#i saw the matrix for the first time recently and i liked that too

[ur-stepdad]

watching Bound (1996) for this first time. the femme touches corky's tattoo and says "that's a great tattoo" and i thought "beautiful labrys" and then the femme said that exactly. watchowski sisters we r on the same page

[polarisbibliotheque]

The Matrix - Tiffany | Tiffany | Trinity.

Tiffany | Tiffany | Trinity.

Pairing: Trinity x Neo (I'm a sucker for them, leave me be)

Summary: It's when she's alone that she can hear the noise. It doesn't stop. It hammers a name inside her head, forcing her compliance. Until Tiffany hears in the back of her mind someone calling her a different name... Trinity.

TRIGGER WARNING: Crazy identity crisis, bordering (or even being) dissociation. Lots of anxiety, questioning reality and one's own identity; questioning authority, life paths and memories. Big blurry lines between reality, dreams, memory and imagination. If you struggle with those themes (and dissociation, psychosis, etc.), I advise not reading it.

Author's Notes: I know, weird one. But it's that time of the year I'm getting older (my birthday) and I generally hate it - so I decided to do my Keanu Reeves marathon. Chose The Matrix to kickstart things and I just really love those damn movies. They always make me think and I think it's good I'm rewatching now - precisely when I needed to.

That being said, I wrote this random thing after watching Ressurections for the first time with my sister a couple of years ago (you guys know I haven't been writing for a while). It's been completely forgotten, until I found it again recently, for my amazement. Turns out, I really like it. Never posted it 'cause it's very different from what I usually post, but figured why not. I write because I like talking about certain things - and these movies are a punch in the gut for me.

When I was a kid, I always wanted to be like Trinity when I grew up no wonder I literally dress like her in the last movie. But things turned out pretty differently and watching her story in the 4th movie made a LOT of sense to me. And I too would've kicked The Analyst's jaw off if he named me Tiffany for 20 years.

I'm thinking about eventually writing different and new things like that - don't worry, I'll keep writing for DMC, that's something I'll never stop; but you guys have NO IDEA how much I've been controlling myself over the years not to write Cyberpunk 2077 stuff I have a soft spot for Keanu Reeves, blame it on him

As she scrubbed her hands with the foaming soap, the warm water untied the stress on her shoulders, gradually making her feel at home.

It was funny how a hobby could also be a chore - and how being a mother was, sometimes, extremely tiring. Tiffany kept rubbing her fingers in an absent-minded manner, furrowing her eyebrows.

Tiffany.

She could hear her children calling.

Tiffany.

She could hear her husband calling.

Tiffany. Tiffany. Tiffany.

That name - her own name... - hammered inside her head as if it wanted to force her acceptance... As if taming her. She could hear her husband's voice saying it over and over and over and over again. Tiffany, Tiffany, Tiffany...

"Trinity!"

The voice that echoed in the back of her mind wasn't her husband's.

She immediately opened her eyes and stopped scrubbing her hands. Looking around, there was no noise but the falling warm water, filling the bathroom with its hot mist.

She was alone. And, even if she was surrounded by her children and her husband, their happy and average family... She was always alone.

Her heart began pounding a little faster and that familiar lump in her throat started forming, ready to take her breath away. Why did she feel like that? It made no sense. She was perfectly happy, perfectly normal, with a perfectly good life. She wasn't alone.

Trying to take her mind away from that, Tiffany started scrubbing the motorcycle grease from her fingers once again.

This time, while closing her eyes, she saw something else. The hands cleaning her fingers weren't hers... They were someone else's. Long, warm fingers taking their time in a smooth touch - much too loving to be her husband's. Much too loving to be Chad's hands.

Opening her eyes once more, Tiffany looked around, covering the upper part of her body.

But she was alone.

The only noise to be heard was the water. The only breathing body was hers.

Chad wasn't home from work yet. The kids were at their grandma's. Those hands she saw weren't hers.

Her heart pounded as if it wanted to break out from her chest. That touch... She longed for that touch. She wanted to feel it again... As if she felt it before, so many years ago, and her heart finally found solace once more.

That made absolutely no sense.

Shaking her head, Tiffany grabbed the soap and started to lather up from her fingers to her arms, making her way to her shoulders.

And again, while closing her eyes, she could see another set of hands doing it for her. Warm, loving, familiar... Going up her elbow until finally arriving at her shoulders, starting to massage the constant pain on her back up to her neck.

She felt the owner of those hands approaching, her body burning as she felt his body coming closer to hers from behind.

Tiffany's eyes shot open again, her feet turning around in a violent spin.

No one.

She was alone.

Again.

Then why did she feel that...? It was so real, it...

It was home.

During all those long years married to Chad, raising their children and living their lives like the perfect suburban family they were, she never felt at home. And she could only understand it now, feeling that presence - that strange vision that felt like a memory.

A memory from a life lived so many years ago. A life forgotten. A life from distant tales and great deeds.

A life completely different from her mundane reality.

She tried to keep on with her shower. She had to finish quickly and prepare dinner: there were too many things to do before she could call it a day.

But... At the same time she didn't want to close her eyes again, she did. It was more than a morbid curiosity. As if something inside herself kept telling her, constantly, she needed to know. She needed to see that again. She needed to feel it again.

She had to see his face.

As soon as she closed her eyes, she could only see flashes. It wasn't her beautiful, well decorated bathroom - it was gray and improvised, almost like a cave. Water fell on them. She wasn't alone. She was never alone - not in that life. Those hands... Those hands ran on her body, helping her shower. She was younger, her hair was shorter - too short even.

And then she felt his lips at the base of her neck, with a quick peck before whispering something. A word that made her feel at home.

"Trinity."

She was violently kicked back into reality as she opened her eyes, finding herself alone in that perfect bathroom. All the air in the world couldn't help her breathe properly again, all the grounding couldn't make her stop trembling. She spun around, searching, looking for something, without knowing exactly what it was. Her chest was bleeding - but as her hands cradled her heart, there was nothing there but water.

Then why...? How...? What was that crippling void that filled her soul, slowly eating its way into her mind? Who did she see? Who was Trinity?

What was all that? Who was he?

And why, oh why did it hurt so much?

She was alone, completely alone, in that sterile white bathroom that seemed like a cage, too big for her - she was small, she was alone, she was... Tiffany? Why did that name suddenly inspired such loathing on her? Why her glass-blue eyes couldn't stop weeping desperately? Why did her arms long for holding something... Someone...?

Even if she held her children... Even if she held Chad. It wasn't what her soul was searching, it was something else... Someone else. That empty space inside her she always knew was there but never really managed to put into words. That part of her that seemed to be missing, to be long gone. That made her eyes water and her chest hurt, that made her lose her breath and cry - as if she was nothing but a scared child missing someone she loved so.

Why couldn't she find him...? Was he alive? Was he dead? Who was he? And why did it seem he loved that Trinity so much - why did it seem she was her?

"Tiffany! You're taking some time in that shower, are you ok?"

Completely startled, she turned back at the door, one of her hands leaning on the cold tiles of the wall while the other pressed on her forehead. Her eyes stared at the entrance of the bathroom, wide as the pale moon in the sky.

Tiffany.

Tiffany.

That was her name. That was her reality. Those tiles, that cozy, well-decorated room, those fuzzy towels, Chad knocking on the door.

Tiffany.

That was real. That was... Real?

Was Trinity real? She felt real. The man who called her name also felt real - much more than all the caresses, touches and kisses she had exchanged with her husband up to that point in her life. Trinity wasn't alone... Trinity didn't have that void inside her chest, slowly taking up her soul, just like Tiffany had. As if the person she was would slowly disappear, all alone and forgotten - being just a shadow of who she once was. But...

"Hey, Tiff! Answer me! Are you ok?"

Was she ok? Was Tiffany ok? What about Trinity? How was she...? She wasn't... She missed something.

Tiffany missed something.

"I miss something..." She muttered mindlessly, feeling as the tears ran from her wide-open eyes, face completely expressionless.

She closed her eyes tightly, trying to stop that noise. That lack of breath. That heartbreaking loneliness.

"I'm always with you, Trin." Again, he was standing behind her, holding her tightly into his arms, entangling his fingers with her right hand while keeping his head cradled on her shoulder. She could feel herself smiling. Trinity was smiling.

"Tiffany!"

Trinity.

"Tiffany!"

Trinity.

"TIFFANY!"

"I'm alright!"

She finally managed to scream back, opening her eyes one last time. She could barely breathe and could barely hear whatever Chad was going on about on the other side of the door.

"I'm alright." She whispered to herself, running her hand on her forehead before shutting down the water from the shower and getting out of the box.

The feeling of the fuzzy towel was grounding. For a few moments, she wasn't sure who she was. What did they call that again...? Dissociating?

It was probably what happened to her. It started since the therapists said something about PTSD after an accident she was involved - but then again... She didn't know if it was real. It could've been a dream and maybe she had a dream about the therapists too. She wasn't sure.

Looking at her right hand, it was as if she had a residual of that presence behind her, of those arms holding her. And, once more, she was struck with that feeling... That longing... That something missing.

That absolutely nothing she already had could fill that empty space inside her chest.

"Tiff! You're sure you're ok? I'm tired from work and need to take a shower, are you taking too long to get out...?"

"No, no, I'll be out in a minute, Chad." She shook her head, starting to dry her body as fast as she could. "I'm gonna make us some pasta for dinner, ok?"

"Yeah! You're the best, Tiff!"

There was still too much to do before she could call it a day. She had to get a grip and get back to her life, it didn't matter how real all of that felt.

But something inside her, a small sparkle that she decided to ignore completely, wanted another voice to call her "Trin".

[uygfiug]

HI HELLO HELLO !!! i have to ask desperately have you seen conclave? and also what are your favourite movies?? i've appalled at least 5 people now with the abysmally small number of films ive seen and i trust you entirely for recs (if ud like??). <33

HI !!! unfortunately i have not :( ive been meaning to get to it though!

My favourites: But I'm a Cheerleader (1999, campy queer film, quite funny on occasion & very over the top), The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975, campy parody on pulpy horror! musical, tbh i cant tell if youd like this or not), Design for Living (1933, polyamorous romcom, <333)

Some films I also like:

Most films by Ernst Lubitsch, some I have seen & enjoyed are: To Be or Not to Be (anti-nazi comedy from 1942), Trouble in Paradise (about a pair of thieves who flirt by stealing from each other <3), The Shop Around the Corner (coworkers who dont get along at all are also penpals & fall in love via their letters) also!! he did design for living too <3 .

Both Knives Out films (especially the first). considering you like holmes, poirot,... you might enjoy these if you haven't seen them yet. which. i think i saw you mention them somewhere so. .

Bound (1996) parody on mafia films :) a femme fatale & handywoman decide to fuck over the mafia & steal a bunch of money from them. also quite over the top <3 theres some really gorgeous shots in there too! directed by the wachowski sisters (who did the matrix) .

Rear Window (1954) not the best Hitchcock film but it is my favourite :)) .

Hitchcock directed a bunch of films & a lot of them are quite good so. here's some more I have seen recently :) Psycho, Vertigo, Suspicion, The Trouble with Harry (comedy, about a corpse), North by Northwest, Rope, The Birds. most of these are thrillers .

if you're up for more surrealist films, that might not have a linear or comprehensible story id recommend David Lynch's films also! Eraserhead (1977) & Mulholland Drive (2001) are the only 2 i've seen so far but i loved them both !! .

if youre up for silent films i really like Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1919) & The Cat and the Canary (1927, haunted house comedy horror) & Metropolis (1927). Any Chaplin film might be nice too? its been ages since i watched those but theyre all quite fun! Modern Times & The Kid i remember liking especially .

And then a few more really quick: Some Like it Hot, It Happened One Night (1934), Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), All About Eve, Perfect Days (2023), Nimona (2023)

[vidreview]

VIDREV: "A.I. Filmmaking Is Not The Future. It's a Grift." by Patrick (H) Willems

[originally posted august 22 2023]

I worry that young aspiring filmmakers will see these [AI-generated film trailer parodies] and choose to use AI instead of actually going outside and putting their hands on a camera. That, to me, is just depressing as hell.

i have an on-again off-again relationship with the video essays of Patrick Willems. he's one of the very last video creators consistently carrying forward the internet-critic tradition of framing criticism with fictional elements as if the review is occurring in a story, and he's been unwavering in his commitment to the bit for damn near seven years now if not longer. unlike a fair few who've utilized this device in the past, however, Willems is himself an experienced filmmaker with a stable of consistent collaborators helping both behind and in front of the camera. this means his videos are, generally speaking, well-edited and pretty nice to look at. this experience also factors heavily into his criticism, leading to work that is consistently appreciative of and empathetic towards the innumerable material challenges faced during any given production. he is well-versed in film history and cares deeply about the art-- so he uses his criticism as an opportunity to play with cinema instead of simply commenting upon it. as a film school graduate who worked grip/electric for a few years and now makes video essays myself, i think that's pretty cool.

unfortunately, i sometimes find the finished work a little… lackluster. there are a couple videos i really, vehemently disagreed with (looking at you Rewriting The Matrix Sequels), but most of the time it just leaves me a little nonplussed. to be clear: his stuff is never bad, and i've actually found his recent work to be a marked improvement (that Bollywood video is the kind of thing i DREAM of making!), but overall i guess i'm maybe a little too familiar with the specific knowledge pool he's drawing from to get as much out of his stuff as i'd like. relatedly, while i admire his use of the fictional framing device and have nothing but enthusiasm for its continued use… i just, uh, also, kind of, don't really get a whole hell of a lot out of it when he does it most of the time. it's low budget amateur film-making, the quality of which is all over the place. but i am also someone who has spent a lot of time thinking about the video essay's capacity to fuse art with criticism, so i can be probably unfairly harsh when i feel it's not "properly" utilized. the fictional framing device at its best complements the criticism either literally or symbolically, and i find that in Willems' work they're often more distracting than complementary.

actually, before i explain why any of this commentary is relevant to the video at hand, i want to go on something of a tangent. one of my favorite single-video uses of the fictional framing narrative is Hbomberguy's Ctrl+Alt+Del essay, but my gold standard for its multi-video use is in RedLetterMedia's film review series Half In The Bag. the latter Plinkett Star Wars Prequel reviews arguably set the mold here (for better and worse), which RLM carried forward through at least the first two or three years of HITB. basically, every review is framed as two VCR repair guys not repairing VCRs and instead talking about the movies they just saw, then charging Mr Plinkett for that time as billable hours. i like their implementation because while the framing devices are in-character, the facade is completely dropped the instant they get into review territory. Willems is similar in this respect, which i think is good. too much fiction in the body of the criticism risks breaking the back of the whole essay.

in those first years, HITB did a pretty admirable job of using the fiction to comment on their subject. one of my favorite examples from this era is their review of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, where they spend the bulk of the review talking about the empty excesses of Michael Bay's frenetic, messy action setpieces, full of tonally inconsistent and sophomoric humor… only to end their review with an excessive, sophomoric, disgusting five minute setpiece where two adult men roll around in fake diarrhea and vomit all over themselves. you really just have to see it for yourself, it's a masterpiece of gross-out humor done for a good reason. as the years wore on they eased up on that fictional framing device, until covid happened and it suddenly came roaring back to great effect. they've eased up on it again since then, which i think is good. you can tell when these things are perfunctory. the fictional frame is at its best when it's as playful as it is purposeful.

okay, so what the fuck does any of this have to do with Patrick Willems' video on AI film-making? the short version is, it's got me rethinking how harshly i judge this specific variety of amateur film-making.

to summarize, Willems here is discussing viral AI-generated parody trailers of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Avatar in the style of Wes Anderson, released by a company called Curious Refuge. this one's clearly coming from a personal place for him, and not just because he made a parody trailer for Wes Anderson's X-Men back in 2015. he has a lot to say about every AI-booster's fabulous yarn about how they're "democratizing" art creation, specifically that it's bullshit nonsense. i've gotten in trouble for expressing similar sentiments on twitter (which i can't link to because my account was permanently suspended over """death threats""" and honestly? good fucking riddance), particularly the insistence that LLMs and image generation algorithms make art accessible to some vaguely defined disabled population. it's an offensive notion on a number of levels-- it relies on an ableist assumption that art-making is somehow inaccessible to disabled people, as if specialty tools do not exist, as if the paralyzed have never painted, as if the blind have never written books. it assumes that art is somehow a secreted and gatekept skill, and not the single most common human compulsion outside of our basest needs. but even if these were nonfactors, there is simply no amount of accessibility gained by these technologies that outweighs the industrial-scale plagiarism, automated labor-discipline, massive carbon footprint, and generalized annihilation of the entire internet's usability they represent. these tools are not without their legitimate uses, but until they are vehemently and inescapably regulated on an international scale there is simply no case to be made for them as they currently exist.

Democratizing storytelling is what affordable film-making equipment did. It's what, like, iPhones did, it's what the internet did. Those things gave people outside of traditional structures without huge budgets and resources, the tools to create films and a free platform with which to reach a wide audience. Arguing for AI film-making is saying that people no longer need talent or skill. By this logic, why would you learn to play the violin when you can use AI to create a fake violin recording of the piece of music that you want to play?

it's easy to be against this AI grey goo crap, and still fall into obvious rhetorical traps meant to cede ground to the worst people on planet earth. Patrick Willems deftly avoids these pitfalls and calls it exactly what it is: laziness and plagiarism. the examples he focuses on are especially egregious because the guy who made them didn't even come up with the idea himself-- he asked chatgpt to make him a list of videos that would go viral on youtube, then had some algorithms whip them up. he did no work. no work went into the creation of these things. their supposed "quality" is composted from the unattributed and uncompensated labor those models were trained on. it is a function of what my girlfriend has been referring to as "the age of the executive auteur," describing this moment in history where talentless executives want to remove artists from the art-making process for pure algorithmic profit that goes directly and solely into their own pockets. ghoulish CEOs and tech boosters who want to be revered the way artists often are, without having to put any of the work in, and without having to listen to criticism. they don't just want to own everything, they want to be loved for it too.

it reminds me of Maggie Mae Fish's video about off-grid youtubers, a crowd of independently wealthy failsons who like to crow about their amazing self-sufficient housing projects that they did all by themselves… except for the parts they didn't. she makes a fantastic observation in that video that i've found myself coming back to often-- that for rich people, paying someone else to do work for you is ontologically indistinguishable from doing that work yourself. the exchange of capital comes with an exchange of credit. it is the base assumption that underpins every capitalist boss's relationship with their workforce, and we see it on full display among the guileless herd animals of silicon valley. AI art is only and exclusively a mechanism for doing to art production what the ruling class have long since done to industrial labor, annihilating the worker's claim to its value, disintegrating the jobs held by artists to disempower and destabilize them so that they will accept worse pay for more work. it is precisely the kind of horseplay that's got damn near all of Hollywood on strike. the actual technology itself sucks, obviously, and it will always suck no matter how much better it gets. the quality of the end product is immaterial-- it's about wage theft, man. it's about greed and labor discipline. same old story, different day.

They love the idea of using AI for film-making because they don't actually have any talent or skill. For them, AI is like a cheat code that allows them to seem like actual artists without doing any actual work.

but let's get back to Willems. he does a great job deconstructing how these supposed parodies don't even really embody anything meaningful about Wes Anderson's style, pointing out that anyone who thinks they're emotionless, stoic, austere films clearly hasn't watched any. the dude makes comedies about broken people struggling to find meaning in their lives, for crying out loud! the popularity of this algorithmic trash is an extension of pop culture's long-standing illiteracy when it comes to Wes Anderson. something about a director with a distinctive visual style short circuits the brain when you haven't watched any movies made before the new millennium, i guess. how pretentious to be all having your own vision or whatever lol lmao

what really hits home for me, though, is how he compares these parodies to his own Wes Anderson's X-Men trailer. he talks about spending time watching all of Anderson's films to date in pre-production, taking notes not just on style but on substance, on theme. he treated the project as an exercise in understanding a film-maker's approach to their craft, then got his friends together and spent a couple weeks running around New York filming the thing. the resulting short film is, let's be real, kind of sloppy and cheap-looking. but so what? in the making-of for it, Willems talks about the specific logic of the composition of this X-Men team and the inspiration behind the costumes. here we catch a glimpse of the layers of labor which go into the production of even the simplest amateur work-- research, writing, self-analysis, location scouting, costume design, props, lighting, camera work, and on, and on, and on. sure, it looks cheap. but it was made by hand with love and care, it embraces what it is and doesn't try to be more. i speak from experience with these kinds of projects when i say, the finished work is almost superfluous, except as proof of labor. the real value comes from the experience of making the thing, and the lessons you learn along the way. collaborating on even the silliest and cheapest of short films can be a transcendent and life-changing experience.

Artistic influence is Wes Anderson taking his love of Hal Ashby, Francois Truffaut, and Jacques Demy, and processing them into a unique approach that expresses his own view of the world. AI art is just a machine for plagiarizing existing art.

this is sort of a perfect illustration of what AI art simply cannot replicate. under the proposed normal of those boosting a post-LLM world, there is no barrier between the having of an idea and the realization of that idea. it's a world where ideas guys finally get the credit they insist they've always deserved. what they fail to understand is that everything which makes art special comes in the phase between having the idea, and finishing the work that idea inspired. they refuse to acknowledge that art is work, and work takes time, and that people who draw and write didn't just wake up with this ability by magic divine endowment. they aren't "hoarding" their skill. if i'm a good writer today it's because i spent the last 14 years and change being a really bad one. all this talk of accessibility and democratization sounds suspiciously similar to the "telling me to read is ableist" line of thinking, where we equate the simple and undeniable fact that getting better at anything requires Hard Work with a pilfered and ill-defined language of oppression adopted by bad-faith actors to justify why they never have to change or learn or improve in any meaningful way, to justify why criticizing them for their actions is actually a sort of hate crime.

Willems ends this video teasing a second part focused exclusively on the idea of "content," the way so many artists and entertainers today frame the fruits of their labor as if it is no different from paste in a tube. like Willems, i've long despised "content" as a descriptor and think its widespread adoption is nothing short of corporate-fueled stochastic terrorism against any creator who dares to presume that what they make has any value without the platform. it's like i said in my video about Netflix in 2018-- the only thing platforms have to sell is the platform. the ongoing grey goo-ification of the internet has renewed my conviction that "content" is the enemy (or at least an enemy), because its success relies on a baseline assumption that all things are reducible to their predictable financial valuation. this moment is not just about copyright law or labor exploitation; it's a come to jesus moment for our entire culture, forcing us to confront the only logical endpoint of art under capitalism. it is time for us to decide for ourselves what we value.

AI is getting better all the time, but at its very best you will only ever get serviceable imitations of mediocre products.

with Matt Mercer playing Ganondorf in the american localization of Tears of the Kingdom, i decided to revisit the 2009 online miniseries There Will Be Brawl where he also plays Ganondorf. this series was incredibly ambitious, an attempt to make a dark and gritty film noir playing on the full-cast absurdity Super Smash Bros Brawl. i'm not going to pretend that it's better than it is, because i haven't been able to sit through the whole thing since it aired. it's very much of its time, and boy was that time problematic. but in the same way that films i once would've thought of as mid have skyrocketed up my rankings simply by virtue of having real sets and props and costumes and lights that are actually turned on, i find TWBB's excess of paper-mache props and dollar store wigs immensely charming in hindsight. it looks cheap, and the performances aren't always great, but so what? this is something that no algorithm could ever produce. it's a fanwork that took countless hours of labor, and while the finished project has no shortage of flaws, it may well have been an essential starting point for dozens of careers. it is an audacious idea that was executed to its conclusion, a feat that vanishingly few projects of its ilk have accomplished.

this kind of thing used to be youtube's bread and butter. i still quote The Legend of Neil all the time ("hello, uh- old man?" "you may call me… old man"), and my sense of humor is eternally linked to the forgotten pivot-to-video creations once hosted on The Escapist, Cracked, College Humor, and countless other long-dead platforms. these kinds of parodies fell out of fashion because they tend to be cheap and silly-looking. the rise of Marvel came at the apex of the 2000s hyperrealism fetish in genre media (Spielberg's Minority Report ruined science fiction cinema for at least twenty years), so everything had to be grounded and look photorealistic. we want immersion, man-- we don't want to see the zipper on the rubber monster suit. i think this is an unspoken motivation behind the AI hype cycle. what's the point of even attempting a genre parody if you can't make it look exactly as good as its Hollywood equivalent? we don't want to see a cardboard imitation, we want to see the perfect thing we can imagine in our heads brought flawlessly into reality!

i share Patrick Willems' sentiment that this is depressing as hell.

Willems shook something loose in my head with this video, because i came away from it completely rethinking my relationship to his fictional bridging material, and the generally low production value of most anything high-concept on youtube or other video platforms. there is something to be treasured in even the most slapdash of amateur films, when the work is done with love. there is inherent value to human endeavor in the attempt, even a failed one, to bring an idea into reality. it's the work, the experience, the memories, the chemistry of it all that matters. i want to live in and encourage a culture where people are allowed to make shit that sucks and not have it ruin their lives, so that they can keep making shit until they're good at it. art is not a machine, it is not algorithmic, it is not statistically predictable. like all things truly human, it is an act of defiance against entropy by a soul in transit.

anyway it's a good video, go give it a watch

[soul-controller]

The Pressures of Fame (Yahya’s POV)

This story is a collaboration with writing extraordinaire (and one of my best friends) @mrcavanaughtf​, so please head over to his blog and read his story that is focused on the alternate perspective of the body swap! This story has been planned for months, so I was quite happy to finally devote the time to write it with Henry (and finish it right in time for the release of Candyman). Here’s to more collaborations in the future!

Despite being an aspiring actor since 2012, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s career had only recently bloomed into a full-time career. While most careers have a slow rise to being a household name, Yahya’s career was more of a meteoric rise to the top. It first started in 2018 when he was cast as Black Manta in the live-action Aquaman film, but after that one major gig, more and more opportunities were popping up for the man.

Soon after this role, the 35-year-old  rising star attempted to diversify his acting portfolio with some roles in horror films like Us, science fiction shows like Black Mirror, and then even going into more dramatic roles such as The Trial of the Chicago 7, which ultimately got him award recognition. With the range of his work reaching more and more individuals with each role, it shouldn’t have been a shock that Yahya suddenly became both a respected actor and a sudden heartthrob upon playing Dr. Manhattan in the limited series adaptation of Watchmen. From the moment he took the artistic leap and did full-frontal nudity for the character, everyone suddenly found the name Yahya popping up in their watercooler chats and trending on social media accounts. This conversation only continued longer as award season came and went, giving Yahya an Emmy for the role.

While Yahya was certainly excited to see his acting becoming a valid career shift from his former life as an architect, he couldn’t help but wish for a break from his high-profile status. Of course, he was eternally grateful to be living a lavish lifestyle in Hollywood, but he kind of missed the good old days of being able to walk down the street without being hounded by paparazzi and adoring fans desperate for autographs.

Even though he so desperately wanted those desires to be a reality, he knew it wasn’t going to be possible anytime soon since he was returning for the Aquaman sequel while also joining iconic franchises such as The Matrix and the new reboot of Candyman. While most of those projects weren’t coming for the next couple years, the release of the new Candyman film was nearing its red carpet premiere. Given the amount of press he was required to do as the film’s leading man along with the fear of the critics reviewing his performance, it was safe to say that Yahya had truly wished that he would be able to escape from the media circus that he found himself trapped in.

Seeking refuge in his impressive house in the hills of California, Yahya desperately tried to find things to keep his mind off of the nerve-wracking week coming up. Although his schedule seemed as though it was constantly booked, Yahya knew that there was something he could do to both destress and prepare for his next role. Checking his calendar, he realized that production on the newest Aquaman film was coming up, so he decided it would be a good idea to get back into intense workouts to help build some muscles before cameras started rolling.

After having the ability to have such high-profile gigs, Yahya had accumulated an impressive amount of wealth that had allowed him to get a house that not only had a home gym, but also a personal chef too. As his sweat-soaked body moved back into his kitchen, he was able to order an impressive dinner that was immediately ready upon finishing up a shower. Checking himself out in the mirror, he was very impressed with the physique he saw before him. Not one to have a big ego, Yahya had to give props to his personal chef and his part-time trainer that helped him maintain this physique, but he still felt mostly responsible for what he was looking at. His anxiety about being on the big screen had left him constantly focusing on improving his appearance by doing intense workouts to build up his physique. These workouts proved to be beneficial to the actor, as he was able to curb his anxiety and find contentment as he noticed himself filling out his clothing just a little bit better with each role.

By the time it hit 9 PM, Yahya was completely exhausted from his workouts. Add in the fullness he felt from his requested meal, it didn’t take much until the buff actor had quickly fallen into a deep slumber. In fact, it was such a deep slumber that the hunk was completely unaware as the fates worked to make his wish of a more lowkey life a reality. Luckily for Yahya, there was a man in Chicago that was aspiring to have a life similar to the one that he was so willingly offering up!

As the singsong of morning birds bring Yahya back into consciousness, the man begins to do his usual morning routine of rubbing his eyes and stretching his limbs. However, instead of feeling clean and ready for the day, Yahya quickly discovered that his body was feeling quite sluggish and his temple throbbed from an intense migraine. “Ughhhh…” the man moaned, grasping onto his head and closing his eyes while trying to figure out what had happened to him the night prior. Was his workout the night prior so intense and overexerting that his entire body was left sore and heavy with a terrible migraine?  But after rubbing his eyes and sitting up in his bed, the man is shocked by what he sees. Somehow, his bedroom looked entirely different than how it usually did, still quite spacious but now entirely decorated differently. “Wha-?” the man groans, attempting to clear his throat as he hears a lighter and higher pitched vocal coming from his mouth. 

With his eyes darting downward towards his hands as they pull away the sheets and find an explanation for this mixup, the man cries out in shock as his darker skin has been completely desaturated until it’s now a lighter white shade. “The FUCK?!?!” Yahya cried out, his new body quickly jumping to its feet and out of the bed. Staring at his new complexion, he sees that his body still retains his impressive musculature. Somehow, it seems that he had changed races overnight and been put into someone else’s apartment!

Desperate for answers, the man quickly rushes through the foreign apartment in search of a bathroom. Upon finding one, he slammed the door shut and flicked on the light to see what was going on. However, as the light showcased the new reflection he possessed, it was clear to Yahya that this wasn’t just some sort of race change. His entire body had been changed, with his facial features shifted and his black hair being switched into a simple dark brown hairstyle. “How is this possible?” Yahya said with a shocked exhale, his hands naturally moving around to explore his new body.

As he continued to feel around in utter disbelief, his facial expressions soon shifted into a look of anger. He was proud of the fact that he was a successful voice for the African American community as a prominent rising black actor in Hollywood, so to see it just randomly washed away and turned him into the walking stereotype of most models-turned-actors was completely infuriating. Standing in the bathroom while intensely staring into the mirror, he tried to figure out how this happened. He thought back to his inner thoughts from the previous day and the way that he had wished to take a break from the life of a successful actor. But there’s no way that could be true, body swaps weren’t a real thing, it was just some sort of plot device to create hilarious screwball comedy films! 

But as he continued to stare at the new reflection he saw in the mirror, it seemed like it was the only logical explanation (as much as he couldn’t believe it). Now curious about who exactly he had become, the newly race-swapped man rushed out of the bathroom and began to search around the apartment. To his surprise, the guy who he had swapped with had fairly similar taste to him. With the modern approach to decorating and style of art pieces that extended all the way from the bedroom to the living room and kitchen, it was clear that this was a guy who also had a fairly lucrative career and a well-maintained bank account.

Upon returning to the bedroom and rummaging through the drawers of the man’s bedside tables, Yahya was finally able to grab onto a wallet and desperately flip through all of the cards until he stumbled upon the man’s ID. It seemed upon inspecting the card that Yahya had now found himself in the body of Sam Cushing, a 29 year old man with blue eyes that stands around 5’8”. Given that the ID also stated that the man lives in Chicago, Yahya couldn’t help but loudly curse as he read the information and realized that he couldn’t just go and find his real body with ease. “Are you shitting me!” he loudly exclaimed, throwing the wallet across the room as the anger continued to swell up within him.

Desperate for more information about who he was now, Yahya grabbed the laptop that was charging on the man’s dresser and sat himself down on the edge of the bed. Luckily for Yahya, the laptop didn’t require any password, so he was able to enter the laptop with ease and immediately notice that the Instagram homepage was the tab left open on the man’s browser. Scrolling through the feed, all that Yahya could see was a sea of buff men showcasing their muscles and either promoting their OnlyFans or some sort of personal training program. 

Curious to learn more about the man itself rather than who he follows, Yahya clicked on Sam’s profile and watched as a sea of photos appeared. Clicking through them, he noticed that much like those other guys that Sam followed, he himself followed the same formula. There were shirtless photos that were a clear promotional tactic for some sort of endorsement he received along with gym selfies and videos that showcased several workouts that he suggested to his followers. Speaking of followers, as he checked the man’s statistics, he couldn’t help but be impressed. Somehow, the man had more followers than the actor himself, as he was around 640k while Yahyah’s IG account was nearly at 250k. Of course, as he continued to scroll through Sam’s content, Yahya recognized that a lot of the follower account surely must have been from the horny men and women that were drawn to the man’s near-constant thirst traps. 

Remembering the fact that he had an Instagram account open for DMs, Yahya wasted no time going to his old account and typing out a message saying that he’s the real Yahya trapped in Sam’s body and that they needed to find a way to fix this as soon as possible. Clicking send, he breathed a sigh of relief as he prayed that the influencer-turned-actor would be as equally shocked and desperate to return to their old bodies.

Returning back to Sam’s account and beginning a deeper dive into the man’s older posts, Yahya’s look of intrigue turns into a look of disgust as he comes across one post. Looking at it, he couldn’t believe it: he was in the body of a gay man! Back in his old body, he had no problem being around members of the LGBT+ community, but the thought of now being part of it himself was not of interest for him. Due to his upbringing, Yahya’s mind was influenced to the point where he didn’t agree with the “lifestyle”. However, for the sake of not rocking the boat or somehow getting cancelled, he vowed to keep his comments to himself as his career continued to skyrocket. But now that he was facing the reality that he would be in the body of a gay man for the foreseeable future, all of those repressed statements of hate and vitrol were bubbling up to the surface to essentially turn the new Sam into a stereotypical self-loathing gay.

“There’s no fucking way that I’m going to fuck around with a man!” Yahya angrily growled, which lacked any sort of intensity or grit due to the lighter and higher voice he now possessed. With his mind determined to keep him on the straight and narrow path of heterosexuality, he brushed past the post and attempted to learn more about the other aspects of Sam’s life.

Ironically, just as Yahya finished his rant about the sexuality of his new body, a direct message dinged on the app from someone that Sam was seemingly following. With a dangerous curiosity, the man clicked on the push notification and was brought to the message. In a scream of absolute terror, Yahya immediately loosened the grip and allowed the phone to tumble onto the floor as he caught sight of a nude from the mystery message man. His eyes were wide and his face soured into a look of disappointment as he couldn’t help erase the image of the man’s curvy and perky ass and that thick long co-. Stopping himself before he could even finish that thought, it didn’t matter in the slightest as the image remained seared into his brain. In response, there was an immediate tightening in the crotch of his shorts that truly solidified the fact that he was now gay while in this body. 

“Fuck… no, this can’t be happening…” Yahya cried out as his dick reached total hardness and slightly curved upward against the baggy pair of shorts. Peering below the waistband of the shorts, Yahya stared at the white cock he now possessed and compared it to his former genitalia. Staring back at him was a below-average dick, especially in comparison to the long and girthy one that Yahya had spent most of his adult life with. Finding some slight hilarity in the situation, he attempted to gawk at his new equipment in hopes that it would allow himself to forget about the nude he received. Wanting a closer look, Yahya undid the knot and watched as the shorts dropped onto the ground and revealed Sam’s body in its full-frontal glory. 

Moving his right hand to his genitalia, Yahya wrapped his hand around the shaft and began to slowly move his hand up and down. To his surprise, his dick is incredibly sensitive, beginning to severely throb with each passing movement of his hand. Tilting his head back, the amount of pleasure he felt was immeasurable and demanded release as soon as possible. Closing his eyes, he used his mind to help visualize a scene that he had always imagined during his steamy sex dreams. In a candle-lit bedroom, he pulled a beautiful curvy woman onto the bed and began to run his hands along every feminine section of her body. While visualizing the woman, he licked his lips and allowed the dream to progress further. Returning his mind to the scene, the woman was now undressed and completely nude on the designer sheets of his real bedroom. With incredibly eagerness as the woman calls the name Yahya, he sees himself pushing into the woman’s vagina and moaning as it perfectly fits his girthy cock.

“Oh fuck…” Yahya said out loud as the dream progressed further into passionate love-making as his thrusts grew deeper and his mouth only uttered guttural grunts. But as he continued to stroke himself off, the once-throbbing member was just perpetually stuck at a complete firmness due to the repetitive nature of his strokes. While his dick was clearly eager to ejaculate, it was unwilling to finish the task due to this body’s disinterest in women. Back in his mind, he tilts his head back and hears as the woman’s groans begin to grow huskier and huskier with each forceful thrust. In confusion, he opens his eyes and looks down, gasping as the gorgeous woman had been replaced with a buff muscular man. “What the fuck…” both dream and reality Yahya stated, absolutely in shock at how his dreams had so extremely shifted. 

Despite the confusion, his grip on his dick remained iron-clad as he visualized the man getting up off the bed and commanding him to sit on the bed. While the buff muscular black man that he once was would never allow this to happen, the dream-version of himself relented and assumed the position as the man appeared behind him. As the man began to push into dream-Yahya’s muscular ass, his attention returned to reality as his dick immediately began to reach climax and shoot out a thick stream of cum out and onto the wooden floors in the living room. “Holy shit!” he moaned, his firm stance against homosexuality not mattering anymore as he felt such intense waves of pleasure coursing through his body. 

Just as sudden as it occurred for the man, he quickly finished his strokes and attempted to catch his breath while staring at the mess he made. Immediately seeing the aftermath of his actions, Yahya grew disgusted and eager to clean away the evidence of his disgusting new temptation. After grabbing some paper towels and cleaning himself off and wiping the floor, Yahya quickly rushed into the shower and began to clean himself up from the odorous mix of sweat and cum that coated his now-paler skin.

Upon drying himself off and throwing on a simple black t-shirt and a pair of athletic shorts, Yahya tried his best to ignore his jerk-off session by exploring the new apartment he found himself in. Given that the initial shock of the body swap had worn off, Yahya was eager to explore while not being in an extreme rush this time. To his surprise, he was incredibly impressed by what he saw. However, after staring at one too many interpretive art pieces, the after-effects of this body’s hangover grew worse as they absolutely ravaged Yahya and had him eager for some relief.

Following a successful brew of coffee and the downing of some Tylenol, Yahya took the moment to enjoy the gorgeous view that overlooked the kitchen. He had never been to Chicago before, so to see the gorgeous skyline with the early morning sun cresting over the tallest buildings was truly special for the man. Watching as birds soared by and the busy life of the city’s inhabitants occurred several stories below him, he felt strangely relaxed and at peace.

Quickly chugging a few cups of coffee while continuing to admire the view, the newly calmed man made his way into the living room after heading into the bedroom and bringing out Sam’s laptop. Falling into the deep-cushioned couch, Yahya began to spend the time scrolling through more of Sam’s social media accounts to learn more about the body he now found himself in. Before exiting Instagram though, he snuck a glance at his DMs and frowned upon not seeing a response yet to his message towards his former Instagram account. 

Returning to the homepage, he was instantly greeted to more images and videos of accounts Sam followed. While it was clear that Sam had a type for either twinky men or extremely buff and intimidating guys, there was surprisingly a large amount of diversity into the guys that he followed. Much to Yahya’s dismay, there was no diversity in terms of the hardness of Sam’s cock though, as it remained completely rock hard and throbbing once again at just the sight of a few men. “Jesus, this dude’s a horny motherfucker…” Yahya groaned, quickly exiting the site and moving towards YouTube.

When the webpage shifted into the homepage of YouTube, it wasn’t surprising anymore to Yahya as he caught sight of all the recommended videos on his account: all of them involving either men working out or LGBT-related content. Ignoring that to prevent further shame for these new desires he’s gaining, he pulled up Sam’s profile and saw that he was a fairly popular guy. The fitness influencer had over 180,000 followers and his videos all got a good amount of views. As Yahya began to watch them all, he spent the next several hours eager to learn more about the new body and life he now had. The man clearly had a nice, charming, and approachable quality based on his high follower count, but Yahya himself was impressed to see that these personality traits also were clearly showcased as Sam discussed things about himself like his dreams, fears, and goals in life.

By the time Yahya had finished scrolling through all of that content, the morning sun had been shifted into a fading sunset. As he shut the laptop screen and got up from the couch, Yahya felt surprisingly calm still. With the hangover and migraines fading away and him finally being able to learn more about who he is now, Yahya felt rather content as he focused hard on remaining calm until he got a response from his old body. 

Unfortunately though, as more and more time passed by without an answer, the man soon became irritable and anxious as that cheerful façade was quickly crumbling. Plus, with the slight cabin fever of being trapped in an apartment he’s not used to yet, it’s no surprise Yahya grew eager to escape. Scrolling through Sam’s Instagram posts, he found a photo of him hanging out with some friends at a bar, which was geo-tagged to give him a location. Thinking that some alcohol was necessary for this shocking swap while also hoping it could calm him down, Yahya quickly called a taxi. Waiting for it to arrive, Yahya put on a dark blue t-shirt and attempted to style his hair. Getting an alert from his phone that the car had arrived, Yahya locked up the apartment and departed.

Walking into the bar, Yahya looked around and rolled his eyes at the place he had traveled to. Apparently he didn’t look too deeply into the photo, as he was annoyed (yet not surprised) to find that the bar that Sam apparently frequented was a popular gay bar. With the blaring soundtrack of pop music ringing through his ears, Yahya made his way towards the bar and ordered a drink. It wasn’t a surprise when the bartender’s face contorted into a look of shock as Yahya gave his usual order of a name-brand beer. This place clearly didn’t seem to be a prime spot for beer-drinkers, but to his surprise and relief, the bartender quickly returned with a cold brew in hand. Taking a sip of it, he couldn’t help but feel that it tasted slightly off than how he originally remembered. With each additional sip, Yahya grimaced as he found himself hating the drink even more. Realizing that this body clearly didn’t enjoy beer like Yahya’s body did, the man shockingly gave up on that dream and allowed Sam’s body to help him pick a better drink. He didn’t enjoy the concept of drinking cocktails or wine, but he needed to be drunk immediately, so there were few alternatives available for the man. Looking back at the drink menu, he waved the bartender over and ordered a fruity cocktail that had piqued his new body’s interest. 

While waiting for it to arrive, Yahya’s attention moved beyond the bar and towards the building’s adjoined dancefloor that was packed to the brim.  While staring at the men who were laughing and singing along to the music playing, Yahya felt a strange excitement building within him. These guys were seeming to have a lot of fun, so if they were living such a terrible lifestyle, it just didn’t make sense for them to seem so joyful. Continuing to watch the men dance around and press their asses into crotches, Yahya immediately began to find himself growing hard as he instinctively tapped his foot against the barstool in time with the music. 

Just as the bartender returned with his cocktail order, Yahya watched as a man approached him. While not as buff as his old body or even his new one, the actor-turned-influencer stared and noted the attractive man walking up to the empty barstool next to him. With each step closer, Yahya couldn’t help but admire the man’s impressive face that seemed befitting of a model. His facial hair was impressively trimmed, fully displayed by the shifting colors extending beyond the dancefloor. Taking a sip of the drink as the man was within arm’s reach, Yahya smiled as he tasted the rich fruity flavor that was much easier on his new palate. 

As he moved his body away from the dancefloor and continued to stare at the man, their eyes met and the other man smiled at him. This action lingered for a few seconds before the man got the attention of the bartender and gave an order identical to the one Yahya was currently drinking. Nervous about his newfound attraction and still slightly uncomfortable, Yahya initiated a conversation by awkwardly saying “I got the same thing, it’s a great drink!”, which caused himself to internally cringe at his lack of game. In his old body, Yahya was able to charm the panties off of any woman he wanted, but now that the attraction was devoted to men, he was just completely flustered. 

Luckily, the man didn’t reject Yahya’s advances, instead responding to him and asking his own questions. As the conversation continued further, the chat only grew more intimate with each passing sentence. Given the booming music drowning out their voices, the two men had to get closer to each other to the point where they were essentially talking directly into each other’s ears. With the man, who introduced himself as Trevor, so close to him, Yahya smelled the alluring scent of Trevor’s cologne and the modest boner in his pants was at full mast and helping push him further into his lust for the man. 

After sharing a few drinks and continuing to learn about Trevor and his career as an aspiring businessman, the two began to get looser with each other to the point where Yahya actually asked the man if he wanted to go out and dance. To his surprise, Trevor agreed and grabbed onto Yahya’s hand as he pulled them from the bar and into the sweaty sea of men. While initially slightly awkward with his movements, Trevor’s encouragement pushed Yahya to the point of fully letting loose and dancing as best he could given the limited space. With his inhibitions falling away due to being comfortably drunk, it only took a few more songs until Yahya was rubbing his ass against Trevor’s tight and throbbing crotch and feeling incredibly turned on.

While Yahya continued to drink and let loose, his intentions were growing increasingly obvious with each drink order. Out of nowhere, the new Sam suddenly asked Trevor if he wanted to come home with him. When the man agreed and smiled, they grabbed hands and made their way out of the bar after ordering another taxi back to his place. Before they could even cross the threshold of his front door though, the two men were passionately making out and pulling at each other’s clothes. Sam’s fitness strength allowed Yahya to easily get Trevor loose from his business attire while Trevor was somehow able to peel Yahya out of the sweat-soaked clothes that were practically glued to his muscular physique. 

Their makeout session soon pushed further into the apartment until ultimately leading into Sam’s bedroom. With both of them falling into the bed and continuing to invade the other’s mouth with their tongues, Yahya was fully embracing his new sexuality and wanting to push it to the absolute max. So, by the time they were both nude and trying to decide the roles for sex, Yahya was surprisingly intrigued and turned on by the concept of bottoming for the hunky man. So, as Trevor went into Sam’s bathroom to go grab a condom, Yahya’s body was buzzing with intrigue and incredible lust. Upon returtning and beginning to push into Yahya’s perky new ass, the once-exclusive dominant heterosexual man allowed his identity to become overwritten with his new hungry bottom nature. Hearing both of the men grunting as Trevor continued to thrust into him, Yahya’s dick was rock hard and eager for Trevor to get him off once he finished shooting his load into him. “Maybe this won’t be so bad...” Yahya thought to himself as he laid in bed with the equally worn-out Trevor before quickly falling asleep.

* * * * *

In the week since the swap, Yahya’s attempts to reach out to his former body and figure out the solutions to their crazy swap were proven to be futile.  To Yahya’s annoyance, the real Sam stated that he had no idea how the swap occurred either. That was almost the entirety of the new Yahya’s messages about the body swap. From that point on, Sam was almost exclusively complaining about the looming fear of paparazzi following him everywhere. While he hadn’t expected the two of them to become best friends or anything, Yahya did wish to form some sort of connection with his body swap partner. Growing increasingly worried about losing his body and getting blocked, Yahya kept quiet though and forced himself to hear long detailed stories from Sam about how he was doing in the body of the actor. Upon hearing the risky and crazy behaviors that Sam was displaying, Yahya was absolutely stunned that none of it had gone rival.

As a result of these worrisome stories, Yahya tried to give advice on how to handle paparazzi, such as suggesting side entrances along with other celebrity tricks to avoid being caught in camera flashes. Sam stated that he would try to implement those tricks, but his attempts seemed to be constantly foiled. Yahya soon found himself constantly furious over the next couple days as he watched his former body beginning to constantly trend on Twitter or be talked about in those gossip magazines that Yahya would see on the corner shops near his apartment building. Based on the continued daily rants Sam had in relation to the amount of press he had to do for the new Candyman film, it was clear that Sam was hating the new life he had been given randomly and the trials and tribulations that were associated with the film industry. He hated to say it, but Yahya was honestly getting annoyed with the man’s constant ranting about his life. To be brutally honest, it made Yahya actually somewhat relieved to have been able to escape that lifestyle.

Because of this, Yahya felt kind of guilty for just how much he had enjoyed these past couple days. He still wasn’t sure how exactly the swap happened, but after a week of being Sam, the man had to admit that he was relieved that it did happen. Sure, it took Yahya a day or two to adjust to his new life, but by the time the third day as Sam rolled around, Yahya was adapting with ease. In fact, the man was embracing the profession of an influencer to the point where he had been able to sign multiple endorsement deals that Sam had just tossed aside for some reason. With a significant paycheck being given to him for each endorsement, Yahya was relieved to find himself raking in cash in a career that he was quite literally thrown into.

Along with these sponsorship deals, the past week of Instagram posts from Sam’s account showcased a newfound focus on Sam’s close-knit friend group. Given he was looking for some sort of connection to help ground him into this new life, it made sense for Yahya to reach out to Sam’s friends and attempt to learn more about them and also his new self as well. In the past couple days, they had had a ball going out to that local bar and taking photos with their fruity cocktails while promoting the gay lifestyle that Yahya had so easily adapted to since that first night at the bar.

Speaking of that first night at the bar, Yahya’s drunken romance with Trevor did not end upon sobering up the next morning. In fact, it was growing more and more into a full-blown relationship as they’ve gone out on several dates and had a lot of fun in the bedroom afterwards. There was a healthy trust between them as they tried to push the other to try new things, as Trevor tried to get Yahya into intriguing abstract documentaries while Yahya was able to get Trevor to become his workout buddy. Even though Trevor wasn’t the biggest jock of all, Yahya was happy to see that Trevor was actually beginning to enjoy those sweaty exercises he did with his possible boyfriend. Plus, the concept of hot steamy shower sex in the empty locker room was enough to get Trevor to persevere through the intense routines that Yahya had been creating and sharing with his followers.

As the eighth day of being Sam began, Yahya was shocked to realize that he was fully willing to let go of his past life and embrace the new identity he had been given. This life was a joy to wake up to every morning, so why would he want to give it up and go back to something worse? Things were finally looking up for the new Sam Cushing after years of trying to make his career happen. Life was good, but he knew it was going to become better in time!

While staying up all day perfecting his new fitness routine and preparing to record a new YouTube video, Sam’s phone went off as he got a Google alert about his old name. Pulling it up, he was in awe as he read the article about the Candyman premiere being a complete disaster as the leading man fled the city and was unable to be found. Biting his lip, Sam began to ponder the concept of reaching out to Yahya to see how he was dealing. Thinking it over though, he realized that there was no way that he could help him. Now, he was just a fitness influencer in Chicago, so it wasn’t like he could rush over and help out his former body. His previous advice only fell on deaf ears, so what’s the point of wasting the time and energy on somebody that doesn’t listen? They were both grown-ups, so if Yahya could deal with and accept his new life as Sam, then the new Yahya could do the same thing!

Closing his phone, Sam grabbed onto his camera and began to make his way into the office that had been converted into a home gym. Connecting the camera onto the tripod, he began to check all of the camera settings to verify that it was ready to film his fast-paced routine. Upon verifying, Sam began a timer and quickly moved into position. After verifying that he was in frame, he flashed a wide smile as the camera counted down. 3… 2… 1…

“Hey guys, it’s Sam here with a new video! Today, we’re going to work solely on some intense exercises to build up some arm muscle...”

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[irradiate-space]

The Mardi Bash, 1984, and SAC_2045's Sustainable War: How do we achieve peace if the Mardi bash' is right?

I'm going to put most of this under a spoiler, but this is inspired by a tag I once saw from @isaacsapphire: "the mardi bash was right". It stuck with me because it's an apt condensation of Great Powers diplomacy-via-proxy-war, and because I've seen more fiction recently that deals with the perpetual wars.

Spoilers follow for Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045's second season, and basically the entire Terra Ignota series starting with Too Like The Lightning. Spoilers also for the endgame of Worth The Candle and the early settings of The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect and The Matrix.

The Mardi bash was a think tank whose working theory of war was that the longer a period of peace there was, the more horrible the next war would be. They spent their lives to answer the question: How do you prevent the next war from being apocalyptic?

I. A list of solutions in Minecraft

SAC_2045's second season reveals that the first season's "sustainable war" — a Great Powers conflict managed by AIs and fought primarily with robots and mercenaries, to relieve international conflict via the minimum of violence and destruction necessary — was created and orchestrated by an American Empire AI called 19A4. 19A4's tasking included the requirement for world peace and a benefit to all humanity, but the American Empire should benefit the most.

Terra Ignota's OS Conspiracy is revealed to be a hereditary band of assassins who relieve inter-Hive (read: international) conflict via deaths chosen by human computers who can find the one person on Earth whose death will resolve the conflict. Their choice of whom to kill is subject to practical and political restrictions: only someone whose death will have a significant impact, only an unpromising person (no members of OS' own Humanist Hive), no one whose death will expose OS, no member of the European or Mitsubishi Hives.

Also in Terra Ignota, the Mardi bash' is a family group like OS, but rather than maintain peace in our time via assassination, they studied war. They concluded that long periods without armed conflict mean that technology advances beyond the knowledge of weaponization, and when a war occurs after a long period of peace, not-yet-weaponized technology is quickly weaponized in unanticipated ways. Too long without war, and we may end up with humanity-extincting weapons being used because no one knew that they would cause extinction. Therefore, says the Mardi bash', let us have a small war. A war which is not too extreme. A minimal number of deaths, to prevent more deaths.

OS says, let us kill this one person, so that interhive conflict does not result in a greater number of deaths.

JEDD MASON says: if we are to have war in the future, let the laws of war be the same as the laws of daily life, which means no killing now that we have nonlethal methods of making war.

19A4 and the sustainable-war AIs say, let us fight over here, because these deaths and destruction will maintain the greater international peace.

Did the wars in 1984 actually happen? Or was the description of the distant wars enough to relieve the population's need for war?

The culmination of these different technologies is the doublethink of The N in SAC_2045: Each person lives in a bubble which makes them content, as they carry on in a shared physical reality with every other person on the planet. This solution was set up by Takashi Shimamura, a high school student and programming prodigy interested in perceived-reality hacks.

Now for three other simulated-reality peaces:

The final Heaven of Worth The Candle, where a benevolent god helps you do whatever makes you happy. The world runs on narrativium now; what the new god says is what happens.

The initial setting of The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect, where a Three-Laws god helps you do whatever makes you happy. Your reality is implemented through physics hacks and the power of distributed computing.

The Matrix and The Animatrix use that same simulated reality, but put humanity in pods to support it. Their Earth is trashed by apocalyptic wars; the pod people provide the compute while the pods provide them life.

These benevolent gods tend to partition people off in their own realities, physically disjoint from the fantasies of other people. Not so for The N: their benevolent implementor has no godlike abilities. The N's doublethink software can only manipulate the Cartesian theatres of people who use cyberbrains. Their different perceived realities still overlap physically with each other and with the offline, so the doublethink has to make sure that no N actually takes action which destroys the world. Sisyphus' body rolls the rock up the hill each day; we must imagine his cyberbrain is happy.

II. Solutions in Minecraft

If the Mardi' bash is right, if a longer war makes the next war more terrible, how do we prevent that war's terrors? Indeed, how do we prevent the terrors not just of any particular future war, but of all wars?

A summary of answers:

OS puts off the war indefinitely, one murder at a time.

The Mardi' bash plans a small, safe war to interrupt the current happy peace, so that there may still be people left after the war scheduled for 300 years in the future, but they do not prevent the war.

JEDDM allows that there might be war, so let's make illegal for war to be lethal.

19A4 and the American Empire fold the upcoming war into the eternal, forever, small-scale conflicts called "sustainable war", which is more about stroking the AE's military-industrial complex' collective dick than it is about uplifting the rest of the world.

1984 tells people about all the successes they're having in the big war, but doesn't actually make their lives better or pleasant.

The Matrix gives people a happy life, so long as they're in pods hooked on to 1990s Simulator: Beige Edition.

Takashi Shumamura set up the software which links The N together, sharing a physical reality but perceiving whatever makes them happy.

Prime Intellect and the ascended Juniper Smith solve the problem by ending the world, but they're benevolent omnipotent gods, so they can do that.

III. But we're not in Minecraft, are we?

We don't seem to have a benevolent omnipotent god handy, and we don't have cyberbrains. We don't even have reliably-nonlethal weapons. Is the best solution to the problem of war the current status quo (ignoring Ukraine) of small lethal conflicts, or is there a better way to solve the tensions which give rise to war?

1984 proposed state control of the media environment in order to deceive a populace into a state of complacency. Would the information environment of 1984 work if people self-sorted into their desired filter bubbles, not just in the Internet, but in meatspace as well?

IIII. A preview of coming attractions

It looks like speculative fiction has caught up with the war in Afghanistan. But now I'm wondering about filter-bubbles, and the things which pop them. The neo-Victorians' media environment in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age and the social filters in Charles Stross' Accelerando come to mind as examples of the genre, but

What other stories address the effects of living in your own media environment?

How would the third season of SAC_2045 play out? I have my thoughts, but I'd like to know yours.

[variousqueerthings]

Daniel LaRusso: A Queer Feminine Fairytale Analysis Part 1 of 3

Disclaimers and trigger warnings: 

1. These fairytales are European, although there’s often overlap in themes globally. I know European fairytales better, which is essentially the reason I’m not going to branch out too far. I opted to also stick to Western movies so as not to narrow things down, but also in particular “waves hand towards all of Ghibli” amongst many others. There’s a reason the guys in Ghibli are so gender.

2. TW for discussions of rape culture and rape fantasies

EDIT: FUCK I’M A GOBLIN CHILD! FORGOT TO PUT A MASSIVE MASSIVE THANK YOU TO @mimsyaf​ WHO HAS BEEN THE NICEST, KINDEST EDITOR ON THESE THOUGHTS AND CONTRIBUTED SO MUCH TO THEM AND GENERALLY IS A WONDERFUL PERSON!

Part 2

Part 3

1. Introduction

I recently wrote a little thing, which was about Daniel as a fairytale protagonist – specifically one that goes through some of the kinds of transformations that are often associated with female protagonists of fairytales.

I used quotes from Red Riding Hood, Labyrinth, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and Dracula, which, as an aside – the overlap between fairytales, horror, and fantasy and the ways each of those genres delve into very deep, basic questions of humanity and the world is something that will always make me feral. I will be generally sticking with fairytales though. Also I am very excited about some of those Labyrinth concepts going around!

I’m going to use “feminine” and “masculine” in both gendered (as in relating specifically to people) and non-gendered (as in relating to codes) ways throughout this, depending on context.

To be binary for a moment, because sample-sizes of other genders are low, women are usually able to fall into either feminine or masculine arcs, although sometimes the masculine-coded woman can become a “not like the other girls” stereotype and the feminine-coded woman a shallow cliché – in both cases they’re also under more scrutiny and judgement, so it’s always worth asking “is this character not working for me because of the writing or because I have ingrained biases? (Both?)”

Men don’t often get feminine-coded arcs. Because. Probably a mix of biases and bigotry. But there are some that seem to have slipped beneath the shuttered fence of “Sufficient Narrative Testosterone,” and Daniel LaRusso is one of them.

2. Some Dude Comparisons (Men Doing Manly Action-Hero Things like being trans symbolism and loving your girlfriend… seriously those things are hella manly, I wish we saw more of that onscreen…)

a. Neo

Much like Neo The Matrix, whose journey is filled with transgender subtext and specifically and repeatedly references Alice In Wonderland, Daniel doesn’t go through quite the kind of hero's journey usually associated with Yer Standard Male Hero, especially the type found in the 80s/90s.

Neo is my favourite comparison, because of the purposefulness of his journey as a trans narrative and the use of Alice. But I’m sure there are other non-traditional male heroes out there (but are they trans tho? Please tell me, I want trans action heroes).

Neo “passes” as a socially acceptable man, but online goes by a different name - the name he prefers to be known by - feels like there’s something inherently wrong about the world around him and his body’s place in that society, and then gets taken down the rabbit hole (with his consent, although without really “knowing” what he’s consenting to) to discover that it’s the world that’s wrong - not him. And by accessing this truth he can literally make his body do and become whatever he wants it to.

Yay. (The message of the Matrix is actually that trans people can fly).

Neo is – kind of like Daniel – a strange character for Very Cis Straight Guys to imprint on. He spends most of the first movie unsure about what’s going on, out of his depth, and often getting beaten up. He is compared to Alice several times and at the end he dies. He loses. He has to be woken up with true love’s kiss, in a fun little Sleeping Beauty/Snow White twist. Yes, after that he can fly, but before that he’s getting dead-named and hate-crimed by The Most Obvious Stand-In For Normativity, Agent Smith, and being carried by people far more physically capable than he is (people who also fall outside of normative existence).

Trinity and Neo in The Matrix. The fact that a lot of the time neither of them is gendered is something. Literally brought to life by true love’s kiss.

I’m not about to argue that Daniel LaRusso is purposefully written along these same thought processes, so much as the luck of the way he was written, cast, directed, acted, and costumed all came together in the right way. And this is even more obvious when compared to That Other Underdog Fite Movie That Was By The Same Director as Karate Kid.

b. Rocky

The interesting thing about Rocky is that he is (despite being a male action icon) also not written as a Traditionally Masculine person. Large portions of Rocky – and subsequent Rocky films – are his fear and insecurity about fighting vs his inability to apply his skills to another piece of work and wanting to do right by his girlfriend (and future wife), Adrian. The fighting is most often pushed onto him against his will.

Much like in Karate Kid there is barely any fighting in Rocky I. Most of it is dedicated to how much Rocky loves Adrian and the two of them getting together. The fight is – again like in Karate Kid – a necessary violence, rather than a glorified one (within the plot, obviously watching any movie like this is also partly about the badassness of some element of the violence – whether stamina or the crane kick, it’s all about not backing down against a more powerful opponent).

Rocky is played by Sylvester Stallone. He’s tough, he’s already a fighter (albeit in the movie not a great one yet), he’s taking the fight for cash – so although he’s also soft-spoken and sweet, you’re aware of the fact that he’s got those traits that’d make a male audience go “Hell Yeah, A Man,” or whatever it is a male audience does watching movies like that… cis straight men imprinting on oiled muscle men sure is a strange phenomenon, why do you wanna watch a boxing match? So you can watch toned guys groaning and grappling with each other? Because you want to feel like A Man by allowing yourself to touch the skin of other men?

Apollo and Rocky in Rocky III. This sequence also includes prolonged shots of their crotches as they run. Sylvester Stallone directed this. This was intentional. Bros.

Daniel LaRusso is not built like that. But that doesn’t really have to matter. Being smallish and probably more likely to be described as “pretty” than handsome, and not having a toxic masculine bone in his body does not a feminine archetype make. It just makes a compelling (and pretty) underdog. 

c. Daniel

So where does the main difference really lie? Between Rocky and Daniel? Well, Rocky has the plot in his hands – Daniel, largely, does not. Rocky is acting. Daniel is reacting or being pushed into situations by others. Just like our boy Neo. Just like Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, Snow White – just like some of the women in some contemporary(ish) fairytale films like Buttercup (Princess Bride), Dorothy (Wizard of Oz), or Sarah (Labyrinth).

This isn’t a necessary negative about stories about girls and women, so much as looking at what it is girls and women in fairytales have/don’t have, what they want, and how they’re going to get it. It’s about power (lack of), sexuality (repressed, then liberated), men, and crossing some taboo lines. It’s also about queerness.

3. The Karate Kid Part One: Leaving Home

Daniel LaRusso is a poor, skinny, shortish kid (played by a skinny, shortish twenty-two-year old) who doesn’t fit in after having been taken away from the home he was familiar with against his will. Not every male protagonist in a fairytale leaves of his own will, and not every female protagonist leaves under duress – Red Riding Hood, for example, seems perfectly happy to enter the forest. However generally a hero is “striking out to make his fortune,” and generally a heroine is fleeing or making a bargain or being married off or waiting for help to arrive. She is often stuck (and even Red Riding Hood requires saving at some point).

Daniel then encounters a beautiful, lovely girl on the beach, puts on a red hoodie (red is significant), is beaten up by a large, attractive bully, loses what little clout he may have had with his new friends, and generally has a mostly miserable time until he befriends and is saved by Mr Miyagi. To do a little Cinderella comparison: Miyagi is the fairy godmother who pushes Daniel to go to the ball in disguise as well, and that disguise falls to pieces as he’s running away.

Then Daniel asks for help, Miyagi gets him enrolled in a Karate Tournament, and starts teaching him. Daniel wins the tournament and gets the girl, the end.

While Daniel has chutzpah and is a wonderful character, none of the big events are initiated by him, except for the initial going to the forest/beach (and within all of these events Daniel absolutely makes choices – I’m not saying he’s passive): Lucille takes them to California, Miyagi pushes him to go to the dance, Miyagi again decides to enroll him in the tournament and trains him, and only because Kreese doesn’t allow for any other option, Ali is the one who more often than not approaches Daniel, and even their first encounter is pushed by Daniel’s friends.

Daniel really is at a dance/ball in disguise and receives a flower from a girl who recognises him through said disguise, it’s unbearable! It’s adorable! I get it Ali, I fucking get it!

Daniel’s main journey within this – apart from not getting killed by karate thugs (love u Johnny <3) and kissing Ali – is to learn from Miyagi. He’s not necessarily a full-on feminine fairytale archetype at this point, although there are fun things to pull out of it, mainly in the context of later films and Cobra Kai: the subtext of karate and how that builds throughout all the stories, the red clothes, the themes of obsession, his being targeted by boys whose masculinity is more than a little bit toxic and based on shame… more on all that coming up.

He doesn’t technically get a home until they build him a room at Miyagi’s place, but he definitely leaves the woods at the end of this one, trophy lifted in the air after being handed to him by a tearful Johnny and all.

And then they made a sequel.

4. The Karate Kid Part Two: Not Out Of The Woods Yet

Daniel’s won the competition, Kreese chokes out Johnny for daring to lose and cry, more life-lessons are given (for man without forgiveness in heart…) and Daniel and Ali break-up off-screen, confirming that TKK1 was not really about the girl after all, which, despite Daniel and Kumiko having wonderful chemistry, is also an ongoing theme. Daniel enters the screen in The Most Baby-Blue Outfit seen since Tiana’s dress in Princess and the Frog? Or that dress in Enchanted? Maybe Cinderella’s (technically silver, but later depicted as blue)? 

(Sidenote: At everyone who says Sam ought to wear a callback to that suit,  you are correct and sexy).

Surprise, Miyagi’s building him a room.

Double-surprise, Miyagi needs to go to Okinawa.

Triple surprise, Daniel reveals he’s going with him, because he’s his son dammit.

The Karate Kid Part Two is maybe the least Daniel-LaRusso-Feminine-Fairytale-Protagonist of the three, because it’s not really his movie. Daniel runs around with Kumiko (aka the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen), continues to be The Best Non-Toxic Boy a middle-aged Okinawan karate master could ask for, lands himself another Built Karate Rival (twice is just a coincidence, right? Right?), and eventually doesn’t die while wearing red again – twice: When Chozen almost strangles him to death at the Miyagi dojo and then during the final fight. The Saving Of The Girl (both the little girl in the storm and Kumiko) actually puts him in a more traditional masculine space than the previous movie did, even if the main theme of the film is about compassion and kindness and by the end, once more the boy whose masculinity is built on rockhard abs and matchsticks is on his knees. Daniel just has that power over big boys. It’s called kick/punch them in the face hard enough that they see stars.

There’s an aside to be made here about how much Daniel really is an observer in other peoples stories in this, although he is the factor that sends both Chozen and Kumiko into completely different directions in life (Chozen and Kumiko main characters when?) Anyway he comes out of it presumably okay, despite being almost killed. Maybe a few therapy sessions and he’ll get over it. Too bad Terry Silver is lurking around the corner…

5. The Karate Kid Part Three: The Big Bad Wolf

Alright people have written Words about the third movie. It’s fascinating. It’s odd. It’s eye-straining. It’s like olives – you’re either fully onboard the madness or it’s too off-putting for you (or you’re like. Eh, don’t see what all the fuss is about either way...). It’s basically a non-consensual secret BDSM relationship between a guy in his thirties (played by a Very Tall twenty-seven year old Thomas Ian Griffith) and a 17/18 year old (played by a shorter twenty-eight year old Ralph Macchio).

Also recently we got more information on Mr. Griffith’s input on the uh… vibes of the film. Apparently it wasn’t just The Sweetness of Ralph Macchio’s face, the screenplay (whatever that amounted to in the first place – release the script!), the soundtrack, the direction to not tone it down under any circumstances, the fact that Macchio categorically refused to play a romance between himself and an actress who was sixteen, no: it was also TIG coming up with fun ways to torture Daniel’s character and suggesting these to the director. Clearly everyone has fun hurting Mr Macchio (including Mr Macchio).

The point is that aaallll of that amounts to that Intense Homoerotic Dubiously-Consented-To D/s subtext that haunts the movie and gives a lot of fun stuff to play with. It’s also a film that – if we’re analysing Daniel along feminine-coded fairytale lines recontextualises his role in this universe.

The Fairytale goes topsy-turvy. Through the looking glass. Enter Big Bad Wolf stage right. Karate is a metaphor for Daniel’s bisexual awakening. 

“Oh, when will an attractive man touch me in ways that aren’t about hurting me?” he asks after two movies of being hurt by boys with rippling muscles. “Why do men continue to notice me only to hit me? Do you think wearing red is making me too noticeable? Anyway, Mr Silver looked really good in his gi today.” 

Daniel’s diary must be a trip.

[thoughtfulfangirling]

I just rewatched the Matrix recently, and of course there’s so much metaphor and symbolism in the movie that each re-watch, it’s fun to overthink everything. I’ve already had a couple of viewings in which I’ve focused on how Neo’s story is a trans narrative and how him ‘being the one’ in many ways is about him discovering himself. It’s a narrative that I think easily stood up before the Wachowskis confirmed it, but obviously is generally easier to spot and analyze with their confirmation.

This time however, I found myself focusing more on Trinity and the romance plot. Let me first just make a disclaimer that this is me reading super into the movie and that I know that in a surface reading, none of this stands up. But if we say... go down the rabbit hole a little of what these themes in the movie could be... well, I obviously feel there's some grounding for it.

In many ways, the romance in this movie is fairly traditional, but in other ways... it's just not. Neo never pursues Trinity in any way. In fact, he generally seems completely oblivious to the possibility that Trinity could be interested in him. Contrast that to Cypher, who feels entitled to Trinity, I think it's worth noting how there's an implication that at some point, he thought he could be The One. He clearly also knew what the Oracle told Trinity about her relationship to the one. And yet while he pines, there's this feeling that he is acutely aware that it's impossible that she would never be interested in him.  

Not only though does Neo seem almost to imagine Trinity could never be interested in him and Cypher has a resentful belief that she would never be interested in him, even Trinity acts arguably strange about the whole thing herself. There's an air to her reaction to the concept of 'The One' and her prophecy that while she wants it to be true and believes so much in Morpheus she will, it seems truly impossible to her. She holds it close to her chest and struggles so much with accepting how she feels, that there just feels like there's more going on under the surface. And with the narrative of knowing that Neo can stand in as a metaphor for a trans woman, I couldn't help but read in this viewing that Trinity is a lesbian. She's a lesbian who was told by the oracle that The One would be the man she falls in love with. The Oracle names things as they are in the moment, telling Neo he's not the one. So it makes sense when she saw Trinity that she would refer to him as he sees himself in that moment. But if being The One is also the story of him coming into realizing trans-ness, then it's no longer so strange that a lesbian would fall in love with The One.

Neo discovering himself as The One is the culmination of many things. The battles to get Morpheus back, to fight the agents, but also even Morpheus saying to Neo after he gets rescued, "There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path" is a reiteration of the Oracle's statement that he has it in him to be The One, but it seemed he was waiting for something. He has to choose to embrace it, to live it, and he starts down that path at least by the time he faces Agent Smith in the subway tunnel, declares his name is Neo.

But if we imagine for a moment that Neo was aware that Trinity was a lesbian (she strikes me as the type who wouldn't hide it) or even assumed as much, it would make sense he might just assume that like gravity keeps one grounded, her romantic disinterest in him was obvious. But the moment she whispers to him that he has to live because she loves him, one might see how validating, how solidifying, that could be. How he could start a new life. 

I think it was the scene where Cypher had her on the phone, revealing his betrayal, that the headcanon solidified. She cares so deeply for these people, and the actor so well manages to convey her despair as her friends begin dying, but she remains so steady and calm on the phone. She has this steel in her and an unwillingness to let Cypher see how much he's breaking her. And he takes a new tact. He taunts her about the prophecy, seeming to mock her for this destined love. It almost seems to say 'do you really even know yourself?' He's questioning her very sense of self because he wants to hurt her for not making herself accessible to him. He wants to punish her for making room for Neo and not him.

(*The spouse pointed out after watching that it struck him in this scene how Cypher is literally on top of Trinity, speaking to her, looking at her, making her his entire focus, whereas to Trinity, Cypher is just a voice on the other end of the phone. To Cypher Trinity takes up so much space, but it's the opposite for Trinity. Just a neat observation. )

In less tangible ways too, there's something about the way Trinity is played and filmed that felt queer coded. That could just be that it was written and directed by queer people though I admit. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

To be fair, I will also admit here that I was happy to look for something that made the romance plot more palatable. To be fair to the movie, I do think it's done in a way that feels fairly organic to the plot, like it's saying something. But on the surface, it can feel pretty par for the course cinematically. So I found it enriching to go looking for a way that the romance would be saying something bigger than what other movies use it for, that further added to the metaphor, and this is how I parsed it for myself to make that work, and I felt like sharing in case anyone else would find it enriching too. Okay mostly to explore these thoughts more fully, but hey, if someone else finds this heightens their enjoyment, then hell yeah.

Thinky thoughts

[discotreque]

LwD 2.05: An Embarrassment of Dooplers

So I was a little nervous about this one! I hadn’t heard any spoiler-spoilers, but screeners have been out for weeks now, and I’d heard a bunch of individual, vague, non-spoilery hints about (1) big character moments, on the scale of a mid-season finale even though the show’s not taking a mid-season break; and (2) an ending that would make me cry.

I guess I imagined something relatively serious and dramatic, like “No Small Parts”? This show makes me cackle with laughter and giggle with nerdy glee and “d’awww!” at heartwarming friendships every week, but it’s only ever made me cry once—and then I was impressed that they were going to get there from the wacky hijinks we saw in the brief teaser.

The lack of a cold open made me apprehensive too—in my experience, that’s typically a sign that there’s so much plot in the rest of the episode that they need that extra scene—but after ~21.5 minutes of aforementioned hijinks, I was having so much fun that I’d completely forgotten about the alleged tear-jerker at the end…

…and they were not the tears I was expecting.

I didn’t think I’d be smiling and crying!!!! That was wholesome as SHIT!!!!!

I almost can’t believe they earned that—but they totally did.

After a Mariner–Tendi episode and a Boimler–Rutherford episode, we’re back to the “usual” Season 1 pairings… except the relationships between these characters have changed since Season 1. Mariner still feels thwacked in the abandonment issues by Boimler bailing for the Titan, and Rutherford’s having a tiny little existential crisis about losing an entire year of his life.

Both of which are extremely understandable and very heavy situations—and both of those situations get resolved because everyone in them is vulnerable with each other and honest about their feelings—AND that honesty and vulnerability brings both pairs of friends closer together. Are you kidding me?? I would watch SEVENTY seasons of that shit. Put it in my veins.

Onto the notes:

So basically Dooplers are Tribbles, but for cringe comedy instead of slapstick? Ohhhhh boy.

Look at Ransom the diplomat, tossing his own fork on the floor! I like that he’s actually a pretty competent Starfleet officer, despite also being a completely ridiculous person.

Wait a second, is that—OH HOLY SHIT, THE DOOPLERS ARE VOICED BY RICHARD KIND.

It makes sense that B. Boimler would find William annoying—who likes seeing their own flaws reflected back at them? And who could be a better reflection of one’s flaws than one’s literal duplicate?—but most interesting to me is that it implies on some level, Bradward knows the stick up his butt is a flaw. (Does William?)

Why does the Cerritos model have working phasers?!?!

I’m loving hot pink as the currently en-vogue colour for “dangerous sci-fi energy” in animation (cf. almost every previous episode of this show; Into the Spider-Verse; other stuff I can’t remember right now). As a former child of the 80’s, I’m living for it… but as a former teenager of the 90’s, I can’t help but wonder if it’s going to age as poorly as the harsh neon green of The Matrix, every Borg appearance on Voyager, and like 80% of the websites I made in high school…

SKANTS! SKANTS! SKANTS!

That fake-out joke with the fly-by over the Cerritos model was in the season trailer weeks ago, and I was so enthralled by that handsome lady that the sticker coming into frame still got me good 😂😂😂

BECKY Mariner????? omg yes

Some top-quality Boimler screams in this one. Poor Jack Quaid must drink gallons of throat-coat tea when he records.

One of the great things about Star Trek to me is that you never know what you’re going to get from any random episode. A murder mystery? A road trip? A spooky thriller? A cheesy romance? Broad comedy? Body horror? Didactic political screeds shrouded in tissue-thin science-fiction metaphors? Brain and brain, what is brain??? And after this many years of watching, you’d think I’d be hard to surprise. But if I ever told you I thought I’d see a Blues Brothers–style car chase through a frickin’ shopping mall on an episode of Star Trek, I would have been straight-up lying to you. I loved it, it worked for me, my jaw was on the floor and I was clapping with joy—but I’m definitely comfortable calling this one “unexpected.”

It’s CAPTAIN SHELBY!!! And an ancient babydyke crush rose from the depths of my childhood subconscious… (Also I think her Number One is based on the original makeup—eventually deemed too complicated—for Saru? Now that’s a deep cut.)

In 20th-century Trek, you almost never got to see what was going on inside a starship from the outside. Even after they switched from physical models (where it was next to impossible on a single episode’s budget) to CGI (which was still in its infancy, still not exactly cheap, and still broadcast in SD anyway), it was a rare thrill to see any meaningful interior details in an exterior shot. Disco’s modern VFX have given us some tasty, tasty treats in that department, but nothing quite as sublime as all the pink Doopler light glittering through the Cerritos’s windows.

Mariner says she’ll take her contact Malvus down with her, and threatens that they’ll end up “in the same cell.” Malvus is a Mizarian, a species introduced in TNG’s “Allegiance,” in which Captain Picard is held in a mysterious prison with one. I think I see what you did there, McMahan?

Bartender… so hot… lesbian circuits… overloading…

The Tendi and Rutherford C-story was, well, a C-story within a 22-minute episode, so there wasn’t much to it, but the one scene that mattered actually mattered a lot. I’m ambivalent on whether they should end up romantically involved—I’d prefer they don’t, but they’ll be one of the cutest couples in Trek history if they do—and as long as they keep that pure, sweet friendship between them at the heart of whatever else happens, I’m on board.

Carol Freeman was already one of my favourite captains before this season, and she’s been steadily moving up the list. The quiet throughline about her ambition to be on a better ship has been fascinating so far, and it’s starting to actually make me feel a little conflicted: I’m of course rooting for Captain Freeman to recognize her worth, make Starfleet recognize her worth, and become the ass-kicking captain of a hero ship that she’s clearly ready to be—but that almost surely means she’d be kicking ass off-screen, because LwD isn’t about those kind of adventures, and I’d be devastated not to have Dawnn Lewis on the show every week. So I’m kind of on the edge of my seat about this one!

I had so many favourite jokes this week I put them in a separate list:

“Even the replicated water on the Titan tasted better” is a low-key brilliant dunk on people who can’t shut the fuck up about the cooler places they used to live.

“Ooooh, they have a Quark’s now! That used to just be an empty lot where teens would make mistakes!” ← That’s literally me every time I go back to where I grew up. I felt so Seen™ I almost hid under a blanket.

“I would never go down the stairs!” (evil grin) (goes up the stairs)

The “well, shit” expressions from Mariner and Boimler as their crashed car sank right into the water… which started to bubble innocuously… and then the bottles of Data bubble-bath popped up, paying off a joke I thought had already been paid off—that was the one that woke up my poor cat this week. Just exquisite timing.

“YOUR PAGH IS WEAK, AND IT DISGUSTS ME!” “I don’t even know what that is, but I don’t like your tone!”

“Okona’s in there? He’s not even Starfleet! This is outrageous!” made me shout “NO!” at the screen like I was scolding my cat for scratching furniture. (She did not wake up that time.)

Best background joke: the neon sign at the dive bar advertising FREE SHOTS & BEERS. (Get it? Because they’re on a Federation starbase? Where nobody uses money?)

And of course Quark merchandised DS9.

This wasn’t just a standout episode of Lower Decks, this was a brilliant episode of Star Trek, period. The Dooplers, though extremely silly, are nevertheless also a clever sci-fi metaphor for real and relatable personal/interpersonal issues, and an effective plot catalyst for meaningful character growth from all four of our ensigns and the captain.

The jokes were hilarious, the action was kinetic, the A-, B-, and C-plots linked up thematically, the visuals were consistently and thoroughly gorgeous, the character beats—between Mariner and Boimler, Tendi and Rutherford, Mariner and Capt. Freeman—were all genuine, heartfelt and wholesome, and the references to other Trek canon were both deep and deeply affectionate.

Only 15 episodes in, and this series knows exactly what it is, exactly what it wants to do, and knows that it can knock our socks off doing it. Mike McMahan has said in recent interviews that the back half of S2 (and the apparently almost-fully-written S3) is a straight line uphill in quality from here—which surprised me at first, because McMahan seems like a pretty chill dude who doesn’t normally brag about his own work like that.

But then the Prophets sent me a vision of my space dad Ben Sisko, who reminded me of the words of 1930’s baseball player Dizzy Dean:

“If you can do it, it ain’t bragging.”

[Thanks to cygnus-x1.net for the screenshots this week—I was too lazy to do my own.]

[youvebeenlivingfictional]

I’m Always Curious Part Thirty One

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Warnings: Cursing and some angst my bad Summary: Eli knew as well as I did how hard it was for me to relax after a Tag and Run, let alone a manual one.

“I’ve seen you pull some reckless shit, but launching yourself into the middle of an active and radioactive debris field with a ship on the verge of breakdown under you, that’s… That’s gotta be top five,” Eli commented as Pollard scanned me. I shot him a tired look. “I didn’t have any other options.” “I know,” He shook his head, “But...Damn, kid.” “I’m back, I’m one piece, so maybe save the lecture for some occasion where I wind up in a biobed.”

“Heart rate is still a little high,” Pollard commented, stepping around in front of me and shining a light in my eyes. I startled a bit at the sudden flash before I settled. 

“And when was the last time you slept?” She added, brow furrowing. “I feel like if you really wanted to know, you would’ve asked before I piloted.” Pollard gave me a stern look that probably should’ve made me wilt, but adrenaline was still coursing through my body. “How do you feel?” She asked, a little imperious. “Like I’ll be happy if I never get behind the controls of an attack fighter again.” That made her smile a bit, at least. She nodded. “I want to check on you again before you leave the ship, make sure that heart rate is back down where it’s supposed to be.” “Yes ma’am.” “And get some sleep. I am not above sedating you.” “...I believe that.” “You might wanna get that hypo ready now, doc—” “Can it, Durling,” I cut him off, reaching for my jacket. He gave me a disapproving look as I stood. Eli knew as well as I did how hard it was for me to relax after a Tag and Run, let alone a manual one. If I lay in the dark, my mind would just run through what I had done, all of the ways that it could’ve gone wrong. I was sure that this experience was going to be no different; if anything, the possibilities for a different outcome were increased. “You heading for the gym?” Durling asked as we walked out of the medbay. It was a fair question, but as comfortable as my civvies were, I certainly wasn’t prepared to be sparring in them. “Nah, not this time. You got a report to file?” I asked. “Yeah— Hey,” Eli reached out, taking light hold of my shoulder, “I need to talk to you.” “Look, I will get some sleep—” “No, not about that,” He shook his head. He glanced around the hall, quiet as someone passed us before he turned back to me, “It’s about my assignment after this.” “...Okay,” I frowned. “They’re giving me the Pinnacle.” Confusion melted from my face and I grinned, socking him in the shoulder, unable to contain my excitement. “Eli! That’s amazing— Why didn’t you tell me before? Oh, congratulations!” I squealed, drawing him in for a hug. He chuckled, patting my shoulder before leaning away. “We had a job to do first,” He shook his head. “That’s why you weren’t putting the tag down yourself, huh?” I asked. “There’s something else.” “What else could there possibly be?” “I need a first officer.” “Oh. So who are your candidates?” Eli’s brows rose, and he tipped his head forward a bit. Realization washed over me slowly, and I found myself fighting the urge to shake my head and ask him what the hell he was thinking. “What?… Eli—” “Hear me out,” He pleaded softly, “You know my every move, you get how I operate, you don’t let me get away with shit, you know when to push and when to pull… And I swear I did not mean that the way it sounded.” “Bullshit.” “See?” He pointed out before tacking on, “Look, don’t answer me right now. I know it’s a big decision, just… Just think about it.” I gave him a small nod in concession, a murmur of promise that I would. But as I watched his retreating back, I already knew what my answer was. --

The canteen was basically deserted. I walked over to the replicators, leaning heavily against the wall beside it and scrubbing my hand over my face. “Black coffee, four shots of espresso— splash of caramel creamer.”

“Are you planning on having a heartbeat after that?” I did, but mine skipped a beat at the sound of his voice. It seemed to be doing that a lot lately. “The caramel is just to sweeten it a bit,” I justified, “Doesn’t taste the same as the Una Matrix, so I’ve gotta make do.” I glanced back to find him leaning against a table nearby. “Everything alright on the Bridge?” I asked, turning back to the replicator. “Fine,” He conceded, “And the shuttle bay?” “Uh…” I straightened, taking hold of the mug, “Well, Jett is cursing my name. Apparently Eli’s messed up a number of phaser cannons but having a damaged warp nacelle and a punctured cabin really takes the cake.” “Is that much coffee advisable after what you’ve just done? I’d think some rest would be in order.” “And Dr. Pollard would agree with you, but I can never sleep after tags,” I admitted. I cleared my throat, “So, how... “ It had been way too long to ask about how he was, hadn't it? We’d been on the same ship for hours now— “How’s um— Spock?” Christopher’s brows rose a little. “He’s...Taking leave.” I frowned. “That’s unlike him.” “Well, the war took its toll on the crew, such as it was.” I nodded a little, leaning back against the wall again, “I can understand that.” Christopher’s head tipped to the side, brow furrowing. “How so? I mean no disrespect, Commander, but you were very much in the thick of it.” “Yeah, but,” I lowered my eyes to my drink, “You all...Had to wait, I guess. You got your news about people that you were concerned about in a delayed fashion, and from a distance— all secondhand, second rate. Maybe some of the crew held themselves back from reaching out to people, not sure how they’d take it, not wanting to distract them... That time, that distance, it can wear someone down.” It was a moment before I heard Chris take in a deep breath. “We should talk,” he said softly. “We are talking,” I pointed out. When I glanced up to look at him, I found an unimpressed little frown affixed to his lips. I rolled my eyes a little, pushing away from the wall and nodding for him to follow me: “C’mon.” I was relieved to hear his footfalls behind mine without a moment’s hesitation. “I know where the quiet spots are and I’m willing to bet you haven’t found them yet.” “By Ensign Tilly’s account, you were only on this ship for a couple of days,” Pike commented. “Yes,” I nodded, “And in that time, she told me where all the cool kids hang out. From there, I used those tips, the ship’s directory, and the process of elimination to find a few quiet spots.” I peered into a small suite and found it empty. The outer wall was wrapped with a window. There was a desk with a reading lamp on one end of the room and a loveseat and side table on the other end. “This alright?” I asked, nodding inside. Pike peered around before stepping in fully. I took that as a yes and followed him in, the door sliding shut behind us.  “What’d you come in here for?” He asked, looking around. “Studying, once. I had to brush up on my Klingon while I was aboard,” I told him, sitting down on the loveseat. I set my coffee aside for a moment, shrugging my jacket off and draping it over the arm of the seat before picking my cup up again. I watched Christopher drift around the room, taking it in, his fingers trailing the wood of the desk. I leaned back against the cushions, taking a long pull from the coffee and wincing from the taste. “Too much coffee?” “Just not as good as the Una Matrix,” I justified. I glanced up at him to find him leaning back against the desk, arms folded across his chest. For a moment the both of us just… looked. It reminded me of the moments in his Ready Room before we beamed down to Sandblossom— but we were so different now. “So who told you?” I asked. “Una.” “How’d that go?” Christopher averted his eyes, tipping his head forward a bit, “Well, she… Sat me down, laid out Spock’s timeline, let me know that you were on the Pinnacle.” “Can I ask when that was?” “You’d been aboard for about a month.” That couldn’t have been very long after Una had called me, then. I could only imagine her demeanor when she’d told him. I nodded a bit. “I don’t… I do not know how much Admiral Cornwell told you, but she—” “Kat mentioned before she left that she had you give your word not to contact the Enterprise.”  “Okay.” “Though I am a little surprised you kept to it,” Christopher admitted. I considered that for a moment, fingers tapping along the side of my mug. “Sometimes I couldn’t believe it either. I hated it. But...Cornwell told me that you were determined to come back to Somonia for me, when you heard about the negotiations—” I watched as Chris pushed himself away from the desk, drifting over to look out of the window. I saw the tight pull of his shoulders, the wringing of his hands where he had them clasped behind his back. “Besides that,” I added quietly, “I was sure that being so removed from the war was weighing on you all in some estimation. And after Una contacted me…” I shook my head, “I'm not sure how I would've handled speaking with anyone else from the Enterprise.” Christopher frowned, and I could see the question forming as he turned to look at me. I raised a hand to halt it: “We’re fine. We spoke when the ship was docked on Earth recently.” “How long were you two out of contact?” “A while,” I answered flatly. Christopher shook his head a little bit. I slouched down against the cushions. “Why didn’t—...” I started before I stopped myself, cringing. “What would you have wanted me to say?” He asked knowingly.  “Anything, Christopher! I didn’t even know that you knew.” I set my coffee aside and rested my elbows against my knees, running my hands over my face. “I didn’t think you would want to hear from us after we left you there.” He said it so softly, with such abject confidence; it nearly split me in two. I lifted my head, brow drawn, disbelieving of what I’d heard, only to find that Christopher had turned back to the window, chin tipped toward his chest. “...After you—… No,” I sighed, pushing myself off of the loveseat, “No, you didn’t.” “We should’ve turned around,” The assertion followed fast, his voice tight, “We would’ve found you— We would’ve been in range for the war, none of this would’ve happened.” I stopped a couple of steps from him. There was a time when I wouldn’t have hesitated in reaching out to touch him, to draw him in, but I wasn’t sure anymore. “I saw the pictures that you got from Starbase 329,” I said softly, “It was a crater, Christopher, there was no way you could’ve known. And Choholl and I were so far underground for stretches at a time, you may not have been able to find us, even if you had turned around.” He turned his head toward me a little, but did not meet my eye. “I considered reaching out,” He admitted softly, “But I didn’t know what to say. ‘Hi’ seemed...inappropriate, and… And I was worried.” “About what?” “You. What you said, about not wanting to distract someone, keeping yourself at a distance…” He trailed off, nodding, “Does take its toll.” I watched him for a moment, considering this. Christopher had thought about me. I supposed that that was some consolation, at least; I hadn’t been alone in my hours spent curious and lonely. “So,” I said lightly, turning to face the window as he had, “What happens after this mission?” “Back to the Enterprise, ideally,” Christopher answered; his voice was firmer now, a little more self-sure now that I'd turned to a topic he was likely more comfortable with. I felt him turn to look at me as he asked, “Do you...Know where you’ll be stationed next?” “No. Command did mention something about reinstating Larilia to the Federation, now that Choholl has everything under control. They’re going to need a new attaché, they asked if I’d be interested.” I felt him tense beside me, “And what did you say?” “That I’d retire first.” He huffed a soft laugh, and I smiled a little. My mind drifted to the offer given to me earlier, and I shook my head a little bit. “What is it?” He asked. “Nothing.” “Are you sure?” I hesitated, “Eli is being given the Pinnacle. He needs a first officer and he… He offered me the position.” I turned to look up at Christopher, and I saw the split second of surprise before he schooled his face into a small smile. “What are you thinking?” He asked. I shook my head, turning away again. “I’m going to tell him ‘no’. Just haven’t worked out how yet.” “Why are you turning him down?” “Well, he needs someone— You know, more like Una. I am not like Una.” “... Well, you did take Onafuwa’s one-day intensive.” It took me a moment, and I opened my mouth to respond, but I could not help the laugh that bubbled up. I slapped my hand over my mouth, trying to quiet the sound, but Christopher laughed, too. For a moment, just a moment, it felt like it used to— light, and warm. I looked at him, and found that grin that I’d missed; the crinkling around his eyes and the dimples. And as we quieted, as we found one another just looking again, I felt my eyes prickle with tears. I hurried to look away again, turning back to where I’d set my coffee and walking back to it. I settled down onto the loveseat, taking a long pull from the mug and using it to cover a small sniffle. I expected Christopher to stay where he was, but he followed, sitting down beside me. He was close— but then, the loveseat was small, he had no choice but to be close. “You really ought to rest,” He said quietly. “I can’t,” I shook my head, “After one of those—” I sighed, closing my eyes for a moment, “My head just doesn’t settle right.” “Is it always like this?” I nodded a bit. I felt Christopher shift beside me a little before I heard him mutter, “C’mere.” I glanced over and did a double-take, my heart leaping into my throat when I found him leaned back, his arm thrown over the back of the loveseat. “What?” “Come here,” He urged more softly, nodding me closer. I narrowed my eyes at him before I set the coffee down, shifting a little closer. I was nearly pressed fully against his side this way, from knee to chest.  “Put your head down,” He urged, nodding to his shoulder. “Chris—” “Just try it.” I huffed, irritated but did as he said. His arm curled around my shoulders. “Close your eyes.” “If you really think is is going to work—” “So stubborn,” He mumbled, resting his chin atop my head and my eyes fluttered shut at the comforting weight, “Stubborn as stone.” If Christopher thought that this was going to calm me down, he was severely mistaken; my heart was pounding out of my chest, my stomach was twisting itself into knots. I hadn’t felt worked up like this since after Koutov. Christopher’s fingers trailed over my shoulder softly, and I found myself reaching out and setting my hand on his jacket. “...The blue’s...Different,” I commented. “Wanna command the ship, you’ve gotta wear the uniform,” He pinched the sleeve of my t-shirt as he said so. I rolled my eyes a little. “Good thing I don’t wanna command, then,” I muttered. Christopher’s chest shook with a quiet laugh. “Gotta say… it is a good thing you’re turning Durling down, if only for the fact that you seem to fight so much,” He said. “It’s all in good fun… Mostly in good fun.” “The two of you seem close.” I glanced up at Christopher. “We’re friends,” I nodded. “Close your eyes,” He muttered, poking my shoulder when he saw me looking at him. I huffed, doing as he said. My fingers absently skated over a section of the gold braiding covering the zipper on the jacket, unable to keep still. “That wasn’t an accusation, by the way,” He added. “Sounded like one.” “Wasn’t.” “Mm.” I wasn’t sure what it was— the hum of the ship around us, or the steady rise and fall of his chest under my hand, or just the feeling of being by Christopher again, but I felt myself relaxing, eyelids and limbs growing heavy. “We should— I should finish my coffee,” I mumbled after a while. “Why’s that?” Christopher murmured. “‘M gonna fall asleep.” “Good.” I smiled a little, “‘M gonna fall asleep on you.” “You’re already falling asleep on me.” “So...Should move.” “You comfortable?” “Mmmmmhm.” “Okay.” That okay was all I needed. I cozied deeper into Christopher’s side, unabashedly cuddling up against him, and I felt his hand smooth soothingly over my arm. In my haze and weariness, the tears that I’d managed to push down before welled up. Now, though, I felt too tired to hide them again. A few leaked from my eyes, and I pressed my face into his shoulder. “I missed you so much,” I admitted quietly, hand fisting in his jacket. I felt his grip tighten on me, his other hand covering mine, thumb skating over my knuckles. “I know,” Christopher whispered; I could feel his lips quivering as they brushed my temple, “I missed you, too.” Tag list: @angels-pie​ ; @fantasticcopeaglepasta​  ; @mylittlelonelyappreciationtoo​ ; @how-am-i-serpose-to-know​ ; @onlyhereforthefandomandgiggles​ ; @inmyowncorner​​  ; @tardis-23​  ; @paintballkid711 ; @katrynec​ ; @hypnobananaangelfish ; @elen-aranel​ ; @blueeyesatnight​ ; @hotchswifey​

[elitegymnastics]

Q: What is this?

A: It’s a flyer for a virtual fundraiser on June 4th that Elite Gymnastics is playing. You can access the show at quietyear.com

Q: Hasn’t Elite Gymnastics been inactive for like, ten years?

A: Yes. This is the first Elite Gymnastics performance of any kind since November 30th 2012, at the Horn Gallery at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. 

Q: Why did Elite Gymnastics stop playing shows?

A: Elite Gymnastics started out as me (Jaime) and a bunch of my friends agreeing to help me play my songs live back in 2009. I made a lot of weird demos in GarageBand and my friend Dominique Davis from the band Dearling Physique got tired of watching me sit on them. So, he booked me to play at a show he was curating as part of a small local music and arts festival called Clapperclaw. For several months that’s mainly what EG was. At some point the focus shifted to making recordings rather than playing shows, to participate in the emergent culture of new music distributed via MP3 file-sharing. The lineup winnowed to just me and Josh Clancy, who began creating digital EPs that we posted on this Tumblr page as ZIP files full of MP3s accompanied by a PDF of artwork. This is the incarnation of the group that most people are familiar with.

This was before Patreon existed. If Bandcamp was around, we’d never heard of it. Though MP3 file-sharing culture and file transfer sites like MediaFire and MegaUpload allowed anyone to distribute music freely across the world via the internet, it was still pretty difficult to get people to pay you for it. I think it was for this reason that a lot of internet music back then featured a lot of sampling. A lot of artists’ first forays into the world of DAWs and production took the form of mash-ups, bootleg remixes, and DJ mixes. Artists like Animal Collective, MIA, Kanye West, and Daft Punk for whom sampling was a pillar of their creative process were extremely influential. Elite Gymnastics was no exception - the first song of ours to gain traction online was “Is This On Me?” which made no attempt to hide the fact that it heavily sampled Faye Wong’s “Eyes On Me.” The fact that it was so difficult to make money off MP3s pushed people to make different creative decisions than they would have otherwise. It was sort of a free-for-all.

Eventually, all of this started to change. The major labels started getting a lot more aggressive about trying to destroy MP3 file-sharing culture. Platforms like MegaUpload were raided and taken offline. The replacements that sprung up to replace them were increasingly infested with ads and malware. Corporate platforms like YouTube and SoundCloud adopted Content ID filters to prevent the proliferation of copyrighted music there. Blogs and private torrent trackers being taken down meant thousands of hours of labor were wiped out in an instant. Some of the best archives of the history of recorded music ever created were destroyed without hesitation. Even the most devoted participants lost the will to keep repairing and re-making the stuff that cops and record companies kept obliterating.

Josh and I both dreamed of being able to make a living as musicians. We still do. Back then, we were willing to accept a lot of changes in order to make that possible, which seemed necessary. A lot of the stuff that we were great at just didn’t make any money. Once, we were asked to do a remix of a song called “Sa Sa Samoa” by the band Korallreven. I did the remix by myself, which was normal for us, and Josh was so inspired by it that he spent a week working non-stop to create a video for it. People loved it - the day the video dropped, Pitchfork designated the song as a “Best New Track” and New York Magazine wrote about it in their “Approval Matrix.” The video led to a ton of exposure, but from a financial perspective, it just did not make sense to put that much effort into promoting a remix of someone else’s song. The stuff we were personally excited by just seemed to have less and less to do with what actually makes money.

A lot of internet bands during this era began to palpably shapeshift in an effort to succeed in music as a career. Artists who’d first attracted notice for sample-based bangers they made on a laptop started posing with vintage hardware in their press photos and trading in their laptops for live bands and recording studios. It became harder to distribute DJ mixes or mash-ups that contained copyrighted music in them. Influential bloggers either closed up shop or were absorbed into the traditional music industry in some way. Feeds that once touted bizarre songs by laptop-toting weirdos with no industry connections started to become populated mostly by artists with labels and publicists. The bottom rungs of festival lineups started to consist mostly of new major label signings who have lots of money to spend on stage production but not much in the way of grassroots fan enthusiasm or media buzz. 

Internet music and what people tend to refer to as “indie music” split off into two separate streams. Today, there’s a pretty intense firewall between internet culture and whatever you want to call the culture of vinyl records, mid-sized indie labels with publicists, and positive reviews from the few remaining websites that still pay people to write about music. I call it “publicist indie,” “lifestyle techno,” or “prestige electronica” depending on whether or not the music features guitars and/or vocals. The recent online kerfuffle about NFTs really emphasized this split. The worlds of digital illustration and game development campaigned aggressively against mass adoption of cryptocurrency - if you saw any Medium posts explaining crypto’s environmental issues, chances are they were written by someone from those fields. Every new announcement by an artist that they had minted an NFT was met with a swift and vocal backlash from fans. Though I’ve never really been much of an Aphex Twin fan, it was still pretty startling to look at the replies under his NFT announcement tweet and see hundreds of furious people announcing that he was now dead to them. That’s an artist who has seemed more or less unimpeachable for most of my life up until this point! All of that seemed to change in an instant.

There is a massive disconnect between the insular world of the industry establishment and the cutting edge of online counterculture. We saw this again a couple of weeks ago with the online response to the crisis in Gaza. We saw passionate advocacy for Palestinians from games journalists and developers much more often than we saw it from musicians. This is a very serious problem for music! I do not believe it is possible to please both sides - that is to say, I do not believe it is possible to be part of internet counterculture and the industry establishment simultaneously. The music industry is too conservative, too compromised, too corrupt. If it weren’t for the ocean of valuable copyrights that labels are sitting on, most of them would be bankrupt within a year. If the industry was forced to live or die based on how they handle what’s happening right now in the present, it would most assuredly die. The only people who don’t realize this are those who are being paid to stay ignorant. 

Josh and I did not know this back then. From where we were standing, it looked like internet culture and established media industries were on track to converge. A career in the arts seemed genuinely, tantalizingly possible, right up until the moment that it no longer did. 

In my case, I had really been struggling up until that point. My life had been this ongoing sequence of evictions and hospitalizations, and it seemed to be getting worse, not better. I donated plasma twice a week to pay for groceries and while I was sitting there with a giant needle stuck in my left arm for an hour I would see my picture in The Fader or my songs being recommended by one of the Kings of Leon on Twitter or whatever. Music seemed like the only thing the world thought I was any good at. It felt like my only chance at a peaceful, happy life was somewhere out there in a world I could only perceive through a laptop screen. 

Gender, for me, was a big factor in all of this. The more invested in the craft of songwriting I became, the harder it was to repress or ignore my gender stuff. At that time I’m not sure I even knew what the word “transgender” meant - I just knew that when I showed up at a venue wearing a skirt, no one would talk to me or look me in the eye, and that reading about people like Anohni or Terre Thaemlitz or on the internet made me feel like if I could get out of Minneapolis maybe I could find a place where people would accept me. The internet was like, a pretty toxic place for someone in my position. When I tried to find people to talk to about what I was feeling, nobody tried to tell me to read Judith Butler or ask me what pronouns I preferred. The internet was just like, overrun with predators who just wanted to fetishize me and exploit me. Music seemed like the only way I’d ever have an actual life as myself. I was desperate for that. I was well and truly desperate.

Between all the big changes that were happening to us individually and the music industry moving farther and farther away of the anarchic free-for-all of MP3 file-sharing culture, the strain on us just got to be too much. We stopped trusting each other. We became the unstoppable force and the immovable object, crashing haphazardly against one another’s resolve in a dazzling display of youthful futility. Our partnership ended, and after finishing out the remaining live shows on the calendar by myself, I retired the name “Elite Gymnastics” and started making music on my own under other names. That was that.

Q: Why is Elite Gymnastics coming back now, then?

A: Over the years, Josh and I eventually started talking again. Though there was a lot we did agree on, and potential future projects were discussed, nothing truly felt right. We haven’t been in the same room since Summer 2012, and we’ve both changed a lot since then. We both have other projects and we’ve both developed other ways of working since we stopped working together. It’s a pretty big commitment to put all of that aside in order to join your fortunes together with someone you haven’t seen in a decade.

Recently, Josh decided to leave Elite Gymnastics. His reasons are his own, and I was very surprised by his decision, but after having had time to adjust, I’m really grateful to him. I had kept these songs at a distance for many years, because it seemed foolish to allow myself to get too attached to songs I didn’t feel like I was allowed to think of as mine, if that makes any sense. The songs felt like casualties of a conflict that I had to bury in the ground and try to forget about. Being able to embrace them again felt like re-growing a severed limb or having a loved one come back to life, almost. Feeling like it was safe to love these songs again made me feel whole in a way I didn’t expect to. I became really excited by the prospect of revisiting them, so that’s what I decided to do.

Q: Does this mean you’re going to put RUIN back on Spotify?

A: No. Taking the record off Spotify was the right thing to do. That record was only ever intended to exist during the era of MP3 piracy. I never envisioned a world where the music industry would be so aggressive about policing the way that copyrighted music is allowed to exist online. If we hadn’t opted to take the record down when we did, someone would inevitably have forced us to. If you want to hear those specific recordings again, you’re going to have to do it the way we originally intended: by downloading MP3 files from the internet. Try SoulSeek.

Q: What’s next for Elite Gymnastics, then?

A: Here’s the situation currently. There is no Elite Gymnastics music available to stream or purchase in an official capacity anywhere on the internet. It wouldn’t really be possible for me to put the old stuff on Spotify or Bandcamp now because of all the samples. Like I said before, it was a different time. Those records were created to thrive on a past version of the internet that no longer exists. They weren’t designed to be compatible with the 2021 internet.

Technically, Elite Gymnastics didn’t ever release a debut album. We had EPs, a compilation, and a remix collection. We didn’t make an album, a record that existed as the distillation of all that experimentation that contained all of the songs that fans of the EPs would want to hear, all in one place. It’s like we did Good Fridays but stopped before we made My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

So, I am currently working on the first Elite Gymnastics album. If you were following my stuff as Default Genders, you may have noticed me posting demos on my SoundCloud page from 2015-2018 that were all eventually reworked into the album Main Pop Girl 2019. The album I am making is taking that approach to all the old EG songs, including some unreleased stuff. I’m collaborating with others on some songs and I honestly feel like it has resulted in some of the best and most exciting music I have ever been involved with. It is a drastic reinvention, but iteration and reinvention have always been a big part of what I do. I want to make something that feels like the culmination of everything that came before, and so far, I think I’m succeeding.

Q: When will I be able to hear this new music?

At a virtual fundraiser on June 4th, 2021, where there is a suggested donation of $10. You can access it at quietyear.com

[not-so-mundane-after-all]

WANDAVISION SPOILERS!

First of all, as intrigued as I am to see the enter of X-Men into MCU through Evan Peters' Quicksilver, this Pietro is not my Pietro and will never be my Pietro - but most importantly he isn't Wanda's Pietro.

My theory is that this situation is not a real, actual recast - it feels more as if it was written to be a glitch in the matrix, an impostor or even a virus if we talk in terms of technology.

Let me gather facts:

Wanda is controlling this reality but not every aspect of it, there are things that slip out of her grasp, like in recent episode Agnes being confused or the death of that dog. It kind of feels like Wanda used to be in control, but the longer she's holding on to it and the more things she adds, the more she can't handle it, therefore letting "glitches" happen.

One of these "glitches" is an appearance of her brother - having her twins prompted her to think about him more than she had probably done in recent years, that unresolved grief she never really dealt with came back, and even if she consciously didn't make the decision to bring him back (what she says to her sons about that some things have to stay dead (I'm paraphrasing) is a clue and has a deeper meaning) her subconscious yearned for him, wanted to see him, she started missing him and BAM! There he is.

BUT - it's not her Pietro. It's an impostor - a "recast" as Darcy called it. She knows it - she must have seen some footage and pictures of the real Pietro Maximoff. Vision didn't recognize him either (and vice versa) which, if it was the real Pietro, wouldn't make sense because Pietro was there when Vision was created. They know each other. And I think deep down Wanda knows he's not really her brother as well, but she's too much in denial to care at the moment. She wanted her brother back so she made herself one. Subconsciously or not. And she's going to play pretend as long as she needs. Vision looks like Vision because she had his body and every other person in her town is an actual person, but for Pietro she had to use a substitue because she didn't have his body - we don't even know what happened to it. Last we saw Clint took him to the transport but that's it. Did they stop somewhere still on Sokovia territory and buried him? Did they bring him to the States? Was he cremated? Or maybe Wanda didn't even get to see the body and say her goodbyes, hence the obvious denial and repression of feelings, I'd even say an outright refusal to start the grieving process in the movies that followed AoU. I hope the next episode answers some of those questions.

So in conclusion, Wanda needed a Pietro so Pietro showed up, but he's as much a character of her show as all the other people in this town. He's not real and right now she refuses to see that but in time she probably will.

And crossing fingers the real Pietro played by Aaron Taylor Johnson will bless our screens again or mr. Kevin Feige and I will have a chat.

[dustedmagazine]

Music for Films, Vol. II: Chick Habit

For good and for ill, Quentin Tarantino’s movies have been strongly associated with postmodern pop culture — particularly by folks whose reactions to the word “postmodern” tend toward pursed lips and school-marmishly wagged fingers. There for a while, reading David Denby on Tarantino was similar to reading Michiko Kakutani on Thomas Pynchon: almost always the same review, the same complaints about characters lacking “psychological depth,” the same handwringing over an ostensible moral insipidness. Truth be told, Tarantino’s pranksome delight with flashy surfaces and stylistic flourishes that are ends in themselves gives tentative credence to some of the caviling. Critics have raised related concerns over the superficiality of Tarantino’s tendency toward stunt casting, especially his resurrections of aging actors relegated to the film industry’s commercial margins: John Travolta, Pam Grier, Robert Forster, David Carradine, Darryl Hannah, Don Johnson and so on. There might be a measure of cynicism in the accompanying cinematic nudging and winking, but it’s also the case that a number of the performances have been terrific.

The writer-director brings a similar sensibility to his sound-tracking choices, demonstrating the cooler-than-thou, deep-catalog knowledge of an obsessive crate-digger. Tarantino thematized that knowledge in his break-through feature, Reservoir Dogs (1992). Throughout the film, the characters tune in to Steven Wright deadpanning as the deejay of “K-Billy’s Super Sounds of the Seventies”; like the characters, the viewer transforms into a listener, treated to such fare as the George Baker Selection’s “Little Green Bag” (1970) and Harry Nilsson’s “Coconut” (1971). As with the above-mentioned actors, Tarantino has sifted pop culture’s castoffs and detritus, unearthing songs and delivering experiences of renewed value — and thereby proving the keenness of his instincts and aesthetic wit. “Listen to (or look at) this!” he seems to say, with his cockeyed, faux-incredulous grin. “Can you believe you were just going to throw this out?” And mostly, it works. If the Blue Swede’s “Hooked on a Feeling” (1974) has become a sort of semi-ironized accompaniment to hipsterish good times, that resonance has a lot more to do with Tim Roth, Harvey Keitel and Co. cruising L.A. in a hulking American sedan than with the Disney Co.’s Guardians of the Galaxy (2014).

In Death Proof (2007), Tarantino’s seventh film and unaccountably his least favorite, soundtrack and screen are both full to bursting with the flotsam and jetsam of “entertainment” conceived as an industry. 

In just the opening minutes, we see outmoded moviehouse announcements, complete with cigarette-burn cue dots; big posters of Brigitte Bardot from Les Bijoutiers du claire de lune (1958) and of Ralph Nelson’s Soldier Blue (1970) bedecking the apartment of Jungle Julia (Sydney Tamiia Poitier); the tee shirt worn by Shanna (Jordan Ladd), which bears the image of Tura Satana; and strutting under all of it are the brassy cadences of Jack Nitzsche’s “The Last Race,” taken from his soundtrack for the teensploitation flick Village of the Giants (1965). Bibs and bobs, bits and pieces of low- and middle-brow cinema are cut up and reconstructed into a fulsome swirl of signs. And there’s an unpleasant edge to it; the cuts are echoed by the action of the camera, which has been busily cleaving the bodies of the women on screen into fragments and parts. First the feet of Arlene (Vanessa Ferlito), propped up on a dashboard; then Julia, all ass and gams; then Arlene’s lower half again, chopped into slices by the stairs she dashes up (“I gotta take the world’s biggest fucking piss!”) and by the close-up that settles on her belly and pelvis, her hand shoved awkwardly into her crotch. 

As often happens in Tarantino’s movies, furiously busy meta-discursive play collapses the images’ problematic content under multiple levels of reference and pastiche. The film is one half of Grindhouse (2007), Tarantino’s collaboration with his buddy Robert Rodriguez, an old-fashioned double-feature comprising the men’s love letters to the exploitation cinema of the 1960s and 1970s. In those thousands of movies — mondo, beach-cutie, nudie-cutie, women in prison, early slasher, rape-revenge, biker gang, chop-socky, Spaghetti Western and muscle-car-worship flicks (and we could add more subgenres to the list) — symbolic violence inflicted on women’s bodies was de rigueur, and frequently the principal draw. Tarantino shot Death Proof himself, so he is (more than usually) directly responsible for all the framing and focusing — and he’s far too canny a filmmaker not to know precisely what he’s doing with and to those bodies. The excessive, camera-mediated gashing and trimming is a knowing, perhaps deprecating nod to all that previous, gratuitous T&A. His sound-tracking choice of “The Last Race” metaphorically underscores the point: in Bert I. Gordon’s Village of the Giants, bikini-clad teens find and consume an experimental growth serum, which causes them to expand to massive proportions. Really big boobs, actual acres of ass. Get it?

Of course, all the implied japing and judging is deeply embedded in the film’s matrix of esoteric references and fleeting allusions. You’d have to be very well versed in the history of exploitation cinema to pick up on the indirect homage to Gordon’s goofy movie. But as in Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino doesn’t just gesture, he dramatizes, folding an authoritative geekdom into the action of Death Proof. In the set-up to Death Proof’s notorious car crash scene, Julia is on the phone, instructing one of her fellow deejays to play “Hold Tight!” (1966) by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich. Don’t recognize the names? “For your information,” Julia snorts, Pete Townsend briefly considered abandoning the Who, and he thought about joining the now-obscure beat band, to make it “Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick, Tich & Pete. And if you ask me, he should have.”

It’s among the most gruesomely violent sequences in Tarantino’s films (which do not run short on graphic bloodshed), and Julia receives its most spectacular punishment. Those legs and that rump, upon which the camera has lavished so much attention, are torn apart. Her right leg flips, flies and slaps the pavement, a hunk of suddenly flaccid meat. Again, Tarantino proves himself an adept arranger of image, sign and significance. Want to accuse him of fetishizing Julia’s legs? He’ll materialize the move, reducing the limb to a manipulable fragment, and he’ll invest the moment with all of the intrinsic violence of the fetish. He’ll even do you one better — he’ll make that violence visible. Want to watch? You better buckle up and hold tight. 

Hold on a second. “Hold Tight”? The soundtrack has passed over from intertextual in-joke to cruel punchline. It doesn’t help that the song is so much fun, and that it’s fun watching the girls groove along to it, just before Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) obliterates them, again and again and again. The awful insistence of the repetition is another set-up, establishing the film’s narrative logic: the repeated pattern and libidinal charge-and-release of Stuntman Mike’s vehicular predations. It is, indeed, “a sex thing,” as Sheriff Earl McGraw (Michael Parks) informs us in his cartoonish, redneck lawman’s drawl. Soon the sexually charged repetitions pile up: see Abernathy’s (Rosario Dawson) feet hanging out of Kim’s (Tracie Thom) 1972 Mustang, in a visual echo of Arlene’s, and of Julia’s. Then listen to Lee (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) belt out some of Smith’s cover of “Baby It’s You” (1969), which we most recently heard 44 minutes before, as Julia danced ecstatically by the Texas Chili Bar’s jukebox. Then watch Abernathy as she sees Stuntman Mike’s tricked-out ’71 Nova, a vibrating hunk of metallic machismo — just like Arlene saw it, idling menacingly back in Austin, with another snatch of “Baby It’s You” wisping through that moment’s portent. 

For a certain kind of viewer, the Nova’s low-slung, growling charms are hard to resist, as is the sleazy snarl of Willy DeVille’s “It’s So Easy” (1980; and we might note that Jack Nitzsche produced a couple of Mink DeVille’s early records, connecting another couple strands in the web) on the Nova’s car stereo. Those prospective pleasures raise the question of just who the film is for. That may seem obvious: the same folks — dudes, mostly — who find pleasure in exploitation movies like Vanishing Point (1971), Satan’s Sadists (1969) or The Big Doll House (1971). But there are a few other things to account for, like how Death Proof repeatedly passes the Bechdel Test, and how long those scenes of conversation among women go on, and on. Most notable is the eight-minute diner scene, a single take featuring Abernathy, Kim, Lee and Zoë (Zoë Bell, doing a cinematic rendition of her fabulous self, an instance of stunt casting that literalizes the “stunt” part). Among other things, the women discuss their careers in film, the merits of gun ownership and Kim and Zoë’s love of (you guessed it) car chase movies like Vanishing Point. One could read that as a liberatory move, a suggestion that cinema of all kinds is open to all comers. All that’s required is a willingness to watch. But watching the diner scene becomes increasing claustrophobic. The camera circles the women’s table incessantly, and on the periphery of the shot, sitting at the diner’s counter, is Stuntman Mike. The circling becomes predatory, the threat seems pervasive. 

If you’ve seen the film, you know how that plays out: Zoë and Kim play “ship’s mast” on a white 1970 Dodge Challenger (the Vanishing Point car); Stuntman Mike shows up and terrorizes them mercilessly; but then Abernathy, Zoë and Kim chase him down and beat the living shit out of him, likely fatally. In another sharply conceived cinematic maneuver, Tarantino executes a climactic sequence that inverts the diner scene: the women surround Stuntman Mike, abject and pleading, and punch and kick him as he bounces from one of them to another. The camera zips from vantage to vantage within the circle, deliriously tracking the action. All the jump cuts intensify the violence, and they provide another contrast to the diner’s scene’s silky, unbroken shot. The sounds and the impact of the blows verge on slapstick, and our identification with the women makes it a giddily gross good time.

So, an inversion seeks to undo repetition. Certainly, Stuntman Mike’s intent to repeat the car-crash-kill-thrill is undone, and predator becomes prey. But, as is inevitable with Tarantino’s cinema, there are complications, other echoes and patterns to suss out. For instance: as the women stride toward the wrecked Nova, while Stuntman Mike pathetically wails, the camera zooms in on their asses. Bad asses? Nice asses? What’s the right nomenclature? To make sure we can put the shot together with Julia’s first appearance in the film, Abernathy has hiked up her skirt, revealing a lot of leg. Repetition reasserts itself. In an exacerbating circumstance, Harvey Weinstein’s grubby fingerprints are smeared onto the film. Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios is credited with production of Grindhouse, but Dimension Films, a Weinstein Brothers company, handled distribution.  

When the film cuts to its end titles, we hear April March’s “Chick Habit” (1995), with its spot-on lyric: “Hang up the chick habit / Hang it up, daddy / Or you’ll never get another fix.” And so on. Even here, where the girl-power vibe feels strongest (cue Abernathy burying a bootheel in Stuntman Mike’s face), there are echoes, patterns. Note how the striding bassline of “Chick Habit” strongly recalls the pulse beating through Nitzsche’s “The Last Race.” Note that March’s song is a cover, of “Laisse tomber les filles,” originally recorded by yé-yé girl France Gall. The song was penned by Serge Gainsbourg, pop provocateur and notorious womanizer. The two collaborated again, releasing “Les Sucettes,” a tune about a teeny-bopper who really likes sucking on lollipops, when Gall was barely 18; the accompanying scandal nearly torpedoed her career. Gall refused to ever sing another song by Gainsbourg, and disavowed her hits.  

Again, that’s all deeply embedded, somewhere in the film’s complicated play of pop irony and double-entendre and the sudden explosions of delight and disgust that intermittently reveal and conceal. Again, you’d have to know your pop history really well to catch up with the complications, and Death Proof moves so fast that there’s always another reference or allusion demanding your attention as the cars growl and the blood spurts. Too many signs to track, too many signals to decipher — that’s the postmodern. But perhaps we have become too glib, assuming that all signs are somehow equivalent. Death Proof insists otherwise. Much has been made of the film’s strange relation to digital filmmaking, of the sort that Rodriguez has made a career out of. Part of Grindhouse’s shtick is its goofball applications of CGI, all the scratches and skips and flaws that the filmmakers lovingly applied. They are digital effects, masquerading as damaged celluloid. Tarantino cut back against that grain, filming as much of the car chase’s maniacal stuntwork in meatspace as he safely could. Purposeful practical filmmaking, for a digitally enhanced cinematic experience, attempting to mimic the ways real film interacts with the physical environment and its manifold histories. Is that clever, or just more cultural clutter?  

Amid all the clutter that crowds the characters onscreen, and their conversations in the film’s field of sound, it can be easy to lose track of the distinctions between appearances and the traces of the real bodies that worked to bring Death Proof to life. Which is why Tarantino’s inclusion of Bell is so crucial. She provides another inversion: Instead of masking her individual presence, doing stunts for other actresses in their clothes and hair (for Lucy Lawless in Xena: Warrior Princess, or for Uma Thurman in Tarantino’s Kill Bill films), Bell is herself, doing what she does best, projecting the technical elements of filmmaking — usually meant to bleed seamlessly into illusion — right onto the surface of the screen. And instead of allowing one group of girls to slip into a repeated pattern, bodies easily exchanged for other bodies, Bell’s presence and its implicit insistence on her particularity (who else can move like she does?) breaks up the superficial logic of cinema’s market for the feminine. She disrupts its chick habit. There’s only one woman like her. 

Jonathan Shaw

[twh-news]

Loki’s production designer on the Modernist inspiration behind the show’s stunning visuals | The Art Newspaper

By Helen Stoilas

Kasra Farahani explains why the Time Variance Authority waiting room looks so much like the Breuer building, and how the inside of a Fabergé egg became an alien train carriage.

Fans of Modernist design can find a lot to appreciate in Loki, the television series starring Tom Hiddleston recently released by Marvel Studios on the streaming channel Disney+. The stunning production is clearly influenced by Brutalist and Neo-Futurist architecture, as well as Soviet Socialist art and sculpture. Visual references can be seen from the very first episode, in which the magic-wielding god of mischief is apprehended by a universe-spanning police force known as the Time Variance Authority for “crimes against the Sacred Timeline” (stay with us).

One early scene, for example, was filmed on a custom-built set that bears a striking resemblance to the lobby of the Marcel Breuer building in New York which once housed the Whitney Museum—and now houses the Frick—while another was shot on location in the Neo-Futurist Atlanta Marriott Marquis hotel, designed by the architect John C. Portman, Jr (with some monumental statues later edited into the soaring atrium). The Art Newspaper spoke to the series’ production designer, Kasra Farahani, about his inspirations for the look of the show.

The Art Newspaper: Loki's director, Kate Herron has called this series a love letter to sci-fi and you see a lot of visual homages to films like Brazil, A Clockwork Orange and Blade Runner. But there's also a clear influence of Modernist design on the look of the series overall. You studied industrial design early in your career. Were there specific examples of Modernist architecture and design that you were looking at when you started working on the series?

Kasra Farahani: So many, everyone from Frank Lloyd Wright to Breuer, to Mies van der Rohe to Paul Rudolph—you have a shot in the John Portman building—to Oscar Niemeyer. And then a lot of Eastern European, Soviet-influenced Modernism played a big part in it as well. I can honestly tell you that my first and foremost inspiration was Modernism. Part of that is because the TVA (Time Variance Authority) is a bureaucracy and I think, archetypically, so much of what we know a bureaucracy to be is that post-war, highly funded institutional look. And there's a lot of different versions of that, whether it's the Washington, DC version, like the Hoover building, or whether it's what we had in Los Angeles, where I grew up, where there's a huge amount of post-war architecture built for the population boom. Like the elementary school, middle school and high school that I went to were all mid-century Modernist.

I was also looking a lot at Brutalism and the Modernism in former Soviet states, that are heavily influenced by Socialism and Soviet architecture, and where scale is such a big driving force of the design.

The size of some of the buildings in the show are kind of overwhelming. I know that some filming was done in the Atlanta Marriott Marquis, with that huge soaring atrium. You just completely get dwarfed by that kind of architecture.

Yeah, that's right. That one we used for the TVA archives because we couldn't justify building a big set, but once I scouted it, I saw that we could bring in these massive Time-Keeper sculptures at the scale you would typically only see in an exterior, which is a fantastical thing. The TVA sets themselves, which were almost entirely full 360-degree sets, were very much designed as an intentional paradox between the stoic, large-scale Brutalism form language, and the surfacing and palette and whimsical patterning, which is very much taken from American mid-century Modern. Those two things create these spaces that feel at once super intimidating and then uncomfortably inviting and warm at the same time.

That’s kind of the irony of a lot of Modernism, Brutalism especially, it had these utopian ideals of creating affordable social housing, but then a lot of the people found it really oppressive to live in.

Yeah. Modernism has been that way the whole time—it was designed to be super cheap and utilitarian and routinely it ends up being the most expensive kind of architecture. Another thing readers may be curious to know about is the TBA expanse, which is essentially the view outside some windows.

That futuristic cityscape you can see….

Yeah. They had very strange and unique parameters to try to design that. The TVA exists outside of the physical world—so there's no weather, there's no roofs, there's no difference between interior and exterior, there's not necessarily even gravity in the way that we know it. But there are these meandering colonnades that we took a lot of inspiration from Brasilia—and obviously a lot of the super cities that were drawn in comics. But also there's some really beautiful conceptual sketches that Frank Lloyd Wright did of a version Los Angeles in the early 20th century that had Roman-like colonnades and plazas and a lot of that fed into what the TVA expanse is.

You mentioned all the sets you built for Loki, especially for the TVA. There's two that where used a lot. The Time Theater, where so much of kind of Loki’s personal story gets told, and looks like its straight out of the Barbican in London, with these huge colour-coded directional numbers on the walls. And then there's the Miss Minutes waiting room with those circular lights that looks almost exactly like the lobby of the Breuer building in New York—to the point where I reached out to the museum to ask if you’d filmed there. You even got the silver-tipped light bulbs right.

We were very inspired by that, but it's different in some very subtle, but for me, very important ways. Number one, the size of the bulbs is much smaller, they were manipulated to create eyeballs, basically. Another important difference is that in the Breuer building, they have these dishes hanging in space, whereas in ours, they're negative space, there's a solid ceiling. It creates a matrix of eyeballs peering down, like the always-watching Time-Keepers. And maybe the most important difference is that the ceiling is slammed down—you know the cheapest apartment you can go into has an eight-foot ceiling, this is six inches shorter than that, and our actor is about six-foot-three. The idea was to create a sort of trash compactor feeling in this claustrophobic space with this matrix of eyes, watching as all of this is happening.

The time theater was for me very inspired by Pier Luigi Nervi.

I liked that waffle coffered ceiling you have in that room.

Thanks. We were very happy with it, and it created this kind of forest of light columns which helps set the neo-noirish, interrogative nature of the space. And the unnecessarily large super graphics that you mentioned are a very Paul Rudolph sort of a thing, he did that in his building too, and I love that.

For me, it’s very important not to reference a set design from other films, that why I reference architecture, painting, photography, these other art forms, more than anything else, because inevitably when you’re working in archetypes, there’s a lot of overlap.

And as Loki goes into different times and locations, you get a completely different design environment in those places. There’s a scene on a train car, that has a very Art Deco look.

That was inspired by the inside of a Fabergé egg, Art Deco meets Alien.

And when you finally meet the Time-Keepers in the most recent episode, it’s like they're in a pre-Colombian pyramid or a ziggurat.

I was looking at Indian stepwells, this almost fractal quality with these descending stairs going into one another—but we imagined them going out every direction, with an Escher-like quality, like they are tessellating themselves to infinity.

I read on Twitter that you literally bought a bowling alley from Omaha and brought it to Atlanta to create Loki's Palace in the Void in the last episode, which is this crazy, surreal, amusement park, junk yard-like place.

We bought the floor of a bowling alley, everything else we built. That was a lot of fun because the script gave us a lot of runway. The proposal was to do this bowling alley because essentially everything in the Void has been discarded from time, and more things fall into it and accumulate and so you end up with these strata. I liked the idea of like a bowling alley that's been smashed over your knee or something. The net effect is when you first enter, you have all these lane lines pointing down at this throne, which was supposed to be stolen from a mall Santa. And then there's these crazy alien plants that are growing through it that have taken parasitic hold of the place. In many ways, I think its a narrative microcosm of the Void itself, which is like a salad bar of these disparate aberrations slammed together. Things like the bowling alley all have these micro-narratives that we in the art department have come up with to help flush out the design and make them specific. For example, there's portraits on the wall of like bowler of the month, and they’re not quite human. It's not in the episode, but those things are important for us in the art department.

At the very end of the most recent episode, we get a glimpse into this city that Loki and Sylvie (played by Sophia Di Martino) are walking into. Can tell us anything about what inspired those scenes, what we're about to see?

You can call me back in a week. All I can say is that the TVA is definitely the visual and narrative anchor of the story, but there's a lot of great worlds to see. And I think what people are responding to is the breadth of the visual variety of the show. And episode six won't be any different. It's really cool, and maybe some of my favorite stuff.

[reversecreek]

MEET THE NPCS...

BOBBY YANG, “BIG BOB” .

1. how old are they and what do they look like?

thirty-four. implausibly tall. the day magda first saw a sketch of slenderman she thought of him. when her aunt shelly pulled up the dirt road to abernathy creek magda remembers seeing him through a dusty back window with his head bowed to avoid getting tree leaves in his eyes, joint between his lips, dungarees dirty and half unbuckled. one side of his hair is buzzed with no apparent style intention and he has a weed leaf tattooed behind his left ear. an elephant on his thigh. a name on his ankle he often wears a plaster over. once it soaked through and fell off in the creek and, newly glossy in the sun, nine year old magda reached to give it a blunt and shameless prod. big bob never explained who the name belonged to, he only reached to thumb at the minari growing by the water bed and talk about the fact it was a "versatile little sucker”. 

2. if applicable, where and when did they meet your muse?

big bob introduced himself as such and magda raised her eyebrow in disbelief, the soul of a disgruntled pensioner in a seven yr old’s body. magda didn’t rly talk to anyone when she first arrived in her new home, verging on mute. she was angry at the move, angry that her dad hadn’t called her when she got there, angry that she didn’t know her mother’s voice to imagine it telling her everything was okay. the world made her so angry she didn’t want to acknowledge it. she sat outside in silence for a long time letting a ladybug crawl over her hand, and big bob didn’t ask anything of her, he only schlepped closer and presented her with a buttercup. she looked at it like it’d spat in her face but took it nonetheless. it was strange having an actual bed, if you could call a bare mattress that, used to sleeping on the sofa in shelly’s old trailer, and the springs nipped at her like a dog demanding treats, so she wandered outside in one of shelly’s big tie dye shirts like a nightdress, searching for the moon. big bob was standing out there already in the overgrown grass, stark naked, chin lifted to gawk at the moon himself. magda didn’t disturb him. this is when she first discovered his habit of naked sleepwalking. abernathy creek felt like a bird house overrun with all kinds of eccentric, squawking parakeets. it was a lot for a seven yr old to take in. this was a strange reality she’d never signed up for, swallowed by the commune to overheat inside it’s belly. 

3. what kind of a presence do they have in your muse’s life? do they have a positive or negative relationship?

bob’s definitely a character. three times now he’s slipped hallucinogens into magda’s tea without her knowing under the impression that this is just harmless fun and he’s actually helping her by pushing her little boat to bob along the ocean of enlightenment, once at as young as 16. every time she realises he’s like “y’just got bobbeddddd!” and magda’s like here we go ig. told her the raw earth has healing properties to explain why he’d dug up the grass just to rub his hands in the soil and lay there like a panting, overheated dog. he’s an important component to abernathy creek and oversees a lot of the agriculture there. rigged up the irrigation system himself using copper pipes that magda suspects were stolen. the beat up camper van that’s usually parked up behind abernathy and hidden under leafy branches appeared when he did, apparently, although he insists it belongs to everyone. he leads the crusades to drive it up to the mountains and take a group of abernathy creek residents shroom picking. he’s in charge of drying them for selling, too. jack of all trades, really. magda claims not to care for him (or anyone) but she still walked out onto the grass, took his hand and lead him inside whenever she found him sleepwalking at night in her teens. once a group of kids were daring each other to get closer when he was out there and magda threw a stone so hard at one of their shin’s it split it open and made them scatter. but again, magda “does not care about him”. the jury is not convinced.

4. are they revered in irving? do they have bad blood with anyone?

honestly everyone in irving probably thinks he’s a rly strange guy and i won’t fk around. he kind of is. wears many necklaces around his neck n one is just a pouch that has a prehistoric mosquito encased in a little piece of amber inside. sometimes magda wonders if he likes to play up to his reputation by putting it on a little bit. once she saw him suddenly jerking his head like a pecking chicken and saying “g’warn GET” to scare a random middle aged hiker into galloping in the opposite direction in the trees near abernathy. has a masterful knowledge of bird songs and can imitate them all impeccably. sometimes does this instead of replying with words. never cares about the holes in his shoes where his toes poke out. always seems to be turning a rusty coin between his fingers like it helps him think. he makes moonshine that will knock u off ur feet tho which is always a good time if ur lucky enough to try it. he has a very rich n warm voice like a log fire or a gooey chocolate brownie. even with all of his oddities he sounds kind. he’s very unconventional n doesn’t abide by rules of society a lot but he’s quite funny n a good time. makes engaging smalltalk if u treat him with respect. weird but admittedly a tiny bit wonderful. 

OTIS WOLFE.

1. how old are they and what do they look like?

forty-six but he looks older. the skin beneath his eyes is subtly purpled like it’s been dyed by a lick of beetroot juice. he has a very charismatic walk which doesn’t sound like it makes sense but it does to look at him. he walks everywhere buoyantly and with purpose. very high energy in his good days. lives everything in large quantities, good and bad. always used to wear a tan leather bomber jacket when magda was growing up but he forgot it w her one visit n it’s the only time she’s known him to call up two days after leaving to ask if she’d seen it. magda lied and said she hadn’t. she still has it to this day. sleeps in it on her bad days. otis has a smile so big it shines like live wires are sparking in his mouth. magda’s fingertips prickle like she’s an hour recovering from shoving a fork into a plug socket whenever she sees it. she used to think that’s what excitement felt like. that used to be true.

2. what kind of a presence do they have in your muse’s life? do they have a positive or negative relationship?

it’s very complicated. magda knows her dad isn’t a good person but she knows he isn’t a bad person either. sometimes it’s more frustrating to see things in grey because you just want something solid to take shape that u can actually put ur finger on. she finds herself perpetually stood at a fork in the road between believing in him still and deciding he’s no good. sometimes she’ll start walking in one direction only to realise it loops back on itself and she’s right back where she started. otis has given her a lot of fun “adventures”. taught her how to juggle. they stayed in a hotel on someone else’s credit card once and racked up a gargantuan tab ordering every form of room service and renting godzilla and the matrix on pay per view when she was 11. sometimes he’d use her in gimmicks where she had to lie and pretend she had a health condition so they could get a few bucks off charitable strangers on a street corner and under the veil of youth magda found playing up these roles funny because who would ever believe that? wasn’t everyone in the world so stupid except them? it was nice being part of his team. his “little wolfie”. but then a lot of things weren’t nice either. he’s left her stranded on the side of the road with nowhere to go on more than one occasion. he’s passed out in motel corridors and she’s had to lug him into a bed. he’s forgotten almost every birthday apart from one where he sent a card with five dollars inside and handwriting so squiggly she could tell he was drunk when he wrote it. he doesn’t know she likes to sing because he’s only ever listened when he’s fallen asleep. otis is all of magda’s heart and that’s why sometimes she likes to forget that it’s beating. 

3. are they revered in irving? do they have bad blood with anyone?

he’s very flighty n rarely in irving any more tbh but was more when magda was younger n his visits were a little less sporadic. probably owes a bunch of people money for some reason or another. smashed up fannie’s recently when he turned up drunk and got ahead of himself on a giddy n frenzied rampage in the name of “fun” n “just having a laugh”. magda’s aunt shelly really doesn’t get on with her brother n thinks he’s a complete deadbeat waste of space n resents him a lot for the impact he’s had on magda. magda remembers being little and peeking through a crack in shelly’s trailer door when he turned up drunk one time to collect her for a visit n shelly wouldn’t let him in. something along the lines of “you don’t give a rat’s ass about that little girl” and “she worships you, y’know that? most of the time, you don’t even remember her name”. magda crept back onto the sofa and pretended to be asleep by the time she came inside.

4. if your muse is no longer in contact with them, how did the relationship end? did your muse get closure over this?

magda slowly stopped trying to keep in contact over the years. it got embarrassing trying so hard when she didn’t get much back. like pushing a boulder all the way up a hill only to watch it roll back down again. it’s probably contributed a lot towards magda’s inability to really try with people like she should, especially when her heart’s involved. she doesn’t want to be humiliated again. magda hasn’t spoken to her dad in person in almost a year. they had a phone call about seven months back but it turned out to be a butt dial and he hung up because he was in the middle of a conversation at some bar about the moon landing conspiracy. magda’s playlist that i have for her is called “a rodeo clown in a revolving door” which is basically the role otis serves in magda’s life. always in and out. never constant. gone more than he’s there, especially lately. idk if magda will ever get closure over that. she certainly hasn’t now. pouts my fuckable lips to the side w a hand on hip and triple f’s prominent.

[riversofmars]

Hi all! I love hearing all of your theories and thoughts, thank you so much! I'm having a brilliant time writing and am so excited, as things are about to start happening! :D Enjoy! <3

Chapter 4: The Board Is Set

London, Late 19th Century

Back in the TARDIS, as they set off, Yaz felt a little more in her element. She joined the Doctor at the console while Vastra and Jenny equipped themselves with Samurai swords and Strax checked through his grenade packs. The Doctor was quiet and deep in thought.

“So… you’re married.“ Yaz said after a while of watching her fiddle with the controls without doing much. The course was set and the TARDIS knew the way.

“Hm.“ The Doctor wasn’t quite paying attention to her.

“It’s just that… you never mentioned and you’re not wearing a wedding ring.“ Yaz observed, her voice soft. She sensed it was difficult for her friend to talk about but she wanted to understand. Why had she never mentioned River before?

The Doctor didn’t answer and Yaz felt her heart sink. Maybe she was not quite ready to confide in her yet. Defeated, she was just about to turn and head back to the others, but the Doctor finally spoke up:

“I lost it…“

“Oh…“ Yaz didn’t know what to say, that wasn’t the response she had expected.

“When I regenerated, it was too big and it just slipped off… and then, the TARDIS turned on its side and exploded and I fell… and…“ The Doctor broke off. “I didn’t even look for it…“ She admitted meeting Yaz’s eyes at last. “It was easier… not the have the constant reminder… when I knew we wouldn’t see each other again.“

“Why wouldn’t you?“ Yaz asked with a frown. From what she had gathered about their relationship so far, there was no way of knowing when and if they would see each other again.

“Our time is up.“ The Doctor gave a sad smile. She tried her best to be patient, to explain, but she didn’t expect Yaz to understand.

“You can’t know that. Even you can’t know what your future holds.“ Yaz crossed her arms in front of her chest, standing her ground, but the Doctor just gave a bitter laugh and a shake of her head, returning her attention to the console. “Doctor you have a child!“ Yaz exclaimed, she couldn’t keep it to herself any longer. She was growing more frustrated by the minute. She understood the pain and heartbreak the Doctor surely felt for the loss of her wife. She sympathised with the confusion and fear about these new revelations. Nevertheless, surely, amongst it all, her friend must have realised that she had gained something incredible as well. She had a child! Maybe not here and yes, terrible scary things were happening, but she had a child. Something incredibly precious her late wife had left behind and surely that was cause for joy, even during the darkest moments.

“Yaz, stop it, stop. You don’t know what you’re talking about.“ The Doctor interrupted her firmly. “You don’t know what my relationship with River has been like. What we’ve been through. And the pain for knowing how we would end up. I’m not going to walk out of this with a family!“ The Doctor’s voice cracked ever so slightly. “If we somehow, miraculously manage to find this child…“

“Your child, your son.“ Yaz interjected firmly.

“Even if we find him and if he’s okay, it doesn’t bring her back. River will still be gone. Our son will never see his mother again. We will never be a family.“ There was a bitter sadness to her voice.

“Does he have a name? Did the Professor say what he was called?“ Yaz looked to Vastra who pretended like they hadn’t been listening in.

“No. She said that was a decision she wanted to make with the Doctor.“ Vastra answered promptly.

“Perhaps that’s something you can decided when you talk to your wife again and tell her he’s safe. You can decide that as a family.“ Yaz turned back to the Doctor who chose not to answer, she returned her attention to the console.

Yaz squared her jaw, frustrated. While she didn’t have the sprawling knowledge of the Doctor’s past the others seemed to have, she felt like she had heard enough to understand what was going on. She tried to be sympathetic towards the Doctor’s struggle but she couldn’t grasp why she was shutting herself off so completely. There had to be more to it. The Doctor was not the same since prison, since whatever happened on Gallifrey. All the Doctor had told her was that the Master had died and the planet was a wasteland. She refused to speak of anything beyond that, no matter how much she pushed.

Yaz was about to protest, demand a reaction, when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked around to Vastra who gave her an understanding smile, as well as a firm indication to leave it for the time being.  

“Where are we going?“ The lizard woman turned to the Doctor, changing the subject.

“Old acquaintance, you’ll remember him well.“ The Doctor answered in an off-hand sort of way as she straightened herself up and checked the contents of her pockets like a soldier readying their weapons. The comparison hadn’t occurred to Yaz before now but it suddenly felt most appropriate. “The TARDIS has a fix on him, though he’s not where I expected he would be…“

“How about filling those in that haven’t been travelling with you since the dawn of time?“ Yaz pipped up, frustrated for feeling out of the loop again. “Where are we going?“

“There is no business like information and there is someone that has done very well for himself out of it.“ The Doctor worked the controls and the TARDIS wheezed as it landed.

“Armed and ready, Sir!“ Strax announced removing the safety of his blaster rifle. He looked ecstatic for being back in Sontaran armour and Yaz had to admit he looked a more normal sight now than he had in his butler’s uniform.

“Perhaps going in all guns blazing might not be required?“ Jenny suggested pushing Strax’s gun down. She did, however, keep her hand firmly on the hilt of her sword. There was no way of knowing what they would encounter once they left the relative safety of the TARDIS.

“It is exactly what’s required, carry on Strax, I’m not here to mess around.“ The Doctor interrupted as she headed for the door.

“We might make a Sontaran soldier of you yet, Sir!“ Strax grinned with excitement.

“Doctor…“ Vastra, always the voice of reason, tried to intervene but the Doctor cut her off:

“I don’t want to hear it.“ She opened the door and stepped outside.

“She’s not right…“ Yaz whispered to Vastra as they followed.

“No she’s not. But that’s what we’re here for.“ The Silurian replied and they stepped out of the TARDIS as well.

“Wow…“ Yaz was at a loss for words at first. She felt like they had just walked into the iconic Mos Eisly Cantina from Star Wars. The lighting was dim, there was music playing and aliens upon aliens of all shapes and sizes occupied tables and bar stools. The chatter of dozens of foreign languages added to the other-worldliness of the place. It took a moment for the TARDIS’s translation matrix to set in with as many languages as this. “That’s a lot of aliens in one place.“ Was the best observation Yaz could manage.

“That’s probably what they thought of us as we piled out of the TARDIS.“ Vastra commented in amusement as they closed the door behind them.

“This way.“ The Doctor didn’t give them time to linger and look around, she pushed ahead through the crowd. Yaz could feel everyone’s eyes on them, their obvious display of weapons probably didn’t help. Judging by the variety of dangerous creatures around them, however, she was glad they would be able to defend themselves if it came to it.

“What is this place?“ Yaz asked, falling into step with Jenny. She didn’t want to keep bothering Madame Vastra with her questions, her scaly expression had turned very serious indeed; her human wife seemed more approachable.

“This is the Maldovarium.“ Jenny answered with a pleasant smile. “A popular trading hub, black market basically. Everything you could possibly need you can find here.“ She explained as she looked around the bar.

“Like information?“ Yaz concluded.

“Dorium Maldovar’s speciality.“ Vastra added turning her head towards the two humans as they came to a halt. “He is an acquaintance of the Doctor’s and their wife…“

“Welcome!“ As if on cue, a boastful voice greeted them. It belonged to a very large man of distinctive blue skin. He was dressed in exquisite robes of silky materials and spread his arms out in greeting. Even amongst the other colourful aliens, he stood out.

“But I do remember him to be a little less of a man, last we saw him…“ Vastra carried on under her breath as they stepped closer.

“Did he grow a new body?“ Jenny whispered back.

“It would take years to cultivate a body that size.“ Strax added in his usual loud voice.

“Don’t be rude, Strax.“ Vastra chastised him and the Sontaran rolled his eyes. Yaz couldn’t quite follow their line of conversation but she hoped it would make sense to her later.

“We need to talk, Dorium.“ The Doctor walked right up to the blue man who looked at her surprised.

“And who, pray tell, are…“ He didn’t seem to recognise her at first, not until the Doctor’s companions stepped into the light as well. “Madame Vastra. Miss Flint. Commander Strax…“ Dorium seemed to be going a paler shade of blue all of a sudden.

“We might want to handle this in private.“ Vastra advised, scanning the room for possible eavesdroppers, but the Doctor was too impatient:

“Have you spoken to my wife recently?“ She asked, stepping into his personal space.

“Doctor, is it really…“ He looked her up and down and it was difficult to tell whether he was actually taken aback by her change of body or if he was playing for time.

“Don’t give me that, as if you haven’t got pictures of all my faces by now, very little passes through this universe without you knowing. Have you spoken to River?“ The Doctor bit back sharply. She didn't have time for games.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.“ Dorium feigned innocence but there was a measure of nervousness to his voice.

“Don’t make me come back there.“ The Doctor lowered her voice threateningly.

“Doctor, I speak to so many people every day. Professor Song, being a long standing customer and dare I say, friend, of course I talk…“ Dorium started rambling but the Doctor interrupted him.

“What exactly did you tell her.“ She pressed on.

“I haven’t seen the Professor in a very long time, as I understand it, condolences are in order, Doctor…“ Dorium started again but the Doctor grabbed him by the collar, pulling him close. Around them, several patrons started to take notice and Yaz watched, getting slightly unnerved, as Vastra and Jenny pulled their swords out halfway, in warning.

“Do not mess with me, Dorium, I am having a very bad day.“ The Doctor growled. “Strax, see that pillar behind the bar?“ She carried on without looking around.

“Yes?“ Strax said slowly, surprised to be called upon. He spotted the pillar in question.

“It’s a generator.“ The Doctor revealed something she had noticed straight away upon entering the bar. “Use it for target practice.“

“No!“ Dorium exclaimed but Strax was quicker.

“Yes!“ He grinned in excitement and fired at the structure. All the lights went out and Dorium vanished in a flash. There was shouts of confusion at the sudden darkness and several weapons discharged as their owners feared attack. Chaos ensured until finally the back up generators kicked in and emergency lighting came on.

“Alright, alright, someone show them back here.“ A voice called from somewhere in the back of house and a waiter gestured for the Doctor to follow.

“Solidograms, nice trick.“ The Doctor stated as they walked into the back area. The projection, though solid and life like, had not been able to fool her. Amongst ornate decorations and piles of art, wealth and treasure, they found the real Dorium Maldovar. Yaz nearly fell over her own feet, startled to see Dorium’s balled head but little else. It sat in a wooden box atop a desk.

——

Sheffield, 2021

“So, if you don’t mind me asking, what is it we’re dealing with?“ Graham set down a fresh cup of tea in front of Kate.

“UNIT didn’t just cease operations for no reason and of its own accord.“ Kate revealed as she leaned forward and picked up the cup, some conversations were better had over a cup of tea. “Someone wanted us out of the way.“

“How do you know that?“ Graham asked sitting down again as well.

“When the defence budget was being discussed in a closed session, the director of UNIT and two supporting MPs were due to give statements. It was only a formality, the budget was due to be granted as it always has been.“ Kate started explaining.

“What happened?“ Ryan asked confused as to what could possibly have gone wrong if it had never been an issue before?

“The day of the session, all three advocates simply didn’t show up for their testimony.“ Kate gave a shrug.

“What? All three of them?“ Ryan frowned and Graham agreed:

“That’s one hell of a coincidence.“

“As a result, the budget was cut and UNIT had to cease operations.“ Kate carried on and took a sip of her tea. “Obviously, myself and many colleagues were shocked and went looking for answers as to why they didn’t show up.“

“And you found they’d been… what? Killed?“ Graham jumped to the most obvious, grim solution. If someone wanted UNIT out of the way they probably were planning something big. If this wasn’t about the Daleks, then who was behind it?

“Worse.“ Kate retorted.

“Don’t like the sound of that.“ Ryan shook his head, exchanging a concerned glance with his grandfather. This sounded exactly like the sort of thing they had been planning on protecting Earth from while the Doctor was away.

“They appeared to never have excited.“ Kate stated, looking into stunned faces. “The budget committee had no record of them being due to speak, in fact, Parliament had no recollection of the two MPs ever being elected.“

“What? They just disappeared?“ Graham asked, confused.

“Not just them, any record of them, any memory…“ Kate carried on, though she seemed to be having trouble phrasing her own thoughts. “The only reason I can tell you about this is because I read the file again on the way here. And even the files… they just… fade after a while. As does my memory. We have to keep reminding ourselves… and some details are lost already, like their names, what they looked like… it’s like they’re being erased.“ She broke off as she struggled to think of anything else to say.

“But that’s not possible.“ Graham crossed his arms in front of his chest. “You can’t just erase people.“

“I’m afraid it is, this is why we need your help.“ Kate gave them an apologetic smile. She realised they had probably been hoping for a break from the adventure, returning to their lives, as they had made the choice to stay on Earth but it couldn’t be helped.

“How can we help? We literally have a physic paper to our name, that’s about it.“ Ryan admitted. This felt like a tall order to tackle without the Doctor.

“There is one thing we have noticed. The memory loss seems to effect some people more than others. Like I said, the members of Parliament didn’t recall their colleagues whom they served with a mere day after the hearing. Even after reminding them, they can’t recall. Some of us at UNIT, however, seem to be able to retain the memories for a while, so long as we keep refreshing it.“ Kate explained.

“Why do you think that is?“ Ryan and Graham exchanged concerned glances again.

“The only correlation we have been able to find is the Doctor. The more time each of us has spent with them, the more… resilient out memory appears to be to change.“ Kate revealed, though she couldn’t quite make sense of it herself yet. They had a long way to go but this was a start. “That’s why I’m here, asking for your help, you are uniquely qualified.“

——

The Maldovarium, 52nd Century

“Well, I can’t very well be greeting customers in my current state.“ Dorium huffed as they came to stand around the desk where he could see them.

“Talking of current state, last I saw you, you were in the Seventh Transept.“ The Doctor observed looking around. Dorium had done well for himself, he was back in business. “It’s not like you walked out of there by yourself, is it.“ She returned her attention to the head on the box.

“I may have had some assistance, yes. You do realise I’m very well connected.“ Dorium pointed out and the Doctor huffed:

“You were sitting in the Transept for decades after Demon’s Run, you don’t expect me to believe that suddenly, miraculously, one of your cronies turns up to save you long last.“ She shook her head.

“Why are you here, Doctor?“ Dorium asked, hoping to change the subject.

“I told you, I need to know exactly what you told my wife.“ She answered. “And I would like to know how you know about it.“

“Well, it’s nothing really, just gossip, she likes me to keep her informed whenever new information about you arises.“ Dorium explained reluctantly. “I daresay, she would be delighted if I send her word of your change of complexion…“

“And what new information was that?“ The Doctor demanded to know, frustrated with his evasive answers. “I swear Dorium, if you don’t tell me right now, I will put your head on a spike outside your bar!“ She leaned onto the desk threateningly.

“Inspired choice of decor, Sir, if I might say.“ Strax threw in.

“Strax.“ Jenny sighed but no-one paid attention to his comment.

“Well, it was the first I’d heard of it anyway and I haven’t since.“ Dorium sighed, realising it was in his best interest to just come out with it. “The Timeless Child… I wouldn’t have connected it to you, had they not specifically said it related to you in some way.“ The Doctor’s eyes widened in surprise. It sounded as though someone had told Dorium on purpose. Someone had betrayed the secret of the Time Lords.

“That’s not something you just let slip.“ The Doctor shook her head firmly. After ages of burying the secret deep, there was no way anyone would just unearth and chat about it to just anyone. She also couldn’t imagine anyone would want to save Dorium without an ulterior motive? “Did they tell you to pass it on to River?“

“No, but I thought it would be just the thing she would want to know about. So as soon as I got home, I sent word to Darillium.“ Dorium answered. “You’re acting like I did something wrong.“

“Who was it that told you about this?“ The Doctor ignored his offended tone.

“The person that retrieved you from the Transept?“ Vastra suggested, sensing that it was all somehow connected. Her detective work had taught her never to ignore coincidence. Dorium’s silence was confirmation enough.

“That’s how it started, they must have done it on purpose. They knew you would pass the message along and that River would feel the need to investigate it.“ The Doctor mused, turning back to the others. She tried her hardest to keep her emotions under wrap but she felt the anger searing her insides. “It’s all part of a plan, part of a… game.“

“But why?“ Yaz asked, confused.

“Perhaps to make her leave Darillium? And your protection? And with her, your child?“ Jenny suggested.

“If they had been as calculating as that, they could have grabbed River the moment she left and kept hold of her until she gave birth.“ The Doctor shook her head, it didn't seem to make sense.

“They might not have if they realised how complicated her timeline was. She is a complex space time event like yourself. Her death was already a fixed point, intercepting her could have…“ Vastra pointed out.

“You’d need understanding of the time streams for that, you’d have to be…“ The Doctor mused.

“A Time Lord?“ Vastra prompted and the Doctor turned back towards Dorium.

“Who saved you from the Transept?“ The Doctor asked as the others exchanged concerned glances. “Who’s game is this?“

“Come to think of it, they didn’t actually give a name…“ Dorium mused before clearing his throat awkwardly.

“How convenient.“ Jenny huffed.

“I thought it was you at first. Not very many people are in possession of a TARDIS these days but judging by your expression, it probably wasn’t.“ Dorium explained, giving a defeated sigh.

“A TARDIS?“ Yaz exclaimed surprised and unsettled while the Doctor kept her expression stoic.

“What did they look like.“ She asked.

“Well, he was male… dark hair, beard… not very tall… but then, it’s hard to judge height when you’re sitting in a box…“ Dorium answered reluctantly.

“Doctor, do you think it could be…“ Yaz felt her stomach turn as the description sounded terribly familiar.

“He’s dead. The Master is dead.“ The Doctor snapped, refusing to entertain the thought.

“Wouldn’t be the first time you were wrong about that.“ Vastra pointed out more calmly.

The Doctor’s mind was racing. The Master was the only person who knew about the Timeless Child but she firmly believed that he had perished on Gallifrey at the release of the death particle. Surely no-one, not even the Master could survive that, could they?

Suddenly the atmosphere around them changed. The temperature jumped twenty degrees and screams sounded from the adjourning bar.

“What is going on?“ Yaz asked dizzy from the sudden change. Jenny drew her sword, as if awaiting an attacker to emerge. She looked to Vastra with great concern, she knew her cold-blooded wife would struggle with the sudden heat. Vastra was quick to throw her coat off, looking around as well, trying to keep her breathing steady. Strax backed up to the door, looking back into the bar.

“The cowards have run away.“ He announced when he realised the bar was empty.

The Doctor stood petrified for a moment, her senses overwhelmed.

“Something is happening to time.“ She breathed, feeling it in her very bones. The time line of the planet was in flux and it left her disoriented.

“What’s happening?“ Vastra breathed heavily and loosened the collar of her shirt.

“Doctor?“ Dorium called from his box. “Are you responsible for this?“

“Should I shoot something again? Perhaps the heating?“ Strax suggested.

Finally, the Doctor managed to shake off the confusion and she rushed to a window. Her eyes took a moment to adjust as she looked out. Gone was the dreary cold landscape and perpetual twilight of the unnamed planetoid Dorium had set up shop on. A blazing sun had appeared in the sky, practically cooking the surface below.