#i legitimately could have written a whole-ass novel about this
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Hello!! As one of THE best marvel family bloggers on this whole website I was wondering about your thoughts on if you'd want a story about the MF as adults (original group of N52 group). Current DC is soooo averse to anything that might have consequences or change the status quo so it's probably moot. I just think Billy in particular (with his loner tendencies and inherent, almost untouchable goodness) has the potential for some very interesting stories around identity after he's been Captain-ing for a decade-plus as he becomes less and less grounded? On the other hand, I could see the argument that the kid- to-adult-hero is so essential to the premise to be removed. Also, would your answer change based on which version of the character(s) we're talking about. Like is it more or less interesting in the versions where B and CM are seperate entities? Anyway love your takes on the MF and DC in general!!!💜
first of all that’s the sweetest thing thank u for even thinking of me ;; I swear I talk out of my ass all the time but im glad u can enjoy this nonsense!
second! that is a very good question and one that ive definitely asked myself before. before i answer i hope its ok if i go on a small tangent first lol. its the tism in me.. UNDER THE CUT BC I HAVE RAMBLING PROBLEMS
the inherent problem with hero comics is that there is no definite thing like a “post-series” or epilogue type of story because, typically, they just never end. that’s something that can be compelling but also pretty detrimental imo especially when a good story or arc has a fully satisfying ending, complete with characters and storylines developed in just the way you wanted. that can all obvs change in a matter of years depending on the next writer or event. next chapter-type stories are difficult to achieve unless you’re a legacy of some kind. if these were characters in a novel or something much more linear, i think we wouldn’t even have to ask these questions.
im just saying all this bc it kind of informs how I like to speculate about comic characters - what is the ideal plot to development to ending for x character? for billy and his family, if you want a legitimate answer it’s just that I wish anything plot-worthy they achieve would only be in their time as they are now, as kids. bc im insane ofc ive turned this particular sentiment around in my head, and I really do think that the story itself at its core, the general magic of it, is way more compelling when they’re children going through tasks an adult would usually undertake. it’s a story where a child who has a limited amount of power bc of their situation at the sound of a word receives more power he ever really needs. it isnt necessarily a jaime reyes or young justice type of story about realistic kid hero interpretations, it’s simply a child’s fairytale fantasy. at inception captain marvel’s appeal was because while he was a kid, he was also respected as an adult and as competent as one. that’s why dc’s own evolution from the golden age (for children) to where it is now as a predominantly adult hobby can never seem to place captain marvel and his family in the right place.
tbh i wouldn’t really be interested in a story where billy and the others were grown up at all, because then they would just be. adult heros. ive always thought the “ideal” end is the one where they willingly somehow choose to relieve themselves of the power and grow up happily and content without it because it’s not needed once they’re adults. the “wendy darling chooses to grow up and not stay in neverland bc she wants more than what magic can give her” kinda deal. but that’s definitely not a compelling hero story…maybe.
im trying not to let this be such a cop out answer, but if what I just said were written as a story, and if I wanted it to be a story that included the marvel fam as adults - it would be the classic coming of age story. im thinking any plot in the world with crazy world-ending villain(s) story complete with a misc hero team-up could happen, and the real story begins maybe halfway in that where the kids realize that this is the end all be all. and the point is that they’d be okay with it. so what happens happens and maybe there are developments in-between coming to terms with the end of it but the perfect end is them, together, and being okay. there are no consequences to having had the power or having lost them. everything they’d gone through while having the power could have been tumultuous and difficult, but the children are always protected. in the end, we don’t know what age they live up to, or if they decide to become nonpowered heroes or if they stay a family. I really believe in the power of an open ending once everything is resolved. and for the marvel family, I think their best ending is an uneventful adulthood after such a wild childhood. it’s the typical kind of ending i think every chosen one child deserves in fiction (rip to percy jackson)
again…this is just me and my own thoughts. and im sorry it is SO lame and predictable. other more interesting routes than this if they just continued having the power till adulthood is that they can be pretty public and free with their identities. the power is intertwined with them. but it’s not like they’re particularly important in-universe or special, more than others anyway. they just have more experience now.
(idk if it would necessarily make much of a difference depending on the versions of the characters we’re talking abt either!! I think in general I just talk about them like my preferred combination of all iterations so it becomes just a question in personality atp! lately I have really liked the separate entity thing with cap/billy but somehow I prefer it with him than with the others.. another long tangent I could go on abt LOL)
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How the Cookie Crumbles
To say his brothers fought would be an understatement: They warred. That. That was the better word. However, it was Dick who was the peacemaker among them. The mediator extraordinaire, translating all his brothers’ woes and misunderstandings into less doom-pending transgressions. But to say this unofficial, yet very necessary part he played was tasking was yet another understatement of unspeakable proportions. It was a FUCKING LOT.
“I swear to God, Drake. You and Brown are a special kind of stupid.”
“Shut up, Damian! It’s a good idea!” Tim grumbled in reply.
“Yeah! You’re just mad you didn’t think of it first!”
Dick’s face fell upon hearing the argument and considered turning the other way, but he’d learned the hard way that his lack of interference could result in bloodshed. Damian did have a history of stabbing Tim, and Robin had an impressive body count, according to Jason. I’d better make sure he doesn’t add two more.
“Well, fuck me and my entire life,” Dick droned in frustration. “What are you three bitching about now?”
“Damian keeps saying our idea is stupid,” Stephanie tattled.
“Yeah!” Tim added with crossed arms. “He says we lack the fortitude for good ideas!”
“You do!” the current robin exclaimed.
“Damian?”
The youngest batboy rolled his eyes and reasoned, “Listen, I know these two brain donors barely have two brain cells to rub between them—”
“That’s not the only thing they rub!” Jason called from the other room.
Damian again rolled his eyes in contempt and continued, “And I’ve accepted, as a member of this family, that everyone gets to act a little stupid from time to time. However, as much as I would like to respect their commitment to their shared stupidity, I feel as if they are abusing the privilege and it needs to stop before one of them gets hurt.”
“Wow, he actually cares,” Jason added from still in another room.
“Have you been sitting there listening the whole time?” Dick asked, near facepalm.
“Affirmative,” Jason confirmed, entering from the hall.
“And you did nothing to stop them fighting?”
“It’s funnier this way.”
“Do I always have to be the responsible one?”
“Affirmative,” all four said with little thought.
“Okay then,” Dick sighed with reluctance. “Damian, I know you find it hard to accept the choices of others, but you need to understand that free choice and expression is about accepting that others may not make the same choices as you, and that’s okay. It’s the same as you choosing not to take my dating advice and ask Raven out because you’re afraid of rejection—”
“Shut up, Grayson! This isn’t about me!!!” Damian spat.
“Damian has the hots for Raven?” Jason teased. “You have good taste, Mighty Mouse. She got a great—”
“Don’t even finish that sentence, Todd!” Dick and Damian ordered in unison.
“I was gonna say personality,” Jason droned. “Get your minds out of the gutter. I mean for fuck’ sake.”
“Sure you were,” Tim replied with a glower.
“Yeah Tim, cause you never stare at her tits while you talk to her,” Jason added, throwing him doubly under the bus.
“Dude, are you trying to get me killed?” Tim said, shooting an elbow into his brother’s ribs as Damian and Stephanie both glared. Spurring Dick into a further mood for murder.
“My point being is, just because you don’t like other peoples’ ideas, doesn’t mean they’re stupid.”
“Tell them the idea, guys!” Jason urged, stirring the pot.
Stephanie and Tim looked at each other and nodded, as though they’d discovered the holy grail itself. “We’re gonna write a series of YA novels and sell them on the web!” Steph sang optimistically.
“Yeah, it’s a huge and diverse market,” Tim added.
“And with established characters, we’ll make a killing.”
Dick’s brow furrowed. “That sounds like fanfiction?”
“It sounds like utter bullshit,” Damian sneered, not single fuck given.
“It’s not bullshit,” Tim snapped. “YA novels make up a huge portion of the market. People love those things.”
“Then name one YA novel that has sold more than a manga in the last 10 years?”
Tim shrugged. “I can’t think of one at the top of my head, but there they definitely exist and sell.”
“Yeah, so does my fanfiction based on this family,” Jason added under his breath.
“What?” Everyone asked.
“Nothing. Continue.”
“So anyway, I told Damian it’s a foolproof plan.”
Dick rolled his eyes with a bit of doubt, but who was he to judge or discourage their creativity. I mean, he dropped out of college after all? “I’m not saying I believe it’s bulletproof, because frankly, nothing is. But I’m curious why you would consider telling Damian? I mean, he hates most things.”
“And Drake. I hate Drake.”
“We’re all very aware, Dami,” Dick drawled in annoyance. “But yeah, why would you tell him anything important to you? Especially that?”
“Well, we kinda needed a loan. I knew Bruce would undoubtedly say no and, well, Damian has money.”
“Because I make good business decisions.”
“I don’t know why I thought of asking you?”
“You didn’t, Jason told you to,” Stephanie confessed, recalling an earlier conversation.
“Jason, really?” Dick tsked.
“Hey, Damian does make good business decisions. Who do you think cleans and invests money? It’s certainly not Alfred.”
“Because Alfred would have nothing to do with your blood money, Jason. And Damian, I’m very disappointed in you!”
“Grayson, I don’t know what high horse you are riding on today, but you better come off it. Father told me if I wanted money, that I needed to earn it and that I should get a job. So I got one.”
“Laundering money for Red Hood’s criminal Enterprise is not a job!”
“Actually it is. Mighty Mouse made us an LLC and everything. I own several Wash & Folds, all legitimate! Thanks to Hell Spawn here! I’m actually considering making him a partner.”
“So will your LLC fund our YA Novels?”
“Oh fuck no!”
“Come on, Jay! We have a solid business plan,” Stephanie pleased.
“You’re business plan is a bunch of meaningless numbers written on the back of a napkin and poorly illustrated versions of us,” Damian said, holding up the napkin in question.
“Okay, so it’s not the final draft, but we’re working on it!” Tim said pointedly.
“Yeah, as tempting as this all sounds, I didn’t make my money making half baked business decisions,” Jason reasoned
“No, you made it by taking over Gotham’s drug trade,” Dick clarified with disapproval.
“Which was a solid business decision.”
“Why do I even talk to you?”
“I don’t know why I talk to any of you,” Damian scowled, arms crossed, grateful there was no shared genetics between him and his adoptive kin. “I don’t understand what father saw in any of you.
“I can’t answer that,” Jason replied. “However, I can tell you, from personal experience, what he saw in your mom.”
“Do you wanna die, Todd?”
“Do you wanna not have a job?” Jason wanted. “Also, been there done that. But hey, if I died twice then I’d have buffy status so don’t threaten me with a good time, kid.”
“On that note, I’m leaving,” Damian grimaced. “I have to meet Raven, anyway.”
“Oh,” Dick sang. “You have a date!”
“It’s not a date.”
“Bet you wish it was a date,” Stephanie teased. “Y’know, if you just stopped acting like a dick all the time, I bet she’d go out with you.”
“Shut up, Brown.”
“Oh no,” Dick smiled. “I know it’s hard to believe, but he’s nice to Raven.”
“Hey keep that shit up,” Jason added. “If you’re nice to her, she’d be nice to you!”
“I hate all of you,” Damian proclaimed and stormed away.
“Fuck you too! See you at work Monday! Jason called, earning a tiger middle finger.
“He might be an asshole, but he’s a good kid,” Jason nodded with a sense of pride, causing to Dick to silently scoff. “Still needs to get laid though.”
“Bruce is gonna be so pissed when he finds out you pulled Dami into your bullshit.”
“You’re using Raven’s pet name for him now?” Jason mocked. “And fucker’s gonna have to prove it first; there’s a reason I hired ‘Dami’ for that job.”
“Dude, fuck you; dig your grave,” Dick lamented. “And don’t come at me with one of your tired ass death jokes, they’re getting old.”
“Suit yourself,” the Outlaw glowered as silence set in.
“So Dick,” Tim dared sheepishly. “You, um, wanna invest in--”
“Absolutely not,” the elder hero replied.
Leaving Jason to chuckle. “And that’s the way the cookie crumbled.”
If you enjoyed that feel free to leave me kudos 👉 here on Ao3 lol. If you have any remdom prompts send them my way; maybe I’ll feel inspired 😘
#Damian Wayne#dick grayson#Jason Todd#Tim Drake#stephanie brown#batfamily#BatFam#batman#damian and raven#Damian al Ghul#damirae#red hood#nightwing#red robin#robin#Teen Titans#teen titans comics#wayne family adventures#teen titans vs justice league#dcamu#batman comics#DC comics#dc comics fandom#batman fanfiction#the robins#demon birds#demonbirds#spoiler#i am not starfire#dc comics ya novels
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Because the thing is that Ahsoka and Thrawn haven’t met (as far as we know) and have no real reason to dislike each other, and if anything they wouldn’t really mind one another — a conflict would have to be written into the situation now. I could see summarised versions of scenes from Alliances being written in / adapted as flashbacks, given they have Hayden Christensen back, and given they did it with The Mandalorian (Cobb Vanth was a book character, and his flashback was him summarising a book. He was also heavily implied to be gay with the guy he was raising a baby Hutt with, but apparently they left them during the month between the books and The Mandalorian, as they were not relevant to the plot. Or how the events or The Clone Wars Season 7 were mentioned in the Ahsoka novel. A few differences, different lightsaber colours and whatnot, but excusable.
I mean, maybe, but Ahsoka didn't seem too thrilled about Thrawn in that Mandalorian episode. They haven't met (we believe), but this scene doesn't really make me feel Ahsoka gets the warm fuzzies when considering Thrawn, either.
And I kind of want to get into an aside about this whole...thing for a moment. This Mandalorian episode was very light on the context of this whole confrontation (which is putting it nicely), but a little bit of a deep dive into Wookieepedia produces, well, an interesting scene.
Morgan Elsbeth
So remember that Clone Wars episode where Lux Bonteri and Ahsoka got stuck on some wintry planet, Bo-Katan smacked Ahsoka in the ass, and then Ahsoka decapitated four members of Death Watch?
That was Carlac.
The slaves from that episode?
Were the Ming Po.
That woman who was executed in that episode?
Was apparently Morgan's sister.
Somehow this led Morgan to wish death upon Ahsoka. That's...a lot of backstory that we didn't get in that episode. And even hardcore Clone Wars fans (a group I consider myself a member of) would have been hard-pressed to make that connection. *handwave*
Thrawn's Confederation...rebuilding the Empire? Oh boy, I really, really hope they're not going to link the First Order to Thrawn, because...eek.
Oof, I mean, the only way I can justify this considering Zahn's current Thrawn-canon is if Thrawn is trying to unite the remanents of the Empire to fight against the Grysk, as the New Republic would just be too busy trying to establish a legitimate government to get involved in the Outer Rim. The Chaos
And so maybe, maybe, we'll get a deep-cut reference to Alliances in order to pull Ahsoka to Thrawn's side. Although who knows where Ahsoka's mind is at regarding Anakin. Surely Luke told her about Anakin's last-ditch effort at redemption on Death Star II. I don't know. I have extremely mixed feelings about Ahsoka post-Rebels Season 2, so to me, it feels somewhat forced (hahahaha, that's a pun).
So yeah, they could include a flashback, but I'm not going to count on it in this context.
Now, the Cobb Vanth information was fascinating and I actually need to read the Aftermath series (I kinda skimmed through one of them - the one where Leia shows up in full "fuck you, I'm Vader's daughter costume," but to be honest, I didn't remember much else from them). I had been wracking my brain as to why I didn't remember Cobb Vanth from the Legends books, but this would explain it, haha.
#hello there#ask legobiwan#ahsoka tano#grand admiral thrawn#morgan elsbeth#i'm going to be honest i really disliked this episode#as it felt wholly out of left field#which is how i feel about a lot of ahsoka's appearances in all this new material
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I... am probably going to get some kind of hate or backlash for this but... it’s kind of been sitting on my mind and I think it needs to be put out there.
This is going to be an essay. And I am not a confident or confrontational person so this is real scary for me.
I know how easy it is to take this - all of this blogging, writing, any creative outlet really - a little too seriously. For a lot of us, it’s a lifeline of positivity and a wonderful distraction to the shit show of daily life in 2020/2021. Certainly saved my ass last year. And I spend a lot of my waking hours thinking about it, because it’s my hobby and I adore it.
But (and I remind myself to do this CONSTANTLY) can we collectively take a breath and chill a little bit?
Let me explain.
I’m just seeing little hints poking through of toxic judgemental attitudes regarding how ‘legitimate’ someone’s fanfiction or writing is. That there’s somehow this divide between ‘real’ writing and ‘fast food’ fanfiction. I, for one, really dislike the term but I’m using it here to prove a point.
All of it, every piece put out into the public space, is valid. And I think it’s good to be reminded about that concept every so often.
We are all different people. With different experiences and preferences. We all seek out and consume different things, sometimes surprising even ourselves when we discover something new we didn’t think we’d enjoy.
Some people like more plot heavy and meaningful fanfiction. Those pieces or series’ that effect you and move you, play on your emotions in any and all ways. Some are short, some are 300k novels written over long periods of time. Some are canon, fix it fics or prequels, some are brilliantly imaginative AU’s involving our favourite worlds and characters we know and love.
Others enjoy (sometimes) quicker, sexually charged fanfiction. Fantasies played out in written form. Explorations of sexuality on a vast spectrum of more ‘vanilla’ (whatever that means to you) and more hardcore themes outside the regular realm of sex you might be used to. Characters we find attractive in places of canon or AU territory to thrill ourselves and others, or even just simply to scratch an itch.
Some enjoy both, on differing days. Dependant on moods or needs at the moment in time.
No matter what - All. Is. Valid.
None is better. None is worse.
When you read something you consider exactly or close to what you’re looking for from fanfiction, it is absolutely normal that you consider the piece, and the writer, of a higher standard. But this standard is subjective. Please remember this.
Don’t look down on others who enjoy something you don’t consider as having this standard. And certainly don’t have a lower view of the writer who put themselves out there to write it and post it.
We’re all judgmental fucks at times. I’ll easily admit I am, and have been. I’m in my late 20’s and still learning to be an emotionally intelligent human. I definitely have moments I’ve had to catch myself out. There are things I could rant on for days because of how much they irk me. And I believe it’s healthy to express your emotions about anything. But I do not put it into the public arena. I try my absolute fucking hardest not to let it colour any of my online interactions.
(This is the first time I’ve really put out a significant opinion in my own post and it’s fucking frightening. Seriously.)
Anyway,
If something is bothering me enough in terms of irks, that are completely subjective and my own, I speak to a trusted friend, to get the thoughts out and move on. And even then, some of those thoughts I’ve eventually pondered over and regretted the judgments I made.
But I will ALWAYS defend the right in this fanfiction realm for every writer to write about whatever the hell they want and not be looked down on or belittled for it.
If you are annoyed that certain pieces or writers get ‘popular’ or receive adoration you don’t believe they deserve - STOP YOURSELF RIGHT THERE. You can be annoyed. Go for it. Let yourself feel. But do not spread that negativity. Do not make yourself feel better by bringing others down in public view. It is not an appropriate coping mechanism.
Popularity is a whole other concept I do not have time to fully delve into. But it seriously happens by a decent combination of hard work that people don’t see, the right timing and LUCK. You cannot control it, and it will seriously help your mental health to not attempt to pursue as your goal. I speak from experience.
Whatever your reason for reading or writing fanfiction is, take a moment sometime to remind yourself we are at the end of the day just... fans. Fans of characters, actors, movies, TV shows, all of it. To be a fan is to be an enthusiast of anything that truly captures your interest. We just... like something or someone so much we read more about it, talk with others about it, even create more content about it.
Fandom is one of the coolest things I think humans have ever brought into fruition. People from all over coming together to love and discuss something that brings them joy or challenges their mind. And I’m sorry but I’m just getting a little tired of the competitiveness and superiority complex that works to make fandom a fucking shitty place to hang around in sometimes.
I am not saying everything has to be sunshine and roses, because there are lines that can be crossed and every good thing has it’s bad side. But... this is for happiness. At least, for me it is. Some days, writing out somewhat incoherent, horny thoughts and shorter stories brings me happiness. Sometimes writing out emotional turmoil and long, plot driven novel work brings me happiness. It’s just how my brain gives me that serotonin I crave, and I can’t excessively control that.
When people like one and not the other, I don’t care. I really don’t. I don’t need an explanation. It’s not personal. It’s just what brings THEIR brain serotonin, and I will never judge them for that. I’ve at least brought them a little bit of enjoyment in whatever way and that is just... fucking cool when you think about it.
Can’t it just be as simple as that? Fuck all the ‘popularity’ and legitimacy and notions of what is ‘better’?
Just do what brings you happiness, and give love/support/whatever to others who have done the same for you in what they’ve written.
That’s... it really. That’s all I needed to get out.
Okay. Anons. Yes feel free to counter me and make me feel poopy for my opinion because this is Tumblr and I’m not naive. Just know I probably won’t answer any hateful messages because I’m a wuss and can’t think of good witty replies.
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My Fic List
Whelp, decided I should do one of these. I have mostly written for Hockey RPF and BNHA, as you have likely already seen!
My BNHA Fics
Bury Them Deep
- “Shouji Mezou's entire life has revolved around being a goalie and playing hockey since he was five years old. After being drafted in the third round in the NHL, Shouji has two more years of college before moving on to playing professional hockey like he's always wanted. Or at least like he always thought he wanted. An injury that ends his season throws him into a tailspin, forcing him to take a look at his life and how he is going to live it, especially after meeting his fascinating new goth history tutor.”
(This bad bitch is 81k total and is chock full of my red hot hockey takes and midwestern references. I love it very much and it is a sweet baby.)
The Rooftop Necromancy series AKA my black metal band AU:
Downhill from Here
- “ Hizashi just wants to tour the country with his best friends with their metal band in their shitty van like they've been planning for years. He'd successfully hidden his crush on one of them for years, after all, he would definitely be able to make this work and keep things fun and uncomplicated. Until Aizawa decided to start acting weird. “
(In which I take you all on a nostalgic trip to 2006-2008 metal culture and you can see the black metal love song that my dumb ass wrote.)
The Perfect Mistake
- “ It wasn't as though Hizashi had planned on breaking up with his boyfriend while they were on tour in a tiny cargo van with no room and no peace. He would have much rather preferred to do it when they were home and he could easily go and crawl back into his mom's basement. But he didn't have a choice. “
(As relationships tend to do, theirs goes through problems.)
Rooftop Necromancy
-"He’d even ended up leaning into the crowd when someone’s elbow had connected solidly with his nose and thrown him back. They’d gone quiet as Hizashi got himself up to his feet, ripped off his now bloody ‘Within Temptations’ tshirt from 2004, whipped his hair back from his face and screamed, “That’s what I’m FUCKING talking about.” into the mic.
They went wild for it, cheering as blood ran down his nose, past his mouth and dripped onto the stage, leaving him feeling like an otherworldly monster performing an occult ritual. Metal, he thought dazedly to himself, why in the fuck had he ever stopped doing metal."
(I hyperfocused so hard at the idea of Mic as a metal head that I wrote this in seven straight hours and WROTE THROUGH THE ATTEMPTED COUP ON DEMOCRACY WITHOUT KNOWING IT. It’s a bit rough, but it’s got some good parts and it spawned the whole damn series.)
Hands Up
- "But of course he had, they had always been able to read each other and what they meant. That had often been their problem, if he was going to be honest."
(In which they figure their shit out. Basically it was written when I was thinking alot about how my own mental health had evolved through the years. It’s basically the story of two people who are both very good for each other and also very bad and how they deal with that. It’s probably the most personally meaningful thing I’ve ever written.)
The other BNHA fics:
Waking Up With Ghosts
-"Hizashi opened his eyes to a world that belonged to ghosts. His headphones were gone and the gray, grimy world that he felt more than saw was muffled and still. This was bad, he hazily thought."
In which we follow Hizashi shortly after the events of 296. How he's found, how he finds out and how he has to tell.”
(I fished this one out of the garbage of my Google Docs because I’d written most of it and forgotten about it. I dragged it out, prettied it up a little and threw it up on AO3. It is by far my most well read BNHA fic, go figure.)
Leave Her Johnny
-”Captain Hizashi Yamada has combed the Seven Seas looking for the elusive smuggler Eraserhead. He has spent years searching for him, tracking his movements and trying to anticipate where he would be next. But he had never considered what would happen when he finally found him. “
(I wrote a paragraph of this and was immediately like ‘I MUST CREATE THIS’. I take some chances writing wise in this as the whole thing is done in a Victorian Era ish style of writing. But I think it’s effective and the ending is likely one of the best that I’ve ever managed. I’m proud of it.)
Gold Rush
-”"That earned him a laugh and Mashirao’s smile made something in his chest ache, something that made him want to hurt. Why had he ever left?
“I’m really not,” Mashirao was saying but Shinsou just shook his head and kissed him once, twice and wished he could take the sunny afternoon and make it stay forever. Make it stay forever like Mashirao somehow had, while the neighborhood had adjusted without Hitoshi’s permission.
“You are,” he said, “And I love it.”
I love you, he should have said. But as Mashirao’s eyes softened and the blonde pushed him back against the bed, Hitoshi knew he didn’t need to say it."
(You know how sometimes you listen to a Death Cab for Cutie song about gentrification over and over until a fic comes out? Because that’s basically what happened here.)
Black Sun
‘"But then he remembered the way that Shouji had eaten the night after, one hand curled into his hair as he hung back in the corner. Shouji hid when something was wrong, like a wounded cat trying to find a dark place to either live or die and he was being released tomorrow. Now was the time to push or he’d find Shouji right back on his bed, staring at nothing."
Something happened to Shouji on the beach. Tokoyami is sure of it.‘
(Aaaaaand Death Cab for Cutie strikes again. But heyo, my first published ShouToko and it is SOFTTTTT)
In the Far and Mighty West
Mic came closer and despite himself, Shouta could not find it in him to feel afraid. “You won’t understand, not really. I’ll try, though. I’m like Pecos Bill or Paul Bunyan or a jackalope or that fish that your friend caught that he swears he brought in but that you’ve never seen proof of. I’m the herd of dogies moving sweet and steady in the right direction, I’m no stragglers to worry about, I’m that perfect dog that’s there to keep them in line. I’m that group of good friends that you would kill for, I’m the woman who you’re dying to come home to, I’m that promised home of milk and honey. I’m Mic.”
Shouta stared at him dazedly and licked his lips, feeling drunk and stupid as he stared at the man. “You’re… magic?”
“I suppose you could call me that.”
(Cowboy!Erasermic. Inspired heavily by American Gods and my own love of folk heroes.)
In Your Violence
- “'Mezou frowned, eyes narrowing. “Are you trying to say that you’re scared that I’ll be killed by having faith in you?”
“It would be in your best interest to stay away from me,” Fumikage finally said, his voice falling flat and quiet. “I am destined to be a monster.”
'Mezou gets the call he fears, the one that says that Fumikage has lost control again. But this time it's different, in more ways than one.”
(I listened to Silence by Marshmello until I went insane in this is the result. Featuring some of my super depressing headcanons about Shouji! But it’s not awful.)
My hockey fics that I still like:
Hufflepuff Halfwit
- ““Zhenya, the wind is coming from the west, I will not remind you again. You shut that window before the house stinks of factories!” She snapped and Geno stared at the owl as though maybe it would know what to do. But instead, it had given a little hoot and wiggled inside, only to drop it’s letter on the counter.
He turned his head very slowly back to look at his mother, who had suddenly gone very quiet. “It… just showed up, Mama. And um. It brought a letter.” He waited again, looked back at the owl who had begun to nose at the pirozhkis in interest and then looked back at his mother with the best puppy dog eyes he had ever attempted. “Can I keep it?”
(This is a part of my hockey/Harry Potter au that still legitimately haunts my dreams. It’s basically a Sid/Geno in Hogwarts but I really love the world building I got to do with Koldovstoretz, the Russian school of wizardry. Don’t read ‘On the Word of a Slytherin’ though, I’m not as proud of that one.)
The Prince
- “What the fuck.” Matt breathed out, sitting back heavily onto his hotel bed as he stared at his phone.
‘This is Henrik.’ The text read. ‘I would like to meet you. I will book a room in Pittsburgh at your convenience. Let me know what time will work for you.’ -
(Listen, it’s Henrik Lundqvist/Matt Murray smut, I feel like that is novel and interesting and worth your attention. I wax poetic on goalies in this, as you do.)
The Zoo of Toronto
- “No one missed it when a massive porcupine had shuffled in between the reporters with a single minded focus, pushing media away until it was able to grip onto Phil’s suit pants and try to pull itself up. He hadn’t been able to do more then besides pick the animal up before it could shred his pants to shreds and walk out of the locker room before the decision had been made with the Toronto media.
Phil Kessel was guilty.”
(Not gonna lie, this is probably my favorite of the hockey fics I’ve written. And it’s Phil/Carl, which is never found anymore but it was a good pairing.)
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kpop music videos that gave their fans sexual brainworms
OR accidental fetish pop and its fringe fanbase: meditations on gendered desire
large warning here: i am someone who has been into kpop for the past 10 years. however, i have always been an extremely casual fan. i do write fic, but not rpf. if any of that makes you not want to hear me talk about kpop rpf (or you don’t want to hear about it in general), please keep moving.
anyway, obviously pop is corporate, soulless, and manufactured. but sometimes some truly bizarre shit gets past the committees and destroys a generation. these are their stories.
the video that started this is all is got7’s just right, released july 10th, 2015.
yes that’s all 7 members of got7 (one is out of frame) shrunken down for your viewing pleasure. they live in your room and tell you you’re just right.
this sheer fetish power of this video is nerfed only by how utterly sexless it is.
they’re styled like and dance like this. it’s a totally unironic sendup of the seminal work that preceded it by four years, “what makes you beautiful” by the white kpop group “one direction.” the chaste energy of the whole thing makes you legitimately wonder if the good people at jyp have just never heard of microphilia. (during a dramatic reading of this piece, here a friend interjected seriously, “i think it’s korean culture not to talk about things like this, fetishes in the workplace.”)
it’s for the best, honestly, though because the actress in the music video is lee ja in, who was 11 when the video was shot. considering that the members themselves ranged in age from 18-23 at the time, i think it’s actually very impressive that we only have to cancel one.
you receive absolutely no prizes for guessing that it’s jackson wang we’re sending to social justice prison. why’d he do this? no one asked.
at any rate, got7 fans, or “gans” (they actually call themselves igot7s which is too twee for me), have much to think about here: all 7 very small members of got7 sneaking into their room, possibly weird age play, and jackson wang eating a very large cake.
let’s see what they actually did.
twitter was actually very tame. the most charged thing i found was (unsurprisingly) from a bts fan (“ban”). i don’t actually know what it means, but i think it means something.
so, of course, i turned to the internet’s last bastion of free speech, where you can say whatever the fuck you want and receive cheers, or as the kids say, “kudos.” that is, i read fanfiction.
for those of you who don’t know your herstory, i started my journey at Asianfanfics.com, where, at the time of writing, there were 12,067 got7 stories. i want to start this by saying that i think feminism won, because someone was paying real human dollars to advertise their irene/wendy fanfiction on a banner ad, which is quite possibly a win for women for everywhere.
anyway, Asianfanfics.com’s search engine sucks ass (i kept on finding stories about different combinations of bts members worrying about their weight and being reassured by another member that were entitled “just right”), so i decided to look through all got7 stories written between july 2015 and december 2015.
but, alas, not a single got7 microphilia fic to be found.
also, some genre commentary while i’m here: i think the stories i respect the most are the “[y/n] is a ordinary girl who’s assigned to be got7’s manager! can she make them into superstars? as sparks begin to fly, can she keep it professional?” like fuck yeah that sounds like a kickass dating sim. it almost definitely already is one. i salute all the teens around the world for buying into the fantasy of dating a boy band member that they themselves sell you.
however, i don’t think i respect the “[member a] and [member b] are mafia/jocks and nerds/college students/high schoolers” concepts. in my opinion, the whole fantasy of boy band member is their personas, their hidden real personalities, their celebrity, and the show business setting. find a different intellectual property if you wanna write about school. i even respect the “yugyeom drank girl juice [not estrogen] and turned into a sexy girl” story more, because at least it knows exactly what it wants, and also because they’re all still boy band members. well, band members. shout out to yugyeom.
so, anyway, i looked elsewhere. at the time of writing, archive of our own only had 11,645 got7 stories, but it does have a better search, so it effectively has more. as an aside, i think it’s so funny, and mildly disorienting at first, that archive of our own separates the “music & bands” section from the “celebrities & real people” section. boy band members aren’t real people.
the first problem i encountered is that only 20 or so stories were written within a year of just right’s release. absolute cringe gans. don’t you care about your boys? there were zero stories tagged “vore” or “microphilia” either. stories containing the word “tiny” that were rated either “explicit” or “mature” were all normal (“normal”) size fetishization rather than, you know, just right.
however, i learned my lesson from twitter. i realized that what had happened was that watching this video had created sleeper agents, just waiting for their activation phrase. that activation phrase? bangtan boys. and yeah, lo and behold, there was one! unfortunately (fortunately?) it had nothing to do with got7, let alone just right, so i’m not going to talk about it.
basically what i learned is that this video may have actually been very normal, and my brain has just been destroyed by being too online at a young age.
however, there are plenty more videos in this genre. i present to you exo wolf, a banger from may 30th, 2013. i say banger, because in a comedic inversion, it’s actually fucking terrible.
this video is pretty self-explanatory in terms of why it might induce certain responses.
let’s get the formalities out of the way. this video, the member who’s getting cancelled is kai. he has braids in this video :/
also skating on thin ice: xiumin and chen. guys what was up with the whole exo-m thing? like, we’re gonna have a cpop subgroup, but it’s going to be part chinese members and part korean members that we’ll give a chinese name? unsurprisingly, the three exo members who have departed from the group are all chinese. they weren’t able to stand the microaggressions probably. but xiumin and chen remain uncancelled as an official chinese apology for five thousand of years of on-and-off invasions of korea. sorry guys that was kinda fucked up. our bad!
anyway, there are basically three avenues for exo fans to take: 1) humans with wolfish characters (usually wolf pack dynamics, which even wolves themselves don’t fucking use so i think all of you should shut up. the real omega here is your brain), 2) werewolves (duh), and 3) wolves with human characteristics (i.e. standard furry fare).
exo themselves let all these possibilities exist at the same time, superimposing them over each other, which is very woke and egalitarian of them. let’s see what the people decided. awoo.
Asianfanfics dot com had many stories in this vein. i feel very validated that this time i was able to correctly predict a fetish. that said, briefly returning to my earlier comment regarding alternate universes: it’s intense psychic whiplash reading about these vampires and werewolves, and going okay okay luhan is a vampire this that whatever, and then seeing the actual real performance photos the author attaches at the bottom of each chapter. bro i forgot these were actual people.... it breaks immersion so bad... i’m sorry, i just can’t believe that any of these dancing boys are having weird vampire sex with wings or whatever.
archive of our own also had many stories in this vein. and i think there are some important difference between the two sites worth talking about.
first of all, i think the higher engagement rate of archive of our own really enables some of the authors to get super bold. it makes Asianfanfics.com seem a little quaint, actually. like the wordcounts are waaay longer, for one. it’s uncommon for a story hosted on Asianfanfics.com to be more than a few thousand words long (most of them could easily be published in the new yorker), whereas some of these archive of our own people have written full length novels about if the members of exo were werewolves. i guess it’s just intensely demoralizing for the aff.com crew to get, like, three comments per story.
the second big difference is that i’m noticing more common themes between the ao3 crew’s writing. like stan intertextuality, or plagiarism, or whatever, but they seem to be implicitly engaging with each other’s characterizations, storylines, and tropes. i think it is because they probably all follow each other on twitter. (i have been active on twitter for three weeks now so i am an expert on fanfiction twitter.)
anyway, like not that i am a particularly big gan (cannot even list all the members), but these people seem to have reached a very specific consensus on how jackson wang, for instance, would react in a variety of situations that really surprises me? if i were to sit down and write a got7 story, i think the fuckboitude, the douchebaggery is a big part of his charm. not to be nationalist or anything, but for god’s sake, he’s from hong kong. but these people have him as very sensitive, lots of protective instincts. not that i understood what anyone on aff.com was doing with his character either, but they did all seem to be doing different things. “kudos” to that, i guess.
but: exo. wolf. i searched the “wolves” tag. this filtered the list down from 33459 stories to 52 stories. and the “wolves” tag was very different from the aff.com “wolf” tag. for the most part, aff.com liked stories where a member was a wolf (usually shapeshifting), feral boy, lots of y/n, lots of y/n dating a feral boy who is secretly a wolf.
ao3 really, really, really likes alpha/beta/omega stories. sorting by the most popular stories, only five on the first page weren’t a/b/o. and one of them was a cis f!baekhyun story, so i think the intended effect was communicated. anyway, let’s talk about some of the themes.
first of all, i’m disappointed. today’s bonus cancellation is of ao3 “wolves” writers. why the fuck are you drawing so heavily from european wolves?? there are wolves in asia!! you don’t need to keep giving their packs and ranks weird latin names. i will kill you. i hate italy. korea literally has a native wolf. i hate all of you!!! if you want to write caucasian wolves go watch that dumbass cw show!!!! my god.
the second theme (the first one was white supremacy) is that no one wants to be a wolf who fucks. i think that we need a sex positivity movement, or something, for omega rights. like, are all of you doing okay? you’re queering misogyny by inventing new genders to oppress. another level to “no one wants to be a wolf...” is the “who fucks” part. there are so many consent issues. and not even in like, a sexy intentional way? in a “i genuinely do not think this author understands how their writing comes off” way. unfortunately i am sensitive to untagged sexual coercion, and there was a lot of that.
at any rate, the aff.com wolves were at peace with being wolves, very self-actualized. the ao3 wolves know that every minute they spend alive on this bitch of an earth is suffering, and also sex.
the third theme is the evolution of y/n. y/n, who, in a startlingly woke move for aff.com, is almost always korean, is a girl main character stumbling into love, boy bands, and wolves (i think it’s because aff.com is oldschool kpop fandom, so therefore heavily asian itself in userbase). but y/n is not the main character in ao3 stories. she is the straight best friend. in what i think is a hilarious move, ao3 authors invert the gay best friend paradigm to give the gay main character a straight girl as best friend. she usually calls him “a gay,” she has lots of thoughts on boys, and she knows his sexuality better than he does and before he does. (sidebar: if all the men are gay, and all the women are straight...)
there’s a really fun twist to this, though, because the main character is always a self-insert in fanfiction. but where older fanfiction like aff.com was at peace with this and literalize it via y/n shenanigans, modern fic writers who haven’t finished distangling their complicated relationship with wanting to be a man who loves other men instead simply imbue their main character with their essence. a little voodoo doll sehun, with a lock of y/n hair.
this creates a deeply ambivalent relationship with gender in these stories. the main character is usually an omega, but one who resents being an omega. their body and its parts is usually described, if at all, as ostensibly intersex (except more offensively), but in practice, these discourses inscribe a trans body. (nb: i think cis writers approach this in a really fucked up fetishizing way, but i hope by this point we know that that goes without saying) it’s incredibly straightforward to read this, and see the underlying desires and fears in a heady cocktail of unfiltered writing that’s deeply confessional. you know when freud had people say whatever the fuck they wanted and figured they’d eventually free associate into releasing their subconscious into reality? yeah.
okay, and while we’re on the topic, let’s talk f(x) nu abo, released on may 4th, 2010.
this is a blitzy, maximalist, amped up dance hit that even has its own applause and cheers built in. it’s so fucking annoying, and i love it.
this song is on here because the second most popular kpop a/b/o story on ao3 is called “nu abo” except it’s about bts. that’s offensive enough in its own right. write something about f(x) (702 works). when will women win the right to have their own self-lubricating holes.
anyway, even though f(x) is probably innocent in all of this, i’m still cancelling amber liu.
for queerbaiting. who told her to look like ruby rose but hot? and for what? i’m also cancelling her for racism, but that wasn’t in this video.
moving on to a double feature: vixx voodoo doll and vixx chained up, released november 19, 2013 and november 9, 2015 respectively. this is because while voodoo doll is more formative, i think the fans who write fanfiction today got into kpop more recently, so we are casting a wide net.
anyway, voodoo doll is jam packed with weird pseudo-medical imagery, blood, vivisection, bondage, puppet shit, femdom, sharps, piercings, asphyxiation, dollification, stabbing/penetration metaphors, and a really sick and catchy dance. god that looks like the list of tags on the a/b/o wolf stories.
for this song, we’re cancelling you, for being way too into this song when you were 13.
vixx voodoo doll made me goth i guess! insert that pic of the your music saved me sign, except it saved me from getting into emo or pop punk probably.
chained up, comparatively, is much more tame. the only thing of note about it is that there are around 10 completely different chokers and choker looks the members wear in this music video. also they’re singing about being chained up, but that seemed a bit obvious.
we could argue that voodoo doll is gay while chained up is gay (derogatory); that voodoo doll is queer while chained up is gay; that chained up is a sensitive masterpiece of omega4omega sexuality. but we’re not going to.
we’re going to talk about what voodoo doll fanfiction was and was not. first, Aff.com had plenty of it. however, i was extremely disappointed to see that much of it did not hew to the spirit of vixx voodoo doll. my god, the voodoo doll becoming the one preying upon you disgusts me. the fantasy of the voodoo doll is that of absolute power. the idea that the doll itself has agency? instantly breaks the fantasy. i’m even not into voodoo dolls and i’m offended.
i also don’t think it’s part of the voodoo doll fantasy to release the doll. the only story on there that involved Y/N kidnapping vixx members like in the music video was unavailable because the author deactivated their account. come back qxeen what did you see.
i think this got off track, actually, in that i was mostly wondering why these people imprinted differently onto vixx voodoo doll than i did. like i don’t think you’re supposed to actually like straightforwardly absorb the morals and aesthetics of music videos like it’s propaganda. however, it’s more entertaining if you do. i hope ao3 doesn’t let me down.
out of the then 5932 works in the vixx fandom (the least out of every group so far, excluding f(x) because they’re women), 59 of them included the word “voodoo” somewhere. that’s 1%. i legitimately can’t tell if that’s high or not.
after some more cursory reading through the first page of popular results, my big takeaway is that people watched that video and wanted to be tortured and enslaved? but not, like, in a sexy way where the torturing is the point, the way where the point is to suffer bravely and beautifully, to endure the world’s harms like jesus on the cross, and then to fall into the arms of a beautiful boy who may or may not be the one hurting you in the first place.
there’s a certain predictability to these fantasies. like it’s not even masochism, which would be fun at least, it’s literally just like the desire to be beautiful, even as you suffer. and i do find that a little boring. (but, i mean, you can’t help being a woman!)
sidebar: on chained up. what’s interesting about chained up, is that most of the then 38 “chained up” works (likely because the video has no storyline) are about the members fucking during chained up promotions. no one’s ever actually chained up, but whatever. it’s fine. it’s fine!
anyway, here, more than ever, the nature of desire is stripped bare. i’ve written before [elsewhere in the unreleased tshirt cinematic universe] on how kpop boys are, through fandom, re-formed as white, or more strongly, i guess, blank slates. it’s really interesting to me how so much of this dynamic of projection is enabled by the fact that they’re asian men. they’re infantilized, feminized vessels; they’re seductive, but childlike, oblivious to their own charms, so nonthreatening; they have uncontrollable desires for sex, they’re scared of sex. and above all else, white women submit themselves to them, insert themselves into them. basically kpop fans tend to rework old school yellow peril and emasculation fantasies to reenact their own desires, often white, often cishet on them.
what i am saying is that there’s another thesis about forced feminization and its racialized subtext in here. obviously gender is a racialized construct to begin with, but like it’s fascinating to argue that when white women remake asian men according to their own desires, that is, into themselves, they (hopefully) unintentionally echo these old fears about the sexual order.
it illuminates, it seems, the underlying dynamic in the denigration of asian men, which is of course the fear of miscegenation. now, my breathtaking ability to make everything about me aside, miscegenation is interesting because it presents a racial synthesis, beginning to collapse and trouble the artificial designations of purity. so we make asian men into white women, and end up with an unsettling hybrid. i’m sure this has deep implications for me personally.
but i think we already knew that quite a few of these people had yellow fever, so let’s talk about the gender dialectic at play. basically, the above dynamic, of making men into women (whether literally, in body; or subjectively, in mind; or even relationally, as they are objectified into passive vessels for your desire) coexists with the ostensibly converse dynamic, in which the straight women desires to be a gay man. these aren’t necessarily in conflict: it could easily be that these are different writers writing different stories, that both are ways of expressing discontent with existing in a raced, gendered body, or even that the end product of both is the same.
it’s been a while without a picture. all of you now have the legal right to hunt and kill me for making a d&g joke.
anyway, what i want to talk about is how these two fantasies can coexist. that by making a man into yourself, you can speak on your own desire in a passive way. my normal interest is analyzing forced masc fantasies (albeit in chinese opera lol), and they bear little to no resemblance to this kind of fantasy. this kind offers plausible deniability, of course, because wanting things is embarrassing. but also the fantasy isn’t about wanting to be a man, it’s about having no choice but to be a failed one. the gender pessimism running through these stories is palpable. basically andrea long chu wants what wolf fanfiction writers know: everyone is an omega, and everyone hates it.
at any rate, this racialized dynamic is one that i wasn’t sure how to bring up throughout this piece, mainly because there is no definitive way for me to tell the race of any individual writer, beyond just like the clear and present vibes that i receive. but i think it structures a lot of the fantasies contained in this essay. (i felt more comfortable bringing up the gendered dynamic, because it was fairly trivial to find out the current gender of the person writing each story i was reading.)
obviously we should return to the specter haunting this conversation: the very much alive david eng. i think this sort of argument is familiar to readers of racial castration, especially his chapter on m. butterfly. btw sorry for mentioning that play 2 out of 3 posts on this blog. i have problems.
let’s talk about the parallel imagery between the depiction of gallimard’s final speech and the fanfiction i’ve described above. in it, gallimard makes himself into his own dream woman, dressing in yellowface and robes, the costume of puccini’s original madame butterfly. and he laments his lost love:
there is a vision of the orient that i have. of slender women in chong sams and kimonos who die for the love of unworthy foreign devils. who are born and raised to be the perfect women. who take whatever punishment we give them, and bounce back, strengthened by love, unconditionally.
in that, i see the self insert, and i see the sufferer of vixx voodoo fic. the fantasy that gallimard has about asian women is repeated, this time about asian men and a helpless identification with them. and on some level, gallimard’s women do have something very compelling to identify with: they suggest that there’s a way to endure white male violence without sacrifice, and even more potently, to enjoy it on some level.
but onward to the titular racial castration. eng argues that gallimard’s wilful ignorance of song’s true gender is a psychic castration -- song’s masculinity is diminished so that his own can be enhanced within their relationship. this, eng believes, acts out “richard fung’s contention that in western imaginary ‘asian and anus are conflated.’” this process stabilizes the relationship between the asian man and the white woman: they occupy the same place within the sexual dyad.
this is, i think, why some people are addicted to writing from the bottom’s perspective. again -- not implying that irl bottoms don’t exist or that bottoms are psychically castrated lol -- but rather that you can fantasize about this ideal asian man that you can come to embody. in kpop rpf, rather than it being between a white man and an asian man (unless someone’s started writing chad future fic), it’s between two asian men. so this transformation is performed. whiteness is always intruding and so i think eng is helpful here to making it visible again.
this essay isn’t a callout or actual cancellation or anything like that, i do wanna be clear. i guess i just like talking about fantasies, even the embarrassing ones, and where they come from. i think oftentimes in fandom spaces, we write a lot of stories off as idfic, and i think virtually every single one of the stories i referenced to write this fairly uncontroversially fall into that category. but i think calling something an “id” something or the other naturalizes the satisfaction it gives as purely instinctual and unconscious, when i do think there are deeper narratives at play. while i didn’t ever actually reference the base here (sorry), i do think it’s worth talking about how real world power shapes & maintains the superstructure, and thereby our fantasies.
anyway in conclusion, maybe i was the one with sexual brainworms the whole time.
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Phase One: Thor
Since I was looking up my past live-blog of the novel and realising how annoying and repetitive reading through it all is because of my having structured it as a bunch of reblogs, I’ve decided to organize it all into one long-ass post instead. In case anyone else wants to read it in the future. Or in case I decide to re-read it. Because I’m hilarious. 😅
SO WITHOUT FURTHER ADO
My Hilarious Yet Wrathful Overview Of Phase One: Thor, Redux
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If your son who’s to become king requires a babysitter to not screw it all up and also the idea of him being king is stressful enough to put you into a coma, maybe, uh… reconsider doing that? Just a thought.
But you see here why Odin was so deadset on Thor becoming king, despite him being ill-suited for the role. It’s not about what’s best for Asgard; it’s about personal legacy. Thor is Odin’s mini me, and Loki is very much not. There are places within the text where Odin laments Thor “lacking his father’s wisdom” (he’s definitely inherited your humility, though, Odin!), but he hopes for Thor to grow into a “wise king” like himself. Whereas he holds no such illusions (lol, pun) that Loki will ever take after him.
now with tag commentary! #this scene is in the script and both novelizations #(though in reading this novel seems to just be a more complete version of the junior novel? #idk i'm confused because they're supposedly written by different authors but so far the text is identical) #and it drives me insane each time i read it
“Haha, I’m a warmongering piece of shit, isn’t it funny?”
I know, I know. I try to cut Asgard some slack for being such a militaristic culture because social changes happen slowly and when you live for thousands of years per generation, it makes sense that your views on things like war would be regressive. The text says Odin has ruled Asgard for tens of thousands of years (so much for taking Loki’s “give or take 5,000 years” line literally; sure, the Odinsleep would have extended Odin’s lifespan, but by that much? Idk).
Still, fuck Odin. Especially since he’ll eventually try to shame Loki for doing the same thing he’s fucking boasting about here. And on a much smaller scale too.
…is it, though?
I actually think Loki’s relationship with being the centre of attention is really interesting in its complexity and we don’t discuss it enough. I’ve said this before, but he strikes me as the sort of person who craves attention but also wouldn’t really know what to do with it if he had it. He craves it as a result of neglect, because he’s never been shown recognition or validation. This is why he seems to revel in it in Stuttgart, even in (or maybe especially in?) his brainwashed state. But he also frequently comes across as pretty introverted and has horrible self-esteem, so I think on another level, sustained, genuine attention would make him feel kind of uncomfortable. Loki seems to believe that in order to be loved or respected, he has to literally be Thor, though. And Thor has always been the centre of attention, so for Loki, attention is synonymous with respect.
I find Loki’s relationship with wanting attention especially fascinating because I too both crave and fear it. As a borderline, I need it. When no one is paying attention to me, I lose my sense of identity. I feel as though I literally cease to exist. It’s excruciatingly painful. And yet, I have no authentic sense of self; I’m just a chameleon, and the closer people get to me, the more likely it is they’ll see behind my mask. They’ll realise it’s all a show and that I’m actually no one. And then they’ll leave. I can’t help wondering if that’s how Loki feels sometimes too.
Wait, what? You mean goat. His horns are shaped like a goat’s. This is a ram:
This is a goat:
This is Loki:
Do you see now? They’re like a goat. Not a ram. Not a cow. A GOAT.
This book was written before Ragnarok was a thing, so it may be unfair to connect the two, but it still seems worth noting that it was Thor who reduced Loki to being no more than a trickster to begin with. “You could be more,” my ass. Loki’s problem has never been that he was one-dimensional; it was always that the people in his life, including Thor, refused to see any other dimensions to him. Which makes those words particularly cruel—as if they aren’t cruel enough already, what with the physical torture and all.
Always happy to have cause to point out that
Loki was on Thor clean-up duty their whole lives; he certainly was not trying to kill Thor.
People like to point to Loki’s attempted genocide of the Jötnar and attempted(-ish? lol) conquest of Earth as proof that he’s some kind of violent maniac. But in a little place I like to call reality, Loki was historically far less aggressive and bloodthirsty than his peers.
Question: why is one conqueror evil and the other is righteously entitled to ruling over the Nine Realms?
Asgardian exceptionalism FTW
I can’t even begin to imagine what would lead you to expect such a thing, Odin. 😂
Uh, ‘cause it is?? And also their planet is MELTING without it??
This is all only within the first two chapters, btw. Lmao
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“Looking for answers,” my foot.
YOU WOULD THINK SO, WOULDN’T YOU??
#i mean unless you knew heimdall #he only commits treason on days that end in y
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What’d I say? Thor clean-up dutyyyyy
Just wanna remind everyone that this
is why he’s smiling during this scene
because it makes me laugh every time. 😂
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My heart breaks every time I remember that second excerpt because literally ALL OF IT happened to him when he survived falling through the wormhole. My poor boy. 😭
But also of note… Loki gets cold (and also does not like being cold). This interests me because 1) as many are aware, the prevalent headcanon that Loki has a low body temperature irritates me and 2) it possibly(?) lends weight to the theory that he may not be fully Jötun, whether by virtue of his birth or Odin’s spell.
Haha, look at this Feminist Icon™ trying to take credit for his female friend’s accomplishments! Truly inspiring.
#for some reason the ragnarok lovers have somehow decided that thor is both a feminist and lesbian icon #whatever that means 🤷♀️ #and i'm still trying very hard to figure out why #is it literally just because he *says* he respects women or whatever in that dumb rambly conversation with valkyrie?
Ooh… you were so close to getting the point, Volstagg. So close. Take your tongue off Odin’s boot for just a couple minutes longer.
Also, the author just forgot the name of the Casket. How did this book get published? 😂
JUST LOOKING FOR ANSWERS, HUH?
Because fuck Loki, amirite? He, uh… he’s a prince too, you know.
Also… Fandral, you dweeb 😂
…am I reading too much into this, or did Odin just literally forget that Loki exists?
On the other hand, the author also seemed to forget Loki existed for most of this chapter, so who knows. 🤷♀️
lmao @ Jane immediately trying to convince herself she’s too rational to be attracted to a stranger
Honestly, though, big mood.
Just your periodic reminder that Thor’s sycophantic friends KNEW Loki was right and decided to throw him under the bus anyway.
Just as I’ve always said: That was it. That was their ENTIRE rationale. That Loki *could* have done it, therefore he must have. Please tell me these people have nothing to do with Asgard’s justice system.
…lol, jk, Asgard has no justice system.
Ok, first of all, no.
Second: thank you, Fandral. You’re a self-absorbed cad, but also evidently Thor’s least stupid friend.
Thirdly, how…? First, it was, “Loki arranged all this because he’s jealous of Thor.” Now they’ve suddenly jumped all the way to, “All of Asgard is in danger.” What exactly does Sif think Loki is planning? He’s gonna, what… assassinate Odin and then sell Asgard to the Jötnar?
—
Please stop hurting me.
Just so there’s no confusion: this one sentence explains everything Loki did for the rest of the movie. It explains how a person who has been historically non-aggressive suddenly transforms into a warmonger. To prove himself a real Asgardian, like his brother and father and grandfather.
—
…why did Odin fall into the Odinsleep in two completely different scenes in this book? I’m super confused.
Also, we really need to talk about how cruel it is of Marvel to keep forcing Loki to prove his loyalty again and again and again when he’s been doing so almost literally since we met him. And by “we need to talk about it”, I mean I need to tie Kevin Feige and co. to a chair and spend a minimum of five hours lecturing them on how poorly they understand their own fucking character.
Let’s just be clear here: they’re talking about Loki. They’re saying Loki, their LEGITIMATE king, is an enemy of Asgard, based on evidence so paper-thin it’s practically invisible. Just… please, let that sink in. Take a moment to appreciate how utterly fucked up that is.
I’m sorry (not really), but Thor was so much funnier before Ragnarok.
This scene has always kind of bugged me. If Odin removed Thor’s powers, how come he can still control the weather? Confusing.
So what exactly was Thor’s plan anyway, before he realised he couldn’t lift Mjölnir? He was just gonna call on Heimdall to help him commit treason AGAIN, show up on Asgard against the expressed command of his king, and… Odin would just shrug and be like, “You got me, son! I guess I can’t keep you down. Welcome home!”?
…I mean, I guess that more or less is what happened in the end, but it’s hard to imagine it would have still gone down that way without all the stuff that happened with Loki. Idk.
#look what i'm saying is... thor is not exactly a thinking person #no one on asgard is a thinking person #except loki but he's crazy now so he's also thinking somewhat poorly lol
Cool, Thor. Now imagine feeling that way for ONE THOUSAND YEARS and develop a little fucking empathy for your brother.
But you won’t.
You’ll brush off his feelings of worthlessness as “imagined slights”. 😒
Nice that somebody knows how the royal line of succession works, I guess…
That sound you hear? Yeah, that’s just my heart breaking. NBD.
First, they mislabelled it the Casket of Eternal Winters. Now it’s the Cask of Ancient Winters. Author must have been thirsty when they wrote this. Lol
Look, not to nitpick, but this is not the recommended procedure when you see a storm that you don’t believe is of supernatural origin coming. I’m just saying. Lol
Uh… ‘cause he is?? And your pals are committing treason AGAIN, Thor, so it technically is responding to a threat to Asgard. Just FYI.
Anyways, this is an important point that doesn’t get made often enough. People want to act like Loki illegally usurped the throne somehow, but even without the deleted scene that explicitly shows Frigga passing rulership to him (a scene which is, for some reason, entirely skipped over in this book, but whatever), understand this: Loki could not have controlled the Destroyer unless he was legitimately King of Asgard. The fact that he’s able to do so is irrefutable proof that his rulership is valid.
lmao you little shit
So… here’s my issue with this scene (and with Thor as a character): He always assumes that Loki’s acting out specifically to hurt him. That Loki’s entire life and thought process revolves around Thor. He does it in this scene, he does it in The Avengers… it’s just a chronic thing with Thor. Everything is viewed through the lens of Loki inexplicably hating him.
But that’s… just not accurate. Yes, Loki harbours a lot of jealousy towards Thor. But that’s not what’s happening in this scene. Loki is not trying to kill Thor here because he wants him dead; he’s doing it because Thor (and his friends) are getting in the way of Loki completing his ultimate goal. Loki tried to solve this problem non-violently, by lying about Odin being dead. It’s Thor’s friends who all but forced his hand by going behind his back and trying to bring Thor back to Asgard against Loki’s (and Odin’s!) direct orders.
For all the humility he’s learned in the past few days, this entire speech is still really all about Thor. About assuming that Loki’s doing this for personal reasons, because he holds a grudge against Thor for some unknown reason. This is implicit in his request to “take [my life] and end this.” It never even occurs to him that his friends are traitors to the Crown and Loki, as King of Asgard, is perhaps justified in pursuing them.
It also needs to be acknowledged that Thor’s apology here is hollow, even if it’s ultimately coming from his heart, because he has no idea what he’s apologising for. “Whatever I have done to wrong you” is not an apology. An apology addresses specific hurtful actions taken and commits to not repeating those mistakes in the future. Thor cannot commit to not repeating the hurtful things he’s done, because he doesn’t know what he’s done. Despite his best intentions, what Thor is doing here is actually kind of manipulative. He’s not addressing any substantive issue between the two of them; he’s just trying to talk Loki down. And it ultimately fails not because Loki doesn’t care or because he wants Thor dead, but because it doesn’t actually change anything.
Finally and only semi-relatedly, we should maybe at some point talk about the fact that Loki, who is stated to be a master tactician, has displayed a weird pattern of hardly ever being as lethal as he could be. He freezes Heimdall in place instead of killing him outright; he backhands Thor with the Destroyer instead of incinerating him; he, well… *gestures vaguely at almost the entirety of the first Avengers movie* Anytime the violence is even a little bit personal, he seems to hedge. Odd behaviour for somebody who’s supposedly super evil.
I’m sorry, I know I’ve pointed it out at least a hundred times before, but I just can’t encounter this scene in any form without taking a moment to appreciate how underrated and hilarious it is.
I also genuinely wonder how many Ragnarok stans who have accused me of having no sense of humour, have failed to laugh at moments like this one. Kinda feel like if you need to have the comedy spoonfed to you in the form of ass jokes, maybe you’re the one whose sense of humour is lacking. 🤷♀️
Let’s be super clear: this is not what happened. Loki did not betray Odin; he was betrayed by Odin. He did not open Asgard to its enemies; he attempted, misguidedly, to destroy Asgard’s enemies. And he most certainly did not commit suicide out of a sense of guilt.
I’m not saying Loki did nothing wrong, nor am I saying he feels no regret for the lives he has taken. What I’m saying is there’s no indication that he believes he betrayed Odin or Asgard in the process. Which makes perfect sense, because he didn’t. Everything he tried to do was for Odin and Asgard. It was misguided and horrible, yes, but it can hardly be classified as a betrayal.
The insurmountable burden on Loki is not that he did terrible things, but that no matter what he does or how hard he tries, Odin will never look at him with anything but contempt. Consider once more these passages from the very beginning of the book, at Thor’s coronation:
—
Consider that this book goes to great pains to point out that Odin favours Thor because Thor is a warrior like him. And yet even when Loki embraces that, even when he acts more war-like than ever before, Odin rejects him— just as he always has.
There is a reason why this moment is the last time Loki will ever call Odin his father. Because he realises once and for all that, no, nothing he tries will ever be good enough; no, Odin won’t ever look at him with pride. That is Loki’s burden. That is why he lets go.
The epilogue is really just two pages of making me want to vomit.
There’s your party where Thor and a certain subset of the fandom insist that Loki was mourned. There’s barely an indication here that anyone even perceives his demise as a negative thing.
“[Sif] could see Frigga thought [Loki was dead] as well” also contradicts the tie-in comic for TDW, so I don’t know what the author is on about there. Unlike the majority of Marvel comics, the tie-in comics are canon to the MCU, so it’s a bizarre statement to make.
COULD YOU SMEAR THE DEAD* ABUSE VICTIM A LITTLE HARDER, PLEASE? Fucking hell.
No matter how many times I encounter this scene, in whatever format, I still fail to become desensitized to how disgusting it is. I realise there’s a good chance that whatever version of events Thor has been told was twisted at best; but how you can look at a man whose son has just committed suicide under any circumstances and say there will never be a better father than that guy, is utterly beyond my capacity to understand.
And Odin’s “you’ve already made me proud” line just feels like extra salt in the wound because, again, Loki let go because he realized Odin would never say those words to him. And yet they come so damn easily when it’s Thor.
Fuck this entire family so much. I think I hate them more than Loki does. Sometimes I wonder what he would think about that. How he would react to knowing that not only is he actually loved, but that he’s so loved that people are genuinely furious at the way he’s been mistreated. That there are people who regularly devolve into full-on rants because they just can’t contain how much anger they have towards the people who hurt him. I think he’d have a hard time wrapping his head around that concept, tbh.
Anyways, to end on a not-completely-depressing note, I’m still waiting for someone at Marvel to explain how Loki knew what Thor said in this scene after plummeting into a wormhole. ‘Cause he references this conversation as Fauxdin at the end of TDW. So like… ?? Did he steal Odin’s memories before he erased them? Because that would be… kind of neat, actually. And very clever. Not entirely ethical, of course, but it’s Odin, so fuck ethics.
WELP, THAT’S IT. Thanks for following along with my dumbassery, hope you enjoyed yourselves. Lol
#phase one: thor#loki meta#thor meta#odin's a+ parenting#frigga's b+ parenting#topic: thor and loki's broken relationship#loki#thor#heimdall#lady sif#the warriors 3#jane foster#ragnarok cinematic universe#mcu#topic: asgardian hypocrisy#topic: asgardian militarism#topic: odin's family dynamic
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What are your favorite and least favorite animes? Why do you like/dislike them?
oh god here we go lmao 🤠👍 prepare for an entire novel as always lol
my favorite animes atm are Naruto, Dragon Ball, Attack on Titan, and Claymore. Overall, my favorite genre of anime is shonen (and in case you dont know what that is, its basically shows that are marketed to young boys. it'll have shit like superpowers and poorly written female characters). My least favorite genre is Shoujo (marketed at young girls). I honestly don't hate the entire genre, I just hate how much romance is in there since im pretty romance-repulsed. If there were more Shoujo series like Claymore, I'd probably be in love w/ it. I'll start talking about these shows individually, starting w/ Naruto.
1. Naruto.
Honestly, the only reason I started watching Naruto was because my friends peer pressured me into doing it, and it actually differed from what I expected it to be story-wise. The beginning of the show started off amazing; it had excellent world building, magic systems, interesting characters, and it attempted to address how messed up the whole shinobi system is. But then Naruto got on the front page of Shonen Jump, and everything went down from there. It started to focus more on cool fight scenes than the actual plot. I wont get too much into that, because you can literally find entire blogs dedicated to dissecting that, but Naruto killed itself w/ its own popularity. That said, I love the characters and world building and I can look past most of its flaws anyway.
Would I recommend reading/watching it? Yes, but only to say you did it for bragging rights. Don't go into watching Naruto if you want deep looks into imperialism and militarized governments, because you will get the complete opposite of that :P Also the best way to watch it is to watch it with friends.
2. Dragon Ball.
I only started watching DB about a month ago, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but I think its a garbage series. The fight scenes have little to no weight to them, because no matter what, the protagonist of that episode will always succeed in some way. For example, when Goku (a 12 y/o boy) was fighting Giran (a 10ft tall godzilla man) and was getting his ass beat until Goku just... randomly grows back his tail that was cut off earlier and wins. We are never told why he grew back his tail, and i think he only gets it back so he can have a cool fight scene in a later episode. Goku can literally be battling genocidal gods and he will still always win. The show also goes out of its way to sexualize/show a female character being harrassed. Every. Fucking. Episode.
That said, it is a fun show, and I really enjoy watching it. Like Naruto, I really love the characters and the world they are in, I just hate the way it was handled, and its painfully obvious that DB was made by a bunch of old men in the 80s. Unlike Naruto, however, I really appreciate how simple it is. It doesn't force a narrative about space genocide or whatever being bad, and I'm very thankful because that kind of narrative would be absolutely botched in this kind of series. It's also nice to have a show that doesn't take itself too seriously. Shows like AOT are amazing and important, but those shows can be overwhelming with their heavy subject matter. I would only recommend watching DB if you want to see some really good art/character design. Don't take the show seriously, and you'll have a good time.
3.Attack On Titan.
This anime was actually the first I've ever seen! I saw the very first episode when it aired in 2014, so I'm definetely biased in that regard, but I still try to look at this show in the most objective way I can. This show does almost everything right. The pacing, the characters, the art, the plot, you name it. It takes a concept that looks silly on paper and turns it into this grueling story about war, politics, and the trauma of being a soldier. It never treats it's characters like they're only one-dimensional, or like they are there just for one purpose only. These characters feel human in a way Naruto and Dragon Ball could never be. But there is one thing that has me concerned about this show, and its about the weirdly anti-Semitic undertones it has.
You probably heard the controversy already, but it really effected the way people on the outside of the fandom view the series. The show is heavily inspired by European culture, specifically that of Germany, and there are an ethnic group of people called The Eldians in the show that are pretty anti-Semitic in this kind of setting. The Eldian people have the capability of turning into Titans, and the Titans are what divided the world and killed millions. As a result, another group of people started doing the shit the Nazis did to Jewish people, basically making the Eldians into this weird allegory for the holocaust??? Which was kind of a shock to me when I first realized that was the angle they were going for. I genuinely did not expect that considering what the series started off as. The foreshadowing is there and all, I just didn't think they'd use real-world events as inspiration.
Now, this actually has the complete opposite problem Naruto and DB had. Naruto and DB had amazing ideas and concepts that went to shit, AOT's whole holocaust narrative was trash from the beginning.
The show could have easily had a different kind of social/political commentary without even going near the holocaust narrative. It comes off as kind of a half assed idea that people put way too much effort in, so it's kind of in this weird grey-area between "modern anime masterpiece" and "what the fuck were they trying to get across with this show?". If you asked me what the moral of the show was, I wouldn't be able to tell you.
Now, because of the fact that the Eldians can literally turn into man-eating beasts, this makes the comparison of Jewish people and Eldians very racist, and it doesn't help that Japan is still full of legitimate Nazis, making the whole situation look even worse. Since I am not Jewish, I wont speak for other Jewish people. There is a very heated debate on whether the show is racist, and frankly I don't think it's within my right to say if it is or isn't. What I will say, is that I really loved the show and appreciated the social commentary it provided, and I think a lot of people would benefit from watching it, but I think it's also important to listen to Jewish people's views on the show. For this reason, I specifically avoid reblogging AOT stuff, but I do love that show and I wont hate on people who do reblog stuff from it. It's definitely not a light watch, but it does provide a lot of thinking material.
4. Claymore.
This. Show. Was. Amazing. But. Underrated.
First off, this is a shonen show that is led by a majority female cast and a female protagonist, and all of those women are badass swordwielding lesbians and I love it. Second, the art style is beautiful. Third, the story is really interesting from so many angles, so much so I am not even going to mention what its about because you dont need to know, you just need to watch it and see what happens. The first season was an absoloute ride of a show, and if you love shows like AOT or Berserk, you'll love Claymore. Honestly, this show was what AOT should have tried to be. It also has its fair share of militarized imperialist commentary, but this is the only show on this list that actually fucking critiques imperialist ideals and has a main character that actively refuses to participate in that kind of oppressive system, choosing to fight it all together.
But the show got fucking cancelled right before the first arc even finished. You can thank shows like Naruto for that 🙃🙃🙃
10/10 Would reccomend, but just be prepared to be left on a major cliffhanger. You can try reading the manga, but it's kind of hard to follow since all of the warrior girls look the same.
#i spent too much time writing this#oh well#im not gonna tag the shows i talked about in this bcuz if i do ill get discourse blogs to start shitting on me#so im just gonna avoid it all together lol#also didnt write abt my least faves because this was too long to write as is#anyway as promised we can now get married any time you want @kindasortasalty /j /p#👩🦲
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Salty Dog Blues Before Flatt & Scruggs
Old Salty Dog Blues is a Flatt & Scruggs classic and today the song is considered a staple of bluegrass music. However, bluegrass itself is a recent genre, with its inception typically dated 1945. Many songs from its early repertoire came from other sources, both popular and folk.
Above you will hear a compilation of Salty Dog Blues from recordings between 1924 and 1950 (ending with the Flatt & Scruggs version). Below the cut I will provide more details of each selection you hear. This is not a comprehensive compilation; for instance, I don’t have Lead Belly’s 1948 audio here. However, what’s incredibly fun about this recording is how DIVERSE the music is. And how incredibly NOT bluegrass it is.
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Like many people, I became familiar with Salty Dog Blues through the Flatt & Scruggs version recorded in 1950. The song was catchy enough for me to love it as it was, but listening to the lyrics further piqued my interest. I realized I was assuming what a “salty dog” was through the lyrics rather than comprehending a precise meaning. But looking at the lyrics for clues was hard. There’s a narrative, but it feels just off-kilter enough I suspected the song had folk origin. Some folk tune variations can sound like the verses were sewn together haphazardly like patches of different fabrics on a quilt. It makes sense, when you consider how people would’ve gotten the words. Passing lyrics through oral tradition can create curious, wonky results and fascinating variations and divergences. It’s a game of generational telephone. Clearly, I had to go beyond the Flatt & Scruggs version in order to decipher my term.
And so. I found myself. Deep-diving this tune’s origin.
There hasn’t been a second wasted in my life fishing through this. Holy wow have I run into a jackpot of wildly fun things! I still have so much more I could look into. I had suspicions of what I’d find, but the following lyrics posted into a forum went way beyond expectations:
Two old maids laying in the grass,
One had her finger up the other one's ass
Honey, let me be your salty dog!
Welp. If I hadn’t been interested already, I would have been THEN. And the sexual explicitness... and other fun times... just kept COMING (wordplay intended here).
So! Below cut, I want to go further into the meaning of “salty dog” and listen to how the song developed from a blues tune to the 1950 Flatt & Scruggs country song. It would require a whole other post to go past 1950, so that’s why I’ve restricted my range from the earliest recorded tunes to the moment it entered bluegrass.
1. What *IS* a Salty Dog?
The first entertainment I got was seeking a definition for “salty dog.” The OED gave nothing to me, sadly, so I was left to peruse other sources. Reading forums, interviews, articles, and more, I encountered a hilariously diverse array of proposed definitions. I got peeps saying:
It’s a type of soft drink.
It’s a type of cocktail using grapefruit juice and gin or vodka. It’s served in a glass with a salted rim.
It’s the name of a specific bar in North Carolina.
It’s a medicinal solution from early frontier communities, especially in eastern Appalachia. A sausage soaked in brine solution was placed under people’s clothes during winter as a counter to pneumonia and flu.
It’s an ornery sailor, mariner, or pirate who’s spent a large portion of their life at sea. Just like a sea dog or an old salt.
It’s any person who’s really good with their work. A tough fellow, since salty can mean “full of spirit and fight.”
It’s a sweetheart, someone you love, or a favorite person. Applying salt to hunting dogs was believed to keep ticks away, and because salt was a rare commodity in those times, you’d only apply it to your favorite and most valuable dog.
It’s an illicit lover or libidinous man or woman, someone getting sex the wrong way.
It’s a pimp.
It’s a reference to oral sex. Have sex with one individual, then shortly later have someone perform oral on you.
The last one, which was embellished by Urban Dictionary (thanks, Urban Dictionary) could likely be an instance of linguistic pejoration, in which a word’s meaning “worsens” semantically over time. That said, I’ve seen everyday people in forums comment that in the 1940s and 50s in their communities, it did refer to oral sex. I’ll believe their testimony. So, contemporary to the time Flatt & Scruggs recorded, the more crude sexual sides appear to have been in vernacular use. It’s likely most if not all of the definitions proposed are real meanings of “salty dog,” but clearly the song Salty Dog Blues isn’t referring to all simultaneously.
Bluegrass musicians have not always been helpful providing a definition. For instance, Curly Seckler, one member of Flatt & Scruggs, proposed the benign soft drink suggestion. He said in this moment onstage in 1985:
Curly Seckler: I found out what a salty dog was. I think I was down here before I didn’t know, but I do now. I went home here, I believe it was last year, they had a big day down there. And, course I went over through the Smokies over there, and I stopped over there at Wiley Morris’s garage. . . . And we sang Salty Dog Blues and some of the old numbers together. But I asked him, I said, “Wiley, I’d like to know before I pass on, what in the world is a salty dog?” See, they wrote the Salty Dog Blues, him and Zeke. He said, “Well, North Carolina, years and years ago, had a drink they called salty dog. Now that’s a pop, a soda. And I said, “Well, I’m from North Carolina, but I don’t remember that.” But he said that’s why that got them the idea of writing a song called—”
And then, hilariously, Curly is distracted by his band, who’ve been whispering to each other the entire time and grinning, and calls out, “What am I hearing?” I’d like to imagine they were talking about the real meaning and Curly picked up the chatter’s more scandalous side.
After all, Zeke and Wiley Morris did not write Salty Dog Blues, and their story seems to be a coverup to defend their writer’s credit (which for the record is legitimate... a novel arrangement was given writer’s credit frequently in these times) and a polite way to get around the meaning of what a “salty dog” was. An article written by Wayne Erbsen shows that the brothers themselves gave varying definitions of the term:
Wiley explained that “I have a different definition of a salty dog than Zeke has. Back when we were kids down in Old Fort we would see a girl we liked and say “I’d like to be her salty dog.” There also used to be a drink you could get up in Michigan. All you had to do was say “Let me have a Salty Dog,” and they’d pour you one.” Zeke remembers that “I got the idea when we went to a little old honky tonk just outside of Canton which is in North Carolina. We went to play at a school out beyond Waynesville somewhere and we stopped at this place. They sold beer and had slot machines. At that time they were legal in North Carolina. We got in there after the show and got to drinking that beer and playing the slot machines with nickels, dimes and quarters. I think we hit three or four jackpots. Boy, here it would come! You know you had a pile of money when you had two handfuls of change. The name of that place was the “Salty Dog,” and that’s where I got the idea for the song. There’s actually more verses to it than me and Wiley sing, a lot more verses.”
As I and others who’ve read the article noticed, the fact that the Morris Brothers admitted there were many more verses... is indirect admittance of folk origin. The Morris Brothers were professional musicians in the 1930s, their recording of Salty Dog Blues was recorded September 29, 1938... and our earliest audio versions of the song come from the 1920s. There are many recordings of this song that predate the Morris Brothers. Still, even in a documentary from the 1970s, they maintained their story they wrote it.
But the song’s true origin outside the Morris Brothers allowed me to expand the scope of my investigation. It was time to peep into the alternate lyrics from earlier versions, and hope that those gave me a better understanding of the song and what a salty dog in this context meant.
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2. The Lyrics of Salty Dog Blues
What the Morris Brothers and Flatt & Scruggs sang were fairly tame. However, the lyrics still involved a gun being shot and a person singing the following lines:
Looky here Sal, I know you
Run down stocking and a worn out shoe
Honey, let me be your Salty Dog
Let me be your Salty Dog
Or I won't be your man at all
Honey, let me be your Salty Dog
“I won’t be your man at all” in the chorus is a good hint of what a salty dog is supposed to be. It wouldn’t make sense to replace the term “salty dog” with mariner. I suspected from the start this song’s meaning veered toward the concept of a lover, and alternate versions of the lyrics prove that the case, oftentimes in wonderfully blunt or creative verses.
As I was investigating these recordings and their artists, I ran into information discussing the early years recording Salty Dog Blues, including times from before it was recorded. Jazz musician Bill Johnson (1872-1972) had his band playing this song circa or prior to the 1910s, and in an excerpt from the book Early Blues: The First Stars of Blues Guitar, I read:
Papa Charlie’s follow-up release, the ragtimey, eight-bar “Salty Dog Blues,” made him a recording star. . . . Old-time New Orleans musicians from Buddy Bolden’s era recalled hearing far filthier versions of “Salty Dog Blues” long before Papa Charlie’s recording.
Papa Charlie Jackson recorded his version of Salty Dog Blues in 1924 and Buddy Bolden (1877-1931) was popular with his band in New Orleans from 1900-1907. So... what were these filthier lyrics from the early twentieth century?
I want to go back to the lyrics I quoted at the beginning of this post... “Two old maids laying in the grass / One had her finger up the other one's ass. Honey, let me be your salty dog!” The individual who shared these lyrics on a forum said they heard Sam Bush sing that at Rockygrass in 2002. Maybe that was a recent permutation. However, I found variations on this lyric submitted independently by others, indicating this wouldn’t have been Sam creating lyrics out of nothing. Some posts, I don’t know if they were serious or not... “Two necrophiliacs lying in a bed / Each one a-wishin' that the other was dead,” but there’s too many similarities across what I’m seeing. Other individuals said they sang lyrics like these in college parties: “Two old maids, laying in bed / One rolled over to the other and said / Honey, let me be your salty dog.” And the Kingston Trio, whose music was folk-oriented and part of the Folk Revival movement, in 1964 sang in their version of Salty Dog Blues, “There were two old ladies sitting in the sand / Each one wishing the other was a man.”
Digging deeper, I found other folk songs contained variations on the “Two old maids laying in a bed / sand” concept. This discovery is in line with authentic folk lyrics. Remember that folk music is a game of telephone, and sometimes the same verses are found in two or more songs. I found several variations of Brown’s Ferry Blues with this couplet, some of them coming from Folk Revival musicians.
These lyrics give a starting point both to how Salty Dog Blues can contain bawdier concepts, and what a salty dog is.
But lyrics from Salty Dog Blues recordings in the 1920s and 1930s give even more reliable indication. Clara Smith’s 1926 version includes:
Oh, won't you let me be your salty dog?
I don't want to be your gal at all.
You salty dog, you salty dog.
Oh honey babe, let me be your salty dog,
Salty dog, oh, you salty dog.
It's just like looking for a needle there in the sand
Trying to find a woman that hasn't got a man.
Salty Dog oh you salty dog.
Her lyrics also include a couplet I found in many of the early versions:
God made a woman, he made her kinda funny
Lips around her mouth sweet as any honey,
Oh, you salty dog, oh, you salty dog.
It says a lot: a verse about romantic love was one of the most oft repeated couplets across Salty Dog Blues variations. Papa Charlie Jackson included that verse, as well as these others:
Lord, it ain't but the one thing grieve my mind,
All these women and none is mine.
Now, scaredest I ever been in my life,
Uncle Bud like to caught me kissing his wife.
And for those of you who aren’t familiar with the sentential construction, “liked to” means “almost.” Uncle Bud almost caught me kissing his wife. This is a song about a lover, and in one of these verses, the lover’s doing something taboo.
Some forum dudes claimed Mississippi John Hurt and his friends sang a line like this one below, even though they also said it didn’t make any recordings:
Well, your salty dog, he comes around
When your sugar daddy's outta town
Baby, let me be your salty dog
And there’s yet more elaboration about what a salty dog is in verses in Afro-Creole singer Lizzie Miles’s 1952 recording, which we do have:
Mardi Gras is a dream
You can meet all those Creole queens
They’re salty dogs, yes, salty dogs
If you want to blow your cares away
Just walk on in the Vieux Carré
You’ll find salty dogs, yes, salty dogs
Never had no name, never went to school
But when it comes to loving, I ain’t no fool
I’m a salty dog, yes, a salty dog
I’ve got sixteen men in love with me
But the man I love ain’t legally free
He’s a salty dog, yes, he’s a salty dog
Granted, I *am* sifting through a huge storm of verses and intentionally picking ones that match this narrative. But these are all lyrics that show a wonderfully off-color, sexual side to Salty Dog Blues. This song sure as hell ain’t singing about soda pop or sailing.
youtube
3. The Earliest Recordings of Salty Dog Blues
So. In my compilation you’re listening to, what is it you’re hearing?
Between the 1920s and 1940s, “race records” were records from African-American musicians. The term would be used to describe the blues, gospel, etc. that these musicians performed. OKeh Records was the first company to use that term in 1922. Also during the 1920s, another line of records, “hillbilly” records, began; this was used to describe what was perceived as rural white musician fiddle and string band music.
These record companies, however, were separating music by race somewhat artificially. There were plenty of Black musicians playing string band music, for instance, during these times. The early history of American country music involves an amalgamation of musical ideas from many demographics sharing and adopting ideas from one to another and back again. When you listen to the compilation I made of early versions of Salty Dog Blues, you may hear a difference between the white and Black musicians, likely because of that artificial distinction I mentioned.
Still, there’s a fascinating amount of overlap. I think it’s particularly interesting to pay attention to how the melodic material varies; it’s the same core melody, but there’s certainly differences. Listening to the variations can get you a sense of how folk music is a wild world of branching versions. There’s different strains, with both the melody morphing as it gets passed person to person, and the lyrics morphing as it gets passed person to person.
Specifically, I took my samples from the following recordings:
Charlie Jackson - Released 29 Nov 1924. Papa Charlie Jackson was the first commercially successful male blues artist who played both fingerstyle and with a flatpick on his guitjo. He was born in 1887 in New Orleans. Even when he was producing his records in the early twentieth century, his music would have been old-fashioned to listeners and given people an ear to what African American music sounded like before the turn of the century. He’s similar to Lead Belly in this regard, whose 1948 recording of Salty Dog Blues I did not include in the audio compilation. Jackson’s music was also in that vague area that leaned toward hillbilly in the early days before the race records / hillbilly records division became distinct.
Lem Fowler’s Washboard Wonders - Released 30 Dec 1925. Between 1922 and 1932 this jazz musician recorded 57 songs and 23 player piano rolls in New York and Chicago. A composer, most of his recordings feature his own work; Salty Dog Blues is one of three pieces recorded with his band that is not his own. I love this recording.
Clara Smith - Dated 26 May 1926. The first commercially successful blues singers were women. Clara Blues was an early classic female blues singer, a genre sometimes also referred to as vaudeville blues that combined traditional folk blues and urban theater music. This native of South Carolina excelled at emotional slow drag blues.
Freddie Keppard and His Jazz Cardinals - recorded July 1926. Freddie Keppard was a New Orleans musician. Interestingly enough, Papa Charlie Jackson is in this version as well, this time played with a full band, and you can hear someone declare “Papa Charlie done sung that song!” at the end.
Allen Brothers - Recorded 7 April 1927. I think this is the first recording of Salty Dog Blues by white musicians we have. Born and raised in Tennessee, Austin and Lee Allen were an early hillbilly duo popular in the 1920s and 1930s. Austin played banjo; Lee played guitar and kazoo. They were influenced by local jazz and blues artists as they were growing up. It’s interesting to note that Salty Dog Blues came out of their first recording session and became a hit, selling over 18,000 copies. And this band, the first white hokum blues musicians (so I’ve seen claimed), were accidentally issued first as a race record by mistake.
McGee Brothers - Recorded 11 May 1927; released Jul 1927. Sam and Kirk McGee were white old-time / hillbilly musicians from Tennessee who performed on the Grand Ole Opry starting in 1926. Sam learned blues techniques from Black railroad workers and street musicians, and the duo would adapt blues and ragtime pieces into string band music. I LOVE this version of Salty Dog Blues; while it squarely hits the “hillbilly” genre, some of the minor melodic fragments mirror what Black blues musician Kokomo Arnold sang.
Stripling Brothers - Recorded 10 Sep 1934. Fiddler Charlie Stripling and guitarist Ira Stripling were born in the 1890s in Alabama. They’re an old-time hillbilly music duo and Charlie Stripling is considered an important old-time fiddler. Their earliest recordings reflect what they learned at home; later recordings contained increasing pop influences. Salty Dog Blues is one of their later recordings; their last release was from 1936. I would love to know more about where they got this version of the song, as I feel its melody is diverges more than the others recordings in this time period.
Kokomo Arnold - 1937. Mentioned above. Kokomo Arnold was a left-handed slide blues guitarist from Georgia.
Morris Brothers - First recorded 29 Sep 1938; released 21 Dec 1938. Second version recorded 1945. I’ve already mentioned the Morris Brothers, but there’s more information you need to know. Zeke, Wiley, and George Morris were hillbilly musicians from North Carolina popular in the 1930s. The Morris Brothers was also the band in which now-famed banjo picker Earl Scruggs had his first professional job. Scruggs played with them about eight months in the late 1930s or early 1940s. If you listen to the full Morris Brothers, it’s obvious Earl learned it from them; Flatt & Scruggs keep everything from the lyrics, harmony choices, and instrumental break points the same as what you hear here. But the Morris Brothers’s version of the song is rather original compared to everything else in this compilation, which is probably why they managed a writer’s credit for it.
Flatt & Scruggs - Recorded 20 Oct 1950; released 1 May 1952. Earl Scruggs would have brought Salty Dog Blues to the band he was now heading, Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys. This song was often sung as a trio in concerts when their usual lead vocalist, Lester Flatt, was taking a break. Their band rotated singers, performers, and other forms of variety in their radio, television, and stage shows, but such repertoire never made it onto official Flatt & Scruggs records. This record is, as far as I remember, the only instance in which another musician besides Lester Flatt sings both the verses and lead. That singer is their fiddler, Benny Sims. In later performances and recordings of Salty Dog Blues by Flatt & Scruggs, Lester Flatt took his usual role singing.
I find it interesting to also note the early musicians’ origins. Everyone came from the South. New Orleans especially appeared to have old widespread use of the song. I haven’t had time to listen to see if the musicians’ home location correlates to similarity in lyrics and melodic structure, but that would be hella fun to do sometime, too.
But! I have already fished through the song enough and given you a giant essay. Maybe at a later point I’ll have to entertain myself more and keep digging into Salty Dog Blues.
#hopefully I didn't make a link mistake or some obvious type#typo#I've written on this long enough#hope it's fun!#music#Americana Deep Dive#thatbanjobusiness#that banjo business#long post#Song Showcase#Tuning In#Haddock Deep Dives#General Banjo Business#audio#audio compilations#those old songs
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2020 fanfic review meme!
Thanks to @livenudebigfoot for tagging me and providing me with a legitimate excuse to reflect self-indulgently on my special interest: writing obsessive amounts of fic for Michael Emerson vehicles.
What fic did I disgorge from my brain maw this year?
This was the year I started writing for Person of Interest, the fandom that changed my life! I found a fannish community on the Subway discord and joined a whole bunch of exchanges, which I’d never done before.
In February for chocolate_box, I wrote 7 stories:
The Life of the World to Come (Person of Interest, Reese/Finch): Canon compliant fix it in which Reese wakes up in a lakeside cabin about 6 weeks after he died. Unspecified magical bargains were involved.
Arctic Flower (POI, Grace/Jessica): An AU in which Jessica rushes to assist Grace when a cyclist knocks her down in the park, and their friendship enables her to leave Peter before it’s too late.
A Bird of Foreign Tongue (POI, Reese/Finch): A sequel to Arctic Flower in which Harold finds still-in-the-CIA Reese and offers him an escape route.
Objet d’Art (POI, Finch/Grace): During a coffee date early in their pre-canon relationship, Harold has a guilty conscience about all the secrets he’s hiding from Grace.
Kintsugi (POI, Finch/Grace): The longer sequel to Objet D’art. Grace gets sick. She doesn’t have health insurance. Harold panics and decides to take care of her himself.
Incentives (POI, Reese/Fusco): John’s in the trunk.
Fixer-Upper (POI, Reese/Zoe Morgan): In every fandom, I write gender AUs. This one is Zoe Morgan taking always-a-girl!Reese under her wing.
Then in the spring, I wrote one story for the Hurt/Comfort Exchange and two for Exchange of Interest:
Line of Duty (POI, Reese/Fusco) 14k about Fusco making really self destructive life choices thanks to low self worth and unresolved trauma, while Reese is forced to stand back and wring his hands. And then, you know, exact a lot of vengeance. Harold has soup.
Number Every One (POI, Reese/Nathan): AU in which Nathan saves Jessica, and Reese comes asking questions.
Eden (POI, Reese/Jessica): A perfect, ordinary moment in John’s relationship with the one person who connects him to the world.
And then I wrote some stories for @livenudebigfoot because I enjoy making her happy.
An Indulgence (POI, Finch/Fusco): Fusco is having an emergency and Finch is there for him. My first foray into ABO and literally all they do is hug; is this my brand?
Bunnymoon (Lost, Ben Linus/John Locke): I acquired this whole new fandom/OTP without meaning to, and then I wrote 8000 words of animal shelter AU for it.
Shipoween was next, and I was very proud of the two stories I wrote because both of them are short and this is hard when you exhale novel-length plot outlines instead of carbon dioxide. Also they are both creepy and kinda experimental, like back in my Buffy days. It was also my first time pinch hitting for an exchange and I got a nice little buzz off pulling that off with one day to deadline.
a lucid dream (Lost, Ben Linus/John Locke): Ben is having a very bad dream, and it’s all his own fault.
One In the Eye (POI, Finch/Fusco): Harold’s a monster. Fusco’s a cryptid.
This was my first year doing a Big Bang exchange and the story I wrote for it is, in my own opinion, the best thing I have ever written.
Kingfishers (POI, Reese/Finch/Grace): An AU in which Harold didn’t introduce himself to Grace that day in the park. Years later, after Harold starts working with John, they receive her number.
I wrote a popular Star Trek fic in 2019 and then went more than a year and a half without updating, two chapters before the end. I’m sorry, I’m a monster. Now there’s only one chapter left before the end. I’m shooting to get it finished by the end of January. I’m sorry I suck so much.
K’diwa: A Steamy Novel of Interspecies Romance (Star Trek AOS, Kirk/Spock)
And then, after a swift crash course in participating in fics and exchanges, I took on managing the POI Advent 2020 Calendar. I needed to write a five-parter in order to plug holes in the posting schedule, and a Muppet crossover was born.
A Muppet Christmas Carol, Starring Harold Finch (Person of Interest, Muppets)
Takeaways from reflecting on your kick-ass writing, or kick-ass lack of writing, during a year more focused on survival than perhaps any other:
I’ll be 39 next month. I’ve been writing seriously since I was 15. I was a very good writer for a 15 year old, for a 19 year old, but I could never have dreamed of writing the way I do now. No amount of hard work, practice, reading, conferring with other writers, editing manuscripts, or thinking about craft could have made me the kind of writer it’s possible for me to be in my late 30s. Youthful geniuses are a myth. I’m really grateful my agent couldn’t sell my novel 10 years ago--when I finish the next one I will get to introduce myself to the world as the writer I am now.
Most surprising fic you wrote this year:
Oh, definitely Bunnymoon. I had no idea I would be writing fic for Lost at all, much less that I would be writing a mundane AU with comedy and my first E rated scene in years. It is entirely the fault of bigfoot, who infected me with the fandom in general and the animal shelter concept in specific.
How you’ve grown as a writer this year:
I’ve learned a lot about what not to say--when to trust the reader--and I have benefited hugely from thinking hard about formal structure. Every idea used to turn into a novel whether I wanted to or not, but revisiting high school English lessons about short story structure vs 3 act structure has changed my whole game.
What’s coming in 2021:
I would really like to write one more story in my Harold & Grace series, another story in the Jessica Lives AU, and I’ll def. sign up for HCEX and Shipoween. But also, this year I am writing a novel.
Tagging @theimprobable1, @liz-squids, @argylepiratewd, @sidewaystime
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every target novelisation....2!
planet of giants by terrance dicks
ok so i think that the reason that this is...good, and an unearthly child was...not good, is because this was written 9 years later when like. other, non-terrance dicks people were also novelising stories and he wasn’t just grinding them out on an industrial level. planet of giants isn’t one of the greats of doctor who but this is a competent adaptation - it doesn’t add much but it does flesh out what’s already there, giving us some backstory elements and making the appearance of giant insects and bodies seem a bit more dramatic than they could manage in 1964. unfortunately it also alters my favourite line from the story (‘i don't know how you know, you're supposed to know!’) and the doctor is weirdly hostile at the beginning (he’s looking forward to ditching ian and barbara, he responds to barbara’s observation ‘drily’ like he’s being a bit sarcastic over her, um, *checks notes* noticing important details). also, dicks describes this in the opening as ‘the doctor’s most grotesque and terrifying adventure’ and i’m like...planet of giants? really??
doctor who and the dalek invasion of earth by terrance dicks
ok this one legitimately doesn’t change much at all. it cuts down on some things (including the doctor’s end speech being shorter - i’m assuming that’s a space thing), fleshes out on pov bits as you can in prose, gets rid of the smacked bottom line. bizarrely there are a few times that susan calls her grandfather the doctor which...i’m pretty sure wasn’t there originally. aside from all those small details, yeah it’s basically the same, but it’s well adapted for prose (i genuinely think it stands as a novel in its own right), and depending on your reading speed it might actually be a nice, shorter alternative to the television version - it was around 45 minutes less time for me. some general things i wanted to comment on: the resistance is explicitly shown as kinda gender segregated (exclusively women are preparing food when we first see it) which irritated me; the description of parliament as a symbol of ‘human progress and tradition’ reminded me of blood harvest having the lords/commons system as the Ideal Form Of Government, in terms of how terrance dicks thinks (this may only interest me? idk i very probably spend too much time thinking about the political views of this particular dead dr who script editor); there’s a use of holocaust here that’s technically accurate to what the word literally means but it felt weird to me to use it.
the rescue by ian marter
oh man i’ve been busy and this took me aages to read. it kinda...diverges increasingly from the original story as it goes on. we’ve got some scenes with the seeker crew (incidentally one of them says ‘ass’ and i was like???hello???you’re allowed to do that in a dr who book from 1987???), and then most of the expanded stuff is in the climax. dr who and bennett have a full on brawl! ian, barbara and vicki visit a destroyed didoi city on their way back to the tardis! mysterious silver figures! a giant worm encounter! incidentally, this does have way more of a downer ending than the original because it’s strongly implied that the last two of the didoi were killed by seeker crewmembers who fired in a panic, after which the report that forms the epilogue ends with “goodwill to all persons” to give us a taste of bitter irony. so that’s kinda grim. um...there’s actually a lot of little changes and minor expansions to this one as well so off the top of my head: we learn more about why vicki left earth (global warming :/), sandy is a lot more threatening-looking than on screen, the crashed ship gets its name changed to astra-nine, ian and barbara hold hands briefly, barbara’s fall really leaves her beaten up. i like the seeker crew comparing the tardis briefly passing them to various non-police box objects from the future (although the link to china is a bit eastern world=alien association for my tastes), dr who telling vicki ‘give that pretty face a wipe’ is clearly him attempting to cheer her up and it’s not meant to be weird but i found it weird. finally, i’ve gotta say i appreciate ian marter’s commitment to ‘mildly unsettling’ in his descriptions of tardis materialisations. this was the last novelisation he wrote before his death (the book’s dedicated to him) and mild criticisms aside, i do think he’s a good writer and he brings an interestingly different angle to the series.
the romans by donald cotton
oh my god. how do i even start this. i’m not even going to try cataloguing all the changes because this isn’t even close to a straight adaptation. it’s told in the form of various documents collected by tacitus - the doctor’s diary, ian’s journal that he keeps to prove to the headmaster at coal hill that he and barbara haven’t just eloped (i’m not joking, this is the textual reason for it), an assassin’s letters home to his mum, nero’s scribblings, and various other little details. vicki and barbara get less attention than on screen because we don’t see much from their perspective (vicki unfortunately doesn’t even get to chase the assassin out, she just screams in this), and the nero assassination plot is exclusively confined to being mentioned in the epilogue. it’s also a lot broader, or at least consistently broader, which means that ian’s side of things is treated a lot more lightly (which i was personally fine with) but also that we still get nero’s predatory behaviour being played for laughs. there’s also a few comments about women early on that i was unhappy with, and use of fat as an insult. generally, though, i thought this was great! there were a lot of things that i don’t have space or time to include here but i really liked. i guess i’d consider this as a companion piece to the tv version rather than a replacement, which some of these do basically serve as. they tell the same basic story, but they’re so different in a lot of ways that i think it’s worth looking at both. i just checked my notes and remembered this so content warning: poppea sabina’s first section references suicide.
doctor who and the zarbi by bill strutton
ok so i think the web planet is boring. i don’t know completely why, i don’t think it’s any one thing, it has some interesting ideas, but it is! it’s fucking boring! anyway, we have a bit more casual sexism in the novel, we’re missing that fun convo about aspirin between vicki and barbara, but really i don’t think it adds or changes much - like even the chapters correspond pretty much exactly to the tv cliffhangers. i guess it’s competently written prose-wise, but i genuinely can’t get over my conviction that this story is boring. am i being unfair? maybe! i like some of the early atmosphere, though, and i appreciate a book which refers to ‘the ship tardis’ (lowercase) and ‘doctor who’ throughout the entire thing. oh yeah, and i encourage you all to look up the illustrations for this. i don’t know who that woman is but she’s definitely not vicki.
doctor who and the crusaders by david whitaker
ah yes, the infamous ‘susan married david cameron’ novelisation. tbh i don’t like the crusades and this has the same problems - i don’t care about the english, el akir is every orientalist stereotype whitaker could possibly cram into one man, and That’s Not How A Harem Works. do i think it’s the most egregiously racist doctor who story of all time? probably not! it certainly has sympathetic arabic characters too. but i prefer most other historicals, at least. however, if that isn’t you, i’m sure you’ll get something out of this. there aren’t any particularly extreme changes to the plot structure, although it’s missing some later scenes at the english court, but it’s well written and probably if you like the original you’ll enjoy it more than i did. there’s some dated language surrounding black characters, though, i’m not a fan of the whole ‘we aren’t so different’ speech ian has (because it rests on ‘we all believe in a higher power’ which uh. i don’t. guess that means i’m not ‘civilised’. also generally i don’t like the argument that we should respect each other because of what we have in common - you should respect other people whatever!), and the prologue at the beginning where they muse on history and destiny assumes that the english invaders and the arabs are both equally right in their own ways (the doctor outright says this!)
the space museum by glyn jones
so, i really like the space museum. mainly for vicki’s revolutionary fervour, but there are other reasons too. however, i don’t think that this really adds enough to be of interest - although we do get some information about the two alien species’ biology, and a bonus explanation of why everyone speaks english (the moroks briefly considered invading earth so programmed some earth languages into their translation system). there’s a bit more wandering around the museum, some minor tweaks and expansions in other areas, an underground tunnel scene where we learn a bit of the planet’s backstory...ian and the doctor are very snippy to each other in this, which i find funny. oh yeah, and there’s a bizarrely meta bit where ian comments on poor dialogue? basically, this is a book i enjoyed, but really it just makes me want to watch the space museum instead of reading it. just a heads up, there’s a character who briefly considers suicide to get out of his bosses being angry with him.
the chase by john peel
ok before i get started i need to establish that the cover for this one slaps. anyway, i don’t respect john peel at all but this was...alright? doesn’t expand much plotwise (although i suspect both the sand monsters at the beginning and the plants at the end have slightly more to do) but we get a fair bit of pov stuff. unfortunately lacking ian’s dad dancing and hi-fi the panda, the marie celeste bit is no longer played for comedy (barbara angsts over it) and even though the two paragraphs dragging morton dill are kinda funny i’m not sure how i feel about him being committed for claiming he saw daleks. ian and barbara’s departure plays out a little differently. steven is blond for some reason. we learn as well that daleks are charged by solar panels (at least they’re pro-green energy??)
the time meddler by nigel robinson
pretty competent, straight down the middle novelisation, although that is tempered by inserting some weird sexist bits for steven and also lowkey being nostalgic for 11th century england at a few points? it’s also a bit more violent than we see on tv, and if anything the rape is more loudly implied, so heads up. other than that, there are a few minor embellishments (we’re explicitly told the dr and monk recognise each other, vicki tells steven that the tardis is important to her because it’s her home, a few differences between the monk’s tardis and the doctor’s are described, vicki views steven following her as a triumphant victory in their power struggle which i personally find funny), and there’s a prologue (recapping steven’s arrival in the tardis) and an epilogue (which delays the monk’s discovery of the broken tardis because he walks to hastings first to try and get involved there). i had fun, but it’s not a must read.
#doctor who#classic who#first doctor#susan foreman#ian chesterton#barbara wright#vicki pallister#steven taylor#laura reads dw books#target marathon#this took me aaages and i don't even have an excuse lol i finished uni weeks ago#anyway sorry if this is a bit rushed i'm literally leaving for somewhere in five minutes and i wanted to get this out first
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A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas - blurrypetals review
originally posted feb. 22, 2021 - ★☆☆☆☆
This is not Sarah J. Maas's worst book, not by a long shot, but it is definitely her least fun, most unnecessary effort, and we're talking about an author who also wrote Tower of Dawn and A Court of Frost and Starlight.
I have a terrible, sordid history with Maas. I started off as a fan of Throne of Glass who was then spurned for being a fan of the story and characters she started with and, ever since then, I have never been able to view her as anything more than an amateur stumbling her way through high fantasy concepts, leaving nothing but wreckage in her wake. I really hate what Throne of Glass became and consider it to be a pretty perfect What Not To Do guide as far as writing diverse yet consistent characters, writing a satisfying, sweeping narrative, and many, many other things.
This series, however, seemed at first to be a strange outlier. The first three books might be overlong, trite, and have a lot of the same issues with diversity and tryhard feminism as Throne of Glass, but at the very least, they are fun. Despite all their flaws, and despite how much shit I enjoy talking about Sarah J. Maas, the first three books are an okay guilty pleasure. I think they are disgustingly overrated and too many copycats are trying to emulate it, but they're...fine. I think the novella is unnecessary and weird, but it's mostly just fanservice that seemed to wrap up Feyre and Rhysand's story, so even if I didn't like it, it at least was short and fluffy for the most part.
I think there were a lot of critical mistakes made with this book, which is a shocker considering just how definitely totally competent our author is! But seriously, past the fact that this book exists at all, the biggest mistake Maas made was putting it in the third person. I think the biggest strength of the original three books was that we were in Feyre's head, experiencing things right alongside her. One nice trick of the first person perspective is that there's a sort of built-in empathy that's sort of difficult to fuck up and it really helped sell Feyre's journey. Here, we are not necessarily far from Nesta and Cassian's heads, so it genuinely confounds me that Maas decided to change that. Why not have an alternating first person POV between the two? I just don't understand.
But let's get into the meat of things. What do I mean when I say this book feels unnecessary? Well, not only does it feel a bit like we're picking open a story that felt like it wrapped up pretty nicely, but everything new that does happen feels like a foregone conclusion.
It was pretty readily clear from the middle of A Court of Wings and Ruin, perhaps earlier, that Nesta and Cassian are mates. I personally have never been a fan of the whole fated mates thing in this stuff, since it sucks out any semblance of romantic tension out of things, and while I never expect Maas to do the interesting or unexpected thing, it would have been nice to have maybe one couple get together who just got together despite not being mates.
That said, it isn't as if the romance would have been made better by that. These two have a little bit of chemistry that isn't so bad, but it's overshadowed by their near constant and frustratingly repetitive fucking. It's actually insane how much unsexy sex is in this book. I mean, there's something to be said for Maas finally ditching the idea that she is at all trying to write for younger readers, but at what cost?
Another plot point that carries a lot of the so-called tension in the novel is that of Feyre's pregnancy with her and Rhysand's son, the truly poorly named Nyx. Everyone is certain Feyre is going to die because the baby has wings and her vag is not prepared for it (I wish I was kidding) but this is another thing that feels like a foregone conclusion on arrival because A, we know Sarah J. Maas doesn't have the fucking guts to kill anyone off, let alone her precious Feyre and definitely not Rhys, who also dies if Feyre dies, and B, we already know that their son is going to be okay because of all the business with the Bone Carver.
And, other than some business with a crown, a mask, and a harp, the rest of the plot centers around Nesta recovering from her PTSD. I'll begrudgingly admit, her PTSD is actually not poorly written. That said, it is very poorly handled. In the original trilogy, Rhys is upheld as this extremely kind and generous and wonderful dude who helps the broken, has trauma of his own to reckon with, and in this book, he is a fucking cunt. It is legitimately, truly shocking how disgusting and awful he is to Nesta. Yet again, we experience Sarah J. Maas's brand of so-called character development by way of performing a personality transplant that serves the half-assed plot rather than the established character. Now, where have I seen that before? Aelin? Tamlin? Chaol? Nah, can't be.
Rhysand isn't the only one who treats Nesta terribly, though, it's the entire inner circle, even her fated mate, of course! The way they all treat this grieving, traumatized, abused woman is utterly sickening, and they all are treated as if they're in the right for it! It's absolutely nuts. Even though I've never cared for Nesta as a character, no one and I mean no one deserves to be treated the way Amren, Rhysand, Mor, and the rest all treat Nesta in this book.
I've said this many times before, but I'll repeat what I said in my review for the last Sarah J. Maas book I read, Kingdom of Ash and it's this: Sometimes it is better to be spectacularly, hilariously awful than it is to be utterly boring and leave your reader feeling indifferent and, while this one did make me angry at points, I was mostly just bored and tired. Apathy is the worst feeling you can leave a reader with and this is not the first time Sarah J. Maas has done this to me.
I know a lot of people think Sarah J. Maas hung the moon, but I am just so tired, I just do not get it. I once understood what made her books fun, but when she shits out trite excuses for romance and fantasy such as this, I can't understand why anyone could enjoy such a mediocre example of thinly veiled porn as this. Do us all a favor, Sarah, and do better. It's just sad at this point.
#a court of silver flames#a court of thorns and roses#sarah j. maas#2021#goodreads mirror#blurrypetals
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Double the Kill: A Nancy Drew Play Written by 12-year-old Yours Truly - Readthrough Reactions
Okay, guys, I went through two cups of super strong coffee reading through this thing and I think I can hear colors now so… Have fun reading this!
I sincerely haven’t read this thing in probably ten years and I legitimately forgot almost everything about this play I wrote for myself and my twin/two best friends to perform. We used to write plays for each other all the time, as well as play Nancy Drew games together, so… this was all very fitting.
Anyway, this is a super long one and I APOLOGIZE but also I hope you enjoy reading this thing as much as I enjoyed writing it 😂
Okay, for starters, this story is titled: “Double the Kill” for two reasons that I can remember: (1) someone actually gets murdered, and (2) someone beheaded the Lincoln Memorial statue.
…
You know when you’re in middle school and you’re assigned some topic to research for a project and suddenly you have this stupid amount of knowledge about something you don’t know what to do with?
That’s what happened here.
Anyway.
So, apparently I didn’t know what the word “pervert” was when I was 12 (poor, sheltered creature) so I legitimately named a character Blake Pervey and I’m gonna fling myself into the sun.
Oh my gosh, I wrote up a case profile for this, complete with character roles and everything. Incredible.
Let’s provide that for you guys:
The Case: Billionaire Erving Nickels is holding a benefit concert at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., where the band “One Love” will be performing. Erv senses trouble, so he calls Nancy Drew and her best friend Bess Marvin to watch out for anything “suspicious.” But about an hour before the concert’s about to start, One Love’s lead singer Terri James is found dead near the Lincoln statue and the head of the statue is gone!
Contact: Erving Nickels - a billionaire who’d arranged the benefit concert. He asked Nancy to come and watch for anything “suspicious.”
Suspects:
Erving Nickels: Goes by Erv, for short. As it turns out, this man has actually gone bankrupt recently. Could he go to desperate measures to gain back his wealth?
Blake Pervey (I still want to die): One Love’s back-up singer. Terri had broken up with him recently because he’d attempted to cheat on her (huh, maybe he really is a pervert after all). Did he murder her to get revenge and take her place as the lead singer?
Lyza Benton: The make-up artist. Lyza is always on the prowl for the next juicy gossip to spill to the press and gain publicity. Could she have killed Terri to create the ultimate story?
Myra “Ryan” Williams: One Love’s guitarist. She was the person Blake had attempted to cheat with, but she’d refused. Terri didn’t believe Ryan’s story and blamed her for everything, which caused the two women to hate each other.
Victim: Terry James
Okay. Already this is a little better than “Murder at Turquoise Inn,” because there are actual suspects with actual motives??? aMAZING.
Wow, Nancy’s a bitch. She didn’t even tell Erving that Bess was coming along.
Erv keeps saying that he thinks something bad is going to happen tonight, and Nancy and Bess are both like,“Can you please explain why?” And he’s like, “I just have a feeling.” Like boi, that’s sketch.
Bess: “Sorry to change the subject, Mr. Nickels.”
Erv: “Please, just call me Erv.”
Bess: “No thank you.”
Bess…I know Erv is a weird name, but…why?
Mr. Nickels is taking Nancy and Bess on a tour, right? And I keep peppering in random facts about the Lincoln Memorial I learned for school and it’s SENDING ME.
“I’ll watch and wait for our groovy band to arrive, while you girls split up and watch for suspicious activity. Now, let’s boogie!”
Asfbadka Erv, no one talks liKE That!
I would just like to take a moment to preface the rest of this post with the fact that I wrote this for me and my friends, and we were always writing the stupidest dialogue for each other because we thought it was hilarious. Um…which hopefully explains lines like these:
(1) No one calls Erv Nickels, the handsome billionaire, “Darling.” Except his mother.
(2) [We’re going to change.] No, don’t change. We like you guys just the way you are. *laughs obnoxiously*
…
I hate myself.
So Blake and Terri arrive in the limo and let me tell ya’ll Blake is definitely flirting with Erv right now and I’m so fucking confused.
Terri: That man’s got problems. I guess money does that to people.
Blake: But we have money and we don’t have problems.
Terri: Maybe it only happens to men.”
Blake: But… I am a man.
Terri: Exactly.
Okay, you can tell my love for writing banter was here from the fuckin get-go.
Oh god, now Blake is flirting with Nancy. Fuckin hell. I may not have known what the word “pervert” was when I was 12, but this man was aptly named.
Suspicious, suspicious.*Mocking* ‘Can you girls watch for anything suspicious?’ Something suspicious, yeah right. Oh look! A BUG. Oh, soooo suspicious.
Bess…. I love you.
Okay, as dumb as everything is in this thing, some of this dialogue is fucking cracking me up so hard.
Bess: No! Honestly. I swear, it’s almost like he’s trying to keep us busy so something bad can happen.
*A faraway scream cuts in from offstage*
*Nancy and Bess look off in the direction it came from, way too casual*
Bess: What was that?
Nancy: I dunno.
*They pause, then their eyes widen in realization*
Nancy: Oh crap.
Listen, I know I’m a comedic genius, but this is getting out of hand. Dsbfsjkdsjfbk
Bess: Mr. Nickels! What woman was screaming so high like that?
Erv: That was me.
I CAN’T BREATHE.
I saw Terri lying there on the floor, apparently dead.
Erving… the woman is DEAD. What do you mean “apparently?”
Nancy and Bess find a letter Terri was going to give to Erving to tell him she can’t do the concert because she also felt like something terrible was going to happen to her, and all Bess can do is repeatedly laugh at the word, “Flee.”
Hey, too bad “Honest Abe” is missing his head, otherwise he could tell us whodunnit.
Wow, yall. Bess is my favorite.
You know, the funniest thing about this is that you can definitely tell how many of the games I played between writing my horrible novel at the age of ten and writing this. If this thing had better dialogue and more fleshed out story/characterization, I could picture this as an actual game, not gonna lie.
And… maybe if it didn’t involve removing the whole-ass head of the Lincoln statue…
Yanno, tiny details like that.
Lyza: *laughing* Scared you, didn’t I?
Bess: Oh, “scared’"is such a strong word. I’d say more… "severely startled.”
So Erving reveals to Nancy that he’s actually not dumb as bricks, but puts up the facade because he’s broke and doesn’t want anyone thinking he’s not still super rich and air-headed. I’m crying.
You sensed something bad was going to happen. You should have called the police to stand guard! Not some amatuer teenager who calls herself a detective and her little friend!
…. The pervert has a point.
So Lyza likes to meddle in people’s business. Ryan had written about Blake’s advances in her journal and Lyza blackmailed her about it, Terri blamed Ryan for Blake’s attempted cheating. Blake tried to bribe Ryan into going out with him by telling her he’d discovered a way to get his hands on a fabulous collection of priceless jewels, and Terri broke it off with him. He’s upset, Ryan’s pissed that Terri thinks she went along with Blake, Erving borrowed money to organize the benefit concert (in order to benefit himself) and now he’s in even deeper debt because the concert has been cancelled and Lyza is having a fuckin field day.
BOY AM I ON BOARD FOR THIS SHIT.
Before he came into wealth, Erving worked in a museum in Chicago, and Bess finds a piece of paper on the floor of Ryan’s trailer with the phone number to this exact museum. Nancy calls to see if there is any connection between that museum and the Lincoln Memorial and apparently there’s a theory that the head of the Lincoln statue contains jewels that the museum talks about in a part of their exhibit.
*kronk’s face* Oh yeah. It’s all coming together.
Nancy: For all I know, you could be the murderer.
Erv: Why would I do that? I needed the money from the concert!
Nancy: No you didn’t. You could’ve just–I dunno–stolen the head of Abe over there in search for the ALLEGED JEWELS INSIDE.
Ya’ll… please don’t ask me how the FUCK one person would get tools to remove that head without anyone noticing. Please.
Blake: Hey, guys, have you seen Ryan anywhere?
Nancy: Why? You gonna ask her out again?
Kjdbfisfdosidnf FUCKIN’ SAVAGE, NANCE.
oH MY GOD THE CULPRIT SLIPPED UP SO EASILY I’M SCREAMING.
oH my god, Nancy told Erving they needed something to pick the lock on one of the trailers and he’s all: “Like a bobby pin?” And just takes off his hat, removes a bobby pin, and “lets his long hair cascade down and over his shoulders like a waterfall” and I’m crying. I can’t fuckin’ breathe.
Oh shit, wait… the first culprit was actually covering for the real culprit all along I’m losing my mind. My twelve-year-old brain was so advanced I just threw a curveball at myself sjdbfshdbfagh
Okay, so I’m not gonna spoil anything because I think it’s hilarious to keep you all wondering what the fuck is going on and who the hell did it and why, but I would just like you all to know that this play literally ends with one of the characters singing Hannah Montana’s “The Best of Both Worlds” completely off key because I thought it would be hilarious and I think that really tells you a lot about who I am as a person.
#I'm so sad I dont have more things to live react to cause holy shit is this so much fun jxnzjznsksks#nancy drew#nd humor#nancy drew humor#clue crew#long post#have fun guys this went way longer than I'd expected it to jxbsjjsja
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Welcome Back
I am a card carrying geek. I was that nerd in grade school, reading comics, watching anime, and larping with his friends during recess. I’ve always loved things like books and film, mostly because my ma had a penchant for the sci-fi and we would share in her hobbies. I’ve been a fan of Doctor Who since i was a wee lil’ Smokey and had a particular fondness for Max Headroom’s shenanigans. My chosen proclivities lend themselves to alternate universes, divergent timeless, and the interdenominational doppelganger or two. What i am trying to convey, here, is that i am not stranger to the revisit of a franchise. For me, rebooting an established work or expanding a loved lore is not a transgression. I am a fan of narrative. If you can tell a unique story, it really doesn’t even have to be that good, but something creativity and compelling, i am totally on board. This isn't as difficult a feat as you'd think considering how well Hollywood can adapt international films. The Ring and The Departed are effectively remakes of their original Asian fare and those films are spectacular. Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy is the best example of this i can give. His deconstruction of the Batman mythos was one of the best cinematic and storytelling experiences I ever had. If you can take an established narrative, an established universe, and inject your own flavor into it, i am down for that, too. The Kelvin Star Trek timeline immediately comes to mind. Again, comic book guy, specifically a Spider-Man shill.
While i have years worth of alternate Spider-Men in the books to pull from, i think the most concise example i can give for a layman is to think Into the Spider-Verse, only with thousands more Spider-Men and Spider-Women. That’s the world I'm broaching this subject from, where there are decades worth of stories and reboots and remakes and reimagings, basically revisits, of a character that i absolutely love. Some are great like the Ultimate Spider-Man or the world of Renew Your Vows, and some are not so great, like that version Abrams’ kid came up with. That whole story was the worst. We have actually seen a little bit of this narrative reincarnation in the Spider-Man film franchise, itself, both good and bad. If we take the very first Spider-Man films, those campy, Raimi classics, as a starting point, then we had a terrible reboot in the Amazing franchise and a rather brilliant reimagining in the MCU outings. I really like the MCU retool. Tom Holland is THE onscreen Peter Parker and you can fight me about it all day.
Jurassic World and The Force Awakens are an interesting situation in the whole Revisit discourse. Both of these films are effectively reboots of the entire franchise and a whole ass remake of their initial entries. Beat for beat, theme for theme, these two films are basically the same as Jurassic Park and Episode IV, just less than they are in every conceivable fashion. Now, on paper, i should hate this but i don’t. There is a reason both of the imitations made billions for their respective franchise and that is simply nostalgia. We. as a culture, were starved for a Jurassic sequel and new Star War. When we got these movies in earnest, no one cared they were rehashes of the films that made them so important to the cultural zeitgeist. It was like seeing A New Hope and that initial outing to Isla Nublar for the first time, for a second time, but with much better effects. It had been decades since either of these movies had a proper release so we all just accepted that these were refresher courses in the lore. It was with the sequels that these things sh*t the bed so hard.
Fallen Kingdom and The Last Jedi skewed so far from what these franchises were, from the rules that had been established in the preceding films, including the first in their new trilogies, that they were offensive. Legitimately offensive. Jurassic World and The Force Awakens, as flawed as they were, left their worlds in respectable places. The narratives that could be built from those starting point were incredible. That potential was palpable. Lucas, himself, said that the stories should rhyme and you see that in his six films. Familiar yet different. Nostalgic yet original. Respectful yet original. None of that was recognized in the follow-ups and that is why these two franchises are on life support. It’s sad because there was potential there. Characters introduced were compelling and narrative threads left unties, could have become something great. Instead, expectations were subverted and the world completely sh*t on in an effort to be edgy, to distance itself from the established lore. That sh*t is whack. It’s not about being a fan of the franchise or a zealous istaphobe or whatever else the Twatter mob wants to accuse people of being. It’s about bad story telling. it’s abut a complete betrayal of a decades old franchise. It’s a bout being disingenuous with the property for personal gain.
I said at the beginning of this essay that i love a revisit. That’s why i went to see these sh*tty films. I also made very clear that i love storytelling. Fallen Kingdom and The Last Jedi lack in that fundamental aspect, that’s why they suck. They’ve done irreparable damage to the entire franchise and canon of these worlds that were so meticulously crafted by proper visionaries. Michael Crichton is rolling in his grave at what became of his Dinosaur Westworld and Lucas effectively bogarded his way into running Lucasfilm again after they sh*t on his legacy and that’s the thing; Legacy. These two franchises are part of American culture. They’re as revered as Apple Pie and Institutional Racism here. They’re not cash grabs or vehicles to push your politics. They’re modern fairy tales, myths, and should be respected as such. The thing is, though, i don’t believe there are actual creatives out there that have the vision to create like Crichton or Lucas anymore. Or, at least, Creatives that are willing to work within the constraints of this ridiculous studio system.
Modern film studios are disgustingly risk averse. That is a problem with anything making entertainment media nowadays but it’s most egregious in Hollywood. Films like Star Wars and Alien were made in a time when budgets didn’t swell to hundreds of millions of dollars so directors had to do what he could, with what they had, and that level of imagination birthed classics. It’s rare that creators get a blank check to deliver their vision nowadays, and even rarer that what they get to make if they receive that loot, is actually good. Zack Snyder and the train wreck that is Sucker Punch demonstrates my point perfectly. the new Lucases and Camerons are rare but there are a handful of directors who carry that torch. Denis Villeneuve is an incredible visual storyteller. He has a distinct vision for the grand and manages to craft proper worlds. Blade Runner 2049 is one of the best films i have ever seen in my life but it didn’t make money because people have been conditioned to ignore great storytelling for great effects. That sh*t is why people can say to me, with a straight face, that they think Batman v. Superman is better than The Dark Knight rises. That sh*t is stupid, shut the f*ck up. Deni was given the reigns to the Dune reboot and i think this might be the film that breaks him through to the mainstream.
Dune is a reboot. It looks like a revisit to the old David Lynch flick but with Deni’s penchant for the epic. This movie feels like what Jurassic World and The Force Awakens wanted to do; A respectful acknowledgment of what came before but an original take going forward. Dune is one of the greatest sci-fi novels ever written and Deni is one of the most profound visionaries in the game right now. I have no doubt the new film is going to be fantastic. This combination is a match made in heaven, similar to Alex Garland with Annihilation or, more accurately i think, Luca Guadagnino and Suspiria. Those two films are f*cking incredible and they adapt the source material in a very, specific, manner. Annihilation is a reimagining of the book and carries its own themes and tones while the new Suspiria is a complete reinterpretation of what came before, that i believe eclipses the original. Dune looks excellent but i don’t know that it will be well received. Deni has his work cut out for him because the world of revisits is riddle with the corpses of films that couldn’t care the weight of what came before or what could have been. Still, i don’t want Hollywood to stop. As unoriginal as remaking things is, i adore a fresh set of eyes on familiar fare. There are infinite ways to tell the same story and that’s the fun of revisiting an old tale.
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Year-In-Life | 2019
Or that annual New Year’s meme about yours truly.
1. What did you do in 2019 that you’d never done before?
Had abdominal surgery! I spent most of April either doped up or unconscious. Long story short, I had an ovarian cyst that they thought was twice as big as my fist. So they fast-tracked me to surgery, and discovered that while I did have an ovarian cyst that was pretty large, most of the issue was that my bowel had fused to my uterine wall. Or was it abdominal wall? Either way, my bowel was glued to where it shouldn’t be and very angry because it had a fairly large pre-cancerous polyp in it. Which I found out a week after the abdominal surgery, when I had to have a colonoscopy. Which leads me to...
Had to do three different bowel preps in less than a month! It’s really not fun, guys. But, I got a cyst removed, a polyp removed, a metric fuckton of endo removed, and got my bowel back where it should be. Also, they confirmed that I can have babies! Which I didn’t know I was so fucked up about until I started crying about it post surgery.
Oh, also I peed in a bedpan. That’s also something I’ve never done before. And and and, been sick on Christmas! - Adding Tanya later in this post means I remembered something else I’d never done before - jumped into a pool fully dressed. Then became... no longer dressed.
2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Still don’t remember what my resolution was which- hey, 2020 Heather! Your 2019 resolution is to legitimately lose weight (she says while eating cotton candy ice cream out of the tub) and quit smoking again. Also, maybe be engaged. But mostly, the weight and the smoking thing.
As for 2019 resolutions- I can guess what they were, which probably boiled down to losing weight. I put on about 20 pounds after surgery and haven’t lost it, because shocker, abdominal surgery really fucks with your core strength. Pretty sure there was something in there about reading 100 books (done), beating 4 games (done), and write something original (done? technically?) and/or novel-length (negative).
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
High school people and a few old coworkers. Nick’s cousin and his wife just had their third kid though. I think it may have actually happened on Christmas.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.
5. What countries did you visit? Alternatively, what is your favorite place that you did go this year?
No countries. Went to North Carolina for our possible last beach vacation. In January we’re going to Vegas for our friend’s wedding, which will be interesting. They’re getting married on a ferris wheel by an Elvis impersonator. May also go to Maine this year, but not sure yet because I only have a certain amount of vacation time.
6. What would you like to have in 2020 that you lacked in 2019?
Didn’t get a ring, yet. But we’ll see. We also didn’t get the house yet, so lets recycle those wants! Also, while we’re shooting big here, how about a better goddamn president?
7. What date from 2019 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Started my second big girl job on November 18th. Had surgery on April 12th. Not a whole lot else stands out.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Got a new job! With more money and more responsibility and will look really good on a resume! Didn’t kill myself? Which sounds pretty morbid, but I had a lot of pain in my life earlier in the year.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Not... losing... weight? Because I really need to do that. The heartburn bullshit will likely go away. The sleep apnea thing will likely go away. Your health in general will improve. And you don’t even like food that much anyway!
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I think I’ve had the flu twice this year and again, abdominal surgery, so yes.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
I got nice clothes? Most of the other shit has been knick-knacks. I got more books. A new bookshelf!
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
I don’t know. Mine, I guess. I mean, 2019 wasn’t the worst, but it definitely has not been great.
13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
I have a friend. Let’s call her Amanda. Yeah, her. She’s blown us off a lot this year, which really sucks. The rest of it is her own decisions that only affect us because it’s inevitably going to affect her in a terrible way, but the blowing us off and only using us as passes for free food and ways to do her laundry really sucks.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Surgery! My OOP may have been met in April, but the surgery itself was $48,000. I’ve only had to pay about $6,000 because my OOP was 5k, but that still hurts. And my dental sucks, which means I paid out of my ass to fix my teeth. Also, I bought way too many clothes and books.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
I do still appreciate having a job with decent money. The new job will have insurance after my 90 day probation period (yeah, because you can’t have health care for 3 months even if you work in health care because you’re new). I’m glad that I caught the polyp before it became cancerous. I was happy I could have babies. I got excited about the new His Dark Materials series and The Witcher series and Kingdom Hearts 3 and God of War, and probably at least a couple other fandom things.
16. What song will always remind you of 2019?
Face My Fears. Curse of the I-5 Corridor. Hadestown soundtrack. Transistor soundtrack. Wasteland, Baby! album. Billie Eilish in general. Lark of My Heart. But mostly, Face My Fears and Don’t Think Twice.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Sadder, probably? 2019 wasn’t great.
ii. thinner or fatter? Fatter.
iii. richer or poorer? Technically probably on par with where I was last year? I didn’t save quite as much as I wanted to with the surgery happening. Also, my car needed some pricey repairs this year.
18. What do you wish you��d done more of?
I do wish I’d written more this year, but I wrote a lot in October. Possibly more than the last two years combined, which was nice. And I read a lot. I kind of wish I slept more. Or ate better. Or worked out more. I’m just really tired this year.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Spent less time with doctors? But I mean, taking care of myself is good and I’ve never had that option before.
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Spent it mostly sleeping. We got a bug that was either a really bad cold or a flu, so I’ve spent the last week generally shitty and sweaty and tired. First year that we haven’t been able to do Christmas basically at all. But we spent the hours between 6pm on Christmas Eve and 10am Christmas morning have the most restless goddamn sleep in the world and then opened presents and watched Love Actually and some television (the last two episodes of the Witcher!) while kind of napping on the couch, and ordered Chinese because it was hungry and the only thing open.
21. How will you be spending New Year’s Eve?
Think I’m going to make the pirozki on Sunday, and then we’re doing a gift exchange with some of our friends at his mom’s house.
22. Did you fall in love in 2019?
Eh. Still love him.
23. Best month for you this year?
Clearly me having a good 2018 while everyone else had a shitty one guaranteed 2019 to be shit, because I honestly don’t fucking know. October was nice. So was August. But fuck most of the rest of it.
24. What was your favorite TV program? Of just 2019?
Russian Doll, Glow, The Dragon Prince, Good Omens, Schitt’s Creek, The Terror, Chernobyl, Buzzfeed Unsolved, She-Ra, His Dark Materials, The Witcher... 2019 may have been a meh year, but it had some good shows. Of those, I think my favorite was probably either The Witcher or Good Omens, with His Dark Materials, Russian Doll, and The Terror tying for third.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Eh.
26. What was the best book you read?
Red, White, & Royal Blue was probably my favorite. I also read Sanderson’s books this year though, which were also absolutely amazing. Mistborn and The Stormlight Archive were wonderful. It was a pretty great year for books too. Books and TV, well done 2019. Middlegame, The Ninth Gate, a lot of rereads. Best one was still Red, White, & Royal Blue though.
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Do Utada Hikaru’s new Kingdom Hearts anthems count? Because Spanish Sahara by Foals, Obstacles by Syd Matters, the new Hozier album, and the Hadestown soundtrack were all wonderful musical discoveries.
28. What did you want and got?
I don’t know. New clothes? A laptop? Confirmation that my ovaries work?
29. What did you want but didn’t get?
Well, I lost the bet with Brandon. No ring by the end of 2019. No kids, either, but we aren’t quite there yet. No house. No perfect health? Is that a thing?
30. What was your favorite film of this year?
I liked Into the Spiderverse a lot. Detective Pikachu. Rocketman.Frozen 2. Endgame was all right. I didn’t hate the new Star Wars. Toy Story 4. IT. It wasn’t a super great movie year for me.
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
The big 3-0. It was all right. The night before we went to Fujiyamas with a couple of our friends, then on my birthday we had breakfast at First Watch, did some Christmas shopping, and went to the Zoo Lights a little after 5. Froze to death because it was snowing and shocker, when snow melts you get wet, but it was nice. Then had a late dinner at Mackenzie River, because it was one of the only places still open and close to our place.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Hah! A better president and a ring is the only thing that I didn’t get from my wishes last year. ----Hmmmmm
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2018?
I did not give up and buys Scrubs. Instead I have a perhaps slightly oversized work appropriate selection of jeans (for Fridays), work slacks, blouses/sweaters, dresses, and skirts. I spent a little too much on clothes this year. I blame discovering Torrid.
34. What kept you sane?
Reading was really, really great this year. - STILL leaving this answer, three years running!
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
David Tenant made a shocking comeback after Good Omens aired.
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
FUCK DONALD TRUMP IN THE EAR 20156789. —– Ayyyyy, this was my response from last year, and apparently also the year before and the one before! Hello past me’s, don’t worry, it’s still getting worse.
37. Who did you miss?
Myself. Also, my brother, who is still in jail almost a year later and still no fucking trial.
38. Who was the best new person you met?
I don’t know. Oh! I do know! I really like Tanya.
39. Talk about a new friend that you made this year:
Tanya is awesome and pretty and fun and possibly at least a little bit crazy, but we all fucking are, come on. She got to come with us on vacation this year and it really made it interesting. Also, Shay and Alicia. I knew them last year, but got to know them pretty well this year.
40. Post a picture from the beginning of the year:
Took this one about 20 minutes after midnight on January 1st, 2019 after my first successful round of Battleshots. The hat went to the winner. It is not the most flattering picture, because I had been drinking already before I had to take four shots of Satan’s cinnamon liquor.
41. Post a picture from the end of the year:
Taken on my birthday, at the zoo. Again, snow melts.
42. A memorable meal discovered this year?
Not sure? There’s not a whole lot of new food we haven’t tried. One of the pharmacists brought in some authentic Indian food for one of the potlucks we had and I don’t remember what it was called but it had rice and eggs and was amazing.
43. What was your favorite memory this year?
I don’t know. We saw both Hamilton and Les Mis this year and they both reduced me to tears. I also had some good moments with books and tv shows I watched with Nick.
44. What are you excited for next year?
There’s a couple new books. The election. Some tv shows, I think? Games? I don’t know, man. I’m trying not to come off as horribly depressed but I am kind of pretty depressed and nobody will ever know because the only person who ever gets this far into reading these things is me, so- hello 2020 me, you were really sad on December 26th 2019 and honestly for most of the year, so I sure hope 2020 is the year that we fucking seize life by the horns or however that saying goes.
45. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2019:
I feel like my message from last year is fucking taunting me. Legit though, this is not the worst thing you’ve ever been through. You have a boyfriend who loves you, two wonderful cats that better not fucking die anytime soon, and like, I don’t know, working ovaries. A job. A car. An apartment that has a kind of shitty kitchen and a bath tub that might as well not exist, but is still an apartment! Which is more than some people have!
I guess my message from last year (it gets better) is in almost direct opposition of this year, which is basically: it could always be worse.
46. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
Feed me sunlight, feed me air
In a place where nothing matters
Feed me truth and feed me prayer
(seriously, deliriously happy 2018 me quoting singin’ in the rain is taunting me wtf)
First Fandom of 2019: January of 2019 was pretty solidly Detroit Become Human. It hit me hard.
Favorite Main Character of 2019: Jonathan Sims. I was a slut for the Archivist in 2019.
Favorite Villain of 2019: Elias from The Magnus Archives, maybe? My only other response would be.. dun dun dun, Ben Solo aka Kylo Ron or whatever
Favorite M/F Couple of 2019: I... am back on my Reylo bullshit.
Favorite F/F Couple of 2019: Can I say Villanelle and Eve even if I didn’t really dip into the fandom? No? Okay, Catra and Adora.
Favorite M/M Couple of 2019: Okay, so the three that got me this year was Hank/Connor, Jon/Martin, and Ryan/Shane.
Fandom That You Never Expected To Get Into: Um, Buzzfeed Unsolved. Never would have guessed that one. Also like, while I would have expected Detroit Become Human I never would have guessed my favorite ship.
Fandom That Made An Unexpected Comeback: Sigh. Twas that Reylo smacking me in the face at the tail end of 2019.
Fandom That Inspired The Most Crack: Insert shrug? I read a weird Buzzfeed Unsolved fic above Mothman giving the guys sharable dreams (that were sometimes weird and sometimes sexy) until they boned.
Last Fandom of 2019: Sighing again. Reylo. Though Yuletide has made it so I’ve read a lot of Queen’s Thief stuff.
Favorite Fandom of 2019: I think that Buzzfeed Unsolved was my favorite purely from a fic standpoint, but Detroit Become Human and The Magnus Archives were both really great too.
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introductions / howdy, pardner
My first short story was about a fishboy and his human best friend. They battled a mutant piranha (whose name I think may have been Mutant Piranha, such was the monumental daring of my creative endeavor) and his army, who were out to destroy a mountain that held a whole planet together. The boys won singlehandedly, because scale was apparently a bit of a mystery to me.
This was the second grade. My teacher--who held me every day as I cried for weeks, confused and miserable and stranded in the throes of my parents’ divorce--understood before I did that I create to a ploddingly slow and steady drumbeat. A sentence is always so much more in my head than I’m able to let out, at first; I have to pore over it again and again, fleshing and flourishing (and often correcting) it, the same way I often have to reread paragraphs or pages or whole books to truly capture their meaning. In a word processor, this back-and-forth is as easily said as it is done; on double-wide ruled paper with dashed-line handwriting guides, the task is magnitudes more time-consuming, especially for somebody as messy as I am. So, while nearly everybody else played at recess on the sandlot and the jungle gym around us, a select few stragglers laid our reading folders on our laps and finished our stories.
My villain, that dastardly Mutant Piranha, found himself in prison at the story’s close. Awaiting trial, I guess; I never ventured that far ahead, seeing the big fishy bastard for a coward. “When no one was looking, he stabbed himself.” That’s the last line, stuck in my memory, not for its own sake, but for my poor teacher’s horrified face as she read my final draft there on the playground.
A mom volunteered to type up the class’ stories and get them printed and bound. For years afterward I reread that collection, always proud to have written the second-longest piece therein. I felt the weight of the pages, inhaled the tiny but acrid breeze that came from rapidly leafing through them. Knew it was a whole smattering of worlds inside, that one of those worlds was wholly mine, and I had the power to show it to people however I wished. Yes, I thought, I want this.
*
I’ve been introduced to writing many times over, by many people. Don’t get me wrong--I nightowled the first several chapters to many half-baked novel concepts all through my youth. But teachers have a way of showing a thing to you from new angles.
The first person to impact me as such was a high school teacher who was essentially given carte-blanche to construct a creative writing workshop in the English curriculum. The first semester was structured--you practiced poems, short fiction, humor and essay writing, drama, the gamut. Every semester after, the carte-blanche was passed on: A single assignment due a week, each a single draft of a poem or a minimum of two pages’ worth of prose. Forty-five minutes a day to work, and of course free time at home. By the time I graduated, I’d finagled my schedule such that I was spending two periods a day in the computer lab, and several hours after school every day working the literary arts magazine before I went home to get the rest of my homework out of the way and write some more..
My next big influence came in the form of a pair of writers who taught fiction at my university, a married couple. One had me print stories and literally, physically cut them up section-by-section as a method of reworking chronologies. Told me stories happened like engines or clocks or programs--pieces that meshed differently depending on how they were put together, rules that held each other in place. The other showed boundless confidence in me, listened happily to some older students who recommended I be brought on board for a national arts mag. They both encouraged me toward grad school, but toward the end of my junior year I began to stumble, and by senior year I was, to be frank, a drunken asshole. Time I could be bothered to set aside for writing began to dwindle. I limped through the editorship with the help of my extremely talented, utterly more-than-worthy successor--and come to think of it, I’ve never truly thanked her. Maybe I’ll send her that message, now that I’m feeling more myself.
*
On feeling more myself:
That drunken rage was brought on by a myriad list of factors, the primary ones being 1) I am the child of recovering alcoholics, and our inherited family trauma runs deep, 2) An assault that will likely be mentioned no further from hereon in, as I have reached a solid level of catharsis about it, 3) Some toxic-ass relationship issues, and 4) I was a massive egg and had no idea (or, really, I had some idea, just not the language or understanding or even the proper empathy to eloquently and effectively explore it).
I had a recent relapse with drinking, technically--a mimosa at Christmas breakfast at my partner’s parents’ home--but I’m not honestly sure I can call it a legitimate relapse. I’m not in any official self-help group, I’ve never engaged in the twelve steps or a professional rehabilitation. I had a very wonderful therapist for a few years but reached a point at which I could not pay her any longer and we parted ways--I miss her dearly, as she truly became my friend and confidante; she was the first person I came out to, and very well-equipped to handle it, lucky for me--but I’m still on behavioral medication. That tiny smidgen of alcohol pushed my antidepressants right out of my brain, and I became terribly anxious and angry and sad all at once, and briefly lashed out during a conversation with my partner behind closed doors. Not nearly the lashing out I’ve released in the now-distant past--more on that maybe-never, but who knows, as I am obviously a chronic over-sharer.
Frankly, I don’t deserve my partner. She endured my past abuses, told me to my face I had to be better, and found it in herself to wait for me to grow. She’s endlessly and tirelessly supportive of me. She sat with me to help me maintain the nerve to start this blog tonight. I came out to her as a trans woman just under a year ago, now, and I’m happier than ever, and we communicate better than ever. Our relationship is, bar-none, the healthiest and stablest and happiest I’ve ever been in.
So, naturally, I apologized fairly quickly at Christmas, and continuing where I’d left off at two and a half years, decided I’m still solid without booze.
If we’re all being honest, though (and I’m doing my best to be one hundred percent honest, here, though I will absolutely be censoring names because no shit), I still smoke way too much fuckin’ weed. High as balls, right now. 420 blaze it, all day erryday, bruh. That self-medicated ADHD life. I should be on Adderall and not antidepressants, probably, but it’s been a while since an appointment and psychiatrists are expensive, so I’m at where I’m at for now. Sativas help a lot. It helps with the dysphoria, too.
I don’t have a legal diagnosis for gender dysphoria, but tell that to my extreme urge to both be in and have a vagina. I’m making little changes--my hair, an outfit at a time, no longer policing how I walk or run or how much emphasis I put on S sounds. If I manage to come out to my parents sometime soon--and it feels like that moment is closer every day--maybe I’ll tell y’all my real, full chosen name. For right now, call me Easy.
*
Anyhow. My goals here are pretty simple:
1) Share words, both those by people I like/admire/sometimes know! and occasionally words I’ve made that I like. See the above screenshot from my notes app. Steal some words if you want, but if you manage to make money off some of mine, holler at ya gurl’s Venmo, yeah?
2) Discuss words, how they work, and how we create them, use them, engage with them, and ultimately make art of them. I am not a professional linguist, but I went to undergrad for creative writing, so, hey, I’ll have opinions and do my best to back them up with ideas from people smarter than I am.
3) Books! Read them, revisit them, quote them, talk about them, sometimes maybe even review them, if I’m feeling particularly bold. No writer can exist in a vacuum, and any writer who insists they don’t like to read is either a) dyslexic and prefers audiobooks or b) in serious need of switching to a communications major (no shade, but also definitely a little shade @corporate journalism).
5) I added this last, but I feel it’s less important than 4 and does not deserve bookend status, and I am verbose but incredibly lazy, so here I am, fucking with the system. Anyway: Art! Music! Video games! I fucking love them. I’ll talk about them, sometimes, too. Maybe I’ll finally do some of the ekphrastic work I’ve felt rattling around in my brain for a while now. Jade Cocoon 2′s Water Wormhole Forest, looking right the fuck at you.
6) Ah, shit, I did it again. Oh well. Last-but-not-last: This is obviously, in some ways, a diary, or a massive personal essay. I will sometimes discuss people, places, or experiences that have informed my work just the same as other people’s art has.
4) Be an unabashed and open Trans woman. TERFs, transphobes, ill-informed biological essentialists not permitted. Come at me and my girldick and prepare to be dunked on and subsequently shown the door via a swift and painful steel-toed kick in the ass. Everybody who doesn’t suck, if I screw up on any matter of socio-ethics or respect for diversity, please feel free to correct me.
*
Punk’s dead, but we’re a generation of motherfucking necromancers. Be gay, do crime, fight the patriarchy, and fart when you gotta. May the Great Old Ones select you to ascend to a higher plane and learn the terrible truths of existence.
Much love--
Easy
#writers#writing#creative writing#trans#trans woman#fuck TERFs#writing about writing#writer#my writing#diary
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