#i don't know how to explain to you that 2016 has been OVER. like. for a while | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

slavghoul · 1 year

Text

Interview from Rock Hard [FR] Magazine 5/2023

In which Tobias talks about Spillways, Phantomime, how he chooses what songs to cover, the state of the world, why he loves churches, and some touring technicalities.

Rock Hard: Let's go back to the version of "Spillways" that you recorded with Joe Elliott, the singer of Def Leppard. How did this collaboration come about?

Unfortunately, this story is less sexy than it would have been if I could have done exactly what I wanted. Before Impera was released, I regularly mentioned Def Leppard in interviews because some of the experimentation on that album was inspired by that band, their writing style. […] As I often mentioned Def Leppard, people around me eventually told me that Joe Elliott and Phil Collen regularly spoke highly of Ghost in interviews. Since I obviously thought it was cool, someone suggested a collaboration. A good collaboration shouldn't be forced, it should happen naturally. The best ones are often the ones that weren't supposed to happen. Two drunk musicians somewhere accidentally writing a good song... Crosby, Stills & Nash style. People who, by chance, find themselves together in a different context from the one they are used to and do something together, by accident. Something magical! That's how I would ideally have wanted it to happen. So I said I was ready to call Joe Elliott and see if we had a rapport. We started talking on the phone and texting a lot, me living in Sweden and him in Dublin. As we were both on the move almost all the time, and he was on tour, we couldn't meet. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he tells me that he has recorded some vocals for 'Spillways'! Quite frankly, I was surprised because I wasn't expecting it. I was anticipating a possible collaboration, but in a different way. To be honest, I thought we would create something new later on. But when I heard the result, I thought two things. Firstly, I found it very flattering. Secondly, I thought Joe brought something new and cool to "Spillways".

But you would have preferred to have the opportunity to write a new song with him.

Yes, that's the way I saw it, but I'm happy with the way it turned out. And then I said to Joe, "You know how we post those funny little episodes on our social media?" He replied "Yes, I think I saw that!" and kindly agreed to participate in one of them. Nowadays, many artists are over-solicited to record video clips for anything and everything in order to keep their channels updated: "Come and see us in concert in such and such a city!", etc. etc. The aim is obviously to keep the media space occupied.

By creating "content"!

Exactly! And that's exactly what I don't want to do. That's why, instead of all this crap, we started some time ago to create these little humorous episodes. One day, for example, I came up with the idea of an episode set in 1969 featuring a sort of "pre-Ghost" group. To do this, I obviously had to write a new song, which I did with this psychedelic track, 'Kiss The Go-Goat', which I thought was funny. When we recorded it, 'Mary On A Cross', another song of the same type, came along. So we ended up with two sides of a single that became 'Seven Inches Of Satanic Panic.’ Instead of just announcing the release on our networks, we chose to shoot a new video in which we featured Papa Nihil and explained the origins of this so-called 'pre-Ghost' band. I thought it was a much more clever and fun way of presenting the single. We do the same when it comes to announcing an album release or a future tour. Joe Elliott has a great sense of humour and is capable of self-mockery, so he kindly agreed to play this little game.

Ghost have made a habit of releasing an EP between their albums, mostly, if not entirely, made up of covers: If You Have Ghost (2013), Popestar (2016) and now Phantomime. How is it not just about “creating content”?

For me, it's a kind of exercise. I like analogies. Let's imagine that the place we are in is a theatre, and that this theatre, in order to be viable, has to host performances all year round. At least fifty weeks a year. Daytime rehearsals, evening performances... You are the director of the place and you know that the play that is currently being performed there will end at the end of the month. So you look for something else to program in order to make the most of the place and keep your staff busy. Maybe an old classic like Doctor Glass (Hjalmar Söderberg, 1905), an adaptation of John Steinbeck, or a rereading of Shakespeare's Hamlet that you could revisit by inviting this actor or that director, renting out your theatre for three extra months for the occasion. Working on this old material, even if it means not releasing it if it doesn't work. We do that to keep the team active, enthusiastic, focused. That's my way of working. I worked simultaneously on the Impera album and the demos of the covers that are on Phantomime. One day I could record 'Spillways' and two hours before leaving the studio to go home, I could look at any of the covers and decide which ones to keep. So, as soon as Impera was finished, I was able to concentrate on those covers that the album's producer wasn't interested in putting on the record. Which was fine with me. I spent some time sorting out the covers I had recorded as demos. There were ten in total, but I only kept five. Because with those five tracks I thought I could come up with a really strong rock EP. In my albums, there are highs, lows, really metal tracks, ballads, instrumentals, etc. So I thought it was a good idea to make a really strong rock EP. I felt it would be cool if this new EP was viscerally rock’n’roll. The opening track, "See No Evil" by Television, sounds like the Rolling Stones on methamphetamine! (laughs)

You like the songs you cover, that's a prerequisite. But their lyrics also play a very important role in your choice.

Yes, that's what makes me choose a song or not.

Is that the number one criterion?

Erm... (he thinks for a long time) If I hesitate between two songs, yes, absolutely! Let's go back to Leonard Cohen, for example. For the bonus tracks of Prequelle, I chose "Avalanche" because it seemed to me to have a biblical and existential significance. This was not the case with 'Take This Waltz', another Cohen song that I liked as much, if not more. The latter, with its Viennese waltz feel, would have metaphorically taken us to Austria, which would not have been very coherent, unfortunately.

Should these covers speak about God, the Devil, ask questions about religion?

They must speak about evil, about good. Be existential, biblical, philosophical, but seen from a certain perspective. Or at least tick one of those boxes, like 'Hanging Around' (The Stranglers) which is about Christ. Some of the other covers I've recorded are more specific, such as 'Phantom Of The Opera' (Iron Maiden), which is about horror. I also make my choice according to the humour of the songs I want to cover. It should be close to my own sense of humour.

You mentioned the first Phantomime cover, "See No Evil". It takes on a different resonance today because, on January 28, 2023, we sadly learned of the death of Tom Verlaine, the leader of Television.

When I recorded this cover in 2021, just after completing Impera, it was already a tribute. But obviously, with Tom's death, this song takes on another resonance, that of a final posthumous salute. I've been listening to Television for twenty years, and I love them and have always considered them a great band. In indie clubs they always play the same song, 'Marquee Moon', but Television had many other good songs, especially on their first two albums: Marquee Moon (1977) and Adventure (1978). I like those two best. It's a band that had a huge influence on one of my previous bands, Subvision. So much so that at the time, I thought several times of covering Television songs that I loved: "See No Evil", but also "Elevation" and "Foxhole".

The first single from Phantomime is Genesis' 'Jesus He Knows Me', a scathing critique of televangelist stars like Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker and Robert Tilton. Ugly people who have made their fortune by 'promising salvation’ to naive believers for big bucks. Can we expect to see you wearing a wig in its video, as singer/drummer Phil Collins did in the original video for this song in 1991?

(Laughs) We've already shot the video for this cover version (editor’s note: the interview was conducted on 11 March 2023) and I'm not in it, but it's a direct nod to the original video. I've always liked this song - except for the reggae part, which I thought was horrible in the Genesis version and which I reworked - and it's funny to see how this 1991 text is still relevant today. Except, of course, for a few "old-time" words, like "phone book". The televangelists are still there on television promising things to people who take their word for it and shower them with money because they are assured of "salvation", they are promised heaven. I also rearranged Iron Maiden's 'Phantom of The Opera' after taking care to contact Steve Harris for his approval.

Indeed, in your retelling of this song, you are the Phantom and not its victim...

Yes, I wanted to be the Phantom. I submitted the idea to Steve, who gave me the green light. I only made some surgical changes. Similarly, I would have liked to have proposed the same thing to Phil Collins so that the text of "Jesus He Knows Me" would have been more in line with the times. Change, for example, "but she don't know about my girlfriend / or the man I met last night" to "or the dude I screwed last night". Alas, lack of time prevented me from doing so. And then, since this was a slippery slope, I thought: - What if Collins refuses? Or what if he gets pissed off? - We could have made these changes without asking anyone's permission - as long as the artists get their royalties, it's not a problem - but there was no way I was going to do it. Neither I nor my label wanted to alienate anyone, obviously.

In 1977, in "Hanging Around" by The Stranglers, which you also cover on Phantomime, the singer Hugh Cornwell sings about several things, but also about Christ "telling his mother not to worry because he's comfortable in the city where he's high above the ground". Is that why you chose it?

Actually, the key thing that made me choose this song from the band over any other is that I grew up listening to the album it's taken from, Rattus Norvegicus (1977), the Stranglers' first release. There are a lot of songs on that album that I would have loved to play because, as a musician, I really like to play those kinds of songs. ‘Hanging Around' was a good fit for us because of the lyrics, but also because it was more in keeping with our style. Ghost are obviously a metal and hard rock band, but also have a strong punk sensibility. Punk, but well played (smiles). For me, The Stranglers have always done "well played punk": this band knows how to play, how to arrange its music, unlike GBH and Discharge, to name but two. Mind you, I also like the latter, but not for the same reasons. A lot of punk bands from the late 70s/early 80s sounded "sloppy". It wasn't for lack of trying to play better. When The Clash and The Jam went into the studio, they tried to do their best and they sounded great! The same goes for The Adverts. Those guys were doing their best. Nowadays, some people think that being a punk is to play badly on purpose, to be messy. No, no, no ! But I digress...

What is the reason for the nod to Metallica's 'Fade To Black' in the solo on 'Hanging Around'?

Just for fun. When I'm working on a guitar solo, I throw things in here and there, like a messy painter. It's like stretching a canvas on a wall and making big brush strokes... But when I start to feel like I've got something cool, I dig in more surgically, a bit like a collage artist would. I interweave little elements, and when it comes time to insert a solo into a piece, I refine things by continuing to add new elements. Generally, a solo gives you a space of freedom in the middle of an otherwise totally structured song. That's when you can come up with different things in terms of melody. So that's the way I do it, even on the demos of the covers. I ask my sound engineer, Martin Eriksson Sandmark, to play me the draft of the solos I've been working on over and over again, and then I try out different things, whatever comes to mind. It's as if I'm drawing a mental map of what the solo will become. Sometimes, if I'm on a part sometimes, if I'm on a bluesy part, I'll let myself play a few notes of Gary Moore’s "Still Got The Blues", or, if I'm tapping, Van Halen's "Eruption". When I was working on the solo for 'Hanging Around', I felt like playing this part of Metallica's 'Fade To Black', just for fun. And it ended up on the demo. I'm a decent guitar player, but I'm not at the level I could have reached if I'd worked harder. I could just record these solos in the studio, where you can always slow things down when you play them and then speed them up and put them on the album, but Fredrik Akesson can play these parts without tricks and with much more finesse than I can. He recorded the solo for "Hanging Around" as I had presented it on the demo, with this nod to Metallica, and we thought it was so cool that we kept it.

Hugh Cornwell, the ex-singer of The Stranglers, said in an interview that, although he was not a believer, he loved visiting churches. Is this also true for you? Are you also attracted to churches?

Yes, passionately! I believe in them like I believe in Star Wars. I've always thought of churches as stage props. Walking into one of them is a bit like walking onto a film set of the original Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom. It's awe-inspiring, even though you know it's just cardboard. Churches have magical powers because they are centuries-old buildings and we know that a lot of things have happened within their walls. Not that I'm trying to throw up on these places of worship, but when I go into a church I don't hear God, but the whispers of time. I am not an atheist, although intellectually I can see that there are many reasons why I should be. I believe in a Force, in an Energy. I also believe that we don't know many things, but that there is a balance between these different energies. The white and the black.

Good and Evil...

Absolutely! Right now the world is in crisis, but we're going to get through it. It's a vicious circle. We do ourselves a disservice if we think that if the world were rid of people like Vladimir Putin, Alexander Lukashenko, Jair Bolsonaro and the ayatollahs of Iran and Iraq, we would be out of the woods. I think all this can happen - and I hope it will, in a way - but Good and Evil will always be there. That balance is necessary. But I am an optimist by nature. I believe that there is a future for Volodymyr Zelensky and the Eastern bloc. That there is perhaps a chance to put into practice what was tried there some thirty years ago. And I believe in a free Iran, in a possible return to what this country was in 1978. What a beautiful day that would be! But that doesn't mean there wouldn't be a new war somewhere else in the world. I'm an eternal optimist, but let's face it: history is always starting over. As I said, it's a question of balance, a permanent coming and going. Because I believe in this Force I was talking about earlier, I truly believe that the West can win, that the way we live and the way we have built our society is a step forward that shows progress and can make a large majority of people happy. Not all, but most. But even if we all lived in love and peace for five years, something else would come along to create chaos! An alien or something! (laughs) That's how it works. Our mistake is to believe in the status quo, in nirvana. It's not going to happen. It's always about balance. The Vatican and organised religion... All that crap is just to pick people's pockets, to control them, to take their energy and scare them into plundering them. The same goes for the GOP (editor’s note: the American "Grand Old Party", suspected of having Christian nationalist leanings), which only deceives people in order to take their money! That's all you need to know. It's simple, so simple to understand. All this does not mean that the energy that emanates from churches is not real. When you walk into one of them, you feel - or so I believe - the energy of all those who have gone before you, for decades, for centuries. Their fears, their hopes, etc. So much so, sometimes, that you can feel oppressed, even upset. So I can walk into a church and feel a sense of awe. I love visiting these places, especially from an aesthetic point of view.

On Phantomime, you also cover "We Don't Need Another Hero" by Tina Turner. Don't you think that, given the state of the world today, we do need "another hero"?

I think Zelensky has shown how much we like heroes, how important they are to us. I think back, for example, to how the world went wild when Andrés Iniesta scored the decisive goal in the 116th minute to help Spain win the 2010 World Cup against the Netherlands. I believe in human determination and how it can inspire the world to distinguish between what is important... and what is really important. What is important for our daily lives. Yes, it's cool to have a complete collection of Venom's work, but it doesn't matter if I’m missing the most important thing. In the last ten years especially, the western world has been focusing on tons of unimportant things trying to pit people against each other, cancel culture and all that stuff... It proves that we are spoiled children. Our mentality shows it when it comes to security. Seeing Zelensky defend himself as he does appeals to our most primal instincts: it's beautiful and very inspiring. Nothing else is more important than that. It is the only thing that matters... Otherwise we have to be prepared for a lot of people to live in misery.

Next August, you will tour in the USA with Amon Amarth. I noticed that they will not accompany you on the last date, in Los Angeles, on September 11, 2023. There is no opening act, you ask the audience not to use their phones, etc. That sounds like a live DVD!

Yes, we are indeed planning to film this show, but it won't be the end of the Impera era cycle, even if we will not have so many dates left after this concert. There will still be a few shows in South America and Australia.

Nothing in Japan? A country that one might think Ghost was made for.

At the moment, it's not very clear. We had a lot of discussions with the Japanese promoters, as there was talk of us appearing on the bill of a Japanese festival scheduled for this month. Unfortunately, the festival was postponed... and then rescheduled for March! I think they originally had a big headliner, but the headliner didn't show up. So they cancelled, and then considered a smaller edition with Pantera. With all the back and forth, we ended up dropping out because it was too risky for us to play one date there after six months of inactivity. Our team is currently taking a break, but we preferred to use this time to rehearse for our next shows. The first one will be in Rouen on May 21st. We learned a good lesson the last time we played Hellfest. It was so hot that day, the conditions were so extreme, that we almost had a storm. We really had to fight against the elements and it affected me (Editor's note: the last encore of the show was not played, as Tobias was suffering from vocal problems). It was a very tough show. What really pissed me off was not the fact that I lost my voice, but the fact that the festival-goers who were there were not treated to our entire production. It was indeed difficult to foresee these extreme conditions. This summer we have to play festivals again, so we have reworked our production, which will be better adapted to the complicated weather. On this tour we will play in Spain, Finland, Norway, Greece, all within a few days of each other. So we'll be touring with two identical stages, so we can do all these shows without too much downtime. It's not very ecological, I'm sorry to say, because sometimes we'll have to take a plane to get to these cities in time. Not great, but it's the only way...

Will you play any of the Phantomime covers live?

One thing is for sure: we will play 'Jesus He Knows Me' because it's the first single from the new EP. As for the rest, we'll see during the rehearsals how the set evolves - because it's going to evolve a bit from the 2022 set. We're thinking of playing some songs from Impera that we've left out so far.

#the band ghost #tobias forge #interview

448 notes · View notes

hms-no-fun · 7 months

Note

I know you said you're cautiously optimistic about HS2, but the newest blog post has me kinda worried. The talk of "fixing the fans broken trust" and how even the new writers don't like a lot of story decisions that were made by the old team seem really off to me, like it's throwing the old team under the bus. I want to expect good things from HS2 but when the people working on it don't seem to like the story as it stands right now it really just seems like they might bend over backwards to appease the shitty side of the fandom. What do you think about this whole thing?

this is in reference to the october 30th 2023 news update on the hs:bc website. i give the date because the news posts don't seem to have individual links atm, so if you're reading this in the future you might have to scroll back.

to your worry that the new team might bend over backwards to appease the shitty side of the fandom, i wrote at length in my prior hs:bc post about why i don't think that's gonna be a problem. i'd also caution against reading too much into what james says about the attitude of the hs:bc team at large, for reasons that should be apparent by the end of this post.

i think it's perfectly reasonable to take a diplomatic position towards a fandom that is historically very hostile to this continuation. a lot of people haven't read the epilogues/hs2 and hate on them anyway because of what they've been told they contain, and refuse to question those received opinions on principle. many who did read them seem to have been inattentive or otherwise needlessly aggressive, sometimes owing to a baffling refusal to accept the premise of postcanon. plenty of others maybe just need a reason to think that homestuck is for them again. for this project to succeed, the fandom at large needs to be given a reason to revisit the epilogues/hs2 from a position of safety and critical distance. i have my own barbed opinions about this state of affairs, but it is what it is.

i understand and to an extent share your misgivings over that Q&A post, but it simply is not james roach's job to relitigate the conduct of the hs2 team. to even broach the subject in more than a general sense would constitute the opening of a massive can of worms, because the truth is muddy. mistakes were made on all sides, some worse than others, and to really contextualize where the hs2 team were coming from you'd need to explain the history of the hs fandom, the leadership of the reddit/discord, the overall tenor of twitter post-2016 and especially leading into/during 2020, the history of pgen and the homestuck renaissance, the lack of PR training or oversight or guidance from anyone at WP, the history of audience hostility in homestuck, and on, and on. for what it's worth, i think that context is essential-- but i don't know that anyone working on this project ought to be the ones to tell it (nor do i think they want that responsibility), and a brief casual Q&A post as a halloween treat is certainly not the place to publish it.

and ultimately, none of that has much at all to do with hs:bc. they are not beholden to or responsible for the choices made by the hs2 team. they have been entrusted with the reins of this story, and with that trust comes their own admitted desire to take it in different directions than what was initially planned. the hs2 team did this to the outline andrew hussie gave them; it's only fair that the hs:bc team has the same leeway over the outline they inherited. acknowledging fault in prior leadership, admitting disagreement over past creative decisions, is an olive branch to a largely skeptical fandom. i bristle at some of this because the hs2 team were my friends and i'm very protective of their work and that moment in history, but that isn't james roach's (nor the hs:bc team's) cross to bear. his choice, as the new public face of homestuck, is to move forward rather than linger on the past. it's good that he's burying the hatchet, frankly. i'm sick of that fucking thing.

love it or hate it, agree or disagree, the hs:bc crew has to exercise diplomacy right now. they've reopened the patreon and want to sustain this project for the foreseeable future, ideally without subjecting the workers to intensely traumatic levels of scrutiny and harassment. this involves clearing up miscommunications, admitting fault, gesturing at shared disagreements over story direction, and otherwise putting on a friendly face for strangers. and let's be clear, i know for a fact that plenty on the original hs2 team had a panoply of disagreements with the choices made in the epilogues! the operative condition here is not unquestioning devotion to / hatred of prior material, but a willingness to build upon that prior material constructively regardless. that's what matters most to me, and i have every reason to believe they're taking the constructive route.

i'll end this saying what i've been saying from the start. the measure of this project's success or failure should be taken in the work itself. if james roach blanket dismissed the prior team, but hs:bc constructively evolved in a way that didn't invalidate or undercut prior material, i'd still consider us oldschool hs2 fans the winners. i wouldn't be HAPPY about it, but the art is what we're all here for, and it's the art that people will remember. i think often about how the showrunners of the tv series LOST insisted from day one until the very end that everything in the show had a scientific explanation, despite the fact that they *always knew* this was a bald-faced lie. they told this lie because ABC did not want to fund a fantasy show and would've canceled it otherwise. some fans to this day decry the lack of scientific explanations in the text of the show, even when you point out that the promise of such explanations was false from the start.

point is, there are material realities to leading a creative enterprise. james roach has put himself in a genuinely dangerous and scary position, a fact that's easy to forget with how casual and welcoming his posts have been thus far. but this is perhaps the single most mismanaged property of the internet age, and there's no walking that back without stepping on some toes. over-correction is expected and probably necessary. if it ruffles your feathers, that's fine-- but let the work speak for itself, and judge it on its own merits. all this other stuff is ancillary and will inevitably fade into the distant fog of time.

#homestuck #saraphosts #hsbc #homestuck 2 #james roach

159 notes · View notes

sunbloomdew · 11 months

Text

Love Confessions in the Baxter DLC

Because i am very unwell, thank you. Part 1/3

After over 70 hours of playing the Baxter DLC – and despairing over that one monochrome guy, you know who – I wanted to take a moment to talk about all the possible love confessions in Baxter's version of Step 4. I find them all lovely and each of them made me squeal and smile like crazy, and i just gotta express my appreciation for them somewhere.

In Step 4 there are three love confessions. Two of them can be initiated by the MC, and the third one will be proclaimed by Baxter, if the MC doesn’t confess first. I tried all of them a couple of times, and they are all very cute (although my personal favourite is the confession the morning after the wedding)!

Before we begin i want to warn y’all that i wasn’t sure about the approach i wanted to take when talking about these moments, and as a result this post might not be a "put together careful game analysis" thingy. It's mostly just my ramblings and feelings that hopefully are a-okay to read haha. Without further delay, let’s begin!

Spoilers for specific moments in Baxter's version of Step 4!

All of the confessions take place after the wedding ceremony, so if you hadn't gotten there and don't wanna spoil those great moments for yourself i don't recommend reading further. I will go quite in depth about each option.

In chronological order, the first feelings declaration is the confession immediately after the wedding has ended.

Or as i've been referring to it in my head, The Wedding Confession!

Everybody is busy cleaning up, and MC hasn’t had a chance to have a one-on-one moment with Baxter since they split off in the morning. Naturally, they want to talk with him after the event is over. There is this underlying fear, that Baxter will leave again and they can't let that happen.

The two talk and Baxter apologises for his actions towards MC, five years ago in Sunset Bird and now, after they met again. I need to add that this apology is very well written and it definitively pulled on my heartstrings. Here the player can choose to confess on their own, accept his friendship hoping for a different type of relationship later on or just become friends.

Since i’m yet to play Baxter’s version of Step 4 with platonic feelings, i don’t know if this option appears if you have him at Fond. If anyone of you has done it, i would love to hear what it looks like! For example, does the player get to confess either way, in case they changed their mind (just how here you can choose to be friends)?

Moving further, if we choose to confess right away we get to pick how we want to do that - with words or by kissing him. Each choice will be preceded with an internal monologue from MC about their and Baxter’s relationship and what he means to them. I really like the way it's written. They go through all of the stages they've been around each other. If you met him at the Cypress in Step 2 Soiree Moment they mention how he was a boy in their memories, becoming real when they meet again by chance during summer of 2016. How he made this summer into everything and more and how he left. The years apart and finally the summer they reunited. I can't explain my feelings well, but i find this monologue very sweet but also full of longing - it makes me smile and it makes my heart ache at the same time.

Depending on when the MC confesses, Baxter has a different reaction to their silence. Since now he is waiting for them to accept him into their life again, he gets nervous the longer MC is lost in their thoughts, which is reflected in the expressions of his character model. It’s described as cracks of anxiety appearing on his face and him slipping back into his professional pleasantness. He chose to be vulnerable, and how MC replies will affect him.

After the character’s musings end the player gets one last chance to reaffirm the decision to confess.

Personally, I really like that we have the option to do so. Not only is it useful in case the player suddenly changed their mind, but also helps create the response you want from your MC.

If you back out then you no longer can confess in that moment. The story progresses the same as in the case of choosing not to confess. You can confess later in the game, or not confess at all and have Baxter do that.

If you pick the option to check if he means it, Baxter will reassure MC about wanting to stay by their side. It’s really adorable - especially since in response to MC he says “I do” (ya know, the famous wedding catchphrase) which he immediately follows up with: “You’ll have to excuse me for using that answer at someone else’s wedding, but I am entirely serious.” What a dork. After picking this option only two of the three are left - you can go further or back out.

And finally, you can confess. MC makes note of how now that the wedding was over, there would be no complications for the newlyweds (although they thought Miranda proposing to Terry at their wedding would be a great idea, so they really wouldn't mind lol). They think that since Baxter asked them out first, five years ago, it’s only fair that they do it now. It's one line, but for some reason i like this sentiment a lot. Like hell yeah, go MC! Ask him out now, make him speechless!

When it comes to spoken confessions, there is an abundance of choices to pick from. But my absolute favourite option is to echo Baxter’s own words from Step 3 Sightseeing Moment back at him: "Could I consider all the time we've spent together a date?". Chef’s kiss, it’s all coming together like a beautiful piece of tapestry. Simply iconic of them.

Confessing with a gesture has less options to choose from, but all are equally cute! If you choose to confess in this way, MC will have a short revelation about how different kissing Baxter now feels to kissing him five years ago. Baxter reacts a bit differently to this type of confession, since MC enters his personal space. My favourite is confessing by kissing Baxter on the forehead. It's absolutely precious.

The way Baxter reacts to MC confessing to him is… very interesting to say the least. He was ready to be friends them again or accept their rejection (there is no option like that in the game, but realistically, you just know he would prep himself up for this possibility) but he was not ready for a love confession. Baxter gives MC a moment to move past this and pretend that nothing happened, but it’s not going to work. I find that a curious thing to do. Baxter isn't hoping that MC doesn't have feelings for him and he himself does for them, but there is still that feeling of insecurity in him, that prevents him from accepting the confession right away.

We have the option to have MC sweep Baxter into a dance, or keep talking without that. I love the former choice and i always pick it for my character haha. It’s especially cute how Baxter stumbles and is so out of his depth. Both because of the unexpected movement and the sudden confession.

You can pick an option to tell him, that MC wanted to be with him even five years ago. His reaction to it is just. He is stunned and he doesn't believe it. But he knows MC isn't lying as well. I can feel the conflicted emotions he must have been experiencing upon hearing that just in one line of dialogue. And i think that's pretty powerful writing.

But then he fires back. He is full of disbelief and he doesn’t understand what could he have possibly done to deserve MC's affections. He doesn’t want to call MC a liar but he can’t accept that outcome either. Baxter’s old ways of dealing with relationships are resurfacing, because he can’t believe that he has the right to form such a deep connection with someone. It’s pretty heartbreaking to witness.

It's... so sad. "What did i do to make you like me?" he asks, because there must be something, because simply being himself is not enough, when Baxter inherently believes that he doesn't contribute anything. And if he doesn't contribute anything to somebody's life, he has no place in it.

MC decides to change tactics. Instead of trying to make Baxter accept their feelings, they ask what they mean to him. Whether they end up together is secondary - their goal is to help him overcome his mindset. I find that a really powerful act of love - helping the person you care about understand that they deserve to be loved without extravagant outings and carefully constructed barriers.

I really love Baxter’s response in this confession because it is very true to his character arc. His hesitance, how he withdraws and tries to appear unaffected. He reciprocates MC’s feelings, but he is too ashamed of himself and afraid. His view on himself makes him think that he can't be in a relationship with someone or friends with them, and that is something i find deeply sad. Still, he answers MC’s questions, with a few prefaces. He cites his inability to do things in the morning, less financial income and his past relationship management as reasons for why MC wouldn’t want to be with him. It’s him giving MC the chance to resign, to take back the love confession while they can. It reminds me of declining a meeting with your friends, because you believe that they will have more fun without you. It's self-preservation of your own feelings and diminishment of your impact on others, which comes from some form of dissatisfaction with the way we are.

But MC doesn't take their feelings back. They assure him that they want to be with him.

And once that is done, they ask him:

(I usually can comment on writing/art, but when i can't that's how you know it's the shit. i sat with my mouth open and my hands flapping around just cause this confession got me that excited <3)

This is the dialogue you get when you have Baxter on Crush. If you pick Love, instead of "I want to be with you" he will say "I'm in love with you".

Just like that, he accepts. I was totally shocked when that happened, but well, it does make sense. It was never a question, and Baxter admits so himself. He never stopped wanting to be with MC. He further expresses that he wasn't happy pushing them away five years ago and when they met again. It's quite sad to hear him admit that he didn't think staying together (in more than a romantic way) was an option until moments ago. But he got there ultimately and that's worth celebrating. Growth isn't linear, and sometimes we fall back to our old habits.

I really adore how openly Baxter expresses his affection for the MC, in the confession and later. Compared to Step 3 it feels more mature (no shit, sherlock) but also self-assured. Because he is finally starting to believe, that this - a relationship with a person who really knows him and chooses to stay - is something he can have.

These two lines of dialogue? Murdered me in my sleep with love and care. Sir, how dare you do that to me.

After that the two sillies finish their dance. Their story has a happy ending, they have been reunited. I adore how warm and happy this situation feels, and the descriptions make it feel so light and cheerful, like the moment with MC failing to catch their breath because they are laughing gleefully or Baxter holding them in a gentle embrace.

I really like this confession. Like i said before, it’s very true to Baxter’s character, and it also shows, that despite having good intentions and doing everything you can to change, people can still slip back into their old habits. But there will be people around you that believe you can learn and do better, and will stay with you and help you through it.

I also adore the overall silliness (after the angst is over, but i do love my fair share of angst as well) and the emotional beats. The characters banter, joke around.

And express how much they care about each other.

Also the fact that Miranda, Terry and Cove just gawked at the pair while they were having this huge emotional event is just hilarious. They are very nosy friends and i love them for that lol. Of course, Baxter is completely unaffected. GB Patch knew that if they made this man blush more than he already does in the game, they would actually kill us.

I'm not kidding, i die every time he blushes and get revived when he snorts. That's just the circle of life.

So yeah, that was one out of the three confessions! It's amazing and i hope i was able to convey what i love about it! Prior to playing the Baxter DLC i had around 50 hours on Steam, and after i got it It turned into 120 hours so... Yeah, Baxter Ward.

I'm splitting my confession ramblings into three posts for convenience. Parts 2 and 3 will be finished soon... Hopefully. Once they are i will place links to all the parts in each post (if i learn how to,,,,). Also wow, this post took me way too long to write, holy shit.

Peace out <3

Part 2!

#baxter ward #baxter dlc #our life beginnings & always #our life beginnings and always #olba baxter #olba #gamer hours #sunbloom talks #our life #gb patch games #haru's surname is going through a crisis #in that playthrough i used “nakamura” but i often use “kealoha” as well #i'm working on step 1 haru drawings so you'll see in sometime!!

309 notes · View notes

nemo-me-impune · 4 months

Text

Listening to Larry talk about Friends explains why they ended it the way they did but I do think the issue that's occurred is that the reason Friends ended the way it did is because Friends was about people who were inevitably going to get older and get married and have kids and that was always the stated goal

Whereas the whole point of Ghosts is they can't change. They never will change. There is no progression for any of them, including Alison and Mike.

I think it speaks to the class thing I was thinking about before (it's almost impossible to stop being poor after all) but also the difference between the 90 and the 2020s is that none of us are able to progress the way we were told we were supposed to. We can't afford to get married, we can't afford to have children, we can't afford to buy a house and move out of the city.

And Alison and Mik as representatives of our generation get those things, but they don't really do it the way they're supposed to. They're married, but they're very young for a married couple who met when they were still in school. They've got a house in the country, but it's a ridiculous crumbling thing that is never going to be sustainable.

So when they have the baby, the ultimate mark of being an Adult, it feels off to us that they get that without there being talk of finances, about childcare, about support. Anyone who has kids these days only manage it with the help of extended family, and Alison's family can't physically help her (which hits so close to me as the child of disabled parents you don't even know lol) so of course Mike's mum steps in and steps over.

But the resolution should have been leaving the house for the good of the child, for the financial security, the tangible reality of the situation. Not because the Ghosts were lesser in some way than the nuclear family model, which is how it came across to many.

It's like when you put a family member into a care home. Of course you want to be able to care for them and be there for them but reality means they need more help than you can give them, and you need to be able to live your own life outside of being a caretaker.

Alison should not be expected to be a caretaker for eight people and a massive house at the cost of her life and her own desires of a family with Mike. That doesn't mean she doesn't love them, but given the choice she had to prioritise herself. That should have been where the emotional focus was.

I hate to say it's a little out of touch but I honestly think that might be a bit of what's going on here.

Ironically it seems like the ending comes from a place in the past, like pre 2016. Not the distant past but distant enough for us to notice.

#bbc ghosts #bbc ghosts spoilers #negativity #although more critical than negative #I agree with the story beats but the framing was off

56 notes · View notes

cypressure · 2 months

Note

Have you got any recommendations for dinosaur nonfiction books?

Your art makes me so happy 🥺

hey thank you, i appreciate your saying so (and also giving me the opportunity to talk about dinosaur books)! under the cut for length--

starting off with an overview before getting down to specific topics, my first recommendation is Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved by Darren Naish & Paul Barrett. this was first published in 2017, but the third edition was just released with plenty of updates to reflect new discoveries and hypotheses. it's very thorough and accessible, and takes you through all the major clades of dinosaurs and everything we know about their evolution and ecology. this is definitely the best starting point for getting up-to-date with dinosaur science.

the end-Cretaceous extinction has been getting lots of popular attention lately (thanks to DePalma and the Tanis site I suspect), so if you'd like to learn more on this subject, I love The Last Day of the Dinosaurs by Riley Black, also from 2022. this is the scariest dinosaur book i've ever read--she paints an incredibly vivid and horrifying picture of the aftermath of the meteor impact, and of how the animals which survived the event managed to live on.

if you want to read about how exactly we know all these things about dinosaurs, I just recently picked up Dave Hone's How Fast Did T. rex Run? (titled The Future of Dinosaurs in the UK i think), published in 2022. he delves into what we know from the fossil record and how paleontologists work to figure these things out, as well as what we don't know yet and what we probably will never know, and the difference between those two. i suggest it for learning about paleontology as a scientific process, and it's a very interesting read.

so far, all of these books have been about dinosaurs as a whole; if you are looking for popular publications about specific groups, there are not as many options unfortunately (for some reason there isn't a huge audience for 200-page books about obscure thyreophorans. sighs disappointedly). most of what we get is about the large, more familiar clades; you will see books on tyrannosaurs, and there's a few field guide-style books about Mesozoic birds (which tend to be very beautifully illustrated but kind of technical; see below for titles). my pick for clade-specific books is The Sauropod Dinosaurs: Life in the Age of Giants, by Mark Hallett and Matthew Wedel, from 2016. this one goes into serious detail about every conceivable aspect of sauropod paleobiology, which as you can imagine is a huge and fascinating topic, and all the artwork is gorgeous. caveat: it being 8 years old means there's some science in there which will be outdated by now, but as far as i can remember it's still worth checking out.

and finally, as a paleoartist, i have to mention paleoart books! if you're interested in the science behind the choices paleoartists make when reconstructing extinct animals, especially for your own practice, i cannot recommend enough Mark Witton's The Paleoartist's Handbook, from 2018. he thoroughly explains how to interpret fossil evidence and paleontological research from an artist's perspective, and covers about everything from soft tissues to composing a scene. this is one of less than a handful of books on this particular topic, and it's definitely the most in-depth.

with any scientific subject you have to be careful with older books; this is especially true with paleontology since the discipline has accelerated so much over the past few decades and shows no signs of slowing down. i would even hesitate to recommend anything published more than 10 years ago, since new discoveries and technology have made so many questions and hypotheses moot (and in turn created new and more interesting ones)! the only exception to this is a recommendation for historical significance: Robert Bakker's 1986 The Dinosaur Heresies is essential to understanding what modern paleontologists call the Dinosaur Renaissance, or how our perception of dinosaurs changed from lizardlike evolutionary dead-ends into the active, successful bird ancestors we see in reconstructions now. this book kickstarted that change, and it's easy to see how: it's a very engaging read, Bakker argues his points very effectively, plus there are cute dinosaur cartoons. (i also love a lot of older works for their personal significance, but gushing about formative dinosaur books is something for another post.)

finally, thanks to the wonders of the internet, books are not the only way to learn about current dinosaur science! the best way is always by reading paleontology papers, where scientists directly describe and illustrate new discoveries or hypotheses. however, i know jumping straight into the technical literature may be overwhelming: fortunately a lot of paleontologists have social media, blogs, and/or podcasts where they write about their work and new developments in the field. the heyday of science blogs is kind of past, but there are still a few very good ones out there: this list on Feedly has a good selection to browse. being just self-published material, all of these don't have the benefits of peer review that papers and books do, so always be willing to take things with a grain of salt and do your own research.

of course this is a non-exhaustive list, especially limiting myself to both works recently published and which i have actually read. i've certainly forgotten or missed out on many new paleontology books (Dean Lomax's Locked in Time is one of these which i still haven't gotten ahold of yet, but which im very excited to get to); i welcome any additional recommendations or thoughts from the rest of paleoblr!

i hope this was helpful and i wish you luck in your reading :)

#paleoblr #paleontology #book recs #process #cypress #< - the fursona you see at the top of this post. say hi #sorry this took me so long to post! both putting it together and then actually remembering to post it took more time than i expected #but i wanted to be thorough

47 notes · View notes

fractualized · 7 months

Text

Three Jokers Are Not Better Than One

(or, cheap twists don't make a good story)

Would you look at that? It's time to bitch about Three Jokers!

(spoilers for a 3-year-old comic ahead)

Gotham War got me into hater mode, so I figured it was time to take a second look at Three Jokers, written by Geoff Johns and drawn by Jason Fabok. I first read it when the issues came out, and I thought it was possible that the story isn't as bad as I remembered. I don't know why, since for the past three years I've been haunted by the possibility of it being deemed canon.

Of course, at the time of conception, Three Jokers was intended to be canon. Johns set up the premise in the Darkseid War storyline of the 2011 Justice League run, in issues published in 2015/2016. Batman takes control of the omniscient Mobius Chair, and he tests it by asking who killed his parents. Then he asks a second question, which Hal Jordan presses him on several issues later.

[Justice League (2011) #42 & Justice League (2011) #50]

Four years later, when Three Jokers was set to be released towards the end of 2020, Johns did at first confirm it would be canon despite being released via Black Label, where books are not meant to be part of the larger continuity. In later interviews, however, this assertion got walked back in favor of saying the canonicity is up to each reader, which is kind of a wild thing to say. "Look, this story merely proposes that one of our most popular characters has actually been three different dudes the whole time, which totally has a negligible impact on how that character should be seen and has interacted with the world. Take it or leave it!"

But then, DC's idea of canon has been pretty squiggly of late, especially with the increasing multiverse shenanigans. In the final issue of Dark Knights: Death Metal in 2021, the reader is told, "with our past finally set, myriad new futures are opening up. And as hypertime heals, we'll likely experience flashes of them– and even alternate pasts– in pretty epic fashion." Infinite Frontier followed, with a press release declaring, "When our heroes saved the Multiverse from Perpetua in Dark Nights: Death Metal, everything was put back where it belonged… and we do mean everything. All the damage from all the Crises was undone [....]"

I have a lot of thoughts about this, revolving around what the heck does it mean for storytelling and how we should understand characters that apparently, somehow, everything is canon? How are we supposed to take this as anything other than the omniverse being an excuse for DC Editorial to wave off responsibility for a legible timeline? "Batman can be in two places at once because, uh, the Monitor sneezed?"

But this too-long essay is about Three Jokers, so I'll narrow my concern: if character histories can simply change with a multiversal glitch, in whatever overwrought way those are usually explained to us, then it sure feels like it doesn't matter that Three Jokers was published under Black Label. It sure seems like, at whoever's whim, Three Jokers can still get locked into the main storyline. I mean, Zdarsky still hasn't explained what that three Jokers shit in Batman #135 is about. On the other hand, we know that the explanation for the two Jokers in The Man Who Stopped Laughing does not involve the multiverse, and Joker is supposed to reunite with Batman over in Zdarsky's story when that story closes out, so… I actually have no reason to be confident that means anything.

"But why would Three Jokers getting canonized be so bad?" you may ask if you've never read Three Jokers (or if you fully enjoyed it).

Speaking for myself, it starts with the premise: taking a character and saying, "actually, this is not one complex guy but three different guys, which fractures the character's motivations and relationships over the last several decades." When that character is one you enjoy very much, this twist is not fun. It's a fundamental change to who they are.

Then five months before the release of Three Jokers #1, Johns and Fabok did an interview with Entertainment Weekly. Some things the pair said raised red flags:

1) Three Jokers' story would focus on the trauma that Barbara, Jason, and Bruce suffered at Joker's hands, per Johns. "If you suffer some trauma, you don’t just get over with it and move on with your life, it changes who you are. Sometimes it changes you for the better, sometimes it changes you for the worse. You can heal right, and you can heal wrong. That’s really what the book’s about: Healing right, healing wrong, and surviving."

2) Johns also said of the story: “It goes back to the beginning when Batman first encountered the Joker, but it’s also The Killing Joke and A Death in the Family that speak to the book and that we’re building off emotionally." And Fabok mentioned that the book's look would be based on the aesthetics of The Killing Joke: "I really want it to feel like it could be a spiritual sequel, at least artistically."

These remarks foreshadowed a disconnect. A key part of The Killing Joke itself is that both Joker and Bruce experienced terrible trauma ("one bad day"), but in responding to it, they made different choices: broadly, Joker choosing to hurt people versus Bruce choosing to help people. Johns excluding Joker from his comments about trauma felt like a sign that he ignored a key part of the character, despite Joker being a core part of a new tale "emotionally" inspired by TKJ.

(We're setting aside "you can heal right and you can heal wrong" for now. Ohhh, we'll get back to that.)

Johns' blind spot was confirmed a few months later when he was quoted by the DC Nation Twitter account: "There are very few characters that are, to me, as irredeemable as The Joker. There is nothing in him that is good."

Wow, what close analysis from Mr. Emotional Build.

Look, I don't need Joker to be redeemed or woobified. (Ask me about the "Pushback" storyline from 2004 and hear my gnashing teeth crack a filling.) But I would like the full breadth of his character acknowledged, especially when you're claiming you're writing about trauma, especially when you're creating a "spiritual sequel" to one of best known Joker stories (if not the best known one).

Then Three Jokers finally came out, and over three months it proved to be neither an examination of healing nor very interesting, at least not in an enjoyable way. What it has to "say" about trauma, for any of the characters, is no different than the limited conclusion made in previous Batman books: mainly the drumbeat of fighting off the darkness by being a bigger person— or at least not killing your enemy. Making Joker into a role played by three different people adds nothing; it amounts to little more than a gimmick.

Hell, even as a gimmick, it's flawed. Theoretically, the three Jokers represent phases of personality the Joker has embodied over the years— but the representations we get don't make sense. Here they are summed up in Book 3:

Sorry, what? The Criminal is less interested in theatrics? In what time period was the Joker ever not interested in making a big show of things in one way or another? Maybe this is supposed to be an "early" Joker in terms of the Rebirth/InfiniCrisisDarkCarnateTier/whatever more recent conception of him, but I'll wager that's not what people think about when they think of Joker at his start. They think about Golden Age Joker doing goofy shit and laughing maniacally. They're not expecting this morose man.

The other thing is that, in Book 1, the narrative "assigns" each of our three protagonists to a Joker: Bruce to the Criminal, who appeared at the start; Barbara to the Comedian, who shot her; and Jason to the Clown, who killed him. Now at first I thought Johns was saying one Joker took over after another, but since Barbara's attack and Jason's death happened 9 months apart in 1988, which are not different Joker eras, I think we're supposed to see them as sort of… cycling on and off depending on the needs of the scheme? Maybe? But the descriptions above are still confusing. Why am I supposed to see the Joker who got carried away with the fun of beating Jason with a crowbar and successfully blew him up as less sadistic than the other one?

Johns does appear to lampshade this confusion in the middle of Book 1, when we get all three Jokers in a cabin in the woods. The Clown and the Comedian have this exchange:

This and a later panel with the Comedian actually imply that he and the Clown are interchangeable, even though they're supposed to be different. So are they or not? Is there an actual reason we need three Jokers, or did Johns just think it was a neato idea and then spend four years trying to figure out a "layered" justification for it?

The other thing about this cabin scene, and about the Joker trio largely, is that it should be fun and it's not. There should be chaos! Zaniness! At the very least, all the narcissism in the room should generate a competitive friction, make their interactions more dynamic. (Really it should generate bloodshed and end with one man standing within like ten minutes, but I'll grant the choice to save that for Book 3.) Instead it's almost mundane. The cabin isn't even decorated! It's dark and dreary, like the Jokers are dark and dreary. If we're gonna have three Jokers, can't they at least be Jokering with each other?

The same thought comes when I consider the very beginning of Book 1. It all starts out like a typical Batman story: three deadly crimes are committed in one night, the Joker seemingly responsible for all of them, and Bruce, Barbara, and Jason are drawn together as they try to figure out what's up. Of course, thanks to the Magic Chair, Bruce already knows there are three clowns, but Barbara and Jason are thinking that Joker is working with two look-alikes to create confusion. And considering the basics of what happens in this story, what the Comedian's larger plan is meant to accomplish, why couldn't this have been written with just two look-alikes? I mean, yeah, it would require Johns to forget about his continuity bomb, but maybe the story would have been better (and shorter). Again, the creation of other Jokers isn't doing much for what the plot is getting at. The three crimes that start us off would still serve the function of reminding Bruce of how Joker's been a constant in his life. The taunting of a convincing Joker look-alike is enough to set off Jason's anger and sadness about what happened to him, and his fears of what he could become. The climax with Joe Chill would have to be redone, but the threat of him being Jokerized isn't the crucial plot point; the Comedian's film of him is. Bruce doesn't even have any substantial thoughts about there being three of his nemesis.

But, alas, the story goes how it goes. And as it goes, we also see that Jason behaves more cruelly in his search for Joker than Barbara and Bruce. For example, Jason attacks and threatens one of Joker's victims to get information, feeling justified because the guy has a rap sheet, while Barbara scolds him and Bruce tells the victim, "I'm sorry this happened." What I find notable about this is that while comics regularly present Jason as hot-headed and Barbara as reasonable, Bruce… uh… If you gather a random selection of Batman comics, you'll find that his level of violence is all over the place. This story, however, requires a more somber Bruce, whose violence is more reactive, because Jason and Barbara serve Johns' dichotomy of "heal right" versus "heal wrong." We can't have Bruce on the sadistic side of the scale fucking that up, and besides, Jason's long been the posterboy for healing "wrong."

That notion comes to a head at the end of the issue. The heroes have encountered and subdued the Clown at the aquarium when Jim Gordon calls. The GCPD found another Joker, and Bruce leaves Jason and Barbara alone with the Clown to assist.

Goodness me, who could have predicted Jason might kill a restrained Joker? Not Bruce, who absolutely should have. Barbara is there to talk Jason down, sure, but what else is the Clown gonna do but needle Jason to kill him?

The Clown cackles then, declaring that Red Hood is his Robin, for the very reason of his violent impulses and how much he upsets the Bat, and of course Jason shoots him in the head, because oof.

Honestly, on this second read I found this scene a smidge too oof. Jason was a determined little Robin, dedicated to saving his awful mother to the very end, and him cracking and declaring that he'll work for a criminal… I don't know. I don't think it's impossible, but it feels superfluous. I don't think such a reveal is necessary to get Jason to fire. I think the Clown focusing on how the new Red Hood is actually quite similar to the old, as well as how Jason matters less than the neverending battle between Batman and Joker, is enough emotional stress to get to the same end result.

But that's a minor quibble; we've got bigger fish to fry! Such as the specter of the "healed right/healed wrong" dynamic that reappears as Barbara and Jason argue over the Clown's corpse.

Barbara leaves angrily after this, but man. I wish the story overall took more cues from this scene, that in a Black Label story we could stray from the simplistic idea of how a Good One would save Joker and a Bad One wouldn't. I want to explore Jason's assertion that Barbara didn't do her best to uphold Bruce's one rule. I want to know if maybe she's tired of being the fucking Good One.

Hell, let's go further: what if we were surprised by Barbara killing the Clown before Jason could? The Clown's taunting about Jason could have gotten to her too. We could have a story about how being put on a pedestal as a Good Victim is a cage, about Barbara struggling with falling from that position, about Jason feeling unsure if he should commend her for an act that obviously hurts her or comfort her for something he would have done himself. That's an actual examination of the struggle to process violent trauma— that you don't need three Jokers for!

But the story we have never gets back to Jason's suggestion that Barbara let the murder happen, not in this issue or the following two. This issue just ends with Jason hoping that the Clown was the actual Joker and that he didn't kill the wrong guy, which is a pretty "LOL oh yeah" line when you remember that he and Barbara don't know there are three Jokers yet.

Book 1, truth be told, isn't that bad. On my reread, I started to wonder if my only real issue with the story is that it's not as engaging as all the hype insisted it would be.

Then Book 2 starts, and goddammit. GODDAMMIT.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: why can we not have more DC writers having fun with Joker's multiple-choice backstory? Why did Johns read The Killing Joke and decide his interpretation would be this?:

Ugh. UGGGHHH.

I don't recall the issue, but there's these panels that circulate sometimes of Harley Quinn encountering Joker in Arkham or prison, in which they exchange words about their relationship and he's a creep and she kicks his ass. I have no problem with Harley kicking Joker's ass. He deserves it. My problem is that those panels play out like an empowerment scene in a generic Lifetime movie. My problem is that it doesn't have the flavor of Harley and Joker. My problem is that it's lazy.

And that's my problem with what Johns does with Joker's backstory in TKJ. He could take it anywhere, and he goes gritty without an ounce of nuance. Because hey, this is Joker, and "there is nothing in him that is good," right? We'll just ignore that one of DC's all-time classics, the one this garbage is ✨inspired by✨, has Joker reflecting on a past for which he is an unreliable narrator, but in which he laments how his comedy dream put his growing family in a bad spot, in which he desperately aligns with shady people so his family can be secure, in which he's devastated by losing the only person he has in the world and their growing baby. And these memories could be distorted or entirely fake, but what's interesting in TKJ is that Joker never tells anyone else about them, even in his big speech to Batman. The flashbacks are not part of an attempt to manipulate anyone or convince them his world view is correct. It's a tale in Joker's head that, regardless of the truth, deeply affects him. It's what drove him to go to horrendous lengths to prove his point, even if the point is wrong.

But fuck that, right? We're going lazy! We're going cheap! We're going with the Jeannie backstory, but actually Joker was only terrible to her. The Comedian fondly fantasizes about terrorizing her and their son, because he's 100% an abuser, because he must have always been that way, with not a single appealing quality that we need to reckon with as we so often do with toxic people in real life. Even the freaking stutter Joker had as he struggled with stand-up comedy is given to Jeannie. Seriously?

I cannot emphasize enough: fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck this "take."

On the other hand, when the Comedian is brought out of his stupor, we do finally get something super funny:

At least we'll always have this panel of Joker eating cat food.

The Criminal only interrupted the daydream because he's mad the Clown is dead, and the Clown was so eager to be dead I thought it was part of their plan buuuuuuut I guess not. Then we jump to Bruce figuring out that the "Joker" that Gordon cornered is just another victim, a dead judge. Barbara appears to tell Bruce what Jason did, and they discuss it over comms on the road.

Bruce, shockingly, says that they can't really do anything about what Jason did.

Pretty sure the guy who batarang'd Jason's throat rather than let him kill Joker would have a more intense reaction than this?? Or any reaction other than sober understanding? Maybe Bruce is still coping with finally dealing with three Jokers at once and will flip his shit when this all resolves. Or maybe he's just thinking, "it's okay, I still have two emotional support clowns left!" I don't know. He's so weirdly passive in this story.

What's more aggravating, though, is the other aspect of this conversation, that Jason "healed wrong." It would be one thing as a pat judgment Bruce is making, but we know from that interview that Johns positioned "healed right versus healed wrong" as the story's theme. It's not good. It's way too glib a framing for evaluating how people who've gone through trauma are dealing with it, in any context. Sure, there are better and worse coping mechanisms, better and worse outcomes, but healing is an ongoing process that can be so individualized. Reducing it to "right" and "wrong," saying that one is "strong" and implying that the other comes from some sort of deficiency… I hope Johns just spoke poorly and he does understand that it's not that simple.

Now, is it a stretch to apply that critique to Jason killing criminals at his whim? Sure, deciding that you personally should play the role of judge, jury, and executioner is not a good way to deal with trauma. But that's not exactly what's happening here. This "healed right versus healed wrong" framing is being applied to Jason Todd going after the Joker. Obviously, I like Joker, but can we be real about this? Can we be real in a Black Label book, the imprint where comic books (allegedly) have room to take things more seriously? Can we take the question of, "In this fictional world where Joker is an unstoppable fatal mayhem machine— now THREE machines— is it completely out of bounds for someone to finally kill him?" and be like, "Errr…not really?" When this story explicitly denies Joker even one teeny redeeming human quality, are we seriously still going to say, "Well, you know, if Jason takes the life of the man who murdered him and millions other people, because he doesn't want him to kill more people, which Joker will absolutely do and we all know it, doesn't that say something awful about Jason?" Are we really??

Plus the judgment about healing is put into the mouth of a man who— say it with me!— regularly dresses as a bat and beats the ever-loving shit out of people because his parents were murdered. Toning Bruce down in this particular story doesn't hide that.

Although, what I think is intended as a flawed assumption on Bruce's part is his other line, "Jason's suffering." It implies that Barbara still isn't, but we are shown Barbara reflecting on her paralyzation, even now when she's "strong" and has healed "right." And the story will get into this a bit later, but it absolutely does not let Barbara and Jason escape the dichotomy. To the story's detriment, their interactions go in a wild direction, but we'll get to that.

First, Bruce and Barbara's investigation leads them to Blackgate, because the fingerprints on the murder weapon for the dead judge belong to none other than Joe Chill. However, we learn that Chill has been in the medical wing for two months because he's sick with cancer.

Meanwhile, Jason's investigation leads him to a closed athletic center. The pool inside is filled with the chemicals stolen from Ace at the start of the story, as well as dozens of pale naked bodies with green hair. Jason's attempt to contact Barbara is interrupted when one of said bodies bursts to life and grabs his ankle, asking for help. Jason reacts with hostility, kicking the poor guy, and I'm not sure if it's because he's unnerved by a room of floating Jokers or if it's pretty normal for him to not keep his cool even for the sake of an obvious victim of a horrible crime. A Gotham City vigilante can't be that shocked by one guy being alive in a pile of bodies, can they?

But that's all setup. When the guy falls unconscious, the Criminal and the Comedian ambush Jason and drag him away, one saying, "He'll be perfect."

It's a line that meanly gets your hopes up, poking at a subject that could make all this more interesting.

Jason awakes, strapped to a chair and as naked as the bodies in the pool. The Criminal says he and his pals have spent a lot of time trying to find the perfect candidate for a new Joker, and he repeats the question of what's up with Jason taking on the Red Hood moniker.

It seems that, like DCAU Tim Drake in Batman Beyond before him, Jason Todd will be transformed into a fourth Joker! But it won't only be because it will wreck the Batman. It'll be because Joker already sees himself in Jason. This is something new to explore! There are places to go here; other comics hinting at Joker's past point to him having a childhood not dissimilar to Jason's, of growing up on the street, experiencing abuse, and learning unpalatable ways to survive. We could see Jason struggling with the possibility that he has more in common with Joker than he wants to think about!

But we won't. Inexplicably, the Criminal turns around and says that despite their similarities, despite Jason hating Batman as much as he does, despite the Comedian (presumably) saying Jason is perfect, and despite getting Jason ready for the pool, Jason actually isn't good enough, not "bright" enough. (Because all the Jokers we have in this dour story are so bright?)

And then the Comedian just beats the hell out of Jason (saying it's more fun than the first time, in another annoying nod to how he and the Clown are the same damn Joker) and says they're leaving Jason alive because maybe he'll prove them wrong and he'll become a new Joker after all? But the current Jokers aren't really going to go for it. Their interest is just abandoned.

The point is only to freak Jason out, so when Bruce and Barbara arrive, fight a horde of Jokerized victims, and find Jason alone and naked and vulnerable, he does not react well when Bruce tries to ask if he's okay. Jason turns on him and blames him for setting him on this path, for leaving him in the dirt, for replacing him easily. He lashes out at Barbara too, asking if she's going to lock him away, but ultimately it's easier to take comfort from her.

A direct reference to Return of the Joker here, focusing on the shadow Batman casts over the lives of his partners, the responsibility he bears in how Joker targeted them to hurt the Bat, and how poorly he offers comfort himself.

It does segue nicely into the next scene, when Bruce and Barbara get Jason to her apartment to rest. Bruce leaves to keep investigating, and Barbara is pissed because this is the exact lack of support that contributed to Jason going his own way. Support is highlighted again when Jason wakes in Barbara's room and looks around.

Aside from Barbara seeking out books to deal with her physical and mental struggles after Joker's attack, the old calendars show the help she received from her father and health professionals.

And this scene does get into something that's missing from TKJ, in which Bruce tells Joker that no, not everyone will retreat to madness like he did. How we react to trauma is greatly affected by the resources available to us.

This scene is nice. It's nice to come from the action to some place quiet and for someone to say this Jason, something he's wanted to hear. It's late in coming, but it's pain validated.

And then Johns fucking ruins it.

Man. Just. Ugh. Yeah, I know people seek comfort in moments of vulnerability, but… the reader knows. The reader knows moments like this aren't included to be like "oh, this was an isolated blip of human behavior! The story won't call back to it later!" Johns apparently wants Barbara/Jason to be a thing. And if you want a solid reason for that… well, we don't get any good ones.

Meanwhile, Bruce is in the cave, and I'm only mentioning that because these folder labels are incredibly funny:

Then the issue ends with Joe Chill kidnapped from Blackgate by the Comedian, who has a video camera and asks him to talk about why he really killed the Waynes. Dun dun dunnnnnnnn! Is that a twist on the way?! Well, yeah, but not really the one you think and it's incredibly stupid.

Finally we are at Book 3. Jason is suited back up, and he and Barbara have met up with Bruce in the cave to figure out how the Jokers plan to create another, better Joker.

Soooooo Jason and Barbara had that whole conversation. Jason was shaken by what the Jokers said to him. But now he's completely back on track. Allllllrighty.

Jason and Bruce then have an argument rehashing everything that Barbara said she was sorry Jason experienced, with Bruce saying of course he'd love to kill the Joker, and Jason pointing out that he obviously hasn't. Jason also says he thinks the only reason Bruce isn't turning Jason in for killing the Clown is to protect Batman's identity. Barbara just tries to de-escalate with her doe eyes. They're back to the status quo, and it sucks, which is the point. When they try to get back to the investigation at hand, Bruce pauses and attempts to apologize.

And again, with this blatant TKJ reference, it feels like we need to dig into the parallels between Jason and Joker! They both insist it's too late! They won't take help! But surely Jason isn't as far gone! There's something to chew on here.

But nah, this story is heading toward a big ol' revelation, foreshadowed here:

🎶 Why the fuck you lyin'? 🎶

Finally they get the alert that Joe Chill was kidnapped, and on investigating his cell, Bruce finds a bunch of letters addressed to… himself, Bruce Wayne. He seeks out the prison reverend.

Which is unintentionally hilarious, because in the storyline that started this whole three Jokers nonsense, there's a Batman Darkseid War one-shot where Joe Chill's behavior does not remotely align with this.

Lol comics are fun.

In the middle of Bruce investigating the letters, we get Jason being all repentant with Babs again.

You just said? You totally were?? Gonna kill more clowns??? How is this supposed to come off as genuine? Granted, Jason doesn't try to kill the other Jokers after this, but the apparently impetus for reversing course is... uh... we'll get there.

Anyway, among Chill's letters are tickets to the Monarch Theater, so the heroes all head over for whatever the Jokers have set up for them, which of course includes another horde of failed Joker zombies. During the fight, the Comedian's interview of Joe Chill plays on the screen, and the Criminal reveals they have Chill tied up in a chair suspended over a vat of green chemicals.

As Chill on screen explains that he killed the Waynes out of hatred and envy for how much they had, and how much he regrets his actions, the Criminal explains that he considered both Jason and Barbara as strong candidates for the new Joker. And wait. WAIT. Mr. Johns, sir, are you telling me it crossed your mind to write a story in which Barbara becomes the new Joker? That's so much more interesting than the bullshit we're getting! Imagine it: Barbara dealing with the dissatisfaction of being the "good, strong victim" and just losing her shit. You could combine that with how uneasy Jason is with his similarities to Joker, and maybe Jason is the one who convinces Barbara to turn back. This is Black Label! This could've been anything! Anything!

But we've got Chill. And the Criminal goes on to say the reason he wanted to make a new Joker at all:

Are… are you? I'm pretty sure Joker is pretty well fucking defined. He's a murderer with a very dark sense of humor who is obsessed with Batman. That's been a pretty good through-line.

Also, Joker pretty clearly means a lot to Batman, as that middle panel with Jason seems intended to remind us, but the Criminal does clarify that he wants to be "everything" to him, which is why he's pulling Bruce's parents' murderer into all this. I guess I can't blame him for reaching for the stars?

Cue big fight scene. The Chill recording continues to explain his regret, and soon the theater is on fire. Batman saves Chill and knocks the Criminal unconscious. Chill thinks Batman is going to kill him, but Bruce saves him from a falling brick wall instead— before the Criminal revives and tries to set off a bomb to kill them all, maybe. There's a BOOM flag sticking out of the dynamite a few panels later, after the Comedian shows up and shoots the Criminal in the head. TWIST!

The Comedian surrenders, and after a scene with Jason picking the most awkward time to suggest he and Barbara try being a couple and Barbara looking pissed she has to tell him no, we jump to Bruce and the Comedian in the armored police car.

As a batjokes shipper, looking at these pages is weird, because they are good food for the brainworms. The Criminal wanted to engineer a Joker who meant the most to Batman, but the Comedian wanted to be that Joker. It's a weird plan, considering that Joker prefers Batman over Bruce Wayne, so he would be more likely to not want to heal Bruce's wound lest the healing lead to less Batmanning, but still. This crazy plan is all about maintaining Batman's attention.

But I can only enjoy these panels out of context, not just because I'm pretty weary of insanely elaborate plans that manage to work out, but also because there's just so much to hate in the rest of the story, especially the real twist that closes it out.

Before we get to that, though, we're thrown back into the Jason/Barbara nonsense with a very gross letter he writes to her.

"Dear Barbara, I want to make a change. But I can't do that without you. I know I've come across cold and distant…"

1) Look, love can help people heal. Barbara could be a good friend advising Jason on what might help him. She could help bring him back into the batfam fold. This letter is not that. This letter is pushing someone to be in a romantic relationship with you for the explicit purpose of getting them to heal you. That's not how love works. That's using someone as a tool. It's supposed to be sad that Barbara never sees the letter but it's good, actually. Don't put that shit on her!

2) This romance came out of freaking nowhere and now we get Jason insisting he can simply stop being Red Hood for the sake of it— but only for the sake of it, apparently! Does Jason think his worldview as Red Hood is an impediment to healing or not? This is just surface-level melodramatic nonsense. And I wish that was the point, but no. Again, the letter getting swept away is presented as sad.

3) Speaking of which, who tapes a confessional letter that exposes your vigilante identity to a door where anyone can see it? You'd slip it under the door at least. Johns couldn't figure out any other way for the letter to vanish? Get out of here with this contrived nonsense. There should've been panels of Jason rereading the letter, realizing how unhinged it is, and throwing it away himself.

4) Is the "Funtime Cleaners" guy in his purple uniform supposed to be Joker? Or representative of Joker's influence on their lives? If yes and it's him, he's a goddamn hero. If it's symbolic, what does that mean, that even when you reach out to others… elements out of your control will keep you alone? 'Cause that sure is bleak for a book allegedly about healing.

With all that done with, now we get to the big twist, the dumbest fucking part of this story, the end, the takeaway. Of course it involves more crimes against The Killing Joke, which I'm increasingly convinced no one at DC has actually read in the past thirty years.

Bruce drives up to Alaska, and we get this reveal.

Do the kids still *headdesk* nowadays? That's what I'm doing. There will be a blood stain.

1) So Bruce has known the Joker's identity, or at least the Comedian's, basically the whole time. We're just retconning that the Joker question he asked the Magic Chair wasn't for information; it was a second test question. And all this is in the face of Bruce lamenting many times over the years that he doesn't know who Joker really is, of him lamenting it in The Killing goddamn Joke. "I don't know him, Alfred. All these years and I don't know who he is any more than he knows who I am. How can two people hate so much without knowing each other?" We're just. Fucking excising that. A line alluding to Bruce's motivation for visiting Joker in TKJ's opening scene.

2) We're rounding out the lazy revisions to the TKJ backstory with some copaganda! Geoff Johns doesn't think it's possible for Joker to have been anything but a horror to his family, but he does think it's possible that random officers in the friggin' Gotham City Police Department— in early Batman lore no less, when they were at their most corrupt— would fundraise for a "lady" they clearly don't know to get her out of the city to safety. Also, what was the plan for when Joker asked to see his wife's dead body?? Congrats, you've come up with something dumber than "Pushback."

3) This scrawls more highlighter on how bad the premise of there being three Jokers is, because the flashback in TKJ happens before Joker starts out. Like that's how Bruce always recalls it; he didn't meet the Joker until after what happened at Ace Chemicals. So isn't Jeannie then actually the Criminal's wife? Because the Criminal is the one who behaves as Bruce remembers Joker was at the start. So is the Comedian obsessed with the Criminal's wife for some reason? Or is the Comedian actually the first Joker, and the Criminal came later and used to be more wacky? What is going on here?

Under all these questions, per the final page, the point of Three Jokers is still visible: ultimately, his victims matter more than he does. But that's a hilarious point to a story that revolves around three of the guy, with very little payoff to the gimmick, and when part of the plot is that the heroes still shouldn't kill him.

And again, just because a story makes reference to healing, it doesn't mean it's "about" healing. The most we get is the knowledge that Barbara and Jeannie received support from other people. There's no discussion of how long it took either of them, of why Barbara came out the other side not wanting to kill Joker, of anything Jeannie has done since she left Gotham. The possibility that Jason could find connection is promptly throttled by a forced romance. It's implied that the Comedian's plan worked for Bruce, as we see Bruce at Chill's deathbed, holding his hand, and at Chill's grave. You might be interested in Bruce's thoughts as he juxtaposes Chill's repentance against the fact that his parents are still dead, so you can assess if this really would affect the feeling of loss that drove him to his lifelong mission, but you won't get them. The "how" of healing is up to the reader— who is never asked to extend the same thought process to the Joker. And you personally do not have to give a crap about Joker, but again, if this book is supposed to be about responses to healing, about Jason's response versus Barbara's, then taking an actual look at Joker feels relevant!

So there we are: fourteen pages of me venting my little heart out, hoping the premise of Three Jokers never gets looped into canon. I'm well aware that my personal attachment to a character means nothing against DC's incentives to promote stories with Big Twists (and endless events and multiverse bullshit), but then again, those incentives are based on what people will buy. So if I can add to the voices saying that Three Jokers is bad, and you should not spend your money on it or books like it, maybe I can be one vibe of many that keeps the Joker as one single bat-obsessed murderclown...

Though if not, I can always retreat to older comics. I still have plenty of those to get through.

#three jokers #the killing joke #batjokes #batman #joker #bruce wayne #barbara gordon #jason todd #analysis #my jibber-jabber #tl;dr three jokers is just usual batman stuff with a dumb gimmick #and jaybabs thrown in for the lulz

123 notes · View notes

black-aurora-nora · 1 year

Text

The Lie Above Pt. 1 | Yandere!TMNT (2016) x Teen!Reader

The TV loudly played throughout the sewer that had been your home for a few months now. The same theme song that you'd now grown to hate played for the umpteenth time and you found yourself unable to watch what was once your favorite TV show.

You huffed, turning down the volume and picking up a word search book. This would be your 20th one, if you remembered correctly.

Flipping through the pages, you huffed again and threw the book back onto the small table.

You hated this.

You hated when your brothers left, but you understood that it couldn't be helped.

The world was ending outside, above the sewers. A couple months ago, an alien species called the Krang began their colonization of the world. Your brothers were some of the only few left that could help in the rebellion.

And though you understood that they were needed, you wished that your life wasn't so dull. Hiding out was incredibly draining.

You missed your old life.

Your mom and dad.

You used to cry a lot when you first found out they were dead. Leo was the one that told you and Mikey would stay behind to watch after you while you grieved.

The both of you grew close during that time but then you got better and they had to start going out to fight the bad guys.

Sometimes you worried about them.

Speaking of the devil, you heard the telltale sounds of your brothers cheering and whooping as they arrived back to the base.

"Wassup, (Y/N)!" Mikey greeted.

You mustered up a small smile, "Hey."

Raph groaned at your lack of enthusiasm, "Oh no," He groaned, "She's in a sour mood again. You run out of word searches again?"

Leo elbowed him, shooting him a sharp look, "Don't."

"What's troubling you, my little sister?" Mikey asked in a silly tone, coming over to sit by you and drape a green arm over your shoulder, "C'mon, you can tell Big Bro Mikey, ignore the big bad Raph."

“There’s nothing to do down here. You guys are gone for hours and I’m stuck here watching reruns and doing word searches.” You explained, “I need something else to do.”

Donnie hummed at that, taking in what you said with a push of his glasses, “Like what? I’m sure we can find something else for you above ground.”

You shrugged, sliding away from Mikey.

An idea popped into your head and you blurted it out, “What if there was a way I could help you guys out during your missions?”

“No.” Leo responded firmly.

You slumped slightly before continuing, “I don’t mean go out with you guys,” you corrected, “I meant what if Donnie taught me how to use some of his computers? I could be the team’s ‘eye’.”

Then you’d never be bored and know that they’re safe. It was perfect.

“No, (Y/N).”

You furrowed your brows, “Why not? I’m not in the line of fire and I’m actually a part of the team! I could be great help as long as Donnie teaches me!”

The three brothers looked to the leader and Leo only kept his eyes rested on you.

Raph crossed his arms, cocking his head to the side, “Do you really think that you’re smart enough to use Donnie’s computers? Or that Donnie has enough time to teach you?”

Those were good questions but you had answers.

“I’m not smart enough now, but I can learn and you guys can’t go out during the day so that leaves plenty of time for him to teach me.” You felt yourself glowing at how well you answered.

How could they say no now?

"Look, (Y/N)," Leo started with a sigh and you felt yourself slump ever so slightly, "Donnie is already our tech guy. We can't waste time trying to teach you what he already knows."

Donnie nodded sadly in agreement, "Leo's right, (Y/N). Plus, we need to rest up during the day. I can't have a sharp mind on little sleep, y'know?" He chuckled nervously.

"So... I'm just supposed to stay trapped down here doing nothing?!" You asked rhetorically, "You guys can go out and fight in the rebellion but I have to sit down here with no one to talk to and three things to do?" Your arms crossed over your chest, "Yeah, that sounds fair."

Raph scoffed at your display of attitude, "You make it sound like we have fun while we're out there."

"It's better than staying down here," You huffed, unable to stop yourself from speaking out your thoughts, "Sometimes I wish I'd died before I'd met you guys."

You felt a release in your chest. It kind of felt good to get that out. But it also felt bad because you knew it would hurt your brothers.

But maybe you wanted to hurt them. All they ever did was leave you down in the sewers expecting you to greet them with a smile every time they came back. It was only fair that they feel a bit of what you dealt with every day.

There was a stunned silence that surrounded you and you almost said more.

"You don't mean that." Leo told you tightly. He sounded like he knew what he was talking about.

A shrug left you, "Yeah, because Leo always knows the answer." You said with whimsical sarcasm. "Leo always knows what's best, so who gives a fuck what (Y/N) thinks, right?"

"(Y/N)-" Mikey reached out for your shoulder but you stood up.

"Let's just get poor (Y/N) some more puzzle books, that'll shut her up. Let's make sure she doesn't get too close to Mikey because I'm Leo and what I say goes, right?"

Despite how visibly upset you were, Leo's fortitude didn't crack.

"You're obviously upset and saying things you don't mean. Why don't you go cool off in your room?"

Without another word, you beelined straight to your room and slammed the door.

The brothers remained silent for a few more moments until Raph spoke up.

"She read you for filth, huh?" He chuckled.

Mikey snorted at the comment, “Yeah, Leo, that must’ve sucked. I’m glad I wasn’t on the receiving end of that one.”

“I don’t know if more word searches is going to fix this.” Donnie thought for a moment, “I can try and get some other TV shows burned on some CDs but who knows how long that’ll hold her over until the next tantrum.”

“We’ll have to talk to her later. Try to help her understand that she’s got no choice but to stay down here.” Leo told his brothers.

“Probably need to make this ‘rebellion’ seem more dangerous than she previously thought.”

With that said, Donnie turned to go to his computers, “Since (Y/N) went to bed early, I’m going to make sure that her parents aren’t still looking for her on the news channel.”

“Good idea. Hopefully they’ll lose hope soon.”

The four brothers went their separate ways and (Y/N) quickly scurried back to her room, heart in her stomach.

What the hell was going on?

169 notes · View notes

brynhildr13 · 1 month

Text

About the GazettE.

TL;DR I had recent experiences that reinforce my belief that Reita REALLY is still with me and with all of us. Even if they can be easily explained as coincidental. Please if you want, share something that has been helpful to heal. Take care. Gazerock is not dead. Gazerock never dies.

Full post under cut.

I consider myself spiritual, but not really religious. But let me take you through my last few days, if you so care. Its important to me and I want to share this in hopes that the others in this Fandom know that I share the pain and want to spread my own love and solace and peaceful mourning.

I took an hour drive to my twin sister's to have our birthday hangout on Wednesday. I had the GazettE on plus other vkei groups on shuffle, but I kept skipping most of the other groups trying to find the GazettE songs. A few came on and even with the heavy and rock and headbanging songs I was just sobbing. To the point where I told myself, "you have to keep your eyes open. You need to watch the road." But the TEARS were plenty and heavy. I also started to judge myself a little. Wondering why I was SO emotional.

Then I had one of those intuitive downloads where like, you know it didn't come from your own brain and then after you hear it your mind expands. I don't know who's voice it was. I couldn't repeat it if I tried. But it said, quote "but feeling is healing."

And I lost it all over. Because I knew it was right and I needed to sit with the feelings. So I let myself cry as much as I could.

And then, To Dazzling Darkness came on.

My favorite song. Well, one of them. The whole Beautiful Deformity album is iconic, but that song specifically is one of my favorites BECAUSE of Reita's bass part. (Plus my twin sister, with her music degree, thinks the song is well written and can back up why and that means a lot to me that my sister who isn't the most into heavy metal or knows the group near as well as I do likes THEIR songs BECAUSE they're good).

And after that I laughed a little and wiped my eyes and said, "ok. I get it. It has to mean you're here right now. Thank you."

Maybe it came from Reita. I'd like to think so.

Had tons of fun with my sister. Come home. Worked Thursday. That night i shed a tear or two as i watched a few music videos in bed. And i just said outloud and in my head. "As long as he's okay. I'd like a sign that he's okay, please." And i fell asleep. Fast forward to today.

Today's our birthday. I planned to grab my free trenta from Starbies cuz $0 is the only amount I'll pay there unless I'm desperate. When I got to the screen in the drive thru, i meant to order 2 cake pops for my treat. Cuz fuck it. Im desperate. I'm a sad bitch and I want cake. It's my birthday. But I have anxiety and panicked and ended up asking for them at the drive thru window instead.

And they gave me the pops and I waited to hand them my card and after a few seconds she came back up and said, "oh don't worry about them today. No charge." Once I was sure they didn't want my money I thanked them profusely.

And I drove away. And I smiled from inside. Cuz I'd like to think that that was my sign he's okay. Maybe he pulled some strings to make me smile and to say, with that grin on his face, "don't worry about me. I'm here. I'll be here. Have a cake pop you sad bitch."

I meant it when I said before his spirit is here.. there's truly a feeling of the hole in my heart filling a little. I feel like emotionally and spiritually he's here in my peripheral stronger than ever before. Especially because I had become more of a backseat fan that would slink out of the woodwork when they had new content. My "obsession" (hyperfixation) died down a lot after saw them in 2016 and 2019, and I shared my gift of art and they shared their gift of music. But that love and adoration never ever left regardless of how often I talked about it and showed it. Or didn't. Cuz NO ONE else in my every day immediate circle knows anything about them.

Cuz here's the thing, and this is just me, too. I don't have any better way or words to string together to say this other than this way. I KNOW that they don't "know me". Like , I'm not missing the physical presence like they are. I didn't sit with him every day talking about all the most common shared passionate things we're doing, etc. Etc. So I can argue for myself that because of that the burden is likely to not be as heavy as any of theirs. But music and the arts connects hearts and minds beyond the physical. And for me listening to the music keeps him close, and I almost think that I can Feel him when I hear it. I can imagine him putting a hand on my shoulder (with his endearingly weird thumbs, they always made me giggle.)

Idk I think Im getting a little off track. Long story short, he was physically here with me when he was at the shows. When he wasn't he was still there, off across the world, doing his thing. and while I knew that like in an unconscious way, i never really sat with that to be like "what are they doing right this moment" or that i could energetically feel them all at any time, you know? And I remember getting upset with myself cuz my first coherent thought after I metaphorically picked my stomach off the ground after it fell out of my butt was "well, it HAS to be ok cuz the world's still gonna turn." And that felt horrible to say. And that's not fair to me or to anyone who needs time to process this. I mean, YA, I GUESS, it WILL. But once again. This WILL still hurt for a while. And that's okay. That doesn't mean i have to "get over" it right away either. Cuz once again. The physical loss isn't felt (yet) or as heavy as the bandmen will feel. But I will feel. And my feelings are my truth. And i can argue the band itself will have worse grieving till the sun dies, and that still doesn't mean my feelings are literally less than for my own personal experience. And thats okay.

But getting back to the point of this, thinking and believing Reita's making his way to us, I now just have this new vibration around me that I know is spiritual in nature and it is energizing the room, especially when I play their music. He's here.

I keep thinking about The Haunting of Hill House and Nell's words in the last episode. And I don't want that to ever fade. I'm determined to keep him strong in my heart and my mind. Just like ruki said he and the guys would.

Anyways, I hope yall are feeling as okay as you can. I hope this may touch someone and bring more healing. Free to share things in the comments if you want, too.

#the gazette #reita #visual kei #he's still here and he always will be.#gazerock is not dead #gazerock never dies

24 notes · View notes

mecachrome · 2 months

Note

Hi k! I love reading your ojp scholarship, as he has crept up on me and taken over my brain. Weird question but why do you think he picked Lando as his guy to be a bit weird about?

hi anon 🥺 first off thank u for indulging me & also that is not a weird question at all!!!

ok obviously this is just me saying Anything so i apologize in advance T__T but tbh i think a lot of it ultimately goes back to the idea of lando's ~Proximity~ and how a very specific mélange of career circumstance laid out a foundation for oscar's interest extremely early on... which. let me explain!!! more behind the cut:

not to go on too much of a tangent but if you look at the current drivers in f1 who are roughly within a few years of oscar's age and could have feasibly been someone he'd looked up to coming up the ranks, i'd say the cutoff is like, 2018? so the group is basically charles/george/alex/lando, of whom the first 3 were alr in intrepid together (albeit in diff categories) when oscar had barely started karting at all. also alex moved up to single-seaters very early and his career/road to f1 is obviously a lot more complex than the others, so in reality the only ones oscar would have properly "followed" are lando and george, and then having gone through rfm & british f4 himself it makes sense that he'd lean more toward lando.

...idk how to put this succinctly but basically it's Like: so you're a kid in australia who believes in yourself so much you're willing to move halfway across the globe and attend boarding school by yourself while all your friends and family and the World As You've Always Known It grows and changes without you, and the team you're determined to prove yourself at has semi-recently achieved victory with a guy named lando norris, who is now british f4 champion and runs three separate series the same year you move to europe and goes on to win them all, who is extremely accessible on social media and is kind of awkward but charming and uses dumb unfunny gifs that match your level of online humor exactly, and all the while you're learning to navigate a new country, learning what it really means to prioritize the endless grind of motorsport, and you wouldn't dare look too far ahead into the future but sometimes you see him and think if he can keep winning everything then why not you?

So. also i think what always krills meeee about young_814 lore is that you have to really envision what they looked like circa 2016 like they were undersized dweebs for a majority of their lives!!! anyway. but also nasdlfnagk every time oscar is like i thought you were 30 with your goatee going on haha xD it's like U knowww he's flashing back to that image of little baby lando in his mind..... ok i need to relax.

there are of course other people oscar could have been weird about but in the end it's kind of just a Skill Issue thing / matter of attrition. like from the rfm pack max and logan and guanyu never progressed the same way lando did, and you also have to remember that by the time lando was a mclaren junior he was genuinely their Golden BoyTM, and i know we often talk about lando's competency kink but oscar is also similar to that but in like a ........ he needs to respect you on some fundamental level to be obsessed with you. so the fact that he genuinely rates lando contributes (imo) massively to the fundamentals of their dynamic!!!

also tbh to me one of oscar's biggest mental strengths is specifically that he isn't a very sentimental person, as in if he left to another team i don't think he'd be torn up or anything about not having lando as a teammate lol. but i DO believe he's someone who adapts very well to unfamiliar environments and is always willing to match someone's energy/meet them where they're at (again - especially when he respects them), so he's basically the perfect person to vibe with lando's idiosyncrasies and engage in all the lighthearted push/pulling they have going on. because like he genuinely thinks lando is funny and is more than happy to follow along his meandering bantz and the weirder lando is the weirder oscar is in response and that's just how they Work ?__? so At the end of the day it's: oscar was once a teenage boy who followed (still does) at ladbible instagram and watched the same gaming streamers lando likes or whatever and has seen lando grow into the man he is today (way more confident and "visible" and successful, very much a menace, brutally honest as ever) from this Very Specific vantage point of basically the only other junior after lando to have followed the same path to f1 and been Equally as good / achieved the same stock.

*__* does any of that make sense.

do u ever think about how lando (extensively nurtured by the team as their only junior) and oscar (basically crashlanded belatedly into his seat) are the only driver pairing in team history to have both debuted with mclaren........ do you ever think about how in a way lando's karting success indirectly influenced oscar's move to europe. do you ever think about how if alpine weren't an abject mess we would have never gotten 814 as teammates and lando would have just been Another Guy On The Grid to him........ 😮‍💨

#ask #me: i'll be brief. also me: (writes 20 paragraphs)

25 notes · View notes

beautifulpersonpeach · 9 months

Note

hi Bp,

I want to know why the encore situation with jimin was made a big deal ?

Because i know jimin is a good singer..maybe due to his in ear problem he might not be able to sing well..but all his live performances of face were so good ...but people totally ignored it and just attack him for encore singing and made a big deal of it

Do u think it might have affected jimin ?

***

Hi @minimun,

This is what I wrote in response to the hate Jimin was getting after SMF Pt 2 was released. Please read it.

The reaction k-pop stans had to Jimin's encore stage can be explained by the reasons I gave in that post.

To quote a relevant section:

"...so long as a project comes from a BTS member, the default inclination of most k-pop stans is to hate it. Nearly all the hate you’re seeing for Jimin’s Set Me Free Pt 2 was nearly guaranteed to begin with, the autotune just made it easy as the excuse. I mean, there’s a whole subset of k-pop fandoms who believe he can’t sing despite years of proof to the contrary. Since 2018 (precisely after BTS was awarded the Cultural Order of Merit award), the best case scenario from k-pop stans towards music released by BTS, is for them to ignore it. If you’re expecting any other reaction from k-pop stans besides avoidance or hate, you’re hoping for too much. Personally, I don’t think it’s a big deal, but I do think you need to calibrate your expectations to the reality of the environment you’re in. It’s one reason ARMYs are so fervent in their support of BTS."

If k-pop stans see that a comeback/debut from a BTS member is going to be massively successful, as Jimin's FACE was, they immediately go looking for anything to take away from that success. Fans of SM groups have also been on a campaign since the 2016 daesang loss of EXO to BTS, to assert that BTS is inferior to SM groups in terms of vocals, and so therefore BTS does not deserve their status as the biggest group in k-pop. They often target Jimin, Tae and Jin in these claims and constantly look for any chance to prove "Jimin can't sing". Even Jungkook sometimes gets attacked. After 2018 when BTS and Jimin were further differentiated from much of k-pop by the government, the wider k-pop fandom has joined SM stans to take every opportunity to make the group's status seem less legitimate and one reason they often cite is that BTS is less talented than other groups in vocals and they use Jimin as the scapegoat.

If you've ever doubted anything I've been saying about how k-pop fandom actually feels about BTS, that feeding frenzy from antis, k-pop stans, akgaes, the blatant schadenfreude on display over the clips of Jimin's encore stage, should disabuse you of every doubt atp. It's not like he's the only person who's had faulty in-ears during an encore and as a result was trying to find his key, he's not even the only person who has had a bad encore stage. Even Twice's Momo who made a similar gaffe during her encore for The Scientist, she didn't get as much of a backlash as Jimin did. It doesn't matter whether he can sing or not. They don't care about whether he can actually sing or else they would've seen all the several examples of Jimin singing comfortably and skillfully. The only thing k-pop stans are interested in, is humbling him. Jimin's unusual tone in k-pop makes him an easy target for many k-pop stans who read "different" as "bad".

As I've said before, Jimin is my favourite vocalist in BTS. He's an excellent vocalist in my opinion and I'm very proud of how he's improved since debut.

One thing about BTS that's true for them than it is for any group I've seen, is that they actually sing live more times than not.

youtube

It's more impressive for me that their vocals are still in good condition despite 10 years of going as hard as they've gone in their live renditions. It's impressive for Jimin especially given his high range and how he's only expanded and strengthened it over the years.

I don't think the encore stage 'affected' Jimin the way some people imply. He's his own harshest critic for better or worse, and I suspect there's nothing a kpoppie or stan could've written that Jimin didn't briefly consider himself. Of course all the chaos around it was embarrassing, that's expected, but also he's been through worse and if there's any legitimate criticism, the person who will get to the heart of the matter quickest is Jimin.

Jimin is already something of a beast of an idol, but after that encore stage and everything that happened during FACE, he's reflected on what he needs to do to become even better than he is...

...and I'm genuinely terrified for the future of k-pop because Jimin is about to become even more untouchable. I'm not even trying to gas him up or lean into my bias. With all the years I've watched him, Jimin isn't someone you want to bet against, ever, and a lot of people are going to be in for a rude awakening when he's ready to show what he's worked on. Ignore k-pop stans. They exist only to serve as background noise and spectate as Jimin continues to build on his artistry, continues to gain the respect of industry professionals, and thrive.

Stream Set Me Free Pt 2 for clear skin and a healthy bank account.

youtube

#jimin #park jimin #jimin face #bts #bts solo careers #bts chapter 2 #kpop #kpop stans

55 notes · View notes

willowsallen · 10 months

Text

nataliegate 2023.

firstly, i want to start this by saying this is a safe space if anybody has felt they've been victimized by natalie. this is for any issue - if you're not indigenous, i ask that you don't mention the indigenous issues! this entire thing has opened up all the things that you guys have experienced related to her and i think it's only fair for you to have your peace, as well. in saying that, just know this entire thing stemmed from natalie claiming she was indigenous since around 2016 (i believe) and should remain the main issue (i.e. not starting a discussion within the tags and sending anons all over about anything other than the main issue). but with this, she has now deactivated her blog and left the rpc, so please feel free to come to me and discuss how she's hurt you - because chances are i've had similar issues!

i just want to say what i need to say and i want you all to know natalie was my real friend (i thought). we followed each other on all real-life social media, besides fb, i felt we built an indigenous community together, and she was somebody i felt i could go to if there was ever an issue. this isn't rpc drama, this has affected me personally. i'm unsure if any other indigenous people have had a close relationship with her, as well, but for me, she was the first one i ever had. ever. in real life or online. this feels like a real friendship has ended and i'm doing what i can to move on.

natalie was the first indigenous friend i remember making on this blog. i've been on this specific blog for 6 years, i believe, and ever since i can remember, she has not only been a staple in the indigenous rpc but also the first person i remember connecting with on that level. a brief overview of our friendship goes from being mutuals, not necessarily talking very often, to then talking all the time (for most of the years), creating an indigenous people's server together, speaking about issues within rps that we've approached and talked with and rps that have been continuously problematic and we've had to post publicly.

we've talked about our culture, being white passing, reconnecting, issues within the rpc (and world, frankly) related to indigeneity, and all of our struggles. then we simply drifted off a bit in relation to speaking all the time - i'm unsure of what was going on in natalie's life these past few months, as i had taken a subconscious step back from the rpc to deal with my own life, sometimes make gifs, and speak to my commissions people. then, this entire thing came out and i reached out to natalie privately. up front, i will say of course i don't condone what has been done. we will no longer be friends (though i'm sure she made that decision first) and i will not accept any form of "but what if's" about the situation or her.

in reaching out, i asked if she was okay. i will not be posting screenshots as of now. she explained, in short, that she didn't know what was happening, she was blind-sighted, and was taking time to breathe, in a sense. from the beginning of my messages to her, i told her that only she "knows" one way or another what's true. if she's indigenous, then she has the information she needs to "prove" she's indigenous (which is a horrible way to say it but at that point in time, it was what it was) and told her even i don't know what to make of the situation.

she did not give me any explanation, a long message, or "proof"* for me to have her back, help her, and stand by her side. the few messages i got from her back were saying she blocked tumblr (then unblocked to speak to nikki @nikkiitalks - sending a 23 screenshot long message) and then reblock it. she ended up later on, unprompted, sending me copy/paste messages she was also sending lauren @tifffanyvalentine, even when we did not ask for information, or say the same things as each other. it was continuous copy/paste.

*when i speak about "proof" - always put in quotations because i don't mean it in the colonizer way of "if you're not x% you're not indigenous" but more so when speaking to her i asked for "something" for me to back her up. i meant more so specifics, like something that isn't just "my grandmother said", if that makes sense. because i'd undoubtedly believed her fully until this and her not speaking to me through this entire thing (somebody i thought would come to me), or saying anything other than "i can't believe this is happening" is not entirely convincing. i'm sure other indigenous people would react in different ways, but through talking with some in the rpc, we were all able to speak about things in a way that would completely eradicate the argument those other blogs (the ones that posted screenshots of natalie's life) tried to make. i didn't mean harm in "proving" anything, simply to give some reassurance!

the last message she sent me (and lauren) is as follows: "i've deactivated my blog for my mental health, left indigenousrph before doing so so hopefully that doesn't disappear, but you and ari (who i will be letting know) will have full control on what you want to do about it. i will probably be taking a break from discord as well, if i ever even decide to re-join discord. deactivating is something i've been thinking of since yesterday, and it is fully my choice i went with. i am sorry."

my reply to this was long, i'll spare this already extensive post, and stated that i asked her why she didn't come to me? if she "knows" she's indigenous, why didn't she just send ME information* that helps me to back her up? what was the issue? i didn't understand why she did what she did (not letting me / other indigenous peoples help her) when it could've been avoided altogether. i sent that at 5:27pm yesterday and have not received a reply.

*please check aforementioned paragraph about "proof" as this is the "information" i meant.

natalie had continuously made me uncomfortable, but not scared. i did not get the brunt of what she's done, as i've seen other people posting about her, but do understand the feeling. i'm a member of indigenousrph and the first time i decided to answer a post - this post - about can we use pretendians if we use them as their real ethnicity? i posted it. she messaged me on discord asking if she can add on. which then she did. her message contradicts mine. i'm of the mind: this is rp. unless somebody is an actual racist, abuser, etc. they're fine. even booboo stewart being played as an asian man, that's okay with me. but she had to be the voice for the indigenous, she would not allow me to have my own.

or if an opinion i made in the indigenous server we had did not match up to her standards, she would publicly disagree and then come to me in private. we've had "arguments" before. nothing vicious, but she made it well known what she believed (made it seem like it was fact) and that i should be the one to change my mind. i always had to placate her, to appease her. and not for nothing, she stated she started reconnecting after high school (or college?) unsure of the date. i've been reconnecting since i was 14/15. i'm 27, about to be 28 in november. i'm not saying i "know more" i'm saying i have more experience living as an indigenous person, period.

i have uplifted her, supported her, listened to her, and helped her through many things. and she has done the same to me. this is not an rpc issue - this is an issue that happened in the rpc. this hurt is real. i lost a friend. i trusted somebody who had been lying the entire time about something that is one of the most important things in my life. my identity, our identity. i hope this isn't something you see and the take away is "don't believe indigenous people" or "always question indigenous people" or not take us seriously when we speak, answer questions, write guides, or call anti-indigenous things out. this is a one in a million thing that happened, please remember that.

this is almost the end! i wanted to thank the ally's that came to me directly, privately, to show their support without taking away from the issue. @madelyncilne (el, my bestest friend of all time, you know how i feel), @dinadenoires (taylor, you're such an amazing person you don't even know the support you give to me, especially during this time), drea (who is no longer in the rpc, but whom i've become very close with and think of her as a friend i can turn to when i need to, has been backing me up since this whole thing started), @maidavika (serre, you've been updated on this entire thing and no matter what i said, you couldn't believe this was actually happening - you were validating me and supporting me throughout), @silverduckie (katie, you were the very first non-indigenous person to reach out to me and ensure i was doing okay when you didn't have to and i thank you immensely), @katherine-mcnamara (dev, even though you were thrown into this, you've shown nothing but kindness to me and to the indigenous community consistently), @rey1x1 (rey, i thank you for checking in when i was leaving servers, even though i didn't think anybody would notice, and for your compassion offered to me), @gordonramsei (emily, even when you had your own "drama" going on, you still were able to come ask me how i was doing).

i wanted to give this space to the indigenous people who have banded together during this time (specifically to me, i know there's others out there!) @ladysgodiva (rosie, for being my ride or die, my cousin, my rez dog when needed, i can always turn to you for the laughs and to say the hard things that need to be said), @tifffanyvalentine (lauren, you have no idea how much i love you dude, we've bonded so much and shared so many real experiences together), @quietanarchy (beau, loving that you're so straightforward and are able to be so open about your own experience and lift us all up), @nikkiitalks (nikki, i've always thought of you as a mother figure - not because you're OLD! but because that's the kind of comforting energy you bring, especially towards me whether you know it or not), @heartbsl (tk, for being an honorary indian member even though you're kānaka maoli, you know exactly what we're going through and have been nothing short of amazing this entire time).

thank you all for checking in. i won't apologize that this is long because it's what i needed to say, but thank you for taking the time and for standing with indigenous peoples.

#olivaraofrph #tagging because if you need a space to vent - i'm here!#drama /#long /

65 notes · View notes

tooxmanyxships · 7 months

Note

In response with the challenge to kinda give u an idea which u can make a story out of that’ll make u cry ,

A critically ill Nico trying to contact Lewis, but since the number is unregistered, Lewis refused to pick up. Nico thought that was Lewis response, thought he hadn’t forgiven him yet, and just settled for a written letter, forbidding anyone from telling him (since it’s clear that he was not interested). It took some friends (their former grid mates) hounding and screaming at Lewis for him to go and visit, but once he went, it’s already too late, Nico is gone. And Lewis can only fall to his knees, beg Nico to answer, and upon reading the letter, he can only cry, he came too late, he was too late.

Ah nonnie, you really took my challenge to heart and I absolutely love you for that!

Y'all better be ready....

Warning: character death

Nico just stares at the doctor when he shows him his test results.

They're not good. Not good at all.

A month. Maybe two. That's all they're giving him.

It's not fair. It's not fair at all.

What has he ever done wrong to deserve this.

There's no cure, so Nico refuses any kind of treatment.

It might give him a longer lifespan, but he doesn't care if it's not a lifelong cure.

He has a month to say goodbye to his loved ones.

His parents, his kids, his ex-wife, his friends.

And that one person who's always in the back of his mind.

The person he ends up calling first when he walks out of the doctor's cabinet at the hospital.

His phone's dead, he forgot to charge it, so he manages to ask a nurse where he can make a call.

How he actually manages to do that is all a blur to him.

It's a damn pay phone. He didn't even know they still existed.

Luckily he doesn't need his phone to get the number. He memorized it by heart.

It goes to voicemail. Of course it does.

Why did he even call him?

He hangs the phone back up with a sigh, not leaving a message.

He's gonna go say goodbye to the people who do still care about him.

He was just a fool to believe that mister 7 time world champion was still one of those people.

~~~~~~~~*********~~~~~~~~~

He decides to gather all of them all together, so he only has to explain himself and do this once.

And with them he doesn't mean his family and closest friends, because they already know.

'Them' are past and current f1 drivers Nico's always liked and vice versa.

He explains what's going on and does his personal goodbyes. But before he lets them leave his apartment, he forces them to do one last thing for him.....

"You can't tell Lewis." As expected, some of them are ready to argue (especially Sebastian), so he holds up his hand and continues. "He didn't pick up his phone when I called him. I don't think he'll care. Please. Swear to me that none of you will tell him."

They eventually assure him that they won't tell his long lost childhood friend that he's dying.

But he doesn't trust them. He knows them.

Nico leaves the next day to Greece.

It's the one place he knows he can find peace at before he dies.

Covered in memories.

~~~~~~~**********~~~~~~~~~~

"You need to talk to Nico."

Lewis frowns at Daniel, who's pulled him aside.

As if Seb's bombardment of texts weren't enough, now Daniel started too?

"Why would I do that?" it's not like Nico had been trying to talk to him either.

"Because.... I just think you guys need to talk. It's important, Lewis."

And okay, being told a million times in texts by someone is one thing, but getting the message in person hits differently.

Daniel's facial expressions and whole body language are very worrying.

"Okay, what's going on here? First cryptic texts from Seb. Now you." Lewis crosses his arms over his chest. "What is this about Nico that's so important?"

Daniel shakes his head, "I can't tell you. You need to hear it from him."

"Daniel - - -"

"He's in Greece. You probably know where." Daniel puts his hand on Lewis' arm and gives it a squeeze. "Don't wait too long."

That last sentence was so ominous, it gave him the shivers.

Greece.

He had to get there as soon as he could.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~****************~~~~~~~~~~

Watching the sunset one last time on his balcony really was beautiful.

It was time. He knew it was.

The nurse who cared for him at the house he bought had brought him to the balcony in his wheelchair.

He was too weak to walk anymore. He was too weak to do anything that was really physical.

He could still write a little, so, writing his name at the end of the letter he spend too much time on writing.

His hands were shaking as he folded the letter so it would fit into the envelope.

'Lewis' was written on the front of the envelope.

He gave the envelope to his house nurse.

"Make sure he gets this."

He doesn't know how she would do it, but, she promised him she'd deliver the letter and he has a feeling she'd do anything to make that happen.

"You may leave now."

He can feel her hands on his shoulders. The soft kiss dropped into his hair. Footsteps walking away.

He stares out into the sunset and smiles.

It's time.

'Goodbye Lew....'

~~~~~~~~~~***************~~~~~~~~~~

Lewis doesn't have to go searching where Nico is when he arrives in Greece.

He still knows the address and the way to it like the back of his hand.

The building still looks the same as when he was young.

Except for now - - - Now there's an ambulance parked in front of the door.

Two men riding a stretcher come out of the door. There's a body on the stretcher.

A very still body. Covered with a sheet.

There's some blond hair sticking out at the top---

No.

No no no no.....

This can't be happening.

It can't be him.

But it is him.

As the stretcher rattles on the stones in the driveway, the sheet drops a little and Lewis can see the beautiful face of his once called best friend.

Lewis can't move. All he can do is stare at the lifeless face.

He jumps when he feels a hand on his shoulder. It's a feminine hand and for a second he's scared to be faced with Vivian, but as he turns around, it's not her.

It's a woman with a nurse badge pinned to her skirt.

"Sir Lewis Hamilton?"

All he can do is nod. It's not rare that people recognize him of course.

He looks surprised when she holds out an envelope, eyes widening when he recognizes the handwriting.

"I've been mister Rosberg's nurse up until his last day. He asked me to give you this letter. Everything is explained inside it."

His hand is shaking as he takes the envelope from her hand and opens up the envelope.

"I'll leave you to it," the nurse says softly, resting her hand on his back for a moment before walking back inside.

Lewis unfolds the letter, holding it in one shaking hand as he reads.

*-*

Lew, (I refuse to write dear)

If you're reading this letter, it means I'm not here anymore.

Truth is, I've been sick for some time now and it's taken its toll.

About 2 months ago I found out I was terminally ill.

Weirdly enough, you were the first one I called. You didn't pick up.

Now that I think back on it, I think it's maybe because I called with a payphone at the hospital.

Back then I thought you still hadn't forgiven me.

And after that, I just didn't want to bother you, because I didn't think you'd care.

I told some of our old friends of the grid and made them promise not to tell you anything.

If you're reading this, it means they kept their promise.

Or you couldn't come sooner.

Or....

You just didn't care.

I really hope it's not the latter.

I want you to know that this house is yours now.

You can do with it what you want.

The paperwork is ready for you to be signed. Then it's not the Rosberg vacation home anymore.

Whatever you do, I hope you still cherish the memories.

Oh.... I changed the house number. Had to pull some strings, but I did it. And it's worth it.

If you haven't already seen it, just look on the door.

I hope you think it was worth it too.

If there's one thing that I usually wasn't, it's a coward.

But one thing I regret not telling you is - - -

I love you, Lewis.

I finally found the balls to say it.

Now when it's too late.

Please don't hate me.

Live your life to the fullest.

Make me even prouder than I already was, am, and always will be.

Goodbye, Pu.

Yours,

Nico

P.S. I came to Greece to spend my last days at the place I always felt closest to you. It helped me. I hope it'll help you too. If you decide to keep the house.

*-*

He's shaking.

His whole body is trembling as one hand is clutching the letter, the oher clasped to his mouth.

He looks up at the door and he almost drops the letter.

On the door, painted in need black lettering, is the number '644'.

It's too much.

Lewis drops to his knees, biting into his own hand as a devastating sob rips through his throat.

He wants to scream but he can't.

All he can do is clutch on to the letter and cry.

Cry until he has no more tears left.

He was too late.......

Too late to even say goodbye.

~~~~~~~~~~~~***********~~~~~~~~~

Newsflash: F1's 2016 world champion Nico Rosberg passed away at his family's vacation house in Greece. His family hopes their privacy will be respected as they mourn their loved one.

~~~~~~~~~~*********~~~~~~~

Newsflash: F1's 7 times world champion Lewis Hamilton has announced his retirement from the sport. Rumors say he's moving to Greece but the former driver has given no comments on it yet. What definitely is the truth is that this man will be sorely missed on the grid.

~~~~~~~~~**********~~~~~~~

Newsflash: Sir Lewis Hamilton spotted in Greece, brandishing his new clothing line; 'Pu 644'. Where it comes from, our guess is as good as yours. We're thinking a certain childhood friendship definitely needed to be honored in style.

#brocedes #f1 fanfic #f1 rpf #tw: death #lewis hamilton/nico rosberg #Ready for heartbreak?

34 notes · View notes