#mal doesn’t have to be nice he can still be the main prick of the system

[whatudottu]

Total Drama All Stars AU where instead of being a one-dimensional “evil alter” stereotype Mal is this chaotic neutral Eric Andre-esque trickster who primarily just wants fuck with literally everyone he comes across and troll the other alters solely to see their reactions to it

Because I saw that one clip of the Eric Andre show where Tony Hawk was in it, I immediately pictured that with Mal and Chester; despite the fact that Mal trapping everyone and getting them to do things like - in Chester’s case - make skateboards doesn’t make sense. Mal’s chaotic fuckery and Chester’s frustration wrecking shop until skateboards get turned into weapons- and Mal would seem the type to go down the whole ‘hey look at me. look at me. bitch’ route hah-

I’ve seen and read many All Stars rewrites and otherwise ‘I researched DID/am a system, let’s make Mike’s system better’ fanfics (one of which - Navigating the System - I binged nearly immediately) that turns Mal into more a prosecutor/protector that does the things Mike wouldn’t to make sure the body doesn’t keel over and die. Mal WAS fronting throughout Juvie after all, even if he may be less king of the hall (wait shit oh my god Hall of the Mountain King) and more ‘mess with me i mess you up: trickster edition’.

Literally any different version of Mal than what was on screen would’ve been better, and chaotic neutral Eric Andre trickster would pair off with the sometimes goodie two-shoes sometimes straight-up jerk Mike.

#ask #anonymous #mal td #td mal #chester td #td chester #mike td #td mike #total drama #tdroti #roti didn’t do the best representation (it’s why mike’s system is ‘better’ rep not ‘best’) #but it’s a notable show that doesn’t demonise a system for having DID #all stars went with the whole ‘keeping a secret evil inside’ [insert that horror movie you know the one] trope #effectively retroactively going full circle to ‘yeah evil’s in here’ bad stereotyping #i wouldn’t have minded if the mike system had been in an antagonistic role (they got fucked over hard and mike was the one taking most of it #as i said- mike himself is more than ‘nice guy’ he could’ve gotten the whole body’s head in the game #vito surely wouldn’t let a club to the back of the head slow him down #but no ‘the malevolent one’ just took centre stage and all stars put a literal reset button in the show #because you can totally just remove your mental illness by turning your brain off and on again 👍 #mal doesn’t have to be nice he can still be the main prick of the system #(honestly svetlana is the only one who hasn’t been a little mean) #but he can be a silly guy- just a guy playing a game and getting to the point where he makes some choices mike wouldn’t make and boom- #an antagonist role more in line with courtney’s return in action coming back to kick away the unfairness #all star ‘villains’ stay as previous season villains and kinda like in seasons other than world tour they find themselves out before the two

[rueur]

Morning Pages No. 59

Saturday 22nd August - 10:14am

I am doing this at my desk at work, which is weird, and it's making me feel like I can't be as honest as I'd like to be. I feel like Saturdays in particular are going to be quite difficult. I've turned the brightness of my phone screen all the way down so it'll at least be pretty difficult to see what I'm typing. But at the same time, it'll be difficult for me to gauge when I'm at three complete pages, because there are no page breaks in the Android version of Google Docs, or at least the Android version that I have. This experience is kind of fun though, because it's reminding me of uni. It's been a while since I've used this keyboard, in fact I don't believe I've used this keyboard at all with the XZ Premium. It took ages to pair it up with my phone, partly because I'm at work and I'm surrounded by Bluetooth devices. It was a bit of a nightmare. I ended up having to go to the kitchen in order to pair this up. Now I feel pretty good, though. I can't seem to be able to get rid of the phone keyboard at the bottom of the screen, so what I can see of this digital page is quite limited. It feels like I'm typing into a typewriter and I can only just make out the words on the page over the hardware that's required for the words to exist. I think I'd love to have a typewriter, but it's not essential right now. There's a woman who writes poetry on the street in the city with a typewriter. She asks people if they'd like a poem and she'll type one out for a price. I've always been a little in awe of her, because she always dresses in these lovely, flowy dresses and sits on her little stool or milk crate, her arms out like she's sitting at a desk, type-type-typing away on the street, all the business pricks passing by and getting a little glimpse into her very colourful life. I hope she's doing okay right now. 

I'm actually feeling pretty confident about this Bluetooth keyboard morning pages set-up right now. Even if I'm not able to publish this immediately after typing, I'll at least still be glad that I got this out of the way. I mean it's not just about getting it out of the way, I have to maintain this practice, but I don't want it to feel stifling. I have to figure out a game plan for days where I'll just have an early start, and I won't be able to do the pages first thing in the morning. Part of me just feels like I should wake up earlier and stop being a baby. The main issue I have with waking up earlier just to complete the pages is that if I'm on a time limit, I'll feel far too anxious to be able to finish them efficiently, and I'm going to end up scrambling the rest of the morning. But…it may also be something I just need to learn how to do. I should learn how to stop myself from becoming overly-anxious in the morning, and start training myself to use that 'getting ready' time more efficiently than I do. This is not a bad idea. 

Evan's been complaining about his back for the past 24 hours or so. We almost went on a family walk yesterday, but he just started stretching at the last minute and 2:30 turned to 3pm very quickly, and I had a call with Sam scheduled at 3:30pm, so I couldn't go anymore. I really wanted to, though. It pissed me up the wall. I was going to have an insanely busy afternoon/evening tomorrow, and the sun was out and the weather was good. I wanted to have a bit of a stroll before the intensely busy night I had, and then the fact that I had work all day today as well. And then AFTER work today, we have our weekly family zoom call with Sarah and Co. I absolutely love that despite all the big personalities in that group, it's still primarily Sarah's group of people. She is quite honestly the glue that holds us all together. Part of me wanted to ask 'then what am I?' right now, but I honestly don't care too much. I'm Rue. 

There's no way I'll be able to gauge how many pages I'm at, but I'm thinking now that it might be a good idea to just go off of how many words I've written. Currently, I'm at 759 or so, so I'll cap myself at maybe 2050? I feel like that sounds like a reasonable number. I'm using a few paragraph breaks here and there so it makes sense to stop midway between 2000 and 2100, which is my average word count range between the past few entries. I'm thinking way too much about the semantics of finishing this SPECIFIC entry. How the fuck am I supposed to handle Saturday morning pages once work properly opens up again? We won't have desks, and it's not like I can bring this keyboard or set it up when there are customers to serve in-store. And I feel like it's going to be intensely busy here once lockdown is over. Harrison is pacing around the store between calls, which is something he hasn't done before. I think it's because we've been able to set up more desks in other locations, and Manny and I are sitting in I.T. whilst Harrison and Nat are in games. I just had to take a phone call on behalf of Toby, who was on the shop phone. And I've just been talking to Toby right now too, so it's 10:42am. I have to stop talking about what's happening around me, I reckon. This is supposed to be stream of consciousness. 

I feel like every entry I'm saying 'THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS', and I should probably just let it be, because I'm wasting mental space by panicking when I feel like I'm not doing this properly. There's no way to do this properly, or improperly. I love the word 'improperly' it sounds so disciplinary. I had this random memory of being in Grade 3 and bringing the movie 'Snow Dogs' into school on my birthday along with my birthday cake, so that we could have a viewing party during lunch. I suppose I looked for any excuse to stay inside during recess and lunch. We didn't call recess 'recess', it was like morning tea. Or playtime? I miss Lonzo. I always miss Lonzo at work. 

It's hard to write in stream of consciousness when you're at work. You can't really get mindful enough, even when you're just sitting at a desk waiting for the phone to ring. There's just too much activity all around. This is perhaps my third Saturday working during the Stage 4 restrictions, so I've had more than enough of answering phones, although I believe this arrangement will be continuing well into September too. We'll see what happens. Lauren's yelling something to Madz. The ambience of this place is startlingly sparse, punctuated with periscopic, staccato interjections: impersonal, abrasive, coming from all sides at any time, and void of genuine feelings. I can't wait till I get to see thathi. He's bringing me kiribath for lunch, and I'm going to meet him in the front car park to pick it up. It'll be nice to chat to him for a little bit. I haven't seen him in a while. I miss my family. I don't know how to feel about malli, though. This is the first time that akki and malli have been in a fight and I've hands down been more on akki's side than mal's. He can't keep rocking up to work so late and just overall acting like he doesn't actually give a shit about the clinic. What is going on with his work ethic? It's doing my head in, just the mere fact that he can be so blase about rocking up to work on time, and being an asset to the clinic that he was so grateful to land a job for almost immediately after coming out of high school. He doesn't know how easy he really has it. His life's trajectory thus far in comparison to akki and mine, has been egregiously easy and totally not demanding. Even ammi and thathi have entirely given up with parenting him, and he's only 20?! How could they possibly be done with their parenting, especially if he's waking up at 2:50pm for a 3pm shift?

I've been missing typing with this keyboard SO DAMN MUCH. It genuinely makes me feel unstoppable, like nothing is keeping me from being a creative. I could be anywhere and doing anything and when inspiration strikes, BAM! Out comes the felt Bluetooth keyboard. I remember this only costing like $60, or potentially even less too. What a freaking steal. I'm glad I'm still using this after all these years too. 'Keys-To-Go'! Love it.

I'm excited to get back on Squarespace and gain some more experience with building a website. But whether or not we can move that Squarespace website on to cPanel and host it with VentraIP is a whole other battle, which I believe I'll need Steve's help with. I wonder how easy it'll be to set up my own domain with Squarespace, specifically for Broken Media to begin. I've been waiting for a call for 17 minutes. When do you reckon I'll receive a call? Do I have time to go to the bathroom right now? Look, I'm just going to go. It feels like it's going to be a quick one. Ha.

Alright...it's 1:07pm. Alright, it's 1:53pm. This is not going well, but even so I'm determined to finish these pages before the day's end. I've taken two poops today. And now Nat and I are watching The Office. Thathi dropped me off some kiribath and I'm feeling pretty nourished right now, but I'm kind of done with being here for today. I don't feel good in my body, which is interesting. Evan's also been recording some negative physical feelings since we started the 21 Days. I think it may just be part of the process of incorporating mindful practices into your life. It's what happened to Zuko in Atla or Lin in LOK. Or perhaps it's less nuanced than that. It's what happens when you do a juice cleanse. Today is just not a good day, morning pages-wise.

#streamofconsciousness #morningpages #artistsway #59 #jb