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monsterfuneral · 3 years

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sparks in the rain | bill and ted | ch. 2

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Coming Soon

Relationship: Poly!Bill and Ted x Fem!Reader

Summary: A malfunction with the booth lands Bill and Ted into the most peculiar situation they’ve been in, stuck in the year 2021 standing in front of a woman they never thought they’d meet.

Words: 1.5

Warnings/Tags: nothing

Author’s Note: After like actually outlining this a little more, I think this story will end up being one of my favorites I’ve written.

REQUESTS OPEN | MASTERLIST

(please read my “I do NOT write” section before sending in anything <3)

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This was the most unusual day for both Bill and Ted. Sure they had experienced mishaps with the booth, and sure they had also met people that they vaguely knew about. But they had never met someone that knew about them. Especially when it came to an on screen babe like Armageddon Lady, who had totally been Bill’s biggest crush for a majority of his teenage years. Not that he’d admit that to anyone other than Ted though. And here she was in the weirdest of coincidences, standing right in front of them.

“What?” Ted asked dumbly as he heard the girl in front of them blurt their names. His brain struggled to keep up with the situation.

“Dude she totally knows who we are somehow!” Bill said with an almost starstruck look on his face, his eyes sparkling in amazement.

You stayed silent though, staring at them like a deer in the headlights. Your mouth agape as you, like Ted, tried to process what you was going on. While running into celebrities in the middle of your apartment complex was one thing that would never happen, seeing two movie characters that you liked standing just seven feet away from you was next to impossible… No it was impossible.

You had to be dreaming still. A very vivid dream where you were going to the crafts store to pick up a new set of markers, before suddenly running into Bill and Ted of all people... In a dream. There was literally no other logical explanation.

“Woah, you look like you’re going to hurl, Miss. Armageddon Lady, dude- babe.” Bill stumbled on his words like a nervous child talking to his first crush. Which honestly wasn’t far from the truth.

“I- This isn’t real.” You concluded, finally removing your hand from inside of your purse and straightening your back. You were almost tempted to just turn around and walk back into your apartment, but you didn’t. Instead you thought over the jumbled words Bill had said to you, something sticking out more than anything else. “Why do you keep calling me that?” You asked, your brows drawing together as you looked at the blonde for answers who looked at you with widened eyes.

Ted suddenly remembered something Rufus had told them not too long ago, alternative universes and whatnot, where things are different from their world but can also connect somehow. He talked about how sometimes the booth can malfunction and send them rocking into another circuit without them even noticing. That’s probably how they ended up here!

“Bill... I don’t think we’re in our world anymore.” Ted chimed before Bill could even attempt to come up with a sufficient answer that would satisfy you.

“What?” Bill asked, looking up at Ted.

“Yeah! Remember the thing Rufus told us a few months back?”

“Don’t over-tighten the guitar strings because they could break?” Bill answered, bringing up an entirely different conversation they had with Rufus.

Ted shook his head looking behind his shoulder and to the still sparking booth “No dude! The whole alternate dimension thingy.”

“OH YEAH!”

You watched the both of them converse, your own brain still trying to catch up with the bizarre situation, still not entirely convinced this wasn’t a dream. You tried pinching your arm a few times, at least testing it out to see if that trick even worked, but you were still standing in the same place right in front of them. It was all so much to process at once and so early in the day, even though it may have been 11am, it was still too much.

“So you really didn’t put in the wrong number then.”

“I told you so Bill!”

They paused, smiling at each other before both shouting “Excellent!” in unison before air guitaring. The action was all too familiar but unfortunately missed the overlapping guitar that would play when they did it. Both boys stared at each other for a second afterwards, beaming smiles still ontheir faces. Their stare lasted a beat longer than you were used to seeing on screen.

A shiver wracked through your body, the jacket you had not shielding you from the cold that the rain brought like you had hoped it would. You clutched your arms, pulling them a little tighter to your chest. It only continued to solidify the fact that this was probably real and not a dream at all, like you had thought. I mean, sure you had considered the possibility of fictional universes being real, who hasn’t? But it was just a theory you played into half-heartedly but never considered it to actually be true.

A hand waved in front of your face, jolting from your deep train of thought where everything you previously thought was impossible could be and it was just too much. Reality as you knew it was both expanding and collapsing all at the same time.

“You good, other dimension babe?” Bill asked, a small smile on his face as you stared at him with wide eyes.

Ted tilted his head as he watched you curiously. Sure you looked like Armageddon Lady and her actress, but you were neither, you just looked like them. He had an easier time accepting this as a reality than you did though, already having his experience with the impossible. But you looked like you were about to explode from the overload of information. He felt sympathetic. He thought back to a conversation he had with Rufus a year after their first time traveling in the booth, remembering how Rufus told him how he had seen others cope with the discovery of time travel, how some people just could not handle the information and it literally drove them to insanity. Ted would feel like such a dick if that happened to you, even if he didn’t know you.

“I-” You started, abruptly stopping as you tried to piece your words together “I think so?” You clutched the strap to your purse a little harder, blunt nails digging into the leather slightly “This is all just… A lot to process.”

“That’s okay!” Ted reassured softly with a wide grin, his hair falling in front of his eyes slightly as he nodded and looked down at Bill who was also nodding along.

Your fingers were starting to feel numb and you shifted on your feet for the first time since you were stopped in your tracks. Your knees felt stiff from not moving for so long and you were shaking a lot more than you thought, the cold starting to deep into your bones and making your teeth chatter. You were sure they weren’t feeling any better as they were both wearing short sleeved shirts, and Bill was wearing a crop top.

“I know you guys don’t know me but it’s freezing out here and it’s supposed to get colder.” You said looking back at your apartment door, trying to draw your coat closer around you “Would you like to come inside? I can make some coffee-” You watched Bill pull a face at the mention of the bitter beverage “Or some hot chocolate, up to you.”

“Sounds great.” Ted answered, glancing behind him once more at the booth before back at you, “Lead the way!”

The warmth of your apartment was more welcoming than the quickly dropping temperature outside. The rain clouds had left the sky dark and your living room was close to being pitch black. You carefully maneuvered past the couch and over the bean bags that were carelessly strewn across the floor in front of the TV stand. You felt for the pull-chain underneath the lamp shade, the black tassels tickling against your forearm. Finally your fingers grasped around the thin chain, gently yanking it and letting the light finally fill most of the room. The large leg lamp glowed on the small table tucked in the corner of your living room. A lovely gag gift you had been rewarded on christmas a year or two before at a friend’s party. While A Christmas Story was very much an overplayed movie on the holiday’s and certainly not your favorite, you still enjoyed the gift. Finding it pretty cool that someone had gone through the effort of getting something like this as the winner’s gift.

“Woah...” One of the boy’s muttered from behind your couch. You turned around and gave them a small smile, walking over to the other side of the living room to turn on the other lamp so the room was fully lit up and you weren’t going to trip over your own feet by accident.

“Pretty neat huh?” You asked, always finding people’s reactions to the infamous lamp rather funny.

They both looked at you simultaneously, their eyes sparkling in wonder.

“You’re so cool…” Ted whispered.

You let out a quiet laugh, trying to push down the heat that had suddenly started to rise up your neck, to your cheeks, and finally finishing at your ears. Never in your life did you think you could be receiving praise from Ted Theodore Logan himself. This really felt like it was too good to be true.

“Thanks.” You replied, turning your back to them so they didn’t catch on to your flustered state. “So, how about that hot chocolate?” You asked, walking over to the white cabinet that held your collection of mugs.

#bill bnt #ted bnt #bill and ted #bill s preston x reader #bill s preston imagine #bill s preston esquire #ted theodore logan x reader #ted theodore logan imagine #ted theodore logan #bnt imagine #bnt x reader #monster writes

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grace13star · 6 years

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Contemptible Me Chapter 8: Roman

Triggers: Violence, minor swearing, Deceit, gun violence, fighting

Characters: Roman (Prince), Logan (Berry), Virgil (Sanders), Lyle Draven (Deceit)

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Roman still didn’t trust Virgil fully.

He had known Virgil for almost two years now, but as a civilian. He acted so differently as Anxiety. Who knew what he was really like? He could actually think like Anxiety, and he could be leading them straight into a trap. Maybe his protests about splitting up was just reverse psychology. Maybe-

“Prince! Concentrate,” Logan hissed.

Roman looked up and saw he was falling behind. He sped up a bit, leveling with Logan.

“We don’t have Virgil with us now, so we’ll have to either avoid more guards or take them down somehow without alerting everyone else in this facility.” Logan said, not sounding out of breath in the slightest, despite the fact they were practically sprinting.

Footsteps echoed off the metal walls, coming around the corner. Roman pulled open the first door he saw and dragged Logan in.

Luckily the room was empty. It looked like an armoury, since there were over two dozen guns hanging from the wall. Roman even saw some nunchucks. The guards thundered past their hiding place.

“Coming in on disturbance point,” come a voice, probably speaking on a walkie talkie. “Stand-by, command.”

Roman shot a glance at Logan to see him concentrating. Probably some technopath stuff.

The footsteps faded, still heading in Patton and Virgil’s direction. A bit of worry flared in Roman’s gut. He didn’t exactly trust him, but he’d known Virgil for awhile, and Patton was a very old friend, so he was still attached to both of them.

Roman listened to make sure there was no one outside, then opened the door cautiously.

“Got anything?” He asked.

Logan nodded. “His walkie talkie had a direct connection to this ‘command.’ We’re headed the right way.”

Logan led the way this time, navigating the surprisingly complex maze of hallways as if he’d had a map. Occasionally he’d have to stop, or they had to turn back, or hide from another squadron of guards, but eventually they were in front of a large metal door.

“You’re sure?” Roman asked.

Logan was studying the keyboard next to the door. “Just numbers,” he reported. “Give me a second. And,” he paused, “maybe draw your sword. There will most definitely be guards.”

Roman pulled out the sword and prepared himself.

Now that his trusty sword was in his hands, he felt better about all of this. There was still some anxiety pooling in his gut, but they were attempting to break into an organization that was seemingly single-handedly responsible for both superheroes and supervillains.

Logan did his techno-whatever stuff, and the door slid open like some kind of Star Trek thing.

“Hey, Roy!” One of the people inside called out. “Did you bring me my cappuccino?”

Then she turned to see Logan and Roman.

Almost immediately a gun was in her hands, pointed at them. “Who are you?” She asked.

“Step aside, or we’ll be forced to hurt you,” Logan said, his voice hard. Roman nodded, brandishing his sword, even though he knew if she opened fire there was no way he could block all -if any- of them.

She faltered a bit, but stood back up straight. “My-my job is to guard this place.”

“Just you?” Logan asked, eyes narrowed.

She hesitated before nodding.

“She’s not alone,” Logan realized. Roman swung around only to almost get hit in the face with those nunchucks he’d seen earlier.

He stumbled back, the guy swinging the nunchucks following. Roman shot a look at Logan, hoping he’d get the message. Logan nodded and turned to the first guard.

The nunchuck guy didn’t seem to have any training with them. He basically just tried to hit Roman with them. His stance was all wrong, and Roman couldn’t help but wince when he saw that. Seriously, was that Lyle Draven guy even trying?

The next time the nunchucks came at him, he grabbed them in mid-air. His palm stung, but it was easy to grab the weapon from the guy.

“What did you do, just grab the first thing you saw?” Roman asked, looking over the nunchucks. Logan hadn’t had much training with these, so his knowledge was rudimentary at most.

Rudimentary? Jeez, he was spending too much time with Logan. Big words were not his thing.

He took a closer look at the guy that was just trying to beat him up, and was shocked to see he was probably a few younger than Virgil.

“You’re just a kid!” He exclaimed before he could stop himself.

“I’m 19,” the kid scowled.

Roman shot a look over at Logan and the girl. She seemed to be giving Logan access to everything. Now that he looked closer, she looked about as young as the kid over here.

He knew somewhere in the back of his brain that he was being stupid, he was only 22, 3 years older than this guy. Not that big of an age difference.

The guy lunged at him again. His weapons were fists against a sword, but he didn’t seem to care.

Now that Roman could see how young he was (not that young) he didn’t want to hurt him. The girl had given up easily, why couldn’t he?

The kid’s fist came for his face, so he just caught it. He twisted the guy’s arm just enough to hurt slightly, but not enough to do any permanent damage. He glanced over at Logan who as typing away, probably erasing them from the systems, as well as Virgil and Patton.

Roman had a bad feeling about this.

This kid was a bit of a problem, not knowing when to quit, but the girl had given up too easy. She had a gun! She could have shot Logan while Roman was busy with her friend.

And if this was command, their central headquarters, with all the information and technology, why was it only guarded by two kids just barely out of high school?

He was about to say something to Logan when he heard a hissing.

Sure it’s Florida, and snakes are almost as common as crocodiles, but there was no way one was in this sterile science fiction underground villain lair.

And that was when the guy and girl fainted.

Roman was starting to feel a bit woozy, and he noticed a pain in his head as if someone was stabbing him above the eye with a blunt knife. He looked over at Logan in time to see him collapse. He stumbled back, wondering who Logan was, and then everything went black.

When he opened his eyes he was surprised to see he was in the same place as before. Logan, the guy and the girl were gone.

He tried to sit up and regretted it. The stabbing pain he remembered from before he passed out was back with a vengeance. He sat up slower, head still throbbing, but less now.

The screen was on, switching between cameras all over the facility. He saw a large warehouse-like space filled with boxes of who-knows-what. It switched and he saw an empty hallway. It switched again and he saw Patton run across the screen.

Where’s Virgil? He thought, brow furrowed. He tapped an arrow key and was back at the empty hallway. He switched keys and saw different hallways, a different room with people watching screens, a room with a rock in the center and a kid touching the rock, another 2 empty hallways, and-

Wait a minute.

The kid in the rock room had looked suspiciously familiar. He zoomed in, not even aware of what he was doing, and studied the kids face.

It was like looking at a younger Virgil without the emo hair and style.

“The similarity is amazing, isn’t it?”

Roman twirled around, sword in his hand suddenly, pointed at the man standing behind him.

The man was wearing a bowler hat which made Roman immediately think of Meet the Robinsons, especially with the weird cape thing this man was also wearing. The hat combined with the man tilting his head, and the way he was standing in the shadows prevented Roman from seeing his face.

“Who are you?” He asked.

Only half of the man’s smirk was visible as he answered. “That’s definitely the most important thing right now.” The sarcasm in his voice was apparent.

Roman was confused. “What?”

Roman waited for more, but the man didn’t seem like he was answering anything, especially not an unvoiced question.

Finally Roman broke. “What is important right now?”

“I have to say, you 4 are the worst things that ever happened to me,” The man said, not at all answering Roman’s question. “Everyone else is so not boring. Logan was not the first to figure it out. Or even get far away. I programmed that message such a short time ago, I almost had not forgotten about it.”

“What message?” Roman asked. This man seemed to mean the opposite of whatever he said. Figuring out what he was saying was causing Roman’s already pounding head to throb more.

The man waved it off. “That’s important right now.”

“Where are my friends?” Roman demanded. “What did you do with them?”

“Everything!” The man said, finally raising his head.

Roman was speechless for a second. The half of his face the man had hid in the shadows was badly burned, the skin pink and scaly, reminding Roman of a lizard. Or a snake.

He found his voice after a minute.

“Okay, Black Mum-Lie, you need to answer my questions.”

The man grinned. “Don’t I?”

It took Roman a minute with that one. “Uh, yes, you do, Jekyll and Lied.”

“I did everything to your friends,” The man said. “And poor Virgil did nothing.”

Roman froze. What?

“What does that mean? Are you implying that Virgil hurt the others?” If it was true… Roman lowered his sword slightly, hoping his suspicions weren’t correct.

“No.”

A scream echoed from the computers behind him. He whirled around, momentarily forgetting about the burned man behind him. There was only one thing on his mind.

Patton.

Patton was on the screen, backed into a corner by Virgil. Virgil’s face was twisted in a snarl as he advanced on Patton, shadows curling around him and sharpening.

The picture changed to another empty hallway.

“No!” Roman frantically pressed some keys trying to get back to what he’d seen, but all that he saw was more empty hallways.

He twirled around to the man, but the room was empty.

Roman cursed, then grabbed his sword and ran out of the room.

“Patton!” He yelled, not caring if he ran into any guards anymore. “Logan! Where are you?”

He thought he heard something faintly in the back of his head. It sounded like a voice saying something.

No time to go crazy now, Roman, he thought. Save it for after you’ve rescued Patton and found Logan and defeated Virgil and maybe whoever that guy was.

Suddenly the voice was back louder, and his vision was getting blurry again. Was he being gassed again? Was he still affected by the gas from earlier?

“-man! Roman! Holy-”

“Roman! Wake up! Fu-”

Suddenly he snapped up. He was laying in the command center again.

“Oh thank god,” he heard.

He looked over to see Virgil fighting off three guards. They were firing guns and Virgil had put up a shadow barrier in between them and him.

“Listen, Princey,” Virgil said, sweating and not even looking over at Roman, “I lost Patton after that gas hit, and I have no idea where Logan is. What we can assume, from everything happening, is that they are aware of us and we need to all meet up.”

Roman growled. “What did you do to Patton?”

Virgil faltered a bit. “What? I just said I lost him.”

“I saw you!” Roman shouted, ignoring the people shooting at them. “You were threatening him!”

“You really think I would threaten Patton?” Virgil asked incredulously. “You guys are my only chance at finding Thomas, why would I attack you guys?”

“I don’t know, why don’t you tell me, Anxiety?”

Virgil froze at the name. Luckily the wall stayed there, giving them cover.

Roman stood up ignoring the headache that was still there, and pulled out his sword. “Let me take care of this,” he muttered.

Virgil scowled. “Fine.” He let the wall drop in front of Roman and left it for himself. The guards saw this immediately and focused fire on Roman.

Roman yelped, immediately regretting this. He blocked a few bullets with his sword and then ducked behind the computer. They had to run out of ammunition eventually, right?

Five minutes later they still had not.

“Do they have infinite resources?” Roman muttered.

Virgil was watching him with an unimpressed look on his face.

Finally he seemed to get fed up and lashed out with the shadow wall. The guards went down, unconscious, and Virgil turned to glare at him.

“Nice job, Princey,” he grumbled, then started out of the room.

“Wait!” Roman hurried after him. “You aren’t leaving my sight, Sweeney Todd.”

Virgil groaned as he kept walking. “You obviously don’t trust me. Why are you following me?”

“Who knows what you’re about to do,” Roman said. “We don’t need anymore problems.”

“Why am I always the bad guy?” Virgil exploded. “I just want to save my brother and have my friends be safe. I would never threaten Patton. I just saved your ass back there. I never wanted to hurt you, or anyone.”

Roman paused, seeing the tears in Virgil’s eyes. He was no empath, but he didn’t think any actor could put on such an emotional performance. He could almost see Virgil’s regret and anger hanging in the air, swirling around them. Or maybe that was just the shadows he could control.

“I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt,” Roman said after a minute of silence. “And only because we need to find Logan and Patton. But I know what I saw.”

“Wait,” Virgil frowned. “When did you see it?” Roman frowned as well. “Uh, right before the fire fight.”

“When you were asleep?” Virgil asked.

Roman nodded slowly, vaguely aware of the implications.

“Someone’s trying to turn us against each other,” Virgil said. “Probably the guy behind this all. Lyle Draven.”

“I might have seen him,” Roman said, thinking back to the man with the snake face.

“Let’s focus on finding Patton and Logan first,” Virgil said, pulling out his phone. “Then we find Thomas and get out of here.”

Roman nodded.

Virgil was pulling up Logan’s contact. Roman smiled at the name Virgil had him under.

Virgil hit call, and the phone started ringing.

Calling Professor Specs.

“I already tried Patton,” Virgil said as the phone rang, “But I didn’t get through.”

The phone was picked up. “Virgil?” Logan’s voice was scratchy and he sounded very tired.

“Hey, Specs,” Virgil said. “Any idea where you are, or where Patton is?”

Another voice that wasn’t Logan’s came through, causing Virgil to freeze.

“Virgil? Is that you?”

#big bang submission #contemptible me au #thomas sanders #fanfiction

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youarenotthewalrus · 6 years

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this article is dumb, i shouldn’t be hate-reading and you shouldn’t either but here we are so let’s do this:

We begin with a description of a platformer doing something clever and metatextual at the end. Followed by;

What this means is that the game stands in stark contrast to an industry whose products, historically speaking, rely on hijacking the reptile brains of hormone-crazed teenaged boys. In short, the history of videogames is the history of the glorification of violence.

Ah yes, who can forget such bloodthirsty products of the military-industrial complex as Pong, Tetris, Pacman or Zork?

We can debate what constitutes the first videogame, and whether it’s fair to attribute the invention of videogames to the military,

Given the contentiousness of that assertion, I should certainly hope so!

but what’s undeniable is that military engineers—ever ready to coopt, conspire with, or commission innovation from the private sector (e.g., the splitting of the atom, the invention of I.Q.)—more or less immediately recognized that videogames could be employed as a cheap substitute for teaching soldiers how to do everything from fly a plane to take out a sniper.

Kinda reductive to reduce the history of video games to FPSes in general and America’s Army in particular, doncha think?

Anyway, then we get some more waffle about how first-person shooters video games are training us to kill, before we get to the real question: given that this platformer he just finished playing did something a little artsy, can video games be art even despite the fact that were originally works of military propaganda intended to inure potential military recruits to violence? And more importantly, given that this guy seems to think the history of video games began with first person shooters, is he really qualified to answer this question?

Then we get some pointless side chatter over the claim that games are good for your brain, followed by the charge that games are addictive--despite the explicit comparison made to gambling (at “your local Native American casino,” no less), there is no discussion of lootboxes or microtransactions whatsoever, suggesting the author is not aware of specific steps which are taken to make games addictive and is just invoking vague notions of all games being addictive. None of this ever comes up again, and we promptly move back to talking about the actual game.

More specifically, Inside is what’s known as a “2D side-scroller”—meaning that you observe your figure mostly in profile in the center of your screen while a background landscape scrolling right-to-left gives the illusion of left-to-right forward motion.

Somehow, the use of the term “2D side-scroller” in quotes does not make me feel that this fellow is sufficiently familiar with video games to assess whether or not they can be art, as does the fact that he reckons that the platformer he is playing hearkens back to a 1981 shoot-em-up he remembers from his teens, which makes his apparent conviction that video games originated as first person shooters all the more baffling.

And while the world of videogames has already become a “spectator sport,” I’m unaware of any instance of the record of a videogame player’s performance becoming intellectual property, as it has in the world of chess, and in a whole array of sports. True, gamers go “professional” by attracting followers on the internet and earning ad revenue, but their play itself is not copyrighted. Games might wind up in museums (worldwide, there are at least seventeen museums dedicated to videogames), but bracketed moments of the play of particular games have not yet become value-able as art.

I invite the author to start selling unauthorized DVDs of clips from popular Twitch streamers and gaming YouTubers and see how long their lawyers allow him to entertain the notion that Let’s Plays do not constitute intellectual property.

the 2D side-scroller and its pitbull of a cousin, the first-person shooter,

???

The rest of the section is pretty unremarkable, so we move onto him complaining about lousy movie critique, then lousy video game critique, then explaining the concept of Easter eggs, then video game puzzles:

The puzzles of Limbo and Inside are more ambitious than the puzzles of most games in that their solutions often require the player to wait, or to exhibit what in psychology and education circles is known as divergent thought—for example, a corpse is a corpse, but it is also potentially a deadweight that can be used to spring a boobytrap.

Making the player wait or use an unusual object as a weight doesn’t strike me as particularly devilishly clever.

Then we get this jewel of a paragraph:

Nevertheless, puzzles themselves stand as an obstacle blocking the path of videogames’ journey from game to art. For while I might willingly suspend my disbelief long enough to accept that a boy has been tasked with jogging exhaustedly through a factory that churns out invincible blob creatures, I will find that willingness strained when I am also confronted with confounding puzzles placed in my path for no good reason. Videogames, in other words, ignore the basic tenets of internal consistency—in order to keep playing, you must suspend your disbelief, and then suspend it again, and again, and again, which means that in order to play and enjoy videogames you must also suspend the kind of critical judgment that is normally associated with art.

You heard it here, folks, accepting weird gameplay conceits means you can’t critically analyze a game.

Similarly, Easter eggs appeal only on the level of geek fetish—which is more or less the opposite of critical appreciation—and it is for this reason that I won’t address the puzzles and Easter eggs in Inside, even though they eventually lead to what some have concluded is the game’s “hidden meaning.” And this is the problem of videogames in a nutshell, because meaning in work of art is no more hidden from its beholder than the summit of a mountain is hidden from the mountain climber.

Sounds to me more like the problem is that he’s ignoring what the game itself is telling him about its plot and themes because it’s doing it in a way he finds aesthetically displeasing. I don’t know much about critical analysis but I feel like that’s not really how you should be doing it.

We then get a description of the plots of Limbo and Inside, including a decent bit of analysis marred by a bit of “murder simulator”-ism.

This is worth noting because prior to this moment the violence the boy has inflicted, either in Limbo or Inside, has been indirect—really an act of self-defense—but now the game is threatening to creep back into the usual videogame mode of affectless murder. You are given a choice: slip backward toward the wantonly horrific likes of Grand Theft Auto (1997) and Postal 2 (2003) [3] , or pause a moment and then continue on in a macabre but not morally bankrupt pursuit narrative. In this way, the player is implicated in a wryly disjointed bit of commentary on the history of gaming itself.

I mean this entirely sincerely: someone should get this guy a copy of Undertale. I think he’d enjoy it, if he could get past the idea of having to accept JRPG conventions.

Sadly, video game still aren’t art because he can list a bunch of movies that had vaguely similar elements:

From there, it’s not hard to find antecedents for Inside in both literature and film—it’s a little bit Soylent Green, a little bit Logan’s Run, a little bit The Island of Dr. Moreau, and more than a little bit Frankenstein. The imagery starts to seem familiar, too, with milieus lifted from E.T., Alien, and The Poseidon Adventure. But all this allusive flotsam becomes a bit of a disappointment, as eventually you become hard pressed to find anything in Inside that you haven’t seen inside something else.

Ezra Pound demanded that artists “make it new,” and Marcel Proust insisted that a writer is someone who invents a voice as unique as his or her fingerprint, but Inside isn’t even really trying to tell a story that hasn’t been told before. That’s a problem. Art cannot be made up wholly of references to other art. Star Wars, for example, does not come close to art because at its core it is nothing more than a pre-fab mash-up of archetypes mail-ordered from the IKEA superstore of Joseph Campbell.

I mean... why can’t art be composed solely of references to other art? Why can the whole not be more than the sum of its parts? If I take a picture of the Mona Lisa and photoshop a photo of a can of soup over her head, the resulting work is distinct from either of the originals, even though I provided no original content except the idea of sticking the two together.

Put another way, Inside could only have been designed by someone who hasn’t read Roland Barthes’s “The Death of the Author,” and hasn’t read Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” and hasn’t read T.S. Eliot’s “Tradition and the Individual Talent”—someone who hasn’t, in other words, engaged theoretically with what art is. And that, in turn, leads to the simple conclusion that on the level of its plot Inside is not trying to do what art does.

Good god this guy is snobbish.

Second, there’s still the meta-twist to consider: perhaps Inside is a game with both a text and a subtext. And perhaps a subtext can help the videogame industry evolve beyond the hyperviolence that is its womb and its crutch.

“Hyperviolent” is not exactly how I would describe Breakout or Super Mario Bros. Anyway, he then ponders the potential meaning of the evil scientists at the end of the game being stand-ins for the developers, and comes to the conclusion that...

The problem of games today is that their creators have not imagined any purpose for them greater than fun. There are exceptions to this, of course, but for the most part games equate escape with distraction—to be distracted is to be entertained, and it is good to be entertained.

Unlike the rest of popular media, of course.

The obligation of art, as Henry James described it, is to be interesting, and if you’re paying attention, that is to say, if you’re trying for more than distraction, then Inside begins to be interesting with its name, which stands in stark contrast to games like Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

I too enjoy criticizing games for being superficial based on their titles.

Then we get some final analysis, a quote from a Raymond Carver short story I read in high school and remember mostly as something my friends in English class found homoerotic subtext in, and the claim that the goal of art is a feeling of transcendental bliss:

The much remarked-upon narrator of Raymond Carver’s classic short story, “Cathedral,” experiences such a moment as the story climaxes with a blind man helping him draw a church. “My eyes were still closed,” the narrator says. “I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn’t feel like I was inside anything.”

At its most ambitious, Inside aspires to a similar feeling. Escape in art that is not transcendence is cheap, and if you can climb beyond the foolish puzzles and the Easter eggs and the hidden meanings, you can feel, for a moment, that you are not alone on your sofa with your phone, playing a game; rather, you are somewhere else—somewhere grassy, bathed in warmth by a ray of sunlight falling from above.

And that’s nice and all but it feels like he didn’t really lead up to it.

Anyway, I spent way too much time picking through this but here we go. Final rating: 2/10, the next time you want to know if video games are art yet ask someone who actually plays them.

#idle musings #long post

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britesparc · 4 years

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Weekend Top Ten #425

Top Ten Things Missing From Disney+

It’s been about a month now since Disney+ finally – finally! – launched here in the UK, and what a ride it’s been. It’s totally taken over my daughters, in the sense that now they don’t watch TV, they watch Disney+; apart from token gestures to the iPlayer for the more educational endeavours of the likes of Numberbots or Do You Know, they’ve not seen anything not produced by the House of Mouse.

But at least I now know all the words to the Vampirina theme song.

Of course, it’s not all kids’ stuff; we’ve been enjoying visiting and re-visiting some classic movies, and The Mandalorian – which I pretty much figured I’d enjoy – has totally blown me away. It’s true that I adore The Last Jedi, but Mando is more of what I want from Star Wars going forward; singular takes that employ the classic iconography we know and love, but with fresh storylines and characters, giving us something familiar but different. It’s the Lone Wolf and Cub breezy space western I didn’t know I needed.

But the more I look at what’s on offer, the more I see things that aren’t there. This isn’t me being greedy and demanding more and more content (well, not exactly); rather, it’s things I find curious by omission. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of stuff on here that I really want to see; but at the same time, I don’t really get whey it’s not there. Or even if I do, I also find it a little odd. There are some obvious rights issues at play; but this is Disney, could they not fork out the money? And I’ve left off other films where I guess they’re timing the release to maximise publicity – for instance, whilst they brought Frozen II to the US earlier than planned, I sorta get why keeping it back in the UK might make financial sense. Similarly, the Christmas-themed Noelle was essentially a Disney+ “launch title” in the States, but I imagine we’ll eventually see it come November. Again, adding fresh content throughout the year makes sense, from a brutal capitalist perspective.

So this list isn’t a whine, necessarily; nor is it a deep-dive into Hollywood rights issues. It’s really just me pondering the reasoning behind what we got and what we didn’t. But make no mistake: I’m seriously pissed off we didn’t get number one.

The Ewok movies: Caravan of Courage (1984) and Battle for Endor (1985) were video rental staples of my childhood and really synonymous with my early love for Star Wars in general and Ewoks in particular. I am absolutely certain that they will not have aged well, and I wonder if their low-fi cheesiness is what keeps them off the service. Plus, maybe Disney doesn't want to acknowledge their continuity? Regardless, I think they’re missing a trick by not acknowledging the weird hinterland of Star Wars stuff pre its late 90s renaissance.

Genndy Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars: not the more famous Dave Filoni CG one, but the earlier series of shorts from the beloved Samurai Jack creator that ran from 2003-05. Beautiful, elegiac, and filling in minor plot points between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith (we all wanted to know how Anakin got that scar, didn’t we?), these were fantastic tone poems dedicated to our favourite sci-fi universe, and I'm a bit mystified by their absence. Surely these at least are still canon?

1960s Marvel cartoons: y’know, like Spider-Man (1967-70) – the one with the theme tune. There were several of these shows, often adapting the comics, sometimes very literally (the Hulk one is practically a motion comic). Their quality now is perhaps variable, but they’re fascinating artefacts of their time. I'd love to see them again (especially as we’re probably not gonna see the Sony Spider-Man films any time soon).

The Hulk movies: Hulk (2003) and The Incredible Hulk (2008) are, neither of them, very fondly remembered; Edward Norton's solo outing very much the MCU’s red-headed stepchild, and Ang Lee's film predates the idea of shared universes to deliver a very singular vision. The rights to the Hulk are tied up in complex pre-Disney contracts, meaning a solo Jade Giant movie would need to be released via Universal, and I imagine that holds true for streaming. But come on; he's a major Avenger. Surely they could come to some arrangement regarding The Incredible Hulk at least, just to try to bolster the MCU playlist? It's not as if Disney can't afford it.

Droids and Ewoks cartoons: in the Eighties ('85-’86 to be precise) young Star Wars fans could relive adventures in a galaxy far, far away with two different classic animations: one following the high-camp adventures of Threepio and Artoo, and another focused on Wicket W. Warrick and his furry friends. I've not seen either since I was very little, but I remember them both with enormous fondness, and I find their absence from D+ to be a personal attack. Even if – let’s face it – these are definitely not canon.

Sofia the First: Once Upon a Princess (2012): see, this one's a bit strange. Sofia the First – the pleasant Disney Junior cartoon about a young village girl becoming a princess – is on D+, as expected. But its double-length pilot, released essentially as a TV movie, is not. The Tangled series had a similar debut, with its pilot “movie” Before Ever After, and that's on the service; so whither Sofia? It's not as if they’re gonna cause a Twitter storm by releasing it later. Did they forget? Is it down the back of Bob Iger’s sofa?

Logan (2017): yeah I know why this one isn't on there; it's full of effin' and jeffin' and blokes getting their arms lopped off. But it's a bit weird to only get two of the three Wolverine movies. True, the continuity of the Fox X-Men films is all over the place, but all the same, to miss out the “last” one feels a bit off, ultraviolence notwithstanding. Skipping Deadpool is more understandable, mind.

Futurama (1999-2013): Disney have rightly made a big deal about The Simpsons. But Futurama is more-or-less equal to Simpsons at its height (and being a much shorter run, less variable in quality). Whilst it skews a bit older, I don't see it as being unsuitable for Disney+, so not sure why it's not there. My guess is they're waiting to release it with a big splash somewhere down the road (unless there's some rights issue I'm not aware of).

The Indiana Jones movies (1981-2007): this is either another rights issue (do Paramount still own the distribution? Are they signed up to another service?) or they’re waiting for an opportune moment to strike. Because, really, this is a no-brainer; Indy is right in Disney’s wheelhouse. Sticking Harrison Ford’s weathered but beautiful face on their advertising is a huge draw. But if somehow they can’t show the Indiana Jones movies, then it’s gonna be weird come Christmas 2022 or whenever it is that James Mangold’s Indiana Jones and the Quiet Sunday at Home Watching Antiques Roadshow reaches the service. Say, they’re not gonna make us wait that long for the other films are they?!

Star Wars Holiday Special (1978): no, wait, hear me out. This could be big. I get why it’s not there, really I do; it’s a much-lambasted relic, a TV variety special kitted out with emerging Hollywood glamour, made when Star Wars wasn’t really Star Wars and therefore a perennial embarrassment to George Lucas. But its naffness is now legendary. Disney should give it a rudimentary nip and tuck, clean up the noisy VHS transfers that flood the internet, and whack it on National Geographic or something, maybe with a humorous retrospective documentary from the guys who did The World According to Jeff Goldblum or something. This could be a huge, and that’s a hill I’ll die on.

Right, that’s ten big ones whose omission either baffles or offends me. There are others, both large (whither Titanic?) and small (I find it a bit weird that Garfield 2 is on there but not Garfield 1). My eldest also noted that The Nightmare Before Christmas is missing, although I’d wager that’ll pop up before the year’s end (EDIT: turns out it is up there. I'm pretty sure it wasn't at launch, though). Disney is playing a clever game with content that is, to some degree, limited (in the sense that it can only really add new movies or shows that it makes itself, and there’ll only ever be a few of those a year); holding back some prestige flicks for opportune moments makes sense. But, c’mon; give us our Ewoks, man.

#top ten #disney #disney+#movies #tv #streaming #indiana jones #star wars #futurama #sofia the first #mario

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corystssides · 7 years

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Bottled, Part 2

Words: 3090

Summary: After the last video, Anxiety is angry. However, he should know that bad things happen when he gets emotional.

Warnings: claustrophobia, verbal fights

Tagging: @yep-another-fander, @softlogic, @tssanderssidestrash, @literallylogic, @diplomatic-arsonist

Part one Part three Part four Part five Part six

So he was the bad guy again, huh? The villain? All he did was agree with Logan, but he, Anxiety, was the spoilsport. At least he understood consent. Would he have changed Patton into a Terrence, or a Talyn, if Patton hated it? No. Would he have given Thomas the power to fly, only to suddenly rescind it for drama if he knew Thomas hated flying? No. But Anxiety was the bad guy. It didn’t count if the villain didn’t want to participate.

Anxiety was unbelievably angry. As he stormed through his part of the mindscape, even the shadows feared to come near. He knew he should calm down before something bad happened. He was one of the emotional traits, and when he was mad, Thomas was affected. Something would happen. He wasn’t sure what, but something. Probably Prince Backhanded Compliments would come after him. He screeched in anger, and swung a fist at the empty air.

It came into contact with glass. After howling in both anger and pain, Anxiety looked around. He was now in some sort of upright bottle. Rather than shattering, the spot where his fist had connected with the bottle seemed to be growing reinforcements. In a matter of seconds, there was a sort of blister of rippled glass where he’d punched the wall.

Then it hit him. He was an emotion. In a bottle. A bottled emotion. How very creative.

“ROMAN!” he yelled, putting the proper force and then some behind the word to summon the trait. He then immediately regretted his action when he was nearly impaled upon arrival. A sword appeared a hair’s breadth away from his neck and imbedded itself in the glass behind him. He froze. Roman froze. It took them a moment to process what had happened.

“What the flip-flopping shape-changing crown of Loki do you think you’re doing?” Roman shouted.

“Me?!” Anxiety asked, “You’re the one who almost killed me, and you’re asking what I’m doing?”

“Certainly! You shouldn’t summon people without warning them first, you never know what they could be doing! Honestly, haven’t you heard of consent?”

Anxiety couldn’t tell if the bottle had actually gotten darker or if it was just his vision clouding. He didn’t have to move closer to get into Roman’s face--the bottle was fairly small--but he did lean forward a bit to make his point. “Have I heard of consent?! Have you?! You and the others summon me without consent, move me without consent, change my form without consent, make me fly without consent, and when you get sick of me, you shove me into a bottle--all without my consent!”

“Oh, you think this predicament is my fault?” Roman must have stepped forward, because now their foreheads were pressed together and their chests were probably an inch apart.

“Of course it’s your fault, Mr. Creative. And now you’re even touching me without consent. Back off!” Anxiety tried shoving him away, but Roman didn’t move, and Anxiety was already backed against the wall.

“I’d love to, but it seems like you have somehow made the bottle smaller,” Roman snapped. “So now who’s fault is it?”

“Still yours. If you hadn’t put me here in the first place, we wouldn’t be in this predicament!”

“Stop shouting, you’re making my ears hurt,” Roman said. “And anyway, traps? Not my style. And what would I know about trapping emotions anyway? Patton seems to be a more likely culprit in this than I.”

Anxiety’s eyes widened, then he scowled. “He wouldn’t,” he said.

“No? This seems like a very effective time-out, which I’ve heard is a parental punishment of choice for unruly toddlers.”

Anxiety went to move his hands in a sarcastic gesture, but smacked the suddenly-much-closer wall instead. Two glass blisters formed immediately. “See? The bottle only reacts to you,” Roman said. “I would suggest calming down.”

“Impossible to do with you here,” Anxiety grumbled.

“Then I shall gladly leave you,” Roman said. He snapped his fingers. Immediately, they were shoved into each other, hard. Anxiety’s nose hit Roman’s eye, while one of Roman’s hands slammed into Anxiety’s side. Roman swore. Anxiety didn’t swear, but he felt the same sentiment. They squirmed until they were basically in a hug position, heads next to each other and hands pressed against the wall behind the other.

“Only reacts to me, huh?” Anxiety asked sarcastically.

“Shut up.”

“Unless you have some brilliant idea as to how to get us out, I don’t think I will.”

“Uhh,” Roman said, trying to look around. All he could see was rippled glass and Anxiety’s thick mass of dark hair, some of which promptly got caught in his still “uhh”ing mouth. He quickly attempted to spit it out, and Anxiety made a note of disgust and did his best to move as far away as possible. Then, Roman spotted a glint.

“My sword!” he exclaimed, automatically snapping his hand toward it. He hit his elbow against the wall behind him, and squeaked as numbness shot up his arm. He’d hit his funny bone, which didn’t strike him as humorous at the moment.

“Now who needs to stop shouting?”

Roman would have snapped something witty or deserved again, but instead he took a deep breath. This was completely and utterly Anxiety’s fault, but he needed the emotional trait on his side in order to get out of here. “Anxiety,” he said, in a quiet, calm tone. “My sword has already halfway gone through the side of this nefarious trap. I, obviously, cannot reach the hilt, however, your hand is already near it. I believe if you calmly wield it, you will be able to slice through the bottle.”

“Is it going to burn me or something if I touch it? Y’know, since I’m a villain?”

“That was an emotionally charged statement,” Roman said, repeating something he’d heard Logan say once or twice to get Anxiety to chill out. “And, no, it won’t burn you. It’s not magic.”

Anxiety frowned and gripped the grip. He tried to wiggle it. Then he tried pulling it back toward him in the hope that it would slide further into the glass. Then he adjusted his grip and tried again.

“It’s not working,” he grumbled.

“Try using both hands,” Roman said.

“I--okay,” Anxiety said. “Try being smaller.”

“I shall shapeshift into Talyn to facilitate that.” In a second, it was done. However, he had not realized that Anxiety had been leaning against him as a support while he tried to move the sword until he ended up with a face full of black hoodie falling into him. He let out an indignant squeak.

In spite of himself, Anxiety snickered a bit as he moved to let Roman breathe again.

“Don’t laugh at me!” Roman snapped. “I am not funny!”

At that, Anxiety let out a short guffaw. Both of them fell as the glass suddenly retracted a bit. The retracting stopped as they both let out a panicked shout. Roman was now on the floor of the bottle. Anxiety was now on top of him. He scrambled to move with a “At least there’s more room now,” but Roman stopped that movement by grabbing his shirt.

“Anxiety, we’ve got it!” Roman said. “You laughed, and the glass retracted! Positive emotions counteract the growth!”

“If that’s the case, we’re going to be stuck here forever,” Anxiety said. “I think the sword’s a better idea.”

“Oh, come on! You were just laughing! How hard will it be for you to do it again?”

“You said it yourself, you're not funny,” Anxiety said, scowling once more.

The Darkling Thrush had a point. Roman was the creative one, but jokes were not his division.

However, there was something that was his division that made everyone happy. He pulled Anxiety closer and grinned. “I know how to make you feel positive emotions,” he said.

“I swear, if you try to kiss me, or--or anything like that, we're both dying in this stupid bottle.”

Roman scowled and shoved Anxiety away. “I'm running out of ideas here, Half-Hearted Prince.”

“The sword,” Anxiety said. “We still haven't tried that one.”

“Fine, try the sword.” Then he thought of something. “Actually, I'm probably stronger than you. Let me try the sword.”

They awkwardly shifted around so that Anxiety was the one sitting on the floor so Roman could stand up. He shapeshifted back into his typical form, noting how much less room there was now that he was no longer small and non threatening. He carefully moved his arms so that they wouldn’t painfully come into contact with the glass any more, and gripped the sword. Then, he pushed with all his might.

The sword slid forward as though it was greased with butter. Roman crashed into the other side of the bottle, and also Anxiety’s shoulder. “Hey!” Anxiety protested.

“Hay is for horses,” Roman said. “And it worked, so don’t comp--” he stopped talking as he noticed that his sword was now stuck. No matter how much he pulled, the sword would no longer budge.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. This was fan-flipping-tastic.

“Well,” he said. “We tried the sword, and now it is stuck. Any more bright ideas?”

Anxiety shrugged hopelessly. “For positive emotions, we need Patton. To summon Patton, we would need more space in the bottle. To get more space in the bottle, we need positive emotions.”

“Yes, it’s a vicious cycle,” Roman said. “And there’s still the possibility that this could be Patton’s doing.”

“I still don’t believe it,” Anxiety said, though there was clear uncertainty in his voice.

“I am in agreement,” Roman said.

“That’s not what you said earlier,” Anxiety said.

“That is correct, however now that I think about it, this trap seems too complex and vicious for Patton’s taste. The bottle is clearly made to trap negative emotions and prevent escape, however, it also gets smaller and presses in as your negative emotions heighten, presumably until death.”

“And Patton is the least likely of any of us to try and kill someone or something,” Anxiety said, finishing Roman’s line of reasoning.

Suddenly, the walls expanded just a tiny bit. Roman wouldn’t have even noticed if he hadn’t been leaning most of his body weight against the wall. He tried to wiggle his sword free. It was still very stuck. Before Anxiety could reverse what he’d done by overthinking something, Roman tried to think of a different topic of conversation. “Let’s talk through what happened,” he said. “Maybe if I understand the circumstances behind how you got trapped here, I can think of a way out.”

“Nothing much to tell,” Anxiety mumbled. “I was mad, then I took a walk, then suddenly, I was here.”

“Where were you walking?”

“My part of the mindscape.”

“Ah, the nightmare realm. Are you absolutely certain, then, that this isn’t a nightmare illusion?”

“Positive,” Anxiety said. “None of the shadows came anywhere near me. They’re afraid of me when I’m really mad.”

“How mad were you?”

“Really mad.”

“That’s not descriptive.”

“Really, really mad.”

Roman sighed in irritation, then changed back into Talyn so there was enough room for him to sit down too. He slid down the wall and landed with a thump. “So you were really really mad. About what?”

“The video.”

“The last one? I thought it was very enjoyable.”

“I didn’t.”

“Why?”

Anxiety made a vague hand motion that seemed to indicate the thought, Seriously? “Did you listen to me at all during it?”

“Mostly you were complaining, so I tuned you out.”

This time the hand moved in an I-give-up sort of way. “That. That right there is what I was mad about.”

“Why? You complain all the time. At this point, your complaints usually aren’t that important.” Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say, as Roman was suddenly shoved six inches closer to Anxiety.

“Yeah, whatever,” Anxiety snapped. “This is stupid anyway. You don't actually care, you just want to get out. I'm taking a nap.”

Anxiety pulled his knees closer to his chest, then crossed his arms on top and buried his head behind them. At first his breathing was purposefully rhythmic, as though he was counting the seconds of each one, but eventually they softened and some of the tension in Anxiety’s shoulders disappeared.

Roman was bemused by the whole interaction. He didn’t understand why Anxiety was so upset. He did complain about everything, and it wasn’t like Roman was the only one who tuned him out. Patton straight-up ignored Anxiety most of the time, Thomas cut him off when he complained, and Logan only listened when whatever Anxiety was complaining about would strengthen his arguments. And even with all that, Anxiety still managed to complain and be heard. Honestly, he wasn’t sure he’d ever heard anything from Anxiety’s mouth that wasn’t a complaint. He shouldn’t be surprised that no one wanted to listen to him.

However, that was Roman’s point of view, and Roman’s point of view hadn’t gotten them anywhere near freedom yet. This would be so much easier with Patton. Patton overreacted to things just as much as Anxiety did, but at least he could provide an “I’m upset and here’s why,” rather than a “Something is vaguely wrong but I’m going to be mad about it anyway.”

He had to rationalize his way through this. He couldn’t just come up with a creative way for Anxiety to be happy, no, that never worked. He had to figure out why Anxiety was bothered, and then find a way to destroy the source of unhappiness. First the facts: Anxiety had said that he was mad about them not listening to him in the last video. However, he hadn’t really been paying attention to him, instead focusing on putting ideas in his head and reveling in how awesome it was to be a cartoon. He tried to remember something, anything that Anxiety had said. Let’s see--

--something, something “Logan’s a Debbie Downer too, but sure, I’m the bad guy” or something

--agreeing with him about ignoring Logic in the future, but sarcastically

--hating flying

--something about being the bad guy again, to which he had responded “Everyone loves the villain!”

--something about flying again

--general complaining about the moral of the video

--complimenting him on his pale joke, but that may have also been sarcastic

He pulled out a notebook from a pocket (Logan wasn’t the only one with ideas to write down) and put down everything that he could remember from the video. After that, he thought about everything Anxiety had said while they were in the bottle.

--He’d yelled a lot about consent.

--He hadn’t wanted to touch Roman’s sword because he was afraid it would burn him.

--He’d laughed at Roman and then said he wasn’t funny.

--He refused to be positive, but he also refused to believe that Patton was responsible for this.

--He said he was really mad about the video, and then he got mad when Roman said that he hadn’t been listening to Anxiety.

Once he’d written all of those down, he needed to analyze the themes and determine what was the most important. He suddenly thought he heard Thomas calling his name, but he tuned it out. It was his mind playing tricks. Thomas wouldn’t be needing him for a couple days at least, and knew better than to call any of the sides for at least 24 hours after completing a video. They needed time to unwind from the stress of all being together.

He wrote down Villain??? because it had been mentioned three times, but he wasn’t quite sure of the context. He also wrote down flying because it was mentioned more than once, and consent because Anxiety had yelled about it for probably a whole minute.

He suddenly realized that his handwriting was very shaky. Thrown off his groove, he also suddenly noticed that the entire bottle was shaking, as though they were in an earthquake, or like the bottle was about to explode. He kicked Anxiety to wake him up. Anxiety flinched awake, and was immediately alert. “What did you do?” he yelled, panicked. Even with the sudden emotion, the walls didn’t react. They were too busy shaking.

“I don’t know, but don’t worry, I’ll protect you!” Roman said, pushing off the wall to cover Anxiety’s body with his own. As soon as they were in contact though, they were falling. They shrieked, but hit the ground after only a few feet.

They were in Thomas’s living room. So were Logan and Patton. And Thomas. All three were looking down at them.

“Get. Off.” Anxiety said, low and dangerous. Roman scrambled up, pulling Anxiety to his feet also.

“Where have you two been?” Patton asked. He sounded worried, for some reason.

“None of your business!” Anxiety snapped.

He didn’t want the others to know. Why? But they’d ask questions. Roman had to save him and his bad interrogation skills.

“I don’t see what Anxiety’s so embarrassed about,” Roman said smoothly. “We were just monster hunting in the Nightmare Realm.”

Everyone looked at him incredulously, so none of them noticed Anxiety also giving him a wtf??? look.

“You never take anyone else on monster hunts,” Logan said.

“I thought he might be a useful guide, since it is his home realm. He is not, by the way. Led us right into a trap. We were only gone for a few hours though, so what does it matter? Why have you summoned us? Did something occur post-production that needs my creativity?”

“You’ve been gone for days,” Thomas said.

Roman’s smile faltered a bit. “Excuse me?”

“We haven’t seen you two since Friday,” Logan said. “It’s Tuesday.”

“You missed the Tonys and the next vlog!” Patton said.

“What?” Roman said. “I can’t believe this! I have to get to the Library of Memories!” He snapped out, trusting that Anxiety could handle this now that he’d come up with an excuse.

There was a pause after Roman left. Then, Logan raised an eyebrow at Anxiety. “Monster hunting?”

“Was there a reason you summoned us?” Anxiety snapped.

“We were worried about you!” Patton said.

“Yeah, well, Roman’s still being his typical stupid self, and I’m still here, being the bad guy. Nothing unusual. You should leave the worrying to me, anyway. You’re not any good at it.” With that, Anxiety sunk out.

Patton and Logan shared an equally baffled look. Thomas asked, “Does anyone else feel like they missed something important?”

#anxiety sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #my fics #angst #ish #something's wrong with this but idk what and i've worked on it too long to even figure it out anymore #i finished this way later than intended #sorry #bottled #posted jun 21 2017

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falkenscreen · 5 years

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Gilmore Girls

Gilmore Girls is better than everything else that’s out now, so let’s talk about it.

The show, still deservedly a favourite among very many, has a conspicuous and especial place in the lives of many a Gilly, this author no less. Having watched the now classic (non-sequentially) following its release, when I was just a few years shy of Rory, I returned to it in 2019 to watch it the whole way through, now a few years shy of Lorelai.

The difference in perspective, and all that which still resonates to boot, is astounding.

Somehow the ending wasn’t ruined for me, nor A Year in the Life which we’ll get to later. I’m far from the first guy to write about or fall madly in love with Gilmore Girls and if you’re not listening to Kevin T. Porter’s and Demi Adejuyigbe’s Gilmore Guys then you’re really missing out. Take these as the reflections of a most ardent fan who came to the show relatively afresh, did a Luke, went all in and found something that still sets a standard in scripting, character-building and female-driven storytelling, for which we are sorely lacking and still so grateful to Amy.

Spoilers herein for Gilmore Girls and A Year in the Life and, just so it’s out of the way; Jess, obviously. Dean quickly became a one-note boyfriend (who cheats), Logan (yes he did grow as a person) never near actively enough supported Rory in furthering her aspirations unlike others around her and Jess was the only partner who both held a candle to her intellectually and didn’t let Rory coast on her least forgiving qualities. I’m not counting Marty.

First thing’s first – story and plot. More often forgotten than not, they’re two different things. Gilmore Girls, as it was hurriedly pitch in a last ditch attempt to sell a show to the network, is about a mother and daughter who are more like best friends. Whenever it’s just the pair interacting the show was at its far and above best and never got tiring, not once, and was never as strong when Yale split them up or the revival, atypically and so consequentially, chose to see Rory and Lorelai apart for whole stretches.

Exceptionally cast, as good as Alexis Bledel was its Lauren Graham who ultimately drove the show and she never gets near enough credit for her nuanced portrayal of one of the most complex characters in modern television. Just look at the wordless despair, affection and resolve that passes across her eyes in the seconds before she steels herself for the proposal and season 5 cliff-hanger. Ask yourself how many performers can achieve such a range of emotion without dialogue in so few beats; there are few.

Significantly, mother and daughter besties are actually not what the show is about. What’s really going on is the tragedy of intergenerational disharmony as the mother who rejected her wealthy upbringing for a more regular life sees her daughter in turn rebel against her for the elite world she abandoned. With story and plot elements as strong as this, there was much to work with.

The spectre of a 16 year old Lorelai with a little bundle rocking up on the porch of the Independence Inn pleading for any job hangs over the show’s entire run. There’s been a fair few critiques over the years that Gilmore Girls is elitist or insular for its focus on small-town Connecticut which for many who haven’t been there can appear like a privileged haven.

Gilmore Girls is more accurately about a young woman and mother who didn’t get the support she needed from her family and set out to make a life where she wasn’t reliant on anyone but herself. The show, thankfully absent hackneyed flashbacks to supplement a narrative which didn’t need padding out, did however proffer us one glimpse into Lorelai’s early years establishing that Richard, amidst a great disdain for what was then very scandalous, insisted Lorelai marry the useless Christopher.

Anyone who thinks Lorelai’s circumstance or Rory’s for that matter reflects a privileged position needs to check it and on the matter of Connecticut there are many families who arrived there far from being a Richard or Emily, this author’s included; it being as diverse a place as the show’s myriad of characters suggests.

Now to Rory. Many (most) viewers were disappointed in the arc she undertakes and continues well into A Year in the Life. Yes it’s frustrating when you see characters you love take paths you’d rather they didn’t (those hoping for a happier end to Jaime’s story can relate) but her simply being on this trajectory as disappointing as it is isn’t a fair criticism of the show in and of itself and is one it has been unreasonably burdened with. For those who hate to see elitist Rory, it bears acknowledging the subtle parallel the series draws with Lorelai’s own (if more widely relatable) snobbery; think just how many times she judged or forewarned of someone simply for their being rich.

Those who were sad to not see Rory (or Lorelai) grow in key respects at least until the very end of season 7 point to this as a flaw in the series. This mistakes however the important distinction, one drawn as rarely as between story and plot, as regards character building and character growth. For the volumes we come to learn about Rory and Lorelai they conversely (and uncommonly for a character-driven series and moreover one of this length) don’t grow very much. We may not like it but hey, it’s a fact of life and often people don’t change, sometimes even after 10 years. It’s an unusual, dramatically refreshing theme befitting a drama and yes, Gilmore Girls is a drama. Like The West Wing given the volume of dialogue and hilarity it remains funnier than most comedies yet is still at the core a coming of age drama.

It is a nominally rare thing to see sustained character growth in this most distinct of series, later rendering Emily’s arc in the four most recent instalments all the more resonant. When Lorelai cautions Lane in season seven (the only era of the show when overwrought story beats infamously overtook character-driven drama) that she had best prepare for a circumstance where Lane’s children embrace the religiosity Lane rejected, it could fairly be highlighted as an unnecessary meta intrusion or an annoying ‘state the moral’ moment. It is however one of the only occasions emblematic of explicit character growth, coinciding as it happens with Rory having to contend with her most consequential instance of professional rejection. For being distinctive it resonated all the stronger in a series that would rather grow its characters and their world than the characters themselves; in modern terms a relatively novel and here welcomely idiosyncratic approach to storytelling emphasising bittersweet and very relatable aspects of our lives and interpersonal relationships.

The realm of Star’s Hollow being invested with a great deal more personality than most fictional settings, Lorelai and Rory’s narratives notably ground to a halt in Summer to see a musical tableaux of the town. If admittedly outstaying the welcome, it was a nice opportunity to say a farewell to the only significant character herein which didn’t get any dialogue. An affectionate ode throughout to small town life, it was well to remind us that every stop on the highway has a Taylor and Kirk, though rarely ones so lively and repeatedly entertaining; even if Kirk towards the end did go over the top.

Who never went over the top was Melissa McCarthy; it being a special pleasure to see her in pre-mega fame mode sharing her best moments alongside Yanic Truesdale, as well as a few hints at the more exaggerated roles she would later take on in some of Sookie’s most strident moments. The pop culture references were too a joy for any junkie; with the show (take note modern cinema) graciously never skipping whole beats to let one-liners or hark backs sink in, instead trusting that we’d get it or appreciate the resonance nonetheless.

This was conversely one of the flaws of A Year in the Life; but for allusions to Game of Thrones and a couple of other tidbits there wasn’t much acknowledgement in the scripting choices that this world had aged at all. There still being the ‘no cell phones’ sign in Luke’s after all these years, as fond a recall as it is, was just too much a stretch; on par with the infamous Game of Thrones-esque (yes Gilmore Girls did it first) roll credits moment when Rory delivers her manuscript.

For all its flaws and clustered cameos the addendums did however bring back Jason Stiles for a dignified farewell. A character very short-changed by his series’ conclusion (and lack thereof), when written out there was never a sense of closure like that proffered his contemporaries which fans indeed got ten years later.

And this brings us to the much touted ‘last four words.’ “Mum,” “Yes,” “I’m pregnant.”

It’s both a lacklustre and exceptional end in respects. Sure it would have had more of the intended resonance those ten years ago when Rory, mirroring Lorelai’s earlier experience, found herself at a stage of her life still yet to realise many of her goals that a newborn child would then and here implicitly affect. It still bears its impact but like much of A Year in the Life’s recurrent storytelling and character motifs it doesn’t resonate as desired and as it would have that era ago within a world and set of people who have now inevitably aged.

The theme and consequences of unplanned pregnancies has also already been widely explored in the series between the experiences of Lorelai, Christopher, Lane and, most unnecessarily, Luke. It’s far from improbable that any one or all of these figures, including Rory, would experience an unplanned pregnancy, yet when it came to introducing April the familiar story beats had already been well played out, as distinct from the more intimate and procedural arc with which Lane’s pregnancy is treated.

Rory’s announcement does however reflect the core theme of the series in children and parents, despite intentions and efforts made, replicating their forebear’s cycles. Despite it being foreshadowed that Logan is the father, he being evidently modelled on Christopher, here the show does not go for a bittersweet note but a heartfelt, cautionary one. As the series repeatedly reminds us, it’s far from unfortunate that children have similar experiences to their parents, or indeed that families continue to procreate. It’s just that, as when Rory dropped out of Yale, whatever happens in children’s lives may or very likely will still happen in spite of anything and everything a parent may want or try, and we’re all just along for the ride.

A Year in the Life’s highs and lows notwithstanding, it was well worth the hours to spend that much more time with our girls and loved ones (the most hilarious Paris’ return was probably the highlight) as it was over so many months and years. If you’re craving the qualities and depth that so much modern storytelling is so lacking, look no further.

Gilmore Girls is now streaming on Netflix

#xl #film/tv #netflix #gilmore girls #lauren graham #alexis bledel #melissa mccarthy #yanic truesdale #amy sherman-palladino

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lydixa-petal · 5 years

Link

Chapter 1 is up guys!

if you want the Prologue, it can be found Here.

Ao3 link above and below the cut is the chapter if you want to read it here.

Warnings - None in this one? Let me know if there is?

Word Count - 2469

< 2 years later >

Virgil stood at his locker peering at his phone before he turned the phone off, scowling at the message from his mother. He pulled his Modern History book out of his locker, placing it in his backpack with his pre-calc, physics and chemistry textbooks. He placed his phone in the pocket of his hoodie, that he had all his life and finally fit him before he pulled his backpack over his shoulder as he closed his locker with a frown on his face.

His name rang out through the bustling halls, he looked up and found Roman, dragging Logan and Patton behind him down the corridor. Virgil felt himself let out a laugh, worries about telling his friends of his situation disappearing as he watched them mess about, people actively moving out of their way as Roman made his way to Virgil. You’ll have to tell them eventually, Virge. Why not now? He thought to himself as Roman came to a halt in front of him and released Patton and Logan from his grip. Patton let out a giggle as Logan restraightened his tie and glasses before he reached over and fixed Patton’s glasses for him which had fallen askew on his face.

Roman smirked at Virgil as they both watched Logan and Patton interact, Patton with a light blush on his face and Logan a little more red. When they weren’t looking, he mouthed Glasses Gays at Virgil who let out a bark of laughter, Roman quickly joining him as the other two looked at them with confusion. Kids filed out of school and the small group followed suit, their loud conversation taking over the halls as Roman and Logan argued about something while Patton and Virgil talked together quietly. Virgil felt his phone go off once more in is pocket, which he pulled out and checked once more. On the screen there was another text from his mother who had texted him a few minutes back.

Mom : Let me know when you leave school.

Mom : Have you left yet?

He felt his eyes roll once more before he responded with a quick ‘Leaving now’ turning back to Patton who was currently attempting to ease the argument between Roman and Logan before it got too loud. Patton gave Virgil a pleading look, which made Virgil sigh loudly before his phone went off once more, he shook his head at Patton as he continued trying before he looked down at the messages.

Mom : When you leave, get to the parking lot as fast as you can. I’m waiting for you.

Virgil furrowed his brows at the message, wondering what it meant as his anxiety began to set in, as the next message came through Roman pushed open the front doors to the school and was met by multiple flashing lights.

Virgil jumped and scurried behind Roman, Logan and Patton. Hiding from the camera’s as he looked down at his phone once more and found another text from his mother.

Mom : As much as I know you won’t like it, don’t bring your friends. You can tell them more later. Your grandmother made the announcement this morning and somehow, they found your school.

Mom : Please hurry, I’m worried someone will recognise me somehow. Get here as fast as you can, Virge.

Virgil felt his face pale as he heard his name be called out, he looked up to find himself being instinctively protected by Roman who shielded him from the camera’s. The boys were all looking at him with confusion as the crowd tried to get closer, yelling his name.

Prince Virgil!

Realisation hit Roman like a tonne of bricks, but he didn’t move and watched the cowering man in front of him. The media was erupting behind him as they called question after question. Virgil’s face showed nothing but horror as they called his name. His voice croaked out as he knew he had to get to his mother, “I- I need to go.” Logan and Patton both turned around at his point to look at him in shock. “I can’t explain now, I promise I will, but I can’t do it here.” His eyes looked everywhere but them and the press, screaming for an escape route, “My mom is waiting for me in the car park, I need to get to her as soon as possible.” He whispered the last part so quietly that they almost didn’t hear him, Roman and Logan shared a quick look before they pushed the media back and away from Virgil, Patton removed himself and stepped forward to hug Virgil quickly, giving an excuse to explain how he could get to the parking lots without being chased too far. “I promise, Pat. I promise I’ll explain but I need to go.”

Patton gave a small nod, which Virgil took to say, ‘I know, Kiddo. Talk to you soon.’ Before Virgil sprung from behind Roman and Logan he ducked behind some bushes, just unnoticed as the press tried to see past Logan and Roman. He moved quickly through the bushes pulling the hood of his hoddie over his head before he was released from the bushes, he did check for press and when he found nothing but students and cars, he made the dart for his mother’s small yellow car, with the engine still on. He pulled open the door and threw himself onto the seat before he slammed the door closed and his mother drove off, a little over the speed limit.

“Mom... what’s going on?” Virgil asked as his mother kept watching the rear-view mirror, a frown on her face with her eye brows furrowed. Her chocolate brown hair was pulled up in a messy high pony tail, she took one quick glance at her son, his brown eyes meeting her green ones before she let out a breath, she had no idea she was holding.

“Your grandmother made the announcement this morning as I told you, things have been tensing between the different provinces of Astra since she refused to announce who the heir is, she thought that announcing you would diffuse the tension for now.” Virgil felt himself go pale.

“But... but I was supposed to have until I finished high school. I was supposed to graduate with my friends.” His hands fiddled with his hoddie strings as he sunk in his seat, if phone vibrating violently with texts from his friends which he chose to ignore for the time being. “What happened to the deal?”

His mother sighed as they pulled into their driveway, and she turned off the engine and turned to him. “Yes, I know. But we can’t do anything about it now. It’s out in the open and.... yeah.” Virgil felt himself swallow as his phone continued to violently vibrate. He turned the small device over seeing a few texts from Logan, Roman and Patton, all asking what was going on.

He typed a quick, Gimme a sec, into their group chat before he turned back to his mother who watched him carefully, as if she was waiting for him to break. “How long until I have to leave?” He said, his voice suddenly very quiet as the realisation that he couldn’t stay for long kicked in. Her face fell once more, the hair from her pony tail falling in her face.

“Your grandmother booked the flight for us to fly over there for tomorrow.” As much as he didn’t feel it, he knew that his face had dropped. He felt himself cave in, but he put on a scowl and opened the car door, ignoring the protests from his mother before he slammed it closed and marched towards the front door of their home. He pulled his own key out of his pocket and placed it in the hole turning it slightly before he pushed the door open to find some of the house already packed up. He felt the anger begin to fade as the other car door was heard slamming and the locking noise was heard. He felt his vision blur with tears as he begun to stumble to his bedroom, and he only just made it before he slammed the door shut and sunk down it.

His phone vibrated once more in his hand as he threw his backpack onto his bed, not rising from his spot in the dark room as he brought the screen up to his face and read the message.

Princey : Are you ok?

He felt himself smile at the concern before typing a short, I don’t know, into the text box before he sent it through to the chat. He got responses immediately Logan asking all sorts of questions, Patton continuously reminding Logan to be careful as well as asking if Virgil was ok and Roman remained quiet for a little while before he typed and sent.

Princey : What’s going on, V?

He contemplated typing it all out, but it didn’t feel right. He needed to tell them face to face. But before he could ask if they wanted to facetime, he heard a knock ring out on the other side of his bedroom door. He yelled out a quick, ‘yes’ before his mother’s voice took over.

“Hey Honey, do you need any help packing?” Her voice was gentle, as it had always been but there was an ounce of sympathy in it. That’s right... I’ll need to pack. He thought before he shook his head to himself, wiping the tears from his face before he responded with a quick no. “Oh ok, sweetheart. I’ll start dinner, is that ok?” She said, and Virgil immediately noticed that she wanted to do something, and just blaming her wasn’t going to make the problem disappear. He let out a sigh looking back down at his phone.

“Yeah that’s fine, Mom.” He said, his voice calmer than it was previously. He heard her retreating footsteps before he sent the message, he was putting together for the group chat.

Nightmare : I need to tell you guys, but I can’t bring myself to type it. Can we facetime instead?

He waited for replies before they began to pull through. A few seconds later he had a facetime request coming through from a contact named Princey, which he accepted quickly. He brushed the black hair from his pale face as Roman’s face appeared on the other side with, Logan and Patton. The latter offered a smile before Logan took over, asking in the most complex way possible, what is going on?

Virgil offered a weak smile, “I haven’t told you guys something?” He said weakly, feeling his small smile fade as Roman and Patton both looked at him

“What do you mean, Kiddo?” Patton asked which overlapped with Roman’s, “Are you ok, Virge?” Virgil felt himself lose control of his breathing, the breaths coming out short and sharp. He closed his eyes and scrunched up his eye brows. Logan’s voice rang out before any of the others as he said, “Focus on our breathing, Virge.” Their breaths fell into sync as Virgil struggled, when he opened his eyes, they were all looking at him with concern. He focused on he movement of Roman’s chest, and continued when he had control again.

“My dad was a Prince.” He started, looking away from the screen, feeling the tears well up again in his eyes. “When he died, I became the heir to the Throne of a small country called Astra.” He continued, the others all stayed quiet watching Virgil with increased interest as he kept talking, his voice slightly shaking. “My grandmother, the Queen, made the announcement this morning. I have to fly out to Astra tomorrow morning...” He trailed off, finally looking at his best friends. Roman’s eyes had widened, Logan readjusted his glasses and Patton had his hands over his mouth.

“You’re a PRINCE?!?” Patton yelled out, his face showing nothing but happiness and excitement as he looked at Virgil with a bright smile. Roman felt himself grin, and Logan had a small smirk on his face as Virgil blushed lightly. “Do we have to call you, ‘your highness’ now?” Virgil’s eyes darted straight back to the screen, eyes wide as he looked at Patton in shock.

“What?” He started, “No.” He said, and Patton let out a laugh, Roman joining in.

“Why didn’t you tell us though?” Roman said quietly, looking away from the screen, feeling Virgil’s eyes immediately on him. Roman could feel the blush rise his cheeks, and he knew he would never hear the end of this from Patton, but now he didn’t care. “We wouldn’t have treated you any different, V.”

“I tried.” Virgil started, “I tried everyday to tell you guys, but my words never came out.” He looked at his friends, “I guess I should also tell you this other thing, since I’m going to tell you everything.” Patton, Roman and Logan all looked at him, “My soul tattoo disappeared when I was young. I was about 11 years old.” He didn’t dare look at any of them, waiting for the insults to begin. Soulless.

The insults never came, and when he looked up, Patton and Logan weren’t looking at him anymore but at Roman who had his eyes wide. “I don’t have mine either...” Roman said, “I was about 11 too.”

Conversation merged out from that moment on, it was about an hour later when his mother knocked on his door saying that dinner was ready, “I’ve got to go guys.” Virgil said, reading over to press the end call button. They all said they farewells, but he looked back up to them, “can you guys be at the airport tomorrow morning?” They went quiet for a moment.

“We will be there.” Patton said, Virgil gave a shy smile before he ended the call, jumping off from his spot on his bed and moved to leave his room, mentally preparing for an emotionally taxing dinner with his mother.

<3 Soulmates <3

He was right, dinner was awkward and was over thankfully. Virgil had barely eaten and had excused himself as soon as possible. He closed the door to his room and walked over to his wardrobe, pulling out a backpack before he placed a few clothing items and essentials inside, including his phone charger and headphones for the entirety of the plane ride. He didn’t plan to be gone long, he hadn’t wanted this ever since he found out about it and didn’t plan to be gone long.

He turned the light off in his room, when he had finished packing, he scrolled through Tumblr for a little while before he switched for Myspace, he drifted off at some point mid scroll.

#thomas sanders #sanders sides #sander #logan sanders #roman sanders #ts virgil #roman x virgil #virgil x roman #ts roman #ts logic #ts logan #logicality #prinxiety #patton x logan #logan x patton #ts patton #sanderssides

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