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jamespotterthefirst · 3 years

Text

October 31st (Ethan x f!MC)

Pairing: Dr. Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Dr. Lilac Allende) Word count: 2.3K Warning: Language Premise: Ethan Ramsey doesn’t do costumes... except maybe for her.

A/N: A pointless Halloween fic

A/N2: For Day 28 of @choicesoctoberchallenge2020. The prompt is “Costume”.

1. Intern Year

Ethan resisted a groan as an atrocious, remixed version of The Monster Mash blared through the speakers, eliciting a cheer from the drunken crowd. Characteristically, he pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes shut as he wondered why he decided to venture out on the worst night of the year. Perhaps he needed a drink that badly after another full day of dealing with interns.

“Time for a refill, Dr. Ramsey,” a voice said over the music.

Ethan hated the way his pulse quickened at the sound.

Doing his best to appear collected, he shot what he hoped was an impassive glance at the figure now standing beside him at the bar, the floral notes of her perfume already caressing his every sense. One single glance at her, however, was enough to shoot all efforts of appearing aloof straight to hell.

She leaned casually against the bar, clad in a sensuous, forest green number that molded to every curve of her body and ensnared every bit of his attention. Dark green leaves embellished every surface of the sinfully short dress, tapering off into delicate, curly vines along her exposed shoulders and arms. Her glossy, dark hair was hidden away beneath a cascade of long, auburn waves that made her eyes appear greener still.

“Wig,” she explained with a small laugh when Ethan continued to stare.

At last, he pried his eyes away, feeling his neck flare with heat. Unsure of what else to say, he feigned indifference as he asked, “And what are you supposed to be, Rookie?”

Aside from fucking irresistible, his idiotic, addled brain added on impulse.

He could see Lilac's jaw go slack in a way that was almost comical but somehow managed to be entirely too adorable.

“You're kidding, right? I'm Poison Ivy.”

Ethan had known that. He had been, after all, a comic-book obsessed teenager once. If someone had told him back then that he would one day witness the sexiest version of the character imaginable, his head would have caved in on itself. Adult Ethan, it seemed, was no better because his eyes fell on her once again, unable to resist her magnetic pull.

Lilac, however, was too busy looking at the dancefloor. She nodded toward her group of friends, dancing, laughing, and contributing to half of the noise in the bar.

“We were all supposed to be Batman villains but Bryce and Landry got lazy. They put on a Thing One and Thing Two shirt and called it a day.”

Ethan followed her gaze to where the young surgeon had peeled off the aforementioned shirt, relishing in the attention that decision was earning him from a gaggle of girls nearby. The other one Lilac had mentioned stood awkwardly off to the side, too pale and and gangly to ever be Lahela's counterpart.

“More like tweedle dee and tweedle dum,” he muttered.

Lilac met his eyes at once and to his delight, she laughed, the sound sending his stomach into a dive. It was already maddening enough that the sound was entirely too attractive, but Ethan felt a swelling sense of satisfaction at being the one to inspire it.

When she sobered up, her green eyes remained on his, humor melting into a pensive expression. She continued to watch him with the conviction of someone discovering a new secret. He would have given anything to know what she was thinking at that very moment.

“What about you?”

“Hmm?”

He had been distracted by her full lips and by how fitting the damn costume was. Much like every weak-willed man in his comic books, Ethan would have risked absolutely everything to kiss her.

“No costume?”

“God no,” he spat, inspiring another little laugh.

“Never say never,” she told him in a sing-song voice.

“I can confidently say never.”

______________

2. A year later.

They paused outside the door to Bryce's apartment, the muffled sound of music and laughter making its way to the hall. Ethan briefly wondered if his neighbors would complain enough to derail the whole affair. It would mean he could go back to the peace and quiet of his home.

As if reading his mind, Lilac turned to face him, a knowing smile pulling at her lips. God, he loved it when she looked at him that way.

“You're not getting out of this,” she reminded him, her fingers moving to play with the orange Ascot tie she had forced him to wear.

“We're well into November. There was no need to dress up.”

As usual, Lilac rolled her eyes lovingly.

“It's hardly dressing up when all we did was put you in a white sweater you already owned, babe,” she explained for the hundredth time. Ethan tried to scowl at the pet name, but he was beginning to enjoy it. Instead, he relaxed into her touch, trying his best not to follow the lazy path her fingers made on his chest. “You wouldn't even wear a wig, so it doesn't count. As for the party being this late, it was the only night we all had off. And we'll be damned before we let a whole year pass us by without dressing up.”

She finalized that sentence with a searing kiss to his neck. His hands banded around her waist reflexively, pulling her soft body flush against his. In their time together, he had avidly learned the many ways to drive her just as crazy.

“You and I can still dress up,” he murmured darkly against her ear.

Lilac shivered, to his immense delight.

“Are you suggesting role play, Dr. Ramsey,” she returned in a poor attempt to mock him.

The formal mode of address, uttered in a low, breathy voice against his ear, made his blood buzz for her. More maddening still was the short, purple dress she wore along with the auburn wig that made a reappearance after a year.

“Got a thing for redheads?” she asked, correctly guessing the contents of his thoughts yet again.

Ethan smiled crookedly down at her. “I got a thing for you.”

The words rang with sincerity and an overwhelming sense of relief at finally being able to say them out loud, without any fear of consequences.

Lilac, for her part, looked as though she wanted to shove him against the wall and kiss him fiercely, but the erupting cheers from inside the apartment interrupted their exchange from advancing further.

“Mystery Gang in the house!” Bryce, dressed as a pirate, hollered as soon as they walked through the door. Everyone else cheered and hooted, the sounds no doubt fueled by the contents of the many red solo cups around the room.

“You guys look adorable!” Sienna commended over the music, greeting each of them with a friendly hug. “Fred and Daphne makes so much sense for you two.”

“Because we solve mysteries for a living?” Ethan asked, voice deadpan.

“Nah, because those two were a thing long before any of the others found out,” Elijah said as he joined them.

Lilac laughed out loud, the sound teetering on the edges of relief. She had been nervous, just like Ethan had been, that her friends would be awkward around them now that they knew of their relationship.

By the way they easily joked with him and included him in conversation throughout the night, their concerns had been for nothing. They even helped Lilac pressure him into dancing a modern pop song he had heard many times on the radio. Not that he needed much convincing when he would gladly do anything just to see her radiant smile directed his way.

By midnight, the party had dwindled down to drinks and board games. There was a raucous consensus to play Clue, which caused Bryce to roll his eyes.

“Of course the diagnosticians want to play the nerdiest game.”

Ethan rolled up his sleeves in preparation, which earned him a coy and borderline lustful look from Lilac. “You're just bitter that we're playing something other than beer pong, scalpel jockey.”

Elijah let out a surprised yet impressed laugh, wasting no time to high five Ethan. Even Bryce couldn't help but grin.

“Trash talk all you want, old man. I'm more than just a pretty face.”

When it came to Clue, however, Bryce had no chance against Ethan, who analyzed every player with sharp precision and correctly guessed the murderer, the room, and the weapon. Several games later, Ethan easily proved victorious while Bryce only laughed graciously, raising his palms up in defeat.

When even the board games ebbed into quiet conversation at the end of the night, Lilac sat on his lap, circling her arms around his neck. They sat like that for minutes, enjoying the nuances of being that annoyingly cute couple at a party.

“Thank you for dressing up for me,” she said as she pressed a chaste kiss on his cheek.

Even that sent his heart into a tumultuous rhythm.

“Only for you,” he murmured. “And as a one time deal only.”

______________

3. Many years later.

Ethan plastered the fur-lined hat on his head, a perfect complement to the fur-lined everything else he was currently wearing. Luckily, fall time in Boston was cold enough that the ensemble would prove to be practical as they walked the streets. He stepped into the hallway, not bothering to check his reflection. There was no doubt he looked utterly ridiculous.

But he didn't care.

He would do anything for her and for the unbridled joy in the eyes he loved so much.

Lilac was already waiting when he entered the living room, her smile impossibly wide as she glanced him over. It was the exact reaction he expected and he couldn't help but grin too.

“Is this how it's supposed to look?”

“Yes!” she all but shrieked in delight. The magenta cape of her costume fluttered behind her as she rushed to him, her body crashing against him in an overjoyed hug. “I love you so much for doing this.”

The words still sent a thrill through Ethan, as strong as the first time he heard them. Heart thundering wildly at his chest, he leaned down to kiss her, just because he could.

When they pulled apart, she watched him through half-closed eyes, her teeth catching her lush bottom lip. All Ethan wanted to do was carry her to their bed and tear off the costumes they had spent so much time perfecting. Inwardly, he marveled at how everything had changed over the years, but there were some things that remained the same.

Instead, he captured one of her plaits between his fingers. “These people we're dressed up as,” he started, gently trailing the ridges of her braid. Lilac watched him, captivated by his every word. “Do they end up together?”

She allowed a laugh. “We've watched nothing but that movie for a week straight.”

Ethan shrugged, allowing a sheepish grin. “I tune it out thirty minutes in every time.”

More laughter and Ethan decided then that he could hear the sound forever and not get enough.

“Don't let Dolores hear you say that,” she warned with one final kiss. She moved to break apart from their embrace but he stopped her.

His wife looked at him expectantly and Ethan frowned, suddenly doubtful.

“Do you think she'll like it?”

Lilac's curious expression melted into a fond smile. “She's going to love it,” she assured him, leaning in to press a sweet kiss on the tip of his nose.

Not surprisingly, Lilac had been right because moments later, a delighted shriek of laughter announced the arrival of their toddler daughter. Her godmother trailed close behind, crouching over in an attempt to fix the blue tulle that trailed along the floor as the child ran towards her father. It was futile and Sienna sighed in defeat, shooting Lilac an amused look.

“It's pointless,” Sienna laughed. “There's no stopping little Lolly when she sees her father.”

Proving that point, his daughter flung herself into Ethan's arms and cried, “Dada!”

“Hello, princess,” Ethan laughed as she pressed her version of a kiss on his cheek.

“I'm Elsa,” Dolores corrected sagely.

“Yes, babe,” Lilac added with mock seriousness. “You are in the presence of Queen Elsa of Arendelle. Have some respect.”

“My apologies, Your Majesty,” Ethan said to his daughter with such formality that the child laughed. Sienna watched the exchange with a watery smile, failing to repress a squeal.

A loud roar coming from the threshold informed them that their son had joined them. Sienna laughed as Jonah ran around the room, the antlers of his costume bobbing wildly as he moved. At last, he stopped right before Lilac, who picked him up in her arms.

“I didn't know reindeers roared,” she laughed, swaying her son in her arms.

Jonah roared again to demonstrate that reindeers could indeed roar formidably, at least when impersonated by a five year old. “I'm a Halloween reindeer,” he explained. “He roars to be spooky, but just for today.”

The adults laughed. “You're a good big brother, Jonah,” Lilac informed him with a kiss, closely followed by a tickle.

“Lolly wanted to be Elsa so bad so I wanted to help,” their son said through a giggle, as though it was the most obvious explanation in the world.

It was for Ethan.

As Sienna ushered them together for a picture, Ethan looked at his family, everyone smiling radiantly and far more beautifully than the moon itself. Little Dolores clung to him, laughing and looking happier than he had ever seen her.

His wife caught his eye and shot him a knowing but proud smile. Ethan knew she was remembering the cynical, jaded version of himself who had confidently proclaimed he would never do this.

Ethan had never been happier to be proven wrong.

______________

A/N: I HC they name their daughter after Dolores and nickname her Lola/ Lolly

Once upon a time I used to write for another pairing who canonically dies on Halloween. You have no idea how happy I am to write for a pairing who’s alive and well lol.

Thank you so much for reading! I love these time hop fics so much. I wrote another one for Ethan x MC a long time ago that I will publish on my birthday in November :)

Finally, Chapter 10 of the Pictagram is coming soon. It might be two parts... Yikes. Thanks for waiting so patiently for it! Life has been crazy over here

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tags: @openheart12 , @takeharryandgo , @trappedinfanfiction, @aestheticartsx, @aworldoffandoms, @paulfwesley, @myusualnerdyself, @rookie-ramsey, @ohchoices, @colossalpainintheass, @enmchoices, @i-bloody-love-drake-walker, @choicesfanaf, @openheartthot, @octobereighth, @nazarihoe, @utterlyinevitable, @kites-in-our-skies, @maurine07, @schnitzelbutterfingers, @doilooklikeiknow, @snesdudes, @kingliam2019, @perriewinklenerdie, @cinnamonspongecake, @choicesstan1, @queencarb, @ethxnrxmsey, @missmiimiie, @jens-diamondchoices, @adamsdumortain, @apphia12, @kalogh, @lucy-268, @binny1985, @queenbirbs, @honeyandsunfl0wers, @newcolonies, @lilyvalentine, @rigatonireid, @interobanginyourmom, @parkerattano, @custaroonie, @nikki-2406, @lilypills, @chasingrobbie, @nooruleman, @lonely-mxxnlight, @ruinedbypixels, @shadynaturehilariouscookie, @tsrookie, @mvalentine, @professorkingslay, @drakewalkerfantasy, @casey-v, @helloblueeyedcat, @mysticaurathings, @blossomanarchy, @thegreentwin, @togetherwearerapture, @rookieoh, @ramseysno1rookie, @rookiemarsswiftie, @natashajaniphil, @mysticalgalaxysstuff, @hatescapsicum, @choices-lurker, @kiara-36, @junehiratas, @danijimenezv, @macy-ray85, @adrex04, @canigetanawwjunk, @sanchita012, @overwhelminglyaquarius , @scorpiochick8, @skylarklyon, @starrystarrytrouble, @mercury84choices, @drariellevalentine, @ethanrcmsey, @lion-ess24, @aarisa-frost, @kaavyaethanramsey , @udishaman, @a-crepusculo, @quacksonlover

#open heart #ethan ramsey #ethan x mc #playchoices #my writing #ethan ramsey fanfiction #ethan ramsey x mc #open heart fanfiction #choices fanfiction

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thatk9panda · 5 years

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King Koopa x F!OC (Chocolate Pie)

Junior and his 7 siblings were having a lazy Sunny day in the Castle's main room just off the Boarder-line of the Mushroom Kingdom, that their Father has yet to claim for the true inhabitants of the land, the Goombas from his once Romantic target, Princess "Peach" Toadstool. Junior sometimes forgets that his Dad was trying so hard to make her his new Mom since he was younger, but now having a mind of a curious child, Junior cringes at his actions, it's so embarrassing but things have changed now. His dad, King "Bowser" Koopa has changed, he no longer fights for the land for the Goobas that begged him to get back because he is the sole only being powerful enough; a falsehood. Time and time again, Bowser fails his missions by Mario "Jump-man" Mario at every turn. Junior sets down his stuffed toy in the shape of a comically detailed bomb with an irate expression as if ready to explode at any bated breath. Stepping out into the all decorated corridor Junior hears his Father's booming voice. "Junior! Do get your Mother for me, Son. She's oversleeping again." Bowser was leaving the kitchen holding a giant pie in his scales. No doubt to Junior his Dad is having Dessert for lunch. "OK, Dad." Junior jogged the carpet steps of his home to his parents' bedroom. Yes, Peach isn't his mom but that's OK. She's still great! After a few minutes of walking and jogging to save time, Junior arrives a tad bit breathless, his excitement to see his mom pushed him to sprint down the hallway. The door to the room was away from others 'close-by' and detailed with rubies and golden frames, his Dad once had a simpler door but upon her arrival, he ordered something Mario wouldn't be able to get through so easily, Window was out of the question, coming in from it just led you to a different part of the castle altogether at random even if you see her from it. Junior can't figure out if his Dad forgot to change it or the two agreed to keep because it was set up all nice. The door remains unlocked without caution, The room was darkly lit, a few candles lines the walls on all four walls, half of it burns to keep the room total darkness has the thick curtain blocked the open stone window. Junior tip-toes on his claws to avoid being noisy has he approaches the bed in the center of the room against the parallel wall of the entrance. Thick blankets nearly cover the tiny human woman under it, nearly, her hair was spread through the white pillow in contrast to her golden pink thick curls. He pokes what he assumes is her shoulder, his action repeats in a motion of swaying her back and having her body maneuver back to its original position. "Mom, wake up. Dad says you're sleeping the day away." "Nooo... So comfy." The woman groans as she buries herself deeper into the warm covers she longs to connect with. "Mom." Junior deadpanned calls. His expression was a look of mild annoyance but a sneaky plan formed in his mind last second. "Dad's eating your chocolate-chip pie." Silence. "Can I have a minute, Junior?" She made no action to move yet her voice sounded much wider awake, Junior left the room, closing the door behind him and made his way downstairs, she'll catch up. Junior hears the door open and quickly close and outcomes running is his Dad's wife and his and his siblings' Mom, Averie. All of her custom dresses were simple and breezy, King Bowser finally gave him on her outfits, she seems happy to wear something loose and flexible, Averie told him that Bowser used to think that she would sneak away at night but having on such restricting garments would make escaping difficult for her unless she stripped down and that would be obvious of her actions but now the two have reached that step of trust. He's so proud of his Dad. "Where is your father?" Averie stumps for off in her heels strapped at her ankles for grip. "Outside in the Garden!" Averie took off in a marathon, the servants and occupations continue on with their day, not a one-bit concern for the heavy footsteps fast approaching and quickly fleeting away. The castle sure is lively now more than over, they wonder why it wasn't like that before, why did a human girl from a different world have to come and make that change? The desire for the answer didn't linger long before everyone 's mind went elsewhere. Junior arrives downstairs towards the front entrance of the Castle, he opens the door just as Averie's voice rang through the green grounds of the Garden growing off the side of the Castle. "Bowser! Where's my pie?!" Heavy, Very Heavy footsteps shake the grounds as he can barely see his Father fleeing deeper inside the Maze of roses. Averie quickly finds him, the stomps end. King Bowser has just finished savoring the pie he has taken from the kitchen, oh his wife- tasty pie, good pie. He loves her chocolate-chip pies the best, no question. Too bad he's going to get into trouble for not sharing it like it was intended for and she slaved so hard in the kitchen the night before to prepare it just right, he would felt guilty if it weren't worth eating. Maybe he can try recreating it so he'll be in less trouble. "BOWSER!" His flaming red eyebrows nearly extend off his face, his spine stiffens as he hears the voice he loves so much scream his name in bloody-murder. And today I die She was approaching closer, Bowser didn't consider hiding deeper inside the Maze, but he didn't feel he needed to, he was sure he had time to even hide the evidence... unless. Junior's snark smirk filled his thought bubble. Traitor! He told her! He took off, leaving the empty crumble foil pan on deserted on the ground. Averie is fast approaching now. He can feel her presence climbing his spiked shell. Here it comes. Having been romantic with her for awhile Bowser has come to where rope around his shell so she'll have something grab, especially since his arms are far much wider for her to grab. She stepped on his tail as leverage and roped her way up to his shoulder, Bowser was too big for the tight space and not all that fast compared to his wife. He falls on his stomach, defeated as she grips his horns in victory, he looks to the side of his eye to see she one again isn't dressed like a Queen of the Koopas, having natural bed head curls crown her face, skin clear of the drool that always cakes the side of her lip and eyes for reasons only he knows, yet she stands as graceful as a Goddess, Bowser has never witness beauty such as this and he prays he is the only lucky man to see all of it. "Bowser, you ate the pie! I made that today's dinner with the Princess!" She pouts as she leans close, her frame blocks the sun from him, darkening his sights as he glances up, he cares not for eating that Delicious pie but the upset tone she uses telling him he done wrong, twist his stomach. She remains on top of him, legs on either side of his shoulders as if to keep him pin but he and her as well as everyone knows that's impossible but he plays submission from time to time to make her feel better. Her fragrance, he finally inhales when the pie's smell faze from his nostrils. Her scent is hers and his, such an intoxicating aroma. He grows excited, no! Bad! Not now, Now you're in trouble. "I'm sorry, My Love but you know how weak I am to your desserts." He uses play on words. "No! That's not okay, you know how hard I worked on it and how I was gonna show off, why didn't you just eat the other ones? I made your favorite Cinnamon Peach, knowing you were gonna try something like this." She pulls at his horns as 'punishment' poor girl, she's only digging herself in deeper. "I didn't see it." He lied. True, Cinnamon Peach pie was his favorite, he had Peach's name in it and Bowser order Averie to bake it for him whenever he failed his mission, which was nearly every other day. Dark days indeed, how she would work for hours, sleep rarely and looked like a piece of trash took form. How he hates the old him for treating her like he did. His desire for Peach nearly cost him a Happy Ending but that all changed when she intentionally went against his wishes of another pie to the Chocolate-chip that fell in love with, it was also her favorite as well. "Liar." Call out. Her face gets closer. She stares down to his huge yellow lips before meeting his eyes again. "Stop lying." "Okay" "Don't say Okay then do it again." "Okay" "Bowser!" King Koopa, reaches an arm, gripping her ankle and pulling her under him. She doesn't fight it, he always reclaims his position as 'Top' when he feels she had enough of being Bossy to the King. She folds her arms under her chest, prepping them up with a squeeze. "Over it yet?" He asks, voice powerful and in control. No response, she moves her head to the side with a huff. Bad move. Bowser has grown to love the fight she puts up. It was different and unique. He opens his fangs and gently nip the skin of the meeting of her shoulder and neck, she shivers at the pleasant love bite, she relaxes her arms, positioning herself in a much comfortable; Legs spread apart in a loose spread out pose, her arms bend over her head to wrap his biceps keeping his upper body from crushing her. He pulls himself closer to the ground to nip her again, she shivers at the contact. This tiny woman, that hasn't cringe at his touch and advances just so willingly complies to his love. He really did miss this chance. He hasn't taken much thought to why. He was just longing for a woman in his and his children's lives, that why she would ever never crossed him, even as the two make sneaky love making out in the open of the garden. He can't figure out where this passion came from. He never had these feelings for Peach, of course, he wanted her, he loved her but this activity has never crossed him when he thought of her. Enough comparing the two, there's only one and she's lying under me right now. The Queen and King receive and gives each other a longing kiss in the middle of a Hot day, luckily Bower's huge form shadows hers from the impossible heat. She pulls away, always the one to be out of breath first, she pushes at his chest to separate the two. "Okay, I forgive you, Now let's go back inside. I have to remake a pie." She suggests. After all this, Bowser had other plans. "Not right now. You have something to take care of first." He states out lustfully to his beautiful and submissive Queen.

#Bowser x reader #king bowser #oc insert #bowser x oc #queen #chocolate pie #junior #bowser jr #mario villian #fire turtle #turtle man x female #monster x human #demination separation #beast x human

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thatgamble · 5 years

Text

(CCP) bowser x f:oc

Junior and his 7 siblings were having a lazy Sunny day in the Castle’s main room just off the Boarder-line of the Mushroom Kingdom, that their Father has yet to claim for the true inhabitants of the land, the Goombas from his once Romantic target, Princess “Peach” Toadstool. Junior sometimes forgets that his Dad was trying so hard to make her his new Mom since he was younger, but now having a mind of a curious child, Junior cringes at his actions, it’s so embarrassing but things have changed now. His dad, King “Bowser” Koopa has changed, he no longer fights for the land for the Goobas that begged him to get back because he is the sole only being powerful enough; a falsehood. Time and time again, Bowser fails his missions by Mario “Jump-man” Mario at every turn. Junior sets down his stuffed toy in the shape of a comically detailed bomb with an irate expression as if ready to explode at any bated breath. Stepping out into the all decorated corridor Junior hears his Father’s booming voice. “Junior! Do get your Mother for me, Son. She’s oversleeping again.” Bowser was leaving the kitchen holding a giant pie in his scales. No doubt to Junior his Dad is having Dessert for lunch. “OK, Dad.” Junior jogged the carpet steps of his home to his parents’ bedroom. Yes, Peach isn’t his mom but that’s OK. She’s still great! After a few minutes of walking and jogging to save time, Junior arrives a tad bit breathless, his excitement to see his mom pushed him to sprint down the hallway. The door to the room was away from others ‘close-by’ and detailed with rubies and golden frames, his Dad once had a simpler door but upon her arrival, he ordered something Mario wouldn’t be able to get through so easily, Window was out of the question, coming in from it just led you to a different part of the castle altogether at random even if you see her from it. Junior can’t figure out if his Dad forgot to change it or the two agreed to keep because it was set up all nice. The door remains unlocked without caution, The room was darkly lit, a few candles lines the walls on all four walls, half of it burns to keep the room total darkness has the thick curtain blocked the open stone window. Junior tip-toes on his claws to avoid being noisy has he approaches the bed in the center of the room against the parallel wall of the entrance. Thick blankets nearly cover the tiny human woman under it, nearly, her hair was spread through the white pillow in contrast to her golden pink thick curls. He pokes what he assumes is her shoulder, his action repeats in a motion of swaying her back and having her body maneuver back to its original position. “Mom, wake up. Dad says you’re sleeping the day away.” “Nooo… So comfy.” The woman groans as she buries herself deeper into the warm covers she longs to connect with. “Mom.” Junior deadpanned calls. His expression was a look of mild annoyance but a sneaky plan formed in his mind last second. “Dad’s eating your chocolate-chip pie.” Silence. “Can I have a minute, Junior?” She made no action to move yet her voice sounded much wider awake, Junior left the room, closing the door behind him and made his way downstairs, she’ll catch up. Junior hears the door open and quickly close and outcomes running is his Dad’s wife and his and his siblings’ Mom, Averie. All of her custom dresses were simple and breezy, King Bowser finally gave him on her outfits, she seems happy to wear something loose and flexible, Averie told him that Bowser used to think that she would sneak away at night but having on such restricting garments would make escaping difficult for her unless she stripped down and that would be obvious of her actions but now the two have reached that step of trust. He’s so proud of his Dad. “Where is your father?” Averie stumps for off in her heels strapped at her ankles for grip. “Outside in the Garden!” Averie took off in a marathon, the servants and occupations continue on with their day, not a one-bit concern for the heavy footsteps fast approaching and quickly fleeting away. The castle sure is lively now more than over, they wonder why it wasn’t like that before, why did a human girl from a different world have to come and make that change? The desire for the answer didn’t linger long before everyone ’s mind went elsewhere. Junior arrives downstairs towards the front entrance of the Castle, he opens the door just as Averie’s voice rang through the green grounds of the Garden growing off the side of the Castle. “Bowser! Where’s my pie?!” Heavy, Very Heavy footsteps shake the grounds as he can barely see his Father fleeing deeper inside the Maze of roses. Averie quickly finds him, the stomps end. King Bowser has just finished savoring the pie he has taken from the kitchen, oh his wife- tasty pie, good pie. He loves her chocolate-chip pies the best, no question. Too bad he’s going to get into trouble for not sharing it like it was intended for and she slaved so hard in the kitchen the night before to prepare it just right, he would felt guilty if it weren’t worth eating. Maybe he can try recreating it so he’ll be in less trouble. “BOWSER!” His flaming red eyebrows nearly extend off his face, his spine stiffens as he hears the voice he loves so much scream his name in bloody-murder. And today I die. She was approaching closer, Bowser didn’t consider hiding deeper inside the Maze, but he didn’t feel he needed to, he was sure he had time to even hide the evidence… unless. Junior’s snark smirk filled his thought bubble. Traitor! He told her! He took off, leaving the empty crumble foil pan on deserted on the ground. Averie is fast approaching now. He can feel her presence climbing his spiked shell. Here it comes. Having been romantic with her for a while Bowser has come to where rope around his shell so she’ll have something grab, especially since his arms are far much wider for her to grab. She stepped on his tail as leverage and roped her way up to his shoulder, Bowser was too big for the tight space and not all that fast compared to his wife. He falls on his stomach, defeated as she grips his horns in victory, he looks to the side of his eye to see she one again isn’t dressed like a Queen of the Koopas, having natural bed head curls crown her face, skin clear of the drool that always cakes the side of her lip and eyes for reasons only he knows, yet she stands as graceful as a Goddess, Bowser has never witness beauty such as this and he prays he is the only lucky man to see all of it. “Bowser, you ate the pie! I made that today’s dinner with the Princess!” She pouts as she leans close, her frame blocks the sun from him, darkening his sights as he glances up, he cares not for eating that Delicious pie but the upset tone she uses telling him he done wrong, twist his stomach. She remains on top of him, legs on either side of his shoulders as if to keep him pin but he and her as well as everyone knows that’s impossible but he plays submission from time to time to make her feel better. Her fragrance, he finally inhales when the pie’s smell faze from his nostrils. Her scent is hers and his, such an intoxicating aroma. He grows excited, no! Bad! Not now, Now you’re in trouble. “I’m sorry, My Love but you know how weak I am to your desserts.” He uses play on words. “No! That’s not okay, you know how hard I worked on it and how I was gonna show off, why didn’t you just eat the other ones? I made your favorite Cinnamon Peach, knowing you were gonna try something like this.” She pulls at his horns as 'punishment’ poor girl, she’s only digging herself in deeper. “I didn’t see it.” He lied. True, Cinnamon Peach pie was his favorite, he had Peach’s name in it and Bowser order Averie to bake it for him whenever he failed his mission, which was nearly every other day. Dark days indeed, how she would work for hours, sleep rarely and looked like a piece of trash took form. How he hates the old him for treating her like he did. His desire for Peach nearly cost him a Happy Ending but that all changed when she intentionally went against his wishes of another pie to the Chocolate-chip that fell in love with, it was also her favorite as well. “Liar.” Call out. Her face gets closer. She stares down to his huge yellow lips before meeting his eyes again. “Stop lying.” “Okay” “Don’t say Okay then do it again.” “Okay” “Bowser!” King Koopa, reaches an arm, gripping her ankle and pulling her under him. She doesn’t fight it, he always reclaims his position as 'Top’ when he feels she had enough of being Bossy to the King. She folds her arms under her chest, prepping them up with a squeeze. “Over it yet?” He asks, voice powerful and in control. No response, she moves her head to the side with a huff. Bad move. Bowser has grown to love the fight she puts up. It was different and unique. He opens his fangs and gently nip the skin of the meeting of her shoulder and neck, she shivers at the pleasant love bite, she relaxes her arms, positioning herself in a much comfortable; Legs spread apart in a loose spread out pose, her arms bend over her head to wrap his biceps keeping his upper body from crushing her. He pulls himself closer to the ground to nip her again, she shivers at the contact. This tiny woman, that hasn’t cringe at his touch and advances just so willingly complies to his love. He really did miss this chance. He hasn’t taken much thought to why. He was just longing for a woman in his and his children’s lives, that why she would ever never crossed him, even as the two make sneaky love making out in the open of the garden. He can’t figure out where this passion came from. He never had these feelings for Peach, of course, he wanted her, he loved her but this activity has never crossed him when he thought of her. Enough comparing the two, there’s only one and she’s lying under me right now. The Queen and King receive and gives each other a longing kiss in the middle of a Hot day, luckily Bower’s huge form shadows hers from the impossible heat. She pulls away, always the one to be out of breath first, she pushes at his chest to separate the two. “Okay, I forgive you, Now let’s go back inside. I have to remake a pie.” She suggests. After all this, Bowser had other plans. “Not right now. You have something to take care of first.” He states out lustfully to his beautiful and submissive Queen.

#submission #bowser #king_koopa #mario_villian #mario #video_game #love #monster_x_beauty #canon_X_oc #male_x_female #turtle #human #king #mushroom #pie #chocolate_pie

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omeletsforpepper · 5 years

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If They Liked This, They Might Also Like...

Over at @reactingtosomething we wanted to get into the holidays in a way that was more or less on brand. So in the spirit of a Netflix recommendation algorithm, here are some book suggestions for what to buy friends and family who may have liked some of the same movies I did in 2018.

If they liked Wildlife or Widows: The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness

As I say in my Amazon review, this is the best applied ethics text I was never assigned. In fairness to my professors, attorney-turned-journalist Jill Filipovic hadn’t written it yet when I was a philosophy student. Filipovic is also not a philosopher. But she is a brilliant writer and a rigorous thinker, and The H-Spot is fundamentally and explicitly an Aristotelian ethical project. That is to say, it takes the starting position that political organization should be aimed at the goal of human flourishing (as opposed to, say, economic growth). From there Filipovic builds a case, or maybe it's better to say several cases, for specific ways in which American policy fails women and disproportionately women of color in this aim, and concrete ways in which it could address this failure. She does so largely through first-hand accounts of several women across America, in a wide range of socioeconomic circumstances. Although the institutions and less formal systems in play are complicated, the questions at the heart of all this are simple: What do women want? What do women need?

Filipovic asks these questions without pre-judgment, and without assuming that any answers are too unrealistic to consider. Not that anyone she talks to asks for anything "unrealistic." Partly this is because they often speak from too much experience for the unrealistic to occur to them as something they deserve to ask for, but also, the idea that woman-friendly policy is unrealistic is a Bad Take to begin with. Filipovic doesn't need to be pie-in-the-sky utopian to show how things could be much better for women (and by extension, it should but still doesn't go without saying, for everyone).

I left academic philosophy over five years ago, but I really think each chapter (built around topics like friendship, sex, parenting, and food) is brimming with potential paper topics for grad and undergrad students of ethics and/or political philosophy. Whether you’re philosophically inclined or not, if you think “women should be happy” and “the point of civilization is to make happiness easier for everyone” are uncontroversial claims, The H-Spot is the book for you -- and for your friends who loved the several underestimated women of Widows, or Carey Mulligan’s captivating portrayal in Wildlife of a woman doing the best she could within the restrictions of her era.

If they liked Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet

Though it helps to have some familiarity with the Avengers storylines that led up to Ta-Nehisi motherfucking Coates’s first year on the Black Panther comic -- as well as with the excellent opening arc of Matt Fraction’s Invincible Iron Man -- here’s all that even a new comics reader really needs to know before jumping into Nation: King T’Challa, the Black Panther, was recently unable to prevent several consecutive disasters in Wakanda. Both as a cause and as a result of these disasters, T’Challa worked with the so-called “Illuminati” (Tony Stark, Reed Richards, Stephen Strange, and other intellectual and strategic heavyweights) to prevent the end of the multiverse itself. That crisis averted, T’Challa has returned to Wakanda to resume his royal duties.

Coates takes as a starting premise that Wakanda, the most advanced nation on earth, would only still have a hereditary monarchy if the monarch was uniquely suited as a protector of the people. In the wake of the Panther’s failures in this regard, Nation opens with a rebellion against T’Challa’s rule on two fronts: domestic terrorists with an unknown agenda on one hand, and on the other, former officers of the Dora Milaje (the all-female royal bodyguard corps beloved by fans of the movie) rallying Wakandan women who have suffered great injustices unaddressed by the crown. The leaders of the latter, lovers Ayo and Aneka, are nominally antagonists to T’Challa, but to the reader they’re parallel protagonists. You root for both T’Challa and the Dora Milaje, even though their agendas are in tension, not unlike the way one might have rooted for both Tyrion Lannister and Robb Stark in early Game of Thrones. (Shuri’s around too, though she’s quite unlike her movie counterpart.)

When he’s not fighting or investigating, T’Challa does a lot of soul-searching and debating about his responsibilities as king, the ways it conflicts with his career as a globetrotting superhero, and whether and how the government of Wakanda must evolve. Though Wakanda is too small to be considered a superpower, the domestic terror angle, an interrogation of historical injustice, and the struggle between moral idealism and political reality make Wakanda a proxy in some important ways for modern America. (You may have noticed that Ryan Coogler did this too.) Coates’s meditation on leadership and political power made A Nation Under Our Feet not only a great superhero comic but -- this is not an exaggeration or a joke -- my favorite political writing of 2016.

Nation is illustrated mostly by Brian Stelfreeze and Chris Sprouse, with colors by Laura Martin; some of Stelfreeze’s designs clearly influenced the movie.

If they liked Thoroughbreds: Sweetpea

When a clever, mean-spirited would-be journalist with airhead friends learns that her boyfriend is cheating on her, old traumas bubble to the surface and she becomes a serial killer who targets sex offenders. Darkly, often cruelly hilarious, Sweetpea is what you’d get if American Psycho was set in southwestern England and for some reason starred Amy from Gone Girl. Protagonist Rhiannon is a self-described inhabitant of an Island of Unfinished Sentences, de facto Chief Listener of her “friend” circle, and a maker of lists. Lists of the things her friends talk about (babies, boyfriends, IKEA), signs she’d like to put up at work (please close doors quietly, please do not wear Crocs to work), and oh, the people she wants to kill. Like her boyfriend, at the moment. Or ISIS, when news coverage of a terror attack pre-empts her beloved MasterChef.

Author C.J. Skuse smartly chooses not to have Rhiannon wallow in her traumatic past as many superheroes do. We get glimpses for context, but Rhiannon is committed to moving forward, to escaping her demons rather than being defined by them. It matters that she wants to get better, even if she also hates that she’s bought into society’s definition of “better.” (#relatable)

It’s worth noting that Sweetpea leans seemingly uncritically into a lot of dated gender tropes, in Rhiannon’s assessments of the women around her. (Body positive she is not.) Then again, she’s an unreliable narrator -- one of the best demonstrations of this is a scene in which she’s convinced of her ability to fool the world into believing she’s normal, then overhears her dipshit co-workers talk about how unsettling she is -- so arguably we’re supposed to laugh at how terrible she is without necessarily agreeing with her. This is, I think, a perfectly legitimate approach to a protagonist, even if some find it unfashionable.

The book is not quite as thematically rich as it first appears, at least on the topic of sexual violence; it indulges a “stranger danger” picture of rape that doesn’t feel entirely contemporary. (For a more nuanced treatment of rape culture, see the sadly short-lived but wildly entertaining vigilante dramedy Sweet/Vicious.) But as a portrait of a vibrant, layered, genuinely Nasty-and-you-kinda-love-her-for-it woman -- given Oscar-caliber-portrayal-worthy life by Skuse’s wickedly sharp voice -- Sweetpea is too fun to pass up.

Upgrade or Infinity War: The Wild Storm

Castlevania showrunner Warren Ellis helped redefine superhero comics with 1999’s The Authority, which at DC’s request he's given a Gritty Reboot (along with the WildCATS, whom some of us remember from this extremely 90s cartoon) in The Wild Storm. Ellis has always been interested in The Future, both its potential wondrousness and its probable horror. Fans of Upgrade’s refreshingly unsanitized (and unsanitary) take on human enhancement through body modification will find much to like in Ellis’s spin on the trope of second-skin powered armor. (He semi-famously wrote Extremis, one of the comic arcs that inspired Iron Man 3.)

art by Jon Davis Hunt, from The Wild Storm #1

Angela Spica, a reimagining of Ellis’s old Authority character The Engineer, is a cybernetics expert who stumbles onto a sort of shadow government conspiracy related to her employer, and goes on the run with the armor she’s designed for them. (When not deployed, the armor is stored inside her body.) Angela is quickly targeted by multiple covert organizations, one of which rescues (?) her and brings her in on a secret history of technological arms races and contact with extraterrestrials. The Wild Storm is full of big action and bigger ideas, and for smart, generally curious superhero movie fans who find the decades-long continuities of the DC and Marvel universes intimidating, it’s a great entry -- with a blessedly planned ending -- into sci-fi-comics.

Happy holidays, and have fun shopping! Hop over to the full post for @supersnarker3000’s gift guide.

#holiday shopping #gift guide #recommended reading #Jill Filipovic #Ta-Nehisi Coates #CJ Skuse #Warren Ellis #The H Spot #Black Panther #Sweetpea #The Wild Storm

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lady-olive-oil · 6 years

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Distraction Ch.1

Chapter 1

A/N: AYE!!!!!! Here we go ya’ll, here we go! its a longer than i anticipated for the first chapter but it’s something. The title has been changed, mainly because i love Kehlani but still has the vibes of the last title I had. Each chapter will have a different picture, either both of them together or one of each for the characters in their point of view. I have a tag list squad, so if you’d like to be in it, let me know. Alright here we go!

Word count: 1,631

Words in Swahili: Kubeba [bear], Ni habari gani [whats the news?]

Song: Legend Has It by Run The Jewels

{Back to Winston Duke/M’Baku List}

Tag Squad: @itsmegarabitch || @curbedcharybdis [if i forgot your name let me know!!!

enjoy!

-Amina’s POV-

Another day, another dollar. No time for slacking, no time for errors. You can take the girl out of the fashion world, but you can’t take the fashion out of the girl. Being a fashion designer, there was never a dull moment. Just like being the owner of your own boutique. You heard that right, I own The Jungle Boutique, Manhattan. Not too far from where I live, which is Brooklyn. With fashion week being over, I managed to get some random sketches done for fun, whenever I have free time. I do have a little following going on, which isn’t too bad if I do say so myself. WiI had my black Beats headphones in my ears, shielding the world around me, as I sketched a few designs in my book. Bobbing my head to the music, getting a feel of the rhythm of the graphite strokes on the paper. The prismacolors molded against the intricate lines, shaping the garments effortlessly as i went on.

“Amina.” the faint noise of something or someone wasn’t very far.

“Hear what I say, we are the business today, Fuck shit is finished today RT & J, we the new PB & J We dropped a classic today. We did a tablet of acid today, Did joints with the masses and ashes away SKRRRT! We dash away, Donner and Dixon, the pistol is blastin’ away”

“Amina.” there voice spoke again, in the distance that spoke calmly and easily.

“Doctors of death, Curing our patients of breath. We oughta pay you the trust, Crooked at work Cookin’ up curses and slurs Smokin’ my brain into mush. I became famous for blamin’ you fucks Maimin’ my way through the brush. There is no training or taming of me and my bruh, Look like a man, but I’m animal raw”

“Amina!” The voice yelled this time as i kept on sketching, nodding my head to Legend Has It by Run The Jewels. That was until my right earbud was yanked out my ear, forcing me to draw my elbow back, and send an angry glare at the culprit at hand. Yet i was caught, looking up at a very amused Winston.

“Winston! You know damn well you can’t just yank someone’s headphones out!” My thick and heavy accent had shone through, like many times before when I was either tired or distraught. His laughter was something else. Laughing at my pain in the process, one of his hands rested on my shoulder while holding his stomach with the other.

“Oh come on Mimi. It was just a friendly little getsure, don’t take it to heart. Plus, your receptionist Janice, let me up before she left to switch with some guy named Jonah.” There goes that nickname. It never left the 4th grade. He tried to calm his laughter but it was to no avail, sadly enough. Janice and Jonah, my receptionists and old college friends, never ceased to amaze me. Lord knows i’ll have a fille day with them two asking me questions tomorrow.

With a roll of my sweet chocolate brown eyes, closing my book in the process and leaning back in my chair, I gave him a look. Why was he here exactly? Not that I didn’t mind at all, it was nice to see an old friend, especially him. He was the best friend anyone could possibly ask for in any crises. That’s why I called him bear, when we were kids. Now he’s this big star doing extraordinary things with his career, that makes me proud to be from Brooklyn. Making it seems like anything was possible, and that it can be done.

“OK, i have to ask. Why are you here kubeba? Shouldn’t you be at auditions?” I asked him curiously as i watched him pace around the room with excitement, something must be good.

“Well bunny, kind of. You ready for it?”

What was this boy up to? Whatever it was, it must’ve been a good thing to make him so giddy.

“As I’ll ever be, oh great one. Release your good news upon the village people.” The look on his face was priceless when it was my turn to laugh. It was do deadpanned that even roadkill was jealous, yet he joined in. Doubling over this time, I clutched my stomach and caught my breath.

He was always a tough one to crack, when it came to jokes. I got him to laugh every time, regardless if it was bad or not. I’d like to see one of his little girlfriends do that, without being all up on him like a starfish. You could say I’m a little protective over the women he chooses to date. OK maybe not a little but you get my drift. None of them liked me anyway, because he’d always ask me to check them out for him, or help to get rid of them like that one movie What’s Your Number. Yeah it never ended well for him or I to be honest. They’d all think i was his girl in the end, and that was not the case by any means. Many a times I have thought about being with him, but then I’d think about our friendship in the end. In school I’d be the one getting picked on because of how darkly pigmented my skin was, different from my brothers. Being Afro-Latina in my way, was a gift as my mother would say. Yes i’ve grown into my head and my body curved itself out but what can you do? Plus, i grew my hair out more and it’s literally larger than life. Snapping back into reality, I grabbed his hand that was waving in my face.

“Earth to madame Jakande. You ok?” His concerned voice was soft and gentle, yet worried.

“Yeah. yeah I’m fine. Just uh, daydreaming again. So uh what’s this grandiose news you have for me, ye old one?” I had to get my mind back in the right state of mind, so i gathered my belongings and headed for the elevator for the day.

“I am older than you, yes, so respect your elders.” He poked my side and caused me to yelp, as he followed in tow.

“You’re only older than me by 10 days, ya goofball. Anyway, ni habari gani?” the anticipation was killing me as to what he had in store, as we both descended down the elevator down to the main floor. Manhattan was always busy, no matter what time of day it was. It was however, currently noon on a brisk Sunday afternoon.

“Well since you spoke in Swahili, it is one of the many languages my character in The Black Panther knows. In fact, I’m also the leader of a tribe.” He smiled brightly at me with soft chuckle. At that moment i stopped us both in front of my boutique store front window, giving him a shocked look with a huge grin.

I gave him a once over one good time before saying anything. He had told me that he had gotten a huge role in a movie that would break possible barriers but never told me what it was. I even looked all over the internet and found nothing despite my search. I grew up reading comic books at a young age, because of my parents and older brother, so i knew a little bit. Once he said Black Panther, I had to think for a bit and then I got it.

“Wait, wait. You’re a huge guy so I can only think of one character for you to be. The great M’Baku, leader of the Jabari tribe!” i squealed way too loud as I gave him a congratulatory hug on his huge accomplishment. His strong arms enveloped me in return, laughing himself.

“Someone knows their stuff! Look at you nzuri! Listen as great gesture for being my right hand girl, how about we do lunch? I pay, you pick the place” Releasing himself from our heart warming embrace, he looked at me with hopeful eyes. Damn him for being 6’4.

“Ugh, deal. You drive a hard bargain, oh great leader. I wonder how your girl, Ashanti is gonna take this.” with a sweet wink and a chuckle, we walked side by side towards Del Posto, to discuss his future.

“About her, we broke up actually. Because she got tired of me working more hours.” The look of defeat fell upon his chiseled features as he explained it, but a smile bounced back.

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that Winston. Listen, you need to stop serial dating and look for a woman to settle down with, you know? You’re in your early 30’s, I think it’s time.” He rolled his eyes at me this time and smiled graciously, as I let out a sweet laugh. If only he knew.

“Yeah, yeah. When the time is right, I will. Now let’s eat and discuss my wardrobe for this premier. You are styling me right?” He offered me his hand to do the Wakandan salute that I know from the trailers, and we both did it.

“Oh hell yeah. You know i am. What kind of friend would i be if i didn’t use skills for good instead of evil?” walking inside the restaurant, we were greeted by an aroma of multiple things and sat at our usual table by the window.

“To us. Two best friends, living their dreams in the city and conquering everything. But, not losing sight of themselves.” he made a little speech before we clinked our wine glasses together.

Oh yeah, this was going to be an interesting year for him, and also me as well.

#m'baku #winston duke #winston duke x amina jakande #distraction #thicc daddy m’baku #black panther #m’baku x reader #m’baku x oc

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how-mom-died-blog · 4 years

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youtube

Movie Review: To Dust

My Wife is obsessed with human composting... and I know something intense is on the horizon. We moved to Washington State a few years ago, and shortly after we arrived (dumb luck or more evidence that we’re living in a simulation?) Washington became the first state to legalize human composting.

Washington became the first state to legalize “human composting” on Tuesday, when Gov. Jay Inslee signed a law that will allow human bodies to be converted into soil in licensed facilities.

The state law, which passed with bipartisan support, is aimed at providing a burial alternative that is less costly and more environmentally friendly than cremation or traditional coffin burials. It will take effect on May 1, 2020.

source: https://time.com/5593438/washington-legalizes-human-composting/

We’ve had long conversations about this, Emily and I. Most methods of bodily disposal are horribly toxic to the environment, and the simple act of burying a body inside a coffin speaks very directly to our culture’s inability to face the reality of what death really is—part of the natural cycle of energy transfer on this planet. We humans have such a narrow focus when it comes to our lives. We are intensely afraid that we aren’t somehow “special”, and we have built massive monuments to immortalize our lives, long after we are gone.

If anything, my comic aims to open up conversation about dying, making it less taboo so that we can lift some of these veils that prevent us from preparing for death or acknowledging death. Our failure to face death leads to our resistance of aging.

From plastic surgeons mutilating people to “look like a 28 year old lizard” (Bill Burr, You People Are All The Same, Netflix, 2012) to transhumanist Ray Kurzweil making the preposterous claim that he wants to cure death altogether, in his lifetime, our culture is brimming with examples of how we have divorced ourself from the natural processes of the earth. Is it any wonder that the planet feels so desperately out-of-balance?

“The fact that we put pillows in caskets shows how little we understand about death.”

— Caitlin Doughty, mortician, activist, and advocate of death acceptance and the reform of Western funeral industry practices.

We come up with crackpot theories as to what lies beyond, and then we create ideologies around these stories and go to war over them. It has even been suggested that evangelicals who truly believe in the rapture would rather propel this planet to the brink of destruction, just to bring it on as soon as possible. All of this is to say, when we deny death, we deny life.

Oh yeah. This was supposed to be a movie review.

So the other night, I’m flipping through my streaming watchlists and I find this gem on Prime.

Shmuel (Geza Rohrig), a hasidic cantor in upstate New York, distraught by the untimely death of his wife, knows little more of life after death than what’s written in the Torah and Talmud, and is worried that his wife’s burial has put her soul in great pain, preventing her soul from ultimately reconnecting with the divine. He enlists the help of Albert (Matthew Broderick) and they embark on a quest to understand exactly what happens to the human body after it dies.

Eventually, (spoilers) Shmuel decides to free his wife’s corpse from the confines of the box she was buried in, and develops a clandestine partnership with Albert to move her body to an above-ground human composting site.

I found this movie to be darkly funny and challenging at times. Shmuel’s character was a little less complex than I would have preferred. That said, I enjoyed it enough to watch it more than once. It was great seeing Matthew Broderick in a dry and serious role like this, and the two had great, if not awkward, chemistry together. I even learned a thing or two about human decomposition in the process.

Look, I say all this like I’m fully liberated from the cultural taboos that prevent us from accepting death, but when Emily talks about how she wants her body treated after she dies, I truly wince. It’s a strong wince that starts with my face and ends somewhere inside my heart. It’s a conversation I don’t want to have, even after all we’ve been through. Even after filling out our POLST forms in our mid-30s. I’m struggling just like everyone else. But these conversations are really important to have with our loved ones. They’re important to have with everyone, because we can’t keep roaming this earth with our heads in the sand, in regards to our true nature.

We are part of this planet. We came from it. We will return to it. And the fact that we have iron in our blood proves that we are also children of the stars, because all of the iron on Earth was produced in the intense conditions present in the hearts of stars, released by supernovae, and distributed across the universe to coalesce over billions of years as gravity-wells that become planets, and from within these planets, we emerge. What business do we have boxing ourselves up inside coffins and pyramids, removing ourselves from the natural order of things? We do these things because we hope that we are special. But that is so short-sighted because when you zoom out and consider that universal perspective, how can we NOT feel special? We are the universe becoming alive, experiencing every configuration possible. We are not insignificant. We are everything.

#death and dying #death positive #death positive movement #human composting #above ground burial #gaia #starchild #children of the stars

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politicsprose · 6 years

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2017 Holiday Newsletter

Welcome to the 2017 Politics and Prose Holiday Newsletter. As always, we’re proud to present a selection of some of the year’s most impressive books. Happy holidays to all!

American Fiction

Jennifer Egan’s Manhattan Beach (@scribnerbooks) captures a time and place on the verge of momentous change. Set in Brooklyn in the 1940s, the novel tells the story of Anna Kerrigan, a young woman who has dropped out of Brooklyn College to contribute what she can to the American war effort. Unsatisfied with her job of inspecting and measuring machine parts, she attempts to enter the male-only world of deep-sea diving. Manhattan Beach is rich and atmospheric, highlighting a period when gangs controlled the waterfront, jazz streamed from the doors of nightclubs, and the future for everyone was far from certain. - Mark L.

Shaker Heights is a perfectly planned town full of people with seemingly perfectly planned lives, but when Mia and her daughter Pearl move in they start a series of little fires, small rebellions, that shake the community to its core. Celeste Ng brilliantly explores the nature of art, family, and identity in her second novel, Little Fires Everywhere (@thepenguinpress). The writing is beautifully elegant and layered, and you’ll find yourself immediately swept up in the lives of the characters. At the heart of the story are four mothers: one whose carefully planned family was nearly derailed by a high-risk pregnancy and who watches her youngest daughter so carefully that she forgets to show her love; one who leaves her child at a firehouse to save her life in a hopeless moment; one who longs for a child and fears her chance will be snatched away before she can experience the wonder of motherhood; and one who made a dangerous choice to raise her child on her terms. Whether you are a mother or a child, the story of these women and their families will stay with you long after you turn the last page. - Tori O.

Larry McMurtry has always been ambivalent about the success of the fiction in which he portrays the cowboy myth and the rugged Texas machismo that comes with it, but as you read the three novels collected in Thalia: A Texas Trilogy (Liveright) you won’t be of two minds. Actually, upon learning that McMurtry wrote all these books in his twenties and that they were the very first three he wrote, you’ll be burning with envy. In Horseman, Pass By, McMurtry sets Lonnie Bannon with his love of his Granddad’s ranch and way of life against Hud, his step-brother, who is endlessly crude and cruel. At the center of Leaving Cheyenne are Gid, Johnny, and Molly, a rancher, his cowboy hand, and the woman they both love. They each take a turn telling the story of their unconventional lives in small-town Texas. Finally, there’s The Last Picture Show, in which we see Thalia as a dead-end place. Of the three, this is perhaps the most darkly comic, as nearly every character engages in self-deception in order to eke out an existence in a town where every day is the same. Amid the fantastic and perhaps unbelievably melodramatic events, McMurtry finds a bottomless well of compassion for his characters. This is one time capsule was worth re-opening. - Sharat B.

Described as an “illustrated novella,” and looking like a quirky coffee table book, A Field Guide to the North American Family (Knopf), by Garth Risk Hallberg, is neither. This work, which Hallberg wrote before his 2015 New York epic, City on Fire, is an ingenious maze of a narrative based on the concept of the North American Family. Reminiscent of Lydia Davis’ seemingly quotidian pieces of pointed brilliance, Hallberg’s work is multi-layered, surprising, and deft. At one level the book uses a series of flash-fictions to recount the story of two families. At another, it’s an index of terms that readers can reference while reading the main plot—or savor for the wisdom they offer on their own. Then there are the photos. Each episode comes not only with its keywords but with a visual image. These are sometimes directly related to the text, like conventional illustrations, but often their relationship to the narrative is more elusive. Some pages look as if they’ve been torn from one scrapbook and pasted into this one, others look fresh and new. Grab this emotional map of North American family life and get ready to wander – it’s sure to be a warm, nostalgic trip. - Justin S.

In Paul La Farge’s The Night Ocean (@penguinrandomhouse), Marina Willett’s husband, a famous-turned-infamous literary historian, has disappeared, seemingly a suicide case but maybe that’s just what he wants people to think. From this hook, the book’s tentacles spread into a kaleidoscopic series of investigations, as Marina double-checks her spouse’s leads to get to the bottom of a mysterious bit of H. P. Lovecraft apocrypha called “The Erotonomicon.” Cameos extend from Lovecraft to William Burroughs, Isaac Asimov, and more, becoming something like “The Savage Detectives of American weird fiction.” To follow this book’s incredible story, you don’t need to like, or even know, these figures, which are all fictionalized creations anyway, despite the author’s deep knowledge of their histories. La Farge critiques and parodies but does not romanticize these writers. He’s deeply attuned to how our human sympathies toward icons we learn about from afar can morph into blind obsession despite our best intentions. His narrative is a seamless combination of trickster humor and utter heartbreak, plumbing the depths to which people will go to forgive, embody, and take revenge upon their former idols, all while preserving their own reputation. The best writing lives inside you —even possesses you. The Night Ocean does just that. - Jonathan W.

Lily Tuck, whose novel The News from Paraguay won the National Book Award in 2004, is one of our finest writers of novels-in-vignettes, and her latest, Sisters (@theatlantic), takes compression to extremes. Its “chapters” are often over in a page, a paragraph, sometimes a sentence, but they’re such vivid shards that you feel like you’re catching all the other pieces in a mosaic without having to see them spelled out. This is the story of a woman reflecting on her shaky marriage, whose trappings—her husband’s children, passions, and memories—all come courtesy of a prior spouse. Tuck centers on her narrator’s relationship with this other woman, who, though living across town, always seems to be in the air. What could turn spiteful in another writer’s hands comes off as gentle and empathetic in Tuck’s, as her lead character seizes on snatches of imagery (“a messy ponytail,” “did not wear rings”), to think through what her ostensible rival’s life must be like. Is it the narrator and not the man who links the two of them who truly understands this woman, she who sees that the bouillabaisse dinner he fondly remembers from France might have made her pregnant body sick? For such a short novel, Sisters is full of these kinds of insights, simply but inimitably framed. - Jonathan W.

One of the most talked about books this autumn, and my favorite, was My Absolute Darling (@riverheadbooks), by Gabriel Tallent. Shocking and unsettling, at times difficult to read, the novel follows fourteen-year-old Turtle Alveston, who feels more at home in nature than she does with her survivalist and damaged father, as she searches for freedom and fights for her soul. Roaming the woods one night, wondering if her father would be able to find her, she meets two lost teenage boys and guides them safely out. And that is the moment she starts questioning her home life. The way Tallent brings you steadily into Turtle’s mind makes you almost feel her pain. He manages to capture her deepest thoughts, her internal struggle, her will to survive. Obviously suffering from Stockholm syndrome, she debates with herself over whether to stay or leave, doubting her worth every step of the way. But she fights and she survives. She is the kind of girl, brave and determined, with whom readers are almost duty-bound to fall in love. Tallent grew up in Mendocino and spent a lot of time outside. His love for the region is evident in Turtle’s view of the place and Mendocino itself is a strong character in the book. This is Tallent’s debut novel. And what a remarkable debut it is! - Marija D.

Friendships seldom get the sustained literary treatment that romances do, but Claire Messud’s insightful novel The Burning Girl (@wwnorton) shows that these relationships strike as deep, stir as many emotions, and do as much to shape a person, for better or worse. They can have special force when formed early in life, and Messud’s protagonists, Julia and Cassie, are best friends from nursery school to roughly seventh grade. Narrating the friendship and its aftermath, Julia, the one who takes paths already there rather than striking out into untrodden territory—the one who sets limits—insists that she and Cassie are as close as sisters. Their two families never mesh, however, and Julia comes to realize that her notion of “home” is not Cassie’s. Much of Cassie’s home life is guesswork, and while Julia does that work, her version of Cassie is partly made up; at times Cassie seems like one of the characters Julia, an aspiring actress, inhabits on stage. Messud uses the inherently self-dramatizing period of adolescence as a lens to view more difficult questions of how well any two people can know each other, and she brilliantly demonstrates how the typical rites of passage—fantasizing about an alternative family, surviving junior high cliques—can suddenly yield “one of those events that that was little and big at the same time,” bringing about the kind of understanding that a person never forgets. - Laurie G.

#books #Holidays #american fiction #2017

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Autumnal Book Guide: 15 Best Fall 2019 Reads

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Our book section contributors list up the books we're most looking forward to this fall season — from the spooky to the cozy.

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There's never a bad season of the year for reading. Whether it's winter, summer, spring, or fall, there's a reading habit that goes oh-so-well with the season. But there's something about fall—when the leaves are changing (at least in some parts of the world) and the nights are getting longer—that makes me want to curl up with the coziest of books or the most deliciously creepy short story we can find (for the latter, might we recommend "Cavity" by Theresa DeLucci?).

Join the Den of Geek Book Club!

Den of Geek's book contributors are no different! I've reached out to all of them to find out which most autumnal of books they're looking forward to reading this fall season. Here are all of our selections...

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

July 23rd, Del Rey

What happens when you release the god of the underworld? Since Casiopea Tun didn't know that's what would happen when she opened her domineering grandfather's mysterious Mayan chest, she's not prepared for a skeleton to put itself back together, become a man, and demand that she accompany him to retrieve the parts of his body stolen by his no-good brother. But Casiopea is used to dealing with bossy, entitled men, which means that Hun-Kame, ruler of Xibalba, may not realize what he's gotten himself into.

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I've been waiting for a chance to get this one off my TBR pile since it came out this summer, and with Halloween (and Dia de los Muertos) on the horizon, stories about finding chests full of bones and navigating the land of the dead are the perfect type of creepy to get the season off to a good start. Even better, it's set in Jazz-Age Mexico before it descends into the Mayan underworld, and I'm enjoying every minute of delving into this unfamiliar and darkly magical world from a well-known #OwnVoices SFF writer. I think you might, too...

- Alana Joli Abbott

Echoes: The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories

August 20th, Saga Press

I mentioned short fiction in the opening—short stories can be the perfect, low-commitment way to wind down the day or spruce up any seasonal party. (Reading aloud isn't just for kids in English class.) This anthology of 30 moder ghost stories from Saga Press was just published in August, and it includes contributions from some of the most interesting writers in speculative fiction right now, including Seanan McGuire and Paul Tremblay. Paired with more traditionally literary authors like Joyce Carol Oates and Alice Hoffman, there is something in this anthology for everyone who loves a spooky story.

The collection was edited by the always-great Ellen Datlow, who is known for her work in the genres of supernatural suspense and fantasy. It's the broad genre reach of this anthology that most intrigued me, as horror has rarely been my go-to genre. However, in addition to contributors like Tremblay, who gets the collection going with "Ice Cold Lemonade 25ȼ Haunted House Tour: 1 Per Person," The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories features authors who are better known for their fantasy work, such as Garth Nix (who contributes "Mee-Ow," to the collection). The result means that no two stories are alike, and that there is something in here for everyone. Don't sleep on this anthology—it's perfect for the fall season.

- Kayti Burt

Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell & Faith Erin Hicks

August 27th, First Second

#FallReads can be creepy, but they can be cozy, too. (Extra autumnal credit, authors, if you manage to achieve both at once!) It's definitely the cozy category that this graphic novel, from beloved YA novelist Rainbow Rowell and artist Faith Erin Hicks falls into.

Pumpkinheads is the coming-of-age story of best friends Deja and Josie, high school seniors who are finishing up their last ever night working at DeKnock's World Famous Pumpkin Patch and Autumn Jamboree, aka the best pumpkin patch in the world.

"I wanted this book to feel like one of those classic Disney live-action movies – like The Parent Trap or Freaky Friday," Rowell told us about writing Pumpkinheads. "Emotional and earnest, but also a rollicking good time." Um, mission accomplished.

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This is one of the most stereotypically fall book you could read this autumn. Set in a Nebraskan pumpkin patch, more specific settings in this fall adventure include The Succotash Hut, The Pie Palace, The Pumpkin Bomb Stand, and The S'mores Pit—and that's without mentioning the corn maze.

"Nebraska has a very Classic Fall Vibe – changing leaves, cool weather, bonfires," said Rowell. "And we really leaned into that in the book. Sarah Stern, our colorist, did such a good job bringing that to life."

"The look that Rainbow wanted for Pumpkinheads was very specific," added Hicks, "and it was based on a pumpkin patch in the state where she lives in. I visited her before I started drawing the book and took lots of reference pictures, and ate lots of snacks. That visit helped a lot when I sat down to draw Pumpkinheads; being at that particular pumpkin patch and getting to experience its whimsy was important, especially as it’s something very different from fall festivals where I live in Vancouver, Canada."

You too can experience the Classic Fall Vibe of Pumpkinheads by picking up this coziest of graphic novels at your local book or comic book store.

- Kayti Burt

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

September 10th, Tor Books

“Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!” is probably the year’s best elevator pitch in fiction, or at the very least in sci-fi/fantasy. And maybe you have been hearing about it all year (I got the chance to read this book back in icy February), but of course it could not be released in any season other than fall.

The turning point of the year is the perfect time to meet Gideon Nav, indentured-servant-turned-swordswoman of the Emperor’s Ninth House, and her sworn enemy/reluctant charge, aforementioned necromancer and heri Harrowhark Nonagesimus. When these unlikely representatives of the Ninth journey to the dessicated First House to prove their mettle for immortality against seven other houses’ necromancers and cavaliers, they engage in skeleton battles and spooky riddles and some fascinating scientific experiments that make for bloody good fun.

read more: Best New Fantasy Books in September 2019

A book this delightfully gothy shouldn’t appeal to all audiences, yet is such an utter mood that it does: publishing-industry and not, SFF and not, goths and very much not. When I first heard of its existence, I was ready to write it off as simply not for me—someone who loves fall more for the hygge than the heebie-jeebies, who could not come up with another necromancer story for the life of me.

But I was drawn in by Gideon and her dirty magazines and her desperation to escape the grasp of the Ninth; then her bloody contract with Harrow; then the Clue/And Then There Were None vibe of picking off their sundry competitors. This book is a haunted castle story for people who would rather watch slideshows of people being scared at haunted houses than set foot inside themselves… but it’s also got enough heart and guts to join the canon for those discerning necromancer afficionados.

- Natalie Zutter

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

September 10th, Nan A. Talese

Margaret Atwood’s highly anticipated sequel to dystopian speculative fiction novel The Handmaid’s Tale is finally here! The original, written in 1984’s West Berlin, has always had a spooky fall feel to me, from the New England setting (Cambridge and environs) and the modern tendency to mine the book for Halloween costumes, to the dedication to Mary Webster, Atwood’s ancestor, AKA “Half-Hanged Mary,” an actual 17th century woman who was hanged for witchcraft and lived to tell the tale.

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The sequel, set more than 15 years later, follows the lives of three women. One of the strengths of The Handmaid’s Tale is Offred’s claustrophobic narration – the terror of Gilead hangs over her every thought, and we feel it far more acutely as fear than the existential dread or stomach-churning disgust that Hulu’s series creates. For The Testaments, Atwood has expanded to three perspectives, the identities of which should excite book readers and show fans alike. One is a woman in power, and two are younger women who come of age in the time of Gilead.

I can’t think of many things more terrifying than Margaret Atwood’s writing at her best. Let’s just say if you’re hoping to learn more about the origins of Gilead and what happened after that mysterious ending while finding your next Halloween costume, this is the book for you.

- Delia Harrington

Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell

September 24th, Wednesday Books

Road-trip stories, at least to American readers, feel quintessentially summery: setting out on the open road during the most unstructured time of the year, determined to find yourself in time for whatever life change awaits in the fall. But for Simon Snow, crossing the pond to the States, it feels more like a gap year.

Having dropped out from the Watford School of Magicks and found the loophole in what should have been a fatal Chosen One destiny, Simon is at a loss for what to do now. So of course his best friends drag him off the couch and throw him into a car to go adventuring through the American West. The Supernatural vibes are strong, and that’s before I’ve even gotten into the vampires and shotgun-toting skunk-like creatures that will make for some very amusing detours.

read more: Best New Young Adult Books

Instead of attending magic college or following in Harry Potter’s footsteps and jumping into wizardly gainful employment, Simon is taking a breather. What makes Wayward Son feel especially fall-like is that we have no idea for how long, or who Simon will be at the end of this break—just that he’s making a change, not just turning over a new leaf but witnessing how the leaves themselves change and how the wind picks up across America.

- Natalie Zutter

The Tenth Girl by Sara Faring

September 24th, Tor Teen

It's the 1970s, and Mavi is an Argentine teen who flees Buenos Aires and the military regime that took her mother for a remote girls boarding school located on a remote cliff in Patagonia. The catch in an already complicated existence? The school is haunted. Told from the dual perspectives of Mavi and Angel, one of the "Others" who lives in the house, The Tenth Girl is a novel that will constantly keep you guessing until the very end.

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This book reminded me of both Jane Eyre and The Haunting of Hill House while also feeling entirely original. It's a debut from Faring, who drew on her own Argentine heritage and her family history in the country when writing the story, and I am eager to see what else this author comes up with. At 464 pages, this is a long one, and a narrative that sometimes prioritizes prose over plot, which could be frustrating for some readers, but the descriptions of this haunted house were luscious enough to keep me interested throughout.

"I just love building Gothic atmosphere," Faring told Den of Geek in an interview. "It's one of my favorite things in anything I write: the gloomy, the spooky, the grand, the forgotten, the abandoned. I love that. So that was always sort of simmering in my brain and my imagination for years." If you like your fall reads with an extra heaping of Gothic atmosphere, then this is the book for you.

- Kayti Burt

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

September 24th, Harper

Ann Patchett (author of the highly decorated Bel Canto, among other beloved books) is the kind of writer whose words curl underneath your skin and make a home there. The plot rarely goes where you expect, but not in a gimmicky way. Even when the action is bombastic, the prose feels quiet, powerful, and mysterious. So when I read that her next book, The Dutch House, is going to be “a dark fairy tale” taking place over five decades, I added it to my mental “to read” list.

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Starting in the late 1940s in Philadelphia when Cyril Conroy buys the mansion for his family, Cyril’s son Danny narrates the book through comings and goings. While it sounds like the book has much of the fairytale trappings we’re used to – a missing parent, children fending for themselves, and of course, an evil stepmother – Patchett is a subtle writer who relishes character, so I’m sure it will feel more magical and strange than Disney-ified and pat.

I’m not a huge fan of typical slasher-horror style books; I like my chills to be more deep-seated and existential than jumpy or gore-y. Grounded in the quotidian familiarity of family and the ways we hurt one another, I’m looking forward to Ann Patchett guiding me on the next journey into the unknown with The Dutch House.

- Delia Harrington

The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher

October 1st, Saga Press

T. Kingfisher—real name Ursula Vernon—has written cute books for children and even won a Hugo Award for her graphic novel Diggers. Because she writes such a variety of fiction for vastly different audiences, it became all too necessary for the author to wield the pen name T. Kingfisher when she delved into more mature works for older readers.

In The Twisted Ones, Kingfisher teases the kind of Southern-based horror that threatens to drag you down with it. When the main character Mouse has to clean out her deceased grandmother’s house, she finds her grandfather’s journal that appears to be full of nonsense... until she meets one of the horrible he described. One of the things her grandfather’s journal warned against was a secret colony in the woods. She’s also going to be adventuring in those woods, discovering and confronting these mysterious beings alongside her trusty dog.

read more: Best New Science Fiction Books in September 2019

Add on top of the supernatural scares the ordinary horrors of uncleanliness—grandma was a hoarder, and I know the book’s description doesn’t mention that because she was a little bad at picking up after herself. Anyone who’s seen an episode or two of Hoarders should know that there’s a lot of terror involved with accumulated stuff: the germs, the forgotten memories, the unwillingness to let go of possessions, the potential hazards of piles of things toppling on unwary passersby.

Coupling the supernatural with a mean-spirited hoarder shaking off her mortal coil to leave her family dealing with her mistakes fascinates the Hell out of me, and I can’t wait to dive in (maybe with a gas mask?). The Twisted Ones holds the kind of intrigue and folksy-dread that promises to enrapture the reader. It’s a “girl and her dog” adventure hinting at a forward-thinking protagonist and I’m all about that.

- Bridget LaMonica

Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson

October 1st, Grove Press

Mary Shelley first dreamed up Frankenstein on an especially dreary middle-of-the-night in June 1816, during the Year Without a Summer thanks to oppressive levels of volcanic ash in the atmosphere following an eruption. To wit: despite it technically being summer when she, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and other vacationing houseguests stayed inside during their Lake Geneva trip, the vibe was eerie enough that it made perfect sense to compete for who could tell the spookiest story. Which is why Frankenstein will always feel like an autumnal tale.

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What makes Winterson’s contemporary take feel especially spooky is how it transplants so many of Shelley’s ideas from 200 years ago—the miracle of reanimation, the devastation of rejection, questions of when a creation stops owing its existence to its creator and instead owns its destiny—in modern contexts that make them as relevant as ever.

I don’t know which lens I’m more excited about: the ethics of artificial intelligence superseding puny human brains; the cryogenics facility filled with dozens of bodies almost guaranteed to be reanimated for some nefarious use; the subplot about a humble sex-doll operation that posits new questions about autonomy and consent; or the fact that our modern protagonist is trans. Actually, what I think I’m most excited for will be the portions of the book that retell Shelley’s story—because judging from the angles at which Winterson reexamines this classic, she’ll know just how to get into Shelley’s head on that fateful night.

- Natalie Zutter

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

October 8th, Flatiron Books

Dropout Alex Stern doesn’t consider herself Yale University material, which is why it’s extra strange when she’’s offered an easy in to the elite college. Of course, there’s a catch: she’s tasked with monitoring the spooky goings-on of the school’s secret societies. It’s a fantasy novel that dovetails with the real world, digging in to what might be happening when the rich and well-connected of Yale summon up something occult.

Leigh Bardugo’s name has been on my radar because of her very popular Young Adult fiction. Her first adult offering was also her first work to really catch my eye. The appeal of every supernatural school story is to see the uncanny in a very familiar situation, and while I can’t say I’d get into Yale either, the idea of returning to college to hunt down a cult sounds like it sits right in that wheelhouse.

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So why is this a good book for this fall? This seems to land on the darker side of dark fantasy: Alex survived an attempted, unsolved homicide before the investigation of the occult even starts. Yale’s secret societies meet in eight windowless buildings called “tombs,” and the ninth house in the title may be a supernatural ninth tomb. Readers looking for fantastical horror around Halloween may very well find it here. It’s a back-to-school story too, so while the audience is primarily adults, the autumn is the perfect season to start walking in Alex’s shoes.

A content note: the author has stated that this book may be difficult for some people, and readers disinclined to encounter sexual trauma in their fiction may want to avoid it.)

I said this at Bookcon, but I'm going to say this here too: I take care with the way I write trauma and I am not interested in misery tourism. Alex's experiences in Ninth House draw directly from my own and this book was in many ways a work of catharsis. HOWEVER.

— Leigh Bardugo (@LBardugo) June 3, 2019

- Megan Crouse

A Lush and Seething Hell by John Horner Jacobs

October 29th, Harper Voyager

After having recently, finally read The Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft my appetite for that quiet, brooding horror has only been stoked. When I stumbled upon this soon-to-be-published piece, I figured I hit jackpot. John Hornor Jacobs is an award-winning author who collects two novellas in this volume: “The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky” and “My Heart Struck Sorrow.” This new release is promising a mix of supernatural and psychological terror, a pairing that does well to get inside one’s mind this time of the year.

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“My Heart Struck Sorrow” follows a librarian who has discovered a music recording from the Deep South that might be from the Devil himself (anyone getting any “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” vibes?). Jacobs has written Southern horror that echoed that famous song’s premise before, notably his book Southern Gods, in which a blues man’s music makes some people go insane while also raising the dead.

“The Sea Drams It Is The Sky” has a little less straightforward description, though no less intriguing: This story features an exiled poet trying to decipher a difficult text, a South American dictatorship and “a young woman trying to come to grips with a country that nearly devoured itself.” Points go to the one who can guess if that devouring is literal or figurative, seeing as this author’s work could go either way.

- Bridget LaMonica

I'm a Gay Wizard by V.S. Santoni

October 29th, Wattpad Books

If I Know What You Did Last Summer decided to hang out with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Lev Grossman's The Magicians, but added to the mix LGBTQ coming of age and romance, it might turn out something like Santoni's debut YA novel, I'm a Gay Wizard.

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Originally released as a Wattpad serial, the novel hits shelves October 29, 2019. Main characters Johnny and Alison spend their summer playing at magical spells—Alison is obsessed with magic, and Johnny goes along for the ride. But when a vengeance spell against bullies tormenting them causes an earthquake, the pair are whisked away to the Marduke Institute, a clandestine school for wizards, and told they must leave their old lives behind... forever.

The Institute is more prison than school, but it's also where Johnny and Alison meet cute boys Hunter and Blake, who know a lot more about the world than the two newcomer wizards. While this isn't a creepy, Halloween-y story, it's a perfect back-to-school tale featuring underrepresented main characters (Johnny is Latinx and gay, Alison is trans) from an #OwnVoices author.

- Alana Joli Abbott

The Witches are Coming by Lindy West

November 5th, Hachette

Back in October of 2017, writer Lindy West wrote a column in The New York Times about bad men’s bad faith responses to the #MeToo movement. It was called “Yes, This Is a Witch Hunt. I’m a Witch and I’m Hunting You.” Please read it immediately if you haven’t already, and then you’ll know why I’m so excited for this book, which promises to be an expansion of the themes in her original Times piece.

Witches have been having something of a moment right now, and Lindy West’s choice to invoke imagery used to scare women into silence long before it was used to scare children while reclaiming the “witch hunt” phrase shows a glimpse of her power as a writer and thinker. I picture a powerful witch stalking steadily toward perpetrators and their defenders like the woman in "The Yellow Wallpaper" circles the room at the end of the story: purposeful, terrifying, and a bit mad.

read more: Vengeful by V.E. Schwab Review

You might know Lindy West from her time writing classics at Jezebel like her takedown of Love, Actually or from the Hulu show Shrill, which is based on her memoir/scathing cultural critique of the same name. Or perhaps you saw or participated in #ShoutYourAbortion, where folks shared their stories in an effort to destigmatize healthcare, or even from her debate with a comedian about rape jokes on W. Kamau Bell’s television show. The point is, West has been leading and shaping the cultural conversation with wit and intelligence for a long time, especially when it comes to gender, violence, and discrimination.

While it may feel like all we do is talk about gender and violence these days, we still haven’t stepped back and parsed what this means for us in the longer term, beyond each individual case, and on the list of writers I’m eager to hear from on the topic, West is damn near the top.

- Delia Harrington

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

November 5th, Graywolf Press

"Y’all, this book almost killed me dead, but I did it," Machado tweeted last November when announcing her forthcoming memoir. And if that isn’t gothic AF, then I don’t know what is. After tapping into deep-seated terrors—cruel Girl Scouts and awkward writing residencies, a gut-punch retelling of “The Green Ribbon”—in 2017’s collection Her Body and Other Parties, Machado turns that same excavating eye on her own traumas in In the Dream House. With an eerie cover that evokes a V.C. Andrews novel, Machado traces her own escape from an abusive relationship with a charismatic woman in a genre-bending account that clearly took its toll on her (another hallmark of old-school literary horror).

read more: Autonomous by Annalee Newitz Review

What’s more, the story is told in disparate pieces, with each chapter built around a narrative trope: the haunted house, the bildungsroman, erotica. It’s a keen way to compartmentalize and analyze what have to be harrowing memories, and thematically links back to Her Body and Other Parties. Yet there are moments of levity, too, as Machado’s memoir explores hidden passageways of Star Trek, Disney, and fairy tales. The most effective horror (Get Out, Signs, Hereditary) contrasts jarring moments of absurd or even laugh-out-loud comedy alongside the disturbing; I can’t wait to see how Machado holds space for both the light and the dark.

- Natalie Zutter

Kayti Burt is a staff editor covering books, TV, movies, and fan culture at Den of Geek. Read more of her work here or follow her on Twitter @kaytiburt.

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newssplashy · 6 years

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LOS ANGELES — Shonda Rhimes achieved almost everything a television producer could hope for during her long run at ABC. She made herself into not only one of the most prolific writer-producers in the business, but also a mogul, as the founder and head of the Shondaland production company. ABC filled its entire Thursday night lineup with shows created or produced by her — a body of work that includes “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Scandal” and “How to Get Away With Murder” — but Rhimes was restless.

Now, after signing a multiyear, nine-figure deal with Netflix, Rhimes will try to match or top her network success in the wide-open expanse of streaming, free of time slots, commercial interruptions, and restrictions on language and content.

In an interview at a NeueHouse work space here — during which she laid out her Netflix plans for the first time — Rhimes sounded confident that she will deliver something unexpected.

“Everybody thinks that there’s a ‘Shondaland show,'” Rhimes said. “No. There’s a Shondaland show that we made for ABC. Now I can’t wait to show everybody what a Shondaland show is that we make for the world.”

Netflix’s courtship of Rhimes began, in earnest, in the late fall of 2016. At the time, she had more than a year to go on her ABC contract, so she did not tell anyone at the network about the breakfast she had planned with Ted Sarandos, the chief content officer of Netflix.

With her agent, Chris Silbermann of ICM Partners, in tow, Rhimes and Sarandos took a table in the back of Republique, a casual restaurant on South La Brea Avenue. During the sit-down, Rhimes was frank with Sarandos about how she viewed her next act.

“I said, ‘I’m not going to make you a second ‘Grey’s Anatomy,'” Rhimes said. “That was one of the first things I said. And he said, ‘I’m not interested in you making a second ‘Grey’s Anatomy.'”

Word of the breakfast made its way to The Hollywood Reporter — but the brief item that ran soon afterward in the trade publication’s Power Dining column failed to identify Rhimes correctly: “Netflix’s Ted Sarandos and wife Nicole Avant ate breakfast with ICM Partners’ Chris Silbermann at Republique,” the item read.

“I was like, ‘For once, bias is working in my favor!'” Rhimes said. “Nicole and I are both black women. We couldn’t look more not alike. But somebody decided that’s who that must be. And it saved me a whole lot of trouble.”

Last August, Netflix and Rhimes had an agreement for a contract with a base salary of around $150 million, with incentives that could kick the producer’s earnings much higher, according to two people with knowledge of the deal.

The news of a streaming company’s successful wooing of a major network producer hit Hollywood like an earthquake. As Dana Walden, co-chief executive of the Fox Television Group, described it this year, “That sent a message to the entire talent community: There’s a new template in town. For any uber-premium creator, the value has gone up 10 times.”

— Eight Shows (One About a Grifter)

Rhimes, 48, is among the select few television producers whose work has helped define a cultural moment. In the ‘80s, there was Steven Bochco, with “Hill Street Blues” and “L.A. Law.” Next came David E. Kelley, of “Ally McBeal” and “The Practice” fame. And then there was Rhimes, who made her mark during what would turn out to be the last years of appointment television viewing.

The producer and director J.J. Abrams, who has known Rhimes for several years, said she brought something distinctive to network programming.

“The thing that you can’t deny is her characters are surprising, her characters are vulnerable, her characters are ambitious, her characters are broken, and her characters are involved in situations that are shocking and stressful,” Abrams said. “She is able to tell real stories in ways that feel relatable.”

Rhimes said she had two principal goals for her time at Netflix. One is to come up with shows that are more expansive than her ABC fare. The other is to turn Shondaland into an enduring company that will live within Netflix in the same way that Marvel exists inside the Walt Disney Company.

“It would be really amazing to me at some point down the line — not now — if somebody said, ‘There was a Shonda for Shondaland?'” Rhimes said. “It needs to be bigger than me.”

In the days after signing the deal, she was enthusiastic about the creative freedom Netflix had promised her, but found herself with an immediate problem: She had no idea what she was going to write.

“It wasn’t like I had a treasure trove of ideas in the back of my head that I’d been hiding and saving,” she said. “So the panic overtook me for a while.”

Abrams had sympathy for his friend’s plight. “You can have all the success in the world, but none of it matters when you’re there alone with the blank computer screen,” he said.

Over the next few months, Rhimes tended her continuing ABC work and scouted material that could be a fit for Netflix. But she still had no clue about what, exactly, she would throw herself into as a writer-producer.

“In October,” she said, “because of who I am, I was like: ‘Why don’t I have a show yet? I should have a show all written and ready to go. I should have eight episodes all written.'”

Sarandos reassured her: You just started, take a breath. Colleagues said there was no way Rhimes could go deep into something new when she still had to wrap up the seventh and final season of “Scandal.”

She flirted with a sci-fi project — “I’m obsessed with that, but it hasn’t cracked yet” — while warding off the well-meaning but irksome questions from people curious about her Netflix plans. After Memorial Day, she escaped the noise of Los Angeles for the quiet of Arizona.

“I was trying to meditate, which I can’t do,” Rhimes said.

That was when she came upon an article in New York magazine about a fashionable young grifter, Anna Delvey, who swanned about New York with a beautiful crowd — only to end up in Rikers Island on charges of grand larceny.

“I knew exactly what the show was,” Rhimes said, “which is a very clear indicator.”

She bought the rights to the story, by a New York magazine staff writer, Jessica Pressler, and started writing almost immediately.

“I felt comfortable,” she said. “I slept differently.”

Betsy Beers, Rhimes’ producing partner since 2002, said she could tell Rhimes was onto something.

“What I heard was the excitement,” Beers said. “What I wait for is a tone in her voice — you hear this level of excitement in her voice, where she can’t stop talking about it.”

In addition to the show about the grifter, Rhimes has seven other series in the works at Netflix, ranging from period dramas to a documentary.

— An adaptation of a group of lush romance novels set in Regency England — the Bridgerton Series, by Julia Quinn — that the “Scandal” veteran Chris Van Dusen will turn into a dramatic series.

— A series based on “Reset,” a book by former tech executive Ellen Pao about sexism in Silicon Valley. Rhimes said she was likely to write this one.

— “The Warmth of Other Suns,” the award-winning 2010 nonfiction book by Isabel Wilkerson on the flight of African-Americans from the Jim Crow South to the North and the West. It will be adapted by actress and playwright Anna Deavere Smith.

— “Pico & Sepulveda,” a series set in Mexican California during the 1840s.

— An upstairs-downstairs series called “The Residence,” based on the 2015 nonfiction book of the same title, by Kate Andersen Brower, about the private lives of U.S. presidents, their families and White House staff.

— “Sunshine Scouts,” a series that Rhimes described as a “darkly comic, ironic, twisty show about some foul-mouthed teenage girls who are trapped at the end of the world.” The writer and director Jill Alexander will be in charge of this one.

— “Hot Chocolate Nutcracker,” a documentary centered on dancer and choreographer Debbie Allen and her reimagining of the holiday ballet.

— The Shondaland Dream

Rhimes said the idea of building out Shondaland had been with her for some time. She stressed that she had not grown bored with the work she had been doing for ABC — far from it — but she found that she was able to solve crises that once occupied a week of her time in 30 minutes flat. She added that she remained proud of her ABC shows and the spotlight they threw on characters who had gone underrepresented in Hollywood.

“We created a brand and an audience for ABC that they did not necessarily have before, which was a certain kind of woman,” Rhimes said. “I literally remember when we started, them saying that no woman is going to watch a woman who is this ‘not nice’ and this sexually active and this competitive.

“I really hate the phrase ‘smart, strong women,’ but the ‘smart, strong women’ thing really exploded with the shows we made,” she continued. “And people followed along in a way that felt really good for network television.”

In contrast with her fellow super producer Ryan Murphy, who had talks with Amazon and Fox, his studio at the time, before he decamped to Netflix, Rhimes knew exactly where she wanted to achieve her Shondaland dream: Netflix.

Sarandos was eager to sign her not only because he was a fan of her work but because of something he noticed in Netflix’s closely guarded data. “More than half” of Netflix’s 124 million paying subscribers have sampled one of the Shondaland shows available on the streaming service, he said in an interview.

As Rhimes works to develop her lineup, her production company is on its way to a new location: Raleigh Studios, in Hollywood, about a mile from the Netflix headquarters. While checking out the property, Rhimes and a group of her Shondaland colleagues spent a while staring at a framed photograph on the wall of the United Artists founders Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith. Given Rhimes’ ambitions for the company, which she sees as a 21st-century incarnation of that artist-driven studio, she considered it a good portent.

“We have this whole dream,” she said. “There’s going to be a row of offices, and we’re all going to be working on our scripts at the same time. And everyone is going to come out of their offices and scream about how bad their script is: ‘Does anyone know what I’m supposed to do for Act 5?’ And everyone is going to drink Scotch and then run back to work.”

“I don’t think that’s what’s actually going to happen,” Rhimes continued. “But it does feel really good to know that it does feel like a very United Artists, creative kind of place.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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shade-without-color · 6 years

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Usurper Chapter 2: The Heart Part 1 (Order 3066)

Note: So another snazzy chapter of Usurper,I hope I did not take long to update the chapter as I have been doing a lot of God of War (aka Dad of Boy) fanfics (In fact I am working one, which is unexpected as we speak..),so we slowly bulking up Issac’s character which, by far, the most challenging and quite satisfying. I just adore writing Archer’s interaction with Isaac. And yes you will see the Elric Brothers which is nice as they are my favourites!

Somehow Issac drifts himself into glimpsing at the visages of the train, he somehow thought of home for that mere moment. True he ventured out to earn his place as the State Alchemist fighting an honourable war, a war to liberate the unclean. He watched a field of flowers and quickly sketched the patch of field, with such tenderness and calm. Issac secretly wished he had brought his watercolours along, to capture the vividness of the flowers in the field.

A voice echoed in the distance, just Archer smirking smugly "Sanctifying yourself for that one moment Isaac…" Issac turned to Archer quietly, which he placed a cigarette in between his mouth. "I know it sounds pretty pretentious but…" as he flipped through his dog-eared sketchbook, all animated with vignettes of life, from the food he ate on his journey to the train, the faces of a child playing with her mother's hair with her luminous eyes and even the bridge that snaked across the pretty lake. They were filled with joy and respite, unknowingly forgotten in the future. "You have talent, I suppose if you do not become a State Alchemist, people will buy your shit.." Archer laughed again as he flipped his sketchbook. Archer muttered under his breath while bitting his cigarette between his teeth "My my my…", admiring the details of his work. "To be honest, I cannot draw to save my life..but you…"

"You have bloody talent..." Issac heaved again as he ran over to the next corner to draw another transmutation circle. Maybe he should have fled to a different path, but he can never take back. His heart raced amidst the screams of the soldiers. He can never forget the sunken eyes of the corpses of the Ishvlans, as he waved his arms to form frightful icicles, blocking the views of the soldiers and slowly unleashed steaming tides, blinding them from Issac's quick steps. Another corner ran off with soldiers aiming at Issac's forehead which he quickly grasped it. Soon steam covered the secluded corner.

"Freezing and boiling. The elements of water." Isaac spoke frankly, the deconstruction and reconstruction are the factors where alchemy is birthed. That makes killing the soldiers easier, as he closed his heart to those frightened by his radicalism.

Perhaps it was not that time...

"If we are not stuck in that shitty war…you could be a bloody artist.." Isaac reluctantly closed his sketchbook, shutting down Archer's showering comments. A change of scene churred Isaac's stomach. A broken bridge protrudes outside the fog, and instead of a clear stream. The water is streaked by the blood of men and women lying on the floor. Isaac closed his eyes off the horror, the horror only echoed at the paintings of an obscure museum, hellish forces swallowing the fertile land. He will never forget that hellish image. "And I swear I thought that hell did not exist…until now…" A wasteland enraptured by honour and glory. Kimblee chuckled slightly "You may be right Archer…" as he heaved in the aroma of the burning battlefield "The carnage…like spring.." Archer grew sick to the stomach on Kimblee's glee "War…what a time of reckoning and change, and we.." Isaac shuddered slightly on Kimblee's erotic grin as they passed away from the horrid landscape unto the blistering desert. "Are simply the harbingers of this land." At that moment the train whistled to their destination. Isaac swallowed slightly, as he kept the sketchbook inside his coat. And soon he followed the row of state alchemists whose gazes will swallow the calm land. Archer simpered darkly to Isaac who shivered slightly. "And so it begins…" and somehow he let the cigarette off from his mouth and blew a cloud of smoke. "Order 3066." Isaac watched the carnage of a rather peaceful town, with citizens screaming and blood trailing at every crevice of the land. That hellish image that is reckoned to an another, as the body become shrivelled. He glanced at the dashing dots, and suddenly the spear landed on the pathway. He observed quietly, it was not crafted by men, but a force that circled around by nature.

"Alchemy…" Somehow he heard a cocky voice of a young boy "Man that is horrible…" observing the carnage Isaac caused. "Sacrifices are inherent when attempting something great.." Isaac gave a cold grin "That is Equivalent Exchange." And indeed a horrid one to be exact, and soon they came to a battlefield. The hearts soon stripped off the battlefield. The young man came out the shadows, with striking golden eyes "This and that is not a thing…",as he clapped his hands furiously transmuting a spear into a bat with a comical face.

He seems to have a life that is not a battlefield. That should be fun.

Isaac swung his body against the young alchemist's swings. He heard the clanking at the distance. An armoured man clinging onto his body with steel arms. He is at the losing end, at most, he heard about the rumours of the youngest State Alchemist, a shining star in the military's dull crown. Of course, the boy's temper was hard to oppose, compared to the innocent Ishvalns who trembled at Issac's quick lunges at the battlefield.

Issac quietly surrendered himself to the forces, whilst praise was bathed to the glories of the Elric brothers. As he walked quietly to a secluded corner, he glanced at the puddles on the pavements. Maybe he cannot do it alone. He thought of the next person alive who lived those horrors. Kimblee. He heard rumours about his horrid killings of those involved in the military, and currently held in Central prison for his acts. Again a coup from King Bradley, to brainwash the military personnel.

That morning, Issac awoke wearily from the tent, when he glanced at Archer smirking at him wearily "Well wake up Issac of the Ice…" He watched Archer repressed his tremors in his hands. "We are making haste to the East of the State" Isaac missed the light-hearted banter between Archer and himself, it mostly eased the loneliness which they faced. "Apparently you know the shitty Flame Alchemist, and his dog Hughes who sat alongside with us." Slowly Issac lifted himself up from his bed and paced slowly. He recognized the duo, they seem to create a bond, and Roy's eyes holding to Hughes. "They are closer than ever, heard he wanted to be the Fuhrer, taking over King Bradley... A ballsy task I must say.."

"And you…" Isaac mummer wearily "What did you think of Roy.." Archer replied darkly "Aside from that he is ambitious, I admire his guts, but it wears him down someday. In fact, that bloody war shows the worse in humans, given that Kimblee seems to enjoy killing every Ishvlan in cold blood. Bloody hell his laughter grates me…"

Isaac fought the churring of his stomach of Kimblee's light-hearted nature to war. Maybe he will follow Issac's cry. He too must feel the heat of war. Issac smiled coldly as he clapped his transmutation circles and slowly fell down. Like a fog, he disappeared into the darkness, devising his next move to take down the king that oppose his people.

#writing #writers on tumblr #spilled ink #Fanfic: Usurper #FMA #Fullmetal Alchemist #fullmetal alchimist brotherhood #Isaac McDougal #edward elric #alphonse elric #OC: Archer Rufus Lakeshore #creative writing #drabble #fanfic #fanfiction

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