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bereft-of-frogs · 5 years

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If you are ever so inclined - I'd be very interested in your horror recommendations.

This got…probably more involved than you intended. :D It was a good procrastination tool/distraction from A Thing I didn’t want to do though, and I had fun revisiting some of these old trailers.

This ended up really long. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m like this.

“The New Golden Age”

[These are what I’m talking about when I talk about us entering in a new golden age - really genre bending, specifically out to subvert tropes, make social statements, and empower people who have been shut out by horror in the past.]

Jordan Peele - Get Out (2017) and Us (2019)

Ah, Jordan Peele. The master of the comedy to horror turn. Get Out was the most fun I’ve had watching a horror movie in a long time. I love how it really fits itself to classic tropes but subverts them by flipping the genre and race dynamics. (Daniel Kaluuya’s character embodies the ‘Final Girl’ trope.)

Us fucked me up. Like, woke up at 3am thinking about it, couldn’t really look at Lupita Nyong’o for a while. The remix of the song that plays over the trailer literally gives me goosebumps. It freaked me out, so much. That one is a genre bender - you think you’re watching one thing (a classic home-invasion type trope with some weird mystery to it) and then the final scene basically upends everything you thought you were watching. Fucked. Me. Up.

Ari Aster - Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019)

I’ve been talking a bunch about how much I loved Midsommar. It’s gorgeous visually, Ari Aster is so great at just letting things hang and letting tension build and build - and it was the first horror movie I think I’ve ever felt weirdly empowered by. Like, similar to when I saw Captain Marvel, I walked out of the theater like “is this how men feel all the time?” Hereditary is probably a better movie overall, not counting the fact that it was practically made for me. At its core it’s a grief drama, a phenomenal portrait of mourning…and it’s also really fucking scary. Those slow-tension building scenes are really used effectively in Hereditary.

I also think it’s interesting because Ari Aster is keeping pace with Jordan Peele, but did it in the opposite order. Hereditary is the genre-bender - you kind of think it’s a family drama/psychological horror for most of it, and then it takes a hard turn and makes you question everything you were watching. Midsommar is more on-genre norms - it’s essentially the classic ‘bunch of terrible people getting picked off one by one’ trope (I don’t know if there’s a better name for that), but by applying folk horror and really centering female characters as both pro- and an- tagonist, it does a lot of unexpected things.

Robin Aubert - Les Affamés (”The Ravenous”) (2017)

It’s a zombie movie, but it’s more than that. This movie is so layered. I saw it at a festival when it first came out and then we watched it again this year on St. Jean-Baptiste (Québec national holiday) because we wanted to be #OnTheme. (And to celebrate St. Jean-Baptiste without having to interact with crowds) and it kind of clicked what it was doing. It’s really about the absorbing of difference into the dominant, hegemonic culture and the struggle for marginalized individuals to survive. Robin Aubert has a couple others I haven’t seen yet, but have heard good things about and are on my list. I saw a critic call his main brand ‘pastoral terror’ (terreur pastorale) which I absolutely love as a concept.

Alex Garland - Annihilation (2018)

Some people might argue with me if this is horror or not, if it’s sci-fi, but I think it’s body horror. And it’s beautiful body horror! See this is what I’m here for. Body horror is not just gore - there’s not a lot of blood in this movie. Body horror is about distortion and the grotesque. There’s this one scene that still gives me chills when I think about it and Tessa Thompson’s final scene is beautiful body horror at its finest. (There was also a really similar scene in Midsommar, so I clearly know what I like.) The soundtrack is also phenomenal.

[I had a whole rant about the book series, which I hated, here, but it was getting long and derailing so I cut it out. the tldr is I hated the book.]

“Classics I actually Enjoy”

[I don’t always love what appears at the top of the like ‘essential horror’ lists, but these are the ones I think are worth it.]

Dario Argento - Deep Red (1975)

I really, really wanted to like Suspiria more, because the concept and Goblin’s score for Suspiria both appeal to me a lot more. But I had a lot more fun watching Deep Red. So far it’s my favorite of the giallos.

Richard Donner - The Omen (1976)

Classic. It’s so good. “It’s all for you, Damian!” Plus, I love any movie that comes with rumors of a curse.

Alfred Hitchcock - Psycho (1960)

I would classify most of Hitchcock as ‘thriller’ rather than horror, but Psycho is firmly psychological horror, and The Classic.

Stuart Gordon - Re-animator (1985)

I couldn’t really decide if I wanted to put this one. Especially because on a long drive my friend and we basically covered how this was really ripe for a remake because it’s flaws…did not age particularly well, especially re: gender and race. (But it could be so, so good. It could be an amazing commentary about consent and the use of marginalized bodies…but the original …is…not.) But I’m putting this on here because of body horror. They clearly hired dancers or choreographers to do the reanimated movements because they really lean into it and it’s great. It gets…heavily derailed at the end by an absolutely ridiculous gore climax and missing the opportunity to actually have a coherent storyline or a message of any kind…but they got the grotesque movements down.

Honorable Mentions: The Amityville Horror, The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, *sigh* Cannibal Holocaust (like…I don’t actually recommend anyone watch it. I’m glad I did, because it’s really important for how the ‘found footage’ genre developed, so it’s a piece of film history but like. Don’t actually watch it.), The House on Haunted Hill

“Random Others In Between”

Adrian Lyne - Jacob’s Ladder (1990)

You might recognize Jacob’s Ladder as the movie that more heavily inspired the first chapter of ‘dark underground//violent sky’ more than I had originally thought. I had originally been basing a lot of the tone and style on current trends in horror TV, but then I happened to watch Jacob’s Ladder while I was in the middle of writing the second half and was like…oh. Like, I knew I had been heavily influenced by Jacob’s Ladder and the ending, but I had forgotten about how the film differentiates between ‘reality’ and ‘dream’ - in that it doesn’t! And that was an effect I was specifically striving for when I was writing ‘dark underground’. It’s also just a really weird, trippy late-80s/early-90s movie set in New York when New York was still really dirty and that’s fun.

Hideo Nakata - Dark Water (2002)

This is my favorite Japanese horror film. I think it gets a little bit looked over in favor of some others (Ringu, Ju-on, Audition), but it’s my favorite. (Has a terrible American remake, so be sure to avoid that one. It comes up first when you google. -_-)

James Wan - The Conjuring (2013)

I did really like this first entry - the sequels are kind of aggressively meh.

Scott Derrickson - Sinister (2012)

THE DANGER IS IN THE VIEWING!

Honorable Mentions: Session 9, Se7en, The Ritual, It Follows, The Descent, The Hills Have Eyes (I just really like bright horror movies), The Exorcism of Emily Rose (for fun bonus pretension, you can also watch Requiem, and then when people ask you if you’ve seen The Exorcism of Emily Rose, you get to be like “Yeah, have you seen the German original?” though, technically, it’s that they’re both based off of the same true-story. it’s still fun to say), Hard Candy, Ils (Them), THE VVITCH (should only ever be pronounced ‘The Va-Vitch’ lol)

“The Parody Films”

[What is there to say? They’re great, so much fun.]

Joss Whedon - Cabin in the Woods (2012)

Remember back in 2012 when Avengers 1 came out, and then Cabin in the Woods came out, like, immediately afterwards, and we all loved Joss Whedon? We were so innocent back then.

Eli Craig - Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010)

This movie is so pure. I love how they both play into and subvert the rural hillbilly tropes with the two main characters. They just want a vacation home! These kids keep killing themselves on their property!

Honorable Mentions: Shaun of the Dead, I was googling to confirm the year of Tucker and Dale vs. Evil and I saw What We Do In The Shadows listed as horror paraody, but I would count that more as a Gothic mockumentary, but I listed it here because I love it so much.

“Documentaries”

Xavier Burgin - Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror (2019)

This movie was so interesting! Highly recommend. I think Shudder is planning on producing more of these documentaries, about marginalized groups in horror, and I am Here For It.

Honorable Mentions: Cropsey/Killer Legends, Best Worst Movie

I think I’ll stop here and maybe someday do a separate one for books. And maybe TV series, but I’m having a hard time teasing out the line between mystery and horror because of how popular and kind of unique Nordic Noir is right now. It’s just hard to draw the line for TV.

But I’ll end by summarizing reading thoughts (in a more disorganized manner):

-I have two separate ‘complete tales and poems’ editions of Edgar Allen Poe - one to look pretty and one to annotate.

-If you come for my girl Mary Shelley I will come @ you. Once a kind of asshole-y friend once was like ‘Frankenstein is terrible because it was written by a teenage girl’ and, I swear to God, I almost fought him right there in the bar. The Last Man is also great.

-I also almost forgot how much I loved Dracula. The Harkers especially. (I once tried to read League of Extraordinary Gentleman and gave up with a rage-headache 15 pages in because of what they did to Mina.) (Ah yes, let’s make her a “Strong Female Character ™” by having her divorce Jonathan and almost be raped in the first 15 pages.) (Couldn’t deal with it.) (I’m sure I would in general like that series but I just had too much attachment to Mina Harker to get over it.)

-I physically cannot get through Lovecraft. I can’t do it. I’ve tried so many times, I know how important it is but I just. Can’t. Don’t want to. Won’t. Sorry.

-A lot of adapted books I tend to prefer the books they were based on. Some are kind of obvious, like I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, which is a way, way better book than the movie. (They changed the ending which undercut the actual message.) But others are still decent movies, I just tend to prefer the book. Like, everyone always puts Let the Right One In on ‘essential horror’ lists, but I actually liked the book by John Ajvide Lindqvist a lot better.

-Similarly, you may have noticed I put no Stephen King movies on this list - there are a few I really like, but I think they work better as complements to the novels. Misery and the original Pet Sematary (haven’t seen the new one yet) are my two favorite movies-based-on-king. The Shining is visually stunning by character-wise, wildly disappointing, so point to the novel for this one. (King also hated the adaptation for what Kubrick did to Wendy.) My general King recommendations are: Carrie, Misery, The Shining, The Mist, Insomnia

I’m having a bit of an issue with how male-dominated this list is. It’s partially my problem that I’m working on correcting (I’m at the point where I’m actively trying not to read horror books by white men anymore) and partially a general problem in the industry. It’s hard to get into an industry that for a long time unquestioningly based itself on violence against women and other marginalized peoples’ bodies. -_- But yeah, I have a list of contemporary horror novels by women that I’m working my way through, and I’m trying to catch up on some older staples like Shirley Jackson, Angela Carter, and Octavia Butler.

UPDATE: After I finished compiling this list, I googled ‘Horror movies directed by women’ and there are a couple that I would recommend, I think they’re just not as visible. (Did not realize they’d been directed by women until this Google.):

Mary Lambert - Pet Sematary (1989)

Karen Kusama - Jennifer’s Body (2009)

Mary Harron - American Psycho (2000)

Lynne Ramsay - We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011) (though I liked the book better)

This list was probably incomplete and I’ve probably forgotten a bunch of things I really like! It’s also only made up of things I’ve already seen/read (though it’s not comprehensive). If something’s not on here and you think it should be, lmk! It may be that I haven’t seen it yet and I’ll add it to my to-watch list. Always taking suggestions, especially for more horror (films or books) from underrepresented groups.

#veliseraptor #horror movies #fright night #this took a long time i need to go eat lunch now #ha i meant to break this off at a normal point but #alas

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reading-with-nixie · 6 years

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Top 11(ish) Books of 2017

This was a weird year for me reading-wise in a lot of ways. For one - I didn’t just fail my 100 book challenge, I basically turbo-failed it: I only read about 44 books (I’m on 45 now). Like last year, this year was not conducive to reading for many reasons. As most of you know, this year was pretty shit for me until about late September, and then in early October I switched to full-time employment and needed to chop my long commute into three much shorter parts - meaning that reading on my commute became harder.

All that said, I actually read more books that I actually liked this year than I have previously, because I started being less strict about my rules for putting down books. I used to only stop reading books if I had a major ideological difference with the text (not the story, the text - if this confuses you, talk to me). But this year I also stopped reading books if I noticed that I wasn’t inclined to read them. I finally settled into the fact that there are enough books out there that I’d love to waste my time on ones I don’t. So instead of 10 or 9 favorites this year - I have 11 or 12 (I lumped two books together; I’ll explain why when I get there).

So here we go, in no particular order:

1) Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey

You’ll probably notice a trend for this year, which is that I read a lot of horror/thriller novels - Elizabeth is Missing falls into the thriller category, but only because of the point of the view in which it is written. Namely, the protagonist is an elderly woman named Maud who struggles with dementia.

She is convinced that her friend Elizabeth has gone missing and that her older sister Sukey (who disappeared herself after World War II) was murdered by her husband. But no one is listening to her about Elizabeth, nor did anyone listen to her about Sukey - so Maud decides to solve both mysteries by herself.

This book was memorable for me, again, because of the POV. The book portrays exactly how terrifying it is to feel with all your might that something is true, only to have everyone around you be dismissive. The reader also gets a glimpse into Maud forgetting things that her daughter, caretaker, and other people surrounding her say. So what happened to Sukey? What happened to Elizabeth? Is Elizabeth even missing in the first place?

All in all a very interesting read, but if you’re already terrified of aging, I’d maybe pass.

2) The Geek Feminist Revolution by Kameron Hurley

Kameron Hurley is a Hugo award winner and a woman...which means she’s needed to deal with a lot of shitty nerd boys. This (pretty inclusive) book discusses feminist sff, misogyny in nerd culture, and (most prominently) what it’s like trying to thrive in sff as a woman. Especially a woman who writes diverse books.

This book is great for feminists and nerds - but above all I recommend it for my woman writerly friends. I really enjoyed her snark, but the main thing I got out of this book was an extreme increase in my desire to create.

3) The Girl with All the Gifts by MR Carey

This was definitely one of the more inventive books I’ve read this year or possibly ever. I’ve described it to people as being a zombie book that reads (at least in part) like a fairy tale; it’s been compared to Matilda a lot -- which I think makes sense.

The narrator for much (though not all) of the novel is Melanie, who is a child zombie who “grew up” in an army base/school for child zombies. Then one day the school is attacked and Melanie, her favorite teacher (their relationship is really fucking touching), and some military folks escape and must try to survive out in the world.

The book switches narrators, which allows for some interesting shifts in perspective. Some parts feel more like a typical horror novel than others, but all in all I would highly recommend this to someone who is interested in seeing a unique approach to zombies or horror. Or just people who like horror novels and also like Matilda.

4) All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Another really unique one -- but very, very different from the last. This one won the Pulitzer Prize and pretty much all the awards in 2014 and goddamn if there isn’t a reason.

This one is less unique for the way it tells its story (it’s very lyrical, but not particularly groundbreaking in that regard as far as I remember), but for the content of the story itself. It’s a story set during WWII in Europe...but not the sort of story you’d expect. The main characters of the story are a young blind girl living in Nazi-occupied France and a German kid who ends up (obviously) working with Nazis. Neither of them ends up in a concentration camp or anything like that. Rather, Marie-Laure must deal with the social and economic everyday consequences of the occupation and Werner sees terrible shit happening around him all the time and doesn’t interfere despite having an increasingly bad feeling about what the German army is doing.

Obviously, the novel is heavy as fuck, so definitely proceed with tissues.

5) Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire and The Diviners by Libba Bray

These two go together in my head, so I’m also putting them together here. They have completely different premises, but I read them at the same time and there are some weird similarities. Most notably, both books have serial killer antagonists who remove body parts from their victims - and the same body parts at that.

Every Heart a Doorway is a really interesting novella which explores the idea what happens to children once they return from magical worlds (a la Alice in Wonderland and The Chronicles of Narnia). Nancy is a newcomer to a boarding school for these kids who makes fast friends with a couple of her classmates. When someone starts killing them, Nancy and her new pals come under suspicion and need to prove their innocence, and in so doing save the school from being shut down. It’s actually a novella, so it’s fairly easy to read in a short period of time. And gets a TON of brownie points for having a CANONICALLY ASEXUAL MAIN CHARACTER.

The Diviners is set in the Roaring 20s and features a cast of teens with various and sundry magical powers that have to deal with shutting down a ghost that some dumbass rich kids unleash with a luigi board in the first scene. I was kind of pissed that there’s a scene early on in which sexual assault occurs and the narrative never addresses it as such - but aside from that major qualm I have with it, it’s solid. Also, totally spooky.

I recommend both of these books - just maybe not the same time? Don’t repeat my mistakes.

6) The Secret History by Donna Tartt

If you know me more than just in passing, you know that I love me some Dark Shit™ in my literature. The Secret History more than satisfied that craving. The story, set in a rural Vermont college (apparently a Bennington expy...which I’m gonna go ahead and say is NOT a complement to Bennington), is one of pretentious classics students who are basically a cult. A new kid comes to the school, gets indoctrinated into said basically-cult’s bullshit, and gets fully entrenched into their bullshit when they semi-accidentally kill a guy and THEN kill one of the basically-cult-members (this is not a spoiler - the book literally opens with them killing the dude).

It’s definitely not for everybody, but if you are also Team Dark Shit™ and like gorgeous writing - it’s probably for you. You’ll probably get even more out of it if you A) went to college in rural New England or B) were a classics student.

7) The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

The Hate U Give is another book that got a LOT of hype and 100% deserves every amount of praise it received.

Sixteen year old Staff is one of few Black kids at a private school and still lives in a poor neighborhood, thus she divides herself up into two versions of herself to fit who those two communities expect her to be. One night, she’s being driven home from a party by an old friend (Khalil) they get pulled over and Khalil is fatally shot by an officer.

Both the media at large, at least one of Starr’s white friends, and a local drug lord try to paint Khalil as a thug. Thus Starr has to decide whether to stay quiet and keep her life in tact or to speak up and upend everything about her life.

Highly recommend, especially for other White folks.

8) Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Another thing to know about my reading habits: I really love mixed media and weird layout/typographical decisions.

Give me maps, photographs, whole pages with only one word, transcripts, just ALL the variety of ways of telling -- and I’m a happy camper. Like, go to a bookstore and flip through a copy of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. There is a reason its my favorite.

Illuminae has an interesting story and all of these things.

It’s sci-fi YA told from multiple POVs - the main characters are two halves of a couple that breaks up on the day that their home planet is destroyed, but there’s also an AI who becomes progressively more and more of an interesting character as it goes along.

On top of a conspiracy, there’s a lot of action, potentially evil tech, and a scary af plague. It’s a little much for some readers, but I think it works - and it’s interesting to see several genres intersect.

I highly recommend this for other mixed media loving folks and people who want to see how many tropes can interact with each other at once.

9) Bird Box by Josh Malerman

Unlike most of the books I have on this list - I would actually recommend this to VERY FEW PEOPLE. It has aspects that could be triggering (namely, there’s a lot of suicide and some child abuse), it has multiple dog deaths (one of which is probably the saddest I’ve ever read; it had me crying on the bus), and is fucking TERRIFYING...but I loved it, so here it is.

In the world of Bird Box, something weird started happening - people started seeing something which launched them into a violent frenzy, causing them to sometimes kill those around them and always kill themselves. The book follows two stories - one is set five years after people started seeing whatever it is that’s driving them to madness, when Malorie and her two children need to leave their safe haven and travel down a river to a safe location that may or may not exist any longer; the other is set when Malorie is pregnant, people are just starting to see the thing, and Malorie finds (and loses) a chosen family in a sort of “how we got here” situation.

I love this one for two main reasons: 1) It addresses things in a really interesting, vaguely Lovecraftian way because, by the very nature of the crisis, NO ONE has seen the thing (or even spoken to someone who has seen the thing) and lived to talk about it - so the characters spend the whole time wearing blindfolds, covering their eyes, or inside with things to block any windows and the readers spend the entire book having NO IDEA what the thing is. And that makes pretty much everything more terrifying. One of the most nerve-wracking moments in the novel is when a LEAF falls on someone’s shoulder and there’s the question of “OH SHIT WHAT IF IT WASN’T A LEAF” but the person obviously can’t just check. There are also several times when whatever the heck this thing is is in the same space as Malorie (in one of them it actually plays around with her goddamn blindfold) and obviously she wants to see what it is, but she can’t or she and her kids will die. Both Malorie and the reader also need to trust that her kids won’t look. 2) It addresses the sorts of questions that would occur in that situation. What if you view whatever the thing is indirectly? Are animals immune to the insanity? Couldn’t blind people just go about their lives more or less normally, provided they don’t end up around someone who saw the thing?

You can judge for yourself (or ask more questions), to figure out if this would be a good or safe read for you.

10) Uprooted by Naomi Novik

To say that I enjoyed the experience of reading Uprooted would be completely incorrect. Anyone who was around me when I read it can tell you about the pained noises I was making most of the time. Most of the book was a conga of backfiring plans, terrifying bullshit, and the protagonist being thrown into generally unpleasant and/or bleak-looking situations. At one point I actually told Lauren “I...I don’t think I would ever say this...but it might be too depressing for me?”

That being said, it’s actually really good - which is why I kept reading through the pain. All of the characters were really engaging, even the ones I didn’t like; I wanted to know what happened plot-wise; there’s a really interesting magic system; and so much fae nonsense.

Agnieszka lives in a small village located near malevolent woods,a wizard takes her away from the village....and basically the entire rest of the plot is spoilers. But you should read it if you’re into fae nonsense.

11) The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

I haven’t finished this book yet, but I’m close enough to the end that I feel comfortable recommending it.

This is another ensemble cast book featuring a spaceship full of compelling characters (one of whom is basically an alien cultural anthropologist - which is neat) that form an amazing little chosen family.

It has a cool plot, too, but let’s be real - this book is about the characters and their relationships. Insofar as it’s possible to have representation in a book with mostly alien characters, this book pulls it off pretty well. There’s at least one lesbian couple, an essentially chronically ill character, an alien/AI relationship, and an alien who’s basically autistic. A fabulous people who like the ideas inherent in science fiction but are bored of pew-pew action crap.

I also have one anti-recommendation to close this out, because I feel the need to warn people away from this book.

DO NOT READ BOY, SNOW, BIRD by Helen Oyeyemi. It’s a transphobic piece of shit.

It starts off gorgeous, has some nice magical realism, involves some really good discussion of racism and what it means to be biracial...and then gets WILDLY transphobic very suddenly in the last twenty pages or so. I’ve heard people say “OH, but it’s actually a METAPHOR, you see!” but here’s the thing, you can’t use real marginalized groups as your goddamn metaphors. NOPE. Stay away from this piece of garbage, or at least don’t give Oyeyemi your money and everything except the last two chapters out of a library copy.

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ghostmartyr · 7 years

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Attack on Titan Episode 30

LIVEBLOG

I have this acquaintance who seems to believe that I’ve been unfairly circumspect regarding my opinion of this (and other) episodes. I am aghast (aghast, I tell you) at this ruthless judgment of how I best enjoy my cartoons.

To defang such a callous accusation, this seemed like the way to go.

(Featuring xtreme whining, manga spoilers like whoa, more whining, and maybe a few spots of joy. Who can say. I haven’t started yet, and I’ve never done a liveblog before. It’s a surprise for everyone.)

So, Attack on Titan Episode 30, “Historia.” Let us begin!

I appreciate that it starts with the opening instead of pretending that the content outside of this week means anything.

Tag your spoilers though. Sheesh. That’s going to continue to bug me every time I watch an episode from this era.

Yes, we could have given these characters with a surprising amount of lines this season something new and exciting to do in the opening considering that we’re going to exclude them from all the group shots (they aren’t traitorous enough for traitoring, but boy howdy are they too shady to pal up with their innocent buddies), or, or... we could just go ahead and borrow animation from six episodes in and throw it through some filters.

Complete with dramatic stills. Still. The other one can have dramatic motion. She’s going to be a main character soon, after all.

It still makes me happy that the opening spends time remembering that these two matter outside of everything else that’s going on. Their dramatic anvil of emotional trauma has meaning enough to be dropped in the first minute and thirty seconds of every episode kind enough to skip flashbacks. Most good and excellent.

I like this opening on its own, too. The first one has the epic music that goes with anything, the second has the epic music and really tired anime tropes, but this one manages to grasp that the epic music belongs with suitable animation. I don’t know how it would compare head-to-head, but this one feels like a more complete work.

But enough with the opening.

Bring me the feels that I have graciously waited four years for.

Yes, good, excellent.

...

You mock me.

I don’t understand. Is there something wrong with suddenly shifting your story’s entire focus to two girls who have yet to contribute anything relevant to the plot in a season where there are only twelve episodes and the fanbase has not been reared on monthly frustration?

Why would you want to give the filler moments to characters that people already know something about and care for? How very dare.

(I have watched this before, in case that was unclear, and I don’t remember my exact reaction to this episode opening with filler, but I do remember moments of pain as the snowy boot failed to lead to the scene I wanted it to.

You cut the flashbacks to taunt me with filler, WIT.)

However much it floats about the wrong people, the snow is really beautiful. I don’t live anywhere I get to experience snow, but I like the feeling of muted emptiness it brings an atmosphere. Things are allowed to be still and quiet.

As a bunch of young recruits are trying not to freeze to death, but it’s okay. We already know everyone we care about makes it through.

Hark, the first reference to this episode’s true purpose!

(Why couldn’t Crunchyroll show me kindness and use the K version of her name? It isn’t like it’s going to matter soon.)

I am against this filler on general principle of not getting exactly what I want at all times, but Mikasa showing awareness of what Krista gets up to is always going to blindside me with feels. Mikasa doesn’t know it, but they’ve both watched their mother die thanks to the world’s malevolence, and they both latch on to the person who comes to shape their new place in life.

Neither Eren or Ymir is especially delicate about it, but when they speak their hearts, Mikasa and Kristoria hear them like they’ve heard nothing else.

Of course, that’s all based on later things, but whenever Mikasa has a scene with Kristoria, there’s this extra weight of subtextual understanding that just sings to me.

It helps that it’s mostly one-sided. Everyone in the 104th knows Mikasa, because how could you not, but Kristoria, outside of being rescued repeatedly and bargaining for certain people’s lives, doesn’t show any special acknowledgment of Mikasa.

Meanwhile, Mikasa notices Krista. She’s not the blonde or tiny one, she’s the one who sticks with Ymir--or, in this case, stays behind with Daz.

In this section of the story, Mikasa really has no idea how alike she and Kristoria are, but I like that even before she knows, she notices. ...Or maybe more accurately, some part of the writing staff notices the similarities, so allows them to be continually linked.

...I really like Historia and Mikasa’s nonexistent irrefutable bond.

Why is the OVA that has more of it not stateside when we were given the crack one.

BUT HEY GUESS WHAT THAT’S NOT WHAT THIS EPISODE’S ABOUT!

Look, look, it’s what the episode didn’t start with.

...

Oh help.

Excuse me, I think my heart grew three sizes and I need to lie down thanks to unforeseen feels because oh wow, this is somehow the perfect and I don’t know how to deal.

How.

Just how.

I don’t care if it’s a translation flair or not. There’s something--heck, just help.

Not “no.” “Never.”

Kristoria is a melodramatic stubborn moppet and what even.

You’re dragging a dying body through the snow. Be less perfect.

Ymir, of course, continues to talk, going through all the reasons why a dead body is going to be involved in their night--because some titans get their energy from sunlight, and some get it from pointing out as many inconvenient truths as they can in the space of a single conversation--and Kristoria, of course, continues to be perfect.

I swear, my favorite part of half of the training scenes between these two is that Ymir spends most of her time rightfully criticizing every single thing Kristoria does, and after the initial confusion, Kristoria just refuses to listen.

She puts up a good fight, and can talk with shining eyes about Sasha choosing to be herself regardless of her word choices, and play the heroic role of still believing that there’s a way out while she’s basically in the middle of a suicide attempt, but she is so, so wrong.

This kid is so wrapped up in whatever role her head thinks she’s playing that she listens to her common sense maybe about half as much as any rational person would. Then she uses whatever’s left to try and defend herself to Ymir, because Ymir has the nerve to suggest that she’s thinking about as little as she actually is.

And good grief I just love this scene.

Because yeah, she’s about ten seconds away from being bashed over the head with how unproductive this all is, but look at that face.

The anime version is going with a lot less dead eyes here, and I should and will maybe find time to complain about that, but what it’s turned so horribly glorious is Kristoria’s overall tone when she starts telling Ymir to get lost. It’s downright mocking.

Also fake.

So, so so so fake.

Yet somehow, one of the genuine things Kristoria does as Krista. She doesn’t try to convince Ymir to save herself with a warm smile and proper actions; she plays Ymir’s own game and taunts her into wanting to leave Kristoria and Daz behind.

Kristoria’s basically given up at this point. She’s marching in the middle of a blizzard tugging a pre-corpse behind her, and I don’t think she considers her own life to be in better shape than Daz’s. They’re both dead. Game over man, game over.

Ymir’s outside of that picture, though. Ymir’s heart is still beating, and she obviously doesn’t want to stay, so why should she stick around and watch all of this misery?

This is the early version of how Historia always negotiates. Whenever there’s something she wants, she picks her arguments based on what the other person will find convincing, not necessarily her own logic for making a case.

So with Ymir, she chooses to be obnoxiously cocky about her chances.

(help.)

The manga has this byplay so much quieter, and you can see so much more of Historia from the next arc coming through, but Kristoria makes affected arrogance look damn good and why why why.

WELL NOW THAT’S RUINED, ISN’T IT.

Tough break, Kristoria. You’re going to have to earn being cool from now on.

The anime does such a good job of this moment.

What always gets me in the manga, and what carries over here, is the look of pure horror on Kristoria’s face when Ymir puts words to her thinking. When it’s said out loud, it sounds horrible. She isn’t trying to save someone’s life. She’s given up on Daz.

I don’t think the jab about giving up on herself hits that hard. Kristoria’s a suicidal mess.

But Daz, he who spends this entire scene basically being treated like a sack of potatoes by both of the people responsible for his eventual survival, is a life Kristoria cares about. I think a lot gets lost when that isn’t taken under consideration.

She doesn’t mind killing herself. But what hits is that her resignation regarding her own life has crept out and threatened someone else.

Kristoria’s been responsible for death before. It terrifies her.

Before Ymir draws it out, I honestly don’t think Kristoria has any idea what she’s doing here. Her own life has never mattered to her. Daz’s fate is pretty much inevitable. She’ll stay with him until the end, and put in the token effort, but they’re both screwed, and deep in her heart, all of the talk of third options and hope is a lie. The only thing she can do is keep Ymir from being taken by the hopelessness as well.

But giving up the way she has means that she’s hurt Daz’s chances of survival beyond what they already were. She never asks for help. She just accepts death and carries on walking straight into its embrace.

And when Ymir says it, like this is all on purpose, Kristoria immediately denies it.

She does not want Daz to die. She thought herself a witness, at worst. Not his executioner.

Like I said earlier, Kristoria just does not think about this. Her fatalist tendencies take the wheel and drive her off a cliff that wasn’t even on the route.

So when she’s made to think about what she’s doing, and when she sees, for the first time, where it’s landed her, she’s horrified. She’s a screwed up mess, but she isn’t intending to get anyone else killed.

There’s no denying that that’s where she’s sitting, though.

This is so well done. It’s... this is one of my favorite scenes in the series. Most ones involving these two are, but these moments make such strong use of silence. There’s nearly a full page of beat panels after Ymir starts this conversation, and the tension and the swirling snow stand out even better in a medium dependent on motion.

The world stops when Ymir calls Kristoria on her actions. They’re probably all going to die, and in what Kristoria is thinking will be her last moments, the deepest part of her soul is on full display, and she can’t come up with a single way to defend herself.

She’s out of hope, doesn’t have a sense of self-worth to begin with, and Ymir is confronting her with every sordid detail of the life she wants to forget.

...That part’s me skipping ahead, but look, that’s the mood. Just this lost little girl in the snow wondering how the hell she’s fallen so low.

...While Ymir continues to make it worse.

Because why not. Blizzards are a great time to chat.

(Daz ends up dependent on the two people with the some of the strongest saving-people instincts in the series, and he still nearly dies because they only know how to have honest conversations if death is nearby. That is his purpose in this scene. He is the conversation starter.)

"Hey, you’re about to kill a guy, but btw, I am totes not a thief.”

Who are you trying to impress. I mean, Kristoria, obviously, at all hours of the day, but even at this point she knows you too well to buy that you’re too morally pure to steal things when you’re starving.

Also, there’s that blizzard thing. How are you still trying to act cool.

Oh Ymir...

That ability to instantly empathize and decide a course of action based on those feelings is a little scary, really. Because she knows the story, this girl she’s never met sends a hook through her heart, and suddenly she’s in the military.

Her gift of perception is what makes her so fun when she’s around other characters, but combined with her smarts and impulsiveness... she’s good at finding just enough rope to hang herself with.

...Yeah, meanwhile there’s you.

...

Fine, let’s be real, it’s both of you.

These two are so innocent that it physically pains me.

There is some humor in Ymir resorting to blatant lies to cover up having *~feelings~* in a conversation largely about being true to yourself (Ymir and Historia are both human disasters whose emotional maturity lingers somewhere around toddler level), especially when it’s in response to the person lying about her entire identity posing an honest question, but mainly, oh no.

Like.

No.

Ymir and Kristoria are having this dramatic conversation in the middle of a blizzard while some guy dies at their feet. They are working the tension like it’s going out of style, and they aren’t going to stop anytime soon.

They’re reaching Batman levels of extra angst.

...Holy crap, Historia’s Batman.

No no no, listen, see, she’s got the blue blood, and she’s got the piles of influence, she has the tortured dark loneliness, she watches her parents die in front of her (admittedly, one has help), AND SHE ADOPTS SCORES OF ORPHANS. HISTORIA REISS IS THE ONE TRUE BATMAN FIGHT ME.

But then Kristoria swoops in, mid-suicide attempt, and goes all angelic shiny eyes, because oh my gosh, friend??!!

She is the epitome of a kicked puppy, and it is adorable.

Unbelievably tragic, but. That is a puppy expression. Over friendship.

While Ymir tries to pretend she’s too cool to want any of that.

When she’s just as bad.

She’s not the one dragging someone’s body through the snow out of a warped sense of self-hatred and heroism only to go all doki doki over the possibility of someone wanting her as a friend, oh no.

She just joins the military because she hears a story about some girl and she can relate.

I know the episode isn’t there yet, and since we’ve been graciously spared a flashback start, it might be hard to remember. But for the sake of perspective:

Ymir is standing on top of a collapsing tower surrounded by titans entirely because she’s so desperate for human connection that she ran off looking for some girl whose first name she didn’t even know because she thought they had something in common.

THIS IS THE PERSON WHO HAS THE NERVE TO PLAY TSUNDERE ABOUT WANTING FRIENDS.

TO REVIEW.

THIS IS WHAT COMES OUT OF HER MOUTH

LITERALLY ONE MINUTE AFTER SHE SAYS THIS

“HI I’M YMIR AND I WEAR METAPHORICAL REINCARNATION BETTER THAN YOU, SEE HOW PRETTY MY BLACK AND BLUE DRESS IS NEXT TO YOUR SILLY WHITE AND GOLD ONE.”

This is a very mature conversation between two people who have been through too much and come out incredibly damaged.

It’s also two teenagers yelling at each other in the middle of a blizzard.

For instance, this is a tragic statement about Kristoria’s emotional trauma.

It also sounds vaguely like Ymir is encouraging murder.

It might not sound funny now, but give it time. Around the arc that ends with Historia killing her father, this becomes utterly hilarious.

And this... this will always hit hard.

Kristoria’s my favorite character, and that’s been the case since I first saw her. This is the arc that gives substance to that fondness, and this moment in particular is one of the most brutally cool parts of Kristoria.

She isn’t just trying to kill herself. She joins the military. She conducts herself admirably. She’s a good enough soldier to earn a spot in the top ten, even if that should more correctly be the top eleven.

Yeah, she doesn’t care about herself. Her care for others is also debatable.

But she isn’t just stumbling her way towards the quickest end. She keeps her head up and finds a way to die that looks appropriate from every angle, and marches toward it. If she had died here, even though that’s exactly her plan, and staying alive isn’t something she’s trying too hard at, she would have died on her feet, still stubbornly clinging to the heroic ideal she wants to decorate herself with.

Krista might be a fake hero, but Kristoria goes the extra mile even when she’s completely out of heart to give.

That unholy stubbornness is headed the exact wrong direction here, but it is such a cool character trait.

Ymir and Kristoria’s relationship is really just this long debate over which one of them is better at winning arguments.

I also appreciate that Ymir’s winning argument, in this case, involves throwing people off cliffs.

Sure, she’s right.

But even without titan powers I can totally see her suggesting throwing someone off a cliff as a valid way to keep them alive if it meant finding a way to prove Kristoria wrong in this scene.

She starts out wanting Kristoria to leave Daz behind. Then it turns into a philosophical showdown, and suddenly, nope, there is a way for all of us to live, guess what Krista, YOU ARE WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING FOREVER.

(Love yourself.)

...Whatever the anime does wrong, now and in the future, I don’t think I will ever be able to deny the extreme gratitude I feel towards whoever lovingly detailed Ymir picking up a kicking Kristoria and throwing her down a hill and into a tree.

Best love interests ever.

You three still aren’t supposed to be here, but I begrudgingly appreciate that even when Eren finds Krista creepy, he’s the kind of righteous dude who will do whatever he can for his crew, and of course Mikasa and Armin won’t ever let him do it alone.

Fine, I like the filler this episode.

“Hello, we are also here, and have absolutely no ulterior motive to making sure that Krista is still breathing. Look at how helpful and great we are.”

“We’re just good people who love our friends and need more screentime.”

For a good time, count how many times Krista is mentioned by name compared to Daz and Ymir.

You know, I feel like the full context of what happens here deserves more words.

Ymir literally jumps off a cliff to win an argument with her girlfriend, leaving said girlfriend smacked against a tree and under a pile of snow in the middle of a blizzard, all with the full expectation that Kristoria is going to be just dandy.

AND SHE’S RIGHT.

Kristoria gets a front row seat to two people she sort of wants alive diving off a cliff, and then gets to wander through the wilderness in the dead of night, blizzard raging, entirely by herself.

Just like Ymir knew she would.

...

Just because it’s a terrible plan doesn’t mean I can’t find her faith heartwarming, shut up.

I feel like this screencap accurately captures the Ymir experience in its entirety.

...I always forget how tiny Historia is.

She is incredibly tiny.

I don’t have a comment.

I just feel something in my chest.

I think it is pain.

The whimpering noises coming from somewhere support this theory.

This level of physical affection is not in the manga version help it doesn’t even make sense for their personal bubbles to be ignored like this where they’re at right now it’s just done to make a smooth transition cut so how dare you make me feel things.

Stop.

Look, see, we have a perfectly good thing here where even the idea of living under her real name makes Kristoria gasp fearfully, and that is a slice of tension that I should be able to dig my teeth into and enjoy,

BUT INSTEAD WE’RE HERE, DOING THIS!

My heart is on the floor yet somehow still doing things to me and I have complaints.

Oh good, this is better.

...Does Ymir just. enjoy jumping off high places?

This is also some epic music to get the party started.

LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR

Speaking critically for a moment, as much as I dig the music once we’re back from the Information for Public Disclosure, I’m really disappointed in the blocking for Ymir’s initial attack on the titans.

It lasts about ten seconds, so wow get over it, but they go with more long shots than swift cuts for those ten seconds. Considering her fighting style, it feels like the wrong call. It’s impressive to watch how swiftly she’s moving from titan to titan, but some of the brutal strength of the violence is missing. Chomp, nom, move on. There are a few good shots mixed in, but the flow of the scene feels like it could have been way more intense if they’d kept close to Ymir.

Loving that music, though.

Pictured: Kristoria nearly falling from her death because she hasn’t moved a single inch since trying to reach out and stop Ymir from jumping off yet another high surface.

So. Cause of death?

Could not stop staring at Ymir.

Okay.

...I’ve been good. Very good, arguably. If Studio WIT wants to take a few liberties with micro expressions, that’s their call, and they even made one really unfair thing out of it, so I shouldn’t complain too loudly.

...

Yeah, fuck it.

SHE DOES NOT SMILE IN THIS PANEL OF THE MANGA. VERY MUCH THE OPPOSITE, AND THAT WAS WITH SIGNIFICANT LESS DAMAGE TO HER LEG.

YOU ALSO FAILED TO DEPICT CONNIE’S PANICKED STILL OF REACHING OUT WITH BOTH ARMS TO TRY AND CATCH HER. IT IS PRECIOUS AND ADORABLE AND YOU ARE DEAD TO ME.

Bertolt’s “wtf” expression is a gem, though.

This is Kristoria’s most vivid recollection of three years of friendship with Ymir.

Bless these two.

Only two people on island with knowledge of history past a hundred years ago shocked when the person named Ymir has a link to Titans.

Bertolt really does have magnificent background expressions.

I. feel personally victimized by this episode.

What always gets me about this section of Utgard is how disturbed Kristoria starts out by... all of this. It’s all scary stuff, everyone up safe on the tower is talking about how suspicious everything is, and Kristoria’s a bit of an anxious mess to begin with when it comes to life.

You can see so easily how someone who’s never had a reason to trust anybody could have trouble trusting the motives of a secret like this, and the environment is just waiting to tighten its hold on all of her insecurities.

But Ymir is still Ymir.

Even before the pieces fully snap together, and Kristoria starts breaking out of her anxious shell, she can’t watch Ymir in danger and not worry. She can’t turn off caring for her friend.

And then we just. just.

Oh help they added a montage.

This should not be allowed at all what even why are you doing this.

Butting heads and marriage proposals. And awkward drinking experiences.

That’s what Kristoria holds dear to her heart when she thinks of Ymir.

I’m fine. Fine fine fine. Fine.

Help me I love this episode.

I do not have words. They are not found. This world was not meant to waste moments talking about scenes like this when they’re there to be enjoyed. There is no greater high than Kristoria shouting off encouragement about property destruction and generally showing her deep, abiding love for Ymir by calling her an irredeemable jackass while she nobly tries to save them all at her expense.

Then WIT goes ahead and brings me back to earth when it decides to cut my favorite smile altogether. While I’m grateful for the return of my ability to make words instead of distressed noises, why. You gave the filler its dear sweet time to do whatever it felt like, and now we’re left without an animated form of the bestest smile ever.

Minus bazillion points.

Oh wait.

Waaait.

You. can’t just.

Ow?

Ahaha oh, but this is entirely the anime’s fault and ow. That... that slow hesitance of her feet before they just start going. Ymir’s being torn to shreds, and there are titans everywhere, but running to her side is such a basic instinct for Kristoria that she just... goes.

The manga captures that sense too, but the boots. That tiny little delay before she bolts.

How are you allowed.

Oh yeah, and here we have Ymir’s eyes opening. Entirely because Kristoria’s calling out to her. That’s good. That’s okay. Yeah.

If I didn’t have things to complain about like WIT turning Kristoria’s kindly request that a titan wait on eating her into the anime version of thought bubbles (WHICH SHE SHOULD NOT HAVE YET), I don’t know what I’d do.

Mikasa’s auditions for the role of Kristoria’s personal white knight just make me really happy.

Smiling Erens would, except.

Well.

Sorry about your life, kid.

....Yours too, but, uh.

Um.

...oh wow.

This can’t be how they’re supposed to spend their budget. but. This is so amazingly beautiful. The lighting is so, so soft, and Historia’s voice when she tells Ymir’s her name is one of the most gentle utterances you will ever hear on this show.

You have this episode full of teenagers yelling and being scared and making poor decisions, and so much pain, and so much violence and passion. Then the morning sun rises, and all that’s left is this tender moment between two people who love each other.

And Ymir, battered and bloody, smiling at the sound of Historia’s name.

More care than I’d dared to hope for goes into the final scene, and... yeah, wow. Thanks for existing.

So.

That’s it.

Episode over.

On the whole, I like the manga version better thanks to a few tiny details that don’t matter to anyone but me, but this is... extraordinary, and I am so glad that they were willing to take their time and let it flourish into everything it’s meant to be. Damn.

I can’t see myself doing one of these again, but it definitely had its moments (this episode hurts me), and I hope some enjoyment can be had from the transcript. Thanks for following along.

#Shingeki no Kyojin #yumikuri #Historia Reiss #Ymir #Season 2 #screencaps #tl;dr

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shockcity · 7 years

Text

Bagginshield #14 - in a fairytale

Rating: M Summary: for the 30 Day OTP Challenge. Detective Inspector Durin has been trying to put Smaug behind bars for years, but something almost…supernatural keeps getting in the way. Bilbo Baggins has been running since he was a kid, but no matter where he goes he can’t escape his curse. Maybe they can help each other. Alternate Universe - Modern Setting/Magical Realism. Part I

Also on ao3

Note: So this is one of those urban magical realism fics. Bilbo is a magical busker and Thorin is a hard boiled detective who’s gonna find out magic is real and then try to arrest it!!!! Amazing!!

There’s elements of Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, King Arthur, Rumpelstiltskin (and like so many more, holy shit) in this story. It’s basically an extravaganza of fairytale tropes. It was also really fun to write my dudes, so I hope it’s fun to read! ♡

A nervous sweat ran down the side of his face as he watched Smaug idly tap his fingers on the metal table. He wasn’t even listening to their questions, and he certainly wasn’t falling for Ori’s innocent act or Dwalin’s (usually effective) bad cop routine. All the bastard did was give the two detectives a slimy smirk, and remain stubbornly and infuriatingly silent.

“…fact that you were found in the back of the club, Mr. Smaug, and no one can say where you were at the time of the murder…” Ori was saying, keeping his voice carefully neutral.

The door to the interrogation room burst open.

“My client has nothing to say to you,” Thranduil announced, looking as haughty as ever. “And seeing as you’re not charging him with anything, I think we’ll be leaving now.”

Thorin cursed viciously. “Thorin!” Balin called out, but he was already tearing out of the surveillance room and barging through the door.

“You want to explain the blood we found all over him when we brought him in, Oropher?” he growled, ignoring Dwalin’s warning glance. “Or how about the fucking head we found in the car boot – ”

“Which you found without my client’s permission to search!” Thranduil snapped.

“And really, Thorin, it’s time to let the severed head go,” Smaug said, looking from his lawyer to Thorin, and then leaning back and crossing one leg over the other – like he owned the place. “I haven’t the faintest idea how it got there, nor whom it belonged to. Perhaps I never will…one of life’s mysteries, I suppose.”

Smaug was laughing at him, and Thorin was having to count to ten in his head. Calm, he thought, remain calm.

Thranduil scoffed. “What’s not a mystery is the gross injustice the Met continues to inflict upon my client. In fact, we’ve decided to file a harassment suit – ”

“Now, Mr. Oropher,” Balin objected, standing behind Thorin with a grim expression on his face. “We’re just trying to do our jobs. Someone has died – ”

“I can’t see how it concerns me,” Smaug said flippantly. “I can’t be blamed for every murder that comes across your desk, Chief Inspector, which is something your Detective doesn’t seem to understand. But then again, loss makes us do the craziest things….”

Fuck it.

Thorin threw himself at Smaug and in one fell swoop he ruined their investigation, gave Thranduil ample evidence for his lawsuit, and demoted himself back to sergeant. Balin later said he was lucky he wasn’t fired.

“Take this time to reconsider things,” Balin told him. His old friend may have given him a cup of tea and a sympathetic shoulder, but he was still Thorin’s boss, and Thorin’s behavior had been a problem for a while now. “Work the beat for a couple of months. Try and remember why you wanted to be a cop in the first place.”

Thorin licked his lips, gazing down at his now cold tea. “I know why,” he said, after a moment of silence.

He looked up and met Balin’s eyes. “I wanted to get scum like Smaug off the streets. And I can’t. I can’t, Balin. Something is wrong here. There’s evidence just disappearing…no one ever sees anything…and let’s not forget that his fingerprints were on the murder weapon! He killed one of our own for god’s sake!”

“Thorin….”

“He killed my father.” He was breathing hard; desperately trying to hold back the angry tears collecting at the corner of his eyes. “He killed him. And no one will help me prove it.”

“Roads go ever ever on, over rock and under tree, by caves where never sun has shone, by streams that never find the sea…."

He plucked the often played melody and sang the next verse with a passion. This was his favorite song, after all, and his very last one of the day. He’d made nearly fifteen pound off it once.

"Over snow by winter sown, and through the merry flowers of June, over grass and over stone, and under mountains in the moon….”

Bilbo glanced up at the crowd as he sang, checking for yawns or frowns, but all he saw was smiling tourists and a few rambunctious children running about. It was a cold day in Trafalgar Square, and it looked as though it was about to get even colder and wetter. He watched the dark clouds swirl ominously for a moment, before he turned his gaze back to his audience. It was then that he saw the eyes.

Stunned, he messed up the next chord and quickly forgot his lyrics. He gaped for a moment, fear rising and threatening to paralyze him, but somehow he managed to press on – this time with more urgency.

“Under cloud and under star, yet feet that wandering have gone, turn at last to home afar.”

Obediently, one by one, the crowd began to leave. They floated away as if in a dream; forgetting the music, and forgetting Bilbo.

All but one.

“Eyes that fire and sword have seen, and horror in the halls of stone,” he sang desperately. “Look at last on meadows green, and trees and hills they long have known.” 1

Everyone was looking away now, paying Bilbo no mind as the music focused their attention elsewhere. But still those eyes were watching, and he nearly tripped over the last verse as he hurriedly added:

Think you’ll find me no you won’t! Now you see me, now you don’t.

And then he disappeared.

The huntsman looked around for him frantically, pushing through the oblivious crowd, but Bilbo had already gathered up his guitar and money-filled cap and was sprinting out of the square. The nearest tube station was Charing Cross, and he would make it if he ran like the dickens, but when he looked back he saw that the huntsman had caught on and was heading in Bilbo’s direction with frankly supernatural speed.

Goblin.

Bilbo panted as he reached the stairwell and hopped down the steps two at a time. He heard a sudden shout as his pursuer violently shoved bystanders out of the way, but he didn’t dare stop to help. He crashed into the ticket gates and hurriedly reached into his pocket for his Oyster card. Then he realized what he was doing and jumped over it, cursing himself all the while.

Down the tunnel he ran, breathing hard and then gasping with relief when he saw the crowds waiting for the train. He slipped in among them, glancing at the clock and then behind him. He saw the huntsman walking slowly down the platform, peering at people closely. Bilbo tried to catch his breath, staying quiet and still between a man in a suit and an old woman holding her shopping. He kept his head down.

Then a whisper:

So sworn does the oathkeeper, forever pursue the oathbreaker. Show me. 2

Bilbo gasped as his spell broke and the man beside him startled at his sudden appearance. Now visible, the huntsman had no problem spotting him, and he lunged for Bilbo without concern for the people around him. The old woman fell to the ground as Bilbo was tackled, the momentum pushing them both toward the edge of the platform.

“Oi! Break it up, there!”

Bilbo scrabbled at his attacker’s clawing hands, trying to buck the man off of him. He straddled Bilbo and lifted his head up by his clothes, before slamming Bilbo’s skull into the ground forcefully. His vision blurred for a moment.

“Hey, stop!” someone yelled, moving to grab at the huntsman, but he paid the hands no mind and instead drew his fist back for a punch. Bilbo’s eyes widened. He knew that that punch could kill him. If the goblin used his full strength….

No, he thought, gathering his power. He squeezed his eyes shut and quickly murmured,

Goodbye, goodbye I’ve had enough, Shifting, lifting, off and up!

The huntsman flew straight up into the air, hovered for a moment – and then dropped like a stone. Bilbo rolled away and the man hit the edge of the platform, before flipping onto the tracks with sickening crunch. Then Bilbo heard the train.

He pulled back from the edge just in time, saving himself from decapitation, and gazed in shock at where the huntsman had once been. For a moment he heard nothing, saw nothing – the shock was too great. Then he was suddenly forced onto his belly, and the world abruptly came back into focus.

People were screaming, some were pointing accusingly at Bilbo. “He pushed him! I saw it!”

The one time I wish they’d seen, he groaned internally, but he didn’t have time to sulk. Someone was digging their knee into his back and twisting his arms behind him. Ah. He was being arrested. Bother, Bilbo thought, and sighed as he was dragged away.

“Name?”

“….Underhill. Bill Underhill.”

“Okay, Mr. Underhill,” said Thorin, not believing him for a second. “Date of birth?”

“September 22nd, 1989.”

“Right,” he muttered, bored of this already. “Address?”

The man said nothing. Thorin raised his eyebrows pointedly.

“Well,” he mumbled, fidgeting. “I haven’t…got one.”

Thorin took him in properly then, for a moment setting aside the ‘suspected murderer’ part of his first impression. The man looked a bit ragged, true, though he was loads cleaner than the other drifters Thorin had met on the beat.

His hair was full of riotous auburn curls, which were covered by a maroon knit cap that had seen better days. His mustard yellow cardigan and white shirt seemed clean enough, but his blue jeans and boots were rather well-worn. He was short and a little bit plumper than most homeless people, and his dark blue eyes were bright and clear (so no drugs then).

His little nose was turned up, and he bit at his chapped lips nervously while Thorin rudely stared. He was quite lovely, really…which sort of just made the incident even more suspicious.

“You don’t look hard up,” he pointed out, gazing into Bilbo’s eyes and giving him the 'I will find out what you’ve done eventually, so make it easier on yourself and start talking’ look.

“Well, um, I’m more of an…adventurer, of sorts.”

Thorin made face. “You what?”

The man struggled to find words for what he meant, and Thorin checked his eyes again but really didn’t think there was drugs involved. Strange.

“What I mean is, I’m a bit like a nomad. I, um, don’t like being in one place for too long.” He shrugged one shoulder and smiled nervously.

“Right.” Thorin rolled his eyes.

Sensing his disdain (smart lad), he raised his chin defensively.

“Not all who wander are lost,” he said.

Thorin scowled. “What are you some modern day hippie?”

“What? No…” he muttered, frowning. “It’s meant to be philosophical.”

Thorin gave him a look and shook his head, before doggedly moving on. The station bustled around him, and occasionally the man would rattle his cuffs as he answered Thorin’s questions (though for all his chattiness he never said much of anything). Thorin finally finished the standard paperwork and focused all of his attention on Bilbo with a sigh.

“Right. What was all that, then?”

The man blinked. “You mean…at the station?”

Thorin didn’t have to say anything, his expression was answer enough.

“Oh, ok, that’s a yes then,” he mumbled, picking at his cardigan. Then he took a breath. “What happened was…I was waiting for the train, and, um, this man, he, um – for some reason he thought, well, uh, I don’t know what he thought. But he attacked me! It was like he just went mad. Um. I didn’t push him in front of the train, I swear! He just sort of…fell…that…way? Um.”

Everything in him said that this man was not a murderer. He wasn’t sure what exactly the man was, but a killer? He’d be very surprised.

Thorin was tired of this case already. He wished he had been looking when the victim had been pushed; wished he’d witnessed the murder (or possible accident) so that talking extensively with this woeful creature wouldn’t be necessary.

“I’ve got four witnesses that say you pushed him.”

“I didn’t!” the man denied loudly. “Please, you’ve got to believe me! I didn’t push him. He just fell over the side. It must have been some sort of freak accident.”

Thorin stared at him a moment more and then set his report aside. He scrubbed a hand over his face.

“Alright,” he said, getting to his feet and taking the man with him. "Let’s go.”

“Can I leave then?” the man asked hopefully.

Instead of answering Thorin took him over to the custody sergeant. “Aww, who’s this then?” said Bofur, smiling at their detainee.

“One for the suite, Bof.”

He followed Bofur into custody as Mr. Underhill suddenly seemed to realize he was in loads of trouble.

“Oh, but I can’t stay!” he protested, as if they’d asked him to stay for dinner. “Please! I have to leave!”

Bofur tsked. “Sorry, mate,” he said as he lead him into the cell. He slid it shut and glanced at Thorin. “What’s he in for?”

Thorin rubbed his temples. “Murder.”

“I didn’t kill anyone! Okay, well…not really,” the man denied, distractedly following Bofur’s directions to put his hands out to be uncuffed. “But you don’t understand! I can’t stay here! They’ll find me. They’ll find me and kill me and then they’ll kill you too. Please, you have to let me out!”

“Cute but bonkers,” Bofur said, shaking his head mournfully. He and Thorin made their way out of custody and left the cell behind.

“Please come back! I can’t stay here! Please!” the man begged, but soon there was no one there to hear him.

Thorin rolled his neck, using one hand to massage his aching shoulders. It was just past eleven, and he and a few unlucky newbies were the only people on duty. He blew out a long breath and looked down at his paperwork despondently.

“Work the beat, he says,” Thorin muttered under his breath, reluctantly taking up his pen again. “Remember your past, blah blah blah….”

There was a sudden loud crash.

Thorin’s head popped up, and he looked around for the source of the noise. Nothing. And nobody had reacted to the sound at all. He couldn’t be that tired, could he?

Thump.

No, that was definitely real. He got to his feet. “Ori,” he said. “You hear that?”

Ori didn’t even look away from his computer. “Yeah, sorry,” he mumbled. “That chinese I had for lunch was a bit suspect.”

“No, I meant – ”

Bang! Thwap!

“That!” Thorin shouted. He pointed in the direction it came from. “You take the front! I’ll check the back.”

He grabbed his seldom used gun and ran off before Ori could respond, creeping down the hallway and listening intently. Thorin stopped when he saw a pile of broken glass, and looked up to where the small, barred window pane had shattered, letting in the rainwater. Bewildered, Thorin moved into the next hall, gun first, eyes swinging from side to side. That’s when he noticed it; the door that lead to the custody suites was wide open.

Clang! A roar, loud and long and completely hair-raising, echoed down the hall.

Thorin burst into the room, pointing his gun toward the noise, and saw just about the largest man he’d ever seen lurking in front of the cells.

“Christ,” he breathed, before shaking off his shock. “On your knees!” he yelled. “Hands up!”

But the large man only roared…and then charged at him. Thorin panicked, his finger somehow unable to pull the trigger, but thankfully a voice cried out before he was bowled over by the mad giant.

If you can’t be nice make like ice!

It was suddenly freezing. Thorin gasped as the giant man stopped as if put on pause, and ice – thick white chunks of it – crawled up his legs almost too fast to see.

He was frozen solid in seconds.

“Oh bother,” said a voice from inside the cell. Thorin gaped at the man in the yellow cardigan. “Of course you saw that.”

“Bit hard to miss,” he squeaked.

The man sighed. “You’d be surprised,” he said, before tapping the lock on his cell pointedly. “Bolg will have brought his pack with him. We need to go.”

Thorin blinked, looking from the frozen man to his prisoner, who was calmly peering out at him from behind the bars.

“You’re mental,” he decided, and then wondered if he was mental too. Everyone. Everyone was mental.

The man sighed again. “I’m terribly sorry,” he said to Thorin. “I hate breaking the law normally, but needs must.”

Inside outside woe is me I’ve done no wrong now set me free!

“Pardon?” Thorin asked, but was shocked into silence when the bars to the cell slid open. The man stepped out and hurriedly made his way over, and Thorin didn’t even think to point his gun at him he was so flummoxed.

The man peered up at him for a second, a bit concerned. “Are you alright?” he inquired, but when Thorin said nothing he huffed and shook his head. “Never mind. Of course you’re not. We need to go. Do you know where my guitar is?”

“I….y-yes?” he stuttered.

He grabbed Thorin’s hand and moved quickly out of the holding cell. “Where to, then?” he asked.

But Thorin had regained his senses. Once he was away from the giant frozen man things seemed much clearer. Go figure.

“Wait, no,” he said, waving a hand sternly. “We’re not going anywhere. You – you are going to tell me what is happening. Like what – what…that was, and how…how.”

“We haven’t the time!” the man insisted. “We have to go – ”

Crash! Thud! Another roar, but this time when one ended, another began. There were multiple attackers now.

“Ok, we really have to go,” the man groaned. He grabbed Thorin’s arm in a surprisingly strong grip and tugged him down the hall. “First my guitar, though!”

Thorin muttered a few refusals at first but obediently stopped them when they passed booking. At the man’s prodding he swung the door open, and there the guitar sat beside Bofur’s empty desk chair, unharmed.

The man snatched it up as growls (growls!) echoed through the station, rumbling like thunder and causing all of Thorin’s hairs to stand up. They hurried out of the room and down the hall, making their way to the exit. They had to cross the bullpen to get out, and Thorin couldn’t help but pause as he saw an oblivious Ori still toiling away at his desk.

“What is he – ?”

“No time!”

He heard the growl again and saw a figure standing across the room, its eyes glowing red and fixed upon them. Ori didn’t even look up.

“Why can’t he see – ?”

“Go! Now!”

The man lunged toward them, crashing into one of the desks as they raced out of the doors and into the soaked street, taking off at full speed in no direction in particular. As they ran, Thorin saw his companion click open his guitar case and fumble with the straps on his instrument.

“Are you mad?!” Thorin shouted, but there was no time for explanations. The man in the yellow cardigan grabbed his hand and lead him to an empty side street before stopping entirely.

“This is not good,” Thorin found himself babbling. “Strategically, this is complete bollocks. Oh god, what are you doing now?!”

The man dropped his guitar case onto the ground, fixing the instrument around his shoulders. He held a pick in his teeth as he adjusted his cap, then took it out of his mouth and started to play.

It was then that the growls caught up with them. Thorin gaped as three hulking figures skulked down the alleyway, sounding absurdly enough like a pack of wolves. His heart beat out of control as they prowled closer, and then it nearly beat out of his chest entirely as he caught a glimpse of their faces under the streetlight. They were growing…fur?

“Wh–what, why…dogs?”

The man shook his head grimly. “Wargs,” he corrected, as if that made any sense at all. “Get behind me.”

Thorin blindly obeyed. He had no clue what was happening. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know.

The music got a bit louder, and the intricate fingering began to slow. Then suddenly, the man took a breath and started to sing:

“Down the swift dark stream you go Back to lands you once did know! Leave the halls and caverns deep, Leave the northern mountains steep, Where the forest wide and dim Stoops in shadow grey and grim!"

Thorin watched as the three men halted slowly, as if frightened of coming closer.

"Float beyond the world of trees Out into the whispering breeze, Past the rushes, past the reeds, Past the marsh’s waving weeds, Through the mist that riseth white Up from mere and pool at night!”

There was something strange happening, something…unnatural. Thorin looked down at the surface drains, gaping when he saw the water bubbling up far too quickly. The big men seemed to notice it too, and they growled and began to sprint forward. Thorin raised his gun.

“Down the swift dark stream you go!”

The water now spilled out at an impossible rate – rushing around his feet. It was moving by some invisible hand away from Thorin and toward their attackers in a roaring black wave. The music suddenly peaked, and the man in the yellow cardigan shouted rather than sang:

“Back to lands you once did know!” 3

The sky thundered as the wall of water loomed above them. It came from nowhere, everywhere, somewhere – and crashed into the pack of men. For a moment Thorin could see nothing, but as the flood gradually dissipated, Thorin stared open mouthed at where their attackers used to be.

“How…?” he whispered, unable to form a coherent thought.

The man hummed, looking at the mouth of the alley thoughtfully. Then he turned and peered up at Thorin, seeming quite unruffled.

“Hungry?” he asked companionably.

Thorin stared.

“….you could be a spotter, but I’m honestly not so sure. There’s something odd about you. Hmm. I don’t know. I’ll have to consult someone. Are you sure you’ve never Seen before? You’re a bit old to have only just noticed us now.”

Bilbo, and this was the real name of the man in the yellow cardigan, smiled at him in what he probably thought was a comforting manner and then licked a bit of vinegar off of his thumb.

“You should eat,” Bilbo told him. “I’m always starved after singing, especially when I’m wordsmithing, and greasy food is always the best, isn’t it?” He waved a piece of fried fish in the air. “Good for magic and hangovers.”

“Magic,” Thorin said weakly. He swallowed and looked down at his untouched food. “This can’t be real.”

Bilbo frowned at him, his eyes bright with concern. “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news…but it’s real.”

He took a steadying breath and counted down from ten, and when he reached one he managed to look at Bilbo properly. “So, what? You’re from…Narnia? Hogwarts?”

Bilbo gave him a confused look. “I’m from Dorset,” he said.

“Right.” Another deep breath. “Right.

"Look.” Bilbo put his fish down and wiped his fingers on his napkin. “I’m not the best person to explain all of this to you. I don’t even know if I can.”

Thorin glared at him. “Can’t you try?”

Bilbo scratched his forehead. “Yeah, alright, fine…uh, I guess we’ll start with what I am, and what I think you are.”

Suddenly conscious of the people around them, even in the relative anonymity of a crowded pub, Thorin leaned across the table and whispered, “you mean I’m like you?”

Bilbo leaned back a bit. “Good lord, no,” he laughed. “And you don’t have to worry about anyone overhearing us. They can’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“If they’re normal they won’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary,” he explained with a shrug. “No one really knows why. Maybe it’s because they don’t want to see. Maybe they just can’t. Only two types of people can see magic. People like me, who are magic, and people like you, who are called spotters.”

Thorin rolled the term around in his head for a moment. “Spotters?”

“Means you can spot magic,” said Bilbo, pointing a chip at him before eating it in one bite. “Sometimes even better than magicals. Spotters are dead useful.”

“Okay. Fine. Spotter.” He shook his head a little. “And what about you?”

Bilbo grinned. “I’m a minstrel! And a good one, if you couldn’t tell.”

He thought back on the frozen man, the unlocked cell, and the wall of water. “Ha,” he said, voice a bit high. “Right.”

“It was strange, actually. My mother was an apothecary, that means she was like a herbalist, you know. She could make all sorts of medicines and treat loads of diseases. She was pretty amazing. Then there was my father, who was bloomer, and they grow plants and things and that, and it was no wonder they got married, because apothecaries and bloomers are obviously well-matched, but their offspring should have taken after either of them, but instead they got me!”

Thorin blinked, trying hard to keep up.

“I was a surprise, that’s for sure. There’s not many minstrels about, only two in England, actually. There’s more of the others though, like speakeasies – they can speak any language and talk to animals! My friend Beorn is one – and tricksters, who aren’t that bad, really. Shameless opportunists, sure, but not evil or anything.”

“What about the men that were chasing us?” he cut Bilbo off. “They looked like….”

He didn’t want to say dogs. Dogs weren’t scary like that. Dogs didn’t make him feel like dinner.

“Wolves?” Bilbo provided helpfully. “They’re called Wargs, and I suppose for normals the equivalent would be werewolves.”

“Werewolves,” he repeated numbly.

Bilbo looked sympathetic. “Yeah, sorry.” He reached for his untouched pint and glanced from his glass to Thorin’s blank face. Then he slid it over to Thorin, who took it gratefully.

Bilbo went back to his chips. “We actually call Wargs and these things called goblins 'huntsmen’, because that’s all they do – they just hunt. And everyone, magic or normal, is their prey.”

Thorin drank his beer and then blew out an angry breath. “They can’t go around murdering people!” he said through gritted teeth.

Bilbo shrugged. “No one can really control them.”

“You don’t have…I don’t know, a government? Magic police?”

Bilbo stared at him a bit uncertainly, as if thinking about how much he should say.

“Detective,” he began, eventually. “I don’t think you understand. There’s only something like three hundred of us in the UK. Even less in other places. See, I’m what they call a fourth generation, because I’m the fourth generation of magicals in a family. Our kind have only been around for a few hundred years.”

“What?” Thorin shook his head. “How is that possible? Did you all fall into a vat of radioactive chemicals or something?”

Bilbo cracked a smile. “Afraid not,” he said, and then he turned serious again. “Something happened…a long time ago, that…wiped us all out, I guess. No one knows what it was. There’s no literature about it, no recorded history – nothing. We were just gone. But then one day we all started coming back – and we’re still in the process of coming back. And while we’re still so new, I’m afraid we’ve been making things up as we go along. We honestly haven’t had time to form a government or police.”

“Yes, but surely you must have some sort of interim leader?”

Bilbo shrugged. “Nope.”

He digested that for a moment, finishing off his pint and picking at his chips a bit. He saw Bilbo eye them longingly and slid the basket over, sitting back and watching the man eat.

There was no way he could pass this all off as the ramblings of a madman. For one, Bilbo seemed intelligent and sensible, if a bit eccentric. For another, Thorin had pinched the hell out of his arm and still hadn’t woken up. This was no dream, and he had definitely seen something that looked a lot like magic.

He suddenly frowned. “The huntsmen,” he said, watching as Bilbo stiffened. “Why were they hunting you?”

The man fidgeted a bit, twisting his napkin until it broken apart. “Well, there’s this calamity – ”

“Sorry, a what?”

Bilbo made an apologetic face. “Oh, right, um, a calamity,” he repeated. “They’re like the…evil overlords of all us magicals.”

Thorin raised his eyebrows. “I thought you said you didn’t have a leader.”

“They’re not our leaders, they’re our enemies,” Bilbo scoffed, before narrowing his eyes at Thorin. “They can be mutually exclusive, you know.”

Thorin agreed with a nod, waving Bilbo on.

“So, there’s this calamity, a dragon, to be exact, who thinks I stole something from him, which I did not, but will he listen to reason? No. All I know is that he got into a row with my mum one day, and then we had to leave and basically wander around so he couldn’t find us again. And then a couple months ago I came back to England, and all of the sudden I’m being hounded, no pun intended, day and night by huntsman working for Smaug!”

Thorin froze. “What did you say?” he whispered.

Bilbo scowled. “Well I’m not going to repeat everything I just said! It was a lot – ”

“No, no…Smaug. You said Smaug.”

“Yes, the dragon. Smaug. You know him?” Bilbo leaned across the table and put his hand on Thorin’s arm. His eyes were wide and worried. “Detective, do you know him? You shouldn’t know him.”

“I shouldn’t?”

Bilbo gave a wry, humorless smile. “No one should,” he said. “Can I ask how?”

Thorin stared at this man who seemed so sincerely concerned for him. “He killed my father,” he revealed in an undertone, his chest hurting. “He killed him.”

Bilbo didn’t look skeptical, or like he thought Thorin was crazy…nor did he look surprised.

“Yes,” he murmured instead. “That I can believe.”

“I’ll get you some extra blankets,” said Thorin, moving over to the cupboard and rummaging around. He handed them off to Bilbo somewhat awkwardly, watching as the man took off his boots and cardigan, yawning widely.

He looked at Thorin with one eye, his mouth turned up. “You alright?” he inquired, something mischievous flashing in his expression.

Thorin blushed. “Yes,” he said. “I don’t…normally have guests.”

“Well, I’m not your guest, am I?” Bilbo pointed out, laying down on Thorin’s couch and snuggling into a pillow. “I’m your new partner!”

Unamused, Thorin shook his head and turned the living room light off. “I already have a partner.”

“But I’m your magical one,” Bilbo insisted, yawning again. “And we’re going to take down Smaug together.”

In the dim light of the hallway, Thorin watched from the open door as Bilbo’s eyes grew heavier and heavier, until he gently fell fast asleep.

This had to have been the strangest day of his life.

And yet….

Something like hope was stirring in his chest. It had taken a while for him to recognize the feeling for what it was, because it had simply been too long since he’d felt anything but dark despair.

He didn’t know if he believed him – this weirdo in a yellow cardigan that had turned his whole world upside down; that had ripped apart Thorin’s carefully constructed reality and had thrown him headlong into this dangerous new world.

But he wanted to, because no matter how dangerous or crazy it all seemed…Thorin had never felt better.

Bilbo was waiting for Thorin to catch up, his keen eyes watchful as they lingered at the bus stop. Thorin finished buying their coffees and they moved on, both a bit paranoid but at least for good reason.

“You’re sure this guy can help us? You sounded hesitant about him before.”

Bilbo side-eyed him as they trotted down the street. “You picked up on that?”

Thorin smirked. “Detective, remember?”

“Right.” Bilbo took a long sip of his coffee. “I’m not…hesitant, exactly,” he said. “Gandalf is an old friend of my mother’s. He actually helped us escape Smaug when I was a child, so he’s been a good friend and ally to us.” He shook his head. “I just don’t want him to be disappointed in me, is all. I only just returned to England a few months ago, and I’ve already been causing trouble.”

Thorin raised an eyebrow. “If he knows you that well then he should already be prepared for it,” he commented idly, ignoring the dirty look Bilbo sent him. “Is he like you? Is he, uh, a musician magician?”

Bilbo snorted. “Musician magician?” he mocked in good humor, before shaking his head. “No, he’s not like me. He’s…well. He’s just…uh, Gandalf.”

“Just A Gandalf?”

“No, um.” He scratched his head. “I suppose if I had to give it a name I’d say he’s a bit like a wizard.”

Thorin raised an eyebrow. “Haven’t you ever asked him?”

“Yes,” Bilbo replied, somewhat defensively. “And he told me to mind my own business and threatened to turn me into a frog.”

Thorin’s expression was a bit alarmed. “Can he do that?”

“No idea, but I wasn’t about to try asking again. I mean who just goes around kissing frogs? Not someone I’d want to marry….”

Though Bilbo’s description of Gandalf the (supposed) wizard left much to be desired, Thorin still followed the man down High Street; trusting in Bilbo’s judge of character for reasons unknown.

Which…was honestly rather alarming, if he really thought about it. Thorin had even skived off work that morning and had hopped onto a bus to Peckham without thinking about what he was doing or just whom he was trusting. He didn’t even know Bilbo. What on earth was he doing here? Generally, even?

But there wasn’t time for an existential crisis, because they had arrived at their destination.

“Curiosities and Antiques,” he read out loud, looking up at the sign above the little shop. “The wizard lives here? You’re joking.”

“No,” Bilbo frowned, pushing the door open which set off a little bell. “Why?”

“It’s just so obvious,” he muttered. “Though at least it’s not a pub. Or a phone booth.”

His companion only rolled his eyes and waved him inside. Books and old artifacts were stacked haphazardly on the floor and sitting atop dusty shelves. Grubby furniture was piled everywhere, all gorgeously vintage, though most of it was broken. Thorin spied a collection of clocks ticking away in the corner, and a very strange looking plant that he was pretty sure was gnawing on something. Possibly gingerbread, judging by the crumbs scattered around its pot.

Bilbo marched up to the counter and looked around, moving papers and things aside. Suddenly a tiny snout emerged from underneath an ancient textbook, and Thorin startled.

“Hello, Sebastian,” Bilbo greeted the hedgehog. And…of course there was a hedgehog. Of course Bilbo was talking to it. Because why the hell not? “Is Gandalf here?”

There was a sudden crash and Bilbo and Thorin looked up at the ceiling.

“…mushrooms! Last time you ended up in a volcano!” someone was shouting.

“Now, now,” said another, calmer, voice, but the rest of what he replied was too soft to make out.

“Oh good,” Bilbo said cheerfully. He patted Sebastian on the head. “GANDALF!” he suddenly bellowed at the ceiling. “GAND–oh! Radagast!”

A very strange looking man was eyeing them from the stairwell. He looked not in the least bit sane or reliable, and Thorin really hoped this wasn’t Gandalf.

“He’ll be down in a moment,” said the man, and his head disappeared.

“Thanks, Gasty!”

Barely a minute later an old fellow in a large grey robe came clattering down the stairs, his very tall hat hitting the ceiling but somehow managing to stay on his head. He had a long silver beard, sharp blue eyes, and a big stick with some sort of stone on the end.

“What the hell,” Thorin mumbled.

“Bilbo, my boy!” Gandalf greeted, opening his arms so that Bilbo could fly into them for a hug. “It’s very good to see you. Though perhaps not under these circumstances. You’re in a spot of trouble, I see.”

Bilbo moved back, staring up at Gandalf sheepishly. “Just a bit,” he lied. “We were hoping we could hide out here for a little while. Maybe ask your advice.”

“We? Oh.” The old man peered at Thorin curiously. “Who’s this?”

“That’s Detective Inspector Durin,” Bilbo explained, waving a hand in Thorin’s direction. “He arrested me!”

“Durin, you say?”

Thorin frowned in confusion as Gandalf narrowed his eyes, his jaw working as if he were tasting the name on his tongue. “Hmm.”

Bilbo looked from Thorin to Gandalf. “He’s weird, isn’t he? I thought he was weird.”

Gandalf finally stopped examining him and smiled down at Bilbo, patting his shoulder.

“I imagine we have many things to talk about,” he said. “Come upstairs, Radagast has made tea. It might even be palatable, but who knows? Best feed it to the plants.”

They sat around a small table covered with old parchment paper, some of which seemed permanently stuck there by spilled…something. Thorin refrained from putting his hands anywhere, and instead folded them in his lap as Bilbo looked into his teacup curiously.

“Well, now,” said the old man, putting down the kettle. “What seems to be the problem?”

“Smaug,” Bilbo told him succinctly, setting his cup down with a clank. “He’s killed Thorin’s father!”

Thorin jolted, feeling strange at hearing it said aloud and with such certainty. No one had truly believed him before, and he was just now realizing that Bilbo had been the first.

Gandalf, however, looked shocked. “Thrain is dead?” he said.

And just like that, Thorin’s world was upended again. How did….?

“You knew my father?” he asked, leaning over the table to stare into Gandalf’s eyes.

The old man nodded solemnly. “I did, yes. A good man he was too.”

“How did you know him?”

Gandalf sighed a little, his expression reserved but sympathetic. “Most of our kind know of him. Or of your ancestors, I should say. Have you not heard of Durin the Deathless?”

Bilbo suddenly gasped, sitting up in his chair excitedly. “Oh!” he exclaimed, looking at Thorin. “You’re one of those Durins! That’s what I was sensing!”

He shook his head, confused. “I’m a what?”

“A Durin, or of Durin’s folk. You are a descendent of an old clan of warriors that were charged with the protection of our kind,” Gandalf explained. “Long ago a King, then called Deathless, watched over all magical peoples, while also specializing in the extermination and removal of calamities.”

“Apparently your ancestors defeated a great beast, but Durin the first died in battle,” continued Bilbo, his eyes bright. “They buried him in a secret place, hidden from all their enemies, until 'an heir so like to his Forefather that he received the name of Durin’ returned. Or at least, that’s what the legend says.” 4

“Yes, the resurrected king.” Gandalf folded his hands on the table, looking at Thorin intently. “The tale of Durin the Deathless is one of our only surviving histories, though many do not believe that it is true. Thrain sought to prove that his family’s legacy was no fairy story. The last I spoke with him, he was intent on finding the axe to serve as evidence.”

“The axe?”

“Durin’s axe,” said Bilbo. “It’s said to be lodged in stone, and only Durin’s heir can draw it out, and that the one who wields its power would then become king.”

Thorin blinked. “But that’s ridiculous.”

“Most things are,” Gandalf agreed. “But that does not mean they are not important. And this, Thorin Durin, is very important…if defeating Smaug is truly your aim.”

He sat back, mulling over Gandalf’s frankly insane tale. His father was…magical? And alright, he could accept that. But did that mean Thorin had magic? What about Dís? His little nephews? What danger would they be in, if Thorin were to pursue this?

“Smaug killed my father,” he said, thinking hard. “Why?”

“Because he’s evil,” Bilbo piped up, and then turned to Gandalf and became very serious. “He wants the axe, doesn’t he?”

Gandalf nodded. “It’s very likely. Smaug’s one desire is power; he hoards it, and will do anything to attain it. Our kind is not governed by anyone, nor have we chosen a leader. Smaug intends to take control of our people, and he’s unlikely to stop there….”

“World domination,” Bilbo extrapolated. “Very unoriginal, if you ask me.”

Thorin ran a hand down his face, a bit overwhelmed. “How can we stop him?” he asked, looking from Bilbo to Gandalf.

“You’ll have to finish what your father started,” the old man replied solemnly. “We will need to find the axe, and should you accept your birthright, you may use its power to defeat him once and for all.”

“But I don’t know where it is!” Thorin cried.

“Perhaps your father’s possessions will shed some light on the matter,” Gandalf theorized. “Do you have them still?”

Thorin calmed and nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, they’re at my family’s old house. His things haven’t been touched. We didn’t know if we were going to sell it or not….”

Gandalf smiled widely, before rising to his feet. “Splendid! Let’s go.”

“What?” Thorin frowned. “Now?”

“Of course!” The wizard grabbed up his staff and adjusted his hat. “We haven’t much time to waste, I’m afraid. Bilbo’s return to England has quite literally awoken the beast. Smaug will be looking to make his move any day now, and we must stop him before that happens.”

This all sounded very vague to Thorin, and he was smart enough to realize that the wizard was omitting quite a lot of information, but he agreed that time was running out for taking action. Something anxious and afraid was bubbling in the pit of his stomach, warning him that things were about to come to a head – and Thorin didn’t feel anywhere near ready. That would change, though, with their first step toward winning this battle, which was looking into the legacy of Thorin’s ancestors – a legacy that he’d known nothing about.

The house Thorin had grown up in was neither too big nor too small, but just right for a family of five. Thorin opened the door and let Gandalf and Bilbo in, quickly shoving a few boxes out of the way as he lead them to the kitchen.

“I don’t know where to look,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s a bit of a mess, and well…father wasn’t the most organized person.”

“I knew Thrain well enough. Perhaps you have an attic? Or a cellar?”

He frowned. “We have a cellar, yes, it’s over here.” He went to the door beside the refrigerator and opened it, and then quickly moved out of the way as Gandalf bustled past him and down the stairs – Bilbo trotting after him.

Rolling his eyes at their strangeness, Thorin entered the cellar and immediately sneezed. It was dark and dusty, and nobody (or so he thought) had been down there in years. He went to flick on the light but Bilbo waved a hand at him.

“No light!” he said. “Come see this.”

Thorin walked over and looked at what they were examining so intently. “It’s my grandfather’s puzzle box,” he explained. “We could never open it, or solve his stupid riddle.”

“Riddle?” Bilbo pressed curiously. “I like riddles! Go on, then.”

Thorin smiled a little at his enthusiasm. “Alright. A box without hinges, key, or lid, yet golden treasure inside is hid,” he recited.

But Bilbo looked disappointed. “But that’s an easy one,” he sulked. “It’s an egg.”

Well it wasn’t easy to me, he thought grumpily. “Maybe that’s the secret password,” he suggested.

“Egg?” said Bilbo. “No, see? It didn’t open. But I bet I could rustle something up.”

Gandalf hummed with approval and set the box down, waving for Bilbo to get on with it. Bilbo took a breath and said:

Eggs in a box, o’ riddle king. Unlock your locks quit riddling!

Nothing happened.

“But…but…!” Bilbo looked at them both, his mouth slack with shock. “My words always work!”

“Hmm,” said Gandalf, staring at the puzzle box thoughtfully. “Curious. Perhaps Thorin is the key – ”

“What could I do?” Thorin blurted, frowning at the old man. “I’m not magical! Cast a spell at it! Aren’t you a wizard?”

Bilbo turned and sliced a hand across his neck, mouthing 'bad idea!’ at him.

Gandalf narrowed his eyes at Thorin and straightened up to his full height. “I am Gandalf,” he intoned haughtily. “And Gandalf means – ”

A loud crash sounded from upstairs, and all of three of them froze.

“Expecting visitors?” asked Bilbo in an undertone.

Thorin kept his eyes on the entrance to the cellar. “Nope.”

Bilbo made a long-suffering noise in the back of his throat and swung his guitar around, pick at the ready. “Sorry about your house,” he said, ignoring the panicked look Thorin threw at him. “But needs must.”

Then he began to strum.

The night had grown cold.

“Gasty,” called Bilbo, clasping his hands together pleadingly. “Please let us in!”

The strange man, Radagast, opened the door a smidgen. “What’s all over your clothes?”

“Um.” Bilbo carefully did not look at Thorin. “A house?”

Radagast frowned suspiciously. “Where’s Gandalf?”

“On his way. Can we come in? Please please please?”

The door swung open and the bell went off, and he and Bilbo pushed their way inside. They immediately locked the door behind them.

“We’ll be safe here,” Bilbo said with a sigh.

Thorin didn’t reply, and instead focused on brushing the plaster off of his clothes. When he saw that Bilbo was about to say something to him, Thorin asked where the bathroom was and retreated before he could try and apologize for the mess they’d made of Thorin’s home (and his life, in general).

He turned the light on in the loo and closed the door, before leaning against it tiredly. He pressed his fingers to his eyes and took a deep breath.

Thorin wasn’t really mad at Bilbo, or Gandalf for that matter. His house would need repairs (a lot of repairs) of course, but they had escaped with their lives and unscathed to boot. Thorin had seen too many unlucky sods, dead or worse, in his line of work to be angry about the loss of material things. But that man….

“Durin,” growled the giant creature. He was pale and scarred, and his teeth were sharpened to little points. His clear eyes gazed down at Thorin with amusement. “After you get me what I want, I will kill you slowly.”

Thorin raised his gun.

“Like I did your father.”

He shot, and shot and shot and shot, but his chamber was soon empty and the man was still unmarked. It was like he didn’t bleed.

The next thing he knew, Bilbo was standing in front of him, shouting, and the giant man was thrown through the wall. They turned to run….

He wasn’t sure what happened after that. His head was too full of questions. Thorin had thought that Smaug had killed his father, but what if that wasn’t true? What if Thorin had another, unseen enemy? And someone just as dangerous as Smaug?

“Thorin,” Bilbo called through the door, knocking thrice. “Gandalf’s back.”

He inhaled again, deep as he could, and turned to wash his hands and face. Bilbo was waiting anxiously outside the loo when he emerged.

“Alright, let’s see what this box is about,” said Thorin, again cutting off Bilbo’s string of apologies.

“It looks like it’s supposed to twist open, but it’s jammed,” Radagast was saying. He was wiggling his finger into a little ridge on the side of the box.

“Hey, that wasn’t there before!” Bilbo exclaimed.

“Perhaps it was your egg spell,” Thorin joked, as sort of a peace offering.

Bilbo rolled his eyes and nudged Thorin in the side, but he looked pleased.

“Hmm.” Gandalf rubbed his chin as he inspected the box. “Did your grandfather give you more than one riddle?”

Thorin frowned. “No – wait, maybe…. It’s not much of one, but he used to say it often. ’Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks, and the setting sun with the last light of Durin’s Day will shine upon the key-hole.’ Whatever that means.”

“Hmm,” said Gandalf.

“Interesting,” Bilbo nodded.

“Ugh,” Radagast said with an eye roll. He grabbed the box and put it in the window. “Conveniently enough, it’s sunset,” he explained as if they were all exceptionally stupid.

It took a moment, but then the box began to glow.

“There!” Bilbo cried out, pointing at the hole that had suddenly appeared.

“Can we unlock it?” Thorin asked excitedly.

“We haven’t got a key!” Bilbo reminded him.

“But we do have a burglar of sorts,” Gandalf suggested, his eyes bright with amusement. They all turned to look at Bilbo.

“What? I’m not a burglar!” Bilbo protested. “I’ve never stolen a thing in my life!”

“Escape artist then,” Thorin said, dragging Bilbo over to the window. “Right. Go on. Open sesame.”

Bilbo scowled at him, but turned his attention to the box. He gazed at the key-hole thoughtfully for a moment, before saying:

Inside outside, won’t you be free? Silly box of riddles open sesame!

He sent Thorin a cheeky grin just as they all heard the lock click. Thorin reached out and lifted the lid.

“That’s…it?” said Bilbo, peering down at what was definitely a folded up map.

Thorin blinked at it before lifting it out of the box. He unfolded it carefully, for the paper was very old and delicate, and laid it out on Radagast’s messy counter.

“How strange!” Bilbo exclaimed. “None of these places exist. Gondor…Mordor? Suppose they’re ancient countries or something?”

“Or they’re just fictional,” Thorin grumbled. “This could be a bloody map of Westeros for all we know.”

Radagast tutted at them and Gandalf shoed Thorin’s hands off the map. “Your father used this map to find the ancient weapon of his ancestors. Of your ancestors.”

“But how do you know that he found it?” asked Bilbo.

“Because of this.” Gandalf held up a small white square. It was a business card. “It was also in the box. And I should say that it was not Thrain that found the axe in the end…rather Smaug did.”

The address on the card was for some warehouse in Millwall, which meant absolutely nothing to Thorin. Until he remembered.

“He owns property in Canary Wharf,” Thorin murmured. “We searched one of his warehouses once. We didn’t find anything.”

Gandalf raised his eyebrows knowingly. “That’s because you didn’t know what you were looking for,” he said.

End Part I

Go to Part II

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amorremanet · 7 years

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top 5 movies? and why? no no TOP FIVE BOOKS

oh gosh, both of these are hard and my answers for them are probably so boring (they also come with the, “this is just how I feel right now because ugh, I am the worst at picking any all-time faves for broad categories”) — but!!

top “five” movies:

The Prince of Egypt — has some of the most beautiful art that I’ve ever seen, anywhere, and music that sticks with you, and it really shows the human drama and human stakes of such a classic story in ways that a lot of adaptations of Biblical mythology are afraid to do

Deadpool — because I’m garbage, the characters are great, the script is pretty good, and the movie makes me laugh. It’s not really a deconstruction (in the way that some people make it out to be, by way of justifying why they like it), and it’s not super-intellectual, and in a lot of ways, it’s like a giant #SorryNotSorry that makes fun of superhero movie tropes while continuing to use them (and there are some subtle ways it plays with some of said tropes and twists them around, but it largely doesn’t) — but it’s fun

But I’m A Cheerleader — is far from perfect, and I maintain that it’s actually much more depressing than the ending leads us to believe (I mean, Meghan/Graham and Dolph/Clayton get together and escape from True Directions and homophobic parents, and Meghan’s Mom and Dad at least try to do better by their daughter, but things don’t work out that well for anybody else), but it’ll always have a special place in my heart because it was one of the only lesbian movies that I had access to as a little gay baby

Female Trouble — I wouldn’t say that it’s the best thing that John Waters has ever done, just the one that I personally like the best, and I’ll admit that it’s probably an acquired taste…… but I love how it takes on celebrity culture in the story Dawn Davenport, and it gave us great lines like, “The world of heterosexual is a sick and boring life” and, “I wouldn’t suck your lousy dick if I was suffocating and there was oxygen in your balls!” It also has a special place in my heart as one of my favorite, “gay AND weird” movies

—which probably makes sense, given that it was written and directed by the trash king of being gay and weird

……like, seriously. My (best friend who I call my) brother once asked me, “So is John Waters gay or is he just really weird?” and the only thing I could think of to say to that was, “Yes, both.”

the “Three Flavours Cornetto” trilogy — which is totally cheating, to put three in here, but I couldn’t pick between them. I do think that Hot Fuzz and The World’s End are more fully actualized than Shaun of the Dead, but I love all of them, and the reason is pretty much just, “Because they’re good mixes of being hilarious and making me FEEL things” (……less so in The World’s End, for several reasons; it’s a lot heavier on the feels, to the point that you sometimes feel bad for laughing at the jokes, but still)

and books:

Good Omens (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman) — This book was my introduction to both PTerry and GNeil, after I found a cheap copy in an airport bookstore when I was about twelve and immediately fell in love. It’s funny, the characters are vibrant and engaging, and it played right into my love of screwing around with Biblical mythology.

I’m periodically tempted to list different books for both of those men (with PTerry’s probably being one of the Granny Weatherwax books, or Faust Eric, and GNeil’s being either American Gods or one of his Sandman books — because yeah, he’s done other good stuff, but I’m more sentimentally attached to AG and Sandman. Also, Preludes and Nocturnes has some of the only non-movie or TV horror that has genuinely terrified me, so)

—buuuut then I never do, because Good Omens was my first book from either of them, and remains my sentimental fave, even though I admit that they’ve both written other books that are, “better” or, “stronger,” or whatever

Dry (Augusten Burroughs) — There’s a lot of fair criticism to be made of Augusten Burroughs, and he’s been one of the writers at the center of the debates about truthfulness or lack thereof in popular memoirs (like, how much an author is allowed to condense things before it stops counting as a, “real story,” and how an author remembers things happening vs. how other people remember them), but Dry nevertheless means a lot to me.

Like, I enjoyed Running with Scissors and his novel, Sellevision (which were the other Big Deals in his collected works, at the time I originally read Dry), but Dry fucked me up a LOT when I first read it. It has continued to fuck me up ever since.

There are passages in this book that I can’t even be jealous of, as another writer, because they’re so good that they skip right the fuck past, “I’m angry and jealous that I didn’t write this myself” and into, “Holy shit, THIS is why I write, the ability to do THIS KIND OF THING EXACTLY with words, I need to go write something right now”

Also, it means a lot to me for sentimental, “I read this book for the first time when I was in high school, and it made me feel less lonely and sad and scared” reasons

Dynamic Characters (Nancy Kress) — This is by no means the be-all and end-all of, “how to writer better” books, but it’s a personal favorite of mine, for two reasons: 1. there are some things that Kress doesn’t cover about creating characters and doing better by them in your writing, but she’s still pretty comprehensive and offers some solid illustrative examples, multiple perspectives on this part of writing (not as many as she could, but to be fair, she only has so many pages to work with), and a good mix of “tough love” advice and gentler, more reassuring advice;

and 2. …it was the first, “how to writer better” book that I ever got my hands on. I picked it out specifically because I’d posted a completely ridiculous crack fic that was a crossover between Harry Potter and Sailor Moon, with a first-person protagonist narrator who was a hot nonsense self-insert power fantasy Mary Sue with no flaws and no nuance because, hey, I was 11.

And someone actually commented to go, “Hey, look, you have talent, but you could do better and one place to start is maybe with learning to build better realized characters” — so I picked out the Nancy Kress book and it seems like a really silly thing to call a turning point? But it was big a turning point for me

Death, Disability, and the Superhero: The Silver Age and Beyond (José Alaniz) — okay, time for me to be a loser and cite an academic book. I’m also probably a cheating loser, since I just read this book for the first time recently…… but with that said? I’ve read a LOT of critical treatments of the superhero genre, some pretty good, others pretty bad (for example, I remain Perpetually Tired of Slavoj Žižek’s heavy metal Communist, Bane in Leather Pants bullshit reading of The Dark Knight Returns), and most of it somewhere in the middle

—but there’s this trend among people who write critically about superhero junk, whether they’re academics of not, wherein we act like we have to act like superhero comics are The Most Progressive Ever and oversell their sociopolitical impact in order to make them look like ~*True Art*~ That Must Be Taken Seriously (—and like, I’m not saying that they have NO impact on people at all, because that’s objectively false. But you also can’t try to claim that Superman, Wonder Woman, and Captain America comics are why the Allies won World War II)

(this is a pointless aside to note that I deliberately left the Goddamn Batman off that list, because while Supes, Diana, and Steve were all off punching Nazis, Golden Age Bruce and white boy!Dick were running around on the home-front, rounding up Japanese Americans and putting them in internment camps. So… y’know. There’s that.)

……or we have to take legitimate criticisms of problems in the superhero genre, both historical and current, and use them to go, “Therefore, the entire genre is pointless garbage that has no redeeming qualities at all and could never ever EVER be used to tell any stories that are worth telling, and frankly, you are all terrible, horrible people for enjoying it, how very dare you enjoy that X-Men movie or that Red Hood And The Outlaws comic, you’re basically a fascist now”

—which is hilarious, to me, because the people who write that sort of criticism almost always cite Fredric Wertham’s book, The Seduction of the Innocent (aka: the book that led to so much moral outrage over the allegedly very gay and fascistic, child-corrupting content of comicbooks that the Comics Code Authority was created), and they always go, “Well, obviously Wertham was OTT and totally full of shit, buuuut…… *argument that would not have been out of place in his book*”

So, one of the big reasons I loved Professor Alaniz’s book is that is does neither of these things. It offers some incisive, and occasionally kinda damning, critique of the superhero genre and its handling of disability and mortality, but he does so from a place of love and enjoyment, and never pretends to hate the genre, nor argues for throwing the whole thing out because it has problems.

Like, his underlying mindset is very much, “Yes, the superhero genre has a LOT of problems, but people could, in theory, fix them and try to get closer to realizing the full potential of what these characters and stories can do” — while never skimping on a detailed analysis of the trends and case studies that he presents.

Sometimes, I think he’s kinda reaching (and I, personally, never want to hear anything about Doctor Doom’s Oedipus complex ever again so long as I live, though it was validating to hear that my theatre kids AU version of him — who is a ridiculous mess, obsessed with taking selfies, and perpetually acting like he totally gets everything while missing some crucial detail, which is how he ends up thinking that Loki is dating Tony Stank [a suggestion that makes both of them want to puke] — is actually a valid interpretation of his character, based on some parts of canon)

Overall, though, my biggest problem with Professor Alaniz’s book is that he can be kind of a hipster and it can get a little bit annoying. Not enough to ruin the whole book, but enough that it does stand out.

Like, his chapter on Daredevil specifically analyzes an infamous Silver Age story that basically everyone hated — the one where Matt Murdock tells Karen and Foggy that he isn’t the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, but he has some heretofore unknown identical twin brother named Mike, who is not blind but *IS* actually that aforementioned costumed hero, and carries on a charade of pretending to be his nonexistent twin brother — and okay, we get some pretty neat discussion of how passing can work or might not with disabled people

…but you can still walk away feeling like his biggest reason for analyzing that story arc was less about its value to any part of his discussion, and more about going, “Other Daredevil stories are too mainstream, I care most about this one that was so infamously ridiculous that people have said even soap operas wouldn’t have done this plot”

Likewise, I’m not saying that there aren’t very fair criticisms to be made of the X-Men and how their stories handle disability in particular… but at some points in his chapter on the Silver Age Doom Patrol comics, Professor Alaniz seems to be less, “using the pre-Claremont Silver Age X-Men stories as an illustrative foil to the Doom Patrol, especially with regard to how Charles’s paraplegia is treated vs. how The Chief’s paraplegia is treated” and more, “using this discussion as a free excuse to bash on the X-Men for being popular”

To his credit, Professor Alaniz does kinda discuss some of the ways that the X-Men’s popularity might have been affected by the fact that things like their ableist handling of Charles make them feel, “safer” and, “less sociopolitically threatening” than he makes the Doom Patrol out to be (with a pretty convincing argument, actually)

He just doesn’t do it enough for me to feel like his “criticism” of the X-Men isn’t at least partially grounded in going, “Well, it’s popular, therefore it sucks” (—as opposed to my approach to them, which is, “It’s popular, and has a mixed bag of things that it does well vs. things it does that suck, but it does not suck BECAUSE it is popular”)

Anyway, good book, and it’s written in a refreshingly accessible way (it’s still an academic book and harder to get into than, say, Good Omens, but Professor Alaniz doesn’t make a lot of the more common mistakes that leave a lot of academic writing effectively incomprehensible)

and last but not least…… Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire (we all know who wrote this, okay, come on) — because I’d be lying if I didn’t include at least one HP book on this list, considering how important those books and that fandom have been to the course of my life and to my development as a writer, and it was either gonna be this one or POA, but this one won over the other because I’m garbage

#coeur gris #memes for ts #ask box tag #mine: asks #opinions for ts #top fives meme #longish post//#coeur-gris

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