#like. I know the cast was trying to make fun of teen slang not trying to make fun of AAVE

[greenteacology]

maybe it’s just me but I got weird vibes from the “teen slang” bit last night? it felt uncomfortable…Aabria even mentioned how it was all AAVE and “why did y’all wait until I was here to do this” and they still kept going with the bit…

idk I know she said it in a lighthearted/joking way but I feel like the cast could have taken a hint and like. Stopped

#cr discourse #<- not maintagging bc the fandom is allergic to criticism #idk it just made me uncomf #like. I know the cast was trying to make fun of teen slang not trying to make fun of AAVE #but like aabria said slang is basically all AAVE #so the continued mockery and imitation of it felt weird and ignorant #esp from a bunch of white people #and especially after aabria specifically said hey this is AAVE

[slowjamastan]

readmoreing about my hetalia fanfics

ok so i was having a conniption last week about how canonically there's like at least 3 hetalia countries that are twitch streamers (like BRO ,,,sexie funy manboob -core for real) and now im working on an au / fanfic / ?? where a bunch of the young and/or social media capable characters make the worlds shittiest hype house

so far the setup is that hongkong made a joke tweet aimed at provoking iceland and liechtenstein (canonically a trio of friends and painfully underutilized imo), bcz the latter two are um. liech is like 12~14 she uses the internet exclusively for playing barbie dressup games. and ice is a young teen but is canonically struggling with modern tech which i think is so great

anyway all this is to say that larger influencers like the philippines were like Our Species needs better marketing let me hook you up and make this happen and then idk there's a hashtag trending and it gets the attention of the USA who is like waow just like the netflix show ill set u up in LA like a real hype house. who are u guys again (<- doesn't know his world geography )

and hong is like ok um fuck it we ball. ill double down im not a pussy. should we stream minecraft or something. and his bestie liech is like ok! whats minecraft

im still trying to figure out how to fit in femboy streamer poland (<- literally a thing he does in canon) since he's probably almost 30 and not a fun character to write for anyway but his presence feels necessary

so ya im still working through how this comes together but im excited to plan the fan response (if any) and then the swift downfall. the bit is that everyone they get involved has little to no technology know-how or otherwise their sense of pop culture is outdated. ideally they will end up giving their kind a worse image than before and get targetted for being cringe

most of my time so far has been spent researching like...... liechtenstein political history or cantonese slang or southeast asian historical relations. such is the danger of hetalia related wiki rabbit holes. thres a lot of ground im trying to cover and i want everything to be believable enough. ive read a lot of shitty heta fics in my time and i refuse to commit common mistakes

im also obsessed w using mostly minor characters while avoiding too many major ones. hetalia has so so so so so so many canonized characters and all of them are incredibly interesting. there's a lot of dynamics that can be mined for gold. and ppl like to focus on like ... 12? 12 of them. not in my house tho i wanna talk about some real obscure guys. america gets to be there tho bcz he's my number one best boy forever

next chapter im trying to introduce molossia to the main cast because Again . Incredibly underutilized guy. my son, even

this is all im thinking about these days btw

#post

[flyingcookierambles]

sadness over a3! eng i guess

oof just on my 700th day.....

kinda sad because of the announcement about A3! ENG server shutting down soon due to financial difficulties at LIBER/CYBIRD in the past two years (covid-19 related, etc.). according to a rather in depth reddit comment that had links to LIBER's publicly available financial reports + some financial reports from LIBER's parent company, Aeria, in english, covid-19 really hit LIBER hard since they had to cancel many money making events, from pop-up shops for the typical anime merch trinkets (keychains, plushes, pins, etc.) to the huge in-person events (voice actor meetups, the stage plays of MANKAI LIVE, etc.). due to shrinking player base on the ENG server + major loss of profits on both JPN and ENG servers, LIBER had to choose one or the other and they chose the JPN one, which i totally understand since it's way bigger there and the JPN fanbase will continue to give the franchise money more often. also, another person found a financial report/estimate from the google play store or something, and A3! ENG only made ~$20K to ~$10K in the past few months, which i guess is not enough to keep a server and localization company afloat. 

i got pretty attached to the characters and it was a great game to help get by during college. and honestly, while i am very sad about this, again, i understand why LIBER did this, looking at their financial report from 2020. I would LIBER save the entire franchise rather than shut all the servers down, making us all unable to see our favorite actors ever again, even if it means that we ENG fans will have to go thru the extra steps of finding/reading fan translations, wikis, etc., to read any further stories from where A3! ENG left off. still, A3! ENG's localization was something special. i'm saying this as a TKRB JPN player who read the wiki for all the character voice lines and then had to see the official TKRB ENG localization make Yamabushi Kunihiro a rapper for some reason? lol. it was....weird.... meanwhile, all the memes and slang in A3! ENG didn't seem out of place and all fit their personalities because 3/4 of the troupes were all high school to college age and 3 of them were ~Gamers~. Out of all the gachas i've played, i feel like the only other F2P gacha game that had this incredibly smooth, all cultural jokes/puns translated in a way that still makes sense/fits the character/doesn't require a galaxy brain and some TL note to understand, is probably dragalia lost and that's only because it has frickin Nintendo localizing/publishing it globally for CyGames. Nintendo. i'll eventually read the fan translations of A3!'s Act 3 on the wiki, but it won't be the same without Kazunari's super high-energy influencer slang of "'whoa fam! that's totes 'blammable, gotta take a pic!" or Itaru's gremlin Gamer speak of "lol get rekt noobs" or Tsuzuru's tired dying breath of "that ain't it chief." the appropriate slang and relatable meme speak of the localization really helped humanize these characters as people of their respective ages, rather than just a typical formal speak or some directly translated JPN slang -> ENG that turns out super awkward that can be found in bad localizations.

going back to the reddit comment too, the death of A3! ENG servers could have bad repercussions in the future for other joseimuke games. josei, if you for some reason have been in the anime fandom but still don't know this term, is basically the genre of stories/video games/media/etc aimed at women. it's the mature adult counterpart to seinen, media aimed at adult men. basically shoujo/shonen = elementary/middle school/high school aimed while josei/seinen = high school/college/adult aimed if that helps. Joseimuke is a part of josei that is not specifically romance. while some josei/joseimuke can overlap with otome, aka female aimed dating sims/romance media, they have many things about them that make these all separate genres. one of the official A3! ENG translators and a known fan translator of another joseimuke gacha, Mahou Yaku/Wizard’s Promise, minami, goes more in depth with this in a twitter thread. 

A3! was an actor raising game, and a big part of it was found family and relationships that were platonic. yet it got advertised as an otome, which has more connotations with dating sims and brings to mind other shoujo/otome games and anime where the cast is all high schoolers and the setting is most often in a high school. but, other than some characters making flirty jokes or implied to have crushes on Izumi/player character, many character relationships with Izumi are platonic and not romantic at all. Spring Troupe in the game also jokingly calls themself a family. the entire Mankai Company is basically found family. plus, since the game actually has time passing in story and the characters age with each year, half of the characters aren’t even in high school anymore. a large majority of them are in college or are graduated by now, with only a few still in high school. i’m not surprised if a reason that some people left the game was due to feeling bored with the slice of life/not romantic story, feeling that they were lied to about it being an otome, which was falsely advertised since it is a game meant for the older teens/adults demographic of josei/joseimuke.

i’m worried that other japanese companies will look at this shut down as a “josei/joseimuke doesn’t work well in the west” and never localize other josei/joseimuke gacha games like Mahou Yaku, EnStars, Twisted Wonderland, Helios, etc.

while i like otome and shoujo, i, as a 23/soon to be 24 year old college graduate and now tax paying adult, want more stories that have more mature themes and characters that are more my age so i don’t have to feel awkward when i’m playing some dating sim and i, a literal 23 year old adult, and trying to woo a 16 year old. it’s...a little awkward to say the least. i would gladly welcome more mature media that is categorized as josei/joseimuke.

sorry if this is all over the place, but overall im just sad that A3! ENG is shutting down. i don’t know if i’ll join the JPN server yet. i’m def going to read the Act 3 story via fan translators on the wiki, but A3! gameplay was...boring lmao. as much as i love A3!, im sure that the constant event grind/burnout and boring rng gameplay turned people off too and i dont blame them. i felt the burnout bad since i participated in basically every event since day 1. it. is. rough. i’m not joining the hellish thunderdome that is the JPN server and im not ranking anymore as a F2P player lmao. literally had to play almost every waking free moment to get into the 30%-20% bracket as a F2P person and i never got to top 20%-10%, much less top 1% lmao. i’m don’t whale enough lol. 

i feel like i should probably just. crack open my genki 2 textbook and uhhh totally legal pdf copy of tobira. so i can just. get the JPN version of games in the first place so i don’t have to worry about getting shafted since overseas fans are often considered expendable. 

i wish that, when any games that are online end, gacha or mmo or anything, anything online, companies will let fans archive things. or like. release a book that is just the story text or something. like. CYBIRD is letting us still technically play the game and have the story and all, but what if they eventually later shut everything down? why not just release a pdf/ebook that’s just the text of the eng localization for some money? i’d buy it. for nostalgia and rereads and all and also archiving purposes. i think i’ll try to help with any english localization archive projects if i can so that the hilarious and incredible localization that was a work of love from the translation team doesn’t just disappear forever.

well.

that’s it for now. as i said, guess i’ll head to the app for one of the last times to read the last unread stories and mini stories i have left, then the wiki for Act 3, and then i guess i’ll crack open genki 2 and bunpo.....

some fun random links for you to think about!

random ffxi article that came to mind (if ffxiv ever shuts down in the next 20 years or whatever i’d be cool to get a statue of my character at the end)

and death of a game playlist by NerdSlayer Studios on Youtube that has me thinking a lot about game preservation and losing MMOs and games

the lost media wiki  and blameitonjorge’s lost media iceberg

other gacha games i’ve played that have shut down that i think about sometimes because the loss of A3! ENG isn’t my first rodeo:

terra battle & terra battle 2 (1)

AFTERL!FE

(related kitsu post link for archive reasons)

#rambles #games n junk #sad over a3! eng loss #a3!

[outoftheframework]

bruce wayne learning how to be a dad, as described by headlines found on teen parenting blogs

Y’all seemed to kinda enjoy these posts about Bruce learning new slang, so here’s more in that same vein. 

So this is a headcanon that Bruce is an avid reader of blogs that attempt to help parents in raising teenagers. But for some reason he often forgets exactly what the articles say, so sometimes his well-intentioned efforts turn out a little skewed. So here are some parenting article headlines and the situations inspired by them.

Some of the bats (Batman, Nightwing, Spoiler, and Red Robin) find themselves bested and detained by Two-Face and his goons. Harvey is currently making an impassioned speech about his grand evil plan.

Nightwing, whispering to his family: Damn, could he get anymore cliche?

Spoiler, stage whispering: Shhh! Be nice! I think he has low self-esteem. 

Harvey continues, unbothered by the kids’ squabbling.

Red Robin, not even trying to lower his voice: This is like a production of Phantom of the Opera that’s solely financed by drug money.

Two-Face suddenly cuts himself off, turning and slowly stalking toward the young hero. He bends down to Tim’s level, who is tied to a metal chair.

Two-Face: Say that again to my face, boy.

Red Robin, without any sense of self-preservation: Which one?

Two-Face snarls and reaches for his gun.

Batman, growling: Leave him alone, Dent! He doesn’t have a social life!

Everyone:

Red Robin: That hurt worse than a bullet.

Bruce, watching Dick get ready for a date: And you’re sure?

Dick: Yep, pretty sure.

Bruce: Because I know a couple good ways to do it if you wanna say no.

Dick: Oh?

Bruce: You can tell her you’re sick; I’ll cover for you. 

Dick: I saw her today; I’m not sure she’ll fall for that.

Bruce: When?

Dick: This morning. At our apartment.

Bruce:

Dick: Bruce, Babs and I have been married for two years.

Bruce: Yeah, well, I just thought because you swung by the manor- no, never mind; it’s not important. Have fun tonight, son.

Dick: Bruce. Spill.

Bruce: ...Well it’s just... Damian has been subtlety mentioning a new video game for the “Ninten-bo Swatch” or whatever and I know we used to play N64 when you were a kid. You were always better than me and... I don’t know, I just thought-

Dick: That I could teach you so you can play with Dami?

Bruce: Ah, forget about, it’s. . . who are you texting?

Dick, with tears in his eyes: Telling Babs I’m sick.

Alfred, preparing the batcomputer: Just you tonight sir?

Bruce: Yes. Damian wanted to go trick-or-treating.

Alfred: Just Damian?

Bruce:

Bruce: They were all dressed as Green Lanterns and I don’t want to see them again tonight.

________

Hope you guys are into more simple content like this. I love dad Bruce. All headlines are taken from yourteenmag.com. I want to make it explicitly clear as well that I’m not railing on this publication; I can see how these articles could be extremely helpful to parents and kids alike. The world would be a better place if more parents took the effort to seek help from sites with accurate information.

(alternative endings for the last one):

Bruce: They were all dressed as clowns. I almost had a heart attack until I saw they were also all wearing LexCorp t-shirts. 

-

Bruce: They were dressed as the entire cast of Mamma Mia. At least they have each other.

-

Bruce: They were all wearing each other’s costumes and I honestly couldn’t tell who was who. I just hope they have fun.

-

Bruce: They seemed to be dressed up as a little league baseball team? I just hope no one comes back after a baseball bat to the eye.

send me requests or your headcanons!

#batfam #batfamily #bruce wayne #batman #nightwing #red robin #robin #stephanie brown #jason todd #duke thomas #cass cain #barbara gordon #dick grayson #tim drake #damian wayne #dc #dc comics #young justice #fanfiction #headcanons #Alfred Pennyworth

[spockandawe]

Okay, I want to pull together more detailed thoughts at some point, I think, because the sheer amount of material means I have about ten billion thoughts to sort out. But I’ve read all three of the mxtx novels now, and loved all of them, in different ways. Though I already tried to figure out if I can pick a Favorite, and tbh, I can’t. I love them all in ways that are too distinct to let me rank them easily. And... man, it’s lucky for my friends that social distancing is in place, or I’d be hassling them shamelessly to give these novels a try.

RIGHT. So.

The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System: Shen Yuan goes to bed full of rage directed at a trashy webnovel with a grimdark blackened hero who conquered the world and collected hundreds of women into his harem.... and wakes up in novel, while that hero is still an innocent youth. As the hero’s abusive teacher. Who is doomed for a horrifying death unless he can somehow turn things around.

I think I had the most fun with this one. I really enjoy self-referential stories, and stories poking fun at certain genres, and I’ve run into the concept of transmigration before (the idea being a person enters a fictional world, a la lost in austen), though I’m blanking on any media like that I’ve actually consumed. This was chronologically the first book mxtx wrote, and it has less of a sprawling cast with complicated relationships than the other two books, but it definitely has the thing where she lays early groundwork for later revelations that shatter my poor heart. 

And there may be fewer relationships to play with, but my GOD, do I love the relationships we got. I’ve been rolling around in svsss fanfic since I finished the book, even more so than mdzs or tgcf. There’s a lot of good crunchy relationship content with the 79 ship (they destroy me, all day every day), Liu Qingge owns my whole-ass heart, and Luo Binghe makes for a fascinating love interest. I love that even at his best, he remains a needy, needy, manipulative boy, who’s so smart and strong and nEEDY. I don’t love how the book handled moshang, but mmmm the fan content is Good. And Shen Qingqiu does the unreliable narrator thing that is usually not my jam, but works so WELL in these books, in that his unreliable narration is hugely skewed towards not giving himself nearly as much credit as he deserves. Xie Lian takes this to UNBELIEVABLE heights in tgcf, but in Shen Qingqiu’s case, it’s done on such a casual, immediate, personal level that I’m fascinated by everything he does. 

And, since Shen Yuan/Shen Qingqiu is a millennial fan of trashy romance webnovels who gets yanked into the universe of a novel he hates, into an old-timey xianxia setting, the prose is SO COOL. You swing between modern slang and old school high society courtesies at the drop of a hat, and I’m honestly awed that the translators were able to catch so much of that. Like, in-setting, I love all the nuance you can get in ‘qi-ge should give his a-jiu the scroll’ vs ‘yue-shixiong should give this teacher the scroll’ vs ‘you should give me the scroll’. But then it adds a whole new layer when the person ALSO has modern-day casual speech bouncing around in their head. It makes for a fascinating, fascinating reading experience.

The Grandmaster Of Demonic Cultivation: Thirteen years ago, Wei Wuxian died. And then he wakes up! In someone else’s body. I’m not going to try to summarize the premise of this one, go look up The Untamed if you want someone to do a better job of this than me XD

Ahhh, this was the book I read first. I still haven’t watched the show (only clips) and I’m not sure I ever will, because adhd is a hell of a drug. But it’s hard to purely evaluate the prose when there’s also this gorgeous, beautifully-acted visual adaptation all over my tumblr to bias me in its favor. I think this book benefits a lot from the MYSTERY of it all. From the very start, there’s the question of ‘what the fuck is up with this goddamn arm’ that the characters pursue, even as that takes them through flashbacks and other arcs within the story. It gives a thrust to the novel that I think isn’t exactly there in tgcf, though I’m torn on which one is “better.” This gave the story momentum, yes, but it also meant I was much more impatient in yi city and the 3zun flashbacks, because this isn’t what I was focused onnnnnn this is cool but how much longer will we BE HERE--

That being said, I think I’ll be more patient with those flashbacks on my next time through the book, now that I have a better picture of where everything is headed. I think the balance and structure of the book worked really well, I was setting myself up for self-sabotage because of the pace I was plowing through the thing. My reading habits didn’t lend themselves well to the nonlinear storytelling, and it speaks to the story’s strength that it held up that well despite me. And the CAST. My GOD. I went in not caring about anyone but Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji and maybe the jackass nephew, but... that Did Not Last. I didn’t intend to care about 3zun? Nope, too bad, you care so much now. Who cares about Xue Yang? Me. I care. Way too much. HECK!!!

And something that happens in this book and tgcf that was much less of a thing in svsss is that there are some meaningful holes in the story that I’d like to be filled, and I really care about filling-- and the story doesn’t go there. But it doesn’t leave me unhappy, it leaves me cheerfully scrabbling around in the throwaway details trying to piece together a picture of what happened when I wasn’t looking. What happened to Wei Wuxian in the burial mounds? How did Hua Cheng take control of the ghost city? Idk, but let us Rummage and theorize and roll around in ideas and have a fantastic, speculative time. Svsss might hook me more than the other stories from an au+shipping perspective, but mdzs and tgcf do a great job of making me want to roll around and create within the bounds of canon.

Heaven Official’s Blessing: 800 years ago, Xie Lian ascended to heaven. And fell. And rose again! And fell again. Now he’s ascended for the third time, and things are Awkward.

God, I just finished this, and I’m still reeling. This is the LONGEST mxtx book, that’s for sure. I also think it’s the most tightly edited translation. All the translators did an unbelievable job, I could never even approach what they accomplished, but I am genuinely stunned that a book this long was edited so well. I blew through this in about 3.5 days (if not for work, i could have made it in three dghsafdsgf) and my brain was cooking in my skull by the time I was halfway through, but I couldn’t STOP. I was ENCHANTED the entire time! I was reading so much my head was destroying me and I still sulked so HARD every time I had to put my phone down and sleep.

This book sprawls the hardest, I think, because it involves a cast made of mostly immortal/immortal-adjacent people, so time and space get... flexible. And I feel really bad saying this, because Lan Wangji is DEVOTED, but this is seriously the book with the most attentive and adoring and respectful love interest. Hua Cheng is..... god. I truly don’t think I’ve EVER read a character quite like him before, and I am so, so sad, because I don’t know how I’ll find one who lives up to these heights ever again XD I recommend reading this book just for the Hua Cheng experience, if nothing else. I was making audible noises at literally flailing at multiple points in the story, but most often, it was because of him. 

Shipping is what usually drags me into a fandom hardest, and all of these books do pretty well for themselves, all of them have a nice selection of fluffy and crunchy ships to choose from. And this one... goddammit. I just realized, that the best, most crunchy ships are too spoilery for me to be willing to talk about them here. Hell. Goddammit. But I think tgcf has the crunchiest ship of all, even better than xuexiao. I was so invested, and then there were Reveals, and then I was like OH NO THIS IS TERRIBLE BUT MY INVESTMENT HAS EXPONENTIALLY INCREASED. 

And something that I really, really appreciate, is that across the mxtx books, even though a lot of characters fit into strong archetypes, there’s nobody that is blurring together for me, either within or across the books. Liu Qingge isn’t Jiang Cheng isn’t Feng Xin. They’re all blunt, fighty boys, but all super distinct in my head, and what I want for each of them is distinct and character-driven. I want Liu Qingge to be properly cherished and I want Jiang Cheng to relax with his brother and nephew and I want Feng Xin to [goddammit i don’t want to spoil this book AGH]. It’s something I appreciated in the other books too, but I can really FEEL it in this book, with how long and luxurious it is. 

And last thing I have to say, I think, is that tgcf is so long. It’s so, so long. But I would FITE if anyone tried to pare it down at all. I can’t think of anything I’d be willing to sacrifice. I enjoyed every last piece of it so much, and it was all ultimately SO well-constructed and interlocking, that any piece I can think of snipping out would take away significant emotional impact from what was left. It’s a nonlinear story, like mdzs is nonlinear, and I loved mdzs a lot! But the construction here is so, so, so elegant. I’m just in AWE of how well it was assembled. I was in Agony as reveals happened, because oh no no no no, now that they’ve told me this, that casts this whole other scene in a brand new light! The one I read hundreds of thousands of words ago! Literally, I need to go start the book over so I can savor the shitty teens in new ways, given [redacted] as revealed in like, the last twenty percent of the book. The book was a fun experience, but there’s so Much here that I know I haven’t even absorbed yet. I loved the other mxtx books a lot, and in many ways, they were easier to get a grasp on than tgcf was, but even before I finished tgcf I was already despairingly trying to figure out how easily I could fit a full reread into my life, and I think that says a lot

#tgcf #mdzs #svsss #long post/ #[sad journaling noises as i realize that whatever ridiculous wordcount tgcf has still only counts as one completed book on my list] #i need to get an actual wordcount at some point #then stack up enough physical books to visually represent each of these monsters #i know i read a lot #enough that i very much want to know *how much* i read #because CHRIST

[ordinaryschmuck]

Top 20 BEST Animated Series of the 2010s-16th Place

All aboard the hate train! Because I’m about to say a show people would put in their top tens where it hasn't even made my top fifteen!

CHOO-CHOO!

#16-Regular Show (2010-2017)

The Plot: Two twenty-something slackers named Mordecai and Rigby are working in a local park named...The Park (Yeah, it’s a pretty lazy title when you think about it). When they’re not doing work, they’re usually slacking off by playing video games and hanging out as best bros should. However, amongst their sacred duty to avoid work at all costs, these two friends learn the ordinary isn’t as regular as one would think. Can they survive whatever life throws at them without getting fired? Judging by the number of seasons this show got...probably.

One thing I should mention right away is that this series was the perfect show for teenagers...and the occasional stoned college student. But teenagers, most of all! Or at the very least, teenagers in late middle school and early high school. And when I say that, I don’t mean that Regular Show panders to teens by using slang or sexy women (most of the time), but it at least knows how to talk to them. And it all has to do with the situations Mordecai and Rigby find themselves in.

Aside from when Mordecai and Rigby are forced to fight demons and monsters, any teen can relate to what Mordecai and Rigby go through in Regular Show. Most teens wish to escape responsibilities to play video games or to just goof off. And the lengths that Mordecai and Rigby go through to make that happen helps the target audience root for them. Teens can also relate to the personal issues Mordo and Rigs face. Rigby often struggles with growing up and trying to become a better person. He often comes across as annoying at times, but his attempts to change are both admirable and even relatable. Then there’s Mordecai, who faces something more dangerous than any monster these guys have met: Relationship issues (and also self-doubt, but it’s the relationship issues that the show focuses more on).

Now I know that I’ve complained about romantic subplots in the past and that for some fans, the romance was what dragged this series down as well, but I personally think the romantic subplots are one of the best things about the show. Mordecai’s struggles to have/keep a girlfriend is something that most guys (and maybe even some girls) can relate to. And while I would rather have the show focus more on his self-doubt rather than relationship drama, there is still the essence of self-doubt as seen through how he struggles with making the first move with a girl. The best example of this is in the episode “It’s Time," where Mordecai keeps chickening out to ask out Margret and ends up paying the consequences for it. The self-doubt is still there, but it’s just hidden under romantic drama. However, there is a love triangle, but it lasts no more than just a season-long and is completely tame compared to Star V.S. the Forces of Evil.

And while Regular Show primarily focuses on Mordecai’s love life, there are still other relationships in the show that manage to also be pretty entertaining. I legitimately love the fact that Muscle Man and Starla is the perfect couple, even though it’s revolting to see them be romantic with each other. Not only is it hilarious, but it even comes across as sweet at times. Speaking of sweet (kinda spoilers ahead), both Rigby and Eileen are adorable in later seasons. Rigby is far from perfect, but he honestly tries to be better and more understanding of Eileen. The best part is that Eileen doesn’t encourage him to do this. She likes Rigby for Rigby. Faults and all. Not only is that something most romantic partners should try to aim for, but it’s really adorable to see. (kinda spoilers over). And while not romantic in the slightest, the friendship between Mordecai and Rigby is honestly the best. They both have a great dynamic, and the interactions they have with each other legitimately feel like I’m watching real best friends having fun. I’m not kidding when I say there are actual moments where I forget that these are just characters voiced by people in a booth. Because they come across as THAT authentic.

Speaking of characters, I'm amazed by how there isn’t one in this series that I hate. Or at the very least, not a single character that I’ve learned to deal with. As for characters I love, Benson is on the top of that list. Not only are his frustrations with Mordecai and Rigby hilarious at times, but his struggles to have a life with meaning is something all of us can relate to. Then there's Skips, who is this stoic badass who actually has more layers to him than one might realize. Both Pops and Muscle Man also have great depth to them, one more than the other, while also managing to be the funniest characters. The only characters I really have slight problems with are Margaret, Thomas, and High Five Ghost (Yes, that’s actually his name). Margaret has little to no development until season seven, and even then, there’s really not much done with her. As for Thomas, he was forced into the story, and I felt nothing when he eventually got written out. Then there’s Fives, who doesn’t really have any personality other than being Muscle Man’s bro. While I’ve grown to live with these characters being in the show, they still have problems that I can’t really ignore.

And while we’re on the topic of problems, there is one main issue that I should mention first, and that’s the fact that this show is so weird. That stoned college student jab wasn’t just a joke because it honestly feels like you have to be high to understand the logic of this show's production. Just from looking at the main cast alone, I struggle to wonder how J.G. Quintel came up with these ideas. Not only that but the situations these characters find themselves in can range from bizarre to holy-crap-someone-had-to-be-high-while-making-this. And somehow-SOMEHOW-it gets weirder with each passing season. Sometimes I’m okay with shows embracing the weirdness, but even I have a limit for this series.

Another problem I should mention is Regular Show’s animation. The animation in this series is not all that great. Usually, that isn’t a problem because it relies on dialogue and bizarre imagery to entertain viewers. However, there are occasions when Regular Show utilizes action scenes, and that is when the poor animation really drags the series down. There’s neither weight nor choreography for any of the fights. And rarely can you feel the punches that the characters exchange with each other. Because of this, the action feels both slow and kind of boring at times. A problem that wouldn’t exist if the series had just slightly better animation.

However, what really drags this series down is its seasonal rot. By season five (six if I’m feeling generous), the show starts to lose its magic. The first thing to leave is its maturity. I don’t know if it’s child censors catching up with the writers or if the target audience just got younger, but it is painful to see this show become more kid-friendly. It used to not be afraid of having the characters be in the middle of a shootout (with real guns and rocket launchers, by the way), but by season seven, the series resulted in using lasers and bean bag guns. What also eaves is the show’s sense of humor. At first, the jokes were pretty funny. But after a while, they start to lose their mojo and can be awkward at times. But none of this compares to what happens in Regular Show’s final season. Without giving too much away, the eighth season puts the characters in an environment that doesn’t really fit the show. There are times where even the characters don’t feel like themselves, and it gets to the point where it seems like I’m no longer watching Regular Show anymore. I don’t know how other fans felt about that season, but that’s how I felt throughout most of it (It’s also been four years since the finale, and I still don’t understand how the last two minutes are even possible).

Regular Show is not meant for everyone. Hell, at a point, it no longer became the perfect show for its original target audience. However, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to enjoy. It’s funny, has great characters, and while it gets pretty weird at times, most fans loved that weirdness for six years. It’s nowhere near the best show in the 2010s, but it was still a good show. A jolly good show indeed.

(That last line makes more sense if you seen the series)

#top 20 of 2010s #regular show #what i thought about

[jbarnes101]

Examining Youth Culture

So I had a chance to examine and study up on youth culture within several films and tv series from past to present. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term “Youth Culture”, it typically means the way children and young adults behave, how they live, norms, values, and practices they share but it’s much more different from the older generation’s culture. Starting from the fashion trends, music, sports, slangs, and relationships from other age groups which all seem to change as time goes by. I managed to watch shows like Saved by the Bell and Euphoria and also movies such as The Breakfast Club, KIDS, Mean Girls, and Mid90s and they’re all in my opinion represent a perfect example of youth culture from past to present. Throughout watching every story, I came to realize that one of the character’s from one story felt very relatable, every story shared three common themes that still go on even in reality, and how a soundtrack could impact a tv series/film. Youth culture offers a chance for a young person to explore and express their identities of who they really are through time even from the media’s perspective on how they shape youth culture.

When we tend to watch a film or a tv series, there’s always that one or multiple characters we can all relate to in reality whether it’s through personality, behavior, or style. Out of all the characters I’ve seen and I mean ALL the characters from each story, only one was able to stick out the most that I find very relatable to me and that was Fourth Grade from the 2018 film Mid90s. You’re probably thinking out of all the characters why him? Let me explain, after watching the whole film it’s like I got to know Fourth Grade a lot more than how people would assume who he is at first glance and I felt like I connected with him even more as the film progressed. There was one scene that explained that Fourth Grade was poor and that’s the only difference I find from both of our lifestyles but there’s much more than that. Fourth Grade strikes me as a shy type of character who also keeps to himself at times when he’s talking to someone new because in one scene a girl was trying to make a conversation with him even about his film camera and the video he’s trying to create but he just wasn’t as outgoing as his friends were, he just sat there and didn’t really keep the conversation going it was more like the girl did all the talking and questioning but when he’s around his best friends, he’s more fun, wild, and caring and for me I tend to do that a lot as well like when I’m talking to someone I don’t really know, I’m going to be shy and a little quiet at first but once you get to know me or when I’m around my friends, that’s when I start to break out more and help another out. Fourth Grade is also very creative as well, almost the entire film he was shown recording him and his friends hanging out and skateboarding on his camera but towards the end of the film, he compiled all the footage he caught and made it into his own film. It was also told that Fourth Grade wanted to become a filmmaker but some of his friends didn’t believe him at first because of his stupid personality and that’s something I also connected with him because we’re both creatively bright, we both have a dream in the filmmaking work, and our friends could sometimes see us as dumb but we’re smart when we want to be. Everybody has a relatable fictional character from a tv series or a film because we’re both able to feel a deeper connection with one another just like how I felt when I saw Fourth Grade and got to know more info about him from start to finish.

After going through every series and films I’ve watched back to back, I came to realize that they all have the same common themes within one another. In my opinion each story had 3 similar themes which were coming of age, diversity, and forming friendship. For coming of age, every story featured a younger cast playing teenage roles while their characters are experiencing a change in their lives as they progress through life and half of the stories are set in a high school environment or a hang out spot where teens usually go even in reality. Like for instance, Euphoria, Mean Girls, The Breakfast Club, and Saved by the Bell featured teenage characters while also going through the stages of high school and as for Mid90s and KIDS, they also featured teenagers but they weren’t in a high school setting but they were featured at their most notable hang out spots. For diversity, this is one of the most common themes in youth culture even in reality. Each story would section a certain group of the cast in groups that they would belong in like in Saved by the Bell Zack and his friends don’t like to affiliate with the freshman in high school, in Mean Girls every group had a label for each other and they would only associate with their group peers, in The Breakfast Club one character from a different group was forced to interact with one another as they were in detention, in KIDS the guys would talk about the girls in a very sexual way while the girls talked about how the guys are disgusting, in Euphoria of course each character played one person from a different social group but more likely to interact with each other than The Breakfast Club, and in Mid90s the boys were considered troublemakers just because they’re skater boys and how they mess around a lot like doing drugs, drinking and driving, and causing a scene. For friendships, the characters from most of the stories formed an unlikely friendship. For example in Mean Girls every social group started out hating other social groups but towards the end they all came together and started being friends, in The Breakfast Club they might never wanna be seen with each other but in the end they all started to understand each other and learned that not everyone is different, in Saved by the Bell they were all friendly to one another from start to finish and they always had each others back, in KIDS the boys of course were more interactive with one another and they would even talk to some of the girls and show kindness for reasons, in Euphoria for the main cast for the girls they may look different and act different but they still understand each other and have each others back, and for Mid90s the main kid Stevie was accepted into a group of delinquents and as a reminder he’s a lot younger than the teenage boys but they didn’t care they still accepted him. Every show and every film has a common theme, even if it’s a different plot to the story they all can still relate just by how the story’s been told.

Of course when it comes to a film and a tv series, they always gotta have at least a soundtrack. The reason why I think every show and film has a soundtrack is because it adds more emotion to a scene that is played in front of an audience in order to elaborate on what’s happening in the story. I do have to say for the show Euphoria, in my opinion it could work more if ten of these songs were played in the show like Paris by The Chainsmokers, Rewind by Future Jr, 11 Minutes by YUNGBLUD, Bad Things by Cults, Nostalgic by A R I Z O N A, Fairplay by Kiana Ledè, Get You the Moon by Kina, Girls Just Wanna Have Dub by Chromatics, Guys My Age by Hey Violet, and Lie by Sasha Sloan, I definitely recommend listening to these songs and who knows maybe you’ll feel like you’re in tv series too. The reason why I feel like these songs were to fit in Euphoria a lot more is because they add more of the modern taste to the show and it kinda matches the atmosphere as the show features a lot of love and relationships, tension, and heartbreaks.

Sorry you guys had to witness me ramble on too much I guess I couldn't help it lol but hope to see you guys in the next post. Have a great day!

[alex12311]

Kamilah x MC fluff

set between book 1 and 2

hey, I know my blog isn’t Choices related but I’m too lazy to make a new one for this. Anyway, ever wondered what a 2000+ years old vampire would act like if she was forced to go to a supermarket with her chaotic dumbass girlfriend? Well this is my take on it. Enjoy.

When Kamilah agreed to the sleepover she had something calm and short in mind. While she had no qualms about spending time with Lily and Amy in their little apartment (a place that she never expected to call cozy), she also wished to drag the human into bed early and have her all to herself . She did not plan on seducing her. Kamilah had more of a mind for smothering her in a needy embrace and fall asleep lulled by the sound of her heartbeat. She needed such comfort after such a stressful week.

The girls, however, planned on going all out. Expensive alcohol, loud music, tons of junk food and Lily even mentioned party hats. Kamilah sincerely hoped that she was joking.

Either way, since the event was agreed upon quite spontaneously and last minute, all the junk food, alcohol and party hats needed to be procured first.

And so Kamilah found herself standing in front of a supermarket, frowning at the flickering, broken light. She was Kamilah Sayeed. She did not do supermarkets. The occasional time she actually went to buy something herself was when she popped into a local liquor store, otherwise she relied on shopping from the comforts of her home. Why bother when she had others bringing her food and drink right to her doorstep?

She hadn’t set foot into a supermarket in over twenty years. She avoided them like the plague. Humans everywhere. Loud noises. Obnoxious music. Poisonous, sugary foods all around. And they ate those things. Willingly. Kamilah was disgusted.

And yet here she was, tagging along and all it took was a stupid smile and exaggerated batting of eyelashes to convince her to come. Amy was officially a bad influence.

“Come on, it won’t be so bad,” the girl cooed as she watched the slightly overdressed vampire brood at the lights. Her mocking smile dispelled whatever illusion of fun she was trying to cast. She linked their arms to get the brunette’s attention. “I’ll buy you a lollipop.”

Kamilah snorted. “Please. If you wish to make me happy then make it quick. Do you have a list of what you need?”

Amy nodded. “Yes, don’t worry about it. Thanks for agreeing to come with me,” she hugged Kamilah’s arm for a brief second, then let go. “I always wanted a strong, attractive woman to carry my bags for me.”

“I agreed to no such thing.”

The human merely laughed and started walking inside. Kamilah braced herself and followed.

The place was nearly deserted at such a late hour, and so it felt like there was just the two of them, pushing the cart through sleepy aisles. Kamilah let Amy lead her, at first taking it quietly as if she was enduring some punishment, but soon she began to wander around and look at things while staying within Amy’s orbit. The human found it amusing, but did not say a word in fear that she might put a stop to this endearing curiosity of hers.

Kamilah peeked over her lover’s shoulder to look at her hastily written shopping list. “What do you need to get from here?” She gestured to the fruits and veggies all around them. Most of the crates were half-empty. No one bothered to restock them.

Distracted by the sudden closeness, Amy quickly looked around and pointed. “Spinch!”

“A what?” Kamilah’s brow furrowed. Was this some new slang? Youths…

Amy paced over to a crate and lifted a package full of spinach leaves. “ ‘Tis a spinch!”

“Amy, why? Why can’t you just call it what it is like a normal person?”

“Excuse you, it’s funny.” She said as she set her spinch into the shopping cart.

“It isn’t.”

“Okay then. Let’s make rounds. I’ll read the item names and we’ll see how funny it gets.” She didn’t wait for Kamilah to agree to this. The vampire followed her and shook her head as Amy pointed at various fruits and vegetables, butchering their names with determination.

Kamilah rolled her eyes as Amy called an egg plant ‘edgy planet’, whined quietly at the ‘wutermenan’ spoken with a redneck accent, but the ‘ponopls’ actually forced a silent choking laughter out of her. She stopped in her tracks, hid her face in her palms and let it roll through her, equal parts dismayed that this actually managed to get to her, and mad at Amy for pushing her this far, especially in public.

Meanwhile, Amy was grinning from ear to ear. “Kamilah Sayeed, losing it over mispronounced fruit. I thought I’d never see the day.”

Kamilah took a long breath and composed herself, snatching the shopping basket and power-walking away. She heard the sound of hurried footsteps behind her. “Just so we’re clear, this is the last time I ever go shopping with you.” She shot Amy a glare over her shoulder. “Give me the list.” She reached out, snapping her fingers impatiently.

When Amy finally caught up with her, she handed the note over breathlessly. The brown eyes scanned the page. “I can’t read this. You have a penmanship of a five-year-old who is having a seizure.”

“Not all of us can ooze elegance with everything we do,” Amy shot back, taking the note from her. “Come this way.”

After few minutes of walking and complaining, Kamilah’s bitterness evaporated and was replaced with her previous curiosity and a surprisingly agreeable mood. She raised an eyebrow when Amy made eye contact with her as she pushed not one, not two, but three bags of Cheetos into the shopping basket, claiming it was for Lily. When Amy approached the baked goods and saw a bunch of glazed strawberry doughnuts, she gulped audibly and froze up, no doubt debating with her inner demon who wanted to gorge herself stupid.

After few months of their relationship Kamilah knew just how powerful Amy’s sweet tooth was. For her own good, she reached down, took her hand and began leading her away like a mother chaperoning her greedy child who was dead set on eating themselves through her wallet.

And then Kamilah found the booze aisle. Amy hung back and let the woman walk around like a hawk, scrutinizing the brands like an officer in front of a line of sloppily dressed, inexperienced soldiers.

“This is little more than rose colored water,” she said, lips curling in disgust. “And it’s the second most expensive wine they have here.”

“You tell them,” Amy chuckled, resting her head on her palm as she leaned on the shopping cart. “Should we ask for the manager?”

“Do not patronize me, Amy.”

“Oh, I don’t. I mean it. I’d wrestle the manager for you if it meant getting you what you want.”

Kamilah put the wine back on the shelf. “As much as I’d like to see that, I think we would do better to stop by a proper liquor store before we return to your apartment. Or…” She stroke her chin thoughtfully, then produced two bottles of Perrier and lifted them for Amy to see. “Is this okay with you?”

The human nodded vigorously. Kamilah smiled and took two more, much to Amy’s horror. Just how much did she plan on drinking? Well, there is three of us… she thought. Surely that would… Oh. Here she goes, taking another bottle. Right, Miss Sayeed. You better carry my bags now.

Since they were there, Amy made some purchases that had nothing to do with the party. Not that the spinach had much to do with it to begin with, but a girl’s gotta keep healthy.

As Amy browsed the confusingly big selection of cooking oils, Kamilah watched her intently. She hasn’t seen many humans doing their ordinary day to day chores, and she found this side of the girl fascinating. Only a frugal woman would bother doing the math and figuring out which thing was cheaper while also considering the quality. Amy’s generous paychecks have been coming for months, yet she was still careful with her money. To a billionaire, this type of behavior was both endearing and admirable, if not a bit odd.

Amy caught the vampire staring and turned to face her. “Not that I don’t appreciate you mooning over me, but this aisle is hardly romantic,” said the woman dual-wielding olive oils.

“Oh?” Moving closer, the vampire closed the distance between them and pressed her lips to Amy’s forehead. “I can moon over you wherever I please.”

Nervous laughter escaped from Amy’s mouth. She felt overwhelmed, like her knees would buckle any moment and she’d make an idiot out of herself by swooning in a most inelegant way she could muster. And Kamilah, damn that woman, knew it.

The vampire smiled, victorious and smug. “Are we done here? As…enlightening as this has been, I would like to be elsewhere.”

“Well, I always make a point of going through the candle section before I leave…”

“Fine. One more stop, but then we leave.”

Soon enough Kamilah watched as Amy made a beeline from shelf to shelf, sniffing the candles like a coy crack addict. Sometimes she’d hold one out for Kamilah to smell as well if it managed to catch her interest.

“I didn’t know you liked candles so much,” Kamilah said, tucking this information away for later use. She’d make her a custom one based on what she liked. An easy gift, and a guaranteed success. “Tell you what. Pick one. It’s on me.”

Amy made a guilty face as if Kamilah just offered to buy her an island. “You don’t have to—“

“Shut up and take one candle,” the CEO commanded firmly.

Surprisingly, it took less than five seconds for Amy to make her choice. She handed Kamilah what she wanted and blushed slightly.

“Lavender?” Kamilah smirked knowingly. The woman practically bathed in the stuff. When she stayed over at Amy’s, her scent always clung to the sheets, it was maddening.

“Don’t say a word,” Amy pointed at her in warning.

They went and found only one working cashier in the whole supermarket. Just as Amy was about to pay the teen, Kamilah waved her off and produced her fancy credit card. It hardly made a dent in her finances yet she knew that the human would insist on somehow making it up to her, and frankly, she was happy to collect on that debt if it meant having a nice romantic night together.

Proving herself to be chivalrous, the vampire took the three heavy bags without a complaint. As soon as they got out on the open street, Amy leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you. You’re an absolute sweetheart, you know that?”

Kamilah sighed. “The things I do for you…”

#playchoices #kamilah sayeed #kamilah x mc #bloodbound #bb

[unto-myself-together]

Of Stories and Songs: Ch 8

A lot of author notes, I know, but there’s no avoiding that.  A TON of stuff happens in this chapter. 

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Author notes: I really REALLY need to stop making long chapters.  22 pages!  Like I never get them out and I get “fatigued” or something when I make them super long like this. I also wouldn’t have to make such long author notes. 

Inb4 my family thinks I’m creepy for breathing into my phone while recording.

I actually couldn’t figure out how to get the audio files off my phone, but you’re really not missing much anyways.  Just when you get to the part of the story, take a deep breath in and listen to how it sounds when you take a deep breath in.  Change it up by changing how fast you breath the air in, and listen.  Yes, that was exactly what I was going for.  

Character names and the Imagineers they were named after:

Claude = Claude Coates Michael Davis = Mark Davis Karen Anderson = Ken Anderson Solomon Gracey= Yale Gracey Rolly Mortimer= Rolly Crump The Atencio company = X Atencio Nell is named after the main character of the Haunting of Hill House *(as well as named after the author of that story).  And Galloway isn’t anything important or a reference; it just sounded cool at the time. 

Yes, I did indeed try to draw that creepy hand that passes over the grandfather clock.  I’m sad it didn’t turn out quite right, but I dislike the act of drawing too much to actually bother fixing that piece up. 

“Closing your eyes” : When I was young, my mother would always close my eyes when the Ghost Host would show his body hanging from the rafters.  I thought she did it because I was afraid of the thunder and lightning, and she was known to hold my eyes whenever something I found scary happened on other rides.  Even though thunder is a SOUND and not a sight, it did feel comforting to have her put her hands over my eyes anyways.  It took me a long, long time to figure out the real reason she closed my eyes was because she didn’t want me to see the hanged man.  Part of that was because I didn’t know it was a hanged man, even when I had a chance to look at it.  It just looked like a weird clump of clothes hanging from the ceiling. So I guess in some ways, she didn’t even need to hold my eyes close to begin with (because I would not have known even if I looked at it); but I still appreciated that she went through the effort. 

The idea of three people creepily coming closer and closer to you after having cornered you is kind of what I imagined the Cast Members would totally do to guests that don’t listen and leave the ride vehicles without permission.  You know...if security didn’t have to be involved and they were allowed to be theatrical.  

So in the actual ride, there are TWO stretching rooms for all Haunted Mansion locations.  In WDW, they exist on either side of the Aging Man portrait. They are exactly identical, and I always thought it would be fun to imagine that they are the EXACT same room, and that the house just moves rooms around. 

The door hidden in the darkness of the foyer is an actual door in WDW that I’ve been through.  It connects to the small pet cemetery area right outside the exit doors of the ride. I’ve been through it before and it was totally awesome; might talk about it in another post. 

There are actually two versions of Nell; the one in this story and the one that I roleplay.  For all intents and purposes, they have the exact same personality, likes, and etc, but they just have different backstories and reasons for being at the mansion.  In case anyone was confused.

I struggled, for a long time, to figure out what year this story ought to take in (as in, what year the two teens come to the mansion).  There are benefits and downsides to both “modern era” and 1960s, the two time periods I considered.  On the one hand, the 1960s could avoid the idea of under age drinking because the age was 18 back then (in the state of Virginia).  The reason why I mention this is because there was a plot point that I...really don’t want to have to avoid all because the main characters don’t drink.  I think I pretty much solved this dilemma in this chapter though, without underage drinking (even if I had to do so in a bit of an unrealistic way, sorry about that). Additionally, there would be no cell phones 1960s to ruin the story (as they call for help).  On the other hand, it also means I cannot use modern day slang, ideas, memes, and etc....I think I’ve decided to kind of....let this story be in the modern day....possibly.  I don’t know, I just might change my mind later.  The struggle is real. 

I may have forgotten a few author notes, in which case I apologize beforehand. 

FINALLY, I dedicate this chapter to my dear friend, @asktheghosthost .  Thank you for always listening, thank you for all the good times and good stories we’ve made together, thank you for reblogging these story chapters, thank you for pulling me back in the Haunted Mansion fandom...and thank you for helping to inspire this story.   

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Trigger warnings: ghosts, death concepts/discussions, murder, suicide, abuse, blood, lots of scary stuff (horror), implied sexual abuse, cursing (damn and hell), drug abuse, domestic violence, attempted rape (never completed; in a later chapter).

This chapter: underage drinking (except not really.  You’ll understand when you get to it)

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Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3 , Chapter 4 , Chapter 5 ,

Chapter 6 , Chapter 7

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CH 8:  Dust and Ashes

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All of my life I spent searching the words of poets and saints and prophets and kings

~ Now at the end all I know that I've learned is that all that I know is I don't know a thing

~Dust and Ashes, from Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812.  

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Karen pulled the blanket closer to her as they descended downward.  It was warmer in the stairway, but only just so; the more they descended, the closer the temperature got to the frigid room she’d woken up in previously.

“…Mr. Mortimer…I’m confused.”

“I can’t blame you none for that.  I’d probably be the same, were I in your shoes.”

He kept pace beside her, his cane ticking with every step.

“What I meant was: Why are we going down?  Shouldn’t we be going up?”

“We’re already up as high as we can get, young’un.  Nowhere for us to go but down.”

“Wha--?”

She stopped, and Mr. Mortimer’s cane clicked to a halt as he, too, stopped a little ways in front of her.

“Where was that?  The place we were before with all the junk?”

“That would be the attic.”

Karen considered this.

“Mr. Mortimer…why…did you go through all the trouble of carrying me up to the attic?  What was the point if we just have to climb all the way down again?”

Mr. Mortimer chuckled, his gold teeth glistening in the act.  The warmth of his tone, however, hardly made the sight terrifying.  

“I certainly would not have gone through the trouble of gettin’ a living body all the way to the attic…You were already nearby.”

She gaped at him, trying to keep up with his logic.

“But I fell down a chasm of staircases…”

“No, you fell up a chasm of staircases.”

“That’s not even physically possible!”

“Talking about the physical in a house of ghosts, hmm?  Trust me, young’un.  Those sets of staircases you’ve been hanging about in are the very opposite of possible. Don’t think too hard about it, as it doesn’t make much sense even to us.”

He gestured for the two of them to continue, and she numbly caught up to his pace.  

“If I…”  She adjusted the blanket as they walked side by side. “…If I had fallen all the way…”

He frowned.  “…Best not think of things like that.  Won’t do nothing but worry yourself.”

She gave him a startled look, and he returned it with solemn nod.  

She went quiet again for a bit, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other.  This stairway, at least, seemed to be relatively normal.  Contained on all sides by walls, yet the rickety nature of it still threatened to trip her should she neglect to watch her step.  Tiny spiders crawled along one of the walls. Tiny red spots on their backs that made them look like drops of blood circulating around them.  

“…I’m sorry I didn’t say it before but…Thank you for saving me, Mr. Mortimer…”

“I’m afraid I can’t take all the thanks, young’un.  Because I’m not the one who stopped yer fall.”

“Then who did?”

Mr. Mortimer paused again, and his gaze followed the trail of spiders.  

All of them, the exact same appearance.  All of them, traveling the exact same lines.  Single Filed.   Mindless and unnatural.  

“Are those really spiders?”  Instantly, she regretted the question, just as she was sure she’d regret the answer.

He sighed.  “No.  They aren’t. But that’s a right hard topic to talk about, and I ain’t too sure it’s my place to say.  We better press on.”

His tone suggested that he’d prefer a change in subject, and his cane clacked as he continued forward again.

But Karen lingered a while by the spiders, watching them go from one end of the wall to the other. Black beady bodies with bright red spots each.  A larger one was lingering above the traveling group with the same shade on its hairy exoskeleton as all the rest.  

She looked from the tiny creatures lining the wall to the little bites that still lined her hand. These had to have been the same sort of spiders that fixed the window…and the floor…and attacked her for trying to interfere with their work.  

The spiders stopped.  Unanimously and simultaneously, they all turned towards her and lifted up their front two legs.  

She took a startled step backwards.  

“I’m sorry!”  She said, wondering if they actually understood her.  Her legs compelled her on to catch up to Mr. Mortimer, and a quick glance behind her told her that the spiders resumed their mindless trek once again.  

“They’re so creepy…” She muttered as she was once again beside him.  

“That they are,” The skeletal Mr. Mortimer said.  

“Have they always been part of the house?”

“As far as I’m aware. Mr. Gracey told me he remembered seeing some of them back when he was alive, though it’s difficult to say whether they’d been upkeepin’ the house back then the way they do now.”

“How could he…not remember whether there were strange spiders rebuilding the house from underneath his feet?”

Mr. Mortimer gave a snorted laugh.  “If you ever meet Mr. Gracey, I think you’d do well to keep that comment to yerself.”

“I already have, and I already think he doesn’t like me.”

Mr. Mortimer raised an eyebrow at her.  “Oh? Why do you say that?”

“He was just…”  

She thought back to all the memories she had of Solomon Gracey, and the contrast it stood to her own personal experience meeting him.  The resulting earthquake he seemed to summon right then and there in the hallway.  

“…Really grumpy.”  She settled on that, although it seemed a severe understatement.  

“Likely was just angry with that Mr. Claude.  He assumes all mortals that come this way are the result of that man luring them here. And he’s usually right.”

“Mr. Claude?”

“Ah...”  He tutted to himself.  “Sorry.  Tried to remember not to call him that around you; I don’t think he likes the mortals using that name.  But you would know him to be the self-proclaimed ‘Ghost Host’.”

Karen tightened the blanket around herself.  “He has a name?”  

“Just the one.  No surname, no title names, no family names. Just Claude.  Doubt it’s even his real name, the wretch does like his little nicknames, but it’s the only one he’s ever given us to address him.”

The Ghost Host, imagined as a once real and living person.  Even in the one memory where she saw him as a mortal, it was hard to think of him as human. Having something of a name attached to him did almost nothing to wave away the inherent ethereal nature of his existence.  In fact, it almost felt…discomforting that he should have a name at all.

“Him and Mr. Gracey didn’t much like each other even way back when,” Mr. Mortimer continued, “And their fightin’ didn’t get any better in death either.  If anything, it got worse.  Sometimes see them go at each other’s throats like starving bears maulin’ each other over a fresh kill.”  

They stopped at a landing, and Mr. Mortimer opened up the door into another hallway.  

“As it happens, Mr. Claude is the one who likes to lure in unsuspectin’ mortals, and occasionally shows them off to Mr. Gracey because the ol’ wretch knows it will get the master of the house right and proper pissed at him.  Mr. Gracey doesn’t approve o’ tricking mortals into the house, you see. It’s all a lot o’ prime entertainment for Claude. ”

“So Mr. Gracey isn’t really angry at me, then?”

“I’m sure he’s a bit peeved. Mortals shouldn’t hang about here. They can get themselves hurt, and there ain’t much of a good reason for them to be fraternizing with the dead. Leads to all sorts of things, like ghost hunters and….not so good expectations about what it means to die. So I can’t say he’s much happy that you’re here.  But he’s a right sort, a good man, and even though he’s a little, as you say,…”

He gave her an aside, his sea green eyes glittering at her as he smiled.  

“…Grumpy, he won’t hesitate to help you if you’re in need of it.”

They wandered down a hallway that she could only describe as splattered with crimson; red carpets all across the floor, red wallpaper with a strange floral design, and even the lights seem to glow a bit red.  Or maybe that last was simply a trick of the eye.  

Mr. Mortimer suddenly slowed his pace, and as she peered at him she could see his ghostly brow furrowed in concentration.  

“Speaking of, young ‘un…”

The sound of the wind drifted through the halls; strange as it was since there were no apparent windows about.  

“….If anything should happen to me, you’ll need to go and find Solomon.  The wretch Claude will try to stop you, he’ll try to throw illusions to make you go his way, and you’ll need to swallow your fear and go down the scariest looking path to find Solomon. Solomon will help you.”

She was staring at him. “What….do you mean….?”

His eyes squinted; they looked off into the hallway and did not pay her heed “…It seems the wretch is about…Might be comin’ our way…”

“You can tell?”  She tried to look down the hallway as well, but could see nothing out of place.  It got colder; the wind shifted to breeze past her.  

He shifted the hatbox to his cane hand so that he could grab her arm.  

“Quickly now, young’un.” He said, pulling her along back the way they came. “We best be making our way back to the attic.”

“But why?”

“He never goes into the attic.”

And Mr. Mortimer left it at that, a note of finality in his tone that assured her he was not going to give her any other explanation.  

They made their way, at a much quicker pace, down the red rimmed hallway again and back into the stairwell.  He urged her to go up the stairs two at a time, a frantic pace that she was sure she wouldn’t have managed if he had not kindly helped pull up her weight with him. But even as they made it up their way up floors, the stairs seemed dauntingly and sadistically too tall.  

“Can’t understand why he’s this dogged insistent…  Plenty o’ mortals, psychic and not, have come by before and he never seemed this obsessed…What’s different here…?  If I had known…if I had known…Ah, what a fool ya are, Rolly…” Mr. Mortimer muttered to himself.  “Should have kept her in the attic, ya should…”

They made it to their third landing, before she suddenly buckled; an eerie, freezing sensation traced her spine and filled her with dread.  And almost immediately as the feeling came, Mr. Mortimer spun her behind him and….

…And he was thrown against the wall.  

She never saw it coming, for there was nothing to see.  The invisible entity rammed the greenish hued Mortimer up against the wood of the stairwell; she could see Mr. Mortimer struggling against it, his “body” glowing and misaligning and fading a bit as he fought.  She clenched her ears at the horrifying sound it seemed to produce, a cross between a woman screaming, a metal screw turning, and a set of nails rippling down a dry chalkboard.  It penetrated her head.  

Mr. Mortimer seemed to throw his attacker off him, as his feet were then on the floor.  His glow sputtered as he slammed his cane onto the floor in an effortful movement; the screaming chalkboard sound returned again and she stumbled against the wall to hold herself up.  

But it did not seem to last long.  Mr. Mortimer was back and pinned against the wall again, his glowing form turning to glowing fog, and the glowing fog obscuring her from seeing him properly.  

Until the fog cleared, but there was no sign of Mr. Mortimer.  

There was a painting of him instead.  

“Mr…”  She gulped his name back down, afraid of what she was seeing. Her hand shakily reached up to touch the elaborate frame of the perfectly painted portrait of the man who had just been beside her.  

               “Crying for the dead is encouraged in this house.”

There was a twinge of anger that she couldn’t just brush away as she turned to the empty air.  

“What did you do to him?!”

          “Don’t feel so bad. It isn’t as though I killed him.  Merely punished for                                        trying to kidnap you away from me.”

“He wasn’t kidnapping me!”

                “Oh but that is precisely why I have to frame him for it…                       Ahmmh mhmm hmmm ha ha haaaa HA!”

She went back to the portrait.  Mr. Mortimer’s jaw seemed clenched in anger, his eyes glowering.

“Young….un….”  She was surprised to hear a whisper coming from it, barely audible over Claude laughing over his own stupid joke.  

“Solomon…..find….run….harder….to….catch….moving target…”

“But….what about you?” She whispered back.

The edged colors around his face seemed to soften a bit.  “I…am...fine…”

She looked back at the open air; the damnable voice was still laughing as though his greatest enjoyment was to hear himself.  

A quick adjustment of the blanket…Karen took a deep breath….then charged right through the nearby landing’s doorway.  

The Ghost Host stopped laughing.  “Oh? Are we playing the running game now? A bit of cat and mouse?  What fun.”

She spun around the corner of the doorway, but was pulled back for a moment by an invisible force of vice-like cold.  She struggled a moment, trying to twist it off her, before finally shoving off the blanket towards her attacker.  

A tall figure.  

The blanket outlined against a tall figure, where there had previously been nothing before.  Its head was bent in a sickening angle, like the neck had been broken. 

But she did not give herself a pause to absorb this; the grip on her had loosened and she took the opportunity to bolt down the hallway.  

Red carpet, red walls, and as she propelled herself forward, her lungs drinking air, little spider spots came pouring down from the corner edges of the hall.  First in a sprinkling, then in buckets as she traveled onwards.

Mostly, they spilled over the walls themselves, but a few occasionally dropped down from the middle of the ceiling and landed on her head.  She brushed them off, again and again.

Her feet came to a halt at the junction, and her heart skipped a beat to see that one of her optional paths involved statues.  A LOT of statues.  The same kind of statue that had chased her before.  But this path had a whole horde of them, scattered all the way into the darkness of the furthest she could see.  

The other path looked clear.

He’ll try to throw illusions to make you go his way.

Mr. Mortimer’s words rang in the back of her head and she balked.  How was she to know whether this were an illusion or a genuine herd of statue ghosts?  

The shadow of a clawed hand, The Ghost Host’s distinctive chuckle phased in around her.  The shadow claw circled her like a shark, twitching its fingers in anticipation of a single mistake on her part.  

Karen cursed under her breath; not just directed at the Ghost Host, but herself.  For the next thing she knew her adrenaline had already made the choice to charge.  Straight into the hallway of statues.  

It took a few ticks for her mind to catch up with her; the moment she thought this choice wasn’t a bad one after all was on the heels of the moment she noticed the statues were turning to face her.  Grinding sounds of stone on wood and fifty pairs of stone weary eyes straight on her. She dipped and dodged around them, too scared to look back to see if claw hand or statue was following.  

But she could feel them all pressing in around her.  The sounds of scraping surrounding her...then one of her arms got caught. She managed to wretch it away.  

But it happened again….and again…And until the other arm was snagged…and then her waist….her legs…stone hands grabbing her neck…her head….pulling her down with them….the restraints too strong…

She turned to look down the hallway to a vanishing freedom…took a deep breath as much as the stone arms would allow…And yelled:  

“SOLOMON GRACEY!”

The statues froze in their grasp of her.  No longer did they push to pull her to the ground.

And she swore she heard, to her great satisfaction, a grunt of annoyance coming from her long-standing invisible tormentor.  Anything that annoyed the Ghost Host couldn’t possibly be a bad idea.

Sure enough, the walls began to shake.  Vases on nearby corner tables toppled over, specks of dust trickled down from the ceiling. That sickening, cold spine feeling that she was beginning to associate with the Ghost Host began to dissipate…..and the statues started dissipating with it.  One by one, as the earthquake rippled across the hall their forms smudged like a blurry photograph, before disappearing altogether.  

Her body was released and she fell to the floor with a thud.  The feel of rough stone was replaced….with a distinct taste of licorice. She swallowed to try and get the strange, sudden taste from her mouth, but it persisted.  And the earthquake slowly died down.

She was alone and it was fantastically quiet.  

“You…”  A whisper on the air breathed.  She looked up, only to distressingly find a pair of vivid, blue glints glaring down at her from the darkness of the far hall.  

“You shouldn’t be here…” It continued, blue eyes moving towards her.    

It sounded like someone taking in a long, deep breath.  

And there was dust and ash.

Dust and ash….

It was like dust and ash….

Swirling together….coalescing….combining….until she could make out a face….a mouth….a nose….from the dust and ash came also the sleeves of a suit….a hand formed from the particles….legs….a person….

An angry person. A furious person.  

The breath sound that lingered on the wind exhaled just as he was fully realized.

Though she had been rooted in the spot, in awe of watching a ghost forming himself in front of her, her adrenaline was still strongly beating in her veins.  And it was this drive that caused her to stumble back, a frantic yearning to run screaming in her head.  

As he advanced even closer to her, that internal screaming fueled her into dashing down the other hallway.

A candelabra blocked her way.  A floating candelabra.  

Another sound like someone taking a deep breath in….Dust and ash swirled around the candlesticks, the smell of roses, the wax dripping alongside the specks, until the figure of a woman appeared.  Grey eyes, black hair, green dress; the head maid from the memories.  

The breath exhaled.

She, too, advanced towards Karen, candelabra in her now mostly formed, dust dripping hand.

“P-please…” Karen stammered. But she herself wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to ask for.  

Her feet took her down the last hallway, only to be cut off by a third figure.

Deep breath.

Dust and ash…

Dust and ash swirled once more, and a man in a green suite formed.  Birds chirping.  The breath exhaling…The dust settling off his shoulders as he guarded her final escape route and proceeded forward towards her.  

Trapped on all sides. The master from the left, the head maid from the front, and the head butler from the right all converging on to her location, one step after another.  A marked pace that noted they had all the time in the world to reach her.

And what would they do once they’ve accomplished this? She pressed her back against the wall, sliding gradually down to the ground as her head whipped from one of the trio to the other and the other.  Her breath heaving in her ears.  From Mr. Mortimer’s descriptions, she had imagined something much friendlier.  Than again, she also had never imagined Mr. Mortimer was dead.  

“No more running,” Mr. Gracey said with a sneer.

Right as she could see the hem of the maid’s dress a few feet from her eyes, she shut them tight. Waiting for…something to happen.  The uncomfortable nothing that followed made her squint her eyes open once more.  

They were just standing there.  Waiting.

“You...really don’t need to do that….” Mr. Gracey said, frowning down at her.  

“Do….what?” She breathed, finally releasing the breath she’d been holding in.

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Act as though you’re about to face your own execution.”

“Well how am I supposed to react then?!  You make a show of…of forming yourself all angry like that and just…”  She stammered.  Her nerves were too frazzled for this.  “I only just avoided a bunch of statues grabbing me and…!  And that Ghost Host taunting me and….and the running and…and earthquakes…”

She looked up at him again with the strongest glare she could muster.  Solomon looked unimpressed.

“I don’t care what Mr. Mortimer says about you.  You could have at least told me what you’re going to do to me after you finish chasing me!  I don’t know what you want!”  

“What I want is for you to leave my house.”

She gave a side glance to his posse before turning back to him.  “Alive or dead?”  She said, with no small amount of sarcasm in it.  

“Considering that dead would result in you NOT leaving my house, I would assume you already have your answer,” he said, the sarcasm almost as equally strong.  

She exhaled through her nose. “Then you could have just told me that like a normal person!”  

“Honestly, all of you dead people don’t even remember how to act nicely…” she muttered under her breath as an aside to herself.  

He must have heard that, because he stiffened considerably and looked more than a bit miffed.

“It’s done on purpose, child,” his eyes narrowed at her, “Just a little intimidation to scare you from any ideas about ever coming back.  I will admit, though, you reacted a bit stronger than I anticipated...”

“Well yeah!  Because you’ve just wasted your time!  I’ve already seen PLENTY to convince me to never come back to this horrible place ever again!  Evil murderous invisible men, statues that chase you, people coming out of the walls, falling down giant chasms full of staircases-“

“You fell down that infinite stairway?” The woman interrupted, looking more than a little bit concerned.  

“Yes.  Not long after I met you back in that other hallway,” she said, jutting out her chin accusingly at Mr. Gracey.

To Solomon’s credit, he looked downright horrified.  Which was a nice change from his usual sour demeanor.

“Good lord, is that where you went previously? Are you all right?” He asked.  

“Yes….No…I mean. I don’t know!  I’m alive and everything seems to work…”

He gave a sigh that suggested both relief and frustration.  “This is exactly the reason you need to leave. It’s too dangerous for the living to go skipping about these halls without a care in the world.  Now child, if you wo-“

“Karen.”

“I beg your pardon?”

She stared him down, unflinching even as she held the gaze of those eerily, glow-y blues.  At this point, she was beyond tired of getting pushed around by ghosts.  

“My name is Karen. Karen Anderson.  And I’m eighteen.”

“How good for you,” he said with a wry smile.  “And I am well over a hundred.  So you’ll have to forgive me if I cannot help but see you as a child, Miss Anderson.  Nonetheless, I do apologize if I have caused you any offense.  I meant it merely as a descriptor, and not as any indication that you are somehow lesser.”

One hand folded behind his back and the other hand over his heart, he gave her a short incline of his head.

“Allow us, further, a chance for introductions. I am Solomon Gracey, and this is my family estate. Primary estate, that is.”

He gestured to the other two spirits.  “My associates….”

“Abigail Galloway,” The maid said, giving her a polite smile that would feel friendly if it didn’t seem a little too polite.

“Edgar Galloway,” The butler said, making neither a bow nor a smile.  For all the world, he seemed straight up bored.  After regarding her carefully with a quick glance, he went right back to stand there with a distant gaze.  

By the shapes of their faces, and their matching names, eyes, and hair, the two were most definitely related.  

Solomon coughed, and her attention returned to him.  He offered a hand.  She stared at it blankly.

His lips twisted a bit into a mischievous, almost boyish smirk.  “To help you to your feet.  Which I know are still working…because I just saw you use them.”

She opened her mouth to give a smart aleck retort, but realized she had nothing.  So she begrudgingly took his hand instead.  Freezing cold, like ice.  Something she had already come to expect by now.

“Come along, then,” he said, releasing her as soon as she was steady on her feet to turn and walk down the way he originally came.

She could feel the two servants pressing closer to her; they weren’t going to give her an opportunity to disobey.

They walked silently and casually.  Karen couldn’t shake off the feeling that their pace was measured and set specifically for her, because any hesitance on her part was met and matched by them.  Even Solomon, who was facing forward, seemed to eerily slow-down whenever she did.  That did more to evidence the fact that this was a supernatural situation than even their appearance; unlike Mr. Mortimer, who had a skeletal, glowing visage to him, these three people seemed to make every effort to give off the illusion they were alive.  

“Um…” she started, looking at the back of Mr. Gracey’s head.

When he did not pay her heed, she turned to the maid beside her instead.  Abigail smiled with a strange mixture of motherly affection, strict politeness, and a tinge of pity.  

“Something wrong?” She asked.

“What about Mr. Mortimer?”

Abigail frowned. “What about him?”

Karen looked nervously towards the back of Solomon’s head and then back to Abigail.  

“The Ghost Host trapped him in a portrait in a stairwell.”

Solomon spun quickly to face her, forcing the party to halt.  

“Claude did what?”

Rumbling in the walls nearest to her made her ease a step back.   The boards shook, but it wasn’t nearly as disorienting or terrifying as before.

She could see his hand shaking, fingers slowly furling into a fist then releasing.  The walls seem to respond to that, working up in a frenzy with each tremble of his hand, getting stronger with every moment they closed in on themselves.  And finally settling down, when his fingers gently unfurled themselves to a relaxed state.

“Miss Anderson…” he said, his voice struggling towards calm, “Would you…be so kind as to describe what this stairwell looked like?”

“Um…” her body tensed a moment, regardless of the fact that he was clearly not angry at her. “Narrow...creaky old wood steps…thin railings… and it was all enclosed by purple striped pattern on the walls.  It was down that way…”

She gestured vaguely the way she came.

Mr. Gracey listened intently to her, face as expressionless as he could obviously muster.

“Edgar,” he said.

“Sir,” Edgar replied.

But when Karen turned to look at the butler, he was gone.  She turned to look towards Abigail, who smiled politely back at her.

“He’s gone to help Mr. Mortimer,” she said.

“More of a courtesy to him,” Mr. Gracey said, and already he had turned to continue on. “Mr. Mortimer is powerful; he’s likely already freed himself by now.  Something like this could only ever hold him temporarily, where lesser souls would be forced to spend weeks.  Which means Edgar is mostly only going to inform Mr. Mortimer that you’re safely with us.”

“So…he’ll be okay?” At the maid’s non-verbal urging, she followed Solomon.

“He’ll be just fine. Don’t worry,” Abigail said.

They walked in silence after that; Karen was given time to think things over as they passed oak doors and flickering electric lights caked in cobwebs.  

The taste of licorice. The smell of roses.  These were sensations that had been clinging to her from the moment the spirits appeared.   The soft sigh of birds singing disappeared when Edgar vanished.    

Claude too.  It dawned on her that whenever the Ghost Host was around, she’d feel a tingling down her spine.  Mr. Mortimer always seemed to carry the smell of the sea.  And the statue had that horrible burnt smell.

Spirits, it seemed, came with some sort of identifying sense.  

She broke out of her reverie when they stepped into a room bathed in a familiar dull blue-green light. A slight panic bubbled up within her at the sight of stairways going any which way possible.

“Wait…why are we here? What are we doing??”  The panic snuck into her voice too.

“This is the fastest way back to the foyer,” Mr. Gracey replied, before taking a stairway straight down.

As in, the stairway was literally going vertically down, with the ghost before her now walking with his form completely horizontal.  

The maid seemed prepared to press her towards the same path, but she balked and backed up.

“I thought you said you wouldn’t kill me!” she accused, looking back and forth between Abigail and Solomon.

“We aren’t trying to,” Solomon said, already having turned to look up at her.  Neither his tone nor his face suggested maliciousness.  

“Then what do you call this?!” She gestured to the sheer drop.

“Looks can be deceiving,” he walked towards her, his hands clasped neatly behind his back. “It’s ironic that mortals, so grounded in reality, would fall prey so easily to the illusions of the dead.  You trust your eyes too much; not all believing comes from seeing.”

On that advice, Karen took an experimental step.  She could feel her weight shifting, her stomach dropping with the gravity, her body threatening to fall forward, and every nerve in her body screaming at her that this was suicide.  Her mind “helpfully” played out for her the fresh memory of her fall in her head.  

“No…No I can’t do this. I can’t do this!” She made to back away several steps, but Abigail kept her in place.

Karen turned to her. “Please, I can’t do this!  I ca-”

“It’s all right.”

“Don’t make me do this, please! Don-“

“Miss Anderson,” Mr. Gracey said, and he was already back on their stairway.  The stairway with the CORRECT stairway orientation.

“Please, I just had a fall, I can’t—“

“You won’t fall.  And if you do, I’ll catch you.”  Mr. Gracey said.

“I can’t! I know gravity when I feel it!  That isn’t just a trick of the eyes!”

“Miss Anderson, please. You won’t fall. I give you my word: As long as you remain with me, I won’t let you die.”

She looked from the maid still holding her to Gracey, who gave her a small smile of reassurance.

That did not make her feel better.  She turned to Abigail, and there must have been pleading in her eyes because Karen could see her slowly relent.

“Here,” Abigail said kindly, turning her around.  The feeling of cold fingers on her eyes. Karen’s sight went dark.

“Wha-?”

“Just step to the edge,” Abigail whispered at her ear.  It was a bit unnerving to know that ghosts had frigid cold fingers, yet somehow (someway) managed to have hot breath.  As if ‘breathing’ was even a thing with them.

“But I ca-“

“Just relax and step towards the edge.  I’ll let you know when you’ve arrived there.  If you cannot stand to go further than the edge, then we’ll find another way,” her voice had hints of softness despite the formal tone, “But try this first.”

“And if you’re just leading me straight off…?”  It was a doubtful statement, but one that still managed to worm into the back of her mind.  

“She’s not,” Mr. Gracey said.  

She took a few experimental steps forward, completely blind.  Solid wood met her feet each time.  

“It’s all right; go a little further,” Abigail encouraged.

So she took a few more steps, larger steps this time, and still met solid wood.  She also met with the realization that her ghostly companions made no footsteps; only HER steps rang against the chasm-like walls.

And yet, they HAD to still be there; she could still feel ice fingers covering her eyes. Her eyelids, in fact, were getting a little numb from it.  

She took a few steps further, smaller this time because she was quite sure the edge would be there, and yet once again met with solid wood.  Perhaps the direction change was farther along the path than it originally looked.  Dimensions really were difficult to discern when you couldn’t see a thing.  

“Where’s the drop?  Is it much farther?”  

“Keep going; we aren’t quite there yet.  Take a few more full steps.”

She did as she was told, her shoulders heaving as her anxiety calmed down.  And she continued to walk (tapping her foot experimentally in front of her before putting all her weight into it), until Abigail suddenly tugged her back a bit to stop her.  

She could hear a door slam shut behind her, and she twisted to escape Abigail’s grasp.  The maid let her go without a fight.  

…Karen blinked.  She stared at the sight long enough for Mr. Gracey to delicately raise an eyebrow at her.

“Are you all right?” He questioned, and there was a tug at the very corner of his lips that threatened to tease over into slight amusement.

Gobsmacked, she stared at him, then back to the scene in front of her.  

She was in the first hallway.  The very FIRST hallway.  The hallway where the Ghost Host took Michael away from her.  

“But…the stairway…” She looked around and spotted a door in the dark corner of the hall, across the way from the stretching room.  She was sure she had tried that same door much earlier that night; it had been locked before then.  

“You already made it through.  Alive, no less.  I guess we’re not very good at killing people, are we?”

His voice was dripping in sarcasm, and it both irked and amused her to the point where she, again, tried to find a clever response.

But her mental exercise was interrupted as the aforementioned door banged back open with much enthusiasm.  

Nell Jackson, green pinstripe dress and all, stood in the doorframe, excitement frozen on her face at the sight of Karen as if she weren’t quite expecting her.  Karen was sure the ghosts would remark on this, but they stood still and said nothing.

“Oh is it a party?” Nell cheerfully said, bounding into the room and shutting the door behind her.  Karen caught a glimpse of twisted staircases encased in green light.

“Nell, what’s that all over your dress?”  Abigail sternly said.

“Hm?” Nell picked a speck of dull grey from her apron.  “Oh. It’s just a bit of sand.”

She did a twirl with gleeful grin on her face, and the sand fell off all in a circle around her.

“NELL!” Abigail cried, looking insulted.

“What??”

“The carpet!”

Nell looked down at the ground, faux inspecting the carpet.

Karen did a double take. Had there ALWAYS been carpet in this hallway?  She thought there had only been floorboards before.

“Good news!  The carpet doesn’t seem harmed by it.”  Nell said.

“You’re still going to pick that up, young lady,” Abigail seethed through her teeth.  

“I can do that later.”

“Nell.”

“What?  It isn’t like the sand is going anywhere.  Sand isn’t sentient…” a beat, “…I think.”

Abigail gave a pointed look at Solomon, who in turn looked a little uncomfortable.  

“It’s just sand, Abigail. It won’t stain,” he said.  

Abigail gave him a hard stare akin to betrayal, and he coughed before venturing into the stretching room.

“Come along chil- erm, Miss Anderson.”

She made to follow him, but dust and ash swept across the floor, and as she stood to watch she saw Edgar appear from the flurry.  

“Edgar!  Perfect timing.  Help me clean up this sand,” Nell said, smiling.

Edgar gave one, long, bored stare at the mess on the ground before returning to a flurry of dust and ashes, particles picking up particles and the sand coalescing right into him.  

“What?  No!  Edgar, stop that!” Abigail said.  

Edgar half formed himself, just enough so that his face was showing.  Eyebrows raised at Abigail in quiet confusion.

“Thank you, Edgar. You’re the best!”  Nell smiled cheerfully at him.

“Nell, you needed to clean up the mess.” Abigail said.

“As long as it’s clean, why does it matter? And really, I wouldn’t have ever been able to do it that fast.  Besides, Edgar doesn’t mind.  Do you, Edgar?”

“I don’t care.” Edgar said, glassy bored look already returning to his features as he reformed himself.

“You see?  It all works out!” Nell gestured towards Edgar.

Abigail gave a long-suffering sigh.  “You disappoint me, Nell.”

“Well that isn’t unusual.”

“Nell…” Abigail sighed again, before finally turning to Karen and gestured her to enter the next room.

Karen gulped away her questions under the gaze of the still-irritated Abigail and went inside; the silly little drama of what she just saw was in stark contrast to the life threatening fear the Ghost Host had constantly subjected her to.  

Solomon Gracey was waiting for them in the center of the room.  He nodded in acknowledgement as the rest of the party joined him.  

And what a stark contrast that was here as well.  The room had changed since she’d last seen it; the differences were minor, yet remarkable in how they affected the mood.  The gargoyles looked less threatening due to the fact that the room was lit up brighter, and the portraits had reverted back to their original, un-stretched appearance.  It was just as cold as earlier, but infinitely less creepy.  She couldn’t feel the gaze of the hanging man hidden above them, and the general air didn’t feel nearly as oppressive as a result.

As strange as it was, she felt safer, in spite of the fact that this time she walked alongside practical strangers.

They came back to the foyer, and as she turned to look behind her she paused.

“….Wasn’t the portrait room on the other side?”

It was true.  She distinctly remembered Michael and herself being forced by the Ghost Host into a room to the left of Solomon Gracey’s portrait.  Yet as they exited this very same room, they came out to the right of the portrait.  

She checked; nothing but a blank wall to the left of Solomon’s painted visage.  

“Ah.  Well you see…” Abigail said, hesitant.

“The house moves rooms,” Nell interjected, grinning excitedly as she hoisted herself up one of the cabinets, “Isn’t it cool?”

“The house does what?” Mouth open and eyes wide, Karen stared back at her.    The word ‘cool’ was the furthest thing from her mind.

“What the house does or does not do is of no concern to you.  You’ll be on your way back to town shortly…as soon as we find your friend,” The actual Solomon turned towards her, “There is another mortal roaming around the house, correct?”

“Y-yeah… My boyfriend, Michael.  We were separated when that Ghost Host dragged him underneath the floorboards.”

A flick of anger on his face sprung up before fading into sympathy.

“I am sorry about that. That filth is known to do things like that,” his stare towards her hardened just a tad, “I do hope this act as a lesson to you both not to intrude upon old houses, even if you think they’re abandoned.”

Now it was her turn to get a little angry.  “We weren’t intruding!!  We were just….we were just lost!  And it was raining! And…”

She caught sight of Nell, happily sitting on the counter and eating from a jar of cookies.   The sight irritated her a little more.

“And she!”  Karen pointed an accusing finger at Nell.  “She said we could come visit her if it ever started raining!”

All three ghosts slowly turned to look at Nell, who suddenly stopped mid bite.  Both Abigail and Solomon had their eyebrows raised in the same exasperated expression.  Edgar just continued to look bored.

Nell, still mid bite, looked from both Karen to the spirits and back again, before raising her head solemnly.

“Well I never said you could come in.”  Nell said, quickly eating the remainders of her cookie as defiantly looking as she could.

“Wha—“ Karen began to protest, but Nell cut her off by wagging her finger towards her.

“Ah ah ah!  I never said you both could come in!  Now did I, Edgar?  Edgar was there; what did I say to them, Edgar?”

The other two ghosts now turned their exasperated sights on Edgar, who took it in stride by looking especially bored.

“’If you’re ever in an unfortunate rainstorm, you’re more than welcome to hide underneath our awning.’” Edgar quoted.

Nell was triumphant as she turned back to Karen.  “There, you see?  I never gave you permission to use the front door, now did I?”

Karen glared at her.

Abigail, meanwhile, glared at Edgar

“You never thought to inform us of this?”

Edgar, with an utterly neutral expression, simply replied, “It did not seem important.”

“Edgar,” Abigail seethed.

“Nell,” Solomon groaned, rubbing his forehead.

“Master Gracey,” Nell said, tone treating the name-calling like a game.

“None of this ‘Master Gracey’.  We talked about this,” Solomon said, looking a little more irritated, “You are not my servant and I am not your employer.”

“As you say, sir.”

Solomon grumbled on his way to a cabinet that looked like it had a wooden, intricate box built on top of its surface.  When he took out a glass with a bulge in it and a strange, ornate decanter filled with eerie green liquid, Karen assumed it to be some sort of cubby hole for drinks.  

“Abigail, Edgar,” he gestured to them aimlessly as he set up some extravagant drink that involved a strainer, what looked like a cube of sugar, water, and that sickly green stuff. “Could one of you be so kind as to find that other wayward mortal?”

“As you wish, sir,” Edgar stated, and he faded nearly instantly into whispy ash before vanishing completely.

“I could go too,” Nell offered.

“No, Nell.  If I know you, you’d only hinder any effort to actually retrieve him.”  

Solomon settled into an armchair that Karen swore hadn’t been there a moment ago.  It was only a handful of feet away from the fireplace, and so faded that you only just barely make out its deep red color.  

“What you could do, instead,” Solomon continued, “Is to get rid of that uniform and wear....well whatever it is modern mortals wear these days. Jeans and t-shirts, if I recall the words correctly.”  

“You let Abigail go around in the uniform, even though she’s not your servant anymore either…”

Nell crossed her arms, but the ghost of a smile on her lips suggested that this had been brought up before. And her eyes occasionally darting towards Karen brought with it the implication that she was only mentioning it for the benefit of their guest.  

Sure enough, Solomon stiffed in his chair, and Abigail looked just as equally uncomfortable as she busied herself with straightening papers on a nearby shelf.

“Nell,” Solomon warned, his tone deeper now.

“Alright, alright.  I see how it is.”

Nell made to cross the room, but lingered out of Solomon’s sight.  Karen caught sight of her gesturing to get her attention before pointing to the two ghosts, bringing her two fists to gently bump into each other while making a kissy face and giving a wink.  

Karen stared hard back. What the hell did the girl expect her to do with this information?

Her staring morphed to horror when Nell took off her maid’s headpiece and made a sign as if to throw it at Solomon.  Before Karen even had a chance to vocalize a sound, the headpiece went flying, phased straight through the middle of Solomon’s forehead, and landed quite obviously in front of him.

“Head shot!  Yes!”  Nell said while she fist pumped the air.

Solomon angrily shot out of the chair and spun to face Nell.

“Going, going, gone!” Nell said, grinning in that guiltless nervous way people get when they’re caught doing something they shouldn’t.

She quickly exited out a door so hidden by the darkness that it was a wonder if it had itself materialized like these ghosts were known to do.

Solomon sighed, his anger abating as he settled back down in the chair and stared wistfully at his drink.

“God, I wish alcohol still affected me,” he muttered as he took a sip.

As he lowered his drink, he seemed to notice Karen was still standing.  He motioned to the faded couch next to him.  

“You’re allowed to sit, you know,” he said, smirking a little, “I imagine you’d need it after that self-induced workout you gave yourself while trying to evade us earlier.”

Karen clamped her mouth shut, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of a response even as her face burned a little out of embarrassment.  She officially hated ghosts.  

 She instead focused her complete attention to the dead embers lying in the fire, her hands absentmindedly rubbing against her arms.

“Are you cold?” Abigail asked, coming back towards them.

“A little…”

“I imagine any mortal would feel quite cold around here,” Solomon said, getting up to move towards the fireplace.

“I’ve got that, sir,” Abigail curtly interrupted.  

Solomon moved back to his chair, palms raised in surrender with a slightly amused smile on his face, “As you say, Abigail.  Thank you.”

The fireplace roared up in a flicker of odd green flames, and the room began to grow wonderfully warmer. The remnants of anxiety faded as she sank into the couch, relaxation causing her mind to drift a bit.  She felt the weight of exhaustion start to consume her, and she idly wondered what time it was.  Her eyes wandered about, but were no apparent clocks anywhere on the walls.  

She considered Solomon’s drink on the table near her.  It didn’t have its greenish hue; it was more of a milky white with only a hint of green, and already halfway gone.

“How do ghosts even drink?” She asked in her absentminded state.

“Very carefully,” Solomon replied, with both sarcasm and a smile.

“But you can’t get drunk…”

“Such is the tragic nature of not having a body to intoxicate.”

“So what’s the point?”

Solomon took a sip, and made a show of smacking his lips as he stared into the pale liquid.

“Nostalgia,” He said, putting the glass back on the table.

She stared at the drink. “What even is that?”

“Absinthe,” he said, “Or the Green Fairy, as it was once known.”

He seemed to regard her as she remained transfixed by the glass.  

“…Would you care for some?”

Her eyes grew wide at the offer.

“I’m only eighteen! Also, doesn’t...that stuff...cause hallucinations?”

Solomon’s smile bent at the edges a bit, and he looked towards Abigail.  She was neatly standing near the other end of the couch from them both; she had been so silent that Karen had temporarily forgot she was even there.

“While I won’t lie; there were plenty of things we consumed back then that probably caused hallucinations,” Abigail stood with her hands clasped behind her back, a small quirk to the side of her lips, “But absinthe was not one of them.”

“At least, it’s not possible to get that effect with any amount you could feasibly drink,” he smiled bitterly, “Trust me on this.”

“This may be one of your only chances to try it,” Abigail added, “Since, currently, it’s very much misunderstood in America.  That’s where your hallucination idea comes from.”

Karen looked back at the drink, her stomach queasy just staring at it.  

“I…” she started. Solomon held up a hand to stop her.

“Please don’t feel like you have to drink it.  You will not be missing much, I promise.  It’s just another alcoholic drink, and you can get plenty of those once you’re older.  I personally find it rather ridiculous that they increased the drinking age, but I respect that you aren’t comfortable with this.  And if it will make you feel better…”

He made to get up, but Abigail was already on her way back to the drink cabinet.  So he sat back down with a nearly unreadable (but distinctly defeated) expression.  

The maid returned with something that looked just like Solomon’s glass; milky white.  She offered it to Karen, but Karen hesitated to take it.  

“This one isn’t alcoholic,” Abigail explained, “It’s made by a brewery in France, on special request and using the same kind of anise.  As a result, it doesn’t taste exactly the same, but it has some of the same notes…”

Karen stared at it, wondering if she could not find shapes within the milky white liquid.  The inkling of an idea had begun to gather at the edges of her mind, but the hazy warm room and the fact that it was likely the dead of night made it difficult to properly think.  She kind of wanted to just sleep.  

“Pomegranates...” She said.

The ghosts both looked perplexed, briefly side glancing each other before resting their eyes back on her.

She tried to gather her thoughts a little better so she could spit them out.

“In the story, there was a girl who had been kidnapped to the underworld and was tricked into eating the seeds of a pomegranate, forcing her to-“

“-To remain there, trapped, for several months every year.  The story of Persephone.” Abigail smiled, “It is good to hear that present day mortals are still taught classic Greek mythology.”

“But your concern is a little misplaced,” Solomon added, a glint in his eerie blue eyes akin to an adult humoring a young child, “The food and drink here is not somehow magical.”

“And that would also be a little counterproductive to our goal of getting you to leave…”

“Oh yeah…” Karen said, trying to frown away her exhaustion.  She partially wished she was still in that bed in the attic.

 “Besides, this is not the underworld and I am not Lord Hades.” Solomon said, stealing another sip from his drink before setting it aside.

“This is nothing more than a mansion,” he said, gesturing around him, “which, for better or for worse…just happens to be haunted.”

She nodded to him; it was a bit of a foolish idea. If she had a little coffee, perhaps she would have thought things through a little clearer. Carefully, unwilling to trust herself, she used both of her hands to take the cup from Abigail and brought it to her lips.

                                                             ….

                                                 It tasted of licorice.

#fanfiction #the haunted mansion fanfiction #haunted mansion fanfiction #fanfics #my fanfiction

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

Teen Titans: Speech Quirks!

I came across a post yesterday that went into the dialogue quirks of a couple SU characters, and it made me realize just how much I wanted to analyze the verbal quirks of the core Teen Titans! (Taken from the 2003 cartoon, specifically.) I’ve always loved paying special attention to their spoken words while writing, but today, I’m actually going to compile the verbal trends I’ve noticed in each one. 

I’ve already gone into SO many details for my OCs, and maybe I’ll do one for them later. But for the canon Titans? Buckle up, kids, ya writer over here is HUGELY hung up on Characterization Through DIALOGUE!

Basic tl;dr: - Beast Boy has the “dude” thing, puns, quick emotional exclamations, and longer half-rambling speech when he’s excited. - Starfire has distinct ESL patterns (confusing idioms, mixing up similar words), Tamaranian vocabulary, and the (overused but still valid) insertion of an extra “the”. - Cyborg uses familiarity terms (”man”, “cool”, possibly AAVE?), technical phrasing, drops a “g” here and there, and the occasional emotional yelling. - Robin has a direct and decisive speech pattern, observations and follow-up questions, and directives/imperatives. - Raven uses brief/blunt phrasing, her mantra, succinct and honest commentary, sarcasm, dissembling, and the rare big word/concept.

(Commentary, sharing, and discussion are encouraged!)

And now for the essay portion of my treatise!

Beast Boy

Everyone knows about the “dude” thing. It’s probably the most iconic catchphrase of all, maybe tied with Raven’s “Azarath Metrion Zinthos.” ‘Dude’ is a lot more multi-purpose, used as a happy addition or a worried exclamation.

But he also uses a lot of other quick casual phrases, and slang (“My bad.” “No way!” “Nice one!”) He also makes a lot of quick not-really-verbal exclamations in emotional moments. (”Eek!” “Hey!”) Plus a lot of moans and groans rather than verbally professing his frustrations. He may not use a whole lot of words to talk about it, but he’s actually very emotionally expressive.

Even if he’s the least serious character in the cast. You really can’t write Beast Boy without the jokes. Puns are basically a must. (”Cyborg can do the robot!” “the great blue-dini”)

Even when not directly in joke mode: he uses a flippant tone most of the time, making light of even the most serious situation. He uses a sillier, simpler sort of word choice, using more familiar and brief words befitting a casual conversation, even in the heat of a mission or distressing emotional moment. (”Not only that, but something about this place seems really familiar.” “...being a total GOOBER!” “Terra took you down. WAY down!”)

But when you get him really excited, he can launch into long-winded explanations, like when he makes pitches (for his bathtub tuba or stankball), or when he’s theorizing (on how/why Robin would be working with Slade).

Starfire

Her unfamiliarity with the English language is one of my favorite things to phrase! But for other writers, it might be hard to pin that unfamilarity down without knowing which complexities of the English language real-life IRL speakers get tripped up by.

- Similar sounding words (when she says “here here, Cyborg” instead of “there there”) - Different prepositions (ESL speakers sometimes use “for” when Native speakers use “to”, “of” instead of “from”, etc.) - Words that would typically be omitted remain used because it’s grammatically correct, technically (for example, her addition of articles like “the”. Which has become overused in a certain Flash-ified show to the point of wearing out its unexpected amusement factor, but it’s still valid to throw in a fic every now and again.)

+ IDIOMS! Oh my gosh, this one’s fun. I can’t think of any examples in the show off the top of my head (an expression she might voice as “from the surface of my skull”). But I once wrote her saying, “Perhaps she awakened on the wrong side of the pillow.” She has the general idea of the saying, but: 1.) while “awakened” literally means the same thing as “woke up”, the connotation is different, and she’s unfamiliar with the exact verbiage of the phrase.  2.) Mixing up the sleeping implements there (”pillow” instead of “bed”). These things combine so you still know what she’s trying to get across, but it’s received just slightly awkwardly.

Even when she’s using her own verbiage: There are subtle transpositions in the way she orders her words. Like asking questions: She’ll often start with the subject, then the whole verb phrase, then the details, and skip the contractions. A question an experienced English speaker might phrase as “Won’t that hurt her?” could be transposed to “Will that not hurt her?”

She also uses some Tamaranian words, of course! Like IRL ESL speakers, she uses them in emotional exclamations (”You are a KLORBAG VORBLERNELK!” “Somebody’s claws are on my grebnaks!”). And randomly peppered words in casual conversation. (“these tunnels go on for at least [measurement I’m not sure how to transcribe]”, “for your thoughts, I would give two [currency maybe?]”) 

But you can’t confuse Starfire’s linguistic slip-ups with a lack of thought and feeling behind them. She’s very PERCEPTIVE, especially of emotional subject matter; the girl’s got a wicked high EQ, and it’s a big part of her character. She’s very honest in what she says, and very sincere and open about it, as well as prone to vocal emotional expressions (like frightened squeaks, feral yells, and shocked gasps). She’s also VERY emotionally expressive; even if her sentence structure is plain and direct (”No she will not”), there’s a lot of feeling in her tonal delivery.

Cyborg

This one brings a little duality, because he comes off as calm and casual at some times, and intensely emotional at others. Cyborg is a character of BIG expressions-- he’s very emotional, and he seems to feel things with his whole being. And he’ll readily flip modes whenever a reason arises. (While playing videogames, and in the lead, starting off with a broadly-smiling cocky “You can’t pass me, you can’t pass me!” And then dropping to a disgruntled “You passed me”.)

He has a very technical vocabulary too, and while he won’t use Unnecessarily Educated Phrasing in most conversation (read: his casual demeanor), when it comes to something technological, medical, or scientific, he really knows what he’s talking about. 

While I think this one is more prevalent in the comics: He does drop some “g”s at the ends of verbs in the show, too. I can’t think of any specific instances, but it’s a subtle pronunciation that colors his speaking.

As far as the content of his dialogue, he actually throws in a lot of little asides, like additions or conclusions to someone else’s thoughts, or surmising and theorizing. (”Maybe he had an extra remote. I mean we got, like, nine.”)

And there’s another thing: “We got” instead of “we have”, or “we’ve got”. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that’s AAVE grammatical structure? While he doesn’t use it heavily, sometimes AAVE still comes through. (As I only have a passing familiarity with it, and I’m certainly not fluent in it, I can’t really go in-depth with the nuances of phrasing and grammar, but I know it when I hear it.) + And of course, the “like” in casual ~approximation~ usage.

Robin

His personality tends to come through very clearly in his dialogue. He’s very motivated and intense, and speaks mostly through ACTION. (What he’s doing, what someone else will do, how to respond, instructions, solution seeking, etc.)

He’s very analytical, very situationally aware, and makes a lot of verbal observations. And he’ll ask a lot of questions to deepen the subject, especially “why” when dealing with people, and “how” when dealing with missions. (Asking ”Why didn’t you tell us?” about a personal revelation, versus wondering how Slade returned to life.) He doesn’t give commands without having good cause.

He’ll often condense and recap mission objectives, and give directives with concise clarity. As the leader, naturally he gives plenty of instructions. Being a STRATEGIC leader (and person in general), he has a lot of reasons for what he’s asking or instructing, and will often share those reasons.

Sometimes he seems to talk more to himself than the others when he’s musing out loud, and we know (at least if the episode “X” is to be trusted) he has a rich internal narration going on, not just analyzing facts but also contemplating heavier subjects like morality and the consequences of his actions, and how it affects his friends/family.

His criticism can be heavy-handed too; especially in earlier seasons, he’s prone to angry or frustrated outbursts, and you hear a lot of grunting or sighing in those moments.

Raven

She’s my favorite to write dialogue for; Raven is very layered, often presenting the same in generally every situation, but when you manage to get her under emotional duress, you get a whole different array of speech modes.

Her default mode is very quiet, a woman of very few words. When she does speak, it’s sharp and to the point. (When she explained her adventure against Mad Mod by simply saying, “Gym.”)

She often makes sarcastic commentary (”A green mongoose is gonna blend right in”), speaking succinctly and bluntly. This side-commentary often comes with a critical attitude (”That would’ve been a lot more profound without the hat”). She’ll say what others won’t say, or face (”We cannot change the truth, no matter how much we dislike it”). 

As in that last quote, every now and again you’ll hear her spout a pseudo-platitude, the truth as she sees it, as a plain statement, 

But she’s also known to ask questions and make inquisitive commentary as well, also in few words but provoking much deeper thought.

She can occasionally be more verbose, particularly when she’s explaining something mystical, in her area of expertise (”Mixing my powers with his could destroy the dimensional boundaries and nullify all existence”). 

She’s also relatively verbose when she has something positive to say that someone needs to hear, too. (”Having that thing inside you doesn’t make you a beast. Knowing when to let it out is what makes you a man.”) 

For all her attitude and sarcasm, Raven can have some very heartfelt moments. They’re still pretty brief and succinct; even in softer happier moments, she uses poignant phrasing. (”So what’s the deal? Are we having a party in here or what?”)

I’ve also noticed that she has a habit of yelling out “NO!”, just a minor speech pattern worth noting if you plan to put her in a really stressful situation.

And of course: “Azarath Metrion Zinthos.”

~*~

As a parting note: I think it’s important to remember, when you’re writing dialogue, that every character’s mood, situation, and dynamic with the other character can change which speech mode they use. Raven and Robin have very different conversations from Raven and Beast Boy, and Beast Boy and Cyborg have very different conversations from Cyborg and Starfire. Robin yells out a delighted “Yeah!” at fireworks, but pulls out grunts and taunts in battle. Starfire is a pile of heartfelt mush around Robin, but a fierce kicker of ass in battle. 

These were just some generalizations of their individual trends, just as all communication in the world can change with mood, personality, and situation!

#teen titans #tt fanfics #fanfics #communication #linguistics #rhs makes yet another post about teen titans #tt fanalysis #rhs personal teen titans

[bob-dude]

Some Orange Jerk’s Hazbin thoughts, the longer version.

As I mentioned in a prior post, I  thought the pilot was so-so. Don't hate it with a capital H but find everyone's love for this show to be... odd. Though considering the late 2000s Devinart vibe I get from the show’s art style, probably not too odd now that I think about it. So here’s my longer, more rambly, thoughts on Hazbin Hotel by some rando Orange Jerk on Tumblr.  And as always, more power to ya if you do love it, obviously.

Art direction wise, I’m just not crazy about Viv’s color choice. The red and black and pinks give a Valintine’s day meets Wonderland Queen of Hearts vibe that just doesn't personally work for me on a visual level. 

As for hell itself, I thought the background stuff like ‘Radio Hack’ and the main city being named Pentagram to be... eh? Like, that’s the kind of world-building we’re going with here? It felt less like Hell and more like a city with the trapings of Hell, at least for me. 

So, main cast, the trio as it were. Eh. Meh. Like, Charlie is a Disney Princess of Hell... even though no one treats her as one respect wise which just strikes me as odd from a background perspective. And Charlie has that standard Disney nativity going on... even though she was born and raised in Hell? Like, why bother to make your most optimistic and native character a denizen of hell if she���s not going to look or act the part personality wise?

The reason the personality thing confuses me I guess,  is that take Charlie out of Hell and we’ve seen her character a thousand times before: The bubbly sweet optimistic girl that’s been done so many times before.  Is the ‘But in Hell!’ aspect really that much of a grabber for people? Guess it is and more power to em but it just strikes me as a strange creative choice where once again a character's personality doesn’t logically flow from their background. 

Design-wise Charile is fine, red tux reminds me of the God from the 1977 Oh God movie so that gets a thumbs up in my book. Still a bit weird that a princess is wearing it but it makes sense with the Hotel set up and all so her outfit has a logic to it. 

Then we have Vaggie. So, legit question here people: If you went into the pilot blind and Angle Dust didn’t make his ‘taco’ comment would you have ANY idea that Vaggie is supposed to be Latina? Because I legitimately had no idea that was what her design was supposed to say about her as a charchter. Also didn’t really get a moth vibe from her, either if I’m honest. As for her personality, she’s the standard ‘loving supportive’ GF but with an angry side protective side for Charile... and she’s a Latinia/Latinix.  Does... Does no one else think that’s just a bit... off? Making the one clearly marked Latinia character the ‘angry girlfriend’ archetype? 

Also, that weird pink X eye patch bugged the hell out of me when I was watching. Totally petty as shit nitpick, but I had to vent on that bit. Honestly, though Vaggie is also Meh? Like, she’s in a relationship with Charlie, cool and all but she just doesn’t strike me as a terribly interesting character if I’m honest. Gives me a sort of Lisa Simpson ‘stick-in-the-mud’ vibe. 

And then we have Angle Dust. You know, in the words of Netflix’s Big Mouth, “Sassy and Gay”  isn’t a personality. Angle Dust basically has that sort of ‘2000s  Yaoi OC’ vibe and considering Vive once had a DA character sheet where she literally listed his personality is ‘Bitch’... Yeah. 

Also, as I’ve said elsewhere, Viv and crew are doing too much with this guy. So he’s an ex mobster killed by his homophobic father in the 1920s (not mentioned in the pilot but it is a pilot in all fairness so you can’t throw all your cards on the table). And he’s a Spider Demon... even though per Word of Viv how everyone’s designed in hell doesn’t have anything to do with how they died on Earth (then why deign them that way?). And he’s a porn star (being ex Mob shouldn’t he be the one paying for porn stars as a power domination sort of thing?). AND he’s going for a Beetlejuice meets CJ from Regular Show sort of design.

It just seems a bit much, imo. Like, you could make him just a gay ex mob who mostly uses a Tommy Gun and design him to fit that and leave the Spider-Demon stuff out and it becomes a lot more manageable. Something like a simplified Zoot Suit, or the like. You could keep the sexual humor but throw it a bit more 1920s slang and pop culture references for characterization/comedy purposes (Vaggie, for example, has no idea what he’s talking about most of the time). Granted, I’d personally rather they ditch the ‘animal bits slapped on’ aspects of the designs as a whole but that, as always is just me.

For the record, I’m not ‘offended’ by Angle Dust as a character concept, I’m just not wowed or impressed, ultimately.

And then we have Alastor. Now, I LOVE Alastor as a character. He’s got that classic ‘reality warper’ vibe ala Bill Cipher or Discord but with a 1920s radio show host twist that I just think is amazing and the sound distortion they added to his voice was a really cool touch on top of it all. The problem, as always, comes more with the color choice. One one of your own characters can’t take someone seriously because they look like a ‘strawberry pimp’ that might be the time to maybe go with a different color pallet? Like, idk,  maybe throw in some warm browns and brass golds to involve the 1920s radio vibe stronger? Radios of the 20s and 30s weren’t famous for being red, is what I’m getting at.

The other problem with Alastor is that he’s too strong a personality, ironically. He comes in at the tail end of the pilot and basically steals whatever interest a potential audience member (or at least fat orange jerks like me) might have had in Charlie's plight. It's like introducing Bill Cipher in the first episode of Gravity Falls. At that point whatever interest you might have had in the MC goes out the window and you think ‘what’s this dudes deal and can the show be about them instead please?’ Sure, Alastor in all of his pesudo deer (Those don’t look like horns in my opinion but whatever you say Viv) is fun to watch but he drowns out Charile through sheer force of charisma and showmen ship. Maybe the series itself will fix this but for the pilot at least I think it’s an issue.  

Also, Nifty is Nifty and she needs her own spin-off ASAP. That is all. 

Husk is literally Avocato from Final Space with wings and some gambling bits thrown in design-wise. That’s literally all I think of Husk, sorry Husk fans :(

The animation is good, but I do find it ironic that as much as people like the bitch about  SU being off model, Hazbin I thought suffered from so many different animators tackling different scenes that it just felt jarring going from one scene to the next due to the difference in style and the shifts in animation pacing. Now, don’t get me wrong, a lot of it looks great but that switch in animators kinda just took me out of the experience in places.  Well, that and the lack of proper scene transitions. Those are what also made the pilot feel like whiplash for me.

And now comes to Bob’s thoughts on the plot of the pilot and this is where the logical holes of the series start to get to me just a bit.

So. Charlie wants to reform the demons of hell of their sins so they can get to heaven and Hell can lower its population and angles down come down and deliver some righteous furry smiting on their asses. Okay. Stupid question but what the hell is Charlie basing this off of? I mean, was AD really THAT good an actor that Charlie thought going full steam ahead on the Hotel idea was the next reasonable step up?

 Like, the Hotel was clearly a mess and her staff is literally just her and Vaggie and MAYBe Angel Dust. Even if the episode had ended with a horde of demons lining up to get into heaven by way of cleaning up their acts there’s no way two, three people could handle that (Or, you know, six if we throw in Nifty and Husk in fairness now that I think about it).

 And that’s ultimately the thing with the pilot, the demons are assholes as you’d expect the citizens of hell to be but if they are assholes... why should we care if they get redeemed or not when not one of them is clearly interested in the idea? As cheesy as it would have been, the pilot ending with a horde of demons wanting to give this ‘become better’ thing a shot would have at least left the pilot on a better note to end on. As it is it just seems like Charlie is doomed to fail because no one but her gives a shit or belives about her idea for the Hotel and we have no proof that her idea will even work. Which just makes me wonder: Why should I care if no one else does?

Ultimately, the show has potential but the art style and aspects of the writing just don’t click for me. The show doesn’t say ‘adult’ to me so much as it does 'Hot Topic Teen trying to be adult' which works for a lot of people but for me I think Hellevua Boss as more potential concept-wise. And has scenes on Earth which do the red and black and pink and white colors of the demons a lot better visual justice contrast wise but that’s just me. 

#hazbin hotel #sorry hazbin fans #your show is flawed and has room for improvement

[neon-schmetterlinge]

11 questions answered and asked (Skam edition)

Rules:

Always repost the rules!

Answer the questions given to you by the one who tagged you!

Give 11 questions

Tag 11 people!

Thank you for tagging me and the fun questions, @fille-lioncelle! 😘 (also sorry it took me forever to actually do this rip)

If you could change one thing about the OG/each remake you’ve seen, what would it be? just one thing?? oh God... og: Yousef stays in Oslo for the finale Druck: let Mia talk about her sexuality instead of beating around the bush the whole season

Do you speak any of the languages it’s been (re)told in, and if so have you watched it? What was it like? If not, do you wish you did? yes, German - and it’s been really fun to watch it and immediately get what they’re talking about for once! especially when it comes to all those almost untranslatable slang terms like “Gesichtsgulasch” and “was kackst du mich so von der Seite an” - wunderschön

Do you have a favourite season? Which one? season 3 (surprise, surprise)

Do you watch any of the remakes? I only really follow Druck, but I watched the first season of Skam NL and the first few clips of most remakes (I keep telling myself that I’ll catch up on some them soon, though)

Do you think there are things the remakes have (notably) improved on? kudos to Druck for making Alex a likeable character because it made s2 a lot more enjoyable. and yay for a wlw main!

Are there characters you wish had gotten more attention in the OG/remakes? definitely the Balloon Squad, also I feel like we know almost nothing about Eskild even though he’s such an important character (have we ever learnt what he studies??)

Do you (still) follow any of the OG/remake instagram accounts? I still follow some of the OG accounts, mainly because I’m just too lazy to unfollow them (and what if they suddenly start posting again) I only follow a couple of the Druck characters because everytime they flood Insta with content it lowkey stresses me out

Do you like the cabin episode from OG s2? haven’t watched it in a while but what’s not to like about an episode with so many iconic moments :D

How many jackets is too many jackets for one character? fun fact: I just took three jackets with me on vacation because I couldn’t pick just one, so my answer clearly is that you can never have enough jackets! I’m sure Isak would agree ;)

What’s your favourite party happening in any of the Skams? so many parties to choose from! maybe the Abiball because that’s something I wish we would have seen in the og

Do you think you’d have been/would be friends with any of the characters in your teens? If so, who? probably og Eva. and I would have wished to be friends with Sana but thought I’m not cool enough for her

My questions (all of them for the og and remakes):

Do you have a favourite running gag/inside joke? 

Which character without an Instagram account should get one? What do you think it’d look like?

Which bloopers make you laugh the most?

Which character would you choose as a study partner?

Do you prefer watching the clips in real time or watching the entire episode/season once it’s out?

What did Even do with that bun he got from Vilde at the kosegruppa meeting? (he’s holding it in one shot and it’s gone in the next one)

Which character gives you the most wardrobe envy?

Do you have a clip/episode that’s your go-to comfort watch? Which one?

Who out of the cast would be the most fun to make and eat disgusting cheese toasties with?

If you could wipe one clip from the face of the earth, which one would you pick?

Is there a specific set/location you’d like to visit or have already been to?

trying to tag some people who I haven’t seen do this yet:  @thegirlnooneknows5, @lovedeven, @canonicallyanxious, @greathalesonfire, aaand maybe you wanna have a go at these question too, @fille-lioncelle? :)

#as always feel free to ignore this #and it's theresa/koedder-du btw in case you're wondering why a random druck blog is tagging you #tagged

[hornyliverpudlianputz]

What are some TV shows that you highly recommend? (I love The Monkees, but they don't have to be similar to it) Thanks!

Hhhoooo boyyyyyy. Ok I’m going in completely blind here so I will take the shotgun approach. (Bless you anon, I love recommending things.) 

Classic comedies -

The Dick Van Dyke Show: an absolute comedy classic, and Rose Marie and Mary Tyler Moore are main characters! Is great! Can get a little sexist at times but honestly not as bad as it could have been. It’s in black and white and, as a product of the time, Van Dyke will frequently kiss his young son on the mouth in greeting. It is NOT sexual AT ALL but if that makes you uncomfortable, be warned.

I Love Lucy: duh. I mean do I even have to describe this one? Watch it, it’s great!

The Carol Burnett Show: another very funny lady. Their sketch parody of “Gone With The Wind” had me laughing so hard I was not physically producing sound any more.

Get Smart: a spy comedy from the 60s, The Monkees reference it a few times. Has some ridiculously funny catchphrases.

Hogan’s Heroes: set in a WWII POW camp in Germany, is basically a funny version of the howling commandos from Captain America. Again, sexist as a product of their time, but funny none the less. One of the first major sitcoms to have a main black character, and has a lot of behind-the-scenes epicness. Obviously, because of the setting, the main antagonists are Nazis, but I feel it’s important to point out that they are made to look incompetent at ever turn. (A lot of the main/reoccurring cast are either Jewish or come from Jewish families, and the actor who plays LeBeau is actually a Holocaust survivor. Trust me when I say the Nazis never win.)

MASH: you probably see me post about this a lot here besides The Monkees, I love this show. It’s very long, 11 seasons, and transforms over the course of it’s run from a slapstick comedy to a short drama with witty jokes. It’s set in a mobile medical unit during the Korean War so it can get pretty bloody and does not shy away from gallows humor. Is sexist at the beginning but it gets better, same with period typical racism towards Asians. (The guy who plays BJ, a main character, was a guest on The Monkees and I LOST MY SHIT.)

Monty Python’s Flying Circus: a British sketch comedy show from the 70s. These are the same people who do “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” and “Life of Brian” so they are very funny. Unfortunately a lot of it was political satire at the time so it has the tendency to go completely over our heads now, but still great. Other British sketch comedies I love include A Bit of Fry and Laurie with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie and Not The Nine O’Clock News that has Rowen Atkinson.

Classic dramas - 

Dragnet: I haven’t had a huge opportunity to watch a lot of this, but it’s an old police procedural that actually started as a radio drama. It’s a bit stiff, but it’s NOT as bad as Ben Casey so I’d give it a try.

Star Trek: classic 60s, you had to have seen this coming. Horrifically cheesy special effects, costumes, acting, and music, but man has it got heart. Please do also check out all of the other Star Treks.

Columbo: this is an epic police procedural that turns the typical formula on it’s head; the audience follows the murderer rather than the detective. Basically we watch the lead-up to the crime, usually the crime itself, and then we watch Detective Columbo come in and destroy the criminal piece by piece. It’s great and Peter Falk is a national treasure. Suffers from “black people don’t exists” 70s syndrome, but is basically about rich white people killing each other because they have too much time on their hands so like. Yeah.

More recent shows that are no longer running -

The West Wing: listen. This show is one of the only dramas to effectively work really good comedy writing into itself. It will also teach you about American politics and you won’t mind. I sat down to start this show thinking I would watch one episode to give it a try and then go to bed. I watched 3 in a row. Also Martin Sheen I mean come on.

Psych: very funny crime show about an adult child with daddy issues and his fiscally responsible best friend solving crimes by pretending to be psychic because the police wouldn’t believe he has hyperobservational skills. Has great character development and does not take itself seriously at all. Great show.

Leverage: do you like heists? Well this show does a heist an episode. Basically it’s a team of specialized criminals that work together to Robin Hood it up as they learn to love each other as family. What’s not to love.

Due South: again, I have had little opportunity to actually watch this, but it’s about a Canadian Mountie working with the Chicago PD. Hijinks ensue. Also apparently ghosts get involved later? Can’t wait.

Teen Wolf: ok so like. This is closer to brain candy than Really Great Writing but. The main cast is solid and it’s a fun supernatural drama. I did a rant post at one point about the super good background queer rep so you know. Also Dylan O’Brien.

Black Sails: a show combining fictional pirate characters from “Treasure Island” with real historical pirates while events that set up “Treasure Island” occur. It is extremely full on, expect nudity, violence, rape, flashbacks, and swearing. However it handles these issues well, and gets aggressively more queer as the show goes on. Also the ladies kick ass.

Scrubs: it didn’t age super well, and we don’t talk about the last season, but this is a very funny medical comedy that is sort of the inverse of The West Wing in terms of writing; this is a comedy that does dramatic writing really well. It’s in a hospital though so like, gross and sad things happen sometimes.

Shows that are currently airing -

Letterkenny: I post about this occasionally here, it’s a very funny Canadian comedy about a small rural town. The dialogue can be difficult to follow because it uses a lot of Canadian slang and is very quick fire, but it’s hilarious. Has the benefit of not only including Native characters, but actually casting Native actors in those roles. Has the most creative swearing I have ever witnessed and it is glorious to behold. Is getting progressively more queer. Also, while sexy fun times are talked about, thus far there is absolutely no PDA, not even kissing, on screen which, as an aroace, is nice.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: a cop comedy. Racially and sexually diverse, is still holding up after 5 seasons. Has the distinction of not going down hill after acting on romantic tension between main characters. Brilliantly satirical writing and will call absolutely anyone out.

BoJack Horseman: extremely dark Netflix animated comedy. It covers a lot of intense subjects like depression, substance abuse, emotional abuse, and self-loathing, but it explores them in a really well-written way. Has the distinction of making one of the main characters (Todd) realize he is ace over the course of the series, and it is the best damn ace rep I have ever seen. Suffers from a fanbase of dudebros who try to use the main character to excuse their actions, but literally called itself out for this in the latest season. Epic.

Archer: an animated comedy about a spy organization that is made up of people who cannot work together because they are awful and selfish. Is hysterically funny but quite raunchy and hints at larger issues, like alcoholism and emotional abuse. But again, dark comedy.

That’s all I’ve got anon, and if anyone has recommendations for me hmu!

#ask and ye shall recieve #holocaust mention #rape mention #abuse mention #substance abuse mention #racism mention #sexism mention #personal #man i watch too much tv

[bookish-black-girl]

Hmm so Like Home? Let’s review:

Here lies another book with a female stubborn/angry Black protagonist that I have no choice but to love. I really liked this book, like more than when I began and I’m glad the pretty cover made me request this title. 

Chinelo or “Nelo” as we come to know her, is fiercely protective and proud of her neighborhood Ginger East. Things get rocky when her best friend Kate’s family store is vandalized and it looks a lot like Nelo might lose yet another friend. Kate is pushing her away, and while Nelo wants to get to the bottom of things, it’s just another thing in her world that’s changing and she isn’t a fan of. 

About 10 chapters into the book I realized that I must be officially not with the times because while I understood the slang just fine, I don’t personally use it/speak that way/ever spoke that way with my friends, and it’s just a matter of time before the younger generation alludes me....but not if I keep reading YA to stay young zfjfdsfsfd.

Like Home touches on getting older, on shifting relationships and the growing pains of friendship, on gentrification and community and YouTube glamour/fame (lol), on first love and the awkwardness of having feelings; all these things aren’t just thrown in just to be thrown in too, which sounds silly but it really makes a huge difference when telling this story. And yes Nelo is the type of girl to throws hands first and maybe ask questions later, but her fire is undeniable and her heart is truly what pushes her forward, even with her rash decisions and her slick mouth and her pettiness. 

I’ve never been a fan of change, whether it’s good or bad, so Nelo’s character resonated with teen-me and now-me. Like right down to not wanting to wear the new bra her mom bought because the old one was ill-fitting, and clinging on memories and viewing them with rose-tinted shades when the reality is much different. 

Romance wasn’t a huge focal point for this story, which was completely fine with me, and yet as a huge romance fanatic, I appreciate that what happened between Nelo and Rafa didn’t result in a romantic relationship. Yes it’s hinted that it will possibly go in that direction in the future, but when the book ends, I feel a sense of peace with Nelo and her friends all together again and just being kids.

Which brings me to one other point!!!! A YA book where the kids read as kids?? Let me explain: YA has gone through a lot in the past decade, probably longer since I’ve been reading it, and while MG is holding it’s own, it’s like authors and publishing have been trying to age up and mature YA characters while still dancing in the box that categorizes YA literature. And while I enjoy college YA protags, and even the ones in vein with the Six of Crows cast where they’re youngsters but go through so much trauma you  wonder why the hell they’re all under 18, like huh???, I think that it was just a welcomed shock to realize that this book is about 16/17 year olds and they sound and act like their age. 

An #ownstories book, the author is Nigerian and so is Nelo, and it’s fun to see hints of that woven throughout the story, so I can imagine it’s even more meaningful for readers who are Nigerian themselves. 

I’m still grappling with a rating at the time of writing this, so I’m in between a 4.5 and 5 stars. 

#blaire reads like home #bookish talks #louisa onome #spoilers #long post #like home

[lady-adventuress]

Books I Read in 2017

Alphabetical list here, reviews under the cut in chronological order:

Almond, David: A Song for Ella Gray

Bardugo, Leigh: The Grisha Trilogy, Six of Crows, Crooked Kingdom

Cline, Ernest: Ready Player One

Cloonan, Becky, Brendan Fletcher, and Karl Kerschl: Gotham Academy Vol. 1-2

Cluess, Jessica: A Shadow Bright and Burning

Coulthurt, Audrey: Of Fire and Stars

del Duca, Leila and Kit Seaton: Afar

Dragoon, Leigh and Jessie Sheron: Ever After High: Class of Classics

Flores, Chynna Clugston, et al.: Lumberjanes/Gotham Academy

Gaiman, Neil: American Gods

Gaiman, Neil and Chris Riddell: The Sleeper and the Spindle

George, Madeleine: The Difference Between You and Me

Gilmour, H.B. and Randi Reisfeld: T*Witches #1-10

Hale, Shannon: Princess Academy: The Forgotten Sisters, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Squirrel Meets World

Hicks, Faith Erin: The Nameless City, The Stone Heart

Jensen, Michael and David Powers King: Woven

LaCour, Nina: We Are Okay

Larson, Hope: Chiggers, Mercury

Lubar, David: Sophomores and Other Oxymorons

Riordan, Rick: The Trials of Apollo #1-2, Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard #2-3

Shea, Lisa: Ever After High: Once Upon a Twist: Cerise and the Beast

Stewart, Cameron, Brendan Fletcher, and Babs Tarr: Batgirl Vol. 1

Stoker, Bram: Dracula

Sugiura, Misa: It’s Not Like It’s a Secret

Turtschaninoff, Maria: Maresi

Weir, Andy: The Martian

West, Hannah: Kingdom of Ash and Briars

I also listened to a lot of audiobooks as I was working this year, but since I have terrible audio comprehension, I stuck to books I’ve already read and know I like:

From Tamora Pierce, Alanna: The First Adventure and the Trickster series, read by Trini Alvarado. The Protector of the Small series, read by Bernadette Dunne. The Immortals Quartet, Sandry’s Book, and The Will of the Empress, Full Cast Audio narrated by Tamora Pierce. All of them were good, but I especially loved hearing the Trickster series and all of the Full Cast books. I absolutely recommend them. Immortals was my favorite.

From Eoin Colfer, the Artemis Fowl series, read by Nathaniel Parker. I liked it a lot. It’s nice being able to hear the accents and remember that Artemis is actually Irish.

T*Witches #1-10, by H.B. Gilmour and Randi Reisfeld. Twin witches who were separated at birth meet at age fourteen and must learn magic to protect themselves from their evil uncle. This is a series from my childhood that still holds up in a cheesy nostalgic way. I always found the attempt at teen slang baffling, but at its core the story is still about family and girls supporting each other and trying to do the right thing. Excellent and complicated relationships between both biological and adopted families, excellent and complicated supporting characters.

Dracula, by Bram Stoker. An ancient vampire brings death and evil to England while a group of mostly-bumbling protagonists try to stop him. It’s hard to read a book like this without being influenced by the cultural interpretation, but one thing that really threw me off is the importance of characters that seem to get really downplayed in adaptations. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed the book, but I did enjoy how ridiculous parts of it was.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Squirrel Meets World, by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale. A fourteen-year-old girl tries to make new friends while keeping her squirrel tail and superpowers a secret. I love Shannon Hale’s children’s books. Squirrel Girl had the charm of her Ever After High work, surprisingly without being as over-the-top. Doreen isn’t the type of protagonist I tend to relate to and I always get a little weirded out with anthropomorphized animals, but the book was fun and funny with distinct voices and an appropriate amount of camp. Also, footnotes.

The Difference Between You and Me, by Madeleine George. The closeted popular girl and school outcast are on opposite sides of school politics, which causes problems in their secret relationship. I feel like there are tons of fanfictions like this, so I was glad when this book didn’t run into the overused tropes. Unfortunately, it didn’t really have much in the way of conflict at all, which was surprising when it seemed like every single character’s opinions were meant to be deliberately polarizing. I thought that situations and characters were set up really well, but none of it really came together in a satisfying way.

Chiggers, by Hope Larson. Graphic novel. A girl navigates summer camp drama and befriends the girl no one else likes. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Hope Larson, but I couldn’t like this book even though I was trying to. It felt like nothing was happening for most of the story, and I’m not sure what was accomplished in telling it. The elements of magical realism were interesting, but it wasn’t enough to carry the story, and neither was the mundane drama. There wasn’t enough time to invest in the characters.

Mercury, by Hope Larson. Graphic novel. A girl’s experience with a mysterious gold prospector affects the life of her modern-day descendant. The story was thought-provoking, even if it took me a while to get into it, and the magical realism was well-integrated. I don’t love Larson’s cartooning style, but I thought it was much more readable than Chiggers without sacrificing its uniqueness.

The Nameless City, by Faith Erin Hicks. Graphic novel. A boy befriends a native girl in the city his people conquered. Hicks’ visual storytelling skills are excellent, and I love how her characters and expression can be both subtle and cartoony. The story was thoughtful and deals with political realities in a way that doesn’t demonize or alienate anyone. Jordie Bellaire’s color palettes are beautiful.

Unfortunately, the sequel The Stone Heart doesn’t quite live up to the first book. The art is still excellent, but the pacing and plot seemed less well-planned, especially since the story now seems to be heading in a more predictable direction. There’s a third book forthcoming, so maybe that opinion will change.

Batgirl Vol. 1: Batgirl of Burnside, by Cameron Stewart, Brendan Fletcher, and Babs Tarr. Trade paperback. A college student tries to reinvent her vigilante identity while dealing with being the personal target of a mysterious villain. This was definitely not a bad book, but it also didn’t feel like a Barbara Gordon book. If you’re writing for characters with decades of history, that legacy deserves to be respected, and I’m not sure Stewart and Fletcher accomplished that in the writing. Separate from preconceptions, the plot was solidly set up with good dialogue and distinct characterization, although I thought Barbara’s arc had a weak resolution. Tarr’s art is great, though, and I can definitely see why this series is so popular.

Gotham Academy Vol. 1-2, by Becky Cloonan, Brendan Fletcher, and Karl Kerschl. Trade paperbacks. A girl investigates a haunting at her school, which is connected to a mysterious summer experience she can’t remember. Kerschl’s character acting is excellent, and the relationship between the protagonist Olive and her ex-boyfriend’s sister Maps is immediately compelling. The cast is well-rounded and interesting, and I enjoyed reading a comic set in a superhero world without being a superhero book. Plot elements are set up from the first issue, and the story is a lot of fun overall.

A Song for Ella Grey, by David Almond. A modern version of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth is told from the perspective of Eurydice’s best friend. Almond is an excellent writer, but I felt like this was a story that didn’t need to be retold, especially with his addition of a tragic unrequited queer romance. The protagonist doesn’t have any agency within the storyline so it felt like a series of events happening in sequence rather than a narrative. I did think the formatting shift at the turning point was interesting, but the myth dragged unnecessarily in order to fill the length of the novel.

The Trials of Apollo #1: The Hidden Oracle, by Rick Riordan. The Greek god Apollo is sent to earth as a teenager as punishment for his arrogance and is bound to the service of a young girl. It’s hard to enter into the Trials of Apollo series without prior knowledge of Percy Jackson and the Olympians or Heroes of Olympus, and even as a fan of the other books in the universe, I had a hard time engaging with Apollo as a protagonist. The narration fit the character well, though, and Riordan deals with serious subjects without resolving anything prematurely. I liked that each chapter was introduced with a haiku rather than a title.

The second book in the series, The Dark Prophecy, is similar in tone to the first. I would say the biggest change is the addition of Leo and Calypso from the prequel series to finish off the classic trio of heroes. That dynamic was interesting, and I also really enjoyed the appearance of my favorite Percy Jackson character.

We Are Okay, by Nina LaCour. A girl deals with grief over her grandfather’s death and reconnects with her best friend during winter break of her first year of college. It was a slow start and I had some trouble keeping up with shifts in the narration, but I ended up liking this book a lot. The writing is atmospheric and captures the protagonist’s thoughts well. The setup for the mystery is subtle and doesn’t take focus from the characters.

American Gods, by Neil Gaiman. After three years in jail and his wife’s death, a man takes a job that involves him in a war between old and new gods. I really like Gaiman’s writing, and Shadow is a protagonist that is engaging despite his relative passiveness. Even so, I wouldn’t say this was a book I actually enjoyed all that much, and plot twists were well-developed to the point that they weren’t particularly surprising or satisfying. I’ve seen a lot of stories modernize gods, so Gaiman’s treatment didn’t seem as unique as I’d been led to believe. That being said, maybe I would have enjoyed this more if I’d read it earlier.

Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard: The Hammer of Thor, by Rick Riordan. A teenager resurrected as a Viking warrior goes on a quest to retrieve Thor’s hammer. This series in particular seems to depend on pop culture references, so while I liked the writing, I wonder if it will stay as relevant as Riordan’s other books. I did really enjoy the cast and the expansion of their backstories, and this book sets up what seems to be more of a crossover with the Percy Jackson series.

Book three, The Ship of the Dead, was also really fun. The closing of The Hammer of Thor was a little misleading in that the crossover elements were limited to the beginning and end of the story as usual, but by this time the characters are more than capable of standing on their own. It seems like this book is the last of the series, and it managed to close out the plot pretty well.

Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom, by Leigh Bardugo. Six teenagers are hired to break a political prisoner out of a foreign country. Not only is this an excellent heist story with a really detailed plot, but each of the characters are fully developed and they all have their own arcs throughout the books. Bardugo’s cast is inclusive and intersectional without feeling like she’s checking off a list and the writing is witty with clear voices. Both the characters and plot drive the story. I can’t say enough good things about this duology.

The Grisha Trilogy, by Leigh Bardugo. A teenage soldier discovers an elemental power and becomes part of a plan to overthrow a corrupt monarchy. This trilogy takes place before Bardugo’s Six of Crows books, but it was disappointing in comparison. I really disliked the protagonist, and there was a lot of focus on a frustrating romance, to the point that it overshadows the interesting worldbuilding. The plot dragged in places, despite being too thin to fill three books. Even so, there are a few really great supporting characters that almost made it worth it.

Sophomores and Other Oxymorons, by David Lubar. After a successful freshman year, a teenager’s overconfidence causes problems at his high school. This is the belated sequel to Sleeping Freshman Never Lie, which is one of my favorite books. Sophomores seems more self-referential and has a subplot that doesn’t seem to fit the tone as well, but for the most part it had the same witty charm that I loved about the first book. Of course, the best part of the series is still Lee, the female lead.

Maresi, by Maria Turtschaninoff. An abbey novice discovers her calling when a new girl with a troubled past arrives. This book was originally published in Finnish, I believe, but I think it must have lost something in the translation. The narration is distant, and even though parts of the world are described, it was hard to picture any of the setting. Overall it didn’t really hold my interest.

Kingdom of Ash and Briars, by Hannah West. After gaining magic powers and immortality, a girl becomes responsible for ensuring peace throughout three kingdoms. I really didn’t like this book. It treats the female characters poorly, especially the antagonist, and although the plot is ostensibly about duty, it’s heavy-handed, relies too much on tropes, and is really obviously motivated by romance. A lot of this can be overlooked if it’s ironic or just done well, but it never came together and ended up being very frustrating.

Of Fire and Stars, by Audrey Coulthurst. As she enters an arranged marriage, a princess has to hide her magic and her attraction to the prince’s sister. Even though the two protagonists are supposed to have equal weight, I ended up almost actively disliking one of them. The plot isn’t terribly engaging, but because I couldn’t get behind one of the characters, the romance couldn’t carry the novel for me. It wasn’t bad, but I wish it was better.

Princess Academy: The Forgotten Sisters, by Shannon Hale. A commoner-turned-princess takes an unattractive job to teach court manners to three royal sisters. This book is the third in Hale’s Princess Academy series and it is just as excellent as the first two. The plot is set up well across multiple books, and Miri is an excellent and flawed protagonist who is capable without overshadowing the other characters. The romantic plots don’t feel forced and the narration accomplishes a lot of interesting worldbuilding. Another book with girls supporting one another despite not necessarily understanding each other.

The Martian, by Andy Weir. An astronaut is stranded on Mars after an early mission evacuation and must survive until he can be rescued. I was skeptical about the premise, but everything is well thought out and clearly explained, without sacrificing either reader engagement or scientific accuracy. The protagonist has a great voice, but as soon as the perspective shifts away from his first-person mission logs, it’s easy to tell that Weir isn’t a very experienced writer, since the other characters and third-person narration are not nearly as well-defined. Overall, though, it was still a good book.

Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline. A high-schooler who is desperate to escape a dystopian future dedicates his life to solving a virtual reality puzzle and becoming the heir to a video game empire. There were two things that I really disliked about this book, the first being the protagonist, who seemed like a terrible person for most of the book. The second is that, despite being ostensibly a celebration of pop culture (and especially 80s pop culture), the overall viewpoint seemed really rigid and judgemental. The writing was fine, and there were some really interesting puzzles, but in the end I felt like it was male nerd entitlement in novel form.

Ever After High: Once Upon a Twist: Cerise and the Beast, by Lisa Shea. The daughter of Red Riding Hood and the son of King Charming are forced into the roles of Beauty and the Beast in order to escape their midterm exam. Cerise and Dexter seem like an odd pair, which sometimes works in the Ever After High universe, but didn’t really here. Part of this I think is because this book is written for an even younger audience than the original so the characters lost a lot of their nuance. The only part of the story that surprised me was almost immediately negated by a soap opera-worthy plot device to prevent the status quo from changing.

Afar, by Leila del Duca and Kit Seaton. Graphic novel. A girl tries to fix problems caused by her newfound ability to project herself into different worlds, while keeping her younger brother out of trouble. There is a lot of visual worldbuilding here, which I thought was very well done. Plot wise, it felt like the protagonist’s arc was maybe just the first act of a much longer book, but the characters were solid all around.

Lumberjanes/Gotham Academy, by Chynna Clugston Flores, Rosemary Velero-O’Connell, Kelly Matthews, and Nichole Matthews. Graphic novel. The ensemble casts of Lumberjanes and Gotham Academy work together to free their teachers from a girl’s attempt to relive a disastrous birthday. I think this book is set up more for fans of both series, and since I’ve only read a little of Lumberjanes, I felt like I was playing catch-up for some parts. I did really like the parts that showcased the Gotham Academy characters, though. I felt like the art was missing the lushness and texture of what I remember of the regular series, which was disappointing.

Ever After High: The Class of Classics, by Leigh Dragoon and Jessi Sheron. Graphic novel. The children of popular fairy tales learn more about their parents by using magic to relive parts of their high school experience. This book was very disappointing compared to other parts of the franchise. The art is minimal and flat compared to the webseries, and all but one of the anthology-esque stories felt like retreading old ground. I also really disliked the narrative hoops the audience was expected to jump through just to keep anything significant from changing.

It’s Not Like It’s a Secret, by Misa Sugiura. After moving from Wisconsin to California, a Japanese-American girl struggles to build a life she is happy with while keeping secrets that could ruin her family. This book was a bit surreal to read because specific parts of it were identical to my high school experience, while other parts were completely foreign. Still, the writing is solid and thought-provoking, and I liked that there is no easy answer to the protagonist’s problems.

A Shadow Bright and Burning, by Jessica Cluess. A newly-discovered sorceress takes on the role of a prophecized savior in a fight against enormous apocalyptic monsters. I found it a little difficult to get into the characters, especially since there is only one girl in a large group of boys and the gender difference is a large part of their interactions. I disliked the romantic subplots, which seemed to take over the narrative, even though the worldbuilding and political aspects of the plot were really interesting.

The Sleeper and the Spindle, by Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell. A queen postpones her wedding to deal with the sleeping curse that threatens to spread from the kingdom next door. The story begins as a mix of archetypes from Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, but Gaiman’s atmospheric writing elevate it even before the surprising finale. Riddell’s illustrations and other visual choices for the physical book are beautiful and tell the story meaningfully. Highly recommended.

Woven, by Michael Jensen and David Powers King. After his murder, an aspiring knight goes on a quest with a spoiled princess to stop the universe from unraveling. This book had an interesting premise, but its execution filled me with rage. Although it pretends to have dual protagonists, the princess is treated horribly by the narration without any kind of self-awareness. She is given a thin veneer of fighting ability but no agency in the story and is constantly being rescued without payoff. The writing and pacing also seemed flat. Overall extremely frustrating, especially because of the hints of interest.

#literature #book review #tamora pierce #immortals quartet #artemis fowl #grisha trilogy #six of crows #gotham academy #ever after high #percy jackson #magnus chase #twitches #dracula #neil gaiman #the sleeper and the spindle

[jenniferstolzer]

Time to begin a long overdue education

I have never seen Buffy before. I traded @bewareoftrees​ ... I would watch all of Buffy and she would watch all of Babylon 5. So here I am!

I won’t liveblog summaries, but I will give jokes and guesses and observations so if you want to come along (or not) the tag is going to be #jen watches.

ep1 Welcome to Hellmouth

I like that this is picking up where the movie left off, although I believe these people are 16 like I believe this “authentic teenage slang speech.” Ah the late 90s...

Tony Head! My bro! My favorite Night Surgeon. I was biased from the start but I’m gonna guess he will PROBABLY by my favorite character. This will be cemented if he ends up knocked out at any point.

I do come with some knowledge of this show, unfortunately as much as I like Willow already, I’m gonna brace myself for impact. Joss has slain my heart before. 

David Boreanaz is still hot but I’m sorry dude, you are way too puppy dog to be menacing and your dialog is atrocious. All the vampire dialog is atrocious. I’m gonna believe this is b/c it set a standard. Can’t forget this show is a milestone for modern fiction writers. 

oh crap this dvd is old enough yo have to pick episodes individually. The past sucks. 

2, The Harvest

Angel starts what I’m gonna guess is an illustrious career as a sad, cryptic puppy. 

Was 90s fashion ever attractive?

Holy crap the show just used the “jumpscare” sound from Illbleed and everywhere else. I’m recognizing all these sound effects. Someone bought the classic horror kit I think. 

a dudebro who can’t close his mouth swings in from the side in computer lab and I laugh and laugh. 

I didn’t see Jesse becoming a vampire coming, perhaps I should be paying closer attention. He of course gets super sexual assaulty when he’s a vampire and Cordelia is totally into unhealthy relationships so she’ll let him touch her hips and inhale hissing breaths in her ear. No problem. 

“Bring me the first” says Luke. //other vampires bring out an innocent black man. Me: uncool.

“Jesse is dead. You have to remember, when you see him you are not looking at your friend, you’re looking at the thing that killed him.” - Giles

Willow saved him from a vampire! These two are the best. Tag team it awkward booknerds.

The Vampire growl sounds like they’re burping really loud. Glad to know the evil vampires are still stupid enough to get faked out. 

3 Witch

Giles is so offended that Buffy wants to be a cheerleader. How is it that he is more accurate to me in highschool than anyone else. Good news... as a grownup I’m totally on Buffy’s side. Let her cheer. She’ll be a smash at the gymnastics. 

AND we begin with body shaming. Cordelia is talking to Willow now which is weird. And Willow herself I think either got skinnier between episodes or they were dressing her in liek 10 layers of clothes in the two opening eps. Then this other girl comes in and Willow is like “You lost a lot of weight” and the first girl is like “Had to.” Ugh. How about I just grate my spare tire off with an industrial file. 

Hooray for Buffy putting out the fire and saving the girl :) Doing something is so against the teen girl stereotype. 

Amy just exposition barfed all over Buffy about the huge crush she has on her own mom. I’m glad they’re highlighting this body weight thing as an unnatural fixation but that’s just for the crazy witch mom, not for the universe which is who is usually concerned with how girls look in cheerleading costumes. (forgive me, I have a stink about body standards)

“It’s so cool! You’re like a guy! My guy friend who knows about girls stuff!”

I like barbies as voodoo dolls. And I love the twist that Amy is super totally evil.

Ah! Xanders “you’re a guy” got turned around on him. Hurray!

OMG BODY SWAP! It’s the worst Freaky Friday but I approve of them surprising me with it. Great job Buffy!

You punched Willow out you bitch! Oh and Xander too but You PUNCHED her OUT. She’s so evil! OH CRAP NOW SHE HAS AN AXE!

So cute shy Giles so embarrassed about his first spell casting. Then Willow runs in with a bat. Yeah, I’m going to like this show I think. 

and ep ends with psychological horror

4, Teacher’s Pet

Xander is struggling with his toxic masculinity standards. Apparently how many times he’s scored is up for debate so he has to go pretend to threeway to regain status in his alpha male society. Gag. 

Meanwhile Angel is over here being perfect boyfriend material, super hot, wearing a white tank with blood all over his arms. He gives her his coat. Gag again! Lol. We’re hitting a very wide gamut here. 

Xander falls for a woman who looks weirdly like the mom from the last episode. 

Blane just sexually harassed his substitute teacher. I’m convinced now that last ep was fatshame episode, this ep is sexual aggression the episode. 

“I’m gonna carb up for my one on one with Ms French this afternoon.” Ick gross much?

Evil sexy woman ate Dr. Gregory’s head b/c she’s a preying mantis. Being sexually attractive is a weapon women possess against men so desperate to fork a fertile woman that one of the characters is literally called the “fork guy” in this episode. 

Someone give an emmy to the random bum. 

Giles is not immune to sexy substitute, but he’s got enough sense to appreciate without turning into a blithering idiot. 

Oh wait, Cordelia is still here for the body image hangups I see. 

By the way, all this crit about alpha male/ femme fatale nonsense is not a crit on these characters, it’s a writing hangup. Plots, tropes, and cliches are those things b/c they’re over used and this is the late 90s after all.

“I understand, I met someone and you’re jealous.” Xander is projecting so hard as he’s on his way to fork his teacher, just saying. 

Even if she wasn’t a praying mantis this woman needs to be arrested. She’s sexually harassing the hell out of this 16 year old boy as he stumbles all over himself trying to prove his societal preconception of masculinity. He was a half second away from doing the right thing and saying no to the hot woman b/c it’s bad touch 101 but then he got drugged and passed out. Close but no cigar, X.

Willow has had a crush on him this whole time. It wasn’t subtle at all. 

I’m glad that Blaine is rightfully horrified by the concept of being raped and murdered. That’s the correct response. Write men who can think with more than their dicks. Men are well-rounded people too. 

Mantis affects are “awesome” lol. Looks like someone I know. 

(apparently it’s more than just a joke. That’s the same costume used for both shows. I snarked about it looking like Na’Grath and it actually IS Na’Grath. And the actress was in B5 as well... omg the blending of universes is starting. @bewareoftrees did I give you Babylon 5 or did you give ME Babylon 5? HAAAAH)

Willow talks about how nice it is that the boys are being conscious with their bodies and continue to proves that she’s the best. Also Dr. Gregory was a virgin I guess. Thank you, show, for not making a joke out of that. 

Disk 1 Summary

It’s a fun show. It’s got some kinks to work out still but I can def see the promise. Will def keep watching.

#buffy the vampire slayer #jen watches #ep summaries #long post