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tetrakys · 4 years

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Behind the Mask

This is the story I wrote for BV zine. It’s set in Eldarya around episodes 16/17.

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The moment I stepped outside HQ, I felt like I’d been teleported to a new, magical world. Again. This time no mushrooms had been involved.

What was usually the busy, messy and kinda dirty market square, was now a ballroom out of a fairy tale. Long, scarlet drapes surrounded the area, giving it an air of sumptuous elegance. Small flames floated in the air, looking like sparkling chandeliers. Musicians played strange instruments that reminded me of violins and flutes of my world.

But nothing surprised me as much as the people. Everyone was impeccably dressed in amazing gowns and suits, their faces covered in colourful masks. Alajea and Karenn had told me that faeries took very seriously the festivity of Samhain, the Gaelic precursor of our Halloweeen, but I had no idea how seriously.

They’d explained that, when their people still lived on Earth, it was the one night where they could walk freely among humans without fear of being recognised. Human believed that during this night the walls between different worlds thinned and could easily be crossed. They all wore masks and costumes to blend between the faeries and demons they assumed travelled the Earth during that night. Once Eldarya had been created the faeries kept the celebration as a reminder of the life of hiding and fear they’d left behind.

I looked down at my elegant but simple white gown. At first, I thought I might be overdressed with the soft tulle skirt and the tight corset that Purriri had persuaded me to buy. She’d even offered the mask that currently covered half of my face at a discount. Now I was happy I’d spent a big chunk of my savings on this dress, at least I didn’t stand out like a sore thumb.

I walked slowly around the edges of the dancefloor trying to spot people I might know. At some point I thought I recognised Karuto, those horns kinda gave him away, but he looked too busy handling the food to care about chatting with me.

A dancing couple caught my eye. It couldn’t be… yes! Karenn and Chrome! Despite the mask I could tell he’d turned five different shades of red and was stuttering something I couldn’t hear. She looked cute in a blue dress and was smiling at him cheekily. Also, she was leading. I didn’t know what she had in mind, but poor Chrome.

“Mmm…” a soft, smooth voice whispered at my back, “you look lovely tonight my lady. May I offer you a drink? Or maybe you could offer me one?”

I turned around to find myself face to face with a tall, black haired masked man, dressed in a Victorian style.

“N-Nevra?”

“I’m not Nevra, my lady. Tonight I’m the blood-thirsty Count Dracula,” he replied with a fanged smile.

A moment of silence went by while I tried to grasp the situation.

“Let me get this straight. You, a vampire, dressed up as a… vampire??” I asked incredulous.

“Brilliant, isn’t it? This year I’m definitely going to win best costume.”

“B-but… how? Why?”

“There are so many definitions of vampire in your world. At first, I wanted to go with the sparkling one, but then I decided that you can never do wrong with a classic,” he explained. “You humans are so funny. Why would vampires live in isolated mansions, we like to PAR-TY!”

I genuinely didn’t know how to reply.

“Ah you found the kid!” said a falsely rough, deep voice, which belonged to a man with long blue hair, beard and moustaches. “Here is my dinner! Oh-oh-oh!”

“Ezarel? W-what are you dressed as?”

“Mph… you’re so stupid. Can’t you see the bag full of presents? I’m clearly Bluebeard!”

“I understand the facial hair, but… the presents?”

“How could you not know the fairy tales from your own world,” he replied irritated. “Don’t you know that Bluebeard brings gifts to kids and, once they sleep, eats them?”

“I think you’ve mixed up three of four different characters here. Have you even read the fable?”

“Nah,” he replied with his usual big, devilish smile. “Who has time for these things.”

“Wait…” I said, finally grasping the situation. “You just wanted an excuse to wear your fake beard again, didn’t you?”

“BINGO!” he laughed. Since I’d thought him a few Earthling slangs he kept using them whenever he had a chance just to annoy me.

“It wasn’t funny the first time,” I said remembering how he’d tried to trick me into believing that I’d been in a coma for hundreds of years, “and it’s not funny now. Bluebeard is a horrible character, basically a serial killer, he murdered his own wives!”

“Uhm…” he looked surprised. “I didn’t know that.”

“Isn’t the point to look scary?” Nevra said patting Ezarel on the back, ”even though you look more hilarious than scary. Now, Valkyon got it right.”

“Where is he?” I asked scanning the crowd without recognising him. I wished I could chat with Valkyon for a bit, I loved spending time with him, he always made me feel at ease. “What is he dressed as?”

“I’m only going to give you a hint: It’s furry.” He laughed.

“Uh…?”

“You’ll see.”

I was scanning the area looking for Valkyon, when my eyes stopped on someone else. A man, dressed in a dark suit and black cape. He was wearing a white mask covering half of his face and I recognised him as the Phantom of the Opera. I didn't know the story was also famous in Eldarya, but apparently many of Earth's legends and fables had some sort of connection to faeries folklore.

The man was looking at me from the other side of the improvised ballroom, and even from afar I could see his eyes, which were of an impossible light shade of blue. I could tell his skin was dark from his chin and the strong line of his lips, the only parts of his body not covered by his outfit.

He was imposing, mysterious and his gaze completely unnerving.

"We have to go now." I almost jumped on the spot, suddenly remembering I was talking with the guys.

"Why, is something going on?"

"Well, we shouldn't really tell you this but… do you remember the knowledge-eating monster?" Nevra asked.

"The one who ate all the library's books and whose escape I was unjustly accused of?" I replied drily, "I have a vague recollection, yes."

"Well,” he continued, ignoring my sarcasm. “What you don't know is that those monsters come in couples. There was a second book, and we have found out today that it’s disappeared."

"WHAT?" I cried out alarmed.

"Shhh" Ezarel gestured for me to shut up. "You shouldn’t have said anything, Nevra."

"Don't worry Erika, Miiko asked us to keep our eyes open but the book has probably just been misplaced. Everything is going to be fine."

I wanted to believe him, but it wasn’t the first time I doubted the Guard’s judgment on important decision. Who would ever hide a monster who ate knowledge… in a book… in a library?

“The library is still mostly empty. If this monster really escaped, he would try to eat people’s memories like the previous one tried to do with me,” I pointed out nervously.

“Nah, this one is different, they are complementary. While one erases the stories it feeds on, the other makes them real. Anyway, we must run, see you later.” Ezarel said while they walked away.

I was left dumbfounded, what did it mean that the monster made the stories real? I kept ruminating on that thought for a while until someone broke me away from my thoughts.

“May I have this dance?”

I smiled at Leiftan, offering him my hand as he led me to the dancefloor. A slow, soft music was playing, and I tentatively put my arms on his shoulders, while he held my waist. It was probably the most intimate we’d ever been with each other, but it didn’t feel awkward. It felt right.

“I like the wings,” I said after a moment looking at the white attachments behind his back, “they’re so beautiful, they almost seem real.”

“You look really pretty in your costume.” He said changing the subject, slightly tightening his hold on my waist. “What is it?”

“T-thanks…” I said feeling some heat rise to my cheeks. “Have you ever heard of the white swan? The story is called Swan Lake.”

“No, will you tell me about it?” he asked looking genuinely interested.

“It’s about this princess, Odette, who is cursed by an evil sorcerer to live her life as a woman during the night and a swan during the day, unless she finds someone who swears to truly love her forever.” I explained. “I’ve always loved this story, since the moment my parents took me to the ballet when I was a child. But I… am a little embarrassed to admit that I also cried in the theatre.”

“Oh… is it a sad story? She doesn’t find love?”

“She does. As in many fables, a beautiful prince falls madly in love with her. But there are different versions of the ending. Sometimes love is not enough to save them.”

The music was about to end, but he hugged me closer, almost unwilling to let me go. I felt a little embarrassed and tried to keep the conversation going.

“I’ve always felt bad for Odette. Having to live a half-life, hiding, not being able to be herself completely. It would be so difficult to find true love, someone who could love her real self. What a terrible fate.”

He didn’t reply, as if lost in thought.

“I-I’m sorry, Erika. I… have to go check…” he stuttered after a minute, when the piece we were dancing to ended.

“The library monster,” I helped him, he was probably struggling to find an excuse to keep the secret. “I know. Nevra already spilled the beans. Do you need help…?”

“You’re kind.” He smiled his usual, sweet smile. “There’s no need. Please enjoy the party.”

Bowing down, he took my hand, leaving a small kiss on its back, and walked away.

"That wasn't very aengelic of him," replied a mysterious and somewhat ironic voice at my back. I turned around to find that man, the Phantom. "Running, leaving his dance partner all alone on the dancefloor. But a man’s loss is another man’s gain, may I?"

Without waiting for my reply, he took me in his arms and led us through the next dance. The music was slightly more upbeat, and there was something wild in the rhythm, almost primordial. I was strangely intrigued by this unknown man, there was something familiar in him, but I wasn’t going to drop my guard. His eyes meant danger, and his hold on me felt vaguely predatorial.

"The Light Guard is always busy, even during festivals.” I replied. “Do I know you?"

“Ah yes, the Guard and its mysterious business. I bet they have a lot of important, questionable tasks to attend to.” He commented, ignoring my question.

His answer surprised me. I knew not everyone at the village, and even in the Guard, was a big fan of the way things were handled around here. I knew I hadn’t been most of the time. No one was always vocal about it though.

“Mysterious business? What are you talking about?” I asked.

“We all know the Light Guard is not very forthcoming with the rest of the people here.”

“Yes, but…” I tried to play devil’s advocate. “They have their reasons most of the time… Safety and…”

I noticed then that he had led us to the refreshments area. Breaking his hold on me, he turned towards the pitchers of strange liquids.

“So, do you think the Guard cares about everyone’s safety?” He continued, while mixing odd coloured drinks.

“Of course,” I replied carefully, accepting the amber coloured drink he was handing me. It tasted sweet, almost like honey.

“So, let’s say there was a threat in the City of El, they would share the news with everyone?”

“It has happened in the past.” I pointed out.

“Only when the problem was too evident to hide. But what if that wasn’t the case. Let’s say there’s a monster running around right here, right now. Would they stop the festivities to keep people safe or would they keep up appearances until it was too late?”

I felt my blood getting cold in my veins. An awful suspicion started forming in my brain.

“Who the hell are you? What have you done?”

“A friend.” He simply replied, his lips twisting in a cruel smile. “I’ve done nothing really, except borrowing an old book from the library. Just an innocent prank. A little naughtiness should be expected during this night.”

“But…” I started to protest, looking around panicked. That’s when I noticed something strange was going on. A nearby boy dressed as a ghost, went to grab a glass and his hand passed through it without being able to touch it. He’d become incorporeal. A girl I had noticed before who was wearing beautiful, colourful make up that made her look like an Alfeli, turned into the companion right before my eyes.

“People think that when the mask drops you can see the real nature of who’s behind it, but it’s not true. It’s when you wear a mask and you’re not forced to fit in that you are really unmasked. You can be yourself and follow your instincts, go after what you really want.” I felt frozen on the spot, his words made no sense to me. “And you… what is it that you really want?” He whispered almost seductively in my ear. “You’re welcome for the drink, by the way.”

When I finally managed to turn around, he had disappeared. I didn’t have time to look for him though, because that’s when all hell broke loose. Everyone started turning into the very thing they were masked as. Most people had chosen to dress up as companions or characters of famous fables, but other had picked bolder and scarier options. I could see zombies, witches, monsters of different kinds.

OhmyGodOhmyGodOhmyGod….

I had to do something, but I had no idea of what. Was I about to turn too? It didn’t look like it, I was feeling fine. You’re welcome for the drink he had said, had he given me a protective potion? Why?

It wasn’t time to ask myself questions I didn’t know the answer to. It was time to run.

I took off without really knowing where to go, but soon stopped in my tracks.

I should’ve probably gone looking for the guys, but where could I find them? I knew they had been on patrol and I knew the spot each of them was usually assigned to.

The beach, the edge of the forest, the gardens or the cave.

All these places… I didn’t know what to expect. I knew there were things planned for this evening. I’d heard rumours of a haunted house, a maze and other unknown spooky surprises.

And what if the guys had also been turned? Was it safer if I went back inside HQ and tried to solve this problem by myself? But I had no idea how.

That moment an image popped into my mind. His face. No matter what, I had to find him. It was what my heart was telling me to do.

Now I knew exactly where to go. Without wasting another moment, I started running.

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This story has 5 different epilogues, each corresponding one of the LIs.

#beemoov fanzine #eldarya #lance #ashkore #leiftan #ezarel #nevra #valkyon #my writing #behind the mask

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d6official · 5 years

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Day6 Talk Putting Themselves Into New 'The Book of Us: Gravity' EP

It’s been over half a year since Day6released December’s Remember Us, the second half of their Youth album series. Preceded by that June's Shoot Me, the five-member Korean pop band spent the duology exploring topics revolving around the titular theme, but now they’re ready to move on. Today (July 15), the act dropped their new EP The Book of Us: Gravity, a six-track album that spends it time ruminating on ideas of how one interacts with oneself and the world around them, and how each individual writes the story of their own life.

Ahead of the release of The Book of Us: Gravity, bassist-vocalist Young K, who served as sole lyricist on all but one track of the album, and guitarist-vocalist Jae spoke with Billboard over the phone from Seoul to discuss what it meant to them to make their return with such heavy themes even while keeping the overall sound full of enthusiasm and jaunty excitement.

Billboard: How do you guys feel ahead about the album’s release? It’s been seven months since your last new music, and this is your first album of 2019.

Young K: Ever since 2017, because of the Every Day6 project, we were releasing two songs a month. So we were used to putting out albums very frequently, and having shows every time.

Jae: It’s been a while since we had this much time in between our releases, but we definitely want to hype you guys up a little bit because we’ve been gone but we’ve been plotting. We’ve been in the studio, just working out and trying to make an album that’s sufficient for the long term that we’ve been gone. And we’re pretty happy with the byproduct so I think it’s going to be a good album.

You were pushing out content so frequently with the Every Day6 project, so in comparison this must have been a lot more relaxed. Was there any effect on your creative process versus what you were doing then compared to now?

Young K: We were kind of rushed with the time [for Every Day6] but always had to put out our best, so we were, of course, stressed. This time we had more time but that also gave us a different kind of stress because we wanted to give out something we haven’t been giving out and something that could top the ones that we already put out. We’ve been preparing. We actually wrote more than the ones that are being released.

We only picked the songs that are the best. We didn’t, actually. The company did it. [Laughs]

Jae: Yeah, we have a lot of songs. Regarding feeling different from Every Day6, it does and it doesn’t. We always are songwriting, so it’s kind of like Every Day6 but not in that big format. [Laughs] The grind! We had a lot of fun with it. It is stress, but it’s a good kind of stress.

How do you manage that? You’re writing your own music, you’re working on your own stuff, but then you have to deal with the management of JYP Entertainment and what they expect you to put out.

Jae: Being at JYP, there are certain things that they look for in songs and I feel like we’re starting to come to an understanding of what that is. We always try to incorporate those elements into our music as well. But in general, I guess, everyone likes good music so I feel like if it’s something lyrically that you can connect with, that’s an important point. The melody sounding a little bit fresh. I just feel like good music is what makes it.

Listening to it, The Book of Us: Gravity has a bit more of an upbeat style than some of your past releases. What would you say is the inspiration behind this album?

Young K: The one before was the Youth series, so we talked about how people near our age grow up and how they are living. But in this album, we wanted to focus more on human relationships, how they interact with one another. Basically, the inspiration, of course, came from the life that I have been -- we have been living. But also, everyday conversations, how people live, how they talk, the expressions they have on their faces. Basically everything that we experienced in our life could become an inspiration.

The album is called The Book of Us and the single “Time of Our Life” features a lot of literary references. What’s the meaning behind this?

Young K: I guess the book means a life. It’s a story we write down as we live. Our title song “Time of Our Life,” in Korean it means “So That It Becomes One of the Pages” (“한 페이지가 될 수 있게”). So when we put out this song, and when we’re all singing it together at the concerts or when you’re listening to this song, I hope that this song can become one of your pages, a moment in your life, your book. The Book of Us. Everyone.

So the song is both about love and also an inspirational message you want fans to take away, “I want this song to be part of your life”?

Young K: Yeah, exactly.

What do you want people to know about the music video?

Jae: All music videos are different, but I think this one is particularly different because we took a little more of a fun approach to a lot of the scenes. You’ll see us do a lot of fun and silly stuff that we don’t normally do in our music videos, and I think that’ll be a little bit refreshing for the people that have been with us on this journey.

Why is the album subtitled Gravity?

Young K: Out of human relationships, we focused on the beginning. I guess because it’s a new beginning. Gravity means that we’re being pulled towards one another.

Jae: That kind of emotion and anxiety and positive stress that you get when meeting new people, where romantically or not. At the beginning of anything, the beginning of a relationship, whether it’s romantically or with a coworker or with a friend or with someone you’ve just met on the street, it all starts with this Korean word “설레임” (seol-le-im). I don’t know how to explain that.

Young K: It’s not “설레임.”

Jae: Oh, “설렘” (seol-lem). It’s “설렘.” Sorry, “설레임” is an ice cream.

Young K: It’s like the emotion…

Jae: Excitement!

Google says it’s “flutter.”

Young K: I guess flutter could work...

Jae: Basically, our album this time we did want to focus a little bit more on the positive things, at the beginning.

Is Gravity going to be the first of a series, since you’re talking about it being a beginning?

Jae: To be honest, I don’t know if anyone can answer that question. But… I don’t know. Possibly? Maybe, maybe not. I’m not sure. We just like making music.

There are five other tracks on the album. What do you want people to take away from The Book of Us: Gravity as a whole?

Young K: One of the messages that we did want to give out was that, in order to start a healthy relationship with somebody else we feel like we need to know who you are first. You need to know yourself first, so there are some songs giving out that message. For example, there’s a song called “For Me.” In the beginning, the song talks about, “Who are you? I want to get to know you.” But actually, it’s to the person standing in the mirror. From now on, I’m going to get to know you. I’m going to try harder to be closer to you, even though I’ve been next to you longer than anyone in this life. So that’s why it’s called “For Me.” And there’s a song called “Cover.” In Korean, it’s called “포장” (po-jang), which is like “packaging.” Throughout my life, I’ve been covering up who I am to be better, to look better. But as time went by, the cover started to get worn out, and you’re starting to see who I am. I feel like, we feel like, everyone goes through this kind of thinking, the idea that we always need to do something or be someone else in order to be better, to satisfy other people. But who you are inside is more important, I guess.

Do you feel you’ve uncovered what the packaging used to be covering up?

Young K: Yes, and no. Because that’s the song that I co-wrote with [rhythm guitarist-vocalist] Sungjin. We both talked about this idea. It can also happen for everyday life. For example, business. You want to look more professional, or you feel like you need to talk more [using] difficult words. For example, right now. I want to talk more fluently, but I don’t know much vocabulary. And also coming from the idea of “Young K” because I felt like I needed this Young K character to be the person who stands on the stage, and be somebody I’m not. I feel like I made that because I want to become better at my craft, better as a person in general. I want people to see that better, cooler person. I’m working towards that.

You want people to see that person, but does that mean you’re still covering up your self?

Young K: I’m not really covering it up, but at the same time I’m filling up the things that’s inside the packaging. While having this cover, making something that’s inside the cover become better.

Jae: Evolving in the cover.

Jae, what are some songs on the album you particularly feel you put yourself into that you want people to take note of?

Jae: I’m not saying it because it’s our title song but I really appreciate “One Page” [“Time of Our Life”] because it’s interesting. When we’re choosing the songs, there’s a system, right? We had like 15-20 songs we wrote from this album plus other songs we wrote before. We were giving rankings, like top three, that we thought would be a good fit on the album. It was really weird because I never really thought about that song too much after writing it, but after listening to all the songs the next day I would just be thinking about that one song. It was really weird. But it has a weird pull that it has on the listener.

Young K: Gravity!

Jae: Gravity! It was really strange, but I really feel that people will enjoy the song.

Day6 changed up its style a little bit on this album, with a lot brighter sounds and more vibrant synths than some of your prior releases. Was that intentional?

Jae: Definitely. We’re always working towards progressing ourselves, whether it’s towards a change in a different genre, or different sources or different sounds. We’re always looking for change, positive change.

Where do look to inspiration from as you continue to develop as artists?

Jae: I feel like we draw different kinds of inspiration for every song. If you listen to our title and then “How to Love,” they’re both vibrant and they’re both very positive, but they’re different kinds of positive. One's a little groovier, a little bit more of that brass, while the other is a bit more pop rock, punk rock. I guess specifically speaking, when we were writing “Page [Time of Our Life],” I was thinking of a more Fall Out Boy kind of feel would be nice on a song.

Young K: Everyday life would be the biggest inspiration. Basically we wanted to write about how people live their lives, any feelings that they would get from anything.

What do you hope people will feel like when listening to the album?

Jae: We say this a lot, but we really hope that people will vibe with it. Really feel the kind of emotions that we’re putting into it. Like I said previously, something that we work on lyrically is that they’re situations or emotions that you can feel in everyday life. We just want you to live those emotions with us because we’re living it with you.

We’re running out of time, but is there anything else you want people to know about the release of The Book of Us: Gravity or your upcoming world tour that it precedes?

Jae: We’re really sorry that it took so long for us to comeback, but we really wanted to comeback with an album that satisfies our curiosity with music as well as would satisfy everybody else’s.

It’s only been seven months, which is relatively short for musicians outside of the K-pop industry where things are much more fast-paced. But it doesn’t seem that long, especially since you were putting out that much content over the past few years. Do you really feel you need to be sorry?

Jae: I think so. [Laughs.] I think so, because being an artist you have a responsibility to put out music and let people hear the emotions that you feel. Once you take upon this mantle, you kind of accept that. That you’re being very honest and open with your audience. And we are a little bit sorry that we couldn’t express what we were feeling in our everyday lives a little bit faster. But we wanted to get it right. That’s what took a little bit of time. Oh, and for our tour! We’re super excited. Super ready. I hope everyone is ready to have fun and have a good night. When you come to our show, make sure to bring all the stress, all the hardships, all the bad emotions that you’ve been feeling in your everyday life. Bring those, we’re going to settle those.

#day6 #park jaehyung #youngk #t: article #t: interview #190716

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mediaeval-muse · 4 years

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Book Review

Not Quite A Husband. By Sherry Thomas. New York: Bantam, 2009.

Rating: 1.5/5 stars

Genre: historical romance

Part of a Series? Yes, Marsdens #2

Summary: Their marriage lasted only slightly longer than the honeymoon—to no one’s surprise, not even Bryony Asquith’s. A man as talented, handsome, and sought after by society as Leo Marsden couldn't possibly want to spend his entire life with a woman who rebelled against propriety by becoming a doctor. Why, then, three years after their annulment and half a world away, does he track her down at her clinic in the remotest corner of India? Leo has no reason to think Bryony could ever forgive him for the way he treated her, but he won’t rest until he’s delivered an urgent message from her sister—and fulfilled his duty by escorting her safely back to England. But as they risk their lives for each other on the journey home, will the biggest danger be the treacherous war around them—or their rekindling passion?

***Full review under the cut.***

Content/Trigger Warnings: dubious consent, infidelity, blood, animal death

Overview: I originally picked this book up because it was on Bustle’s list of feminist romances. I had some success with this list before - I adored The Suffragette Scandal and had a lot of respect for The Raven Prince, so the story of a female doctor defying societal expectations sounded up my alley. Unfortunately, that was the only thing I liked about this book. In general, Not Quite A Husband is not written with a strong sense of direction, and I don’t think it qualifies as “feminist” due to the lack of clear consent during some of the intimate scenes. I didn’t give this book zero or one star because I did like Bryony as a doctor, and her personality was different than a lot of romance heroines I’ve read, but on the whole, I found this book very difficult to enjoy.

Writing: Thomas’ prose is rather plain. While I don’t think romances need to have high brow, poetic, literary prose, I do think they still need to evoke the setting and emotion in order to immerse the reader in the story. While Thomas did have some phrases that did so, much of the book felt like a list of facts or telling rather than showing. The prose didn’t linger on emotional of physical sensations, so the emotional moments didn’t feel weighty and the intimate moments felt robotic. While we get flashbacks so we can see where characters are coming from, we are mostly told rather than shown how characters are feeling in the current moment. For example: “Shame. Self-loathing. Frustration They churned in him, enough to drown him outright” (p. 146). While the hydraulic imagery is nice, I don’t exactly *feel* the hero’s anguish in this passage. Nothing of his inner monologue or POV builds on the feeling of being overwhelmed or unsettled, especially since the scene promptly moves on to dialogue and some exposition.

The scenes themselves also felt awkwardly structured. Thomas had the tendency to end a scene and move on to the next section without giving the reader a sense of purpose or closure. For example, there is one scene where the characters take a break from traveling; our heroine thinks about the region and how she doesn’t want to leave the hero. She becomes overheated, so she fans herself, and our hero speaks to her about the weather. The scene ends with him thinking how beautiful she is. To me, these scenes felt awkward because they didn’t revolve around a milestone in the relationship or reveal much about the characters. The characters don’t discuss the heroine’s feelings about parting, nor does she contemplate how her desire to remain with him are complicated, and we already know the hero is attracted to the heroine at this point, so nothing new is revealed. It just felt like a scene that went nowhere and was just inserted to fill space.

Along similar lines, I think the flashbacks cut in at awkward times. Flashbacks are set apart from the main narrative of this book by italics, and frequently, these italics would interrupt the flow of a scene. I like flashbacks when they are done with a sense of purpose, informing the present action in ways that make the story richer. To me, it felt like flashbacks were inserted randomly in this book.

Plot: This book primarily follows our heroine, Bryony, as she and her ex-husband, Leo, travel back to England from India. Bryony’s sister has asked Leo to track Bryony down because their father is ill, and Leo agrees. The summary on the back of the book suggests that India is a war torn, or that the geography itself is threatening. While we do get some of that, I don’t think the travel narrative was all that exciting. The characters travel, it’s hot, they stop and instruct their guides/staff to make food, and they make puppy eyes at each other while thinking about their pasts. There wasn’t really a feeling of suspense because scenes didn’t build on one another - they just sort of happened, and there were few (if any) external forces that kept Bryony and Leo apart. As a result, I found the travel plot rather dull.

I also don’t think the travel narrative made for a good frame regarding the characters’ backstories. This book makes clear that it’s awkward for Bryony and Leo to travel together because they used to be married, but some event caused them to obtain an annulment and separate. On top of that, Bryony and Leo used to be childhood friends, and both have exciting lives as a doctor and a mathematics professor. None of this backstory seemed to be enriched by the travel narrative - characters weren’t prompted to speak or contemplate their pasts based on events happening in the present, so it felt like things were brought up randomly and for no other purpose than there was nothing else to do. For example, Leo brings out a chess board at one point and the two play a game, but it doesn’t prompt much discussion other than “I didn’t know you played” and “usually men won’t play with a woman who is better than they are.” I wanted to know more - is Bryony a calculating person? Is this a commentary on her life as a doctor/how men underestimate her? I didn’t get the sense that it was, and so many scenes felt empty because the travel narrative and the backstories didn’t line up. Granted, it could have been done differently; characters could have found the journey so boring that they have little else to do but ruminate on their thoughts, but because the writing didn’t evoke the feeling of boredom, I didn’t get the impression that this was the case.

About 2/3 through the book, our protagonists get caught up in one of the uprisings of 1897 in the Swat Valley. Things get a little more interesting from here, but in my opinion, the groundwork wasn’t laid very well to make the uprisings seem like a threat from the get go. I would have liked to have seen Bryony thinking more about how she wants to help people in such a conflict-torn area, or maybe more talk from the Indian characters about how the conflict has affected them. At the very least, I think the conflict could have been built up as the characters travelled, perhaps by them talking more about what they’ve heard about the area as well as the politics involved. Granted, the premise itself is complicated, as we’re following two British characters as they travel through India (there’s some colonial stuff there to untangle), but though I didn’t get the sense that India was being especially exoticized, I also didn’t get the sense that the setting was very important, either. Bryony and Leo could have been in any other location and I don’t think the basic narrative would have changed.

Characters: Bryony, our heroine, is a competent female physician with an aloof personality that is interpreted as cold. For the most part, I liked that Bryony didn’t fit the mold of romance heroines with more whimsical or warm personalities. It made for a different kind of reading experience. However, I don’t think enough was done to show Bryony as a complex character. Her coldness is connected to her childhood trauma and failed marriage, which could have been handled well if we were able to get inside Bryony’s head more. Because of the telling (as opposed to showing), it was hard to determine exactly how the past impacted Bryony in the present. I also would have liked to see Bryony in her job as a physician more, showing off her competence and connecting with patients to show that she’s not truly cold, she just shows emotion differently.

Leo, our hero, is somewhat bland. He’s apparently a mathematics genius, but he barely ever talks or thinks about math. He is shown to be good at running a household and handling logistics, as he plans the whole trip out of India and took care of staff and scheduling while married to Bryony. I wish he had more of an interest or background in using those skills (perhaps by running a business), and that these skills complemented Bryony’s more so that their relationship felt more complimentary. Instead, it seems to get brought up at random, so Leo’s defining characteristic seems to be that he’s attractive.

Bryony and Leo don’t get much interaction with secondary characters for a good chunk of the book. Bryony’s sister and father are like ghostly specters, heard but not seen until 2/3 through the story. The same is true of Leo’s family in that they are apparently very important to Leo, but we are told rather than shown that. By far the strangest choice regarding characters was the fact that during the entire trip out of India, Bryony and Leo are accompanied by a number of guides and staff, but I can’t recall a single line of direct speech from any of them. Given that barely anything happens on this trip, I thought it could have been an interesting opportunity for Indian characters to talk about their lives, or, at the very least, start building a sense of dread or suspense about the ongoing conflicts in the area. Having silent companions felt awkward because, well, we’re in India, but there are few interactions with Indian characters. They’re just there to be hired hands.

Other: I was not a fan of the romance in this book for one reason: neither character seemed to think it was important to get consent before engaging in sexual activities. I’m not saying that all intimate scenes need an explicit “can we have sex?” “Yes” exchange; what I mean is that I want it to be clear that when characters engage in such activity, it’s because they both want to do so. In Bryony and Leo’s case, there were many scenes where consent was unclear. The first time they have sex, Leo is delirious with fever and he just grabs her and penetrates her without thinking. Bryony goes along with it, but I was still very uncomfortable. Bryony likewise goes to Leo’s tent and starts having sex with him while he is asleep. Later, some flashbacks tell us that Leo used to have sex with Bryony despite her showing clear signs of not wanting to do so, and it got to the point where he would start having sex with her while she was asleep, so Bryony would lock her door at night. I hated this so much. I think the point was to show that Leo was trying to make Bryony less cold towards him, but it honestly felt like rape.

In addition to the dubious consent, I couldn’t quite get on board with the characters’ reasons for wanting to be with each other. It seemed that Leo was in love with Bryony in part because he idolized her when they were children, and in part because he wanted to bring her out of her shell. It would have been ok if Bryony’s flaws were actually flaws, and if he had used methods other than what I described above. Bryony, by contrast, just seemed to like Leo because he is attractive. The book states multiple times that she didn’t notice Leo that much as a child, and she only married him because she hoped his popularity would lend her credibility as a female doctor. They ultimately decide to love one another once they have a near-death experience, so all the real growth happens in the last 1/3 of the book.

It gets worse once it’s revealed that Bryony’s coldness stems from the fact that she caught Leo cheating during their engagement. Leo insists it was only one time, and I think that was done sincerely. I honestly wouldn’t have minded a plot where a hero has to gain his love interest’s trust back after such a thing. Where this went wrong for me is that Leo seemed to blame Bryony for the affair by saying she should have stopped him or called off the wedding, and instead of proving to her that he is sorry, he simply focuses on how much pain he is in. Granted, Leo does say that he did wrong and there was no excuse, but I didn’t see him as a kind, considerate enough lover to believe that he had learned or that he was putting Bryony’s well being ahead of his own desires.

Overall, I was disappointed in this book. Not only was the prose and structure rather lackluster, but the dubious consent was enough to put me off, and I’m still not sure if the author meant to portray Indians rebelling against the British as bad or just a thrilling adventure.

#book reviews

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vuelie-frost · 5 years

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F2: How do we cope?

So I’m someone who has a moderate dose of anxiety in her life, which is being combatted through therapy, medication, & learning healthy coping mechanisms. I’m no expert, but I have some experience dealing with strong negative emotions. One strategy I’ve been recommended is asking yourself, in any given anxiety-riddled situation, “What’s the worst-case scenario that could happen?” This brings you out of your own head- out of hypotheticals- and into the concrete.

Don’t get me wrong, it can be painful to think about. But it can be helpful to see where our biggest fears lie. And if you’re interested in alleviating those strong negative emotions, it’s a necessary step.

I’ve said before that I’m trying to stay open-minded and optimistic about this movie. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have fears and concerns. For me personally, my biggest "worst that can happen” theories for the ending of Frozen 2 are:

- The sisters never see each other again (with a heart-shattering goodbye scene that makes us all inconsolable) - Elsa loses her humanity to become a spirit/goddess, essentially intangible and immortal - Elsa is no longer called “Queen Elsa” in the franchise, invalidating a huge historic part of her identity - Elsa doesn’t attend Anna’s coronation because she’s “too busy” doing other shit - Disney+ makes a spin-off TV series with Elsa going on adventures (just please... no.)

(please don’t chime in with what you guys think about those ideas, at least in this post, whether they’re right or wrong... that’s not the point.)

So what if any, if all, of these things happen? What next?

Stuff not to do (I mean, do whatever you want, but these probably won’t be very helpful)

- oversleeping as a defense mechanism - eating your feelings - drinking/using substances to numb pain - stew and ruminate on the internet with people who only get your sadness and anger riled up - spend all day on the internet - engage in maladaptive compulsive behaviors (oh, hello dermatillomania. great to see you again.) - completely avoid feeling your feelings - making impulse decisions (don’t go buy a car just because “Frozen 2 sucks, the world is meaningless.”) - rant to Jen/Chris/the creative team at Disney on Twitter (which is different from an honest review of the movie, which I’m sure they’d be more receptive to)

Stuff to do

1) Grieve the movie we longed for.

This might sound dramatic and my inner critic is constantly chiding me with “It’s literally a movie for kids, why are you so bonded to it?” But that’s totally unhelpful here. It doesn’t matter why or how, but most of us in the fandom feel a deep connection to the first movie. It’s not exaggeration to say that IF the sequel crushes us, it could be emotionally devastating. Grief is complex, individualized, and weird to work through... but it’s real, and if it’s something we need to face in order to move forward, 2) Decide how tightly to hold onto the franchise.

Something being canon doesn’t mean we have an obligation to internalize it. How many franchises before have whittled their stories down to C-rated TV shows and average spinoffs? Do we accept all of them wholeheartedly?

Granted, this is hard to write about because there’s a slight cognitive dissonance that has to happen for us to disbelieve the sequel of any story. But regardless, determining your relationship to the narrative is a deeply personal choice- one that can’t be decided for you. If my worst-case scenarios happen for F2, I’m probably going to maintain my complete love for the first movie... and pretend the sequel is an AU. Or extrapolation. Accept that it exists as the canon progression, but reject its meaning in my life.

3) Get off the internet.

This is probably the best possible thing to do when the online world is causing you strife and stress. Tumblr has a tendency to be an echo-chamber; I actually only recently rejoined after a long loooong hiatus for that reason. Despite what boomers want you to think, the internet’s not inherently toxic. But despite all its good, it’s also highly curated, completely biased, full of half-truths, and a fantastic vehicle for rumors.

Also realize that until November 22, anything and everything Frozen 2-related that’s released by Disney is going to make you psychoanalyze the content for clues on how to feel. We’ll all become obsessed, deranged Sherlocks in our own right. Don't let it consume you.

4) Creatively output your thoughts & feelings

Headcanons, AUs, derivative work, fan fiction, fan art all serve us well (and are way healthier than like, downing an entire chocolate cake in sadness.) I’m an artist and you bet your biscuits I’ll be sketching Elsa for weeks and WEEKS before & after the premiere. It’s just how I process things.

Another thing I’ve decided I’m going to do if any of my worst-case scenario fears are realized is: write letters to the sisters as if they were real people. Talk to them about the ending. Jen Lee kept journals writing to/from the girls when they were conceptualizing the movie; I think there’s merit in letting the characters speak for themselves.

5) Employ your favorite coping mechanisms

These are personal to you, but could include:

- meditation - working out or exercising - yoga - writing/drawing (see above point) - making coffee or tea & relax in bed with a book - talk to someone about it, bonus points if it’s someone in the “real world” - take a walk outside - use breathing exercises - take a hot bath or shower - clean your room/house/apartment - put on music - cook - play with a pet - do something with a friend Note that all of these have to do with the external world. Distraction doesn’t heal us by itself (which is why denial is a poor way of dealing with shit,) but it helps our brains reset in the background. It sets the rest of the world into perspective, so that we can more effectively face our negative emotions later. Remember, there’s nothing wrong with putting off processing until you’ve done something helpful or enriching. “Listen brain, we can cry later, right now I’m going to bake pumpkin cookies and you can’t stop me.”

6) Remember story is told to connect us with the real world

The idea of escapism is a bit paradoxical, because in pursuing a fantasy world, we’re only working to realize our desires in the real world. The reason we love Frozen so much is because we want that kind of love in our own lives... and the fairy tale reminds us that it’s real. Idealized and sanitized by The Mouse, sure, but it’s real.

It may be painful to acknowledge but: we don’t need Elsa, Anna, Kristoff, or Olaf in order to flourish. Fiction exists to affect us in the real world. Frozen is one story among many- MANY!- that have the potential to sculpt your own personal future. That’s not to say it doesn’t retain a deep meaningful significance for us. I’m going to hold the first movie in my heart forever, that I know for sure. But its reasons for being great are because it plants us in reality. Can you imagine a beautiful young woman with the ability to freeze ice? Maybe that’s not plausible. But an undying, fiercely loyal commitment between two women? Hell yeah. 7) Recognize idolization & parasocial relationships where they may be... and start to heal them

This is heavy stuff that might require a professional to help you sort through- but if you’re truly suffering, paralyzed, or flung into a depressive episode due to any life circumstance (including a movie sequel,) it’s not silly to seek help in order to move forward.

Parasocial relationships are perceived relationships where the other party (usually a celebrity, in terms of celebrity worship) doesn’t know you. Fictional worlds can fall into this category as well. It’s a one-side relationship that feels unbalanced when the other party does something we don't like. This is a studied topic I’m not super knowledgable on, but here are some links to more information if you’re interested: Why We Get So Attached To Fictional Characters by Kimberly Truong

Parasocial Relationships with Fictional Characters in Therapy by Kathleen Gannon

Parasocial Break-Up from Favorite Television Characters: The Role of Attachment Styles and Relationship Intensity by Jonathan Cohen

Our fictional friends: Parasocial interaction and relationships in an evolving media world by Carri Romm - - - Also: I love you guys. <3 I love being in the Frozen fandom. It’s all going to be okay.

#frozen 2 leaks #frozen 2 spoilers #frozen 2

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dawne-sharlotte · 5 years

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Expect the Unexpected Pt. 1

Looks like this last one will be multi part to fit in as many prompts as possible for the rest of @igcorweek As the story has told me, I am not in control *le sigh* This will be rated E but this part is G :)

Rating: G (will eventually go up)

Word: 2131

tags: @asoeiki if this one isn’t your cup of tea, I apologize in advance

Crossposted to AO3

“You’re gonna work yourself to death, Specs. I don’t get why you won’t let my dad pay your rent. It’s not like he hasn’t offered.”

“Because he is already paying my tuition and I couldn’t possibly accept anymore assistance from him. Besides, working builds character,” Ignis retorts as he hands the patron the book they requested. He loves Noctis like a brother, but sometimes the laziness and entitlement of the younger grates on his nerves.

“Hey, Iggy I get working for your stuff and all, but you’re working two jobs plus a full class load. You survive purely off coffee. This isn’t healthy,” Prompto chimed in.

Ignis sighs. Now the two of them are ganging up on him. “What do you suggest I do, other than take assistance from Regis?”

Prompto looks down at his hands, ears turning red, “Well there are websites where you attend events with wealthy patrons for money. I did it my freshman year before I met Noct.”

Ignis knows exactly where Prompto is going with this and he’s not amused in the slightest. “Yes, and they usually require other services as well.”

Prompto looks up, purple eyes wide, “You don’t have to do that sort of thing. You basically have a contract that states what the expectations are between the two of you,” Prompto lowers his voice, “Sex doesn’t have to be on the table.”

Ignis takes his glasses off and rubs his eyes before putting them back on, “This isn’t a valid solution. Actually, there isn’t even a problem except for you two being pests. Now off with you.”

The two boys slowly gather their things and exit the library. The last class of the afternoon is almost over and there is always a rush on the campus library as students try to cram in study time.

As they walk to their apartment, Noctis brings up the website again, “So, you were really on a sugar daddy website?”

Prompto fidgets with the hem of his shirt, “It really isn’t as bad as everyone thinks. I mean sure, there are a bunch of old men that are just looking for a good time, but there are some that genuinely just want companionship.”

“Hey, no judgement here. It’s pretty easy to sign up, right?”

The blonde looks up, “Sure. What are you thinking?”

Noctis smirks, “Let’s create a profile for Ignis!”

Prompto’s mouth falls open, “How are you going to convince him? I mean, he’ll never go for it, even if we find someone. Between, his class schedule and his work schedule, we wouldn’t be able to get him to meet some stranger.”

“Leave that to me. You think you can create the profile,” Noctis practically buzzes with excitement and it’s contagious.

Prom nods enthusiastically.

A Few Hours Later…..

“Wow, Prom! Where did you find that picture of Specs?”

Prompto blushes, “I took a couple of candid photos when he wasn’t looking.”

Noct stares at the photo, “This is really good. You have an eye for this stuff.”

“Thanks, buddy.”

A ping from the computer interrupts their conversation.

“Ooohh, we got a hit already. Took me weeks.” Prompto clicks on the profile. The man is in his mid thirties, stellar military record, runs his own tech company, and has blue eyes as vibrant and Ignis’ green eyes.

Prompto spends the next few days chatting “The Marshal” up, doing his best to impersonate Ignis. Noct, on the other hand, tries to figure out when Ignis has a break in his schedule.

***

Noctis puts his head on the table and groans.

Ignis sets a cup of coffee on the table, “What is it, Noct?”

The younger man groans again as Prompto bounds into the cafe and plops next to Noctis. “Hey, Iggy. What’s wrong with him?” He pokes Noctis in the head.

Ignis eyes him warily, “I’m not sure, but I’ve got customers to check on.”

Prompto smiles, “I’ll take care of him.”

“Thank you, Prompto.”

The blonde waits until Ignis is busy with another table before asking, “Did you figure out something?”

“No,” Noctis sighs.

Prompto looks around. “Why not just have The Marshal show up here?”

“Well, it’s the best we’ve got. Let’s do it.”

***

Cor sits across from the blonde and the ebony-haired boys. He listens to their story with a skeptical attitude. “Let me see if I understand you. You made a profile without your friend’s knowledge and you basically want me to ambush him at his place of business.”

Prompto, at least, has the decency to look embarrassed.

Noctis just shrugs. “He needs the help, but he won’t take anymore from us. We figure this is a good option.”

Cor knows nothing good can come of this, but the blonde looks particularly pathetic, so he agrees. The worst thing that can happen is they don’t click. However, if it does work, Cor wouldn’t mind taking the kid to a formal event or two.

***

The university is right on the edge of business district. Even though it is mostly students that frequent the cafe, many business people stop there as well. It’s after the lunch rush, so there aren’t a lot of people. At the very least, Cor doesn’t feel extremely out of place. He finds an empty table close to the door and peruses the menu.

“I apologize for the wait, sir. What can I have started for you?”

Cor looks into the eyes he’s been staring at for weeks, now shielded by thin framed glasses, and dark around the edges from fatigue. The lenses only highlight the young man’s face. He’s slender, but fit. He is gorgeous. His accented voice is music to Cor’s ears and suddenly, he very much wants to make this work. “I’ll have a black coffee and a turkey sandwich.”

The young man smiles, “I’ll get that right out.”

Cor thinks that smile could bring about world peace. His thoughts are interrupted by his phone buzzing in his pocket. He answers it without looking at the screen, “This is Cor.”

“I need you to look at the proposal before we send it to InsomTech.”

Nyx. Of course it’s Nyx. It’s always Nyx.

Cor pulls out his laptop and pulls up the email, “If I have to look at this, Nyx, why did I hire you?”

The man on the other line chuckles, “For my good looks of course. Speaking of, did you ever put the moves on that guy you were talking to?”

“Do you ever mind your own business,” Cor continues looking at the proposal. “This looks good, but we aren’t giving them that large of a percentage. Shrink that by ten percent.”

“They aren’t going to like that.”

“Too bad. I’m not selling my proprietary software down the river for a buck. Fix it, and don’t bother me with semantics.” Cor ends the call right as his order is brought to the table. “Thanks. You know, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Ignis Scientia. Student, workaholic, and caffeine addict. If you believe my friends.”

Cor snorts, “Cor Leonis. Tech guru, penny pincher, and all around stick in the mud.”

Ignis lets out a small laugh, “I should get back. Let me know if you need anything else.”

The older man pretends to work while his eyes follow Ignis around the cafe. He can tell that Ignis’ friends may be right about the younger.

Ignis never seems to just stop. Even, when the cafe is empty, he’s cleaning and restocking. He’s in a constant state of motion. When his energy begins to flag, he downs an espresso shot or has a cup of black coffee.

Cor decides he’s seen enough. Ignis deserves what he can give. All he would have to do is get him to agree. Maybe a scholarship. Those sometimes came with conditions. He could definitely make it work. He slowly gathers his things, trying to think of the best way to approach Ignis with his proposition. He throws his trash away and takes the used mug to the counter.

Ignis rings up the total and Cor pays with cash. He also hands the young man his business card.

“You seem like a bright man, Ignis. I have a business proposal of sorts. If you are interested, give me a call and we’ll set up a meeting. You would be able to focus on your studies and not have to work this job.”

“Oh, well it’s not that bad-”

Cor interrupted, “I watched you drink three cups of coffee and 3 espresso shots in two and a half hours. You aren’t buzzing from a caffeine high which tells me this is a usual occurrence. You don’t need the health issues that come with this. Just give me a call and we’ll work out the details.”

Ignis nods and pockets the card.

Cor heads to his car and pulls out his phone on the way, “Nyx, I need you to draft up a contract for me.”

Ignis sits behind the counter at his library job, a forgotten finance book open, and turns the business card over in his hand. He likes his jobs and enjoys his studies, but it would be good to get more than 2 hours of sleep, to not need concealer to hide the dark circles under his eyes. Maybe his friends are right and he does need assistance. Although, he would never tell Noct. His ego is large enough as it is.

It takes Ignis a week to muster up the courage to call the number on the card after he searches everything he can find on Cor Leonis.

The man is successful. There isn’t a single piece of software in Insomnia that doesn’t have his fingerprint on it somewhere. There isn’t much about his personal life and for some reason that terrifies Ignis.

If Ignis says yes to whatever this is, what is going to change? He ruminates on all of this as he approaches the receptionist in the ritzy high rise that holds Cor’s office.

“Ah, you must be Mr. Scientia. Mr. Leonis has been expecting you. Please take the elevator to the top floor.”

He follows the instructions and exits the elevator right into an office. An office that takes up the whole floor.

There’s plenty of space and not a lot of furniture. A couch and coffee table are off to the left side, almost like a makeshift waiting room. A sturdy oak desk occupies the area in from of the window that looks like it spans the whole room. A large bookshelf filled with various titles on the right, but there are no knick knacks or personal belongings that Ignis can see in the space.

A door opens next to the shelf and Cor makes an appearance. “Ignis, please make yourself comfortable.”

Ignis moves to the couch and perches on the edge.

Cor spreads papers on the coffee table before sitting at the opposite end. “Relax. There’s no reason to be nervous. Everything that we discuss is written down and you do not have to decide today. Taking some time to think about the terms of this contract would be prudent.”

Ignis nods, trying to swallow past the lump in his throat.

“Words, Ignis.”

“Yes, Sir. I understand.”

Hearing those words from Ignis sends a thrill through him, that he’ll need to think about later. Cor forges forward with his terms and conditions. “I see that your tuition is already taken care of. I will pay for your room, board, books, and personal necessities. You will quit both of your jobs. Your grades are exemplary and I expect them to stay that way. You will provide me with a copy of your class schedule and report in once a week. If you need anything, you are to come to me and I will take care of it. There will be events that I have to attend and you will be expected to accompany me unless you have an educational obligation. If at any time you wish to terminate this contract, you will provide that wish to me in writing and all obligations on both sides will cease. This will automatically end at your graduation. Do you have any questions?”

Ignis doesn’t know how to respond. The only thing he can think of is “Why? Why are you doing this. You don’t even know me.”

Cor tilts his head, “You are a bright young man and your future potential is an investment I would stake my company on. Besides, I’d like to get to know you better and I can only do that if you have the time. I’m a rich man with a lot of free time on my hands. Like I said, thinking about it is a good thing.”

Ignis takes a deep breath, “Where do I sign?”

#igcor week #ignis scientia #cor leonis #cor/ignis #cor x ignis #ffxv #My writing #i will go down with this ship

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darkouter · 5 years

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barty at the ministry + magic item headcanon post

interning / sabotage

during barty’s brief stint working at the ministry (paid internship, officially being hired later for other office work while he got necessary qualifications) from 1980 - ‘82, he worked within his father’s department: the department of magical law enforcement. he helped aurors mostly, primarily doing paperwork and very basic research for them. this was perfect for riddle to use him because barty had free access to information regarding the hunting of death eaters, who was being investigated, how close aurors were getting to them, and their sources. he could also sabotage some of their information or generally cause office work chaos because documents were in and out of his hands so often, and he could change details or lose pages strategically.

absolutely no one would ever think to question him because he has interned at the ministry for years, working during the summers (because you can bet your ass crouch sr. wasn’t going to just let him SLACK OFF or be a normal teen). everyone is familiar with him, knows his work ethic, and they trust him. it’s also why, even earlier on as an intern, he had far more trust and responsibility than anyone else who would fill that role. it’s really just formality for him to be an intern before being hired, policy-related, and generally he would move up the ladder more quickly if not for needing licenses/qualifications. but this is the real world, and a lot of people didn’t really give a shit that he didn’t have them yet because they knew he was capable, so a lot of the time he had more responsibility than he was necessarily supposed to have. as long as the sticklers for rules like sr. weren’t nosing around, he could basically do whatever.

this is why vold.emort really wanted him around. he’s valuable.

this all occurs during his wild streak, of course. and he often stays to work long nights because crouch sr. works long nights, so barty should be at the office as long as him, even if his work is already done! a boy gets bored. he starts to wander around. his interest ends up focusing on the department of mysteries because who the fuck doesn’t want to skitter around in that place? barty’s a curious guy. there’s a lot to look at. he’s alone in the middle of the night, and everyone’s gone. maybe he pokes at some things he shouldn’t.

magical item: the spirit communication compact

it’s in the section of the department that focuses on death. for the longest time, he tried to avoid interacting too much with items in there. the veil? he got close to it once and freaked out when it started whispering to him. no thanks, Death! he didn’t avoid dying in the river, so don’t come for him! eventually, however, his intrigue overpowers his tentative tendencies within that place.

impulsively, he grabs a small item clasped shut, and struggles for the longest time to open it. it’s perfectly smooth, circular, and gold — it reminds him of his golden pocket-watch that matches his father’s. it really looks like it’s meant to be opened, with a visible and clean slice through it. when he attempts to open it, a light emits from that crack. it doesn’t budge. there is one detail on it, and it’s a conical hole drilled into the side. he assumes it’s for a key.

after several nights have passed with him fiddling with it, he still doesn’t figure out how to open it. but it bothers him and he is invested in it so badly that he finally just pockets the damn thing, now having something to really ruminate on in his free time. he searches for a key. tries to find mention of it in books. attempts putting things into the hole. tries to use force. alohomora. nothing works. sometimes when he’s fighting with it, he can hear muffled noises coming from it, but he doesn’t even vaguely understand what it is beyond a sort of humming.

he doesn’t really tell anyone about it. it’s kind of something he just… feels is his, and he likes to keep it that way. he has it on him all the time. depending on the verse, he might share knowledge of its existence with a close friend (regulus, for example), but it’s mostly for the sake of getting ideas on how to open it.

eventually, the obsession wanes as he becomes more focused on v/oldemort’s activities. he leaves it in his room, forgotten on his desk, serving as a paperweight or table coaster. it collects dust through his conviction, incarceration, and cursed imprisonment. it’s only once v/oldemort frees him that he finds it again. he brings it to hogwarts, and idly toys with it in his office when he’s alone. it blends in well with all the random tools and items that moody has laying around.

moody, with one leg and one eye missing, serves as a hassle to turn into. during one transformation with the polyjuice potion, he’s a bit too careless. with bad vision and a missing leg, not having prepped moody’s false leg and magical eye, he ends up falling over. he hits his head fairly hard on the corner of his desk, and he bleeds profusely. blood dripping down his face, he fumbles around on his desk for a wiggenwald potion, and makes a mess of it. the compact starts going nuts, lighting up brighter than ever before and vibrating incessantly with that humming, but louder. he ends up turning his attention to it instead of taking care of the gash on his head like a normal person because he has never seen it react so strongly before. what he thought was the keyhole begins to suck in air like a vacuum, and it finally occurs to him that the answer to opening it should have been obvious to him. wiping blood from his face, he then drips blood from his fingers into the funnel. it opens.

when the compact is open, where there would normally be a mirror is something similar to what one would see when looking into thin crystal quartz. it’s imperfect, looking a bit foggy, and without a clean, flat face to it. on the bottom piece is something like knobs one might see on a camera lens, or more accurately a microscope with it’s fine focus and coarse focus knobs. it’s not until someone holds down the center knob for a few seconds that it seems to power up, and the crystal quartz becomes more like glass. more than likely, voices will flood into it, and blurry shapes will appear on the crystal. twisting the knobs correctly can allow someone to focus on a voice / image of someone until they are clear, as if looking through a window. with a magnifying lens, maybe, because it’s handheld and small.

it communicates with spirits. not simply ghosts and poltergeists that exist on the mortal plane, but of those who have passed on. those who do linger in between can, however, interact with it as well, should they wish to while in focus.

honestly, it’s kind of like facetiming the afterlife, but with the addition of having to tune it like a radio.

IT’S VERY HARD TO USE. spirits that have passed, well. have passed. there is really no need for communication between most spirits and living people, but the spirits who do try to jump on call are usually randos trying to pass on a message of some sort. the controls are hard, so it’s more likely that you won’t be able to find someone, especially if they’re satisfied with not making contact / moving on. it can get annoying fairly fast if a particular spirit won’t stop trying to get your attention.

of course, during his stay at hogwarts, barty has a lot of down time that he spends alone. it’s more in character to be a recluse, as well as just a better idea to minimize contact to reduce any chances of making a mistake with his character. plus, if he knows he will be alone for a long time (at night), he tends to like letting the polyjuice potion wear off. he keeps some with him at all times just in case, but sometimes a guy just wants to have his own body parts.

he only searches for two people at first: his mother and regulus. he’s fairly desperate in trying to find them. the only other person he ends up trying to find is his father after killing him, though he isn’t really sure why he does that. a part of him wants to gloat about his death, another part wants some sort of closure because killing him didn’t achieve that.

he finds regulus (proditeur, my good bitch) fairly quickly, however, as reg has been following him around in a sort of limbo state (see g’s good shit good headcanon delicious posts). regulus tries to provide insight, and barty is ecstatic to have him back. basically chinhands at regulus in the compact, delighted to see him, absolutely not absorbing any of the lecture because it’s inconvenient and does not fit into the reality he has concocted in his brain.

he never finds his father, thankfully. nothing good would have come from that. it takes a long, long time and many finger pricks for blood until he finds his mother. this would be circa half-blood prince to deathly hal.lows. being able to speak to her in addition to regulus has a profound effect that eventually leads to him becoming more stable emotionally, less chaotic, and generally more like who he was before volde/mort ever came into his life. they becomes a conscience of sorts for him post-goblet, as he becomes willing to listen.

#| OOC: HEY GHOULS!#| HC: BARTEMIUS CROUCH JR.#hey just have another longass thing i mostly wrote yesterday #shout out to g for inspiring me............. truly a beautiful being for bort n me

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virtuissimo · 5 years

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Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse (Review)

Roanhorse has effectively cemented herself as a visionary in indigenous futurism with her rich world-building, her casual commentary on the powers that be, and even her dynamic and lovable characters, but I think it’s perfectly clear that this is her debut novel. She definitely gets lost in the sauce plot-wise towards the end, and there are several points where the potential for improvement is obvious. Nonetheless, she’s got me rearing for the next book already, and I will definitely be following this series.

This is the kind of book where I really think you can get the most out of it if you go in blind with very little prior knowledge of the book, and it really is a good one. I encourage yall to give it a go. If you don’t care about getting a little more detail, I’ll go into a spoiler free section.

No Spoilers

Okay, first thing I’ve gotta talk about is the setting. First off, it’s AWESOME. The setting is about 6? 7? years after an apocalypse. The explanation for it is really organic and it informs a lot of how the book proceeds.

Idk if this counts as a spoiler so it’s in its own paragraph, but basically the apocalypse was a series of natural disasters around the world plus a major flood that drowned out most of the continental U.S. except for a few walled off city states. The walls are specifically and emphatically NOT the ones that the Trump administration is gunning for—Roanhorse dismisses that quite quickly. These walls were ones that local communities decided to put up, and they are made of beautiful materials that have cultural significance for the Dine.

My favorite thing about the setting is the societal organization. Dinetah is a really interesting place because of the ubiquity of Dine people & culture, but also because Roanhorse obviously has a lot of really interesting thing to say about what apocalypse means to a people that have already had their apocalypse. They already had foreign invasion and genocide, they already had their numbers chipped away to a shadow of its former size, they already had their land destroyed beyond recognition. So what does it mean when in apocalypse destroys the society that destroyed yours? I think Roanhorse’s answer is that it did more good for the Dine than bad. They are freer and safer in an apocalypse, even DESPITE the presence of monsters everywhere.

One thing I really liked about her approach to Dinetah was the use of language. To quote a journal entry I wrote about this book: “Roanhorse makes creative use of Dine words and language. There is no glossary, and sometimes there isn’t even an in-text translation. English speakers are forced to pick up Dine words with no life preserver just as so many non-English speakers are forced to do the same in our world.” Most of the concepts, like clan powers and ghosts and monsters, have a Dine word attached to them, and you learn to recognize them as you read. She doesn’t remind you of their definition either: you either paid attention the first time it came up or you’re screwed! It was just an interesting stylistic choice, and I enjoyed the experience.

Another note about the setting that I love: I LOOOVE the references to the other citystates. I think one was New Detroit? New Denver? And there was a Mormon citystate (when I read that I screamed) and there was one called Aztlan (!!!!!) which was very exciting for me. I have complicated feelings about Aztlan because I think most people who live in this post-apocalyptic citystate would probably not be indigenous Mexicans but rather americanized mestizo Chicanos who think they have an inherent claim to the land just because they colonized it first, but I think as an indigenous author I can trust her to develop a nuanced view of Aztlan and what that means for Mexican Americans (especially consider the fact that she had several sensitivity readers mentioned in her acknowledgements). I really hope we get a chance to explore those in future books.

Oh, also: there are no white people in this book. Like, none. They reference them in vague terms, but I don’t think there was a location or scene that had a white person even in the background, and there were certainly no speaking parts for white people in this book. So basically I loved that. I do that often in my own writing but it’s so rare in mainstream fiction. There is a family that is not Dine in the book, but they are a large black family. With regards to the writing of the black characters: I noticed that her physical descriptions of them sometimes had words that I’ve seen on lists of What Not To Say About Black Characters (comparing skin color to food, particular words used to describe hair, etc.), but I flipped to the author bio and she apparently is black as well as indigenous so I guess my concerns weren’t really relevant lol. One of these characters is also gay, and I thought his characterization was a little bit weird, but it’s fine I guess.

Now I haven’t seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but I’ve read a spinoff from the same universe and have heard enough about it to see the obvious inspiration that Roanhorse took from it. This is not necessarily a bad thing, of course; Buffy has a very particular energy where it’s fantastically easy to get invested. Maggie Hoskie as a hero is easy to love, and even as someone who doesn’t typically like lengthy action sequences, I found the fighting scenes thrilling. However, at the same time Roanhorse commits some of the same mistakes in writing her female protagonist that Joss Whedon so famously introduced into the mainstream, and there are a few times where it becomes difficult not to roll your eyes.

As I’ve seen other reviewers note, Maggie as a character is very reliant on the men in her life. She describes early on how her life was saved by Niezghani, an immortal godlike monster slayer, and his presence in her thoughts influences nearly every decision she makes throughout the novel. Some people have a problem with this; I personally think this is a fine set-up. The author takes great care to show how unhealthy her relationship with Niezghani is. Even when Maggie is talking about how great and powerful he is, how she should be grateful that he even gives her the time of day, we as a reader can tell something is very wrong with their relationship from the very beginning. I don’t really like the direction Roanhorse went with Niezghani (I’ll get into that in the spoilers section I guess), but I thought this relationship as a premise was fine.

I think where she slipped up a little was in putting her relationship with Kai, a mysterious and charming medicine man who helps her on her investigation/quest/whatever, as the center of the story. I guess technically we’re not certain about this since the whole series isn’t out yet, but I think it’s safe to assume this guy is endgame. The whole first half of the book is spent getting to know Kai, which I think is fine because he is a great character and truly charming. (I’m always suspicious of “”charming”” type characters because more often than not the author makes them annoying and presumptuous.) He actually seems to care about the things that are happening, he doesn’t make assumptions, he understands boundaries, and his kindness is genuine. I like Kai, okay, he’s great. BUT I think that spending so much time with him instead of ruminating with Maggie some more was a mistake.

I can understand WHY roanhorse did this: Maggie is someone who is very wrapped up in her thoughts, and 9 times out of 10 her thoughts are really fuckin depressing. I just think that a lot of time was spent characterizing Kai when it could have been done in less time and more efficiently.

The main thing about Kai is that his skills as a medicine man are very mysterious, and Maggie becomes curious very early on about the nature of his abilities. The answer to her questions, though, aren’t given until very very late in the book. In fact, we don’t understand everything about his medicine man secrets until like 10 pages from the end. I think this is way too late. First off, we don’t get to see him in action very much, and the way things go I really wish we had. Second, Roanhorse just wastes a lot of time in the beginning and crams a whole lot in the end. From a world-building perspective these sections are really cool and fascinating, but plot-wise it’s extremely inefficient that we learn about Kai in bits and pieces like this, especially since all of his secrets kind of come out one after the other all crowded at the end. I don’t know if she got the right balance in that tradeoff.

Another critique I’ve seen people have is that all of Maggie’s problems AS WELL AS the solutions to her problems revolve around the men in her life. I did think it was strange that Maggie was essentially the only major female character in the whole book. There was Rissa, but she was a minor character and didn’t have much agency in the plot. I would say that Maggie did have agency, and the way she carries herself both in conversation and in action both suggest that she is making her own decisions independent of male influence. I see where these critiques are coming from, though, and I agree that more of her story should have been herself rather than obsessing over these men.

Minor spoilers I guess: One scene that I think most socially conscious people rolled their eyes at was the decision to create a plot point where she had to get all dolled up in a sexy outfit because Reasons. And then people had that weird Oh My God So Hot moment that we are all so fond of (/s). Annoying tropes like that rear their ugly faces from time to time, but this is the only one that really irritated me.

Yea. I mean. It’s a good book. I think yall should read it. As I’ve said, the worldbuilding and setting is awesome, the characters are super cool, the action is cool and Actually let’s just get into the spoilers.

SPOILERS

Coyote was one of my favorite characters. I think Roanhorse may have wanted him to be a morally gray could-be-either-side type of character, but I really saw him as a straight up villain just because he never actually did help them in a way that didn’t backfire. I love reading him though; the sheer chaos that he brings to every scene really appealed to my gayer side. I don’t know if this is an aspect to him that is commonly seen in folktales or something, but I did think that he was a little over the top creepy about the sex stuff though. When he said that shit about Maggie jacking off to Niezghani I was just…ok he’s crossin some Lines here. Also he was constantly making Kai and Maggie uncomfortable sexually, so I don’t really get why they were always so willing to trust him. Still, he was SO interesting. Whenever he showed up I was instantly enthralled.

One thing that got on my nerves a little was that from the very beginning, it was very clear that Kai and Maggie being endgame is a given. Don’t get me wrong, Roanhorse put in the work to make them seem like a really organic and natural couple. And I guess it’s kind of respectable that she didn’t try to pretend like it wasn’t gonna happen, cuz we all knew. But I think it was a little annoying that EVERYONE, including Tah and Longarm and Grace and Coyote and Kai and EVEN MAGGIE at times were basically of the attitude that they were just biding time until they eventually hook up one day. She really didn’t have to do all that; I liked them as a couple already!

Okay but plot-wise, I have to say this, but Roanhorse REALLY got lost in the sauce there. The final battles were so complicated, and there were actually 3 different scenes that felt like they could be the final battle but then there was more (the battle where Rissa got gutted, the Niezghani versus Maggie fight, and the Black Mesa battle). I feel like she couldn’t decide on a conclusion for book one and just threw all that in there for good measure. In any case, it made the last third of the book really messy and unfocused.

I think she also had too many Reveals. Like, Niezghani revealed Kai’s identity, Kai reveals his true intentions, Coyote reveals his plan, Maggie reveals her counter-plan, and Coyote reveals the circumstances of her nali’s death. TOO MUCH. It was all so cloudy and confusing towards the end, especially with regards to Coyote’s plan. First of all, I didn’t really understand what his plan was on first read, and I ESPECIALLY didn’t understand why he took the time to explain it to her. Second off, I didn’t understand Maggie’s counterplan (I don’t think it’s explained in too many words?) and I ESPECIALLY didn’t understand how they planned to have Kai survive. (Now that I’ve had time to think about it I suppose it’s related to his fast healing situation probably, and they just decided to murk him and see if he was actually immortal or whatever the fuck.) Also Kai and Maggie had that whole conversation about their love life right in front of Niezghani………messy as fuck and also is this really the time?????

One thing I really liked about the beginning of the book was that Maggie was such an unreliable narrator when it came to Niezghani. Like, it was pretty obvious that he’s garbage from the beginning, but Maggie just idolizes this man and you have to like scream into the book WHYY??? But the only way that she’s able to idolize him that way is that he presents himself as a mentor, as an authority, and maybe not so much as a caring figure as much as someone to look up to. He is, if nothing else, RESPECTABLE. But when he finally shows up in the Maggie v Niezghani fight, he is not respectable. He is overtly cruel in a way everyone, including Maggie, can see. He is overtly manipulative. He is overtly uncaring and honestly terrible. But this portrayal of him is SO MUCH LESS NUANCED than it was at the beginning of the book. I wish Roanhorse had had the guts to make him more complicated. To make him ACT apologetic or ACT like a mentor, but to make him a hypocrite. That, to me, would have been much more interesting. I understand that trauma informed a big part of the reason Maggie trusted him in the first place, but I wanted to meet the smooth and enchanting man that Maggie fell in love with but all I saw was this horrible person who never even tries to hide how horrible he is.

Of course, as this is just the first book, we don’t really know what is to come. Since Niezghani is just chillin under the dirt, I think we can assume that he’ll be back. Nonetheless, I’m a bit disappointed that he was pacified/restrained at the end of this book. I kind of hoped that after this confrontation, Maggie would have an epiphany about all the shit he put her through, and then in following books he would be the main antagonist. They would have various run-ins, but only in the final book has she truly built up the strength to get her comeuppance. Or something like that. I just wanted Niezghani’s role to be stretched out is all. I wanted her arc of truly unpacking all of that mess to be over the course of several books, not just one novel in which she’s also distracted by her budding romance with Kai and also the monster stuff.

So yea. It’s a good book. There’s problems, as I’ve clearly stated, but honestly a lot of them come across to me as rookie errors. This is her debut novel, and I don’t think it’s that weird for her to use these tropes in ways that I as a reader don’t care for. However, I definitely think that the pieces are there for her to make excellent use of her setting and characters and pull together a really energetic and thrilling series. Looking forward to returning to the Sixth World!

#book review #trail of lightning #the sixth world #sixth world #6th world #rebecca roanhorse #trail of lightning review #indigenous futurism #scifi #indigeneity #books #my post #jub jub reads books

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sophiainspace · 6 years

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Rebuild

(Legends of Tomorrow fanfic - coldwave)

Summary: Mick ruminates on the similarities between a barn roof and a time ship. A warehouse and a farmhouse. Old friends and new ones. | "The reality is that you will grieve forever… you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered.” - Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Relationship: Mick Rory/Leonard Snart Other characters: Zari Tomaz, Wally West, Ray Palmer

Content warnings: Mild self-harm (brief, nothing graphic) Word count: 2290

Or read at AO3 here

(This was meant to be fluff and… didn’t end up being. This is what happens when your otp is Mick Rory/Leonard Snart.)

Thanks so much to @tobyaudax and @jessicamiriamdrew for reading it over for me, and to Toby for the summary!

Drip. Drip. Drip.

“Gideon, where in the hell is water coming from? Your 22nd century pipes busted now?”

Mick Rory is standing on his desk, attempting to get a better look at the damp spot in the middle of his ceiling. It’s been leaking for two hours.

“We no longer have a ship’s engineer. The most qualified people to fix the leak, in order of relevant skills and experience, are Dr Palmer, Mr West and Ms Tomaz.”

Mick grunts. “Great. Get one of ‘em down here.”

“Unfortunately,” Gideon says brightly, “since none of them is actually the ship’s engineer, they are all occupied with more urgent tasks. I’m sure one of them will be along shortly. In the meantime, may I suggest that you put a bucket down?”

Halfway to forming a sneer, Mick stops.

He gets down from the desk.

He sits down heavily on the bench. Stares at his hands, linking his fingers and flicking his thumbs against each other. One-two-three.

- - -

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Mick Rory stood on a step ladder in the middle of the safe house, with a broom in one hand and a screwdriver in the other, poking at the ceiling.

Lounging on the sofa at the other side of the mostly-empty warehouse, Len looked up. “Put a bucket down,” he advised, and returned his attention to Uncanny X-Men.

“I’m gonna fix it,” Mick said, and poked again at the yellowing ceiling tile.

The comic book rustled as Len turned a page. “It’ll be a hole in the roof. What did you expect? This isn’t exactly five star accommodation, Mick. Put a bucket down.”

Mick grunted, attempting to keep his balance as he reached an arm up to the ceiling, holding the edge of the ladder with the other. “Weren’t we gonna pull the job and get out of here soon?”

“Waiting on word from Collins. He’s figuring out museum security. What are you doing?”

“Draining it. Then I’ll patch the roof.” Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Len watching him with a calculating expression.

“We could call someone in,” Len suggested, after a minute. “There’s probably a builder who owes me.”

Mick glared and gestured at him. The broom flew out of his hand. Sighing, he climbed down the ladder to retrieve it. “You want word getting out that we can’t fix our own shit?” he said, climbing back up. “I grew up on a farm. I know how to fix a damn leak. What are you for?”

Len’s lips twitched and he shrugged. “Suit yourself. Just please be careful. I don’t want to have to take you to the hospital under an alias when you fall off the fucking roof.”

Mick glanced at him, carefully refusing to smile at the comment, and then looked back to the ceiling. “There,” he said eventually, with a sudden stab of the screwdriver into the ceiling tile. The drip became a steady stream of water. “Now bucket,” he said, in the tone of one educating a child, and climbed down. He set off to look for one.

Len put down the book and raised his eyebrows at the stream of water splashing onto the floor. “Could you not have had the bucket here to start with?”

Grunting in reply, Mick slammed the bucket down under the leak, then shoved an enormous roll of plastic sheeting under one arm.

“What are you doing now?”

Mick was already half out of the door. “Patching up the roof,” he said.

“Careful!“ Len yelled back after him.

“Yeah, I heard you.”

- - -

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Mick is staring at Zari, who is staring at the ceiling.

She glances over at him and gestures vaguely at the leak. “You know I’m not a plumber, right?”

He stares harder at her, a real Mick Rory’s going to lose his shit stare, and waits for the effect to kick in. It doesn’t. “Yeah, well. I ain’t a time travelling hero, neither. But here we are.”

She rolls her eyes at him and returns her attention to the leak. Then she starts towards the door.

“Hey! You gonna fix it or what?”

“Or what. I’m going to look at the pipes above the ceiling,” she says. She looks back at him and smiles humorlessly. “But you’re probably gonna have to wait for Ray. Put a bucket down.”

“Why does everyone think I’ve never thought of that?” he calls after her.

“No one’s going to help you with that attitude, Mick,” she shoots back cheerfully.

Mick growls. But she’s already gone.

- - -

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Lying awake in the dark at 3 a.m., Mick was listening to it rain inside his safe house.

“I should get back on the roof,” he whispered.

“Not now you shouldn’t,” Len hissed. “It’s 3 in the morning.”

Mick jumped. “Fucking hell. Thought you were out.”

“I would like to be, so can you shut up and go the fuck to sleep?”

For about three minutes, Mick obliged. He tapped his fingers together. One-two-three.

Then the silence became too heavy. “I thought, how different can a warehouse roof be from a barn roof? Turns out, pretty different.”

He made to move out of bed, and a hand dragged him back by his elbow. “I said,” Len repeated, “not now.”

“’s as good a time as any.”

Mick could feel Len glaring at him through the dark. “It is not as good a time as any,” Len said. “It is dark. There are no street lights out in the parking lot. It’s raining. But fine, break your neck if you must. Just don’t expect me to clean up your body in the morning.”

Mick snorted, and scratched Len’s head fondly.

Groaning, Len pulled a pillow over his face.

Mick grinned, pulling Len towards him. “I mean, since we’re awake…”

“I’m asleep,” Len protested weakly.

But he was easily persuaded.

- - -

Drip. Drip. Drip.

He bangs a fist on the bench.

Reaching across his desk, he grabs a big bowl, empties its snack contents all over the desk, and puts it under the watery menace.

Then he sits on the floor, and leans his head against the leg of his desk. Bashes his head back against it. One-two-three.

- - -

Drip. Drip. Drip.

From where he stood on a chair in the middle of the warehouse, he roared, “I’m gonna burn the place to the fucking ground!”

This was the scene with which Len was greeted, returning from an afternoon out at a hockey game with his sister.

“Yeah. Good luck with that,” Len said, gesturing at the inch of water on the floor.

Mick growled in reply.

Len sighed. It was a deep, world-weary, did-I-really-choose-to-spend-my-life-with-Mick-Rory sigh. “Would you let me call someone to come fix it now?”

“Do whatever the hell you want! Just get the fucking drip to stop, for fuck’s sake!” Mick attempted to get down from the chair and storm off dramatically. His plan was foiled by the inch of water, which left him having to splash away.

Len snickered.

Mick looked at him, daring him to say something. Then he deflated, and leant against the wall.

Coming to stand next to him, Len let his fingers brush against Mick’s along the wall, where he was tapping them against it. One-two-three. “‘Sup?” Len asked.

Mick was silent, resting his head back against the wall. Resisting the urge to bash it against the rough surface.

“You wanna burn something that bad, I can find you something,” Len offered, and Mick shook his head. “What is it, then?”

He shrugged. “Wanted to fix the damn roof.”

“Yes, I gathered,” Len said drily. “Why’s it matter?”

Mick shrugged again. “I gotta be -“ He paused.

“Yes…?”

“- Useful,” Mick finished.

Len turned his head to look at him. Mick skilfully ignored him. Years of practice. Len was handling him. “Don’t,” Mick said, but half-heartedly.

He continued to study Mick. “You’re fine.”

Mick was silent for a minute. Then he said, “Who’d really miss me around here if I was gone?”

Len tapped Mick on the shoulder, experimentally. Mick let him into his space, easier than usual.

“Come on, Mick,” Len said, as his arms snaked around Mick from behind.

Mick gave in to a sudden urge to lean back into his partner and close his eyes.

“You don’t have to be useful,” Len said quietly.

Mick didn’t reply.

- - -

Drip. Drip. Drip.

In one motion, he stands up, grabs his toolbox from the shelf behind him, and sets off decisively to find the water pipes.

- - -

Mick whistled as he mopped the warehouse floor.

Len came in through a side door, and froze at the sight.

“Someone had to clean this mess up,” Mick said cheerfully.

Pointing silently at the ceiling, Len leaned against a pillar.

“Fixed it,” Mick said. He wrung the mop out into the bucket. “Replaced a whole section of roof. Looks good.”

Len watched him for a bit. Then he said, “Just saw Collins. Says we’re good to go at the museum.”

Mick snorted. “So I fix the roof and we’re nearly outta here?”

“Yup.”

With a grin, Len spun on his heel and strode over to the couch. He picked up his guitar and raised a querulous eyebrow at Mick, who scowled. “Sure. I do all the work around here, you just laze around with that thing.”

A smirk was followed by concentration, as Len picked out a simple set of opening notes, then raised a baritone above them. “…And I’ve spent all my money on whiskey and beer…”

Stopping and putting the mop down, Mick came over, leant against the back of the couch and tapped out a rhythm with his foot. One-two-three.

“But now I’m returning with gold in great store, and I never will play the wild rover no more…”

Mick tried to resist the call of the chorus, but found himself echoing a few of the notes under his breath as Len’s singing resounded in the sparse warehouse.

Long fingers strummed out the last chords with a tremulous flourish. Len finished with a self-satisfied smile, eliciting a low rumble of laughter from Mick.

“Good!” Mick concluded.

- - -

“What in the Speed Force happened in here?” Wally West asks, when he finally arrives, hours later.

Mick raises his eyebrows and doesn’t look up from the page he’s typing. “Fixed it,” he said. He glances down at where there’s rather a lot of water on the floor. “The bucket got full,” he adds apologetically.

“How did you…?” Wally trails off uncertainly.

“I figured, how different can a time ship ceiling be from a farmhouse roof? Turns out, pretty different,” he says cheerfully. “Figured out where everything goes, though, in the end. You should tell Gideon she needs to get one of you to look at the lining of the water pipes.”

“Huh,” Wally says.

Mick sits back in his chair and looks at Wally. “Where you from, kid?”

Wally tilts his head in surprise, but answers him. “Uh, Keystone. You?”

Mick smiles. “Keystone.”

He gestures at the bench, and Wally sits down, eyes still a bit wide and wary. Mick swings back and forth in his chair. “You ever go to a Combines game?” he asks.

Wally’s face lights up, and he sits back on his hands. “All the time! You a fan?”

Mick makes a ‘so-so’ gesture with his hand. “Hockey was more Len’s thing. He rooted for the Stars - you believe that? So much for being a Central City boy,” he mused, mostly to himself.

Wally screws up his eyes at him. “Len?”

Mick smiles, mostly to himself. “Before your time, I guess. Captain Cold.”

“Oh,” Wally says with recognition.

Ray Palmer finds them there, still talking, twenty minutes later.

“Oliver was scary intimidating,” Wally’s saying. “The A.R.G.U.S. agent didn’t know if she should kill him or, like, give him a medal.”

“Robin Hood’s a jerkwad,” Mick says enthusiastically, to Wally’s eyebrow raise of tacit agreement. “You gonna stand there letting in the cold all day, Haircut?”

From the doorway, Ray tilts his head. “I’m pretty sure the ship is maintained at the exact same temperature in the hallways as in the rooms, but I could check, if you like,” he says. “Didn’t you have some kind of emergency?”

“Eh. Fixed it. Who wants a beer?”

He catches Wally and Ray looking at each other, ignores them, stands up and slaps his thighs. “C’mon. New Girl said maybe she’d play me a thing.”

Ray raises his eyebrows helplessly at him.

“You know. On her fiddle.” He picks up his jacket. “I said, you know any Irish tunes? And she says no. So I got Gideon to give her - what do you call it? On her computer.”

“A playlist?” Ray suggests.

He clicks his fingers in Ray’s direction. “Yeah. Gotta see if she’ll play me some.”

“You’ll ask her if she minds you drinking around her, yeah?” Wally says.

“Of course.”

Ray and Wally fall into step with him as he strides out towards the kitchen.

- - -

It’s much later when Mick Rory returns to his quarters, his jacket slung over his arm, whistling. The lights come on at a low setting.

He smiles thoughtfully as he lowers himself to the floor by the bench.

“Gideon?”

“Yes, Mr Rory?”

He pauses for a minute, staring at the floor. “Can you put on the playlist you made for me?” he asks, at last.

Gideon obliges. He leans his head back against the bench and closes his eyes. His attention fades in and out of the first song that comes on.

“Well, the ship is in the harbor, love, and you know I can’t remain…”

He taps out a rhythm on the floor with his fingertips. One-two-three.

“It’s not the leaving of Liverpool that grieves me - but, my darling, when I think of thee.”

#legends of tomorrow fanfic #mick rory #leonard snart #dccoldwave #you're a hero to me #zari tomaz #wally west #ray palmer #flashbacks to domestic coldwave #because my 'domestic coldwave' obsession will continue forever #my fic #legends of tomorrow

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cosmosogler · 7 years

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hello. when i went to therapy on friday my therapist recommended i start writing every day again. then i didn’t write on friday. but i am writing today!

been having a lot of trouble sleeping. between feeling super restless and having nightmares i don’t get a lot of sleep. i tried taking wiley out for a long walk today and we’ll see if that helps me get a little more settled in when i try to go to bed.

i realized several days too late that i had left my pokemon in a timed mini game in poke pelago, where if you leave them in for a while their happiness goes up, but if they’re there too long their happiness starts to go down instead. so all their happiness stats were at 0 again and i accomplished nothing. i’ll try to be on top of it this time and take them out in the morning.

i have been utterly unable to eat more than a few bites at a time for the last three days. i try to break up my meals into halves and eat the leftovers the next day and i STILL can’t handle the half portions. it’s like, no matter how small i make my meals, i can still only eat a fraction of whatever i make. i guess i was hoping that exercising with the dog would bring back my appetite but it didn’t. i’ll have to try again tomorrow. i get super nauseous every time i try to eat even a little bit, to where i almost threw up immediately after getting halfway through a pb and j sandwich. that is not a hard to digest meal.

i’m not sure what to write about now... i haven’t really talked to many people the last week or so since my last entry. i am trying to build some new friendships since i don’t have the other physics majors to spend time with any more. but meeting new people is like trying to climb a wall using only my fingernails.

i am trying to be at the very least nice, if i can’t be kind. i wonder if my trepidation makes me a bad person.

star vs the forces of evil is an interesting choice for disney to broadcast. i guess the tv channel doesn’t mind letting its relationships get messy. the show has a lot of elements that i like in OTHER tv shows- but the way they’re put together in this particular show is somehow unsatisfying. i still can’t figure out why. i want to say the villain is too straightforward, but the lich from adventure time does that too and i like that villain in that show’s context. i think it’s really interesting how ludo is an ineffective villain without being sympathetic or too multi-dimensional. everything you need to know about him you learn in the first episode he shows up in. he never really shows hidden depths. you learn his dad was real hard on him and it’s like “yeah, i could have extrapolated that” and also i still didn’t feel sorry for him. i don’t think he deserved what happened to him toward the end of season 2, but it didn’t come as a surprise. he gets in way over his head and then he finds too late that he can’t swim. but having watched his first appearance, i KNEW he couldn’t swim.

i dunno. it’s a character i’ve seen before played in a way i haven’t seen before. like a captain planet villain that wandered into the horned king’s castle. the horned king is from, uh, the black cauldron. it’s not the most widely-known disney movie but it’s the best comparison i can think of.

i do have problems with the way it handles the protagonists. i was hoping that two seasons would sharpen up marco’s character but he still feels really... vague and not as perceptive as i thought he would be. i can’t get a handle on what his character is about, because it changes completely between the first and second episodes and i guess i never got over that confusion. i could forgive early installment weirdness, but the first episode is not the pilot. and marco doesn’t change over time the way finn or steven universe do. it’s a stark difference between the first and second episodes. like “these are his main character traits” differences. and the love conga line is frustrating at best. it’s not even a love triangle. it’s just a line of people pining for each other. but we know how it’s going to end because of the “blood moon destiny” thing so i don’t know why they’re bothering with all this unnecessary drama. the only thing i can hope for is that the whole “destined soulmates” thing gets directly subverted somehow.

i also am not sure how to feel about how it “gets dark.” but it’s not because i have a problem with kids’ shows getting dark? because i liked it in gravity falls, it seemed appropriate. and i liked it in adventure time and homestuck, i guess because i like getting mood whiplash. it’s been a few days and i still can’t put my finger on why it doesn’t feel right in this situation. the moment i realized i didn’t like it was very specific though. it was when queen moon goes to the monster king guy’s shack in the forest of death. ludo’s parents’ house. and you see the monster queen for the first time, and she has a black eye, and it’s very obvious that there’s some domestic abuse going on there. i saw that character and i said to myself “hmm, no, that’s too much.” but WHY did i say that to myself? i don’t expect every cartoon relationship to be happy or healthy. i guess i got too used to steven universe or something. the abusive relationship between the joker and harley quinn in the batman cartoon didn’t feel so... out of place. maybe because harley has a personality outside of “battered girlfriend/wife?”

hey look at that! i typed for like 40 minutes. most of it was navel gazing about a children’s cartoon.

i am beta reading an acquaintance’s story too. i want to talk about that now, but i think i’ve talked long enough about the media i consume for one night. i think i’ve said everything that is helpful to him, and everything that is not helpful to asher. so at least i’ve said it at some point. the story is not personally to my taste, but looking at other books that have become popular, i don’t think that the premise and direction necessarily make it a bad story. so i try to keep my critiques to the guy focused on the mechanics of the story rather than ruminating on potential metaphors and emotional payoff.

my therapist says i think a whole lot. i wondered how she knew that before we even spoke for a whole hour, but looking back at what i just wrote i feel like some things about myself might be really obvious. i’m not really as inscrutable as i’d sometimes like to be. i wonder if, since it seems easy to get a handle on my personality, that makes me a less interesting person.

i talked to asher last night about how i feel life is going for me right now and how my dreams might reflect that. he described my dreams as “fruitless tasks” and i think that is an accurate assessment. i don’t know how to summarize the feeling right now. i spent like an hour describing it last night and i don’t have that much energy left right now.

he did say something really interesting that i’ve been thinking about all day though. he said i could always choose to not do the tasks my dreams set up for me. i realized that that’s what my jumbi story is kind of about. the climax of the story, and where it kind of abruptly cuts off, is jumbi’s decision to NOT do something, and then the story ends there because she’s kind of refusing to participate in the narrative any more. she quits and goes home.

i think the only way i wouldn’t do one of my dream tasks though is if i realized i was dreaming and specifically remembered to try that, which doesn’t always happen. otherwise in my dreams i always feel like i’m going through the motions even suspecting or knowing that there’s absolutely no “reward.” feels like that when i’m awake too.

hey, sorry i talked so much. i didn’t think i had so much to say. i’m not sure how to wrap this up. everything just kind of fell out and i don’t have a pretty bow to tie it all up with. sorry, i guess.

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how2to18 · 6 years

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IN HIS NEW BOOK, Building and Dwelling: Ethics for the City, Richard Sennett does not restrain himself from a little name-dropping. Several luminaries, dead and alive, make appearances. There’s Saskia Sassen, who happens be his wife, and, of course, there’s Jane Jacobs, with whom Sennett jawed at the White Horse Tavern in New York City and visited on occasion during her exile in Toronto.

Allow me to do the same.

Two years ago, I was doing research for an article on Jacobs, whose 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities is the seminal treatise in the current back-to-the-city movement. I arranged an interview with Sassen, oft-credited with coining the term “global city.” After generously sharing her thoughts on Jacobs, Sassen asked me quite offhandedly if I would also like to interview her husband for the piece whom, she helpfully explained, was Richard Sennett. And so, I did. I did not know that Sennett was, at the very moment, working on one of the more sprawling, erudite books to be written about the history and future of urbanism in a great while.

Building and Dwelling, Sennett’s 15th book on urbanism, is an intellectual romp that — in just the first four pages — includes encounters with St. Augustine, Honoré de Balzac, Marcel Proust, Immanuel Kant, and Nicholas Negroponte. At once trying to build a modern philosophy of cities while acknowledging, as he did most famously in The Uses of Disorder, the inherent messiness of cities, Sennett uses a compelling framework and aspires to an admirable, if elusive, goal. The framework is that of ville and cite. The former refers to the physical entity of the city, and the latter refers to its human element: how people live in, think about, and relate to their cities — hardware and software, for lack of a better metaphor. Sennett’s goal is nothing less than an articulation of how to achieve, or at least think about, the ethical city in the 21st century. It’s no small task.

Sennett takes full advantage of the breadth and vagueness of the concept of “ethics” to discuss seemingly anything and everything that comes into his mind. His title derives from a Heidegger essay, “Building Dwelling Thinking.” Sennett notes, “The absence of commas indicates that these three concepts form one experience.” Thus, parts of Building and Dwelling read like streams of consciousness, in which Sennett leaps from one concept to another and one thinker to another, philosophers and urbanists (some prominent, some obscure) coming and going breathlessly. A mention of Aesop’s fables on one page follows is followed by a description of Songdo, South Korea, on the next. Street life in Medellín gives way to another reference to Balzac, then to William James, and then to Leibniz (“Leibniz zooms out; James zooms in”). Building and Dwelling is exhilarating and readable, but it is also demanding. Sennett seems to assume the reader knows what or whom he is citing and forces the reader to fill in transitions to keep track of the ways that his ideas weave together.

Readers, therefore, might benefit from having at least a casual knowledge of philosophy and/or urban planning. Background knowledge of Heidegger, specifically, helps locate a central thread; Heidegger influences Sennett with an abstract rumination on physical buildings, the act of dwelling, the act of building, and the act of thinking about all three. Heidegger does not so much get at the essence of these things as he does raise questions about their complex relationship to each other and to humanity — much as Sennett does, just with examples from the material world.

City life always wavers along continua that are bounded by unattainable poles, and so dualities run throughout Building and Dwelling. Sennett concerns himself with public and private; past and future; formal and informal; technological and analog; freedom and order; surveillance and anonymity; diversity and homogeneity; democracy and despotism; logic and emotion; local and metropolitan; past and future; speed and incrementalism; and Moses and Jacobs, among many others. His theme of ville and cite recurs frequently, and his title — to which he rarely refers directly — expresses a similar duality of object and experience. Indeed, it implicitly refers to the contrast between the individual in the city, who might inhabit a building and make it a dwelling, and that of the collective city itself, which is a “home” to thousands or millions.

Naturally, the good life lies on different points along the continuum for different people, which is, if anything, the ultimate message of Building and Dwelling. Planners, builders, and urban residents themselves must always seek the right balance. They must respect that the balance can shift, and that it shifts differently for everyone.

Sennett arrives at the idea of an “open city” to express a host of virtues that he believes should permeate the ethical city. Openness entails diversity, neighborliness, evolution, appropriate technology, and novelty. He writes, “Ethically, an open city would of course tolerate differences and promote equality, but would more specifically free people from the straitjacket of the fixed and the familiar, creating a terrain in which they could experiment and expand their experience.” He proposes an appealing way for city-dwellers to conceive of their half-intimate, half-anonymous relationship to each other: “‘Sociality’ names feeling a kind of limited fraternity with others based on sharing an impersonal task. That limited fraternity arises when people are doing something together rather than being together.”

For all of his focus on philosophy, Sennett spends plenty of time in the real world. He travels to the MIT Media Lab, where he ponders the relationship between technology and urbanism. He strolls through Haussmann’s Paris, wondering about the morality of his boulevards. He explores the new South Korean “smart city” of Songdo. He returns to the White Horse Tavern, and he explains how a recent stroke, and its debilitating effects, caused him to rethink his relationship with the city. On that count, Building and Dwelling reads as a kind of coda: Sennett may be collecting all of his loose thoughts in contemplation of his own mortality.

In some cases, Sennett is judicious in how he draws on his encyclopedic knowledge of philosophy and history. In other cases, he seems to stumble onto urban experiences by happenstance and decides to make a big deal out of them. This serendipity includes his visits to Google’s Greenwich Village offices, which he critiques for being an immersive, “open plan” office that tries to keep workers contained and productive and discourages them from exploring the urban bounty that lies just outside. It “derives from the classic company towns of industrial era.” However distinctive this East Coast Googleplex may be, it is surely nothing compared to its real headquarters and probably does not deserve quite the attention Sennett pays it. Goodness knows, there are probably Goldman Sachs drones up the street who work in far longer houses than any Googler does.

At the other end of the socioeconomic spectrum, an odd character named Mr. Sudhir appears in a chapter about Delhi. He sells used, possibly stolen, electronic equipment in a makeshift public market. The market’s informality fascinates Sennett, as does Mr. Sudhir’s murky status. To Sennett, he represents a midpoint between public and private, official and informal, ethical and unethical. Mr. Sudhir becomes Sennett’s foil, appearing repeatedly, sometimes gratingly, as Sennett wonders what Mr. Sudhir would make of this or that.

Sennett’s strongest, and possibly most concrete, chapter concerns diversity: the Holy Grail to cosmopolitans and a fatal virus to nationalists. Invoking everything from the current refugee crisis in Europe to the original Jewish Ghetto in medieval Venice, Sennett asks questions that few peoples ask until it’s too late: “How do you dwell in a place where you do not belong? Conversely, in such a place, how should others treat you?” Sennett makes a compelling connection between these questions and the built form of a place. He argues that physical homogeneity begets and reinforces ethnic homogeneity, sometimes with disastrous humanitarian and aesthetic results. He writes:

Exclusion isn’t just a matter of keeping out Jews or other Others, it also involves simplifying the look and construction of the place so that the place fits one kind of person, but not others. Mixed forms and uses invite mixed users. Whereas in a stripped-down environment, the more form becomes simple, clear and distinct, the more it defines who belongs there and who doesn’t.

This chilling critique relates to a subsequent conclusion Sennett draws about prescriptive planning: “The master plan divides a city up into a closed system where each place and function relates logically to other places.” Not surprisingly, Sennett has choice words for the great modernist and self-promoter Le Corbusier, whose Plan Voisin called for the demolition of Paris and its replacement with highways and apartment towers. Corbusier also co-wrote the 1933 Athens Charter, the decidedly authoritarian manifesto that codified the aesthetic principles that became the International Style — the signature architecture style of the 20th century. In short, Corbusier opposed urban complexity and, therefore, pretty much all that Sennett holds dear.

With a few exceptions, Sennett’s book is not a prescription for urban planners, however. It includes no practical advice and makes virtually no reference to current planning trends, at least not by name. The dangers of logic arguably reach their apex in so-called smart cities, which Sennett — as much a futurist as a historian — views with equal parts intrigue and skepticism. Referring to smart cities that use technology to dictate city life and surveil citizens, he warns, “By using machines, people would stop learning. They would become stupefied. The prescriptive smart city is a site for this stupefication.” Sennett, though, holds out hope for technology that can “coordinate” urban life, by exposing citizens to new ideas and enabling them to understand their worlds and voice their opinions more clearly than they currently can. To planners who would reflexively adopt new technologies, Sennett warns, “There is nothing better about the past just because it has already happened. So, too, there is nothing better about the new just because it is unlike the past.”

Ultimately, Sennett resorts to an ancient metaphor to explain how planners ought to view cities. He writes: “Cities aren’t farmed today. Instead they are master-planned. The fully grown plant is treated as the plan.” Sennett naturally favors an “organic” approach. To mix metaphors, he observes that well-crafted objects are enduring and repairable. Likewise, “a good-quality environment is one which can be repaired.”

What Sennett does do — probably better than any other scholar could — is pull urban planners out of the daily grind of pragmatism. He offers the sort of intellectual provocation that can make inquisitive planners question just about everything they do and everything they think about cities. That’s not to say that Building and Dwelling will cause anyone to abandon their principles. Rather, it presents a time-out for the reassessment of principles and a reminder that city-building is, to invoke another duality, as much an intellectual endeavor as it is a pragmatic one.

Based in Los Angeles, Josh Stephens writes about urban planning and related topics. He is contributing editor to the California Planning & Development Report.

The post Balancing Act: Richard Sennett’s “Building and Dwelling” appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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totesmccoats · 7 years

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Dark Nights Metal #2

Batman has stolen the most dangerous weapon in the universe, and the Justice League give chase. Meanwhile, the council of Immortals plan to find a way to kill Barbatos before his cult can summon them through Batman.

They may be too late.

There’s this saying in storytelling that you should start a scene 5 seconds into things so that your action has a running start. This issue exemplifies that perfectly, starting with Batman already having outsmarted the League, and baiting them with decoys upon decoys. It’s a genius way to remind us just how well prepared Batman really is without much actual set-up. And watching the League essentially open boxes within boxes until they reach the crunchy Batman center pays off like gangbusters.

And when Superman and Wonder Woman eventually do catch up with Bruce, the reveal is one of the best sight gags in comics history. Highlight below if you really need spoilers: Baby Darkseid in a baby bjorn 😀

And in the final pages of the issue, the shit hits the fan, and the real Dark Souls Nights Metal begins.

Mister Miracle #2

Scott and Barda lead many successful campaigns against Darkseid’s forces, but none of it earns any respect from the new Highfather – Orion.

Instead, Orion sends Scott and Barda on a new mission – to kill Granny Goodness, the woman that tortured them through their childhood, while pretending to negotiate a treaty. But a half received message from Metron casts doubts on which side Scott should be fighting for.

Another great issue that probably couldn’t turn any more upside down than it does. The issue goes through stages: exhaustion by the endless warfare, then an unease while in Orion’s court as he compels his brother to bow to him, and finally uncertainty when Scott and Barda are “graciously” welcomed by Granny. You would think that GG would be the creepiest part of the issue, especially considering the reunion of abuser and abused, but she has nothing on Orion’s massive egotrip.

Luckily, King is skillful enough to break up the discomfort of the issue with one sweet, and incredibly relatable, scene of Scott and Barda trying to figure out how showers on New Genesis are supposed to work. Part of that sweetness is soured when it’s implied that one of Barda’s continuing insecurities was seeded by GG, and that GG knows it; but it’s the initial thought that counts, right?

Right now, Mister Miracle is an almost Hamlet-esque family drama above everything else – a deadly and divine Thanksgiving; and its completely gripping.

The Flash #30

Infected by the black suit Negative Speed Force, Barry finally snaps at Singh and his fellow crime lab workers after they chastise him for investigating the missing samples alone. Luckily, Kristen won’t be pushed away so easily, and manages to talk him down in private, which leads Barry to a break in the investigation, which he follows up on as the Flash. Waiting for him is the thief, but he’s more than Flash bargained for.

I love everything about this issue. It’s just classic comics. Negative influenced Barry finally reaches his breaking point and angsts out in front of everybody! And then we get a new villain using a classic formula: after experimenting on himself, Bloodwork manages to turn his hemophilia into a psychic control over all blood. So good!

The Flash is on a roll right now, largely going back to superhero fundamentals, and knocking them out of the park.

Wonder Woman #30

After being persuaded to be part of Hamilton Revere’s experiments to use her blood in regular people, Wonder Woman is told that he plans to use it to make super soldiers, not cure diseases. Realizing she’s been duped, Wonder Woman rescinds her help. And, realizing Diana has been led into a trap, Steve and Etta make their way towards rescuing her.

Following Fontana’s pattern so far, the prolonged fight scene in this issue is better than everything that comes after it. Diana’s running monologue where she says she will be a hero for humanity, but not a weapon, really works for her character, especially as she fights off partial Wonder-ized super soldiers working under Revere’s orders to – quite literally – bleed her dry. Wonder Woman will not be made an object.

But, the issues quality takes a sharp downturn almost immediately after the villain’s base explodes. It’s almost as though there were two writers on this book, it’s that drastic. Thankfully, it’s only for three pages, but it’s a sour note to leave this story, and this creative team, on.

Amazing Spider-Man #32

Defeated, Norman Osborn searches once again to re-awake the Goblin inside himself, a search that leads him to the Temple With No Name, high in the Himalayas, to begin studying the arcane arts.

This is a one-shot, and a relatively insignificant one, all things considered, but a fine enough story in and of itself. I love the art of Smallwood and Bellaire, fresh off their run with Rucka on Moon Knight, and that meta-reference also is a small hint towards how this story winds-up.

But, honestly, Osborn isn’t as compelling a character as Slott would like him to be in this issue, and acknowledging that the story is similar to those of other magic users in the Marvel Universe isn’t an excuse for the lack of anything novel in this telling.

Ms. Marvel #22

Just having found out that Jersey’s newest villain is one of her school friends, and revealing her own secret identity as a way to reach him, Ms. Marvel is just barely able to escape from Lockdown. Totally exhausted, and opposed by half the city, Kamala is lucky that the other half has her back, and also, that she’s friends with a teleporting dog.

Between this and Black Bolt, Lockjaw is in the running to be this month’s Marvel MVP. The rest of the issue is fantastic, too, demonstrating the power of a community to rise up against the parts of it that would destroy them from within. More heroic than Kamala are Nakia and Tyesha, who lead a march to the mosque where KIND has their kidnapped inhumans surrounded, and present them with a document from the court proclaiming their actions to be illegal. She’s also backed up by the rare good cop, and recently former mayor Marchesi.

After a quick refueling at a friendly neighborhood Mediterranean restaurant, Ms. Marvel hops back into the fray, but in this issue, the day is truly won by the people, whom, united, can never be defeated.

Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #24

Ultron is a T-Rex now! That’s all you need! Also, Squirrel Girl teams up with Antonio the Doombot to try and stop Ultron, who is a T-Rex now.

Henderson and Renzi do some neat things with Ultron’s iconic face-lights cutting through the darkness in the beginning of the issue, and it’s almost a shame they don’t keep it up longer. But, almost as quickly as they finish doing that, North introduces us to Antonio the Doombot, who continues this series’ tradition of scene-stealing robots; although Ultron doesn’t let Antonio do so easily.

Kill or Be Killed #12

After killing the guy who threatened Kira, Dylan realizes that if he really wants his newly improved relationship with Kira to last, he’s going to have to bring down the entire Russian mob before they can harm her or himself.

What strikes me most about this issue is the contrast between happy Dylan and vengeful Dylan. On Halloween, Dylan realizes that every moment he gets to spend with Kira is a miracle, and joyously wonders the city with her until they settle into each-other’s arms at the end of the night.

But then he’s consumed by vengeful Dylan, who compels him to stake-out a Russian Mafioso until he can lead him to his boss and tell him everything he knows before killing him in cold blood. He ruminates on how he’s learned to ignore his fear response because he’s realized that he’s not the first or only murderer among humanity. He’s ruthless, calculating, and single-minded. And you being to wonder how these two Dylans could possibly be the same person.

Redlands #2

OK, this series is going in a very different direction than I expected. Having successfully liberated the town of Redlands, Florida; Bridget, Alice, and Ro became the new police force. Their latest case is chasing “Redbrant,” an “artist” murderer who poses his victims in symbolic positions while stuffing their bodies with alchemically treated rose-petals, and paints solid red canvases with their blood. Moreover, he knows about Bridget, Alice, and Ro’s witchcraft, and wants to expose them to the world.

If this series decides to settle into Witch Law & Order, I am totally here for that if this issue is any indication of how that would pan out. But Bellare has also clearly built a much deeper world with Redlands, full of – besides witchcraft – artistically predisposed murderers, and perverted high-school principals that prey on their students. Redlands may be run by witches, but men still be creepy.

Coming off its explosive cold-open of an issue, Redlands is still warming up, but I’m excited to see where else this series decides to go.

Comic Reviews for 9/13/17 Dark Nights Metal #2 Batman has stolen the most dangerous weapon in the universe, and the Justice League give chase.

#batman #dc comics #green goblin #kill or be killed #marvel #metal #mister miracle #mr. miracle #ms. marvel #redlands #spider-man #squirrel girl #the flash #wonder woman

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