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dastardlyobnoxious · 2 years ago

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Robots 2005 Review

Blue Sky Studios, while it’d later be defined as the production company behind many famous films such as Ice Age Meltdown, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, and Ice Age: Collision Course (I jest) back in 2005, the studio was still getting its footing as an animated film producer. Following the success of the original Ice Age (2002), its next work Robots, released in 2005 set as the title implies in a world of robots. But how well does it hold up? With its eighteenth anniversary having just passed us earlier this month, here are my thoughts and opinions on it.

The first thing that comes to mind when discussing Robots is their art style, think something like Toy Story or Meet the Robinsons. Its visuals pop out in a way that’s helped age the movie in more ways than one. From its character to city design almost everything about the movie sells this world, think of the film's Rupert Goldberg machines or the design of the ever-intimidating chop shop. That said, don’t stare too hard at background characters cause you’ll likely notice a few repeating designs (Ex; Bigwelds Corporation), and like most early 3d don’t look at the liquid cause it’ll look metallic. Aside from more background stuff though, gotta appreciate the main cast's design and how they all look rather distinct from one another. For example, Cappy is the most futuristic looking as opposed to Fender looking older/rustier by design. Madame Gasket and Bigweld are probably my favorite design-wise of the movie with both of them being very striking in how their design correlates to their personalities. And that’s ignoring the visual treats here and there from the referential posters to the high school graduation pictures and quotes. The occasional action sequences the film has are also pretty fluid, really helping to up the ante in a couple of scenes. All and all, this is the standout highlight of the film and if you like the look of the posters and trailers you’ll probably love the look of the film.

The story of Robots is unfortunately, nothing that striking, a young Rodney Copperbottom is trying to make it big in Robot City when his idol Bigweld goes missing. Will he be able to figure out what's going on, and stop Ratchet and Madame Gasket from taking over Robot City? It’s a simplistic make it big in the city story, and while it’s at least somewhat uplifted by its comedy, voice talent, and art style. At the end of the day, it’s a very forgettable plot, with the occasional strong point such as the introduction of the Chop Shop and Madame Gasket. This is a comedic film first and foremost and while I’ll focus on that more in the next section, it does undercut more of the narrative-focused serious moments. Robots had the workings to be more memorable since I didn’t dislike what they were going for, but whether the result of the movie being so short or having to introduce so much in a narrow window it’s just not the greatest. Speaking of run time, this movie could’ve easily run for another thirty minutes to an hour than it ended up having. While it could’ve been budget or production reasons, part of me does wish we got more from the story.

Then we have the comedy, which, it’s honestly surprising how much they get away with, from the movie's frequent adult jokes, toilet humor, darker humor, and its off-the-walls absurdism. Some of it landed but most of it didn’t for me, and from what I can glean from the trailers and some of the behind the scene stuff, the movie was aimed towards tweens and teenagers. I can see why the movie was able to be more daring in its comedy. In a world that in the past few years had seen stuff like Shrek or South Park become global phenomenon's. As I mentioned a bit ago, the humor can be kind of at odds with the film’s narrative, hijacking it at times. And I think that’s best shown via the character of Fender. Fender throughout the film has many moments where he’s intentionally or unintentionally being used as a comedic device. And while I enjoyed Robin Williams' performance, it’s way too focused for a comedic character. Fender is very Looney toons esc in his non-stop energy, and aside from one scene comforting Rodney he is always bouncing off the walls. So much so that the main villains don’t get anywhere near the same amount of focused screen time as him. Fender in my eyes is the worst of the comedic hijacking, and if he had been scaled back a bit I think he would’ve worked a lot better as a character. Take, for instance, Diesel and Wonderbot their comedic bits are more occasional and toned back and usually work better within the scene. Again, not to say I didn’t enjoy Fender as a character. My favorite jokes of the film usually involved Fender doing something absurd (the fight dance scene, Rodney and Fender dancing, etc), because once you go beyond him, a lot, and I mean a lot of the humor is crude. Take a side character like Aunt Fanny for instance, the second you see her the second you know the recurring joke with her. To each, their own though, the movie gave me the occasional laugh but I didn’t find it all that noteworthy in its comedy.

Now onto our main characters, and their vocal talents, characters such as Aunt Fanny and Diesel will be left out since I feel like the comedy section covers them well enough. This’ll mostly just be my impressions after having watched the film twice so if I don’t point out a vocal talent in the blurb assume they did alright in my book.

Herb Copperbottom - performed by Stanley Tucci, Herb was a really fun character and I think Tucci nailed his general enthusiasm during the opening scenes and later when he was more solemn. His overwhelming support of Rodney and his dreams are super uplifting, but beyond that, there isn’t much to him.

Rodney Copperbottom - Played by Ewan McGregor, the main character of our film Rodney is one of the blander parts in it. Partially because he has to be built up as this hero leading the charge against Madame Gasket. Partially because of the scriptwriting, I think McGregor’s performance here is alright but I was left wanting more from his delivery. I’ll touch on Rodney’s dynamic with other characters in their own sections but by and large, excluding Herb and Bigweld his relationships with the remainder of the cast are serviceable but weak.

Bigweld - Played by Mel Brooks, I One hundred percent expected Rodney and Cappy to find him near death/dead in his workshop on my initial viewing. Ends up kind of overriding the other side characters given he’s able to solve the problem by firing Ratchet. He’s a standout character that gives a sort of Walt Disney aura coming off as bigger than life, that said after being knocked out by Ratchet he becomes more of a plot device than someone actively contributing with the villains and Rodney fighting to save/kill him. Can't not shout out Mel Brooks because he's great here.

Ratchet - Played by Greg Kinnear, the best character in the movie hands down. Greg Kinnear’s over-the-top performance of a capitalist nut obsessed exclusively with profits is great. From his sleazy nature to his dimwittedness in charming Cappy. His relationship with Madame Gachet is something of a strong point. There isn’t much I disliked about this scumbag of a character only wish he had more scenes.

Cappy - Played by Halle Berry, advertised as Rodney’s love interest, as a character she’s barely present. It feels like they wanted to do more with her and Rodney but besides a few action sequences and her bailing Rodney out she just has so little.

Fender - Played by Robin Williams, this’ll be brief since the comedy section covers how I feel about Fender for the most part but he’s the strongest of the supporting cast due to him having the most time with Rodney. Their relationship is very quick to go from Fender mugging Rodney to friends, and I can’t deny Robin William's strong vocal talent.

Lug and Crank - Performed by Harland Williams and Drew Carey. Sorry to say, both Crank and especially Lug are relegated to background characters. Cranks' cynical view of the world could’ve been used to juxtapose Rodney’s optimism but as it stands his most memorable scene is a one-off joke. Lug, on the other hand, is irrelevant, and scenes with him in the frame, let alone talking, probably total somewhere under ten minutes of the entire film. Directors seemed to have more plans for them both initially but it seems that got scrapped at some point.

Piper - Played by Amanda Bynes, she’s in a similar situation to Lug and Crank, she’s just narratively present as Fender's younger sister who’s attracted to Rodney. Hardly anything comes of this beyond a few jokes between her and Fender, but she also gathers the army for the final fight. From the advertising, you’d have expected her to have a much bigger role since she’s up there on the poster but nope!

Madame Gadget - Played by Jim Broadbent, I'm gonna be real the design of Madame Gadget feels like something out of an entirely different movie. Their introduction nails them as this super intimidating villain, and they deserved to have more standalone/planning scenes with or without Ratchet. Loved the crazy mom angle they went with her, honestly didn’t expect her to get the blast furnace in the end.

Alright, that’s probably the most anyone has written on Robots in quite a bit, I’ve heard this sentiment echoed online but after having seen the film I do feel this had the potential to have a more lasting impact than it did. While most of what I saw on the behind-the-scenes, development stuff was on Youtube if there's anything I missed, comment! Or however Tumblr works, I’m still getting used to this stuff.

It’s been a minute and figured I’d write a short piece while I write more long-form stuff, and this was free on Youtube at the time of writing. Until next time, don’t question what is and isn’t a robot in this universe lol.

#robots 2005 #18th anniversary #review #writing

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bigskydreaming · 4 years ago

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hood-ex

i was like well he could just date some random dude who's an artist or something and then i was like oh wait. kyle. lmao. did dick and kyle ever have interactions when donna wasn't around? i mean i know dick found kyle's.. spirit? or whatever in jla. but any other major moments between them aren't coming to my brain

LOL, nope, Dick and Kyle have barely ever interacted ever. Just at Hal’s memorial and then the Obsidian Age, which was well after Kyle and Donna split......they never hung out with Dick when they were together, as he was....busy in Bludhaven. Like Donna and Kyle were together during that period when Roy was running the Titans and they had that weird lineup with Terra the Second and Impulse and Fake Supergirl and just....yeah. But point being like, that was basically right after Dick left the team and Kory left to return to Tamaran, so Dick was kinda deliberately avoiding most of the Titans at that time, as far as I’ve always viewed it.

But yeah honestly all my Dick/Kyle thoughts pretty much stem just from their very brief Obsidian Age interactions and then me going like, huh. I could see it. Its more based on just their characters in general, and the fact that I think they have such similar priorities and mindsets as to be more alike than different, but without being so similar that they’re in any way derivative of each other or like....immediate analogues. Like you think of either Dick or Kyle, you don’t immediately jump to the other because they don’t particular stand out as being interchangeable or anything, but when you dig a little into their characters you’re like, oh wow, they have a lot in common actually.

In particular I’ve always keyed into the slightly lonely nature of Kyle’s position as Torchbearer in the GL Corps. A nod to his time as the only GL left, and the fact that he resurrected the Guardians and restarted the Corps, essentially.....so he’s always stood a little apart from the rest of the GLs, even Hal and John and Guy who were still around in some way or another back when he was the solo GL. Its not that he’s not close with them, its just that he has a very unique experience among the GLs where for most of the Corps, they always had the support of the Corps behind them as they became more experienced as Green Lanterns. And the weight of what they all did as Green Lanterns and what people looked to them for, it was always spread among like....the whole Corps, whereas when Kyle was Green Lantern during his solo tenure, like, it all rested on him, there was no one else to look at or look to....all eyes were just on him.

That pressure, that absence of anyone who can fully relate, its always made him stand slightly apart from the rest of the Lanterns, even now that the Corps is back, and its only been heightened by the fact that he continues to have very unique experiences. Like how he was the only one to ever master the full emotional spectrum on his own, without external additives, the unique way in which he became the White Lantern, the fact that he has such a different relationship with the Ion entity than even those others who’ve hosted it, etc. Also the fact that like, despite his reputation among the Lanterns and others, despite how highly he’s regarded by them, that doesn’t always translate into the camaraderie and support you’d think it would, and most of his most intense adventures or most emotional storylines still happen when he’s off completely by himself with no lifelines. Because as much as he matters to the Corps and is valued by them, there’s always this kinda disconnect that frequently translates into a lot of distance between them and him, both physical and emotional.

And I’ve always thought there are a lot of parallels to the way Dick often feels like he’s alone even when in a crowd. That unique kind of pressure that comes from being the FIRST Robin, the original leader of the Titans, the guy who so often has acted as a trailblazer that others followed but without fully being able to relate to that experience of being first, of not having anyone TO follow, to have to make it up entirely as he went and hope that he wasn’t screwing up too much because it wasn’t like he had any precedent to look to or others to compare himself, his triumphs and his failures to. The way so often the buck stops with him and there’s no one really to pass it off to even when its not actually his fault, its more just.....people feel a need, a want to blame someone, and there’s not really anyone else to look at in his stead there. The similarities in how he also has such a positive reputation overall, and is seemingly so valued and respected by his various communities, and yet despite this it doesn’t always translate into direct and tangible support, leaving him often actually being cut-off and isolated during some of his most emotionally intensive storylines.

I think they have a lot of insight they could lend each other stemming from their respective experiences with the weight of legacy, which parallels without being the same....because the angle, the perspective is different with them. Kyle struggled with the weight of having to carry the entire legacy of the Green Lantern Corps by himself and feeling the responsibility of not wanting to let his predecessors down. Dick struggles with the weight of having his legacy carried by so many others and feeling responsible for what they go through as a result of that. And then at the same time Dick also struggled with the weight of carrying Bruce’s legacy as Batman at different times, such as Knightfall/Prodigal and then when he was lost in time, and now Kyle struggles with the weight of his legacy as Ion being carried on by others and the legacy his existence as the Torchbearer is creating for after he’s gone.

Additionally, they both have abundant experience with feeling under a microscope, like their every action is being scrutinized and they’re constantly being compared to the larger than life figure they’re most directly linked to. For Dick its Batman, for Kyle its Hal. That thing where they’re simultaneously expected to BE the equal to Bruce or Hal, or even better than them, but also at the same time being not exactly blamed for Bruce’s and Hal’s mistakes, but treated as even though they had nothing to do with their actions, they might as well have, kinda? Constantly compared to Bruce and Hal and with people saying they would have done this or that instead, but also with people quick to act like Bruce and Hal are their personal cautionary tales and tell them how dangerously close they are to becoming them whenever they do something that even slightly parallels the older two.

Also, they have this distance between themselves and Bruce and Hal....Dick because of the chasm between them during the early years of Nightwing and Kyle because Hal was basically a villain and then dead during his early years as Green Lantern.....but without anyone ever really factoring in that they’re not as joined at the hip to Bruce and Hal as people act like and they not only have nothing to do with the worst of their mistakes, but the older two weren’t always as involved in the younger two’s successes as people credit them as being. And that very niche feeling that only they can really relate to, where Dick and Kyle so often end up being Bruce and Hal’s biggest defenders, and how often this overwrites or gets in the way of Dick and Kyle ever getting to fully express valid resentments they have of how Bruce and Hal’s own actions and choices and reputations impact Dick and Kyle’s lives and actions and choices.

Plus I think they’d just be good for each other - Kyle actually does have the ability to relax and unwind with his art and other hobbies in ways Dick could definitely learn from and benefit from applying to his own life, and Dick has the gravitas and weight of history and experience that means he can really address in actionable ways that Kyle can truly internalize, like the longing Kyle has always had, despite his many accomplishments, to really feel like he isn’t just a hero by happenstance or mistake, that he really belongs among their number. Kyle was a diehard superhero fanboy before he ever got the ring, and you can’t tell me he didn’t have a crush on the first Robin when he debuted back when Kyle was probably in middle school (they’re actually pretty close in age, with everything lending itself to the idea that Kyle’s of a similar age with Dick and the original Titans). Likewise, you can’t tell me Dick has anything but respect for someone who manages to establish himself and his own reputation despite how easy it’d be to be overshadowed by his predecessors and their actions.

They both have extremely parallel storylines even in their particulars......both have been briefly killed then presumed dead and then isolated from their loved ones for a period for a ‘solo mission’ and then blamed for that upon their return, even though Dick wanted nothing to do with that mission and was forced into it by Bruce just like the same is true of Kyle who was backed into his by the Guardians. Both have struggled with suicidal ideation in the past, most notably in the aftermath of Blockbuster and then with Kyle, his subconscious literally created a nemesis for him named Oblivion, who wanted nothing other than his death, because Oblivion was literally Kyle’s own death wish made flesh and blood by Kyle’s willpower and leftover Ion energy.

Both have nightmares of being hijacked by someone else’s will and used as their puppets, with Dick and his many times being brainwashed and Kyle and his time possessed by Parallax. Both have extremely complicated feelings about children that were never truly theirs, both have been the scapegoat for crimes they didn’t commit, both are wracked with guilt for things they choose to take responsibility for but only because nobody ever told them it wasn’t actually their fault. Both are rape survivors whose rapes were never taken seriously or treated like they matter, and both are desperate for the approval of loved ones and mentors who actually do approve of them very much, but just often struggle to show them that in the ways they really need in order to BELIEVE it.

I could go on, lol, but like, you get it. Don’t worry, you’re not forgetting about some super significant story between Dick and Kyle, it really was just me latching on to that one story from twenty years ago where Kyle’s like if we get out of this alive, I want a hug, and Dick’s like deal, and I was like SOLD. And then my brain manufactured all these other reasons why clearly they are soulmates, and thus you have the Good Ship Dick/Kyle, which I shall sail forever more, no matter if I am only ever a crew of one.

afsbjkfabhjkfaghjkfalhkfla

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thelittlesttimelord · 5 years ago

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The Littlest Timelord: The Death of the Doctor Chapter 28

TITLE: The Littlest Timelord: The Death of the Doctor Chapter 28 PAIRING: No Pairing RATING: T CHAPTER: 28/? SUMMARY: The Doctor’s death is looming on the horizon and Elise is growing every day. What the Doctor doesn’t know is that he has 200 years to teach Elise all he knows. Amy, Rory, and River let Elise in on their secret, because River knows she will keep it. What will Elise do when he’s gone?

There was a loud crash and the TARDIS jolted.

Rory ran to the doors and opened them. “Red Waterfall. We made it.”

“Good old us,” the Doctor said.

“How do we know that we're in the same Red Waterfall as Amy?”

“Focus on the positive.”

Rory looked at a topless statue of a lady. It was carved in the Greek style. Elise’s area of expertise was in painting, but she could admire the talents of sculptors.

“We locked onto Amy's time stream. Eyes front, soldier.”

“Right, yes. Sorry.”

“Apalapucians are the great cultural scavengers, Rory. This gallery's a scrapbook of their favorite places.”

There was a copy of the Mona Lisa on a pedestal (or maybe it was the original?). Elise considered asking her father to visit Da Vinci.

“Bit of Earth, bit of alien…” Rory looked at a pillar that was glowing blue and dripping. “…bit of whatever the hell that is.”

The Doctor shed his jacket as Rory looked around. “Where is everyone?”

“Right, Rory, switch the Time Glass on and sonic it. I'm sending a command signal to the screwdriver. Amy's here somewhere, if I can just get a lock on her.”

Rory pulled out the screwdriver and soniced the Time Glass.

“I wonder what happens if we mix the filters?” the Doctor wondered.

Blurry figures of people appeared in the Time Glass.

“Oh, there they are. Forty thousand time streams overlapping. Red Waterfall isn't one time stream, it's thousands.”

“How is that possible?” Elise asked.

“The same way the TARDIS is bigger on the inside.” The Doctor tapped her nose like he did River.

“Are they happy?” Rory asked.

“Oh, Rory. Trust you to think of that. I think they're happy to be alive. Better than the alternative.”

Rory lowered the Time Glass in time to see someone coming towards him with a Samurai sword. He fell backward onto the floor.

The Doctor grabbed Elise around the waist to stop her from running out of the TARDIS to Rory’s aid.

“I come in peace. Peace, peace, peace, peace,” Rory told the person.

“I waited.”

“Sorry, what?”

“I waited for you. I waited for you.”

They raised their helmet to reveal an older Amy. A much older Amy.

“Amy,” Rory breathed, “Doctor, what's going on? Amy.”

“I think the timestream lock might be a bit wobbly.”

Amy raised her sword.

“No, please. Please,” Rory begged.

“Duck,” she told him. Amy stabbed the Handbot in the head and it hit the ground.

The Doctor and Elise watched on shocked. This wasn’t their Amy. Their sweet and kind Amy. She’d hardened.

“Handbots carry a black box in case they go offline. I've changed the cause of termination from hostile to accidental. Easy to re-program. Used my sonic probe.”

“Amy.”

“Rory.”

“Why?”

“Because I've survived this long by making the Handbots think I don't exist. Don't touch the hands. There's anesthetic transfer on the skin. If they touch you, you go to sleep.”

“But you're still here?”

“You didn't save me.” Amy started to walk off, but Rory ran in front of her.

“But, this is the saving. This is the us saving you. The Doctor just got the timing a bit out!”

The Doctor mouthed a “Sorry”, but neither could see it. Elise placed a hand on his back, comforting him in her own silent way.

“I've been on my own here a long, long time. I've had decades to think nice thoughts about him. Got a bit harder to stay charitable once I entered decade four,” Amy told Rory.

“40? Alone?”

“36 years, thanks.”

“No. Right. I mean, you look great. Really, really.” Rory’s eyes wandered.

“Eyes front, soldier.”

“Still can't win then?”

“In fact, I think I can now definitely say I hate him. I hate The Doctor. I hate him more than I've ever hated anyone in my life, and you can hear every word of this through those ridiculous glasses, can't you, Raggedy Man?”

“Er, yes. Putting the speaker phone on.” The Doctor walked over to the console and hit a button. He wouldn’t let it show, but Elise knew his hearts were breaking with that statement.

“You told me to wait, and I did. A lifetime,” Amy told him.

“Amy!”

There was a Handbot coming up behind her.

“You've got nothing to say to me.”

“Amy, behind you!”

There was another one in the room with them.

Amy threw her sword to Rory and touched the hands of the Handbots together. They powered down.

“Feedback. Knocks them out. Learned that trick on my first day,” Amy said. She left the art gallery and Rory followed her.

“Okay, so we just take the TARDIS back to the right time stream, yeah? We can stop any of this happening,” Rory asked the Doctor.

“We locked on to a timestream, Rory. This is it.”

“This is so wrong.”

“I got old, Rory. What did you think was going to happen?” Amy snapped.

Rory grabbed her by the arm and she looked back at him. “Hey, I don't care that you got old. I care that we didn't grow old together. Amy, come on, please.”

Amy pulled her arm out of his grip. “Don't touch me. Don't do that.”

“It's like you're not even her.”

“36 years, 3 months, 4 days of solitary confinement. This facility was built to give people the chance to live. I walked in here and I died. Do you have anything to say? Anything, Doctor?”

“Where did you get a sonic screwdriver?” he asked her.

“I made it. And it's a sonic probe.”

“You made a sonic screwdriver?”

“Probe.”

Rory followed Amy into the section of the facility where Amy had been living for the past 36 years. She had a Handbot with hooks for hands and a smiley face drawn on it.

“Don't worry about him. Sit down, Rory,” Amy said.

Both Rory and the Handbot sat down.

“You named him after me?” Rory asked. That had to mean something, right?

“Needed a bit of company.”

“So he's like your…”

“Pet?”

“Is it safe?”

“Yep. I disarmed it.”

“How?” Rory looked down the robot’s non-existent hands. “Oh, you disarmed it.”

“Oh, don't get sentimental, it's just a robot. You'd have done the same.”

“I don't know that I would have,” the Doctor told her.

“And there he is. The voice of God. Survive, because no one's going to come for you. Number one lesson. You taught me that.”

“Is that really all I taught you?”

“Don't you lecture me, blue-box man flying through time and space on whimsy. With his always faithful daughter by his side.”

Elise tried not to be hurt by that comment. Was she really always faithful? She couldn’t think of time where she’d gone against her father.

“All I've got, all I've had for 36 years, is cold, hard reality. So no, I don't have a sonic screwdriver because I'm not off on a romp. I call it what it is. A probe. And I call my life what it is. Hell.”

“Amy Pond, I am going to put this right. You said you learned from an Interface. Can I speak with it?”

Amy looked down and checked her watch. “Doesn't work in here. 2:23. The garden'll be clear now.” She walked up to Rory. “Stay or go?”

“Sorry, me? No, I'm coming with you.”

“Then try not to get killed. Or do. Whatever.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Amy and Rory made their way to the garden.

“When I first came here, I had to trick the Interface into giving me the information, but I've reprogrammed it now. It'll tell me anything except how to escape,” Amy explained.

“You hacked it? That's genius,” Rory said.

“Sorry to interrupt that beautiful moment, but temporal engines like that have a regulator valve. Has to be kept at a distance from the main reactor or there'd be feedback. Interface, where's the regulator?”

A blueprint appeared on the screens of the TARDIS. “The regulator valve is held within.”

“Oh. Very, very… Interface, I need to run through some technical specifications. Rory, give me to Amy a minute.”

“Here you go,” Rory said and handed them to Amy.

She put them on. “They look ridiculous,” she said.

“That's what I told him. Still, anything beats a fez, eh?”

The two of them smiled and laughed together.

“What is it?” Rory asked.

“I think that's the first time I've laughed in 36 years.”

“I'll just, er, leave you two geniuses alone. I'll be back in a minute.”

“There's still time, Amy. There's still time to fix everything.” As they were discussing the plan, Amy suddenly started running.

A Handbot had gotten to Rory. Amy chopped its head off before it could harm him.

“Rory. Rory?” Amy asked, kneeling by his side.

Rory groaned. “Glasses.”

Amy stood up. “Stupid!”

“Oh! You saved me.”

“Don't get used to it.”

“Have you been crying? A little bit.”

“Shut up, Rory.”

“You have, haven't you?”

“Woman with a sword. Don't push it.”

Elise smiled. There was their Amy.

“Okay. So, here's the plan. Time is always a bit wibbly-wobbly, but in Twostreams it's extra wobbly,” the Doctor said.

Amy took the glasses off and put them back on Rory.

“I've worked out how to hijack the Temporal Engines and use them to fold two points of Amy's timeline together. We're bringing her out of the “then” and into the “now”! Amy, I just need to borrow your brain a minute. It won't hurt, probably. Almost probably and then Amy Pond, I'm going to save you.”

“No!” Amy yelled.

“No? What do you mean no?” Elise asked her, “Amy…”

“Time's up. Handbots coming.”

Rory followed Amy back into the main part of the facility.

“Amy, you've got to help us help you. I need you to think back 36 years ago,” the Doctor told her, “Amy? Amy!”

Amy entered the Temporal Engines room and slammed the door in Rory (and their) faces. There was something on the door.

Rory raised the Time Glass up to the door to read the message. It read “Doctor, I’m waiting.” “You told her to leave us a sign. She did and she waited. Oh Amy.”

Rory entered the Temporal Engines room, going after Amy. “Why won't you help yourself?”

“He wants to rescue past me from 36 years back, which means I'll cease to exist. Everything I've seen and done dissolves. Time is rewritten.”

“That's…that's good, isn't it?”

“I will die. Another Amy will take my place. An Amy who never got trapped at Twostreams, an Amy who grew old with you, and she, in 36 years, won't be me.”

“But you'll die in here!”

“Not if you take me with you. You came to rescue me, so rescue me.”

“Leave her and take you?”

“We could take this Amy with us, easy, but if we do, our Amy has to wait 36 years to be rescued,” the Doctor said.

Rory shook his head. “So I have to choose which wife do I want?”

“She is me. We're both me.”

“You being here is wrong. For a single day, an hour, let alone a lifetime. I swore to protect you. I promised.”

Amy stared at him for a moment and then entered her makeshift home.

“Rory,” the Doctor said.

“This is your fault.”

“I'm so sorry, but, Rory…”

“No, this is your fault! You should look in a history book once in a while, see if there's an outbreak of plague or not.”

“Rory…” Elise said.

“Oh great. Let me guess. You’re going to defend him, aren’t you? Maybe you should grow up and realize that he’s not perfect.”

Elise had had enough. She was not going to stand around and constantly be insulted. “I’ll be in my room.”

“Elise…” The Doctor said, reaching for her.

“No. I…I need to be alone.” She walked away and left her father standing in the control room alone.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

An hour later, there was a knock on her door.

“Elise? It’s me,” Rory said.

Elise wiped her cheeks. “Um, come in.”

The door opened and Rory entered. He walked toward Elise and sat down on her bed. “You’ve been crying.”

“What gave you that impression?” Elise’s voice was hard and Rory could tell she was holding back anger. She very rarely ever got mad.

“I wanted to apologize. For the things Amy and I said.”

Elise sighed. “Rory, I know my father isn’t perfect. He’s responsible for the deaths of our people. He’s impulsive and manipulative and when he gets mad, it’s downright scary. But I love him anyway. He’s the only real father I’ve ever known. I can look past his faults, because he’s done so much for me. I know I put him on a pedestal sometimes, but honestly doesn’t every other little girl do the same with their father?”

“So we’re good?”

Elise smiled and wrapped her arms around Rory. “Of course. I could never be angry at my Uncle Rory.”

#eleventh doctor #eleventh doctor imagines #eleventh doctor fanfiction #doctor who #Doctor Who fanfiction #doctor who imagine #amy pond #amy pond imagine #Rory Williams #rory williams imagine #the littlest timelord #the littlest timelord: the death of the doctor

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queenchaos · 5 years ago

Text

So...I did a thing....

Ahhhh I’ve been so bored during these times that I went back through old art n my many DED DeviantArt accounts. I found this old beauty from 2013-14.... and I decided to redraw my girl in the middle

It’s me and two old friends during our TMNT phase in middle school. Kelsi (Sophie), Ella (Me Emma), and Tara (Sara). We’d actually call each other by these names and have over text Role plays....

Wrote fanfics bout us n everythin! Here’s the only one that I help with:

Kelsi gave a tiny wave to Donatello as he left with his brothers for patrol. He turned around and looked at her with pleading eyes. He had tried to convince them he needed to hang back, but now that Tara was here they decided to let her take over on watch patrol there. He glanced between the Shellraiser and his friend.

"You sure you don't want me to-"

"Nope! I'm fine, Tara will be here, and if I run into problems I can call. Just go, I can handle myself!" Tara gave a sharp nod and motioned with her hands for him to move along.

"Go on Don, I've got her." He hesitated before slipping inside and driving off. There was a moment of silence between the two cousins, smiles beginning to form on their faces.

"Is he gone?" Kelsi stretched her neck in an attempt to get a closer look. Tara ran over and peeked out.

"Gone, the taillights just disappeared." She looked back with a grin. "Ready?"

"Ready!" She snatched her laptop from underneath her wheelchair and opened the lid, browsing through the list they had made an hour earlier, complete with links and information underneath each case.

It wasn't that they were hiding this from the turtles they just…they wanted to do this on their own. If any of them figured out what it was they were up to, they were toast. No doubt that they would immediately be banned from continuing their new pastime, and life would go back to its former dull throbbing. There were nine pages worth of things to look at, and they couldn't choose for the longest time.

"We might want to start with something easy." Tara sighed, leaning back and scanning her eyes over the list. "I don't know, like maybe a missing cat."

"That's way too easy."

"Not for you." She teased. "But yeah, I know. What are you thinking?"

"Maybe bump it up a notch and try missing person?" Kelsi scrolled the cursor over the link to the site.

"You do realize you're on that list right?" Tara smirked. "Lucky me, I found Kelsi, how much money do I get?"

"Shut up." Kelsi threw her head back and laughed. "Just shut up, that's not funny."

She turned back to the screen while her cousin gave a fake pout. "Seriously, they'll be back in a few hours we need to pick something." She opened a link up to a case involving a missing car. It was merely out of curiosity, she had a feeling their first job would end up being a cat after all. She skimmed over the article and blinked in confusion, mumbling to herself.

"What is it?"

"Just reading, according to this article the car disappeared last Sunday when some hijacker stole it, but according to the owner, the car never left his garage."

"Pshh, well it's gone now, it had to end up leaving at one point or another." Tara leaned in closer to read the tiny print. "Footage? The guy kept six cameras in his garage? Must be quite the car."

"Yeah, it is actually." Kelsi opened up the picture attached. A cherry red Corvette that shone like the sun came up on the screen, and Tara could only cringe and suck in air through her teeth.

"Ouch, talk about money down the toilet."

"If there's a reward of over 1,000 dollars then he's not too hurt over it."

"One thousand?! For a Corvette?! This guy's trying to pull off some bargain, nobody's going to look for a Corvette with only one thousand dollars to gain."

"Nobody…except us."

"No."

"Tara! Come on!" Kelsi whipped her head around and pleaded, whining and shaking the monitor. "One thousand dollars, we can get it if we try!"

"Absolutely not. Not for that much money."

"We could weasel more out of him when we're done." Kelsi gave a grin. She wanted this really bad, Tara could tell. Though she didn't blame her, she spent a lot of time down there after all. The smell was beginning to become the norm for Tara. That was new.

"You are evil." Tara laughed.

"Come on, are you in or are you out?"

Tara hesitated. She wanted the money out of it, she wanted the adventure out of it, and she wanted to completely defy all rules she had been given in the past week. And finding that Corvette with her cousin could give her all of it. Kelsi held out her hand and raised an eyebrow, giving another annoying whiny plea. Tara sighed and shook her hand, letting another smile spread across her face.

"I'm in, let's go get that car."

Tara had her head phones plugged into her phone, simultaneously FaceTiming Kelsi as she walked down the streets of New York. It smelled like gasoline and crap, but she had started the mission and she was fine with it. The boys were on the other side of town, nothing could bother her as of right now.

“Okay, the garage should be coming up on your left,” Kelsi said. She was peering at the directions on her laptop and looking up to check on her cousin every two minutes. “There’s an alarm planted on every angle of it though, watch it.”

“How am I going to get in then?” Tara replied, making eye contact with her cousin through the screen. The resolution was fuzzy still, but she could manage. “I can’t take down all of the alarms, there are probably hidden ones.”

“Yeah, there are.” Kelsi began squinting at the screen again. “But you might be able to take them all out if you could disable the mainframe on the top floor.”

“I don’t know how to disable the mainframe Kels’, I’m not that smart.” Tara approached the building and crossed the street, leaning up against the side of it and pretending to smoke with a fake cigarette she had made a few minutes earlier. “I wish you could take it out for me.”

“I can’t, I would have to be there in person, besides, I’m not even sure I could accomplish that, I’m not terribly good with computers outside of error code fixes.”

“Then what do I do? I’m lost as to what you want from me here.” Tara peeked down the sides of the alleys, hoping nobody was listening in on their conversation. The feed went static, then came back in.

“You need to climb up the fire escape on the tattoo parlor next door and hop across to the roof of the garage.”

“Hop across? As in, jump-in-mid-air-and-land-on-the-other-rooftop across?”

“Yes, that kind of across? Cool?”

Tara swallowed a lump in her throat and shrugged, stuffing her fake cigarette back into her pocket. She found the fire escape and swung up trying to make as little noise as possible. It was really dark outside, but a few people roamed the streets checking out street vendors. Her main fear was either falling from the building or getting caught. She couldn’t choose which one was worse.

“I’m at the top.” Tara’s hair blew off to the side and she looked back down at her phone. Kelsi had her eyes fixed on her cousin with a weak smile and twitchy hands. “I’m going to jump now.”

“Just pray you don’t end up like me.”

“Thanks for the encouragement.” Her heart pounded as she approached the edge of the building and scuffed her foot on the concrete ledge. It definitely wasn’t comfy below, but she had to jump now or the entire mission would end. Was this even worth it? Self-doubt was incredible.

Tara gripped her phone tight, took in a deep breath, and pushed off. The first few seconds were slow motion, she couldn’t even tell she was falling or flying through the air. She didn’t dare open her eyes, she shut them tight enough for them to split. Her legs flailed around uselessly. She landed on the other rooftop with a solid thumping, and all the air in her lungs whooshed out with a grunt. Concrete again, she had made the jump.

“Yes! Tara you made it!” Kelsi clapped and gave a cheer.

“I…I need a moment.” Tara’s body shook with fear and her limbs ached, but she was more than proud that she had made it. She was okay now, she could complete the mission. After thirty seconds she managed to stop shaking and stand up again.

“Okay Tara, see the entrance?”

“No, there’s an air vent and weeds up here.” Tara said. “And a few dead cockroaches, ew.”

“About that air vent…hehe…”

“NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT, NOT IN A MILLION YEARS KELSI!” Tara glared at her phone, her cousin rubbing the back of her neck and whistling awkwardly.

“That’s the only way into the mainframe com-“

“NO! I AM NOT SQUEEZING THROUGH SOME DUMB AIR VENT, THINK AGAIN CHAPMAN!” Tara shook her head furiously. No way in no universe was anyone, especially Kelsi, going to force her down a stuffy air vent where she couldn’t breathe, and where she would get her arms stuck a moment later.

“Tara, there is literally no other way to get in, I’m sorry.”

“Then the deal’s off, I am not climbing through an air vent.” Tara shook her head and pursed her lips. “Not today, not ever.”

“Tara!” The whiny voice had come back, Tara hated that voice. “Please, don’t you want that money?”

“Yeah, but it isn’t worth a trip down that death hole air vent.”

“Tara, I didn’t want it to come to this but…climb down that air vent or I will tell Raph.” Kelsi had a slightly amused face now.

“I don’t really care if you tell him.” Tara shrugged.

“We aren’t talking about the same thing Tara. I’m talking about this mission, here and now. He will kill you.”

There was a moment of silence where they just stared at each other making strange faces and giving glares. “Don will kill you too to be honest.”

“No he won’t. I didn’t leave the lair. He would kill you though for leaving me down here alone. Options Tara, tick, tock.” Kelsi seemed really amused now, she had the worst poker face known to mankind. Tara stared at her with a hard glare.

“What if I told Donnie that you did something illegal?”

“I didn’t do anything illegal. That argument is invalid.”

“You’re assisting my break-in into some rich guy’s car garage.” Tara gave a smirk and crossed her arms. “So much for ‘invalid’ sister.”

“Why are we even talking about this, get into the air vent and get those tapes!”

Tara really hated this. She really hated this. There was nothing else for her to do, she didn’t fancy the idea of jumping across the buildings and climbing back down the fire escape again. She didn’t fancy sitting there waiting for the cops or Raph to find her either. She could always try climbing down the side of the brick building though. “I’m climbing down the side of the building and coming back, let’s get a new mission.” Tara headed over to the side and stuck one leg over when-

“Tara you’re a coward! Get in that air vent or I’ll tell them all you were a wimp when I reveal our mission!” Kelsi shouted.

“THE THINGS I DO FOR YOU KELS’!” Tara swung her leg back over and punched the lid off the vent, sliding her body inside. Hot and stuffy. Delightful. She crawled further down and it got cooler though, before she knew it she was directly above the entrance to the mainframe security, and she dropped in as quiet as a mouse. “What now?”

“There should be a power switch on the wall, flip that down.”

Surely enough, there it was, a big red switch she took pleasure in killing. The lights flickered out, leaving Kelsi’s FaceTime as the only source of light. “Now turn it back on, the computer should have corrupted.” And corrupted it was, error messages flashing on the screens, security cameras twitching, and not a single alarm going off.

“Genius. You’re a genius Kels-“

There was a soft thump behind her and she whipped around to face another girl about her age with medium length dark hair. She wore a jean jacket and black leggings, and she brushed off her legs with a huff. Tara’s heart leaped and she took a staggering step back. The girl looked up with a crooked smile and shoved her out of the way, opening the door to the garage and slamming it behind her.

“Get back here you punk!” Tara stuffed her phone in her pocket and ran after her, trailing the ear buds on the ground and nearly tackling the stranger on the concrete if it weren’t for her quick dodge and arm lock. “Let go of me you idiot, I will kill you right now!”

“Yeah, sure.” Her voice was soft and delicate. “I’m guessing you’re looking for the tapes on that Corvette too? Well they’re mine, thanks for taking security out for me.” She dropped Tara and ran to the back wall, stumbled up and freed one of the cameras from its plastic holders. Tara was red in the face and ready to kill.

“What right do you have?!”

“Every right, the same rights you have.” She landed softly back on the ground and gave another grin. “But your nerd forgot to tell you that there was only one camera working that night. And that’s this one.” She pointed at the device and sighed. “Such a shame you missed out on that money. Well, I’ll catch you later!”

“NERD?! EXCUSE ME!” There was a muffled shout from Tara’s pocket that she ignored. She reached in and hung up the call. Kelsi couldn’t bother her right now.

She made a dash for the exit but Tara grabbed her by the arm and slammed her into the ground. “No thanks, I think I’ll catch you later!” She snatched the camera and sprinted out the door and down the stairs to the exit. Her feet practically flew across the cement, but the same girl flipped over her and landed in front of her, hand outstretched.

“It was mine first.”

“I don’t care.”

“Who do you think you are?” She crossed her arms and glared.

“Tara. Nice to meet you. Now if you’ll excuse me…” She ducked in-between her legs and kept running. “I have business to take care of!”

Tara hated this girl, she wanted to put a good nineteen feet between them and get back to the lair before any of the turtles came back. Patrol time was almost up. She could hear the footsteps behind her though, that idiot was going to follow her. She needed to lead her in the wrong direction.

She reached the bottom and skidded across the ground to the fire exit, but the girl yanked her hair, stole the camera, and pushed ahead again. Tara shouted and cursed, waving her fist and chasing after her, but the dark haired girl disappeared into the dark alleys across the street before Tara could catch her. A small piece of paper fluttered in the breeze, Tara figured it were just a shred of a magazine or newspaper. But instead it had handwritten words on it in silver sparkling pen ink. She snatched it from the wind’s grasp and fumbled picking her phone back up to redial Kels’. The note made her even angrier.

Have a wonderful day!

~Ella

Tara crumpled up the scrap and stomped on it, her breathing heavy again. She slipped back into the sewers and trudged through the raw sewage all the way back.

Ella was going to regret messing up her chance for the money.

She was going to regret it.

#tmnt oc #tmnt 2012 #old art #pay no mind to it kinda trashy #skskjsjs #Ella Jones Oc #curlyq's #curlyqsart

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quackspot · 4 years ago

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i started thinking about that gay bastard oc of yours. platano. can u tell me about him

omg u wer thinkgin about platano..... mr banana man... mr 4011. i am obsessed with the banana code srry i just got back from work (it was good :-D)

any way. um. im going below the cut. he kidnaps people and he murders people and i hate him because he’s also a massive weeb so. hm

HISTORY OF PLATANO... yea his name is spanish for banana

his father, pablo, will probably get a name change someday but i literally never think of his father since the only thing he did in platano’s backstory was disappear

since platano’s world has characters based off like. fruits and vegetables (there aren’t really any limit to what the characters are based off of. it was in my lazy google translate name phase so we have like... a gay character named arcenciel who becomes dadlike through my powerful canon-changing touch. also arcenciel wears the colors of the rainbow as often as he can i haven’t figured out a good design for him since i’m not used to using more than 5 colors. he also owns a hat factory)

i think arcenciel and platano are friends they met when platano was like. 17 probably and arcenciel would be around uhhhhh ummmmmmm 21??? idk man but in canon he’s probably around 30 . yes i m saying “in canon” because i wrote a really dumb and horrible story back in 2018 arcenciel used to have HUGE internalized homophobia and i turned that into a running joke and i dislike that so that’s a reason why i’m not sharing the fun little story i wrote for my friends

(the best part of that story is when arcenciel threw his light-up rainbow heelies at platano, thus starting the boss fight which the main cast LOST.)

ok back to the topic at hand. platano.

i have a whole doc named platano where i just wrote drabbles about him so i’m going to summarize them

the first one was his friend, percisi (my only cishet oc he’s very short and very aggressive while also dressing in a soft-colored turtleneck since he’s based off of peaches) using a misunderstood form of satanism to summon satan. guess what percisi and platano summoned satan for. it was a manga update! wow

i won’t say the mangas name it was an inside joke

so platano was like “hey satan can i have this manga now please please” and satan went “sure just kill people for me”

that determined platanos job for the next 7 or so years <3 wonderful.

(it was basically me writing a backstory for a scene to happen in the main writing i wrote for my friends. he killed someone because someone else in the building was trying to summon satan. very confusing but okay i guess.)

i think right after that i wrote about platano meeting his boyfriend, sage, for the first time. i have horribly mixed feelings about their relationship since it’s very. Hm.

so platano kidnaps people to watch anime with him because all his friends left him and his best friend, mangue, is too busy being a dictator over the Land of the Fruits. i shit you not fruits oppressed the vegetables. i wrote that dynamic between the two because i was learning about the revolutionary war in US History. something like that at least

(the Land of the Fruits is not the official name)

on the topic of kidnapping people. guess who his favorite person was. sage. it was sage. so he tried to take sage often but they probably discussed Proper boundaries since everyone else tried to run away. hmm i am now going to write a bit right now

“Platano,” Sage started. “Why do you keep kidnapping me? It’s rude and I hate it.”

“What else am I supposed to do?” The yellow-haired fool leaned on his sword, digging the tip deeper into the ground.

“ASK ME IF I WANT TO HANG OUT??”

“I can do that?”

“You keep making my dads worried.” Sage looked around the area, fidgeting with his hands.

“Oh. Okay. Want to hang out? Watch some anime?” Platano paused for a moment, but managed to say “Maybe kiss?” before Sage got to answer.

“I- KISS??? We can watch anime together. We can go now.”

Sage ushered Platano through a portal as fast as he could.

His dads were never worried.

hmmm maybe that’s alright idk i’m a little tired so it’s probably a little out of character. sage probably isn’t that loud but i think it was trying to be the dynamic of “oh, we’re not dating” when they kiss every sunday at 5 pm by a romantic river scene

he’s a character who is, at his very core, horrible and bad. he is portrayed in a way i DESPISE but i’m too lazy to correct it. his interest in sage actually started with me going “hmm i think platano would draw sage like this” then sauce giving me fun facts about his oc, sage, yea sage is sauce’s oc <3 epic win . so sauce gave me fun facts about sage and i was like “time to doodle these in platanos ‘art style’” when in reality it’s just the mockery of people just getting into an anime art style, with the chin so pointy it could cut a cake

i might reread my old writing from 2018. i gotta agree with the judges for that year i did not write very well

it mightve actually been made in 2017 which would be FUCKIN CRAZY im gonna check rn

yea it was started in 2018. february 14th... huh . finished it completely in june of that year it was 41 pages total and it’s not even double spaced how did i write something without double spacing it

OH MY GOD BOB IS GOING TO HIJACK THIS RANT JUST FOR A LITTLE

so bob is a fluffy little anthro cloud with a grey top hat and bowtie. he is amazing. i love bob. bob is another one of sauce’s character and mangue (mentioned earlier) was made by my friend jamie

(you can always ask for their tumblrs but i’d ask them if its okay to share their tumblrs. i might just look at them and reblog their stuff cuz i like their art!!! maybe jamie posted a drawing she made recently on her blog but tbh i don’t think she would she’s more of a twitter user)

ok so im skimming thru UMG which is the story it stands for “Universe of Magic Gardens” and it was originally made for a prank on ponytown so people would go “what’s UMG” and my friends and i would be like “ur mom gay xDDDDDD” or something like that . horrible but i’m glad i’ve changed from . that.

here’s a bit i actually like AKLJFISJFIO

“What the actual FUCK, Ilkie?!” Arcenciel cringed in fear. “Put it back- it’s too ugly.” He pointed at Platano, whose arms were crossed.

why is it bolded. anyway.

i just saw a part where eau used y’all... water cowboy moments <333 i really need to make refs for all of those old characters. all of my umg-related characters have to be my oldest-living ocs.

i cant believe this is making me genuinely reread my old writing just to go “WJHFSIDAJKSFIOJ WTF????”

some of the lines on it sound like something you would hear on like. a school bus or somethin

looking at umg like “wtf how did i add so much Meat to this writing” bc most of my writing now is mostly quotations to progress the story (like the quickie i wrote earlier. i could add meat to it but im tired lol)

OK THIS IS MORE GENERAL BUT MY FAVORITE THING ABOUT THIS WAS WRITING HAIKUS FOR PORTALS. after you visit a place enough times it’s kind of just an instinct to open a portal there so you don’t have to recite a haiku

uhh ok here’s another bit becuase im feeling like living la vida loca. ur biggest regret should be “can you tell me about him” by this point bc i’ve written too much to go back now

He landed on his face once he was outside of the hat. Meko quickly walked over to the guest room, opened the Portals for Dummies book, and flipped to a page. It looked devious.

“Banana, mango,

Each tasting amazingly.

A taste of evil.”

Meko did the dance on the page, it consisted of something that looks like it’s from an anime. A portal opened, the familiar scent of bananas and mangoes coming from it. With some hesitation, Meko stepped in. He quickly made it so only his head peeked in.

it wasnt bolded this time but i like it bolded. ok i understand how i added meat it was just shitty expired meat ALKFSJSHDAIUJKFEIODSJAK . it wasnt even that much meat DAMN. it just looked like more.

actually that’s all i will write. i could do more w platano but yea at his base he is a blonde twink who kills people because he wanted a manga but now he’s friends with a dictator. woo! wow. amazing character writing. i cant wait to get motivation to rewrite everything and make platano a good villain (he will still be very interested in anime sadly. idk why around that time i liked making characters who were obsessed with anime i didn’t even watch it much myself. i think it was because i wanted to put capes on them)

#I REALLY WENT SLIGHTLY OFF-TOPIC #like i went broader then refocused in at the end #so if you want the basics its just. right at the end #my brain's out of work mode now it's going into the deepfry machine #melon-official

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 years ago

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Read: Jeannette Ng's Campbell Award acceptance speech, in which she correctly identifies Campbell as a fascist and expresses solidarity with Hong Kong protesters

Last weekend, Jeanette Ng won the John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer at the 2019 Hugo Awards at the Dublin Worldcon; Ng's acceptance speech calls Campbell, one of the field's most influential editors, a "fascist" and expresses solidarity with the Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters.

I am a past recipient of the John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer (2000) as well as a recipient of the John W Campbell Memorial Award (2009). I believe I'm the only person to have won both of the Campbells, which, I think, gives me unique license to comment on Ng's remarks, which have been met with a mixed reception from the field.

I think she was right -- and seemly -- to make her remarks. There's plenty of evidence that Campbell's views were odious and deplorable. For example, Heinlein apologists like to claim (probably correctly) that his terrible, racist, authoritarian, eugenics-inflected yellow peril novel Sixth Column was effectively a commission from Campbell (Heinlein based the novel on one of Campbell's stories). This seems to have been par for the course for JWC, who liked to micro-manage his writers: Campbell also leaned hard on Tom Godwin to kill the girl in "Cold Equations" in order to turn his story into a parable about the foolishness of women and the role of men in guiding them to accept the cold, hard facts of life.

So when Ng held Campbell "responsible for setting a tone of science fiction that still haunts the genre to this day. Sterile. Male. White. Exalting in the ambitions of imperialists and colonisers, settlers and industrialists," she was factually correct.

Not just factually correct: also correct to be saying this now. Science fiction (like many other institutions) is having a reckoning with its past and its present. We're trying to figure out what to do about the long reach that the terrible ideas of flawed people (mostly men) had on our fields. We're trying to reconcile the legacies of flawed people whose good deeds and good art live alongside their cruel, damaging treatment of women. These men were not aberrations: they were following an example set from the very top and running through fandom, to the great detriment of many of the people who came to fandom for safety and sanctuary and community.

It's not a coincidence that one of the first organized manifestations of white nationalism as a cultural phenomenon was within fandom, and while fandom came together to firmly repudiate its white nationalist wing, these assholes weren't (all) entryists who showed up to stir trouble in someone else's community. The call (to hijack the Hugo award) was coming from inside the house: these guys had been around forever, and we'd let them get away with it, in the name of "tolerance" even as these guys were chasing women, queer people, and racialized people out of the field.

Those same Nazis went on to join Gamergate, then take up on /r/The_Donald, and they were part of the vanguard of the movement that put a boorish, white supremacist grifter into the White House.

The connection between the tales we tell about ourselves and our past and futures have a real, direct outcome on the future we arrive at. White supremacist folklore, including the ecofascist doctrine that says we can only avert climate change by murdering all the brown people, comes straight out of sf folklore, where it's completely standard for every disaster to be swiftly followed by an underclass mob descending on their social betters to eat and/or rape them (never mind the actual way that disasters go down).

When Ng took the mic and told the truth about his legacy, she wasn't downplaying his importance: she was acknowledging it. Campbell's odious ideas matter because he was important, a giant in the field who left an enduring mark on it. No one disagrees about that. What we want to talk about today is what that mark is, and what it means.

Scalzi points out:

There are still people in our community who knew Campbell personally, and many many others one step removed, who idolize and respect the writers Campbell took under his wing. And there are people — and once again I raise my hand — who are in the field because the way Campbell shaped it as a place where they could thrive. Many if not most of these folks know about his flaws, but even so it’s hard to see someone with no allegiance to him, either personally or professionally, point them out both forcefully and unapologetically. They see Campbell and his legacy abstractly, and also as an obstacle to be overcome. That’s deeply uncomfortable.

He's not wrong, and the people who counted Campbell as a friend are legitimately sad to confront the full meaning of his legacy. I feel for them. It's hard to reconcile the mensch who was there for you and treated his dog with kindness and doted on his kids with the guy who alienated and hurt people with his cruel dogma.

Here's the thing: neither one of those facets of Campbell cancel the other one out. Just as it's not true that any amount of good deeds done for some people can repair the harms he visited on others; it's also true that none of those harms cancel out the kindnesses he did for the people he was kind to.

Life is not a ledger. Your sins can't be paid off through good deeds. Your good deeds are not cancelled by your sins. Your sins and your good deeds live alongside one another. They coexist in superposition.

You (and I) can (and should) atone for our misdeeds. We can (and should) apologize for them to the people we've wronged. We should do those things, not because they will erase our misdeeds, but because the only thing worse than being really wrong is not learning to be better.

People are flawed vessels. The circumstances around us -- our social norms and institutions -- can be structured to bring out our worst natures or our best. We can invite Isaac Asimov to our cons to deliver a lecture on "The Power of Posterior Pinching" in which he literally advises men on how to grope the women in attendance, or we can create and enforce a Code of Conduct that would bounce anyone, up to and including the Con Chair and the Guest of Honor, who tried a stunt like that.

We, collectively, through our norms and institutions, create the circumstances that favor sociopathy or generosity. Sweeping bad conduct under the rug isn't just cruel to the people who were victimized by that conduct: it's also a disservice to the flawed vessels who are struggling with their own contradictions and base urges. Create an environment where it's normal to do things that -- in 10 or 20 years -- will result in your expulsion from your community is not a kindness to anyone.

There are shitty dudes out there today whose path to shitty dudehood got started when they watched Isaac Asimov deliver a tutorial on how to grope women without their consent and figured that the chuckling approval of all their peers meant that whatever doubts the might have had were probably misplaced. Those dudes don't get a pass because they learned from a bad example set by their community and its leaders -- but they might have been diverted from their path to shitty dudehood if they'd had better examples. They might not have scarred and hurt countless women on their way from the larval stage of shittiness to full-blown shitlord, and they themselves might have been spared their eventual fate, of being disliked and excluded from a community they joined in search of comradeship and mutual aid. The friends of those shitty dudes might not have to wrestle with their role in enabling the harm those shitty dudes wrought.

Jeannette Ng's speech was exactly the speech our field needs to hear. And the fact that she devoted the bulk of it to solidarity with the Hong Kong protesters is especially significant, because of the growing importance of Chinese audiences and fandom in sf, which exposes writers to potential career retaliation from an important translation market. There is a group of (excellent, devoted) Chinese fans who have been making noises about a Chinese Worldcon for years, and speeches like Ng's have to make you wonder: if that ever comes to pass, will she be able to get a visa to attend?

Back when the misogynist/white supremacist wing of SF started to publicly organize to purge the field of the wrong kind of fan and the wrong kind of writer, they were talking about people like Ng. I think that this is ample evidence that she is in exactly the right place, at the right time, saying the right thing.

https://boingboing.net/2019/08/20/needed-saying.html

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neverwatchedonepiece · 6 years ago

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558-560: "The Noah Closing in! The Fish-Man Island Facing Destruction!", "Hurry up, Luffy! Shirahoshi's Life in Jeopardy!" and "The Fierce Fight Begins! Luffy vs. Hordy!"

This is like watching Hitler stab Elliot Roger. Can you even cheer for this?

I can’t because let’s just say I’m not the biggest fan of either of them. The most I could muster was a grim nod. “Yes, that’s brilliant. Now the other one needs to go.”

Luffy should step up in the next couple of episodes, so I’m looking forward to watching Hordy Jones chow down on a generous slice of Karma pie. It’ll be old and moldy too because Hordy’s comeuppance is long overdue.

I get the feeling that the (literally) biggest problem facing the Strawhats right now, though, is neither Decken nor Hordy. It’s Noah: the massive ship that is currently floating just above Fishman Island.

How big is this ship?

I’ll let Franky sum it up.

Noah: The Ship of Promise

The shots of Noah drifting straight for Fishman Island were weirdly beautiful. I mean, I know this thing was close to killing an entire nation full of people plus the Strawhats, but the art was so good. Dat perspective. Dat chiaroscuro. Dat cool shot of the surface tension stretching the bubble. The seaweed strung chains alone were so huge they demolished buildings and minor geological features with ease. Toei did a good job escalating the sense of threat here.

Another interesting thing is that, for the first time, Neptune has really freaked out with fear. But not for himself. It’s for Noah. Apparently, the ship has a nickname: the ship of promise. Neptune was worried because that ship was Not To Be Used before the appointed time. He even freaked out about the possibility of it being damaged.

Hmmm... Intriguing. I guess this means Noah is culturally significant to Fishman Island (or at least to the Royal Family/Neptune who is the only one who clearly understands its significance, as the princes called it “a relic from the past”). What did he mean by “the appointed time?” Why was it built in the first place? Starting to think it’s not an ancient weapon. Maybe it was built to transport Fishmen to a better place? It has loads of windows. I guess I’ll find out soon. :)

But first, there is a villain to be dealt with!

Long-Distance Roasting

Luffy scrapping with Hordy in 558 was glorious. I’m enjoying watching the new tricks he’s learned over his two year stint with Rayleigh. I love how surprised Luffy was that Hordy staggered upright after being punched through a wall.

He used hardening haki to obliterate iron shields, landed a blistering hardened kick and smacked Hordy with a hardened fist. Faced with an opponent who was levels above him, Hordy panicked and fired off water arrows indiscriminately. Luffy’s observation haki pretty much ruined that half-baked plan. It was hilarious watching Hordy get his ass handed to him. It must have really ground Hordy’s gears hearing the islanders praising the strength of the world-renowned Strawhat pirate captain.

Unfortunately, Luffy couldn’t finish the job because it was about that time the Noah Eclipse moved across the island. At that point, even the Strawhats were thinking, “Shiiiiiiiiit.....”

One of the smaller shadows belonged to the Sea Bonze dude that worked for Decken. It grew rapidly as he plummeted to earth. When he shook himself off, he looked up and freaked out because the ship was sailing without him.

“Stop the ship!” he yelled. “I slipped and fell off. I don’t wanna die!”

You know, I thought for one moment that Decken’s one saving grace was that he at least cared about his crew.

Turns out he doesn’t even have that. He said straight up to his Sea Bonze buddy: “Yeah, I’m gonna need you to become a sacrifice along with the rest of Fishman Island.” What a guy.

I mean, you’ve got to be a proper piece of crap when Hordy Jones, of all people, is pissed off with the psychotic shit you keep pulling.

Like Mother, Like Daughter

But Decken’s deeply creepy breakdown spurred one of my favourite moments of the arc.

When Decken made his appearance, he, of course, took the opportunity to harass Shirahoshi one last time. “SHIRAHOSHI, NO ONE CAN LOVE YOU LIKE ME! SO DROP DEAD ALONG WITH THE REST OF FISHMAN ISLAND.”

Logic? Nah. It’s in very short supply with this guy. Must have departed long ago with the last crumb of sanity.

When it became obvious that Decken was about to involve the entire island in his mad quest to “prove his love”, Shirahoshi did something very brave. Decken had thrown Noah towards his marked target, just like all the knives and axes before. Knowing this, Shirahoshi he put her life on the line and swam right up to the ship, stopping it from crashing into the island where she stood.

“If I am the only one who you want to kill, please do not harm the other people of Ryugu Kingdom.”

She was willing to endanger herself in order to protect her people. Shirahoshi is most definitely no coward. In fact, she’s as brave as Otohime, who threw herself in front of a bullet to stop a revenge killing.

Despite Decken upping the creep factor, “How beautiful you are, even your mind! You’re taking the matter into your own hands to save the country, aren’t you? You’re definitely eligible to become Vander Decken IX’s wife after all. You’d better die while you’re still beautiful and live in my heart forever.”

I have no words. Unfortunately, I know this is not unrealistic.

Decken hurled a dagger at Shirahoshi. But despite being injured, she still swam off and lured Decken - and most importantly, Noah - away from the island. She swam all the way to the open sea.

As far as I’m concerned, Shirahoshi deserves major props for quick thinking and saving everyone from being, as Robin said, smashed all at once. (lol)

Hordy Has a Little Moment

While this was going down, Hordy hauled himself upright and stood there like a lost lemon, grinding his teeth and raging at Decken’s “betrayal.” Hordy, the guy has several screws loose. If he is distracted by Shirahoshi in any way, he will drop whatever dumb scheme he’s involved in to pursue his main interest.

He watched Luffy be lauched after Noah by Sanji (that was cool, by the way. Sanji was about to join him, but Luffy pulled him back and said he had to take care of the plaza. Instead of insisting on running after the mermaid princess, Sanji agreed. Obviously the order from his captain, who he also respects as a friend, takes precedence. That’s much better, Sanji! :D)

Only then did his rage move him to action. He decided to hijack Decken’s plan. He leapt onto the hanging chains, even shooting at the islanders (who tried to slow Noah’s progress because they were so worried for Shirahoshi). I kept thinking, Luffy, now is the time to knock that dumbass off the chain.

But he didn’t. Shirahoshi broke through the bubble and Luffy emerged into open water. He had to use the Bubbly Coral Jimbei handed him. But he couldn’t use the full stretch and strength of his power confined in the small bubble.

Then Hordy swam up behind him and had a little moment when the tables turned. “How inconvenient it must be to be a human!” he gloated, using all his old favourite slurs. “You act so tough on the ground but you couldn’t even win a fight with a Fishman child in the sea!”

Of course, he forgot Zoro beat him in the water before he snacked on a fistful of Roids, but such thoughts are inconvenient. Luffy couldn’t replicate the feat because, as a DF user, he was at a major disadvantage and was forced to fight in the bubble. Hordy was straight up too fast and the water arrows pierced the bubble.

If it wasn’t for Fukaboshi, Luffy would have been screwed. I actually cheered when he showed up. xD It was also nice when Luffy asked how he was. “Thanks for rescuing me. You got hurt earlier. You okay?” (and it was funny when Fukaboshi told him off for being impressed at how Hordy was “almost like Zoro in the water”.) At least they have come to an understanding now. Fukaboshi apologised for suspecting the Strawhats, and Luffy, in his usual way, said, “Don’t mention it.”

They didn’t have time for a drawn out apology-fest, anyway, because Luffy had a plan and he was in a hurry.

Bye, Bye, Decken?

Now, I’m not sure if Ryuboshi and Mamboshi (is that how you spell his name?) gave Shirahoshi the best advice. She was swimming out into open sea away from the island. Instead, they advised her to swim upwards. I guess they couldn’t have predicted Hordy would spear Decken and, once the Mark Mark power wore off, the ship would come crashing down on top of Fishman Island, but still.

The betrayal scene was cool. Decken is obviously so detached from reality he had no idea Hordy was seething with rage when he hopped on deck.

“O hai, pal!” he laughed. “What happened to Neptune? Did you kill him? I’ve been tormenting Shirahoshi with the Noah. What do you think? Good idea, right?”

“Oh, I have an idea,” the shadowy figure of Hordy leered. “If you die now... what’ll happen to this ship?”

Then he stabbed Decken through the chest with his trident. That wasn’t the end of it. Decken hauled himself off it, blood dripping, then accidentally touched Hordy in the process, leaving a mark on him.

“I panicked a bit when Noah sailed over,” Hordy admitted. “But I can’t kill you yet. Then the Mark Mark power will be ineffective and the ship will fall onto Fishman Island and destroy everything. More than anything, I want the Strawhats gone. Thousands of my men will die too, but I can get as many human slaves as I want later.” Nice, Hordy. Thousands of your men will die, but it’s okay, they can be replaced with human slaves. What happened to Fishman supremacy, eh?

Decken told him to drop dead and threw a blade. I’m not quite sure what happened here, but Hordy either ducked or moved behind Decken and the blade sliced into Decken. Ohhhhhhh, the shot of that sweet, sweet long distance body fall. Decken landed right next to his rose axe (which is a bit suspicious, to be honest. As I have not yet seen a body, I bet he’ll use the axe to take revenge against Hordy. The mark has not yet been removed, so...)

Of course, counter betrayal accomplished, Hordy pressed on with his plan to hijack Decken’s psycho scheme. He caught up with Shirahoshi and grabbed her by the hair. Luckily, Luffy and Fukaboshi arrived fresh from a strategy talk. I have no idea what move it was Luffy pulled on Hordy, the snake shot one, but it looked like his hands were on fire? At any rate, Luffy said it didn’t work properly because he needed a bigger bubble, but it definitely hit Hordy hard. Looking forward to seeing it on a proper, ass-kicking scale! :D

“A fool like you can’t protect anything!” Hordy jeered.

“No,” Luffy said, absolutely dead pan. “I will protect them all. That’s what I’ve worked for over the past two years.”

For all Luffy adopts a happy-go-lucky attitude, I’ll never forget how low he was post-Marineford. It’s obviously affected him and this is one of the times he lets it show. He will never let something like that happen ever again. If anything threatens his crew, his friends or anyone he loves, they will regret it.

And speaking of...

Meanwhile... Back in the Plaza

Zoro and Sanji are having a great time!

I can’t wait to see Zoro kick that drunken Fishman swordsman’s ass. That guy is such a liability. Imagine killing all your allies just because you love cutting people. Great hire there, Hordy.

Classic Robin. xD

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cinenthusiast · 6 years ago

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Previous Top Ten By Year lists: 1935, 1983, 1965, 1943, 1992, 1978, 1925, 1969 1930

Previous Top Ten By Year: 1949 Posts: Top Ten By Year: 1949 – Poll Results 100 Images from the Films of 1949 What I’ll Remember About the Films of 1949: A Love Letter #10. The Queen of Spades (UK/Dickinson) #9. Rendezvous in July (Becker)/Au royaume des cieux (Duvivier) (France) #8. Too Late for Tears (US / Haskin) #7. The Heiress (US / Wyler) #6. The Set-Up (US / Wise) #5. Caught (US / Ophüls) #4. The Passionate Friends (UK / Lean) #3. Puce Moment (US / Anger) #2. The Third Man (UK / Reed)

For those unaware of my Top Ten By Year project: The majority of my viewing habits have been dictated by this project since September of 2013. Jumping to a different decade each time, I choose comparatively weaker years for me re: quantity of films seen/quantity of films loved. I use list-making as a way to see more films and revisit others in a structured and project-drive way. I was sick of spending too much time trying to decide what to watch, or watching films just to cross them off another dumb canon list. I wanted to engage. I wanted films to be enhanced by others, by looking at a specific moment in time. I wanted something that led me to seeing or revisiting things I might not have gotten to otherwise. Lastly, my lists are based on personal favorites, not any weird notion of an objective best.

This is the first year I’ll be doing separate posts for each film. #9 will go up Monday. After that, one will go up each day until the end. Then I’ll post them all together so they are gathered in one place. There are a lot of films I loved that did not make the cut. In particular, Flamingo Road, Such a Pretty Little Beach, On the Town, Inspirace, The Reckless Moment, Reign of Terror, The Rocking Horse Winner, and Samson and Delilah are all films I thought at one point would be on here. Of all of these, Flamingo Road was a sure thing until it wasn’t at the very last minute. Please go watch it.

#1. Bitter Rice (Italy / De Santis) (first-time watch)

Two women and two cultures intertwined.

There are two sides to Bitter Rice. One has neorealism, Silvana, and Italy. The other has film noir, Francesca, and America. When all is said and done these two women will have swapped places, for better and much worse. And when Italy’s other neorealist filmmakers see Bitter Rice, they will take it as a betrayal of truth and the political. In short, they hated it. In this time of crucial political upheaval when neorealism carried legitimate cultural cache, director Giuseppe De Santis had made something too slick, too tawdry, and too American. The message was tarnished by the method. But De Santis was a Marxist who happened to admire and study John Ford, King Vidor, and the visual patterns of Hollywood studio filmmaking. He saw mass appeal as a way to both entertain and denounce, and made a film in which neorealism is hijacked and reconfigurated to be a noir melodrama.

Bitter Rice has a lot of recognizably neorealist markers; location shooting, a focus on labor and economic struggle, the tactile particulars of rice worker life, and the use of the specific cultural practices such as the choral Coralita. The sound of women wading through water, the way it would around their legs, and the strain of being hunched over day after day — it’s all made vivid. But it is easy to see why Bitter Rice would seem a betrayal. Its mutinous synthesis of “authenticity” and artificiality was a signpost towards neorealism’s end. Soon there would be stars, genre, production in the Italian film industry.

The synthesis is clear from the very first scene. The authenticity of the mondine (female rice workers) is introduced with grandiosity and sweep. There are no docu-elements here, but plenty of elaborate tracking and crane shots to go around, the kind of gradually encompassing images you’d be more likely to find in a DeMille epic. Watching the very first scene I thought: “Wait — what am I in for?”. All preconceived notions were immediately scrapped, and I realized my trip to the rice fields of Po Valley would be a very different one indeed. Then, a couple carrying stolen jewels are chased into the station waiting to transport the workers to the fields. Their arrival feels like an alien invasion, as if some freak chemical accident at the film lab spilled one film into another. This dichotomy plays throughout with electric and arresting cohesion, making it so distinctly unlike any other film from its movement.

While De Santis was inspired by the Hollywood narrative format, he also uses American culture’s insidious postwar presence to illustrate the dangers of breaking from solidarity for hollow (the fake jewels!) individual gain. This is done using the two incredible and complex women of Bitter Rice‘s center. After Francesca the Moll (Doris Dowling, an American actress) is forced to assimilate in the rice fields, she finds purpose among the mondine. In order to stay in hiding, she has to advocate for the rights of her fellow non-contract workers. But this is never done as a means to an end. Francesca never schemes to stay on; she is always shown as sincerely leading the protests for the group. Life becomes bigger than herself, and she learns to stand both as her own woman, and as part of the mondine.

Francesca also begins to see her personal life more clearly. You get the sense that despite loving Walter (Vittorio Gassman), she is not blind to how reprehensible he is (I mean, in the first scene he literally used her as a human shield so….). But she had nowhere to go, and no strength to pull away. Life in Po Valley gives her that strength. The value of the collective is present throughout, with choral scenes, aerial shots showcasing the lines of working women linked together, and fragments of peripheral characters and their various troubles. They push themselves to the brink under oppressive conditions just to make it to the next job, and there is power in their (at times friction-filled) solidarity (I was also reminded of last year’s Support the Girls, also about a community of women united by unforgiving labor).

Then there is the shrewd but naive young Silvana (Silvana Mangano, who I’ll talk about later), a peasant that dreams of wealth. She is seduced by all things coded America and money (she should talk to Caught’s Leonora!). We first meet her doing the boogie woogie (she does a lot of dancing, employed for seduction and statement). In this group of women, where everyone is introduced as part of a whole, she immediately stands out as modern. She chews gum, loves big-band, and is seen reading photo-romances, the then-popular prepackaged fantasies that were read by lower and working class Italian women. Silvana wants out; she longs for adventure, riches, and a certain kind of romance. But the way out that presents itself is a different kind of way out, and she is too blinded by inexperience to understand it.

The camera links Francesca and Silvana all the time. Whether in two-shots or individual spaces, there is an invisible tether between them. Their lives and fates take part in a film-length body-swap. Silvana talks about fate a lot, but is seen making deliberate choices towards certain doom. She can’t see Walter for what he is — an exploiter and a monster. But Francesca gives her an out, replaying about her life with Walter and the terrible things he has done. She tries to take the abuse and hardship she lived through and save someone else from making the mistakes she did. But Silvana can’t see past the jewels and the suit. There is only the potential for excitement, for something that is not this. After all, Walter “looks like a gentleman” (aka a hotshot gumshoe); so he must be, right? While Francesca’s transformation is one of victorious camaraderie, Silvana’s (both actress and character) is altogether much murkier; one marked by punishment.

Silvana Mangano never wanted her body to represent the whole of Italy, but it did. Audiences were scandalized just seeing the unapologetically full female form (au natural, code for Armpit Hair), the kind that becomes sexualized simply by existing. She was the prototype of the “earthy women” that would cause such a stir overseas (later embodied by Gina Lollobrigida and Sophia Loren). She started out by winning Miss Rome, a post-war contest that further enhanced the idea of body-as-nation, and an honor that became synonymous with future screen tests. Unlike Lollobrigida and Loren, Mangano didn’t cash in on overseas notoriety for a Hollywood career. She became resentful of her image, and of fame, eventually giving herself a drastic reinvention (her figure was now svelte and arch, her look cold) and starring in art films by Pasolini and Visconti in the late 1960s and 1970s (and Dune!).

The camera doesn’t ogle Mangano Tex Avery style; this isn’t Jane Russell in The Outlaw. But it aims to stay back, taking in the whole of her whenever possible. And you can’t help but take part in that — I love looking at her. She is the textbook case for why the male gaze is not an open-and-shut. For all its appallingly absolute authority on the almost-whole of filmic language, women enjoy it too! One of the great joys of watching films is watching bodies, both male and female. I am hypnotized and, yes, completely turned on by Silvana Mangano in Bitter Rice. The camera may not be that Tex Avery wolf, but I’ll admit that I am.

Critics felt her body, and Bitter Rice’s eroticism as represented by her, cheapened the film and nullified its political message. Yet a crucial part of its political message is the punishment her and her body endures for betraying the homeland (a tactic that opens up a whole other can of worms). She is eroticized, symbolic, made into a cautionary tale. Her final fugue march is just like Ann Todd’s in The Passionate Friends. Claude Rains gets there in time. Francesca cannot.

(TW: rape)

She is raped. It is a rape that takes away her body. We don’t see much of it after that. In those last thirty minutes she is made up of haunted black pupils, lit like she’s telling a ghost story. She is immediately ostracized by the filmmaking, quarantined off in shots of the mondine in ways you feel more than see. It’s not obvious, but intrinsic and heartbreaking. The most startling example takes place immediately following her assault. It is pouring out (during these scenes a stunning rain shower falls right in front of the camera like a curtain) and the women have banded together, refusing to let the weather set them behind schedule. Silvana walks in a daze, confused and in shock. Ahead, a sick woman who shouldn’t be out in her condition begins having an attack. She howls out, and begins writhing in pain as the women surround her and hold her down. They begin to sing in an attempt to calm her (they are all one). Silvana looks on in horror. This is a mirror image of what she just went through, her trauma reflecting right back at her. She is watching herself. She begins to scream. She is drowned out, not part of the coralita, not part of anything anymore. Her cries go unheard.

The meat locker finale is one last compare-and-contrast session. Both women have guns. Both women have a man beside them. One is shaking and shaken. The other is determined and resolute. Francesca is still trying to save the other end of the tether. There is something so moving and uncommon in Francesca’s committed efforts to protect Silvana despite the harm she causes and rivalry she insists on. It’s hard to put into words how much I love these women, these characters, these performances. Bitter Rice pays such close attention to how women communicate with each other (in both speech and body language, the silent glares and stares may as well be full conversations), and to the breadth of female experience, struggle, and loyalty. We see how hard it is for Francesca to break away from Walter. We see that Silvana’s sense of right and wrong are muddied by what she wants out of life. We see that Silvana’s actions are not unfeeling; there is such pain on her face as she undoes the mondine’s hard work. The list goes on as more layers are pulled back.

Watching Bitter Rice is that all-too rare sensation of not knowing where a film is headed, or what story it will tell (unless you’ve read this before watching). Francesca and Silvana are often hard to read. By the end, that body swap trajectory is clear, but only at the end. And despite the larger-than-life symbolic statuses they represent, they are two of the most layered and human women I’ve ever seen onscreen. They don’t fit into any neat box — not within neorealism, and not within noir. Francesca and Silvana are with me now, and I’m the better for it.

Top Ten By Year: 1949 #1 – Bitter Rice (Italy / De Santis) Previous Top Ten By Year lists: 1935, 1983, 1965, 1943, 1992,

#bitter rice #doris dowling #giuseppe de santis #Italy #neorealism #silvana mangano

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beca-mitchell · 6 years ago

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Aubrey Posen's Guide to Using Social Media Effectively

summary: Aubrey learns that knowledge isn’t always power. In fact, she’d like to forget that she ever believed that.

aka this is an Aubrey-centric fic in which Aubrey learns that Beca and Chloe are seeing each other through various social media and how she deals with this.

word count: 6.5k

author’s note: Happy birthday @velmster!!!

Thank you for keeping me somewhat calm when we met bsnow. Thank you for helping me write my Pitch Perfect lectures. And thank you for being an incredible friend. I know how much you were looking forward to this story, so I really wanted to make sure it was finished for your bday!

For everybody else, this story is based on a true story about how I found out my roommate and best friend were dating each other. Some embellishments here and there, but otherwise, yes I am crazy.

Also on AO3.

“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”

- Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Aubrey Posen dislikes social media.

It’s not that she’s old, it’s more that she just doesn’t get it. Every day, it seems like a new social media network is created and Aubrey has pretty much only just figured out how to make a Bitmoji for her Snapchat account.

It’s mildly irritating that Chloe spends most of her time on one social media platform or another, flitting between her laptop and phone and persistently attempting to show Aubrey cute photos of corgis.

Well, she doesn’t dislike the content, it’s just that social media seems like a really difficult thing to keep up with and she has to worry about not flunking out of her MBA program.

Her buzzing phone jolts her out of her musings.

Instagram: chloebeale has sent you a video.

Knowing Chloe, it’s probably a meme, a topical video, or just a cute fluffy video of a corgi or a pug. Somehow, Chloe still manages to suss out when she’s feeling down because the videos tend to be on point with everything she’s going through at the moment.

She supposes just one more Instagram video of a corgi lying on its back won’t hurt.

Living with Chloe after Barden only makes sense. By the time Chloe finally graduates from university, Aubrey is done with managing the lodge and wanting to pursue something a bit more prestigious again.

They somehow both end up in New York, though Chloe has started working for an advertising agency and Aubrey has started school at NYU. Aubrey recalls that living with Chloe for their first year of Bellas co-captaincy had only been natural - as much as it had been a necessity. They weren’t allowed to have the Bellas house all to themselves because their entire team would be primarily first years. Without the allure of having a full team, student government had elected to allocate their treasured house to yet another sorority on campus.

Back then, Aubrey immediately shot down Chloe’s idea to join the sorority. Instead, she got to work and found a cute two-bedroom townhouse, small enough for the two of them and yet large enough that she doesn’t necessarily have to see Chloe’s things encroaching on her personal space.

If Aubrey’s being honest, Chloe’s ‘things’ might be a misnomer.

The absolute parade of people she’s seen (and heard, on many occasions) leaving Chloe’s room in previous years? That might be more accurate. It had admittedly stopped when Chloe set her eyes on one Beca Mitchell in the fall of 2011 and Aubrey saw significantly less people leaving their comfortable little townhouse. Instead, she saw more of Beca Mitchell than she would have liked back then, absolutely pestering Chloe with her latest music innovations or whatever the hell she called them.

And the next year, Chloe stayed back at Barden for another year with Bellas (read: Beca), she helped Chloe wrangle their treasured Bellas house back from the sorority and the rest is history.

Now, in New York City, freshly graduated, Aubrey has a little trouble finding something as cozy considering rent prices in New York City and the budget they’re both working with. She finds a nice two-bedroom (read: two-closet) apartment in East Village, with a functioning bathroom, kitchen,and , thank God, a working dishwasher. It’s a steal, even if Aubrey had flirted a little with the landlord and his wife to get a good price.

It’s a steal and she doesn’t have to share a bedroom with Chloe. She won’t have to hear Titanium for the millionth time.

Ultimately, Chloe is a good roommate. She picks up after herself. She cooks. She cleans.

(Aubrey has heard nightmarish stories from Chloe about what it had been like when Beca and Fat Amy shared a room in the Bellas’ house.)

The thing about Chloe is that she really has no sense of personal space. She enjoys shoving her phone into Aubrey’s face to show her a funny text or a cute image. She’ll ask Aubrey loudly and inappropriately whether she needs more tampons halfway down the aisle in the supermarket. She tries to braid Aubrey’s hair sometimes when they’re both lazily waiting for their laundry in the dingy laundromat - emphasis on tries . She sets Aubrey up on about five blind dates only their third month into living together in Manhattan.

In fact, Chloe’s fairly infuriating because she does all these things without asking and never wants anything in return. She never talks about her own feelings - the ones that Aubrey has to draw out of her with painstaking precision. In fact, Aubrey sometimes worries that her obsession with Beca Mitchell might be getting out of hand. Aubrey tries to remind Chloe that Beca isn’t so bad without her ear monstrosities and that maybe Beca just needs time to see the light (read: Chloe), like she did with her ear piercings.

Chloe just smiles and asks her whether she wants to get McDonalds for dinner.

Aubrey would never ask for another best friend.

“You know what you should do? Download Tinder, Bree. I’m sure the selection here is much better than Georgia.”

“No.”

(She downloads Tinder.

It is admittedly not horrible.

She ignores the smug look Chloe shoots her.)

Aubrey should have seen it coming, in retrospect. There’s something about Beca Mitchell that makes Chloe completely lose her mind whenever they come within touching distance of each other. Aubrey can’t recall Chloe ever being so touchy with anybody else, especially not when she vehemently reassures Aubrey that they’re “just friends, besides Beca is seeing Jesse.”

It’s weak and they both know it, but Aubrey supposes that the fixation on Beca means that Aubrey will get some peace and quiet in their apartment for the time being.

Until one day, Beca is very much single. It’s not even news that comes directly from the woman herself since Beca pretty much moved immediately to Los Angeles after graduating to pursue the first label that offered her a job. No, the news comes from Fat Amy who actively updates their group’s Facebook chat with whatever gossip she can find...usually about the Bellas themselves.

It’s actually kind of deja-vu, seeing the hurricane that has seemingly gone through her home. Aubrey comes home to a mess of crumpled-up pieces of paper and about five empty cans of cider.

“Oh, Chloe,” she murmurs, reaching for the blanket draped over the back of the couch.

Sitting with Chloe on the couch while she sleeps restlessly? That’s kind of deja-vu as well.

Instagram: chloebeale has sent you a photo.

It’s a photo of Jesse with his arm around a woman’s shoulder.

chloebeale: i can’t believe he moved on already!!!!!

Aubrey scowls, typing back. She doesn’t understand how she has five separate conversations going on with Chloe. Can’t she stick to just one account?

aubreyposen: You’re literally in the living room. You couldn’t have shown this to me in person?

aubreyposen: why don’t you message Beca if this is bothering you so much?

An hour later, Aubrey notices the Seen receipt and suspicious lack of reply from Chloe.

Aubrey finds out that Beca is actually living in New York before Chloe does. It’s only because she bumps into her at their local Trader Joe’s and is about to berate Beca for not knowing how to use her eyes when she realizes-

“Beca?”

“Aubrey?”

Aubrey is pleased to note that Beca looks mildly terrified of her in that moment, but she can’t quite dispel the warmth that rises up when she sees her friend. She had missed Beca, despite all her original reservations about her.

“I’m going to hug you now,” Beca states, somewhat awkwardly before proceeding to do so. When she pulls back, she looks equally astounded. “Wow, what the hell? This is crazy. I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“In this Trader Joe’s?”

Beca laughs at that, shaking her head. “No, I just meant...here, I guess. Manhattan.”

“How would you? You never message us.”

The mild terror is back in Beca’s eyes, alongside a glimmer of genuine regret and sadness.

“I thought I knew what…” Beca trails off, looking absently at her full cart. “How is Chloe?” she asks, lowering her voice. “I never…”

In a sympathetic streak, Aubrey shakes her head, stopping that difficult line of thought. “Why don’t we set up a kind of reunion dinner or something? Get more Bellas down here.”

Beca brightens and relaxes at that. Aubrey takes the opportunity to critique Beca’s choice in fresh produce.

There’s nothing quite like a Bellas party, even if the entire evening had been hijacked by Fat Amy. Somehow, she manages to wrangle them all into a party near Columbia.

“Do you go here?” Aubrey asks. She realizes that she’s not exactly sure what Amy is doing in New York. They had kept in contact sparsely over the years, but Aubrey knows stuff about Amy mostly through Chloe’s updates over the years.

“No, not really,” Amy answers vaguely. Aubrey doesn’t bother pursuing that. “Hey, do you think Beca and Chloe will finally figure it out?”

“Figure what out?” Aubrey asks absently.

There’s a long silence while Amy drinks from her cup, watching her carefully. Aubrey waits, raising an eyebrow in response to Amy’s silence. Amy finishes her entire drink first before saying “never mind.”

Aubrey shrugs and squints through the darkness. She still feels a protective streak flare up in her at the thought of her teammates, even though she’s long been off the Bellas’ team. She takes in how far they’ve come - how distant and precious their years at Barden seem now, compared to everything. She is so grateful for the experience. Even though these are mostly Chloe’s friends, if anything, Aubrey feels like there’s definitely a connection and bond with this set of Bellas - one that’s stronger than ever before. She begrudgingly attributes it to Beca’s hand in reshaping the Bellas, and though she’d love to maintain that she finds Beca irritating about 90% of the time, she knows how untrue it is and how much she considers Beca a friend.

Looking back up, Aubrey scans the crowd again, relaxing against the cushions of the couch, which she has deemed the perfect vantage point.

She pauses.

She thinks she sees Chloe grabbing Beca’s hand and pulling her out onto the makeshift dance floor and Beca’s expression indicates mild protest and discomfort, but she follows obligingly. Aubrey thinks she sees this because they disappear as quickly as it happens.

She actually doesn’t think too much of it until much later. She sees what appears to be Beca and Chloe in a heated argument on the couch she had once been sitting on, now haphazardly pushed to the side. They are angled towards each other with a familiar comfort emanating from both of them.

“-didn’t mean it! God, Beca,” Chloe is exclaiming - loud enough for Aubrey to hear as she passes on the way to the kitchen.

She wonders if it was a mistake, introducing Beca back into Chloe’s life so soon after her break-up with Jesse. She stops walking and hovers near the doorway, trying to look as nonchalant as possible.

Aubrey watches the tension rise and fall in Chloe’s shoulders, the way she turns her body towards Beca. She can no longer hear their conversation, but she watches anyway because a part of her kind of wishes they’d figure it out and - oh , that’s what Amy meant.

Aubrey wonders if Chloe will finally leap at this very perfect opportunity to reveal her ever-growing feelings for Beca. It’s a constant back and forth between them. Aubrey had been mildly interested in this fixation back when they had first met Beca, but now she’s kind of tired and wishes they’d just get their crap together.

Aubrey doesn’t see them for the rest of the night, but she might have been fairly distracted by the competitive karaoke game going down between Flo and a few other students.

“I think you’re right,” Aubrey tells Amy the next day. She hands Amy a bottle of Advil and a water bottle. “About Beca and Chloe.”

“Of course I’m right,” Amy mumbles. “Hey, can you go grab me a burger from Shake Shack?”

Chloe (4:41 p.m.) I’m gonna be visiting my parents this weekend in Portland! Don’t wait up ;)

Aubrey (4:50 p.m.) Say hi for me! Also, we’re rescheduling movie night.

Chloe (4:51 p.m.) Totes!

It’s not uncommon for Chloe to visit her parents. She did fairly frequently while they were in school together. The quiet weekend means Aubrey can tackle that case study that had been evading her focus for the past few days and she can work on a few other assignments she wants to get out of the way.

She’s about a quarter through an assignment when she gets a text.

(Fat) Amy (5:29 p.m.) the big bm is away for the weekend. Want to hang?

Aubrey considers that heavily. She waits an hour before replying.

Aubrey (6:34 p.m.) Sure.

Aubrey (6:34 p.m.) Also, stop calling her that

Hanging out with Amy is kind of fun, Aubrey supposes, so long as she takes everything with a grain of salt. She lets Amy tell her about her part-time job as a mail courier and makes it a point to ignore her stories about her more peculiar clients and their oddities. She tuned out after the story about a man with long toenails and tries to ensure her dinner stays down.

Aubrey finally focuses when Amy says, seemingly out of the blue, “So, how are we getting Beca and Chloe to admit their feelings for each other?”

She considers denying it or feigning confusion.

It’s tempting because Aubrey has always enjoyed a good scheme, but she doesn’t want to interfere too much, knowing that Chloe will likely want her privacy on this front. “Aren’t they figuring stuff out themselves?” she asks.

Fat Amy scoffs. “Please. Your hair is going to be grey before they actually sort everything out. We need to give them that little push.”

It’s already sounding better than working on tedious assignments, but Aubrey’s still cautious. “We shouldn’t meddle,” she says half-heartedly. “We really shouldn’t.”

She receives a glare in response. “We definitely should,” Amy retorts.

Well, Aubrey doesn’t know how to disagree with that. “What’s the plan? We need a plan.”

Instagram: @becamitchell has posted for the first time in a while. Check out their post!

Aubrey frowns at this very specific notification. Why has Instagram deemed this as important material? That seems invasive - both to her and Beca. She opens it regardless and tilts her head, trying to suss out what exactly it is that Beca posted. It’s a photo of Coney Island with the sunset in the background.

She notices that Chloe has already liked the post. She shakes her head. Chloe’s addiction to social media will always evade her understanding.

(Fat) Amy (2:57 p.m.) SHE LIKED HER POST!!!!

Aubrey (2:57 p.m.) Calm down, she likes everybody’s posts.

That is true, as far as Aubrey is aware. Chloe likes everybody’s Instagram posts. It’s not really that which is most interesting to Aubrey. There is something more interesting about the fact that Beca had apparently been at Coney Island all day, especially since Aubrey distinctly recalls that Chloe mentioned she had been planning to go over the weekend.

Aubrey (3:01 p.m.) Do you know if Beca went with anybody to Coney Island?

(Fat) Amy (3:03 p.m.) No, she never tells me anything.

Aubrey (3:03 p.m.) understandable.

If Aubrey knew that scheming with Amy meant reactivating her Facebook account, she would have declined immediately.

“Do I just create a Facebook group or something?” Aubrey asks, frowning at her phone. “Why can’t we just text them and tell them we’re having a movie night at our place?”

“What era are you from?” Amy demands. “Just make a Facebook event. I know Beca needs her entire life scheduled or she’ll never show up to anything.”

Aubrey grumbles and sets up a Facebook event. “It’s literally just going to be the four of us,” she mutters. “This is so unnecessary.”

“Fine,” Amy exclaims. “Let’s invite the rest of the Bellas.”

“Amy, no!”

Her cry is to no avail as Amy immediately invites the Bellas and a few other people whose names Aubrey can’t quite recognize at first glance. Aubrey’s first thought is how their landlord is going to receive a few complaints over the weekend because of course Amy would somehow turn a small gathering into an impromptu party.

She sighs, mentally doing calculations in her head as to how much food she should buy as well as how many drinks she’ll need to get.

“This is going to be amazing, Aubrey. I’m so happy you agreed to this.”

She tacks on a couple extra drinks to her mental list because she’s sure she’ll need it.

Leading up to the movie night in question - an event that once only belonged to Aubrey and Chloe - Aubrey tries to figure out if Chloe and Beca are still talking to each other.

Chloe has been quieter and more reserved recently, though she cites stress from her job as the primary reason.

There’s a part of her that knows instinctively that Chloe likely had some kind of falling out with Beca, or maybe she’s mulling over her own feelings, but Aubrey just wishes Chloe would open up to her.

“Chloe?” she tries tentatively one evening while they’re scarfing down take-out from their favourite Chinese restaurant.

Chloe glances up at her from where she’s reading text messages on her phone. It’s a bit too far that Aubrey can’t quite see who she’s texting. “Yeah, what’s up, Bree?” Chloe asks, clicking her phone off casually.

“You’d...tell me if you were seeing somebody, right?”

There is a very brief pause, but a pause nonetheless.

Then, Chloe, as quiet as Aubrey has ever heard her, murmurs “yes,” softly. “I would.”

“That’s good to know.”

Aubrey lets it go for the moment. She has assignments to worry about and this damned Bellas party.

Chloe is ridiculously excited about the movie night extravaganza Aubrey and Amy planned. They somehow manage to wrangle 12 women into their tiny apartment, with enough seating (most of it improvised) for everybody.

They opt to watch horror movies, starting with It . Aubrey is not sure whose brilliant idea this is, but she feels like it could be either Lilly’s or Amy’s.

Aubrey grumbles as she retrieves another roll of paper towels from underneath the sink. Amy has somehow spilled her third drink of the night - none of which have been her own drinks.

Aubrey notes that Chloe isn’t being particularly helpful either because she’s immersed in a conversation with Beca on the loveseat - the most comfortable seat in their apartment currently. Chloe has her arm casually draped around the back of the couch to play with strands of Beca’s hair and Beca seems to either not notice or not care , but it’s then that Aubrey realizes that it’s neither . Beca is enjoying it if the smile on her face is any indication.

God, they’re dating, Aubrey thinks, resisting the urge to point at them and yell out her triumph.

Instead, she tilts her head, observing in silence.

They’re sharing a blanket too, which Chloe brought out from her room. Neither of them notices anything about the movie that’s playing and it’s dark enough that Aubrey only catches glimpses from time to time of their expressions.

It’s enough to see that Chloe has never quite looked so happy and Beca has never quite looked so relaxed.

The next time Aubrey glances at them, Beca has seemingly fallen asleep, completely pressed into Chloe’s side with her head tilted onto her shoulder. Chloe isn’t bothering to watch the movie at all even though her conversation partner has knocked out. Instead, she watches Beca, eyes trained on her the whole time.

Aubrey can’t help but smile even if it briefly hurts her that Chloe evidently didn’t bother telling her about this little development at all.

Mostly because it’s such a significant development in her best friend’s life.

(Aubrey is ridiculously happy for her. And Beca too.)

While sitting next to Chloe on their couch, Aubrey tries to focus on reading her textbook, but she finds her eyes drawn to Chloe’s phone because it continues to vibrate with a new message every two seconds.

Chancing a glance at her best friend, she sees the slow smile spread across Chloe’s face - a smile that is so smitten and grossly cute that it makes Aubrey shudder because she knows who Chloe is talking to without having to see the messages.

When Chloe gets up to retrieve their mail from downstairs, Aubrey bites her lip before pressing the button on Chloe’s phone. She sees a slew of messages from Beca. Except, it’s not just ‘Beca’. Chloe has changed her name on messenger to read as “grumpy becs” followed by three emojis: a blue heart, a raincloud, and a star.

The messages themselves are all the more incriminating, if the display name change weren’t enough.

Beca I miss you

Beca Just thought you should know or whatever

Beca When can I see you again?

That alone is enough to make Aubrey sit back firmly and contemplate. She vaguely wonders how long this has been going on - how long Chloe has been hiding this from her.

She wonders when Chloe will just tell her.

Her plan evolves.

Aubrey attempts to set Chloe up on a few dates, just to test the waters. She does so right in front of Beca. She’s really just testing the limits of Beca and Chloe’s strength because she still can’t quite believe that they’ve been hiding this from her for so long.

It was kind of cute at the beginning, now Aubrey is wondering how long it’ll take for either of them to crack. It’s like a fun game, sometimes.

Today, they’re enjoying brunch in Brooklyn. It had originally been Aubrey and Chloe’s pre-arranged brunch, but Chloe had tentatively asked Aubrey if Beca could come along because she was “feeling down from her job” and “we should totally show her this brunch place, Bree!”

Aubrey had agreed because she kind of just wanted to put Beca on the spot again. It’s a little fun to watch them both squirm.

“Chloe,” Aubrey states, primly folding her napkin. She waits until both Chloe and Beca have taken sips of their mimosas. “I would like to set you up on a date with one of my classmates.”

Chloe looks mildly curious, which is fine.

It’s Beca’s reaction that almost cracks Aubrey’s facade. She chokes on her drink and turns to Aubrey with wide eyes, like she can’t quite believe what she’s just heard.

“You would?” Chloe asks at the same time Beca asks, rather loudly, “Why?”

“I would,” Aubrey agrees, ignoring Beca. “I just think you’ve been single for so long. Not that you need somebody to make you happy. Just. Something to take your mind off things because I know how stressed you’ve been at work.”

“You’ve been stressed?” Beca asks, so softly that Aubrey momentarily forgets that she’s sitting across from Beca Mitchell. The amount of tenderness in Beca’s eyes directed straight at Chloe is kind of alarming if Aubrey didn’t already know they were in some kind of relationship.

“No, just,” Chloe sighs. She directs her attention fully to Beca. “A little. It’s just some personal things going on right now.”

Aubrey decides to let up on her line of questioning and drinks some water, watching them carefully. She decides not to bring it up again, feeling only more certain that they are dating , like officially.

When she gets up to go to the washroom, she can hear Chloe and Beca begin to whisper to each other, catching the tail end of their conversation: “-tell her?”

Aubrey smiles triumphantly.

“What made you bring that up today?” Chloe asks quietly, when they’re doing some weekend cleaning.

Aubrey frowns, focusing on a coffee stain plastered on their counter. She is sure she didn’t see this just a week ago and Chloe doesn’t drink coffee.

(Aubrey also knows that she always uses coasters and cleans up after herself.)

“What did I say?” Aubrey murmurs.

“About setting me up with somebody.”

Aubrey straightens, eyebrow rising slowly. “Chloe,” she starts.

“I’m happy right now,” Chloe says, not allowing her to finish. She fiddles nervously. “I can tell you that much. I appreciate the offer, but no.”

It warms Aubrey’s heart somewhat, when she notes the sincerity in Chloe’s tone. She can’t help the smile that rises on her lips and she nods encouragingly at Chloe to continue.

She wants to hear all about it - she wants to hear how happy Chloe is and how far they’ve come.

“Okay,” Aubrey says slowly. “You’re happy.”

Chloe bites her lip, looking like she’s about two seconds away from spilling everything. Aubrey restrains herself from excitedly wringing the cloth in her hands.

“I’m happy,” Chloe says after a moment, shrugging a little.

When she catches Aubrey staring at her, she smiles, a little apologetically and hurriedly returns to vacuuming.

Aubrey sighs.

She’ll accept that for now.

(She is so happy for Chloe.)

Amy sighs, stretching out completely on the couch and leaving a little place for Aubrey to perch herself at the end. “If only there were a way to see where they were at all times.”

Aubrey agrees absentmindedly, feeling like there’s something that she’s missing - maybe something that she has completely overlooked.

“Oh, hey, look. Beca’s in DUMBO.”

“That’s nice,” Aubrey replies. Something buzzes through her body. It feels like excitement. Maybe anxiety. Maybe indigestion from Amy’s food.

Vaguely she recalls that Chloe said she’d be away all weekend for an office retreat in -

She pauses.

In Brooklyn.

She latches onto it because she had given Chloe a little shit for it when she heard about it. She hadn’t understood why Chloe opted for separate lodging in Brooklyn when she had a perfectly good home in Manhattan, but now ...

Aubrey scrambles for her phone, nearly leaping clear over the couch and dislodging Amy in the process.

“Where are you going?” Amy calls, peeking over the couch. “Washroom?”

“No,” Aubrey says briskly. “Even better.” She swipes open her phone, navigating to Snapchat like Chloe once instructed her. Opening it, she sees missed notifications from a number of people, including Chloe.

It takes her about an entire minute to click through all of the missed photos and videos from Chloe when she finally gets to one from just half an hour ago. A vague photo from somewhere that looks like it could be Brooklyn, but it’s not quite discernable to Aubrey.

She furrows her brow before pinching her fingers on the screen, enabling the map function.

She’ll never get over how creepy this is, but she’s is suddenly immensely grateful for it.

She notices that Chloe’s Bitmoji is back in what Aubrey assumes to be her Airbnb.

“This is the most useful thing that Snapchat has ever done,” Amy mutters as they stare at the little circle enclosing both Beca and Chloe’s tiny figures in the same space.

“They’re together!” Aubrey yells. “They’re in the same place! That’s what that means, right?”

Amy is nodding vigorously. “Yeah! Should we go over there now?’ She’s already grabbing her shoes from the front door.

Aubrey’s arm flies out. “No, no. We should…” She can’t stop the grin that stretches across her face. “We should send them a Snapchat.”

“Uh, what? Why?”

“So we can be sure. Amy, you don’t understand. She was so close to telling me. Maybe this will be the exact guilt trip she needs to finally tell me!”

It had not been the guilt trip Chloe needed.

She sent back a few selfies. Beca ignored Aubrey’s Snaps mostly, but at least it updated their locations frequently enough that Aubrey could tell exactly where they were all weekend.

Aubrey diligently keeps track of all their movements with this newfound power.

On Saturday, they spent most of the morning inside, before Chloe seemingly met up with other friends or coworkers for a few hours while Beca wandered around DUMBO again.

Then, they went for dinner at a place Aubrey had been dying to try.

Then, a movie.

Aubrey is shocked at how much information she suddenly has at her disposal. She feels simultaneously torn between continuing to keep this information from Chloe or just revealing all her cards at once.

She discusses this properly with Amy while they’re at Pinkberry on Sunday evening. Aubrey is expecting Chloe to return home soon, but her action plan has yet to be completed.

“Do we tell them we know?” Fat Amy asks as she continues piling toppings in her cup. "Oh, this is like that episode of FRIENDS. Excellent.”

“We?” Aubrey questions.

“Yeah, we’re partners in crime. Practically sisters.”

Aubrey shrugs at that. “Well, I’m thinking of just asking Chloe if she’s hiding something for me.”

“How well did that work out for you last time?”

Aubrey scowls at her friend. “She’ll tell me. I have all the evidence I need.”

“Ah, so you’re going to ambush her. You're an amazing best friend.”

“I’m going to gently nudge her,” Aubrey says delicately. She turns on her phone, navigating to her notes. “I have proof that she and Beca have been going on secret dates for at least the past three months. Maybe more.”

“Well, how are you going to bring it up?”

“I’m going to casually bring up all the places she was today.”

“Casual,” Amy agrees.

Aubrey opens Snapchat, wondering where Chloe is at the moment. Her eyes widen and she splutters, dropping her spoon.

“What is it?” Amy demands excitedly.

“Chloe’s home,” Aubrey says stiltedly. “And Beca’s with her.”

She has barely thought about talking to Beca about all of this. She obviously has to go through her whole spiel as Chloe’s best friend.

Amy is already standing and holding out Aubrey’s purse for her. “Let’s go.”

Aubrey stands, chair scraping back loudly. “Let’s get them.”

By the time they end up reaching Aubrey’s apartment, she is primarily trying to slow her breathing and put on an air of unaffected nonchalance. She makes extended eye contact with Amy before sliding her key into the lock.

Beca and Chloe are sitting on the loveseat again, though they’re not sitting close together. They’re chatting casually, facing each other. Both turn towards the door when it opens all the way.

“Hi roomie,” Chloe greets.

“Hi Aubrey. Amy,” Beca says, waving a little.

“Chloe. Beca.”

They all stare at each other for a moment before Amy breaks the awkward silence by moving to sit on the other couch, stretching out.

A million things run through Aubrey’s mind as she stares at Chloe and Beca. There are so many ways to go about this - so many opportunities for embarrassment and amusement.

Also, so many ways that they could continue to lie to her.

Chloe coughs, standing up quickly. “I’m just going to run to the bathroom. One sec, guys.”

Three pairs of eyes swivel to watch her leave.

“Is there something you’d like to tell me?” Aubrey asks Beca once Chloe has disappeared to the washroom.

Beca stares back at her, a little insolently, a little nervously. “I don’t know. Is there something you’d like to tell me?” she fires back.

Aubrey is surprised at how easily Beca placed the ball back in her court. She practically handed it to her. Aubrey gracefully accepts.

Staring at Beca, Aubrey watches the way she seems to wither under her gaze. Aubrey’s not sure why it comes out exactly like this, but it does: “Not really,” she says slowly. “Except, maybe - Beca, please leave smaller hickeys on Chloe’s neck.”

Her voices rises a little at the end and her arms cross as she stares her down. Beca flushes deep red. Aubrey grins triumphantly when Beca squeaks "what?"

Beca seems to shrink into herself and she gapes, sinking into the couch a little. Amy unhelpfully laughs - or shrieks - and contributes nothing more to the conversation.

“You know, it was one thing when I thought you two were just trying out a friends with benefits thing, because God knows that you’ve both needed to get this fixation with each other out your system, but -” she holds up a finger when Beca opens her mouth. “-My roommate , Beca Mitchell? My best friend? How could you?”

Beca’s brow furrows. “I’m not exactly sure what you’re upset about, but I’m...I’m sorry-?”

“You two,” Aubrey says, sighing. She pulls out her phone, consulting the list of places they went all weekend. “All weekend, while Chloe was supposed to be away for work, and instead, you went to the movies, went to DUMBO, went for a nice stroll in the park,” she continues listing off places and Beca looks increasingly freaked out with each item.

Aubrey can hear Chloe rushing back down the hall. She heaves a breath when Chloe skids into view, eyes wide as she takes in how traumatized Beca looks, how delighted Fat Amy looks, and how pleased Aubrey looks.

“What’s going on?” she asks, her voice rising nervously in pitch.

Amy grins. “How long do you have, Chloe?”

Aubrey is about to settle down for bed after finishing off a bottle of wine with her friends. After all the drama, they had laughed it off - Beca more hesitantly than everybody else - and drank some wine, reminiscing on Barden and everything in between.

Chloe and Beca had cuddled immediately on the couch, limbs tangling, pleased smiles on their lips.

Now, Aubrey hears a quiet murmur of voices from the hallway.

“I tried to tell you,” Chloe whispers, hushed. “I knew she had an idea.”

“I really thought she didn’t,” Beca mutters back. “You didn’t tell me she’s fucking crazy. I felt like I was on episode of Maury or something. I've never been screamed at like that before.”

Aubrey scoffs. Beca is a baby. She had only raised her voice once. Hardly screaming.

Chloe laughs. “Hey, that’s my best friend you’re talking about, babe. I know her better than almost anybody else.”

“And I’m your girlfriend,” Beca says, in a voice that is so foreign to Aubrey. It is tender and affectionate.

Chloe giggles in response. “Well, I did try to warn you.”

“Chlo!”

Aubrey smiles.

Now that Beca and Chloe feel like they don’t need to hide anymore, Aubrey sees more of Beca than she ever did before, especially with how often she stays overnight. Especially on weekends.

Aubrey hears more of Beca’s music everyday. She also hears Chloe happily humming to herself whenever she’s making dinner.

Aubrey huffs, bumping into Beca on the way to the bathroom.

“Sorry,” Beca says, a little too cheerfully for Aubrey’s taste.

“I didn’t realize you were here,” Aubrey mumbles, blinking to make sure she’s not imagining Beca Mitchell in one of Chloe’s old oversized shirts in the middle of her hallway.

“Here I am,” Beca parries back.

“Bec!” Chloe’s voice calls from down the hall.

“Coming!”

Aubrey makes sure to take her time in the bathroom, hoping against hope that Beca and Chloe are going to sleep in.

She is very wrong.

Aubrey stares wide-eyed up at the ceiling, regretting her decision to forego the earplugs while she was in line at the check-out today.

This is her third traumatizing weekend in a row.

It is only 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning.

That’s early, even for Aubrey.

She doesn’t even want to think about whose idea this is.

Aubrey has had enough.

She barely resists the urge to just smack her hand against Chloe’s door to tell them to keep it down.

Aubrey (7:29 p.m.) Chloe Beale. Get out here. I have to tell you something.

She sends it off and doesn’t bother waiting for a reply considering she had just been freshly traumatized.

Aubrey privately wonders how Beca finds energy considering how much time she used to spend trying to make Bellas’ rehearsals difficult for everybody. Aubrey assumes Beca spends more time figuring out ways to annoy her than humanly possibly.

“Hey,” Chloe says, startling Aubrey out of her hypnotic trance by the stove. She turns to lower the heat on the stove before facing her friend. “Whatcha making?” Chloe asks, grabbing two - Aubrey’s eyes zero in on the action - water bottles from the fridge.

“Chloe, I have something to tell you,” Aubrey says briskly. She wants to get it over with. Chloe nods, uncapping one water bottle and taking a swig. Aubrey tries not to think about it too hard. “Chloe, you...I -” Aubrey tries to think about what Fat Amy would say, or even do. Chloe continues to stare at her, growing more concerned by the second. “I...no longer wish to have surround sound to your…” Aubrey puts her hand on her chin, tapping contemplatively. “Your...activities,” she finishes delicately. She mentally congratulates herself on her word choice.

It’s interesting, actually. Aubrey kind of wishes she had a secret camera set up somewhere because the next progression of events is simultaneously mortifying and hilarious. Chloe tilts her head in confusion, taking in Aubrey’s words. Aubrey only narrows her eyes further, willing her roommate to just...get the point, so neither of them have to be subjected to this awkward silence any longer.

“Oh,” Chloe says, finally. Quietly. Her cheeks grow red. It’s only temporary while Aubrey thinks that she can maintain the upper hand. Unfortunately, Chloe’s lack of boundaries means that she often bounces back from embarrassing moments with lightning quick reflexes. “I mean,” Chloe says, maintaining a hesitant tone. “It wasn’t me, right? I tried to tell Beca you’d be able to-”

Aubrey drops her spatula in the sink in horror. “No!” She wants to die. “I don’t want to - Jesus Christ, Chloe. Just, I’m letting you know that I can hear you, okay?!” Then, quieter, after a brief pause, “it was definitely you this morning,” she mutters.

Chloe blushes again, though she seems less embarrassed. “Oh, right.”

About an hour later, Aubrey finally settles back in bed with her laptop, determined to watch a movie and just relax for the rest of the night. She quickly stuffs her headphones into her ears, wary of the fact that both Chloe and Beca are still in the apartment.

Her phone buzzes just as she’s about to recline further into her pillows.

Chloe (8:47 p.m.) Oh, haha, I just saw your message.

Chloe (8:47 p.m.) gotchaaaa

Aubrey (8:48 p.m.) I hate you. And I hate Beca, too.

#bechloe #aubrey posen #beca mitchell #chloe beale #mine #my fanfic #social media #text #fanfiction #pitch perfect

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violetsystems · 3 years ago

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#personal

I keep referencing this Chris Morris interview lately, mostly to myself. I try to talk to people in real life but the things other people take seriously aren't as important as any words I try to speak outloud. This is a trend that Morris and crew began to target in the late nineties when Brass Eye was released. When asked if Brass Eye could happen at the time during the Trump administration, he replied staunchly it could not. Back in the late nineties people took themselves far too seriously in the news. So it was easier to lampoon. These days it feels like a regression. Everyone has a statement to unload on you. A complex series of opinions, arguments, and rules about this or that. Some of them have some weight. Others are carried away by counter arguments and burnt at the stake. The only reason a statement, argument, or ideological battle penetrates the news is to simply kick it around for two weeks in a cycle. It never reaches any sort of consensus. It never diffuses into at the very least a case of agreeing to disagree. The Met Gala recently is a fine example of this. Statement fashion is simply meant to nudge the conversation into focus. At it's very minimum the shock is meant to jolt someone out of this seriousness. To rattle them away from their protective shell to change the dialogue. Think tax the rich or peg the patriarchy. Neither of them if you flesh out the argument have much teeth to them. I'm sure you could find yourself at a party defending either argument. "How many stocks do you have in the bank Mister!" Or why victims of childhood sexual harassment and violence might feel a little differently about proving how you might be able to face the patriarchy in a less violent and humiliating way. This is that none of us are defending a 35,000 dollar ticket to the Met Gala in the first place. There were plenty of other statements. After all the ideological dust settled I almost never realized that Iris Van Herpen designed Grimes suit of armor. If I were too clouded by the ideology I would have missed that legitimate moment of genius. I'm a technologist by profession. I have years of 3D fabrication support. I've often found myself drawn into the intersect of technology and fashion. The embroidery machines that print out all the stupid little poetry that gets stolen from other artists? Those are pretty complex to operate. Without them none of this would be possible. And yet good statement fashion does get people talking. But fashion is more than statements. Especially from the rich and wealthy. And if we don't talk about all of it, we start to realize who controls the flow of the dialogue when it goes petty. We're supposed to move on from these arguments like exhibits in a museum. Not get stuck on one or two moments and use them as a soapbox to drown out the entire room. Statement fashion gets people's attention. I wore undercover for years only to find for years people thought I was an undercover cop. I wear a mouse on a shirt and suddenly my porch is overflowed with them. I hold a raccoon in my arms in Korea one trip and the next year my porch is flooded with them as well. You like animals so much! Prove it!

Prove it was also a song by the underground band Television. I was introduced to them by the king of statement fashion itself, Jun Takahashi. I've worn undercover for years at this point. The story of undercover during the Scab years is an interesting insight into what Jun was trying to express at the core. His assistants were getting food in London on a break. An old woman came up to them and offered them a banana. She thought they were homeless. They were excited because the fashion they were wearing felt real and unpretentious. It blended in and confused people in such a way that it was not high brow or high fashion. It was accessible. It was street level. And it was largely coopted by the ultra rich and worn far too seriously for its own good. For people like myself who wore it out of love to provoking real conversation, it did the opposite. It cast me into a shadow realm where people thought what I was saying enabled them to push the limit. To use people like myself as cover in terms of hijacking authenticity. You used to wear undercover as a badge of honor in Japanese street wear. It was designed for rebels after all. You could wear a t-shirt that simply said RAT out in the street and assume if it applied to someone they'd read into it. But nobody including myself really thought you'd be able to change shit with a t-shirt. In America, people wear rebellious shit to express this idea of freedom. With Jun's stuff, it was all centered around this idea of individualism and anarchy. You can be who you are and there are so many variants of human that there is no comparison. America always wants you to prove it. Prove the right to be alone. Prove the right not to mix with the general population to avoid dilution. To avoid being neutralized or have a narrative hijacked. Nowadays you can't even afford to have a statement without someone explaining it for you behind your back. When the streets become the runway, retaliation happens outside the niceties of press and junkets. It happens with real unbridled emotions. The statements you throw into people's faces don't get moderated by it kids, secret tribunals of the ultra rich or your heroes. They get dealt with in a violent and sometimes mob like fashion by people who take themselves so seriously that their arguments against you are louder than a bomb or a nuclear powered submarine. And everything starts to contradict itself so much that none of us have the energy to argue. We just start mocking it. And the entire situation gets worse.

When it comes to a person like myself, I live in a surreal shadow world where the worst Black Mirror plot lines get tested. I've been writing and making statements for years. I've carefully parsed the arguments online. I've defended myself against an invisible hoard to let people know I am not like other people. And yet in America, until they can throw you in a group you are still nobody. You have to be attached to an ecosystem. A financial sink hole that can sell back your ideas to you instead of compensating you for the trouble. I can't take America seriously anymore even when it comes to it's idea of freedom. It lies to maintain a status quo. It constantly lies. It holds it's head high while sniffing the coke back into it's nose and proudly proclaims how it cares. And when people like myself stare it back in the face with our rotting street wear clothes from early 2010, it's a laugh. It believes until it has fully roasted the juices out of you then you are ready to be carved up. And we buy into it consistently. We waste our time feeding into arguments that have no intent on reaching a consensus. It's always you are either for us or against us. Go back and rally with your people. If you can't find your people it must mean you are mentally ill. America can never take the blame. If you catch it off guard it will figure out a way to trash you or cause a diversion. And so making statements to fuel an argument you can't win becomes a lesson in tedium. We should, by all means, continue to make fun of it. But the more we take these arguments seriously, we miss the real problems. We neglect the real art. We see that there's a good 35,000 dollar barrier to being heard. If we're lucky maybe we stitched together the rags these people wear. To me there have been statements in the populist context that have far more penetration into poking a hole in the patriarchy. I'm supposed to preface this by saying I own stock in some company. But I'm not trying to sell a portfolio. And it'd be kind of laughable to say that I'm only serious about feminism by putting my money where my mouth is to break this glass ceiling. The glass ceiling is there for a lot of us if minimum wage can't get us into the Met Gala. These statements are supposed to give you an idea to confront things in your own way. Not some secret way to groom you into humiliation and destroy your sense of self and sexuality. I write statements every week here most of the time. And they get chuckled at by friends and whoever these days spies on me to see how I deal with dead mice on my porch. Aren't I doing enough by saying something for free? I don't get paid to write any of these words. I don't get paid to talk about any of these people. What was that quote about art being counter revolutionary if it isn't accessible by the regular people? What I could do with a four hundred dollar statement t-shirt I can do with a color. Maybe I could make a statement shirt myself and have it ripped off by an incompetent designer one day. I could point at the screen and say "I copyrighted that statement." And look where it is now. Not in my wallet. Not anywhere near the 35,000 dollar ticket price to point back at the camera. Do you see me? No you don't. People in that realm only see themselves. And we take them and their arguments so seriously for what? A laugh hopefully. Because nothing is going to change if we're locked on the outside looking in at a bonfire of vanities. Witches get roasted either way. <3 Tim

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joemuggs · 7 years ago

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Occupy the Dancefloor 2012

Been talking about politics in dance music a lot lately. Obviously the Bassiani protests in Tbilisi and Berlin have thrown it into relief, but there’s a lot of other vigorous discourse going on, both to do with the current age and in looking back 30 years to the “Summer of Love”. In thinking about it, I dug out this piece I wrote for Mixmag at the end of 2011, published in Jan 2012. I present it now without comment, except to say it’s pretty fascinating how much has changed in some ways and how little in others.

“The atmosphere was electric! I'd never felt such a concentrated positive energy before. People from every walk of life and background were united...”

It's the sort of quote you've probably seen in interviews with DJs a hundred times before, but this time we're not talking about the summer of '89 or any other hoary acid house reminiscence. This is Optimo's JD Twitch recounting his visit to the Occupy Wall Street encampment last summer.

2011 was a hell of a year by any standards, with conspiracies, scandals and crises at every turn. The Arab Spring and war in Libya, riots across the UK, Greece and Spain, Europe edging ever closer to economic collapse, the hackgate scandals, public services being cut to ribbons by a government of comically posh pantomime villains... it seemed sometimes we've had a decade's worth of news all in one go, and it shows no sign that things are going to calm down any time soon. Quite the opposite, in fact – by the time this issue hits the shops, we're fully ready for a couple of small nuclear wars to have broken out and the Euro to have been replaced as currency by peanut M&Ms.

But what's all this got to do with Mixmag? Ravers generally go their own merry way, right? Switch the news off, pull the curtains tighter to blank out the dawn, turn up the music and crack on – leave the politics to Bono? Well, yes and no. The Occupy movement, which sprung up in cities across the western world to demand accountability from institutions in response to the banking crisis that underpins much of the chaos in the world today, has not had much vocal support from the clubbing world – until more recently.

In December Massive Attack's 3D curated a show with Thom Yorke and Tim Goldsworthy (ex LCD Soundsystem), and has been putting up online a series of mix sets by the likes of Horsemeat disco, all in support of the Occupy movement. And a glance at occupymusicians.com shows a small but steadily increasing number of dance DJs and producers among the indie bands and experimentalists standing up and being counted. So is clubland developing a social conscience?

Maybe it's just that we're remembering that dance is not a bubble separated off from the world after all. Professor John Street, author of the new book Music and Politics, points out that “from the 1920s when US sheriffs would issue decrees about how couples could dance together, to rock'n'roll and the scandal of how teenagers reacted tot he music, and on through rave, the powers that be have been as exercised by the performance of dance in crowds as they ever have by the lyrics of songs.” That is to say, the simple self expression of dancing can be as much of a political act as any protest song, and indeed can have more effect.

Trance deity Paul Van Dyk, himself no stranger to political activity, is clear too that losing it on the dancefloor doesn't mean losing touch with wider realities; perhaps unsurprisingly for someone who grew up in oppressive Communist East Germany, he believes the freedoms we enjoy should be trumpeted from the rooftops. “People, artists, movements can be hedonistic and free spirited,” he says, “but also speak out and make a statement of the fact that this is a more tolerant and respectful group than many others in society.”

The author Tim Lawrence, who has closely studied the roots of modern dance culture going back to the start of the disco era, concurs. “I just don't accept that going out clubbing is self-absorbed,” he insists. “Sitting at home and looking in the mirror is self-absorbed. Going out with friends and engagement in a physical activity that only works if everyone participates and contributes is an act of socialising and community. If we stay at home and watch TV all the time we're saying one thing about the kind of society we want to be part of. If we go out dancing, we're saying another thing. Dancing is political.”

Matt Black of Ninja Tune founders Coldcut goes further, but sounds a note of caution. “Yes, people commune and collaborate through dance events,” he agrees, “and often they share an interest in making the world better, in social justice – but as with everything that gives people pleasure that culture is very easily hijacked by those who want to make a quick buck. Cocaine becomes involved, egos become involved, and very quickly you lose touch with the constructive spirit that was so inspiring in the first place.”

“But,” he continues, “that's maybe part of the natural cycle of things. The punk of today becomes the suit of tomorrow, the spirit of rebellion wears off somewhat. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though: I think there are probably a lot of people in ordinary jobs now who still carry the inspiration of acid house and rave with them, and when they see something like the Occupy movement, they think 'yes, that's something I understand and can get behind' because they know that feeling of being part of something bigger.”

It's not just old ravers carrying the inspiration of the past forward though. Many in the dubstep generation are aware of the power of dance music's communality, its deep roots, and the potential this has for social action. Loefah, as co-founder of Brixton's DMZ night is one of the most important figures in the growth of dubstep and all that's followed. His diverse Swamp 81 label is named after the police operation that sparked the original Brixton riots 30 years ago – but he stops short of making direct political statements, instead preferring to use the networks of art and music to deliver coded messages, not preaching but drawing people in and allowing them to make their own conclusions.

“When I was a teenager,” says Loefah, “pirate radio and white labels were everything, and as you got more and more into it, you began to understand the culture. Then when I went to the jungle raves, you'd become a part of this community, meeting the people you'd heard shout outs to on the radio, and you get something from it that's impossible to explain unless you're there but it's powerful and it's not controlled by any authorities. It might sound elitist, but it's not: anyone could be a part of it, but you have to make the effort to find out and understand it.”

Ben UFO, DJ and founder of the Hessle Audio label, is emphatic that the communities created in this way post jungle, garage, dubstep and grime are politically important. “Dance music in London especially,” he says, “has always provided a space for people from all sorts of different class backgrounds, different races, genders and identities to come together for a common purpose and communicate with each other - this is quite radical in itself, and I think it's easy to forget that. A good example of this is the multitude of conversations facilitated by music in the aftermath of the riots this summer, with my whole Twitter timeline dominated by the riots as they were happening and afterwards. Likewise a radio station like Rinse FM preserving and archiving a record of music made, presented and distributed by young, predominantly working class kids is a hugely significant thing in its own right.”

So club music IS political, even when it's not trying to be. But are we on the verge of it becoming more so, of ravers voicing resistance to entrenched power alongside the Occupy protesters? Don't count on it – after all, the instinct to close the curtains and chop out another line is still strong. US journalist, music business expert and Occupy LA campaigner Giovanna Trimble sadly points out that dance acts who may pay lip-service to anti-establishment views are slower when it comes to turning out for protests or organising benefits. “I have not seen any support from electronic dance music acts,” she says, “especially the ones who identify themselves as political beings.”

The opportunities are there, though. Trimble still holds out hope: “I feel that of all genres, EDM has the most space for activism as the demographic is far more open-minded and less 'corrupted' by corporations.” And veteran German house singer Billie Ray Martin sums up exactly why getting bodies out on the street is powerful just as “the mass feeling of possibility and power that the height of house in '88 and onwards” had produced for her. “We've lived in a time of virtual socialising,” she says, “and it's all very fake. it's easy to click 'like' on a post that says 'do you want to personally go out and change the world?' and then move on the latest video on there and not even ever think about why you clicked 'like'. I wish we would go out on the streets and shout it out – and that's where Occupy comes in. I hope it gains the kind of power it deserves. I'm there all the way. 'Like'!”

#politics #rave #acid house #techno #protest #lgbtq #georgia #bassiani #occupy

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