#this was one of my best dreams ever in terms of events and realism | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

oceanics · 4 years

Text

LGBT+ books by authors of color

For those of us tired of LGBT+ romance always being featured between white characters, or from the perspective of white characters, here’s a list of LGBT+ novels by authors of color centered on characters of color.

Thank you so much @percyannabcth for your recs! ♡

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz: a beautiful mlm coming of age story between two brown latino boys. Personally, one of my favorite books (young adult).

We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia: first of a series set in fantasy Latin America with a main couple compromised of brown wlw (young adult).

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone: enemies-to-lovers time travel fantasy novel featuring wlwoc (adult).

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan: I’ll admit, this one wasn’t my cup of tea, but I’m more the exception to the rule. Fantasy with main asian wlw. Heavy rape and abuse tw (young adult).

It’s Not Like It’s a Secret by Misa Sugiura: contemporary novel with a japanese protagonist that falls in love with a latina girl (young adult).

When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie Mclemore: not a mlm or wlw story, but one with a latina protagonist and a love interest that’s a Pakistani trans boy (young adult).

More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera: borrowing elements from both sci-fi and contemporary, this is a story about the hardships a Puerto Rican boy from the Bronx has with coming on his own. Suicide and homophobia tw (young adult)

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong: beautiful novel that tackles a lot of themes, including coming to terms with being LGBT+, from the point of view of an Asian man (adult).

Tell Me Again How A Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan: coming of age contemporary novel about a persian girl that falls in love with one of her friends (young adult).

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender: contemporary novel in a high-school setting about a black trans boy learning to navigate the dificulties that are put in his path due to his identity. Transphobia tw (young adult).

Hurricane Child by Kacen Callender and Kheryn Callender: a tale of magical realism about a girl whose luck was sealed when she was born on the dreaded day of a hurricane (middle grade).

Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera: Juliet, a Puerto Rican lesbian, moves out of her family’s home and leaves to explore what her identity means both for herself and for those around her (new adult).

Ash by Malinda Lo: a wlw retelling of Cinderella with a girl of color as a protagonist and a very quick, entertaining read (young adult).

A Line in the Dark by Malinda Lo: a contemporary novel where the main character, an asian girl called Jess Wong, used to being on the sidelines, becomes the protagonist of her own story as she falls in love with her best friend (young adult).

Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann: Alice, an asexual black girl, learns to navigate her sexuality and how the perception of others affects her (or not) after a break up with her girlfriend and the start of adult life (adult).

Seven Tears at High Tide by C. B. Lee: Kevin Luong, an asian-american guy, asks the ocean for one summer where he can find love - and a selkie boy hears his pleading and seeks him out, willing to give him exactly that (young adult).

Not Your Sidekick by C. B. Lee: an intern girl with no powers at a superhero school starts getting notes from a mysterious person that goes by “M”. Bisexual main character, and the sequel includes a trans boy on the main cast, both people of color (young adult).

The Wicker King by K. Ancrum: prepare for your heart to be torn out by this not-quite psychological thriller about two boys in a codependent relationship that must learn to cope with their less-than-ideal circumstances, and their also less-than-ideal dynamic. Read the book’s description for potential trigger warnings (young adult).

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo: a series of short tales that tells the stories of british black women through different years, including the those of lgbt+ women (adult).

You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson: when a girl’s attempt to get a scolarship to the college of her dreams falls through, her only choice if she wants her life to keep going on the path she’s set for herself is to become prom queen. It’s just too bad that the competition is so cute (young adult).

Final Draft by Riley Redgate: an 18 year old writer, who happens to be a plus-size pansexual ecuatorian girl, learns the perils of adulthood and gains life experience in this extremely relatable contemporary novel (young adult).

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera: a heart-wrenching novel about two boys that meet up to live the entirety of their life in a day - a day which happens to be their last. (death tw) (young adult).

Adaptation by Malinda Lo: when strange events turn the American government into a paranoid mess, Reese wakes up with a month of her life gone from her memories. This time, as our main character finds herself pulled in two directions, the love triangle is bisexual (young adult).

The Weight of the Stars by K. Ancrum: a slow-burn, slow-paced romance between two women that will leave the reader bewildered and feeling like they have a new understanding of life, with a touch of sci-fi (young adult).

She of the Mountains by Vivek Shraya: an illustrated novel that touches on gender, sexuality and a re-imagining of Hindu mythology (adult).

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin: fantasy novel set in an apocalyptic world, with a cast made up mainly of black characters, that includes polyamory in the first book and wlw relationships on the latter ones (adult). Be wary of possible trigger warnings.

Note: all the links redirect to The Storygraph, a Black-owned site currently on Beta! Consider checking it out and giving it your support - it lets you import all of your books and shelves from Goodreads, but unlike Goodreads, it’s not owned and ran by Amazon.

#ania speaks #txt #to read #lit #also bc it's always tsoa rwrb tsoa rbwb #and its cool!! i adore both!! but let's support authors of color too #also most of these are own voices so they are from lgbt authors of color #also i either read all of those myself or they come from Trusted Sources #so in theory they should be qualitay

6K notes · View notes

thegirlwhowrites642 · 2 years

Note

Hey, I just want to ask in your h/g reunion there will be long separation between harry ginny? I can handle ptsd , even their fights but are they going to be separated for long time? Are you going to post everything at once or in parts? Please answer.

I am asking because I am huge fan of your writing and metas I am sure I will believe your take to be canon. you have quite great understanding about characters, but my problem is that I am actually pregnant with high blood pressure so I will really appreciate to have an idea how much angst there will be.

Omg this is like the best ask I've ever got, I swear.

First of all, all the best wishes to your baby and your pregnancy in general! (and to you of course)

Also, I'm very flattered.

Now, back to your question:

In an ask a while ago I disclosed that they say "I love you" to each other on the 29th of May, so as you can see, not too long.

In the story, we are going to have a window on nearly all the days until they get back together. Originally this story was meant to be a lot shorter with just some snippets of the arc they go through but the more I wrote the more I felt like there were things to say. If it wasn't for how I structured it, in terms of how much I've written, it would make more sense for it to be a multi-chaptered story. But the structure was created around the idea of it being a one-shot so it's going to be one.

While writing this story I realized that I have something to say for every day of that summer, and if it wasn't for the fact that I've never ventured into writing smut, I would probably write about every single day of that summer.

And I kept it extremely hinny-centric because there would be so much to say about the other characters too.

In terms of angst... Well, I've obviously not finished writing it but for what I wrote, the angsty parts are quite angsty, more than I had planned in some moments. But I think there's also a lot of comfort, it's a bit bittersweet obviously but I think it is true to both the realism of what they have been through and their personalities. It's Harry and Ginny, if they didn't find comfort in each other I wouldn't be writing them in character. In general, I think the tone of the story is bittersweet more than angsty. What I believe I have to say is that there are going to be some trigger warnings (panic attacks and self-harm).

For the fighting parts, I think if you've read my analysis of how they handle conflicts you might have a good idea of if they drag things out or discuss them.

The story is focused on the rebuilding of their relationship and the things they have to solve between them. Obviously, some parts are about their personal problems, and in some ways, they are all connected, but I think solving those would come later. Like if in order to do so, they first need to have each other.

And just so you guys know, it's not just a chronicle of events, I added the "literary level" because it's such a big part of how their story is written in canon. I've thrown in some symbolism with dates, flowers, details in dreams... If you are familiar with my analyses you probably know I love this stuff.

Hope this helped! I can't wait to finish writing it and find out what you guys think about it.

(The story is called Back to the Eclipse so if you guys want in your questions you can just call it BttE)

#hinny fanfiction #harry x ginny

23 notes · View notes

raven-at-the-writing-desk · 2 years

Note

Reading on your thoughts of an otome version of TWST, to be honest, I agree and I’m making a romantic fangame of TWST.

That being said, I went through like four different drafts before I settled on one that I like which is:

It’s just a dream!

A dream where everyone plays what they were inspired by in the fairytale. And when the player character wakes up, their just friends with the boys.

Otomes and romance visual novels where the love interest(s) has heavy trauma, I can never finish it. An example is Obey Me, not only does it heats up my phone, it just doesn’t sit right with me that *Spoilers*

the Mc just forgive(?) Belphagor for killing them and that he only stopped trying to kill them because they are descendant of their sister????

It’s why for my self-insert on my Obey Me blog that Obey Me!Mieka puts the brothers at a distance even as they spent time together and is only really close to the angels and Solomon. Sorry for the slight rant about Obey Me.

Oh, and the TWST boys are in their teenage years so puberty, hormones, and attending an single gendered boarding school goes not go well together at all. Drama is happening left and right, on large and small scales.

[Referencing this post!]

***CONTENT WARNING: I have put some of my response below a cut, as I will go on to briefly discuss self-harm and suicide.***

Oooh, how exciting ^^ Best of luck, and I hope that you’re having fun with the process of making it! Creating a game takes a lot of time, energy, and resources, so be sure to take proper breaks to avoid burnout.

Yeah, I think that the idea of a TWST dating sim (I’m going to avoid using the term “otome” moving forward, as that can be alienating for those that don’t identify as part of the “maiden” demographic that those games try to appeal to) could work as an “it was all just a dream” kind of thing. As I said in my original post, the main problems with “translating” TWST to a different genre is that a lot of what makes up the core and the identity of TWST (the realism of the relationships, the emphasis on friends and personal/individual character growth, and addressing darker subject matters and traumas, etc.) fundamentally clashes with the usual trappings of dating sims. In the circumstances of a dream, it’d be very possible to explore romance while softening the details of the original without necessarily erasing or overwriting the original events and characters of TWST. It’d also work really well with the “Wonderland” aspect of Twisted Wonderland--you, the player, are the “Alice” that has fallen into their “dream world”... but you’ll eventually have to wake up from that dream, just as Alice did.

I definitely think that involving heavy trauma in dating sims isn’t appealing for everyone 💦 I think part of the draw of a TWST dating sim is that people are looking forward to “bettering” the boys with their presence and helping them with their problems, but that in of itself is a double-edged sword. If it isn’t done well, it can end up sending the wrong message to the people playing and make them feel uncomfortable, like in the example you gave. Once, I played a dating sim which (in the “true” ending) the protagonist stabs themselves in order to show their suicidal love interest that if he were to take his own life, it would also harm the ones he loves (with the stabbing being the protagonist’s literal demonstration of them “hurting” from their love interest’s actions). That somehow convinces the love interest to not attempt to unalive himself again????????? And then they live happily ever after, recovering in the hospital together???????? That does NOT sit well with me. It unintentionally sends the message that it’s “okay” to harm yourself for love, and that it’s “okay” to hold your own wellbeing hostage to prevent someone else from hurting themselves (which IS guilt tripping). It can read as incredibly insensitive to those who are going through similar situations in real life, and it oversimplifies the very complex matter of managing one’s mental health. I worry that a heavy focus on the protagonist “fixing” the TWST boys can easily lean into misunderstanding their issues and oversimplifying the solutions, such as in the example I gave.

I think that inexperience and immaturity come with dating for both teenagers and adults. Age doesn’t always necessarily correlate with experience and maturity in relationships (though it’s certainly more chaotic when you factor in teenage hormones and people just trying to figure out who they are and what they want to do). I’m not going to speak on the subject of all boys boarding schools and how that could factor into this, because I don’t want to make sweeping assumptions without any knowledge on them. Suffice to say, I think the TWST boys would still be varying degrees of messes when it comes to romance 🤣 (as we’ve seen in Ghost Marriage). That’s very much what a ‘real’ relationship is! Not being perfect, but learning to address issues and to compromise with your S/O--an interpretation which I think fits the spirit of what the original TWST is: a world with magic and wacky shenanigans rooted in realism.

#twst x reader #twst #twisted wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #tw // self harm #tw // suicide #notes from the writing raven #spoilers

41 notes · View notes

michaeloneillwords-music · 3 years

Text

Oasis: Knobworth. Cocaine, Caricature and ‘The Culture Industry’s’ wet dream.

This week sees the release of the documentary film ‘Oasis Knobworth 1996’ which marks 25 years since the Manchester rock band played to over a quarter of a million disciples in a field in Hertfordshire across two nights. Obviously brand Oasis couldn’t miss the opportunity to celebrate its own greatness, in what is now being understood and accepted as some sort of era defining moment in pop cultural history. As a native of Manchester, who whether he likes it or not is psychically entrenched in the cities musical and cultural legacy and who was 15 years old when this event took place, I equally cannot miss the opportunity to challenge this retro fetish overstatement and present my own subjective understanding and experience of watching these caricatures of sex, drugs and rock roll as they rose to prominence. Let's face it ‘the culture industry’ has always needed fodder to sell to a teenage audience who in coming of age are flirting with the mask of social identity which is heavily informed by pop culture, and from late 1995 onwards Oasis, led by the brothers Gallagher were that fodder. The juggernaut of utter nonsense that they were peddling really began with the release of their sophomore effort (What’s the story) Morning Glory on the 2nd of October 1995, which to this day has gone on to sell in excess of 22 million copies worldwide, figures that depressingly highlight the state we are in as a species. Upon hearing the album as a 14 year engrossed in pop music culture I immediately disliked it. Gone were the walls of thick guitars, punkish irreverence and embellishments of baggy Northern Psychedelia that marked the best moments of their debut album, instead the listener was subjected to an overly clean, acoustic, commercial sounding record that was lyrically lazy, pedestrian and trite, to me it was and always will be an artistic car crash. It sounded immediately like a band uninterested in challenging itself or its audience, who instead were solely concerned with mass appeal, shifting units and making money. Whilst it should always be noted that the Gallagher brothers made no attempt to hide their aspirations for commercial success, material wealth and brand ubiquity, I simply find such sole motivations a turn off, that, more often than not result in utter dross, the kind that defines Oasis’ discography. Indeed, any ascent to the summit of pop culture will rarely be the sole result of an absolute desire for honest and uncompromising artistic expression, to just ‘make something’ regardless of economic reward or consideration for the consequences of what that expression communicates, represents or signifies. Indeed, such an approach will often come into direct conflict with the bottom line of the music industry, which is solely concerned with profit, monopolistic market control, the dissemination of ideology and projection of archetypes. And so it is that far from the ‘deviant bad boys of pop’ peddled by the culture industry press from 1995 onward, Oasis were actually a very obedient market vehicle for profit, who promoted nihilistic hedonism, idolatry, narcissism, misplaced masculinity, benign sexism, cocaine, lager and a depressing caricature of working class identity, and last but not least a brand of Beatles infused substance devoid pub rock. The ‘culture industry’ had been peddling this sort of shit from the mid 60’s in pop music and long before in general pop culture and as a result dear reader it was obviously very marketable once again to the mid-nineties teenage generation and to many subsequent generations for that matter. The game doesn't change. Oasis were and remain a wet dream of ‘the culture industry’, all too happy to short change a generation of youth culture with their destructive notions of cool, short sighted egocentric one dimensional outlook, and celebration of pack animal conformity under a banner of ‘rock and roll’ which signals ‘defiance’ ‘deviance’ and ‘hope’ but when unpacked and interrogated actually reveals a concession and obedience to the drudgery, depression and anomie of a top down controlled market culture by both the band and its disciples. They were without doubt a grey cloud of hard materialist understanding and sense pleasure that would leave Saint Francis of Assisi empty inside and reaching for a razor blade. I think it was the idolatry, narcissism and the reductionist mask of masculinity (that were all no doubt in the air at Knobworth, I couldn’t actually say as I wasn’t there, I had seen them on 26/11/1995 at the Manchester Nynex, and although I certainly do have deep seated masochistic tendencies everybody has a limit, and once was enough) that the band and its followers displayed that really didn’t sit well with me when the cultural juggernaut of Oasis and Britpop took off. These traits were for the most part distilled, embodied, displayed and performed by the band's frontman Liam Gallagher, a man whose answer to all of life’s existential conundrums is a pint of Carling. To me, Liam always carried a look of someone who had been asked a question they didn’t understand and was just trying to front it out with a gormless stare in an attempt to display some presence of depth and mystique to his onlooking disciples and celebrity obsessed media. When he did speak his articulations rarely got beyond how he was ‘mad for it’, how he was the ‘best frontman’ in the ‘best band’ and when his adopted mask of self-confidence was ever threatened would often bark ‘fook off’ in deflection and defence. Gallagher became the ‘Archetype’ that the modern-day British working class (and wannabe working class) alpha male identity is built on. Replete with feather cut, stone island jacket, adidas originals and cheap cocaine, ready to perform the identity prison they have adopted until the cows come home. I occasionally ponder as to whether the clinging too and performance of such a symbolically material identity merely masks an innate fear, and serves to deny the unpacking and unmasking of the ‘authentic self’, and how that process would more than likely contradict the projected ‘tower of strength’ that is indefinitely projected and protected by this deflective mask. I mean I thought we were an expression of consciousness with the innate capacity for creativity, who are looking to integrate the inner self into the ‘persona’ so as to not be imprisoned and tormented by the demands of the social mask, the gulf between the two and its insistence for the inauthentic? Who knows, and ultimately who really cares in this day and age. In terms of the idolatry, the fans deification of Liam and his brother Noel, alongside their deification of John Lennon, the two Paul McCartney's, Bozo and Poor Weller also really pissed me off when I was 15 and still doesn’t sit right with me today. It's the rock n roll hierarchy-musical establishment-gotta pay your dues-know the classics-they’re a fucking genius claptrap that really gets me goat. I mean fuck off, they've just made a record aided and abetted by an industry who want to flog them to death for moolah, and i’m expected to sit here and believe they're some sort of god like genius that captured the feelings of a mass populace, nah mate, it was capital backed exceptional marketing and mass gullibility. Limmy would capture working class culture in a 20 second video clip shot on his phone for nothing entitled “She’s turned the weans against us” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5VaPQflLq0&ab_channel=Limmy) in a far more profound and meaningful way 15 years after Knobworth. Furthermore, music solely informed and inspired by music and music history makes me want piss on my own face. That whole disciple of rock n roll dogmatic cultish crap, we want to be like our hero's motivation is so very depressing. I mean you’re having a unique subjective sensory experience, migrating through your own orbit of experience, and then when you engage with your creative faculties as a singular human being you adopt wholesale the principles and goals of those who’ve gone before you, or equally when simply embodying your identity it’s one built on the fetishization of a vapid celebrity archetype? Really? Really though? You’re not gonna take the opportunity to figure yourself out and project the uniqueness of your experience, reject or accept the external organising principles or merely just ‘mix the fucker up’? Hey who am I to pose such questions I guess, and in the immortal words of Oasis “You have to be yourself, you can’t be no one else”. Ha. I do think that line should now be updated to “you have to be a caricature of yourself because you cannot be anything else” though. Ooooh. Anyway, I shouldn’t really be blaming the current mask of one dimensional male social identity or celebrity deification on Oasis, they’re merely a cog in a machine that reproduces this reproduction over and over. However, that doesn’t detract from the fact that they are Manchester's greatest cultural own goal (shame really cause after the opening 5 or 10 minutes I was thinking we've got a team here), who made and continue to make to this day nonsensical grey groove-less drudgery a viable commodity with posthumous releases and as solo artists. Now that may be easy for me to say, as I was without doubt somewhat spoiled by exposure to the cities compelling history of DIY music from a young age, from the shadowy existential concrete corridors of Joy Division to the sharp witted marriage of high/low brow culture and realism/surrealism presented by The Fall, all the way through to the theological and philosophical street politics of The Stone Roses. Come 1995/96 I maybe expected more, but therein was a lesson for me, never expect, and indeed, always take the art and never the artist, and never ever deify. Musically Oasis were breathtakingly boring, real stodgy laboured stuff, and lyrically, to be brutally honest they were cringeworthy and embarrassing. However, to give them their due they did have conviction, but I’m sure that fellow Northerner Harold Shipman also had conviction in his creative output, but ultimately that doesn’t mean it was any good now does it? To me Oasis sounded like they were sent from the back of a battered cement mixer, or the lounge of the Robin Hood, or from the bottom of an overflowing ashtray on a coffee table in a council flat where shit cocaine is being relentlessly sniffed and Sky Sports News plays indefinitely. Symbolically they may be best defined as a scrunched up and discarded losing betting slip on the floor of a bookmaker’s that is heavy with the air of momentary hope, desperation, and inevitable loss. No thanks. P.S Look, all subjective criticism aside, Oasis spoke to millions and for that I congratulate them, they just never really spoke to me. Initially Liam and Noel were a breath of fresh air with their straight up lads with guitars attitude, riding their obvious desire with endlessly projected self- belief. However, to me there was just nothing after that initial Jab of intent present on Definitely Maybe and in interviews circa 94/95, there was no hook, combination or knock-out punch. Couple that with a general lack of grace, rhythm and finesse in the ring and to me as a spectacle it became boring very quickly, and as the rounds wore on that predictable Jab looked tired and stale, and the self-belief turned to coke fuelled narcissism. The ‘flock identity’ that materialised in the slipstream of their ascent and especially the attitude mimicry that was present then and remains today in the ‘Oasis Fan’ to be truthful is touch tragic. Furthermore, I've always held a deep-seated scepticism of the dynamics and motivations of 'the crowd' at the point of critical mass, especially when corporate power is deeply involved and invested in the relationship between the art and the audience. D'you know what I mean?

#manchester #music #social commentary #philosophy #cultural critique

2 notes · View notes

fmdjoosungarchive · 3 years

Text

restructuring task 1

+5 tracker points

1. assuming your muse has changed in some way, be it internally or as a result of a change of the external factors around them, how is your muse different? these can be as small as an opinion on a song they hadn’t released previously or as big as a major change in their background.

wc: 365

idk if i’ve said this on dash yet, but i’m treating new famed more or less like an au. in sung’s au, the defining change is that he was let go from gold star when he had his injury as a trainee. it was always my headcanon that they truly were close to cutting him loose anyway, so this is just the other side of that. he had his injury, got plastic surgery to try to appease them into keeping him, and they still let him go. when he went home his parents said alright u tried that now join the fam business n sung freaked bc he realized he doesnt want that for himself so he went to do smth he also hated, and joined the military. while there he still worked on his dance and vocals whenever he had a moment to do so, so that when he was discharged and started auditioning again, he wasn’t so rusty

he is a year younger in this world, just bc of quantum’s age range, not for any other reason. makes him a little less of a cradle robber in his relationship lol which, another change is that daisuke wouldn’t have been his first kiss, just first everything else

quantum is very different from old element and new element, but it’s very in line with what i liked about quicksilver (& has models from that) and he’s a leader! this is an idea ive toyed with a lot over the last three years tbh. at first i didn’t think sung suited a leader position, but he came to show me he’s just a different kind of leader. i liken him to jinki often in this regard. rather than lassoing members in, he supports them being however they are, and takes an intimate/emotional path to gaining their trust and leading them. and while he wasn’t suited for the full business life, what he learned from his father’s teachings helps him in dealing with the company as the group’s representative there (& he loves a good powerpoint presentation)

other timeline stuff for big events in his life are likely to shift but i’m not sure on specifics yet

2. what does your muse think of their company and their group?

wc: 260

as the child of a businessman, he’s never under the illusion that as a company entity, their first priority is their wellbeing. he knows that they are products, and that they’re treated as such. it’s a bit heavier with dimensions than gold star, since gold star makes a more active effort to pretend they care. however, once having accepted that, sung thinks himself and dimensions work well together. he does feel that for a company, they allow himself and his members to be a part of the creative process, as says their motto. he feels much more encouraged to write songs and choreograph under dimensions than he did under gold star, where it felt like he was constantly on his knees begging for the company to take him seriously

as for quantum, sung really loves what they’re about. he’s not a big fan of all (or most) of their songs, though he’s more loving towards a song written by another member even if it’s the same sound he dislikes, but he absolutely loves being focused on performance and concepts. his creative mind works very much on the basis of story and emotion that comes with it, and he feels like quantum’s concepts sometimes to often lean into his tastes. he’s always been a dancer first and foremost (god am i so glad to have his main dancer title back i MISSED u) so focusing on performance is v much up his alley, and his preferred style of dance is through storytelling. he feels the heart of dance is in that

3. is your muse on their first contract or their second? if they’ve renewed, what were their feelings around that at the time and what were their hopes for their second contract? if they haven’t renewed, what are their current thoughts on the end of their eventual first contract?

wc: 281

quantum’s on their first contract still, up for renewal in 2024. at the current moment, he would like to re-sign. however, unlike my others, his re-signing depends more heavily on the other members. if they were unhappy and wanted to leave, sung would want to follow suit, not because he can’t make his own decisions, but because if the reason the members want to leave is because of the company, not quantum, he’d want to try to help quantum continue to live. if that means all of the members leaving in order to rebrand under another company, so be it. he’d like to avoid lineup changes however he can, and ideally would like to be an idol for as long as possible

he himself feels alright about his treatment. he feels creatively stimulated, and appreciated for talents further than his face. if he were to try to negotiate different terms at their contract renewal, part of it would likely be wanting to give members a higher share of profits, especially on releases they’re creatively involved in. sung personally has no use for excessive money, but not all of his members have his background, and he feels more than just the money, it’s what’s fair. he’d also prefer to allow for more creative freedom. as a 7/8 year group by then, he’d think they should be allowed to take the reigns more heavily. and on his personal side of things, he would want dimensions to be more mindful of his schedule. sung enjoys working, but he’s only one person, who doesn’t want to be overworked. these are all just his current thoughts, though, and will probably change before contract renewal comes up

4. what are your muse’s goals and motivations?

wc: 294

his motivations to be ‘successful’ and/or achieve his goals are his family, namely being someone his nephew and niece can be proud of, and someone his parents can feel was worth letting go of. he feels closer to the latter than he did in old famed. his members motivate him to be a good leader, his desire to grow as a creator motivates him to write and choreograph

specific goals could be bigger like his desire for more public recognition. while quantum has a lot more recognition both in korea and abroad than element or quicksilver, sung wants the best for his group. he’d be happy if they stayed where they are with their loyal fandom, but he still aims for more

sung also wants to get better at standing up for himself. he’s best at standing up for others, because he can slap on a bit of bravado in order to help them out, but when it comes to himself, especially with his parents, he’s pretty awful at it

he’d also like to create more for quantum, and others. i/he have a goal for him to write a whole album for someone, so if anyone reads this far and could want sung writing for their muse, hit me up!

he’d like to get married and have children one day. that’s always been a dream of his, and while he knows his career doesn’t allow for that soon, it’s still on his docket

he wants to spend more time with his family, especially his nephew and niece. they’re so new to the world and learning everything, and sung wants to be a part of that. he doesnt want his part in their early lives to be ‘i don’t really remember seeing him back then’

5. what is one conflict, internal or external, that your muse is currently dealing with, has recently dealt with, or will need to deal with in the future?

wc: 291

at some point, this bitch is gonna have to admit he’s a homiesexual. in his previous version, it was a lot easier for him to ‘i pretend i do not see it’ when it came to that. sung’s very ignorant when it comes to the queer community in korea, so he’s not even really aware of terms beyond gay, maybe trans. but, terms aside, he always thought he was someone who liked women, and daisuke and a couple of others were just outliers. they were the Special ones outside of his jurisdiction that were just too good for him to not notice. aka he believed he was bi. and now, he still does, but i have less faith he’ll be able to hold that up until he dies like i did before, because he’s actually dated at least one woman before in this world. considering the plot has yet to be picked up, i don’t know the specifics, but i do think it’s harder to run away from when the way he treated a relationship with a woman and a relationship with a man were lightyears away from one another. it’s still possible for him to run away from the truth of the situation, but it’s also very possible that one day, his thoughts on it will shake, and everything will click into place (messily,, probably the messiest clicking ever) it would be a difficult thing for him to come to terms with, though i think it’s better for him in the longterm to truly know who he is, and why he acts the way he does, why he feels the way he does about women vs men. it’s also nice just to not live a lie, even if only privately

6. if your muse has established career claims, what are their thoughts on their career so far? if they do not, how do they feel about not having individual activities yet? what would they like to do in the future, if anything? if they don’t have ambitions for individual activities, explain why.

wc: 523

sung has a pretty filled history of individual activities. most are points claims with a focus on modelling, his radio, and music, though he’s dipped into pretty much ever facet of idoldom, some with more success than others. his ecp expenditures flesh that out a little more, and add a bit more realism, and/or make sense of the group changes. he had a one year modelling contract with the north face, and while official claims aren’t possible, i was inspired by a couple of things rowoon did with them. there was more of a push on an eco-friendly side of things, and there was a bit of dancing. playing into his group position with dancing i feel is fitting, but the eco friendly part i also feel could round out his image more as a good, kind boy who also can be sexy, whereas before, his earlier modelling claims focused a lot more on the sexy aspect, because it fit element and his trajectory there better. here, it makes him more dual sided from the beginning. north face is also just a nice, strong brand that i think is fitting for a pretty boi. i set it a bit after a year out from debut because i feel like that’s the most realistic, especially for a group like quantum that grew audience with each comeback

part of that first year being focusing only on the group ties into his creative claims as well! his first creative claim was with the bside love, lalala on the eternity ep. the nicest part of creative claims being unattached to positions is that all of sung’s claims are the songs in the discography most Him. so love lalala is very jazzy and smooth, and would have served as his first introduction to songwriting, as well as what made him interested in songwriting. then he was a choreographer on error, which is heavily story based, and about the members being a unit, and making beautiful pictures together. i hope to snag intro long journey and outro long journey from the beginning and end of the ateez sector, because they’re beautiful compositions that fit sung’s style, but also having him on both makes him feel like he’s a part of the concept’s creation in an intimate way, which fits with dms. then there’s aurora, which sung partially composed and partially choreographed. the choreography has contemporary flair to it, and the song is a flowing sound that matches that. then there’s partial production on sunrise, which i just love the robotic ass experimental production there, and comp for with u, which i believe ties back into sung’s rediscovering his love of piano. choreo for valkyrie is most similar to error in it’s pretty pictures way, and also has a bit of complex footwork, especially as its point dance, which is also p sung to want to include. and finally, some comp on stand by, which is like a mix of the appeal of aurora and with u methinks? listening to all of his written songs together i feel like really makes a picture of sung’s songwriting so i love that

#famedrstask1 #and the last q was me trying to keep it brief....... lol

2 notes · View notes

aion-rsa · 4 years

Text

Where in Fiction Would You Spend Christmas?

https://ift.tt/34FuLCB

It’s been a staying-in kind of year. That New Year’s Resolution you made to travel more? It’s gained 20 pounds, started cutting its own hair and is now in a jigsaw club with your neighbour Ken. The only marathon you’ve completed in 2020 is a Battlestar Galactica rewatch. The only mountain you’ve climbed is the metaphorical one it takes to shower daily. That beach trip you’d planned? It went okay actually. You made some bells by selling coconuts to Nook’s Cranny and dug up a bunch of Manila Clams with a flimsy shovel.

For obvious reasons, escape is on our minds this year more than most. So we started thinking, if you had your wishing socks on, where in the collected imaginations of everyone who’s ever dreamt up a film, TV show, game or book, would you spend the holidays? On the holodeck of the Starship Enterprise or roasting on an open fire with The Simpsons, exchanging gifts with Ewoks or witnessing Scrooge McDuck’s transformation from miser to philanthropist first hand?

To get things started, here’s what our writers picked…

Alec Bojalad would spend Christmas … reveling with the Sterling Cooper staff on Mad Men

If I’m to indulge this hypothetical in which I’m torn away from one reality and thrust into another, one thing is very clear: I will have to be extremely intoxicated to avoid my heart exploding from the stressful terror of it all. Thankfully, I know exactly where in pop culture to go to get absolutely blitzed: Mad Men. In terms of sheer debauchery, a Sterling Cooper Christmas party probably falls somewhere between a Bacchanalian orgy and Valhalla itself. As Don, Roger, Bert, Peggy, and company gather together to celebrate another successful year schmoozing clients and sexually harassing one another, I will don my finest 1960s attire and infiltrate the festive event.

As Don Draper wonders who this soft-bodied weirdo in an ill-fitting suit is, I’ll catch up with Harry Crane about television. Then I’ll ask to see Bert Cooper’s weird tentacle porn painting. Sometime around my 9th J&B Whisky on the rocks I’ll visit the secretarial pool and beg them to demand better treatment because “you’ree ssssooo strong and eleganttt. Don’t listen to thessseee men. They’re Mad Men.” Hopefully I’ll be taken away to an old-timey hospital at that point, given electroshock treatment, and return back to my own continuity.

Ryan Britt would spend Christmas… at Deanna and Will’s cabin from Star Trek: Picard

When Jean-Luc Picard uses the spatial projector to zap himself and Soji across the galaxy to the planet Nepethene, the result is a cozy pizza dinner with Will Riker, Deanna Troi and their daughter Kestra. For those who had been pining for more ‘90s nostalgia in this Trek series, the episode ‘Nepthene’ delivered, but with a strong shot of realism. Although Picard was written and created before the Covid-19 pandemic, the idea that Riker and Troi would leave the busy and crowded life of Starfleet, and retire in a remote cabin to protect their family is a choice many have actually faced in 2020. As people around the world have fled pandemic epicenters and tried to put shields around their own families, the peaceful and remote home of the Riker-Trois represents the optimistic ideal of Star Trek with a quiet, and very close-to-home twist.

Spending time with the Riker-Troi family would mean great conversation, great music (oh the jazz!) and, above all, great food. I would happily put my own family in their ‘pod’ if only so Kestra could teach my three-year-old daughter the best way to construct a bow and arrow, and of course, how to learn that secret language of butterflies.

Then, after the kids were in bed, having a glass of wine or some Romulan whiskey with Will out on the porch sounds pretty damn perfect. 2020 has been tough. A bear hug from Riker seems like the perfect Christmas gift of all.

Caroline Preece would spend Christmas… at The Muppet Christmas Carol’s Penguin Skating Party

Ever since young-me set eyes on the ultra-festive world of The Muppet Christmas Carol I’ve wanted to visit. I can’t imagine a better way to spend Christmas Eve than in the cuddly version of Dickens’ cautionary tale, helping Kermit and his co-workers tidy up Scrooge’s office for the holidays, dancing down the snowy London streets and attending the Penguins’ annual Christmas skating party as the ultimate topper to a perfect evening.

As well as being super-merry and joyous (‘tis the season), judging by Kermit’s performance on the ice, they let anyone take part.

It could just be the general lack of socialising and festive frivolity in 2020, but Bob Cratchit’s hopeful walk home from the office (remember the office?!?) on the night before Christmas has always epitomised the idea that the anticipation of Christmas Day is the best part. Add to that a trip to the market to pick up some singing vegetables, or the cosy Cratchit dinner with Miss Piggy and their gaggle of pig and frog offspring, and it’s a version of old-timey festive cheer that will always hold a place in my heart.

Louisa Mellor would spend Christmas… with the strippers in Hustlers

This choice won’t reflect well on me. It’s neither edifying nor improving and has a core of savage capitalist consumerism, which is probably what makes it so Christmassy. Midway through Lorraine Scafaria’s Hustlers – a film about a group of strippers who right the wrongs of the 2008 financial crisis by drugging Wall Street guys to run up their company credit cards – there’s a scene that’d make anyone’s heart grow three sizes.

A dozen lap dancers gather for Christmas in a high-end apartment, their daughters and a grandmother in tow. Dressed in luxe loungewear and chunky gold, their skin glowing like a sucked butterscotch, they swap gifts, smile and sing and dance and thank the lord for their sisters. Expensive elegance is everywhere. Someone gets a fur coat, somebody else a pair of animal-print Louboutins. The woman who dips the dancers’ tits in bowls of ice before they go on stage is given an iPhone 4. Mostly though, they give each other affirmation. Without a natural hair colour, nude fingernail or a man in sight, it’s a dream family Christmas. Picture a Norman Rockwell painting with Jennifer Lopez in gold lamé, a cashmere Santa hat and a balcony bra. Feel-good festive perfection.

Michael Ahr would spend Christmas… secluded in Hogwarts

Some may have found Harry Potter’s winter holidays without his friends rather lonely, but I can think of nothing more magical than having the vast empty halls of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry all to myself. Why let the staff have the warm, dry, magical snow that fell annually in the Great Hall all to themselves? Not being of school age myself anymore, I might choose to share a butterbeer (or perhaps a hot buttered rum) with Dumbledore and Hagrid by a roaring fire.

I might even be tempted to make the trip to Hogsmeade to see all the shops decked out with lights and blanketed in snow. I’d still be able to enjoy the comparative solitude without all the kids running around, but I’m almost certain there would be a group of carolers wandering about the square, never mind the singing enchanted suits of armor back at the school. And of course, if I could pick a particular present, I’d choose to receive the same amazing gift Harry received that first Christmas from Dumbledore: his father’s Invisibility Cloak. I’d likewise pass it along as a family heirloom to my own children on some Christmas morning to come.

Jamie Andrew would spend Christmas… in a Deep Space Nine Holosuite

At first, I entertained the idea of spending Christmas in Baltimore with the denizens of The Wire, mainly because I liked the idea of children running up and down the streets hollering, ‘Omar’s coming!’ moments before the shotgun-wielding Robin Hood of the Hood came swaggering down the street wearing a big red coat and a white beard, tossing out bank notes and whistling ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’. Then I realised that the chances of me ending up a corpse inside a boarded-up derelict building before the turkey was even cooked were surprisingly high, so I thought I’d try Christmas with Frasier Crane and family instead. Unfortunately, my foreknowledge of Martin’s and Eddie’s deaths would cloud the occasion, and I’d probably spend all night slumped crying in Martin’s recliner, unable to tell anyone why I was so upset without violating the temporal time directive.

Best, then, to spend Yule time on Deep Space Nine. Christianity and its associated festive traditions don’t appear to exist in the 24th Century, so after saying hello to Sisko and co., and maybe playing a bit of Dabo at Quark’s, I’d probably spend the rest of my time in a faithful Holosuite reproduction of a 1990s Irish bar on New Year’s Eve getting absolutely wasted with fellow Celt Chief O’Brien. Now THAT’S what I call Christmas.

Juliette Harrisson would spend Christmas… in Narnia

Not, of course, the White Witch’s eternal winter, when it’s always winter but never Christmas, but a regular Christmas in Narnia. It would, of course, be a white Christmas because otherwise, how would Father Christmas come and deliver presents to everyone? So I could spend the season in a snowy woodland surrounded by magical creatures, and be in with a chance of a really good present. Or possibly a sewing machine.

Movies

Why Chronicles of Narnia’s Santa Claus Celebrates Christmas with Weapons of War

By Juliette Harrisson

Movies

The Rod Serling Christmas Movie You Never Saw

By Chris Farnell

On the first moonlit night when there’s snow on the ground, Narnian fauns, dryads, and dwarfs perform the Great Snow Dance, with the fauns and dryads dancing around while the dwarfs throw snowballs that don’t hit them (an often forgotten detail from the book version of The Silver Chair!). I would join in, although possibly not throw any snowballs as my aim isn’t that good. Then I’d go back to Mr Tumnus’s for sardines and cake on Christmas Eve and talk to him about his somewhat dubious taste in books (just what is Nymphs And Their Ways about, eh Tumnus?). I’d spend Christmas Day up at the castle of Cair Paravel, eating and drinking like a Queen, and then I’d go visit Mr and Mrs Beaver on Boxing Day for a feast of leftovers and maybe a little light ice fishing.

John Saavedra would spend Christmas…celebrating Life Day with Star Wars’ Poe Dameron

No one has ever cared so much about Life Day, the Star Wars galaxy’s own version of Christmas, as much as ace pilot Poe Dameron does in the Lego Star Wars Holiday Special. From decorating the Millennium Falcon and choosing the right Life Day sweater to roasting the traditional tip-yip (also known as Endorian chicken), Poe shows there’s something much stronger than the Force in the Star Wars universe: holiday spirit. Who knew the Resistance hero best known for his knack at blowing stuff up had such a soft spot?

Hanging with Poe on Life Day would mean chestnuts roasting on an open exhaust engine, drinking whatever passes for cocoa in the Star Wars galaxy, hanging out with Wookiees on their homeworld of Kashyyyk, singing festive carols in Huttese, and finding just the right Life Day tree for the Falcon. It’d also mean dancing to the hip tunes of Max Rebo’s drum (the rest of his band is unfortunately no longer with us) and partying with Lando Calrissian, Finn, Rose, Rey, Jannah, Mon Calamari, Jawas, Rodians, Ewoks, and maybe even Chewie’s son Lumpy. If you’re not sold by now, your taste in holiday parties might be bantha poodoo.

Elizabeth Donoghue would spend Christmas…. at The Office’s Classy Christmas

Dunder Mifflin has many memorable Christmas parties, but Steve Carell’s final festive special includes some of my favourite things about The Office; weird Gabe, Michael’s enduring hatred of Toby, and Michael and Holly’s adorable relationship.

After Toby announces he is taking a leave of absence for jury duty (‘Thank you, Scranton Strangler. I love you. You just took one more person’s breath away’) Michael learns that Holly will be returning to Scranton and demands that Pam’s regular Christmas party must get classy. What makes a Christmas classy? A backwards Kangol-esque Santa hat, a red velvet smoking jacket and a quarter of a jazz quartet of course.

I would actively enjoy watching Dwight take down Jim in their snowball fight (total bully, needs to be taken down a peg or two), get drunk with Kelly and Meredith, dance with Phyllis and Erin and learn more about the enigma that is Creed. And although it is slightly more subdued than their Benihana and Moroccan Christmas parties, I’m sure we could keep the party going at a Poor Richard’s after-party.

Kayti Burt would spend Christmas … on Themyscira

The Amazons’ decision to opt out of the “Patriarch’s World” has always been a relatable one, but never so much as in The Year 2020. Historically, I’m not really a beach person, but Themyscira, aka Paradise Island, has a lot going for it: warm weather, a supportive community, and live sporting events where you don’t have to worry about some drunken dudebro spilling cheap beer on your toga.

As far as I can tell from the Wonder Woman movies, no one (besides Young Diana, who’s usually working through some stuff) ever seems to be having a bad time on Themyscira. And why would you? The pre-Crisis comics incarnation of the island (which I am going to choose to accept as my holiday canon) includes indigeneous kangaroo-like creatures called Kangas that the Amazons ride like horses. Diana’s is called Jumpa; mine will be called Jimmy Hoppa, and we will explore the island’s cascading waterfalls and cliffside terraces together. In the evenings, I will attend performances at the Themysciran amphitheater with my new Amazonian friends or, if I’m feeling introverted, catch up on my book reading and crossword puzzles.

Listen, I wouldn’t want to spend forever on Themyscira—I’d miss my friends, family, and TV shows (Themyscira doesn’t seem to get a good wireless signal)—but a few weeks (or months, especially as I will be quarantining for my first two weeks) for Christmas 2020? Bring me to the enchanted feminist utopia.

Alana Joli Abbott would spend Yule… at the coven house from the Nightcraft Quartet

Witchkind, as presented in Shannon Page’s Nightcraft Quartet, don’t celebrate Christmas, but they do love a good Yuletide celebration. Page’s witches and warlocks are separate from humans, long lived, and magical. Young witches train in the magical arts at a coven house, living there like a dorm; the adult women of the coven (always numbering thirteen) may be involved in scientific research (like protagonist Callie), medicine and healing, or reading Tarot, and they teach their specialties to the young witches. The coven house is a central place where women gather to live, to practice magic together, to celebrate, and to honor traditional rituals. While Callie’s coven in San Francisco has their problems, the community there is caring and genuine, full of both youthful energy and centuries of experienced witchery.

One of the perks of editing this series is that I get sneak peeks into parts of the story readers haven’t seen yet—including Yule decorations. Rather than cutting down dead trees, witches coax living fir boughs to weave along the walls and mantles, accented with red ribbon and gold—coins, beads, chains. I can imagine the cozy San Francisco coven house filled with witches all rushing to perform their tasks to make the perfect celebration, some of them convincing the fir boughs to expand in just the right ways while others brew hot chocolate or prepare the feast. I picture them eating in the large hall, voices lifted in joyful chatter, and then making their way out to the grounds beyond the house to celebrate beneath the stars, singing midwinter songs and looking forward to the next year. After months of 2020 with smaller communities and less human contact, being surrounded by such a vibrant, magical group of women sounds like just the right way to end my year.

Rosie Fletcher would spend Christmas… with the Roy family from Succession

Go hard or go home, they say, so since I can’t go home this year, I’m going round the Roys. That is, of course, the family at the centre of Succession, a show peopled by the very wealthiest and utterly worst. Festivities would be held at the home of patriarch Logan Roy. His children and their partners would be obliged to attend. Logan would hire a chef to cook, waiting staff to serve, some of whom he would abuse. I would give them sympathetic “I’m sorry” looks but do nothing, secretly thankful Logan’s ire wasn’t focused on me.

In all likelihood I would be a figure like Greg (the egg), or Tom Wambsgans – mostly tolerated, vaguely despised and very much the second class citizens of the Roy clan, skulking on the periphery as Kendall, Roman and Shiv compete for Logan’s love and oldest son Connor comes up will another entirely ridiculous life plan – I dunno, maybe this year he’s decided that his next career move is to become Santa Claus.

The food would be extraordinary. The booze the very finest – how long before, like Greg, I would be claiming the bottle of vintage rose champagne I had just motored through was ‘not my favourite’? And the dinner table conversation would be electric. Electric like an electric shock – sharp, painful, disorientating, unexpected.

So Christmas has become too commercialised? Fine, fuck it. I’ll take the eye-wateringly expensive gift that’s grudgingly bestowed on me, I will gorge on the finest cheeses known to man and coat my tongue with port made from molten rubies, knowing I am on my way to moral bankruptcy and doing it anyway. Go hard or go home…

Kirsten Howard would spend Christmas… singing along in the closing moments of Scrooged

You’d be hard-pressed to find a Christmas movie that feels as genuinely uplifting during its climax as 1988’s Scrooged. Bill Murray’s arrogant TV boss Frank Cross, having been visited by the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Future, disrupts a live broadcast of A Christmas Carol to rant openly and honestly at the cast and crew (and eventually you) as he makes a passionate case for a life less invested in exploitation and capitalism, and eventually kicks off a collective singalong of Annie Lennox and Al Green’s version of ‘Put a Little Love in Your Heart’.

That’s where I’d like to be this Christmas. Not just to sing along with Bill, but to be around people immediately swept along by the much-less-explored altruistic route of ‘no fucks given’.

Also hanging out with Bill Murray, though, of course.

So much of the last few years has been a public race to the bottom of Nothing Matters Mountain, but even if it hadn’t all been so demoralising and forced so many of us to reevaluate our priorities, Frank’s message of redemption in love and living as well as we can, while shrugging off our own heavy expectations of success, still feels really special.

This Christmas, there is light at the end of the tunnel. We may not be able to grab the nearest stranger and sing “put a little love in your heart!” at them right now, but we CAN carry that feeling with us into 2021. As Frank says: “There are people who are having trouble making their miracle happen”. We can always try and find time to stop focusing on our own for a while and to help them.

David Crow would spend Christmas… chilling with Harold and Kumar

Not many people are aware of this, but A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas is the best Harold and Kumar. It may not have the pop culture cache of their medicinal-fueled quest for mini-cheeseburgers, but it does have something very special, indeed: Wafflebot. If you’ve had the misfortune of living your life oblivious to Wafflebot’s existence, allow me to introduce you to a greater world of wonder and magic.

Wafflebot is the best Christmas present to ever come out of Santa’s Workshop. Displaying an eerily sophisticated artificial intelligence for a toy meant only to cook delicious breakfasts, Wafflebot can make you waffles any time by just popping the top and letting that batter drop. But he can also do so much more! Vaguely aware of the concept of friendship, this brunching Frankenstein can learn how to love and appreciate his owners… and defend them from any threat with scalding hot projectile syrup!

With the ability to serve breakfast, save your life, be manipulated into dangerous attack mode, and learn how to see the real you, all while playing a mean drum solo, Wafflebot would make any Christmas a sweetly warm experience. And then Harold and Kumar, and I could also steal a Christmas tree from NPH or something.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The post Where in Fiction Would You Spend Christmas? appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2WFwPWD

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

2 notes · View notes

hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 5 years

Text

Spider-Man: Life Story #4 Thoughts Part 1: Doc Ock Disservice

In retrospect issue #1 of this series was a mixed bag, issue #2 was bad, issue #3 was hot trash and now issue #4 is...

Well...it depends.

See I usually try my best to write these basically as soon as I’ve read an issue. However a trip to my LCS and back is at least a 2 hour round trip and I had to head into work practically immediately after getting back. Consequently I’m writing this several hours later than I would have liked.

My initial gut feeling during and immediately after reading the issue was that this was a mixed bag. But ruminating on it more it’s gone down yet further in my eyes.

Maybe I’m not diving deep enough into it but my gut feelings on this (which is what these posts are, they’re not reviews where I try to be more actively analytical rather than ‘free style’ it) it’s...not AS bad as prior issues; issue #3 being the absolute nadir thus far.

Perhaps that is due to now knowing how messed up this series is I knew what I was getting into and what to expect thus I was less aghast by what I saw. Perhaps it was the fact that this issue, unlike issue #3, didn’t slap my intelligence in the face with asinine historical politics and the most aggressively stupid attempt to homage my fav Spidey tale, KLH.

However some of my...I don’t know the right term...my feeling less disdainfulness, towards this issue might stem from Peter’s age.

See when you do the math canon Peter Parker’s lifespan can be viewed as encompassing the amount of time covered in issues #1-3, that is to say ages 15-mid 30s. Thus there was a certain degree of precedence involved, a certain roadmap for us to compare LF Peter to.

But in this issue Peter is around 48 years old. This is well beyond the age of canon Peter Parker and only AU versions of the character have ever approached that age and being AUs they aren’t great sources for comparison. The closest thing we have is MC2 Peter Parker who was in his early 40s and different in his attitude and outlook to LF Peter. However that could be due to being younger, having his family and being retired for 10+ years thus making him more positive towards the prospect of being Spider-Man.

LF Peter is fed up, tired and wants to stop being Spider-Man. Any of the old enjoyment he ever derived from it is long gone. As is apparently his desire to remain ‘relevent’. Guess he got over that early mid-life crisis he went through in issue #3. You know that mid-life crisis that led to him using an alien performance enhancer that was allegedly addictive.

Actually more than a few of this issue’s problems can be owed to older issues, and specifically issue #3.

First of all...so America is still around. Um...yeah wasn’t there a war with Russia happening last issue? Wasn’t there a nuclear arms race that was hotter than the Cold War ever was in real life?

I suppose given how utterly unrealistic it was that Russia nuked an American town and then nuclear Armageddon didn’t ensue in issue #3, this issue is consistent in it’s boneheaded lack of realism.

And it does offer an explanation. Tony Stark’s weapons ended the war.

...Okay...we need to talk about this again and this time I’m going to spell it out.

So there has been no end of speculative fiction presenting stories revolving around a world where historical events happened differently.

A common example, embodied by the acclaimed show Man in the High Castle, is ‘What if the Axis powers won WWII’.

Life Story has at various turns presented real life historical events but injected superheroes in them whilst also showing them playing out differently.

Iron Man, Giant Man and Captain America went to Vietnam.

Captain America went rogue in Vietnam.

The Vietnam War lasted longer than in real life history.

Russia launched nukes at the USA and destroyed a town resulting in a super hero invasion on Russia and open warfare.

Said war was won by America apparently thanks to Tony Stark’s weapons.

Do you know the difference between Life Story and Man in the High Castle, or indeed most speculative fiction?

It actually explains what happened!

In Man in the High Castle we learn various pieces of the alternate history, among them being that the Axis powers developed atomic weapons before the Allies and nuked Washington DC, eventually winning the war and dividing America between the Third Riech and the Empire of Japan.

In Life Story we find out the Vietnam War lasted longer. Somehow.

In Life Story we find out Tony Stark’s weapons won the war with Russia. Somehow.

WHAT HAPPENED!

At best this is a pointless tease, it’s like sidestory world building. What’s the point of bringing the fact that this world’s history is drastically different but not bothering to elaborate on it at all.

Tony’s weapons won the war. What weapons? How did they win? Give us some details for God’s sake.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the story isn’t about the Russian war or the alternate international politics, it’s about Spider-Man. But then...why the fuck is it in the story?

Shit dude, redraft Life Story a little bit and you could more or less exorcise ALL the stuff about international political conflicts and lose nothing. In the case of Kraven’s motivations last issue it’d be an improvement!

Look maybe I’ve got a bug up my butt about this more than most people because I studied history at university, but even putting that aside...it just feels superfluous to this story.

What gets me is that it’s veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery good money the only reason this shit is in the story is to evoke Watchmen (which ‘coincidenally’ is being revisted in Doomsday Clock by DC right now) which was also an example of speculative historical fiction involving superheroes. Which also explained what happened!

Superheroes existed. So they intervened in Vietnam. And they won because of their overwhelming power.

In Life Story we don’t even know who won the Vietnam War or even if it’s over yet!

Moving on a little, so Tony Stark and Peter are at logger heads. Now I dislike Spider-Man’s involvement with Iron Man in recent years but I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand seeing Iron Man not be Peter’s mentor is lovely, but I wonder if Zdarsky was banking on audience familiarity with that dynamic from the films to create a shock moment by portraying a relationship between both men so at odds with what you see in Homecoming.

That wasn’t my first thought though. My first thought was Zdarsky is trading off of the Peter/Tony relationship from JMS’ run...which had nothing to do with the 1990s at all; we’ll talk more about that in a minute.

Finally, not content to write Peter out of character, Zdarsky apparently wanted to write Tony out of character too.

I am no Iron Man expert but by the 1990s...hadn’t he kinda sorta stopped making weapons!

I could forgive it in the older issues because Tony apparently didn’t get out of the arms business in the comics immediately like in the films, so it wasn’t inaccurate to the time periods. But I’m 90% sure he had stopped making weapons by the 1990s. Tell me if I’m wrong please, but if I am not....holy shit what is Zdarsky doing? How does aging in real time = Iron Man would still be a war profiteer?

Let’s leave Stark and the real life history alone and get into the real meat of this story.

Okay so we have Ben Reil-

Wait what?

*re-reads Life Story #4*

...there is something off with this...

*checks Life Story #2*

...um...Life Story #2 clearly states that Peter and Gwen’s clones took on the names Helen and Ben PARKER not REILLY!

Now Reilly makes a lot more sense from both a practical point of view (a guy who looks like Peter Parker with his last name raises questions) and from a referencing canon POV.

But what the fuck is up with the inconsistency?

Who was asleep at the wheel for that one! Oh...but it won’t be the only inconsistency by the way.

So Ben Reilly (who looks more like Ben Urich) is a photogra-

Wait, wait, wait. What again?

Ben Reilly is a...photographer?

...WHY??????????????????????

Look...Peter does have a certain passion for photojournalism, but he prefers science.

Ben Reilly in canon never even considered photography as a job to my recollection. He worked as a lab assistant, a barrista, a bouncer/body guard, a teacher but never a photographer even though that would’ve been an obvious profession to consider.

When Peter began working that job it was a way for him to earn the money he desperately needed to provide for himself and Aunt May whilst also not having his time eaten up with a 9-5.

Sure Ben is also a superhero (the Red Mask...I hope he didn’t dream that up himself...in the middle of a Cold War...) in this universe, but what is motivating him to do that? He’s got science smarts, he has legal documentation from issue #2 allowing him to hold jobs. Why would he not go into a field he both prefers and one that you’d think in a world where there was a war raging with intangible nukes would be of greater use?

I can think of some No. Prize explanations...but that’s the problem.

I have to think of those explanations. The story, like so much else in this shitty series, doesn’t elaborate.

This goes beyond the characters being different for the sake of being different from canon.

Ben Reilly is doing something that demands an explanation within the context of this series’ unique continuity as established. It’s not even a matter of established characterization based on canon, it’s a matter of established characterization based upon the last 3 goddam issues.

This lack of thought equally applies to our main villain of the issue, Doctor Octopus.

So in issue #2/1977 Doc Ock had reformed because of a heart attack and all that good tender luvin care he got from a woman at least 20 years his senior; Zdarsky does know most people enjoy the May/Otto relationship ironically right, nobody actually thinks it makes sense or was a good idea, but no here it’s the crux of his whole character.

In issue #3/1984 he was...clearly a villain again because he’s obviously attacking Spider-Man in the double page spread depicting Secret Wars.

In issue #4/1995 we learn that Otto was at May’s funeral and this was the last time Peter saw him. Also according to Peter May left Otto long before she died and that was when he just disappeared, Peter presuming he retired in Florida.

So going by issue #4 alone we have something of a contradiction. If Otto disappeared long before May’s death...how could the last time Peter have seen him been at her funeral.

Maybe that’s just phrased a little badly and I’m nitpicking. Fair enough.

What isn’t fair enough though is either Zdarsky isn’t paying attention to his own writing, Bagley and he are not communicating properly or the editor is severely dropping the ball.

May and Otto were clearly NOT together in issue #3 when Otto was also clearly a villain and Peter clearly was aware of this because Otto was attacking him.

Which means Otto must’ve disappeared before then which means Peter would’ve known he hadn’t retired, he’d returned to villainy.

Now a point of praise, Otto blaming Peter for May leaving him, I think that rings true to Otto’s character, let alone an old aging Otto. This is the guy who often saw what he wanted to see, who infamously once wanted to nuke NYC to prove how he wasn’t to be taken lightly even though it’d also kill him too.

Too bad that point of praise is drowned out by his plan in this story which is all wrapped up in the clones.

Okay, okay, Doc Ock had a important role to play in the 1990s Clone Saga so what’s the problem?

The problem is that...I heavily suspect this isn’t riffing on the 1990s Clone Saga.

I think it’s much more likely that it’s riffing on the Ultimate Clone Saga in which Doc Ock was the mastermind behind the clones; coincidentally Bagley drew all three of the Ock Clone Saga tales which is a nice piece of historical symmetry.

Why...is....Zdarsky....riffing....on....a...Ultimate....Universe....story....?????????????????...from the 2000s!!!!!!!!

And in case the jury doesn’t accept that criticism here is another one. Otto feels he’s dying without accomplishing anything.

Um...wasn’t he working with Reed Richards in issue #2?

Otto working legitimately with a big brain like Reed surely would’ve in like 10 years accomplished SOMETHING! He invented so much crazy tech he really didn’t patent any of it, release it to the public?

Couldn’t his arms alone do wonders for disabled people?

I know this is comics so you should suspend disbelief because if you don’t you have to ask why fossil fuels even still exist.

But that’s the problem with this series.

It wants to have it’s cake and eat it.

It wants to show superheroes having a world changing impact on the world as they realistically would...but not go all the way with it.

It wants to have superheroes go to Vietnam and Russia have and use super powered people and intangible nukes but it also wants to ignore the obvious ramifications when it’s inconvenient.

This gets even stupider when you contextualize it within wider Spider-Man media. In the recent, heavily publicized Spidey PS4 video game (that Marvel is adapting as a comic book right now) Doc Ock creates his arms specifically to help disabled people and uses them because he himself is losing control of his motor functions. And in Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon (for 5 year olds) Doc Ock is disabled from the outset and entirely relies on his arms to move around.

So why the fuck did Otto at no point consider using that tech to help the disabled and thereby accomplish something in his life. It’s an obvious idea Reed, Peter or even May must’ve suggested. It probably could’ve helped someone as frail and infirm as May specifically.

We’re also told May left Otto due to his anger. Great use of telling not showing there Zdarsky. Remember how angry Otto seemed in his one other speaking appearance before now?

15 notes · View notes

laughingpinecone · 5 years

Text

Yuletide letter!

I am laughingpineapple on AO3

Likes: worldbuilding, slice of life (doubly so if the event the fic focuses on is made up but canon-specific), missing moments, 5+1 and similar formats, bonding and emotional support/intimacy, physical intimacy, lingering touches, loyalty, casefic, surrealism, magical realism, established relationships, future fic, hurt/comfort or just comfort from the ample canon hurt, throwing characters into non-canon environments, banter, functional relationships between dysfunctional individuals, unexplained mysteries, bittersweet moods, journal/epistolary fic, dreams and memories and identities, outsider POV, UST, exploration of secondary bits of canon, leaning on the uniqueness of the canon setting/mood, found families, characters reuniting after a long and/or harrowing time, friends-to-lovers, road trips, maps, mutual pining, cuddling, wintry moods, the feeling of flannel and other fabrics, ridiculous concepts played straight, sensory details, places being haunted, people being haunted, the mystery of the woods, small hopes in bleak worlds, electricity, places that don’t quite add up, mismatched memories, caves and deep places, distant city lights at night

Any tense, any pov, any rating, plotty, not plotty, IF, canon divergences, non-mundane AUs (space opera! high fantasy! new weird also), deep lore, unrequested characters popping up - please do go wild with the & combos!

Blanket crossover prompt with Untitled Goose Game: set that goose loose anywhere and ruin anyone’s day. Tariq and select Twin Peaks characters who are not Albert (Margaret, Laura...) may hope to tame and befriend the goose; anyone else better get wrecked. Capitalism may also get wrecked while Kentucky Route Zero characters popcorn.gif nearby

DNW: non-canonical rape, non-canonical children, canon retellings, unrequested ships (I listed all the ships I like for each fandom. Outside of those, I’d prefer if other canon characters weren’t shipped, unless they’re like, canon engaged/married)

Dark Souls 1: Solaire of Astora

I’m only familiar with the first game! It’s probably relevant to mention that I think that linking the fire is kind of a dumbass move, Gwyn is a jerk, Kaathe has his own agenda and there’s no winning move in this world, or at least no obvious one. And amidst all this nonsense, Solaire just shines, pure of heart and dumb of ass like the best of ‘em. I love his kindness in this cruelest of worlds and I love the sad edge he’s got even earlier on when he admits to being seen as weird.

I would enjoy a bittersweet ending for him but I realize both of his endings are deeply entrenched in his themes so it’s hard to make him steer clear of either of those. If you can figure out how to make him not link the Flame or survive the ordeal, I’m all ears! I like a sense of purpose being the thing that can stave off hollowing, and I like characters helping other characters finding that sense of purpose within themselves. Focus on scenery always welcome, and if you want to make up a location, that’s great too!

I’d be super happy with a story set during Solaire’s time in Lordran that simply doesn’t mention his endings, anyway. Maybe he’s the one who helps someone else while his own tragedy keeps looming on the horizon. Striking up friendships in the face of a crapsack world! Meeting people through Lordran’s temporal/dimensional fuckery, where it’s possible to cross the path of warriors who have been gone for ages… could Solaire meet either or both Catarina knights (there’s so much great art about sun bro and onion bro but where’s the fic?), or do the grumpy grump&ray of sunshine routine with Logan, or meet Artorias or even Gwyn before he linked the Flame - or himself? What if he met Kaathe?

Ships: none really? Solaire/Chosen Undead but I don’t really like to read about customizable protagonists in fic so I’d rather not get fic featuring the CU. I’m all about the & character combos here.

Ghost Trick: Cabanela, Jowd

I love Cabanela being fierce and dazzling bright and determined and loyal to the very end, dancing to his own rhythm, so sure of himself and of his ideas that he doesn’t even need to prove to anyone that he’s right. Too sure of the wrong idea, once, and everything crashed and burned. And I love Jowd being the immovable object to Cabanela’s unstoppable force, a suicidal trainwreck of guilt with the gallows humor to show for it, and also incredibly smart (both jerks figured out Sissel’s powers better than Sissel did, that’s... something) and athletic and with an unsuspected talent for stealth.

I am very interested in various characters finding about the erased timeline, but not getting their memories back, and having to live with being told about what they did but never remembering it. Touch-starved Jowd in the new timeline is a surefire hit (or maybe Cabanela if he’s the one who came back and kept the memories of the old timeline). Touchy-feely Cabanela as kind of his baseline with the people he likes. All what-ifs welcome:what if they managed an acceptable happy ending but didn’t reset the timeline, what if Alma’s ghost stuck around… I’m also wondering about either of them ending up undead via Temsik shard - how would they take these developments (I’m assuming better than Yomiel did but the bar is admittedly low), did Cabanela do it on purpose for whatever sensible-if-you-are-Cabanela reason, what does it change in their relationship, what are the practical pros and cons of the situation here. UFO adventures with Pigeon Man! Lynne teaming up with either of them against the other! Sissel death-averting action if either/both of them die or just regular cat action! Spy stuff! Daring rescues! My forever prompt of Jowd being the one who gets a chance to prove his loyalty to Cabanela for once. Dancing.

Please no Yomiel. Nothing against the guy I’m just getting an overdose of him through RPing.

Ships: Alma/Cabanela/Jowd and all sides thereof, but when it splits the canon couple I only like it when the missing spouse is dead or otherwise unavailable, hopefully with a reset on the horizon. If you want to go for a Cabanela&Alma or Cabanela/Alma who are strongly motivated by a dead or jailed Jowd, I’m good with him not actively appearing in the fic. Alma/Jowd & Cabanela is excellent in all scenarios. I’m good with explicitly non-romantic takes on Jowd&Cabs but please keep their bond strong, and please no conflicting ship for Cabanela. Lynne/Memry!

Kentucky Route Zero: Any (Lula Chamberlain, Joseph Wheattree, Donald kentuckyroutezero, Weaver Màrquez)

(if enough of us request it, will some Murphy corollary guarantee that Act V will come out between now and reveals just to mess with the Yuletide schedule? If it does, I’ll be playing it immediately and probably add a few thoughts and prompts here for kicks, at the end of this section, after a spoiler warning. Obviously feel free to stick to canon up to Un Pueblo De Nada)

I’m all for exploration of any of the game’s themes and for including any staples from adjacent genres - wanna go full-on American Gothic? Dip into surrealism? Take a leaf from Twin Peaks with tulpa / split narratives to explore the characters’ issues? I can’t think of any specific AUs for the disaster trio + disaster soloist here, but I generally love AUs so if you want to sidestep the inconvenience of an incomplete canon that way, be my guest! Or of course there’s Xanadu at the height of its glory, an infinite what-ifs generator. Was Weaver ever part of it, what was this digital Weaver up to? A Xanadu narrative would be great! A good fit for IF, too? I’d love to hear about any new spot along the Zero or the Echo river, or an expansion of some place that’s only mentioned by Will in HATATE or only gets a few paragraphs of text. Lula getting ideas for a new installation, or an article talking about her work? Donald listening to Static between stations somehow (Donald being constantly high as a kite as per this)? Joseph who went back to the surface finds himself near an entrance to the Zero somewhere? A collection of Weaver-isms? Feel free to bring in anyone else from any part of canon.

Ships: “Flipping through the pages, Conway is able to gather that it's a story about three characters: Joseph, Donald, and Lula. It's something like a tragic love triangle, but much more complex. Some kind of tangled, painfully concave love polygon.” 😬 that one, as a full triad, regrettably since they don’t seem too inclined to get reunited and stay that way. If you can nudge them, good. But I’m very open to non-romantic resolutions as well, going past their messy feelings to find each other as friends after so many years maybe. For Weaver, I’m interested in all her & relationships (seriously. Weaver & Cate. Weaver & EmilyBen&Bob. Weaver & Slow Moe Crow.) but nothing shippy. Conway/Lysette, Junebug/Johnny(/Shannon?).

The Last Remnant: David Nassau, Pagus

I’m very interested in post-game exploration, and getting a clearer feeling of any of the cities and assorted places that populate this fascinating world. I like the whole party with their characterization based on battle quotes, red bubble dialogues, and even their unique stat (‘authority’ is a natural fit for David but ‘romance’ tells me something new about Sibal!) Character interaction. Bit of worldbuilding. What’s another festival they celebrate? Do they erect something else instead of the Valeria Heart? Any fun discoveries down in Siebenbur? Where the hell IS Veyriel, anyway, do they go look for it and if so what do they find out? End of an age. Old bonds.

I ache for David who fought so valiantly as a warrior and as a politician only to be slapped in the face with the unexpected loss Emma first and then Rush, right as they were ready to claim their victory and as he would have to start coming to terms with the idea that maybe without the Gae Bolg he wouldn’t die young. At least his Generals are still with him - out of them, all of whom I adore, I picked Pagus because Qsiti are cool. And Pagus in particular is the coolest (”I know that fine qsiti... That large, reticent mouth, the laugh lines around the eyes...“ he’s FINE it’s CANON!). So I’d like to see how David bounces off Pagus in particular, what their bond is like, what he thinks of whatever aspect of Qsiti culture.

Ships: postcanon David/Rush, possibly with an emphasis on Rush’s nature as a remnant? I am also fond of Pagus/Sibal/Maddox, there are more prompts for them in my #letters tag!

Pyre: Volfred Sandalwood, Tariq The Lone Minstrel

Oh the burning found family feelings, the revolutionary passion, the tension between topside social constraints (moreso for liberated exiles, thrust into heroic roles after the revolution) and the kind of freedom allowed by the Downside! I love all the themes, the solemnity, the heart of this game. I’ve been waiting for a character like Tariq all my life, a minstrel who’s otherworldly soft and just a lil bit eldritch. Volfred as well, he just hits my perfect ratio of “noble intentions” to “scheming to a fault”. Like, the percentages in his planner are pointless for gameplay since the ending just depends on the number of Nightwings sent topside at the end - so it’s just there for his characterization, he’s the sort of person who assigns percentages to people, nbd. ...for a good cause! That said, I would die for anyone in that Blackwagon+Dalbert+Celeste, so if you want to write in someone else as well, please do! (otoh if you maybe want to dunk on Brighton or Manley, I don’t like bashing but canon levels of love-to-hate-them would be fun)

Thoughts about finding oneself at the end of an age, as everything crumbles down to form something new. The titan stars. History nerd Volfred, “aye sir, I was there” Tariq. Conversations with Dalbert. Or with Sandra? Any postcanon very welcome with any combination of endings as long as the revolution was peaceful. Please do lean into the xeno headcanons if you enjoy them! Even for gen, I like to read what it’s like to be something other than human and these two are very much not human in different and intriguing ways. Or, Volfred’s zodiac sign is Cancer and Cancer is ruled by the Moon, so there’s that. I also love how they both hold the other in the highest esteem, especially on Tariq’s part since he’s the immortal Herald of the Scribes and Volfred is, all in all, a history teacher, but listen to him and you’d think the roles were inverted. I love my nonviolent canon but could anything happen to either of them that may require a rescue, and/or some good old-fashioned h/c? What’s something that could make Tariq of all people lose it? How’s life 100 years on?

For a funnier mood, picture Volfred trying to figure out how to flirt with Tariq with percentages, planners and all. He could just ask him but no, it’s convoluted plan or bust. Or, conversely, Tariq’s increasingly direct hints that he’s interested, but they’re still ‘increasingly direct’ for Tariq standards, so, not at all, undetectable even by Volfred who can get pretty damningly indirect himself.

Ships: Volfred/Tariq, Volfred/Oralech, some form of Oralech/Volfred/Tariq (more of a Volfred-centric V but I would like to be convinced of the Oralech/Tariq side of things), Celeste/Jodariel, Hedwyn/Fikani and Pamitha/Bertrude.

Twin Peaks: Albert Rosenfield

Case fic but they don’t find out jack shit, someone disappears, David Bowie was there, it’s complicated. Fragmented, shifted, mirrored identities. New Lodge spaces. The risks of staring into the void for too long. Gentle illusions. Transcendence. The moon. Static buzzing. Any title from the s3 ethereal whooshing compilation used as a prompt, actually. Twin Peaks is all about the mystery to me, the awe of mystery and unknowability and the human drive to look beyond and the risks of getting a peek, and about shared consciousness and trauma taking physical form and about the warmth of human connections in an uncaring world. Go wild with the ethereal whooshing!

I love Albert and he breaks my heart, a pacifist who ends his arc shooting his oldest remaining friend after life sucked all the passion and most of the idealism out of him. Is shooting Diane just to see Cooper come back, get her back and disappear with her again trauma enough to make him split? I’d be interested in reading about it, or any other take on his unwavering loyalty to Gordon which should maybe waver after Gordon’s admission that he’s lied to him for 25 years and the aforementioned unmitigated disaster of an ending. But I’m also very interested in his life apart from the disaster that is Blue Rose and his heartbreaking search for Cooper: did he keep in touch with Harry throughout the years, what did they talk about? Was he ever dragged along for a hike in the woods and did something weird happen there? We know he kept in touch with Diane, what did THEY talk about? Does he go on a journey of his own to find her after the ending? Does Tammy come along, do they see each other as friends other than mentor and protégé? What was Phil like as a co-boss back in the day? Did he get a small victory over Windom at some point (maybe even in the present day, given Kenneth Welsh’s recent wonderful interview where he’s adamant that Windom lives)? Does Laura ever visit him in some ghostly manner? He and Denise look like a great duo for a case and/or office shenanigans. We know from TFD that he’s a big jazz enthusiast, something about that? When does he cave in and just accept some aspects of Coop’s investigative method? Just set him loose on another unsuspecting character and I’ll be happy.

If Coop comes back (and I’d love for Coop to come back), I would like it if he came back on his own thanks to having sorted out his crap. After s3, I am not interested in stories about any other character saving Cooper. Albert’s got his wounds to lick dangit. And he’s got friends who can be by his side! ...I do love his dynamic with Coop so much, though. Sigh. I do miss that bastard. Anyway.

Ships: Albert/Coop/Harry and sides thereof, Tammy/Cynthia, Gordon/Phil, Diane/Constance, Lucy/Andy, Chet/Sam.

Canon-specific DNWs: any singular Dreamer being the ‘source’ of canon, BOB (let alone Judy) being forever defeated in the finale, Judy being an active malevolent presence in the characters’ lives, clear explanations for canonical ambiguities, ‘Odessaverse’ being the reality layer, the Fireman’s House by the Sea being the White Lodge, anything that 4 hours video says is the explanation of Twin Peaks

#letter #yuletide 2019

2 notes · View notes

shadows-echoes · 5 years

Text

You Haven’t Done This Tag Before, I Promise

I was tagged by @negotiator-on-site ages and ages ago to do the 11 Questions Tag (thank you <3)

Rules: Answer 11 questions, make up your own 11 questions, and then tag 11 people to answer those.

1. What is one of your favorite memories?

Waking up one day in the fall of last year and opening my curtains to a yard full of freshly fallen snow. The world was asleep, the snow pristine and undisturbed, and everything looked completely magical. It didn't matter that a giant apartment building lay on the other side of the lawn, acting as a mundane, grey background. Frost clung to the branches of the trees directly outside my window. The odd snowflake fell from the bright pink and pale blue morning sky. For a few moments there was nothing but wholehearted glee, a complete rapture in focus... It was nice. A wonderful reminder.

2. What is the dumbest thing you have ever heard someone say?

I’ve heard a lot of dumb things in my time, and have said a number of dumb things myself, but most of it was all harmless, ‘my last brain cell has deserted me’ kind of stuff. With that being said, one actually dumb thing I heard was when this DudeBro was trying to prove to me that feminism was fundamentally sexist and unnecessary by *asking* me, “if feminism is for everyone,” I.e. for the benefit of all genders, “then why is it called “feminism”? Why isn’t it called “humanism”?”

Like? Because humanism already exists and is about something completely different? Also, the term “feminism” itself was coined by a 19th-century DudeBro so you only have yourselves to blame???

3. What was the first movie you ever saw in theaters?

I uh... I don't remember the last movie I saw in theaters so the first one I saw is entirely lost to me. I got that goldfish memory, babes 👉👉

4. Tell a story about the biggest spider you have ever encountered.

Aight, fam, buckle up. It's story time.

Picture this: it's the middle of summer break, I'm 16, and have the entire house to myself for the weekend. I was convinced by a friend the night before to see how long I could go without sleeping (I think we made a bet about it too) and it's around 10am at this point. I've been awake for around 30 hours straight, experiencing a degree of exhaustion I had never felt before, one where I didn't feel tired anymore. I was just... there. Existing. Feeling time move through me.

Now, I was in my room and the thing about my room was that there were exposed water pipes running along the ground to the corner of my room, up the wall, and through a hole in the ceiling to get to the second floor (the house was kind of under construction at the time). So there I am, bbq sauce on my titties half delirious due to a lack of sleep and, though I'm watching tv on my laptop at my desk, from the corner of my eye I see... something fall. Fall from the hole in my ceiling down into my room.

Despite the headphones I was wearing, I also heard it. As in, I heard it, whatever it was, hit the ground. As in, it was heavy enough to make an audible sound.

Curious, I got up and investigated. I found a spider. A giant-ass, hairy black/dark brown tarantula that was bigger than the size of my palm.

It was in the corner of my room, the farthest it could get from the only exit, and it had just fallen multiple meters onto a hard concrete floor so it wasn't exactly having the best day. Neither was I. I freaked TF out. I was looking at the biggest arachnid I had ever seen, before or since, and I had no idea how to proceed. Because I was so sleep-deprived I was also panicking like a madwoman, completely balling my eyes out while I tried to figure out if I could even kill this thing with a broom or if it would kill me before I got the chance. It was about survival at this point, not its possible relocation. It was about getting it out of my bedroom without setting my bedroom aflame (which I did, briefly though seriously, consider). It was... an eventful morning to say the least.

5. What color is your bedspread?

Dark grey and I love it, it's so soft.

6. When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I had no idea. Like every other kid, at one point or another, I wanted to be a singer or an actor. Fast forward a few years and I wanted to be a psychologist, which was probably the first job I actually, seriously, considered.

7. Would you rather go to an art, history, or science museum?

Uhhhh... why not all three?? Please?? All three would be great, it would make a wonderful afternoon! (Probably history if I really had to choose though. I love a good history museum).

8. What’s one thing on your bucket list?

My bucket list is rather short because I'm constantly surprised I've made it this far and thus haven't planned exceedingly far ahead (because a long life? In this economy????). Nevertheless, one thing that’s been on my bucket list for the last few years is to travel to Ireland and/or New Zealand.

9. What is on your bedside table?

A blue lamp, a scented candle, an empty coffee cup, and a second coffee cup jam-packed with a variety of writing utensils and a few paintbrushes.

10. What is the most beautiful place you have ever been to?

Greece. Without a doubt. It was disgustingly beautiful. Every time I opened my eyes, I was confronted with: 1) something ancient, 2) gorgeous flora and fauna and landscapes, or 3) grunge scenery. All three options were rather lovely.

Like??? Just absolutely gorgeous???? No wonder why they believed in deities.

11. Have you ever broken a bone?

If this refers to my own bones then no, oddly enough. I’m quite surprised about that, too, because I tend to be rather clumsy.

Questions to answer:

What is the strangest dream you have ever had?

What is something that's been said to you which you remember verbatim? (Feel free to answer profoundly or about that weird conversation you overheard in Starbucks that one time.)

What is one superpower you would not want to have?

Did you have a favorite teacher when in school and, if so, why were they so favored?

We've all fantasized about making a dramatic exit after someone snapped our last, lingering nerve at school/work/home. What's your daydream exit-plan?

Optimism, realism, nihilism, or any of their variants (e.g. optimistic nihilism)?

Favorite smell?

If you could rewrite a character's final ending and have it be canon, who's ending would you rewrite and what would you have their ending be?

If you could change one thing about the world instantaneously with no questions asked, what would you change?

Which do you prefer, gothic architecture with spiraling towers or old, worn wood in the shape of a homey cabin somewhere?

If you could dust anyone in the world with a snap of your fingers Thanos style, would you do it? If yes, who would you dust?

Tagging: @pandemoniumambassador @deviantramblings @obsiidio @deviancy-wasteland @self-indulgent-authorship @negative-blackbird @aerynwrites @ironicallyinspired (I’m sure some of you have probably done this tag already so I apologize if that’s the case, but feel free not to do it in either case :) ).

#thanks for the tag!!#this one took me forever to finish i'm so srry #lots of fun though #tag games

12 notes · View notes

chungledown-bimothy · 6 years

Text

Trust Me: Chapter 6

I’m so sorry it too so long- for some reason, I just couldn’t get into Virgil’s head for this one. Thank you so much for your patience <3

Chapter 1 Chapter 5 AO3 Chapter 7

Warnings: swearing, mention of death/funerals, brief mention of homophobia (it’s as fluffy as this one’s gonna get, y’all)

Word Count: 2023

Tag List: @ccecode @emo-sanders-sides-loving-unicorn @ren-allen @ilovemygaydad @bloodropsblog @funsizedgremlin @raygelkitty @roxiefox23 @thomasthesandersengine @spookyingarbageisland @band-be-boss-blog

Thursday

Virgil stared at the empty conversation for what felt the millionth time, trying to find the right words. Fuck it. I need to just do this. Like a bandaid. I can do this.

[To:Patton]- Hey Patton, this is Virgil.

[To:Patton]- From your coffee shop the other day.

Fuck, that was bad. Well, there's nothing I can do about it now. He opened the case files he brought home to review, trying to distract himself, but gave up after about 10 minutes and started watching The Office for the fifteenth time. He was three episodes in when his phone went off.

[Patton]- Hi!! I hope this doesn't come across as pushy or anything, but do you wanna go out sometime? I'm really bad at communicating through text, and I think you're really cute

[Virgil<3]- it totally doesn't. Yeah, I'd love to meet up. What are you up to on Saturday?

[Patton]- Going to the de Young with you, hopefully? I have a membership

[Virgil<3]- That would be amazing!! I've been dying to go see the Monet exhibition.

[Patton]- Me too! I'll pick you up at noon on Saturday, then?

[Virgil<3]- Sounds great!

[Patton]- I can't wait! I guess I don't need to ask where you live lol

[Virgil<3]- haha yeah I guess not. I'll see you then :)

Virgil put his phone down and took a deep breath. Holy SHIT am I really doing this?? Patton's so cute, but I'm a mess. But it's Monet at the de Young, and Patton seems so… good. Like, too good for me. God, I'm really good fuck this up, aren't I?

[Patton]- Take a deep breath; it's gonna be great. There's absolutely no need to worry :)

… Holy fuck I'm so gay. Patton had attached a selfie with a huge smile and a thumbs-up.

Saturday

Taking a deep breath, Virgil looked in the mirror and adjusted his tie. He didn't even wear ties to work, but a date to see Monet's works in person deserved better than his everyday work attire, let alone his usual weekend outfit of a t-shirt, an old hoodie with purple plaid patches, and black jeans. He tried not to think about the last time he wore the black tie, but he couldn't shut the train of thought off fast enough.

It's raining. Of course it is. He loved the rain so much; it's only fitting it's raining when we have to say goodbye.

"He'd hate that we're all here being sad, you know. He'd say we were being lame and that he deserves something more fabulous. He'd also be pissed that I'm talking to you, not him, at an event about him, even if it is his funeral. So, Remy, you dramatic, self-absorbed ass, I'm standing in front of all of these people, and I'm gonna talk to just you.

First of all, I'm more sorry than I can say. You told me he would be willing to break his rules, and I didn't trust you. You were always right, and I hated that. If you were here, you'd tell me to shut the fuck up and say that I know I love you. I absolutely and completely love you. And that's why it kills me that I couldn't protect you. You weren't just my partner, you were my best friend, and I failed at the absolute minimum. God, Remy, you deserved so much better. I'm sorry I couldn't be better.

But fuck this melancholy shit. You told me once that you wanted to put the 'fun' in funeral. So, everybody," Virgil continued, addressing the crowd again, "as Remy said so often, 'let's cut the shit and drink'. Scandals downtown is ready and waiting for us to fuck shit up in his memory."

Coming back to the present, Virgil wiped the tear from his cheek and rolled up the sleeves of his purple dress shirt. Patton's gonna be here any minute; I need to finish getting ready.

Before he knew it, there was a knock at the door. He took a deep breath and was glad he did when he opened the door and briefly forgot how to breathe, because standing there on his doorstep was 5 feet and 7 inches of the most beauty Virgil had ever seen in one person. Patton wasn't the most conventionally attractive- whereas society as a whole prized hard lines and defined muscles, Patton was soft lines and the kindest eyes imaginable. Virgil couldn't explain why, but Patton exuded kindness and trustworthiness. He didn't realize he'd been staring until the sound of a throat clearing startled him.

"Oh, um, I was staring, huh?" Virgil asked, embarrassed.

Patton nodded, blushing. "Yeah, but I was too. You look really good."

"Thanks, you do too, but I guess you already knew that I feel that way." In his efforts to avoid eye contact, Virgil noticed the pin on Patton's shirt- simply reading 'they/them'. "Are those your pronouns?"

"Yeah, they are." Patton's posture immediately shifted- standing straighter and narrowing their eyes. "Is that a problem?"

"Not in the slightest." He smiled when Patton visibly relaxed, their megawatt smile returning in full force.

"Wonderful! Now, let's go see some art almost as beautiful as you. I'll drive." Patton winked and started walking. It took Virgil a second to remember how to breathe, let alone move, but he quickly caught up once he did. He stopped short again when he saw their car- a classic black VW Beetle in perfect condition.

"Holy shit, Patton. Your car is gorgeous."

"Oh my goodness thank you! She was my dad's."

"Like I said, it's- she's beautiful. Maintenance must be a nightmare, though. What year is she?"

"1955. Maintenance isn't that bad- my dad taught me how to keep her in shape after I came out in high school. He thought getting my hands dirty would turn me into 'a real man'."

"Shit, I'm sorry, Pat." They shrugged.

"It's no big deal. Joke's on him- I'm still queer as hell, but now I can keep this beauty in good shape. Get in! She's old, but she won't bite!" Laughing, Virgil got in the car, and they left for the museum.

"Monet was a founder of Impressionism as a counterpoint to Realism, which had been popular for about ten years before Impressionism started developing and twenty-four years before the term Impressionism was first used.

Realism grew in popularity with the rise of photography; artists wanted their works to look objectively real, and strove to remove emotion. They largely focused on the working class and depicted life as it was, without any sentimentality or heroism.

Monet never really bought into that. His early works works, though chronologically in the Realism era, were always painted with intense emotion, and he rarely painted people. He began playing with the concept that what we understand of reality is just our perception, and he was far from alone in those thoughts. Marx held that belief as well, going further and saying that all we have in our minds are ideologies, not facts or truths, and they act as filters, shaping everything we experience.

Rousseau died two centuries before the rise of Impressionism, but he summed up the philosophy well when he said 'I feel before I think'. Monet's paintings, while indistinct and 'messy' up close, evoke strong emotion only when one looks at the piece as a whole. We feel it before we get close enough to see and think about what it's really made of." Strictly speaking, Virgil didn't need to be speaking softly into Patton's ear with his hand on their waist, standing so closely behind them that he could feel the movement of their chest with each breath. Neither of them, however, would ever dream of complaining.

Patton reluctantly stepped out of Virgil's embrace and turned to look at him in awe. "That's incredible, Virgil. How do you know all that?"

"Oh, um, thanks. I really like art philosophy, and Monet is my favorite artist. I dunno, something about making order out of chaos is really calming."

"I feel the same way! Life is sorta like a puzzle, or Monet's brush strokes. Each one, taken individually, doesn't make much sense. We all feel and experience things like that, things that are confusing or sometimes even scary. But as we keep going, we find more and more pieces, and things make more and more sense. Feeling like a half-missing puzzle set is okay, as long as we remember the big picture. If any of that makes sense." Patton chuckled nervously, scratching behind his ear.

"No, it made perfect sense. What would you say the big picture is?"

"Well, I'd say it's doing as much good as possible. Whether it's big things, like being a doctor, firefighter, or teacher, like my brother, or small things, like putting a smile on someone's face with a pun or a good cup of coffee. It's our duty as people to make the world around us a better place, however we can."

"That's a really beautiful way of looking at things, Patton." Virgil gave them a small smile. He started to say more, but he was interrupted by the growling of his stomach. "Oh, shit. I was so nervous this morning, I forgot to eat. Wanna go to the cafe and get lunch? My treat, since you still haven't let me pay you back for the coffee."

"I told you, it was a gift! And don't think for a second that I didn't notice that you tipped almost triple what you would have paid if I had charged you." Their smirk was only slightly lessened by the fact that they had to tilt their head back slightly to make eye contact.

"You got me there, but I'm still buying. No, stop that- no amount of puppy dog eyes can change my mind."

"Well, you can't blame a guy for trying." Patton shrugged. "Alright, let's go get some food. You're already almost alarmingly skinny- if we don't get some food in you, you might disappear altogether." Patton started walking backwards towards the cafe, not breaking eye contact.

"Hey! I'm a perfectly normal weight for my height." Virgil started walking too, shaking his head.

"Which is what, 6'3? You need to eat more than the average person, not less. Skipping meals isn't good for you, kiddo."

"I know that. You're just really cute, and I got nervous," he admitted, blushing.

"Flattery will get you everywhere. Now come on, let's eat." They winked before turning around and skipping away. Virgil followed, completely smitten.

------------------------------

"Mr. Dean, a minute?" Logan called after his least favorite student. It was almost 7 pm- students on campus at this hour outside of football season was unheard of, and the last game of the season was weeks ago.

"Greetings and salutations, Mr. Reed. It's JD, though. Mr. Dean is my father." He sauntered to Logan, disdain clear on his face. Logan couldn't be sure if it was towards himself, Mr. Dean, or both.

"Yes, erm, JD, what are you doing on campus so late? Your attendance record in my class alone indicates a disinclination towards being here during school hours, let alone so late."

"That's just the thing, Mr. Reed. No one wants me to be here now."

"Ah, I see. A contrarian. It's not safe to be out here alone, however. The sun set hours ago, and there's a killer on the loose, if the news is to be believed. Come with me, I'll drive you home."

"Thanks, sir, but I'm fine. I'm a fighter, you see. Let the bastard come after me- it'll be the last mistake he ever makes."

"Save the bravado for your peers. I will not take no for an answer- if anything happened to you, it would be on my conscience. My car is in the parking lot. Go." Logan commanded.

"If you insist." He gave a mocking bow before turning away from Logan and walking to the car. If he turned back around, he would have seen a cold, malicious smile spread across his teacher's face. He didn't turn around.

#sanders sides #moxiety #virgil sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #sanders sides fanfic #sanders sides fan fiction #sanders sides fanfiction #my writing #trust me

12 notes · View notes

anyway-heres-enderal · 6 years

Photo

i couldnt shut up about enderal right now if i wanted to so here’s that prophet ask meme with my prophetess fleur

blank

1. The basics – name, age, etc…

her name is fleur! i don’t know her last name but that’s okay because she’s kind of abandoned it. both of my vyn protags have line-of-sight, musically-inspired names so after that fuckin nightmare intro scene i had to name her as an homage to the song that was playing in my head the entire time it was happening (warning: disturbing imagery, abuse of some sort that is not shown but is strongly implied)

she’s 26 years old, half-kilean and bisexual.

2. Describe their appearance.

there’s a picture up there but a few other specifics: her hair is actually white, not just very light blonde, and she has blue eyes

3. How do they like to dress?

she jumps at the chance to wear nice clothes. she never got to back in ostian.

4. Do they have any markings (scars, tattoos, birthmarks)?

she has a few scars from a couple scuffles she got into back in nehrim. one of then is pretty gnarly-looking but it’s a diagonal from her lower chest to her left hip so once the events of enderal started rolling nobody who had seen it was still alive. word to the wise: don’t try to 1v1 a thunder lizard when you’re 14.

5. What are they like? Describe their personality (use whatever tools you like- MBTI, D&D alignment, astrological signs, Hogwarts house, words/phrases):

first of all, the only one of those tools that i have even a remotely decent grasp on is d&d alignment. she’s neutral-bordering-on-chaotic good. i don’t make characters with messages behind them (esp if they’re not for anyone’s consumption but mine) but hers would be “optimism with a dose of realism is probably the healthiest way to see the world”--she has the good sense to know when a situation or a person is beyond help but until that point she will try everything to help them. she desperately wanted to be wrong about adila and even as he was preparing his kamikaze attack she tried so hard to talk yuslan down.

to temper this, though, she takes things too seriously and she’s a bit of a crybaby (ok, not just a bit. alessia, my shadowgod, cried three times over the course of the entire main quest. fleur cried three times over the course of the very first quest that didn’t take place inside a trauma nightmare), although you could argue that she just has like. a normal human reaction to trauma, and everything that happens to her in enderal is EXTREMELY FUCKING TRAUMATIC.

since i have an easier time using tools like the ones described in the question to describe personalities, if she was a disney character she’d be rapunzel from tangled but less naive and with meaningful agency and if she was a social link/confidant in a persona game her card would be the star.

6. How would they describe themselves?

she has really low self-esteem but she doesn’t like. outright hate herself so she’s dismissive of any notion that she’s special or pretty. this probably sounds extremely sue-ish but a) i don’t give a fuck and b) every diy protagonist is at least kind of a mary sue simply because they’re the big special chosen one who all the romanceable companions have feelings for.

7. Education level?

uh. Not Any, Formally Speaking. School Of Hard Knocks. Worked For A Historian In Her Late Teens-Early Twenties And Learned Most Of What She Knows That Isn’t On The School Of Hard Knocks Curriculum That Way.

8. What are they proud of in themselves? What are they embarrassed about?

like the one notable talent that she’ll accept having is that she’s really smart and even before the Everything That Happened On The Ship Headed To Enderal she was a really quick learner.

she has ZERO prior experience with romance (she’s not in any way aromantic, she’s just never been in a romantic relationship) and she doesn’t like to tell people that, especially people she likes. she feels like they’ll think there’s something seriously wrong with her and that’s why she’s never been in a romantic relationship at age 26. 9. Do they know any languages other than Inal?

she knows like. kindergarten-level kilean.

10. What, if any, aspects of their mother’s culture influenced them growing up?

she didn’t really “grow up” with her parents, they died when she was six, but she has a strong belief in the importance of diplomacy and that’s pure Mom right there.

11. Name a song (or a few) that remind you of them.

i hope you like obscure musicals and vocaloid because that’s what you’re getting

In All My Dreams I Drown - The Devil’s Carnival Cast

Starchild - Ghost Quartet

Tears To Shed - Corpse Bride

Ever Lasting Night - Hitoshizuku-P (specifically the Miku character)

Lemonade - Sophie (sorry 4 mood whiplash)

12. Speaking of songs, can they sing? What is their voice like? How about instruments?

she’s hopeless with instruments but she’s not a bad singer by any means. sorry 4 relentless youtube links but she kind of sounds like Gelsey Bell

13. What was their life like before coming to Enderal?

it wasn’t good, i’m not going to lie. she and sirius spent a pretty decent amount of time roughing it because towns and cities kind of got progressively more dangerous as time went on, and Because Of Reasons I Won’t Go Into Here they both had pretty good reasons to avoid anyone affiliated with the temple of the creator

14. How did they decide to leave Nehrim?

it was too fuckin dangerous to try to make a life there anymore

15. Describe their relationship with Sirius.

they were siblings in all senses but blood. he got her out of a pretty bad situation when they were kids and she just stuck with him until they had been through so much together there was no other way for them to describe their relationship than “family”

16. Who do they blame for what happened to their family?

herself. survivor’s guilt is a hell of a drug and it doesn’t help that things only got worse afterward. she like. knows the temple did it, but since she doesn’t know why she’ll always wonder if there was something she could have done to stop it.

17. Apart from stowing away, have they ever broken the law?

she would be considered an accomplice to murder because she helped hide a body once (don’t worry, the victim without question deserved it)

18. How honest are they? Under what circumstances would they lie?

basically the only person she directly lies to is herself; if she’s dishonest, it’s usually by omission. the rare occasions she does outright lie it’s usually to protect someone or because there’s no way anyone would believe the truth.

19. Worst memory(s)? Best memory(s)?

Too Heavy For This Post and uhhhh. getting to spend time with her two BFFs/crushes on the Gertrude before everything started really going to shit was an extremely good memory for her.

20. Fight, or flight?

fight unless they’re like. demonstrably stronger. running away from an enemy she had a chance of defeating has always just come back to bite her. she wanted to fight the steel bird in the star city.

21. Describe their combat style.

Best Defense Is A Good Offense, Also Axes = Good. (original playthrough was greataxes and heavy armor but i’ll probably switch to war axes and light armor [or unarmored if i can swing it] when the steam release drops because apparently half-kileans are equivalent to bretons in normal skyrim terms and i can’t abide having played a heavy armor + two-handed breton twice)

22. Have they ever killed before? What is their reaction to combat?

she’s hunted animals but she’d never done more to a human than injure them enough to scare them off prior to enderal. she tries to only harm people in self-defense and may have cried a little bit (ok, quite a bit) after she had to kill firespark.

23. How do they react to having magical abilities? Do they use them?

magic makes her head feel “gross” somehow (read: she’s uniquely sensitive to arcane fever) so she doesn’t use it

24. What do they think of Enderal?

the scenery’s beautiful but the fact that it’s a theocracy and the notion of being stuck on a certain “path” depending on the circumstances of your birth freaks her out for reasons of “hey remember the oppressive religious regime that was responsible for all of your childhood trauma and continued to make your life hell before a mysterious trans power couple plus their direct superior group of outsiders instigated a rebellion that brought the whole thing down? now it controls the whole continent and everyone thinks it’s Good, Actually”

25. Did they do the Biggest Egg Hunt Ever quest?

she would have if my dumb ass hadn’t completely fuckin spaced it out and forgotten about it until it was too late. next playthrough, i swear.

26. How do they feel about joining the Order? What do they think of Arantheal?

she was not in favor of it (see: opinion of theocracies) and basically clung to the green shirts until she was inducted as a keeper. arantheal makes her uneasy but the threat of looming armageddon does a lot to help her shove that uneasiness to the side.

27. What is their opinion of the gods (or lack thereof)?

she’s not inherently against the gods but she doesn’t like organized religion

28. Wine, or pipe?

wine!

29. Do they spare or arrest Hallys, the farmer-turned-bandit in the quest, Deus Ex Machina? Why?

she arrested him after she found out where the money really came from. if it hadn’t been Stolen From A Fucking Food Bank she probably would have let him go.

30. What are their feelings and opinions about the Undercity?

uh...she hates that ark has a “slum district out of sight of the Good And Honorable Rich People” because having been poor and homeless basically until she came to enderal she can’t help but empathize with the residents of the undercity.

31. How do they react to the beggars of Ark?

if tumblr doesn’t stop refreshing the page and deleting my answers every time i switch tabs to look at the wiki or change the song i’m listening to i’m going to throw my laptop off the porch.

she usually reacts by sparing some change because she can relate

32. Where and how do they spend their time when in Ark?

she really likes the museum in the south quarter. she likes learning stuff and looking at relics of the past.

33. What would they do with three wishes?

just...stop the fuckin cycle

make the black stones inert so nobody else gets hurt because of them

this is basically deliberate repression so it’s 100% unhealthy but she would gladly wish to forget everything that happened before she was seven if it would put an end to the nightmares

34. How do they feel about death? Do they fear it?

uh. yes. she very bigly fears death. she kind of had a complete breakdown after the keeper exam until calia reassured her that just because she heard something during her harrowing doesn’t mean it’s true.

35. What (else) do they fear?

deep water (predates game events). also i dont know if it’s necessarily a fear but she hates being surprised.

36. Do they have any secrets?

uh. Yeah. her dad really was as bad as the dreams show. a few other things.

37. How is their behavior around people they like? People they dislike?

she’s about as friendly and affectionate as her shyness will allow with people she likes. it takes a LOT for her to be actively hostile but she’ll only attempt like. the barest superficial politeness to people she dislikes. 38. What is their relationship with the companions? Who, if anyone, did your prophet romance?

they’re her very good friends who she is also crushing on hard. yeah, both of em. she ended up with jespar kind of by default because i wasn’t making an effort to specifically target either of them but i kind of like the contrast between them so i’m gonna leave that in the Canon Playthrough Bin.

39. Was there any non-companion character that they were close to? That they particularly disliked?

does ryneus count? she would have taken him back to the sun temple and had the few green shirts left alive help her build some method of locomotion for him if she could have. also she had a crush on lishari. she didn’t have anyone she strongly disliked other than obvious shitbirds like taranor.

40. How do they feel about myrads?

she thinks they’re Big Cute Dog Monster Boys

41. What dreams or ambitions did they have before coming to Enderal? What about afterwards?

she wanted to be an archaeologist! she kind of got to do archaeologist stuff during her time in enderal but she wishes that she’d been able to do it without an apocalyptic sword of damocles hanging over her

42. Do they like cities? Or do they prefer the country? Is there a region of Enderal that they like or dislike more than the others?

she doesn’t necessarily dislike city life because she often gets lonely so living somewhere with a big population is always a tempting thought, but if she could take everyone she loves and go live somewhere peaceful where there’s no oppressive government or looming apocalypse she would.

her ideal Cottage Away From All The Bad Things would be in the goldenforst but she loves the crystal forest even though if she gets too close to the crystals it makes her feel like her brain is trying to vibrate out of her skull.

43. What do they do to lower their considerable stress?

go on walks in one of the numerous beautiful locations in enderal. take apart inactive mechanical constructs and try to understand their inner workings from their guts. press flowers.

44. Describe their perfect day off.

wake up from a nightmare-free sleep (you said “perfect”), go on a nice walk around the city (paying a visit to the museum of course!), meet up with her friends and find something fun to do that won’t put them in mortal danger, get drunk at the dancing nomad when it gets too dark for wandering around outside the city to be a good idea, and then watch the stars.

45. List three of their favorite things. Three things they hate?

likes:

sugar bread

the color gold

nice scenery

dislikes:

cooked cabbage

mead

bugs

46. What’s in their pockets?

emergency healing potion

herbs for making another emergency healing potion

at least one apple

random flowers that look cool

a ton of those vendor trash crystal coins you find in pyrean ruins. she just thinks they’re neat!

47. Pets? Mounts? Treasured possessions?

she’s never really had a lot she could hold on to and the thought of prizing a short-lived animal or an item that’s easy to lose is frightening.

48. How are their cooking skills?

NOT FUCKIN GOOD

(she can cook meat alright but anything more complex than that? no)

49. Do you consider any particular quest or side quest to be definitive for your prophet? Which one(s) and why?

i bulldozed through the main quest on my first playthrough; i’ll probably be able to answer this question better once the steam release drops and i can replay the game.

50. How forgiving are they? For example, if they were yelled at in a brothel after searching high and low for this little sh*t, how would they react?

first of all, everyone has a different reaction to traumatic experiences and sometimes that reaction isn’t “palatably sad and helpless” so jot that down. that being said, fleur was extremely upset about that because a) she’s also not an “uwu soft helpless cinnamon roll” kind of trauma survivor, b) some of what he said was generally hurtful, and c) that entire mission had already been one big long anxiety attack

but she’s too hyperempathetic to hold a grudge, especially when a) she knows where the person who hurt her was coming from, b) she gets a sincere apology, and c) she is more than a little in love with the person doing the apologizing.

51. What do they think of the Veiled Woman?

uh. mixed feelings. for what it’s worth, her feelings are mixed because they started out negative and then once she actually got to talk to the veiled woman her opinion strongly improved but like...sirius still died right in front of her because of this woman’s actions so they’ll never be fully positive.

52. If they had been a victim of one of the black stones, how would it have affected them? What would they have used its power to accomplish?

[slams huge portfolio of ideas i’ve had about this exact scenario on your desk] well y’see fleur as she is in canon is a brand of yandere that only technically qualifies as such: she won’t kidnap or murder people who reject her advances, but...uh...don’t harm her loved ones and expect mercy.

fleur under the influence of the black stones...well. it’d be very much like this except not Literally Directed Toward A Fucking Relative. esp the “well you found out now all i can hope for from you is to see your face one last time as you kill me” ending. not quite full yuno gasai love-me-or-i’ll-slaughter-you giggling while hacking someone up but. you know. Something Adjacent.

53. What was their reaction to the Black Guardian’s revelations? Do they accept or reject his offer?

she just kind of emotionally shut down. it was a lot to take in, esp for her. she took him up on his offer because by that point she was desperate for everything she’d gone through to mean something.

54. How does their story end?

credits rolled on her sitting on the edge of the star city with jespar. while the credits rolled i was staring into the void thinking about my life. not sure if that’s canon, next playthrough i’m gonna do a hard save before the final decision point and see if catharsis leaves me feeling less empty inside.

55. Do they change over the course of the story? In what ways?

she becomes a lot more confident and sure of herself and even though she never stops being an optimist she learns to stop setting herself on fire to keep others warm.

56. Anything else you’d like to share about them?

she’s so cautiously positive because she was written as a foil to my shadowgod alessia, a textbook nihilist who only got worse after the events of nehrim.

57. Bonus: For you- what are you most excited for in Forgotten Stories?

VEILED WOMAN BACKSTORY

#this took me literally nine hours to finish #tbf one of those hours i was in class #enderal #uh. canon-typical triggering content within.

5 notes · View notes

academiablogs · 7 years

Text

Is Genre a Four-Letter Word?

Here are the plots to three novels: can you tell which are fantasy novels? * The son of a twisted duke is killed in a bizarre accident, and his innocent fiancée finds herself a prisoner of a haunted castle, pursued by the duke himself. Only the strange, twisting corridors of Otranto can save her now, where statues cry bloody tears and giant helmets exact their unholy revenge.

* A sailor is shipwrecked on an island and wakes up to find that ant-sized people have captured him. They dub him the “Man Mountain” and force him to do various menial tasks (like saving the entire kingdom with his own urine), until, terrified by his potential power, decide to kill him and parcel off his body to various parts of the kingdom. But the “Man Mountain” has other ideas...

* Two knights are captured in battle and thrown into a dungeon for life. Through the bars, they glimpse a garden outside tended by a beautiful woman: both of them fall madly in love with her, and vow eternal hatred on the other, since only one can lay claim to her heart. Eventually, one knight is pardoned while the other manages through subterfuge to escape. Once free, the second knight prays to Mars to assure him victory, while the other prays to Venus; both god and goddess grant each one success in love and battle. This causes quite a debate in Olympus, and Jupiter has to stand in judgment as to which lover will live with the maiden—and which will die in defeat.

So which are the fantasy novels? The answer is simple: none of them. Each one is a work of “classic literature” published by academic presses and used in tens of thousands of high school and college classrooms each year. The first one, and the trickiest, comes from Walpole’s early gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto (1764). The second, a little more familiar to most, is from Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726). And the final one, a plot which the author borrowed, and which Shakespeare also stole for a very late play, is from “The Knight’s Tale,” the very first installment of The Canterbury Tales (1476). So search as you will through the fantasy and science fiction section of the bookstore (or clicking through the same section in Amazon), you won’t find a single copy of these books. They’re all great literature, classics, poetry, or the more popular term, literary fiction.

And yet, if someone borrowed one of those plots today to weave together a novel where an astronaut lands on a strange planet of tiny aliens who abduct him, would that also be literary fiction? Or even just “fiction”? No, it would be science fiction, genre fiction, and to some people, merely “pulp fiction.” The same is true for any number of books with knights, haunted castles, shipwrecked sailors, or indeed, most works set in the ancient past. Fantasy. Juvenile literature. Maybe Young Adult at best. The implication is that these plots aren’t sufficiently literary to engage our minds or to make us think, feel, and examine the “human drama” that continues to be enacted.

Unless, of course, a book sells particularly well...then people start hedging their bets. The Harry Potter books, for example, have always held a respected place in the fantasy section...though you can also find them in Young Adult and mainstream fiction (depending on the bookstore). Or what about The Martian? Basically Robinson Crusoe set on Mars...yet you will rarely find it in the science fiction section. No, it’s “fiction” through and through. Why? Simply because it sells well and people like it—and that goes for people who have never watched an episode of Star Trek or read ten pages of Dune. So if a plot doesn’t doom a novel to a specific genre, why is that so often the case in traditional publishing? Why isn’t Frank Herbert (who wrote the Dune books) also found in fiction, when his books are more complex and interesting than The Martian, and why does J.K. Rowling get the literary mantle when it is forever denied to someone like Clifford Simak or Robert E. Howard (both of whom have sold countless books themselves)?

(Herbert’s Dune series pictured above). In the end, the problem lies with the bugbear of “realism,” which is hilarious given that we’re talking about fiction. If a book isn’t sufficiently realistic then it is seen as less important, or less serious, than the more “sensible” books in the market. Even among the science fiction community, there is often great snobbery about books that don’t pay tribute to hard science and instead fall back on the softer science of Star Wars (I’ve heard day-long debates on whether or not ‘parsecs’ is a measurement of speed or distance—as in Han’s comment, “it made the Kessel Run in less than 5 parsecs”). The Martian is given a pass since it’s composed of wall-to-wall hard science—and very impressively, too. Yet Dune, which is far less technical when it comes to “folding space” is seen as a talky space opera which is more suitable for nerdy preteens than your local biology professor.

Of course, fantasy is also expected to worship at the altar of realism—we need psychologically believable characters who are always consistent and plausible (and preferably, anti-heroes). With realism goes an expectation of defying the conventional tropes, even if doing so becomes a convention in itself: every heroine is a badass, basically usurping the ‘male’ role and saving the day. Wonderful on the face of it, but what about a novel that goes back to older traditions and stories? The beauty of folklore and fairy tales is their defiant refusal to make sense: characters act strangely, as in a dream; events appear and disappear following their own logic, and it’s the work of the reader to stitch them together. God help the modern novelist who attempts such innovation! Surely there are some women who long to be princesses, or who would rather be magic users, or bards, or scholars? Does ever hero or heroine have to wield a sword to be “heroic”? Is kicking ass the only way to “kick ass”?

Worse still, if you use magic, it had better work like science! The idea that magic should follow strict rules and laws probably comes from role playing games, where it does by necessity...but this is storytelling! In the Arthurian Legends, does Merlin explain the logistics of his spellcraft? What about Circe? Do we see the actual recipe that goes into her spells transforming men into beasts? Of course not. It’s fiction, fantasy, make-believe. The sense of wonder and mystery that surrounds it is half the fun, and all the author’s intention (whoever they were). If magic existed, I imagine it would work differently for each person, much the way writing does. No one writes the same way, or understands exactly how it works. It just does. That’s why there are so many self-help books for authors, most of them contradicting each other. Would it be any different for magic and magicians?

While we all like to read a story and believe in it—Coleridge called it the “willing suspension of disbelief”—we can also take it too far. An agent once told me that Young Adult readers will only read a heroine that is the same age as they are, more or less. They want to see themselves in the novel, like wearing a costume and playing make-believe. I couldn’t disagree more. I never read to wear borrowed clothes. I read to be a spy—I want to peek on a world of wonders that I don’t personally take part in, and that looks nothing like myself. I don’t need to see myself writ large (or small) in a novel; I just want to experience something mysterious and divine, or else see the mysterious and divine in the world around me. Either one will do, but I’m not a literary narcissist; I want to read beyond and outside myself. And I don’t demand that the books make sense or follow the rules of my own world. I only ask for one thing and even that is negotiable: make me never want to close the book. Keep me turning the pages in wonder, delight, confusion, anger, and frustration. Any story that does that, in any genre, has done its work.

In conclusion, I will admit that works of fantasy and science fiction (even if they’re not classified as such) tend to keep me turning the pages more than others. I read widely and in every possible style and genre, but nothing excites me more than a story set in the distant past or the far-flung future. These are stories that simply delight me. Even when they’re old, they seem brand new. The very cover of a castle enveloped by mist with twin moons on the horizon makes me eager to crack open the book and get lost in the pages. I wager that a lot of people would feel the same if we removed the stigma of genre of “fantasy” (or whatever other genre). Look at the run-away popularity of the Lord of the Rings movies; everyone seemed to love them, even people who would have gagged at the very sight of a hard bound copy of The Simarillion. Why? Because films are almost genre neutral, as we also see with superhero films (how many fans of Wolverine actually own any X-Men comics?); the point being, that when we look at books as books, and fiction as fiction, we expand our horizons. We look at stories, and not types or genres or categories.

Reading is fun. It makes life worth living. So why reduce it to a dry set of analytics or algorithms? Only a complete idiot thinks that numbers can encompass the diverse reasons that we read and value art. Or not “idiots”—that’s too strong a term. Let’s call them “people who don’t read books.”

#amwriting #blog #writing #genre fiction #literary #writer's life #academia #writers #fiction #booklr

60 notes · View notes

rienfait · 4 years

Photo

Williams’ Streetcar Named Desire (1947)

A critique on social realism, the metaphor of the poker game.

“BLANCHE [she puts the atomizer on the table]:

All right. Cards on the table. That suits me. [She turns to Stanley.] I know I fib a good deal. After all, a woman’s charm is fifty percent illusion, but when a thing is important I tell the truth, and this is the truth: I haven’t cheated my sister or you or anyone else as long as I have lived.” (Williams, 41)

The purpose of this sequence in Scene Two of Streetcar Named Desire is to expand the ever-present motif of the Poker Game and connect it to the idea of Blanche’s experience in New Orleans as one in purgatory. This text opens with Blanche’s arrival in the shadowy city, searching for consolation and in some ways, redemption. She travels to Elysian fields, in which the term ‘Elysian’ refers to the Greek belief of the final resting place, a heaven of sorts. Ironically, despite being named this, the area where Blanche has arrived is really more of a harsh purgatory. This idea is best captured by the continuous Poker Game, as this represents the relentless judging, calling, bluffing and betting that Blanche faces in the midst of Stanley.

This quote in terms of plot demonstrates an early call made by Stanley on Blanche’s illusions. She submits to his questioning, admitting “All right. Cards on the table”, suggesting that she is about to come clean, or speak the truth. However, she follows immediately after with “That suits me”, and this further adds to Blanche’s self-made illusion of being a likeable woman. Most certainly, Blanche does not want to metaphorically ‘lay her cards out’, but she insists that she is about to. Even when she is about to expose her secrets, Blanche continues to build her ruse and lie. This provides us an insight into the true nature of Blanche’s character, that she is someone who prefers the dream world and ultimately will try her best to uphold its integrity. This is shown in many parts of the text as Blanche continually fails to recognize the fragility of her perception of the world, and this has negative repercussions for her as she ends up being mistreated by the strangers around her.

This prompts the audience to question the reason behind Blanche’s ceaseless bluffing in the Poker Game that is her life, in this environment written by Williams to reflect purgatory. This quote supports the idea of Williams’ critique not being of Blanche and her character, but of the world surrounding her. As she insists “but when a thing is important I tell the truth, and this is the truth” it is evident that Blanche really is trying to reassure Stanley that she is a good person, as she is someone who seeks solace and acceptance. This is even highlighted through the stage direction, as it tells the audience that “[She turns to Stanley]”, suggesting that Blanche is facing him. In this text, Blanche is depicted as one who avoids direct light or contact, not wanting to be exposed, but her directness in facing Stanley shows how she is setting up her ‘laying of the cards’. However, she continues to bluff, and this is not enough to convince Stanley. This builds the dominant tension in this text which is between Stanley’s buff, primitive nature and Blanche’s illusionary, ethereal conceptions.

The purpose of this tension is to further emphasize Blanche’s struggle as a marginal character in society, manipulated by Williams to demonstrate just how complicated and dramatic this character’s life can be. By defining Stanley as a rigid, resilient man who is constantly searching for Blanche’s tells, the playwright asserts how endangered, judged and violated Blanche truly is. It’s also important to highlight that this judging or catching of bluff is not a singular event, but it is ongoing, just as the Poker Game is. Further, the idea that Blanche’s search for consolation in New Orleans is interrupted by Stanley’s games of bluffing and betting expands to the idea that this is merely a game for Stanley. He does it for pure enjoyment, to assert that he is the winner walking away. Williams uses this idea to address a larger social critique of the aggressive nature of masculinity, and demonstrates that Blanche’s fantasy will forever be unable to overcome reality, making this a play centered on social realism.

#philosophy

0 notes

stdennard · 8 years

Text

Because some asked why I needed Truthwitch to break out...

Some people have asked me what I meant by a statement in my postmortem -- about WHY I needed Truthwitch to break out (because if it didn’t, my career was over). I'm not sure how in-depth I've been in my newsletter, so here’s an answer for you:

Basically, my first series tanked. I mean...tanked. We're talking, Truthwitch sold more copies in its first two weeks than the entire SS&D series COMBINED.

Bad sales hurt an author -- you're way better off as an untested debut than an author with shitty sales. So I was at a crossroads in my career, where the plan was to change my name. That way, I could be a "debut" again. (Sadly, this happens a LOT in the industry. Which is why please do not pirate our books!)

But then Tor decided to take a chance on me. Because they're a small (and amazing) house, they have more room to take on projects that they're passionate about (instead of just commercially successful). HOWEVER, if Truthwitch didn't sell well.... Then yeah. That was it. "Susan Dennard" would be dead, and I'd have to reinvent/start over my career.

There's no shame in that. I was totally willing to reinvent! The problem was that I had this great audience for my writing advice -- thousands upon thousands of people who were coming back for my blog and newsletter. Yet none of them were buying my books. Which is fine -- I don’t give free writing help to sell copies. I do it because I love doing it.

BUT...if I reinvented myself, I would lose what little crossover I had between writing-advice-fans and book-readers -- not to mention the handful of amazing fans who did like the SS&D trilogy (I will never ever forget my wonderful Misfits!).

So...I needed + desperately wanted Truthwitch to sell well. I wanted Tor to be happy. I wanted to keep my name. That led to me going “all in” on self-promo.

Full disclosure: I allocated $15,000 of my advance to promote Truthwitch. (Which, in case you’re wondering, was most of the advance.) I ended up going over that amount...by a lot. Costs ranged from travel to important events (this was really where the bulk got eaten up!) to running/maintaining my street team (swag, postage, hiring an assistant to help me keep it going) to learning how to + making my own book trailer.***

And like...I honestly don’t even know what kind of TIME I spent promoting. It was a lot more than I thought it would be. Literally most of 2015.

But...it paid off, right? At least in terms of “success.” I’m a New York Times Bestseller now!!

That said, I haven’t earned back the money I spent yet (“bestseller” doesn’t automatically mean “rich”), and I will never get back the time I spent. Plus, the nightmare that was 2016 as I tried to rush-create Windwitch...

It begs the question: were the costs worth the rewards? I don’t know. I think so since, hopefully, the rewards will continue to pay forward for a long time -- and my career is definitely growing!

Best of all, though, I CAN KEEP MY NAME. Susan Dennard. C’est moi pour toujours. ❤️

Edit:

I want to add two more things -- because this post has opened up a lot of conversations I wasn’t expecting to have (but welcome!!).

First: I cannot emphasize enough just how important LUCK is in this equation. On top of the time, money, publisher-partnership, and salty desperation that I poured into Truthwitch, I ALSO GOT LUCKY. I had the Right Book at the Right Moment with the Right Cover in the Right Genre coming out in the Right Month.

A publisher can pour all the money in the world into a book, but nothing will make readers buy it. There is no predicting trends.

So a lot of the success of Truthwitch (which is still pretty small, relatively speaking. I’m not a Big Author by any means!!) boils down to that intangible, finicky sprite known as Lady Luck.

Second: This is just ROUND ONE of “reinvention.” I have no illusions or expectations that my success will remain. The Witchlands series has already exceeded my wildest hopes, but no author stays “on top” forever. It’s a constant up and down, and frankly, we’re all just really lucky to even be able to share our words in the first place.

Sure, I’d love to be successful forever, but it’s not my primary dream -- and definitely not my expectation. Realism is key to longevity in this industry, and more than that: gratitude.

So on that note: thanks for reading, thanks for sharing, and thanks for being the reason I keep writing.

***Note: I need to also mention that, once it was clear my own self-promotion was starting to pick up momentum, Tor really stepped in and helped me. This was not a solo journey, and it NEVER is. I had/have an amazing team, and we’ve forged a real partnership while getting the Witchlands into readers’ hands.

#truthwitch #susan dennard

1K notes · View notes

wordbookstores · 8 years

Text

Read with Barack

The 44th President of America was our first black president, a pioneer in his “pivot to Asia” and already missed by many. But to us at WORD he will primarily be our book bea, reader in chief, and the coolest lit lover to ever helm the nation.

As he looks to having leisure for the first time in years, our booksellers look at his reading recs from the past eight and revel in our overlap and new additions to our TBR piles.

Christopher, Bookseller/ Cafe

I would love to recommend my personal hero Junot Diaz, it came out recently that Obama read Junot during some difficult times in his presidency. I'd recommend the books Drown and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao to start with!

Lydia, Book Fair Coordinator

I would definitely recommend the book he wrote for his daughters: Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters. It's a beautiful picture book that is a tribute to 13 Americans that shaped our nation but is also about how he sees the traits those Americans had within his own children and all American children.

Steven, Inventory Coordinator

I love Denis Johnson. He's in my top 3 favorite writers. That's one of the authors that I was pretty surprised by and happy to see the president reading. The Laughing Monsters is on top of my to read list.

Brian, Events Coordinator

I'll be reading all of Phil Klay's Redeployment because the title story is one of my favorites and our military engagement is so hidden from the population in general... plus Klay is a literary hunk. [Note the bookseller’s of WORD do not take responsibility for Brian’s man crush, though they do encourage it]

Hannah, Operations Director

One of my top five books ever is Helen Macdonald's H is for Hawk, a book I am currently gingerly rereading in the face of personal loss and the loss of our solid moral leader in our President. The fear between the hawk and Macdonald, and the peace they come to is incredibly detailed. Her dovetailed investigation into one of the unsung literary genius' of the World War II era is a wonderful tale of the dangers of secluding yourself and the saviors of nature. The fact that Obama enjoyed a beautifully crafted book so centered on empathy is one of the many things I love about him!

I'm also going to read Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind because understanding our history as a grouped species seems deeply important at the moment.

Aubrey, Children’s Manager and Katelyn, Operations Supervisor:

We’re happy to see that Obama enjoyed Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff, a super-addicting modern fairy tale, which features one of the most fascinating female characters I have ever encountered. This book is a beautiful meditation on love and marriage but also the personal struggle of womanhood in the public realm. I wonder if he saw all of the twists coming, or if the second half of the book left his jaw agape too.

Dan, Shift Supervisor

Elizabeth Kolbert, a staff-writer for the New Yorker, is one of my go-to experts of the science and politics of global climate change. The Sixth Extinction is a book looks at the broad impact that humans have had on the world, specifically on the sharp decline in species diversity. This book is a must-read for readers who follow the work of E. O. Wilson, Bill McKibben, and George Monbiot.

Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon features a debate between characters Guitar in Freddie in Tommy's Barbershop over the real-life murder of Emmett Till. This scene stopped me in my tracks when I first read it in mid-2012, as protests around the country were mounting over the murder of Trayvon Martin. This book is a must-read to understand the times we're living in.

Kristina, Cafe Manager

Where the Wild Things Are - This was a favorite for me as a child and re-reading it as an adult I've realized how many important things Sendak was portraying. This story teaches that things shouldn't be judged by their appearance and that it is okay and encouraged to have a great and wild imagination. I would recommend this for any age because sometimes as we get older we need those reminders.

Chazz, Shift Supervisor

Looking at Obama’s list I am gonna read One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez because I enjoy magical realism and literature that's representative of different cultures from different authors and this novel is supposed to be the mac daddy of those two features.

I’d also recommend a favorite classic of mine, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. I feel we live in a time period where we're ONLY taught how to win and how to be winners so much so that when inevitable failure occurs, especially with our dreams, it's hard for us to both accept and process.

Ashanti, Inventory Director

As booksellers we get the lucky privilege of reading soon-to-be-published works sometimes months in advance of the publication date. The frustrating flip side of this is you can talk about it as much as you want, but you can't put in people's hands until it actually, y'know, publishes. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn was one of those titles that as soon as I picked it up, I knew I had something special in my hands. So rarely does a book absolutely floor me with it's "twist" AND speak to existing in a female body in contemporary society. Flynn's notion of "the cool girl" has radically shaped how I interact with other people.

The best kind of armchair travel, Finnegan's biography Barbarian Days is so compelling that even if you've never thought of dropping everything else in life to go surf, you'll at least understand the allure. Not only do we get beautiful locales, we get a narrator sensitive to exoticism and othering, questioning what his interactions mean to the people with whom he visits. Besides that, the prose is lush and carries you through the counter-cultural spike of the 60's, 70's, 80's with aplomb.

Camille, Events Director

A few Obama-recommended books dear to my heart belong to the still-developing African American literary tradition, and because they grapple so fearlessly with our American experiment they feel especially important now. Whenever someone in our community wants to read the electric, absurdist Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison, 1952) — a piece of the larger American cannon — I want to point them to Souls of Black Folk (W.E.B. Du Bois, 1903) to better understand Ellison's references, and after they've digested it I want them to follow up with the meditative coming-to-terms arrived at in The Fire Next Time (James Baldwin, 1963). Some of the most noteworthy contemporary authors in the tradition are still responding to these compasses.

Alison Gore, Operations Supervisor

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson is a beautiful novel about three generations of a religious midwestern family and the various joys, griefs, and hurdles they face.

11 notes · View notes