#but there’s really no other show that encapsulates anywhere near where I’m from feels and looks like

[brutal-out-here]

You know from an outsiders perspective it seems kinda odd how much of an effect Outer Banks has had on me for 4 years now and how high I have it ranked in my favorites list compared to most of what’s on that list being shows related to fantasy or supernatural stuff, but to me it makes perfect sense for the fact of where the show takes place even if that is over a thousand miles away

[ecofinisher]

Miraculous and Monster Buster Club comparision.

Just to be clear, I’m not comparing the show on what show is better and what not. I’m comparing the similarities between the two shows. I’ve came across a few Miraculers, that were also fans of the Monster Buster Club cartoon claiming that MBC (Monster Buster Club) had a few similarities to MLB (Miraculous Ladybug) due to the animation and the adventure. I had thought about it, since I belonged before to the MBC fandom too.  (And still do, except the fandom is probably dead now)

So where do I start? Well just to summarize the shows for those who don’t know one/both of them: 

[From left to right: Cathy Smith, Sam(antha), Chris(stopher) and Daniel (Danny) Jackson]

Monster Buster Club came out around 2008 and is a French-Canadian computer-animated TV show, which focused on a group of pre-teens (12-year-old)  consisting of three human children and one so-called Rhapsodian (Fictional Alien species) whose also the protagonist of the show called Cathy Smith. Together with the three human teens named Chris, Danny and Samantha, they revive the old secret society named “Monster Buster Club” to fight together and protect their town from aliens, that invade it. Special about their town is, that 200 years ago it was founded by a man named Addison Single, who unbeknownst to the citizens was an alien in disguise and got defeat in the past by the former MBC. Also in this city, Cathy isn’t the only alien to be living there in disguise, but many other aliens are present. 

[Left to right Tikki (A magical being called a “kwami”, that helps the person transform into a superhero), Marinette Dupain-Cheng, her alter ego Ladybug, Cat Noir, his civilian identity Adrien Agreste and his kwami Plagg]

Miraculous Ladybug is a French animated TV show, that debuted in 2015 and is set in the modern metropole Paris and is focused on the lives of the clumsy Marinette Dupain-Cheng and the famous teeny-model Adrien Agreste. Both wield a special magical jewelry, which is called a “Miraculous” which they use to transform into the superheroes “Ladybug and Cat Noir”  The two don’t know each other’s identity, but funnily Adrien has a huge crush on Ladybug and in the civilian life he sees her as just a friend, while Marinette is obsessed with Adrien and sees Cat Noir only as his trustful crime-fight partner. Both students are around 14 years old in the show.

As superheroes they fight villains, that were akumatized by Hawk Moth. (He owns the butterfly miraculous, with which he can create supervillains by sending an akuma (Butterfly jinxed by Hawk Moth’s magic) and Hawk Moth’s miraculous sends people’s negative feelings such as anger, sadness and dissapointment and uses his akumas to follow them and akumatize them and they’re transformed by Hawk Moth into a specific-themed supervillain.

Now about the comparisons....Miraculous and Monster Buster Club have many things in common when it comes to the animation, the characters or other things and I wanted to list them down. 

1: Logo shortcut.

The Unofficial Logo

The official Logo

Both the shows have a long name and they’re usually abbreviated by the fans or the writers by three letters, this case Miraculous LadyBug is shortened to MLB and Monster Buster Club into MBC. The minor difference here is that Monster Buster Club also used the shortcut on their logo, while Miraculous only kept the title. 

2: Logo Switching up between scenes.

Both shows, when they skip to another part of the episode, both have the symbol appear on a background animated for 2-3 seconds, then disappear. MBC has the full title of the show, instead of the round symbol, which is the team’s recognition sign. 

3:  Transformation sequences

Both of the shows our main characters have a transformation sequence, where they turn from their civilian self into the secret identity. While Ladybug and Cat Noir look in their tight suits a little different than from their alter egos they can’t be recognized by their friends or citizens. Unlike the MBC they are also a bit covered, but if any of the classmates see them fighting around, they can recognize them without any problem. (I can’t recall at the moment the episode, but it was as Danny had tried to save his crush Wendy and failed, shortly afterward she had got angry at him as she recognized him immediately)

Monster Buster Club (Group transformation sequence) (French)

The show most of the times used the whole group to transform together, occasionally, they also have shown a single transformation sequence or two characters only) 

Miraculous transformation sequence (Adrien Agreste’s into Cat Noir) (French)

All the characters have single transformations and have the same specific transformation phrase (Plagg, Tranforme-moi) to say before they transform. The English dub is so far the only dub, where the superheroes have different phrases exp. Cat Noir’s is “Plagg, Claws Out!). Most of the phrases are based after their miraculous theme (Exp. Ladybug, Bee, Snake, etc)

4: Villains of the week trope

Each of the episode the main heroes fight a different villain, who mostly appear for one episode. 

On Miraculous, most of them are just classmates, citizens or acquaintances of the protagonists that get akumatized by Hawk Moth, when they have a negative feeling and are fought by Ladybug and Cat Noir. In the end, the villain turns back into his civilian-self, most of the time they don’t remember, what had happened during the time they were absent. 

[Akumatized villains counting from left to right, going from up to the bottom: Oni-chan, Reflekta, Horrificator, Miraculer, Party Crasher, Silencer, Weredad, Christmaster, Stoneheart, The Bubbler, Befana and Captain Hardrock]

At Monster Buster Club it usually starts with the presence of unknown people around the school or anywhere in the city or strange things happen around them and the group units together to find out, what’s going on and later near the end they figure it out and follow that alien to capture it in the end. Difference from the MBC, most of the extraterrestrials don’t change in the end of the episode and remain locked into a separate room in the secret clubhouse, where at some point one of the members (Mostly Chris) is there in the room inserting it into a special device to send the encapsulated ET away to the galactic authorities, that take care of them. Others get redeemed at the end of the show and get back to their home planet or stay on the earth, where they belong. 

The aliens from left to right, up to bottom: Gilbert (Good), Jenny’s grandmother (Encapsulated),  Mr. Gluten (Encapsulated), Glor Glenemore (Encapsulated), Zeborp (Good), Nosidda Single (Encapsulated), Doudo Hundletorph (Good), Mr. Bigshnell (Encapsulated)

5: Animated Intro

Both of the intros have the protagonists Cathy and Marinette narrate to us about  “their world”, followed by their usual day-routine with school, fighting and afterschool. 

Fun fact: Noam Kaniel worked on both of the intros. (Probably explains why I enjoy these two intros so much)

The intro of Monster Buster Club (English)

The Intro of Miraculous (English) 

6: Cute, Cartoony 2D/3D backgrounds. 

Wanna know, why I had last year suddenly had the urge to go back to the Monster Buster Club? It was those background images such as the pink bubbles behind a character, who’s in love. I had just bumped into my mind the show that I had seen that behind Danny from Monster Buster Club as he saw his crush, Wendy. When I went to check out again the episodes from the available ones on Youtube I saw also other types of backgrounds, that I had also seen in Miraculous too. 

Here we got pinky bubble background behind Cathy

And here we got Adrien with a full-on bubble background.

Some also are transparent like this one here.

Paper sheet backgrounds:

Danny’s smart idea in trying to make money and his mind shown on the background as a notebook sheet.

Chloé, one of the secondary characters and her mind shown on the background also with a type of notebook sheet her childhood. 

This are the ones, who are the most similar ones. Both have other ones, but a little different, but used for the same occasion. 

Other backgrounds:

Weapon activation (Monster Buster Club)

Power activation (Miraculous)

Minor parts of a specific fight:

Running towards an Alien.

Dodging Hawk Moth’s punch

And a few more from both shows

Sorry boy, but she’s not your type.

Wanna make your character look like she can run fast? Just add smoke like on the roadrunner!

Your portable console getting stolen, while you’re trying to beat the high score, sure was the worst thing to happen to a 12-year old back in the 08′.

Marinette just found out that Hiro Hamada of Zag Heroes wrote a fanfic of her alter ego having a crush on a friend of hers. (The real plot twist: It’s a self-insert fanfic, where he’s Ladybug and not the real Ladybug *le gasp*) 

You know what I miss about the time season 2 trailer got spoilered? That they had Marinette had this imagination of herself with Adrien as Hawk Moth posing similar to a Twilight Poster.  Those were good times.

She had her life full planned, even had names for her kids and all, while people like me are living their life, not knowing what the hell is going to happen next week.

I don’t know, but this picture is hilarious :D (And for non-Miraculers, that small animal up there is an akuma)

I never got why they fence with one glove only. is this some Michael Jackson reference or something?

Yep, this is how weird Marinette’s imagination gets during the seasons. (Believe it or not, if they were in a relationship Kagami would definitely wear the pants there!)

7: Sorry if the last one turned a little long, but now the next part is inside both of the shows, the similar tropes the show shares. Well, many other shows have it too of course, but I felt the need to point it out. (Since I’m doing this post)

7.1:  Male Protagonist is a jokester (Cat Noir and Danny) If it’s the right situation or not. They have always to crack a joke.

7.2 Tagalong kid - (John, Chris’ younger brother, Manon, Child Marinette babysits, Chris Lahiffe, the younger brother of Nino Lahiffe, Adrien’s best friend) - The three are from their personality different, but they have one or two moments, where they seem really annoying to the protagonist.

 7.3 Alpha B’s. (Chloé and Wendy) - Both don’t treat the main characters right (Chloé almost everyone besides Adrien and Wendy is most likely alright with the classmates), both are girly girls, they gossip and use specific people for their own benefits. (Chloé using Sabrina and Wendy using Danny)

7.4 Wise old man (Hugo Smith, Cathy’s Grandpa and Master Wang Fu, the guardian of the miraculouses) - It’s quite funny how similar they look like, even the red shirt, their body size and nearly their hairstyle.  About the wisdom, both help out the protagonists and are serious about harm. 

7.5 Deep down still a child (Principal Rollins and Principal Damocles) - For the most of the students Principal Rollins seems like a very strict person, that came from the military service as she calls the students soldiers and uses words such as Company Halt, but she has been shown off-guard playing with a toy rhino panzer and a convoy in her office at the school. Principal Damocles, seems also like a strict Principal, that likes when students act correctly and warns them when they acted wrong (Such as not knocking on the door, before entering). After school, when all students are gone, he dresses up as an owl-themed superhero and acts as a superhero and tries to help out in the city, mostly ending in a catastrophy. 

7.6 Nameless Background characters, that the fandom finds interesting. (Redheaded girl from MBC and Brunette boy a.k.a Just Anextra/Justin Extra from Miraculous) - The girl has like a few background appearances and like two sentences and a burst of laughter during the whole two seasons, Just/in has probably only one sentence so far I remember, otherwise, he appears at the backgrounds, sometimes also with other color palettes. (I think he also appears at the fencing group photo if I’m not wrong) Just Anextra/Justin Extra has two fanarts so far I know, done by fans and the girl had one or two edits, where the editor had given her the name Lola I think and she had another type of clothing and hair color. (Confession I’m not taking into the grave with me. When I was younger I shipped her with Nossida (His human form obviously), one of the main villains of the show and I even wrote a fanfic about them. I re-read it last year and laughed so hard at how weird it was) Honestly my first ones were just.....eugh!

7.7 Protagonist has allergies�� (Cathy and Adrien/Cat Noir) - Cathy is allergic to dogs while Adrien has allergies to feathers. 

7.8 Excitable Protagonists (Cathy Smith and Marinette Dupain-Cheng) - Both girls are shown mostly happy and lucky throughout the show. Cathy still is the most optimistic and excitable one out of the two, due to her being a curious personality and is always fascinated, when she discovers new things on Earth, that she doesn’t know in her home planet. 

7.9 Best friends between different cultures (Danny with Chris, Adrien with Nino, Cathy with Sam and Marinette with Alya) As many other TV shows would do: Two best friends of the same gender. 

 Cathy’s just doing an Abominable reference...joke, she confessed something, she should have done long way before. 

 Danny about to teach Chris how to act like a bad boy for the group’s plan.

I don’t remember what was here, except this is from season 1.

“Just be yourself” .- Nino Lahiffe (And Nathaniel there on the back sleeping on his table. I feel you, son)  

That was all I had found out yet. There could be more out there, that I haven’t figure out yet, but I might do one of these posts again when I got more information and the shows, mostly MBC are more present in my memories. 

[crystalelemental]

New Mystery of the Emblem is complete, and I have many thoughts.

Let’s just start with this: holy shit this was so much more fun than Shadow Dragon.  For three major reasons:

No one is expected to die.  Shadow Dragon bothered me immediately, because I’m required to let someone die in the prologue to escape.  That sucks, and I hated it.  I have never gotten over that, or the expectation to kill more units to access the bonus chapters.  Which, sure, you can argue are optional.  But those characters appear in this game and are recognized, so clearly those happened now didn’t they?!

SUPPORT CONVERSATIONS!  Okay, they’re not like...actual support conversations.  They’re Radiant Dawn style, where you have conversations with allies at your base and only your base.  But there’s a tier of 1-3 for most characters, and they’re essentially support conversations, and god Shadow Dragon was impossible to get in to without those.  Seriously, I may enjoy the gameplay of Fire Emblem overall, but I do not enjoy units for combat performance, I enjoy them for being characters, and thank god they feel like characters this time.

Actually interesting story.  Shadow Dragon was pretty boring, frankly.  Very basic concepts presented, not really a lot going on.  But New Mystery actually expands on a lot of this stuff.  I’ll get into that more below.

Suffice to say, I really enjoyed it more than Shadow Dragon.  I think in terms of ranking, I’d definitely place it above Shadow Dragon, Birthright, Revelation, and Sacred Stones.  Currently I think I’m putting it above Conquest too.  While Conquest is similarly fun to play, New Mystery has the benefit of being more interesting as a story.  I’m hesitant to put it over Echoes, though.  Listen, Echoes sucks as a game.  It’s really not fun to play, almost at all.  New Mystery is fun to play, so this should be obvious.  But while the story is improved, I wouldn’t put it anywhere near the level of Echoes.

See, the main thing with New Mystery is that it filled in gaps that made the world feel more organic than just generic medieval kingdom with magic and dragons and shit.  They delve into what the Fire Emblem here is, about the history of the dragons, and why, say, Tiki’s kept locked away for so long.  Also why Medeus is a villain, and out to eliminate humanity.  Turns out, he was the only Earth Dragon to listen to Naga and convert to a manakete, and even helped guard the seal over the dragons who were slowly losing their minds.  But humans, as soon as they had that advantage, exploited dragons.  Several maps showcase that these deteriorating dragons are being kept in thrall to human tribes who use their power for personal gain.  Exploitation of dragons led Medeus to despise humans, and seek to overthrow them.  Which is pretty cool!  I’m on board with that!  Tiki’s said to also be deteriorating without the seal in place, and that, as a powerful divine dragon, she’s bring ruin to the world if she weren’t contained.  So they basically kept her in stasis to avoid disaster.  Which...okay, Fallen Tiki should’ve just been that.  A feral Tiki that’s no longer all there, instead of just “Gharnef’s power is controlling her.”  Shadow Dragon’s momentarily irritable Tiki wasn’t shit compared to what they implied could happen here.

The trouble is that the game is still pretty basic.  Beyond this bit of worldbuilding, it’s still very much conflict between the kingdoms, again, all ochestrated by Gharnef, who’s working for Medeus.  Again.  They play around more with their themes and set up some cool ideas, but it’s not the most compelling of narratives by any means.  What’s also not helped is that, while support conversations exist to make characters more engaging, it’s not all of them, and not all are done well.  Some supports are just a sort of filling in the gaps.  At least, with the MU they are.  Maybe with other characters they get a bit more.

Speaking of MU, let’s divert a bit to talk about them.  Kris is like...the one MU I have heard universal hate for.  My best guess is that this is due to fans of the original FE3, who didn’t like their inclusion in the first place, because otherwise I have no idea what the problem is.  Kris seems fine.  Really boring, but fine.  The only reason they’re kinda my least favorite is because they’re supposed to be their own character but don’t do anything.  Like, Robin has a personality and is fun, and has a great dynamic with Chrom.  Corrin, for all the faults borne of Fates, feels pretty much like a typical Fire Emblem lord.  Byleth...okay, I don’t like Byleth much, I feel like their inclusion kinda hinders the game’s narrative a little bit, but otherwise they’re pretty blank and exist mostly as a support for the other lords.  But Kris...doesn’t do much of anything.  They don’t really have a dynamic with anyone, including Marth, and are just sort of...generic loyal knight with no knowledge of the world for some reason, and who only ever trained with their now dead grandfather.  Beyond that, they don’t really exude any particular personality.  Which is probably part of the problem with supports; everyone supports with Kris, but they don’t contribute much, so it’s mostly the other character doing stuff at them.  They just don’t have much to do.

With one exception.  We gotta talk about the other, presumably new character: Katarina.  I actually love Katarina.  Which is a shame, I pulled one of her in Heroes once and made her into a manual because I didn’t care.  Oh well.  Anyway, Katarina’s got a pretty solid story behind her, and is one of the more compelling pieces of the plot overall.  She’s part of a band of assassins who were orphans, taken in by Lady Eremiah.  Eremiah is super cut-throat, willing to sacrifice the lives of these children to accomplish her goals, which mostly seem to be serving Gharnef.  While Legion’s boring and lame, Clarine and Katarina are spectacular.  Clarine starts off really obnoxious, and kind of a bitch, but the chapter where she finally falls hit me pretty hard.  Katarina’s supports with Kris also give a bit more context to what had happened, particularly with the talk about how Clarine and Katarina share a birthday, because they never had one but Clarine just decided on a day and that was the end of it.  It’s a really cute dynamic you get to experience kind of in reverse.  You see how bad things have gotten, then get the history of what used to be, and why Katarina couldn’t leave.  Eremiah’s the same.  Gharnef shows up as she’s dying and reminds her of her own history.  The orphanage she worked at was burned to the ground and the children slaughtered in the last war.  In despair, Gharnef appeared and convinced her that if the children were strong, they wouldn’t die so easily, leading her to take in the next wave and train them for strength alone, all the while becoming corrupted by Gharnef’s influence.  That last part aside, pretty compelling.  I do enjoy narratives that play with the idea of kindness being manipulated to a sensible, but corrupted, conclusion.

My main problem is that Gharnef sucks.  He’s not an interesting villain at all.  He just kind of exists, and was largely motivated by getting passed over by his master when it came to who got the cool spells.  He’s a big, stinky baby man whining about not being the favorite, and I could not care less.  Yet he’s supposed to be this grand puppetmaster, of a particularly shitty puppet.  Hardin was an ally in Shadow Dragon, who became an enemy this game.  Why?  Oh, he was mad that Nyna didn’t like him back, and got super buttmad about it.  Which is honestly fair at this point, since they describe it as a depressive episode.  He gets to marry this woman he loves, only to find out she never reciprocated the feeling at all.  Feel like it’s fair to be upset.  But then Gharnef shows up and allegedly corrupts his soul with the Darksphere.  Which...okay, first?  Lame.  Second?  Why do we have that, and why does it do that?  This was a gift from Naga, why the hell is it so dangerous?  Third, super lame!  It takes away all agency Hardin had as a villain and removes it down to “oh, he was possessed.”  Which sucks, because the exact inverse happened for Michalis, and now he’s super cool!

His character arc this game was spectacular!  Showing up to take Minerva away from her captors.  Giving her refuge in the desert and helping her rendezvous with Marth?  There’s something going on, compared to last game where he was just some lame baby man who wanted power.  Minerva says Gharnef lost his hold, and Michalis is like “Oh, no, I would never bend to him.  I killed dad because we disagreed on Macedon fighting to become a major power in the world again, and he tried to have me exiled.  I did it for me, and regret nothing.”  Honestly loved that.  But when asked why he’s helping now, it turns out it’s for their sister.  He talks about how, after he was defeated, he was near death, and the first thing he saw when he came to was Maria kneeling over him, praying to the gods to save him.  He was so touched by her kindness despite his actions, that he’s now solely driven to save her as his final act.  He doesn’t regret his actions, but recognizes that he lost and needs to do something, and god damn if it’s not going to be saving his little sister.  That’s super cool!  I’m so on board with this dude now!  One of the bigger antagonists of Shadow Dragon who offered almost nothing became a big favorite in the game with a single conversation!  I feel like that encapsulates the difference between Shadow Dragon and New Mystery pretty well.

The last thing I’ll mention is gameplay.  I really enjoyed just playing this game, and I think a big component of that is because the maps are pretty short.  And yet.  They’re challenging.  There are a few that just repeatedly required me to restart the chapter, despite being maybe three turns long.  The extra chapter when you first face Legion, and it’s got the two mercenaries to the left and right of your starting position, and you can recruit both but you have to not kill them?  The map was so small they could get to just about anyone, so it was a real challenge to handle the archers with my high movement units, prevent those two from dying against the blockades to the sides, and take out the boss quickly without being swarmed.  Other times, the gimmicks were a little obnoxious.  Like Chapter 18.  You’re trying to take this one castle on the right that’s pretty well defended, but there are these super fast cav archers closing in on you from above.  You basically have one turn to get to the village on the left, so their king calls them off.  It’s a cool chapter, but I had to reset the first time, because I didn’t go into the chapter knowing that.  I put my dancer closer to the fortress, thinking I’d have to just move quickly and take out the boss to get them to back off, so Marth couldn’t reach the goal fast enough.  It’s just small things like that.

Overall, I think it’s pretty solid.  I could see playing this one again some day.  Maybe to intentionally miss one of the spheres so I can see what the bad ending is about.  But on the whole, I like it.  Still not super impressed with the characters in Marth’s game, I still feel like a lot are pretty bland (including Marth himself), but it’s a huge step up from Shadow Dragon.

[chess-blackmyre]

The Dragon Prince: Star Pupil Chapter 1/3

Chapter One: Aspiro Frigis

Read on: Archive of Our Own or Fanfiction.net

After the third failed attempt at Aspiro Frigis, Ibis had to say that his student’s feathers were more than a bit ruffled--figuratively and literally. Very few Skywing elves were blessed with a natural set of wings, and as evidenced by the black-feathered limbs that sprouted from her lower back, Freyja was among those few.

As one of the most powerful magi of the Skywing elves, it had been expected for Ibis to take on an apprentice at some point. To that end, he had selected Freyja. While young, she had a love of learning and a natural curiosity, even going to far as to try and teach herself Ancient Draconic. After taking her on, Ibis learned that, while the girl had no shortage of work ethic and wasn’t easily daunted, she had trouble when it came to actually casting spells.

They were in an open field not far from town, set up with several training dummies for target practice. The sky was overcast, and a strong breeze ruffled their hair and her feathers. It was prime weather to practice sky magic, but Freyja was struggling, as she had when learning to cast other spells.

Her face was flushed, and he didn’t like the color her fingers were turning as she was about to attempt the ice spell for a fourth time. Sloppiness was as deadly as dragons when it came to spellcasting, and Freyja would risk frostbite if it meant she could finally cast Aspiro Frigis.

“Perhaps now is a good time for a breather,” he suggested, placing a hand on her shoulder before she could start drawing out the rune. The girl said nothing, her lips pressed into thin lines as she looked down at her hands.

“You’re getting frustrated, and frustration just makes it harder. Now, let’s take a deep breath in” he demonstrated, inhaling, “and a deep breath out,” then exhaling.

She mirrored him. Deep breath in, deep breath out.

“Now, try the rune again. Don’t rush it, just feel it.” Extending out her hand, the young elf traced out the icy blue rune.

“Aspiro Frigis.”

With a gust of sharp, cold air, the grassy meadow around them suddenly seemed to be in the dead of winter, with the training dummy completely encapsulated in ice. The look on Freyja’s face was ecstatic, and she turned back to her teacher, eyes hungry to learn more. Ibis smiled, and clapped a hand on her shoulder. “See? There you have it. I’m confident that you will be a great mage, Freyja, all you need is a little patience.”

                                                                XxX

Years Later…

Freyja was running out of patience.

A week ago, Ibis had flown out to the Storm Spire to check on Queen Zubeia. This was normal, the mage was a liaison between elves and dragons, his visits increasing after the death of King Avizandum but what wasn’t normal were the tales of a human army marching through Xadia, sacking Lux Aurea, and making their way towards the Storm Spire. Three days ago, she was about to fly out to look for him herself when Ibis had returned—and not alone.

He arrived back home with a guest. Callum, a human prince from the kingdom of Katolis. That was weird, sure, (she’d never actually seen a real human before), but what really wigged Freyja out was how they arrived. The pair had traveled from the Storm Spire via flight, their arms turned to wings through one of the most advanced sky spells that existed.

This human had forged a connection to the sky arcanum (somehow) and had come here to learn more magic from her and Ibis. For context, that was like seeing someone with aim so true, they could split an arrow by shooting it with another arrow, then turn back to you asking for archery lessons. To add insult to injury, the boy had only picked up a bow a month ago.

In the three days he’d been here, Callum had soon mastered every single spell they’d shown him. Aspiro? Already knew that. Fulminis? Also mastered that. Aspiro Frigis? Surprise, surprise, he’d basically figured it out in one go. Now the prince was just practicing in the training meadow, Ibis showing him how the spell could be modified and played around with for different uses.

That was why she was running out of patience. Not with herself, or any spell, but the situation.

Freyja glowered as Ibis smiled and laughed at the prince’s progress. Seriously, what the hell was his secret? Did he swallow a primal stone or something? A word from her teacher drew her out of her thoughts.

“I’m sorry to run out on you like this, but I have some urgent business to attend to in town. Freyja, how about you practice spells with Callum? Maybe show him a thing or two.”

She forced a smile. “Can do.”

One Manus Pluma Volantis later, and the two teenagers were awkwardly standing in a field together. The young Skywing looked the human up and down. He looked to be two or three years younger than her, with a slight build and an open face. There were no stains of dark magic anywhere she could see—not that Freyja really suspected it, even if it would have explained how the hell he could do all of this.

“You know, we haven’t really had a chance to talk since you arrived,” Freyja observed, voice purposefully casual. “So, I have to ask: how did you forge a connection to the sky arcanum?”

The prince blinked at her.

“Well, uh, after a few, shall we say, false starts, I finally managed to piece it together. I figured out that the whole world is like a giant primal stone! It’s not just when it’s raining or gusty out, sky magic is always all around us, in every breath we take.” He smiled, looking completely genuine.

“That…makes a disturbing amount of sense.” Freyja considered, filing that away to consider later. “But getting back on track, what should I show you…” she considered, pacing a few feet away. He’d breezed through all the simple spells—then the obvious choice would be to teach him the not simple spells. With a smile, she turned back to him. “Alright Callum, you’ve cast spells involving wind and lightning, now it’s time to draw power from clouds.”

“Clouds? What can you do with clouds?” Most people would ask that in a condescending way, but to his credit, the human sounded intrigued.

“A demonstration would work best.” With a flick of her wings, she flew over and perched on top of a large boulder on the other side of the field. “How much do you suppose this weighs?”

“I don’t know like, a ton?” Callum guessed, a little winded from having to chase after her.

“Probably right, however...” with a smile, she drew out a white rune that resembled a wisp-like cloud. “Nubelis.” A white, gaseous vapor shot out from her finger, and surrounded the bottom part of the boulder, lifting it up and letting it hover about a foot above the ground. “With this spell, you create a cloud-like gas that allows you to move heavy objects with ease.” With that, she effortlessly moved the boulder a few feet to the middle of the field.

“Plus,” Freyja fell back, the cloud gathering and rising to cushion her. “You can even use it to ferry yourself around, if you’re feeling lazy.”

“Wow,” Callum was practically star-eyed, kneeling down to run his hand through the vapors “That’s amazing Freyja, seriously.” She smiled, perfectly pleased with herself. The Skywing elf then invited him to try. “Be careful though, this rune can be pretty—“

“Nubelis!”

“—tricky.”

Callum laughed as he leaned back on his own cloud, a darker blue-grey. With a few experimental moves of his fingers, he started to control the cloud’s movements. Something that had taken Freyja days of near-constant practice to figure out.

Deep breath in, deep breath out.

“Thank you so much for showing me this,” the prince smiled. “It’s so cool! Oh man, I cannot wait to show this to Rayla and Ezran.”

She forced a smile. “That’s…great. Really.”

Deep breath in, deep breath out.

                                                           XxX

You know what? Callum had actually done her a favor. He’d just made it clear how much she’d let herself lag behind.

The next day, she mentioned wanting to brush up on her Ancient Draconic, so Callum and Ibis were making use of the training field without her. Freyja doubted they’d notice if she just didn’t come, her teacher was obviously enjoying time with his new star pupil.

Going into Ibis’ study, the young mage immediately went to where she knew the more advanced techniques were kept. Digging through manuscripts and scrolls, Freyja looked for the right spell that would show Ibis what she was really capable of.

The prince had his time in the limelight, but Freyja was going to show him why she was the real apprentice around here.

A spell to conjure more than just a small breeze, but a whirlwind. With a smile, she copied out the rune in her own notebook, and carefully placed everything back to where she’d found it. Then, she took to the skies.

Flying up above Ibis’ home, she closed her eyes and purposely reached out, feeling the sky magic all around her. Deep breath in, deep breath out. “Impetus Tempestatis!”

She felt the magic flow through her and then swirl around her. She looked out to find herself in the eye of a whirlwind. Freyja laughed, eyes bright. She had gotten it! In one go! But that lapse in concentration—even to savor the moment—caused the spell to spiral out of her control.

The sky mage’s laughter turned to a yelp as she found herself no longer at the eye of the whirlwind, but at the edges.

“Wait, no--!” She raised her hands up, trying to re-establish control. But it was much like reaching after a horse’s reigns after it had already kicked you off. Soon enough, Freyja was caught in the pull of her own storm, and helpless to escape.

                                                              XxX

Callum wiped the sweat away from his brow, and looked back towards Ibis’ house. “Uh…what’s that?!”

The mage turned, fear and confusion immediately striking into his heart. “One of the most powerful spells of the sky arcanum—and one of the hardest to control.” He held out his arms. “Manus Pluma Volantis!” He looked back to Callum and ordered the boy to stay there while he dealt with it.

His heart stuttered when he saw a familiar set of black wings. Freyja was being tossed about like a ragdoll, the young apprentice trying and failing to orient herself in fly out. If something wasn’t done, she would—

Ibis pushed the thought aside. He would have to concentrate if he wanted to save her. The old expression went that you could use fire to fight fire, and the same tenant can hold true in sky magic.

With a deep breath, he focused all the power he could gather and turned it against the whirlwind. “Impetus Tempestatis Novis!”

[stedes-black-bonnet]

My Baby Does Me: Chapter 22

POV: John Deacon x reader; Jim and reader’s lunch date, Part 1.

Notes: MASTERLIST? Still updating weekly, yes even after the Oscars this Sunday.

Warnings: Part 1 is sad AF; Part 2 will be girl-talk and light and wonderful.

Abstract: bring it back, bring it back...

------------------------

Jim Hutton remembered holding John Deacon’s hand. Jim’s hands were larger, and they easily encapsulated John’s hand without flash, effort, or tricks of the light. He kept seeing that snapshot, while looking at your surprised face: he saw the black, elegant fabric of John’s blazer, tailored to perfection, the black french cuff of his button-down, but, mostly, what Jim saw were the gaudy emerald cuff links Veronica had given John. He saw John’s hand, his wrist, thin and pale, his tense thighs, and the new suit he’d never wear again. John couldn’t take his eyes off those cuff links, and that twisted a barbed spike deep in Jim’s heart; it was a keen, silent suffering, it was hail falling on deaf ears, it was that nightmare where you were being pursued but couldn’t scream, it was heartbreak, and Jim would never forget it. He couldn’t stop staring at them, with his red eyes, tired from lack of sleep. Jim was pretty sure John hadn’t slept more than 10 hours in the past week. He wasn’t sure John would ever sleep again.

Jim was holding John’s hand. Freddie had been on the other side of John, clasping his other hand. Freddie was tapping out comforting melodies on John’s palm, trying to lure him into some reaction, any reaction. Freddie was the first person John had called. Their bond had always been surprisingly tight, secure, and unbreakable. Freddie could lift the tapestry of shyness from John, get him dancing, laughing, and flirting in ways Veronica hadn’t even been capable of; and John could go head-to-head with Freddie in any insult or shade challenge--especially if they were on the same team, and John, a ride or die romantic, had been the first person to publicly defend Jim and Freddie’s romance. Which made this moment all the more difficulty poignant and utterly devastating.

“I don’t know if I can find the words to describe it,” Jim said to you. “The effect it had on me, on the band, on Johnny.” He had tears in his brown eyes. You squeezed his hand, thinking of Deacy, and how it was quickly becoming his signature move in your mind. And how hollow it seemed now, squeezing Jim’s hand; the weight of the room had changed. Yellow was supposed to be a happy color, but now it seemed suffocating.

He called Freddie first. Freddie had picked up the phone, laughing into it. Jim had been telling him some joke, or some funny story; he didn’t remember the details, only that Freddie had been laughing when he picked up the phone’s receiver. A full laugh, with his whole body, all teeth and cheeks, contagious joy in only the way Freddie was capable of spreading. Jim leaned into Freddie, kissed his neck, curious who was on the other line. Then, as if out of nowhere, like the power going out, or a sun shower, Jim felt Freddie’s body stiffen; he collapsed into the chair he had been standing near, and froze, listening.

“I knew something had happened, Y/N.” Jim wiped a few tears from his cheeks. One lingered in his mustache, and you couldn’t look at anything else. “But I didn’t know what, or who Freddie was talking to, but I desperately wanted to know; because whatever had happened had just changed everything.”  

Jim could feel the calluses on John’s fingers. His own hands were rough from a lifetime of working, not making art. And yet, regardless of their nonsensical, pointless, yet obvious class divide, here they both were, experiencing one of the only guarantees life had to offer. John’s hands were shaking; Jim and Freddie kept surreptitiously exchanging concerned glances. They were thinking the same thing with each glace; if you ever died, I’d surely die, too. John’s hands were shaking, and his grey eyes couldn’t leave those cuff links.

A pair of hands reached from behind to hug John’s shoulders. They lingered, and Jim could see on his periphery a blond head just delicately resting on John’s. Their hair mingled, Roger waited, breathing slowly, trying to transfer his rhythm over to his dearest friend. Roger’s emotional strength, fortitude, and prowess were precisely and desperately what John required. Though, nothing was working. Nothing was helping. Roger let go, though it was clear he did not want to, but he had been given the hardest task of the day; he had been trusted with it by John; there simply was no one else for the job. Boisterous, rowdy, and a prodigious cad Roger Taylor might be, but he was also expertly delicate, unsuspectingly shrewd, and the most empathetic person any of them had ever met.

“Roger is lousy at, oh, 85% of commitments, but when he is really needed, when everything is the most dire and vital, he delivers like no one else can.” Jim cleared his throat, and took a careful sip of tea, thinking how best to continue.

Freddie was clutching the phone. He hadn’t said anything yet. Jim took Freddie’s hand, troubled more than curious now. They were two hands holding. Freddie sniffed and started silently sobbing, “John,” he said; it was all Jim could make out. Jim began wiping his lover’s tears away with his pocket square, emerald like the cuff links John would be wearing that Veronica had given to him on no special occasion, just because she could, when his hands would be shaking, on the day when he would be wearing the new black suit he’d later bury deep in his backyard, next to the dog of theirs that had died the year before.

“John,” Freddie said, again, trying to sound strong, trying to sound in control, “Don’t move, darling; Jim and I will be there in a flash.” He hung up the phone and leaned into Jim. Tears fell down both of their cheeks; Jim couldn’t help crying when others were, even if he didn’t know why they were upset himself.

“Freddie, what’s happened to John?”

“Veronica was in an accident.” He managed to say. Freddie pulled away from Jim, looking him in the eyes. “If you ever,” his voice stuck in his throat, unable to speak, only hearing John’s confused, wounded howls that had greeted Freddie from the other end of the phone—howls he’d never be able to forget—Freddie gazed at Jim with sharp focus. He swallowed hard, and said, “If you ever left, I wouldn’t make it. It sounds melodramatic, dear, but there you have it.”

“I’m not going anywhere, you silly man.” Jim said finally. He took a steadying breath, and asked, “Freddie, I’m scared; you need to tell me what happened to Veronica?”

“She died.” Freddie told Jim.

“She died?” You asked, still in shock.

“Yes,” said Jim, fresh tears brimming over his eyes. “She died, oh, three years ago, now. Enough time will never pass.”

Roger, wearing an understated black suit, made his way to the podium. He hated everything about this. He hated what he was wearing, he hated why they were all here, but what he hated most was the look in John’s eyes. He wasn’t present, in his eyes, John wasn’t there. He was time traveling, stuck in a hell of his own making, thinking of every past moment, doing everything he could to deny the reality of his present and future. Roger wanted to take John’s suffering away; Roger could take it, he could survive it--fuck, he’d weather it with style. But John--of all of them--he didn’t deserve this. This wasn’t fair. If Roger had a wife, he’d sacrifice her for John. If it meant he could keep Veronica and the light would return to his dull eyes, Roger would cut off his hands for John to make it happen.

It was standing room only, as Roger surveyed the cavernous church. Though, even the aisles were bursting with friends, colleagues, and loved ones. This was the most private event Roger would ever perform at. And it was a performance, because more than anything, Roger wanted to vomit in the nearest flower display and drown himself in a case of the communion wine, but he would be John’s rock; he wouldn’t show his nerves or his sorrow.

“‘Time healing all wounds is the biggest lie they tell you; time doesn’t heal nothing; you heal yourself by doing the works.’” Jim said, a sad smile on his face. “That’s how he opened the eulogy; he knew exactly what to say, but he always does. It was, to this date, the only time I’ve ever seen Roger cry. Publicly, and without shame. It surprised us all, to be honest. He hides that heart of his under twenty thousand leagues of sea.”

“For those of you who don’t know, I introduced John and Veronica.” Roger’s voice halted, then. He looked at John, waiting for his friend to return his gaze. He did, slowly, and grey eyes met blue. “I am,” Roger said, “so sorry. I shouldn’t have.” Roger’s eyes glowed sapphire bright as tears welled and slipped down his face. “I will always blame myself for why we are all here today; it is my fault. If you have to blame someone,” he said, staring at John, “blame me. Don’t blame yourself,” he said to John, and only to John, “Never blame yourself, and don’t blame her. She’d be here if she could; she never missed one of my performances after all.”

“Funeral laughter is the worst,” Jim told you, “desperate and unsure. But if anyone could make a crowd laugh at a funeral, it was Roger Taylor.”

Jim remembered feeling John’s body shake, but not with laughter. At least not with genuine laughter; he had been hysterical. There was simply no other word for it. He and Freddie had arrived at the hospital, and they were led to John, who was in one of those terrible rooms they put you when the news is bad.

“They won’t let me see her.” He kept laughing, like it was a joke only he understood. He kept saying it, over and over, as if he were trying to explain the easy words to a child who wasn’t comprehending their meaning. “They won’t let me see her!” Jim walked over to John, who was pacing, and wouldn’t stop even when Jim put a hand on his shoulder. “They won’t let me see her.”

Freddie looked at the doctor, fear was in his brown eyes, and something like anger; he didn’t know how long John had been like this and they weren’t doing anything to help his friend. How long had he been alone in this little room?

“Why won’t they let you see her, Johnny?” Jim asked, tenderly.

“‘The state of her body.’ The state of her...body.” He was running a shaking hand through his hair. “Crushed or something? Not entirely extracted from between her car...and the other car.” He sounded unsure, like he didn’t believe what he was saying, what he had heard, what he had been told. “Her body? Her body? They said body?” He looked at the doctor, frantically. “She’s not a body! That’s what they say about someone who’s dead.”

Jim looked back at Freddie, then; something in John had completely broken. Jim saw tears of outrage, worry, and a terrible pitying compassion rise in his husband’s eyes. Jim slowly backed away from John.

“I need to make a call,” he said to Freddie. “Do you have this?”

“What, darling?” Freddie was entirely distracted by this scene; John was still pacing, and Freddie was tracking him like cat, readying himself to pounce if need be.

“Freddie!” Jim said loudly, he put his hands on Freddie’s cheeks to force him to pay attention.

“I’m here.”

“You need to watch him; I’m going to get Roger.”

“Yes, darling; the doctors can keep doing fuck-all; I’ve got this.” He waved his hand in his signature flourish.

“As far as I’m concerned Veronica was the only good thing about John,” Roger was saying. He tried a smile, but it didn’t work, even with the funeral laughter escalating. “She had all of his best qualities, and none of his bad ones. Though Veronica said all the time John was perfect--maybe for no one else but her. And good God, she was right; no one else understood him until her. Not like anyone else wanted to.”

Jim felt John’s body rock back and forth. Roger’s speech stalled, as he saw John stand up. Perhaps it was Roger’s intuition, or that he knew John so well, either way, he followed his gut, and started wrapping up his speech abruptly. “Right! Veronica, what’s left to say about someone so capable of rendering men speechless--”

John wrenched his hands away from Freddie and Jim, stumbling wildly at a running pace down the aisle aimlessly towards the exit. The only thought in his head was of escaping. Brian stood, making to intercept him, and was cut short by a chaotic blond blur racing past him, shoving him out of the way of his single-minded goal. Roger had leaped down from the pedestal like a panther, and chased after John at an all out sprint. It wasn’t funny, but it was. Under the morbid circumstances, it was the funniest thing any of them had seen all week. Jim and Brian smiled faintly at each other; it was the most Roger-esque departure they could have imagined: end on a one-liner and run for the exit. Freddie was the first one to laugh about it. It was a quiet giggle at first, clear and melodic, undeniably Freddie’s. Unable to stop themselves, Jim and Brian joined in, unashamed and unafraid their laughter echoed around the church; it was possibly inappropriate, maybe in bad taste, but it was the first genuine laughter they’d had together in the past week, and as they laughed a little portion of the vice-like grip of tension around their hearts began to lift.

Jim had tried calling Roger from a payphone outside the hospital, but he hadn’t answered. Roger had some habitual haunts, record stores, clubs, fucking car dealerships--time was of the essence. Jim collected his thoughts. This wasn’t an easy task. Wherever he closed his eyes, he kept seeing John pacing, desperately trying to understand how Veronica was now reduced to being just a body, and not his wife. Jim started the car, shaking away fresh tears. He needed to focus and find Roger. The tears could and would wait.

Pulling up outside Roger’s home was a no go—his Alfa Romeo wasn’t there. This was useful information, however; Jim knew which car to search for, his goddess in red. By far, she was the easiest of all his cars to find; flashy and bright. Next, Jim tried Roger’s favorite basement record store; also no luck there.

“It was the afternoon, Roger might be just waking up,” Jim told you between bites of a biscuit, “So, I don’t know why or what possessed me to go there, but there was this hole-in-the-wall diner Roger went to while the band was still waiting to make their first big break.”

The look on Roger’s face when he talked about the diner was always one of nostalgia; it was the look of a man recalling what it was like to go out in public and not be recognized. When Jim pulled up to the diner, Roger’s goddess in red was parked across the street. Jim silently thanked St. Anthony, and his blessed Irish mother, and ran into the diner, but Roger wasn’t there. As quickly as he had entered, he left, standing still outside, thinking.

The top was up.

“The top had been up, you see.” Jim explained.

Jim ran over to the car, and banged on the driver’s side window.

Roger turned his back to Jim.

“Oh you can’t outrun me you good for nothing blond rotter.” Jim yelled into the street, banging even harder on the car’s window.

“I’m sleeping one off, Jim.” Roger growled.

“There are homeless people sleeping on the streets, and here you are sleeping one off in your fucking car, and you own four homes; go sleep it off in one of them.”

“Thanks, Jim; Los Angeles does sound nice this time of year.” Roger begrudgingly rolled down the window of his red Alfa Romeo. He looked at Jim’s face, but couldn’t see it, nonetheless he could tell something was wrong. He fished around the passenger seat for his glasses--black circles tinted yellow--and put them on. Jim’s eyes were puffy, red, dark circles, dried tears. “What the bloody hell has happened?!”

Roger ran into the little room, Jim following hard behind. John was standing in the corner, arms wrapped around himself, staring dead into some vacant space only grief could occupy. Freddie met Jim and Roger at the doorway.

“He wouldn’t let me near him, dearies.” Freddie said. “So, I just sang to him--any silly old tune that popped into my head, which sort of calmed him down, I think. He stopped pacing at least.” Jim wrapped his arms around Freddie, and they stood there, hugging.

“Right, I’ve got this.” Roger slowly walked over to John. “John?”

He didn’t respond.

“John?” Roger asked, again.

Still nothing.

“John, do you know what’s happened?”

His grey eyes met Roger’s blue ones.

“Do you?” His voice was molasses, a dark basement, the feeling of being pursued, his voice was the hairs on the back of your neck standing up for no apparent reason, but you’d learn about the reason when you least expected it.

“I do, yes.” Roger’s voice was steady, firm. He could play this game; fuck, he had invented this game. He took another step closer to him.

John’s body tensed, his eyes glared into Roger’s, his fists balled; he was breathing for a fight. Anything to not think, Roger figured. He took another step closer, shrinking the distance drastically.

“Say it.” Roger challenged.

John didn’t respond.

“Say it!” Roger commanded.

Nothing.

“What? you want to hit me?”

A twitch.

“Will that help you? Because if it will, hit me.” Roger took his glasses off, tossed them to Jim. He took his grey blazer off, and tossed that to Freddie.

“Here--hit me.” With the glasses off, his eyes were piercing and moist; Roger was crying, it was a private cry, meant for an audience of one, meant to be witnessed by John only. “Please, go ahead. Whatever you need. I’m here.”

John made his move. He was fast, but Roger was faster. He grabbed John’s arms, and pinned him against the wall, hard.

Roger slapped John on the face.

“Wait--” you said, wiping tears of your own away, “Roger slapped him?”

“Yes,” Jim answered. “It was the support he needed, and only Roger could see it; for such a blind melon, he sees more than the rest of us.”

Roger slapped John, again.

The sound snapped through the small room.

Freddie and Jim, breathing in unison, froze.

Roger slapped John, yet again.

Roger raised a blond eyebrow at John, holding his arms, pressing his body into the wall. Cardio and drumming: he could hold John with force for hours if need be. No matter what, he’d be there for John. If this was what he needed, he’d do it, never question it, and embrace it.

And that’s when John started to cry.

He gave up his ineffectual struggles against Roger’s drumming strength.

John folded himself into Roger’s body.

Roger held him, silently crying, feeling John’s sobs shake their bodies.

“She’s dead.” John said.

“Yes.”

“She’s dead.”

“Yes.”

“She’s not coming back.”

“No, she’s not.”

There was a knock on the door, then.

Brian entered the room with one of the useless doctors.

“This will be indelicate,” Brain said, “So, they’ve asked me to say it.”

Roger swiveled on the spot, lifting John, so he was facing the wall, and Roger was able to face Brian.

He continued, “They’re ready for someone to identify the body.”

“Did you need to tackle me so hard? In the street? In front of the bloody cameras?” John was two shots in, holding a white napkin to his forehead.

Roger, next to him, also two shots in, said, “You really left me no choice. Leaving your own funeral like that.”

“It wasn’t my funeral. Might as well as been, though.” John signaled to the bartender for another round. “And how you chased down the photographers and what? How did you put it?”

“I think it was ‘I’ll set your mother on fire and fuck your brother, if you don’t destroy that film.’”

They laughed together, wiping tears away.

“What are we on now? Right--Veronica’s legs.” They clinked their glasses together, and downed their their shot of tequila. John checked the cut on his forehead. “Really, though: Never seen someone surrender their camera so fast in my life.”

“Could have had Miami pay them off, but that was more fun for me.” Roger smirked, and singled for another round. “Looking good, mate; that shiner really improves your manly charms.”

“I don’t really feel it anymore; my personal thanks to whoever invented tequila.”

“Right,” Roger said passing John shot number four, “Veronica’s thighs.”

“Veronica's thighs.” John repeated, downing his shot. “Miami told me he’d been paying off every newspaper from writing about it.” Tears threatened John’s eyes once more. He had, more or less, become accustomed to crying in public now.

“That was Brian’s idea.” Roger explained.

“Good man, Bri.”

“The best. Second only to me.” Roger waved to the bartender, “Mate, leave the bottle, and bring a second.”

“I suppose the others will find us eventually.” John said, pouring the next round. “Veronica’s dimples when she smiled.”

“None better.” Roger toasted and swallowed his shot.

“I’ll do it,” Roger said, holding John’s shaking body. “Brian, would you take him from me? I’ll be back straight away.”

Brain crossed the room, and took John in his arms.

“Oh, if he starts denying it again, just slap him once across the face; worked wonders for me.”

“You knew the deceased?” The doctor asked. They were standing in a room Roger would never forget. Metallic, small, cold. A body was resting under a white sheet.

“Yes, since university.”

“I must warn you, it is graphic.”

“That’s why I’m here and the husband isn’t.” He said simply. “He shouldn't remember her like this. Let’s get on with it.”

The doctor lifted up the sheet.

Roger flinched. “Yes, that’s her.”

The doctor replaced the sheet.

Roger poured the next shot of tequila. They had lost count, and hadn’t been discovered yet by the rest of the band. They were on the second bottle, though. They were two friends commiserating, saluting, sharing.

“I never thanked you...” John’s voice trailed off.

“Don’t.” Roger grasped John’s hand. “Never do.” He let go of his hand, and grabbed his shot. “Veronica’s ass?”

“None better.” John smiled, sadly.

-------------------

Tag List:   @phantom-fangirl-stuff @triggeredpossum @obsessedwithrogertaylor @groupiie-love@partydulce @richiethotzierz @sophierobisonartfoundationblr@psychostarkid@teathymewithben@smittyjaws @just-ladyme @botinstqueen @mydogisthebest@little-welsh-wonder @maxjesty@deakysdiscos @yourealegendroger @marvellouspengwing@molethemollie@deakysgirl@arrowswithwifi @tardisgrump

[byunskjm-blog]

Changes ( I )

Genre: Angst, Fluff, CEO! AU, Idol! AU

Pairing: Junmyeon x Reader x Baekhyun

Length: 2.5k

Changes Masterlist

It was like your whole world had crumbled around you. Hearing those words opened your eyes to how naive and stupid you were to actually believe a single word he said to you. It was supposed to be a private conversation between the two of them but it was impossible to hear anything other than what they were saying.

If you stayed another second you would risk your cries being heard. So instead you got up from your desk and began speed walking towards the nearest restroom. When you were in a stall you began throwing up the breakfast you had. Quite literally you were sick to your stomach and you were sure anyone else in your situation would be the same way if they heard what you did. You flushed down the bile, got up, and made your way to the granite sink. All thoughts had abandoned your mind and you were left absolutely clueless as you cleaned herself up. In this moment, this bathroom was the safest place in your life, if you left it would stir up a storm that you did not want. You reached for your phone to call someone to get you but you realized you left it at your desk with the rest of your belongings. It was guaranteed that if you went back there he would’ve noticed you left. It would be so easy to just leave without a word and disappear. Then he wouldn’t have to feel guilty for what he would do to you in the future and you would have time to mend your heart. You were pulled from your thoughts when a pack of women piled into the restroom to fix their makeup and use it. If you continued to just stand there you would make a fool of yourself, so you mustered up enough strength to return to your desk and act like everything was fine, at least for today.

By this time the woman had left his office and you could feel his gaze fixated on you. Usually you would feel butterflies in your stomach, but that was replaced with sickness. You refused to meet his eyes which he found bizarre. Your thoughts have been scattered like a jigsaw puzzle and you were trying your best to put it together but the pieces just didn’t seem to fit. Just when you were getting somewhere with it you were pulled from your thoughts when you heard the phone ring.

Your voice was shaky as you did the greeting you were trained to say. He didn’t even have to speak for you to know exactly who it was. “Can I see you in my office?” His tone was strictly professional, the kind of voice he used when on business calls with stockholders and big time artists. It’s not like you could say no to him, he was your boss after all.

You put the phone back and stood up from your seat tugging on the hem of your skirt to pull it down a bit. It was weird because he had seen you without anything on and you never minded it before, but now you felt humiliated when showing even the tiniest sliver of skin. You feared that it would make you more vulnerable than you already were.

It was only a few steps to his office but for some reason it took forever to reach it. You pushed through the big glass door that led to him in his office chair leaning on his desk waiting for you to take a seat. When you did you avoided his gaze at all costs. “So are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” He could always read you, that’s one of the reasons why you fell for him in the first place. But was he really questioning why you were upset? You wanted to say it was because he was having some woman’s child and that you felt utterly betrayed and heartbroken. But what you wanted to say and what you did say was totally different.

“I’m fine.” Junmyeon knew women well enough to know that ‘I’m fine’ screamed something far from it. He carded a hand through his raven hair and motioned to stand right in front of you to get a better look. He leaned against his oak wood desk with his arms crossed over his chest and gave you a look that would under any other circumstance make you crack and spill all your secrets, but this was different. No look he gave you could change how you felt. Even with him right in front of you, you still could not bring yourself to face him.

It wasn’t until he brought your chin between his pointer finger and thumb and lifted your head that you finally looked into his eyes. You were searching for something within them, something that would reassure you that everything would be ok and that you could trust him. But you didn’t find what you were looking for. “Now i’ll ask again. What’s wrong?” His voice kept the stern tone.

“I think you know very well what’s wrong Junmyeon.” Unlike his, your voice cracked just like your heart. Why was he playing dumb? He knew that you knew yet it felt like he wanted to hear you say what was making your heart break.

“So you heard.” His hand once again brushed through his hair as the stress rolled of his shoulders.

“Of course I heard. If you’re going to have a conversation with someone be sure to close the door fully.” You were now letting him have it. You had been concealing your pain ever since you heard.

“You weren’t meant to hear that.” Somehow he was trying to flip this on you and make you seem like you had been the one who messed up.

“It’s better i hear it now. So i don’t continue to look stupid.” You were grateful in some twisted way that you heard what you did. If you hadn’t you would continue to love someone who probably never loved you to begin with.

It was for the best that your heart be broken now so that you would have time to fix it and move on. Silence encapsulated the room, too scared to speak, scared that if you continued, a fight would break out and cause an unwanted scene. “She’s 2 months…” you were now piecing it all together. “Correct me if i’m wrong but we’ve been together for about 2 months.” You lifted your head to face him when you confronted him. The roles were reversed and he was the one who couldn’t look at you. “So when was it?” You were being curt. All you wanted was answers, no matter how much it hurt to hear.

“You were in Busan. It was after…” He was unable to finish his sentence but you knew exactly where it was leading.

You nodded in understanding. “So I leave for 2 weeks to mourn my dead mother and you knock someone up? Yup sounds about right.” You scoffed at how surreal this all sounded.

“What is that supposed to mean?” He felt offended by your words.

“It means that you never cared from the start and all this was to you was a good fuck.” Your eyes were locked with his as you spoke every word of that sentence.

Junmyeon couldn’t believe a word he was hearing. “Is that what you honestly think? That I have never cared?”

You looked away when he asked you those questions because a tiny part of you did think he cared but that part was being crushed by a part that told you he didn’t.

“If I never cared then why would I go out of my way to make this relationship work? I could get a good fuck anywhere but with you I wanted more than that. And it hurts to know you think that low of me.”

Were you actually hearing this? It was quite amazing how Kim Junmyeon could turn any situation into one where he is the victim. “What am I supposed to think of you? You literally got some girl pregnant and expect me not to feel hurt or betrayed. You don’t get to play victim this time.”

Both of you were reaching your breaking points, both hurt, and both wish this had never happened. “We weren’t even together at the time. You were in Busan and I was here, missing you.”

That’s when you lost all control you had left. “Do you even hear yourself? You missed me so much to the point where you put your dick in the nearest warm body. And you are totally right we weren’t together so I have no right to be mad or upset because were we ever really together?” You got up from the chair with tears spilling from yours eyes. You had to get out of here now, you felt like you were being suffocated. You didn’t want to hear the half assed excuse he was about to come up with, all you wanted was to leave.

With your hand on the handle you stopped when you heard his voice, “If you walk out now, you walk out on us, on everything we’ve been through.”

You let out a shaky breath at his words. “What do you want me to do Junmyeon? You want me to stick around and play house with you and your kid? Want me to live in this pretend world where you didn’t betray my trust?”

He was silent. He didn’t want any of that. All he wanted was you.

“I can’t do that to myself. I won’t do that to myself. I have more self respect than you think.” And with that you walked out of there finally finding the ability to breathe again.

Today was the last day you would be anywhere near that office or him. You were leaving and not looking back. You came back from the supply closet with a box to put all your belongings in. In these couple months you made this desk like a second home, keeping snacks, photos, cute notes, memories. But you wanted nothing to do with those memories. You trashed everything you didn’t need like dumb sticky notes from Junmyeon that he’d leave for you in the morning, or his favorite treats that you kept when he got hungry. All you were left with in the end was a few photos and some other nick nacks.

You realized you would have to hand in your letter of resignation to him. So you sat down and filled out the form and prepared for the last time you had to see him. When you finished it you made sure all your things were in order so that you could leave right after. You knocked before walking in making sure you kept your professionalism. He looked very different from the last hour you saw him. His tie was loosened and he was slouched in his chair. No guilt came to you, you wanted to get this over with as quick as possible.

You placed the document on his desk and when he went to read it his eyes widened. “Why are you doing this to me? Can’t you see i'm hurting too. Now you want to leave me.” The hurt in his voice was evident.

“I don’t want to do anything. It’s about what I need to do. I have to leave because seeing you will only hurt me more. And as cliche as it sounds if you truly did care then you would let me go.” You were definitely being more civil with him this time around.

“If that’s what you need to do then I don’t have any right to stop you.”

You thought that was the end of it so you turned to leave but before you could even take a step he spoke again. “But i don’t think i could ever truly let you go.”

Your whole body was telling you to say something but your mouth came up empty with no words being spoken. Even though your mouth was dry your eyes definitely weren’t. Was there any situation where it would be ok for you to stay with him? All signs pointed to catastrophe and heartbreak. But how could you leave him without feeling anything? How could you ever recover from the damage that has been done? He had burned you beyond recovery.

Wiping away a tear that had fallen in your moments of weakness, you gathered your remaining strength and walked out of that office with your head held high. It took all the willpower you had to not look back to see if he had been in as much pain as you were in. All you did was grab that cardboard box and make your way to the elevator.

Your mind was in a whole other universe which is what caused you to bump into someone. Immediately you apologized not looking at the person who was on the receiving end of your recklessness. “It’s ok.” It was the voice that caught your attention. That voice. It wasn’t necessary to see the face to know the owner of that voice. It was the same woman who was the cause of your heartache. The woman recognized you as well and took this opportunity to ask you if you had seen her phone in Junmyeon’s office. Even with the cardboard box in hand and tears on the edge the lady didn’t grasp the fact that you were no longer working there. Regardless you still complied and answered her question honestly. It wasn’t long after that you went your separate ways. That sudden encounter didn’t do anything but add more worries and thoughts.

It seemed as though the universe really did hate you because when you stepped out of the building you were greeted with a downpour of rain. Obviously you weren’t expecting this kind of weather so you didn’t have a jacket or umbrella on hand. In all honesty your health and well being wasn’t your concern right now, so you started out on your trek home. You could’ve taken the bus home to be faster and get out of the rain but you didn’t. You just kept walking along a sidewalk that was next to one of the busiest roads in Seoul.

Your thoughts took over once again and the outside world became mute. When a hand wrapped around your wrist you went into panic mode. Were you being kidnapped? The mystery person started running with his hand still attached to yours. You had no other choice but to run with him. He took a sharp right and came to a stop. The rain was no longer soaking you. You turned to see who the assailant was. At first you saw a dark haired man with a black hoodie and black face mask. It wasn’t until he took both pieces off that you could finally breathe right again. He could tell how relieved you were to see his face which only made him smile. “Baekhyun what are you doing here?”

[briangroth27]

The Get Down Part 2 Review

I enjoyed the second part of Netflix’s The Get Down and I’m sorry it ended up being the last. This show was exciting, engaging, and completely outside what I normally watch—I’ve never been a big fan of the 70s, disco, or hip-hop—but I loved it and found a new appreciation for all three. I’ll definitely miss these characters and this aesthetic, but I’m glad they found a way to wrap things up in a (mostly) satisfying way. Unlike other reviews I’ve read, I didn’t have a problem with the release structure of this season. Dividing it into “Parts 1 and 2” didn’t throw me at all, first because it’s just branding and second because I always felt Part 1 had a solid beginning, middle, and end. It also had a cliffhanger to leave you wanting more, just like any other show’s season finale. With the new cartoon sequences and the time jump, Part 2 feels so different stylistically that if they had been released together, it would’ve felt jarring and weird.

Full spoilers...

After The Get Down Brothers’ victory at the end of Part 1, they’re reveling in their success while trying to build dream lives for themselves. Zeke’s (Justice Smith) struggle to identify himself in light of his (and everyone else’s) dual lives through his Yale application letter was a perfect encapsulation of this, while also serving as a nice reminder of what happened in Part 1. That duality was a great build off of Zeke giving a speech promoting Ed Koch (Frank Wood), but then immediately running off to perform for the very people Koch was against. The pull between Zeke’s future at Yale/his internship with Mr. Gunns (Michael Gill) and his future as a musical superstar formed a strong backbone to Part 2, and I imagine the looming choice between disappointment now with a good future promised by Yale/Gunns and a dream life granted by music in the present that might have no future is one a lot of people can empathize with. My circumstances aren’t anywhere near as dire as Zeke’s, but I certainly struggle with working towards my dream career or giving up and settling for a routine 9-to-5 job that has financial stability. I think the show did justice to this struggle, but it could’ve been a bit more fleshed out (though Part 2’s shortened episode order may’ve truncated that arc). Zeke’s clear discomfort with navigating the casual racism at the Yale club but still wanting to keep his hopes of college alive despite Shaolin (Shameik Moore) showing up—and then choosing Shao when things got way out of hand—was great to watch. I liked that Zeke stood up for Shao and didn’t rat him out to Gunns, even though it meant giving up his shot at Yale and the internship. That defense made their final split at the end of Part 2 even more heartbreaking, when Zeke discovered Shao had allowed Boo-Boo (Tremaine Brown, Jr.) to sell drugs. It was smart to make their connection to the drugs Shao was pushing not just a way to get rich, like Boo-Boo was trying to do, but a situation that could actually get Shao killed if he stopped, which made it much more complex than Zeke—whose quitting over this felt totally right—wanted to see. Zeke and Shao’s final fight felt perfect and tragic (and was perfectly acted by Smith and Moore), and Zeke scoffing at Shao’s real name when the “kung fu superhero” blinders were finally off was excellent. I feel like Zeke fully understood that even though he’d been best friends with this guy, Shao wasn’t going to stop dragging him into his world (whether it was Shao’s choice to do so or not) and Zeke couldn’t save him, so he had to save himself by cutting Curtis out. I really liked the reversal of the end of Part 1 that the destruction of The Get Down Brothers created: there, he chose rap over the system, but here he bails on his music to go back to Yale.

It would’ve been interesting to expose Zeke to the punk rock scene after Gunns’ daughter Claudia (Julia Garner) discussed it with him. I get him not wanting to explore it after they kissed since it was so closely tied to her, but it would’ve been a neat to at least get his thoughts on it. If the series had more time, rock’s war with disco could’ve made for a good obstacle for Mylene’s (Herizen F. Guardiola) career as well and the musical divide between Claudia’s interests and Mylene’s career would’ve made them direct rivals in an interesting way. That said, I’m glad Zeke came clean about his kiss with Claudia to Mylene instead of trying to hide it for an extended period of time, which helped to defuse the potentially explosive drama it might’ve otherwise caused. Their fight over her saying she was single on TV felt a little too well-worn: it would’ve been more original to subvert expectations and have Zeke understand the demands of public images himself, since he’s somewhat famous too. Regardless of that cliché plot point, the show definitely had me rooting for Zeke and Mylene, even knowing that something tragic was racing at them. Smith and Guardiola had great chemistry and totally sold their romance in both their happy and harder times. Zeke talking Mylene down from Misty Holloway’s (Renée Elise Goldsberry) excellent “Backstabbers” attack was one of those great moments between the two of them. I also loved the knowing goodbye she gave him when she told him she was leaving at the end of the season; that she didn’t repeat “forever” when she said she loves him was heartbreaking. However, the renewed hope that fills Zeke while doing his poetry in his impromptu studio session—the beginning of his recording career, no doubt—was the perfect reaction to his heartbreak. In the end, it was just him and his rhymes, and that’s not only supremely fitting, but a nice segue to the flash-forwards of adult Zeke (Naz) rapping alone on stage. Zeke’s poetry with his future self was very well done (and extremely well-acted) and makes me tear up every time I watch it, while overlaying it with Mylene’s “See You on the Other Side” was a very cool mirror of the Get Down Brothers sampling “Set Me Free” for their battle at the end of Part 1. Reuniting Zeke and Mylene at the very end was extremely fulfilling—I’m choosing to believe that silhouetted trio was the actual Soul Madonnas, not just a tribute—and gave their romance something of a happy ending. Even if that isn’t them, or if it’s not supposed to imply Zeke and Mylene finally got back together, I think he was still waiting for her—and maybe only for her—just like Francisco (Jimmy Smits) waited for Lydia (Zabryna Guevara). No matter what, Zeke and Mylene will always be connected by their music.

Mylene’s journey away from gospel music and into a more sex-laden atmosphere worked really well as a parallel for her growing up and moving beyond the confines of her religious upbringing, even with as blatant as her father (Giancarlo Esposito) being a literal preacher was. I did appreciate and enjoy Mylene finally getting out of that situation with her dad before he died, though, and Guardiola was great at portraying Mylene’s attempts to break free as well as her confidence when it came to taking hold of her group’s future. I also liked the internal drama within the Soul Madonnas that was stirred up by Yolanda’s (Stefanee Marin) concerns about them becoming too sexy, but I thought it should’ve lasted longer. As I’ve seen pointed out elsewhere, her return to the group an episode after ratting out the plans for their sexy show was jarring. I felt like that was a major missed opportunity for Mylene to step up as leader to work out a solution all three of them felt comfortable with while also digging into Yolanda and Regina’s (Shyrley Rodriguez) perspectives more. Personality-wise, Mylene was already a good balance between Yolanda and the more fun-loving, assertive Regina, and it would’ve been great to see her become the balance within the group as well. Seeing her step into a leadership role within the Soul Madonnas would’ve not only given her a new struggle (one that paralleled Zeke and Shao’s fight for the future of the Get Down Brothers, now that I think of it), but would’ve better built her arc towards taking control of her career from Roy (Eric Bogosian). Had Mylene gotten the chance to show him and us that she could handle internal dissension and be a strong voice within the group through the Yolanda incident, it probably would’ve sold Roy agreeing to her terms a bit more. Standing up to him and threatening to walk out of her contract—and Roy caving—may have been unrealistic, as others have noted, but I still liked that she got that moment. Given the necessarily rushed nature of the season, Roy having the sense to keep his talent happy was an emotional win I can get behind, even if it doesn’t make business or real-life sense. 

The other thing I would’ve liked to see in regard to Mylene is where she sees her music going. “See You on the Other Side” implies she won’t fully transition to the full-on sexy thing, but is she content to only do ballads? We know she greatly admired Misty Holloway (at least until Ruby Con), so did she want to be the next Misty or something original? Where does her artistic instinct take her, and what kind of music does she want to be making? Would she have considered pioneering a new style? Would she have tried to dabble in punk rock as that started to challenge disco (and rock ultimately defeated it)? That would’ve been a cool way to pit Mylene’s style against Zeke’s (and Cadillac’s (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II)) in a potential Part 3, give her an entirely different sort of challenge as she tries to adapt to that style, and create an entirely unexpected way to wrap Claudia back into the storyline; maybe she could’ve inspired Mylene to try out what’s out there, since early punk rock was inclusive of women. Of course, those all feel like Part 3 developments. In Part 2, I still would’ve liked to see more of her opinion of what her music should be.

I liked that Mylene and Shao fighting over Zeke’s future gave a much more personal stake to the hip-hop vs. Wall Street nature of Zeke’s two potential paths. That the two of them were the most important figures in Zeke’s life and were fighting over him gave that triangle an interesting aspect that could’ve been fleshed out more, but I liked what we got. I could easily buy that Mylene’s barb about Shaolin being romantically interested in Zeke was more than just an offhand insult. So many characters commented on his and Zeke’s friendship as something more than platonic, like everyone was seeing something he didn’t see (or didn’t want to admit) himself, that I think the writers were definitely hinting that he’s gay or bi. Even Fat Annie (Lillias White) gives a knowing smile when Shao says Zeke isn’t his boyfriend. Shao also immediately understood what was going on between Dizzee (Jaden Smith) and Thor (Noah Le Gros), even though when he “caught them” they weren’t doing anything remotely sexual, which to me implies he's been there, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. Though their friendship was real and he definitely depended on Zeke to provide lyrics to his music, so of course he wouldn’t want to see Zeke head off to Wall Street, I think Shao really might’ve loved him. Perhaps the superhero ninja persona he crafted wasn’t just to cover up the fact that he had no one, but to hide his true identity as well. After all, the only person he really lets his walls down for and tells his “secret identity” to is Zeke. Of course, you can share your deepest truths with your best friend just as easily as with the person you love without it meaning you love your best friend too, but in this era it seems telling that Shao’s ultra-masculine alter-ego only comes down for Zeke in a desperate effort to make him stay.

It’s sad that Shao didn’t ever seem to have had anyone and needed Zeke a whole lot more than Zeke needed him. That made their split all the more heartbreaking. The push and pull over who was actually leading the Get Down Brothers—Zeke or Shaolin—worked well to build their growing conflict to the breaking point. Once they were there, I thought it was a beautiful and heart-rending note to have Shao resort to a Fat Annie movie when Zeke tried to walk away from him. Speaking of Fat Annie, Shaolin falling into dealing angel dust was disappointing given how strongly he’d only cared about being a DJ in Part 1. It’s tragic that moving it for Cadillac was the only way to keep his music going, particularly as it directly led to the end of his DJ career. It’s even more tragic that Shao ended up staying with Annie to protect the rest of The Get Down Brothers after getting even Cadillac out of her grasp. As sad as that is (and Moore sold Shao’s defeat perfectly), it felt like an earned end for him and satisfyingly explained why Fat Annie would let Zeke and the others get away. I wish we were getting a Part 3 to show him escape her grasp.

Adding Dizzee as a secondary narrator was an interesting choice, but it would’ve worked better if the show had honestly and more deeply explored his secret life. That would’ve justified and smoothed over the feeling I got that he was so unconnected from the main plot this season. Aside from Dizzee getting yelled at by his parents (Karen Aldridge, Ron Cephas Jones) alongside his brothers, Get Down Brothers gigs, and accidentally taking the tainted angel dust, it felt like he was existing in a slightly different show that didn’t really reconnect with the rest of the plotlines. As I’ve seen pointed out elsewhere, Part 1 had him doing his own thing too, but still made his connection to the rest of the plot a lot cleaner and more important when he introduced “Set Me Free” to the real tastemakers of New York and made it a hit. Here, even when he collided with the subplots of other characters, like taking the supposedly very dangerous tainted angel dust, he just got a little sick for a minute (which was weird in and of itself) and then continued doing his own thing. That said, his narration and the cartoon segments played into not only the heightened reality of Part 1, but the comics and 70s cartoons the guys would’ve been into as well. I like the interpretation I’ve seen elsewhere that (most of) the cartoon sequences are idealized versions of what the characters were experiencing, like the animated scene that follows their victory at the unity concert where all their comic book alter egos are reveling in their success before the real world comes crashing down around them and their dreams. That was probably the most successful use of the cartoons. On the other hand, there were some animated sequences that were literally just a character arriving at/leaving a building, which felt awkward and pointless. There didn’t seem to be any thematic reasoning for those moments to be animated and the transitions between real and cartoon characters were awkward and disruptive when used that way.

The biggest disappointment about Dizzee’s arc this season was how shy the show was about his burgeoning sexuality. I expected much more to Dizzee coming to terms with being either bi or gay and they literally didn’t even dare speak that love’s name, which was a bizarre choice for a season that also featured Ruby Con and numerous drag queens. It was weird that Dizzee and Thor weren’t able to ever kiss, even when they were painting each other. Dizzee inferring that Boo-Boo wouldn’t ever understand what he was going through was perfectly tragic (and it was a very well-acted scene by both of them), but I wish we’d gotten to see him take a chance and tell his little brother the truth. It would’ve opened Dizzee’s arc to the rest of the characters and Boo-Boo (and the rest of them) trying to deal with it could’ve been a solid dramatic arc. At the very least, a scene with Shao giving Dizzee some comforting words (whether Shao is into guys too or not) would’ve been great. Since Dizzee didn’t tell anyone, feeling (and animating himself) as an alien made a lot of sense and worked, and Jaden Smith conveyed the pain of knowing he couldn’t share his secret very well. I thought for sure this Part would do an AIDS storyline given the time period and the impact it had on the gay community and that would’ve been a powerful, important story to tell. I’m not sure I could’ve handled that level of heartbreak given everything else that went down in the finale, but I did go into Part 2 expecting tragedy heading for Dizzee and Thor. However, what the show gave us instead felt pointless and needlessly mean. My impression was absolutely that Dizzee got hit by the train and that was not a satisfying conclusion to his story at all. Not only did they not let him kiss the guy he was in love with, but half the gay couple gets killed? Come on. The two of them never fit into flamboyant stereotypes about gay guys, but “bury your gays” is an even worse cliché. It felt like a cheap shock that didn’t need to happen. I don’t think the series would’ve had any less of an impact had they just been happy together and it didn’t gain anything by (maybe) killing Dizzee.

Comparatively, Boo-Boo and Ra-Ra (Skylan Brooks) didn’t get much to do this season, and that’s a shame. Boo-Boo’s stint in the drug trade was certainly unexpected and it was disappointing to watch him get wrapped up in that lifestyle, even if all three Kipling brothers’ reaction to their parents grounding them for the drugs they found was funny. Like Shao’s predicament, it was tragic that it was the only way he could see to raise his social status. Regardless, Brown, Jr. clearly had a blast as Boo-Boo briefly hit the high life with this dangerous gig. Boo-Boo’s ultimate arrest was sad and shocking; maybe I was “stuck on hope” or looking for a Hollywood ending, but I didn’t actually expect Boo-Boo to end up in prison. Along with Dizzee’s apparent death, that definitely brought the fantastical nature of the show back to the ground with a stark reminder of the realities of life. That could’ve easily upset the tone of the show, but I think it worked.

I liked Ra-Ra thinking about the future and dabbling in making what The Get Down Brothers do truly profitable and long-term. His sojourn into the Universal Zulu Nation territory was a cool introduction of that style and I liked that he wasn’t welcome because The Get Down Brothers had been marked as drug dealers. The positive culture there was a nice counterpoint to what we’d seen so far and I wish the show had time to explore it more via Ra-Ra’s perspective. I wish it weren’t so animated though; if the animated sections are to be considered the characters’ dream worlds, why is the real salvation from Fat Annie the gang finds in Ra-Ra’s trip animated as well? At first that felt incongruous, but perhaps it’s because the guys aren’t really saved from Fat Annie at all. They get out of her contract, but she still gets Boo-Boo arrested and they still break up. In any case, I wish we’d gotten more of Ra-Ra this season. Brooks brought a great, distinctive energy to Ra-Ra and I would’ve liked to see more of that. Trying to woo Tanya (Imani Lewis) on the phone was so funny and sweet, and this half of the show could’ve used a bit more of his innocence and optimism. I also would’ve liked to see where his forward-thinking got him in the future. He’s one of the main characters and deserved at least a hint at his destiny. 

Cadillac’s love for video games and disco made for a really fun and unique gangster, while his desire to go to space was a great, unexpected reveal! I’m sure Abdul-Mateen II had an absolute blast playing this character and he’ll definitely remain one of the most memorable parts of the show. It was awesome that even Cadillac felt like he got a complete ending to his arc in Part 2. I liked that the unity concert actually changed Cadillac’s mind and got him to successfully break free of Fat Annie. Agreeing to let the Get Down Brothers go after Shao acknowledged their common bonds of abuse by Fat Annie and their desires to be free was a great moment and I really liked both characters at that point. I loved that he’s going to use his freedom to work on his own music, even if his time as a music producer never felt fully fleshed-out in either Part of the series. However, that may have been the point. His revelation about not ever really focusing on his Super-High Voltage Records label all this time felt like a wake-up call to people with goals everywhere: he’s gotten nowhere on his dream at least partially because he never really buckled down and tried. For me, that was a surprising connection to a character who seemed like he’d be completely nefarious and unrelatable at first! I would’ve liked to see him struggle to make it as a producer as Disco died in a potential Part 3. That said, there were a few bumps in the road for Cadillac’s development. It seemed like there was a bit of disconnect between the end of Part 1 and the beginning of Part 2: I felt like he was far more prepared to get revenge on The Get Down Brothers at the end of Part 1 and thought he already knew where they’d gotten their sound system and records, but that reveal was saved for Part 2. It’s possible I misread his moment watching them perform at the end of Part 1, though. His continued obsessive “love” of Mylene was creepy and didn’t amount to anything, so I don’t know why it needed to persist beyond Part 1 (or even past the pilot). On the other hand, I’m so glad that neither that nor Mylene’s producer Shane’s (Jeremie Harris) somewhat teased interest in her ever became anything. I didn’t need to see her sexually used or abused by some skeevy adult in power.

Besides, Mylene’s father using her was enough. As blunt as a man of God trying to keep his daughter holy was, it was cleverly twisted by Ramon trying to exploit Mylene’s career to increase the standing—and the trappings—of his church. I liked that his ambitions became just as gaudy and “godless” as he feared Mylene’s career and soul would become, hurting himself and those around him in the process. His presence even actively drove her to the drugs he feared her fame would expose her to, like when she used cocaine to calm her nerves when he showed up at the Ruby Con. As strong an example of how much impact he had on her as that was, however, it was a somewhat bizarre one-off moment (perhaps in an expanded season, she’d have her own drug problem to parallel what Shao and Boo-Boo were doing). On the other hand, his controlling nature extending into beating his wife felt cliché and unnecessary. I hated him so much in the end that I didn’t care he died; in fact, I was happy to see him go. That said, I wish there’d been more fallout to his suicide than Mylene overcoming it as a survivor (though a strong Mylene is always a good thing). While Ramon probably became the villain of his own story without realizing it, Fat Annie reveled in her ill-gotten empire. She was a great villain and the implication that she’d been abusing both Shao and Cadillac made her feel evil in a far ickier way. I’ve seen people say killing the cat was too much, but I think they did it to prove she really would kill more kids. Perhaps the writing could’ve given her some more dimension and motivation, but she never felt like a one-note character to me (possibly because her performance was so entertaining). I liked that Francisco was finally revealed as Mylene’s actual father and the fact that he “slept alone” since 1960 was sweet. Though it was a little rushed and sidelined, his end felt earned. I feel like we should’ve gotten more of Lydia’s reactions to everything happening with the two men in her life, as well as her daughter’s career, in far more detail than we did. I also would’ve liked more from Jackie Moreno (Kevin Corrigan) than the couple of songs he wrote for Mylene and his support in the contract renegotiation scene. He seemed like such a presence in the first half the series that it was odd he was so sidelined here. It would’ve been nice if more had been done with the three kingdoms of Hip Hop pioneers—Kool Herc (Eric D. Hill, Jr.), Grandmaster Flash (Mamoudou Athie), and Afrika Bambaataa (Okieriete Onaodowan)—as well before they came together to save the kids from their contract with Fat Annie. If we’d known them better, seeing them unite for this moment would’ve felt like a bigger deal. 

I liked the way the teens’ success in Part 1 segued into the manipulation of that success by the people behind Zeke and Mylene in Part 2. That made for a surprising (if inevitable) bittersweetness to their wins at the end of the first Part while giving them new battles to fight that didn’t feel like retreads of the first half of the series, even if many of the same players were involved. For example, the dance/rap-off between the Get Down Brothers and Cadillac’s disco music at Les Inferno was really entertaining and a great restructuring of Zeke and Cadillac’s dance-off over Mylene in the pilot. Fat Annie’s record contract for the Get Down Brothers worked well as a plot for me and I liked that the final rap battle wasn’t just about freeing themselves from that contract, but about proving that using a band just isn’t the same. That said, I really liked the gut-punch reveal at the end that the first hip-hop record did use a band. That sort of historical irony played really well, and had the show continued it seems like that sort of thing might’ve been the battle of a potential Part 3: as I saw pointed out on IGN, it’s ironic that Mylene is such a disco revelation too late in the game for that genre, while The Get Down Brothers arrived on the hip-hop scene a bit too early. I would’ve liked to see the characters navigate the changing trends in music and it’s a shame we won’t get to see more of their stories. Having so many of the main characters meet bad ends was sad, but felt real (even if I’ll never buy that dark/depressing is inherently more “realistic”).

Although I liked a lot the new songs, none of them matched “Set Me Free” or The Get Down Brothers’ winning mix from the end of Part 1 except “See You on the Other Side.” That one had a lot of emotion packed into it and was perfectly used to wrap up the show. The remix of Gonna Fly Now (the Rocky Theme) was cool too; it’s also used directly after they win the Unity Concert and right before their dreams are crushed; like Rocky, they go the distance but don’t really get to win. I loved the heightened reality this show lived in, while the Soul Train-type show Platinum Boogie was a fun bit of 70s atmosphere and I loved how outlandish the Studio 54-esque Ruby Con nightclub was, both thematically and design-wise. The truly creepy and unnerving intro to Episode 4 was very effective and surreal; so effective that I’m not sure the rest of the club or the episode lived up to what the intro promised, even if it still mostly worked. The use of stock footage from the real-life 70s intercut with the glossier night clubs and modern film quality still plays very well too. This world was so unique and well-constructed that it feels like we lost something special with the show’s cancellation.

I’m going to miss The Get Down, these characters, and this world. The actors were excellent across the board and I can’t wait to see more of them in their future projects. Despite some missed opportunities for exploring the characters more (mostly caused by the truncated season), this was a great, satisfying conclusion to the show. In regard to actual events, these 11 episodes may be fictionalized and softened (from what I’ve gathered from other reviews), but they’re still an entertaining insight into an aspect of history I never knew about. If you never gave The Get Down a chance, it’s definitely worth checking out!

Check out more of my reviews, opinions, and original short stories here!

[mrjcb]

How a Sexual Abuse Victim Healed by Embracing Her Submissive Nature

I don’t really know how to begin this post except to say that my girlfriend was abused when she was 12-13 years old. It was by an older cousin who's a few years older than her. It started in the pool when they were playing around wrestling. He would hold her against the wall and dry-hump her.

The first time she didn’t know what was happening, so she didn’t say or do anything – but the second time she asked him to stop. He didn’t.

The sexual abuse continued and happened many more times times whenever he would be alone with her. She feared being anywhere near him and was too scared to tell anyone what was happening.

The worst time was when she was sleeping. It was at a family vacation, and in the middle of the night he snuck into the bed she was sleeping in. He began humping the mattress while lying next to her with his hand on her stomach. She rolled her body away from him in an attempt to dissuade him. But he didn’t care. He leaned over and peered into her eyes to see if she was sleeping, and out of fear she pretended to be. He began to rub and grind his bare cock against her. She said she cried silently just waiting for it to be over. She doesn’t remember how long it went on for on this particular night, and doesn’t remember it ever ending.

The thought of this still enrages me.

Although he didn’t rape her and it could have been a lot worse, she was very traumatized by it.

She first told me of this years ago, the night before her family was having a get together that this cousin was going to be attending. I didn’t know how to react. I didn’t know what to do. What do you do? I wanted to tell her entire family the perversion that was inflicted on her, but of course she made me promise not to say or do anything.

So I sat there, time after time, year after year, seeing my girlfriend have panic attacks whenever she had to see him. Even the thought of maybe seeing him or the possibility of having to be in contact with him would ruin her for the entire day. And that’s just how it was. Tough shit.

It’s strange thinking that the actions of some teenager can make a grown man like me feel powerless a decade and a half later, but that’s exactly how I felt when she was around him. I couldn’t do anything to help her. How do you fight something like that? It’s like she was facing this invisible demon that only she could see, and I wasn’t able to stand in front of her to protect her.

Her and I started our full-time D/s relationship in February, 2017. And since then, we have seen this abuser-cousin of hers four different times.

The first time, she had a full on panic attack. She was a mess. When we were at the get-together with him, it was the same as usual for my girlfriend. I tried my best to take her mind somewhere else with my new sense of authority with her. And it sort of helped. But not really. 

The second time it was a little better. By this time I had gotten her a choker necklace that represents her submission and our bond. I told her that he is only allowed to speak to her – and she is only allowed to respond to him – while her hand is on her collar. And I don’t mean to trivialize trauma, but believe me, this simple thing helped more than I could have ever prayed for.

By the third time, her and I had gotten more experienced and developed in the dynamic (this was only last month, June 2017), and I told her exactly what to say to him and exactly where to sit. She was panicky before going to her aunt’s house to see her family, but when we arrived, she was the best I’ve ever seen her in that situation. She was her normal self for most of the day.

And the fourth time, on her birthday earlier this month (July 2017), we had to see him. It was the best day she’s ever had when dealing with him. She was stressed before people arrived (she turned on the toaster without putting bread in it, and put her cup of coffee in the fridge instead of the milk, that sort of thing; stuff she doesn’t normally do), but she was okay overall.

Now, I’m not saying that it’s been “as easy as 1-2-3″ for her. It hasn’t. Our whole experience together over nearly a decade has been building her up. And to be clear: I’m not one bit special in all of this. It’s all her. It’s about her submission, and not at all about my dominance. She makes the rules for the relationship and how she wants to be treated, and I merely facilitate it. That’s it. She’s found something that has helped her – really helped her – and I feel obligated to write about it, with her permission, of course.

Our consensual-non-consent in particular has helped her reclaim & re-define the devastating experience of her saying “no” and having the man not listen to her. It’s no longer some distant, blotched-out memory that she has to be frightened of. We’ve created new memories that represent eternal trust between two people who love each other. It’s all on her terms now.

And I don’t claim to be a psychologist or an expert on any of this stuff, but I can see first hand that the trust in our relationship has helped her in so many ways.

She has lived for a very long time with an “exterior” that I’ve spoken about once or twice here on Tumblr, and I’m going to add it here again: She’s fierce and strong and fearlessly independent. And that’s what she portrays, on the outside. I believe it's a defense mechanism. She has guarded her femininity and her beauty, afraid of what it meant to be a woman in front of a man. Maybe because of the abuse, maybe because of something else. But it’s like she’s holding something back and it’s a front and not genuinely who she is or who she wants to be.

But underneath – like when she’s in subspace – she’s this totally different girl, and that’s really the girl that I’m in love with. It might sound esoteric or maybe it’s silly, but that’s how I feel. It feels like when she’s in subspace I’m finally seeing her for who she is in complete, vulnerable, encapsulating detail.

When she’s in subspace, her eyes change, her voice changes, the way she acts changes, the way she processes information changes.

And all throughout the years that we’ve been together, I’ve had very short glimpses of her submissive side and it’s been completely addicting to me. But I didn’t know how to “keep” her there. And I didn’t want to keep here there for my benefit, but because I could see how free she was. How liberated. I probably sound a little crazy. But for years I would see glimpses of this submissive girl and I was madly in love with her, but I couldn’t keep this submissive side out. Her true self. I didn’t understand it at all. I just knew that she was in there and she would show up in our most intimate moments but she’d be gone the next.

So that’s where our D/s dynamic comes in. I feel like she’s finally able to be who she truly is, deep in her core, almost all of the time now. And I can see the difference. She’s more relaxed, she doesn’t get frustrated, or panicky, or stressed – she’s at peace and doesn’t have worries on her mind. She’s free. She’s able to let go of her problems and baggage that she’s been carrying around her entire life, and her emotional and psychological scars are healing.

She’s been made whole. And I love it.

And you know, looking back, she’s always shown me who she is underneath, but – in hindsight – it was me who didn’t really understand what she needed in order to flourish and blossom. It’s like I could see this beautiful, beautiful flower but I didn’t know how to water it and I didn’t know what it needed to grow. But now I do. And when I stop and look at the garden around me, it’s just… breathtaking.

Thanks @needylittlecunt for encouraging me to write this. I was afraid it was a little tone-deaf coming from a guy who could not possibly imagine the devastating reality of being sexually abused.

And thank you @the-pleasure-of-unpleasure for writing her post “D/s & Anxiety” because it really struck a chord with both of us, and made me believe that this could be worth expressing.

I am not a health professional of any kind, mental or physical. If you are suffering or have suffered emotional trauma, panic attacks, or you’re thinking about suicide or harming yourself, please see a professional that can give you the care you need & deserve. You are worth it.

[wwithoutwords]

As was foretold, here is the exclusive interview in full with outstandingly pleasant and extremely talented guitarist of This Patch of Sky, Kit Day! I highly recommend listening to the linked song, “Her Beating Wings”, while enjoying the following. Hidden within is even an announcement of a new work coming from them in the near future(!!) Huge thanks to Kit for granting me this chance even though we missed each other at Dunk!USA. I simply can’t wait to hear more from the group in the future!

"These Small Spaces" just dropped just over a month ago and the response seems to be pretty outstanding so far. I’ve heard more than a couple people saying “album of the year”, which is especially meaningful given both Godspeed and Do Make Say Think just released new albums too. How do you feel about all this?

It’s a bit surreal, honestly. We love the record, but, it always strikes us odd to hear things like that being said about it. To be compared to our influences and (dare I say it) heroes is nothing short of humbling. We are determined to make a sound that we, as a group, want to hear. The idea that it can mean something to others is a literal dream come true. We are all excited, hungry and thankful for all of the love and support. As for “album of the year”, I suppose that depends on who’s listening and what they take from it. Our goal is just to make the most beautiful music we can.

What do you think makes "These Small Spaces" different from your self-titled (and prior works)? It certainly doesn’t feel like “more of the same”.

We really set out to do something different, purposefully trying to create something bigger and more beautiful then anything in the past, and we believe we achieved our goal.  You’ll notice a trend of past albums how quickly we released material (about a year between each release), and this album took a span of 3 years to release after S/T.  We really took our time with each song on These Small Spaces instead of just rushing into the studio to quickly record.  After we had all the songs written for this album we spent another 6 months of creating full pre-production recordings of each song.  This really helped us dive into each song to make it the best we could before recording the real thing.  

The amount of time you spent honing these tracks really shows in the final product, so thank you for taking the time to really perfect the sound. Since it was about 3 years from S/T to These Small Spaces, should fans sit tight waiting for the next full-length? Or do you think the next work might be a little quicker out the gates?

We’re already spitting out ideas and writing some new stuff.  I don’t think it will be another 3 years before we release a follow up to These Small Spaces, but don’t hold me to that!

What is the significance of the coordinates given in the song “Coordinates”?

The title “Coordinates” pin points a favorite hiking spot many people in our home state of Oregon visit regularly.  When on top of the mountains, you this sense of being able to conquer anything while basking in breathtaking views of where we live.  Oregon will always hold our hearts as home.  

What was the process for getting This Will Destroy You to remix “Pale Lights” for the release? It is a really solid endcap to the album.

A few of us had become friends with the guys in TWDY years ago while playing in a previous band named Chiaroscuro, touring with them during the release of Tunnel Blanket. We have always been a huge fan of what TWDY does and have always wanted to work with them on a project. After we wrote and recorded Pale lights we felt like it was a perfect song for them to do a remix for! We contacted them and immediately they were stoked about it.  The end result gave the song a whole new feeling without losing the backbone of the original version.  

What with the success of the TWDY remix of Pale Lights, can we look forward to more collaborations like that in the future? I think a lot of fans get hyped to see some of their favorite artists interacting with each other.

This was such a fun process for us we definitely would love to do this more with other artists we follow (stay tuned for one more remix to be released in early 2018).  I know we’d definitely love to do remixes for other artists as well!

I know it’s tough, but if you had to pick a “favorite child” track from the new album, which would it be? Or maybe which one encapsulates the current iteration of This Patch of Sky best?

The overall favorite track from the band is 'Her Beating Wings'. This song specifically went through a huge metamorphosis over the span of 6+ months and is by far the most complicated to play. The original idea for the song I (Kit) wrote shortly before my daughter was born which is the original inspiration for this song. The heartbeats you hear throughout are a representation of her and new life being created.

Thank you so much for sharing the story of "Her Beating Wings", it's absolutely beautiful. Everyone I've discussed the album with cites that one as being a standout among standouts. Can you expand a bit on what makes it complicated to play live?

This is so cool to hear that people are saying that about this song!  There’s so many little layers and parts that make up this song, especially in the final build up, we’d want to make sure it was done right when we play it live.  Ultimately our goal is to play this song live with brass and one other string player.

Can you tell me about the music scene out in Eugene? What is it like for an act of your style?

The Eugene music scene as a whole has rapidly been growing the last 5 years.  When we first started TPOS there was maybe 1-2 other instrumental bands in our area.  Over the last few years there has been more and more popping up which has been amazing to see, and instrumental music is becoming more and more “accepted” in Eugene and Portland.  Eugene has a great mix of genres, and since we’re a college town there’s always new bands popping up.  

Along those lines, I’m always curious what it’s like for bands who know they have a style of music that lends itself to procuring a small but devoted following. What is it like knowing this particular form of art may never result in the group “striking it big”?

This is definitely a loaded question!  I’ve been playing in bands since the age of 13 (almost 20 years now), and when I started TPOS it was the first time in my life that I no longer was trying to pursue music as a full time gig.  The band simply was for fun and really never meant to go anywhere.  Somewhere along the way people kinda started liking us so we kept playing.  So odd enough, when I stopped trying to pursue music full time, I somehow created a band that has been the most successful one I’ve ever played in.  We certainly aren’t anywhere near “striking it big”, and odds are we will never get there, but this band is a personal victory in my own life.  I’ll forever be grateful for every opportunity given to us and the thousands of people who listen to our music.  

Finally, it may be a challenge, but we have to know.... What is the best pet and why? Dog, Cat, Reptile, or Other?

Gunna have to go with a dog for this one!  Cats are dumb and reptiles do nothing.  Dog’s are loyal, fun to play with, and are easy to train.

[grizzlefur]

WWEm - Formulaic Everyone-Gets-a-spot Multi-man Filler Material

It’s getting to look a lot like Wrestlemania...

Transmission date: Monday 27/Tuesday 28 March 2017

.

back on something approaching schedule for once (mania is in two days), let's crack open some FRIDAY AFTERNOON RAW! .

i mean, technically mania weekend starts tonight with the hall of fame, but fuck that noise .

the standard wwe intro has been overriden by a dramatic wyatt-style video collage to taker's music .

because it's mania season, so we need to remind you that the undertaker is important and cool .

and then roll normal titles, slightly ruining the effect .

holy shit that's a lot of pyro .

like, even more than usual .

we're in the wells fargo centre in philadelphia, which a couple years ago would have been a big event venue, but now we're there for a warmup show

.

apparently the things tonight are seth signing a please-fuck-me-up form and brock and goldberg talking about absurdist theatre .

or possibly fighting .

who can say .

in any case, here's bayley .

oh, apparently they've made the 4-way an elimination match .

cole claims that making it elimination-style makes it harder for bayley to win, despite the fact that this is objectively untrue .

bayley opens with just doing some hype about mania .

she's so excited .

wearing an ultimate warrior shirt, stumbling over her words a lot, and pointing at the sign every other sentence .

starts talking about the match, hit charlotte's music

.

i get the feeling the whole show is going to be like this .

THESE ARE ALL THE PEOPLE WHO WILL BE THERE AND WHY YOU SHOULD CARE ABOUT THEM BE EXCITED KTHXBAI .

the bit of charlotte's top you can see under where her robe fastens looks like she's wearing the big gold belt .

wonder if that's intentional .

charlotte is here to talk smack about sasha for being the manipulative bitch

.

i thought we were meant to think john cena is, and bayley for being an adorable sucker .

charlotte pulls up a tweet from nxt-era bitch sasha to prove her point .

crowd take this as an opportunity for a punk chant for some reason .

and here comes sasha .

like the fuck are you doing that tweet was from 2015 catch up .

sasha's hair is even more purple than usual .

she gets a succinct bit about how her and bayley know how to separate friendship and business and they're gonna fight for the title, cue nia's totally unexpected entrance .

gets a crack at these three for trading the title .

charlotte does a crack about how nia even being there is sasha's fault, sasha goes for her, cue brawl .

apparently this will have resolved into a tag match by the end of this ad break .

but in the meantime, have this mania advert .

fuck off, pitbull .

we know it's this weekend .

(i can't lie, i actually really like that song) .

so yes, this is a match now .

which sasha and charlotte immediately take outside .

apparently this is "every women for themself" .

[sic] .

gj, cole .

nia tags in, sasha takes the inoki-school defence of 'just kick them in the fucking legs whenever possible' .

tag switch, charlotte commences to kicking the crap out bf bayley .

who runs away and tags in sasha .

not looking super strong as a champion there .

sasha's hair is so violently purple that it's making it look like my screen's screwing up .

i like it .

it's like sume kind of superpowered mega-purple .

hyperple .

ooh, single leg backbreaker hold from charlotte there .

not sure i've seen that one before .

i mean, it's no neville/ali match for cool new moves, but still .

(that match was so good) .

(seriously, watch 205) .

(just try not to think too hard about what happened to gran metalik) .

sasha dives off the apron to nia, gets caught, then nia kind of weirdly stumbles and knocks herself out .

NIA hurt itself in its confusion! .

meanwhile, bayley hits a bayley to belly for the pin .

her and sasha celebrate a bit, then nia coldcocks them, leg drops sasha, samoan drops bayley, bodychecks charlotte, and grabs the belt .

ooh, good heel heat there .

dramatic replay reminds us all that the bayley to belly is possibly the most underwhelming finisher in this company .

but now we have a recap package of Mr Rollins and his Superfluous Crutch .

oh, apparently that was a steel crutch .

do wrestling announcers know that there are other metals? .

everything is steel, gold, or nothing .

so yes, later we have the waiver .

after a prerecorded new day bit .

featuring xavier losing his motivation .

oh, it's a snickers advert .

and now we have a hall of fame package to remind us who everyone is this year .

no byron, nobody is going to watch the red carpet preshow .

you and maria menounos could be roasting the unacknowledged mcmahon child on a spit, i still wouldn't give a shit .

and now for...MORE RECAPS! .

this time, it's steph firing mick .

cut from that to charly interviewing sami? .

oh yeah, cos he was like his protégé .

apparently we have to continue mick's legacy and honour his memory .

dude, he's not dead .

and sami uses this as an intro to entering the andre battle royal and dedicating his victory to mick .

steph appears behind him like um excuse me what .

because we're now in the era when people have to earn matches .

so let's take this to its logical conclusion .

sami/owens later on, no dq, if sami wins he gets his battle royal spot, if not, he's fired .

perhaps a touch of an overreaction there, steph? .

but now it's cruiserweight time .

neville on announce in full glower mode .

jojo fucks up how you pronounce 'milwaukee' .

so yes, now we have austin aries vs Armcandy Supernova .

(he's getting that name change paperwork put through) .

(until then, it's noam dar) .

noam has had a haircut and/or a proper shave, and i'm finding his tiny baby face disconcerting .

yeah, it's definitely the stubble being gone .

neville's using his announce spot to make sure we all know how little of a hypothetical shit he gives about this match .

neville gives imaginary numbers of shits .

neville: 4i+3.7 shits given .

later neville is fighting jack .

austin does his pendulum elbow, doesn't bother with the theatrics because he knows he's got a hostile announce panel

.

apparently austin encapsulates everything that is wrong with american society .

alicia distracts austin to let him know how much she doesn't like his face .

(her words, not mine) .

austin hits a discus fivearm, then instead of going for a pin, shouts at neville and locks in the last chancery for the tap .

he hasn't done that for a while .

always nice when people have a spare finisher for drama .

austin gets on the turnbuckle and point at the sign, neville gets on the announce table and glowers, end segment .

now for some recap vids of last week's hhh interview .

seth is in the building .

walking backstage with a crutch he may or may not need .

so that's next .

but first, another taker video because THE UNDERTAKER IS TOTALLY AWESOME YOU GUYS .

but yes, now seth is here .

and the ring has sprouted carpet, office chairs, and a cheap table with the weirdest faux-marble finish .

that's kind of distracting, tbh .

seth gets in the ring, immediately calls out hunter, drops the mic .

there's only one mic on the table, which seems ill-prepared .

and here comes the man .

seth's new shirt also says kingslayer on it now .

hunter's pulled a mic from hammerspace .

lets seth know that if he attacks him instead of signing, the match is off .

and also he'll get fucked up .

so seth has to sit down and listen to hunter explain the forms .

god, i love paperwork drama .

seth refuses to sit down, hunter calls the match off and leaves .

gets as far as the ring steps before seth sits in the chair .

hunter comes back, calls him a good boy .

oooooooooooohhhhhhh .

and now he's going into graphic detail about the true extent of just how much he will fuck seth up on sunday .

and how little he will be able to sue people for it .

seth's like yeah dude i get the principle .

hunter is calling out the whole 'success=evil' paradigm that so much of wrestling is based one .

just like fuck you i have more money than god who needs to be a hero .

seth has not yet begun to give a shit .

hunter does a whole bit about how seth is crucifying his career and is not going to become the first one-legged man to win an ass-kicking contest .

which is an image that didn't need anywhere near as much explanation as he gave us just there .

seth's just like dude these are all things you've been telling me for years .

and blames hunter for ruining his self-respect .

seth stands up purely so he can point at the sign when he mentions mania .

seth makes it explicit that this whole angle is about his redemption .

which viewers with half an eye could have noticed .

seth challenges hunter to tear his leg off and beat him with it .

dude, don't give him ideas .

signs the paper, throws it at hunter .

so he kicks the table at him and stamps on his knee .

so unexpected .

side note: somebody needs to track down the guy on front row of hardcam with the IT'S ALL FUN AND GAMES UNTIL HHH HITS YOU WITH A CRUTCH sign and buy him several drinks .

hunter attempts to do just that, seth catches him with a lovely pele kick .

goes for a pedigree, hunter kicks him in the knee, tries to do it to him, gets thrown out, and seth gets the crutch as he scrabbles around on the floor .

that...didn't make a whole lot of sense, but hey .

let's roll on .

oh for fuck's sake, do we really need another in-depth video package dissecting the history of the goldberg/lesnar feud? .

if you haven't got it now... .

but this time they're splitting it up .

that was just about survivor series .

and now a superstar facts interstitial about how cool and totally relevant mark henry is .

and recaps on what happened with seth and hunter before we broke your train of thought with all these recaps .

guys, you can't call it a 'non-sanctioned match' and still have a big graphic advertising it .

great, there's the ugly-ass andre trophy .

and apparently now we have an over the rope challenge .

opening with show .

fucking hell .

i hate warmup shows .

could you tell .

show pauses to gaze deeply at the trophy .

possibly thinking it's a mirror .

hard to say .

and his opponent, jinder mahal .

but yeah, it's an over-the-top-rope gauntlet type thing .

bell rings, show immediately goes for the chokeslam .

either to seem intimidating or because he has no clue how pacing works .

brief scuffle, then show chokes him over the ropes and enter one bo dallas .

where the fuck have you been, bo .

your brother's had one of his episodes .

in the time it took me to type that, bo went out, now here are the shining stars .

both at once, because fuck the premise of this match .

flips them both out, are we done .

and they're followed by goldust, r-truth and curtis axel .

where the holy fuck are all these guys coming from .

they team up on him, along with everyone else coming back, and the seven get him over .

so he comes back in and either magic fists or chokeslams them all .

except golden truth, who run away .

show's music hits, then almost immediately gives way to 

.

BRAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUGHHHHH

.

he's here with a mic to tell us how he could totally kick show's ass right now, but he isn't going to because he doesn't feel like it .

points at the sign, then leaves .

so what was the point of all that again? .

"look, guys, we still have an undercard!" .

but now, recaps of the enzo and cass/cesaro and sheamus/gallows and anderson situation .

and now the latter pair are being interviewed by Bland Dude #3 .

they're fighting enzo and cass later .

so cue gallows aping their shtick .

and now more taker videos .

GUYS THE UNDERTAKER IS COMING PLEASE LOVE HIM .

and isn't a wyatt at all .

official announcement that pitbull will be at mania to do this song .

cos god knows we haven't heard it enough .

but now, charly interviews roman about his reaction to all the taker bullshit .

roman doesn't believe in the undertaker .

which will make it very hard to defend against him, i feel .

and now we have the new day opening business at the new york stock exchange .

and arriving in philly just in time to distribute new day pops .

and we have a video diary .

in which they race up the rocky steps .

or kofi and xavier do, while e staggers up them eating bootyos .

and then he teleports to the top ahead of them .

Booty-O's: We Can't Guarantee Their Effects. .

brief announce segue, and now Mike Rohm (fuck, i knew i knew his name) interviews cesaro and sheamus

.

who are also carrying the torch for foley .

so gallows and anderson blindside them and hit them with a ladder .

like you do .

and bury cesaro in crates .

and cut away like welp guess that interview's done .

and now, more cruiserweightery .

neville/gallagher .

jack displaying a fantastic level of anti-glower .

him and neville may annihilate each other out of existence .

he's wearing his watermelon shorts again .

i am enjoying neville's new 'not today, bucko' thing .

neville kicks jack in the stomach, he sells in a way that suggests all laws of physics have been reversed .

neville rolls outside, jack retrieves william iii .

and crotch drops neville from the apron .

so neville just snaps him face-first into the turnbuckle .

seems fair .

don't ram your crotch into my face today, bucko .

and superplex into rings of saturn (still needs a new name) for the tap .

complete with one of jack's amazing submission faces .

corey makes a hugely extended mary poppins joke .

cut to an austin aries news network special broadcast .

it's austin investigating neville's claim that nobody wants austin to win .

so he's asking the new day .

who try and get him to grind with them .

so he does a whole thing like guys i'm a serious journalist .

and then does it anyway .

so the new day endorse him .

now there's a terrifying comedic partnership .

cut to roman mooning around backstage .

apparently he's next .

but not in the goldberg way .

announcement from cena on the today show, about his tag match .

which is smackdown, but whatever .

apparently al roker is going to be their special ring announcer .

i'll be honest, i can't really remember who that is .

so i'll use this brockberg video to look .

and now i know .

but now, here's roman .

is there more stuff i can go and look up instead .

roman, the point of this segment is so you can say words .

the mic has a function .

this shit is why raw is three hours long .

loving the TRADE REIGNS TO TNA signs .

plural .

he mentions winning the rumble, gets even more heel heat .

i'm guessing he's actively going for smug shitheel at this point? .

promising to bring taker down .

claims this is his house .

which does suggest that paige isn't coming back .

or we could have a whole inheritance crisis story .

"this is my house, because this is my yard." .

huh? .

BONG .

taker is only here in the form of a video .

of him digging graves and grimly prophesying roman's death .

we can only hope .

jfc can people stop fitting 'ultimate thrill ride' into every other sentence .

badly-carved gravestone, only has roman's death date on for some reasons .

cmon guys, you could google it .

video ends, BONGs resume .

lights stay down for a bit, then flick up with taker right behind roman .

it's how i like to travel between rooms .

he's here to finish the sentence he didn't in the vt .

dude, it's your catchphrase, we knew where you were going with it .

roman just stands there and does some solid b+ glower .

taker brings the lights back down, more BONGage, and ad break .

network shill about all the cool mania week stuff .

and also bring it to the table and the hall of fame .

and now, we have enzo and cass fighting gallows and anderson .

lucky us .

enzo's wearing a hat and shouting his shtick directly into the faces of children .

your babyfaces, people .

also a nasty white jacket with what looks like the nandos chicken on the back .

enzo starts a spiel, cass steals his hat and continues it .

does lists of the word 'practice' while enzo fills in shouts .

ultimate thrill ride, take a shot of something not nearly as cool as the people around you say it is .

(i'm thinking cuervo) .

anderson and gallows come in halfway through cass spelling it out for us .

and cesaro and sheamus hit them with a ladder .

cesaro's shoulder tape is gone, but his waist is bandaged .

i don't understand his physiology .

and then they beat enzo and cass with the ladder too .

until it backfires .

i like their whole tweener thing, tbh .

gallows and anderson recover, hit cass with the ladder .

and cesaro .

there's only one weapon and they're all just waiting their turn to use it .

they hit enzo off the turnbuckle with it, wolfpac hands, end .

god, i hate pre-mania episodes .

but now, women's history month .

in which some dude talks about maya angelou .

and i sigh so hard i need to clean my lungs off my keyboard .

ugh .

and now charly interviews kevin backstage .

about his upcoming friend-murder matches .

kevin's just like NOPE not my friends you are wrong .

also addresses the whole bit about the real kevin owens last week .

agrees with him making fun of kevin for being a jericho fan, because jericho fans are idiots .

apparently tonight he's going to rip sami up like the list of jericho .

and this is a big opportunity for him to fuck sami up .

dude, you do that more than you eat breakfast .

but next, we have a video package about why the non-sanctioned yet official 3edgy5me match is important .

but first, a bit where we apparently should watch corey interviewing kurt angle on the network .

for which i need a gif of tozawa going NOPE .

.

but yeah, as advertised, a video package of the history of hunter/seth .

including a rare shot of hunter's douchebag ponytail .

which sounds like a new apple cultivar or something .

i'd narrate this, but it's literally just an edit of the entire storyline thus far .

previously on sweaty manfighting club... .

and any joke i could make, i've probably made it at the time .

but we've put metallica over it, so you know it's totally hardcore .

and sure, advertise the bray/randy match .

they really need to decide what the brand split meant .

oh wait, are we just listing all the matches at mania .

excellent padding .

music cuts to bubblegum pop as soon as we start talking about the women's matches .

sigh .

although they're also saying about corbin/ambrose in this section .

he is a pretty princess .

(you can decide who i meant) .

"It just doesn't get any bigger than the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal!" .

which is why we've left it until just before the hosts bbeing the new day in this list .

wow, this card is stacked .

hence the four-day event .

but now we have the murder match now .

which means that Brockberg III: Large Men Pant At Each Other must be our main event .

great .

during sami's intro, they talk about seth/hunter, and corey informs us all that self-loathing is fine if you get to ride in a private jet .

not even owning one, mind you, just riding in somebody's .

bell rings, and fuck the rest of this explanation because it's kevin/sami and you can fill in most of it .

sami goes for the barricade moonsault, kevin just pushes him off it and follows him into the crowd .

like fuck you dude this is hardcore .

starts smacking him into the announce table .

puts sami up on the stage, then learns that there might be something to the whole 'don't cede the high ground to your enemy' thing as he gets toped .

and ad break .

and we come back to kevin ddt'ing sami on the ring steps .

goes for the pin, rather than just murdering him or w/e .

sami counters a cannonball into an exploder, which is a nice little spot .

then goes for a torpedo ddt, and it's...not as good as normal? .

doesn't he usually go under the bottom rope? .

anyway, seemed sloppy .

kevin counters the helluva kick with a superkick into a frog splash .

sami kicks out anyway because he is filled with the spirit of foley .

(also DETERMINATION) .

kevin goes for a popup, sami counters into a blue thunder bomb .

feels like we haven't seen that in a while .

and now, here is samoa joe .

with a chair .

but also jericho .

uses his music to blindside joe and hit him with a chair .

gets shamelessly coldcocked by kevin, but sami manages to pull a rollup out of it for the win .

and then it devolves a bit .

we get to see chris beating kevin with a chair, which has been a long time coming .

joe and kevin retreat with their ragefaces .

chris lets us all know what happens when you betray chris jericho .

side note: i actually quite like the new sparkly jacket .

so yeah, kevin's finally on the list .

the camera tries to show us this, because steadicam guy has no clue what happens when you focus the camera on a white block .

up next, brockberg rolls on like an unstoppable boulder that will doom us all to misery and imminent death .

after an advert for 205 featuring tozawa/kendrick, which cheers me up more .

but yes .

now we have a bouncy man with a dick on his chest who would like you all to know about the controlled substances he has never taken in his life .

also paul .

philadelphia remains all about the ecw chants .

paul casually drops the word extreme into this bit to please the fans .

crowd can't decide whether to do goldberg or suplex city chants .

so most of them are just doing one then the other .

surprisingly civilised .

paul is never as entertaining as when he's actively and directly taking the piss out of fans .

apparently brock lusts after the universal title .

um .

guys .

it's a belt .

maybe don't have this conversation on live global tv .

getting mildly seasick as the steadicam tries to track with brock's swaying .

paul is promising a *"DAY-noo-MWAH" for this story .

fuck you, dude .

maximum heel heat achieved .

don't fuck with french in front of me .

someone does a goldberg chant, paul does a whole bit about it being the last one ever heard on raw .

does a whole thing about goldberg's impending death, starts doing the lord's prayer, then catches himself and does the kaddish instead .

nice moment .

paul's jew jokes are at their best when they're clever and no more than like one every couple months .

but yeah, goldberg's here now .

comes in like fuck it let's fight .

brock gets out fo the ring, bill catches him with a spear .

and then just goes and postures with the belt for a bit .

hit his music again, point at the belt and the sign, end of the show .

thanks for that, anticlimaxberg .

well, that was a shitty pre-mania episode .

join us after the cut for...wait, we get *two* of those every year now? .

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu .

-------------------------

rniture deals now on, at Crazy Selim's Ottoman Warehouse! .

wait, was that the wrong mic? .

i'm starting to understand why i have daniel to do this shit .

in any case, seeing as i'm here anyway (and so are all of you), let's have some SATURDAY MORNING SMACKDOWN! .

this may be displaying more enthusiasm than i have irl .

it's early (for me) and this is going to be another pre-mania setup show .

aaaaaaanyway .

let's fuck this cat .

kicking off with 100% all-natural bryan .

and the standard contract signing office chairs and shitty table .

bryan wants to know if we're ready for mania .

what if we said no? .

well, i guess he was just asking this roomful of people in richmond .

not all of us .

introduces shane, further proving he doesn't care about all of us .

so yeah, that's what this signing is .

the least hype match on a card that contains roman/taker .

aj's entrance music adequately expressing my feelings on this match .

i don't want none .

loving the guy behind shane with a sign saying WHY IS YOUR HAIR SO WET?? IS IT RAINING BACKSTAGE?? .

this crowd are still all about aj, despite him being the heel here .

cos, yknow, fuck shane giving himself mania matches .

i'd say we should just put him in with taker and end both those long-ass stupid runs, but WE ALREADY SHITTING DID THAT .

shane does a speech about how he founded smackdown to be the land of opportunity .

protip, shane: you are not george washington .

shane talks up how great aj is .

which only further emphasises how bullshit this angle is .

shane leads more styles chants, because this is a mania warmup show and we're already creatively bankrupt three minutes in .

shane calls aj out for being arrogant, which is a bit rich coming from a fucking mcmahon .

claims he'll beat aj if he doesn't give him everything he's got .

which is bullshit .

aj could beat him at 10% power .

while asleep .

aj's like dude this is a real wrestling match not your hardcore bullshit what cred do you possibly have .

which is fair .

just goes off on one like dude how many of these bullshit matches have you had .

when will you learn you can't wrestle .

lists people shane's fought for cheap pops .

how you doin .

signs, drops the mic, him and shane get all up in each other's business .

until bryan pulls them apart .

asks them to seal the deal with a handshake, disregarding the fact that they just signed a fucking contract .

aj just walks off .

nobody else gets to touch those lovely gloves .

so .

later we have wyatt/harper (hype) and more forbidden total bellas (not hype) .

or, as jbl called it "Total Divabellas" .

but next, becky/carmella .

medium hype .

after we do the announcement about pitbull again .

and we have alexa and mickie on announce .

mickie wearing new gear, so either her ring gear isn't the star sapphire uniform any more or this is just how she dresses .

enter an ellsworth .

to rile up the crowd .

which he is so good at .

nearly fucks up spelling fabulous .

gj, james .

side note: mauro is still non-existent .

i miss him .

this show could do with some bombast .

carmella pauses the match to give ellsworth her chewing gum .

whcih he eats, because of course .

chances of this match *not* ending in some kind of screwy brawl finish? .

alexa and micke start bitching at each other on announce .

so here we go .

and it escalates into fisticuffs .

shock .

mickie dumps alexa into the ring .

and then slaps carmella for the dq .

cue general brawl .

becky does...something to carmella, mick kick to alexa, they face off, ABRUPT AD BREAK .

during the break, shockingly, bryan made this into a tag match .

which presumably alexa will win because status quo before mania .

but hey, look at the usos .

and my general inability to call this shit .

alexa tags (and throws) carmella in, gets in a spat with ellsworth on the outside .

mickie tags in, kicks everyone .

there's a match happening, but the announce panel are far more interested in just talking about previous manias and this year's preshow .

great .

alexa takes mickie down, nattie's music drops .

she's back to the less-shit gear, so that's nice .

and now she's on announce .

so what, was she just late or something .

otunga just like ummmm why the fuck are you even here .

she gets off a crappy joke, rushes the ring, gets immediately laid out by becky .

and then ellsworth knocks becky over so carmella can get the pin .

and hit naomi's music .

fucking YES .

hits a massive hurricanrana on nattie halfway down the ramp, runs into the ring

.

fucks everybody up

gets a mic so she can share how fucking pumped she is .

(we can tell, naomi) .

she is officially back .

announces that she's entering the title match, despite the fact that she was in it .

by virtue of being a woman on the roster .

gets a crowd pop, dances the segment off .

as we drop the lights but don't turn the uv on for ages .

gj, guys .

cut to bryan on the phone to brie .

interrupted by breezy bella .

who wants to insert themself into the women's title match .

says no .

tyler takes off the wig, is joined by fandango .

they get sad that they won't be at mania, bryan offers them battle royal spots

.

and a space in a 10-man tag tonight

.

they get excessively enthusiastic and leave .

and cut away on bryan's face like what in the actual fuck just happened .

up next, more cursed bellas .

after snickers presents this clip of kane piledriving pete rose .

spoiler: this will not be even vaguely relevant to mania this year .

and an advert for all the mania week stuff .

so we get a blast of galaxy quest music .

god, won't it be a shame when we're past the hall of fame and i stop making that joke .

not that it's a joke .

it's just an actually true thing .

but yes, now we have a miz .

(and also une maryse) .

this time we actually get the full miztv intro .

which suggests other people may turn up .

shite, did we really need a previously montage? .

let's just get this crap over with .

annoyingly funny bit of miz!cena arguing with his cue card guy .

and now we have bryan and brie, also played by miz and maryse .

how long did this shit take to film .

miz!bryan is like something out of a fucking david lynch film .

marykki pops the question, BOOM, to be continued .

the crowd take a moment to realise we're back on camera .

and miz and maryse announce the ad break .

that's pleasingly meta .

and now let's have another video about why we should care about the hall of fame .

oh no, i missed it .

what a shame .

and we're back in the nightmare world .

this is like wrestling meets shitting Psychonauts .

miz!cena dramatically refuses and does a speech about how cena is a manipulative doombot who's afraid of the miz .

you know, i'm beginning to suspect this might all be staged .

apparently you can't see him because there's nothing there to see .

miz and maryse dramatically unmask, do a serious piece to camera about how they're going to destroy cena's career at mania .

miz is uncomfortably intense .

and actually swears .

i mean, they bleep it out, but still .

cut back to the arena, the crowd is split on whether to applaud or boo .

miz is about to say something, ABADOO .

forgoes shouting on stage to kiss nikki's forehead .

and *then* shout at the cameraman .

jesus, john .

what did the cameraman ever do to you .

they get to the ring, miz is like oh hey guys i was waiting for you to interrupt us .

cena's just like okay dude, that was actually pretty funny .

apart from the bit where you turned back into yourself .

cena's doing a whole bit about how miz and maryse believe their own ridiculous kayfabe, while cena knows he's a cartoon character .

have i mentioned how much i love self-aware cena? .

outright asks miz if he's high for thinking he'd jump brands .

solid point .

lists a bunch of superstars who took time off to do films .

including OH WAIT the miz .

but he's like okay at least you're doing something with your career - maryse, the fuck purpose fo you serve? .

we have a women's division and everything .

i'm honestly not used to agreeing with cena so much .

turns the whole using your wife to advance your career and not having kids thing on miz .

ah, dick joke .

i was wondering when that'd turn up .

the crowd is united in pro-cena chants .

this isn't a thing that happens .

this is cena at his best and miz and his douchiest .

cena comments on miz taking everything off and getting serious, takes everything off and gets serious .

(to clarify, cena is still wearing shorts) .

cena calls miz a pussy, producers have to cut the sound .

you can get away with that when you're cena .

likewise calling miz and maryse "the sh...it couple" .

i didn't know it was ok to swear on wwe tv if you had a stutter .

challenges miz to punch him .

and likewise maryse .

looooooong tense moment .

broken by miz and maryse backing out of the ring .

and then turning around to run back .

miz gets to the apron, maryse is asking him to come back .

brings him back up the ramp, cena hits dick joke 2: the dickening .

and nikki gets to do a questionable mic bit .

and her and cena make out .

which is apparently a heel tactic when miz and maryse do it .

ABADOO, end segment .

up next we have the 10-man tag match .

alpha/breezango/usos/slater and rhyno/dolph/mojo .

basically the tag division and spares .

i was about to clarify who was on each team, but there are five faces and five heels, do the maths .

and this is the segment where the announcers have to talk up how significant the andre battle royal is and how winning it unavoidably elevates your career

.

fact check: baron corbin lurks in alleyways and hits people with pipes for a living, the big show is the fucking big show, and cesaro has had kinesio tape on his shoulder for the last three years .

this match is pretty formulaic everyone-gets-a-spot multi-man filler material .

nice to see heath and rhyno getting an outing, though .

advert break, cut back to chad landing a lovely cross armbreaker on "one of the usos" .

good to see tom's paying as much attention as me .

fandango whips chad's face into the turnbuckle, just so we can agree to believe that he's mania material .

dramatic attempted hot tag slightly marred by the fact that as soon as he stops trying to tag out, chad is just fucking up whoever he's in with .

oh nooooooooooo can't quite reeeeeeeeeach okay let's suplex you to death .

can't reeeeeeeeeeach .

heath clears everyone out of the ring, dolph kicks him over the ropes, rhyno gores him and murders everyone .

tyler knocks him off the top rope, mojo broski boots him for the win .

nice memorial to zack there .

hey, anyone remember when tyelr breeze was a main eventer? .

sigh .

anyway, here's luke harper in his lightbulb room .

ranting about his personal freedom and epiphanies and snakes and such .

i am enjoying how he's turned face, but he's still as much of a backwoods serial killer as ever .

so apparently we have that match next .

which i'm guessing is the main event? .

after an advert for takeover .

for which i am SO FUCKING HYPE .

and now a segment with becky beating enzo and cass at shitty off-brand scrabble .

cass forgets how to spell sawft .

it's a snickers adverts .

these are actually pretty good, tbf .

way better than enzo trying to fuck some fried chicken, in any case .

and now we have the bit where the announcers list all the shit that's happening on mania and i have a nap .

just inserts the same criticisms i had before the cut .

except this time they have a picture of the lineup for the battle royal .

spoiler: it's everyone else .

tom tries to sell us the network, wyatt cut, otunga forgets his mic is on .

gj, guys .

so yeah, here comes a bray .

and a recap of his speech from last week .

long weird break that may or may not have been ads .

and a thing telling richmond to come back the next time they do smackdown .

and sheamus telling us not to smoke .

either this stream was edited badly, smackdown has fallen headfirst into its own shitty editing, or i just had an aneurysm .

anyway, we're back now .

enter the spirit of the woods .

and extreme closeups thereof .

and now he has a weird man bun going on? .

bad move, luke .

i'll be honest, it's pretty cool to see these two fighting .

harper's tidied up his outfit now he's a face .

harper's dropkicks are still way better than you'd thing they should be .

harper throws bray into the timekeepers, stands on the announce table for some reason .

cut for ads, and they've somehow managed to get back in the ring without being counted out .

whatever, wrestling .

uranage to two sentons by bray, luke kicks out despite presumably having no ribs left .

bray goes for him, harper catches him into the setup for sister abigail, bray gets out but luke hits no less than two fucking suicide dives into him on the announce table .

i know bray's going to win, but this offense phase from harper is outstanding .

bray goes for sister abigail, harper counters with a big boot and discus .

clothesline, goes for the pin, bray manages to get a hand on the ropes .

and then gets up and abigails him for the pin .

well, that was...abrupt .

which makes a certain narrative sense, given that it was 'man who's very good at wrestling' versus 'avatar of satan' .

you can do all the wrestling you like, but when he gets a hit in, you're fucked .

does the follow the buzzards thing, music goes weird, and now randy's on the tron .

at the ruins of the barn .

recapping things bray has said .

randy has bray's weird not-crucifix from last week .

drives it into abigail's grave .

which will apparently seal her power? .

this mythos is...let's go with conceptually muddy .

although for old-school pure will-based magic, it actually makes a lot of sense .

excuse me while i headcanon this angle into something that works .

meanwhile, wyatt-style randy cut (lots of snakes), end show .

and that's it for the main shows before mania .

i'll be on twitter for both shows this weekend, so see you there in just under twelve hours (or however long it is when this goes up) for takeover, and at an uncomfortably early time tomorrow evening for wrestlemarathon

.

i'm @waruce, btw .

and now to watch the shows I don't blog and/or advertise furniture for questionable Turkish men .

i swear, this is the last time i let daniel hook me up with job opportunities

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[ryo-maybe]

Ryo I was just merely curious if you don't mind me asking, if there are any creative endeavours you might be pursuing that could eventually turn into producing something like a book, a novel, a journal or anything tangible for other people to enjoy in the future? I mean that might be one of your aspirations so I just wanted to know so I can show some support, i know ur writing skills are something after all 💫

BINC---no, no wait, sorry, muscle memory kicked in something fierce.

I would be lying if I said that this hasn’t been an aspiration of mine for the longest time ever since I began writing bs self-insert Kingdom Hearts fanfiction back in middle school. As a consummate reader, the sheer thought of one day managing to spread my writings and provoke in people one hundredth of the emotions that I felt when experiencing stories myself has always been lurking there in a corner of my heart, in spite of all the cynicism that comes with the awareness of how fucking awful the literature industry is here (unless you’re one of those 16-years olds who get endorsed as the latest Teen Prodigy who rewrote your standard fare Generic Fantasy novel before falling into obscurity) and how difficult it is to stand out in a world where creative works are so easily accessible.

A lack of confidence is definitely a contributing factor to why I sort of “hold back” from indulging too much into any idyllic fantasy of the sort (GOD this sounds excessively pessimistic?). It is hard to think of even daring to try and produce anything for the consumption of a wild public while being aware of just how good the masters were/are in their craft. Thoughts like, this is a world where If on a winter’s night a traveler exists. And then there were none is a thing. The entire library of Discworld books. I think about these majestic works and, I don’t know, I get sort of a feeling like I’d be trying to sell vacuum cleaners door-to-door in a world where you get a free roomba machine when you come of age? It’s utterly ridiculous to even consider such comparisons, and I am making it sound way harsher than my rational thoughts on the matter are, because of course I’m aware that we aren’t encapsulated in a treasure box filled with nothing but the finest gems (I should know, since I love scarfing on a lot of garbage for the sake of satisfactory self-indulgement)... on a deep, almost instinctive level, though, that little voice is often there whispering in my ear and holding me back in one form or the other.

Even besides this though, I am aware of how utterly immature my style is: my vocabulary - as in, my vocabulary, the pool of words I directly, naturally draw from when immersed in the creative process, as opposed to searching up in a dictionary when I can’t come up with a word or really just want variety - is limited, and so is my prose’s own variety by proxy. Things like balancing dialogue and descriptions, the pacing, keeping the momentum up, there’s a lot of room for improvement - too much, I believe, to dream big, so to speak.

I also worry about my creativity itself: I’m all too aware that I’m more or less incapable of writing anything on the scale of a full-length novel, and god knows I’ve tried to come up with plots that would warrant it. Which is not to say that the short story format is anywhere near inferior! I adore it, whether from the point of view of a reader or writer, but I worry that being unable to go past it might be yet another of my limitations. It’s the sort of problem that comes with as fickle a nature as mine, really.

My attempt to start writing commissions was born more or less from a desire to test the waters and provide a neat combination of utility and fun, since I thrive a lot by expanding on other people’s ideas, and also see how well I can do with an audience interested in my writing from a “professional”, more formal manner than, say, writing a one-shot and sending it to a friend for kicks. A bit of a less biased judgement tool, yeah?

I’ve also considered branching in other mediums: I currently have a Twine and a text adventure editor tools sitting around and waiting for me to get off my ass and see if I can do anything good with them. I’d considered trying my hand at writing an actual visual novel too, but I’m completely clueless when it comes to the programming part, and let’s not even get to the visuals (You Are My Heart’s Filler Tool: An MS Paint Story probably won’t hit the shelves anytime soon). One might say that I’m a couple decades too late to try my hand at text adventures, but the medium has potential nonetheless - Slouching Towards Bedlam and Shade come to mind as short yet truly powerful narrative experiences in their own regards (I heavily recommend playing both, by the way!), and Twine is equally interesting because of not only the symplistic nature of its interactivity, but how dynamic and seamless it can feel in its execution. I might be exaggerating, but I find it simply amazing how the system works: you interact with specific, highlighted words which carry a powerful meaning, emotion and weight to the narrative; in a normal text alone this is compelling, but here it’s as if sheer narrative emotion has been turned into an interactive feature... I don’t know, it’s baffling to me that I have seen next to nothing of this system spoken about on Tumblr.

I’d also love to make an RPG Maker game! I definitely need to take some lessons in making maps that don’t look like overly bloated rooms though, bwaahaha! Either an RPG or a point-and-click style game are things I’ve been wanting to make with the engine since forever - there’s plenty of inspiration out there, although one of the most compelling experiences out there whose wonderfully crafted atmosphere I respect and admire is Wine & Roses. The utterly original gameplay and the stylish manner in which the narrative are treated are nothing short of incredible! I’d really like to make something able to evoke the same feeling of amazement I felt while playing through it, because it just feels so unique in how it uses and blends its elements together. Speaking of which, in more recent times, I’d been toying with a gimmicky idea to maybe put in practice with RPG Maker... only for this game called We Were Here to come out on Steam a couple weeks ago, which features a pretty similar concept with slightly different execution. I’m not disheartened, though! If anything, it gave me some perspective on things, and also proved that said gimmick seems to more or less work enough to be viable.

See, I spoke so much of the negative impact that direct confrontation with other works has on me that I completely neglected to speak of how impassionately I am driven by the very same factor to at least attempt to match the emotions that I derive from them. It’s equal parts a source of inspiration and intimidation!

I ended up rambling and going off on a tangent that feels barely related to the initial question, so let’s see if I can give a proper answer... I have a couple ideas sitting around, some of which I’ve bled onto this or (SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT) my writing blog. Whether they’ll become anything more than that remains to be seen, though I’d love to try my hand at either making a blog dedicated to a web-novel or something in that vein, or even providing my writing to a cooperative effort with other people to come up with something new and hopefully enjoyable. For the time being though, I’m content with slaving myself out to other people and their ideas for a (possibly fair? Overly expensive? You decide!) price.

[techscorn]

via Whatever

It’s been two weeks since I’ve written about Trump here! And what a two weeks it’s been! Herewith, not-especially-well-organized thoughts on a fortnight of a not-especially-well-organized administration:

1. I mean, these are remarkable times, aren’t they? There are moments in life when you are very truly aware that you are living in history — things that will prominently be in history books fifty or a hundred years down the line — and there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind we’re right smack dab in a middle of some bona fide history, people. It’s kind of exhilarating! Mind you, I’m hoping it’s the exhilaration of a nation reawakening to a commitment of democratic principles, rather than the exhilaration of a consumptive’s moment of clarity before they finally hork out the useful portion of their lungs. But either way, it certainly is a time.

2. I’m feeling many things about the Trump administration, but I have to admit one of the primary emotions I am feeling is a deep and abiding embarrassment. I’m embarrassed that my president and his administration are clearly malign, but I’m also embarrassed that they are so clearly incompetent. These people are both ignorant and stupid, and while on one hand that’s a silver lining — it blunts the effectiveness of the previously-mentioned malignancy — on the other hand the fact that a great nation installed these bumptious yahoos in the first place says very little good about us.

3. This is also why I am mildly exasperated at the idea floating about, that the fumbling bullshit nonsense these numpties are up to represents 11-dimensional super-chess political moves. Folks, no. Really, just, no. If they were 11-dimensional super-chess masters, they wouldn’t have had a negative polling rating eight days into their administration; they’d instead have made us delighted to waltz down the path to a comfortable and complacent fascism. But they didn’t, because they can’t, because they’re not that smart. A White House that spends four days litigating the size of an inauguration crowd is not a clutch of masterminds. Masterminds wouldn’t have given a shit about how many people showed up on the goddamn National Mall.

But don’t you see, Scalzi? All of this is distraction from their true mastermind evil plans! Folks, you realize that needing these jackasses to be masterminds is a form of vanity, yes? We couldn’t have possibly chosen to be ruled by custard-headed bigots who can’t find their asses with GPS and an Eagle Scout! They must be smarter than that! Well, no, they’re really not, and yes, we really did. There are lots of ways to explain that — I favor the whole “the GOP’s decades-long plan to undermine its voters’ dedication to truth and public institutions really paid off” angle of things personally — without having to haul out the 11-dimensional chess board.

4. But don’t worry, folks! Blundering numpties are dangerous enough! And to be clear our blundering numpties have a plan — white authoritarianism is a thing, y’all — and fundamentally what they have on their side is that they don’t really respect law, or tradition, or you. You’re either useful, or fuck you. Incompetent or not, they’ll keep going until they can’t, and they expect you to follow the rules they have no intention of following. The thing is, the rules can stop them — from the Constitution on down — but only to the extent that people hold them to those rules, and plant their feet.

Our problem as I see it is that the House and Senate are currently controlled by the GOP, i.e., the folks who spent the last few decades undermining inconvenient truths and political comity, and whose current leaders, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, apparently are working on the motto of “Whatever, man, so long we get to kill Social Security and Medicare, too.” So, yeah. It does help that Trump is busily antagonizing Republican senators who offer even the mildest of complaint regarding his policies and incompetence, but let’s face the fact that spines are in short supply on the right side of the aisle at the moment. Will that change? We’ll find out!

And the Democrats? They spent the first week apparently under the impression things were normal, and it took two solid weeks of protests and phone calls to suggest to them that maybe just going along might not be the thing for them to do. As I’m typing this they’re putting sticks into the spokes of several cabinet confirmation processes of especially problematic candidates, so that’s good! But then Rick Perry just passed his Senate panel vote with Democratic votes, so maybe not every Democrat got the memo (I actually personally think Perry is likely to be one of the least problematic of the cabinet picks — he’s ignorant as hell about his position, but I think he’s more likely to listen to people who aren’t ignorant with regards to his duties, and isn’t that just a perfect encapsulation of the Trump years, when “ignorant but maybe trainable” is a positive). I’m mildly optimistic that the Democrats will generally get the memo that giving a pass to the incompetent and malign will not age well, especially when the incompetent and malign have no intention of ever returning any political favor. Again: We’ll find out!

5. What about Bannon? He’s smart, right? Well, he appears to be the smartest person in the White House right now, which is not the same as actually smart. But inasmuch as his personal philosophy appears to be “I’m a bigot and I have a box of matches” and he’s found a useful idiot in Trump, he’s definitely a problem. Is he the actual president, a la Cheney? He’s certainly got his hand up Trump’s ass, and he and Putin seem to be having a thumb war around the vicinity of Trump’s epiglottis in order to see whose turn it is to work the puppet. I think it’s self-evident that Bannon’s a racist piece of shit who shouldn’t be anywhere near the White House, but I also thought it was a self-evident Donald Trump was a racist piece of shit who shouldn’t be anywhere near the White House, too, and look where that got us.

Bannon’s reflexive racism and anti-semitism makes the Trump administration do stupid things, a fine example being it offering up a release on Holocaust Remembrance Day that somehow didn’t manage to mention the Jews, i.e., the principal targets of the Holocaust and the reason the Nazis built out the entire apparatus of the Holocaust. When called on it, the White House offered the same rhetorical line — “well, others suffered in the Holocaust, too” — that Holocaust deniers use to minimize the extent of the atrocity done to the Jews. Bannon’s fingerprints are all over this, and it’s appalling both that the White House put out a release like this, and that it either didn’t realize that everyone would see the dog whistle to America’s home-grown Nazis… or it didn’t care whether everyone saw it or not. Either, to me, is all Bannon; neither is especially smart.

6. What’s really remarkable about the Trump administration is that we are literally in week two, and its managed to have enough scandal and constitutional crisis for an entire year of a normal administration. Hell, even Dubya, the former modern low benchmark for incompetence, stretched out his nonsense. Now, you might recall that I predicted this the last time I wrote about Trump — I said we’d see a hundred-day “Gish Gallop” of nonsense from them (to the extent the Trump folks had any plan at all) — but it’s one thing to say “yup, this is going to happen” and another to see it in full effect in just two dizzying weeks.

I don’t think this is sustainable, and I don’t mean in terms of people’s ability to protest, which I think is capacious. I mean that, while it is prudent to plan for four years of Trump, I’m going to be surprised if he lasts that long. I mean, this is the goddamn honeymoon for his administration. It is protests and chaos and possibly even Democrats in Congress locating (or at least borrowing) spines, and a subterranean approval rating. Even worse, Trump just isn’t enjoying himself. He’s been fucking miserable for two straight weeks and it’s not getting better from here. I suspect that not too long in the future he’ll find a way to declare victory and bug out.

Maybe that’s wishful thinking (scratch that, it is wishful thinking). But here’s the thing: The Trump administration has already set the tone: It’s racist, it’s nationalistic in the worst way, it’s authoritarian, it is petulant and thin-skinned, and it’s not actually competent. It’s been jammed up from day one and the resistance to it is just going to get stronger from here. Whatever Trump thought he was going to achieve, in his fever dream of the office of the President being some combination of a king and his “Apprentice” shtick, he’s now unlikely to get it. He’s not used to being told “no” and he hates being unpopular, and by all indications he doesn’t actually like working much. I think he’s gonna say “fuck this” after a while and leave the whole mess to Pence (I almost said “poor Pence,” but that fellow signed up for this, so). I also think it’s more likely for him to leave of his own accord then to be impeached or removed via the 25th Amendment.

Is there any way for Trump to save his presidency? Sure, there are lots of ways! But most of them would require Trump getting a personality transplant and/or ditching the core of his brain trust, and I don’t see that happening. Bear in mind “save” is a loaded term; the man is president and he’s entirely capable of weathering four years of this out of sheer cussedness. It’s entirely possible I’m wrong, Trump doesn’t care to “save” his tenure, and he’ll just do what he’s going to do because screw you, that’s why. I’ve been wrong before! Sadly, in this particular case.

7. Leaving aside the ethical dimensions of Trump’s actions to date, from a purely economic and political point of view he’s pretty much been a nightmare. Businesses have to be watching his incipient trade war with Mexico, his immigration ban and the domestic protests and thinking to themselves “well, this is no good.” Trump’s nationalism is going to end up being bad for business, and in particular it’s likely to be bad for businesses in the very states where Trump had his strongest support. This more than anything else may be what turns a sufficient segment of the GOP against Trump — in the end, you don’t screw with the GOP’s money. There’s a racist, nationalist core of Trump supporters who value that more than business, mind you — they’d rather be pure than rich — so now I guess we get to see whether the GOP would rather be racist or rich. Should be interesting!

8. I’ve noted before that Trump is the end result of decades of the GOP working to undermine its voters’ faith in the system and in truth — but that Trump arrived about a cycle too early for the GOP’s plan to really pay off like it wanted. It was hoping for a bland, unobjectionable tool (think: Rubio) to be the front man while it dug itself in like a tick into the processes of government, and instead got a loud, racist incompetent with a pack of racist reactionary pals, who see the GOP as just another tool to use or to thump on when it doesn’t do what it’s told.

This is no good for the GOP, because now that Trump has alienated women and immigrants and the Latinx/Hispanics and LGBTetc and Jews and everyone who knows and cares for anyone in those groups, and the GOP is likewise putting the fear of god into people who want health insurance, who is left for them? Old white people (especially the ones who haven’t twigged to the fact that Ryan wants to take away their Medicare and Social Security), evangelicals who want cover for their racism, homophobia and worldly greed, and the sort of white dude who still thinks Pepe the Frog is the height of wit. Annnd that’s pretty much it! Not a lot to grow on, unfortunately for the GOP, and the longer Trump’s in office, the worse it’s going to get.

I’m not saying that everyone who is appalled by Trump is going to go to the Democrats, who have their own stew of issues, which I will leave to others to essay. But unless Trump actually does manage to destroy American democracy and replace it with a white authoritarian government in the next six months, I think all he’s really going to do is destroy the GOP. Which, you know. Sow the wind, etc. This is what the GOP has been working toward. That they didn’t expect that Trump was the form they’d get is neither here nor there to that.

9. What have I been encouraged about? I’ve been encouraged to see slightly more spine in some elected officials. I’ve been encouraged that blue states, particularly Massachusetts and California, seem to be ready to take the fight to Trump. I’ve been encouraged that news organizations have decided to call lies lies and decide there is more to news than filling up a 24-hour cycle with crap (they still have the 24-hour news cycle, and it is, alas, still largely filled with crap. But the ratio of useful-to-crap seems to be getting better). I’m encouraged that organizations like the ACLU have gotten right into the fight from day one. I’m encouraged that people like Sally Yates put their careers on the line to point out the injustice of Trump’s orders. I’m encouraged that nearly every creative person I know, liberal or conservative or otherwise, has decided that Trump’s nonsense is not for them. I’m encouraged that a large number of the conservative people I know and/or respect have decided to stand for the rule of law rather than a rule of Trump.

And most of all, I’m encouraged by the millions of people from everywhere and all walks of life who went out into the streets in the last couple of weeks, and who called their elected representatives, and who donated money and time and expertise to protest against Trump and his people, and their plans, and their morality, or lack thereof. As many people have noted, the alt-right have called them “snowflakes” but you get enough snowflakes in one place and you get an avalanche. It’s heartening to see millions standing for a diverse and vibrant America, and not for a mean and racist one. I noted before that Trump is president and as such he and his crew got to make all the first moves, nor are they done making those moves. There’s more to come from them. But it’s clear they weren’t prepared for the pushback. Good.

10. I hate that we are where we are now, but it’s also not wrong to say that I feel weirdly optimistic. Trump is terrible, his administration incompetent, and we’re confronted with the fact that our nation’s bigotry and awfulness has its head right now. But what’s happening because of it is the exact opposite of a shrug and quiet acceptance. I didn’t want us to have to have this political moment — I would have been happy with a Clinton administration, honest! — but if we have to have this political moment, and we do, I am heartened by the response to it. Our country is going to suffer damage because of Trump. We won’t be the same nation we were before. But we get to find out whether at the end of it we become a better nation. I think we might! If we keep at it.

And that’s an encouraging thought. I plan to keep at it. I hope you will, too.