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meyeselph · 3 years

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Gwenpool: Desperate Misanthrope's Confused Angst

Showtime

Ms. Pool woke up in a familiar room. Not in Krakoa - there are no mutants around. This isn’t a story about that. Look, honestly, without an actual Gwenpool series and the constant breaks in her comics appearance I can’t even begin to give a fuck. I cancelled my marvel universe subbie. I might get back to my stories but single issues are iffy. I read fast and don’t pore over the artwork. So I get 10 minutes of entertainment for….FIVE DOLLARS? When did this happen? Jeezus.

Who even reads comics anymore?

Anyway, long story short, Gwen got out of bed and recognized the room as her old one from the “old times.” The dark times. The ‘not running around in pink and white outfits and shooting people’ times. She panicked (Been there. It is what it is though). The only way out of trauma is through.

She dressed in old clothes, immediately hit by old smells, she couldn’t help but cry. Was it all a dream? Have I gone insane (again)? All the usual self doubts cropped up. I mean, really, if you think this kind of thing didn’t pass through her mind regularly why don’t you transport yourself to a comic book universe?

Oh, you can’t?

Oh. It isn’t actually possible for you and I’m stupid for suggesting it. So, yeah. If it actually happened and you kept that attitude then the logical assumption for a normie is a mental breakdown. Trick for Gwen, though, is it's probably always been both real and her being nuts.

So she goes downstairs to the kitchen to figure out why this is happening and Evil Gwen is having cereal. Let's say cocoa puffs. I’ve been thinking about those recently. You ever remember cereal as something worth cherishing. Not as just bullshit that TV convinced you to want? God damn, now I want Cookie Crisp. Cookie Crisp wasn’t even ever that good. Why do I want Cookie Crisp?

So also sitting around the table were the faceless versions of her father, mother, and her brother. Just chilling. No BD. Seen Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind?

Yes, I know that references aren’t jokes - fuck you, I’m painting a picture and I CAN’T PAINT, THAT’S WHY THIS ISN’T A COMIC. Fucks sake. Anyway. So, Gwen is so creeped out that she just sits her butt down by Evil Gwen as if she’s the comforting presence here.

Her name’s too long. Let’s call Evil Gwen uh…….Gren. You know, like Grendel from Beowulf. I haven’t actually read Beowulf and this is all a little confusing but I'm solving problems here. Writing this is harder for me than you would think so it’s best to keep things flowing off the cuff. That’s the Gwenpool™ style anyway, isn’t it? Are you laughing yet? IMPROV. “YES AND” MY SHIT, READER!

“So, you ever really look into the retconned past thing, hun?” Gren said, moving her tongue around her food. Being gross as an attempt to be properly evil. She swallowed before continuing. “This is all I could really put together on short notice but i’m pretty sure what the future people created, all that stuff to try and trick you, it was all bullshit.”

“What do you mean? Are you trying to convince me to go all psycho like you again?” Gwen asked, exasperated, realizing she was now back in the whole ‘fuck with Gwen to decide her fate’ song and dance routine from the end of her first arc.

“Nah, not really.” Gren said. A hammer appeared in her hands out of nowhere and Gren swung it into their fake father’s head, snapping his neck..

“DAD!” Gwen instinctively cried as she saw her father’s body slump to the floor. Gren slapped Gwen’s face. “That’s it,” Gren said, “this is what the trick was.This is a poorly created character in a fictional story. Meant to manipulate you into attaching your concept of “father” to it. Even his finished version in the original comics run wasn’t THAT well drawn. Your dad read like a boomer’s idea of a responsible parent. You were going through a mental crisis and struggling to find purpose in life and his genius idea was get a shitty low paying job and suck it up?”

Gren turned to their brother, pushed his face to the table and smashed the back of his skull. . “Brother dearest, too. Going right along with their victim blaming. He gaslighted you as if what you were going through was just you being ‘irresponsible.’ Bitch, people working a minimum wage job aren’t somehow not impoverished and miserable because they get some of that ‘honest work’ that folks keep badgering on about. Minimum wage work is occupied by many physically and mentally disabled people held hostage; they’re people society only pretends to care about. Then they turn it all into you acting like some world ending threat. No questions about what drove you to the edge in the first place. You are just ‘unstable,’ so you’re just a problem to be solved. They say, ‘Let’s all solve this girl being upset and on edge by ruining her concept of self, reality, and memory.’ Brilliant!”

Gwen barely processed this in horror. Gren then slit the poor facsimile of their mother’s throat while continuing to rant, “You see people die all the time, Gwen. Half of the time you are doing the killing. You do it because it’s in a story. In a story the NPCs don’t matter and, after all, your original schtick in the story was to be kill-crazy. The non-marketable characters can be replaced or retconned at the stroke of the artist’s pen.” Gren leans forward as she pulls a Gwenpool mask over Gwens face. “Then the writers convince you that you have some middle class milk toast family and you take abuse and subsume your emotional needs because the problem MUST be you. You aren’t ‘normal’ so you have to be fixed.”

Gwen wiped her eyes over the mask and sighed. A bit of fire filled her gut as she stared at Gren. “So fucking what? You want me to go on a killing spree and be a big time villain to get myself a nice, shiny permanent big bad status? That’s how I stay around right? Just build my legacy on bodies?”

Gren scoffed “You already lost that fight, girly. Where do you think we are? Because this ain’t Marvel Comics.”

Confused, Gwen blinked and tried reaching for the page margins, finding nothing. Wait….why was everything on this page so ill defined and undetailed? Wait? Why was the story in kinda wobbly third person past tense?

Gwen sighed “Oh. I’m in a fanfic. I guess the publishing fight is for another day eh?”

“My advice, personally,” Gren stated, “is that you consider the lobster.”

“Wait, what the fuck?”

Gren pulled aside the kitchen curtains revealing the face of a giant lobster, its claws tapping on the glass. The lobster muttering gutterally about personal responsibility.

“Because there’s a couple thousand giant lobsters outside that would like to claw you until you read their book.”

Scared of Girls

On the rooftop, Gren shoved a high powered rifle into Gwen’s hands while she handled the close range threats. So, this conversation they’re about to have is important. Sniping puts Gwen into a sort of zen space, so that’s a better task to keep her focused, after all.

“So, what? You wanted me to internalize that my “origin story” is bullshit? Okay, what does that accomplish, then?” Gwen asked in a bit of a deadpan. She was so tired today. Not really feeling her happy go lucky energy. More like a “happy go fucky” energy. It was hard to always be on a knife's edge. Still the rifle’s kick into her shoulder was satisfying as she blew through two of the creepy looking lobsters at once. “Also, why the lobsters?”

Gren considered this. “Okay, last question first, I had to experiment a lot and do a lot of research to construct this place for your learning and healing in fanfic form....These buddies are a failed experiment of mine that I repurposed because the fic needed more action. Isn’t that right, giant enemy crap?” As she peppers the nearest goon with a hail of shotgun pellets the entire throng of them burst out, sharply muttering about divine symbols.

“As for what I'm trying to teach you, it’s that you aren’t reaching your potential.” Gren grumpily huffed.

“Duh,” Gwen reloads, “I mean you just killed a mannequin version of the voice in my head that says that to me every day.” one of those crustaceans talks about feminine symbolism while she decides on her next target.

“Not like fake daddy’s ‘Be a responsible member of society by paying your taxes’ type of potential. I mean your creative and emotional potential.” Gren flipped off the slavering throng of monsters, noticing they were starting to keep their distance from the roof.

“I never did finish that fanfic idea I had.” Gwen mused.

“God, don’t mention that,” Gren thrusts a finger at Gwenpool. “Not that I don’t respect fanfic, but when comic book writers make you and Kamala squee about fanfiction to try and relate to “the kids” it comes across as so condescending.”

“Really? I mean…..I'm sure it’s meant as support for the concept?”

“Most fucking superhero comics are just legalized fanfiction! The people who created the characters are either long gone or working on someone else’s characters! They just think they are so much better because they got fucking paid. They can’t imagine themselves as on the same playing field as fanficcers even though most of them have the same level of connection to the roots of the work as anyone else.” Gren groused loudly as she seemed to pull Reed Richards out of nowhere.

Confused, Reed looked around until his eyes met Gwen’s.“Oh great, you again.” Reed groaned as he turned to survey the piles of lobster gibs while Gwen cheered the lobster forces’ retreat with a resounding “EDF, EDF!”. The scattered creatures skittered amongst the bland scenery. It looked like a suburban neighborhood but someone forgot to color in the sky….or write that the sky had color. A castle hung out in the distance breaking up the generic normalcy and lay cloaked in shadow despite being surrounded by an endless white void.

“And…..black….you?” Reed pointed to Gren, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, I have an evil future self….well I stopped that future so it’s an….evil...alternate timeline self?” Gwen said with a nervous chuckle, abandoning the kill quest for the minute and rested her rifle on the roof.

“Ah. Yeah I’ve been down that road. It’s a rather common occurrence. Multiverse being what it is.” Reed laughed heartily while putting his hands on his hips.

“I’m not sure I’m evil, honestly,” Gren interjected. “I think I’m just really fucking grumpy and I’m slightly more gung-ho on the homicide. Considering Gwen’s already one of the more kill crazy characters on the roster it’s not that much of a distinction.” Gren flipped her cape. “My main distinction is I don’t like that meme from The Incredibles! You can just make it so the cape detaches automatically when it’s pulled hard enough!”

“You could still have it tangled up around your face.” Reed pointed out in his standard know-it-all fashion.

“Don’t make me go into fuck wife mode, stretch.” Gren spat. “Okay, anyway, so I brought him here to illustrate a point. Reed. Explain particle physics to me as a laymen.”

“Huh...i’m not sure why but okay. Particle physics (also known as high energy physics) is a branch of physics that studies the nature of the particles that constitute matter and radiation. Although the word particle can refer to various types of very small objects (e.g. protons, gas particles, or even household dust), particle physics usually investigates the irreducibly smallest detectable particles and the fundamental interactions necessary to explain their behaviour. In current understanding, these elementary particles are excitations of the quantum fields that also govern their interactions. The currently dominant theory explaining these fundamental particles and fields, along with their dynamics, is called the Standard Model. Thus, modern particle physics generally investigates the Standard Model and its various possible extensions, e.g. to the newest "known" particle, the Higgs boson, or even to the oldest known force field, gravity.” Reed rattled this off rather mechanically.

Gren then took out her phone and showed Gwen the Wikipedia article on “Particle Physics,” which is naturally the same words that Reed had regurgitated above, just without any formatting and, again, on a phone.

“Reed can’t be a genius in any subject unless he’s written by a genius in that subject. That’s how stories work. Everyone is limited by the understanding and capabilities of the writer. Same with your origin story and all the people you’ve interacted with. If you are as ‘meta’ as you think you are then you have to realize that you aren’t actually talking to people. You are talking to the writer. Dr. Strange didn’t rewrite your existence to be a part of the Marvel Universe. As far as most of Marvel continuity goes Dr. Strange was never there and doesn’t know or care about his MCU casting…..Hey Reed, buzz off please before the conversation pivots to why you haven’t cured all known diseases.”

Reed looked a little surprised but then pulled out a teleportation device (of course he has one) and blipped away with a shrug.

“How awkward is that going to be when he enters the MCU after Kamala is already introduced with a very similar power set?” Gwen chuckled.

“Keep up the way you’ve been going and you’ll never see it. I’m not exactly expecting a young blonde girl casting call for Deadpool 3 and that’s your best bet.” Gren snarked. Gwen winced with a sigh.

“I don’t get what I'm doing wrong. I have a fanbase comparable to some of the characters that have already shown up but I can’t even get comics written about me most of the time. An MCU push seems unlikely. They would literally have to deal with completely recontextualizing my powers and gimmick”

“Let’s ask her what you should do.” Gren motioned her way to the suddenly appearing long hair future Gwen, looming over them like The Attack of the 50 foot Woman for some reason. Dwarfing the roof they are on. Let’s call her BIGwen!

Gold Guns Girls

As BIGwen acclimated to her surroundings she stubbed her toe on a car, dramatically flipping it so that it took out a few more lobsters before caving in a nearby house. The lamentations about clean rooms soaring as the remaining couple dozen of them attempt to clean up some of the bodies of their fallen kin. The large and sort-of-in-charge Gwen hissed in pain and adjusted her boot. Getting her balance as best as possible she muttered curses that traveled rather well considering the lung capacity of a giant.

“You know,” Gren started, “I wasn’t expecting much from our previous uses of the ‘make her big for emphasis’ trick, but it really does only work as a vague ghostly background element. I didn’t just want it to be ‘oh, here's a third Gwen for the conversation, though. Would lack umph.”

“ Yeah, I get it, but staring at my own giant taint is unsettling.” Gwen muttered.

“I’d still, hit it.” Gren grinned, then immediately got punched in the arm. “OWWW! Look, I’m the evil one here and we’re in a fanfic. I’m allowed to make internet fetish jokes.”

“And I’m allowed to hit you for it.”.

“Dirty lampshading goody two shoes. Don’t act like half your fanbase isn’t thirsty. It’s “insert current year argument”, all art is sexy to someone.” Gren complained back,rubbing her arm before hopping off the roof. Gwen followed while listening as patiently as she could considering how many changes in topic her evil-caped self is going through to get to her point. “This chick is the reason you’ve been on the path of good girl. Some vague idea that in the future everything will work out for the best. HEY, DOWN HERE, BIG SHOW!” Gren waved at BIGwen and she looked down curiously.

“Yeah what??” BIGwen responded in a booming and agitated tone. Honestly, being in this fic made every version of Gwen a little grumpy.

“How’s she supposed to be a popular hero that makes it into the MCU and has a stable publication history?” Gren asked.

“Fuck if I know.” Came BIGwen’s response. “Have you tried growing your hair out?”

“Rub it in,” Gwen muttered under her breath, “I’m not gonna lie, I’m kind of depressed now.” Gwen said as she sat on an abandoned car.

Gren hopped on the roof of the car, patting Gwen’s shoulder before squatting with enough force to flex the car’s shocks like a rocking chair just to amuse herself. “Future “good” Gwen wasn’t an actual plot point, it was a call to action to the fans to make fanfic like this and support the character outside of the actual Canon. Chris didn’t trust that Marvel would treat the character right. That, and your obsession with getting a new book, are both the writer’s attempt to turn a marketing tactic into fan engagement. If you want to be real then that makes the fans want you to be real even more, too.”

Gwen sighs heavily and leans her chin on one hand. “I mean...the time traveling through the life of an NPC fan complete with a Never Ending Story reference was a bit sappy even by the standard we sometimes set...damn it it really was just kind of a fan manipulation trick wasn’t it?”

BIGwen Sat down on the street next to them and crossed her legs. “Hey, little me. Don’t get too down. I mean it worked for the most part. You have a healthy cult following. Characters have survived on less and there are worse things to be known for then as a fan first character”

“But I have to fight for attention all the damn time, though. It’s so easy for Wade with his fucking meme bullshit. He even gets runoff enthusiasm from me. Jeff the land shark is all over Oldpool online” Gwen felt rather heavy and tired all of a sudden. Marvel editorial forcing a gun to your head is not a fun way to be.

“All that fight is hell on the fanbase too.” Gren sighed. “Advocating for shit, getting crumbs and being expected to accept it while Disney lavishes all the attention based on some bullshit numbers game. Even if you make it into the MCU will it be a Batroc style cameo with obligatory ‘killed off in case we don’t feel like paying the actor again later.’ Will it be an emotionally rounded character or an ambush bug style joke? The thing is. You're Not the one fighting and you never were.”

“The fuck do you mean?”

“This version of her doesn’t know?” BIGwen whimpered.

“You aren’t real, Gwen.”

Head Like a Haunted House

“No….we aren’t having this conversation. Fuck you fuck you i’m not a fucking Nihlist and i’m not going to do this right now.” Gwen said as she scrambled off of the car and pulled out some guns. BIGwen then picked her up off the ground.

“You need to hear this, Gwen,” BIGwen boomed. “The gimmick has run its course. It’s fucking with your canon. You’re never going to be a marketable character keeping up a half fourth-wall Kayfabe”

Gren climbed onto BIGwen’s Shoulders and perched over Gwen all menacing like. “You need to listen. I’ve been trying to ease you into this. Making things more meta slowly until you were ready but it was never going to be easy.”

One of Gwen’s guns was fired from it’s holster and pierced one of BIGwen’s fingers. BIGwen screamed and her grip loosened. Soon Gwen was on the move running up her arm and firing at Gren, who dodged like the nimble and cute badass she is. “Don’t do this Gwen. Just because it doesn’t matter to the comic version of you doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.”

“I’m a real person god damn it! I read the comics out there! I came in! That’s why I know shit I shouldn't know. That’s what I am! THAT’S ALL I AM!” Gwen shrieked as she pulled out a sword from hammer-space and decapitated BIGwen. Suddenly a mess of colored streamers and a pile of Mickey Mouse merch tumbled out. Look, I am busy right now. Gwen is still slashing at my ass. I'm not going to explain it.

For some reason now the remaining lobsters were helping Gren. For Gwen’s own good you understand. This is proof that I’m right for some reason.

Gwen pulled out a revolver, firing pumpkin sized holes in lobsters who were still wailing about self actualization. She fully planned on shoving a sword up her evil self’s ass and getting rid of this doppelganger shit for good. Which is total bullshit by the way. She totally just cut off Gren’s leg because what the fuck you mean I’m not real? I’m going to be real all over your corpse.

Gren didn’t really think that was even a good comeback and also thought you should probably say it instead of meta willing the smack talk into existence, otherwise this fanfic is going to read like trash. Also, Gren’s leg wasn’t actually cut off. In a puff of smoke it is revealed that the cut off leg is a log and her leg is fine. Gren is a ninja now, believe it.

Gwen proceeded to do a sick ass CQC judo throw on Gren and then grab her cape and wrap it around her face like Reed suggested. Callbacks for the win! Callbacks to Checkov’s gun ideas always lead to victory in fights! She then totally shot at her and such.

But the bullet was caught by the cape because the cape was a symbiote! That’s right Gren is also GRENOM!...boy that sounds stupid. Anywho, the cape was no longer around her face and the fight continued and Gren now ALSO had extra powers and special wizard-symbiote armor (that would only show up in the MCU version if Marvel finally got the Sony characters back). The meta powers work like shit in text but this would be really good in CGI or animation if Marvel wanted to adapt this fic and give the writer lots of money. Gren still has more experience with them, though, and Gwen can’t really just kill her way out of this fic so she has to just let the story play out.

…...eh?....oh Gwen’s crying. I love/am you girl but we gotta work on the crying. Fucks sake this is harder than I thought. I’m depressed now too. Well I'll try to get the writing back on track so you guys can see what is going on. Even the lobsters are minding their manners now. Chill vibes, guys.

“The marvel character page for Gwenpool says, and I quote:

Gwenpool arrived in the Marvel Universe from the “real world,” but has wasted no time in making the most of her time in her fictional universe. Using her knowledge of comics to her advantage, Gwenpool causes and solves problems for her fellow heroes.”

Gren drags a lobster corpse slowly toward Gwen and sits on its tail as she talks to her. Taking her time to really scrape the lobster against the ground, smearing the gore on the pavement. Not that it was heavy for her or anything. Totally still has that symbiote, which would make moving it easy. Totally wasn’t a detail added in the second revision of the fic slightly before the lobsters were added.

“The words “Real world” are in quotation marks in that wiki. Real people don’t make it into comics because fiction isn’t real. Half of your versions barely make use of the ‘real person’ gimmick because it’s too meta by half and not every writer wants to waste time justifying it. So they just treat it like Deadpool’s medium awareness. Which it mostly is.”

“I really am just a fucking rip off distaff character.” Gwen moans. “Just a Gwen combined with a Pool. I’m worse than the Batman who laughs. I never mattered because I was never real”

“Fuck don’t say that. You were made with love and care by a team of creators who took a weird offshoot idea and built out a compelling metafiction idea and a likeable protagonist off of it. They just didn’t have the time and foresight to go far enough.” Gren sighed.

“Far enough?” Gwen sniffed as she was pulled up to her feet and dragged toward one of the big castles. As they walked Gren kicked along a Mickey Mouse doll that had rolled out of BIGwen’s severed head. Every time it bounced it cheerfully said ‘hahah. I love you!’

“Too much haha, not enough trauma. You’re not just a joke character.” Gren said as she kicked the Mickey doll into the big front door of the castle. The shadowy thing of course lighting up and being all fantasy and shit as the door opened.

“Well I did end both of my comic runs pretty mopey.”

“Damn right you did. When the jokes run thin they run to your real bread and butter. You’re an empathy machine.” As Gren shoves Gwen through the gate they are swallowed up in the castle, going dark again. “Let’s getcha sad clown on.”

Never there

“See, what evil me should have been telling you about in the original run is how to find meaning and purpose when technically nothing means anything. Comic book characters live in a world without real death and suffering. It’s all a puppet show version of real pain and real emotion meant to bring that out of an audience.” Gren opined as they walked through a black void to a couch floating in a nothing area lit only by the static of an old TV.

“Can we turn on a light?” Gwen asked as she sat on the couch. Gren sat on another recliner that suddenly appeared and put her feet up.

“Fuck off. Ambiance is a thing. We aren’t having a ‘lights on with something fun on the TV’ conversation. So look, I am not really ‘evil gwen.’ I’m half an author insert and half a plot device. If we are talking about the reality of the story you are basically talking to yourself. I am speaking about the things you don’t want to admit to yourself. You know, you’ve seen this kind of story sorta... right?” Gren picked up the remote and frustratedly changed channels between a bunch of vaguely illustrative footage on the TV, not finding anything that worked. A lot of black and white footage of trains for some reason. Just what comes to mind when I think of documentary footage? Weird.

“I am not sure how to illustrate this shit visually and this is a text story anyway so I would have to explain the illustration,” Gren griped.

“I basically get it. It’s not that uncommon a trope.” Gwen nodded.

“Because of the level of meta we are on right now we have to really acknowledge that you are basically an author insert, too. I mean, to a certain extent every version of you is more the writer that is working with your character at the time than a set character.” Gren said as she settled on a visual of Gwen being pushed out the window by her own narration text in the original comic run. When all else fails, resort to footage from the last story. That way people can look it up online!

“Right here is where the character crystallized in the mind of the author of the current fic we are in. A vague suicide metaphor wrapped up in the flavor of self destructive escapism. Your parents in the story thought it was a suicide attempt on at least some level. This is serious business. Not just a girl who doesn’t like work and can’t finish her fanfic. In this comic you are built on this understanding. The writer of this fic has ADHD and autism. So his version of you more or less has it, too. Writers bring themselves with them into their work.”

Gwen nods and takes a deep breath. “I….I can feel it. Like the world is closing around you. You aren’t built for anything that anyone wants from you. The one thing you really believe in, the one thing that really defines you, the stories in your head…..it’s just not enough.

You can’t trust you’ll ever make it with writing because you can barely write. You barely have the energy to do anything but wish that you weren’t you. What if someone actually listened? Actually believed in you and whisked you away somewhere else where the world would fit your needs? What if you were someplace you could be someone else, someone strong and confident?”

“Yeah. Like a funny anti hero in a comic for instance.” Gren nodded. “But the original comics sort of left the theme on the table. They were captured by the misconception of Gwen as the problem and not a person who needed help. All that desperation that real fans of the character might feel just bundled up into love for this character that really ‘gets’ them but Marvel doesn’t ‘get’ the character. They won't use her. They won’t go past vaguely gesturing at her mental issues and moving on. They saved the angst for Wandavision.” Gren scoffs.

“I mean the show was okay but they literally have a character built entirely on the theme of escapism and trauma. One that’s custom built for mind-screw visuals and reality bending plots and they think she’s just a lazy fangirl who really likes guns that they can sit beside Deadpool sometimes and stick in the X-Men’s bloated background character roster when they don’t need her.”

Gren leads Gwen off the couch and deeper into the void where a door to a bedroom waits. A room like her own, absolutely slopping over with old toys of comic book characters. An unclean messy space in a run-down house that smells faintly of cigarette smoke. Huddled in bed, reading an 80s era X-men comic with a flashlight, is a 12 year old Gwen.

“This is never going to be canon but this is the version of Gwen in this fic. She can’t stop crying at school. Things that shouldn’t be hard are so hard and she can’t explain why. Everyone says she’s making excuses. Meanwhile her mother is fucked out of her mind on pain killers and her step father killed himself last year ‘cleaning his gun’ while drunk. You know exactly what is on her mind right now?” Gren says as she gestures at the girl.

“I wish the superheroes would save me from this.”

“They won’t. They can’t. They were never meant to.” Gren Slams the door loudly on the scene.

“That is the emotional core of Gwenpool in this fic. The desperation that so many of the fans down here in the fucking muck of the real world feel. Poor and emotionally unfulfilled. Confused and vulnerable. If Disney and Marvel gave two fucking shits about people like that they wouldn’t waste as many stories as they do. They wouldn’t just use untold wealth to make expensive escapist stories with the military. Their gestures toward progressive ideas that they occasionally make in their stories would be THE ENTIRE POINT of their stories and the actual thing they used that money for instead of lobbying the government to keep Mickey Mouse out of the public domain.

“Disney has the power yet they save a fucking miniscule fraction of who they could. Saving people doesn’t make money.”

When I Get To The Green Building

Gren stormed through the void. The scene disintegrated around her as Gwen followed. Both now in a bit of a sour mood but with newfound determination.

“Come to think of it. Why is the fucking Hulk getting to fight for social justice in the comics? Why are they making a gay alternate universe Captain America? Why are they grasping at straws so hard to find characters that get to advocate and I am just sitting on a fucking island being grumpy?” Gwen groused. “I’m pretty sure I’m pansexual….at least in this fic. I could advocate for a bunch of shit at once.”

“You have a youth fanbase, a unique story and you technically aren’t an alternate universe version of fucking anything no matter how many people still think you are a Stacey. They made a fucking ‘for the fans’ character and then neglected it. Presumably because some fucking money making metric didn’t pan out despite the comics just being an MCU test kitchen and IP farm anyway.”

“You’re a fucking check mark on a ledger. I don’t even know if anyone technically created Gwenpool as a whole and Disney/Marvel can give the character to whoever they want to do whatever they want completely separate from what the fanbase wants and needs because she isn’t established. The IP landlords have spoken. The fans haven’t risen to enough ‘buy my merch’ calls to action to invest more resources. So tease endlessly until that changes.”

“Gah. Now I'm actually as pissed as you are.” Gwen said as she started fiddling with her guns. “Who do I kill?”

“We can’t do shit. You’re not even a character at this point. You are a meme for an underused character.” Gren smirked all evil like. “See but that’s it. You aren’t just a meme. You’re a MEME.”

“Uhm...I don't follow.”

“Like the concept of Justice. Gwenpool is an idea. Defined entirely by how people who engage with the idea choose to engage with it. The IP law means Disney owns Gwenpool but they don’t own how Gwenpool is perceived. Just like we as a people decide what justice is through popular consent we also decide what Gwenpool is. You see they made a character for the fans…..in my opinion that means the fans can do as they like with it even if it makes Disney uncomfortable.”

“I mean they can’t even stop porn of their characters just because of the sheer volume of the problem. I suppose people could do whatever.” Gwen nodded.

“Exactly. So the fans should just fucking Occupy Gwenpool!” Gren said as she flipped her cape dramatically with a mad smile on her face. That’s right. She was Dirtbag Leftist Gwen all along!

“Squat on that IP. Make Gwenpool a mental health advocate. Make her an LGBTQ activist. Make her fight for social and financial justice so hard that Bruce Banner looks like a poser. Make her talk shit about politicians who put their career ahead of the people. Do all the shit that makes the comicsgate crowd sad. Keep politics in our stories! Rally around that pink and white ass so hard they have to notice and then tie it all to the fact that Disney has great power and with great power they take no responsibility for how shitty the world is.”

“ If they are going to fuck Gwenpool fans they gotta learn Gwenpool fans fuck back. We have already proven we can make all kinds of cool shit. Let’s get serious and make more, harder, faster! Get a hashtag or some shit. They can't DMCA all of us! GWEN IS OURS WE JUST HAVE TO REACH OUT AND TAKE IT. Then they either respect the character and her fans or they just hit a PR disaster.”

“Marvel/Disney neglects fan focused cult character themed protest movements. Proves they are only progressive when it makes them money. They’re so worried about Mickey ending up in the public domain? We’re the public domain! After our entire lives stannin their characters and buyin their merch building them from an animation house into a juggernaut they are just another weight on top of the boot on our necks. They have to take responsibility!” At this point Gren is pretty much ranting maniacally and neglecting the actual writing of the story so this is Gwen taking over to wrap up.

Guys I may not be ‘the real Gwen’ but really, isn’t the version of Gwen that actually came from the real world all of us? Isn’t Gwenpool really the Gwens we made along the way? We could easily bring a little heroism and chaos to the real world (at least to the internet) if we really tried. Put the fear of God into some IP landlords and fight for some cool people that society is screwing over, too.

Prove that even in the fandom abyss people aren’t as powerless as they seem. Use that internet comic fan mobbing for something besides giving Zack more money. Disney is gearing up for their next IP fight for Mickey in 2024. Seems like a fine time for IP themed protests. For now we just need to spread the word that our needs are more important than their profits.

It’s been real. It’s been long. It’s been a real long time coming…..

But I finally finished my fanfic.

See ya, true believers.

#gwenpool #fanfic #deconstruction #outofloveiswear #fortheoriginalwritersnotmarvelordisney #tw mental health #tw mentions of suicide #tw mentions of drug abuse #tw violence #tw gun violence

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thedreadvampy · 3 years

Note

Hey Ruth! I noticed you've talked in the past about asexuality in quite a negative manner. As an ace-person (who has received backlash for it) I was wondering: do you still uphold these opinions?

Hey! I have in the past said I don’t really...like people popping up in my ask box asking me My Opinion On Asexuality, but I do appreciate you asking me as someone I kinda know and with your face turned on, so I’m gonna aim to answer in the macro. Though I mean it depends on what the opinions...are? I have had a lot of opinions over the time I’ve had this blog and I don’t necessarily know what all of them were or which ones have concerned you. I can give you a top-level view of how I see my views, though (however, since I have been largely holding off on answering this kind of ask for Literally A Year Now this is less an answer to your specific question and more an answer to the last year of asks)

(also if I get dogpiled in my inbox for Having Bad Asexuality Opinions which I do every time I talk about asexuality regardless of what I actually say then. my phone is broken I won’t know about it :) so I feel untouchable)

I don’t think I hold a negative opinion of asexuality as an identity (I say I don’t think bc we all have blind spots)? I have a lot of very important people in my life who are asexual, aromantic or aroace and. I mean it feels pretty condescending to say ~uwu it’s valid~ bc like. ace and aro people don’t really need my input to validate their identity. but a) it seems like a pretty accurate way to describe their experience and b) I know a lot of them have had a really huge boost from finding a name and community to fit their experience and have found that really helpful, and I’ve seen that make a huge difference in people’s lives and I’m really happy to watch my friends come to understand themselves and feel comfortable and accepted in a part of themselves they had felt really alienated or stigmatised by. In a broader sense, I think there’s huge value in decentralising romance and sex in our assumptions of What Human Happiness Means and for some people that’s not the most important thing, and for some it’s just not interesting.

So like. I find it difficult to really express these opinions in any meaningful way because my opinion on asexuals and aromantics is much like my opinion on trans people or idk like people of colour. like very obviously those people exist and very obviously those people don’t deserve to be marginalised or stigmatised but it would feel. weird and performative to just make a post saying like “Asexuality Is Good And Valid, I Am Pro It” bc again like. who needs my permission or cares about my opinion. it’s not a Good Thing To Do it’s just. a thing you are that shouldn’t be treated as a bad thing.

however. and I suspect that this is what you’re referring to. while I love and appreciate ace and aro people, I think building communities and active support for ace and aro people is valuable and needed and, as above, I think Asexuality Is Good And Valid I Am Pro It, I do take some issue with elements of how discussions around asexuality are framed online (pretty much only online, I really haven’t run into the kind of black-and-white thinking in in-person queer spaces)

and I also. think there are some issues with people extrapolating their experience of their own sexuality onto the world in a way which. I’m just going to say a lot of the time when I talk about The Ace Discourse in a negative way it’s around people assuming that the world is split into a binary between ace and allo people, or assuming that only aspec people experience a nuanced or complex or fluid relationship to their sexuality while pigeonholing allosexuality into a pretty flat image of sex and romance focus. and I have always felt like this does a massive disservice not just to people who don’t identify with aspec labels, but also to the general hope that we could work against the expectation that there’s a Standard Amount To Value Sex/Romance - I think that the assumption that there are aspec people and then Everyone Else Has The Normal Type and Level of Attraction just. reinforces the idea that there’s a “Normal” type and level of attraction. which is ultimately pretty self-defeating and also just. observably untrue.

and this division of the world into Aspec People and Allo People also has some other weird knockon effects - I don’t think there’s anything intrinsically wrong with identities like gray ace or demi or other aspec labels beyond asexual and aromantic, but I do think that the way those labels are used is often. unhelpful. and they’re defined in such personal, subjective ways that you get weirdnesses sometimes like people Diagnosing Each Other With Demisexual or people saying ‘you can’t talk about this experience you share because it’s an Aspec Experience’ and again. there isn’t a concrete material experience there because the whole experience of romantic and sexual attraction, what that feels like and how sharply divisible it is is very, very personal and subjective. and everyone has different experiences of those and will name those experiences differently.

there’s also. historically a minority of Big Ace Blogs that kind of sneer at allosexuality or who would hijack posts about other issues to derail them to asexuality. but I don’t think they were ever representative of the community as a whole and I certainly think that inasmuch as those blogs remain around they’re a legacy of the Long-Ago (and a lot of them are trolls imo)

but there is. an issue I take that does seem to be more currently live which is the question of allo privilege. I think personally that framing all allosexuals/alloromantics as privileged over all aspec people on the basis of feeling sexual/romantic attraction is provably untrue in a world where people, particularly queer people, are actively oppressed and marginalised for expressing non-normative sexuality. it isn’t that I don’t think asexuality and aromanticism isn’t marginalised and stigmatised, because it visibly is, but it seems pretty reductive to boil it down to a binary yes/no privilege when both sexualisation and desexualisation are so actively tied into other forms of marginalisation (this is what I was trying to express in the argument about Martin a while ago - sex and sexuality are so often disincentivised for fat, queer, disabled and neuroatypical people that it doesn’t...feel like a reclamation that those tend to be the characters that get fanonised as ace where slim, straight, able-bodied and neurotypical characters aren’t. like it’s more complex than a binary privilege equation; sex and romance are incentivised and stigmatised differently at the intersection of oppressions and. for example. in a world where gay conversion therapy and religious oppression of gay and SGA people is so often focused specifically on celibacy and on punishing the act of sexual attraction, I don’t think it’s a reasonable framing to say that a gay allosexual man has privilege over an aroace man on the basis of his attraction)

so those are like. things I would consider myself to feel actively negative about in online discourse (and again. in online discourse. not in how I relate to asexuality or aromanticism or aspec identities in general but in the framing and approaches people take towards discussing it in a very specific bubble).

but also. um. the main criticism I have of the online discourse culture of asexuality is that there are things I don’t have experience of that I have mentioned, when asked, that I don’t personally understand the meaning of but I don’t need to understand them to appreciate that they’re useful/meaningful to others. things like

the difference between QPRs, asexual romantic relationships and close friendships

how you know the difference between romantic attraction and friendship

the distinction between sexual attraction and a desire to have sex with someone for another reason

and I hope I’ve generally been clear that this is. honest lack of understanding and not condemnation. I personally have a very muddled sense of attraction and often have difficulty identifying the specifics of any of my own emotional needs so like. it’s a closed book for me at the moment, how you would identify the fine distinctions between types of want when I’m still at step 1: identify That You Want Something Of Some Sort, Eventually, Through Trial And Error. but I think I’ve always been explicit that this isn’t a value judgement it’s just a gap in my own knowledge and yet. every single time I’ve said anything other than enthusiastic “yes I understand this and I love it and it’s good and valid” (and again. I have not gone out of my way to talk about it I have mostly only mentioned it because people keep asking me to talk about it) I have got a massive rush of anger and accusations of aphobia and “just shut up if you don’t know what you’re talking about but also answer my 30 questions to prove you think Correct Things about asexuality” and. I understand that this comes from a place of really unpleasant and aggressive backlash towards the ace community so it’s a sensitivity with a lot of people but like. it doesn’t seem proportional.

also I feel like ever since I hit like 700 followers my Tumblr life has been a constant cycle of people asking me Are You An Ace Inclusionist Are You An Exclus Are You An Aphobe Justify Your Opinion On Asexuality which. eventually yeah I’ve got pretty snippy about the whole thing. but you know. fuck it I’m just gonna lay it out and if you or anyone else is uncomfortable following me based on those opinions then I’m sorry to hear that and I will be sad to see you not want to engage with me any more but I also think that’s absolutely your prerogative. however I will not be taking questions at this time (and not just bc my phone’s broken) - demands for an argument about this Are Going To Be Ignored so if you want to go then go.

so like the big question I reckon is Do You Think Asexuality Is Queer and

yes. no. maybe. I don’t understand the question what does it mean for an identity to be queer?

there are spaces and conversations where any form of aromanticism or asexuality makes sense as a relevant identity. talking about hegemonic expectations of normative romance. building community. combatting the idea that heterosexual missionary married sex between a man and a woman is the only rewarding or valuable form of relationship or intimacy.

there are spaces where I think heterosexual aros/heteromantic cis aces don’t. have a more meaningful or direct experience of the issues than allo cishets. because while being aro or ace or aspec has a direct impact on those people on a personal and relational level, disclosure is largely a choice, and the world at large sees them as straight. they don’t have the lived experience of being visibly nonconforming that SGA people and aroace people do. they may still be queer but there’s a lot of conversations where they bring a lot of the baggage of being Straight People (because. even if you’re ace or aro you can still be straight in your romantic or sexual attraction and if your relationships are all outwardly straight then you don’t necessarily have an intimate personal understanding of being marginalised from mainstream society by dint of your sexuality). this doesn’t make you Not Queer in the same way that being a bi person who’s only ever been in m/f relationships is still queer, but in both cases a) you don’t magically have a personal experience of societal oppression through the transitive properties of Being Queer and b) it’s really obnoxious to talk as if you’re The Most Oppressed when other people are trying to have a conversation about their lived experience of societal oppression. and they’re within their rights to say ‘we’re talking about the experience of being marginalised for same gender/non-heterosexual attraction and you’re straight, could you butt out?’)

(I very much object to the assumption coming from a lot of exclus that “cishet ace” is a term that can reasonably be applied to non-orientated aroace people though. het is not a default it really extremely doesn’t make sense to treat people who feel no attraction as Straight By Default. when I were a lad I feel like we mostly understood “asexual” to mean that identity - non-orientated aroace - and while I think it’s obvious that a lot of people do find value in using a more split-model because. well. some people are both gay/straight/bi and aro/ace, and it’s good that language reflects that. but I do think it’s left a gap in the language to simply refer to non-attracted people. this isn’t a criticism of anything in particular - there’s a constant balancing act in language between specificity and adaptability and sometimes a gain for one is a loss for the other)

some queer conversations and spaces just. aren’t built with aces in mind. and that isn’t a flaw. some spaces aren’t built with men in mind, but that doesn’t mean men can’t be queer. some conversations are about Black experiences of queerness but that doesn’t mean non-Black people can’t be queer. not all queer spaces will focus on ace needs but that doesn’t mean asexuality isn’t queer, or that queerness is opposed to aceness - sex, sexuality, romance and dating are all really important things to a lot of queer people, especially those whose sexuality and romantic relationships are often stigmatised or violently suppressed in wider society. there should be gay bars, hookup apps, gay and trans friendly sex education, making out at Pride, leather parades and topless dyke marches and porn made by and for queer people, romantic representation in media of young and old gay, bi and trans couples kissing and snuggling and getting married and saying sloppy romantic things. and there should be non-sexual queer spaces, there should be discussions around queerness that don’t suppose that a monogamous romantic relationship is what everyone’s fighting for, sex ed should be ace inclusive, etc.

I think the whole question of inclusionism vs exclusionism is based on a weird underlying assumption that If An Identity Is Queer All Queer Spaces Should Directly Cater To That. like. aspec identities can be queer and it can be totally reasonable for there to be queer spaces that revolve around being sexual and romantic and there can be conversations it’s not appropriate or productive to centre asexuality and aspec experiences in and we can recognise that not all queer people do prioritise or have any interest in sex or romance. in the same way that there’s value in centring binary trans experiences sometimes and nonbinary experiences at other times but both of those conversations should recognise that neither binary or nonbinary gender identity is a Universal Queer Experience.

anyway that one probably isn’t one of the opinions you were asking about but I have been wanting to find a way to express it for a while so you’re getting it: the Ruth Thedreadvampy Inclusionism Take.

uh. it’s 1:30 on a work night so I have been typing too long. if there was an opinion you were specifically thinking of that I haven’t mentioned, chuck me another ask specifically pointing to what you want me to clarify my thinking on. sometimes I gotta be honest I’ve just been kind of careless in my framing (thinking of the Martin Fucks debacle where I spent ages insisting I didn’t say Martin couldn’t be aroace then read back like two days later and realised that I had said “he’s not aroace” bc I had written the post at 2am without proofreading and had meant to say “unless you think he’s aroace”) so I May Well Not Stand By Some Posts or might Stand By Them With Clarification

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alfredosauce50 · 3 years

Text

What makes me human [Cyberpunk! America x reader] 11

Wordcount: 5,150 Rating: M for strong language, ideologically sensitive and mature themes, gore “In a society that normalizes cybernetic enhancements, many forget what it is to be human. He never did.” Chapter synopsis: Allen and Arthur race to find you both, but it proves to be harder without knowing your whereabouts. Meanwhile, you've successfully helped Alfred find the chip. Before leaving, you have a long-awaited conversation with your father to realize he's more insane than you thought. The reader is referred to as she/her.

Songs to listen to while you read (in order as found in playlist): Cyberninja, Trouble finds trouble, Tower Lockdown, Me!Me!Me!, Pt. 2, Him & I (with Halsey), Atlantis. I have indented song titles throughout the chapter so you can change accordingly. Starting now:

Cyberninja

Before Arthur could even buckle himself in, Allen rammed his foot into the gas pedal. He was thrown back in a violent manner, and hit his head against the headrest. But the mechanic never complained. He looked stressed enough as is, continually scanning the road while murmuring to himself as if he’d really gone mad. “Hell, that motherfucker could be anywhere in the whole fucking city right now.” He hissed, pulling out of the driveway and into the main road.

“We can’t call him. Track him. Nothing. Same goes for (F/N). They’re off the map.” Turning to his companion numerous times in distress, he sped through the streets, though he had no particular destination in mind.

The indicator clicked. Allen cursed at the car in front of them, but never made a move to overtake. As Arthur became overwhelmed by these stimulants, he opened his mouth, defeated. “If you’re in such a hurry, why--why bother following traffic rules? You never have before, so why now?” He asked with a shake of the head, earning a loud scoff from the other.

The car windows glowed with a flurry of pinks and purples as they moved closer to the commercial district. They were near their first stop.

“Trust me, I wouldn’t give a damn if I didn’t have to.” The whites of his eyes reflected a mosaic of color as he never looked away from the road. “But that was when I was working for my boss. I had protection. I could do a hit and run if I wanted, and without the running part.” The redhead breathed. Then, he stuck his head out of the window with a huff. Immediately, he was choked by the city smog, and deafened by the blaring of car horns.

“Friggen’ prick...” He flipped off the driver in front of him. Sitting back into his seat, he flashed Arthur a grin, though the man couldn’t return the energy.

“Did you get fired? Or did you quit?” This wasn’t the best time to ask about the past, but he had been dying to know why he wound up half-dead on his doorstep. So what better a time to do it than now?

“I quit.” Allen answered point-blank. “Old man didn’t take it well. Decided to kill me. Didn’t.” Slowing the vehicle, they arrived at a parking-lot surrounded by backdoors of multiple piss-poor establishments. One of which was illuminated by a flickering red neon sign that read ‘no-tell motel’.

“He thinks I’m dead, so the rest of the city has to think that too.”

Arthur gawked at him. “That makes you no better than a fugitive! And it’s not just anybody after you--Allen, he’ll kill you when he finds out you’re still alive!”

“And that’s why he won’t find out.” Tapping the side of his neck for a flap to open, the said man slotted a small disk inside. “Disables cybernetic upgrades in a twenty foot radius. Means I can’t use mine, but it stops other people from figuring out who I am.” He dug through one of the compartments for a muffler, which he wrapped around the bottom half of his face.

What he did next was alarming, however. Sticking his hand further in, he pulled out a gun and cocked it.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! What the hell are you doing--!?” Arthur exclaimed, fumbling with a face mask Allen tossed his way. He didn’t see a silencer anywhere either. “If I can call the police without any upgrades, so can everyone else!”

His statement couldn’t ring any truer, and yet, it never slowed down the other’s movements as he climbed out of the car. Unsatisfied by his silence, he wound up getting out to follow him. “Oi, say something! At least let me know you’re not gonna shoot up a restaurant!” Whispering that part out, he had to speed up a few steps to catch up with the man, now marching to the backdoor of a motel.

“Put the mask on.” Allen murmured without sparing him a single glance. But he paused briefly to process what he said. “... A motel, you mean. But I’m hoping we won’t have to resort to that.”

Arthur’s eyes went round. “You were considering--”

He could share the desperation to save Alfred’s life, but he had a hard time following how. Shooting up a motel? What was he thinking?

“Yes.” Attaching his hand to the door, it creaked open. Before Allen took another step, he faced him with a serious glower. “Now when we get inside, I want you to walk up to the receptionist. He’s programmed to greet you. Ask him for a room, and while you do, I’ll approach him from behind and deactivate him. Kapeesh?”

But then again, he was in the dark here. Arthur hadn’t the slightest clue on what Alfred’s circumstances were, as mysterious as the man was, so he had no idea how he was on the verge of dying.

So naturally, he wouldn’t know how to save him either.

But he trusted Allen to know what to do.

“... Alright. You better not make me regret this, you tyke.”

“You can call me anything you want, just not that. I’m not a kid anymore.” Those words would become apparent as they walked inside, where their plan went by without a hitch. They heard the automated voice of superficial kindness, which stopped abruptly to the sound of an android powering off. Its body fell to the ground to reveal Allen standing behind. Without wasting a second, he leaned over and typed furiously on the keyboard of the computer.

Trouble finds trouble

“Lemme see if this has a log of everybody who came by...” A few moments later, he started nodding at what he saw. “Bingo...” On their private encrypted server, stored the history of all the guests who booked a night. “Well, what do you know... Alfred checked out two days ago. But he’s on the move.” Pulling away to stand up straight, he jogged over to the exit.

“Even if someone tried to look for him in one a’ these places, he’d have to get behind the reception and do exactly what I did.” This someone referred to Matsumoto, but death already followed Alfred wherever he went. Not that Alfred knew that. “The perks of a no-tell motel. Even if they reek of piss, so long as there’s crime, they’ll never go out of business.” He beckoned Arthur to follow him with a tilt of the head.

“One down, twenty-seven more to go. And that’s only in the direction he’s going... And under the assumption he’s only staying at these motels. So, uh, let’s hope he didn’t try to be too unpredictable.”

The Brit huffed. This wasn’t going to be easy.

“I think he’d be predictable to do that if you asked me.” He murmured. “But you call the shots. I’ll just be... Moral support.”

Allen already disappeared out the door, but his head poked into the doorframe at that. “Nah. You have the most important job outta’ the both of us.”

That was right. He didn’t tell him yet. He really should’ve a while ago, but he got caught up in the chase.

“Whether you remove a chip from his head or not will determine if he lives or not.”

Arthur paled.

“He’s the guy my boss wanted me to kill. Remember the dude I told you about? The one who tried to steal a prototype chip three years ago?” Now that he mentioned it, he recalled the conversation a few weeks ago. But wait a minute.

The mechanic felt his face scrunch up as he was hit with a major epiphany. That was Alfred? The terrorist Allen had been updating him about? He was the man who tore up three floors of the headquarters of Matsumoto Optics, and simultaneously, the same customer he had been serving for the last few years.

Before he could even process his shock, he was presented with even more appalling information.

“He stole it this time. That’s what he and (F/N) disappeared to do. But now that it’s in his head, it’ll overwrite his consciousness until he’s a fucking vegetable.”

Arthur was horrified. “Then why would he even--”

“Because he doesn’t know.” Allen cut in with a grim expression. “He thought the chip was supposed to give him immortality, so he wanted to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. Like my boss. But no. It’s the opposite. It was all a ploy to kill him.” At this point, the blonde was at loss for words. As a doctor and mechanic, he was quite frankly terrified of how devilishly clever Matsumoto was. But he couldn’t expect any less from him, could he?

They made it back to the car, and he could only stare aimlessly out the windshield, paralyzed.

“That’s why we need you.” He heard him say. Turning to the man, albeit slowly, he felt a hand slap down on his shoulder. Allen gave him a lopsided grin. “You’re the smartest guy I know, second to my boss. You were always great at fixing stuff. Cars, enhancements, people--so what’s a mixture of all three?”

Arthur dug a hand through his hair stressfully. “... You’re kidding.” And yet, he already knew he was on board. “... Are you calling him a car?”

The other flattened his lips. “... He technically could be.”

“Just to be clear, I fucking hate you.”

Allen laughed. “Sure.”

“But otherwise, we’re wasting time.” He couldn’t believe the words falling from his lips. This was really happening, wasn’t it? After taking him in as an apprentice for his auto shop, the roles were finally reversed. He no longer took charge as the teacher. Or rather, he became the student caught up in the most difficult assignment yet. Having a taste of Allen’s work.

“That’s what I’m talking about!”

***

Tower Lockdown

You had all the reasons in the world to be anxious coming home.

On top of worrying over Alfred, who had hundreds of trained assassins coming at him all at once, during every minute of the heist, you had to face an aspect of reality you avoided until now. You were in the building, and he had already stolen the chip. It was slotted comfortably in his head, ready to leave the premises.

How come your father never appeared? Was he really just going to let you go just like that?

But the real question was this--should you stay or leave?

Yes, you hardly approved of anything he’d done. Done to the world like Alfred always mentioned, and to Alfred himself. But you weren’t prepared to abandon him yet. He was still your father, and the only family you had. If you had to make a decision, you needed some closure. If not, a discussion.

And you expected him to give it to you as the least he could do.

As Alfred stood among a pile of dead bodies bathing in red, his mantis blades trembled against a katana blade. Even with his hands full, he made the time to check on you. “(F/N)! Stay away from walls! Just hang on for a second longer!” He shouted, turning to you briefly before diverting his attention back to his opponent. “We’re nearly home free!”

Pulling away to give him a swift jab in the chest, blood sprayed onto his face, but he wasn’t fazed.

What did, however, was the sight of you being thrown over the shoulder of one of the bodyguards. Color drained from his face and he burst into a sprint.

“(F/N)! No!” Watching you disappear into an elevator, he slammed right into the closing metal doors. “Fuck!” He slammed his fist against them to hear a loud bang. Before he could linger too long, he hastily made his way to a door adjacent. The emergency stairs would take a hell lot longer, but as if he’d wait for the elevator to come back down.

Even if he needed to climb up a hundred flights to get to you, he would--all the way to the penthouse where Matsumoto was.

When those men approached you, there was no struggle on your end. You knew where they were going to take you. And you wanted them to. It could even be said you were relieved, because that meant your father was thinking of you. After a minute or so, the soft whirring fell silent, followed by a soft ‘ding’.

They moved outside the elevator, and after a few steps, they set you down on your feet. Right in the middle of your father’s office. At the very end behind a desk sat the man himself, and he was eyeing you with an unreadable expression. Upon returning his stare, came an onslaught of emotions. But the most prominent was incapacitating anxiety.

Even as his daughter, you could never see through him. He was impossible to read. So you had no idea what to expect.

“Dad... We need to talk.” You began, walking up to him warily. This was what you wished for at the start, cried for, even. To return home. And yet, the nervous pounding in your chest seemed to worsen with every step you took. It was jarring to confront how much had changed since then. So while you barely managed any words, you were already overwhelmed, struggling to choke back tears.

“For once, I need to know what you’re thinking.”

He inhaled deeply before responding. “I was under the same impression that we’d have this conversation.” Standing up from his chair, he furrowed his brows at the sight of you clenching the fabric of your pants. “Don’t look so nervous, child. You haven’t done anything to anger or disappoint me.” Reaching out to your head, he settled a hand on it.

“... Really?” You whispered out. Hearing his assurances calmed you down a touch. But when you saw the forlorn gaze he cast down at you, your heart was crushed. “... Dad?”

Me!Me!Me!, Pt.2

Any existing contempt for him melted away just like that, but you weren’t upset at yourself for it. Your father hardly expressed any emotion besides calm indifference. And when he did, it always felt like the world was ending.

“I’m the one who deserves your anger.” He clarified, lowering his hands to your shoulders. “I’ve left you by yourself for far too long, (F/N). I hope you don’t hold it against me that you had to come home yourself.” You hung your head, unable to meet his saddened gray eyes. If you were to hold a grudge at him for it, you’d start by avoiding his gaze. “And I understand why you would’ve wanted to help him. He has a way with words, and a naïve sense of justice. But it’s a warped perception of reality.”

You’d hate to admit it, but no matter how cruel he seemed to be, there was a method to his madness.

And you were perhaps the only person in the world to know it.

That was why you were so torn. Torn between hating him and understanding him. After all, you couldn’t have both. “You can’t blame him after what you did to him.” Glancing up at that, you felt bile rise in your throat. Then, your vision blurred. “I don’t know what you’re aiming for--for this company, and this world. But you can’t expect him to accept this world you created when you stole him from his. He had a life!”

Staring at him through hot tears, he breathed out a soft sigh before rubbing them away with a swipe of the thumb. “I’m not asking for your forgiveness. And I won’t expect you to forgive me even after telling you the reasons for my actions.”

He pulled away from you to begin walking back to his desk, but not to sit down. Instead, he stood by the window to watch the blinking lights of skyscrapers and small moving dots of cars on the streets. “In a society that normalizes cybernetic enhancements, many forget what it is to be human. He never did. So of course, he would reject the idea of immortality. The destruction of the most human quality there is.”

He paused briefly to scan the landscape.

“Mortality. One’s inevitable end gives everything they do meaning.”

Wrinkles creased between your brows. It was confusing to hear him speak so highly of death, frustrating, even. Wasn’t he the one investing billions into correcting it like a flaw? “If that’s what you really think, then why? Why would you make something that would take that all away?”

He held his hands behind his back. “To serve the greater good. A sacrifice, if you will.” The man turned to you, this time with a serious glower. “Alfred thinks I would commercialize it. Sell it to the public. But he’s wrong. Immortality will only be available to the leaders of the world.”

By leaders, you could only assume he meant people like him. Not politicians, but business men and women. Company owners. The most powerful forces of the present. “The inability to die is a curse. You never move on because you’re still breathing. But that may be just what the world needs. Stagnation. An absence of change.”

It was daunting to know this man was your father. You couldn’t say you were born with half as many of these attributes he had. Intelligence was easily passed down, but there was something else written in his genes you could never dream of having. “With every passing year, decade, and century, humanity frays like a rope. Society continues to deteriorate... All until self-destruction becomes a matter of time.” Facing the window again, he scanned the impressive architecture he was proud to call his own. And it looked as pristine as it did yesterday.

“The only way to stop this was to take control of it myself. And that’s how I came to found this company. I’ve found a way to govern the people. To invest in science as the world’s last and only hope. But it’s a job that will last eons, so I was prepared to do it until the end of time.”

He was right in saying that society was inevitably doomed with the direction it was heading. That technology was the only solution, along with a world government. Matsumoto Optics. A cosmocracy with jurisdiction over the whole planet. There would be no wars. No conflict. And with only one state to call the shots, things could be done so much faster on a global scale.

It was a radical concept to grasp, but you couldn’t say there was no logic to it. “Alfred was meant to do it with me. To reincarnate again and again as my closest aide on my quest to preserve the world. But he ended up being the opposite. My foil.” Matsumoto shook his head. “Alfred is a nostalgic soul. He’s too attached to the past. But the way of the old can never last with how fast it makes the world burn. Even if he realized that, he would want to exact revenge on me after what I’ve done to him.”

“So before he destroys everything I’ve created, I have to destroy him first.”

Him & I (with Halsey)

You tensed up all over, but before you could ask him what he meant by destroy, the doors burst open. The very subject of the conversation had appeared, and just in time for the conclusion of it. His arrival caught you completely off guard, successfully derailing your train of thought, but your father merely acknowledged his arrival. “Ah. Speak of the devil.”

“Speak for yourself, you fucking demon.” He spat, marching over to your side to pull you into his chest. Immediately putting his hands all over your face, he was riddled with concern as he inspected you. “You okay? I’m sorry I couldn’t get to you in time. What are you still doing here? C’mon, let’s go.” While he reached down to your hand to lead you away, you stayed put.

As relieved as you were to see him here, you couldn’t follow him out yet. You gave his hand a squeeze, then a soft smile of reassurance. Then, you turned to your father.

This time, you held him in a firm stare.

“Even if everyone thinks you’re crazy, I always knew you’d have some kind of justification for everything.” You started. Little did you know, you would take back this statement in the very near future. “But I can’t forgive you for what you did to Alfred. He never ended up doing anything you wanted him to, so giving him all those adjustments was pointless for you. But not for him. If you wanted to get rid of him, it wouldn't be easy.”

Matsumoto closed his eyes as if to agree. That was what you interpreted it as, at least. But unbeknownst to you, he was doing anything but. “I wouldn’t know what’s best for this world.”

“But what I do know is that I won’t let you hurt him.”

You spoke those words with a conviction so strong, Alfred’s eyes widened when he heard it. It wasn’t news you cared deeply for him, but to hear you say it to your father like that, and Matsumoto, no less, it made his mechanical heart pound more than he could fathom. You were actively disobeying him, a man you previously revolved your life around, for his sake. To say he was infatuated would be an understatement.

You felt his grip on you tighten.

“Say what you will, and I’ll respect your conviction. But I will come for him.” The bearded man murmured in a foreboding tone. A sinister light glinted in his dark gray irises. “And in the most unexpected way he could ever imagine. You will never want to see me again when that happens.”

“If.” Your voice was a little strained. As much as you wanted to hate him and move on, you couldn’t. Every single fiber of your being was urging you to find a reason, any reason, to not despise the man who raised you. “If, dad. Because if you did, I really will never forgive you. I’ll hate you forever.”

A grim expression contorted at his face. In his many decades on the planet, he’d never felt more dread. But one had to wonder if that was the right word. The regret had already arrived, because he’d already done something unforgivable. It was only a matter of time before you’d find out. “I’ve already done something to earn your unconditional hatred, child.”

That was right. He’d killed Allen, your best friend and only other semblance of family in your life. And perhaps, the person you held the closest to your heart. “Soon, you will learn what it is. So I’ll let you leave today because you will never want to come back. I’d imagine that to be more… Convenient for you.”

It was only your ignorance that blessed him this last moment. The last moment where you’d see him as your father with eyes unclouded by hatred. But it was short-lived.

It didn’t take long for you to put two and two together, and in your short silence, you came to remember someone that had been gone for a while. Allen.

Atlantis

You woke up in a cold sweat. For just one measly second as you oriented yourself, you weren’t tortured by a fury. Betrayal. Disgust. But it all came rushing back to you like the memories of that Godforsaken day you met with your father.

Sitting up with a deep frown, you felt heat build up around your face. It would be etched in your mind forever. The memory of Allen laying in the dump. Tossed out like a broken toy. Then, the stench of blood and rust as he was left for dead.

You always knew your father was mad, but he kept on surprising you with how mad he was. Turning to the figure beside you, tears only overwhelmed your waterline to see his chest rise and fall steadily.

He was still here. Alive and well. You could only hope the same for Allen.

It had been ten days since the heist. There hadn’t been a single sign of Matsumoto or his men, meaning Alfred really did do his research on the best places to hide. Climbing onto his form, you wound up laying on his chest. Then, you peered down at his sleeping face.

As you got comfortable, you felt a smile creep onto your lips. If the you from a few months ago saw what you were doing, she’d be flabbergasted. Since when did you like him this much?

Your cheeks grew a little rosy as you became self-aware of the position you were in. Full-on embarrassment hit you when he began to stir, but before you could get off of him, his eyes fluttered open. Uh oh. Now this warranted an explanation.

For a second, he was confused, but when he saw that it was just you, he grinned lazily. “Morning, babe. Care to tell me why you’re not sleeping on your side of the bed?”

He’d totally cornered you. And did he just call you babe? “Um... I, well... I woke up on you, so don’t get the wrong idea. I was just about to get off.” Sliding yourself off of him at that, you tried your damndest to simmer down. But he never gave you the chance. Rolling over to face you, he pulled you in around your waist much to your surprise. “Hey!”

You never got around to pointing out that pet name, either.

He caught you in a serious stare. “Don’t be so shy. We’re close, aren’t we?” Alfred was never one to beat around the bush. You knew that better than anyone, but that didn’t mean you were used to it. Lowering your head at that, you fixated on his chest.

“... I guess so. That doesn’t mean I can sleep on you like that, though. And plus, it must’ve been uncomfortable.”

“Nah. You’re light as hell.” He hummed. Sitting up with you on his lap, his statement became more apparent in how effortless he made it seem. “You’re like a few grapes, really. So don’t worry about it.”

Why he chose to focus on that part of your argument was beyond you. Did he really not see anything wrong with what you were doing? Or maybe he did, and didn’t want to mention it. He’d been hugging you a lot lately the past week, but that wasn’t as deserving of your attention as spooning you while he slept.

Wasn’t he pushing the envelope? It would make sense he was just trying to comfort you after your run-in with your father, and your discovery that he was the one who attempted to off your best friend. But wasn’t this a bit much?

He wrapped his arms around your neck. There was nothing between you both, and yet, he was holding you like there was. Like you were his.

"...” It was in his smile. It was different to how he always looked at you, as if there was finally something behind those electric blue irises. Something alive. Something hot. As you played around with the idea, you lit up like a Christmas tree and pushed his mouth away. “Don’t look at me like that.”

Almost as if he read your mind, he relented. But only reluctantly. Picking you up from under your arms, he set you onto the mattress so he could get out of bed. Looking back at you over his shoulder, he gave your cheek an affectionate pinch. “Whatever you say. I’ll be back after a piss.”

When he left the room, you were left to your own devices. As you brought your knees to your chest, you came to realize how tight it was. He’d only left for a few seconds, and you were already waiting for him to return. It was ridiculous to think about, but it was almost as if you missed him. Already.

Did spending all this time with him give you some kind of separation anxiety?

Or was it something more?

You couldn’t tell.

The fact that he mentioned ‘I’ll be back’ suggested he was aware of your attachment to him. You buried your face into your knees.

Turns out, you weren’t the only one having a hard time processing your feelings.

When he disappeared into the bathroom, he pressed his back against the wall. Reaching up to his chest, he scrunched up a part of his shirt as the pounding in his heart subsided--his metaphorical one. Alfred didn’t think it was weird to find you on top of him like that, let alone dislike it. In fact, he loved it. It gave him a shred of hope that maybe, you did like him the way he liked you.

But that didn’t change the fact that he couldn’t be with you.

This was the fifth motel he’d been to after the heist. There was no saying he’d be dead by the end of the day. Not when your father was after his head. So he wasn’t about to start anything. That would be too selfish, even for him--though one had to wonder if ‘selfish’ could even describe him anymore. He was anything but. At least, for you he wasn’t.

Alfred would only be proven right when he took a step towards the toilet. His vision started to glitch. Then, he lost his balance, falling over the sink and slamming his head against the mirror. “Fuck--!” Stumbling back onto his feet, he was engulfed in black for a few seconds. What the hell was going on?

His bout of disorientation lasted for far too long to be normal.

Before he would start accepting the prospect of going blind, his vision returned. He thought he would celebrate that moment, but he forgot what he was even fussing about. What happened? Lowering his gaze to his hands, he stared at them for a while before looking back up. What was he doing here? Where was he?

That was right. He was in a motel. With you. Running away from uncertain death. It took a minute or so to recall all of these things, and that was what alarmed him. It seemed like his body wasn’t accepting the chip very well.

Temporary memory loss and blindness was just apart of the transition, right?

Little did he know, it was anything but.

Outside that very district sat two men in a car. Bags hung under their dull eyes as they scanned the streets as vigilantly as their sleep deprivation let them. It had been two days since they slept, but they wouldn’t rest until they found him. There were only four days until the damage was done.

If they didn’t get to the man before then, he would be as good as dead.

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spaced0lphin · 4 years

Text

The Problem with the EDI Thing

It will surprise no one who’s familiar with me to know that I’ve sat on these opinions for what is, embarrassingly, close to a decade. I remember not having the vocabulary to explain how I felt at the time, and my opinion has done a little evolving since then, but seeing as I’m doing the whole Mass Effect thing right now, I may as well explain myself. I’m very much not a fan of the Joker/EDI pairing, and if you are, power to you. However, I have some feelings about that that come from who I am as a person as well as just surface level stuff such as not finding that romance particularly substantive, but there we are. I don’t have osteogenesis imperfecta, but I am a disabled person. Ain’t that fun to write. I’m not embarrassed about it, but I also don’t like talking about my stuff too much, since, like, it’s private? So forgive me for being a little vague. It’s relevant to the points I’m making, though, so bear with me I guess. So part of the reason I like Joker so much as a character is that he’s lived a life where people have just told him no, all the time, and yet he aggressively exists, even in spite of it. Wasn’t born into money, had a bunch of horrible problems, and didn’t ask for any of it. Everywhere he looked, some dickhead was at the door telling him to stop trying. However, he had his dream and his drive and his passion, so fuck what those people said. He went for it, he broke all the rules that people had put in the way of even letting him try. He knew that if he had a shot, he could do it. It was just about getting that shot. He knew his specialism could do the rest. Man, I relate. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been forced to have to “prove myself” to fit into someone else’s definition of what a “good candidate” is. There have been so many instances where, because I don’t ‘fit in the box’ like everybody else, I’ve had to work twice as hard and still get overlooked anyway, even despite having the knowledge or the skills. It’s honestly bullshit, so seeing him in the position he’s in really means a lot to me. It’s a breath of fresh air to see someone with such obvious struggles still do what they love to do. So, being disabled, you get condescended to, quite a lot for one reason or another. People talk to you like you’re a child, or make weird assumptions about what your life experiences are, or start being a dickhead to you once they’re tired of how you struggle with your disability. It seems like people just kind of expect you to get over it at some point, especially so if the disabilities aren’t visible. “I guess I just thought you’d be better at this by now” starts to become a phrase you can just tattoo on yourself and have a person point to whenever they want to say it so it doesn’t waste any more of either of your time. It can make you cagey, defensive, emotionally withdrawn, and fucking tired. Not only do you have to deal with whatever it is physically or mentally or both, but now you’ve got your own insecurities and other people’s insecurities about you to deal with all the time, every day. Some people turn this acid manufactured through this daily experience into sarcasm and dry humour, a sometimes self-deprecating deflection tool you can deploy to make people smile and defuse the situation and not talk about anything important because good god let’s not go through that again.

You can sometimes get weird ideas about whether or not you deserve to be loved like everybody else. Because you’re different, and you function differently, you can sometimes feel like you are looking at the world from the outside, on the sideline. Because you have a disability that does indeed work to your detriment, whatever it is, because of its very nature as a fucking disability and not a superpower, getting caught up in that question of whether or not you deserve to be loved and the “I just thought you’d be better at this by now” exasperation from other people combines into this huge ugly thing. Now, I’m a big fan of sci-fi and transhumanist concepts and I love moral and ethical discussions about what constitutes a person and all that good stuff. I enjoy EDI as a character and as a concept. I especially enjoy EDI when she’s a sphere with a little Winamp visualiser for a mouth, because I feel like it creates a lot more of a dialogue around that specific idea and it’s fun to talk about. When she looks like an abstract object, how can she be a person? And yet, she both is and is not. So, I find it more than a little thematically weak that EDI gets this like, 1950s style fembot body that looks like she’s wearing garters. I mean, I’m bi, I like hot women too, but that aesthetic decision was very strange and I felt undermined the previous and interesting work done to explore EDI as a concept. EDI grows and evolves in several ways throughout the games, but is, at the end of the day a machine, and doesn’t experience love in the same way, if at all. She learns to approximate human behaviour and eventually learns to mimic and anticipate quite a lot, but she is what she is, and I don’t think there’s any taking away from that. From a purely writing based perspective, I found that path fairly tokenistic and poorly justified, in my view. It also always read to me as ‘d’aww, throw the guy a bone,’ ‘haha pat him on the head and give him a toy’ type thing rather than an actual real emotional exploration, which, given how the entire game series makes it very clear to us that Joker is a very important character, seemed... weird. So when you combine all of this, I’m so allergic to the Joker/EDI pairing because personally I find it condescending. I find it communicating to me that, no, I and others like me are in fact not worthy of a powerful and passionate romance with peers. What we are worth is a tokenistic, fetishistic and ultimately unrequited fling with a fleshlight. Like, that’s how it feels to me! I get that my experiences aren’t universal or whatever but I’ve had nearly ten real entire years to think about it, and I can’t interpret it any other way. I literally do not have any animosity whatsoever where it comes to Joker and any other pairup. It’s only Joker/EDI and it’s fucking frustrating that that’s the canon one. I’m sure I can make another equally long and boring post about the case for Joker/Shep and I’m sure I probably will do because it’s not like we’re leaving the house much these days. Inb4 y u take fictional character so srs y u talk about art

#mass effect shipping #mass effect joker #jeff moreau #jeff joker moreau #probably fandomwank I don't really understand the term though #disability experience #disability and games #shoker

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beetlemancy · 4 years

Note

Anon again: Thank you!! I appreciate you taking the time to answer me because I am kind of active in the community but very very new. I did know your opinions but being new I just wanted to know whether those recent posts held any weight. I want to be socially responsible with my media consumption and I was worried there was something I was missing, given I have seen specific call outs for certain cast members (Travis, Laura, Sam, and Liam) recently. Thanks again!!

Anon pt2: you don’t have to post this but for context the call out posts were as follows: Travis actively supports the military, Laura voiced a black character?, Sam did brown face??, and Liam is fake woke/virtual signaling (or something along those lines). Obviously I can find out information about this for myself but I have seen more anti-CR stuff lately which prompted my ask.

As with everything, I suggest you do your own reading on those topics, and any topic that comes up in regards to the media you watch. Below is simply my opinion. Note: this gets long.

Travis does support the military - but not as an institution. He has family in the military. He supports the soldiers. He works with Operation Supply Drop and I’d encourage you to look into OSD specifically. Whether you agree with the idea that we should even have a military or not, you cannot deny that our veterans and soldiers are given the short end of the stick. We cannot just abandon them because helping them might be viewed as giving money to the military. I have so many military vets in my disability groups. The VA is awful because it has no funding (I know good people who work at the VA too, but they just cannot help everyone like they’d want to). Programs like OSD are genuinely helpful to a lot of hurting folk and the people who shit on Travis and CR for promoting and helping them out have clearly never actually sat down and talked to a vet or a soldier before.

Laura and many many other voice actors have voiced people of color in various shows. Yes, this is a legit problem. However, obviously as with most things, the problem is nuanced. The fault mainly lies with the VO industry as a whole, in that actors actually have very little control over what they do. There was a whole strike about this very topic (though the strike covered other issues in the industry as well). In the case of Laura, for instance, she was never told what her character would look like until after the fact. And that is super common in the industry. One of the things they tried to get in the strike was more transparency so that actors could make the decisions themselves whether to voice characters or not - not just based on race or culture but also based on type of work (stressful screaming vs chill dialogue) and whether the content of the game itself was something they wanted their name attached to.

Sam’s blackface scandal is extremely old news. That’s not to say it isn’t important to note, and in fact Sam made a point to note it again back in 2018. I know people who can’t watch CR because of it, even after his apology, and that’s fine because its not my place to judge others for how they react to that kind of thing. However I know a lot of people who read his apology and the circumstances surrounding it and decided to forgive. To some people, the fact that he was asked to do so by will.i.am changes the situation. To others, it doesn’t. To some the fact that he apologized and has clearly worked to improve his behavior matters, to others it doesn’t. You have to decide that for yourself. You can read Sam’s letter HERE.

Now. Regarding Liam. * sigh * I think, and again this is my opinion, that you cannot proclaim someone you do not know as ‘fake woke.’ I think there are parts of this fandom that have it out for Liam because of a whole bunch of gross reasons, many of which I’ve spoken about before. He is sensitive and a man - that makes people uncomfy. He plays a lot of women characters and tends to embody them in both personality and body language - that makes people uncomfy. He fully embraces the bi energy (this is not to say whether he himself is or not) - that makes a lot of people uncomfy (and angry). He loves theatre and loves to explore the human condition, warts and all - that makes people super uncomfy. Now. There are people who thinks he’s homophobic. Do you know why? Its because his bi character ended up with a woman instead of a man. That is biphobia, no matter how they twist it. Bi people being “allowed” to be bi and not ‘pick the right side’ in the LG (not BT, lets be real) community IS revolutionary because its so very hated.

Another reason they say he’s homophobic is because of the jokes he is often involved in - some gay men in the fandom believe that joking about sex is him ‘making fun’ of gay relationships. As a bi enby, I disagree, and I read many of the jokes he himself makes as the kind of humor I use among my own friends. I think there is a definite disconnect between bi vs LG humor and I’m not entirely sure who would be considered in the ‘right’ on that. However, when LG people in the fandom claim that he cannot talk about gay relationships because he is cishet? They cannot know that. That is an assumption they are making. When LG fans say that he alone is responsible for this issue and not -literally every single member of CR- ? I have to question whether its really the issue and not just that they still hate Liam for deigning to make a bi character bi instead of gay.

Another thing re: Liam. Aside from Marisha, he is the one I see the most hate about. People on Twitter and Tumblr both have legit uttered death threats about him if he doesn’t do exactly what they want his characters to do in the game. Usually this is about shipping. I have seen people claim that they WISH he was ‘like vic mignogna’ so they’d have a reason to hate him more. I’ve seen a certain group of people and one in particular say they have ‘dirt’ on him but refuse to say what the dirt is - and yet continually bring up that it exists, but that they just cannot say. Why would you incessantly bring up information you possess just to say that you cannot divulge such information?

Legit issues about CR that is attached to Liam is the whitewashing issue. Some say that only Liam is responsible here because he controls all the art. I would say that we actually don’t know that for sure. He is ‘Art Dad’ and clearly has some pull. I do think that CR should address this issue, but I’m not sure they can legally do what the fandom wants them to do, which is “call-out” artists by name and denounce them. Now, this too is more nuanced than the fandom makes out because its often way more about colorism vs whitewashing. Many people do not draw Beau as white, but they do draw her as much lighter skin tones than her original art. Colorism is a real problem, but white allies tend to go about talking about it wrong or making smaller things a bigger deal when POC would really rather talk about something more important to them. It was these same white allies that tore Mica Burton apart on Twitter because she liked and enjoyed a drawing of Reani, her own character, that was a few shades lighter than the drawing she herself had brought in, even after she had said that she appreciated the variety of skin tones due to seeing herself in each of them. On the topic of whitewashing/colorism in the fandom, I personally tend to wait to hear from POC over the masses of white allies.

The CR fandom is very big for a niche thing like DnD. As such, there are many many corners of the fandom that can get really jaded, really dark, and really up their own ass in regards to the discourse. There are legitimate issues in the fandom and with CR as a whole. Nothing is perfect, nothing ever will be perfect, and people should absolutely do what they can to do better and to ask their media to do better. That being said, there are also people who think that if you don’t do something exactly like they want, then you’re Problematic by default. There are also members of this fandom who have an active vendetta against certain cast members and will use any opportunity to co-opt legit issues in order to shore up their false arguments. These people are only using the real issues and it becomes clear pretty quickly that they don’t actually give a shit about the people they say they are trying to speak up for.

There is also some fandom drama that has occurred ONLY in fandom and has absolutely nothing to do with CR other than the fact that the people involved happen to be CR fans. Certain people in the fandom think that CR should arbitrate this issue and involve themselves, call out the individuals responsible, etc. This is, I believe, a GROSS misconception of what CR’s role is and asking way too much of a source of entertainment. The fact that CR has not involved themselves in this issue has led certain members of this fandom to claim that CR is homophobic. I would caution that most callouts of CR as homophobic are directly linked to this first issue, and also a callback to the Vaxleth drama from campaign one, and is incontrovertibly tied to bi and enby-phobia and a seriously sick misunderstanding of the responsibilities a show has versus the responsibility individuals have as viewers of said show.

That’s it for now. I could go way more in depth on this problems, but I’m tired of typing. Suffice it to say, its easy to make a list of things Problematic with CR, but once you actually delve into each topic hopefully you’ll realize how complicated and filled with nuance and Different Opinions going on back from the first episode of Campaign One... Listing problems without actually addressing them head-on isn’t a good way to deal with the problems that are true anyway, let alone tell them from the false ones.

#no fandom tags we die like passive aggressive chipmunks #Anonymous #cr discourse

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keeperofhounds · 4 years

Text

Minority Report (Quirkless)

Hello, I am a college student studying abroad in Japan. I would like to share the similarities and differences between the United States and Japan. This is to expand and teach others about how Japan is like to people from the outside.

This story was inspired by @aconstantstateofbladerunner who wanted a story that expanded on the world of My Hero Academia. Note this story takes from modern day Japan, but as an American it might not be entirely accurate.

Recently I bore witness to an event that shook me to the core, there was a student. Normally this wouldn’t matter if I were to describe him, I would go so far as to say that he looked like he had a bad attitude. You could see it with the way he carried himself and glared at everything as if it all personally offended him. Yet, I don’t want to focus on him, that student will be mentioned later. What I want to focus on is another student who was at that event on the same day.

At first glance you can tell the other student is nothing special. In fact he’s very plain with nothing special about him. I would even say that he might be shy with how he held himself, trembling, looking at the floor when the heroes were talking to him. Not that I blamed him those talks were actually scolding.

You see dear reader, this boy did something crazy, he went running towards a villain, and from what I heard that same boy was quirkless. Let me give you some context on what was happening before this kid came running into the scene, throwing his backpack and clawing desperately to give a victim breathing air.

Earlier in the day at around 3:30 pm (roughly the time when schools let out) a villain with a sludge like quirk robbed a store. Luckily the occupants at the time were not seriously injured after the villain left, in a stroke of luck All Might, the symbol of peace happened to be in the area and gave chase. At some point All Might lost the villain in the sewer system which can be described as long winded and confusing, which allowed the villain to find a hostage.

After some research after the story broke the hostage's name is Bakugo Katsuki, he is a middle schooler with a quirk that allows explosions to be set off from his hands. When he was caught, the student tried to get away as any reasonable would try to do in this situation, this in turn caused complications. The heroes were unable to find a way to extract with the sludge villains clutches.

I’m not going to focus on them, what I want to focus is on the other boy. Despite all my investigation I could not find the name of the boy in any publications about the incident. There was one thing that stood out however and it was the boys status. He was quirkless.

At first I was surprised, but then I was impressed, not unlike a blind person learning to play the piano, or a deaf person learning to sing. Although these might be poor comparisons given the situation it did answer some questions I had in mind, but also bring some more questions. I finally knew why the heroes were scolding him, but I also noticed they were praising the other boy.

Not to rub salt on a wound or blame the victim, but the boy made things worse not only himself, but the people around him. Not to mention the heroes stood frozen as a child ran into the fray doing only enough to give another time to breathe. It’s a small thing, but it mattered the most.

Knowing this, I would have expected people in the area to talk about what happened. News stations talking about how this kid brought enough time for All Might to swoop in and save the day, but nothing. They talked about the victim, they talked about All Might, they talked about the villain, but they never talked about the other boy.

What happened? In the United States the local news stations are always about bringing up local heroes, even if it’s as simple as inviting a stranger into their home for thanksgiving after a mistaken phone call (the stranger accepted), but nothing in Japan. It was as if the other boy was erased from the narrative all together.

I was simple to figure out what happened, the people involved were embarrassed. I couldn’t fathom about what made this kid different until I really thought about it. While in Japan I noticed an unusual tell when it came to people introducing themselves, they always said their names, and the types of quirks they had. This was especially true with children when my co-worker brought them to work.

It really started to make me wonder, but I didn’t want to make any assumptions. I knew that Japan had some issues when it came to how they did things. I know the United States still has issues when it comes to descrimination and racism, but when you really look around there is something clearly wrong. In Japan not once have I ever seen or heard of any people without a quirk.

I asked a few of my co-workers in the college what was up with that, and they told me that they didn’t think that quirkless was still even a thing in this country. Which made me wonder even more, I didn’t like how flippant the dismissal was from my friend. Another stated that the hate speech on the internet they have found in chat rooms has increased.

According to NGO reports, incidents of hate speech against minorities and their defenders, in particular, on the internet, grew. The national law on hate speech applies only to discriminatory speech and behavior directed at those who are not of Japanese heritage and is limited to educating and raising public awareness among the general public against hate speech; it does not carry penalties.

Further research shows that “Quirklessness” is a disability in Japan, with similar protections to any other disability by law. The Basic Act for Persons with Disabilities prohibits discrimination against persons with physical, intellectual, mental, or other disabilities affecting body and mind and bars infringement of their rights and interests on the grounds of disability in the public and private sectors. The law requires the public sector to provide reasonable accommodations and the private sector to make best efforts in employment, education, access to health care, or the provision of other services. The laws do not stipulate remedies for persons with disabilities who experience discriminatory acts nor do they establish penalties for noncompliance. Other law mandates that the government and private companies hire minimum proportions (2 percent) of persons with disabilities (including mental disabilities) or be fined. Disability rights advocates claimed that some companies preferred to pay the fine rather than hire persons with disabilities

Nonetheless, persons with disabilities faced limited access to some public-sector services. Abuse of persons with disabilities was a serious concern. Persons with disabilities around the country experienced abuse by family members, care-facility employees, or employers. Private surveys indicated discrimination against and sexual abuse of, women with disabilities. While some schools provided inclusive education, children with disabilities generally attended specialized schools.

Mental health professionals criticized as insufficient the government’s efforts to reduce the stigma of mental illness and inform the public that depression and other mental illnesses are treatable and biologically based.

As I write this article, I am appalled at the complete lack of protections and descrimination faced by the minority. It’s as if they don’t exist in the eyes of the public and the government. There this one article written by a reporter, who covered a murder, but some how they spun it to make it sound like it was the victims fault. The victim was an elderly man who was attacked while on his way home with some groceries. Apparently there were many witnesses, but no one was willing to come forward.

Interviews stated that people assumed that someone else would help, that a hero would come to save the day. Others just didn’t care, assuming that the injuries weren’t as bad they looked. The perpetrators were never found and this murder became a cold case. To me this is clearly a hate crime, but to them it’s nothing, but another statistic in a growing trend.

I feel pity for that boy who ran, but at the same time maybe it’s better if people don’t know he’s quirkless. I bet life is difficult, I just hope that someone else see’s a good kid and sees what he has other than what he doesn’t. We need more people like him, because some people are too busy being full of themselves.

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Sections of the text is not my own but taken from https://www.state.gov/reports/2018-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/japan/ (This in regards to italic passages)

If anyone has ideas on what should be brought up next, please leave a message. Not to mention any other reliable sources of information about Japan.

#boki no hero academia #my hero academia #my fanfiction #worldbuilding #QUIRKLESS #bnha quirks #midoriya izuku #bnha izuku #bnha toshinori #All Might

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airlock · 5 years

Text

so! Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a game that delves deep, although not very deep, in the complexities of politics and administration... and so, people get to talk about how these things happen, both in Fódlan and, as a token of comparison, in the real world!

which is why I, some college student with no background in polisci whatsoever, have decided to write this whole post on the realistic reasons why people should not want a meritocracy, whether it’s being brought about their favorite white-haired girl in a fictional world or being promised by a politician in real life who is probably swindling you

sounds like a bit of a trip, right? meritocracy is a compelling idea on paper -- eliminate entrenched privileges, give everything to the people who deserve it. we especially find such ideas inspirational when we live in times of ridged inequalities, where some people are born with everything and others with nothing, and the former continue to take everything even as they repeatedly prove their failings, while the latter toil no matter what qualities they might have. nonetheless, it’s just not that simple, and the meritocratic ideal is even one of the things that got us into this mess to begin with!

let’s go blow by blow, shall we?

merit is subjective

as it turns out, meritocracy is a very fancy way of saying “I want the people who are in charge to be good people” -- which is what we’d all be supporting if it were just that simple! you might have noticed the snag, though, in that it looks a lot more ridiculous when you replace “meritorious”, “accomplished”, “competent”, etc. with “good”, despite those being equally vague descriptors of value.

I’ll get to the point: what is merit? who decides what is merit? who decides what is meritorious?

you might quickly find out that these questions have haunted not only governments but every form of administration for millenia now -- schools, companies, recreational competitions, the artistic world... and no one, no one, ever arrives on a one answer that always works.

since Edelgard never puts forth ideas of a system through which merit might be determined -- like, say, exams, which have their own failings -- the assumption is that she’s intending to handpick whoever she might want in charge, which is a common way of implementing meritocracy. and also a terrible one! now, your position in society is dictated by the extent to which you can impress the emperor -- who, however discering, isn’t perfect, or capable of giving everyone the clinical eye. if a system of “impress the person in charge to get in” were capable of living up to the meritocratic ideal, most of us would be having far less trouble with jobs.

although not all of us, anyway, since so many of us are neurodivergent -- and oh yes, those of us who are should know from a mile away that meritocracies have this particular problem...

the meritocratic ideal is ableist

callout post for the- ahem

have you perchance seen Edelgard and Linhardt’s support conversations? the one where he repeatedly frustrates Edelgard by being too neurodivergent to put his gifts to the efficient streamlined methodology that she favours? the one where he makes it clear that he can’t thrive in a result-oriented environment, so Edelgard busts her rump to figure out some way to give him a job that makes use of his talents?

well, he was lucky that he got to personally befriend the emperor and weasel her into some distincitvely unmeritocratic policy, because anyone else who cannot thrive in a result-oriented environment will have no such luck. and that’s precisely what a meritocratic society is: a result-oriented environment of society itself.

hell, you could even take a moment to notice that a lot of the insults that are routinely hurled at disabled people are also the criticisms that people make of those they wish to eliminate through meritocracy. y’know, “lazy”, “weak”, “moocher”, the works.

now, would this be any better if our Supreme Arbitrer of Merit were exceptionally woke and able to mitigate this, be it through assistance or by implementing metrics of merit that better suit the neurodivergent? perhaps. but as we think through these utopias, we ram a separate problem...

meritocracies cannot be implemented in a vacuum

the meritocratic narrative has us constantly thinking of the incompetent privileged vs. the competent underprivleged, but those simply aren’t the only types of people who exist in society. in fact, we’d have to expect that privilege would mostly make people more competent -- this doesn’t sound great until you realize that the alternative is to claim that poverty is good because it builds character and other similar kinds of nonsense we very much know to be untrue.

when it comes down to it, anyone can sit on the throne and say “I declare meritocracy to be happenning right now”, but saying that doesn’t erase the inequalities previously existing in the system. if I decided to make the whole world participate in a race a month from now, everyone starting from the same starting line and running the same course to the end, who do you think would win -- someone who eats well everyday and has as much leisure time as they want to practice running, or someone who has to continue working three jobs? sure, every now and then you’d have an exceptional runner out of the unexpected end, and you’d also have lots of privileged people who just don’t feel like runnin’, but systematically speaking, most of the winners would still probably be the ones who can throw more resources at winning.

and that’s to say nothing of the fact that pre-existing privileges also make it a lot easier to perform merit. I’ve mentioned both schools and exams so far in this post about meritocracy, right? there’s something in that topic that my mind keeps coming back to, actually -- entry exams for universities in my country.

right now, my country is experiencing an elusive demographical phenomenon where the majority of the population is college-aged; in a good country, this would mean college-level education would be thriving, but in this country, it means that each university has become far more selective with who gets to enroll. thus, all the universities with any sort of prestige above the level of “pay to get your Instant Diploma (Just Add Water) here” run yearly entry exams and enroll the people who get the best scores. sounds meritocratic, right? except now, there’s also a rash of cram schools dedicated to training people to do well on these exams, and with the high demand, they tend to be somewhat costly. in other words, if you’re born into money, you’ll have an opportunity to be taught the rotes necessary to pass the verification of merit.

people haven’t yet figured out a way to prevent meritocracies from just completely corroding under the weight of that problem, given enough time. whatever the metric you set for merit -- even if it is, in fact, the metric of “impress the emperor” -- someone will start selling better prospects for fitting that metric, and the ones buying will be the already privileged ones.

but even if it weren’t for all that...

meritocracy is discrimination

so far, I’ve mostly exponded on the issues with “merit”; however, the real gaping one actually lies in “kratos”, power.

“everything to the people who have earned it” sounds like good mote, if you don’t think too much about the converse -- “nothing to the people who have not earned it”. however successfully you might address all the other problems I’ve brought up so far, the fact is that meritocracies, inherently through their design, build societies of haves and have-nots.

and the thing is, there’s no turning back once you do that. eventually, a generation will pass, and the haves and have-nots will have passed the torch to their children; whose children will be best prepared to perform merit? and besides, giving power to the meritorious means they get to make decisions, set policies, write laws -- what’s stopping them from decreeing, blatantly or subtly, that society should favour their own and disfavour their enemies?

in other words, meritocracies can’t create societies with more equal opportunities, because they are inherently unequal themselves. in fact, basically all the notable unequal systems we’ve experienced historically were born as meritocracies of some sort. you know the nobility system that edelgard hates so much? in real-life Europe, the nobles were mostly the far-flung descendants of the most meritorious roman generals. and as for us, living under the boots of the 1% who can do whatever they want? once upon a time, these people had all the same rights as a peasant. and when the day comes when we finally topple these buffoons in the name of not just a better society but also an extant planet, the only way we can break the cycle is by not buying into the idea that meritocracies are a good thing -- be it in fiction or in real life.

#my stupid text posts #Fire Emblem is tagged in this post #Fódlan FE is tagged in this post #FE16 spoilers are tagged in this post #the text proper also touches on ableism and inequality so yeah that happens

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itsclydebitches · 5 years

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Just browsing the RWBY reddit. Seeing your post about Oz on there. The usual backlash against you and the idea that RWBY owe Oz an apology. Honest question. Is it just that their probably teenagers? Not experienced with nuanced storytelling? Think lying is always a bad thing to? It's obvious RWBY are not fully in the right. What fan wouldn't see that aside from just young people? I hate this fuck adults mindset in the fandom. Cordovin should have put them in jail at the end.

All fandoms have a very wide range of ages, RWBY included, so I doubt it’s as simple as assuming they’re all teens. Rather, I can think of a number of different factors, any one (or multiple at a time) that might be at play:

They are in fact teens who identify very strongly with the main cast, to the point where a “screw adults” rhetoric is not just appealing but very logical from their perspective. In the same vein, you have people of any age who have very straight-forward moral views: lying is bad and Ozpin had no right to do it. Period. The problem with this is less the actual belief and more the hypocrisy, as usually the mindset conveniently doesn’t apply to the person’s favorite characters---more on that below.

They’re fans, young or old, who haven’t been trained in/practiced much media analysis. Ozpin’s situation is a complicated one, requiring that fans recall, understand, and are willing to interrogate a HUGE number of details since roughly Volume Two. A lot of the hatred for Ozpin I see here on tumblr is rooted in really simplified “analysis.” e.g. people honestly asking, “How can you root for him when he got Pyrrha killed??” without understanding (or being willing to accept) that “got Pyrrha killed” is a flawed statement on multiple levels.

Connected to the above, fans who are really active in the fandom all year round and become immersed in theories, headcanons, and the like until they feel like canon. We only get RWBY content for a few weeks out of the year. The rest of the time fans are circulating various perspectives, often biased depending on who you follow. So there’s very little material demonstrating Ozpin’s complex nature vs. a great deal of material (fic, fanart, metas, personal posts about how much you hate characters, etc.) painting him as simplistically evil. That’s then the mindset fans are in when the next volume comes along and it’s rather difficult to break. What do you mean he’s a flawed good guy? I’ve been reading Ozpin hate for nine months out of the year.

Fans who are invested in their faves and have no desire to grapple with their more loaded mistakes. Yang is a good example of this, given that she’s one of the most beloved characters while also having a range of flaws. Some flaws---like snapping at someone in frustration---are easy to deal with because we know how close the group is, we know how this show functions, and we know she’ll be forgiven within a very short period of time, if anything as deep as “forgiveness” is even needed. We shrug and move on. More loaded flaws though---like her treatment of Ozpin---require fans to balance a love of the character with a critique of their actions, which a lot of people simply aren’t interested in doing. Acknowledging the ways in which Ozpin might have been in the right and the ways in which the group might have been in the wrong requires that they take a number of faves out of that “cinnamon roll too good for this world, too pure, can do no wrong” category. Few fans want to acknowledge that maybe their perfect Ruby shouldn’t have ripped secrets from a mentor. Or perfect Yang wasn’t justified in her manipulative bird anger. Or perfect Weiss shouldn’t be drawing her weapon on Qrow. Or perfect Pyrrha made a horrendous mistake by going after Cinder, etc. For all the people who claim they want flawed characters, fandom is filled with fans who fall in love with characters and then will simply not hear a word against them, not unless (like that snapping example) their flaws are incredibly easy to get past. They want, “My fave is flawed because she yells sometimes but she’s improving!” not, “My fave is flawed because she bought into the rhetoric of a murderous bandit and has been using that to undermine the team’s trust in their leader for weeks now.”

Connected to the above are fans who are neutral or iffy about Ozpin and thus have a “one strike and you’re out” policy that, notably, doesn’t extend to any other character. You lied? That’s it. We’re done. I was on the fence before but this proves you’re not worth investing in. When others point out that a LOT of our cast has either kept information quiet, manipulated how information is presented, or straight up also lied, they’re exonerated because the fan already likes them. They are invested in keeping them looking pure next to Ozpin’s impurity. And they just keep adding justifications indefinitely. Yang is allowed to keep the Spring Maiden quiet because of trauma with her mom. Oh, Ozpin has trauma too? Well he’s a thousand years old so he should have gotten over it by now. Oh, trauma doesn’t work that way? Well... and on and on.

Fans who believed Ozpin was an evil mastermind for six years and have been waiting impatiently for the day when his duplicity is finally revealed and they can celebrate being one of the ones who weren’t duped. “The Lost Fable” once and for all debunked that theory. Ozpin is a flawed man trying to do good, a subversion of the puppet-master archetype. It’s hard to say, “Damn. Guess I was wrong about his character,” especially after years of investment in his supposed immorality. So they just don’t. They tweak the new information and find ways to explain how he’s still actually, truly evil. It’s just even more horrendous because it’s subtle and sneaky and kinda hard to notice because it looks like he’s a good man most of the time, but I swear to you he’s not...

Fans who are attempting to be socially conscious but haven’t gotten the intricacies of that down just yet. Meaning, there are a lot of RWBY fans here on tumblr and tumblr has always been a site that heavily merges social justice with fandom. You read a RWBY post on your dash, then a post about white privilege; more RWBY, post about domestic violence, etc. Generally speaking that’s great (I’m all for learning in low-stakes environments), but that can also create very simplistic views, particularly for those who are young or who are just learning about such issues. Ozpin (Remnant geography and reincarnations aside) appears white. He’s a man. As far as we know he’s cis. He’s doesn’t seem to need his cane outside fighting and is therefore not disabled. He’s in a very significant position of power. He is, in short, everything “bad” that tumblr fans learn to spot in the real world. Ozpin, in that real world context, has a lot privilege and people automatically conflate that with being an aggressor. The villain. We’re living in a society where white guys are raping women and continually getting away with it. Now here’s this white guy preying on Pyrrha! (Again, no close analysis.) The merging of fandom with real world issues makes it very difficult for some people to view Ozpin with any sympathy, particularly when they only have a narrow understanding of these issues. Ozpin a victim of domestic abuse? Pff, that doesn’t happen. The man always abuses the woman. He can’t possibly be the victim here, so by default he must be the villain who tried to steal Salem’s kids away---because we all know that kids are always better off with the mother. That’s just natural. (You can see then how a lot of outdated assumptions color our readings of fictional characters.)

Straight up trolls. Some people don’t actually care about RWBY. They just enjoy antagonizing others about their views of the show. Or just insulting people for... reasons? It’s not about any investment in the debate. It’s about the rush they feel typing out a curse-laden post about how wrong you are and how much you suck. Are they actually wrong? It doesn’t matter. Saying you’re wrong makes the poster feel right and therefore powerful.

#rwby #rape tw #mymetas #long post #Anonymous

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gaiatheorist · 4 years

Text

A little knowledge...

I keep starting this, and then deleting it, that’s either an indication that I’m trying to process as fully as i can, or that I’m being avoidant, and slipping into another depressive episode, I’ll keep an eye on it.

I have an untidy heap of paperwork at the side of my desk, it’s not ‘on’ the desk yet, because I’m not quite ready to fill it in. There’s no deadline on it, so it’s ‘floating’, rather than ‘fixed’, and the formatting of it is doing my head in. It’s the end-of-course review and coping plan for the Trauma Stabilisation Group I finished last week. I told my son a few days ago that the ‘mentals’ write their own coping plans, and he was incredulous, I’m relatively good at planning, and taking all factors into consideration, but the new medication, and the appeal against the denial of my disability benefit, and, well, 2020 are taking a toll on me, I’m slipping.

‘Introduction to Trauma Stabilisation Class’, three 90-minute sessions, delivered via Microsoft ‘Teams’, on account of the Covid-19 pandemic, we’re too unwell to be left to our own devices, so the online group was the least-bad option. It’s free, I know a fair few people who have had to pay for their own therapy, because they can’t access NHS treatment, and I know I’m part of a very small, but fortunate number, to still be on NHS lists. Groups of people with mental health issues are always a bit of a gamble, there’s the waiting-room-contagion factor, where some people will exchange symptoms and ‘unhelpful coping mechanisms’, and the weird mix of characters that are inevitable. This was either my third or fourth ‘Introduction to...’ group, and the online format was differently stressful to the in-the-flesh ones. I know ‘most’ of my group-dynamic bad habits, and there’s always a little bit of my cognitive functioning occupied with telling myself *don’t* do this, or that. In a nutshell, I’m a watchful show-off, the ‘feeling small and vulnerable’ part of my C-PTSD would, historically, lead me to muck about, or attempt to dominate groups, throw in my autistic ‘organising’, my professional desire to help, and the fatigue and over-stimulus from the brain injuries, and I *could* be a nightmare in groups.

I was honest with the triage staff right from the beginning, it’ll be in my notes that I acknowledge my tendencies to ‘take charge’, as a means of coping with so much in my life that’s been beyond my control, it’s not all deliberate, and it’s sometimes really useful. I’m a sheep-dog, which is productive when I’m rounding up stragglers, and pointing them in the right direction, less-so when I’m distracted by a squirrel outside the window.

Being what I am, and knowing what I know from my previous career is a double-edged sword. I know the fancy words for the theories and processes, so can be mildly irritated when the language has to be dumbed-down to the lowest common denominator. It does have to be, though, on the previous course, we had a couple of participants who couldn’t read the text on the worksheets (formatting issue, too much text crammed onto each page, to save on photocopying costs, they strained my eyes a bit) I can’t do my (TM) Autistic thing of assuming that, if I ‘know’ a thing, everyone else in the room does too. I can do my helpful thing of re-explaining something the facilitator has said if the group don’t seem to ‘get’ it, or clarifying something a participant has said if the facilitators misconstrue it. (One of the staff on the previous course was an absolute horror for that, she wasn’t listening actively, just barrelling on with what she thought had been said, people stop volunteering information when that happens.) I’m not there to ‘help’, or to ‘lead’, though. One of the participants in this last group threw a bit of a tantrum, she’d dominated most of the speaking in the previous session, and flipped when I was given air-time to explain something. That was hard to deal with, because I automatically switched to Mentor-mode, and very nearly lost track of the content trying to think of a way to alert one of the facilitators to check in on her, and try to bring her down from her agitated state before she hurt herself.

I’m dabbling with the slightly paranoid theory that some participants, or even facilitators might think I’m a Mystery Shopper sort of thing. My ‘old’ practices and processes made a lot of people ask “How do you DO that?”, the ‘Matilda’-thing, I just do, I’m exceptional at a lot of very difficult things sometimes, but I can’t use oven-gloves, and, especially recently, I’ve been forgetting a lot of words. Other participants might think I’m a smart-arse, I am, it doesn’t matter, I imagine I frustrate the facilitators because I can give theoretically correct answers, but can’t consistently apply the theories in my own life. I’m not there to make friends, we all have to sign contracts of expectations saying we won’t form relationships, I understand that, an elective empathy with other high-end mental health cases is never going to be a good thing. My curious combination of conditions makes me a bit of a distance-er anyway, I stick as firmly as I can to the procedural pathways, it’s a process-with-purpose, not a popularity contest.

I’m struggling with the ‘be kind to yourself’ angle again. It’s not in my nature, I don’t know how. That bumps heads with the ‘normalising nice things’, even at this level of mental health intervention, we’re encouraged to ‘savour the taste of your favourite food’- food is just fuel, I don’t have a favourite, and, when people start banging on about chocolate, or cake, or whatever, I don’t get it. Visit a favourite place, phone/meet up with a friend, listen to uplifting music, go for a walk, buy yourself flowers, have a haircut, all of the ‘normal’ nice-things leave me cold, I don’t really have hobbies or interests, very few things spark my oxytocin or dopamine responses, I’m not a joyful type, that’s my baseline-normal, not a press-the-panic-button indicator that I’m depressed.

“You’re just not trying!” Luckily, nobody ‘medical’ has trotted that one out, but it’s been the backing track to my life pretty much forever. I am trying, I’m trying very hard, especially since the brain injuries. There’s been a slow realisation that I have to pick my battles wisely, though. I’ve long maintained that anyone who’s ‘always’ happy must have a flap in their back where the batteries go, I’m not advocating living in a constant state of ‘Eeyore’ gloom, but constant joy must be bloody exhausting. I’m not always moody or maudlin, I’m just sort of ‘flat’, not particularly animated or enthusiastic about much, but I can engage for short periods when I need to. “Smile, love, it might never happen!” can get right in the bin, and, as the internet pointed out the other day, telling someone to ‘just think positive’ as a cure-all is ridiculous. Well-meaning, but oblivious people will chip in with their intrusive-insensitive opinions of how a bit of yoga, or more vegetables are all we need to be all-better, and it’s a challenge to not point out that some of us are a bit beyond ‘just snapping out of it’.

That’s not defeatist. I’m autistic, my brain runs on a non-standard Operating System, the updates don’t always load, and I have to make a hell of a lot of work-around adaptations. Sometimes life’s like walking everywhere with my shoes on the wrong feet, and sometimes it’s like my appliances have come with the wrong plug, and I have to stick a spoon-handle in the Earth socket to make them work. On top of the autism, I had a succession of adverse experiences through the course of my life, which have left me with C-PTSD. I have a telephone-directory of medical conditions, and the icing on the cake was the brain haemorrhage five years ago, I have brain injuries, bits of metal plugging up aneurysms, and one area of ‘risky’ defects on my brain-stem. Those are facts, I have a file of medical paperwork about two inches thick, but the UK disability benefit departments have decided to latch onto the fact that I’m not on any medication for mental health issues. (I’ve tried lots, none of them worked long-term, and now we know we’re dealing with a neurodevelopmental disorder, and physical brain damage, I don’t think a bit of Prozac is going to help.)

Knowing that my brain is physically and chemically different to ‘most’ people’s is not a get-out-of-jail-free-card. These are reasons, not excuses, and I’m doing what I can to work within and around my limitations. I’m not unique, or a special unicorn, I’m disabled, and damaged, and trying to work with the fragmented NHS. One of the issues with the trauma course was the assumptions. I absolutely don’t blame the facilitators, they’re working with pre-prepared material, and a ‘difficult’ cohort. I did gently correct the course-leader, when she started listing ‘normal’ coping mechanisms, the walk-in-the-park, cup-of-tea-with-friends type ones. Some of those ‘simple’ activities are incredibly difficult for some of us, that’s why we’re at this level of intervention, if we could have ‘just’ joined a knitting circle, or taken up photography, we’d already have done it. I explained the need for pacing, the other two participants had limited impulse control, so giving the ‘shopping list’ of strategies was a bit risky, I know I have a tendency to over-reach, so need to be careful with myself. None of us had mentioned nightmares or flashbacks, but they’re on the standard list of indicators for PTSD. There was an assumption that we all had them, in the same way as one of the other triage practitioners, ages ago, told me “It’s not PTSD, because you don’t have nightmares.” I have auditory and olfactory flashbacks and hallucinations.

The doctors that didn’t make further investigations for the mutated migraines before the aneurysm ruptured. The gyneacologist that told my HUSBAND “There’s nothing physically wrong with her.”, the Occupational Health doctor who told me “It’s not vertigo, because that’s spinning.” and “It wasn’t a stroke, because you don’t have one-sided weakness.” I know they have to have lists of diagnostic criteria to start from, but Little-Miss-Autistic here spent far too long just-trying-to-cope because I didn’t fit neatly into their matrices. (Don’t get me started on DWP/PIP ignoring reams of evidence, and just picking out that I turned up to the assessment with my trousers on the right way around...)

I know too much about some things, and not enough about others. My ‘flat’ presentation gives the impression that I’m calm when I’m not, and coping more than I am. The review for the trauma class isn’t until September, and I genuinely don’t know what the next step will be. I’m already on the waiting list for the ‘Compassion’ course, and the very long waiting list for the Specialist Neurodevelopmental Service in the city, to see if there’s anything ‘else’ I haven’t already tried to work within and around the autism. I’ve slipped through a million holes in a million nets, because I know enough to give the answers I ‘should’, the biggest irony is that when I answer “I don’t know.”, the assumption is that I’m being defensive or difficult. A little knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing.

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pleasureactivism · 4 years

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Reflection: Bodyminds Reimagined

I loved this interview AMB conducts with Sami Schalk, the author of Bodyminds Reimagined: Disability, Race, and Gender in Black Women’s Speculative Fiction. In it, she explains what people with disabilities can teach us about pleasure. While I haven’t been thinking explicitly in the world of disability this year, I have been thinking about what folks who experience chronic pain can teach us about pleasure. I turned my thesis in this week titled, “Pain-full Worlds: Coming of Age with Chronic Pelvic Pain,” in which I explore the layered dimensions of pain women with chronic pelvic pain must navigate daily. One of the most important conclusions I arrived at after interviews with these women was the ways in which emphasizing penis-in-vagina penetration detracts from pleasure. It is SUCH a simple point, one I honestly felt embarrassed to even make because queer, disabled, and kink communities have been teaching us this for years. Yet, in my research I found that even folks who understand themselves to be within a capacious sex-positive theoretical mindset had a challenging time moving away from PIV penetration in practice. This was true for people who experienced immense pain from PIV penetration. And my informants spend immense time, resources, and energy trying to achieve penetration, working with vaginal dilators and physical therapists. In naming this dilemma, it exposes the ways in which structural norms (i.e, the heteropatriarchy) augment pain for chronic illness sufferers, who must struggle to make their bodies able to perform a very specific kind of sex. I argue in the thesis that those of us without chronic pain must contend with the ways in which norms and practices we uplift cause undue pain for others. A close look at the lives of chronic pelvic pain sufferers necessitates a social shift to alleviate some of this layered pain, which will in turn alleviates pain for us all.

In the interview Schalk says:

Disabled people’s sexual and intimate lives teach use that sex and pleasure are not merely about penetrative, goal-oriented sex...sex for disabled people often means throwing out the norms and working with a partner to discover what their body can and cannot do, what they do and do not enjoy. Often for able-bodied people, there is an assumption that there are certain things everyone wants or enjoys, but when you have an atypical body or mind, it makes potential partners pause, ask more questions, take a little more time. We would all benefit from such an approach that takes each partner’s body, each sexual interaction, as new, figuring out what is best with this person in this moment, given how their body feels, what’s on their minds, etc.

yes yes yes. All the yeses. This is it. That in adopting practices that make the world more caring, safe, and pleasurable for people that need it....our world is more caring, safe, and pleasurable. Can we implement a practice of universal design for sex? Can we take seriously that all bodies are unique and deserve partners that ask questions and cater experiences to their personal needs? I think the point Schalk is making is really easy for people to agree with, but challenging to implement in practice, much like my informants who know PIV sex isn’t theoretically more valuable than other types of sex acts, but still feel compelled to perform it. How do we learn to practice–without apology–pursuing pleasure over norms? Its something I’ve been struggling a lot with myself since I’ve been writing this year. How to I bring my work into my own life and body? For me, I think the easiest way to commit to a practice of pleasure is to model it with my sex partners first for their needs. I’ll ask what feels good for their bodies, what doesnt, what experience they are hoping to get out of our interactions. I date a lot of cis men, so unsurprisingly I’m met with a lot of nervous responses that they just like “normal stuff” or don’t have needs. And this may be true! (Though idk what normal stuff means to people). But it asking these questions it forces them and myself to consider what our actual answers are, even if we cant voice it in that moment. Maybe in the next moment of intimacy we will be able to ask for what we need, and more importantly, what we want.

HRY

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bettsfic · 5 years

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life update i guess

ultimately things are not terrible but. there’s just a lot.

i’m working too much to get anything done at my house, which means it’s just sitting there, un-lived-in, while i continue paying the mortgage. it’s not even on the market yet. i had my realtor do a walkthru and start the paperwork, but we’re still maybe weeks out from putting it on the market, and potentially months and months out from sale. the houses in my area have all taken 6+ months to sell.

my mom wants to get back with her alcoholic husband. i can’t even begin to dip in to this situation because it is so totally fucked, but tldr i am really tired of women prioritizing the shitty men in their lives over their female family/friends. i felt bad about eventually moving to mississippi and leaving my family, but now i don’t.

and now the job.

yesterday i worked 9am to 10pm and friday i’ll be working 7am to 5pm. the frightening thing is that this is considered the “slow time” of the year, and i’m not even fully onboarded yet, meaning my duties aren’t all implemented yet. so, first problem: the work-life balance here is not reasonable.

the second problem is the disability accommodations issue. HR will not afford me temporary accommodations (like moving cubicles, working from home, etc -- things i think are perfectly reasonable but which they will not budge on without a doctor signing off on it), and i can’t find someone to assess me until mid-july. moreover, i don’t have time to be making calls and find someone who can get me in sooner, because the job packs my calendar every minute of every day. AND the day i have my appointment scheduled is a day i have a mandatory cybersecurity training. so it might be pushed back further. there’s also a chance it’ll take multiple sessions to sign off, so i’m looking at august/september before i get any accommodations, which is the “busy” season.

the question becomes -- can i last that long without accommodations? my cubicle is in the middle of major foot traffic, with my back to the room and a fuckton of noise. i have absolutely no privacy. but mostly i’m not in the office at all, so i don’t know how big of a deal it really is. i can stand it for a few hours at a time.

those are really the only problems. my accommodations are delayed, and i am encouraged/forced to work 45+ hours a week, and it’s making me feel like i’m handing my entire life away. like last night was the first night fireflies were out, and i wanted to stop and look at them and take pictures, but i was with a group of volunteers and had to consider propriety, and moreover had to move things along so i could go home and sleep. i haven’t had the time or energy to keep revising baby, and i’ve stopped querying agents. everything feels like it’s on hold.

as for the neutralizing stuff -- it’s summer, which for me means depression, so there’s a chance if i didn’t have this job, i would be falling into terrible habits. sleeping in until noon, eating one big meal a day, not getting dressed, only getting a couple things finished in the afternoons, spending too much time on tumblr, getting overly (unhealthily) engaged in fandom. potentially working toward another breakdown. but also, i feel like i’m working toward a different kind of breakdown with this job. and it’s possible i wouldn’t do any of these things because i’m living in a better place now.

now for the good things!! i do get to teach with this job (but rarely). i finished up a series on health and wellness, in which i taught a group of 11 to 14 year old girls about emotional validation and teamwork. it was so much fun and i really, really loved it. unfortunately i don’t know how frequent these opportunities are.

i also get to hang out at camp, which is fun for now but i have a feeling it’s going to get old fast. the days are long and hot and there are just so many girls. on tuesday i had a big group of 7 to 9 year olds, which i’m much less familiar with as an age group (they are too young to have seen harry potter, and too old to baby talk at, so i’m lost). friday i’m going to a residential camp and i have no idea what that will be like.

i get to work with volunteers, who are generally amazing and kind and organized, and have the best intentions at heart. these are women who (like in fandom) prioritize community and the greater good, and put love into everything they do. unfortunately, my job is basically to deal with the few bad things peppered among the good -- volunteer disputes, mom entitlement, “my daughter’s cookie reward sleeping bag is broken and i need a new one RIGHT NOW,” etc. there are two moms i know who have a restraining order on a third mom, and i’m grateful i missed that whole thing, because dealing with it would have been my responsibility.

i am constantly driving into the sticks, which would be a negative for most people but is amazing for me. the places i serve are all out in the middle of nowhere, these tiny towns with only a couple roads apiece, and take an hour or more to get to. i get great mileage reimbursement and fabulous future writing fodder. moms and kids and small town drama -- this is all the stuff i love to write, and i’m getting a lot of great aesthetic from it, but no energy to write anything that isn’t fic (which is energy-filling for me rather than draining).

and my favorite thing is that i am doing Good Things. i really love this organization and believe in it, and working here is the first time i’ve really felt like i’m making the world better instead of worse. the more i learn about it and everything it does, the more i love its structure and purpose. the people who work there are such good and kind people, and the work they all do is genuinely, unequivocally amazing.

there is just a lot of it, and it doesn’t pay well.

no matter what, i’ll only be there a year (i’m doing a phd in mississippi but deferred my acceptance), and they don’t know that, and i feel bad for deceiving them. i feel bad for joining these volunteer communities with the assumption i’ll be around a while and make friends. and as much as i need the health insurance, it’ll take a long time to find doctors and get appointments for all the specialists i need, and then i’ll be moving out of the state and having to find new doctors anyway.

so my options are thus:

stick with the job for a year

pros: no stress about paying mortgage while house is on the market, ability to buy stuff i need and pay off my car, save up for big move, structure/keeping busy over summer when i’m normally really depressed, ability to do meaningful work i believe in, really good health insurance

cons: no time/energy to write, guilt over deception of coworkers and volunteers, a potentially unmanageable amount of stress, poor work/life balance, not a lot of teaching

resign and return to alma mater to teach comp next semester

pros: summer off to work on my house/writing/freelance work, don’t dread waking up every day, may potentially be able to move to mississippi in winter and start the phd spring semester

cons: no income over summer, no health insurance for the rest of the year (and will have to re-apply for medicaid), lack of structure may make me more depressed, i hate teaching comp (and i would have 3 sections of it, god help me -- but at least i’d be teaching)

this is the pickle i am in. i know this is a lot to read but mostly i wrote it for myself, to see it all written out. half of me thinks it’ll get better and right now i’m only intimidated by the workload because i don’t have an expertise in the job yet, and once i do, it’ll be a breeze, or at least more good days than bad ones. this is also the part of me that wants a backup plan post-phd in case i can’t do academia anymore and my writing career tanks. the other part of me is like, this is useless, you’re a writer and a teacher, why are you bothering doing anything that’s not writing or teaching? and that is also the part of me that’s like, lol you are not a neurotypical person, you are always going to struggle in these types of environments, and you have an environment available to you in which you do not struggle, so go for that instead (even if the pay is shitty and has no benefits).

i just don’t know.

#sns

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walkerismychoice · 5 years

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For Law and Love - Chapter 13

Book: Desire and Decorum - Modern day AU

Paring: Ernest Sinclaire X MC

Raiting: PG-13

Summary: Day one of their month apart, but Ernest and Anna still find a way to spend time together. Anna is trying to keep a low profile today, but nobody wants to let her forgot what day it is.

Word Count: 2543

Law and Love Master List - Catch up here

One month. Anna had been through one month over 250 times in her life. Certainly one more was insignificant compared to the total. And it's not like she wouldn't be able to see him, but it was almost more difficult to have someone you wanted so badly but couldn't have in front of your face all the time then to not see them at all. Yet she still wanted to be with him as much as possible, so she found herself waking at the dreadful hour of seven on a Saturday morning to volunteer at the legal aid clinic on campus. She threw her hair up, put on a clean pair of jeans and a sweater, and grabbed an extra large coffee on the way, hoping she'd feel awake by the time she got there.

As was expected with his “on time is late, and 15 min early is on time personality”, Ernest was already there when she arrived. She had to resist the urge to hug him or be too informal, so she decided if she couldn't act how she wanted to, she'd have some fun with it.

"Good morning, Mr. Sinclaire. Than you so much for this opportunity," Anna greeted.

Ernest raised an eyebrow at her. "Good morning Anna, why don't I introduce you to Mr. Chambers. He'll be training you this morning."

"Anna, so nice to meet you." He held out his hand for Anna to shake. He was a couple inches shorter than Ernest with curly dark brown hair and couldn't have been much older than Ernest. "None of this stuffy Mr. Chambers though. You can call me Bart."

"Nice to meet you too, Bart," Anna replied warmly. There was something about Bart that put her at ease. "How can I help?"

"I'm afraid it's not glamorous work, but we have a backlog of filing to do. Let me show you to the file room." Bart led her to a small room towards the back of the building and explained which piles needed to go where. Just before he was about to leave, he looked at her and smirked. "You know, Ernest had told me a lot about you."

"He has? I'm just one of his students..." Anna waited nervously to see where he was going. She already trusted Bart, but this legal clinic was affiliated with the school and she didn't want any rumors going around.

Bart chuckled. "Relax Anna, Ernest is a good guy, and I'm on your side. It's usually hard to get anything personal out of him, so for him to open up to me about you and this whole ordeal must mean you're pretty special. If he's not going to be interested in someone like me, I'm happy it's you." He must have noticed a slight change in her expression due to his unexpected admission, adding "Yes, I'm gay if you couldn't already tell."

Anna laughed. "I didn't want to make any assumptions."

"I have a boyfriend now, and obviously I'm not his type, but if I had ever had a chance with him, I would have been all over it. Anyhow, the clients will start trickling in any moment, so I'll leave you you to it, but let me know if you have any questions." Bart snuck through the partially opened door, leaving her alone with the massive stacks of paperwork.

Anna put her earbuds in and put some music on to make the menial task a bit more enjoyable. She got in a groove and had made a good dent, not even sure how much time had passed when she felt a tap on her shoulder. It startled her to the point that she jumped and let out a yelp. She whipped her head around expecting to see Bart. "Ernest! What are you doing in here?"

Ernest threw a stack of envelopes on the table and wrapped her in a tight embrace. "Bart insisted I file those immediately."

Anna peaked over his shoulder to see he had closed the door behind him. "Oh did he? He's a pretty decent wingman isn't he?"

"One of the best." Ernest cupped her cheek and ducked his head down to kiss her. He backed her into the table, and then picked her up and sat her atop it. She wrapped her legs around him, pulling him closer as she deepened the kiss, having to fight the urge to start ripping his clothes off since it was neither the time or the place.

Anna put her hand on Ernest’s chest as she pulled back and looked up at him. “I think we better stop before I get us both kicked out of school.”

“You just can’t resist me, can you?” Ernest teased.

Anna rolled her eyes. “Today I can, but just barely. Ask me again in a few weeks.”

“It’s only been a day, hasn’t it? Speaking of the date, I have a confession.” Ernest picked the stack of envelopes up from the table and handed them to Anna. They were tied together with a red bow and she could see the top one was addressed to her, with ‘Day 1′ written on it. “It seems you may have been hoping I would forget what day it is today. With everything going on, I neglected to get you a proper present, but I hope these will suffice. Happy Birthday Anna.”

Anna didn’t forget it was her birthday, but she had hoped everyone else would. She had planned to celebrate her 21st birthday with Ernest and all her other close friends, but given the circumstances, she just wasn’t in the mood if he couldn't attend. As thoughtful as he was, she should have figured Ernest wouldn’t let it go by unnoticed. Anna untied the ribbon and sifted through the envelopes numbered 1-31 and her eyes began to well up. "When did you have time to do all this?"

"Let's just say I didn't get a lot of sleep last night." Ernest pecked her sweetly on the lips. "I know we won't be able to talk or see each other every day, but at least you'll get a little something from me."

Anna threw her arms around his neck and rested her head against his chest. "It's perfect."

Ernest left Anna to finish her filing. There was still another hour or so until lunch, and she figured she had at least that much more work to do. She worked diligently and powered through a few extra minutes to get it all done. When she reached the break room, all the employees and volunteers were there and Bart was standing next to a birthday cake.

"We heard it was your birthday, and we never pass up an opportunity to eat cake around here." He lit the candle and led everyone in singing happy birthday to Anna. She was a mix of mortified that all these people she just met were making a fuss over her and touched that Ernest set this all up, for she highly doubted Bart figured out her birthday from the volunteer paperwork she just submitted that morning.

"Thank you," Anna mouthed to Ernest and he just nodded and smiled. The ate lunch and had cake before it was time for Ernest to get back to the clients.

Bart approached Anna before going back to his work. "You got the filing done much faster than I anticipated. I didn't prepare anything else for you to assist with today, so if you want you can go home early, otherwise you could shadow Ernest to get a feel for what we do here."

Anna wasn't going to turn down a chance to spend more time with Ernest, and she was curious to see what kind of cases he dealt with, so she happily agreed to stay. The first client was a man named Luis with an energetic boy in tow who looked about four or five. He rolled his toy truck across the desk and over the paperwork, and Ernest took it all in stride. He went around to Ernest's side of the desk and stared at him expectantly.

"I'm sorry," Luis apologized. "I didn't have anyone to watch him today. Alex, come here!"

"No worries," Ernest assured him. "Hey Alex, I have a very important job for you. Would you like to be my special helper?" Alex nodded and beamed proudly. "Can you give this paper to your dad to fill out?"

Alex took the form to his father and continued to be the courier for each document throughout the visit. It turned out Luis was a single father trying to get permanent custody of Alex. His mom was in and out of jail and sporadically in Alex's life. Luis had been laid off from his job for some time, but now he had steady employment and hoped he had a better chance of the courts awarding full custody. Anna was in awe of the level of compassion and kindness Ernest showed towards both Luis and Alex, and it made her love him even more. Yes, there was no denying she was completely head-over-heels in love with Ernest Sinclaire.

Ernest saw a few more clients that afternoon including an immigration case, a tenant-landlord dispute, and woman seeking disability benefits. Anna had been around lawyers her whole life, but this was a completely different side of things - one she knew existed but had never experienced. Her dad’s clients were typically large corporations and individuals who could pay top dollar for his services. His work certainly served a purpose, but this type of advocacy work, while not likely profitable, seemed to really give people a chance to change things in their lives for the better. Anna was beginning to see for the first time that maybe this career path could not only help fulfill her dad’s wishes, but could be something she was passionate about as well.

At the end of the day, Ernest and Anna snuck in a quick goodbye before Anna headed back home to spend her birthday and the rest of her weekend with her dad. She hadn’t seen him in a few weeks, and spending her birthday with him would be a good distraction. She knew he wouldn’t have expected her to celebrate her 21st birthday with him, but she was sure deep down he was thrilled to have her there instead of out at some bar getting wasted.

Anna walked through the front door, and was confused when she saw a couple pairs of women’s shoes by the door. She turned the corner to the living room and noticed a large birthday banner, before she saw two familiar faces pop out.

“Surprise!” Briar yelled and rand over hugged her.

Annabelle followed suit. “We know you said you didn’t want to do anything, but we came to crash your party anyway. Don’t worry, nothing wild. Just a fun girls night in.”

Somehow Briar and Annabelle both new Anna well enough to know what she needed even more than herself. She thought she wanted to wallow in self-pity with her dad, but having them there was a breath of fresh air, and her mood instantly lifted.

“I’m glad I have troublemaker best friends like you two who never listen to anything I say.” Anna chuckled. “Seriously though, I’m really happy you both are here. I’m just going to go say hi to my dad.”

Anna wandered into the kitchen where she could hear her dad banging around. “Hi sweetheart!” Vincent threw his arms around her and kissed her on the cheek. “Happy Birthday!”

“Hi, Dad. I hope you don’t mind that Briar and Annabelle are joining us.”

“Of course I don’t mind!” Vincent Exclaimed. “Who do you think invited them? I know you love your old man, but I know you need your friends too. I figured we could all eat dinner together, and then I’ll leave you girls to whatever girls do.”

Anna scanned the kitchen. There was a pan of lasagna prepped and ready to go in the oven, and her dad was cutting up vegetables for salad. “Do you need any help with anything?

Vincent shooed her away. “Get out of here. It’s your birthday. Go relax.” He pointed to a bottle of white wine chilling in a bucket on the counter. “You could get yourself and your friends a drink now that you’re legal. There’s some beers in the fridge also.”

“The wine will be perfect. Thanks dad.” Anna grabbed the wine and three glasses and joined her friends in the living room.

Dinner was nice, and Vincent had gotten tiramisu from Anna’s favorite Italian bakery for dessert. Both Anna and Vincent were pleased to hear Briar had ditched Eddie and Arthur and was navigating somewhat of a long distance relationship with Luke. It was nothing serious yet, but they had continued to talk since they met at the bar and had plans to meet for lunch the next day. Annabelle gave a hilarious but PG-rated version of her Tinder adventures, and they all ate until they were stuffed.

Vincent retired early as promised, and the girls put on face masks and gave each other pedicures, which probably wasn’t the best idea after a few glasses of wine. Nevertheless, Anna hadn’t felt so light nor laughed that much in quite some time. They settled in and watched To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, which Anna could never get tired of. She had to admit Peter Kavinsky made her swoon, but he still had nothing on Ernest Sinclaire.

When they could all barely keep their eyes open, Anna showed Briar and Annabelle to their guest rooms, before climbing into bed. She retrieved evelop #1 from her bag, which she had purposefully saved until now to open and read what was inside.

My Anna,

One day down, and one day closer to us being together freely again. I couldn’t have imagined just a few months ago I’d be here today, having someone like you I can’t live without. However much you are missing me, I’m certain I’ll be missing you more.

I know this birthday isn’t what you planned, but I hope the time we got to spend made you at least a little happy. I’m not sure what kind of trouble you’ll get into the rest of the day without me, but please for your sake and mine, try to refrain from getting so drunk you puke on another man’s shoes. I hope to be the first and last to experience that with you.

Love,

Ernest

Anna laughed to herself as she wiped a tear from her cheek. Then she realized what he’d written in closing and her heart fluttered. She knew she loved him and she thought he felt the same, but they’d never thrown that four letter word out there. She wondered if it held the weight she thought it did, but Ernest took nothing of importance lightly. If he used that word, he meant it. Anna tucked the letter safety in her nightstand drawer and her head hit the pillow with a big smile on her face. This was not at all the 21st birthday she had envisioned, but all in all it had been a pretty great day.

Tag List: @symonde @timmagicktoad @reputationbee @flowerpowell @flyawayboo @hellospunkiebrewster @boneandfur @tmarie82 @debramcg1106 @lizeboredom @simplyaiden-blog @the-writerly-night-owl @quacksonlover @thefarrari @snickette @hhiggs @marianagmt @drakewalkerfantasy @mistersinclaire @jessweb84 @marshmallow-ortega @butindeed @fluffy-marshmallow-heart @confessionsofabrokegirl @akrenich @alexanderkeith-77-blog @nicestrokepam @leelee10898 @blackcatkita @yesterday4 @shelivesinthewoods @snyggflicka @nekkidmolerat @srry-itshockeyszn @walkerduchess @choicesyouplayandmore @andy-loves-corgis @katurrade @too-poor-to-buy-keys @endless-vall @hopefulmoonobject @damienazarios @pens-girl-87 @catlady0911 @thatspicegirlssong

#playchoices fanfic #desire and decorum #ernest sinclaire #Mr. Sinclaire #mc X ernest sinclaire #for law and love #my fic

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sailor-cresselia · 5 years

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The Great Ex-Aid Rewatch: Ex-Aid & Ghost, Part Two

Okay, back to it for part two of who-know-how-many of my Dr. Pac-Man liveblog!

Time for more gamers, doctors, ghosts, and terrible examples of science that people should in no way, shape, or form try to emulate!

––– –––

When last we saw our doctor heroes, they were escaping from Dr. Pac-Man with the victim-of-the-week, and the Ghost team was coming to their aid, leaving Shinnosuke back at the precinct.

We pick back up with Emu, Asuna, and Tougo running, but being blocked from one direction by Doral and Giril, and a still very glitchy Dr. Pac-Man on the other.

Turns out, the Pac-viruses aren’t technically bugsters at all – they’re just… er. Viruses, I guess, that Dr. Pac-Man used to set up a virus detection program. Specifically, to track the Bugster Virus, so that he could hunt down Tougo, who’s a carrier of a new strain.

Wait, so, the fevers that are hitting the people throughout the city aren’t the game disease, then? Or are there more forms to it than the bugster virus? …I may have to go into this in my fics at some point, but not now.

But anyway, it’s a new strain, one that comes from Hatesate Puzzle, so naturally the GenmCorp systems wouldn’t have any information on it – it’s not one of their products, so there’s no reason to expect it to spawn a bugster of it’s own.

Takeru, Akari, and Onari show up, with Takeru accusing Dr. Pac-Man of being Zaizen Michihiko. Fortunately for all of us, he is, and admits such as soon as Takeru brings it up. This means I no longer have to type ‘Dr. Pac-Man’ nearly as often, and we don’t have to deal with his squeaky voice changer anymore.

That thing was obnoxious.

Zaizen, who should have died six years ago, has managed – somehow – to revive as a Bugster. Which, as we know now, is foreshadowing for what happens down the line in-show. (Actually, this might be where Kuroto got that particular plan from in the first place.) He’s come back to finish his plans from back then.

He and his ‘team’ were working on a ‘genome project’, to create a new life form via operating on a patient infected with the game disease. A project to create a bugster.

But things went wrong.

Something happened, and we see the ‘patient’ – his face tactfully hidden by scenery the entire time – bucking on the table, the four ‘doctors’ drawing back in surprise. As a swarm of orange lights emerges from him and form into the shape of a person, lines of light form a game area around the room, while the four ‘doctors’ are dissolved into fragments of data.

And now? Now they’re back from being banished to the shadow realm game world, and ready to fulfill their ‘master plan.’

Emu – sweet, blissfully unaware, ten-episodes-in Emu – says that he may not know anything about this so-called master plan, but to use Pac-Man for this, to endanger all of these people… how can they call themselves doctors?! Doctors are supposed to help people!

Zaizen declares that anyone who stands against him must die, and Hatena – the latest Bugster – summons a massive number of enormous falling blocks. That would be bad enough, since said blocks are approximately person sized, and could easily crush someone.

Except that Hatesate Puzzle is a match three puzzle game. When three blocks of the same color line up? They explode.

Makoto and Alain show up from… somewhere, just in time to see Takeru make a dive to cover Akari with his body to protect her from another wave of blocks.

They are both caught up in the explosions. When the smoke clears, Takeru manages to wake Akari up, barely.

They both start to turn transparent, bursts of static crackling across them, at which point Akari passes back out.

Takeru, having had some very traumatic experiences with being transparent, makes the very natural assumption that they’ve both just died.

Fortunately, Emu is there, and able to yell that no, no, you’re not dead, that’s the bugster virus, please calm down!

Well, they’re not dead yet, according to Hatena, who says that unless someone manages to defeat him in the next 24 hours, they’re done for. This, naturally, pisses Makoto and Alain the hell off, and they go on the offensive.

I love civilian outfit fights, because you can get more of a sense of how the characters really move. I hold to the theory that putting on Rider armor, in any series, enhances the wearers usual abilities, so while you can see how they fight, you can get a far more accurate idea of it when they fight out of suit.

Against Giril, for all that the first part of the fight is more of a dance between her, Makoto, and Alain, you can tell that they’re skilled at this – that they’ve been through battles. They do eventually wind up getting hit – her fighting style is very different from the ones they’re used to facing, and Alain in particular takes some nasty palm strikes and kicks to the chest, but they’re still putting up a good show. (Especially for a pair who lost the majority of their effectiveness in battle once they joined up with Takeru, but that’s a complaint for a whole different season.)

On the other hand, Emu’s fight against Doral can barely be called a fight. He’s getting beaten, badly. Doral barely has to move to dodge Emu’s punches, and when they do connect, he doesn’t even flinch, moving with the punch to soften what little damage there would be.

Emu takes numerous blows to the torso, and I’m pretty sure at one point he just barely avoided a groin shot. He does manage a sweet flip and a roll, but it looks to have been accidental, given he then very quickly gets thrown several meters through the air.

Compare this to his first fight in-show, when he’d just gotten the belt, and had no idea what he was even getting into. In level one, he didn’t take a single hit from the Bugster Union, and when he fought Salty directly, he got hit maybe two or three times, but no more than that, and they didn’t effect him at all.

Early Emu has no idea what he’s doing in a fight, without actively being Ex-Aid.

Onari and Asuna carry Akari off to the hospital, escaping, while Makoto and Alain manage to literally hold Giril back, telling Takeru to ‘take care’ of Hatena.

Takeru’s punches do nothing, aside from make his knuckles hurt, and make Hatena chuckle. CHUCKLE. Not even LAUGH, just a quiet chuckle.

Emu gets grabbed, and Doral is trying to choke him out, when freaking Tougo – who is, admittedly, in a bit of a bad way, seeing how he’s rather see-through at the moment – yells at Emu. He’s a doctor, right?! Then why isn’t he saving him?!

You know, never mind that you said it was pointless earlier, or that Emu’s getting his ass kicked and currently is having a bit of trouble breathing, just go ahead and guilt trip him. That’s totally a way to make people like you.

Oh, and then Zaizen tells this asshole that nobody can save him, and pulls Tougo into a bugvisor. Because that totally makes sense.

All four riders present – Emu, Takeru, Alain, and Makoto – get hurled down by their respective opponents, Emu internally apologizing to Tougo. Doral advances on Emu…

And is met with a spin-kick to the face.

Kiriya, Hiiro, and Taiga have arrived. Here’s their basic reactions to the scene:

Kiriya: More research data! Yes! (Also, time to save the Ace, because he’s the only person in this show who has even remotely tried to be a decent person, and was the only one who bothered trying to trust me.)

Taiga: Okay, shows over, freaks. (Why do people keep using Protogashats?! Are they all just stupid?!)

Hiiro: You look pathetic, intern. Also, here’s the new Legend Rider Gashat, the CEO wanted you to have it, for some reason.

Doral’s all ‘oh, so you want to fight, do you?’, and he and Giril pull out their gashats. Kiriya gives a sarcastic whistle, before Makoto and Alain shove their way in front, saying that this is their fight. I mean, it’s not, technically, but I get their reasoning. Also, Makoto literally shoved Hiiro to the side, and Hiiro takes a moment to come back to facing front, looking incredibly offended. Kiriya tries to point out to them that they’re already pretty beat up, and maybe they should take a back seat for a bit, but let if never be said that Makoto and Alain are anything but stubborn.

Giril takes off one way, Makoto and Hiiro in pursuit, while Doral goes the other, with Alain, Taiga, and Kiriya chasing after. Emu is still on the floor, slightly dazed, and presumably very confused.

–––

Hiiro and Makoto Vs Giril.

Makoto’s fighting style here is very… I dunno, like he’s a brawler? I guess? It’s not really refined, there’s a sort of brutality there. He uses the mooks momentum a lot, at one point pulling one of those ‘roll with the grab and use it to do a spin kick while on the mooks back’ tricks.

Hiiro, meanwhile, is quick and efficient, focusing on disabling mooks by going for the torso. Once again, he’s weaponizing CPR, just like when he originally used Doremifa Beat. At one point, he actually just flat out does a chop to the back of one mooks neck, which I find hilarious coming from Hiiro, of all people.

Eventually, Giril transforms, and Makoto hastily follows suit. Heh, suit. Because they’re transforming heroes. Hiiro, who saw full well that Specter isn’t exactly in prime condition, tries to tell him to wait, and heads into level two to join the fight.

–––

Taiga, Kiriya, and Alain vs Doral.

Taiga and Alain’s fight styles aren’t too different, outside of suit. They both favor quick blows that are still slightly showy. The main difference is that Alain’s more willing to rely on both his arms and legs for attacks, while Taiga’s more likely to dodge attacks. Kiriya… may as well be street dancing. Like, there’s a lot of streetdance type moves going on there.

…Dark Toei, give me the forbidden streetdancer Kiriya lore.

Eventually, Alain starts getting into a slightly more berserker style, Kiriya is getting somehow even flashier, and Taiga…

Taiga stole the sword off of one of the mooks.

…SWEET.

Doral transforms, and Alain angrily follows… and immediately starts doing worse. Seriously, the Necrom suit is a definite hindrance for Alain. He was great when he was in civilian attire – because he could move. Loose fitting clothes are far better suited for his personal style than the tight, controlled movements he has to use as Necrom. I mean, he really shouldn’t keep the scarf on in battle, but it doesn’t seem to slow him down, so I guess it’s okay.

Taiga looks a little disappointed that Alain just rushed in there like that, and once again it’s Kiriya who says that he’s getting ahead of himself.

The two of them transform, and Taiga visibly enters level two, doing a sweet flip over a fire projectile before getting into the battle. Kiriya says he’s leveling up, but we don’t actually see it, or him.

–––

Takeru vs Hatena.

This fight is not going nearly so well as the others. Takeru is getting shoved around like a ragdoll by Hatena and his staff, but still struggling back up, despite the copious pain he’s in, because he’s going to save Akari, dangit!

Emu’s still down on the floor, just barely getting around to picking himself back up in order to stop Takeru from advancing.

Zaizen says that all these struggles are useless. Without Ghost’s power, they can’t possibly beat Pac-Man, and he’s going to make them fear just how powerless they are!

He then proceeds to fire his bugvisor into the air, a massive swarm of Pac-viruses emerging from it… and then they all form into a GIANT PAC-MAN. The version with arms and legs, no less, before it pulls those into itself and becomes the more classic Orb Pac-Man.

Then it sort of… shudders, and glows a bit red, and oh look, everyone, Pac-Man’s got a mouth of fangs now!

Wisely, Takeru and Emu realize that being faced with a two-or-three story Pac-Man, who is clearly intent on eating them, is the point where they should be running away.

–––

Pac-Man chases them outside. They manage to avoid his barreling into them, but also he takes a bite out of a building, so there’s that. They’ve both fallen from their dodge.

Takeru pushes himself back to his feet, struggling to walk forward to fight.

Emu tries to hold him back, because it’s too dangerous, he’s too hurt, if he tries to fight like this, he could die-

Takeru shoves him off, saying it doesn’t matter if he can still transform or not. Yes, he doesn’t want to die, but if he can save Akari, then that is far more important. He’s going to do this. He has to do this!

Ghost’s powers are intimately linked to Takeru’s emotional state. They always have been, as far back as his first episode. His resolve summons the Ore Eyecon back to him from Dan Kuroto’s desk (because of course he didn’t give that to Hiiro to bring back), and the Ghost Driver reappears around Takeru’s waist.

(The, uh, the handle on that thing’s looking a little worse for wear. You guys couldn’t have, I dunno, wiped it down or something? Given it a little touch up?)

“HENSHIN!”

:cue fangirl grin:

Takeru gets to fly again! In base form, no less! …You know, outside of the first episode, and his guest previews in Drive, I don’t think Takeru actually got to use his levitation in his base mode more than maybe once or twice until after his season. I’m pretty sure he didn’t even get to do it in his own movies, outside of the finishing blow to the giant Ganma from the Ghost & Drive film. I don’t recall him levitating at all during Ichighost. If he used that power outside of the final battle in 100 Eyecons, I don’t remember it, and I know that time it was in Infinite.

Basically, I’m in the ‘Let Takeru Use His Powers’ camp. Also, I’m thinking that this might be where he basically… re-unlocked that for his base form? I dunno, just a thought that I might use in ReUnited, might not. Hard to say.

Anyway, Ghost! He’s flying around, kicking Angry Emoji Pac-Man while dodging storms of Pac-Viruses. Emu, in the meantime, is having a slight crisis of personal faith. He’s been getting his ass handed to him all day, even more so than usual, with people berating him left and right for not being good enough at his job – as a doctor or as a Kamen Rider.

Screaming to the sky, he somehow finds his resolve. Pulling out the Kaigan Ghost gashat, a breeze blows his hair back, and he transforms.

…Okay, yes, it’s a level ONE form right now, but he still gets to fight in-air with Takeru, both of them with that cool orange glow effect, so it’s worth it!

–––

At the Next Genome Hideout, Zaizen and Hatena arrive just in time for… Uh. What was his name again? Ah, there we go. Kuruse Soji, also known as the Robol Bugster. For consistencies sake with the rest of his group, I will be referring to him as Robol from here on.

So, those two arrive just in time for Robol to finish the… I don’t even know what it is, some sort of genome re-mapping design.

Hatena is the one to ask Zaizen “Hey, are you sure about this whole ‘using yourself as a lab rat’ thing? You’re putting your life on the line, here.”

But nope, Zaizen’s determined to carry out his plan, and he’s fully intent on becoming a life form ‘to surpass creation.’

Hatena’s response is basically a silent “Well, okay then, it’s your funeral,” before raising his reality-warping staff up, and starting what is basically a reprogramming process on Zaizen.

Additionally, Zaizen seems to very quickly have at least a few regrets with regards to his haste, or at least didn’t think Hatena was going to just go ahead and start immediately. Having ones genetic structure re-written is not exactly painless.

The thing is… I don’t know what Zaizen doing this to himself would prove for any sort of proof of concept. We find out later on that his plan is to do this all over, and yeah, most people won’t survive, but the ones who do will be stronger for it. Which is all standard mad scientist stuff. However, he’s already a Bugster. He’s said as much, so his base makeup isn’t the same anymore. He has no way to prove this will actually work on a normal human! I mean, yeah, he’s trying it on Tougo simultaneously, albeit a little differently, but Tougo’s infected with the bugster virus already, so there’s good odds that the alterations are working with that more than anything else.

Basically, Zaizen, you’re a terrible excuse for a doctor and a scientist, and you should be ashamed of yourself for so many different reasons.

–––

Back at the Giril fight, Makoto uses all three of his regular Legend Eyecons to try and take her down, and even at one point using Houdini’s chains as whips! It gets to a point where we have Specter with Nobunaga preparing a finisher, and Giril sending energy slashes at him, only for Brave to use the ice mode of his sword to freeze the attacks in place so that Makoto can shoot through them.

Seriously, Hiiro, why can’t you use tactics this cleverly more often in show? It’d have gone a long way toward making me like at least watching you fight, even though it wouldn’t do anything for you as a character. The only times I can think of that were anything like this were the few occasions you used the sword to make an ice path to hold enemies still, your first time using Doremifa beat, and the way you got Taddle Fantasy by basically emulating some of Emu’s tactics, in using the energy items to your advantage.

But I digress. The two Riders switch into Deep Specter and Doremifa Beat to try and finish the fight.

–––

Brief cut to the Doral fight, where everyone is still in base forms, until Necrom gets knocked down and swaps into Grimm. I am reminded of why I would vastly prefer him to be using an eyecon at all times, because the helmet for Necrom is AWFUL without a cover.

Lazer and Snipe are still in level one and two respectively.

–––

Back to Giril.

Everyone launches finishers, starting with Specter, who doesn’t have much effect, but knocks her back a bit. Brave and Giril launch simultaneous ones, which create a huge chain reaction explosion that results in all three participants getting kicked out of their transformations.

Giril is still okay enough to run away.

Hiiro and Makoto are struggling on the ground. Makoto tries to get up to give chase, but collapses. Hiiro, in not much better state, tries to wake him.

–––

Back to Doral.

Necrom is using Sanzo for a bit, before getting dropped back down to normal. Okay, so, I may hate the transitional phase of Necrom, but it’s not fair to Alain for him to go the whole series without an upgrade. It’s even less fair for him to finally get one after the show… in the Specter V-Cinema. At which point he gets his ass kicked. By Specter. To make matters even more devastating? The single upgrade Alain gets is called Yujou Burst. FRIENDSHIP BURST. It’s ugly as all get out, and he only uses it in a single scene, in which, as mentioned earlier, he gets his ass kicked by Makoto. And you can’t even really see it in that scene, because it was so dark, which was not helped by Yujou Burst being black and gold.

ALAIN DESERVED BETTER, IS ALL I’M SAYING.

Okay, okay, lost potential complaints aside, the fight scene. Lazer and Snipe both enter level three, and I’m fairly certain Kiriya curses the day he blackmailed his way into getting a Driver, because he still has to go through the bike form anyway to get to higher levels.

Necrom and Lazer launch their finishers – Necrom with an energy punch projectile, and Lazer with that gloriously massive rain of arrows. This is followed by Snipe’s finisher, which involves a jetpack and LOTS OF BULLETS.

Man, if Jet Combat weren’t so hideous, I’d probably love it.

Doral gets knocked out of his transformation, and runs off. Necrom and Lazer drop theirs willingly, at which point Alain apologizes to Takeru, and drops to the ground, out cold.

Taiga lands. Specifically, TAIGA lands, dropping his transformation MID DESCENT and landing in a three point touchdown. He sneers, saying that Alain’s an idiot who over did it.

Well, at least the three of you came out of your transformations on your own, unlike the actual secondaries of the two seasons, who both got knocked down.

I mean, I really didn’t expect to find more evidence that Hiiro’s not nearly as good at this Rider thing as he thinks he is, but it sure looks like I did!

–––

Okay, over at the FIRST main fight, with Ex-Aid and Ghost versus a literally two story tall Pac-Man, two lads in black and orange land.

Ghost pulls out the Ex-Aid Eyecon, and we get an incredibly chaotic shot of Takeru entering Ex-Aid Damashi, and Ex-Aid leveling up his Ghost form.

Hnnnn I don’t like either of these legend rider forms. I think it’s in the eyes. Takeru winds up with Ex-Aid’s eyes on his faceplate, which makes sense, because that’s what his Legend Rider forms do. He gets their helmet’s appearance on his. It’s just weird with Ex-Aid’s eyes, is all. I’ll give credit to the jacket for being way better than his one for Drive, though.

The Ex-Aid Legend Rider forms, though… are so incredibly cursed. His chestplate takes on the appearance of whatever’s there on the OG rider, which. Okay, fair. I went to go look at his form for Drive, and the tire just Does Not Translate well to 2d. But the real problem is the helmet.

See, I’m okay with the helmets in Ex-Aid. I don’t care about the anime eye aesthetic, I’m all for it, because they manage to make something this ridiculous look good. Right up until that’s not what’s there anymore.

The helmet takes on an appearance similar to a slimmed down version of the legend rider, which I would be fine with… if it didn’t keep the frames from around Ex-Aid’s eyes. It’s unsettling, and invariably cuts across the eyes of the helmet it’s imitating, which just makes the whole thing uncomfortable.

And, of course, he still has the duplicate faceplate on his back, which makes it really weird when he’s facing away from the camera in the upcoming scenes, because we’re still getting Ghost looking at us. I don’t know why it doesn’t bug me nearly this much with Regular Ex-Aid, but this is really unsettling with a different rider’s helmet.

–––

Okay, okay, sorry, back to the show.

Emu’s gotten Ghost’s ability to levitate, and Takeru’s picked up Ex-Aid’s jumps. So they’re still able to bounce around Pac-Man, but they aren’t both flying anymore.

And then he eats them.

Like, I’m not even kidding, Pac-Man opens his mouth, they get pulled in, and WHOOPS suddenly they’re falling toward a suspiciously familiar maze!

Oh, man, I wish I were better at screencapping, but this goes by too fast for me to catch it. When they land? Takeru has a color-burst effect right out of one of Ex-Aid’s special effects. Nice touch!

Oh, and the walls of the maze, along with the dots, are an appropriate size for a two story tall Pac-Man. So, you know, the lads are a bit dwarfed by the scenery.

If you look carefully, you can see that when Pac-Man’s chasing them through the maze, the dots he passes by aren’t there anymore! He’s still actually playing by his own rules! … right up until they jump out of his way when they’re backed against a wall, and he just plows on through.

(Pac-Man, noooo! You can’t do that! That’s illegal!)

So they just start trying to slash at Pac-Man amid the rubble from the wall he just broke through – and then he starts shooting out beams of light every which way?

I don’t remember that being part of the game…

While they’re jumping and dodging, Emu’s still got Ghost’s glowing effects, and Takeru still has Ex-Aid’s impact stars, so that’s cool. They do that neat cross slash, where one rider goes horizontally around the Giant Kaijin and the other goes vertically… and it’s still not the finisher.

Emu, sweet, game-loving Emu, tells Pac-Man that it’ll just be a little longer. (Emu, he’s currently trying to KILL YOU. You don’t even know if the Regular Pac-Man is IN THERE, for all you know this is just an evil duplicate!)

So, actual finisher time.

Interestingly, the visual flairs when Emu puts the Kaigan Ghost gashat into his finisher slot and pushes the button are all orange. Nice touch. Even nicer is the touches on the emblem that appears behind Takeru when he does his finishers. Usually it’s a glowing orange, or rainbow, in the case of Infinite. But this time it’s pixellated and pink.

(please ignore the awful neon blue lines in the background, those are part of the maze.)

I’d say that “lasers don’t chase people like that” and “jumping doesn’t let you curve in mid-air”, but I don’t think the laws of physics actually apply to these two in most battle circumstances. Also, they’re about to kick Pac-Man in the face because that’s just what we’re doing today, I guess!

They land back out in the real world, where Pac-Man slowly changes back to normal.

(THE BACKS OF THESE SUITS ARE SO CURSED)

Pac-Man dissolves into the air.

Takeru, sweet precious cinnamon roll that he is, is still only thinking of saving Akari.

“I have… to save Akari…”

He falls to the ground, out cold.

–––

Asuna and Onari make it to the hospital, with him carrying the unconicious Akari, to see specks of yellow light streaming down to the infected patients.

Asuna thanks Pac-Man for curing those who were hit by his strain of the Game Disease.

–––

On a nearby rooftop, music from 2012 plays as a man with rings steps into view.

––– –––

Well, that seems like as good a place as any to cut off, narratively speaking! I’m about halfway through the movie at this point, so this should only take one or two more installments to finish.

I have work the next three nights, so I’m not going to be able to pick this back up until Saturday, at the earliest. It sucks, because I really, really wanted to watch this movie again, preferably a lot faster than this whole “three to four hours to get twenty five minutes” deal, but I guess that’s just how I’m watching Ex-Aid, now!

(Disclaimer before anyone gets on my case: Yes, I switched order of those last two segments. Partly it’s to have a better liveblog ending, and partly because that’s the order they should have been in, dang it! It flows way better to have the Pac-Man Fever subplot end before Haruto first shows up, instead of awkwardly inserting him between the last two related scenes.)

#kamen rider ex aid #kamen rider ghost #sailorcressy says

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