| Challenge 306: HEARTBREAK |
n. crushing grief, anguish, or distress Sometimes, things don’t work out. The romance doesn’t last, or their plans for the future fall apart. The hero doesn’t get there in time, no matter how hard they try. Sometimes, all the magic or science in the world can’t stop something bad from happening. Not all heartbreaks are permanent! Sometimes it’s still possible to fix things. But often, there’s no way out except to just live through it. Write a story about heartbreak. If your submission features this line, it will earn an extra point to be tallied in voting! |
| Challenge ends Monday, July 13 at 9:00PM EST. • Post submissions as new entries using the template in the profile • Tag this week's entries as: [#] submission, 306 – heartbreak • If you have questions about this challenge, please ask them here |
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( This week's finalists are... )
Total Challenge Words Written: 2200
Congratulations to both of you, and thank you to everyone who took the time to cast their votes!
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This stars Joe Bird, the little brother in Talk to Me. He was great then and he's great here, and his and co-star Stacy Clausen's chemistry is fantastic. This movie only works because they're so good together as two fumbling kids who don't really understand themselves or each other, who can't trust each other because the other guy might be a demon, but who, it turns out, can't trust anyone else in their lives either. Betrayal is the big theme here: by trusted adults, religion, the person you're into, and yourself.
The conversion therapy metaphor is very obvious, which isn't necessarily bad, but I did feel that the movie wasn't sure what to do with it once it had introduced it. Like yes, now you (or the appearance of you) are dangerous to each other, so now what? I wanted it to give me more. The movie feels like it plateaus in the last act, neither deepening the themes nor escalating the tension but just hitting a lot of the same beats until things finally resolve.
However, the actual character work is good, IMO. Both kids are complicated and make realistically bad choices, but they also both keep trying with one another. There's a really great scene where love interest Ryan uses the word dickhead about five times, and it's honestly really sweet in context. The cinematography was also good; I really felt the kind of down-and-out exhaustion of the industrial small town.
Overall, even though it didn't fire on all cylinders for me, it's definitely a worthwhile watch if teen boys in love in a horror setting sound like your jam.
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Rose of Nevada (2026). Directed by Mark Jenkin, who also made Enys Men, this is about two guys in an impoverished Cornish fishing town who take a job aboard a lost and resurfaced fishing boat, which takes them back in time. The guy who's been sleeping rough suddenly finds he has a wife and kid; the guy who took the job to support his family no longer has one, because they're back in the present day.
This movie is largely an Experience (tm) rather than a story as such. It seems like there is some actual plot/lore underpinning, but Jenkin is not that interested in explaining what it is. We spend a LOT of time on a fishing boat. The captain might be fae, or the boat might stuck in a time loop, or... who can say.
Mostly what Jenkin is interested in is making a movie that feels old, full of fuzziness and tactile impressions of things. I'm told the camera can only store about twelve seconds of footage at a time, so everything is a quick cut, and for whatever reason he didn't mic any of it, so all the sound happened in post and all the spoken dialogue was dubbed in, like an old giallo film or something.
I got out of this and was like well that was an experience I guess, but with time I feel like I might want to watch it again. Maybe I can make sense of more things this time.
* Why do we tell actors to "break a leg?" Because every play has a cast.
* What do you call it when a snowman throws a tantrum? A meltdown.
* My uncle named his dogs Timex and Rolex. They're his watch dogs.
* Did you hear about the guy whose left side was cut off? He's all right now.
* What did the left eye say to the right eye? Between you and me, something smells.
* I'm so good at sleeping I can do it with my eyes closed!
* What do you call a pudgy psychic? A four-chin teller.
* If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring? Pilgrims.
The cardinals were the first to have found it, and they're there quite a bit. I learned that they eat both the black oil sunflower and the safflower seeds. They roll them around in their beaks until the hulls come off. I did seem them looking all bedraggled after the storm today. The female kept flexing her wing feathers like she was spreading her fingers. Hoping they'd dry out, I guess.
I saw a wren there once, but didn't get a good look.
The chickadees come around sometimes too. I learned that they put a sunflower seed on the branch or whatever it is they're standing on (the perch of the feeder), brace it between their feet, and peck it open. I'd always seen them fly up to the feeders, grab a seed and fly away, but was never quite certain why. Now I know!
And that's all I've seen so far, except for myself. It captures videos of me every time I walk by or drive by on the lawn tractor. No finches yet. That's odd.
I love peas. I use them in a lot of recipes. And I crave slit pea soup often.
7. It’s the seventh day of the seventh month, and in Japan, it’s the day of the Star Festival (Tanabata). For one day only, wishes, hopes, poetry and dreams are written onto streamers and tied to trees. What would you write on a streamer today?
I would have written something about cancer. My brother is starting his second two-month aggressive chemotherapy. He can use all the prayers he can get.
8. Artemisia Gentileschi was born today in 1593. She was incredibly famous during her career, but largely forgotten until the 20th century. Have you ever seen any of her paintings?
I do know who she is. Her work is lovely but not anything I would want to own.
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Author: Tazmy (
sgatazmy sgatazmy )Challenges: Policy/Sheet (although I thought this month was virus/program, so it works for that, too)
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
No Pairing
Word Count: 839
No Warnings
Summary: They chose murder. Of course they did. While they always had the best of intentions, their impact was usually devastation and destruction, as though it was their policy to be stupid and rash.
I've got a decent idea of how I'd do it - and again, his documents. So, while I wait: the movies.
Move over, upstanding citizens, cats on their hind legs are here to take over.
It seems like sometimes cats forget they are mammals, which mostly walk on four. Sure, you might know more than one insanely weird cat in your life, but for the most part - cats are just chill. Until they are not. And that's where their absolutely unhinged behaviors enter the chat. Cats can get very weird, very fast - and every cat pawrent with at least one cat knows exactly what we're talking about.
Every cat is a strange little creature in their own right, but some of their weird behaviors are shared across the board. Even the calmest of cats will get the 4 AM zoomies, you know? But zoomies are not where the collective cat weirdness ends. A lot of cats, for example, like to be held upside down. Most don't, but the ones who do probably share exactly one brain cell. Other cats, for another example, climb on the most unclimbable furniture. Just ask the nearest cat parent what the highest place they've ever found their cat in is - you'll get "above the curtain", "on top of the bathroom heater", or "literally in the ceiling", most likely.
And some cats just stand there. Not as in "standing doing nothing, staring at a blank wall" (although some cats do tend to do that), but as in "standing on their own two feet", even if they're technically paws. They just… stand there. For various cat reasons, we assume. Check the hilarious evidence for yourself. We think these will be some of the tallest cats you'll see, even if it's just a hind leg illusion.
About 20 years ago, after I first started studying Permaculture, I went to work for a very sustainable Permaculture-oriented CSA farm. One day, after working all morning painfully tending, pruning, and weeding a patch of cane berries, I went for a bike ride along my favorite trail. Black raspberries were in season, so I went home, grabbed 3 3 gallon buckets and filled them up with raspberries.
That was when it hit me. NOBODY was working tending these, except for perhaps the deer and birds fertilizing them. Meanwhile, my own hands were covered with scratches from my morning work.
This is an example of humanity's earliest agriculture: encouraging plants we find useful in places where we go, and occasionally ripping out ones we don't want there. Wild plants can mostly take care of themselves. You don't have to fuss over them like delicate domestic fruits and vegetables. They have more appeal for wildlife than exotic plants, too -- many fruiting plants attract birds like crazy. Any native will probably host caterpillars to feed baby birds. \o/
My approach to laissez-faire permaculture is similar. I plant new things that seem promising. I try to help them establish. They live or die. The ones that live, I expect to take care of themselves. Some of what I grow is really good at that. \o/
The Twitter discourse surrounding trans men in lesbian spaces is interesting, to say the least. It might sound too Anglo-centric, but the idea that a butch lesbian who transitions into a man/transmasc and still wants to be in lesbian spaces because they have an attachment to the community and feel deeply connected to the label on a personal level does make sense, and it's not hard to see this happen in a lot of regions.
( Read more... )
Cat adoptions are somehow always surprising, and we're just happy watching all these happy endings with a twist only cats can create.
The internet is full of Cat Distribution System adoption stories - these cats who suddenly appear in a person's life, and the cat-to-human match seems so unbelievably purrfect it's hard not to think it was made deliberately. That's where the constant stream of CDS theories comes in, because… who are they? What are they? Is it a "they" at all? Who or what is this entity, body, or institution that constantly matches the cat in need to the right person who will give them a forever home, and does it all in an emotional twist?
To be honest, despite being the almighty I Can Has Cheezburger, we have no clue. The CDS is a mystery to us just as it is to any other cat person, even if we are the online cat content pillar of the internet. Our guess is that it doesn't matter how much of a cat person you are, the Cat Distribution System will remain a secret for you forever. But we also think that this is their secret to success. It makes every cat adoption very special. And we prefer a unique happy ending for cats over our curiosity to know what stands behind it.
So with this in mind, we are once again stunned by another ameowzing cat adoption story, this time by Kelly Eden on Facebook - she found an abandoned kitten who looks just like her childhood cat. Some might call it destiny, others call it fate, and some other people will say it was written in the stars. But we, cat people, know it's the intricate work of the Cat Distribution System, that knew (somehow) to send this cat right to the arms of the person who will for sure take them in. Was this a coincidence? Maybe. But was it meowgical? Absolutely.
