#what kind of bizarro world have I entered? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

danwhobrowses · 2 years

Text

WWE Crown Jewel 2022 - Quickfire Review

So it was a busy day for me on Saturday, so I opted to watch the Saudi Blood Bowl 22 the day later.

Not exactly excited for the event, given the main event but we shall see if the wrestling was at least good.

Spoilers for the show

I scrubbed through the Pre-Show BTW, no matches, just promos for the matches and packages for Charlotte and Owens, nothing too big to tout about.

Brock Lesnar def Bobby Lashley (Pinfall) You can forgive Lashers attacking Lesnar immediately after how Brock cost him the US title, attacking the knee and multiple spears to start with, Lesnar kicked out of course, but Lashley kicked out of the F-5 too. Crowd turned on Lashley after that, but after a long session of the Hurt Lock, Brock won by having Lashley fall on his back for the 'surprise pin'. It's kinda a shame because of the strong start, but it was a poor finish made to keep Lashley looking strong - who attacked Brock after - I suppose this counts as a double turn, unless we're just gonna say Riyadh is 'bizarro world'.

Women's Tag Team Championship Damage CTRL [Dakota Kai & Iyo Sky] def. Asuka & Alexa Bliss (c) (Pinfall by Kai on Bliss) - NEW CHAMPIONS! I know the women are supposed to be full covered but Damage CTRL's attire choice looked like low-qual flightsuits XD Seems that the show is doing promos between entrances too, this time we got an interview with a Bray Wyatt showing on the screen that Alexa noticed, as she talked about being 'prepared for this'. Alas, they were not; the wrestling was great which is unsurprising given all four women's caliber but again the finish sucked, Nikki Cross - whose return a few weeks ago made a point of being on neither side - interfered and hit Alexa with a Twisting Neckbreaker from the top turnbuckle as the ref was stopping Iyo and Asuka's brawling. It was another cheat finish but also an objectively dumb decision to hot potato the already weakened titles.

Steel Cage Drew McIntyre def. Karrion Kross (via Cage escape) Scarlett benefits from the fact that she already is used to wearing full body latex suits, also what is stopping Drew from bringing a sword into the cage? The match was a bit slow, like I know it's a cage match but still there wasn't anything that stood out for a long while, once again Drew looked like a goof being distracted by Scarlett before a Claymore, allowing Kross to hit the Kross Hammer, he tried to climb over but Drew used it as a superplex, Drew almost crawled out the door but was maced by Scarlett (would've thought he'd be more wary of her), he rallied to stop Kross from escaping again. Scarlett locks the door so Drew tries to climb, so she unlocks the door to try and drag Kross out first, but Drew drops to land out with plenty of time. It was okay, cage escape never feels like a payoff victory when you have these kind of guys in, but there will be a rubber match.

The Judgement Day def The O.C. (Pinfall by Balor on Styles via Coup de Grace) Cole's not the only one who wants to get a closer look at Rhea Ripley, but Cole did well to further the point that Beth vs Rhea will likely happen in the future. This match was always gonna be sour for me because of the NEVER Openweight title stuff, I know NJPW's business can be iffy but I doubt Karl wasn't informed of a title defense before crawling back to the place he previously slated. I don't like that we keep harping on about Rey when it comes to Dom, I get it of course but still, Dom won't escape Rey's shadow if they keep mentioning his father. Dom and Anderson were the feeders for the match, Balor and AJ saved for the final act where the tag klaxon went off. With Dom distracting, Rhea interfered to stop the Phenomenal Forearm so Balor could hit his Dropkick/Coup de Grace combo for the win, not much difference really, Karl could've easily just laid down for Hikuleo in this case.

Braun Strowman def. Omos (Pinfall via Running Powerslam) Edward James was curiously without MVP when he entered, but was still holding the advantage over Braun to start, they seemed to be trying to sell the story that height = weight and because Braun is smaller he couldn't lift 416lbs, even though Braun has lifted Big Show and Mark Henry before (not at the same time), that played to the finish as he lifted Omos for one Powerslam for the 3 count, he had a few hits in but often they were countered, so it didn't do Omos much good in the end. Like Brock/Lashley it was one of those matches where they tried to make the loser stay strong but instead made them look dumb.

Undisputed WWE Tag Championship The Usos (c) def. The Brawling Brutes [Ridge Holland & Butch] (Pinfall by Jimmy on Butch via Avalanche 1-D) It was good to note early that Jey had an injured wrist. The Usos almost went for a walk out but ol Sundance jumped them. Dutch got some power play by lifting both Usos at once. The Usos did fight back and hit the Double Splash but it was broken up, the wrist came into play as Sundance did the finger break spot, but Jey kicked out of the White Noise and Jimmy broke the count on the combo move. A blind tag led to Jimmy countering the top turnbuckle attack to hit an Avalanche 1-D. It was a good match, could've gone up a level though if they had more time, since the injured wrist was legit I can see why it didn't come into play too much.

Raw Women's Championship - Last Woman Standing Bianca Belair (c) def. Bayley Well the writing was on the wall after the Women's Tag match. Bayley stuck with the Damage CTRL flightsuit and was the first to bring out weapons - almost hitting the crowd with it. A Chair and Ladder each couldn't grant Bayley the equalizer she was seeking, a feigned ankle injury and using the ramp doors was unique though, as was trapping Bianca inside the steps and hammering her with the Kendo like a Whack-a-mole. After a spinebuster on the steps, Bianca regained the advantage up the ramp until hit with a Bayley-to-Belly, so Bayley locked her in a box, which she burst out of with a prompt from Bayley, so next the match took a note out of AEW's playbook with the Golf Kart, Bayley tried a dive but Bianca fought back and drove off with her on top, however, Bayley completely missed the table when thrown off, so they did a powerbomb for the 9 count. Bianca missed the 450 on a pile of chairs so Bayley set up a Roseplant on the chair but Bianca hit a KOD, she sandwiched Bayley between the ladder and wedged it under the bottom turnbuckle to trap her for 10. The match was perhaps the unsurprising best so far, but I am let down that WWE had Bayley lose 3 times, it really deflates Damage CTRL's status.

Bray did a promo after in the site where Goldberg destroyed his mystique as he gave us a promo about how he became the Fiend to excel beyond his family achievements but he wants to be Bray Wyatt. Uncle Howdy showed up on the tron noting that he will 'give in' again and wear the mask once more. Nothing offensive but also nothing new.

Undisputed World Championship Roman Reigns [w/Paul Heyman] (c) def. Logan Paul (Pinfall via Spear) Eurgh. Logan came down in a podium, once more not having a different attire while Cole tried to gas up his farsical and clearly fixed Mayweather fight (you think Mayweather would back off when he was on Jelly Legs? Match was only for the $$s). The entrances for both men lasted like 15 minutes. It was already disappointing that Roman didn't just Superman Punch him, going for collar-and-elbow tie ups and waistlocks, which apparently is a 'clinic'. I feel like it was a slight as well that Paul used a Buckshot for 2, after Reigns called out KSI and Mr Beast Paul also hit a Gutwrench Suplex, a Blockbuster (which apparently is treated like the most difficult move in the world), a 'Superman Punch' and a Standing Moonsault. The 'Lucky Punch' payoff was followed up with another 'Superman Punch' for a 2-count, so he got Shane McMahon syndrome vlogging a splash onto the Announcer's table. Out come the Bloodline who brawl with Logan's guys so Jake Paul can come out and chump out the Undisputed Tag Champs. Paul hit another Lio Rush-esque Frog Splash for 2 before Solo came out to confront Paul, but when the Usos cornered him so Logan dived at them, ran into a Superman Punch and a Spear to finish.

I know Paul is putting in work, but again he should not be in this spot, the fact that he's being treated as a threat to Reigns and getting more offense than many other and greater wrestlers than him is a mockery. Sure he can do a Standing Moonsault, that's about the most impressive thing he did, but he's done 3 matches in over 7 months and not developed, he has a babyface delusion and the match ended up being overbooked just to get his brother involved too.

Overall Crown Jewel is frankly, skippable. Just pretend last week's Raw didn't happen and you're in the same spot, the women pulled off the better performances overall, but the overbooking and/or interference really did harm the show. Many a match was unncessary, especially since only the Last Women's Standing Match held a candle to Rey vs Gunther on Smackdown's taping or OC vs Shibata on Rampage, at the very least it passed the time but it ain't 'must see tv'.

5 notes · View notes

animebw · 3 years

Text

Binge-Watching: Pokemon Master Quest, Episodes 8-10

In which the Whirl Cup ends as suddenly as it started, there’s an actual good romantic subplot, and we get possibly the show’s weirdest episode yet.

So Much for That

So, remember in my last post when I mentioned that the Whirl Island arc was cutting out all the fat that had been bloating Johto for a while now? Well, I guess I was more right than I thought, because the Whirl Cup is already over! All the buildup we spent to get here and we only spend two episodes watching it play out. And I can’t tell if the lightning-fast pacing is throwing me for a loop or if this is just moving too fast for its own good. Ash and Misty’s battle doesn’t even get a half episode of screentime to play out before it’s over, so the prospect of seeing these good friends duke it out basically doesn’t amount to anything. And Misty’s knocked out of the competition right afterwards anyway. What was the point of sidetracking for a tournament arc if the tournament arc wasn’t even going to last a full hour? The answer, it seems, is so we can get to the other subplot of the Whirl Islands are start searching for Lugia. But it’s still pretty weird we set up this arc focused on Ash and Misty entering the Whirl Cup and then pretty much abandoned that for something entirely different. This isn’t like Hunter x Hunter where you can get away with that kind of narrative surprise, this is freaking Pokemon. If I cared at all about the battle aspect of this anime, I would’ve been pretty damn disappointed. Even if it was pretty cool to see Psyduck actually save the day for a change.

Bizarro Town

So, Pokemon isn’t usually a very weird show. I mean, it’s weird in the sense that Pokemon are weird and their powers and how they interact with the world are unusual, but its storytelling is very safe and normal. Formulaic to a fault, one might say. It pretty much never steps too far outside basic episodic plotting. But then, there’s Master Quest episode 9. We start off with a trained Diglett squad, which is simple enough. But then they take us to a village populated entirely by old fogeys who speak in confused, confusing ramblings that no one can understand (On Team Rocket: ”I feel sorry for those three cream pockets!”) Which, alright, that’s a little weird, but there’s probably an explanation for it. Expect then a group of mask-wearing Lone Ranger-esque thieves show up out of nowhere, and proclaim themselves a band of Diglett thieves knows as... the Band of Diglett Thieves (”We used to have a more creative name, but the old fogeys in there kept getting confused!”) We somehow go in a straight line from Diglett squads to thieves who book their robberies in advance. And then we get the actual explanation for what’s going on: the robbers are just the kids of the old people who’ve gone to live in the city, and they pretend to be poachers so their elderly relatives can continue to follow their routine of chasing crooks off their Diglett farms. Which is... somehow both a perfect explanation for how weird the setup for this episode was and just ends up making it weirder in the process, because seriously, who does that?

Do I have a coherent point to make about all this? No, I don’t. This whole sequence is just so utterly bizarre that I had to stop at several points and wonder if I had somehow gotten high without my knowledge, and yet it’s in service of a genuinely good twist that explains why things are as bizarre as they are. And in the middle of all that, you’ve got Team Rocket playing the good guys for a change because they’re so grateful to the old folks for helping them (”This red rose symbolizes the blood that runs through all our veins! It knows neither good nor evil!”), but because the robbers are actually harmless they end up being the bad guys by trying to do the right thing. This whole thing feels like an anomaly in the mechanics of Pokemon TV itself, something so bizarre and yet so weirdly clever it shouldn’t be able to exist. But it does exist. I just confirmed it exists. And now you know it exists. So... there’s that, at least.

Sparks Fly

And yet, neither of those are the most surprising thing about this set of episodes. No, the most surprising thing here is that Pokemon just proved it was capable of writing... romance? Like, Arianne and Jenaro are just two side characters we’ll probably never meet again, but holy shit do they have good chemistry! They banter with the prickly energy of two people who know each other well enough to get under each other’s skin easily (”That scarf was too small for my manly neck!”), teasing each other and brushing off any potential hurt feelings. They’re two people who are just... comfortable with each other. Even before Jenaro reveals his plan to propose to her, I could already picture them spending the rest of their lives together just from how clearly invested in each other they were. And then Arianne has the nerve to steal his proposal out from under him and tease him about it and god dammit why is this so cute. It actually made me ship them and root for them to get together! These characters literally don’t matter but the show sells their romance better than some actual romance anime. Even Brock gets a bunch of great moments as their weepy wingman putting his crush on Arianne aside for their happiness (”Drum up some courage or I’m gonna do it!”) Out of all the things Pokemon does well, I never thought good romance writing would ever be one of them. But here it is anyway, proving me wrong. Just goes to show you can never take anything for granted, not even in shows as simple as this.

Best of Team Rocket

-”Why do we call ourselves Team Rocket?”

-James, have you... have you been standing in that pose this entire episode? My poor, poor man.

-”It’s a thing of beauty, don’t you think?” “If you’re asking me, it’s a thing of pity.”

-”Would a simple antacid be too much trouble?”

-”Thank you for your business, I think!”

-”Or at least I’ll give it my best shot.”

-why the army uniforms alskjalsjdk

-”Operation No No Dodrio!”

-”When exactly were the twerps chosen for this mission?” “When the mission became scary!”

-”I’m 120.” “That’s ten times my age!” “Where’d you get that math from?”

-”We’re up to our nasty necks in knickknacks!”

-Did Jessie just sing Happy Days there? Damn, she’s got good taste.

-”I’m so giddy, my nose is tickling!”

Odds and Ends

-Jesus, what on earth is that Crabhammer attack?

-Missed you too, Bayleef. Even though it was only, like, two episodes.

-”I never have trouble remembering the face of a pretty girl! This book helps me with their names.” Okay, that was funny.

-One thing I don’t like about a lot of the Pokemon fights in this show is that way too many Pokemon are knocked out with a single hit. There’s no way a single spike cannon should be enough to topple a Gyarados, but here we are.

-”A hot air balloon filled with suspicious-looking fishermen!” sdkjfhkdfj sure

-why are you sipping sea and surfing on Diglett at the same time WHAT IS THIS FUCKING EPISODE

-”Ash, are you hurt or embarrassed?” Hello, police? I just witnessed a murder.

-”Do a swift attack now!” “Hold on, that was my line!” See? This is cute!

-”Sparky?” ...who?

Man, Master Quest is wild. See you next time!

#anime #the anime binge-watcher #tabw #pokemon #pokemon gen2 #Ash Ketchum #misty pokemon #brock pokemon #team rocket #pikachu #meowth

5 notes · View notes

shlabam · 4 years

Text

TOP TEN COMICS BOOK VILLAINS WE PROBABLY WON’T SEE IN THE MOVIES

Superhero media is the hottest thing going right now. It was true ten years ago when the MCU was in its adolescence, and it’s even truer now. Even with film production on lockdown, Marvel and DC are still planning on literally dozens of their characters entering their respective cinematic universes. However, for the fans of the source material, things can be contentious. For every memorable Tony Stark quip, there’s Superman destroying an entire city because he’s, frankly, kind of dumb now. A major point of contention is how the various popular villains are utilized. Making an intimidating and potent villain in a comic book is very different than in a film. In comics, you have months to establish motive, powers, and backstory before the villain even makes their first move. In films, that all has to be compressed and spilled out in the scarce few minutes when Captain America and Bucky aren’t making bambi eyes at each other. To be concise, some villains adapt perfectly, and some, no matter how good they are in the comics, just don’t. And to be clear, this list is of popular villains who have the possibility of appearing in a big-budget film, so no, you won’t be seeing Ten Eyed Man or Big Wheel in there. Their powers are, respectively, having ten eyes, and being very good in business. (That’s a lie, he’s just a huge wheel who chases Spider-Man.)

10: Mr. Mxyzptlk:

Cool, let’s get this one out of the way. Despite being one of Superman’s oldest, longest-lasting, and most popular enemies from all the way back in the Golden Age, there’s no way in hell he will be in a movie. For the uninformed. Mr. Mxyzptlk is a 5th dimensional wizard-genie who appears every ninety days to torment Superman with his reality-altering antics, and can only be sent back to his home dimension if Superman tricks him into saying his own name backwards. Yes, it would be very dazzling, as Mr. Mxyzptlk’s powers in a movie would basically look like if Christopher Nolan directed Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but he’s a little too silly to fit in with the current “everything is gloomy and also a bummer” tone of the Superman films. This silly tone has lent itself perfectly to the Supergirl series, where he’s made a handful of appearances. Besides, if we get Mxyzptlk in a Superman movie before Brainiac, I’ll lose my entire freaking mind.

9: Hobgoblin:

There have been eight Spider-Man movies so far, and of those eight, four of them have, in some capacity, featured the Green Goblin. And that makes sense, right? The Green Goblin is easily Spider-Man’s most memorable and reoccurring nemesis, with Doctor Octopus and Venom close behind, and Peter Parker’s link with Norman and Harry Osbourn makes their tragic story perfect for film adaptation. On the other hand, we have the Hobgoblin, who is essentially Green Goblin with all the gimmicks, none of the Parker-adjacent backstory, and an orange and blue color scheme, likely tying him to the Denver Broncos [citation needed]. Still, in those four cinematic attempts at tackling the Goblin, none of them have quite gotten him right, and I can’t imagine this character, who is, even in canon, an intentional Green Goblin rip-off, would fare any better.

8: Starro:

Brave and the Bold #28 from 1960 featured the first story with the Justice League, and this story put them up against a very unique new villain: Starro the Conqueror, a giant telepathic starfish who can release tiny versions of himself. If these tiny starfish latch onto your head, you’re under his control and obey his commands. The Justice League have battled him fairly regularly over the last fifty years, and he’s a distinct and powerful enemy that the fans generally appreciate, leading to him being referenced occasionally in Smallville, Arrow, and Flash. Why won’t he ever be in a movie? Because if you’re a Hollywood producer, you stopped paying attention at “giant telepathic starfish”. Sorry. Maybe Shuma-Gorath will pop up in the next Doctor Strange movie, and he’ll set off a Twilight-esque wave of starfish monster movies! Then again, almost absolutely not.

7: Puppet Master:

Speaking of mind control, what’s scarier than that? For my money, nothing. Having your body and will taken away from you by an unseen force is a terror greater than death. How could you possibly make a villain based around such a chilling concept and have him not be scary? Well, maybe if it’s an old bald man in an apron playing with dolls. The Puppet Master is an ongoing threat for the Fantastic Four who is just that: he makes models of his foes out of radioactive clay, and makes them punch themselves and dance around and kiss each other, because he’s, y’know, a weird old man. Why is he such a consistent threat who hasn’t fallen into obscurity like other dumb gimmick-based villains? His stepdaughter, Alicia Masters, is the Thing’s longtime girlfriend. As long as she keeps appearing in movies (including being played by… Kerry Washington? That can’t be right), there’s always a chance he’ll pop up, but I don’t think any movie studio is that stupid, despite the quality of every Fantastic Four movie blatantly defying that prediction.

6: Bizarro:

Superman has always suffered in the villains department. When you’re essentially a god, what can they throw at you? As it turns out, Lex Luthor, almost always. But why not another Superman? Bizarro is essentially that, an imperfect clone of Superman who speaks in opposite speak - “Bizarro am good! Me not punch you until you live!” - and features the same abilities as the Man of Steel. Sounds great, right? Putting a hero against a villain with their same powers has worked for nearly every Marvel movie (shots fired). So why won’t we see him grace our silver screens any time soon? Because they’ve never really figured him out. Is he funny? Is he lethal? Does Kryptonite work on him? If he does everything the opposite of Superman, why does he wear clothes? Isn’t being naked the opposite of being clothed? Bizarro is a major Superman side-character and has made appearances in Smallville and Supergirl, but the idea of him being the Big Bad going toe-to-toe with Henry Cavill doesn’t sound like it would generate a lot of views.

5: Impossible Man:

You remember what I said about Mr. Mxyzptlk? Remember? So take that bit, but everywhere I say Superman, have it say Fantastic Four instead… yeah, that should do it.

4: The Wrecking Crew:

Thor has a unique quirk of having a very cinematic rogues gallery. Sure, most of the movies have pitted him against Loki, but if they were to run him up against the Enchantress, or the Absorbing Man, or Ulik the Troll, or Kurse, or even the Stone Men from Saturn, that’s not a bad movie! However, in one of the attempts to give Thor more of a mortal nemesis, they put him up against the Wrecker, who has an… enchanted… indestructible… crowbar. Yeah. Incredibly, the Wrecker and his Wrecking Crew have become very present characters throughout the Marvel Universe, essentially serving as “jobbers”, being rolled out to get beaten up by the new top hero or villain, but that may not work in a movie, where villains have to be seen as having some level of potency before being struck down. That means we’d need at least a short scene where it seems like Thor might lose to a guy whose power is “crowbar”, and that’s about as likely as an Edward Norton cameo in the next Avengers. Ho boy, they did NOT part on good terms!

3: Clayface:

When the movie-going public goes to see a Batman movie, they generally want something a bit more grounded than your typical superhero fare. After all, Batman has no powers, and therefore the most supernatural thing that should happen in these movies is a gas that makes you smile, or a different gas that makes you think your dead parents are back and disappointed in you. Might wanna put a mouth covering on that mask, Bruce! The one and only they’ve made a movie where Batman fights people with real, off-the-wall super powers (Batman and Robin), it did not go great. And those guys pale in comparison to Clayface, who is, yes, made of clay. In the comics and cartoons, Clayface looks awesome, turning his limbs into weapons and being very challenging to incapacitate, but in a live-action, realistic Batman adventure, we wouldn’t want to see the Dark Knight fight a poop-colored version of the T-1000, especially if it’s got the same chemical composition of a little dreidel that I made.

2: Red Hood:

A relative newcomer to the Batman universe, Red Hood is the revived body of Jason Todd, the second Robin, who was brutally killed by the Joker in one of the most controversial storylines DC Comics ever produced. Literally, fans called a 900 number to tell the writers to kill him off. A 900 number. That’s how much they hated the little turd. Anyway, Jason Todd, whom Batman and the rest of the world believed was dead, was revived by Ra’s al Ghul and became a ruthless villain. Since then, he’s gravitated more to the side of the hero, though one a bit more willing to spill blood than his mentors. Why won’t we see him in the darker, edgier Batman films? Because… that’s Bucky. It’s the same thing that happened in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Teen sidekick killed in controversial manner, revived by super villain to be a thorn in said hero’s side, later changes his mind and becomes a good guy again, though with enough PTSD to fill a PTSD super store. The two storylines even occurred in the comics in the same year, 2005, to much fanfare and across-the-board declarations of one company ripping off the other, reminding the world of the great Aquaman-Namor debates of the 1940s. Considering that DC’s films have criminally underperformed compared to Marvel’s, the last thing they want to do is be accused of lazy plagiarism, so Jason Todd will likely remain a permanent fixture in the afterlife, hanging out with Batman’s parents and, at the rate that people are coming back from the dead, literally no one else. (Plus, if they can’t even get Robin right, how are they gonna do this?)

1: Mister Sinister:

Yes, he was teased at the end of X-Men Apocalypse, but ignoring that the film underperformed both critically and commercially, Mister Sinister is never going to be in a movie. It would make sense for him to appear, though, right? He’s one of the most present and potent X-Men villains, he’s played crucial roles in many memorable storylines, he’s got a sick cape, but… something a lot of comic book fans tend to overlook is his murky backstory, powers, and motivations. He was a biologist in Victorian London who did genetic experiments on homeless people in the hopes of finding clues about the oncoming threat of mutants. In this time, he unearthed the long-dormant En Sabah Nur, whom you plebeians may know as Apocalypse, and Apocalypse gifted him with great abilities. What abilities you ask? HA HA, good question! At various times, Sinister has displayed: telepathy, telekinesis, energy projection, shape-shifting, regeneration, and teleportation, but these powers will mysteriously disappear whenever they want him to get sliced up real good by Wolverine. Additionally, it has never been made very clear what Sinister wants. Does he seek perfect mastery of the human genome? Does he live to torment Cyclops? Is he a blind follower of Apocalypse? Is he just running through all the different kinds of goatee? Of course, in adaptation, the writers would pick and choose the aspects they’d want to use, but I doubt they’d want to untangle the Christmas lights mess that is Mister Sinister, especially when they’ve got a perfectly good villain whose power is just “magnets”.

23 notes · View notes

jamiebongwater · 5 years

Text

Post-Reality Reality

Prepare to enter the post-reality reality.

The President of the United States is a TV celebrity turned fascist autocrat. That one’s hard enough to wrap your head around. Now he’s been caught using American diplomatic resources to personally enrich himself and benefit his reelection campaign. We kind of saw that coming, but the good news is that we have a process to restore sanity to our political order.

Unfortunately, that process appears likely to do the exact opposite. Despite these violations of the Constitution being blatant, egregious, and in full public view, and the fact that removing a clearly incompetent person from an important post should not be a contentious issue, the political will to remove Donald Trump from office seems scant. As of this writing the impeachment trial in the Senate is projected to result in acquittal or mistrial. The American people deserve a Government that will work for them, and if this criminal remains in office the chances of them having that in the next four to ten years dwindles to almost zero. When I talk about the tendency of Advanced Capitalism to distort the very fabric of reality, this is exactly what I mean. Human beings are ultimately malleable; they can be convinced of things that aren’t true, and they can become very endeared to untrue beliefs. In a Capitalist system there is always a monetary interest in what people believe; TV stations chase ratings and sponsorships, politicians chase votes and corporate contributions. THE ONLY REASON any American believes Donald Trump is anything other than a farcical blowhard and a criminal is because of corporate propaganda spread by the monetary interests involved in holding up the Republican Party. Party leaders know the man is incompetent, they have been quoted as saying that, but it just doesn’t matter. ExxonMobile wants tax cuts, the corporate media wants tax cuts, and the Republican party is in the business of turning out tax cuts to the highest bidder. Together they form a cabal that has a vested interest in controlling what millions of Americans believe. Right now they want to avoid the appearance of a defeat for the Republican party so that they can continue pushing tax cuts and other corporate-sponsored legislation. This has never been about ideology, it’s about petty dominance, rich people consolidating wealth for their own sake. How did we let this come about? Well, we designed a shitty system. This is what happens when everything is tied to money and money isn’t tied to anything real. It is not the job of the corporate media to inform the citizenry. They are publicly traded corporations; their job is to increase their stock value, and they do that very well. So, you have Fox News, which I unfortunately have to watch at the gym every day, attempting to generate an alternate reality in which the Democrats are engaged in a hundreds-person Deep State conspiracy to fabricate evidence en masse to have Trump removed from office due to a personal vendetta. Fox News makes money by retention of viewership, not by sober presentation of the facts. I’m not a Democrat and I have no love for the Democratic Party, but come on, man. This is about facts, dammit, it’s about being smart and choosing the right path forward for the country. Some of the media outlets are doing an okay job presenting the facts of this case, but that’s not going to be enough. The Republican party has unfortunately been way smarter than the Democratic over the past few decades at engineering an electoral landscape that virtually guarantees victory. The Republicans who will be deciding Trump’s fate in the Senate reside in heavily gerrymandered districts where everybody watches Fox News. The Fox News contingent of the Republican party knows that they can’t fool all the people, or even a majority of the people, but the way things are set up they may be able to fool a plurality that is large enough to gain electoral control and thereby define the reality that everybody else lives in. This trial in the Senate will be a referendum on Bizarro World. We need to be moving forward, not backward. The Federal Government needs to be looking out for the interests of American people. We need to heed climate science and we need to be honest and open in our diplomacy. I happen to know that these concepts are real, and I believe in them. But reality is determined by consensus. In the 1930’s the NDSAP was able to convince the German population that Adolf Hitler was a strong and competent leader devoted to workers rights, and for over a decade all of the Earth suffered under this false interpretation of reality. Now big business interests are trying to convince Americans that their fascist clown president is something other than a criminal. They will likely succeed. That is a grim future that we all have to prepare for. Brace for impact. If Donald Trump is not convicted then the post-reality reality is confirmed. Which is a postmodern way of saying that big business has all our balls and brains in a vice. This could mean a lot of things for the future of life on Earth, and none of them are good. The impeachment trial of Donald Trump is the next front in the ongoing war between the Corporatocracy and the rest of humanity. Which side are you on? Death to America

Jamie

18 notes · View notes

punkrockpolitix · 4 years

Text

Strap in for an Ugly Ride

by Mitch Maley — This week, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden did the most Joe Biden thing left to do in announcing that centrist NeoLiberal Senator Kamala Harris would be his running mate. The establishment left swooned and suburban liberals rejoiced, while the lunatic right clutched their collective pearls at such a “radical” choice. Meanwhile, the rest of us yawned as the stage was set for an absurd, bizarro world, alternative-reality election that will take place in the midst of the most unstable American society in modern history.

The chaos created by the 45th President of the United States has a way of wearing the reasonable mind rather thin. After all, who aside from the angry mobs of nativists does not long for a return to the normalcy of the early aughts when all we had to worry about was forever wars in the Middle East, an infinitely-expanding wealth gap, 50 million Americans without healthcare, and trade policies that had hollowed out the middle class. Sure, the children of white collar elites would continue to thrive (so long as they could avoid pill mills and heroin needles). Meanwhile, the offspring of former factory workers who couldn't afford an increasingly cost-prohibitive college education would toil in Amazon warehouses with few benefits and no shot at the kind of modest defined-benefit pensions that had allowed their parents to enjoy some modicum of prosperity in their twilight years and increasingly gloomier chances of even enjoying the social security payments that have kept millions more from abject poverty once their working days were behind them, but that was certainly a little easier to swallow than 2020 has thus far been.

Sure, automation had already begun eating away at more jobs than even offshoring had, we'd done nothing to address the climate crisis beyond symbolic, feel-good policies that avoided pissing off the wrong special interests, and the only amber waves of economic growth in the past 30 years had been driven by engineered bubbles. So what? Wall Street was happy (the stock market tripled under Obama) even if the big party was being floated by artificially-cheap credit, and besides, we could all go to sleep each night relatively certain that we wouldn't face a zombie apocalypse type situation on any given morning which is more than you can say about our current situation.

But let's not forget where things had gotten by 2016 when populist spasms on both sides of the ideological spectrum saw our traditional two party-driven political process totally upended. Harnessing the power of the internet had been largely responsible for President Obama successfully splintering the Democratic establishment in 2008, but let's not over-romanticize the grass or the roots. Obama was the product of an inter-party schism that saw a large number of career Dems break from the Clinton dynasty and its requirement for complete fealty to the party's grudge-bearing first family.

Obama was not an anomaly. He was Wall Street approved, Bilderberg-blessed and mainstream media anointed because, regardless of what others projected upon him, he was a typical center-right Dem who wouldn't rock any of those boats. Yes, the right labeled him a dangerously-radical liberal, but those who paid attention in the 2008 primary will recall that the actual semi-progressive candidate, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, had to be actively cropped out of the debates in order for that narrative to take hold. After all, it wouldn't do to have Kucinich onstage talking about Medicare for All and explaining how to get out of Iraq tomorrow any more than it would do for Ron Paul to be onstage in Republican debates calling out the NeoCon likes of Mitt Romney and John McCain.

Under Obama, the war machine kept rolling, taxes remained at historic lows, deportations skyrocketed and we expanded warrantless surveillance and other Big Brother police state tactics, including sending "surplus" tanks and other military armament to your local police forces. In other words, most of the things liberals hated most about the Bush era continued only they didn't hate them as much anymore. That said, institutional norms remained in place, our allies were quite happy and Americans, or at least those who weren't driven mad by the thought of someone with brown skin holding the highest public office, could hold their heads high knowing that they had an intelligent and articulate statesman at the helm who wouldn't embarrass them with Bush's tangled English or Clinton's infidelities. He was a family man who loved his wife and children and treated even his most vile-mouthed opponents with the courtesies of polite society. Yes, it's easy to grow nostalgic for such normalcy in the age of Trump.

However, years of bailing out Wall Street banksters who'd crashed the economy, allowing hedge fund managers to pay lower tax rates than teachers and failed companies to hand out huge bonuses often paid for by the taxpayers themselves took its toll. Millions of Americans who'd seen their homes foreclosed upon were scolded for buying into the worthless products being pushed by those same banksters—reverse mortgages, sub-prime interest-only loans, etc.—and lectured about "personal responsibility" and the "moral hazard" of bailing them out, even as those same fat cats who'd been rescued themselves swooped in to buy up all of those empty houses for cheaply-borrowed pennies on the dollars in order to make money hand over fist renting them back to the creditless schmoes who'd been kicked to the curb. It turns out a lot of people were fed up.

Enter Bernie Sanders and Donald J. Trump, two men, as different as can be, who nonetheless each managed to harness enough of the sometimes dangerous power of populist anger to finally upset the apple cart that had been two-party politics. While their platforms were radically different, the essential nature of their messaging was the same: you're getting screwed and have been for a long time. Their message was particularly well-received by working-class whites in formerly industrial states who'd been ignored by both parties for decades, beyond rhetoric from the right about it being the fault of illegal immigrants and rhetoric from the left about educational programs that would retrain the working class for the jobs of tomorrow. Regardless of whether they believed in or even understood the solutions either candidate was offering didn't matter so much as someone at last acknowledging that the reality they'd been experiencing actually existed.

The Clinton machine, with the DNC's foot on the scale and the MSM distorting perception, was able to (barely) keep Sanders at bay. Meanwhile, the GOP may have been able to do the same had it not been for the sheer giddiness of legacy media outlets like WAPO, the New York Times, MSNBC and CNN for what they saw as the death of the modern Republican party should it actually nominate a crass, foul-mouthed blowhard of a third-rate reality TV star (who'd until recently been a Democrat) for President. Make no mistake, Clinton's people desperately wanted to take on Trump, believing it amounted to not only an easy win, but a path toward retaking Congress, despite having been gerrymandered out of contention (for those of you who came to politics late, the GOP's electoral success in 2010, saw them take over a majority of state legislatures just ahead of the once-every-decade reapportionment that follows a census, allowing the party to gerrymander Congressional districts to such a degree that Democrats could not gain ground, despite regularly receiving millions more total Congressional votes than Republicans each cycle).

Everyone inside the beltway was caught sleeping in 2016. The Republican establishment never saw Trump coming and didn't know what to do with him when he arrived. Remember how sad Jeb Bush seemed in the debates? Remember how ineffective Marco Rubio was when he tried to sink to Trump's name calling? By the same token, the Democrats were so tone-deaf as to who Bernie was appealing to (far more aging New Dealers and working-class labor Democrats than the teen radicals they imagined) that they actually thought making trans-bathroom laws a wedge issue would drive turnout for their side. Imagine living in Michigan and working the counter at a Dollar General because the stamping factory you used to work at moved to Mexico, wondering whether your kid's rehab from Oxycodone would finally stick this time while being told that the real fight to be won was about where the gender fluid would take a leak.

That's not to say that trans rights aren't a worthy issue, so much as to point out how out of touch you would have had to have been to think it was a winning one in that moment of time. And if you think there was something more altruistic behind it, ask yourself how much energy has been expanded by the party on the same subject since. Like abortion-related ballot referendums used by Republicans to drive evangelicals to the polls, out-of-touch Beltway Dems thought that identity politics was the path to uniting the left-wing of their party and getting the Bernie crowd to turnout for Hillary, even after the DNC got caught smoothing her path to victory. After all, the donor class Dems never mind looking woke, especially if it prevents them from having to get behind things like a living minimum wage that might actually mean less coins falling into their coffers. And that my friends is what created the relatively small yet curious "I voted for Bernie in the primary and Trump in the general" demographic, not sexism, spite or misogyny.

Fast-forward to 2020 and Bernie is finally poised to emerge as the resistance candidate. Despite the MSM again selling alternative facts that kept explaining away his success, his path to the nomination looked inevitable until the Democratic establishment again intervened, this time with Obama in the role of Clintonesque king maker, convincing moderate establishment favorites Pete Buttiegeg and Amy Klobuchar to take one for the team ahead of Super Tuesday so that a path could be cleared for a sputtering Biden campaign to claim the nomination. For his part, Biden's 40-year record is as right of center as a Democrat can be without going full Joe Lieberman, so the remaining question was how not to repeat 2016 in alienating so much of the left-wing as to ensure Trump another four years.

Then, like a gift from the political gods, Trump began shooting himself in the foot so frequently in his responses to the pandemic and civil unrest that his approval rating—which has never even hit 50 percent even once during his presidency (not surprising considering he won the White House with a smaller share of the vote than either Romney or John Kerry managed in losing)—sunk to a pathetic 35 percent, convincing the NeoLiberal bosses that it was no longer necessary to kiss any rings on the far left. Bernie, Elizabeth Warren and even Tulsi Gabbard and AOC had already bent a knee to Uncle Joe, imploring their supporters to vote blue no matter who, so why not instead go after the moderate Republicans and Bush-era Never Trumpers whose ideology make the Democratic donor class feel much more comfortable than the progressive left’s anyway?

Enter Kamala Harris, who, to the Democratic donor class at least, signals nothing less than a female Barack Obama. And they’re not exactly wrong in that she’s a highly-articulate, ideologically-flexible politician capable of putting a friendly, progressive veneer on the modern NeoLiberal platform. That’s probably why the left-leaning corporate media outlets tried so hard to give her a push in the primary, even though voters simply didn’t find her to be a compelling candidate. Despite a healthy fundraising machine and the focused attention of MSNBC and CNN, Harris didn’t even make it to Iowa, dropping out ahead of what surely would have been a bottom tier finish in her home state of California. In that sense, it’s hard to see what she brings to the ticket in terms of electoral success. Fortunately, she won’t have to deliver her home state, but while much has been made of the fact that she’s the first woman of color to be on a major party ticket, it’s worth noting that there’s little to suggest she’ll help turn out the African American vote as most polls had her fourth of fifth even among black voters, who preferred Biden, Warren and even Sanders over the Senator from California.

As long as we’re on the subject of Harris’s race, however, it’s worth noting that the we're-not-racist right immediately went down the rabbit hole with birther conspiracies disgustingly-similar to those used against Obama that, within moments of the announcement, were used to question her eligibility to ascend to the presidency and fear monger that it was all a plan to install Nancy Pelosi when an aging Biden stepped down soon after being elected. Harris was born in the United States and, furthermore, born to two U.S. citizens. Her eligibility shouldn’t be in question to anyone who’s taken a junior high civics class, yet from what we’ve seen already, I’m sure it won’t be long until someone asks to see her birth certificate.

That said, despite the RNC's painting Harris as the most radical choice possible, her politics are no more progressive than Biden's, as evidenced by the two articles in the Wall Street Journal about Wall Street “breathing a sigh of relief” at her selection. In fact, one of the audition rounds for the veepstakes included hosting a Biden fundraiser and insiders have suggested that it was deep-pocketed Obama donors and not Uncle Joe himself who put her over the top. In Harris, the NeoLiberal establishment has all but cordoned off the progressive wing of the party, perhaps for a decade to come. Like Obama, she allows them to market a progressive package to make affluent suburban liberals feel good without making Wall Street, Big Pharma, Big Tech, or the military industrial complex the least bit nervous. In fact, in a communication to investors, Goldman Sachs essentially said that even if it means the Trump tax cuts go away, the stability and predictability of a Biden administration would be at least as good for the 1 percent's bottom line.

To hear the Trump campaign tell it, however, Biden's selection of Harris is nothing less than a signal that, in his cognitive decline, Sleepy Joe has acquiesced to becoming nothing more than a puppet for far left radicals like Bernie, AOC and the rest of The Squad. In their narrative, if elected, he’d be doing the bidding of Antifa, while doing away with everything from God and religion to guns and even the suburbs, and the dangerously radical Harris is only further proof of that. In one of their weirdest turns yet, the Trump campaign is literally showing clips of what America has become under Trump himself and warning that this is what will happen if Biden is elected and only by reelecting the man that brought it to you in the first place and has failed to end it by uniting the country (or even trying) can you stop our present from becoming our future. When taken literally, it is a message that says the world I brought you is the world my opponent will bring you and the only way you can stop that from happening is by keeping the guy who brought it to you! If that doesn't make sense, congratulations, you're not an imbecile.

However, if you buy the narrative that the radical left has taken over the Democratic Party then I'm sorry to report that such may not be the case. Biden-Harris is literally the most Law & Order ticket I can imagine either party fielding. It’s the guy who brought us the Crime Bill, supported the private prison industrial complex and paved a smooth road for Clarence Thomas paired with the AG who wanted to jail young single mothers whose kids missed too much school, blocked access to DNA evidence of the wrongfully convicted, supported marijuana criminalization and pretty much accumulated the least progressive record any prosecutor could ever hope for.

So no, Harris's pick wasn't to appease the progressive left. It was a middle finger to them, just like the initial convention lineup which didn't even feature AOC or Andrew Yang, the two stars of that set. Meanwhile, NeoCon warmonger John “life starts at the first heartbeat” Kasich is in primetime, along with Jeb Bush acolyte Anna Navarro. AOC finally got space for a 60-second pre-recorded (read vetted) afternoon spot, and the Yang Gang was able to kick and scream until their candidate was given a low-billing slot as well. In other words, if you don’t see that the progressive left is not only not running the show at the DNC but is all but powerless in the party’s politics, you’re simply not paying attention.

Why are NeoLiberals more interested in Bush-era Republicans than the media rock stars on the left who seemingly hold the future votes of the party in their hands? Simple, there's less of a difference in platforms, which means unlike working with the left, they don't really have to give anything up to court NeoCons. That’s because the age of Trump has seen those Republicans give up on social issues they never actually cared that much about from gay marriage to abortion in exchange for a seat at the table on the issues they do—things like energy policy, deregulation, aggressive foreign policy and, above all, jockeying their snoots into the trough of money that the winning team gets to eat from.

Excited because a Black Lives Matter protester is going to Congress? Slow down, Ace, as the hallowed halls are also about to get their first QAnon member. We've reached peak lunacy under Trump, this much is true, but the wheel has spun back to same old song and dance, remixed for 2020. The American empire is falling apart and one side is offering four more years of the lunatic king, while the other is betting that such a thought will scare voters enough to accept the same brand of politics that brought us that President in the first place. All that remains to be seen in whether Dems finally got the calculus correct. Are progressives so infuriated by life under Trump that they'll vote blue no matter who, or have they picked off enough white suburban Republican women for it not to even matter? We'll find out, though likely not until weeks after November 2, assuming we aren't fighting each other in the streets by then.

Dennis “Mitch” Maley has been a journalist for more than two decades. A former Army Captain, he has a degree in government from Shippensburg University and is the author of several books, which can be found here.

#biden2020 #kamala harris #bernie or bust #aoc #nevertrump

1 note · View note

saphyrenights · 4 years

Text

i keep asking this, but seriously, what kind of bizarro universe have we entered? who tf decides to just drag an 80s soft rock icon for no apparent reason? what is happening in this timeline?

whichever one of y'all that's out there time travelling all willy nilly with no regard for the fabric of space and time needs to fukkin stop it. this isn't funny anymore. we got a global pandemic, tr*mp in the white house, people obsessively hording toilet paper, and now y'all got randos going after the st. elmo's fire dude for nothing on twitter (eta: he didn't sing it i guess i remembered wrong, which is further proof of timeline tampering! 🤯)

this is the worst of all possible worlds 😩

#corona cw #i'm mostly joking #but this time traveller #needs to cool their jets 😡

5 notes · View notes

magioftheseas · 5 years

Text

Chiaki & Yasuke

Summary: Nanami Chiaki’s FTEs in the SDR2 Protagonist Matsuda Yasuke AU. Yep. They’re almost completely different from canon.

Rating: PG

Warnings: Language and references to gore/hospital stuff because Matsuda.

Notes: I was just super into the mood to write more FTEs and I went for Nanami since her relationship with Matsuda is fun. It’s also one I noticed the most people (about three) voicing interest in. It’s pretty drastically different but I still tried to make them parallel the original somewhat. Do the two of them actually get closer? Well, I won’t give you the answer so easily. Anyway Nanami talks like a House of Dead 2 character. She does.

Read this fic among others HERE

Main story is HERE

Commission? Donate?

Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, A, B, start.

Matsuda woke to the sound of furious button presses. The hotel air was as stale as ever. His neck fucking hurt from how he had slouched against the couch. At the very least, his manga had been carefully set down on the table, but he nevertheless found himself irritated at how he just fell asleep while reading.

Just because I got tired of my cottage. The hell was I thinking?

And that creepy otaku was happily booping away on the tabletop game. Although Matsuda was pretty damn sure the lobby had been empty when he entered. He’s sure because when he goes out, he goes out of his way to avoid people if he can help it.

And yet, the gamer chick is here. When he’s sure she has a million other things to do. How irritating.

Huffing, Matsuda pushed himself up. His neck throbbed and creaked and he groaned loudly as he tried to adjust it. He might need a neck pillow or something. Anything.

“Ugh. How annoying,” he mutters, grabbing his book. “I wasted all that time on a shitty nap. I doubt my brain flushed out the chemicals properly. No, I’m sure it didn’t. Great.”

Stretching doesn’t alleviate the aching of his joints, but he’s ready to head out regardless. He pops his lips as he starts with his best foot forward, only for someone to call out.

“Hey, why don’t you play a game with me before you go?”

Matsuda paused, turning to Nanami with a withered, unimpressed look.

“Just one,” she said, not looking at him but at the stupid fucking screen. “Or two. Or three. Or four. Maybe more.”

The fuck? Oh. The hell kind of bizarro world is this?

He thinks that, he thinks that, but he throws his hands up in preemptive defeat.

“Sure. Fine. Why the hell not.”

And that was the start of it. As well as the select, the downs, the ups, and the game.

The losing screen flashes in his face. He’s not surprised at it. He wasn’t surprised the first time.

“Another round,” Nanami droned at him. “You didn’t even try in that last one, Matsuda-kun.”

“What do you mean? My strategy of just pressing random buttons hasn’t changed a bit,” he pointed out. “I don’t have the time or brain space to learn the technicalities of this cheap-ass fighter game. Especially when the characters are all so ugly.”

“You consistently pick the same one,” she replied. “If it didn’t matter at all, you’d change things up a little.”

Matsuda stares darkly at the character in question as if it had betrayed him. What met his glare was an annoying innocent smile obscured by strings of red.

“I guess this fugly speaks to me on some level. Not that I’m remotely interested in what it has to say.” He selects them just as before. “Whatever. If you’re that fucking bored, then I guess I’ll pick the stage. Although does it really matter? They’re just different backdrops.”

“It helps with atmosphere, I think.”

You think. Games are supposed to be your fucking forte.

He ended up selecting the gothic horror-styled one. Not for any particular reason beyond it feeling right at the time. He immediately started his losing strategy of random button mashing, and while he got a few hits in due to unpredictability, Nanami Chiaki was perfectly capable of wiping the floor with him. To call it one-sided would be generous.

Another defeat. Another loss. Another smug winning animation of Nanami’s character, cheering and prancing around like a fucking deer.

He pressed start to skip through, but the screen lingered as the other player hadn’t done the same. So he waited because whatever, almost drifted off, and snapped back to attention when Nanami was the one who yawned.

“Am I boring you?” he asked, huffing. “What did you expect? Obviously, I’m not a match against you. This is your field, not mine. Or was this part of a sad attempt at psychoanalysis?”

“Um...” Nanami rubbed at her eye. “I do love games. I love playing games. And playing games with others is fun. It’s fun even with it’s with you.”

Even when it’s you. He wonders if he should be flattered. Ultimately, he doesn’t really care. He shrugs.

“Games are as good as a recreational activity as any, I suppose,” he mumbled. “But still between games and manga, the manga is the obvious victor for me. I’d rather not have to use my head unnecessarily when it comes to entertainment.”

“Unnecessarily?” Nanami parrots.

“Because gaming requires an engagement unlike any other,” Matsuda explained, perhaps a bit snappier than needed. “It’s interactive. The game cannot proceed without a player. It’s more...versatile, I suppose? That’s the main appeal of it, and I definitely see the value there, but, still.” He shook his head. “Not for me.”

“So that’s why you’re not really engaging,” Nanami muttered, puffing her cheeks. “Not really, I think.”

“If I asked you to go reading with me, you’d definitely fall asleep before finishing a chapter.” He paused for a moment, mulling that over. “But I guess maybe you’d put more of a show at participating.”

“Maybe. Books are okay. I guess.”

Matsuda twitched a little.

“Video games are okay. I guess.”

“But video games encapsulate all kinds of experiences,” Nanami said. “So I think you’re being a bit close-minded. There’s surely a game out there that speaks clearly to Matsuda-kun’s interests. Maybe we should give that a try.”

Matsuda perked. Nanami had clicked start so that the screen could change, but her gaze was more intense than before. Matsuda couldn’t help but let out a snort.

“I don’t doubt that, but I’m still not exactly interested in playing through it.” He waved his hand. “I’d rather watch someone else play.”

“I guess I can play it, then?” Nanami’s head tilted. “I guess we’ll both have fun that way. I think so, anyway. So, let’s go find that game. Um. There are simulations of surgeries.” Matsuda remembered those. He remembered those well.

I’ve actually played through those for training. It’s meant to ease you into the idea of cutting open a real person, but it doesn’t fully capture that. Doesn’t capture the feel of pulsing at your fingertips, the weight of that person’s mind and life on your shoulders. How a person can twitch and break if poked the wrong way.

And with all that in mind, he was really, incredibly, exhausted.

“Not right now. I’m going back to take an actual fucking nap.” He stands, and he does a half-assed salute. “Sayonara, bye-bye.”

“Later, then?” Nanami asked. She didn’t even sound hopeful. It was cold and robotic, like a coworker after a long, long day. It lowkey pissed him off, so he didn’t even respond.

“Ohhhh, it’s Matsuda-kuuuuun.”

“It’s meeeee.” Matsuda waved his hand dully. “I didn’t have anything better to do so here I aaaaaam.”

“Yaaaaay,” Nanami droned with no mirth whatsoever. “So, let’s go to my cottage, then. I dug around through my games and I found stuff that aligns with Matsuda-kun’s interests, I think. I also asked Usamonomi for other stuff.”

“You can just ask the rabbit for shit like that?” he asked, blinking. “Well, shit. I should’ve been taking advantage of that a long time ago. I could’ve cut down on time spent within the proximity of other people.”

Nanami blinks back at him. She already looks bored. And tired. What a mood.

“Were you serious about finding a game I’d like?”

“Absolutely,” she answered immediately with quite the serious expression. “Games are everything. If you can’t find a game you enjoy, what are you even doing with your life?”

“Other things.”

“Come on,” Nanami insisted. “I will drag you if I have to. Probably.”

I don’t want to go but having someone remark on the weird gaming otaku trying to shove me around isn’t exactly my idea of a better time. The best time would be reading manga. And not going crazy due to a lack of being able to work. God.

“Okay. Sure.”

He could only shrug his shoulders and move on along. And make faces at Nanami’s back all the while.

They got to her cottage easily, and Nanami was even walking a bit faster than usual to make the trip shorter. She had to dig around for her key, but it was only a minute before she unlocked the door and beckoned him within her gaming domain. Matsuda, unaffected as ever, just muttered platitudes as he followed in after her.

“Please excuse me.”

He scowled as he had to step over several cables and nearly flipped over the rug that happened to be the same shape as the hair clip Nanami wore. How obsessive was this chick? Even he didn’t have a specially designed rug. And the shape was impractical, too, it pissed him off.

God, what would life be without such useless luxuries, indeed.

“Ba, ba, baaa,” Nanami droned in a poor non-attempt to drill up anticipation. Before Matsuda could ask, she had shoved one of the handheld consoles into his face. It was pearly pink and well-worn, and also flicked on with the screen blinding. Squinting, Matsuda first heard the steady, synthesized heartbeat before he saw something pulsing in the depths of painfully light cyan blue. On closer inspection it was a heart, tubes and all. How quaint.

His eyes flickered over the title printed on the screen, and he exhaled.

“Yeah. That’s a video game alright.”

“You can play it,” Nanami said. “Or you can watch me play it. I guess.”

“I’ll watch you.”

“Okay.”

Nanami plopped onto the ground. She patted the spot beside her but Matsuda elected to just keep standing. He had no interest in getting overly cozy, that just...made him feel uncomfortable.

This chick in general makes me feel uncomfortable.

And she had already started the game. She was utterly fixated on the screen immediately, even when all she was doing was scrolling through dialogue and watching inane cutscenes. The music droned on, and Matsuda wondered if Nanami would notice him just leaving.

Tempting idea. But if I’m going to waste my time here, I better fucking commit.

He noticed that she used a stylus to navigate the various screens. It was definitely old, but in good shape. Hadn’t even been gnawed on the way most of Matsuda’s pens had been. If anything, Nanami had no idling or ticks as she played. It was as if every atom of her being couldn’t focus on anything else.

Creepy.

Really creepy. Totally inhuman. She’s not even blinking.

“Your eyesight’s going to go out,” he muttered under his breath. But she had started the stage, and Matsuda could only stare at the digitized rendition of a patient on the surgical table. Nanami drew the lines with her stylus, and the ‘skin’ split open, revealing the pulsing masses underneath.

There was music ticking, blaring and frantic. It annoyed him. If any music played during surgery, it was almost always classical. Fucking classical. It’s like he was back watching during his internship. He had been fascinated back then, watching how the body pulsed with life in spite of being cut open. The thrill of a person’s warmth when their inner intricacies were in his hands. The throbbing and spasming of those insides...and Matsuda only snapped out of it when the stage was cleared and triumphant music played.

And Nanami was looking up at him, bright-eyed and expectant. She offered him the game.

He shook his head. He felt twitchy all over. Anxious. Here he was, wasting his fucking time on this. There weren’t even any lives on the line. No excitement at all. He wouldn’t even learn anything. A simulation had nothing on the hands-on experience he used to be so familiar with.

And if I’m here for so long that I forget how to rewire a person...what will I do?

“It’s nothing like the real thing. It doesn’t even make the slightest difference.”

“Matsuda-kun?”

He leaves without another word.

He looks through the files in his cottage of weird animal-dressed people, and even mulling over them and trying to act like he’s working isn’t the most satisfying of activities. So, he heads out, reading his manga as he does, and sometimes irritably shielding himself from the sun. It’s painfully bright regardless of what he does, so he ends up in the hotel lobby once again.

And Nanami Chiaki is sleeping on his favorite spot, her handheld placed gently aside. She doesn’t sleep with any grace and is muttering about flying pigs and evil octopi. Matsuda shuts his manga irritably and he nudges her arm dangling over the side with the tip of his slipper. Nanami mutters something incoherent in between weird humming that may or may not have resembled classical music, and Matsuda smacks her head none-too-lightly with his book.

“Oi. If you’re going to sleep, do so in your fucking cottage not out here in the open. Do you have any self-preservation at all?” He smacks her again. “This is also bad for your back. And you already slouch so much. Geez.”

“Mm. The one who orders us. Cannot be negotiated with. Do not call.”

“What weird game are you playing in your head now?”

Nanami’s face scrunched up briefly. And quickly. Almost too quick to observe. Her eyes drifted open lethargically, wide and blank. Slowly, she pushed herself up, and there was only recognition in her dull gaze as she blinked at him.

“Matsuda-kun.”

What the hell was that about? Ah.

“Morning,” he greeted, not that curious. “Do you ever go anywhere else? Shut-in.”

“Mm,” Nanami mumbled, rubbing her eye with a yawn. “I feel most comfortable with games, but I suppose I should go to other places, too. Do you have any ideas, Matsuda-kun?”

“I don’t care. Anywhere should work.”

Her cheeks puffed, clearly displeased with the answer but Matsuda didn’t care enough to take it back.

“Is it that you’re getting bored of games or that you feel like there should be more to life? It’s none of my concern either way, but if you’re going to bother me about such nonsense, the least you can do is be clear about your motivations.”

Nanami stared at him, and after a while, her head tilted.

“It’s because you’re so difficult.”

Matsuda raised an eyebrow. “Huh?”

“Out of everyone here, Matsuda-kun is the most difficult,” she said simply, tugging up her hood. “At least, I think so.”

“That’s...a pretty fucking lofty claim, considering.” He said that, but in all honesty, he’s not that shocked. People have been calling him difficult all his life even amongst others with objectively worse traits. He’s used to this kind of bullshit.

It’s still annoying as fuck, though.

“That’s also not much of an explanation,” he pointed out. “Why the hell am I a factor in how you spend your free time? You don’t have to pay me mind.”

Nanami’s expression didn’t change, but he wondered if he imagined a shadow flickering across her gaze for the slightest moment.

“I spend a lot of time playing games, and I love games.” A pause. “Of course, games are about having fun. But there are other good things you can get out of it, too. Like, a greater understanding of yourself and the world around you.”

“That’s what it means to be art,” Matsuda replied dully. “So, what? What does this have to do with me specifically?”

“There’s a particular genre I have trouble with, I guess,” Nanami said, although she seemed kind of lost in thought about it. “It’s a genre that hinges on understanding others. Other, um, living people I think.”

Living people? The hell is up with that signifier? Is she actually a zombie?

He couldn’t ponder that further because Nanami was now pointing at him.

“And you, Matsuda-kun, are the most difficult person. So, I think I want to understand through you.”

“What a normal thing to say. And do.” Matsuda twitched. “It’s not my fucking responsibility if you have a social disorder.”

Although I wonder if that’s what it is. But it doesn’t matter. This doesn’t involve me.

“When I invited you to play games, I thought playing something that pertained to your interests would get you to open up,” Nanami explained next. “But you didn’t. You just got upset. Why?”

Ah. Okay. That’s a curiosity I can entertain.

“It’s because you assumed that my field is meant to entertainment.” He didn’t look at her, but he wasn’t going to run away. “I got into medicine and neurology out of necessity and purpose, not because I thought it’d be fun. Yes, it can be enjoyable but that’s such a selfish and stupid fucking way to look at it. Even the fucking narcissists don’t care about that.”

It’s about control. The control needed to save a person’s life.

“Narcissists?” Nanami parroted.

“Never mind. What I should be saying is that if you wanted to pick a game I’d enjoy; you should have picked something with magical girls.”

She perked up. “Oh, so Monomi.”

“Something a little more dignified would be preferred, but yeah. I guess. I can’t say I’m that rabbit’s biggest fan.”

If not for her shitty timing and shittier competence level, I’d at least tolerate her, I suppose.

“Um. So.” Humming, Nanami bounced on her heels, likely to keep herself awake. “What’s something that Matsuda-kun enjoys that I can take part in?” She looks at her book. “I can read with you, I guess? That’s sort of like co-op.”

“It’s nothing like co-op,” he snapped. “And I’d rather not have your creepy dead fish eyes staring holes over my shoulder.”

“I’m not a fish. I think. Fish can sleep underwater. And I’d drown if I tried that. Probably. But maybe I could survive if I collected enough bubbles.”

Matsuda stared at her for a long, long time.

“How about I look for a second copy of this book and you can read along or something?”

“Oh, I guess that’s also an option, huh.”

And such was what they went with. And so, Matsuda’s frustration and confusion with the one called Nanami Chiaki increased. But off to the library, all the same.

“Matsuda-kun, Matsuda-kun.”

Nanami was the one who waved him over, although she hardly looked happy to be doing so. Neutrality as always. It seriously weirded him out.

“Let’s go somewhere again,” she said. “Where would you like to be?”

“A...hospital. With patients. Where I’d be working. Obviously.”

Nanami frowned at him, perhaps a little put out. He couldn’t really tell. Maybe she was actually judging him or something. Considering how much time this chick spent on luxury activities, he wondered if she had any concept of work.

Then again, she doesn’t understand much. Isn’t she pestering me in the first place because of a game?

“That game you’re using me to get good at...it’s not unsavory, is it?”

“Unsavory?” Nanami parroted, like she wasn’t sure what the word meant. He shuddered a bit at the implication of such a scenario. “I do want to understand other people. That’s important, right?”

“I guess. But normally a person’s intention would be social climbing.”

“Like gaining social links?” Nanami seemed to think that over. “Well, there are benefits to that. New abilities. Matsuda-kun would grant greater precision. The ability to better aim. Sharp Precision. That’s what it’d be called.”

She’s now talking through me rather than at me. Fucking rude.

“Right. Precision granted, then. Good-bye.”

He turns on his heel and walks away. It’s not all that dramatic, because Nanami just trots after him without missing a beat. One might compare it to being followed by something cute, like a puppy, a kitten, or a duckling. Matsuda felt it more akin to the security cameras.

“That’s not how it works,” Nanami finally spoke after they walked a good distance across the island. “I feel like concluding here would be a bad ending, I’m sure of it.”

Bad ending? So like...a dating sim route?

Gross.

“Alright. So, a question.” He distracted himself with one of the monitors. And one of the cameras. What he’d give for a rock to break both of them. “You’re pretty good at games, right?”

“Mm?”

“Like, it’s your talent. You must be really fucking absurdly good at games.” He still didn’t look at her. “How much do you think I’d have to mess with your head to make you bad at them?” A pause. “One practice during open brain surgery is having the patient playing a game while you poke around. If they go from doing really well to really poorly, you have an idea that you’re doing something wrong. So how about it?” He glanced back. “Wanna test that?”

Nanami didn’t look disturbed. She didn’t even look displeased. She did, however, visibly size him up and shook her head.

“Even if I was bad at games, I’m sure I’d still enjoy them. It’s not about winning or losing, after all.”

That’s...absolutely not what you should be concerned about. Creepy. So fucking creepy. She has the sense to not go for it, but seriously?

If I lost my capabilities for even a moment, I don’t know what I’d fucking do with myself. If I couldn’t focus on something that important, what would I even be living for?

“Oh.” Nanami sighed. “Matsuda-kun looks upset again. At this rate, I’ll never get a good ending.”

Gross. Gross, gross, gross.

“Life doesn’t have any endings,” he bit out. “There’s also no milestones, not really. No plot points. Certainly no impeccable strategy. Don’t you get that?”

She blinked at him. Once. Twice.

“Mm.” She shrugs. “Matsuda-kun, I have a magical girl game we can play together. It’s a fighter. The combos are really simple. I think you’d enjoy it.”

“It’s always about games with you, isn’t it?” He rolled his eyes. “Look. The second we get off this island, I’m going to throw my everything back into work. There’s no point in building a relationship that’s just going to fall apart. Especially when the person you’re looking to build it with is as difficult as I am.”

Nanami blinked at him again. This time, she was quiet.

“I’m going back,” he said, rubbing at his nape. “Thanks for joining me on the walk, but no thanks to your weird, detached advances.”

“It’s because I want to understand you, Matsuda-kun,” she replied simply. “Because it’s difficult for me, too. I think.”

Is it? Is it really?

No matter how he looked at it, it was a fucking weird sentiment to express. It wasn’t normal. Not at all. Nanami Chiaki wasn’t remotely normal.

I actually...do kind of want to split her head open and get a look for what’s inside.

But he can’t really do that, so for now he just brushes her off.

“I’d rather just not be bothered.”

“Hmmm. Well,” Nanami hummed, shrugging as well. “Maybe you’re tired? I’ll talk to you later, Matsuda-kun.”

This time, she’s the one to walk away. Like it’s that simple.

How exhausting.

He’s lying on bed, manga draped over his face and hands laced behind his head. He’s decently close to being asleep, but there’s a knock on his door. Pulling the manga off and setting aside, he groaned loudly.

“Leave a message.”

And then, he heard someone stuffing just that under his door. Pushing himself up, Matsuda stared at the folded-up paper now on his floor. Sighing, he went and retrieved it. The handwriting was surprisingly neat.

Matsuda-kun,

Hang out with me?

He had half a mind to crumble it up, but instead he just opened the door. Sure enough, she was still there.

“I hear letters can be a good starting block,” Nanami said simply. Like it was just common knowledge. “So they really are effective, huh.”

“Did you just have this on you?” Matsuda shook his head. “Don’t actually answer that. I don’t want to know. What I will ask is why you’re bothering me. Again.”

“I’ve hung out with other people,” she responded, head tilted. “And I think I learned a bit about human interaction. But, Matsuda-kun is still the most difficult. I think.”

“Mmgh.” She really is an odd one, isn’t she? That said. “You really think we can get along, huh? I don’t remotely understand how but to be honest, I don’t understand how you think at all. Sure I can’t cut open your head?” He snorted. “Kidding.”

Nanami’s expression still didn’t change. He still couldn’t get a read on her.

“Walk with me, Matsuda-kun?”

“Alright. Sure. Whatever.”

There wasn’t any point either way, so he figured he might as well. It wasn’t often someone sought him out willingly, right?

...right?

His head hurt a little.

“We can stop by the supermarket, I think,” Nanami says after he shuts the door behind him. “If your head hurts.”

He waved his hand to brush off the remark and followed her lead.

“When talking to many people, I guess I learned a lot of things,” she rambled on ever dully. “I know quite a bit from games, but that can only teach me so much about the world, I think.”

Matsuda said nothing to that, rubbing his temples.

“There was something in particular that frustrated and confused me,” she added. “Something that I wanted to understand.”

“Dating sims?” Matsuda asked wryly, unimpressed.

She didn’t respond, either to confirm or to elaborate. Matsuda huffed, but he expected as much.

“Y’know most games that simulate interaction miss out on a lot of nuances to actual conversations. Just like most thing,” he found himself saying. “No matter how intricate the control screen, there’s an ocean of difference between playing a game about a subject versus engaging with it in the real world. That’s another reason why your doctor games don’t do much for me.”

“I suppose that makes sense, huh.” Strangely, Nanami almost sounded wistful. “But, it’s still something I’d like to understand better. Interacting with others, building relationships, falling in love, things like that.”

They’re at the beach now. Nanami pauses to stare out towards the ocean. Matsuda wondered what he saw beyond the sunlight broken and scattered across the surface. The seagulls flying overhead, and the rolling waves.

“I don’t understand love, but... I don’t think you do, either, Matsuda-kun.”

Matsuda’s eyes narrowed sharply and he would’ve snapped back except suddenly his head hurt and he nearly choked. He gagged, too, feeling sick and light-headed.

“U-Urgh. Urgh.”

“Matsuda-kun.” A gentle hand on his head. “Forget I said anything.”

He flinched, but, his mind went blank for a moment and he swallowed back both saliva and bile. Noticing how close Nanami was standing to him, and how her stare was the most unsettling it has ever been, he scowled.

“What was that? I felt like you said shit that was seriously fucking rude before.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Liar.”

Nanami shrugs and from there it’s whatever. Just whatever.

“Hey, Matsuda-kun.” She tugs at her hood. “If you do ever leave, do you think you’ll be bothered to remember everyone?”

“You’re a difficult bunch to forget,” Matsuda snapped. “But as for you, I really can’t be clearer about my lack of interest. By the way, getting to know someone because you want to score fictional lovers on a game is kinda shit.”

“That was actually an excuse, but I figured it wouldn’t work on you.” She shrugged again. “But we spent enough time together that there must be something between us.”

“What a gross remark.”

“So difficult,” Nanami muttered. However, something tugged at her lips. “But I would like for you to get along with everyone, I think. Despite everything. I’m sure.”

“You really do sound like that obnoxious rabbit sometimes,” he responded, puffing his cheeks. She did the same.

“Because getting along with others is important, Matsuda-kun. You should know that.”

Of course I do. But the idea is such a hassle. Such a headache. I have to wonder if it’s worth the trouble.

But, he won’t deny that the idea of a future alone and isolated was a chilling one. He was still human, after all. Humans are social creatures by nature. It was how their species survived, as stupid as it was.

Even if I can’t begin to understand someone like the gamer zombie, it won’t be that way for most other people. And for all her faults, I suppose she’s capable like any other person. I suppose there are a couple of things about her that I can get, even if it’s not everything. But before all of that, one thing is certain.

As both he and Nanami stared out across the endless blue of the ocean waves, he could only truly seek after what laid beyond.

I have to get out of here.

#yasuke matsuda #matsuda yasuke #chiaki nanami #nanami chiaki #Protag Matsun #Magi fics #sdr2 #dr0 #sdr2 spoilers #hinted at #This ended up a lot longer than Hiyoko's but I enjoyed writing it #should I tag the pairing even though it's not really a thing #I didn't for the last one #well #whatever #MatsuNami #I want to do another one before we get back to updating the main story #i-it's not to give myself more time to finish Chapter 2 #I swear

17 notes · View notes

taiblogcomics · 4 years

Text

The Kids Are All Wrong

Hey there, junior chemistry set. Normally, I'd switch to another series after finishing a story arc, but that's just it. I don't have another series on the backlog! Oh sure, I have things we can do for if and when we finish the whole backlog. But I figure: why jump into an old series, when we still haven't caught up with this one? So yeah: long paragraph short, it's time for a new arc in Red Hood. Which is good, because the last one sucked~

Here's the cover:

Meet the new Outlaws! Same as the old Outlaws? Man, this cover is busy. It's okay if you don't know who any of these characters are, we'll get introduced to them in the story. Bet you didn't even notice the masky guy on the middle right. It's fine! There's just so much going on, with Jason being slammed into the wall by Discount Ragman here, while Petey Eaty goes to town on the logo. It's certainly not a boring cover, though I'm unsure whether all this makes it an appealing cover~

So we open on a full-page splash of the masky guy you overlooked. You can see them better now: they wear a whitish cloak and have four arms. And right there, they explain the new arc's premise: Red Hood is here to be a teacher to these up-and-coming kind villains. They're his Future Villain Band, if you will. So here's our group. The bandage zombie hitting Jason on the cover? Not important. The baby they're holding? That's Babe in Arms, a supergenius. The masky fellow is DNA, a non-binary shapeshifter. Eaty there is a fellow named Devour. Not pictured on the cover is a blue-haired girl named Cloud 9. She's weird and flirty. And that's our team! Hope you love them~!

So we cut back to two weeks earlier, the morning after he met with Luthor at the end of last issue. He was given an address and an ATM card, but no PIN. Inserting the card into the ATM, though, teleports him to a secret underground lair. Or maybe it's in the Nether. I'm gonna say Nether. Standing her is "Dr. Shay Veritas, the smartest woman in the world". I had to do a double-take, because she seems to be wearing a bodysuit matching her skin tone. She's also a dead-ringer for Starfire, so that's a second double-take. The long and short of their conversation is, both of them don't want to see teenagers die. And if Jason doesn't teach them, they might fall into the care of someone like the Joker or Cheetah. Oh no, they might learn to scratch up the furniture!

So, back in the present, Jason gives the kids a challenge: if anyone can beat him in a fight, they get to teach the class. This actually sounds like a fight you wouldn't want to win if you ask me, but nonetheless, the kids try to blow the shit out of him anyway. Devour reveals his power: it's not just eating things. Any technology he eats can then be integrated into his body, and thus he turns his hand into a big gun. How very ‘90s. He shoots, but Cloud 9 won't get out of his way. Fortunately her powerset includes "is a cloud", so the shots from his gun just pass through her like mist. It's very convenient.

The fight continues, with DNA growing tentacles to get a little frisky with Jason. He compliments the ingenuity, but has no problem slicing them off. Cloud 9 reveals her other powers, such as weather manipulation, and begins making it hail. When Devour complains, Jason uses it as a lesson: use whatever you have to take out the enemy, even if what you have is another enemy. This leads to friction between Cloud 9 and Devour, who creates a lightning gun. This mixes poorly with Cloud 9's rainstorm, and blows all of them up. Jason just dodges the explosion, landing right next to Mummy Mother and the Babe in Arms. Rather than get in a scrape, Babe opted to just watch the fight and make notes. Jason admires this, but still fails the lot of them.

We cut to a brief interlude of Artemis and Bizarro, who seem to be fine after whatever happened in their previous appearance. They're not home yet, but they're alive and well. Perhaps a little too well, as Bizarro has taken up meditation in the intervening time. Suddenly Bizarro remember someone he left behind, and it's not Pup-Pup (his plush Superman doll, in case you've forgotten). Bizarro, however, says not Pup-Pup, an actual person. So at least we've confirmed he's stopped hallucinating, that's comforting~

The kids have retired to their communal sleeping quarters, and it's here where DNA identifies themselves as non-binary. Despite being a living DNA strand, which is a double-helix. It's sort of like a joke, I guess? They're also a judgy asshole, and decide they don't like sharing a room with Babe in Arms' mom zombie (mombie?). The pair of them start a fight, and Devour tells them they're all assholes, vomiting up a series of mechanical spheres with tentacles, which bind the pair who are fighting up and suspend them from the ceiling. He brags about how awesome he is, just to remind us that he's an asshole too.

There comes a knock at the door, letting the kids know it's time for a mission. Ah yes, it's a great idea to take these untested youngsters who can barely stand each other out into the field. The field, in this case, is an abandoned STAR Labs facility in Connecticut. And because they're the Red Hood's students, all the kids are wearing red hoodies as a uniform. Cloud 9 demonstrates her role as the goofy, spontaneous one and dashes off.

Jason's already exhausted, and the mission's only just started. He gets the other kids to stay behind him, and they enter a new room. Sitting in the middle of the room, simultaneously gnawing on some old discarded femur and holding Cloud 9 by the throat (isn't she supposed to be misty-bodied?), is the last character you may remember from the lower right corner of the comic. This craggy Xenomorph-looking fucker is known as Doomed. We'll get into his deal next issue, but for now he's just going to be our cliffhanger for the week~

While I did say that I was looking forward to this arc, I do have some problems with this issue. Namely in that it is extremely rushed. Not only are they introducing a new status quo, but also four all-new characters (Babe in Arms’ mombie doesn’t really count as a character, they’re more of a minion), with a fifth teased at the end for next issue. It’s just a lot to take in, and you only really start to get a gauge on their personalities beyond “teenage asshole” towards the end when they go on their mission.

Nonetheless, I’m still interested in this arc. Both the “teen supervillain team” and the “teaching teenage supers” concepts are of interest to me. Hopefully they can do better with it than that X-Men arc I read a few years back~

#comics #reviews #Red Hood and the Outlaws #Red Hood: Outlaw #Taiblog #Year of the Villain

2 notes · View notes

alleytownstrays · 5 years

Text

“are you that blind?” outlaws x reader hcs

request - ‘Hi! I just found your account and saw that you write for the new 52 outlaws. I wanted to request a fic where the reader who is younger than all the members of the outlaws. She is not a part of them but is just helping them temporarily (she’s not a huge fan of vigilante stuff) and the outlaws are in a poly relationship and they want the reader to be a part of it because are all smitten by her however she is very oblivious.’

message - oh HONEY. I’ve made it so that they’ve got a relationship with her each but to make it poly, sister has no braincells.

warning - this is so short and shitty wow

- You first met the Outlaws through a police case you were working on for the GCPD, you’re a private investigator normally but you took it on for an old school friend from a few years back.

- You first met Red Hood - it had taken a while for him to reveal himself as the late Jason Todd but you took it under your wing with a shrug and a ‘This is Gotham man, who cares?’ - and upon Jay sussing out that you weren’t some lowlife he had brought you to meet the others also because you looked like great fun.

- Kori had become your wingwoman very, very fast and you met up all the time for coffee and just a break from both your crime infused worlds, she had taken notice of the twisting in stomach quickly since it registered with her every time you laughed and every time your eyes widened at something you loved. Kori and you remained in a sense ‘exclusive but open’, she didn’t think you were falling for anyone else.

- But damn.

- Roy Harper holy shit.

- The second you and Roy had met you immediately got on, he introduced himself witha flirty remark and you took in your stride so fast that Roy was fucking smitten. You guys were the original dating for friends, holding hands and draping your bodies over the other, swinging by late at night when the other felt bad or needy. It was a match made in heaven and Jason felt goddamn proud he had introduced the two of you to each other. Roy felt connected to you and he wasn’t going to stop just because of his relationship with the others.

- When Kori had mentioned his feelings to Roy one night when Jason and Artemis were playing video games and in their own world, Roy freaked the fuck out.

- What the fuck do you mean you like Y/N?? I like Y/N?!

- Jason had noticed the weird aura between the two and turned to them, “I really love idiots huh? You guys are about to start some anime level harem, man.”

- Artemis shrugged the whole thing off, not minding whether you entered into their relationship because she had respect for you - since the second you met, she had grown respect for you and your curiousity, you wanted to learn everything about Amazonian culture and wanted to know everything about her. Nothing fazed you, even her most gruesome stories, it was interesting and you peaked Artemis’ interest.

- It was then as a group, Bizarro was down to invite you because he thought you were a ‘nice man female, they decided that they wanted you and for no one else to have you except them. Nothing stood in their way except well...

- You.

- You were absolutely brilliant, intelligent and kind, a real angel and light that didn’t really exist in Gotham anymore. You were young, younger than them, but still able to make your own decisions without someone else standing over you.

- But there was times when you were ridiculous.

- Like Jason and Roy tag-team flirting with you or being more touchy than usual.

- Or Kori taking you to a fancy restaurant and stopping every few minutes to take in the sight of you in a beautiful outfit.

- Bizarro had even told you that he liked you a lot but your dumb self only replied with, ‘I like you too Biz!’

- You were so oblivious and under the impression that you were just like a sister to these people that everything went but all these idiots wanted to do was cuddle you inbetween their muscly selves and make sure you’re happy for the rest of your life.

- They were beginning to get irritated with you but none of these vigilante softies could stay angry when you used to come over with a bright smile that filled their hearts and bags carrying food to fill their fridges.

- Guess they could wait a little more before telling you how they all felt.

- But it was a race to see who confessed first.

request me here!

61 notes · View notes

bennguinfest · 5 years

Text

Spring 2019 Fan Fest Prompt List

Hey fan-festers!

We’re happy to say that we received 81 prompts this time around, and we spent the last few days distilling all those amazing and creative prompts down to a list of 63 prompts! (If you’re keeping count, that’s far more than last year’s 48!)

As with last year, we had some repeat prompts and prompts that were similar enough that it made sense to condense them under one item. Additionally, most of the prompts we distilled down to a few words for the sake of having a concise list! Again, like last year’s fest, we’re providing the full text of the original prompts under the cut, in case you’re looking for more details to get started!

You’re free to create any kind of fanwork based on the below prompts! There’s no minimum word count and no rules on what to create, or even how many - if you want to combine prompts, that’s cool! If you’re called to make more than one thing, that’s awesome too! The only limit is that this fest runs from now until April 15th - so if you’re creating something, make sure you post it and tag it with #bennguinfanfest so we can share it to this tumblr! If you’re posting to AO3, the collection is now open for submissions as well, so make sure to include your work there so everyone can find it!

One final thing: even if you didn’t submit prompts, feel free to participate and join us on the discord! We’ve set up a discord server here: bennguinfest on discord to stay connected, inspire each other, and have fun! It’s a great group and really active, so don’t be shy!

That’s it! On to the prompt list!

Matchmaking dogs

Space AU

Birthday gifts

Coming out/being together in the NHL

Acting like a couple (but they’re not actually a couple)

Tyler as a WAG

Transported to a parallel universe

Abducted by aliens

Superhero/Superpowers AU

Amnesia from an injury

Soulmate AUs: Color-based, name-on-wrist

Thirst follow/Met online

Drag AU

Time loops

Alternate histories

Cop AU

Reality show AU (Survivor, the Bachelor, Married At First Sight)

Jamie Poppins/Single dad AU

Supernatural races (vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters, etc.)

Omegaverse: Courting

Delivery boy/Uber driver AU

Tyler gets traded back to Boston

Breaking up & making up

Omegaverse: Bonding drama

Boring office desk job

Road trips

Protective Jamie defending Tyler

College/University AU

Tyler tries to be Jamie’s wingman

Lites’s comments affecting the boys

Taking care of a sick hockey player

Cuddle pile/team bed fic

Harry Potter AU

Fire alarm meet-cute

DnD/Hockey Mashup

De-aged after a fight

Bakery/Tattoo Artist AU

Friends with benefits - and then with feelings

Zombie AU

Homeless AU

Nerds are hot/competency kink

Omegaverse: scents

YouTube channel AU

Bridal shop meet-cute

Beard appreciation

Tornado warning

Figure skater mpreg

Self-conscious Jamie

Wing!fic

Winning the cup and a kiss on the ice

Lifeguard AU

Haunted farm

Animal daemons

Surprise/sudden parenting

Jealousy from dating/flirting with someone else

Secret relationship and almost getting caught

Long-lost childhood friends

"Come here."

“Close the door.”

“I feel like I can’t breathe.”

“It’s three in the morning and you want me to do what?”

“You could’ve died.”

“I thought you were dead.

Full text of the prompts under the link! If you have any questions, feel free to send us an ask - and as always, happy creating!

1. Matchmaking dogs: Tyler’s dogs want to get their human with a certain cow-eyed captain

“well this is really awkward considering the last time we saw each other, i was screaming at you to never talk to me again, but like, my dog recognized you all the way across the park and literally dragged me over here because she misses you so hi” AU

2. Space AU (ex. Star Trek, Firefly, or something else entirely)

3. It's Tyler's birthday and at first Jamie gives off the feeling that he's forgotten and this hurts Tyler but it turns out that that Jamie wakes Tyler up at midnight on his birthday with two tickets to an offseason trip

4. I want a fic that REALLY captures what it would be like if two NHL players were to come out in 2019. I'm talking teammate reactions, press reactions, social media, family, the whole shebang. I wanna see the real raw reactions and the struggle the guys would have to go through. I would also loooove if you could fit Jamie proposing to Tyler in there somewhere but it isn't a necessity.

Jamie has a hard time dealing with how public Tyler’s life is, with the insta stories and with random people filming him all the time. It feels like it’s only a matter of time before their relationship is exposed because of how much Tyler is in the public eye. Jamie doesn’t want to break up but it seems like that’s the only choice he has. He doesn’t want to do this so much that he calls a press conference and comes out of the closet.

Jamie and Tyler have been dating since 2014 and he’s tired of hiding it. So with Jamie’s consent he posts a cute photo of them being a couple and writes a heartfelt monologue about their story. And the whole hockey community blows up about it. And it’s kinda about how they deal with being and out couple and Tyler posting obnoxiously cute couple photos on his Instagram. Sorry this prompted is a mess I just want Tyler to be a troll and post cute cliche couple photos on Instagram of him and Jamie and the world loading their minds about it.

Jamie and Tyler come out to the team about them dating. Management wants to keep their relationship secret so they make Jamie fake date someone. And him and Tyler struggle with the stress that puts on them.

realistic consequences of being together with the team

5. Tyler and Jamie are super close but super oblivious to the fact that they act like a literal couple. Jamie has a gf and she hates the fact that it seems like Jamie cares more about Tyler than he does her.

6. Fluffy fic where Jamie still plays hockey, he meets tyler and they fall in love and tyler becomes an nhl wife/husband/boyfriend.

7. Parallel universes -- somehow Tyler (or Jamie) finds himself in an alternate universe where his life is radically different (for better or for worse) which makes him realize how much his relationship to Jamie (or Tyler) means.

waking up in the future/alternate reality fic

8. Jamie and Tyler are abducted by aliens and taken to a faraway planet where they are prisoners in a bizarro planet. Is it real or is it a nightmare though?

9. jamie and tyler are in danger and major trouble when their identities as superheroes are revealed and bad guys are after them.

powers/mutant AU (as in pick one, not all at the same time) One hides their ability from the other, and when the other finds out, its...not good

Superhero AU! Are they superhero partners? Is one of them a superhero and can't date the other because he has to keep him safe? Are they both trying to keep their secret identities secret from each other while simultaneously dating in both iterations? Up to you, or anything else!

10. Amnesia angst for the win - Jamie gets a particularly hard hit, wakes up and can remember everyone except for tyler (maybe not explicitly, say they can *remember* them, but not remember that they've been dating for eight months now) cue tyler avoiding jamie because its too hard him to be around him

11. soulmate au! people are born with blackmarks - on their hands, their faces, their skin in general - the black marks is the first place their soulmate would touch them. Jamie was born without a mark. Tyler was born with two pitch black palms. Years after tylers been traded to the stars, Jamie falls asleep, and tyler can't help but run his fingers through Jamie's hair, just once, and then he looks down at his hand and the tips of his fingers are colored, and so are the few strands of Jamie's black hair.

Soulmate au- either abo or name on wrist. No drama, just fluff!

12. Tyler thirst follows Jamie on insta. This can be hockey or non-hockey, but Jamie follows back and they start talking.

13. Rupaul’s Drag Race au. Tyler and Jamie are competing against each other but are constantly talking about how much they like each other/are attracted to each other in the confessional. They’re both single, so why not go for it? Alternatively, one is a queen and the other is a member of the pit crew.

14. groundhog day au (aka, tylers/jamies day keeps getting reset, again and again until they get together finally and wake up the next day)

15. alternate history, tyler is never traded to dallas, but they still somehow meet and fall in love anyway

16. cop AU, where in tyler the rookie transfers and get stuck with Jamie the sorta senior to show him the ropes. Jamie gets attached. And that’s...a problem, in their line of work. Or at least it is for him.

17. Survivor au- same or different tribe, as long as they’re the “showmance”

"The Bachelor" AU

Married at first sight au- either within the parameters of the actual show, or they literally get married the day they meet

18. Jamie!Poppins - tyler is a single father with a new baby and no clue of what he's going to do. enter Jamie Poppins!

19. Minotaur Jamie

The Dallas Stars are a pack of werewolves, and Tyler is the vampire that’s been traded to their team.

Shifter verse!! and ive got nothing else for this other than wanting to see tyler as a tiny lab puppy pls and thanks

20. Alpha Tyler and omega Jamie: “usually when I meet an omega I wanna bone, but with Jamie I wanna fucking hold his hand and feed him bonbons all day, what the fuck”

21. Jamie the delivery boy. Kay hear me out. Like he keeps delivering huge quantities of food to this particular house and it always seems like there should be more than one person. But there’s not. And Tyler orders. All. The. Time. Hopeful it’s jamie. But they’re both too dumb to ask each other out. Lots of pining

Uber driver! Jamie picks up Tyler from a one night stand

22. Tyler gets traded back to Boston AU - Everything hurts and nothing is okay. (except that at least one of them is retiring at the end of the season so it's actually more okay than they think) (also a future fic)

23. breakup and makeup but spanning over seasons - no cheese plots

24. Bond drama (abo) either they bond too quickly, like at the all star game or something and dont know ehat to do because theyre on different teams, or they really want to bond and its not happening as fast as they think it should

25. Boring office desk job

26. road trip to Montreal to visit Jordie

27. while out chilling at a bar celebrating a win, jamie and tyler are having a couple of drinks and when jamie gets up to go the bathroom, a drunk stranger and a couple of his friends decide to harass Tyler, upsetting him. A furiously protective Jamie intervenes and despite holding his own, Jamie is beaten up and him and tyler end up in a dumpster.

28. A University fic where Tyler is out and proud and gay and Jamie is still trying to figure out his sexuality but he's having a hard time. No homophobic Jamie tho please, just a guy trying to figure himself out. Would love if he would rely on his family throughout the fic for advice.

I’m always a sucker for college au, or masters/PhD students etc

COLLEGE AU BECAUSE WE ALL NEED MORE OF THAT IN OUR LIVES

'the cops showed up to a party we were at and chased everyone away. You and I happened to run in the opposite direction of all our friends and got lost in some dark and creepy street.’ - College AU

29. Tyler finds out Jamie is gay (outed/comes out/whatever you prefer) and embarks on a wild but good-intentioned quest to find Jamie his perfect man.

30. Tyler is hurt by Lites' comments more than one thinks and Jamie is worried when he sees Tyler crying in private.

31. sickfic? jamie taking care of tyler is- like just how pathetic is a sick hockey player?

32. team bed au omg someone pls

33. Harry Potter au but not as high school student, just something in the magical world

34. "3am and the fire alarm in our apartment building went off and you look cold here is my jacket"

35. Hockey AU but they’re all dnd races. I would love to see half-orc Jamie, and goliath Bishop, and tiefling Tyler. Please be as creative as you want with this!

Hockey AU where instead of going out, a core group of guys plays dnd in their hotel rooms while on the road. Tyler and Jamie’s characters are getting flirty in game, and it’s starting to translate outside of it as well.

36. Tyler and jamie fight - a *big* fight, and the next day Jamie suddenly got a deaged tyler on his hands and no idea how to fix it

37. Jamie owns a bakery and tylers the new tat artist next door plsplspls gimme that slow burn bullshit with this one

38. ty/jam used to have a whole friends w benefits thing that went oh-so-wrong because one (or both of them) caught feelings—as one does—and the fic is kind of that aftermath and trying to repair the broken relationship.

39. ZOMBIES

40. Homeless AU w/tyler

41. Tyler is smarter than he leads people to believe, and Jamie is into privately nerdy Tyler

42. Abo verse surrounding scents. Tyler smells like the most delicious thing Jamie has ever smelled, but he thinks he shouldn’t bond with a teammate

43. Youtube channel

44. Designer and single friend of client at a bridal shop AU

45. Beard appreciation

46. a tornado warning hits dallas and everybody is ordered to seek shelter. jamie follows tyler back to his house and hide in the basement with the dogs, frantic and terrified.

47. Tyler is a figure skater, Jamie still plays hockey. They meet and fall inlove but whoops tyler ends up pregnant. The world still isn't 100% accepting of LGBTQIA+ people and even less accepting of men getting pregnant. Tyler feels down at some point cause he has to put his career on hold. but it all ends up great in the end.

48. Jamie feels self-conscious about his ass after some chirping from opposing players and it's up to Tyler to comfort him

49. Wing!fic

50. They win the Stanley cup and kiss at centre ice

51. Jamie's a lifeguard. They meet after Tyler basically drowns himself. (It's not an excuse to have Jamie kiss him. Its *not*.)

52. Haunted farm au- Tyler is a witch that lives on a farm where extremely weird things happen. He ends up rescuing Jamie and Jamie pledges his services for one year in exchange for his life. During that year, they fall for each other hard, but there are outside forces in the farm trying to keep them apart.

53. Animal daemons

Goose daemons

54. Marshall, Cash and Gerry turn into human kids (temporarily or not), Bennguin handle being sudden parents

55. Tyler having a serious boyfriend for a while and Jamie is jealous because he wants to date Tyler but he’s not ready to come out. And he’s also upset because everyone is taking it so well and nothing has changed and he realizes he really missed out. But in the end they still get together.

56. secret relationship and how they almost get caught - many many times

57. Childhood pen pal / long distance childhood friends?

58. "Come here."

59. “Close the door.”

60. “I feel like I can’t breathe.”

61. “It’s three in the morning and you want me to do what?”

62. “You could’ve died.”

63. “I thought you were dead.”

#bennguin #bennguinfanfest #bennguin fan fest #hockey rpf

47 notes · View notes

easypeasybreezy · 5 years

Text

Browsing the Archive

Ch 5- Three’s a Crowd

Words- 1549

Rating- M

Summary- You, Sam, and Gabriel have the bunker to yourselves today, but something seems off about them.

Tags/Warnings- Gender-neutral reader insert, language, a bit of breaking the 4th wall lol

Today was a Free Day for Sabriel week! I decided to go with reader insert haha. Thought I’d try something different. I left it open if you want to read it as SabrielxReader or not. Up to you! Thanks again to @warlockwriter for the beta :)

@ditsauthor99 @sabrielevents

Read on Ao3 here ~

***

You whistled as you cracked eggs into a pan, cooking breakfast in the bunker kitchen. Cas and Dean were away on a hunt, and you had the bunker alone with Sam and Gabriel. Today was going to be a great day.

“I can snap some things up, maybe some minor healing, that’s it,” you heard Gabriel say from the hallway. That was odd, Sam should know that Gabriel was still recovering his grace. You shrugged, putting that out of your mind.

“Good morning you two,” you said cheerfully as they walked into the kitchen. They seemed a bit surprised at your greeting, but their faces quickly shifted into smiles.

“Good morning, y/n,” Sam greeted, then he looked confused by the words that came out of his mouth.

Gabriel did a double take at Sam. “Yeah, morning,” he said almost hesitatingly. They both sat down at the table.

Huh, maybe they had a late night. You finished the eggs and plated them with some toast, then served the three plates. Next you poured a cup of coffee for Sam, a glass of chocolate milk for Gabe, and your favorite drink for yourself. You joined them at the table and took a few bites of your food. Looking up, you saw that Sam was nibbling on a corner of the toast and Gabriel was stabbing his eggs without eating any. The mood was kind of tense.

“So, we have the bunker to ourselves today. What do you want to do?” you asked with a playful smile, trying to start a conversation.

Sam put his toast down. “Uh, I don’t know. What would you like to do?” he asked.

“Well, we could go out, or maybe stay in and have a movie marathon,” you trailed off as Sam and Gabriel gave you blank looks. What was wrong with them?

Gabriel grabbed on to Sam and stood up, pulling him out of his seat. “Actually, y/n, can you give us a moment?”

“Uhh sure,” you answered. You watched as they left the kitchen, then gave them a few seconds before following them out. Eavesdropping made you feel bad, but you needed to know what was happening, and all the Winchesters had a penchant for keeping secrets. They didn’t notice you and walked into Sam’s room, closing the door behind them. You slid up to the door and pressed an ear against it to listen.

“I’m not even sure what their name is!” said Gabriel. “When I try saying it, I know it, but then it’s gone!”

Huh?

“Gabriel, I know exactly what’s going on here. It’s a reader insert fic. That’s why we can’t describe them, the descriptions have to be provided by the reader,” Sam explained.

“You mean, someone is reading about what’s happening to us?”

What the fuck were they talking about? You’d read your fair share of fanfiction, but this was real life! Their conversation continued.

“I don’t know what’s happening, but y/n is harmless. We can just act like ourselves and watch some movies or something.”

“Okay Sam, but it still freaks me out how we say their name like that.”

You heard footsteps as they started to leave. Quickly, you left and ran to your room, which was just a couple of doors down. You got inside just as Sam and Gabriel exited their room, and leaned against the door, your heart racing. That wasn’t- it couldn’t be Sam and Gabriel. They were talking nonsense and acting almost like completely different people. What should you do?

Taking a deep breath, you walked to your dresser and grabbed the angel blade and gun Dean had given you. You would find out what happened to Sam and Gabriel and do everything you could to get them back. Leaving your room, you headed back to the kitchen with the gun and blade in hand.

“Oh there you are!” said Sam as you entered the kitchen. They were back at the table, actually eating their breakfast now. “We were wondering where you- Whoa!” He threw his hands up in surrender as you pointed the gun at him.

“Harmless, huh?” commented Gabriel to Sam, and he gave him an annoyed look in return.

“Shut up!” you shouted, brandishing the blade at Gabriel. “You aren’t Sam and Gabe. Where are they? What did you do to them?”

They looked at each other, seemingly having a wordless conversation, before reaching some agreement and facing you again.

“Look,” started Sam, “We are Sam and Gabriel, just, not from this universe. You know about alternate universes, right?”

Thinking for a second, you realized that you did. “Yeah, like the bizarro world where you were an actor.” Sam and Dean had told you about that adventure.

“Exactly,” chimed in Gabriel. “We came from another universe, where you don’t exist.”

You slowly lowered your weapons. That actually made sense somehow. “Why did you come here then?”

“Well, we didn’t actually choose to come here,” said Sam.

Gabriel stepped in. “My dad sent us. God? Yeah, he trapped us in a loop where we spend each day in some different crazy universe.”

You narrowed your eyes at them, not wanting to ask how they got in trouble with God of all people. “So where are my Sam and Gabriel?” you asked.

Sam frowned. “I’m not sure. I guess they’ll be back after we leave.”

“I hope so,” you said, then put the angel blade and gun away. You believed these two- they seemed to be telling the truth. Besides, if they wanted to hurt you they had every opportunity to do so already. In fact, you were kind of starting to feel sorry for them. “Is there anything I can do to help? To get you back to where you came from.”

“Thanks for offering,” said Gabriel, “but I’m afraid only God can get us out of this.”

You sighed. “So now what?”

“Now we spend one day here, and we’ll be gone by morning. We usually get transported when we sleep," Sam answered.

“Have you tried not sleeping?”

“The first time happened when we were very much awake,” said Gabriel.

“I think I like it better when we’re sleeping,” grimaced Sam.

Well, today wasn’t gonna go the way you planned, but you were still going to make the most of it. “Come on, let’s go out. I want something sweet.”

“It's eleven in the morning, y/n,” Sam said matter of factly.

“Sam!” Gabriel mock gasped in horror. “Of course we’ll go out for dessert.”

Sam shook his head but went along with it, and thirty minutes later you were at the ice cream parlor in town.

You ordered large scoops of your favorite ice cream flavor and Sam got a cone of pistachio. Meanwhile, Gabriel had ordered a large sundae, complete with whipped cream and fudge. You all sat down at a table to eat and talk.

You told Sam and Gabriel about your story, how you had met the Winchesters and stuck around. And how your Gabriel had “died” at the Elysian Fields Hotel, but came back a couple of years later, apologizing profusely. He would pop in and out of your lives until he and your Sam finally got together, a couple of years ago. That was around when he used up almost all of his grace trying to stop Amara, and he was still recovering.

Sam and Gabriel were enthralled by your story, then told you the differences of their world. You couldn’t believe that Gabriel had been tortured all those years, and that Lucifer of all people had a son! But what surprised you the most was that they had only officially been together for a few days. From the way they looked at each other you could have swore they had been married for years.

Time flew by as you talked and finished your ice cream, and you decided to go back to the bunker. The rest of the day would be spent on a movie marathon.

There was a bit of arguing over the movie choice, “We are not watching Kill Bill again Gabriel.” Sam had said at one point, but you all agreed on the Lord of the Rings trilogy. You watched in the Dean cave, Sam and Gabriel sharing a couch while you took an armchair. With blankets, popcorn, and drinks, you were set.

Halfway through The Two Towers, you stopped to order pizza. There was some contention over the toppings, and you had to be the deciding vote over pineapple, but you managed to get it ordered. Once the pizza arrived, you got back to the movies, Gabriel's running commentary somehow adding to the experience.

During The Return of the King, you looked over to see Sam had fallen asleep, his head leaning back into the couch. Gabriel was tucked next to him, leaning up against his shoulder and lightly snoring. You smiled at the sight, but felt a pang in your heart when you remembered they weren’t the Sam and Gabe you knew. Standing up, you pulled their blanket higher up on them, not finding it in yourself to wake them up. You turned off the TV and went to your room for the night. Hopefully in the morning everything would be as it should.

#sabriel #sabrielweek2019 #reader insert #my writing

3 notes · View notes

amarantine-amirite · 6 years

Text

November Syndrome

Imagine that you're a freshman. You're away from home for the first time, out from under the thumbs of veganism and expectations for high achievement that were previously foisted upon you. You have no sense of obligation other than avoiding being yelled at by parents and school. No discipline. No idea how to schedule anything. No sense of organization or time management. The only reason you ever got anything done before was because you had been emotionally beaten into submission by your higher-ups.

What happens? You go crazy. End of story. For the first two months, you go to every party and social event on campus, then, come November, you go bonkers over how much work you have to do, but you don't actually do any work. Instead of working, you escape into things like writing fanfiction, playing Fortnite, or something else unrelated to your studies. It's almost like you evolve into a master procrastinator.

Worse, you don’t even notice your lack of discipline until there’s no one saying “no” to every one of your ideas. As a premed, one of the courses I had to take was called "Computer Science for Scientific Applications". It sounded better than it was. It involved having to hand-write code. On top of that, we had to write in pen! It sucked. My handwritten braces looked like sideways boobs. It was just awful. What really sucked was that I write in cursive, so I did my code in cursive. The professor was not pleased when I handed my assignments in. Our assignments were graded based on whether or not they worked. We don't know until we hand anything in if it works. We don't test the code ourselves, he runs it for us. He put our assignments were put through a scanner, and the scans would be put through a piece of software that would convert the text on the image of the page into actual text. The text that it scraped would then be entered into the IDE for the language in question. Usually for freshman computer science, the language was Java, but our steam (recall I was in premed at the time) did Javascript. The only sort of editing that had to be done to the code once it was scanned and in the IDE was typically spacing related/missing character (the software was good but not perfect).

How was your assignment scored? If the code ran, you passed, and if not; you failed. And I failed my assignment (I only did one) because my handwriting always created a ton of problems for the transcription software. It was kind of a weird program. The software had an auto-detect-language-and-translate feature. Sounds cool, but because of my writing, it thought that I was writing in Hindi and it would "auto-translate" my code. Since the translation module for the software was not that good, stuff got mistranslated…a lot. I remember on one of my assignments, I wrote something in the comments and it got garbled into "radish boots". Ever since then, my nickname amongst my friends in CS was Radish Boots. I didn't hand in any more assignments for that class after that.

See, that's how it starts. Something very small, very unexpected like that. That's how you get the idea that your assignments are optional. And that was all it took to turn me into a master procrastinator.

Once I got the idea that assignments were optional, I just really let myself go. Within three weeks, I went from "good student" to "crappy student" to "how the hell did they get into university?" With no actual work weighing me down, I went ahead and participated in every campus social event ever. Paint-your-own flower pot day at the library? I was there! Fitness event? I was there! Halloween party? Take a guess? I kid you not, I was acting like one of those guys in a college movie. Rather than studying, I went to social events. It was great, except for one little thing. Turns out (and I learned this at board game night), people find people who act like they're in college movies really annoying.

Anyway, the incident that happened at board game night was related to something that happened in chemistry. We had one of those semester long group projects where they put you in groups of seven or eight people. One of the people in our group (Anne, I believe it was) was at the event, and she gave me an earful. Not going to lie, she was really mad that I wasn't doing any work. That's bad enough on its own, but she was angrier than I had expected her to be because we lost five people in the group (four of whom died in rapid succession in some bizarro chain reaction):

last Monday, Laura died of obesity related complications

last Tuesday, Alejandro took up jogging to avoid dying like Laura. He got hit by a bus

last Wednesday, Kevin became afraid of the outdoors (thanks to what happened to Alejandro) and sought refuge in playing video games. Come the weekend, he died of a blood clot from playing Starcraft for 62 hours straight

on Sunday, Melissa shunned all technology (because of what happened to Kevin) and went off to rough it in the woods. She died eating poisonous mushrooms

and yesterday, Michiru dropped out because she couldn't handle the pressure of doing the work of the people that died

Now, our group only had two people, and we had to do the work of seven people. Actually, scratch that. Since I wasn't pulling my weight, poor Anne was stuck doing the work of seven people. Understandably, she was fuming with me, and more than a few swear words were uttered. Anne made a point of saying that if I didn't step up in times of crisis, I had no business being a doctor. I would have agreed, but I had my first taste of freedom in my life. There was no one telling me how I had to respond, so I did what people in movies did: I told her to fuck off.

I don't blame Anne for being so ticked with me. After all, she was doing the work of seven people and I was being a coward, hiding behind a mask made out of lies and excuses. No one likes that.

And then, it happened. November rolled around. The amount of stuff that was past due was insane. Seriously! I missed literally every single assignment that wasn't a test (actually, I think I might have missed a couple of tests, too). I made the mistake of buying into the delusion that assignments were optional, and I ended up paying for it.

I needed to get my shit together and do work, but I couldn't. It went beyond lack of discipline. I never built a workflow, and now I couldn't, for it was too late to dig myself out of the hole. And so, instead of doing the work I needed to do, I did a bunch of irrelevant crap. I had run out of time as a procrastinator, but I acted like things were OK. The reality was, they weren't. My situation with school was beyond dire. Worse, I lied to myself about how it wasn't a big deal. Rather than own up to anything, I escaped into a world of playing video games, writing crappy fan fiction, and other bullshit that would in no way help me get on top of school. November called, and I didn't answer. I couldn't. I was stuck where I was.

I know that I sound like I am repeating myself a lot, but I really want to emphasize how I still didn't get my ass in gear even though things had gotten to the point that I really, really had to buckle down and actually do a ton of work to just pass. More specifically, I wanted to emphasize how much stupid fan fiction and creepypasta I read and wrote during that period. I don't know why I gravitated to creepypasta. I think I was trying to hide the fact that I was a coward, afraid to face the consequences of my procrastination. Liking works of fiction involving surreal horror and demented episodes of beloved childhood cartoons somehow must have translated in my mind to not being afraid of anything. Regardless of how the logistics of that excuse supposedly worked, I ended up being a creepypasta addict.

And that bled into my fanfic writing. I know because I tried to write this ridiculous JumpStart fanfic. It was supposed to be a creepypasta/fanfic (like the infamous Cupcakes), but it just came out incredibly stupid. The concept that powered the story was the little animals from the early elementary JumpStart titles (Frankie the dog, Eleanor the elephant, Pierre the polar bear, CJ the frog, etc…) acting like the folks on South Park. For instance, Frankie the Dog was "Kyle", CJ the Frog was "Stan", Eleanor the Elephant was "Cartman" (albeit with a hidden softer side), and I don't remember who was "Kenny" (I think it was Pierre the Polar Bear). Anyway, the actual story was this thing with vampires. The story was that, at some point, Eleanor got bitten by a vampire (and consequently, turned into a vampire). At the same time, Pierre (I think) was in the hospital with some pretty heavy duty muscular dystrophy, and CJ was trying to persuade people to fund stem-cell research in the hopes that they could save Pierre. However; Frankie thought CJ's thing was dumb and said that they could get Eleanor to bite Pierre so he'd turn into a vampire, thereby curing him of his muscular dystrophy. The only problem with that was, well, Pierre would be a vampire. Eleanor ends up being conflicted by the whole thing, and that's the conflict that drives the story.

I remember some time after I posted the first two chapters online wanting to have a twist ending (I'd written about 75% of the story by this time). I didn't know whether I wanted to do "you think it's the future but it's really the past" or "you think it's the past but it's really the future". I guess it didn't matter, because I noticed that I had only two hours left before the submission deadline for my biology term paper. After trying to convince myself that no, I wasn't dreaming this, I wrote the bare minimum of what I needed to write to fit the guidelines for the term paper disclosed on the webpage; then uploaded the results to turnitin.com, fingers crossed that I would at least pass.

Except I didn't. Not only did I not pass the term paper, I didn’t even hand it in. I found out the next day that I had actually uploaded the fourth chapter of my dumb-ass JumpStart fanfiction (and it was a scary chapter too...it was the flashback to when Eleanor gets bitten by the vampire). The prof was not impressed. Let's just leave it at that.

You have no idea how badly I screwed everything up. I managed to get a flat zero in every single course this term. The only exception was CS, where I wound up getting only 2%. Bottom line is that I failed everything. Yes, everything. My only shot at academic redemption is the final exam.

Even still, it might not be enough. As of this writing, I have less than twelve hours before I go in to write the exam. This is bad. I can't sleep even though I'm exhausted. I have to stay up and work. I need to sleep, but I can't. I'm stuck. I've made this bed, and now I'm going to die in it.

No, really. I feel like I'm going to die.

When I first started cramming, I was fine for the first hour and a half. After that, though, I started seeing static in my field of view. The static thing lasted for a couple of hours until it progressed to seeing shadow people. Or, at least I thought they were shadow people. They weren't even remotely humanoid. I was seeing weird, shadowy spider things. They looked like giant tarantulas, all four of them, and they were coming for me. Just before they got me, they vanished.

They were gone. They were 100% all gone. It was like it never happened. No static, no ghost spiders, nothing. Crisis averted. Back to work.

Nope. It's not that simple. The minute I went back to reading the textbook, I could feel my heart race. I tried to highlight stuff and write down key points, but I couldn't, since my right arm is numb. I switch to writing with my other hand, but that doesn't work. I can't write with my other hand too well. Worse, the minute I get the hang of writing with my other hand, I start throwing up like a volcano. After that, it's over. I can't study if I'm throwing up every three minutes. Even if I weren't throwing up the way I am, I wouldn't be able to focus on studying right now. I can barely form coherent sentences, much for your time like to undarastamnd the impotence of teh book biology and chemistry. Chemical biologrehcal flerbut connection ffrhhAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

AAAAAAAAAA!

@the-writer-s-hideout

#writing #writers #writers on tumblr #creepy #short fiction #drama #short story #original fiction

14 notes · View notes

startripperhq · 6 years

Text

Five years in the making...

Julian here!!

Five years kind of sounds like a lot of time to put toward developing a small sci-fi adventure podcast. The thing of it is, it wasn’t small when the idea first emerged. The working title for StarTripper!! I had at the start was

L I M I T L E S S * V E N T U R E S

and positioned Feston at the head of a multiverse-spanning underground gambling syndicate. Bets would be taken on outlandish challenges. Unknown alien parties woud make a tidy profit. Feston would be the center of attention they (Feston was a “they” at this stage) always wanted to be. The crew of Feston’s transdimensional space station would talk about them like a living deity. The show would be the center of a massive in-universe criminal conspiracy.

It was big and complicated.

I began writing a pilot soon after graduating Vassar College in 2013. I got as far as the bottom of page 2.

I read what I had so far, and looked at my hands like they had betrayed me.

Whatever this idea was, it wasn’t ready. In retrospect, it felt overly contrived, and worse, impersonal. I put LV on the back-burner, simmering it over a distance of two years and more than three thousand miles.

In Los Angeles, I spent my free time working with a number of talented creators on the mind- and heart-wrenching time travel audiodrama ars PARADOXICA. It was a beautiful two-plus years, seeing a community build itself with genuine fervor around this very sad thing we kept inflicting on your ears. It was a lot to process. Conceptually, emotionally, my mind would sometimes struggle to keep up. The rewards were obvious, so every time I got to write an aP script, I was having a great time regardless. Sally Grissom and the rest will be with me indelibly.

But then we entered the Bizarro Timeline. We watched the world begin to unravel around us at speed, with imagery befitting a scene from The Master & Margarita.

So I started to need StarTripper!! more and more. I needed a way to relieve a pressure I could feel building on a macro scale.

So I was essentially gifted the title of StarTripper!! from aP head writer Daniel Manning. The exclamation points were a critical component, he said, and I agreed. Suddenly we had a tone-setter you couldn’t deny. I removed almost every character from the show but Feston, who underwent a change from criminal mastermind, to a warm, genuine person with a humble goal. Since that point, the energy for this project has only increased, and your feedback has been amazing to behold.

I’m making the show I wanted to see in the world, one that I didn’t see coming from any other corner. Having you with us is a gift I get each time I wake up.

Thank you, truly, thank you for flying with us.

- J

(This is a cross-post from our show Patreon, available for all to see! Check us out and check out our reward tiers, with more to come in the future!!)

#startripper!!#startripper #podcast #audiodrama #audio adventure #the whisperforge #julian mundy #mischa stanton #ian mcquown #scifi #science fiction #science fantasy #feston pyxis #proxy

60 notes · View notes

albiusffxiv · 6 years

Text

My Adventure in the Untamed Lands: The Universal Query

Garlemald State News

Column Periodical

Entry 1

By Columnist Aurelius Albius

Some would say that this star is shrinking daily. I do not blame the starry-eyed and ambitious fellows who claim such a fact. Ever forward does this world march in evolution. Every day we strive closer to the ideal destination our world lays out before us, spearheaded by our Emperor. Small world, one would say.

I dare to disagree. I suppose things are different where I come from. The vast and sweeping landscape of the Garlean countryside constantly reminded me of the size and scale of our world when I was a little boy. I have never forgotten the sheer sense of wonder as I traveled further inward once I became of age. This world of ours is vast and diverse, and there does indeed exist such a thing as adventure that lies outside familiar horizons if you look hard enough. Or perhaps, if you venture far enough.

What would possess a man to dare venture beyond the world we know? To venture out to the very frontier of our Empire, and even further beyond to worlds we’ve never known until now?

Perhaps a man like myself: born and raised a common Bas with stars in his eyes for curiosity and adventure. Since birth I have yearned towards the calling to explore, recall, write for our people. I found intimacy with the pen, and the desire to express to my countryman all of what I have seen. I pursued this gift wholeheartedly, and thanks to the privilege and opportunity of my Empire’s guiding hand, I finally have been able to realize this gift. My words will merely express an authentic truth of perspective, from one commoner to another. It brings me joy to be able to write to you all about my adventures, and I look forward to the relationship we will establish between this mere columnist and the greater population of our wondrous Empire.

But enough about me for now. I present to you now my thoughts, feelings, and findings of my most recent excursion into the mysterious and captivating Untamed Lands. What are the Untamed Lands, you ask? Why, an interesting question for a curious mind. There is nothing wrong with curious thoughts.

Allow me to enlighten you thus: The Untamed Lands are the wildlands that lie beyond the Empire’s borders. It is the world free from the security, enlightenment, and refinement of our society. These are the vast lands in which the brave conscripted men and women of our Empire march ever onwards towards the Great Crusade that we have embarked as part of our burden to the greater star. I have left our Empire’s borders. I have seen these lands for myself. They are untamed indeed.

Today I bring you an account from my expedition into the Eorzean landmass. I am quite sure that you have read about the Untamed Lands of Aldenard before, as news of their actions have been quite intimate to the Empire in recent months. An average columnist would question the safety, perhaps even the sanity of the endeavor, but not I. My calling to explore and inform my people was too great to pay heed to danger. I made haste to the city with the yearning to describe the people I met there, and their daily lives.

I speak today of a place in the southern part of the wildlands, a place deemed by name of its savage peoples to be Southern Thanalan. The nation’s old-worldly city-state lies within the beating heart of this land, and the citizens of this outpost call it Ul’dah. Approaching the gates, I found myself pacing up the intricate eighty stone steps leading to the great wall. They call these steps the Eighty Sins of Sasamo. Perhaps in these lands they strive to idealize criminals and sinners?

Ul’dah’s walls are made of stone, not steel. Rather antiquated, no? But charming nonetheless, despite the height of these walls paling remarkably in comparison to our mere Castrums. The guardsmen were lax, and did not even question where I came from or what my motivations were for entering. What the wildlands lack in safety and security, however, they make up for hospitality. When I entered the city proper, oh how would I ever describe it to those who haven’t seen…

There are many colors. Reds, blues, whites, greens. The city is circular, the walls layered and the streets curved around its great center. There are exotic lamps that illuminate the city at night with an odd amber atmosphere. Its people are dressed in great variety of fashion that make use of old world fabrics and pastels. Why, I cannot emphasize enough the variety. Each individual seemed to have a thought in their own head of what was contemporary fashion.

Yet curiously enough, almost everyone I encountered were armed in some fashion. Every single Eorzean was armed to the teeth! I questioned this initially, but a conclusion was easily reached. For the wildlands are indeed wild. You see, these people lack the security, enlightenment, and refinement of our society. So they must arm themselves to protect themselves from danger, even within the city walls. What a challenging life, I thought. I had no clue how much that was true once I entered deeper into the city.

I found myself seated at a table in a place called the Quicksand tavern. I heard it had a bit of a reputation, but I cannot verify my source. However, I have since experienced this atmosphere for myself. How did I end up there? Well, myself and my bodyguard encountered a bumbling Miqo’te savage strolling up the city block. He was all too eager to be friendly with me and my inquiries. Perhaps our refined Imperial mannerisms left him starstruck?

The wildman spoke eagerly about his present day. He had recently traveled from the Far East, and spoke of an Xaela tribe in the Azim Steppes by the name of the Dalamiq. Obviously this savage incorrectly assumed that other savages would be inclined to keep a formal agreement of ceasing hostilities in order for trade to resume and bandit attacks to stop. Obviously they broke this agreement. Without the security and formality of Imperial standards, civilized negotiation breaks down very easily. In Eorzea, they try to deal with this issue by utilizing a force called Hunting Guilds. This savage was stumbling around trying to find them when I met him.

All too eager to help me, he led me to this… Quicksand.

While seating at the table, I met another one of these wildmen. His name is not worth mentioning, neither is the name of the Miqo’te from earlier. I tend to prefer to allow the readers to imagine what their names could have been in the label of my poetic incantations. I will intend to allow my readers to draw their own conclusion about these peoples, and even a name will invite bias into my report. I would never wish that upon my writing. You may trust my accounts. I am one of you.

This man I met had an appearance that astounded me. I have never seen anything like it in my life. He was tall and stout, and yet his face bore vague resemblance of a lion. To know that such individuals exist out there in the wildlands was an enlightening experience, myself. He described himself as a man of faith. It is common for these savages to fall victim to fall idols and the cradle of make-believe religion. This man had little else but that, and his weaponry he carried, to protect him.

He proceeded to speak about Ishgard’s little war between their misguided nation and the abominable beasts known as dragons. Ishgard is located in the northwest of Aldenard, and has always struggled to survive against the forces of nature, which is common with every city state here in Eorzea. He claimed that he was a void sent hunter, a hunter of magical abominations. Why not fight an abomination with an abomination, I thought. This is the kind of logic one must think as an Imperial so far from home in the midst of all this danger.

I must insist that these discoveries all come from the mouth of a savage. Much of his description about himself related back to his false god, and he possessed the hubris necessary to proclaim himself the sword of one of their god’s daughters or somesuch. I must say, he was easy to gain trust, and even bought me a drink. The wine was sweet, and rather tangy. It seems that the wildlands have at least mastered the old world, as I felt more than anything during my adventure here that I have been trapped in a time portal… perhaps a bizarro world?

As I found myself alone inside of my inn room, writing this piece even as I lay my head down in untamed lands, there are still so many questions on my mind. It is likely that I will never see these people again. Whatever will happen to our bumbling Miqo’te friend? What is next for the lion-man and his false crusade? Where will their adventures take them? There are so many untold stories about these savage lands and their people. It occurred to me that life is very different outside my homeland.

But yet, there are similarities. Despite the immediate danger outside of their homes, the plague of false religion, and the terrorizing prospect of guide-less nations leading their guide-less people, these people yearn for a better life. They yearn to be saved. I am grateful every day that I am Garlean. I realized this more than ever on this expedition. Ever greater is our Imperial mandate - our burden - to save and enlighten these people. With the guidance of His Radiance, I can only hope that these people can be enlightened within their lifetimes. Until then, there will be those like myself, who dare to venture into the land far beyond our borders to account the lives of these people.

A wave of the hand now, and I am gone. Lowering my head, I dream that I am home. Until we meet again. Viva Imperium, my readers.

#ffxiv #garlean #rp #aurelius albius #IIIrd legion #state news

9 notes · View notes