pretty wild note with Kyouko and Rei seemingly becoming a couple out of nowhere, though in hindsight they make a great pair. 8/10

Cheating Craft A really weird show, like, it would be hard to even explain what it is without being incredibly vague. The characters were great, especially the home room teacher. One of several shows this season that had some surprise GL in it. 6/10

DAYS I still think that the coach from this team would have been fired already, for letting someone that inexperienced play in such important matches. I also feel like the show contradicted itself quite a bit; they said that all the starters are starters because they are out for themselves, but they were willing to play with a no-experience player AS A STARTER. Maybe it’s just a sports thing I don’t understand, but every time someone said “it’s not your fault” I was audibly saying “no, it really was!” Ubukata was great, but I feel bad for Tsukushi’s childhood friend basically getting zero screen time after the first episode. I would have liked for Tsukushi’s mom to have been more of a factor in the show as well. For a sports anime, it was good, but there were a lot of things I had problems with. 7/10

Drifters It’s a cool concept, of course, but I worry about the execution of it all. This great nation of Orte that some of the characters wish to protect was founded by Adolf Hitler, who is supposedly a Drifter, which makes him a good guy by default, since that’s what the protagonists are. If I need to spell out why that’s fishy at best, then you need to go back to school or at least watch the History channel once in a while. I also would have liked to have seen at some point in this season some kind of selection process for why someone ends up a Drifter and why someone ends up as an End. If the Black King isn’t Merlin, I will be incredibly shocked, because he’s the only historical figure I can think of that would also be excusable as such an all powerful deity type figure that can give other people powers, as well as using alchemy. I love the harsh art style, it fits the attitude of the show quite well. As a history nerd, I think it would be really funny if Teddy Roosevelt showed up with the Rough RIders to go ham on the Ends, but will just have to see what the next season holds. 8/10

Fune wo Amu I had originally thought this would be a much different series. After the first episode I actually looked it up to see if it was going to be something I’d actually be able to watch three episodes of without falling asleep. The synopsis I read was pretty misleading, though it may have been for the live action adaptation that came out before; it basically said that the protagonist would be tasked with defining “love”, and through that he would complete this dictionary and learn to live life to the fullest and so on. Unfortunately, for the animated adaptation at least, that’s pretty much a lie. He realizes he has feelings for his landlord’s grand-daughter, and then four episodes later they’ve been married for over a decade, her as a successful chef, and he on the cusp of completing the dictionary. It felt like they cut out an entire third (or even half) of the story just to fit it into 12 episodes, which was really disappointing to me. It wasn’t bad, but I felt like it could have made it’s point about seeing things through and the importance of words a lot clearer with just a few more episodes. 7/10

Getsuyoubi no Tawawa I’m kind of surprised that this show didn’t get a lot of shit, to be frank. It’s everything people love to guffaw about when it comes to anime; a large-chested girl who is too young for the guy she is talking to in most cases and is doing everything but dragging him to a love hotel. I’m not even sure what this would be categorized as; I wouldn’t call it a romcom, because there weren’t really any gags or jokes to it, and if you just call it a romance then people expect drama when there wasn’t any of that either. So... if you want to see a well-endowed girl flirt with nameless, faceless men for 12 episodes, this is the one for you. 6/10

Kaijuu Girls: Ultra Kaijuu Gijinka Keikaku There isn’t really much to say about this show other than if you like kaijuu and chibi/SD characters, you’ll probably like this show. If it had been more than a five minute show, I think it would have become boring, because they don’t really end up doing that much over the course of the season. Just a short, silly comedy about girls learning to use powers, basically. 7/10

Keijo!!!!!!!! I really want to compare this to Valkyrie Drive, because it was good, but... it was just a little too much. If they had dialed back the ecchi during the times they weren’t in a match, I think it would have had a greater comedic impact when it came to the action. Instead towards the end it was like “wow they are laying it on thick this episode.” Still, I salute them for just going all out with it. I usually complain about “boring sports” anime needing to rely on silly gimmicks for their characters to make the show more interesting, but Keijo already had it’s silly gimmick in place, so the super moves/abilities weren’t far as far fetched as say, a mahjong player that does better because there is a full moon out that night. The foley artists should be commended specifically for this show, they did an incredible job. 8/10

Kiitarou Shounen no Youkai Enikki This show came and went by in a flash. I didn’t even realize it had ended until I started writing this; it didn’t have a very definitive finale I guess. if you’re into Japanese folklore/yokai/bakemono/etc, but also are okay with those characters used in a comedic setting, you should give this show a shot. 7/10

Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku I don’t really know how to feel about this at this point. The character design bothered me a lot in the beginning, and by the time I got used to it, other problems sprang forth. It was another one of those “subversion of the genre” mahou shoujo series, which has become a genre on it’s own at this point because so many people are doing it. Out of all the girls, Swim Swim’s arc was the best, though I wish they had explained why she had her super OP power (since most of the others depended on what they wanted to do or their personality, seemingly.) It was also interesting that in the end they kept their powers, even though they broke their communicators from Fav, which was a nice change of pace. 7/10

Nanbaka This was a very strange show. At first I thought it was going to be like JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure because of the aesthetic, but instead it was just a fun gag show about a larger than life prison. Of course the highlight of the show for me was once again, Yuu Kobayashi as the warden, stealing the spotlight in a fairly minor role. I think I enjoyed it more as a comedy, because towards the end it gets pretty serious with some action mixed in too, and it just felt kind of like “Okay let’s get back to the gags now.” Overall though a pretty entertaining show. 8/10

Nazotokine An OL who works as secretary to the CEO of a major company finds excitement in her every day life, but suddenly gets sucked into a weird dimension where she is tasked with solving puzzles in order to go back to her normal life. Unfortunately, many of the puzzles involved Japanese words I didn’t know, so I was basically just watching for the performances (thought the two or three that didn’t I was able to solve.) A good premise, I think it could have been fleshed out a lot more. It seems like the kind of thing that was based off of a mobile game or even just a series of puzzle books. I just thought it was funny that this and Tiger Mask W aired in the same season because in TMW they show New Japan Pro Wrestling all the time, and in Nazotokine during one episode they go to an All Japan Pro Wrestling show. Would like to see more but I doubt it will happen. 8/10

Nobunaga no Shinobi A nice, short gag comedy about a little ninja girl who is super effective with her work but kind of a ditz otherwise. A cute show that can be surprisingly bloody, but most of the time it’s just goofball type humor. Series continues!

Occultic;Nine The first third and last third of this season were okay, but the middle part was really boring and a lot of the side stuff going on felt unnecessary. Spending so much time on the little girl practicing black magic and the guy using astral projection just to have a way to explain how time passes for you as a scandium ghost was a little much. The cast wasn’t particularly relatable either. I did like the reveal of the person who was going around “deleting” the ghosts, though, and the FBI with psychometry was really great (would have preferred to see the story from her perspective honestly.) It felt like someone who wrote a Persona teamed up with a studio that wants to be SHAFT. 5/10

Okusama ga Seitokaichou!+! Wasn’t a fan of this season as much as the last one. It felt like they had a meeting and said “Okay, the framing is established with season one, so now we can just go all out with erotica!” The problem was is that, they can only go so far, so showing what is basically the same thing over and over with just different characters makes it lose any ecchi power it may have had originally. 6/10

Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan An absolute joy of a show. I would not mind if I was still writing about this show in these season wrap-up reviews this time next year, it’s that good. Nendou-kun has grown on me a lot as the show has gone on, and Teruhashi has become my favorite character I think. 10/10

Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume I started to have the same problem with this show that I did with Saki (the mahjong anime), wherein they feel like the characters or action aren’t strong enough, so they have to give the players these goofy gimmicks that are beyond ridiculous. I really could not stand the green-haired yandere chick in this show, and was incredibly happened when that mini-arc ended. The beginning third of the show, I can understand people being perturbed at the lack of sport in this sport anime in favor of so much ~moe, but I think the episodes after the practice match arc are a great example of the show at it’s best, with a great balance of moe and sport. It’s not for everyone, but it has a fun, memorable cast. Reminded me quite a lot of KanaMemo, actually. 8/10

Sousei no Onmyouji Well, I would say the ride was fun, but it really wasn’t for the most part. The first arc of the show was pretty good, then they had a lovebirds arc which was horrendously stupid, and then it got into more action again and it was fine for a while but then you could tell the original writer started stalling at a certain point and it was really obnoxious how so little of what was going on week to week felt like it mattered in the grand scheme of things. It was like the series couldn’t decided to be a supernatural action show or a romcom, and you can’t really half-ass doing both when you have a masterpiece like Katanagatari out there. It had promise, but just took way too long to deliver, if it ever will. Dropped

Soushin Shoujo Matoi I don’t know if I’ve just watched too much anime by now or what, but I felt like I had seen this show a hundred times already. Nothing felt new or refreshing. It’s a very pretty show, at least, so I watched it all the way through, but I don’t think I’ll remember the name of this show next week, let alone next year. 7/10

Stella no Mahou I was a little worried about this show at the beginning because of how babyish the protagonist was, but she matures pretty quickly, and the remnants of her babyness become part of her charm. This felt like if you mixed Yuru Yuri and Wakaba Girl together, which is a pretty good combo. It also reminded me a bit of Saekano, even down to the girl in charge of music getting the least screen time. I would like to see another season of this but I think it would need to move about more into a more serious mood, like maybe they decide to debut at Comiket for real this time and put everything they have into a new game. 9/10

Teekyuu 8 I always love Teekyuu content, if you’ve followed me for a while then you know that quite well. 10/10

Tiger Mask W What knowledge I DON’T have from never having seen the previous Tiger Mask anime, the knowledge I have of him as an IRL pro wrestler and the current Japanese wrestling scene and attitude has made up for anything I would have otherwise missed. If nobody noticed, Monopoly is meant to be the WWE, and New Japan’s partnership with this series is a pretty clear showing on how they feel about WWE’s current move to basically create pro-wrestling colonies on other continents. There’s a lot of other BTS politics involved, but it’s interesting to see it as fodder for what amounts to a kids’ show. The main problem I have with the series so far is the inconsistency in violence and how much is tolerated. One of Tiger’s early foes causes him to bleed profusely and beats the piss out of him, but he says his match with Tiger the Dark was his hardest yet and he was barely even scratched. Also, a guy with a sword shows up in one episode, which is just bad, since he can never realistically use it (even in a cartoon setting.) Series continues!

To Be Hero I haven’t read anything about the behind-the-scenes of this series, but it would not surprise me in the least if it was a jab at One Punch Man. The dialogue is the star of the show here, with every character getting at least one really great monologue. The ending was actually pretty touching for a show about a guy that got superpowers from taking a dump. 8/10

Udon no Kuni no Kiniro Kemari This show was great, but towards the end, it felt kind of forced. It had a great thing going, and then it was like they thought, “Wait, Poco is still a tanuki?! Crap, what are we going to do?” I think this would have been better served about a guy reconciling with his decision to go to Tokyo, and having a son he didn’t know about to deal with in the process. Maybe Souta left for Tokyo for the same reason, but while he was there, he dated a foreigner, and they broke up, which lead to him getting into a rut at his job, and then finally moving back home to take care of his father’s effects post-mortem, where he finds his dad had taken in the child his girlfriend never told him about. SOMETHING like that. There was also a great missed opportunity I think with Nakaji and Rinko. One of Nakaji’s problems in the season is that his parents are hounding him about getting married, so what if he hadn’t been even looking because he was having an affair with Rinko? It honestly felt like that’s where they were going with it to me. She tells him he should stop smoking, and he eats her cooking despite knowing it’s bad, and then when she tells him she’s pregnant, it just honestly felt like that scene was written out as her telling him it’s his, and he’s the first to know she’s pregnant. It was also kind of disappointing that Udon didn’t really have all that much to do with the show, despite being in the title. Kana Hanazawa’s character is about as big of a red herring as you can get in this kind of show, as well. It’s cute and genuinely funny, but could have been much better and poignant in another world. 8/10

Watashi ga Motete Dousunda I imagine the manga won’t end the same way the show did (assuming the manga continues from there), but I think the writers of the show ended it the best way they could. Say what you will about the comedy based around liking gay fiction (admittedly exploitative fiction) making you a weirdo, but I feel like when it came to Nishina, they treated her respectfully, even showing her as a true rival, an equal, amongst the other suitors that Kae genuinely considered. That in itself should be celebrated. Yuu Kobayashi is easily top 3 seiyuu for me, so any show that she is the focal point is always one that I will enjoy all the way through. 9/10

WWW. Working!! I had a pretty big falling out with the main Working!! series, but there were several things that I did enjoy about it. I’m happy to say that those things are present in this spinoff as well, not only that, but I feel like WWW does it even better. In the main series, several of the characters were a pain in the ass with no payoff, but in WWW, they wrap up everything nicely in one season, without any characters feeling annoying or worthless. My favorite, as per usual, was one of the characters with the least amount of screen time, Kisaki. Of course, the manager was my fav character from the main series, and since they share many traits, it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. It almost felt like this was a reboot in retrospect, considering how similar some of the characters are to the main series cast; they were just written better this time around. 9/10

[chrismroyce]

Sports Night – Episode One – Pilot

Season One: Episode 1: Pilot

Original Air Date: 22 September 1998

Written By: Aaron Sorkin

Directed By: Thomas Schlamme

Starring: Josh Charles, Peter Krause, Felicity Huffman, Joshua Malina, Sabrina Lloyd, and Robert Guillaume

Also Starring: Kayla Blake, Greg Baker, Timothy Davis-Reed, Ron Ostrow

Guest Starring: Robert Maihouse, Bernard Hocke, Nina Jane Barry

Spoiler-Free Summary

Sports Night is show that takes place at the New York Headquarters of a sports show called– appropriately enough–Sports Night. The pilot episode–the first episode of television the Aaron Sorkin ever wrote–does a more than adequate job of introducing the setting and characters, and setting up the primary conflicts for the run of the show. We have our two stars, Dan Rydell & Casey McCall (Charles & Krause), who anchor the show from NYC (later we'll be introduced to some of he show's on-air analysts and field reporters) and the production staff led by Managing Editor Isaac Jaffe (Guillaume), Executive Producer Dana Whitaker (Huffman), and Senior Associate Producer Natalie Hurley (Lloyd). Joining the show-within-a-show is Jeremy Goodwin (Malina,) who has a rather awkward but very verbose interview in the third act of the episode.

In the pilot episode there is immediately a major problem to solve that has ripple effects throughout the personal and professional relationships of the ensemble. Casey is recently divorced and, as a result of not dealing with his issues surrounding his marriage, his job performance is suffering. His friends & coworkers attempt to help Casey return exercising his full potential behind the anchor desk. Casey's performance on the air–or lack thereof–catches the attention of the representative of the Network, J.J. (Mailhouse), who wants to replace him.

As we kick off the first entry in the Sports Night portion of the Rewatch, try not to be too distracted by the now-preciously-ancient laptops & other electronics, and enjoy what Sorkin himself refers to as "the redemptive power of sports." 

The Breakdown

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

The first thing that needs to be addressed is the incredible distraction that is the artificial laugh track. The ABC executives weren't sure that the audience would know that the show was supposed to be funny without the artificial laughter added, even though Sports Night "doesn't have the rhythms of a

regular sitcom," Sorkin explains on the DVD commentary. The laugh track will gradually fade through the first dozen or so episodes, so we won't have to deal with it for the entire run of the series. On to more relevant things...

The pilot introduces the six principle members of the ensemble by setting up an immediate conflict to pit them against each other, and make them find reasons to unite. The storyline of the pilot episode is not so different from A Few Good Men or The American President. Our protagonist has some deep-seated emotional issues that he cannot deal with alone, and performs uncharacteristically poorly at their job until pushed to greatness by those around him. 

Casey

Here we see Casey McCall in the Dan Kaffee/Andy Shepherd role, unable to process the frustration and loss and confusion of his recent divorce. His writing partner Dan and his producer Dana try to hold his hand through this personal transition, while preventing him from doing to too much damage to the institution of the show itself. Much like any other personality-driven television program, the face of the show is the show in the public eye, so Casey not being Casey is a big problem for Sports Night–one that cost people their jobs.

Peter Krause, doesn't have enough time in this first episode to completely flesh out Casey's brilliance and complexities, but cracks open the door for the audience to peer through. His transformation at the end of the episode ("Ntozake Nelsen's got something' to say about a world record!") is truly a thing to behold, especially given his lackluster reads at the top of the show. 

Dan

Dan's main function in this episode is comic relief, as the audience adjusts to the interplay of the characters and Sorkin's unique dialogue style. He is having a "New York Renaissance," and gleefully pesters everyone in sight with his epiphanies about the city. Josh Charles never allows us to think that Dan is vapid or insubstantial, however. When J.J.-the-suit tries to get Dan to turncoat on Casey in favor of another partner, he responds with singular pith and intensity, "My future is writing and anchoring a sports program with my partner, Casey McCall. Now if it's here, it's here, if it's not, it is someplace else."

His loyalty and passion are expressed even more forcefully at the end of the episode, when he confronts his writing partner head-on about his issues. Danny's is easily the best speech of the night, as he refutes the petty problems objections Casey is hiding behind. 

I've been here every day Casey, every day. And I have kept my mouth shut, because that's what you asked me to do. But if you'd've asked me, I'd've told you that Lisa is an angry, unhappy, punishing woman, and in ten years there's never been a single moment that has suggested to me that she has any affection for you at all. And I have no patience for people like that. Now the people here, they like you. Isaac, Natalie, Kim, Elliot... I don't know who the new guy Jeremy is, but he seems to like you just fine. Have you even noticed that Dana's been keeping J.J. and the network away from you with a whip and a chair? Huh? Have you noticed that she's been risking her job for you every day? And do you really think, my friend, that it has that much to do with your talent? These are people who like you, okay? They know what you've been going through, and for three months now, you have shown us nothing but the back of your hand–and now you're gonna show us the door? Well excuse me, but the wisdom of your decision isn't entirely clear to me here, okay? 

This is the critical moment for Casey–and by extension, the show as we know it. Without this moment of confrontation, maybe Casey really does leave, and who knows what Sports Night becomes without the Dan-Casey-Dana partnership at it's heart. Danny doesn't single-handedly solve the problem, but he provides a crucial setup for the finale. 

Dana

"You're screwing up my show," Dana tells Casey during the first heart-to-heart Casey experiences in this episode. This is just one in a series of management-level decisions and conversations that Dana, as Executive Producer, is called upon to conduct in the pilot, alone. She rides herd over the office shenanigans of her producers and the many myriad departments necessary to run a live nightly television show.

Like Dan & Casey, her personal loyalties are just as important as her professional connections. She stands up for Casey not just because it's her duty as a boss, but because it's her role as a friend, telling Isaac, "I owe it to him... We all do."

And also like Dan & Casey–and basically everyone else in the Sports Night cast/family–sports isn't just Dana's vocation, but her passion. We'll learn more later about her personal connections to the world of professional athletics, but during this episode it's easy to see that this woman loves what he does. 

Isaac

There is no question from the way Robert Guillaume walks that Isaac Jaffe is in the man in charge. He is the leader of the ensemble, managing his staff and their corporate bosses with confidence and a plainspoken eloquence. We'll get more of his backstory in a few episodes, and hear about the incredible career in journalism and broadcasting he has had. Isaac is far more than just another suit, and Sports Night will never stop reminding us throughout the run of the series. 

Natalie

The character that may be the most underdeveloped in the pilot is Natalie Hurley. Sabrina Lloyd will be given far more to sink her teeth into in subsequent episodes, but for now, Natalie seems rather similar to Samantha Mathis's Janie Basdin from A Few Good Men: a person playing an exceptionally professional and dedicated supporting role. Natalie clearly has substantial responsibilities on the show, given her position as Dana's right hand in production and management, but we have yet to see her at her strongest. For now, she is depicted as being confident and passionate, but still a bit of a goof. 

Jeremy

Our introduction to Jeremy Goodwin comes four and a half minutes (& an entire act break) before we actually see him on screen.

Dana mentions to Isaac that she'll be interviewing the "finalist" candidate to fill an open associate producer slot that afternoon, and Natalie (the only staff member who has met Jeremy thus far) describes him in perhaps a less than professional way. "You guys, he is so totally cute and intense, with a dark mystery about him that says: 'this is not a technician, this in an artist.'"

When the time finally comes for his interview, he is crippled by anxiety brought on by breathless enthusiasm. What follows is his spectacularly eloquent and impassioned freak-out. 

SORKINISMS

This being just the series premier, we're a bit light on proper Sorkinisms, but we do have a few fun examples of the characteristic, Sorkin-esque dialogue. When Isaac and Dana are headed into their daily rundown meeting, they briefly discuss Casey's on-air performance, and Isaac tells her, "I know all about his problems. You know, the network knows about his problems, too. As a result of which, they become my problems, and I'm saying at the very most, I want them to be your problems." Additionally, we have the sequence in the rundown meeting, where Casey continually insists–interjecting into the conversation of those around him–that "he can't kick." 

THE MIGHTY SORKIN PLAYERS

The role that Joshua Malina plays in Sports Night is the first of his television career. Malina had originally read for the part of Dan Rydell, but after losing out to Josh Charles, the part of Jeremy Goodwin was rewritten so that Malina could play it as a series regular. Another tidbit on the 10th Anniversary DVD Commentary: Sorkin and Felicity Huffman knew each other from "coming up together" doing theater in New York in the 1980s. Huffman was a member of Atlantic Theatre Company when it did the first "out-loud reading of A Few Good Men." Peter Krause and Aaron Sorkin tended bar together before they were able to work full time in their respective disciplines. 

Greg Baker, who plays Eliot, will have a small role in an episode in the first season of The West Wing in the episode entitled "Ellie." 

All three control room techs later portray reporters in the WH press corps on The West Wing, but only two of those actors actually appear here in the series premier. Timothy Davis-Reed plays Chris, and Ron Austria plays Will. They both have stand-out moments sparring with Press Secretary C.J. Cregg (portrayed by by the brilliant and talented Allison Janney) in the first few seasons of that show. 

We've got a few new additions to our list of recycled character names:

Andy – II

Charlie – I

Dana – II

Daniel – II

Jed – I

Leo – I

Lillianfield – I

Matthew – II

McCall – II

Pennybaker – I

Samuel – I

Stackhouse – I

Whitaker – II

William  – II

DYNAMIC DUO

Dan & Casey, of course, with their lefty-righty, side-angle desk high-five move, are the quintessential example of this type of relationship. As we will learn in subsequent episodes, they have written together for years, and have an immense reservoir of personal loyalty.

Sports Night also has another twosome, Dana & Natalie. Their interplay in the control room is the obvious example of how hey work effectively together, but a less obvious display is during their interview with Jeremy. Lloyd & Huffman already seem very comfortable together, with an established big sister-little sister relationship. We'll learn more about each of them in a few more episodes, and why they're not on precisely as equal of footing with each other as Dan and Casey are. 

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON

Much like The American President, the pilot of Sports Night features father issues in the inverse: one of our characters dealing with being the father, himself. We will come to learn over the course of the series that the only other parent in the cast (as explicitly stated, anyways) is Isaac, but the first episode features Casey talking to his seven-year-old son, Charlie. At the climax of the story, Casey has returned to form ("I like getting people to like sports") and feels compelled to call up his son, despite the lateness of the hour, and share with him the incredible race that he is watching. One of the best parts of this scene has to be the "WTF" expression/gesture that Krause makes when Casey asks his son "Did you finish your homework?" This glimpse into one of the pro forma aspects of parenting rounds out Casey's character in a very specific way. In only a brief moment, we get a window into his internal monologue; I'm supposed to make sure he's done his homework right? That's what the father's supposed to ask... His intent is clearly sincere–but watching Casey's parenting experience develop is an important aspect of his character. 

THE MAGNIFICENT BICKERSONS

The pilot of Sports Night moves fairly quickly, so we are only treated to brief glances at Kim (Kayla Blake), Eliot, Chris, Will, and Dave. Also, not all of the members of the comic relief team are yet in place: Bernard Hocke portrays Dave in this episode, his one and only appearance on the show.

(Dave will of course be played throughout the rest of the show by Jeff Mooring, as the only member of the supporting ensemble to be credited with 44 episodes rather than 45.) In the premier, the only shenanigans that the Sports Night team get up to is having trouble figuring out where Helsinki is (Finland.) 

WRITERS BLOC

"I like writing about writers who are struggling with writing," Sorkin says (again on the DVD commentary,) "especially when I'm struggling with writing." If the primary through line in Sports Night is the relationships (romantic and otherwise) between the members of the ensemble, one of the secondary through lines is Dan & Casey's writing process, and their efforts to create content for their live broadcast each night.

In the pilot we get a brief glimpse of their interaction, towards the end, right before Danny's earth- shaking speech calling out Casey's selfishness. Dan is at the desk, refining his script longhand and out loud (and about 15 minutes before airtime, by the way) when Casey helps him miss a bit or a verbal pothole in the road. ("Yesterday/speedway... you don't want the rhyme.") We see that Dan & Casey are good partners with complementary skills. The premier episode covers a lot of territory, so this is all we'll see of their authorial adventures for now. 

NETWORK NOTES

Sports Night has multiple layers of authority that the staff have to deal with over the years: there is Continental Sports Channel (CSC) aka "the Network," and Continental Corp(oration) the parent company. While we will see a handful of different capitalist stooges pass through and give counter-productive advice and pointless notes and generally gum up the works with their existential self-importance, in the series premier we meet our primary antagonist. He is the man known only as JJ. 

Robert Maihouse plays JJ exquisitely. We are invited to hate him immediately, and without conscience. He is more concerned with ratings then objectively interesting or valuable content. He is put into conflict with Natalie–who represents the heart & soul of the show–in the rundown meeting, interrupting her passionate description of an inspirational story of... "In these meetings, mine is the voice of the Network." He's subsequently stomped on (figuratively) by Casey, and while it's obvious that it wasn't super appropriate for him to speak with such hostility and then storm out, it's also hard not to want to stand up and cheer at this arrogant suit getting knocked down a peg. But fear not: this is not the last we'll see of JJ. 

SPECIAL POWERS

As of yet, the only romantic subplots revealed explicitly are Casey's divorce, and Natalie's crush on Jeremy. During Jeremy's epic freak-out, though Dana is nonplussed, Natalie's expression betrays a range of emotion: hope, delight, fascination, and the recognition of the kinship between people who share a common passion (in this case, Sports).

Casey's divorce has already happened, and the pilot represents the majority of his growth in dealing with the aftermath of a marriage that has come to an end. The next step for Casey is getting badgered by the people he works with (especially Dan and Natalie) to "get back out there" and start dating again. 

This leads us to the other relationship that we get the briefest of glimpses of in the pilot: Casey & Dana. When he wrote the pilot, Aaron Sorkin already knew he was going to make them the Sam and Diane of the series, modulating the romantic tension between the two characters throughout the run of the show. One the 10th Anniversary commentary track, it is Tommy Schlamme who makes note of a throwaway line uttered by Isaac to Dana: "is there something going on between the two of you?"

She, naturally, immediately denies that there is, and the stage is set for one of the main threads of the series to come. 

[nadbooks]

My Favorite Books of 2016

So I know this is really late but I only just decided to start a book blog and what better way to start than with this kind of post. So here we go! Here are the top ten books I read in 2016, rank-ordered, all of which I gave 5 stars to.

10. Beside Myself by Ann Morgan

This book is about a pair of twins who like to pretend to be each other until one day, one of the twins refuses to switch back. It’s basically a look at how people’s perceptions of you can really influence your entire life trajectory. It’s the most insane case of a self-fulfilling prophecy I ever read about and as a psychology student, I’m a complete sucker for it. The story does get a bit dramatic and it seems that anything bad that can happen to our main character will happen. Still, it is a really interesting look at how the way we judge people can really influence who they become and also highlights some of the worst parenting I’ve ever read about. Kind of an eye-opening book which is why it made it onto my list!

9. Genesis by Bernard Beckett

This book... man, I don’t even know how to describe this book. It’s some sort of dystopian I guess but it’s a relatively short book that takes place over the course of a few hours. The story follows our main character as she takes a history exam about her society so we get to learn about the history of this society and how it came to be from her answers on the exam. It’s a really interesting way of introducing the world that was informative and felt genuine and didn’t feel like info-dumping. Other than the way the story is told, this book also discusses really interesting philosophical questions like how different is artificial intelligence really from humans and what gives humans our humanity? Overall, a really mind-blowing read which I did not expect at all, and one that will make you think.

8. Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell

You will soon realise that I am a huge fan of dystopian books and I will likely feature many of them on my blog. This is one of the most classic dystopians out there so I thought I should give it a read if I wanted to proclaim myself a dystopian fan. It’s easy to see how this book became such a staple for the dystopian genre. It is creepy and unsettling in a quiet way, as all dystopians should be. I thought the idea of language as the thing that allows us to have independent thoughts was fascinating and the idea to severely limit the vocabulary of the society so that people cannot even think rebellious thoughts was the creepiest thing I had ever read about. That is essentially mind control in the subtlest yet most powerful way. There were so many quotable passages in this book and I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy so that I can highlight them all! I also liked how the ending was different from many other dystopians in that it is a pretty bleak one and essentially nothing has changed. Much more realistic in my opinion, albeit a tad depressing. That’s just the way I like my books though!

7. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

This book is extremely well-loved in the book community and perhaps it is surprising that it is only number 7. Unfortunately, this is entirely my own fault as I saw the movie before I read the book (I know, burn me at the stake) so I knew what was going to happen in the end. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and I still felt all the emotions that I was supposed to throughout the entire story (though maybe a little less strongly). I thought having Death as the narrator was genius and made the writing so interesting. It was dark but also funny. The plot of the story itself was a little lacking perhaps so what I really enjoyed about this book was the writing. I really do wish I had read this before I saw the movie because I think it would have packed a much bigger punch but oh well... Still a wonderful story and an instant favorite.

6. Faking Normal by Courtney C. Stevens

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I loved this book. This is a story about a girl who was raped and is trying to deal with that. I thought this book showcased a way of dealing with rape that is different from what I usually see in other stories. Our main character in this story is actually quite high-functioning and is able to go about her life like usual. It is only when she is alone at night that the nightmares come. I thought this was an interesting portrayal of that. I also loved the romance and friendship in this story. It is not a ‘love fixes mental issues’ kind of story but more like ‘love gives you the strength to face your issues’, which I thought was beautiful. The love interest was so kind and respectful and I just want every love interest to be like him. I am so done with the bad boy trope, give me more nice guys! Contrary to popular belief, they don’t finish last, at least not in my books. The mystery element and sibling relationship in this book were also really great.

5. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

This has got to be my absolute favorite historical fiction so far. The story follows a blind Parisian girl and a German boy sent to Hitler Youth and it is a slow build-up to when their paths eventually cross. I don’t usually care about beautiful or poetic writing but Anthony Doerr, man, you sucked me right in. The writing was truly, truly beautiful and was absolutely perfect for a story like this. I fell in love with all the characters and although this book was a chunker, I never wanted it to end. I wanted to keep following these characters forever. Unlike other historical fictions, I thought this one also had a pretty solid plot that had an element of mystery in it, which I loved. This book is just so beautiful (inside and out) and I can’t recommend it enough.

4. The House of Hades by Rick Riordan

This is the fourth book in The Heroes of Olympus series. Last year, I read the whole Percy Jackson and the Olympians series and The Heroes of Olympus series and it was incredible. The world of Percy Jackson is so cool! I was always fascinated by Greek mythology as a kid and I only wish I had discovered Percy Jackson sooner! It is just as enjoyable to read these books even now when I’m 23 though! The Heroes of Olympus is definitely my favorite of the two series because I just love all of the characters and their character development was just incredible. You know Rick Riordan is an incredible author when he is able to fully flesh out 10 characters in the space of 5 books. The House of Hades is my favorite one because this was like the peak of all the character development (especially precious Nico!!) and it was also incredibly exciting because we were building up to the finale. Also, Percy and Annabeth are #relationshipgoals. I can’t wait to dive back into the Percy Jackson world with the Magnus Chase and Trials of Apollo series!

3. Champion by Marie Lu

Ahhh here we go again with the dystopians. Champion is the third book in the Legend trilogy. I was pleasantly surprised by this trilogy. I thought it would be just another dystopian, following the same kind of formula all dystopians seem to follow these days. And yes, it kind of did, but it did it well. I thought the Legend trilogy was a bit more political than most other dystopians which I actually enjoyed. I like seeing how people actually carry out decisions in these societies and the kinds of biases that pervade the people. I also think this series is different in that the characters actually work together with the government (or at least a member of the government) to bring about a better society, rather than to just rebel and cause social upheaval and violence. June and Day are also OTP and while many people hated the ending of Champion, I actually really loved it, especially the epilogue. It really struck me and left me thinking about them long after I closed the book, which I can’t say for many other couples in books.

2. Unwind by Neal Shusterman

Whoo boy, how do I even begin to explain my love for this book and this series in general. The Unwind dystology consists of four books and is a dystopian series (surprise, surprise) set in a world where parents are allowed to harvest their children’s organs if they want to. Sound creepy yet? This world is so incredibly fleshed out (no pun intended) and I think that is largely due to the multiple POVs. We get so many interesting POVs throughout the series that really let us see this world and society from every possible angle. It is also the dystopian that seems closest to our real world which is incredibly scary. The process of unwinding really got me shook. Aside from the world and the multiple POV writing, our main characters are also so interesting and brave and just human. I love love love Connor, Risa and Lev and I think they are some of the most interesting but relatable heroes ever. Gaaaaahhhh I can’t say enough good things about this book and it pains me that it is not more well-known or well-loved. It has quickly become my favorite dystopian series, even surpassing The Hunger Games! If that doesn’t tell you to go read this series, I don’t know what will.

1. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

I really struggled between Unwind and A Monster Calls for the number one spot but I decided to give it to A Monster Calls. This book packs such an emotional punch for one that I read in two hours. It is a story about a boy dealing with grief and I think it is such an important read for everyone. Another beautiful story with simplistic but beautiful writing. The story is just so incredible and I am amazed at how it is able to capture so many themes and ideas about grief in such a short and simple story. A must read for anyone who is dealing with grief and highly recommended for everyone in general. The movie was also incredible and really brought out all the raw emotions I felt while reading this book. Please, do yourself a favor and read this if you haven’t. You’ll get a whole new understanding of grief and life and eventually being okay again.

So those are my top ten books of 2016! I’m excited to start book blogging although I’m not sure how often I can do it. I planned to start in 2018 but I thought I would give it a go first with some posts. I will soon post my Least Favorite Reads of 2016 and also Booktube’s Favorite Reads of 2016 where I list out the definitive top ten list of books based on 30 booktubers’ Favorites of 2016 videos. 

Cheers and happy reading!