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funnyexel · 3 years ago

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100 Years of Age

Logan x Reader (Oneshot)

A/n : I’ve recently have had an OBSESSION with Logan from the X-men franchise. Thus, this short fanfic. Usually my fanfics would end in a little spice (kiss, smut...etc.) but this time it’ll be a fluff ending. Please bare with me, this is my first fluff story so if it sucks that's the reason. Also, sorry if the title doesn’t really make sense. I tried to make it nostalgic in a way. Enjoy my lovely’s <3 Masterlist Mega List

“How could you?” Hot tears glided down your face. “How could you!?” There your parents stood before you as you got yanked away in chains. “HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME!?!” Your last words as the truck doors closed. You were being taken and it was all their fault. Full on balling on the truck floor, the soldiers watched. A 14- year old getting taken away with their parents consent...that’s got to be a first.

The truck was a one-way ticket to hell but how could you have known? They gave you away to some unknown cause to save their own asses. You spent years there, being tested on.

“She has the right DNA. We’ll be one step closer to evolution.”

The first few months were horrible. Being tested on for the Elemental Project, being alone in a foreign area, resenting your parents and being a child in all. On a certain dreadful day, an experiment worked on you. That day was your 15th birthday. They did four major experiments and preps over and over and over again. At this point, you weren’t upset anymore. Your parents are living their lives now. They may or may not be regretting their decision but its out of your hands. You’ve come to terms with this, after months of denying it.

“how are you feeling?” She quietly walks into your cell, trying not to disturb you as you were watching tv. You were sitting against the wall, hands in your lap as your eyes staying glued to the tv. “fine.” Your voice strained and quiet. She hums to your word. You’ve become a woman of little words, only speaking when comfortable and necessary. This woman was nice to you. You welcomed her into your small bubble...sometimes.

She placed a glass of water in front of you, without looking the water arose out the glass and separated itself into these words. “Today is my 15th birthday.” They subsided back into the glass, which you proceeded to pick up and drink out of. She and others were amazed, astonished. This isn’t the end. They still had much to do. You may not have mastered the first element but you’ve grasped it and that’s all they needed to know, before starting the next tests.

The tests were excruciating and brutal. The elements were manifesting backwards. Water, Earth, Air and Fire. Each element took an amount of lives. They told you to control it...they told you to fix yourself. But you could not. You did not control the elements. They only took a liking to you and allowed you to have them, nothing more nothing less.

But they don’t understand, their thoughts clouded by war and hate. You got put into war before as a ‘learning activity’. Yes. A fantastic idea to put a 20-year old in The American Civil War.

You were cold. Very cold. They made you clothes to fit the elements but the clothes were not very war worthy attire. “She’ll burn her clothes off, if she wears that.” The woman says to the general in charge. “I better see something, Ms. Bailey.” The general says before glancing at you then taking his leave. She turns to you with a little smile. “Be mindful of people around you.” You nod your head to her. You weren’t scared given you were put into a war. You were just..just...you didn’t know. You didn’t know what the feeling was called but you were feeling it.

“Bring her here!” Ms. Bailey and you follow the soldier. “You can’t come on the field.” He stated to her. She gave you one final look before turning away. He motioned you to follow. The sounds of gun shots flooded your ears and the smell of gun powder filled your nose. “Stay close.” He said, not ever laying a finger on you. It was almost nightfall, they knew this’ll be the best time for you to come out. You stayed with him and two other men.

They were conversing a few feet away, also keeping an eye on you. A young boy was coughing, around the age of 16. You crouched in front of him and rested a hand on his shoulder. Doing a faint hand motion you cleared the air he was breathing. “T-thank you.” You smiled to him but the smile faded as the soldier called out to you. “Come, we’ve got the ‘go’ from the general.” The field was painted in blood and bodies.

“Can’t handle it?” One of the other soldiers teased. You scoffed at him, the sound barely being audible. “We need you to take an enemy and bring them back here.” The soldier says to you, motioning the two men not to follow you out. You sighed and nodded at him. Walking to the middle of the battlefield, you dipped down to the ground. Your fingertips lightly touching it. “I will not control you.” The ground began to rumble as big chunks of dirt and rock get pulled out. Carefully, you aimed each one at their big guns and incoming soldiers.

With ease you walked to their men. Their guns were inefficient, due to you setting the gun powder in the guns ablaze. Finally, you found someone that looked like they knew a lot, motioning your hand to the sky. Particles of water parted from the clouds and engulfed the victims body, knocking them out momentarily and carrying them with you. You quickly got escorted back to the base.

“Great, we have the enemy. HOW ARE WE GOING TO GET INFORMATION FROM A DEAD MAN!?!” You flinched at the yelling general. There the man laid on a nursing bed, dripping wet. A gust of wind passes by to dry him then you put your hand over his mouth. Taking the liquid out his lungs. An array of coughs alerted one of the nurses. “alive.” You spoke, looking the general in the eyes. Ms. Bailey took you to the tent for a rest. “You did good today.” She smiled handing you sleeping clothes. You took the clothes and changed, now sitting on the floor, no movement what so ever.

You often did this when the elements were uneasy and they were always uneasy. “Sorry, no visitors.” You look over your shoulder and see one of the men you were on the field with. Getting to your feet, you walk and stand next to Bailey. She nods to you and walks further into the tent, keeping a watchful eye. “Hi, I’m Logan.” He sticks a hand out for you to shake. You hide your hands behind your back, denying his request. He retracts his hand at your reaction. “y/n” You whisper to him. “Okay, that’s all, she needs to rest.” Bailey closes the tent as you wave goodbye to him.

Those memories became distant, vivid as you went back to the dreadful place. Time passed very slowly there. You never knew why but it did and it was awful. “This is ground breaking! Absolutely ground breaking! Now that we’ve got her to adapt to all the elements we’ll be able to make an army.” That day felt different. Stumped on the why but it felt different. Later on you found out why. You’ll never ever forget it. It was your most happiest day you’ve lived. The freedom. The life that filled your soul and the genuine happiness that accompanied your aura. But nature had different plans for you.

Nature had weird ways of caring for you. It liked you. It had better plans for you. Plans that would not involve this era in anyway what so ever. You were hesitant at first but your character is familiar to its weird ways. Thus, leading you to comply. “wait. everyone quiet.” Voices were creeping into your hearing, slowly becoming louder. “She’s waking up.” Your eyelids flutter open. It felt as if you were worked to the bone, took an elevating nap then woke up refreshed. You were in a cocoon like capsule, made by water and other bits of nature. The cocoon discarded itself, evaporated and moving itself into the ongoing water cycle.

Your body slumped a bit, a little surprised squeak as you stood straight. Seeing people in weird gear and other gadgets around the room. Eyes big and observing everything. “Hi.” You looked at the man before you. Your eyes instinctively trailing to the flat screen. It’s a television. ‘How the world has evolved.’ You thought looking back to the man, mouth open but no words flow out. So you decide to respond with a small wave. Your calmness got interrupted as you saw a gadget that resembled a gun. “the war is still present?” You speak in a low tone and sigh. “The war?” He shakes his head.

“How old is she?” Someone utters in the background. You shrug to their question. “1863?” You look the man in the eyes. Pure shock fills his soul. “It’s the 2000’s.” You feel a force pull you out the establishment. Into a forest. ‘The 2000’s? What would you want me to do in the 2000’s?’ You question in your head as you run. To no destination in particular but to get away from those people. You ended up in a bar. It was one of the things you could recognize...everything was so different. As soon as you stepped foot into the bar, all eyes were on you. Stares full of disgust, lust and confusion.

You walked to the counter and stood at the end of the tall table. “Miss, are you lost?” You nod to the nicely dressed lady. She converses with her peers as you look over to the television. ‘Mutant Rights? Mutant? What’s a Mutant?’ This is so new. It was a lot happening at once. A high pitched whistle, stung your ear. “Hey, cutie.” Looking to him unbothered, you point to him and a gust of wind pushes him away. Not enough to knock him down or anything serious like that but enough to get him out your personal space. He looks at you like he’s seen a ghost. “m-m-m-m-m-m”

He kept stuttering, you cock your head to the side in amazement but puzzlement. “Yeah, she’s a mutant. Run along, boy.” The woman exclaims and pulls you into a back room. “You seem like a wonderful girl but men will take advantage of you.” She says handing you a soft fabric. “what’s this?” You ask, opening the folded clothing. “A hoodie? Have you not- you know what never mind.” She leaves the room. Pulling the fabric over your head. “A hoodie.” You fiddle with the cup like piece. “I’m a mutant?” You look at the full length mirror. ‘I see why she said I’ll be taken advantage of.’

You dust off the skin tight shorts and knock out rocks out your minimalistic flat shoes. “where do mutants go?” You walk out the door and ask the girl. She finishes serving someone a drink before answering. “here.” She hands you a pamphlet. ‘Xavier Institute’ You study the interestingly folded paper then look to her. “thank you.” You smile and walk out the bar. ‘Now to find this Institute.’ At those words many images and places flood your mind, until one image matched the pamphlet. You could hear children giggling and happily cheering. The images fade away and you know exactly where you’re going.

Putting the paper in the hoodie pocket, you begin to walk in the direction of the school. “ouch.” A small pebble hit you in the leg. Sighing, you stand still. The ground beneath you begins to rumble, carving a circle large enough for you to stand on. It slowly ripped itself out the ground bringing you in the air. Putting your hands out, you began to get your balance as you fixed your stance. It seemed like your seeing the world in a different light. The trees were so vibrant and beautiful as you were gliding on the rock. The sun was rising, its the most beautiful thing you’ve seen in your life. You couldn’t help but smile.

In no time, the school came into your view. The rock pile that was holding you up, broke apart into little rocks as you were lowered to the ground. Walking through the gates, you looked around for others. It didn’t seem like anyone was out yet, but lights were on in the inside. Placing two knocks on the door, you stood and waited for someone to answer. A woman with white hair answers the door. Before she could let out a simple question, you stop her with your own. “what year is it?” Her face scrunches up with confusion at your odd question. “2006? Come inside.”

She pats you on the shoulder as a welcoming jester. You hesitate before stepping into the abnormally big school. “logan?” You lock eyes with the recognizable man. “Do you know each other?” The white haired woman asks you. Breaking away from the eye contact, you frantically shake your head and back into the door. Logan kept looking at you, in confusion. “I- um. I might be at the w-wrong place.” Mist begins to fill the space you occupied, giving you a chance to leave. Time running short as footsteps echo behind you. Having no time to run off the property, you run into the woods that’s to the left of the school.

“I-I...I don’t want to go back.” You cried out as they grabbed you from behind, roughly sitting you down. “You know me?” He asked. You responded with a hum, still being a little shaken up. “you and I met at war. it was only once.” You looked up to him. “Why’d you run?” He asked as you got up to your feet. “when I escaped my project. there had been many more trying to recreate it. I thought it was still going on.” He lead the way back to the school. “I was apart of a solo weapon x program. It- it wasn’t #1 priority but it was still important.” They brought you into an office and began to ask questions, which you answered.

“So how old are you exactly?” Storm asks. “I don’t know.” Logan asked a few questions here and there but he stayed quiet most the time. Storm gave you an vacant room after the long introduction. You got familiar with the room before going out to the yard, you observed some students and meditated. It seemed like everything was calm. It was odd non-the-less but very nice. “Hello.” A child no older than 11 greets you. “hello.” You give a small smile to him. “What’s your name?” He asks, you look up to a small group of students a good ways away. “Y/n.” You say looking back to him.

“Look at what I can do, Y/n.” He says a bit excited. Pulling a weed from the ground, he holds it between his thumb and index finger, slowly it turns to a flower. “That’s very similar to what I can do.” You smile to the innocent boy. “Can I see?” He asks in a cutesy pure tone. “Sure.” You point to some moving rocks. They bonded together and came rolling to you. It was a medium sized ball of pebbles and rocks. Clasping your hands together then breaking them apart, water separated from the rocks. The rocks now rolling back to their places. The water splits into two and glides around, almost dancing with each other.

Soon enough it came down to you. “Wow.” The boy says, studying the water. You then open your right palm, heat gathering in it and creating fire. Now you had fire in one hand and water in the other. The two elements began to fight with each other. Trying to put the other out. Finally, you put the fire out and disperse the water. A gust of wind swishes through is hair, roughing it up a bit. Standing up, you give him a smile. You see Logan in the corner of your eye. “bye, flower boy.” He gives you a smile and you approach Logan. “You didn’t answer my question properly earlier.” He slows and matches your pace.

“I- I see. I had a failed attempt before. I thought I found refuge but I was horribly mistaken.” You looked away from him for a moment. “a distant memory is all it is now.” You give him a small friendly smile. “How can you not be upset?” He stops his actions and turns around to you. You stop too. “Upset? Why would I be upset?” He studies your answer for some time. “I’m not upset. How could I be? When all those people who experimented on me, are surely dead. While I am here, in a new era. Alive, well and hasn’t aged a day.” Your lips curve slightly but drop into a noticeable frown.

You wanted to open up a bit more to him but you felt you weren’t ready to talk about it. “You look upset.” His statement hinting at a tease. “Not upset. Just..sad.” Not picking up his light-hearted statement. You part ways as Logan gets called by Storm. Giving him a small wave, you go to your room. During the start of your months at the Institute, you did some strength training. “Colossus and Kitty, will spar with you.” It was soon clear to everyone that you are fairly powerful. Continuing your stay at the school with studying, you had to learn about the 21st century somehow. You found a new passion for reading while doing so. Romance books in particular.

“What romance book are you reading tonight?” You hide your smile as your head lifts from the book. “I’m actually reading a crime book.” He sits in a chair close to you. “What brings you here?” You bookmark your page and set the book down. He let out a heavy sigh. “Nightmares?” You whisper and he nods to you. He does a jester to you, returning the question. “visions of my parents.” You lean back, rubbing your forehead. “I need a cigar.” He exclaims under his breath. “do you ever think about it?” His eyes lock on yours. “do you ever just think about why we were chosen?” You try to maintain eye contact with him. “stupidity and..” He points to himself then you. “sacrifice.”

You break your eye contact with him. “I’m sure it wasn’t stupidity in your case. At least you had a choice.” He stays silent wanting to hear more about you. Logan was very hesitant about letting people in since Jean. But he couldn’t help the fact that he wanted to learn more about you. You knew him in the past and besides that you were an interesting person to him. “My parents...they gave me to the program. They didn’t even know what it was, all they needed to know was that it was going to save themselves if they gave away their child.” He reached over to you, giving you a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

“I don’t even remember much of my childhood. They told me it was garbage in my mind that I didn’t need.” You leaned into his touch slightly. “Some people say they want to forget their family. They don’t mean it. Do they?” A few tears escape your eyes. “because this feels like hell.” You quickly wipe the tears away. Logan walked with you to the sleeping quarters. You can’t stay up all night. The walk was silent but you two did walk pretty close together. “goodnight.” You smiled to him as you opened your door. “I’m sorry for dumping that all on you tonight. You don’t have to remember.” You nervously chuckle. He shakes his head.

“It’s..okay.” Hesitation in his voice. “If you need someone to talk too, I’ll- you can talk to me.” You can tell he struggled to find the right words but you appreciated it more than any other person would. Giving him a heartfelt smile. You gripped the door knob and looked over your shoulder. “Thank You, Logan.”

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legionofpotatoes · 4 years ago

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alright here’s ma thoughts on that flick I mentioned

we hatewatched a*my of the dead because we were CONVINCED “zombies in las vegas” would be an impossible concept to screw up, but in so assuming we obviously invoked a holy wager with the universe and got reminded, once again, that hoping for improvement from someone who’s dependably put out bad art is never a wise choice 😐

but we were honestly kinda roped in by the marketing??? and expected a goofy fast-paced flick with the odd traditional undead metaphor thrown in, framing some sort of relationship drama maybe or hell even nothing at all! we’d have taken pure indulgent storytelling, idk italian job with zombies in las vegas, I don’t know fucking anything but??? whatever this was???? spoilers below for it is time for One Of My Rants

I mean the main reason I really want to write all this and complain. this film here probably has the most unappealing cinematography I have ever experienced in my life and that is saying something. who the fuck signed off on that CONSTANT shallow-ass depth of field that imprisons your eyeline and turns every shot into bokeh paste???? and I mean every shot almost!!!! I promise if you think I am overreacting just throw a dart at the seek bar and watch twenty seconds from wherever it lands. it is horrifying to look at. at least it gave my girlfriend a good visual shorthand for what it’s like when I lose my glasses

why was sean spicer in this movie. did they pay him to be here. was sean spicer paid hollywood money for his scene in this film because fuck everyone who was involved in that decision

the legitimately baffling hints at the extraterrestrial origins of the infection that went absolutely nowhere and had no dramatic or plot-level bearing. we love to see the franchise sprouts fellas

yet another big budget waste of everything hiroyuki sanada has to offer. and bautista too I guess? I like him but man was this an odd career move

what was the crux of his conflict/resolution with his daughter btw. I understand it was rooted in miscommunication over their forms of grief irt mom but uhh… it was all rather clunky and didn’t land for me. I tried I really tried to buy in but something was wrong fundamentally with the groundwork there, it did not click and their catharsis felt unearned. I know there’s massive amounts of tragic baggage being projected there from the author so I’m not slapping any judgment down really;

but again it would be an easy thing to wave off if they just had a vibrant cast of lovable simpletons with good chemistry and the kinetic sense of plotting the trailers promised (and this premise never discounts good drama, either). but instead it was just two and a half (!) hours of meandering into situations the filmmaking instincts had no idea how to flow in and out of

to wit. I know talking about “bad pacing” is associated with armchair bullshit but consider the example of the scene were dieter does an out of nowhere little dance after childishly screaming but then still-killing a zombie, with the film framing this as a micro character triumph, and not a second later the bg soundtrack instantly fades into an orchestral score dramatizing a nearby mcguffin reveal, completely 180 degreeing the tone without a semblance of deft insert shot stitching or even I dont know a fucking jump cut maybe. now imagine this whiplash for 2.5 hrs uninterrupted

I will keep complaining about the length yeah because this was not a story requiring this much real estate to be told. Uhh in my humble and personal opinion, of course

[man sees zombie tiger] “this is crossing the line!” you can in fact write dialogue that is not utter nonsense that falls apart once you drill down its single fickle layer of referential meta winking. what line are you talking about. you have rules in this insane situation you’re in? total nitpick moment I know but it got burned in my brain for some reason. like a microcosm of the mismanaged dramatic instincts paired with weird writing that dots this movie. I am sure the director calls this either satire or genre deconstruction. I am SO sure

tumblr domino meme that goes from “dude getting sucked off while driving” to “entire las vegas literally nuked”

tig notaro is always great to see but once you know she’s been filmed as a separate greenscreen plate months after photography wrapped - cause she had to apparently replace some abusive asshole but that’s a whole other pig not worth fucking - it becomes impossible to unsee her odd detachment from everyone else in the movie lmao. it doesn’t really “ruin” anything on its lonesome but it is hard to unsee

why. was. sean. spicer. in. this. movie

a very simple key ingredient missing from fully turning lip service sympathy for main uruk hai dude into actual empathy that would generate meaningful conflict with hero family would be to spend a bit more time articulating what he internally wanted the most. because he was obviously trying to do something here with pointed agenda. a family, to have kids, build a caste system, save his wife’s head, return to his planet??? all of these could represent the bigger context in his psychology that spurred his vengeance but none of them are dramatically emphasized long enough for you to cheer him on. I’m not asking too much I promise. Articulating interiority of a mute character is pretty doable with deft cinema language, just gotta linger and hold a shot here and there for a few seconds, frame as his POV, donezo. I know this is also one of those like. “who cares” moments but the movie does, very evidently so, in making this guy an actual character. you can kinda piece it together and create a framework of sympathy for him, sure, but then again he ultimately becomes a foil to be killed and not defeated, so. Ehh whatever

quarantine zone stuff was not a wildly childish covid allegory quarantine zone stuff was not a wildly childish covid allegory quarantine zone stuff was n

the rooftop helicopter fakout at the end was such an ass-backwards, manufactured moment of what could be a simple setup/payoff it just pissed me off??? you gain nothing by giving sad dad five seconds of pointless crisis that flips right back to previous status quo ANYWAY, except for a weaksauce waste of runtime, which could be used instead to get inside notaro’s head and actually SHOW the remorse form as she took off, literally maybe even a frown playing on her face as she’s headed for safety right before we cut back to drax and the kid. just a simple-ass, minimal, momentary setup for what is the most basic filmmaking trick of creating macro catharsis moments. Just???? g o d if you can’t even land that shit why are you even doing any of this

that lil run final pam did was very very charming and super choreographed in a way that was the tiiiniest bit overdone

the whole intro with the simul-backstories and posing with family photos was just… oddly motivated. what was the goal? “here’s what we’re fighting for” vignettes? why? it’s not a functional setup in that vein. what was all that

also I am sorry if this is insensitive but the reasons most characters end up articulating to justify going back into the hell that destroyed their lives makes them sound seriously insane

I dont like complaining about CGI (honestly) but so much of it in modern movies can achieve higher fidelity if the animation is simply subdued. Do not overengineer and over-apply 2D cell methodologies and kinematics to each tiny twitch and movement in a hyper 3D model and I promise you. it will look a thousand times more natural. look at thanos in those last two movies. your rendering and detail are absolutely perfect with the tiger you just have to let stuff sit instead of constantly simulating swaying hair strands and firing off all facial muscles at once. great moment at one point where makeup zombie horse and CG zombie tiger are both in one shot together and just by unnecessary amounts of movement alone you can tell who doesn’t belong. again; detail, rendering, compositing, lighting, all picture-perfect; but y’all just gotta let the animation breathe sometimes, and chill it out

plot holes don’t really matter to me but it was kinda funny how lilly decided not to mention the enormous wrinkle in intel pertaining to an actual territorial tribe of intelligent zombies that require human offerings to let you pass, just so that reveal could play out in real time through the joyous punishment of the cartoonishly misogynistic dude

total chad move for mister uruk hai and final pam to rule from a rusted swimming pool complex

the ending with vanderohe oh my god. with the. cash stacks at the airport register. and specifically them working in his favor. that is literally something you do to get arrested under suspicion of theft. it was almost played for laughs and I respect that. coulda been goofier. make these movies goofy ya dorks

anyway, weird, weird movie. bad marketing. message unclear (something something sins of the father???), baffling editing instincts, literal worst-looking cinematography I ever laid eyes upon. Confidently dying on that last hill

#text #long post #aotd spoilers #aotd critical

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mst3kproject · 5 years ago

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Atomic Rulers

So 2020 fucking blows. We’ve got Death and Pestilence all over the place, War is waiting in the wings licking her chops, and I’m sure Famine is only a matter of time. You know what we need? A hero. Operator, put me through to the Emerald Planet! After fifty-five years, the Earth must once again call upon Star Man.

(I apologize for the poor quality screencaps in this review. The WiFi at sea is not great, so I’m watching movies on YouTube in decidedly low definition. I’ll replace them with better ones if I ever get out of here.)

Atomic Rulers, also sometimes known as Atomic Rulers of the World, is actually the first Star Man movie. Does that mean we get an origin story for our brave hero? Of course not. Instead, we learn that the evil nation of… uh… a sign in the movie says Merapolia but the dubbing sounds like Magolia... whatever. Their nuclear testing is starting to contaminate Outer Space and the Emerald Men don’t like that – they send Star Man to Earth to do something about it.

This movie gives us two things none of the other Star Man movies do. First of all, there’s an actual purpose to that ‘globemeter’ watch thingy he wears. The opening of every movie explains that the globemeter allows Star Man to do three things: travel through outer space, speak and understand any language, and detect sources of radioactivity. The first two functions have proven to be very useful, but neither the Salamander Men nor Ballazar’s Brain were radioactive, so the third just sat there like the stocks app on an iPhone. Now, with the threat of concealed Magolian nuclear weapons, he finally uses it!

The second is, holy shit, a plot. The Magolians want to rule the world, and aliens from a dozen different Godzilla movies have assured them that when conquering the Earth, you have to start with Japan. To that end, their agents are sneaking atomic weapons into the country. Star-Man tries to confiscate these, and in the midst of the lame-ass fight scene that follows, the Magolian Bag-O-Nukes is carried off by a bunch of annoying little kids! The Magolians kidnap one of the kids and try to force him to tell them where their bomb is. Star-Man rescues the boy, but it’s too late – they’ve already retrieved the bomb. There’s just a few hours left before Japan must surrender, or be blown to bits as an example to the rest of the world!

There’s actually even more to the plot than that. It’s full of wild twists and turns, with Star Man and the Magolians taking turns looking like they’re about to win the day. Yet at the same time, unlike the other Star Man films, the story is not obviously bifurcated! You can tell where Movie One ends and Movie Two begins (with the rescue of the kidnapped kid), but the same characters are involved throughout rather than changing from reel to reel. Even the gaggle of nameless kids in short-shorts kind of play a role in the plot, helping Star Man and giving information to the police whenever they can. The plot unspools in a single main storyline from beginning to end, and events usually make enough sense that you can figure out where they fit.

Even more shockingly, Star Man himself actually has some personality in this film, even a bit of a character arc. In the other movies he just ran around punching aliens and smiling at children, but here we see him as a bit of an arrogant dick, confident in his ability to beat the mere humans who represent the threat to the universe. When he is nearly beaten instead, he is forced to learn a little humility, and nearly sacrifices his life to save a hostage.

By leaps and bounds, then, this is the best Star Man movie I’ve seen. There’s a couple more out there, but they’d have to work hard to be better than Atomic Rulers. At the same time, as praise goes ‘the best Star Man movie’ is almost as faint as ‘the best Coleman Francis movie’. It still sucks big-time, and Mike and the bots would have had riff material to spare.

I mean, this is a movie where the bad guys have a giant cartoon demon face on the wall of their lair for some reason, and when they’re not disguised in blazers and ties they wear coronavirus suits with the same face on the chest. There’s a bit where Star Man swordfights with a bunch of them, using fencing foils that were just lying around in the room for some reason. Other fight scenes are mostly things like Magolians frantically shooting at Star Man while he just stands there looking smug. The ‘atomic core’ MacGuffin is just a plastic tube full of glitter. The back-projected ‘flying’ effects are dire. There’s a bomb that has a literal clock on the side ticking down the minutes like in an old cartoon. There’s a pretty girl strapped into a death trap that I can only describe as the world’s slowest guillotine.

There’s a fairly extended sequence in which we see the Magolians’ car driving down a road, then cut to Star-Man flying, then back to the car, then back to Star Man, then back to the car, and on and on until I could almost hear Crow shouting “he’s following them! We get it!”

The Magolians themselves confuse me a bit. People refer to their embassy and their ambassadors, and there’s a flag on their car and so forth, so I’m pretty sure they’re supposed to be from a country on Earth… and yet they behave exactly like the villains of a Japanese alien invasion movie. They have dumb costumes, they call the guy in charge ‘supreme leader’, and most distracting of all, they refer to conquering ‘the Earth’. Maybe this is just an artifact of the translation, but I would expect humans to talk about ruling ‘the world’ rather than ‘the Earth’. It left me expecting a big reveal at the end, and when there wasn’t one, I had to go back to the beginning to see if they’d been established as aliens and I’d missed it.

Speaking of possible artifacts of translation, there’s another thing here I’m not sure about. A lot of Japanese ‘no nukes’ movies have American antagonists, or at least, white guys who are clearly a stand-in for Americans. My favourite example is the belligerent country of Rolisica in Mothra, which is an absolutely hilarious summary of what 60’s Japan thought the West was like. Magolia, on the other hand, appears to be a stand-in for the USSR. The actors playing the Magolians are mostly white, and we only ever hear two of their names: the supreme leader has a nonsense name, but the ambassador is called Boris Zedenko. I wonder if this is original to the script, or whether it was changed when the movie was dubbed for American release.

The thing I find most interesting about Atomic Rulers is that while Star Man does save the Earth, that’s not really his goal. The Emerald Men sent him here to prevent a war because Earth’s radioactivity was leaking into outer space, threatening other planets. Star Man isn’t here to save humanity, he’s here to save the rest of the universe from us; saving us from ourselves is merely a side-effect.

This makes Star-Man a little different from his imitators, Space Chief and Prince of Space. Despite their space-themed code-names, they are humans from Earth, with a specific interest in protecting this planet. Star-Man seems to have the broader responsibility of protecting the civilized galaxy in general, and this is reflected in the premises of his movies. In Evil Brain from Outer Space, Ballazar’s Brain is using Earth as a place to launch a general takeover of the universe. Invasion from Space was a little less clear about it, but I’m pretty sure there was something about the Earth being ‘the richest planet in the galaxy’ and the Salamander Men would presumably use that loot for nefarious purposes.

A side implication here is that Star-Man probably has other adventures, too – we’re only seeing the ones that happen to bring him to our particular planet. Considering how strange Star-Man movies can be anyway, and how trippy the brief shot of the Emerald Planet, with its crystal-headed creatures and robots and even a couple of what appear to be the Pairans from Warning from Space, one has to wonder about these potential non-Earth storylines. How fucking weird would those be? I’m imagining something like an entire movie about Krankor’s pet giant.

Another thing that distinguishes Star Man from the other space dinks is that he has actual superpowers. Space Chief and Prince of Space are basically just normal guys in stupid outfits. Prince of Space claims that Krankor’s ray guns have no effect on him, but really we see he’s using his wand-thing to deflect them. Star Man, who is from another planet, can fly and has super-strength. This kind of makes me wonder if he was intended as a Superman imitator… but that would make Space Chief and Prince of Space the equivalent of Batman, and I just can’t insult Batman like that.

I am developing an honest affection for Star Man movies. Their desperate cheapness is more than made up for by their over-the-top absurdity, and the result is not at all ‘good’ by any reasonable measure and yet is always entertaining. Camp like that is all too rare to find, and even rarer to find a franchise like Gamera or Star Man that can do it dependably. I don’t know why the Japanese are apparently so good at this, but I’m glad somebody is.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #atomic rulers #60s #starman and friends

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takerfoxx · 5 years ago

Text

The Rise of Skywalker Review

All right, new year, new decade, and all that jazz. Now, I do have a few things I wanna say about reflecting back on where I was and where I am now, personal growth and all that, but first, I have some major I need to get out of my system, something that’s been eating at my mind all week, something I really need to sit down and dissect to properly suss out my thoughts and feelings.

And that thing is this: what the fuck happened with The Rise of Skywalker?!

Now, just for the record, I’m that lapsed Star Wars fan who grew up with the original trilogy, who had a full shelf of EU novels that I read and reread over and over until their covers fell off, who spent untold hours replaying both of the Knights of the Old Republic games, was majorly let down by the prequels and became disillusioned by the franchise as a result, who reacted to the news of Disney’s acquisition of the franchise with cyncisim, who thought that The Force Awakens was decent but otherwise substance-less knock-off of A New Hope, who was bored to tears by Rogue One, who skipped Solo entirely, but who actually was surprising engaged and receptive to the subversive themes and new places that The Last Jedi took the franchise even if it was very flawed structurally and thought that it was the best Star Wars film since Return of the Jedi.

And hell, let’s just state my reasons right now. The Last Jedi came out at a time when I was just so tired of people trying to recapture lightning in a bottle with once-great franchises that had lived on long past their expiration date with trying to pass off clearly inferior knock-offs to their original installments as sequels. I mean, it can work, sure. Both of the Creed movies followed the Rocky movie formula pretty closely but were still great, and even if it didn’t click with me the way it did with other people, Fury Road was a fantastic film. The thing is though, both of those movies were still being handled by their original creators, specifically Sylvester Stallone and George Miller, while my beloved Star Wars and Jurassic Park had become divorced from their daddies and were now being handled by people who just. Didn’t. Get it.

And then The Last Jedi came along and was all, “Shut up about bloodlines, they don’t matter! Your main character is not the descendant of some already established character, she’s just some rando Force-sensitive that caught up in all this and decided to answer the call, so let her stand on her own! The Jedi were a well-meaning but immensely flawed, so leave them in the annuals of history and stop venerating them! Same with your heroes! Also, your Resistance has its hands dirty too because it’s a fucking war and war makes monsters of everybody while the little people suffer, sometimes you need to listen to the people in charge instead of being a hothead bucking the system, and the intimidating villains in black are in truth a bunch of insecure man-children playing dress-up to make them feel better about themselves and are pretty pathetic until they take that last step and become actual threats because that is how fascism works!”

Do you realize just how refreshing all of that was? Oh my God, is the Star Wars franchise actually…moving forward? Are we getting new stuff that’s not hampered by George Lucas’s unbearably hackneyed writing?

Yes, the whole Finn and Rose sidequest contributed nothing to the plot and ultimately went nowhere. Yes, the whole Poe vs. Admiral Holdo had the looming question of “Why doesn’t she just tell Poe that she’s got a plan instead of doing everything to set the team rebel off?” which undercut its message. These are major problems, I acknowledge that. The thing is, they are easily fixable problems that would have been smoothed out by a few more script treatments. It sucks that they weren’t, but as for me, they were roadbumps, not dealbreakers. I noticed them, I saw that they were major problems, but they didn’t make me angry, and I liked what they were trying to say enough for me to still be with it. And I felt that all the Luke/Rey/Kylo stuff was gangbusters (yes, I loved cranky, disillusioned old Luke. I know Mark Hamill didn’t care for it, but that’s fine, it worked great for me), so I ultimately left feeling pleasantly surprised. As if in, it was a flawed but very refreshing experience, one that said things I had been feeling for a long time and took things to interesting places that I actually wanted to see play out. I even got choked up when Luke let himself fade away when feeling absolutely nothing when Han died the previous film.

Unfortunately, that seemed to be a minority opinion, with many other Star Wars fan outright detesting it, sometimes to a pretty gross level (you know what I’m talking about). So when JJ Abrams was brought back on board to try to salvage things for the final installment, my reaction was, “I’m going to hate it, aren’t I?”

Still, I knew I was going to see it anyway, just to say that I did. And…welp.

…

Dafuq was that?

All right, all right, now before I continue, I need to acknowledge something. First of all, I have nothing against JJ Abrams as a person or even really as an artist. From all accounts he’s a cool guy who’s been taking all the backlash he’s been getting with a commendable amount of maturity, and he was placed in a very unenviable position by taking the reins in the midst of a very volatile situation. Plus, he had set a ton of things up in TFA that TLJ burned to the ground. Granted, it was a bonfire that I thoroughly enjoyed, but as the person watching his ideas just get cut off, that must have been frustrating watch. Like, what was he supposed to work with once he was brought back on after Colin Trevorrow had gotten the boot? And on a side-note, they really need to stop bringing Colin Trevorrow into big blockbuster franchises.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, we had the tragic passing of Carrie Fisher, which, in addition to being a terrible loss in general because she was a wonderful person that we’re all the poorer without, this movie was supposed to in some way revolve thematically around her, much like the TFA did with Han and TLJ did with Luke. But with her gone, they were just left with footage and recorded dialogue from deleted scenes from the first two films, which is next to nothing to go off of. Now there’s a debate to be had about whether or not it would be appropriate to CG her face onto a different actress, and I do get them feeling that doing so would be ghoulish…but they kinda already did that to bring Tarkin back in Rogue One, so…

Even so, that really sucks, and as awkward as the Princess Leia scenes are as a result, it isn’t their fault, so I’ll leave it at that.

And finally, it must also be acknowledged that a lot of the things I’m going to criticize them for were present in the original trilogy, and were just as awkward then. The OG movies weren’t perfect, folks. We’ve come to accept these flaws, but they were just as clumsy asspulls back then as they are now.

All right, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I actually want to start off on a positive note, specifically talking about the stuff I liked.

Let’s begin with the thing that I consider to not only be good, but actually kind of great: the relationship between Rey and Kylo Ren. Their weird Force-link in TLJ was one of the few new ideas that everyone seemed to like, especially since neither of them could really control it and were equally befuddled by it. It’s just a cool idea, a new aspect of the Force we haven’t seen before, and it’s slowly built upon, actually affects both the plot and the characters, and leads to some great scenes between the two of them.

And you know what? I was actually surprised by how much I liked these two together. After the wooden pile of bleh that was Anakin and Padme, I was bracing myself for more of the same. But as it turns out, Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver have an incredible amount of chemistry, and Adam especially was able to pull off the whole tortured bad boy who’s trying to be a villain but feels endlessly conflicted in a way that Hayden Christensen never could (though to be fair, Adam had way more to work with). So giving them that weird link where they’re forced to interact at different points despite being galaxies across from one another is a fantastic idea.

And I was happy to see that not only was this idea not walked back on, they actually built on it. Without giving too much away, there’s an amazing scene where they actually have a lightsaber fight despite being in two completely different locations and not really knowing where the other is, with the camera jumping back and forth from each other’s perspective and items from each other’s surroundings keep getting thrown into the other’s area and it’s honestly really great.

There were also a lot of visuals that were pretty great. The whole indoor lightning of the Sith Planet was neat, as was the flying stormtroopers, and that festival was pretty cool, and…

Actually, come to think of it, most of the scenes in this movie are, when viewed in isolation, pretty good, and could have worked if they had been buffeted by, you know, proper buildup, actual pacing, and taking the time to let events have weight.

But that leads us to this movie’s biggest failing, the problem that bring the whole thing crashing down. And that is it will just. Not. Slow. Down!

Seriously, don’t take a bathroom break, because if you do, you’ll come back to find everybody on a totally different planet doing something completely different, and the plot point you left on is completely in the rearview. It’s exhausting how quickly this movie jumps around from place to place, where we get a look at a setting and characters that might have been interesting if we got to spend actual time with them, only to drop it and we’re onto the next part. This isn’t a story, it’s a list of bullet points! It’s a three hour highlight reel of a whole-ass fourth trilogy, one that could have been cool to watch if they had chopped it up into three parts and fleshed them out into three movies. Hell, I’ll tell you where to end each one: Rey vs. Kylo on the Star Destroyer, Rey vs. Kylo on the wreckage of the Death Star, and the actual finale. Expand on the stuff in between, flesh things out with actual, you know, character development and consequences instead of zipping around, trying to come up with as many places as they can to cram into Star Tours’ randomizer.

And that’s what this basically is, an overly long Star Tours ride! Now I like Star Tours just fine, because it visits places that hold actual meaning due to being properly developed in actual movies, but these places just left me feeling hollow. And while we’re on the subject, did we really need another desert planet, ice planet, and forest planet combo? Spice things the fuck up! Say what you want about the prequels, but at least they tried to take us to cool new places.

And you know what? I’m going to say it. This movie is actually worse than the prequels. Not because it’s nearly as clumsily written and woodenly acted, or because it’s dragged down by dumb attempts at comedy; it’s none of those things. But at least the prequels were trying! George Lucas might be totally inept as a writer and should not have been given free reign, but there were attempts at things like proper plot and character development, pacing, plot twists, mystery, building things up and paying them off. Just go read the novelization of Revenge of the Sith. It’s fantastic! Same plot, same events happening, same conversations, but the dialogue is reworked to give the characters actual personality and it’s narratively told in an awesome and creative way and it’s overall just a great book. So George Lucas’s movies had the framework of a good story, he just wasn’t the right person to tell it.

In contrast, this movie has actual good acting, and the dialogue isn’t anywhere nearly as corny, but it’s just so unbelievably basic. It’s surface level writing, with barely a hint of cleverness and very little personality other than what the actors are about to wrangle out through their performances. But structure-wise, other than to expand it into a full trilogy, I don’t see how anyone can turn this mess into an engaging, single-movie narrative. So much happens, and it just feels so empty.

And…okay. Let’s address the Bantha in the room. Let’s talk about Palpatine.

Why is he back? Why? Just…why? He doesn’t need to be back! He doesn’t! It’s stupid, it’s hackneyed, it’s not even explained! I mean, there’s an offhand mention of cloning, so yeah, it’s feasible, it just makes no narrative sense! Hell, the fucking opening title crawl just plain says, “Yeah, he’s back. No reason, he just is” and goes on from that. And apparently he’s been behind everything that’s happened, like Snoke and Vader’s voice in Kylo Ren’s head and stuff, because things just can’t happen without being masterminded by someone I guess.

Really? This is the best they could come up with? I know TLJ cut off a lot of their plot branches, but goddamn it, this is the best you’ve got? Resurrect Palpatine? They do remember that the first two movies from the trilogy barely had the emperor as a presence, right? Vader carried them all just fine! Just run with that! Have Kylo Ren be the main antagonist! Have this be able his ascension to actual mega threat instead of Darth Vader cosplayer. If you want Ian McDiarmid to ham it up in the robes one last time (and hey, who wouldn’t?) just give him a cameo! Like, a holographic message to any potential successors Kylo Ren is looking for. Have him be the devil on Kylo’s shoulder in a is-he-real-is-he-just-a-hallucination sort of way. Make him something tempting Kylo Ren to fully embrace being the new Sith Lord, something Kylo has to overcome if he wants redemption. But don’t bring him fucking back! That’s just so, so stupid.

And Rey being Palpatine’s granddaughter kind of pisses me off. Her being revealed as a nobody from nowhere in the last film was great! I loved that idea! But no, let’s just retcon that whole business because we’re trying to apologize for the only one of these movies that had any balls and everybody has to be the descendant of someone important. Even fucking Lando gets a long-lost daughter in this! No, I’m not joking, he totally does.

Now, could Rey’s Sith heritage have worked? Sure! In of itself, it’s a rad idea, one that could have been used to explore all sorts of awesome themes…if that had been their plan from the beginning instead of a cheap attempt to replicate Empire’s big plot twist. But let’s face it: they threw it in as a desperate attempt to placate the fans. There never was any sort of plan. Abrams made the first movie with the sole intention of trying to recapture that nostalgic feel and fucked off, Rian Johnson took over with no notes and decided to do what he wanted, Trevorrow got fired, and Abrams got brought back for PR reasons because hey, people liked his movie, and he had to scramble to piece something together! Damn it, Disney! You literally have infinite resources! Hire someone with actual creative talent!

Oh wait, you did, and people hated it. Fuck.

So yeah. Rey’s parentage? Total waste, raises more questions than it answers. Chewie’s apparent death? Total waste, because he was actually on another ship! Though you could Force sense these things, Rey! Dark Side Rey in the trailer? Total waste, just a Force vision. That whole bit with C-3PO potentially sacrificing his entire identity? Total waste. No one seems to care, he gets no say, and after his memory gets wiped it’s treated as comic relief. Yeah, one last look at your friends indeed, Threepio. Some friends you have there. Oh, except Artoo’s got your memory backed up, so it doesn’t matter, just like everything else.

Oh yeah, and fuck Chewie’s medal! Who was really asking for that?

What a mess. What a disjointed, soulless, pandering mess. What a waste of potential, squandered on nothing. Bleh.

Oh well, at least we still have the Mandalorian. I’ve started watching that and it’s really cool so far.

#star wars #the rise of skywalker #rey #kylo ren #jj abrams #the last jedi #the force awakens #george lucas #rant

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winteriron-trash · 6 years ago

Note

Ok, so that fanfic questions ask meme? You wanna do ALL OF THEM?!

YES, LET’S DO IT, HERE WE GO, PREPARE YOURSELF I’m copy and pasting answers I’ve already done just so I don’t have to retype them and there’s a break because god this got long. I might link this on my About Me post, cause holy shit I spent time on this

1. What was the first fandom you got involved in?

Actual fandom? Probably DC. That’s when I started reading fanfiction and really poked my head around online communities dedicated to media and all.

2. What is your latest fandom?

I don’t know, probably Marvel? Maybe Riverdale, but I was a fan of the comics before so

3. What is the best fandom you’ve ever been involved in?

If I’m assuming this question is about the actual fandom and not the source material and the people in the fandom and its community as a whole? Probably the Percy Jackson fandom. Not really into it anymore so I don’t know the state of it now, but it was a pretty wholesome and positive community. Any community that calls it’s creator “Uncle Rick” has gotta be pretty dope.

4. Do you regret getting involved in any fandoms?

Oh lord save my soul for admitting I like this, but definitely Five Nights at Freddy’s. The indie gaming, creepypasta, underground subculture as a whole is something I regret getting into. Don’t get me wrong, I usually love the source material, but the fandom is just so bad. You probably know what I’m talking about, the fangirls who insist they’re insane and are in love with Slenderman or something.

But specifically on FNaF, lord, I don’t even know what the fandom is anymore. It’s a meme, a fetish, and a hellspace all at once. And I’m not gonna fucking lie, I’ve been in this hellhole long before any of that. Like, I can’t even try to escape it, I’m in it for the long haul. I was just someone who joined for the lore and now we’re here with fucking casual bongos and trash gang and fuck I didn’t ask for this. I can’t escape. I know so fucking much about the franchise it hurts my fucking soul. I remember when the FNaF 2 trailer came out and we were all micro-analyzing London Bridge Is Falling Down. I remember when Springtrap didn’t have a name and we called that fucking Spring Bonnie or Golden Bonnie. I survived that era and I have PTSD from it, trust me. I remember when we were naive enough to think FNaF 3 was the last game. I know what channels were born and what channels died because of that series. I know it all.

I’m sorry, I got off topic. BUT I DON’T GET TO FUCKING RANT ABOUT IT ENOUGH, FUCKING FUCKSHIT

Oh, and a lot of bandoms I was in too. I went through an alt phase where I’d only listen to shit like BVB, BMTH, MCR, PTV, SWS, and so on. Once again, that sort of fandom was the same as the indie/creepypasta in being ‘different’ and ‘insane’ and all that and I was no different. I was a weird fucking kid when I was like 13. I regret all of it.

5. Which fandoms have your written fanfiction for?

Marvel, DC, and a couple Riverdale.

6. List your OTP from each fandom you’ve been involved in.

Not in many fandoms but

Marvel - WinterIronDC - SuperbatStar Trek Voyager - Captain Janeway/Seven of NinePercy Jackson - Solangelo

7. List your NoTPs from each fandom you’ve been in.

Marvel - Stucky, Stuckony, Romanogers, Clintasha, any incest ones, (save me for admitting this) SpideypoolDC - Any batboys shipped together, Bruce/Talia

And I don’t really have NOTPs for my other fandoms? Marvel and DC are really the only two things I’m invested in the fandom of. I guess you could count Wincest as well for Supernatural.

8. How did you get involved in your latest fandom?

What even is my latest fandom? Um, we’ll just say Marvel because I’m really not into joining fandoms much anymore. Honestly, I was a big DC fan who felt the need to hate Marvel because no shit. Eventually, I just got sick of the absolute shit movies DC had and I decided I had nothing to lose by just watching Iron Man. When I watched it I realized “wow, superhero movies can actually be good???” and I just binged the entire MCU in one month and was ready to see the next movie in theatres and I think I’ve seen every single MCU movie in theatres since Civil War? Definitely since Homecoming. I gave up on DC movies. The new Aquaman looks like shit, I’m so fucking pissed they redid Mera’s look when she looked perfectly fucking fine before and now she’s oversexualized and it’s gross. I’m excited for the new DC Batwoman TV show because I HAVE BEEN WAITING TO SEE A LIVE ACTION BATWOMAN SINCE THE DAWN OF FUCKING TIME

9. What are the best things about your current fandom?

Probably the Tony Stark Defense Squad. As a collective whole, I think the Defense Squad is one of the sweetest, nicest corners of the fandom. We’re incredibly kind to each other, write great meta and fic, and it’s just a great community. Of course, there are assholes, but you know.

I might get flamed for saying this, but also the HYDRA Trash Party corner of the fandom is actually really nice? Like, they understand consent and abuse aftermath and all the real shit better than the rest of the fandom, not gonna lie. Like, for as dark as the fic is you’d expect the people to be fucking nasties, but I have never met a rude HTP enthusiast. Or even one who’s unaware of how consent and whump work. They’re all very aware and kind. It’s bizarre, considering the source material. They get an awful rep though.

10. Is there a fandom you read fic from but don’t write in?

Literally any fandom I’m in besides Marvel and DC. I think I wrote like 2 Riverdale fics. Getting into reading fanfic and getting into writing fanfic are two entirely different ballparks. I don’t really read that much fanfic anyway, especially not anymore. I read Marvel and DC, but even then. I think it’s hard because sometimes you can’t switch off the whole ‘reading like a writer’ thing. That’s why I enjoy classic literature. I’m a slut for some good ass prose and symbolism.

11. Who is your current OTP?

WinterIron, of ducking course.

12. Who is your current OT3?

I’m not really a fan of OT3s, to be honest, I find I’m personally pretty weak with writing poly relationships and I don’t really enjoy reading them because one character is usually focused on a lot more than the other two. But if I had to pick, I would say T’Challa/M’Baku/Bucky only because I am solely responsible for the creation of that abomination and you have no idea how much people begged me for a series after the first one, it astounded me.

13. Any NoTPs?

As before listed, Stucky, Stuckony, Spideypool, Clintasha, Romanogers

14. Go on, who are your BroTPs?

IronWidow is my top BroTP, but I also like WinterWidow as a BroTP. Stucky is good as a BroTP too, as well as Tony & Rhodey.

15. Is there an obscure ship which you love?

Literally any ship I have. Yall I’ve been here since WinterIron was obscure. But to name a specific one I’m just gonna go with Pietro/Tony. I don’t know, I just had an idea I was writing for them and I was thinking about how much missed out potential there was between them. And with Pietro as a whole, but you know. Marvel has to kill off the only good Maximoff they had.

Oh, Natasha/Pepper too, but they aren’t as obscure, I guess.

16. Are their any popular ships in your fandom which you dislike?

Stucky, clearly.

17. Who was your first OTP and are they still your favourite?

Stony, and no. They fell apart for me, at least MCU-wise.

18. What ship have you written the most about?

By now, WinterIron, I believe. I recently passed my count of fics for Superbat.

19. Is there a ship which you wished you could get behind, but you just don’t feel them?

Pepperony, probably. I think it’s actually a cute and sweet ship and I like their in-canon moments, but I just can’t get behind reading fanfic of them? It never works out for me, I don’t really get it. It sucks because I do enjoy seeing their cute moments.

20. Any ships which you surprised yourself by liking?

I’ll do a different answer I thought of besides the first time I answered this. But Thruce was a big shocker for me. I didn’t even think about it during Ragnorak but then I saw an incorrect quote for it and I was like? Oh? This? This is a good, pure ship right here. The funny thing is, I actually wrote a fic with them as a side ship long before they hit it big so like, I was shocked when they came out of nowhere. But hey, I’m fucking here for it. I’ll probably never write it, but I’m here for it.

21. What was the first fanfic you ever wrote?

Goodnight, My Angel. It was a Superbat fic and really sad, but I still love it.

22. Is there anything you regret writing?

Probably... You Deserve Love And You’ll Get It. No, I won’t link it because I hate it that much. I’m not even gonna talk about it. It’s my most popular fic too why

23. Name a fic you’ve written that you’re especially fond of & explain why you like it.

Super dorky, but The (Un)Wanted Kiss. It’s my first finished chapter fic, and the first chaptered fic I did on Tumblr and it just brings me a lot of nostalgia. It reminds me of where I was as a writer when I started it and it was an entire fic spawned from people wanting more of a simple 500-word prompt and that just blows my mind. It reminds me of the power of fans and how much love and support I got from it. It really kicked me off as a “serious fanfic writer�� I think.

24. What fic do you desperately need to rewrite or edit?

All You Are Is All I Need. That is a hot fucking mess. Probably The Red Halo too.

25. What’s your most popular fanfic?

*sigh* You Deserve Love And You’ll Get It

26. How do you come up with your fanfic titles?

I bullshit my way through them. My most recent fics have actually followed a trend of being named after songs.

27. What do you hate more: Coming up with titles or writing summaries?

Summaries. I always make them so fucking corny, I hate it.

28. If someone were to draw a piece of fanart for your story, which story would it be and what would the picture be of?

One Foot In Front Of The Other, probably. Just because I want more fem!WinterIron fanart. I can’t say what scene because spoilers but.... yeah, anything from that would be great, really.

29. Do you have a beta reader? Why/Why not?

Sort of. I make some of my friends like Pizza read over my shit before I post it, but that’s not often, only when I think I need it. I don’t just because I write a lot and I’d feel bad for constantly annoying someone with making them read everything I write. I hate inconveniencing people.

30. What inspires you to write?

The better question is what doesn’t. I never stop thinking like a writer. My brain forgot how to turn off that feature.

31. What’s the nicest thing someone has ever said about your writing?

Ummmm, I can’t think of an exact thing? I get so many beyond sweet comments and messages, it’s hard to pin down one comment. I think if I had to pick, I once got a message from someone on Tumblr who was old enough to be my mother complimenting me and telling me I didn’t write like a teenager and I think that was really sweet.

32. Do you listen to music when you write or does music inspire you? If so, which band or genre of music does it for you?

Yes, yes, yes, yes. And honestly, any genre. I listen to everything. Everything. But specifically, Emilie Autumn has inspired a lot ideas/fics I’ve written.

33. Do you write oneshots, multi-chapter fics or huuuuuge epics?

All of the above.

34. What’s the word count on your longest fic?

Around 23k, I think?

35. Do you write drabbles? If so, what do you normally write them about?

Yes, and whatever I get prompted for, really.

36. What’s your favourite genre to write?

For fanfiction, I guess romance? I mean, that’s really all my fanfiction is. Otherwise, I’ll write quite literally any genre I feel like. I go wherever an idea takes me. I’m character based, not genre or plot based.

37. First person or third person - what do you write in and why?

Third. I fucking despise 1st person. I just do. That’s an entire rant we ain’t here for today.

38. Do you use established canon characters or do you create OCs?

Usually canon characters. I only use an OC when I absolutely have to, to make the plot do the plot stuff.

39. What is you greatest strength as a writer?

Nothing. My writing sucks. All of it is shit.

40. What do you struggle the most with in your writing?

Everything. I screech the most about pacing and sentence structures though.

41. List and link to 5 fanfics you are currently reading:

Most of these are actually on my to-read list but whatever.

Winter's End by ali_aliska Winter is Coming (aka Fifty First Avengers Dates) by 27dragons, tisfan My Love is Vengeance by seikaitsukimizu The caged Hawk by asamandra Fertile Ground by 27dragons, tisfan

42. List and link to 5 fanfiction authors who are amazing:

27dragons tisfanChiaki_Hamano arianapeterson19 thepartyresponsible

43. Is there anyone in your fandom who really inspires you?

Not really? I’m not knocking any of the other ‘big names’ in the Marvel fandom, but I don’t really draw inspiration from other fanfic writers. Not for plot, and definitely not for writing style. I get inspiration from fanart I see sometimes, but it’s never one main artist who I stalk to be inspired, just whatever I happen across online.

44. What ship do you feel needs more attention?

WinterIron, duh. I will not rest until WinterIron is the biggest ship in the Marvel fandom.

45. What is your all time favourite fanfic?

I’ve mentioned this fic before and honestly, it hasn’t been topped yet, but In the Company of Monsters by Chiaki_Hamano. It’s not even a Marvel fic, and it’s not even a ship I like, but god, I fucking adore it. I’d love to write something like it, but with WinterIron if I had the time, I think the entire world and setting would fit WinterIron beautifully.

46. If someone was to read one of your fanfics, which fic would you recommend to them and why?

Well, that all depends on what they’re looking for in my fanfiction. If they’re looking for WinterIron, I’d probably tell them to start with The (Un)Wanted Kiss just because that’s one of my most loved fics and I think I did really well with it. But if they just want a general fic, A Great Connection is one I’m really proud of and I still get gushing feedback about.

47. Archive Of Our Own, Fanfiction.net or Tumblr - where do you prefer to post and why?

For just writing fanfic, Ao3. Tumblr can be a pain in the ass, and I don’t even use ff.net.

48. Do you leave reviews when you read fanfiction? Why/Why not?

Yes. But only if 1, I really, really loved it or 2, I don’t think the fic has enough attention. It also helps if the writer responds to comments. I don’t see the significance of saying “I loved this!” if the fic has dozens of other comments saying the same thing. As a writer, I know what comments writers prefer. Longer ones, deep comments pointing out what things they liked, and so on. However if I write a comment that long, I like to get a response because you know, I love seeing the writer talking about the elements of the story I liked.

49. Do you care if people comment/reblog your writing? Why/why not?

Not really, to be perfectly honest. Yes, I love and cherish every kudos and note I get, and the sweet comments make me want to die of joy. But I write for me. Even when I take prompts, in the end, I write because it makes me happy. Yes, I love the validation. But even without it, I would still write. I do not write fanfiction for you, I share fanfiction with you. There’s a difference. Writing makes me happy. If I only cared about the validation, I wouldn’t have a folder reserved of fics I’ll never post but I wrote just because I wanted to. I write to write. The moment I start writing for validation, I might as well stop writing, because it’s not worth it.

50. How did you get into reading and/or writing fanfiction?

Ummmm I think I was just curious? I was new to internet culture, I saw fanart of Superbat and I discovered Ao3 and was like “wow, this stuff exists??? Words for free????? About my favourite characters being happy and dating each other??????????” and it was a downward spiral. I was like, 11 when I read my first fanfiction. I was obsessed with Superbat fanart, and I thought, what would it hurt to try actually reading it? Like, that was so taboo to me. And now we’re here. Tadaaaaaah

51. Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!

Oh, a chance to ramble. Yay. I’m gonna rant because I’m a rant-y person.

I think something that annoys me about fanfiction is not necessarily a probably within fanfiction, but rather the outward view of it. Fanfic has an awful rep within the real world. The one-time fanfiction really took centre stage was when Fifty Shades came out, which only hurt the platform by furthering the stereotype that it’s all porn made for horny freaks who just want to get off.

I should not be ashamed to say I write fanfiction. I should not feel childish saying it to myself. No one should. At least half of my ‘fans’ are nearly a decade or more older than me. It’s clearly not something that’s immature or silly. Of course, it can be, but any hobby can be dumbed down to a kiddy version.

But fanfiction at its core is ignored for what it really is. When adults talk about fanfiction they belittle it and only see a tiny subsection of it, ignoring what it’s supposed to be about. It’s about creating transformative works for media you’re passionate about.

Fanfiction gets a worse rep than other transformative works such as fanart or whatever. Writing as a whole does. Fanfic is painted as this utter trash.

I’ve read fanfiction that made me cry, laugh, feel shit. I’ve read fanfiction that tackled heavy topics. Even on a sexual standpoint, I’ve read fanfiction that was willing to write erotica that published authors wouldn’t fucking touch. Both in a kink sense, but also in terms of how the relationship functions. I’ve read shitty fanfictions, sure. But I’ve read fanfictions that were better than 90% of the published books I’ve read. Even fanfics I didn’t like.

To put fanfiction into perspective, the average YA novel (the age group fanfiction is generally but not always aimed at) is 70k words. I’ve read fanfiction that blows that word count out of the water. And it takes fucking skill to write something that long. It’s not just writing a bunch of porn or cute scenes, that takes serious world building and character arcs.

Fanfiction kills so many tropes that are common in YA and literature in general. I read a YA after reading nothing but fanfiction for a long time and I was fucking appalled? It was a popular YA too. I won’t name what one because you could literally imagine anyone and it’d probably fit. The characters were flat, the romance was outright manipulative and toxic, the plot was dull, even the writing itself was bland. This was the type of book years ago I would’ve loved. But compared to most (of course, not all. Shit exists, but I think in fanfiction, we’re able to better filter out the shit) fanfictions, it was fucking trash.

When I started reading fanfiction, I assumed it’d lower my standards. The first time I picked up an actual novel I was relieved, excited to not have to deal with the problems that are in unpublished writings. But I quickly realized it was the complete opposite. Fanfiction threw my expectations through the roof. I expect fiction to include representation, fresh plots, interesting characters, thrilling romances, and decent fucking sex scenes if they’re there. But it just wasn’t there. It all fell flat. As someone seriously into the writing and reading community I hear so often that it’s hard for plots to be original and you shouldn’t judge on originality, but then I read fanfiction written by fucking teenagers that’s fucking mind-blowing with plot twists and original ideas, and I have to wonder is it really that hard? It’s clearly doable, you just have to take away the fanfiction part.

I have YA novels sitting on my sheld I know I’ll never read and enjoy because fanfiction just made my expectations too high. Which is good in a sense because I pray some of these amazing writers, when they get older will go on to write mind-blowing original novels and I hope that this generation of writers will put out great literature in ten to fifteen years, but for now I’m just… underwhelmed. I think it’s why I read a lot of classic literature too. Shit was better back then.

And yet despite all that, fanfiction is still made to look like shit in the modern media. It sucks so badly for fanfiction writers not to look like serious writers. I could publish one book, have it get the amount of attention my biggest fanfic got and be considered a serious author. My biggest fanfiction currently has 40k notes on Tumblr. Imagine if that were a published short story. It’d be a fucking hit. And there are others that make my numbers look small. And yet it’s brushed aside as unimpactful.

I think a lot of that stems from the fact that fanfic writers do generally start out younger. I’m 16. Others either are or were my age. But age does not equate to skill in writing. Sure, that is a factor, but it is not the entire story. I know a 14 yr old who writes some of the best prose I have ever seen. And even if younger fic writers aren’t on level yet, fanfiction is what’s helping them grow as a writer. But because we’re teenagers, we’re turned away just because of that. Even more specifically because we’re teenage girls (for the most part, I’m not saying other genders and/or age groups aren’t writing/reading fanfic) and we all know how society feels about them. It’s just a fucking shame that fanfiction can’t be respected for the legitimate form of writing it is because of the stigma. I’ve seen fanfic writers say they aren’t real writers because of the stigma, it’s awful. We feel the need to tear ourselves down for an admirable hobby. I can’t say my favourite book is a fanfiction I read, when I has every right to be a valid answer.

We’ll cut this ramble off here because wow I really went on didn’t I.

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wayfaringtrainers · 5 years ago

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Zichi played Pokémon Sword

And he is still royally pissed off!

When the drama and controversy came out regarding Pokémon Sword/Shield, I was more and more put off by it until I decided that no, I was gonna wait until I could get a second-hand copy for it...

And then people began talking about how much they loved it and how much fun they were having with it... No second-hand copies were appearing yet, so I caved to peer pressure like the little bitch I am and bought a copy.

I regret that so much. I don’t like this game, I very much loathe it.

I was planning on doing this semi-review ever since I started the game, so obviously there will be “plot” spoilers ahead for you guys. But anyway, here goes.

Let’s start with the very few things I like about this game, start on a positive note, at the very least.

Technical Records

I actually liked this concept. In the UK, we’re currently going through the “Vinyl Nostalgia Phase” as my dad calls it. The callback of ancient TMs being turned into TRs was pretty cool, and I am very glad that they made TRs infinitely collectable through Raids. My biggest grievances with old-school TMs was the limited supply you got: usually the best TMs you only ever got once, so only one Pokémon could ever learn some of the most useful and game-defining moves available. This makes a lot more moves available...

However it would be nice if I didn’t have to open Serebii every time I was looking for a specific TR, and then pray that specific pokemon from that specific den appears. If they weren’t so dependant on luck, they’d be a lot better.

(Most) New Pokemon

Wooloo for life.

But seriously, I absolutely love a lot of the designs for new Pokémon, which is rare for me, I’m usually critical and uncertain about new Pokémon. But these new Pokémon I actually really like. Corviknight is as cool as I thought, Coalossal is awesome, and although I was ambivalent about him at first, Sirfetch’d has really grown on me.

Buuuuut we’re just gonna skip over the fossil Pokémon. Because I dislike them for a variety of reasons.

However, I reckon that that’s it for things I like about the new games, so now we’re just going to get into the meat of the problems and the things that just piss me off.

Cut Content.

I don’t really have to explain any further, let’s be honest. It’s not just Dexit, it’s the cut moves that piss me off, along with the axe to Mega Evolution and Z-Crystals. I don’t really need to say much else, do I?

Raids and Gigantamax

At first, I kinda enjoyed my time with raids, I spent a load of time raiding with @pinekaboo and enjoying the feeling of teaming up to take down a titanic Pokémon... But after the first few days it just felt like a chore. If I wanted a particular TR, a particular Pokémon, a particular this that or other, then I would be spending hours looking up information on Serebii, trying to narrow down where to find it and then either getting the wrong Pokémon or having to spend time grinding Watts for Wish Stones or fighting in other dens to reset all the active dens. So much effort just for the god damn body slam TR.

Gigantamax meanwhile, is just... The most frustratingly pointless thing possible. Not only is it locked to post-game with some limited-time exceptions, it’s apparently banned in competitive tournaments?

Why even fucking bother with it then? I spent hours trying to find a G-Max Kingler, only to learn it’s Post-Game only. And then I spent hours trying to find/catch a GMax Butterfree, only to learn a normal Butterfree is technically better. It’s pathetic.

Apparently I’m not allowed to be angry about Gigantamax bc I’m wrong, like always.

Team Yell

Sorry guys, but Team Yell is just a poor man’s Team Skull, but even less threatening.

“Oh you like this? It’s Post-Game”

This is the second biggest Pet Peeve of mine regarding the game. I spent hours looking for a Ralts before learning that all those “15% chance spawn rates” are in foggy weather, which comes in the post-game, leaving me stuck with a 2% chance. Those “Nature Candies” are locked until post-game and apparently need an obnoxious amount of BP to unlock.

What’s particularly gregarious is the fact there’s a BP trader in that town where the dragon gym leader is met pretty early on... And you can’t get any BP until end-game.

Shut the fuck up about Leon.

I don’t care about Leon. He himself is not that annoying, but every time I hear “oh Leon’s so amazing” I wanna punch something. I’m pretty sure it’s intended to make the player feel awesome for taking him down, but it just feels like pointless pandering. Like we get it, Leon’s great. Shut the fuck up about how awesome he and his fucking Charizard is.

Charizard

Yup. Charizard gets its own spot here.

The Pokémon Company has sucked Charizard’s dick enough, I say. It got 2 Mega Evolutions and a Gigantamax, and it’s the champion’s star Pokémon, and it’s hyped up to be the best thing ever.

It was only vaguely challenging to me because I decided sweeping it with Steam Engine Coalossal would be boring. So I took it down with my Gallade.

Yes, Gallade has a type disadvantage. I didn’t really care.

Empty Team slots

The only person in this entire game to have a full team has been Leon. Every gym fight I found myself depositing Pokémon just to have a fair fight.

Plot and Pacing (or lack of it).

You’ve seen me rant about this before, but I’m going to rant about it some more.

So I really don’t like over-levelling in any level-based game, because then the game feels trivial and unchallenging. But Pokémon Sword’s level curve makes no fucking sense. Sometimes I’d be training 10 Pokémon and still be over-levelled, then I’d go back to a normal team of 6 and find myself nearly getting steamrolled by Pokémon 5 levels higher than me. Towards the end of the game I found myself wondering whether I was the “right level” or not. I’d have to choose my team, save, go up against a gym leader and then reset to use XP candies on my pokemon after deliberately under-levelling them.

And then suddenly Leon’s lowest level is 62 after the previous trainer’s highest was 57. There wasn’t that much inbetween, game devs.

And I’ve just ranted about the pacing guys. I haven’t even begun with the plot.

To be perfectly honest? The whole “plot” with Rose? The game would be 100 times better if they just cut out Rose and Marco Cosmos. If Team Yell is a poor man’s Skull, then Marco Cosmos is a poorer man’s Aether Foundation.

So many times we get hints and implication that there is something going on behind the scenes, but every time we get to do nothing. We just get to hear about how great-and-mighty Leon will handle everything, so why don’t you just worry about your gym challenge?

The game spends so long focusing on the gym challenge, that I think the game would be better if it focused exclusively on that. At least then perhaps we’d have one full story instead of two half-assed stories.

Or hell, maybe if the Marco Cosmos story was exclusively post-game, that would be preferable. But as it stands, it’s just two or three vague cutscenes that something’s going on and then suddenly chucking a load of plot at the last fucking minute.

I have no interest in Rose’s energy crisis woes. I have no investment in his discussions about the future and the energy crisis we may face. None of that is interesting to me because I have had no time to get invested. The closest to investment I can possibly get is learning what is happening.

Hell, for all my love for Gen 6 and how it re-invigorated my love for Pokémon, I consider Team Flare one of the weaker villains in terms of story... and yet I was 100% more interested in them then in whatever Rose is doing and his reasons for doing it.

In conclusion, Pokémon Sword has -at its best- felt like a rushed, hashed hobjob of a game. It feels like the devs were short in staff and pressed for time, and forced to cut a lot of content in a desperate bid to make it in time for the Pokémon Company’s grand franchise plan and/or the Christmas market. They’re trying to rely heavily on the market opened by the Pokémon Go community (anyone noticed how Dynamax Dens have a feel similar to raid battles in Pokémon Go?) rather than delivering a game they can be proud in.

Inevitably, Pokemon Sharp Sword and Sturdy Shield will arrive on the markets -because these days we don’t get an Crystal/Emerald/Platinum- and I am legitimately considering skipping them over.

The “core games” are the backbone of the franchise. I doubt they will cause the franchise to die, but it would certainly be crippled if sales drop, but I don’t think I can continue with them anymore. My trust in the Pokémon Company is the lowest it’s ever been. I doubt the company’s choice in direction, I doubt the decisions they’ve made in business, industrial and commercial affairs. I do not believe they can provide me with the quality I’ve come to expect of them anymore and I don’t believe I can continue supporting them.

Honestly, this lack of faith in the franchise, it’s putting me in a strange place. I love this Pokémon RP blog I’ve built up, I love the muses I’ve created, the adventures I’ve written and the friends I’ve made through this blog and I’ve never really wanted them to end. But for the first time since nearly the start of the decade, when I first decided to try out this blog under the name pokemontrainerzefri, I’ve begun to wonder if it won’t be my depression and insecurities that kill it, but a loss of interest...

#Pay no mind to the man behind the trainer #Zichi plays pokemon #pokemon swsh spoilers

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chroniclesofawkwardness · 6 years ago

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Bleeders (Them Shoes)

We’re not supposed to talk openly about going to the bathroom. It’s such a sensitive subject that children have their own lexicon for describing two things every single person on the planet does (number one or number two). Even a well-known producer of toilet paper has danced around the subject by composing a song about a booty smile in an ad for their ultra-soft product. Hell, even adults sometimes get caught using euphemisms like taking a dump, dropping a duce, or recycling water. The bathroom is supposed to be one of the last vestiges of privacy in a world where privacy is almost certainly dead. Personally, I tend to be very mission-oriented in the bathroom; I’m not much of a conversationalist. Unless somebody walks in on me mid-stream, I can usually get in and out of the water closet without too much trouble. That being said, sometimes confrontation is inevitable.

I used to love working nights. More money. Fewer people. No need to set an alarm in the morning. You might say I had a higher expectation of privacy. Still, this expectation was shattered one Friday night several months ago, when I visited the same bathroom I always used during my last break before the end of my shift. We humans are nothing if not creatures of habit.

There was no way for me to avoid him. The middle-aged man was standing directly in front of the trash can that was just inside the door. I was already in mission-mode. It wasn’t critical, but I still had to pee, so I wasn’t in the mood for exchanging pleasantries.

I read in a book one time that if you think someone is planning on attacking you, it’s a good idea to attempt to throw them off by asking an innocuous question such as, “What time is it?” The hope is that they’ll be so startled that they won’t carry out whatever devious plot had been dancing in their head. For a split second, I thought about asking this man that question, but I remembered I was wearing a watch. All I could manage was a weak, “How’s it going?”

I got an answer I neither expected nor wanted:

Man, I blew my nose and it just started bleeding.

Trying to contain my shock, I quickly thought of another innocuous question to attempt to defuse the situation:

Um… Do you need medical attention? I can call security.

I knew some people got really bad nosebleeds. I’d woken up with a few as a kid, so the last thing I wanted was another just-a-flesh-wound situation from Monty Python unfolding right there on the blue and white tile floor. In response, the man said something else that caught me totally by surprise:

No. It’s okay. It happens to all of us. Everyone in my family; we’re all bleeders.

He just walked away.

I felt an aneurysm coming on, what comedian Lewis Black said you might experience upon hearing the words, “If it weren’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college.” Fortunately, before the room started spinning, I came to my senses and remembered that I had to get back to work. My break should only last fifteen minutes. I chalked the encounter up to the randomness that I seem to attract on a regular basis and thought that was the end of the story.

I was wrong.

Fast forward about two months to approximately 9:00 P.M. on a Friday night in the dead of winter. You might wonder why I chose to go to the same bathroom again. I wouldn’t say the release was as cathartic as the one A Rumor of War author Phillip Caputo describes upon returning to Saigon, but like Caputo, I refused to let myself be defined by a bad experience. I went back to that bathroom because I had to. I had to know that I’d be okay, that I could experience my own literal release without the soundtrack of a stranger’s medical history to keep me company or make me sick to my stomach.

I was standing at the sink washing my hands that night when who should appear in the bathroom but the man with the spontaneously bleeding nose. This time, his problem was at the other end. I barely had time to think before he launched into another bodily proclamation:

If I were you, I’d get out of here. Sorry for oversharing… It’s all this fiber.

Okay.

I went back to my desk wondering why I hadn’t just waited until I’d made it home to use the bathroom. There’s just something about the comfort of one’s home bowl. The freedom from judgment and the freedom of movement it affords are unmatched. I can stand as close to, or as far away from the toilet as I want, and I never have to hold it in, acting like everything is fine, when in reality I’m about to explode. What’s more, I certainly have more privacy than in a building with over ten thousand employees, and a housekeeping staff that clearly doesn’t give a fuck who they walk in on when they start their nightly tasks of cleaning toilets, occasionally emptying trash cans, and pretending to vacuum floors.

I haven’t seen the man with the penchant for nosebleeds and fiber consumption since the last of these two incidents, though I think of him whenever I spot a bottle of Metamucil on the shelf at my Kroger pharmacy.

Wherever he is, I hope he got the help he needed and left me out of it.

II.

I don’t know why, but I’ve always had trouble getting shoes on and off my right foot. I could use a shoehorn, but I wonder if I’m too old to learn a new trick. When I was very young, I had a pair of braces for my legs, much like the ones a young Forrest Gump wore when he taught a young Elvis how to dance.

Unlike Forrest, if I’m going somewhere, I’m usually walking. Thanks to my pedestrian existence, I go through shoes pretty quickly, but I don’t always replace them in a timely manner when holes appear, or rocks get stuck in them. I’ve never been a big fan of spending money on myself unless it’s absolutely necessary, but this strategy sometimes comes back to bite me in the ass. A wholesale warehouse like Costco could be just the place to support my feet without breaking my bank. If I could be strong enough not lead myself into temptations all around, and wise enough to find my way without having to Hansel and Gretel that shit back to the entrance.

Until recently, it had been years since I’d visited Costco. I hadn’t had a membership, so my only exposure to the Costco experience was in their bakery when a friend of mine and I went there to pick up a cake for a co-worker who was transferring to another department. My friend wasn’t happy with me during and after our trip because he was convinced I’d blown his chance to stalk the head coach of the local National Hockey League franchise throughout the store. All because I couldn’t find a pen to fill out the order form for the cake.

I know it was him. The team is off tonight. We could’ve followed him around and gotten autographs, but SOMEBODY couldn’t find a pen. This is all your fault.

How can you be sure? All we could see was the back of the man’s head. Besides, if it was, the last thing he needs is a bunch of grown-ass, wannabe-Canucks fawning over him like teenage girls over Justin Bieber. Let’s just move on. I’m sure finding 500 ft. of aluminum foil or a 128 oz. jar of mayonnaise on sale will cheer you up.

I think my friend is still salty about the incident.

Anyway, my mom had been talking up Costco for weeks prior to our visit. You’d think we were going to a place that held the promise of the Disneyworld of my youth, or a Barry Manilow concert of hers. It was so beautiful, she’d say, so full of the spoils of hollow, American excess (You won’t have to buy paper towels for six months. Isn’t that just wonderful?) that nothing could reverse the magnetic attraction to it that its patrons would naturally feel. Once we’d made our way through the massive sliding doors of this consumerist-culture theme park, a little old lady stopped us at the entrance and asked to see the membership cards we didn’t have. We could’ve easily overpowered her and run amok up and down the aisles, but we decided to play by the rules like blissful, ignorant cattle being led to slaughter, and stand in line for proof that we belonged.

Maybe the cattle secretly knew their lives would never be the same after they slipped inside the slaughterhouse. Maybe we knew our lives would change forever after we slipped inside Costco. We were just too excited about the possibility of buying whole peaches (whole fucking peaches!) in jars to care. I wish I’d asked the little old lady to take off her politeness mask so I could see who she really was. I feel the same way about Disney characters. What I wouldn’t give to be in the break room at Disneyworld on a Tuesday afternoon in the heat of July. I’d pay to see Mickey and Minnie Mouse without their costume heads, smoking cigarettes, carelessly farting, and dropping f-bombs like normal human beings. That’s a Disney fantasy I could buy into.

I first saw them after I’d selected ninety-six pencils for four dollars, and forty-four bags of popcorn for nine. Snow tracks. They were pieces of rubber speckled with spikes that remind you of the bottoms of golf shoes. They were supposed to provide enhanced traction on snow and ice. I hadn’t yet bought myself a pair of winter boots this season, so I needed something to combat the unpredictable Ohio weather in the meantime. The snow tracks cost about five dollars and seemed they’d be a good fit until my boots came in the mail. I should’ve paid more attention to the actual fit. The package said they were for shoe sizes 3.5 to 7.5. I wear a size 8. Close enough, I thought.

I was wrong (again).

When I got the pencils, popcorn, and snow tracks home, I ripped the snow tracks from their packaging like a kid opening presents on Christmas morning. I was convinced I’d found an inexpensive, long-lasting solution to a transportation problem I’ve faced every winter. If cars could have snow tires, the snow tracks were supposed to be my pedestrian equivalent, my way of telling Mother Nature to suck it.

III.

Sex.

Now that I have your attention, keep reading.

I’m hardly the first person to point out that we live in the age of toxicity. Toxic femininity. Toxic masculinity. If you boy into those ideas, you’d have to behave as if you were walking on eggshells everywhere you went. When you’d go about your daily life, you’d have to be careful. In many scenarios standards (whatever those are) of conduct, language, and presentation (to name a few) have gradually shifted from what a reasonable person would consider acceptable, to what the most sensitive among us can tolerate. We’ve been invited to neuter ourselves because someone, somewhere might be offended by something we say or do. God help us if we were cross that arbitrary, ever-shifting line into the offensive. Our lives could easily be ripped to shreds on social media, or dissected for all to see in the court of public opinion without so much as a word spoken in our defense.

What does supposed gender toxicity have to do with bleeding noses, impromptu descriptions of impending bowel movements, shoes, Costco, and sex?

Keep reading.

The first day I wore the snow tracks to work, they were unnecessary. But I wanted to try them out before the weather got nasty. After I put them on and started walking somewhere other than the carpeted floor of my apartment, I felt like a dog or cat that seriously needed its nails clipped. I felt like I could tip over at any moment. You could even say the clickety-klack sound the snow tracks made as I walked was reminiscent of a newborn pony taking its first steps. In a way, I was learning to walk all over again. I probably looked as awkward if not more so than a newborn pony, whose difficulty with steps could be easily explained, if not expected. Mine, on the other hand, was caused by an invention so questionable it belonged on a Saturday afternoon infomercial (the playground of the gullible) or in heavy rotation on QVC (the playground of the elderly).

I was really wobbling by the time I got to work. I had to walk on a tile floor until I got to the set of stairs that meant I was mere feet away from the relative stability of carpeting. When I made it to the stairs without tipping over, I felt triumphant in my badassery. Not only had I told Mother Nature what she could go do to herself, I’d subjugated my favorite flight of stairs. For the briefest of moments, there was nothing I couldn’t do.

Each morning, like clockwork, I’d feed my coffee addiction by making the short trek down the hall to one of the break rooms on my floor. I went from being off-balance on the tile to feeling like my feet were stuck in quicksand on the carpet. I felt like Marv (Daniel Stern) in Home Alone as he got his feet repeatedly stuck in what looked like tar as he trudged up the steps into what he hoped would be a final confrontation with Kevin McCallister. I didn’t have traction where I needed it and had too much where I didn’t. I got my coffee just fine, but noticed a problem when I got back to my desk.

Fuck. One of the snow tracks came off one of my shoes. Now I’ve gotta Hansel and Gretel that shit back to the break room, and hope no one picked it up. In that case, I’d have only one, which won’t do me much good since I’ve got two shoes.

This was my first indication that the masculine drive I’d displayed by trying to fit something on the bottom of my shoe that wasn’t designed to fit there may have been misdirected. Fortunately, the solitary snow track was right where it had fallen off, twisted and sad, outside the entrance to the break room. I picked it up and carried it back to my desk. I was relieved, yet slightly terrified at not knowing who among my thousands of colleagues had seen what, or when.

Whole again, I decided to remove the snow track from my other shoe, lock them in one of my desk drawers, and thank my lucky stars that a hyper-sensitive person hadn’t found it. If they had, so went my worst nightmare, they could’ve easily mistaken it for a medieval torture device, a sex toy, or both. This could have triggered a massive HR manhunt. I was the only person I’d ever seen wearing snow tracks so it wouldn’t take security too long to figure out whose it was. I mean, seriously, how often do you really look at a man’s shoes? Even though I had the snow tracks under lock and key, I’d already been peacocking to my co-workers about conquering Mother Nature that morning. I assumed one of them would cave, and point the finger at me as soon as one of our woke-up-like-this, my-uniform-is-three-sizes-too-big security guards applied even the tiniest bit of investigative pressure.

I didn’t think about the snow tracks until I could feel safe trying to put them on again, shortly after 5:30 PM that evening. I couldn’t risk being seen in the workplace wearing socks without shoes, so I decided to visit the same bathroom where I’d encountered Mr. Nosebleed, aka The Kellogg’s Cracklin’ Oat Bran Man. I refused to let him get the best of me, even if the competition between us was playing out exclusively in my head. I know now that should’ve just risked being accosted by an everything-is-a-trigger-warning coworker by sitting out in the open to take my shoes off and attach the snow tracks to them. Against the better angels of my nature, I opted for the blue and white tile of old familiar. For the first time in this nearly seven-year stint with my employer, I went into a bathroom stall. I chose one that was handicapable accessible at that because I knew I’d need a fair amount of room to maneuver.

If one’s home bowl provides an unparalleled level of comfort, I don’t know why I expected the toilet in this unfamiliar, reasonably public bathroom to have a lid. As far as I knew, I’d taken a dump in a public toilet but once in my entire life. Avoiding stalls in public bathrooms had become one of my personal rules after seeing far too many movies and television shows where the hero inconveniently finds himself seconds away from a for-a-good time-call-Charlie invitation scrawled in expectant Sharpie on one of the stall walls. The exception that disproved my rule was only brought about by the extenuating circumstance of my having been on a plane for 8+ hours, trying desperately not to pass gas in a closed cabin full of strangers and recycled air. When the time came for me to finally let loose, it was dark. My mission-oriented self couldn’t see much in 2011, so 2019 me had no earthly idea what to expect from the moment the stall door slammed home.

I sat on the toilet to take off my shoes, only to be betrayed yet again by my right foot. I had to bend and contort my body into several unnatural positions just to take off my right shoe. Even if I’d returned to the practice of yoga as I’ve been telling myself to do for years, it wouldn’t have done any good. By the time I managed to pry my foot free, I was bent over on the toilet seat, face red, and gasping for air as if I’d just been through a CrossFit workout. Extracting my foot from my left shoe wasn’t any easier. I was thankful I hadn’t fallen in the toilet the first time, and I decided not to risk doing so again. I sat on the floor of the stall among crumpled up toilet seat covers with my back against a wall. I succeeded in removing my left shoe, but it was a Pyrrhic victory that left me sucking air again five minutes later.

I thought the hard part was over, but I soon realized that I hadn’t really accomplished anything. I still had to get the snow tracks on my shoes. I decided to try putting the snow track on my left shoe first since I always put my left shoe on first anyway. I didn’t have nearly as much trouble as I’d anticipated. This only served to imbue me with a false sense of confidence as I entered the battle on my right side. Standing now, in stockinged feet, I twisted and pulled that infernal rubber contraption every way I knew how. It wasn’t long before the confrontation reached a tipping point. In the heat of the moment, I looked down at my shoe and saw that the toe was bent in in a position from which it might never recover.

Uh oh.

While admiring the shoe’s brush with death, I got so caught up in wondering how the hell I hadn’t destroyed it that I forgot to release the tension on the snow track caused by my desperate attempts to fit it over the bottom. Consequences be dammed, I kept pulling, and sure enough the shoe went flying out of my hand. I let out a simultaneous:

dammit!

as it flipped like a coin through the air. Even the staunch atheist in me prayed it wouldn’t land outside the stall. If someone had walked in to find my solitary shoe on the floor, I’d have had some serious explaining to do. Fortunately, it came to rest within the stall, right in the space between the floor and the bottom of one of the walls. It would’ve been easily visible to anyone who happened by. I scrambled to pick it up, and somehow managed to finally put the snow track on without losing a shoe, or an eye, in the process. Another Pyrrhic victory in hand, I did the clickety-klack catlike walk out of the building and homeward, praying I wouldn’t tip over like a little teapot along the way.

IV.

Education.

Not many things in this world make me truly happy. Whatever I’m doing, I’m often consumed by the notion that I’m wasting my time, and I should be doing something else. One exception is volunteering. I like to think that whenever I get out to give back to the community, I’m spending my time wisely, that my actions make even the smallest difference in someone’s day. Those feelings, those moments, are what make life worth living. That’s why I jumped at the chance to volunteer at a local shelter for youth in crisis.

I’d heard snow was in the forecast for that Saturday, so I put the snow tracks on my shoes, and called for a Lyft to take me where I needed to go. Upon arriving, my driver insisted that I get in the back seat. I complied. He said he was familiar with where I was going, and I babbled on about why I enjoy volunteering so much. I’ve given the same speech to two dozen or more Lyft and Uber drivers over the years. I don’t always mean to say the same things over and over, but at this point, I’ve got a streak going.

As we pulled up to the shelter, my driver said something that caught me by surprise:

God bless you and your ministry.

Okay.

I don’t know why he thought I was religious, but I decided it wasn’t worth fighting about since so few things in this world really are. As I got out of his car and stepped onto the sidewalk, I felt the same naked feeling I had when walking back to my desk with a coffee a few days before. I looked down at my feet, and instantly knew what was missing:

Shit! My snow tracks came off again. They’re in the back of a stranger’s car, and he’s pulling away from the curb…

I waved to the driver in a half-hearted attempt to get his attention. He probably thought I was waving goodbye, so he didn’t stop. I was dejected over the loss of my spikey companions, but I had a job to do. Need knows no season, after all. As the leader of our group for this particular event, I was the first to arrive. I asked our host to tell me more about the facility. Turns out, it’s a shelter where kids can go when their parents may have kicked them out of their homes, ripped up their birth certificates, or under any number of undesirable circumstances. Typically teenagers, the kids there are in tough spots. I remember hating life as a teenager, but I was incredibly fortunate to never lose my home or my support system. I’ll never forget that. How could I complain about losing a set of bougie spikes I’d bought at a club where I was a member in the back of a Lyft that I paid to ride in by just tapping on my smartphone? The short answer is, I couldn’t.

But that doesn’t mean shit couldn’t still get awkward.

If I’m mission-oriented in the bathroom, I’m also a mission-oriented volunteer. I was so excited to get started that I didn’t even wait for more people to show up. I started attacking the living room almost immediately. I found several intermingled decks of cards and resolved to make each one whole again. After working my way through a few decks, I made my way to an end table in search of rogue Kings and Queens. The table had so many board games on it that I almost didn’t see the circular object on the floor beneath it. I thought it was a fallen game piece at first. I reasoned that if decks could lose their cards, games could lose their pieces. No matter how hard I try, a part of me will always be a leave-it-better than-you-found-it Eagle Scout, so I bent down to pick up the fallen piece. But it wasn’t a game piece at all.

It was a used condom.

I jerked my hand away as if I’d touched a hot stove, but I quickly realized that the damage had already been done. In one motion, I picked it up and threw it in the closest trash can. Inside, I was disgusted. Outside, I knew I had to remain emotionally unmoved. How could I expect a house full of teenagers and my fellow volunteers to keep their cool if I couldn’t? The short answer is, I couldn’t.

As the color of my face slowly returned to normal, I returned to my quest for prodigal cards. Along the way, I picked up a canister of Lysol and a rag and started disinfecting. In the midst of organizing the cards and board games, I came across at least five different remotes that had either been left to their own devices on the end table, or fallen between the cushions of the couch next to it. I picked up a random remote to examine it; I couldn’t believe it had just one button. In that instant, I felt technology had come full circle. I simultaneously felt longing for the days of A, B, Select, Start, and a directional pad on a Nintendo controller from the 80s, and gratitude that I wasn’t overwhelmed by the option paralysis of my first and only X-Box controller from the early 2000s.

Somehow, in the midst of my button daydreams, I managed to turn on the television. I panicked, though not as intensely as before.

Great. This is the last thing we need… If the volunteer coordinator catches us with the TV on, we’re screwed. I don’t want anyone thinking we were being lazy, even if turning on the TV was an accident.

I looked out the window through the falling snow for signs of any important-looking adults. Once satisfied there were none on the horizon, I decided to turn off the TV with the same one-button remote I’d used to accidentally turn it on. I messed around with the button for a few seconds, and though I couldn’t get the TV to turn off, I did manage to jack the volume up to 60. To make matters worse, Netflix soon followed with its unmistakable Dum-Dum opening sound.

Fuck me. It’s bad enough that I turned the TV on, but now it sounds like I’m making myself at home surrounded by kids who don’t have one. I’ve already seen at least one Children’s Services worker in the house today to check on one of the kids. If I don’t turn off this damn TV right now, this could get ugly. No one wants to hear Maude Flanders scream “Won’t someone please think of the children” in a place where they’re supposed to be safe.

Since I couldn’t get the TV to turn off, or at least make a selection in time, Netflix did what Netflix does, and started playing the trailer of its featured show. As luck would have it, the feature that Saturday was Sex Education. I’d seen the trailer myself that morning, at home. But thinking of the hormonally-charged residents of the house, and my all-too-recent close call with a condom, I considered seeing it here to be the mother of all ironies. It’s a show about teenagers’ discovery of their sexuality, exacerbated by the fact that one of the teens’ mothers is a sex therapist. I knew this, of course, but I wasn’t horrified until the therapist spoke the trailer’s first words, to her son, which sent the following blaring throughout the house at volume level 60 in a British accent.

I'VE NOTICED YOU’RE PRETENDING TO MASTURBATE, AND I WAS WONDERING IF YOU WANTED TO TALK ABOUT IT.

As she (unintentionally) bellowed that call to puberty to anyone within earshot, my entire time as a volunteer flashed before my eyes. Everything from my first event sorting food at the Homeless Families Foundation, to having an Uber driver tell me his GPS said I was in the middle of the highway, came washing over me. I was convinced that a hyper-sensitive adult, or some freshly-minted preteen who’d only recently embarked down the path of life’s most awkward phase, would ruin it all for me. I tried feverishly to turn the volume down as she spoke, but my fingers wouldn’t follow my commands. They just blindly grouped that stupid, singular button.

Shit…. Shit…. Shit….. No… No…. No…. Nooooooooo!!! We’re fucked now, for sure! They’ll never ask us to come back! Great job, Mr. Leader.

Somehow, after a minute that might as well have lasted three years, I managed to turn off the television. I looked outside at the intensifying snowfall, and remembered my snow tracks were long gone. I was pissed off for a second, but I remembered that all I needed to do was ask someone for a ride in real life instead of just tapping a button on my phone. It’s redundancies that save you.

I had some unexpectedly good (some might say bougie) French toast, coffee, and conversation at a place called The Crest after sprucing up the house and locking down the TV. At the conclusion of our meal, I called for a Lyft to take me home, and I managed not to fall in my own parking lot once I got there.

My winter boots came in the mail on January 14, 2019, twenty-six years to the day my dear uncle Dave died. I’m not sure where or when he is, and I miss him like crazy sometimes. But I like to think that if he watched my struggles against Mother Nature and Father Time that weekend, he was laughing his ass off.

That’s another fantasy I could buy into.

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oodlyenough · 8 years ago

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fic: tall flat white

~2k, coffee shop AU (really). Rhys, Fiona & Sasha, gen with a lil bit of one-sided Rhys/Sasha because that’s who I am as a person. also on AO3

entirely the result of a joke conversation with @shinyopals about how to transport a character like handsome jack into something as mundane as a coffee shop and now here we are, 2k words later. also shoutout to this monstrosity.

Fiona was, without a doubt, the worst customer Rhys had ever known.

“Hey,” she announced, a bit too familiar for someone who was, inevitably, about to do something that would jeopardize his job.

He sighed.

“Can I get a….” She leaned heavily across the counter to scan the menu, legs stretched out straight behind her, balanced on the tips of her boots. “Grande vanilla bean frappucino with heavy cream, no ice, no water, no whip, matcha powder, extra caramel drizzle, extra chocolate chips with two shots espresso in a venti cup?”

Rhys narrowed his eyes. “Come on. You don’t actually want that.”

“Sure I do,” said Fiona, with a voice that did nothing to convince him of her sincerity. She slapped a handful of change onto the counter. “Chop chop!”

He scooped the change into his palm. “Hey, this is twenty cents short—”

But she’d already flitted around to wait for her drink at the other side of the counter, so he sighed and dug the missing dimes out of his own pocket instead. Grabbing a cup from the stack, he Sharpied her absurd order on the side along with her name, intentionally misspelled with a Ph in the precise way he knew she hated.

Fiona rifled through the stack of CDs on display, seemingly oblivious to the way her methods left them askew and in need of rearranging.

“Oh yeah,” she called casually, “I left my umbrella here the other day.”

“No, you didn’t.” “Yes I did,” she insisted, the mischievous sparkle in her eyes belying the innocence in her voice. “Did anyone turn it in? It was black, hooked handle, button to open it—” “You’re describing the world’s most generic umbrella. I’ve seen that stupid ‘lifehack’—” “My umbrella’s not creative enough for you? Don’t insult my umbrella.” The sound of the blender drowned out his sigh. “When did you say you left it here?” “Saturday.” At least she’d done that much research. “The big rain storm. Obviously.”

“You weren’t in on Saturday.” “How would you know?” “I was working.” Fiona snorted. “What, all day?”

The truthful answer to that was yes, actually: an excruciating open-to-close shift, for which he had only been paid approximately half. The rest was an off-the-books and probably-illegal favour for the manager that Rhys was really hoping paid off in two months when the next rung on the corporate ladder finally had an opening.

But telling Fiona that didn’t feel like much of a win, so instead he said, “No one turned in any umbrellas, Fiona, better luck next rainstorm,” and plunked her drink on the counter in front of her.

Fiona wrinkled her nose in a pout, which turned to a scowl as she picked up her cup and saw the spelling of her name. Rhys smirked and used a rag to wipe the ring of condensation off the counter, looking to the door just in time to see it open.

Fiona was easily the worst customer Rhys had ever known, but without a doubt the best part of Fiona the customer was that her appearances sometimes guest-starred her younger sister, Sasha.

This, it seemed, was one such lucky visit.

Sasha was beautiful, cool, and brimming with resentment for anyone or anything that might accurately be deemed ‘The Man’, which may or may not include Rhys depending on her mood but absolutely always included his place of employment. She walked through the door, slipped the hood off her head, hooked her headphones around her neck and gravitated across the shop to her sister.

“Hey, Fi,” she said, and then, catching sight of him, added a nod of acknowledgment. “Rhys.”

“Hey,” he croaked. “Hi.”

Fiona’s eyes narrowed suspiciously in his direction.

He cleared his throat. “Uh, hey, so, Sasha, can I get you something?”

She shook her head, the bundle of dreads tied behind her head wobbling as she did so. “I’m good.” She held up a paper coffee cup of her own, emblazoned with the logo of the rival indie cafe down the street. “Fair trade,” she added, a little more pointedly than was probably necessary.

“We’re fair trade,” he said, reflexively and a little bit pathetically, but Sasha only raised an eyebrow.

“Mmm, I know you say that,” she said, almost on the border of pitying before she nudged Fiona with her elbow. “So, I may have committed some light vandalism.”

Fiona’s eyes lit up as much as Rhys’ heart sank.

“Tell me everything,” said Fiona.

“Please tell me it wasn’t here,” said Rhys.

Sasha’s grin turned wicked, the family resemblance between her and Fiona suddenly striking.

“In the parking lot. I may have noticed a certain expensive car with a certain bumper sticker containing a certain slogan for a certain politician, and my keys and I may have tried to redecorate. A little.”

Fiona laughed and gave Sasha an exuberant high-five; Rhys groaned and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

“That’s my manager’s car,” he moaned.

Fiona laughed harder at that. “Of course it is.”

Unbothered, Sasha took a sip of her competitor-brand coffee. “Your manager seems like a dick.”

Rhys opened his mouth, considered that there was no contribution he could make to this discussion that wouldn’t jeopardize either his job or Sasha’s esteem, and shut it again.

“Oh, he is a dick,” agreed Fiona. “Like, I bet he’s killed a man.” Rhys rolled his eyes. “What?”

“Have you seen his face? That’s the face of a man who’s watched the life leave someone’s eyes.”

“That’s ridiculous.” “What happened to the guy who used to own this place, eh? Didn’t he disappear?” She wiggled her fingers mysteriously. “I’m just sayin’.” She took a slurp of her frappucino and reached across the counter, slapping Rhys’ arm with enthusiasm. “Oh, oh, tell her what he said about the pipelines.”

It was difficult to ignore Sasha’s expectant gaze.

“I… need to get back to work,” Rhys said lamely. “Yeah, hey, speaking of,” said Fiona, waving her half-finished drink, “this isn’t lactose free, is it?” “You didn’t order lactose free.”

“Sure I did.”

“No, you didn’t! And you barely even paid for the first—” “The customer is always right, Rhys,” she sing-songed. “That’s somewhere in your corporate handbook or personal bible or whatever, right?” She pulled back her half-empty drink as he reached for it. “I’ll keep this one, though. You know.” She sucked noisily on the straw. “Wouldn’t wanna waste it.”

Rhys glared at her, but grabbed an empty cup and started over anyway. “You’re going to get me fired.”

“I’d be doing you a favour,” said Fiona. She pulled the container of sugar packets towards her, arranging several into a tiny house of cards he’d have to rearrange later. “You still putting in hours for free?”

But Sasha was paying attention now, staring at him critically. “They’ve got you working for free? Why would you do that?”

“That’s not… strictly speaking, that’s not, exactly, what—”

“Because he’s a spineless kiss-ass,” Fiona explained, knocking over her sugar tower with one finger.

Sasha put a hand on her hip. “That’s stupid. You don’t owe them anything.”

Having Sasha’s righteous fury aimed in his defense was a little rewarding, if also a little embarrassing.

Fiona, of course, was there to ruin it.

“Oh, but Sash, it’s all about playing the game!” She placed a theatrical hand over her chest. “If he works hard enough and long enough for his douchebag boss maybe one day, seven years from now, he might finally get to be assistant to the regional manager of a soulless franchised multinational coffee chain.” She screwed her face up like she was crying and wiped away an imaginary tear. “Every little boy’s dream.”

Rhys set her new drink down on the counter with enough force that some spilled out the lid. “Very funny.”

“That’s... sad,” said Sasha, looking at him with an expression closer to pity than he would have liked. “You can do better than this place. Aren’t you a techie or something?”

Rhys was not entirely sure whether or not he ought to be flattered, let alone whether or not he was.

“Hey now, easy, Sash, don’t make the delusions of grandeur any worse.” Fiona grabbed at her second drink happily, tossing the now-empty original into the garbage.

Before he could respond to the insult, or even demand she clean up the wreckage of sugar packets she’d left behind, Fiona reached into her pocket and began waving a folded piece of paper between two fingers.

“By the way,” she announced, dropping her voice to a more conspiratory volume. “I may have a copy of next week’s AI design test.”

“What? You’re not even in that class.”

Fiona shrugged elusively. “I know people.” She dangled the paper in front of his face as he tidied the sugar. “You want it?”

He did. AI Design was his hardest class, and his grades were slipping. But he looked at the paper, then looked at Sasha, and then said, “No.”

“Liar.”

“No, no, I don’t, I’m—reformed,” he insisted, unable to stop another furtive glance in Sasha’s direction. Sasha, engrossed in tapping away on her phone, her back against the counter, didn’t notice.

Fiona did. Her eyes went wide with recognition, Rhys felt the colour drain from his face, and Fiona’s eyebrows knit together in a disgusted glare.

Oblivious, Sasha broke the tension by standing up straight and tucking her phone into the pocket of her jeans. “Oh, hey, Fi, gotta run, August’s got some new gear to show me.” She slid the headphones looped around her neck back over her ears and raised a hand to wave casually at Rhys. “Good luck with your murder boss.”

Rhys managed a feeble and silent wave of his own.

Fiona cleared her throat. The angry expression of a second ago had been replaced by a look of false innocence as she sucked on the straw of her drink and waved the paper back and forth between two fingers. He reached for the paper, but Fiona snatched it away, holding out an empty palm instead.

With a defeated groan, Rhys moved to the counter, stuffed an assortment of pastries into a bag, and then thrust the bag into Fiona’s open palm.

“You’re going to get me fired and you’re going to get me expelled,” he complained, but the malice was wearing thin.

Ill-gotten food and drink in one hand, Fiona flashed a self-satisfied smile, winked, and tucked the paper into his apron pocket. “Always a pleasure doing business with you.”

#shinyopals #tales from the borderlands #rhys the company man #fiona the con artist #sasha the kid sister #oodlyenough i write fic #baby's first coffee shop au lmfao

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yahoo-puck-daddy-blog · 8 years ago

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Eulogy: Remembering the 2016-17 Columbus Blue Jackets

(Ed. Note: As the Stanley Cup Playoffs continue, we’re bound to lose some friends along the journey. We’ve asked for these losers, gone but not forgotten, to be eulogized by the people who knew the teams best: The bloggers and fans who hated them the most. Here is Ryan Lambert of Puck Daddy, fondly recalling the 2016-17 Columbus Blue Jackets.)

By Ryan Lambert

(Subtitle: You’re not gonna believe this, folks, but I was right about the Columbus Blue Jackets all along)

Only two months and 13 days before Zach Werenski was born, on May 4, 1997, the 23rd episode of the eighth season of The Simpsons aired on the Fox broadcasting networks.

The episode was titled “Homer’s Enemy,” and was of course written by the genius John Swartzwelder. It told the story of new Springfield Nuclear Power Plant employee Frank Grimes, who was new to Springfield and therefore had no idea how the town’s reality bent toward this one guy, Homer Simpson.

Nothing should go this guy’s way. He’s dumb. Dangerously so. He’s not particularly nice to anyone. And he seems to succeed constantly anyway. And Grimes seems to be the only person in town who sees that this is not how things should be. Things should not go Homer Simpson’s way, and yet they do, constantly.

In a just universe, people like Frank Grimes, who are smart and work hard and understand how things should be, are the ones who get ahead. But Homer Simpson not only falls ass-backwards into success, people love him for it.

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Frank Grimes tries to tell the world that what they’re revering is wrong, and that the success Homer Simpson enjoys is ridiculously and obviously ill-founded, and how do they not see it? Everyone just tells him to shut up.

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Starting on Oct. 13, 2016, the NHL transformed itself into Springfield.

The Columbus Blue Jackets, a team nobody thought was going to be especially good this year, coached by a guy everyone knew for a fact was actively bad at his job, started winning a whole hell of a lot of games in short order.

Within six weeks, they were 11-5-4. Six additional weeks later, they’d won 16 games in a row and sat at 27-5-4.

Were they playing well? Of course they were. But the real question was, “Were they playing well enough to even come close to supporting a pace for more than 132 points?”

And the answer was, “Absolutely.”

The reaction among Columbus fans and not-even-particularly-credulous members of the hockey media resembled that of Springfield’s reaction to another Homer Simpson adventure that inevitably works out in his favor: “They clearly earned this.”

There were no two ways about that. Like a former astronaut chosen for his everyman qualities enjoying a lobster dinner with his family in their giant house, if you had the feeling a team with the 15th-ranked 5-on-5 expected-goals percentage in the league after playing a fairly soft schedule for 36 games hadn’t earned “first place in the league standings by a mile” you were absolutely wrong.

Why were the Blue Jackets — and their coach, whose backward approach to the game had just been worthy of widespread ridicule and scorn during September’s World Cup of Hockey — winning?

Tortorella, long reviled for being an unlikable, bad coach, had completely changed his approach, and with it, the team’s culture.

They had the third-highest shooting percentage in the league. And the second-highest save percentage. They were exceeding their expected-goals share by more than 12 percent. And it was pretty much because Tortorella trusted his team more. Morning skates? Who needs ’em!

This was a Kinder, Gentler Torts. He let the guys listen to whatever they wanted in the dressing room instead of forcing them to listen to “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” on a loop, and he would only sometimes call it “crap.”

That extra effort to be nicer is what, in everyone’s opinion, resulted in a 103.5 PDO and the best power-play in the league.

It was running about 35 percent and generating exactly as many good looks as you might expect a man-advantage anchored by elite players like Nick Foligno to generate. So clearly, that’s why this team that drew the sixth-fewest penalties was blowing out every team it faced.

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Oh sure, shooting 20-plus percent isn’t in any way sustainable, not for a normal team. But folks, this was Kinder, Gentler John Tortorella we’re talking about!

You have to understand what being Kinder and Gentler meant for Tortorella’s charges. Instead of getting yelled at 24/7, they were only yelled at 23/6.5, and that’s the kind of thing every player loves. It’s also what puts you 22 games over .500. No question.

Because they were marginally above water in possession (but only because they destroyed bad teams and got pushed around by good ones), this was not — and in fact couldn’t be — another Avalanche or Flames or Panthers or Wild or Leafs situation. Not possible. Especially because Sergei Bobrovsky was likely to remain a .940 goalie forever.

The culture had changed. That’s what the Frank Grimeses of the world — who for sure were not model-level handsome and genius-level smart and nice — were missing. It was one thing to bring three or four really good young players onto what had previously been a team that picked second in the draft last season as a means of getting almost instantly better. It was entirely another to have your coach only call you worthless twice a week. Huge change, you have to admit.

Even the biggest skeptics had to agree by early January: The Columbus Blue Jackets had figured out shot quality! And that’s the kind of argument that always holds up in hockey.

Which is what made the team’s whiplash-inducing descent into mediocrity so, so mystifying. While the Blue Jackets started 27-5-4 in their first 36 games (and man, that’s almost 44 percent of the season!) they only went 23-19-3 the rest of the way.

The Frank Grimeses — who clearly just had an axe to grind against a team they clearly hated and thought about all the time, and absolutely had never seen a mediocre team start of white-hot then collapse in the back half — would have pointed out things like the Blue Jackets actually being a sub-50 percent corsi team against playoff clubs this year. And a sub-50 percent fenwick team. And a sub-50 percent SOG team. And a sub-50 percent scoring-chance team. And a sub-50 percent penalties drawn team. And a sub-50 percent expected-goals team.

But those people — who obviously hadn’t watched hundreds of NHL games a season thanks to Center Ice and hadn’t been doing so for about a decade — were obviously just being disagreeable. Probably to get clicks. Some would call them “haters.” And they’d be right to do it.

And certainly, the doubters — who aren’t remotely so kind and knowledgable once you get to know them and stop yelling at them on Twitter — would have made too a big deal about the time reports started to come out about the Blue Jackets asking Kinder, Gentler John Tortorella to stop screaming at them basically the second they stopped winning. And for sure, they would have been big jerks to point out that the team’s stated goals shifted from “win the Presidents’ Trophy” to “win in the first round” to “just have a good showing” to “enjoy the experience” to “listen to a song they like” in the space of a month.

Any time these Frank Grimeses — whose success rate in identifying fluke teams was probably mediocre in comparison with most people in the national hockey media — pointed out any of those things, they were just trying to rain on someone’s parade, and certainly it wasn’t their job to highlight trends in the league that don’t always get a lot of attention, or to express their opinion on the NHL writ large.

These big media jerks — who had certainly not seen Tortorella coach two separate franchises into the ground over the past several seasons — clearly didn’t understand just how cool the cool racing stripe this genius coach who had never been massively disappointing painted on the side of the building really was.

He was Kinder and Gentler. And no one had ever tried that approach paired with an old-fashioned system that led teams with mediocre rosters to keep winning despite getting outshot most nights. So, y’know, checkmate, Grimey.

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That’s why, at the end of “Homer’s Enemy,” Frank Grimes is electrocuted. Because he was wrong about Homer Simpson and he just couldn’t deal with it. Drove him crazy.

And that’s also why all the not-good-looking naysayers who doubted John Tortorella should be sobbing today. They were wrong, despite the results of this series in which they were outscored 21-13. And it’s time they just accept it.

Oh sure, those never-played-the-game haters — who weren’t just “jealous,” obviously, no matter how often they’ve been right about this kind of thing in the past — will point out that the Blue Jackets lost in five games and, in point of fact, lost in five games to a team without its No. 1 defenseman, a second-line winger, a third-line winger and its No. 1 goalie. And sure, they’re going to rub it in by mentioning that this particular franchise still has just three playoff wins in its entire 16-season history.

But look at the big picture! John Tortorella was almost kinda nice for a while there.

Everyone thought this team would be near the bottom of the league and instead they won 50 games and, in fact, outplayed the Penguins in five games, four of which they lost.

Y’know whose fault it was? That goalie who was basically the only reason they didn’t completely fall apart in the second half in the first place. He may deserve the Vezina in a walk, but also he sucks.

And if the anti-Columbus creeps out there — who definitely weren’t right all along — think that doesn’t result in reliable 100-point seasons in perpetuity, honestly, I don’t know what game they’re even watching.

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Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.