#i wanted to move jason to a solo for the same reason just hoping people would. care

[kurthorton-moving]

I log into my other blogs multiple times every day and yet. Nothing Happens on them

[incoherentbabblings]

Hi!

I love your content, your love for TimSteph, and I was actually going to ask what you love so much about them. I, for extra credit for English, decided to write an analysis of Stephanie (and why I love her so much), but I just got into comics, and cannot really put my feelings for her in words ... which is odd, considering how much I love her and writing. Also, I was going to do a section on why TimSteph is narrative genius, and I needed help elaborating on that too.

Could you help me out, please? Thanks!

(I feel the need to mention that I have read quite a lot of comics with Stephanie in them, though not all. I'm not much of a comic book fan, but I'm really interested in the Batfamily!)

I'll be very happy to write out bullet points that you could talk about, and feel free to go through my ask and I'll babble/TimSteph meta tags for anything that you think may be worth discussing in your own words - there's like four or so years of stuff there to spark your brain.

HOWEVER!!!! Keep in mind though that much of what I have written is half based on textual evidence and half me just writing what I like/wish would crop up in canon.

For example, yes I like to draw comparisons between Tim being cold and Steph being warm, moon and sun and so on, but there's genuinely nothing in text to hint as this being an actual character trait or symbolism. If anything Tim's stated to be warm several times, more than Steph.

So, and I am sorry to be so blunt, but if I take your request in bad faith for a moment, don't use either directly or indirectly what I've written for your work. Especially without actually going and reading the arcs I talk about. A lot of the time it doesn't hold up under genuine textual scrutiny, and we want to be good academics here! There's Death of the Author and then there's me making crap up because I want to include it in a fanfic. Not the same thing! My blog is called IncoherentBabblings for a reason after all!

I will therefore say this: If you want to write about Steph as a character, I would use the below video as a point of reference. Using the below, you can then go into why she resonates with you the way she does, or why her relationship with Tim is so interesting to you.

If I were you: focus on her dynamic character development: cynical to idealistic. And use three points in her publication history to do this: her introduction in Detective Comics, War Games, and Batgirl. I am sorry to recommend War Games as something to read but it is important to her character. Use the Stephanie Brown Wiki to help!

That lends itself to a biography of her character, a look at her motivations and values, her role within the batfam, and so on. You can also use this to make comparisons with her peers, specifically Tim moving in the exact opposite direction development wise; Babs and Cass in their approaches to Batgirl; and the other Robins through her similar character progression as Dick, which in turn allows her to be a good mentor to Damian, and finally how her character arc runs perpendicular to Jason's. Does that make sense?

Anyway, let's get going! If I were to write an academic piece on Stephanie, these are the main points I would work through. In other words, this is what I would do. You probably will not need nor want to go into this level of depth, and you will want to make it much more personal about why she resonates with you, which may be different to why I love her. So don't worry about touching base with all of them. This is like... 10,000 word essay level stuff. And don't get overwhelmed. I've taken your request far too seriously is all.

Again, I can't write it for you! You gotta do the reading and writing I'm afraid.

...But I still wrote 1,500 words anyway. Gosh darnnit.

Steph’s Character Development

Always keep three points in her character history in mind – her aged 14/15 in her introductory arc in Detective Comics, her aged 16 in War Games, and her aged 18/19 in her Batgirl run.

How does she change? How does she grow as a character? What events caused these changes? Compare that angry 14-year-old trying to choke her father, to the 19-year-old crying happily on the roof. A lot happened between those two points! Outline the main plot beats.

Steph's Role as a Batfam Character:

Protagonist or Antagonist: Supporting Protagonist

Static or Dynamic: Dynamic (think of her character development - angry to alturistic; she softens in her life outlook and in the way she treats others as the years go by)

Minor or Major: Minor and we all mourn that fact :(

Foil or Symbolic: A foil to Tim Drake (and to a lesser extent the other Robins, specifically Jason Todd)

Importance of the character/Position in Society: Fourth Robin, third Batgirl, own superhero. Tim's girlfriend, Cassandra's best friend, one of many of Bruce's 'children'. Initially introduced just as a one-off character for a small arc in Detective Comics, brought back with the intention of being a supporting character to Tim Drake, and eventual love interest. Eventually gained enough popularity on her own terms to support her own solo comic, but has since returned to a supporting role. The character she supports, at the end of the day, is Bruce Wayne.

Motivation

What influences their decisions?: Stephanie's dynamic characterisation comes in here. Compare her motivations during her introductory arc, versus why she does what she does in War Games, versus why she dresses up at Batgirl - Stopping her father, getting Batman's approval, need for redemption.

What do they value?: Values emotional openness, vulnerability, second/third/fourth chances.

Goals/Hopes/Dreams: No long term goals/hopes/dreams in the domestic sense... Continue to be vigilante. Be respected by her peers. Continue to improve self worth through deeds. Graduate college?

What are their views: Views the justice system and police as corrupt, but still trusts in the inherent goodness of people. Focus is usually on the individual, rather than societal or structural.

Actions

Behaviour, Attitudes, Impact on Story and other Characters, Internal Struggle (Wants versus Needs): This is why I think you are best to look at three points in her story - Intro Arc, War Games, Batgirl. Focus on her Wants versus Needs - Steph's take a very long time to align, but they finally do in Batgirl.

Character development is usually driven by the conflict between what a character wants. The plot forces them normally to confront the fact that what they want is not gonna work out, and what they needed instead takes priority.

Everything usually goes tits up for Steph when she is in the driver's seat of the narrative because what she wants from a situation is rarely what she actually needs to happen. See every time she seeks Bruce's approval. She wants it. She absolutely does not need it. And only as Batgirl do we get that acknowledgement, which coincides with her being at the healthiest point in her life emotionally. Look at what she wants as Spoiler during her introductory arc, as Robin/Spoiler during War Games, and then as Batgirl. Why is she so unhappy in the former two? Why have her wants finally aligned with her needs with her time as Batgirl?

Character Traits

Personality: Cynical but perky. Sardonic but sincere. Think about how she changes over the time. This can be attributed to her different writers, but - for example - is there a universe reason for why Batgirl Stephanie is so much more socially awkward than Spoiler Stephanie?

Strengths & Weaknesses: Link these two together because Steph is a very good example where her strengths as a character can simultaneously be a weakness. Her determination can lead to her making ill conceived decisions. Her empathy can lead to her putting her trust in the wrong people. Her forgiving nature can lead to her being taken advantage of. Her temper, whilst landing her in hot water, can also just as often get her out of it.

Relationships

How do they interact with others: Focus on which characters pop up in all three arcs – Steph and her parents; Steph and Bruce; Steph and Tim. I am chucking Cass out the window here, sorry Cass, but if you’re focusing on these three arcs, Cass doesn’t really fit in.

How others view them: Conditional love/affection from her father and Bruce. Unconditional love/affection from Tim and her mother (though both are not without serious pitfalls).

How they view others: Stephanie has explicitly never loved her father. She has also never explicitly hated him either. What does that say about her? Look at her changing closeness with her mother. What changed between them, and again, what does that say about Stephanie? Crystal got sober, supported Stephanie through her pregnancy, Arthur was removed from their lives, Stephanie makes a conscious effort to be closer to her after returning ‘from the dead’, though continues to lie consistently to her. Stephanie admires Bruce, whilst also right from the get go insisting she does not answer to him. She never quite lets go of wanting that approval.

How does society view them: Her outsider role within the Batfam. She never quite belongs, and at points her closest relationships are actively discouraged from seeing her. Which Tim specifically never entertains. This outsider nature bites literally everyone in the butt during War Games. Her outsider status is still in place by the time Batgirl concludes, due to its largely self-contained nature as a book, but this is less being an outsider more having earned to right to operate independently. Trust has been given and earned.

Dialogue

What does she say and how: A teenage girl in New Jersey from a working class background has a very distinct voice. She does not mince words, nor does she hide what she is feeling. If she is happy, she will say so. If she is annoyed, she will say so. What she won’t do is ask for help when she needs it, due to her background formulating a need for her ‘to do things on her own’.

Think of famous/important Steph quotes from the three arcs I keep talking about – the excuse me if I don’t jump when you bark, the I really was part of the legend, the only variable you can control is yourself. These show how Steph views others and herself.

When I was writing I Would Have Loved You, I literally made a spreadsheet where I have picked out what I think are pertinent quotes from every New 52 issue featuring Tim or Steph along with a synopsis that explained what they were up to/what the main theme of the issue was. Not saying you should do the same because I’m just that goddamn anal when it comes to this sort of stuff, but the point is – look for quotes by/about Steph which highlight the above things we’ve talked about. You have thirty years to go through!

Author Intention

What purpose does this character serve?: A character that young female readers could get attached to – the every girl/girl next door archetype or a character that young boys could have a crush on – the kind of girl who’s into the same sort of stuff as you, I think Chuck Dixon once said of her, from her initial appearance. Fodder for Bruce and Tim’s man pain in War Games. Batgirl it’s a combination of filling the void for a female lead solo character in the batbooks, but also tonally taking on a much lighter and self-contained book that new readers could jump into very easily, directly compared to the more lore heavy Batman, Detective Comics, and Red Robin books.

What is the author trying to communicate: Steph’s character shows that determination can only get a person so far, a support system and doing things for the right reasons (again remember that want versus need argument) is the only way a person will genuinely succeed.

What is her main theme?: Balancing cynicism and idealism – doing acts for the right reasons, and discovering what these reasons actually are.

...

Is this even usable for anyone but myself? Possibly not!

Still... Go write! And good luck!

[lovingmyselfcore]

Skate Into My Heart

Chapter Three; Uh oh

BESTIES

I'M ALIVE AND I DID THE WRITING THING

@ciaraloves (or @perseusjackson-jasongrace ig) LOOK AT ME DOING THE THING

As soon as Nico left the locker room, Piper pounced on him. Literally.

He was forced to take a step back and caught her by the shoulders, “What’s up?”

She was practically vibrating with excitement, “Annabeth’s back!”

“Really?”

“Yeah! Come on!” She grabbed his hand and yanked him through the hallways and into the main rink where a crowd of people had formed next to the bleachers.

It was the rest of the team and in the center was Annabeth, a duffle bag slung over one shoulder, looking exhausted as all hell but she was grinning as the team peppered her with questions and play-by-plays of the practices she’d missed.

Piper shouldered them into the center so Nico was directly in front of Annabeth, Piper on one side and Calypso on the other.

“Hey, Nico,” Annabeth said, still grinning. She stepped forward for a hug and he let her, burying his face into her neck and breathing, already feeling the responsibility leaking from his tight shoulders. Annabeth was like a big sister to him, not that he’d ever admit that, but still.

“You want to get out?” Nico whispered into her neck.

“Yes,” She whispered back emphatically. Nico could barely stop himself from laughing but as they pulled apart he saw the genuine relief in her eyes and felt himself worrying. He needed to talk to her, about the team and skating, about Will and of course, if she needed to talk about why she’d been gone for so long, he’d do that too.

Apparently, Calypso recognized that too and, bless her heart, muttered something to Leo, and together they captured the team’s attention, allowing Nico to tug Annabeth away from the crowd and out of the rink. She sighed as soon as they were ejected onto the city streets. Nico stuck an arm out and she smiled and linked their arms.

“Where are you headed?” Nico asked as they walked the short distance to the car garage.

“Oh, probably just my apartment.”

Nico nodded, “I wasn’t sure if you’d be staying with your dad or not.”

She shook her head, “He doesn’t even know I landed yet. I’ll head over in the morning.”

Her voice was stiff and Nico took that as his cue to change the subject. “So I have something to confide in you.”

She perked up almost immediately and he swallowed hard. But she just looked at him with those gray eyes and he reminded himself that this was Annabeth. That she wasn’t going to get angry with him.

At least, he hoped not.

“I’m talking to one of the hockey players,” He said casually.

Her grip on his arm stiffened and he braced himself but she was still just looking at him.

Finally, she grinned, “So when you say ‘talking to’...”

He groaned and felt himself flush, “Oh, shut up! Just friends.”

She hummed and released his arm to dig for her keys in her jacket pocket. “Is he nice?”

“No, he’s a dick,” Nico said sarcastically.

Annabeth rolled her eyes, but she was still smiling. “I don’t know why I even bother.”

“He’s blonde,” Nico offered.

“Oooh,” Annabeth drawled.

He rolled his eyes and she burst out laughing, her voice echoing off the stone walls of the parking garage.

“Is he gay?” Annabeth asked.

Nico nearly flinched and passed it off with another eye roll, “I don’t know, Annie, that’s not something that’s come up in casual conversation.”

She glared at him and Nico, being the mature adult he is, stuck his tongue out at her. She did it back then shook her head. “Too much time with Percy,” She muttered and Nico snorted. She grinned at him.

“So he’s okay?”

That sobered her immediately. “Yeah. Well, as okay as he can be. I’m only here for like two weeks because he insisted I come back, but I’m leaving as soon as possible,” She glanced sideways at him, “Not to leave you alone again, though.”

He shrugged off the flash of selfish hurt he’d felt, “I’m good, Beth.” But he wasn’t good. He’d just told her about Will, and not even the start of the way his stomach would twist when he saw a new text from the hockey player and not the same twist when he panicked. And that also meant his chances of performing solo again were climbing. He didn’t know how to feel about that part.

“Stop that!” She exclaimed, halting once they’d reached her car.

“Get some sleep, Annabeth,” He said genuinely then smirked a little, “It looks like you need it.”

She threw a balled-up receipt she’d found in her bag at him, “Dick!”

~~~~

“Hey, Nico.”

Nico nearly leaped out of his skin, spinning to see Persephone in the living room.

She snorted, “Didn’t mean to scare you, sorry. Did practice go well?”

His phone buzzed in his pocket, “Yeah. Annabeth’s back.”

Persephone hummed, reaching up to untwist her hair, sending it cascading down her shoulders, “That’s good. I know you’ve missed her,” She said with a knowing look in her eyes that made him shift uncomfortably.

“Yeah, definitely, um, I’m tired we learned some new moves for Regionals today, so,”

“Yeah of course.” She was still smiling.

“‘Night Persephone,”

~~~

Nico flopped face-down onto his bed with a groan. He knew Persephone though he had a crush on Annabeth; he didn’t blame her, he’d never really made it a point that he didn’t. He wished he could come out to her and his dad, he didn’t really have a reason why he hadn’t besides the weight of anxiety on his lungs.

His phone buzzed again, and he wriggled upright to yank it out of his pocket.

Will: Distract me

Will: My mom is driving me insane

Nico grinned to himself, both of them were dealing with mommy issues at the moment.

Nico: idk how you expect me to distract you

Will: Just tell me about snakes or smth

Nico: you think i just have fun facts about snakes on hand?

Will: Yeah?

Nico: good

Nico: cause i do

Will: :)

Nico: snakes can slither 12.5 mph

Will: Good lord

Nico: snakes have internal ears but not external ones

Will: ??

Nico: they can’t create their own body heat which is why theyre in the sun all the time

Will: Hmmmm

Nico: they smell w/their tongues

Will: I thought they had nostrils??

Nico: they do

Will: what

Nico: it’s their Jacobson’s organ my dude it works in mysterious ways

Nico: not really but yk

Nico: sCieNcE

Will: ok….

Nico: if you get bored of snakes i’ve also got a bunch of random cheetah facts

Nico: i love cheetahs

Nico: very cool

Nico: fast cats

Will: Lmao go ahead

Nico: but first

Nico: why’s your mom driving you insane

Nico: if you want to tell me ofc

Nico: not trying to be weird

Will: Nah you’re fine

Will: She wants me to focus entirely on med school and not hockey

Will: She’s trying to get me out of it, actually

Will: Do something ‘respectable’

Will: Not turn out like my dad

Will: Even though dad has literally NOTHING to do with hockey

Will: And in my opinion he’s not bad. Not great. Not awful yk

Will: But hockey’s what’s putting me through med school so

Will: Gods, I really just burdened you with that I’m so sorry

Nico: med school huh

Nico: now i can say i know a doctor

Will: In training

Nico: close enough

Nico: you’re a great hockey player and you're going to be a great doctor

Nico: and you can always talk to me, will

Nico: you’re not burdening me with shit

Will: thanks <3

Nico didn’t understand why he blushed. It was a goddamn emoji. Calm down, Di Angelo.

Will: So we’ve been talking for a few weeks now. Can I call you my friend yet?

Nico snorted, feeling like he was fifteen again, sprawled on his bed, in the dark (because for some reason he didn’t turn his lights on) late at night, texting his- well, anyway.

Nico: yea dumbass

Nico: we’re friends

Will: Nice

Will: Now give me cheetah facts you adorable nerd

~~~

WILL

“Will? You good?”

Will blinked, Jason coming in to focus in front of him. “Uh, yeah.”

“That was believable,” Clarisse said sarcastically from behind Jason.

Will attempted to shake the fog from his head, “Yes,” He repeated.

Jason just blinked at him and Will was formulating an excuse for why he was so tired besides the fact that he’d spent all night talking to a cute figure skater with a ridiculous amount of animal facts stored in his small body when Coach Hedge’s voice boomed from his seat on the bleachers, “Solace! You alive?”

“Yes, coach!” Will shot back.

“Then why are you just standing there? Get back to the game! You too, La Rue and Grace!”

“Yes, sir!” They all barked back.

Clarisse gave him a once over before skating back to her goal and Jason went over to Will’s spot with him, “You sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah, just tired.”

Jason opened his mouth, probably to question why the mom friend of their group was tired enough he nearly tripped over his stick but Will just said, “It’s fine, Jase. It’s not a big deal.”

“Grace!” Coach Hedge screeched.

Jason gave up on trying to interrogate Will and skated back over to his spot.

~~~~

“Mama, please,” Will tried, but his mother cut him off.

“Willaim. Hush. How’s that girl you said you were dating?”

What?

He was silent for a beat too long.

“Oh, baby,” His mother’s thick southern accent drenched her words. “You broke up? I’m so sorry.”

Oh gods, Lou Ellen Blackstone.

Will and Lou Ellen had dated for two months a long time ago, and when they were still dating he’d told his mother about her to get her to back off of his personal life a little. Their break up hadn’t had a huge fallout, Lou Ellen had told him through tears in his living room that she was aromantic. They were still friends, had been even before they dated, actually, and talked to each other pretty regularly.

But the problem was, that had been three months ago, and he hadn’t told his mother about their breakup. He knew she’d ask why, and he didn’t want to out Lou Ellen or make her a devil in his mother’s eyes. So he’d procrastinated coming up with a reason until he’d forgotten about it entirely.

And now it had come back to bite him in the ass.

“Yeah we broke up a little while ago,” He forced himself to sound choked up, which wasn’t hard, giving the way his panicked brain was now sprinting in circles on his lungs. “I just didn’t disappoint you.” Probably the most honest thing he’d said in weeks, but that’ll be unpacked later.

“Honey,” She sighed sadly and Will didn’t know whether or not that was on his behalf or hers.

“Well, it’s okay, because I’m dating someone new.”

“Oh?” He could hear her spine straighten. “Is it someone I know?”

No, mom, it’s not one of the country girls I grew up with.

“No,” He winced at how southern he sounded. He’d been talking to his mother for five minutes. “You don’t know him.”

HIM. Good Gods, Will. Yeah, you came out as bi to your mom, but still, you haven’t actually mentioned a guy to her yet.

She was silent for so long his heart joined his brain in the track meet happening on top of his lungs. “What’s his name?”

He was so she’d spoken that he blurted, “Nico.”

What. The. Fuck. Willaim.

Apparently, his heart had won that damn track race.

“Well, what I was leading up to before you told me about what happened,”

Will hummed non-committally, trying not to sound like he was taking relieved breaths as she spoke.

“The family’s come for a reunion and you should bring that boy!” Will choked on his spit.

“Mom, I don’t know about-”

“No, William. There isn’t a set date yet so we can work around your schedule,” Fuck. “I insist, Will. I need to meet this boy you clearly like very much, even though all you’ve said is his name, a mother knows.”

Umm, what.

“Sure,” Will said, sounding a little strangled. “But we have a game this weekend.”

“Alright, William.” She sounded the way she always did when he brought up hockey. “But as I said, we can work around your schedule and his. Talk to him about it, and let me know.”

“Yeah. Yeah,” Will repeated. “I’ll do that.”

She hung up and he was left staring at the wilting daisies at his kitchen table.

What had he just done?

[thorne93]

History Repeats (Part 15 - FINAL)

Prompt: Life’s hard, right? Well throw in a not so great job, a broken heart, and chasing a pipe dream in LA. But could someone come along to make all the bad shit disappear? Or is he just another heartbreak waiting around the bend?

Warnings: language, drug addiction, alcohol addiction, angst/heartbreak, adult themes (??)

Word Count: 2986

Note: Aesthetic made by @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo because she’s absolutely amazing Beta’d by @like-a-bag-of-potatoes​ and @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo . Brainstorming from @carryonmyswansong

**Song Inspiration: 13 beaches - Lana Del Rey; Hoodie - hey violet

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Seeing Hayden… it sent you back down to ground zero. You thought your coping mechanisms were helping. You thought surrounding yourself with so many people and friends every night was softening the blow of losing him. 

But you knew it didn’t. Deep down, you knew the day he left your home, you’d never be the same. You would still feel entirely alone in a room full of people. You’d still want to see him before falling asleep and when you woke up. You’d still want to hear his voice as you shared good news. You still wanted to feel his arms after a long day. 

Nothing you did was helping, and you realized it. 

With a lot of work, you kicked your habits. First to go was the coke. You ordered all your friends to never offer you any and if they saw you with it to take it away from you. It took a while, but eventually, you were able to sit right next to someone doing blow and it not phase you. 

Next, was the booze. That was a lot harder. It was easy to reach for a drink. It was easy to go to a bar. It was easy to open a bottle in your house. So you started there. You emptied every bottle and threw them out. You only ordered water and soda when you went out. 

Every step was hard. Turning down drugs and alcohol was hard, but with patience and work, you got better at just saying no. Each day you put between you and your habit was a day you got back. You got back to songwriting now that you could think clearly and drugs weren’t clouding your mind. 

New songs and works in your hands, Trey agreed to get you back in the booth to finish out your EP to a full album. The response to the EP was amazing and you were already getting a lot of recognition. As soon as the album was to hit, Trey worked with a manager to get you a US tour.

The EP evolved, you added so many songs they had to cut a few just to wait for your next one. You worked on album art and merch. Things were looking up, and finally, your album dropped. 

It was a huge hit.

Every platform it went on, it exploded. Almost as if overnight, you were the next star. You had radio interviews scheduled, shows booked, photography sessions scheduled, critics and fans alike agreed that there was so much raw emotion and talent that they all wanted more. Trey and your manager couldn’t move fast enough to get you to every new gig you needed to be at. Merch was flying off the shelves, so to speak, and you were adored. Your fan base was growing every day. 

You were on top of the world, respectively. You loved your life now, and your bandmates were more than just that. They were truly your friends. They helped you when you were down and when you said you wanted to get clean, they supported you as well as everyone else in your circle. 

With your career finally where you wanted it to head, and your social life getting better than it ever had been, all that was missing was a love you weren’t sure you’d ever thought you’d get back. But like with everything else, you channeled it into your art, hoping for some catharsis.

Now the tour was next week, so you decided to take some time to write and reflect before you left LA to embark on this new chapter. 

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

Meanwhile, in the city, Hayden had listened to your album for probably the tenth time. He was lying in his bed in the hotel. Your album had been on repeat and he didn’t know what to think.

The songs had to be about him.

Or maybe he just wanted them to be. 

Or maybe they really were.

But then again, that could be conceit talking. Surely you loved other people. He didn’t even know if you loved him. He had a hunch, based on your self-destructive behavior after the breakup, but he still couldn’t be sure and he didn’t want to just assume.

He decided to take action. He was tired of waiting. He texted a friend and asked where you might be. When his friend got back to him, he said the best shot would be the beach. When he asked which beach, what part, his friend replied with the spot. The exact same spot where he first asked you to date him. 

He threw on his jacket and made his way there. The beach was starting to get dark. An overcast covered the sky, but it was light enough to see everything. The beach was fairly deserted, as he walked up. He saw you, sitting in the sand, your knees pulled up so you could rest your notebook against it as you wrote.

The wind was strong, making it chilly, and to keep you warm, he recognized what you were wearing -- his hoodie. 

He watched you write for a moment, admiring how you looked. Your hair was shinier now than the last time he saw you. You looked better, and he was glad about it. 

“They’re about me, aren’t they? The songs? The whole album,” he said as he stood behind you. 

You stilled, stopping your writing. “Does it matter if they are?” Your stomach suddenly felt uneasy.

“Yes.”

You took a deep breath. “Then yes, they are about you. Is that all you came to say?” 

“No, it’s not,” he said as he came closer and sat next to you in the sand. He pulled his knees up and rested his arms on them, holding onto his hands as he looked out over the ocean.

“What else did you come here for?” you asked softly. 

“To apologize,” he began and you groaned gently.

“Hayden, we’ve been over this. I’m trying to move on with my life. I’m trying to get over you, if that wasn't evident by every song on that album.” 

He turned to you. “I don’t want you to. I don’t want you to move on or forget about me.”

“Oh, great, lovely then,” you said, getting exasperated. “If you’re here to hurt me more, please--”

“I love you,” he fervently said as his hands went to each side of your face. “I’m here to say I’m sorry for not saying it sooner. I’m sorry for breaking you the way I did. I didn’t mean to, at all, but then I did, and you were so hurt, I didn’t know how to help you.”

Your eyes searched his as he let go of you to look back at the waves. Did he mean it? Was he just saying that? Was this a cruel game? Why did he say it now? 

“You could’ve told me that,” you breathed. “You could’ve told me you loved me, it would’ve saved me.” 

“I know, but I didn’t want to use it as something to save you. I wanted to save you, or I wanted you to save yourself. I didn’t want me loving you or returning to you to be the reason you got better. I wanted you to realize that all on your own, to be your own hero.” 

You nodded as you muttered, “Thanks. It worked. I’m clean now. The last time we saw each other kind of… sobered me up.”

“I’m glad,” he said with a small smile. “Can you tell me what happened? We broke up and you… you went off the deep end. I know we were perfect, and I hated ending it the way I did but… drugs? Alcohol?” 

You chewed on your lips as you nodded. “Yeah, it was pretty stupid. I just… I looked to alcohol to numb the pain, you know? Not that atypical. I did it after Jason, that’s where you and I met, with me crying in my beer at a bar over my ex.” 

He nodded, understanding. 

“But then… it wasn’t enough. I…” You took a deep breath, fighting the lump in your throat and the fear of saying this. “I love you. I loved you. More than I’d ever loved anyone else, and suddenly the drinks weren’t enough to mask the pain. I needed something stronger. Anything stronger. I was seeing you every day at home and suddenly I couldn’t kiss you any more, I couldn’t hold you anymore, I couldn’t do anything with you any more. I couldn’t have what we had, and it killed me. I thought that if you stayed around, that if I let you live there, I could get over it. All I needed was you in my life, right?” you asked rhetorically with a sad laugh as the tears rolled down. “Then I kicked you out and it was worse. You weren’t there to help me, to brighten my day. You just… you left. I know I kicked you out, but I was mad, hurting, and high. I went to apologize and ask you to stay, and you were gone, as if you were never there. No note, no letter, no text, nothing. I felt like you were just waiting to get away from me.”

“No,” he assured while shaking his head. “That wasn’t it at all. I just didn’t want to make it awkward for you and I couldn’t watch you do that any more. I tried to talk to you a few times when you came home and you just blew me off. It was killing me to see you like that all the time. I wanted to help you, I really did, I just didn’t know how.”

“I know,” you said with a thick voice. “That’s not your fault. None of it is your fault. You broke up with me, and I handled it poorly. I just… I lost the greatest love my life had ever known. I finally found you, and you just left…” Your gaze turned on him, scorching him. “Why? Why did you give up on us? On me? I deserve to know,” you demanded in a whisper.

He nodded. “You do deserve to know. That’s why I came here. I’m tried of not being with you. I want you, I’ve always wanted you.” 

“So what happened?” you asked quietly, your eyes on his, trying to read his mind. 

“Do you remember that date at the restaurant, when Rachel showed up?” 

You nodded. “Of course. You were weird that night and the rest of the week before we broke up. I just assumed you weren’t over Rachel. Is that it? Was that it? =”

He shook his head. “No, not at all. She asked me outside, she wanted to talk…” 

“Hey, Rach, what’s up?” Hayden greeted once the two of them were outside. 

“Who’s that?” she wondered, getting right to the punch.

“That's Y/N. I’m staying at her place. She’s the one who owns the house where you dropped Briar off that one time.” 

“So she’s been around Briar?” she asked, sounding as if she were betrayed.

He laughed, looking around, confused. “Uh, yeah. It is her house. We went to the park and stuff. It was fun. Briar really liked her.” 

“Oh, I’m so glad to hear our daughter had fun with a stranger.” 

He frowned. “Rachel, what are you talking about? Y/N isn’t a stranger. I’ve known her for several months. We’ve been roommates for a while now.” 

“And how long have you two been dating?” she demanded.

“What makes you think we’re dating?”

“You’re on a date and you didn’t deny it.” 

He held up his hands and laughed slightly, no humor in the sound. “Uh, I’m not sure that’s any of your concern. You’re the one who left me.”

“It’s my concern if she’s around my child. Did you think to ask me before you took her on a playdate with your little girlfriend?”

“No? Briar has a right to know who’s in my life.”

“Oh, but I don’t,” she said, clearly offended and angry. 

“That's not what I said. Look, I care about this woman. She means a lot to me. I would like Briar to get to know her, I think she’ll be in my life for a while.”

“Not if I can help it. I don’t like her being around strangers. So long as you’re with her, Briar won’t be coming around.”

“What? Rach, that’s ridiculous. You can’t keep me from my daughter--”

“I’m not, you can come see her any time you want. I just won’t take her to her house. Jeeze, Hay, you don’t waste any time, do you? We broke up less than a few months ago and you’re already with someone else?” 

“We bonded. I don’t know what you want me to say. Do you want me to apologize for finding someone that makes me happy?”

“No, of course not. I want you to be happy, I’m just a little surprised that you found them so fast.”

“What? Am I hard to love or something?”

“No, I’m just wondering if she’s a rebound, so soon after we broke up and everything. I doubt it though. What kind of example is this for Briar?”

“The fuck are you talking about?” he asked, thorugohly confused.

“Well, her mom and dad just broke up, and in no time at all, you’re with another woman. It might make her think less of love. That if we can go from what we had and you can just hop to the next girl who says hi to you. It’s probably very confusing for her. Did you even think about Briar?”

“It’s not like that,” Hayden assured her, getting frustrated. “Of course I thought about her. I spent a lot of time with Y/N before I ever let her around Briar.”

“Ah, hmm, good to know you’ve spent so much time with her. It really shows how much you care.”

“I do care, Rachel. I still love you but we’ve agreed to end things. You brought it up, not me. Now, I’m trying to find happiness again rather than wallow in it.”

“Yes, that much is clear. Let’s just hope it’s not a rebound and both of you get hurt, hmm? Good to see you, Hayden.”

He explained everything and you sat there, dumbfounded.

“She used Briar Rose against you?” you questioned quietly, flabbergasted.

“In a way. I think she was ultimately jealous that I was moving on before her. I did love her, I still do. I mean she was a huge part of my life, she’s Briar’s mom. But I love you so much more. I just… what she said, I started to worry if it was somehow true. If I was setting a bad example for my daughter. The rebound thing didn’t worry me, I didn’t feel like it was a rebound for me, but I wasn't sure about you, so before anyone got hurt, I thought we’d end it. I thought maybe if we put some distance between us, we’d be okay. If we waited a few months, it would prove to us that we were okay, but then you took it so badly and it all got so out of control. I thought if I told you I loved you back then you’d just think I was lying or trying to get you to get better. I didn’t want it to be questioned when I said to you, finally.” 

You couldn't help but grin. “Failed on that front. Still questioning it.”

He took your hands in his.. “Well please don’t. I do love you. You aren’t a rebound, you never were. You’re no one’s replacement. I love you and only you.” He stroked your hair as he looked at you. “I just made a horrible decision to make a choice for both of us without consulting you.” 

You nodded slightly.

“And for that, I am  so sorry. I am sorry I wasn't there to help you get clean and I’m sorry I’m the reason you even had a problem to begin with. I love you so much and I’ll never leave your side ever again. Of course, that’s… if you still want me.” 

Your eyes flashed to his. “Of course I still want you. All I want is you. Did you not hear a word I said in that album? You’re all I can think about, you’re all I ever want. You’re all I will ever want.” 

He let out a relieved laugh. “I’m so glad you feel the same way. I’ve hated myself every day since I ended this between us. I’ve wanted to make it right, to come back to you for so long.” 

“I’m so glad you finally did,” you breathed as you looked into his eyes. You leaned forward, hoping you weren’t crossing a line, hoping against hope that he wanted this too.

Your lips hit his and life ignited in you. Your hands went to his hair and his hands wrapped around your back as he lowered you to the ground. His lips moved expertly and fervently on your mouth, as if it were the air that he breathed. 

When you two broke, you stared at him in wonder.

“Do you mean it? Do you love me?”

“More than I ever imagined was possible.”

“I love you too, please don’t leave me again.”

“I would never even dream of it. I’m here, and I’ll never go anywhere else. I’m yours for as long as you want me.” 

“I’ll always want you.”

“Then you’ll always have me.” 

That was all you had ever needed, from anyone. You thanked your lucky stars that it was Hayden who granted you that wonderful, beautiful, unconditional kind of love, the one you’d searched for all your life. The one you deserved, you finally had.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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[bigskydreaming]

Hey, any comic recs to ensure that I get Dick Grayson character right? Other batfam included, if you're willing. I'm trying to make sure I don't write a character completely ooc, because that drives me up the WALL when I read that. However, since I dubbed you the #1 Dick Grayson person, I thought I'd ask you to make sure I do him justice rather than a smear campaign or something lol! Thanks! ALSO TELL ME YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THE TITANS SHOW! That's all xD

LOL thanks I appreciate it, but while I’m good for the rants, for actual comics recs I would go to the likes of @northoftheroad, @hood-ex, and @nightwingmyboi because they’re a lot better than I am at knowing where to find specific stuff and comprehensive reading lists! I tend to jump all over the place in terms of my go-to comics for Dick.....I’m always on about Robin: Year One but I’m like eh Nightwing: Year One is pretty trash tbh. I prefer pre-Flashpoint continuity overall but I did enjoy some of the early Nightwing Rebirth stuff and before that the pre-Forever Evil New 52 stuff had some good beats. But for the most part, my favorite Dick Grayson tends to be him as a member of teams like the Titans....he shines most in ensembles, I think, because his strengths ultimately are that like...he gets people, he knows how people work, and he knows how to get the most out of the people he’s with, how to make people gel and get in sync and become more than just the sum of their parts.

(Speaking of nightwingmyboi, haven’t seen them posting in awhile, anyone know what they’re up to? Hope everything’s okay!)

Which brings me to the problems with the Titans show. There’s a lot I like about it - Anna Diop and Ryan Potter in particular - and a lot I was never gonna like about it - I’m heavy on the Ugh why must Dick Grayson be a cop ever why is that a thing make it stop. And so while I don’t think Brenton Thwaites does like, a bad job with the role or anything, there was always kinda a ceiling on how attached to or invested in his take on the character I was ever gonna reach.

But Season 2. Oof. Let’s talk about Season 2, and how so many of the problems with it are identical to the problems that surround Dick in the comics, but also aren’t limited to just his character or DC and just as equally show up in all kinds of media. Like, I could have (and probably did) offer an identical rant about the role of Scott McCall in TW’s S5.

The problem is one I’ve kinda taken to calling in my head “The Ensemble Lone Wolf Effect.”

This is when writers have a character they nominally want to be part of an ensemble....but that they repeatedly go back to the well of “this character should however spend most of their time on their own, or are more natural on their own, or just wants to be on their own, or also sometimes they just deserve to be on their own cuz they suck for Reasons we decline to specify.”

But its that thing of wanting it both ways....believing a character honestly NEEDS to be a loner or off on their own for the sake of their story, but also still wanting to utilize them as part of an ensemble, not willing to actually MAKE them a solo character, and so it kinda creates this never-ending feedback loop wherein they pay lip service to the character being part of an ensemble, but that’s never really on display, which creates a lot of unnecessary conflict among characters that’s to NONE of their benefits.

(And honestly in the comics, you could apply this to pretty much all the Batfam at times...not just Dick. They do it with Bruce ALL the time, they’re doing it with Damian right now, did it with Tim with Red Robin, Jason most of the time he’s not with the Outlaws and Cass most of the time she’s not with Babs or Steph or the Outsiders. As well as Babs herself at times).

Basically what I’m talking about here is like....so much of the drama in S2....and specifically the parts that most every fan I saw had issues with....came about not organically, because it made sense for the characters to behave that way, but solely in order to launch a specific plot, that the writers clearly wanted for S2:

And that was Dick Grayson off on his own, at his lowest, facing his demons on a solo journey of self-discovery the writers clearly deemed necessary before he could find himself as Nightwing and rise to his most heroic self.

Now the thing is....this isn’t inherently a bad plot or a problem. The problem lies in how they went about it.

Because rather than looking at the overall story and saying okay, that’s what we want to do with Dick Grayson, that’s what we want for HIS story, now how do we get that and where do we take it from there, rather than looking at that as just a STARTING point, and engineering a plot that grows OUT of that.....

The writers just started out by viewing that as an ENDPOINT, and reverse engineered a way to get Dick TO that point first and foremost....at the expense of so many characters who then basically turned on him and held him solely responsible for the things many of them also had a hand in....purely to get him off on his own and isolated.

But that was never necessary!

Because Dick’s character contains multitudes when it comes to guilt and self-blame, everyone knows that. He never needed anyone else to blame him for what happened to Joey because he blamed himself. So the second they conceived of the plot “Slade wants revenge for something Dick at least blames himself for”.....they had all the ingredients needed for Dick to decide proactively that the best way to protect everyone was to put distance between him and them, that he should try and hunt down Slade on his own, solve this between just the two of them.

And that should have been the STARTING point, for that narrative journey of self-exploration, not that journey resulting as an ENDPOINT in and of itself from Dick being FORCED into a kind of isolation by the others all blaming him.

Because now see what ripple effects result:

Now, the other characters are just as able to focus on their own individual storylines as they were in the show, with the additional concern of wanting to ACTUALLY find Dick and figure out what’s going on with him or tell him they still want to help....without this in any way needing to distract them from their own storylines, practically speaking, or cut into Dick’s narrative alone-time, because as part of the equation you ALSO have Slade, who has his own wants and agendas, not to mention tactics. And Slade’s perfectly capable of and willing to work with others, or utilize the long game, or engage in a game of cat and mouse as a distraction...there are numerous ways that you could engineer a plot FROM these motivations that allows him to keep the rest of the Titans distracted and even targeted individually, without allowing them to group back up with Dick or Dick to even know that they’re in danger and that his attempts to avoid that backfired.

You want the characters isolated and divided? The PLOT can do that for you. You don’t need the characters to do that to themselves.

IMO, most if not all stories are meant to advance characters, first and foremost. Take Characters A-Z and leave them different from how you found them. Move them to a different position in their lives as much as anything else, from where they began. The goal is character DEVELOPMENT.

What this means, in my book, is that the plot should serve the characters, NOT the other way around. The plot should grow FROM the characters and what they would or would not do....the characters should never have to be forced to FIT INTO a plot.

That’s backwards.

There shouldn’t be any need to reverse engineer a certain starting point, characterwise.

Just like....start the plot, plotwise....and from the moment you first introduce a single plot element, prioritize how would the characters react and BUILD from there.

The only engineering you should need to do is how to get to an eventual END point....which is still all about the forward momentum, not backing your way into anything.

Its one thing to have an endgoal for your plot, a point in character or narrative development that you want characters to reach. But its all about perspective. About keeping that what you’re working towards rather than something that you like, have to reach before you can even really BEGIN.

Which is what Titans S2 did. The real GOAL of the season in terms of Dick’s storyline, was his solo journey of self-discovery. But there’s a million different ways they could have LAUNCHED that journey, without it having to be the forced and contrived outcome of events and character decisions that literally only existed to initiate a journey that never required a forced initiation.

And so all this narrative energy gets utterly wasted and expended on stuff that it just flat out doesn’t need to be spent on in the first place....instead of just putting that same energy to use building forward-facing storylines for ALL the characters, that don’t require contrived spats of disharmony when the goal of such moments isn’t even the disharmony but rather just that they’re kept apart, the end RESULT of the disharmony.

Imagine what S2 could have built if instead of wasting time, characterization and energy on getting to a point they could have simply started from if they’d simply looked at it that way and chosen to just....start. If they’d applied all that to building across the board, everyone’s story in service to their own character first and foremost, no tangled feedback loops making characters regress or cycle through the same behavior or narrative positionings over and over again in order to not get in each other’s way or cross paths at a time when the show didn’t want them to cross paths....because rather than make all these characters work at cross purposes, they’re all on the same page, they still want the same things....you’re simply engineering from their own natural characterizations and organic decisions and reactions, ways the PLOT can be utilized as a TOOL, to keep them moving forward in their own respective chapters, WITHOUT their characters having to be bent out of their natural shapes or forced into niches that don’t really suit them, just to keep them, PREVENT them, from more naturally or organically making a choice or action that would ‘get in the way’ of the plot.

Bottom line......the plot is supposed to be there to advance the characters, because the characters are what we come to stories for. The characters are who we invest in, relate to, ROOT for.

The characters aren’t there to advance the plot. We’re not here to yell yeah, I really hope the writers do whatever it takes with characters, no matter how backwards or unnatural it seems, just to get that sweet sweet and oh so specific ending we want that is in no way dependent on how invested or not we ACTUALLY are in the characters by the time it arrives, in order for it to actually be effective or not!

Lol. Y’know?

So yeah, that’s my biggest gripe with Titans so far. I’m still eager to see what happens between Kory and her sister, and although I’m not thrilled it seems to be becoming Batfam Straight Outta Gotham rather than like, Titans: The Show, I admit I am curious about what take they’ll go with for Babs. As I still pretty vividly recall that weird as hell Birds of Prey show the CW or UPN or WB or whatever it was at the time did for one season, where Babs was honestly not terribly adapted despite the show otherwise bearing like, zero in common with any existing DC property or character (do not even get me STARTED on their takes on Dinah and Helena, no, blehrrible, those were bad, those were like super bad)....anyway, I’m kinda curious even if it wouldn’t have been my choice for what direction the show should take. Not that I have a specific one in mind, just, yeah. And I also kinda would not hate if we got a new Roy Harper now, to replace the not!Roy of Arrow, because I don’t know him, no seriously, who is that, its not Roy Harper.

[dammitdobrik]

A Decade’s Resolution | DAVID DOBRIK

Description: You and David have been friends for over a decade, and for a better part of those 10 years you’ve been in love with him. Going into 2020, you made a resolution for the new decade to finally get over him, but things take a surprising turn when David hears of your plan to kiss a guy who isn’t him at midnight

Author’s Note: Happy New Year everyone!! Hope yall enjoy this fic I whipped up, and let me know what you think of it :)

Word Count: 1282

Chatter drifted through the air, mingling with the stale smell of alcohol and the brisk breeze wafting through the living room from the open glass doors that lead to David’s back door. Groups of people loitered together throughout his house drinking from red solo cups, half paying attention to the New Years’ countdown playing on the television.

You were leaning against the back of the L shaped couch in the living room, talking to a friend of Mariah’s that she had introduced to you earlier that evening.

“…and every year I make that one of my resolutions,” Joseph said. “But I swear 2020 I’m actually going to follow through with it.”

You laughed and nodded and your head with a smile, and he lifted his drink to his lips to take a sip. He swallowed the burning liquid harshly, face contorting into a wince as it slid down his throat.

“So,” he continued, lifting his cup in a gesture towards you. “What about you? Any resolutions for the New Year.”

A warm laugh cuts through the air, and for maybe the twentieth time that night your gaze drifts over to David. “I have a resolution for the next decade if that counts,” you say, looking away quickly as David glances your direction.

Joseph turns slightly, glancing in the direction your attention kept drifting off too. “Who’s that?” he asked, nodding his head towards David.

He was standing near the pool table talking with Zane and Jason, and for once there wasn’t a camera in his hand. His hair flared out from his head in dark curly tufts, and the fluorescent lighting of the overhead lamps eventuated the perpetual five o’clock shadow adorning his jaw and cheeks.

“My decade resolution,” you replied drily, bringing your cup to your lips for a sip.

Joseph turned towards you and raised an eyebrow, leaning back against the couch beside you. He crossed his arms over his chest, careful to not spill his drink. “I’m intrigued,” he said with a light smile, gesturing for you to continue.

You pursed your lips and a stray piece of hair behind your ear, trying to ignore the heat of blood rushing to your cheeks. “His name is David,” you said, averting your eyes to the ground. “We were neighbors as kids so we’ve been friends as long I can remember…” You trailed off, twiddling the hem of your shirt.

“And you like him,” Joseph guessed.

You nodded your head, looking at him with a small smile. “For the better part of a decade now. Which is why I’ve made my resolution for the next decade to get over him.”

He laughed, shaking his head in amusement. “That’s…”

“Pathetic?” You supplied, shrugging your shoulders. “Yea.”

“I was going to say great.”

“Yeah well, I’m not off to a great start.” You took another sip of your drink, glancing in David’s direction once more. He was grinning widely at something Jason just said, eyes alight with excitement. “I’m still hoping he might kiss me at midnight,” you confessed, feeling your heart lurch painfully in your chest.

“Hey.” You looked up at Joseph as he nudged his shoulder against yours. “I’ll kiss you at midnight if you want.”

You raised an eyebrow at him. “Seriously?”

“Yea,” he said, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly. “Why not? It’ll give you a head start on your resolution.”

You studied him for a moment, his kind eyes and smile, and remembered how you’ve spent a majority of your youth pining over the same fluffy-haired idiot. You nodded your head, a smile falling upon your lips. “Alright, yea. Sure.”

“Cool,” Joseph replied, making you laugh. He pushed himself off the couch and gestured towards your cup. “I’m gonna go refill mine. What me to get you something?”

You shook your head. “No, I’m good. Thanks though.”

He nodded and turned to walk towards the kitchen, that on New Year’s Eve doubled as a bar.

As soon as Joseph was out of sight Natalie came up to you, looking between you and the kitchen.

“Who was that?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Mariah’s friend Joseph.”

Natalie grinned at you and wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. “You two looked like you were having a good time.”

“Yea, we were,” you said, shoving her shoulder playfully. “In fact, he’s going to be my midnight kiss tonight.”

Her eyes widened. “What?” she asked surprised. Natalie’s eyes fixated on something past you for a second before she met your gaze again. “Seriously.”

You furrowed your brows at her odd behavior. “Yea…”

“I- I thought you were into Dave?” Natalie asked, leaning in closer and lowering her voice.

“Yeah so?” You shrugged your shoulders and downed the rest of your drink in one fell swoop. “It’s not that deep Nat, it’s only a kiss.”

You crossed your arms over your chest and eyed her suspiciously. “Why do you care so much?”

Natalie gave you a small smile. “No reason.” She looked down at your cup and seeing that it was empty gestured for you to give it to her. “Here let me throw that away for you.”

You handed it over hesitantly, and Natalie rubbed your shoulder in a way that was supposed to be reassuring before walking off.

Natalie’s shoulder brushed Joseph’s as she entered the kitchen to throw the cup away, him leaving then to go back to you.

She put in a trash bag that was hanging from the drawer and headed towards the pool table where David was.

“David,” Natalie said, swatting his elbow to grab his attention. “I need to talk to you.”

David turned and looked at her, eyes scrunched together in confusion. “About what?” he asked.

“(Y/N).”

Zane and Jason looked at each other and wordlessly began moving towards the living room.

David crossed his arms over his chest. “What about her?”

“You need to do something.”

“Huh?”

“You need to kiss her at midnight.”

“What?” David shook his head, cheeks tinging with pink. “Why?”

“Because she just told me she’s going to kiss this guy Joseph,” she rushed out, gesturing wildly towards the living room. “Now you don’t want that do you?”

Ten

The countdown began, and everyone in the house chanted excitedly.

Nine

David turned towards the living room and saw you leaned against some guy, his arm draped around your waist.

Eight

He brushes past Natalie.

Seven

He moves out from behind the pool table.

Six

He passes the kitchen

Five

He strides towards you.

Four

His fingers grasp your wrist.

Three

You whirl around to face him.

Two

Your eyes meet.

One

David’s free hand runs through your hair and he surges towards you.

Happy New Year

Your eyes flutter closed as he pulls your lips towards his, into a kiss that said more than words ever could.

You tensed in surprise but slowly melted into it as his eyelashes brushed against your cheek. Time stood still for a moment and the world went silent. The cheers of those surrounding you fading away as you arched your back into David and pulled him closer, wrapping an arm around his neck and threading your hand through his hair.

Your heart pounded against its cage, the charged blood coursing through your veins echoed in your ears as the New Year rang in, and along with it a new decade.

David’s hand slid from your hair and down your neck slowly, coming to a stop on your shoulder as he pulled away.

His cheeks were flushed of blood, and his lips were pink from the remnants of kissing.

“Happy New Year,” he said, smiling at you almost sheepishly.

You nodded your head. “U-huh.”

And this time you kissed him.

[bisexualsforprompto]

Of Roommates and Red Heroes Chapter 1

AO3

One (You are here)     Next

One- Of pilots and new beginnings

Jason Todd ran, ran away from the legacy he could never fill. The one he was still expected to fill. Didn’t they know? Didn’t they know he had changed?

God, was had he even changed? It’s not like he could ever make up for what he did. But he couldn’t wear the colors of the Robin ever again either. He crossed a line, he was past the point of no return.

And Bruce couldn’t let him forget it.

As far as Jason was concerned, he didn’t deserve a redemption.

He didn’t deserve a happily ever after.

Dick (in more ways than one): [is online]

Lil bro Jason: [is online]

Dick (in more ways than one): Come back.

Lil bro Jason: No.

Dick (in more ways than one): Please, Bruce didn’t mean it.

Lil bro Jason: Honestly I give zero f*cks if he meant it.

Dick (in more ways than one): So that's it. You’re just solo now and we’ll never see you again?

Lil bro Jason: You are welcome to visit when you’d like, along with Steph, Tim, Barbara, etc etc. I don’t want to see him again.

Dick (in more ways than one): He’s your dad!

Lil bro Jason: Godammit Dick! He’s not! Open your goddamn eyes! He’s not our dad, he’s a man who just uses us for his dirty work!

Dick (in more ways than one): I can’t stop you from doing this, but just talk to Bruce at least, if you don’t you’ll regret it, trust me I know.

Lil bro Jason: [is offline]

•~•Sunday Nov.17, 8am EST•~•

Knock, knock, knock.

“Mr. Todd.” 

Knock, knock, knock.

“I’m coming, I’m coming.” Jason said as he peeled a case file off his face, he’d fallen asleep the night prior reading it. Jason walked over to the nook where he kept all his ‘borrowed’ GCPD case filed which just happened to go missing from their archives every so often. For some reason, Jason liked to review case files. A lot. Maybe it was living with a detective for so long, but he felt at home in his own little world of files.

Jason brought a hand to his head, trying to shield his pounding headache. He remembered going out to the bar, but not much else. He brushed his hand down his face to feel stubble, another thing he’d have to deal with later. He fixed his hair a little bit before getting off his brown leather couch. He checked out what he was wearing, only pants. He sighed and picked up a plain black t shirt off the ground. Sliding it on, Jason walked over to the door and opened it.

Of all the things he was expecting today, he wasn’t expecting his landlord in full suit and tie showing up at his door. Unfortunately, it was his reality. A tall slim and bony man in a tacky olive green suit and oversized brown plastic glasses was holding a clipboard and pen in his hands. 

“Mr. Jason Todd?”

Jason sighed, “That’s me.” The man looked him up and down. Jason was about to yell at him for judging but decided against it. 

“You’ve been behind on your last payment for this flat. You have one week or you will be evicted.” The man said properly, leaving directly after despite Jason’s protests. Sighing, Jason shut the door.

He hadn’t found work in a long time. He’d been fired from his last job for drinking, and he couldn’t change his ways after being Red Hood and working with Batman. He went by the same mantle but working with Bruce did a number on him as always, only this time it was a positive change. He couldn’t work and make dirty money off drug cartels anymore, Red Hood was a lone vigilante but Jason Todd could only find himself doing honest work. Honest work that was very difficult to find in this day and age.

The only thing Jason could think that would save him would be getting a roommate. Jason sighed once more, all Gothamites were bat-shit crazy (pun not intended) and there was no way in hell he was taking Bruce’s blood money. Jason started drafting an ad and put it on Craigslist. The best he’d be able to do, hopefully before the date he’d be able to meet all of the candidates to make sure they weren’t insane. 

‘Searching for a roommate in a flat in Gotham Sun Apartments. $500 per month expected. Contact xxx-xxx-xxx for more information. (Images attached below)’

Jason rubbed his pounding temple, all he could do was wait.

•~Friday Nov. 22, 10am EST~•~•

“Voyage.” Marinette called before stepping into a black portal. She whimpered as she landed in a dark alley. “Tikki, Kaaliki, divide.” She whispered. “Spots off.” She was released from her heroine persona. Marinette was bloody, bruised and confused. She didn’t know where Kaaliki had taken her but she hoped it was far away from Paris. Marinette walked warily out of the alley to see a beautiful city full of life around her. Many people walked past and she could hear snippets of conversation, only something was off about them…they were in English! Marinette realized, could Kaaliki’s Portal have taken her to America or England? Thank god for Madame Bustier’s lessons or Marinette wouldn’t be able to speak a lick of English, she was practically fluent after all of her lessons. Marinette took out her pigtails and slid the bands onto her arm, she checked her purse, Tikki and Kaaliki were in there as well as $2000. Master Fu had given it to her before her...departure. 

Marinette continued down the street hoping to find some sign of where she was. Pedestrians gave her strange looks, most likely because of all her evident injuries. Marinette passed by street signs, all to generic to tell her anything. She accidentally bumped into a small girl wearing a sweatshirt that read “Gotham University”. 

Marinette knew it was a stretch, it could just be a random sweatshirt but still she was determined to try. 

‘Gotham University’ she typed into Google. Bingo. ‘Gotham University is a college in Gotham, New Jersey, America.’ So could she be in America? Marinette surveyed her surroundings, the most prominent building read Wayne Enterprises. ‘Worth a shot’ she mused. ‘Wayne Enterprises, Gotham’. Millions of hits, now she knew she must be in Gotham. Marinette continued to walk the streets to solve her next problem, where could she stay the night? 

Marinette sighed turning corners, looking for any signs around. She felt a rumbling in her stomach, she couldn’t remember the last time she ate. Marinette couldn't see any food places around. She wandered around looking wildly for a café, bakery, restaurant, anything. She didn’t even realize she was on a collision course until she bumped into a muscular boy, about 4 years older than herself with black hair with a white streak in it and blue eyes.

•~Friday, 9:40am EST~•~•

Jason groaned as he got up. He wasn’t drunk like most nights before. He immediately went to check his computer, still no hits on Craigslist. Jason sighed, he didn’t know what he’d do if he couldn’t get anyone to rent with him by Sunday. He refused to move back into Bruce’s mansion again. Jason picked up his apartment keys and went to look for some food, he couldn’t find a solution to a problem without food or caffeine (Tim had rubbed off on him more than he wanted). 

Jason opened his door and walked down the hall, he opted for the stairs as he didn’t feel like interacting with anyone at the moment. Jason brushed past the Gothamites on the street feeling extremely aggravated. He got lost in his own world of annoyance and didn’t even realize when he ran into a small blue-haired girl.

“Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry!” Marinette said turning pink. She backed away feeling extremely embarrassed, “I just wasn’t looking where I was going and-“ Jason recognized that she wasn’t from Gotham. She just didn’t have that shrewd personality that came with the territory of being a Gothamite. For some reason it made him feel warmer, and his anger felt more soothed.

“It’s ok little lady, really. What brings you to Gotham?” Marinette stared up into the caring blue eyes of the boy she ran into. “I uh, well, um nothing in particular. But would you mind showing me somewhere to eat?” She asked, not wanting to revisit why she had to leave Paris. He seemed caring enough, hopefully he’d take her somewhere to eat. The man nodded, “Of course. I was headed to a café myself little lady. Hey, what’s your name?” Jason could respect that the girl didn’t want to talk about why she was here, after all, Jason didn’t like talking about his own past. 

“Marinette.” Marinette blushed. “Alrighty then Marinette, I’m Jason. I’ll take you somewhere.” Jason wanted to scold her for putting so much trust in a stranger blindly as she followed him, after all this was Gotham but he just silently thanked that it was him who got to her instead of some creep. Jason led her to the Garden Café right next to where his flat was.

It might’ve been one of the only places in Gotham that wasn’t completely littered with garbage. It had beautiful flowers and an outdoor patio where patrons could eat. Jason lead Marinette to an empty black table and pulled out a metal chair for her. “Merci!” Marinette smiled, “Thank you, I mean.” Jason made the connection, “So are you from France?” Marinette nodded, “Yes, Paris actually.” Jason nodded, “What's it like there?” Marinette sighed, “Well aside from the terrorist, it’s beautiful and a great place to live.” Jason didn’t even had a drink yet but if he did, he would’ve spit it out right on the spot. “Did you just say terrorist?”

“Um yes, I assumed it was common knowledge. I mean I know Ladybug reached out to the Justice League many times…” Jason gritted his teeth, the damn Justice League. His father’s call no doubt.

“So whos Ladybug?” Marinette pondered what to tell the man across from her, on the one hand, he was the only kind one to her, but she didn’t want to accidentally give away her identity. “She along with Chat Noir, are magical heroes who wield jewels that give them power. Hawkmoth, the terrorist, wants them, because with them he can make a wish and have absolute power.” Jason's eyes widened, sure her story seemed like a poorly written children’s TV show but from the little time he’d known Marinette he’d figured a lot out about her, and he trusted that she wasn’t a liar. And wasn’t a very good one at that. Living with the world’s greatest detective, as much as Jason hated to admit it, did have some perks, Jason could read people without knowing them for long. 

“I guess it’s not ideal to escape a terrorist and end up in the crime capital of the world though,” Jason said, he couldn’t imagine why anyone would rather be in Gotham than anywhere else. Marinette hadn’t known it was the crime capital of the world, she wondered why Kaaliki’s voyage sent her there. Maybe she was meant to resume being a hero in Gotham?

“Y-yeah.” Was all Marinette could stammer out. Talking to Jason made her realize so many things she had to do, she hadn’t had much time to think about what it could be like living in another country. She didn’t even have a place to stay yet!

“I know this might be a touchy subject, but...how’d you get those bruises Buttercup?” Marinette touched her hand to her face and ran her fingers down one of the scars. “H-Hawkmoth.” At least it wasn’t a complete lie. She saw Jason clench his fists. 

Jason was seething, he couldn’t believe the league would ignore this! One look at this girl would prove that they should’ve listened. If Jason was still aligned with Bruce he would’ve had some choice words with him, instead he decided that he’d notify Dick and possibly the Outlaws the next time he saw them. Jason couldn’t help but feel awful for the girl, he knew what it was like to feel like you couldn’t escape the clutches of a madman. He’d lost a bit of soul to Joker. He wanted to run his fingers down all of her scars and just make everything better, she didn’t deserve that kind of torment. If anything, he did.

“Say Buttercup, where are you staying?” Jason asked before the waiter came to take their orders. Marinette answered the waiter with a simple sandwich and Jason ordered the same. “Um well...I don’t really know yet,” she responded to his previous question. 

Unacceptable, she was staying with him now. “How about you come back with me Buttercup. I know we just met, but I don’t want you sleeping on the streets. Gotham is dangerous.” Marinette blushed, just now noticing the nickname he gave her. “I couldn’t do that to you!” She protested.

“It’s not a problem, Buttercup, really.” Marinette sighed, she felt grateful for Jason. Maybe she was being too trusting, but she had no other options. “As long as you let me pay you something.” Jason thought about it, he didn’t want to put this poor girl out but then he realized,

“I think there's a way we can help each other.”

[heroes-fading]

Why Veronica Mars Won’t Have a Season 5

My introduction to Veronica Mars came in the midst of my father’s death. I watched episodes in hospital waiting rooms before it happened, and holed up in my room afterwards. I found a lot of comfort in the strength that the characters provided. The scene of Logan at his mother’s funeral - maniac and trying to find the humor in it - is exactly what I felt at my father’s. I, like Logan, made jokes and tried shrugging it off. I was certain that this was some sort of cosmic joke, and I was on the receiving end. Veronica’s personality shaped most of who I was in high school - my dad passed away two weeks before I started. Her snark, intelligence, and resilience inspired me so much then. I found a wonderful community with fans of the show, and to this day as a semi-adult I love and adore so many people I met through the show.

When the movie was announced, I was ecstatic. I remember rushing to a bathroom stall at my high school so I could eloquently keyboard-smash about it with my friends, donating to the Kickstarter, wearing my t-shirt, going to the theater with my friend to watch it and livestreaming it the night of its release with my online friends. In a sea of horrible feelings and helplessness, Veronica Mars helped me feel empowered and supported.

That’s partly why all of this stings so badly and feels so much like a betrayal.

Logan Echolls fits into a lot of tropes I’ve grown to hate as a self-identified feminist who has zero time for bad boys. Men who “atone for their sins” to get with a leading heroine are ones I often find boring - so often they’re executed poorly and their past mistakes would be absolutely unforgivable in a real context. Chuck Bass, Damon Salvatore, Spike, et. all are characters I’m tired of seeing in fiction. Logan Echolls organized a bum fight, took out Veronica’s headlights, burned down a community pool, made a series of racist comments to Weevil, and generally had moments of being the absolute worst. But for some weird reason, I have a massive soft spot for Logan and he’s become one of my favorite fictional characters.

Maybe it’s because we’ve seen him go through much, change so much over the course of the show. Maybe it’s because the show actually held him accountable (as well as Veronica) so the redemption didn’t feel cheap or unearned. Or maybe it’s because I’m just a weak heterosexual hypnotized by Jason Dohring’s abs and my feminism only goes so far as who I think is hot. I hope it’s not the last one, but I’m sure some would argue it is! The point is -- healthy, going-to-therapy Logan feels earned after the deaths of his parents, his abusive dad killing his girlfriend, numerous beatings, and too many near death experiences to count. Logan went from being an obligatory psychotic jackass to a fairly well-adjusted boyfriend in a way that made narrative sense.

His offscreen death right after getting married to the love of his life? Not so much.  

The thing that stings about Veronica Mars’ final episode is not just Logan’s death - it’s what it means for the show going forward, especially its titular character. What made Veronica lovable was not her toughness as Logan’s final voicemail details. As season 3 Logan reminds us, Veronica isn’t invincible and she isn’t always right. What made her such a compelling character was what was underneath that toughness, and the people around her that highlighted that warmth buried underneath layers of trauma. In other words, what made her a marshmallow. Burnt on the outside, but gooey on the inside, as Wallace describes her in the pilot.

When we meet Veronica in the pilot, she’s been through a litany of traumas: her best friend’s death, a breakup, sexual assault and drugging, social ostracization, her mother’s addiction and swift exit from her life, a swift drop in socioeconomic status, and routine humiliation at the hands of her peers. But in spite of all of that, she’s still the girl that cuts Wallace down from the flag because it’s the right thing to do. She’s still the girl that worries about her father, has sympathy for Logan after his mother’s death despite all of his cruelty, defends and comforts Meg Manning after she endures the same bullying Veronica did, cares (often, initially unwillingly) about the people whose cases she takes, and bakes cookies for her friend after his basketball game just because. Even as recently as the books, Veronica bakes a cake for her terrible, abandoning mother on her birthday in spite of her replacing her and Keith with another family. She looks after her half-brother Hunter, even if he’s a painful reminder of her mother’s foibles. Veronica isn’t nearly as tough as she pretends to be, and that’s a good thing. That’s what makes her interesting and stops her from being like every other cynical hardboiled detective trope.

The people around Veronica - who support her, evolve with her, and serve as contrasts to her - are what help make her story so compelling. People who can tell her when she’s wrong (Logan, Keith, Weevil, et. all), who remind her of her soft side (Keith, Wallace, Mac, Logan), who can stop her from turning into a noir stereotype and cement her as Veronica Mars. People aren’t tuning in just to see Veronica snark at random side characters. Her personal journey in moving past her trauma and her relationships with other characters are what really makes the character who she is. 

Her journey, from the pilot episode to the movie, is realizing that she can’t just shove down and run away from her trauma. Over the course of her show, we see her form bonds with people in spite of her attempts not to - Wallace, Mac, Logan, and a variety of others. They help her, support her, and challenge her in ways that only serve to make her story more interesting. In the movie, we see Veronica realize she can’t keep running and she doesn’t want a cushy life as a New York lawyer with a boyfriend who doesn’t understand why she cares so much about what happens in her hometown. Neptune, as corrupt and corroded as it is, is her hometown. 

That’s why it’s such a spectacular slap in the face for the end of season 4 to offer the exact opposite. Veronica loses her husband (after finally evolving from the Veronica in the pilot who swore she was never getting married because she was so cynical about relationships) immediately after marriage. She leaves behind Keith, Wallace, and everyone else to chase unknown cases with unknown people in unknown places. As Rob has said, he saw this as the only way for Veronica to continue to be interesting - roaming the world solo as if she’s Sherlock Holmes.

This is not character progression. This is not driving the plot forward. This is regressing to a character to a point even before the pilot episode - a hardened Veronica who pretends she doesn’t care, who uses her trauma as an armour, and keeps people away from her. It undermines the central message of the movie - that Neptune is her home and in spite of her problems, she’s willing to fight for it. By killing Logan, Rob wanted to kill Veronica’s ties to Neptune. This isn’t an evolution - it’s a devolution. 

Rob Thomas has offered this option before - a Veronica exit vehicle sans everyone else, including only Kristen Bell snarking at a camera - in the form of the last-ditch FBI pilot. It was not well received by fans nor networks, and unsurprisingly not picked up or seen anywhere other than a reposting on YouTube. I think if he sincerely expects any other result from a similar future attempt, he’s lying to himself. 

If Rob Thomas wanted the male character-centric P.I. noir he initially planned on writing rather than Veronica Mars, he should have written that rather than allowed it to take over the Veronica Mars universe. Writing a woman with the same elements of toxic masculinity as male characters (a complete disregard for their own feelings, ripping themselves away from personal connections, framing “toughness” as superior and emotional development as a waste of time) is not feminism - it’s just lazy. “Strong female characters” don’t have to be made strong by undergoing trauma after trauma and shutting down until they’re a shadow of their former selves. Their male counterparts aren’t expected to have to deal with rape, death, ostracization, and every other possible form of trauma  - women sure as hell shouldn’t. 

Furthermore, the way that Rob Thomas has framed his fanbase is shameful. Veronica Mars fans aren’t just deranged fangirls too obsessed with Jason Dohring’s abs to care about the health of the story. This isn’t “not what we wanted, but what we needed” - we’re not an audience too stupid to know what’s good for us. We’re an intelligent audience when we’re giving the showrunners money, but when we’re disagreeing with the writing choices we’re just too invested in romance to “get it”. Predictably, these fans (who make up most of Veronica Mars’ fanbase that the showrunners claim to adore so much) are women. For decades, women have been stereotyped as media-consumers that only care about romance and thus can’t care about depth as if the two are mutually exclusive. This stereotype is incredibly sexist, especially given what this fanbase in particular has done for this franchise, and the continued insistence that these fans just don’t know what’s good for them or the show is incredibly condescending and transparent.

This fanbase poured $6 million dollars into a Kickstarter for a money, maintained energy for a revival and actively lobbied streaming services and networks for a continuation, and kept the fandom twelve years after the finale episode of its original incarnation aired. As much as some may resent how fan energy encouraged writers to see Logan evolve, or Logan and Veronica to sort out their issues, or anything else - these were choices the writers made and stood by for years. A sudden U-Turn in storytelling to go from “the fans were right, this dynamic is wonderful and we’re going to base our advertising around it!” to “well, it was never supposed to be about that” is a kick to the teeth to a fanbase that (literally!) gave so much. 

It’s not as if this is the first time the fanbase has been disappointed by a writing decision. Speaking for myself, I was heavily disappointed by the way sexual assault was handled on the original incarnation of the show. Veronica’s rape was handled by at first not framing it as a sexual assault at all in “A Trip to the Dentist” - Duncan Kane (her ex-boyfriend/potential half-brother at some point in time) having sex with her while she was unconcious was framed as just “feelings and nature taking over” because he was under the influence. In season 3, the writers decided that framing women protesting sexual assault on campus as deranged feminists who sexually assault men by inserting them with Easter eggs was a good choice. That Easter egg part was played for laughs by the show, writers, and leading cast member. 

Even the inclusion of Dick Casablancas for laughs - whose GHB was intended for his girlfriend and ended up in Veronica’s cup - doesn’t feel right. Ryan Hansen’s charm explains a lot of it, but the show seems to place a lot more blame on Madison for Veronica’s rape despite the fact she narrowly escaped the same fate at Dick’s hands. I was disappointed then, and I’m still disappointed with it now - far away from any romantic concerns of the show.

And my biggest problem with the ending of season 4 isn’t just that Logan is dead. I’m incredibly crushed and disappointed to see all of that character development be met with an offscreen car-bomb, but it doesn’t bode well for Veronica’s characterization and ultimate arc either. I fell in love with Veronica’s character first, and I don’t even recognize her anymore.

If the movie was a thank you to the marshmallows (both the fans and Veronica’s inner softness), the ending of the show was a middle finger to both. If the lesson from the series and the film is that you fight for things because they’re worth it and not because they come easily (whether they be relationships or towns), then the lesson from the revival is that the best thing to do is leave and take your bags. So much of the narrative was set up around Veronica accepting who she was and where she’s from - and the revival’s Veronica has finally been traumatized so much she’s packing her bags and giving up. That’s not toughness. That’s not strength. That’s certainly not saving the show or the character. 

That’s selling a grim story because you think it’s edgy. That’s trying to be subversive and failing, too focused on shock value to care about the characters. There’s a reason shows like Game of Thrones, Dexter, and How I Met Your Mother got such backlash -- they just don’t make narrative sense and the endings are far from satisfying. Making the fans happy isn’t a mark of bad storytelling, especially when the survival of your franchise has been so contingent on it. Sometimes, they actually do know what they’re talking about! And if you want a season five, maybe don’t alienate your fans to a point they don’t recognize the show anymore. Rob mentioned, “...I will have made a really bad bet if, en masse, the fans turn on the show. That would certainly be a tough lesson to learn.” -- I think he accomplished that! 

I wish the Veronica Mars that got me through the toughest parts of my life was still around. But I’d rather say goodbye to her forever than be faced with a cheap imitation. 

[paracosmhq]

Paracosm Development Update May 2020

Hello, World! 👋 I’m Jason from Paracosm, and this is the first in a series of posts that aim to give you insight into the development progress on our apps. While we’ve been so heads-down focusing on development, we haven’t been as communicative as we need to be. It’s understandable that people would want to be kept a little more in the loop about how it’s all going. So, starting today, you can look forward to these updates every other month!

Before we look at what’s ahead, though, let’s take a brief look back:

Why the Delay in HD Output & Audio-Reactivity?

Lumen was released as Paracosm’s second app in 2016 after two years of solo development by yours truly. As soon as it was out, we heard loud and clear from users what features to work on next: MIDI Control, HD Output, and Audio Reactivity. So we set our sights on those and got to work right away.

Long-time users may even remember that we originally aimed to release HD Output in the fall of 2016. So why the delay, since work has been happening full-time on Lumen since it was released? Let’s crack into it.

Immediately after Lumen was launched, the team -- myself and a couple of contractors -- worked really hard and released the MIDI Control feature update, to much fanfare. We then prototyped the HD feature swiftly, but almost immediately ran into roadblocks. Without going into the technical details: performance wasn’t good enough in several important ways. It was the same story with Audio-reactivity - prototyped, then plagued with performance issues.

Though we tried to cut many different corners to improve performance quickly, eventually we came to the realization that the problems we were up against were systemic, and fixing them would mean re-architecting much of the synth from the ground up. This requires more effort, but the alternatives weren’t working.

I also had to face the fact that we couldn’t continue to support a team, and had to shrink back down to the way it all started - just me. That’s where things still stand today: I’m the full-time developer / designer / documentation writer / anything else, with some help from my family taking care of customer support.

To wrap it up, these are the main reasons why there haven’t been many updates in the past few years. We haven’t been in a position to to release anything because we’re not making incremental changes, we’ve been rewriting Lumen, and where we originally expected to have a larger team to tackle the problems we’re facing, we’re back to being a one-person company. 

So yes, development of these features has dragged on. I personally take responsibility for this, and apologize for things taking far, far longer than I’d originally estimated, and for not making the time to keep Lumen’s users in the loop like they deserve in the meantime.

On the positive side, things are actually looking much better these days. The pace of development is picking up as more of Lumen’s core systems get rewritten, and importantly: it’s vastly more performant. And in the process of rewriting these systems, Lumen’s codebase is moving from the Apple-specific language it was originally written in, to one that will allow Lumen to run on Windows. Although this means fewer updates in the short-term, we’re building a future that allows for Lumen’s continued development in the long-term.

For me, the project of creating Lumen isn’t just about making a cool synth - it’s about making the techniques of video synthesis easier to learn and available to more people. That’s why I’m still dedicated to refining Lumen into a high-quality visual instrument that remains approachable and affordable, and why I continue to insist that Lumen be able to run on the average laptop, even if it takes longer to build it that way. 

What’s next for Lumen?

As promised, here is the first bi-monthly status update!

#1: MIDI Subsystem rewrite and performance overhaul. We know some users are seeing slowdowns and crashes using Ableton and Max4Live, and this is a performance issue. Fixing this problem also improves performance for HD Output, so we’ve made it our top priority. Our current goal is to release this by the time the next Paracosm Development Update is out (2 months).

#2: HD Output. This feature will allow for HD video processing in Lumen along with custom aspect ratios. We aim to release this before the end of 2020.

#3: Improving Lumen Guides. We know some users have been waiting for the remaining guides to come out, and some of the existing guides need updates. We’ll be able to prioritize this once we’ve released HD Output.

#4: Audio Reactivity. We’ll be able to focus on this again after HD is released, so it won’t come until probably the end of 2021.

We hope these updates are helpful and clear up any confusion about where things are at, why they’ve taken so long, and our commitment to Lumen and beyond. Thanks for sticking with us, and for all your support over the years - it means the world to us. ❤️

[therandombanjo]

Songs From 2019 (one per artist)

Another mixed bag of stuff i either enjoyed a lot, thought was excellent or interesting (regardless of taste… sort of), emerging artists to maybe look out for, and generally music that for whatever reason connected with me in some way, including the odd earworm i just couldn’t shake. Some artists are left off just to vary a little more from some other popular lists. Hope you enjoy some of this too and find something new to be taken by. Please do buy their music if you can and hopefully from a local independent record store if possible to support their work. There’s a spotify playlist (below) for easier listening but I’ve also posted a few links to extra things on some of them if you want to check them out.  Spotify:

(As ever…. as i don’t tumblr or blog or anything (besides this list), this won’t be seen by many (if any?) people so if you like it or think it’s of any worth in any way, please do share this along)

In Alphabetical order:

A.A. Bondy - Killers 3 Abdallah Oumbadougou - Thingalene Alasdair Roberts - Common Clay Alex Rex - Latest Regret Andy Shauf - Try Again Angel Bat Dawid - We Are Starzz Angel Olsen - All Mirrors        bonus. her collab with Mark Ronson “True Blue” Anne Müller - Solo? Repeat! Antoinette Konan - Kokoloko Tani Arthur Russell - Words Of Love Asmâa Hamzaoui and Bnat Timbouktou - Sandia Baby Rose - All To Myself BCI - Grateful Bedouine - When You’re Gone Benny The Butcher - Crowns For Kings      ft. Black Thought Ben Walker - Afon Better Oblivion Community Center - Chesapeake Beverly Glenn-Copeland - A Little Talk     (from a reissue of her 2004 record Primal Prayer) Bibio - Curls The Big Moon - It’s Easy Then Big Thief - a. Not    b. Cattails    (from 2 excellent albums released in the same year: “U.F.O.F” and “Two Hands”) Bill Callahan - a. What Comes After Certainty    b. The Ballad Of The Hulk Bill Fay - Filled With Wonder Once Again Bill Orcutt - Odds Against Tomorrow billy woods - a. Spongebob w/ Kenny Segal     b. Western Education Is Forbidden    ft. Fielded        (From 2 excellent records this year: “Hiding Places” with Kenny Segal, and “Terror Management”) Black Country, New Road - Sunglasses Blu & Oh No - The Lost Angels Anthem    ft. Kezia Bon Iver - Hey, Ma Bonnie “Prince” Billy - Beast For Thee Bonny Light Horseman - Bonny Light Horseman      (”supergroup” of the great Anaïs Mitchell, Eric D Johnson & Josh Kaufman) Brent Cobb & Jade Bird - Feet Off The Ground Brighde Chaimbeul -  O Chiadain an Lo Brigyn - Oer Brittany Howard - Stay High    (the video for this, with Terry Crews, is a delight) Bruce Hornsby - Voyager One    ft. yMusic Burd Ellen - Sweet Lemany Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and Thomas Bartlett - Kestrel Caribou - You and I Caroline Polachek - Door Cate Le Bon - Daylight Matters Caterina Barbieri - Arrows Of Time Clairo - Bags Cochemea - Mitote comfort - Not Passing The Cool Greenhouse - Cardboard Man    (a pretty hilarious song about David Cameron) CRAC - You Can’t Turn Your Back On Me    (Unreleased old track from ‘76) Cross Record - PYSOL My Castle CZ Wang and Neo Image - Just Off Wave Damon Locks / Black Monument Ensemble - a. Rebuild a Nation   b. Power Daniel Norgren - The Flow Danny Brown - Dirty Laundry Daphni - Sizzling    ft. Paradise Daughter Of Swords - Fellows      (Mountain Man member Alexandra Sauser-Monnig’s 1st solo record) Dave - Psycho David Kilgour - Smoke You Right Out Of Here David Thomas Broughton - Ambiguity     (from the 15th anniversary reissue of his remarkable debut album, The Complete Guide To Insufficiency) Denzel Curry - RICKY Destroyer - Crimson Tide Dry Cleaning - Dog Proposal Dubi Dolczek - Do The Gloop Durand Jones & The Indications - Long Way Home Ela Orleans - The Season      (From 2012 but on a career retrospective, Movies For Ears, put out this year) Elkhorn - Song Of The Son Emile Mosseri - a. The Last Black Man In San Francisco b. San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)    ft. Mike Marshall         (both from the wonderful score for the wonderful film The Last Black Man In San Francisco, the latter a cover of an old song sung here by the guy who sang “I Got 5 On It”!!) Erland Cooper - Haar Ernest Hood - Saturday Morning Doze        (from a re-issue of his “self-released proto-ambient masterpiece” in ‘75) Fat White Family - Feet Faye Webster - Room Temperature Fennesz - In My Room Fernando Falcão -  As 7 Filhas Da Rainha Sumaia     (reissue from ‘87) FKA twigs - cellophane Florist - Shadow Bloom Flowdan - Welcome To London Fontaines D.C. - Roy’s Tune Four Tet / KH - Only Human French Vanilla - All The Time Gang Starr - Family and Loyalty   ft. J. Cole Georgia - About Work The Dancefloor Girl Band - Shoulderblades The Good Ones - Will You Be My Protector?   (of Rwanda) Grand Veymont - Les Rapides Bleus       (of France) Gyedu-Blay Ambolley - Sunkwa     (of Ghana) Hailaker - Not Much HAIM - Summer GIrl Hana Vu - Actress Hand Habits - placeholder Hannah Cohen - Get In Line The Harlem Gospel Travellers - If You Can’t Make It Through A Storm Hayden Thorpe - Diviner     (Former Wild Beasts frontman’s debut solo record) Helado Negro - Running The Highwomen - Redesigning Women Hiss Golden Messenger - I Need A Teacher Holly Herndon - Frontier Homeboy Sandman - Far Out Hoops - They Say Hotel Neon & Blurstem - Language Of Loss House and Land - Rainbow ‘Mid Life’s Willows Ibibio Sound Machine - Wanna Come Down IDER - Saddest Generation The Innocence Mission - On Your Side International Teachers Of Pop - I Stole Yer Plimsoles    ft. Jason Williamson (of Sleaford Mods) Jacken Elswyth - The Banks Of Green Williow Jaimie Branch - nuevo roquero estéreo Jake Xerxes Fussell - The River St. Johns Jamila Woods - ZORA Jayda G - Leave Room 2 Breathe Jenny Hval - Ashes To Ashes       Jenny Lewis - Red Bull and Hennessy Jesca Hoop - Outside of Eden     ft. Kate Stables (of This Is The Kit) and Jesca’s 12 year-old nephew Justis. This live performance is so sweet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUPmE_hU7Ss Jessica Pratt - As The World Turns Joanna Sternberg - This Is Not Who I Want To Be Joan Shelley - Cycle John Blek - North Star Lady Jordan Rakei - Say Something        bonus. under his DJ pseudonym: Dan Kye - Focus Jo Schornikow - Incomplete Joseph Shabason - West of Heaven Julianna Barwick - evening Junius Paul - Baker’s Dozen Kali Malone - Spectacle Of Ritual Kate Teague - Sweetheart Kate Tempest - a. Firesmoke    b. People’s Faces Kelly Moran - Halogen (Una Corda)       (from a record full of all the bare piano parts she played for her prior record before all the editing and processing) Kim Gordon - Air BnB Kindness - Hard To Believe     ft. Jazmine Sullivan KOKOKO! - Buka Dansa     (Congolese collective upcycling discarded materials to make their instruments) Konradsen - Baby Hallelujah     (of Norway) Lambchop - Everything For You Laura Cannell - a. Sing As The Crow Flies     b. Flaxen Fields Laura Stevenson - Lay Back, Arms Out Le Groupe Obscur -  Planète Ténèbres Leonard Cohen - Happens To The Heart Leo Svirsky - River Without Banks Little Simz - 101 FM Lizzo - Tempo   ft. Missy Elliot Loren Conors & Daniel Carter - Departing Lou Roy - Bite Low Chord - Walkk Lower Dens - Galapagos Mahalia - What You Did    ft. Ella Mai Majja - Black James Dean Maria Somerville - This Way Maria Usbeck - Amor Anciano Mary Halvorson & John Dieterich - Vega’s Array      (Mary the recipient of the MacArthur “Genius” Grant this year, because she is) Mary Lattimore & Mac McCaughan - IV Matana Roberts - As Far As The Eye Can See Meitei - Ike Melanie Charles - Trill Suite, No. 1 (Daydreaming/Skylark) The Menzingers - Anna Messiahs Of Glory - No Other Love      (from a collection of rare black gospel from the Midwest between ‘65-’78 put out on Tompkins Square) Mica Levi - a. Hosting     b. Lobo y Lady (from the excellent Colombian film Monos) Michael Abels - a. I Got 5 On It (Tethered Mix)    b. Pas De Deux (both from the terrific score to the excellent Jordan Peele film, Us) Michael Kiwanuka - Living In Denial Michael Nau - Poor Condition Mike Adams At His Honest Weight - Wonderful To Love Minor Pieces - Rothko      (duo of Ian William Craig & newcomer Missy Donaldson) Modern Nature - Footsteps Molly Sarlé - Twisted      (Mountain Man member’s 1st solo record) Moodymann - I’ll Provide Moon Duo - Stars Are The Light Moor Mother - After Images Moses Boyd - Stranger Than Fiction Moses Sumney - Polly Mount Eerie & Julie Doiron - Love Without Possession MSYLMA - Inqirad (Rihab-U Dhakir)     (Saudi Arabia) The Murder Capital - Don’t Cling To Life Nardeydey - Freefalling The National - Rylan   ft. Kate Stables (of This Is The Kit) The New Pornographers - Falling Down The Stairs Of Your Smile Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - a. Waiting For You   b. Bright Horses   c. Night Raid Nivhek - After Its Own Death: Side A    (Liz Harris of Grouper) Noname - Song 32 Octo Octa - Move Your Body ODD OKODDO - Auma      (Kenyan/German duo) Øyvind Torvund - Starry Night      (Norwegian composer) Pet Shop Boys - Burning The Heather Petter Eldh - Fanfarum for Komarum II Porridge Radio - Give/Take PREGOBLIN - Combustion Purple Mountains - a. Snow Is Falling In Manhattan    b. All My Happiness Is Gone   c. That’s Just The Way That I Feel Quelle Chris - Obamacare Quinie - Whas At The Windy Rapsody - Ibtihaj   ft. D’Angelo & GZA Reb Fountain - Faster Rian Treanor - ATAXIA_A1 Richard Dawson - Two Halves Robert Stillman - All Are Welcome Róisín Murphy - Incapable Rosalía - Milionària Rosenau & Sanborn - Saturday Rozi Plain - Symmetrical Ruth Garbus - Strash Sam Lee - The Moon Shines Bright   ft. Elizabeth Fraser (of Cocteau Twins) Sam Wilkes - Run Sandro Perri - Soft Landing SAULT - Smile and Go Seabuckthorn - To Which The Rest Were Dreamt serpentwithfeet - Receipts    ft. Ty Dolla $ign Sessa - Flor do Real         (of Brazil) Sheer Mag - Hardly To Blame Shit and Shine - No No No No Sinead O Brien - A Thing You Call Joy Siobhan Wilson - Plastic Grave Six Organs Of Admittance - Two Forms Moving Sleaford Mods - Kebab Spider Slow Meadow - Artificial Algorithm Snowy - EFFED    ft. Jason Williamson (of Sleaford Mods) SOAK - Knock Me Off My Feet Solange - Binz Sophie Crawford - A Miner’s Life Squid - Houseplants         bonus. Their cover of Robert Wyatt’s  “PIgs..... In There at End of the Road Festival) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DktZtQbo-YU Stella Donnelly - Old Man SUSS - Ursa Major Swamp Dogg - Sleeping Without You Is A Dragg   ft. Justin Vernon & Jenny Lewis Tami T - Birthday  Tenesha The Wordsmith - Why White Folks Can’t Call Me Nigga Theon Cross - Activate     ft. Moses Boyd & Nubya Garcia Thom Yorke - Dawn Chorus Tierra Whack - Wasteland Tim Hecker - That World Tiny Leaves - Respair Toya Delazy - Funani         (of South Africa) Twain - Death (Or S.F.?) Twin Peaks - Dance Through It Tyler Childers - All Your’n Vagabon - Water Me Down Vampire Weekend - This Life Vanishing Twin - Magicians Success Velvet Negroni - Confetti Vendredi Sur Mer - Chewing-Gum      (of France) Victoria Monét - Ass Like That Vieo Abiungo - Cobble Together Visible Cloaks - Stratum      ft. Yoshio Ojima & Satsuki Shibano Warmduscher - Midnight Dipper Weyes Blood - Andromeda Wilco - Love Is Everywhere (Beware) William Tyler - Our Lady Of The Desert Willie Scott & The Birmingham Spirituals - Keep Your Faith To The Sky     (from a collection of obscure 70′s era gospel on Luaka Bop, “The Time For Peace Is Now - Gospel Music About Us”) Xylouris White - Tree Song Ye Vagabonds - The Foggy Dew Zsela - Noise

[anneybabyboo]

My JTV Thoughts

As we near the end of this crazy, whirlwinded, soapy, Americanized telenovela, I’ve come to this conclusion (or belief, I guess?) that JTV will end with Jane either choosing Rafael over Michael, or choosing no one at all.

What?! You’re crazy! They wouldn’t do that! Why would they?

First of all, this isn’t to discredit Michael or his character. Admittedly, I’ve been #TeamRafael from pretty much the get-go. HOWEVER, I can’t deny the fact that there was a special kind of love and bond shared between Michael and Jane, especially during their short lived-marriage. They loved each other in a way that is different from the way Jane and Rafael love each other. And yes, I will agree that Michael is Jane’s soulmate.

But this leads me to point out: Jane and Michael already got married. From a viewers perspective (or at least, my perspective), as unexpected as Michael’s death was, there was a sense of closure on Jane and Michael’s love story that came with Michael’s death. They battled a love triangle, worked through countless complicated situations, got married, and lived their (albeit short) happily ever after.

And then Michael died.

But Michael’s death isn’t where JTV ends. Instead the story continued to follow Jane after her husbands death. We saw how she grieved, and wallowed in pain. We watched her grow, and eventually, move on. In fact, writing and completing her book was a sense of acceptance of Michael’s death, and a signal that she was slowly trying to go forward with her life. And so, she did.

Over time, her love story with Rafael began to blossom once more. And suddenly, the show created another relationship that developed just as organically as Michael and Jane did, but no longer had to worry about that pesky love triangle anymore - now that Jane wasn’t conflicted by her feelings for Michael. Yes, there was still a lot of push and pull, and even a little moment where Rafael had feelings for Petra again. But, the show has always made an effort to point out that Rafael has been a constant factor to the most pivotal moments of Jane’s life (See: Rafael encouraging Jane to “be brave;” the entire episode that drove Jane to writing her book, and even helping her read Michael’s eulogy).

By this point in the story, anyone who used to be #TeamMichael was likely accepting the fact that Rafael would be just as good for Jane as Michael was. Thus bringing me to my reasons why Jane would pick Rafael.

Okay, so from the very beginning of the series, JTV has laid heavy groundwork around the concept of “family.” “Family” is basically the heart and soul of this show. It’s a theme that is touched upon in just about every (if not all) episodes of the entire series. From the very first episode, we are introduced to Jane’s close relationship with both her mother and grandmother. We learn about how important they are to her life, and how much they each played a part in shaping her into the woman she’s grown up to become. But then, the series added another element of “family” when the show introduced Rogelio and reunited Jane with her father. Suddenly, there was a sense of “family” coming full circle as Jane had both her parents to finally lean on. And because of this, and because of the fact that Jane is our heroine of the story, there have always been hints of Jane and Rafael coming in full circle as well in order to provide a “complete” family for Mateo (See: Every time Alba roots for #TeamRafael).

Yes, okay you can argue “But what about Petra and the twins?!” However, the show has already done it’s job to show us that Petra and Rafael have trajected on to different paths, and have completely moved on from one another. Rafael and Petra are still family, just not in the conventional way. And they’re both fine with that.

Not to mention, one of the driving forces of Jane wanting to be with Rafael is because of Mateo. Unlike the twins, Mateo has repeatedly expressed his happiness when his mom and dad are together. We can rule out Petra and Rafael as endgame because, not only do Petra and Rafael no longer hold a flame for each other, but their daughters don’t seem to show that same kind of desire for their parents, as Mateo does for his. So, even though this reason may not be rooted deeply in Jane and Rafael’s relationship, it does make parallel sense when you compare Mateo’s parental story to that of Jane’s.

Now, while Jane picking Rafael is the most logical choice (at least, as far as storytelling goes), we can’t rule out the possibility that Jane would end up with neither Michael or Rafael. Do I see Jane ending up on her own as a possibility? Very much so, and only because Jenny Synder Urman has always made an effort of putting that idea out into the universe whenever she talks about JTV. It’s possible she only says it as a red herring for avid fans, like myself. But when you pair that thought with the fact that JTV also heavily emphasizes the idea of “strong women” just as much as they emphasize “family,” well, you can see why Jane ending up alone is still in the realm of possibilities. Not to mention, Jane letting go of Rafael and Michael is also probably the healthiest option for ALL of them, because 1) Michael and Rafael both deserve someone who would choose them first every time, and 2) Jane needs to find someone whom she is 100000000% confident in (not flip flopping between one ex to the next ex). Now, is it possible for Jane to end up with a new love interest? Unlikely, since there isn’t enough time to establish a new love interest that viewers would be interested in. But, like I’ve said, it’s still possible for Jane to end up going solo instead of with Rafael or even Michael.

To flip the discussion, I also strongly believe that Michael is not endgame for Jane. I know members of #TeamMichael are gonna come at me for saying that, but there are actually A LOT of reasons why he’s most likely not (and even shouldn’t be) Jane’s endgame.

The first reason is because, if we really look at where our story currently is, Michael is literally Jane’s past, while Rafael (who we know has/had intentions of proposing) is Jane’s future. I don’t doubt that the show is going to want to have Jane explore her feelings for Michael-Jason, but here’s the thing we shouldn’t forget: HE’S STILL MICHAEL-JASON! He’s not just Michael or just Jason. As he already pointed out, Michael feels like 2 different people. And reasonably so, because for the last 4 years, he’s lived his life as Jason, this canned beans eating, dog-loving cowboy from Montana. Therefore, even though he has Michael’s memories, it doesn’t mean Jason is completely wiped away. And if there’s anything we, the viewers, have learned, it’s that Jane and Jason aren’t compatible.

Also if the show does decide to have Jane explore her feelings for Michael-Jason, I wouldn’t be surprised if things go south. Why? Because all these feelings that are resurfacing are rooted in their past. They’re talking about old memories and reminiscing on what they used to have, that they’re currently blind sighted to who they’ve become. 4 years is a long time, and people can change a lot during that time. Which is why, I wouldn’t be surprised if both Jane and Michael discover that, rather than actually still being in love with each other, they’re mostly in love with the idea of being together and what they used to have. Because honestly, with everything that has happened to the both of them in the last 4 years, there’s no way they can just pick up right where they left off. We all know that doesn’t work.

Another reason why I don’t believe Jane will end up with Michael is because, narratively speaking, it doesn’t make sense. Why would the writers build up Jane and Rafael’s future so much, only to pull the rug at the very last second?! For Jane to back track and pick Michael again only negates EVERYTHING that happened between Jane and Rafael in the back half of Season 4. The writers of JTV have proven time and time again that nothing happens by chance. Therefore, I want to give them enough credit that they would just cancel everything they gave to Jane and Rafael in season 4. Not to mention, while Michael and Jane’s marriage wasn’t very long, the fact that they already got married was a satisfying conclusion to their love story. Whereas, Jane and Rafael weren’t JUST dating. They were both getting ready to settle down and commit to one another. For Jane and Rafael’s happy ending to just suddenly swept away is incredibly unsatisfying from a viewers point of view, regardless of being #TeamRafael or #TeamMichael, because it makes viewers feel like all that build up was just a waste of time.

Finally, the reason it’s hard to believe that Jane would pick Michael is because of Mateo. Everything goes back to Mateo. I read a blog post where someone tried to argue “But Michael had such a good relationship with Mateo to the point where he treated him like his own son.” Here’s the thing. When Michael died, Mateo was still just a baby. Even young children don’t have clear recollections of their memories as babies. And now that Mateo is older, his memories of Michael are based on the stories Jane has told him. Therefore, there really is no relationship there between Mateo and Michael anymore. Add that on to the point where I talked about how Mateo desires for his parents to be together so that they can be a family, and you can imagine how Michael can suddenly be painted as the villain from Mateo’s point of view. Not only that, Jane choosing Michael over Rafael would threaten her relationship with her son. We’ve had numerous occasions where Mateo clearly gravitates to his dad, so if Jane were to pick Michael and destroy any of Mateo’s hopes of a “perfect” family, well, it would also destroy the relationship between Jane and Mateo. If the writers wrote Mateo to be okay with Jane choosing Michael, it would be a VERY out of character decision, given how much we know Mateo wants his parents to be together. Mateo accepting Michael and Jane would only be reasonable if this wasn’t the show’s final season, because then we’d have more time to explore Mateo’s journey toward acceptance.

So how do I think this is all going to end? Honestly, I have no clue. I do have some theories about how Michael may possibly leave the show…but I think I’ll save those thoughts for another time, because I’ve accidentally written an essay about Jane the Virgin, and my heart and brain still need some time to process the first five episodes of this last season.

If you did read this, kudos to you!

And if these episodes of JTV are driving you absolutely bonkers, well, don’t forget to “inhala exhala.”

[philosophronia]

Ice Fantasia 2019

My daughter has been tucked into bed and taking a shower has jolted me awake, so I figured I might as well do my Ice Fantasia 2019 write up while the show is still fresh in my mind! I thought long and hard about how I should organize this write-up (long meaning the amount of time it took me to take a bath), and I came to the conclusion that it would be better for me to talk about each skater rather than each program, so that’s what I’ll do. I apologize in advance for the rambling nature of this review -- I’ll skim through it once after I’m done, but I probably won’t end up editing it extensively.

The show was divided into Acts I and II. I have the program to the left of my laptop as I type this, but the orders did change quite a bit from the time they printed these out and the time the show was performed. I’m sure they had their reasons for the changes, though, because overall, I felt that the skaters went with their “easier,” less energy-draining programs in Act I and showed off the power and energy they had in Act II. Good plan, in my opinion; it can’t be easy skating two programs + at least two group numbers!

I believe twenty skaters participated in this show. I say “I believe” because there was a group number with what I remember to be six young Korean skaters, but it might have been eight or nine -- some of them did a solo snippet in the beginning and I’m not sure if those skaters are the same as the ones that did the short group number towards the end of that routine. The young skaters were absolutely darling and just a bundle of talent. There were maybe… three or four girls that came out in the beginning and did a bit of their program. Every single one of them landed their jumps and got a huge round of applause from the audience, which must have been such a special moment for them. Junhwan popped out at the end and did a bit of the group dance with them before disappearing backstage again. That was adorable!

According to the program, it were the junior skaters that were supposed to skate first (right after the opening), but they changed it around so that Seoyeon Ji skated first. She did a program to River by Bishop Briggs and nailed it! She’s a pretty tiny skater, but she skated big and wasn’t afraid to hit the accents. I would’ve been a nervous wreck had I been the one skating after the entire main cast’s group number, but the thirteen year old didn’t make any mistakes and was just a joy to watch.

Ok, now I’m just going to talk about the skaters in no particular order…

Jason Brown

It’s not an exaggeration to say that Jason stole the show. He came out third in Act I and gave such a charming performance to Can’t Stop the Feeling that he had the entire audience clapping and hollering in no time (kudos to everyone there for clapping on the beat). He’s the type of skater that… you know how sometimes, you see a skater that maybe doesn’t have the best technique and maybe doesn’t win the medals but always has your eyes drawn to them? That’s Jason. He’s an incredible performer, and although I knew this through watching his performances through YouTube, it was even more evident when he was skating in front of my eyes. Most of the people around me were people that were invited to the show by LG (aka folks that didn’t know any of the skaters), and the instant they sent him off backstage with a deafening applause, they turned to each other and went “That was so much fun.” Also, the way he does a little hop as he waves to the audience is endearing. You could tell that he was having a blast and appreciated the support he was receiving from the audience. Also, his split jump (I don’t know if that’s what it’s called, but there was this move that he did a ton where he jumped into the air and did a side split) had an incredible height to it. I don’t even know how he got up so high.

Evgenia Medvedeva

Zhenya did two programs: one to Million Roses and another to 7 rings. Neither program had jumps in it, which was a bit surprising, I suppose, but it didn’t take away from her performance at all. The Million Roses program was executed with such beauty that it wasn’t until she picked up her rose and left that I realized that she hadn’t jumped at all. From where I was sitting, I could see her putting in the effort to make her arms elegant but not floppy. It was beautiful! 7 rings was the second one she did, and that program really showed off her sass. The absence of jumps meant that she had more time for dance steps, which I personally enjoyed. I just hope that she didn’t take the jumps out because of an injury! D:

Peng Cheng - Jin Yang

So, I’m not a huge watcher of Pairs figure skating, simply because it makes me so darn nervous, but I really enjoyed their performance. In the first program they did, they skated with a sword, which did make me nervous but was tastefully used. Like the other skaters, their first program was the one that to me seemed like might take up less energy. Their second one was packed, though, and was a delight to watch. I believe it was the third act of Act II (after the junior kids and a group number that didn’t feature Tessa, Scott, and these two. They made every element look effortless. The audience gasped when they skated past them while executing their lifts (as did I). As I said, it seemed like many of them weren’t into figure skating and came because they got an invitation from their company, so they were in awe and shock for sure. Such a beautiful way to be introduced to pairs!

Jin Boyang

First of all, I’m fairly sure that if you look up the word ‘glide’ in the dictionary, a photo of Boyang will be right next to the definition. All of the skaters were fantastic, of course, but when Boyang skated, you couldn’t hear the sound of his blades about 80% of the time. I’m not exaggerating. His act was in the second half of Act I, and all throughout the program, I was thinking, “Wait… was it this quiet when the other skaters skated as well?” He skated with such grace, and his smile lit up the arena. His jumps were executed beautifully as well. I think he popped one, but honestly, I doubt that anyone remembered that mistake, because everything else was done really well.

Rika Kihira

Out of her two performances, I definitely enjoyed the second one (which was a routine to Sia’s The Greatest) more. I’m used to seeing Rika perform more slow and elegant programs (she might have done routines of similar styles in galas and other shows, but I’ve only watched her competing), but this one had a bit of a punch to it and a ton of dancing. I loved it! She had quite a bit of jumps in her programs, all of which she landed with no problem at all. Her costumes, too, were exquisite. I think she was the only one who had a different costume for each number (some of the skaters stayed in the costume they wore for their second solo performance for the finale, while others changed back to the costume they wore for their first solo performance). They were all beautiful, but the one she wore for her first solo act and the one she wore at the finale group number was breathtaking. They were ones she wore in competition, I believe. She was an absolute joy to watch, and I’m so glad she decided to hop over here and perform for the Korean audience!

Vladimir Besedin - Oleksiy Polishchuk

In addition to singles, ice dance, and pairs, Ice Fantasia had two ice acrobatic routines. I wasn’t sure what I expected to see when I read their names on the program, but holy cow. They came out and did some crazy stuff. There were balancing acts (at one point, one man was balancing on top of the other man’s head), spins, and plenty of panic-inducing moments. For example, at one point, the man that was balancing on top suddenly just went limp and dropped to the ice (the other man caught him, of course, but it looked like he didn’t!), and I screeched internally. Their acts were a treat to watch and so very different from anything else I’ve watched. I don’t know if anyone had their camera on while they were performing (I think most folks were too busy gaping at them to film), but I really hope someone did!

Kaetlyn Osmond

Out of all of the ladies, Kaetlyn skated the biggest. She filled up the entire rink and seemed like one of those skaters who performs for the entire audience and not just those that are sitting in the first couple of rows. I bet audience members that were sitting up on the second floor could feel and see her performance as well as people that were sitting in the front row. I feel like I’m just repeating the same thing over and over again, but she just skates that… big. The fact that she’s got those huge, gorgeous eyes didn’t hurt. XD I feel that the height, speed, and ice coverage of the singles skaters’ jumps are better highlighted when captured on camera than when seen in person sometimes, but with Kaetlyn, that was not the case at all. Her high speed and the extraordinary height her jumps reached were visible to the naked eye. Truly a beautiful skater!

Elladj Balde

I can’t speak more highly of Elladj Balde. His two performances were absolutely extraordinary. I didn’t know of him going into this show, but the moment his first program started, I knew he was a skater that had the same star-like quality that Jason Brown has. His musicality is exquisite, and the way he carries his upper body on the ice is breathtaking. His first program was to The Sound of Silence. It got a huge round of applause from the audience. But it was his second program that I’m sure will stick with the audience members for weeks, months, years. It was the Michael Jackson medley, and it was… awesome. Elladj Balde is an amazing dancer and that strength of his shone through with this routine. At the end of the routine, the audience screamed and clapped like they were at a K-Pop concert. I think he got the loudest applause of the entire show, and no one -- literally no one -- there knew who he was. That’s how good he was. I know a lot of you will want to look for videos that people posted of Tessa and Scott (nothing wrong with that -- they were amazing), but I urge you to see if anyone posted one of Elladj Balde as well.

Now, before you start bashing the Korean audience for enjoying a performance to a Michael Jackson medley, please be aware that a lot of what goes on in the US doesn’t reach Korea. Korea’s got their own share of issues and scandals that take up their newspapers and news channels. It’s not because they don’t pay attention to the news or that they tolerate abuse that they were fine with two Michael Jackson routines being in the show. I guarantee that most of them genuinely didn’t know. I bet a lot of them didn’t even know that Tessa and Scott’s second performance was to a MJ song!

Tessa Virtue - Scott Moir

Oh boy, oh boy. Where to start with these two? Most of the people that came to the show were probably there to see Tessa and Scott skate, and I’m sure that every single one of them left satisfied and very glad that they rushed from school, work, home etc. to see them. In the group routines, the two of them just sparkled. I was trying my gosh darn hardest to pay attention to the entire group as a whole, but I always found my eyes being drawn to Tessa at some point. That’s not to say that the other skaters were bad! They were good as well, but there’s just something about Tessa that makes you pay extra attention to her. I’m fairly sure I would’ve been able to pick out Tessa from the sea of skaters even if I’d been sitting up on the third floor. In general, their programs had a lot of dancing and some beautiful lifts. For the audience members that were expecting a competitive-routine-quality routine, it might have been a tad disappointing, but I felt that they came out and gave an entertaining and strong performance. Everyone always talks about Tessa’s dancing (rightfully so -- she’s a fantastic dancer), but Scott stood out quite a bit during this show as well. He is very expressive. He had the Kaetlyn-like quality, where the quality of his performance could be enjoyed by any audience in the arena, regardless of how far back they were sitting.

Their first routine was to Dark Times and the second one was to You Rock My World. Both performances were lovely and such a joy to watch. As I said, there was a lot of dance content in both of their programs, so audience members that weren’t really into figure skating could enjoy it as well. In the program, it was stated that Elladj Balde would do his Michael Jackson routine in Act I and Tessa and Scott would do theirs in Act II, but in the end, they ended up doing theirs one after another (Elladj first, then Tessa and Scott). An odd decision (they switched up the orders quite a bit), but it didn’t take away from the experience at all. Elladj came out and nailed his program, Tessa and Scott came out and nailed theirs, and the audience was more than happy to enjoy both of them.

Junhwan Cha

And last but not least, the star of the show, Junhwan! First of all, the level of support he got from the audience -- figure skating fan or not -- was incredible. He was the front and center for the group numbers and the last solo performer of each act and every time his name was announced, the audience started clapping and cheering loudly for him. Both of his skates were phenomenal. I remember a couple of the older ladies sitting behind me kept going “Is he Korean? Is he really Korean?” because they just could not believe that such a beautiful skater could be from their country! He looked like an anime character, gliding across the ice to his Romeo and Juliet medley. His skates were probably the most jam-packed with content out of all of the performances of the evening. He was also part of all of the group numbers, which must have been incredibly tiring, but he came out and performed every single one of them with a ton of energy. He never once looked floppy or tired. His second solo act was with a singer singing live right behind him. That one was a treat to watch live in person. The singer’s voice and Junhwan’s skating complemented each other so well.

So, uh… I guess that’s about it! I could probably go on and on about the show, but I tried to keep it short and simple. I’m sorry if it sounded like I was rambling 99% of the time! I hope it helped the enthusiasm I had for the show shine through XD Overall, I was just extremely grateful that these skaters took the time to fly out all the way to Korea (especially when many of them have other shows lined up) and perform for us and that I had the financial means to purchase tickets to go watch the show. I don’t know how expensive tickets to skating shows are in general (this is the first one I’ve been to), but all things considered, it wasn’t outrageously expensive, for which I was very, very thankful for :)

Some other highlights from the show included…

Kaetlyn and Junhwan doing a little shimmying at the beginning of the opening of the 2nd act, where they were paired together.

Zhenya shaking Junhwan’s hand so hard because she was bouncing up and down in excitement at the very end of the show when they were all holding hands in a circle.

The audience squealing every time Jason skid up to them and wooed them with his charm.

[comingupforblair]

How to save the DCEU

After spending time reading many articles and think pieces and watching videos and reading comments section, I’ve now formulated a few ways in which Warner Bros can ‘’save’’ the DCEU

1) First, they should definitely be more like Marvel. Unless they should be less like Marvel. The people who give them shit for one will immediately change gears and switch to the other view at the slightest provocation so...I don’t know. If nothing else, we can be assured that fans will be receptive to this change and not just respond with annoying and unhelpful snarky comments that they seem to have convinced themselves are evidence of caring about these films.

2) They should listen to the fans a lot more. Which fans exactly, I have no clue. Anyone who has spent time in fandom circles knows how many different types of fans there are. But they should definitely listen to them. After all, it’s well known that fans are never, ever, ever, ever wrong and should always be deferred to and are famously easy to please. People were adamantly against Gal Gadot’s casting as Wonder Woman and...oh wait, maybe that’s not the best example. Well, they were against Heath Ledger and Michael Keaton and...shit, that doesn’t work either. Um...okay, here’s one, Chris Evans as Captain America who was...okay, I’m just going to move on from this point.

3) They need to ALWAYS give characters solo films before an ensemble film because it’s well-known that audiences are incapable of relating to characters they haven’t spent a certain amount of time with before hand. Unless they shouldn’t as some people have said that making a Batgirl solo film without putting her in an ensemble film first is foolish. 

4) In relation to the above, characters should never have backstories that are only hinted at and not shown. A big problem with BvS was that we didn’t see events such as Bruce losing Jason so they definitely should show those events as well as always showing origins, making multiple films of their origin if necessary because there will definitely be a market for those and everyone loves films that are basically homework assignments. Just look at how Harry Potter gave us multiple films detailing everyone’s backstory and showing events such as Snape’s time at Hogwarts and Voldemort’s rise to power before Harry ever came along. Those films understood that audiences need to have absolutely everything shown to them.

5) They should only get people involved who love and care about the characters involved in the films. Unless they should do the exact opposite and get people who simply know how to run a major franchise involved with no thought as to their feelings on the characters. After all, the MCU was run by Ike Perlmutter until 2015 and he’s a man who couldn’t have cared less about the fans and the first Batman film was directed by Tim Burton who openly admitted his disdain for comic books.

6) Following on from the above, they should definitely look at people from the TV shows to take over because running a few TV shows and making films are the exact same thing and the films don’t have any major issues that tend to get swept aside in order to slam the films. Maybe Greg Berlanti should take over. He’s running that Titans series which...Oh wait, never mind.

7) In relation to handling Superman, they should definitely take influence from the Reeve films rather than doing anything stupid like trying to adapt or take influence from stories written in the last four decades. Bryan Singer made a love letter to the Reeve films in Superman Returns and fans loved it. They certainly didn’t complain about it being too similar and not acknowledging how Superman has changed since then.

8) They should definitely always take a long time to make films because people will take that as a sign of commitment to quality and won’t use it as an excuse to spread annoying negative rumors that seemingly no end of rebuttal will counteract. Can you imagine if Matt Reeves took a long time to make his Batman film and the time he took was filled with rumors about Ben Affleck leaving? That would be absurd.

9) They should also reboot but still keep the stuff people like, like Wonder Woman, which shouldn’t be an issue at all. Film makers will be absolutely fine with having all their hard work thrown out to appeal to annoying fanboys. Who wouldn’t want to sign up for a franchise where their films could be erased later to win over bloggers and people on twitter?

10) They should also pick one tone and formula and keep doing that. Unless the issue is that the films so far have been too formulaic and they need to do something different with each film.

11) They should also include more jokes to be more like the MCU unless they should embrace the serious elements of the works.

12) They should also be more producer driven and not give directors too much power as happened with Zack Snyder. Unless they should do the opposite and be more director driven and not interfere with the films as much which is also what happened with Zack Snyder.

13) Some shit about Ben Affleck leaving or some rumor being touted as a fact.

14) Something about the MCU and how they’re wonderful and perfect and a statement about how Warner Bros don’t need to follow their plan exactly or become more like them that will be contradicted almost immediately.

15) They should give films to more obscure characters that people don’t know unless they should do the opposite and stick to characters that people already know and care about.

16) Complaining about the films being ‘’rushed’’. Seriously, there are biographies of Neil Peart that don’t use the word Rush as much as these motherfuckers.

17) Last but not least, the films need to have more hope and optimism and whatnot. No idea what these words mean to the people saying them but they should definitely include them.

18) In any event, the burden lays entirely with the film makers and none of it with the fans to be a bit more reasonable or accept deviations from what they’d like or to look past their preferred incarnations or to maybe just ease off the films and stop giving them so much shit when they’re clearly trying to make an effort to improve. No, it’s entirely on the creators and not the fans who, as I mentioned earlier, are never wrong. Ever.

So there you go. To fix the DCEU, they just need to do all of these things.

Should be no problem.

[bigskydreaming]

This is a post about Boone aka Shrike.

I am making this post about Boone aka Shrike from Robin: Year One and later stories, solely so that reading this post on mobile will bring up “other posts like this” and show all the other posts I have made about Boone aka Shrike from Robin: Year One and other stories. LOL.

Because I’m back on my ‘people should make Boone aka Shrike and his archrivalry with Dick more of a thing’ bus.

Look, I will maintain until the day I die that Shrike has literally EVERYTHING needed to deliver on the same thematic elements people cite interest in JayDick and Sladin for....with the added bonus of....a Dick/Boone ship wouldn’t be incestuous or rely on a huge predatory age gap.

I mean, granted, it still won’t do anything for people who are into those ships purely BECAUSE of the incest or the huge predatory age gap, but I mean like, I work with what I can work with. Like I’m not even trying to change peoples’ minds there so much as just point out alternatives for anyone who just comes to those ships looking for the specific dynamic that personally I think is more real and evident with Dick and Boone than it ever will be with him and anyone else.

But really, the ONLY thing Boone needs to be serve the same narrative function is like...a higher profile, and more use of the character. I mean, some more infamy and slots in his win column wouldn’t hurt either, but you know. Whatever.

Anyway, point is, so Robin: Year One.

That was the story where Dick got hurt badly by Two-Face when he was still new to being Robin, and Bruce freaked out and fired him for the first time, also making the blunderhead move, in his freak out and new to being a parent thing, of saying it was Dick’s fault the judge had died, when Dick had literally just been trying to save Bruce’s life.

So Dick figures if he can’t be Robin, there’s no point to him being there, since Bruce doesn’t want or need a son (take that stories that act like Dick even at age 10 or 11 wasn’t already secretly hoping to be adopted). So Dick ran away and stayed on the streets where he took down Mr. Freeze all on his own, and in doing so drew the attention of something called The Vengeance Academy.

This was run by a guy named Shrike, who had some of his men snatch Dick off the streets after he caught their eye by taking on Mr. Freeze, and brought to the Vengeance Academy. It was a front for the League of Assassins, a place in Gotham where they trained kids as assassins and vetted their potential for being taken to the League itself for training.

Attendance was not elective, lol, it wasn’t like they asked Dick or any of these kids if they wanted to join, but most of them had nowhere else to go, so like Dick, they stayed and trained and went on missions Shrike assigned them as part of their training.

One of these other kids was named Boone, and he had something of a leadership role among the other kids, and was at times almost friendly with Dick and at other times saw him as a rival because of Dick’s own skills. And when they went out on missions, like, Dick stopped the other kids from killing some guards after they’d knocked them out, which pissed off Boone because it was Dick undermining his position as leader in the other kids’ eyes, especially when Shrike validated Dick’s decision when they returned to the Academy, by saying they should never kill people they aren’t getting paid to kill, as its a waste of their skills.

So like, point being, the two of them had HUGE potential for the kind of dynamic Dick and Jason are often characterized with, where they have mutual respect but are mutually vying for the approval of the same figures.

Anyway, after a few months (R:Y1 was vague on the timelines but was clear about the fact that Dick was at the VA for at least a few months, with captions like ‘weeks passed’ etc)....Dick eventually manages to sneak off long enough to sneak into the Batcave and leave a note for Bruce about the Vengeance Academy, what its up to, where to find it, etc. But Dick still goes back, rather than wait for Bruce himself, because he still doesn’t think Bruce wants him anymore.

Eventually, Shrike happens to get hired to take out Two-Face, and of course happens to assign Boone and Dick as the leads to conduct that assassination. They and the other boys break into Two-Face’s mansion, Dick’s literally holding a gun on Harvey and having flashbacks to Two-Face beating him almost to death and Bruce firing him in the aftermath and everything that’s happened since then....but at the last minute, Dick decides he won’t do it, throws the gun away instead, and as Two-Face’s guards all burst in, the boys all run.

But then back at Vengeance Academy, they of course all tell Shrike what happened, and Shrike just starts beating on Dick, shouting how ungrateful he is, etc, etc, what a waste of time and effort he’s turned out to be....and that’s when Bruce arrives, takes on Shrike’s men, etc. 

In the confusion, Shrike slips away, and then at some point, he and Dick end up facing across from each other on a rafter high up by the ceiling...where Shrike figures out that Dick is the one who alerted Batman and starts in on him again, but Dick defends himself....and that’s when Two-Face and his men burst in, having tracked them somehow, and in that ensuing commotion, someone shoots Shrike, he falls from the rafter and ends up impaled on some rebar on the floor or something like that.

Which is where Boone finds him, as he lays there dying, and Boone’s shown being considerably distressed, because he’d been there a lot longer than Dick and had been shown to be significantly attached to Shrike and viewing him as a father figure he was desperate to prove himself to, unlike Dick who was there because he felt he didn’t have a choice or anywhere else to go.

And of course Dick goes back with Bruce, who tells him how much he’s missed him and of course he wants him and is sorry for everything he said and did, they reconcile, Dick becomes Robin again, etc. The very last two pages of the mini end with Dick being introduced to Barbara for the first time by the Commissioner, when she’s on the roof with him while he’s talking with Batman and Robin....but also, Talia comes to survey the remains of Vengeance Academy, since it was League-affiliated...and takes Boone with her back to the League for further training.

Eventually, Boone grows up to take the name Shrike for himself, in honor of his former teacher, and he’s OBSESSED with avenging the original Shrike by killing Nightwing, who he knows is his former classmate, due to Robin then Nightwing’s style of fighting, and his penchant for using escrima sticks. 

(Interestingly, Dick only started using escrima sticks as his signature weapon in his first solo Nightwing title, with this stemming from Chuck Dixon’s writing him doing so....and Dixon also wrote R:Y1, which is where he then established that Vengeance Academy is where Dick first learned to use escrima sticks and gained a preference for them. So its always been kinda fascinating to me that Dick’s had his skills with those since literally his very first year as Robin....BUT then never used them as Robin, while Batman’s partner....but after becoming Nightwing and moving to Bludhaven, for whatever reason returned to using those particular weapons and making them his signature).

Anyway, point is, Boone calls Dick Freddy, because that was what he knew him as when they were kids....after he ran away, Dick started using the alias Freddy Lloyd. Lloyd was his mother’s maiden name, and I used to think Freddy was a reference to Alfred, but only recently realized that its actually Dick’s dad’s middle name.

So Shrike was brought back in the Nightwing solo title as a recurring enemy of Dick’s, with varying degrees of effectiveness. In later years, he was kinda made into a joke and not treated as much of a threat, but for awhile there, he was characterized as very much being a threat to Dick, and at a similar level skill wise, thanks to his own extensive League training. He captured Dick in their first encounter in Bludhaven, where he then tried to figure out Dick’s real identity by running his fingerprints and DNA (though Babs was able to intercept his attempt to run those through the system and replace the findings with a fake profile). He also even managed to defeat Dinah, though as much by trickery as straight out and out fighting...but still, Dinah’s one of THE top hand to hand combatants in the DC universe so, not exactly a small feat. He also faced off with Tim and Cass at one point, while they were Batgirl and Robin, and though he defeated Tim relatively easily (this was still fairly early in Tim’s career as Robin though), he ultimately lost to Cass. But again, who doesn’t lose to Cass, y’know?

So I mean, he definitely has skills and is a credible threat. Dick beat him after Dinah and Babs rescued him from Boone that first time, and Boone ended up in Bludhaven’s prison.....but then escaped and was later hired by Blockbuster as one of the assassins gunning for Dick. He and Dick had one more epic fight as one of the final elements of the Blockbuster arc, but by this time Dick was channeling so much rage when he went after Blockbuster at his mansion, where Shrike was lying in wait, that Dick pretty much just kicked Boone’s ass up and down the street and around the corner and left him chained up to a flagpole. 

Like, I’m pretty sure that fight is what’s made later writers deem him not as high caliber a fight or threat as he later was referenced as being, but that wasn’t really the point of that fight, lol. How handily Dick kicked his ass there was in context clearly meant to read as just how fucking enraged Dick was at this point, due to Blockbuster’s campaign against him, and how much Dick’s OWN threat level went through the roof when he allowed himself to use that degree of anger while fighting Boone, rather than repress it. It was very much a “you’re only in my league when I’m afraid to go full throttle, when I take the safeties off though its no contest” kinda thing.

But anyway, he didn’t get used much again pre-Flashpoint, and hasn’t made an appearance since, to my knowledge, but using pre-Flashpoint based settings or continuities....Boone’s very much a credible threat to Dick, has a ton of history with him, and a huge ax to grind with their last encounter having him vow that this wasn’t over between them. 

And like the thing is, its not just about getting revenge against Dick because he blames him for the original Shrike’s death. Like, its very much a rivalry that stems back to before the first Shrike died. Boone has pretty much always been shown to desperately want, need to be better than Dick, that’s what keeps him coming back and that’s what he really holds against Dick and always has...and its not just their skills, its that Dick’s a hero, that they ultimately came from the same place but Dick’s loved and revered for his skills and choices while Boone has nothing and no one, and insists its because Dick took away the only person Boone ever had....though the reality that both of them are probably perfectly aware of is that Shrike never actually gave a damn for any of the kids he trained, even if he showed favor to Dick and Boone in particular. But Shrike for a time made Boone feel special, made him feel like he had a place and a purpose, and its clear he’s never really found anything like that ever again....and really, he never had it at Vengeance Academy either, but he’s been able to romanticize it in his own mind and memories as being otherwise.

Whereas for Dick....this relationship always had so much more potential than anyone ever truly delved into, but the basic material and hints were always there. My read of them was always that for Dick, Boone kind of embodied the idea of being his own dark mirror....he was an example of what Dick could have been, if he’d embraced VA and Shrike the way Boone had, out of a lack of options, instead of returning with Bruce and giving him another chance, and Bruce taking another chance on Dick. 

In a lot of ways, R:Y1 - even though its events only happened because of shit Bruce never should have laid on Dick, driving him away in the first place....looked at through the eyes of a ten year old Dick Grayson who’d in the span of a couple years gone from losing his former circus home and parents, to juvie (Dixon wrote both R:Y1 and the Robin origin that had Dick go to juvie, so that was the specific context for all stories related to Shrike), to Wayne Manor, where he ultimately became Robin....and after not even a full year as Robin.....Dick then ended up on the streets and then spending months training at a facility for orphans and street kids to be made assassins....before ultimately returning to Wayne Manor, Bruce and being Robin.....

Like, its easy to see how to Dick, all of this probably looked almost like Bruce had saved him from worse circumstances and his own worse nature not once, but twice....even if the second time could have been avoided. The point is though, I don’t think Dick ever forgot his time there, his own desperate need for Shrike’s approval (and he did very much want it while he was there....he was hurting, he’d gotten used to having an adult who cared about him again, and with him feeling like Bruce had rejected him and in doing so taken away all the approval he’d given him previously, make no mistake, Dick very much DID desperately want an authority figure’s approval, and his rivalry with Boone WAS a two-way street. 

Dick perhaps wanted Boone’s friendship a little more than the other way around, I’d wager, given that Dick’s a more social, friendly person by nature, he wants to get along with people....but VA was a very definitively dog eat dog kind of place and Dick did not seem above reveling in the scraps of approval Shrike threw him at times like the mission he and Boone fought about, even though he knew how much it dug at Boone to see himself knocked down a peg by their teacher with the latter then praising Dick at the same time.

So my point being...I don’t think Dick’s ever forgotten his time at VA, or what he felt like while living there.....how close he came to shooting Two-Face in revenge for all that he blamed Two-Face for costing him....as well as remembering that for awhile, he and Boone very much were a kind of friends, even if they never were like say, he was with the Titans (who he’d yet to meet at this point in the timeline). Like, I’d characterize the two of them as one of those things where they probably wouldn’t have been friends under other circumstances, or even call themselves friends, but it was more they were the only ones who displayed having any kind of connection to each other, at a time and place in their lives where they didn’t really have anyone else.

So all of that added up, yeah, to me, Boone in Dick’s eyes is a kind of regret, and road not taken. He’s what Dick could have been if Dick didn’t have Bruce in his corner...if he, like Boone, hadn’t had anyone BUT Shrike. Dick likely can easily look at Boone and see what his life might have turned out like if he HAD shot Two-Face that night, because I don’t think Dick would ever believe there’s any way Bruce would have taken him back after that....meaning that he really WOULD have had nowhere else to go at that point...and thus easily could have ended up continuing at VA or even going to the League with Boone and Talia.

And because of all of that, my read on Dick’s attitude towards Boone was always that....its a blend of defensive antagonism and also some guilt and romanticized nostalgia. Dick’s defensive in response to Boone’s antagonism, because he isn’t to blame for Shrike’s death and knows it, just as he knows he’s not really worth mourning and didn’t care about either of them....but Dick’s ALSO defensive because every time Boone hurls an accusation at him about how Dick’s not any better than him - not skill wise, but as people - Dick, IMO, ABSOLUTELY AGREES AND BELIEVES THE SAME. The flip side of the coin that is seeing Boone as what he could have been....is that he himself then, is perhaps what BOONE could have been, if Boone had been the one to get the opportunities that Dick had. 

And THAT, I think, is the source of the weird almost guilt that Dick has occasionally had in regards to Boone...this belief that he isn’t innately any better than his one-time sorta friend, and that he’s not any innately more deserving of the opportunities he got via Bruce, and that Boone never was afforded. That with someone in his corner, rather than just seeking to exploit him, Boone could have been every bit the hero Dick grew up to be. That he really did have someone who loved and cared for him, in Bruce, while Boone only has his desperate, misguided belief that Shrike felt the same about him, because there was nobody else to even point to as a possibility for that. I think when Dick thinks of Boone, there’s always this kinda hazy ‘what if’ where he idly wonders what if he could have convinced Boone that Shrike’s death wasn’t his fault, or that Shrike didn’t care about them...and got Boone to come with him, or got Bruce to find Boone. What if he’d tried reaching out to Bruce about VA earlier, or not avoided him so long, and Bruce had been able to come earlier, when there was a chance that other boys besides just Dick could have been ‘saved’ from the life Shrike tried to convince them was the ONLY life path where they’d have any power or influence, where they’d ever matter, at all.

So...I just think there’s so so so so many possibilities with this largely untouched little corner of Dick’s history, and this one specific character it intersected with, and hardly has ever been followed up on. Boone and Dick have just soooooooo much potential to have the intense, emotionally charge love/hate kind of rivalry between a hero and villain or even just mercenary or antihero, that Dick’s so often characterized as having with Slade or Jason.....

But the thing is, here? There’s no need to invent or embellish antagonism between Dick and someone else, the way fandom’s largely made up the iconic antagonism between Dick and Jay. The antagonism is very much real, between Dick and Boone, very much understandable, and most importantly, very much MUTUAL. It exists on Dick’s part every bit as much as Boone’s....Dick was almost kinda gleeful about kicking Boone’s ass that first time in Bludhaven and coming out on top, in a way that he rarely is in his victories....because its very easy to see how these two could easily slip back into a familiar rivalry and desire to one-up each other, the way they had as desperate, emotionally neglected children. Dick has the potential to be PETTY with Boone in a way that people WANT to write him being with others where he’s just NOT and likely never would be, because Dick’s someone who’s aware of how others perceive him, and privileges he has that others don’t, and stuff like that....all of that plays into why Dick so often tries so hard and intently to be his best self with people even when he’d rather not be.

But with Boone, you can potentially throw all that out the window, due to the very precise nature of when and where in their lives that Boone and Dick had their short term but very emotionally impactful pseudo-friendship and early rivalry. Because even if Dick feels a little guilty for getting the life he did and that Boone didn’t - that’s not his FAULT, and he does know that too, just as he knows he’s not to blame for the things Boone resents him for.....and even if part of Dick probably feels a little sorry for Boone, he also knows that doesn’t mean that Boone hasn’t made his own choices and there comes a point where its put up or shut up time, and you can keep blaming anyone and everyone for your life or you can look around and acknowledge that here and now, nobody is holding a gun to Boone’s head and saying you have to kill people, you have to fight Dick for this and this reason....and so on that front, Dick can more willingly and without guilt push back against his own feelings of guilt and pity and let out his own pettiness and resentments for Boone having made him into this scapegoat.

All of which makes for a perfect storm of emotionally charged interactions any and every encounter between these two highly skilled individuals with equally extensive lifetimes of training under their belts....all against a backdrop of mingled resentment, nostalgia, and squandered potential brotherhood thanks to this bubble in time from both their childhoods where they were briefly friends, brothers in arms, rivals, and both everything the other had and everything the other never became or ever wanted to be.

With the cherry on top being that Boone is literally the ONLY LIVING PERSON IN THE WORLD....who has knowledge or awareness of the ten or eleven year old Dick Grayson was at one of the darkest periods of his life, where he believed himself completely alone and unloved and with NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE. Meaning that when Boone - and Boone alone - says he knows Dick in a way that nobody else does or ever could, even BRUCE, that he knows a side of Dick that nobody else will ever be privy to, that tiny sliver of Dick Grayson that stood over Two-Face’s trembling body with a gun and had the POTENTIAL to pull the trigger.....

He is absolutely and one hundred percent correct.

Like...you can’t TELL me that’s not good stuff.

Also, I’ve just always loved that trope where one person refers to someone by a name NOBODY else knows them as....with that name having meaning to the two of them alone.

Like to Boone....Dick is Freddy Lloyd. He knows that’s not Dick’s name, he always knew that, just like Boone probably isn’t his.....but the person Boone knew was named Freddy Lloyd, and that person was real, even if nobody else has ever truly known “Freddy” because that’s not who Dick has ever been to them, or who he’s been AROUND them. Boone might not know Dick’s actual real name and where to find him in the phone book, but he’s known from day one that Nightwing’s secret identity is Freddy Lloyd, like he knew instantly from seeing Nightwing fight with a pair of escrima sticks that the person under the mask was his old friend Freddy, and that Nightwing used to be the first Robin which means Robin was Freddy too. He lived with him for months, neither of them wearing masks, he would recognize him if they passed on the street.

(Although with this point, its why I’ve personally always been kind of dubious about the plot point of having Boone try so hard to figure out Dick’s real identity....like, honestly, that story point doesn’t really hold up. Boone SHOULD be able to identify Dick as easily as he identified Nightwing. Dick Grayson, ward and eventual adopted son of Bruce Wayne, has been a HIGHLY visible individual at various points in his life. 

I can easily believe that Bruce invested considerable effort in keeping Dick out of the public eye when Dick first came to live with him and was still adjusting and recovering - in fact, given that all of this is in context with the juvie origin, I’ve always headcanoned that Bruce probably spared no expense in covering up Dick’s time there as much as possible, so he wouldn’t be bombarded with additional stigma from people misconstruing that, and with more than enough evidence against the state for fucking up so badly with Dick there, he could have slapped any official evidence of Dick’s time there with so many gag orders nobody felt safe breathing a word about it.

All of which is to say, its very plausible to me that Dick wasn’t publicly recognizable by the time he ran away during Robin: Year One, and Bruce certainly wouldn’t have advertised that, and who knows what strings he had to pull or things he had to fake to keep CPS off his back until he found Dick, out of fear that otherwise, people would take Dick away once he did get him back. So I can imagine Freddy not being recognized by Shrike or Boone while he was with them. What I can’t imagine is Boone never turning on the TV or reading an article about Bruce Wayne and family in years after that, and ever once thinking to himself that Dick looks JUST like his old friend Freddy...and once you have that thought as a starting point, it SHOULD definitely be possible to dig a little deeper and find out stuff that confirms it, like the timelines of Dick coming to live with Bruce versus being mysteriously unavailable or out of sight anywhere, until just after the fall of Vengeance Academy, etc. But yeah. My point is, I maintain that Boone absolutely knows that Nightwing is Freddy is Dick and that particular plot point is dumb.)

Anyway, my point with that tangent is like....imagine Boone and Dick tangling at various points over the years, both equally determined and invested in coming out on top....with many of these encounters happening at times Dick is away from his family, like when he was living in Bludhaven....

But inevitably, they’re bound to clash in full view of the Batfamily, who bear witness for the first time to this unleashed side of Dick NONE of them have ever seen, never even imagined him acting like this, holding this....grudge against someone with a seemingly equivalent grudge and none of them can really account for why. Imagine their reactions to hearing Boone casually call Dick “Freddy” and like...this means something to Dick, he’s not surprised by it, but he’s not treating it like its some alias from a random undercover op, like, its like he IS Freddy, like its his own name, but at the same time...who the fuck is Freddy? They all want to know. Even Bruce might have trouble placing Boone or his connection to Dick at first, because there’s no reason he would have ever found out the alias Dick went by at the time, if Dick never felt a reason to tell him.

Imagine the truth of where and when and how Boone and Dick are connected slowly unfolding (to my recollection, in the comics I don’t think he ever even told Babs the full story, even after she and Dinah saved him from Boone....just a few terse references, from what I remember, and again....according to the same writer to write all of these various connected stories....Boone actually knew Dick BEFORE Babs even met him for the first time as either Dick Grayson OR Robin).

Its entirely possible the rest of the family doesn’t even know any of R:Y1 happened. Sure, I think they all know the basics of Two-Face beating Dick almost to death when he’d only been Robin a short time, but do they know that Bruce fired him then? That Dick ran away to live on the streets and then ended up being trained as an assassin for months by a League-affiliated supervillain? I’d doubt it, because who would tell them? I can’t imagine its a time or a part of his life Dick wants to volunteer to anyone, and Bruce probably still feels guilty so I doubt he’d ever volunteer that information. And Alfred I imagine would feel its not his place to be the one to drop that info on any of the others without Bruce or Dick’s say-so. 

Like sure, Bruce has files on all of that time, probably, but even with their hacking prowess, would even Babs or Tim have had time to hunt down and go through every single file Bruce has ever created....especially ones he might have tucked away for being particularly sensitive or private, and how do even the best hackers guarantee hunting down files they don’t even know they’re looking for? For that matter, it strikes me that as much as we tend to make a fanon trope out of Babs or Tim knowing everything about everyone because they can access any file, even hidden or locked ones...that IS intrusive and there’s plenty of old files about Bruce or Dick they probably never looked at because there’s a point where that’s none of their business, like if its not an official case they need info for, they should be asking directly, not snooping behind closed doors.

So....its entirely likely, the more I think about it, that all of this would be a family secret that would be an utter revelation to most of them in its entirety.

And you think there’s potential for resentment between Dick and Boone.....imagine throwing the family into it, and how Dick’s brothers and sister feel about this mercenary and assassin who claims to know more about their brother than they do, know him better than any of them ever have....and think, from a certain angle....oh fuck, he’s actually not entirely wrong?

Just.

More Boone. More Shrike. More Vengeance Academy.

THERE IS SO MUCH UNTAPPED POTENTIAL THERE, UGGGGGGGH.

Also also also: I present to you - in context of all of the above - the possibility of magical body or life swapping stories a la Freaky Friday??? Like....UMMM COULD YOU IMAGINE??!!!

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 13/03/2021 (Drake, Silk Sonic, Justin Bieber, AJ Tracey)

Look, there are tons of new arrivals for this week, mostly in the top 50 and a third of them being Drake. Olivia Rodrigo’s “drivers license” is still #1 for a ninth week despite the aforementioned Drake. Let’s just run through this as quickly as is possible. Welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Rundown

We have quite a few notable dropouts from the chart here, particularly the UK Top 75 which I cover, including “Siberia” by Headie One featuring Burna Boy, “Apricots” by Bicep, “Afterglow” by Wilkinson off of the return, same with “ROCKSTAR” by DaBaby featuring Roddy Ricch and then some pretty massive dropouts, some of which might return, most will not. These include “willow” by Taylor Swift, “What You Know Bout Love” by the late Pop Smoke, “Take You Dancing” by Jason Derulo, “Looking for Me” by Diplo, Paul Woolford and Kareen Lomax and finally, “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles. I’m surprised there weren’t any Drake songs dropping out because he debuted three tracks, the most he could possibly debut, but apparently there weren’t any Drake songs on the chart in the first place. Naturally, as it’s a busy week, we had quite a few notable fallers for songs already on the chart, like “Get Out My Head” by Shane Codd at #16, “Streets” by Doja Cat at #19, “Up” by Cardi B at #21, “Anyone” by Justin Bieber at #23, “Afterglow” by Ed Sheeran at #27, “Bringing it Back” by Digga D and AJ Tracey at #31, “Blinding Lights” by the Weeknd at #33, “Head & Heart” by Joel Corry and MNEK at #36, “Arcade” by Duncan Laurence at #37, “Money Talks” by Fredo and Dave at #38, “We’re Good” by Dua Lipa at #39... okay, maybe “quite a few” was an understatement. Regardless, we still have more fallers outside of the top 40, like our biggest fall for “Bluuwuu” by Digga D at #42, “Levitating” by Dua Lipa and remixed by DaBaby at #43, “Love Not War (The Tampa Beat)” by Jason Derulo and Nuka at #45, “Sweet Melody” by Little Mix at #46, “Toxic” by Digga D at #47 and “34+35” by Ariana Grande at #48... as well as “Ready” by Fredo featuring Summer Walker at #50, “Mood” by 24kGoldn and iann dior at #51, “Good Days” by SZA at #52, “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi at #53, “You’re Mines Still” by Yung Bleu and remixed by Drake – apparently that doesn’t count as Drake – at #54, “Dance Monkey” by Tones and I at #55, “you broke me first” by Tate McRae at #56, “Regardless” by RAYE and Rudimental at #57, “Whoopty” by CJ at #58, “Pierre” by Ryn Weaver off of the debut to #63, “Be the One” by Rudimental, MORGAN, TIKE and Digga D at #65, “Midnight Sky” by Miley Cyrus at #66, “Mixed Emotions” by Abra Cadabra at #67, “Lemonade” by Internet Money and Gunna featuring Don Toliver and NAV at #68, “Roses” by SAINt JHN and remixed by Imanbek at #69, “positions” by Ariana Grande at #71 and finally, “Didn’t Know” by Tom Zanetti at #73. You’d think it was Christmas with all of this, except in this case there aren’t returning entries or even many gains other than “SugarCrash!” by ElyOtto up to #59. That’s literally it for any notable gains, so apparently only hyperpop can withstand Drake. God help us.

NEW ARRIVALS

#75 – “Don’t You Worry About Me” – Bad Boy Chiller Crew

Produced by Tatics

The “Bad Boy Chiller Crew” sounds exactly like a 2000s UK garage collective from London, and thankfully, I’m pretty much right, except these guys were actually formed in 2018 and see themselves more of a “bassline” group, even if they were formed a decade after the fact. Bassline was big in Yorkshire in the mid-2000s, and I guess the BBCC – subtle – are here to bring it back? I mean, I’d rather it go this way than having rappers lazily sample bassline classics like a couple weeks back so, what have the Bad Boy Chiller Crew got to say? Well, not much clearly, but they’ve never had to. UK garage groups weren’t ever hardcore rap collectives in reality, at least in the mainstream, and their primary purpose was to make bouncy music for the clubs and, yes, it worked. Does this work? Well, no, because it’s not really UK garage or bassline, going for a sampled piano-house chorus and percussion that never really goes full on with the “bassline” or has that much of a breakbeat. These rappers are definitely a presence and whilst I may not know what they’re saying because Genius.com gave up two lines through, at least they’re not more boring, just settling for mildly obnoxious in how everything sounds like double-tracked gang vocals. I can definitely see the mid-2000s influence in some of these synth patterns and absolutely the vocal tone on the chorus, which, by the way, is an incredible chorus that deserves a more subtle rap presence. Hell, I think KSI did a similar track like this with Nathan Dawe... he could have worked here. When I’m saying I’d prefer KSI over your own song and your own beat, you’ve got a problem. As it is, this is a really promising bassline-adjacent song with some really nice string flourishes and an infectious chorus, that falls flat in its attempts to keep me interested when the chorus isn’t playing because it serves more to repulse during instead of keeping its momentum. I’m praying for a remix that takes these guys off, honestly. AJ Tracey? Please?

#74 – “The Bandit” – Kings of Leon

Produced by Markus Drays

Ah, Kings of Leon, that indie rock band who hasn’t made anything good ever. Okay, maybe that’s a blunt, over-the-top statement but as little as I care about modern mainstream indie rock in the first place, I care even less about Kings of Leon, who I’ve yet to hear anything worthwhile from in singles. Regardless, they have a new album, which meant their lead single could finally chart, and I don’t know what a non-fungible token is and I’m not doing research for an album that my friend’s dad – read: Kings of Leon’s main demographic – thought was boring, so how’s this new single? Well, there’s an acoustic guitar strum I swear I’ve heard before, followed by a riff that admittedly sounds okay, a steady drum beat you can see replicated in rock songs of this tempo... the vocalist here is covered by everything in the mix, it feels, and even when I can hear him clearly, the lyrics feel overly cryptic to the point where nothing really sticks, and the guy’s delivery at least used to be commanding. Here, he’s fully checked out and I’m convinced everyone in the band stopped bothering. Whoever does the left-channel electric guitar wankery feels like he’d be more fit on a slower, lo-fi indie rock project and he’d really work in that context. Here, I couldn’t care less about this nothing of a song that just does not move. It chugs along through odd mixing and a “get this over with” guitar solo, and just chugs and chugs for four minutes. I honestly do not see a reason to seek this out, let alone an entire album... but it still went #1. That’s sales for you.

#70 – “What Other People Say” – Sam Fischer and Demi Lovato

Produced by Rykeyz

This song was released last month and hasn’t reached any chart in the US outside of the Bubbling Under yet, even with a video, which is just concerning for Demi, but I know she’s been struggling to reach any kind of further success recently, which is unfortunate as she always came off as one of the most interesting singers to come out of that late-2000s Disney star cast. To be fair, she did collaborate with professional nobody Sam Fischer, so I guess it’s partially her fault. That said, I like this song quite a lot, actually. Lyrically, it focuses on how both singers feel like they’ve left behind your individuality as a result of becoming famous and ending up distancing themselves from people they actually love and care for, with it being heavily implied in Demi’s verse that this is a result of not wanting people like her mother to see where she is now: taking the same drugs she was taught to say no to, with that pre-chorus of her realising she felt she was “better than” all of the people that she mirrors to. You can tell this comes from a real place from Demi, and it’s kind of heartwrenching, even if this instrumental is mostly piano-ballad fluff that does work for such a lyrically heavy song by casting off all attention away from the weak acoustic guitars and the finger-snaps that add more of a soul or gospel element to this production, which is pretty apt for some of the references to separating yourself from the religious practices you grew up on in the chorus. Demi’s vocals are pretty powerful here, and there are some really interesting backing vocals and ad-libs in that last chorus from both of them... oh, yeah, Sam Fischer is on this song too, but he’s such a lack of presence in comparison, even lyrically, that it probably doesn’t matter. Regardless, this is a good song and I hope it becomes a hit past the chaos of this week.

#60 – “Heartbreak Anniversary” – Giveon

Produced by Maneesh and Sevn Thomas

I figured this guy would finally chart here in the UK eventually, “Chicago Freestyle” notwithstanding, which was a top 10 hit for him and – guess who? – Drake. Anyway, this guy’s from California yet he totally sounds British sometimes, but that’s all I’ve really paid attention up until this point, and, yeah, I like this quite a bit too. Giveon has a really unique voice and the intro with those distorted vocal samples is a real Kanye touch to the whole song. The song is about Giveon finding it really hard to cope with a break-up of a relationship he thought had a lot of potential, through the odd and janky metaphor of “heartbreak anniversary”. The really cavernous mixing does accentuate how the percussion feels very stunted and the song as a whole feels kind of rough around the edges, but the desperate tone in Giveon’s voice and those pretty excellent backing vocals in the post-chorus sound pretty excellent, especially over these subtle pianos, and there are certain moments in the song that, like all good R&B, you remember for the vocal run or the harmonies, really rather than the chorus, so, yeah, this is good and I hope it sticks around. Huh, maybe sleeping a lot does make you more of a positive person... or maybe the music’s just good for once.

#49 – “Ferrari Horses” – D-Block Europe featuring RAYE

Produced by Da Beatfreakz

Ah, “Ferrari Horses”, from the same album as such gems as “Mr. Mysterious”, “Only Fans”, “Gulag” and my personal favourite, “Perkosex”. Maybe I’m just happy whenever I know a D-Block Europe song’s debuting because these guys are very rarely all that great but just consistently hilarious... and this one’s no different. It starts with reverb-drenched Auto-Tuned moaning from both RAYE and Young Adz that reminds me of Charli XCX if anything, because... sure, before it’s drowned out by acoustic guitar loops and a drill-adjacent trap beat... and, yeah, it’s really badly-mixed, especially the bass mastering, but, it’s a really satisfying drop, I’m not going to lie. The chorus’ melody is way too infectious for its own good, and you’d be surprised with the chemistry that Adz and RAYE seem to have, as she shares a verse with Adz where they bounce off of each other’s flow quite smoothly, both going into pretty funny falsettos – one that genuinely made me laugh out loud when I heard Adz’ attempt – but she really sells the melodic trap angle, I’m really surprised. Why is she still doing EDM? The double-tracking on her last few lines is beautiful, and I love how she comes in when it’s unexpected to awkwardly interrupt either Adz’s chorus or where Dirtbike LB’s verse would be... until he does actually come in and he kind of kills it, not as much as RAYE of course, but I think his delivery here is pretty great, especially when he slides in his Auto-Tuned flow from the more fast-paced cadence to the melodic drawl afterwards where I’m convinced he interpolates Weezer. Sure, the mixing is still bad, with the reverb percussion in the last chorus being really unnecessary, and the sequencing generally being off, and the content is really nothing interesting at all, except with a couple fun lines from RAYE, like when she says how she feels like she’s in Prince’s house because there’s purple all around her (we can infer what that “purple” is) or how she’s “so lit” that she can see two Young Adz, before realising it’s actually Dirtbike LB. I don’t think either member of D-Block Europe realises the layers to that line, but it’s probably best to keep them in the shadows, especially if it’s as unintentional as it sounds. Yeah, this is genuinely really great, and whilst I doubt it’ll last, I’m honestly shocked to the quality of this. Maybe D-Block Europe are just... good? Okay, I won’t go that far, but check this out.

#41 – “Medicine” – James Arthur

Produced by Red Triangle and Matt Rad

British daytime television and news rarely cover the Top 40, but at some point Lorraine Kelly did bring up new music releases expected to smash the charts, those being this song, Justin Bieber’s new track and that Joel Corry song we discussed last week. They did not mention the three new Drake songs or even the new track with Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak, both of which out-charted this guy intensely. Regardless, this has the foundation of a good song somewhere. It starts with a really nice-sounding pop-punk guitar riff that James Arthur could really sound good on. The song’s about being overly dependent on a woman who really helps with maintaining his mental health... but then instead of being a rock song, it goes straight into a generic, boring trap ballad with too much in its cluttered mix for its own good. The lyrics feel increasingly lacking in self-awareness, asking the woman to not let him “spiral” when he becomes suicidal, which seems like an obligation the woman does not need to take up unless she really cares enough. In the second verse, he starts rapping, full-on triplet flow, and I realise that this is James Arthur trying to do emo-rap and lose all hope. Then he says, “Everything gonna be Gucci today”, and the hope goes into negative numbers. If we’re going to bring back some essence of rock on the charts, please don’t let it be whatever the hell this is.

#34 – “Anxious” – AJ Tracey

Produced by Remedee

I guess he heard my pleading a couple songs ago. Anyway, it’s pretty bad that I could vision how this song goes by looking at the lyrics... and I was pretty accurate, but that’s partially because of how he uses Drake flows all over this song, directly referencing his songs “Life is Good” and “POPSTAR”. Regardless, this song is pretty alright, actually, especially with that bassy ambiance that serves the drill-adjacent trap beat with a lot of tension, perfect for his checked-out delivery about gunplay and flexing. It’s a British trap-rap song that does what it does in very little interesting fashion, but has good production and a vaguely charismatic vocalist. It also sounds a lot less fun than the lyrics will make you think, but it does have some energy in this fast-paced beat and by the second verse, AJ Tracey is saying some funny stuff, like how he’s “recession proof” and seems to know his exact UK Singles Chart statistics. Please, just do my job, I think people would be genuinely interested in reading what AJ Tracey thinks of Kings of Leon. I never really like AJ Tracey when he’s on a dark vibe, anyway, I think he really shines on more sugary production, but I think that’s just my preference when it comes to trap anyway. The song’s fine, but I can’t say it’s anything more.

#25 – “Hold On” – Justin Bieber

Produced by Louis Bell and watt

I’m pretty sure Bieber is still pushing “Anyone” and in the US, “Holy” is still doing pretty well to my knowledge, so I guess it makes sense to drop an album but not really another single before it, especially since now it seems to start underperforming. Regardless, I’m a bit more willing to enjoy this one because of that washed-out acoustic guitar pick-up and a definite groove in the bass and percussion during that chorus. I mean, Justin Bieber still isn’t interesting at all, but I like the guitars in the chorus and I guess that’s something. The content? Condescendingly holding his hand out to a woman he only vaguely describes, whilst pushing out the “we all make mistakes” narrative he wants to continue from “Lonely”. By the time the guy has any genuine rock energy he’d need for this song, it ends, so I’m just going to say that this is mid-tier Maroon 5 and move on.

#20 – “Leave the Door Open” – Silk Sonic, Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak

Produced by D’Mile and Bruno Mars

When Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak revealed a collaborative album was to release soon under the band name “Silk Sonic” – an incredible name by the way, how did no-one in the 70s copyright that? – I was immediately overjoyed and excited. Not only would this probably be a great album but it would be that one last boost that pushes .Paak into a mainstream context and for the record, he’s one of my favourite artists working today. His last three albums are all great and he’s made some of my favourite music ever, and has never been able to get that final reach into the charts until now, where riding on the coattails of Bruno Mars – who, by the way, is a fantastic artist in his own right nowadays – they’ve made a massive retro-soul cut that debuts at... #20. Okay, well, I know this style is bigger in the US but I did expect a top 10 debut here. Huh, well, that doesn’t take away from the fact that this song is absolutely incredible from the moments it starts with that drum fill and that distorted bass flowered by the jingling keyboards, with .Paak delivering some angelic intro vocals, and that’s before the first verse, where .Paak trades off with Bruno Mars really smoothly about simply picking up a girl yet making it sound like the most wonderful thing in the world. Bruno Mars almost sounds like he’s imitating .Paak at times, especially when he says that he just shaved and is “smooth like a newborn” in a really funny harmony. You could call Mars’ chorus cheesy but it’s just as cheesy as 70s funk was back in its day, and the way the instrumental builds up the tension with the rising pianos and smashing percussion just to cool down for the perfect pay-off in the chorus proves that even a song trying its best to imitate a live, jam-band recording and doing it very well can sound this intricate and perfectly crafted. .Paak’s second verse – he handles all of the verses here, probably because he’s ostensibly a rapper – has even more of a smooth, comedic charm as he offers the girl weed before also offering her filets, whilst also referencing some classic, iconic songs by three artists, namely Jimi Hendrix, Michael Jackson and... Anderson .Paak himself, and somehow it does not seem either forced or too unsubtle of a flex. The harmonisation in the background vocals in the chorus convince me that angels have been dropped down from Heaven and are currently living in Bruno Mars’ recording studio. Even at points where Bruno Mars is serenading you with “la-la-la’s”, its ridiculousness is undercut with .Paak’s ad-libs, and each chorus is so different that it never feels like Bruno is meandering or repeating himself... until the outro, which just of fades out because it goes nowhere. Honestly, I would rather prefer to see how the song really ends, and I think we will when the album comes out, but as a single, it definitely still works, and hell, a lot of those 70s soul and funk cuts faded out on the single edit anyway. I don’t think I’ve been this excited for a project in ages so, yeah, I have high hopes for Silk Sonic and this song alone keeps me fed well enough. Also, .Paak isn’t just a vocalist here, he’s on the drums too. Just saying.

#10 – “Wants and Needs” – Drake featuring Lil Baby

Produced by Cardo, Dez Wright and 40

At this point, after I’ve mentioned Drake a couple times and said he had three debuts this week, you’re probably wondering where they all are. The answer to that is that every single song from his triple-barrelled single release, Scary Hours 2, debuted in the top 10, with this being – to my surprise – the lowest, only hitting #10, which is still nothing to scoff at. Even for Drake, this is doing really well, which I imagine is because of how he had to delay his album so people are really craving for some new Drake that isn’t “Laugh Now Cry Later”. Now, I for one am not, and honestly I’m probably craving for less Drake if anything. That’s just my personal bias, though – I didn’t really like this project and haven’t liked much of Drake since 2015 or even earlier, but I still think the guy’s talented. I’m just pretty sick of the formula at this point. This particular single-EP thing doesn’t stray that far away from it either, with one song for the clubs, for the radios and for the fan. This one I think is for the clubs, even though they’re not even open so it’s really just for anyone to stream, and hence, we have Lil Baby on his third song with Mr. Graham. I wasn’t a fan of Baby until recently, and I’m not sure being a “fan” is really all that sincere as it’s really just hope and good will, but he absolutely kills his verse here and is the only reason could possibly be worth for me to revisit. The beat has vague squelchy synths and a boring trap pattern, heavy bass and some admittedly cool strings in the background that are cut out and drowned out by Drake being pretty blatantly off-beat. The chorus is monotonous and just stalling time until we get a brief escape from Drake for around 50 seconds of Lil Baby ranting rapidly in his typical frog-throat delivery and it left me kind of astonished on first listen because of how unexpected it was, and it’s still a great verse, even if the content is just flexing. “I’m not a GOAT, but I fit the description” is a bar, and I like the reference to betting his Ferrari off in a Las Vegas casino, which I hope he did not actually do. Hey, it’s more interesting than Drake wasting time with Kanye subliminals that aren’t even subliminals anymore, and a reference to how people grow on his albums, which I don’t think is even true, at least for his recent work. Ah, well, it could be worse. For example:

#6 – “Lemon Pepper Freestyle” – Drake featuring Rick Ross

Produced by Austin Powers, FnZ, Keanu Beats and Boi-1da

I refuse to believe this many people listened to Drake ramble for six and a half minutes. I refuse to believe there was a need for four people to make this lazy, unchanging beat that can’t even mix its sample correctly. I refuse to believe Rick Ross washed Drake on his own song for... you know, being vaguely clever and not a waste of time? Maybe I just love that “M-M-Maybach Music” tag, who knows? I definitely like it more than Drake, who handles the last five or so minutes with his monotone delivery and taking breaks to let the beat play because apparently, he can’t think of a flow that means he wastes less of the listener’s time. I’m sick of Drake’s more lyrical tracks nowadays where he goes on and on about how everything goes wrong for him despite him being so rich and famous and that’s the plot of this verse. It does not make you likeable or “real”, Drake, it makes you much more distanced and honestly just coming off as boring and kind of a dick. He starts his verse on a melancholy boom-bap beat by flexing that he’s a war hero – even though the last “war” he was in, he thoroughly lost – whilst also saying he’s doing all this expensive stuff in foreign countries when really, he should be staying in Canada or wherever he is during a pandemic. He then says, “These days, fame is disconnected from excellence”, which first of all, has always been the case and second of all sounds rich as hell coming from Aubrey Drake Graham, the most famous rapper, singer and musician currently alive, and far from the most “excellent”. That’s before he does his typical click-bait female-name-dropping and brags about his child whilst also side-eyeing the child’s mother for no reason, saying he had brunch with the judge he’s appearing before in court for child custody – you know, bribery – and that he doesn’t like how when he pays child support, she sends her the heart emoji in response. What else do you want, Drake? She’s the one raising this child, you have no right in telling her what emojis to use when you brag about sending child support to her, and then in your song which gets millions of plays. I’m not going to make assumptions about the mother here but it sounds like a really bad move, especially when you continue to talk about how the mothers at parent-teacher meetings flirt with you and ask if you know celebrities, whilst also bringing Secret Service-level security to the humble French school in Toronto your kid goes to. Something feels really icky about putting so much pressure on your son and their mother through rap lyrics, not even giving them much of a limelight other than through condescending references in a snoozefest of a single. Oh, yeah, and then he boasts about being friends with the corrupt, human-rights-violating royal family of Dubai, before mixing lines about how his house looks bigger through his son’s eyes with how his penis looks bigger when the woman is drunk. Yeah, no, you can’t really redeem this especially when the beat is unchanging and dull. I’m not a fan, and honestly, Drake’s pushing into his late 30s and yet I still think it’s applicable to tell him to grow up. I can’t say as much for this next track, however.

#3 – “What’s Next” – Drake

Produced by Maneesh and Supah Mario

Okay, for our final Drake track, we have the only solo cut and surprisingly easily my favourite of the three, and the reasons why are pretty subtle. The trap beat relies on a really bassy trap knock over a chiptune-sounding beat that goes really hard, and even if Drake’s vocals are mixed... just straight-up incorrectly, being so far in the left channel for no reason and that being kind of inexcusable for a big artist, he still has a lot more energy here than he does on any given Drake track. His flow is faster-paced, and he references a lot of his older work through pretty slick lines, mostly based on delivery, and there are really subtle counter-melodies in the beat that creep into the mix and sound really great. Drake himself actually brings one of his best verses in the second verse, which is probably his best flow in years and some pretty nice bars, none I can quote here because of how long that stream of bars goes for. The sequencing is somewhat off and Drake’s vocals seem to cut off really abruptly a lot of the time but for Drake, this is as good as it gets in 2021, and I’m pretty happy to have a genuinely good Drake song on the chart. Hopefully, it won’t be eclipsed by those two other tracks as time goes on, but we’ll see.

Conclusion

It may sound odd after dunking on Drake for a while at the tail-end of this episode but this is a damn good week all things considered. I think I only dislike the Worst of the Week here, going to “Lemon Pepper Freestyle” by Drake featuring Rick Ross, with a Dishonourable Mention for Kings of Leon’s “The Bandit”, though it’s not really that bad of a song, just pales in comparison to some of the absolute gems we have this week, particularly Best of the Week, which obviously goes to “Leave the Door Open” by Silk Sonic, whilst Honourable Mention is a bit more of a toss-up. I’d give a tied Honourable Mention to both “Ferrari Horses” by D-Block Europe featuring RAYE and “What Other People Say” by Demi Lovato and Sam Fischer. Sorry, Giveon, it was really close. Here’s our top 10 for the week:

Thank you for reading. You can follow my Twitter @cactusinthebank but I’ve actually been permanently locked out of that, so I probably wouldn’t bother. Regardless, next week, in the words of Drake, we’ll see what’s ‘bout to happen next. See you then!

[shirlleycoyle]

The Best ‘Call of Duty: Warzone’ Season 4 Loadouts, According to People Who Win Sometimes

For the last three months, some of the reporters and editors of Motherboard have been obsessively playing Call of Duty: Warzone on a near-nightly basis. As we’ve previously noted, it’s a great way to stay connected in a world that’s been flattened with constant, exhausting Zoom calls. It’s also a way to get a brief respite from a world that’s been terrorized by a global pandemic and police violence.

Besides playing far too many hours and constantly tweaking our own loadouts, we’ve also read countless other "best loadout" articles and watched YouTubers like JackFrags and BennyCentral discuss their favorite Warzone loadouts and best Warzone strategies. Lots of the advice in those articles and videos is great, but, honestly, picking a Warzone loadout is about figuring out what you personally feel comfortable with and tweaking it as you go; there’s no one-size-fits-all answer. Lots of people are running Graus with iron sights, but if you suck at aiming, there’s no shame in using an optic—not everyone is a pro-level player (and we certainly aren’t). There are also a few different perks you can use that, depending on how you play, will make you more resilient in Verdansk.

The Warzone meta has changed dozens of times over the few months we’ve been playing it—RPGs have been nerfed, everyone is running a Grau, and the season 4 introduction of the Fennec puts it in contention with the MP5 and MP7 as best close-range SMGs in the game.

What we're saying is this list is subject to change, and while we're far from pros, we've dumped enough hours into the game to become somewhat good at it. We win sometimes—Emanuel and Joseph have in the neighborhood of 15 wins apiece, and all of us have spent far too much time thinking about what the best Warzone loadout is. Here’s what the Motherboard staff’s current loadouts are, why we use them, and a few tips we’ve picked up along the way.

An M13/Fennec loadout, and quick weapon swapping with Amped

Primary: M13

Attachments: Monolithic Suppressor, Tac Laser, VLK 3.0x Optic, Commando Foregrip, 50 Round Mags

After countless hours with a failed SMG-only build and a misguided attempt to use the powerful-but-difficult-to-use Scar, I have settled in nicely with the M13, which has an SMG-like fire rate, barely any recoil, and better range than SMGs. I think it’s the cheap-man’s Grau, but I didn’t get multiplayer until recently, so I still haven’t unlocked and leveled up the Grau. The monolithic suppressor is key to extending your range and staying off the minimap when you fire. I like the Tac Laser as it lets me lock on to targets much faster (and is only visible when I’m aiming down sights), and the 3x zoom optic lets me hit targets that are far away without impacting aim down sight speed too badly. I think the M13 is a great build with the Fennec, for reasons I’ll explain in a moment.

Secondary: Fennec

Attachments: Monolithic Suppressor, ZLR 16” Apex Barrel, 5mW Laser, Commando Foregrip, 40 Round Drum Mags

The Fennec is my new "fuck you" gun. Its fire rate is insane, it absolutely shreds people inside buildings and at short distance, and is accurate enough with the laser to fire from the hip, but fast enough aiming down sight to be useful there, too. So far, I’m liking it better than the MP7 because it feels like it kills faster to me—in one-on-one situations, I’ve killed many folks who came at me with an MP7. There’s a few things I want to note about this gun and my loadout in particular: The 5mW laser is visible, which is why I call it a fuck you gun—it kills so fast that the goal here is to simply destroy other players even if they know you’re there. The Fennec’s biggest downside is that it reloads slow as hell; the sleight of hand gun perk helps this somewhat, but instead I’ve opted to run overkill and amped as two of my loadout perks. This means you can kill someone with the Fennec, and essentially instantly switch over to the M13, which has an excellent fire rate. You don’t want to be reloading the Fennec at all in the middle of a gunfight, so the move here is to switch back and forth between the guns, and hope you’re able to kill whoever you’re fighting to give you the breathing room to reload.

Perks: Cold-Blooded, Overkill, Amped Lethal: C4 Tactical: Flash Grenade

Like I think everyone else I play with, I use C4 because of its flexibility—the Amped perk also lets you throw C4 faster, which is invaluable for clearing out rooms or blowing up trucks. I have recently been experimenting with flash grenades instead of the heartbeat sensor, because so many people are using Ghost, but I’m thinking of switching back.

-Jason Koebler

A Kilo with Ghost

Primary: Kilo 141

Attachments: Monolithic Suppressor, Singuard Arms 19.8" Prowler, G.I. Mini Reflex, Commando Foregrip, Granulated Grip Tape

Call of Duty YouTubers and gaming blogs will offer endless reasons for why you should use this or that gun, which guns have the least recoil, shortest time-to-kill (TTK), or why the meta demands you'll use a particular attachment. I find that ultimately people are best with the loadouts they're most comfortable with, which is why I use the Kilo. It's the first assault rifle the game throws at you, and at this point I've probably used it for more than a hundred hours (RIP). I know its recoil pattern and effective range, the attachments I have increase accuracy so it's perfect for mid-range, and the suppressor just keeps me from showing up on other players' mini maps when I fire.

Secondary: .357

Attachments: Compensator, .357 Long, Tac Laser, Match Grade Trigger, Akimbo

I have not killed a single person with this secondary. In fact, I'm not even sure I attempted it. But running around with a long revolver in each hand, a laser pointing out of each, is cool as hell. I look completely deranged, like a tactical Yosemite Sam. The real practical advice here is to just pick up a better secondary in-match, ideally a gun that uses different ammo and compliments the Kilo by being better at either longer or shorter range.

Perks: Cold-Blooded, Ghost, Amped Lethal: C4 Tactical: Heartbeat Sensor

–Emanuel Maiberg

A Kilo/Sniper combo

Primary: Kilo 141

Attachments: Monolithic Suppressor, Singuard Arms 19.8" Prowler, Operator Reflex Sight, Commando Foregrip, 50 Round Mags

I don’t get the hype around the Grau. Sure, the iron sights are good enough that you don’t need to attach an optic, the low recoil is useful, and since everyone runs with it you can regularly just loot someone’s corpse for a kitted-out gun if you’re hard-pressed for a weapon. But it just doesn’t have the same punch as the Kilo. Instead, for me it’s the Kilo with a 50-round magazine. With 50 shots, it feels much easier to take on a two- or three-person squad without having to fiddle around with reloading while being shot in the face. More than anything, the Kilo is just the first gun I invested proper time into, so I’m used to controlling the recoil most.

Secondary: AX-50

Attachments: Monolithic Suppressor, Singuard Arms Pro, Tac Laser, Singuard Arms Assassin, Stripped Grip Tape

I keep the Amped perk to quickly swap to the AX-50 sniper, and have the weapon setup to get a good, balanced aim-down-sight speed. Typically try to grab a second loadout for Ghost half-way through the game.

Perks: Cold-Blooded, Overkill, Amped Lethal: C4 Tactical: Heartbeat sensor

Heartbeat Sensor is a must in solos or duos, and C4 still works well even if everyone seems to have caught onto the idea of if you’re driving a car without a trophy system, avoid someone holding explosives at all costs.

-Joseph Cox

Grau and RPG for psychological warfare

Primary: Grau 5.56

Attachments: FSS 20.8" Nexus Barrel, Thermal Hybrid Optic, No Stock, Operator Foregrip, Conen Sniper Elite Rear Grip

Yes, I run a Grau, and yes, it even has a gold skin. I don't care, because it's pretty much unbeatable. The thing about a Grau is that it has excellent overall stats and low recoil that makes it a rare "laser," but it's how you tweak it that makes it shine. My Grau, for example, has several attachments that give accuracy and range a huge boost, while adding a "no stock" option that still lets me pull it up immediately. The result is a weapon that is capable at longer ranges but is also fearsome in close quarters. Accentuating this versatile capability is a medium-long range thermal scope (perfect for scanning rooftops and houses) that has a side-mounted holographic scope. Yes, cast-aside Graus litter the landscape of Verdansk, but I don't want just any Grau, I want my Grau.

Secondary: RPG-7

The RPG-7 was nerfed during a previous update, but I still find it useful both to get kills and as a weapon of psychological warfare. The RPG-7 still, almost without fail, will send your foes running in the other direction.

Perks: Cold-Blooded, Ghost, Amped Lethal: C4 Tactical: Heartbeat sensor

C4 is far more deadly than the RPG-7 in many situations and worth keeping around (much better than a grenade, because you can set traps), and a heartbeat sensor can be the difference between life and death when storming a building. As for perks, I run cold-blooded because as a thermal scope user I don't ever wish to be in someone else's sights like that, ghost for stealth from UAVs, and amped.

-Jordan Pearson

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