YAAAAAAY! I squeed out loud when I saw this. :D :D :D I knew you were looking forward to this. :)
James: Today the Twerps were mean to me again! I hate them so much I'm going to namedrop them on an anon meme! Meowth: Uh, aint announcin' yer plans kinda defeatin' the purpose of anon? James: ...aw, crud! D: ...Strangely enough, spiteful comments on anon memes are about the level of bile frequently thrown around in Cori's fics...
Ash: YOU miss canon?! My older self's severe brain damage would like a word with you two. D: Don't remind me.
Also JEANS? James is complaining of the heat and he puts on JEANS? I know people wear pants in the summertime, but you'd think with as hot as it is he'd go straight for the shorts. Well, compared to thick, heavy uniforms that Cori for some reason thinks he's obligated to wear full-time, I'm sure it's an improvement. :P
Sure, romantic vomiting. You know, the kind where the heroine delicately presses a hand to her stomach and gasps before swiftly dashing off to the bathroom! That's about right for these fics!
And yeah, I've said it once and I'll say it again, her double standard over the Big Eater trope is hilarious. The trio get to stuff their faces with huge sundaes, French Toast, bacon and eggs, chocolate mint cookies, chicken with pasta and salad and cheesecake for dessert and three plates each from a Chinese Buffet but it's okay because THEY'RE HUUUUNNNNGRRRRRRYYYY. Tracey snacks on some Oreos and LOL LOOKIT THE BIG FAT PIG WITH HIS BIG FAT GUT! The sad thing is that you're not even exaggerating.
Hahaha, I'm sure you're not the only one who's done that. Hell, I think even canon does it sometimes. "WE TRIED TO GO TO A HOTEL BUT IT WAS CLOSED. OR HAUNTED. OR ON FIRE. OR FULL OF NAKED PEOPLE." 'OR RUN BY TEAM ROCKET.'
Then the cabin caught fire and they were forced to build an igloo out of sand. I can actually see that happening in canon.
And then the igloo catches on fire.
LOGIC BOMB GO BOOM! The entire fic, in summary. D|
"How dare the Twerps tell us stealing isn't okay! Those rotten little shits!" Seriously. I'd think Cori honestly subscribed to some sort of property-is-theft philosophy if it wasn't blatantly obvious that she'd fly into a screaming rage if anyone stole from HER precious woobies.
re: James blushing. To be fair, blushing over something a girlfriend/boyfriend says isn't THAT far off. Some people just blush easily. But the way Cori does it is pretty glurgey, so... It's the weird 'omg she looked at me when she said LOVE!' bit. That came off as more Cori trying to push for a 'See, Jessie/James is SO canon in the show!' interpretation... but doing it in a fic where James already knew Jessie and he had the truest of true wubs. It was squeeing over subtext in a fanon where the text is already canon. ...Does that make sense? :\
Silly GS, the canon events are just there to hold the WYDS together! I will commend her for her determination to re-interpret every single canon scene to fit with her version of What Really Happened. I will NOT commend her for the characters' continued shock that the canon has to be twisted around sideways, hit with a sledgehammer, and sent through a wormhole in order to fit her desired characterizations.
If she would just stop taking her stories' canon so SERIOUSLY, the obvious clashes between them and canon might not be so glaring.
[stupid fighting wangst]
Remember when you pointed out the problem with her WYDS series? This reminds me of that. Cori tries to reconcile "icky stupid canon" with her fantasy world and ends up making Jessie and James's relationship look unstable as fuck. Half the issue is, I think, that Jessie and James are REALLY NOT A GOOD CHOICE for the 'flawless and pure relationship' type of fanon. They fight, they insult each other, their schemes and priorities sometimes clash... I AM frankly a Rocketshipper, but it just doesn't work. It's like trying to write an Eliwood/Ninian WYDS with Eliwood being this massive tsundere and Ninian being a domineering creepy-seme type. I mean, how would that even work.
As a result, Cori has to excuse all of the incompatible behavior as stemming from Jessie's deep-seated traumas. And that much 'uncharacteristic' behavior from a supposed sweet, weepy, and touchy-feely woobie is disturbing and possibly a sign of a lurking abuser (seriously, Cori!Jessie is 'ALL THE WARNING SIGNS WERE THERE, BUT I WAS BLINDED BY LOVE' writ large) even BEFORE you get into the Cori-specific nuttery.
I mean, it's one thing to have couples arguing when they're starting out in a relationship, and it's not THAT far off to have them need things put back in perspective now and then. Yeah, I wouldn't have a problem with it if A) their relationship wasn't supposed to be TOTALLY PERFECT 100% YEP YEP and B) every clash wasn't portrayed as world-ending trauma. Doesn't Jessie spend several pages working up to suicide (and nearly goes through with it) after a bad fight in To Extend Our Reach?
If they just fought and got torn up about it, that would be one thing, but it's the completely disproportionate reactions that really creep me out.
But the way Cori ends every fic with "and our love was stronger and shinier than ever"? Just. No. Exactly.
THANK YOU, TOM, FOR REMINDING US OF CANON. Someone has to. D|
C!Syaoran, don't eat Cori Rocket eyes. They're bad for you. D: C!Syaoran: I'm not. Just Nuzlocking them. *taps away on his GBA*
And yes, this is another good example of Cori's Double Standard Abuse: Female On Male. D: SO MUCH OF THESE FICS ARE ONCE YOU REALIZE YOU SHOULD BE LOOKING FOR IT. D:
"I shoved at Jessie and raised my voice to her because she insulted me! I'M A MONSTER! WAAAAAAAAAH! Oh, but when she beats me for no reason at all she's just stressed and it was my fault for breathing too loudly! SHE LOVES ME SHE LOVES ME MY FINGER FELL DOWN THE STAIRS I SWEAR TO ARCEUS!" Creepy. The horrible thing is that I swear that's barely any exaggeration.
OH GOD I FORGOT THIS TOOK PLACE AFTER "THORNS OF THE ROSE". D: I swear, the more context you have on back-references in these fics, the creepier the overall in-universe picture gets. D:
...oh my God. JAMES IS A GENDERFLIPPED ANA STEELE. D: I CAN'T UNSEE IT. It's weird, because these fics are infamous for Manly!James and Weepy!Jessie. So surely it should be the other way, right? But Cori has this weird thing where 'manly' also means 'puts up with any abuse and accepts that it's all because Jessie is such a wounded soul'. Meanwhile, 'weepy' also means 'Jessie can do anything she pleases without serious repercussions because SHE HAS ALL THE FEELS, GUYS'.
Which is actually a great example of how traditional gender roles hurt men too (and, in this case, REALLY hurt James), but Cori definitely did not mean it that way. At all.
I wonder if Cori even realized how unfortunate these stories would come off. Probably not, but holy jeez does it ever when you look at it through dark n' grittier deconstructionist vision. Or hell, even through merely REALISTIC vision. The funny thing about Coriverse is that it's so glurgey that realistic vision IS the darker & grittier version. @_@ I'm not kidding. Maybe it would have been GRIMDAWK-ery for her early stories, but by the time it really gets into the authorial-soapbox swing of things, everything is so over-the-top and so crazy that even a MILDLY REALISTIC view is deeply disturbing deconstruction.
I mean, hell. Essentially all you would have to do to turn the first chapter of New Directions into a deranged bashfic would be to write it from the point of view of ANYONE but Team Rocket. I kind of did that with At the Food Court... But, I mean, the kind of bashfic where [hated character here] beats up and probably rapes [author's pitied character], who then goes on a Roaring Rampage Of Revenge against these two-dimensional, bile-filled strawmen. EXCEPT THAT CORI WAS TAKING THE ASSAILANTS' SIDE. D:
And Cori called herself a SHIPPER of them. D: That's pretty much what I've been saying nonstop. D:
The sad thing is, in these stories it could be. Because James and Meowth aren't said to be ~in the deepest of looooves~. So Meowth being a jackass isn't jarring or disturbing-we ROOT for him to be a jackass because it's canon that he shows his love by being one! And the "we're cool now" is more meaningful than any "and our love was stronger than ever and we would never fight again". Yep. And at least we aren't expected to excuse any and all of Meowth's bad behavior BECAUSE HE'S SO ANGSTY. ):
"The Room" reference? XDD Oh, you mean during the birthday party scene? I always forget the beginning of the party, because the rest of it's so damn memorable. XD See, I never watched the whole thing so much as a whole lot of excerpts. So the outbreak of Captain Obviousness followed by "Good thinking!" would have made me think she was DELIBERATELY referencing it if it hadn't come out years after her time. XD
Meowth: What are you talking about? Wobbuffet: I like you very much. Loverboy. FIXED. XP
James: We really should talk to the higher-ups about firing her. Although it's going to be hard to convince them what with the huge meals she makes them every day. Who could say no to free food? Jessie: They might take you seriously if you didn't whimper outside the door begging for leftovers. Tracey: You think you have it bad?! She's had me on a starvation diet for days, and whenever I say 'Can I have a carrot stick?', she acts like I asked for a five-course banquet! Because I'm fat or something?!
OH NOES PREGNANCY DRAMA NO WONDER JESSIE WAS HOLDING HER POOR STOMACH AND MOANING SOFTLY! Seriously, the wangst that this sudden development generates is just. Beyond words. I knooooow. D: I'm reading through it now.
And morning sickness always kicks in immediately in fanficland. Anywhere from three days to a week, really. Oh and it's the oldest cliche in the book. I once saw it kick in LITERALLY THE MORNING AFTER. XD To be fair, even the fanfiction.net reviewers pointed out that was taking it a bit too far.
"Tonight, on a Very Special Episode of Coriland, Ash Ketchum burps in the presence of Jessie after drinking a can of soda. Jessie is forever traumatized. How will James avenge her while retaining his pacifism?" *laughing out loud* THE SAD THING IS I CAN REALLY SEE THAT AS BEING THE PLOT OF A WYDS.
"Ash burps disgustingly in Jessie's sainted presence, reminding her of a gluttonous, abusive ex-boyfriend and sending her into a tailspin! Perhaps the food-related trauma may even give her a fic-long eating disorder! How will James ever mend her wounded soul, especially with her slapping at him, insulting him, and running off to cry beautifully in the woods every two scenes?!"
(I don't think any of the fics ever touched upon eating disorders. Thank heavens. Goodness knows they tried every other sort of Very Special Episode theme.)
"When Arbok's Special Attack becomes abnormally high for her species' usual stat growth, the rest of the team must confront her and save her from herself..." XD
And yeah, it...doesn't say anything good for their love and how strong it is if Jessie can't trust James enough to tell him. I get it, she's ~triggered~ by what happened to her mother, but hasn't she said a million times before what a perfect idealized man James is? Meaning he WOULDN'T be a dick like that and leave her just cause she's preggers? That's my point. If he wasn't supposed to be sunshine and rainbows, I could buy it as a realistic reaction. Depending on one's temperament, old wounds can run indescribably deep.
...So, so much of these fics would MAKE A LOAD MORE SENSE if Cori would just LET UP A BIT on how perfect Team Rocket are. I admire her sheer output, but it could have been GOOD sheer output if she had just acknowledged that Jessie and James have flaws and that they'll have to work to overcome them, rather than just handwaving it off with how wonderful and underappreciated they are. As is, the enormous quantities of Trouble In Happyland are making it sound more like some sort of Communist-regime propaganda than an actual happy relationship.
'WE ARE MORE HAPPY THAN EVER, COMRADE! Incidentally, suicidal ideation in these fics is up 200% percent, but WE'RE HAPPY, REALLY, WE ARE SO HAPPY!!!'
Don't forget being born with its adult hair and eye colors! And giggling and grabbing fistfuls of hair! Blergh.
I'm an idealistic sap, don't get me wrong. But Cori goes SO FAR in that direction that she ends up being a walking deconstruction of all the flaws in that approach. D:
I was just about to make that mpreg joke, too. The fic asks for it. |P
[rant]
YES. GOD, YES. I'm sick of the term ~healthy relationship~ being overused too, but there are cases where IT'S ACTUALLY A MAJOR CONCERN. [...] N-O-T-H-I-N-G compared to the way Jessie and James's relationship is portrayed in these fics. For one, because there's actually some DEVELOPMENT of those relationships and signs they're going to move towards a better place, versus Cori!Jessie/James's constant stasis in 'horribly unstable "perfect relationship" with abuse overtones and emotional meltdowns aplenty'.
Because Soren never lashes out at Ike and Ike never takes it and says "it's okay, he's just in a bad mood". Jaffar and Nino don't fight every day over tiny things. NONE OF THEM has ever been suicidal over a haircut. In all fairness, has there EVER been a fandom in which a character not possessing any kind of hair-derived magical powers has been canonically suicidal over a haircut? :P
But yes. And Cordelia and whoever don't end up with the exact same relationship in S support that they had back in C support. And Ninian doesn't burst into tears, melt down, and wind up standing nearby a ledge looking down whenever she sees Eliwood doing anything other than WORSHIPPING FOREVER AT THE ALTAR OF THE PERFECTION OF THEIR LOVE. (She actually took dying remarkably well, all things considering.)
Hell, Ephraim/LYON is about as functional as this! And I'm talking about halfway-Demon-King-possessed!Lyon here!
Seriously, about the only not-totally-evil FE character I can see these two getting along with is post-breakdown ZEPHIEL. Deep-rooted trauma, massive overreaction, reasonably charismatic presence... ugh, I'd "like" to see Cori justifying why he totally shouldn't be blamed for wanting to see all humanity dead. And by "like", I mean "I need brain bleach, but it's so horribly plausible my morbid curiosity wants to see it happening just for the trainwreck factor".
These versions of Jessie and James are not healthy, stable people. At all. TO THE MAX. And it only gets worse as Cori gets angrier and angrier with the show - they become less unstable and more actively psycho. D: I DON'T like pushing the 'unstable = violent, psychopathic, or otherwise Automatically A Horrible Person' line, but that's exactly how it goes in these fics. They'd probably make decent in-universe case studies as to HOW and WHY some unstable people 'snap' and go utterly psycho.
(For one, they're unstable, woobieish ASSHOLES in Coriverse. They have no compunctions whatsoever about their life of crime, they don't see themselves as responsible for their actions in the slightest, they blame Ash for daring to lecture them about it being wrong, they blame Ash for daring to NOT LET THEM TAKE HIS PIKACHU, they blame Ash for DARING TO THINK BADLY OF THEM FOR THEIR UNREPENTANT THIEVERY...
In all fairness, their being unstable really isn't the central point. It's that they have no sense of responsibility, restraint, or reason in the first place. All the instability does is make them go really over-the-top with all of that.)
no subject
I knew you were looking forward to this. :)
...Strangely enough, spiteful comments on anon memes are about the level of bile frequently thrown around in Cori's fics...
D: Don't remind me.
Well, compared to thick, heavy uniforms that Cori for some reason thinks he's obligated to wear full-time, I'm sure it's an improvement. :P
That's about right for these fics!
The sad thing is that you're not even exaggerating.
'OR RUN BY TEAM ROCKET.'
I can actually see that happening in canon.
And then the igloo catches on fire.
The entire fic, in summary. D|
Seriously. I'd think Cori honestly subscribed to some sort of property-is-theft philosophy if it wasn't blatantly obvious that she'd fly into a screaming rage if anyone stole from HER precious woobies.
It's the weird 'omg she looked at me when she said LOVE!' bit. That came off as more Cori trying to push for a 'See, Jessie/James is SO canon in the show!' interpretation... but doing it in a fic where James already knew Jessie and he had the truest of true wubs. It was squeeing over subtext in a fanon where the text is already canon. ...Does that make sense? :\
I will commend her for her determination to re-interpret every single canon scene to fit with her version of What Really Happened. I will NOT commend her for the characters' continued shock that the canon has to be twisted around sideways, hit with a sledgehammer, and sent through a wormhole in order to fit her desired characterizations.
If she would just stop taking her stories' canon so SERIOUSLY, the obvious clashes between them and canon might not be so glaring.
Half the issue is, I think, that Jessie and James are REALLY NOT A GOOD CHOICE for the 'flawless and pure relationship' type of fanon. They fight, they insult each other, their schemes and priorities sometimes clash... I AM frankly a Rocketshipper, but it just doesn't work. It's like trying to write an Eliwood/Ninian WYDS with Eliwood being this massive tsundere and Ninian being a domineering creepy-seme type. I mean, how would that even work.
As a result, Cori has to excuse all of the incompatible behavior as stemming from Jessie's deep-seated traumas. And that much 'uncharacteristic' behavior from a supposed sweet, weepy, and touchy-feely woobie is disturbing and possibly a sign of a lurking abuser (seriously, Cori!Jessie is 'ALL THE WARNING SIGNS WERE THERE, BUT I WAS BLINDED BY LOVE' writ large) even BEFORE you get into the Cori-specific nuttery.
Yeah, I wouldn't have a problem with it if A) their relationship wasn't supposed to be TOTALLY PERFECT 100% YEP YEP and B) every clash wasn't portrayed as world-ending trauma. Doesn't Jessie spend several pages working up to suicide (and nearly goes through with it) after a bad fight in To Extend Our Reach?
If they just fought and got torn up about it, that would be one thing, but it's the completely disproportionate reactions that really creep me out.
Exactly.
Someone has to. D|
C!Syaoran: I'm not. Just Nuzlocking them. *taps away on his GBA*
SO MUCH OF THESE FICS ARE ONCE YOU REALIZE YOU SHOULD BE LOOKING FOR IT. D:
The horrible thing is that I swear that's barely any exaggeration.
I swear, the more context you have on back-references in these fics, the creepier the overall in-universe picture gets. D:
It's weird, because these fics are infamous for Manly!James and Weepy!Jessie. So surely it should be the other way, right? But Cori has this weird thing where 'manly' also means 'puts up with any abuse and accepts that it's all because Jessie is such a wounded soul'. Meanwhile, 'weepy' also means 'Jessie can do anything she pleases without serious repercussions because SHE HAS ALL THE FEELS, GUYS'.
Which is actually a great example of how traditional gender roles hurt men too (and, in this case, REALLY hurt James), but Cori definitely did not mean it that way. At all.
The funny thing about Coriverse is that it's so glurgey that realistic vision IS the darker & grittier version. @_@ I'm not kidding. Maybe it would have been GRIMDAWK-ery for her early stories, but by the time it really gets into the authorial-soapbox swing of things, everything is so over-the-top and so crazy that even a MILDLY REALISTIC view is deeply disturbing deconstruction.
I mean, hell. Essentially all you would have to do to turn the first chapter of New Directions into a deranged bashfic would be to write it from the point of view of ANYONE but Team Rocket. I kind of did that with At the Food Court... But, I mean, the kind of bashfic where [hated character here] beats up and probably rapes [author's pitied character], who then goes on a Roaring Rampage Of Revenge against these two-dimensional, bile-filled strawmen. EXCEPT THAT CORI WAS TAKING THE ASSAILANTS' SIDE. D:
That's pretty much what I've been saying nonstop. D:
Yep. And at least we aren't expected to excuse any and all of Meowth's bad behavior BECAUSE HE'S SO ANGSTY. ):
See, I never watched the whole thing so much as a whole lot of excerpts. So the outbreak of Captain Obviousness followed by "Good thinking!" would have made me think she was DELIBERATELY referencing it if it hadn't come out years after her time. XD
FIXED. XP
Tracey: You think you have it bad?! She's had me on a starvation diet for days, and whenever I say 'Can I have a carrot stick?', she acts like I asked for a five-course banquet! Because I'm fat or something?!
I knooooow. D: I'm reading through it now.
I once saw it kick in LITERALLY THE MORNING AFTER. XD To be fair, even the fanfiction.net reviewers pointed out that was taking it a bit too far.
*laughing out loud* THE SAD THING IS I CAN REALLY SEE THAT AS BEING THE PLOT OF A WYDS.
"Ash burps disgustingly in Jessie's sainted presence, reminding her of a gluttonous, abusive ex-boyfriend and sending her into a tailspin! Perhaps the food-related trauma may even give her a fic-long eating disorder! How will James ever mend her wounded soul, especially with her slapping at him, insulting him, and running off to cry beautifully in the woods every two scenes?!"
(I don't think any of the fics ever touched upon eating disorders. Thank heavens. Goodness knows they tried every other sort of Very Special Episode theme.)
XD
That's my point. If he wasn't supposed to be sunshine and rainbows, I could buy it as a realistic reaction. Depending on one's temperament, old wounds can run indescribably deep.
...So, so much of these fics would MAKE A LOAD MORE SENSE if Cori would just LET UP A BIT on how perfect Team Rocket are. I admire her sheer output, but it could have been GOOD sheer output if she had just acknowledged that Jessie and James have flaws and that they'll have to work to overcome them, rather than just handwaving it off with how wonderful and underappreciated they are. As is, the enormous quantities of Trouble In Happyland are making it sound more like some sort of Communist-regime propaganda than an actual happy relationship.
'WE ARE MORE HAPPY THAN EVER, COMRADE! Incidentally, suicidal ideation in these fics is up 200% percent, but WE'RE HAPPY, REALLY, WE ARE SO HAPPY!!!'
Blergh.
I'm an idealistic sap, don't get me wrong. But Cori goes SO FAR in that direction that she ends up being a walking deconstruction of all the flaws in that approach. D:
The fic asks for it. |P
For one, because there's actually some DEVELOPMENT of those relationships and signs they're going to move towards a better place, versus Cori!Jessie/James's constant stasis in 'horribly unstable "perfect relationship" with abuse overtones and emotional meltdowns aplenty'.
In all fairness, has there EVER been a fandom in which a character not possessing any kind of hair-derived magical powers has been canonically suicidal over a haircut? :P
But yes. And Cordelia and whoever don't end up with the exact same relationship in S support that they had back in C support. And Ninian doesn't burst into tears, melt down, and wind up standing nearby a ledge looking down whenever she sees Eliwood doing anything other than WORSHIPPING FOREVER AT THE ALTAR OF THE PERFECTION OF THEIR LOVE. (She actually took dying remarkably well, all things considering.)
Hell, Ephraim/LYON is about as functional as this! And I'm talking about halfway-Demon-King-possessed!Lyon here!
Seriously, about the only not-totally-evil FE character I can see these two getting along with is post-breakdown ZEPHIEL. Deep-rooted trauma, massive overreaction, reasonably charismatic presence... ugh, I'd "like" to see Cori justifying why he totally shouldn't be blamed for wanting to see all humanity dead. And by "like", I mean "I need brain bleach, but it's so horribly plausible my morbid curiosity wants to see it happening just for the trainwreck factor".
TO THE MAX. And it only gets worse as Cori gets angrier and angrier with the show - they become less unstable and more actively psycho. D: I DON'T like pushing the 'unstable = violent, psychopathic, or otherwise Automatically A Horrible Person' line, but that's exactly how it goes in these fics. They'd probably make decent in-universe case studies as to HOW and WHY some unstable people 'snap' and go utterly psycho.
(For one, they're unstable, woobieish ASSHOLES in Coriverse. They have no compunctions whatsoever about their life of crime, they don't see themselves as responsible for their actions in the slightest, they blame Ash for daring to lecture them about it being wrong, they blame Ash for daring to NOT LET THEM TAKE HIS PIKACHU, they blame Ash for DARING TO THINK BADLY OF THEM FOR THEIR UNREPENTANT THIEVERY...
In all fairness, their being unstable really isn't the central point. It's that they have no sense of responsibility, restraint, or reason in the first place. All the instability does is make them go really over-the-top with all of that.)