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mst3kproject · 3 years

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Hot Car Girl

This film should not be confused with Hot Rod Girl, which I already reviewed (and which was also bad), Hot Car Girl boasts not only a desperately uninspired title, but June Kenney from Earth vs the Spider, Bruno VeSoto from Daddy-O, and Tyler McVey from Night of the Blood Beast. It was produced by the Corman brothers and directed by Bernard L. Kowalski, who brought us both Blood Beast and Attack of the Giant Leeches. If you decide to search for the movie online, be sure you’ve got all your anti-porn filters on.

After a night with her boyfriend gets a little too romantic, Peggy Dale suffers some serious misgivings about her reputation and her future… but little does she know she has bigger problems coming. As a friend reveals to her, Peg’s boyfriend Duke and his pal Freddy make their living as car thieves. Peggy tries to talk Duke into going straight for her sake, but he will have none of it, not even when his life of crime culminates in a murder! Feeling that no other man will want her now that she’s no longer a virgin, Peggy is forced to flee with him as the police close in.

Duke and Freddy’s fence appears to be the same junkyard owner from The Choppers, and sure enough, when I looked it up… they’re both Bruno VeSoto. God damn it, the movies are all coming together again.

I’m gonna have a hard time coming up with anything to say about Hot Car Girl that I haven’t said about another movie before. It’s a pretty nondescript Young Folks In Trouble film that stands out from the pack only by being unusually upfront about Duke and Peggy’s premarital sex. Like so many other such movies it’s dull and talky and mostly avoids any of the excitement or drama we might hope for from a film about cars and crime. Shots are either over- or under-lit, the actors look ten years older than the characters they’re playing, and the film can’t decide who its main character is.

The title Hot Car Girl suggests that the movie will be mostly about Peggy. So, for that matter, do the opening credits, which are semi-animated in the style of Night of the Blood Beast and depict exciting things like car races and women screaming, which don’t happen nearly often enough in the actual movie. Peggy’s terrified face features prominently here, but... by now, of course, you guys have guessed what I’m going to say next: in spite of this introduction, Peggy doesn’t do much in the film at all.

We first meet her when Duke brings her to a bar where the young folks hang out. There he gets her drunk, takes her home, and sleeps with her, which the movie treats as a very ordinary situation and not at all a mass of skeevy consent issues. In the morning, Peggy worries that she’s ruined herself in Duke’s eyes as well as everybody else’s, telling Freddy’s girlfriend Mickie that she’s afraid Duke will think she’s ‘cheap’. Mickie assures her that he will think no such thing and as it turns out, he doesn’t, which is what leads Peggy to think she’s stuck with him and nobody else will want her.

This much of the movie is fine, and we expect to move on to Peggy learning about Duke’s life of crime… but then I guess the story realizes it’s asking its audience to identify with a girl who has a very gender-specific problem, and switches rails to be about Duke instead. We don’t even see the moment when Peggy finds out about his criminal activities and realizes what it means for her. All we get is her telling Duke later that Mickie told her. The rest of the story is presented through Duke, with Peggy largely standing around either weeping or nagging at him. Her worries about her chastity never come up again. I assume that’s why she sticks with Duke when things get dicey, but the movie just seems to forget about it.

Other characters talk a lot about how Peggy is a ‘good girl’. She’s described as such by Duke, who sounds as if he’s set a challenge for himself to corrupt her, and Freddy’s girlfriend Mickie complains that Peggy is ‘so square, she’s a cube!’ (This is mathematically correct: a cube is, in fact, a square squared.) Peggy does seem naïve, but she never actually objects to all the drinking and drag racing and sex that goes on, and makes only a token protest about the crime before just deciding that this must be her life now. Duke repeatedly says he should never have gotten mixed up with a girl like her, but the impression is more that he’s tired of her complaining about his lifestyle than that he’s ashamed of having gotten her in trouble.

That might make it sound that Duke is far more in love with the idea of bringing the bourgeoise down to his level than he is with Peggy herself – but in spite of it all they have a surprisingly functional relationship. The two of them clearly enjoy each other’s company and Duke never once slaps her even when they argue, which is admirable for a movie from the 50’s. They actually talk about their problems and Duke never blames her for his actions, even when he could almost justify doing so. Probably the height of Peggy’s naivete is when she suggests they just talk to Janice, the girl involved in a car accident Duke caused, and hope she will understand that they meant no harm and don’t want to get in trouble. Instead, Janice sensibly threatens to go to the police, and Duke feels he must kill her to keep her quiet. He could have blamed Peggy for putting him in that situation, but he didn’t.

In the end, Duke says he’d rather commit suicide than turn himself in to the cops, and for all intents and purposes he does exactly that. By this point he seems to have realized that the reason he should never have gotten involved with Peggy was for her sake, not his, as he leaves a note to say she was not involved in any of his crimes. Peggy, however, has no character arc at all. The end of the film leaves her traumatized but not really having learned anything. Duke actually has to order her to leave him behind, as she is apparently incapable of taking any initiative herself. She is in this story to be its helpless victim, and like Jane from Teenage Crime Wave, it’s very hard to feel any sympathy for her because of it. At the end she can only throw herself on the mercy of the police.

This is not reassuring because throughout the movie the police have been horrible to everybody. Duke describes how he was beaten into confessing the last time he was arrested, which is why he refuses to turn himself in now. Hot Car Girl insists on telling most of its plot points, but actually shows us the cops being dicks. Janice is arrested after her car accident and she is absolutely distraught, but the detective interrogating her still shouts at and threatens her. The same man later tells Peggy that brutality like what Duke experienced never solves anything, but it sounds pretty hollow coming from him.

Hot Car Girl is actually pretty ambiguous about the police. They are certainly the villains in Duke’s story and aren’t very nice people in Janice’s, but they seem to be Peggy’s saving angels. The cop who died in the car accident is clearly a tragic figure, but elsewhere they are objects of mockery, as when Duke tricks two officers into locking their keys in the car. Hot Car Girl shies away from making the police outright villains by having Duke shoot first in the final showdown and with the detective’s apology to Peggy for his colleagues’ brutality, but it certainly doesn’t consider them heroes, and blames them outright for Duke turning out the way he did. I’m not sure if this is an attempt to say something about cops misusing their authority, or if it’s just a side effect of the story being about a criminal.

Like other ‘teens and cars’ movies of the era, Hot Car Girl is about how Crime Doesn’t Pay, and the movie goes out of its way to show that it means it. As the story progresses and Duke gets in more and more trouble, the people in his life abandon him one by one. First Freddy and Mickie cut off all contact with him, then the junkyard owner goes to the police hoping to collect the reward Janice’s father is offering for information on her killer. Neither of them get away with it. The junkyard owner finds he has a warrant out for his own arrest, and when Freddy and Mickie turn up to plead Peggy’s case, they find themselves facing charges as well. The movie seems to be saying that the good you do doesn’t cancel out the bad, especially if you do good for bad reasons.

At the end of the movie even Peggy is under arrest, although the detective suggests that Duke’s suicide note will allow her to get away with no more than a slap on the wrist, if that. Like Teenage Crime Wave again, the movie has refused to allow its ostensible heroine to commit a crime. We saw Peggy lie to her mother about getting a job so she wouldn’t have to answer awkward questions about where she’s getting all this money from, but she’s only been enjoying the fruits of Duke’s crimes, not participating. Once again, it seems the writers fear we will lose all sympathy for Peggy if she does A Crime, whereas they repeatedly ask us to feel for Duke despite his doing many Crime. Another double-standard, I guess.

I don’t hate this movie, I’m just sort of mildly annoyed by it. It’s so much like so many other 50’s troubled teens films, and like them the ending leaves the characters’ lives in ruins and the audience depressed. Can’t a fifties girl ever escape her criminal boyfriend and be happy after?

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #hot car girl #tw: suicide #50s

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livlepretre · 3 years

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Ooh, let’s talk character interpretation! I have two questions, but they are both long, so I am going to do them in separate asks.

1.) I’m of the opinion that The Originals portrayed Klaus as a father in a way that doesn’t line up with how he actually is. I think that had more to do with the fact that it was a CW show, and they wanted a redemption arc for the character. Obviously they weren’t going to go for anything that could be misconstrued as actual child abuse- I.e verbal, emotional, or physical abuse. How do you think that Klaus with a child would actually be? Elena would protect her children at all costs, so I know she would take care of any problem she saw arising with Klaus’s parenting skills, but let’s for arguments sake say that Elena and her survival skills don’t factor into this. Klaus grew up dealing with every type of child abuse in the book. Her was demeaned, belittled, and physically beaten, and we know this is what started his psychological issues. I totally agree with your FE interpretation of the Mikaelson incest problem and the fact that it all stems from Klaus and his power issues. He wants to control Rebekah because he wants her to stay and love him above all and manupulation through sex factors into that. Sadly, this dynamic is a problem in the real world, and is extremely unhealthy, vile, and illegal—especially because Rebekah is around a decade his junior and permanently stuck in the mindset of a teenage girl (side note: I remember in FE, Rebekah says she gave her virginity to him. I’d love to hear your take on how that line was crossed and how many years after they had become vampires that this happened. It is certainly a moral line that is hard to cross, although they were born in the 10th century.) Klaus also won’t hestitate to hurt his family emotionally and physically when they upset him whether this is killing their loved ones or daggering them. I guess I just want to know if you think Klaus-who remembers being an abused child- would ever continue this pattern of behavior with a child of his own and if so, would there be lines he would refuse to cross? I feel like he wouldn’t intentionally start out doing abusive things (like how he didn’t immediately start abusiving his sibilings), but once he loses his temper and does something once, the lines of what he is willing to do get blurry. He’s definitely not a stable individual and is a creature of habit- especially when he starts to feel as though he isn’t being respected or when he gets ignored from those he wants to love him. Finally, do you think there would be a huge difference between Klaus raising a boy or girl? We saw how Marcel turned out (also, the dynamic between Rebekah and Marcel when she started out as an Aunt figure and turned into a romantic partner is something that I feel like was strange and very Klebekah in the 1920s weird where it was clearly there but no one ever chose to expand on it or even mention it in the narrative? But I digress!), and Klaus is clearly threatened by the fact that Marcel grew up and was able to take over Nola despite the fact that Marcel was just doing what Klaus taught him. He sees Marcel as a threat, but if he had a daughter, I feel like he would end up treating her sort of in a Rebekah like manner where she isn’t ever really viewed as a threat, just a girl throwing a trantrum. Idk, there is just so much to think about here and immortality definitely screws with your perception of what’s okay and what isn’t. I’m very curious to see how you think all this would play out long term.

You’re spoiling me with these questions and I pretty much agree with your thoughts on Klaus’s general fucked-uppery.

I’ve put a great deal of thought into “Klaus as a parent,” both because of the show, and because of ficcish things. I think he’s acutely aware of all of the ways that his own father failed him, and so he would be actively really determined to have the kind of relationship with his own child that he never had with his father. His intentions there would be good, and probably better than his intentions with his siblings, since a child is a more direct extension of himself, but the question would be whether he is actually capable of being a good parent. It’s true that victims of childhood abuse often end up tragically rehashing the same patterns with their own children, but it’s equally true that many are able to break the cycle. I tend to think that Klaus would actually be exceptionally good with his children while they were still children. He shows in canon that he was very good with talking to Marcel and making him feel valued when he was a little boy still-- Klaus empathizes very well with children, and I think while he has tremendous difficulty understanding the emotions of others, at least when they are not mirrors of how he would feel, his own experiences of feeling neglect and belittlement and fear as a child would guide him in how to make a child feel loved, heard, special, etc. And of course, a child is able to give a parent the sort of unconditional, center-of-the-universe love that Klaus craves. The problem would come about in the transition from childhood to adolescence. His problems with Marcel, for example, stem from Marcel becoming a young man with ambitions and interests of his own-- no longer idolizing Klaus, no longer his shadow and perfect companion, but instead someone testing boundaries and breaking away.

How Klaus handles a teenage and later an adult child is a more complicated question. Yes, I think he would ultimately have an easier time with a female child, because Klaus is a misogynist and could therefore slip into a familiar dynamic of treating that child as a pet-- he could shower her with gifts and affection and never take her too seriously, much like Rebekah. A boy would inevitably grow into a rival, I think... or, almost inevitably. Whether or not the son even construes himself as a rival would be irrelevant if Klaus decides he’s a rival. It’s that same problem as with Marcel all over again-- if he stays by Klaus’s side, it’s not an issue, but if he pursues his own life... The son thing is also hard, because that son would inevitably be, to Klaus, a direct reflection of himself, and I’m convinced that Klaus would desire nothing more than to create the kind of father/son relationship he badly desired... and so the expectations and pressures would be tremendous for a boy.

There’s a big question to address along the lines of: would Klaus treat his adolescent/adult children the way he treats his siblings? It seems to me like the essential difference between sibling vs child relationships would be that Klaus, an actual narcissist, would inevitably see his children as extensions of himself, whereas his siblings each represent the greatest threats to his ego, his power, and his image of himself. He therefore exerts control over them, especially Rebekah, who is the easiest for him to control (as both the youngest and the only female, and also, since she is the most insecure and I would argue traumatized of all of them). He’s high-handed to the extreme, daggering them whenever he so chooses, therefore controlling whether they even get to actually live, deciding on which lovers are acceptable for Rebekah (and sometimes his brothers), dragging them all over the planet, lying to them all for centuries on end... the list goes on. There’s a lot of interpersonal violence there, but I would say that the one line he never crosses is that he never kills them-- because in his head he’s justified it as “I’m daggering this sibling for their own good” etc etc. (It’s interesting also to note that his siblings would be just as fast to dagger him should the opportunity arise.) Would he have the same need to exert his dominance over his children? Because, as father, his power over them is the natural order of things (especially in his medieval head). Whereas, amongst his siblings, yes, he’s the most special, but he’s also the third son and suffers from middle child syndrome, so it’s more about wresting power from the rest of them. Never underestimate how deeply medieval the thinking of each of the Originals is-- things like birth order definitely matter, and that’s definitely part of Klaus’s familial chaos.

The strongest point of tension I could predict between Klaus and his children would be at the point when they are old enough to wish to exert their independence from him as individuals. I question whether Klaus would ever see that though, or be able to let them go. I think there could be an inevitable slide into methods of control-- lying “for their own good,” killing a daughter’s suitors to keep her from leaving the nest... no matter what, he would probably prefer for his child to find interests that kept them close to him.

In terms of physical violence, I’m up in the air about that. It’s possible he could lose his temper and strike out at a child-- although, the more I think about it, the more I think that’s not how he lashes out so I don’t think that would be the issue. He daggers his siblings a lot but we don’t see him torturing them physically (I don’t think? I could just be blanking). There are times when they come to blows, but we see that with Damon and Stefan all the time... and that might just be a vampire thing in general. Most of what he does to them is really psychological torture/abuse and when he does have a violent fit, he tends to take it out on those around the object of his furor, like every single one of Rebekah’s lovers whom he murders, or Katerina’s family. What would be the equivalent of daggering that he could do to his child? Lock him up in a dungeon? (lol if it’s Elena’s child, GOOD LUCK.) Maybe some other threat to hold over their heads? This would be totally situational though. I think he would be deeply regretful of ever striking his child (doesn’t entirely mean he wouldn’t, in the heat of the moment), but could justify other methods like imprisonment pretty easily.

I think that just leaves the last awful stone to turn over: the incest. I don’t even know what to say about the Mikaelsons other than that there is definitely an incest issue in that whole family-- but especially with Klaus and Rebekah-- and honestly at this point Rebekah’s incest vibe with Marcel just sells their relationships to me even more. Of course she’s transposed that fucked-uppery onto Marcel. Like you mentioned above, and like I’ve developed in Fairytale Ending, Klaus’s incest with Rebekah is definitely a power thing with him-- he’s not in love with Rebekah, but she is his special favorite-- and part of that is that she’s the sibling he can control, through sexual dominance and appealing to her abandonment issues and insecurities (in a wild feedback loop with his own abandonment issues and insecurities). It’s awfully telling that the only lover he actually lets her have is Stefan... because Stefan is so clearly also his lover. (And that when faced with Rebekah x Marcel, he chose to dagger her and shelve the issue of oh no! I can’t kill my son! until it was no longer an issue)

Personally, I don’t think there would be any parent/child incest issues with Klaus-- his incest problems don’t stem directly from his parent/child trauma, and we never get a hint of incest between him and Marcel, so, at least we can breathe a sigh of relief in this one facet of Klaus-as-father-- but I do think if he were to have multiple children he would be very suspicious of them and very hunted by the idea of their incest.

I think that sums up my thoughts on Klaus as a parent/the possible ways he would fuck it up?

I do think there’s a possibility it could go well-- obviously I daydream most about what a Klaus x Elena parent team would look like, which might actually work. As you said, Elena would cut any nonsense out right away. But also, I think that Elena is a true equal for Klaus, and one of the things about finding a real equal is that it lends itself to partnership-- which is what Klaus would need in a co-parent. Someone who could balance him and strengthen the parts of him that could be good at being a parent. His siblings definitively did not do that-- Elijah wasn’t interested enough, and Rebekah is ultimately too immature-- but Elena has a shot. So, despite all the ways it could go to non-proverbial hell in a handbasket, I think with the right circumstances-- a partner who would voluntarily choose to stay at his side, for example, thus eliminating so much of his neediness and extenuating control issues-- he could deal with that shift from child to adolescent to adult much better, and that foundation of a very strong parent/child relationship during the first decade or so could really help Klaus and his child’s relationship withstand any later turbulence. (Also, with Elena around as a co-parent, I kind of think instead of grooming a child to be some sort of feudal lord who could become a threat to Klaus’s sphere of power, she would encourage her kid to be... like... a veterinarian or something normal. And having that strong female role model would also go a long way toward forcing Klaus to give up his “over-bearing father to my precious jewel of a daughter” schtick....) So maybe my actual stance is “Klaus would be a terrible single-father, but he might be okay if he’s not the only parent in the picture/he has an adult meeting and grappling with his issues in a long-term committed relationship”

(I think the final you asked about were my thoughts on Rebekah/Klaus in the FE timeline, which is basically just my headcanon in general... so, to start off, I don’t think the incest would have ever happened had they remained human. I think it’s a direct result of the trauma and psychosis they all experience from their transformations into vampires, which reifies all the problems they had as humans and exponentially makes it worse. And also, like you said, immortality seriously fucks with concepts of right vs wrong. Like, part of what’s wild is that nowhere in the canon does it say that vampires have to be monsters... it’s just that needing human blood to survive quickly turns into hunting humans, which turns into a psychological barrier between the vampire and humans... which eventually transforms them into monsters, callous, cold, playing with their food, hunting humans for sport, arbitrarily pulling them apart because they’re bored. So, becoming a vampire doesn’t instantly make one into a monster, but it does seem to inevitably precipitate becoming one down the line, and it’s just a matter of how fast the vampire arrives at that destination. To get back to the incest question, my thought was that the Originals would be already well down that road-- years past the death of their mother and fleeing their father, living as savages enslaved to their appetites and their flights of fancy, when that shift would occur between Klaus and Rebekah. Because by that point, what can possibly still be taboo? They’d already divorced themselves from their humanity, their inherent sense of “right” vs “wrong,” certainly any cultural understanding of it, so thoroughly that the barrier between sibling and lover must have felt thin and insubstantial as a bit of mist. I’m sure they were gradually heading that way for a while-- Klaus probably clung to Rebekah hardest of all, and Rebekah was so traumatized that telling the difference between different kinds of love would have been truly difficult. When I think about how long this might have taken, I imagine probably only about a decade-- long enough that it wasn’t immediate (they were still young, and time would have still passed at a human rate for them), but not long that Rebekah would have a chance to really start looking at all the men who might be potential lovers for her. It’s possible in fact that her interest in a human man could have precipitated Klaus changing things up with her. (And it’s very much explicitly about Klaus wanting to be #1 with Rebekah-- I think he slept with Tatia Petrova as a human, and I think he was sleeping around a good deal-- probably in a lot of gruesome ways, actually-- in that time before Rebekah became his lover.) What’s interesting to me here is that none of the other siblings-- especially Elijah, because Kol is shifty as fuck-- ever seemed to object. They just... accepted it? Rolled with it? That, to me, really demonstrates how deeply screwed up they all are.)

#anonymous #klaus #klaus mikaelson #klena #beklena #tw: incest

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sepublic · 4 years

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The Infinity Train’s All-or-Nothing Gamble

Oh, Simon Laurent, you… MESSED UP, messed up… I don’t even know what to call you… A pile of ash? That seems a bit too soon, but then so was bragging about murdering Tuba, so I mean. Mm.

A lot of people are rightfully discussing how small Simon’s number was, how he was just a kid when he got abducted by the Infinity Train! And it makes you wonder, surely he could’ve figured things out on his own, had the Infinity Train NOT kidnapped him, right…?

…But by that logic, we could also say that surely he would’ve improved HAD it taken him? Obviously having seen that option through, Simon didn’t improve and instead became a straight-up murderer and traitor. Given what Oweeeeeen Dennis had to say about the Infinity Train appearing to people who are at a ‘crossroads’ in life, it makes me think…

…What if Simon was, in a sense… destined to be messed-up? That had the Infinity Train not picked him up, it could see into his future, and it would’ve seen that Simon would’ve become just as screwed-up an adult in the human world, as he did on the Infinity Train?

But the Infinity Train is WEIRD, to say the least. There are a lot of variables. Perhaps Fate isn’t as determined on the Infinity Train, as it is in our world. So, the Infinity Train kidnaps Simon, under the belief that… Either he’ll still become as messed-up as he was fated to be due to his circumstances and mindset, OR there was a chance he’d improve! And even the smallest chance is better than NO chance at all, so one might argue that the Infinity Train was justified!

Of course, Oweeeeen also said that the Infinity Train and One-One can be wrong. So…?

(I’d ask him myself, but somehow I doubt I’d get a straightforward answer.)

Does the Infinity Train appear to people, ideally at moments when their hypothetical numbers would be at their lowest? It never appeared to Amelia until after Alrick’s death… But then again, why appear before his death, what would she fix/learn then? How to cope with the death of a loved one BEFORE they died???

Oweeeeen mentioned crossroads. It makes me wonder if once a person has an issue, then the moment they’re at a crossroads, where they could proceed to fall down a slippery slope no matter how low their number is, OR change for the better… That either option is equally likely… Then the Infinity Train comes in to hopefully tip the scales in the balance of their emotional healing. Healing is a weird process… Could a passenger’s number stay stagnant for a long while, or would it inevitably climb because of this, as that’s proof they’re not improving and being stuck in their old ways?

What if the Infinity Train knew Simon was messed-up no matter what, and picked him up because his interactions with others (not just Grace but the kids who joined the Apex) could teach them a lesson? Though with Grace, I’d question this… Which makes me wonder if SHE was also gonna be super-messed up, with or without Simon. So in the end, Simon and Grace were put on for the sake of some other kids destined to board the Infinity Train, while still given the chance to improve themselves… Who knows? Maybe not even Oweeeeen!

Discussing Simon “Boy am I MESSED UP or what?” Laurent further, it’s worth noting that Grace, at least initially, is willing to take the blame for misleading Simon. That part of her growth came from acknowledging that she DID deceive him. For a moment Grace said that Simon could absolve himself of the blame, that could he change while not actually having to confront himself over HIS own mistakes by dumping them onto Grace! But the whole time he tries to kill her, it’s not over lying to him and causing Simon to become a murderer… Rather, Simon is under the impression that Grace only started lying recently.

Does he know, deep in his heart, that he really CAN’T blame Grace for this- That should it turn out that Amelia was telling the truth, he was still accountable for his actions no matter what Grace said at the time… And her admitting that she’s not supposed to take care of him basically confirmed this? Was Simon latching onto the IDEA of Grace, the idea of a Grace that was never wrong… And now he was trying to kill off this ‘corrupted’ Grace to preserve the perfect one in his memory?

Because admitting she was wrong, even if he tries to scapegoat the blame onto Grace… I think Simon would’ve been more horrified by the thought of a Grace who was always wrong up until now, VS a Grace who had actually been totally right and had only recently gone down the wrong path! And he’s more betrayed by the former option than the latter… So Simon just opts to shut up Grace, because clearly she’s become a liability if she’s wrong now! And if turned out that Grace had been wrong from the beginning, well then why suddenly start trusting her at all, period? I mean, look at how she threw Hazel under the bus! (Train? Well not really only TUBA was thrown underneath the train…)

Of course, Simon only acknowledges that Hazel was genuinely betrayed if it’s in a context that justifies his dislike of Grace, because otherwise you can’t betray a thing, right? Because otherwise fully acknowledging that moment as a betrayal also means fully acknowledging Hazel as a person, which means fully acknowledging that Simon considered killing a CHILD and that her grief over Tuba was real… you get the idea. I swear it’s like I’m taking a Criminal Psychology course and Simon is my case-study…!

Going off what @fermented-writers-block reminded me, of what Oweeeeeen said about the Infinity Train ‘trying to account for all possibilities’ with its many, MANY cars, some of inexplicable practicality…? I have to wonder if the implication is that, be it on a literal or metaphorical sense, the chaotic environment of the Infinity Train provides more means and basis for change, for a passenger to pick a certain path and go down it… Versus the more orderly structure back home.

Granted, what if the Infinity Train were to rescue a passenger from a war-torn environment? Surely THAT would be a lot less ‘orderly’ than the Infinity Train! But then again its objective is more towards healing, so… Either the Infinity Train rescues someone from a bad situation and they’re in a better one on the Infinity Train so they can heal! OR it’s just as bad… but also chaotic enough that the randomness of events and experiences could cause a change in –hopefully- the right direction!

That is to say… The Infinity Train doesn’t know what it’s doing either. If we DO get a Book 4, I have to wonder if the direction will be One-One taking a more proactive role as Conductor and making sure passengers are less messed-up… Of course once he DOES start stepping up with his role, then why stop there? Why not keep breaking MORE rules, until you eventually decided to stop putting people aboard the Infinity Train in the first place? And I have to wonder if the hypothetical Book 4 will go more into the determinism of the denizens, especially since Lake is a pretty vocal indication in the direction of them being able to make their own destiny, for the most part.

And hey- If Lake can do it, then maybe One-One is capable of learning some sense, and just stopping the Infinity Train, period! Or at the very least, only picking passengers up from objectively-terrible and dangerous situations where they’d TOTALLY die or be further traumatized, and then being more proactive in keeping them safe as they make a journey… Or just dropping them off somewhere else back on Earth!

Honestly I would not be at all shocked if Oweeeeeeen’s idea for a hypothetical ending involved the Infinity Train no longer making any ‘stops’ for passengers, that this is the last ride… It’ll keep moving, but only for its denizens (because we’ve established they’re people and destroying the Train and their lives is unfair). Or, the Infinity Train just keeps going, and GOING… Because they don’t call it the Infinity Train for nothing!

Jeez, this train is making me go mad. No wonder Simon went nuts. Overall, if I HAD to guess… I think the Infinity Train, as pointed out to me by @fermented-writers-block, is just as chaotic as Earth, that both Earth and the Infinity Train allow people to choose their own fates respectively, that your destiny isn’t pre-determined on Earth when you’re potentially rescued by the Infinity Train! It’s just that to the Infinity Train, if you’re at a crossroads in your head, it may as well pick you up because the chaotic environment provides more potential…

More potential for growth, but also more potential for becoming messed-up, so it’s an All-or-Nothing Gambit, like some messed-up Gambler designed this automaton! Like the train WANTS you to go ALL THE WAY with your healing, or go all the way with becoming messed-up, because apparently Earth is too stagnant for meaningful progress in either direction right?

#infinity train #infinity train book 3 #infinity train cult of the conductor #speculation #analysis #infinity train simon #simon laurent #owen dennis

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maxwell-grant · 3 years

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Ever read or heard of Al Ewing's El Sombra trilogy?

So now that I actually finished Pax Omega I can give my thoughts on the trilogy. In short: I like it! It's got a lot of incredible strengths and interesting takes on the material it pulls from, it's got a very rich setting and interesting characters to explore, in terms of what else I've read from Al Ewing's general work it's second only to Immortal Hulk for me. This trilogy may have actually convinced me that steampunk has at least some value as something other than obnoxious set dressing, and that is no small feat.

I got a separate post planned for El Sombra as a character because I want to write about his character arc and the trilogy's relation to his respective influences, but below are my particular thoughts on the books. Spoilers below the cut

El Sombra is easily the simplest of the three, and the most straightforward "pulp" novel of the three. For the most part it's 200+ pages dedicated to establishing the misery of Pasito, the vileness of the Nazis, and the character of El Sombra as he hacks his way through whatever bastards he can get his hands on. It has to do a lot of work in making sure we fully understand El Sombra's character before the next novels can get to work putting him on bigger settings in a supporting role, and in that it succeeds very well. It's a Zorro character stuck in a 2000 AD world of dystopian mechanized nightmares and fighting savagely to kill it, gradually learning that he needs more than just a sword and superhuman skills to do it.

One thing that sticks out to me about El Sombra is how grueling of a read it can be, especially in the first two chapters when the story's establishing the situation of Pasito nine years after the wedding massacre, through the POV of the story's villain. While there are many pulp stories that include Nazis as villains, I've never seen one that goes as in-depth into the sheer atrocities of Nazi regimes as much as this one. Ewing really spares no time conveying just how utterly wretched they are in many ways other than just ethnic massacres (and the massacres of the book are harrowing to read as well, no grisly detail spared), the many insidious ways totalitarianism corrodes the soul of all subjected to it, long before the Nazis actually start dying. It's incredibly disturbing and not at all out of line with the real atrocities perpetuated in history.

And it's made all the more effective because the book goes to great length to describe the many, many life stories of all those that get killed by El Sombra, whether irredeemably evil or merely misguided soldiers, which lends a lot of weight to them. He's not just tearing his way through cartoonish embodiments of evil, he's murdering people brutally, to our enjoyment, because painting Nazis as people is not the same as humanizing them, it only makes them much, much more horrifying than any doomsday weapon could ever be.

The scene in particular where El Sombra has to dash alone into a burning building to rescue children, children who are seconds away from dying, children he had to kill an entire squad of Nazis just to be able to rescue, children that he cannot leave on the streets because otherwise they will be trampled or killed by a mob, had me gasping and not wanting to turn the page out of fear, actual fear that he wasn't gonna make it.

"Zorro vs Nazis" is an incredible simple premise, and I don't think it could be done better than it was here. Very, very solid start, although I do recommend that you go in aware of just how brutal and disturbing it can get.

Gods of Manhattan was the first one I read, and contrary to El Sombra's more western and pulp roots, this very much reads like a superhero comic book centered around pulp icons. Out of the three it's the one I like the least, but it's a very good book, one that could easily work on it's own even without it being a sequel. It's considerably less harrowing of a read than El Sombra and instead much more based around meat and potatoes storytelling, showing how the building blocks at work here are being arranged, and a larger exploration of liberty and egalitarianism and political aspects of the works Ewing's pulling from. Gods of Manhattan is the trilogy's moral compass, contrasting to the simple revenge thriller in El Sombra and the science fiction anthology of Pax Omega, setting up the major players of this world before Ewing can knock them around for the final installment.

One of the things I like most about the El Sombra trilogy is the mix-and-match of properties. Doc Thunder, for example, bears many surface similarities to Doc Savage, but he functions mainly as a Superman figure. He wears a logo akin to Shazam's, he has a reputation akin to that of Captain America's, we later learn his real name is Hugo and he's the in-universe equivalent to Hugo Danner. As the most straightforward superhero of the setting, Thunder condenses the history of it's biggest icons into a single being. The primary Shadow analogue here is the villain, but the villain also shares more common traits with The Spider and Spider-Man, and traits of The Shadow manifest in two other characters (the titular El Sombra, and a character known in-universe as The Blue Ghost who functions as more of a Spirit analogue). There's a shapeshifting dead-faced supervillain by the name of Anton Venger, referencing the pulp hero The Avenger. The Lex Luthor analogue turns into Doomsday by the story's end. It's the crafting of an interesting new mythology from bits and pieces from a larger whole and there's enough rich content here to last for a whole franchise.

If I had one major problem with this book, it would be the character of Marlene Lang. Marlene functions here mainly as the Margo to Blood-Spider's Shadow, and naturally, she gets twisted to the extreme. While the story's demonization of The Shadow's archetype is grounded in a larger point about the dangers of dark vigilantism, it's treatment of not-Margo/Nita here is purely for the sake of reinforcing the Spider's own awfulness. The story demonizes her by painting her as decadent and sadistic and promiscuous, and the latter in particular is really hammered into you as something that paints her as evil and unlikable, which is really shitty. I expected better from Ewing and I don't think this is a decision he would have gone with had he written the story today.

Still, Gods of Manhattan is terrific and gets a very solid recommendation from me. But much to my surprise, my favorite of the books actually wound up being Pax Omega.

Pax Omega is an incredibly ambitious book, spanning the entirety of time from beginning to end, every chapter presenting a radical shift in setting as we jump through time periods of this world's history. It has a truly staggering amount of worldbuilding to get through and a lot of it is pure exposition. It's a one man sci-fi anthology, and while that's turned off some of it's readers, I liked it considerably better than the other books. It weaves together it's narrative threads incredibly well as it gradually gives you a sense of where the story is heading (and was always heading right from the first book) as wilder and wilder concepts get brought into play corresponding to the massive changes brought by time.

Despite how separate a lot of these stories are, they all come together, and there is not a single wasted chapter or page here. It's got fun thrills, it's got action, it's got harrowing descriptions and passsages (particularly regarding El Sombra's discovery of Berlin), it's got enough worldbuilding in here for entire shared universes and not a single dull moment. Pax Omega cements this trilogy as one of my favorite superhero universes as well as easily the best superhero novels I've ever read, although it's playing with a lot of images and icons much older than superheroes, and even weaves in a bit of meta-storytelling.

It's definitely the book I'll most likely revisit in the future, and while I don't think this is a trilogy that could work as well outside of it's literary format, I think there's a lot of interesting aspects here to be learned from by anyone who wants to tackle pulp characters, or superheroes. Very impressed with this one.

#replies tag #al ewing #el sombra #gods of manhattan #pax omega #pulp heroes

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cogentranting · 4 years

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Thoughts on that Ainsley twist cause I am conflicted but also curious to see where they go from here

As a season finale cliffhanger it’s not the most exciting to me (I’m not like texting my friend ‘have you watched it yet? you need to watch it’’ and I’m not thinking like ‘oh the wait for season 2 is gonna kill me”).

But I do like it.

I think they did a good job at introducing early in the season that Ainsley might have some greater issues than she let on, but then sort of leaving that idea alone for a while. That way, the concept is in your head and it makes sense when it happens, but (for me at least) even though early on there had been predictions that something like this would happen, I’d mostly set them aside. Not that I would have discounted those theories just that I would have guessed if they were going to happen it would be further down the road and so Ainsley’s role in the finale wasn’t even on my radar.

In a more general sense, I think it’s a good move for the show. I don’t think you can premise a show on the question of how much like their serial killer father a son (and a daughter) are, throw them in a bunch of murdery situations and then never have either of them kill anyone. But I also think that, at least at this point in the story, having Malcolm kill someone would have been a bad move.

I think it opens up a lot of interesting avenues. On the one hand you have what it opens up for Ainsley herself. How will she respond to this? Will she feel justified, will she be guilt-ridden, will she have an identity crisis about whether she’s like Martin? On more of a plot basis, will she try to claim self defense, will she cover it up, will she go on the run, will she end up in prison? Will she go to Martin for help or Malcolm or both? They could potentially set it up as a question of character-- which family will she trust to help her with this? And I think it’s really significant that this really isn’t anything like Martin’s murders. It wasn’t premeditated. It wasn’t controlled. It wasn’t (probably) born out of some inner desire to just kill things. It wasn’t killing just for the sake of it. It was a crime of passion, it was about rage toward a man who had severely hurt her family (he’d put her father’s life in danger, framed her brother for murder, grossly mistreated her mother, killed her brother’s girlfriend, stabbed Gil) and was threatening to do more, and about stopping him to protect herself and her family.

And then there’s Malcolm. They haven’t done a ton with Ainsley and Malcolm’s dynamic, but now I suspect that that was because they wanted Ainsley to be sort of peripheral in this season until this moment at the end. Malcolm’s been mostly defined by his relationship to his father this season and while that’s still the key idea of the show and always will be, I think this episode signaled a shift with the line “you are your mother’s son” (or whatever the exact words were) and with Ainsley stepping into the spotlight. So next season will probably explore a lot of what that sibling dynamic is like, and I think we’ll probably see some Ainsley flashbacks. It also brings out more questions about Malcolm himself. First, I think what this post says about making Malcolm more afraid than ever that one day he’ll just snap and do something homicidal is really astute. Especially because Ainsley had that sort of disassociative thing going where she didn’t seem to know what she’d done. Secondly, if Ainsley goes on the run or tries to cover up the murder, it will be an interesting test of how far Malcolm is willing to go in breaking the law. Third, in this first season the basic dynamic is that everyone is kind of trying to protect Malcolm from Martin. To some degree, everyone is trying to stand between the two of them so that Martin can’t get his claws deeper into Malcolm. And that includes Ainsley. The scene with the three of them at the prison is actually a great visual depiction of this, especially as Martin is being led away and you have Malcolm sitting at the table, and Ainsley standing up between them. But now it seems that in trying to come between them, Ainsley is the one with Martin’s claws in her. So where does that leave us? Does it shift so that it’s sort of opposing influences, Malcolm trying to save Ainsley and Martin trying to drag her down? Or are Malcolm and Ainsley sort of stuck in the morass together? Now Martin has claws in both of them and they’re trying to help each other break free. It could even open the road for (way down the road) an eventual situation where Ainsley does choose Martin and the family is split: Like father, like daughter, vs. like mother, like son. Also, you know Malcolm’s gonna find a way to feel guilty about this. “If I’d stopped Endicott sooner... if I’d just let the Girl in the Box go... If I’d shot him” pick your flavor.

So yeah. I’m in favor because I feel like it provides a substantial shift to the family dynamics that are the core of the show, without fully rewriting them, so that it’s still the show we love but it maintains that forward momentum. And I’m excited to see what it does to the Whitlys.

#prodigal son #ainsley whitly #malcolm bright #prodigal son meta #askbox #cogent metas

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amazingorangedangantrash · 4 years

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The only ending everyone seems to ignore is v3 because it’s just... it’s just a mess.

How do feel about this game survivors? And do you think that everyone woke up from the simulator or tv show like sdr2 or only the survivors?

Hoo boy...

Honestly nonny, having only finished the dang thing yesterday I... don't know.

(I kinda went off into a spiel, so feel free to skip to the part where I talk about survivors and what I think happens next)

I understand the mixed response a LOT. I mean- I see what they were going for. The 4th wall break was cool, and the (sorta?) reappearance of past characters was pretty damn awesome. I like that the creators are definitely self aware- and there's a kind of 'learn to laugh at yourself' sort of thing.

On the other hand it can almost seem a little too mocking?

I get the whole yaknow. 'Fictional characters are aware they're fictional and rebel against their creators' thing but- like-?

As I mentioned before, thing is, Tsumugi is not us? We aren't exactly intentionally cruel? There's a BIG difference between the kind of fiction in our world and in their world.

What does Tsumugi call it? "Real fiction"?. Yeah- thing is- we don't have that. We don't have the technology for it, and I certainly hope we wouldn't abandon ethics for it either!!! We can't have 'real' fiction, because in our world, all fiction is fake! The closest you have is fiction about real people, perhaps, but- that's not even remotely the same thing?

So it does come across as a little... um- preachy.

We're supposed to represent the audience but... like- the audience fucking suck! What was that they said during the argument armament? "This guy should have died instead of Kaede!" Like- fucking hell. Imagine saying that to someone, who can HEAR you say it, and who's MURDER you could potentially watch unfold before your very eyes as a result of YOUR actions. I mean- look how empathetic some of us are to ACTUAL fictional characters. Could you imagine if we were in a similar situation to the outside world in V3???

Maybe it's because I keep imagining the v3 cast as like- sentient AI, instead of "just fiction". Because I can't imagine anyone being so sadistic or apathetic otherwise.

So uh- yeah. I don't... know how I feel about that. It's not- very satisfying?

With sdr2, the whole "none of this is real, the killing game is all a lie, you're in a fake world!" felt like a relief ! Whereas here it's more like- "what?? It's all fake? What the hell was the point then?!"

"Nothing matters!" vs "nothing matters..."

The whole HOPE VS DESPAIR, FUTURE VS PAST thing worked, because, well, it's something we can all understand. We have all felt hope and we have all felt despair. We've all, at some point in our lives, felt stuck in the past, unable to or scared to move on.

(Hey- some of us still feel like that now, even).

The first game was very simple- hope and despair. Still relatable, but fairly basic- effective to set up the foundation for the follow up.

The second game made things a little more complicated. Sometimes it's more complicated then just- choosing between Hope and Despair. We refuse to fall into Despair, but we can't just blindly have Hope.

So we choose the Future. We can't promise it'll be a good one OR a bad one. But whatever happens- we need to move on. The only way we can make things change is by making that choice, to create our OWN future.

V3 felt very... complex. It started to get kind of... uh... philosophical? And- don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with that. It just... it kind of shifted from TRUTH VS LIE to FICTION VS REALITY. And whilst the latter definitely sounds interesting- I don't really know if I liked the direction they took with it-? I wish they'd kept the focus on TRUTH VS LIE a lot more.

(Fiction and Reality are like extensions of Lie and Truth but- only to a certain extent? Really?)

It's kind of harder to get into the final fight in V3 because... what are you fighting? The outside world? I mean- I can't speak for the rest of you, but as far as I'm aware I'm not a fictional character.

(If I am- then wow someone's a reallly bad writer huh?)

I can relate to Hope. I can relate to Future.

I can't relate to Fiction.

I THOUGHT maybe the message was a warning of the dangers of escapism ('please dont go as far as to erase your own personality just to be a part of a type of fiction you like' definitely seems fitting for this fandom)- but the message "fiction has the power to change the world!" kinda contradicts that. I mean- I do like that message, but- I don't like the idea of a series about killing games being heavily influential-!

The whole problem was that people grew so obsessed with the series that they threw away their lives! Is that not the point you should be focusing on-!!!!

The outside world in this universe fucking sucks. So they changed their mind, big DEAL! that's not comforting knowing they let this shit continue for 53 seasons-! I mean, maybe Makoto and Hajime were all 100% fictional, but at some point they started putting real people into these games, and everyone was ok with that!

I just-

I'm glad Shuichi got through to them at last but...

Someone said something which resonated with me- "in a vacuum, this is good". Like... on it's own, I thought the ending was great! It was entertaining, for sure. And the whole concept and stuff was unexpected and interesting. You gotta give em points for originality.

The problem comes with it being the 3rd game in a series. (Ignoring UDG I mean-). When a series becomes a Trilogy, you gotta make it good. This is presumably the last game in the (main) series too. And- after the UTTER NARRATIVE DISAPPOINTMENT of dr3- can you blame people for wanting more? People fell in love for THH and SDR2 (and UDG even if its not part of the main series) for a reason- and, for me at least, a biiiig part of that reason was the continued storyline. The last chapter of sdr2 was the hypest shit EVER. when you see glimpses of the previous game bleed into this one, only for it to turn into what's like- a full crossover???? The previous game isn't just mentioned, it's a straight up sequel!!!! I had absolutely no idea Makoto and co would return (i thought the games were separate) so when i saw that they'd be interacting with the new cast- yoooooooooooooooo-!

Hell, even seeing alter ego again made me go WILD.

V3 plays upon these expectations, and subverts them, but... not necessarily in a good way? You- kind of feel cheated? (Idk if you're an avengers fan, but- it's like expecting *Endgame* and instead getting...

Well- Endgame).

The ending isn't bad persay it's just- not quite what one would expect? I can definitely understand why people are disappointed. The problem is, instead of standing alone, you can't help but consider it as part of the series. Individually, I don't think the ending was that weak or bad, but in comparison to the series as a whole?

Meh.

SURVIVORS

(Oh my- I really got off track, oh dear. I'll- get back to what you asked now.)

KEEBO

W H Y

They rllly gonna rub salt in the wound huh?

(Whilst i dont dislike the other survivors, there are a LOT of people i really really wanted to see make it to the end, and it's just the final god damn nail in the coffin to kill off the last of the few characters I came even close to liking the most-)

Killing keebo was dumb

Maki- I liked Maki quite a bit! She's a bit cold, yeah, but I warmed up to her after hearing her backstory.

I found it annoying (if understandable) that no one trusted her at first. I thought it was sweet that her, Kaito and Shuichi had this friendship trio. They really trusted each other- it was very refreshing. I also love me a strong girl. Her romance thing with Kaito was a little... forced. I'd have found it more meaningful if they kept it more subtle/ambiguous (though i suppose they needed smth to use against her in the final trial sooo-).

Himiko-

I-

*sigh*

Ok I'm going to say this once, and once only.

Someoneonthedrteamhasabigthingforlolis

OK! I SAID IT- AND IM NEVER SAYING IT AGAIN

No judgement here of course. Just. Uh. Y-yeah-

(I'm mainly kidding of course, idek if Himiko counts as a loli but-)

I mean... I'm not... the fondest of very small, childish girl characters (Saionji intensifies). I like a bit of childishness in a character but- i mean- it depends.

(I'll never recover from the "seductive whisper" thing from the love suite event

Never.

Never ever.)

Himiko comes across as like An Actual Child at times and at the start it was VERY annoying. Surprisingly, I warmed up to her eventually. I knew in advance she'd be a survivor so i kinda thought "well she's gonna stick around so might as well try to like her". I do appreciate that she underwent a character arc too, and it was sweet to see how she became a more active, determined person. I wish it hadn't taken Tenko's death for her to finally start changing but whatever. She is quite a cute character and after a while became more endearing then annoying.... (for the most part).

Was she in my top 3 picks for a survivor? No.

The top 10 even?

N-no-

I'm glad she's still alive though. SOMEONE damn well needs to be.

Tsumugi- ah. She's not a survivor, is she? I knew well in advance she was the mastermind so I didn't really warm up to her all that much during the final chapters, for obvious reasons.

Shuichi- if shuichi hadn't survived I think that would have been the breaking point for me, honestly.

Overall- uh... they aren't... the ideal picks. Shuichi is the only one I really wanted to see survive, I was neutral towards the others. Tbh I was just happy anyone was alive by the end of that.

Waking up- for the sake of my sanity, I like to think that after the survivors wake up, they threaten to sue and/or maim the shit out of the dr team if they don't start on reanimating their 'dead' friends right fucking now. Surely they gotta keep their consciousness' somewhere in those memories banks right? I mean- what if they ever wanted a "surprise return from the dead" plotline? Surely they gotta keep em somewhere? Right?

Whether or not they reawaken as their in-game or pre-game selves, who knows. Whichever you prefer, I guess. Maybe a mixture of both.

#ahdhsjsjsj #i am Tired ^tm #this makes me sound more disappointed with the ending than i am djskshsjs #im not actually as salty as i sound ok i promise-#im just naturally pessimistic #ironic coming from a makoto stan but wygd #v3 #rambling #thoughts #my post #anon #long #jajakdjsjs i went overboard again oops

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bestworstcase · 4 years

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Since Gilbert took over Corona in the latest chapter, I wanted to know like, what is his relationship with his brothers? Do he and Frederic usually get along? Is it a kind of "I was supposed to inherent the throne" kind of deal? Also how does he feel about Arianna, Punzel, and Eugene?

alrighty so!!

gilbert is the middle sibling; fred’s older, ludolf is younger. i don’t think he has much, if anything, in the way of ambition to rule—he’s very much a traditionalist and that includes buying into the system of monarchy and frederic having the “right” to rule as the eldest son.

however he absolutely is not the kind of person who could loaf around being a rich prince all his life, and since the temple didn’t appeal to him (too boring) and neither did diplomacy (too delicate), as a young man he enlisted in ingvarr’s battalion and served as an officer in the hvassjarn war, which was a fairly significant war ~20 years ago involving, primarily, a territorial dispute between ingvarr and seland, with their respective allies getting dragged into the mix (and quintonia stuck in the middle like “god damn it, guys, again?).

and that is an environment in which gilbert definitely thrived. he always has a very black and white, us-vs-them mentality that suited him well for war; he liked the military camaraderie of the battalion, the physical and mental challenges of battle, and the... simplicity? of the whole conflict. i think any political nuances that existed were entirely lost on him and in his mind it was a very straightforward... we (the seven kingdoms) are the good guys, we want the land, seland/the hĺessian alliance doesn’t want to give us the land, therefore they are bad and we’re fighting them.

buuut then the war ended, and he retired with honors from the battalion and returned home to corona, where... there was really nothing for him to do except advise frederic and involve himself with the king’s watch, which is the closest thing corona has to a standing army. and i think he found that sort of boring and unfulfilling / ended up being to restless to ever... like start a family of his own.

i figure in the last 20 or so years he’s been in and out of corona a fair amount for diplomatic reasons, and he doesn’t... enjoy that, but it’s something he can do to Serve Corona, which he’s very keen to do. because he’s very patriotic. but like, in general, he isn’t a man who... can exist without an enemy, if that makes sense? he needs a them to be in opposition against, and in times of peace there’s really not. a clear cut them

and then of course in this same time frame his baby niece was kidnapped and he was heartbroken about that and dealt with that heartbreak by, even moreso than frederic did, looking for someone to blame...

...which is where his hatred of saporians really started to boil over. like he was never not bigoted against them, but when he was a younger man i think it really was more just the average... thoughtless dismissal / distaste and casual distrust of saporian culture that Most Coronans have. but after rapunzel was kidnapped gilbert a) looked at the exploding popularity of saporian separatism and went “clearly Those People stole, and probably killed, my infant niece,” and then b) generalized separatism to all saporians and entrenched himself further and further in that bigotry until he got to... where he is today, which is something goes wrong and his knee-jerk reaction is to be like “the saporians did this somehow”

when the saporians / the coalition between the separatists and the syconium started actually seriously laying the groundwork for a rebellion, gilbert was already mentally primed to jump straight to saporians are the enemy and we need to treat this like a war...

...which frederic repeatedly refused to do. and gilbert was legitimately distressed about this, because in his mind, saporians are The Enemy/not coronan, and they’re a dire threat to corona, and he can see very clearly that they’re going to become a worse threat if something isn’t done, and... frederic is doing nothing about it. [what fred is actually doing is applying moderation and recognizing that saporians are part of corona too, but that. doesn’t register as doing anything, in gilbert’s brain]

so gilbert is like UH??? because it feels to him like he’s the only sane person left in the room and everyone else is just sitting on their butts with their heads in the sand. and he really doesn’t know what to do about it other than loudly and insistently asking fred to Do Something, but that keeps... not... working...

and then the saporians steal the journal of herz der sonne. this compromises herzingen’s security in a MAJOR way, and gilbert is able to wring a couple concessions out of it... but it’s nowhere near what he feels is enough, in his mind the task force (under sir peter’s command, not his) is a token gesture at best. it’s not going to fix anything.

and then his niece gets kidnapped AGAIN! and STILL nothing changes! the witch who kidnapped and hurt her gets coddled [this is how gilbert interprets sir peter chewing out the guards he catches roughing her up] and lackadaisical security allows her to not just escape but also murder a guard on the way out. and still nothing changes except for a handful of arrests and interrogations that don’t really go anywhere.

so gilbert is getting very frustrated and uneasy and upset, and he feels like the only person taking this huge burgeoning crisis seriously...

...and that’s where he’s at when cass dips and leaves her note confessing to stealing the journal, and gilbert is like. HOLY SHIT. THIS HAS GOTTA CHANGE THINGS. and he pushes very very hard for more stringent measures, and for the most part he gets them, but that ends up being, in his mind, too little too late, because just a couple weeks later socona revolts and almost thirty coronan guards die. (and there’s also the report from falke that two of the guards stationed in socona were traitors lol)

and then in the scene with him and sir peter in the hospital in artois, gilbert very much sees that... sir peter is not going to emotionally be able to handle a war where cassandra is on the other side, so he’s like. weighing up the odds he can get frederic to remove sir peter from the commandership and he’s like... Doubt.

so that’s the point at which gilbert commits himself to a coup, because he is at his wit’s end and in his mind it’s either... a leader who is better prepared for war steps up to steer corona through this, or the saporians destroy corona forever, and as much as he doesn’t want it to come to forcibly removing frederic from power he feels like it’s his only choice, because frederic is too soft and sir peter is too emotionally compromised by. everything.

and then it’s uh. about a month, give or take a bit, for gilbert to actually put the coup together—which is a FAST turn around, but he’s able to pull it off because a lot of the king’s watch is very unhappy about how sir peter has been handling the whole “saporians keep killing guards” and “cassandra was a traitor” situations, and it doesn’t take a whole lot of effort to get enough of them on his side for a coup to be possible. and then he waits until the next opportunity presents itself and rolls in with a plan and the backing of corona’s closest thing to an army at his back and strong-arms frederic into abdicating to facilitate a “peaceful” transfer of power. and now frederic and arianna are under a soft house arrest rip them

*deep breath*

anyway all of that is a long winded way of saying in gilbert’s mind, he’s 100% the Virtuous Underdog Hero who is Selflessly Stepping Up to save corona from its Well Meaning But Incompetent Leaders in a Time of Dire Consequence. so that’s where he was coming from.

as for his relationships with his family:

- he loves frederic but does not respect him very much, because the events of benighted / fred completely losing any semblance of control he had over the separatists eroded gilbert’s respect for him pretty signifcantly. (prior to benighted, i think gilbert felt pretty favorably about frederic’s leadership; he approved heartily of the crackdown, though he kept trying to nudge fred to go even harder to clean up those last few hotspots of separatism in southern corona)

- he also loves ludolf but ludolf confuses him because ludolf is perfectly content with his life as a rector and gilbert is just kinda like. but isn’t it boring. but he keeps that thought to himself because gilbert is a fairly devout man and he respects ludolf’s decision to devote his life to the temple quite a bit even if he absolutely does not get it. he does however think that ludolf, and the whole temple really, is Too Soft and Too Idealistic to function in reality

- he clashes with arianna a lot on political grounds because they have almost no common ground in their opinions on the direction corona should go, but he likes her as a person and thinks she’s generally a good fit for frederic / he’s pleased to have her as a sister in law. they just. have a no politics at the dinner table sort of agreement. because otherwise they Will fight.

- he was firmly, if silently, convinced that rapunzel was dead until she strolled back into herzingen. after that he was delighted to be wrong, and very happy for fred and ari’s sake in addition to just happy to have his niece back / for the chance to get to know her. i think a lot of his pushing and some of the desperation he has in benighted comes in part from a desire to protect rapunzel, though he sorta conflates her safety with the safety of corona as a whole in a way that frederic doesn’t.

- he... did not like eugene at all at first, and still doesn’t like him very much. he thinks eugene is a rude, ignorant layabout who is taking advantage of frederic’s and arianna’s gratitude and he does not like that rapunzel is involved with him and he was PISSED after the botched proposal. i think fred and ari had to tag team him to get him not to just like. explode at eugene, and that only worked because gilbert knew other people were chewing eugene out for the whole thing. he has warmed up to eugene very slightly since then, because eugene started to get his act together and stopped acting so lazy. but he still is definitely like, hoping rapunzel will dump him and kick him out of the palace soon lbjkskdjlfjksd

- he’s very big on the Idea of family, even though he was never able/ready to start a family of his own (which i think... is something that bothers him a bit, though not something he dwells on). so the coup is something he genuinely didn’t want to do to frederic, but he did it because he felt it was for the greater good / he had to put his personal feelings aside to do the Right Thing. and in general he wants and tries to have good personal relationships with his family.

#bitter snow #Anonymous

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offrecrd-a · 4 years

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hi, just some rambling around zarina’s emotions under the cut

i’ve been...... thinking about how emotionally driven zarina is, even if it doesn’t really show. she’s sneaky & quiet - exemplified by off the record & red herring - in trials & she acts very similar outside of them as well. she’s observant & she’s quiet, namely to make judgement about others before investing her time into them. that isn’t to say she’ll ignore someone she deems unworthy of her time, but she’s more inclined to those who seem hopeless or lost so she can imbue her own confidence into them. she doesn’t want anyone to feel like she did back during her childhood / early teenage years. in the fog, she knows it’s difficult to maintain a positive outlook & at face value she isn’t very expressive of it herself, but that’s part of the way she tries to help the others emotionally.

zarina’s scared. i know in some of my current threads she acts collected & calm - even cocky? to some degree - but in the back of her mind there’s something telling her to keep running away. she has no idea where she is nor what the bigger picture is to this place. until i develop her more through my threads ( note: please yell at me to finally write them ) i’ve been characterizing her as a newer survivor. she doesn’t know, nor won’t until others explain it to her, much about the fog besides its endless loop, purgatory - like mechanics & that the killers aren’t creatures manifested to kill / sacrifice them, but [most were] once people who were taken like her ( thanks to knowing about caleb prior ). at the moment, a lot of her fear stems from two things : mid - trial, fighting for her life & a fear of the unknown, of what she’s being blindly thrown into. not only is it a terrifying thought in general, but it bothers her as a journalist, as someone who exemplifies “curiosity killed the cat” & is definitely going to die for her obsessions & her work.

i’ve had all of my journalism professors heavily stress the idea of separating emotion & logic in our writing ; maintaining an unbiased view to deliver the facts and nothing else. zarina knows this, even if her work is divergent from the traditional “i’ve attended this event & now i’ll report on it” journalism. she isn’t bound to this rule as an independent filmmaker, but she tries to honor it as best as she can. her biggest projects, even including the sacco & vanzetti film for school, are very emotionally driven for her. she’s very passionate about her work - not only the effort she puts into it, but what its lasting impact will be.

her first big project, exploiting a local burger joint’s exploitation of its employees, had piqued her curiosity due to its controversy. she feels as though she has a duty to deliver the truth, so naturally she was attracted to the situation. after going undercover, learning the truth ( which was, indeed, the restaurant treating its employees awfully ) & producing her film on the place, zarina was furious after learning that multiple news outlets had picked up her story & slandered it, changing it to create sympathy for the restaurant instead. it’s insulting to see her work ruined, yes, but she was upset on behalf of the other employees, those who had been working there for far longer than her & told her stories about their struggle to live or provide for their families, barely making minimum wage. working at the restaurant herself proved much more effective than an outsider’s perspective, but she gained sympathy for those working there as well. the logic part of her knows to make a documentary exposing the place because what they are doing is wrong & needs to be brought to justice, but the emotional part of her hoped that, in turn, her piece would help the people who needed it most. ( she tried helping some of the employees even after being fired to the best of her ability, which unfortunately wasn’t much & she lost contact before working on her next big project. )

around the time that her father died, she had been working on some smaller pieces, but she dropped everything to initially grieve. her grief turned to anger, in part because of how broken her mother was & how she hated to see her so defeated. zarina decided then to make a piece on clark stevenson, her father’s murderer & the problem of gang violence as an overarching theme, but she would only admit to herself that this film was for her own closure & as tribute to her father ( she does dedicate the film in text to him, but she’s never open about how personal it is to her, though most people already assumed ). she traveled from new york to nebraska to confront clark - she took the last of her inheritance & spent it all just to get a confession out of him. zarina was so angry that she stopped everything in her life just to focus on another film, an obsession, a passion project that was just a little too personal this time.

and that’s...... what i’ve been thinking about a lot. zarina’s passion doesn’t inherently stem from love or appreciation of a subject ( to a small degree, it does ) but it comes from anger. she’s driven by it, even if she’s one of the quietest survivors around the campfire. it’s no surprise that she’s very for the people! & yes, she’s sympathetic, she’s caring, she takes the time to sit with others & talk while patching up their wounds, but the entire reason why she became a documentarian was to “[exemplify] what is burdensome & complex, which is the truth” in her own words. something gets her upset, makes her mad & suddenly she’s working sleepless nights, running on coffee trying not only to bring justice to the truth, but to quell her own obsession so her passion can subside.

sure, she’s upset with her current situation of being stuck in the fog & she is angry, but she’s terrified. the fog is her new obsession, but it isn’t like anything she’s ever approached before. she can’t be angry, she can’t just run in with all of her confidence full - force & get the information she wants. zarina’s operating on a combination of anger & terror & it reflects her behavior & personality both in and out of trials.

being able to distinguish logic & emotion is both a blessing & a curse. at the sake of the entity feeding off of survivors’ emotions, zarina is able to control hers similar to an on / off switch because of her prior experiences as a journalist. around other survivors, she tends to turn them off or keep them minimal ; she lets her confidence take control. she wants to be seen not as a leader, exactly ( perhaps similar to a martyr? but she wouldn’t admit to that ) but someone so confident in herself & her situation that others feel a gravitational pull to her for guidance & reassurance. she’s more than willing to give it. it’s..... a maternal instinct, in a way. & she shows her confidence in so many ways : in her posture, in her behavior, in the way she dresses to impress. she’s angry, she’s not dying here & she’s going to make the most if it while trying to figure out what exactly here is to satisfy her killer curiosity.

killers get a similar treatment, if not more distant. of course, over time zarina opens herself up to survivors, but killers are a different story, obviously. it’s that confidence again, there to mask her fear so they don’t have the satisfaction of watching her tremble. she’s curious about the killers, no doubt! but she isn’t sympathetic towards them at all - not until she learns of their own punishment or until they begin to reveal their true colors to her. her own curiosity is probably going to kill her, hence the logic vs. emotion being seen as a curse.

so even though zarina is very quiet, very observant & patient, there’s a lot going on inside that she doesn’t let others into quickly. i just think about this stuff often unu

#death ment /#i feel like most of this is obvious? but i think about rina 24 / 7 so #if u read this thank u!#i just think rina is neat!#𝑩𝑳𝑮. ▶ 📷 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐬 ﹕ hc.#i need a meta tag too

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lothiriel84 · 4 years

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Just a few random considerations after my latest rewatch of series 1 of BBC Ghosts last night.

Ghosts vs. the living

It’s extremely interesting that while as a rule humans are completely unable to see/hear ghosts, (some) animals are in fact shown to be able to sense the presence of a ghost, to the point of attempting to interact with them - see Tali (?) the dog barking up at Robin, and then wanting to be petted by Pat.

It remains unclear whether that’s down to some kind of sixth sense specifically possessed by animals (dogs? bears? any animal at all?) as opposed to humans, or it somehow implies that the animal in question had a scrape with death at some point in the past. (Although the latter doesn’t sound very likely when it comes to Barclay’s dogs, or I should hope so, at least.)

Another interesting point is how often exactly do dead animals turn into ghosts. So far, the only animal ghost (or should that be ghost animal?) we’ve been shown is Button House’s resident pigeon - could that be because animals don’t often have any real unfinished business barring their access to whichever sort of afterlife is reserved to their kind? (But more importantly, was Arthur Shappey right in believing heaven is, in fact, full of otters?)

Schrödinger’s (attempted) murder

As I mentioned elsewhere - probably in the tags while reblogging someone else’s gifs, to be honest - I believe Julian being genuinely unable to tell whether he successfully pushed Alison out of the window or she basically lost her balance and fell as a consequence makes for a much more interesting scenario.

To be absolutely clear, that would make no difference when it comes to him being guilty of attempted murder; he is shown to have no qualms whatsoever about killing Alison, and when all is said and done, it hardly matters whether his goal was reached by his own hand or through dumb luck (plus a non-indifferent dose of carelessness on Alison’s part).

All I’m saying is, think back of how much trouble he had with pushing a vase which was comparatively not all that bigger than a cup. And even if he did know for sure - admittedly, he might be capable of feeling the reaction of the object he pushes against, should he succeed in doing so - I, as a viewer, would very much rather be afforded a little room for doubt. Not for the sake of Julian’s character, but as I feel it somehow raises the stakes of this particular storyline.

Alison as one of the coolest characters ever

Not only does Alison figure the whole seeing-dead-people situation mostly by herself - with a little help from the ghost therapist at the hospital, but she could have easily written off the entire episode as yet another of her alleged post-traumatic hallucinations - but more importantly, her reaction when she realises she’s effectively stuck with a haunted house as well as a potentially bankruptcy-inducing mortgage is one of the coolest moments in the entire series.

I dare say most people would be inclined to lose the plot a little bit, when faced with such simultaneously dire yet completely absurd circumstances; Alison, on the other hand, simply unbuckles her seat belt, gets out of the car, and confronts the ghosts head-first. And not only that, but she’s smart enough to call them out on their real reasons for haunting her, to the point they actually confess what they really want from her. (Which sums down, in most cases, to trivial requests such as being allowed to watch war documentaries, or having an incriminated portrait removed from a room.)

Forget her questionable choices when it comes to financial matters, she’s a feisty young woman capable of handling a herd of recalcitrant ghosts, and that’s more than can be said of almost any other character in the show.

The Captain and the morality of choices

It’s hardly a mystery the Captain is a bit of a bastard, and we all love him for that. Right at the beginning, he is presented to us as someone who would make a show of wanting to ‘say a few words’ about the dearly departed just so he could immediately proceed to ‘bagsy her room’. I’d say his general mindset could be summed up as something close to the end justifies the means - with the caveat that we actually know very little about him aside the military persona he chooses to present himself as all the time.

If I had to hazard a guess, facing everything life death throws at him as a military campaign could either be a subconscious defence mechanism, a habit so deeply ingrained he couldn’t shake it off if he wanted to, or something he elects to do as a way to cope with the listlessness that comes with being stuck in limbo (potentially) for eternity. And, quite possibly, a combination of all three.

The main thing is, rules are important for him, but so is winning whichever military campaign he embarked upon at each particular moment in time. When his plan to enroll the plague victims as his new army fails, he resorts to strategic subterfuge in order to win the war; as they say, all's fair in love and war, and more often than not, battles are won by military tactics rather than such things as a superior army. He is very much the Odysseus of Button House, with the significant difference that he’s not so much attempting to conquer an enemy city as he’s fighting to take back control of an outpost he used to be in charge of.

In this (probably unfortunate) parallel, I’m afraid the poor Kitty serves as the infamous Trojan horse. (Juan Domingo, please, we’re not getting into this all over again.) The Captain knows Alison trusts her, and his subterfuge will therefore go undetected until it’s too late; and yet, remarkably enough, he still decides to offer Kitty a choice on the matter. Admittedly, he’s already counting on the fact that Kitty is neither particularly smart, nor in any way prepared to give up on Alison anytime soon - however, he still offers her a choice, and I feel like that is very much relevant to his character. He is, for all intent and purposes, tricking Kitty into fooling her friend/the person she loves; but while he’s concealing all the important facts from her, he’s not robbing her of her choice entirely.

(Should Kitty have decided to prioritise Alison’s happiness over her own, I daresay the captain would have come up with yet another plan to overcome the temporary setback. Neither scenario makes him any less of a bastard, but he’s still a man of principles after his own fashion, and that’s how I choose to read him, regardless.)

A final note on Robin

I’ve made no secret of how Robin is my favourite character by far, just as I believe he is for a significant portions of fans of the show. As mischievous as he loves to be - which is, all things considered, a comparatively tame reaction to being stuck as a ghost for an incredibly long time, with very little hope of ever moving on - his pranks are mostly harmless, and he is at heart the kindest, most emotionally mature of all the ghosts. (Yes, even when he’s scampering around, marvelling at the builders’ equipment. If anything, it’s a sign of his natural curiosity and intelligence; we are, after all, repeatedly shown he is particularly good at problem solving as well as playing what basically boils down to blindfold chess.)

As often as the other ghosts tend to remark upon his language skills or lack thereof, they should probably pay more attention to all the occasions in which Robin’s brains made the difference, and I’m including his emotional intelligence in that category. As others pointed out before me, he’s a trickster with a heart of gold, and the only sane man among what is basically a swarm of squabbling children.

And he faces all of that armed only with his peculiar brand of humour, and his enthusiasm for new things to discover, including - why not? - new ways to scare the living daylights out of Alison, just for the fun of it.

#BBC Ghosts #Ghosts spoilers #series 1 #meta #sort of

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gamelpar · 4 years

Text

It’s All About Fakes (100 sentence prompts fanfic)

Because I suck a writing even short stories or drabbles, I write 100 sentences prompts for the Fake AH Crew instead.

Some of them are inspired by moments in Let’s Play videos, headcanons, social media posts, or just comes straight out of the blue.

Feel free to take inspiration from the prompts or use them.

Prompts are written from a non-shippy perspective, but each prompt can be intercepted in whatever way pleases.

Also my first work, so let’s see how this goes.

Hey, why don’t you read it on AO3 instead?https://archiveofourown.org/works/24787825

1. How the Fake AH Crew got this far is a hell of story, and you can bet it’s one damn worth telling. (Fake it Til’ You Make it)

2. Ray was a sniper; he could spot bullshit a mile away, so how come he ended up in the Fake AH Crew? (On the Spot)

3. Sitting by the wheel of the red minivan Geoff sighed for the 67th time that day, still disbelieving the fact that they were not on their way to carry through a well-planned heist but rather enroute to the beach for some “splashing and slacking”, as Jack had called it. (Sunday Driving - To the Beach)

4. “The Vagabond says: it’s all gonna be murder.” (What the Vagabond Says)

5. Whether it was the Golden Boy or Gavin; Mogar or Michael; they wouldn’t leave each other behind. (Bois Forever)

6. Lindsay---being an absolute goddess as always---supports Jack in her telling for Fiona, and Jack couldn’t have been more grateful. (Women’s League)

7. Matt screws something up; Trevor is there to help him fix it; then Gavin and Alfredo is there to screw it up even more. (Nice Job Breaking It)

8. It’s Bake a Cake Day (according to Gavin) and it’s Gents vs. Lads (insisted by Gavin) and it will also be known as the day when Geoff’s kitchen met its undeniable demise (because of Gavin). (Bake a Cake Day)

9. Long story short: Michael breaks into an animal adoption center for a cat because Lindsay, and Gavin and Ray tags along because why the fuck not. (No Animal Came To Any Harm Except For Gavin)

10. A heavily tattooed man walks into a bar; later, a mad man and a lady in a Hawaii-shirt joins him. (It’s Not a Joke but the Punchline is Fluff)

11. Lindsay and Jeremy have dealt with shit going sideways longer than most people so they know how to make the best of it. (Failure is an Old Friend of Mine)

12. “I hereby announce that the official Prank Wars Week is in session!” (Oh No)

13. The Vagabond might be ready to die, but Ryan knows he’s not. (Ready as I’ll Ever Be)

14. The Lads---and Geoff---gets drunk as hell one night and starts a sock company. (Socks, There’s Socks Everywhere)

15. A boring Fake AH Crew means a dangerous Fake AH Crew and the residents of Los Santos better prepare for chaos. (Boredom Can be a Health Hazard)

16. Ryan gets hiccups and Ray thinks it’s funny until he gets hiccups, too, and soon everyone is stuck with hiccups and everyone blames Ray for some reason. (The Hiccup Disease)

17. When dawn arrives the Fake AH Crew will never be the same again. (Dawn After Battle)

18. Shopping weekends was nothing Lindsay used to do regularly, until Ryan one time decided to come along; then it became a thing. (Stuff We Do Together)

19. Even after leaving the crew, Ray would still have a home to return to. (Home is Wherever You Make it Be)

20. “No---we’re not twins, we’re not brothers, we’re not related in any way, so please for god’s sake, stop asking that.” (Stop the Questions Goddamnit)

21. Jeremy tried to apply more pressure to the wound but as the time on the bomb was running out, so did the blood. (A Mistake You Won’t Live to Learn From)

22. Someone knocks---no, pounds on the door to Ryan’s apartment at 3AM in the morning and Ryan’s still not that happy to being woken up in the middle of the night even if it is Meg waiting behind the door. (Late Night Visitor or Expect the Unexpected)

23. “Hey, guys, Fiona here---you’ll never believe this---but I’m stuck in jail and I need one of you to come and bail me out.” (Let’s Bail)

24. Matt is found alone sitting on top of the roof, watching the sunset, but what Geoff finds is someone who needs to talk and so he decides to be that other someone who listens. (Everyone Needs Someone Sometimes)

25. Gavin gets into trouble, which drags Michael and Jeremy into more trouble, and Geoff just wants to have a fucking drink. (Prepare for Trouble)

26. Gavin makes a statement, and Ryan feat. Alfredo makes it a hundred times worse. (Disturbance of Your Own Making)

27. Being welcomed by the sight of a bloodied and battered Gavin through the open door eliminates any tiredness and annoyance Geoff had worked up to having been woken up by a loud pounding on the door at 2AM. (Bloody Brit)

28. That was the way of the Battle Buddies; if one went down, the other had to keep on going, no matter what. (Broken Promise)

29. Nothing lasts forever, and Ray knows that better than anyone. (Never Say Forever)

30. The remaining Gents as well the rest of the Fakes would always be missing a part of themselves from now on. (Parts & Pieces or Next Step is to Move On)

31. The alphabet wasn’t enough to cover every brilliant plan the Fake AH Crew had in store, but they never settled for a single letter anyways. (Seven Ridiculous Plans and One That Actually Made Sense)

32. To the Lads, brighter days ahead is just an illusion they can only dream of in the aftermath of a heist gone wrong which claimed the lives of the Gents. (Miserable Lads)

33. It’s a story from being refused of coffee, to wanting to commit suicide briefly, to Trevor having made room for tea-parties with Jeremy, Gavin and Lindsay in his schedule every now and then. (Shut Up and Have Some Tea)

34. Really, it all started when Ray wouldn’t leave Geoff’s house one night. (A Place for Everyone)

35. Usually things doesn’t escalate this far by playing a simple Xbox-game but having ended up in jail, Michael and Matt doesn’t have much of a say about it and Geoff’s pissed. (Hate the Players)

36. Waking up in a dark room tied to a chair with no slightest idea of what the hell’s going on tends to lead to some anxiety-ridden experiences, especially when it is Gavin who finds himself in that situation. (Blackout)

37. No one wants to be the only sober one left to take care of a drunk crew, but with Ray gone Ryan just has to accept that this is his life now. (Trust or Sober One)

38. To think it all started that day when Jack saved a drunk man from being robbed in a dark alley. (Mind Your Manners)

39. Neither Lindsay or Michael would force Gavin to put on a brave face after a nightmare; everyone had fears and it was okay to be scared sometimes. (Sharing is Caring)

40. Matt’s life was just another pile of broken pieces until he met Jeremy, and suddenly he had some glue to put the pieces back together. (Glue or Glue My Life Back Together)

41. In the temporary apartment Ray was living in at the moment there was a vase by the kitchen window, always holding five red roses. (A Vase Full of Roses)

42. Geoff’s mood could easily be improved a 100 times better with some nice and warm socks. (Can Never Have Enough of Socks)

43. The crew quickly learned that pairing up Ryan and Trevor together would leave a traumatic amount of battered bodies and large pools of blood behind. (Madness In Me)

44. Michael’s life was like a puzzle; bits and pieces all over the place, some fitting, some not, some missing or broken, some didn’t even belong---and Jack standing there in the middle of it all being the only one who seemed to sense some kind of pattern. (Puzzles)

45. The Fake AH Crew weren’t good guys---they never would be---but that didn’t mean they were incapable of doing good, and they were by far the most decent team of criminals that had ever set foot in Los Santos. (Bad Guys Do Good)

46. Tears kept falling, slowly soaking the photo Jack held in her hand of her and the crew---not wanting to forget, yet not wanting to remember. (Remember to Forget)

47. The pink sniper rifle that hung on the wall would always serve as a reminder for the members of the Fake AH Crew that they were not immortal after all. (We Could Be Immortals)

48. Ryan’s an evil mastermind and that frightens Gavin a little, but the Golden Boy reckon it’s time to beat the Vagabond at his own game. (The Reckoning)

49. Kerry Shawcross crosses paths with the infamous Fake AH Crew completely by accident, and all hell breaks loose. (Welcome to Fake Hell)

50. The blood on his hands belonged to someone he knew---someone he cared about---and Ryan had never been more afraid of himself. (There’s Someone There But it’s Not Me)

51. It’s Pride Month and Jeremy really takes it up a notch when coloring his hair this time. (Rainbows)

52. Watching them Lindsay realized that while each of them all had lost so much, they had found even more. (Less is More)

53. Trevor would be better than Geoff ever’d been at scheduling heists and leading the crew, but he still gets to handle all the complaining from the crew so he isn’t as satisfied as he would like to be. (Point of No Return)

54. When the realization strikes him that he’s the only one left remaining, Jeremy falls to his knees in defeat and can’t stop screaming. (What Remains)

55. Fiona can never seem to stop messing with Gavin in any way possible. (A Step Too Far)

56. “Yeah, they’re all idiots---but they’re my idiots, so don’t you fucking dare lay your hand on them.” (A Bunch of Savage Animal Idiots)

57. Times have never been darker for the Gents as each of them struggles to cope with the deaths of the Lads in the aftermath of an coordinated attack. (Falling Inside the Black)

58. The day he met the Wildcard, Michael’s whole world finally started to make some sense. (Wild World)

59. Geoff’s constant drinking worried Gavin sometimes. (Drunk Concern)

60. Matt didn’t believe anyone would care enough for him to consider him family, nor did he believe he would end up in becoming a part of one. (Lost and Found)

61. Alfredo always wondered who Trevor really was underneath his iron suit of armor. (Armor)

62. Even when stuck in a seemingly never-ending coma, Geoff was never alone. (Not Alone)

63. Alfredo joins the Fake AH Crew with more blood on his hands than most people---including himself---would’ve expected. (Red Sea)

64. There’s a perfectly valid reason why Lindsay, despite not being his roommate anymore, is the only one who has a key to Ryan’s apartment. (Key to the Door)

65. Four times Jeremy and Trevor talked their way out of jail and one time they didn’t. (Another Approach to the Problem)

66. Lindsay tried, and that’s why she was still alive, even though everyone else that mattered to her weren’t anymore. (The Fake Among the True)

67. Fiona was her own knight in shining armor and no tower could ever hold her captive for long. (Green Knight)

68. There were days when Jeremy saw a way out, yet the light would always fade at the end of the tunnel, leaving him in the dark. (No Way In, No Way Out)

69. The others would never come back, and Gavin, walking in the wake of that horrifying truth, felt like an empty shell with nothing left to give. (Empty)

70. Trevor would give his life for the crew just like Geoff and Lindsay had. (Third Time Counts)

71. One time for when each of the Fake AH Crew members showed strength and one time when they didn’t. (No Shame)

72. Jack and Geoff shared a special responsibility for every member of the crew, and Michael was no exception. (Nightmare Terrors)

73. ‘Who’s the creepiest motherfucker?’ is a question rather avoided and unanswered. (Creep Contest)

74. All Michael felt now was a burning anger that refused to flicker and fade, and thirst for revenge than could never be quenched. (Road Rage)

75. The last time they all saw each other the city was burning, wounds were bleeding---figuratively and literally---and they never expected to see each other again. (One Last Time)

76. Jack liked to be up in the early, quiet mornings while everyone was still asleep, but she was seriously going to tackle Ryan into bed if she found out he was still awake at 5AM again. (Go the Fuck to Sleep)

77. He’d said he was going to visit, but Ray always pushed the promise further to its limits every time. (Liar Liar)

78. Five times a heist went to hell and one time when it actually didn’t. (Heisting Hell)

79. Not every backstory of the Fake AH Crew’s members is full of shattered dreams and points of no return. (Wanted)

80. Gavin missed home sometimes, but the Golden Boy didn’t. (Two Sides of a Coin)

81. Jeremy’s admiration of monster trucks stretches way back to when he was only a child, walking past a toy store. (Monster Car)

82. “You can leave if you want”, Geoff said, “No one’s going to stop you.” (Freedom)

83. The Vagabond was almost always in control after the Fall of the Fakes, mostly because Ryan let him. (Dead by Daylight)

84. Perhaps the next mishap won’t be so embarrassing for Alfredo, but life didn’t seem to like him much at all. (It’s Life, What Can You Do About It)

85. Four times Geoff said no to either Gavin, Ryan or Lindsay bringing an animal home, and one time he actually said yes. (Animal Addition)

86. So the members of the Fake AH Crew decides to steal their boss’ yacht again and Geoff’s as usual late to the party. (Yacht Party)

87. The crew goes to get some tattoos, and Lindsay is very sure of which one she wants to get. (Tattoos)

88. When Jack falls sick and can’t make her awesome lunch for the whole crew, the crew makes one for her instead (and Jack appreciates it even if it’s a little burned). (Faking the Chef)

89. The day Fiona joined the Fake AH Crew is a day Gavin will very well remember. (Bully)

90. The B-Team is usually there to clean up the messes, except for this time. (Don’t Leave Your Messes Here)

91. The whiskey burned his throat when he guzzled it, and Geoff wished that the liquor could burn away the pain and memories the same. (Burning Bridges)

92. The Fake AH Crew may look like they’re having the time of their lives, but the outside is designed to hide the struggles and issues that lingers underneath. (Inside Out)

93. With the Gents missing, the Lads stuck in a burning building, and the B-team cornered in a firefight, things does not look good. (Already Over)

94. The Fake AH Crew never failed to be impressed by Michael’s colorful vocabulary of swear words. (Words of Color)

95. Jeremy tries to cover up some traces of his past life from the rest of the crew; it does not go the way he wants. (Known to the World)

96. The Ring had been like home, but he wasn’t earning any money being beaten up every round in familiar surroundings, so Michael left---and ended up in Los Santos. (Ring of Fire)

97. The different paths that every member of the crew took for themselves led each of them to end up somewhere they never intended to be, but somewhere they were meant to be. (Pathfinders)

98. It was safe to say that every member of the Fake AH Crew had at least one weird obsession; some had way too many, and some obsessions were just what the fuck. (Obsessions)

99. The Fake AH Crew heists in style, or they do not heist at all. (Do it with Style)

100. The Fake AH Crew is made up of a selected (un)worthy and unique individuals---each one with their own story of whens, ifs, whats, whos, and hows. (Now That We’ve Come So Far)

#rtah fanfic #fahc #fanfic #more like weirdopath #my writing

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sirius · 5 years

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okay im sorry i need to rant but honestly it angers me when people forgive snape -ya know the guy who joined the literally equivalent of nazis, hang around people who were down to kill muggleborns aka lily WANTED TO TRADE HARRY AND JAMES TO VOLDEMORT SO HE COULD KEEP LILY- but crucify james?? like YES what james did was fucked up but he DID mature and clean up his act, he was a prefect for fucks sake and what did snape do? he bullied children, what a lad

I know the feeling my man…

honestly??? I agree with you!! extreme snape apologists refuse to see just how many bad things Snape did like he certainly wasn’t a hero. the proper terminology is a ‘Grey Character’ meaning that he wasn’t good but he wasn’t bad either.

I really hated the way he treated Harry. like that is…cruel and unnecessary. some extreme snape fans like to argue that he was stuck in a situation he never wanted to be in but that is NOT an excuse to be cruel. Harry had every reason to be cruel himself, given that he was an orphan living with a family that bullied and neglected him, who lost his friends, his godfather, and was publicly harassed by the media, not to mention being constantly chased by Voldemort. Yet do we see him acting cruelly? NO. he was kind and noble and he really, truly cared.

another thing that really fucking pisses me the fuck off is when they drag lily into the whole ‘james vs snape’ argument, blaming her for leaving Snape. That really makes my blood boil because as someone who was in a relationship with an abusive drug addict, I can tell you now that I could no longer put up with that kind of abuse just because ‘he was my boyfriend’. Lily did not have to put up with that. It was not her duty to nurture snape because in the end, we all have choices to make and it’s only you that can choose them. no one else can do it for you. Lily considered Snape her best friend yet he drifted off toward fucking NAZI’s who wanted to murder Muggle-borns, her kind. Was she supposed to support that??? get the fuck off my dick, Jesus fuck.

and then they BLAME HER for the bullying shit show that Snape went through. Like yes, he was bullied. but how is that Lily’s fault?? how was lily supposed to stop three boys who fucking BROKE THE LAW from stopping Snape?? no, that responsibility was up to the teaches, don't you dare blame a woman, let alone a student, for the actions of three irresponsible boys.

and finally, James. James…

listen, James wasn’t perfect. I’m never going to consider him as such and I will never write him as a hero. He bullied Snape, even when he told Lily he wouldn’t, they still fought behind Lily’s back. But I refuse to believe that Snape was a helpless victim, like so many bully victims are. no, snape created his own hexes using DARK MAGIC. He was amused when his FRIENDS used an UNFORGIVABLE CURSE on a muggleborn girl (which most snape apologists conveniently forget about) he was no victim.

James left school and dedicated his life to saving muggleborns while Snape devoted himself to killing them.

phew that’s exhausting.

deep breath in….shaky exhale…. i suggest not arguing with snape apologists. it’s only going to go round in round in circles. At the same time, i have a friend who is a fan of Snape, who is actually civilised and enjoys debating with me about Snape, but its nothing personal.

#anti snape #cute nonnies #owls #PREVIOUSLY WIZARDS

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 6 years

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Michael After Midnight - Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare

I’ve been sitting on reviewing this one for quite a while. And, well, there is a good reason for that. Freddy Krueger has, up until this film, managed to have a pretty solid series. The first three films in particular are excellent movies, with the fourth and fifth being decent and a mixed bag, respectively. This film, though? It’s a stinker. Like a really, seriously bad one. Not one of the worst I’ve ever seen – this is no Seed of Chucky or, god forbid, Smiley – and there actually are a few things I like here and there, but the overall product here is just a ridiculous mess.

So here’s the story – Set in the distant future of, uh, 2001, Freddy has successfully killed every single child in Springwood, save for one. Said child is the key to Freddy being able to return, and… well, that’s basically the plot. Hijinks ensue from here.

So, here’s what I like about the movie: Obviously, Robert Englund as Freddy is great, even if Freddy has finally completed the transition from terrifying killer to goofy murderous clown. It kind of works, since Freddy does seem the type to treat murder like a big game, so this isn’t egregiously bad, and his jokier deaths always managed to be more creative and visually interesting… though the video game death is just embarrassing. I’ll go more into that in a bit. Freddy also can still be terrifying when he wants to be, such as his gloating “every town has an Elm Street” line, as well as a few other moments. Freddy is my favorite slasher villain for a reason, and this film doesn’t do anything to sully my love of this sick twisted bastard.

The concept of the dream demons is kind of cool, though I honestly preferred why Freddy was the way he was to be an ambiguous situation; I don’t think adding demonic forces to the lore was really needed. And… well, this is where any praise of this entry ends. Yeah, even the praise portion ended with a lukewarm reception, that should give you a hint as to the overall quality of this film. The rest of this film is just an utter travesty. The most glaring example of this is when Freddy plays a character like a video game to kill him – the video game graphics are so hokey and outdated that it’s laughable, and even for the time they probably looked like crap. The whole sequence is just embarrassing and ridiculous, and is emblematic of the film’s biggest flaw: this entry is just far too light and comedic for its own good.

Even at their weakest, the previous films always managed to blend horror and comedy in a more appealing way, with a good balance being struck, keeping Freddy scary yet also laughable. And like I said, Freddy still has his moments here… it’s just that by and large he has been reduced into a big goofball more content with spouting one liners and joking with his victims than anything. It’s just… dumb. This movie is dumb. It almost feels like they were trying to make a PG-13 horror film but it ended up being R regardless, kind of like what happened with the first Leprechaun movie. We’re stuck with a film that’s too dark and gory for a more general audience but also far too juvenile and corny to really satisfy anyone else. It’s just a big waste.

Really, that’s all I have to say on this film. It’s just a dumb movie that ends with crappy 3D effects that make Robert Rodriguez’s kids films look like high art and has some really awkward and confusing twists, namely with Freddy having a previously unmentioned secret daughter he had with a previously unmentioned wife. I mean, watch it for completion’s sake by all means, and there are a few good things here and there, but quite frankly this is one of the weakest entries in the entire franchise, and a pretty lame ending for Freddy.

Now, this film was followed up with New Nightmare, which doesn’t take place in the continuity of the series and is a very meta movie featuring the actors of the original film playing themselves. It’s basically a precursor to Scream, except I find it to be far less entertaining and a bit average and unimpressive. But you want to know what IS in continuity, is a lot more interesting to talk about, and features a character from another series I’ve talked about extensively showing up to battle Freddy?

Come on back tomorrow night for the Freddy vs. Jason review, a review that has been a long time coming.

#Michael After Midnight #review #movie review #A Nightmare on Elm Street #Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare #Freddy Krueger #Robert Englund #slasher film

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Mortal Kombat Sequel: What Should Happen Next

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IT HAS BEGUN!

Or it will. Mortal Kombat came out and did all right for itself. The reboot has its highs and its lows, but one thing I will say it does a better job at is setting up a sequel. The 1995 original had a decent enough cliffhanger with a kaiju-sized Shao Kahn popping in and everyone ready to just kick his ass, but at the time, there weren’t too many promising places to take the sequel.

The first movie was just so front-loaded that the second didn’t have enough to rope us in. That’s why it’s probably for the best that Johnny Cage is currently being treated purely as a sequel hook. He’s the carrot on the stick meant to keep us interested in keeping this franchise going.

Also there’s still a tournament. As someone who has seen every adaptation of Mortal Kombat (outside of the Live Tour, but once I get this time machine finished…), I can understand why they would want to try something new with the narrative. Treating everything as a big prelude to the sequel, which will actually do the tournament, is a fine enough option. Just as long as they deliver. Oh, and try to make the tournament make sense! Both the original and the Scorpion’s Revenge animated film just make up the rules as they go along. I want some goddamn brackets!

So here are some other things we’d like to see in the Mortal Kombat sequel.

A Johnny Cage Who Can Fight

Obviously. Johnny Cage is Warner Brothers’ chance to get a big name actor in there. Since he was so good in the animated movie, I thought about Joel McHale getting jacked up for the role, but he’d be in his 50s by then. I know WWE’s Miz is also campaigning for the role, but while that would be adorable, I simply want a Johnny Cage who not only has charisma, but can do some kind of martial arts.

Linden Ashby was able to pull it off, but the less our new Hollywood egomaniac has to be carried by editing and his opponents, the better. Really, just go with Scott Adkins.

Noob Saibot and Sub-Zero II

I know Cole Young isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but the sequel can completely redeem his existence by using the second Sub-Zero as his rival and counterpart. In the games, the Sub-Zero/Scorpion stuff happened in the present day, so Kuai Liang was Bi-Han’s brother and took up the Sub-Zero mantle in-between the first two entries. He ended up being a more honorable warrior and became one of the series’ main heroes.

Considering the new movie’s version of Bi-Han is—for an unexplained reason—borderline immortal, his successor wouldn’t be his brother but likely his descendant. Weirdly, it would be a descendant that he would have coexisted with, but sure. Therefore you get a new Sub-Zero who is to the original what Cole Young is to Scorpion.

Movies

Mortal Kombat (2021) vs. Mortal Kombat (1995): Which is Better?

By David Crow

Games

Mortal Kombat: 15 Most Powerful Characters

By Gavin Jasper

Shang Tsung hinted at bringing back some of his dead henchmen, so Bi-Han will likely return as the insidious Noob Saibot. On paper, that’s a tag team match of bloodline vs. bloodline. Except there’s some good drama in there if you have the new Sub-Zero stray from what the original wants him to do.

Kitana and Edenia

Probably one of the stranger choices in Mortal Kombat was to include Mileena as one of the flunkies and kill her off when there hasn’t been a single mention of Kitana. Having Mileena mean nothing is a mistake that both movie continuities have made.

We’re probably another movie away before Shao Kahn becomes a major player in this franchise. He might have as much a role in the sequel as Thanos does in the first Guardians of the Galaxy. Kitana can show up though, both as his assassin and/or his betrayer, giving us a better idea of what he’s all about without actually having him appear.

Also, with Kung Lao gone, Liu Kang is in desperate need of connecting to someone. Giving him a Juliet to his Romeo would be welcome.

Recognizable Backgrounds

The Mortal Kombat series is known for so many cool and unique places for the characters to fight. So it was a little disappointing that the new movie featured such locations as a sand pit, the insides of a crappy house, and a frozen-over locker room. Even the use of the Pit meant nothing as nobody got knocked into the spikes.

Give us the Dead Pool or the Living Forest. Or that one stage with the portals in the background while the shadow priests float around. Anything from Mortal Kombat II. Get some of that rad Outworld real estate.

We’re Going to Need a New Heavy

Throwing Goro in for the sake of having Goro was a ballsy move for the movie, and probably a foolish one. Goro is more than just a brick house of an enemy to go through. He’s the heart and soul of the first Mortal Kombat game and its tournament. He stopped mattering after the fact, but in the storyline of the first game and first movie adaptation, he was the gigantic threat. He was the irresistible force that everyone was too afraid to talk about because he might hear you.

The 2021 movie proceeded to use Goro for the sake of scaring Cole into growing his mutant power shirt before Cole brutally murdered him. Sure, he can come back in the sequel, but what’s the point? He’s lost all of his mystique. He’s no longer the scary giant.

There are options for replacements. They could use Kintaro, although he’d be more of the same. Perhaps Motaro? Eh, centaurs are too cumbersome to work. They might have to bring in someone like Moloch or even Blaze in just to give us the necessary moment of, “Whoa, what the HELL is that?!”

Bring Back Kano

Just… bring him back. If Sub-Zero #1 is obviously returning as Noob Saibot, then there’s no reason why Shang Tsung or the Black Dragon, or Quan Chi, or Shinnok can’t just resurrect Kano and put a metal plate where his wound was. The biggest mistake of Mortal Kombat: Annihilation was cheating us out of the best performances from the first movie. So please, Warner Bros., give us some more Josh Lawson.

A resurrected Kano would not only bring back the fantastic comic relief, but he’d be the ultimate wild card. Maybe he can find redemption? Maybe he’ll still be a total bastard and work for the villains. Maybe they could play up fellow Black Dragon member Jarek’s in-game storyline where he’s so freaked out by the threat of Shinnok (or whoever) that he knows that there is no monetary gain he can get out of the situation, and no reason to do anything but save his skin by helping save the world.

Or maybe Shang Tsung morphs into Kano and gets hit on the head so hard that he forgets how to turn back to normal and is stuck spending the rest of the movie as a wise-cracking Australian. I’m spit-balling here.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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ruffoverthinksthings · 7 years

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What do you think the Aks favorite book genres are?

I do believe I touched on this before with the VKs, but can’t find it at the moment, so I’ll just focus on answering this with the AKs:

Ben

Horror and Crime Thrillers

With the absence of any true nightmares, “Evil” beings, andeven petty criminal behaviour in Auradon, plus the creation of theIsle of the Lost where all the “Evil” people were put on, youngBen was obviously curious about the nature of “Evil.”

What makes someone “Evil?” Does it really merit such anextreme measure as the Isle? When does an action go from beingquestionable to a crime?

These are all things that could be explained to him by no shortageof legal experts, authorities from the various realms the statesoriginally came in, and the odd religious leader, but between all thetechnicality and the thought experiments, Ben needs something thatengages the other side of his brain, something that truly grips himand shows him the depths of Evil as someone who is victimized by it,or as someone who perpetrates it.

And really, it’s very different to read about the legal,real cases of Jack the Ripper vs being in the shoes of one of theirvictims unaware that this will be the last shortcut they ever take.

“I can know it through police reports, but I can’treally feel it like I do with fiction.”

Audrey

“JaneEyre,” “Gone With The Wind,” and “Twilight” style novels

Audreyis a sucker for classic “Princess” style tales, seeing as that’sexactly what she’s (planning to) live out once she graduatesAuradon, but she is also a product of the Feminism wave thatswept through all of Auradon, and her tastes adjust accordingly.

Shereally enjoys herself some female protagonists that are forced tochallenge and break away from the stereotypes and the societalconstraints that have been thrust upon them, but she also won’t sayno to the plot of a female protagonist being saved by and falling inlove with a handsome male suitor.

Thetroublesome elements and the ill-advised reality of a “rescueromance” where she tries to “fix” a broken man who “lovesher” don’t really bother her or even register to her, as she isalso a product of Auradon’s “love trumps all” belief.

Chad

“HardBoiled” Detective Thrillers, Action Thrillers, Conspiracy Thrillers

Chadwas raised by actual heroes and daring knights, people caught in theworst circumstances possible, only to rise up from them and emergebetter than ever, frequently to the adoration of the people aroundthem and a permanent place in the history books.

WithAuradon being entirely peaceful—well, in the spheres he runs aroundin, anyway—he can’t really find any opportunity for a war or adaring adventure to “earn” the glory he thinks he is destinedfor, nor do anything particularly impressive aside from being one ofthe top Tourney players in the School Leagues alongside Ben.

(Inthe part of his mind that has a strong sense of ethics, but is sadlyignored most days, he is also bothered by the fact that he NEEDS torely on other people doing his homework to actually stay onthe team, whereas someone like Ben can tear up the field andace the tests, no problem.

Thisis a huge part of why he is the way he is, by the way–”AlwaysSomeone Better” Syndrome.)

Anyway,it would make sense that he would enjoy reading about (usually, butnot always) male protagonists dealing with circumstances beyond theircontrol, finding themselves waltzing through a door and findingthemselves in a murderous Wonderland, being stopped, obstructed, andalmost murdered at every turn only to succeed at the end, scarred butvictorious.

Thoughwhen he puts the book or the tablet down, and its back to hiscomfortable, luxurious, easy life, there’s a part of him thatwonders if he will ever find something so meaningful as theadventures of his favourite hard-boiled detectives…

Doug

“PopCulture” Science

Whatwould you need to do if you wanted to build the Great Wall of Chinastraight up?

Ifyou could lift the Formerly Lost City of Atlantis using ping-pongballs, how many would you need?

Ifyou took all the chocolate Arendelle consumes in a year, and made itinto a giant chocolate bar, how big would it be and how would you goabout making it?

Theseare the questions that ignited young Doug’s curiosity about theworld around him, beyond that of the mine and the woodland cottagewhere his uncles and his father works, and Aunt Snow White comes byevery once in a while to bake their perennial favourite, AppleDumplings.

“Hard”Science books about physics, chemistry, and architecture do catch hisinterest eventually, but in the beginning, when he needs a break fromserious problems about real world matters, or is stuck with a problemthat just doesn’t have an obvious solution, he goes to the realm ofwhimsy and wonder with a dash of science.

Sometimes,the unusual questions, odd uses of scientific principles, andhypothetical situations are just what he needs to make his real lifeprojects come to life.

Failingthat, they’re always good fun.

Jane

“HeroesJourney” books like “Harry Potter,” “Star Wars,” and“Fangirl” (Rainbow Rowell)

Asone who’s supposed to be a Future Fairy Godmother, Jane wouldnaturally be very interested in the lives of the types of peopleshe’s supposed to help. The downtrodden, the innocent, those thattried and thought they couldn’t—fictional or real, she lovesreading about how external and/or internal crises knocks on theirdoor, and they find a way to overcome it, oftentimes with the help offriends and magical beings.

Italso comforts her to read about people just like her, outcasts,“weirdos,” and those that just don’t fit in and never willfinding their place in the world, not by changing themselves butchanging the world around them.

Shefigures she will NEVER be like any of them, and her problems willstill exist after the story ends, but hey, that’s why it’s called“escapism.”

Lonnie

Non-Fiction,largely on Revolutions, Societal Movements, and Eccentric Inventorsand Ostracized Geniuses

Eversince Lonnie first heard Hip-Hop and watched a dance-off, she hasbeen obsessed with the culture and how it started in Harlem and theBronx.

Naturally,you can’t study this without getting into the Civil Rights movementand the oppression of African American populations, and you can’tstudy this without getting into the slavery era, and you can’tstudy this without reading about the people who rose up against whatwas considered the norm, fighting for what they believed to be abetter world…

Revolutions,Massive Society Changes, the Geniuses of the World who were thoughtcrazy then and are being revered now—they’re all of massiveinterest to Lonnie, someone who’s never truly fit in, and stillfaces numerous societal pressures to conform with what the worldstill expects, and sometimes demands her to be.

Forclarity, I only use this example to differentiate her from the restof the AKs—she loves fictional outcasts and oppressed minoritiesrising victorious as much as real ones.

Allie

Non-Fictionabout BGU and AGU Cultures and Society, and Sci-Fi and Fantasy

Wonderlandis a weird and wacky place that we can’t even begin to understand,and even its residents admit to not being able to make sense ofit—well, at least in ways that fit into the majority’s idea of“sense.”

Theland down the rabbit hole or through the looking glass has been oneof the biggest sources of fascination (and early retirement) for manyof Auradon’s scientists, scholars, and philosophers, but sinceAllie has lived there all her life or spent every weekend having teawith the Mad Hatter and the White Rabbit, “things being topsy-turvyand hurly-whirly” is completely normal to her.

Instead,her interest radiates to places she’s never been, and will neverpersonally experience herself: BGU and AGU (Before/AfterGreat Uniting) societies and cultures, and of coursethe fantastic worlds that fiction invents.

Donote that she is VERY strict about her world-building and thateverything in your series should subscribe to the logic the worldruns on, or you provide suitable, realistic justification.

“Comenow, I may have come from a world where the Sky talks quantum physicswith the Heron, but even I can only suspend my disbelief for solong!”

Jordan

Superheroes

Peopleand beings born with fantastic powers, or suddenly getting themwhether or not they wanted it.

Oftentimesostracized or feared by society just for being them, with thepotential harm they can cause.

Frequentlyportrayed rising against their own inner demons and outer forces,showing to the world that they do belong, that they were wrong tohave shunned and feared them so, and who oftentimes become idols anddearly beloved members of the society after they prove themselves.

Jordan(sincerely hopes) isn’t about to be pushed into any sort ofworld-threatening danger where she’ll have to explore and push thelimits of her magical powers, and more importantly get over her ownpersonal hang-ups and character flaws for her and others’ sake, butthat doesn’t stop her from enjoying the stories of people who do.

#disney #descendants #headcanon

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