#he clearly missed the whole point of watchmen by trying to make them all look cool characters

[thenotoriousscuttlecliff]

The Snyderverse was a artistic hollow, emotionally stunted, intellectually shallow era of movies made by and for those who just want things to look badass, cool, and aggressively masculine.

[orlissa]

So now we have “BatCatPussyGate” or whatever, and I have some thoughts on it—I mean, it does intersect with my area of research.

In case you missed it: a scene where Batman goes down on Catwoman was not included in the Harley Quinn animated series, because, basically, a Batman who gives oral is bad marketing, and makes merchandise hard to sell (they did use the word “toy” in the statement, but you just know they meant action figures aka collectibles aka whatever older male fans buy). It is not even the first such scandal involving Batman in recent years, but we’ll get to that later.

There is a LOT to unpack here, so let’s get started. I’ll try to make it as coherent as I can, but this post still might be a bit of a mess.

First of all, we have to make one thing clear in which Marvel and DC differ from each other (I think I might have talked about this before, but it bears repeating): it’s what I like to call “hierarchical structure of characters.” Basically, Marvel’s structure is like the nervous system: there are interconnected nodes, but no one, clearly defined center. The Avengers are important, but so are the X-Men, and Spider-Man, and the Fantastic Four… Plus Wolverine has been an X-Man and an Avenger, Spider-Man has his own lore, but he has been a member of the F4… you get the picture. A big pro of this structure is if that one node falls (a series doesn’t sell), it’s no big deal, because the system remains standing, so, basically, you can experiment with stories. If it doesn’t stick, it doesn’t stick, you move on. DC’s structure, on the other hand, is more like a spider web: you have the Holy Trinity—Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman—in the middle, and everything else connects through them. And if the center falls… everything falls. Which means that even though the Holy Trinity has HUGE cultural visibility (greater than of any single Marvel character), they are pretty much set in their ways. They cannot change much, because what they are now is what sells, and any significant change in representation might lead to failure, which then in turn would lead to the failure of the whole spider web. (I have a like 40 pages long paper on how, because of this, Wonder Woman needs to continuously appeal to both the male—sexualizing male gaze—and the female—identifying female gaze—gazes, compared to Carol Danvers, who keeps jumping between the two ends throughout her publication history.)

And within this scheme, Batman is the picture of hypermasculinity. He is powerful, intelligent, cannot do wrong, closed off from his emotions, and women fall for him, even if he cannot properly commit to a romantic relationship (this last thing is something that goes back to the Silver Age of comics, because male heroes just cannot have love, because nothing can be more important than their vigilantism, while female superheroes are lesser, because they are ready to hang up their capes for love).

Then what does academia has to say about this? Note: I’m going to be talking a lot about stuff that film criticism came up with, but since both movies and comics are a visual narrative medium, I’ve found that you can pretty much project everything about movies to comics.

So, first of all, one big shortcoming of feminist film criticism is that (not entirely unjustly) it is mostly focused on how women are portrayed in movies—especially how they are oppressed and objectified, while it leaves men/male characters… unstudied. Masculinity studies exists, but it’s pretty new and marginal. The availability of male bodies in film to the female gaze is also mostly unexamined (but I’ve dabbled in it! Talking about sexy male bodies in a detached academic manner is fun!), and it’s somewhat of a problem.

Richard Dyer studied the peculiarities of male pinups, and he came up with three instabilities: 1, it violates the codes of looking (because traditionally it’s the men who look, and women who are being looked at), 2, it rejects passivity (because being looked at is read as being passive, and the male body is supposed to be active, so, usually, male and female pinups are posed in a totally different way), and 3, it breaks the myth of the phallus (male power signified by the penis)—because once we start looking into it, we’ll discover that the phallus just… cannot live up to the hype. Therefore not studying the male body/male presence and focusing on the female body/presence actually serves the patriarchy, because the phallus can only keep its central, dominant position until it remains unexamined. Once we look into it, we discover that it’s not that great, and then we can displace patriarchy.

And then what does it mean in practice? Here comes the other Batman scandal I mentioned: about three years ago, DC came up with their new line of comics, where the big draw was the total lack of censoring. It was promised to be super bloody and full of gore and cursing and stuff. The first series of this line was Batman Damned, and the first issue featured the… batawang. I mean Batman’s penis. Returning from some mission, Batman starts undressing the moment he steps into the Batcave, stripping naked, and on some panels one can clearly see… little Bruce. It had no point. It could have easily been brushed out, and it would not have looked out of place. Or course, the internet had a field day with it, about the same way they are having a field day with his lack of oral sex now. It grew so big that within a couple of days DC announced that they’d airbrush out the batawang in the second printing and in any subsequently sold digital editions (which then caused the price of the first print editions skyrocket, to some $300, I believe). So to sum up: DC showed Batman’s penis for shock value. Seeing Batman’s penis wasn’t awe-inspiring, a show of power, but the butt of the joke—because examining the phallus shows that it cannot live up to the hype! So Batman’s power, his standing as a masculine ideal/male power fantasy was misplaced in a moment. (Something similar was happening behind the scenes of the Watchmen series as well: when Tom Mison had a full frontal nude scene, they actually used a penis-double—as there was no shot where his face and penis was shown at the same time—now imagine the casting for that role!)

In some way, this is happening now as well—not showing Batman performing oral sex is not because it “hurts toy sales;” it’s because it breaks the myth of the phallus, thus it breaks the myth of the Batman as an immaculate male power fantasy. Batman receives—power, admiration, and, of course, sex. But within the framework of sex, he needs to be the one that dominates, the one that mostly on the receiving end of the pleasure. What is important is that 1, he gets the woman and 2, he gets off. Whether the woman gets off is unimportant within this framework, because it doesn’t serve the myth of Batman/the male power fantasy. Within the fantasy, women need to want to sleep with him because he is Batman (because the male reader identifies with Batman, and he needs to feels as if the women in the comic want him just because he is him/Batman), but if he performs oral sex on the woman, it presupposes an active need for effort from his part from her to want him. It gives her agency, which elevates her to a partner, not an object to-be-looked-at.

So if Batman performs oral sex, his body will be put on display as something beyond the realm of the male power fantasy; it will be examined, and thus determined he is not all-powerful. His dominance within the narrative will be questioned. The role of the woman will be elevated. The patriarchal dominance displaced. So, yeah, that’s why Batman can’t give oral—not because it will hurt the toy sales.

I mean, it might. But because it will hurt Batman as a hypermasculine ideal

[bloodyneptune]

New theory time, and stupid long.

Ok so, we already know from Endgame and Miss Minutes' video that a variation in the timeline creates a branch reality right

So in the same way Steve wasn't secretly in the MCU this whole time in hiding, Old Loki wasn't in the main timeline. Interacting with Thor wouldn't have altered the Sacred Timeline anymore than Steve interacting with Peggy did. The second the change occurred, they were in a branch reality.

So why would interacting with Thor have mattered? Did they get rid of the multiverse, then let a second one be created where each one is essentially the same, with a few minor but overall insignificant changes? A billion sacred timelines?

That makes no sense. The same with Silvie, clearly the fact that she was female (or choosing that form) didn't alter the overall events of the sacred timeline of the reality she was in, but she was in one. Whatever happened in her nexus event moment diverged from the timeline too much

My point is, that's stupid, why would the people/person behind the TVA be fine with a second multiverse as long as they're all essentially the same.

Unless protecting the timeline isn't the goal, its keeping it isolated. The way they talk about it, pruning, branches, the way its visually shown, what if its literally more like a tree. Small branches are fine, as long as its close enough to main trunk (the sacred timeline) but big changes cause big branches, and when you have say, a bunch of trees in a forest, the bigger the branches the closer it gets to other trees.

Theory:

I think the multiverse was never destroyed, its still there. They didn't get rid of it and make one timeline, they isolated one from the rest. Look at the way they showed Loki and Silvie's Nexus event, like some thing going straight up and away. Maybe if it hadn't been stopped, it would have connected the 'sacred timeline' back to the multiverse.

Even the word 'nexus' itself doesn't mean some thing diverging from some thing else, it means connecting. You could read it as 'the central point' as in, the point where the variation occurred, but that could be what they led everyone to assume. Maybe it actually means 'connecting event'. It would explain why branch timelines arent nexus events, only things that diverge too far from the path of the sacred timeline.

What if they didn't win some big multiverse war like heros, bring order and peace, they ran and hid. Everything weve been led to believe tells us whoever's running the TVA is some evil mastermind with a hidden motive, but what if they've just been trying to keep the timeline hidden and safe from a multiverse still at war?

If Loki ends with big enough branches being formed, it could bring the MCU timeline into a multiverse of madness. A multiverse where its common to go from one to another, say like a pile of Spiderman villains followed by a pile of Spidermen in pursuit. Evil Skrulls that secretly invade other multiverses. Maybe a powerful enough witch could hear a reality where her made up children are real, and go on a warpath through the multiverse to find them, the catalyst to alerting everyone to the realities presence again, making her the villain of the story

What if stopping the TVA is bad

And if we go back to Lokis character: in Dark World he faked his death, hid, then pretended to be Odin, a great and powerful ruler. Just like in this theory, whoever is behind all this would have 'faked the timelines death', hid, and pretended to be a great and powerful ruler. So...what if another Loki did the same thing on a universal scale? Maybe the theories that another Loki is behind everything is true, but in very much not the way we expect.

The TVA uses time travel, he could have seen the fate of his universe -loosing Asgard and how it effects him has been a reoccurring theme - and went back to create a branch timeline of his own, making sure it followed the 'sacred timeline' aka the one he already knew, and eventually "resurrecting Asgard" so to speak, something they literally showed us a Loki do. Foreshadowing?

Maybe Loki and Silvie realize all this, while Möbius has gone off to doom the universe by 'burning the TVA to the ground'...BECAUSE HES MEpHisTO!!! Im kidding I'm kidding

Anyway, the alternative is that there really is no multiverse anymore, Loki breaks the TVA and suddenly a fully formed multiverse exists. Just boop, no more TVA, now Sam Ramis Spiderman Universe exists.

This though, this would bring a lot of the themes together. The universe wanting to break free, Lokis always surviving, the TVA being staffed by variants (it would have been started by one), Lokis always lying (Boastful Loki much? A variant Loki pretending to have conquered when he didn't?), his love of Asgard, Old Loki 'resurrecting' it, wanting to take over the TVA to control his own fate ('he' would literally control the TVA and control 'his' fate), this TVA Loki hidden alone. And maybe it ends with Silvie and Loki, who's mission it is to take down the TVA, agreeing to help keep it going. A real Watchmen style end, except..

But something I won't type 50 more paragraphs about happens, and its into the multiverse of madness

[theseerasures]

Conspicuous Media Consumption, 2020

it’s that time of year again! *saddest toot from the party horn*

for those of you just joining us: it’s a “consume a different content every week for 48 weeks of the year” challenge. for a longer explanation, check out last year’s write-up here, and as always, feel free to pop in and ask questions about any and all of this content.

(same disclaimer as last year too: content for this project ONLY here, and not certain...*looks at my billion Sad Cop Lady posts*...hyperfixations.)

(man remember when i was big into X-Men comics earlier this year? better times than these, if only because no one's discoursing about Emma Frost’s woobie/war criminal ratio anymore--her w/w, if you will)

(...i swear at one point i didn’t exclusively like platinum blondes but alas)

Bitter Root (comic, 1 issue finished 1/1/2020): still very cool on a basic concept level, but runs into the Image Comics problem of just not having enough content to keep my interest beyond that. part of that is on me, for picking it up again BEFORE the second arc rolled out, but the first five issues didn’t really follow (or resolve) any cohesive story either, so...meh.

Immortal Hulk (comic, 3 trades finished 1/17/2020): still not gonna be something i care deeply about (maybe one of Bruce’s Hulksonas dyed his hair???), but i do want to give kudos to Al Ewing for sheer consistency in terms of sustaining this level of quality storytelling month by month for more than two years now. working with the dense archive of the Hulk mythos and managing to make it interesting and thoughtful is impressive even if i personally would not expend the same effort.

Disco Elysium (game, finished 1/18/2020): honestly i should have twigged onto what this year was gonna be like when the third thing i drew from the barrel was pure uncut Eastern European flavored depression. i faintly recall people ragging on it for being pretentiously cynical, but i actually thought its core slid more towards idealism than people give it credit for. also gratified that i haven’t heard anything about Robert Kurvitz using slave labor to finish it, which is a thing we have to say about our video games now!!! fun.

Watchmen (TV, 7 episodes finished 1/27/2020): i am a fool who wants to believe in Damon Lindelof and I WAS RIGHT!!! honestly still cannot believe that he pulled off this highwire act with such deft aplomb. might be my favorite TV this year, which is a pretty high bar given how much TV i ended up watching.

On a Sunbeam (comic, finished 2/1/2020): Tillie Walden rightly deserves all the praise for inventive queer storytelling, but i will say that on reread--since i first read this as a webcomic--there ARE some issues with pacing here that clearly come from the foibles of its original intended medium. still just excellent, even if after some plot significant haircuts i was having trouble telling a few folks apart.

Lazarus (comic, 1 trade finished 2/8/2020): it’s so good and i want moooooorrrreee--though obviously Rucka and Lark have the right to take all the time they need. the newer longer issues work really well with the epic prestige drama vibes of the story! i’m into it.

The Good Place (TV, 4 seasons finished 2/18/2020): i’m gonna be super honest: i actually wasn’t a big fan of the finale, nor the last season as a whole. it felt like all of Eleanor’s flaws vanished for a majority of the season, and the Chidi-centric episode where they tried to give a legible justification for why he’s Like This was...i didn’t care for it. still, it’s so good and unique on the WHOLE that we’ll literally never get anything like this ever again, and that counts for a lot.

The Old Republic (game, finished 2/21/2020): it’s an MMO so it will never actually Be Finished so long as the servers aren’t shut down, but i caught up on the content i’d missed in the intervening months. Onslaught thus far has mostly been...kinda bland tbh; going back to Imps vs. Rebs after all the shakeups in the previous expansions feels like a waste.

High Road (album, finished 2/22/2020): someone should tell Kesha not to say that word!! otherwise i was very happy with this album, and happy FOR her even though we don’t know each other. being able to find joy again in the same genre of music you made while you were being horrifically exploited is very cool.

Young Justice (TV, 13 episodes finished 2/28/2020): given how much the middle stuff dragged--STOP KILLING YOUR HIJABI CHARACTER IN HORRIFIC WAYS--i was...actually kinda mad by how the end managed to stick the landing anyway. the day being saved by Vic’s self-acceptance and Violet’s sublime compassion was A+, and even the Brion/Tara switchup was a pleasant surprise, though it relied on me caring about Brion MUCH MORE than i actually did.

Manic (album, finished 2/29/2020): do people still care for/about Halsey? i feel like even That One Song that was on every tumblr gifset ever has kinda faded into obscurity at this point. this album was...okay. i feel like people give Halsey a pass for extremely obvious lyrical turns that they wouldn’t for other folks because of her subject material--which is fine. not really my cup of tea, but i also listened to lots of Relient K this year, so that’s probably a good thing.

Jade Empire (game, 3/10/2020): the only 3D-era Bioware game that didn’t franchise out, and for good fucking reason!!! the Orientalism and appropriation really haven’t aged well, and even beyond that the story was...standard Bioware faire. even my usual “my wife’s a bitch i love her” Bioware type didn’t do it for me, and i just ended up romancing no one. it did make me think a lot about what level of cultural borrowing is accepted nowadays, and why: people still look fondly at Avatar and talk about how ~accurate and respectful it was, for example, despite it being staffed almost entirely by white folks, and the Orientalism ALL OVER the monk class in DND is still fine for some reason.

Alif the Unseen (book, finished 3/31/2020): interesting to have read this AFTER reading The Bird King last year, because it highlights how the intervening years have shifted G. Willow Wilson’s thematic interest and improved her craft. i’m actually quite fond of how her characterization work is rougher here--Alif is extremely flawed to the point of being insufferable, but it makes his development by the end more satisfying. Dina is also just good and i love her

Baldur’s Gate (2 games, finished 5/31/2020): well, having finally finished the series i’m happy to say that it...still doesn’t really do it for me, sorry. any awesome story moments were overshadowed by the EXCRUCIATING inventory management system and the combat (i still don’t know what a THAC0 is and at this point i’m afraid to find out). these games crucially lack the Home Base that later Bioware games were so good about, and that (coupled with the huge cast of characters you can drop off and never see again) really hurts the intimacy for me. by the time we finally did get one it was the Hell Dimension in Throne of Bhaal, and i was just...trying to get through it. (yes, i did just say that about one of the most beloved expansions ever to one of the most beloved games ever.) THIS particular iteration of “my wife’s a bitch i love her” was very good, but the game wouldn’t let me romance her :(

The Underground Railroad (book, finished 6/19/2020): honestly what is there even left to say at this point! it was exactly as good as every critic on the planet said it was, even with my usual aversion to hype. draining and horrifying in turns but still insistent upon a future for Black folks.

Steven Universe (6 seasons and a mooooooviiieeee, finished 7/11/2020): yes, i DID finish the show and almost immediately begin a rewatch. this series is now one of my top five most formative things, and the amount of love and respect i have for it is incalculable. that said: i once again did not love how the central conflict of Future was resolved (just the resolution--i loved the finale just fine). for all of Steven’s breakdown was built up, resolving it with “EVERYONE HUG HIM UNTIL HE CRIES” felt...cheap, especially since up until this point the show had been so good about treating trauma and mental illness with the respect and nuance it deserves. it made me wish some of the earlier, less substantial episodes had been cut so we could spend more time at the end.

What It Is (comic, finished 8/19/2020): y’all i love Lynda Barry SO MUCH. for the longest time i was worried that One Hundred Demons was more a lightning in a bottle situation but every book of hers i pick up makes me feel obscure emotions i didn’t even realize existed. the compassionate way she’s able to describe her child self and how weird and fucked up she was (and still is) is honestly aspirational.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (TV, 5 seasons finished 9/26/2020): so here’s a reversal of what i’ve been complaining about with other shows: i was mostly lukewarm-to-warm about She-Ra, but the later seasons and the finale made me much more into it as a whole. more shows should improve in stakes and overall quality as they age tbh!! i still don’t actively love Catradora (my sole quibble with season 5 actually has to do with the way Adora kept backsliding as a character to make certain Plot/Relationship things happen), but i’m very happy for them nonetheless. i can certainly appreciate a show that will go for High Feeling over tight plot. dark horse standout moments: trees growing everywhere proving that Perfuma Was Right, and Hordak and Adora seeing each other--that weirdly intimate moment of recognition.

Fetch the Bolt Cutters (album, finished 10/7/2020): again i find myself not having much to say that no one else has said. it’s good! once again love it when an artist reclaims something they’d attached with negative affect (anxiety, depression, disordered eating) for better and brighter things.

Solutions and Other Problems (comic, finished 10/25/2020): i was very into Allie Brosh’s ambition with this book, which feels weird to say but i stand by it. it’s cool to see an artist try to make a new medium work for them instead of just sticking to what already works. not all the experimentation was 100% effective, but it was still delightful and occasionally devastating to read, so.

Legend of Zelda (3 games: Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Link Between Worlds, finished 11/1/2020): this was the third time i’d played Ocarina of Time, which made it the nice, comforting groove i settled into before Majora’s Mask blatted me in the face. i’m not usually a completionist Zelda person because...the gameplay in Zelda is bad, do not at me it just is, but i really felt like i HAD to be one for Majora’s Mask since the whole point is to get attached to the banalities of the town. i’m sure nobody’s surprised that i loved it, even if it gave me an existential crisis about how life goes on in the game for NPCs when you’re not there to save them from it, and there’s not enough time to save them all all the time (also not a surprise to anyone: Romani and Cremia gave Personal Feelings). Link Between Worlds...bad. not like in a “this is a bad story by every measurable gauge” way, but i was already struggling with the 2D playstyle shift enough that for the whole story to end with some “yes it’s v sad that Lorule is Like This but trying to steal Hyrule’s privilege is Even Worse Actually” noblesse oblige bullshit left a VERY poor taste in my mouth, this year of all years. i did audibly gasp when Ravio took off his mask, though. i’m currently playing Breath of the Wild in cautious increments; it’s the first time i’ve enjoyed early Zelda gameplay, but if they wanted fully voiced cutscenes i wish they got voice actors who...knew what words sound like.

folklore (album, finished 11/6/2020): my belief that Taylor Swift is Just Fine continues, i’m afraid. i LIKED this album, don’t get me wrong, and respect her constant drive to innovate, but i didn’t love it substantially more or less than any other Taylor Swift album. mostly i’m just tickled by how she thinks leaning into the indie aesthetic means borrowing Vita Sackville-West’s entire wardrobe, though i will admit to feeling Something when she swore in a song. i think it was like. savage vindication?? you go ahead and swear, Taylor Swift. you deserve it.

Shore (album, finished 11/19/2020): do people still care about the Fleet Foxes? i think there was some Drama with Josh Tillman a while back but i don’t remember where the discourse landed with who was being more problematic. it was nostalgic for me to listen to their new album--made me remember being an undergrad who exclusively listened to men who mumbled and played acoustic guitar all over again.

Star Wars (3 movies: original trilogy, finished 11/27/2020): there is So Much bad Star Wars these days that every time i rewatch the original trilogy i’m afraid that they will suddenly be bad, but guess what! they’re not. i love these children and their hot mess stories, i love that Lando doesn’t know how to say his best friend’s name. what stood out to me this time was the way Obi-Wan described the Force in A New Hope, which strongly implied that ANYONE can be Force Sensitive; that obviously faded with each subsequent movie, but part of me does wish they’d kept it.

X of Swords (comics, 22 issues finished 12/5/2020): i am enjoying Hickman’s X-lines!!! not so much here for the Grand Conspiracy or whatever, but the character work and highkey weirdness is fabulous--they FEEL like X-Men, despite all the shakeups in-universe. this crossover is a nice microcosm of all that: grandiloquently all over the place, but still full of cool standout moments and genuine hilarity. ILLYANA DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO SPELL MAGIC.

Fire Emblem (4 games: Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Awakening, finished 12/14/2020): this was the thing that i was closest to giving up early on, but i ended up hyperfixating on it instead. that’s a credit to what the gameplay does to my lizard brain more than anything else, because the story and character writing is...insipid. it was very bizarre to witness this franchise blunder around with its animal-people racism allegory around the same time i was getting back into RWBY, and ITS animal-people racism allegory blunders. Awakening was the first time i felt anything for the franchise beyond “teehee red units disappear make exp bar go up and brain go ding,” so i’m excited for more mature storytelling in subsequent games (they MUST get better. they MUST). the child husbandry thing is...very bad tho, and Apotheosis being “challenging” entirely through the game changing all the rules is also bad.

once again no vidya games that came out this year--i’ll probably pick up Spiritfarer or Hades after the New Year, though (or maybe TLOU II! but probably not. sry Laura and Ashley). more TV and franchises this year, which made me feel In Touch with the Children but was also kinda exhausting. nothing was so egregiously terrible i dropped it without finishing! in a year like this that feels almost like an accomplishment

[jbrockwa]

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him”

Dr. Manhattan, himself, talks about his transformation as a sort of “death and rebirth,” because he marks this event as the sort of turning point in his life, the moment when his newfound relationship to external and internal sensations, and to life and death drove a wedge between his experiences (consciousness) and his humanity (material manifestation). Jon’s initial fascination with watchmaking is very revealing in terms of who he would ‘become” as Manhattan, of what a person like him would make of himself when endowed with the abilities of a god. 

Throughout Chapter IV, there is a recurring image of a black sheet of velvet which has cogs laid out across its surface, and the image is intercut between other temporally nonlinear story panels. The image is meant to draw a resemblance between the stars (as components of a larger “mechanized” universe) that dot the chapter’s background and the watch’s cogs (as components of a literal machine). Watches often have a peculiarly significant bearing on Manhattan’s fate, as each step that he identifies as having led to him being locked in the intrinsic field generator is connected to his fascination with repairing watches. The aforementioned image of the cogs first appears on the chapter's second page, and follows after a panel of Dr. Manhattan fondly recalling his father, formerly a watchmaker, who "admired the sky for its precision.” 

Manhattan says this while he himself is found gazing up at the stars on the surface of Mars, trying to find a “name [for] the force the put them in motion” (IV, 2). This nameless force is to the stars what Manhattan is in relation to the “cogs” of the watches he fixes; he sets them in motion, and transforms them from atomized “parts” into an interconnected system. The chapter’s title, “Watchmaker” is fittingly juxtaposed with Manhattan pondering what is behind the creation and existence of the universe, almost “answering,” his question; whatever “force” is behind the “setting in motion of the stars,” likely resembles him, as he is the closest thing to a legitimate deity, or god, in the story.

This sequence of combined images of and narration by Dr. Manhattan relates the character to his father, and uncovers the reasons for Manhattan’s fixation on “finer details,” on the way in which individual components interact and bring greatly complex “things” (i.e from the vast universe to finely tuned watches) into existence. To Manhattan, there is no discrepancy between the atomized components of a “thing,” and the “thing” itself which is made up of those components, because that “thing’s” existence is contingent on the interrelationship of it’s components, the relationship is direct, and therefore Manhattan views things in their totality, he sees the “bigger picture” as it were.

The next time this image of the cogs appears is on the following page, when Manhattan recalls the very moment in which his dreams were crushed by his father. A 16 year old Jon Osterman sits, fidgeting with a watch he is projected to fix. However, after hearing of the invention of atomic bomb following it’s “successful” deployment on Hiroshima, Jon’s father insists his son pursue sciences in atomic energy and forgo the family trade of watchmaking. 

His father then dumps the pieces of the watch he was working on over their balcony, the final twist of the knife, so to speak. As the cogs fall, the following panel jumps to 15 minutes into Manhattan’s future on Mars, where he watches as a meteor shower grazes the atmosphere of the red planet. This again draws similarities between the meteorites (shooting stars as they are often misidentified), celestial bodies that interact with one another to form of the whole of the universe, and cogs, which are obviously components of a watch. With what we know of Manhattan’s characterization up to this point in the story, we can see how his particular fascination with the intricate beauty of minutia has lended itself to his development.

At the end of the previous chapter, Manhattan is abruptly confronted with accusations that his atomic structure may be linked to the cancer found in Moloc, Janey Slater, among others who have found themselves “entangled” in Manhattan’s life. Here, after an interrogative bombardment on the part of the press, Manhattan is faced with a unique of vulnerability; he is overwhelmed, and for once he doesn't have an immediate, off-hand solution. Nothing that he can “materialize” out of thin air will be of any use to his current predicament. His omnipotence is made useless, and he breaks down because of his lack of foresight and readiness. More interesting, though, and more telling of his exact character, is his response.

After his meltdown he first undresses from his suit, which was more or less a "human costume" for the sake of his on-air appearance. He then teleports to Gila Flats, New Mexico, to revisit where he first met Janey, as the invocation of her name surely put the rest of his life in perspective and had him waxing philosophically about his past. He grabs an old photograph of the two of them before teleporting to Mars, where he reminisces on Janey and their relationship, the first time he was introduced to her, when he touched her hand at the moment she bought him a drink. Notice in his retrospective that he remembers the particular details of the situation that consolidate the image of his memory. This is reflective of how a watchmaker makes their living; looking at the whole of the watch will tell you little in terms to what need’s to be fixed, or what exactly has broken. You must put into perspective the exact mechanisms that allow the watch to function, or in this case which prevents the watch from functioning. 

When he grows tired of looking at the photo, his attention shifts to the stars, where he ponders their existence and remarks that they are merely "old photographs" of what they once were; by the time their light reaches us, they are gone and forgotten about by the void of the universe. Notice how throughout this sequence, while he appears to have a photographic memory that picks up on every detail, he actually has a tendency to focus in on things he personally fines "fascinating," or what he regards as simply beautiful. This is a defining characteristic of Manhattan, I would contest, as it essentially results in his “undoing,” or his detachment from humanity, keeping him distanced from the human experience. 

Manhattan is caught up with and sort of “stuck on” the necessary components of the “things” (i.e., cogs as they relate to watches, the physical beauty of his former and contemporary lovers, old photographs of his personal favorite memories, etc.) constitute his world. In his moments of awestruck wonder and analysis, he often ends up looking at the world around him for so long, that he is only able to see past it. In trying to understand the exact function and nature of larger “things,” he ends up missing the entire “point.” This reveals the flaw of Manhattan’s “godliness,” that cannot merely "be" or exist as an all-powerful, all-seeing, and all-being figure, and it has clearly contributed to his now broken and depressive mindset. It his not despite his “extra-normal” perception and senses that Manhattan is no longer able to find pleasure in his favorite activities, but is, ironically enough, because of these superpowers. His abilities work insofar as they provide him an unparalleled opportunity to get closer to the stars than any human could ever dream of, however this power does not, still, allow for him to fully understand their essential nature or origin or overall place in the universe as a whole; he fails to see past the "bigger picture,” even as a god.

Dr. Manhattan, in the same vein of a traditionalist, Judeo-Christian interpretation of God, has shaped the world (and as a consequence, forged the path of humanity) in his image. His “creations” are reflective of how he, an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent being, operates in a world composed of crude matter. The radical progress in scientific, political, and social developments that America has made as a result of the arrival of Dr. Manhattan are in many ways aesthetic: new and shiny. They are upgraded models of American lifestyles and traditions: the roasted, four-legged chicken, spotted in the first chapter, the futuristic-looking cars, as well as the airships that dot the background of many of the story's panels, all of these progressive technological steps "forward" contribute to society perhaps feeling comforted, and safe; even Manhattan, especially as a means of preventing the escalation of nuclear war with the Soviet Union, is a sort of pillar of security and protection. 

However, these inventions reflect Manhattan's detachment from the true needs of humanity, which very obviously transcend the likes of material indulgences. In the midst of a Cold War, Manhattan's otherworldly might and power have produced what are essentially bandaids, comparatively speaking. In this way, these benchmarks of progress that have cemented themselves into the alternate history of Moore's Watchmen also mirror Dr. Manhattan's relationships, and his troubles with commitment, intimacy, attachment, and sociability, 

Manhattan's inadequate solutions to the ails of man are similar to his failure to reciprocate intimacy with Laurie Jupiter in the beginning of Chapter III, when he is seen sort of "cloning" himself to tend to Laurie while he is meanwhile duplicitously working on one of his many science experiments in the next room over. In both these instances, Manhattan creates a sort of distraction, one that he is able to imagine from the limited perspective of an at once out of touch and omnipotent being, one that will aesthetically please the American people and/or Laurie, but one that also fails to get to the root of the issues eating away at them. 

With Laurie, Manhattan assumes, two being better than one in his mind, that his partner won't mind his mental absence from them engaging in intimacy. Manhattan's intervention in society in general. as well as his interpersonal relationships with others, have worked merely to cover up the blemishes of the more deeply rooted issues by means of fast and fancy cars, genetically modified chickens, and kinky threesomes with clones. These inventions and gestures function as extensions of and, in many ways, metaphors for Dr. Manhattan’s mode of being; their inadequacy in terms of accurately diagnosing and treating the problems humanity is faced with prove that image of Manhattan as a Nietzschean ubermensch that society at large has come to associate him with is ill-conceived.

Speaking more on Dr. Manhattan as being perceived by the public as the "Superman," the character largely exists as a symbol of the best a man can be, a sort of “upgrade” from the prototypical model of “a man.” This indicates that he still possesses and is affected by the same woes and shortcomings that effect humans. This is reflected in his tendency, even prior to Osterman's transformation into Manhattan, to neglect his significant others and prioritize his scientific endeavors and pet projects over their needs. In this sense, we can determine he may not necessarily meet the qualifications for being a god, but an extraordinary man endowed with the ability of a god, and more importantly, left with the particularly human faculties to wield and process these abilities. Manhattan's "powers" certainly give him extra-human senses, such as his heightened perception of time and his teleportation abilities, but even these powers get in Manhattan's own way, and cause him to lose sight of the what’s important to his life and to humanity as a whole. 

This is evident from the very introduction of the character of Dr. Manhattan in the first chapter, where he is  boasted, before we even have a chance of seeing him, as the "indestructible man" by Rorscach. In his establishing panel, Manhattan is shown towering over Rorschach at the foreground of the image, yet in all his might and intimidation, he is distracted, tinkering with an unnamed piece of equipment in his lab, likely where he's been for quite some time prior to this introduction. This panel juxtaposes Manhattan's persona and image as a "God," with his cold detachment from humanity and subtly demonstrates how his God-like intellect, perception, and senses prevent him from seeing the importance of that which is happening right in front of him. Dr. Manhattan is, even in the immediate aftermath of a suspicious murder, a crisis, more concerned with the events occuring on a microscopic level, or dismantling, assessing, and reconstructing some futuristic piece of technology beyond any other character’s understanding; he won't even stop to heed his old friend's warning. 

It is, in addition, no accident that the story ends with Jon teleporting Rorschach in response to Laurie's complaint that he is "upsetting" her. Manhattan's response to her comparatively minor annoyance is performing the miracle of teleporting Rorschach away, outside the facilities. This moment works to show Manhattan can do whatever he chooses, it shows that he is all powerful insofar as he can relocate people to his choosing, can shape-shift, and telekinetically dismantle machinery, but it's more a matter of what personally concerns him, what seems pressing by his own metrics. It should alarm us that Manhattan doesn't see the difference between a living and a dead body, and that he is yet so depended upon in this alternate American timeline.

Finally, an aspect of Dr. Manhattan’s origin (and character as whole) I find most curious is that in the process of “rebuilding” of himself, he had to have had some understanding of what components would be necessary for him to “come into being” again, but in this process he was somehow “unable” to reconfigure himself as fully human. His origin story reveals him as having always possessed a genius level intellect, however, emotionally he has always been absent and distanced. Even before his omniscience allegedly “soiled” his relationship to the material realm and to life itself, he never had a barometer for complex emotional interactions. During the time leading up to his transformation he was a 30 year-old man who was clearly not prepared to be apart of a serious relationship with Janey. He was still mentally absent from her needs as his significant other. Even in that moment of “intimacy” with Laurie, he is constantly trying and failing to please her. This allows us to imagine what would happen if “God” was there to answer every one of our prayers. It would still, as Watchmen notes, leave us unsatisfied, because there are no real satisfying answers, even for a god.

[the-desolated-quill]

She Was Killed By Space Junk - Watchmen (TV Series) blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. if you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

The first episode was a shaky, but intriguing start. The second episode was both incredibly provocative and intelligently written. What about the third episode? Um... I’m honestly not too sure what to make of it, if I’m honest. I watched it twice like I do with everything I review and I genuinely don’t know what to say about it. I couldn’t even tell you if I liked it or not. I think I liked it.... but I couldn’t tell you why.

Okay. Sorry. Hi guys. Let me explain what happened. I wrote that first paragraph and then I got writer’s block, so I decided to step away from it. I had a nap, played a video game and then decided to watch the episode again for a third time with fresh eyes. Now my thoughts are a little more concrete. So. She Was Killed By Space Junk. Having watched this episode three times now, I’ve decided that I don’t like this episode very much at all, and that’s less to do with what’s in the episode and more to do with what isn’t. 

Let me explain.

Reviewing episodes like this one can often be very frustrating because it’s hard to tell what is a genuine flaw and what is merely setup for what’s to come. I have a number of problems with this episode, but for all I know, what I’m about to talk about might not actually be problems at all and will all be explained in a future episode. Or they are genuine problems and I’m inadvertently giving the writers way too much credit. I don’t know. That’s why it’s so frustrating.

My main point of contention is with the character of Laurie. First of all, let me just say that Jean Smart doesn’t put a foot wrong. She gives a great performance and is a good choice to play an older Laurie. The problem I have is with her characterisation. Or, at the very least, bits of her characterisation. I don’t know. It’s complicated.

Laurie’s inclusion in the TV series was something I was actually most looking forward to because I felt her character was kind of shortchanged in the graphic novel. Initially starting out as an effective and scathing critique of how women are often presented in comics, over the course of Watchmen’s story her role was reduced until she ended up becoming little more than a prop for the male characters’ stories. It was disappointing and it’s led to me arguing multiple times that Silk Spectre is one of the most underrated and wasted elements of Watchmen. The HBO series felt like a perfect opportunity to right some wrongs and give Laurie the attention she deserves. She Was Killed By Space Junk certainly gave her the focus and attention she didn’t receive in the graphic novel, but I’m very much struggling to ascertain what the show was trying to achieve here.

Let’s quickly remind ourselves where the graphic novel left us with her character. She had recently discovered that the Comedian, the man who tried to rape her mother, was her biological father, she was in a relationship with Dan Dreiberg, aka Nite Owl, and they were both on the run from the law, hellbent on continuing their lives as vigilantes. Okay. How does the HBO series continue this? Well it turns out she and Dan are no longer together. I know some fans really don’t like this, but I personally don’t have a problem with it. In fact I’m perfectly happy with it. In my review of A Stronger, Loving World, I explained how I didn’t believe their relationship could possibly last long term because it was clear that they were together not because they were in love, but rather because they were indulging in each other’s fantasies, and the fact that Dan’s seeming fascination with the Silk Spectre porn comic supported this. Showrunner Damon Lindelof clearly agrees, so cool. It’s always nice to be proven right.

Anyway, at some point between the graphic novel and the HBO series, the fantasy was shattered and the pair split up. I’m assuming what shattered the fantasy was them getting caught by the FBI. It’s unclear what’s happened to Dan at this time. Judging by the fact that the police in Oklahoma are using Owlships and goggles, I’m assuming that Dan was arrested and his equipment was appropriated by law enforcement. Laurie meanwhile has struck some kind of deal and now she’s working with the Anti-Vigilante Taskforce and enforcing the Keene Act, which is an interesting parallel with how her father, the Comedian, served the American government during the Vietnam War. But you see this is where I start to get a bit confused.

The episode opens with Laurie setting a trap for a vigilante known as Mister Shadow (basically Fake Batman) and shooting him, either not knowing or not caring whether or not Mister Shadow’s body armour would save him. She’s also taken on the Comedian’s last name Blake and displays a very similar nihilistic attitude, making dark jokes and exhibiting uncaring, unsympathetic behaviour. Now I don’t necessarily have a problem with Laurie becoming more nihilistic, given what she’s been through. Having witnessed Ozymandias and his squid of doom, it’s bound to affect her worldview. However, her turning into a female Comedian doesn’t really marry up with her character at all. And yes, I know at the end of the graphic novel she talked about getting a gun and body armour, like the Comedian, but it didn’t work there either. It felt too drastic a character shift and was painfully on the nose. I didn’t like it there and I don’t like it here either. I just don’t buy that she would want to emulate the man who tried to rape her mother. 

I especially don’t like her violent, uncaring attitude toward Mister Shadow. Why does she have such a disdain for vigilantes? Is it because of what happened with Dan, and she’s projecting that onto everyone else? Has she become so nihilistic that she just doesn’t give a shit anymore? There’s a moment later in the episode where she asks someone if their civil rights are being violated only to then turn around and say she was being sarcastic. That really didn’t sit right with me. It just doesn’t feel like something Laurie would say.

And then there’s the whole thing with Doctor Manhattan. Throughout the episode we see her in a phone booth trying to tell a joke to Manhattan (quite what the purpose of these phone booths are, I don’t know. Considering that people in the world of Watchmen believe that Manhattan was giving people cancer, why would anyone want to call him?). She clearly misses him to the point where she has a large blue dildo hidden a briefcase that’s clearly a direct reference to Pulp Fiction. I REALLY don’t like this. At all. The reason Laurie left Manhattan in the first place was because he couldn’t emotionally satisfy her, being an omnipresent demigod and all. So why would she be pining after him? The blue dildo joke in particular just felt kind of degrading. Just... why?

Weirder still is the joke she spends the whole episode trying to tell him. It’s clearly an indirect reference to the Pagliacci joke from the graphic novel, except the Pagliacci joke had a specific purpose in the graphic novel and its meaning was clear. Rorschach was remarking on how America was relying on the Comedian to save them from violence and corruption, which was futile considering what a violent and corrupt person the Comedian was. Here, however, I have no idea what Laurie is trying to say with the brick joke at all. I’m assuming the bricklayer is her father and she’s following in his footsteps. Okay, I kind of get that (except not really for the reasons I’ve already mentioned, but whatever). But then we come to the whole bit with God at the pearly gates sending Nite Owl, Ozymandias and Doctor Manhattan to Hell, only to then get killed by the brick from the previous joke. Now... what the fuck is that all about? I’ve been racking my brains, checking what other people said, and I can’t find any satisfying answers. It just feels like pretentious, unnecessary fanwank. The best I can come up with is that Laurie is expressing how she’s not letting men dictate her life anymore. But... she’s spent the whole episode pining after Doctor Manhattan, she’s modelled herself after her rapist father, and at the end of the episode, she sleeps with her assistant Petey, an agent who claims to not to be a fan of superheroes, but is totes a fan of superheroes. So... is that the joke? She wants to escape from the shadow of the men in her life, but can’t? Or she intends to overcome the patriarchy that has kept her down, but she still ends up choosing to indulge in the power fantasy of Petey? Or does it refer to something else she’s planning to do later? It’s all so frustratingly vague.

As I was watching this episode, I honestly lost track of the number of times I thought to myself ‘I don’t know where Lindelof is going with this.’ Sometimes this approach works, keeping the audience in the dark in order to build intrigue and suspense, but for Watchmen, a story that’s famous for its dense material and subject matter, it’s just plain annoying. In fact this whole episode feels really off to me. Instead of focusing on character narratives and thematic storytelling, She Was Killed By Space Junk relies more on a plot heavy story that moves the pieces of the larger arc forward and keeping certain specific details vague in an attempt to keep people watching. Except that’s not really what Watchmen is about and it results in leaving the more integral aspects of the story in the dust. Angela barely gets a look in here, and considering a significant portion of the episode focuses on Judd Crawford’s funeral, it feels like a massive, missed opportunity. How does it feel discovering that the man you liked and respected wasn’t the man you thought he was? Does that change your feelings toward him? Does it invalidate the good times you had with him? And with Laurie there, the show could have compared and contrasted the two. How these two women move forward knowing these uncomfortable truths about the men in the lives? But the show never really capitalises on this.

And the annoying thing is, for all I know, all the things I’m talking about could actually be addressed in a future episode, thus rendering what I’m saying moot. I don’t know. I can’t tell if this is all just really bad setup for an eventual satisfying payoff or if it’s just plain bad.

That being said, while I do ultimately dislike this episode, there are a few things I like. For instance, I do like what we learn about the larger world of Watchmen. We learn that Oklahoma is the only state that’s allowing the police to mask up and that this law was passed by Joe Keene Jr., whose father was responsible for the Keene Act that was passed outlawing vigilantes. Joe Keene Jr. was briefly introduced in the previous episode and it looks like he’s going to be playing a larger role from here on out. Let’s wait and see where that goes. 

We also learn that Looking Glass knows Laurie and has prior history with her. He even confirms Sister Night’s secret identity to her, albeit reluctantly. So is he a plant? Maybe sent by the FBI to try and sabotage Keene Jr? Hmmm, what’s going on here then?

And then there’s Ozymandias.

While I dislike how Laurie is being handled so far, I love, love, LOVE what they’re doing with Adrian Veidt. After the events of the graphic novel, it seems he’s gone into self imposed exile. Whether this is as a punishment or as a way to make sure he doesn’t inadvertently blab about his involvement with the squid is unknown. Anyway, he’s been here for three years now, judging by the candles on the cake, and he seems to be going a little bit stir crazy. He’s sacrificing his clones in order to try and find a means of escape and now he has to contend with a bloodthirsty game warden (another clone). The idea of Ozymandias being hoist by his own petard and being oppressed by the very tools and instruments of his own vanity is absolutely tantalising, and I love what Jeremy Irons is doing with the part and the way he’s depicting the character’s slow descent into lunacy.

Also a special shoutout has to go to the costume department for the Ozymandias costume we see Adrian finally don. It’s gloriously, breathtakingly terrible. Truly one of the worst superhero costumes ever seen on screen... which is exactly what it should be! 

One of the things I intensely disliked about the 2009 movie was Zack Snyder’s attempts to make the characters look cool and stylish when in reality these characters are supposed to be the complete opposite of that. Rorschach looks like a hobo, puts on a gruff voice and wears lifts on his heels in a pathetic attempt to look more imposing. Nite Owl wears a ridiculously tight fitting costume that shows off his belly bulge. Silk Spectre’s outfit looks more like something a stripper would wear and is not even remotely practical. They look stupid to us, the outsiders, but to the characters, it makes them feel powerful. That’s the whole point, and the HBO series captures that perfectly. Adrian is going to war with the game warden and wants to feel powerful, so he puts on his objectively silly purple and gold shawl in an effort to reclaim the power he once had. It’s laugh out hilarious, made all the more funnier by the fact that he’s clearly far too old to be playing dress up. It’s moments like this that demonstrate that Lindelof clearly does understand the source material, which is what makes the way Laurie is treated all the more baffling.

She Was Killed By Space Junk isn’t a bad episode. There’s stuff to like, but it doesn’t have any of the intelligent thematic storytelling or characterisation the previous two episodes had. Coupled with the apparent mishandling of Laurie’s character and the deliberate vagueness of some of its plotting leads to it being an episode that’s ultimately more frustrating than enjoyable to watch.

[louu-7]

everything i don’t know

on wattpad

CHAPTER 1:

"No, we already talked about it young girl, and it’s clearly out of the question. We’re not paying all this watchmen for nothing, and your mother and I are doing our best to keep you away from these troublemakers”

“Dad, come on, I’m not gonna stay all along the summer indoors while you’re all gonna leave and do your things outside.”

“The garden is wide enough to let you get some fresh air.”

"Am I supposed to thank you to let me get out in the garden? Dad, the garden, really…” I say with a little voice.

"If you’re not OK with the decisions that we are making for your safety go to your room and think about it. It’s for you” my mom come into the kitchen while I’m toasting some bread before putting avocado on it.

"Great…” I sigh and finish cooking my breakfast before going upstairs, where my insipid room wait for me to come back. I’m tired of all this, it’s always the same thing. We talk, I’m not OK and they just send me to my room so we don’t argue about anything. When it’s either Alyssa or Isaac, everything’s good, even when they’re not in agreement with each other.

And I’m stuck here until the end of summer, in other words, for almost three months of boredom… why am I in such a formal family, they never let me do anything here, and the worst is when I start talking about the pogues… they hate them and they called us troublemakers, or even scapegrace, the thing is, I don’t even know why because they absolutely don’t let me get out of this house. They’re rich as fuck and they no longer know what to do with their hundreds of thousands bucks.

I sit just under my big window, in front of the beach, on my comfy seat. All this island is crazy, the landscapes are amazing and I’m in love with sunrises and sunsets, I can’t prevent myself to do it everyday, every mornings, every evenings. It’s kind of the only thing that I can enjoy from my too white room so I’m not gonna miss it.

It’s actually 7:30am and the sun’s rises. The sky takes an orangy pinky shade, and the blue eventually steal the limelight from the warmth of the old shades as we go along. I love that atmosphere, it absorbs me to another place, where I can live freely and not worrying about my parents remarks… but it’s only in my head, and I love them anyway. Even if they’re all gonna leave the house to occupy themselves, and I’ll stay there, like the previous two weeks that I spent here, alone and bored.

"Thara”, my mom knock at my door and open it before I respond.

I don’t event look at her and let my regard sweep the horizon. She stays at my door for some minutes, and I can’t continue to do like she’s not here, so I leave my thinking and give her a faint smile when I catch her eyes.

"Do you need something?”

"I just wanted to get everything clear about the decision that we took with your father.”

"Mom, that’s OK, I understand and, dad’s right, the garden is great, I guess…”

"I see that you’re not enjoying this choice, and I’m aware that you may feel abandoned but, it’s for your own good. We wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t impor-”

"It’s OK, I promise. It’s just that I’m starting to get bored… I have nobody to talk with me, and nothing to do, even in the garden.”

"Look, if you want we can go shopping tomorrow”, she proposes while a smile’s drawing out on my face.

"Hum, yeah, sure. Isn’t it gonna change your whole organization? It’s OK if-”

"Thara, darling, don’t worry, I can managed to take a day off. For now I need to go, but we talk about it during diner. You should have a walk on the beach and enjoy the sun, today’s weather is really appreciable. Have a drink if you want while studying or reading a book, on the afternoon. The champagne is in the fridge, the library remain open. Have a good day sweetheart.”

"Thanks mommy, have a good day too. And thank you, for tomorrow”, I keep smiling and she waves to me.

She leaves and I’m already imagining tomorrow’s day. Mom rarely suggest to have a trip together or just be both of us for a day, and every time she’s doing it, that’s warms my little heart. We’ve never been that close, because my sister is all she wanted to have. I guess she wanted me to be the exact same as her, unfortunately I’m not. I’m asking questions, I’m talking loudly and I love simple things.

Alyssa likes chic evening with important people, business meetings and hates wasting her time. In other words, sunsets and sunrises are not her things, and, moreover, we’re completely different.

Anyway, I’m taking a quick shower before putting on a basic outfit. My dad hates when I’m wearing these moms jeans and these tank tops, but I love it, I feel good and it’s reflecting my personality. Also, he hates even more my white (not so white) converse, he always says that the way I dress is irrelevant to the place that I hold. To be honest, even if I always respect his opinion, I kind of don’t give a damn about it, it’s my only way to show that I’m not really like all of these kooks… even if I always will.

"Thara, did you take my white shirt?” Alyssa almost plead for it from her room as her voice cracks a little.

"Gonna look in my closet and tell you then, but I don’t think. Why can’t you wear another one, it’s only a shirt.”

"Thara just search please, you can’t understand.”

I heave a sigh before walking into my wardrobe and go through it for a pretty long time before giving up. It’s not here obviously, and it’s not by looking for it during hours that can make it appears…

"Don’t have it, did you look into mom’s closet, maybe she’s got one that you can wear.”

"No, mom will kill me if I borrow something from her.”

"Are you kidding? No way, if I go through her closet she’ll kill me, not you. Both of you’re the same, it’s OK and, if she says something, I will say that it was my idea. Now go take a shirt, come on.”

"Sure?”

"Yes, come on, you’re gonna be late girl!” I let out a soft giggle and she runs in the stairs to join the second floor.

She seems… happier than usual. Yesterday she was almost yelling at me only because I didn’t give her back one of her basic eyeshadow palette, and now she seems excited. I don’t know what’s behind this get-up, but it might be a boy.

She never talk about boys with anyone, but she did once with me. We were having a random conversation, and her phone kept on rigging, and every time she had to respond she was smiling and her cheekbones were becoming pink, so I decided to ask. I have no name of this unknown guy, but from what I hear, he’s a good person, he’s been graduated same year as her and he now works for the family business.

"How do I look?”

I turn towards her and smile when I see her, perfect, as always. Her white shirt is buttoned up from top to bottom, and her raspberry-colored pant suit fits amazing on her.

"You look awesome, no joke. But...” I slightly wince as I walk headed for her. “Can I?”

"Hum, I’m not sure but, go ahead, I’m late.”

"OK” I whispered, focusing on my task. I unbutton the first buttons of the clean white shirt so her outfit can become less formal, just a little more casual. “Great, and, I think you can also roll up your sleeves to seem a little more comfy, if you want" I suggest while she wince at her turn. “Do it only if you want, and if you don’t go now, it’s almost 9am so run.”

"Yeah, I should go, how do we do to talk to a boy?”

"What, you,” I raise my eyebrows. “You don’t know how to flirt? Aly, it’s so easy, just talk to him, on topic that both of you like. Maybe talk about his family, what does he wanted to do later, and where does he wanted to travel. Just talk, and everything’s will be good, I swear.”

"OK, hum, wish me luck.”

"You go girl, and I swear I’m stannin’ you, you look awesome!”

She laughs before opening the door to rejoin the car and leave the house. My dad’s certainly gone, with my dear brother, who, I do think, hates me. I don’t know why, but the relation between him and I has always been difficult. When I was around seven, or maybe ten, we were kind of close, but when the parents started to point everything out to me, he left me alone. Since, he’s always picking on me for nothing, every day, and every time I’m not doing something right.

"Here I am, alone and bored, in a fucking big house which isn’t even useful, because there’s just me…” I whispered, almost sick of it.

"Did you ask for something, miss?” Lucy startles me while I’m turning towards her, a hand on my heart. I give her a faint smile and sigh. She scared the crap out of me…

"I didn’t want to scare you, I’m sorry mi-”

"You can call my Thara Lucy, you should know about it by now.”

"But it’s the order from your father, and you know him better than me.”

"Yeah, but he’s not here now, take it easy, enjoy and don’t be shy to relax, there’s no problem. I’m in my room if you need something.”

"But Thara, it’s to me to say that to you, don’t worry, I have a lot to do.” She smile and I do the same before joining my room to sit in front of my desk and inspire. To work is almost my only thing to do, so let’s study, during summer holidays… I open my book and start to focus on my lesson.

After ten minutes trying to focus on this philosophical text from Ralph Waldo Emerson, I’m out of it, my brain is already full of information, and read it again and again won’t help me to get into it. I stand up, kinda fed up, and leave my room to rejoin the garden by passing by the big patio doors.

This house is huge, and incredible, and really beautiful, but we don’t need this. I mean, I don’t need this. My parents do, because “they have a place to hold” and that “they need to show their power”. Their power, ridiculous, isn’t it…

I arrive in front of the pool. Another example, we have a pool, and who’s using it? Almost nobody. I love to go in it, but alone it becomes deadly boring quickly. I let out a deep sigh while looking at the beach that we can see from the pool through all the trees and branches.

It’s a good place to live, and not only Figure Eight. I’m even sure that the cut is better than here, chiller and with cooler person. Everyone here is kind of uptight, they only talk about who’s making more money and which one of all them is the more absurd. They’re hypocrites, and are faking their happiness, because I can swear, no single one of them is truly happy, I mean, I have the time to observe around me so…

"Are you OK, miss?” Lucy comes by my side and put her hand on my shoulder to check if I’m alright. It’s her job.

"Yes, of course, I’m good.”

"Good, because it’s almost been twenty that you’re standing here.”

Oh shit. Twenty minutes, she certainly thinks I’m crazy. But she knows how I am after all, dreamy and myself.

"It’s OK, do you need help, to do something?”

"No, I can’t let you help me, this is not to you to clean the house. Enjoy the sun, you might go to the beach, it’s really good today.” I nod while smiling politely, and come back indoors to get to my room and prepare.

Beach is the only place where I could spend hours without even notice. I put on a bikini top and some shorts before getting a towel in the bathroom.

I stuff everything in my backpack, put my hair in a bun and just leave the house, my headphones driven in my ears. The music is so loud that I’m impossible to hear anything around me.

My father could have a heart-attack just he knows that I was adopting this “careless behavior”. For him, I should be wearing a dress just to go to the beach, without my headphones, with a purse, makeup on and a perfect hairstyle. But anyway, he’s not here.

Even if he isn’t here, I’m listening to his orders… I have the ban to go anywhere else but at an exact part of the beach, without anyone but kooks who aren’t hanging out with the pogues. I also can go in front of the house, on the part of the beach that we can see from the pool. That’s it. I’m just stuck in my own house, it sucks.

It really sucks, but I can more or less understand their decision. When I say that they can see the pogues, I mean that they almost can’t stand them at all, even if they do with it when they have to.

They never told me what happened, and the question is real like, how someone can hate on someone else this way? That’s not human.

I finally arrive to the beach, blow all this thoughts away and just enjoy the warm of the sun, the sound of the waves and the feeling of the sand on my feet when I take off my shoes. These three things are the best things in this world. And I can add to this non-exhaustive list the sensation that you can feel when you dive in the lukewarm water of the sea, and then you come back and lay on your towel to dry, and you can feel the sun burning your skin and it feels so damn great.

Beach is paradise on Earth. Like Outer Banks I guess… even if it would be better to stop this kind of ridiculous war between pogues and kooks. I decide to go through the water and just enjoy everything around me before my dad calls me to make sure I’m not breaking his rules…

~

I was about to come home, but I heard some sounds which looked like someone was beating someone else, so I’m just walking towards these noises. I hope it’s just some dumb kooks who are fighting for nothing, because I don’t really want to find myself face to face with two muscly boys who are fighting, or something.

The sound of someone who’s toppling over pretty loudly resonate, so I accelerate while putting my phone into my bag with my headphones. What is happening out there… I eventually arrive and, surprise, I find myself face to face with some kooks, and… a pogue? What is he doing here, he certainly is aware that it’s kook’s space…

I quickly drop my bag before starting to run toward the two kooks and the pogue who’s on the floor, alone and taking a beating.

"Eh! What the hell are you doing, let him go! Get out of here!” I arrive in front of them and don’t hesitate to put a stop to this ridiculous fight.

They are beating someone for no reason, what the hell is this island!

"Thara Abrams, how you doing? I see that you’re not against the pogues anymore, yelled Nate at me while dashing off with her little brother and a friend.

"What, shut up, just get out…” I don’t like him. I never did, and I never will. He’s just like all this kooks. Even more than that, he’s the perfect cliché of a good kook. I mean, if a good kook does exist.

I offer a helping hand to the black-skin boy but he eyes me up before getting up on his legs by himself. What the…

"Are you OK, I’m sorry for them, they shouldn’t do this, they’re just… kooks.”

“So you are” he responds roughly as I frown.

"Yeah, but, I’m not like them, I never would do this kind of-” I’m interrupted by the steps of someone coming by us. He’s blond, pretty tall and muscly. He’s looking at me like I was a monster and gets back the bag of his friend.

"Dude why the hell are you talkin’ to her, c’mon.” He wraps his arm around his shoulder and they start to leave without saying a word.

“What, you’re leaving like that, what’s the matter?”

"Just go back to you’re excited kook’s life” the blond lets a word and I shrug.

"Oh, you’re welcome for trying to prevent you from taking a beating” I say, annoyed. "Can you mind your own damn business” he turns toward me a second and looks dagger at me.

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

Hidden Gems of the Silver Screen (And, to a Lesser Extent, the Telly)

It can’t have escaped your notice that the majority of my more recent posts (and fuck knows I’m not posting regularly at the moment) are about movies and TV. The reason for that is pretty simple: 2019 has, surprisingly, yielded some great movies and TV... and also some really torrid shite. On the one hand, films like Ma, Brightburn and The Perfection continue to breathe new life into the horror genre. On the other hand, sci-fi as a cinematic and televised thing continues to ignore its actual audience in favour of sniffing its own farts in a sound-proof chamber designed specifically for next-level virtue-signalling. One thing I will say about the dreck of 2019 is that it’s interesting dreck, at least so far. Another Life, for example, isn’t just bad: it’s mind-bogglingly, fascinatingly bad, as though someone set out to make the worst TV series imaginable and accidentally created a portal to another dimension made entirely of crap.

With all the amazingly wonderful and transifxingly terrible visual media on offer lately, it’s easy to forget that there’s a rich repository of films and TV series from just a few years ago that you’ve probably never watched. You see if you, like me, are a snooty, card-carrying member of the elitist intelligentsia, you probably missed films and TV series that looked dumb as soup on the surface on the grounds that they weren’t worth your time. Luckily for you, I’ve dived nose-first into the detritus of our dying culture, so you don’t have to, and I’ve ferreted out the diamonds from the pig-swill. Without further ado, I’d therefore like to present my list Easily Overlooked Gems.

1. Mandy The phrase “Nicholas Cage stars in a sword-and-sorcery rape/revenge thriller” does not inspire confidence. It’s therefore easy to ignore Mandy and the promptly forget it ever existed. Which is a shame, because it’s kind of a work of genius. The plot is exactly what you’d expect: a cult kidnaps, rapes and kills Cage’s girlfriend, Mandy, and Cage sets out on a mission of revenge culminating in a blood-bath. The nature of the revenge quest is what puts a sting in the film’s tail- or tale, if you’re feeling puntastic. You see, a lot of the bad guys exist in a constant hallucinatory haze after taking a drug that sent them mad after one dose. In order to fight on their level, Cage has to take a dose too. As a result, the world around him slowly but surely transforms into a nightmare landscape that looks like a cross between a D&D illustration and the cover of a heavy metal album and his grubby, personal mission of fury takes on the unmistakable resonance of a Conan-esque hero’s quest. By the end of the film, you have to wonder if Cage has actually slipped into some sort of alternate dimension or if he’s just lost his game-pieces completely. In places, it’s nearly as painful to watch as Landmine Goes Click (crikey, there’s one for the history buffs) but it looks and feels like Beyond the Black Rainbow. Worth your attention just because of how weird it is. I give it a solid four-out-five decapitated rapists.

2. Baby Driver Nothing about Baby Driver suggested it would be a good film: the way it was advertised as a car-chase movie trying to be cute; the stupid title; the fact that it came and went through cinemas like a fart in the night. Which is a shame, because it’s secretly brilliant. It’s a highly stylised crime film populated with the archest archetypes money can buy (to the point where some of the dialogue has a weirdly beat-poetic feel to it). It’s saturated colour palette and off-beat affect actually have something of a full-colour Jim Jarmusch flick about them. The hook, of course, is that the lead character (only ever referred to as Baby, because he’s got a punchably youthful face) has tinnitus and therefore has to listen to music constantly to drown at the buzzing in his head. The practical upshot of this is that a) every single scene is overlayed with surprisingly great and situationally appropriate music and b) he goes through life like he’s always dancing, so his way of moving lends to the film’s easy-going sense of flow. It also explains where his preternatural driving skills come from (I mean, not really, but within the context of the plot): he’s used to sliding effortlessly into patterns and rhythms because of the music thing. All of this could make a terrible film, of course, but execution is everything and, to everyone’s surprise, especially mine, this flick was executed with an astonishing level of panache. I rate it ten out of ten grizzly motor way pile ups.

3. Nightflyers It’s not just films that get overlooked as the tide of culture washes back and forth, like a great big sea of effluent. TV series also vanish unduly into the dustbin of history. Case in point, the criminally underappreciated Nighrflyers: Netflix pre-Another Life sci-fi offering that was actually good. It’s a pretty classic set-up: a group of mismatched wing-nuts on a spaceship, all of whom have secrets that that will threaten to tear them apart while they try to make contact with an alien life-form. What elevates Nightflyers is just how fuck-uped the cast are. There’s an angry British psychic whose spent his whole life in captivity in case he goes full Scanners on somebody’s head, a guy who only ever appears as a hologram for reasons too twisted to explain here, his evil mother whose uploaded her mind to the ship’s computer and gone batshit crazy, a genetic superbeing and a hacker who can send her mind into computers via a dodgy implant and who may or may not be drifting out of touch with the human condition. It’s great. 6 and half billion out of 7 billion monkeys, boiling in the void.

4. Hardcore Henry No, I don’t know who thought that title was a good idea either, but the point is that Hardcore Henry has no motherfucking right to kick as much arse as it does. It was clearly made on a budget that would embarrass a Youtube shampoo commercial, but it just flat-out rocks. Shot entirely in first-person, it follows the adventures of a mute cyborg as he seeks revenge against the bastard psychic entrepreneur who first built him then tried to kill him. Along the way, his main ally is a dude who keeps dying and coming back to life in a series of identical bodies but with radically different personalities and haircuts (this is eventually explained, but I’m not going to spoil it for you). It’s premise is demented, it’s surprisingly well-choreographed and its soundtrack is an aphrodisiac for your ears. Also, Tim Roth is in it, so that’s just yer seal of quality right there. It came out to a lot of fanfare and many, many cinema trailers back in the day and was then promptly forgotten about as soon as it launched. So I’m dragging it kicking and screaming back into the limelight. It’s on Netflix right now, so go watch it. I rate it a solid 11 out of 15 creepy duplicates of Tim Roth.

5. Upgrade Another lesser-known film about a cyborg. Unlike Henry, however, this cyborg’s life doesn’t so much ‘rock’ as ‘suck balls’. He gets crippled and then ends up with a sentient computer chip in his head that allows him to remote-control his own body despite not having a working spine anymore. Naturally, his experimental tech attracts the attention of some unsavoury characters and he and his brain-chip have to work together to figure out what’s going on, often through a series of ultra-violent, gory fight-scenes that horrify the protagonist himself. Of course, all might be well, except that the head-chip is a homicidal little shit that clearly has its own agenda. I give it at least 0000 0111 out of 0000 1001 painstakingly restored vintage kill-bots.

6. The Tick The Tick isn’t as overlooked as everything else on this list, especially since there have been a couple of previous televised incarnations of the franchise to lay the groundwork. However, I still feel like the modern iteration doesn’t quite get the love it deserves, so I’m throwing it out here. Following the adventures a mad, amnesiac and possibly stupid superhero and his neurotic sidekick, The Tick explores a world where superheroes aren’t the paragons of good from classic comics, the corrupt psychotics of The Boys or Watchmen, or the eternally struggling, walking moral life-lessons of modern cinema. Instead, they’re just ordinary people operating at various levels of competence/incompetence and mental illness and working within a bureaucratic, wildly inefficient framework. That might not sound like a recipe for a successful TV series, but it really is. Drawing out the mundane, human side of heroes and villains against the backdrop of cataclysmic, civilisation-threatening events makes for infinitely compelling and very, very funny viewing. It’s kind of doing for the superhero genre what Futurama did for sci-fi a few years back. It’s also where the phrase and/or popular song ‘seven billion monkeys boiling in the void’ comes from. My rating is four out of five sapient, homosexual boats (which will make sense when you watch it).

7. The Void Amid the high-budget horror extravaganzas of recent years, it’s easy to forget about the void, which feels like the best story H.P. Lovecraft never wrote and looks like David Chronenberg tried to adapt a Heironimous Bosch painting... in the ‘80s. The actual plot concerns a group of people getting trapped in a hospital by murderous cultists and discovering dark secrets and, arguably, a whole other dimension in its basement. You’re not exactly there for the plot though: The Void is a mood-piece and an exercise in visual FX craftsmanship. You’re there to drink in the atmosphere and see what each new cosmic horror looks like. I am delighted to award it ten out of ten unspeakable whisperers in the darkness. That’s enough for two barbershop quartets, an emcee and a supporting act.

8. Happy Death Day It’s Groundhog Day but as a horror film starring a really annoying lass in her late teens has to keep dying horribly until she learns to stop being such a terrible person... and also kill her murderer with a little help from her newly-minted, non-cunty friend. There’s a sequel that I haven’t seen yet, but the original is a low-key, oft-overlooked delight. I give it 9 out of 11 suspiciously similar corpses.

[silyabeeodess]

FusionFall Writing Prompts: Oct. 2019, Prompt #2: Part 4

Part 3: https://silyabeeodess.tumblr.com/post/188285373604/fusionfall-writing-prompts-oct-2019-prompt-2

The cold pricked Silya’s bare arms as she stepped out of the research participants’ quarters, followed by the fellow victim.  Much to her ever-growing horror, they weren’t alone: A group of Fusion Fighters were gathered together outside—among them, her missing roommate.  She couldn’t tell whether there was more than one Ectonurite involved or if just one or a handful had split their DNA across the whole of group, but she could still tell each human present was possessed because of the cold, cruel smile shared between them.  

As they waited for more of their numbers to gather, some exiting the barracks and a few others coming from the outskirts of Tech Square—most likely the ones involved with the cut power—they remained clustered in the shadows.  She could see flashlights in the distance, hopefully from the still-free soldiers looking to restore order.  No one could call out to them though.  People twitched and spasmed, fighting for control over the ghosts only to soon lose it again.  

Held prisoner in her own subconscious, Silya raced through anything she knew about the alien species. Unfortunately, outside of a small collective of stories and basic facts, her knowledge was limited.  She wasn’t a Plumber, so that information had been glossed over during training.  In order to keep up an act of normalcy, however, it didn’t seem like the Ectonurites were exuding full control over anyone.  She could still think clearly and read her surroundings, so that in itself was a good sign.  From what she could tell, he would have to shut her mind down completely anyway for total control, so that could rule out the possibility of him reading her thoughts.

It meant she could try to come up with some kind of plan.  What were an Ectonurites weaknesses again?  Direct light? Well, they’d already taken care of the electricity and they were pretty much invincible anyway so long as they remained in their hosts.  If there was any chance at beating the ghosts, they would need to be cast out of their bodies first.  Just how though?

The whole of their forces soon gathered.  There was only around two or three dozen people around her, but almost every research participant who’d stayed for the experiments had tested the Ghostfreak transformation.  That meant any remainders were either out on-duty, guarding Tech-Square’s borders, or were off on some other errand for their puppetmasters.  A new worry bubbled up inside her: She imagined the controlled soldiers taking out their companions and letting a hoard of fusion monsters through the blockades.  

They split off into two smaller groups: One headed to Mandark Industries and the other—hers—to Dexlabs.  All at once, the humans around her started talking; light-hearted chatter Silya knew was fake because a lot of it was the same kind of dialogue she had heard and said herself over the course of the week.  Only, just as before, it wasn’t them: The Ectonurites were just feeding them used lines.

It fooled the four watchmen at the front doors though.  They only stopped the large group with a curious brow, asking to see one of their ID cards. Looking it over with a tactical flashlight, the guard grunted, “Looks like the power’s out all over.  Dex and the other nerds are already on the case though, if that’s what you’re here for.”

A girl’s eye twitched, the Ectonurite controlling her forcing out a sigh of relief, “It is.  We were worried if it was some kind of emergency. The lights just shot on their own while we were all hanging out in our rooms.  Anything we can do to help?”

“Not unless any of you are technicians.”

“Ah… Well, in any case, can you send someone over there?  The emergency lock went off in one of the buildings.  No one can get in or out.”

Here, the watchmen shared a glance, and for a second Silya thought they might pick up that something was wrong.  Although the front doors of each of the barracks were electric, everyone who stationed at Tech Square regularly knew how to access the manual controls—not to mention most of them weren’t averse to just making their own exits if they had to. She thought she could signal them, fighting to regain control of her arm only for her other hand to swiftly grab it and pull it behind her back in a false, nervous stretch.

They didn’t notice anything. After a minute’s debate, two of the guards jogged away to the barracks, leaving the group standing with the final pair. The girl turned to them once again, “We were also thinking we could take advantage of the darkness.  We’ve all got our Spinal-ARCHs and there’s not much else to do, so we thought some extra training might be good.”

The same guard as before shook his head.  “Sorry, can’t even let you in to grab your gear.  Orders from up-top: Dex doesn’t want anyone wandering through the building without his authorization until the power’s back.”

“I think you’ll find that we answer to a higher authority.”

The young woman saw it coming, but her mouth was bound shut.  From around the edge of the facility, two large figures—sure enough, another two possessed research participants—darted from the shadows and struck the guards from behind.  Before either could cry out in shock, they were gagged and beaten: One struck in the neck and the other thrown against the wall until he was rendered senseless. Both collapsed, unconscious, and were dragged away in the same minute after one of their attackers tossed another Ectonurite a pair of keys.  Said alien quickly began to fiddle with a manual control hatch alongside the doors, the others keeping watch.

Eventually, someone managed to fight for control enough to collapse to the ground with a pained grunt, hands knotting through their hair as they stammered out a question bitterly, “W-what’sss… even about?!  Sabotage? You c-can’t!  Labs’ locked down.”

They had a point. Getting into the building itself was one thing, but any of the actual labs would be shut down by double or triple encoded locks that only Dexter or his team of scientists would know how to access. The research participants were only allowed so far in, and if they were caught anywhere else—whether or not anyone inside knew the full situation—they would be taken into custody.  The same standard applied over at Mandark’s—if they weren’t even more severe.  The Ectonurites’ puppeteering was pretty much useless from this point forward.

One of ghosts gave a jeering laugh from a young man’s body, “We’re not as contained as you would wish.  We only need you to get inside and use as cover.” As if to illustrate, he partially summoned one of the Ghostfreak tendrils, waved it, then quickly dispersed it. “Your employers may experiment on you all they like, but I doubt they would purposefully harm their prized lab rats.”

“That’s right,” nodded the one at the door, which made a faint click as it unlocked.  The Ectonurite pulled it open, motioning the others in with a mocking gesture.  “And if you’re lucky, maybe a few of them will trade themselves over for your sakes.  It wouldn’t be as fun, but I’m sure Lord Fuse would reward us well if we brought him a few of Earth’s finest minds as souvenirs.”  

The very idea of being used as a hostage made Silya want to curse.  For a second, she was able to push her will enough to curl her hands into fists at her side, even as she marched past the door with the others.  Beyond the faint light shining behind them, they were soon swallowed by darkness; however, the ghosts possessing them didn’t seem to mind—even when they still had to use their human eyes to get by.  Unlike during the day, the halls were bleak and empty, the metal walls somehow less pristine and more cold than usual.

It also seemed that the Ectonurites had memorized the way through the building, at least in the areas that the research participants regulated, hinting that they may have been secretly monitoring everything from the humans’ subconscious ever since their DNA had been accessed through the Spinal-ARCHs.  They passed the main lobby, the waiting areas, and the gyms, heading deeper through the winding halls to the silent areas few of them had ever explored without escort.

Soon enough, the group began to split off on their own investigations.  Two of them stopped in front of one door that Silya had never gone through.  She was forced to watch, disgusted, as one of the Ectonurites ripped out a girl’s body, her struggled cry muffed by a clawed hand before one of the other research participants—still possessed—gripped her from behind.  Not that she could wrestle away easily, given the way she leaned forward in exhaustion when the ghost finally broke free.  Fading it, slipped through the door, its host still bound and waiting for its return.

A light, a light… Silya panicked.  If she could just find something, anything to use against the spirit possessing her, she could try to attack him as soon as he snapped out of her body.  For a second, her mind angrily went to Dexter and his denial of all magical elements in favor of ‘real’ science.  Maybe if he wasn’t so quick to dismiss them, he’d have something useful on hand that didn’t have to be plugged into an outlet!  Maybe—!

She froze.  Magic… She had a magical being strapped right at her hip, Aoi!  He was a Demongo nano: His demon fire could burn anything right down to the soul!  

The idea came upon her so suddenly and terror reared its ugly head so much that the Ectonurite controlling her wasn’t prepared when she shot her hand out a second time with a loud, vicious scream.  He muffled her fast, her side thrown against the wall hard enough for her to see stars, but she had already ripped Aoi’s nanochip off of her built.  It went flying from her grasp, scuttling across the floor, and with a burst of blue light her familiar companion appeared in front of her eyes—confusion in his own gaze when he looked around to see just where they were and why she had jarred him awake.  Seeing her dazed on the floor, he tried to approach, but soon halted when Ghostfreak tendrils shot out from her back.

Bracing herself against the ground, shaking as she fought to rear the ghost inside her in, she fumbled for words.  They came out as a broken, sibilant whisper before she could manage to get out a soft, “Fire…”  Again, she cried out, louder even as it felt like the Ectonurite was seeking his claws into her throat and the tendrils twisted menacingly around her, “M-me…. Use you’re f-fire on me!”

It wasn’t an expression she was used to seeing, but a child’s fear lit in his stare at her order, “Silya—?!”

“Now, Aoi!” she gagged.  She was losing it!  Her vision was already beginning to cloud over and she could feel the Ectonurite regaining power over her limbs, limply pulling her off the floor.  He was taking full control!

But not long after darkness shrouded her completely, everything seemed to erupt in a cerulean light. Flames danced before her mind’s eye, tracing every inch of her body.  It hurt a lot—like nothing she’d ever experienced, even compared to the intense burns she’d get from overexposure to fusion matter.  However, when she heard a scream, it wasn’t her own.  For everything she felt, the Ectonurite was bound to feel it tenfold.  

She collapsed again. She couldn’t see.  She couldn’t move.  All she felt was the cold floor under her and all she heard was a loud ringing in her ears.  For a moment, she wondered if she died for real, Aoi’s powers somehow distorting whatever hold Grim’s magic had over her to connect her lifeforce to his Resurrect ‘Ems.  

Slowly though, the world began to piece itself back into existence.  She was in the same hall.  It was still dark.  And there was Aoi, hovering over her with a terrified expression on his face and his hands still held out in front of him from his attack.  She wanted to smile at him—the blasted demon-child that spent most of his time trying to get on her nerves.  She couldn’t though: She was too weak and beyond him she could see blurred figures racing onto the scene.  She had to warn him.

“Ghostfreaks, they’ve—” Silya huffled, struggling even with that small effort.  Not only was she still in pain, she couldn’t believe how tired she felt. “No time... Free the others, Aoi.  Burn those freaks to a crisp!”

It was hard to breath and things started to get dark and hazy again.  The little Demongo clone opened his mouth to demand answers, but was interrupted by the sound of feet hurrying toward them.  He jerked his head around as two more lights—red and yellow—spiraled off of her belt in near unison to join him at his side.

And then Silya’s mind slipped away.    

END OF PART FOUR

Part 5 (END): https://silyabeeodess.tumblr.com/post/188674258524/fusionfall-writing-prompts-oct-2019-prompt-2

[itheriosarendi-blog]

A Lesson in Madness.

(( Warning - vivid and violent imagery below the break line. ))

“How much of our time together do you remember? Truly? Accurately?”

“Please… please leave me alone. LEAVE ME ALONE!”

“Alone? No. You don’t want to be alone. You want me to go away. A targeted desire. But you think you can settle with absolute isolation. You’re wrong, of course. But you don’t know that.”

“K-k-kill me. END ME! End THIS!”

“That thought had crossed my mind. And others’. They think it would be a mercy. But I say you haven’t earned mercy. Nor the enlightenment I have offered you, but I don’t think you’re smart enough to grasp the latter. Even now you try to block it all out. Shall we remember? You and I? Together?”

“Alfred, come on, stop with that we’re trying to sleep here!”

Alfred craned his neck to look backwards, grinning ear to ear. Light flickered from his grizzled features. It was cast from a trio of flaming orbs moving swiftly between his hands. Despite being magically gifted, the man had his hobbies. Juggling was one of them.

“You know that’s not true. You two won’t be sleeping a wink tonight.”

“Fuck off! You’re gonna burn this whole forest down. Or bring the guards down on us!”

“Patrollers don’t come out this far, you know that. We’re clear until the next job.”

“And I want to stay that way.”

This voice was new. It belonged to another man, younger than Alfred or the pair he was arguing with. But it held confidence. Arrogance, most would say, but it was thus far proven. He took a seat across from Alfred, signalling a cutting motion across his throat. With an irritated grunt the orbs were extinguished. Now, only a dimly glowing pile of embers cast any light at all.

“You’re paranoid Nate.”

“Nathaniel.”

“How long have we known each other? Nate. You’re paranoid.”

“Careful. There’s a difference. The work we do, I don’t want anyone knowing us. Guard or otherwise. You should want the same thing.”

“Goblins, trolls, ogres, gnolls, they’re all gonna need warm bodies. Long as they do, we, AND OTHERS, are in work. No reason to be singled out.”

“And yet.”

Silence reigned. All present exchanged looks. None recognized this voice. Nathaniel was up first, a handaxe and blade now in hand.

“Mary, John, up and out. Game faces on. Alfred, light them.”

Growling and rustling heralded the once-humans leaving their tent, now each standing taller than their comrades. Bristling fur, claws the length of daggers, and bared teeth marked each clearly as curse-ridden Worgen. Alfred made a sweeping gesture with his arms, again manifesting flaming orbs which circled wide around the camp. Each one collided with an unlit torch posted in the dirt. Visibility was now an easy feat within the light, but Nathaniel had the irrational thought that the ring of light was smaller than he planned. That the darkness of night pressed in against it not as a passive nature, but with agency all its own.

“You have your considerations backwards, Alfred. Because you are not unique, does not mean you are not recognized. Merely that you weren’t a priority. Now, you are.”

All four of them flinched as a sharp whistle split the night air. At the same instant, a torch went out.

“People have noticed others missing. They’ve found out where they’re going. Funny, how they don’t take kindly to the abduction of strangers, let alone loved ones. Security of the group, I imagine. If they let it stand, it means their civilized ways mean nothing. Afford no security.”

Another whistle. Another torch snuffed.

“What is it? Where is it? What the hell good are you dogs if you can’t even see or smell like them!”

“Fuck off Nate! There’s nothing!”

“Denial? Adorable.”

Two more whistles. Three torches, set in a triangle about the four slavers, were all that remained. Nathaniel noticed just how close they’d all gotten to each other.

“Fuck it. Alfred, burn it down. We’re getting out of here.”

A maniacal smile split Alfred’s features.

“My pleasure. Enjoy fulmination, assho-URK!”

Nathaniel flinched as he turned. The sight was far more grizzly than the sound, though he had recognized it and its implications. Alfred wavered on unsteady legs. His tunic had a swiftly growing crimson stain. Blood poured from tears in the fabric in spurts timed to his heartbeat.

“John and Mary can hear it. I don’t think you can, Nathaniel. It’s slowing. Bum bum. Bum bum. Bum… bum. Bum… bum. Bum.”

A sharpened length of blackened material jutted from the mage’s chest. It appeared to be a spear, but not one of any make any of the remaining three recognized. As Alfred dropped to his knees, they realized that the situation was for more severe than it had first appeared. Glowing violet streaks strobed across his body, moving from all extremities to the spear. The man’s features began to sink into himself. No more breaths sputtered from bloodstained lips, as instead it seemed Alfred throat and jaw were collapsing in upon themselves.

“A bad death. Here, let me spare at least one of you from seeing it.”

Three sharp whistles, and utter blackness consumed the camp. Nathaniel whirled around, heart pounding in his chest.

“John can still see. So can Mary. How depressing. Or do they even care enough about him? Maybe this is simply a selfish fear for self-preservation. Let’s find out.”

Mary’s shrieking broke the silence. Nathaniel turned toward it, but some instinct made him step away rather than see to her. John’s furious howl followed.

“Oooh, that one stung. Self-preservation it was. THIS is more.”

“I’LL SHOW YOU MORE, MONSTER!”

Another howl and the telltale heavy thump of a Worgen’s charge. Nathaniel couldn’t see where John had gone. He didn’t even know where Alfred’s body was anymore. Feeling around in the dark, he eventually made his way to his pack. Nearby, he knew, were provisions. Taking as much as he could carry, the man fled. He knew it was the right choice when another whistle and a high-pitched whine reached his ears. Equally, Nathaniel knew it was too late when he heard the voice again.

“Just you and I now, Nate. I think I’ve earned the right to call you that. I know you as well as they did, after all. Better than you know yourself, perhaps. I can teach you if you like. Show you the parts of yourself you hide from. The truths you don’t want to face.”

“FUCK YOU! I’LL KILL YOU! I’LL FIND YOU AND KILL YOU!”

“I imagine if you found me you would try, yes. But you will find that more difficult than even before. You couldn’t hear Alfred’s heart slow, but you can hear yours speed up. The adrenaline. It’s not alone in your veins, you know. Not just it, and blood. A gift from me.”

As if by some incantation, Nathaniel froze. He had full control. He knew it. But something compelled him to stop. Eyes raked the darkness, picking out the vague shapes of tree trunks. But there was something else. Something…. There! A pair of eyes, dimly glowing in the dark.

“There’s a sense of satisfaction to telling someone they’ve ingested a hallucinogen. Some prefer to let it work in secrecy. Let their targets develop a growing sense of distrust for all they see. But I ask, why wait? First, you’ll think I’ve lied. Convince yourself you are the master of your mind and body.”

The eyes winked out, appearing again thirty paces to the left. But then... the right. Another set. And the original reappeared.

“A part of you will question if it could be true, however. It will doubt your every decision and perception. And over time, that part of you will grow.”

Suddenly the forest was alight. Dozens upon dozens of sets of eyes watched Nathaniel from all angles. He felt sweaty. His chest ached. His eyes stung. With a frustrated cry he charged forwards, blade and axe swinging wildly. But no matter how far he ran the eyes watched. Never closer. Never farther. He collapsed to his hands and knees after what felt like an hour, eyes screwed shut as he pressed his forehead against the forest floor. At that point, a realization struck him. The voice had been silent. An hour of peace. Slowly, Nathaniel dared to crane his neck upwards and open his eyes.

Blissful. Quiet. Dark. He’d escaped. He was free. Nathaniel began to laugh, though it quickly became a sputtering cough. He rose unsteadily, lurching a handful of steps forward to sit on a nearby tree stump. When he put his weight on it, however, the stump gave way. It was… soft. And wet? And… warm. The hairs of Nathaniel’s neck rose. He leaned closer, weapons falling free as he fumbled along the ground. Dread became horror as Alfred’s sunken, expressionless sockets, blood still trickling from their edges, stared back at Nathaniel. A rickety breath escaped the mages body. He was still alive. But how? That was…

“How long did you think had passed, Nate? Our time together has only just started. Moments to dispatch your friends. Just as long to watch you prance about. And I still have so many lessons to teach you. We’ve nearly seven hours before the sun rises. I imagine each might stretch as far as a day for you.”

“No… NO! NO NO NO! NOOOOOUAAARGH!”

Marshal Dughan looked down the cobbled road, a mug of coffee clutched in ungloved hands, just as he did every morning. He’d been awake for three hours already. Trouble sleeping. So he’d taken the post of the night watchmen early. A good thing, for if he hadn’t then the Marshal wouldn’t have seen the stumbling, jarring movements of an apparent drunkard approaching Goldshire. Setting the mug down on a fence post, Dughan stepped forward.

“Hold, friend! Having trouble?”

Curiosity became concern as the man looked his way. Dughan hadn’t seen an expression such as that before. An amalgamation of relief, betrayal, and desperation. The man all but sprinted toward Dughan. His approach was cause for alarm, but it was his appearance rather than pace which did so. Torn clothing, countless bleeding cuts and scratches, three missing fingers between both hands which he would later find out were chewed off, and a missing eye. Behind it all, though, he recognized the man. Dughan called out for other patrollmen. They intercepted the man.

“Take him in to the smithy. Make sure he’s stable, then clap him in irons and get him to Stormwond. Nate here is destined for the Stocks.”

Satisfied, the Marshal turned to reclaim his morning drink. It was no longer alone, however. Beside the post stood a tall, slender form. Clad in hues of purple trimmed in dull gold, skin ashen, eyes unblinking. Dughan didn’t think he’d ever really get used elvenkind, but the Void Elves were something else entirely. This one, however, he recognized. The Marshal approached as he thumbed behind his back.

“Wouldn’t believe who just walked into our hands.”

“Nathaniel Dumont. Wanted for counts of abduction and human trafficking, and complicit in the deaths of numerous Stormwind City Guardsmen, Darkshire Night Watchmen, and Westfall Brigadesmen.”

Dughan stopped several feet from the fence post, a mixture of suspicion and nervousness written across his features.

“This… was you?”

Itherios smiled, though the expression did not reach his glowing eyes.

“You put up a notice, Marshal. Offered reward. I’m here to collect. Doubled if alive, yes?”

Dughan looked back over his shoulder, just catching the patrollmen push Nathaniel through the doorway.

“Aye, doubled if alive. But the way he looks… I think I’d rather him dead.”

Itherios held his smile, head tilting to the side.

“That, Marshal, would be a new contract.”

“Is he still hollering?”

“Yeah. Hasn’t stopped screaming since we put him in a cell.”

“Anyone else in there?”

“None of the others will get anyone near him. Say they’d rather be overcrowded, pissin’ on each other than within spitting distance of him.”

“Shame. For all the trouble Dumont’s caused, seems his mind ain’t all there at the end of it.”

“Neither will mine be, if I have to spend another three days listening to him screaming. At this rate he’ll be dead before spending a week behind bars.”