This idea came to me while thinking about a Fruits Basket character who is emotionally dependent on various male characters and who has terrible issues with internalized misogyny- I wound up wondering how she'd adjust if she was taken not only into the world outside of the cult she grew up in, but one where she only has other women to interact with. A jamjar type DW roleplay game would be a way to set up this scenario, and trying to think of what kind of setting would fit the Only Women motif, I thought of the planet Venus.

Venus, of course, isn't actually a habitable planet in reality, but I figure that would tie into things: The Lore would be that only those with "the spirit of Venus" or some such silliness are able to breathe in Venus's atmosphere- those who lack it would die very quickly.

Venus would also otherwise have something of a scientific romance or planetary romance aesthetic- Very Old Science Fiction except presumably with less of the teeny tiny metal bikinis of the 1960s and 70s. (Unless your character is inclined towards that sort of thing, I suppose.) I admit I'm not well versed in old/classic scifi though, so it's all very vague in my head.

I also did a little research into how old scifi depicted Venus. Generally it's depicted as Earth-like, but hotter than Earth on average, with perpetual cloud cover... Dinosaurs and mushrooms seem to be featured a lot. Cribbing a bit from Forgotten Futures, and doing some googling around, this is my current mental image:

• Warm and dry with little variation, although the perpetual cloud cover reflects away the worst of the sun's heat.
• Higher air pressure and oxygen levels than on Earth. Be careful with fires. 
• From what I can gather it's probably a bit like Northwest Argentina, i.e. varies but tends to be either arid or temperate.
• Gravity is slightly lower than on Earth, so I think moving around would be... Lighter? Kind of airier?
• Lots of flying creatures that take advantage of this.

Besides "other planet" "either retro or Victorian aesthetic" and "women" I don't have many ideas, especially not for a like. Actual plot or reason why these women are getting jamjar'd. But the idea keeps sticking with me even though I don't have the motivation to actually make and run a full game, so I'm mostly just tossing this here because it's fun to think about.

A little story featuring an AU version of Abi and Bug's OCs because 1) they are very kind to let me play with their toys and 2) I figured it might be good to have this somewhere other than a google doc and unlike the rest of the Pie Slice story, this bit is kind of a standalone. I am not sure how readable this will be for people not familiar with the characters, but hey!

CONTENT WARNING: It's a sickfic, so it includes some description of sweating and vomiting.

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( Read more... )

Four books this month, two novels and two comic books.

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Set in 1870s New York and focusing on the emotional affair between a young lawyer who's engaged to be married and his fiance's cousin, a Countess fleeing an abusive marriage. The book is a mixture of romantic yearning, melancholy reflection on the inescapable expectations of the characters' society, and long digressions about various society folk and their own foibles and habits. Not bad per se, but I got impatient with it a lot? I feel it could have been a lot shorter.

In terms of plot I've seen it compared a lot to the more famous Anna Karenina, which I have not read so I can't tell you how accurate that is. But it might be handy to know if you have.

Saga Vol. 3 by Brian K. Vaughan
This volume skips back in time a bit from where the last one left off, allowing us to see more of Marco and Alana's family's stay with Oswald Heist. It's a pleasant time but we know going in that eventually their pursuers are going to catch up with them, so tension is derived from both that dread and the need for the parents to decide what exactly they're going to do next.

Meanwhile The Will, Gwen, the little girl they rescued from the brothel planet, and Lying Cat are all stranded on an alien planet. Their situation is complicated by The Will seeing visions of his deceased lover, who urges him to a) bone Gwen and b) give up the mercenary life to stay on the idyllic planet they've wound up on, which conflicts with Gwen's desires to get off the planet and have her revenge on her ex.

Prince Robot IV isn't as active in this volume, having to wait in the wings to confront Oswald the way he did at the end of Vol. 2, so for a third subplot we follow a pair of investigative reporters named Lipsher and Doff who are trying to write a story about Alana and her illicit relationship and motherhood, but get on the wrong side of the authorities in the process.

This series is good, although it relies a lot on crudeness for humor and... I dunno, shock value, I guess? As you've probably surmised, I find it a bit gratuitous. Fortunately the intermingling storylines and characters keep things engaging. 'ware various triggers however.

The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander
The Black Cauldron is one of the Disney movies we'd sometimes rent while I was growing up and while it wasn't a regular favorite it did make me curious about what the original books are like. Based off the first one, I'd say I like it quite a bit- the story is set in a medieval fantasy sort of world and takes place in a Wales-like land called Prydain, a collection of various small Kingdoms. A peasant boy named Taran dreams of adventure but instead works in a small village learning to make horseshoes and taking care of a pig called Hen Wen. Hen Wen happens to be an oracle however, and when she senses that the local evil Death-Lord, Arawn, and his general, the Horned King, are after her she escapes from her enclosure and flees into the forest. Taran pursues his pig and from there things spiral into a road trip with the end goal of reaching the fortress of Caer Dathyl before an advancing army does.

While I do still like the movie relatively well I think the book is a bit better, particularly with regards to the characters. Book!Eilonwy for example is weirder than the movie one and I greatly appreciate Weird Little Girl Rep. There's also this theme of... Taran, though he wants to be, is not really a mighty warrior hero, but instead an Assistant Pig-Keeper who is Doing His Very Best, and while the theme remains in the movie the book gives us a good idea of how painfully out of his depth Taran feels, which makes his perseverance especially sweet.

Ms. Marvel Vol. 1: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson
New Jersey teenager, Kamala Khan, like many teenagers, is struggling with her identity; her parents are orthodox Muslims and with the exception of her friends Nakia and Bruno, she's viewed as an oddity by her peers. On top of that she's also something of a nerd (she writes superhero fanfiction which, Kamala, why, RPF is weird). In an attempt to fit in she sneaks out to a party and winds up in the midst of an alien attack on New Jersey which mysteriously grants her shapeshifting superpowers. After using them to save someone she decides that she's going to become like the superheroes she admires, but from there she has to figure out how to balance her aspirations with being true to herself, superhero life with teenager life, and all without her parents figure out what's going on. A very cute and charming origin story.

Six books this month, three graphic novels, one novel, one short story collection, and one nonfiction.

Kidnapped! adapted by Alan Grant
A a graphic novel adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel. I'd probably like this a bit better if I hadn't read the novel first- as it is, it feels like they condensed the novel in a way that cut out a good chunk of the personality. Artwork is perfectly fine, but is a little granite and grim-jawed for my taste.

The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang
Graphic novel set in a fictionalized version of industrial revolution-era France. A teenage seamstress named Frances, upon being commissioned to make a dress for a disinterested girl who tells her "I don't care, make me look like the Devil's daughter," obligingly does just that; the scandalous design gains Frances the attention and employ of a mysterious royal patron who turns out to be the Crown Prince, Sebastian- who wants Frances to secretly make dresses for him.

The Prince, as it turns out, is some shade of trans (I personally read Sebastian as genderfluid, although you could probably make the case for Sebastian being a trans girl) and Frances becomes his employee, co-conspirator, best friend, and perhaps even a potential true love. But the pressure of Sebastian's secret gets hard to handle between Frances's career ambitions and his parents constant urging for him to find a nice noble woman for him to marry.

Super cute and probably my favorite this month! Just be aware that yeah, transphobia is a serious theme here.
 
Predator's Gold by Philip Reeve
Set two years after Mortal Engines, Hester and Tom are now traveling happily around on the Jenny Hanniver and wind up picking up an author/archaeologist named Professor Pennyroyal. The plan is to take the professor from Point A to Point B, get paid, sail off to their usual routine etc. but they're attacked by a fringe group of the Anti-Traction league with an obsession with Anna Fang (previous owner of the Jenny Hanniver) and wind up rescued by the city of Anchorage. Freya, the young margravaine of Anchorage, happens to have been inspired by one of Professor Pennyroyal's books to lead the city of Anchorage into the heart of America, where they will hopefully be able to recover in peace from a deadly plague. With the Jenny Hanniver out of commission, Hester and Tom are stuck in Anchorage for the time being. Tom finds himself very happy to be staying in a city again and is greatly attracted to Freya, much to Hester's distress.

Recommended if you like ruthless heroines, grim-but-interesting settings, and don't mind love triangles or the occasional silliness.

Once Upon a Regency Christmas by Louise Allen, Sophia James, and Annie Burrows
A collection of three Regency romance short stories, with the dual themes of 1) Christmas! and 2) The Hero Is Secretly A Duke. The first one, On A Winter's Eve, is about the widowed wife of an Indian colonist who returns to England and winds up snowbound at her deceased husband's woefully underequipped estate. Fortunately for her, she's picked up a handsome army Captain who got stuck at the side of the road with a very angry turkey. Unfortunately, said handsome army Captain is very sulky when he finds out our widowed heroine is Actually Very Wealthy but deliberately misled him to believe otherwise in case he turned out to be a fortune hunter, but at least he gets his head out of his ass by the end.

The second one, Marriage Made At Christmas, is about the spinster-ish sister of a viscount who starts receiving threats on her life related to her charitable pursuits, but luckily she's rescued by a hot American man who's shortly afterwards hired as her bodyguard, and between that and making out he does some PI work on the side, both for her sake but also for the sake of his family history. Alas, although I can't pinpoint exactly why I found this one PRETTY BORING- I started reading this book in December, got bored partway through this short story, and wasn't able to pick it up again until this month.

The last story, Cinderella's Perfect Christmas, features a slightly similar setup to the first one- snowbound at an underequipped estate with a handsome army Captain- but the heroine in this case is a poor relation living under Cinderella circumstances (thus leaving the hero to assume she's merely a lower class servant for much of the story) and the hero is also accompanied by a pair of children he just rescued from living under the thumbs of their abusive grandparents. Probably my favorite of the three stories.

Mal and Chad: The Biggest, Bestest Time Ever! by Stephen McCranie
Graphic novel about Mal, a child genius of the sort who casually invents shrinking devices, jetpacks, and time machines, and Chad, Mal's talking dog. Despite being his genius inventor status Mal prefers to keep this a secret from other people, and so has to deal with mundane problems like a mother who does not understand how he always winds up in strange messes (which she usually treats with spanking apparently, which actually made me super uncomfortable! ngl), a crush on a girl who mostly seems to just find him irritating, and an essay due about what he wants to be when he grows up- which is a problem when Mal doesn't know that yet.

Mal's attempts to discover exactly what he wants to do when he grows up (be a scuba diver? an archaeologist?), aided by his various wacky inventions, and the ensuing misadventures comprise the bulk of the volume. The book as a whole is cute, if unexceptional.

Taking the Mystique Out Of Learning Disabilities: A Practical Guide for Literacy Tutors by Ricki Goldstein
Short nonfiction book providing information on learning disabilities, mostly as a broad group than much that's specific. Most of the information and teaching advice was already at least somewhat familiar to me, but there was some new stuff (Irlen Syndrome is a thing!) and a few resources that I think might come in handy.

Seven books this month, two graphic novels, one nonfiction, four novels.

National Geographic Traveler: Rio de Janeiro by Michael Sommers
Travel guide for the city and region of Rio de Janeiro that I picked up on a whim from a dollar store. It was originally published just before the year 2014 so every now and then it makes reference to "upcoming events" in 2016 and such, which was a little disorienting to read. Most of it is recommendations for various museums and other tourist spots by neighborhood, but there's also a bunch of history and other interesting details in it.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind: Vol. 2 by Hayao Miyazaki
It's been a while since I saw the movie, but based on what I remember and comments I've seen on this, this volume is basically where the movie content ends.

Anyway, the art is extremely detailed and attractive but I find the story suffers somewhat from being a war/politics narrative and I have trouble keeping track of who's fighting what in this sort of story. There are the Doroks and the Torumekian Empire and the Valley of the Wind and also the bug keeper people. The bug keepers are kind of a mercenary culture, the Valley of the Wind is a tiny kingdom that pretty much has to fight for the much larger Torumekian Empire or else, and I thiiiiink the Doroks are who the Torumekians are fighting? When they're not fighting each other because there's some sort of power jockeying going on behind the scenes?

In fairness to Miyazaki though, I am also writing these thoughts up several weeks after I actually read the comic.

Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones
First book in the Chrestomanci series, of which I have read/owned several but never actually the first one. This made for a bit of unintentional dramatic irony since the Chrestomanci book I remember best is the one about Chrestomanci's backstory and in this one the central character, Cat, spends a great deal of time confused and intimidated by Chrestomanci and unsure of what the guy's actual deal is.

The basic plot concerns a pair of orphaned siblings named Gwendolen and Eric (aka Cat). While Cat is relatively meek and ordinary his sister Gwendolen is a powerful and ambitious budding witch and in pursuit of her aspirations, she convinces a powerful magician called Chrestomanci to take her and her brother in. However, life at Chrestomanci Castle is not quite what they expect and Gwendolen in particular chafes under the restrictions that are placed on her. Gwen starts a campaign of rebellion and trouble making, dragging her brother into trouble in the process.

I quite enjoy DWJ's writing voice so this was a fun, breezy sort of read for me. There are some uncomfortable bits though- ( triggers and also spoilers )
The Secrets of Wiscombe Chase by Christine Merrill
Regency romance novel about a couple who marry for practical/arranged reasons (he's poor but has a property that her family wants to get a hold of, and her father buys him an army commission in return for marrying his daughter) before the hero heads off to fight in the Napoleonic wars for seven years. They eschew having sex before he leaves so naturally our hero, Gerald, is not happy about the fact our heroine, Lillian, gave birth to a son ten months after he joined the army. He is also not happy that his con artist in-laws have turned his family home into a 24/7 party center/informal gambling den. Gerald comes home expecting to deal with a HEARTLESS JEZEBEL, only for Lillian to pledge her loyalty to him because she's frankly miserable with the current situation.

A lot of the drama/conflict comes not just from Gerald's distrust of Lillian but also ( mild spoilers for a potentially triggery topic that comes up early on ) So how much you'll enjoy this probably depends on how you feel about that kind of content.

Emily Climbs by L.M. Montgomery
Second in the series about a romantic young girl living in P.E.I. around the early 1900s with ambitions of becoming a professional writer. In this one Emily, our heroine, starts going to high school but in order to obtain her guardian's permission she isn't allowed to write fiction while she's there (though poetry and nonfiction writing is reluctantly allowed). What follows is a mostly slice-of-life affair where Emily makes her first forays into writing professionally, gets into conflicts with the aunt she's staying with, and has wistful interactions with her various love interests

Teddy, the primary one, is a sweet enough kid but unfortunately also the least developed; Perry is a scrappy farmhand with ambitions of Making Something of Himself and probably my favorite except for That One Thing He Says At One Point; and Dean is a brooding poetical guy who readers seem split between "He's the Hades to Emily's Persephone! Such chemistry!" and "ARE YOU KIDDING ME HE'S LIKE THIRTY AND KEEPS FLIRTING WITH AND MANIPULATING THIS GIRL WHO'S STILL IN HER EARLY TEENS." Guess which camp I'm in!

Also Emily straight up has psychic powers, which just gets weirder to me every time it comes up.

The Sandman: Dream Country by Neil Gaiman
Third volume in Neil Gaiman's much vaunted comic book series. While the previous two volumes were arc-centric, this one is a collection of short stories set in the same universe and featuring Morpheus as a minor character in each. This volume is also one of the ones that mildly traumatized me as a young, sex-repulsed teen because I picked it up after one of my parents brought a couple of volumes home and the first issue in this one involves a woman getting raped and abused by a guy. (Although it was not as traumatizing as GODDAMN JOHN DEE IN THE FIRST VOLUME, CHRIST)

Anyway. In the first story more SPECIFICALLY it's about a writer who holds the muse, Calliope, prisoner after buying her off another, retired writer and uses her to skyrocket his career. Story number two is about a cat who journeys to the heart of dream country on a revenge quest and the knowledge she obtains there. Story number three is about the first performance of Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night Dream; before an audience of the fair folk themselves. And story number four is about a retired superheroine who is isolated by her superpowers and her downward spiral into suicidal depression. 

No. 3 is my current favorite, probably because it's the least depressing and/or skin-crawly of the lot.

Although it might be region locked, I dunno. You can at least watch it if you're in Canada however, AND it's been uploaded to an official TMS youtube channel in good quality.

I admit it's not an Awe Inspiring Cinematic Masterpiece but it's a cute movie imo, very pretty, and was a childhood favorite of mine so I'm super jazzed to see it so readily available.

Somewhat inspired by the layout goodmode did except I'm not really using prompts beyond "My OCs" plus "try to use an environment of some sort?" I'll try to update this whenever I'm able to stuff these onto DA, although I will probably spend most of this month falling a bit behind where I ought to be. Ain't that just the way these things go!

I'm somewhat in the habit of streaming random animated movies that catch my eye every now and then, usually ones that I can tell right off are going to be extremely cheesy because I have a high tolerance for that sort of thing anyway- actually it's outright a soft spot, to be honest. So here's me attempting to sum up some I've seen over the past year or so and what my general impressions were.

A Monster In Paris:
I think I was vaguely aware of this movie around when it was coming out- there was interest in it for its potential monster boyfriend aspect, but my own interest at least waned when it came out that "actually the main heroine winds up with someone else and the monster character is more of a younger brother figure." Once I actually got around to watching it though, I did find it pretty charming- Raoul The Actual Human Male Lead is an entertaining jackass and I overall liked how all the main group played off one another. I think my main complaint would be that I felt it had some pacing issues.

Ballerina/Leap!:
This film is usually called Ballerina in most markets as far as I can tell but is sometimes called Leap! instead for some godforsaken reason. Probably the same sort of logic that made Disney call their Rapunzel movie "Tangled" instead of "Rapunzel." Anyway, the plot concerns a young orphaned girl named Félicie in approx. 19th century France who runs away from her orphanage along with a friend to travel to Paris and sneak her way into joining a prestigious ballet academy. Félicie's relationship with her mentor, a former dancer who had to quit after an injury, and with the other students including her snooty rich rival are enjoyable, but the film kind of suffers from an extremely tedious bunch of romantic drama which also makes Félicie's final love interest come off as irritatingly Nice Guy(TM). Should have focused much more exclusively on Félicie's career ambitions okay, little girls LOVE that kind of stuff.

Despicable Me:
Pretty Good, Actually. The franchise is mostly known for it's overmarketed mascots but the movie itself is very sweet and silly and by the climax I was very invested in Gru and his three adoptive daughters. There's a sincerity to it which is the sort of thing that can make or break a movie like this.

Freddie As F.R.O.7.:
This was a movie I first heard about a long time ago but wasn't able to find on youtube at the time after reading a review and thus mostly forgot about until I stumbled upon it while looking for a movie to watch with thethrillof . Thus they got to be subjected to it as well! It's a... very weird movie that is mostly a James Bond parody and it's supposedly based off of stories the writer/director used to tell his kid so it definitely has that "someone is making this shit up as they go" vibe going on. There are a couple of interesting elements but on the whole it's mostly an only-semi-coherent mess, not helped by the version we watched being obviously a low quality VHS rip. On the whole, perfect for showing people you want to make go "what the fuck."

Horton Hears a Who!:
Kind of suffers from the problems one might expect when one takes a kid's picture book and expands it into a full animated movie and you pad out a lot of that run time with manic humor and end the film with a sudden musical. Which isn't to say it's unenjoyable, just parts of it kind of drag a little in a trying-way-too-hard-to-make-you-laugh kind of way. Pretty cute overall though.

Igor:
I complain a bit later about The Tale of Despereaux being a 2008 CGI movie but this is more of a 2008 CGI movie honestly. Anyway, the plot is that there exists a Kingdom called Malaria that is under a perpetual violent storm, so the economy runs on bribes from other kingdoms to not be destroyed by the many devices the Malarian mad scientists create. The mad scientists have assistants called Igors, who are all uniformly hunchbacked people named Igor. One Igor works for a mad scientist named Dr. Glickenstein but aspires to become a mad scientist himself, so he secretly cobbles together a female Frankenstein type character named Eva. Unfortunately for Igor, Eva is not at all villainous. The movie's... kind of okay but the whole thing is a little off, somehow, in a way that I think is probably best exemplified by the running gag about Igor's sarcastic rabbit friend Scamper's repeated suicide attempts. Y'know. Kinda offputtingly dark humor for a kid's movie with a very silly plot.

Storks:
The plot of this film is that the storks used to deliver babies but have since remodeled into becoming a package delivery service. This has lead to a lot of people commenting on the movie asking why humanity isn't going extinct or whatever but there's a line between a kid and his parents that indicates that babies still happen through sex, it's just you used to also have the option to write a letter to the Storks and they'd make a baby with their magic babymaking machine and deliver it. Anyway, the plot centers around Junior, a stork with major career ambitions but also kind of an anxious personality, and Tulip, a human woman who's been raised by the company ever since the identity of her human family was lost. A small boy wanting a baby brother writes a letter to the storks, it accidentally winds up in the magic babymaking machine and hey, presto, there's now a baby to deal with! Junior and Tulip must then drop the baby off without getting the attention of the higher ups, who do NOT want the storks to start delivering babies again, and along the way learn a lesson about friendship or family or smth. I found the whole thing genuinely funny and cute, honestly.

The Day of the Crows:
French movie with very pretty visuals. The story concerns a nameless boy who lives in a forest with his ogreish, mad father. The two live an animalistic existence as hunter gatherers, with the boy's primary friends being the spirits who live within the forest. As far as the boy is concerned, the forest is all there is to the world- until his father injures himself in a storm and the boy is forced to seek help outside the forest. The film is primarily a bittersweet parent/child story and it's probably my favorite movie in this list. 

The Scarecrow:
This movie is based off of a Nathaniel Hawthorne short story albeit changed around to be more of a feel good fairytale narrative- Polly is now a young woman working to pay off the debt of her and her three adoptive children at the factory of the local baron, a dance obsessed asshole who wants to force Polly into marrying him. Polly hides her savings in the garden where the Scarecrow lives and often talks to him, unaware that he's alive, and the Scarecrow falls in love with Polly and eventually stumbles upon a way to become human and help her. The end result here is a movie that is very frustrating for me, personally, because we've got a couple of tropes at play that normally work well for my id but the film itself is really poorly paced and generally questionably written. It's at least kind of interestingly ridiculous, though.

The Tale of Despereaux:
Based off of the Kate DiCamillo novel, kind of suffers from a case of being a 2008 CGI film visuals wise but at least is stylized enough that you stop noticing after the first few minutes. Gets most of the basic plot beats down from the novel though it changes around Roscuro's story a lot (in ways that I don't really find better or worse than the novel for the most part), condenses a few details, adds in an unnecessary food genie who contributes nothing of substance to the plot. It's not a bad product overall but I feel it loses something from the book. 

We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story:
Another film I heard of due to it being Weird and decided to subject thethrillof to. The story is about a bunch of dinosaurs who are turned into intelligent and civilized beings by a time traveler called Professor Neweyes. The dinosaurs are brought to New York 'round about the 1990s to meet children at the museum of natural history but they get sidetracked by a pair of runaway kids they befriend, MANY ZANY HIJINX, and then an evil circus run by Professor Neweyes's evil twin brother Professor Screweyes. The latter guy is generally what people seem to remember best about this movie, particularly his weird death scene where he's apparently eaten alive by a bunch of crows. The movie isn't as weird or incoherent as Freddie as F.R.O.7. but it does have this almost constant manic energy that can be a bit grating.

So for Inktober I noticed that the "main" OCs I'd come up with for a little project of mine happened to number thirty, and decided to spend Inktober drawing them all properly. Thus, huge number of images below the cut!

( do not steal original characters )