#casual universal experience is all humans wanting to make their own mini gods

[godconsume]

oh, and im 100% still keeping the hc for this portrayal that he has mewtwo prior to rocket blowing up. but mewtwo is kept locked up tight and as an emergency back-up when all other measures have failed.

some years post-rocket-implosion, sakaki and mewtwo reconvene and develop a partnership. not because mewtwo enjoyed being a tool of rocket--but because it does know how any other purpose, and does not fit in the world as an unnatural, ungodly creation.

[thescorpioracer]

Sen Çal Kapımı 1 - Episode Recap

To be honest, this series of posts is mostly going to be a fashion roast. But DISCLAIMER! I really do love this show and Turkish TV in general, it’s just my preferred mode of media analysis is to pick things apart. 😂And I need everyone to know that I am very pro-women, and believe people should be able to dress how they want and not be judged for it or be looked down upon for it. But oh my god this wardrobe department/costumer needs to be STOPPED. I also have zero credentials to be talking about fashion, but will that stop me?

I’m going to make these posts assuming you’ve watched the show, and just comment on whatever comes up. There will be spoilers. Let’s go!

We start off with a voiceover from Eda Yıldız, an A+ romcom trope. (It wasn’t until my rewatch that I remembered that Eda used to do VOs at random intervals, and I’m kind of glad she stopped tbh.) She is a strong woman who wants to get her education and become a landscape architect/designer. She was all set to do that until- dun dun dun! - Serkan Bolat destroyed everything. 

Check out that dart board of a man (and this is the only time we see that photo there). And these outfits are probably the most normal and reasonable clothes she wears in the show. She’s a beautiful young woman, who was a college student, and now works outdoors as a florist. 10/10 outfit. 

Of course that transitions us into an epic slomo of Serkan exiting his private jet. He of course begins to berate his assistant on the phone in a way a friend described as reminiscent of The Devil Wears Prada.

@teamnick​​‘s commentary back when she first started the show. 

Serkan returns to his office for the first time in 2 months after working on business deals in London. Chaos ensues: Miranda Priestly is baaaaaaack.

See... here we have some good fashion choices! We meet the girls for the first time, while they try to sneak off to their graduation without making Eda feel bad that she won’t be receiving her diploma. Melek “Melo” is dressed in a sweet dress with a bold, romantic color, which captures her personality perfectly. Ceren, the rich daughter from a family of lawyers, looks a bit more high-fashion. The dress is short but it has long sleeves and no cleavage so it works out to be chic and elegant. Fifi is unapologetically herself with her full-black, punk wardrobe. Eda is again dressed in a pretty, but casual outfit. Nicely put together for her lower-middle-class lifestyle and her job as a florist.

Enter: the plot device to get our protagonists together. Serkan’s face says it all.

We are then introduced to the main couple’s respective cars. Serkan has his 2020 BMW (though the show blocks out the copyrighted branding) while Eda’s beat up SUV is clearly unreliable. What’s that? Another plot device being introduced? I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Also, I just noticed this, but for someone as uptight as Serkan, I’m surprised at how fun his suit jacket lining is. If I’m not mistaken the pattern is of a bunch of rainbow fish. #Snazzy, but they seem out of character?

Plot highlights:

Eda learns she can come back to school and finish her final year, but she’s lost her scholarship and will have to pay. She can’t.

Serkan gives his talk at the graduation (?)-- Is his talk just for architecture students? If so, why are Ceren, Fifi, and Melo there? We’ll never know. I know, I know... it’s all for the ~plot~

Eda calls Serkan out in front of everyone for taking away the scholarship that she earned from his company, Art Life. He is confused but unrepentant. She refuses to tell him her name.

She tries to deface his car with lipstick after keying the side (we never hear about the damage to his car after that). He catches her and wants to call the police, so she impulsively handcuffs them together with the plot devices from Selin’s wedding invitation sitting on his passenger seat.

They then have to go to Serkan’s urgent business meeting with an out-of-town client. Eda drives while they’re handcuffed together. Bickering ensues.

What is this? Foreshadowing? Symbolism?? Eda’s last name “Yıldız” is the Turkish word for “star” so... file that away for later.

One of my favorite parts about watching Turkish dramas is the experience of trying to decipher the fan translations. Add to the fact that Turkish only has 1 pronoun *chef’s kiss* 

Eda refuses to take the elevator to the 15th floor (we’ll learn about her claustrophobia later). Serkan is equally as stubborn, saying she owes  him for screwing up his day. But he has met his match in Eda with regards to stubbornness. They take the stairs.

More highlights:

First instance of fake dating - they need to hide the handcuffs from his client so Eda pretends she’s his girlfriend and a fellow investor.

The girls track Eda’s phone to the hotel and try to find her by asking around the premises. 

Eda charms the client into selling his land to Serkan.

We learn that Serkan is allergic to strawberries and has a lot of health anxiety. He’s a very tightly wound person.

Serkan says “Mashallah,” translator hears 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

Engin brings way too many people to open the handcuffs and chaos ensues.

I feel like nothing can do justice to the comedy of 58:45 to 1:00:00 with Fifi using a bobby pin as a lock pick. The dramatic editing is 👌🏼

Leyla gets fired for somehow causing this drama??? And she is so happy to leave that stressful workplace omg, we don’t deserve her 🥺

Serkan and Eda go their separate ways, Eda prepared to never see her enemy again, but of course her phone and purse are still in his car so she has to go to his office at Art Life and confront him again.

Serkan has found out that Whoops, Art Life did cancel the study abroad scholarships to cut costs, but his CFO did it without telling him. And Serkan is pissed, but I think mainly about the fact that Eda did have some (SOME) grounds for yelling at him in public.

Leyla then explains the nonsensical reasoning behind her being fired-but-not-fired and still working. (Spoiler alert: she never goes anywhere and she is my favorite side character to this day).

Eda: “How can I piss Serkan off?” Leyla: “Find a mistake he’s made and he will fixate on it forever. But you won’t find anything.” Eda: “Hold my beer.”

Eda walks into Serkan’s office and his meeting. She gets her purse back and they fight about him not being willing to apologize for ruining her life and education. He refuses and says she owes him an apology for embarrassing him in public (no, dude).

He wants to give her back the scholarship and make it all go away but she rightly tells him that it won’t fix her broken pride from begging the company and her university for a second chance. But somehow her calling him a heartless “Robot” is what gets to him???? And he short-circuits. Eda walks out triumphant. 

~dRaMa!~

MEANWHILE

Melo, as well as being a perfume sales girl, also works as a flight attendant and wants Eda to cover her shift (we’ll get into how that doesn’t make sense in a minute) 

Eda says no, she’s going to meet her boyfriend, Cenk, who she hasn’t seen in months and has just returned from Italy.

Enter: Selin. Serkan’s ex who he dumped a while ago and is now engaged to the heir of a hotel empire. Serkan doesn’t like this. The two of them grew up together and are set to each inherit 50% of the holding company that Serkan’s father currently runs.

Right away Selin serves us with a gender reveal level color scheme.  Personally not a fan. They confirm that Serkan is coming to her engagement party tomorrow.

Meanwhile Eda  meets up with Cenk. Her outfit is still reasonable and cute for her character. He looks mildly like a hobo and doesn’t seem to have anything going for him (I know he’s a throwaway character but the two of them really don’t have anything in common).

This creeper keeps staring at them, but Cenk tries to explain it away and says he’s busy and can’t meet her again until the day after tomorrow. Eda is disappointed but accepts this. Creeper girl remains and remains a red flag to viewers, but apparently not to Eda.

Cut to later that evening, and of course our broody main man enjoys astronomy in his free time (???) idk what he’s charting and to what purpose but okay? 

Eda finds a mini first aid kit in her purse that Serkan put there before returning it. Queue montage of them treating their respective wrists for handcuff-related injuries. #couplegoals

Of course we also needed a sepia-toned flashback to earlier that day when the handcuffs contrived their faces to get too close together. #romance

Finallyyyyyyy it’s morning again and a new day.

Since Eda can’t see Cenk (good, he’s so boring), she agrees to fill in as a flight attendant for Melo, who’s side job is for a private plane company.

Now. This should not be a thing. Eda was in college to be a landscape architect and now works as a florist for her aunt... Where has she learned any relevant skills to work as a flight attendant?? Presumably nowhere. And I really don’t think a private plane company would be so easygoing about just having a random person fill in to cover for her friend? 

But does this show care about that? What do you think...

Also, instead of the standard white shirt, black skirt uniform requirements, the girls decide that this skimpy dress and heels is fine? Hmmm

Also lol @ Melo for assuming that the client who wants jasmine tea and fruit salad is probably a woman. And her telling Eda that the PRIVATE JET COMPANY would in fact have its own tea was very random and unnecessary. 

Back at the Bolat house compound, we meet the parents: Aydan and Alptekin. We’ll see them again later. Selin’s engagement party is today. 

Meanwhile Eda is just.... being a flight attendant, I guess??? And who could possibly be the passenger she has to take care of? Take a wild guess. Of course it’s Serkan Bolat.

And of course that tiny dress (THAT ALSO HAS A LEG SLIT?? WHY?? I really don’t need to see her vagina) looks very practical and professional... not! (Hande Erçel is a gorgeous human, and the dress looks good on her, don’t get me wrong. BUT THIS IS SITUATIONALLY INCORRECT ATTIRE). Also him just folding his vest and then social distancing from it... K? 😂

Eda panics and doesn’t want Serkan to see her and runs away back to her seat pod thing - Serkan takes issue with his fruit salad for ~plot reasons~ (EDIT: I’ve been informed that it’s because there was a strawberry in his fruit salad and since he’s allergic, of course it needed to be fixed. Why doesn’t the plane have a note of that??) and comes back to find this mystery flight attendant.

Eda is very stressed out about this encounter and is also starting to have a panic attack because, surprise, she’s also claustrophobic. 

After Serkan calms her down, they have a cute/civil conversation for the rest of the flight.

When they land, Eda realizes they’re on an island 2h45min away from Istanbul and she isn’t sure what to do with herself (How did she not already know where they were going, as the FLIGHT ATTENDANT??? So may red flags with this private jet company).

Serkan convinces Eda to come with him and she can hang out at the beach while he’s at Selin’s engagement party.

At the engagement party we finally meet Selin’s fiancé Ferit. He’s sweet and non-threatening and clearly insecure about Serkan being Selin’s ex.

This dress/skirt outfit Selin is wearing isn’t terrible, but it doesn’t scream rich socialite to me. Anything with feathers seems... a bit tacky/too showy? Like someone pretending to be rich? Idk, this outfit isn’t one I’m going to really take a stand on.

Does this engagement party warrant being a 2h45 min flight away? No. They try to explain it away as the couple wanting to have something small and private, even though they also invite the press?? But okay whatever, as long as Serkan and Eda cross paths again, I suppose.

Kaan Karadağ has been mentioned a couple times in passing, but now we finally meet our “villain.” Ferit’s friend, and Serkan & Selin’s childhood acquaintance, who has it out for Serkan bc he somehow bankrupted Kaan’s dad? Idk and I don’t really care but tl;dr they’re enemies. 

Another thing I love about Turkish dramas is the censoring. Like, they’ll allow alcohol to be on screen, but they won’t say the word and they’ll just blur out the bottle and any liquid that we’d assume is alcoholic 😂

In the evening, Serkan is tired and wants to leave and Ferit snidely jokes about how Serkan is too picky to have a fiancé of his own. Serkan flashes back to 1 entire day ago when he and Eda pretended to be dating at his business meeting, and says that actually he is engaged to someone and then peaces out.

Serkan finds Eda on the beach, and they are preparing to leave when a crowd of people (Selin, Ferit, and Kaan mainly), arrive to get a peek at Serkan’s new “fiancé.” Eda very reluctantly plays along (good thing she has that unnecessarily sexy “work” dress to help her look the part) and Serkan notices that for the first time ever, Selin is jealous of another woman. #drama

After they finally escape the crowd, Serkan makes an annoyed Eda an offer: Pretend to be his fiancé for the 2 months leading up to Selin’s wedding so he can get them to break up and prevent Ferit marrying into the company. In return, he will pay all the fees to help her complete her last year of studies in Italy.

Eda refuses, stating that she doesn’t want anything from him, and besides she has a boyfriend (Sure Jan; Cenk is such a joke). They have it out and then fly back to Istanbul. But of course the gossips at the engagement have spread the news of Serkan’s new woman so the paparazzi corner them at the airport when they land. 

So glad that we got to see this random mechanic find out the news (???)

They escape the cameras and Serkan takes her home, saying that Art Life has a press conference tomorrow, and she should come so he can save face and tell everyone that she was his assistant accompanying him for work to the party. Eda agrees. 

It should also be mentioned that Serkan still doesn’t know her name at this point?? She refused to tell him and Engin still hasn’t sent him the names of the scholarship candidates so it’s a bit miraculous that their relationship was at all believable.

The next day, Cenk wants to meet but Eda has to go to the press conference. The girls come too for whatever reason, and Melo is convinced that Cenk wants to propose. Eda just lets that fantasy take hold (why tho?), and Cenk shows up unexpectedly right before the press conference and takes Eda into the nearby hotel’s cafe so they can talk.

Eda seems ready for a proposal (they haven’t seen each other or really communicated in months??) but Cenk wants to break up. Eda is shocked (???) but then Cenk mentions that he has a new girlfriend from Italy that he adores, and oh by the way, it’s the creepy girl from the other night who also happens to be here right now?

Okay fine, I guess??? Cenk: “She’s doesn’t speak Turkish” Girlfriend: *clearly a Turkish actress*

Eda is upset that he brought his jealous girlfriend with him to break up with her and says something about how actually, she’s seeing Serkan Bolat now (maybe it’s just me being someone who doesn’t follow tabloids, but are business people really that popular in every day society where everyone knows who they are?). Cenk laughs at Eda, saying that everyone wants to be with Serkan Bolat, and that she’s bluffing.

Eda makes an impulsive decision, and walks away, over to where Serkan has started the press conference. And seals their fate as fake dating in the public eye.

Queue confetti. No really.

And there we have it. That’s the episode!

In all seriousness, it’s a pretty great pilot, especially for a romcom. It hits all the right beats, includes enough tropes, and tells us a lot about what we should expect in the episodes going forward. And no matter how much I make fun of it, I really do enjoy this show! It’s been such a nice distraction from Current Events. I’ve spent a lot of time watching these episodes just saying “oh my god” out loud to myself as I watch all of the cute/romantic gestures that give me a lot of second hand embarrassment (I forget that PDA makes me kinda uncomfortable 😂).

There wasn’t actually that much terrible fashion in this episode, which I didn’t notice until my rewatch. If I continue with this series of posts, I’m hoping they’ll end up being less plot-centric, and more about the situationally inappropriate outfits and strange subtitling choices. 

See you next time? 

[crimson-snowfall]

[Commission] Blooming Love

Pairing: Isaac x Botanist!MC

Word Count: 2441

Commissioned by: @savourthelittlethings​

Isaac’s POV

The vast array of books in Le Comte’s library have always been a treasure trove of knowledge for the mansion’s residents. A thick pile of books lay on my table, and while I do normally prefer to take my reading materials into the solitude of my room, recently I seem to have developed a strange preference towards this place– not that it was any much different from my own room considering that it was actually quiet most of the time, since the other residents rarely frequent this place.

I flipped through the pages of a foreign academic journal, and though I may not be so fluent with the language it had been written in, mathematics is a universal language, so the language barrier had never been that much of a hindrance for me when it comes to my research.

What bothers me though, is that try as I might, I couldn’t seem to concentrate. Looking out at the window for what seemed to be the hundredth time since I had settled on this desk that just so happened to have the perfect view on one of the mansion's outdoor gardens, I could only heave a sigh of resignation as the curious woman outside commanded my undivided attention.

That carefree smile on her face told me that she was once again lost in her own little world. She sketched the now budding flowers I believe she had grown herself with unrivaled enthusiasm, and it reminded me of that fateful encounter a few weeks ago.

Thinking back on it, that's probably when it all began.

<<Flashback>>

I had just finished returning the books I had borrowed from the library and was on my way out, when my eyes caught sight of a book laying on one of the desks. I decided to pick it up for closer inspection.

Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis, Vol. 12.

I quirked a brow in mild intrigue. I do not recall having a botanist amongst the residents. Or perhaps it was Leonardo? His involvement and contributions in a lot of disciplines was what made him the Renaissance Man, it wouldn’t be surprising if botany was one of those disciplines.

In any case, I might as well return this to its proper shelf. I made my way towards the natural sciences section of the library… and that was when I saw her again.

It was the woman from the future who had somehow ended up wandering into this time. The last time I saw her was at the banquet, on the same night she had arrived from that door. Right now, she appears to be too occupied with trying to reach for a book on the upper shelves, that she had failed to notice my presence.

Wordlessly, I took the book she had been reaching for and offered it to her. 

"Oh, thank you!" Her voice was mellow and pleasant to the ears.

"It's nothing."

"Sir Isaac, isn't it?" She tilted her head a little on the side as she verified my identity. On the other hand, I was rather surprised that she had even remembered my name.

"Yes," I affirmed, "...but you can just call me Isaac."

I spared her a furtive glance, but she wasn't looking at me. Rather, the book I had picked up from the desk a while ago seemed to have caught her attention.

"You're interested in botany too?" 

For some unfathomable reason, the way her eyes lit up as she asked me that question rendered me at loss for words. It was such a simple question, and yet… the notion of disappointing her by revealing that I just happened to pick up the book just didn’t sit very well with me.

It’s almost as though I wanted her to keep on looking at me like that.

She seemed to have deduced the truth from my silence either way, and the next thing I know, she was apologizing to me, head hung low in embarrassment.

“I’m sorry, that was quite presumptuous of me…”

“N-No, no it’s not…!” And without giving any much thought to my next words, I added, “It’s not my expertise, but I’m always open to new knowledge. That’s why… I would really appreciate it if you could tell me all about it.”

By the time my rationality had caught up with my senses, she was already beaming up at me, that warm light back in her eyes.

“Do you mean it?”

“Of course I mean it,” and no sooner than those words had left my lips, she had practically dragged me off by my hand on the nearest desk, the spring in her step perhaps an indication of her excitement… and as she began what would eventually turn out to be a lengthy lecture on the basic principles of botany, waves of nostalgia washed over me, and I began to understand my previous reactions and what compelled me to act the way I did.

She reminded me of my younger years; I know exactly what it feels like to be enraptured by the beauty of the natural world, hence why I ended up spending– and continue to spend my taste of eternity in pursuit of my goal of unraveling its truths. That’s why I am also familiar with the dejection that naturally accompanies the harrowing realization that I didn’t have anyone I can share the exquisite, unique brand of fulfillment one derives from pursuing their respective passions. 

Perhaps I’m just overthinking it– maybe she feels things differently from how I felt back then– anyway I’d really rather not dwell trying to decode things as unpredictable as human emotions, but one thing I’m sure of was that I didn’t want to take my chances and accidentally make her feel that way... and that was when I knew I just couldn’t leave her alone.

She talked about a lot of things, and it left me feeling rather delighted how advances in physics over the next century lead to the development of more complex microscopes, which in turn revolutionized the study of a lot of biological fields, botany included.

“...So naturally, a lot of things changed after the scientific community finally got their hands on the technology that enabled them to study the molecular organization of life forms with higher accuracy. In the modern day, though the strict use of epithets in botany is regulated by international codes, it is highly considered impractical and outdated,” she went on as she made neat annotations on the book I had gotten for her a while ago.

“And that’s what all those corrections are for?”

“Exactly. There has been a consensus in the scientific community that actual evolutionary processes and genetic relationships should be reflected in the plant classification system for it to be both functional and truly objective. However, the technological means to actualize that goal only came to be in the more recent decades of my time, with a ground-breaking classification of angiosperms consolidating molecular phylogenetics, which is one of the best available methods in the present.”

For the first time in my life, I must admit that this conversation finally gave me the slightest hints with regards to how my students must have felt back then. I couldn’t make sense of some of the botanical jargon she casually threw around in her mini-lecture, but at the same time I really didn’t want to interrupt and ask her since she really looked like she was enjoying herself.

Well, as long as she could have someone who would lend her an ear… then that should be enough, right?

<<End of Flashback>>

Little did I know back then that what would start out as a sense of liability to be a listening ear to her would gradually turn into something more, and on this particular day, I’m about to be enlightened as to what that ‘something more’ encompassed.

I know for a fact that she uses those sketches to keep track of the plants’ growth, and after making her rounds through the garden checking everything she had planted, she would usually head to the veranda where she would summarize that day’s records. 

But not this time.

Right after her routine inspection, she skipped off to the main gate. I rose from my seat to get a better view of where she’s headed, and much to my dismay… she headed straight into the direction of the forest. I understand that she’s simply practicing her profession, and frankly I feel like if I say anything about it then I would just be getting in her way but… sometimes, I just wished that she’d look out for herself more by not abandoning her sense of self-preservation at the drop of a hat. Seeing that she’s clearly beyond that point in this situation, my legs began to move on its own, and in no time I was dashing out of the mansion, determined to catch up so as to not lose sight of her.

I tried to follow her as discreetly as I could, but I couldn’t hold back the small curses that erupted from my lips as she went deeper into the forest and the increasingly thicker undergrowth threatened to trip me every now and then. Gods, just how much further is she planning to venture in? Years of experience may have honed her skills to navigate through this infernal, uneven terrain, but I don’t like the idea of her fending for herself alone should the unseen dangers of this forest decide to capitalize on her little quest for more plants to study.

After what felt to me like hours of battling my way through the forest undergrowth, a small clearing in the forest came into sight; it was adorned with flowers of all sizes and colors. She sat just right in the middle of it, and for a few minutes that's what all she did; she just sat there and took in her surroundings, breathing in its pleasant, floral scent, with a smile that I could only assume to be a proportionate mixture of delight and contentment accentuating her beau– no wait, what am I thinking?

Shaking off the strange thoughts coming into my mind, I concealed myself behind a tree trunk so as to not be a distraction to her. After a while, she took out her notebook and began jotting down notes and sketching the abundance of flowers in the area, when one particular flower seemed to have caught her eye.

I may be one to talk though– seeing as I myself didn't realize that my own eyes have been way too caught with keeping watch on her that I neglected awareness over my own surroundings. I failed to hold back a shriek of alarm as I felt something, perhaps a forest bug, crawl over my leg… so long story short, I had blown my cover and now her full attention is on me.

"Isaac?" Her voice was laced with concern as she hastily made her way over to my side, "What are you doing here? Are you alright?"

"I-I'm fine, a bug just crawled over my leg…" I couldn't meet her worried gaze in sheer embarrassment. Then, without any warning, she pulled me up from my hiding spot and led me by the hand into the clearing as though it was the most natural thing in the world, and I, utterly dumbfounded by the gesture, could only follow her lead.

"Thank you for always looking out for me, Isaac. But you should really look out for yourself too, you know?"

...I can't believe I'm actually the one getting told off for not looking after oneself. Besides, how did she even come to that conclusion? But then again from what I have seen of her, she can be quite intuitive, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised she was able to figure it all out on her own.

In an attempt to save face, I initiated a new topic.

"So, did you find something new?"

The excitement she radiated over my question was akin to a flower bursting into full bloom, and once again, I find myself at the mercy of her delicate charms. She pointed to a tiny patch of flowers that are light violet in color.

"Viola cryana, a flowering plant species that was already extinct in my time. I wasn't even expecting to come across one of them here since they're supposed to be endemic in the region of Yonne," she explained.

"Then if you found them here when they're supposed to be endemic in that region, doesn't that open up the possibility that it wasn't extinct after all?"

"Exactly! Even so, I plan on taking measures to ensure that it doesn't really go extinct," her voice reflected her determination towards her newfound goal. “A lot of people don’t realize just how important plants are. Even in the future, a lot of ingredients used in the medicine that treat various diseases are synthesized from naturally occurring compounds commonly found in plants, and who knows what disease this plant may have the cure for in the future? Also, it has been proven that...”

She had me utterly enthralled by her passionate address, that once again, I had lost sense of my surroundings, only this time, it wasn’t any forest bug crawling up my leg that had brought me back to reality. Rather, it was the faint, but definitely warm brush of her breath against my lips as she suddenly looked up at me, and that ardent passion in her eyes almost threatened to draw me in closer, closer, and closer– until both of us abruptly turned away as our senses came rushing back to us.

For a few moments, only the sounds of nature filled the air. She had been one to break the awkward silence between us.

“I-I’m sorry, I got a little c-carried away...” 

I dared to steal one glance on her, and at the very least, I found it rather comforting to know that I’m not the only one whose cheeks were burning up, even though this warm, fuzzy feeling that accompanied this experience is still completely foreign to me.

“No, it’s m-my fault. I got t-too close…” I stood up from where I was seated next to her. “Regardless, I think it’s getting late. We should be heading back now…”

Our trip back to the mansion went without incident. However, little did I know that on that fateful day, in the second instance I have lost sense of my surroundings, I may not have had a forest bug crawl over my leg, but it may have been the moment the love bug has bitten me.

Commissions Page | Ikevamp Fics

[the-desolated-quill]

Quill’s Swill - The Worst Of 2019

Congratulations! You’ve made it through another year! You’ve faced many obstacles and overcome many adversaries to arrive here, at the dawn of a new decade. So as we prepare to leave the 2010s and make our way into the 2020s, lets take a look back at the challenges and hardships of 2019. And by challenges and hardships, I of course mean shitty fiction and media.

Yes, it’s time for yet another edition of Quill’s Swill, where we mark the absolute worst stories that the industry had to offer over the past year and proceed to tear them to shreds. Think of it as like voiding your bowels before the New Year.

As always remember that this is my personal, subjective opinion. If you happen to like any of the things on this list, that’s fine. More power to you. Go make your own list. Also bear in mind I haven’t seen everything 2019 has to offer due to various other commitments. So as much as I really, really want to, I can’t put Avengers Endgame on here. I know what happens. It sounds fucking terrible, but I haven’t seen the film, so it wouldn’t be fair of me to put it on the list, even though it would most definitely deserve it.

...

Seriously, read the synopsis of Endgame on Wikipedia some time. It’s like fanfic written by a nine year old. It’s truly shocking. And now it’s the highest grossing movie of all time? Give me strength.

All In A Row

Don’t you just hate it when you’re expected to parent your autistic child? Like actually show love and care and consideration to your offspring. Look at him, expecting you to treat him like a human being. Selfish bastard! If only there was a play that explored the horrors of having to be a decent person to your own flesh and blood and how objectively awful it is. If you’re one of those people, then the play All In A Row will be right up your street.

Premiering on the 14th February at Southwark Playhouse in London, All In A Row was a total shitshow to say the least. The playwright, Alex Oates, claimed to have ten years of experience working with autistic children, which you wouldn’t have believed if you saw the play as the autistic child at the centre of the play, Lawrence, seemed more like a wild animal than a person. In fact two of the main characters compare him to a dog. And if you thought this wasn’t dehumanising enough, Lawrence isn’t even a child. He’s a puppet. Yes, it’s as bad as it sounds.

All In A Row seems to place all of the blame for the family’s predicament on the autistic child, who’s presented as barely functional, bordering on bestial. There’s no effort to really make an emotional connection with Lawrence (how can you? He’s a puppet!) as the play instead focuses on how this kid has effectively ruined this family’s life because of his autism and aggressive behaviour. Speaking as someone on the autism spectrum, I can say quite confidently that this play is fucking despicable. Badly written, badly conceived, insulting and downright mean spirited. I wouldn’t want Oates looking after my autistic children, that’s for damn sure.

Anthem

EA is back and this time they’re dragging the critical darling that is BioWare down with them.

Anthem was a desperate attempt to jump aboard the ‘live service’ bandwagon, trying to replicate the success of other video games like Overwatch, Destiny and Warframe. They failed spectacularly. The game itself had more bugs than A Bug’s Life, loot drops were often stingy and unrewarding, loading times were farcically long, and the story and worldbuilding was fucking pitiful. Oh yeah, and if you played it on PS4, there was a good chance it could permanently damage it. Thankfully I have a uni friend with an Xbox One and they allowed me to play the game on that. It was a crushing disappointment, especially coming fresh off the heels of Mass Effect Andromeda, which didn’t exactly set the world on fire back in 2017.

It didn’t help that EA’s reputation was in tatters thanks to the lootbox controversy of Star Wars Battlefront II and having to try and win back the trust of fans, but worse still reports began to service of what went on behind the scenes at BioWare during the game’s development. Apparently the game’s story and mechanics kept changing every other day as the creative directors and writers didn’t have the faintest idea what kind of game they wanted to make, and the developers were often forced to work obscenely long work hours in abusive crunch periods to get the game finished for launch. It got so bad that, according to an article on Kotaku, some members of the team had to leave for weeks or even months at a time to recover from ‘stress casualties.’ 

To think this was the same company that gave us Mass Effect, Dragon Age and Knights Of The Old Republic. Thank God that Obsidian Entertainment is there to pick up the slack on the RPG front because I think it’s safe to assume that BioWare won’t be around for much longer at this rate.

The Lion King (2019 remake)

Here we go. Yet another live action remake of a Disney classic. Excpet it’s not live action, is it? Well... it’s live action in the sense that Dinosaur was live action (remember that film? Don’t worry if you don’t. No one does). Real locations but CGI characters. Millions of dollars spent on cutting edge tech to create photo realistic animals... and the film ends up duller than a bowl of porridge that really likes trainspotting.

It’s not just the fact that The Lion King remake is yet another soulless cash grab from the House of Mouse, it’s also the fact that it’s done really badly that upsets me. The Lion King works as an animated film. Bright colourful images, over the top song and dance sequences and vibrant character designs. As a ‘live action’ film, it just looks awkward and stilted. None of the animals are very expressive, leaving it up to the poor voice actors to carry the film, and to cap it all off the CGI isn’t even all that convincing in my opinion. At no point did I look at Simba and go ‘oh yeah, he looks like a real lion.’ It’s so obviously fake. In fact it reminds me of those early 00s movies like Cats & Dogs or Stuart Little where you see the jaws of the talking animals moving up and down like some messed up ventriloquist act or something. And here’s me thinking cinema has evolved past this.

BBC’s The War Of The Worlds

Remember Peter Harness? That guy who wrote that Doctor Who episode about the moon being an egg? Yeah, he’s back and he’s doing an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ War Of The Worlds. And guess what! It’s fucking ghastly! :D

The three part BBC mini-series was without a doubt some of the worst telly I think I’ve ever seen. It’s staggering how clueless Harness is as a writer. For starters he managed to achieve the impossible and somehow made a Martian invasion of Earth boring. I didn’t even think it was possible, but somehow he pulled it off. Then he sucks all tension out of the story by revealing the ultimate fate of the Martians at the beginning of the second episode, so now any threat or danger has been chucked out of the window because we know that the main female protagonist Amy at least would survive. And then finally he takes a massive dump over the source material by having humanity weaponise typhoid to kill the red weed rather than just having the Martians die of the common cold like in the book. Because God forbid us Brits should be presented as anything other than heroic and dignified.

So what we’re left with is a poorly realised allegory with ineffectual horror tropes full of OTT progressive posturing in a pathetic attempt to make Harness and the BBC look more liberal than they actually are. There’s no effort to really explore the themes of imperialism and colonialism outside of casual lip service, and we barely get a glimpse of the dark side of humanity. Everyone is presented as flawed, but basically awesome or, in the case of Rafe Spall’s character, utterly gormless. Our TV license fees help fund this shit, you know?!

And if you think this was bad, just wait till New Year’s Day where we’ll get to see Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’ butcher Dracula. Can we stop giving these beloved literary icons to these hacks please?

Glass

I liked Split. It wasn’t an amazing movie, but it was entertaining with some good ideas, a great performance from James McAvoy and was a true return to form for M Night Shyamalan. That being said, I wasn’t keen on the idea of it taking place in the same universe as Unbreakable. I feared it would be a step too far and we’d end up having something like... well, something like Glass.

On paper, Glass isn’t a bad idea. The idea of superpowers being a delusion is legitimately intriguing and could have been a great post-modern deconstruction of the superhero genre. Except Shyamalan never actually does anything with it. The first act drags on and on with absolutely nothing happening, none of the characters really grow or change over the course of the film, Bruce Willis in particular is basically only here for an extended cameo as his character does pretty much nothing for the majority of the film, and then the entire film is undermined by that stupid Shyamalan twist. Turns out superhumans are real and there’s a big cover up. Oh great! So not only does it render the entire film pointless, it also undoes what made Unbreakable and Split so good. They’re no longer people capable of extraordinary feats via rational means. They’re just superhuman. They can do anything. Sigh.

Shyamalan... maybe it’s time to give up the director’s chair, yeah?

Cats

Oh come on! Don’t act surprised! Did you honestly think I wouldn’t put Cats on this list?!

Cats, without a doubt, is the worst film of the decade and, yes, the CGI is terrible. Not only are there these sub-human cat mutants running around, we also have mice and cockroaches with child faces, James Corden coughing up furballs, Taylor Swift trying to give the furries in the audience boners, Idris Elba looking disturbingly underdressed and Rebel Wilson being... well... Rebel Wilson. It’s a disaster of a film. And really, should we even be surprised? We all knew this was going to suck. And no it’s not because of the CGI. I thought the CGI in Pokemon: Detective Pikachu was creepy as well, but at least it had a decent script and good performances to back it up. No the reason why Cats sucked is because... it’s Cats. It’s always been that bad. No amount of ‘advanced fur technology’ was going to change that. It was still going to be a confused, plotless mess with one dimensional characters and bad songs.

The only consolation I had was that I didn’t waste money buying a ticket. A friend of mine snuck me into the premiere and we watched it in the projector room. The plan was to make fun of it and have a laugh, but we didn’t even do that because honestly there’s nothing to really make fun. There’s only so many times you can take the piss out of the CGI and honestly the film was just boring more than anything else. It doesn’t even have the distinction of being so bad it’s good like Sharknado or Tommy Wiseau’s The Room. It’s just bad, period.

I just hope we don’t see something similar happen to Starlight Express. Just think. Anthropomorphic, singing trains on roller skates. Shudder.

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker

Finally we have yet another cynical cash grab from Disney.

I confess I didn’t exactly go into The Rise Of Skywalker with an open mind. I was never all that keen on a sequel trilogy in the first place, and neither The Force Awakens nor The Last Jedi ever convinced me otherwise. Admittedly they weren’t bad movies. Just derivative and painfully uninspired, and I was expecting more of the same for Episode IX. What I got instead was quite possibly the worst Star Wars film since Attack Of The Clones. Yes, it’s that bad.

This film is very poorly made, filled with plot contrivances and logic holes galore. I lost count of the number of times the protagonists got into a dangerous situation because of Rey constantly wandering off like a confused toddler lost in a shopping mall. Oh and we finally find out who her parents were and it was quite a twist, but only because it was really stupid. Of course we didn’t see it coming because nobody would have guessed it would be something that moronic. I feel JJ Abrams’ stupid ‘mystery box’ philosophy is to blame for this. It’s derailed countless franchises before such as Lost and Cloverfield, and now Abrams has fucked up Star Wars because he’s obsessed with mystery for the sake of mystery and Disney are so lazy that they couldn’t be bothered to plan an actual trilogy out properly beforehand. Instead they just wing it, making it up as they go along, which led to Rian Johnson ‘subverting our expectations’ and left Abrams desperately trying to pick up the pieces. 

In fact a lot of The Rise Of Skywalker seemed designed specifically to appease people of both sides of the wide chasm The Last Jedi had created. The roles of characters of colour like Finn and Rose were significantly reduced, Poe and Finn don’t end up together because of homophobia, but we do see two women kiss in the background of one two second shot that could easily be cut out when they release the film in China, Kylo Ren gets his stupid redemption even though he hasn’t fucking earned it, Lando Calrissian shows up for no fucking reason, Rey is given ‘flaws’ relating to her parentage in order to combat those accusing her of being a Mary Sue, but they’re the boring kind of flaws that don’t have any real impact on her character, and that ghastly ship Reylo is made canon even though it makes no sodding sense in the context of this movie, let alone the whole trilogy. They even go to the trouble of baiting us with a FinnRey romance before pulling the rug out from under us. Then, just to add insult to injury, the film retroactively ends up making the entire original trilogy completely pointless. All because Disney wanted more dollars to put in their Scrooge McDuck money bin.

The Rise Of Skywalker, and indeed the entire sequel trilogy, should serve as a cautionary tale against the dangers of hype and nostalgia. The reason The Force Awakens was successful wasn’t because it was a good movie (because lets be brutally honest here, it really fucking wasn’t). It was because it gave gullible Star Wars fans warm fuzzies because it reminded them of A New Hope whilst tempting them with the vague promise that things might get more interesting later on. And when that didn’t materialise, quelle surprise, the fanbase didn’t take it very well. I would love to think that this will serve as an important lesson for the future when people go and see Disney movies, but who am I kidding? I guarantee at some point we’re going to get Episodes X, XI and XII and we’ll have to go through this sorry process all over again.

So there we have it. The worst of 2019. May they rot forever in Satan’s rectum or wherever it is stories go to die. Tomorrow we’ll take a look at the other end of the spectrum. Yes it’s the Quill Seal Of Approval Awards! The best of the best! Who shall win? The suspense is killing me! Ooooh, I can’t wait! You’ll be there tomorrow, won’t you? Of course you will. How could you not?

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Fuck Chip Zdarsky

So instead of writing the characters honestly based upon their experiences he's just going to arbitrarily write them however. Yeah...bullshit. First of all no actually it's not iron clad certain that they would be in a mental institution if they felt all that had happened to them. The point is they're superheroes. And really when you get right down to it superhero's are more defined by their superhuman inner strenth than anything else. But even if we say that we shouldn't take the weight of their history into account and more go by the cliffnotes version of it the way he wrote them was still dishonest for numerous reasons. Peter was a jerkass about MJ's relationships, their interactions were dishonest to how they'd interacted in literally the last story we'd seen them in together and even if you go by the most cursory of readings of their relationship: - Known each other for 10 years - Came together following Gwen's death - Were effectively married for a minimum of five years -Lived through Kraven's Last Hunt and Venom and Norman Osborn - Lived through other crises - Were very deeply in love for a long, long, long time Their casualness in the FCBD story was utterly dishonest to all of that even if you are not counting every single story they ever appeared in together. I've said it before and I will say it again. You CANNOT simply treat that specific relationship like any given casual romantic relationship or marriage like it's a breakup from Dawson's Creek or something. The nature of the relationship was simply never like that. And frankly if you attitude is ignore it and skip over the realism and ramifications of things just for the sake of getting things onto the page he doesn't have any business writing Spider-Man. I mean sure accellerate some stuff...if the situation is dire. After Kraven's Last Hunt, the Clone Saga and Mackie's run Peter and MJ were note strictly speaking written realistically in the aftermaths of those events. But at the same time all of those events were following massive destablizing sea changes in the editorial and/or an incredibly broken base within the readership wherein getting things simply working and moving forward was necesarry for the actual survival of the series. KLH followed the wedding and Hobgoblin debacle and the dark shit from PAD's Spec run. It was NECESARRY to plough forward into regular Spider-Man stuff that was more upbeat. The same times 1000 goes for the Clone Saga and Mackie's run. In Zdarsky's case the series was NEVER in such dire straits and at the end of the day HE chose to include Mary Jane in the first place. He chose to include her when he didn't have to and then falsly and dishonestly said oh by the way off panel they got over all this shit that if we were being good writers and honest with the readers (especially since as comic book publishers we can make mini-series and web comics and basically have little time constraints the way movies and TV does) we should by rights have shown you. Yeah, yeah, you gotta joke not to cry...except that isn't how either of them have conssistently acted int he past regarding their relationships. And it isn't a universal rule. Idiots. As for the other stuff mentioned. He's like Frank Miller. He can talk eloquently about the intricacies of comic books but can't pull them off in practice. I mean he says he studied what made a good Spider-Man story but if he really understood anything from that study he'd have never had Spider-Man date a woman in public AS Spider-Man or made a team up book. The mental instituion thing is again fucking stupid because it is excusing shitty writing. Why was Spider-Man able to be kept relatively speaking in character from the 1960s-1990s (accidents happened of course, see O'Neil's run) but oh now fuck it? That's not how good comic book writing works. You can't handwave shit like that. Putting aside again how actually Spider-Man has an in-universe inner strength and bolsted by his connections to other people so he wouldn't actually be in a mental institution, how fucking insulting to say "Well No. Prize this OOC thing by saying he's crazy." Your superhero lead should not be 'crazy' in that way jackass. As for Spider-Man screwing up....fuck you Zdarsky seriously. Spider-Man can screw up AND learn from his mistakes because he is human. People at age 50 aren't somehow more perfect than they were when they were younger. They don't make certain screw ups and mistakes sure, but they also aren't devoid of them. Having Spider-Man deliberately screw up and ignoring his history is a repugnant way of handling the character and one David Michelinie was rejecting in the 1990s. If you look at Michelinie's run he actually tried his best to have Spider-Man acknowledge and fix stuff like his web shooters running out of fluid, have him go to the FF or the Avengers for help, had him use his intellect to solve crimes and defeat bad guys like when he investigated the Shocker and had him try and make his photos better by only making the camera activate when he passed by it. It was a Spider-Man who was flawed as a person but had still learned from his mistakes. Shit, Tom DeFalco was having 40 year old Peter Parker and Mary Jane make missteps in Spider-Girl. Conway was doing that in RYV. Cap AND Superman have done that despite their long histories. And that has happened whilst acknowledging them growing as people and learning from their pasts. What he is suggesting is basically maintaining the status quo of the characters come Hell or high water. the characters can NEVER really grow or change even though that was literally one of the foundation stones of the fucking Marvel universe. Flawed characters yes, but also realism, progression and change. Hence Ben Grimm at the end of Stan Lee's run might not have been perfect but he had evolved a shitton from the guy he was in FF #1 I also fail to see why Peter should be the smartest person in the MU or most respected. in terms of raw intellect Richards and Stark and Banner and Pym are better than himwithout question. And why should he in or out of the costume be more respected? Jameson saw to the latter surely. And now we know why Zdarsky is so beleoved within Marvel. He fits in with their bullshit agenda of 'readers don't know what they want'. Fuck them. Readers know their own minds. They want a married happy Spider-Man and the stories from that era bear out that that isn't reductive. Shit RENEW YOUR VOWS a book on the stands RIGHT NOW bears that out. My God it even contradicts Zdarsky's own bullshit earlier in the interview that KLH works and that generally the story should be upbeat and happy. Not to mention Zdarsky said before starting Spec that he was drawing upon stuff from his childhood which included 1990s comics when Spider-Man was married. I don't even know what he's talking about with the X-Men. Claremont didn't give readers what they wanted right before he left editorial was dictating things which is WHY he left. But you know FYI....X-Men was never more popular than back then. Never. Yes with his history Peter Parker can never strictly speaking be the everyman. But her'es the dirty little secret. The everyman thing was always relative. Because shockingly the every man was the child of a single parent because they accidentally got their Dad killed and now had the be the rbeadwinner of the family. When you write superheore stories you find the BALANCE between respecting their histories, what is realistic, what the genre demands and what their core concept is. You don't throw one thing under the bus for the others. You don't say that you are going to ignore most of his history because he is supposed to be the everyman. Equally you don't say I'm going to ignore the everyman thing because I want to do something new or because this one thing in his history can be taken to this place that undermines that. That's Slott's problem with the Parker Industries stuff. He's fucked over the core concept of Spider-Man because he's saying realistically Peter could become a businessman. Meanwhile Zdarsky is saying he won't have Peter and MJ act beleivably to their histories because to do so would also fuck over their concepts. (even though he just got done handwaving his OOC writing on the grounds that they'd be in mental institutions). We're caught between a rock and a hardplace with these two morons because neither of them can figure out the correct balance the way guys like DeFalco, DeMatteis, Stern or Conway could. They go all or nothing instead of understanding that you DO treat these things realistically and beleivably up to a point but also adhere tot eh concept up to a point. But niether of them understands where those points should be drawn. He says you can't dwell on the past of the characters because there would be no stories...except haven't multiple writers in the past actually GENERATED stories out of that? Isn't one of Slott's (for some reason) acclaimed stories literally a big dream sequence where Peter (bewilderingly) dwells on Marla Jameson's death along with EVERYONE who's ever died in Spider-Man's whole history? You can acknowledge the past without dwelling on it to the point where it holds you back. Again, writers of the past managed to do this. And no, 25 years of history in the 1980s should by rights have presented EXACTLY the same constictions Zdarsky is bulshitting about with his Mental Institution falsehood. Just about the only things I agree about with this nonsense is the idea of letting characters age. Everything else disgusts me. Again, you find the BALANCE between the concepts, the realism, the history, the genre demands, etc. Again, again actually most of these people wouldn't necesarilly be in mental instittutions. Consider how a 19th century middle aged man would maybe crack from exposure to our modern world as it would be so overwhelmingly alien to him. But to a modern middle aged man it isn't because he's grow up and gotten used to it. The smae is true of the Marvel universe. having dealt with superhero shit since literally the 1940s in-universe the residents of the MU likely built up a certain mental tolerence for the sort of shit they typically deal with. Hence numerous deaths and resurrections are by and large probably not going to send them off the deep end. Because the Marvel Universe is KIND of like our world but not an exact facimilie. Even if that explanation doesn't work for you the fact is that you still have to find the balance. okay they can't be totally realistic because they would be in mental institutions, that doesn't mean you ignore the realistic ramifications completely. You still HAVE to address them and address them on panel whilst not going too far. In the clone saga they couldn't spend months or years showing the depths of Peter and MJ recovering from Ben Reilly and their child's deaths. But they didn't just skip it either. They did an issue acknowleding those emotions and having them ready to move on and get their lives back to normal whilst still showing them have moments of pain and loss and also going to therepy. You have the ramifcations go as far as you can without breaking the concept or the genre necessities. But equally if the genre necessities say the show must go on come hell or high water and that invovles a complete destruction and selling out of who the characters' are then the show doesn't deserve to go on. E.g. had Paul McGann's Doctor Who movie done well they were essentially going to ignore the past and remake old Doctor Who stories set in America whilst the Doctor searched for his father who'd fathered him with a human woman and had had the Master with another woman, making the Master the Doctor's half brother. That stuff so aggressively doesn't make sense within the established narrative and so aggressively fucks over so many core concepts of Doctor Who that the 'show must go on' mantra of storytelling ceases to be an excuse because that show doesn't deserve to go on duee to eviscerating certain fundamentals. If in major storylines peter and Mary Jane lived through traumatic events acknowledged as traumatic that drew them closer together and that too was an acknowledged part of the story IN-UNIVERSE then you DO NOT GET TO IGNORE THAT! How much (if at all) you get to ignore it if it was in minor storylines or if it would be realistic despite not being acknowledged in universe should not matter at that point. You DO NOT GET to play it in a way that ignores that stuff!