#tiny mention of someone being shot like just a throwaway line

[felinecryptid]

Chasing Pasts in Shadows

part 5 | part 6 | part 7

“Come on, I can't wait to hear Dustin’s snark about incomplete procedures and half assed data,” Max said as strutted into Mike’s house like she lived there. Which might not be completely false because Will thought there might be something between Karen and Susan. Max swore up and down it was friendship due the entire ‘divorcing their shitty husbands’ thing, but that could also be her baulking at the notion of being siblings with Mike.

Will closed the door behind him. They made their way into Mike’s spacious garage, where Lucas and El were munching away at a bag of twizzlers, eyes glued to something on El’s old tablet, while Dustin tapped away furiously at his laptop, headphones on.

“Hey, dude, save some for me,” Max hurried over to Lucas and El, squeezing in between them. Will narrowed his eyes at her. She smirked as she took a piece of the candy from El.

Mike slammed Dustin’s laptop shut, ignoring his ‘hey, what the fuck’. “Guys,” Mike slumped into the dingy couch where Dustin’s laptop resided moments ago. “We need to talk.”

“Never in my life have I ever heard something good after that sentence,” El handed Will a twizzler. “What is it now, Mike?”

Mike stared at her. “Max, do you want to break the news, or should I?”

Max made a ‘go on’ motion with the rest of her twizzler.

“We have to go back tomorrow-”

“-I don't see how that’s a new thing-” Lucas said through his mouthful of candy.

“- all of us.”

“What, why?” Lucas replied.

“Because its being haunted by more than one entity, and it feels really fucking evil.” Mike shuddered a little as he said it. “This mansion has areas where the paranormal traces don’t feel like they’re from an average ghost who was finding it hard to leave the living world. It feels almost invasive, intentional.”

“It feels like crawling under my skin, unlike a regular haunting.” Max added. “It was thick in the air. God, I am nauseous just thinking about it."

 "Have you ever felt anything like that before today?" El asked, taking Max's hand in hers.

"I don't think so, nothing has ever felt so intense." Max said, breathlessly. Will walked over to Mike, perching on the plush armrest. Mike reached up to entwine their fingers. Will was going to melt into the couch.

Mike's hand tightened, before he spoke, "I have."

Dustin opened his mouth for the first time that evening. "What?"

“Yeah, it was a few years ago. I was hanging out in the graveyard with Nancy, she was there to see Barb, and she asked me to give her a moment alone to talk with her. So, naturally, I went away to the furthest corner to give her some privacy, and there was this one headstone, that,” Mike cut off, but Will understood. He ran his thumb across Mike’s knuckles, trying to put all his encouragement into that small gesture. Mike looked up at Will, eyes unreadable. “Yeah, that was really fucking creepy and I just got the fuck out of there,”

There was a moment of silence.

And then everyone spoke up all at once.

“How long ago was this-”

“And you didn’t tell us?-"

“Do you remember the name-”

“Can you take me ther-”

“Holy shit, guys, let him breathe,” Will said. Mike took a deep breath.

“I don’t remember what the name was, but I can locate it again,” Mike shrugged. Will could see the tense shoulders he tried to mask. “But I really gotta say, I’m not looking forward to it at all.”

“You’ll have us this time, right by you,” Will murmured into Mike’s ear. He also didn’t miss the goosebumps that rose on Mike’s hand.

“Yeah, okay,” Mike replied, his fingers curling tighter.

“Okay guys, great talk but where's the rest of the stuff?” Dustin’s voice broke into the moment.

“Umm, what stuff?” Will asked, maybe a little pissy at the interruption.

“The cameras, the meters, the powerbanks?” Dustin gestured at the recorder in Will's hand. “The rest of the equipment? You know not to leave them in the car, the cold will fuck up their lifespan.”

“Oh well um,” Will floundered, “It’s not in the car, It’s at Reyes’”

Dustin stared at him. “What the fuck, Byers?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you seriously leave the expensive shit at a client’s house, with like, zero supervision?”

“It sounds bad when you put it like that-”

“Never mind that, it’s already done,” Lucas piped up, “Why though?”

Will could have kissed Lucas at that moment. “It’s a long story.”

“We’ve got time and the diner we were supposed to go to got shut down because someone shot the owner, so we’ve got no other plans either. Why don’t you start now?” El said, surprisingly blase about everything in that sentence. Will shook his head at his step-twin, launching into the detailed explanation about the events that transpired at Reyes’ house.

___

i have nothing to say for myself.

lemme know what you liked

as always this was edited by hemingway editor and grammarly so let me know if i missed something <3

[being-of-rain]

My thoughts on Wild Blue Yonder! A little late because the time between the 60th anniversary episodes almost exactly lined up with a visit from my girlfriend. We had a great time, and watched this episode together, but I didn't want to take enough time away from her to write this!

When I saw some EU fans joking about how the episode was going to be an adaptation of Scherzo, I wasn't prepared for how many similarities it had. And it was soooo good. I love some really fucking great Doctor Who. I loved the horror aspect, I loved the duologue aspect, I always love a mystery opening act where the Tardis team has to search for clues and theorise about where they've landed. Oh and a shape-shifter who takes on someone's whole identity and thoughts is a concept that always tickles my fancy.

One of the few nitpicks I have is that I'm not quite sure how the countdown/shifting corridors and the robot connect: if they're part of the same self-destruct system, why is the robot seemingly much older than the ship? If they're not part of the same system, why is there a countdown to the moment the robot presses the button? Why not just have the ship destroy itself, and why would the ship need to 'reconfigure itself to become a bomb' if it had a self-destruct? But (much like Heaven Sent, which the solitary shifting setting is reminiscent of,) the small logic hiccups don't really take anything away from how good the episode is.

A slightly larger nitpick is that the ending isn't the strongest, with the TARDIS coming back right when and where the Doctor was thinking that it should, and then the Doctor realising he picked the wrong Donna because of a miniscule detail (that the audience couldn't pick up on, so it feels a bit of a cheat and a cheap emotional shot). So some of RTD's most common flaws there, but again the negatives really don't stack up to much compared to the quality of the rest of it. Also, I didn't notice the Tardis screen at the end that showed a scan of Donna's arm until my rewatch, and, in classic me fashion, it put me in mind of a random Dr Who EU story. In this case, Project: Nirvana where the Doctor reveals that the Tardis automatically scanned someone coming onboard and flagged an eldritch-monster-shaped issue with her. It does make me wonder if the Doctor thought to scan Donna himself, or if the Tardis did it (and he took the credit, perhaps trying not to think about how he might never have noticed).

But that's enough with nitpicks, what are some other fantastic bits? The throwaway phrase "goosebumps like Braille" is rad as hell, and would've made a great episode title I think. I've had ideas before about the Doctor's compulsion to think and solve problems in front of him being a direct threat, so it was cool to see that idea here. The Doctor worrying about 'invoking a superstition at the edge of the universe' at the end was a vague but incredibly compelling hook for future plots, and infinitely more interesting than the Meep's final line from the previous episode. I love all the tiny subtle ways the not-things were off and unsettling, as well as all the ways that were so over-the-top that I was laughing through my shocked horror.

The Timeless Child and Flux references were fantastic peeling back of the Doctor's emotional walls, and it was nice tying in with what is technically the show's previous season, even though it came out 2 years ago now. Also... it's a little hard to mention those references without dunking on Chibnall in comparison, who didn't tap into the Doctor's emotional state anywhere near as intensely in several years as this episode did in one scene (You could tie this into the Doctor regenerates into what they need/opposite theories, with Thirteen being a relatively repressed Doctor and Ten Point Three being a relatively expressive Doctor). It was particularly nice to have the show actually establish what the consequences of the Flux actually were, because god knows Thirteen's episodes weren't interested in doing that. On my rewatch of series 13 a few months ago, I was amazed at how basically every element of the Flux is confused and contradictory, and at the end my brother and I were convinced that the Ood in the Division ship (or God Ood as we started calling him) must have reversed the very almost total destruction of the universe, because the show simply refused to acknowledge any of that destruction itself. I guess they split the difference and said half the universe. But unpicking the bizarre illogic of the Flux is a whole other post.

Keeping in mind that the next episode hasn't come out yet, Wild Blue Yonder feels wildly out of place in the middle of an anniversary trilogy. A trilogy where the bookends are RTD modern-day blockbusters filled with fan-favourite character returns and niche villains from the show's long history, and the middle is a limited-cast sci-fi psychological/eldritch horror. But that absurdity detracts from the episode in absolutely no way whatsoever.

And speaking of absurdity; the mounting hype and talk of big things happening in the next episode, on top of bringing back a long-forgotten old villain and a long-awaited new Doctor, is just making it more and more ridiculous that the episode is called The Giggle. I can't wait for it though, I'm really enjoying these specials.

[freeuselandonorris]

Here to ask for anything on just found me a brand new box of matches. ANYTHING. Lando's request for Oscar to ignore him. Their whole dynamic. I opened it to send you something specific, and just re read it three times over.

oh it's actually so perfect that this ask came in immediately after the previous one on playboy in the grotto because my thoughts on these two fics are very linked and they do actually exist strongly within the same universe for me, if it's not insanely wanky to refer to my own RPF porn one-shots as having a shared universe.

anyway! as i mentioned in the notes to the fic, i don't actually have a foot kink irl, so this was very much me accidentally awakening something in myself with the throwaway line in playboy in the grotto and just not being able to drop it. i find feet pretty icky, however the general psychology behind foot fetishes is often (though not always) related to body worship and mild degradation/humiliation (especially related to trampling and human furniture, which are lightly played with here too). feet are, in most cultures, seen as prosaic and dirty, and worshipping them (especially with one's mouth) signifies that you are symbolically lower than your partner, while simultaneously elevating the partner in status: even the lowest and dirtiest part of their body is worthy of worship! (which i highlighted by having lando notice that oscar's feet aren't even very nice feet, they're all battered because of course an elite athlete is not going to have lovely soft clean feet!)

now, i don't think lando would consciously understand any of this. but he'd know it intrinsically, and he'd be attracted to it. for someone who is pretty obsessed with mentioning how small and weak and fragile and uwu he is at all opportunities*, PLUS how much of a self-flagellating streak he has, this is all pretty potent stuff for him to be playing with.

and so, unconsciously, he leans into this desire for degradation and wanting oscar to objectify him. and oscar, also probably unconsciously, picks up on it too, which is why he introduces the light trampling elements, why he understands that lando will get off on him laughing while he's 'ignoring' lando jerking off, and why he won't let lando swallow straight away.

weirdly enough shortly after i wrote this, i came across an old post on r/FauxMoi from an influencer claiming that actual irl lando sent her horny foot DMs a few years ago. very uncool to dox someone's preferences like that, might not even be true at all, but god it made me laugh. my kink radar is on point!

* god this post is already far too long BUT here's some bonus lunacy from my gutter brain for you: shortly after writing this i had a sudden, lightning-bolt realisation that lando is exactly the right combination of chronically online, obsessed with being tiny and manhandled, and extreme sensation/adrenaline seeking to have a vore kink. so uhhh i guess i'm going to write that insanity at some point?

thank you so much!!

fic writers: director's cut

[givehimthemedicine]

Eleven, Terry Ives, Will, and Firestarter

Thinking about how we might beat Vecna in season 5, and about how 008 is the only other one out there besides 001 and 011.. but actually no she's not exactly.

It's well established how much ST loves Firestarter. Not only with 80s flavor references like its poster hanging in the window of Steve and Robin's video store, but also heavy plot borrowing for Eleven's powers and backstory.

(In Firestarter, a man and woman are participants in some drug experiments, basically MKUltra by a different name. This gives the guy mind control powers a lot like 008's (and nose bleeds when he uses them) and the woman a little bit of telekinesis. Then they have a baby and it's Drew Barrymore and she can start fires with her mind and government agents chase them about it, killing the mom and kidnapping DB to use her as a weapon.)

I don't know why nobody ever talks about this, but Eleven's mom is a little bit telekinetic.

She makes the lights flicker to get El's attention. She changes the channels on the TV, and it's not purely by screwing around with electricity or whatever, she's physically changing the channels (look at the knob turning, they showed us El changing channels in Hop's cabin exactly the same way). Her nose bleeds. And this has nothing to do with El channeling her yet because El is surprised by the TV.

If Terry has been telekinetic all this time, how could her sister/primary caretaker/housemate be unaware of it? Well, Aunt Becky has about 8 lines and most of them are just to hammer home what a big ol skeptic she is about ghosts, religion, psionic abilities, you name it. When the lights flicker she tells El "oh yeah they do that sometimes, it's just the wiring". This isn't new to her. She also mentions a "crazy Aunt Shirley who thinks the house is haunted" which could mean the lights, or, what would make someone think a house haunted more than objects moving on their own?

Terry has been doing minor acts of telekinesis for 12 years trying to get her family's attention and they just never looked.

Oh maybe Terry doesn't exactly have powers, maybe the lights thing is more akin to Will spelling with the Christmas lights, or maybe the shock torture gave her some kind of electrical abilities? Nope. Remember when Hopper and Joyce went to visit Terry and Aunt Becky in season 1 and her dialogue literally namedropped Stephen King?

Becky: Terry pretends like Jane is real, like she's gonna come home someday. Says she's special. Born with abilities. Joyce: Abilities? Becky: You read any Stephen King? (chuckles) You guys look scared. I mean, it's all make-believe. Joyce: What kind of abilities? Becky: Telepathy, telekinesis. You know, shit you can do with your mind.

Why on earth would Terry randomly figure her newborn baby to have psionic abilities unless she herself already had them to pass on? Why would Brenner steal the baby unless he thought so too? Her conscious mind may be scrambled but she's still in control of her powers. 008 isn't the only other one out there.

Of course, isn't a huge element missing from this Firestarter homage.. fire?

I'm pretty sure Eleven is pyrokinetic.

There's a tiny throwaway flashback of El's life in the woods between seasons 1 and 2 where she kills and cooks a squirrel. We are not shown how she starts the fire.

I really don't see how she would've randomly learned how to make a campfire in her 6 days outside of the lab. Even if she did know, it's hella difficult to start a friction fire even with dry sticks, and it's snowy out there. There's no shot of her finding a lighter in the pocket of that shirt (whose shirt is that?). It's actually kinda hard to get a sustained campfire going even with tools if you don't already know what you're doing, which, why would she?

I believe this kid is pyrokinetic, and with heat/fire being key in defeating UD stuff so far, it's gotta come into play in season 5. It wouldn't be the first time El whipped out some seemingly new power that was actually established ages ago (making the bully pee his pants is I guess the same ability as restarting Max's heart)

Another troubling thought is that Firestarter's incredibly strong pyrokinesis is explained as the result of inheriting psionic powers from both parents. Terry "didn't know she was pregnant during the experiments" but that doesn't tell us exactly when she got pregnant, before or during. If during, using Firestarter logic, El's father would be a man with psionic powers, and I'm really hoping that could mean some random fellow-test-subject dude instead of.. y'know. 001 being El's father :/

Anyway, back to the fire thing, you know there's this other little fella who has a lot to do with fire?

Joyce: If he's so wise, why does he need fireballs? Can't he just, you know, outsmart the bad guys? Will: Most of the time, yeah, totally. But sometimes the bad guys are smart, too. You know? Joyce: Yeah. So he needs the fireballs? Will: Well, yeah. To burn them to a crisp.

Will absolutely has to do something big with fire in 5.

In conclusion, I wanna see Willel burn Vecna's shit, and if Mama wants to help somehow too that's cool, thank you for coming to my Ted talk

[tossawary]

I need to know more about “SVSSS - Baby Brother Liu Qingge” bc I love tiny and very deadly baby LQG

I have a 3k-ish Shang Qinghua POV that was supposed to be the introduction to this fic concept! So... ah... baby Liu Qingge does not appear in this, but you can see the setup for how an 8yo-ish Liu Qingge was supposed to be introduced. My hope is that this will someday become a "Shang Qinghua and Shen Jiu go on a mission with Baby Brother Liu Qingge" one shot.

-cut-

Shang Qinghua didn't really have the words to describe what it was like having Proud Immortal Demon Way's characters finally come into his second life.

He didn't have the words to describe a lot of his transmigration experience, honestly! His words had described a lot of this world already, haha, hadn't they? Sometimes a person just had to put up with it and keep going.

And then excuse himself later to go scream into a pillow! Many times!

At first, life was just him in a body that didn't fit and strange memories that slipped between his fingers like sand. His memories of a past life had settled eventually, the System finally came fully online, and his relationship with his second family was fully fucked forever. That was fine, though! That was fine! With some unsolicited prodding from his System, he left to go seek his fortune soon enough and he never had to talk to his character's birth parents or siblings again.

But Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky had never said much of anything about Shang Qinghua’s family or home village, besides saying that the man had dreamed of more than his mediocre origins, so everything had been unfamiliar and original and real. Getting to Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, which he had described in great detail, was a real headfuck. There were no words for the experience of recognizing things that he’d written in another life.

He saw the glistening rainbow bridge and the intimidating sect entrance and the majestic meeting hall on Qiong Ding, and he nearly screamed. He definitely squawked. His vision got really fuzzy for a minute there and he had to sit down on the ground before he fell over. What the fuck?! What the fuck?! He’d made a world! The System had really made a world out of his web-novel! He was really stuck in Proud Immortal Demon Way!

There were upsides and downsides to joining Cang Qiong Mountain Sect. Downsides included: the hard training, the harder workload, the dangerous missions, the disrespect towards An Ding Peak, and being surrounded by arrogant and foolish teenagers looking to look down on someone. It was really something else to look some of them in the eye and think, "Bro, I don’t know your name, but you kind of owe your existence to me. Could you stop being such a fucking asshole about leaving your chores for me to do?! Respect your father!"

Upsides included: actually becoming a cultivator (pretty cool, even though the work of cultivation sucked more often than not), better living accommodations and food, and actually getting to see some of the cooler places, plants, monsters, and magic that were a part of his world. Sure, carting a monster corpse brought in by Bai Zhan Peak to Xi Jiao Peak for butchering was smelly and heavy and altogether miserable, but seeing an impossible animal was still kind of incredible. If this unwilling Shang Qinghua could stop being pushed around and stepped on long enough to appreciate the upsides, he’d really appreciate it!

It was interesting and infuriating to log the differences between what he’d imagined, what he’d written, and what the System had created. What sort of author described every single object in every single room? Who had time for that? Who wanted to read that? The System had filled in all the living details of An Ding Peak - the Leisure Houses, the training grounds, the storehouses, the warehouses, the kitchens, the lesson halls, the leisure gardens, the farming fields, the livestock fields, the stables, the cart lot, the water supply, the sewage systems, and so on - so that people could actually live here. Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky as an author had done many things worthy of complaint and criticism, but wasting his readers’ time with sewage systems was not one of them!

The System had also filled in all the little details and decorations - the paintings on the walls of sect history, the detailing on the rooftops supposedly offering protections from dream demons, the chipped and faded paint of old storehouses that disciples would be tasked with replacing, the statues in the fields to scare off scavengers, the carvings on the doors meant to reduce resentful energy, the childish etchings of bored students the surface of the lesson hall desks, the old bench where the An Ding Peak Lord liked to sit and eat flatcakes - so that it really seemed like people had built this place and maintained it and added to it for generations.

Shang Qinghua had his quibbles here and there. Sometimes the System had made choices that he objected to! He would have done it differently if it had asked him, the author, to contribute. He really felt as though the System should have asked him to clarify the plot holes and the gaps in detail, instead of choosing precedence randomly or building off random implications taken way too literally.

Sometimes he found out that the System had built things out of throwaway lines that Shang Qinghua himself had completely forgotten about. It turned out that Ku Xing Peak made a lot of purification tools and containment vessels because Airplane had offhandedly mentioned that this was their specialty, and now Shang Qinghua had to cart around delicate ceramics to be sold to city merchants or other cultivation sects. He never would have dared to write that if he’d known that it would one day in another life be his job to do things like take inventory and chase down signatures for successful deliveries.

Places, items, and creatures were one thing, but logging the differences between the people he met and the characters he’d created was something else. At first it was okay, because he was surrounded by nameless An Ding Peak nobodies - his fellow disciples, their teachers, the hardworking managers and merchants, even the peak lord - none of them had ever mattered in Proud Immortal Demon Way. If Airplane had been the one to name any of them, he didn’t recognize the names or remember them.

Then he met Yue Qingyuan.

Wow, it was a worse headfuck than first arriving at Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, when Shang Qinghua finally realized that this was the young version of one of his actual characters. It took him a minute. As a lowly outer disciple, Shang Qinghua hadn’t received “Qinghua” as a name yet (his name was Houhua, not that anyone ever used it) and the future Yue Qingyuan was still called Yue Qi.

Shang Qinghua was fourteen at the time. Yue Qingyuan must have been around the same age, so he didn’t strike the tall and handsome figure of the sect leader Airplane had described. The boy was broad, but actually a little short. He had freckles. He had acne.

But he also had a warm smile that seemed to go all the way to his eyes when he offered to give Shang Qinghua directions to the right office on Qiong Ding. He had a steady hand when he helped Shang Qinghua up, after the An Ding disciple had suddenly tripped over nothing upon being introduced. Yue Qingyuan - Yue Qi - walked him to the right office and did his best to make small talk, friendly and kind even though Shang Qinghua was having difficulty stringing more than a few words together in his shock.

Even then, it was obvious that the boy was developing the calm surety and the social charm that would make him a greatly admired sect leader someday! It was all Shang Qinghua could do not to blurt out: “Holy shit, you’re REAL?!” Which would be closely followed by: “Hey, is Shen Qingqiu really real too?!” And then maybe closely followed by: “FUCK!!!”

As the years went by, Shang Qinghua met more of Proud Immortal Demon Way’s characters, and it was weird every time. None of them were exactly like he was expecting. He kept expecting… well… he kept expecting them to look like the fanart, like flawless character models, more or less. Instead, he kept getting… people.

Wei Qingwei, head disciple of the sword-focused Wan Jian Peak, was also shorter than he was expecting, kind of stout, with a wide face and a wider smile. Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky had apparently had the man crack a few jokes upon his rare appearances in the web-novel, usually during tense situations, as he was reminded by the System upon thinking to himself: “Why is this guy LIKE THIS?!” So, because of just a few lines, the real Wei Qingwei had a relentless sense of humor and loved telling jokes.

Upon their first meeting, when Shang Qinghua was fifteen and had been sent over to help renovate some Wan Jian dormitories, fifteen-year-old Wei Qingwei had pretended to fumble a sword and, using a packet of dye and a sleight of hand, made it look like he’d accidentally cut off his own hand at the wrist. Of course Shang Qinghua had screamed and panicked! Anyone would panic! But Wei Qingwei had laughed at him and said, “Got you! Shang-Shidi, the sword wasn’t even unsheathed!” Asshole!

Qi Qingqi, the head disciple of Xian Shu Peak, was much taller than he was expecting. Apparently Airplane had once described a group of some of the peak lords by saying something like: “Each one of them was like a giant to young Luo Binghe.” That group had included Qi Qingqi. The System apparently had taken that to mean that Qi Qingqi was of a height with the likes of Yue Qingyuan and Shen Qingqiu. Shang Qinghua discovered this adaptational choice when he was almost sixteen, when this giraffe-like girl came to An Ding Peak to complain about an order someone along the pipeline had dropped completely, and he accidentally found himself (still waiting on a really good growth spurt) eye-level with Qi Qingqi’s chest.

Airplane had apparently once said in Proud Immortal Demon Way that Qian Cao Peak Lord Mu Qingfang appeared a little older than his colleagues, by which he’d probably meant that the man was just tired or something, but this head disciple Mu Qingfang appeared to have ten years on all the other head disciples. Which was good! Shang Qinghua approved of their future head healer not being a teenager and having more training!

On the bad side of things, Airplane had also once said in Proud Immortal Demon Way that the Zui Xian Peak Lord Zhang Qingyan liked his drink too much. This was the peak specializing in alcohol, so it had seemed to make sense! It was supposed to be funny, if anything! Well, at sixteen, Shang Qinghua found out that the System had focused too much on the “too much” part of that statement and now the head disciple of Zui Xian Peak was pretty clearly a budding alcoholic. (Sometimes a cultivator’s constitution and ability to “cure” themselves just… made a person drink more. A lot more.) Which was… not good.

At seventeen, Shang Qinghua met Mobei-Jun.

He didn’t know where to get started with Mobei-Jun.

Somehow he’d… forgotten that Mobei-Jun had been originally based on Airplane’s idea of “the perfect man” and not the super pretty, muscular but slim-waisted protagonist type? The real Mobei-Jun was… tall… and big… and thick. Mobei-Jun’s intimidating features were… more striking than pretty. The first time Shang Qinghua had come back to his Leisure House and found this spoiled brat of an ice demon napping shirtless on his bed, and gotten an eyeful of all that heavy muscle and chest hair, he’d nearly knocked himself out on the doorframe trying to turn away before he had a heart attack.

Mobei-Jun really was going to be the death of him, holy shit.

Especially because this ice demon really was a spoiled brat! Airplane had described this character as being arrogant and apathetic, so now Shang Qinghua had to deal with a Mobei-Jun who took long baths and then carelessly dripped water all over the floor and all over fresh sheets! Who ate all of Shang Qinghua’s cooking and ungratefully only demanded more food, sprawled over furniture not really fit for someone of his size, and then watched Shang Qinghua like a fat tiger! Ahhh, this demon really was lucky he was handsome!

Mobei-Jun was also kind of violent, and mean, which was… well, it sucked.

Back to the sect that Shang Qinghua was now actively betraying, however, as far as he could see, there was still one future peak lord missing.

It wasn’t Shen Qingqiu, who Shang Qinghua had thought would be the last one to show up. Shen Qingqiu had shown up and had been advancing through the ranks of Qing Jing Peak before Shang Qinghua had even met Mobei-Jun, which meant that Yue Qingyuan had finally stopped looking like someone had torn out his soul. (Shang Qinghua had been forced to grit his teeth every time that someone mentioned how privileged that Yue Qingyuan was to have been granted that year of secluded cultivation in the Lingxi Caves at such a young age.)

No, of all the peak lords, it was Liu Qingge who Shang Qinghua had yet to meet.

After meeting Mobei-Jun and becoming an inner disciple, the System had given Shang Qinghua three years to make it to head disciple, probably because the deadline for a new generation of peak lords to ascend was fast approaching. He was working hard to achieve that! Not only did he have to sabotage the current favorite, but he had to make sure all his own training, missions, work, and research were as close to flawless as he could get it! All while keeping an intruding ice demon happy! He wasn’t totally sure that he was going to make it at this rate, even though he’d been here for years.

So it was a little concerning that Liu Qingge hadn't shown up yet. There was so much left to do. A world-state that had yet to be established. Liu Qingge had work to do here!

Liu Qingge and Shen Qingqiu still had to develop a hatred for each other as disciples that would extend to everyone believing that Shen Qingqiu had murdered Liu Qingge as peak lords, after all. Granted, all Liu Qingge really had to do was beat everyone else on Bai Zhan Peak up to obtain the position, and it wasn’t exactly hard to get Shen Qingqiu to develop a lifelong grudge, but the guy was still cutting it pretty close.

It was possible that Liu Qingge was already on Bai Zhan Peak and making good progress, but that he was just so solitary and focused on searching out the next big battle that Shang Qinghua had just never had the opportunity to meet him. Shang Qinghua did his best to avoid Bai Zhan Peak most of the time, honestly! He was curious about where Liu Qingge was, about what the man looked like, but he didn’t let himself sweat at not seeing the future war god, when he already had so many things to sweat about. The System had taken care of bringing in everyone else, so Shang Qinghua was sure that Liu Qingge would follow sooner or later.

Shang Qinghua’s first sign that something was wrong was that, on the day that Liu Qingge finally announced his existence by beating up everyone on Bai Zhan Peak, everyone was saying things like, “I can’t believe some kid managed to topple all of Bai Zhan like that!”

He… may or may not have ignored this sign.

To be fair to this poor writer-turned-disciple, though, he’d been up all night finishing some paperwork catastrophe the An Ding Peak Lord had thrown at him to fix, as some kind of “test” of his logistics skills. Upon hearing the latest gossip, Shang Qinghua thought, “Oh, finally?” And then his overtired brain collapsed from the effort of thinking two words together in a sentence, and all he could manage from there was to feel the intense need to go to bed at a maximum, static-y volume. No words. No more thinky thoughts. Just the need for speedy sleep.

He stumbled through the rest of his day and then passed out for 18 hours straight. In hindsight, this would have been the time when the gossip was at its hottest. He missed all of it.

When he woke up, everyone was still dealing with the aftermath of what had happened on Bai Zhan Peak, but the conversation had shifted more towards replacing Qian Cao Peak’s depleted supplies and the repairs to Bai Zhan’s training grounds. Liu Qingge was the name on everyone’s lips, still, but everyone knew the basic information now. Now, everyone was just exclaiming over and over again how unbelievably young (and pretty) he was to have bested every other disciple on the sect battle-focused peak. This didn't seem too strange.

The System probably would have based the War God's appearance on his sister, Liu Mingyan, a strong contender for the most beautiful woman in all of Proud Immortal Demon Way. Liu Qingge apparently being a very pretty boy fell neatly into line with all the other character design surprises that Shang Qinghua had gotten smacked with so far.

If Airplane had known that he'd be transmigrating into his novel, maybe there would have been even more handsome men! And everyone would have lived happily ever after and nothing bad would have happened ever, probably, but also there might be more sexy guys too.

-

TBC

[pucksnsticksnhockeyboys]

reputations part two

part one

summary: you’re determined to make Matt see that you’re not too good for him.

warnings: mentions of alcohol

word count: 3.2k

note from the writer: sorry for everything I put you guys through with the first part, I hope this makes up for it :)

You hated that you were such a good person.

Maybe if you weren’t such a people-pleaser, you would’ve been able to cut Matt out of your life. Maybe you would have been able to call him on his bullshit when he said you couldn’t be happy with him. But instead, you both were acting as if that night on your front lawn never happened.

And you sure as hell weren’t happy without him.

At the end of summer, you ended up going back to Calgary the same time Matt needed to, so with the help of the Tkachuks, minus Brady who went off to Ottawa a week earlier, you moved into your new apartment within a day.

You were certain that your families knew something had happened between you and Matt, you weren’t joking with each other as often and you really weren’t as touchy-feely with each other as before. That was probably the biggest indicator that something was wrong, and your mom pulled you aside halfway through the summer to see if anything was wrong. You forced a smile onto your face, assuring her everything was fine and it was just the stress of getting a new job and moving to a different country that was getting to you.

And if you weren’t such a good person, you probably wouldn’t have found yourself squished between Johnny Gaudreau and Sam Bennett at some dive bar at midnight a few months into the season.

You met his teammates over the years when you would visit with Matt’s family or come up on your own for a weekend when you were still in college, and now that you lived in Calgary, it was decided that you were to be invited out to bars with them whenever they met up. There was an obvious tension between you and Matt, but none of them seemed to care as a group of you shoved into one tiny booth. Noah and Elias had offered to pick up drinks at the bar for the table, leaving you sitting between Johnny and Sam with Matt sitting on the opposite side.

“So have you met any guys since you’ve been here?” Johnny asked you with a smug grin and you wondered if it was intentional because Sam chuckled and Matt made a sound as if he was choking on air.

“Uh, haven’t really been looking.” You told him with a forced smile. You kept the part about how you were waiting for Matt to come to his senses to yourself, but from the way the curly haired boy in question was studying the table intently you gathered he picked up on the hidden meaning of your words.

“Well, when you come to the game tomorrow, I’ve got an extra Bennett jersey you can wear.” Now you knew for a fact that they were doing it on purpose, because as he spoke, Sam’s gaze didn’t leave Matt and he was smirking. Johnny laughed loudly as Matt’s head whipped up, his eyes narrowed at his blonde teammate.

“No!” He said a little too quickly. You raised a brow at him, but he tilted his head back with a groan. “No, she can only wear my jersey, it’s good luck.”

“Because you’re really superstitious.” Noah teased sarcastically as he and Elias reappeared with drinks in hand. You couldn’t help the way the corner of your lips turned up at the fact that his teammates were onto his ridiculous behavior. Matt was never one for intricate rituals before games, but one thing he always made sure of whenever you went to see him play was that you wore one of his jerseys. But if he was going to be childish, then so were you.

“You know what, Sam, I think I just might take you up on that.” You joined in, taking a swig of the drink Elias placed in front of you as you gauged Matt’s reaction. He looked shocked, and you immediately regretted your words as he silently looked down at the bottle of beer Noah had pressed into his hands moments earlier.

Elias changed the topic of conversation soon after, and you were thankful for the distraction. You sipped your drink silently, much quieter than you probably would be and Matt barely said a word. And when he slipped out of the booth to get himself a refill, you followed after, shooting Johnny a sympathetic smile for leaving halfway through his story.

You made a mental note to apologize to him later, but at the moment Matt was your priority. He always was, if you were being honest with yourself.

“Hey, Matty.” You tried, bringing back the nickname that you hadn’t used in a while. It felt different on your tongue all the while feeling the same, like you should have been calling him that this whole time. He glanced at you and quickly returned his attention to the bar, but when you reached a hand out to squeeze his forearm and he turned to face you, you knew you had his attention. “I was just kidding, earlier, you know.”

“I guess.” He huffed, shrugging his shoulders as if it wasn’t a huge deal and that it wasn’t affecting him so blatantly. It wasn’t like he didn’t know what you were talking about, you could see in his eyes and in the slump of his shoulders that he was still thinking about your throwaway comment to Sam about his jersey. You pouted at his response, and took a sip of your drink as you thought about what to say to convince him.

But you didn’t have to, because there was a commotion behind you, and when you turned to see what was going on you were faced with a guy clearly not taking no for an answer, bothering some poor girl. Before you could even think to intercede, Matt’s large frame slid into view and he was shoving the creep off the girl.

You asked her if she was okay, and when her only response was a trembling lip and glassy eyes you grabbed her hand to lead her to the bathroom to get her some space and time to compose herself. On your way through the crowd, you shot a glance over your shoulder to find Matt in the face of the creep, making sure that he didn’t follow you and the girl.

You wondered how he thought he wasn’t a good person.

The boiling point came a few days later.

It was late at night and after a game that hadn’t gone in the favor of the Flames, and you weren’t sure what exactly had set you off, but you stormed into Matt’s apartment building furious and on a mission. Maybe it was that fact that his mom had called you that afternoon to check up on you or the fact that his words from all those months ago when you had kissed him had been bouncing around in your head relentlessly. But it all fell into place somehow and you found yourself knocking on his door without giving him any prior warning that you would be coming over. You knew he would be home sulking after a loss like the one he had just suffered, because you knew him.

You knew he hated the way you made your coffee and that he loved getting under your skin just to hear you whine his name with a smile to try and get him to stop. You knew he was just as much of a romantic as you were but didn’t like to admit it and that he was insecure about his ability to live up to his dad’s legacy. When Danny Baker from three streets up told Matt that he would never be in the NHL, you punched him.

You probably did more damage to your hand than to his face, but the thought was there.

“You don’t get to do this to me, Matthew.” You huffed before he could get a word in as soon as his front door opened. His eyes went wide and you could tell he knew you meant business. You couldn’t remember the last time you had called him by his full name, let alone shown up on his doorstep angry.

“I—” He started, but you shook your head, brushing past him and storming inside his apartment. You were upset, and frustrated, and just needed to vent your feelings to someone. And who better than the person that put you in the situation in the first place?

“You don’t get to decide whether or not you deserve me or whatever bullshit excuse you came up with. I decide. It’s my choice.” You were pacing his kitchen now, and after your initial burst of anger, you were slowing. “Matt, if you don’t like me, just say it. Don’t feed me lines to try and let me down easy. I’ve earned that after all these years.”

“I like you. I really, really, like you. But—” The desperation in your voice spurred him to answer, but it wasn’t the one you wanted. You had a feeling you knew what the answer was. Brady had teased him for years about liking you and neither boy knew the definition of subtle.

“No bullshit, Matthew. Yes or no?” You huffed, wanting a straight answer. You were tired of wondering, tired of spending an hour each night before falling asleep whether or not things could be different. You just needed to know.

“I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you.” His quiet words had you pushing off the counter you were leaning against and crossing the kitchen. You shoved aside the warm feeling you got when he said he’s in love with you and instead tried to focus on the moment, knowing that what you said next was crucial towards how your relationship pans out.

“I can’t be happy without you, Matt. I don’t care about your reputation. When are you going to learn that?” Your feet carried you to stand before him, one hand cupping his jaw while the other curved around the back of his neck. His hands came to rest on your waist on instinct, and you hesitated under the vulnerability in his eyes that hadn’t been there a moment earlier. “I know you, the real you. I don’t care what the media says, and I certainly don’t listen to a word that comes out of Doughty or Kassian’s mouths.”

Your comment about his known rivals had him chuckling, and you tentatively smiled as he dropped his head down so his forehead rested against yours. Your heart was racing, and you felt as if you were getting somewhere.

“I was an ass, huh?” He settled on saying with a breathy chuckle. His blue eyes bore into yours, and though you weren’t sure what he was searching for you knew he only found truth and love. You shook your head slightly, the movement only detectable because of your proximity but it was enough to get your message across.

“You were insecure, Matt, which is fine. You’re allowed to be. But you need to talk to me, especially about something like this.” You told him, thumb brushing across his cheek as you spoke. He took a moment to think about your words, and you gave him all the time he needed. You were familiar with the feeling of being uncertain of yourself, and how uncomfortable it was to feel as if you weren’t good enough. You could only hope that Matt was able to seem himself the way you saw him.

“Okay.” He mumbled after a moment, dropping his head to the crook of your neck while pulling you fully into his chest. One of your hands threaded into the curls at the back of his head while the other wrapped around his middle, holding him in place.

“Yeah?” You hummed into his chest, pressing a kiss there through the fabric of his shirt. He nodded, and you felt more than saw the action. You tugged on his hair after a moment, signalling for him to lift his head up. When he did, you pressed a kiss to his jaw, and then the corner of his mouth, before finally landing on his lips with a content sigh.

It was slower than the first time you kissed on your front lawn. Back then you were rushed and excited from landing the job in Calgary and confessing how you felt for him. Now, it was slow and calculated, and you were savoring every moment, trying to convey to him just how much he meant to you.

“Stay the night?” Matt asked, and it was easy for you to say yes. It was late, and you were exhausted from both a hard day at work and your outburst of anger. Matt smiled tiredly when you nodded, pressing one last lazy kiss to your lips before leading you by your hand towards his bedroom.

He kissed you as he handed you one of his shirts to sleep in and kissed once more as you slipped out of his bathroom after changing. You kissed him as soon as he laid down, and again as you climbed in beside him. You weren’t sure how much time had passed, but you were sharing lazy and slow kisses like your life depended on it.

“I should have just talked to you.” Matt spoke quietly into the dark a few minutes after you had settled in to sleep. You felt the vibrations of his chest when he talked from where you were laying half draped across him, and it was oddly comforting. You chuckled at his statement, and since you grew up with Matthew and Brady and Keith, you couldn’t help your next comment.

“You’re not getting an argument from me, Matty.”

—

“Matt, your girlfriend is outside.” Brady teased, shoving his brother’s shoulder playfully. Matt shot up from where he was seated at the kitchen island, ignoring his family’s jabs at how eager he was to see you, despite the fact that not only two hours ago you had been in their kitchen helping Chantal make a few dishes for the barbeque the Tkachuks were throwing later in the day.

He really couldn’t argue his family’s comments now.

Matt grinned when he spotted you sunning in your yard like always. He bought you a twelve pack of sunscreen as a joke for your birthday, and you rolled your eyes at him in the way that he found absolutely adorable. He made his way to the fence, cataloging your appearance. Speaker to your left, sunglasses on your nose, and his favorite swimsuit of yours on.

You grinned the moment you heard the Tkachuks back door open and shut, knowing it was Matt. You could feel his eyes on your body, the same way you always did whenever he caught you tanning. You wondered how he ever thought he was being subtle before you got together. Now, he got to openly admire you, and he did often.

“Hey, gorgeous.” Matt called over the fence, making you snort. Over the course of your relationship, you had learned that he was big on complimenting you. And you would be the last person to complain about it.

“Hey, Matty.” You called back, pushing yourself up and leaning back on your hands. For a second, Matt didn’t respond, only watched you with a grin on his face. You raised a brow at him, questioning him silently and that seemed to spur him on.

“C’mere.” Matt nodded with his head in his direction, and that was all it took for you to stand to your feet and cross the short distance to the fence. He was leaning with his forearms across it, head resting on his chin. You pushed yourself up to your tip-toes and pressed a quick kiss to his lips before settling back down on flat feet. Matt hummed in content, his eyes staying closed a second or two longer after the kiss ended and you admired what the summer sun did to your boyfriend.

“I can’t believe that we could have been doing that since middle school.” Matt joked, and you rolled your eyes.

“We could’ve been doing that all last summer, too, if you had just talked to me.” You chirped, unable to let the opportunity pass through your fingertips.

“You’re going to hold that over me until the day I die, huh?” He groaned playfully, pouting his lips for another kiss you couldn’t help but give him. You agreed with a hum and a teasing grin, feeling nothing but love through your whole body under your boyfriend’s gaze. Before you could respond, your phone started ringing from where you left it on your towel.

Matt, ever the gentleman, admired the roses your mom had planted the week before as you bent over to pick up the device, but also was a simple man in love, and couldn’t help it if his gaze landed on you for a moment.

You ignored him, checking the number that was calling you to see a Calgary area code. Matt watched you as you answered, grinning to himself when he saw your wide smile. He listened to you thank whoever was on the line profusely, and after you bid them goodbye and hung up you squealed in excitement. Matt chuckled as you bounded over to him, grabbing his face with both your hands and pulling him over the edge of the fence to connect your lips.

“We got the house.” You mumbled against his lips and Matt pulled back with a surprised look on his face, though he was still smiling because he was with you, and there was no way he could not smile when you were looking at him with the utmost love in your eyes.

“You’re serious?” And though Matt spent nearly his entire life thankful for the fence between his yard and yours, there was nothing more than it that he hated in that moment. He held up one finger, as if to tell you to hold one for a minute, before he took a step back and hopped over the fence.

“Matthew!” You chided, because the fence was just tall enough that he shouldn’t be doing that, but you weren’t given the chance to tell him that because he was sweeping you into his arms for a hug.

“Can you tell my mom we’re moving in together?” He mumbled into the crook of your neck. You pulled back, looking at him with a confused expression. You were certain that he had told Chantal already, but from the sheepish grin he was giving you, you realized he was being serious.

“You haven’t told her?” You sighed, exasperated but in good fun. Instead of responding right away, Matt ducked his head down to press his lips to yours for a quick kiss. Though he was usually a pretty good distraction, this was different. “Matt, we just bought a house.”

“I don’t want her to call me soft.” He was joking, but you rolled your eyes at him nonetheless. Matt closed his eyes in content as you ran your fingers through his curls. The way he was acting was completely contradictory towards what he had just said, but he couldn’t find it in him to care.

“You are soft, Matty.” He chuckled, though he couldn’t argue.

He never could argue when it came to you.

[ifeveristoday]

I got out my DVDs for this rewatch (that’s not actually a big deal. I only have season 3 on DVD. 😂) so let’s get to it.

I forgot they did a cold open for this episode!

I know it’s for ambiance but man does Angel have a lot of candles displayed. Probably too ‘mainstream’ for his taste but the thought of Angel furtively going to a Bath and Bodyworks in the mall during their semi-annual sale and just buying out their whole candle selection gives me the purest joy. Let’s be real though, Angel would shop at some boutique/hole in the wall owned by a wizened old character with a twinkle in their eye and everything marked up 20%. Or it would be a steel and glass monstrosity with a collection labeled Candles for Men. That’s the range.

Back to the enormous fire hazard that this scene is -

Wait. Does fire burn on stone?

Shout out to the stunt doubles.

I think that Angel getting food for Buffy for a sort of alfresco picnic while training is really sweet, actually. Also, can't miss the opportunity for both carbs and phallic symbolism ala bread.

Everyone is so embarrassingly horny in this moment. I'd say get a room except they're in a whole giant mansion.

Always remember the bread! What did Angel do with the food after Buffy fled? Fed the no-doubt cursed pigeons that live in Sunnydale.

Thanks for the workout (insert stereotypical dirty laugh).

Oh yes, the awkward 'let's talk about your birthday without mentioning the last birthday you had at all because it's horrifying' chitchat. God, the anxiety Angel is radiating here and Buffy trying to smooth it over. You can't unfrost that trauma cake!

Angel, you utter dork. You're lucky Buffy finds you pretty. Very powerful himbo energy here. And it's nice to see some light-hearted flirting/banter between them.

How do you know when someone's aura's dirty? Buffy is only asking the reasonable questions everyone has.

Do you hear yourself, Giles. "I'm aware of your distaste in studying vibratory stones..." I can't imagine what that section of the Slayer handbook looks like. Are there pull-out charts?

Faith being conveniently gone for this episode. Boo, hiss.

That workout really did a number on Buffy. I see what you're doing with those crystals.

One of the sad parts of rewatching Buffy is that you just don't have the first time discovery feels of watching it - that magic is gone, but even though I know why Buffy's wobbling in her fight, the reveal is still upsetting. Thinking about how in Season 5, when she does get staked, just as she's questioning her powers - and here, where she's losing them.

Also, obvious observation is obvious - the sexual violence imagery is really, really blatant here - with the vampire crouched over her with the stake aimed toward her heart, just as she playfully staked Angel earlier in a more romantically set scene.

AND THEN THE THEME KICKS IN. Like, damn! Three minutes and you can pretty much tell what the plot is going to be - Buffy and Angel's UST is getting out of hand, Buffy's lone Rangering it, and something is wrong with her. And it's her birthday.

And Buffy's resourcefulness saves the day.

Perhaps you shouldn't be throwing knives in the library, Buffy.

Did they do a geography lesson on Cuernavaca? It's also just fun to say. Like La Cienega. Brief moment to ponder yet again about a show set in Southern California, actually shot in Southern California, with the huge Latine population we have and the Spanish-influenced names and culture and - getting sidetracked by all this casual 90s racism.

"We do it every year for my birthday," except your seventeenth, presumably because of the murderous ex-boyfriend stalking the town you live in and all your loved ones. [Or, he did take her and it was not shown on screen!] Sometimes I wonder if the continuity editors just go, you know, I'm going to let this one go for the 'emotion' and not just so years later, a Virgo with a deep-seated need to obsess over throwaway details will go into a thought spiral to make it make sense.

I think this is also the last time Hank Summers was spoken of with any real affection because then he was Deadbeat Dad for the remainder of the show. Oh, look. The Scoobies are surprised about the traditional birthday ice show that I'm going to nitpick about forever.

Oz is so supportive, and then the clunker of a 'deep' line of ice being cool because it's water then it's not. I do like the Whedonesque school of dialogue, but sometimes you gotta reel it back. I remember the dialogue on Dawson's Creek was getting pinged for the teenagers talking like grad students.

Quiet reflection. Oh you poor girl, you have no idea.

Quarterly projections - is a convincing filler phrase for when you don't need to know what the job is, because it's boring but sounds vaguely official. What does Hank actually do? Who cares! He's an asshole.

Sunnydale Arms, because of course, Sunnydale has a broken down abandoned murder hotel.

Quentin Travers. Boo. Hiss.

The scary music is very scary. Also one of the Council flunkies looks like a very young Vincent D'Onofrio.

This scene with them in the library is so bittersweet because Buffy is fishing for Giles's attention as a father figure substitute ("very sophisticated people go!" breaks my heart) and he pointedly is rejecting this for training talk.

Look for the flaw at its center. THE FLAW IS YOU GILES. YOU YOU YOU.

it's just so terrible, this scene because of how methodical and clinical it plays out. And Buffy is just not there, and then Giles smiles like nothing has happened.

Buffy makes it through another night - next day (another reason why this trial is so horrifying is that it takes place over several days - it's not on Buffy's birthday but leading up to it, so the idea of her getting weaker and weaker and unable to fight to make it to 18 in the first place) and it's time for the Cordelia has had enough of toxic masculinity scene!

Also, Willow blithely ignoring a person's feelings and treating Amy as just a rat is played for laughs and cuteness, but yeah...you can't treat people like puppets or rats [law and order sound]

I love Cordelia's coat. And also, while it does suck that she stood him up, he's not entitled to her time or attention and certainly not to threaten her. Go, Cordy! Fight like a girl! Yes! Pummel him into the hallway.

I also love Willow's outfit here because I think the colors are so complementary and warm and it's a cute outfit. Okay, the knit wooly hat is a bit too Blossom-esque, but whatever.

Buffy is tiny, we all know this, but I do think they purposefully dressed her in larger than her size coats in this episode to make her look even more tiny and vulnerable.

Giles is TOO BLASE for this scene also shut your mouth about throwing knives like a girl

"It's an archaic exercise in cruelty." SO WHY DID YOU GO ALONG WITH IT, BRAIN TRUST. (I am going to be very mean to Giles this whole rewatch, deal with it.)

"But I'm the one in the thick of it." No, you're not. You are going to be adjacent to it, at best.

Hey it's that guy!

Okay, in better lighting, flunkie does not look like Vincent D'Onofrio.

It's impossible to pin down one type of Vampire in the Whedonverse, except for the delineation between Grunt Bait Vampires, and Special Guest Star/Master vampires, but Kralik is the only other example of a vampire with mental illness besides Drusilla, yet he's medicated. Makes me wonder how exactly they got Kralik...he was a monster before he was a vampire, but who vamped him? I don't put it past the Watchers to have vampires created for this purpose.

Curse against lawyers!

Xander and Oz bonding over comic books is so fun. I regret they didn't really get closer until after Xander and Willow cheated because Oz was the one male friend Xander had.

They mentioned her birthday! Thinking about Buffy's love of poetry later on, this is a nice little detail, and it *is* a thoughtful, sweet gift. Also those poems: horny. Oh yes, maybe in a restrained way, but Elizabeth Barrett Browning knew what was up.

The Buffy and Angel relationship in season three is full of these starts and stops that I can see why and agree with others about how it's frustrating on a number of levels. They know why they can't be together, but they still try to find a common ground because they want to need the other one. They still have their identities to figure out - Buffy as the slayer and a young adult, Angel as a person, separate from Buffy and being Buffy's ex sort of maybe.

But this conversation in Helpless is genuinely sweet and a glimpse at what a normal couple at the crossroads would talk about - I think I'm also being soft on this because the other Important Male Figure in Buffy's life in this episode lets her down so spectacularly bad, that Angel being supportive and kind in his awkward way is a nice respite. It's good to be away from the angst and the horror that their relationship has had.

And the self-aware puncturing of the Moment between them is something Buffy does very well. "Taken literally, incredibly gross - I was just thinking that too". Look, it's cute and soft and I will allow it.

The horror of this episode (and there are so many) is that we have to watch Buffy become the helpless blonde in a slasher flick who is being chased by the monsters and she can't do anything about it - that she has to be rescued or die. That the real world with men catcalling and bystanders who ignore women's cries of distress is far scarier than the literal demons that inhabit the town - and Buffy brokenly saying she can't just be a person, she can't be helpless like that [like women are, still, today] is a gut punch. It's uncomfortable and unhappy because Buffy is supposed to be the hero, the [sigh] strong female lead who can kick ass and take names, and this episode is all about finding who Buffy is, separate from her super powers. Also an exercise in emotional torture, but must be Tuesday.

The physicality - the weakness that both Buffy and Giles display in this scene is so, so good. The way Buffy's hand trembles toward the needle in the case and the dawning realization of what Giles has done, has chosen to do - and he bloodlessly tells her what the Cruciamentum is.

Her tiny little "Liar."

GOD WHY DIDN'T SHE GET AN EMMY (rhetorical we all know genre tv only matters if it was Game of Rapey Thrones)

"You will be safe now, I promise you." LIAR.

Another puncturing a heavy moment - Cordelia as cavalry - I love it. Cordelia taking the most obvious approach to the situation - 'oh Buffy might have lost her memory, well he's Giles,'

I can't believe they robbed us of a conversation in the car scene with Cordy and Buffy.

Kralik had to have found a polaroid camera and a metallic sharpie for this whole scenario -- OH I KNOW WHO HE REMINDS ME OF. The Night Stalker and any number of serial killers that terrorized SoCal. Is the show being self-aware of the problem with mothers and parents in general?

Probably a glib accident.

I don't have much to say about the part where Buffy hunts Kralik because it's so masterfully done with the atmosphere and music.

Nice of Giles's backbone to enter the chat now.

This is not business. Ooo.

Buffy's "I thought I killed a man" emo overalls!

Like it's shadowy, but there's still enough light to see facial expressions. Lighting guy, I salute you.

Little red riding hood metaphor. Oh, that's so her stunt double.

CREEPY SEXUAL VIOLENCE REARS ITS DEFORMED HEAD AGAIN

Jump stair scare. I remember the first time I saw it, I jolted in the living room.

Serial Killer Shit. Why are vampires such drama queens?

THAT'S RIGHT, BUFFY DID THAT

The ending scene in the library is cathartic in that Buffy gets to stand up for herself finally, and recognizes what Giles gives up by helping her, delayed as it was, also there's the feeling of hate punching Quentin Travers via your eyes.

Still don't think she should have forgiven Giles so easily, but we don't get to see a lot of aftercare for Buffy when she gets hurt, and it is a very tender scene.

The Scoobies are being way too upbeat if they knew about the fact that Giles poisoned Buffy, which is why I'm assuming she told a very abbreviated version of events ending with Buffy killed the bad guy and Giles got fired, oops.

Xander's big strong man comment and then looking immediately to Willow to open the jar and not Oz...

I could watch this episode again with episode commentary from David Fury, but another day.

[adinosaurnamedmittens]

Alright so I can’t stop thinking of RVB Zero and how much potential it has so I wanna rework it a bit to work better.

So first I’m gonna talk about the new characters and what I’d change before breaking down the individual episodes for critique and suggested rewrites. At this point, I’ve only seen up to episode 4, Encounter. So spoilers till that ep. 

West - Honestly great! He doesn’t have a ton of character, but what he has is solid. He works very well as the gruff, no-nonsense leader who’s a tiny bit of a dad.

Raymond - Also great! He’s the most classic RVB character, as he’s an underdog who’s not the best at fighting, but has a lot of heart. My fav new character, right next to Tiny.

One - I want to change her to 2nd in command and drop the whole “can’t work within a team” thing. Keep the confidence and slight rudeness, but drop all the lines referencing anti-teamwork. It hasn’t factored into the story so far, One has been successfully working as part of the team for all the episodes. This would make her dynamic with Axel more interesting, being in a higher position of power. Especially considering how her healthy relationship with her dad contrasts with East and West’s relationship. This would reinforce the tension with East, since One now has an actual position of power over her. Also, she should have the exact same powers as Zero, but maybe less powerful. This would help foreshadow that reveal, and help us understand how the enhancements work. While One is a bit of a shit, and thinks she knows best, she’s willing to take the fall when her ideas fail or get them in trouble.

Axel - Imma be honest: totally forgot he was One’s adopted dad until I rewatched the episodes prepping for this. You could drop it totally, as it gets a bit redundant with West and East’s relationship, but I think there’s more fun in working with it. Also, if One’s 2nd in command and Axel isn’t insecure about it at all? Instantly makes him a more likable guy. I also think he parallels to Wash very well (bit of a kid at heart, weapons guy, team dad, emotional heart) so we’re gonna expand on that too.

East - Her and One’s relationship is the driving force of conflict within the strike team. With the changes made to One, East can stay pretty much unchanged. Before they were too similar. Now, with One being abrasive but willing to work together, and East being more reserved and distant, they’re great foils for each other. Also she parallels early Carolina, which I love (speed is her ability, prefers working alone, competitive as hell, dad runs team)

Villains: On characterization, they’re all good! Villains are allowed to be a bit more shallow, and they all seem to have understandable motives for what they’re doing: Zero wants revenge and power, Phase wants revenge especially against West, and Diesel just seems like he’s having fun. I do want to change Zero’s power tho, with Phase already having a teleport with a cool gimmick, and Diesel having a strength/tank ability, Zero should have a unique ability. Maybe gravity because of the sword? It would allow him some cool movement tricks while still being visually distinct from Diesel and Phase’s abilities. Or something inspired by his “ghost” line from Duo.

EP 1: Viper

The Good: The introduction to the villains and their abilities was amazing. I love Phase’s knife and it’s honestly one of the coolest things I’ve seen in the show. And the intro to the Strike team? Hilarious. Great character work. You can tell that One and Axel are close, that Raymond is hesitant and new, East and One have a very competitive relationship, and West is the tough love dad.

The Bad: Don’t violate the 180 camera rule. The intro fight scene was cool, but the camera moved way too much and made it hard to keep track of everything happening. And with the new, shiny art style we need a bit more time to absorb what’s happening since the detail level went up. Also y’all healed Wash’s brain damage with a throwaway line, and then immediately fridged him? Not cool. I mean, if you wanted to show how tough the villains are, you already had them beat up Carolina.

Story Changes: - Zero gets name dropped this ep so we get a scene next ep where Axel recognizes his name. - Either replace Wash with a high ranking soldier and completely scrub him from the episode, or give a different reason why he can’t help, maybe exactly Carolina’s reason of “you’re recovering”. I’m not committing to totally removing Wash bc in Recovery Carolina’s line of “That I-that we thought was a medium risk asset” hints that Wash knew exactly what they were carrying and I’m excited to see where they take that. - Mainly I want scenes of Wash talking to Axel and expanding on his characterization as they are both Nice Boys Who Have Been Through It. - I also think a scene after we meet Strike where Axel asks Raymond “You like riding with East?” and Ray goes “You two stuck me with her on purpose!” and One goes “Yup!” all cheerfully. Just reinforce those team dynamics and friendships before it goes to shit!

EP 2: Recovery

The Good: The garage scene was perfect. Tiny is amazing, love her so much! And Axel got such great characterization during this ep. What a dork. West and Raymond also work super well together, their interactions are great.

The Bad:You know it’s a problem when the villains have a better dynamic than the heroes. The scene where Carolina explains all the strike member’s abilities and personalities? Bad. Also a little OOC for her. And redundant, since we also get Raymond asking West about East, and Axel’s explanation of the girls to Carolina.

Story Changes: - Have Axel, the emotional heart, waiting outside the recovery room for Carolina. Honestly, this isn’t that big, but I think it’d suit his character. - Carolina’s exposition is changed to solely history and abilities, no commenting on their personalities. Maybe East gets a little “has shown difficulty in working with others” but that’s it. The physical acting for these scenes really shines through, so let it stand alone. Even watching without sound, you can pick up that West is a no-nonsense leader, that Axel isn’t a flashy fighter but gets the job done, that East is fairly young and doesn’t take fighting seriously, and that One is willing to leave others behind if she thinks she can do it better. - For Carolina’s convo with One this ep about her “not willing to work on a team” either swap One with East or change it to “you need to listen to your team more. Don’t assume that you immediately now what’s best” - At the end of training, when Axel says “the guards were priority #1″ One should say “I knew you could handle it.” and Axel could respond with “Well, it’d be nice if you let me know that.” to show that One can work well as 2nd in command, but needs to communicate and stop assuming things. -Also should change Axel’s warning line about her enhancements to “Don’t push yourself. Remember what happened last time?” to enforce that this is a habit, and that while he cares about her, he’s not trying to boss her around as much. -Don’t reveal that East is West’s daughter until Raymond and West talk. That way, there’s a bit more emotional weight, and Ray’s line of “I was digging through the team files” makes more sense if Carolina doesn’t drop that info in the previous scene. - When Axel talks about the experiments East went through, he should mention that he was there for some of them. Dropping more foreshadowing for the Axel/Zero reveal! - Carolina drops Zero’s name in their convo, and we get a shot of Axel’s hand tightening on his weapon, showing the audience that the name means something to him, but we don’t know why.

EP 3: Duo

The Good: First 3rd of the ep? Really good. I love One being rude to Carolina, and then gaining a grudging respect. West and Raymond are, again, the best dynamic. How? I honestly have no idea. The car looks so stupid in the funniest way, I hate it but I love it. Also god yes Axel and Zero’s relationship is so wholesome and could be the best thing in this season. One’s warning call to the facility? The funniest shit. And Zero’s dialogue is hella cliched, but it works bc he’s obv such a dramatic bitch.

The Bad: HOLY HELL THE DIALOGUE. First, One and East’s fight? garbage. Very forced. Super hard to believe these two are real people. Carolina and West literally repeat the exact same line, less than 5 seconds apart. The dishwasher joke West makes does NOT at all work, it’s too tonally dissonant.

Story Changes: - Obv. need to change One and East’s convo. End it with “Without your power, you wouldn’t even be on this team!” East should storm off or almost attack One, requiring Axel to diffuse. - It’d also be really nice to get a line where One acknowledges that she went too far with that, but puts off apologizing to East. It’d be a nod that she’s good at reflecting and assessing, but too proud to actually take her words back. - I’d like to make Raymond more panicked when they find Wash. It’d help sell that he’s in bad shape and add more weight to “He’s got a heartbeat!” - Maybe re-work Phase and Zero’s conversation a bit. The dialogue is definitely not this season’s strong suit. - Pull Carolina’s “I’m just trying to help, East.” since it’s more impactful for East to storm off immediately and West says the line a couple seconds later. And change East’s dialogue to “You may be my CO, but don’t try to be my dad. Not after what you’ve done.” Or something similar. - For the dishwasher gag in the meeting, either pull it or double down. It’d work so much better if someone asks “Are you serious about this? Aren’t there more important things to discuss?” and West just deadpans. “This is of the upmost importance. If we can’t keep this base clean, how can we be expected to do anything else?!” and then Carolina clears her throat super loud and West goes “...Right. Rookie? Take it from here.” - Rework the “Carolina stay behind” dialogue. Even just a “Carolina. You’re still recovering. If you get hurt again, it’ll just be longer till you can take these bastards down. Keep an eye on Wash, will you?” I just couldn’t get behind the wording of “we need you here. With wash” It sounds like every cliched “woman must stay behind while the manly men save everyone!” Might be personal preference but just ew. - Add a scene where One notices Axel being a bit off (bc he’s worried about Zero being a part of the bad guy team) and she asks if he’s okay. He brushes her off, says its nothing. She goes “alright, i trust you.” - Maybe make the flashback a bit more apparent? There was a moment in the middle where I questioned whether or not it was a flashback. Again, could be a me problem.

EP 4: Encounter

The Good: The fight scenes continue to be absolute standouts. The varied environments, the movement, the dynamics on point. Wish we could’ve saw a bit more from Axel, but as is the scene worked well. The framing of the ep was good too, cutting between the mission and the fallout. And Ray, resident coward, immediately squaring up without a thought after West got injured? *chef’s kiss*. THAT is good character development. THAT is an amazing way to establish their relationship without telling us outright. Go feral, my boy! And Tiny and Raymond’s convo was so cute. I love how, despite what he says, Ray is there for his team and always willing to help. Carolina and One’s convo was also pretty decent. It got a bit long and over-explainy on Carolina’s end, but there were some pretty good moments.

The Bad: The fight after the mission failure was SO over-acted. Too much motion, to many camera angles. It changed what should have been tense arguments to hilarious melodrama. This has been a consistent problem, but it REALLY affects this scene in particular. And the second Axel enters the scene it just immediately goes downhill.

Story Changes: - Add a line from West in the beginning scene like “I’ll cut them off!” to explain why he isn’t in the car too. This also means it’s not as out-of-nowhere when West shows up to trash the car. - One should call out Axel instead of East. If she’s his daughter, she should be able to tell when he’s acting off. And she would have an easier time connecting the dots between Axel and Zero. - Instead of “I trusted you.” One should say “You lied to me.” 1) He’s her dad. One lie isn’t gonna break her total trust. 2) This would imply it’s the first time he’s lied to her, adding more weight to the whole situation 3) It’s way more accusatory and less cliched (if only a bit) - Add in a “One, wait!” bc I am a sucker for it and we could hear the guilt in his voice, rather than the weird scene where the girls make him spin around by bumping into him. - It’d also be nice if Ray stayed back for a bit before leaving, so we got a bit of his feelings on the matter. I mean, obviously he cares a lot about West, but does he blame Axel for not being there to help? It’d be nice to know!

TL;DR The best parts of the episodes are the fight scenes, and when they focus on the fun team dynamics. The worst parts are dialogue (mostly the serious bits) and over-animating, as this takes away from the drama.

I don’t mind the cheesy villains, but that may not be the case for everyone.

The best part of RVB has always been the rag-tag found family dynamics. While the fight scenes are cool, they have always been supplemental to the real meat of the show. The writers are trying something new with the whole “actual family” but you have got to focus on and develop these relationships if you want fans to care.

Mostly, I see a lot of potential in these characters, but there are GLARING issues in this season that are holding them back.

[timeagainreviews]

The Filler Fluff of the Cybermen

When is a two-parter not a two-parter? When the first part is tonight’s episode "Ascension of the Cybermen." As stories go, that was pretty damn sparse. I’ll be honest, friends, I don’t have a lot to say about tonight’s story. But that’s not why you come here, so I will try my damnedest to find something to talk about in this latest episode of Doctor Who. Right, now, how many words was that? Sixty-seven? Christ. This is going to be a slog.

I honestly shouldn’t be surprised. It had to happen. I was saying just last week that I hadn’t seen an episode I outright hated so far this series. We were due. That’s not to say I actually feel hate for this episode, more accurately, I feel very little about this episode. Usually, I endeavour to do more than simply trash an episode, but tonight, it’s either that, or I end the review here. So apologies ahead of time.

The episode opens on a Cyberman head floating in space with some knucklehead voiceover telling us about how the Cybermen have been mostly wiped out and what remains of humanity isn’t much better. The episode will now spend the next fifty minutes reiterating this point ad nausea. It was like a Star Wars title crawl, except in Star Wars, the crawl isn’t the plot of the movie you’re about to watch. Funnily, a lot of tonight’s episode reminded me of "The Last Jedi." Our heroes get split up. A slow chase ensues. No new information is gained. And it ends leaving us feeling like not a lot happened.

The Doctor and her companions come to a small human colony in the distant future. There are only seven of them left. The Doctor sets up a series of relays to help this ragtag bunch of humans kill off an oncoming Cyberman attack. Only thing is, they had never accounted for the Cybermen to first send out "Cyber Drones." Now, say you’ve got a room full of artists who love Doctor Who. And you tell them all to design drones that will be utilised by Cybermen. You can imagine they might have some rather impressive designs. Now, gather up all of those beautiful and creative drawings into your arms and throw them in the bin. Instead, we’re going to just use floating Cyberman heads. Was this because Chibnall is the kind of guy who thinks a dude with teeth pressed into his face is creepy or is this because reusing Cyberman heads is cheap? I’ll let you decide.

The Cyberheads and their eye lasers do quick work of the Doctor’s relays and sends everyone scattering to the wind. With three of the humans dead, Ryan, a young boy named Ethan, and the Doctor get left behind. Yaz and Graham, find themselves aboard a rickety gravraft with the remainder of the humans. With the TARDIS too far away, the Doctor decides they need to hijack a Cybership. I gotta give it to the Cybermen, they take better care of their ship than they do their own bodies. It’s almost as if there was no continuity in the design. Or maybe it’s like when you see someone whose life is a total mess but they have a dope car. I’ll let you decide.

After Ethan hotwires the Cybership, the Doctor pilots the ship to the most logical destination- her TARDIS. No, I’m just kidding, that would have made sense! Instead, she goes somewhere. I just double-checked with my boyfriend and we honestly couldn’t remember why anyone was doing anything at this point in the episode. After combing the episode I finally found a bit of throwaway dialogue where Ethan programmed the ship to go to a place called "Ko Sharmus." Meanwhile, the other group of protagonists are floating listlessly in space, making them the most relatable characters in this episode as that’s exactly how I felt.

By now you’re probably wondering why I haven’t gotten to the B-story happening in this episode. I guess here is as good a place as any, as it made just as much sense crammed anywhere in the episode it pleased. We see a young man and woman find a baby. This baby grows up to be their adopted son, Brendan. Brendan becomes a cop. Brendan gets shot and falls off a cliff. Brendan wakes up unscathed. Brendan’s dad looks at him like he’s creepy. Brendan grows old and retires. Brendan’s dad and boss, seemingly having not aged, wipe his memory. It makes as much sense as a wicker toilet and gives us no new information. At one point I thought he may have been Captain Jack’s kid, but then he grows old, so I don’t know what to think. What I do know is that you could have edited it down and made it into a far better cold opener than that Cyberhead floating in space shit.

The humans aboard the gravraft get stranded next to a giant Cyberman ship where a battle has gone down. Remnants of Cybermen ping the hull of their vessel like tiny asteroids. They get the bright idea to use the airlock to give the gravraft an extra thrust into the Cybership. I don’t know if it was intentional, but having Graham say "Don’t panic," right before they release the airlock was a nice little Douglas Adams reference. Or maybe it wasn’t at all, but I’ll take any joy from this episode I can get. Much like the idiotic hip bounce from "Can You Hear Me?" that knocked the sonic screwdriver up into the Doctor’s hands, the gravraft makes a million in one shot directly into the Cyberman ship’s docking bay. If they have that kind of luck sinking shots like that, they should really take their skills to the minigolf course.

The second I saw the ship, I knew that they were going to do the rows upon rows of sleeping Cybermen emerging from their tombs. It’s a Doctor Who trope as old as the Patrick Troughton era. My boyfriend was enjoying these bits as he is less familiar with the history of Doctor Who, so I let him have his fleeting enjoyment. I couldn’t even get jazzed about the new Cyberman design as they had already spoiled it with online photos. Basically, aside from the head-scratching B-story, the plot to tonight’s episode could be gathered by looking at promotional photos. There were new Cybermen. The Lone Cyberman was there. Nothing new to be learned here. Though, I will admit those new Cybermen are genuinely awesome.

The Doctor has a brief encounter with a hologram of the Lone Cyberman, or "Ashad." We learn that Ashad doesn’t just want to destroy all humans, he wants to destroy all life in the universe, for reasons. So I guess it wasn’t all a wash. Ashad heads to the Cybership where he begins waking up the Cybermen by what looks like torture. I have absolutely zero idea why he was doing what he was doing. It’s not at all made clear. Was he giving a titty twister so the Cybermen would accept him as their leader? Because after waking up the rest of them, they all seem to fall in line. Honestly, what the hell was he doing to that Cyberman? It makes no goddamn sense.

One thing I will say that made me happy was that one of my predictions from before episode one came true. They gave Graham a bit of a love interest. I called that shit. This possible love interest came in the form of Ravio, one of the human colonists. I found it rather amusing that in the future humans would still speak with British accents but have lost all context for Cockney rhyming slang. It was a cute bit of dialogue that falls apart if you think about it too much. The Cybermen force the humans into a corner to barricade themselves from the onslaught of Cybermen, and that’s where they’re left until next weekend.

Meanwhile, the Doctor arrives at Ko Sharmus which ends up being a person’s name as opposed to a planet. Chris Chibnall’s ability to name characters has not improved. Seriously, there are characters named Feekat and Yedlarmi in this episode. It hardly matters though as they’re all rather forgettable. I had to comb the episode and the internet just to figure out who was who. The Doctor never even introduces herself to Ethan. I had to figure his name out through one of the many throwaway lines of dialogue. That’s not to say that they don’t have real bits of character development. But you can take all of the character development in the world and wrap it around a hollow plot and it equals a lot of me not giving a shit.

Ko Sharmus was a welcome addition, simply because he was played by the charismatic Ian McElhinney. Turns out he’s a human colonist who stays behind in case any more humans might one day also come to this planet. There’s a sort of gateway or “boundary” out of the galaxy where many humans have gone to escape pursuit by Cyberman. Ko Sharmus’ job is to act as a guide to any possible newcomers also looking to reach said boundary. However, the Doctor quickly learns that the boundary is actually a gateway to Gallifrey. Only now it shows Gallifrey as the Master left it- in ruins.

Did I mention the Master? Well, here he is, making a "grand" entrance. The only thing at this point that was grand about the introduction of the Master to the story was that I was excited that something of substance was actually about to happen. Instead, this is our cliffhanger- this not at all surprising reveal that the Master is still alive. Of course, he is, he’s the Master. It’s a season finale with the Cybermen, of course, the Master is going to be there. It’s been that way for the past two Cyberman season finales. I guess the third time is a charm? What about any of this is supposed to be surprising? Remember how I said I was afraid they were becoming far too reliant on big reveals? This ending is the epitome of that. I think they expected to blow our minds by having the storyline they set up at the beginning of the series come into fruition. Try harder Chibs, this shit was weak.

The biggest shocker here is how little happened. What we were left with was akin to a classic filler episode where the Doctor gets captured. They padded out everything because they didn’t want next week’s episode to be ten minutes longer. Tonight’s episode exists purely because Chris Chibnall couldn’t edit down the script of a single episode into something shorter. This wouldn’t be so egregious if at least one storyline came to some sort of conclusion. If the B-story with Brendan had gone somewhere it might have made the entire episode feel somewhat worth the time and effort. Instead, we’re forced to watch a team of talented actors fill time.

I can’t help but feel like last week’s episode should have been this week’s episode with maybe a bit more setup for the finale. In place of this forgettable fluff, we could have gotten a single contained episode in its place. Something that had a beginning, middle, and end. Because of this, it’s almost as if we’ve been shorted an episode. Because of all of the wasted time in "Ascension of the Cybermen," I can only think of two outcomes for next week. One is an episode crammed so full of exposition that it will feel messy and disjointed. The other is an episode that is as equally underwhelming as tonight’s effort. Do you really mean to tell me they’re going to fit a Cyberman battle, Captain Jack, the Master, Gallifrey, the Timeless Child, and possibly Ruth into an episode and it not be a mess? It’s hard to have faith that there is a reason behind this much wasted screentime. I could use some of Graham’s optimism because at this moment it’s looking a bit hopeless.

[stop-him]

People Don't Change, Rules Change.

If you saw my last reblog of, and answer to, the poll by @supersoftly - this is further musings on the theme of my response, comparing old and new incidents. I may go on for a while. There may be a cut.

Anyhow, as I mentioned, I was once a moderator on the site Gaia Online. As such, I got to witness some of the worst behaviors that cropped up from time to time. An example: once a user named Cigarette announced that she had terminal brain cancer. This prompted a massive outpouring of support and well-wishing, including the "1000 cranes for Cigarette" community event based around the bit about folding up multiple little paper cranes for loved ones - and it all turned out to be a hoax. Some people noticed that nobody could get any real-life information about the hospital where she was supposedly being treated, and somewhere along the line Cigarette confessed to making everything up.

Most everyone thought that was pretty awful when the news hit. I don't even remember what, if anything, the admins of the site did to Cigarette herself - technically it wasn't against the TOS to lie about one's personal health. But I was involved in a related incident, where another user posted a Flash animation depicting his character, enraged by the news of Cigarette's deception, pulling a gun and (to the theme of the Mentos commercials) shooting her to death. It was actually more funny than my description makes it, and it would be understandable that anyone investing any emotion into Cigarette's purported illness would be legitimately angry and frustrated. But, after some discussion, we Mods decided to remove it from the site, because regardless of the circumstances, it was essentially a personal attack on another user, which was definitely against the TOS.

That was the standard we operated under at the time. You could say, "I think that is a stupid viewpoint to have, that idea is dumb," but you could not say, "you are stupid and dumb for having that opinion". You could not just call anyone a Nazi without direct evidence that they were literally part of a self-identified Nazi group, because it was well understood that calling someone a Nazi was a personal insult, and intended as such. "I feel that this person is like a Nazi" wasn't an excuse.

One's opinion was not a justification.

The teeth of Gaia Online's enforcement was their avatar system - for those unaware, GO's big attraction was that a user had a little anime-styled avatar that appeared by their posts. You gained currency by doing things in and around the forums, and you used that currency to buy clothes and other items for your avatar. Part of the outcry over Cigarette's stunt was that sympathetic users had donated high-value items for her avatar under false pretenses.

As Mods, we had the ability to not only ban users for infractions, but also monitor and undo trades and transfers of items between users. So if a user feared that a post they were going to make was going to break the TOS, they might want to stash their items with friends or in alternate accounts - only the Mods could see these actions and know they were attempts to avoid the consequences of their behavior, so often the items got confiscated anyway. What happened was that many users created a cache of "junk" accounts - no items, not much history, built up around the mass of free email accounts one could get. They would use these accounts to break the TOS, because they risked little if those empty accounts got banned. Some Mods had access to IP address info, so that wasn't a guarantee of safety, but it was a common practice among the more contentious users.

I explain all that for the sake of context in the following tale. After a few years of being a Mod, Gaia Online began to grow in popularity, and its userbase expanded, and after a while the Admins decided to outsource much of their Mod duties just to handle the load. I retired from being a Mod at that point, so no longer had access to any of those investigatory tools. I stayed on the site for a little while longer, but it's one thing to be in your 30s when the bulk of the site is 20-somethings, it's another to be pushing 40 when the bulk of the site is in their mid-teens.

But before I eventually left, i spent a bit of time hanging around in the forum's creator-oriented areas, notably in art, writing and comics-centered sub-forums.

There was a clique in those days of what I call "art snots", people who not only had ideas on what was the proper way to go around making art but who would aggressively advocate for their way as being the best way and anyone who didn't toe their line was not only wrong, but a fool. Many of them were products of formal art schooling, and many of them had open contempt for the trend of art styles emulating "that shiny animu shit".

One thing that could be done in the art community was to "give critique". Ostensibly, if you posted your art on the forum, you were making it available to be commented on, and were expected to be able to withstand a certain amount of unfavorable criticism. This (naturally) led to conflicts between very sensitive beginning artists who did not really want any criticism on one hand versus many of the aforementioned "art snots" who took the opportunity for "critique" as license to utterly verbally savage every tiny aspect of the poster's art, especially if it had any hint of anime influence. And so Mods were often called in to keep the peace, and when it was apparent that outright abuse would be disciplined, the "art snots" would, like many others, gather a collection of throwaway accounts to take the bans, using them as one-shot insult delivery systems. (Though, a few became masters at playing the TOS, making posts that were just within the boundaries of what was acceptable, and never needed alternate accounts...)

Near the end of my stay at GO, there was one user who was "art-snot-adjacent". They were a webcomic creator, whose webcomic at the time was garnering some popularity (as those things go) and critical acclaim. Obviously talented and well-spoken, it was apparent that they were sympathetic to the stances of the "art snots", but without nearly the same amount of vitriol. If they spoke on those matters, they spoke in civil, measured tones. Many of the "art snots" circled in their orbit, possibly due to friendships outside Gaia, or possibly due to simple sycophancy.

I took up reading this person's webcomic - it was pretty good - and while I didn't always agree with the opinions they stated on Gaia, I appreciated the way they kept their tone nominally respectful.

The front page of this webcomic had a few widgets installed, one of which was a feed of the author's Twitter account, back when Twitter was a lot newer and less ubiquitous. So there was a little sub-window on the page that displayed, say, the last five Tweets the author made.

One day I went to the webcomic to check if there were updates, and saw that one of the recent tweets mentioned Gaia, so I looked more closely. It has been ages at this point, but the general thrust of the message was:

"Looks like I'm going to have to burn another Gaia account so I can set this other user straight about how stupid they are."

And now immediately I knew that this webcomic creator that I had somewhat respected up until now was not any different than so many others, they were simply better at putting up a polished public face. They were just as eager to hide their true feelings in order to keep all the little virtual clothes on their Gaia account, until they could let fly with an alternate sockpuppet, and be abusive to their heart's content.

[As an aside: I think this was one of the only times I've ever been unable to separate the artist from their art. For a little while I still kept up with the webcomic, but one day, I found myself about to click the bookmark for the page and I just didn't feel like reading the story anymore. Just - "meh", and I didn't click to it, and never went back. It wasn't like seeing that Tweet enraged me, I wasn't scandalized, I just... didn't respect the creator anymore. I'm not sure why that killed my interest in the story, when I have few problems engaging with art by artists who I know have done far, far worse in their lives. But there it is.]

These Gaia anecdotes establish something I think is true: people were just as nasty then as they are now. But a site like Gaia - at least at the time - enforced a code of behavior that said, "as long as you're on our site, you'll behave with a minimum of respect towards other users."

And now, let's come to the present day. As I write this, YouTube has been sending me recommendations for videos about a bit of drama. Of course, YouTube has no shortage of drama. But in this case, it reminds me of Gaia in some ways, because it's an artist-related drama.

At one point, YouTube proposed I watch an artist draw a picture as they told a story about the worst commission they ever drew, and I did, and so of course YouTube then bombarded me with a thousand similar videos. Some I watched, if they had interesting subjects. Many I didn't. And one type I stayed away from was the callout videos, where while drawing some pic, the artists would detail the various sins of some other YouTuber and make the case for them being an irredeemably awful person.

But, I've been floating around the edges of this drama, because for a while I was watching the videos from Girl Artist 1 (actual name/account redacted - probably if you're actually an active part of that community you can guess who it is, and if you don't have any idea, well, count yourself fortunate). Only now I no longer get videos by her recommended to me, now I'm getting videos about her.

First it came to light that she was sockpuppeting on some site, pretending to not be herself in order to stir up drama/make herself look good/whatever. Then it seems she was involved in a harassment campaign, and even more serious charges involving downright illegal shenanigans are being leveled.

I'll make it clear that I don't know all the details, or whether any of this is true or not. I watched some of Girl Artist 1's videos when the subject interested me, but ignored many when it was clear she was calling out other artists, YouTubers and the like. I noted the name of Girl Artist 2 come up a few times, and even in the titles of other videos by other people. Apparently Girl Artist 2 had her own moment of being condemned. But now she's back, with her own video to speak out against Girl Artist 1, along with a host of others all dogpiling on the current object of ire.

Is Girl Artist 2 forgiven now? Will Girl Artist 1 undergo her own journey of redemption? Will that be possible? Who knows, and outside of the community, who cares?

YouTube doesn't. And finally I come to my point: This is the difference between an older site like Gaia Online and newer platforms like YouTube and Twitter - the incentives.

Gaia had its own economy based around its avatar system, and its own motivation to promote an even keel and keep drama to a minimum. The latter was achieved by using the former as both carrot and stick. The reward for good behavior was getting to keep your virtual items, punishment was their loss.

Twitter's reward is internet fame, reinforcement of things you say with likes and retweets and new followers. Drama is a path to this - sometimes a much easier path than actually creating a work of art to attract attention. YouTube is much the same, only with the added incentive of real money for select users. YouTube does not mind controversy in and of itself, because controversy drives views, and views pay off for advertisers, who pay YouTube.

Therefore, there is often little incentive to not be an asshole. Every judgemental soul can freely pontificate about the sins of others, and condemn them in the most explicit terms. In a practical sense, the accusations don't even have to be true. My example of calling people Nazis as an insult? Go ahead! It gets clicks. YouTube and Twitter like the clicks. Not only do you not have to show anyone any respect, it's almost expected to be actively disrespectful to anyone who annoys you in the slightest.

That's my thesis: the overall nastiness of the human race is, I think, much the same as it's always been. A lot of people have always been judgemental pricks. It's just that the rules have shifted just so, and now the nastiness is being rewarded instead of discouraged.

[racingtoaredlight]

Picks

When people think of guitar picks, they think of them as literal throwaway objects.  You know, something that a guitarist or singer will toss into the audience at the end of a show.  Or maybe tossed into some kind of giveaway.  Stolen from a guitar shop.  Things like that.

A pick is simply something used to pluck a stringed instrument.  In the hierarchy of things that affect a guitarist’s tone and sound, you wouldn’t think that it would have a big impact.  Certainly not along the lines of how much pickups or wood or types of strings would...

Well, you’d be right it doesn’t make THAT much of a difference, but it still absolutely makes one...

***

So here’s a quick video showing the difference between using your fingers, and then the picks in order as you see them at the top of the post.  I didn’t use the thumbpick example because it’s made from the same material as the Fender pick.

Also, I showed the difference in sound when you use the rounded edges vs. the pointed tip.  When I listened back to the clip recorded with an iPhone camera, the difference is barely there.  The tip examples are slightly brighter and slightly more defined, while the rounded edges are warmer.  Probably would have come through if I mic’d my amp, but in person the differences are much more stark.

You will hear a good deal of difference between fingers, the first pick and the others, however.  The reason I used the tiny black pick when I played jazz is because it was the only pick I tried (out of hundreds) that sounded like Wes Montgomery’s thumb.  You can get a sense of how warm that pick sounds immediately once the Fender example starts.

So what explains the difference?  The easy answer is material.  Different materials sound drastically different...no different than how different tubes sound different, or different woods.  The truth in that lies deeper though...

***

Think of a spectrum of tones...on one extreme you have metallic brightness like a hammer hitting an anvil, and on the other warmth like walking into a room full of people having quiet converastions.  The sound of a hammer hitting an anvil is easy to pick out, where all the individual parts are clear, distinct and defined.

But the singular sound a room full of individual conversations makes is greater than the sum of its parts.  The details aren’t important, it’s the complexity and character of the ultimate sound that is.

A hammer hitting an anvil is an event that takes place in less than a second’s worth of time.  Multiple unique conversations take time to develop and interweave before they become that ultimate sound.

When you pick a note on a stringed instrument...it doesn’t matter that the scale of this time is distilled into fractions of fractions of seconds...the same principles apply.  Here’s the point...

***

The harder the material, with the least amount of surface area being used to pluck a string, the brighter and more distinct your tone will be.  On the other end of the spectrum...the more mass and fleshiness your pick has, the warmer and rounder it will be, because your pick (or fingers) will grab the string more than a harder material pick would, greatly increasing the time the pick interacts with the string, manipulating its vibrations.

That’s why the harder pick...the Fender...sounded way brighter than either my finger or the small black pick.  The small black pick is probably 2.5x as thick as the Fender, made out of a very soft (yet far more durable) material.  That’s also why the rounded edges of the same pick sound warmer and less defined than the pointed tip.

The variations on this theme are theoretically endless.  For probably the first 50 years of the electric guitar’s history (after they stopped using real tortoise shell), you had like four plastic choices with picks...medium, heavy, jazz, thumb.  Now?  The material choices are endless.  Where in those earlier decades, the thickest picks were still under 1mm, now you can get picks as thick as 6mm.  Shapes vary from tortilla chips to picks the size of a button.

A number of guitarists I play with show up to rehearsals and gigs with little pouches full of their special picks.  They drop one, and the song stops until they’ve found it...like someone losing a contact.  And an equal number live by picking up picks they found, that they likely left there before because they treat them disposably.

***

Personally, I’ve gone through both extremes.  And what matters most to me now is dependability.

The little black pick on the far left in the pic on top is the only pick I used for over three years through music school, when I was almost exclusively playing jazz.  You play that thing through a clean set amp and it’s absolutely beautiful.  You add in any parts that require active strumming or overdrive?  That’s where it falls flat.

And that’s why I don’t use a pick that I used for over three years...because it’s no longer dependable.  Now I use the rounded edges of Fender heavy picks (and am experimenting with the Dunlop “green” Tortex...far right).

Now, if we look at things individually, there’s no doubt that the little black pick that was used for three straight years is exponentially more durable.  I took some comparison shots to show the difference between a Fender heavy pick that I’ve had in rotation for all of a week, and the Dunlop that saw 8-10 hours of practice per day for over 1,000 days.

On average, I go through a pack of Fender picks about every two months.  They’re the polar opposite of the little black pick in terms of sound...very bright, very distinct, almost glassy.  Not better/worse...just different, a different I like very much.

That last pic of the Fender, you can see it’s already starting to develop burrs and nicks, which is obnoxious when they accidentally grab a string.  It’s likely time for this one to be tossed, which brings us to my point here.

All the clubs and bars I play, I can likely scout around the floor and sound equipment and find a Fender heavy pick.  They’ve been an industry standard for so long, are so widely available, so cheap, that they became that disposable throwaway item...something that helps in a pinch if you forgot to put a few picks in your gig bag.

On the other side of the debate...when I bought three of those little black picks back in 2005 they were already discontinued for god knows how long.  I got em in a pawnshop that just had them laying around.  They got reintroduced last year, but they’re far more expensive than Fender heavies, you can barely find them anywhere even now, and they don’t sound great if you’re not playing jazz.

***

This is spiraling into a tome, so lets run through to the end...

Shape matters.  Roundness is warmer, pointy is brighter, sure...but what about actually playing?  Another reason I ditched the little black pick is because, once I started playing stuff with funk rhythms and blues stuff and shit with overdrive, a pick with more surface area was simply easier to hold onto.  Forget tone, if you can’t hold onto something confidently, that impacts your playing way more than any tonal aspect...

For example, for a few months I experimented with a thumbpick.  Still use it occasionally, but I couldn’t do solo stuff as cleanly so went back to a traditional pick.  Now, thumbpicks are designed for acoustic instruments more than electric, where your hands are farther away from the top of the guitar...

...so I sanded mine down, because I like to have my hands close to the strings when playing electric.  Ergonomics is as important as anything when it comes to actual playing.

Materials matter.  I mentioned hardness is bright and pliability is warm, but durability is a different argument.  The little black pick is some of the softest material I’ve played a pick with, sounding warmer than my fingers even, but it’s far more durable than the Fender picks, which get chewed up by heavy playing in a short amount of time.

Some guys use metal picks...most often on their non-thumb fingers, but Brian May of Queen used a sixpence piece for a pick.  This gives a, predictably, metallic tone that’s very bright and distinct.  I mentioned above the original picks were made from tortoise shell and they sound AMAZING...if you can get past the ethical stuff, let alone actually finding one in 2020.

Size matters.  Generally, the smaller the pick the more agile it will be while bigger picks are best suited for strumming and rhythm work.  Thickness impacts playing because there’s less give when you pluck a string...those small dime sized mega-thick picks are great for jazz dudes playing on 14 gauge strings, but an acoustic strummer with extra-lights is going to be left wanting.

***

At the end of the day though, what pick you use is totally an individual choice more geared around psychological comfort than anything quantifiable.  Truthfully, if I’m thinking anything at all about the actual pick I’m holding it’s likely going to be tossed.  In a lot of ways, a guitar pick is like the keys to your car...the act of plucking the strings is what drives things forward.

But the point of driving isn’t to turn a key, it’s to get to your destination.  Hence why...despite the incredible amount of thought energy I’ve put into them...picks should be as much of an afterthought as getting into your car and starting it up.

While it might be an afterthought, you still need your keys to start your car.  Worse, the wrong keys might still get your metaphorical car started, but the ride will be a whole lot bumpier.  I guess metaphorically speaking, fingerpickers just hotwire their car everytime...but whatever, lets just call it a day.

[davidcarterr]

Auteurs: Colin Read

This is the first in our Auteurs series by Ben Powell, read his introduction to the series.

As a film-maker, Colin has done everything: from working on some of the earliest attempts to present skateboarding in a ‘reality show’ format, (via Slap’s ‘One in Million’ series); to creating skate-related content for Viceland; going on to produce music videos for the likes of Radiohead and direct shorts for the likes of State Footwear, Converse and DC; through to creating his own independent body of work under the ‘Mandible Claw’ moniker which encompasses the hugely successful full-lengths ‘Tengu – God of Mischief’ and ‘Spirit Quest’.

I caught up with Colin recently to discuss his recent involvement in shooting skits for the Girl Skateboards ‘Doll’ video, only to find our conversation rapidly drifting off in various directions to cover everything from Italian horror cinema, right through to the relevance of 19th century philosophy’s predictions of the inevitability of Art’s diminishing power to the status of skateboarding in 2019.

I would highly recommend taking your browser over to Colin Read’s Vimeo to see more of his work after you’ve read through this. Thanks for your time Colin.

I’ve been a fan of your work for a long time, but the impetus to reach out here was your collaboration with Girl on their recent Doll video. How did that come about? Were you already connected with Crailtap, or did they reach out to you?

Girl hosted a short film contest, for shorts related to skating, judged by Spike Jonze. I wasn’t going to enter, but a friend basically demanded that I did, so I sent in ‘Solos’, which I’d made a bit prior. It was directly inspired by Spike’s Pharcyde video, so I figured it would be cool if Spike got to see it.

I assumed that they’d disqualify me; I wasn’t exactly the target demographic to take part of the contest. When they called me and told me that I won, I asked if they were sure, since I hadn’t made my video specifically for their contest. I said I’d be happy to take backseat and let the grand prize go to a younger kid, or someone who worked hard to make a video just for this. But they insisted. Part of the prize was a trip out to LA, which I had actually never been before, so I was glad to go.

Anyway, I suspect that they gave me the win in order to lure me in to make some stuff for their video, because that’s exactly what happened. They asked me if, since I was coming, I might want to make some skits for the video.

Historically, Girl/Choc have embraced the idea of adding a sense of narrative to their video output, something which I’d say is also central to your own oeuvre, was that part of the attraction of getting to work on these two skits for Doll?

Definitely. I grew up on Girl videos, and always loved the charm of them, which was born out of the narrative pieces in them. Tiny Keenan, Paco, the magic board. I was honoured to try to continue the tradition.

We’ll return to the notion of narrative shortly, but focusing on these two skits in Doll first – how much direction were you given (if any?) in terms of what they were to focus on?

They had a few ideas of people they’d like to focus the skits on. Mainly, they wanted to try to include some people that otherwise weren’t very present in the video—that’s how we ended up making a skit for Mike Mo.

I originally had planned a skit for a different lesser-featured rider, but the day I got out there—the day before we were supposed to shoot—they realized that he’d be unavailable. So we had to think fast. We sat down and watched the video in its semi-finished state, and we noted some places and people that would be good points for skits. They said that since Griffin didn’t have an intro, maybe I could make something for him. I’d never met him, but someone mentioned that he was freakishly good at fingerboarding, so that’s where that skit came from.

Photo by Rye Beres

Was there much in the way of ‘anxiety of influence’ for you here? I mean – Girl’s track record of skits is pretty untouchable and you’re treading in the footsteps of the likes of Spike, Ty, Wing Ko and Meza by picking up the gauntlet on this one surely?

Luckily, the timeline was so short that I didn’t have any time to worry this. If I had had more time for pre production, I’m sure anxiety would have crept in.

You said on your site that you shot them both in one day in LA, so I’m assuming that you had a pretty formed idea of exactly what you wanted to shoot and how, given the time-constraints. Do you storyboard shoots beforehand, or just wing it once you know what you want to do?

I have a little notebook in which I scribble rough storyboards. I usually write down a simple shot list, and rough out any boards if I need to solidify an idea or image.

The ‘skateboard as an animate being with its own voice’ concept is kind of a repeated trope of Girl skits, (‘Magic Board’ from Yeah Right, ‘Double Yellow’ from Goldfish, ‘Chaplin’ from Mouse, etc) but I think this is the first time that ‘revenge’ has featured within that idea. Where did the inspiration for this one come from, and did involving Mike Mo add to the narrative aspect, what with him recovering from injury personally?

Yeah, I wanted to try to continue the legacy of the magic board. I liked the idea of trying to imbue an inanimate object with real malice. I thought the dichotomy would be funny.

I’ve been friends with Mike Mo for a few years; we bonded over stories of nerve damage and stem cell research. (I have serious back injuries that make it hard for me to skate.) So I was really happy to see him skating a bit again. I wanted to shoot that short with him as a way to help include him in the video. I think that, as you said, his history adds to the story.

Are you a fan of Dario Argento by any chance? Some of the lighting/sound design in the Mike Mo skit, and the dolly shot of the board stalking him in his house reminded me of the oppressive atmosphere of the Italian giallo film genre. I might be reading too much into it here though…

I am! And that’s also why I think the skit is funny, it’s putting those horror tropes against a pretty stupid idea.

There’s an alternative ending on the Mike Mo skit you posted on your site, one that kind of dilutes the menace of the one featured in Doll. What influenced the choice to go with the darker one used in the video?

The one I put on my site asks the idea, “What’s the worst a skateboard can really do to you?” And it’s a shinner. That’s all it can do.

I was still pushing for that one to be in the video, but I think they wanted to keep it “scary” and let the impact act as a “wake up” from a bad dream into the McCrank section.

With the Finger board skit, there seems to be a very conscious nod towards the infamous miniature Keenan skit with the 360 flip over the battery, (along with maybe a subtle Strobeck reference too) – was it important to you to try to retain a sense of continuity with the skits you were making as regards earlier stuff that Girl had used in their videos?

Yeah, you definitely caught both of the references there, (laughing). Yes, both with the Keenan nod, and the magic board, I wanted to let things feel familiar to Girl.

Those close-ups, which are ever-present in skate videos now, thanks to Strobeck, just feel so self-important and overdramatic. So I thought it’d be funny to smash it together with fingerboarding to show how silly it is.

Fantastic way to introduce one of the heaviest parts in Doll too – did Griffin film any of those tricks specifically for the skit, (aside from the slam obviously) or did you work around pre-existing clips?

Those were all throwaway clips that he’d already filmed. I only thought of the skit the day before we filmed it, so there wasn’t any time to film new stuff.

What camera gear were you using to shoot both of these on? What about lighting?

Super low budget: a GH5, a gimbal, some handheld LEDs.

From your perspective of the person usually doing everything alone when it comes to skateboard film making – how was the experience of only being one part of a larger whole like this, where the onus is only on you to produce what you’ve been tasked with?

It was great. I didn’t have to sit at the bottom of steps for hours, or chase a skater back and forth for days trying to film lines. I just got to do my fun little thing then leave, and wait for the finished product.

How did the experience of watching Doll at the premiere compare to a premiere experience for one of your own videos?

I actually didn’t get to go to any premieres, I was out of town for the NYC one sadly.

To return to something I touched on earlier – you’ve been around the world of skateboard film-making for a long time Colin – dealing with everything from the earliest (albeit abortive) attempt to create a skateboarding reality show long before the likes of KOTR with Slap’s ‘One in a million’, to making regular web edits in the early days of online ‘content’ for Slap and the Ride Channel, through to producing full-length independent videos of your own and collaborating with other brands. Given that wealth of experience – what’s your perspective on the current state of the art form, (if we can still call it that) of the skate video?

I think it’s equalized a little bit. A few years ago, full-length videos really seemed to be dwindling, and the focus had shifted to hyped-up standalone web parts. Those are still prevalent, but companies seem to be caring about making longer, more thought-out videos again. There’s room for a lot of cool stuff.

Despite the deluge of the necessarily forgettable ‘individual part’ – the last 12 months or so have been a strong era for the full-length I think with the likes of Sour’s ‘Instagram killed the video star’, Palace’s ‘Palasonic’, Girl’s ‘Doll’, GX1000 ‘Roll Up’ and most recently ‘Blessed’ all adding to the legacy of the full-length, whilst also deviating from the conservative norm of the ‘trick, trick, line, banger, song’ formula. Which productions have stood out to you recently and for what reasons?

I’d actually point to some web edits: Jacob Harris’s edits are some of the best work in skating right now. His Atlantic Drift series is amazing.

As I was saying before, there’s room for new ideas. A video doesn’t have to be either a single part, or a full 30-minute video. There are plenty of in-betweens that you can carve out, which is what Jacob is doing.

I mentioned the incorporation of narrative into skate videos earlier because your own productions seem to always have something cohesive along those lines, whether it be context-specific like the roof skating section in Tengu, or thematic as with the Aquatic Journey section of Spirit Quest, or even in a more over-arching way such as with the spirit animal concept of your last full length vid. How does this approach relate to the way you see the meaning behind the act of skateboarding itself, and the ways in which you personally represent it?

I think that skateboarding is actually pretty meaningless, inherently. It’s a toy. But you can make it mean anything you want. For me, it has meant a creative outlet, a physical outlet, and a way to get out my mental frustrations. And it has been the means by which I’ve made my most lasting friendships.

So, narrative is just what I find interesting, and my way of making a skate video be a little bit more than that. But many of my favourite videos are just skating, and not much beyond it. I don’t necessarily think that a literal narrative has to be present in a skate video.

But what I do find necessary is some sort of visual language. You have to put a skate part together so that it makes sense. If that makes sense, ha. The tricks have to be placed in an order that seems logical, and inevitable. Same with the order of parts. Each should be a reaction to the last, and inform the next, and so on. I guess it is a way of telling a story, not with words, but with tricks, and ideas.

There’s a famous Walter Benjamin essay called The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction where Benjamin argues that the inherent power of art has been irrevocably diminished due to the technological ability of the modern world to replicate original pieces of art, thus removing them from their unique existence as an original thing in and of itself. Although written nearly a 100 years ago now, Benjamin’s commentary about the loss of ‘aura’ or magical power of art works in a world where everything can be infinitely copied and reproduced seems to me to be relevant to the contemporary situation with skateboarding. The omnipresence of the Internet has consigned everything to the category of ‘content’ to a certain extent, whether it be a photograph, a full-length video, or a single trick. Superficially everything is afforded the same value because the context that earlier generations took for granted, that was ministered to by a benign dictatorship of magazine editors and brands, has almost completely dematerialized now, with the Internet and its chaotic (supposed) democracy as its replacement. What are your thoughts on this idea?

I agree. When I was a kid, videos were special. Really. You’d hear about them before they came out, or from some other kid who’d bought it first, and then once you got your hands on it, you and your friends would get together and watch it religiously. And it might be a few months before you’d get another one. You’d wear out the VHS tape from rewinding it.

The magic of that is gone now. But there’s a new type of magic, which comes with there being an endless ocean of skateboarding to watch. I’m not sure which world is better. If you want to re-watch a single video a hundred times, you still can. You’re just not forced to.

With my own videos, I try to add enough “special” elements to warrant repeated viewings. So I’m happy that people are still watching.

I suppose I could have explained the above much more simply by just asking if you were pissed off at ‘going viral’ on Reddit because somebody ripped a trick from Spirit Quest and posted it without attributing where it came from to garner Reddit upvotes… That clip went nuts right? I’m having trouble finding it now but didn’t you intercede in that whole phenomenon personally as well?

Someone filmed it off their TV screen, posted it to Vine with no caption, and it exploded. It’s been reposted thousands and thousands of times across all platforms. I’m really happy that lots of people have seen it, but it does annoy me that many (most) of these are still reposts of the original low-quality TV filming, or even lower-quality rips from the DVD. I wish that people would at least see it in context; that whole section with Connor (Kammerer) is full of those perspective-shifting match cuts.

The reason I asked that rambling pseudo-question above is because your own output seems to me to strive to add that missing component back into skate videos. I’m not even sure how to describe it; ‘spiritual’ is probably wrong, but you seem to have been able to infuse your videos with a sense of magic and wonderment to complement the trick performance side of them. That recent Magenta/DC piece is a great example of what I’m struggling to illustrate: despite being nominally a vehicle to sell products, it still has that sense of wonder to it that I remember feeling watching say Life’s ‘Soldier’s Story’ or early Powell videos. Am I barking up a non-existent tree here?

As I said, I consciously try to inject a little bit of wonder into my videos. I think that people have already made plenty of really great skate videos, so I don’t see the point in just making another “skate video.” People have those pretty much figured out. For me, if I didn’t do a little bit more, I wouldn’t have thought it worth making.

You said in your Jenkem interview prior to the release of Spirit Quest that you had retired from making full-length videos but you’re still very much involved in the craft of creating documentation of skateboarding – what influences your decision to take on a project for Vice or for a brand like Magenta these days?

I love skating more than anything, so I like to stay involved in some respect. I just can’t really spend a long time filming tricks anymore. So when people approach me to make things that I’m capable of doing, I’m happy to try.

What’s your physical situation now? Did your back surgery solve the herniated disc issue that you had? A friend of mine had the same thing and spent 9 months unable to move, only for it to be eventually remedied by a fairly simple (albeit risky) operation to trim the disc. VX fish eye is still off the agenda I assume?

My back is still terrible. Past procedures have not helped. So still no fisheye for me.

You’ve done a fair bit of film work outside the charmed circle of skateboarding too – music videos for Radiohead and Brother Dege etc – strikes me that you’re perfectly placed to take your skill set into that world because your use of music in skate productions is central and integral to the end product, rather than being a case of simply cutting up tricks and adding a track at the end. Is there much cross over in terms of your approach to filming and editing for music projects?

The difference is all in pre-production. With skating, I’d have a more overarching plan, and then had all the time in the world to improvise, rethink, retrace my steps, retry ideas. With music videos and commercials, I don’t have that luxury. You generally only have 1-2 days to shoot, so you have to have everything planned to a T in advance. There’s very little wiggle room for spontaneity.

It’s an open secret that unless you work directly for a big sports brand that there is no money in filming skateboarding, at least not as a ‘career’ for a grown adult. How does the world of music video making compare to kneeling in urine waiting for somebody to land a kickflip?

It’s pretty comparable, honestly. You don’t do music videos for the money. You do it to have a chance to make fun concepts and work with cool people.

What else do you have scheduled film making wise? Any plans to turn your hand to creative writing or has the visual medium taken over from that entirely now?

I’m actually entering the early stages of pre-production for a narrative film. Wish me luck!

Ok Colin, I’ve taken up way too much of your time already so, if you’ll allow me, can we finish this off on a little quick fire piece please?

Favourite pairing of music and skater?

Danny Renaud in Mosaic, or Nate Jones in Real to Reel

Most influential skateboarder for you personally?

My friend Alex Fogt, whom I started skating with, and still skate with today.

What about filmer/editors? Who inspired you early on and who inspires you now?

Off the top of my head: French Fred, FESN, Tightbooth, Dan Wolfe, Joe Perrin. Jacob Harris.

Who would be the one skater that you have had the most fun filming with over the years?

That’s impossible to answer… Connor Kammerer and Alex Fogt have been some of my most frequent and long-running collaborators and friends, and are always fun out in the streets.

How many VX1000’s have you owned cumulatively?

Oh, man. Close to 20, probably.

Anything else that you’d like to say to Slam City Skates readership?

Take care of your back! Do yoga and keep that core strong!

Interview by Ben Powell

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Auteurs: Colin Read published first on https://medium.com/@LaderaSkateboar