#anyway enjoy this essay lmao

[sohotthateveryonedied]

What was Tim’s relationship with his parents like? It seems like they left him alone a lot, based on fanon - is that true?

Tim's relationship with Jack and Janet Drake is...messy. Very messy. There are a lot of misconceptions floating around about how Jack and Janet really were as parents, largely due to headcanons and fanfiction exaggerating their abuse/neglect of Tim. So, we're going to clear all of that up by analyzing how Tim's parents were as evidenced in canon.

From the very beginning of his time in comics, it's clear that Tim's parents are hella neglectful. The writers needed a Robin who would be able to do his crimefighting without the interference of parental figures, so they gave him rich absentee parents to achieve that.

Tim's parents mean well; they do genuinely love and care about Tim, considering that the first glimpse we get of them is the Drake family enjoying a trip to the circus together. At face level, they look like a typical happy family. 

Batman #436

However, Tim's parents have a tendency to take long trips around the world for their job and leave Tim behind with the nanny. They were noted to be gone for long periods of time during Tim's Robin training, only keeping in touch with their son through halfhearted postcards promising to call soon. They also were prone to extending trips or leaving without warning, giving Tim very little input or notice when it came to whether or not he would be able to spend time with his own parents anytime soon. It got to the point where Bruce became suspicious of the Drakes’ neglect of their son.

Detective Comics #618

Robin #1

Robin #11

“I guess that sums them up! Never know where they’re going to be—or when—or even how long!”

Ah, yes, this is the proper way to raise your child. 

So, it is firmly established that Tim’s parents are inattentive and neglectful. They love Tim in their own way, but not enough to be at home often and spend time with him, or to take him across the world with them. Granted, they are incredibly wealthy people with a large company, but…so is Bruce. And Jack and Janet don’t even moonlight as vigilantes, which doesn’t give them much of an excuse. 

(I do think that comics tend to use Bruce’s relationship with Tim as a juxtaposition to show just how harmful Jack and Janet’s parenting is for Tim, such as neglecting his emotional needs, not respecting his privacy, etc. Over time, this leads to even Jack having this silent rivalry with Bruce over Tim’s affection. But I’ll get to that later.)

To contrast, here is Bruce offering to take the night off to stay with Tim and comfort him after his parents have been kidnapped:

Detective Comics #619

And Bruce has a reputation for being a questionable parental figure, which just makes Jack and Janet look even worse in comparison.

Then the Drakes are poisoned by the Obeah Man: Tim’s mother dies and his father falls into a coma. Janet’s term in comics was short, so we don’t know a lot about her personality or how she was as a parent, other than that she was not home often. When she and Jack were kidnapped, Janet seemed to express regret about her choices in life, possibly including not spending time with her son while she could.

Detective Comics #620

Otherwise, that’s about it for Janet. There is a fever dream Tim has when he’s dying of the Clench in which he imagines his parents both alive and knowing that he’s Robin. It’s a happy scene, with Janet preparing a home-cooked meal and being warm and present, which could possibly be Tim’s subconscious wishing that this was how his life could have been, but we don’t know enough about Janet’s actual parenting to do much with that. I personally choose to interpret it as Tim’s longing for the ideal family dynamic he never got to have, with both his parents home and acting like a real family. 

Batman Chronicles #4

Now, Jack and Tim’s relationship is rocky from start to finish. One minute they’re getting along, the next everything is a disaster, over and over until Jack’s death. 

After the Obeah Man incident, Tim is left grieving his mother and worrying about his paralyzed, comatose father. He continues to live with Bruce at Wayne Manor during this time, hoping for Jack to wake up. 

Robin II: Joker’s Wild #4

Tim becomes conflicted over the fact that, with the Waynes, he feels for the first time like he’s part of a real family. Which is...very telling. But we already know how neglectful Janet and Jack were of Tim, so are we really surprised? The closest thing Tim had to a “real” family before Bruce was Mrs. Mac the housekeeper. 

Upon waking from his coma, Jack has this great epiphany that he’s going to be a better father for Tim and right all the wrongs he made in life. 

Batman #480

“I’ll make it up to you—starting tomorrow!”

With his father in a wheelchair and needing all kinds of medical care as he recovers, Tim feels obligated to move back in with Jack and take care of him.

Batman #480

Batman #480

Tim writes his dad a letter venting all of his inner conflicts and harbored resentment, saying that he never felt like he was part of a family before becoming Robin and meeting the Waynes. He wishes he could tell Jack the truth instead of hiding the most important part of his life from him, which causes a rift between Tim and Jack that honestly never fully heals until War Games.

Aptly, the letter is addressed, “To the Father I Never Knew.” 

Batman #480

As it turns out, Jack Drake is deeply insecure when it comes to his place in Tim’s life. Jack has no regrets about neglecting Tim until he learns that Tim has a new father figure in his life, AKA Bruce, the resident Dad Supreme. Jack becomes jealous of Bruce, trying to get back into Tim’s good graces because he knows that, in comparison, he’s looking like a pretty shitty father compared to Brucie Wayne, the irresponsible playboy. Ouch. 

Batman #480

Robin III: Cry of the Huntress #3

This all comes to a head when Jack gets angry with Tim for acting out, cutting school, getting into fights, etc. In turn, Tim gets fed up and confronts Jack about his poor parenting.

Robin III: Cry of the Huntress #4

“Who is the son you know, Dad? You don’t know me. You never bothered.”

By the end of the miniseries, they eventually work things out and apologize to each other. Honestly, the biggest problem Tim and Jack have when it comes to their relationship is miscommunication. They both want to be a real father and son, but there are too many obstacles in their way (Tim’s Robin activities, Jack’s inability to care about his son unless it’s convenient for him, Tim’s bond with Bruce) that keep them from having the close relationship they both clearly want. 

Robin III: Cry of the Huntress #4

Jack really does try to be a better father for Tim over the next few years, but he makes a lot of mistakes along the way. After being kidnapped (again), Jack tells Tim that he’s yet again going to try and be a more attentive father. (As if Tim hasn’t already heard this speech before lmao.)

Robin #7

Jack tries to spend more time with Tim, but his version of spending time together is mostly just springing new plans on Tim and giving Tim little say in any of it. 

Robin #11

Robin #12

(It also shows how little attention Jack pays to Tim, since he doesn’t notice that his son has a literal six-pack and could probably benchpress his own weight by now.)

Jack eventually falls in love with Dana, his physical therapist, and she more or less takes up all of his attention for the time being. Tim once again falls out of the spotlight. Tim is partly relieved about this, since it means that Jack is less likely to catch on to Tim’s Robin outings with Dana as a convenient distraction.

Robin #12

Robin #15

Jack goes to all the trouble of making plans with Tim, only to cancel the moment something shiny and new moves into his line of sight. Great parenting, Jack. A+ work. Tim sees this as less of a problem than it is, thanks to his second identity, but any other child would be severely impacted by this “whenever I feel like it” method of parenting. Regardless, Tim and Jack’s relationship at this point is on its way to leveling out for the time being. They still don’t communicate very well, but they generally get along with each other. 

After Tim runs away from home and causes a whole incident during No Man’s Land, Jack sends Tim away to Brentwood Academy, a boarding school literally in the same city as them, as punishment for being a lil hooligan. Just say you don’t feel like dealing with Tim anymore and move on, Jack. 

Robin #74

When Tim is at Brentwood, Jack informs Tim that he and Dana are engaged through a phone call. Tim is not even an hour away, but Jack figures why waste a day spending time with his own son to tell him the good news when you can accomplish it with a phone call, right?

Robin #78

It isn’t long before Jack Drake goes broke due to his company losing money or however bankruptcy works, and Tim gets to leave Brentwood. Jack chooses this time to once again try to work on his relationship with Tim...

Robin #100

Robin #100

...and then slides right back into ignoring Tim when the loss of his fortune makes Jack too depressed to do much of anything. Not that it’s a huge loss, considering that when Jack does bother to pay attention to Tim, it doesn’t often go well. He has a reputation for getting overly aggressive when Tim acts out, and he has a habit of dragging Tim into obligations he doesn’t want to do for the sake of looking like a present parent, trying to exert control over Tim that he hasn’t quite earned.

(It’s also interesting the way Tim starts to question Jack’s decision, then quickly stops himself and agrees to whatever it is Jack wants, as if Tim has gotten used to being allowed to think and act for himself during his time with Bruce, and now he’s remembering that things are different in the Drake household. He has to go back to Good Obedient Son mode, and if that doesn’t make you sad then I don’t know what will.)

Batman #480

Robin #45

Robin #92

By the time Jack finally gets out of his funk, Tim (of course) forgives him immediately, so they’re back on track again. 

Robin #116

(It’s also worth mentioning that Jack forgot Tim’s birthday. Yeah, he was going through his own depressive spiral at the time, but still. Dick move.)

Robin #116

Honestly, I owe a lot of the good moments in Tim and Jack’s relationship to Dana’s influence. She’s a great stepmother to Tim and she helps rein Jack in when he’s being an asshole. Her parenting style is far more caring and considerate compared to Jack’s, who tries to mold Tim into his idea of a perfect son: obedient, masculine, and quiet (whenever he feels like paying attention, that is). 

Robin #122

Robin #127

Robin #45

Robin III: Cry of the Huntress #1

Robin 80-Page Giant (2000)

Where Dana is understanding and patient, Jack is commanding and rigid. Over time, Dana softens him enough so that Jack is more of a well-meaning dad clumsily trying his best than an abusive asshole, but still. 

Jack acknowledging that he screwed up and is trying to fix his and Tim’s relationship has been a major plot point for years up to this point, and it remains a central part of Tim’s civilian narrative for as long as Jack is alive. Jack tries to fix what’s wrong between them, and Tim is eager to have a closer relationship with his dad, even if it’s difficult to accomplish due to his Robin activities. I repeat: They both want to have a good relationship. It isn’t that Jack simply doesn’t care about Tim (which, it could be argued that he didn’t care about Tim until Janet died). They both really do try to fix what’s broken between them. It’s just that Jack can’t accept that Tim is his own person, and Tim can’t risk compromising his identity. 

Robin #71

For a small while, things are okay between Tim and Jack. 

Robin #124

But pretty soon the inevitable happens: Jack snaps when he catches Tim in a lie about joining the football team to explain a black eye. Instead of confronting Tim about it, Jack decides the best course of action is to ransack Tim’s bedroom for evidence of his delinquency. 

Robin #124 

Jack inevitably finds Tim’s Robin gear in the closet. Instead of asking Tim about it, like a sensible human, Jack’s second genius move of the day is to go all the way to Wayne Manor and point a gun at Bruce’s face, demanding he return Tim to him.

Robin #124

(Personally, I think Jack’s reaction wouldn’t have been so violent if it weren’t for the fact that it’s Bruce, whom Jack was already jealous of for being closer to Tim than Jack ever was.)

Robin #125

With Jack threatening to expose everyone’s identities and ruin their lives, Tim agrees to give up the Robin mantle to keep Jack quiet. 

Robin #125

After that, things between Tim and his dad are relatively okay. Tim is happy to be having a normal life for once, and Jack is appeased now that he has Tim all to himself. 

Teen Titans #14

Then War Games rolls around and Tim once again dons the cape and boots to help in the gang war, and he and Jack finally have an honest conversation about Tim’s Robin activities. This time Tim isn’t just giving in to make his father happy, and he’s not struggling with the question if maybe he’ll be better off as a civilian, because he already tried that and he knows now that this is the life for him. 

And for once, Jack actually listens to Tim. 

Robin #130

They come to an understanding after that. For the first time in Tim’s whole life, he has an honest and loving relationship with his father.

Robin #131

Of course, this is about a week before everything goes to shit and Jack is murdered by Captain Boomerang during Identity Crisis. You win some, you lose some. 

(What makes it even worse for Tim is that Jack asked him to stay in that night, but Tim chose to go out and help, so he wasn’t there when Boomerang came for Jack. Oof.)

Identity Crisis #5

In Jack’s last moments, he tells Tim that he loves him and that being Robin is a good thing and he should never turn his back on being a hero. 

Identity Crisis #5-6

Unsurprisingly, Tim takes the loss extremely hard. It almost rivals Tim’s reaction to Bruce’s death, probably. After all, it’s his dad. Sure, Tim and Jack had their problems, but he was still his father and he loved him. 

I also think a big part of it is that Jack was taken at a time when he and Tim were finally starting to see eye to eye. They finally had the relationship they both always wanted, and then a week later Jack gets murdered. I see it as Tim mourning the relationship he and Jack could have had, rather than the one they did. Tim never got to see what it would have been like to have a perfect relationship with his father because the second everything finally fell into place, Jack was taken away from Tim.

Identity Crisis #7

Robin #167 

“Sometimes it’s for Bruce. Sometimes it’s for Conner. But a lot of times, I do it for you. Because you were brave enough to understand the man I wanted to be.”

DCU Holiday Special (2009)

Teen Titans (2003) #34

(Tim’s guilt and grief becomes all-encompassing to the point where he invents a fake uncle just to avoid being adopted by Bruce, but that’s a story for another day.)

Sooooo yeah, that’s about it. Tim loved his parents and they loved him back in their own ways, but he never had a perfect relationship with either of them by any definition.

#this was such a pain in the ass to make #tumblr wouldn't let me post it when i finished so i had to copy/paste everything into a google doc #and then copy/paste THAT into a new post #i'm so tired #anyway enjoy this essay lmao #tim drake #robin #red robin #batman #batfamily #batfam #idiot duckboy #jack drake #janet drake #dana winters #dana drake #dana witners-drake #bruce wayne #identity crisis #war games #no man's land #lay it on me papa bob #soho speaks #soho reads comics #get your comic references kids #dc comics

[mindfogs]

a brief comparison of compleately different medias that rewired my brain. yes i'm aware the target audience of this post is me only.

It was supposed to be a joke but I can’t do anything casually so a more vaguely detailed analysis under the cut.

spoilers for all three obviously but vague spoilers about themes and not plot points. i could have gone more in the specifics but it's late and i don't want to fall in this rabbit hole right now i need sleep.

If you strip these stories of all the cool visuals and funny jokes, if you take away their narratives with the world about to end, you're left with pure, naked, vulnerable love that is such a core essence of any of these characters. Love is what can destroy or save the world. Love is what drives the heroes forward. Love is what keeps them from dying.

I think all three stories are about being loved and accepted for who you are. Even if you've changed and you don't like yourself, even if you've stayed the same and you don't like yourself.

They're about tearing yourself apart, throw up, slashing yourself open in front of the one you love. Let them see everything, the bad and the gross and asking "do you still love me?".

They're about enduring, sacrificing yourself, everything, sacrificing the world, God, the entire universe for the one you love.

They're about trusting to choose each other over and over again, everytime, in every universe, even if the next time you see me I may not be what you remembered. Even if you don't recognize me.

They're about eating, gnawing, cannibalizing each other over and over and over in a mutual exchange of obsession.

They're about carving your own peace when you don't even know what peace it's supposed to be like

They're about grief and loss and learning to be whole again.

They're about submitting oneself to the horrifying oredeal of being known in order to allowing the reward of being loved.

It's about "it's rotten work" and answering everytime without esitation "not to me, not if it's you"

#also all fanficion are technically canon in each of these lmao #foggy thoughts #the locked tomb #good omens #slay the princess #griddlehark #ineffable husbands #love #it's always about love in the end #go and tlt are more similiar in the sense of superficial similiarities being both bible gays and all #go and stp are similiar in the more worldbuilding and backstory way both eternal beings with a love so eternal we cant even comprehend it #but tlt and stp? #the similiarities are so visceral i feel like they narrate the same exact concept of love #a love so evershifting and multifaced #also obviously where tlt has cannibalism as a love methaphor stp has killing #theres something so beautiful having such vile acts rapresent something so pure as love #insert that south park clip “hope everyone enjoyed that” “no randy only you did” “that was pretty much my target audience anyway” #if i spoke fluent english i'd make a cool 2 hours video essay on youtube about this

[layzeal]

i said 5 months ago i was gonna share my thoughts on this scene and never did, so it's time to dig this out

what did wei wuxian mean by asking shijie "why would someone like another person" and why i.... don't think he's talking about lan wangji (i know-- i know. just bear with me)

or more accurately: an analysis of chapter 71, wwx's thoughts on love, and how mxtx utilizes parallels between past and present!

(Ch 71 of MDZS web revised edition //// ExR translation)

okay let's get straight to the point that's gonna make y'all want to call me a stupid bitch who can't read: i legitimately do not think wwx was talking about lwj in this scene! here's why:

first and foremost, let's remember what the status of wangxian's relationship was at this point after sunshot ended

first, phoenix mountain: a callback to their teen dynamic. wwx's silly and flirty personality is back, he teases lwj by throwing a peony at him then asking to borrow his ribbon. lwj is frustrated, etc. lwj forcefully kisses wwx then gets angry at himself. wwx finds him and gets worried that something happened to him. they walk together and talk in very friendly manner until the xuanli incident happens. by the end they part on good terms

then, yunmeng teahouse: the first scene of this chapter. wwx is feeling quite upbeat about seeing lwj as they had a nice chat last time they met. he does a lil phoenix mountan callback by throwing a peony at him, then asking him to come upstairs and hang out. lwj does but it.... doesnt end well. he's worried about wwx's worsening temper and fears he's starting to show signs of loss of control, and asks him once again to go to gusu with him. that severely sours wwx's mood, to the point of snapping at lwj when lwj implies that he'll regret it in the future. lwj realizes his mistake and they become polite again, but the atmosphere is significantly strained, and wwx even comments that he was presumptious and shouldn't have invited him over, which lwj dissents. wwx parts with a cordial but distant "thank you", and on... not great terms

what i think really makes the above hurt though is that, when wwx comes back to yunmeng and jc asks who he met. wwx answers this:

worse than jin zixuan.....oof. im so sorry hgj

so, it really is quite tragic. wwx had a nice time with lwj in phoenix mountain, and because of that he wanted to try and wash away their bad blood, ask him to hang out, recall some stories of their youth, maybe mend this relationship that became so strained during the war! what happens instead is that... he gets the harsh reminder of what (in his mind) lwj thinks of his cultivation, thinks he's not in control of it, that it's dangerous and he should be locked up. with that, they're all back to square one :(

the thing is, MDZS is quite known for being non-linear and having a humongous amount of flashbacks, and they're all set and positioned at the time they were for a reason! the thing is, as most read the novel once and then proceed to only revisit scenes separately, naturally forgetting about the grand-picture and the scenes that come before and after, we might misremember how some events play out or the state of the character arcs and relationships, and i believe the popular fanon interpretation that "omggg wwx was asking yanli this bc he likes lwj but can't admit this yet!!!! 🙈" is quite of a great example of this

but!! it's not for any bad reason, after all both the Audio Drama and CQL kinda play up this moment with some beautiful background music. this is, in the end, a romance novel! but let's put a pin on that for a bit and analyze what led to this scene, and why WWX came looking for shijie to ask her this

so as you see, the scene right before was wei wuxian and jiang cheng talking about jin zixuan, with jc asking wwx to not pick fights with him anymore since he's the heir of lanling jin. wwx is baffled because up until that point he and jc were trashtalking buddies when it came to jzx, but there's nothing they can do about it if shijie still likes him

that... makes wwx quite speechless, and he goes searching for her to get an answer. in his mind, jzx is still an awful, undeserving person! so why would shijie like him so much?

why would someone like another person?

of course, he's not as shameless to ask shijie right to her face why she likes someone like jzx, esp since she's already well familiar with his poor opinion of him, so he tries getting an "unbiased" answer by making a vague question, which in turn makes shijie think wwx is in love with someone else

now here's the thing: i feel like fandom tends to flanderize wwx when it comes to his unreliable narration, awareness of his own feelings or lan wangji's. we don't have time to get into that now, but if you've followed me for a while you know my thoughts on this

but here, specifically, i do not think wwx is in "denial about his crush" or "waving off because he doesnt want to get caught". his answer feels genuine, and honestly? really sad once you think about it

"I won't like anyone, at least not too much. Wouldn't it be like putting a rein on my own neck?"

this isn't strange once you consider the types of romantic relationships he grew up observing. other than his own parents', which he's mostly forgotten about, a strong love and attatchment sounds more like tying a rope around your neck. even though wwx is a romantic at heart who flirts easily but had been saving his first kiss for 20 years, he's still never felt this type of love for anyone before, and can't imagine putting himself through it

"So, wait... just because WWX said so you think you should believe it? You're telling me the curtains are just blue? If he's not talking about Lan Wangji, then what's the point of this scene?"

glad you asked!

you see, something that MXTX does quite often with the flashback placement in MDZS is contrast the moments where wangxian's relationship was at its best with moments where it was at its worst. As wwx recall these memories, his pre-conceived notions about lwj get challenged and his actions and words get recontextualized! my favorite example is probably the ending of the flashback of wwx's return, to him waking up in the cloud recesses

no i'll never shut up about this flashback placement. my goddd

so, when looking at the "why would someone like another person" scene, i ask you to not look at it by itself, but as a part of the literary work that mdzs is! because, as the wangxian of the past are stuck in this cordial, but strained relationship, do you remember where the wangxian of the present have currently been left at?

if you ask me, there is something incredibly sweet about leaving these characters at their most tender --- when one is finally beginning to not only understand his own feelings, but to suspect that those feelings are requited, in which he's allowing himself to imagine a calm and happy future with him right as they march inside the lion's den --- and meeting them again when they're younger, and strained, and not fully knowing how to communicate that they care for each other, which in turn only hurts them both.

there is something very sweet about seeing wwx who is slowly realizing that he's in love, testing the waters of that, seeing how much he can take, in what ways he can ask for affection, and then seeing him again as he says "i won't ever like someone, at least not so much. wouldnt it be suffocating? wouldn't it be an impediment? wouldnt it be shackling yourself?" because you, like a cheeky grandma, can look at him and think: you don't know yet, but i've seen you then. you will like someone very much, and it won't be restraining. in fact, you'll never feel more free...

and that is the biggest thing, about revisiting this scene after you're done. because you'll look back this 20-something WWX who genuinely believed loving someone to much is like putting a rein around his own neck... and knowing he'll know a love that not only will not feel like a restrain*, but will be there to catch him whenever something does

*okay, except in bed, but that's only a bonus for wwx

#i kinda miss literary analysis class. this is a love letter to my literature teachers #mdzs is a beautiful literary work and deserves to be treated as such! #anyways uhhh. wangxian is poggers #i feel like sometimes in people's attempts to make wx more tropey and traditionally romantic #it makes them lose what actually makes their romance so special #and the brilliance of the flashback placements in mdzs #i already wrote a lot today so no tag essay lmao. enjoy! #modao #lace speaks #do i put this in the tag? ehhhh #demi wwx

[magentagalaxies]

video essay!!!

hi friends!!

if you were curious at all about the video essay i was putting together for my comedy-theory class or are interested in hearing about some projects i'm working on, here's the link to watch it:

the video is unlisted bc it was specifically made for a class, and since a lot of the future-projects mentioned will probably go through major changes before i'm ready to release them to the world i didn't want this to seem like any kind of announcement video, but i'm also super proud of this video (it's probably my favorite final i've done) and i wanted to share it with any tumblr friends who are interested

if you'd like to learn more about any of the projects feel free to dm me bc i love infodumping about what i'm working on and the projects i mentioned here are very important to me. also dm me if you're at all curious about the comedy theory i'm citing, unfortunately due to the time limit on the assignment i didn't have enough time to give an in-depth explanation people outside of the class could get, but i LOVE comedy-philosophy and i made sure to download all the readings by the end of the course, so i would absolutely be willing to send over some PDFs and do some comedy analysis education lmao

also the first thirteen-and-a-half minutes are the video i turned in as my final, and the last six-and-a-half minutes are my in-class presentation that went along with it. for this assignment we had to construct a "comedy manifesto" using some of the theorists we covered in class to analyze our own comedy and outline goals for what we want our comedy to accomplish, and then for the in-class presentation we had the option of either presenting an abridged version of what we said in our "manifesto" or performing a piece of our own comedy that aligns with our goals. i of course did the second one bc i will never waste a captive audience.

tbh i don't think this was my best performance but i will say i literally memorized it in 24 hours so the fact that i only messed up twice is still impressive (also the lack of audience response is at least partially bc this was the last week of classes so most people who didn't have to present just skipped class)

presentations were also optional and i was the only one who did a piece fully in-character so that also gives you the vibe of the room

btw every piece of music in the video essay (aside from "having an average weekend" by shadowy men on a shadowy planet aka the kith theme) was composed by me for my musical other girls (who needs royalty-free music when you still have the demo files from your musical in fall 2022)

also there was no requirement on this assignment to interview a comedian, i just decided to zoom with paul bellini the week this was first assigned as a flex for my video essay lmao. so anyway watch this video if you want never-before-heard bellini content (at least 20% of which is just bellini complimenting my writing)

oh also if you're curious about the buddy cole tour behind-the-scenes thing i edited for my final in a different class dm me and i'll send you the vid, i'm not posting that one anywhere bc it's not great quality (i made it while super burnt out and i didn't have all the time/resources to include everything i wanted to include, plus the audio's not great) so i don't want it to be released as like an "official first look at the upcoming buddy cole documentary" until i can put together something more polished, but i would be willing to dm the link for people who just want to see a video of me and scott causing chaos on tour knowing it will be a much more polished edit later

anyway go watch my video essay i got the highest possible grade available on it and i'm very proud

#time for a jessay #time for a video jessay #i definitely want to make more video essays in the future once i have time/energy/resources/etc. #tbh comparing this video to the buddy cole video i made is 100% ''beginning of finals season'' vs ''end of finals season'' #bc this was the first final i made and that was the last. so i had the time and energy to make this one the best it could possibly be #and by the time i got to the buddy cole vid i was well past running on empty and i'm still recovering lmao #but anyway i'm really proud of this one i think it's such a great distillation of everything i want my comedy to be #and i hope you all enjoy it too :) #Youtube

[dying-suffering-french-stalkers]

Jigen’s lighter (and lack thereof) in Lupin Zero episode 4

#yes the entire middle section is mostly not about the lighter no i'm not cutting it #the emotional context was necessary (though my software rudely cut the line abt it being the us army they're stealing from) #hence jigen's sudden hesitation/annoyance at lupin being WAY too cavalier about this little heist of his #jigen #lupin iii #lupin zero #anyway this whole presentation of the long-running lighter motif was great and the last scene in particular...*CHEF'S KISS* #just realized i messed up the parentheses up above but alas staff refuses to give us editable tags #videos #my edits #literally how do people post compilations and video essays this shit (video editing) sucks and i hate doing it every time #i have to do more than just trim one (1) little clip lmao #ah well enjoy #tee emm ess please don't snipe me. it's free traffic

[plulp]

guys i'm so sorry i write so much i promise i'm trying to get better at it 😣 i just have so much to say all the time but i promise i'll try to tone it down since i don't want to clutter your dashes

#germaphone #i feel so bad i write 15 page essays every time i sit down to talk about something #it's insane #sorry my tags are just whole blocks of text too #i'm sorry if you ever open them and it's just an entire wall you have to scroll past #i have nothing interesting to say and sorting tags are always at the top #sorry 😰😰😰😰 #editing tags so i can talk MORE LMAO: #i also feel a little silly celebrating 50 followers (now it's way more than that 😰) #because i know it's not a lot but it makes me happy anyways #thanks for everyone who's followed me after #even though i really didn't plan for this to draw any more followers (since i had rbs turned off initially) #it really wasn't my intention to get more people 😰😰 #i'll be honest i just wanted everyone who's followed me so far to submit their pcs just so i could thank them personally #since i'm not able to a lot of the time!!!! :( because of my side bloggish nature #but i enjoy seeing more people too :) it makes me happy #OH ALSO the EVERY SQUAD GOT THE post having people see it is driving me CRAZY insane #it's so fucking funny to me genuinely i didn't expect anyone to see it at all since i didn't tag it #i literally just made it because i couldn't get smosh fan out of my mind #smosh fan is the highest tier i could ever give any character

[waitineedaname]

21. W/ Benrey and Gordon (or Dr. Coomer and Bubby, doesn't really matter)

I kinda remixed your request, but it turned out really funny imo so hopefully that's okay!

prompts here

--

“You!”

Benrey lifted his head up from where it was dangling half off the couch to look at Gordon, who had just stomped into the living room in a fit of frustration. That seemed like pretty typical Gordon behavior to Benrey, so he responded in his own typical fashion. “Huh?” He said, face blank.

“It was you!” Gordon pointed an accusational finger at Benrey, giving him absolutely nothing else to go on. Benrey had no clue what was going on, so he gave Gordon a broad grin and spread his arms, letting his Playstation controller fall to the ground in the process.

“It was me!” He declared, hoping that was the right answer.

“Of course it was. Of course. Only you would do some freak shit like this.” Gordon stormed over to him and tried to look intimidating. Benrey didn’t bother to make himself any less boneless on the couch. “I just have one question, and I’m begging you to give me a straight answer because I am wracking my fucking brains trying to figure this out. Why? Why did you do it?”

“Uh.” Benrey still had no idea what he was being accused of, so he went through his normal list of rationale to figure out what kind of response Gordon was expecting. “Because I’m so cool?” Gordon’s scowl deepened like his eyebrows were trying to tie themselves into a knot, so that probably wasn’t right. Benrey tried again. “Because you’re so sucks?”

“None of that explains why you’d take a bite out of a stick of butter, Benrey!”

Benrey recoiled, only just barely managing to pull himself into an upright sitting position before he fell off the couch entirely. “Eugh! What?”

“That’s what I’m asking!” Gordon threw his hands in the air, exasperated. “Why did you do it?”

“I didn’t do it! That’s fucking nasty, bro!”

“What? Of course you did!” Gordon clearly hadn’t been prepared for that response, but he wasn’t buying it. “Who else would do something weird like that?”

“I dunno!” It was Benrey’s turn to point at Gordon in accusation. “Maybe it was you! Huh? Maybe you did it, Mayonnaise Boy.”

“Why would I do it?!”

“Because you eat gross shit. Like mayonnaise.”

“Dude, there is a world of difference between putting mayo on sandwiches and taking a bite out of a fucking stick of butter!” 

“A likely story.” Benrey fixed him with his best “security guard who knows you pulled some bullshit” glare. “You’re just trying to lead me off the scent. Tryna, tryna red herring me? Is that it? Trying to act like you’re not some kinda butter monster?”

“I’m not! I think that’s what you’re doing!” Gordon poked a finger into Benrey’s chest in a manner that was, quite frankly, rude.

Before their argument could devolve even further, Dr. Coomer strolled into the room. “Ah! Hello, gentlemen! What seems to be the cause of the ruckus?”

“Benrey here won’t own up to taking a bite out of my butter!” Gordon said, like a child snitching on their sibling to their parents. 

“Ah, that reminds me!” Coomer smiled. “Thank you for leaving such a delicious buttery snack in your refrigerator, Gordon!”

There was a long moment of silence as both Gordon and Benrey stared at Coomer, whose smile did not falter. Eventually, Benrey was the one to break the silence, just barely muffling a laugh in his hand. “Oh my god,” He muttered, still laughing softly.

“Dr. Coomer,” Gordon spoke very slowly, as if scared what the answer might be, “Did you take a bite out of the butter in the fridge?”

“Yes! I do love a good old Log Of Butter as an afternoon snack. Though, Gordon, you should probably invest in the unsalted variety. It will be better for you in the long run!” Dr. Coomer’s poker face was impeccable, though his mustache twitched with the hint of humor when that made Benrey laugh so hard he finally fell off the couch entirely.

“Coomer,” Gordon repeated, horrified. “Why?”

“Gordon. I was hungry.”

#hlvrai #gordon feetman #benrey #dr. coomer #my writing #okay to reblog #coomer making benrey laugh always brings me joy #so damn if I won't try to write it as often as possible #gordon likes to act like benrey is the weirdest one in their group #but that's because he's blind to dr coomer's absolutely bizarre behavior #this is why I like to say benrey is like a son to coomer lmao #coomer and benrey friendship is underrated because they're both weird as hell and the most aware they're in a game and use sweet voice #and also coomer made benrey break character and laugh multiple times #in this essay I will- #(actually i did write more coomer and benrey friendship at one point. check out my fic atom by atom. it's sad) #anyway. enjoy this fic! it was extremely fun to write

[rachelberryy]

Santana Lopez, Gender Performativity, and the Gaze-Death Dichotomy

For @tuiyla

This is a follow-up from this essay on Santana and Bejewelled by Taylor Swift. It also probably looks the way it does because of this post that I read recently.

(I dug out my old university notes for this, because Judith Butler is a GOAT and I felt like going big brain mode)

i.

The top line of my notes on Butler’s gender performativity theory reads, “Gender may be naturalised and taken for granted, but it is still socially constructed and created through the repetition of everyday acts”. As far as I can tell, that isn’t a direct quote, so I’m going to presume it’s a paraphrased summary on my part. It’s the ideological descendant of an idea from Simone de Beauvoir, probably the most influential feminist philosopher of the twentieth century: “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” (Incidentally, the idea of gender as a social construct in western feminist literature goes at least as far back as Mary Wollstonecraft. As per usual, TERFs don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.)

Okay. Let’s talk Santana.

Santana is an Afro-Latina lesbian, and a woman. All of those things are relevant in one way or another. We learn that when she was young, Santana was quite the tomboy, until she was socially conditioned into abandoning that particular persona. Given what we know of her family, I think it’s a reasonable assumption that her abuela had something to do with that. That delivers us to the version of Santana we get for the first season and a half of Glee. She’s a bitch, she’s aggressively sexual, she’s notoriously promiscuous, she’s a cheerleader - the feminine high school archetype. In other words, she’s both a stereotype of the idealised high school popular girl, and a whole bunch of things for which women are typically demonised.

Patriarchy, like all reactionary ideologies, is deeply idiosyncratic, almost by design, and creates these catch 22 situations where women cannot conform or rebel enough, it will hate you anyway, because that is its point. That is complicated by the fact that Santana is a fictional character (and one created by a team of male writers, at that), and therefore is also a construct of the male gaze without any agency of her own. This is doubly true for Santana, who starts out as a side character whose first proper story is as Puck’s ‘woman on the side’, and whose second proper story is sleeping with Finn.

The whole thing is a mess of contradictions, an ill-fitting mess of female stereotypes. Slut, bitch, queen bee (once Quinn is deposed). She’s the opposite end of the ‘fucked up ways in which patriarchy constructs female sexuality’ spectrum to Quinn. She’s also, as we later find out, completely fucking miserable. She’s acting, all the time, allowing the only emotions that slip through the cracks of her walls to express themselves as anger. It’s all, you guessed it, a performance. A version of her that didn’t exist until society forced it to. Those aspects of her - so many of them distinctly gendered - are entirely constructed, against her actual nature.

ii.

And then she quits the Cheerios, realises that she’s a lesbian, and begins to deconstruct herself. Glee is an exceptionally manic show, with so little time afforded to monologues by anyone not named Will Schuester. And yet, at the end of Sexy, Santana is given quite a lengthy one, explaining and exploring her character up to that point. (I can think of one other single moment where the pacing of Glee gives Santana specifically a second to breathe: the pause in the middle of RHI/SLY.) The promiscuity, the bitchiness, the anger at the world. The knives turned out so that they don’t cut inside. So much repressed self-loathing.

Part of the reason that sapphicism broadly and lesbianism in particular are such an affront to patriarchy is because they don’t abide by the rules of the game. In other words, it challenges the way in which patriarchy has determined that womanhood and femininity should be performed. That doesn’t mean, however, that it isn’t a performance, if only because, within Butler’s framework, performing and lying are not the same thing.

As I explained in the previous essay, Prom Queen, conceptually and functionally, is about gender roles in a lot of ways. Kurt bucks gender norms with his outfit choice, by embracing the prom queen title, and by dancing with Blaine at the end of the episode. Quinn, in her desperation to be popular, and validated, and feminine, chases the prom queen crown ruthlessly, because it’s the ultimate prize for a popular girl. Again, like the cheerleading, it’s one of the classic high school archetypes. The whole idea of prom king and queen is so aggressively gendered, obviously. It’s binary, and heteronormative, and rooted in about seventeen different forms of social hierarchy. It’s gender performance taken to the extreme.

The conclusion of Santana’s storyline in that episode is her reconciliation with Brittany, and Brittany telling her that part of why she lost was because people could tell she was hiding something. Exactly who and how many people knew about Santana’s sexuality and when they knew it is something the show can never quite seem to be able to make its mind up on (side eyes at Finn Hudson), but the conclusion in this moment seems to be that the performance has, to some degree, gone awry. Because what use is a performance if nobody believes it? In that moment, it’s Santana’s worst fears about being punished for her transgression come to life - she is performing femininity incorrectly, and therefore she is denied the title that represents patriarchy’s feminine ideal.

iii.

Santana comes out is outed early in season 3, and we finally meet the person who has probably shaped her character - and her performance - more than anybody else we hadn’t met to that point (so, basically, more than anyone but Brittany). Alma Lopez. Abuela.

With some of the crumbs we’re offered up to that point, I don’t think it’s too unreasonable to see Alma’s treatment of Santana to be emotionally abusive - and this is only doubled down upon by her reaction to Santana coming out to her. It’s pretty explicitly stated that Alma is one of the main reasons that Santana is as vicious as she is. In other words, she shaped the performance. She’s clearly a pretty big female role model in Santana’s life, which is why the rejection hurts as much as it does.

The Glee subreddit is home to a wide variety of deeply stupid opinions. That might seem slightly mean, but one can only read so many defences of Finn Hudson objectively bad actions before one becomes slightly cynical. One opinion I’ve seen bandied about on there that I usually don’t have much time for is that Alma herself is a deeply repressed lesbian, largely stemming from the fact that Alma’s main issue with Santana’s sexuality seems to be that she’s willing to live it openly. Its slight difference from the usual ‘hate the sin, love the sinner’ line. I do think it’d be interesting to touch on it here, though. Santana, in many ways, learnt her performance from Alma, which is why her open embrace of her sexuality here - after so much angst and drama - is such an act of defiance, and that’s only doubled with this particular reading of Alma’s reaction.

iv.

While we’re on the subject of Santana’s family background, I’d like to talk briefly on the stereotyping of women of colour in particular, and the way that intersection plays into the idea of gender performativity. Santana’s race and ethnicity are a little ambiguous in certain ways. She refers to Mexican heritage, and Alma has a Dominican flag in her home, if I remember correctly. However, since it’s never explicitly stated otherwise, I’m going to run with the idea that Santana is Afro-Latina, like Naya herself was.

Santana, particularly in her initial presentation (read: performance), very much fits into some of the stereotypes often assigned to Latina women. She’s sexually aggressive and promiscuous. She has a ‘fiery’ personality type. (I’m not overly fond of that word, especially in this context, but I think that’s really kind of the point.) As she says herself, ‘My job here is to look hot.’ Of course, that line can be read shallowly, because I really don’t think Ryan Murphy or any of the lead Glee writers thought that deeply about these things, but most of this essay relies on Death of the Author theory and my reading far more into this story than its creators conceived. It also speaks to Santana’s lack of agency, both in and meta to the narrative itself. She also is hot but w/e

A worthy point of comparison here, I think, is Mercedes, who of all the main characters is probably denied agency the most; who is so infrequently allowed to be much more than a foil to Rachel, both by the writers and, perhaps more depressingly, by much of the fandom, particularly back in Glee’s original heyday. She is also frequently desexualised, again by both the writers and sections of the fandom. There is probably an essay to be written on the variety of reasons that Quinn (thin and white) is read as a lesbian and Mercedes (fat and black) is often read as asexual or earnest in her religious reasons for her celibacy when Quinn’s canon reasons are basically the same. I don’t think all of those reasons stem from those differences, and I definitely don’t want to criticise people for sexuality headcanons that offer them representation - because an asexual, fat, black woman would be kind of revolutionary, if indeed that was what Mercedes was. I also really don’t think I - a white person with half a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and a Sociology A Level taught by a person for whom I once had to define intersectionality - am the person best suited to write that essay.

Which brings us back to Santana, and the ways in which her ethnicity impact her performance of gender, especially in the first two seasons when that performance is inauthentic. Death of the Author is, again, critical here - and I’m going to talk more about that at the end - but so is Gaze theory and Santana’s multi-layered lack of agency. As with all of the people of colour on Glee, Santana’s race and ethnicity are often ignored until it’s comedically convenient. I’m not saying the jokes don’t always work - Sam’s ‘Quinn once had sex with a Latina lesbian - learned that in glee club!’ comes to mind (I think part of why that works is that it’s one of the only times that it’s explicitly shown that homophobes are often deeply racist as well) - but I think that is notable that that’s often the only time it’s ever seen as worth mentioning. Santana, though played by a woman of colour in Naya, is ultimately a construct of the white men who created her, and it is through their Gaze that she exists. She has no agency in the real world, because she’s a fictional construct, and a distinct lack of agency within the narrative as a queer woman of colour.

So how does all of this relate to gender performativity theory? Said theory might be pithily summarised thus: “Gender is something we do, not something we are.” (I promise I do have a degree, I’m not just copying buzzy phrases from the inside cover of a sociology textbook lmao.) This, then, might fairly easily be mapped onto other socially constructed categories of being. So, how does one do their gender, or race, or ethnicity, or sexuality, when one has no agency of one’s own, when one is entirely a construct of the Gaze of others? When the puppet strings of the performance are juggled and manipulated entirely by someone outside the self? Ironically enough, things become even more of a performance, in multiple ways a construct. Santana the character is constructed, in the same way Santana the person, the queer woman of colour, is. Which is, of course, why critical literary analysis is such an apropos way to explore these ideas, because everything is a constructed performance anyway. And, in this way, we see how Santana’s character is flattened, whether it’s in the vaguely afterthought-like quality to any consideration of her ethnicity, or the wholesale ignoring of her blackness, or the fact that Santana the character, as opposed to Santana the person, is herself a construct.

And then the author dies. More on that in a bit.

v.

Santana has parallels with a lot of characters. Quinn is the obvious one, which is very well-trodden ground analytically speaking - narrative foils, both craving popularity because they can’t just up and admit that they want to be loved, both very gay and very repressed, both in love with Rachel - and season 2 makes Santana’s parallels with Dave quite clear. There are also certain parallels present with Kurt, though - and it’s not just because they’re the two principal queer characters - the two token McKinley gays, as someone put it once.

The relevant mirror here is on expression. Kurt starts out as very experimental, as far as his dress-sense is concerned. It’s also fairly androgynous. “Fashion has no gender,” he tells us. Over the course of the series, however, his fashion becomes more conventionally masculine - not overly so, but certainly more so than at the beginning. In Santana, this shift is even more pronounced. The main windows we get into her fashion is late season 2 and then season 4 and 5 in New York, and while it’s not exactly like her season 2 choices were all that transgressive, they were certainly more experimental than her tight dresses from later on. Now, this isn’t me hating on this style - because girl looks good - nor is it me saying that lesbians can’t adopt a more conventionally feminine sense of style. I would hope that goes without saying. Regardless, I think there’s something worth discussing here where agency is concerned.

Because, of course, Santana isn’t a real person - a real woman and a real lesbian; she’s a construct of a team of male writers. I think the easy explanation here is that the producers got lazy, on a whole range of fronts where costuming was concerned. And that is, at least to an extent, a reasonable line of thinking. To gesture to a fairly straightforward example, after a point they just started having Rachel... mostly just dress like Lea. However, I think there’s a more interesting lens of analysis to be had here where Santana is concerned when we recall that scene where her mother informs us that she was a tomboy growing up. The three points we have, really, are that snapshot of Santana as a small child, season 2, and season 4-5. In season 4 in particular, Santana is portrayed as feeling generally directionless and unsure of herself; of where her path is headed now that she exists outside the rigid hierarchies of McKinley High. And, so, her performance of femininity is exaggerated. It’s a continuation of what the cheerleader role represented for her earlier on: burying herself in the typical female role to hide from internal conflict.

I think there’s also more to be said, at this stage, on the way we can see this in Quinn as well. In season 1, she’s the church girl: babydoll dresses, sundresses, and, of course, her Cheerio uniform - something that she uses as a wall of self defence in a similar way to Santana. In season 2, her wardrobe is largely a more mature version of that - she’s been through the ringer, and being homeless and having a child have forced her to grow up, but, as we see in her determination to be Head Cheerleader again, she’s still desperately clinging to the version of herself from Before. The biggest departure is obviously Skank!Quinn, where she briefly leans fully into a more androgynous punk look before adopting, again, a fractionally more androgynous version of her season 2 appearance, namely the addition of her blazers - which might be read as something as a symbol of male soft social power. Her story in season 3 obviously continues to bring the angst, but it’s also a period of self-actualisation. The most traditionally feminine we see her presenting after that is in her brief appearances in season 5, where it is pretty explicitly established that she’s behaving inauthentically. It’s all fairly on the nose, especially on that latter point. Obviously we can’t map that onto Santana directly, but I think it’s an interesting lens of analysis, given that, as I established at the beginning of this section, the two characters parallel each other pretty strongly in a whole smorgasbord of ways.

vi.

I’ve been dancing around the whole ‘death of the author’ bit for a while now, so let’s get into it. The post that I linked at the top of this essay describes DOTA as 'once a work is complete, what the author believes it to mean is irrelevant to critical analysis of what's in the text’, and I think that’s a reasonable definition to work with here. In other words, the fact that this essay takes Santana as a person with agency of her own, outside of her creators’ intentions, is not necessarily incompatible with my argument that we might use the fact that she’s a fictional character to explore the idea of social constructs, because the former exists outside of the latter. Santana is a construct of fiction, and the author is dead. The two lenses of analysis go hand in hand, inverted as they may seem.

I don’t think it’s too controversial a statement to say that Glee isn’t a particularly tightly written piece of fiction. (Maybe it is controversial on the subreddit. Shit’s wild over there.) Santana is no exception to that. Her character is messy and inconsistent, and the writing varies in its willingness to explore her depth. It would be trite to say that within that uncharted depth lies the DNA of a brilliant character. I also don’t think that that’s entirely accurate, because Santana Lopez is brilliant. The brilliance, which I think I’ve explored quite widely in this essay, is in the margins, in the unsaid, the unexplored. It’s in the performance. Reading between the lines, we see the carefully constructed image that Santana herself created. That is the foundation upon which the character is built. And from that, we can analyse her in myriad ways - along with the myriad ways in which she is, herself, a constructed performance, both within and outside of the narrative, constantly deconstructing and reconstructing itself.

The author is dead. Long live Lopez.

#finally omg #this kind of ended up being a collection of Thoughts more than an essay but i at least tried to tie it all up at the end there #anyway i hope this doesn't feel too pseudointellectual lmao #and i hope you enjoy slash find this insightful or interesting #glee #santana

[ivnscribbles]

leaving secondary school & no longer doing English classes has made me realise that I actually really like English Lit just the stress of a timed essay made me loose my shit so bad that I fully did not want to go to classes for 4 years.

#dyslexia #like i actually remember alot of the poems we did in the poetry unit & some of them do influence my ideas #and i do genuinly enjoy trying to understand media & characters n shit #like thats fun. i like that #i want to understand stories #just the idea of having to write an essay made me HURGH #(i did go to my classes anyway btw skipping was hard at my secondary & i was a goody two shoes) #like i remember during my yr11 i had the best english teacher ive ever had (wish id had her all 4 years) #(my teacher the year before somehow missed the memo i was dyslexic. ripped into an essay i did at parents evening- #- made me cry and then told my mum she should get me tested for dyslexia 😐) #we did 'an inspector calls' and i had so much fucking fun lmao. She'd have us all have discussions about the book - ask us what we thought #and would take our awnsers seriously! she was so fucking cool man. #ramble #i am rambling

[swordcoasts]

had a meeting with my potential thesis advisor and it went so well yeehaw

#he agreed to being my advisor so that's a fucking. boulder off my chest. #also it was just fun shooting the shit with him for like 40 minutes lmao #he was like 'are you REALLY sure you want a career in academia tho. like REALLY SURE' #which like. no. but all of the things i'm good at and also enjoy pay like shit and lead to burnout so what options do i have #ANYWAY. essay writing mode now. need to submit two this week bc i'm going to copenhagen on sunday baybeeee #dee.txt

[chamerionwrites]

#bonus partially-related rant: Please Stop Trying To Make Me Take Bo-Katan Seriously #bonus more-of-an-essay-than-a-rant: I Love Ahsoka But Not In The Way I Suspect the Creators Intend Me To #it's not every day you can say ''this is an incredibly rich text (derogatory)'' but there is just SO much to unpack lmao #anyway where is that one post that's like let people enjoy things. i enjoy analysis and being a hater. #aggressive negotiations #polls #my posts

[tricksterlatte]

Once again wishing all the Tales of bloggers still following me after all these years, despite my persistent Goro Akechi brain rot, a very lovely evening. 

#Parker Says Things #I was a miserable little shit back then so here's to character development #Anyways villains hot and I've only gotten gayer #Lloyd isn't a fav anymore but I hope everyone enjoys the Switch port if you're buying it #Still love me some Abyss though #Yuri Lowell skyrocketed into beloved territory and idk how to explain without writing an entire essay lmao #Mithos Yggdrasill come back to me you have so many psychological problems and it makes me emo #There's also this hilarious Tales of the Abyss fan to Goroboy pipeline and idk HOW but it keeps happening #Thought I recognized some P5 artists and wasn't sure why... #but they drew for Abyss and/or Symphonia...it all makes sense now #I'm mcdestroying the me from 2014 to 2017 at the minimum but like #I still like Tales #I am still horribly mentally ill #I hope I'm at least 20% less obnoxious though! #Gender and names were so wild for years but I'm going by Parker now and he/they just clarifying #I don't know if I ever made a post clarifying 100% about that lmao #Please don't call me Li or Lloyd I will gag

[jacks-the-flower]

there's something people need to understand about what makes daemon targaryen, and other similar dark characters, so attractive to so many; he represents literally the direct opposite of what our current lifestyle offers. we generally have to deal with the rigidity of a job and a strict routine to follow - daemon just doesn't. he sees those kind of responsibilities and says fuck that i'm gonna do what i want, when i want to do it; going to the brothels, not showing up for courtly things. not only that, he represents the direct opposite of our societal misogyny. we experience men who are amazing people to the world, and wife beaters at home with little respect for women and possibly people of color; this guy is literally a homicidal maniac on a good day, but cares very deeply for his family and holds high respect for the others that he deems worthy; regardless of gender or class. he respects the hell out of rhaenyra and even laena, but also for ser harrold and mysaria. he understands the constraint of one's class, being the second son yet vying for the throne, and judges everyone to be disposable (for lack of a better word here) on the same level. he values human life more fairly, if lowly in comparison to his love for his family.

so yes he is quite attractive to us, we're people bound by the constraints we have crafted within society, but he's also just hot. like have you seen matt smith, man may not have common "attractive" features (his hair however-), but he just exudes confidence and charm. again. hot.

#i thought this was an enjoyable mix of essay fandom and simp fandom #like yes good essay moment #but im also a simple creature who likes to look at pretty things #matt smith just happens to be one of them #me when matt learned to gel his hair in doctor who #wheeze #me when people photoshop recent pics with platinum blonde hair #WHEEZE- #anyways enjoy lmao #daemon targaryen #daemon #house of the dragon #hotd #daemon carried that show for me ngl #i only watched it bc i heard matt smith was gonna he in it #and boy did he steal the show

[unproduciblesmackdown]

speaking of your coming of age movie that never happens & your narrative non-narratives, shoutout to the arcs that’d be supposedly “worse” lmfao like posts about people-pleasers being like “i’m in my villain era” when it’s just consciously prioritizing themselves at all / noting when boundaries for their own wellbeing are being trampled, and the like. wherein i’m like, well i like talking to people i suppose, i can do the hours of monologue at a wall for one mode, got chatterbox mode, funny guy theatrical mode, etc, but in actuality also, i do not like talking to people lmao. the “yeah, that’s me” movie ending with another voiceover while upbeat music plays & you’re cheerfully walking along in 0.75x speed through some picturesque arena filled with socializing people like =) putting on headphones, turning up the volume, ignoring everyone, dodging people according to the berth one wants to maintain,

#i mean in person i like to be somewhere Parallel to other ppl; but there By Myself technically lol #i also am down for / enjoy spontaneous fleeting interactions w/randos but ofc only the actually good ones; which can sure be rare #and naturally Online interactions have a lot more flexibility than [not having that option] but even then. #like on just one point: being in a ''fandom'' like no thanks at all ever lol even when it comes to relatively niche things #j'etadore quantent being Just Me Posting To Myself. i absolutely do not want to talk to anybody about winston billions. #posts are scrolls i've nailed to a door to be perused if someone wants. take it or leave it; i've given it & left #meanwhile Not In Person chats aren't even enough lol like; need more Delay than a live chat; also too much to say just like irl anyways #gotta be down for short essays at w/e weird pacing & inadvertent caginess abt what ig other ppl would find matter of factly easy to share #i.e. like What Are You Doing? type ye olde facebook status prompt material. well that's a secret / weird / not entertaining enough isn't it #not like i think oh scoff i Should be popular likable & beloved lmfao like no ofc i Know i'm not gonna come off like that. l'autistique. #to be thusly is to be generally considered unlikable / disliked. i probably don't like interacting w/an nt rando too much either. #& w/the power of [adhd] it's like yeah sure i can be the chatty Fun But Annoying person lmfao But. rather than really being begrudgingly #tolerated until ppl are just more used to you / forgive the annoyances it's like no it's just the Annoying part lol beyond that it's like #well you're also somehow still too weird & quiet so worst of both worlds right. And ofc i have Other Traits aren't just for everyone. #some classic easy to embrace shit like bit of a hothead; argumentative; opinionated; stubborn; spontaneous; a hater; cagey....lmao #much of that For Fun but the [autistic Friendly] social cues don't get read that way. plus i Can be unfriendly too ofc lmao. get outta here #like a friend group seems charming & adorably heartwarming in theory until it's like oh god but drawing on all relevant experiences?? No #the third or fourth or nth wheel falling behind on the narrow sidewalk / talked over / finding a chair on the end & ppl dont notice ur here #lowering expectations even for exchanges that Do happen. ppl can enjoy the novelty of a lengthy exchange for like; a day #on the other side of that if what's initiated is like; Brief General messages i'm like oh god lmfao now Eye can't keep up w/this style #beyond that spontaneous shit is like oh god masking. oh god double empathy misinterpretations & being treated horribly b/c of it. #Recognizing & Respecting my actual experiences rather than hypothetical ideals like no i'm Not failing by Not putting myself in more damn #situations lmfao....if i stumble into good ones then great lol. sure have done that & i don't discount the Value therein at all #just sure like [points to the wisdom of e.g. autistic ppl talking abt having to be lonely but at the gain of looking out for / appreciating #themself] like Being ''Unlikable'' or having friends(tm) but not Really / the treatment is shit / you're having to mask a ton anyways... #sure can recall experiences like idk. ppl ''being nice'' & whether on purpose or not it's like actually I'm In Hell I'm In Hell lmfao #and then even if it's not on purpose it's like ah i can't actually talk to them abt it & that's not a great endorsement for the dynamic huh #or just noting like i'm duly accepted to be on the sidelines but what am i doing wrong lmao sweating How To Earn proper Normal participation #lot of anxiety & blaming oneself & it turns out like nah can't excise the Fault of autistic / adhd / cpstdness & you're fine actually #that was ye olde times more so but it's gradual & still fairly recent being like Oh Right. more accurate ideas re: Talking To Ppl At All....

[equalseleventhirds]

may be reaching a point in my life where i gotta consider how much joy fandom brings me as i slowly work my way into being a creator in the media industry

.......or i may just be tired & stressed from finals and will be back to joyful once school is done. we'll see.

#i still gotta work on an official creative side tumblr but i'm tiiiiiiiiiiired #anyway. i am musing on differing perspectives & expectations. and how comfortable i am with where i position myself. #buuuuuuuuuuut i should actually stop thinking abt these things bcos i still have an essay due in a week #and a test a day after that #plus side projects that i took on knowing it was finals time lmao #........it may be the question abt my involvement in fandom becomes less abt 'joy' and more abt 'time' T_T #bcos i am promising myself to many things #and i ENJOY those things!!! i do not regret!!! #but i am much less online than i used to be #hm

[todayisafridaynight]

I've been in my feelings about Jo and Aoki's last interactions for a bit...

Because that whole scene is textbook verbal abuse, right... Aoki is very clearly trying to tear Jo's self-esteem and bolster his own, establish control, all that, and Jo just has to stand there meekly and take it. All because Jo's disobeyed one too many times and Aoki needs someone he knows he can control to head the Tokyo Omi Alliance.

Like Jo says he's never disobeyed Aoki except in that one instance, but not handling things himself at Otohime Land was very much his way of giving Ichi an out indirectly, and I feel like Aoki was beginning to catch on based on his comments about Jo neglecting the situation and acting strangely. Directly refusing his orders just confirmed his suspicions.

It's kind of lost among all the bombshells dropped in Chapter 13, but Jo's hesitance to kill anyone who's important to Arakawa is a big deal to me. It's not like he had any personal ties to Hoshino or any investment in maintaining the balance of the Ijin Three whatsoever; he went to those lengths to set himself up to be stopped because Arakawa wouldn't want Hoshino to die and that was it.

To return to the scene, I think it's also a great demonstration of Aoki's "those who use and those who get used" mentality. This next thing is... pretty badly mistranslated, at least in the subs, so it was lost on me for a while. But before the Lost Puppy line, the specific way Aoki chooses to downplay Jo's merit is by telling him he only got to his position because everyone was so sensitive to his (Aoki's) feelings and could tell he favored Jo, following him around like a lost puppy being precisely why Aoki favored him.

I don't think that was all there was to it, of course. Dude was five and deliberately brings Jo wherever he goes to this day by choice. It's kind of like those guys who get rejected once and start going on tirades about how "she should've been grateful, she was ugly anyway." But that's what Aoki wants to portray--you only had it that good because of me, and I can take it away whenever I want. Whenever you're no longer of use. Anything to preserve his status as the user and Jo's as the used.

Jo's crossed the line at this point. He is no longer of use. He does kind of get into it so that takes the edge off my frustration with The English Language, but from this point onward, he believes Aoki sees him as a "bullet"--a hitman only sent on suicide missions. So despite everything he's done for him, despite being "the favorite," he knows full well Aoki's trying to kill him before Aoki even gives Ishioda the order. And... he accepts it.

So TO GO FROM THAT to having to reconcile in prison would've been so much powerful than what the ending was trying to do. Having to come to terms with the fact you killed one of the only people who saw you for who you were and truly cared about you, were going to kill the other two, and have abused all three from the moment you realized you had power over them. And for Jo, going through everything he went through because of Aoki and loving him without question anyway... Getting to express that in some small way... I need to lie down...

ALSO tattoo essay... later... maybe tomorrow... I mainly just feel like I sound extremely mean about rggtattoos' take😭😭😭but the show must go on

YEAH NO THAT'S IT ALL FAX NO PRINTER NO EXTRA NOTES NECESSARY

It'd be the fact that Aoki'd have no choice but to confront those decisions he made and those things he wanted to happen. he'd made a social circle for himself where people predominantly liked him for the power and influence he had and totally turned his back on the people who- awfully ironically as he wanted- loved him for him

He'd already smoothed things over with Ichi, so- by his own hand- all that was left was Jo, the person he'd taken for granted the most next to Arakawa and who he planned to have executed alongside him. Jo's got every right to not forgive Aoki and to push him away, let each other rot in prison ignoring each other. So it's the worst feeling when Jo doesn't do that- its impossible for me not to imagine Jo wondering about what happened for Aoki to get so banged up if he's brought into prison the same night, and making sure Aoki's okay despite it.

Whereas Ichi was more upfront about his love and even frustrated about it ('frustrated' in that 'how could Aoki be so blind not to see how much care there is for him from us'), the breaking part about Jo is that he's forced himself to be so careful about showing his affection. Ichi's love was borderline irritating for how apparent it was: Jo's could have easily been written off or ignored.

All of that said, prison is where Aoki would be forced to realize that Jo does love him like Ichi said he does; there's no reason to keep up appearance or kiss up anymore- Aoki doesn't have any use to Jo anymore (if Aoki chose to interpret Jo's loyalties as a stepping stone to promote himself), and there's certainly no where else to run. It's probably that dawning moment that's gotta be so. Oh God What The Fuck. Like it's a sobering moment for him to go 'What have I been doing this whole time/what have I done to everyone', as corny as it sounds

#long post #just said 'no notes necessary' and here i go spouting bullshit again ☠️ #in any case there goes my essay about the dynamic shown between jo and aoki 😩 #but in all seriousness Yeah.... its shit i rotate in my head constantly about- esp where aoki starts to notice how 'strange' jo's acting #it fucks with me on immeasurable levels and i love examining it in my fuckin. awful little cave that's my brain #its just such a twisted set of circumstances that hurts that i enjoy it makes me want to throw up if i think of it for too long #their interactions are so minimal but i will tear into them and rip them apart. as much as i allow myself to anyway #ive gone on a gross nonsense ramble long enough though.. i blame all the dramas and movies i been watchin lately... #i need that bittersweet moment so bad and knowing itll never come makes me want to eat my tea pot and crunch the porcelain #ouugghhh... i have to finish these comms maybe then i can be delusional and scribble up such an ending #and feel free to take your time with that tattoo essay ! if you disagree with something then just say so #no point in beating around the bush- esp when ive mentioned it so much (which mustve been a pain to read 🙇‍♂️) #just gotta say your piece and carry on: peer review and discussion and all very valuable things #its why i try to not to say anythin if i can help it LMAO im far too baby brained to contribute anything sufficient or of value #big fan of reading though :) very much a sheep i am LMAO #ive thrown up verbiage enough though i still have these comms to finish 😭