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angie-long-legs · 2 months

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Rules

Age Restricted

This blog is 18+, absolutely no exceptions! Mun is in their 20s and will not rp with minors. If you are under 18, please do not follow or interact. You will be blocked.

Semi-Selective

At the moment, I am happy to rp/interact with the majority of those who want to write with me! However, I can be choosy if I feel our writing styles don't match or we don't click in the way we portray our muses.

I may drop threads if I lose motivation or I feel as though I'm carrying it. If you're concerned I've dropped our thread and wish to continue it, please just let me know! I may be open to continuing with some additional plotting, or at the very least I will offer an explanation as to why it was dropped.

I don't do exclusives! I love to see writers portray their own take on their muses, so doubles are welcome here.

Hard blocking is reserved for minors and weirdos - I won't hard block you if I no longer want to interact, I will probably just unfollow.

Dark Themes

This is Angel Dust - dark topics and are going to be a common occurance. Please be mindful of your own wellbeing and/or triggers. Sexual violence, physical violence, abuse, trauma, sex work, substance abuse and addiction are all big parts of Angel's story, and while I will do my best to tag things accordingly, if this is likely to trigger you, I would advise not to follow.

Mun =/= Muse

Angel can be a prize dickhead at times. He might not be kind to your muse, even if your muse is kind to him. He has a short temper and zero impulse control, and is prone to flying off the handle. I will most likely ask if I feel like anything I write would cross a line, but I don't see this as ever being more than Angel throwing around hurtful words.

Triggers

I tag obvious triggers such as abuse and violence, but if you need anything more specific tagged, just let me know! I may fuck up from time to time and forget to tag something, in which case just shoot me a message and I'll fix it.

NSFW

NSFW content is fine and to be expected with this muse! However, I won't write smut unless we've been writing together for a while. All NSFW content will be tagged, and anything explicit will be under a cut.

Shipping

Head over heels for Huskerdust, not massively interested in shipping Angel with other characters from the show. However, I ship based on chemistry, so if our muses develop a connection, I'm open to exploring this. I prefer this to be discussed ooc if it starts heading that direction. Open to OC ships, but again, chemistry is key. And, obviously, Angel is gay - I'll be writing him as such. If your muse is female/fem-leaning, sorry, but he ain't into it!

(I also feel the need to stress that while I enjoy exploring the dynamic between Angel and Valentino, please do not misinterpret this as shipping. To be clear, writing interactions between characters who have a toxic and abusive relationship while also acknowledging love, sex and trauma bonding as a realistic part of that relationship does not constitute shipping, to my own definition. I am more than happy to explore the dark themes within their dynamic as long as we are on the same page about this.)

Requires Discussion

I am pretty lax, and will rp a lot without requiring prior discussion. If your muse is becoming violent towards mine, you don't need to worry about asking permission, especially when it is context relevant (eg. a thread between Angel and Valentino). I only ask that the following are discussed beforehand: any form of sexual assault (I will not write anything graphic), discussion of csa, a character causing massive injury to another or a character killing another.

Off Limits

Graphic descriptions of sexual violence; sexual or romantic interactions with a character who is a minor; incest; paraphilias

Format

I have a preference for long-form RP, but I also do IC asks. Multi para is preferred.

Asks

I will answer most asks - just please don't spam my inbox!

Literacy

I don't expect anyone to match my length with replies - this is largely because I have a tendency to go overboard and write more than my partner! I prefer to write multi para because of this, but I'm open to all lengths.

Although I don't expect partners to match my length, I do like them to match my effort. As much as this is a fun and silly hobby, it's time-consuming and laborious, and I very much pour my heart into my writing. I want to write with people who value my contributions as much as I value theirs!

Personally, I am not massively bothered about literacy skill. However, if your language or grammar make it so I struggle to understand your response, I will not be able to write with you.

Activity Status

Currently very active! With my current number of threads, my average reply time is around 3-4 days. But if for some reason I haven't replied, don't panic! I'm a naturally slow writer and a perfectionist, it can take me a while to finish a response, especially if our thread responses are long. And, obviously, I do have a life outside of tumblr. However, if you're worried I've forgotten our thread, just shoot me a message!

OOC

I am more than happy to talk ooc, and welcome yall to message me! Whether it's for plotting reasons, ideas, headcanons, or just to shoot the shit, I love getting to know the people I write with!

#rules #ooc #i will probably update this regularly

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luckquartzed · 7 days

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@fortifice // plotted

Springtime , even upon a planet perpetually blanketed by ice & snow , is especially difficult for him .

His birthday passed without fanfare , he told no one , & he did nothing but light a single black candle as he continued on with his work . No one asked him about it as he went about the schedule he had become familiar with , perhaps the Silvermane Guards recognized his lack of usual chatty exuberance as a sign he wasn’t in the mood to be disturbed . They said nothing , not even when he took out a dagger & sliced his palm with it , anointing the wax with a few drops of his blood . Some of them had side eyed his more odd ‘outworlder’ habits before , but no one questioned what was clearly a solemn ritual for the blond . He didn’t wait for the Captain to walk him back to Goethe that evening either , as he usually did . Instead he simply left the candle to burn itself out , collecting his belongings & quietly leaving the outpost without a word . He should have known once the other man realized he had deviated from their established routine .

The knock on his hotel door had interrupted him silently sewing his palm up . A thick bandage would have done the trick , but that’s would have impeded his ability to work over the next few days . He answered the door in silence & to Gepard’s credit , he didn’t immediately interrogate him when he saw the thread dangling from his palm with a needle on the end . He’d simply reached for his hand & glanced at him , as if seeking permission . Aventurine let him finish the suturing as they sat together on the edge of the bed . He eventually asked, which was to be expected or course , though the young gambler did not answer for the longest time . Eventually he uttered the four words he dreaded most : Today is my birthday .

It didn’t take a Genius Society member to realize he didn’t consider the occasion celebratory . Somehow , they end up sitting side by side , leaning against the headboard , & Aventurine has a cup of tea he doesn’t remember getting between his hands . The warmth is pleasant . He tells Gepard everything , about the festival that rings in the beginning of the new year , the Kakava . He touches on the Katican-Avgin extinction event . Something wet hits his cheek when he describes lying in his mother’s blood with his sister for hours , how she called it the sleeping game so he wouldn’t cry , how they feigned death until it was safe to move, when he was five . Then he tells him about his sister’s last words to him , & how he realized he was entirely alone when he heard the entire village had been massacred . He was seven . Out of the corner of his eye he can see how pale Gepard looks . Aventurine wonders with a slight pang of guilt if he’s envisioning the image the Avgin paints with himself in his shoes , with Serval in his sister’s place .

His words feel detached & empty . Sometimes it’s easier to discuss his life like he was reading from a book , then he doesn’t have to break down all over again . The amount of tears he’s cried cannot be measured, he simply doesn’t have it in him to mourn with tears on this day . Hence lighting a candle instead . Apparently , his words resonate . Before he knows it , they’re talking about loss . The senselessness of it all , & grief . Gepard talks about the soldiers & brothers-in-arms he’s lost as if he carries each & every one of their deaths upon his shoulders . Aventurine can’t pretend to know what it’s like to lose someone you were charged with caring for , nor does he want to , if the solemn voice the other speaks in is any indication of how much each one haunts him . There’s a certain tenseness to him , however , that strikes a chord in the envoy . He knows when someone is holding something back , but it doesn’t seem like it’s a conscious decision .

So he asks .

There was someone else , wasn’t there ? Someone important that you lost ?

He doesn’t expect the visceral reaction it causes , like the soldier is in physical pain from the question , eyes squeezed shut , jaw clenched so tight it trembled , shoulders quivering . But he doesn’t cry , though his body shows all the signs of wanting to . A gentle push gets him to share the story . Leo . That was his name . He can tell without asking that this wasn’t just a friend . Gepard has no doubt had many of those die in his arms in his service . This is different .

Did you love him ?

By the look in his face no one had ever asked him before .

Grief is complex . Grieving while forced into survival mode is excruciating , he wouldn’t wish it upon anyone .

He asks Gepard to take him to the place the event occurred a week later , & the way those blue eyes widen make his chest feel tight at how instantly vulnerable they become at the mere mention of Leo . Has no one really ever asked him about the boy he lost before , the one that so obviously ripped a part of him away when he was taken from him ? He sees the why on Gepard’s lips even though no words escape , & responds as though the answer was the simplest thing in the world : because he is important to you .

That’s how he ends up standing in a part of the Snow Plains he had never seen before , outside of the fortification surrounding Beloboh . Gepard may as well have been an Antimatter Legion ice sculpture , & Aventurine wonders if he’s ever been back here before . “ This is the place ? ” There’s nothing to mark the importance of this place , the massacre that happened here . No gravestones , not even a monster in sight . Grimly he realizes Sigonia probably looks the same , if one substituted snow for sand . How insignificant must human grief seem compared to the vastness of the universe ?

He kneels in the snow , ignoring the biting cold that seeps into him , & carefully unwraps the bundle he was carrying . It’s an Avgin bouquet of remembrance . One flower for every year Leo has been gone , each with their own meaning , picked with the care & attention one might put into a wedding arrangement . Carnation was the flower of heartache , blue hydrangeas for gratitude , cypress for mourning the dead , edelweiss was the flower of courage , asphodel for regret … Dahlia , eternal love & commitment … purple lilac , the symbol of first love .

The bouquet is tied with blue & silver satin ribbon , as those are the colours of the Silvermane Guard . He takes out a little bottle & spills a few drops over the petals , & a sweet powdery scent fills the air . Essence of lilac oil . Lilac … the flower of first love … & also one given with the intent of comforting widows & widowers .

“ Hello , Leo , ” he speaks softly , his hands folded in his lap as he looks down at the bouquet . “ You don’t know me , so I apologize if I am disturbing you … my name is Kakavasha . ” He realizes belatedly he’s never told Gepard his real name . Ah . He’ll have to worry about that later . “ You can probably tell I’m not from here . I come from a very far away place . I wanted to visit you because we have someone in common . Someone very precious to us both . He’s truly one of a kind , isn’t he ? Kind , gentle & brave . ” A gentle smile touches his lips . “ I heard about what you did … I wanted to thank you in person , but I don’t know my way around these parts too well just yet . Anyways , I don’t want to disturb you for too long , so I suppose I should say what I came here too . ” He closes his eyes , resting his hand against his own chest , the calm & steady beat of his heart . The gambler let out a slow , deep breath . “ … thank you for taking care of Gepard all those years ago , for keeping him safe, keeping him alive … if it weren’t for you … I may have never been blessed to meet him , & though I haven’t been here long … he means a great deal to me to me . I think I may even love him . ” The words come out as easily as breathing . He can almost pretend Gepard isn’t hearing everything . But he is , & he needs to . No one has ever permitted him to grieve nor shown him how . There’s a lot that Aventurine doesn’t know how to do , but grieving is not one of them .

“ … thank you , for loving & caring for him back then , so I have the chance to do so now . I won’t forget what you did . I promise , I will protect & care for him for as long as he will have me . Goodbye , Leo , & may your rest be ever peaceful . ” The snow crunches ever so softly as he stands back up & steps away from the bouquet . He reaches out & takes both of Gepard’s hands on his own , squeezing them as tightly as he can manage with his still healing , self inflicted injury .

“ … Gepard , is there anything you want to say or do ? ” Dual-toned eyes look up at him , his expression impossibly gentle , softened in a way he had only ever showed the other behind closed doors . “ Anything at all … now is your chance . You have my word I will never tell another soul as long as I live . ” He vows fervently .

#ɪ’ᴠᴇ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴅᴇꜰᴇᴀᴛᴇᴅ { ɪᴄ }#ᴠᴇʀꜱᴇ ɪɪɪ || ᴡɪᴛʜ ʜᴏᴘᴇ ꜰᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴏʀʀᴏᴡ { ꜱᴇᴄᴏɴᴅ ᴄʜᴀɴᴄᴇꜱ }#ꜱ; ᴀ ꜱᴏʟᴅɪᴇʀ & ɢʏᴘꜱʏ ʟᴇꜰᴛ ɪɴ ᴀɴ ᴇᴍʙʀᴀᴄᴇ { ᴀᴠᴇɴᴘᴀʀᴅ / ꜰᴏʀᴛɪꜰɪᴄᴇ }#fortifice

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rollercoasterwords · 1 year

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Dear Rae,

I am sorry I simply can not shut up, THE FEAST YOU SERVED US. My head is in my hands and I am shaking my head just drowning in the immensity of it all. I really didn't want to come here with some corny tapestry metaphor but the bayeux could never, one thread snags and another one weaves a new, even brighter , image onto the fabric, !!!

You gave us Lilly (lilly pining for james, sire.. i've never even seen this) , slutty James potter (he is my life line), The Midas reveal???!! The regulus plot line thickens- you said he was really dead but... dead in what way... who did james want them to ask?? The rabbit hole deepens...the red pill is down my throat we are in howls room in the moving castle.... "you're so used to looking away"... the unicorn blood (I'm scared), seeing remus in his own glamour for so much of his POV, the weight the line has always carried some how even heavier... it is on my neck and I cant breath!

You dropped one the most beautiful lines i've ever read in my life, what did you even do with yourself after you wrote; "every so often the universe makes an artist of itself in its arrangement of atoms into a body of matter" ... I was personally not okay, I could have gone my whole life without seeing those words strung together but life was really looking out for me today.

The detail about the gold earrings for the werewolf SW was just... such an incredibly visceral detail and coupled with the golden leash. The image of them in the cage together ..

I think what I loved also about remus POV was that although their perspectives were so vastly different, there were still moments where they didn't miss each other and where what was going on between them still felt undeniable? Sirius may be oblivious and Remus may be playing him like a fiddles, but he's gotten under his skin still hasn't he. He hates it but it's true. Theres also always such an innocence to Sirius, even when he's guilty and seeing that through Remus eyes was truly so gorgeous as well !

Thank you so much, Rae, your story means so much I COULD WRITE SO MUCH MORE but i'm trying to practice restraint.

Please take care!!

looking forward to having you back in July , or whenever you're ready <3

hi omg loving the metaphors....the imagery....will of course be holding my silence on any spoilers but 🤭🤭🤭 yes many possibilities indeed....

also glad u liked the artist line bc i actually hate it lmfao everytime i read back over that bit i'm like god i need 2 change this it's insufferable....but alas i was too lazy 2 go back and rewrite so. appreciate knowing that it was not as annoying as i thought it was

and remus playing sirius like a fiddle 💀 v true i was giggling + kicking my feet reading people's comments like 'omg remus is falling for him....' although. well u r perhaps correct abt sirius getting under his skin....who could say.....

tysm 4 the kind words 💕 💞

#ask #wfrau

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caparrucia · 2 years

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Making my own post, because I'm derailing horribly and I know it. But I find this thread and @carriesthewind's addition key to a realization I just had about fandom drama.

Yes, there's this toxic dynamic where people demand the most good faith reading of their words, with generous opportunities for mistakes and misunderstandings, but go about reading everything they encounter in the worst possible faith, assuming malicious and harmful intent in everything.

And yes, that's one of the key drivers of fandom drama, because most people find people who go about doing that incredibly incendiary and annoying and often don't think twice to go back and call them out on it.

But the entire thread is talking about House of the Dragon as "the incest show" and how pointing out that "there's incest in the incest show, and if you're uncomfortable with incest, you'll be uncomfortable with both the canon and the fandom surrounding the incest show, because, y'know, all the incest," which... yeah. Valid points all around.

But I find it fascinated because it crystalized something for me and one of the reasons why most of fandom's tantrums about censorship vs harmful depiction annoy me so much. And I don't think mine is a unique experience, but... I don't have a stake, most of the time.

To wit, we all know Game of Thrones crashed and burned at the end and it's been such a meme there was a solid eight months worth of youtube video essays chronicling every single factor that went into turning the heir to the Sopranos as far as prestige TV went, into a fucking meme. But the thing is... Game of Thrones was something ELSE before it was the incest show. It was a whirlwind of high production and amazing acting and competent writing! ...right up until it wasn't. Yes, there was incest in it. There was also rape and violence and gore and maiming and a whole lot of shocking things, to a mainstream audience. It reveled shamelessly in its Adult rating and being gatekept behind HBO's paywall.

What I'm trying to say is, the people who watched Game of Thrones as it came out, myself included, and the people who left in disgust as the writing declined in quality and the plot became more and more obvious and stupid in direction and execution? We weren't there for JUST for the incest. To us, it wasn't the incest show. It was the dragon show. Or the politics show. Or the obscenely detailed costume work that makes me scream in paroxysms of ecstasy (yes, Bernadette Banner has a bunch of series breaking this down and salivating about it right along with us, go check them out over on youtube) show. Or it was the Charles Dance set the bar so fucking high every actor sharing a shooting site never mind scene with him has been forcefully dragged into a higher level of performance and it's fucking jaw dropping to witness show. Or the this is reigniting my love for D&D and fantasy because no one's ever taken it this seriously before and it's inspiring me to go look at those hobbies again show.

Sure, there were people who were absolutely in it for the incest. And you know what? All the power to them. Glad they were fed. But implying everyone has to be either gleefully consuming incest and celebrating/endorsing it, or being harmed by it, that's it, that's the dichotomy, the evil people who celebrate or the good people who're martyred (wow, some of you carry your evangelical damage VERY prominently and will find a way to work it into every conversation, yes), kind of erases the agency of the rest of us who looked at the incest and went "huh, not for me" and then moved on. Because that's a thing! That people with agency! Can do! Different people can have different tolerances for stuff. You don't get to erase us just because we're not convenient to the narrative.

Bad faith arguments about a show's morality - and let's start from the fact all arguments surrounding a show's moral standing are bad faith from the gate - will find the one thing they find objectionable - the incest - and try to eclipse everything else, pretending there was nothing else to the show, but incest. Because that's how they set the stage and cordon off the bits and pieces that sort of don't fit their argument. They're trying to get a head start in the conversation by delimiting the grounds. Not cool, but also understandable. All bad faith takes do that.

The weird thing is that in most other scenarios, when someone does the bad faith narrowing down of the field like that, the general answer is "this is more complicated than that and you're being stupid for being so narrow-minded, go away." When evangelicals try to do it about creationism and fossils. When evangelicals try to do it about science and religion and politics and a million other things, because this is a very (though not exclusively) evangelical way to frame problems and it's part of their preaching methods so they've internalized it.

But when it comes to media? And when it comes to Queer issues? Somehow people don't immediately go "your framing of this is objectively incorrect and also stupid, go away". People go in engaging in that same framing.

So now GoT and HotD are "the incest shows", and you can't have an opinion about them without identifying at the door if you're in for the incest or against it, as if incest is the central point of the discussion and the thing everyone is hyperfocused on. Like... no? IDK, I don't care about the incest, I'm more interested in X/Y/Z. But this framing makes it so that from the outside, if you don't know what's happening, you assume that, yeah, the incest must be the most important thing. Everyone talking about it, pro and against are basing all their thoughts and comments about the incest. So it must be true! So a bad faith framework, unchallenged, becomes the good faith standard that people use to gauge the conversation, because there's no challenging in that framework.

Bad frameworks are bad, and more than that, they're harmful. Because when you let them go unchallenged, you're letting bad faith actors dictate the tone of the conversation. This is annoying and irritating in fandom discussions, but it escalates to actively fucking harrowing when it comes to the other thing that keeps following this pattern: conversations about queer people, particularly trans people, and the concentrated efforts from right wing extremists to reframe their entire existence as predators, and specifically child sexual predators.

So, like, absolutely call out people who do that good faith for me, bad faith for thee bullshit. Absolutely recognize when someone is trying to bias a conversation or forcefully frame it in a way that tries to box you into a gotcha. But when you see the bad framing, for fiction and for queer issues, and you wouldn't tolerate that in a science conversation. Or in a history conversation. Or in a linguistic conversation... yeah, call THAT out. And remember the only people who benefits from you engaging unquestioning in that bad framing, is the asshole who set up that bad frame in the first place.

Additional twitter threads about bad framing/bad faith arguments:

"Why fiction was used to groom me is a shitty argument and you need to stop engaging with it."

"Doxxing/Suicide baiting is bad, actually, stop letting people reframe them as valid activism."

"TERF/Kink-critical/RadFem rhetoric speaks the language of abuse and you'll never be able to argue your way into being seen as a person if you engage in their framework."

"Discomfort is not harm and you can't have conversations about harm-reduction when someone keeps bath faith derailing to try and force you to take accountability for THEIR discomfort."

#shut up rie #media analysis #media criticism #bad faith readings make my blood boil #bad faith actors come up with bad faith framings who could've thought!#one day i will stop being salty and watch hotd #one day

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shimmerbeasts · 5 months

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So, I gave this situation a lot of thought and given that it is the end of the year, that marks the ideal time frame to basically reshape the way, I wanna handle the blog and my muses, going forward. These changes include how my roster functions, certain limitations I am going to give myself, concerning the amount of drafts I have, and changes in verses and some alterations on the ask box. Basically, quality instead of quantity is going to be the name of the game, so hopefully, I can better organise my hobbies and interests and hopefully also my eventual career as an author.

That means first of all: Every single thread I have is dropped. I want a completely clean slate thread-wise, however, dynamics, which we established, can absolutely carry over. I am not gonna flush all the hard work, I did with so many of you (you are all amazing) down the drain.

Now, onto what changes. Let's start with the formal bullshit. I am going to limit myself to twenty drafts and try to adhere to this limit. Those drafts will preferably be plotted. That way, I hopefully can avoid getting overwhelmed, but also really dig into the meat of our threads.

That does not mean casual stuff or crack does not happen. It can still happen, but it will occur with less frequency and those things likely won't carry over much. If I happen to send you an rp related meme, then please just have fun with the drabble. I will try to limit how much I continue those threads.

When it comes to my ask box, I will prioritise unprompted asks and scenarios over rp memes. However, I will always accept headcanon-related memes or memes for me the writer. Again, all these changes will be done to limit the effects of being overwhelmed and to keep my rps at a manageable medium.

When it comes to my verses, I am going to do a massive cut in what types of verses I have. Specifically, I am going to stick to the verses, which basically form a narrative throughline. For most verses, this will basically be the pre-canon, the default and the post-canon verse. Ergo the past, present and future of a muse. This is done so I can focus on what I wanna explore instead of spreading myself too thin. After all, it is better to explore an idea and its ramifications in detail as opposed to expanding and adding five half-baked ideas at once.

My muse roster will have a bit of an update on its purpose. Because of the fact that I will lean even more into the concept of storytelling and character development, the split between primary, secondary and tertiary muses still exists. Except, there is going to be a crucial change now. The tertiary muses will now be rebranded as supports and are not technically muses on the blog. Let me explain what I mean.

Because of my desire to be more story-driven, certain characters will serve as the supporting cast for other muses. These characters help propel the plot forward but also give your muse a different perspective on the muse they roleplay with. They might also reveal information, you would not get otherwise. Think of them a bit like NPCs but due to the big role, they play in the muse's life or what they represent for the muse, they have a bigger chance of emerging. Your muses might even meet them before they meet the actual muse. There will also be other classical NPCs, which your muse might meet under very specific circumstances.

Now onto the actual muse roster:

My primary muses (who will be focussed on the whole Zaunite lore and story) are going to be Silco, Jinx and Vi. They are the ones, whose plotting will come the most naturally and easiest for me. Their supports are Sevika and Warwick/Vander.

My secondary muses (who have different thematic stories and lore as they occur outside of Zaun/Piltover) will be Naafiri and Ahri. Writing them might potentially require a bit more plotting and forethought. Naafiri's supporting characters will be Nasus and Rek'Sai. Ahri's supporting characters will be Yasuo, Evelynn and to a lesser extent Vayne.

I hope that these changes I am making will lessen some self-made stressors. Again, I do apologise for basically dropping everything right now. I promise, I still want to write with everybody here. I just need to sort out how I wanna make things work. So please, everybody do not be intimidated by those changes. I promise, that my enthusiasm for writing and roleplaying remains unbroken.

#cat wrangler: out of character #i expected better of you than excuses: psa #blog update

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theraphos · 1 year

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Seriouspost Sunday: got in the mood to meta about robots for a minute, in that as much as "robot grows beyond/disobeys their programming" is a sci-fi classic for a reason, I'm always appreciative of exactly how Primordia goes about doing it. There's just something specifically appealing to me about the way the "my core logic" plot thread is implemented; the sort of classic older robot narratives along these lines tend to rely on "uhh this one is just special for X reason and the reason any other robots don't all just do the same thing is because they are not special/people/alive and therefore." Primordia, meanwhile, needs to juggle doing one of these storylines with the fact that the entire cast is made up of robots with varying levels and types of consciousness but who are, generally, people. So you have different characters mentioning that X thing is part of their core logic and they can't go against it even if their actual consciousness wants to - and the one AI who even attempts that fight ends up essentially injured both physically and mentally, experiences total psychological collapse four times, and hides out in the desert doing this eremite/hermit/monk/ascetic thing trying to get spiritual mastery over the violence in his code. And even after all that, the early game still drops all these little breadcrumbs that (for multiple reasons) this protagonist is already low-key overwhelmed, It Gets Worse, most of the possible timelines involve something deeply horrible happening, and even if he wins and gets out but is alone in the aftermath, [REDACTED]. The sheer quiet brutality of that subplot (and in general) not only makes it more emotionally satisfying to me than some other robot narratives (even ones I deeply love and still rewatch to this day!), but I think it does a really good job of just. Making it automatically seem emotionally unreasonable to think less of other robots for NOT doing it. Like ex: I don't think I've ever once seen any player disrespect peak badass Clarity Arbiterbuilt for being literally incapable of taking the first step out of Metropol on her own, and they shouldn't. In fact when Horatio himself suggests she just leave and she says "can't, core logic" he instantly shuts the fuck up. It's only Crispin that continues that conversation. And on that note IIRC Crispin is the only character who talks about this "core logic" shit like it's something he only knows about secondhand ("Yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before.") and I think that's a really good part of this plot thread: that wisecrack from the game's first five minutes about him having free will (aside from a conscience, which doesn't stop him being a goblin at ALL) is in fact not a joke, the little doofus will likely never have to experience what the older robots do because he has no such hard rules in place, and the fact that Horatio god damn Nullbuilt is both the one who made Crispin the way he is and the one who basically pulls a "I can't carry it for you but I can carry you" to set Clarity free from Metropol is one of those understated details in Primordia that just knocks me on my ass every time.

#primordia #horatio nullbuilt #crispin horatiobuilt #clarity arbiterbuilt #MY FEELINGS ABOUT ROBOTS LET ME SHOW YOU THEM #horatio nullbuilt is both a disaster and a real one #(seriously tho seek therapy for your robot ptsd you old bastard)

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fatalezr · 1 year

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NYC Takeover (continued)

Lilly looked at her second target across the street. Angelo Patrici wore a smart and expensive suit and had slicked back black hair. He had been going to businesses along the East side, Lilly following him for the last ten minutes, trying to plot her moment of attack. He was closely shadowed at all times by a large man in a bomber jacket and jeans.

She looked at her surroundings and saw a possibility. There was an alleyway coming up that the two men might choose to go down and she decided to take a calculated gamble, crossing the road and going down it whilst the men were in a grocery store. She found a place to hide down the alley and waited, keeping herself patient.

It was now mid-morning. After her positive start, Lucia had killed one target already and so the score between them was now 1-1. Lilly was determined to win, not just against her friend but if she could against all the other women in the gang. They had all been working quickly, trying to make their hits before Piacenza worked out what was going on.

Lilly calmed herself and listened carefully for any sign of the two men. It was difficult with the traffic and other noises in the background but she concentrated on isolating them and heard a man's voice as he approached. "I don't like we ain't heard from anyone yet" it said in an Italian-American accent, "gotta keep the head on a swivel. It's too fuckin' strange all this".

The voice got louder and Lilly knew her plan had worked. She eased her Beretta from her shoulder holster and listened to the sounds of footsteps. She tried to visualise and count as Patrici and his bodyguard approached. The former took one step in front of the alcove and Lilly made her move.

She stepped gracefully out of the alcove, the pistol already pointed at the back of Patrici's head. Pfft. She fired a shot into it before immediately turning her gun towards the bodyguard. The end of the suppressor almost touched his forehead before -pfft- she fired and opened him up. Lilly admired her skill. Within a second both men were dead. In falling to the ground Patrici had dropped his phone and Lilly picked it up, already walking away from the scene before it would be noticed by another passer-by and holstering her pistol.

'2-1' she thought to herself proudly as she walked, already thinking about how to reach her next victim.

------

Lisa was enjoying her cup of coffee in Central Park and watching the world go by when the message came through to her phone. "Time for second meeting" it read. She finished her drink and left some bills on the table before walking swiftly to where she had parked.

It had been almost two hours since she had dropped Harriet off at a luxurious hotel to either carry on the work the young woman was doing or take a nap as Lisa expected she might do. She had contented herself with being patient and awaiting instructions. Her conversations with Marina had told her that everything today must happen in the right order for the plan to work.

She drove a short distance to the upper west side and parked a few blocks from a seedy gentleman's club that was underground. From the intelligence that had been gathered, it would be where Tony Falcano's most feared assassins would meet in the event of a 'code red' situation such as the killing of a family member. Lisa parked and checked the gun in her shoulder holster over her blouse. It was still snug and secure. She picked up a briefcase from the back of her car and opened it to pull out an FN-P90 submachine gun. She loaded the compact weapon with a 50-round magazine of bullets and threaded on a suppressor before strapping it over her blouse and putting her jacket back on over the top.

Lisa added a pair of leather gloves and dark sunglasses before picking up the briefcase again. There was only one item in it that she needed. She buttoned her jacket so the FN-P90 would not be obvious to anyone at a distance and walked swiftly towards where the club was.

There were two black SUVs outside, both with their engines off, standing idly by and awaiting drivers. Lisa checked around before quickly crossing to them and kneeling down. She undid the briefcase and took out the C4 explosives inside. She worked quickly, attaching a packet to the underside of the first car and expertly putting in a remote detonator before running to the second car and doing the same. At times like this her training was invaluable. She stayed calm and assembled the explosives before finding a hiding place near some basement steps where she would be out of the immediate blast radius but still had a view of the gentleman's club.

Several minutes passed before the door to the club opened and out stepped eight men in a variety of jackets all shirts, all of them looking heavy set and thick. They divided between the two cars and the engines started.

Lisa took the remote detonator from her jacket pocket and waited until all the doors were shut on the cars. 'See you boys' she thought as she pressed the button. BOOOOM! BOOOOOM! The C4 under the cars ignited and they were thrown into the air with a deafening explosion, the fire racing into the sky. Lisa shielded her eyes from the initial blast but then unbuttoned her jacket and got to work.

She took the FN-P90 from inside and brought it up to her shoulder to brace, looking for any movement from the cars. A front door on the front one opened and a man began to stagger out. Brrrrrp-brrrrp. Two quick bursts from Lisa finished him. She looked inside the car at the other three men inside. They were bloodied and one man looked to be burning. Brrrp-brrrrrrp-brrrrrrrp. She fired quickly at all three before turning her attention to the rear car.

A man in a grey jacket stumbled out from the drivers seat and onto the floor. Brrrrrrrrrp. Lisa gave a slew of bullets into his back before turning to the man who had been next to him. She gave a burst into his head -brrrrrp- before looking at the burning back seats. The two men were writhing in pain. Brrrp-brrrrp. Lisa finished them with the remainder of her magazine before drawing her pistol.

The door to the gentleman's club opened and two men in white shirts appeared, stunned and looking around. Pfft-pfft, pfft-pfft. Lisa gunned them down whilst moving, her shots expertly guided home as she turned and headed back to her car, holstering her pistol along the way.

It was clean and professional work and she liked the way she had executed it, with another ten bodies added to her tally for the day. She drove off towards her next rendezvous point, pleased with how her exploits were going.

------

Lauren buttoned up the navy blue suit she had changed into before leaving one of the rooms in the Manhattan apartment that was one of Sandra's safe houses in the city. She found her friend chatting to Sally on one of the sofas, Sandra seemingly explaining in more detail about the plans for the day. The door to the other bedroom was still shut and Lauren could guess that behind it Yelena and Raoul were busy catching up after their night apart.

She smiled and walked to the kitchen area where she found the tall woman Bea pouring some water. "You want some?" Bea offered.

"Yes, thank you" Lauren said, taking the glass from Bea and having a sip. "Have you been a member of this group long?" Lauren asked her, making conversation with the woman.

"Been up here a few weeks" Bea said, "used to be down in Tampa but I met Sandra a few years ago. She helped me out of a tight jam".

Lauren smiled. "Ah yes, she does have a talent for that". She had relied on her friend herself on several occasions, including with helping her out with some security systems on a vault she and Sally had plundered back in England.

"How about you?" Bea asked. "You know each other from home I guess?"

"That's right" Lauren said, "she was my mentor when I first stepped into this line of work. Sandra was probably the top assassin for our boss, Mr. Raymond, but gosh that was probably about 20 years ago".

Bea nodded. "And what about now?"

"Now I'm freelance" Lauren said, "I work for myself, or for others on occasion, and do what I please". She looked lovingly towards Sally and remembered how contented and happy she was. "And you, you're a permanent member now?"

"I don't know," Bea frowned, "kind of having an extended trial. We'll see where it ends up going".

Lauren nodded. "Well if you ever find yourself in London...look me up".

"Thanks," Bea replied. The two drank for a few moments in silence until there was movement from the first bedroom door. Yelena and Raoul emerged, Yelena looking washed and well but back to wearing her leather jacket and trousers. She was looking satisfied and Lauren could tell the two lovers had evidently been having a pleasant time together.

"How are you feeling?" Lauren called over to her.

"Better" Yelena said, "much better". She walked over to where Sandra and Sally were sat on the sofa. "OK - who do we kill now?"

"I thought you'd never ask" Sandra said, "it's time to go after the bosses. You know the Italian restaurant Carina?" Lauren's ears perked up at that name - she had been there herself to meet Tony Falcano.

"Of course" Raoul said, "but there is no way Tony is there, not on a day like today, and it will be filled with some of his top men, very heavily guarded".

"Agreed" Sandra said, "but we do not need to kill Tony inside, we just need to force him to think the net is closing. And as for the guards, well...I think that problem has mostly been solved". She grinned as she looked at her phone.

"We're still going to go and take everyone out inside and torch the place. The symbolism on its own will be enough".

Lauren thought about it for a few seconds. It made sense to her. For anyone, the sight of their beloved restaurant in flames would force them to re-evaluate their hold on the city. She saw the idea appealed to Sally too. "Why not?" Lauren said out loud, "I'm in".

"Me too," Bea added, "let's do this".

------

Lilly bit her lip in frustration. She had been tailing her final target, Gary Hunter, for half an hour but he had kept to crowded streets and there was no opportunity to take him out. She knew she was close to her goal and that patience was key but the lack of opportunity was making her nervous.

Hunter had two large bodyguards with him and had been exceptionally cautious in all the businesses he had visited so far, leaving a man on the street whilst taking one in with him. Lilly had been discreet with her kills so far and had no need to risk that just yet.

She looked up the road and saw an opportunity. After a couple of grocers, she saw the small and hidden entrance to an underground strip club. She kept her head down and crossed to it, taking a turn into an alleyway afterwards, looking for the rear door.

It was dark and unlocked. Lilly opened it and could immediately smell the body odour and hear the dull thud of music as it opened for the lunchtime slot. She slipped inside a corridor and peaked through a curtain. The bar was small, with a stripper pole in the middle of the room, some private rooms one side and a bar on the other. There were a couple of men by the stripper pole awaiting an act.

Lilly slipped in and headed to the private dance areas. She chose a booth and luckily found it to be empty. She decided to gamble on a plan and stripped off her navy suit jacket and skirt. She took off her shoulder holster and took the suppressed Beretta from it, hiding it under a cushion in the room. She took off her black shirt and adjusted her red bra and thong, along with the dark brown nylon hold up stockings on her legs. She hid her clothes out of sight along with the Ruger in her stockings and took a breath.

She stepped out of the private area and wandered across the club floor, trying to walk with confidence and sass. Gary Hunter was descending the stairs to the bar with one of his bodyguards, half the buttons on his shirt undone and taking off his sunglasses as he walked to the bar. Lilly made sure to walk just in front of his path and she could feel his eyes wander to her rear as she did so. She kept going but stayed within earshot of the bar whilst she pretended to adjust her stockings.

"Boss needs cash" Hunter was saying to the barman, "we're collecting early this month".

"What the fuck?" the barman retorted, "early? I...I can't give it all early".

"Yeah, yeah" Hunter said, "but give us what you got today". Lilly could tell that he was trying to go around as many businesses as possible but evidently had orders to get cash quick rather than ensuring the full tribute. "Come on". She heard the cash register open and the barman pull out some notes. "This it?" he asked.

"It's been slow trade, come on Gary, I only just opened today" the barman pleaded.

Hunter grumbled and Lilly took her chance. She sauntered to the bar and took his hand. "Don't you think it's time for a lunch break honey?" she offered seductively. "I got a nice way to take your mind off the day". She saw him look down at her body before over to the barman and then back to her.

"Sure" he said simply. Lilly giggled and took his hand, pulling him playfully towards the private rooms, stepping behind the first curtain and pushing him into the booth where she had hidden her gun. "Wait out here" he told his bodyguard and Lilly shut the curtain that divided the booth from his position.

"Mmm yeah, take that stress off babe" Lilly said to Hunter, easing his jacket off his shoulders, "I got something special for you". She straddled him and began to grind her crotch against his. "Mmm yeah". She spoke loudly to make sure the bodyguard would hear her over the loud sound of the music.

Lilly began to feel the rhythm and gyrated more, feeling more confident and sexy at every moment. "Mmm babe, touch me" she said, unhooking her bra and throwing it to the floor.

Hunter leaned forward and began to caress her breasts with his hands and then his tongue. "Mmm, oh yeah babe, more like that" Lilly said, continuing to gyrate over his hips. One hand reached over Hunter's neck while the other went to the cushion she had hidden her gun within. "Yeah, keep that up" Lilly said, gripping the pistol, "I'm going to blow your mind". She brought the gun to Hunter's temple and fired quickly. Pfft. His head exploded out the side but she covered the sound with more shouts of "Oh yeah, Oh yeah babe".

"Yeah, more babe, more" she continued saying loudly as she let his body slump to the side and Lilly picked herself from her lap. "I like that, I like that". She continued to moan a little as she aimed towards the curtain where the bodyguards silhouette was clearly visible. She aimed towards the man's head.

"Mmm baby, blow my mind" she said before squeezing the trigger again. Pfft. She saw the neat hole she made in the curtain and then the bodyguard dropped to his knees and went forward. Lilly knew he was dead and smiled. She dressed quickly and holstered her gun. She grabbed Hunter's phone and the money and slipped out the private rooms and through the back corridor she had entered by, emerging on the street looking like a serious businesswoman and not a stripper or assassin. She hacked the phone as with the others and looked at her own device.

All her targets were off the board whilst the other women still showed at least one remaining. Lilly pumped her fist - she was a winner and she walked back onto the street feeling as proud as she could be of her achievement and already looking forward to making fun of Lucia when they met.

------

Yelena laid a gloved hand on the suppressor on her Mac-10. She looked over to Raoul, who sat stoically in the car next to her, a suppressed assault rifle in his hand. She could see the back door of Carina, the Italian restaurant that was Tony Falcano's pride and joy. She had dined with him on several occasions, including when she and Raoul had told him of their relationship. It seemed a million years ago from where they were today, ready to storm the building and bring about the end of his empire.

She felt a pang of regret that it had to come to this but his gang had made their bed when Enzo tried to kill her and Raoul. Tony ruled with an iron fist - but he could not control his son and now that he was dead there would be no reconciliation.

"What are we waiting for?" Yelena asked Sandra, who sat in the front seat. She was impatient to begin.

"For Lauren and Sally" Sandra replied, "when they give me the signal, we'll make our move. A coordinated attack always works best, you know that".

Yelena considered grumbling or delivering a snide remark but Raoul placed a hand on her leg and it calmed her. She continued to sit patiently in silence for a few more moments. Sandra's phone eventually buzzed. "Right, that's our signal" Sandra said. She started the car engine and drove up quickly to the rear door, Yelena putting the window down in the back of the car as she did.

There were two men in suits by the back, both standing and looking around nervously. Yelena could tell they were inexperienced. Their jackets were buttoned and their hands by their front. They would never be able to pull out a weapon in time. As they approached, she leaned from the window with her Mac-10 levelled. Pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft. Even from a moving vehicle she was still deadly, her bullets smashing into the men's chests and they doubled over with pain.

Sandra stopped the car and the group got out, Sandra having changed into a grey trouser suit and carrying a suppressed Glock-17 in her hand. Raoul was first to the back door, kicking it in and aiming his rifle down the corridor. Yelena noticed the steeled determination in his eyes as he aimed his weapon. Yelena stepped through the door that he was covering. She already knew where she would find herself.

The kitchen at Carina's had four chefs working away. They turned as the door opened and all four men in white uniforms looked her way. One immediately went to grab a kitchen knife. Yelena put her Mac-10 to her shoulder and pulled the trigger. Pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft. She put all her bullets into his chest. Pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft. Next to her Raoul aimed at another chef and brought him down. Pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft. Yelena had already moved on to a man standing by a boiling pot and shot him. His body riddled with bullets and fell by the hot stove.

She looked to her final target, the head chef. He was an older man but loyal to Falcano. He was looking to his side for anything to try to throw at Yelena but could not find anything before her gun aimed in his direction. Pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft. She brought him down too and grabbed a fresh magazine from her the back of her leather trousers, changing it quickly in her gun as she moved through the kitchen, the long barrels of hers, Raoul's and Sandra's guns pointing towards the door that led to the restaurant.

As she walked, she heard a couple of screams from and some gunfire, including the loud BAM-BAM-BAM of pistols. They were coming from the front of the restaurant. Yelena paused by the door and looked at Raoul. He looked at her and nodded. She kicked the door in herself this time, Sandra covering the entrance while Raoul raised his rifle and went inside the main restaurant. Pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft. Yelena could see the bullets ejecting from him gun as he fired as he did so.

She brought up her Mac-10 to her shoulder and entered last after Sandra. The restaurant had turned to chaos. There were already several bodies of mobsters and customers on the floor. Tables had been overturned and there were men in suits shooting pistols towards the front of the restaurant where Bea, Lauren and Sally were laying down fire of their own.

The men had their backs to Yelena and her group and were easy targets. Pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft. Yelena let out a long stream of bullets as she cut them down with Raoul and Sandra at her side. The men contorted and cried out in pain as she shot them up, and Yelena could feel herself smiling. Each bullet was like a release from a life she had formerly known into a new one.

Within a few seconds, it was over. She finished her magazine into some of the men on the floor pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft before changing it and turning her attentions towards the private room that Tony had often used. Behind her, she heard the soft pfft-pfft-pfft bursts from weapons as the wounded men and customers were finished off.

She stood by the door and was joined by Lauren. Yelena saw the English woman was holding a suppressed Mac-10 similar to her own. She was still in a crisp white skirt suit but the jacket was open, exposing her white lacy bra. Yelena looked at the submachine gun again. "Nice weapon" she said to Lauren.

"Yes" Lauren said, giving her a grin, "got inspired by someone to use it".

Yelena grinned back. She could begrudgingly admit that maybe the English woman was not too bad. Yelena opened the door to the private room. Two men inside had tipped over the long table and were hiding behind it, pistols in their hands. BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM, BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM. They shot wildly and Yelena pulled back from the doorway, letting their bullets whizz past and cause no harm.

When they paused, she and Lauren turned through the doorway, Mac-10s trained on the wooden tables. Yelena had a simple plan - pummel the tables until bullets found their way through. It was more ornate than protective. She aimed towards one man's location and pulled the trigger, Lauren doing the same with the other. Pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft. The table splintered under their combined assault and Yelena heard the men cry out in pain as bullets found their bodies. Pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft. Neither woman let up until their magazines were dry.

They finally did so and there was a stillness in the air. Yelena and Lauren both changed their magazines and edged into the room, alert for any movement. All they heard were groans of pain from the men and they leaned over the table to see the two lieutenants bleeding and in pain. Yelena thought she recognised one, the man she had shot up. It did not matter. She curved a gloved finger around her Mac-10 again. Pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-fft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft. Her gun shot up the man as Lauren did the same to hers, completing the massacre.

She looked out of the room. Bea, Raoul and Sally had just finished putting clean headshots into all of the remaining bodies in the room. "Good" Sandra said, "now let's clear out, rendezvous at the upper east house". The group sprang into action, Yelena running out of the back door with Raoul, conscious she would probably never step foot in the restaurant again.

#hitwoman #silencer hitwoman #silencerhitwoman #femme fatale #female assassin #lilly #yelena #lisa #lauren

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bettsfic · 2 years

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i don’t want to bother my friends ranting about this thing i’m writing so for once i’m going to use my blog as an actual blog.

in what is becoming the grand tradition of going to writing residencies, i’ve pulled another “oh god i gotta finish this project before i go to this writing residency to work on a project.”

in this case i’ve taken the stray threads of dirtbag that i couldn’t follow in fanfic and shoved the characters from baby into it. and...it’s working? i remember writing baby thinking, these are the right characters but this might not be the right story. and now i think i have the right story. all my other projects i’ve been hesitant about because editors would want to label them YA when they have way too much smut for that. not to mention, you know, they’re just not for younger audiences. this story can in no way be construed as YA. everybody’s old and miserable. hooray!

this thing has 7 alternating POV characters, 43 chapters, and spans 50 years. i had to build a whole-ass airtable database to keep track of character trajectories, back stories, and motivations. not to mention outlining it was so complicated i couldn’t use gdocs for it. airtable is the only way to keep a handle on the plot. but! it’s doing a very good job of it. it was just a bitch and a half to set up. 100% worth it to be able to locate all my ideas and notes easily.

i started working on it on monday and now it’s friday and it’s 45k words (some of it is taken from select scenes in dirtbag, some of it is from several trash docs repurposing some darlings, so it’s not a raw word count; i’d say what i’ve actually written is closer to 25k). i’m starting to have some hand problems so i’m going to take it easy over the weekend i think, and probably invest in an ergonomic keyboard.

i honestly think one of the reasons this is going so smoothly is because of gdoc’s quality of life improvements. the way i used to draft involved a new document for every chapter, which gets confusing and annoying quick for big projects, but now i keep everything in one document and use the outlining feature for navigating and the drop-down menu feature for labeling what state of drafting each chapter is on. long projects have gotten sooooo much easier.

the best part is that i know all the major plot beats AND the ending. endings for original work have always been hard for me because i love my HEA, but literary fiction is all :/ about HEA endings*. but this one is too complicated for HEA, and anyway the whole thing is about secrets, so most of the conflict derives from a series of reveals. if you’ve been reading dirtbag, you’re getting a fraction of that already. it’s a lot of, how did we even get here? how have you made so many awful decisions and why?? the other conflict is, all these characters are distant from each other and they’re all slooooowly converging, which is one of my favorite plot structures.

ALSO my entire writing life i’ve wanted to write a bank robbery book. this is it. it’s finally it. i have a father/daughter bank robbing duo and they are everything i’ve ever dreamed about writing. i never wrote about bank robberies before because i just don’t think they’re interesting enough to carry a whole plot. i mean, there are only so many ways to rob a bank? there’s only so much drama there? but in this case it’s only carrying a fraction of the plot. the only things i have to research now are cuckolding and dodging the vietnam draft. i bought a book on the latter, but i don’t think there’s a book on the former (besides darryl by jackie ess, shout out to darryl by jackie ess). to reddit, i guess.

this whole thing is going to be very overwhelming, i’m sure, and revisions will probably involve a lot of paring down and killing darlings, but that is a problem for future betts. current betts is just having a good time organizing her silly little airtable base and formatting her silly little story.

i’m also glad not to feel too fragile about this. i really thought vandal was going to get published but i’m just still so terrified of it being out in the world. i feel more like how i felt about zucchini, confident that it belonged somewhere and had an audience. i know what it is and so i don’t think, once it gets to a good enough place, that feedback will feel as jarring. the only thing i’m afraid of is my own hubris, where every time i start a project i think “this is going well! i’ll be finished soon!” and then it’s three years later and i’m wondering when i’ll pick it up again and if i’ll ever publish a book.

i’ll probably keep updates going because sometimes i just want to think about the process of writing it rather than writing it. i feel bad for not finishing the other fics i was planning to work on, but i’m just too excited about this.

and for those reading dirtbag, don’t worry, it’s done and updates will continue twice a week.

* talking about endings in contemporary literary fiction is so funny to me because they’re all kind of awful. i had this running joke in my mfa cohort that every contemporary literary novel ends with a potluck. i mean it’s absurd how many lit novels end in a potluck.

#bk #writing update

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malboraslihan · 2 years

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might be an unpopular opinion around here but one of the things i hate the most in this community is the whole let’s double it / let’s have two threads going so we can ratio discourse. cause everyone knows when someone is only interested in one plot or in one thread.. and is carrying the other just because they feel like they have to. we can tell, we can see, no one's as slick as they think they are. and it’s so exhausting sometimes to that ridiculous discourse being played when it serves for nothing and tbh it just makes things worse. for me, at least. so idk, maybe this is a psa for my writing partners, i do not mind if we have 6 threads going and i’m playing the males in all of them. if i’m bothered, i’ll drop them, i’ll stop responding. you do not have to give me ratios or engage on threads you don’t want to. this is not an indirect to anyone, i just saw the subject was going on and decided to post my two cents. i just honestly think we need to stop guilt tripping people into writing what we want to write or pretending we don’t care about things when we do. and even more, we need to drop bitches when their behavior bothers us.

once again, this is not meant to subtweet anyone. i just felt like putting it out there that if we’re writing together you do not have to worry about having a ratio with me or keeping threads that you don’t feel just for the sake of letting me play my females. cause trust me, if i haven’t dropped all our threads, if i haven’t stopped replying to you, it’s cause i appreaciate you and your writing, no matter if i’m only writing my males against you. if and when i want to write my females against you, it will happen, i will make it happen.

and of course, this is in no way excusing some people’s behavior in only giving attention to threads/plots when they’re getting their females wet and still going around pretending they love females. the amount of people i’ve cut from my priorities list over this... just be honest to your writing partner, don’t ask for females if you’re just gonna give them a one liner reply while writing two paragraphs for the males. we all see it, it’s rude, it makes people feel bad. you’re stupid.

#just a whole ass lot that no one asked me about #but yeah #i love all u bitches that write me even if i take 2 business years to reply #i know someone's gonna find a way to turn this all into shade but #well maybe the last paragraph is <3 but everything else is just me venting #anyways imma try to get drafts now

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thevindicativevordan · 2 years

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So, it seems like I Am Batman is officially ending in February, and with that all of Future State characters lost their ongoings. Of course there's a chance that they still have something for this characters, but so far everything indicates that DC gave up on FS characters at all. How do you think, what's the reason of this outcome? Was there a chance for these characters? Do you think DC didn't try harder to push them? Or it's because fanbase still hates everything new?

Love to pretend I saw it coming, but just the other day I predicted Ridley would get to keep writing the book until issue 25 given how DC seemed to value him, so much for my prediction skills. Well that's a wrap for the Future State crew unless some kind of Justice League book starring them is in the works, and given that the solicits for Nightwing are setting up the Titans as the premiere team for a bit, complete with teasing Jon joining them instead of the Justice League, I don't think that Legacy League book is happening (or at the very least it won't be what I expected/hoped it to be). Only part of Future State that may still be relevant is PKJ's House of El cast, everything else is clearly not going to play a major role in what's to come.

Why is DC backing away from them? 5G got scrapped because the higher-ups at WB no longer supported the shakeup apparently, their attempt to position the classics and the Future State crew as equals during Infinite Frontier flopped, and the film DCU seems poised to refocus on the classics again, meaning that the comics are doing likewise. Sales and synergy are conspiring to reestablish the status quo once more.

DC pushed them all hard, I don't see what more could have been done without actually carrying through on 5G, short of maybe giving Jace Detective Comics the way Jon took over Superman for a bit, and making Yara Wonder Woman. Jon, Jace, Yara, Jo, and Jackson all got lead roles in major books, either as solos or as part of a duo. It is surprising that they completely abandoned Jess Quick, that tease about Jess travelling to Earth 0 has been dropped for certain (along with a whole bunch of other plot threads like "Earth-Alpha"). All Jess got was that Teen Justice book and since I don't see anyone talking about that I can only assume it's a sales flop, which means they're never going to matter again. Majority of the fanbase and the people working at DC do not care about the non-Earth 0 characters, they're event fodder or cameos at best, Jess being left on Earth 11 is the end for their relevance.

The already established fanbase was never going to embrace these characters "cutting in line" to take over the major roles instead of the previous generation who had been built up. Hope was that all the people demanding diversity wasn't just a tiny crowd on Twitter amplified by an echo chamber, but people who were actually eager to buy books featuring said diversity. Those people were supposed to show up and support the books but they didn't. Biggest breakout books of Infinite Frontier were Nightwing, Action Comics, and Wally West's return to headlining The Flash, all three books starring straight white men. Of the FS crew the biggest success was Jon, the most traditional of the legacies bisexuality aside, whose book last I checked was the only one of the group still in the Top 100 chart. Jace did the second best with his book outlasting Jon, despite his sales being worse. Jackson was a total failure, his books completely flopped, with Aquamen debuting outside the Top 100. Aquafans had no interest in him taking on the mantle. Jo was paired with John and that Green Lantern book didn't sell great but it was comparable to Morrison's run with Hal from what I understand. Yara debuted strong but the mess behind the scenes ended up killing her book. Alas none of them succeeded the way DC was hoping.

What's the future for this group?

Jon will be fine. He's the blood son and natural successor to Clark, he's already getting adapted outside of comics, hell if they're really pivoting back to Cavill for the DCU, I expect Jon will be the one who replaces him in the films. He's the only one thus far who will be getting a solo book in Dawn of DCU, albeit a mini, he's in the Lazarus Planet event, two of the stories in Action will star him, and I'm hoping Taylor is just wrapping up his era on the character before handing him over to someone else while he goes and does Titans. DC won't be taking away the Superman mantle from their bisexual Superman, although if they did I confess at this point I wouldn't even care unless they're planning on taking him away from Taylor. There's still a chance to salvage Jon with a new creative team.

Jace might be ok due to DC fearing backlash over killing off/stripping the mantle from their black Batman, but I don't know if most people would even care. How aware are people that Jace even exists at this point? What hurt Jace, besides the fact that there are at least 3 other people "in front of him" in terms of succession, is that there already is a "black Batman": Black Panther. He's the same kind of archetype, but T'Challa was in a billion dollar movie that doubled as a cultural phenomena and unlike Jace he was the lead of his franchise. Jace will never be that, wouldn't have been that even if 5G had happened. Ridley's writing probably did turn some people away as well, but I view Ridley's time on the character the same as the Golden Age Batman: the bricks are laid but the house isn't done being built yet. I hope Jace will get that chance to be "finished", the way Bruce ultimately was with Moore and Miller. With no real chance of him being adapted outside of comics any time soon, I fully expect he will slip into Limbo, unless he's getting a follow-up mini or appearing in a team book like Jon.

Yara is Wonder Girl so that's what she'll stay. She'll be Diana's sidekick and play support. If DC doesn't think she can work on her own, might I suggest relaunching Superman/Wonder Woman as a Jon/Yara book yet again? I liked her and Jon's dynamic in Future State, and I love the idea that Jon is closer to his Wonder counterpart in the Trinity than his dad was to Diana. Please don't abandon Yara because I really do love her as a character.

Jackson/Kaldur should be fine, he's the most prominent member of the Aquafamily aside from Arthur and Mera thanks to Young Justice, but he is definitely not lead material. Least not at the moment, Arthur is the only Aquaman who can support a solo book, leave Jackson as a supporting character to Arthur for now and keep building him up. Maybe one day he can support holding the mantle of Aquaman.

Jess as I said is done. Didn't even get a book, not on Earth 0, and the Flash Family is already huge. Don't hold your breath waiting for them to show up again. Wally and Wallace are the only ones who will ever be the main Flash other than Barry.

Jo will join Simon and Kyle in the "cameos every now and then to remind you they exist but never gets another solo" category unless the trade sales of Far Sector are bigger than I am aware of. Hal and John remain the main Lanterns and that's not changing in the wake of the GL show getting reworked to star John, John being the Tomorrowverse Lantern, and John being in the Suicide Squad game while Hal gets to keep being the Lantern for the Injustice series.

Sucks that this crew is probably going to go the way of the Bloodlines heroes where there's one standout that everyone remembers (Jon/Hitman) and everyone else gets unceremoniously dropped and forgotten. My prediction skills have already been proven wrong once when it comes to these characters futures, maybe I'll get lucky and be wrong again like I want to be this time.

#dc future state #dc 5g #jon kent #superman #jace fox #batman #yara flor #wonder girl #wonder woman #kaldur'ahm #jackson hyde #aqualad #aquaman #jess quick #the flash #jo mullein #green lantern #dawn of dc #infinite frontier

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sunderedwrath · 10 months

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RULES.

Keeping it simple because most of these should be a no-brainer!

My name's Lanna. I'm 30+, she/her in PST timezone. This is a sideblog to my WOL @vierandancer. Like that blog, I am open to interactions with anyone but reserve my right to be choosy as far as inspiration and whether or not certain writing styles/muns/muses would gel with me. However I am not limited to mutuals with my main blog.

Ceres is based off of my OC Celene. Celene's non-FF14 ask blog for all other sorts of interactions can be found @celenehart. I'd love interactions over there too, but if not that's OK!

As the Pinned says, there will be spoilers abound for Ascian-related stuff and I'm not going to tag it! Outside of maybe a little bit of embellishment around the original black-masked Ascians/unspoken for Ascians, everything is pretty canon compliant.

Ceres is a villain. I do not condone what she does (most of the time). I also do not condone god-modding. She isn't a strong Ascian and therefore will avoid fights, but she isn't a pushoever, either! If we get into a conflict or fight of some kind, you need to talk with me OOC via tags or IMs to keep things fair to both Muses. I will drop a thread if someone just starts over-assuming actions or information. I won't waste my energy trying to explain basic etiquette to you.

Ceres is my sideblog, so although I am hype to write with her, I won't commit to really long threads without some sort of plotting. I refuse to carry the plot by myself. If you have questions or ideas, please communicate with me!

If you write an Ascian/Ancient and want to interact, please keep the following in mind: Amaurotines/the Convocation would not know Hera and Ascians do not know of Ceres' little side plot right off the bat. Maybe a handful of people would recognize her as one of Nabriales' subordinates, and likely would be able to recognize a fellow Ascian, but CERES AND HER MOTIVES/HERA IN ANCIENT TIMES ARE ENTIRELY UNKNOWN. The only person who would possibly know if her is Nabriales, and I don't see many blogs floating about. If you have ideas, please reach out to me first about them!

#rules.

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lunarcovehq · 1 year

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Where the tree tops glisten and children listen, to hear sleigh bells in the snow, oh, the snow...

WINTER WONDERLAND - HOLIDAY EVENT

It’s that time of year! Fluttering snow is in the air, casting a white blanket across the cozy town of Lunar Cove and, although Town Hall debated about whether they should cancel the annual Winter Wonderland festivities given the recent tragedies that keep on happening on holidays, they decided, after popular demand, to carry on with the festive markets and New Years cheer (just with a heavy layer of additional security for safe measure). So join in on the celebration as you wander around the shops that have transformed themselves into a Holiday market with mulled wine, hot chocolate, space heaters, ice skating and so much more!

REMINDERS

This is a character-driven event that will span from 12/16-1/1 out of and in character.

The tag for the event is lunarcoveevent4. Everything from pictures, outfits, & threads etc. should be under this tag. Starters should have both the starter and event tag.

This event is mandatory and is occurring all across town so feel free to post starters or have private threads reacting to any of the below.

Please keep your eyes out for multiple plot drops that will be happening throughout the week which your character can continually react to.

For anyone looking to bring in new characters, we will continue to have regular acceptances throughout the event.

Last, but not least, we hope you have fun and a very happy holiday!

ACTIVITIES

Below is a list of the different seasonal activities occurring all around town that your characters can react to (just note that anything New Years related will be coming in a later plot drop):

Ice Skating - is set up on the town green in front of Town Hall & the gazebo (though many Shadow Lake residents have questioned why it was set up in the front of town and not in the dried up lake residing in their own back yard)

Broken Records- will play DJ this holiday season at the Ice Skating Rink & Holiday Market, so make sure to swing by and dance along to your favorite tunes.

Holiday Market - All shops downtown will be hosting a holiday market where you can come and get last minute gifts or just shop to your hearts delight.

The Daily Drip- Make sure to swing by the Daily Drip’s Holiday Market booth for hot chocolates, peppermint lattes and a number of other Instagram worthy drinks (can be spiked with something hotter if you know who to ask)

Holiday Bake Off Contest - Sucré will be hosting their annual Holiday Bake Off Contest which will be sure to leave you full and full of sugar. Will you be able to take home the crown this year?

Bumblebee Tea- If you love your boba, then swing by Bumblebee Tea’s booth at the Holiday Market for some hot boba tea. A delicious and festive drink to enjoy this holiday season!

Top Coat- will have a stand at the Holiday Market where they can give you adorable holiday themed nail art perfect for any parties or dinners you may have planned throughout the week.

Snow Ball Fight- Head over to Lunar Cove Community College for an all out snow ball fight. All is welcome

Sexy Santa- Eclipse is hosting a Sexy Santa contest where all club goers can vote to see who will win a VIP booth at the club for the entire month of January

Ugly Sweater - Come put on your most festive holiday sweater and head to Starlight Bar for the Ugly Sweater contest. Winner will drink free for the night!

On Pitch - Ready to get your best Mariah Carey on? Come out to On Pitch’s Holiday sing off, where the best of the best will battle it out for the title of Holiday Royalty.

Kee Theater - Will have a full holiday movie marathon for the week leading up to Christmas featuring fan favorite movies like The Holiday, White Christmas, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, and Die Hard.

Movie Reenactments - For a limited time the Kee Theater & Follow My Lead will be teaming up to allowing you to reenact all your favorite movie moments around town. Ever wanted to be the guy holding the cards in Love Actually, or scream Santa at the top of your lungs while wearing an Elf costume? Take advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity.

The Nutcracker - Follow My Lead will be doing their annual performance of The Nutcracker with extra sweet treats in store for guests from Sweet Tooth.

The Pendulum Playhouse - Will be putting on their holiday spectacular of A Christmas Carol. Opening acts will be preformed by Dilan Selvi and Anna Donnelly.

The Rage Cage - Need to get out some stress so you don’t deck your family members? Come to The Rage and deck the walls instead. For a limited time only multiple rooms will be in the theme of Die Hard.

Reindeer Race - Along For The Ride will be hosting their annual Reindeer Race around Echo Acres.

Carriage Rides - For a limited time Carriage Rides will be offered around Celestial Hills so get a loved one, a blanket, and come enjoy the lights.

Single All The Way - Feeling lonely this holiday? Come to down to Bad Moon Brewing for annual singles mixer and you might just end up spending New Years with someone.

Holiday Craft Fair/Holiday Paint & Wine - Blank Slate will be hosting a number of Paint & Wine classes to help you make some last minute decorations/gifts. If crafting isn’t your thing, that’s fine because local artists belonging to Blank Slate will be hosting their Holiday Craft Fair, come out and support your neighbors.

Sleigh The Holiday - The Caffeine Crypt will be holding a special after hours Murder Mystery party for those who want to feel a little spooky this holiday season.

Caring Claws Vet - Wants to help you find your forever best friend this holiday season and will be opening its doors for its annual adoption fair.

Mix & Match - Did you get a new fluffy friend for the holiday? Well Paws and Claws has you covered! Come on down to get a cute outfit for you and your fluffy friend to match.

Toy Drive/Santa’s Workshop - Little Ducklings Daycare will be set up outside all week collecting toys for needy families around town. Don’t have anything to donate? That’s fine instead donate your time helping to build toys.

Frosty Bowling - Victory Lanes will be hosting a snowflake themed bowling night, decked out from head to toe with even the bowling balls resembling that of snowmen.

Rose Tinted- Come for their bottomless brunch and stay to take photos in front of their decked out Instagram Winter Wonderland displays and indoor Carousel.

Joe's Pasta & Pizzeria- Not sure what you’ll make for Christmas Dinner? Joe’s Pasta & Pizzeria will be holding a cooking class to teach you how to cook the feast of seven fishes, pasta, pastries and more.

Heavenly Healing Spa- For those who take the holiday as a time to slip away and pamper themselves, Heavenly Healing Spa will be having facials and massages for 50% off.

Just in Bloom- Will be added to the decorations by placing mistletoe all around Lunar Cove. Love is in the air this frosty season and you never know who you may happen to kiss.

New Leaf Bookstore- Escape the cold and cozy up by the fire at New Leaf bookstore where they will be holding their annual book swap. Bring a book and exchange it for someone else’s. You may even meet someone new along the way.

#lunarcoveevent #lunarcoveevent4

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pageandpanel · 9 months

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(originally posted @ Page and Panel on wordpress)

For my first post on my new attempt to ~have a blog~ I am reposting an old entry into my failed wordpress blog. My attempt to read Marvel Comics start to finish is something I am hoping to get back to in the near future. I have edited this and reformatted it for tumblr so hopefully it's not too much of a nightmare to look at but it is WAY too long.

Why in the world would anyone attempt to read more than half a century of comics? I’m fascinated by the concept of an ongoing continuity and how different writers and artists interpret characters. And the fact that so many hands have touched this project with so many different interests and priorities and yet it continues on as a cohesive (a term we’ll use loosely) and linear story is actually really cool.

There’s a lot of interesting stuff going on here so I’m going to try to write about it at regular intervals that are sometimes strategic and sometimes completely arbitrary. The first chapter of Page Main Lines Sixty Years of Marvel Comics (more clever name tbd, probably) covers the first three years of the Marvel Comics Universe designated 616. This is the main universe that has been ongoing from 1961 to every Wednesday until the world ends, probably.

Just to establish some parameters for what this project is, I’m reading Marvel Comics chronologically starting with the Silver Age, launched by Fantastic Four #1 in 1961 written by Stan Lee and drawn by Jack Kirby. There are some ongoing anthology titles carrying over from the pre-616 era that I’ll be picking up here as well because they introduce key players in the Marvel Universe (specifically Spider-Man, Ant-Man, and Thor). The Golden Age doesn’t really interest me all that much beyond its history and the characters that get carried over to the new continuity (Captain America and Namor the Submariner, most famously). And while I’m trying to read everything, I did make a decision early on to skip out on Strange Tales because I don’t really care about Johnny Storm’s solo adventures.

The format of these posts, like everything else I throw up on this blog is subject to change forever and ever. But for now, I think book by book and then covering some broad themes/connections at the end is the easiest way to tackle this.

We begin, like most stories begin, with a family of four on a trip to outer space...

Fantastic Four

Written by Stan Lee and drawn by Jack Kirby, as all Marvel Books were at the time, Fantastic Four #1 starts off in media res and we are introduced to our heroes as they drop whatever mundane activities they are doing as civilians and respond to the impending thread of Mole Man.

As each member makes their way to the scene, Stan Lee takes a step back to give us a classic origin story that is BEYOND bonkers: Reed Richards is the most brilliant scientist in the world and he absolutely must break into a government facility to fly a rocket into space. He is accompanied by his college roommate, Ben Grimm, his childhood sweetheart, Sue Storm, and her little brother, Johnny Storm. Ben, like anyone hearing this plan obviously thinks it’s stupid and crazy. But Sue Storm is quick to remind him that they, four regular civilians with no real training, absolutely have to do this because if they don’t then the Commies will win the Space Race. Because it truly wouldn’t the 60’s without some good, good anti-communist propaganda. So much more on that to come later.

They make it, miraculously. But cosmic space rays have given each of them incredible powers. Reed is stretchy, Sue is invisible (oh the metaphor), Johnny is on fire, and Ben…

Thanks for that little nugget of a plot line. Ben actually resents Reed because he has a thing for Sue. That will go in a lot of different directions and definitely has more teeth than the time that Professor X had a thought bubble about being in love with Jean Grey, his student, that never gets mentioned again (until it does, unfortunately). But let’s put a pin in that and red string it later.

With the flashback over, our heroes arrive on Monster Isle to find Mole Man who is responsible for several cave-ins across the world. His plan is to unleash his monsters on the world to get revenge on women who weren’t interested in him. Mole Man: confirmed Incel. The Fantastic Four easily defeat Mole Man by sealing him inside a mountain and straight up killing him. I guess. Reed eulogizes their first on page enemy by saying “It’s best that way! There was no place for him in our world…” right in front of his rock monster best friend. Tough look Reed…

Fantastic Four #2 introduces a foe that made their on screen debut in the Captain Marvel movie: The Skrulls! I love Skrulls and truly didn’t realize that they showed up this early in continuity. In part 1, our heroes are engaging in some distinctly unheroic behavior. The Thing attacks an oil rig, Invisible Girl does a jewel heist, Mister Fantastic messes up an energy plant, and The Human Torch melts a statue made of marble. And I know I’m expecting too much from a comic in which four people take a family trip to space and come back with super powers, but it’s important to me that everyone knows that marble is heat resistant and doesn’t melt. The world, who apparently all know that the Fantastic Four exist and are totally cool with them, freak out. Are New York’s favorite heroes breaking bad!? Nah. It’s just shapeshifting aliens attempting to ruin the reputation of the only people on Earth who can stop their invasion.

The US Army, ignorant to a large scale alien invasion, is called in to deal with the threat the Fantastic Four pose. Our heroes hide out in an isolated cabin to regroup and figure out what to do. But the military surrounds them and takes them in.

Each member is put in a cell specifically designed to withstand their powers. Which seems silly because if you put an invisible woman in a regular cell, she’s still there even if she’s invisible. But whatever. This also the first appearance of Asbestos in the Marvel Universe. And if you think that’s a dumb thing to notice, you clearly didn’t grow up in the 90s, seeing commercials for Asbestos lawsuits on every single tv show. I know this stuff was in regular use in the 60s but I seriously hope Johnny was able to get in on some of those pay outs because it’s really his biggest foe in the early FF comics.

Once they break out, the team regroup to plot against the unknown foes turning the world against them. They send Johnny to sabotage a rocket launch in order to draw them out. When Skrulls disguised as Sue and Reed pick up the real Johnny instead of a Skrull, the jig is up. The Fantastic Four take the Skrulls prisoner and Reed, expert level spaceship driver, steals their rocket to travel up into space where the invading Skrull army is waiting. Reed, pretending to be a Skrull, passes off images from Marvel Comics horror/monster books Strange Tales and Journey into Mystery as real photos from Earth. He convinces the Skrull leader that Earth is simply too dangerous to invade and volunteers to stay behind.

As the rocket re-enters earths Atmosphere, they pass through more cosmic waves. This turns The Thing back into regular old Ben Grimm. But, because Ben will never catch a W, he’s a rock monster again before the spaceship lands. It’s not easy being Grimm.

Back on earth, the question remains as to what to do with the remaining three Skrulls that Reed has taken prisoner. In another “though look my guy, Reed” moment, he decides that the only option they have to deal with aliens who can literally turn into anyone or anything is to force them to turn themselves into cows. Reed then hypnotizes the Skrull Cows into thinking they are real cows. Which is pretty fucked up and Reed should probably be considered a war criminal at this point, literally two comics in. But don’t worry. I’m sure there will absolutely never be any consequences for his actions. (Just kidding, this will be one of the catalysts for Secret Invasion in 2005. One of these Skrulls is the Emperor Skrull’s son.)

While FF #2 gave us one of Marvel’s most prominent Alien Invaders, Fantastic Four #3 is a much slower issue that doesn’t bring in much of anything. We open with our team taking in a stage show. They’re here to see the Miracle Man who promptly recognizes them and begins heckling them from stage. At this point, the Fantastic Four are basically celebrities. Though, we’re going to back track on that in a few issues, I think. He challenges The Thing to a test of their strength, which the Thing promptly loses. On their way home from the show, Reed talks about how lucky they are that Miracle Man is not a super villain. Which… you know…

Really, there isn’t a lot that happens in the A-Plot of this issue. Miracle Man brings the monster to life, they rob a jewelry store, and then the team defeats him and everything is fine. What is way more interesting happens between the Miracle Man problem. The B-Plot of this issue is rife with conflict between the members of the Fantastic Four.

This issue isn’t the first time we see the role Sue gets shunted into as the caretaker of the boys on the team. But it is the first time she names it herself. While later interpretations of Sue will have her displaying a lot more power, right now she’s written as the mom of the team. She is the one who sews the team’s infamous costumes that, even today, have barely changed. Though, given that she made them with a material that Reed has coined “unstable molecules,” it seems she’s a perfectly capable scientist as well. Though, we’ll rarely see this aspect of her. There’s only room enough on the team for one Smartest Man in the World.

We also see tensions rise between Ben Grimm and the rest of the team. He has been a volatile figure since day one, prone to outbursts of anger and violence. It’s still unclear as to whether or not this is his pre-rock monster personality. It may also be a side effect of his powers or, justifiably, anger at being the only member of the team to get turned into a rock monster.

But anyway, Fantastic Four #4 is a much more interesting issue with one major and very precious addition to continuity:

Kidding. But this is a bit that I find absolutely hilarious. Actually, the issue opens with Johnny quitting the team after an argument. The three remaining members split up to search for him. Ben is the one who finds him working on hot rods with his friends at a garage. And, because Ben doesn’t have a gentle touch when it comes to Johnny, property damage ensues.

Thankfully before he can actually hurt Johnny, Ben suddenly changes back to his human form. It only lasts like two seconds because Stan Lee loves to torture Ben apparently.

So he’s back to his rocky self in no time. It’s actually pretty in the tragedy of getting to see him constantly being given these moments of hope, only to have them snatched away seconds later. No wonder he’s so angry all the time. But this does give Johnny a chance to escape.

Because he can’t go home, he seeks a bed for the night at what looks like a halfway house or a youth hostel in the Bowrey. Once he has secured a bed for the night, he settles in to read an old comic about the iconic 1940’s Timely Comics hero, The Sub-Mariner. When another patron notices what he’s reading, he points to a disheveled man who claims to be as strong as The Sub-Mariner. And this enters one of the absolute greatest characters in all of Marvel Canon. Just as soon as Johnny gives him a haircut with fire.

The King of Abs-Lantis has arrived and I already love him. But also, the burnt hair smell in that hostel right now… 🤢 Even though Johnny recognizes him, The Sub-Mariner himself does not seem to remember who he is. So, Johnny takes him to the ocean and basically tosses him in. Once in the water, the Sub-Mariner remembers who he is and returns to his home of Atlantis only to find it in ruins. It has been destroyed by atomic weapons testing.

When The Sub-Mariner returns to land, he informs Johnny that he will avenge his home by destroying the human race. Now, Johnny is smart enough to know that this is obviously a problem worthy of getting the team back together. He sends up a flare for the others to find him and while they’re en route, The Mariner summons the “largest living creature in the world” using the Horn of Proteus. Oh, and the monster’s name is Giganto, which is objectively hilarious.

While New York is evacuated and the army attempts to take down the monster, Ben comes up with a fool proof and probably technically impossible plan. With a nuclear bomb strapped to his back, he launches himself into the mouth of the beast. Never mind that nuclear weapons are what got us into this mess in the first place, but okay.

Ben does, miraculously, manage to escape very certain death. With his monster defeated, The Mariner threatens to summon more creatures with the Horn of Proteus, but an invisible Sue Storm sneaks up behind him and steals it. The Mariner tackles her and tells her if she will become his bride he won’t destroy humanity. Sue agrees, reluctantly-ish. But Johnny saves the day with a fire tornado that plunges the Mariner back to the bottom of the ocean. Leaving everyone who is in love with Sue a little confused about where they stand with her, and Sue a little Hot of Mariner. Understandable, Sue. I get it. The Mariner vows to return and he definitely will.

Tales to Astonish

Tales to Astonish #27 is the first appearance and origin story of Henry Pym AKA Ant-Man. The issue opens with Henry making an incredible discovery. He shrinks a chair with a miniaturizing serum and grows it back to normal size with an enlarging serum. Unfortunately, the rest of the scientific community is less impressed with Henry’s experiments.

Fueled by his need to stick it to his haters, Henry tests his serum on himself. Thankfully, it works instead of eating through his skin like acid or something and Henry shrinks himself down to the size of a… you guessed it! An ant! What he doesn’t plan for is leaving the enlarging serum out of reach. The rest of the issue becomes a quest to turn himself back into normal size. As he tries to get to the serum, he is chased by ants into an ant hill where he gets stuck in honey. Which… makes sense. Sure.

He is fortunate enough to befriend one ant willing to help him. Henry is surprised when it works to pull him free from the honey and let him go. But he also torches the ant hill so I guess fuck that ant.

When Henry finally manages to get to his enlarging serum he is so shaken by the experience that he decides that his creation is too dangerous for man kind. He then pours it down the drain. Just because it’s too dangerous for man kind doesn’t mean it’s too dangerous to dispose of properly. And now the Marvel universe is overrun by enlarged bacteria from Henry’s kitchen sink. But as long as he lives, he will never forget the ant who saved his life. Even though he totally burned down that ant’s house. Which especially sucks because I doubt ants have homeowners insurance or anything to cover fire damage.

The Incredible Hulk

And the last issue I want to hit in this first installment is Incredible Hulk #1 because I think it establishes an interesting pattern with our first three protagonists of early marvel comics.

This had been advertised in the previous FF book with “Who is the Hulk?” Printed in the margins of the story, which I think is a pretty cool way to drum up interest for the book. The first run of The Incredible Hulk only lasts 6 issues. But it’s some of Jack Kirby’s best work.

This one, like Tales to Astonish, is a straight up origin story for Bruce Banner and the Hulk. If you’re familiar with Hulk through the movies, this is going to be a story that is familiar in all but one key difference.

On a military base, Bruce Banner is getting ready to test his invention, the Gamma bomb. Bruce fits in along side Reed Richards and Henry Pym in the Smartest Man In The World category. He is also kind of an asshole with little regard to what others in his community have to say about his work. In fact, he has refused to share his work with his colleagues and doesn’t want them to check his work. Seems like a dick move to me.

There’s actually a lot going on here in terms of toxic masculinity. We also have Thunderbolt Ross who doesn’t understand science or anyone who isn’t punching things 24/7 and all he really ever does is yell and tell his daughter to stay out of “man talk!”

Once everyone is done yelling, it’s time to test the bomb. Bruce takes one last look at it just in time to see a wayward teen, Rick Jones, driving through the test field. Bruce chases after him, because it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that he will not only catch a Jeep on foot, but he’ll also be able to do so before the bomb detonates. At least the last part wouldn’t have been a problem if he hadn’t pissed Igor off. Before running after the boy, Bruce tells him to shut down the countdown and Igor casually decides not to. And while Bruce does manage to save the kid, he gets caught in the Gamma explosion.

Hours later, Bruce wakes up at the base where he stays, being monitored for any symptoms caused by the explosion. That night, while Rick watches Bruce, he transforms into a giant Grey monster and breaks out of the base. This is where the origin deviates from what is mostly considered canon at this point. The Hulk isn’t triggered by rage or heightened emotion. Instead, he just comes out at night. Essentially, Bruce Banner is a nuclear powered werewolf.

The monster sneaks (which seems unlikely since he’s a big monster, but who knows) through the base, followed by Rick Jones. He makes his way to Bruce Banner’s cabin, where they find Igor rummaging through Bruce’s stuff. Igor shoots at The Hulk with no effect except to piss him off even more. Finally, Bruce picks up Igor and slams him down into the table where all of his research is scattered. The absolute best part of this is we learn where Bruce hides all of his research and proprietary secrets. Pages labeled “Top Secret Report on Gamma Ray Bomb” are tapped to the bottom of a beaker. Come on my guy. Buy a safe.

When the Hulk finds a picture of Bruce in the cabin, he is appalled to see such a weak creature until Rick reminds him that he is that weak creature. I don’t think triggering an existential crisis is the best way to defeat a radioactive werewolf, but I’ve also never had to calm one down after a rampage, so who am I to judge?

Eventually, the sun comes up and The Hulk is returned his normal Bruce Banner shape just in time for soldiers to storm his cabin, demand to know where the Hulk is and take Igor and the Top Secret Gamma report away. Betty hangs back to apologize, once again, on behalf of her father and suggest that he see a doctor. To which Bruce replies, “Baby, I am a doctor.” Okay, no he doesn’t. But we do get a fun snide commentary from Rick who has no time for Betty’s crush. Bruce tells Betty he’ll call her but also tells Rick that he’s afraid that the will never escape becoming The Hulk.

Meanwhile, Igor has been taken into custody. In his cell, he uses a transmitter embedded in his fingernail to contact the Soviet scientist known as The Gargoyle. Not a great look for the Soviets to have given him that name based on his facial deformities, but what do we really expect? The Gargoyle makes his way to the states via submarine.

Back over in the A-Plot, Bruce and Rick are experimenting with ways to manage the Hulk for the time being. They drive the Jeep out into the desert before nightfall to get him away from the base before he changes again. After a run in with Betty that causes her to faint, the Gargoyle shows up. He shoots The Hulk and Ross with bullets filled with drugs that basically allow The Gargoyle to control their actions. They follow him onto a sub and head back to the USSR but on the rip, sun comes up and Hulk turns back into Bruce Banner.

When The Gargoyle finds him, he begins to sob, saying he wants to be a man and not a monster too. Bruce treats him with radiation which makes him look normal but also takes away his super intelligence. I guess that’s a trade off. Once he’s “cured” Gargoyle reveals that he has hella daddy issues and with the new realization that he has been used by the USSR, he basically renounces the Soviet efforts. Finally, he puts Bruce and Rick on a rocket headed for the US and blows his base up in a final act of defiance.

There's a lot to unpack here...

It’s actually kind of impressive to revisit comics I read as a teenager and thought very little of at the time and come away from them with a lot to chew on. There are a lot of interesting themes here with regard to how the comics interact with real world ideas and politics.

Communism, The Cold War, The Atomic Age, Vietnam

So, these comics are coming out in 61 and 62. The Cold War is in full swing, America is a few years out from entering Vietnam, and a few months prior to the release of Fantastic Four #1, the first man went to space. So much of what what we see happening on the page are consequences of that political climate just as so much of what our characters go through relate back to that central unease. Science was advancing at a more rapid pace than ever before and citizens were being warned of the constant threat that communism posed on their way of life.

There is also A LOT of anti-communist propaganda in the first decade of Marvel comics. Here, we’ve only seen it so far with the Fantastic Four needing to go to space to beat the “commies” and the Igor’s attempts to be the worlds worst double agent. We’ll see a lot more of that once we get to Journey into Mystery, because somehow the book about Norse Gods got turned into the most deliberate and most obvious anti-commie book for a while.

Science and Intelligence as it relates to Toxic Ego and Fragile Masculinity

It’s not a mistake that our three “main characters” so far are Reed Richards, Henry Pym, and Bruce Banner. All brilliant men of science who are exploring new technology in their own ways. The contrast between how Reed is treated, versus Henry and Bruce is fascinating. Reed and his contributions to science, as well as his powers have made him a celebrity. He is celebrated by his fans and his family and is all around viewed as a good guy (despite the fact that he turned three autonomous beings into cows). On the other hand, Pym and Banner are belittled. Pym is belittled by his colleagues who think his theories and his studies are outlandish and impossible. Banner is surrounded by military men who value brute strength over science. Thunderbolt Ross will constantly diminish Bruce as less of a man because he’s smart rather than strong.

The most fascinating part of this, to me, is knowing what becomes of Hank Pym in the future. Jumping ahead a little bit, his reputation in the universe and among fans will be forever tarnished by how he treats his future wife, Janet Van Dyne. In a sequence of events in a 1980s issue of the Avengers, Hank appears to strike Janet across the face. This has been, rightfully, called out as an act of domestic abuse by fans and has utterly ruined Hank’s reputation as a character. At the time, and in future incidents, the creators of that moment have discussed how they had never intended it to be viewed that way. But, even now in his first appearance, you can see the groundwork of a volatile man with a fragile ego and it’s not that much of a leap to see this man committing domestic assault.

Women as Caretakers and House Mothers

Right now, the only woman we see with any regularity is Susan storm. And we see her slotted into that mother role with the rest of the team. She is their caretaker, their costume maker, and the object of two members’ affection. This does not really improve until much later. For now, we have a woman doing woman’s work and not much else.

The only other woman we have to compare her to is Betty Ross. For the first six issues of Hulk, she is less a character and more of a background object. A full table lamp of a person, much like the earliest version of Jane Foster, who we’ll soon meet in Journey into Mystery.

‘Nuff Said!

And that wraps up the first six issues of Marvel continuity. It literally took me two months to write this post so who knows when I’ll cover the next few issues? But if you’re interested in something I update more frequently check out this twitter account I made to clean all the screencapped panels out of my camera roll: @616caps.

I’ll leave you with this incredible cutaway of the Fantastic Four’s HQ because who doesn’t love a cutaway!

#marvel comics #the marvel method

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