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punz4lyfe · 4 years ago

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Wasted Plotential: Journeys Episode 68 (Part 2)

Part 2: Gary and the Moltres Battle

Picking off where the last part ended up on, the episode begins with Ash and Goh searching around the woods for Infernape. As the two call out his name, Staraptor soars through and Buizel uses the rivers to search at areas far off from his trainer. As they search, Goh remarks how impossible it’s gonna be to find Infernape in such a dense forest without any signs, but Ash reassures him that they can do it. He also admits he isn’t too surprised of Infernape continuing to train by himself, stating how much battling means to the Pokemon while flashbacking to some of Infernape’s most proudest battles, such as Candice’s Abomasnow and Volkner’s Luxray.

After recalling those moments, Ash meets up with Staraptor and Buizel who both confirm their lack of signs for their former comrade. Thanking them for their efforts, Ash returns them into their Pokeballs so they could rest up and that’s when Goh notices a nearby Pidgeotto. Just like in the original episode, Goh fails to capture it, as well as the Onix encountered afterwards, leading to two to get saved by Gary and his Blastoise.

Gary’s interactions with Ash and Goh in the og episode were honestly REALLY good, and so for the sake of padding out runtime, events of the episode will play out as they did in the original while expanding a bit more on the dialogue. For example, perhaps Gary could point out Goh’s flaw of recklessly throwing Pokeballs at Pokemon without weakening them first. While Goh would state that his approach has been successful most of the time, Gary would rebuttal that maybe he’s just been lucky this whole time. Or when talking about Project Mew, Gary could mention some of his past missions to fill up Goh’s own interest more. Maybe, as a reference to Goh’s Suicune, Gary could have had encounters with Entei, Raikou, and a different Suicune, stating he had to retrieve samples of Entei’s fire, Raikou’s electricity (it’s pokemon dont question it), and Suicune’s water in order to pass. Additionally, prior to this mission, he’s also succeeded in gaining feathers from an Articuno and Zapdos. Of course, as he explains what he’s done so far, Ash will be impressed and state how proud and happy he is for Gary for being able to take part in such experiences, sparking up Goh’s jealousy even further.

As the three make their way to the mountain where Moltres and Infernape are up, Goh, due to his lackluster physique compared to Ash and Gary, accidentally winds falling in a river and risking him and Grookey falling down a waterfall. Ash prepares to send out Buizel to rescue them, but Gary insists to leave it to Blastoise due to his stronger and bulkier body. As Blastoise makes his way towards Gary and Grookey, the two end up falling over, but Blastoise leaps off and catches them in time before he starts to swim UP the waterfall to get them all back to safety. The rescue is a success and the plot moves on.

Again, things play out the same way at the peak, but when Ash and Infernape reunite, we get a more wholesome-ish hug with Ash happily spinning Infernape around, just as they hugged after their fight against Volkner. Ash also formally introduces Infernape to Goh and Grookey, with the latter having a huge admiration for the taller, stronger, more experienced primate as Infernape pets his head in a friendly manner.

And that, my friends, is when Moltres appears. Instead of everyone taking turns for no good reason, the encounter is instantly declared a Raid Battle (just as Ash, Goh, and Team Rocket did with Zapdos), with Ash using Infernape, Goh sending out Cinderace, and Gary sending out Blastoise. At the beginning, all three of them rely on ranged attacks to keep a safe distance, but Moltres’ speed proves near-impossible to land a good hit as it moves in closer to the three mons, forcing them to rely on physical moves. As a demonstration of Infernape’s greater power compared Cinderace’s, when Cinderace tries to attack Moltres with a Blaze Kick, it gets effortlessly blocked, but then Infernape goes in for a Mach Punch and actually does some damage to it, which slightly annoys Cinderace. Additionally, Cinderace attempts to block an incoming Air Slash with Pyro Ball, but that fails and causes him to get badly hurt. Moltres then tries another Air Slash to finish Cinderace off, but Infernape quickly steps in between the attack and Cinderace to intercept it with Flamethrower, this time completely cancelling it.

Despite this, Cinderace finds himself too exhausted to get up, forcing Goh to. withdraw from the Raid Battle as he brings Cinderace out of the battlefield for his safety. After performing more or less the same way he did in the original episode, Blastoise attempts to take down Moltres with Hydro Cannon (because why the fuck would nerf that down to Water Pulse while Infernape’s Sinnoh moveset remained the same?!), but Moltres avoids the attack and, because of Blastoise needing to recharge and already being in a fatigued state from rescuing Goh and Grookey, takes down the Water-type with Air Slash, making Blastoise’s defeat a little less contrived and a little less bullshit. Gary recalls Blastoise and, desperate to succeed in his mission, prepares to send out Electivire while offering Goh to borrow his Umbreon, but Ash requests for them not to, knowing how much this battle means to Infernape and that he believes they will finish the job for Gary’s sake. Understanding Ash’s reasoning, Gary withdraws, as well as Goh after he retrieves a supportive look from Grookey, who also wants to see his new idol win by himself.

So now it’s just Infernape against Moltres. While careful to avoid any Air Slashes, Ash and Infernape deliberately rush in to take potshots while occasionally managing to deal in good hits with Flare Blitz, Flamethrower, and Mach Punch. They also use Dig to either avoid powerful blows or use the debris to eliminate a Fire Spin. However, Gary and Goh are confused why Ash and Infernape are now behaving more recklessly, but then Gary soon realizes what the two are trying to do. Just after Goh asks him on what he means by that, his attention is instantly taken back to Infernape when they see him get hit by a powerful Burn Up attack, taking away Moltres’ Fire-typing.

However, Infernape is not done yet. This is exactly where he and Ash wanted to land at. His body glows red. He gets back to his feet. And with a roar of pride and power, Infernape’s head flame ignites to severe proportions. Just as Gary notes; Infernape’s Blaze has been activated, shocking Goh and Cinderace as Grookey cheers loudly for Infernape, as does Pikachu nearby Ash. Ash smirks confidently before he asks Infernape if he’s ready to end this. Infernape replies with another roar and Ash tells him to use Flamethrower. Moltres attempts to cancel it with Fire Spin, but Infernape’s flame only eats up Moltres’ before landing its mark. Moltres quickly flies back up and uses Fire Spin again, this time working as Infernape slowly takes damage from the surrounding flames. With its opponent trapped, Moltres uses Air Slash to finish up, but on Ash’s command, Infernape simply uses a rapid series of Mach Punch to block every single air... wave... slash... thing.

And now it’s time to end things. Ash tells Infernape to use Flare Blitz and Infernape uses his heightened head flame to absorb Moltres’ Fire Spin, adding it to his own power, and takes off towards the legendary bird as a humongous fire ball of rage. The attacks hit down on, causing a huge explosion that heavily damages Moltres and causes it to drop a feather, which Gary notices. Now realizing it stands no chance against Infernape, Moltres uses Burn Up again to briefly light the area and disorientate everyone else on the mountain before taking off. But despite Moltres’ retreat, Infernape feels completely satisfied from the fight, as it shows with a victorious Flamethrower to the air. Blaze then deactivates, but Ash catches Infernape before he could collapse, telling him how proud he is and that he practically won due to Moltres’ retreating. Grookey then quickly approaches Infernape with sparkly eyes full of admiration with Goh and Cinderace joining them as the former supports Ash’s statement on Infernape’s technical victory. Gary retrieves the Moltres feather, passes his mission, and they all return to the lab.

Once again, events and dialogue play out the same only with Tracey involved as well. Gary leaves, Goh decides to join Project Mew, and now, Ash tells his current team that it’s time to go back to Cerise’s, so they all say goodbye to their new friends. Dragonite tearfully hugs Charizard, who returns the gesture while lightly patting his back with a sympathetic expression. Gengar shares one last laugh with Glalie. Lucario shakes hands with Sceptile. Dracovish happily gets hugged by Totodile and Gible. And Sirfetch’d... ends up getting attacked by Bayleef’s Vine Whip and Oshawott’s Razor Shell as revenge for preventing from hugging Ash earlier.

The episode ends with Goh using his Rotom Phone to take an updated version of Best Wishes final group photo, with Ash and Pikachu sitting at the middle while surrounded by all of his Pokemon at Oak’s lab and his current team. Special notices go to Infernape sitting next to Ash, one arm wrapped around shoulder and giving a thumbs up with the other hand, Lucario and Sceptile standing back-to-back against each other with crossed arms and confident smirks, and Totodile and Gible both posing on top of the ever-so-jolly Dracovish. This photo is also the final frame as well because it would make sense for one of the hype points of the episode to be the focal point of how things end off instead of Goh and Grookey for no reason.

And yeah, that’s how’ll I would rewrite Episode 68. Events still play out more or less the same, only with more time focused on certain points to expand interaction and dynamics. Thanks for reading and, since this is basically my first real rewrite project, feel free to tell me your thoughts on it!

#pokemon #pokemon journeys #anipoke #pokeani #ash ketchum #pikachu #infernape #goh #cinderace #grookey #gary oak #blastoise #electivire #professor oak #tracey sketchit #project mew #moltres

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timeagainreviews · 5 years ago

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My Series 10 Rewatch: The Husbands of River Song

One of the beautiful aspects of starting this blog has been the opportunity to revisit old episodes. The title of this blog "Time and Time Again," isn’t just a reference both to Twin Peaks and Doctor Who, but also a raison d'être. The hope is that repeat viewings will bring forth new insights. Things I loathed previously may seem charming in hindsight. Things I initially adored may begin to show cracks in their facade. Some records take a few listens until we discover their greatness. Sometimes art requires consideration.

I mention this because our first review for the series 10 retrospective is for "The Husbands of River Song," an episode of which I detested. It's important to give this context as my opinion of it has indeed mellowed over time. I will endeavour to highlight this shift in perspective as memory permits. Before the other day, I hadn't watched this episode since it first aired on Christmas of 2015. What then can nearly half a decade add to the experience?

It should be noted that I have never been a big fan of Doctor Who Christmas specials. It would be quicker to count the reasons I like them, or in this case, the reason. That being, it's more Doctor Who. Other than that, I find the whole Christmas theme to be hokey. Growing up, I was a Halloween kid. I really don't like Christmas all that much, so an entire episode themed around it is not my idea of a good time. Even worse is when the villains themselves have Christmassy gimmicks like Santa robots or evil snowmen. I suppose in some ways, it's in the Christmas spirit for the Doctor to die and regenerate on Christmas, as they so often do. The concept of birth and renewal are a big part of the holiday. But if I was known to die a lot on Christmas, I might use my time machine to skip it every year.

Landing his TARDIS on Christmas Day, in the year 5343 is Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor. The planet, Mendorax Dellora, is one of Steven Moffat's usual Christmas village planets, stuck somewhere in a vortex of quaint sentiment. The Doctor appears to have about as much Christmas spirit as I do. Having just lost Clara both in spirit and memory, he's reverted to the Doctor's most worrisome state- hermitic and bitter. Not even the TARDIS' holographically generated reindeer antlers can bring out the holiday cheer. It's a visit from Nardole, a nebbish sort of man, that brings the Doctor out of his slump. Mistaking him for a surgeon, he leads the Doctor to what appears to be a crash-landed saucer. The obscene redness of its exterior against the plain backdrop gave me the strangest pangs of the circus tent from "Killer Klowns from Outer Space." Just throwing that out there.

From the outset, Peter Capaldi is at his most charming. I've never actually covered a Twelfth Doctor story before now, so I would like to mention how much I adore his performance as the Doctor. I know he gets a lot of flack from certain fans (see: dipshit morons with no class), but I think he's brilliant. Right away his banter with Nardole is apparent. It's easy to see why someone may have watched Capaldi and Matt Lucas interacting and thought "There's something here." Lucas' history in comedy gives him great timing as the foil to the Twelfth Doctor's eccentricity.

However, it won't be Nardole filling the role of co-star for long. As the Doctor enters the ship of King Hydroflax, he is greeted by the familiar face of River Song. As I have mentioned previously, I have issues with the way River's story plays out, but by this point in the show, I had grown to love her. Which is why this episode pains me so much. The problems inherent in having the Doctor and River's relationship play out like two ships in the night are at their worst in this episode, but I'll get to that in due time.

The King Hydroflax, played with great relish by Greg Davies is a mere head atop a giant robot body, painted in the same garish red as the flying saucer. River, acting very unlike herself, is practically prostrating herself in front of the vain king. Furthermore, she doesn't seem to recognise the Doctor's new face at all. Even more disturbing to the Doctor is the fact that River appears to be married to the king tyrant, talking about him as some sort of cherished lover. After analysing his new patient, the Doctor discovers a foreign body lodged into Hydroflax's skull. All the while, the king's loyal subjects watch a live feed of the operation, booing the Doctor when he refuses to placate the ego of their leader. It's an idea that has become painfully more believable in the years since airing.

The Doctor and River go into another room of the ship where River explains that the foreign body is, in fact, the most valuable diamond in the universe known as the Halassi Androvar. Somewhat to the Doctor's relief, he discovers that River's love for the king has been a ruse to recover the diamond for the Halassi people, from whom it was stolen. Much like the Doctor has turned into a bitter hermit, loneliness has brought out River's more sadistic nature as she takes to the idea of killing Hyrdroflax for the diamond in stride. Less enthusiastic of the idea than even the Doctor is the emperor himself, who has somehow managed to eavesdrop on two Time Lords while walking around in a massive robotic body. This kind of logic will continue throughout the night.

The king is much displeased with learning that his new wife is some renegade archaeologist with a sonic trowel. Taunting the pair, he removes his head from his robot body, leading River to improvise. Holding his head hostage at trowelpoint, River improvises and takes the entire head in a duffel bag. River's other husband, a beautiful but submissive man named Ramone, teleports her and the Doctor to safety with the head in tow. Meanwhile, Hyrdoflax's body sets about taking on a new head in the form of poor Nardole. It’s worth noting that River wiping Ramone’s mind of any knowledge that they were married is a bit creepy. There are implications involved that kind of gross me out.

The Doctor, having just met Ramone, is taken aback after having met yet another of River's husbands. Beginning to feel like a bit of an afterthought the Doctor takes small potshots at River's sense of loyalty, while also fishing for clues that he may or may not have ever meant something to her. For all this episode does to highlight the Doctor and River's secret feelings for one another, it does a piss poor job of actually staying true to River's character in one key manner. Throughout a majority of the episode, River fails repeatedly to recognise the Doctor for who he is.

Moffat tries somewhat to cover his tracks by making it look as though River only knows of twelve previous regenerations, including the War Doctor. In what looks like one of the cheapest props of the episode, she even has a little fold-out wallet with all of the Doctors' pictures. Knowing that the Eleventh Doctor was the end of his regeneration cycle, she never even considers the idea that the Doctor may have lived on. Even though toward the end of the episode, she remarks that the Doctor always finds a way to cheat fate, she wholeheartedly buys into the idea that the Doctor would just never regenerate beyond the Eleventh Doctor. In a single episode, not even River's own logic believes River's own logic.

Learning that River sometimes shows up to places he's been long enough to take the TARDIS for a joyride, the Doctor is given a chance to act as a bit of a spectator in his own life. There is a definite bit of glee to be found in the Twelfth Doctor's over the top reaction to his own TARDIS. Finally being able to say "It's bigger on the inside," the Doctor savours the moment to great comical effect. Ramone parts ways to he and River's pre-established rendezvous point. However, he is cut short by the giant robot body holding a gun to Nardole's head. Poor Nardole, he's having such a rough go of things. First, he brings the wrong surgeon, then he loses his body, and now he's being held hostage by his new body. The robot’s only demand is that Ramone send a message to River.

River, as always, is quite at home in the TARDIS, even taking a moment to raid the liquor cabinet of which not even the Doctor was aware. However, her flawless piloting of the TARDIS is thrown out of whack by unforeseen circumstances. Even after the Doctor deduces that the TARDIS won't fly while it senses the King's head and body are both inside and outside the TARDIS, River still doesn't grasp the fact that he is the Doctor. I would also like mention that while I found the TARDIS' failsafe to be a rather creative invention, it did immediately make me wonder about the Cyberhead Handles' body. What constitutes a body the TARDIS recognises? Could the Face of Boe fly in the TARDIS? Could Dorium Maldovar? Oh well, it doesn't really matter.

A knock on the TARDIS door from Ramone, now part of the robot, quickly reunites the head and body. However, for the third time in this episode, any action is immediately sidestepped by yet another person taking a disembodied head hostage. This time it's the Doctor threatening to throw Hydroflax's head down the garbage chute. Every chance this episode gets, it bravely avoids the perils of forming some sort of plot. The stakes have never been lower. The Doctor and River take the TARDIS to a restaurant aboard the starship Harmony and Redemption. Everyone onboard is some sort of war criminal or seedy individual, including the Maître d', a bug faced man named Flemming. After taking a seat in the restaurant, River reveals that she never planned on returning the diamond to the people of Halassi. Instead, she plans on selling it to the highest bidder.

The Doctor uses this moment to probe River for further information. River reads silently from her TARDIS diary. She reveals to the Doctor that the person who gave her the diary was the type of man who would know just how long a diary she would need. It's at this moment that the Doctor begins to see traces that River is very much still in love with him and that she may be a little lost without him. I would say this scene was touching if it weren't for the fact that it was undercut by River's inability to recognise the man sitting directly in front of her. It's so out of character for River to be this myopic. By this point in my initial watch through, I was so annoyed by this betrayal of her character that it took me out of the story completely. The second time around was only a little less irritating due to the fact that at least now I expected it.

River's buyer turns out to be Scratch, a very Moffatty body horror bad guy, in the vein of characters like Colony Sarff or the Headless Monks. After accepting River's price, Scratch opens his head like a coin purse and pulls out a little orb that connects to any bank in the universe. By this point, I've grown accustomed to Moffat's over the top exploits like this. It's feasible to imagine that Scratch's cruel master may have torn his head open to store money. It's like in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," when Humma Kavula removes a servant's nose to reveal a control pad that opens a series of draws tucked into his chest. However, it gets a bit far fetched when it is revealed that many other diners in the restaurant are the same species as Scratch and they all have the same scar across their faces. Is this some evolutionary trait? Are they a species so greedy that they evolved a place to squirrel away their money? Do they keep other stuff like car keys or bags of space weed? Not every bad guy needs to be a toy, Moffat!

The reason the patrons suddenly turn on the Doctor and River is that they discover the diamond is lodged within the head of their great leader. This brings up even more questions about their heads. Why doesn't Hydroflax’s head have the same scar? Are they the same species? How did this asshole even get so much power in the first place? There seems to be neither anything likable nor competent about him... oh right. Once again, the events of the years since have made this episode more believable. Dinner is even further interrupted by the King's body barging in, demanding its proper head. Only now it deems King Hydroflax's head unsuitable. Having been detached from his body for too long, the King's head is now dying. The body disintegrates the King's head, leaving behind the diamond. Flemming uses this opportunity to alert the patrons of the restaurant to the fact that River knows the perfect person to become the next head of state, so to speak. Of course, it's the Doctor.

Why Flemming knows River knows a Time Lord, but doesn't know she herself is a Time Lord is anyone's guess. Or maybe he knows and is just throwing shade by implying that the Doctor is a better Time Lord. It's at this moment that Alex Kingston is given one of her finest moments as River Song in the form of an emotional monologue. After arguing that the Doctor wouldn't be there with her because he doesn't care, it finally dons on her that the Doctor has been standing next to her the entire time. Despite the fact that Moffat sacrificed River's intelligence for the sake of a big reveal, the moment still resonates. Capaldi's warm gaze meeting River's expression of shock followed by his soft utterance of "Hello sweetie," is genuinely touching. No cynical sensationalism can undo the beautiful performances given by Capaldi and Kingston, who bring more gravity to the scene than the script.

For all of the hand-wavey tripe this episode heaps upon us, the way in which the Doctor and River escape this sticky situation is actually rather brilliant. In any other show, the appearance of a sudden freak meteor collision with the ship would seem convenient. But River is an archaeologist and a time traveller. She picked her meeting location perfectly- a starship about to be destroyed by meteors. Her line of "I'm an archaeologist from the future, I dug you up," is easily one of the best River Song lines ever written for Doctor Who. If this is truly her final episode, that's one hell of a line to go out on.

In another convenient moment, the diamond lands in River's dress as they're making their escape. I guess she planned that too. The Doctor uses Scratch's money orb to short circuit the robot body with its firewall. River and the Doctor run to the TARDIS while the ship crashes into the planet Darillium, knocking River unconscious. While River is out, the Doctor uses the opportunity to do a bit of time travelling. First, the Doctor gives the diamond to one of the crash's first responders, telling him to build a restaurant in front of the singing towers of Darillium. Then he jumps forward to a time when the restaurant has been built to make reservations. Then he jumps forward to the day of the reservation. River wakes up to find herself wandering into a beautiful restaurant on Christmas Day. Even Ramone and Nardole have survived due to some trickery on the Doctor’s behalf. Nardole is having a bit of “alone time,” which River remarks must be difficult as a head. That one goes up there with Ursula becoming a blowjob dispensing pavement stone at the end of “Love and Monsters.” The Doctor is waiting for River in a First Doctor style bow tie and coat. He treats her to a romantic meal and the gift of her own sonic screwdriver, the same sonic screwdriver she has when we met her in "Silence in the Library."

There's a nice little cap on the entire River storyline here that feels a bit more final than the one between her and the Eleventh Doctor. Perhaps it's the fact that it's the last time Moffat wrote her character, or perhaps it's because even River seems to know something is up. Having heard the legends of her own romance with the Doctor, River knows that her last night was spent with the Doctor on the planet Darillium. This is a bit of retconning that you often find in Doctor Who. River doesn't really know in her first appearance that she's headed toward her own demise, yet here she's all too aware of it. It's compounded by the fact that the Doctor reveals that a night on Darillium lasts 24 years. It's meant to be a sweet line that implies they got to spend a lot of time coupling together for 24 years, but it's really just 24 years for River to know, for certain, that she's going to her inevitable doom.

Retcons like these don't necessarily ruin the show. Storytellers shouldn't be forced to sacrifice the current narrative all for the sake of creating tidy bookends. Should Big Finish not put Peri and the Fifth Doctor in more adventures for fear that it may dilute the Doctor's sacrificing his own life for a woman he barely knows? Does him knowing her better make his sacrifice any less admirable? How about the many times River meets the Doctor in his previous forms even though the Tenth Doctor clearly had never met her in his life? I'm not going to answer these questions because they should be open-ended. It is a thing to consider in Doctor Who. If time is a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff, then maybe the storylines are allowed to be as malleable.

As I've demonstrated above, our own experiences with the stories can be malleable. I watched this episode with my boyfriend because I wanted to gauge his initial reaction. A lot of his reactions mirrored my own. We both found ourselves enjoying it as a light romp afforded by the air of a Christmas episode, while also deriding it for its lack of plot. Like myself, he too felt that the big reveal was detrimental to River's intelligence and went on past the point of acceptability. It's one of the oddest things about Steven Moffat as a writer, no matter how clever his ideas actually may be, he doesn't ever seem to know when his audience has caught on. Perhaps it's the suits at the BBC underestimating the audience. Or perhaps this is because he spent a lot of his life as a Doctor Who nerd, oftentimes feeling out of place when talking about Doctor Who to casuals. But the modern Doctor Who audience has been raised on science fiction and intricate narratives. No hand-holding necessary.

Regardless of how attuned he perceives his audience to be, River's realisation seems more slavishly timed to the climax of the story than anything else. One can't help but wonder if Moffat hadn't been so insistent on making this moment the crux of the episode, we may have actually gotten a more serviceable plot. Instead of heads held hostage and hand waving, we could have gotten a stronger villain. Scratch could have represented more than just some guy with a coin purse head. There are lots of fantastical elements on display, but none of them is ever given any gravity. Moffat's fixation on character relationships is so single-minded that it comes not only at the sake of plot, but character as well. It's unfortunate that despite Alex Kingston's greatest efforts, River's goodbye is undercut by one writer's need to be clever.

#Doctor Who #the husbands of river song #Twelfth Doctor #peter capaldi #River Song #Alex Kingston #nardole #matt lucas #greg davies #king hydroflax #bbc #tardis #steven moffat #christmas

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kob131 · 5 years ago

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4DPZGlNP8I

I was watching MangaKamen’s video deconstructing Cvit’s Persona 5: Style Over Substance video and I...I just couldn’t watch it. Basically, Kamen’s own videos on RWBY and Cvit’s Persona 5 video are way too similar (in that both make logical fallacies just to avoid their assumptions.) So, despite covering this briefly, I’ll do it in full here.

And if MangaKamen himself sees this: You can’t keep responding to people, criticizing them for stuff that you do yourself. I literally couldn’t listen to your video on Cvit because of the hypocrisy. Stick to your own standards: people respect you more for it.

P.S. Don’t create a circlejerk in the reblogs and replies. I do not have the patience for it today.

Before I begin, I should point out a small bit of hypocrisy. In his “Cvit Doesn’t Understand Video”, he complains about an influx of videos all about going into unnecessary details about how X things suck, calling it the ‘Joseph Anderson effect.’ I bring this up because one of the videos he brings up is The Cosmonaut Variety Hour’s video on Kingdom Hearts (which is, being generous, 22 minutes.) MangaKamen’s video is, again generously, 38 minutes. And I do mean generaously because I automatically rounded up Cosmonaut’s and rounded down Kamen’s videos. I don’t think he should be complaining about that.

While you could argue he was also complaining about the title as well: A. Kamen’s first RWBY video was literally titled “Whats Wrong With RWBY?!” with a title saying “Here’s why RWBY Sucks” in big bold letters. B. His video makes fun of people who are there to disagree with his title and nothing else and C. I watched Cosmonaut’s video on Kingdom Hearts: He’s actually more positive towards Kingdom hearts 3 than Kamen is to RWBY.

This is a small microcosism of he issue with his hypocrisy: it ends up affecting the quality of other videos too.

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His first section is on ‘contrivances’ or ‘things that happen in a story that don’t make sense’. Before he even gives a true example, we run into yet another problem with Kamen. In his explanation, Kamen mocks the scene were Jaune gets hit on by the mothers of the kids he’s helping with an image of Miles Luna saying ‘Remember, NOT a self-insert!’.

Issue? The episode wasn’t written by Miles Luna, it was written by Eddy Rivas. How do I know?

The episode says so. This is especially egregious because he chews Cvit out for just typing in “Persona 5 sucks” into google and saying a certain source popped up...and yet typing in “Miles Luna Jaune Arc Self Insert” would actually bring up something that outright shows Miles is self conscious about Jaune to the point of avoiding his scenes (https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBY/comments/7x3w4s/crwby_ama_w_miles_luna_kerry_shawcross_and_paula/du5dnc6/?context=3). So while Cvit may have been looking for evidence instead of thinking critically: he at least took the effort of doing a search result whereas Kamen probably made an on the spot decision with no sources whatsoever. Combine this with the fact this is not the first time he’s taken potshots at Miles and you have an effectively WORSE version of what he says Cvit did.

“But this is just a joke!�� Yeah, and Sham-Amon was a joke about M. Night Shamalyan by Doug Walker. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t an insult and was correct (Shamalyan was actually a reason why the Airbender movie even RESEMBLED the cartoon.) That doesn’t make this okay, especially since I know a similar ‘joke’ towards someone he’s a fan of would get you a video made on you.

Now onto one of his examples: He says it makes no sense for Robyn to be allowed to run for Atlas’ council because ‘she is stealing supplies from the government.’ Issue is: judging by the footage he’s using, he’s talking about Volume 7 Episode 5 “Sparks” where Robyn created a blockade and stopped a supply truck Qrow, Clover, Penny and Ruby were on. She never actually makes a move to steal the supplies in the episode though. While you could argue it wwas implied because she had people behind them hiding behind camoflague-

In his Cvit video, he criticized the guy for saying that we don’t know how long Futaba’s friend was abused by her parents when Cvit makes the argument that the friend was abused for over a decade, never entertaining other possibilities. You know, what he does. (P.S. Sparks is the same episode with the Jaune-Mothers ‘joke’.)

He uses this faulty and hypocritical point to jump off into how it would be a bad look for her to steal from the government even if it was for a good cause and that most government prevent people from running because of this. See, not only is this still based on a point even Kamen would argue is not enough- The context in the scene (that Mantle hates Atlas government and Robyn’s platform is based off that discontent...Huh) would show that even if she was stealing, it would HELP her image. As for the ‘governments prevent people convicted of theft for running for office’- She hasn’t stolen anything yet STILL. Also, in his Cvit video, he complains about a point where Cvit’s source edited out preceding text to make the phrasing of a certain textbox look extremely awkward. So again, hypocrisy.

Then we have...another shitty joke. A really bad one too. It’s the scene with Weiss and Winter talking the training room with the audio taken out and speech bubbles that say ‘Why are we just staring at each other?’ ‘I dunno...just to look cool?’. Not only is this blatantly not what is happening (you can tell their heads are bobbing from talking), I literally cannot take this ‘joke’ any other way than a malicious potshot at the show. It doesn’t function any other way. I’m trying to be calm and concise but this stuff really harms any benefit of doubt I can give.

His next point is-Oh god damnit, the fucking Penny frame up AGAIN. You know what is more frustrating than a shitty point? A shitty point repeated ad nauseum. Before Kamen even made this video, I had already argued every single perspective of this. There’s literally nothing new he can give?

Security? We never see how Tyrian got in and considering his immense agility and stealth: he could snuck in or hid in the warehouse.

Fanaus night vision? Not all Fanaus have night vision and most of the crowd was seen trying to rush out of the warehouse (during a scene Kamen shows no less). He also says the show alludes to Atlas being a racially biased system...even though Jacques Schnee says he pays all his workers equally (AKA he treats all his workers like shit.)

Scrolls? Again, most of the people are shown trying to run away and no one who remains is said to have brought their scrolls.

Break in the argument for a smug laugh even though all he’s done is repeat other people’s failed arguments. (Issue with either being bitch basic with your arguments or copying others? I’ll have fought the issue long before you make it.)

Ends with saying “When the lights come back on, there’s no blood on Penny’s blades!” (Cognitive bias against Atlas. Like say, calling a character a self insert over a scene that wasn’t written by the person.)

He goes onto say that this is just the latest example of contrived writing but because his points are all faulty, it doesn’t come across as contrived: it comes across as normal but Kamen is too focused on making everything look as bad as possible.

“But what about Robyn’s Semblance?!”

I dunno, why do people say that the Covington Catholic kids are still racist when we have proof otherwise? Cognitive bias is a thing. Robyn wouldn’t try testing this (even assuming she COULD since it would be logical Penny just ran off after this in fear) because it al ready confirms her own biases.

His whole temper tantrum here is all based on around pure logic...something he himself has argued against in media. This thing goes on and on and it just test my paitence and gives me more and more reason to assume Kamen isn’t just missing info, he’s indulging in willful ignorance.

Then we have him bitching about Yang and Blake telling Robyn what is going on and how it’s contrived that they would think that Robyn was on their side since she hasn’t done anything good. Issue? This is all based on KAMEN’S perspective. A perspective that, at best, is heavily biased against Robyn.

Thing is, Robyn’s thefts (which began AFTER he said they did) were to help repair the break in Mantle’s wall protecting them from the Grimm, something Team RWBY agrees with. Of course they’d assume Robyn is a good guy since she’s acting in the interests of the people, something they do as well. Robyn’s only bad when you completely ignore how James brushes over the current struggles of the people is elected to protect and serve in order for his bigger picture, a method they don’t agree with. Something the show is showing isn’t a good idea as people see him as uncaring and unfeeling to their struggles.

“But Ironwood has been helping them!”

Cool. That has nothing to do with him alienating his own allies through his paranoia, causing Yang and Blake try and make peace with Robyn themselves. There’s also the fact that the team should be opposing this. After all, it’s the same thing Ozpin did to them and they chewed him out over it. And unlike with the lying to Ironwood, there would be no hints that this hypocrisy would be intended by the showrunners. So Kamen is literally advocating for bad writing here.

This was added in post edit by the way so the man literally shoved in a point that does nothing but push the theory he is biased without ever considering what is necessary in the show. Even though he demands it from others. It’s really inconsistent. Dare I say...the standards are contrived?

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Next is the ‘design work’ part. He’s says this is gonna be positive for a moment and it does lack his usual malice. Doesn’t mean it’s good.

He criticizes the designs of the main cast besides Ruby. He says that Blake’s design now emphasizes the color white despite supposedly being black before. Issue is that her alternate Vol.2 and Vol.4 designs also emphasized the color white and her original design has equal part black and white. Weiss’s is supposedly that her dark blue dominates her design and is too busy to be elegant. Issue is that it’s only on the jacket and it’s mostly the same color as her previous design (even having more white.) As for being elegant: I could definitely argue it goes for a military-esque elegance. And Yang is...too brown? Uh...her original outfit was dominated by being brown.

He praises Ruby’s for still having it’s red coloring but...it’s too red. Her original design was actually closer to being goth than Blake’s and was mostly black with bright red frills and her signature cloak. And her hair has drastically changed, like he complained about with Blake. He really shouldn’t be giving Ruby a pass here.

I have nothing to say about his point ‘they’re all too busy.’ I feel like any side I take will be too heavily influenced by my own feelings at this point.

He complains about the logic behind the long fabrics being easy to grab onto and says that because they justified the new outfits with ‘it’s cold’ they should listen here. Issue- Not only are these two different trains of logic but by his own arguments, he should be arguing for all of them to wear white and wear bulky armor since that’s logical as well, following his logic. He doesn’t set what the limit should be.

Honestly this whole part is just kind of fluff. A lot of nothing was said and kind of feels like it was put in just to make the argument ‘Well I said something nice about RWBY!’

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Next up is ‘consistency’. ... Oh god.

“Aura was rewritten!’ He never cites what happened here but I know this dance so well I could get paid for it. Aura has always been a thing you needed to activate, back in Volume 1 where Jaune was cut by a branch and Pyrrha said ‘why don’t you use your aura?’. The supposed inconsistency comes from WOR: Aura saying it was passive even though certain definitions and uses of passive work under these examples. He also says that people cant use their Semblances when they run out of Aura but they still do, citing that old example of Yang’s Aura flickering in her character short. Flickering, not breaking. Meaning she still has Aura.

He also adds in that point about the WOR Atlas saying that the cold of Solitas killed the Grimm. While they are depicted as freezing here, it should be noted that the Grimm have been known to evolve and adapt. Meaning they could have easily evolved to withstand the cold. Again, editing out context which he says is bad.

“Hey, Miles. Kerry. You ever gonna acknowledge what you showed in the World of Remnant again these days?”

Dunno, are you ever gonna acknowledge what you say in your own videos? Glass houses Kamen.

I also find it funny that he calls out the ‘it’s just a cartoon!’ thing out of nowhere on a tangent even as he previously blocked me over this. Apparently contrivance is okay if it can be used as a shield. And if he has a problem with this, look over your videos not even just the RWBY ones You have said harsher- deal with it.

He goes onto criticize the argument of not all Fanaus have night vision because of specific moments...with Blake and Sun, only two Fanaus. In fact, the first example has him say that Blake and Sun used their night vision to escape a White Fang meeting. ... White Fang. Fanaus. He’s trying to argue that this is a case of Blake and Sun having night vision to contrast when she apparently ‘doesn’t’ but never notices that his own argument kind of confirms what the show said.

Then we have his other example of Blake against Illa were she couldn’t see Illa. A chameleon Fanaus. With camoflague. Where lighting up the room would alter how the colors look to see her more easily. ....

This whole point was about how the show doesn’t give strict rules to the Fanaus night vision, even though other shows with more fundamental powers (as in, the thing their premise is based on) bend these rules (like MHA with so many Quirks not being related to their physiology or Jojo bending every single Stand rule) for their plot. This isn’t directly bad as he says it is and he never emphasizes why anyone should care other than the strawman of ‘STRICT RULES!’ even as his own favorites don’t follow that.

He also says there’s no repercussions for the Penny cover up since he says it was to cause a riot to attract the Grimm but the Grimm disappear and people are being arrested for their rioting in the next episode. ... The Grimm don’t invade until Episode 9. He’s talking about Episode 7. The arrest was for breaking curfew that Ironwood imposed afterwards to due the discontent from Jacques winning. Then we have the fact that Penny’s frame up leads to Robyn actually stealing supplies, which leads to Yang and Blake telling her about Amity, which leads to Ironwood’s paranoia taking over. So you know...kind of some of the biggest repercussions in the show.

I also remember he said it was to frame Penny in his contriavances section...which makes no sense if it was meant to cause a riot directly afterward. In trying to callout inconsistencies that don’t exist, he became inconsistent himself.

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Next part is “Don’t Show, Never Show”. .... How professional.

He begins by bitching at other people for misrepresenting his arguments about the Fanaus and how their oppression isn’t well shown. ... After he’s personally attacked the creators over a subject one of them is innocent and self conscious of and will mock that person for mocking his critics. Classy.

“Jacques is Orange Man bad stand-in-”

A. He never mentions anything about securing Atlas’ borders and in fact wants to OPEN them.

B. He’s never talked about making Atlas great or appealing to any sort of false patriotism.

C. He opposes the military whereas Trump supports them.

D. He has no slogans for his campaign, especially none like Trump’s/

E. He isn’t colluding with foreign powers aside from a generic bad guy orgnazation with no connections to the countries Trump is accused of.

F. Jacques being a slimy business man was made before Trump came into the presidency.

And G. Robyn Hill only connections to Hilarily Clinton is a gender and half a name (a name that is actually rather common in real life). In fact, considering her position is all about distrust in the government and appealing to the common man- She’s a closer stand in for TRUMP than Hilarlily.

Again, argument’s been made a thousand times, beaten it a thousand times.

His overall point is that Jacques is said to be a terrible parent but not shown, using the line from “This Life is Mine” ( Amazing how you conquered me, Chained me in servility) before going on to say that he ‘let her go to a different school’ (he was forced to), ‘Do whatever she wants so long as it doesn’t affect his business and reputation’ (contradicted by cutting her off, trying to limit her actions because of her ignoring his calls even though that does not affect his business or reputation), ‘spending his money at Beacon until she ignores his calls’ (finical abuse 101) and ‘she embarrassed him at a party by assaulting one of the guests.’

... The woman was outright mocking the people she knew, the ‘assault’ was an accidental summon, Jacques was trying to prevent her from just getting away from him, Jacques pressured her into singing for him despite her discomfort and never once tries to talk to his daughter like a person or calm her down, instead trying to silence her. All of THIS without getting his physical intimidation of grabbing her and slapping her, which is what Kamen strawmans the response being. Also ignoring what he did AFTER the slap, effectively trapping her in her room and spreading the idea she was unstable to save his image.

No amount of money matters here, ignoring once again that he tried withholding it once she acted outside what he wanted. That is the ‘chains of servility’ and I know you wouldn’t argue this outside RWBY. You’d be calling this ignorant beyond acception, Kamen.

“The worst examples of Jacques’ abuse happen outside the-”

Jacques’ worst abuse was being trapped in her own room for calling out the callousness of people smack talking a tragedy she went through. This is effectively mocking a war in front of a veteran then locking them in the basement while telling everyone they’re coocoo. That is in the show, stop trying to blame other materials THAT DO NOT EXIST just to appeal to a common compliant (about supplemental materials in RWBY).

“Well Winter abuses Weiss!”

So let me get this straight. A small smack on the back of the head before asking about her personal life to show she cares about Weiss (another example of cutting context) is at all comparable to abuse of parental power, controlling Weiss like a puppet and locking her up? What was your definition of contrivance and consistency again?

“Can I go off on a tangent?”

No. You have not earned that right. You have far exceeded any patience I should have given you. The fact I am STILL HERE is too much and I should just throw the rest of the video in that garbage dumb your delusion of the writing is. But I will STILL give you chance.

P.S. You use HBomberguy as an example? Even though one of the videos you chewed out in your Persona video (’Steven Universe is Garbage and Here’s Why’) is BASED OFF his work? So what? His hours long shit talking is okay? And no, this is not

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His next segment is titled ... “Okay What Is This Shit I’m Actually Cratching My Head I’m So Dumbfounded And Confused AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”

... You misspelled “Scratching”.

He says the Grimm Attack after Robyn’s failed election was handled off screen. That never existed and the Grimm attacked THREE EPISODE LATER and is handled on screen.

He says that Jacques being arrested makes no sense because Watts can control technology and should have used it disable the security cameras in the Schnee Manor. As he outright says, Willow hid those cameras and Watts HACKS technology and cannot hack what he DOES NOT KNOW EXISTS. It’s outright said BY THE SHOW and SHOWN that he cannot just magically control technology.

He also questions how Willow got those cameras in there, ignoring that Jacques DOES NOT HAVE OMNISCENCE. Why she did when she SAID it was to make sure he didn’t abuse her kids. When doesn’t fucking matter. It’s all pendantic bullcrap. You can apply this to any situation in media and I know Kamen would bitch about the show’s pacing if they did this because it would be boring as fuck.

He says that there was no foreshadowing that Willow set these cameras up which I would like to give...if not for the rest of his video which illustrates to me he would have made this point with or without foreshadowing.

“How come Robyn isn’t being arrested because she stole supplies?!”

A. Because you keep inferring she stole supplies BEFORE the election, I’ll have to assume it’s the same here and say SHE DIDN’T.

B. If you aren’t and have changed to saying AFTER the election: The show SHOWS YOU that they’ve been trying to arrest her. She’s been EVADING them.

C. If it’s at Jacques’ house: Remember what you said about image? Wanna guess how damaged Ol Jimmy’s image will be if he arrests his biggest critic while under suspicion of rigging the election against her AND being questioned for supposed abuse of power?

D. Gee, not like the heating system in an artic climate shut down, Jacques just got exposed for helping a KNOWN CRIMINAL TOO, The Grimm actually invade, they have to save all the people, things collapse between RWBY and Ironwood and a fuckton of other things of higher priority than one woman stealing supplies to fix something IRONWOOD HIMSELF SHOULD BE FIXING.

“Hur dur, Salem generic’

Says the Jojo and Yugioh fan. Say, how did your precious VRAINS turn out again hm?

“HEY, WHY NO RUBY TELL IRONWOOD AND TAKE RESPONBILITY?!”

Maybe because there’s a bunch of soulless abominations currently running amok in a city full of innocents so she should take responsibility as an official Huntress and do her damn job while the comparatively combat inept Oscar handle the non combat situation. Or did you want contrivance to work in your favor even though you’ve been proven to be a biased liar who will betray everything he stands in order to make a shit point about a flawed show he couldn’t criticize with a fucking guide on it?

“Why not have Ruby stand behind and say ‘I’ll catch up with you later’?-”

Because you’ll cut context and make her look irresponsible. Your suggestions mean NOTHING when you have proven that you have no honesty on the subject and will flip flop to suit yourself.

Also I love how you mock Mediaocrity4 for ‘treating his opposition as idiots’ as your fucking video STARTED and is littered with you doing JUST THAT. Fuck, I bet you’ll do JUST THAT with this post.

“Oh look at this character who has been shown as overly emotional, rash and prone to not thinking when mad act in line with her character how dumb!”

Gee, like say...., A shut in otaku making constant video game and anime references in, let’s say, a JRPG filled with these references?

Huh, guess you agree more with Cvit than you say.

“Dur, fistcuffs mean Jojo!”

Oh wait, Fist of the North Star did it first. And it’s a stable in most fighting anime. But hey, who cares in Kamen shanks Jojo in the back if it means lashing out against RWBY amirite?

“It’s like the context of the fights-”

Where the Ace Ops against RWBY are highly emotional, having felt betrayed by people they though as comrades and acting individually instead as duos or even as a team while all being people with shown emotional issues failing to defeat a far calmer and more developed team that have been working with them and are aware of their flaws?

Or that Clover tried to blindly follow Ironwood’s orders just as Qrow did in the past with Ozpin as the two characters heavily mirror each other, Qrow tried to fight Tyrian at first even as Clover attacked him and never actually helped Tyrian (in facting ATTACKING HIM at one point) after Clover tried arresting him in front of Robyn, someone known to do rash things when it comes to Ironwood?

I’m so glad you decided to FOR ONCE IN THIS ENTIRE, NEARLY FOURTY MINUTE VIDEO actually pay attention to the show and not the memes of the people who agree with you.

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“Conclusion”

‘Like I said in the Steven Universe Movie, I don’t let the fanabse dictate my opinion on something-’

Which is why there wasn’t a single original viewpoint, perspective, criticism, wording or even ‘jokes’, all shit ripped straight from the mouths of others. It’s all shit I’ve seen before by other people. If I absorbed even more of this bullshit, I’d probably be able to see exact wordings in here too, I am THAT certain you didn’t think about this for yourself.

If you did, you would have noticed that you were repeating the exact same mistakes you constantly criticize in others. You would have seen that you were making assumptions based on your preconceived notion of ‘RWBY bad’ and not what the show itself was doing. You would have seen the vidnictive smugness you decried MatPat over. You would have seen the immense hypocrisy you called out before. You would have stuck to what you called your principles.

You have the failures of your biggest targets in this very video. The bias and brain rot of Quinton Reviews, the hack job of MatPat, the manipulativeness of Verlsify, the sheer level of bullshit of Cvit. You burned every single standard you set for others here, you did every wrong thing you screamed about, you failed in the same ways as those you profited from criticizing. Again, because I said all this THE LAST TIME and yet you got WORSE.

You mock and belittle the creators even as you give them every reason to treat you like shit because even the worst they’ve done looks justified compared to what you pulled. ‘Oh they said that people being mean is so bad!’ says the man preying on his weakness. ‘Oh he’s shit talking his critics!’ says the open liar. ‘Oh the writing was done by platypuses!’ says the man who wants to be taken seriously. ‘Oh it’s just a joke!’ Says the man who bitched out MatPat over jokes.

And I guarantee you’ll cry foul at me if you ever find this, decrying me as just a salty RWBY fanboy. And this time, I’m not accepting any excuses. You HAD your chances.

4chan trolls are more respectable than you. They have principles and stick to them. Fanboys are more respectable than you. They don’t claim to be anything else. And yes, your targets are more respectable than you. Their channels aren’t based on hypocrisy THIS deeply rooted.

I regret ever watching you because you were clearly speaking out of your ass.

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Post-Edit:

So i edited a couple of my less explained points to get my issue across. Just saying this here so that no one accuses me of editing the source for malicious purposes.

As for why I didn’t rewrite the last two sections to remove my anger: that stays to prove a point. I had tried to stay neutral or at least calm throughout the video. But my frustrations just kept on building as you became increasingly smug and condescending, even though you called out such shit against others. I can’t even respect your arguments as arguments because considering the erratic nature of this video as well as how out of place some of them are (”Orange Man Bad”): it sounds like you just took every single compliant ever said about Volume 7 and threw it in.

You end all your videos saying ‘Examine Your Fandom’. Did you ever do that yourself?

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rallamajoop · 5 years ago

Text

Inception: A Fannish Retrospective

For a while now I’ve found myself craving a fic of a particular hard-to-define quality – something with a bit of grit and maturity – not graphic or grim, but perhaps the kind of seedy underworld setting you might find in the better parts of Tarantino or Guy Richie’s oeuvre. The kind of fic that lets me believe that if the author toned down the slash and published it as a mainstream crime or espionage thriller, I’d still be enthused about reading it. Cord Smithee’s work is a particularly good example, for the UNCLE fans out there, but you can only reread those fics so many times, and fic of that quality has been especially sparse in the last few fandoms I’ve drifted through, and so the craving lingered.

Then it hit me: hey, you know what fandom used to be really good for that kind of fic? Inception.

And after all this time in Venom fandom, it was hardly a big jump to more Tom Hardy, so.

Maybe the bigger wonder is that nearly ten years on, most of the fic is still just as good as I remember it being. Mirabella’s Towards Zero remains one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever read in any fandom, and delires’ chav!Eames AU is better than any idea that cracked has any goddamn right to be, and (at least as long as you’re into the juggernaut ship that is Arthur/Eames) you are spoilt for choice for more.

But revisiting a fandom this much later and binging this much fic, you notice things. We’ll start with…

The Film

Still holds up on rewatching today. It will never be nearly as smart a film as I’ve seen some claim: totems, for one, make no fucking sense (they’re objects with details known only to you, but if Cobb can unintentionally bring a carbon copy of his wife into a dream, why not a top that falls over when spun? And why does it keep spinning indefinitely in dreams, anyway?), and for all the exposition on ‘kicks’, why the kicks need to be synchronised to work under sedation is woefully under-explained, to the point I’m always by distracted trying to make sense of it in the middle of the third act. (Do not even get me started on the ‘it’s actually about filmmaking!’ theory – the mental gymnastics required to explain how Yusuf or Mal fits in or why we’re so fixated on the importance of the set designer, of all roles, is laughable. Some of the parallels are moderately entertaining, but don’t try to tell me you’ve unlocked the secret meaning of the film – Inception is not a movie that makes you work that hard to find its main themes.)

But the film works despite its plotholes because it’s not, ultimately, a story driven by its mechanics: the endlessly spinning top may make no sense, but film is a visual medium, and it’s such a good visual gimmick it’s gets a pass. The practical stunts are still as impressive ever, but what really lifts Inception so far beyond your typical action/heist film – for me, at least – are the characters, and the huge emotional payoffs at the end. Fischer’s reconciliation with his father is no less moving for its falseness, “We did grow old together” has gotten a sniffle out of me time and again, and the final “We’ll be young men together” scene is wonderful in so many ways I could only dream there was the Cobb/Saito fic to live up to. It’s not for nothing I’ve got Inception mentally filed in my very short list of humanist action movies along with Mad Max: Fury Road, Terminator II, and precious few others.

And then there’s…

The Fandom

Film fandoms are always an interesting beast, peaking as they do when the film is still in theatres, when most folks writing fic are working off imperfect memories of having seen an hour or two’s worth of canon maybe once or twice at most. Fanon can go feral in far less conducive environments, is my point here – inevitably, there’ll be the details that get analysed to death or flanderised to the point of parody, and the details that get altogether forgotten. Here’s just one example that hit me on a rewatch: I have lately read god knows how many different theories on just what it means that Arthur knew Eames was in Mombasa – none of them the least bothered by how everything in Cobb’s behaviour in that scene suggests he already knows exactly where he’s going, and may even be right now leaving to catch his flight. We could talk about the artefacts of clunky exposition being shoehorned into the dialogue, or the actual intent of that exchange, but shipper-goggles give you some powerful tunnel-vision (and I say this as someone who ships it like burning).

Binge as much fic as fast as I have in the last few months, and you begin to notice trends. Common themes and popular fanon that have ascended to gospel, and facets of the original film I’d love to see explored that fandom seems to have collectively missed altogether (and the sad lack of decent Cobb/Saito is only one). Below, in no particular order, are some of those observations.

Since most of these come across as critical, I want to emphasise that I have had a ball revisiting the fic in this fandom, and there are probably multiple fics guilty of everything I touch on below which I have loved to bits. It’s only the repetition that really starts to make you sit up and notice.

1. The Cobb-bashing, oh my god the Cobb-bashing! I had forgotten just how much this fandom hates Cobb. In the film, Cobb’s plan is the only reason Arthur and Eames ever end up in the same room at all – yet in fanfic, Cobb has been recast as the only thing keeping them apart. I’m not kidding there – fic with that exact premise is almost its own genre. In Inception fanon, Cobb is crazy and cares only about himself, and Arthur has wasted years of misplaced loyalty keeping him alive. Fanon!Eames hates Cobb for monopolising Arthur’s attention (in the film, Eames seems underwhelmed to learn Cobb is still working with Arthur at all). Fanon!Eames only works with Cobb at all because it’s an excuse to work with Arthur (in the film, they’re barely capable of having a civil conversation). Fanon!Eames never forgives Cobb for concealing the level of sedation they were under Inception job, and nor does Arthur (in the film, no-one even mentions Cobb’s deception after they leave the first level, and Eames’ main disappointment at the end is that he won’t get to see the Fischers’ big reconciliation, but why let that douse a good hateboner?) Meanwhile, Yusuf’s corresponding betrayal and Arthur’s equally-disastrous research-fail are rarely referenced. It’s not every fic, but the base level of Cobb-hate around these parts is pretty astounding. There’s nothing new about fans bashing the main character for having the gall to take screentime away from their OTP, and I’d be the last to play down Cobb’s real failings. But when one finds oneself tempted to leave enthusiastic comments on decade-old fic, praising the author for giving Cobb a minor scene or two where he gets to be a total bro to Arthur for a change… I promise you, it’s not me, it’s this fandom.

2. For all that Eames is basically the single biggest reason I’m reading in this fandom, his fanon characterisation leaves something to be desired. I do get the appeal of flirty!Eames or pining!Eames – it’s just that once in a while, you find yourself longing for fic about the guy who was actually in the movie – y’know, the one who’s first response to Arthur’s name was, “Arthur? Are you still working with that stick-in-the-mud?” I am totally down with the idea he was feigning indifference– maybe for Cobb’s benefit, maybe he’s actively in denial himself, whatevs. But fanon!Eames characterisation typically ranges from “hopelessly in love with Arthur from the moment they met” to “a walking sexual harassment lawsuit in action,” and neither of those guys could convincingly feign indifference to save their lives. It’s also a shame we don’t see more of the side of Eames that got so genuinely, unashamedly invested in what they were doing for Fischer – quite beyond the money and the prestige, Eames loves that they get to fix Fischer’s relationship with his father and reveal Browning as the rat that he is, and it’s a wonderfully humanising side to such a shady character. There should be so much scope in there to cast Eames was a guy with a real idealistic streak, or more conscience than he’d usually admit to, or just an abiding love for melodrama – the possibilities go on and on (and if you can’t think of a dozen ways to tie any of those in as fuel for his rivalry with Arthur for bonus shippy fodder, you aren’t even trying). But that part of Eames never does seem to have found a place in the fandom’s collective headcanon, because hell if I can find any exploration of it in fic, le sigh. (Cynically, I have to wonder if it’s because it clashes with the fanon where Eames spent the Inception job furiously hating Cobb and focused on Arthur, but even that seems somewhat lacking as an answer. Who even knows?)

3. As a corollary to the above, remarkably few fics make any attempt to deal with the fact that Arthur and Eames a) basically hate each other, b) for reasons that do not entirely revolve around how Arthur won’t put out. Obviously, this is a ‘hate’ that covers a much deeper well of underlying respect, but these are two guys who only stop taking potshots at each other when they’re being shot at for real, and to me that is 95% of the fun of the pairing – why does no-one even seem to try to recreate that dynamic in fic? Even 99% of Eames’ infamous ‘flirting’ would be better described as him pulling Arthur’s pigtails. Yet virtually no-one seems to want to tackle their antipathy head-on – even fic that acknowledges it as a past phase of their relationship isn’t set during that phase. I’m all for seeing them eventually end up friendlier, but you’ve got to show me how they get there first – that’s the good bit! Why does everyone skip over it? :((((

4. This fandom has SUCH a thing for underage!Arthur. Fics will go on and on about how young he looks, or theorise that he was actually underaged when he first got into dreamshare, or at least looked it. Seriously, the idea of Eames having mistaken Arthur for a teen when they first met is, like, the accepted pan-fandom headcanon as to why they don’t get on (unless we’re in military-backstory land, in which case it’s that Arthur had to deal with Eames hitting on him during the time of DADT). Then there are the many (MANY) AUs where Arthur really is a teen, hitting on the much-older Eames – there’s that one semi-parody where even twenty-something!Arthur gets cockblocked by his own looks, and there’s even at least one that flips things so that Eames the one who was underage when they met, just for variety.

It’s a real Thing, and I only wish I understood where it comes from, since (to me) Arthur has always looked like the 29yo man JGL legitimately was back when Inception hit screens – I don’t think he’d even passed as a Hollywood!teen for a solid half a decade at that point. So… are there really that many people who thought JGL looked that young when the film came out, or is this just one of those fannish meme things? I may never know.

5. No-one (by which I mean almost no-one) gets how limbo works. Fic after fic treats it as basically just a garden-variety coma, and colleagues can spend days or months moving the victim, gathering a team and planning a complex rescue. Rarely is it ever remembered the whole point of limbo is that you can age and die trapped in your own mind in no more than hours in the real world. When Eames talks about being ‘trapped in limbo until our brains turn to scrambled egg’, I think it’s safe to assume he’s being pretty literal. Basically, if you’re not treating limbo as the temporal equivalent of the Total Perspective Vortex, you’re probably doing it wrong.

6. No-one does anything interesting with Ariadne. This, I have some sympathy for: it’s hard to know where to go with someone who ends the film where she does – her push-pull relationship with the world of illegal dreamshare is not a contradiction that can be easily resolved in a subplot, if at all. But the Ariadne who so quickly had Cobb picked as a loose canon never seems to appear in fic either, and nor does the Ariadne with the guts to sneak into his dream to find answers, or the prodigy whose last-minute moment of inspiration saved the whole job. No, Inception fic is more likely to give you an Ariadne who giggles and drags her teammates out partying than any of that, which is absurd to the point of being genuinely offensive. Seriously, that is some A-grade “all we remembered about her is that she’s female”-bullshit. Even when she’s not saddled with OOC giggle fits, fic!Ariadne also remains frustrating static: years after the film, she’ll still be doing extractions with the Inception team, despite seeming no more at home in their world. Where’s the Ariadne who embraces the underworld wholeheartedly and reaches Arthur or Cobb levels of badassery? The Ariadne whose natural gifts and overconfidence get her into Cobb-levels of trouble? Who takes the Inception job as inspiration to go into therapeutic uses of dreams? Who finds legitimate dream-related work through Miles or Saito, but still lets the old team drag her back into extractions every once in a while (because she’s easily one of the most reliable architects in the whole shady business, and there’s a part of her that still kind of loves it)? WHERE?

The obvious rejoinder to all this is that it’s hardly surprising Ariadne doesn’t get much play when you’re mostly reading Arthur/Eames fic. So (because the land of fic is still terrible at cataloguing character-specific gen) I had a dig through some Arthur/Ariadne fic for comparison – only to run into much the same frustrations all over again. No-one takes her character anywhere very interesting.

So you can imagine my surprised delight when I tried a couple of Arthur/Ariadne/Eames fics on a whim, and almost immediately found not one but two different stories willing to dive headfirst into the questions surrounding Ariadne’s future in the world of illegal dreamshare (plus multiple stories which made a very convincing case that Ariadne should absolutely celebrate their successful Inception by having a threesome with her colleagues, I mean, damn).

I have absolutely no idea what it says about fandom that I had to go looking at threesome fic to find real character development, but at this point, I’ll take it.

7. So, I get why everyone reads Eames as queer (duh), but having discovered two quite excellent straight!Eames fic (which is to say, fic which utterly sells the idea that Eames considers himself straight or had no experience with men until long after meeting Arthur), the fact no equivalent seems to exist for Arthur baffles me. Sure, there’s one or two stories where one smile from Eames is about all it takes to make him change his mind, and one great kink meme fill that might have been just what I was looking for if it had ever been finished. But otherwise, the idea that Arthur (a guy who snogs Ariadne and is given no other obvious sexuality) -- the same Arthur whom every other fic portrays as seriously emotionally repressed – the idea this guy might not be experienced and comfortable dating men just… doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone. Which is so weird.

Is there not enough RL evidence that Tom Hardy can and does make straight guys reconsider their preferences? Is the idea of an Arthur who’s repressed that side of his own sexuality not a juicy enough explanation for the tension between them? How on earth did we wind up with a fandom where Eames is more likely to be the designated “straight” one at the start of the story than Arthur? The mind boggles.

Holy shit, you’re still reading? Damn! Have some more recs as thanks for listening to me ramble at so much length.

Recs!

Here’s those two from the top again, because I really do love them that much

We Can Do This Until We Pass Out by delires Disturbing London, baby, we about to branch out. (The one where Eames is a chav)

Towards Zero by Mirabella Five levels down, and five to dig yourself back out. Arthur met Eames' projection long before he met Eames.

Where the Dead Live also by Mirabella There's a monster in Arthur's basement. Maybe he shouldn't have invited it in. It’s the vampire!Apocalypse, and this one is intense. Utterly brilliant, but equally unapologetic about the implications of its premise. So, for a somewhat-lighter take on monster!Eames, I will also throw in:

Cthonical’s demon!Eames verse Unfinished -- arguably never even properly started, just a series of ficlets from a ‘verse that never quite got written, but they are scorching hot and still well worth a look.

That’s a lot of darker fic though, probably time to lighten the mood a little.

Anal [Inception] aka Not Now Cobb We're Doing BGs also by cthonical Arthur and Eames both play WoW. They kick ass at Warsong Gulch, and when they team up they’re nigh on unstoppable.They don’t know they’re playing with each other.

Champion Sound by pyrimidine Prompt: Arthur is a DJ, Eames is a bartender.

London Bridge by sorrynotsorry Arthur loves whiskey, and maybe strippers.

My two favourite Arthur/Eames/Ariadne fics

How to Cure Insomnia by wonderfulwrites When she called Arthur for advice on how to deal with the unexpected insomnia - okay, fine, on the pretense of asking for advice – she hadn’t expected to have to wade through a sea of bodies to see him. But then, she also hadn’t expected Eames’s cheerful but surprising, Just come, Ariadne. You can sleep when you’re dead. Or Eames, at all, really. The Wind on the Mountain by Starlingthefool Something in her rebels against this casual, passive seduction. God knows why, but she’s sitting up in the water, taking her foot back from Eames and dislodging Arthur’s hands from her back. She stands, wet underwear clinging ridiculously to her, and says to Arthur, “All right. Your turn.”

Aaand let’s have a few more straight Arthur/Eames to round it out.

Untitled and Untitled, redux by Helenish -- two variants on a theme, and do not let the lack of proper titles put you off, they’re both great.

Unexpected Plot Twist by ethrosdemon Post-Inception -- long and (as promised) twisty, and a very solid read.

Four Corners by Mithrigil In Eames’ line of work, a first impression means nearly everything. It’s always a pity when he doesn’t get off on the right foot.

Kiss With A Fist by cmonkatiekatie Because apparently, to find real Arthur/Eames antagonism, I have to go looking for hate sex. (Not complaining, this is some amazing hate sex.)

And also basically Everything by Wiltling There’s a darker vibe to their work, but it rarely gets oppressive -- just generally a lot of great fic.

#Inception #meta #fic recs

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bakagamieru · 5 years ago

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I don't think people are mad because of harry still being sad about zayn or whatever it is between them. Public image or offical narrative you name it but for some reason it's ALWAYS zayn who gets talked shit about and people at their "enough!" point me inclueded. 90% of theblogs I follow here are always critical about what's going on but after 5 years you want somethings to left behind. And at this point I can't help but ask would this mess still going on after all this time if it was not zayn?

General

There is every reason to believe that Zayn leaving is a stunt and that none of the boys ever had a problem with each other. I’ve explained that in many previous posts, and the explanation takes up a lot of space, so I’m not doing it again here. You can check out those posts in my Zayn Stunt Summary here: https://bakagamieru.tumblr.com/post/120840259353/zayn-stunt-summary

I think it helps to visualize this situation as a siege. The human psyche is rather suggestible. Even for strong, confident, self-assured personalities, it can be difficult to hold up against constantly being told the same lie from every quarter. Sooner or later, people who are repeatedly told lies start to believe them, unless they’re very lucky, very aware, and very careful. That’s the whole concept of gaslighting. This has also been shown in psychological experiments where people have eventually been convinced they’ve broken bones that they never have just because they keep being told they have over and over.

That’s why it’s important with this situation to keep reminding ourselves of the hard facts and work through every new development logically. That’s how we survive the siege and stop ourselves from getting hypnotized into believing negative things about the boys just because we’re told negative things over and over again.

Direct Answer

I think the current badmouthing is about a sick and twisted promo strategy that all of their teams seem to share.

I suspect there would be a lot more negativity from Zayn’s side if he had proper promo. No promo, no appearances, no performances, no interviews = no opportunity for badmouthing.

Also, keep in mind that there are 4 people that can potentially badmouth Zayn, while Zayn is only 1 person to badmouth the other boys. That’s obviously going to lead to more vitriol directed at Zayn than at the other boys.

Those two things (lack of promo, 4 v. 1 scenario) are probably part of the reason everything seems so unbalanced.

There’s also the fact that Zayn was cast as the villain from the beginning. In the post I linked, you can find a post I made about why there were multiple reasons for that and why Zayn was actually the only person among the boys that could have been put in that role during this stunt. Is there probably some racism involved in that? Yes. Is part of the reason that people are so willing to believe the worst about Zayn linked to unconscious racism? Quite possibly, yes.

I know it sucks to see other people buying the negativity and feel like there’s nothing you can do about it. The only thing I can say is that if you’re surrounded by negativity, it’s very difficult to see anything but the negative side of a situation.

I prefer to think that most of the fans have been taken in by a targeted psychological strategy that relies more on repetitive misdirection than that most of the fans are blatantly racist. And I really do believe that’s true. I believe a lot of this type of racism is unconscious bias and that one day, hopefully a lot of people with these unconscious biases will at least become aware they have them and work towards trying to fix them.

But no, in general I don’t think this negativity is still going on only because it’s Zayn. I think it’s still going on because old 1DHQ still want it to be going on and keeps stirring the pot to make sure it does. I think this is still going on because old 1DHQ still has some sort of hold on 1D’s public images, because the “feud” drama is being used for promo, and because the situation can’t really be fully resolved until the hiatus ends (and I predicted that before the hiatus began). I had hoped that we might at least get friendly Zayn and 1D even before a reunion, but apparently that’s too much to ask for from the evil 1D overlords.

I, too, feel like shit every time this unnecessary negativity rears its ugly head. However, you have to either find a way to accept and move past it (which I do through reminding myself of the truth via logic) or you might need to remove yourself from the negativity. If it’s dragging you down constantly, consider unfollowing blogs that post the news that upsets you or blocking the most common tags on the posts that upset you. I know being told to ignore a bad situation isn’t the best, but for your mental health, it’s either that or finding a way to fight back that makes you feel better.

Showy = Putting on a Show

To me, the drama of this “feud” is just another reason to believe that nothing IS actually going on between Harry and Zayn. Nothing bad anyway.

When something is constantly being pushed in your face, it’s generally because someone wants you to see it. More often than not, the things that are really scandalous are hidden in the entertainment industry and it’s the huge dramatic “feuds” that are constantly in the news that end up being all an act.

Character

Maybe I wear rose-colored glasses, but I’d like to think I’m a decent judge of character. None of the boys are rude or spiteful enough to keep taking potshots, especially to gang up on one particular person, for years and years after a fight.

It takes a certain maturity to survive with as much grace as the boys have managed in the entertainment industry, and that sort of maturity should also lend itself towards mending a relationship after an argument / learning how to move on from an argument that can’t be fixed.

Former Friend vs. Foe

Yes, there have been a few public scuffles with other celebs in the past, such as the Wanted, but that situation is different simply because no 1D boys were ever close to any of the Wanted. A fight with a near-stranger is very different from a fight with someone you’ve called your brother on multiple occasions.

The closer the people who are fighting are, the more emotional it is and the more hurt people get. Being more emotional means being more likely to be very angry, but being more hurt means that you aren’t as likely to want to broadcast that very vulnerable, private feeling. You’re more likely to want to shun the topic with strangers than vent about it, if you’re any sort of a private person.

If we know nothing else, we at least know for sure that Zayn and the other boys were very, very good friends. You can’t fake the way they were together for the amount of time they were together.

It Was a Single Fight Supposedly

The story is that none of the boys are really in contact with Zayn, so according to that narrative, it’s not like there are ongoing clashes that keep any of the boys feeling like they need to keep commenting negatively about Zayn. If you’re continually butting heads, it might make sense to keep complaining about the situation, but that’s not what we’re being told is happening. We’ve essentially been told that there was 1 fight years ago and that’s been it aside from a small amount of supposed back and forth, almost entirely in print interviews initially.

Time and Common Decency

It’s been almost 5 YEARS. What person with any sense of decency keeps bringing up a fight at every public appearance that happened 5 YEARS ago?

That would be like getting in a fight with your good friend and then badmouthing them publicly at every gathering of your mutual friends for years. No matter who was in the right originally, you’re just a jackass at that point.

Talking about something in private and complaining is one thing, but doing it in public? That’s entirely different. And the more time that passes, the more ridiculous it is.

Relevancy

Zayn isn’t even really relevant to any of the boys’ solo careers, so it doesn’t particularly make sense for him to be brought up over and over.

This might be because the interviewers can’t seem to move on from 5 years ago, asking constantly about when the band is getting back together, if they’re getting back together, how is it different having a solo career, etc. It’s been 5 YEARS. Those questions have been asked and answered ad nauseam and it’s not like those answers have changed over time.

Sorry, got a bit off track complaining about interviewers… Anyway, it might just be the interviewers being unoriginal, but their team clearly hasn’t blacklisted the topic which would be a more sensible and classy way to handle things given the situation and the amount of time that’s passed. There’s no need to talk about Zayn at all really, and yet it keeps coming up. It just makes all of them look bad, which shouldn’t be the image their teams want for them, and yet…apparently something is more important.

The Promo Connection

More than that, it specifically always seems to come up during promo, for better or worse. Sometimes the mentions are more positive, but most of the time the narrative takes a sharp turn to the aggressively negative overnight.

After ranging from positive to neutral when talking about Zayn for years, suddenly during Liam’s first round of promo, things turned quite negative (e.g., wouldn’t save Zayn if he were drowning) and again during this current round of promo (e.g., guess I can talk about this honestly now, etc.).

After supposedly reconciling about 3 different times (while apparently having no contact positive or negative at all during these years?), Louis’ feelings on Zayn are apparently very negative (e.g. we’re too immature to ever make up) during this current round of promo.

After not talking about Zayn at all, Harry was suddenly negative during his first round of promo (I think it was the Rolling Stone print interview, but I’m not sure) and brought it up negatively again, unprompted, during this round of promo on SNL.

It’s not like Zayn ever HAS promo anymore, but when he does have interviews, there’s generally some sort of dig at One Direction somehow (pretty much all print interviews, of course).

The only one to escape the pattern is Niall, but Teflon Niall is a real thing, enough said.

It’s ALWAYS during promo for a single or album that things get nasty again. My best guess is that their teams think that the “feud” = drama = attention = sales. To me, it seems dumb, repetitive, unrealistic, etc., but I guess a casual fan or the general public wouldn’t follow everything they do, so it’s not as repetitive to that type of consumer.

Conclusion

I am 100% aware of how exhausting, frustrating, and infuriating this whole situation is. There’s no need for the negativity, it makes no sense, it paints all of the boys in a bad light, it basically requires someone to assume the worst of Zayn in order to believe any of it, and yet there are tons of people who still do believe all of it without any critical thought.

This is why I still write posts like these over and over again. I have to get those negative emotions out somehow, and the best way for me to feel better is by countering the official narrative by using logic. It reassures me that even though I’m made to feel like crap about the situation, my initial and continuing judgments about the situation haven’t been wrong. If you remind yourself of the actual proven characters of the people involved and work things out logically, it’s not dire like all the negativity makes it feel.

When things are loud, they tend to be for show. That’s what this all is. This negativity is for show, which means it’s not real.

TLDR;

The fact that there’s still so much public negativity between the boys and Zayn is unrealistic, and therefore suspicious, because:

the boys are too good to be acting like this

this supposed fight would be too intimate and painful to bandy about publicly like this

supposedly the boys haven’t been in contact and so all of this is over a single fight that happened 5 years ago

the boys are too smart to not know that acting like this makes them look bad

their teams have to be in favor of the badmouthing because otherwise they could easily have just not talked about it at all

there’s generally a sharp increase in negativity when one of the boys has single or album promo

there’s more badmouthing of Zayn because it’s framed as 4 v. 1 and also Zayn never has any promo

My conclusion from these points (and also from previous facts and experience) is that the badmouthing isn’t because 1D and Zayn want to be badmouthing each other. Rather, the drama of the “feud” is being used for promo and possibly other purposes. I firmly believe that if there were a real falling out, the 1D boys would have handled it far more gracefully than this, given the chance.

I suppose it’s possible that there was a real fight and that the boys were forced to handle it ungracefully by their team, but I would point to Occam’s Razor. The simplest explanation that fits ALL the facts related to this situation (from the time of Zayn leaving through now) is that Zayn was forced out of 1D as a stunt and that there was never an actual feud between Zayn and the rest of the boys.

So yes, this situation sucks, but no, I don’t blame either side for it because there are NO sides when there is no actual fight. I blame old 1DHQ and I blame society in general and I blame the ignorance of the general public. But I’m not here for them, I’m here for 1D, so I keep my head down and keep waiting for things to get good again.

#one direction #zayn leaving #zayn v. 1d feud #speculation #bakagamieru #masterpost #I wrote a massive post again #sob #why do I always do this?#when will I ever learn?#I also can't stay on topic for the life of me #Anonymous

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margridarnauds · 5 years ago

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6-8 for Star Wars or the MCU?

Thanks!

6. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

THANKFULLY enough, I’m far enough away from the worst of the MCU discourse that I don’t REALLY hear it. I will say that, generally speaking, some of the worst people I’ve ever personally interacted with have been Stucky shippers, but I put that down more to it having a HUGE AMOUNT of shippers, specifically that Specific Brand of slash shipper who is more obsessed with “PURE. SOFT. UWU. BOYS.” without focusing on anything of substance and regularly say shitty, biphobic things to other shippers and toss female characters under the bus. I don’t HATE the ship and of itself, it’s just not my particular poison. (I will take this time to remind anyone of the audience who has never heard it that one of my VERY FIRST slash ships was Frostiron. So that kind of sets the mood there.) I like their overall dynamic, I do like the chemistry, so it isn’t a total no-sell, just not something I’ll sell myself heart and soul to.

I feel like a ton of the sequel trilogy ships that became REALLY popular on Tumblr were ruined for me by the, frankly, disgusting way that Reylo shippers were treated. Like, you want to complain about how your ship isn’t getting enough attention? Fine, but THEN don’t blame Reylo shippers for it not getting attention WHEN YOU DID EVERYTHING TO EXCLUDE US FROM THE PARTY IN THE FIRST PLACE. Including putting “Reylo shippers DNI” on artwork of your ship. Like, if you do that, then I will do as you say and not interact with it. And probably block you for good measure. So that you don’t accidentally ever put yourself in the unfortunate position of interacting with a Disgusting Reylo.

I walked out of the first film willing to ship ANYTHING. F1nnrey, F1innpoe, Kylux, and, yes, Reylo. Hell, even Darkpilot. But then, as Fandom evolved, the Reylo shippers, as a group, became more and more insular. I saw this happen BEFORE MY OWN EYES. It became more about hating ONE SHIP than about liking....anything else. There couldn’t be a SINGLE POST about one of the others without a backhanded swipe about Reylo in there. (Also, can I just say, as a bisexual in fandom, the way that Reylo was referred to as a Straight Ship™ when...like....a decent proportion of the Reylo shippers that I personally interacted with were in fact bi was...The two of them knocking uglies while having different plumbing does NOT in fact make either the characters or the shippers straight.)

I still do like Darkpilot and Finnlo, though. Among others (the smaller, the more niche, the better). But my God if I don’t interact with the fandom as a whole, because like...I’ll just get kicked down.

7. Is there anything you used to like, but now can’t stand?

I liked Ragnarok alright, as far as the Thor movies were concerned. Not the BEST, but it was a fun ride, even if the continuity bugged me.

Then.....the fandom. The FANDOM. The ongoing potshots at the rest of the Thor franchise (talking about HOW GOOD IT WAS compared to the OTHER THOR FILMS, which the film ITSELF didn’t help by making empty jabs at them for....daring to actually show EMOTION instead of endless butt jokes?)

And ignoring the way that it shat on two films’ worth of development.

And took out a significant part of the prior cast (including, not one, but three female characters.)

And....

Yeah, there’s a reason I have every possible tag for it blacklisted at this point.

In Star Wars....it’s actually HARD for me to look at the sequel series now, after TROS. And this is something I’ve heard a lot of. There’s just this...empty feeling. Which is hard with something that’s basically a PART of you because you’ve been a fan of it for so long. Star Wars isn’t JUST a franchise, it’s Five Year Old Rachel sitting in front of a TV and watching a boy only a few years older than her compete in a pod racing tournament as her aunt says “That’s going to be Darth Vader” and it’s asking for The Return of the Jedi EVERY TIME because she loved the Ewoks SO MUCH, it’s having a small lightsaber collection when by the time she was 7-8. It’s going to Star Wars Day at Hollywood Studios and not being overly impressed by MUCH, but then getting to see the fireworks go off overhead to some of the best cinematic music ever composed by man and it being a moment of pure MAGIC. It’s...it’s something that’s threaded itself throughout my life for YEARS. And it’s gone. Or at least a huge part of it is. I don’t know if I’ll ever quite get it back. What TROS did.......it wasn’t JUST a bad storytelling decision. It wasn’t JUST me not being happy that my ship didn’t end up together (the ship thing.....honestly wasn’t even the biggest thing for me). It was a BETRAYAL. And a particularly deep one. And I’m not sure when, or if, I can ever love it like I used to.

8. Unpopular opinion about [insert fandom here]?

Hating the MCU isn’t a substitute for a personality, I’m sorry. I know you’re embarrassed that you liked in 2012, but please, please deal with that on your own time instead of making endless posts shitting on the MCU. I get it, it’s not as good as it used to be. For my part, I decided to bow out after Endgame. But people saying that it’s as bad as CORONAVIRUS is....

wow. Like, everyone copes in their own ways, but YOU ARE AWARE PEOPLE HAVE DIED, RIGHT?

I’m REALLY going to make some enemies here, but Hanleia has ALWAYS creeped me out. I do NOT like the way he treats her, I don’t like their first kiss, and honestly? I was kind of glad they broke up in the Sequel Trilogy because it felt more natural for me. (As much as....a lot of the Sequel Trilogy can be natural.) There was a really good Youtube video on Harrison Ford and playing predatory romance, and it really articulated a lot of my feelings on that particular ship. I feel like people....tend to make Han better than he was, which is the counterpart to Dudebros imprinting on him and making him worse than he was.

#i'm ready to die now #long post #mssmartian

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commorritestreettrash · 6 years ago

Text

Short Story: Death Race (2.3k words) (TAFFY X BIKE)

The engine of Taffy’s Reaver jetbike rang with a single crystal-clear note underneath her, resonating off the Webway wall on her left.

“Shhhhh.” She gently ran her hand over the side of the chassis. “It’s gonna be okay, Hestelvet-va.” The note quieted as she spoke, drawing curious looks from the bikers beside her. She answered them with a devilish, too-wide grin. Best to keep them guessing, even if she still didn’t fully understand the pre-fall tech humming away at the core of her bike.

A voice blared from the pleasure-barge floating above the host of bikers. “Welcome, assorted racers and sacrificial lambs, to the Sky Serpent Invitational! Let me congratulate about half of you on being here. The other half, I invited because I expect you to die amusingly, and you should be feeling like idiots.”

Taffy looked around. It looked like quite a few of the racers were abruptly realizing why they had been invited. She had wondered what that hack Thesalilly had been doing here!

The voice continued. “As you are all presumably aware, I, Duke Traevelliath Sliscus, have a reputation for inscrutability and wicked treachery. Some of you elected not to show up at all because of this, which is why you see the crowd of people affixed to their bikes in the back of the field- be sure to wave! They won’t wave back on account of the nails through their hands, but it’s good form, and nobody wants to die unacknowledged.” The statement was punctuated with a delighted, feminine giggle from someone else near the microphone before Sliscus briefly interrupted his own monologue, voice still blaring out across the Weway. “Mmm. Mind your teeth when you giggle, darling, as cute as it is. And see if you can do something with my balls. Oh, that’s good, damn, you do this to Vraesque daily? Lucky bastard! Where was I? Ah, right.” He clears his throat. “Wicked treachery, that’s where I was! You are all, of course, aware of the tradition of painfully executing the last-place finisher in a death race. However, in my opinion, ‘second place’ just means ‘first loser’! For that reason, I’ll be painfully executing everyone but the winner! I hope you all made resurrection arrangements, because it will be very long and painful, and I’d hate for nobody to see the insane, whimpering wrecks that I will reduce your minds to.”

Sliscus paused for a few heartbeats, allowing a ripple of panicked glances and additional drug injections to ripple out across the assembled racers. Taffy, for her part, slammed home a quick double-dose of Hypex that she had been saving- the good shit, triple-refined.

“With that out of the way- Two laps around the circuit, you’ve all seen it- THREE TWO ONE GO!” He shrieks the last part out at a manic pace, entirely too pleased with himself.

A chorus of whistling bladevane-song rings out as bikes hiss into action, slicing through the still, ancient air of the webway. An instant later, old instincts are overcome by fresh calculus- with all but the winner damned to the torturer’s chamber, shooting someone else down no longer increases the risk of that fatal last-place finish- and a hissing chatter of splinter fire rises as accompaniment.

12-dimensional geometry unfolds in Taffy’s brain like a spiderweb as she plans her movements, barrel rolling through a curtain of splinterfire. A quick cluster-caltrop release clears some spaaaaaace behind her, and she slows slightly, dropping towards the back of the pack. She spots Thesalilly doing the same thing, and glowers- both of them have realized that right now, being in fewer gunsights trumps being in the lead. Eye-searing bolts of darklight whip silently forward from her bike’s mounted blaster, downing two riders ahead of her who weren’t so quick on the uptake.

She considers the course- a multidimensional knot of webway tunnel, often passing dangerously close to the Warp. A second later, as she rounds a corner, she realizes why Duke Sliscus picked such a place. The walls of this section of Webway are riddled with freshly-cut holes, and out of them blares the awful noise and light of the Empyrean… and as the front off the pack zooms over them, a vast, too-skinny hand, reaches out from one of them and spears a Reaver, pilot and all, on a single one of its talonlike fingernails. Taffy shrieks, pulling back on her bike and angling up, up, for the middle of the webway, the movement away from the holes abruptly mirrored by those around her. The side of her bike scrapes up against another, it’s pilot angling for the same spaaaaaace as her- but her reflexes are quicker and she pulls her knife and plunges it into his throat. His bike veers off to the side, where another grasping, ivory hand snatches it up, flinging it to the side when it finds it’s rider already fallen.

Perhaps a quarter of the riders survive the clawed hands, and the opening brawl. The Webway here is free of holes, but barely-visible monowire is strung haphazardly across it’s breadth. The guns are quieter, now, as riders focus on the delicate side-to-side dance and whirl of eluding slicing death. Taffy still finds the time to take a few potshots at Thesalilly with her splinter pistol, and she replies in turn, but nothing gets close to hitting- they’re just turning and dodging to quick to fire accurately.

The gauntlet of slicing cables abruptly ends, and disintegrator fire shrieks through the air as cackling pirates floating idly in Raiders fire their weapons at the passing racers. The current leader’s sky-blue jetbike takes a hit to it’s darklight reactor, and without even time to scream, both bike and rider are crunched into a tightly-packed ball of torn-up meat and twisted metal.

Taffy’s thighs clench around Hestlevet-va as she rolls to the side, barely eluding disintegrator fire. She shudders, abruptly aware of the shape the course is taking, veering close to the same warp-spaaaaaace as the opening gauntlet. She slips into the center of the tunnel in anticipation- and sure enough, holes again start appearing in the softly glowing walls. Her finger hovers over the nitro-boost on her bike- a modification of her own design that dumps a tank of compressed stellar plasma into her rear thruster, sending her searing forward at the head of a column of superheated gas- but she places her hand back on the handle, deciding against it for the moment. Her present position, in fifth place, a few fractions of a second behind Thesalilly, is fine for the moment. One of the immense daemonic hands reaches out from the wall all at once, striking like a serpent, it’s finger closing around her bike- but a fast twirl sends her bladevanes tearing up the flesh of it’s palm, and it recoils, bright pink blood spattering the Webway.

The course rips on a long, wide curve, back around towards the start- a spaaaaaace for the racers to focus on shooting each other. Taffy gleefully takes the opportunity, firing her blaster at Thesalilly. She rolls out of the way and flips the bird to Taffy, without so much as a backwards glance. FUCK, that was slick. Taffy grinds her teeth, and continues forward, planning how she’ll pull into the lead.

The course rolls onward to lap 2- back to the first gauntlet of grasping hands from the warp. Taffy spins her bike through a hairpin turn and back into the opening gauntlet, ducking a burst of chattering splinter fire from behind her. He’s too close. She does a loop, tight and quick as a noose snapping shut. At the top, as she hangs upside down from her bike, a gentle squeeze of her handle puts a blaster bolt through her pursuer’s engine, sending him careening to his death. She cackles, tasting his anguish even from her bike seat, before zooming off in pursuit of the leaders of the race.

She crosses into the hole-ridden gauntlet of grasping daemons, still no more than a ew seconds from the lead. Just as she nears the end, reaching for her mental map of the monofilament, a hand reaches out to bar her way, and she barrel rolls to the side, slipping past it, juuust catching it’s index finger with her bladevane- and then, a horrifying sound. A loud, screeching noise of metal striking metal. Her bike whips to the side as her bladevane catches on some impossibly-hard bone at the core of the hand’s index finger, and the curve of her bladevane sends her on a whirl, then hurtling into the side of the webway wall with a hard, bone-rattling smack. The delay is withering- at least ten seconds. A dozen riders zoom past her, riding for their lives, as she tries to bring her bike back on course. She feels the blood drain from her face. No. No no no no no. She can’t make up this time deficit.

That’s it. I’m damned. The thought echoes through her head… and then her mental map of the webway floats gently through her head, and a wild, lunatic grin leaps to her face. She whirls her bike around, flying back into the reach of those awful, grasping hands.She pulls aside from one of them, takes a deep breath- and dives right into a hole in the Webway, into the searing light of the Warp.

Chaos surrounds her. She screams a prayer to every god she can think of as she spins her bike, angling down-down-leftup-rightsideways at what she desperately hopes is the right direction- and finds herself staring at the thing that has been helping itself to her fellow riders. Not a host of daemons, but a vast, serpentlike creature. A colossal, gaping, and eyeless mouth sits at one end, the other branching and branching and branching into gods knows how many ivory hands.

And it is looking at her. It’s awful gaze ripples through her soul as she tears across the Warp, focusing all her mental energies on just keeping herself together in this sea of madness. A host of the thing’s hands turn to pursue her, grasping, reaching with sickening speed for something so large. Too much speed. They’re gaining on her, they’re too fast, the fingers are inches from her chassis.

Taffy’s eyes gleam with bloody, animal cunning. She shrieks an importunement to Khaela Mensha Khaine and slams her hand down on the button for her turbo burst. Stellar plasma, once ripped from the Ilmaea, spills out into the warp, burning great holes into the palms of the hands pursuing Taffy. They recoil from her even as she tears forward. Now… she just has to hope she got the direction right. Her fevered mind checks and re-checks itself a dozen times with a talent that hardly a soul outside of the Harlequins or Naviagator possesses, nearly second-guessing itself in the haze of fear and pain as the violent tides of the warp tug at her skin, bone, and soul.

And then, all at once, she’s through, bursting back into the webway through an invisible hole in the Empyrean, spinning round and pulling into the final curve of the track, searing towards Duke Sliscus’s pleasure barge, not merely in front but winning by a nearly unheard of margin.

A delighted, maniacal cackle, backed by thunderous applause, roars out from the barge on seeing Taffy’s lunatic maneuver succeed. She pulls over the finish line and swoops to a landing on the barge, staggering off her bike, mind still reeling from the horrors of the Warp. She nearly falls over, grasping the rail of the barge to save herself, and promptly throws up over the side of it, gasping. A firm hand pats her back, pulling her up and thrusting a goblet into her hand.

“Drink! Trust me, it’ll help.” The voice is firm, but not unkind, and full of raw, unfiltered excitement. Taffy lifts the cup to her lips and drinks, gasping as it passes her lips- it’s full of the rawest soul echo- liquefied suffering- she’s ever had. The drink itself practically quivers with dread, pain, and anguish in its cup. She gulps it down in a heartbeat, her cheeks flushing with black blood, the rejuvenating pain flushing the vile tides of the warp from her soul. Another is thrust into her hand, and she drinks it down before turning to see Duke Sliscus himself holding her up by the shoulder, his face the very picture of lunatic glee.

“Well done! What was your name again?”

Taffy inhales, still shaking with a heady cocktail of pain, trauma, and delight. “T... Taphemela. Taphemela of the Death’s Head Wasps! You can call me Taffy.” She reaches out and firmly shakes his hand, just as Thesalilly whips over the finish line in what she had thought was first place. She lands on the barge, and her eyes bulge as she sees Taffy standing there, right beside the legendary Sky Serpent. Horrible glee rises from Taffy’s throat in a cruel, patronizing laugh as she feels the dismay, terror, and apoplectic rage pour off of her rival.

A blood vessel in her eye burst as she screams at Taffy. “THAT’S FUCKING CHEATING!!!”

A whisper-quiet clack answers her accusation, and she falls over, screaming. Duke Sliscus lowers his splinter pistol with a giggle.

“Of course it was cheating! That was why I loved it!!! Now then, Taffy- to our banquet, and your well deserved prize! Archon Skourna and Archon Malidrach are particularly eager to see you!”

The Duke pulls Taffy about, and the two depart. Taffy has perhaps the best night of her life.

#tw: violence #taffy X bike #Duke Sliscus #Effort Post #OC #writing #short story #reblogs appreciated!

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wadewilsoniii · 5 years ago

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G A Y L O R D

If you’re feelin’ it.

G - Good at?

Some vague semblance of comp-sci that’s actually applicable to the real world and not, well, you know. Completely illogical bullshit formulated to fill a memory hole. I’m also apparently very good at offering advice for mental and physical health problems. Shit’s hard. We’re suffering enough. I’m a no judgement person who’ll help you heal your shit and move on.

A - Are you single?

Someone’s dogging my footsteps in a back alley, their heavy footfalls making me feel like my heart is in my throat. I walk a little bit faster. I can’t run, there could be a trap at the other end, and I should save that running energy for ducking under some arms. They’re speaking now. Demanding that I acknowledge that they had feelings for me first like a toddler who got handed a toy that another kid got for their birthday. But the answer is no, I’m not acknowledging shit with them creepily following me around. I saw them digging through my trash the other night and it wasn’t even cute like it is when raccoons do it. Then I watched them scuttle over to your trash and dig even harder. You aren’t going to find anything. Get out of the garbage, it’s only making you fucking stink. Anyway. I think we all know the answer to this question is no. I’m not single. And I’ll never love someone more.

Y - Your last hug?

I’m not sure. I’m fairly certain it was a system wide friend just before he went home.

L - Longest relationship?

From an “I’m an introject and therefore have memories that I can’t place in a tangible setting” viewpoint, you’re technically my first relationship ever, but if we’re going by my memories - six months.

O - One wish.

To be able to peacefully enjoy my time with you every single day. I’ve been maintaining that pretty damn well, so I think it’s true that you make your own dreams come true in most cases.

R - Reason to smile?

I’m sure you’re pretty aware that I have a generalized flat affect even when it comes to my facial expressions. But you make me smile more than any meme or cheap potshot of a joke. You’re one of my biggest reasons to smile.

D - Did you get your first kiss?

Sure did. You know all about it.

#ask game answer #canismajors

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izzyovercoffee · 5 years ago

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Prompt number: 27. "Can you wait for me?” Fandom: Fallout 4 Rating: PG? Warnings/Tags: mention of violence but nothing explicit or major Summary: Piper feels like she just can’t catch a break, right up until she does. Notes: Deacon’s in here. B)

##. he’s my nondisclosure agreement

Piper was having a bad day.

Sure, it was normal to have days that are bad, out in the Commonwealth. Normal to venture forth through the gates into the world to hunt down the slightest inkling to her very, very sensitive investigative… uh, senses. Normal to come back empty handed and angry to all hell.

But Piper, she'd had enough of normal. Had her fill of it, even. Had it up to here of the kind of normal that left her at the end of the day twice as mad because anger was a great alternative to crushed, and she didn't want to entertain going through the motions of feeling crushed in open view of anyone and everyone.

The public sure would LOVE to see a crushed loudmouth reporter. LOVE to see her brokenhearted and on the verge of shutting herself away forever.

So she picked anger. Anger was a good motivator. She found it could be freeing, even, especially from the cage of her insecurities, and her loneliness, and her writer's block.

“Piper!” Nat’s voice broke through Piper’s surly mood.

“Heyy, kiddo…” She dragged out the hey just a little too long for normal, and Nat’s eyes narrowed. Busted.

Nat hopped off the box she used to accost and bully the people of the market to buy their newspaper and stepped a little closer to Piper.

“Your boyfriend's here,” Nat near-whispered.

Piper sputtered. “H-what? I don't…who?”

Nat said nothing else, just stared up at her from her judgmental position. “I'm going to get ramen,” she announced, at a louder volume. “Can I have some caps, please?”

Piper blinked down at her sister, thrown by the sudden change in demeanor, and dug out the handful she'd need for a bowl, maybe two.

“Thanks,” Nat said, and then much quieter: “He's been waiting for you,” and gave the door to their home a meaningful glance.

“Did he say what he wanted?”

Nat leveled a very, very unimpressed glare in Piper’s direction, and set off.

So much for spending her bad day alone and in peace.

How was her hair? Her hat? Her trenchcoat? She quickly patted down her coat, her hat, and didn’t bother touching her hair. What she needed, what she really needed, was a bath.

That was, at least, her excuse. Her prepared I-need-to-go-sorry phrase she’d throw down the second she stepped through the door. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good. She’s not nervous for no reason at all, all of a sudden, or anything. He’s not---it’s not. Like that. Or anything.

Did she ever get around to improving her poker face?

“Hey!” He said from his position lounging on her couch, head tilted back with his sunglasses neatly over his eyes. He angled to look at her as she stood just inside of her home. She leaned forward to pull the metal sad-excuse-for-a-door closed.

“John,” she said and, after a beat, locked the door.

“Piper,” he replied with an easy smile. “You look thrilled to see me here.”

So she couldn’t help wearing her expressions on her sleeve. It was part of her charm, her indelible mystique, her … ah hell, who was she kidding?

“No offense, John, but I’ve had a really long day,” she said as she turned around, and leaned her back against the door. “I was hoping I could spend it, you know, alone.” She didn’t move, just bent her arms and slowly tugged her gloves off, finger by finger to loosen the grip the leather had on her skin and ease off the otherwise impossible to remove protection for her hands.

He watched her---or she assumed he did, with his chin tilted in her general direction and his sunglasses still blocking his eyes.

“Sure, sure,” he said. “I get that, but, you know, I got this crazy gut feeling today, almost like I was shot through the head by intuition, and I thought---hell, I better check up on my friend, the crazy reporter with the worst timing.”

She gripped both gloves in a single palm, and as she looked from the uninvited guest on her couch to the wrinkled, worn leather in her hand, she briefly considered hurling the gloves across the room and shooting them. She didn’t, because they were a very nice pair of gloves and she had no desire to replace them any time soon, but the impulse was there. Instead of following it, she gently placed her gloves atop the filing cabinet directly to her right---left of the door when looking at it, and in between the steps to the door and her couch.

Next came her newscap, which she pulled off her head in a way that lacked elegance and was mostly all anger, and squeezed the canvas in her bare hands with an unsubtle show of her frustration.

“Fuck you,” she said and chucked her hat across the room. It slapped the far wall with a faint, soft fwap, and fell to the ground.

“You were really building up for that one, huh.”

“What the hell do you want, John?”

Both his arms stretched out lazily over the top edge of her couch, his head still tilted back over the back edge and against the wall, his legs extended in a sprawl that suggested he might just fall asleep there. His hands raised at his wrists.

“Whoa, whoa,” he said, too casually and without any emphasis behind it. “I’m just here to help you today.”

“Yeah?” Piper asked. “Where were you about two hours ago when I needed the help?”

He shifted in his seat---on her couch. Took a breath, as if buying time, or thinking on the right thing to say.

“You know what? I’m suddenly not up to feeling like beating around the bush,” he said, softly, as if hit with an unexpected wave of exhaustion. “I covered you dragging Ms. Covena’s body from the Fens Way station. You’re welcome, by the way.”

Piper took the steps down to the ‘ground’ floor of her home, on the level as the couch, the printing press, several filing cabinets and her sleeping bag at the far end of the room. Her heart puttered angrily in her chest, the anger a farce in the face of her overwhelming grief of the moment.

“She died before I got there,” she said. “If I hadn’t---”

“Hey, Piper, question,” he interjected. “Have you considered, maybe, oh, I don’t know, that she was trying to set you up?”

Piper liked to think she had some sense not to be exceptionally revealing, but her surprise had her whip her head around to look at him. “What?”

“Listen,” he shifted, again, and sat up a little straighter, brought his hands into his lap, as he looked back at her. “I don’t know what you were meeting with her for, but I do know she had racked up a pretty heavy debt to a nice big group of smiley gunners, and it was just about … oh, last I checked, around the same?” His head nodded side to side in consideration. “About? As the price they put on your head.”

She frowned. Obviously, she knew better than to just trust what some compulsive liar tells her, but all the pieces she found around Ms. Covena’s body sure built up a stink of set up, and it didn’t help that Gunners rained down some ugly hellfire once they realized she’d sprung the trap. How she managed to drag the woman’s body out of there, and then managed to make a run for it, she didn’t know.

What she did know was that she felt grimy, and now foolish, and that grief dispersed in confusion and the void of frustration left behind.

“So you’re here to, what?” she asked. “Rub it in?”

“Have I ever?” he asked, seriously.

She remained quiet. No, he hadn’t. Granted, he didn’t come around often, but … no. he never did.

Another beat of silence stretched between them before he patted the couch beside himself. She hesitated, and shook her head. “Give me a second,” she said, and worked the buttons of her coat. She pulled it off, and crossed the room to hang up the coat on a hook. She still felt a little dusty, but not as bad without the majority of the dirt-catcher she wore off her shoulders.

And then she collapsed onto the couch beside him with a whump, and leaned up against him. His arm went around her shoulders, as if to secure her in place.

He was warm, and he actually smelled good, which was more than she could say for herself.

“Why do you always find things out before I do?” she asked.

“I didn’t.” He yawned, and hell---maybe he really was tired, instead of playing at it. “I found out after I saw you drag her out. Overheard it when I was, uh, taking potshots to spook off your tail.” He paused. “I did say you’re welcome, right?”

“I heard you the first time,” she said, but didn’t thank him. He’d be waiting a nice long time before she got around to it. And, okay, sure, maybe it was a little petty to withhold thanks for a genuine favor, but she wouldn’t put it past him to hold it over her head later. “And I didn’t ask for the help.”

“Oh, here we go again,” he drawled in that weird… accent she couldn’t place, and removed his arm from around her shoulders. “I’m not gonna ask for your permission to help you out every time, Piper.”

She remembered some folks talked about a weird Diamond City guard that talked like he was from out west, from real, actual, caravaners that’d come from way out at the other end of this wasted strip of land---but if that was the case, that raised a whole lot more questions than answers.

“I don’t want your help.”

“Fair.”

That surprised her. She was expecting an argument, even gearing up for it---but then again she also felt the sheer threat of exhaustion waiting for her, so maybe she was just trying to stave off passing out with irritation.

“Fair?”

“A----nyway,” he dragged out the ‘a’ of anyway as he rose up to his feet in a smooth motion that looked like it took absolutely no effort at all, and Piper once again revised the thought that he may well actually be tired. “I better get a move on. People to go, places to see.”

Piper stared at him. That wasn’t … Was that… wait, what?

“That’s it?” she asked.

“What’s it?”

As he turned to look at her, she caught the slightest glimpse of bright eyes before the sunglasses hid them again. The stark overhead lighting worked against her there, throwing his face in dark shadow when he did look down at her.

“Why come here?” She frowned. “Why bother me?”

“Just making sure our favorite neighborhood reporter’s still kicking,” he said, a soft smile pulling up into a smirk.

He took a step towards the door, and paused. “Oh, hold on.” Made a show of patting down his pockets, except the getup he wore didn’t have pockets in all the places he touched. “Where did I put it…”

“You know, it’s the funniest thing,” he said, and pulled out a holodisk from one of his actual pockets. The foil on the side looked scraped, beaten, but otherwise it still looked whole and usable. “I just found this lying around, didn’t know what to make of it. I didn’t get a chance to read what’s on it, but today feels like one of those rare days, when the stars align and everything makes sense.”

He set it down on the arm of the couch beside him, unlocked the door, and stepped outside.

Piper watched him go.

“Shit,” she said. Stared at the holotape. “Don’t tell me…”

She grabbed the thing, hopped off the couch, slotted it into the terminal she kept by the couch, and---

Oh, shit.

Weeks worth of information spilled out across the display. Information that, on a quick read-through, confirmed all her suspicions, backed up her assumptions, supported---

It was everything she’d hoped to get with the meeting that went south quick. And, suddenly, her bad day wasn’t as bad as it could be.

And she hadn’t thanked him.

“Fuck,” she said. “Now I feel like an asshole.”

“It’s what you deserve,” said Nat as she came through the door, two bowls of ramen in hand. “Your boyfriend already paid for my ramen. You looked mad, so I got you some.”

Piper wanted to snap, or cry, or somewhere in between. But her little sister? Didn’t deserve that, and she had it on good general experience that John was long, long gone. So she did the next best thing.

“Thanks,” she said, and joined Nat at the table.

She needed to eat, and to sleep. And maybe catch a bath.

The story could wait.

#writing: fictober19 #writing: fallout #writing: mine #a little late bc it's hard to write with a headache rip #idk how I feel about the characterization but whatever! it's complete! i met fictober for today! it's fine! whatever!!#c: Deacon #c: Piper Wright

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borisbubbles · 6 years ago

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Eurovision 2010s: 90 - 86

90. Suzy - “Queiro ser tua” Portugal 2014

youtube

~Huawei Wa Wei~

I have mentioned earlier that Moran Mazor is arguably the saddest NQ, but Suzy is definitely up there in people whose success I was rooting for. Indeed, I mostly love Suzy because she was a TRAGICALLY ROBBED UNDERDOG.

You see, Suzy was ~BULLIED~ from the moment she had won FdC, and beaten Catarina in the F2. Now, I personally don’t mind “Mea Culpa” itself (my favourite was the drunken pirate hag known as 😍 ZANA 😍, but that’s for another ranking). However, I don’t think I’ve *EVER* witnessed a fanbase as downright evil as the Catarina stans. These ‘people’, by the lack of a better term, make the Beyoncé and Ultimo fans appear like kind and rational people. These... self-proclaimed ‘eurovision fans’ tried to intimidate Suzy into quitting by sending her death threats, all because she DARED to beat their erstwile female-mediocre flavour-du-jour. Who the fuck does that? Human pieces of shit, that’s who. 😤

There’s an *additional* sociocultural connotation to the entire Suzy vs Catarina debacle, but my friend André, who is Brazillian and has Suzy in his 2014 top three made a great post about the issue back in the day, so I’ll just quote him for those who want more backstory:

Quero Ser Tua belongs to a music genre called "pimba", which is perceived by the Portuguese middle and upper classes as tasteless and vulgar because of simple melodies and dirty metaphors (the latter not present in Quero Ser Tua). So they despised Suzy and (...) went in a fucking frenzy [when she won FdC], attacked the composer of Quero Ser Tua (also the father of pimba music), and accused him to rigging the televote and even started dozens of petitions (alol) and regularly vandalised Wikipedia writing that Portugal's entry was "disputed" or that Catarina was the real winner (holy alol). This drama speaks to me because Quero Ser Tua and pimba music in general sound like other genres of popular music we have here in Brazil that are also derided by the snotty-nosed middle class as vulgar and devoid of "culture", often with racial connotations on top of the social class ones. To me, Suzy's victory (rigged or not) has a political message: pimba IS culture, like any other kind of music, and it deserves to represent a country as great as Portugal because it's part of their culture and they should be proud. It's definitely a bigger statement than the bourgeois, mediocre Mea Culpa and I am proud of every Portuguese that voted for Suzy to win. <3

As for ~my~ layman’s opinion, well, I just think the song possesses some great summer sprit.😊 It’s a colourful explosion of cheerful accordeon, moody percussion and ethnic frivolity. 😍 Listening to “Quero ser tua” makes me very happy about 100% of the time, almost as much as the knowledge that, after being disliked for most of the pre-show, Suzy won everyone except for her most diehard haters over, becoming someone who is now almost unanimously deemed one of the most robbed NQs. STAY PRESSED, HATERS. >pasta :victorydance:

________________________________________________________________

89. Jana Burcheska - “Dance Alone” F.Y.R. Macedonia 2017

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[2017 Review here]

Like many of the 2017 entries, my passion for Jana dropped over time. Make of it what you must but I think the live of “Dance alone” kind of cheapens it... and you know what I think about cheap and trashy, I LOVE THAT OBVIOUSLY.😍

However, I also think the cheapness does Jana dirty, because “Dance alone” also happens to be one of my favourite songs OF 2017. Its 80s synth sound and high voltage fierceness left me bald and straight UPON IMPACT, with madly quotable lyrics that I STILL use in friendly banter to this day. 😍

The awesomeness is only further enhanced by Jana, who is -independently from her song- also one of the best humans in 2017. I absolutely ADORED this goat-voiced gremliness from the SECOND she spent her first interview shading the fuck out of Rykka 😍 (check the 2017 review for the dirt) and then proceeded to troll the press people by teasing that she actually couldn’t sing for no reason. 😍

Which brings me to the live act which.... conceptually is a match to the song, but which also doesn’t do it justice. Don’t get me wrong, Jana contorting her body as she’s assaulted by a Carolean windmachine sustains the crap out of me, but I have always thought “Dance alone” had more potential than shown in the live. (Getting rid of the “Wishing you could hold me close” closer is particularly upsetting imo.) Moldova and Azerbaijan would’ve turned “Dance alone” into an EASY top 30 in this ranking, but in the hands of Macedonia it’s a mere top 90 for me. 😭

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88. Lake Malawi - “Friend of a friend” Czech Republic 2019

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only a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend

Lake Malawi live the ultimate BorisBubbles dream: IMMENSELY annoying song whose appeal hinges entirely on how uncomfortable it makes other people, somehow convinces about ~95% of the loyal eurofans that it’s a fantastic masterpiece. 😍 ADVERSI-DEITIES 😍

Of course, the axis around which Lake Malawi spins is Albert, a human spark plug and mankind’s youngest thirty year old. Seeing Albert fling himself around the stage, never losing his entheusiasm is the main reason why “Friend of a friend” exceeded my already high expectations! Another, slightly-less awesome reason however is the D-sound-like staging:

It really just is a clever, likable entry. Of course, that doesn’t take away that “Friend of a Friend” is objectively one of the most irritating songs ever, making it anathema to the televoters’ tastes <3 😭(😍)

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87. Jamala - “1944″ Ukraine 2016

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It is only FITTING that Jamala and Lake Malawi rank alongside each other, star-crossed lovers that they are. ALBERT x JAMALA 5ever:

A greater love story than even Alfred x Amaia. However, this post is mostly about Jamala, so LET US discuss a great, if controversial winner. I will start with a small caveat and say that “1944″ isn’t the song for me. One of the biggest dealmakers in Eurovision songs for me is replayability “1944″ just doesn’t have that quality for me. I only really relisten to it when I must, for rewatching purposes. However, that does make the few times I DO revisit “1944″ all the more magical to me. If we take on board that songs are a means of expression, then “1944″ is one of the best songs ever, for the themes it expresses are all too real. I don’t even NEED the gutwrenching, defiant lyrics to *FEEL* the pain the nation of Ukraine is going through. The act sends shivers down my spine, body aching all the time. The Jamala Tree is one of modern Eurovision’s most iconic visuals:

Of course, that ALSO makes “1944″ one of the most notoriously political entries of all time. Now, other fans of Jamala might argue that, “No, it’s not about the Crimean war at all, just the historic deportation” and well... no? There is a reason why Jamala wrote this song *NOW* and not the last time she entered Vidbir. It *is* Jamala’s way of coping with the Russian invasion, something which *also* ties into her own family history. “1944″ is a very elegant, tasteful middlefinger aimed at Putin, but it’s a middlefinger nonetheless. However, what if it is? The Ukraine vs Russia conflict is a notoriously heated one and potshots are to be expected. If I have to chose between an open attack and a backhanded one (such as that rubbish entry from the Tolmachevy Sisters, or the two rubbish ones by Julia Samoylova), I will always pick the former.

Overall, I greatly appreciate “1944″ and think it’s a great winner. The composition is evocative of both Ukraine’s history and musical traditions, as well as their current predicament, making “1944″, despite pertaining to a specific year, a timeless experience. It is very deservingly considered one of Eurovision’s best winners by the fanbase, and I hope it remains a favourite for future generations to come.

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86. Joan Franka - “You and Me” The Netherlands 2012

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Yes, Joan ranks one spot above Jamala lmfao. EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED!!! 😈

Back in 2012, I obviously was a feverish Joan stan, mostly for Ironic reasons: “LMFAO JOAN TARD... it’s YOU... and ME! SO SILLY <3″ -- me Circa 2012, when my wit amounted to calling lovable dimwits “tards” and quoting song lyrics.

In 2019, I can say that... I still love Joan for her ineptitude and frivolity, but with the added layer of *genuinely* loving Joan for Joan. From the consistently offkey singing, to dressing up like a Lakota warchief (completely oblivious to how inappropriate this is 😍), to the bonfires (pandering to the Land Of Fire, Azerbaijan 😍) and the general-happy-go-lucky vibe, “You and me” just feels so.. real? Like a real person regaling real stories of a real romance with a real (boy)friend. It is so disarmingly earnest, which of course, being stuck in 2012, meant that it was unceremoniously offed by the professional juries. TOO PURE FOR THIS DAMN’ WORLD. 😭

Since this update booted the final entries from Portugal, Macedonia and the Czech Republic, I’ll disclose my final thoughts below, as to not disrupt the ranking:

PORTUGAL:

Honestly, a pretty good chart for Portugal, despite being the fourth country to be fully eliminated from the ranking. I was hoping that Salvabrat would have started a hot streak, but alas. Portugal just keep getting screwed over by subpar staging and their own stubborness, leading to insistent dismissal by the fanbase. I fucking hope people (Portugal deniers) come to their senses though because they are consistently robbing one of Eurovision’s best fucking countries.

NORTH MACEDONIA:

Sean Tarbuck from ESCUnited nailed Macedonia the best: they are a country of amazing music and utterly disastrous lives. They are probably the single worst stagers in Eurovision? The numbers don’t lie, with a qualification rate equivalent worse than San Marino’s. Just look at what Slovenia and Serbia are doing, Maco, and you’ll be fine!!!

CZECH REPUBLIC

There isn’t much to say about the Czech, but they’ve finally contributed with an entry I not only liked, but loved. I do think we are in the beginning years of a Czech Golden Age though and if they can keep that hot streak going, Eurovision might be coming to Prague very soon (ie: within the next five years.)

#Eurovision #Eurovision Song Contest #Netherlands #Ukraine #Czech Republic #Macedonia #Portugal #Joan Franka #Jamala #Lake Malawi #Jana Burceska #Suzy #You and me #1944 #Friend of a friend #Dance alone #Quero ser tua

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