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deborahdeshoftim5779 · 4 years

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Return to Writing

Isn’t it strange that every time I fall off the tracks with writing, everything else falls out of bed as well? Not really. Whenever I maintain a regular writing habit, whether by hand, on mywriteclub, or on Tumblr, I am much calmer and much more determined to get tasks done.

When it comes to writing on the computer, I love the satisfaction of watching my daily word count grow in leaps and bounds. When it comes to writing by hand, I get the satisfaction of seeing neat pages of cursive, which are a pleasure to read.

At the moment, I use my Tumblr blogs more frequently for posting interesting videos I have seen. Over the last couple of months, I have brought back more writing posts, where I discuss a range of topics. This is necessary for a diversity of output, as well as helping me to meet a daily word count.

Given my aforementioned frustration with a lack of reading (which causes my knowledge to stagnate and dwindle), I intend on reading into several topics and writing on those. As I study French and German (and have other languages planned), I can further diversify my output with foreign language posts, too.

Subjects that I have currently covered, or will cover in the future:

1)- Art: I reblog so many brilliant paintings, particularly from Russian artists such as Ivan Aivazovski, and Giovanni Antonio Canal. But simply reblogging doesn’t help meet my goal of regular drawing practice, or even studying more about art in general. Rather, I should study these paintings in more detail, and use the method that countless artists used to learn: copy. I cannot reproduce the entire work, but I can definitely practice a technique here, an object there. As mentioned before, art is absolutely essential to my personal, academic, social, and business-related development.

2)- Foreign Languages: self-explanatory. My main languages are French and German, which I use in the personal, academic, and business-related sphere on a daily basis. I intend to post lengthier posts in French and German, in the hope that native speakers will help me improve my expression. I know that I still rely on anglicisms and need to expand my vocabulary. This means interacting with other foreign language posts on Tumblr, of which there are many! The nature of my foreign language study is such that I use French and German to study other topics, ensuring that I use the language regularly. This includes watching videos.

3)- Fanfiction: I had a moratorium on fanfiction, which yawned over months and months. Some of this was motivated by personal events during the latter half of 2019, but the decisions I made on the back of those events have done me no good whatsoever. Consequently, I am miles behind with any form of creative writing-- so much so, that I had to begin a new writing challenge in preparation for CampNaNo in April. Like many others, I have to kill this idea that fanfiction is “less important” or “just a hobby”. In fact, fanfiction has been the primary means by which I improved my own writing. Reading other people’s works has shaped my own thought and pushed me to produce my own works.

4)- Writing: My life’s work is writing, which makes my inconsistency on this account all the more baffling. Procrastination and anxiety can kill good habits, so be warned. I don’t refer to writing as a “past-time, hobby, interest”. I write every single day, because I have to. When I write, I grow calmer, more motivated, learn more, remember more, want to read more, develop as a person, get more jobs, and so on. The benefits are too numerous for this Tumblr post. All aspect of the writing craft fascinate me, so I will interact with and reblog any post connected to the writing craft. At the moment, nonfiction forms my main interest: journal entries and meta analysis appearing most often here. However, for my work, I need more practice with essay writing, analysis, and reviews. I still retain a love for fiction, particularly crime fiction.

5)- Management: Anything to do with time-management, organisation, scheduling, objectives, efficient work, conquering procrastination, and so on. I have to remind myself time and time again of what is necessary for succeeding with any goal. At the moment, single-tasking and focusing on tasks, rather than pushing them aside, is my main goal. I will be writing about my adventures with management more frequently to encourage myself and others. Once again, Tumblr is a treasure trove of advice and ideas on time-management and organisation, so I can minimise procrastination as well as enjoy trawling social media by researching useful topics and making notes by hand.

6)- Music: This one is a no-brainer. I have not done much reading into the composers, something I noticed when researching French Baroque composers. I think that topic in itself deserves more discussion. At the moment, I post a lot of videos of excellent music I have heard, with a little commentary. The reason my commentaries are so skinny are because it’s been years since I did any wide reading into music theory, the composers, and instruments. I have not been updating my practice journal either, with regards to the piano. The last entries date from February 2019, I think. Music is one of those areas which I miss when I have not approached for a while. When I return, I berate myself for not having kept this up on a regular basis. I have Christoph Wolff’s Bach essays on my bookshelf at the moment, unread. Time to change that!

7)- Healthy Eating: I am making baby steps in eating more vegetables, pulses, and whole grain foods. It would be better to draw inspiration from cookbooks and other posts from Tumblr users to ensure that I control my eating habits. For example, the bar of Galaxy Cookie Crumble chocolate I just ate instead of preparing meals in advance has not helped my waist or my long-term health. The number of healthy snacks available, as well as delicious healthy dishes completely cancel out the laziness of buying snacks (and the money burned buying total rubbish). I also love the aesthetic of good food, and the accompanying social benefits from eating proper meals. These will really liven up my dashboard.

8)- Ballet & Exercise: At 24, I’m too old to study ballet intensely, but I can certainly benefit from the exercise and discipline required for this discipline. Don’t expect any insightful posts into the art: I am a mere (unfit) spectator who admires these women for their grace and inhuman strength. I have already downloaded some pictures of ballet exercises that anyone can complete, and have also subscribed to a Youtube channel (German) which teaches ballet. At the moment, I try to get at least 6000 steps a day, but this has to be supplemented with muscle exercises. Walking isn’t going to shed the extra fat on my stomach or my butt (I really feel those extra pounds when running up the stairs!). So expect more writing on exercises that I have practiced and will be practicing on a regular basis. As someone with endometriosis, regular and strenuous exercise (as well as reducing processed foods and excess dairy) is crucial to managing the condition. My last spell was particularly painful again, after two relatively mild months.

If you have had a hiatus from writing-- or if you are better than me and write regularly-- feel free to interact with the upcoming posts (or poke me via my “Ask Me” question box if I slack off, as may well happen).

Keep writing!

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buttjaehyun · 5 years

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me vs. my best friend (kpop edition)

welcome to whatever this is i guess, well my nickname is nana so nice to meet y’all and since this is a post about me AND my best friend her nickname is kun so i’m just gonna refer to her as kun so just saying that now do y’all don’t get confused later

WARNING: this is an extremely long post so if you don’t want to read all of it i can’t blame you but it did take me roughly 8 hours to write this so i’d appreciate it if you read it but it’s okay if you don’t^^ also please respect our opinions and if any of you want to answer these questions in the comments or reblogs then please feel free to do so!!

so this was originally gonna be a youtube video but honestly i’m way too lazy to edit roughly 82 different music videos into 15 minutes. so i’m just gonna do it here until i get motavated enough to actually download 82 music videos and edit them down into clips. at the bottom of this is a spotify playlist of the songs i was gonna download audio/music videos for if you want to take a listen, there is one for me and one for kun ^^

so i guess i’ll start btw kun’s list took me SO LONG cause she’s also indecisive so we sat on the phone for 2 hours while she was answering these questions i swear

me (nana)

kun

both of us

1. Favorite Male Group:

- got7; im not even gonna lie those seven goof balls mean the world to both of us, like we’re seeing them on july 6th for the second year in a row, how can they top the greatest day of our lives?

- i adore all of them so much and they’ve made me the happiest i’ve ever been and i can’t believe i actually fell in love with one of them??? like it sound STUPID AF but like i deadass fell in love with mark tuan and i don’t regret it at all

- MY BOYS! honestly because of them i laugh constantly and can’t help but love them! especially yugyeom! he’s so cute i can’t! his eyes, his voice, his everything i adore him and he owns my heart from now until forever

2. Favorite Female Group:

- aoa; aoa was my first girl group besides f(x) and they have a special place in my heart but other then them i also adore twice

- red velvet; im not too into girl groups but i’m trying but so far i really enjoy red velvet and their personalities and they’re few of the girl groups i actually know the names of lol

3. Favorite Band:

- day6; we’re jyp stan’s at heart (and sm stan’s im not gonna lie) we’ve loved all of jyp’s groups and soloists thus far, honestly day6 doesn’t have a single bad song if you ask us

(dowoon owns my heart just thought you would like to know that)

(and brian owns mine whoops)

4. Favorite Underrated Boy Group:

- the boyz; they’re so cute and talented so stan them asap plz (also stan astro my bubs) okay so this one was hard for me ngl, i adore the group kun chose from the bottom of my heart but a lot of our answers are similar so i wanted to change it up

- astro; thanks to nana she dragged me into loving these goof balls and i’m so glad she did, they’re all so adorable and they have great music so stan my babies :(( sanha is the cutest babie and i love him please love my beagle boy

5. Favorite Underrated Girl Group:

- dreamcatcher; hands down one of the easiest questions for me? like idk i adore these girls and they’re great so please stan :D

- clc; MY GIRLS MY QUEENS okay so other than red velvet they’re my favorite girl group and i’m absolutely not gonna deny that

6. Favorite Rookie Boy Group:

- stray kids

so i’ve stanned stray kids since predebut, specifically when hellevator was released, YALL HAVE NO CLUE HOW HYPED I WAS im serious i didn’t shut up about these boys and i’m so glad they’re so beyond successful and i adore each and every one of them p.s stream side effects

i’ve liked stray kids since predebut but after nana’s persistence i ended up adoring the members more than anything (except yugyeom) i major stanned since january of 2018 and i’m so proud of my boys :((

7. Favorite Rookie Girl Group:

- itzy; so other than everglow it was hard for us to make a decision on this, neither of us STAN STAN many girl groups so most girl group debuts slip our minds after watching them but dalla dalla had been stuck in both of our heads for months now so that’s why we ended up choose itzy (also jyp girl group duh)

8. Favorite Disbanded Group:

- speed; okay so most people don’t know them and i am: depressed about it but it’s okay, they’re my boys and i love them, one of the members is actually zico’s older brother so oof yes talented family, they’re great and i miss them so much :(((

- history; so roughly towards the end of 2016 i saw their video just might die and queen, nana had already played me queen before and i really enjoyed the song (bop listen to it plz) and i just loved them from then on, after they announced their disbandment last year ngl it hurt cause i love them

(i could only find the audio of just might die without having to download the video so the link to the video is attached to just might die)

9. Favorite Sub Unit:

- NCT Dream; okay i’m not that person to be like Oh I oNlY stAn ThIs UnIt OF nCt no i stan all 21 members and whoever else joins from that HOWEVER all of the dreamies are really really high on my bias list so that’s why i chose them for my favorite unit (stream dnyl thanks :D) im actually listening to dnyl while writing this so love that

so i couldn’t find any gifs of nct dream ot7 so i settled for this cute gif of jisung

- WayV; i love all of nct but kun (+johnny and mark) are at the top of my nct bias list. i love take off and i love every song they’ve released so far, my boys ARE APART OF NCT (for y’all dululu fans) also stream dnyl for nana so she’ll shut up about how much she adores dream not that she’ll ever shut up about how much she loves them tbh

10. Favorite Duo:

- Jus2 + JJ Project

- again here comes the utter LOVE for jyp groups along with got7 i adore both of these duos beyond belief and i need mark to have a duo or a unit or SOMETHING cause i love him with every ounce of my being

- yugyeom. that’s it. yugyeom is the loml and there’s nothing he does where i won’t love him, focus on me hit somewhere different and i LOVE IT and HIM and of course jaebum cause he’s great too uwu i also love both of jjp and i was so exited for tomorrow, today so that helped too^^

11. Favorite Senior Group:

- infinite; so infinite. yeah i’m a HUGE inspirit and i miss hoya, sunggyu, and sungyeol like hell but it’s okay, i adore infinite im not gonna lie (to be fair i adore a lot of groups) and they mean a lot to me, out of my ults i think myungsoo has consistently stayed at the same place since 2016 as my second ultimate bias oof wow, it was also hard to choose between infinite, suju, and shinee like damn

- super junior; so i love suju? i love them more after once again thanks to nana’s persistence after black suit came out even though i was gonna listen to it away, i already loved heechul and leeteuk but dang i really love them and so does nana. but she likes too many groups to just choose one without overthinking it ALOT

12. Favorite Debut Song:

- come back again by infinite; okay so this was also a really hard one cause i love nct’s debut as well as ateez and astro but i ended up choosing come back again cause i find my self searching far and wide just to listen to this song (cause it’s not on apple music or spotify)

- pirate king by ateez; so yes i know that their debut was TECHNICALLY treasure but i love pirate king too much to not say it was my favorite debut, this song is still on constant repeat and always will be like uGH

13. Favorite Male Soloist:

- jeong sewoon; so im a big ol mush pile for all of the produce 101 s2 boys so of course sewoon would be up there with jinyoung, donghan, and SO MANY OTHER GREAT MEN, i adore his voice and the way he sings, he’s just so? great??

- dean; dean was the first kpop artist i ever listened to even without knowing he was a k-r&b artist, i love his voice, it’s so soothing and i can never stop listening to it

14. Favorite Female Soloist:

- chungha; coincidently snapping came out the day before i started writing this so yes?? queen?? but seriously i love her so much and i can’t ever contain my love for her music

- IU; she so ADORABLE? i love all of her music and i can’t believe she’s an actual human being, i seriously love her so much that it’s just uncontainable, she has one of the best voices in the kpop industry

15. Favorite Male Vocalist:

- baekhyun of exo; exo was my first group i ever got into, and they never cease to amaze me when it comes to their music. they never and i mean NEVER disappoint with their albums and bsides, as to why i chose baekhyun is simple, HIS VOICE SENDS CHILLS DOWN MY SPINE i mean so does jongdae but still

- kyungsoo of exo; i love kyungsoo and his voice and i’m going to miss him beyond belief after he leaves on july 1st :(( but seriously his voice knows no bounds and i can’t help but melt when i hear it

16. Favorite Female Vocalist:

- seola of wjsn; so i’m just saying now i don’t know much about wjsn but this girl. her vocals. yes? after her song with kihyun came out i fell in love with her vocals from then

- sunmi; i love my supportive queen, she’s great and beautiful and i love all of her music, i will never fail to bop to heroine at any time of day just because i love her that much like yes queen

17. Favorite Male Dancer:

- ten of nct; i don’t think much needs to be said as to why ten is my favorite male dancer. he is beyond anything i’ve ever seen before and has my complete respect for his passion for dancing and it makes me want to be a better dancer just so i can be proud of myself

- yugyeom of got7; oH i WonDer WhY yUgyEoM iS heRE, seriously i love his dancing more than anything and all of his freestyle clips on instragram make me have the utmost love for him beyond what i already have for him

18. Favorite Female Dancer:

- seulgi of red velvet; i’ve watched her dancing over the years and i’m never not mesmerized by her stage presence and the way she is so detailed with how she moves

- lisa of blackpink; she’s a great dancer and i will never deny that, she’s also a great rapper and her stage presence is great especially when she’s dancing (specifically taki taki)

19. Favorite Male Rapper:

- changbin of stray kids; okay so i knew from the moment i heard hellevator that this group would be big and man did they not disappoint, changbin has one of the best rapping styles and voices i’ve ever heard in my life, his speed and his lyrics are so amazing and 3racha songs are AMAZING too like wow this man and his power over me

- jooheon of monsta x; not only has joohoney wreaked my bias list but he has absolutely one of the most unique voices i’ve ever heard, his raps are so hard hitting and i can’t ever get over them, his solo work has potential to be soty because of how talented he is

20. Favorite Female Rapper:

- jessi; okay so i actually had a few female rappers in mind by it kept going back to jessi each time, i genuinely love her voice and i LIVE for her roasts like yes, also i love all of her music? like she has great music i 10/10 recommend

- yeeun of clc; i don’t know many female rappers but yeeun has been one of my favorites for awhile now and i love her voice, it’s just so great to see how much she’s improved and i’m so proud

21. Favorite Male Choreography:

- superhuman by nct 127; so honestly this was absolutely the hardest question for me, i love dancing and i love most male choreographies so idk why i came to this decision, actually i do, superhuman is honestly a wonderful dance and i love watching it each and every single time i seen it on my recommended on youtube

- highlight by seventeen; the performance unit has so much power and stage presence that it was so hard no to choose this song, they all have such great and precise movements when they dance and it’s beautiful

22. Favorite Female Choreography:

- chase me by dreamcatcher; i love this choreography so much? seriously these girls always kill it and i really want them to grow because they really deserve it

- hobgoblin by clc; this was the first female choreography i really really wanted to learn based on the dance other than russian roulette and dumb dumb by red velvet!!

23. Favorite Male Solo Song:

- fire by sik-k; i absolutely LOVE sik-k so naturally i wanted to choose one of his songs so i went though a bunch if my favorite songs of his and settled on fire, it was a very hard choice though cause addict exists and so does iffy but still

- crooked by g-dragon; crooked has always been one of my favorites by GD it just sounds so different and his voice just makes it one of my favorites, middle fingers-up is a close second for GD

24. Favorite Female Solo Song:

- why by taeyeon; idk why i love this song so much but i just do, i also love taeyeon so much like uwu yes, but seriously i really love all of taeyeons solo music as well as snsd

- honey tea by oohyo; honey tea is one of those songs you could listen to in a cafe or on a relaxing walk with your earbuds in just taking in the crisp air. it makes me feel super calm and just in a space where i feel like everything is chill and cool

25. Favorite Non-Kpop Artist:

- luhan; by baby lulu uwu, i’m absolutely a mushy gushy soft mess for that baby, he’s so cute and kinda and his music is just?? great????? what??? i seriously did not even have a second thought about this but some honorable mentions are definitely big time rush, 5sos, kris wu, joji, etc.

- conan gray; where do i bEGin?! his songs are by far some of my favorites. not only is he a great artist, he has this way with his music that is almost melancholic in sound. it sounds so entrancing and crush culture, generation why, and lookalike are some of my favorites^^

26. Favorite Non-Kpop Song:

- imitation by luhan; remember when i said i was gush for this man? i wasn’t joking. at all. i seriously love his voice and i just UGH love him, and this song?? bop.

- honey by lay; this song has taken over my life. i have it on repeat almost every night because lay did so well. it has such a good beat and so easy to just listen to over and over (but not out loud lolol)

Top 10 Groups:

nana:

1. GOT7

2. NCT

3. Stray Kids

4. Ateez

5. Monsta X

6. Day6

7. EXO + Astro

8. Infinite

9. SF9

10. The Boyz

kun:

1. GOT7

2. NCT

3. Day6

4. Stray Kids

5. EXO

6. Astro

7. Monsta X

8. SF9

9. Ateez

10. Seventeen

Top 10 Biases:

nana:

1. Mark Tuan (GOT7)

2. Myungsoo/L (Infinite)

3. Doyoung, Donghyuck/Haechan, Jaemin, Jaehyun, Jeno, Mark, Yuta, and Taeil (NCT)

4. San (Ateez)

5. Hyunjin, Jisung, Changbin, Felix, and Chan (Stray Kids)

6. Brian/Young K (Day6) + Youngmin (ab6ix)

7. Minhyuk (Monsta X), and Hwiyoung (SF9)

8. Chanyeol, Sehun, and Baekhyun (EXO)

9. Minhyuk/Rocky (Astro)

10. Kevin, Changmin/Q, Eric, Jacob, Sunwoo and Hwall (The Boyz)

kun:

1. Yugyeom (GOT7)

2. Dowoon (Day6)

3. Seungmin & Felix (Stray Kids)

4. Jooheon (Monsta X)

5. Rowoon (SF9)

6. Kun + Mark + Johnny (NCT)

7. Yunho + Mingi (Ateez)

8. Sanha + MJ + JinJin (Astro)

9. S.Coups (Seventeen)

10. Kyungsoo/D.O + Chanyeol (EXO)

[ nana; tumblr playlist ]

[ kun; tumblr playlist ]

btw for kun i added my favorite songs by some of the artists she had listed cause i didn’t ask her and i was too lazy so i hope y’all enjoy both playlists if you want to listen to them ^^

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ayearofpike · 5 years

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The 2010s reprints, all at once

So if Simon & Schuster is going back to the well for Pike’s vampire books, what’s stopping them from bringing back other stories from their one-time best-selling young adult author? Form factor, perhaps. It’s the twenty-first century now, and no self-respecting teen would be caught dead reading a pocket-sized paperback. We need something big and beefy to show that we’re Serious About Literature even as we read about murderous insane girls. Fortunately, he’s written more than a couple continuations that will link together into a handy packaged bind-up. But a lot of these books were originally written twenty years ago or more, when the absence of technology and communications wasn’t something that needed to be addressed to explain why these bastards weren’t better informed. Indeed, new audiences (the ones we in education call “digital natives”) might not even understand the characters’ rationales for action without being able to step back in time and forget what they take for granted.

Is it worth rereading these new editions? How different are they from the originals? Lucky for you, I’ve decided to find out.

Remember Me

Compiles Remember Me, The Return, and The Last Story Simon Pulse, 2010 789 pages ISBN 978-1-4424-0596-7 LOC: PZ7.P626 Re 2010 OCLC: 646299604 Released July 6, 2010 (per B&N)

Since this was the magical bestseller that made Pike who he was in the first place, it shouldn’t be too surprising that not much is changed or updated in this edition. Still, the very nature of the YA market having morphed into the vehicle that allows these stories to be reprinted throws a pretty massive wrinkle (like, even worse than the fact she’s publishing under her white name) into Shari’s expectation that her mom will never read Remember Me. Come on, dude — I guarantee she already read about the vampires.

The only changes I found through all three stories were giving Lenny the Latino gangbanger a CD player rather than a cassette (because 2010), saving the final story on a jump drive rather than a floppy disk (again, 2010), and swapping Shari’s green pants for blue jeans (I guess to match the outfit Jean is wearing when she falls off the balcony?). One thing that hasn’t changed: Third Book Whitewashin’ Shari is still an asshole. You’re lucky I’m so determined to be thorough, otherwise I would have never reread this shit.

To Die For

Compiles Slumber Party and Weekend Point, 2010 408 pages ISBN 978-0-545-26432-1 LOC: not listed OCLC: 679759450 Released September 1, 2010 (per B&N)

Little weirdness here, as this is a Scholastic joint rather than Simon & Schuster, but the covers are all coordinated, down to the typeface. Not sure whether the two houses worked together to try to sell their books (at Pike’s agent’s suggestion?) or whether Point saw an opportunity to mine some back catalog and tried to copy the existing presentation as close as possible.

The oldest viable stories (read: not Cheerleaders) must have some major rewrites pending for a modern audience, you’d think, but it’s not that drastic. The main complication would be these kids being able to reach someone outside the immediate group and report problems, so Pike quickly writes around that with a single line in each story establishing the locale as beyond cell service. They also both turn emergency CB radios into walkie-talkies, which isn’t even close to the same thing. It’s a little hinky at times, especially in accepting that Lara Johnson has packed an alarm clock instead of a phone, but it does the job.

Most of the rest of the changes hinge on contemporary references. Slumber Party loses its Richard-Pryor-lighting-himself-aflame-while-freebasing joke, but keeps the kids watching Dr. Zhivago at the first fateful party. Weekend has to adjust a lot more — party music is no longer on record, David Bowie becomes Bono (replacing a ten-year-old reference in 1985 with a ten-year-old reference in 2010), Angie’s Datsun is now a Camry, and song leaders are finally just cheerleaders. At times, he’s just wiped out a reference altogether: gone are Pat Benatar, Ryan O’Neal and Ali McGraw, Fonzie, Michael Jackson, and most tragically the Carpenters, which undoes a joke at Sol’s expense and removes any understandable sense from the passage they once were in. Oh well. At least he spelled “gringo” correctly in this edition.

Until the End

Compiles the Final Friends trilogy (The Party, The Dance, and The Graduation) Simon Pulse, 2011 846 pages ISBN 978-1-4424-2252-0 LOC: PZ7.P626 Unt 2011 OCLC: 693810612 Released August 30, 2011 (per B&N)

I’ll be honest: I’m not sure what this compilation is doing here. Did anybody clamor at the bit for Final Friends even back in the day? I mean, there must have been some demand to let our boy write a trilogy, but even as a teenager I saw the problems embedded in this tale. Simple time-shifting adjustments weren’t gonna fix those. And this is the beefiest book of the lot, maybe to appeal to young readers who like the huge format and want to show off how much they can read. (I had it in the waiting room of my kid’s doctor this week and another dad said it was the biggest book he’d ever seen.) It’s a lot to plow through for the sake of completeness. Still, we’re committed, right?

I got like 200 pages in and did not see a single change — not even in the computer lab where Bubba is “hacking” into the district grade data bank — which made me worried I was going to just be rereading the same stories over again. And 650 pages later, GUESS WHAT. Literally the only difference is that Jessica, in bemoaning her travails with Bill, says she was “trying to seduce a gay guy” instead of merely “a gay.” Like, even the part about it taking all day to transfer 40 megabytes via modem and filling up a school computer’s hard drive is still there. This was NOT done for new fans. But reading it so fast and soon and smushed together did help me realize that The Rock does indeed have a given name. (I’ll save you the research time: Theodore Gordon.)

Bound to You

Compiles Spellbound and See You Later Simon Pulse, 2012 490 pages ISBN 978-1-4424-5971-7 LOC: PZ7.P626 Bo 2012 OCLC: 777602521 Released August 7, 2012 (per B&N)

Maybe this is the only bind-up where the two stories could have been anything. (The Point book: those were his only two under Scholastic, so it makes sense.) There’s a back catalog of literally two dozen books not otherwise committed that they could compile. So why these two together? OK, sure, we’re four years away from the phrase “sexy lizard teens” entering the lexicon, but for sure Scavenger Hunt is better paired with Spellbound than a story about nuclear war survivors time traveling out of regret. See You Later seems like a really obtuse deep cut to me, but if he was committed to it why not pair it with The Midnight Club, which is similarly about love lost to inevitable death? I don’t really see the connection, and am too lazy to do any rationale research. But I’m not actually mad at the books — they’ve shown as two of my favorites in this reread.

Spellbound, being the oldest of the S&S catalog, does need a little reworking, particularly in the racist elements of an African shaman going to a podunk Old West high school. Pike didn’t take them all out, of course, because we have to know what a dick the boyfriend is by his connection of the dude to savage cavemen. However, the lack of cell phones is very glaring in the bits where they’re trying to find the brother/potential murder victim, and Cindy has to sit around the hospital waiting to be paged. In 2012 it’s inconceivable that high school kids wouldn’t have SOMETHING. You tried to reach the brother at his house, at his friend’s, at his girlfriend’s ... did you call him directly? Such a simple fix: “He’s not answering his cell.” It probably would have made the unease even stronger.

See You Later, hinging as it does on the main character understanding a video game, has its own needs for updating, and does it better than the Final Friends remake. Still, it’s a little slapdash. Becky works in an electronics store instead of a record store, but do these places even sell physical media computer games anymore? Even six years ago that shit was all download-only. And Ray STILL works in a bookstore ... do those still exist? Mervyn’s definitely doesn’t; they went bankrupt in 2008. As for the game itself, it requires 12 gigs of RAM rather than the paltry megabyte, which is what my newish machine runs six years later. (At the time I had ... two gigs?) Also, in the original Mark asked who won the 2010 World Series, which isn’t the future anymore in 2012 ... but it’s weird that he’s now asking about 2020, just eight years off rather than twenty. Most unsettling, though, is how the tenor of international violence rhetoric still rings true for the setting of this story, even though we’re not worried about Communists anymore. The Cold War is long over, but we’ve swung through tolerance and hope and are right back on fear.

Chain Letter

Compiles Chain Letter and The Ancient Evil Simon Pulse, 2013 456 pages ISBN 978-1-4424-7215-0 LOC: PZ7.P626 Ch 2013 OCLC: 852941511 Released July 23, 2013 (per B&N)

Chain Letter was also not originally published by S&S, so it’s interesting that they’ve gotten the rights to print it in this volume. (Though they were compiled in the UK in 1994, so maybe it wasn’t too hard.) By now, though, it feels like they’re reaching, as the teen fiction world shifts yet again to futuristic dystopias and Pike doesn’t really have anything like that. Thirst was on its way out too; the fifth book appeared just before this, and we’ll note that even though Pike didn’t finish the story the sixth has yet to emerge. Curse you, unpredictable teen girls!

Not too much is different from the original editions here. Obviously Pike was throwing in his timely references that had to be cut for understandability (Nastassja Kinski?), but by Chain Letter 2 he’d learned to rein that in. Also, there’s a moment in the first one where Alison yells “Hate you!” at the attacking Caretaker, which always struck me as awkward. This version changes it to “Screw you!” which makes me think Pike originally wrote it as “Fuck you!” and had to bowdlerize for YA. Of course they have to throw some shade at snail mail, too, since that’s how the letters arrive in the first place.

But the main differences are cassette recorders and phones. Obviously the kids aren’t going to tote around a whole bunch of old-school tools when we are now six years into the smartphone era. There’s some nice cleaning up in The Ancient Evil, writing around the idea that people need to (or even CAN) look numbers up in the phone book, but in lots of cases it just makes things awkward. Like, why is Joan going after the driving controls to turn the incriminating recording off if it’s on Kipp’s phone in the backseat? Why do Alison and Brenda have to sit around the kitchen waiting for a return call? Why is Kipp waiting until he gets home to check his voicemail? Did he seriously leave his phone in his room while he ran to the store and left a seven-year-old sister alone at the house? It just makes less and less sense.

You might have seen somewhere online a mention of another compilation, collecting Last Act and Master of Murder. This book does not actually exist. The ISBN and OCLC numbers associated with the title both lead to a British printing of the second half of Final Friends, by Hodder Publishing. I emailed the house just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything, and they responded that they’ve never printed these two stories together. There’s no record of it anywhere else, certainly not on Simon & Schuster’s Pike page, and reviews I’ve found where people have attempted to buy this collection attest to the fact that they’ve actually received a copy of Final Friends Part 2 But Not Book 2 Even Though the Second Half of Book 2 Is In It.

There also used to be another one named on Wikipedia called Time of Death, which was supposed to compile Bury Me Deep and Chain Letter, but why the hell would they do that when Chain Letter has its own sequel already? There’s not any verifiable record of such a book anywhere online, not even a flawed cross-listing like the first.

So fuhgeddaboudit. I’m done reading compilations.

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