#Angel dust is also my favorite character so JUSTICE FOR HIM | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

anileahvictoria · 3 years

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Adam Kendall from My Little House on the Prairie.

Cutie Mark: Adam has always had a fascination with law and thought about becoming a lawyer many times, but ultimately decides he could do more good as a teacher for the blind. His cutie mark was inspired by the saying that justice is blind, so the scales of justice represent balancing his love for the study of law with his responsibilities as a teacher, and husband, and the cloth is Lady Justice’s eye covering that makes her blind, just like Adam is.

I accidentally referred to Little House on the Prairie as My Little House on the Prairie, and this fan art was born. More on that later, It's time for a rant. Adam is my favorite character from the series until I got mad and left the fandom cause they did this beautiful man dirty, so It’s time to rant about it.

#1. The Romance. The romance between Mary and adam was totally out of the blue. When Merry goes blind, she's shipped off to blind school, and her teacher is this capable, intelligent and hard-working young man named Adam Kendal. His teaching still is very much tough love, and he doesn't take crap from his students. Mary starts as a reluctant, uncooperative, self-pitying, closed-minded student doing things like throwing her things across the room. Adam handles all this brilliantly, saying stuff like: if you're gonna make a mess, your gonna clean it up. Doesn't baby her or pitty her AT ALL. Exactly what she needs. After a few months, Mary's attitude changes drastically, and she's thriving thanks to Adam. But when Adam sits her down to teach her some piano, she has a moment of self-doubt:

Merry: I could never learn...

Adam: I wish you would forget about that. Some of the greatest writers and composers in the worl were blind.Have you ever heard of John Milton?

Merry: Well of course. He- he wrote Paradise Lost, one of my favorite books.

Adam: Well, he was also blind. Now, do you want to play the piano or not?

Merry: There wouldn't be enough time. You know my family's coming to take me home. They'll be here in a few days.

Adam: It's been a long time, hasn't it, since you've seen your folks?

Merry: It seems like a lifetime. Adam, I'm so scared. I mean... I know I'm ready to go home... But here it's- it's easy, and I've always got you to help me.

Adam: Merry, you can't depend on me forever. And I'll be leaving too.

Merry: Where are you going?

Adam: To Winoka, to start a new blind school.

Merry: Why didn't you tell me?

Adam: I don't know. It just never came up.

Merry: Then I'm glad I'm going home.

Adam: Merry, it's not that much different out there. Not really.

And now it gets all angsty:

Merry: Yes, it is. I wouldn't expect you to understand. How could you?

Adam: Mary...

Mary: The world isn't like the Burton school for the blind. It... It's a huge, dark place filled with... hidden obstacles and... strange sounds and voices coming from faceless people. Even you. I've never even seen you.

Adam: Well then look at me.

... And then they start feeling each other's faces and, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure blind people don't actually do that...

And then it gets randomly and weirdly romantic...

Mary: What color are your eyes?

Adam: Blue.

Mary: Your hair?

Adam: Brown.

Mary: Thank you Adam.

Adam: ...What do you look like, Mary? Ive never seen you either.

Aaaand more face touching.

So apparently, they're a thing now. I'd understand if Adam fell for her cause she looks like a literal angel (seriously, no girl has any business looking that gorgeous), but Adam's blind too. So he's going ultimately off of personality, I'm guessing. And when he first meets Mary, she is not a pleasant person. Yes, she does improve quite a lot, but what makes her any different than all the other students he's taught? It certainly isn't their age, cause Adam's 22 and Mary's 15 (back then, I guess it wasn't a big deal). Also, It creeps me way out that her teacher falls in love with her. The man who spends most hours of the day alone with a vulnerable teenage girl falls in love with said girl AND THEN asks said girl to work for him at his new school in a busy city away from her family where it would just be Adam, Mary, one old man who lives on the top floor, and a few students, not to mention Mary would also be spending the nights there... It's a good thing this isn't that kinda show cause there's a million different ways that could've gone... But because this is Little House on the Prairie, nothing happens, and Adam asks Mary to be his wife soon after she moves in.

#2. Regaining his Sight And Becoming a Lawyer.

This really makes me mad. When Adam gets his sight back and sees the faces of all his friends and, most importantly, his wife for the first time. It's beautiful and wonderful and heaven knows the man deserves a miracle like that, BUT his whole character changes. He goes from a responsible teacher and loving husband who knows who he is and where he's meant to be, to an ambitious young man who would rather chase his dreams of becoming a lawyer than take care of his responsibilities to the school he started, the children he teaches, and the wife he loves. I can understand wanting to go and see the world and do things you couldn't do before, but sighted or blind, he has responsibilities. Mary is kinda left in the dust when Adam makes all these new sighted friends and drags her along to all his fancy lawyer parties while he plays games, runs around laughing and talking, and leaves Mary sitting in a chair all by herself. Like, he doesn't even consider how she must be feeling! He doesn't try to include her in conversations or introduce her to his new friends; she's just a pretty thing that sits there to be cared for. And the thing is, this is exactly what Adam was afraid would happen to him when Mary thought her sight was returning a few episodes ago! Now Adam's new fancy friends get him an opportunity to take some fancy tests to become a lawyer and Adam, without a second thought for Mary, goes off to take the test, not evening considering who would run the school if he passed and became a lawyer. Then some bad stuff happens, and he can't make it to the test, and I'm all relieved cause we all know he belongs with his wife teaching at the school and now he'll see things clearly and get his head off the cloud and onto the here and now. But nooooo, this whole time Mary is hoping he'd fail (and so am I), but when she sees how heartbroken he is, she goes and has a talk with the professor and convinces him to let Adam take the test. He finally relents, and Adam passes and becomes a lawyer, giving the school away to a wonderful woman who teaches there. This whole thing is treated like he made the right choice when he obviously isn't! Not I blame this on the time period the show was made in. Back then, a man had to be ambitious and provide for the family and leave the teaching and such to the woman, so back then, it was a good thing he went off and became a lawyer, but still, I'm mad. Correct me if I'm wrong, but when Adam hands the school over to the lady, Mary no longer teaches there, which means that Adam has taken away Mary's dream of teaching on top of not spending nearly as much time as he used to with her and (though he doesn't realize it and I don't think anyone brings it to his attention cause men are supposed" to do all the work) doesn't let her do things for herself.

#3. He's Fictional.

This one makes me the madest. At first, I turned a blind eye to all these flaws cause I assumed Adam Kendall was based off an actual person, like most characters in the series, but noooo. They made him up just for the tv series. This means his romance with Mary WAS totally random, and Mary staying in the same building as he did BEFORE they were married WAS the writer's choice, and Adam regaining his sight and leaving his wife and school in the dust WAS ALSO THE WRITERS CHOICE! AND he was basically just made to me Mary's husband because Mary doesn't marry or have children in real life. So yeah, my favorite character's development went down the drain. But oh well, that's what we have fanfic and fanart for, am I right? Oh wait, this show is old. No one's made any good fanart/fanfic. K, I'm gonna go cry now. Bye

Also, if anyone has a different opinion or point of view, please tell me about it. I'd love to go back to loving this character, so please change my mind 🥺.

#my little pony #fan art #my little pony fan art #little house on the prairie #little house on the prairie fan art #my little house on the prairie #blind #blind character #character design #adam kendall

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queenrhenpendragon · 4 years

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You know whose arc gets me every time?

Dameon’s. Dameon Maurva's arc is so beautiful and significant and affects not only himself but multiple other characters and also the entire heckin plot of the game and it moves me Every. Single. Time.

So I’m going to rant about it, welcome to the post I’ve been waiting to make for fourteen years.

First of all, this precious sun, this dear one, this absolute angel, was most likely raised mainly by an Ahriman sympathizer-- like, c'mon, am I supposed to believe Talia kept a child in the dream realm? Even without the nightmares it's dangerous, and very isolated. If something were to happen there would be nowhere she could send Dameon while she dealt with it. It’s one thing in fanfiction, but when I actually consider the logistics, either she was a truly terrible, irresponsible parent, or Dameon lived in Aveyond with his father. I've played Ahriman’s Prophecy; responsibility is Talia's middle name. Dameon was raised in Aveyond.

He has to have been a lonely child. He most likely had no human friends, and definitely none his age. Maybe the binis or fairies or sometimes Vata babysat him when Mr. Maurva was unavailable. Maybe not. Either way, such contact couldn’t replace his need for love and validation from his incredibly busy and important parents.

He probably constantly sought his parents' approval and was constantly falling short because how do you impress an immortal sun priest, millenia old and the last of his kind? Especially one who is apparently becoming disenchanted with the ideals he once fought for, the ideals his fellow priests died for. How do you impress a half-fairy who saved the world at the tender age of 17, who then became the Guardian of Dreams and is responsible for the safety and well being of every mortal creature? Especially! When! You only see them when they’re not busy keeping the universe running smoothly!

Furthermore.

Please understand that I love Talia and do not wish to vilify her in any way. I point out her flaws because I love her, because her shortcomings are so human and tragic and are part of what make the story as impactful as it is. And Talia... does not easily express affection. She is not likely to have cuddled Dameon during the times his father took him to the Dreamworld-- which just can't have been often, I just can't imagine a parent who even kind of cared about their child taking them to such a place frequently. She is not likely to have praised him or spent any notable amount of time showing interest in his interests. I do not say this to condemn her. She had a lot of responsibilities. She had never been a mother before-- and yes, she had a great example of motherhood in her Grandmama, but her own mother also left her in the care of others, abandoned her to pursue a louder call. Is it any wonder that she ultimately did the same to her own child?

She has no real relationship with Dameon. Even without all the evidence I have already laid out, this much is obvious in the way they speak to and about each other. Talia doesn't even mention Dameon is her son when she first tells Rhen about him. She gives him no more than an epithet, "Dameon, the sun priest." She does not express particular concern over his safety, even though she knows the druids are in danger and she herself was almost killed.

And Dameon calls her “mother,” and it is not because of the dialogue style of the game. Talia calls her parental figure “Grandmama.” Rhen calls Tailor “Pa” and “Daddy,” and Ma is known only as “Ma.” But Dameon calls Talia “Mother,” and his father “Father,” because that is the level of familiarity between them. The Maurvas live a strict, solitary life. Is it any wonder that Dameon is stiff and formal at the beginning? Is it any wonder he struggles to connect with others beyond a thoughtful compliment or an antiquated form of greeting? He doesn’t like himself, let alone trust himself. No one has ever taught him how to. He is so isolated, and lonely, and touch-starved, and unloved, and if that was the end of his character it would still move me. But there is more.

Talia literally killed his father, her own husband. It had to have happened when Dameon was still very young. If you take into account Devin’s apparent age, and the fact that a barely-aged Jack in av2 remembers Alicia as queen of Thais when we know that you can only ascend to the throne of Thais if you are married, and a few other details which I would be happy to pull up if anyone is interested, you will realize that Dameon can’t possibly be more than a year older than Rhen. More likely, he is younger, and this would be in line with the other canon ships we see throughout the Aveyond series.

And we found out in Rhen’s Quest that his father was murdered “many years ago.” MANY! YEARS! He was still a child, maybe 11 years old, at my best guess. He most likely hadn’t even attended a magic school yet. It’s possible he wasn’t even thinking about it. And then he had to take the position as Druid of Light. When he was a child, still mourning the death of the person most precious to him, at the hands of the only other person he could have had any semblance of a relationship with in all of Aia.

The people who were supposed to be teaching Dameon how to be gentle, loyal, and upright instead taught him how to hurt, and betray, and murder those closest to him. Even without Ahriman's influence, how is a child raised in that environment supposed to turn out healthy and good?

And yet he is still good! He is gentle and thoughtful towards not just Rhen but everyone he meets on the quest. That includes heckin MAD MARGE if you forgot. That includes an actual ogre. That includes people who are spiteful and dismissive towards him. He treats Rhen like she outranks him, the Guardian of the Sun, when she is still a peasant with a practice sword. He is kind to literally everyone except Talia, and he is at least respectful even to her. He never raises his voice at her. He never calls her anything except Mother. Never traitor, never murderer, never any of the curses we know Amanda had no qualms about using because she used them plenty in AP. Just Mother.

In fact he appears to be the reason Ahriman decided against killing Talia. Yes, Dameon wants justice for his murdered father. I think anyone who is being honest with themselves can admit they would, too. But he doesn’t want to kill her. He doesn’t want her to die. He just wants her to understand what she did, to understand the hurt she caused. He is apparently so against killing her that Ahriman has to change his carefully laid plans before he can convince Dameon to change sides.

And consider. During all of this, Dameon is literally possessed by Ahriman, or under his demonic influence, or however you want to phrase it. This influence likely began even before the game, but even if you ignore that, it is no small thing. Remember how quickly Mel became corrupted under this influence? Remember how quickly Galahad, who resisted the urge to drink blood for actual centuries, became corrupted? The fact that Dameon has any shred of goodness at all, after years of exposure to such darkness, even if you ONLY take into account the actual duration of the game, is evidence that Rhen is right; Dameon has a genuinely good, incredibly strong heart.

And speaking of that conversation. Please allow me to share some of my favorite screenshots in the entirety of the series.

My precious sun really went from this:

To having this very level-headed and respectful conversation, of which I have shared only two tiny snippets:

To THIS:

This. Is tangible, real difference, at a rate which makes sense, and I am so proud of him. I have seen people try to dismiss it, and his other development, by saying he is just pretending in order to make Rhen trust him. That literally. Does not make any sense. First of all, if this was part of his efforts to persuade Rhen to join Ahriman he would have done absolutely anything except agree that perhaps Talia was right. He would have tried to convince Rhen that Ahriman was right, not admitted he may have been wrong. And second, even if you ignore that incredibly obvious discrepancy, he either would have forgotten about the conversation with Rhen by the time they returned to the sun shrine and his mother asked him the question again, or he would have pretended to have forgiven her completely. Instead, he acts as though he is uncertain, because he is uncertain.

And his actions in the dream realm, confronting and fighting Agas for attacking his mother and desecrating her shrine, prove that he is sincere. Of course it takes him some time. Of course he hesitates. Forgiving someone for taking your parent from you is an enormous act. Forgiving someone you trusted for causing you that much pain is unfathomable. His progress is profound and inspiring and does not deserve to be treated like any less.

And he makes this progress while still under Ahriman’s influence! Can you even imagine! Aasgakadgjlkjklj. He tries to do what he believes is right even at the cost of those things most precious to him, his beliefs and ideals and the sacred memory of the person who raised him. ONE conversation prompts him to question everything. While Ahriman still has possession of him. I cannot even begin to comprehend being that brave. And this is just one small example.

I have seen many negative, unfair evaluations of the fairy dust scene. It is deeply tragic to me that such an important, eloquent, beautiful symbol could be so widely misunderstood. I have tried to explain it before. Allow me to indulge myself once again.

Fairy dust always reveals the truth. This effect is well established, not just in Rhen’s Quest but even in Ahriman’s Prophecy. It heals physical wounds (aka HP) and reveals the truth, and that’s all. There is never any indication that it can change hearts or magically “goodify” anyone or anything. It is not a deus ex machina. It was included specifically to exclude the possibility of that interpretation. It only reveals the truth, and if Dameon had already been aware of the truth, or if he truly honestly wanted the same things Ahriman wanted, it would have changed exactly nothing. That’s why Rhen’s choice to use it is so significant. It shows that she trusts him, as he is. She knows that he has a good heart and will do what is right when he knows what that is; she has been saying so for the whole game. In the final battle she gets the chance to prove she believes that.

And she does.

And she’s right.

When the truth is revealed to Dameon, he follows it, at the cost of his chance for justice, at the cost of living forever, safely, with the one person who has ever shown him any significant amount of affection, at the cost of everything he ever dared to want in his short, lonely, miserable life. While still under Ahriman’s demonic influence! Ahriman is still in his head! And he chooses to resist even though it means he will lose everything.

Now, this whole plot could have worked without the fairy dust. Previous cutscenes in the game have already proven that Dameon listens to Rhen. The screenshots I included are just a few examples of this; trust me, I could go on for a while. Dameon believes her and believes in her and trusts her, where he doesn’t trust himself. Amanda could have had Rhen just tell him what to do. Rhen could have had another conversation, told Dameon to switch back, and that would be that. It would be consistent and believable with what had happened in the game thus far.

Except then Dameon still wouldn’t trust himself, or like himself. He would still be lonely and self-loathing and miserable, or even if he wasn’t, there would be plenty of room for that interpretation.

But instead Rhen gives him a choice. Instead Amanda makes it clear that his redemption is not Rhen’s responsibility, or her decision, or her doing at all. All Rhen does is throw the fairy dust, and then lets Dameon realize what is right, and choose for himself what action he will take. She gives him the opportunity to trust himself, to believe in himself, for perhaps the first time in his life. She makes it clear that she believes in him. She gives him the support he’s been starving for his entire existence, and then she steps back, and let’s him choose.

This part is so significant for her arc, too. I have ranted about it elsewhere but allow me to sum up: Rhen has spent the game feeling like she doesn’t have a choice, and questioning her own judgement and her own significance. Dameon is the first to give her a choice, one which she seriously considers. She realizes she’s always had a choice. And she finally acts on her own judgement, without prompting from anyone else (in fact, without prompting even from the player, because as you might recall the choice the player is offered has always been “fight Dameon,” and yet Rhen never lifts a finger against him). She trusts her own heart and invites Dameon to trust his. She has always been a hero but this is the moment she really steps fully into the role. She saves herself. And then she gives Dameon the choice to do the same.

And they fight Ahriman, at staggering personal costs. Dameon fights while, again, still under Ahriman’s influence. He has to fight Ahriman physically and mentally, or spiritually, or all of them, most likely. He is not free until Rhen plunges the Sword of Shadows through Ahriman’s heart.

This part. I cry every time and I am crying thinking about it. Dameon has been a prisoner for likely as long as he can remember. His father supported Ahriman. He likely let that influence into the sun shrine. He let it affect Dameon. Dameon has likely never known a life without that darkness. Or if he did, he was too young to remember it. And now, finally, he is free. There is light for the first time. And because Rhen gave him a choice, he has the confidence and experience to stay free, to make himself and be proud of himself and not be just what he thought his parents wanted.

His gratitude to Rhen is profound. He has always been respectful and supportive of her, he has always listened to her and trusted her, as demonstrated during their first conversation when she meets him in Aveyond, and their conversations in the manor in Sedona, and every other tiny interaction they have. He looks up to her immensely.

And I think that is part of why he is so resolute about continuing in his role as the Druid of Light. Rhen has spent the game shouldering responsibilities that no one else could or would. Being the Guardian of the Sun is his responsibility, and he is determined to follow her example.

It is also the only thing he has ever known.

In the midst of his own uncertainty, still reeling from his own losses, resigned to a lonely eternity in his childhood prison, he still offers Rhen his support and devotion. This is before she ever makes her choice. He listens to her, sympathizes with her, and encourages her. He loves her, explicitly, out loud in canon dialogue, in literally. Every ending. No matter what she chooses. Nobody ever taught him how to love and yet he does it so scrupulously.

And in the canon ending, the True Ending as many of us like to call it, he finally, finally gets a chance to grow beyond his family’s legacy. To love someone and be there for her. To be adored by her. To be happy. To make a difference. To live a good life and die of old age and be buried beside his best friend and true love, and to face the shadowy unknowns of the afterlife together. And he accepts it, in an instant.

This is redemption not only for himself but for Talia, and Nino. All the Maurvas with their good intentions, who never got to see their happy ending because another call was too strong. Talia gets a second chance to watch her son grow, this time in a kinder world. And she gets a second chance with one of her dearest friends. Nino's legacy of absence and broken trust is finally set right. They all get a second chance to become who they intended to be, before they heard the calls they could not ignore. All because Dameon chose truth and love over every other voice, at every cost.

It was a very fairy-like thing to do. In overcoming his families' legacy, he steps into their true heritage. Aian Fairies value truth and love most of all.

There is an inscription on the statue that guards the fairies in AP. It has always resonated with me and I think it will help describe what I mean here:

Heart of gold thy secret guards

Love, felicity, light

Gaia's precious children

I am moved. I do not know a better way to say it. Dameon Maurva inspires me, and comforts me. His example has made me a better person. He has made me a happier person. I am so grateful to Amanda for being brave enough to tell the story she did, and being brave enough to stick by it. Her story changed my life and I honestly, truly do not believe I would be here without it. Her story saved my life, and I can never praise it enough.

#aveyond #dameon maurva #aveyond rhen's quest #aveyond 1 #talia maurva #rant

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barisifictionarchive · 4 years

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Author: Juniperhoot

Preferred Name: Jenny

Have any events in your personal life ever influenced the things that you've written? Absolutely. STRAP IN.

Sometimes I rework something that happened to me, or to someone I know, and use it as a template for filling in personal details. See also: Carisi’s tale of molten aluminum burning holes in his ma’s kitchen flooring. That’s something that actually happened to me (well, it happened to my second husband, who got distracted while playing CounterStrike and let the pan boil dry). In one of my Stony stories, Steve tells Tony about a comforting gesture he learned from his mother - three squeezes of the hand, to silently say “I love you.” That’s something I learned from my Mema.

Beyond those bits of color, there are things that have made their way into my writing that come directly from my experiences. My interest in Sonny as a queer Catholic who once considered the religious life is something deeply personal to me, because that was my life, too. Even though I’m an atheist now, the church still holds some fascination for me, and I’m keenly interested in people who find a way to walk that line, and retain some belief while also retaining their autonomy and sense of self. The way I write Sonny is, in many ways, the way I think I would be, if I still believed. Okay, if I still believed AND were also a tall, noodly, bisexual man.

The way I write Rafael’s overthinking interior life is partly me, partly the things I’ve observed in people I’ve loved. The carefully chosen words, the moments of retreating from revealing too much of himself, the guardedness and tendency toward self-preservation that comes from growing up in an abusive home… all very relatable and possibly part of why I mostly write from his perspective, even though I generally consider myself more like Sonny. The shadows in Rafael’s heart are in my heart, too. My empathy is built on those shadows.

I wrote a Stony breakup fic years ago during a difficult time in my life. I’d reached a point where I had to remove some people from my life, because my priorities and theirs were so radically divergent. It felt like a big breakup. It reopened some feelings from my second divorce, and compounded what I was going through with another more recent breakup. Somehow, I used the pain and disillusionment of all that to write about two dudes in love, who found themselves in a crisis of trust and faith in one another. Of course, I also wrote them coming back together, and the work it takes to do that, because in my heart, I want to see good people work things out, if possible. And at least in my story, and in the way I view both of those characters, they ARE good people. In real life, some people really do need to be cut loose, when their values are wholly incompatible with your own. Some relationships can’t be mended. Some friendships turn out to be mostly one-sided. But hey, if they can be mined for material, they were worth it, right?

I’m in a less volatile emotional space these days, so my fics tend to reflect that. I’m the queen of domesticity and cute banter, and love that I’m getting to explore the quieter side of drama. I know I’ve said this before, but it’s worth saying again. It’s not all slamming doors and WE’RE THROUGH!, you know? There’s a marvelous sense of drama in the ways we try to negotiate cohabitation, or meeting the families of our romantic partners. There’s drama in supporting one another’s goals and ideals. At least, I think there is? And I hope my stories achieve that.

Do you have a favorite movie? I have a few, and they’re very different movies, because they reflect different aspects of my heart.

Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985) is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen, and it still makes me laugh, 35 years after its release. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen it. The stupid characters, the kitschy aesthetic, the score… it’s so very silly. I love it.

Singin’ in the Rain (1952) is, in my opinion, the most perfect Hollywood movie musical of all time. Everything about it works. The entire cast is outrageously talented, and attractive, and the songs are all memorable. The title song and dance routine never fails to elicit chills and a thrill of giddy joy in my heart. When Gene Kelly does that spin in the street, with the umbrella held out before him like a dance partner? Aaaaaiiiieeee. This is the movie that makes me wish I could dance.

A Room With A View (1985) is the sort of quiet, clever, understated romantic (in every sense of the word) movie I turn to again and again. It’s a gorgeous adaptation of a really smart, surprising book that left a mark on me when I first encountered it in high school. The score is lush and inviting, the cast is beautiful (and oh, those costumes!), the script is just fucking delicious, and of course, the scenery, from Florence to Kent, is exquisite. Plus, we get interplay between sincere humanism (the Emersons), religious belief (the Reverends Beebe and Eager), and the religious-by-default stances of so many of the other characters, whose participation in the religious life of the community seems to be more for societal expectations than anything else. It’s just beautiful, and one of the only movies I urge everyone to sit through to the very end, not because there’s a post-credits scene, but because the closing track that plays over the credits is fantastic.

Who is your favorite author? E.M. Forster, partly because of what I said above about A Room With A View. The novel is short, but crammed with interesting ideas and engaging dialogue. He has a unique voice that spoke to me as a teenager, and my appreciation for his writing has only increased over the many years since. Read Howards End. Read Maurice. Read Where Angels Fear to Tread. Read A Passage to India. But start with A Room With A View.

I know a lot of people would say Howards End is his masterpiece, and they’re probably right about that, but I’m telling you, the book that has meant the most to me over the years is A Room With A View. I’ve kept a copy of it with me since I first read it in 1985, and it’s traveled with me from Minnesota to Seattle and back again. Lucy Honeychurch’s ongoing muddle is something I’ve lived, and survived, and it means more to me every time I read the book. More than anything, it’s a book about authenticity vs hypocrisy, and that just fucking speaks to me, you know?

How did you start getting involved in fanfiction? Several years ago, I read a Sherlock fic called “The Road Less Traveled.” It was during the long, painful, post-Reichenbach Fall hiatus between series 2 and 3, and I found myself looking for something to read that would fill the gap. I’d never had much interest in fanfic before, but this thing did something to me.

I didn’t start writing fanfic until I saw an episode of Supernatural that I found upsetting. (Don’t get me started…) I started writing a little thing to try to fix the stupidity. I wrote a couple of things, but the show did everything in its power to kill my interest in it, so I drifted away. (That said, I am very proud of my short Destiel Christmas fic, which I still think is very cute and makes me wish things had played out differently.)

From there, I started writing Stony (Steve/Tony, mostly based on the MCU, but with some elements of various Marvel comics I’ve read over the years). I wrote several things in that fandom, and most of it was extremely stupid, but there are bits and pieces that I’m still rather fond of. I still want to finish my long fic that’s been gathering dust for a couple of years now. Oops.

How did you get involved with Barisi? Barisi is probably the first fandom that I’ve written for that really seemed to embrace me and encourage me to keep doing this. A friend of mine has been watching SVU forever, and would reference things occasionally on chat while she was watching it. (See also: SEX PARTY MEASLES BABY, an intriguing statement that I didn’t actually understand for YEARS.) I started watching SVU off and on, a few episodes here or there, sometime in 2018. I started at the beginning, and worked my way through the whole thing. When I started it, I was mostly in it for Olivia Benson. But I knew Raúl Esparza had been on the show at some point, and at the time, I was in the “oh, I think I remember seeing him in something, he’s good” camp.

It wasn’t until I got to season 14 that I lost my mind over the show. Rafael Barba is one of the greatest characters ever written for tv, and I’m so thrilled he came along and blew my frickin’ mind. My appreciation for Raúl Esparza went through the roof, and it made me go look for him in other things, which fed into my spiraling appreciation.

Fast forward to season 16. Sonny Carisi walks in, and is… a beautiful, mustachioed mess. I love him from the moment I see him, and I say, “Oh shit, this is the love of Rafael Barba’s life, isn’t it?” This is even before they’ve shared a scene. This is before they’ve blatantly checked each other out. This is just me recognizing the potential, and craving it. Then he shaves that stache and starts dressing better, and he’s shadowing Barba and they’re working cases together and Barba’s being KIND TO HIM? COME ON.

Naturally, I started thinking about writing them. And it wasn’t coming from a place of “I need to fix this episode” or “I need to work out a recent trauma” driving me. It was just “ugh, they have an amazing dynamic and I want to explore it and I want to see what their home life would look like.” That’s how I ended up writing Carisi’s Goddamn Legs. Suddenly I was being bombarded with thoughtful comments from readers. In one such comment, Maxi (mforpaul) asked me where I could be reached on other platforms, and messaged me privately about the story, and made a big deal out of tracking me down on Twitter, introducing me to the rest of the fandom. And that fandom turned out to be filled with really amazing people, who think about big issues like justice and queerness and representation. Those same people are also wonderfully silly and down to earth. The power of this fandom!

What inspires you to write? Lots of things. Life, because it is weird and messy and wonderful. My closest friend, who is a springboard for a lot of my nonsense, is always eager for me to write something new. My love of a ridiculous turn of phrase. The quest for dialogue that sounds in-character and natural. Sometimes, it’s just the seed of an idea, a thought that won’t leave me alone, like, “I bet a short king would be obsessed with those long, noodly legs.” Because I, a short queen, am similarly obsessed.

Sometimes, when the writing fever is upon me, it’s hard to sleep, hard to think of anything other than the story I’m working on. I just want to get it all out and done. If I’m writing something that I really enjoy, or feel very closely connected to, I physically tremble as I write. When that happens, I know I’m on the right track, and I don’t want to stop writing. I just want to inhabit that space, and wallow in that feeling.

What is your favorite fic that you have written? Carisi's Goddamn Legs is really something. The pining, the uncertainty, the slowly dawning realization, but most of all, that scene at Lorenzo’s, where it all comes to a head and the way it creeps to the edge of intimacy and then is interrupted by Lorenzo and a retreat to the casual, only to be sent right back to the edge… I’ve re-read the damn thing several times since I wrote it, and that scene gets to me every time. I really like it a lot. I like the dynamic between them so very much, and the way the truth tumbles out of Carisi literally makes me shake.

What is your favorite quote from a fic of yours? Ooh, yikes, this is hard. I have a couple of lines I really like. One is short, one is longer. Just like Barisi.

One of them (from Carisi's Goddamn Legs ) was something I gave to Olivia, as she tries to counsel Rafael on his worries that his emotional armor isn’t protecting him the way it used to.

“Wear and tear, I guess. Armor was never meant to be worn all the time.”

It’s a line that means something to me, personally, because I spent a substantial chunk of my life in armor, hiding who I was and trying to settle for “the best you can expect” rather than my actual heart’s desire. When I dismantled that wall, things got chaotic for a while, but I also realized I was capable of emotional depths and soaring heights I didn’t think possible for me. It’s something that the Jenny of today wants to whisper (or shout) at the Jenny of 25-30 years ago, and it’s that part of me that relates to Rafael’s journey from a lifetime of SHIELDS UP! to embracing vulnerability and intimacy. (I actually really like that whole scene between them, because I love their friendship and think it’s beautiful, and crave more of that dynamic. Platonic intimacy is gorgeous, and woefully underappreciated in most entertainment. I could go on for hours about that, but I won’t. Not right now, anyway.)

And from Staten Island Serenade, this passage of Rafael gazing at a sleeping Sonny really gets to me.

“As hard as it was some days, Rafael knew without question he wanted to be right here with him, because Sonny was worth the effort. He was a bewildering mess of contradictions and weirdness, too smart for his own good but capable of saying the most ridiculous shit Rafael had ever heard. Somehow everything about him was beautiful, and inspired something in Rafael that felt pure, and almost holy, or would be if he believed in holiness. Like Cymon of old, transformed in every way by the exquisite sight of sleeping Iphigenia, Rafael found himself similarly transformed; ennobled by the nearness of Sonny Carisi, someone so decent, so kind, so truly beautiful inside and out that it would have been a sacrilege not to strive to be a better man.”

What is your personal favorite fanfic?

Again with the hard questions. I don’t even know where to begin. I honestly can’t point to ONE and say, “This is it! THE FAVE.” I’m so sorry I’m not able to narrow down my faves on anything. I’m terrible at this.

There are several Sherlock fics that I’ve read and re-read over the years, which I think really nailed their voices and their characters, and gave me things to think about. The Road Less Traveled will always be a favorite of mine, because it was the first, and because it is beautiful.

Pass Here And Go On by abogadobarba hits all the right notes for me. It rocketed to the top of my list the moment I read it. I’ve read it about ten times so far. I am ridiculous.

So Far in a Few Blocks by PhillyStrega is one of the only AUs I’ve ever read and loved. I’m not really an AU person, but shut UP, I love this story.

You Made Them Feel Like They Had the Devil Inside Them by cypress_tree really got to me. It’s about one of those issues that hits very close to home, and I think it’s a beautifully-written story about something that matters.

Anything else you would like to add?

I just want to say how much I love this fandom. I love my fellow inhabitants of Barisi Nation. I love that I get to obsess over things like the intersections of faith and queerness and humanism and sex and domesticity and justice and goodness. Even if nobody else wanted to read my stories, I think I’d still be over here, writing like mad, because I love these characters and it’s a genuine joy for me to spend time in their heads. But gosh, it’s gratifying to know the hours I spend on this silliness actually pay off for other people, too. I love hearing from people who’ve read my stories and found something meaningful in them, or giggled at something ridiculous Sonny said, or thought a sex scene was… well, anyway. You know.

I’m so grateful to get to do this. And I appreciate the hell out of all you lovely humans. You make me happy.

#barisi #Author of the month #Author recommendation #Juniperhoot

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marybeatriceofmodena · 6 years

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Solo: a Star Wars Story - A Review (which I managed to keep short at least when it comes to my standards *puts gold sticker on self*)

So I saw Solo yesterday, and I’ll be putting my detailed/spoilery thoughts under the cut.

As for a general overview while trying to spoil as little as possible… I definitely liked the movie. To compare it to another anthology movie, I didn’t like it as much as Rogue One, but it was very enjoyable: basically Western meets film noir meets sci-fi, and the combo worked pretty well.

I have to admit, before the marketing for the film started, I was very meh about it. I didn’t hate it in advance like some people did, but I was pretty much planning to see it just because Lawrence Kasdan was the screenwriter, Donald Glover was Lando and I honestly couldn’t have thought of a better casting choice, and Thandie Newton aka my dreamcast for Selina Kyle/Catwoman was in it.

I did start getting a bit more optimistic as time went on. And since I’m a creature of dust and ashes and, most especially, salt, I wanted Alden Ehrenreich to succeed as Han partly because of the fandom being all “HE’S NOT HARRISON”, and also partly because if he hadn’t told the big bosses the original directors wanted Han to be space Ace Ventura, this movie would have been a mess.

And… despite all the complications, they actually did it. And unlike Justice League, I didn’t really see big contrasts indicating there had been two different visions working on the movie.

So it honestly makes me sad that the movie is underperforming because it's a genuinely well-made, multi-layered heist film. I don't think it's the film itself's fault: Lucasfilm/Disney had some pretty terrible timing and promo for the film overall, and they REALLY should have pushed it back to December.

Everyone in the cast was very good, well-cast: Alden did a terrific job playing Han and while I didn’t think he looked a lot like Harrison Ford at first, I can see the resemblance now; Donald Glover was perfection as Lando, and Emilia Clarke and Qi’ra turned out to be pleasant surprises and I enjoyed them a lot more than I expected to.

For some reason… the overall storyline and how it drew out kind of reminded me of a video game. I’m not sure why, though. That’s not to say it was badly done, but it could simply be that I became used to how quickly paced TFA and R1 were, or how TLJ was either jarringly edited at first viewing, and how certain elements were rushed and others dragging for too long. Solo didn’t have any pacing issues… though I might change my mind after repeat viewings.

There were a lot of things I was a bit afraid of before the film came out that thankfully did not bother me too much, but I did read spoilers before going in. I kept myself spoiler-free to a certain extent for TLJ and I kind of regret it, so I decided not to take any chances. (SO YOU CAN BE SURE AS HELL I’LL DO IT FOR IX.) So I was prepared going in, so there’s nothing I saw that upset me.

Shout-out to the soundtrack. It was GREAT.

Anyway, the spoilery part is under the cut. Read at your own risk.

Alden was really a pleasant surprise. You can really forget he’s not Harrison and even if Han is a lot more optimistic and cheerful than the cynical scoundrel we meet in ANH, he’s still the dumbass Han who brags a lot even if he’s a dumbass and who tries to talk his way out of shit and fails because he’s a dumbass. He's not the cynical scoundrel we meet in ANH *yet*, but it made sense for me for him not to be like that right now. He's basically a dumbass puppy dog like his son. No wonder Qi'ra is so protective of him.

Donald Glover as Lando was a scene-stealer. I even wish we saw more of him, or scenes of him with Han, because they had some pretty good frenemy chemistry.

Han and Chewie were probably one of the best parts of the movie, and even my favorite relationship out of all. Their encounter was very well-done, and they totally sold how they’d do anything for each other.

Qi’ra… I could honestly write an entire post about her alone, and I probably will, because she was hands down the most intriguing character in the movie. And it’s nice to see Emilia Clarke show off her acting chops and see her in other stuff than Boobs, Dragons, Death. Though, I will say, my point of view on Qi’ra will probably be different from the point of view I’ve seen from other people, but yeah.

As a sidenote, I definitely saw the parallels between Ben and Rey, and Qi’ra and Han. As a lot of people pointed out, Han and Qi’ra in the elevator and then confronting Dryden Vos was basically “Throne Room, take two”. This said, I can definitely see how Qi’ra and Ben are similar, and how Han and Rey are similar, but I did spot some similarities between Qi’ra and Rey, and between Han and Ben. I’ll probably expand it in another post, once I get down to writing it, but one thing Qi’ra and Rey have in common is how they smile even in the most dismal situations and in order to hide their vulnerability – even if their reasons for smiling are very different. Qi’ra is a Stepford Smiler to survive, and because she knows how ugly the world can be, while Rey is not only a lot more sheltered than Qi’ra (even if her life was by no means easy), but she puts on a happy face because she’s in denial about her parents, and probably because she so desperately wants to be accepted and loved. So long story short, Qi’ra is basically how Rey would have been if she had gone through what Ben went through. So that really brings a whole new perspective to how Han views Rey in TFA: I think he sees his youthful optimism in her, but he’s also fully aware what could happen to her if she went back on Jakku, because of what happened to Qi’ra. But again, I’m preparing a full-blown analysis of Qi’ra. Stay tuned.

I legit cried when she told Han she thought of him and the two of them flying away whenever it was hard for her. I’m still getting kind of teary-eyed thinking about it.

Okay, last thing about Qi’ra: I wouldn’t say she becomes a crime boss because she craves power or because she’s scared and has some sort of Stockholm Syndrome or whatever. I’d actually argue she chose love over power, and she’s ultimately a tragic case of “to love is to let go”. So yeah, it’s a lot more complicated than it seems, and it’s all about her being pretty much Han’s dark guardian angel of sorts. But again, I’ll expand on it in another post.

Tobias Beckett was great. A total asshole, but you still get attached to him even if you want to kick him in the balls.

I really liked Val and Rio, and it’s a waste they died so early. You could totally buy Val and Beckett as the old-married couple who bicker all the time. They managed to make their deaths emotional—and special shout-out to Rio’s death. Nice bit of foreshadowing when he dies saying that dying alone is the worst thing (now please excuse me while I roll in a ball in a corner and cry, thinking of how Han died nearly 40 years later).

I know L3 annoyed a lot of people. She didn’t annoy me too much, mainly because I just decided to not take her seriously and to see her “droid rights activism” as a joke. I mean, just looking at how Lando takes it, every time she makes a comment about it or does something about it, he’s all “Oh God not this again”. As some people have pointed out before me, she’s basically a robot version of Lisa Simpson. Her dying didn’t move me as much as Val or Rio, though.

Also, the TLJ novelization mentions a virtual intelligence of sorts in the Falcon that has a pretty foul sense of humor, so that’s probably foreshadowing for the reveal that L3 has been integrated into the Falcon after her death.

I’m going to talk about Dryden Vos in my Qi’ra post, but I don’t know if it’s due to Paul Bettany’s makeup, but he looked kind of… frail? Don’t get me wrong, he’s totally the Affably Evil Sociopath type, and he’s definitely someone you do not want to mess around with, but yeah. Him looking almost skeletal was probably part of the deal.

Enfys Nest was EPIC. I really hope we get comic books or novels about her, and it’s nice to see other rebel cells around. And her theme was THE SHIT with the choir and all. (Also, for my fellow Les Mis fans reading this: her actress (Erin Kellyman) is going to be Éponine in the upcoming BBC adaptation of Les Mis.)

Spotted Warwick Davis playing one of Enfys Nest’s crew.

Also, the confrontation between Han and his crew versus Enfys Nest was some space spaghetti western shit. And Lando leaving with the Falcon was absolutely hysterical.

That’s all I can think of right now. I’ll maybe have more thoughts later on.

#star wars #solo: a star wars story #rants and reviews #reylo #just in case

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camelliacried · 6 years

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WROW I’m finally gonna write down Tsubaki’s P5 verse !

Tsubaki Yayoi is seventeen, and she attends Kosei High School; she’s an art student, a prominent member of the student council, and comes from an incredibly prestigious family among the political elite. She’s calm, intelligent, modest, and above all incredibly compassionate; although she studies art and sings in her spare time, she has every intention of helping better the lives of others when she graduates. It is because of her unwavering belief in justice, due process, and law and order that she grows to despise the Phantom Thieves and their rise to fame. It isn’t that she’s jealous of their success, or that she disapproves of their motives --- but she cannot oblige the fact that they deem themselves above the law.

Unflinchingly traditional, the Yayoi family often practices in arranged marriages --- and although it’s never been confirmed, rumors have circulated for years that the majority of those marriages are kept within the family. Throughout the game, she also comes to learn that her family’s practices aren’t as upright and honest as they (as well as the bribed tabloids) claim; exploitation, bribery, and blackmail have all been kept under wraps by carefully-worded legal arrangements and money under quite a few tables. This revelation combined with mentions of a potential ‘arrangement’ for Tsubaki in the near future lead her to seek the help of the very people she condemned: the Phantom Thieves. Coming to the conclusion that there was no use seeking assistance within the justice system --- a prominent Yayoi domain that still bears signs of their influence --- and growing more desperate by the week, she submits a name to the Aficionado Website: that of the current Yayoi family head, her own father.

The Thieves must first investigate in Mementos, and upon doing so, they discover it’s already become a full-fledged Palace. As she submitted the request anonymously, they have no way of knowing she would willingly cooperate --- so once Yusuke informs them she attends the same school, they set about tailing her to see if they can acquire more information about her family. Tsubaki catches on rather quickly, and upon realizing their true identities, agrees to assist them. During a thorough search of the Yayoi family home, the correct keywords to enter her father’s Palace are accidentally spoken --- thus, she finds herself dragged in with them. She had been quietly festering and seething inside ever since she first stumbled upon some of her family’s illicit dealings, and to see the Palace with her own eyes --- a mixture of old and new, sprawling grounds with seemingly endless hallways, several traditional Japanese mansions juxtaposed much like the Yayoi’s ancient traditions and modern vices... Tsubaki refuses to leave without seeing it for herself, and retreats further inside when the Thieves insist otherwise. As they attempt to give chase, they encounter several clues that detail more of her life: headstones that detail at least eight siblings, none of which made it past their first year --- all born before Tsubaki; a sprawling family tree, written in elegant hand with ink on a traditional canvas, whose branches’ names overlap repeatedly with one another; a cognitive version of a younger Tsubaki that seems to represent an angel, bathed in light, surrounded by her household; cognitive versions of those the family have exploited and cheated over the years --- young and old, business and pleasure, workers and business partners and enemies alike.

They eventually catch up to the real Tsubaki, on her knees before the cognition of her father that reigns over the Palace. Dressed in traditional garb, he informs her that everything the Yayoi family has done has had a ‘noble’ purpose: to further the survival of their bloodline. Decades prior, a family head realized that the deciding factor in many political stations was a combination of incredible intelligence and charisma; thus, all marriages sought to foster these qualities... Until ultimately the only candidates deemed suitable were those within their own bloodline. When Tsubaki was born, it was deemed a miracle --- especially that she was born so strong, physically and mentally, and carried the best traits of a Yayoi. To further her excellence, to maintain the family’s sterling reputation, to keep their ‘breeding’ practices away from public view... Every not-so-noble act was motivated by these ‘noble’ needs. It’s at this point that she breaks down, forced to call everything into question; not only has she fully processed that everything she knew and held dear --- every facet of morality she’d clung to and upheld --- was a lie, but she was also led to believe her very birth was the biggest catalyst. With the help of the Thieves, however, she comes to the conclusion that none of it was her fault; she was only an excuse to justify the means as well as the ends. It’s with this revelation, and the promise to SEEK OUT AND UPHOLD HER OWN JUSTICE , that she awakens her persona: BRYNHILDR . Tsubaki’s outfit resembles her canon outfit when releasing Zero Type: Izayoi; her persona has a similar motif, resembling a typical valkyrie and wielding the same sword. Because of the wings, angelic appearance, and her exasperated explanation of who Brynhildr was, her codename becomes VALKYRIE . Her secondary weapons are dual handguns. Her persona deals both Bless and Curse damage, but is still weak to the latter.

Upon defeating her father, she admits that she’s aware --- and dreads --- the full truth of her family will come to light, her birth included. She resolves to face it with her head held high, though, for the sake of all the people her family has hurt. Much of her confidant deals with her attempt to protect and perpetuate her own justice, as she declared she would upon her awakening. This includes personally seeing to it that injured parties get proper reparations; making amends with her father while he’s incarcerated; assisting however she can in the ongoing investigation into her family, the legitimacy of their assets, and so forth. Halfway through her confidant, she admits to the protagonist that there’s been a significant amount of pressure from the student body as well as concerned parents for her to not only resign from the student council, but in some cases be expelled ‘out of basic principle’. Tsubaki also admits that she was aware of her family’s marriage practices all along, as well as the circumstances of her birth; she believes in part that perhaps she should comply with the school’s demands, considering herself complicit in that regard. Ultimately, however, the protagonist convinces her that she needs to fight --- for the sake of truth and justice, no less --- and at the very least see to it that she’s heard. Her passion, sincerity, and articulation see to it that at least the majority of her peers are swayed; although she mentions she still has to deal with jeers here and there, she is allowed to stay enrolled and on the student council. She also thanks the protagonist for instilling courage in her when she needed it the most. She acknowledges that her future career goals --- be it the military, the justice system, or politics --- would be hindered greatly by her family’s scandal, but that she has no intention of laying down and taking it.

Some additional tidbits:

Tsubaki’s confidant deals with art, but also has numerous motifs with flowers: if the protagonist works at the flower shop, she will occasionally be waiting there and will explain flower language to him throughout different points in the game. the gift she gives the protagonist upon maxing out her confidant is a painting she made of a camellia flower --- a play on her name that also translates to ‘longing’ and ‘waiting’ in flower language. if the confidant is a romantic one, on christma/s she will admit that she’s taken the liberty of hanging her gift in the attic: a painting of edelweiss (to encourage him he does have power and should always have courage), hibiscus (to remind him to be gentle, always), and a third flower that’s a little more difficult to place but resembles angel’s wings. she will inform him that it’s referred to as habenaria radiata (sagisō in japanese), or the white egret flower. it means, according to her, ‘my thoughts will follow you into your dreams’. she intended it to convey her feelings in a lasting, sincere manner, having no idea how poignant they’d be considering where he’d soon be going...

she loves historical dramas --- be it plays, movies, or literature. taking her to see a period movie, buying her appropriate merchandise or reading material, it’ll all please her immensely and she’ll chatter on excitedly about them for hours.

in idles whenever they meet as a group in the protagonist’s attic, she’s often either reading a book, adjusting something into its proper place, or wiping her finger along a shelf as if inspecting for dust.

in one conversation randomly activated between confidant conversations, Tsubaki admits that she often watched Yusuke intensely as they were in the same art class and his work always caught her attention. she also remarks that since he’s been spending time with the protagonist, he hesitates less and has a ‘better energy’ when painting.

when Makoto leads the study group among her classmates, Tsubaki will also show up for a time and assist --- explaining that they’ve helped each other study on occasion.

one of her all-time favorite historical figures is a renowned folk hero of the feudal era, and she gets flustered just referring to him. her mother told her all the stories surrounding him, and she even owns several plushies modeled after a cartoon character meant to portray him on television.

her phrase during criticals is ‘let justice... be served !’; there’s also scales of justice and wings littered among camellia flowers in her finisher portrait after an all-out attack.

#* VERSE : no evil deed goes unpunished. / / persona five.#it's so fucking long i'm crying i'm so SORRY #BUT NOW I HAVE IT NAILED DOWN... i can interact w/ p5 blogs with a clean conscience

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whereverthemusetakesme · 6 years

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1-10, 25

⊱asks for muns with a multimuse⊰

1. is there a muse that you wish gets more attention?

There are a few of them... but if I had to pick just one? Scout, for sure. I do get that she’s an obscure character even within her fandom, and no longer even relevant since the canon reboot - but that doesn’t stop me wanting to do things with her xD

2. if you HAD to choose, who’s your favorite muse?

Vanellope. Definitely Vanellope; she’s not only the cutest cutie, but also my favourite fictional character overall. Though I have to say that Lauren’s not far behind her... being as she’s 100% my own character, I’d not be a biased creator if I didn’t chose her xD

3. which muse is the trickiest to get into character for?

Recently? I’d say it’s been Mabel. I feel like the way I write her is hit-and-miss most of the time; but because there’s so much canon material for her I struggle to take all of it into account at all times, you know? I think I emphasise certain parts of her personality at the expense of others... and plus, I’m nowhere near as outgoing and bouncy as she is, which gives me trouble sometimes too xD

4. is there a muse that not a lot of people roleplay with?

I suppose that Cera, Lauren, Zoey, Babs and Vixey all fall under that category; each only have one or two people who interact with them at present. That’s the advantage of a multimuse blog, though; even when they don’t have that many interested partners, the blog as a whole still stays active - rather than collecting dust (and unanswered asks) the way Cera’s used to!

And then there’s Scout, who has had a grand total of zero roleplay partners so far, so is kind of in a category all of her own? xD;;

5. if you HAD to choose, who’s your least favorite muse?

That’s not even a contest... Taffyta, for sure. I mean, I have a lot of fun writing her, but... is she a butt, or what? xD

6. which one of your muses have you been playing the longest?

On the whole? Angel. That was... back on Proboards, eight years ago, my first rping experience ever - it was a Disney-themed site, and she was my favourite character at the time, so she was the natural choice - and I guess she’s just stuck with me ever since.

7. which one of your muses has the most ships?

Ships I’ve been part of through rp here? That’s got to be Margo ( @bespectacledkitten ), as the only muse who’s actively participated in more than one ship at all. Even then, she’s only had Antonio and Vale as shipping partners, so... not loads.

Though if we’re talking more just for whom most ships exist, regardless of my participation in them... well, poor Angel does tend to be shipped with just about anything on four legs!

8. what is each of your muses otps? notps?

Hm.

Angel: OTP is with Patch of 101 Dalmatians II; and while there are a lot of ships of her I’ve seen that I disagree with, I’d say my main NOtp for her has to be with Dodger. As a sibling-type bond between them... oh yeah, I’d be all for that! But I just can’t ship them... he’s too similar to her, wouldn’t be able to give her what she needed in a relationship.

Mabel: I don’t really have any OTP for her. I’ve never rped a ship with her, and while some of her canon ones can be cute, none really make me think yes must ship it! NOtps are with either Dipper or Gideon... both for obvious reasons.

Cera: I’m intrigued by her and Littlefoot as a couple, though I’d need to actually get to play around with that before I could truly call it something I ship... and I’m not really sure of her other options. I haven’t seen any other pairings with her to have a preference on.

Taffyta: I’m not opposed to shipping her, but I don’t have any so far. NOtp is with Vanellope.

Zoey: OTP is with Rudolph, pretty much by default! No NOtps yet... I don’t even feel justified in calling her and Arrow a NOtp at this point, since we see so little actual relationship between them in canon. They’re just a noncommittal meh at this point.

Vanellope: None. I just don’t ship her... so I guess any ship with her is a NOtp for me?

Vixey: OTP is Tod. Don’t have any NOtps at present.

Scout: Undecided. I don’t think I ship her with Whie, but... I’d need more in-character interactions with her before I could commit to anything, either way.

Babs: OTP is with Featherweight, honestly! I dunno, there’s just something about the idea of those two being together that really appeals to me. Don’t have any NOtps so far.

Lauren: Haven’t really considered it. Lauren’s asexual, in my mind, so it just... hasn’t been relevant for her.

Danielle: I dunno I have a specific OTP. At different times I’ve shipped her with Berlioz (Aristocats), Rolly or Lucky (both 101 Dalmatians: The Series), but none that I can really commit to as a ‘one true’ pairing. Likewise, I don’t really have any NOtps for her, either... I’ll just play her and see what comes ^^

(and Annette as a bonus: OTP is with Pooka from Anastasia. He’s really the only person I’d consider shipping her with, so... NOtp is everyone else? xD)

9. why were you drawn to each one of your characters?

Angel: She’s just... long been a favourite of mine. Not ever since I first saw Scamp’s Adventure, when I didn’t pay her specifically much mind, but... it must have been a couple of months later, when I rewatched it for maybe the fourth time, I just... fell for her. The way she’s had such a tough life, her curious combination of selfish and selfless, both of which made her so interesting to explore further... and, I’m not gonna lie, her being the CUTEST little thing didn’t hurt at all either x3 By the time the first RP site I was part of came around, she was just the obvious choice to go for; and she’s stuck with me ever since.

Mabel: She’s just so quirky and energetic and optimistic and fun... how could anyone who’s seen Gravity Falls not be drawn to her? I liked her as soon as I started watching the show (some years after it ended, granted), and by the time I finished it I was really warring with myself over whether or not to pick her up. As you can tell, my willpower lost that battle xD

Cera: She’s such a hard-headed, stubborn BUTT WITH A HEART OF GOLD and I love it x3 I mean, I don’t usually go for characters like that, but something about the way Cera pulls it off is just... plus, the fact that she’s kind of too cute to take her jerkiness that seriously helps, too!

Taffyta: Mostly? I first picked her up because my girlfriend rped as pre-movie Vanellope and was hoping for some more of the Sugar Rush kids to pick on her... and I thought I could oblige there. I mean, I’m not really drawn to Taffyta, she’s awful... but she’s also a fun departure from all my other characters too xD

Zoey: I think... I was drawn to her potential more than her herself. In Rudolph, Zoey really is portrayed as your ‘generic love interest’ character, she’s cute and determined and doesn’t judge him for his nose... and that’s really all we’re given. And I just saw so much more untapped potential for that character, that I wanted to take her and make her into something more than just what the movie did.

Plus, the fact that my gf rps as Rudolph on her multi-muse was a key factor in that choice, too x3

Vanellope: She’s just so... got everything that makes me like a character. She’s utterly adorable; she’s so fun and sassy; she’s really brave; she has scenes in the movie that completely break my heart for her; she’s JUST... precious cutie, must be protected at all costs. I’ve had fun writing her on a couple of short-lived Proboards sites, so when I started up the multi-muse, it seemed a perfect time to add her to my muse roster.

Vixey: Like Angel, Vixey wasn’t a liked her as soon as I saw her. I’d watched Fox and the Hound many times before I even really considered her beyond her role in the film... in fact, fun story, I first picked her up on that Disney-themed Proboards site I mentioned above. My girlfriend had been playing Tod on there; and the site was a war environment, and she was planning to get him killed in one of the battles. Now there had been previous rpers who had played Vixey on that site, but all of them had since left or vanished... so I just thought, wouldn’t it be fun to pick her up so she can be UTTERLY TRAUMATISED by her mate’s death? Fox and the Hound has been a favourite of mine since I first started liking Disney movies, after all.

And it was just, as I was looking through her scenes to get the inspiration to write her, I realised how much there was to love about this character. She’s smart, kind, romantic, of course... but she also doesn’t let herself get pushed around. She was never afraid to stand up for herself when Tod snapped at her... and, I’ll be honest, I started to notice all the little hesitancies in her speech, too - the “Oh, um, gosh” and such like - and just found they made it such FUN to write her dialogue... and I’ve been attached to her ever since!

Scout: Oh my goodness, Scout... where do I even start with her? xD Like Vanellope, she’s adorable, she’s smart, she’s got herself a sharp mouth... and her life’s been such a struggle that, when I reread the novel, I just felt for her so much. The way Sean Stewart describes her, captures her personality, is just SO PERFECT, she’s so real to me, so believable... I wanted to do things with her, I wanted to do her the justice that the rest of the SW expanded universe, beyond that novel, never seems to give her. She deserved more spotlight than just that one novel, and a minor role in another, and I wanted to give that to her.

Also, I’d been low-key looking for a Star W.ars muse to take ever since I’d seen The Last J.edi, and Scout (who had just vaulted to the top of my favourite characters list for that fandom despite her lack of Force talent) was the perfect choice for that.

Babs: She’s just my favourite pony. I’m not sure what, exactly... I guess in some respects, the tough but also cute kind of characters appeal to me? After we saw her in One Bad Apple, I just found her a really interesting character. There was so much we were given about her that the episode didn’t have time to expand on, and I’m curious to see that built on and developed. Like Vanellope, I played her on a couple of short-lived Proboards sites and had fun with her... and when I was thinking of other characters to add to this blog, I just came again upon some of the gif icons I’d made of her for that, which just made me want to write for her all over again.

Lauren: What can I say..? She’s the main character of an original story I’ve been trying to write for years; I’m indulging myself by playing her here xD Though, fun fact? She was originally scheduled to simply be a minor antagonist in that story’s initial conception. Then, as I started delving into her backstory - to find the reason why she was how she was - she just became more and more interesting to me than the girl who had been originally created as the main character. Slowly Lauren just kind of... pushed her out to gain the top spot in my affections for herself.

Danielle: I’m not gonna deny it, Annette’s always been my favourite of the cocker sisters... but that said, they’re all adorable, and I think I started to warm up to them about the same time I did with Angel. The personality, all the little ways the animators showed their distinctness... Annette stood out to me the most, as the smart one of the bunch, and even before I started rping at all I’d developed a whole detailed personality for her. Dani was always second for me, while Collette kind of lagged, just because I couldn’t relate to her in the same way as I could the other two.

I don’t really have much to offer for the why they particularly drew me in. Just... they’re totally adorable, what other explanation can I give? xD

10. which muse is the most fun to write for?

Ooh... I think that’s gotta be Vanellope too, truthfully - though each of the newest additions to the blog aren’t far behind her. Babs and Dani and Scout are all really fun to play around with, too :D

25. which muse do people send the most asks for?

Mabel and Vanellope, so far on this blog! Though... I can’t say I’m really surprised. Their fandoms do both seem to be active for the long run, especially here on tumblr, so it does make sense that they’re the most popular ^^

#amanymcsnmore #ooc #ask #meme response #long post #This... got a lot longer than I expected it to!#but it was also fun; thanks so much for sending it :D

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yesparesh · 4 years

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what to do when you bored on free time

We turn on our T.V. or our Gaming Console we medicate ourselves with weed, Alcohol, Drugs and etc..just burn time .

what to do when your bored time , what to do when your bored on free time,things to do when bored, What is complete waste? , if you are even the slightest bit serious about becoming a winner in the Game of life..Here are the 10 most importance things you need start spending your time on.

Watch behind scenes of science fiction movies and VFX setup -- Please watch film making videos or behind scenes of your favorite movies like Hollywood movies --| Avatar, Avengers End game, The jungle book, Game of thrones, Man Of Steel, Superman vs Justice league, 2012, Final destination 5, Aqua-man, Spider man-2, Fast & Furious series, Maleficent -2, The Matrix Reloaded, Annabelle, Alita: Battle Angel, The Twilight Saga: all series, Life Of Pi. Bollywood movies:-- Fan, Doom-3, Bahubali, The Kapil Sharma Show, M.S Dhoni:, Zero, Rotot 2.0

Exercise:- I think exercise is a no brainer, the sheer benefits alone are just staggering and if you guys are not exercise already I suggest you start dusting off those old trainers and get yourself moving. Just to name a few benefits of exercise; You'll look better, you will lose weight, you'll become lean, you will gain muscle if you want to, and generally you will become fit as a fiddle. And these are just the physical benefits of exercise. Other include, improved sleep, improved memory, improved less depression, and thanks to the endorphins released during exercise you will feel much better and happier, plus so many more benefits! Plus you get to live longer too.. Now this second task is crucial with so much free time on our hands we need to have the energy To be active, during this time. A few centuries ago we used to move around and lift things, Almost all of our jobs required us to work out our bodies whether it had be tending to the farms or creating tools in the workshop But now most of us work behind computer screens and registers we are not getting the right amount of exercise that our body needs to function properly. It's actually been proven by studies that people who workout have more energy throughout the day.

Develop a hobby or skill:- There is a high probability that the reason you are bored is that you are uninspired to do anything, or you simply have nothing to do. You can easily deal with both issues simply by developing a new skill or a new hobby. So let's assume my friend Derrick, when Derrick was a lot younger, he had always wanted to learn how to play the guitar. It was one of those things, that he would tell himself that he would start working on, but never actually got around to ever doing it, and he would always blame the lack of time for not ever getting started. Unfortunately a lot of us suffer from this form of procrastination and Derrick is no exception. But fortunately for him he now has some time on his hands. If you have nothing to do, and are hence, bored, you should think about developing a new skill or founding a new hobby. Hobbies includes cycling, making new friends. and traveling, among others. You can use them to get out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself some more. For example, bungee jumping is a pretty crazy hobby, and doing it could give you the courage to finally start that company you keep talking about. Other productive things you can do are..

Start a business:- We live in an age where it's never been easier to start a business or a side hustle and start make a living from it. The internet has fundamentally changed the way people and business do things, and it has literally created hundreds of different ways to make money online and earn a living from it. You can start a blog, write a book, start an Instagram page, do Shopify or successful YouTube channel,nice. There is literally a ton of different ways to make money online, you just need to do a bit of research, start something, stick to it and don't give up.

Read a Book:- Successful people never stop learning, and reading books is in fact a great way to get inspired and motivated. increase your knowledge and also your income. Books teleport you into a whole new world. Some books take you to the starts, and you meet a guy like Han solo while other take you into Westeros, where seven kingdoms with the craziest people are found. Some book will teach you how to develop a new skill, others about our history, while others will teach you something new and interesting about our world. Reading books is a sure fire way to increase ones knowledge. Also it makes you a more interesting person to talk to.

Evaluate Your Goals and set Plans:- I known all of us have some goals we would like to achieve, whether you wrote them down on a piece of paper or stored them in your minds memory box, we all have goals and aspirations we would like to achieve. So since you are bored...and supposedly have nothing better to do? why not start evaluate your goals? If you are interested, here's a tip! Make short and long-term plans of how you intend to achieve your goals. In that moment you are mindlessly starting at the celling and wondering whether that girl in the office likes you, begin planning in your mind how you intend to achieve your goals. A good tip I learned from the 7 Habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey is to begin with the end in mind. See yourself already achieving the goal and work your way backwards. For Example let's say Derrick, plans on buying a car this year. What he can do is, start putting aside a little cash every day or week, by cutting down on unnecessary expenses.

Meditate:- One of the most productive things you can do in your spare time is to meditate. And I known what you are thinking, productive? Meditation?---Can those two even go in the same sentence? Is not that a self-contradicting statement! And I known a lot of you are probably thinking this, but meditation is one of the most important and productive habits you can foster. There are literally thousands of studies which support that even meditating for only 5 minutes in a day can lead to a plethora of benefits. My favorites being peace of mind and happiness...and I know meditation can seem like one of the most boring mundane things in the world, especially when you are bored, but the benefits are worth it? If you can not sit still when things are totally silent, try guided meditation. If enough of you guys are interested may be I'll even add one to my channel some day.

Do some chores :-- Do me a quick favor and just take a look around your house or bedroom and tell me what you see. If your house is anything like my friend--Derricks, it's probably a disaster. So here's what you can do.. start cleaning and arranging your house. I know doing chores can be one of the most boring tasks in the world, believe me I know! But walking back home to a clean neat house after the end of a hard day's work is definitely worth it. To make the task more appealing, switch on some good music; something you can sing or dance along to; something that warms up your blood. Turn up the volume and then fire up the washing machine. Who said only characters in movies get to dance when cleaning their houses? Before you know it, you will have gotten your chores out of the way, and you will probably be felling very exhausted, but also a lot happier and hopefully you will have a sense of accomplishment.

Take a class:-- Why not learn something new, a new language, try out a new cooking recipe, take an online course or just about anything ..there are tons and tons of new skills you can add to your arsenal, and best of all you do not have to pay to learn most of them. For example I learned how to animate by watching videos here on YouTube. And in a few weeks I will be taking a personal finance course, which means I should have some great new content for you guys!

Plans your year and mark important dates.:- Perhaps you got a couple birthdays and weddings you should probably mark on your calendar. And finally last but not least. Clear your damn web history! I means some of the things you guys are browsing online, my word! I'm just kidding guys, I know the practical wisdom community are innocent folks. At least I hope so. Ok so finally, perhaps a job, if you do not already have one.

Please visit my website for more information: Click Here

what to do when your bored time , what to do when your bored on free time,things to do when bored If you have learn anything from this Article then please share with your friends...

#i am bored

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planttastic · 6 years

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Book List 2017!

Goal: 48 Read: 48 New Authors: 13!: Rebekah Crane, Georgia Hunter, David Machado, Dee Lestari, Garson O’Toole, Tahereh Mafi, Soraya Lane, Courtney Elizabeth Mauk, F.C. Lee, Kory Stamper, Marie Lu, Mohsin Hamid, & Krysten Ritter Re-reads: 2: 1984, & The Stupidest Angel

1. The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo #1) - Rick Riordan, ★★★★

2. Dragon Fly in Amber (Outlander #2) - Diana Gabaldon, ★★★★

3. Seven Up (Stephanie Plum #7) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★

4. Packing For Mars: The Curious Science of Life In The Void) - Mary Roach, ★★★★★

5. Hard Eight (Stephanie Plum #8) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★

6. The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland - Rebekah Crane, ★★★

7. 1984 - George Orwell, ★★★★

8. To The Nines (Stephanie Plum #9), ★★★

9. At Night We Walk In Circles - Daniel Alarcón, ★★★★

10. Ten Big Ones (Stephanie Plum #10) - Janet Evanovich, ★★

11. We Were the Lucky Ones - Georgia Hunter, ★★★★

12. Eleven on Top (Stephanie Plum #11) - Janet Evanovich, ★★

13. Twelve Sharp (Stephanie Plum #12) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★★

14. Lean Mean Thirteen (Stephanie Plum #13) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★

15. The Shelf Life of Happiness - David Machado, ★★★

16. Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War - Mary Roach, ★★★★

17. Paper Boats - Dee Lestari, ★★★★

18. Hemingway Didn’t Say That: The Truth Behind Familiar Quotations - Garson O’Toole, ★★

19. Shatter Me (Shatter Me #1) - Tahereh Mafi, ★★★★

20. Unravel Me (Shatter me #2) - Tahereh Mafi, ★★★

21. Unite Me (Shatter Me #1.5 & 2.5) - Tahereh Mafi, ★★

22. Ignite Me (Shatter Me #3) - Tahereh Mafi, ★★★

23. American Gods - Neil Gaiman, ★★★

24. Wives of War - Soraya Lane, ★★★

25. The Special Power of Restoring Lost Things - Courtney Elizabeth Mauk, ★★

26. Fearless Fourteen (Stephanie Plum #14) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★

27. Finger Lickin’ Fifteen (Stephanie Plum #15) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★

28. Sizzling Sixteen (Stephanie Plum #16) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★

29. Smoking Seventeen (Stephanie Plum #17) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★

30. The Epic Crush of Genie Lo - F.C. Lee, ★★★★

31. Word By Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries - Kory Stamper, ★★★★

32. Explosive Eighteen (Stephanie Plum #18) - Janet Evanovich, ★★

33. Little Fires Everywhere - Celeste Ng, ★★★★★

34. The Dark Prophecy (The Trials of Apollo #2) - Rick Riordan, ★★★★

35. Notorious Nineteen (Stephanie Plum #19) - Janet Evanovich, ★★

36. Young Jane Young - Gabrielle Zevin, ★★★★

37. Takedown Twenty (Stephanie Plum #20) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★

38. Warcross (Warcross #1) - Marie Lu, ★★★★

39. Sourdough - Robin Sloan, ★★★★

40. La Belle Sauvage (The Book Of Dust #1) - Philip Pullman, ★★★★

41. Voyager (Outlander #3) - Diana Gabaldon, ★★★★

42. Feedback (Newsflesh #4) - Mira Grant, ★★★★

43. Top Secret Twenty-one (Stephanie Plum #21) - Janet Evanovich, ★★

44. Exit West - Mohsin Hamid, ★★★★★

45. Bonfire - Krysten Ritter, ★★★★

46. Artemis - Andy Weir, ★★

47. The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror (Pine Cove #3) - Christopher Moore, ★★★

48. Mrs. Fletcher - Tom Perotta, ★★★

**WARNING** SPOILERS BELOW!

1. The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo #1) - Rick Riordan, ★★★★ Here's the thing. I know these are middle school books, HOWEVER some of my favorite modern literary characters have come from Riordan's Demigod books and this one contains the return of two of my favorites. I'm glad that he's continuing to write them, though I wish he would up the reading level, as I'm sure a lot of his readers are into YA levels now. An easy start for the new year! Progress: January 1, 2017 – Started Reading January 4, 2017 – Finished Reading

2. Dragon Fly in Amber (Outlander #2) - Diana Gabaldon, ★★★★ I must admit, I enjoyed this one much more than the first (a surprise, considering I wasn't a huge fan of season 2 of the show). It deals a lot more with history and the coming together of the Rising, which was more interesting than I expected. The ending was still incredibly sad and hopeful (as I did expect) and got me right in the heart. Progress: January 5, 2017 – Started Reading January 6, 2017 –page 79. "This book is long af. I was surprised to see a big reveal for a character (if you could call it that, I guess) in the first chapter. Oh the differences between tv writing and novels." January 12, 2017 –page 389. "Dude just pulled a snake out of his pocket like it was no thing. Wtf was happening in France?! Don't keep snakes in your jackets, gents. That is weird af." January 14, 2017 –page 521 "Sudden POV shift to Jaime is odd and unexpected. It seems that it's just in chunks? Makes it feel uneven." January 15, 2017 – Finished Reading

3. Seven Up (Stephanie Plum #7) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★ Stephanie is bad at her job, these are super formulaic and there's a standard love triangle, yet I can't stop reading these. They are the potato chip of bounty hunter novels. Progress: January 16, 2017 – Started Reading January 18, 2017 – Finished Reading

4. Packing For Mars: The Curious Science of Life In The Void - Mary Roach, ★★★★★ Full of science, humor and a lot of information I never thought to ask about space. Mary Roach is my favorite science writer, quite possibly my favorite non-fiction writer. Stiff will probably always be my favorite of her books, but I think this is tied for 2nd with Gulp. Progress: January 19, 2017 – Started Reading January 19, 2017 – Shelved January 20, 2017 – page 133 "It's things like, "buttocks are nature's safety foam" that make me love Mary Roach's books. Give me all the facts in amusing and easily digestable prose!" January 24, 2017 – Finished Reading

5. Hard Eight (Stephanie Plum #8) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★ I figure since this book came out over 13 years ago, spoilers don't count, so I'm not going to put this under a cut, but at least a warning. WARNING. Stephanie is still terrible at her job, goes through cars more often than she buys tanks of gas, but at least she FINALLY BANGED RANGER. Unfortunately we only got a paragraph of explanation, which does not do justice to his apparent sexiness. (For the record, I'm still Team Cupcake.) This one did feel a bit different, as she wasn't money-driven to solve the case. It does lend her a bit more... humanity? Progress: January 25, 2017 – Started Reading January 25, 2017 – page 94 "Gdi Stephanie, if you're going to handcuff a FTA to your car, DON'T LEAVE THE KEYS IN IT. I swear 😒 is the only face I make when reading these." January 26, 2017 – page 128 "AGAIN with the wedging herself into a car. A Honda CR-V is a gd suv. Despite Stephanie being repulsed by her 'stomach roll', unless she has the seat very far up, doubtful considering she is also tall, she would not need to wedge herself into the front seat of an suv. Ughhhhhh. 😒" January 27, 2017 – Finished Reading

6. The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland - Rebekah Crane, ★★★ I got this as a Kindle First Read and decided to read it as a filler between trips to the library. It proved to be a very quick read, and reminded me of Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, though they aren't really that similar. (I had conflicting feelings about that one, too.) I think it does downplay mental illness, but does a good job of showcasing the power of friendship (less cheesy than it sounds), being there, and how tenuous that can be. Progress: January 28, 2017 – Started Reading January 29, 2017 – Finished Reading

7. 1984 - George Orwell, ★★★★ It's pretty clear why everyone is suddenly re-reading this. It's not going to save us though. Progress: January 29, 2017 – Started Reading January 31, 2017 – page 81 ""The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him..." #alarminglyrelevant" February 4, 2017 – page 199 "I know it's been years since I read this, but did I really just conveniently forget how wordy and dense it was? Oof." February 5, 2017 – Finished Reading

8. To The Nines (Stephanie Plum #9), ★★★ Finally some real character development! Or at least acknowledgement from Stephanie that she has learned things (wearing sensible shoes) and that she feels lackluster in her performance. It was interesting to see her finally evaluate her life outside of who she is as a romantic partner (I know that the romance is a big part of the series, but still). And it was nice to see Vinnie be a little less creepy and explore some different bond types. Progress: February 6, 2017 – Started Reading February 6, 2017 – page 32 "Not really sure how I feel about Stephanie's hatred of a lady she just met, especially considering it seems to tie in with how she looks. Uncomfortable." February 7, 2017 – page 248 "For the second time, Stephanie has mentioned having sensible shoes on in case she has to run. She IS getting better!" February 8, 2017 – Finished Reading

9. At Night We Walk In Circles - Daniel Alarcón, ★★★★ A winding novel with an unexpected ending. I really had no idea what it was going to be about, but I had read Lost City Radio in 07 or 08 for my Writers on Writing class and enjoyed it quite a bit and was excited to see that he had written another novel. Progress: February 8, 2017 – Started Reading February 18, 2017 – Finished Reading

10. Ten Big Ones (Stephanie Plum #10) - Janet Evanovich, ★★ I have a lot of issues with this one. First the good: Ranger and the tiny peek into his life. And the return of Sally Sweet!! The bad: This one feels pretty racist with all of the gang bits. Stephanie seems to suffer no consequences for her terrible actions and she continues to suck at her job. Despite her constant refusal to get a different job, there are times where she's is pretty lackadaisical when it comes to actually doing it. There were A LOT of questionable things that happened, some really awful and terrible things, and at the end everyone is like, "lol, nbd." ARE YOU KIDDING ME. Actions have consequences, unless you're at the end of a Plum novel, I guess. Progress: February 18, 2017 – Started Reading February 22, 2017 – page 181 "So much fat shaming/ guilt happening right now I want to stop reading. This is the part of 'chick lit' that I loathe. Way to reinforce stereotypes. At the same time, if your character is going to eat a dozen donuts a day, she should know that she's going to gain weight and be on the lookout for diabetes because that's is just unhealthy." February 23, 2017 - page 226 "Jfc Stephanie, this is the worst idea, ever. If I didn't know the series was continuing, I'd think this is how the character got killed off." February 24, 2017 – Finished Reading

11. We Were the Lucky Ones - Georgia Hunter, ★★★★ Oh, my heart. This was pretty difficult for me to start, mostly because I didn't want to get too attached to characters that were bound to have a horrific end. However, once it gets going (ie, all the terrible things start happening), it goes pretty quickly. I don't know if if any one novel can encapsulate the spanning horror of the Holocaust, and I appreciate (not sure if that's the right word) that Hunter went for a more focused approach, scattering milestone dates within the story. Progress: February 25, 2017 – Started Reading March 8, 2017 – Finished Reading

12. Eleven on Top (Stephanie Plum #11) - Janet Evanovich, ★★ :Deep, prolonged, exasperated sigh: Stephanie, Stephanie, Stephanie. I'm so glad you're a fictional character, because I'm pretty sure I'd hate you if you were real. AND YET, I can't stop reading these. I blame Morelli and Ranger. Progress: March 9, 2017 – Started Reading March 11, 2017 – Finished Reading

13. Twelve Sharp (Stephanie Plum #12) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★★ FINALLY. A story I liked! We get a lot of Ranger in this one, a pretty decent story, and none of Stephanie's cars blow up! She's competent and not as silly. I was wrong about the 'turning point' moment! Finally, finally, finally. Progress: March 13, 2017 – Started Reading March 15, 2017 – page 201 "There's usually a point in each of the novels where I think, 'that is how everything is going to go to hell.' This one is leaving her gd panic button at the office and skipping town to get away from "scary stuff" and Ranger, while someone is trying to KILL HER." March 17, 2017 – Finished Reading

14. Lean Mean Thirteen (Stephanie Plum #13) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★ I had issues with some of the motives in this one (especially with Joyce) and I continue to be annoyed that Morelli and Ranger pass Stephanie between them while 'protecting' her. The ending seemed a bit trite, but at least her car died in a normal way. Not entirely sure how I feel about her constantly complaining about her job. But perhaps I'm expecting too much. Progress: March 22, 2017 – Started Reading April 1, 2017 – Finished Reading

15. The Shelf Life of Happiness - David Machado, ★★★ I got this as a Kindle First read, so I wasn't really sure what I was getting into. I liked it well enough. I definitely wanted more of the story, the end felt kind of abrupt. Progress: April 26, 2017 – Started Reading May 7, 2017 – Finished Reading

16. Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War - Mary Roach, ★★★★ Though not my favorite of Roach's books (that will always go to Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers), I found this a lot more interesting than I thought I would because it's about subjects I wouldn't have immediately thought of when thinking, 'war.' A lot of the 'gross' that Roach does so well, (who thinks about diarrhea when fighting a battle?) along with textile science and shark repellent. Progress: May 9, 2017 – Started Reading May 18, 2017 – Finished Reading

17. Paper Boats - Dee Lestari, ★★★★ I ended up loving this book a lot more than I expected it to. It's very sweet. The characters are charming and likeable. It does a very good job of capturing the awkward personal growth that happens during college and how it affects relationships. I thought I could feel a bit of Tiffany Tsao in her translation, at least I found some similarities to her novel. I can certainly see why Lestari is such a popular writer in Indonesia. One of the best Kindle First books I've read. Progress: May 18, 2017 – Started Reading May 23, 2017 – Finished Reading

18. Hemingway Didn’t Say That: The Truth Behind Familiar Quotations - Garson O’Toole, ★★ Oof. I will say that this is very well researched. Clearly a lot of time and effort went into finding the origins of these quotes, and I do appreciate that. However, I am not a fan of how the information is presented. Most of it feels pretentious ("QI feels...") and stiff. To be completely honest, I don't read many nonfiction books for a similar reason, so it's purely opinion. Progress: May 24, 2017 – Started Reading May 24, 2017 – 1.0% "Holy pretentiousness Batman... This might be rough to get through, but I really love quotes..." May 24, 2017 – 2.0% "There's faulty information on the Internet?! YOU DON'T SAY. (It is possible that I'm not the target generation for this intro.)" May 25, 2017 – 11.0% "Maybe I don't like quotes as much as I thought I did." May 28, 2017 – page 59 14.9% "My last year of college, I wrote this play about a blogger loosely based on my life. I had a draft due, so I pulled a few of my own blog posts, pasted them in some strategic places and turned it in. Almost all the feedback I got was about how the blog posts didn't make sense with the rest of the writing, probably because I didn't bother to edit them. That's how I feel about some of these entries" June 12, 2017 – page 241 60.86% "Not that it's important, but I have no idea what POV is being used here. Sometimes it feels like second person, and others third? All readers know that the writer is from QI, so separating them seems awkward. Oh well." June 19, 2017 – Finished Reading

19. Shatter Me (Shatter Me #1) - Tahereh Mafi, ★★★★ I have to say, I was pretty surprised by this novel. The premise is not new (dystopia, boy meets girl, etc, etc), but Mafi has a very distinct and different writing style that I find quite enjoyable. It's different. I imagine a lot of people hate it? There's several instances where people are commenting on Juliette's body that are gross and super off-putting. I'm hoping this is something that diminishes in further novels. SPOILER: The best part was the end though, SURPRISE IT'S JUST A SUPERHERO ORIGIN STORY. All of a sudden we're in this weird X-Men/Inhumans universe and I am so here for it. Looking forward to reading the rest. Progress: June 21, 2017 – Started Reading June 25, 2017 – Finished Reading

20. Unravel Me (Shatter me #2) - Tahereh Mafi, ★★★ Basically everything I expected to happen, did happen. Ughhhhhh. Progress: June 28, 2017 – Started Reading July 1, 2017 – 30.0% "So far, most of this has been angst and trying to make Warner and Juliette seem So Similar. It makes me want to barf." July 2, 2017 – 64.0% "Every time I read YA novels I always think how I would never want to be a teen again. The angst and drama and omg." July 2, 2017 – Finished Reading

21. Unite Me (Shatter Me #1.5 & 2.5) - Tahereh Mafi, ★★ Destroy Me: I do not understand people's love for Warner. I'm going to put this under a spoiler cut, just in case. SPOILER: He's the embodiment of entitled masculinity. He wants Juliette even though: he doesn't really know her, she hates him, he thinks she'll 'save him, and that he deserves her. It's gross. He literally kidnapped her after stalking her. He manipulated her on more than one occasion, bordering on torture, just to see what she was capable of. And now he's reading her diary/book as though he has the right to know those thoughts. His image of Juliette has been stripped of all agency. I don't care that he has qualms about what the Reestablishment is doing. I don't care that he seems to care about the citizens in his sector (also creepy). I don't care that he's possibly losing his grip on reality. I'm pretty sure he's going to turn over to the Omega's side in later installments so that he can get some kind of redemption arc, and then there might be a love triangle (BARF). I hope Juliette stays far away from him. I hope she never forgives him for the kidnapping, the simulation room, or his general desire to own her. Because women don't owe men anything, because we're not objects to be owned. Fracture Me: 75% of it was just a retelling of the end of Unravel Me, so that was unfortunate. I imagine it was a nice bonus to have while waiting for Ignite Me to come out, but I don't know how much it added to the the series. Progress: June 25, 2017 – Started Reading July 3, 2017 – Finished Reading

22. Ignite Me (Shatter Me #3) - Tahereh Mafi, ★★★ So, I really wanted to like this series. I really did. However, I was so disappointed in how it all played out. The characters were totally OOC in this installment. I still hate Warner, I don't care what he does. The end felt anticlimactic, though that might just be a symptom of reading too much dystopian YA novels. Pretty unsure about there being more books, but I think a lot of people will read them. Progress: July 5, 2017 – Started Reading July 5, 2017 - 6.0% "Ughhhhhhh. This is everything I Did Not Want. Warner, your 'elaborate scheme' was not for your father's benefit, it was your way to stalk her, you creepy asshat." July 6, 2017 – 10.0% "She thinks she should lead the resistance? What? Is that why she trained so hard while she was at Omega Point? Oh wait... She didn't. Excuse me while I don't believe our MC." July 8, 2017 – 29.0% "And we descend into every trope of the third YA trilogy book. I was expecting so much more than this." July 8, 2017 – Finished Reading

23. American Gods - Neil Gaiman, ★★★ I had pretty high expectations for this novel, as I'm a Gaiman fan and a lot of people rave about it. However, I found myself a bit disappointed. The imagery was probably the best part, a lot of awesome scenes were set up that would be visually stunning. I enjoyed Shadow as a character, but I expected more to happen. SPOILER: It feels like 500 pages of build up to a war that never happens. I wonder if I'm just expecting too much 'action' because of other books I've been reading. On a completely tactile note, this edition is incredibly pleasant to read. It stays open when lying on a table, and it has nice bendy covers. I bought this years ago from Borders and it's been sitting on a shelf since. Progress: July 16, 2017 – Started Reading July 22, 2017 – Finished Reading

24. Wives of War - Soraya Lane, ★★★ I actually enjoyed this more than I thought I would. Lane does a very interesting job at skirting around some of the extremes of war. There are no overly gory or visceral descriptions of wounds or death and is generally light on descriptive detail in general. People are explained in detail, (nearly everyone is very pretty or very handsome) and an occasional location will also be described. I actually prefer less description, but I could see that others may find it lacking. This novel is very much about emotions, and considering the subject matter, it makes sense. I found myself wanting less telling and more showing in some cases. What I did find very interesting is the gender politics that were in play. WWII is a fascinating time to explore it, what was expected of our three main 'girls,' how they either defied or followed them, and what it meant after the war was over. It gets a little schmaltzy sometimes, but I'm willing to forgive that. SPOILERS: The Thomas situation is very difficult, considering PTSD wasn't 'a thing' yet, but they did acknowledge combat neurosis. But it pained me to see Scarlet battered, and still feel that she couldn't leave, that she was required to stay with him. And for Thomas's life to come to such a tragic end. It was hard to read, but also expected. And they totally say The Thing at the end. Progress: July 24, 2017 – Started Reading July 28, 2017 – Finished Reading

25. The Special Power of Restoring Lost Things - Courtney Elizabeth Mauk, ★★ I'm not really sure what to say beyond that I just didn't like it. It's possible I would have liked it more if I had read it before Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng (they have similar plots, but beyond that, they have little in common). I didn't like any of the characters, though I did feel some empathy towards Drew and Ben. Carol was completely unlikable, though perhaps that was the point? I certainly don't understand her actions. I found myself wishing I knew more about Jennifer, maybe it would justify the reactions of her family more. It is a very quick read, though. Progress: July 31, 2017 – Started Reading August 1, 2017 – Finished Reading

26. Fearless Fourteen (Stephanie Plum #14) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★ I still keep expecting Stephanie (and Lula?) to get better at their jobs. Adding the kid in to this novel was a nice change, glad to see Mooner back too, even though Stephanie is judges them very harshly. I'm mostly reading these to get caught back up on my reading goal. They're easy to read and mostly amusing. Progress: August 2, 2017 – Started Reading August 2, 2017 – page 8 "I was excited to get back to these novels, but less than 10 pages in and Stephanie is hardcore judging a kid for having piercings. COME ON. This was written in 2008. Let's move on from the 'bad people have tattoos and piercings' stereotypes please. He better turn out to be a stellar kid and she feels bad about judging him." August 4, 2017 – Finished Reading

27. Finger Lickin’ Fifteen (Stephanie Plum #15) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★ I mostly didn't care about the story in this one. It feels like Lula is becoming more of a caricature in every book, which makes me kind of sad. Not everything needs to be so over the top. Not everything needs to catch fire. Relatively anticlimactic ending. Progress: August 4, 2017 – Started Reading August 6, 2017 – Finished Reading

28. Sizzling Sixteen (Stephanie Plum #16) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★ I liked this one a bit more than the last few, it was sort of nice to have Vinnie around again (even though he's pretty terrible). I did notice several spelling and editing errors, which was kind of strange. Progress: August 7, 2017 – Started Reading August 9, 2017 – Finished Reading

29. Smoking Seventeen (Stephanie Plum #17) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★ I'm getting too used to reading Plum novels, and I'm figuring them out too early. Enjoyable enough, though there are a few things that are starting to get on me. Glad she finally hooked up with Ranger again. Real tired of the, "I love two men, isn't that just *ca-raaazyyy*" idea. It's not crazy? You can love two people at a time. Dave was creepy af. Progress: August 14, 2017 – Started Reading August 16, 2017 – page 144 "Come on Steph, you can connect the dots better than this..." August 16, 2017 – page 286 "Dots finally connected. Took ya long enough." August 16, 2017 – page 300 "She literally just said 'connect the dots to [character], hahahah. I think I've read too many Plum books in a row." August 16, 2017 – Finished Reading

30. The Epic Crush of Genie Lo - F.C. Lee, ★★★★ YESSSSS SOMETHING DIFFERENT. I really hope we get more Genie Lo books, because I would read many more novels of her kicking demon ass. Progress: August 16, 2017 – Started Reading September 4, 2017 – Finished Reading

31. Word By Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries - Kory Stamper, ★★★★ Even though this took me ages to get through, I really enjoyed it. I've been getting the M-W Word of The Day email for years and was very excited when they announced this book. It definitely helped me realize that the dictionary is not the final say on English, but just a record of how we use it. The bit on dialect is my favorite (and would have gladly read more about it!), followed closely by the discussion of 'nude'. I certainly have a better appreciation of dictionaries and lexicographers. Progress: August 16, 2017 – Started Reading September 21, 2017 – Finished Reading

32. Explosive Eighteen (Stephanie Plum #18) - Janet Evanovich, ★★ While I appreciate the change in narrative structure (slowly presenting information instead of all at once), it's still a Plum novel and feels a little bit out of touch. Poor Lula deserves more than a caricature characterization. I want to know more about Connie. The love triangle is getting old, mostly because Stephanie is stuck in some pretty outdated notions of how her life is supposed to be. It could be said that I'm rather liberal, and I'm looking into too much, but Lula can be more than just a former ho. Stop describing her outfits with such disdain. I just... expect more from a book published in 2011. Progress: September 19, 2017 – Started Reading September 27, 2017 – Shelved

33. Little Fires Everywhere - Celeste Ng, ★★★★★ My. Heart. Ng is a truly gifted storyteller. Though perhaps it feels like a story that has been told before (maybe many stories that have been told before), it's such a nice, solid, slow build. I find myself wondering about the characters, and how their lives played out after the novel ended. Progress: September 1, 2017 – Shelved September 27, 2017 –page 1 "I was the first person in my library to get this and I AM VERY EXCITED" October 3, 2017 – Finished Reading

34. The Dark Prophecy (The Trials of Apollo #2) - Rick Riordan, ★★★★ Though Apollo is super annoying (on purpose, I assume) and there wasn't enough of Nico DiAngelo, my Sweet Baby Death Prince (aka, no appearance and only a single mention), I enjoyed this. I love Leo, and I'm warming up to Calypso. I find Meg very interesting, especially because she doesn't fall into 'girly' stereotypes, SPOILERS also her dealing with the abuse from her stepfather is an important thing for novels to address. However, I'm all about the Waystation. I want an entire series about it, and its inhabitants and the travelers passing through. And as cheesy as it sounds, my favorite part of all of Riordan's series is how he reps families of all types. <3 Progress: October 3, 2017 – Started Reading October 7, 2017 – Finished Reading

35. Notorious Nineteen (Stephanie Plum #19) - Janet Evanovich, ★★ I know that these are meant to be light reading, but that doesn't mean they can't be better. Stereotypes and problematic behavior (and speech, and expectations...) shouldn't be the norm. Progress October 11, 2017 – Started Reading October 12, 2017 – page 72 "I don't know if I'm just noticing it more, or judging more harshly because this book was written in 2012, but there's a lot of things that are problematic af in this. I've stopped counting the moments of casual racism, but some old dude is groping Stephanie and all that happens is she and Ranger switch seats? Hell. No." October 13, 2017 – page 103 "Threatening someone with a fake rape and groping accusation? Wtaf, Evanovich. That is not okay." October 14, 2017 –page 292 "An Arthur Beasley and a Simon Diggery? Someone finally read Harry Potter." October 14, 2017 – Finished Reading

36. Young Jane Young - Gabrielle Zevin, ★★★★ Though lacking the emotional gut-punch of A.J. Fikry, this was still an excellent novel. SPOILERS: I think what I really took away from this was the severe inequity between men and women. Jane's career was destroyed completely, while the Senator went on, with barely a blip. Obviously this is very reflective of our society, which is all too apparent these days, and it's one of those things that gets me in the heart. I know life isn't fair, but damn. Progress: October 14, 2017 – Started Reading October 16, 2017 – Finished Reading

37. Takedown Twenty (Stephanie Plum #20) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★ I don't know why I keep doing this to myself. This one seemed a little bit less problematic at the beginning, and then just went off the rails with the racist stereotypes and constant slut shaming. Ugh. Progress: October 16, 2017 – Started Reading October 18, 2017 – page 122 "Evanovich really has something against fat people. She points out everyone's weight, and just made a show about how a woman who weighs "upward of 200" has wrists that are too big for regular handcuffs. I call BS." October 20, 2017 - page 210 "For the love of all things holy, STOP SLUT-SHAMING LULA." October 20, 2017 – Finished Reading

38. Warcross (Warcross #1) - Marie Lu, ★★★★ Well hello Marie Lu, why haven't I read your novels before?! Warcross is like an amalgamation of Ready Player One and Quidditch with the added bonus of POC characters and a female MC (awww yeaaaahhhh). I expected the end, but it's not going to deter me from reading the rest of the series. Progress: October 20, 2017 – Started Reading October 23, 2017 – Finished Reading

39. Sourdough - Robin Sloan, ★★★★ Confession: I love stuff about San Francisco, and this was no exception. It was a little weird and a little magical, very much like the city herself. Though I guess this technically took place in more than just SF proper. However, the descriptions of Clement St, took me right back there and made me wish I could stop and get some Pad Thai from King of Thai Noodle House #2 and a Genki strawberry and nutella crepe. ::sigh:: Memories. It also made me want to learn how to bake bread. I think what I enjoy most about Sloan's writing is that I'm not quite sure what I'm about to get into, but I'll believe it when I'm there. Progress: October 23, 2017 – Started Reading October 25, 2017 – page 168 "I think I love Beoreg." October 26, 2017 – Finished Reading

40. La Belle Sauvage (The Book Of Dust #1) - Philip Pullman, ★★★★ I am a HUGE fan of the original trilogy, and I was scared/excited to learn that Pullman was going to return to this world with more novels. I was not disappointed. A likable new MC (::cough:: UnlikeLyra ::cough::), adventures, mystery, a little bit of terror, and a few hints about Dust! I likely should have re-read the original trilogy before I read this, but honestly I didn't have the patience. I was the first person in my library to read this copy, and it's a beautiful edition. Progress: October 26, 2017 – Started Reading October 26, 2017 – page 1 "I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS" November 4, 2017 – Finished Reading

41. Voyager (Outlander #3) - Diana Gabaldon, ★★★★ Oh man, what a long read... I found this one much more interesting than the first two, maybe because it was a more complex story. The jumping around of POVs is a bit distracting, as it takes a bit to realize who is talking at the beginning of each bit. But I managed to breeze through this a bit easier than I thought I would, considering how much I struggled through the second one. Bring on more Jamie Fraser, please. Progress: November 5, 2017 – Started Reading November 5, 2017 – page 1 "This book is a long one. o.O Here goes..." November 11, 2017 – page 564 "Was it necessary to give Mr. Willoughby a foot fetish? Really?" November 15, 2017 – Finished Reading

42. Feedback (Newsflesh #4) - Mira Grant, ★★★★ It should be said that I'm a sucker for the Newsflesh series, and would gladly read anything in the canon. I found this to be a very good addition to the original trilogy. I like that it was way more diverse, with a lot of effort put into those differences (pronoun use!!). I wish I had re-read the trilogy before I read it, it's been a while and I found myself forgetting a lot of little things that had happened. I don't know if it diminished it, but a fresher read would have added a lot more to the story. I think what I really appreciated is that it sounded different from the Mason's POV. Ash has a different way of forming her thoughts and sentences, and it showed. What I didn't like so much was the over-explaining (maybe over-defending?) what it meant to be an Irwin, and to some extent a Newsie and Fictional. That might be because I have read the OG trilogy several times and I didn't feel the need to have it explained. Also, not once was Kellis-Amberlee shortened to KA, which seemed odd. This is a world steeped in a disease, and I find it hard to believe that an entire team of bloggers wouldn't shorten it, same with all of the politicians. (I mean, we live in a world with the flu, and does anyone other than doctors call it influenza?) Progress: November 16, 2017 – Started Reading November 22, 2017 – Finished Reading

43. Top Secret Twenty-one (Stephanie Plum #21) - Janet Evanovich, ★★I think I need to stop reading these... Forever disappointed, forever annoyed by the awful stereotypes, fat shaming and repetitive storylines. Progress: November 23, 2017 – Started Reading November 26, 2017 – Finished Reading

44. Exit West - Mohsin Hamid, ★★★★★ A beautifully told story. Some nice, unexpected aspects, sweeping prose that's almost poetic and a very satisfying ending. Ah, lovely. Progress: November 27, 2017 – Started Reading November 29, 2017 – Finished Reading

45. Bonfire - Krysten Ritter, ★★★★ I definitely picked this up because it's Krysten Ritter, who, in my head will always be Gia Goodman first and Jessica Jones second. And oddly enough, this felt like an amalgamation of Veronica Mars and Jessica Jones, especially in the characterization of Abby. I ended up liking it a lot more than I thought I would, though it's not anything amazingly new. There are parts that I was less impressed with, but it was a quick read and I hope she writes more. BIG SPOILER AHEAD: I think the characters could have been fleshed out more, I found myself wanting more from Abby, more of her life in Chicago, why she feels the need to drink herself into oblivion to sleep... A little more in the explanation would have been nice too. It felt to quick and tidy. Not to mention the very obvious 'twist.' IT'S ALWAYS THE GUY YOU CONFESS TO. Ughhhhhhh. Progress: December 4, 2017 – Started Reading December 6, 2017 – Finished Reading

46. Artemis - Andy Weir, ★★ I wanted to like this, I really did, but I found it lacking. The storyline was good and a little different because moon stuff, but I guess I expected a lot more. I can see why a lot of people love this, and why it's ending up on a lot of 2017 best lists, it just won't be on mine. The following cut isn't really for spoilers, but just to be safe: POSSIBLE SPOILERS: I did appreciate that MC could have been a man or woman and the basic plot wouldn't change (ie the whole thing wasn't based on Jazz being a woman), HOWEVER there were a lot of bits that felt unnecessary and overly 'feminized'. I didn't believe some of her language, and some of her mental wanderings seemed really forced (when I'm in a stressful situation, I don't imagine what the dude next to me looks like while working out... "Hey, I'm a girl, it's allowed", etc). Weir has a section in the acknowledgements about the people who helped him capture a female narrator, and I think they failed him a little bit. Why is everyone overly interested in her sex life? Do people just go around commenting on how many sexual partners you have on the moon, because that's just how 'different' society is? That seems weird AF to me. Jazz gets annoyed, but it's rude and invasive. I think some of it was supposed to play on the tension between her and Svoboda, but it just seemed awkward. Progress: December 6, 2017 – Started Reading December 8, 2017 – page 94 "Struggling to enjoy this. It feels like he's trying really hard to talk like a Woman. Which is unnecessary. It also feels like it's building up to a hull breach or fire, due to the repeated warnings of fire, and overstating of the double hull. I hope I'm wrong." December 8, 2017 – page 158 ""I was a helpless, exposed girl with no weapon" SERIOUSLY. You can't write Jazz as a supposed badass, and then pull out that drivel. I expected more." December 8, 2017 – page 178 "That wasn't a good one, it was sexist and gross. Ugh." December 8, 2017 – Finished Reading

47. The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror (Pine Cove #3) - Christopher Moore, ★★★ Not the best of Moore's novels, hardly my favorite, but a fun read for the holidays. It's a little bit wacky and makes me miss CA. Progress: December 23, 2017 – Started Reading December 26, 2017 – Finished Reading

48. Mrs. Fletcher - Tom Perotta, ★★★ I'm not totally sure how I feel about this novel. I've read Perrotta novels since I was in high school, and I don't think this is one of his strongest. However there are a few things that were well done: changes of voice and capturing the 'present day'. I'm getting better at reading new novels, but this one in particular felt very *now*. It might feel dated in the future, or, hopefully, serve and example of what life is right now. Well, maybe pre-45, but I digress. It's full of current cultural and social issues, but I sort of felt like I wanted more. And wasn't a huge fan of the ending. SPOILERS: Thank anything holy that Brendan wasn't a rapist. I thought Perrotta was leaning pretty heavily toward that, and he got dangerously close to assault. Maybe I just wasn't ready to handle it, but it would have made it so much worse. I'm not really sure how we're supposed to view Brendan. Are we supposed to feel bad that he's completely clueless about how to treat women, or are we supposed to dislike him for being totally oblivious? I will say that a lot of the situations made me think about my own assumptions (I would definitely take the Gender and Society class that Eve took), so there's that. Progress: December 26, 2017 – Started Reading December 28, 2017 – Finished Reading

#book list 2017 #book reviews #reading list 2017

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zippdementia · 7 years

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Part 28 Alignment May Vary: The Rocks Speak

Welcome to post 28 of our long running adventure! We started back on the Moonsea coast with three prison ship survivors who washed up into adventure. Since then, there have been many twists and turns and only one of the original party is still alive, Karina the Tiefling Spy. Her path has taken her with two others towards the legendary Tomb of Haggemoth, where she hopes to find riches and (more importantly) answers to questions that have plagued her since she was betrayed in the war. Meanwhile, her companions have their own quests: Tyrion the Halfling Bard needs to record a tale to impress his college directors and secure his place in the famed halls of song, and Abenthy seeks the ultimate justice in the name of his father, a Fallen Angel. This post marks the beginning of the last dungeon of the campaign and will walk with the players through each room, detailing what they discover and what adjustments I have made to the dungeon. I hope players of D&D find it entertaining and dungeon masters find it helpful in running their own dungeons!

Haggemoth is a conversion from 3.5 and I’ve talked about some of my methods for conversions to 5th edition in the past. Monster conversion, in particular, is more of an art than a science, with the end goal not being perfection so much as it is to capture the correct feel for a scene or battle. One hard and fast rule to keep in mind, though, is the rule of DC. You can pretty nicely get an appropriate DC from 3.5 to 5 by taking the original DC, subtracting ten, cutting the number in half (rounded up) and then adding ten. For example, if the DC for avoiding a trap from 3.5 is Dex Save DC 19, then the conversion is

19 - 10 = 9

9/2 = 4.5 (round up to 5)

5 + 10 = 15

New Dex Save DC = 15

I use this method for every DC conversion so I want to throw it out there immediately so that it is assumed throughout the remainder of the adventure.

Anyway, the bridge across the chasm is destroyed, Tyrion is unconscious, and Karina and Abenthy are badly hurt from their battles with the Bugbears. Verrick is gone, the three soldiers are dispirited, and everyone is hungry. After eating and then collapsing, exhausted, into a long rest, the party awakens the next morning to find themselves staring at a massive door in the cliff face:

Built into the side of the mountain is an immense portico that features a pair of gigantic stone doors, each one twenty feet high and ten feet across. There is a single massive, steel-reinforced stone bar across the door, but a great deal of stone and wood debris has been piled up against the door as well.

It doesn’t take long to clear the debris, I assume this was placed there by the designer in case the players try to run past the Bugbears without stealth or fighting them: then the Bugbears can charge them, or lob arrows at them from across the bridge while the players try to clear the debris. A nasty end for anyone who thought to rush past the fight!

As it is, the players clear the door and enter the first hall. It is moldly inside, and damp and cold, with a smell like age and decay. Every so often earth tremors rock the place and bits of rock and dust fall from the ceiling:

Beyond the main doors is a large vestibule with a vaulted ceiling. The walls look like they once bore runic carvings, but these have all been defaced. Plants from the hillside have infiltrated the tomb here, and bits of root and moss hang from cracks everywhere. This chamber is filled with refuse of all kinds: plant matter, the carcasses of small animals and insects, and the desiccated corpses of several species of humanoid. As light spills into the chamber, the floor comes alive with movement.

Attacking the players are some giant centipedes. This is the first adjustment I have to make. Insect creatures are treated very differently in fifth edition than they were in third. In third, poison was a really big deal, a threat to even high level parties. It’s still not great in Fifth edition, but saving throws are all around easier and because fifth edition has done away with the touch attack (which ignores armor) creatures like this have a much harder time landing hits. So even though I can (and do) describe gross bugs falling over Karinna from the ceiling, I can’t really simulate them being “on her” as I could in Pathfinder, and as the module intends.

I compensate by bringing back touch AC for this fight, letting the centipedes crawl inside armor and up leather jerkins to get their attacks. It’s not a perfect solution, but it keeps the proper difficulty for the fight, letting the centipedes land some hits while still bring pretty tame. In the future, I’ll probably take insect fights and use swarm statistics for them, as this seems to be the way that Fifth Edition “buffs” its insects at higher levels. That said, the only rule I miss from Pathfinder is the touch AC—it just makes so much sense in certain circumstances and creates a nice difficulty balance for parties that have a mixture of speedy rogues and tankish paladins. I don’t think it necessarily needs to come back as a hard rule applied to every combat, but it would be cool to see some monsters in future DnD 5 supplements gain abilities which ignore armor and rely on pure dodging by targeting AC + Dex directly.

Mine! Mine! Mine!

Tomb of Haggemoth is my favorite kind of dungeon, in that nearly every room in it (and most of the monsters) has a reason to be there. I love dungeons that are more natural settings, rather than just endless turns and twists of caverns. My earliest experiences with Dungeons and Dragons was when my father bought Undermountain for me when I was four. I didn’t play the game, but I read through each description of every room. They were like short stories, and one of the joys for me as a player to this day is when I come to a room in a dungeon and can ultimately puzzle out the history of what this used to be and how it came to be what it is now.

There is a really interesting logic to Haggemoth that results in the first half of the dungeon being harder than the second half, but as my players aren’t there yet, I’ll talk more about that later. For now, they come to the next hallway, after cleaning bug gunk off their boots:

This hallway is similar to the vestibule. All kinds of miscellaneous debris is scattered over the floor. The doors to the south and east have been battered and smashed beyond hope of repair, but the door to the north seems to be somewhat solid. The corridor narrows to the west, proceeding deeper into the mountainside.

There are a few dead ends here. West is the actual path forward. To the north is storage, but a vicious mold has overtaken it, turning everything to poisonous rot. To the south, a Xorn has recently burrowed into the area. Originally from the Elemental plane of Earth, he covets the gold and gems in the mountainside and has stayed, slowly gathering some precious rubies and diamonds. If he ever spots Karinna, he’ll lust immediately after her “Eye of Callax,” as it is an extremely large, extremely rare, and extremely beautiful gemstone. He also knows, intrinsicially, some of the secrets of this place, and can be compelled or bargained into sharing them if treated with proper respect and offered rewards. He knows one of the biggest secrets that my players still don’t know...

My group takes the North route and almost immediately is overcome by the mold, taking massive damage as the spores tear at their lungs. Fire kills the stuff, and one of them uses a torch to light up enough of the mold to render it harmless, but the damage is done. They decide to pull back and take a rest before adventuring further. And during the night, the Xorn attacks, snatching one of the soldiers (Biggs) and pulling him back inside the tomb. The players awaken and give chase and a quick combat ensures.

Xorns are cool. Old school DnD monsters, they represent a nice bit of world building in that they come from the elemental plane of earth, thus suggesting the larger universe that the fantasy game situates itself in. They can be a tough kill in DnD 5 because of their burrow ability, in which they disappear into the earth around them, becoming completely immune to all attacks. In one round, therefore, they can disappear into the earth, appear right below someone, and get an attack off. If they wait a round and successfully make a hide check, they can get the attack off at advantage for surprise. And depending on how you want to play it from there, you can add all sorts of bonuses to their attack and/or defense because they are burrowed (DnD 5 is intentionally loose on how these things work, letting DMs adjust the rules to their own style and game). I like to add some defensive AC bonuses, but I also like to be fair about retreating: if they reburrow while they are right underneath someone, it counts as a movement and gives the players opportunity attacks. Picture all the tentacles disappearing into the ground while the players hack at them...

The players don’t seek to barter with the Xorn, but go at it headlong, getting off some very good strikes very quickly. Before long, they have defeated it, even with it burrowing and opening up right under Abenthy (that crazy high AC is helping him immensely here).

Sadly, Biggs has perished in the attack, leaving them with only two of their NPCs to carry on through the dungeon. Which brings me to another topic.

Character Cards

Our campaign has never been without allies and helpers. some may remember the half-orc barbarian woman that the group hired in Ottoman’s Dock, who lost her life to Rose of Ottoman’s Dock, or the bodyguard of the Butcher of Skagos, who perished in the Icy Wastes during a fight with Worg Riders. These early NPCs were stated out fully, like Player Characters and taken over by one of my players. I didn’t like this system, because it made a lot of extra work for us. I had to create the characters, which made it difficult to throw in improvised NPCs and companions at any given moment, and put an extra burden of roleplaying and stat tracking on my players that I felt left either the NPC or their own PC with a little less investment. At the same time, just having NPCs be “background extras” that fit into description but had no actual effect on gameplay, didn’t feel right either.

My solution was to create Character Cards. I talked about this back around the time the party was going through the Desert of Thud but since then I have refined the process. Character Cards now give a multitude of in-combat and out-of-combat options for players to use. The current cards look like this:

Xaviee, Human Fighter

Once per combat: do 1d6 slashing damage to any opponent.

Once per combat: roll 1d6. If the result is a 5 or 6, then +2 to all ally attacks and damage this round.

Reaction: Block an attack completely. Roll 1d6. If the result is 1-4, Xaviee is permanently dead.

BLAZE OF GLORY: Sacrifice Xaviee to add +4 to all ally attacks and Damage this round.

Samuel, Human Guard

Once per combat: do 1d6 slashing damage to any opponent

Once per combat: do 2d6 slashing damage to any opponent. Roll 1d6, if result is 1 or 2, Samuel dies, permanently.

Once per combat: do 3d6 slashing damage to any opponent. Roll 1d6, if result is 1-4, Samuel dies, permanently.

Reaction: Block an attack completely. Roll 1d6, if result is 1-4, Samuel is permanently dead.

You can see how Xaviee is a little more powerful, because his abilities carry less risk of dying when he uses them, representing his higher level. This is a quick and surprisingly clean way for me to represent a usable NPC/retainer with very few stats. We don’t worry about placement of the NPC on our maps, or try to simulate enemies targeting them in combat. If they die because of their roll, it’s assumed they were hit enough times by the enemy to perish. If there are certain situations where it just doesn’t make sense that they can be used, like the heroes are fighting underwater and Xaviee has been left on shore, then we take them out of use for the combat. Simple is best.

It also builds more of a connection I feel between them and the players, as these are decently powerful “items” that they do not want to lose. I am reminded of Final Fantasy Tactics, where most of your party never have a single word to say during the story, but yet you care about them simply because you use them in combat. Because they are a part of your gameplay they actually end up being more a part of your story than the actual story, as for the most part 70% of an RPG is combat and gameplay and only 30% is cutscenes and exposition. Possibly that number is even lower in Dungeons and Dragons, depending on your play style.

The character cards will continue to morph and change as we continue to play and I seek the correct balance between gameplay and function.

Halls of Bone

Progressing forward, after a brief mourning for the lost Biggs, the players come to a gigantic hall filled with bones:

This large, columned hall is replete with various carvings and relief sculptures depicting traditional Dwarven motifs: the forge, the anvil, the pick and axe, the tankard, and so forth. What was once a reflecting pool down the center of the hall now contains a thick layer of slime. At one end of the room is a 10’ tall statue of a clean-shaven dwarf, wearing a studded belt and a rune-encrusted crown with three black gems set in it. To either side, a balcony looks down on the central chamber. Phosphorescent mold on the walls and ceiling provides a dim, greenish light. What strikes you most, however, is that the floor is littered with bones – uncountable skeletons of man and beast lay scattered around the room, some still clutching to the tattered and rusted remains of armor and weapons.

“This is a trap,” Abenthy says, and the others quickly agree.

They aren’t wrong, though it is an unusual trap.

In the original 3.5 module, crossing a line within 30 feet of the statue activates the bones, which become 3d6+1 miscellaneous skeleton creatures and 1 large skeletal creature. This happens every time the line is crossed, up to a maximum of 50 skeletons and 5 large skeletons, all armed differently. These are stated out so that the little skeletons are weak hitters but very hard to kill (with damage reduction and very high AC) and the large skeletons are brutally heavy hitters and also pretty tough to kill. The design of the trap is that the players will be surrounded and overwhelmed by a bunch of regular undead who soften them up for the killing blow done by the big skeleton. When this horde emerges, some players will fall back to ranged position, while others will move up to tank and deal damage. Problem for them is, every time they cross that invisible line, whether retreating or advancing, the trap reactivates. Soon players will be terrifyingly outnumbered. Quick thinking players will realize that the statue is creating the effect and target that, but even then, the summoned skeletons don’t disappear, and players can be left in a whole heap of trouble.

Overal, the intended effect of the trapis to terrify players and set them up to be wary moving forward. They do have the option of running away deeper into the tomb, but the very next hallway is filled with spinning blades. If the players can roll high enough dexterity, they can pass the blades and effectively put a unpassable barrier between themselves and the skeletons, but it will be a tense moment, as failing the roll does grave damage and knocks them backwards, right into the waiting hands of the undead.

Translating this encounter into a 5th edition battle appropriate to six or seventh level characters is a challenge. Skeleton hordes don’t pose quite the same threat in 5th edition. In 3.5, a horde of this size could roll enough dice to grapple or trip even high level characters, setting them up for deadly coup-de-graces by the large skeletons, or weakening their AC enough to allow even the weaker skeletons to get hits off. Trip doesn’t exist in 5th edition, though, and while grapple can set up for a deadly “grapple, force player to prone” combo, it doesn’t give all the bonuses or options that exist in 3.5. I could emulate this by giving the skeletons bonuses to their grapple checks and some special abilties once they have the players grappled, simulating the “Night of the Living Dead” aspects of this encounter, but it feels like it will cause this room to devolve into a series of mindless rolls, the players rolling much less dice than me, but with bigger bonsues. That game quickly can become old, especially if they are facing fifty skeletons.

Instead, I try to figure out what frightens me. I think of the Silent Hill games and those twitchy nurses. Then I think about a room with dozens of them and I have my answer.

I design three skeletons for this encounter. The basics are below:

Twitch Skeletons

These skeletons are small in statue and their arms end in sharp points rather than hands. They gyrate as they move across the floor towards you, their jaws clicking open and closed in a silent protest of the horrors their afterlife has become.

The Twitch skeletons make up about 16 of the skeletons in the room. They have a very high dexterity and a 40 ft movement speed. They also have multi-attack, letting them get off two attempts to deal damage. The damage is not high, nor is their life, but their attack bonus is +8 and their AC in the high teens. The point is that they can close quickly and surround a foe, and after that, they can easily wear them down. As an added bonus, if enough of them are killed, the rest of them do something... interesting...

Normal Hitter

Out of the bone piles emerge skeletal warriors, wearing tattered remains of armor and wielding rusted weaponary and ancient bows. As you watch, one reaches into the bone pile at its feet and pulls free a straight arm bone, which it then nocks to its bow and fires at you from across the balconied room.

Basically regular skeletons, but I improved their attack a little to let them get off the occasional hit. These guys are truly here to hamper and physically get in the way. I also give them a little bit of an interactive option with my third skeleton...

The Minotaur Colossal

Lying broken against the dwarven statue is a large creature, tendons and strands of muscle still connecting its various bones into a humanoid shape with a massive bull’s head. The horns of the skull are stained a dull red with dried blood and across its lap lies a massive axe. As the humming in the room subsides, you see to your horror the creature stirring. When it stands, it is nearly eleven feet tall. It moves its head about and one of its empty sockets fixates on you. With a grunt, the creature begins to move forward, slowly at first, but quickly gaining speed to a charge.

This is my version of the “big hitter” in the room. I only use one of him, and as such I’ve buffed him up a little bit. He is, at core, a Skeletal Guardian as described in the monster manual, but with boosted stats and I added in a bull rush ability that can gore a player and knock him prone. His big weakness is his size, making it hard for him to manuever around the room and easy to hit, and while he hits hard he is not as accurate as his twitchy buddies. He does have the ability to heal however by grabbing a normal hitter and reworking their bones into his own, healing himself for whatever hitpoints they have left (but of course destroying them in the process).

A Clean Sweep

Unaware of exactly what the trap is, the players proceed cautiously. First, they clamber up onto the balcony, thinking that will at least give them the higher ground if it comes to a sudden fight. Then they start using Abenthy and Tyrion’s shields as makeshift brooms to sweep the bones in front of them and off the balcony as they move, trying to avoid having any behind them. This proceeds well for a good long while. There are rooms up here, too, each one leading to a small chamber carved with murals that represent the journey towards power in Haggemoth’s life. There is a depiction of him learning all the schools of magic, there is a room showing his accumulation of massive wealth (it also holds a mimic that gives them some brief trouble), there is a room showing him forging great weapons of power (including, oddly enough, a set of scales that he seems keenly interested in), and there is one showing the banishment of Haggemoth from his people and his sailing on a golden ship towards the remote island of Rori Rama.

Eventually, the players come close enough to trigger the trap. They end up triggering it twice before Karinna finally has the idea of putting an arrow into its gemstones, smashing them until she hits the correct one. This stops the trap, but not the 36 or so skeletons that have arrisen to fight them, including the massive minotaur skeleton, who easily clambers on top of the balcony to give battle.

“Hold your ground!” shouted Abenthy, placing his shield in front of him and staring down the massive bone creature that stalked the upper balcony towards him. Behind the minotaur, the masses of twitching skeletons gathered like the sea held back by a dam.

“Fuck that,” Tyrion shouted in his shrill, nasally voice. He began to play his lute and light exploded suddenly behind the minotaur, so bright that Abenthy squinted and turned away. When he looked back, the skeletons were stumbling into each other, swiping at nothing, and had stopped making any forward progress.

“They are blinded!” Abenthy called out. “Now is our chance.”

“They are distracted,” Tyrion corrected, and then followed as Abenthy moved forward, the two of them raining down blows on the minotaurian skeleton until it leapt off the balcony to escape the onsault. Even as it leapt, though, skeletons gathered below it, climbing up onto it, shifting and becoming part of it. Here, a rib that Abenthy had shattered regrew, and there the arm that Tyrion had knocked sprawling as the creature leapt was reforming out of the bones of another skeletong. Meanwhile, more skeletons were clambering up the steps to the upper levels, and they shook their twitching fellows free of their spell and turned them towards the companions. Xaviee and Samuel were the first to see them coming and the two soldiers shouted warnings before falling back towards Karinna, who was quickly disappearing inside a cloud of darkness.

Karina has used this trick before, to strong effect, in the battle against the Bugbears. The skeletons are a little more “programmed” though; when they can no longer see or hear their targets, they quickly revert to “stand by” behavior, all except the minotaur who is in a rage and goes wandering around inside the cloud of darkness, searching for the players. He finds Abenthy and takes a swing at him with a huge axe. Samuel jumps in front of the blow (using character card here) and miraculously survives, but is tossed backwards by the force of the swing, disappearing deeper in the darkness. With no hope of finding him, the players beat a haphazard retreat, making their way up the stairs towards the tomb entrance. The minotaur follows for a brief moment but after finding himself surrounded and taking some solid hits, he flees back to the bone room to recover.

Now there is a moment to breath. The players have been badly hurt. No one has fallen unconcious, but their spells are depleted (from healing, mostly) and their two companions do not seem to have made the escape with them.

“We cannot leave them in there,” Abenthy states.

Tyrion doesn’t share his dedication to companions. “They’ll be fine,” he says in his heavy accent. “Just let’s get some sleep and I’m sure they’ll find their way back to us.”

But Abenthy is implacable and begins making his way back towards the room. The others hurry to follow, Karina’s cloak of darkness wearing off and trailing wisps of ink-black fog behind her as they descend the stairs towards the bone room.

It breathed. There in the center of the room, crouched with the other skeletons crawling over it like ants on a hill, it breathed. The creature had grown two extra arms, fashioned from the bones of its fellows. And it looked up as they entered.

“Shit,” Karina said, nocking an arrow to her bow. But Abenthy was already striding forward, his arms flung wide, roaring a challenge that was answered in kind by a shriek from the minotaur. It rose, stamped its bony hooves, and then it charged.

Karina was not sure how it happened, but suddenly Samuel was back at Abenthy’s side, and Xaviee was charging out from behind a pillar as well. The blow that would have skewered Abenthy, armor and all, instead shattered Samuel’s spine. The horn that impaled him was wide as a man’s arm and long as a spear. Samuel was lifted into the air as the beast raised its head and shook from side to side until the body of the poor soldier was flung away. Then Xaviee was there, striking at the creature’s back, and Abenthy was moving now, too. His blade shimmering with dark flame, he struck at the creature’s four arms as they reached for him to pull him apart. Behind her a mournful song was being song. Tyrion had pulled free his lute and was singing, each word soudning like sobs, like childhood, like wine spilled in rain, like sadness. She was crying, whether from the song or from everything that had happened to her in her entire life, but she was also fighting, loosing arrow after arrow at the great skeletal beast. And finally, with a mournful sound like the wind escaping a dark cave, the skeletal minotaur collapsed and was still.

Abenthy ran to Samuel, preparing a spell to heal him, but the damage was too far gone. The man was broken beyond basic healing and was taking his last breaths.

“There is another creature,” he said, blood bubbling between his lips. “One formed of the many. It escaped, into a crack in the wall. It is waiting, watching...”

Nothing more did he say. His final warning hung over them and they all felt cold.

Next post takes our players deeper into the tomb, as they encounter deadly traps and deal with the Things Left Undone in the Halls of Bone.

#dnd 5e #tomb of haggemoth #playthrough #epic #Dungeons and Dragons #Journey Log #Wizards of the Coast #fantasy #RPG

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theragamuffininitiative · 7 years

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Newsies Live, a review of sorts

So it’s looking like the reply I wrote up last night for @party-with-books on mobile, during a wifi issue, is just not going to ever post and is lost to the netherworld, which is unfortunate because, even if nothing I said was coherent, I wrote it while everything was still fresh and I was still on the most beautiful ecstasy high - the kind you can’t get arrested for. But I’m gonna try to do the play justice here, and using a lot of gifs, XD so we shall see.

Guys. Guys. Guuuuyyysssss. I just can’t. Let me start by saying I have never seen a stage production of Newsies. I’ve been listening to the soundtrack for months, but for a lot of the bits the stage show has added or edited from the original film’s story, I had absolutely zero context for, and the soundtrack is sadly missing like a crap ton of reprises. Therefore, if you care about spoilers, I suggest you stop reading this and wait for the dvd to come out or something, because I don’t feel like holding anything back.

After that note, where the heck do I even begin? The production itself. And by that, I don’t just mean the sets and the cast and the lighting and the camera. Nah, primarily at this point, I mean Spectacle.

I’ve now seen a good number of shows, in various formats, but none of them have been so energetic, alive, and overwhelming. The dancing is superb. I know for the filming they pulled out all the stops, with bigger leaps, more twirls, and a larger number of Newsies on stage, and let me tell you, IT WAS WORTH IT. A stage filled with forty or more singing, tap-dancing, leaping Newsies is a sight to behold.

I mean, there was this:

This is Ryan Steele, as Specs, doing the full-out twirl. Our Specs was played by the amazing Jordan Samuels, but it’s a different cast member entirely who performs this move, and we get a sky high view of the spin, which I’m pretty sure is faster and longer, and the entire theater gasped and applauded.

There were hundreds and hundreds of flips, spins, cartwheels, splits, jumps, tricks, and moves I cannot name. There was tap dancing on tables. I HAVE NEVER SEEN A DANCING TROUPE OF THIS LEVEL OF EXCELLENCE IN SUCH AN EXTRAVAGANT SHOWING EVER.

The set and staging was absolutely dynamite, and it will never cease to astound me how theatrical productions can amass an entire world on a few hundred feet of stage.

Near the end of “Once and For All” the Newsies completely drop out on the vocals and then come roaring back in, and again, my entire theater gasped in awe and delight, and I was crying and covered in goosebumps.

As for Jack...

Jeremy Jordan is the definitive Jack Kelly for me, okay?

If you’re a die hard Christian Bale or Corey Cott fan or anyone else, I’m sorry, but it’s true. There will never be another player who so fully encompasses that role for me. His Jack is so intense and passionate the. entire. time. Every single thing he says and does. The only moments we see him physically relax at all are when he’s with Crutchie (and we’re too busy crying to notice) or sharing the stage with Katherine.

And that brings me to Katherine Plumber. I was not especially anticipating her role, I have to admit. I love my Denton too much, and I was horribly concerned that the romantic angle between her and Jack would be too strong, taking away from the real love story of the play, that of this family whose name is Newsies. But I couldn’t be happier with her character and Kara Lindsay’s performance. She was amazing, and I could feel the rest of the audience connecting with her too. “Watch What Happens” is just one of her shining moments, and I am in love with her, and so happy of the way the writers brought her character in.

It’s also beautiful to weave in the feminine vocals of Katherine with the only other female singing cast member, Medda Larkin (our very own being played by Aisha de Haas) in the middle of all those guys. Don’t get me wrong, because the Newsies chorus is the epitome of what makes the show so great, but having those softer moments and the gals singing brings enough of a change that it completely enlivens every other male vocal in the story.

Okay, enough being calm, rational, and technical for a minute. Let me “be real.”

I Am Not Okay. Not in this or any other universe will I ever be the same.

(The rest of this post is probably going to just be me screaming at random about different things.)

CRUTCHIE. HOLY COW. CRUTCHIE MY BABY. “Letter From the Refuge” absolutely killed me. THE FREAKIN ATTACK ON CRUTCHIE FREAKIN KILLED ME. Just him standing with Jack in the prologue with “Santa Fe.” THERE ARE NO GIFS FOR THIS. Andrew Keenan Bolger is of such high caliber, I can’t even begin to describe how much I love him in this role.

I BASICALLY CRIED SO HARD WHEN THE BULLS CLOSE IN ON THE NEWSIES. AND WHEN JACK SEES THEY HAVE CRUTCHIE. I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO BE SICK.

Oh, yeah, also, little itty bitty detail here i was completely unaware of BROADWAY VERSION JACK KELLY IS A FLIPPIN ARTIST?????!!!! LIKE WHAT????!!!! OH.MY.GOSH. I LOVE THIS ANGLE SO MUCH. KAJLLGDFHLJFGHIERUNZUIZLGRF. HE’S PAINTING SANTA FE GUYS. LSLDGJAGKJHRUIGKNG. During “I Never Planned On You” he draws Katherine and the LED screen that assisted the set showed him sketching her as they talked and sang AND IDK IF THAT HAPPENS USUALLY IN THE STAGE PRODUCTION BUT I AND MY FRIEND AND PROBABLY EVERYONE ELSE WAS LIKE “HOLY CRAP AWWWW OHMYGOSH HOW PRECIOUS HOW PURE I’M NOT CRYING AT ALL NO” SO YEAH THAT IS A THING THAT HAPPENED.

Little Les is amazing. Like, in the old movie, he wasn’t so much a character as a plot device. He was literally the little boy with the cute face who could sell the papes. In this, Les is the one who strikes up the deal with Jack, and Les is the one who shouts a message for Pulitzer as the guard closes the door in their faces. He is so precocious and adorable and perfect, and so much more a character in his own right, I am so pleased.

DID I MENTION BEN FANKHAUSER AS DAVEY???

HIS SINGING. HIS ACTING. HIS CHARACTER AND INTERACTIONS WITH JACK AND LES. The confrontation between him and Jack later on when Davey is trying to get Jack to rejoin the Strike, and he says “it’s not like anyone died” and Jack whirls on him in rage, because of what happened to Crutchie, who could very well die at that point. I COULDN’T HANDLE. And when Davey reminds him what they’re fighting for, and why they shouldn’t stop. PERFECT BOYS, PERFECT.

AND I ALMOST FORGOT RACETRACK LAJKDHF. Race is my favorite Newsie from the old movie, and I was not disappointed by him here. Benjamin Cook is an adorable angel and my favorite bit of him probably has to be when he is staring wide-eyed at Governor Roosevelt at the end, so happy and in awe. Unfortunately I can’t find any gifs of him either arg.

AND SPOT, HOW COULD I MISS SPOT CONLON Tommy Bracco’s performance left nothing to be desired, he was as spot-on as his character’s name. WE ARE BROOKLYN NEWSIES

Oh.

Oh, and then there was This:

I HATE/LOVE THIS PART OF THE STORY SO MUCH. When Pulitzer forces Jack’s hand, makes him face the Newsies and turn on them, in order to save them and save Crutchie and Davey and Les, but Pulitzer also gives him money to go to Santa Fe and that is all the Newsies ever see. LKDJFLHDHFAJDHFLA MY HEART HURTS

I love Jack Kelly more than Raoul or the Phantom, or Dimitri, or Valjean or Marius or Enjolras, or even arguably Fiyero. I feel every single beat of “Santa Fe” as it blooms and changes from dream to dust to dream.

I adore how the stage version plays up the affect the Newsies strike had on child laborers everywhere, how Jack proclaims it isn’t only Newsies’ rights they’re striking for.

The singing was absolutely flawless. Flawless I tell you.

IDK GUYS I JUST DON’T HAVE ANY COMPLAINTS OK

This is on par with the night I saw Wicked on tour. I will be buying the DVD. I will watch it at least once a year. I guess, if I wasn’t before, I’m a Fansie now.

So, yeah, to close: I don’t think I will ever find another thing on this earth that impacts every bit of my soul as much as musical theater does. That is a part of me I will never outgrow, and never give up. Doesn’t matter if I ever make it to see a show on Broadway, or if I ever get on behind the scenes at a theater company. This is me.

This is an experience I want to relive every day for as many days as I have. I laughed, I cried, I came home to my roomies in such a state of embarrassed, blissful exhilaration you’d think I just came home from my first date with the love of my life - which is a completely accurate comparison.

I cried so much, I laughed so hard. #NewsiesForever and all that. There is so much more I could say, so much I feel like I am completely leaving out. But truthfully, when it comes right down to it, there are no words in the human language to describe this experience and how thrilled I am that I was able to go, that I live in the same universe as this caliber of artistry and storytelling. This phenomenon is beyond anything I can say, so I’ll stop trying. ;)

I hope that answers anyone’s questions to whether or not I enjoyed Newsies Live.

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doomonfilm · 5 years

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Favorites : Fight Club (1999)

If one had to pick a film that serves as a bridge for what life was like pre-9/11 versus what it would eventually become, they’d be hard pressed to find a more perfect film to epitomize the changing times than Fight Club. Be it by purposeful design or sheer dumb brilliance, the combination of Chuck Pahlaniuk’s instantly classic novel and David Fincher’s adaptational direction became a moment in cinema that solidified the careers of many, inspired countless individuals, and made a statement for the future at a time that many of us were not woke enough to see or understand.

Our Narrator (Edward Norton), an automobile recall agent suffering from an intense bout of insomnia, finds himself looking to shed the nihilistic feeling by searching for connections based in suffering. He finds temporary escape via support groups for survivors of a vast array of cancers, but this escape is shattered by the emergence of Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter), a ‘tourist’ who visits the support groups for the same reasons as our Narrator, but makes no effort to hide the fact that she does not belong. In frustration, the two set a tenuous agreement to split the support groups, and phone number are exchanged. On a business trip following this decision, the Narrator meets Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), an eccentric soap salesman with a magnetic personality, whom he makes a connection with. Upon returning home, the Narrator finds that his apartment has ‘exploded’, and in an act of desperation, he calls Tyler, who offers him a place to stay. As the duo start to spend more time with one another, a bond forms, and their conversations on manhood and society quickly morph into Fight Club, a place where men going through a similar phase as Tyler and the Narrator can get their frustrations out, repercussion-free. Things, as in life, are not what they seem, however, and as Fight Club morphs into Project Mayhem, all involved are forced to face the organization and themselves, warts and all.

Something about the combination of Chuck Palahniuk’s writing, and the subsequent pinpoint precision that David Fincher brings to those ideas via his adaptation, was so on the nose and ahead of the curve that time has provided clarity and context to the film. Ideas of toxic masculinity, capitalism and consumerism as personal identities and domestic terrorism with a familiar face all took center stage, and without a mention of the internet or mass media within the world of the film (two elements that have made the world of Fight Club and the real world indiscernible in modern times). These ideas that did not have labels at the time, in conjunction with the caveman therapy of fighting to prove self-worth, and the secret society aspect that creates an inclusionary vacuum with an ‘us versus them’ mentality, makes Fight Club a sort of modern day parable.

The things that Fight Club has to say in regards to therapy, self-examination and self-medication are equally compelling. When all of the theatrics are stripped away, and things are looked at via a very base level of examination, the film seems to harp on a few key points that connect to those elements : therapy, regardless of form, is a healthy need; self-examination is a must for understanding of the individual and their place in the world; and, probably most importantly, self-medication is dangerous, even with the supposed knowledge and wisdom that those other two elements bring to the table. The dual nature of the Tyler Durden character in itself becomes a reflection on troubled individuals and how, with a bit of convincing, these individuals can not only be accepted by general society, but in odd instances, admired and followed, as everyone is seemingly waiting for someone to take that bold first step.

As for production elements, Fight Club could be considered a modern art masterpiece. The editing tonally matches the disjointed nature of events and our main characters perfectly. Many of the digital effects employed ratchet up the tension quite well, be it taking details of harrowing situations down to terrifying detail or skewing frames to further blur the lines between the film’s perceived and actual realities. The writing is whip-smart, both comedically and in terms of being poignant, with many of the monologues coming off as manifestos that one could probably blindly pick out of the head of the average American male. The Dust Brothers sonically match the intensity of the film with their score, which also fits in with the sound design perfectly parallel. References to pop culture are littered throughout the film as well, making it quite the meta-journey : Forrest Gump, 12 Monkeys, the Bobbitt situation and much more find themselves sprinkled into the narrative.

Some actors embody their characters to a degree that they become inseparable, and Brad Pitt manages to do this as Tyler Durden through a mix of perfect line reads, attitude and physicality. Edward Norton manages to become the human embodiment of malaise and depression, so much so that his yang manifests as a symmetrically perfect counterpoint to Pitt’s yin. Helena Bonham Carter provided a breakout performance, turning her damage into surprisingly charming qualities, her inability to show the slightest hint of emotion as a strong suit, and oddly, being the exact romantic interest that Pitt/Norton’s dual existence needed to be believable. Meat Loaf turns what could have been a throwaway joke of a character into a sympathetic yardstick the audience can use for a true understanding of how manipulative Norton’s character initially is, with his zest and eventual martyrdom serving as significant character development points for Norton. Jared Leto provides a brief but memorable appearance as Angel Face, with his presence symbolizing innocence, and his corruption showing how it becomes victim to all of the previous ‘ism’s’ mentioned.

The true experience of Fight Club cannot be done justice in a handful of paragraphs on a blog. For my money’s worth, not since Natural Born Killers has a film been so visually stimulating and thought-provoking, while also seeming to gain relevance as the years go by.

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bryanclaesch · 7 years

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Hey, everyone.

Continuing with my series of Top 10 Reasons Why (this-character) Should Be Your Favorite, this time, we'll be looking at everyone's favorite emo kitty-cat Batman, Blake Belladonna. I'd also like to thank my friend Michaela Roan and RWBY Wonderland admin Blake Belladonna for their help in making this list.

And if you guys want to make sure you don't miss the next Top 10 RWBY post, subscribe to my RWBY mailing list: http://eepurl.com/cWX8Fj. And if you really want to show me the love, support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.con/bryanclaesch.

Let's get to it!

"Blake..."

So, Blake... so... Blake-y. I'll be honest, before I started writing the Novelization and before Volume 4, I really didn't like Blake. I didn't get the hype. She felt more like a stock character than the other members of RWBY and it still feels like she has the least characterization of them all. So it can be difficult for me to get into that Blake-mindset, but I'll do my best to explain why people like her so much.

1. "And what about you, Blake?! You seem to carry yourself with a sense of purpose."

"There's too much wrong in this world to just stand by and do nothing. Inequality. Corruption. Someone has to stop it."

Perhaps Blake's strongest asset is her strong sense of justice. Having lived through injustice and even committing unjust acts, Blake knows how far the crimes of others reach and how deeply ingrained they are in the world. Desiring real equality through real change, Blake left the White Fang and became a huntress all for the sake of rooting out the corruption. And even though she isn't quite clear on how to go about it, she's still fighting which is more than most people can say.

2. "There's no such thing as pure evil!"

This one confuses me a little, especially because I do believe in pure evil. (His name is Satan.) I got this from Michaela, so if it confuses you too, blame her.

Anyway, the argument here is that since Blake has been from both the right side and wrong side of the tracks, she can see the motivations behind every action and doesn't actually see people as necessarily evil. At the worst, they're just misguided. Who knows? Perhaps one of the reasons why Blake left the White Fang is because she pitied the White Fang and Adam. Blinded by their prejudices, she sees them not as evil, but handicapped, and so they can't objectively see the harm they're doing.

3. Psychomachia

I'm sure that's a new word for a lot of ya! But I bet Blake knows its meaning.

Anyway, psychomachia is a fancy word for the phenomenon of the angel and devil that sit on either of your shoulders and tell you what to do. Nearly all of Blake's existence has been tied to a battle between good and evil. She is that battle, and she constantly struggles with how to live a normal, virtuous life when her life has been darkened by everything she's done. We even get to see this battle play out as she struggles with the decision to just kill Torchwick or let him live in No Brakes. Her sense of morality and the struggle she faces reflects how others also struggle with the fight between good and evil.

Luckily though, Blake has her own sun who'll never stop brightening her world just like how morning always follows night.

Suck on that Bumblebee shippers! Blake's light is a sun, not a firecracker.

4. Redemptive

Blake fell in with a very bad crowd. She stole, she hurt, and quite possibly maimed or even murdered. (We don't know.) But Blake had the perspective to see what she was doing and what she was becoming, and she was repulsed by it. So, she left and got back on the right path. And as her father points out, she faced the White Fang, her demons, again and again, and she always came out on top rather than running away or changing her stripes for the sake of survival. Her story is one of redemption, and the audience always loves a good redemption story.

"I should have left the White Fang with you and Mom."

5. "I've heard students visiting from Vacuo will be arriving by ship today. And as a representative of Beacon, I feel as though it is my solemn duty to welcome them to this fine kingdom."

"She wants to spy on them so she'll have the upper hand in the tournament."

Not much gets past Blake. Is it the Faunus eyes? The life of a criminal? Or is she just naturally sharp? (Ow! I cut myself!)

Whatever it is, Blake can see through the BS whatever the situation, whether it be Weiss' feigned diplomacy, the goodwill gift of Menagerie, or that there's no good reason for the White Fang to be working with Torchwick. Blake's got the eyes of a hawk.

6. "General Lagoon was inexperienced and made the mistake of trying to ambush the Faunus in their sleep. His massive army was outmatched, and the general was captured. Perhaps if he had paid attention in class, he wouldn't have been remembered as such a failure."

Besides being perceptive, Blake studies. The girl knows her history, and although it's easy to assume she would've known that since she's a Faunus, we must also remember that in Volume 2 when she becomes obsessed with finding Torchwick and the White Fang, one of her problems that Weiss mentions is that her grades started to slip meaning she had grades that could slip. (I can't even claim that! But I don't go to school anymore.) And! The way Blake went searching for the White Fang and Torchwick suggests a studious, researcher mentality what with checking out books and searching the web. Blake's not your stereotypical cat-furry--she's got brains.

7. "Plus she likes books!"

If you were asked to name two things that Blake likes, what would you say? Adam? No! Yang? Maybe. Sun? Depends on the situation. But two things that you'll never go wrong with are books and tea. This may sound a little strange, but for those of us who like books and tea, it's great to see a character with these traits. Especially tea--there's too much coffee in the world! And books and tea go together perfectly. What's the perfect drink to have when you're reading? Tea! What's the best thing to do while drinking a cup of tea? Reading! See? It works splendidly.

8. Mmm, mmm. Yeah, yeah.

Have you guys ever been on YouTube and seen those RWBY Crack videos? Most of them suck, but some are genius. One I saw played that crappy song "Mmm mmm yeah yeah" by Austin Mahone over the footage of Blake walking away from Ruby after helping her with Weiss, and for the first time ever, I had to recognize the fact that Blake has a great booty. It's shallow, I know. But I mentioned Ruby being cute and guess what I'm going to say about Yang. That's right. Steel yourselves. But my point here is that while Blake is overshadowed by Yang, she's no slouch herself in terms of physical beauty. And I think all our hearts melted when we saw her in her prom dress.

9. "Now that's a katana!"

The Gambol Shroud is an interesting weapon. It's a sword, it's a gun, it's sheathe is a sword, and it's got a ribbon and can be thrown like a kunai. While I never would've thought of this as a viable weapon design because there's too much going on and there are better gunblade designs, Blake's weapon is effective and adaptable. In fact, there are times when it's more of a tool than a weapon. And if the Samurai or Ninja could've gotten their hands on the Gambol Shroud, they would have definitely used it. It's a pretty cool katana. (But admittedly Jetsteam Sam's is cooler.)

His sword is also a gun!

Can Blake's sword do that?

Hmm... not bad, actually.

10. "Here. This should help you."

On the surface, Blake's shadow clones don't seem to be anything special. She dodges and leaves a copy of herself to take the hit--what's so great about that? Well, Blake's semblance has a few extra advantages. For instance, she doesn't just dodge, she can use the clones to change the direction of her movement on a dime. She can go from flying right at Torchwick to the train car floor a safe distance away. Or, she can be flying through the air and then use her shadow clones to move her into attack position to take on a giant Nevermore.

Add dust charges to her Gambol Shroud and she can show you a whole range of new tricks from freezing an enemy's weapon in place to blowing them up. And if Weiss' semblance can evolve, I wonder what will happen when Blake's also evolves. Because lets face it, no one predicted Weiss being able to summon her fallen foes or how dust could help Blake. Just goes to show that Miles and Kerry still have a few tricks up their sleeves, and that we still don't know everything there is to know about Blake. How exciting.

And there you have it. The Top 10 Reasons why Blake should be your favorite character.

Ugh!

If you guys think I missed any, go ahead and put them in the comments below.

Keep writing, my friends.

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#RWBY #RWBY Chibi #Blake Belladonna #sun wukong #arryn zech #Miles Luna #Kerry Shawcross #gray haddock #Monty Oum #RWBY Wonderland #jetstream sam #metal gear rising

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mayoperry-blog · 7 years

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Six Unsent Letters

This is a project I did for an English 3 class in sophomore year. After reading “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992″ by Anne Deavere Smith, I responded to the written play in a series of letters that I wish I could send to the characters in the play or to the world.

Dear Latasha, You were too young. Just like that, your life were cut short by Soon Ja Du with to a single bullet. Du was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter, which has a maximum sentence of 16 years in prison. That’s some consolation, right? The judge gave Du probation, 400 hours of community service and a $500 dollar fine. Apparently your life is worth 16 days of community service and a couple hundred dollars. This horrific injustice did not go unnoticed. Your murder, along with Rodney King’s beating sparked outrage in Los Angeles that eventually turned into riots in 1992. You are not forgotten. I’m assuming you like Harry Potter, because you were 15 and what teenager doesn’t like Harry Potter, or at least heard of him? One of my favorite moments comes in the last book, when Harry is speaking to his parents and those who have guided him, and given their lives for him. “‘Dying? Not at all,’ said Sirius. ‘Quicker and easier than falling asleep’ ”. I hope this is how it was for you. I know that your family tries to take comfort in the fact that you did not suffer, nor did you have a single moment to feel the pain caused by that woman. No one has forgotten you, even now. Even after all these years, you are still as relevant as ever. On the 25th anniversary of your death, your family and community gathered where you died. They held candles and exchanged memories of your life cut short. The late rapper 2Pac referenced you in his posthumous 2002 hit, “Thugz Mansion”. Shakur raps, “Little LaTasha sho' grown/Tell the lady in the liquor store that she's forgiven, so come home”. The song talks about how he would rest in peace and find happiness when he is in a place where all the troubles and pains of his life come to an end. 2Pac also dropped names of African American icons, including Marvin Gaye, Billie Holiday, Sam Cooke, and Malcolm X. You are referenced among those who made an impact on the world and the African American community, because you’ve done exactly that. You have not been forgotten, and you have pushed your people to begin the contemporary fight for equality and justice in the eyes of the government. Latasha, you have done more for your people than you will ever know, and I hope that you, wherever you are, can realize that. You have not, and will never be forgotten.

Rest In Paradise Latasha. Sincerely,

Perry Mayo

Dear Mr. King, You are a legend. After your infamous beating from the LAPD, you became the face of your people. They fought, and are still fighting, in your name among others for justice. Your excessive beating stemmed from a high speed chase that ended with you on the ground. Although only two of the four attacking police officers were indicted for your attack, it lit the fuse on a deadly civil bomb. On May 1, 1992, you came forward with a plea for peace. You requested, "People, I just want to say, can we all get along? Can we get along? Can we stop making it horrible for the older people and the kids?" You are exactly correct. There’s nothing standing in the way of justice except insane bigotry, groundbreaking excuses, and white privilege that goes back for generations. You were not the first to experience unfair treatment from those who believe themselves to be better than you, and you won’t be the last. There were the jews, the Hispanics, the African Americans, and people of color in general. Now, a new group that just has to be oppressed, the LGBTQ+ community, with a special bright red target on those who identify as transgender. Your bravery and resilience empowered those who were too afraid to stand up to their oppressors, and has inspired the silent to voice their opinions. You know what I find almost laughable? The blatant double standard for blacks versus the whites. You’ve experienced this first hand, and you won’t be the last person to do so. You were caught in a high speed chase, and then beat within minutes of death, while in 2012, Dylann Roof was captured by the police after killing nine African Americans in a church in Charleston, North Carolina. You were nearly killed for driving 110 miles per hour, while Roof was taken into custody and given a bulletproof vest during transportation. Why protect the life of a homicidal maniac, while endangering that of a speedy driver? Thank you for your fighting spirit. I’m glad that your people have such a strong sense of unity and fight, because your uphill battle for justice is long from over. History will inevitably repeat itself, but I know that you are ready for the fight, and you will overcome whatever obstacles are thrown in your path. I can only hope that you are proud of yourself for sparking this revolution, and that you realize how many doors you opened for your people. Rest in peace, Rodney.

Sincerely, Perry Mayo

Dear Miss Rae, or Queen Malkah, Author Ralph Ellison wrote that as an African American “I am invisible... simply because people refuse to see me...When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination—indeed everything and anything except me.” You can relate and absolutely agree, I’m sure. After the murder of Latasha Harlins, you spoke out about the unity of the African Americans, and your opinion on Charles Lloyd, a wellknown black attorney, and how he represented and defended Soon Ja Du, who had killed one of his fellow African Americans. You’re right. He sold his card. He’s a sellout, trading in the pride of his ethnicity and the history for a fat paycheck. He doesn’t deserve to stand by you, if you thought for one second that he was a loss, you are sorely mistaken. He is as useless as a bicycle to a fish in my eyes. It’s people like you who will keep the fight alive, and keep spirits high. You value unity and standing together, especially in times of oppression and opposition. You recognize the disparity of justice between the African Americans, or people of color for that matter, and the white community. Not only do you recognize it, you speak out against it, something many would not do in the 1990s. You see beyond the fake promises of the Pledge of Allegiance for God’s sake. Liberty and justice for all, as long as you’re white, cisgendered, and heterosexual. What a great country we live in. You told Anna Deavere Smith, “ifthewhitemediadoesnotdecidetoprintsomethingthathappenstous,wewon’tknow/ ... Because justice denied Latasha Harlins/Is justice denied every American citizen.” Once again, your majesty, you’ve hit the nail right on it’s pretty little head. Skin tone doesn’t determine what someone deserves, in any circumstance. As soon as people see things from your point of view, the world will be infinitely better. You’d be proud, I think. With all of the movements that have sprung from your injustice, from chanting “Hands up, don’t shoot”, to staging “dieins” based on the times that the victims cried for help or lay slain on the sidewalk, I’d imagine that you’re pretty proud. You’ve always been aware of the fact that based on the amount of melanin in your skin, you will have higher, harsher, and millions more hurdles than any of us out here, any of us trying to get by. But you, my dear, have navigated those roadblocks with ease and the grace of a golden pheasant. Your people need someone like you.

Here are my instructions for you, Queen Malkah: When times get tough, and big, bad history rears it’s head and tries to trample you and your spirits, you be there to lead your people. You hold your head high, raise your sword to the sky, unleash a battle cry more chilling than death itself, and run. Sprint headfirst into injustice, slashing anything in your way and reduce it to a dust. You charge, and you fight, and fight, and fight until you can’t fight anymore. Even then, you push through, until you’ve made it to the other side with your people close behind. Once you are in the beautiful forest clearing with your warriors surrounding you, only then, can you relax and celebrate your victory as equals of those who have pushed you down. But until then, rally your troops, and continue your battle for equality. We’ll be behind you, waiting for your cues. Thank you, your highness, I applaud you for your bravery.

Sincerely, Perry Mayo, a willing warrior at your service.

Mr. Zimmerman, I will not start this letter with “dear”, because that word implies adoration. You murdered an innocent man. It doesn’t matter if Trayvon Martin seemed “suspicious”. You were told, by the authorities, to star in your SUV and to not approach the teenager. Even if it was self defense, you went against the orders of police and instigated a fight with Trayvon, which ended with the teenager dead in the street. That’s not the worst part, I believe. In my eyes, the most sadistic part of the situation came after you murdered a 17yearold boy. You put the gun used to kill Trayvon online, and tried to auction it off. Bidding in an online auction for the gun reached $65 million at one point as people on the Internet drove the offers to astronomic levels. Many of those were sarcastic, George, I can assure you that. A top bidder whose account has been since deleted, at one point used the name “Racist McShootface”. Another bidder competed for the weapon under the name Tamir Rice, another victim of police brutality. Tamir was killed by police while carrying a toy gun. He was 12. I just want to make it known that people are against you. I also hope that you know that by murdering Trayvon, you added about a thousand gallons of fuel to the fire that is propelling the black community. So, in a dark, twisted sense of the phrase, thank you, George. Thank you for showing adults that they can’t trust the police or neighborhood watch to keep their community safe or their children alive. Thank you for teaching teenagers that they should stay clear of the police instead of going to them for help. Thank you for teaching kids that the police are more dangerous than criminals themselves, and that you won’t protect them, you’ll kill them. Thank you for giving the next generation and the generations to come a precautionary tale about what happens when white privilege is added to racism, and multiplied by an accessible deadly weapon. So thank you, again really, thank you George, for opening our eyes to more horrors, and teaching us that monsters aren’t just in closets or under beds, on wanted posters or in jail. They’re on our streets, wearing government uniforms, and are trusted with the responsibility protecting the community. Thank you, George Zimmerman, for pushing the black community to fight that much harder for themselves, against people like you.

Sincerely, Perry Mayo

Dear Mr. Garner, You did not die in vain. After being choked to death for selling loose cigarettes, you became one of the faces that headed the “Black Lives Matter” movement. Your plea for help. “I can’t breathe!”, is being used as a battle cry for those fighting for justice. It’s not just in your city, or just those who know you. For two days in a row, a group of white collar professionals staged “dieins” in support of calls for increased police accountability following the deaths of unarmed black men. Also, dozens African American men gathered on the front steps of the courthouse in downtown L.A. and held a silent vigil for those who have died in police confrontations. At about the same time in Oakland, protesters chained themselves to the city Police Department's headquarters. You helped fuel a movement that is sweeping this nation. Don’t you ever doubt for a second that you died for nothing. Something I find sick is that media has tried to humanize your killer. Daniel Pantaleo, the NYPD officer who choked you, has received so many death threats that a police detail guards his Staten Island home around the clock. People want to avenge you. The media has tried to cover up the crime of Pantaleo, by telling us about his childhood, his achievements, his innocence. They tell us about his teachers glowing comments, and that he received awards as an honorable Eagle Scout. We see past that. We know that the media is whitewashing your death, and making it seem like you asked for it. They say, “well, he was a threat who needed to be subdued”. It’s all bullshit. We know, and we are fighting for others to join us. Your untimely death has helped millions realize the type of false reality that we live in, and you’ve opened people’s eyes to the fact that the police aren’t always the good guys, and that black men aren’t always the bad guys. You’ve given people another reason to fight, and one more name to drop when the topic of injustice is breached. With three words, you’ve dumped gallons of butane on the roaring wildfire of black rage, and for good reason. “I can’t breathe”, and the entire black community is suffocating. You’ve given everyone, black or not, stranger or family member, one more thing to fight for. You should be proud of yourself, even if it doesn’t feel that way. Just know that you’ve done well by yourself and your community. I hope that you can finally breathe. Rest In Paradise, Eric.

Sincerely, Perry Mayo

Dear World That I Live In, These past two years, I’ve had my eyes opened to the world around me, and the world within myself. I have not yet fully come to consciousness, for that takes hundreds of years. I personally believe that no one has ever completely come to consciousness. What even is consciousness in the first place? Who am I to determine when or how one has their eyes opened to everything and anything, to the core of what holds our thoughts together, and what keeps us from literally going insane? I’ll tell you what consciousness is. Consciousness is everything and nothing. It is the balance between finding codependence and self love. It is realizing why we’re here and what we’re doing, while also not questioning why or how or what, and just being. You don’t need answers.

Consciousness is. How do we come to consciousness? How does one begin to become aware, while remaining in their personal matrix? We don’t. Here’s the only thing that we can do. Fall back into your beingness, let it catch you, and you are at home. There is nothing to do, nothing to change, nothing to fix. Just be. History repeats itself. The same ideas circle around every hundred years, and every hundred years, those same ideas drag the human race to the lowest of low,, to the depths of rock bottom. We sit, and wallow, and fight, until finally, one or two sensible people realize what humans have done to each other, and they pull us back up to a point where we can once again be proud of ourselves. When any given group oppresses another, the oppressed will soon enough turn around and take down another group. The vicious cycle has killed billions and will continue to kill until the world is reduced to a devastatingly singular and lonely person who has no one left, for everyone else was killed by the cyclical hate. One will remain, after the rest of the world has committed global suicide.

You, my dear, are sailing on the widespread and glistening wings of pure imagination if you think, for a single second, that the human race can go forth without destroying itself through a made up hierarchy based on one’s skin tone or who they fall in love with, how much they earn or what lies between their legs.

Here’s my two cents, coming from a teenager who’s seen more than they need to see to make a decision. I call my theory “The Fiji Complex”. I’ve been to Fiji twice, and I came to one

of the biggest realizations of my life during my second trip. I experienced an epiphany, if you will. I realized that the community had a completely different outlook on life, one that seems foreign and possibly laughable to anyone else. The way that Fiji operates is simple, with every citizen living their lives almost identically to their neighbors, whether they realized it or not. They put others before themselves. This is how I see it. Whoever it is, their needs, preferences, assurances or fears come before yours. When you are with someone else, they are top of mind.

Now, it may seem stupid and unrealistic, but it’s not. By putting someone before yourself, you don’t have to ignore your needs, you don’t have to sacrifice yourself for them to live. It’s not, and will never be, a winlose situation. It’s a mindset. The way that they operate on the islands resonates with me, because it’s one of the most simple theories I’ve ever come across. When you help someone, they’ll turn around and help you. That’s what it comes down to. If you go out of your way to make someone comfortable, sooner than later, they’ll return the favor when you’re in need. If you put ten people before yourself, when the time comes, and you need help, there are ten people on hand who will be at your side at the drop of a hat, simply because you were there for them however long ago. It’s stupidly simple. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. In Fiji, there was no moral hierarchy. People were classified by clan and bloodline, income and gender, but inside, everyone was the same. No one was better or worse, morally or in terms of their mindset. They all had the same core value: the comfort of others. Whoever you are, foreigner, local, man, woman, child, gay, straight, whatever. If you are there, they will make you comfortable, and you will inevitably return the favor.

Now, you may not think, “because they helped me, I have to help them”. As a matter of fact, that thought won’t ever cross your mind. Something from inside will spark, and you will want to help. You’ll long for the feeling of being able to help someone, purely because you want to and you know it’s the right thing to do. With their comfort, yours will come. If you touch 100 people, just by doing small things like opening a door for them, giving up your seat, or even greeting them and acknowledging their existence, you have made 100 allies. You will have 100 people who will stand behind you and push you forward, and 100 people who will be ready to catch you if you fall, and help you back to the place you were at before you fell. Now, imagine if you did this with every person you met, every person you’ve interacted with. When the time

comes, you will have an army bigger than the Romans, stronger than the Spartans, all fighting for you. We need to remember who we really are. There is one earth but a million worlds, and no world is more important than another.

Behind race, income, orientation, gender, we are all humans. We all live together, and we’re all going to end up six feet under sooner or later. There’s not a single reason as to why you wouldn’t help someone. Social norms be damned. I can assure you, with 100% confidence, that helping that man on the street carry his bag is a million times more important than making your subway ride. I can say, without a doubt in my mind, that stepping in front of a child harassing another kid is a billion times more noble and touching than donating a fat check to a charity. The Fiji Complex takes everyone’s fears and social biases, innate or taught discriminations, and throws them out the window. Nothing is more important than a human life, and the value of the person, no matter who they are. A “lowly” beggar is worth just as much as a king adorned in jewels. Both have a heartbeat, a brain, and a conscious. Those are all the similarities you need to treat someone well and with respect.

Once people realize this, everything will be fine. Once people decide that your neighbor is more important than yourself, even just for a second, the world will be one step closer to living in peace, without fear of obliterating the human race. Police will be heroes again, black people will just be people, wars will be a thing of the past. Now, I can’t say how long this will take. Thousands of years. Maybe millions. We may even kill ourselves with pollution before this idea fully circulates the globe, but as long as people begin to realize what they’re doing, progress will be made. As long as two people have their eyes opened to reality, and what we can do as a human race to turn it around, I will feel satisfied. As long as one kid becomes aware of himself and those around him, I’ve done my job. But, until then, we won’t stop fighting. Queen Malkah, myself, and any other person who sees how pure this world can become will continue to preach and spread our message until the day we die. I hope that this idea of a united world isn’t just a dream.

For the last time, Sincerely,

Perry Mayo

#2016 #march 2016 #assignment #english 2

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