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bigskydreaming · 3 years

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Seven Sentences Game

Challenge: post the last 7 sentences you wrote and tag 7 people

Tagged by @romanticism-is-maudlinism so here’s a bit I wrote for It’s The End of the World As We Know It (I Don’t Feel Fine), part of my Ric Grayson fix-it series Bury Your Dead. This part is Jason and Cass because I absolutely love pitting the two of them against each other as I view them as capable of getting under each other’s skin in a way nobody else can. Also, they’re not having a good day here, and they’re letting it out.....another part of their dynamic in my view is I see them as being unafraid to NOT pull their punches with each other, emotionally speaking.

Tagging @rose-blooms-red and whoever else still hasn’t done this, since I’m like, days behind lol. Also, its been way too many days since I opened up a WIP document so I used this to just start writing and I’m just posting what I wrote instead of just seven sentences. Also also, counting is hard.

******

“You used me.” Jason voiced the realization with what he thought was admirable aplomb, all things considered. He didn’t even reach for his gun or anything. Course, if that had less to do with the fact that this was his sister and more that this was his sister who would just take his gun away and smack him with it if he ever drew on her, well. No one would ever know. This was his internal monologue, dammit.

For her part, Cass said nothing. Not that he’d expected her to. Most people assumed her carefully constructed silences were all just a control freak issue born of her aphasia, but they were a conversational tactic in and of themselves. Leave no trait unweaponized, after all.

That was their family credo, wasn’t it?

“That’s why you pulled me into this instead of doing it yourself. It was never about doing this together. It was because all your information gathering resources run through B or Oracle’s networks, and they would have wanted to know why you were looking into these particular names. But you know I have my own networks for when I want their noses butting out of my affairs, so you outsourced to me.”

Lacking little sister’s comfort with the quiet, Jason filled it with his continued musings, as he circled her like a creeper. Then he stopped the circling because her refusal to shift even to track his movements made it impossible to avoid being aware of the ‘like a creeper’ part while doing that. Ugh, she was just the worst.

“Were you looking for a denial?” She asked at last. Her bored tone made it obnoxiously anticlimactic.

“Nah, just pointing out that you’re as manipulative as the rest of us, oh much vaunted ‘best of us.’“

She smiled sharply. “I see that now Dick’s not here to project your insecurities onto, you’ve shifted them to me. Fun.”

Damn. He’d been mostly going for some kinda annoying sing-song rhyme thing there, but he might have to give her that point regardless. Fucking Freudian slips.

“And I know who I am,” she said. “The only one here afraid of a little introspection is you.”

“Challenge accepted!”

Cass rolled her eyes.

To be fair, the dramatically pointed finger might have been a bit over the top.

“See, you know what’s still curious to me? The why of it all. Why you’ve been going to such great lengths uncovering these little secrets of Dick’s, leaving no stone unturned when it comes to his potential unfinished business. Why you were so worried that Julienne might have been his. And you know what I think?”

She raised an eyebrow sarcastically. Jason didn’t know how else to describe it, but it was definitely what happened. That was a sarcastic eyebrow raise.

“I think its because you feel guilty.”

“Guilty,” she repeated, with a full speech’s worth of skepticism packed nice and tight into just the two syllables.

“Yup. Guilty. Because you don’t want there to be any reason he has to go back to being Dick Grayson,” he said with a flourish, relishing the way her gaze narrowed. "Anything making him feel an actual need to get his memories back. Because you don’t want him to be Dick Grayson. You want him to stay Ric. And you feel guilty about that, but its the truth all the same.”

“And why would I want that?”

“Because you want to keep believing I’m just an outlier.”

She stilled, which was a testament to him for being able to note the difference at all. Muscles vibrating with the faintest of microtensions. Here there be dragons.

Just meant he was right.

“You know damn well what I’m talking about. You’ve always been able to explain away the old man’s certain....aggressiveness towards me because of how much time I’ve spent physically at odds with the fam. Muddies the water. Makes it hard to see clearly where its just him reacting to a potential threat to his family and where he’s being the threat. But what if its not just me?”

Again, still, additionally, she remained quiet.

“And I think you know its not. I think you’ve suspected for awhile, even. But there’s a difference between knowing, and knowing.....and as long as Dick is still Ric, there’s no way to really know, right? But with all the dots he’s dropped without being able to connect them the way people with more of the whole picture can, like us.....once he gets his memories back, you couldn’t just not ask anymore. You’d have to know, once and for all. And you don’t want that. You’re afraid of that point of no return, because once past it, you might have to face that what you see when you look at B isn’t all there is to him. And if you can be that wrong about him? Well. You could be wrong about everything. And I think that scares the shit out of you, so yeah. You want Dick to stay Ric, and you feel guilty as fuck about it, but that doesn’t change the facts. And that’s what I think.”

She pursed her lips, the portrait of calm acceptance as she absorbed his tough love or total bullshit, depending on your point of view, and nodded once. Great. He was out here laying down harsh truths like he was.....someone who lays down a lot of stuff, whatever, look he was exhausted from all that unpacking, leave him alone, he needed to rest, but the point was.....all that and the best he got was a fucking nod? Screw it. Next time he was just gonna cut his losses and try for getting blood from a stone instead. Felt like that’d be more rewarding. Might see some actual dividends there.

Cass raised her hands and started making swift, fluid gestures that took him an embarrassing couple seconds to recognize as speech. Never as quick to transition from spoken word to signed as she was, he was left mentally running to catch up. Course, he suspected that was at least partially her intent.

“That’s what I love about you, little brother. Even when you have no clue what you’re talking about, you’re not afraid to commit and take it all the way.”

Punctuating with a middle finger, she pivoted sharply and stalked off into the darkness, vanishing within seconds.

Ever the conversationalist, his sis.

#i headcanon Cass as having asphasia and dyslexia btw #since DC's never actually specified what neurodivergencies she has and there's a whole thing I have written out for WHY I headcanon that #but I can not find it #it exists though!#but yeah I dont know where #also Cass and Jason both insisting on being older and referencing each other as littl ebrother and little sister #is my longstanding headcanon for those unfamiliar #as they are canonically close in age but its never been specified which is technically older #so I go with the idea that Jason is chronologically older by a few months #but Cass is physiologically older by a couple months if you don't count the time Jason was dead #with it thus being a point of contention between them #as Jason can not insist on being the elder WHILE making a big deal out of having been dead for months #unlike most of them who have died #and thus this thwarts one of his favorite conversational gambits #and makes him sulky #and thus Cass enjoys making the most out of this familial controversy #and he knows exactly what she's doing but he can't like.....contest it without admitting to the #emotional manipulation he's going for WHEN he leans into the okay but I was dead for months angle and brings it up #in conversation #ahhh the many dysfunctions of the Wayne siblings

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borisbubbles · 5 years

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ESC 2019 Preshow #09

09. ITALY Mahmood - “Soldi” Autoqualifier

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👏SOL 👏 DI 👏 SOL👏 DI 👏

ENTRY ANALYSIS

Much like Jonida, Mahmood sort of slipped for me when I grew more attached to other songs, but that does not mean he’s not fucking amazing! I, too, fell in love with “Soldi” on first listen when I noticed the lyrics rhymed “Ramadan” with “Jackie Chan”. 😍 😍 😍 😍.

Other amazing things about “Soldi” include: the 👏 use 👏 of 👏 clapping 👏 as 👏 punctuation 👏, the ~Iconic~ lines in Arabic during the middle eight and the wonderful message. It was the FIRST SONG IN THIS YEAR WHICH MADE ME SHED A TEAR!!! 😭😭😭 I don’t know how or why, but I listened to the song with translated lyrics and it just *clicked* for me. I WAS LYING SICK IN BED WITH THE FLU, OKAY. Forgive me my momentary weakness!!!

So is it any wonder “Soldi” was greeted with near-unanimous critical acclaim and support? No, of course not. It’s a fantastic song and 100% deserved to win San Remo!

...

okay, so San Remo... I did *NOT* watch it but I’m aware of Irama, Loredana and Simone, so consider those the reps if I had bothered with an NF corner. Ideal Husband Material, Blue-haired Rocker Hag and Random Dude Who Reads Poetry (not sings. reads.) respectively <3

Slated to win San Remo this year was Ultimo, who entered San Remo with some pretentious piano ballad called “I tuoi particulari” which as the name implies was particularly boring. God what a yawnfest. However, it as also the audience favourite somehow? Him?

So, the juries marked it down just enough so ‘Soldi’ won instead because again, BORING don’t work. Ultimo, instead of being like “well I lost, but oh well, I wasn’t going to Eurovision anyway*”, showed his true Salvador colours by throwing a temper tantrum on social media and spent the entire press conference uglysobbing about how quality was denied (his own words! He refered to *himself* as quality!).

(*he said he would never do Eurovision because he believes it is Eurovision is beneath him 😬) Oh and some right-wing Forza politicians chimed with their usual drivel that Mahmood was unfit to represent Italy because Mahmood is gay & half-arabic while Italy is a vafanculo blob of fragile masculinity which can only be properly represented by drug-riggen, ugly-tattoo’d brats. Guess what? WE 👏 DON’T👏 CARE. 👏 FOR YOUR 👏 MODERN TIME 👏 PREACHIN’ 👏 FORTUNATELY, Mahmood agreed to do ESC (after a week long thinking period lol) and all was well in this world . 👏 ANOTHER VICTORY FOR QUALITY 👏

Edit note: it has become apparent that my brash and snarky assesment was largely malinformed, but user @wingednerdydude provided a pretty detailed summation of the situation.

It’s a quite long explanation I’ll put a tl;dr to appease the fans: Ultimo did indeed not take the loss well, but the media also took an off-hand comment he made about Mahmood out of context and he retaliated, which led a lot of a unnecessary drama and mutual poo-slinging. It’s not just the ESC fans that overdramatize shit, who knew.

For those who want to read it:

Ultimo never insulted Mahmood or said one single bad thing about him or that his song was better than Soldi, let's make this clear from the start. It's also true that he never even said anything complimenting him or his song. Mahmood actually said he never spoke to him nor heard from him in any way. The only thing Ultimo ever said is that he is happy for Mahmood and his success, that's it. If Ultimo really did compliment him then I never read or watched such interview

The mess during Sanremo's press conference blew up right when Ultimo said he was happy for (I'm quoting) "the other ragazzo, Mahmood". Ragazzo is a really neutral term in Italian, it just means young man, I wouldn't know how to traslate it. The journalists found it "insulting" for some weird reason (Mahmood actually said he thinks it's a totally okay term) and said Ultimo was disrespecting him. More context: Ultimo clearly was disappointed about his 2nd place

The press knew it and since the moment he entered the press room they literally started rubbing his missed victory in his face and kept asking him "yeah, but don't you think you should have won?". Ultimo eventually got pissed like mad and rightfully so. They were literally trying to make him lose his temper because they knew he had a bad character and was disappointed. They wanted a scoop and they got it.

Ultimo told the journalists that they were just trying to get an article out of it and that any thing he would say, they would turn it into something else. Then he said (quoting) "I'm fucking done with you". Boom, all of the press room went crazy and started throwing insults at him (sore loser, shit, bastard, ungrateful etc...). At some point Mahmood entered the room and the situation got chill again. By the way, look at the Il Volo guys while he speaks. They agreed.

Which takes us to the next step: why did Ultimo explode like that? I'll get ther: the day after there was a tv program the contestants were supposed to take part in. Ultimo didn't show up. It was full of journalists who obviously insulted him, they showed the clip of Ultimo insulting the press. One of the journalists though, she gave no fucks and just said the things as they were: and that is, the press insulted him. Not only after Ultimo's insults, but also earlier.

Ultimo wasn't the only artist who got insulted: the guys from Il Volo were too, during their performance and while the results were being announced (everyone cheered cause they hadn't won). The journalist says there were clips of it. Ups, looks like they "couldn't show them". Funny how they found Ultimo insulting journalists, but not the opposite. And those videos exist. In particular, there was a video of Ultimo being insulted by press, days before

There were a lot of talks, clickbaity articles written etc... Ultimo tried speaking in a video he posted and told his point of view. Now, mind you, I don't agree with some of the stuff he said. He said that he was sad about the whole thing and that it had been blown out of proportion, his words twisted to show him like the bad guy. And this is true if you read what I wrote. About the results: he was pissed because he had won the televote by a very large margin but lost.

Here I think he was really wrong, cause those are the rules, jury and televote results add up to the final result, it's maths. It may be disappointing, but that's how it is. Still, he was sad that people had to PAY to vote and their votes didn't matter in the end to choose the actual winner. Debatable. But he did make a good point about one thing: the jury votes are made of the votes of some experts (they're like 10 and actually often are people with no music knowledge)

And the rest of the jury votes are journalists. Now, wait a second: the same journalists who threw personal insults at him and Il Volo for no reason if not a personal anthipathy were the ones deciding if they could win or not. Now this is interesting, cause the jury is supposed to be unbiased. His complaining about this is just right in my opinion, something should have been done about it (journalists faced no consequences for their insults to contestants).

This is where the whole thing ended. Ultimo just asked not to speak about it again, Sanremo's week has now well passed and everyone moved on, so that's literally all. I hope I was of some help to better understand the situation. And please guys, no fighting, let's just enjoy Mahmood's song.

AND LET US NEVER SPEAK OF HIM EVER AGAIN!!!!!! ~moving on~

Autoqualifier Odds: very good

The most important thing one has to take away from “Soldi” is that it’s a fucking excellent song. There’s a reason it received near-universal critical acclaim from all sources.

But, as the saying goes, it’s not the song but what you do with it. Mahmood is making great ~live performance progress~ as more pre-parties are showing his growing expertise, but at the same time I feel like everyone has sort of forgotten about him as a potential winner? Actually my friends posited the idea that Mahmood might be a Jamala-esque winner (by finishing second in both jury AND televote) and I think that is an intriguing possibility we should consider! If Duncan somehow doesn’t come through (and he won’t because Expected Winner’s Curse), it will be Mahmood who shall pick up the pieces and win instead. (unless the audience wants to go for the novelty act again, in which case Hatari or Bilal will win) I recognize that Mahmood could go down the usual Italy trajectory and be sandbagged by juries into a mid top 10 placement, I guess. I don’t want to get my hopes up and overrate his odds like I did with Gabbani. Even under the worst circumstance, Mahmood is definitely finishing somewhere in the top 10 though, as all Italian men (fragile or not) do.

Projected placement: 1st-8th in the Grand Final.

Link to the masterpost

#Eurovision #Eurovision Song Contest #ESC2019 #Eurovision 2019 #Italy #Mahmood #Soldi #ClapClap

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courage-a-word-of-justice · 7 years

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Reflection 6 - 7 | Saiyuki Blast 8 - 9 | Katsugeki 9 | BnHA 34 | PriPri 8

Reflection 6

How does Spiderman, or X-On, or anyone speak in one of those mouth-covering suits??? I can’t believe I never thought of that sort of question until now.

Why is it always a woman taken hostage??? Can’t you at least be more gender-balanced in this day and age?

Well, considering Lisa’s power is made for, well, power and the other guy’s power is more covert, this wasn’t going to end well…

I find it entertaining, interesting and funny that Lisa called her wheelchair “Big Wheel”.

X-On did the “draw me like one of your French girls” pose on top of the car, and I can’t. I want that meme so badly now!

Always keep your eyes on the road, people. Make sure you get some rest if you’re zoning out!

Reflection 7

“Beef or Fish”? What is this, Macca’s?

This is like Kado all over again, just with two blades on X-On’s part, and fire. Lots of fire.

It’s all men. Gah, Stan Lee. Every time you impress me, you make me go back on my words. At least have a woman in the tech team…

Oh man. Calling yourself “LA’s ambassador” when you live in LA is like me saying I’m Earth’s ambassador when aliens arrive.

Nina doesn’t look very scared…

I-Guy needed an X-On to the face, so to speak.

“Marry.s Hotel” (sic)? Studio Deen need to work on their punctuation.

Wraith is basically Kurogiri (Boku no Hero Academia). I only just realised that…

Uh, what do I call this car? The I-Guy-mobile?

Saiyuki Blast 8

Can I please stop complaining about how the blood splatter is tasteless?

If you’re in the trade of writing bishies, you have to be impeccable at writing ship tease, and Minekura just showed us why she’s been doing this one manga for 20 years.

Normally, when people have hunches in fiction, they tend to be very much correct.

Why does that Sharak follower even wear that hat? What creature is it even made of??? A raccoon?

Is it just me, or do half of these guys (Kougaiji, his lackeys, Genjo and the Sharak follower) look the same?

“…a bunch of humans can really take all of this?” (Alternatively, the word could be “us”, which seems much more likely now that I think of it.)

The staff really skimped on that one scene where the demon horde is leaping…

So this Dokugaku guy (apparently his name is “Dokugakuji”, but the CR sub was spelt wrong) is…Gojyo’s brother? Didn’t see that coming, the entire Sanzo party looks like only children. Goku is of course an only child since he came from the earth though.

CGI rubble really don’t work here…it looks like a bad action movie, like Photoshopped explosions at inopportune times…like this thing someone once showed me.

Hiroaki Hirata is Gojyo, if you didn’t know, and obviously, Sai Rau is Ura Sai backwards (as done by the Japanese).

…oh, you’re asking me why I’m watching this Ura Sai? It’s because I saw some GIFs of it on Tumblr. Apparently it’s a Saiyuki tradition to do an AU at a Macca’s or something?

Saiyuki Blast 9

As I’m still a rookie Saiyuki-wise, I couldn’t really identify this demon by appearance. I completely understand the fruit joke – I read Saiyuki’s character page on Wikipedia, then came to this ep, but I did something in between so I didn’t remember there was the name Zakuro on that list…haha.

Zakuro has some odd perspective working on those fingers of his…

I was reading a volume of Reload, since I have access to a library with 3 volumes of it, and…I actually know what Hakkai is talking about for once before these guys actually bothered to show it. Amazing.

I literally swore when Nataku popped his golden little head into the fray. Kougaiji’s gonna get a beatdown for sure, especially because Sharak’s scripture boundary should be coming into effect soon.

The problem with CGI is that not all anime benefit from being lifelike. Anything by ufotable is fine, but when other studios try to get a slice of that action that’s not fine. I’ve been going for at least 13 years being used to the flat stye of anime, and calling it home. That’s a tiny fraction of how long anime has existed, and already I don’t want it to change. So please, anime. Don’t become too lifelike, lest the viewers not become able to tell truth from fiction.

Kougaiji does look kinda like Gojyo, eh?

Referring to that link in last ep’s simulcast commentary…yeah, this is if Michael Bay directed this show. Only with more blood.

Katsugeki 9

This is the Teradaya Incident, which happens to be completely unrelated to the Ikedaya Incident…

Of course you get the muscleman to row the boat. That’s just logical.

As I’ve said at least once during these commentaries, there’s close quarters combat late into the game (about map 6), where large swords don’t perform as well. That’s why Tonbokiri is worried.

I have the feeling Hijikata will have to be protected later on in the same way…

Those spider blades sure can run fast, eh?

Oh no. This is advice Mutsu previously gave to the other swords, so having it parroted back to him by his master is really something…

Interesting how Tsurumaru is the only one sitting on the ground, even though he’s got white clothing…

BnHA 34

LOL, a catfight. Bad for public image, good for the press.

After that one week break, I feel like I haven’t seen these guys (Denki, Ashido, Tokoyami etc.) in years…

Wow, I didn’t think I’d see Monoma again at all! Guys like that get sidelined a tonne.

What happens if Bakugo and Deku get the same score? That could be a possibility, depending on how the scoring system works out.

The gates are so CGI, I can’t even…

Oh no! It’s Deku vs All Might. It seems absolutely perfect from a logistical angle (as in, matching a physically powerful Quirk against a physically powerful Quirk makes sense, since you probably find it hardest to go against a Quirk like your own), but Deku’s faith is probably gonna get smashed like Texas…it is Texas Smash, right?

For once, a kid that like hamburgers and not Hamburg steak *sighs happily* (one character and one line’s difference in katakana). Something I don’t have to whine about, yay!

I’ve never known a person who likes natto, although for Ashido, it makes sense (like Shouto and cold soba).

Interesting they put the dumbest people up against Nedzu.

Yeah, heroes always need a healer if they can get one. That’s why I specifically introduced one of my characters in Half-Paid Heroes, and I often have a grass type in my lineup to compensate for such things (since in my world, grass types specialise in healing).

Princess Principal 8

(narrowly refrains from making O’Reilly jokes)

Beatrice, how have you not picked up the fact that Dorothy gained a soft spot for the Princess too? This is case 20, for goodness’ sakes.

It’s the Princess and the Pauper, eh? Traditional, but if Barbie ever taught me anything, it’s that people still like hackneyed ol’ stories portrayed by familiar and non-familiar characters.

“There are all kinds of walls, keeping everyone apart.” – That’s anvilicious for you. There’s no tact in this show, is there?

#simulcast commentary #the reflection #katsugeki touken ranbu #saiyuki reload blast #boku no hero academia #princess principal #chesarka watches boku no hero academia #Chesarka watches PriPri #Chesarka watches Katsugeki #Chesarka watches Saiyuki RB #Chesarka watches Reflection

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