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tacomanarrows · 1 month

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Tac's OC Ref Masterpost!

Heya everybody! I'm not sure where the thought for this came from but I wanted to make a post that just has all of my OCs' refs in it in case anyone ever needs to find them and doesn't wanna ask me for them (which ur always welcome to do btw!) or doesn't wanna go digging through their Toyhouse galleries. This will be linked in my pinned post as well, so if you ever need to find it again, it'll be there! Every character will have their Toyhouse page linked below their ref, so you'll have easy access to more in-depth info and more gallery images if needed!

All the refs are below the read more since this is going to be a really long post, so be prepared for that if you take a look lol. It's organized the same way as my Toyhouse, with sonas first, then primary, secondary and tertiary OCs (basically categorized by how much I use them and how much development they have). I'll put a little bit of information about each character and whenever I make a new ref for a character, I'll swap out the old version with the new one here!

Also feel free to ask me anything abt any of my characters ever!! I adore talking abt them <333

SONAS

(These guys are ordered by how much I use them/how representative of me they are)

Shep (Toyhouse Link)

My main sona and most complete representation of myself out of all my characters!

22 y/o asexual biromantic German Shepherd

Boyfriends with PBnJ

Lead vocalist/guitarist for Let's Get Back!

PBnJ (Toyhouse Link)

Secondary sona

Usually goes by just PB

Also Ace/Biro, Golden Retriever

Boyfriends with Shep

Bassist and backup vocalist for Let's Get Back!

Starburst (Toyhouse Link)

Main comfort sona, personal favorite OC <33

Kinsona based on Jenny from Wayside, who's my biggest comfort character!

Do not draw her without her outfit!! Also please only draw her anthro!

Second tallest of my anthro characters, slighter taller than Shep, not as tall as Wilkołak

Very friendly, adventurous and always looking to live life to the fullest!

Spatter (Toyhouse Link)

Pokesona

Move set: Dragon Pulse, Earthquake, Rain Dance and Protect. Feel free to draw him using any of these!

Has roughly equal number of purple and green splatter markings

Very squishy, loves giving/receiving hugs

Vostok (Toyhouse Link)

Main Dragon/WoF-sona

My oldest OC, I've had him since February of 2017

May look intimidating but rlly just a big soft guy

Blue and purple scales make chevron shapes (not zigzags, not checkerboards, not stripes, etc.)

PRIMARY OCS

(Characters from here going forward are listed alphabetically per section)

Agouti (Toyhouse Link)

RainWing

Relatively quiet and shy until you get to know her

Lesbian, girlfriends with Rhazz

Can feel the emotions of others very strongly (for better or worse)

Doppler (Toyhouse Link)

SeaWing/RainWing hybrid (75% Sea/25% Rain)

Weather forecaster with his wings and scales that show weather radar

Makes up a weather watching/storm chasing team with Sundial and ThunderSnow

Boyfriend of Sundial

Radar can show any kind of weather (rain/thunderstorms, hurricanes, snow storms, tornadoes, etc.)

Eejanaika (Toyhouse Link)

SkyWing/RainWing hybrid

Name pronounced Edge-a-NYE-ka

Goes by Eej as a nickname

Has issues with anxiety and self-confidence

Demisexual, girlfriend of ThunderSnow

Has a short right horn, RainWing frill spines with no membrane, a double-pointed nose spike and is missing every other spine along her back as a result of being a hybrid

Name and design based on the old color scheme for the Eejanaika roller coaster at Fuji-Q Highland in Japan

Firecracker (Toyhouse Link)

Jack Russell Terrier

Small but full of energy!

Loves 4th of July themed snacks and baked goods (his personal fav are Star Spangled Ding Dongs haha)

Friends with Starburst over their shared energetic lifestyle and red white and blue color solidarity :]

Isaac (Toyhouse Link)

Celestdog - Australian Shepherd

Nonbinary Asexual

Quiet and reserved, generally prefers to do their own thing

Very smart, loves trivia facts

Sibling to Moxie and the rest of the Celestdog family

Kwaro (Toyhouse Link)

SilkWing

Gay, boyfriends with Rutabaga (owned by @/macaronichewtoyz)

Likes to sing, but is self-conscious about singing in front of others

Generally softspoken

Kinda velvety soft rather than full scales

Luau (Toyhouse Link)

Major comfort OC

Very chill, laid back attitude

Good friends with PB and Shep

Occasionally guest vocalist for Let's Get Back! and often runs the lights/effects for their shows

Always has a flower in her hair, but can be any flower!

Girlfriends with Seabreeze

Moxie (Toyhouse Link)

Celestdog - Siberian Husky

Another major comfort OC

Loves to have fun, can play a little rough sometimes but always means well

A bit bigger and more stocky than Isaac

Sister to Isaac and the rest of the Celestdog family

Pebble (Toyhouse Link)

Small and fluffy with long, silky fur

Husky/Samoyed mix

Hates getting his fur dirty

Smallest of my feral dog OCs

Pumpernickel (Toyhouse Link)

Twin brother to Rye

Drummer and backup vocalist for Let's Get Back!

Easygoing and relaxed

Enjoys being outside at night

Rhazz (Toyhouse Link)

Huge comfort OC

Design and personality based around the Roaring Twenties

Super energetic and affectionate

Lesbian, girlfriends with Agouti

Stage performance partners with Foxtrot

Has a necklace, two hoop earrings on her left ear, a ring on her left horn and a feathered headdress (all are not optional when drawing her!)

Rye (Toyhouse Link)

Twin to Pumpernickel

A bit more rambunctious than his twin

Likes to strut around thinking he's cool stuff when he's really just kind of a dork

Keyboardist, backup guitarist and backup vocalist for Let's Get Back!

Seabreeze (Toyhouse Link)

Lively surfer girl

Girlfriends with Luau

Good friends with Starburst as well, as both are pretty adventurous

Always has her lucky seashell necklace

Wilkołak (Toyhouse Link)

Big scary (or at least he tries to be scary) transgender wolf guy

Name can be pronounced either Veel-koak or Will-ko-Lack (His name means Werewolf in Polish)

Tallest of my anthro OCs

Has hydrokinetic powers and his blue markings glow when he uses them

Used to be a WoF Fantribe OC named Galeforce before I redesigned him lol

SECONDARY OCS

Arroyo (Toyhouse Link)

SandWIng

Sometimes acts as an older brother figure to Rhazz

Higher-up at a gold mine in the desert

Ruff is stylized to look like messy hair

Foxtrot (Toyhouse Link)

NightWing/SilkWing hybrid

Stage performer, performance partners with Rhazz

Loves showtunes music

Feel free to simplify his design if needed lmao

Magma (Toyhouse Link)

Biggest of any of my dragon characters

Veteran of some war (he never specifically says which)

Has a scar on his tail

Adoptive older brother to Sunrise

Fits the "cool uncle who brings the kids awesome gifts at their birthdays and holidays" role

Sundial (Toyhouse Link)

IceWing/RainWing hybrid

Girlfriend of Doppler

Makes up a weather watching/storm chasing team with Doppler and ThunderSnow

Wings show what the sky outside looks like at any given time (day/night, clear/rain/snow, etc. - think like a Minecraft clock lol)

ThunderSnow (Toyhouse Link)

IceWing/SkyWing hybrid

Wavy spines are a hybrid side effect

Wings are meant to look like a blizzard, icicles and lightning, all meant to tie back to his name

Storm chaser, works with Doppler and Sundial

Boyfriend of Eejanaika

Wanderlust (Toyhouse Link)

SilkWing

Owns a safari tour business in Pantala

Sometimes wears a pith helmet at an angle as part of her tours :]

Probably has an Australian accent lol

Her catchphrase/business tagline is "Everybody needs a little more wonder in their lives!"

TERTIARY OCS

Cenote (Toyhouse Link)

PackWing (WoF Fantribe)

Name is pronounced Seh-noh-Tay)

Lives in the forest and has a lot of knowledge about herbs and plants and stuff

Spends so much time in the woods that the smell tends to follow him wherever he goes

Markings and stuff can be simplified if needed lol

Chernobyl (Toyhouse Link)

NightWing/SandWing hybrid

Used to be the king of a fantribe I had made called FissionWings, which is why he has his floaty crown

Orange stripe along his flank is highly radioactive

The spots on his wings flicker with little sparks of radiation

Generally cold and stoic, usually keeps to himself

South (Toyhouse Link)

Melanistic IceWing

Named to contrast all of the IceWing OCs named North lmao

Youngest/smallest of all my dragon OCs

Very innocent and happy since he's still pretty young

Love to play with his friends

StrangeEvidence (Toyhouse Link)

NightWing with weak future seeing powers

Based on the terrible Science Channel show of the same name [I have no shame]

Tries to interpret his visions but goes like, way overboard and sounds ridiculous in the process

When they turn out to be something totally mundane, he's just like "alright, so that's what that's about. Hm, neat" and walks away

These last two are doubled up due to Tumblr's 30 image per post limit </3

Sunrise (Toyhouse Link)

Also fairly young, but older than South (like what would be tween age in humans)

Kind of a ditz and lacks any kind of inhibition, which sometimes gets her into trouble

Adoptive younger sister to Magma, who often helps her out of the trouble she gets herself into

Tōhoku (Toyhouse Link)

SeaWing/SandWing hybrid

Lives by the beach

Loves to cook and owns a snack shack by the ocean

Very chill, would probably host a surfing contest

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fangtasticghoul · 2 years

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monster high the movie: some of my thoughts

(SPOILERS BELOW)

-the first dance scene when clawdeen enters the school gives me everybody backstreets back music video vibes

-frankie is by FAR the biggest highlight, I love everything about them

-the fact that jekyll & hyde play a major role in the story, but they decided not to use jackson and holt as characters anymore, feels like such a wasted opportunity

-also just...the history of jekyll/hyde in the movie is literally just Ghouls Rule: Bad Ending

-honestly there's several things reminiscent of ghouls rule in it

-making cleo and lagoona besties instead of cleo and ghoulia was...an interesting choice?

-the way they really don't shy away from some morbid stuff & refs to death (especially for jokes) is commendable tbh (even moreso than g1 imo)

-"wow...this is a pickle!" frankie I love you so much it's unreal <3

-the 10 seconds of abbey x heath crumbs 🤌

-clawdeen's whole thing with deuce & the story trying to get them together was impossible to get behind because I really want g3 clawdeen to be a lesbian (and I like cleuce lol)

-BIG issue for me was the twist villain reveal??? how are you gonna introduce a new character who's the son of hyde BUT ISN'T HOLT????? I'm like actually mad about it lmao

anyways uhhh tl;dr: it is for the most part a silly, enjoyable kid's movie. as long as you view it through its own lens, as its own generation and universe completely separate from the mh we've come to know, it's a fun watch! tbf my bar for entertainment is low lmao, but I really wanna have a good time with gen 3 so I will remain optimistic

#monster high #monster high: the movie #monster high: the movie spoilers #monster high gen 3 #ramblings

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meetthesoldier · 1 year

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hi sorry this is outta nowhere but i would love to hear ur thoughts on harry (phone

SORRY ANON I LEGIT FORGOT ABT THIS ASK and im too lazy to draw her fr so heres some fanart i drew of her dying in a glue trap

this time i have a bit more thoughts on her as an actual character so ill start w that before the headcanon dump ... also, throughout this post ill be referring to her w she/her pronouns because of a personal headcanon im VERY attached to. all i ask is any rbs or further questions abt my specific vision of her use those same pronouns... in others posts i do not care obviously. also, this post is specifically abt her in the dsaf universe since shes far more substantial there.

firstly, i should say i ADORE harry. she is one of my biggest comfort characters in a series where almost everybody is one for me. so when i give any criticisms, know its out of love and a wish for some more expansive writing rather than any malice. being critical of media you love is important, etc etc.

my biggest issues with her character really boils down to the lack of acknowledgement abt her being physically disabled. she mentions having a "bad leg" during 3, but its ONLY mentioned that one time, during (i believe) missable dialogue. i understand her not using, like, mobility aids for it since it may be difficult to find suitable stock images (+ all the phonies in that game use the same photos for their bodies, and its totally possible its not something she feels she needs), but it probably shouldve been mentioned or expanded upon more.

i dont believe were given any explanation on how her leg ended up the way it is, or in what way it is. we dont know if she was born with her disability or aquired it later. we dont know if its paralyzed, we dont know if its because of a muscular dystrophy, or anything else. i just wish we were given more info, bcus as it is, it is REALLY easy to look over in favor of, say, her ptsd.

speaking of which, i have some mixed feelings on how her ptsd is portrayed. on one hand, the joke in the restaurant reviews abt her having flashbacks and a subsequent panic attack feels very distasteful, though thankfully this is (i believe) the only instance of this kind of joke at her expense. im glad elsewise it isnt some huge , controlling part of her character - however, again, it IS missable. while one can assume she has it when she discusses her past, i dont believe its explicitly stated UNTIL that review.

tldr; her disability feels poorly handled, mostly from lack of expansion and discussion.

thankfully, though, she is elsewise a very enjoyable character; shes got some really good and funny dialogue, the exposition we get from her about the original managers is really fucking good, and i really wish we heard more abt her experience working with rebecca (and presumably roger)... again, her biggest issues are just not having as much of a spotlight on her as she couldve, but considering the employees arent really the main focus of the game that may be fine actually...

(as an aside, i think about this post every day and cry audibly.)

thus ends the longform musings, onto the silly headcanons;

standard fare queer headcanon dump: trans woman + demisexual lesbian. also, polyamorous. fuck yeah baby steak (ref)

was in a queerplatonic relationship with joe while he was alive, and a romantic one with both tango/terrence (who has some gender fuckery going on as well) and rebecca because i am not immune to homemade lesbianism.

has ptsd in canon, but im adding a "c" in front of that cause aint no way she lived through all of her coworkers (and presumably FRIENDS) dying in such horrific ways and was only affected in the short-term.

autistic! specifically also has the thing i do where i need the time to be a multiple of 5 before i can start doing anything. also has generalized anxiety i think, with a tendency to catastrophize and compensates by insisting to herself everything is toootally fine. definitely NOT going to have a breakdown rn because shes not totally sure that that vending machine is 100% not going to fall on her specifically

probably didnt have many friends as a kid (L) so now she overcompensates by trying to be as charming and polite as possible. wether or not this works in her favor or makes her seem pretentious is a coinflip. (its certainly working on me though!)

has a real soft spot for random niche animals. probably a big salamander and gecko girl. her favorite is the marbled salamander because its cute as hell

slightly off topic everyday i think of how fucking horrific it mustve been for joe to come into work one morning and his best friend just has a phone for a head and extreme memory issues now . literally what the fuck. thats so fucked up

to do a tonal 180... if she was a pokemon trainer shed have a herdier or stoutland as a sort of service dog for walking shorter-medium distances when she rlly doesnt feel like whipping out the cane :.-)

shes so pale its actually ridiculous. bro looks like she hasnt seen the sun in 5 years ... jake pokes a bit of fun for it sometimes

thanks for asking, anon! i love getting excuses to talk about dsaf. i have a lot of thoughts, you know... dont ever friend me on discord my ass will randomly drop either the goofiest or angstiest headcanons at random intervals and i have no real control over whichor when it will be

#maintagging again fuck it. whatre you gonna do? block me? idc #dsaf #harry fitzgerald #harry #cc tag #anon #hymn.ask #long post

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andimarquette · 5 years

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Introduce yourself to the rest of the class.

I’m a lifelong writer, originally from California (Los Angeles and then San Francisco), retired now and living in Decatur, Georgia. For many years I wrote under my given name, Priscilla Scott Rhoades, for the gay/lesbian and alternative press in San Francisco, including the Sentinel, Plexus, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian. I also published poetry and short fiction in a number of literary journals, and articles in various magazines and newspapers.

A few years ago I tried writing erotica under the pseudonym Pascal Scott. My erotic short stories have appeared in several anthologies including Thunder of War, Lightning of Desire: Lesbian Historical Military Erotica; Through the Hourglass: Lesbian Historical Romance; Order Up: A Menu of Lesbian Romance and Erotica; Unspeakably Erotic: Lesbian Kink; Best Lesbian Erotica, Vol. 2 (2017); and Best Lesbian Erotica, Vol. 3 (2018).

Now I’m trying thrillers. Hard Fall: A McStone and Martinelli Thriller is the first in a series of novels coming from Sapphire Books Publishing.

Who are you and what makes you tick?

What makes me tick? Writing. I truly believe that the writing life is the best life imaginable, and I’m lucky to be able to live it and to share it with my lover, who is also a writer.

What does it mean to you to be an author?

An author is a writer who has been published. A writer is someone who has pages of written words lying around that may never get the blessing of a publisher. Being published is a privilege. I’m extremely fortunate to be a published author. There are lots of good writers who never get published.

What makes a writer a writer?

Writing is an obsession. Thomas Mann said a writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. The compulsion to write, no matter how your day is going, is what makes a writer a writer. The novelist Don Winslow talks about how when he committed to writing five pages a day, he forced himself to keep that commitment no matter how his day unfolded, including the day he was chased and shot at by drug lords.

A writer is someone who understands that it takes more than desire to write well. As Christopher Hitchens said, “Everyone has a book in them, and in most cases that’s exactly where it should stay.” Everybody has a story to tell, but not everybody can tell a story. Writers need to learn their craft, to study grammar, to respect the beauty of the English language, to take classes, to get a job at a newspaper, to do all the things writers have always been advised to do. And read. If you’re not reading, you’re not a writer. Read everything that’s good. As Jewell Gomez said recently, if you’re reading only authors who look like you, you’re not reading widely enough.

Are you promoting a specific book? Tell us about it. Include the book blurb if you’d like.

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Hard Fall: A McStone and Martinelli Thriller.

Five days after the Loma Prieta earthquake strikes San Francisco, Emily Bryson, a young, everything-to-live-for lesbian SFSU student/part-time exotic dancer, is dead, her body washed up on a beach south of the Golden Gate Bridge. The medical examiner rules it a suicide, and the police close the missing person case filed by Emily’s lover, K. M. “Stone” McStone. Through a series of fortunate circumstances, Stone is introduced to Zoe Martinelli, office manager of Coppola Investigations, amateur sleuth, and student psychic. Stone and Zoe team up to find out what really happened to Emily. Was it suicide, as everyone assumes? Or murder? Or something else?

Tell us about your biggest guilty pleasure. For example, to you sit naked in your pantry in the middle of the night and eat Nutella with your fingers?

Coffee. I joke about it, but I drink too much coffee. Seriously too much. But still, it’s coffee. I’m interested in watching where the American Psychiatric Association is going with their “Caffeine Use Disorder,” which came this close to be included in the DSM-5 (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, their bible). Now that they’ve depathologized sexual diversity and consensual kink, they’ve got to have somebody to pick on. Guess it’s going to be us coffee drinkers. I’m only half kidding here.

Tell us one thing that you’re passionate about. For example, would you strap yourself to an oil rigging a la Lucy Lawless with a Greenpeace sign in your hands?

Uh, no to the Greenpeace strapping. I’m passionate about my lover, the author Josette Murray. I’m passionate about writing, reading, words, books. That’s about it. Hemingway said he needed two things in his life to be happy: work to do and someone to love. That’s my formula, too.

What’s your writing process? That is, do you have a particular place you write and/or time of day? Do you have any particular things you do before you write? (e.g. do you listen to music, drink coffee, take dance breaks…)

I usually get up between 5:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. and am at my desktop computer first thing, drinking coffee. I write until about noon, then break, and then take it up again in the late afternoon or early evening. This is my schedule now that I am retired, which is wonderful. When I was working fulltime, I wrote when I could—in the mornings before work or in the evenings when they were free, or on the weekends.

Tell us something that most people don’t know about you (unless you’d have to kill us, in which case tell us something that some people don’t know).

Like several of the characters I write about, I was a ward of the state of California and grew up in foster care. I know there are good foster parents out there, but there are too many bad ones, and too many bad group homes. The comedian Monroe Martin, who grew up in care, once joked that foster care is where they take you out of a situation in which you were neglected, molested, or abused and put you into that exact same situation. Too often that’s what happens when a kid goes into care. It did with me, which is part of why I became a writer.

Is there a book by another author that you wish you had written?

The Silent Wife by A.S.A. Harrison. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith.

If time and money were no problem, where would you most like to go in the world?

Europe. I’ve never been. Back in my twenties when so many people I knew seemed to be backpacking through Europe and staying in hostels, I was busy working a survival job, finishing my BA (which took me nine years to complete), and juggling parttime assignments as a freelance writer. If I had all the money in the world—I’m retired so time isn’t the problem now—I’d travel more and see Europe. And I’d do more Olivia Cruises. I got back recently from a Sapphire Literary Adventures at Sea cruise with Olivia to the Caribbean. If I had money, I’d live on a Holland American ship and cruise the world with Olivia.

And finally, what sorts of writing projects are next for you?

I just submitted the second book in the Hard series to my publisher, Sapphire Books. It’s called Hard Luck: An Elizabeth Taylor Bundy Thriller. It picks up where Hard Fall ends and follows the Elizabeth character. I’m currently working on Hard Line: A McStone and Martinelli Thriller. Hard Fall took place in 1989; Hard Luck in 1996. It’s 2008 in Hard Line, and this third book in the series brings the reader up-to-date to that year in the lives of Stone McStone and Zoe Martinelli. And, of course, in every Hard book somebody dies, and there are disturbing circumstances and unanswered questions about the death. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a thriller, would it?

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Pascal Scott is the pseudonym of the author of Hard Fall: A McStone and Martinelli Thriller from Sapphire Books. Writing under her given name, Priscilla Scott Rhoades, her poetry, short fiction, and newspaper and magazine articles have appeared in numerous publications. She has a BA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University and an MA in Liberal Studies from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. After a long career in academia, she retired happily to Decatur, Georgia.

www.sapphirebooks.com

Facebook/Priscilla Scott Rhoades

Twitter/pascalscottwrit

https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Fall-McStone-Martinelli-Thriller-ebook/dp/B07QFYNMC5/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_3?keywords=hard+fall%3A+a+mcstone&qid=1558213269&s=books&sr=1-3-fkmrnull

Back Cover Blurb

Stone, the university’s graduate admissions officer, doesn’t believe it’s a suicide. The Emily she knew had too much going for her to take her own life. Through a series of fortunate circumstances, Stone is introduced to Zoe Martinelli, office manager of Coppola Investigations, amateur sleuth, and student psychic. Stone and Zoe team up to find out what really happened to Emily. Their investigation takes them into the private lives of San Francisco’s exotic dancers and into Emily’s dark past where they discover that some secrets can be deadly.

Was it suicide, as everyone assumes? Or murder? Or something else?

Q & A with Pascal Scott

Introduce yourself to the rest of the class. I’m a lifelong writer, originally from California (Los Angeles and then San Francisco), retired now and living in Decatur, Georgia.

Q & A with Pascal Scott Introduce yourself to the rest of the class. I’m a lifelong writer, originally from California (Los Angeles and then San Francisco), retired now and living in Decatur, Georgia.

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jovebelle · 5 years

Text

Introduce yourself to the rest of the class.

Now I’m trying thrillers. Hard Fall: A McStone and Martinelli Thriller is the first in a series of novels coming from Sapphire Books Publishing.

Who are you and what makes you tick?

What makes me tick? Writing. I truly believe that the writing life is the best life imaginable, and I’m lucky to be able to live it and to share it with my lover, who is also a writer.

What does it mean to you to be an author?

What makes a writer a writer?

Are you promoting a specific book? Tell us about it. Include the book blurb if you’d like.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Hard Fall: A McStone and Martinelli Thriller.

Tell us about your biggest guilty pleasure. For example, to you sit naked in your pantry in the middle of the night and eat Nutella with your fingers?

Tell us one thing that you’re passionate about. For example, would you strap yourself to an oil rigging a la Lucy Lawless with a Greenpeace sign in your hands?

Tell us something that most people don’t know about you (unless you’d have to kill us, in which case tell us something that some people don’t know).

Is there a book by another author that you wish you had written?

The Silent Wife by A.S.A. Harrison. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith.

If time and money were no problem, where would you most like to go in the world?

And finally, what sorts of writing projects are next for you?

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

www.sapphirebooks.com

Facebook/Priscilla Scott Rhoades

Twitter/pascalscottwrit

https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Fall-McStone-Martinelli-Thriller-ebook/dp/B07QFYNMC5/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_3?keywords=hard+fall%3A+a+mcstone&qid=1558213269&s=books&sr=1-3-fkmrnull

Back Cover Blurb

Was it suicide, as everyone assumes? Or murder? Or something else?

0 notes

avanneman · 6 years

Text

Lauren Gussis’ “Insatiable”—let me count the clichés. Okay, I give up.

youtube

When word hit the street that Lauren Gussis, one of the “geniuses” behind the TV series devoted to heroic mass torturer/murderer “Dexter”, had come up with something even more shocking—a Netflix original about a fat teen-ager who became not fat and hence “Insatiable”, the howls of outrage among the easily outraged—those woke folk who seek to expel Nature with a pitchfork in particular—rang so loudly across the internet that even I heard them. The trope of “fat girl becomes gorgeous and goes wild” has always struck me as exceedingly wan in the first place, so I made a vague mental note not to see Insatiable, even by accident, and went about my business.

Then, however, I read a review in Reason by Glenn Garvin, “Ignore the Outrage Mob and Watch Insatiable”, which definitely hit me where I live—at least some of the time. Glenn assured me that Insatiable was a laff riot, and any contrarian like myself ought to watch the show, both on its own merit and as an opportunity to stick it to the pitchfork crowd via a witty review. Well, I’m always in the market for non-heavy TV,1 and, even though some of the funnies that Glenn offered up as proof of his argument—praising the show for “filthy” nicknames like “Bag of Boners”, for example—didn’t strike me as, you know, that awesome, I thought I’d take a look.

Well, be careful what you wish for—or, maybe, just be careful, because Insatiable is awful. It’s as if the producers said “we want stupid—Two and a Half Men stupid—but gay it up, a lot, and make it southern. That’ll be funny.” Because Insatiable is not about being fat. It’s about being gay, and about the sort of rejection kids experience for being fat as a metaphor for the rejection they experience for being gay.

But why, three years after the Supreme Court ruled that gays have a constitutional right to marriage, why are we making TV shows that are metaphors for being gay? Why not just make a show about, you know, being gay? Because, you know, people have been doing that already!

But I guess someone forgot to tell Lauren and Netflix—which used to be considered hip and edgy, rather than sleazy, dopy, and banal. Insatiable is not so much a bag of boners as a bag of gay clichés. Straight men are lecherous oafs who like to work on cars. Straight women are lecherous bitches who want to be president of the Junior League. Gay men are bitchy on the outside, sweet on the inside. Lesbians are, well, flannel.

Ostensibly the story of former fatty now teen femme fatal Patty Bladell (Debby Ryan), Insatiable is really about her beauty pageant coach Bob Armstrong (Dallas Roberts) and her best (and only) pal, Nonnie Thompson (Kimmy Shields), set in a sort of “Southern Living” suburb of (maybe) Atlanta, where the twinned and knotted kudzu vines of conspicuous consumption and social striving combine to wrap themselves around the very throat of humanity. Through a set of plot contrivances too lame to consider, Disgraced Lawyer Bob sees the now svelte and ready for revenge Patty as his vehicle for social redemption. As for Nonnie, well, as long as she can breathe Patty’s carbon dioxide, she’s happy.

I don’t know if Dallas Roberts is straight or gay, but everything about Lawyer Bob—his body language, his clothes, his fussy mannerisms and speech—screams gayness. He puts down a pair of vulgar broads—because all straight women are vulgar broads—by telling them “some people think red doesn’t clash with pink!” Feel the burn! When a sulky Patty says she’s going to skip the first day of school, Bob leads her back to the straight (so to speak) and narrow by offering her a “makeover”. He then brandishes a gleaming and polished makeup case that springs open in multiply cantilevered glory as though it belonged to the Great God Hermès himself! Behold these wonders!

Although the show makes mechanical fun of the southern beauty pageant “scene”, which to my mind is almost as lazy as making fun of someone for being fat, it can’t help taking Patty’s pursuit of pageant greatness seriously, because what are beauty pageants but show business? And what is show business? It’s not everything. It’s the only thing!2

Lonnie and Bob effectively appoint themselves as Patty’s entourage. She’s their meal ticket out of the suburban hell of conventional life that they both despise. She has the looks, and the selfishness, to be a star! A star! A star of our very own, and we won’t have to share her with anyone!3

Meanwhile, back in the real world, we see busty wives—virtually every woman in the cast except for Shields could get a job at Hooters—tearing open their cleavage at the drop of a hat, while the dudes show off their six-packs with equal regularity. Does anyone watch TV for this any more?

As for the jokes, well, we have obvious cheesy jokes—Patty’s up for “Miss Magic Jesus”—haw, haw, those damn rednecks and their damn Jesus—and inside cheesy jokes—she’s also in the running for “Miss Bareback Buckaroo”—“bareback” being gay slang for unprotected anal sex. Also funny!

Insatiable comes up with imaginative (sort of) ways to finesse the whole racial thing. The social queen of wherever it is we are—the president of the Junior League—is a black woman, though married to a white guy. And there’s an Asian girl whose mom is white, as though we entered some sort of post-racial Nirvana without even noticing.4 Everybody’s equal, everybody’s rich! Problem solved!

I originally planned to watch the entire season of Insatiable to prepare this crushing putdown. But half-way through the fourth episode, well, my soul cracked, and I surrendered—to common sense—and quit. Insatiable is a painful fraud, a “shocking” show that’s afraid that if it revealed its true subject—being gay—no one would watch. “Gender is not just fluid in this show,” exclaimed Glenn in the review that duped me into wasting four hours of my life, “it's Niagara Falls at peak flow.” “Gender fluid” is just the current euphemism for “gay”. How about letting the love that dare not speak its name, you know, speak!

Afterwords New York magazine thoughtfully offers a list of the ten “most scathing” reviews of Insatiable. Switching gears considerably, over at American Conservative, Harry J. Kazianis has a piece, “I Was That Morbidly Obese Guy”, that describes the many downsides of being “really fat”. For the most part, the piece is painfully honest, but I have to disagree when Mr. Kazianis remarks on the burden “of not fitting into a culture that worships beauty more than anything else.” Because it isn’t just “our culture” that makes fun of fat people.

When I was in Vietnam, our battery was sometimes invaded by a group of four-year-old Vietnamese kids, who would wait for the appearance of our one fat soldier. When he came in sight, they would shout delightedly “Beaucoups kilo! Beaucoups kilo!”

Yes, little kids will make fun of you if you’re fat, if you smell bad (“You stink!”), if you speak with a southern accent, or if you don’t speak with a southern accent. They will make fun of you if you can’t keep up, or don’t fit in.5 And, of course, it isn’t only little kids. When I was in law school, I once shouted “What’s the matter? Are you deaf?” to a young woman who I knew had limited hearing. I just forgot, because it was rarely noticeable. Innocence is not the same as virtue. In fact, it’s often the opposite.

See Jeeves and Wooster, Pretty Little Liars, The Windsors, Call My Agent! Season 1 and Season 2, and Archer. For the perils of “heavy TV”, go here and here. ↩︎

When Patty masters the “pageant walk” (thanks, of course, to Bob’s persistence), the soundtrack swells with triumph. ↩︎

The recent death of the great Aretha Franklin provided the occasion for the telling of a number of not so great anecdotes about the Queen of Soul, strongly suggesting that the average diva should be regarded as a natural wonder along the lines of an erupting volcano, best viewed from a distance of several miles. ↩︎

To further combat racial stereotyping, the Asian girl is dumb as a post. ↩︎

Johnny Carson used to say “Comedy is not pretty” because he knew how much of it is based on heartless ridicule. Once when the pleasingly plump Dom DeLuise was a guest, Carson made some joke about Dom’s weight and the audience booed. “It’s his job!” Dom admonished the crowd. ↩︎

#Lauren Gussis #Insatiable #tv

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