#why is she fucking doomed in every existence she has the unfortunate circumstances to live in ;-;

[saphflare]

I am so emotionally well after seeing Luxintrus posting those Oceania screenshots, and I just can't help but think about what might have happened if Ocean Lux hadn't dropped specifically into our c!Lux's world and gave her the anchorblade. If then she never had a reason to reconcile with Rat and part of me wonders what would have happened then.

If that would have been enough to make the difference when she and Nox found the broken charter piece and they discussed testing it on Rat. If she never chose or had reason to care for Rat again, she likely wouldn't have been chosen and given the Charter piece to personally strike at Rat. She wouldn't have been close to him after all. Would that distance be enough for her to be willingly complicit in condemning Rat, even aid and watch Nox or even another member of Oceania use it to possibly rid of someone in the most permanent and worst way she knows of. Watch it again as she had witnessed Winsweep done so twice before. That whether it worked or not, have that sit in her heart knowing she let it happen again, even if it was for "the greater good."

Would it have mattered, would it even be the only breaking point, when she would need to watch the members of Oceania grow hungry enough to want more and set their eyes on Spawn. That would she agree to partake in that conquest that was for glory and vanity rather than for the betterment that she strived for, trod onto the familiar path of violence that haunted everyone and broken her down more times than she knows perhaps at this point. Would she have done so if she was a "good" person, not even against some villainous monster, but against people that have done nothing or little to her and, maybe among those, friends. And if that follows, then she might find herself confronted again with Winsweep being recruited by the people she trusted to have her best interests at heart.

Would she have been able to put aside her own morals in trying to be someone good, swallow down the bitter grievances just to stay with them and have that place she had belonged to or would it have ended all the same and she would be alone again, this time not even a log cabin far away to crawl to as shelter.

Alone again and wandering with no where to go, like every other reflection of herself that are lost from worlds they can't return to.

[amillioninprizes]

Some thoughts on Veronica Mars, fan service, and noir

I’ve been on winter break and at home with a nasty combo cold-ear infection-stomach virus the past couple of weeks, and as so often happens when I don’t have much going on, my thoughts have turned to ruminating over the steaming pile of excrement that was season 4 of Veronica Mars. Why yes, almost six months and one cancellation notice later and I’m still complaining about it--as I told someone on Twitter, it was so stupid that it’s going to take years to unpack.

This particular rant is brought to you by a common refrain seen in both professional critics’ and S4 supporters’ reviews of S4: the movie was schlocky fan service, while S4 is TRUE NOIR. I’m here to argue that neither of those things are true, and that in the grand scheme of things trying to definitively call Veronica Mars noir or not isn’t the best qualitative judgement of the series.

A note on “fanservice”

Something that’s been very strange to me in the critical discussion around S4 is that the fan-funded movie has been retconned as a fanservicey failure. This is weird because it did get a positive Rotten Tomatoes score, actually turned a profit despite the unorthodox distribution model, and was overall well-received by fans except for maybe the 5 Piz lovers out there (he absolutely did not deserve better you guys; he works at This American Life and lives in Brooklyn, he’ll be fine).

A lot of the things pointed to in the movie as fan service actually weren’t. In every interview about the movie and S4, RT and KB always talk about how they started with the image of Veronica punching Madison at the high school reunion and worked from there. The problem is that almost no one had been asking for that. If they had bothered to read any online discourse about the show (and we know RT definitely does), they would know that fans are actually somewhat sympathetic to Madison--after all, she was the intended recipient of the drugged drink Veronica received at Shelly Pomeroy’s party, plus growing up in a family that she wasn’t meant to be a member of must have negatively impacted her. When the preview scene of Veronica encountering Madison at the reunion welcome table was released, Veronica didn’t come off sympathetically. In a similar vein, as much as I liked Corny as a side character in the original series, I didn’t need him to come back for that random scene at the reunion. Nor was anyone asking for an out-of-nowhere James Franco cameo (which given what we know about him now is super gross in hindsight).

So why was the movie well-received by fans? Veronica was in character after an unevenly written and performed S3, and she was back in Neptune, doing what (and who; Ay-yo!) she was meant to do. So while the mystery was subpar (and what Rob Thomas mystery isn’t?), the character side of the story made sense and was satisfying. I wouldn’t call that fan service so much as good writing. Plus, what is even the point of wasting time, money, and effort on making a tv show or movie if it’s going to actively alienate the audience?

S4: more trauma porn than true noir

Admittedly, I’m not exactly the world’s foremost scholar on film noir (in my opinion, the height of cinema is teen romcoms c. 1995-2005), but I do feel I have enough pop cultural knowledge to have a working understanding of what film noir is, and as internet folk would say, S4 ain’t it chief. Sure, S4 was bleak subject matter wise, but that does not automatically equal noir. HappilyShanghaied, who does have a film studies background, wrote a pretty excellent post about why that is shortly after S4 dropped that I could not improve upon, so I will just leave it here. 

In addition to this analysis, I would also point out that S4 was lacking in a unique visual style common to noir films, especially compared to the original television series and the movie. The original series made use of green, blue, and yellow filters to fulfill a high school version of the noir aesthetic (quick shoutout to Cheshirecatstrut’s color theory posts for more on what we thought this meant before it turned out that Rob Thomas did not actually intend to imbue meaning into any of this), while the movie adopted a more mature muted blue-grey palette. S4, however, was more or less shot like a conventional drama and was brightly lit, perhaps signifying Rob Thomas’s apparent plans to turn the show into a conventional procedural.

The movie: more than fan service 

If anything, the movie was more noir than S4. Take Gia’s storyline for instance. While Veronica was off obtaining elite degrees, Gia spent 9 years in a virtual cage being forced into a sexual relationship without her total consent (because that’s the only storyline women can have on this show), and then set herself up to be murdered at the very moment she could potentially break free. That’s pretty fucking grim.

Then there is the whole police corruption storyline, which is a hallmark of noir fiction. The glimpses we get of the Neptune sheriff’s department point to a larger conspiracy at play than just crooked cops; Sachs lost his life trying to expose it and Keith was gravely injured. This was the story I was excited for future installments of Veronica Mars to address, especially given its relevance to today’s politics. Unfortunately, this thread was entirely dropped in S4, where the police department (because, as Rob Thomas revealed in interviews but not onscreen, Neptune has incorporated) is merely overwhelmed by the scope of the bombing case rather than outright corrupt. (Side note but Marcia Langdon was also a more complex and morally grey character when introduced in the second book than she was on screen in S4. Another wasted opportunity).

Noir is also marked by a sense of inevitability or doom as a result of greater forces at play. An example of this in the movie is Weevil’s storyline. After building a life and family for himself, he ultimately ends up rejoining the PCHer gang he left as a teenager due to a misunderstanding based on his race and appearance and the assumptions authority figures make about him because of those things. No matter what he does, he is still limited by an unjust and racist society. Contrast this with the final explosion in S4; it’s not inevitable, just based on Veronica’s incompetence. Rob Thomas claims that he tried to create a sense of doom to LoVe’s relationship between the OOC Leo storyline and the last minute barriers before the wedding, but those aspects just served to make the story unnecessarily convoluted.

What is noir anyway? Was Veronica Mars ever noir? Does it matter?

But this is all assuming there is a set template for noir anyway. This New Yorker essay points out that trying to definitively establish a set of rules for noir is difficult and that the classic noir films were more a product of midcentury artistic and political movements than a defined genre. The noir filmmakers working at the time would not have described their work as such. The kicker of this essay is the final sentence: “But the film noir is historically determined by particular circumstances; that’s why latter-day attempts at film noir, or so-called neo-noirs, almost all feel like exercises in nostalgia.” I found this particularly amusing because as Rob Thomas infamously proclaimed in his S4 era interviews, he wanted to completely dispense with nostalgia going forward. Rob Thomas and S4 supporters have said that Logan needed to die because noir protagonists can’t have stable relationships; but, if there isn’t a defined set of rules other than “an element of crime”, then was it strictly necessary? Hell, writing a hardboiled detective who does have a stable relationship and maybe even a family could have been an interesting subversion of genre expectations. Unfortunately, Rob Thomas isn’t that imaginative.

There’s also the issue that noir and hardboiled detective fiction aren’t interchangeable genres. This article lays out that idea that they aren’t the same because noir is ultimately about doomed losers; in contrast, detective fiction, while dark, contains a moral center and has an ending where a sense of justice is achieved. An interview with author Megan Abbott makes a similar argument; she states that in hardboiled detective fiction, “At the end, everything is a mess, people have died, but the hero has done the right thing or close to it, and order has, to a certain extent, been restored.” Based on the descriptions laid out here, I would argue that in its original format Veronica Mars far better fit the detective fiction model; while she wasn’t always right, she was never a loser, and she solved the mystery. S1-3 all had relatively hopeful, if not totally happy, endings, but you never see anyone complaining that they weren’t noir enough; if anything, they were more emotionally complex than the ending of S4, where Logan’s death is essentially meaningless. One could make the argument that S4 did push Veronica towards a more noir characterization by the definition of these articles by making her more incompetent and meaner than she was in previous installments, but that is a fundamental change in character, which is not coherent writing.

And that is ultimately why S4 was so poorly received by longtime fans and why there will be no more installments of Veronica Mars anytime soon (at least on Hulu). Even if S4 had been noir (or at least shot like one), the serious issues with plotting, characterization, and lack of adherence to prior canon that this season exhibited would still exist. Defending the poor writing choices made in S4 with “it’s noir!” does not mask them or automatically heighten the quality of the product. Perhaps ironically, in ineptly trying to be noir in S4, Rob Thomas likely prematurely ended Veronica Mars by failing his creation and fans with lazy storytelling.

[nervesbaddington]

Life and Lyric

This won't be easy to share and it could potentially get somewhat longwinded but whatever.  I just feel like I gotta do it so please bear with me ok thanks 😏

Many of you know that I've recently experienced significant growth in the relationship with my daughter. Some of you probably didn't even know I had a daughter because for a long time it's been a very sensitive subject for me to talk about due to seriously complicated and unfortunate circumstances.

Anyway, I do. I do have a daughter and her name is Lyric. She was born in Denver while I was living on the run (2005-2010) trying to avoid a ridiculous prison sentence for a ridiculous "crime" because Alabama's ridiculous laws regarding marijuana suggest I'm a hardened criminal that belongs in a cage. You probably know someone in prison for weed too, huh? Yeah. Ridiculous right?

So Lyric was born in 2008 and I was a stay-at-home-dad/starving artist (making music, touring, etc.) for the first 18 months of her life. She was a stereotypical "daddy's girl" in every aspect of the phrase but I'll stop gloating...for now. 😉

She was a year and a half old when the US Marshals kicked in the door to haul me back to Alabama to "pay my debt to society". The image of her standing up in her crib, hysterically crying, tears streaming down her cute baby face as they walked me past her bedroom in handcuffs is burned into my memory for eternity. It was brutally painful. To make it worse, they were in full on bully-mode and wouldn't even let me say goodbye. In fact, I could still hear her screaming from the police car out front.

Fast forward to about 6 months into the 42 month bid of being held captive in the Alabama Department of Corrections. To when the letters stopped coming in. To when the phone calls stopped being answered. To when Lyric's mom decided to go above and beyond in attempt to delete me from Lyric's life like I was some vague, poorly worded Facebook post made at 3:30am after polishing off a fifth of vodka. Her goal was to delete me like I never existed. Obviously, there was very little I could do about...well, anything. Especially from behind that razor wire fence. One of the first survival tactics you inevitably learn while doing time is accepting that you can't control what happens on the outside from the inside. I know it sounds like common sense but trust me, it's supremely harder than it sounds.

So as if I had a choice...I accepted it. Everything. Her mom moved on and I did my time. Luckily, Lyric's grandmother kept in touch a bit and I was able to send letters to Lyric through her. Clearly, Lyric was way too young to process any of what was going on, much less read a letter, but relentlessly I drew pictures for her, wrote her letters and thought about her constantly.

The year 2013 finally rolled around and apparently ADOC deemed me "rehabilitated" enough to be set free (re: sarcasm). To little to no surprise, just like all the OG convicts predicted, I heard from Lyric's mom literally the same week I was scheduled to be released (According to the OG's unwritten universal law; freeworld relationships can't last while your significant other is doing time). She had contacted my family and somehow they coordinated a trip from CO to AL for my release date. They were even at the prison to greet me as I walked through the back gate. One of the most surreal days of my life. I got to spend the first week as a free man with my, now 4 yr old, Lyric. It was genuinely like we never missed a beat but instead picked up right where we left off...except without all the hysterical crying (only the happy crying).

When they flew back to Denver I had hopes of transferring my probation to Colorado so I could continue being a father to Lyric and start making up for everything I'd missed during my state-sponsored vacation. Those plans came to a screeching halt when I learned about all the ridiculous (yes, THAT word again) stipulations of making that happen. I either A) needed to have immediate family living in Denver or B) needed to be married to someone living in Denver.

I know what you're thinking...having a child is considered "immediate family" right? Well here's the shittiest of all shitty things about this unfortunate situation:  I was literally a fugitive from justice when Lyric was born and, as a measure of caution, did not put my name on her birth certificate. I know, I know. It's fucking awful but that's what happened. **Side note:  I did, however, fill out the proper paperwork while in prison to be added but for some brilliant reason her mom never filed it and subsequently fail off the face of the earth.

I kept trying to figure out ways to be in Lyric's life. Marrying her mom was never an option and I'll spare you the details of why and just say that our relationship was an unhealthy spiral of doom and regret and the absolute last thing Lyric needed in her life. For the record, I don't subscribe to the philosophy of "staying together for the kids". That's a bullshit philosophy. But I still kept trying to figure it out. I even tried to get "fake married" to a longtime  Denver homegirl just so I could move there to be close to Lyric. While that would've been understandable and totally worth it, I just couldn't go through with it. Just didn't feel right and I needed to get my life in order before I started making desperate decisions like that. Then Nerves Baddington was born and the rest is pretty much history.

After multiple fallouts with Lyric's mom which included false accusations of sending her "fake money orders" among other irrationally immature arguments, I found myself resorting back to that ol' prison survival tactic of accepting the fact that I can't control some things...only now I'm on the OUTSIDE but still (up until now) have felt circumstantially powerless as they hold my lack of LEGAL fatherly rights over my head as some sort of twisted torture device.

I've seen Lyric exactly twice in the 4+ years I've been home. Once in Birmingham and once in Denver and both times at least 4 years ago. A third attempt was made, in April of 2014, when my ever-so-rad and wonderful girlfriend Melanie and I drove all day and night to Denver just to be denied a simple visit with my Lyric. It crushed me. No words can describe the pain of being denied seeing your daughter after driving 24 hours straight. I felt like I had no choice but to give up until the universe (or whatever) grants me with an opportunity to go through the proper legal channels to access my fatherly rights. The time is now and I feel I need to strike while the proverbial iron is hot, so to speak. Obviously this is not going to be easy or inexpensive. I'm going to have to hire lawyers that practice law in Colorado. There will be much travel cost and tests and paperwork and...you name it. But it's all possible and could actually become feasible with a little love and assistance from friends and family.

I spoke with Lyric for the first time in over a year on Father's Day '17. Sincerely the best Father's Day I've ever had since joining The Club. My birthday falls around Father's Day every year and my dad passed away in 2003. Without fail since 2010 each year around this time my brain automatically goes into a very dark place. Not this year though. This has been the happiest week since...as long as I can remember and I can't help but think my dad would be just as excited as I am.

As happy as I am about this newly-fast-developing relationship with my amazing, now 8 yr old, Lyric, I also can't help but be genuinely concerned about her living situation. Since her mom has been the one keeping her from me, it wasn't until her recently "hitting bottom" and disappearing for a few weeks that Lyric actually mustered the courage and ability to find a way to contact me. I've talked to Lyric's grandmother, whose sister (Lyric's great aunt), passed away the same week her daughter had a meltdown and vanished. Apparently CPS has been involved for some time now but I honestly don't know a lot of details as to why or what's going on. Lyric is currently living with her grandmother and is seemingly in good spirits although she's a bit devastated about the whole thing. She wants to come to Birmingham but they (Lyric's mom/grandmother) have been very vocal about how that'd never be a possibility.

Until I go through the aforementioned "proper legal channels" the odds are severely stacked against me.

Which leads me to asking what you - my friends and fam - think about me starting a gofundme campaign to raise money to make this thing happen.

People often turn their nose up when others take to platforms like gofundme to ask for help. What do YOU think? Is this something worth going all out for? I think so but I'd like some input and/or reassurance here.

Thanks so much for reading and I hope one day for Lyric to see how hard I fought for her. THIS IS MY REAL DEBT TO SOCIETY and I just want to do the responsible thing.