#jason kane

[88wfan]

"You think grabbing the rope can save you? Nothing can save you now."

Jason Kane finishes Brodie Fisher off

[st4rshiptr00per]

some recent-ish VNAs stuff

[breadbug159]

My shop is now LIVE!!!

It will be open from March 1st to March 21st! It’s stocked with new merch that I made during the summer and will be updated with some old stocks from last year in the coming week!

[ivqks159]

🎁 merry Christmas!

[stillthesunkenstars]

collection era

[cousin-quartz-of-house-paradox]

i mean it's sort of insane (in a bad way) that jason isn't a beloved character. because he is just- very similar to benny! in a lot of ways! they're both thrill-seeking adventurers, they both love to drink and have sex (with other people and sometimes each other,) they're both chaotic and unruly as hell, they're both nearly impossible to make settle or to ground anywhere, they both- they both want to be parents (though, for different reasons,) they're both heroes, they both fuck up and are stupid (affectionate) sometimes, they both blunder into situations they don't understand and make a mess of things sometimes, they both try their best to be good, they're just so similar!

yet jason gets hate. and for what? because he's hypersexual? because he's a really good porn writer? because he copes using sex? like, fucking hell, you can't even cite his and benny's relationship being toxic because benny's just as bad as him! but in a different, not-so-direct way! and i love that for them! (and they are also adorably in love, btw. despite it all. and they try.)

like, ofc benny is loved by the fandom. i understand. i love her. she's possibly the most realistic character ever, she's so human and- and real, with flaws and fuck-ups and hope and a good heart. and we love her. of course we do.

but why not jason kane? because of benny unreliable-narrator summerfield insulting him in her thoughts when she's pissed off at him? because of brax calling him an idiot to (in my opinion) make it easier to use him as a tool and not see him as the person he is? hell, he was the person to offer brax help! he noticed brax's mental decline and he offered to help and he got nothing from it, he got worse than nothing from it, because you can't accept help- you can't accept help if you don't see the person trying to help you as a person and rather a tool! and brax got him killed for being a huge inconvenience to his plans because jason was a fucking hero and he tried to do good! and ofc it's not brax's fault either, his grand plans were ultimately, to him, for good and he just- he couldn't see how anyone could understand and jason was in his way. and. well. he couldn't have something threatening his plans. (people better than me have explained brax and jason, go check out this post by @stillthesunkenstars, i hope it's not a problem if i tag you.)

and- and he loves kids! peter specifically, but like, kids in general too! or did we miss when he stole the mixed-species kids away and kept them all safe from the fifth axis and they all loved him? did we miss that he listens to the kids like they say something worth listening to? did we miss that he tries to be the best dad he can to peter because his own dad was such a fucking piece of shit? did we miss that he genuinely wants to parent peter too, gets a bit sad when peter grows up a bit stops referring to him as 'dad' too (adorable,) he loves peter like he's his own kid!

it's just- people hate jason kane way too much, and just reduce him to, what, Benny's Bad Taste In Men The Example: Shitty Ex-Husband. or fucking something. and in doing so they completely miss his significance, his character, his lovable personality (because he is lovable! why d'you think benny's in love with him?) his plot significance, his narrative role, i could go on and on and on.

[the-oracle-of-the-lost]

top five brax moments. y'know what alternatively top five benny moments, and also top five jason moments. top five bev moments . as you can tell i am very good at decision making and not indecisive at all. honestly just whatever, do whichever you wish

oh boy.... let's see if i can do this without spending 3 hours going back through my story reviews to dig up everything i love about this series. (also disclaimer that i've listened to everything in the series and read most of the The Important Books but i haven't read everything, especially most of the Seven-Benny VNAs)

update: i did in fact spend way over three hours going through story reviews and old books and experienced way too many emotions so..... all of this under a cut

top 5 Brax moments:

The Crystal of Cantus. listen. i wrote a whole novel length fic called And They Became Monsters, what do you want from me? of course The Crystal of Cantus is my favorite Brax story specifically how he narrates the story to Parasiel and this sharp transition (and great bit of acting) where it's revealed that Braxiatel has been the villain all along by just his line delivery of "Sit down, Mr Parasiel." and it never feels like a cheap reveal? for one, it's been built up in The Mirror Effect and a lot of short stories for years. and for two, it's not really about Braxiatel being a villain (at least in my mind). it's about him revising his own story that he's been writing and casting himself as a monster because it's easier to be a monster than to be a person choosing cruelty and the whole story walks that line so well and has become the foundation for how i approach writing Braxiatel (at least Collection era Brax).

trying to commit suicide in Five Dimensional Thinking. Life During Wartime is a great anthology for many many reasons but this story (along with Fear of Corners) will always have a special place for me. Braxiatel is written so well throughout but specifically his admission to Benny that he's horribly afraid that he's responsible for the Fifth Axis's occupation to the point of considering killing himself. absolutely insane.

Braxiatel and John finally meeting in Where Angels Fear. like the other stories i've talked about, i love Where Angels Fear for many many reasons but i remember reading it for the first time and being blown away by this exchange:

Braxiatel is a character obsessed with control and manipulation (not always bad manipulation but manipulation in the sense that he needs to be the one who knows what's going on and can't stand when others pull his strings) and this story (and this scene in particular) really represents the moment when he loses that control for the first time and realizes that he's lost that Time Lord objectivity he once valued so much. and to a lesser extent, he spends the rest of his life through the Collection arc struggling with this moment of being out of control, his relationship to his Time Lord nature, and making sure something like this won't happen again until he creates a self-fulfilling prophecy ensuring that it does.

4. Braxiatel talking to the Oracle in Tears of the Oracle. Braxiatel, even in the books, is so encased in performance and masks which makes him a fascinating character to study and as i said above, any moment of him falling out of control is absolutely delicious but this is one of very few scenes where Braxiatel has a genuine conversation about himself and specifically his carefully unnamed brother. Braxiatel is introduced to so many people as "the Doctor's brother" when that's not his narrative role – they literally have two stories together where they barely even speak. so it's fascinating to have this singular moment where Braxiatel is a brother even if it's just for a conversation and he gives us one of his most genuine insights into his past and personality beyond the masks he makes for himself. i always had an easier time writing Braxiatel as he cycles through his performances because that's so much of who he is so when i needed to write him without a mask, trying to figure out what his own identity is, i always came back to this moment to root myself.

5. honestly there were so many Brax scenes i started to think of to put here but i gotta give it to his first scene in Empire of Glass.

Braxiatel's art collection is obviously a huge part of his character and this is just such a great foundation of why that is and its articulated so well. and obviously Empire of Glass was written longggggg before Braxiatel's other appearances and the Collection arc but it's so wonderful to read his genuinely good intentions for his Collection (preserving the past, creating a collection of knowledge for everyone in the universe, and combating the censorship and erasure of knowledge and history) with the knowledge that it won't pan out that way. as he becomes more obsessive, he seeks to control the flow of knowledge on the macro level (his Collection always becomes for the elite, not for everyday people and he always has secret displays and Collections that he doesn't show people) and the micro level (him literally editing people's histories and memories as a means of controlling them) as he becomes the exact thing he hates so much here. (also why i need to write my fic about late Collection era Benny meeting EoG!Brax because yeesh they've got stuff to talk about)

top 5 Benny moments:

all of Year Zero. just. all of it. i'll forever stand by the fact that it's the best Benny story because of how it strips her back to the essentials after the Everything of the Collection arc with the way she uses actual archaeology & historical analysis to uncover the mystery of where she is and the broader themes about how one can never erase history because it's ingrained in everything around us no matter how hard fascists try to bury it. it's a familiar theme across all the Benny eras (and it's good every time) but this particularly story just... hits. i don't love how the Year Zero/history arc/Atlantis stuff ends but the beginning is sooooo good.

the moment in The Poison Seas where Benny starts talking about what a mess her life has become and how she could just run away and start all over again if she wants but she won't because "who would fight the monsters? who would be left to believe in the angels?" it's genuinely one of the best speeches in all of Doctor Who and it's CRIMINAL that no one talks about it. it's also such a wonderful to really accentuate the differences between Benny and the Doctor because they are very similar in a lot of ways – similar values, similar interests, the same curiosity and eccentric sense of humor – but the difference is that Benny chooses to stay. she could go and have a life like the Doctor and she'd probably be a lot happier for it but no, she chooses to stay and make a home and protect those she loves because someone has to.

it's not so much a moment but more of a facet of her character – the fact that Benny revises her diaries by putting sticky notes over the entries is sooo important. i genuinely don't know if it originates in Down but it's the first book i read that used them and while i have somewhat mixed feelings about the book, the reveal that Benny made up a significant amount of the story and inserted a simplistic action hero character because she couldn't handle the cognitive dissonance of ever believing a Nazi could do something good because "fascists know no redemption" despite her entire life revolving around uncovering the truth of history, no matter how hard it is. it's one of those moments that really wiggled its way into my brain and is foundational for how i view her character and was honestly kind of relatable? i'm not a historian but i have studied/do study history and it's tough to tackle the fact that the worst types of people in history aren't cartoon villains especially when it's easier to do so and makes a better, cleaner story (something that's tackled a lot in the series going forward!). you have to think of everyone as a three-dimensional person if you really want to know the truth and i'm always glad when Benny stories approach those sorts of topics with more nuance than the tv show ever will.

it's such a small thing and it's barely a proper Benny moment but for whatever reason the part of Where Angels Fear where the stakes as escalating as everyone is becoming more fervent about their worship of the gods and Benny is one of the few rational people left on Dellah and Shemda (the Grel who only seemed to exist for comic relief at first) declared to all of the Grel Master and the god Maa'lon and pointed to Benny and said "I believe in her." it's meant to be kind of a silly moment but when i first read the book, i was so gripped and into it that i just started crying and that was the moment that i knew i loved the Dellah arc.

disclaimer that i haven't actually read the book version of Beyond the Sun so i don't know if it's in there or just the audio version but Benny carving her code into a pendant that says: "Bernice Summerfield is a human being and as such she is all too capable of being cruel and cowardly and yet while she is often caught up in violent events, she endeavours to remain a woman of peace." is such an important moment for me and really clearly lays out so much of her character (especially since this was like the third Benny story i listened to so it really made an impact).

top five Jason moments:

everything in The End of the World.... tbh i first listened to the Benny audios without reading any of the tie in books (and not thinking that deeply about his character because i was 15) so i wasn't a huge Jason fan. i vaguely knew his backstory and that he had been through some shit but not the details so listening to The End of the World was like getting a bucket of ice water dumped on me (in the best way possible). everything about his character, including aspects that annoyed me on first listen, just slid into place and i realized "oh this is a brilliantly written character" so i'm gonna cheat and pick two moments from this audio – the moment when he's explaining what he's doing in relation to video game farming: "The thing about farming is that it was never meant to be a winning strategy. It was a strategy only ever meant to last just long enough. The job of the fighter guy is just to go in and hack and slash and flail about until… he died. He was never meant to win the game." because the Fewell's acting makes it so clear at the point in the quote where Jason realizes that he's talking about his life not just a video game and the absolute tragedy knowing what's about to happen is so delicious. and the second is obviously him remembering his sister and being disgusted that Braxiatel would take her memory from him.

the reveal in Suffer the Children that Jason wasn't collaborating with the Fifth Axis occupation but only pretending to so he could save all of the alien children because sacrificing his relationships and everyone's respect was absolutely worth him helping the innocent like this. all of Jason's interactions with kids and protecting them is soooo important to me and makes so much sense knowing the abuse he went through.

an underappreciated bit in The Crystal of Cantus where when Brax goes mask-off in regards to his intentions with enslaving Jason to be Cyber-Controller, the first thing Jason says is "you're ill, we can help you" and i just....... it's such a small moment that you can overlook but Jason has grown so much and become so empathetic that even when his friend reveals that he's been manipulating everyone for years and intends to kill Jason right here, the first thing Jason does is offer to help. it kills me that all the tragedy that happens on the Collection could have been prevented if Braxiatel only accepted his friends' help.

i'm trying to come up with a Jason moment to beat him pinning Braxiatel to the wall at the end of The Crystal of Cantus telling him to leave his family alone but i'm sorry, i'm predictable. it's also a great contrast to Jason's other immediate reaction to The Situation i listed above.

it's not quite a Jason exclusive scene but just the whole collection of Benny's pathetic men (Jason, Chris, Clarence, Brax) all scheming how to make sure she has a boring vacation so she won't leave them for better things in The Joy Device. it's trope-y but all the hijinks that ensue are so much fun and such a great breath of air for the last few heavy books.

top five Bev moments:

Bev essentially leading the resistance to the Fifth Axis occupation in Life During Wartime. i feel like it's easy to forget that Bev had only been on the Collection for a few weeks before the occupation, she didn't really have any loyalty to anyone on the Collection but she became the fiercest resistance and i just love her little introduction piece in A Life Worth Living that says "...you can see the scars from when she was tortured by the Fifth Axis. She gave nothing away."

Bev killing Ms Jones in Parallel Lives. i really didn't see this moment coming but it's such a wonderful way to resolve Bev's distaste of Ms Jones for being a collaborator while also showing Braxiatel's growing control over her, that he manipulated the situation because he knew that Bev would be the only one who would shoot her and to a certain extent Bev knows that but she never says it out loud until it's too late.

the way Adrian is struggling to propose to Bev in The Judas Gift and she goes up to him and says yes without him needing to ask.... i love Adrian/Bev a lot okay?

i'm blanking on a specific moment from a specific story but just the shift of Bev's in Collected Works in general where she suddenly has the literal weight of their world thrust on her shoulders and she tries to stay so strong while juggling 100 different plates. (also the note, it might be before Collected Works, where she starts wearing glasses so the other academics take her seriously <3)

not to be queer on main but her and Benny making out in Summer of Love. it's the type of queer women moment that's weirdly exploitative and fetish-y and the story.... is not great. but sometimes i need to turn my brain off and go :3 women kissing :3

[daughterofheartshaven]

I started going back and listening/reading through the Big Finish Bernice Summerfield series, and like wow okay wow it's so good I wasn't expecting it to be this good. Like Benny is such a great protagonist in that she really does not want to be the protagonist of a series and yet here we are! Also watching her try to be a good mother - and clearly want to be a mother! - while not really being the sort of person who is naturally gonna be a good mother is super interesting. And then there is Brax, who is really shaping up to be "what if we had someone who was a villain but clever enough that none of the protagonists from two separate series ever notice it," which is just so much fun to watch unfold. And we have all this really interesting contrast between Jason and Adrian.

Like. I just listened to The Mirror Effect and in it, Jason and Adrian are both trying to confront the fact that they both romance-love Benny and Benny does not romance-love either of them, and the villain convinces both of them that Benny is gonna pair up with the other one. Adrian accepts this and he just wants Benny to be happy and them all to get out alive. Meanwhile Jason snaps and tries to kill both Adrian and Benny, but he also picks up on a couple really important things about the villain and the situation that goes over Adrian's head. Really interesting stuff.

Anyway I'm now listening to the episode where Bev Tarrant joins the show and I loved her in her couple episodes with the Seventh Doctor so I'm super exited.

[bennyzine]

🛰️ PROJECT COMPLETION

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[incorrect-benny-quotes]

Benny: I’m having salad for dinner!

Jason:

Benny: Well, fruit salad.

Benny: Actually, it’s mostly grapes.

Jason:

Benny: Okay, it’s all grapes.

Benny: Fermented grapes.

Jason:

Benny:

Jason:

Benny: It’s wine.

Benny: I’m having wine for dinner.

Benny: You're why.

[scholarofgloom]

[88wfan]

Jason Kane pounds and dominates Austin Cooper

[breadbug159]

[stillthesunkenstars]

[cousin-quartz-of-house-paradox]

beloved

[dalesramblingsblog]

This week on Dale's Ramblings, Dave Stone finally concludes his Clockwork Trilogy some two years after the last instalment, and Jason and Roz return to round out one last hurrah for the classic New Adventures companions.

Or the ones to which Virgin still have the rights, at any rate...

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