#but Sasha is the only one so far that's whole premise started with the idea thar he is hot

[fangaminghell]

Sometimes you gotta make an oc who's insanely attractive ( this post is about Sasha).

[laurmaus]

my rant (analysis????thing about that one scene in Our Fears Mcd thats been hidden in my notes app for like 2 years sorry it’s a little long

ok so it’s been a few days and i completely forgot most of what i was gonna say about the whole dante aphmau illusion bht the whole thing was so ?????????? liek the way garroth and ESPECIALLY laurence’s reactions to their “worst fear” and their worst fear itself is SOOO FUCKING WEIRD and out of character becayse that’s NOT what their worst fear woulld be ????)))))) starting with garroth because his whole personality as a guard is that he wants nothing but happiness and safety for aphmau and like we don’t know a lot about his personal life and struggles besides like zane and the whole dispwnment thing ok maybe we do but what i’m trying to say is that aphmau holding hands and Kissing a guy is Not his worst fucking fear………. the whole scene could’be been so much better if the illusion was aphmau Dead or like extremely hurt or fake dante threatening the two to hurt aphmau right in front of them or something like the whole shipping bait was so unnecessary I KNOW ITS NOT THAT DEEP BUT 😑😑😑 ok now for layrence he was done SOOOOO DIRTY like Extremely dirty from the way he reacted to the fact that his worst fear was aphmau just kissing dante too…….. starting with how he reacted it was INSANELY out of character for the time that it was written there was no build up to his personality suddenly switching to anger ridden like he’s never been seen like this before ?????? skimming through the moments hes had since he’s still generally New to the series he has NEVER lashed out like that??????? even when zane was insulting aphmau and he had to lie to make it seem like they were together he is Cool Calm and Collected it’s so weird so see him get so mad so quick like he was YELLINNGGGG thad was some unnecessarily. Possessive reaaction personally it makes more sense when i add the fact that my theeory is rhag he believed aphmau was under hypnosis or a spell or something but this is COMPLETELY a theory like it’s the only explanation to him acting out like that PLUS THE FACT THAT HE TRIED TO ATTACK DANTE ????????? he CONSIOUSLY WENT TO ATTACK HIM JUSF BC HE WAS GONNA KISS APHMAU I GET THAT HE THIUGHT SHE WAS IN DANGER UNDER THE PREMISE OF A SUPPOSED SPELL BUT OTHERWISE THAT MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE…. i KNOW for a fact aphmau ddint think that far through and just wanted a ooooh my guards are Jelous☺️☺️moment and its aggrivating bevauuse i KNOW that he should have been asking if she was ok instead of just arguing at a ghost i get that hees protective but😞 you can HEAR HIM SLASH HIM REPEADLY TOO LIKE I KNOW HE STABBED THAT SWOORD STRAIGHT THROUGH HIS BACK OR WRM OR SMEHTING UOOU HEAR IT GO IN EEUEUUEGH the cheap sound effect is So😦(samsung version) THIS PLUS HIS GENERAL AREGIVATED DEMEANOR ENCOURAGES THE IDEA THAT LAURENCE CARES MORE ABOUT GOING AFTER WAHTEVER IS THREATENING HIM INSTEAD OF FOCUSING ON GETTING WPHMAU AWAY (which is the OPPOSITE of what happened in the nether when saving the chicken sha man+ MAKING SURE SHES OK ANF FURTHER SUPPORTS GARROTHS SUSPICIONS i could say that the remnants from him being a shadow night like made him be way more violently impulsive but from the videos canonicity itself i know aphmau wasn’t thinking of that when writing this scene… personally i gues i see how this could be in character i just cannt sincerely undedstand how laurence’s morals and beliefs coincide with attempting to harm a possibly innocent man it’s so ARURRGGGGGDDD (sound effect sounds better in my head trust me☹️

ok now to the fear itself layrence is not even officially apart of the guard he hasn’t known aphmau for too long INCLUDING the Months(?) that he was trapped in the nether for and i KNOW they’re really close now and he apparently has a crush on her (WHICH WAS SUPER SUDDEN TOO AND ALSO OVERWRITES PREVIOUS LORE ABOUT HIM NOT LIKING SASHA AND THAT SHE WAS THE ONLY ONR THAT HE COULD BE “normal with” ((SUPER COOL IDEA BTW I REALLY LIKED THAT!!!!!!! THEN HE SUDDENLY ANNOUNCED THAT HE SNOULDNT HAVE LET SASHA GO ???????? i guess it could just be chslked up to him lying but what need was there for that….. the switch up is so random and like she’s suppose to be dead when he said that why not just admit you loved her i guess it could’ve been laurence still not accepting the fact that he actually loved her but i don’t think aph meant for his words to be so deep seeing how she writes mcd😭😭😭😭 if they geniuenly wanted to develop the idea that laurence has a crush on aphmau then wouldn’t it make more sense for him to say he had a crush on her and after she died it was difficult blah blah blah BONDING!!!!! and then at the end he couldve been like oh…. speaking to you right now reminds me of how we use to t- nevermind. IDK ITS CONRY BUT IT MAKES SO MICH MORE SENSE STORY WISE/// THE WHOLE THING SO FUCKING WEIRD AND ALL TO BUILD UP TO HIM HETTING A SPONANOUS CRUSH ON APHMAU FOR NO FUCKUNG REASON. HIS ENTIRE PERSONALOTY IS BASED ON A MAN THATS A CASANOVA BUT DOESNT ACTUALLY FEEL ANY ROMANTIC ATTRACTION TOWARDS THE WOMEN HE CHASES!!!!!!!!! laurence canonically struggles with expressing himself sincerely and ended up coping by making hismelf out to be a douchebaggy man who feels the need to flirt with everyone in order to feel validated by people that (in his mind) wouldn’t like him otherwise!!!! this chatavyer concept opened a HUGE DOOR for development which we actually started ti see when he opened up about his persona and started to interact with aphmau as less of a fake love interest but a friend!!!!!!!!!! but knowing that he DID indeed love sasha AND loves aphmau makes their development into closer friends void because it was a supposedly a crush the whole time i really don’t think it’s that serious i juus feel like SO MUCH WAS THROWN AWAY FOR A FORCED CRUSH THAT COULD HAVE BEEN BUILT UP MUCH BETTER THAN IT WAS!!!!!!!!!! i’m like skimming through old episodes right now and have rewatched that one section in Our Fears like Twenty times so far to analyze but watching laurence and aphmau banter is really silly and☹️☹️☹️it sucks how they cant just be funny friends with and loving eachother geniuennly with the /r jokes here annd there not because laurence has a not so secret crush on pahmau but because they’re wacky friends!!!!!!! bffs where one (Phmau helps the other (L heal and overcome his struggles !!!!!! their dynamic is so fun and lively annf laurence’s character development up to this point had been really satisfying minus the crush😞😞 everuhtingg is so susaauuauaaaaaaaihh jusf BE FRIENDS!!!!!!!!!! BE FRIENDS PLEASE but anyways he’s not even apart of liekt he pheonix drop guard i guess ????? at this time which makes his worst fear beign aphmau being kissed by another man so Pathetic he has cadenza and the nether people and him being a shadow guard and just so much more to worry about than aphmau same with garroth!!!!!!! i feel like there’s so much mroe that could’ve been explored if they had just considered making the illusion more Personal ?????? i was also thinking that making them both see a completely different illusion I DONG KNOW HIW TO EXPLAIN IT LIKE oooh smoke Sparkles Boom they’re in a different place and see the fear like it was done for aphmaus fear and dante’s fear!!!!!!!

going back to garroth too a few episodes ago he was talking about how he was afraid that something might happen with laurence now that’s he can see so maybe the illusion could have been laurence attacking aphmmau right in front of him and like his armor and weapons are gone when he goes to fight and hes like 😦😦 or replace laurence with zane or whatevver or he’s like married to his fiancé and aphmau is Gone what i’m saying is there was SO MUCH POTIENTIAL OOOH O AND LIKE LAURENNCES PERSONAL ILLUSIOKN COULD HAVE BEEN HIM HRUTING ALHMAU OR CADENZA AGAINNDT HIS WILL AS LIKR A SHADOW NIGHT!!!!!!!! OR IDK IMAGINNE “we should split up and look around for……” BOOM garroth looks to the left and lauurence is GONE….. it’s all like ?$)&!???!?? until he looks fowaard at the steeps and 💥💥😨😨😨 LAURENCE is STANDUNG there with APHMAU HURT ON THE SCENE!!!!!!!!!!! n he’s like laurenncz….??????? thannk irene you found hLAURNECE!!!!??!;???;??🤯🤯🤯 actually BETTER IDEA THIS IS THE BEBEST ONE ITS ONE ILLUSION NOT TWO SEPERATE ONES!!!!! RIGHT SO GARROTH IS JUST THHERE AND SEED LAURENCE AND HE LIKE SUDDENLY GAINS CONSIOUSNNES AND LIKE LOOKS DOWN BOOM SHADOW KNIGHT ARMMOR HES GOT A SWORD IN HIS HAND AND ITS COVVERE IN BLOOD!!!!!!!!!!! loook doen Aphmau There she’s Gone in that one pose you know the one i’m talking about and then he turnns around 2 c the garroth thags just in taht one standing emoji pose and he like seees the blood on his dacve and OOOH IT WOUKDVE BEEN SO COOL… i understand the limitations that come with making a roleplay series with npcs ghat have like limited movement obvsiosuly it wouldn’t be as elaborate as this but i see it in my Mind…… ONE LAST THING BEFORE I FORGET it not sure if this is a typo or intentional or just a little fact that wasnnt meant to be taken all that serious but when malachi was explaining his backstory he mentioned how he could show peoples “fears” not exclusively their “greatest fear” WHICH might excuse this entire scene (minus the inaccurate character portrayls ) and make most of what i said void but i still stand by all of it!!!!!!!!! i’m not taking this excuse from someone who mistyped one of their MOST IMPORTANT character’s name MULTIPLE TIMES to the point where a misspelling became their canon name😭😭😭😭 but overall i jsur feel ike this entire episode and concept of a “greatest fear” being watered down to throwing some wood into a Shipping Arguement Fire for the two most important characters right after aphmau could have been so much more!!!!!!! like i get that aphmau getting with someone else might just be one of garroth and laurence’s shared fear but that doesn’t excuse how laurence acted and ESPECIALLY how uncharacteristically their dialogue was after the whole debacle OH MY GOD I DIDNNNT EVEN MENTION JOW THEY ACTDD ATTERWORDS ok i’m getting tired of this Long ass essay but basically afterwords they kept questioning aphmau and dante on whether or not they kissed or whatevver and i feel so dumb right nowow this is unrelated but i’m just laying here on mymt bed Wirting this at 11:32 am instead of drawing or beingpeoduxtive or skemtjjngnevevrmind i joined a. Friend Call😊😊😊😊

ojay i left nothing interesting was happening but getting back on topic the fact that only laurence seemed to be concerned about aphmaus well beign when the whole illusion was over seems so weird especially since i would’ve expected garroth to say something about her aswell ?????? this is definitely nitpicky i just feel like i should mention the emphasis on dante and aphmau kissing instead of aphmaus wellbeing like they Shouldvve been douign…… like maybe ask about the next course of action or who dante is and what theyvve gone through or if theyre hurt wspecially laurenc before this episod he was more a less soft spoken i LOVVVE his Sassy Man persona just not before his actual character beliefs IDK HWO TO FEEL ABOUT THIS ANYMOORE yes i get theuure in shock i just feel like therees something off about this whole thing and i CANR EXPLAIN IT IN WOORDS I XANNT!!!!! i need teb notes all to be plugged into my mindndohmtmtgoodoss cddbdsdxxxcccccc cbc but yeah laurence is funny while he’s questioning them though so it’s ok and then afterwards when garroth is lik “especially the vision we saw now… that was, hard to take.” seems so out of place and weird wny doesn’t he question what happened or how they even found the child of wahetever the more the series goes on everythign seems to shift to focus more on the shipping aspects of things instead of going towards what the characters would realistically be worried about yeah yeah it’s her show i just wish that a little more was out into the dialogue during this bit to flesh them out more maybe i’m completely misinterpeting their characterrs because i’m Wacky but woudlnbg aph b like telling him everurjjng i DONNT JNWO!!!!!!!!!!!! overall i dont think the entire confrontation scene should have happened i thjnk they would have talked to aphmau eprsonally about what happenend instead of just Lamboding idk the word but that’s what i said in my head on dante and him kissing apjmau as guards that should not be their priority and i praay this is a one time thing otherwise scene was fine by itself i love❤️ Aph Mau team garmau forevver though (as of now(

no but srs i know this all sounds really corny and imm sure i look crazy right nowwhile you read this all out but this is liek directly from my brain to the paeer these are my Thoughts live not includdinng the ones i coudknnt add bc i was somehehrre else and then jsut Forgot about it!!!!!!!!!!! it’s crazy too becwysue this scene has always had such a special place in my heart (Gross) ever since i watched it when it first came out i ate this shit up!!!!!! annd now to look back and realize everything that was wrong with this part of the video and i know that there’s a BUNCH of more off moments like these but this one is just SO imporrynant to me i Sont know why and i can’t remmeber anymore because my okd notion of the video has been replacced eith me watchingn it from a few days ago but to seee myswlf continue to be interested by this straange but charming continuity annd story it’s just so important to me and was a HUGE part of my childhoood i would watch new videos from aphmau when they came out n eveerutnjng i remmeber hetting on the couch at like 9am to watch her new fnaf series videos i explicitly remember the one with the puppet jumpscare i was so fuckign scared😭😭😭😭 and i remmebr watching this one early in the morning too i thjnk idk jf this is me misremmebrjng and my brain being jumbled up bevauus that Happens sketimems and mixing up which videos i watched but i KNOW i would wake up early in the mirnirng to go to the livingn room and watch Aphmau i feel the need to critique it for what it is now and juust be Hinest with msuellf since i just saw so kuch wrong id dinnt know where i was going with this but i care for thier characters so much i just wnnat them to b real and Happy☹️☹️ love u guuys

[sashannarcy]

hi op what are your thoughts on uhhhh *spins wheel* sasha's season 2b arc (hope that's not too broad a subject)

edit: putting this under a cut bc it got LONG but. enjoy (???)

okay I gotta start by saying I didn't expect the depth of it at ALL; I knew Sash was featured prominently in the ending episodes of s2 based off of what my friend informed me, but like. I was not expecting 4.5 episodes to be almost ENTIRELY centered on their character arc and design (the .5 being the first half of True Colors).

that being said, I think Sash's 2b arc is PHENOMENAL bc of the way the nuance in it is written so incredibly well. this character is about to perform the most antagonistic move that they've pulled in the whole series so far, which is the act of betraying both Anne and Marcy in order to support Grime and get them home safe, if they so choose to go home (as an aside, I think at this point Sash has probably decided that she likes it more in Amphibia than back home, and there's one line that I'll get to that seems to be VERYYYY indicative of that. and if this is the case, it makes sense to me why Sasha would want to help Grime at all and why they don't really seem quite eager to follow Anne and Marcy back home. but! important to note that they still give those two the choice to go back if they wish, because at the end of the day Sash loves them and wouldn't try to force them to stay). and yet we see!! this back and forth!! this FIGHT that's happening in their mind, the way there's a flash of guilt they express at the very end of The Third Temple directly after confirming to Grime that things are still going according to plan, their convo w Anne at the end of The Dinner, the entire plot arc of BotB, and ofc the Sashanne duel in True Colors. I want to make an analysis post for each of these episodes because they're so fucking PACKED w shit to analyze, but I'll try my best to touch on all points here.

obviously we first learn of Sasha's plans to betray Anne and Marcy in The Third Temple. but what's important is that throughout the entire episode, there's several points where Sash switches back and forth between manipulation and honesty. I can talk abt this w confidence just based off of the whole. *gestures vaguely at myself.* but Sasha's initial apology in this episode was sheer manipulation, I think we all know that. however, when Sasha has to do their final test in the temple, those few lines they exchange w Anne in the moments before they raise themself up off the floor and launch themself into battle... those were genuine. they know they've been a shitty friend, and they're willing to accept that. so you have this game, almost, where Sash keeps flipping between putting on a mask to ensure they can keep up their facade until Grime secures the city and genuinely acknowledging their behavior and knowing that what they are doing is not going to sit well w Anne and Marcy.

so with that, The Third Temple sets the premise for the rest of the episodes of the season as far as Sasha's character arc. The Dinner is such a good fucking episode to follow with, because it hammers in the fact that Sasha has not changed. what it ALSO hammers in is she is still acting in her own self-interest - to put it in her words, she wants to get the friendship back under control. they still lash out, they still have a short fuse, they're still heavily opinionated and rough around the edges and prickly because this is an environment where they feel threatened. they're finally reuniting with the two people that mean the absolute most to them, only to realize they've been left out of the narrative. also not for nothing, but their trauma in Reunion got joked about in this episode which led to them blowing up over it, and like. I'm giving that one a pass bc man. anyway. at the end of the episode they say they like who they are, but it's said with a frown, which I think is fucking GENIUS. because there's an actual meaning to this line - they don't ACTUALLY like who they are. we have plenty of evidence that they don't like themself. what they MEAN is that they don't want to change, because that would mean giving up a security that they need in order to keep themself together. AND THIS IS DEMONSTRATED CRYSTAL CLEAR IN BOTB. they literally PURPOSEFULLY detach themself from Anne and Marcy bc they know they want control but they ALSO know that their behavior is just going to hurt the other two, so instead of compromising, they just go hey I'm gonna do my thing and you guys can do yours. and we'll both get what we want. and if that's not evidence that this character is fucking GRAPPLING with how to grow and change as a person, idk what is

and then. sigh. we get to True Colors. ofc Sash goes through on their betrayal - they're loyal to a fucking T once you dig beneath the surface, and they wouldn't just not follow through for Grime. what is absolutely KEY here is the fact that they are still leaving room for their friends' best interests, as in they're not trapping them in Amphibia but rather explaining how they're gonna help Grime take over, implying they'll go back home once they're done, but if Anne and Marcy wanna go back now, that's cool. if she didn't give a fuck abt their wellbeing, she'd just keep them there w her. but she doesn't. and then Anne starts retaliating, and. well. we ALL know Sasha does NOT do well with criticism of any kind. so they just go okay I'll send you back now then (and this is STILL an action motivated by what they think is best for Anne). BUT THE LINE. OHHHH THE SUPER IMPORTANT LINE THAT MADE MY HEAD SNAP UP AND MADE ME PHYSICALLY GO "YIKES" OUT LOUD. is Sasha saying "say hi to your parents for me." it's like a goddamn full-on sucker punch packed into one sentence - seven words, and all of a sudden we know for sure this kid does not have a good home life. I could go into elaboration on Sasha and the way she views familial ties throughout the show, but I won't bc that's gonna take this already super long answer and make it even worse. regardless, Sasha has once again flipped the switch and is indulging in their worst behaviors, which is full on controlling and holding power to act on what THEY think is best in the moment. and the moment Anne snaps, the moment Anne yells about Sasha being a horrible person, literally EVERYTHING shifts and the reaction from Sasha is VISCERAL. and what I mean by that is. it's not just the look in their eyes at those words. it's not just the sudden and complete loss of meaning, of self, of motivation after they've lost Anne's support. it's not just the way they stare at their own reflection in a sword that represents the color of the person they're trying their hardest to protect. it's the way that for the rest of the goddamn episode, they spend it trying to do the one thing they fear the most: giving up control. I'm gonna elaborate on this whole aspect in a different ask bc I was asked abt it, but the way Sasha acts towards Anne after the fallout, especially at the beginning of the duel and during the confrontation w Andrias, is fucking monumental. they struggle so much with how to change their own behavior, yet the very moment they lose the support of the people they've been trying so hard to love and care for in their roundabout way, they can change the way they act. because who the fuck is Sasha Waybright without Anne Boonchuy and Marcy Wu? in her mind, no one. she doesn't have any idea of who she is outside of this, so ofc she can act differently when she's thrown out in the cold. after all, it doesn't take much to warp an identity that doesn't exist.

tldr; god. how do I sum this up. Sash's 2b arc is smth that's incredibly intricate and complex from the way they constantly flip between desperately needing control and feeling guilty that this is the way they need to live. and True Colors is able to finally demonstrate to us the final piece in how they operate - without their friends, they lose sense of who they are, and their personality comes undone. in 4.5 episodes the writers managed to give us 1000 aspects to their character that we hadn't gotten to explore, and we can see that Sasha was never meant to be the villain. so. final review is that's some good shit👍

[mimosaeyes]

“You could talk,” Jon says slowly. “Doesn’t matter what about, just as long as it’s distracting. That would... that would help, I think.”

Set during episode 39, when Martin and Jon are hiding from Jane Prentiss. 2.1k, pre-relationship.

For TMA hurt/comfort week organised by @themagnuswriters, prompt: “treating/distracting from injuries”

Content warnings: canon-typical worm imagery, blood, Martin’s Prentiss anxiety

Beta-ed by @emberidzae

Also available on AO3 here

Martin has triple-checked that the door is locked. He knows he has; he remembers jiggling the knob and scuffing his shoe on the seal over the crack at the bottom. Yet he keeps throwing nervous looks at the square of dirty glass through which he’d peered into the corridor. From where he’s sitting on the floor, knees hugged to his chest, he can’t tell where Jane Prentiss currently is, or what she’s doing. Not unless she were to press her wan face up against the window, the holes in her skin indistinguishable from her eye sockets, and raise one infested fist to knock.

He shudders and makes himself take a deep breath, subconsciously tightening his grip around the corkscrew. It’s still slick with Jon’s blood. His fingers slip a little, a sensation that makes his stomach turn. He takes another deep breath and glances to his right, where Jon is propped up against the wall with his injured leg stretched out in front of him. To Martin’s surprise, Jon’s attention is focused not on the door or his wound, but on him.

“What are you thinking about?” Jon asks — quietly, but the sound still startles Martin after a couple minutes of tense waiting. In the silence after Jon had paused the tape recorder, Martin has been left listening to his own, anxious thoughts. They’ve been running along the same well-worn tracks as during those thirteen days he spent trapped in his apartment: where is she, what do I do, is anyone coming, how long since I checked the door, where is she?

What do I do?

“I guess…” Martin hesitates, having a brief mental debate about how much is appropriate to say to your boss who’s just confided in you that he’s only dismissive because he’s afraid; helplessly so. “I felt safe, here. I didn’t think she could get in.” He pauses, glancing at the door. “Guess I was wrong.”

Jon surprises him for the umpteenth time today by saying, “I’m sorry.” He sounds genuinely sympathetic, and even leans forward as if to pat Martin’s arm, although he stops halfway, looking awkward. 

As he slumps back against the wall, he winces, hissing slightly.

Furrowing his brow, Martin scoots closer to him. “Does your leg hurt?” 

“I’m fine,” Jon says, literally lying through his teeth. A muscle in his jaw jumps as he clenches it. He sighs. “Nothing to be done anyway, while we’re stuck here.”

He’s right, to an extent; they don’t have any medical supplies or even water to wash out whatever secretions a worm might leave behind. Martin shudders at the thought while eyeing the small pool of blood that has trickled out of Jon’s wound. “We can at least put pressure on it,” he decides at last. 

After casting about the room for a moment and seeing only boxes and papers, he starts to remove his own jumper.

Jon blinks. “What are you doing?” 

“I don’t have any other cloth,” Martin explains, lowering his arms again.

“I’m hardly going to bleed out from this,” Jon scoffs, his voice returning to its usual prickly tones. “There’s no need to be so dramatic.”

A few weeks ago, Martin would have backed down at once, stung by Jon’s standoffishness and jumping straight to the conclusion that Jon wouldn’t trust him to perform even such basic first aid on him. In light of today’s revelations, though, he merely narrows his eyes. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what,” Jon says flatly, looking askance. Martin takes that as a good indication that he’s hit the nail on the head with his inference.

“Pretending you’re not scared, so you won’t have to deal with how crazy this whole situation is. Well, you’re not fooling me.”

He maintains a firm, steady tone but holds his breath once he’s done speaking, silently worrying he has crossed a line. Several beats pass before Jon mumbles something in response.

“What?”

“I said you can use my vest,” Jon repeats, over-enunciating. He sounds arch again, though rather more cowed than before. Deftly, he unbuttons his vest with one hand while waving the other vaguely in Martin’s direction. “That’s one of your favourite jumpers; don’t ruin it on my account.”

The motion of him shrugging out of the vest does something fascinating to his collarbones, the lines of which are visible through his white button-up. It takes Martin a moment to process Jon’s words and ask, “Wait, how do you know I like this jumper?”

“Well, you wear it on special occasions, like your birthday,” Jon says as Martin begins to fold the vest. “You didn’t make Tim any tea for two days after that time he spilled some pasta sauce on the sleeve. And before you lived here, you sometimes left a hoodie or cardigan at your desk overnight, but never this jumper…” He trails off. “I’ve said too much, haven’t I?”

“It’s alright,” Martin tells him, while a pleasant, dizzy feeling starts up in a corner of his mind. He had no idea Jon noticed anything about him at all, aside from his supposedly incompetent work. “We do investigate mysteries.”

Such as the mystery of why Martin is about to use a vest made of what feels like rather expensive fabric to staunch the bleeding, when his own, comfy but ratty jumper is on hand. He clears his throat, glancing at Jon’s leg. “May I?”

At Jon’s nod, he pushes his trousers up to mid-calf. Then he stops and just stares at the ragged wound for a moment. He’s never thought of himself as being particularly squeamish, but he gets a little lightheaded anyway at how far the worm had tunnelled before Sasha managed to extract it.

This is what he’d pictured in the initial days of waiting out Prentiss, when he was still weighing the possibility of making a break for it. The mental image had effectively deterred any attempts. Since he’s started living in the Archives, he’s also woken up several times gasping from nightmares about the parasites burrowing into his exposed flesh. He always gropes for his corkscrew and the fire extinguisher he keeps next to his cot, clutching them to him while staring blearily out into the darkness beyond the circle of light cast by the lamp he leaves on.

He shakes himself. There’s no point thinking about that now. His fears have come to pass after all, and Jon needs his help. Martin places the fabric over the injury and presses down. Immediately, Jon gives a quiet hiss.

“Too much?” Martin asks, easing up a little.

Jon’s already shaking his head. “No, it’s okay. Thank you.”

They both fall silent for a while. Martin’s thoughts inevitably wander back to whatever’s going on outside. Whether Tim and Sasha are alright, whether help is coming. Too soon, he lifts the vest to check on the bleeding. It has slowed a little, but there’s still a sluggish ooze from the wound. He resumes the pressure, then looks up to find Jon watching him again.

“Why are you being nice to me?” Jon asks.

“Um.” Martin shifts into a marginally more comfortable position while he tries to find a polite way of phrasing Because of basic human decency…? “Why wouldn’t I?”

He means it rhetorically, but Jon actually starts to answer. “Well, I haven’t exactly been lovely to you. Yet here you are, offering to sacrifice your favourite jumper and — and staying here with me, when you could run for it and escape a situation you’ve probably been dreading for the past couple of months.”

I wouldn’t just leave you, Martin thinks at once, with a resolve that surprises himself a little. The time he’s spent living in the Archives has been stressful, sure, but it’s also brought him closer to each of his co-workers. (Regularly dousing one another and the premises with fire extinguishers will do that.) He wouldn’t abandon any of them.

That seems too heavy to say to Jon, though. Especially since, if it needs saying, maybe that means Jon hasn’t felt the same sense of solidarity. So Martin deflects instead. “Should we be talking at all? It might give away where we are.”

“You checked the door. We’re fine.” Jon attempts a reassuring smile but breaks off and flinches, his leg twitching briefly under Martin’s hands.

“What’s wrong?”

Jon pulls a face. “There’s a weird… pulsating feeling. Like it’s still crawling about in there.”

A horrible thought occurs to Martin. “Sasha did get all of it, didn’t she?”

“I’m sure she did,” Jon says. “I’m just being paranoid. In any case, I... don’t exactly relish the prospect of digging around with the corkscrew some more.”

“Hmm.” Martin bites his lip. “Then I don’t really know what else I can do.”

His thoughts stray back to the door, to the taste of canned peaches, too sweet in the back of his throat. He hates all this waiting. He needs to be doing something.

Jon tilts his head at him as if puzzling something out. “You could talk,” he says slowly. “Doesn’t matter what about, just as long as it’s distracting. That would... that would help, I think.”

Martin perks up at this — though of course, his brain chooses this moment to forget just about everything he has ever heard of, read about, or thought. “Ah…” he flounders. “I, I watched a documentary last week. It was about sharks.”

Breath hitching slightly in pain, Jon settles himself against the wall. “Tell me about sharks,” he says, with a wry and strangely indulgent smile.

So Martin does. “Um. Okay. D-did you know,” he says, starting with his favourite fact, “sharks that lay eggs do it in leathery pouches called mermaid purses? I’m not making that up, they’re really called that...” Then he goes on to explain how scientists determine the age of a shark by counting the growth rings formed on its vertebra, much like the rings in the cross-sections of trees. (At this point, his spiel is interrupted as Jon mumbles, “That’s... dendrochronology, right?” Only he stumbles over the syllables, so Martin repeats the word correctly, and somehow it turns into a weird competition of who can say it five times fast. Martin wins, but all of his blood is where it should be, so he’s hardly gloating about the victory.) Finally, he moves on to trivia about specific species, like the epaulette shark, which can walk on land, or the bonnethead shark, which for some reason enjoys eating seagrass.

Martin saves the best for last. “But my favourite,” he says, fully chatty by now, “has got to be the cookie-cutter shark.”

“A great name,” Jon remarks. “Why do you like them?”

“Well, first of all, they’re tiny. They kind of look like large fishes, really. And they glow! They have the strongest known bioluminescence of any shark. They migrate every day — but not from place to place. Up and down, actually. They’re, uh.” At this point, probably extremely belatedly, Martin realises he has been going on about sharks for quite some time. His mother, for example, would have stopped him ages ago. “They’re pretty cool,” he finishes rather lamely.

Instead of berating him or yawning pointedly, Jon actually still looks interested. “You haven’t explained why they’re called cookie-cutter sharks,” he notes. There’s a gentle quality to his voice that Martin has never heard before. It makes him genuinely believe that Jon wants him to continue talking. After all, this is the man who rambled about emulsifiers during Martin’s birthday celebration, pausing only to tell him he was about to put his elbow (and thereby his jumper) in a bit of melted ice-cream on the table. It had been embarrassing for Martin, who may or may not have been fawning slightly and absently letting his vanilla-honeycomb dribble out of the cone — but perhaps Jon was actually trying to be considerate.

Still, Martin hesitates before diving into his explanation. “It’s a little gory,” he hedges.

“If we die today,” Jon deadpans, “for me, it’ll be out of curiosity.”

It takes Martin a moment to realise he’s joking. Then he laughs, startled and faintly delighted. “Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he says. He pauses for dramatic effect. “Their signature feeding habit is to gouge round holes in their prey. Like… like a cookie cutter with dough.”

Jon groans, though not out of pain, and starts laughing. “Well, that’s certainly topical.”

“Not the best distraction, in retrospect,” Martin says apologetically.

“No, it’s alright. Touch of humour. I enjoyed it.”

More than enough time has passed by now, surely. Martin checks under the cloth again. “You’ve stopped bleeding,” he reports.

“That’s good,” Jon says softly. “Wouldn’t want the sharks to get me.”

It’s only then that Martin realises he’s entirely forgotten to fret about Jane Prentiss. For quite a while, too. Huh, he thinks, mentally replaying the way Jon had asked him for a distraction. That would help, I think.  

Help who?

[my TMA fic on AO3]

[my post-canon JonMartin + cat fluff AU]

[scrabbleknight]

35, honestly with 16 chapters for your Satf A.U. You deserve the chance to ramble(if you want to) and I, for one, would be glad to listen.

Haha, nice!

So, I'm not sure if people know about this but most of my fics start out on pure whim as a dumb thing I wanted to write because "wow, that would be cool!". You know, like a little kid. Seriously, you can take any of my fics and basically dumb it down into less than 10 words, starting with 'What if'.

What if Sasha and Anne switched places?

What if Miko was a Glitch?

What if Adora was raised by Hordak?

What if Luz was Belos's daughter?

There are also other ideas I never did or wanted to do but just decided not to. It happens and I have a document full of small summaries like this.

Sasha and the Frogs began its lifetime at the end of S1 on a whim. I never expected the fic to blow up the way it did and honestly, there have been times I felt like I just wanted to stop it there. I just imagined Sasha and Anne fighting like the S1 finale but switching sides. That's it. There's not really much planning out on that.

There's also my Glitch!Miko fic which I was super proud of. This is the one I put so much work into just because I love the premise. Meico (the OC) came on a whim like every other idea but it made perfect sense in context. Unlike SatF, GM had a lot of holes that I made and later had to fill. I accidentally made it far too complicated for my own liking, but I couldn't back down.

Like, here's a list: Shadowy organisation? What does it do? Why does it oppose Hinobi? Why did it create Miko and Meico? What about backstory? Economy? Characters? Etc? So much stuff that I've yet to answer, all by creating an enemy group. Thankfully, I do have a few answers and slowly but surely, I'm trying to implement them.

Here's a thing; I'm actually afraid of my own writing sometimes. Not because it's great (as if I have that kind of pride), but because of plot holes. If I write a dumb fact, I have to commit to it. I can't just ignore it or else someone will notice it and know that I also notice it. That's like, a bad move.

So GM has a lot of planning which is why even though it's shorter than SatF, it takes up way more work. Like, I just finished the dialogue for the next chapter and my first thought was "Yes, I finally solved that one problem by creating a completely different one!". Oh, the pain :v

But in the end, I'm usually proud of my work. Meico, which I started on a whim then planned on being a recurring antagonist only to shift gears and is now planned on being a slowly recovering protagonist OC, is oddly enough my favourite character. She has anger issues and zero parental guidance but deep down, she's just a young girl who was deeply hurt by the people she cared about, including Miko. Over time, she'll care for her and open up. That sisterly bond stuff :)

Finally, there's my greatest failure — a RWBY fic I started 6 years ago and only made like 2-3 chapters. I was young and stupid and it was technically the second fic I ever wrote but the first fic I actually care about. The idea was simple; what if Blake was adopted by the Schnees?

Keep in mind that when I wrote this, it was before any other Schnee appeared; before Monty passed away. There was a lot of hope and stuff in it but the workload crushed my motivation. School is hard and fanfiction is a lot of work. But like I said, it was one of my greatest failures.

Blake would've been part of the protest against the SDC's treatment of the Faunus alongside Adam. But then she'd get separated from him and got herself hurt, losing her memories. Due to Weiss's sympathy, Blake was "adopted" into the Schnee family but trained as a combat butler. Over time, the Schnee would employ more Faunus to work in thee family estate and slowly turn warm. Blake, without her memories, is completely indebted to Weiss for saving her life and Weiss, who sees Blake as a friend, grows up as a friendly and somewhat normal young woman. The two would have the best friend relationship despite the obvious power distance.

When Weiss goes to Beacon, Blake is tasked to follow her and report back to the SDC. She has a cold relationship with Yang due to her protectiveness and trust issues and would occasionally sneak out to do missions given by the company. At this point, the SDC has a SpecOps task force called the "Black Cats" who are made entirely of Faunus. The White Fang despises this group and calls them traitors for working for the SDC. On one particular mission, Blake would meet Adam and they have a fight (which she loses).

Now, these were the details I planned for back then in 2015. Even though I dropped the story, I never actually forgot about it. While watching RWBY, I'd unconsciously add more details like Blake meeting her parents and not recognizing them, or Blake denouncing herself from the SDC to help Weiss. Also, Weiss's dad had a different personality as well, being more of a businessman who doesn't understand his children and woes but still cares for them in his cold-hearted way. The story would've end with Weiss and her father no longer estranged.

So yeah, there was depth and love and other mushy stuff. But I decided to focus on schoolwork and over time, I cared less about RWBY fanfics as a whole.

It's a shame. A real shame.

Btw, I don't write shipping fics. Romance has never been my thing. My story might have shipping but they are never about shipping :O

[squeeneyart]

Breathe in the Salt - Chapter 5

AO3

Beta reader was @thesnadger!

Some thoughts on where to go next.

Martin is as helpful as he can be.

Their business finished, Jon and Martin exchanged a friendly “See you tomorrow” and went their separate ways. Jon turned on his heel and took the first turn out of sight. Martin, still holding his groceries, pressed his head against a nearby building and said under his breath, “God, you’re predictable. Smiles at you once and you’re done for. Must be a record.”

It had been a nice smile, though. Maybe at some point he would get to see a non-nervous one, the kind where the person’s face seems to open up like- No, he was not going to fall into poetic daydreaming, not this soon. Good lord.

He stood up straight, fixing his hair and checking for any witnesses. With the coast clear, he started the long walk home. It was fine. Martin wasn’t a complete idiot. He would accept the good news that Jon didn’t despise him and would roll with it, trying his best not to muck it up with more stupid mistakes. Then, with either their time used up or the investigation completed, all three of them would be gone.

The thought struck him hard, and Martin almost stumbled from the emotional whiplash. It had been, what, a day and a half? Surely not long enough to miss them that much, especially the person who had only just started being nice to him ten minutes ago. But Martin knew himself better than that.

Jon had been nice, just as Tim and Sasha had been nice, and he was going to miss the company when they had to leave. It was natural to feel sad about it, he told himself, but eventually their leaving would be a relief. The one-sided affection would have no room for hoping or growing otherwise. At the same time, he might as well enjoy the company of interesting people. Interesting people who wanted to help him, even! Jon had said he’d wanted to work together to figure things out, so that’s what Martin would try to do.

As long as it didn’t get him fired. As long as nothing they did fucked over any chance of employment. As long as his place of work didn’t eat him out of a hunger for vengeance.

Pushing those sour thoughts deep into the back of his consciousness, Martin focused on the morning’s events the rest of the way home. Plans of action formed in his mind, most of them related to the task at hand, a few needing to be waved away as wishful thinking. There was work to be done.

It took quite a bit of digging through crumpled and disorganized paperwork he’d saved from many unsuccessful attempts at employment, but after lunch, Martin sat on his bed with his original work contract. At the bottom was the signature of Peter Lukas, and in the bottom left corner was the stamped Lukas family crest, which Martin had seen every day on a small plaque adorning the lighthouse interior, right over his desk.

It was a simple and rather generic image of a black and white shield, framed by an albatross and a laughably inaccurate seal that Martin couldn’t help but gawk at years after he’d first seen it. He wondered if the artist responsible had had to work with someone telling them what a seal looked like from memory or if the family just hadn’t cared too much for accuracy. Based on the strange ideas Peter would spout at times of how the ocean worked, Martin would bet on the latter. Maybe the whole family was just like that?

Either way, it was equal parts ridiculous and unnerving as it lurked over Martin’s shoulder during the work day but didn’t have much use to him otherwise. He was no expert on symbolism and there was nothing he could see that would relate the crest to the task at hand.

Martin leafed through the work contract, glazing over benefits and salary before stopping on the section labeled “Employee Assignments and Other Expected Duties”.

“Sec. III. The employee agrees to the following non-exhaustive list of duties:

-Be present at the premises between the hours of 6 am and 4 pm, Monday through Friday, including lunch break. -Complete bookkeeping for the employer, Mr. Peter Lukas, using materials delivered to the premises on Monday morning. Delivery will always be completed by the employee's set arrival time at 6am. If nothing is delivered, contact the main house for further instruction to procure materials. -Clean the interior of the premises at regular intervals, including the main entrance, bathroom, kitchen, and upper floors. -Between the hours of 6 am and 4 pm, complete the maintenance list of the top floor (see Sec. IV). This must be completed once every day of the week, including Saturday and Sunday, between the hours of 6 am and 4 pm. There is a zero-tolerance policy for lack of completion. -Inform unexpected visitors of the proper procedure for scheduling a paid tour of the premises (See Sec. V) -Accept packages and sign for if necessary.

Martin looked over the list, biting his cheek. He’d grown lax on staying until 4pm, but with Peter’s general lack of awareness, it had never come up. Otherwise, the duties seemed in line with what he remembered. He looked down to Section IV.

“As referred to in Sec. III, the employee will complete the following tasks during the hours of 6 am and 4 pm every day, including Saturday and Sunday:”

Following this was the list he had long ago written down and taped to his desk. There were no details relating to the purpose of each task, just procedure. He’d kept to the instructions consistently, every switch flipped and seemingly-pointless button pressed, though he’d been very close to missing the 4pm mark on several occasions because of the dreaded walk to the top. This list, again, wasn’t much help. He went over the document a few times then set it aside and flopped onto his back, scattering some loose papers to the floor.

He’d need to find some other angle. Research was a non-starter for him without experience, and as far as his town knowledge was concerned, it wasn’t wrong to call him forgetful in that area as well. It was likely he’d have to accept his part as an amateur tour guide. It didn’t feel like enough, but starting Monday, he’d be back to working and have no time to help anyway, unless their work somehow kept them late into the night.

Jon had been nice with all the working-together talk, but Martin knew he wouldn’t be of much use at all. If he wanted to be helpful, he should begin prepping for dinner.

-

As evening turned to night, Martin and his mother sat at the dining room table in silence, interrupted only by the light clinking of plates and utensils as they finished the pan-fried chicken and vegetables in front of them. Weekends were always better meal days, always leaving Martin feeling more satisfied with his cooking with all the time he had to focus on it. His mother showed no greater signs of enjoyment than eating without complaint.

“Mum, can I ask you something?” Martin ran his thumb against the smooth metal of his fork. “It’s about work.”

Martin’s mother paused from eating another bite of her meal. “What is it?” she asked, frowning.

Swallowing hard, Martin said, “How much have you had to deal with the Lukas family? There’s this research project being completed and it’s involving a lot of history, so I thought since you’ve lived here so long-”

“Long enough, yes.” Martin could see her nostril twitch. “They came in long before I did and will most likely stay until the fish run out. Otherwise, I kept to my business and they kept to theirs. No reason to get involved with people who wouldn’t bother walking down the hills on foot.”

“Right, it’s just-”

“I don’t feel like talking, Martin,” she said, her voice cracking slightly at his name. “My throat is too sore.”

“Right. Okay, I’ll get you some more water.” He picked up her glass to refill and bit back any other questions. Next to the sink was his mother’s pill case with the current day’s compartment still full. “We’ll get your meds done now, then. Should help a bit.” His mother didn’t respond, having already returned to her dinner.

Afterwards, she requested to step outside. “The night air is good for my lungs,” she argued as a matter of fact, and with no way to dissuade her, Martin completed their little ritual of walking out the door and standing in the fog-filled night in silence, his own face covered in an old scarf. His eyes watered in the dry, salty gale, and he wondered how much time it had taken for his mother to withstand the sting without any tears.

-

By mid-morning the next day, Martin had finished his duties upstairs. Sitting at the table, he listened to the group’s progress from after he had left them the day before. Spread across the table were photocopies of what looked like legal documents, some of the bare spots between them filled with used mugs of varying sizes.

“We weren’t able to stay there for long before it closed, but we were able to look up some records at the library yesterday,” Sasha explained, sifting through the papers. “Not a terrible archive, all things considered. We’re going to head there again tomorrow morning for a more in-depth look. We didn’t even get to looking for details on the construction of this place.”

“But!” Tim waved one of the copies above his head. “We did get some info on the Lukases themselves. Current residents in town, major stakeholders, that kind of stuff. And-” He pressed the sheet close to Martin’s face. It was a copy (of a copy) of a newspaper article featuring the lighthouse, with some figures standing at the entrance, including one Peter Lukas. “Martin, d’you know anything about the person who worked here before you? He’s one of the younger ones in the family, standing on the left.”

Martin scratched the back of his neck, squinting at the photo. “A bit? Evan Lukas, he was really nice from what I’d heard.”

Tim frowned, lowering his arm. “‘Was’?”

“Yeah, he passed away before I started working here. Peter said it was some heart thing. Runs in the family.” Tim slumped. “Sorry! I’m surprised the records didn’t say so. It was a pretty big deal, really shook people. It made the front page, though I never read the details.”

“Did you ever meet him?” Jon asked, tapping on the rim of his empty mug.

“Sort of? We went to school around the same time and were only a few years apart, which was weird since you wouldn’t expect him to go to a state school with a family like that? Anyway, that was years ago, but even after that you’d hear about him. He was gone for a while, actually, but somehow he ended up in this old place a few years back and, well, y’know.” Martin rubbed his hands.

“Hmmm.” Tim leaned back in his chair, flipping a pencil between his fingers. “Okay, well, that’s one person we probably can’t talk to outside of spookier means. Is there anyone who knew him well?”

Pausing for a moment, Martin said, “I think… no, yeah, he was engaged, but his fiancée left town pretty soon after he died. Don’t know anything about her except she wasn’t a local.” Silence stretched over them as Tim sat in his disappointment

“Well, shit,” Tim let out in an overblown sigh. Sasha patted Tim’s shoulder in sympathy. He grinned at her. “That’s all I’ve got, then. Time to call it a day?” he asked, earning himself a pinch on the ear.

“We’ll just have to go over the items we have until tomorrow,” Jon said, his sigh brimming with exhaustion. “Who knows, we might’ve missed something the first time. Before that, Martin, who was the person we missed yesterday? Would they be worth talking to?”

Hesitating, Martin responded, “Maybe? But if you’ve already got a way to look up historical stuff, it might be better to skip this one.” Jon raised an eyebrow at him and his stomach dropped at the attention.

“It’s just, he’s an eccentric person, difficult to track down, and while he knows the Lukas family pretty well, it’s only because their families do business. His family, the Fairchilds, they’re not a huge family in this town, but this guy, Simon, he’s, well. He’s this small, old man, right?” Martin tapped his foot, looking for something to say to end his babbling. “And you know the cliff behind the lighthouse? It’s got at least 150 meters straight down to sea?” The three nodded, and Martin smiled, his brows furrowed.

“Years ago, he dove right off the damned thing.”

-

Tim gaped over the railing, his breath floating over the edge. Sasha and Jon gaped slightly less, and from a safer distance, though that didn’t seem to save Jon from the effects of the harsh, cold wind that sent him shivering through a nothing of a windbreaker. Far below the cliff’s edge, down past the wind-worn rock and smattering of trees, through a thin layer of fog that cradled the seaside, there waited an incredibly harsh landing of sea and stone.

“But there’s a fuckload of rocks down there?” Tim sputtered.

Martin kept his gaze straight forward. “Yeah.”

“And even if he just hit water, I mean-”

“Made it out just fine.”

“And you were thinking of just skipping this guy? I don’t care if he’s unhelpful, I want to see if he can fly or something.” Tim stepped from the safety rails, giving one a good pat.

Sasha crossed her arms, eyeing the drop. “Do you know where we can find him?”

Martin scratched his face. “Most of the time he comes here to see Peter for business. Peter absolutely hates it since it’s usually out of nowhere, and Simon always claims he does it because he likes surprises, but I think he just likes to be irritating. Otherwise…” Turning to look at the lighthouse, Martin said, “I do know where Simon lives, and while I can’t guarantee he’ll want to speak to you about anything specific, he definitely loves to talk.”

“Is there anything he’s said to you about the Lukas family? Or the building?” Jon looked at Martin intently, clearly doing his best to not shiver.. “Anything that might’ve seemed like nothing more than gossip or reminiscing?”

With Jon staring at him, Martin’s brain sputtered to a stop. “I-I don’t think so? Like I said, he’s eccentric, so it’s hard to pick apart anything he says as being sincere or as a joke. He told me he was once a firebreather, and I still don’t know if I believe him. Sorry, I know that’s not super helpful.” Martin rubbed the back of his neck.

Jon relaxed his gaze, his corner of his mouth quirking down just a little. “It’s all right. If we can get a hold of him, we’ll ask him some simple questions and hopefully sift through any confusion. Right now, we can all stop giving ourselves vertigo and get back inside. It’s freezing out here.” Jon made a show of shoving his hands under his arms and walked back to the lighthouse.

“Poor guy’s circulation is shot, honestly. Could get hypothermia walking into a basement,” Tim teased behind his hand, not bothering to lower his voice as he leaned toward Sasha and Martin.

“Ha. Very funny.” Jon sent a withering glare over his shoulder and slipped indoors. They followed him back inside, and while the other three sat to discuss possible interview questions, Martin got another round of tea going. He had to have some of those to-go paper coffee cups somewhere in these cupboards, but no amount of looking revealed them. Instead, he managed to find one lonely travel mug and contemplated his options.

Would it be too obvious? Would Jon consider it him joining in on the teasing? At the thought of Jon stubbornly standing outside in a too-thin jacket, Martin resigned himself to whatever reaction he would receive. Either way, he'd get something warm in Jon’s hands so the little pang in his chest would go away.

When Martin brought him the mug, Jon looked suspicious but didn’t complain.

[superman86to99]

Superman 1993 Annuals

A bunch of aliens who look like bodybuilder xenomorphs come to earth to feast on our delicious spinal fluids. What they don't know is that, for some reason, some of the people whose spines they suck up gain superpowers instead of dying. That's the premise of Bloodlines, the crossover running through DC's 1993 annuals, like Eclipso: The Darkness Within did the year before. Also like Eclipso, most of these are kinda lame. The Superman annuals are probably the most (only?) noteworthy ones because they at least feature the four Supermen from “Reign”, so they’re technically also part of a far better storyline.

First up is Man of Steel Annual #2, in which Steel's gym buddy, an 18-year-old named Tom, becomes one of the first victims of the spine-sucking aliens. Tom ends up among a pile of corpses the aliens hide in the sewers. When some Underworlders stumble upon the bodies, they witness Tom waking up transformed into a guy who can shoot shards of glass from every part of his body. After their obligatory fight scene, Steel and Tom team up against one of the aliens, and Tom's little brother names him "EDGE". Totally rad name!

Then comes Superman Annual #5, the most interesting of the bunch because it actually features a character we've seen before: Sasha Green, the personal trainer Lex Luthor Jr. killed on a whim soon after Superman's death, because who's gonna stop him now, Gangbuster? Her body ends up in a landfill, where the trashiest of the spine-sucking aliens feeds on it. Murdered in a locker room, tossed in the trash, molested by an alien, appearing in a Bloodlines annual... is there no end to the indignities they'll put this poor woman through?

Anyway, Sasha comes back as a being called Myriad who can absorb other people's identities and control them. Lex is worried she's gonna rat him out so he tries to re-kill her, but she ends up faking her death in a helicopter crash and escapes, free to get her revenge one day! Yeah, you and Dr. Stratos.

Next, Action Comics Annual #5 follows a disabled, suicidal police detective (a "loose cannon") who is assigned by Inspector Maggie Sawyer to investigate those piles of dead homeless people that have been turning up everywhere lately. While doing that, he gets lured into an alley by a sexy alien and jumped from behind by her friend. He awakes transformed into a giant blue Fabio who turns purple or red depending on how he's feeling. Again, he gets into a tussle with one of the Supermen (the Last Son of Krypton, in this case) and again, they eventually join forces to fight the aliens and end up as the best of buds.

Finally, Adventures of Superman Annual #5 is about a teen girl named D.C. and her uncle, a werewolf, who come to Metropolis because she WANTS to get bitten by the aliens so it'll activate her metahuman gene. Meanwhile, Inspector Maggie asks Superboy (who's still recovering from a freaking missile blowing up on his face) to look into the whole alien murders thing, because she’s a little short on staff. The Kid fails to prevent D.C. from getting attacked, but it's okay, because she comes back as an electric-powered being called Sparx. Also, unlike the other new characters, she immediately hits it off with her Superman.

Character-Watch:

Something I just realized about Sparx: she can turn into a being made of electricity and was co-created by Karl Kesel, who is also the one who said “Hey, why don’t we make it so Superman can turn into a being made of electricity?” some years later. The good thing about creating an obscure character is you can recycle the idea later and no one will notice.

Anyway, Sparx went on to appear in the Bloodlines spin-off series Blood Pack and Kesel's Superboy and the Ravers, while Loose Cannon had his own solo miniseries. Both had the honor of appearing in crowd scenes during various Crises, even during the present century! Sasha/Myriad had a couple of minor appearances I'll cover in the future, and... I already forgot about the other guy. Jim-Jam? Barfloom? No one cares about him.

Plotline-Watch:

Fun fact: The "Death and Return of Superman" collections didn't bother including these annuals until recently, when DC was like "Hmm, what can we add to make people buy this again?" and remembered they existed.

Continuity wise, the most important event in these annuals is when Superboy goes into the Ace O'Clubs and meets not just Bibbo, but Krypto, his future pet. The encounter is short lived, though, because Bibbo takes underage drinking laws very seriously.

Creator-Watch: The Superman annual was penciled by David Lapham, who would later create the indie series Stray Bullets, while the Action one is written by Jeph Loeb, one of the scabs who took away the Super-Squad’s jobs in 2000. Boo! Boo!

The Last Son doesn't just learn about friendship in his annual, he also gets a little romance when the sexy alien (who looks exactly like Maxima) kisses him. Lots more kissing in these annuals than I remembered.

Commissioner Henderson doesn't trust the Cyborg at the start of the Superman annual, even suggesting he might be responsible for that pile of corpses in the sewers (Cyborg's like "Kill people? Moi?"). Great police instincts! Or not, since Cyborg earns his trust by the end. No kissing this time, though.

Superboy is worried about Maggie looking at his junk while he changes, and later tries to ask her out. Barking at the wrong tree, kid. (Maggie’s girlfriend, Daily Star reporter Toby Raines, plays a big role in that story.)

The most unbelievable part of these annuals is the fact that Steel's tarot reader pal, who seemed to be full of shit in Man of Steel #22 (she said John Henry had Superman's ghost living inside him), actually gets something right this time: she senses that something will happen to Steel’s friend before he gets attacked by the alien. Maybe the aliens attacked her off-panel too and gave her real psychic powers?

[friendlycybird]

Season 2 Reactions - part 2

Got about halfway through the season for the last post, let’s just jump right in for this one, huh? 

61. So. At this point, Do Not Open was still the scariest episode of TMA to me. It just, in terms of sheer NOPE, FUCK THAT, it was yet to be beaten.  I thought, for a moment I thought, that getting answers about the coffin would...help.  It did not. It did the exact opposite because now I know exactly what would have happened to Joshua if he’d been a little less smart except oh wait I DON’T because WHERE THE FUCK DO THOSE STAIRS LEAD AND WHAT WAS SCRATCHING AND MOANING AND JUST NO.  NOPE. Text Alone Can Not Express The Amount of Pure <b> NOPE </b>

62. Okay, I was excited enough for another Gertrude episode, but when I realized the other old lady was Mary Keay I was through the fucking roof. I also realized something about Gerard because of this episode. Well, less a realization and more...a theory? Maybe? But. The entire reason Gerard was implicated in his mother’s death is because of the mutilation. Multiple patches of skin removed and marked. When we meet Mary Keay in Pageturner, she is covered in writing head-to-toe, and then in this episode, we learn that removing a piece of skin and using the correct sanskirt writing is a way to bind the deceased. We also learn that it’s very difficult, especially if you’ve never done it before. What all that says to me is that Gerard tried, again and again and again to bring his mother back, to bind her, and he eventually succeeded, only to eventually be accused of murder for his efforts.

63. Fucking. Shadows.

64. Forgive my amusement at Jon’s *profound* irritation at this statement. I just. I don’t know I think it’s hilarious? A fucking Mummy, and it’s the worst of all words as far as Jon’s concerned, and I love it.

65. Hey, remember how I said a couple episodes ago that Do Not Open *was* the scariest episode in the series? All that Nope-ing I did about the coffin? That was nothing. Nothing compared to *this*.  This episode hit me right where I live and hit me hard. Like, I loved the beginning. I still love it. I expected this to be one of my favorite episodes, but instead I never want to listen to it again. Every word of the opening five or so minutes of Tessa Winters spouting philosophy on...technology and humanity and the mind and the statement about there being nothing Binary about people just gave me all sort of joy - and then we find out what she went through. And. I can’t. I just. Can’t. I can’t deal with that and I’m not sure I can accept her conclusions no matter how much I agree with it and. Someday I’m gonna go back to this episode, and I’m gonna properly challenge...a lot about myself. But for now I’ve ranked it as Scariest Episode and have no definite plans to return. If anything in this series ever scares me more...I...well I don’t know.

66. I’m not sure of the spelling of the name of the reoccurring dealer from this episode, but his episodes are always...I always come away with the impression that he’s in over his head? 

67. It was strange, thinking of Agnes as an adult instead of as a creepy child. Of course, I knew about the Agnes that died when the tree came down in Burned Out but...I don’t know. For all that we’ve learned about The Lightless Flame there’s still a lot I at least still don’t know. 

68. I was kinda sad when we found out Joseph Russo died after giving this statement, I liked him. He seemed to have such genuine enthusiasm for the Institute and the paranormal...as a Gravity Falls fan characters like that hold a special place in my heart. 

69. Okay, terrifying Spider Experiment aside, the beginning. The beginning of this episode with Martin bringing Jon some tea and carefully trying to nudge him to communicate with Tim and...I love Martin okay? That said, a quick glance through the transcript reminds me that Annabelle Cane is still out there, quite possibly with a nineteen-strong army of...who knows the fuck what. And that’s just. Freaky. 

70. You know, Mary Keay talked in episode 62 about a time before Leitner started his collection, and then in this episode it comes up that perhaps a few books outright escaped his attention altogether. Which...before this, they were marked. Leitner may not have gotten to be the guardian he fancied himself but his name became a warning when you open a book not to go on. The idea that not every danger was marked though...unsettling. 

71. Disappearances on the London Underground, a near-miss with becoming one of those disappearances and this woman gives the most matter-of-fact statement ever. Like, she’s completely immune to what I would imagine would be inevitable trauma. Something’s up there. 

72. I keep feeling like we’ve seen the shopfront marked only with what it does before but I can only think of a season 3 episode where this also happened right now? Regardless, the thing about this episode I can’t get over is the fingers. Like, the pile of fingers but also the fact that they *grow back*

73. I love Basira

74. Y’know, it scares me a little that the real Jonathan Sims said in the season 2 Q+A he didn’t have to research this episode at all because of his own experience with not sleeping. 

75. Another look at Mike. I wonder what he had to gain from taking Grant. He saw a moment of true courage, conquering a phobia to help his brother.  Was it that? Or was it just the fear? 

76. I genuinely enjoy the dynamic between Jon and Melanie, and given the events of season 3, I hope to see more of them with their new situation. 

77. I think I guessed the premise of this episode from the title. 

78. A second statement in a row with the same premise. Took a lot to get the truth across to Jon. 

79. My impression of the opening of this episode was that Tim was worried Jon would hurt someone else and Martin was worried Jon would hurt himself. Meanwhile, Not!Sasha is the creepiest fucking thing ever. 

80. All the mysteries solved, all the answers about Lore, even Elias showing his true colors at the end - all that stood out to me from this episode was the confirmation that Sasha’s dead. I spent the whole season in denial, hoping that...maybe they’d save her somehow. I forgot what genre I was dealing with and I really ought to have known better but having it...stated, so bluntly... it...remember earlier this season? The relief when we heard the words that Jane Prentis was dead? This was the opposite of that. 

[hoogiehowser]

MEDIA DIARY JANUARY

:::::::::: MOVIES ::::::::::

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) I liked this so much I ended up seeing it twice. The animation is on a whole different level from everything else in theaters I just can’t believe it. Nothing has immediately endeared me to a character more that when Miles gets to the place where he’s going to put up graffiti and yells “BROOKLYN!” to get the echo. Absolutely perfect. 

Happy Death Day (2017) The trailer looked good but the trailer for the sequel looked even better. Good time repeating movie. Way better than Blood Punch. I’m excited to see more of this.

Alien: Covenant (2017) Had no clue what to expect going in but I actually dug it. It’s just Alien again like every Alien movie but what they do with David from Prometheus makes it really interesting. There’s also some straight up slasher movie sleaze that definitely appeals to me.

MacGruber (2010) It’s just a bunch of dick jokes while a bad action movie happens. There’s no clever spin to it.

Better Luck Tomorrow (2002) Wanted to watch this due to the Fast & Furious connection. It’s a great movie about overachievers and getting away with shit. I think Justin Lin is a great director and his unique voice benefits every movie he does.

Collateral (2004) I didn’t realize until the credits that this was a Michael Mann movie but it was so obvious in hindsight. The premise is simple, Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx are great, and everything comes together in a genuinely cool film.

Wilson (2017) Based on a comic I don’t particularly like from Dan Clowes’ grumpy old man phase. The cool thing about the comic is that each page works on its own and has a different art style. The movie can’t do that. But it’s still faithful to the book which means it feels like a series of one page gags strung together until it finishes. Woody and Laura Dern are great though and it is pretty funny at times.

Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare (2018) There was another truth or dare based horror movie a year before that was a Syfy original. The Syfy one is better. The problem with them both is the supernatural contrivances that make people play truth or dare against their will. It’s such a strained premise.

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017) Guy Ritchie made a King Arthur movie and it feels exactly like you’d expect. 

Thoroughbreds (2017) Girl who can’t feel emotions befriends girl who is very politely hiding her extreme emotions. Things get bad when they start to think about murder. Anton Yelchin plays a druggie scumbag loser. It’s such a good movie. 100% my kind of thing.

:::::::::: TV ::::::::::

The Great British Baking Show (Beginnings, Collections 1-4) Got addicted to this one. I love cooking competitions shows and pleasant ones are usually the best. I like seeing competitors that like each other. I like Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry not trying to tear people down. I love Mel and Sue. It’s just a nice show for the nice people.

Toei Spider-Man (Episodes 1-5) I’m not a big toku guy but Spider-Verse got me curious about various Spider-Men. Takuya Yamashiro wasn’t bitten by a radioactive spider, he was injected with blood from the last survivor of Planet Spider and carries out a mission against Professor Monster’s Iron Cross Army to avenge Planet Spider and his own father. Next to nothing present from the classic Lee/Ditko Spider-Man and that’s totally alright. I’m going to try to watch more because the episode where Spider-Man has to donate his blood to hurt child has some serious heart.

The Prisoner (Episodes 7-17) I started watching this a while ago but only now got around to finishing. Mostly super clever plots and the atmosphere is always great. Patrick McGoohan sells it every single time. Some of the later episodes go really off the rails though. There’s an entire wild west episode. Nothing in this stretch tops my favorite episode, The Schizoid Man, where Number Two brainwashes Number Six to act differently and then forces Number Six to pretend to be Number Six while a different man is already pretending to be Number Six. The ending is solid though and carries a really good tv series to a confusing, surreal end.

Cutthroat Kitchen (Season 7, Episodes 1-7) Polar opposite of The Great British Baking Show. It’s the Mario Kart of cooking competition shows. Everyone tries to fuck each other over and Alton laughs at them the entire time. It’s brilliant.

:::::::::: PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING ::::::::::

TJPW Tokyo Joshi Pro ‘19 (January 4) I don’t follow TJPW and don’t know any of their wrestlers besides Meiko Satomura but I watched this because it was on before Wrestle Kingdom. Meiko vs Reika Saiki definitely made the show worth watching and the rest was pretty alright. Lots of fun, new personalities that I like.

NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 13 (January 4) Probably the most I’ve looked forward to a show and it absolutely delivered. For the past few years I’d watch WK and recommended matches but in in July I started following everything NJPW. That added investment made this WK special. Ibushi/Ospreay tore it up and I really hope Ibushi recovers soon. Jay White/Okada shocked me. Naito/Jericho was fucking brutal. And Kenny Omega vs Hiroshi Tanahashi was a match I was so invested in that I thought I was going to cry. If you haven’t checked out New Japan yet this show would make an excellent start. GO ACE!

Impact Homecoming (January 6) Impact has gotten pretty good. I’ve only seen a few of their most recent ppvs but it’s obvious that they have a wealth of talent and they’re willing to tell the kind of dumb stories that I really like. Since Homecoming was in Nashville I went and it was one of the best shows I’ve been to. The energy was insane all night and LAX vs Lucha Bros has to be the best match I’ve seen live. Now that they air on Twitch I’ve been following the weekly show and enjoying it quite a bit.

WWE Royal Rumble (January 27) I always love the rumble but the rumble was weird. Both rumble matches were okay but filled with dumb stuff and way too many recovery spots that were immediately deflated by the person getting eliminated. I like the winners. AJ/Daniel didn’t deliver like I wanted. Sasha and Ronda had a good match. I loved how Finn Balor worked Brock Lesnar’s diverticulitis. Fun show.

NXT UK Takeover Blackpool (January 12) NXT UK doesn’t really grip me aside from the women’s division. I liked this well enough but nothing really changed my mind. Finn Balor made a surprise appearance and he looked like such a star compared to everyone else. Excited to see what WALTER can do here though.

GCW 400 Degreez (January 12) GCW’s brand of hardcore indie nonsense is my absolute favorite. 400 Degreez isn’t the best they’ve done but it was full of disgusting beautiful deathmatch bullshit. Markus Crane vs Nate Webb especially.

NXT Takeover Phoenix (January 26) Takeover always delivers. Johnny Gargano vs Ricochet was definitely the match of the night. I don’t dig the War Raiders schtick but their match was great. Bianca Belair and Shayna Baszler also killed it.

:::::::::: COMICS ::::::::::

One Piece by Eiichiro Oda (Volumes 1-10) I wanted something long to start reading so why not One Piece? Enjoying it so far. I like getting the crew together and Usopp’s story in particular is great. Oda is a master cartoonist. I love every time we get reaction faces.

Spider-Man: Fever by Brendan McCarthy Spider-Man fever got me wanting to revisit Spider-Man: Fever because I remember liking it. I still like it. Doctor Strange accidentally opens a doorway into a spider dimension and Spider-Man gets caught in Doctor Strange’s bathtub and the alternate dimension spiders take him. All this and McCarthy’s art make Fever pretty far out. 

Spider-Man 2099 by Peter David, Kelley Jones, and Rick Leonardi (1-15) Miguel O’Hara wasn’t bitten by a radioactive spider, he had Peter Parker’s DNA put into him by weird future DNA machine and he wages war against the gigantic corporations that control everything. I like Spider-Man 2099. Miguel is so different from the Peter Parker archetype and he’s got claws and fangs. He’s brutal. It’s got a neat post-hero future kind of like Batman Beyond. I stopped reading because the next part is a crossover with Punisher 2099, Ravage 2099, Doom 2099, and X-Men 2099. I’ll hopefully pick it back up because I want to know what happens with the hologram that’s in love with Miguel. 

Spider-Man by Kazumasa Hirai & Ryoichi Ikegami Yu Komori was bitten by a radioactive spider and he definitely wishes he wasn’t. It starts off a lot like our usual Spider-Man but the villains are so much more tragic and Yu deals with some heavy shit. Ikegami’s art evolves from cartoony to serious as the tone of the book changes. He’s a really incredible artist who is consistently pulling neat tricks and trying new things. I really liked this and it may top my favorite Spider-Man comics. It’s just so bleak and unforgiving to poor Yu. By the way, the final plotline is exactly the same as the Sonny Chiba movie Wolf Guy. Turns out the comic that movie was based on was written by the same guy that write Spider-Man. An odd find.

:::::::::: VIDEOGAMES ::::::::::

Axiom Verge Had my eye on this for a long time and finally picked it up on sale on my Switch. It’s okay. There are a lot of clever ideas here that I don’t think work for me. But I do like the decorrupter and the teleport. Some of the movement feels great but some stuff like the grappling hook feels awful. I hate the story. Completely incoherent sci-fi nonsense. But it’s a fun game and I enjoyed my time with it.

Hollow Knight I’ve spent about 30 hours on this game and I feel like I’m close to the end of the story. I absolutely love it. The movement, the combat, and the exploration all feel excellent. I’ve played over ten metroidvanias in the past year (I really like them) and this might be the best. My favorite part about them is how you’re almost never wasting time because there are new secrets to discover all across the map and Hollow Knight does such a good job with that.

[abysscontemporary]

The 2020 Comedy Club Shutdown

The comedy club shutdown of 2020 may one day be known as the Great Vanishing Act of the Coronavirus Era. The disappearance of stand-up comics and live audiences, engaged in the conjuring up of mirth and laughter at intimate indoor venues, has brought a halt to a social economy, marked by the exchange of wit and performative delivery for levity and amnesia of ill fortune.

If you think this opening paragraph is unlike the set-up of a live, onstage comedy bit, you’re right.

It illustrates the situation live comedy is in today.

The spoken word, brought to you live and in-person, is very much different from and livelier than the written or mediated word, and the absence of live stand-up comedy puts into sharp relief how its vibrancy is noticeably different from what has succeeded it (e.g., essays, audio and/or video shows, posts on social media, etc.)  Live comedy and its brilliance are sorely missed.

To take a closer look at the distinctions between the conditions of comedy before mid-March 2020 and the lockdown that came afterwards, this writer conferred with a selection of New York City-based comedians in August 2020.  They reflected on what their concepts and practices were like before the pandemic and what their outlooks are for the future.  All were elegant in expressing how the art of unseriousness is serious business.  Furthermore, they portrayed what it’s like to go from being specifically a stand-up comic to being – more broadly – a comedy artist.

What was your routine before the COVID-19 lockdown in terms of writing, rehearsing, performing, pursuing projects, and booking opportunities?

SASHA SRBULJ:  Before the lockdown, I would typically conduct writing sessions with my closest comedy buddies towards the beginning of the week and perform one to three shows at various spots in Manhattan throughout rest of the week.  In between all of this, there would be dozens of discussions with other comics; we’d brainstorm, rehearse, and generate booking opportunities for each other.  This weekly cascade of stuff could all fall under the rubric, “pursuing projects.” Also, by hanging out together during the week, we’d find ways of spurring creativity and ideas.

Since the start of the lockdown, almost all of these in-person activities have stopped, and they’ve become much more rare because the clubs are closed.  We do try to maintain as much online and text-messaging contact as possible - but that's only one element, and it can’t replace the whole experience.

VERONICA GARZA:  Before the lockdown, I was performing almost every day, doing shows or going to open mics. If I wasn’t at a show I was booked on or at a mic, I was supporting a show.  Also, each and every day, I would try to write or to come up with at least three premises to work on.  January and February 2020 were actually really busy months for me, and I was very excited to see where this year would go for me in comedy.

EMILY WINTER:  Before Covid, I'd spend all day writing at home for my various writing jobs and script pursuits, then I'd do standup at night.  I'd usually write new jokes on my way to shows or just work out new ideas when I got on stage.

CAROLYN BUSA:  I’m realizing a lot of my routines happened for me on the train, and that’s the same for writing.  Either on the way to a gig or on the way home from one.  Those were always the times I was most inspired.  Especially after experiencing how a joke hit.

After gigs, I would usually come home from a spot and fall asleep with my notebook in my bed, trying to perfect a bit about submissive sex right before bedtime.  

The same goes for seeing a good show.  I’d know a show was really good when I’d come home inspired and want to write a bunch of new premises.

Booking opportunities kinda happened naturally at countless weekly and monthly shows.  Surely, some months were slower than others.  (Cute, how I thought THAT was slow compared to now). During those times, I focused more on writing; my own show, Side Ponytail; or pursuing open mics.

I feel like I always have and always will have a million project ideas spinning in my head, but, without money or deadlines behind most of them, I complete and pursue them more slowly than I’d like to.

DARA JEMMOTT:  I was really just moving and flying by the seat of my pants - taking any and every gig to make it work.  I would do most of my writing on stage.  With working 10 hours a day and then doing two to three shows a night, it was very difficult to sit down and find time to write.  However, quarantine has allowed for me to write way more and in different areas.

MARC GERBER:  I never made a set time to sit down and write, the way a novelist or a journalist might.  My jokes come to me spontaneously, either through stream-of-consciousness - while daydreaming, that is - or in conversation with others.

My jokes generally start off as amorphous drafts.  I have either a punchline that needs a strong opening premise or a premise that will need a strong punchline.  About 10% to 20% of the bits that I come up with make it to the stage.

Before the lockdown, I would meet with comedian friends, and we’d polish and improve our jokes together. I’d rehearse only before a big show – such as one for recording an album or headlining a major gig.  By this point, doing a 10- to 15-minute set had become rote.  If I had a brand new bit, I might rehearse it in isolation several times before it performing on stage.

I typically don’t pursue projects or booking opportunities.  Primarily, I am reluctant to ask people for opportunities, unless they are big, and I am ready for them.  For example, I recorded my first album in November after aggressively pursuing a record label and convincing them to produce the album and release it. (Happily, the album debuted at Number One on the iTunes comedy chart and it’s been on heavy rotation on a major Sirius station).  In terms of getting spots and other smaller opportunities, I generally take what I’m offered if they’re legitimate.  However, I don’t ask for much, and I don’t implore people to put me on their shows. I think my approach is tactful.

ROBYN JAFFE:  I stepped on stage for the first time just nine months before the comedy clubs and the city shut down, and I quickly became hooked.

I’m a teacher by day, and, over the summer, I was planning to explore more open mics, bringer shows, and auditions because the comedy scene doesn’t lend itself to the preferred early bedtime of someone, like myself, who works in a school during the rest of the year.

How have you responded to the lockdown?  Did you initially see it as brief hiatus?  Did you make it an opportunity to pivot to new projects?  What have you missed most about stand-up comedy, so far?

SASHA SRBULJ:  The lockdown was a shock, and, within the first three months, the only shows I did were on Zoom.  I've since seen people doing park shows, parking lot shows - anything to fill the void. Aside from Zoom shows, I've done shows on Twitch, which was new for me.

I’ve done game-type, interactive audience shows.  (There are online games now that are comedy-centric.  An algorithm throws out some phrases and premises, and then, several comics try to make jokes out of them. The audience votes, participates, comments, etc.)

It's a format that provides a different kind of audience feedback.  On Zoom shows, you generally can't hear the audience and mostly can't see them; so, it's hard to gauge and impossible to improvise much.  The Zoom shows are improving, though.  Even in five months, there's been tremendous progress.

I've pivoted to writing more - both bits for the stage and for writing in general.  The time has also given me an opportunity to strategize the narrative for my next special/album.  Planning basically.  It's an opportunity to think things through deliberately.

What I've missed most about comedy was my friends.  I thought it would be the laughter or the crowds and my own douchey desire to be at the center of attention; but what I actually miss the most is my friends.

(Note:  My douchey desire to be at the center of attention is running in close contention.)

VERONICA GARZA:  Overall, I’ve been generally concerned about my health, so I’ve done what I can to stay inside and avoid crowds.

I took the whole thing as an opportunity to work on other stuff.  I finally made a full draft of my solo show about my dating men and even performing it over Zoom for two festivals.  I have worked on an entire new half-hour of comedy.  I’ve also considered this as an opportunity to work on scripts I’d intended to write.

I miss performing live. I miss seeing the audience - or even the lack thereof - and figuring out what I’ll do on stage.  I miss seeing other comics and having that one drink after the show where we bitch about a show or a venue, but also just catch up. I noticed shows popping up randomly in New York City, and, honestly, I don’t think it’s safe enough for them yet.

EMILY WINTER:  I absolutely thought it would be a brief hiatus, and I was excited.  As both a writer and a standup, I feel like I never have enough time to dedicate to many of my writing projects.  I saw this as the Universe forcing me to concentrate on my writing projects for a while.  Since coronavirus, I've written two new pilots, rewrote an old one, wrote a movie with my husband, and got a book deal.  I’m about halfway through the book-writing process.  My two new pilots still need a lot of work, though.

I do miss stand-up. I miss the feeling of connection that you have when a set is going well. There's just this beautiful buzz in the air.  It's magical.

CAROLYN BUSA:  Oh brother. This is THE question isn’t it? Are you waiting for me to say, “God, I miss the mic!!  Get me on the stage!  My blood and bones need it!!  Punchlines! Laughter!  Applause!”  Not quite.

I definitely did see it as a brief hiatus but kinda like how I adjust to traveling super quickly. (Every hotel or Air BnB feels like home within hours.)  After a short time, NOT getting on stage felt freakishly normal.  It kinda freaked me out and made the last ten years of my life feel like a fever dream. Maybe I'm already on a ventilator.

I, of course, miss having a great set, applause, and people telling me I'm funny.  I miss the thrill of finding the line that makes whatever wild idea I have relate to the majority of a crowd.  Or, if not relate, at least understand where I'm coming from.

I also miss parts of the socialization that came with comedy.  My good friends, those that I'd see every now and then, the bartenders, the Barry’s!  My social life was my day job and comedy, both of which are now gone.

Admittedly, there's a part of me that feels relief.  The hustle has really beaten me up, so to kinda put that aside does not feel horrible. I thought I'd have more pockets of success at this point in my comedy career, and, even though I really like who I am as a comedian, not having to prove it for a few months feels ok.

So,...(shrugs shoulders)   I'm still writing, and I'm still making goofy videos, but, more importantly, I'm really trying to figure out what makes me completely happy.

DARA JEMMOTT:  At first, I responded to the lockdown with annoyance and fear, and, then, I enjoyed the fact I got to sit down for a second.  Afterwards, I had to grieve a life I once knew.

I am getting to enjoy doing nothing because who knows when that will come again?  I did realize that maintaining my mentals would be a top priority and that it was important for me to find projects to distract and dive into. So, I wrote my first pilot.  Never would I have had time to do that before.

MARC GERBER:  I initially saw the lockdown as a brief hiatus.  Fortunately, I had my album coming out, and it gave me something to promote and look forward to.  The success of the album’s release was encouraging, and I was able to do a number of online shows to promote it.

Since then, I have focused mainly on my other career as a psychologist, as the online shows are somewhat underwhelming, and I have been living outside of the city and thus, not getting the opportunity to do any of the outdoor shows that clubs and independent producers have been putting on.

What I miss most about stand-up comedy is the camaraderie of my comedian friends. Of course, there’s also nothing better than making 150 people laugh on a Friday night.

ROBYN JAFFE:  I wanted to keep up with comedy-writing and joke-sharing during the lockdown, so I started a Twitter account.  I also began to post a video to my Instagram account every Sunday night, and I call it “Pajamedy Sunday.”  I may not have been able to get on stage all of these months, but I’m trying to make people laugh during a difficult time.

I did one Zoom show but otherwise haven’t performed.

What do you envision yourself doing before comedy venues fully re-open?  After comedy venues fully re-open, what do you most look forward to doing?  When live stand-up comedy fully returns, what do you expect the dynamic will look like between you and your live audience?

SASHA SRBULJ:  While comedy clubs are closed, I hope I use my time productively.  Aside from ironing out some aspects of my set, there's a writing project I want to try out and see if it has legs.

After comedy venues fully re-open, I am most looking forward to performing and seeing the community come back, which I hope it does.  This lockdown has lasted long enough that things may not just snap back into place like before.  I'm hoping that the thirst for comedy and just fun in general helps bring the community back quickly.

Frankly, until we have full herd immunity - either via a vaccine or just pandemic spread - I can't imagine things going back to the way they were.  Brick-and-mortar comedy clubs are physically intimate spaces, especially in New York City, and laughter is an involuntary response that can spread aerosols. Unfortunately, comedy clubs, along with bars and night clubs, will be among the last establishments to reopen.

In the meantime, outdoor venues, virtual shows, and socially distanced shows are our only way. Once it's safe again, I think people will resume their lives as before.  It may take a while for 100% of the people to be comfortable again, but, once the green light is given, most people will revert to the norm.

I initially thought this would permanently scar an entire generation of people and scare them from social interaction.  However, as it turns out, the hardest thing about this crisis was getting people NOT to socially interact.  So, I think when it will finally be safe, people will come back.

With both the positive and negative aspects of what this means, “You can't change people.”

VERONICA GARZA:  If comedy venues even survives, I’m sure it will be a while before I return to live performances.  I very much look forward to performing, but I also don’t want to rush to return to the stage and putting myself at risk.

I’m not that selfish. When live comedy returns, I’m sure it will be lovely.  This current pause we are in has made everyone eager for some laughter, so I look forward to when we can safely do it in-person.  As for now, I’m enjoying doing it safely over Zoom.

EMILY WINTER:  I've been hesitant to perform at outdoor shows because I'm so immersed in my writing right now.  I'm going to hold out a little longer while I re-work pilots and finish my book.

Once venues re-open, I'm looking forward to that brilliant feeling of connecting with strangers and feeling the collective energy in the room.  I think that will be more difficult since I imagine people will be sitting farther apart.  It's hard to create one unified energy when people aren't physically close together, and I worry about that.

CAROLYN BUSA:  I will continue to think about and explore how to use my creativity to maintain my happiness!  Writing, when I'm inspired; creating, when I want; and exploring other paths, possibly.

I've been dipping my toe back into writing stand-up, but it's been SLOW.  I don't want to pressure myself too much or even say, “Put pressure on myself.”  (Oh god, I hate brains).

I haven't done any outdoor performances, but, from what I hear, people are happy to hear jokes and happy to laugh.  I'd expect that would be the same for when comedy fully returns.

I honestly don't know what to predict though.  Every time I try to think of what something in the future will look like, I suddenly need a nap.  My hope with this worldwide slowdown is that, in the future, comedy can be separated from those who want to hustle and work hard from 8 pm to 1am and those who want to do it from 5 pm to 11 pm.

DARA JEMMOTT:  I'm really not thinking about "fully-re-open" and what that looks like or when that will come.  I'm not going to put my life on hold and resume it after quarantine.  Folks got to learn to live their life regardless and make the best of the situation.

I've been doing plenty of Zoom shows and outdoor shows, so I expect the dynamic to be the same. Uneasily and with trepidation, I’ve been happy to be out of the house and around people.  But, "after quarantine" - I stopped using those words a long time ago.

MARC GERBER:  I have been listening to the experts (e.g. virologists, epidemiologists) and not the politicians since this began.  I knew by mid- to late February that comedy venues were going to close down.  Before one of my shows in late February I posted, “Come see my while you still can!”  Many people thought I was a joking, but I was being deadly serious.

According to the experts, this is going to be a long fight, particularly because of how poorly the federal response was in controlling the virus.  I think comedy is going to come back very gradually.

Before the lockdown I was getting regularly booked at some of the best clubs in New York City. However, there are many, many comics ahead of me on the seniority list.  I believe that for the next several years, if not longer, I will have fewer opportunities to perform than I’d had before the lockdown.  I will have to find a way to engage myself creatively without getting on stage as much. That might include podcasting and writing. I am still figuring it out.

I feel fortunate to have a stable career as a psychologist. While comedians won’t be in high demand for a long time, psychologists certainly will be.

ROBYN JAFFE:  Now, I attend comedy shows outside to enjoy live comedy and shamelessly talk to comics before or after the show. I hope to pick up where I left off whenever that becomes possible!

Comedy can be transformational, and these stand-up comics are stand-up people.  Reading what they’ve said suggests that hearing what they will say on one stage or another will be something to look forward to.

Carolyn Busa:  http://www.carolynbusa.com Veronica Garza:  https://twitter.com/veros_broke Marc Gerber:  https://800pgr.lnk.to/GerberIN Robyn Jaffe:  https://twitter.com/rjaffejokes Dara Jemmott:  http://www.instagram.com/chocolatejem and  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/comedians-for-hire/id1448386062 Sasha Srbulj:  https://sashasrbulj.com/ Emily Winter:  https://www.emilywintercomedy.com

[ghostmartyr]

SnK 90 Thoughts

Have you ever had this perfect story idea in mind, then realized that in order to get to it, you have to write basically an entirely separate book to set it up?

Have you ever decided that you really don’t feel like doing that?

Usually, that is when the words stop and the project goes into a desk drawer. Mostly a figurative one these days.

But--bear with me here--what if...

You just skipped all the boring parts.

There’s something delightful about watching Attack on Titan develop. Art and pacing have come so far since the first chapter, but you still get these glorious flashes where the reveal of our main character’s arch-nemeses is done with such a complete lack of fanfare that you’d be forgiven for thinking you were reading a fake scanlation even if you had the volume open in your hand.

Isayama knows how to craft a story. His telling, on the other hand, regularly spends its time stumbling up to the podium in its pajamas and happily shooting its laser pointer every whichway all over the pretty projections on the screen until you’ve started wondering more about the laser pointer’s battery life than whatever the lecturer was supposed to be saying.

The main reason you don’t want to wrap up a plot point that has been present since day one of your seven years of writing in two pages is because--

Well, presumably that stuff mattered? To the story?

Isayama’s decision to kill off most of the Paradis titans in two pages involves looking at those confused statements, and declaring, “No, not really.”

Authors do not typically do this.

Heck, most stories don’t even get to the point where they can look back at their starting premise (that has survived seven years) and inform the audience that the physical realities of that particular conflict aren’t relevant enough to be worth covering the conclusion extensively.

The story goes that humanity hides away in a cage from the inhuman monsters lurking outside--until they decide to rise and fight.

Those monsters turn out to be human.

We’re technically sticking to the same story we always have been.

We’re just now doing it without titans.

It’s like Isayama looked at his Eldian plot, and thought to himself, gee, this makes that titan problem kind of redundant, doesn’t it?

And the grand solution was to just write the common titans out of the story.

Because that is what you do with plot inconveniences. Naturally.

This is not how satisfying storytelling works.

It is hilarious, and the time frame on dealing with the worldly issues portion of this has adopted a scale that can probably handle it better, and there are a number of things that a time skip can make interesting--but holy fuck how long is that laser pointer’s battery life.

I’m going to harp on about this a little longer than I need to (shocking, I know), because as someone who tries really, really hard to get pacing right, this whole process is incredibly fascinating.

Having introduced the rest of the world to this tiny stage, this one plot detail, it of titanic proportions, it that has guided so much of the story, is so irrelevant to where the story is going that it can be excised in two pages.

That is extraordinary to me.

I don’t think I have ever seen such a prime example of an author recognizing that a prominent plot line has outlived its usefulness. It’s like he went full-on original flavor Vader.

Obviously, ideally, the Eldians vs. The World plot would tie into the common titan problem of Paradis, and the story would be allowed to proceed on both fronts. Doing it smoothly would be a challenge, but that’s writing for you.

Just as obviously, that’s not happening.

In a perverse way, the first 80-some chapters of this series behave like one of those windup toys. We didn’t know why Eren could transform into a Titan. We didn’t know why the titans attacked. We didn’t know anything about society outside the walls. We didn’t know what was in the basement. We didn’t know how the walls came to be. We didn’t know who the real enemy was. Our heroes were isolated in their struggles to rectify all of that.

We have now had our full orientation. We do not need the play-monsters anymore. We have the answers. All that’s left is to put the toy down and see how far it can go.

This is not what I would call good storytelling, but it’s so neat. I don’t think we would get to see this story with someone who was better at timing. Most people whose work is being published wouldn’t look at the series’ most well-known plot feature and put it up as collateral for the story they’re more interested in.

That kind of abandon is not something you usually get to see with a story of quality. You don’t just... gloss over parts of the story that matter. That’s common sense.

Offering the counterargument that those silly details were never meant to matter, when those silly details were formerly thought to be the plot?

That’s daring to suggest that there are parts of the story that are more worth spending time on. If the roaming titans of Paradis are deemed inconsequential, then what’ve you got for us?

It should be something good.

It should not, for instance, be forty minutes of the main character stuck in his own head until he breaks out and a bunch of people clap for him.

While I will continue laughing at the execution, one of the main reasons I’m okay with the time skip is because I’m still down for this story. This is still about humans fighting monsters for their right to breathe free air.

The difference now is that the training wheels are off.

And very promptly thrown into the sea.

It isn’t about mindless monsters eating people. It’s about human beings whose hatred and cowardice lead to them demonizing and abusing an entire race. This isn’t faceless cruelty anymore.

The fight is the same it always has been, but it’s now an informed fight.

So all that’s really great.

...Except then I get to thinking that people in the walls could actually maybe live outside the walls because the titans mostly vanished in two pages and my head starts spinning because who does that.

Never let it be said that this is a graceful story. Just a good one.

Speaking of gracelessness, this chapter was, in fact, longer than two pages.

And Floch exists.

Jean 2.0, featuring none of the insecurity that can pretend to be tact.

Floch’s role in this chapter is painful on multiple levels. He’s the sole survivor of a suicidal charge, and he did everything right. He saves his commanding officer. Humanity’s Commander. He takes them to the people who can save his life. He performs admirably even though he calls himself a coward and cannon fodder.

He’s another broken person, but the first one we’ve seen broken in part through our protagonists’ actions.

He tells the truth as he sees it, but he has no care for the damage he inflicts with it. He might find it important that Hitch get an unvarnished view of what Marlowe’s last charge is like, but he doesn’t offer emotional support. He might hate the decision Levi, Eren, and Mikasa contribute to, and think it deserves to be known, but Armin is the one he hurts, and Armin’s the only blameless party involved.

He lectures the rest of the 104th for what goes down, but Connie, Sasha, and Jean aren’t there for most of the exchange. They show up and have no clue what’s going on. Hell, Sasha’s unconscious during the rooftop discussion, and Connie’s carrying her. Jean’s the only one free, and by the time we know he’s there, Hange’s breaking up the fight.

Floch sits back and watches Mikasa pin Levi to the rooftop with a sword to his throat before he says a word.

He can be mad at Levi and Mikasa and Levi all he wants, but lashing out at Armin and the rest of the gang isn’t a matter of principle. He’s just hurt.

We don’t know enough about Floch to know how much of what he’s saying starts from a good place, but by the end of his sequence, it’s pretty obvious that his honesty, however powerful it is to hear, has its own bite of childishness.

It’s still sad, though. When Armin says Floch is right, Floch doesn’t look happy or victorious. Being right doesn’t change the mess they’re in or make the pain any less.

But geez. He manages to make half the people he talks to look like they’re questioning their will to live. Kid could use a kick to the shin and a hug.

The story has his back on making sure the words land, though. This chapter is a nostalgia trip and a half.

“In other words, you couldn’t throw away what was important to you, right?” --to Armin

“But even a piece of fodder... should at least have the right to assess the situation!” --and to Jean.

Yeah.

“Don’t get mad when you hear this... but Jean... you’re not a strong person... so you can really understand how weak people feel. [...] I mean... most humans are weak, including me.. but if I got an order from someone who saw things like I do... no matter how tough it was, I’d do my damnedest to carry it out.” --Marco, 18

Marco never comes up in happy conversations.

My personal favorite goes to Mikasa, though. For maximum pain.

“You gave up in the end.”

Hello, I am excite.

I’m not capping the whole thing because I adore these two panels on their own, but for the sake of full context, that hand of hers was holding Eren’s shoulder the moment before Floch’s words.

Hange convinces her to stop fighting for Armin on the roof.

Logic and history say she’s going to lose him and Eren.

Mikasa has spent such a long time refusing to give up. The first time the need to truly resonates, she stands and fights anyway.

She always fights. If you don’t fight, you don’t win. That’s what her first moments with Eren teach her.

Then there’s Floch, telling her that she’s more of an adult for giving up. Giving up on her family, accepting the loss.

She’s going to lose them. There’s nothing to fight here, and one of them is only alive now in spite of her, not because she was any help. There’s a hopelessness to Eren and Armin’s situation that won’t be denied, so what, is that the answer again?

Giving up on them?

Watching both of them die?

Mikasa could really use some proper pages dealing with all of the above, but for now I’m really psyched that the little moments are happening. She literally lets go of Eren in paralyzed horror.

Can has more? Please?

Besides making pitiful puppy eyes into the abyss, though, this chapter actually does have me really jazzed for whatever’s awaiting Mikasa.

The conflict that Floch keeps hammering away at is one that’s been lurking in the background for ages. Since the very first volume, to be precise. We’ve since seen in explored at length through Levi, Erwin, and the serum bowl, but like with many things in this manga, we start with Mikasa.

“Humanity is on the brink of extinction and you’re trying to dictate your own rules?!” --Eren, 4

Mikasa’s devotion to her family has been a primary character feature since her introduction. Her development has rarely been highlighted, but constantly in the background and her moments of foreground, she wrestles with the conflict of being a loyal companion and an exquisite soldier. She’s conscious of her decisions and mistakes without letting them tear her to shreds, which is a claim very few characters can make.

When she leads the charge in Trost and neglects to be there for her comrades, she knows it. When she ignores Levi’s commands against the Female Titan, she sees the damage and carries the responsibility forward. She remembers failing to kill Reiner and Bertolt and guilts over it.

Responsibility is seldom actively neglected in this series. Otherwise I wouldn’t have such easy things to quote as an example of a character making a bad choice; if someone does something questionable, you can expect a dialogue bomb to reference it at some point.

But Mikasa learns. Her mistakes aren’t creating an ever-deeper fault of trauma for every new horrible thing to trigger. She’s taken some extraordinarily hard hits, and it’s left her fragile in places, but when she experiences a mistake, she tries her best to correct it for the future.

The easiest comparison to that is Erwin.

Quotes are fastest, so I’ll go ahead and do that with something I wrote a week ago: My view on his increase in personal goals is that his guilt for being less than what he should be turns into him overplaying his baser qualities. Instead of being a good man and leader who has a weakness to overcome, he tries to frame himself as a bad leader, freeing him up to indulge in the absolute worst of his selfishness.

I believe the phrase is go big or go home. Erwin sees his mistake of putting himself over humanity, and he overcompensates in the wrong direction.

When Mikasa’s mistakes happen, she continually progresses in a direction that offers solutions to her errors.

That might be why she ends up stuck on the sidelines more often than not. Someone who quietly observes and grows at a steady click, without having their world knocked down every other week, can be hard to portray dynamically outside of key moments.

Here’s what makes all of that the fun of the hour: Mikasa’s personal, at times obsessive, loyalty, rooted in trauma, is now clearly facing its losses against her own sense of honor and duty. As much as she loves Eren and Armin, protecting them at all costs has slowly turned to only most costs. There’s enough distance between her and her trauma that there’s room for her independent respect for the world is calling her out when she does something she shouldn’t.

Eren doesn’t have that.

Eren, the first loud voice we heard screaming about the worth of humanity, has found the persons he would give everything for, and he can’t step back. He can be ashamed of his conduct on the roof, but if the same situation were to happen again, the same desperation for his friend would still be there.

Eren’s been beaten down so many times that I think his ability to let go (already one of his weaker points, since he always fights to win) has up and left him.

He can’t lose his family.

He can’t regret that Armin’s the one alive, and he refuses to put Historia in danger.

Back when Jean first joins the Survey Corps, he voices his criticisms plainly, and makes sure everyone around him knows the stakes.

“Look, Mikasa... not everybody is like you... We’re not all volunteering to die for Eren. All of us, Eren included, should know... what our lives are going to be used for.” --Jean, 22

It isn’t about just one person. It’s about the bigger picture. It’s about fighting for the sake of humanity. It’s about humanity.

It’s supposed to be.

But Ymir will give up her life and freedom to save the girl she loves, and then two random schmucks she can’t make herself leave. The pinnacle of Historia’s arc has her placing one life she cares about over plenty of others. Erwin will forget humanity for his dreams until his closest companion corrects him--only to fall into a similar trap because he can’t face sacrificing Erwin.

Grisha gives everything to his cause, but because he doesn’t love his son, he fails.

Reiner, Bertolt, and Annie are never in sync, and they die alone.

So what’s going to end up winning?

No one life is worth more than the rest of humanity, but if you don’t fight, you can’t win. If you sacrifice your interpersonal bonds for a grander purpose, you’ll never make it, because you’ll be fighting on your own.

Right now, the healthiest balance goes to Mikasa and Hange. They love fiercely, and will protect what they value with all of their strength, but their responsibility to the rest of humanity means too much to risk being selfish. Some sacrifices have to be made. Sometimes you have to let go.

But not until the very last second.

Hange understands all of that, and is grown up enough that it all flows.

Mikasa is still wrestling with how deeply that goes against how she’s fought for her family for years.

Eren, meanwhile...

I think it’s fair to say Eren is a fucking mess?

Eren, as he starts out, is idealistic, passionate, and naive enough to believe that you can change the world by running down that road at full speed.

As Eren is right now, I think he holds the memory of that being the way things should be, but he’s so bogged down in everything that’s happened, he’s lost the original spark that keeps that flash of optimism functioning.

When he talks about the ocean, he can bring Armin back, but he can’t bring himself back. His aunt’s mangled corpse is more real to him than the dreams he had as a child.

Mikasa and Armin make it to the beach, and despite all of the pain they’ve gone through getting there, they can smile. They can squeal over the tide over their feet. They’re happy.

But for Eren, the ocean that has always been one of the solid carrots of his struggle has turned into a reminder that they’re still not free. They’re still stuck. They’re still surrounded by monsters. It never ends. Making happy dreams come true is a temporary flight of fancy that can’t save them.

Death, though. That can fix it, right? Just... kill them all.

I don’t think the bleakness of RAB’s perspective has ever been presented so quietly.

Eren has fallen to a place that dreams can’t reach, and his only answer to that sense of desolation is to turn it on their enemies.

When the choice between Armin and Erwin is presented, Eren’s strongest argument for Armin is that he can still dream. He isn’t consumed by revenge. He sees something outside of death and chaos when Eren can’t.

After another year of life, that difference has only expanded, and now Eren really can’t find anything to hope for.

And that’s essentially why there are those few paragraphs of theme up there. Becoming a slave to a cause and abandoning softer things is dangerous. There needs to be that balance that people like Hange have, otherwise you’re just going to fall apart.

Learning to let something go is valuable, but if it’s done because it hurts too much to hold it close, it isn’t growth. It’s destruction. That’s why Mikasa’s struggles, while agonizing, don’t separate her from joy the way Eren’s have.

Mikasa’s learning that there are some things you can’t fight. Eren’s found despair in thinking victory can’t exist.

And look, I’m an optimist with this series. I know that, and I know it’s probably annoying or laughable on occasion.

But that setup is so perfectly arranged to oppose the themes presented in their first meeting that I can’t help but hope they’re going to go through all of this, losing faith in beliefs that have sustained them for years, and then find them again.

They aren’t young children anymore. Idealism is hard, and their lives have only made it harder, but that’s what makes it matter so much. Their values don’t deserve to lose, and if they don’t champion them, no one will. And I’d kill to see them find their way to believing in that again after being through hell.

With that thoroughly rambled about, we turn to things I don’t have complete thoughts on, but will bring up regardless.

Starting with the fact that Marlowe’s name variances would drive me to drink if I drank.

Eren pretty fragrantly calls back to what Levi tells him in the forest when they’re first facing the Female Titan.

“I don’t know the answer. I never have. Whether you trust in your own strength... or trust in the choices made by reliable comrades. No one knows what the outcome will be. So, as much as you can... choose whatever you’ll regret the least.” --Levi, 25

“I don’t know... what the right choice is. How can anyone know the future?”

When Levi says it, it’s a call to action. Who knows what the right choice is, but you’ve got to make one. When Eren says it, it’s an attempt at comfort. A choice has been made, so let’s work with it and not fuss too much over how, yeah?

Besides, Armin is so unbelievably amazing that regrets are even more of a waste than usual. For sure.

And the last thing I can work myself up to care about is that Historia rocks, and I’m gladdened that she instructs her people to not be such lying jackasses without hesitation. Hail to the Queen and etc.

But when Eren has his more complete flashback to the incident between his family and the Reiss family (harking a return to feeling slightly bad for Grisha--whatever his mistakes, Eren, Carla, and Mikasa are his world, and that’s a worthy perspective), what I really want to know is if Historia sees it too. They’ve experienced mutual memory magic before, but that was in the cave of mysteries.

Mikasa and Armin seem to notice that something has happened, but Historia’s the one to get the large panel of her eye (I need a tag for her eyes still), and I’m dying to know if that’s because she’s the one looking at Eren’s expression head-on, or because she sees what he sees.

Because if she’s receiving flashes of his flashbacks when they’re connected, Eren’s attempts to protect her by keeping one of her potential uses a secret is possibly already long dead when they hit the beach.

Also it would make my favorite character maybe relevant for another arc.

I deserve nice things, this should happen.

[joereid]

Top 10 Movies of 2016

I wrote about my favorites in movies and TV over at Decider last week, but here’s my straight-up Top 10 movies of the year. With apologies to movies I haven’t gotten to yet, most prominently Toni Erdmann, Fire at Sea, Aquarius, and The Love Witch. Also I ranked O.J.: Made in America as my #1 TV show of the year, so it felt redundant to put it here too. No judgments if you ranked it as a movie. Obviously. 

Runners-Up: I thought this turned out to be a GREAT year for movies, best exemplified by the fact that I had a bitch of a time keeping these 15 movies out of my top 10:

#25 The Lobster (director: Yorgos Lanthimos) #24 The Witch (director: Robert Eggers) #23 Kubo and the Two Strings (director: Travis Knight) #22 Everybody Wants Some!! (director: Richard Linklater) #21 La La Land (director: Damien Chazelle) #20 Hunt for the Wilderpeople (director: Taika Waititi) #19 Love & Friendship (director: Whit Stillman) #18 Sing Street (director: John Carney) #17 Lion (director: Garth Davis) #16 Other People (director: Chris Kelly) #15 Fences (director: Denzel Washington) #14 Julieta (director: Pedro Almodovar) #13 Certain Women (director: Kelly Reichardt) #12 Cameraperson (director: Kirsten Johnson) #11 Mountains May Depart (director: Zhangke Jia)

My Top 10 Movies of 2016

10. Jackie (director: Pablo Larrain) It took me a while to get into the headspace of Jackie, and what a strange little animal it seemed then. Natalie Portman's accent seemed insane, the scenes felt overly gauzy and frustratingly vague, the score felt overworked. But the more time I spent with Jackie, the more intoxicated I was by whatever fog the movie exists in. Portman's performance clicked, the specificity of Larrain's focus felt more and more revolutionary, and the whole enterprise felt an exhilarating experiment on memory, idolatry, and the spaces at which our politics and our myth-making converge. 9. The Invitation (director: Karyn Kusama) I write a lot about movies on Netflix for my job, but by FAR my favorite discovery of the year was the meticulously built suspense of The Invitation. From the opening credits winding ominously through the Hollywood Hills to the slowly dawning terror of the final moments, I haven't felt this tense through the entire run of a horror movie since The Strangers. Featuring some great performances (in particular Tammy Blanchard, Logan Marshall Green, and John Carroll Lynch), and a premise that draws upon every time someone at a party told you they just started seeing a new yoga instructor.

8. Silence (director: Martin Scorsese) A nearly three-hour, racially dubious meditation on faith from a director who's provided me with more peer-pressure guilt trips from film critics than actual movies I've enjoyed over the last decade was not adding up to something I figured I'd enjoy. But Silence is more than just the best Scorsese movie since ... The Aviator? Goodfellas? It's a committed, rigorous, and deceptively complex story about faith and imperialism, anchored by an Andrew Garfield performance of such thoughtful vulnerability that it makes you incredibly grateful that Marty took a break from Leonardo DiCaprio. Also Rodrigo Prieto's cinematography is breathtaking.

7. Hail, Casear! (director: Joel and Ethan Coen) I like when the Coens are having fun. I know the knock on them is that they're supposed to be looking down their noses on their audience and having a laugh at their expense, but all I found in Hail Caesar! was an affection for people who dedicate their lives to something as silly and often contradictory as the movie business. Josh Brolin is probably doing better work than I give him credit for at the center, but I won't apologize for all of my attention going to Channing Tatum's dancing and Alden Ehrenreich's rope tricks. 

6. Manchester by the Sea (director: Kenneth Lonergan) When the narrative about this one got boiled down to a) it's unspeakably sad, and b) it's white-male feeeeeelings pornography, I was confused. Well, maybe not confused; I know how Twitter works. More dismayed. To me, Manchester by the Sea is Kenneth Lonergan at his finest, and that means so much more than simple grief or patriarchy or for Pete's sake "Oscar bait." Lonergan infuses his movie with so much more humor, so much more complexity, so much more recognizable feeling than you're expecting by the description. The relationship between Casey Affleck and Lucas Hedges's characters defies any kind of prescribed arc, instead presenting two characters who fit at impossibly odd angles.

5. Little Men (director: Ira Sachs) Ira Sachs has become so good at making movies about how the Big Things in life — love, family, fellowship, generosity, power, resentment — are inextricable from the small things. In the movies, we tend to gloss over things like rent or income or expense. Making it work is a matter of will or serendipity, usually both. In Little Men, Greg Kinnear and Paulina Garcia are good people whose resentments would usually be overcome in a movie by a grand act of love or charity or luck. Sachs knows better, but he also knows that the sum of life and the beauty of lives isn't about it all working out. And that's only the groundwork in this lovely movie featuring a central friendship of boys that is as beautiful, sweet, and gently painful as anything this year.  

4. Moonlight (director: Barry Jenkins) Moonlight features such strong, simple storytelling, and that economy of language is all Barry Jenkins, and he deserves all the praise he's getting for it. But that's not the reason we're talking about this movie. There's something truly remarkable when strong filmmaking meets revelatory acting meets the kinds of stories and lives that we are STARVING for. There's sadness here, yes, and tragedy, but I can't help but feel an undercurrent of celebration just for the radical act of making poetry out of lives that are usually not even afforded prose. 

3. 20th Century Women (director: Mike Mills) What a difference it makes listening to Annette Bening narrate about the universe and mortality versus listening to Ewan McGregor talk about same. I could never latch onto Beginners, despite the fact that its subject matter was targeted right in my general direction. But in his follow-up, Mike Mills had me cast under a spell from moment one. Bening is superb, playing a woman who's both incredibly wise and incredibly aware of how much she doesn't know. Any shot of her silently reacting to another character is to be treasured forever. And my darling Greta Gerwig does such wonderful, beautiful work as a scene partner here, taking her moments when they come but also as supportive an ensemble player as she's ever been. But it's those moments of narration, where the plot of the movie gives way to the longview, and we get to ponder a bit about the long arcs of time, and it was so beautiful, I nearly melted into my seat.

2. American Honey (director: Andrea Arnold) Andrea Arnold's great big American road trip is sprawling and sweet, dangerous and and desirous. It doesn't work for everyone, and I think I get that. But even if Arnold isn't seeing America through a photorealistic lens, the version of America she's showing us feels true in its emotions and textures and jealousies and desperations and explorations. Sasha Lane, Shia LaBeouf, and Riley Keough are standouts in the cast, but the movie truly comes alive in the group scenes, where the energy of a whole generation explodes into something visceral and charged.

1. Arrival (director: Denis Villeneuve) I first saw Arrival at the Toronto Film Festival in September, and I was blown away by its emotion and intelligence in service of a sci-fi story that became a story about language and bridging unbridgeable gaps. I next saw Arrival a few days after the election, when the film's ideas about facing fearsome and unknown futures and seeing the end from the beginning were all the more moving. What's beautiful about Arrival — besides the photography and the music and Amy Adams — is how our only salvation grows out of achieving complete and total empathy and nothing less. Thats what unlocks everything. It's a beautiful message in a movie that might normally have merely been an exquisitely crafted, deeply emotional sci-fi tale. I didn't see anything else that year that blew me away so thoroughly.

[soshenko33]

Hot shower for the anarchist. Ukrainian artists at documenta 14

text: Nataliya Matsenko

translated by Volodymyr Polegin

Intro

Kassel is a wealthy, peaceful, and respectable city. The documenta art exhibition, which began back in 1955 as a revitalizing event in a decaying post-war industrial centre experiencing crisis, today is a crown, or rather a punkish mohawk decorating the head of an officially dressed businessman, which adds an air of nonchalance to the successful image.

Beginning from the revolutionary fifth documenta in distant 1972, when Harald Szeemann turned it into a hundred day-long event and made a breakthrough in media (photography, happening and performance were put on display equally with painting and sculpture), every five years, along with every new edition of documenta, another institutional step is taken towards expanding geographical (and other) limits in order to demonstrate the open nature of the initiative and the sensitivity to relevant global needs and challenges. Catherine David (documenta X) became the first person of non-German origin (as well as the first woman) to be appointed as the Artistic Director for the event. Since documenta 11, on Okwui Enwezor’s initiative (this time the first Artistic Director of non-European origin) aimed at the struggle with Europocentric and colonialist tendencies, the project first went beyond not only the limits of Kassel and Germany, but also of Europe itself. Adam Szymczyk, the Artistic Director for documenta 14, went even further, for the first time in the project’s history achieving a split between two different locations enjoying truly equal rights, and making Athens not only a supplementary platform, but also a symmetric full-fledged hosting partner for Kassel.

Szymczyk and ‘The castle’

By the concept for documenta 14 titled ‘Learning from Athens’, underpinning the European and worldwide socio-political and economical crisis, among other things Szymczyk meant a withdrawal from the established domination of a certain world view paradigm, longing to ‘forget what we know’ and questioning the existing ‘chauvinist white male nationalist and colonialist ways of being and thinking’1. Furthermore, many efforts were made to refuse the previously shaped idea of documenta 14 as another iteration of ‘the world’s most famous and discussed art exhibition’ and to blur the clear and predictable program for the event: ‘I would argue that, rather than only being a tool of German cultural policy and an event expected to have a significant impact on Kassel and the region, documenta must be considered an autonomous, commonly owned, transnational and inclusive self-organized artistic undertaking-one that is carried out by a multitude and not limited to any location in particular’.

Considering the principal messages and aims declared by the Artistic Director for documenta 14, he accepted a rather difficult challenge, for not only did the ambitious reforming curator attempt restructuring the very foundation for the established and clearly predefined scheme of the institutional machine called documenta, but also he encroached on the functional mechanics and economical management of documenta gGmbH2, Kassel, and the whole Hesse region. By doing this, he effectively infringed on the global system of socio-political and economic relations, pinning his hopes on artistic means that, instead of simple reproduction of the existing social connections, could create and populate spaces, facilitating the discourses beyond the limits of common knowledge, and challenge the predictable and dull course of contemporary global political and social developments that deprive us of sleep and constantly keep us edgy.

Such a humanitarian interdisciplinary declarative concept was of a rather utopian nature. Clearly realizing the impossibility of achieving the declared goals, in his curatorial notes, Szymczyk himself foresightedly notifies the reader/spectator of this, describing the conditions he was put into and the obstacles he encountered: ‘I believe that such insight into the organizational constitution of documenta 14 is necessary in order to understand how near impossible it is to realize a project that aims at making a political statement from within the organizational structure and constrained position of a state-subsidized cultural institution’. Despite all the tremendous professional efforts made by the Artistic Director and his team to overcome routine and create new connections, the starchiness of the monopolistic institution along with the faint notes of despised colonialism steadily echoed throughout the whole melody of the project. Regardless of skillful theoretical foundation, a vast amount of worthy works displayed, ingenious solutions and subtle references, the degree of pomp accompanying every opening ceremony, the admission fees, Kassel’s domination (economical at the very least) over Athens, its ‘symmetric partner’, and an air of nearly academic traditionalism pervading many expositions left an impression that the stronghold is well fortified, and its inhabitants feel far too comfortable to change something drastically. Besides, a constantly growing level of attendance reached its peak during documenta 14, attracting an audience of more than a million people, which was ten times bigger than the audience of the first documenta directed by its founder Arnold Bode in 1955. Such popularity, being a considerable source of income, by no means facilitates leaving the pre-established schemes.

However, such a general analysis of documenta 14 is not at all the primary goal of this work, which makes the aforegoing digression only necessary for a better understanding of peculiarities and the context surrounding the main subject, i.e. the first time a group of contemporary Ukrainian artists participating in documenta. This event, despite having been nearly unnoticed within the local artistic situation, in fact seems to be an influential precedent worthy of attention. Fortunately, the fact that the famous series of 14 ‘Books of schemes’ written by Ukrainian artist Valeriy Lamakh (1925-1978) were also exhibited at documenta 14, has already been reported by media.3

Soshenko 33 at documenta 14. Prelude

The story began in 2015, when, during the ‘Kyiv School’ biennale, the Artistic Director for the future documenta Adam Szymczyk quite unexpectedly to himself visited one of the remotest locations of the exhibition at 33 Soshenko str., where he was totally impressed by the project that was exhibited there as well as by the specific atmosphere of Kyiv’s outskirts. Soshenko 33 is an informal institution (or an irregular group, according to the name the artists use for themselves) founded by Taras Kovach and Anna Sorokovaya at a postgraduate education studio building belonging to the National Academy of Visual Arts and Architecture. This post-war structure resembling a private country house has been a symbolic location for a few generations of Kyiv’s artistic community. During another development spate in the capital, the studios were facing a pull down in order to construct a residential complex instead, but due to lots of active efforts made by the artists, the building is still standing and functioning according to its purpose. Protecting the territory of art from hostile acquisitions not only developed into preserving the studios belonging to the Academy, but also into created an exhibition area and even an international residence.

During the Kyiv Biennial 2015, a project called ‘The common frontier’ created by a curatorial group consisting of Taras Kovach, Anton Lapov, Anna Sorokovaya, and Alina Yakubenko with the participation of Sasha Dolhy, Alexandr Yeltsin, Dobrinya Ivanov, Larion Lozovyi, Mitya Churikov, Anna Scherbina, and Dmytro Vulfius, was realized at the Soshenko 33 studios. The project was seen as an extension of activism practice and was dedicated to critical reconsideration of the historical heritage, local and global contexts, and a search for strategies of implementing real changes. Regarding the idea of documenta 14, which at the time was being devised by Szymczyk, an interest towards the artistic initiative becomes completely clear. As a result of a long-term dialogue started when the curator got to the studios, the Soshenko 33 team was invited to participate in the famous art event.

Soshenko х Tokonoma

Insofar Soshenko 33 is an irregular formation without a permanent team, this time it consisted of Sasha Dolhy, Dobrynia Ivanov, Taras Kovach, Anna Sorokovaya, Mitya Churikov and Alina Yakubenko. In November 2017, during the ‘Kyiv international’ biennale, which was organized for the second time by the Visual Culture Research Center, a presentation of the ‘mocumenta’ project took place at the Soshenko studios. The project, which represents the Soshenko 33 collective experience of participation in documenta 14, alludes to mockumentary, a pseudo-documentary movie genre, featuring a short film made by Alina Yakubenko with the assistance of the rest of the team, where they are shown as Gastarbeiter artists making a living in Kassel. The short was shown at the Soshenko studios along with the documents concerning the main project completed in Kassel.

During the two weeks of documenta 14, Soshenko 33 as a team of artists and as an alternative space occupied in the premises belonging to the Tokonoma group in Kassel (29.07 – 12.08). Together with Termokiss (Kosovo), Toestand (Belgium), and HappyPositive (Switzerland), the group participated in the project called ‘Title on the spot’. The aim of the project was to build a ‘settlement of ideas’ based on cooperation and clear creative collaboration. These collaborative practices were an attempt to create a common communication field among groups and initiatives originating in various contexts, yet at the same time connected by the principles of self-organization, partnership, and non-profit activity.

Tokonoma, that hosted Soshenko 33 in Kassel according to the curatorial plan, is a platform for youth art and club culture. It was founded by the students of School of Arts and Design Kassel and initially supported by their Alma Mater. Probably, this fact has predetermined the local partner of choice for residential cooperation with Soshenko 33. Having arrived to Kassel, the Ukrainian artists were granted a gallery space that was to become not only a platform for creative partnership, but also a temporary accommodation for all six members of the team. The project participants almost immediately faced some difficulties of basic everyday nature, such as a lack of a bathroom and hot water supply. In fact, these details could have been ignored, but they became a starting point for the project that in its essence would completely fit the dynamic experimental aspect of documenta 14. Proceeding from the existing conditions, the artists had to deal with practical, conceptual, and aesthetic matters, that shaped and eventually materialized the project. Finally, a functioning shower provided with hot water and built-in lighting was constructed and installed directly amidst the exposition space. ‘Our actions were not predesigned but driven by raw necessity and, as a result, we constructed a shower. Establishing domestic environment on an artistic territory, making it habitable, claiming and extending our private area, we were nevertheless remaining in a public space intended for presentational usage. Thus the shower can be called an emergency work of contemporary art predetermined firstly by purposefulness. Although, at the same time, such practice could potentially bring about new ways of non-verbal communication not only among participants, but also in and with the audience’, the authors explain.

Private. Public. Common

This project, being situated exactly along the boundary between the artistic and the quotidian, the public and the private, designed partly as a conceptual decision, partly as a solution to the existing problem, was accomplished within a tight horizontal communication space bordering social experiment, which embodied the main ideas of documenta 14 quite precisely. Attempting to overcome the resistance of the self-preservation mechanism embedded in documenta, Szymczyk sought to organize its fourteenth edition as a continuous process of aesthetic, economical, political, and social experiments. He transformed the exhibition into a huge collective lab research yielding unpredictable outcomes, turned it into a platform intended to reconsider the role of culture in the system of supply & demand, aesthetical interpretation & investments: ‘documenta 14 is conceived as a project driven by the urgent need to rethink and transform our everyday experience, to reimagine the role of artistic production (both material and immaterial) beyond its application as the currency of the art market and the culture industry…’.

The shower made by the Ukrainian artists in Tokonoma gallery became an instance of such experimental reconsideration of both the role of artistic production and socio-artistic relations, even of the ‘radical subjectification’ act meant to incorporate common interests in a common business. Being at the same time literal and symbolic, a function and a statement, the shower worked not only as an object, but also as a situation, resembling Simon Starling’s practices: ‘Performing such intimate actions like having a shower or sleeping in public is both an ironic consideration on collaborative practices and a reflection on whether the idea of collaboration can tackle disconnection and alienation. The common ground we created directly while ‘experiencing situation’ is impossible to chart or document comprehensively’, as the artists put it in their post factum note.

In their short-term live experiment featuring their colleagues from Germany, Kosovo, Belgium, and Switzerland, Soshenko 33 tested quite a few principles declared by documenta 14, partially confirming both efficacy and utopianism of the latter, at least in a certain moment within a certain context. Paradoxically enough, the Ukrainian project that appeared at a ‘great artistic celebration’ in rather questionable conditions, proved to be quite convincing exactly because of its unsettledness, situational nature, vivid collaboration along with all its side effects and outcomes that can be viewed as both an interdisciplinary message between the social and the artistic and witty trolling, absolutely genuine in its irony and self-irony.

During their residence at the Tokonoma art space, apart from constructing the shower, Soshenko 33 performed a number of other public collaborative activities including a discussion, an audioperformance, an experimental music gig by Sasha Dolhy and the Tokonoma participant Jan Grebenstein, and a party featuring the whole Soshenko team and other local artists. One of the most peculiar points is the fact that, during the project until its final ‘Shower Party’, apart from the Soshenko 33 team, no one used the shower but anarchist guests from the fellow organizations participating in the ‘Title on the Spot’ project.

At the same time, local community members retained the spectator’s position, metaphorically demonstrating an awkward yet unsurprising fact: the international invitees chosen by their similarities actually managed to establish communication and share common aims, but being put into the Kassel situation, they mainly remained detached from it due to the closed nature of the system, the preexisting local context, and its complacent ‘colonial’ wellbeing. But despite all the associated nuances being an integral part of the experiment, the artists tried and, to a certain degree, succeeded in creating the much desired post-colonial ‘teaming up from below’ (Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak) and ‘learning from others in order to live together’ (Souleymane Bachir Diagne), intended to promote creating a symmetrical situation for a rendezvous of the equal (one of the basic ideas of documenta 14), and to show ‘how to shake the foundations of our positive and passive understanding of the world, […] and how to care about the way in which we work and what we do with the fruits of our labors’ (Adam Szymczyk).

Notes:

1. Quotations taken from: Adam Szymczyk “Iterability and Otherness. Learning and Working From Athens” /  The documenta 14 Reader. - Prestel, 2017. - 712 p.

2. gGmbH - gemeinnützige Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung (limited non-profit company)

3. Contemplation as a way of thinking: Valery Lamakh at documenta 14 / Prostory. - Access:

https://prostory.net.ua/ua/krytyka/234-sozertsanie-kak-forma-myshleniya-valerij-lamakh-na-documenta-14