#actually it's mostly that they shift to accusing me of tokenizing or using them as shields

[bogleech]

Them: you should shut up about palestine and actually listen to jews

Me: all the jewish people I know are anti-israel and say this is a genocide

Them: no not like that

[tamyrawilliams]

After everything that happened on the day/night of the gloom, Tamyra invites @aureliemarchand and @akbartheolder along to an attempt to get to the South Beach and get some answers. The expedition turns south quickly, though, (pun intended), and Tamyra’s desperation has a price.

The determination to get to the South Beach was just as strong inside Tamyra right now as it usually was to get out of the island. She knew, however, that getting to the South Beach wasn't going to be a joy ride. The water was without a doubt the safest way and after dragging a boat across half the island and recruitment done, Tamyra was leading Aurélie and Emre towards the fishing boat she deemed the best chance for this endeavor.

"I figured somebody could paddle, somebody could use the water to help with speed." There was a reason she asked two other fellow water attuned members. "We could take turns, one resting at all times so we can keep our energy. And then once we arrive to the other shore, we figure out the rest."

________

"Wasn't this yours and Frank's boat-tingie - " Emre started to ask, but then shook his head. "Actually never mind, I don't really care."  He really shouldn't have agreed to this expedition to begin with, considering all the work that had to be done  after all that fog and mess and...the rest of it.  But by that same token, he had made promises to Tamyra - and the hope of getting Iyaz off the island was too tempting, wooed as Emre was by Tam's determination.

The fact that Aurélie was a part of this only gave Emre further incentive.  It was so good to see everything again clearly, without fog and dark.  He eyed Aurélie, trying to gauge her reasons for joining Tamyra on this goose chase.

“Not really sure I'd be much good at using water for speed.  Still haven't gotten the hang of all that water...moving."  Emre reached for one of the oars.  "I'll go with this, yeah.  I'm good at brute strength."

________

It’s simple: she needs something to do. After weeks of being holed up thanks to head injury followed by days clouded by grief for one of her oldest friends, Aurélie cannot sit still anymore. What’s more, she wants answers. If this is her home, the place she has accepted as her life, she needs to learn the ins and outs of living in it. What she wants, really, is answers: for the fog, for the memories she’d been faced to witness again. For Matthew.

But she’ll take the South Beach for now.

“You mean to tell me that you dragged a fishing boat all this way?” Aurélie has been quiet, mostly, mulling over her stormy feelings and the likely inevitable reactions she’ll receive for taking part of this scheme. But something impressed creeps into her tone now. “It is a sound plan,” she shrugs in response to Tamyra’s orders of operation. “But I do think perhaps some more of the rest should be figured out, hm? Like what you intend to do on the South Beach when we reach it.” If they reach it.

________

"Yeah, I did," Tamyra nodded at Aurélie's question. "I had to work off some... frustrations." That fateful day was a lot for her, and despite her hiding away on the jag, she was not at all back to normal or back to alright, and the boat presented the perfect opportunity to not have to think about it, just curse her way here with the boat.

"Alright, so Emre, you'll be on oar duty, we will handle the water moving," Tamyra nodded, ready to get going right away when Aurélie suggested some more planning should be done. "I would love to, Rélie. Trust me, I would be the happiest if we could prepare for everything, but we have no idea what awaits us there, how can we prepare for that? There could be people there, or just a completely empty beach." There had to be a catch, if it was the latter, she was sure of that, but that wasn't really the point now.

"Unless you have something you think we can do? Either of you, really. Any ideas or suggestions are welcomed." Part of the reason she asked for their help was the fact that both of them were comfortable in the water and got things done, but also because they were such different people and had such different way of thinking. Maybe they could think of something she couldn't.

________

Emre shook his head at Tamyra's question.  "No.  Not much in the mood for wowing anyone with my usual brilliance," he stated mildly, glancing between the two women.  The both of them so much older than him, on this island for so much longer.  One aftereffect of Matthew's demise, was that Emre was humbled.  He intimately knew death and the unpredictability thereof - not just in the outside world, but on the island.

But...Matthew.

His murder was a strong reminder of the chaotic nature of death.  Age and experience meant as much as it did in the outside world: nothing.  Everyone could be killed, even these two ladies here with him.  He motioned for them to hop into the boat.  He'd push it into the waves and jump in after.

"So long as we all have weapons, yeah." Emre pat his cutlass.  "Other than water-magic, since you lot'll be knackered after sailing, and I'm only partially useful in the magic department innit."  He smiled wanly at Aurélie.  "I miss guns."

________

No plan, no prospects, no ideas. Aurélie feels her lips press together, gaze darting back in the direction from whence they’d come. “It is for the best that none of us can drown.” Aurélie simply concludes, trying to ignore her gut feeling to turn back. This is helpful. This could be a boost in morale, which everyone on the island is in dire need of nowadays.

Or it could be their demise.

After raking her hand back through her hair, Aurélie sighs and shifts her bag of supplies between shoulders and boards the boat, prompted by Emre’s gesture. She’s quiet, mulling — it’s been a pattern over the last couple of weeks. There’s little that feels worth saying. Still, Aurélie manages a wry smile at Emre’s comment, though it doesn’t reach her eyes, her short nod.

Aurélie sits once they’ve pushed off — being closer to the water has always been best for her — and keeps her gaze on the island as they take to the sea. “We likely should not stray far from shore. Not so close as to run aground, bien sûr, but... for the sake of caution.” If there’s room for that here anymore. She tries to keep that thought at bay, curling her palm to shift the water and set them on a reliable course.

________

"My club is already in the boat." Might have not seemed too much, but a directed attack at the lower regions could do more harm than a lot of other weapons. "But I do hope it's not going to come that. I know, I know, it's hopefuly thinking but... we deserve a win, right?" It felt like all they did was lose these day without ever realizing they were even playing. And Matthew's death coming after a day like that one...

Tamyra shook her head and took a seat in the boat herself after Aurélie and while she took to directing the water, Tamyra watched and made sure they weren't running onto any rocks and help the other two navigate. "That sounds like a good plan. It's gonna take longer than straight there, but we want to actually get there." She looked over at Aurélie, "Tell me when you are getting tired and we can switch."

She turned back to the water, one hand in it herself just to feel the waves around them, give her some comfort. She wasn't in the best shape after everything, to say the least, but she doubted any of them were. "Were you guys... there? When they found him?" she asked, still watching the water.

________

'We deserve a win' sounded so American to Emre.  Tamyra thought 'deserve' factored into things; though maybe she was being sardonic.  Like preparing to fail, not hoping to win.  Emre just gave her a smoky smile, curling and slow to dissipate.

"Oh, I can still deffo drown," Emre volunteered, not caring about admitting his own weaknesses.  He was fascinated, watching Tamyra and Aurélie operatin together.  Both very much A-type personalities, although Lielie was more subtle about it.   Emre wouldn't annoy them by proclaiming it aloud, but he was a little thrilled to be included in this expedition. "But Tamzy's got me well learned on swimming, innit.  Tops instructor, that one."

He winked at Aurélie, but his cheekiness faded when Tamyra asked that question.  Matthew.  Emre redoubled his efforts with the oars, acting too busy to say anything.  Besides, he had the least to say.   He only nodded and then after Aurélie spoke, he eventually added,  "No one's come forward, no one wants to admit what they did.  Either by accident or..." he glanced at Aurélie.  "On purpose."

________

"I do not know that Meridium cares much for what we deserve." Snappish, perhaps, especially coming from a woman so resolute in staying here. But seeing your age-old friend's bloodied form lying on the sand will do that to anyone. Aurélie lets it rest, looking out at the horizon, away from the island at last.

Emre reminds her, however unintentionally, of his age – or lack thereof. Aurélie can't help her scolding look, though perhaps it should be directed more toward Tamyra, wrangling this young thing into an expedition such as this. "Hm." Aurélie simply says, not greeting the wink with her usual smile, plunging her hand into the water further and feeling the tide respond. They curve around an outcropping of rocks before she responds to the next part. "Yes. Many people were. Esther began to scream, and... people responded, je suppose."

Emre begins theorizing and Aurélie exhales noisily. She's not sure what to make of the theories – like Seamus (for once), she wants answers. But she's also been accompanied by Joaquin, who has been made all the more troubled by the bubbling accusations. "I just hope that Matthew is at peace." She finally offers, then stands suddenly, pointing out, back toward the shore, where there's a flurry of movement. She squints against the sun. "What is that?"

________

Esther being the one who found Matthew felt the cruelest twist of fate towards the woman there could be. Part of Tamyra was extremely glad she wasn't there, didn't hear the cries and wasn't there for the chaos that ensued. It was still shocking to find out about it the way she did, but hearing Esther's painful scream... Yeah, she could live without that one haunting her.

"Yeah, hopefully he is at peace," Tamyra echoed Aurélie's words and didn't add that otherwise, they might actually meet him again one day. She absolutely did not want to meet a ghost Matthew, reliving his last memories. Though on the other hands, that might answer the most important question.

She didn't have time to dwell on it, though (probably for the better), because suddenly Aurélie was up and pointing towards the shore next to them and Tamyra whipped her head there. She couldn't see the movement anymore, but there was a set of rocks there now. "Those weren't there before," she said with a sinking feeling in her stomach. "I know we said that we need to keep close to the shorelines but maybe we should get a little further out. Just to make sure one doesn't suddenly appear right in front of us."

________

Aurélie's clipped answer spoke volumes about her feelings at the moment.  Terse, still grieving in her own way about the First.  Tamyra seemed a bit more distant to it all - bothered, but without Aurélie's quiet acidity.  Anything Emre said at this point would feel inauthentic.  He simply didn't have enough time spent with the Golden Trio, as either woman did.

"Think they'll find out?" Emre asked, still treading along the path of 'whodunit'.  He didn't need closure personally, but he had a cool curiousity.   Was solving the mystery a priority?  Would there be any formal investigation?  If the killer was identified, would there be any recourse?  Questions that would only frustrate others, so he kept his thoughts to himself.

He twisted, to try and spot what the women noticed.  "What?  What're we looking at?" he asked.  "Them rocks - what - earth magic?"

________

Emre is steadfast in his course, hypothetical inquiries that she, yet again, has no answers to. "I know that Seamus wants answers." Aurélie responds plainly, for once understanding the point of view of the man she's so often gone nose to nose with. "Will he find answers? That is not for me to say. Esther... I do not know how much she cares for such a thing. I have not asked." There's a pointed hint in that last part: you should refrain from asking as well.

Luckily, curiosity tucks her grief aside and Aurélie cranes her neck, putting her hand on her brow to block the sun. She's quiet for another moment, contemplative, then providing: "I do wonder about what Tomas' wife said. Of the jungle, and its changes. I have seen such things myself in there. But I wonder... does it ever seep out? The tendency for change?" And then, catching herself in the theories, she shrugs and sits back down. "Or perhaps you are right and it is just the work of the earth attuned."

Back to work. "Further out, then." Aurélie murmurs, nodding to Emre to guide the oars as she does the same for the tides. It takes some focus, enough for her to close her eyes. They remain closed as she poses a question: "Did you mention this to anyone besides the two of us, Tamyra? This... plan?" Without a plan. But she won't bother with that. It's something to do, at least.

________

Tamyra remained silent while Aurélie gave her assessment of the situation. She didn't talk to either of the two, so she couldn't tell how either of them were handling it, but she hoped that maybe whatever they'd find on the South Beach would be enough of a distraction from they felt right now. Or at least for Esther, she didn't really feel either way about Seamus.

All of which the appearing rocks made Tamyra forget about. A cold, worried chill ran down her spine as she stared at the rocks that weren't there for a few moments and then she was scouting the jungle on the shoreline and looking back to where they left off, but nothing. There was nobody visible she could see. "I've seen the jungle change once, not so long ago," Tamyra said thinking back to when she tried to help Frank not so long ago, "but I don't think anyone's ever really seen it happen outside of the jungle."

This time Tamyra herself helped with the water, wanting to get a good distance between their boat and those rocks. "No, I didn't tell anyone. And I didn't see anyone on the shorelines," not that that would mean anything, not if they were good. "You don't think anyone would actually-- try to stop us, do you?" Then again, nobody thought Matthew could die and here they were, so everything was out of the window now.

"Not that the island shifting around us is that much be..." A huge wave rocked their boat and Tamyra could have sworn something shifted, something grew under the water near them. "This is going to be a bumpy ride." They were far enough out now that Tamyra wasn't sure anyone else was and if the island was going to fight back... well, fuck the island, they would get to the South Beach either way. "I think we should try to speed up, too. The less time we spend on the water, the better."

________

How could someone who loved Matthew, not care?    But Emre focused on rowing.  "Like a bloody regatta, should've brought Yaz along," he muttered, pausing to drain a bottle of water.

"I've seen the jungle move too.  During the jinn - erm, the ghosts."  Emre mentioned.  "And fog happened. So why wouldn't the whole island start shifting all sorts to fuc--"  he was cut off when the boat jolted,  the hull creaking ominously when the wave slapped it.

Emre twisted, gripping the side on the starboard stern.  "Hold onto me," Emre instructed Aurélie, as Tamyra took over water-magic.  He folded over and peered at the hull, running a hand on the surface to check its integrity.  As he did so, his hand smacked hard against an underwater rock and Emre fell back into the boat, cussing.

"Fucking hell - " his little finger's nail was half-torn off.  Emre sucked the blood off.  "No - don't speed up, Tamz, no - big rocks'm right under us!" he called out to Tamyra urgently, where she was positioned at the bow like a ship's figurehead.

________

“Nom de Dieu,” Aurélie hisses through her teeth as the boat lurches over a wave, sending her moving with it. It’s something physical, at least. Less theorizing, more doing, which has always been more her speed.

So she nods diligently at Emre’s command, standing, planting her heels, and serving as an anchor. Or as much of one as she can be, considering Emre jerks suddenly back, sending them both tumbling.

Tamyra is talking about going full speed ahead, Emre is cussing, and Aurélie is blinking, feeling her gut tie in tighter knots at the realization that she’s hit her head. After blinking once, twice, she realizes: she’s still whole.

Back onto her feet, then. No more games. “Toward the horizon!” She barks then, holding her palms out but not sticking them in the water, hoping to avoid a bloody fate for her fingers whilst still changing the tides. “I did not realize the terrain, and if we are to avoid the rocks, deeper water—“ A horrible scraping noise cuts her off.

________

Emre's warning came just when Tamyra's hand hit a rock as well and she snatched her hand out of the water immediately, looking around and deeper into the water. They were in clear water not so long ago, and yet now they had rocks all around them, which had to be the island. There was no way it was somebody else doing it.

Well, fuck the island.

Aurélie was much better at controlling the water - she could do it without actually having to reach into it, but the best she could do without actually being in contact with it was forming recognizable shapes, which was not helpful in this situation at all, so Tamyra carefully lowered her hand again, only to the surface of the water this time so she could help Aurélie as much as she could.

A scraping voice stopped Aurélie and Tamyra snapped her head towards the other side of the boat where it was coming from. "Hold on for a moment, I can push us away and then we can continue," Tamyra shifted to the other side of the boat, but before she could reach the edge of the boat, there was another lurch and then another followed right after, this time they were bigger, and this time she couldn't actually keep her balance even though she tried grabbing for the side of the boat, and instead she was falling face first into the water --and the rock.

________

"Alright Lielie?" Emre asked, given the dazed look on her face - but it only lasted a second before she was up again, hands outstretched  Water-magic, powerful and strong.  Emre bit back his own suggestion: pull to a halt, bob towards the shore rather than further out to sea.  If the boat was compromised then they should scuttle it, strengthen the hull before setting off again.

"Alright Tamz?" Emre said when she pulled her hand back.  Emre stared to the shore, scanning the land.  It all looked new - but of course it would, from this perspective.  The jungle gave way to dense mangroves, trees pluming out of the water's edge, rocks sloping in between and out into the water in bumps and swells.  And beyond that...Emre squinted.  What was that ...?

The boat rocked again, and Emre turned just in time to see Tamyra toppling over the portside edge.

"TAMZ!!"  Emre yelled and leapt for her.  He only managed to grasp her calves, but she slipped out like a fish, water pulling her overboard.  Emre grabbed an oar, stretching it out towards her.  "Grab it!!"   The water around her swirled with red - her blood.  Emre grabbed for Tamyra, though it felt like the boat was falling apart under his feet.

"Liels we've got to land.  I got her - I got Tam." Barely.  He wasn't even sure if she was conscious, her face covered in blood.

________

If this day has proven anything, it's that they aren't sailors. Or perhaps even more so that the island does not intend for them to be. Aurélie has always stymied her superstitions in regards to Meridium. Though others theorize, she has simply tried to take things as they come in regard to the island.

But such things are not easy when the jungle transforms before your eyes. When ghosts greet you, taunt you, nearly drown you. When fog transforms your world. And now, when the island transforms itself, in front of their very eyes. Or maybe she just wasn't fast enough, didn't pay enough attention – whatever the cause, there is suddenly a dark form of rocks beneath them that Aurélie is sure she hadn't glimpsed earlier. But before she can do anything to address it, Tamyra is striding forward. Taking initiative, which Aurélie can't help but feel a flash of pride toward. That is until it goes south.

She's scrambling forward, hold on the tide lost as Emre tries to get a hold of Tamyra. "D'accord. Okay. You have her?" She wants – needs to hear it again, before she can focus on anything else. "Good. Good. Water, Emre, use water – it will clean it but also begin to heal, tu sais? Water to her face, gently." She's commanding, chopped and short, trying despite her instincts to keep her focus on the water. To guide them to a shuddering halt upon a sandbank – it may be temporary, once the tides come in, but it's something. "Ici, here, let me help."

As they hoist Tamyra onto solid ground, Aurélie can't help but think how sick she is of having blood on her hands. "Tamyra? Tamyra. Can you hear me?" All the while, she's cupping her palm – not to scoop up the water and deposit it herself, but to conjure small waves, depositing them upon her friend. Gentle. Healing, she hopes.

________

It was strange, the first few moments the pain didn't even register for her. Tamyra hit the water and there were the rocks under her somehow. She was dizzy and her sight was blurry and there was something... was that red floating around her? How was anything floating around her? Something was wrong, something was wrong, something was wrong--

And then finally the pain hit and it somehow snapped her out of her haze just enough so that she understood that she was in trouble. In trouble and in excrutiating pain on her face. And there was shouting around her, though she couldn't distinguish the voices around her. She wasn't sure if she intentionally grabbed onto the oar or if it was by accident, but she certainly wasn't aware of it happening, just that somebody was hoisting out of the water and there had to be something wrong with her face because it kept burning, burning, burning.

She was aware of the energy around her, even recognized Emre as he was trying to help her, and then after who knows how long, Aurélie appeared in front of her blurry vision as well, both of them scooping water onto her face and that's when she realized that she got hurt on her face. On her face. Weirdly she wasn't panicking until then, but she certainly started panicking now.

"I can-- I can hear you, yeah," she croaked belatedly at the question. "I can fix this. I can-- I can fix it, and then we can go on," she added, her mom's voice ringing in her ears as she told Tamyra that she couldn't fix it anymore. She could, though, she could. She just needed to focus. Which somehow in the mids of all the pain, she managed to pull herself together enough to focus on the source of the pain and the blood. If she could just focus and fix this, use the moving on the blood to fix her injury, they could continue on.

Instead of helping, however, all she managed to do was cause the blood to flow faster and make everything even worse.

________

Tamyra's face was sheeted with red - dark and juicy like a ripe jeweled fruit.  If the situation wasn't so alarming and dire, Emre might've even admired the sight of her, in a perverse, ghoulish way.  She was stunning, even now.  Aurélie managed to scuttle the boat, and just in time.  As Emre lifted Tamyra out, the poor hull seemed to sigh behind him.  Emre didn't look back; he carefully got Tamyra onto the sand, and let Aurélie take over.

Lielie knew what to do, she knew how to look after Tamyra.  Emre turned his attention back to the boat, dragging it to shore it better, so it wouldn't get carried off in pieces by the rough tide.  He could see the ocean rocks well from this vantage point - or maybe the rocks had grown out of the water, like warning spikes.  Daring them to return.  See what happened if they tried to do something the island did not want them to do.

Emre then inspected the boat itself.  Part of the bottom on the starboard had been scraped of, splintered and close to shattering under one more buffet; the portside still held, but the ropes were shredded.  Emre realized then:  Aurélie hadn't just been parting the sea and changing the currents, she prevented water from breaching the hull as well.  Magnificent and multi-purpose...but only enough to get them back to shore.  There was no way they could return to sea in this vessel.

He grabbed what supplies he could from the boat, and returned to the two women.   Tamyra's injury washed and clean but...the healing?  Emre made eye contact with Aurélie, a silent communication: This won't heal properly.

"We're going to have to walk back north.  Boat's done.  And ocean won't have us, yeah.  It's made its stance pretty fucking clear."

________

"No one is asking you to fix anything – arrête ça, Tamyra, stop that!" Aurélie orders as the younger woman insists that she has the solutions. "You can fix it by staying still–" She's barking with less care than she usually manages, but this isn't the time for grace. Especially not when the blood begins pouring all the faster thanks to Tamyra's conjuring.

After giving a firm smack of Tamyra's hand to ward it away (again, not so graceful, but necessary), Aurélie tries to get a handle on things. "Do not make a scene of this," she commands, arguably unnecessarily, toward Emre before peeling her shirt off and using it to keep pressure on the wound on Tamyra's face. Tugging her bra strap up on her shoulder leaves a smear of blood behind on Aurélie's tanned skin, and she swallows hard. The glance she shares with Emre then holds one easily interpreted meaning: This won't heal properly.

So after taking a shuddering breath to redeem her typical level of maternal care, Aurélie maintains the pressure on Tamyra's wound and murmurs with gentleness: "There will be no going on. I will not. Emre will not." She doesn't even glance at him to confirm. He'll agree, if asked. Since it came from her. "You should not. It is over, mon amie. I am sorry, but it is done. We must get you home." And perhaps Tamyra will even refute that, the notion that Meridium is home, but Aurélie has no time for such technicalities.

Instead, she removes the now stained shirt from Tamyra's wound and blesses it once more with the water. "This is no place to heal. Come, now. It is time to go home." And then she nods to Emre, indicating that he should get under one of Tamyra's shoulders. They'll get her back there. One way or another.

________

If Tamyra was in better shape, she would have argued back with Aurélie, but her attempts to "fix it" only drained her of her energy and made her feel even woozier in the head. Everything was red and hurt and spinning. And yet she still tried, still had to try. "Pl--please, no, I can rest. And then we can con-- we can go." There was absolutely no way that could have happened, though, not like this, no matter how much Tamyra was trying to fight it.

She didn't realize what Emre was doing in scouting out the area and assessing the boat, or Aurélie using her shirt to put pressure on her wound, she just felt the press of something on her face and then she heard Aurélie's refusal again to go on. The woman's last words, one specific word exactly - home -, was what really set her off, though. It was all jumbled up in her head at that point, but she could understand that one word crystal clear and she could feel her tears burning as they started rolling down her cheek.

"I want to go home." Not the same home as Aurélie talked about, not at all. In her mind she could see her own house that was most likely not even hers anymore, and her parents and the streets of Los Angeles as she remembered and not here, not here, not here. This was supposed to work. Figure out the secrets of the island, then use it to get out. She was supposed to fix it all, she was supposed to get home.

She attempted to fight the two hoisting her up, but it was a pointless effort that took a lot more effort out of her than what actually showed outside for the other two. "Don't let-- p-- see me like this. Please."

________

It was disappointing.  Not personally, not for himself, but Tamyra's convictions were addictively strong.  For a few blessed moments while they were on the boat, all working together, Emre actually bought into the Yank 'we deserve a win' mantra.  Like some sort of karmic tally, made off-balance by losing Matthew.  They - Tamyra - deserved a reward for all her determination.

Now look what happened.  It wouldn't be so sad, if she hadn't been so fucking determined.  A heroine, the star of an epic journey-adventure film.  Oscar-worthy performance, this.   Her efforts punished.

She pleaded for home, like the girl in Oz, in that old film. "Water first," Emre said, unloading bottles from the supplies he toted.  He gave one to Aurélie, and carefully tried to feed some to Tamyra.  He drank as well.   Then Emre did as Aurélie said (she was very right, in how loyal he'd become to her) and helped Tamyra up to standing.

"Alright, Lielie?" he asked her, as they began to carry Tamyra up the shore, northbound once more.   He knew she was eyeing all the supplies he carried like a small camel, and he said,  "Don't even think of it.  Out of the three of us right now, I'm the strongest and youngest, yeah?  Trust."

Tam pleaded something, and Emre frowned and looked at Aurélie as they slowly walked.  "Don't let what see her like what?  What's she on about? Tam, what you mean then?"

________

The water helps. Not just the water she lightly pours into Tamyra, but the sort that Emre hands to her, making Aurélie let out a steadying exhale. "Thank you." She murmurs, nodding at the instruction without inhibition, allowing Emre to tend to Tamyra for a moment as she gets her bearings together.

And then they get Tamyra up, on her feet. "Yes, that is right," Aurélie consoles. "Home. We will get your home now." Of course it doesn't add up, to Aurélie. Meridium is home – and besides, how could Tamyra possibly be still fawning over her days of celebrity at a time like this?

How little she knows.

But there's no time for fussing, though Aurélie contemplates it, realizing how much Emre is carrying. They've spent too much time together, she realizes almost bitterly as Emre reads her thoughts like an open book. "Well, if you need a rest, let me know." She murmurs, pressing the t-shirt to Tamyra's wound again instead of taking on the baggage.

Tamyra is murmuring something, pleading, and Aurélie wants to admonish her for her ego. But it may be more than that. A fear of a display of vulnerability rather than just vanity. So Aurélie turns to Emre. "She wishes not to be seen by... the population. In general, I think. Emre, your home – it is among the trees, is it not? Perhaps it will offer more concealed ground than the farm..." She doesn't know, of course, of those particular toils of the fog. And with another glance at Tamyra, it hardly matters, anyway. "No, no, ignore me. We have to get her to care. No matter who may see."

________

Tamyra didn't realize just how much she needed the water until Emre slowly started to feed it to her. But even swallowing was hard and her face was burning up from the pain from everywhere, really. It felt like everything hurt and it took so much energy to keep everything straight, to focus long enough to be able to even swallow those few sips of water that Emre gave her. "Thank-- you."

She was in and out, not really understanding what Emre and Aurélie were talking about while they were discussing who carried their resources and bags, she only understoof Aurélie pressing some kind of cloth against her face again, hissing as the pain stroke through her all over again. She wanted it to stop, she needed it to stop. If the pain could stop, she could convince them to turn around.

(Tamyra was so far gone at that point, she couldn't even fully grasp the seriousness of the situation, everything just jumbled together for her and she wished once, just once, things would go better, as planned on this hellhole of a place.)

She was eternally grateful that Aurélie understood what she meant, that she didn't want people to see her like this. (Both because of her vanity, but also because she had too much pride to let others see her in such a vulnerable situation.) "Yeah, other-- don't let others see me," she mumbled and tried to remember where Emre had his home set up. She wasn't sure if she's ever been to it, probably not. "No, no-- where are you-- taking me?"

________

"Yes, Mademoiselle," Emre replied, just shy of being cheeky to Aurélie.  Considering the severity of their situation as Emre gauged it.  All they had was a direction to go in: north.  But other than that, Emre had no idea where they were, how far south they'd sailed.  How bloody long was this bloody island, how far and wide did it go.

How did it reshape itself, was perhaps the better question.

So who knew what terrain they'd encounter on their way back 'home', as Aurélie kept calling it.  "We might have to make camp, depending on how long it takes.  And Tamzy's not looking too hot," Emre spoke over Tamyra's head, but ducked to get Tamyra's attention too.  "Alright luv?  Not gonna pass out, are we?"

Don't let others see her.  Emre wasn't sure they could accomplish that, but at least they had a while before they encountered anyone.  "We're taking you to your dressing room trailer, luv.  Great bit of acting in the last shoot, but you took a bit of a tumble.  Should've let the stunt double handle it.  Allow that, yeah?  We'll get it next time."

Emre looked over at Aurélie, giving her a nose-wrinkle.  Let Tamyra have this, he figured.

________

It's a brilliant idea. One that will soothe Tamyra, anyway, as she's still fussing over where she's being taken. As if it matters, when the only thing that matters is that she gets to safety. But she persists, and so Aurélie looks to Emre with a flicker of admiration at his inventive persuasion.

The sort she quickly realizes she can't quite follow suit in. Hard to be acquainted with film lingo when you've only ever seen one. "Ah, yes, the... shooting will continue later. No need worry." She gives a grimacing look toward Emre, sure she bungled the language, but that's not a concern.

Not as Tamyra keeps bleeding and as a rustling sound catches Aurélie's eye. Her head snaps to the side, following the sound and catching a sight: a practical tunnel, right through the trees. So long that Aurélie must squint to see the end of it, and even then, she struggles... yet there seems to be light.

As if the island itself is making the path away from the South Beach far easier to trek than the one toward it.

With a dubious look toward Emre, but knowing they don't have much time to spare, Aurélie turns toward it. "Shall we?"

________

Emre's plan worked perfectly. As soon as he started talking about dressing room and acting and shooting, Tamyra's brain immediately jumped to the conclusion that she must be home. Must be working on a movie and everything else at the back of her mind was nothing more than a loud noise of a bad nightmare. Nothing real. None of it actually happening. Just the movie and the accident.

Her body sagged, some of the tension leaving her body. She felt like she could breathe again which made no sense to her, somebody would have to explain to her what kind of accident she had, but she felt lighter and that was good, right? That meant that her injury wasn't as bad as the pain felt.

"Did you-- did they get some good shots at least?" she asked, needing to make sure not all of the work (both hers and the rest of the crew's) was to waste. "We can continue in-- in a couple of hours. I just-- I need to sleep. I feel so tired." She was mumbling, barely audible already. "Tired and-- thirsty. Any of you have-- water?" She wasn't even sure who were helping her to her trailer. In her dream it was two people from the island, but that was just her imagination, so it must have been two crew members, right? She'd ask about it when she felt better.

________

It wouldn't be good, when Tamyra's haze cleared, and she made sense of what he'd done to trick her. But then Aurélie piled on the fibbing too, and Emre was wretchedly grateful to have her cosigning the fantasy.  He still smarted inside, for hurting Madi, for fucking up Frank, tangled in lies.  But if Aurélie joined in, then it was the right option to take, right?

Tamyra would be devastated afterwards, he was sure of it.  But she'd be more devastated at Aurélie her old friend, than Emre the stupid newb.  And Aurélie liked burdening herself with the responsibilities of others, so....right.

"Oh it were great, man.  Really dramatic shot.  No film wasted," Emre said, ignorant of the advent of digital film himself.  "We'll just get the medic on you and you'll be right as rain, my luv.  Director's still raving to the crew innit.  That's what a good actor is, he said.  That's Tamyra Williams. "

Pausing to fetch more water, Emre looked up at Aurélie's sharp intake of breath - the tunnel cutting through the trees, inviting them down a lit path, practically.   Emre stared, fascinated, as he looked at Aurélie, then down the rocky stretch of beach.

"If we get swallowed up by the jungle, at least I'll be with you.  And Tamzy. Pretty peng, that," Emre assessed, humour grim and deadpan. He fed Tamyra more water.  "I'll be a bloody legend.  Right.  Off we go then."

In through the curved trees, Emre had never seen a straighter path.  It was nerve-wracking how...accommodating the jungle was.  "This island....have you always known that it thinks, Lielie?"

________

"What is the phrase?" Aurélie frowns, still looking at their path, its glimmering and golden light. "In English. Something foolish... do not look a gift horse in the... eye?" She shakes her head. Linguistics aren't the priority. "Whatever it may be: I think that is what we are experiencing now. So let us not waste time. Allons-y."

The path is straight and narrow and hard to waver from. All the harder to turn back. Aurélie realizes that as she looks over her shoulder at another rustling, a shift in the shadows. The leaves are closing behind them. Slowly, but markedly. There will be no more heading south for them. The island has made its decision.

"No." She answers plainly, frowning all the more now. "At least not so... evidently." Not liking how it feels, especially as she contemplates her own time trapped in a cave or thinks about the poor castaways and their inescapable years in the jungle, Aurélie sighs. "Meridium helps only when and where it wants to, I suppose."

Is she imagining, or is her comment responded to by a lilting breeze? No time for that. Not as they trek on, the path growing shorter and shorter as it closes behind them – and leads them directly to the farm, at the foot of the hill her house sits upon. "I cannot believe..." She murmurs, glancing back at the jungle only for a second. But the path is gone. There is no sign of it at all. And no time to waste.

"To your trailer, then, Ms. Williams." She says curtly, nodding her chin in the direction of her house. "There are some supplies there," she murmurs to Emre. "Left over from... well. And less eyes, I think."

It's only when they've gotten Tamyra to a final resting place upon the cot in Aurélie's house that she voices the nagging feeling: "Why is it always the two of us left to face these island mysteries, Emre?" A contemplation – frivolous, perhaps, so she adds on: "Could you get your brother? To tend to Tamyra."

________

Allons-y was such an Aurélie thing to say, but Aurélie only existed in her nightmares, did she not? Tamyra met her on the island but the island wasn't real, she was shooting. It was just a long, never ending nightmare that the head injury conjured up, right? It was all very muffled and confusing and she wasn't even sure if she heard it or if her brain made up the voice and Aurélie herself at this point.

She was in and out by that point, slowly slipping away while she was trying to hold on. Somebody told her to keep awake, she was sure of it, but was it in her head or was it one of the crew members? And why did it take this long to get to her trailers? It didn't really make sense but her head was also not really making connections too well at this point and maybe it would all clear out if the pain would just fucking stop. She needed the pain to stop.

She heard Aurélie tell her something about her trailer so they must have been close, and she intended to keep awake for that, but she used too much energy at that point, and she slipped into the quiet darkness of unconsciousness before Aurélie and Emre could reach Aurélie's hut with her.

________

"In the arse," Emre supplied helpfully, tone bland.  If only so one day, he could hear Aurélie say 'do not look a gift horse in ze arse', and no other reason.  He took his entertainment on the island where he could.

Carrying Tamyra along with Aurélie now that poor Tam had become docile, wasn't so difficult.  In part because the island, it seemed, made it easy for them.  Where Aurélie looked behind where they'd tread, Emre carried forward.  He didn't want to see the way the jungle closed up behind him.   It was enough to suspect, and see Lielie's reaction in his periphery.

They got up to Aurélie's beautiful little hut, and Tamyra was put to rest in the cot, like a swooning princess.  "There we are, luv," he said softly, but by now, Tamyra had passed out.  He glanced at Aurélie, and replied: "Maybe the island knows we do a good team". A subtle reminder that their threads were slowly but surely becoming intertwined.  Tangled, even.  Exactly what Emre hoped for.

With a nod, Emre hopped out of the hut, leaving the two women in the cool shelter as he went in search of his brother.

[kjack89]

Love in the Time of Quarantine (Pt. 6/?)

Remember what I was saying about bumps in the road? Well...

Read parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, or catch up on previous parts on AO3.

After their early dinner of falafel (with extra pita and garlic sauce, and Enjolras was certainly not going to make anything of Grantaire having his dinner order memorized), they played more board games.

A rousing game of Chutes and Ladders ended in further accusations of cheating, this time for Grantaire, who was convinced that Enjolras had somehow rigged the spinner. “Oh, come the fuck on,” he snapped as he landed on the long cookie jar slide for the third time. “You’re doing this on purpose!”

“Yes, me and my magical powers over the spinner,” Enjolras said dryly.

Grantaire scowled at him. “If anyone could sweet talk an inanimate object into conspiring against me, it’s you.”

Enjolras blinked. “I think there might be a compliment in there somewhere.”

Grantaire’s scowl deepened and he flopped back against the couch cushions. “Just take your turn,” he huffed.

After Chutes and Ladders, they started a game of Risk that initially threatened to stretch into the early hours of the morning as they matched each other’s strategies. But then, Enjolras made a critical mistake – or a stubborn stand, as Grantaire called it, the fine lines around his eyes crinkling as he grinned at Enjolras – stretching his troops too thin on the eastern front. 

“Shall I refer to this as your Waterloo?” Grantaire asked innocently, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth as he captured Enjolras’s last remaining stronghold. “The downfall of the great emperor?”

“Keep insinuating that I’m Napoleon and I will never speak to you again,” Enjolras said through gritted teeth. As Grantaire’s grin widened as he clearly pretended to consider it, Enjolras added, “Besides, the Eastern Front metaphor is more suited to the Battle of Stalingrad than Waterloo.”

Grantaire arched an eyebrow. “Would you rather I call you Hitler, then?”

Enjolras glared at him with an intensity that could’ve melted paint, even though he knew damn well he had walked right into that one. “Not if you value your life.”

Still grinning, Grantaire just shook his head as he began to clean up the pieces. “Fine,” he said, “but you’re welcome to call me Stalin any time you want.”

Enjolras smacked him lightly on the arm but even he had to laugh. He sat back, glancing at the time and surprised to see how late it had gotten. The day had passed far quicker than he had anticipated, and he suspected he had the company to thank for that. He looked back at Grantaire, who had just snagged the last falafel and looked like a deer in headlights at being caught. “Classy,” Enjolras said dryly, and Grantaire gave him the finger. “What should we do now?”

Grantaire swallowed before smirking and suggesting, “Well, there’s always Twister…”

He had barely gotten the suggestion out before his smirk was replaced by a wide yawn that he couldn’t quite hide behind his hand.

“How about bed?” Enjolras asked, laughing slightly.

Grantaire’s smirk returned. “I can certainly make that work,” he started, and Enjolras rolled his eyes.

“I meant for sleeping,” he said pointedly. “Since this is—”

“A trial run, I know, I know, whatever.” Grantaire stretched and sighed. “So I guess I’ll take the couch, then?”

Enjolras stood and reached down to help Grantaire up. “Don’t be an idiot,” he scoffed. “Bed’s big enough for the both of us, and it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve slept together.”

“In either sense of the word,” Grantaire murmured before shrugging. “I should put up at least a token protest, but my back isn’t what it used to be, and I’m definitely not going to say no to your tempurpedic.”

Enjolras rolled his eyes again, but this time it was with a smile, and he led the way back to his bedroom. They both quickly changed into pajamas (or at least, Enjolras did; Grantaire stripped down to his boxers, and Enjolras tried very hard not to stare), and Enjolras slid into bed, expecting Grantaire to follow.

Instead, Grantaire sat down on the edge of the bed, his expression troubled. “Are you ok?” Enjolras asked, rolling onto his side and propping himself up on his elbow.

Grantaire shook his head. “No,” he said honestly. “I mean, I’m fine, it’s just, this is…”

He trailed off. “Everything you ever dreamed it would be?” Enjolras supplied with a joking half-smile, one that Grantaire did not return.

“More like exactly the opposite of what you were intending.”

Enjolras’s smile faded. “What do you mean?”

Grantaire shrugged. “I mean, this isn’t a trial run.”

“What are you talking about?” Enjolras asked cautiously, trying – and failing – to follow Grantaire’s sudden shift in mood. All things considered, he thought it had been a good day, certainly better than he had been anticipating when he realized he had feelings for Grantaire – and realized how much of a disaster that could potentially be, for both of them.

“I’m talking about today,” Grantaire said. “I mean, God, Enj, when was the last time you took a day off from work? Whether your job work or Les Amis work? And when was the last time you spent all afternoon playing board games and not checking your phone every five minutes?”

Enjolras didn’t even have to think about it. “Honestly? Never,” he admitted.

Grantaire huffed a laugh, though it was without much humor. “Exactly.” He sighed. “Today ended up being a really fucking good day, but it wasn’t a trial run of anything. Or at least, not anything that matches what our reality would actually look like.”

“It could,” Enjolras offered half-heartedly, and Grantaire shook his head.

“No,” he said decisively, “because then you wouldn’t be you. And that wouldn’t work for me.” He paused, pretending to consider it. “Not in the long run, anyway.”

Enjolras rolled his eyes even as he couldn’t help but smile slightly. “So then what do you propose we do?” he asked.

Grantaire took a deep breath. “I propose we actually try and live our lives like we normally would, at least within the constraints we’ve been given, and see if we actually fit together, if this actually works.”

Even though Enjolras nodded at first, he froze when he heard the two-letter word that left him feeling suddenly cold. “If?”

Grantaire’s expression didn’t change. “Yeah, if.” He sighed. “Look, I want this more than anything I’ve probably ever wanted, but…” He trailed off and shook his head. “But I don’t tend to get what I want, so I know better than to think it’ll work.” He poked Enjolras lightly through the covers, and Enjolras laughed and pushed his hand away. “You’ve always been the one for blind faith, not me.”

As much as Enjolras wanted to argue, Grantaire had a point. Not that Enjolras had any intention of actually telling him that. “Ok,” he said instead. “So tomorrow we go back to trying to live our lives, even stuck in quarantine, and we see what happens.”

Grantaire shook his head again. “Not tomorrow, he said, standing up, and Enjolras frowned up at him. “If we’re going to actually do this for real, we need to start tonight.”

He started toward the door, pausing when Enjolras asked, “Where are you going?”

“To sleep on the couch.”

Enjolras sighed. “You don’t have to.”

“I know, but it’s for the best.” Enjolras reaches out for his hand and Grantaire half-smiled. “Look at it this way – if we make it through the next two weeks while actually being ourselves without wanting to kill each other, we can probably make it through anything. Besides, your couch probably has better back support than my mattress at home.”

He leaned over and kissed Enjolras’s forehead. “I’ll see you in the morning, Apollo.”

Enjolras reached up, cupping Grantaire’s cheek for a second before letting him go. Grantaire half-smiled at him before standing again, turning the light off on his way out and closing the door after him. 

Enjolras rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. Grantaire really did have a point, and even though Enjolras knew that, he still couldn’t help but wish they had waited until the morning.

He closed his eyes, willing himself to drift off, but his mind was far away from his bedroom, and racing through far too many thoughts.

And mostly wondering why his bed suddenly felt so empty.

[brawltogethernow]

Three Graves

Peter gets cleaned up and settles his resolution to reach out to MJ before visiting Gwen. After all, you want to look your best for important people.

"'Cause you're worth it, Gwendy," he says, setting down a takeout cup of coffee the way she liked it against the base of her headstone and sinking to sit criss-crossed in front of it cradling his own. A weak shield against the New Year's cold.

It's been just warm enough just long enough to sweep the earth in the cemetery clean of the usual frozen-puddles-and-slush cocktail and uncover the winter-dormant grass. Just a reminder of the promise of the end of winter. But it's still not exactly picnic weather, so Peter's alone with the Stacy family.

"So I've been on kind of a jaunt," he says. "Helped me get my head in order. I know, I know, it's about time." He bows his head and shuts his eyes, and for a second he's one stone-still silhouette on the slight slope of hill with all the others.

Then he throws his head back and huffs, blinking up at the clear blue sky. "So I came to fill you in. I know you'd want to know."

He drags the heel of one hand across the corner of his eye. "After all, it's about you."

He puts his untouched coffee down too fast, then catches it with one spindly finger when it starts to overbalance and rights it. "I met these people, Gwen, and one of them... Let me start over. I've always been in this alone. Sorry, I shouldn't say things like that when I know you can't hit me. I know I had you. And the others. But this was -- this is different."

He takes a deep draft of the coffee. "Weirder, mostly."

_∩∩∩_

Gwen sits down in front of Peter's grave, folding into a tailor's seat in a graceful ballet movement.

"Hey," she says, and reaches out and knocks her knuckles against the headstone. A one-sided fist bump.

She folds the arm back against herself, tugging her hoodie sleeves over her hands, and sits there silently for a while, curled up in a hunch. The world is statue-hard and all-over glittery with frost, and steam curls up when she exhales. She's wearing most of her suit underneath exercise clothes, and the cold seems to bite harder where its insulation doesn't cover her at her face and hands.

She's out of practice talking to people, and Peter was always the one who would say something to get the conversation going anyway.

"I have had a week," she says at last. "You'd have liked it." She thinks of the older Peter, scowling and looking exasperated. "Okay, maybe you'd have hated it."

She sighs and touches the stone again, pressing her hand flat against it. It hurts, the rock hungrily leeching the warmth out of her body.

"I'm trying the whole friend thing again," she says. "I don't know what you would have -- I know neither of us ever really liked people, so maybe you wouldn't think I should. But you also seemed better at knowing what was best for me than what you needed for yourself, so maybe you would have thought it was a good idea. Because I'm pretty sure this is -- best. For me. That is." She snorts. "I was better at you than me, too."

She pulls her hand back and rubs it against her knee, trying to force warmth back into it. With her augmented metabolism, her whitened fingers flush hot again faster than they should. "I definitely still prefer problems you can solve with hitting something. Or by breaking and entering. ...That doesn't mean it's obvious I was going to have to let people in eventually, though! I was completely planning to never address my own feelings again. So take that." She points at Peter's name, taps it lightly between the R and the second P with her fingertip, then pulls her arm close again, hugging it to herself. She sighs. "Maybe you'd think I was dumb for taking this long. I dunno. But Peter, the friend I made? I know you would have liked him. Whether you wanted to or not."

_∩∩∩_

Footsteps appear in the deep slush in front of Peter Parker's headstone. After a moment, an eye-baffling haze above them shivers and resolves into a boy in a hoodie.

Miles hunches into his civvies against the cold and looks around, head sweeping back and forth. Once he's sure he's alone, he tips his face down to face the grave. He stands there a moment, neck bent, hands in his jacket pockets.

The tokens people left that he recognizes from the last time he was here are starting to look kind of battered and sad, but most of them have been cleared out and replaced by a crop of new ones. It's a mosaic of red and blue and webs, because even if it didn't occur to most of them until it was too late to say it, New York loved Spider-Man.

"Hey," Miles says. "I'm back."

He shifts his feet a little to try to get cold water to stop seeping into his shoes. This agitates some stealthy puddle and soaks them worse.

"Man," he says to the headstone. "I cannot stop myself from looking around when I try using my spidey sense to check for people on purpose. I mean, with my eyes." He tugs his hands out of his pockets to raise them up to his face and demonstrates with wiggly finger motions, one hand in front of his eyeballs and one beside his head. "Did you get that? I know I don't need to, but I just can't shake it. I mean -- yet. I can't shake it yet. This whole Spider-Man thing is kind of a process."

There were a few inches of white fluffy snow the other day, so within hours it was like a massive slushee had been upended in every shallow dip or half-protected corner in the city. With all the foot traffic this place gets, the ground here is like half-frozen mud soup.

"But you know that."

He holds out one hand, staring at the palm of his glove for inspiration. "So hey, uh. I know I was kind of weird when I was here last time?" He puts the hand on the back of his neck, eyes peeling upward sheepishly. "I recognize now that coming here in a party store version of your costume was a little weird. Nobody ever saw my face, though! So I guess it worked out like I wanted it to?"

A big shrug, hands windmilling. "You know, except the other Spiders. I figure that's okay, though. Man, I wish you could have met them."

His shoulders slump, and he feels his eyes prickling. He huffs a fortifying breath, fast in and out. "But anyway. You know how I said I didn't think I could do this last time? It totally worked out. I'm Spider-Man now. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't mind. ...It turns out there are a lot of us.

“And Peter -- the other one, I mean. I mean, one of the other ones. He taught me some things, and-- I wish I'd gotten to learn more from you, but he was okay." He shifts his weight. Even more ice water floods into his shoes. "He was great actually. I don't need to pretend not to like him as much as I do when he's not even here. I...really hope I get to see him again someday. ...I don't know if you would have turned out like him, but -- it would have been okay if you did. You would have been okay, I mean."

The grave is silent. Somewhere nearby there’s the sound of snowmelt dripping.

"We took care of the collider!" says Miles. "Brooklyn did not get eaten by a black hole. ...Mm, mostly. Some of it still looks kinda weird. Though, now I know you're from Queens, so technically we're feuding a little and you should watch yourself." He goes for a chuckle, but it comes out kind of wet.

"And the--" He pauses, and when he speaks again his voice is less froggy. "And Kingpin is in FBI custody. And everybody else who helped him is too, or. Gone." Uncle Aaron. "...Dead." He hasn't visited Uncle Aaron's grave alone yet, but he's okay working on the mural for now.

He raises his head, blinking hard. "I wish--" His voice cuts off and he looks down, and when he looks up again his eyes aren't as tear-bright.

"Thank you, Peter."

_∩∩∩_

Peter hears her heels before anything else, click click, and then MJ is a warm weight settling against him.

"I thought you'd be here," she says.

"Am I that obvious?"

She elbows him without looking over. "No, I just know you." She reaches out and traces a finger over Gwen's name. "Hiya, Gwendy. Did Petey-o tell you his crazy story yet? Make sure he doesn't leave out the part where his alternate self was a successful blond. I guess you really do have more fun."

"Hey," says Peter, with automatic faux offense. Mary Jane's bundled up in a big ochre parka over a bunch of sweaters. He thinks about how his Mary Jane owns the same smart, lush ensemble the other MJ gave her press conference in, folded up in different parts of her closet.

"He wasn't successful," Peter says. "I'm just old."

"Are you calling me old?" MJ says.

"If the shoe fits," says Peter.

MJ whaps him on the arm.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," says Peter, laughing. "No, no, you're a whole year younger than me. Clearly you walk in eternal youth."

MJ settles against him again. "Nah, it's okay," she says. "We're both old. Geriatric."

"What does that make Jonah?" asks Peter. "Commander of the skeleton war?"

"Mister Parker, was that a meme?" asks MJ, faux-scandalized. "Don't make me kids-these-days at you."

"What does that even mean?"

"I'd shake my cane and accuse you of eating too many avocados."

"Ugh, I feel like that's a meme," says Peter. "But I don't understand it."

"Do you not read the news?"

"The news only ever wants to yell about how terrible I am at me."

"When you extricated yourself from all our shared newspaper subscriptions -- you didn't replace them with any new ones, did you. You've basically been living in a box."

"Uh."

"I shouldn't have asked you to do that," she says. "I'm buying you an online Times account if you won't log back into mine." She turns to the grave. "We're a mess without you, as you can see," she tells it.

"Always," says Peter. "But we're doing alright."

They sit there silently for a minute, leaning on each other.

MJ reaches out and lifts up Gwen's cup. "I'm stealing some of your coffee, doll. Not like you don't still owe me a thousand sips of mine." She takes a draft, the liquid cooled from being on the ground, then makes a face. "I forgot she liked mint."

"I think she might have started liking it as a preemptive defense against you paying her back for always stealing from yours."

"Get her caramel next time. We both like caramel."

_∩∩∩_

Gwen hears footsteps crunching the grass behind her and twists around, rising into a crouch in a fluid spin.

It's Mary Jane, huddled in a huge yellow coat. She's wearing her chunky-knit fingerless gloves, the oatmeal ones, and boots over leggings, like she's daring the cold to even try it.

"Thought you'd be here," she says, closing the rest of the distance so she's beside Gwen as Gwen straightens the rest of the way. At Gwen's surprised incredulous look, the other girl snorts. "What, you think I don't know you that well yet? We're friends, aren't we?"

"...Yeah," says Gwen, fighting not to look like that's as much of a revelation as it is.

MJ hooks an arm with Gwen's, beaming showily, pleased with this victory. "Well, your little friend here is more observant than you give her credit for." She reaches out and boops Gwen on the nose. Gwen jumps, even though her spider sense warned her. It tickles.

MJ turns to face Peter's grave, and the grin slides off her face. The look it leaves behind is -- oddly muted. MJ is a very loud person, in Gwen's experience of her. About everything, all the time. Her outfit choices are loud. Her silent facial expressions are loud. Her singing is really loud, like she's got some stuff to work out. Sometimes their practices feel like MJ and Gwen are just fighting to drown each other out. They feel dangerous, like if one of them ever can't keep escalating, the other's sound will sweep her away. And then the other girls have to roar along to keep up.

Their recordings end up pretty noisy.

"I think I'd have liked to have met him," MJ says, very softly. There's nothing particular in the statement, and Gwen is suddenly aware she has no idea how to read MJ when she's not telegraphing her emotions at top volume and full saturation for the benefit all of New York.

Gwen thinks about four Peters, two married to Mary Janes. "Yeah, probably," she allows.

MJ sighs and reaches out the arm not linked with Gwen's. She rests her hand on the top of Peter's headstone, making a chain of three links. Gwen, MJ, grave.

"Hi, Peter," says MJ, her always bell-like voice chiming more mellifluously than ever. Like she's trying to charm someone new. "Thanks for taking care of this girl when I couldn't, yeah?"

Then she takes her hand away, breaking the spell, and starts to tug Gwen away by their linked arms. Gwen lets the taller girl pull her away. It would be pretty suspicious for her to stay as still as she could, even if part of her just wants to anchor herself here like a statue until sunset. Be still with him for a while.

"Come on, hun," says MJ. "That's enough gabbing with the dead. Let's gather the other girls: We can have breakfast before practice."

Gwen stumbles as they hit the path. "Wait, there's practice today? It's Thursday?"

MJ stares at her as she pauses to give Gwen a chance to get upright. "It's Tuesday practice, Gwen. Man, you're bad with dates, aren't you?"

"Hey, I've been --" Stuck in another dimension, time traveling. "Busy with stuff."

MJ quirks one eyebrow at her, the twinkle in her eyes and the press of her half-smile telegraphing 'are you serious?' at Gwen so clearly that for a split second Gwen is sure MJ knows.

But Mary Jane just rolls her eyes and tugs Gwen along more insistently.

"Breakfast sounds nice," Gwen allows.

"Are you plotting to steal from my coffee again?"

Gwen hums noncommittally.

"Gw-e-n!" MJ protests. "I will buy you your own coffee! I do not understand why you're always on the hunt for sips of mine!"

"Stolen food just tastes better," says Gwen. "It's science."

"You're a menace, Gwen-do-lyn," says MJ. "I know your secret identity--"

Gwen jumps.

"--as a filthy coffee thief."

"C-caught me," stutters Gwen.

"Yeah I did," says MJ quietly.

"What?"

"Hm, nothing."

And Gwen lets Mary Jane pull her out of the graveyard and out toward their friends.

_∩∩∩_

Miles' spidey sense tells him someone's behind him before he hears them, and he spins around, part of him half expecting a repeat of last time he got crept up on here.

Close, but wrong Parker. It's May, picking her way carefully through the frozen slush. She looks up only after he's flinched his hands up defensively and then dropped them again.

"Oh, Miles!" she says. "I wasn't expecting you here."

She stops once she's beside him, and sighs. "I just thought, now that the crowds have mostly thinned out, it would be a good time to talk to him. Guess we both had the same idea, huh?" She looks around like she doesn't quite want to look at her nephew's grave, the twists of her head stopping when she's facing the church. "This place is so famous. It's so strange that Peter is buried here."

She finally looks down at the bedecked headstone. "I always thought me and him and Ben would all end up in the same place. But, well, Jonah was crying and -- I think it makes people feel better."

Miles remembers something Peter -- janky, old Peter -- said. "Are you guys Jewish too?"

May looks at him strangely, but must not need to ask who 'too' refers to, because she just flickers a quick shrug. "Ben was. I thought about converting when we got married, but his family was never that traditional, so I never got around to it. But that doesn't mean it wasn't important to them."

Miles reaches out and raps his fingers extra lightly on a Roman cross cropping up from the top of a headstone. He then immediately feels bad, and pats it gingerly as he says, "Then this must be extra weird."

May smiles.

She puts a hand on his shoulder, thin but strong. "He'd be proud, you know."

"Yeah." Miles gives the marker one last nod as he turns to go. "I know."

*

[AO3]

[mst3kproject]

207: Wild Rebels

I guess if it's time to tackle the movies I've been trying to avoid, my next review should be a biker flick.  I don't really like the biker episodes, but then, I don't really like biker movies in general, and the fact that MST3K naturally chose bad biker movies doesn't help me enjoy something I didn't enjoy much to begin with.  Now, bad monster movies, on the other hand...

The hero, I guess, of Wild Rebels is racecar driver Rod Tillman.  Other than owning a magical disappearing, reappearing guitar, he is not at all an interesting person.  After wrecking his car, he decides to get out of racing and goes to a bar where he meets a biker gang consisting of leader Jeeter, ultra-violent Banjo, Designated Chick Linda, and mute Fats.  They need a getaway driver for their next robbery, and I guess none of them can drive a stick shift.  Rod wants nothing to do with them, probably because of the Nazi flag in their hideout, but then the police ask him to help them gather evidence against the gang.  With Rod in tow, the bikers rob a gun shop, then a bank – not because they really want the money, but just for kicks!

I hadn't seen this episode for a while, and I'd forgotten Joel's joke about the Nazi-themed bikers having Trump's Art of the Deal on their shelves.  Everything old is new again.

This is one of those movies that it's kind of hard to say anything about.  It's bleak and dull, and in the closing sketch Joel and the bots already went through its low points quite thoroughly.  “The villains were so cliché, they were laughable,” “so the hero was supposed to be unattractive and spineless,” and so forth.  That basically covers Wild Rebels.  It's a series of tropes and symbols standing in for a story, with a 'hero' we're never given any reason to be interested in.

The very first thing we see Rod do in the movie is give up.  He's wrecked his car, so he decides to give up on racing entirely.  He meets a girl in a bar, but when the gang tells her to get lost so they can talk to him, he gives up on her with only a token protest.  This is actually pretty realistic, given that he barely knows her and the bikers are fairly intimidating, but in the context of his abandoning racing, it just seems to cement 'quitter' as his core character trait.

That needn't ruin the movie, of course – maybe Rod's character arc is learning to see things through, or to stand up for himself!  But character arcs just aren't something this movie does, and Rod never seems to change.  His return to racing was a setup to get the gang's attention, not Rod actually trying again.  When Banjo jealously attacks him, it looks like Rod's starting to grow a spine as he successfully defends himself, but it's a false alarm.  At the climax of the film he just cowers at the top of the lighthouse stairs waiting to be shot, rather than doing anything that might be considered heroic.

The gang members are stereotyped thugs, who seem to do what they do just Because It's Evil.  Linda even says as much: they aren't interested in money or cars or high living, they just want the adrenaline rush.  They have no backstories, no explanation of why they are the way they are.  They surround themselves with Nazi symbols, like the swastikas on their jackets or the flag in their hideout, but they don't seem to have any actual ideology.  The fascist imagery serves only to reinforce that they are bad people, which has already been amply estalished by their behaviour.  It's a lazy substitute for proper characterization.

I don't know how old any of these characters are supposed to be. The actors appear to have been in their late twenties to early thirties.  In the serenade scene Linda looks like she's around forty. The slang they use never rings true.  It's like your parents trying to use emojis.

The romance between Rod and Linda is as unmotivated as anything else.  He knows she's one of the murderous thugs he's trying to bring to justice, and while he might pretend to be interested in her as part of his act, he has no reason to develop real feelings for her. She, meanwhile, repeatedly calls him a square and knows that he's an untrustworthy outsider.  She might pretend to be interested in him in order to keep an eye on him, but again, there's no reason for her to actually fall for him.  They have no chemistry and nothing in common.  Why does Linda kill Jeeter to save Rod?  Does shooting a friend who trusted her really give her the kicks she craves?  Or could the writers not think of any other way to end the movie?

The entire dramatis personae feel like they exist only as players in this particular story.  We don't really know what they were doing before the movie began, and we have no idea what Rod is likely to do next.  It doesn't seem like his story is over, because it never really began.  He had no personal stake in any of this – he just drifted into contact with the gang, and seems to decide to become a police informant merely because he doesn't have any better idea what to do with himself.  T-Bird Gang was not a good movie, but Frank had his father's death to avenge and was determined to do it with or without police support.  That's a character motivation.  Rod doesn't have that.

Because the characters have no real personality or motivation, the story cannot really be about anything.  T-Bird Gang was about a quest for justice, and feels unsatisfying because it does not end in the way that theme would seem to demand.  Wild Rebels feels bleak and hollow because it doesn't even have a theme.  Movies like The Violent Years and I Accuse my Parents tried to be about why people turn to crime.  Village of the Giants tried to be about the idea of rebellion.  Wild Rebels isn't trying to be about anything at all.

If the film-makers had a goal beyond 'get the movie in the can and earn a few bucks', I think it was simply to make us feel as bad as possible.  The beginning, in which Rod gives up on racing despite the encouragement of his friends, is depressing.  The bar scene contains cringeworthy bad dancing, almost on a par with The Creeping Terror.  The bikers murder a couple of barflies for no good reason.  The gang's hideout is a ramshackle place full of paraphernalia associated with the most despicable parts of history. There are multiple musical numbers and they're all terrible.  Joel describes the experience of watching Wild Rebels as like 'being dragged through a dark tarry abyss' and that's as accurate as anything else in the ending sketch.  There's nothing fun or exciting in the whole movie.

There are a couple of places where the movie is mildly entertaining, but never in the way it wants to be.  The bit with the syringe in the bank is laughably impractical.  The movie's signage would blend right into Killer Klowns from Outer Space – there's the Swinger's Club sign that looks like it was drawn with Crayola markers, and the Citrusville First National Bank that Tom Servo describes as “printed with electrician's tape on ceiling tile”.  Tires squeal on grass.  The movie ends in the world's artsiest railing kill.  'Citrusville' is where the Man-Thing's swamp is in Marvel comics.  Each of these is a nugget of amusement, but they don't add up to enough to make the movie worth watching even on that level.

Now that I've run out of things to say about the movie, I'm going to do something I don't usually do at any length, and talk about the episode.  The riffing is mostly pretty good, with some golden lines like blessed are the grease monkeys, for they will lube and Ronald McDonald, shaking his McBooty, and the joke about the ventriloquist's dummy trapped in Rod's suitcase.  The host sketches, with Wild Rebels Cereal and Dr. Forrester trying to figure out what ee-yuh-ka-ee! means, are instant classics.  But it's also got some very uncomfortable moments in it, as Joel and the bots make fun of a character's mental handicap.

We are told that Fats suffered a head injury that left him unable to speak.  He seems to otherwise have his wits about him – he can read, as demonstrated by his drawing the others' attention to the newspaper, he can certainly drive his motorcycle competently and he seems to know what's going on.  But when he's on screen, we get lines like blue light special on chromosomes – extra ones! or riffs delivered in 'stupid' voices.  There aren't that many of these, but they're very uncomfortable to hear.  The swastika-wearing characters in the movie actually treat Fats with more respect than the peanut gallery does!

On the other hand, this was also the episode that began some proper characterization for Gypsy. Wild Rebels was when we found out that most of her processing power is occupied with running the Satellite of Love, leaving little room for anything else but occasional thoughts of Richard Basehart.  Later episodes would develop Gypsy further, and she went on to become a rare example of a comedy character who is an outspoken feminist without being a bra-burning, man-hating joke.  Although I have to wonder... if she runs the 'higher functions of the ship', what kept the satellite going before Joel started building robots?  Did he simply take the ship's existing control computer and give her a way to express herself?  Or did Dr. Forrester and Dr. Erhardt send him up to a satellite with no functional life support, so that he had to build some before he ran out of air?

Eh, it's just a show.  I should really just relax.

[ghostmartyr]

Attack on Titan Episode 30

LIVEBLOG

I have this acquaintance who seems to believe that I’ve been unfairly circumspect regarding my opinion of this (and other) episodes. I am aghast (aghast, I tell you) at this ruthless judgment of how I best enjoy my cartoons.

To defang such a callous accusation, this seemed like the way to go.

(Featuring xtreme whining, manga spoilers like whoa, more whining, and maybe a few spots of joy. Who can say. I haven’t started yet, and I’ve never done a liveblog before. It’s a surprise for everyone.)

So, Attack on Titan Episode 30, “Historia.” Let us begin!

I appreciate that it starts with the opening instead of pretending that the content outside of this week means anything.

Tag your spoilers though. Sheesh. That’s going to continue to bug me every time I watch an episode from this era.

Yes, we could have given these characters with a surprising amount of lines this season something new and exciting to do in the opening considering that we’re going to exclude them from all the group shots (they aren’t traitorous  enough for traitoring, but boy howdy are they too shady to pal up with their innocent buddies), or, or... we could just go ahead and borrow animation from six episodes in and throw it through some filters.

Complete with dramatic stills. Still. The other one can have dramatic motion. She’s going to be a main character soon, after all.

It still makes me happy that the opening spends time remembering that these two matter outside of everything else that’s going on. Their dramatic anvil of emotional trauma has meaning enough to be dropped in the first minute and thirty seconds of every episode kind enough to skip flashbacks. Most good and excellent.

I like this opening on its own, too. The first one has the epic music that goes with anything, the second has the epic music and really tired anime tropes, but this one manages to grasp that the epic music belongs with suitable animation. I don’t know how it would compare head-to-head, but this one feels like a more complete work.

But enough with the opening.

Bring me the feels that I have graciously waited four years for.

Yes, good, excellent.

...

You mock me.

I don’t understand. Is there something wrong with suddenly shifting your story’s entire focus to two girls who have yet to contribute anything relevant to the plot in a season where there are only twelve episodes and the fanbase has not been reared on monthly frustration?

Why would you want to give the filler moments to characters that people already know something about and care for? How very dare.

(I have watched this before, in case that was unclear, and I don’t remember my exact reaction to this episode opening with filler, but I do remember moments of pain as the snowy boot failed to lead to the scene I wanted it to.

You cut the flashbacks to taunt me with filler, WIT.)

However much it floats about the wrong people, the snow is really beautiful. I don’t live anywhere I get to experience snow, but I like the feeling of muted emptiness it brings an atmosphere. Things are allowed to be still and quiet.

As a bunch of young recruits are trying not to freeze to death, but it’s okay. We already know everyone we care about makes it through.

Hark, the first reference to this episode’s true purpose!

(Why couldn’t Crunchyroll show me kindness and use the K version of her name? It isn’t like it’s going to matter soon.)

I am against this filler on general principle of not getting exactly what I want at all times, but Mikasa showing awareness of what Krista gets up to is always going to blindside me with feels. Mikasa doesn’t know it, but they’ve both watched their mother die thanks to the world’s malevolence, and they both latch on to the person who comes to shape their new place in life.

Neither Eren or Ymir is especially delicate about it, but when they speak their hearts, Mikasa and Kristoria hear them like they’ve heard nothing else.

Of course, that’s all based on later things, but whenever Mikasa has a scene with Kristoria, there’s this extra weight of subtextual understanding that just sings to me.

It helps that it’s mostly one-sided. Everyone in the 104th knows Mikasa, because how could you not, but Kristoria, outside of being rescued repeatedly and bargaining for certain people’s lives, doesn’t show any special acknowledgment of Mikasa.

Meanwhile, Mikasa notices Krista. She’s not the blonde or tiny one, she’s the one who sticks with Ymir--or, in this case, stays behind with Daz.

In this section of the story, Mikasa really has no idea how alike she and Kristoria are, but I like that even before she knows, she notices. ...Or maybe more accurately, some part of the writing staff notices the similarities, so allows them to be continually linked.

...I really like Historia and Mikasa’s nonexistent irrefutable bond.

Why is the OVA that has more of it not stateside when we were given the crack one.

BUT HEY GUESS WHAT THAT’S NOT WHAT THIS EPISODE’S ABOUT!

Look, look, it’s what the episode didn’t start with.

...

...

Oh help.

Excuse me, I think my heart grew three sizes and I need to lie down thanks to unforeseen feels because oh wow, this is somehow the perfect and I don’t know how to deal.

How.

Just how.

I don’t care if it’s a translation flair or not. There’s something--heck, just help.

Not “no.” “Never.”

Kristoria is a melodramatic stubborn moppet and what even.

You’re dragging a dying body through the snow. Be less perfect.

Ymir, of course, continues to talk, going through all the reasons why a dead body is going to be involved in their night--because some titans get their energy from sunlight, and some get it from pointing out as many inconvenient truths as they can in the space of a single conversation--and Kristoria, of course, continues to be perfect.

I swear, my favorite part of half of the training scenes between these two is that Ymir spends most of her time rightfully criticizing every single thing Kristoria does, and after the initial confusion, Kristoria just refuses to listen.

She puts up a good fight, and can talk with shining eyes about Sasha choosing to be herself regardless of her word choices, and play the heroic role of still believing that there’s a way out while she’s basically in the middle of a suicide attempt, but she is so, so wrong.

This kid is so wrapped up in whatever role her head thinks she’s playing that she listens to her common sense maybe about half as much as any rational person would. Then she uses whatever’s left to try and defend herself to Ymir, because Ymir has the nerve to suggest that she’s thinking about as little as she actually is.

And good grief I just love this scene.

Because yeah, she’s about ten seconds away from being bashed over the head with how unproductive this all is, but look at that face.

The anime version is going with a lot less dead eyes here, and I should and will maybe find time to complain about that, but what it’s turned so horribly glorious is Kristoria’s overall tone when she starts telling Ymir to get lost. It’s downright mocking.

Also fake.

So, so so so fake.

Yet somehow, one of the genuine things Kristoria does as Krista. She doesn’t try to convince Ymir to save herself with a warm smile and proper actions; she plays Ymir’s own game and taunts her into wanting to leave Kristoria and Daz behind.

Kristoria’s basically given up at this point. She’s marching in the middle of a blizzard tugging a pre-corpse behind her, and I don’t think she considers her own life to be in better shape than Daz’s. They’re both dead. Game over man, game over.

Ymir’s outside of that picture, though. Ymir’s heart is still beating, and she obviously doesn’t want to stay, so why should she stick around and watch all of this misery?

This is the early version of how Historia always negotiates. Whenever there’s something she wants, she picks her arguments based on what the other person will find convincing, not necessarily her own logic for making a case.

So with Ymir, she chooses to be obnoxiously cocky about her chances.

(help.)

The manga has this byplay so much quieter, and you can see so much more of Historia from the next arc coming through, but Kristoria makes affected arrogance look damn good and why why why.

WELL NOW THAT’S RUINED, ISN’T IT.

Tough break, Kristoria. You’re going to have to earn being cool from now on.

The anime does such a good job of this moment.

What always gets me in the manga, and what carries over here, is the look of pure horror on Kristoria’s face when Ymir puts words to her thinking. When it’s said out loud, it sounds horrible. She isn’t trying to save someone’s life. She’s given up on Daz.

I don’t think the jab about giving up on herself hits that hard. Kristoria’s a suicidal mess.

But Daz, he who spends this entire scene basically being treated like a sack of potatoes by both of the people responsible for his eventual survival, is a life Kristoria cares about. I think a lot gets lost when that isn’t taken under consideration.

She doesn’t mind killing herself. But what hits is that her resignation regarding her own life has crept out and threatened someone else.

Kristoria’s been responsible for death before. It terrifies her.

Before Ymir draws it out, I honestly don’t think Kristoria has any idea what she’s doing here. Her own life has never mattered to her. Daz’s fate is pretty much inevitable. She’ll stay with him until the end, and put in the token effort, but they’re both screwed, and deep in her heart, all of the talk of third options and hope is a lie. The only thing she can do is keep Ymir from being taken by the hopelessness as well.

But giving up the way she has means that she’s hurt Daz’s chances of survival beyond what they already were. She never asks for help. She just accepts death and carries on walking straight into its embrace.

And when Ymir says it, like this is all on purpose, Kristoria immediately denies it.

She does not want Daz to die. She thought herself a witness, at worst. Not his executioner.

Like I said earlier, Kristoria just does not think about this. Her fatalist tendencies take the wheel and drive her off a cliff that wasn’t even on the route.

So when she’s made to think about what she’s doing, and when she sees, for the first time, where it’s landed her, she’s horrified. She’s a screwed up mess, but she isn’t intending to get anyone else killed.

There’s no denying that that’s where she’s sitting, though.

This is so well done. It’s... this is one of my favorite scenes in the series. Most ones involving these two are, but these moments make such strong use of silence. There’s nearly a full page of beat panels after Ymir starts this conversation, and the tension and the swirling snow stand out even better in a medium dependent on motion.

The world stops when Ymir calls Kristoria on her actions. They’re probably all going to die, and in what Kristoria is thinking will be her last moments, the deepest part of her soul is on full display, and she can’t come up with a single way to defend herself.

She’s out of hope, doesn’t have a sense of self-worth to begin with, and Ymir is confronting her with every sordid detail of the life she wants to forget.

...That part’s me skipping ahead, but look, that’s the mood. Just this lost little girl in the snow wondering how the hell she’s fallen so low.

...While Ymir continues to make it worse.

Because why not. Blizzards are a great time to chat.

(Daz ends up dependent on the two people with the some of the strongest saving-people instincts in the series, and he still nearly dies because they only know how to have honest conversations if death is nearby. That is his purpose in this scene. He is the conversation starter.)

"Hey, you’re about to kill a guy, but btw, I am totes not a thief.”

Who are you trying to impress. I mean, Kristoria, obviously, at all hours of the day, but even at this point she knows you too well to buy that you’re too morally pure to steal things when you’re starving.

Also, there’s that blizzard thing. How are you still trying to act cool.

Oh Ymir...

That ability to instantly empathize and decide a course of action based on those feelings is a little scary, really. Because she knows the story, this girl she’s never met sends a hook through her heart, and suddenly she’s in the military.

Her gift of perception is what makes her so fun when she’s around other characters, but combined with her smarts and impulsiveness... she’s good at finding just enough rope to hang herself with.

...Yeah, meanwhile there’s you.

...

Fine, let’s be real, it’s both of you.

These two are so innocent that it physically pains me.

There is some humor in Ymir resorting to blatant lies to cover up having *~feelings~* in a conversation largely about being true to yourself (Ymir and Historia are both human disasters whose emotional maturity lingers somewhere around toddler level), especially when it’s in response to the person lying about her entire identity posing an honest question, but mainly, oh no.

Like.

No.

Ymir and Kristoria are having this dramatic conversation in the middle of a blizzard while some guy dies at their feet. They are working the tension like it’s going out of style, and they aren’t going to stop anytime soon.

They’re reaching Batman levels of extra angst.

...Holy crap, Historia’s Batman.

No no no, listen, see, she’s got the blue blood, and she’s got the piles of influence, she has the tortured dark loneliness, she watches her parents die in front of her (admittedly, one has help), AND SHE ADOPTS SCORES OF ORPHANS. HISTORIA REISS IS THE ONE TRUE BATMAN FIGHT ME.

But then Kristoria swoops in, mid-suicide attempt, and goes all angelic shiny eyes, because oh my gosh, friend??!!

She is the epitome of a kicked puppy, and it is adorable.

Unbelievably tragic, but. That is a puppy expression. Over friendship.

While Ymir tries to pretend she’s too cool to want any of that.

When she’s just as bad.

She’s not the one dragging someone’s body through the snow out of a warped sense of self-hatred and heroism only to go all doki doki over the possibility of someone wanting her as a friend, oh no.

She just joins the military because she hears a story about some girl and she can relate.

I know the episode isn’t there yet, and since we’ve been graciously spared a flashback start, it might be hard to remember. But for the sake of perspective:

Ymir is standing on top of a collapsing tower surrounded by titans entirely because she’s so desperate for human connection that she ran off looking for some girl whose first name she didn’t even know because she thought they had something in common.

THIS IS THE PERSON WHO HAS THE NERVE TO PLAY TSUNDERE ABOUT WANTING FRIENDS.

TO REVIEW.

THIS IS WHAT COMES OUT OF HER MOUTH

LITERALLY ONE MINUTE AFTER SHE SAYS THIS

“HI I’M YMIR AND I WEAR METAPHORICAL REINCARNATION BETTER THAN YOU, SEE HOW PRETTY MY BLACK AND BLUE DRESS IS NEXT TO YOUR SILLY WHITE AND GOLD ONE.”

This is a very mature conversation between two people who have been through too much and come out incredibly damaged.

It’s also two teenagers yelling at each other in the middle of a blizzard.

For instance, this is a tragic statement about Kristoria’s emotional trauma.

It also sounds vaguely like Ymir is encouraging murder.

It might not sound funny now, but give it time. Around the arc that ends with Historia killing her father, this becomes utterly hilarious.

And this... this will always hit hard.

Kristoria’s my favorite character, and that’s been the case since I first saw her. This is the arc that gives substance to that fondness, and this moment in particular is one of the most brutally cool parts of Kristoria.

She isn’t just trying to kill herself. She joins the military. She conducts herself admirably. She’s a good enough soldier to earn a spot in the top ten, even if that should more correctly be the top eleven.

Yeah, she doesn’t care about herself. Her care for others is also debatable.

But she isn’t just stumbling her way towards the quickest end. She keeps her head up and finds a way to die that looks appropriate from every angle, and marches toward it. If she had died here, even though that’s exactly her plan, and staying alive isn’t something she’s trying too hard at, she would have died on her feet, still stubbornly clinging to the heroic ideal she wants to decorate herself with.

Krista might be a fake hero, but Kristoria goes the extra mile even when she’s completely out of heart to give.

That unholy stubbornness is headed the exact wrong direction here, but it is such a cool character trait.

Ymir and Kristoria’s relationship is really just this long debate over which one of them is better at winning arguments.

I also appreciate that Ymir’s winning argument, in this case, involves throwing people off cliffs.

Sure, she’s right.

But even without titan powers I can totally see her suggesting throwing someone off a cliff as a valid way to keep them alive if it meant finding a way to prove Kristoria wrong in this scene.

She starts out wanting Kristoria to leave Daz behind. Then it turns into a philosophical showdown, and suddenly, nope, there is a way for all of us to live, guess what Krista, YOU ARE WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING FOREVER.

(Love yourself.)

...Whatever the anime does wrong, now and in the future, I don’t think I will ever be able to deny the extreme gratitude I feel towards whoever lovingly detailed Ymir picking up a kicking Kristoria and throwing her down a hill and into a tree.

Best love interests ever.

You three still aren’t supposed to be here, but I begrudgingly appreciate that even when Eren finds Krista creepy, he’s the kind of righteous dude who will do whatever he can for his crew, and of course Mikasa and Armin won’t ever let him do it alone.

Fine, I like the filler this episode.

“Hello, we are also here, and have absolutely no ulterior motive to making sure that Krista is still breathing. Look at how helpful and great we are.”

“We’re just good people who love our friends and need more screentime.”

For a good time, count how many times Krista is mentioned by name compared to Daz and Ymir.

You know, I feel like the full context of what happens here deserves more words.

Ymir literally jumps off a cliff to win an argument with her girlfriend, leaving said girlfriend smacked against a tree and under a pile of snow in the middle of a blizzard, all with the full expectation that Kristoria is going to be just dandy.

AND SHE’S RIGHT.

Kristoria gets a front row seat to two people she sort of wants alive diving off a cliff, and then gets to wander through the wilderness in the dead of night, blizzard raging, entirely by herself.

Just like Ymir knew she would.

...

Just because it’s a terrible plan doesn’t mean I can’t find her faith heartwarming, shut up.

I feel like this screencap accurately captures the Ymir experience in its entirety.

...I always forget how tiny Historia is.

She is incredibly tiny.

I don’t have a comment.

I just feel something in my chest.

I think it is pain.

The whimpering noises coming from somewhere support this theory.

This level of physical affection is not in the manga version help it doesn’t even make sense for their personal bubbles to be ignored like this where they’re at right now it’s just done to make a smooth transition cut so how dare you make me feel things.

Stop.

Look, see, we have a perfectly good thing here where even the idea of living under her real name makes Kristoria gasp fearfully, and that is a slice of tension that I should be able to dig my teeth into and enjoy,

BUT INSTEAD WE’RE HERE, DOING THIS!

My heart is on the floor yet somehow still doing things to me and I have complaints.

Oh good, this is better.

...Does Ymir just. enjoy jumping off high places?

This is also some epic music to get the party started.

LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR

Speaking critically for a moment, as much as I dig the music once we’re back from the Information for Public Disclosure, I’m really disappointed in the blocking for Ymir’s initial attack on the titans.

It lasts about ten seconds, so wow get over it, but they go with more long shots than swift cuts for those ten seconds. Considering her fighting style, it feels like the wrong call. It’s impressive to watch how swiftly she’s moving from titan to titan, but some of the brutal strength of the violence is missing. Chomp, nom, move on. There are a few good shots mixed in, but the flow of the scene feels like it could have been way more intense if they’d kept close to Ymir.

Loving that music, though.

Pictured: Kristoria nearly falling from her death because she hasn’t moved a single inch since trying to reach out and stop Ymir from jumping off yet another high surface.

So. Cause of death?

Could not stop staring at Ymir.

Okay.

...I’ve been good. Very good, arguably. If Studio WIT wants to take a few liberties with micro expressions, that’s their call, and they even made one really unfair thing out of it, so I shouldn’t complain too loudly.

...

Yeah, fuck it.

SHE DOES NOT SMILE IN THIS PANEL OF THE MANGA. VERY MUCH THE OPPOSITE, AND THAT WAS WITH SIGNIFICANT LESS DAMAGE TO HER LEG.

YOU ALSO FAILED TO DEPICT CONNIE’S PANICKED STILL OF REACHING OUT WITH BOTH ARMS TO TRY AND CATCH HER. IT IS PRECIOUS AND ADORABLE AND YOU ARE DEAD TO ME.

Bertolt’s “wtf” expression is a gem, though.

This is Kristoria’s most vivid recollection of three years of friendship with Ymir.

Bless these two.

Only two people on island with knowledge of history past a hundred years ago shocked when the person named Ymir has a link to Titans.

Bertolt really does have magnificent background expressions.

I. feel personally victimized by this episode.

What always gets me about this section of Utgard is how disturbed Kristoria starts out by... all of this. It’s all scary stuff, everyone up safe on the tower is talking about how suspicious everything is, and Kristoria’s a bit of an anxious mess to begin with when it comes to life.

You can see so easily how someone who’s never had a reason to trust anybody could have trouble trusting the motives of a secret like this, and the environment is just waiting to tighten its hold on all of her insecurities.

But Ymir is still Ymir.

Even before the pieces fully snap together, and Kristoria starts breaking out of her anxious shell, she can’t watch Ymir in danger and not worry. She can’t turn off caring for her friend.

And then we just. just.

Oh help they added a montage.

This should not be allowed at all what even why are you doing this.

Butting heads and marriage proposals. And awkward drinking experiences.

That’s what Kristoria holds dear to her heart when she thinks of Ymir.

I’m fine. Fine fine fine. Fine.

Help me I love this episode.

I do not have words. They are not found. This world was not meant to waste moments talking about scenes like this when they’re there to be enjoyed. There is no greater high than Kristoria shouting off encouragement about property destruction and generally showing her deep, abiding love for Ymir by calling her an irredeemable jackass while she nobly tries to save them all at her expense.

Then WIT goes ahead and brings me back to earth when it decides to cut my favorite smile altogether. While I’m grateful for the return of my ability to make words instead of distressed noises, why. You gave the filler its dear sweet time to do whatever it felt like, and now we’re left without an animated form of the bestest smile ever.

Minus bazillion points.

Oh wait.

Waaait.

You. can’t just.

Ow?

Ahaha oh, but this is entirely the anime’s fault and ow. That... that slow hesitance of her feet before they just start going. Ymir’s being torn to shreds, and there are titans everywhere, but running to her side is such a basic instinct for Kristoria that she just... goes.

The manga captures that sense too, but the boots. That tiny little delay before she bolts.

How are you allowed.

Oh yeah, and here we have Ymir’s eyes opening. Entirely because Kristoria’s calling out to her. That’s good. That’s okay. Yeah.

If I didn’t have things to complain about like WIT turning Kristoria’s kindly request that a titan wait on eating her into the anime version of thought bubbles (WHICH SHE SHOULD NOT HAVE YET), I don’t know what I’d do.

Mikasa’s auditions for the role of Kristoria’s personal white knight just make me really happy.

Smiling Erens would, except.

Well.

Sorry about your life, kid.

....Yours too, but, uh.

Um.

...oh wow.

This can’t be how they’re supposed to spend their budget. but. This is so amazingly beautiful. The lighting is so, so soft, and Historia’s voice when she tells Ymir’s her name is one of the most gentle utterances you will ever hear on this show.

You have this episode full of teenagers yelling and being scared and making poor decisions, and so much pain, and so much violence and passion. Then the morning sun rises, and all that’s left is this tender moment between two people who love each other.

And Ymir, battered and bloody, smiling at the sound of Historia’s name.

More care than I’d dared to hope for goes into the final scene, and... yeah, wow. Thanks for existing.

So.

That’s it.

Episode over.

On the whole, I like the manga version better thanks to a few tiny details that don’t matter to anyone but me, but this is... extraordinary, and I am so glad that they were willing to take their time and let it flourish into everything it’s meant to be. Damn.

I can’t see myself doing one of these again, but it definitely had its moments (this episode hurts me), and I hope some enjoyment can be had from the transcript. Thanks for following along.

[bothsandneithers]

Day 2775

To arrive at this particular gas station: Take i-25 past Ikea, through Castle Rock, Colorado Springs and Pueblo, and then turn right onto the old i-25 to Walsenburg. Here, like in most other gas stations and grocery stores in Colorado, you can now purchase full-strength beer -- as opposed to the prohibition era “three-two beer” (3.2% alcohol by weight), which used to be the only permissible beer sold outside of liquor stores. But, while the change in legislation was state-wide, not all gas stations carry a particular Apricot Ale beer that I like.

The guy behind the cash register reacted similarly when he saw it, “I love this stuff! I used to buy it in Denver!”

“Yeah! That’s where I’m coming from!” I said, with enthusiasm that surprised me. Though this trip wasn’t motivated by a recent fallout with the city of Denver, a planned three days of solitude happened to dovetail nicely with mounting disappointment of the recent election.

A few years before state lawmakers updated the alcohol laws in Colorado, Denver implemented an “urban camping ban” that prohibits tarps, sleeping bags and tents in public -- in effect, criminalizing someone who puts a blanket over themselves trying to stay warm, and in turn, making it illegal to experience homelessness.

That sounds cruel. I want to think that most people I know would agree.

However, most residents didn’t vote to repeal the ordinance when they had the opportunity to do so this month. Instead, only 19% of us did, making me wonder: Do a small number of us just conceptualize human rights differently than the rest?

It is also worth noting that the mayor that signed the ordinance into law has credible accusations of sexual harassment against him, but still managed to receive more votes than any other candidate in this present election.

It seems, then, that the voters of Denver, though critical towards the national political landscape, recalibrated their moral code for which they hold laws and politicians to at a local level. And, I’m not shy to decry this hypocrisy in public places.

One such locale in which I rebuked the “classist rhetoric” of supporting the urban camping ban was while standing in the vestibule of the Whole Foods, a place that has its own classist implications, ranging from the upscale prices (preventing many from being able to afford its food) to the powerful, seemingly above-the-law conglomerate owning it (which paid no federal income taxes in 2018, for example). This juxtaposition of not affording food and being too big to fail nicely signifies late stage capitalism, where people have too little and corporations have too much. Yet, I still choose to spend my money there, in turn doing my part in sustaining the mechanisms that spur on inequality.

Even though my friend graciously did not call me out on my unfortunate setting for my diatribe, the discomfort felt in our silence would have been eased by someone coming onto the intercom and saying, “HEY! You’re part of it!” Overturning money tables while simultaneously making a Venmo request for Matthew to pay you back for lunch dampens the cause: Let’s fix you, as long as the solution ensures that I still have mine.

And with that, I shirked out of town with my frustration and complicitness in tow.

After you stop at the gas station in Walsenburg, you drive for a little while and you get to the vistas of the Spanish Peaks, which takes you over a friendly mountain pass, and on the descent you turn left instead of going straight. As you continue on the narrow and hilly road, the mountains are mostly in the rear view mirror, with some smaller hills in the periphery. Silhouettes of canyons and the desert are in the foreground, but it’s still green near the Rio Grande, and its affiliate rivers and streams.

And that’s where I stayed, to inhale fiction and sleep without listening to the sounds of ongoing traffic or thinking about bizarre moral arguments for how those without homes should live, and how much harassment is a negligible amount.

What I didn’t expect, but what always ends up being a terrifying treat, was a pack, or packs, of yelping coyotes.

If you are anything like me, this is how you might interpret the event: It is always disorienting when you first hear these cries, as they jolt you out of sleep. It sounds like a middle school slumber party gone wrong -- as if twelve children are screaming as they are running out of a house on fire. But then there is a shift in perception, and these panicked screams no longer seem to be coming from humans, but retain a fuller, non-human quality, which has been described as all of the following: “a bark, flat howl, yip, yipe, short howl, warble, laugh, irregular howl, scream, and gargle.” And, whatever the creatures may be, they are no longer a herd of victims, but rather a gang of perpetrators.

Finally, things begin to make sense, and you realize that these sounds are probably coming from coyotes. Now, they are no longer villains, but merely communicating in a way that is unusual but admittedly very effective. Unwittingly, you are brought into a moment of nature, in which you feel small and vulnerable, and part of some larger ecosystem that you are otherwise and unfortunately, completely out of tune with.

If someone asked you if there were three coyotes or fifteen, you might not be able to accurately discern the count. And there’s research to back it up: There tends to be a misperception that coyotes are more abundant than they actually are [1].

I actually didn’t drink any of the beer that I bought. Instead, it was a strange, affectatious burden that I carried around with me, keeping it in a cooler with a bag of ice that was slowly melting. But I wished that the ice would melt a lot faster, when I returned to my car, waterless, from a desert trail run.

I poked a tiny hole in the bag of ice, and tried to center it into my empty water bottle to collect what pooled water there was. When a handful of droplets were successfully transferred out of the bag, I would then smash the plastic bottle into my dust soaked face and then repeated the process. I imagined that I looked desperate, and a couple in a passing car confirmed it. They gently pulled up next to me. “Um, can we offer you some water?” The woman asked, as she grabbed a half-empty gallon of water from her back seat. “I think your water will be much colder, but you can have this water right now.”

Without first checking with the social conventions, I took her water and poured it into my smashed bottle. “Thank you so much!” I quipped, “I feel as if I am in one of those comics -- with the guy who is always stranded on the island -- and all he has is an ice block that won’t melt!”

What?

The car of kind strangers generously smiled, but my imagined scenario is not cartoon material, even if a stranded man on an island is a common backdrop in The New Yorker. It is not funny. Ice melts.

It's okay that I'm not always funny. For the most part, I have actually grown comfortable with some amount of distance between between my perceptions and reality: my jokes aren’t always good and the number of coyotes are difficult to estimate when you can’t see them. But, every once in a while, I am still stunned -- floored, really -- when my reality clashes with those around me, especially when we are used to being floored together, in unison against whatever state, group or movement that is collectively disappointing us.

I don’t know what to do about this. But I do know that I should have offered the kind strangers beer as a token of gratitude; it’s no secret that I had more than I needed. But I didn’t. I was too busy drinking down what was now mine.

https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1411&context=hwi ↩

Amy

[fictionerd]

Good to see you, friends!

Dammit I fall behind a week on this series, and as though in revenge it continues to reduce its suck-factor. Still not going to protect your main couple from the nicknames, 3DK. I still haven’t forgiven you for season one!

Synopsis: We open on Blue Idiot: Tsutsui and my boy Ito working late to ensure their class is ready for the festival. It seems pretty clear they’ve been ditched with all the work when they begin to hear the sounds of the school ghosts coming out to play. 

[Epic Pause]

Nah! Of course not. It’s just Ishino coming to the rescue with a bunch of their classmates as cavalry so they can be sure the job gets done. While everyone starts pitching in with getting their maid cafe ready. 

Backstory Time: In my fervor and frustration last week I completely glossed over that this is what they were doing for the festival. At Ishino’s suggestion no less.

Blue Idiot’s shock at having his class actually come to help him, (even if it was due to some one else’s urging) leads him to say. “What is this. It feels like I’m having the time of my life.” Woah, back the HIFL up there, Blue Idiot. If you enjoy these “normie” events too much you might just start to realize that normal is relative, and just because you’re a massive nerd who spends all his time either inhaling media, writing about it online, or guarding a library in a strange outer knowledge dimension doesn’t mean you’re any better or even different from these so-called “normal” people.

Wait? What was I saying again?

Right! The Culture Festival. The day of the festival comes and we get to see the grand opening of Class 3-A’s Maid Cafe. It’s so good to see they got all the prep work done. So I guess we’ll be spending more time with Ishino huh? I mean she is the only female character in the main cast who’s actually in 3-aaaaaaaah....

Ahem! I... Wow. I mean it’s good to see the Nekomimi ears get one last hurrah, but DAMN! Look I know that Ayado helped you train for the whole Maid Cafe thing in the last episode, but I didn’t think you would PERSONALLY step into the fray, Ito. I don’t know what to say aside from mah Boi’s making this look good.

Oh, don’t give me that look, Ishino! I’m getting to your arc. In fact why don’t I cover it right now? Ishino’s bit in this episode is her feeling like she’s second fiddle at best and absolutely worthless at worst. She’s entered into the Beauty Contest but doesn’t have any votes aside from her own. She gets outshone at the maid cafe by Ito. THIS ASSHOLE once again does everything in his power to push her away from him. At least until he comes across her alone in the hallway. She’s obviously feeling a bit fragile because of the multiple hits her self-image has taken today, and he offers her some sympathy and comfort even going so far as to vote for her in the beauty contest. A token gesture, but not entirely without meaning. He tells her to hang in there and that’s all we get from these two this episode.

Note: This touching display of sympathy is nice and all, but I’m always going to refer to him as THIS ASSHOLE at least once each time he’s featured because of the stunt he pulled with his little sister when he was introduced in season one. You don’t just live that shit down without SHOWING US HIM MAKING AMENDS FOR IT! And NO! I don’t mean making amends to Blue Idiot. I mean making amends to his sister WHO HE USED TO STAGE THE LOLICON ACCUSATIONS AGAINST BLUE IDIOT!

So back to current events in the show. The Beauty contest takes place. After preliminary voting of course Pink Idiot is in the finals alongside Brunette Nobody? I dunno she’s a character who as far as I can tell was introduced last episode as a sort of “Mean Girls” type who buys all the rumors about Pink Idiot wholesale. So Brunette Nobody gets up on stage and puts on this disgustingly saccharine cute-girl routine and wows the crowd, then Pink idiot follows up. She starts out trying to mimic the high-pitched girly-girl schtick but quickly drops it saying that she just can’t keep it up. Then she says that she honestly doesn’t see the point in judging each other based on the surface layer. How if she hasn’t ever spoken to you she doesn’t care about what you think of her, and how despite the rumors she has a group of friends who’ve seen past them and so long as they care about her that’s enough.

It’s all very touching and everything, but it displays a level of maturity and togetherness that seems to toggle on and off in Blue and Pink Idiot throughout the series. So, you wanna know the payoff for Blue Idiot being the head judge? He gets the deciding vote on who wins, and even though he wants to give it to Pink Idiot he knows that she doesn’t want to win and so hands it to Brunette Nobody. That’s it. That’s all there is. 

Honestly I think it was entirely pointless to have him be the head judge at all. There was no sneaky nonsense going in the background. If you really wanted him to have the tie-breaker vote then you could have contrived a “Blue Idiot! You’re the only one who hasn’t voted for the contest! Who you gonna pick!?” and reveal that Pink Idiot and Brunette Nobody were tied. It just feels like there could have been more done with it is all I’m saying.

Wait... What am I saying? I WANT to give the idiot couple more screentime and importance? Nevermind! Ignore everything I just said this was fine. Everything is absolutely fine!

Oh, what’s this? Ito finds Ayado getting ready to haul some garbage to the bonfire? He offers to help and their hands touch!? This gets Ayado flying into Brown Idiot mode and she goes running off to try and calm down. See, she’s out of sorts because she’s started developing feelings for Ito in spite of her “romance fatigue” mentioned last episode. We actually got to see her react to cross-play Ito earlier in the ep where she legit mistakes him for a girl at first and then when she overhears he’s doing this because of her Made Cafe Bootcamp she tries to sneak away. This utterly fails, but she gets bailed out by her shift at her class’s stand coming up.

Back to current events: Ito follows after her because he’s worried and overhears her thinking aloud about how it’s foolish for her to feel this way after rejecting him. She tries to brush it aside, but he just quietly walks up and holds her hand in what is, to me at least, a pretty heart-wrenching scene. He says, “I don’t care if it’s a misunderstanding or an illusion or what if touching you like this...”

Dammit and now Hamilton is creeping into my head. Particularly the song Helpless, because boy are both of these kids fitting that mood perfectly right now.

Thoughts: So... This is a week late. I’m sorry, but there were some... “complications” in the Library. See rebooting my story-side continuity left behind a few bits of detritus floating around that I needed to partition off until we actually get the Library’s story up and running again. 

As for thoughts on the episode itself: I quite enjoyed it. It helps, naturally, that the series is giving me everything I was pissed about being denied last season. A feeling that this is more about a social group than just Blue and Pink Idiot’s rocky relationship. It’s nice to see some meaningful development to characters who were mostly furniture in season one. I want more of this. So long as the show keeps giving it to me I’ll have nice things to say in addition to viciously mocking their power-couple.

Until next post (Which will probably be episode three of this tomorrow) keep talking fiction, friends. I’ll see you soon.

[swipestream]

The Mad Max/Id’s Rage Ripoff Conundrum!

This week I discovered something so absolutely amazing, so utterly startling, that I was compelled by my sheer amazement to share it here, with you my loyal readers:

The much ballyhooed 2015 Mad Max video game, a sorta-but-not-really movie tie in for Mad Max: Fury Road, by (not so) famed developer Avalanche Studios, makers of Just Cause 2, is utterly and totally ripped off from Id Software’s disappointing 2011 game Rage.

WAIT!

Before you get all persnickety about that whole “ripped off” thing, let me explain that I do not consider this to, of necessity, be an insult. To quote one of our foremost modern intellectuals, myself:

“‘Good artists borrow; great artists steal.’ In other words, the only defense against accusations of ripping something off is to make something so good, the point is moot. Quality justifies its own existence.” — Daddy Warpig

Quality justifies its own existence. Absolutely true. So, two questions become pertinent:

1. Did Mad Max really rip off Rage?

2. If it did, is it such a great video game that the entire point is moot?

I pre-ordered Rage, back in the day, and never finished the game. I always wanted to, but never quite got back to it—there was always something better to play. Then, just last week, Bethesda released two trailers for the sequel, imaginatively titled Rage 2, and I thought, “Eh. Might as well finish the first before the second comes out.” So I did, and what I discovered was astounding:

Rage is a hybrid shooting/driving open world game, set entirely in a desert badlands: rocky canyons, blasted and dusty open ground, and nary a green, growing thing anywhere. The wastes are dotted with the remnants of pre-cataclysm industrial complexes: catwalks, giant containers, blasted buildings. Oh, and there’s also a landlocked cargo ship in one area, cut in two by some catastrophe, its cargo containers spilling out.

Bad guys in combat-modded cars drive around the wasteland, shooting the crap out of anything passing through their territory, including (and primarily) you. Fortunately, you can return the favor. Run them off the road, shoot them with guns, shoot them with rockets: it’s a Car Wars world out there, and you’re in the gunner’s seat. (At least after the first driving mission, when you actually get some bullets.) There’s even combat towers you can ram to bring down, cutting the bandits’ fire support.

There’s also mutants, massive mutants, massive and resistant-to-bullets mutants, super-massive mutants, and a bunch of human enemies. You can enjoy scenic mission hubs (cheerfully decorated in stereotypical post-apocalypse chic) at which you can pick up missions from quest givers, said missions usually requiring you to drive to some location, disembark, and journey through a mostly-linear series of corridors, dispatching enemies with extreme prejudice.

Rage has a crafting system, naturally, various combat mods for the several cars you can acquire, multiple games of chance, and meteor storms which drop loot. You can take on several gangs in their home bases, killing ever tougher opponents until you face the gang boss and straight beat him down. There’s non-combat races, combat races, and a gladiatorial TV show which lets you shoot mutants for dollars. There’s even a mission which requires you to blow up a great big door before you can progress to the next area.

If you’ve played Mad Max, most of those elements will sound hauntingly familiar. Almost exactly. Here’s the difference, however: Everything Mad Max did right, Rage did mostly wrong.

Rage is a disjointed experience. The driving isn’t quite good enough, the overworld too cramped (being a series of narrow corridors, instead of Mad Max’s expansive vistas), and the shift from hub world traversal, to wastelands driving, to corridor-centric FPS-ing is jarring and inelegant. The game feels like a bunch of almost-completed parts, hastily thrown into a box with only a token effort to make them fit together, then sold as-is. Mad Max, on the other hand, felt like it had been hand-crafted for maximum enjoyability. (Up until that one race in the final boss area that most people don’t get past. Screw that race, and the people who designed it.)

More, Rage was, for the most part, a fairly generic post-apocalyptic game with stereotypical dun and drab visuals, lacking the visual or setting flair of Borderlands and Fallout 3 (wingsticks, the one iconic weapon in the game, being excepted). Mad Max, OTOH, had style to spare. (To be fair to Bethesda, they look to be correcting this for the sequel, at least if the trailers are any guide.)

Mad Max also benefitted from being designed for a new generation of consoles, with more memory, faster CPU’s and GPU’s, and more storage space. (Rage shipped on three DVD’s, which is shocking considering how short and shallow the game really is.) Just on visuals alone, the designers of Mad Max used the improved hardware to good effect. Plus, the beefier hardware allowed Mad Max to add several other gameplay elements (like dudes on foot in the wastelands, guys who could jump onto your car from the next, fantastic and impressive lightning-filled sand storms, and so forth) and have bigger and more visually impressive areas than Rage.

Mad Max is truly an excellent game, well-polished and well-designed. The missions are mostly great, the characters memorable (which Rage’s are not), and the guy who hangs out to repair your car is a hoot. In a straight-up comparison, Mad Max wins hands down.

So was Mad Max ripped off? To a certain extent, almost certainly. It was John Carmack’s last game at Id, and scored only lukewarm sales. Most gamers considered it a disappointment. Anybody working in games development would know Carmack—he straight-up invented the First Person Shooter genre—and would have been familiar with Rage. Frankly, I’ve heard of worse ideas than “This game could have been great, but wasn’t, so let’s make something very similar but do it right.” And the developers of Mad Max did it right.

Which is why, despite having duplicated so many elements from Rage, Mad Max is remembered as a great game and not a lifeless copy. It is a quality game, and quality justifies its own existence.

Jasyn Jones, better known as Daddy Warpig, is a host on the Geek Gab podcast, a regular on the Superversive SF livestreams, and blogs at Daddy Warpig’s House of Geekery. Check him out on Twitter.

The Mad Max/Id’s Rage Ripoff Conundrum! published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames