#he has had some bizarre and really weird/interesting jobs | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

saturdaynightspecialpresentation · 6 months

Text

Poor Things

First of all, Emma Stone’s performance is as good as everybody is saying. Stone takes a very difficult role that easily could have gone very, very wrong and makes it look like the most effortless thing in the world.

I have been looking at the reviews, good and bad, and I think that the minority of people who didn’t vibe with this movie had slightly skewed expectations.

Poor Things starts out at Tetsuo The Iron Man levels of fucked up, but by the end it has dropped to Edward Scissor hands levels of fucked up. This is probably plenty of weirdness for the average movie-goer, but true connoisseurs of mondo cinema should calibrate their expectations.

Second, apparently this is being talked up as a sort of feminist coming of age fable chronicling an everywoman’s sexual awakening and liberation, and it really isn’t that, and I think if you are hoping for that you’ll come away disappointed.

Better, I think, to look at it as an autistic coming of age fable and power fantasy, which I think it does a tremendous job at.

Very minor spoilers under the cut; really, this is more an essay about what I thought the film was about than a review, my review would be that it's somehow simultaneously a feel-good crowd-pleaser AND a movie where an adult woman with the brain of a toddler stabs the eyes out of a corpse with a scalpel and then plays with its penis (I wasn't kidding with the Tetsuo comparison)

Honestly now that I've actually written that out I have maybe underestimated how impressive it is that Yorgos Lanthimos made a movie where that happens on screen but somehow basically everybody loves the movie.

In terms of sex, we do watch Bella discover sex, but she very quickly comes to a conclusion about her relationship with it which never once changes throughout the rest of the movie:

She likes it, she likes it more with an attractive partner, she is utterly lacking in any kind of sexual jealousy, and she doesn't attach too much more to it than that.

This is an odd comparison, but Bella treats sex the way Joey did on Friends. A man acting this way is a sitcom cliche, but a woman acting the same way…

This is a film that is really, really not interested in the real-world consequences of this kind of sex; in fact, given that a pregnancy is the inciting incident of the film, it came off a little weird to me that the possibility of a pregnancy or STD was never really addressed (unless there was a line or two that I missed while I was in the bathroom).

For the most part, though, I was able to get past it by just thinking of it as a heightened world. The sets and settings are extremely artificial, and ultimately I figured, “Hey, if I can buy this kind of thing as harmless and fun in a sitcom, I can buy it in this other kind of heightened reality.

I will say, I don't think Bella is meant to be an every-woman, and that there's textual support for this in the film itself.

All of the women Bella deals with in some way question her approach to sex, making it clear, sometimes through explicit dialog, other times more reading between the lines, that her approach to sex is not for them.

If there’s any particularly feminist message in the film, it’s that when confronted with Bella’s bizarre approach to the world, none of the women get angry at her, and most of the men she meets do.

But Bella’s relationships with other women aren’t really the meat of the film, that’s more about her relationship with men, and particularly the way that they feel, deep in their bones, that they should have control over any woman that they have sex with.

Duncan Wedderburn, when he first discovers Bella and convinces her to go away with him, thinks he is tricking and seducing a beautiful naif who he can use and then discard when he tires of her. Their relationship disintegrates as it becomes clear that Bella hasn’t been tricked at all; she wanted exactly what he was able to give, a chance to sow her wild oats by having some no strings attached sex with an attractive, likable person in an exciting foreign city.

This makes Wedderburn increasingly unhappy and unhinged (He says at one point that he has become what he hates, a “grasping succubus”) much to Bella’s growing consternation. She has no idea why he can’t simply be happy having sex with her and otherwise letting her do what she wants, and he is so committed to a certain vision of gender roles that he can’t even begin to explain it, he can only lash out in frustration.

And that I think is the meatier part of the film; Bella doesn’t so much flout social expectations as she is simply totally unaware that they exist.

Honestly I think the character isn’t so much coded as autistic as she just is autistic. Bella is a woman who is basically totally unaware of social expectations and constantly taken aback to discover that they exist.

More than that, she has to figure out a way to work around the fact that many of the people who become most enraged by her are also so totally lacking in self-reflection, and view their social situation as so normal, so self-evidently obvious that they cannot explain to her why it is she has made them angry. They suddenly fly into rages that clearly perplex Bella and which they themselves don’t even bother to explain, because they regard their own ideas as self-evident.

Bella is an idealized autistic hero; personally as outlandish as she is I don’t really think the film expects us to take the side of anybody else, and I think there are some fairly subtle and accurate bits of autistic behavior on her part.

She responds to life as a kind of social experiment, attempting to parse out a set of logical rules and, especially in the latter parts of the movie, she often justifies her actions with a perfectly sensible internal logic that the emotional men in her life can’t parse out. Late in the film, when she and Wedderburn are destitute, she prostitutes herself for 30 francs, and with implacable logic, explains the two reasons that Wedderburn ought to be quite happy she has done so: First, her john was much worse at sex than Wedderburn, which ought to satisfy his ego, and second, they now have 30 francs and the potential to earn more.

Wedderburn does not appreciate her logical approach.

Another thing that strikes me as very true is that Bella has a very odd theory of mind for other people. There’s a scene where, traumatized by the unspeakable poverty and suffering she sees in Alexandria, she puts all of Wedderburn’s money in a box and rushes out to give it to the poor. Unfortunately the ship is leaving, but two port attendants tell her that they will be staying on the island, and would be happy to deliver a package. She tells them that she has a big box filled with money and they should give it to the island’s poor, and they agree to do so. Now, the film never tells us one way or another whether they keep their word; but Bella herself retains an iron certainty that they did exactly what she asked them to. Now, we know Bella understands what lying and deceit are, because we’ve seen her trick people before, like when she chloroforms McCandles to run away with Wedderburn. But it never once occurs to her that these sailors might do something similar. Call it paradoxical, but that kind of thinking is common in autistic people.

There’s also the scene where the self-professed cynic Harry Astley shows her the suffering in Alexandria; he admits, when he sees how terribly it has affected her, that he didn’t tell her simply because he thought it was the truth of the world, but that her attitude made him angry, and he wanted to hurt her. A very common part of the autistic coming of age is the slow realization that not everything people tell you is part of a dispassionate, scientific search for the truth.

There’s also a scene in a whorehouse in which Bella argues that it would make more sense to have the women decide who is to sleep with the johns, so that then the john could be more confident that the girl was attracted to him, which he must doubt if he chooses. You can tell I’m autistic because I immediately had the thought, “Well, but the johns would probably be worried that nobody would choose them.”

One of Bella’s fellow working girls instead tells her, “Some of them like the fact that we don’t have a choice”.

#poor things #movie review #autism #cw violence #I'm actually not sure what kind of content warning I should put for the corpse stabbing

535 notes · View notes

prettyrealm · 2 months

Text

taylor swift & travis kelce dynamic reading

this reading is a paid commision, thank you so much for trusting in me! <3 celebrity commissions • personal commissions

overall:

honestly, this dynamic is giving PR-adjacent, it doesn’t feel like it’s technically solely PR but that at the same time, the media and their reputations are basically the sole reason for being together (and they likely do a lot of things for the media too, maybe even calling the paparazzi on themselves and stuff similar to that). both of them (taylor especially) entered this relationship with the media and optics in mind. taylor felt she needed an image boost (almost in a desperate way, she really wanted people to see the good in her and liked this opportunity). taylor and travis are not happy together at all. they take this “relationship” day by day and it feels painful, not painful as in gaslighting or infidelity, but painful as in the feeling you get when you wake up in the morning and you know you have to clock into your terrible job in less than an hour and you don’t know how many more weeks you can realistically handle it. they’re both just waiting for this to be over but for some reason don’t think they can leave yet. they feel drained and both feel they could be doing better things with their time. at first, they thought this would be easy but now they’re just terribly bored. they have nothing to talk about or (anything fun) to do together, they have zero of the same interests and find it hard to even hold basic conversations with the other person. not only do they not have anything to talk about, they can actually leave the conversations they do have feeling pretty bad at times, travis has a way of accidentally triggering taylor (and he may even tease her at times which she doesn’t appreciate, though she also seems to not say anything about it either). she has a long term plan with this relationship though, so she’s okay with dealing with temporary discomfort if it’ll make her future brighter. while they both entered this relationship with image in mind, taylor was more calculated about it and travis saw more actual potential in it (and still sometimes thinks so), when it ends it’s likely that taylor won’t be hurt at all, but travis may feel a bit slighted. zero romantic feelings here. they are definitely not each others soulmate, that’s for sure.

how travis kelce sees taylor swift:

travis sees taylor as the greatest pop star in the world right now, and he has a hard time seeing past her image (blonde all american girl, songwriter that writes about her exes) and viewing her as an actual person. i think he only ever really sees two sides of her, pop-star taylor and business woman taylor. so when he isn’t stuck on her image, he just sees a strong, powerful (but bossy) woman (who’s friendly enough and good at networking). he thinks she’s a true business woman and really gets to see the extent of how business-oriented and career driven she is behind the scenes (he can tell she has a lot of knowledge here and knows what she’s doing). travis definitely wants the relationship to keep going more than she does because he knows she’s the most famous and powerful person out right now (he sees how much money her name moves), he likes being tied to someone so famous.

how taylor swift sees travis kelce:

taylor sees as on the same page as her when it comes to their overall goals (for ex. it’s not like she calls the paparazzi on them unbeknownst to him, he knows exactly what’s going on). overall however, she thinks he’s super stupid. she’s had problems explaining things to him because he just doesn’t understand it and she doesn’t get why. she thinks he’s super immature and literally acts like a teenage boy, which is super unattractive to her - this is not her type of guy at all. she thinks he’s weird and the things he thinks are funny are bizarre and strange to her (it’s like someone belly laughing at a comedy movie you think is extremely corny and bad). she’s shocked that someone can even be this way, he leaves her baffled often. she also worries about him saying the wrong thing to other people in case it reflects badly on her (since she thinks he isn’t a smart or tactful speaker). she’s often shocked at how relationship-y and coupley he tries to act with her at times and she thinks it really crosses the line (for ex. if they do call the paparazzi on themselves he might really play up the affection or something and she’s like, “ok you know you don’t need to be doing that much”). but this can also even happen behind the scenes, which confuses taylor even more, for ex. say they’re at an event and she’s talking to another guy, later he’ll be like, “so who was that guy?” and she’s like “??? why are you even asking me that when you know what this is? are you really trying to act jealous right now?”. he frustrates her often.

#tarot #celebrity tarot reading #celebrity tarot #piano tarot #dynamic reading #taylor swift tarot #taylor swift #travis kelce #commission

47 notes · View notes

cecilioque · 2 years

Photo

VOLO’S OUTFIT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE BAD. And here is why I think so...

To begin, we are not talking about the Ginko guild design, we are talking about the “final boss” fit. We all know that Volo’s outfit is dumb, but I’m mad because it was actually thought out and VERY symbolic in the sense that it essentially represented things Volo said/wanted.

I, like everyone else looked at this outfit and went “wow, that is dumb” and then hated on it. Although it is not the most appealing or cool outfit, there was actually a lot of thought that went into it. I could be really over analyzing this, but here is my interpretation.

To begin with, the concept art is a lot more revealing about the intention of the design then the actual game play. On a surface level we see Volo in what I can only assume is a Arceus gijinka cosplay. So the hair, the stars, and color scheme are all elements of Arceu’s design. Cool. Good job especially since Volo had in fact never seen Arceus before.

To fully understand this outfit we have to go back to Hisui and the remains of this so called “ancient civilization”. In the Pokemon world, there is this general idea that the ancient culture was either Roman or Greek inspired. We see evidence in Legends of Arceus by the obvious column heavy architecture and use of Greek Doric columns ( one of the earliest styles of columns used for temples) and in the ruins and temple.

The Temple of Sinnoh is obviously based off of the Parthenon. It’s funny because game freak went as far as to even mimic both Ionic and Doric styles in the Temple of Sinnoh just like the Parthenon. I will go as far to add that the Sinnoh temple is much simpler than the Parthenon due to the fact that it was not embellished with an elaborately carved frieze or any decoration on the exterior for the most part. Bizarre when even the broken ruins have evidence of some sort of ornamentation. It makes complete sense why the game developers chose this style seeing how is is know for being very simplistic. But it also dates it in context. It makes the Temple of Sinnoh the first temple that was build and the others that followed were build as the civilization grew ( thus more elaborate but we can only see the crumbled remains).

I will be ignoring the Snowpoint temple because it is a weird combination of styles and almost seems alien and out of place which very much fits the Regi theme. It is also based on the early game design which was limited and blocky for game space sake.

Ok, heavy Greek and Roman influence. Back to Volo and his obviously Greek and Roman fit. Volo’s name itself means “I wish” in latin and could possibly be a reference to the phrase “volō, ergo sum” (I wish, therefore I am). Very in character since it is the wish for more” and he did everything he could to achieve that.

The actual influence for the design is more Roman in nature. This bothered me because we can see that research and thought went into it, but they just simplified it. And this actually has a point.

To begin with the obvious stuff, we see that volo’s shirt is definitely toga like. It even goes so far to be decorated with a Fibula (brooch)in a way that indicates a higher rank or status. Cool Volo, we get that you think highly of yourself. Color choice is also same as Arceus, but we also know that white togas were also used by senators and high political officers.

Next , the shoes. These are just the basic stereotypical Spirit Halloween Greek god/goddess type of sandals you can get at your local costume shop. This was actually the most disappointing part of the outfit for me. But it makes sense they went with the most simplified and recognizable style. They wanted us to look at this outfit and go “ Wow, Volo has been studying his myths and recreated an outfit”. This is what you could expect someone to create with just a written description of the clothing used during that time.

The necklace is interesting because it stands out so much compared to the gold colors. I am no sure what they were going for here by making it so prominent, but it brings us to an interesting thought. If they necklace does have meaning, it is related directly to the design/shape. The waterdrop could be the Greek symbolism for "tears of grace” or in a sense “gods grace”. The idea that the tears of god water the harvest and provide life. Alternate interpretations could simply be water as a source of life, or a symbol or sadness a mourning. If it is a symbol of of mourning, this might be a clue to why Volo might desire to rewrite the world so much.

Last but not least, the pants. I think we can all decide this is one of the worst parts of the outfit, and to me it is just straight up confusing for two main reasons. For starters, the color green is so prominent when green is an accent color on Arceus. So maybe the color has meaning itself. But if you look at the image above, the color mainly refers to life and “the harvest” (possibly like the necklace). It has a weird connections to life and creation itself, which probably is why it was included in Arceus’ design and makes sense as Volo essentially wants to become the creator of life in a new world.

But this isn’t the part that gets me the most. The second thing that confuses me is the fact that the Greeks and Romans did not use pants. This was because pants were associated with non-Roman/Greek cultures (the Germanic tribes and Vikings) who they looked down upon. On top of that, the Greeks thought pants were feminine and silly. This could also just simply be a design choice because they didn’t wanna draw Volo in a full toga and accidently make him look like Christ. But this leads to my final point of the physical outfit itself.

VOLO’S OUTFIT WASN’T SUPPOSED TO BE GOOD. IT’S SUPPOSED TO LOOK DORKY AND BAD BECAUSE IT WAS FLAWED! This is based on the real world cultures it was based on. And although Volo may have done a lot of research, he still didn’t completely understand ancient culture. It’s bad because Volo made it himself. His outfit was flawed just like his ideology. It is his own interpretation of a culture that he had idolized without truly understanding that this great and ancient culture crumbled. And based off of the architecture of the ruins and temples, it never even reached a prime before it fell.

But Volo thinks its correct/cool/accurate. He is being a fool about it because he didn’t understand the bigger picture and had become consumed with this desire for power and control. This as an idea is really cool and I find it funny that you can also wear the outfit. Its essentially mocking him. If we look at the outfit in this light, the design was a success in getting us to dislike it and evoke this distaste. We didn’t know why, but this is why.

SO IN SUMMARY, OUTFIT WAS BAD ON PURPOSE. It wasn’t thoughtless, in fact there was a lot of research behind it and yet that seems to be thrown out to simplify the design in a way that looks like someone hand made it based off of what they had put together themselves.

But this isn’t my favorite part of the concept art. My favorite part is the hands.

Look at his hands. Why are they in those positions? Wouldn’t it have been easier to create more standard poses? To me the hand gestures here are just too specific. So I started digging around for what they could be on a Art history level. I looked at Non Christian art first and then Christian symbolism within their mosaics, illuminated manuscripts, and paintings. And I found some verrrry interesting similarities. I am not trying to make this religious. I just found some interesting similarities between old Christian art and Volo’s design. Which makes sense if we go back to this Greek/Roman influence because these cultures eventually converted to Christianity. And Arceus is kind of a weird goat god Jesus.

The left hand is where the biggest symbolism is. Basically, this hand gesture has been used to indicate “the hand of god” or the “hand of justice”. Christ sometimes is draw with a similar hand position and could be a sign of the cross, but this would also refer to some sort of divinity. I will also note that Volo is in no way making the classic “blessing” hand gesture.

As for the right hand he is making what I assume is a Greek/Roman orator (speaker) gesture. This would mean that Volo is calling for attention. Note, that I didn't’ compare this to prophets. That’s because orators speak for themselves and prophets for god. And Volo thinks he is god.

Under this context, in the concept art Volo is essentially saying “I am God”. If we add the symbolism of his outfit, it only further solidifies this idea. Volo’s outfit/concept comes together and screams “behold, I am god , the hand of justice. I will be the creator or the new world”. Which is so freaking clever because that’s literally what he tells you.

Sure his hands are switched and lowered compared to actual real world art examples (thank you Game freak for not throwing in actual religious symbols/gestures), but I think the intention is still there. It’s so good that I am mad. So as much as I hate this dumb outfit, I cannot deny that it was well thought out, that the character was well thought out.

To conclude, these are my assumptions. I am not an expert on art history or religion. If you have further insights on this feel free to share. I’d be interested with what others had to add. I the end this could all be wrong and just crazy for overthinking the designs of a pokemon character, but it just seems too intentional to be carelessly thrown together. This is just one possible interpretation.

Though its just more evidence in my mind that a lot of love and care went into developing Legends of Arceus. Despite their limitations and resources.

#volo #arceus #pokemon legend of arceus #legend of arceus #giritina #art history #temple of sinnoh #i can finally rest after typing up this mad assumption #sunny speaks #a special thank you to my friends who heard me ramble about this #and thanks to game freak for actually doing research for their games #its not perfect but an effort was made #pla

822 notes · View notes

yusiyomogi · 11 months

Text

people who say that jake as a character has only 2 layers don't understand how bad hussie's writing actually was. no, the way jake's character was built is such a confusing mess.

first of all, like all alpha kids, jake was written in the backwards way: someone who we only knew in the form of mysterious 1-dimensional parental figure needed to be fleshed out in the form of a main character. but here's the first very weird choice made by hussie: the big part of grandpa's and nanna's characters was the fact that they are, well, old people. with old-timey outlook on things and speech patterns and stuff like that. and for some bizarre reason hussie desided to write jane and jake as sorta (?) old people who are also teenagers. they are unmistakingly grandpa and grandma, but not because they had their character traits, but largely because they're still old people.

another layer to this is harleybert legacy. it makes sense of course, hussie put a lot of attention to this sort of "genetic predispositions" when it comes to all characters of homestuck. but for some reason jake got the worst case of it. his thing is that he's an exaggeration/flanderization/satire of what john and jade as characters were. john likes shitty movies? jake likes all the movies especially the shittiest ones. john is a bit goofy? jake is the goofiest. jade is excited about the game and somewhat naive at the start of the story? jake is completely oblivious to everything and only cares about adventures. jade has a weird pet? jake has a whole island of weird pets. jade is overpowered? jake has the biggest absurd dumb-looking form of power in the comic. just compare this to the much more subtle writing of dirk and roxy and you'll see that there's something almost mean-spirited in the way jake is written. i have no idea why.

next layer that hussie decided to add to already badly written character of jake is the weird parody on misogynistic tropes. here's the question hussie present to us: what if we have "a useless sexy woman" character but he's a boy instead? and i still have no idea what hussie was thinking here. it's not like this trope was super popular at the time (early 2010s) and someone desperately needed to make fun of it. it was more of a late 90s thing really. it could be some form of ironic self-critique, but i don't think it was the case, because, if anything, hussie did a pretty good job writing women in homestuck. but here's a boy who's a parody of something that had not been relevant for 15 years or so. who's everyone's love interest and no one think about him as a person. this wasn't even a clever commentary really. jake isn't happy with his situation, but it's not an important point in the story and nothing comes out of it.

another layer to jake's character is that around this time hussie decided to put a lot of focus on classpects. especially thanks to calliope and aranea, a lot of act 6 is focused on the weird self-analysis of the story where we are basically forced to look at it through classpect reading. the unfortunate consequence of this is that all new characters are very confined to their classpects, but skilled writer can work with that and even make character writing more interesting than it was before. you'd think that hussie could use this opportunity to explore classpects more, make them deeper by writing complex characters, but. ugh. that's not really what they did?

actually hussie took a bunch of character traits from already existing characters and gave them to the new ones. jake is a page? tavros is also a page. so jake is a bit like tavros, because of course tavros personality was always connected to his classpect. hussie wrote a vast majority of homestuck through "backwards self-justification" method and that's exactly why jake's personality connects to tavros. and funnily enough, since hussie kinda hated tavros's personality (which is so so weird to me), they also ended up hating jake's personality as well. which, i think, was eventually the reason hussie gave up completely on writing jake.

that said, reading homestuck serially, i liked jake. i still like jake! fandom had a very different outlook on his character and i remember we all kinda found him relatable and waited for his "big" moment where he finally says what he thinks and chooses what he wants to do with his life. hussie didn't go the route we hoped for, at all.

#homestuck #sorry for my english #tbf i like the way fandom treats jake #maybe he's badly written but we can work with that #well. at least people who are better writers than hussie #text post

109 notes · View notes

eldritch-spouse · 2 years

Note

In honor of your birthday, which of the monster boys will actually care/celebrate your birthday? Also happy birthday!!

[Thank ye. :>]

Knows your birthday:

Krulu. Simple enough, right? He's in your head. And even if he thinks this is a dumb sort of celebration, since siadar prefer to focus on decades/centuries as opposed to years, you will likely get some form of celebration, likely a party with the rest of the staff and one small, hand-crafted present which he won't give you directly but rather leave around for you to notice.

Breg. HE'S BEEN WAITING FOR THIS. He got at least ten things because he's not sure what you'd like the most. And only three of those are questionable. There are also two cakes, one of them is kind of sloppy and tastes weird but he tried. Boy, did he. You have a little birthday hat and he's got all sorts of confetti- The moment you wake up he's shoving a forkful of sugar in your mouth.

Patches. He knows the exact date, hour and minute tou were born, where it happened and he's probably also got a copy of your birth certificate somewhere. But, ironically, he can't decide on what to give you. Fuck. Well, here's to hoping you're into really beautiful plants that sometimes talk back and cling to you like pets. He'd rather impress you with something you didn't expect than disappoint you with a mundane object you don't care for.

Mervin. He's going to pretend he's unaware of your birthday for some hours as his pride and affection for you duke it out in his mind. This likely culminates in the demon hurriedly shoving a massive bag in your arms and just telling you to fucking open it already don't look at him like that- It's full of gorgeous jewelry and clothing brands so pompous you won't even recognize them. Yes yes, he's amazing, the best mate you've ever had, he knows.

Ludwig. Very nonchalant about it. You're greeted to breakfast in bed and the wrath demon takes you out to wherever you want to go. He can use rifts sparingly to visit plenty of far away places, so if there's some corner of the world you'd like to see, now's your chance. He's got a couple of small presents he'll give you throughout the day, and he might even wax a little poetic about you, it's fun seeing him get even redder.

Nebul. What kind of pet owner would he be if he didn't know your birthday? Tsk. In contrast to how life usually tends to be with him, you get to do whatever you want today. And he means whatever. Wanna kill a man? Go nuts. Set things on fire, be on top of the wraith for once, go outside and roll around in the garden- Enjoy yourself. You're getting a variety of not always expensive but certainly very interesting trinkets. Nebul values amusement more than he does traditional courtship items.

Grimbly. He's got it circled 300 times in his calendar and he's got the outfits ready, the whole day is planned! Including where the two of you will eat and the movie you're going to watch together and the stores you're browsing. In a bit of bizarre twist, you'll become a bit of a sugar baby, as Grimbly will spoil you with everything you so much as look twice at.

Belo. How could he possibly not know his lady/lord's birthday?! That's madness! You're getting worshipped, cherub! He'll carry breakfast to you, wash you, clothe you, lift you everywhere, say the word and Belo will be there like an errand boy. He gets you one very sentimental present and will cry like a baby if you reject it.

Will eventually ask:

Morell. Listen, he's got a fast paced job and he doesn't have time to think about birthdays a lot. He forgets his own at times. But he'll probably get reminded out of nowhere, and if he missed it already, Morell will make it up to you next year with a massive, mouth-watering cake and a series of small but cute presents he thinks fit you perfectly.

Vinnel only remembers because of the birthday performances he makes for clients. It'll eventually click in that brain, his poppet also has a birthday. You're getting confetti everywhere, so many balloons, too many- Get ready for the eyesore of a dress he'll stuff you in and the silly hats. You'll have to open at least ten fake, embarrassing gifts before you reach the real one, which is likely something delicate, custom made by him.

Gallon usually has a pretty good memory. But he doesn't think about birthdays a lot, so he might go a great deal of time without even considering that. He's got a plan though! You're going to a restaurant with a name so obnoxious you'll gag, but at least the food is good and Gallon makes excellent conversation. He makes it seem like he's going to propose when he offers your gift, so that'll give you a little heart-attack.

Listen. Give Santi a discount. He's got two brain cells, one is entirely dedicated to fucking, the other is ping-ponging around his skull. He'll forget constantly unless he's got a reminder. Santi will take you out in a proper date, you're getting treated to the best, dressed the sexiest and he'll probably give you oral at least four times. Your birthday nights are spent spread on his sheets, gasping, writhing and crying for more.

Shags usually doesn't have to think about birthdays, because the people he snatches hardly ever make it far enough into captivity for him to get preoccupied with such. This is a very special occasion, and he's delighted to get reminded of it! He's going to cook for the two of you and gift you a very intricate, detailed portrait of you made with his own ink. Shags promises you next time will be more exciting.

Fank-e's attention span bounces across the room faster than a fucking rubber ball, you're lucky he remembered to ask! Listen, whatever you do, do NOT eat the cake he makes for you. It has some type of glitter in it and it'll probably kill you. Don't. He got way too many presents, they're all wrapped with amazing precision, in contrast to the cake's sloppy state. He's very upset he can't use a kazoo, but he will sing.

Obie genuinely doesn't know the exact day of his birthday unless his brothers tell him. Don't take it personally if he gets a day ahead of himself, or late. Obie does his best to make it up to you though, with way too much take out, all the snacks you could ever crave, and a stack of albums he thinks you might like. He also made one really embarrassing song for you please don't laugh...

Rinx is a bit of a cockhead and he often forgets that other people also have birthdays. Snap him out of it, you'll have to be the one to do it. Listen, Hell isn't really the prettiest place, but Rinx can buy you anything you want. So go ahead, take a stroll through the rings with him and pick what you'd like! You can even go to the surface as well, come on pet, it'll be so fun right? He's totally not doing this for himself too.

Fasma is very nonchalant about it. The plasma monster will pull you aside for a moment and casually ask you when your birthday is. He'll spend the day sober with you, but at night? Get ready to drink yourself into comatose, kiddo. He'll get mushy and say the sweetest things, hanging you a poorly wrapped gift that is surprisingly up your alley. Is it worth it? Yeah. Will you wake up sick? Probably.

Genuinely won't think about it unless you mention it:

Sybastian. It comes with the territory of leading a moderately feral life, you know? Syb hardly knows how old he himself is, it's no wonder he wouldn't pay attention to your birthday. If he notices you're terribly upset over him missing it, he'll try to make it up to you and gather a mini-party with the mimiclings, bringing you an assortment of gifts. One of them looks expensive. Don't ask how he got it. Just don't.

Hellion and Pebble... What- What the fuck is a birthday??

167 notes · View notes

mllemaenad · 3 months

Text

The Magnus Protocol: Running on Empty

While I have nothing but sympathy for the poor tutor who had to mark that essay, I must admit I enjoy the return to stories where a survivor recounts a bizarre supernatural experience.

It's not that I can't take an episode where the monster wins – those can be very effective. But, well, while I enjoyed the overarching plot in the fifth season of The Magnus Archives, I must admit I enjoyed the individual stories significantly less than the ones in the previous seasons. Mostly because they weren't stories so much as descriptions of suffering. Because the victims generally had little sense of a time before or after their torment, you missed out on all the bits about how they got themselves into this mess, how they got themselves out of it, and what they thought the whole thing meant. The personalities, the individual characters who came and went after their one weird thing, were part of the fun. And they were largely absent.

The cases in The Magnus Protocol aren't exactly like that, of course: you can glean a bunch of background, at least, by reading between the lines. But still. There's something immensely cheering about getting a couple of stories where someone essentially rolls in to declare "So that was weird, right?" and then wander off again.

Also, apparently Norris doesn't like the night shift.

It's interesting how similar the last two cases are. Dianne didn't seem like the type to use terms like "liminal spaces", but Hilltop Road has very literally been a threshold between worlds:

Martin/Annabelle Once there was a house, a building that, for all it might have looked like those around it, was not the same. Stop, no. It didn’t start with the house. It was here long before any might have thought of it as a home. Once, there was a patch of land, not quite as firm in this reality as that which surrounded it. Stop, no. It’s not about the land. Mud and soil has no part in what is there. Once, there was a point in space that did not quite obey all those petty rules that decide what can be allowed to happen in a world. Stop, no. It’s not a point in space. The Earth spins and hurtles through the darkness, but it still carries it along. Let us simply say that once there was a place. A place where the universe had… cracked. – The Magnus Archives: This Old House

And if you don't know that, then you do know that Hilltop Centre's status as a charity shop makes it a way station for objects of all kinds. And this place let those almost-human people in, and let them bring their weird objects with them.

The people in Running on Empty put me in mind of the gibbering crowd in Lost in the Crowd, whereas the volunteers in Give and Take reminded me of the students in Anatomy Class, but that's more a question of degree than kind. The latter put on a good enough show that it took weeks to really confirm there was something wrong with them; the former could be spotted almost instantly. Both are stories of the uncanny valley: the thing that is almost but not quite human. And in both cases the victim is very nearly overwhelmed by the crowd: objects crushing, or "people" biting, sure, but both instances of being isolated, outnumbered and then assaulted.

Poor Terrance is a perfect victim, as well: he already has a nervous breakdown on record, which will mark him as an unreliable witness, he is isolated enough that nobody reported him missing after his incident, and his job requires him to spend a great deal of time alone.

Norris is describing the situation in the OIAR perfectly. They are a small number of people working a night shift in an old building clearly intended to contain more staff:

Celia Sure, no worries. I’ll be honest, I thought there’d be more people working here given the size of the building? Sam Yeah, no we’re, uh… Alice Streamlined? – The Magnus Protocol: Introductions

The point of their work is deeply obscure to them:

Sam Where does it go? Alice If I were a betting woman, I'd say some long dead database that no-one will ever look at or care about. Sam So why do it? Alice Because that's what they're paying us to do. – The Magnus Protocol: First Shift

Their odd hours put them out of step with normal social conventions:

Gertrude To what do we owe this early morning… pleasure. Sam Oh yeah, sorry we work nights so… Gertrude So? – The Magnus Protocol: Running on Empty

And the place has high turnover and burn out rates. Colin is clearly not coping – he is absolutely right about the electronics being weird, but he isn't dealing with that information very well – Sam is struggling with the sleep schedule, Gwen is stressed enough that she's about to commit a murder over an empty kettle and Alice ... unflappable Alice is worried:

Alice Just been a lot of changes round here recently. I don’t love it. Teddy, Sam, Celia, and did you hear Lena put Colin on “mental health leave”? – The Magnus Protocol: Running on Empty

It's not clear whether the computer voices are aware of each other, so calling it coordinated is probably overstepping the available evidence at this point: but Chester and Norris do seem to have delivered almost exactly the same warning. What might the staff of the OIAR be in danger of letting in?

The story also continues its thread of visual communication, with Gerry's painting. Gerard Keay has always been a painter, of course. But if The Magnus Archives needed to give you a visual, it simply did:

Archivist/Dominic Swain Instead, my attention was fixed on a picture attached to the one small area of wall not covered by bookshelves. It was a painting of an eye. Very detailed, and at first I almost would have said almost photorealistic, but the more I looked at it, the more I saw the patterns and symmetries that formed into a single image, until I was so focused on them that I started to have difficulty seeing the eye itself. Written below it were three lines, in fine green calligraphy: “Grant us the sight that we may not know. Grant us the scent that we may not catch. Grant us the sound that we may not call.” – The Magnus Archives: Pageturner

But here there is:

The video you could not watch

The alert that was not read out by a text-to-speech program

The email you could not read

The painting you could not see

The painting might not be anything, of course. But if you knew something could hear you but not see you, a person might resort to communicating purely through a visual medium. "John" apparently sent Sam Gertrude and Gerry's address. But nobody knew that until they got there, and so they travelled unmolested.

It's hard to say for sure what this universe's Gertrude knows – although I'm going to assume she knows something of significance, or she wouldn't be here – but it makes an interesting contrast to The Magnus Archives. There, the primary concern was being seen, and Gertrude was paranoid enough on that front to cut out the eyes from the illustrations in all her books. So one might expect equally paranoid behaviour if the concern was being heard.

The actual arrival of Gertrude and Gerry is fun: I enjoyed both characters, so I'm happy to see more (although if I get to wish to see an existing character, it's Adelard Dekker; I was always a little sad that we never got to properly meet him). It is suggestive of the way the world works that they're together, though.

I mean – I know this isn't the kind of alternate universe story where the Roman Empire never fell. It's recognisable modern day Britain, so I assume just about everybody still hates Margaret Thatcher and it's customary to drive on the left hand side of the road.

But it's a different world, and the history relevant to the story has not played out the same way. And yet, Gertrude and Gerard Keay are still a duo. Are there some things that are always true, then, no matter the world? I'd be interested to learn how it came about, though. That Sam was personally traumatised by The Magnus Institute isn't exactly surprising: he hardly hid his interest, after all. But Gerard Keay? Signing her kid up for a "gifted" program at The Magnus Institute doesn't sound like Mary Keay's style at all: she valued her independence too much. So what happened there?

And what is Georgie doing? It does make one wonder what life would have been like for her and Melanie – the first ones, I mean – when the world was put back together. Everyone clearly remembered what had happened, or they wouldn't have bothered to murder Simon Fairchild. So they would always be set apart.

My general thoughts on the plan are that it is reasonable to pass the entities along. Sure, it's a trolley problem. Nobody likes a trolley problem. But you are setting a risk of harm to the denizens of other worlds against the certain deaths of everyone in yours. So – sure, have at it.

But if you do that, you have now made yourself responsible for those worlds. You know what these things are, and you know how they operate. The people in other worlds likely do not, and won't know how to defend themselves.

So maybe, now, you have a responsibility to do something about that. Ha. Like make a really good podcast about it.

#the magnus protocol #the magnus protocol spoilers #the magnus archives

11 notes · View notes

shaolinrouge · 10 months

Text

Okay, so I rewatched PR:U for the first time since its release, and I definitely had some thoughts.

To begin with, what is with the really bizarre product placement in the beginning. Jake did not need to hold up those Oreos so blatantly lmao.

PR:U jumps straight into the action in a really identifiably different way than Pacific Rim does. In PR, Raleigh narrates the Kaiju War and then we see him and Yancy get into the Knifehead fight, and it flows really well overall. On the other hand, PR:U starts with a quick relay of the Kaiju War, and then we're introduced to Jake in the regions still affected by past Kaiju attacks (i.e. half-destroyed mansion, which I also have some thoughts on). So it quickly becomes clear he's got some black market dealings going on, and the first action sequence of the movie is Jake running from these random Jaeger scrappers (??). It's just really throwing compared to the first one, since we at least have a general idea of what's going on with Raleigh.

Side note: I'm assuming they're in the Bay Area that was largely evacuated considering they head toward a Jaeger scrapyard, so how does that mansion have like...any utilities.

So then we're introduced to Amara, who can build a sickass Jaeger but has no security system? I don't know, she seems really careful about being discovered for obvious reasons, so I feel her hideout would at least have an alarm or some kind of traps, But Jake essentially just strolls in.

Of course, then we have November Ajax vs. Scrapper, which I actually do like. Its nice to see what the new Jaegers look like, and see what Scrapper, the first single-pilot Jaeger, is capable of. This scene also really seals the tone of PR:U as kind of lighthearted and jokey while also having action and death, which isn't really the case in Pacific Rim.

Another thing I like: Amara and Jake's relationship. A lot of things about this movie feel funky, but I think the actors did a very good job of forming a very genuine-feeling bond between these two characters.

Mako's introduction just feels. very bizarre. I understand that she obviously can't be there in person, thus the hologram, but the whole situation just has a weird vibe that I can't place. I'm not sure if it's because Jake and Mako act so familiar with each other even though Jake was never mentioned in the movie, or because I'm just not a fan of the hologram bit.

Contrary to popular opinion (at least what I've seen), I really like the Jaegers in PR:U. I hate that they removed the realism from their movements that was always present in the first, but there were some very interesting weapons and new designs introduced at the same time, so I can let it slide. Except the giant rotating ball of blades on Bracer Phoenix, it can go die.

Mako's death is genuinely my least favorite scene in the movie for obvious reasons. She was essentially killed off for no reason, since we don't see much of Jake's grief, meaning they wrote her off for pointless plot purposes, which I hate.

I do enjoy the villain bait with Liwen, although it's a shame Newton ended up being the villain. They were definitely setting her up as an antagonist since she was on a side somewhat opposite to Mako's, and because it becomes clear that Shao Industries is somehow evil before having her turn around and attempt to stop Newton no matter the force necessary.

While on women in the movie, not a huge fan of how Jules was treated, but she's also not present that much so I won't go on and on about female characters being used a tool to create tension being male characters blah blah.

The fight against the Mega-Kaiju was...something. Suresh dying was completely out of the blue, and I hated it. I think the cadets all being so young is an odd decision to make, especially because in the first movie most of the Jaeger pilots come into the program in their very late teenage years at the least (besides Chuck and Raleigh, iirc). They try to justify the whole. child soldier-esque training by saying the Bond is stronger at a young age, but they didn't even have that young of recruits in the first PR and that was during a war so idk.

Raleigh not being mentioned at all is also a crime btw. Or Herc, for that matter, but he could at least make a little more justifiable sense than Raleigh.

Anyway, this was a really scattered collection of musings on the movie, but there we go.

27 notes · View notes

chthonic-cassandra · 1 year

Text

Recent books, vampire fiction (most of which I will be mean about) -

Claire Kohda, Woman, Eating - A young vampire woman puts her (vampire) mother in a nursing home and then tries to make a life for herself as an artist. I had mixed feelings about this novel, but ultimately liked it more than most of the other things I will talk about in this post. I found that it was a book that improved with contemplation; my predominant experience reading it was of irritation at how much it reads like all the other contemporary novels about disaffected young women, but ultimately Kohda is doing some interesting things with hunger and consumption and heritage and intergenerational trauma. I would have liked if the focus had been more sharply on those themes, the novel had gone through a few more editing passes, and the whole thing was willing to be more unapologetically weird.

Dion Fortune, The Demon Lover - A young secretary answers a job ad and finds herself under the thrall of a would-be sorcerer who is using her for her psychic capacities. this is only sort of a vampire novel (it's really a psychic vampire novel, which is a topic about which we all know Dion Fortune had some things to say). It's bizarre, and has some disconcerting politics, but I was actually quite compelled by it. The early sections have some of the bleak claustrophobia of Shirley Jackson, though without her sharp eye and structural skill; the later sections explode out into a messy, exhilaratingly disturbing gothic romance. I'm glad I read it.

Nicole Jarvis, The Lights of Prague - vampire hunter in nineteenth century Prague accidentally falls in love with a noble-hearted vampire woman. This was fine but boring.

Isaac Fellman, Dead Collections - a trans vampire archivist begins a romance with the widow of a television writer whose fandom he wrote in as a teenager. Unlike Kohda's novel above, this was a book that I liked less and less the more I thought about it; I was reasonably engaged while reading, but afterwards kept thining about things that could have been better. Fellman has a couple of interesting ideas here about vampirism and archives, but they are scant, probably better suited to an essay or short story than a full novel, and I found the novel as a whole very dry and in places quite irritating. The world-building around vampirism (which is common knowledge in the world of the novel, which otherwise appeared set in contemporary California) involves what I felt were the blandest choices possible, including very tired and surface-level addiction parallels. The way that the deceased screenwriter character was handled was odd and uncomfortable, though the imagined tv show she wrote for sounded much more interesting than the book itself. Curiously, this and Kohda's novel both involve vampire characters trying to illegally live in their work spaces, which is a peculiar point of coincidence that probably says something about housing anxiety at this point in history.

Deborah Harkness, Time's Convert - a sort of stand-alone set in the world of in Harkness' popular All Souls Trilogy, following the vampire transformation of a young woman who is pursuing vampirism to be with her vampire lover alongside the backstory of that lover, who fought in the American revolutionary war. I had previously read the first of the All Souls Trilogy and disliked it about a decade ago; I tried this one because it seemed to be more solely focused on the vampire characters and in my vampire reading I am nothing if not comprehensive. The way Harkness deals with vampirism is so boringly wholesome that it almost becomes fascinating despite itself, almost like the nuclear family parody of Twilight; I was so tremendously weirded out by it. Vampires in this world have a lot of rules and protocols (sure, I can go with that) particularly around turning. They all call their makers "father" or "mother," and have a strong taboo against turning someone you have a sexual relationship with, or having your own maker turn someone you have a sexual relationship with, because that would be "incest." This attempt to excise the gothic liminality which makes vampires compelling was infuriating but inadvertently intensely hilarious to read. There's a little bit of interesting vampire hierarchy content, but I could not get over the attempts at wholesomeness, which I will be thinking about for a long time.

Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Vampire - in a fantasy universe where the sun has vanished and vampires rule, a member of an elite vampire hunting guild is captured and forced to tell his life story the vampires in power. I DNF'ed this at 200 pages (it's 800) total; I really disliked it. It's the one that I described a few days ago as wannabe Patrick Rothfuss with vampires, and I stand by that description. It was very sexist.

Kendare Blake, In Every Generation - published Buffy fan fic, which is something that appears to exist in not insubstantial quantities. Willow's daughter discovers that she is a slayer and has to embrace her destiny. Whatever. I don't know why I read this. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't particularly good either. I have little to say about. Fan fic should be left to fan fic authors.

#books #vampires

23 notes · View notes

withacapitalp · 1 year

Text

Hehehe sappy New Years post today bc yesterday did not go the way I expected. It’s still the new year day!!!

But God I do not know how to explain 2022.

My favorite word is dichotomy. For a lot of reasons, but also because I feel like it describes my life a lot. Because 2022 was the best and worst year of my life so far. I got to teach the most amazing group of children I have ever met, and did well enough that they’re personally asking me to come back and teach there, I wrote my thesis, worked three jobs, managed to graduate on time with a double major no one had ever attempted at my college, all the while interning and volunteering on the side and going to conferences to speak about my research.

And the entire time- as I genuinely, honestly, loved every minute- I was spiraling inside.

It was so bizarre to me, all of the bad stuff was over, everything should have been good. Only the most amazing things were coming my way, things most people dream about getting in their lives, and I was so upset I couldn’t breathe some days. In my criminally logical brain I couldn’t understand why I was fine through everything bad, but now that things were good I really wasn’t okay.

That’s the thing. When you’ve lived in survival mode for fifteen of the twenty one years of your life, you don’t realize the crash that comes from finally escaping the thing that was trying to kill you. I’d spent so long just getting by, that I had no idea how to live now that I had the chance. I was trying, and doing pretty well, but it just felt so…broken for lack of a better term.

But I kept with it. I loved when I could, and I healed whatever was possible to heal.

Which brings me to August, which brings me to Stranger Things, which brings me to one of the most amazing groups of people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. Friends, Confidants, Creators, Inventors…Everything. Not only did I get a reinvigorated love for my writing, but I also got just the most lovely people in the whole world. At the risk of being too sappy, something that is more valuable to me than even my writing. People who slid into my life like they had always meant to be there, who understood me in ways I never expected to be understood.

I don’t know how to explain the absolute insanity for me of jumping into a server, having them all be on talking so fast my head was spinning, mildly considering just running for the hills bc how was I going to fit into a group that was already working so well together??, then saying fuck it and just giving them me exactly as I was, only to find they actually really liked that person, and I found that I did too.

Love is a weird concept for a lot of people, they think it has to be something deep and sacred. I just think it’s a gut instinct kind of pull, if it's deep, it's deep, if it isn't, it's still valid and true, and I haven’t met a person in this fandom who hasn’t had that same kind of pull for me.

From the people I’ve talked to once, to the ones I talk to every day, to the ones I don’t talk to at all who just hang out in my notes and sometimes leave tags on their reblogs (Yes I see you! I know you all by name and I get excited when I see its you in my notifications). From the people who comment on all my stories, to the ones who I see every day on my daily drabbles….I dunno it’s just really interesting to feel valued and not immediately want to shy away from that.

My New Years resolution as always is to be more in connection with people so! If you’ve ever had the urge to talk to me pls don’t hesitate to reach out. I generally dont bite, and I tend to be an okay person haha!

Anyway my sappy post has gotten as sappy and indulgent as I should let it be. Suffice to say that messed up kid I was in January, the one who had no clue what was coming and was afraid to hope for better, well he was finally able to let down his guard a little, and look what the universe had planned! I hate to say it, because it feels like a jinx, but I think ’23 is gonna be our year :D I'm knocking on wood aggressively as I type this, so hopefully that's enough

Tagging my mutuals/people who always make me so happy to see bc hey we all are and if y’all are being mushy I will also get to be mushy. I am sorry if I didn’t tag you it is not a ‘I don’t care’ and more a ‘I got five hours of sleep after being at the hospital for literally the entire night’ Love you guys!!!!

@stevethehairington @henderdads @thefreakandthehair @strawberryspence @gothbat99 @steddieassheg0es @riality-check @hexmionegranger @reindeerrobin @rougenancy @eddieunbanished @bonitabreezy @horsegirleddiemunson @maxinemaxmayfield @ruthofrhythm @willowworkswithwords @h0n3y-dw @marshmellowpaint @silverysnake @lizisodd @thelastwalkingsoul @aringofsalt @babyboyargyle @flowercrowngods @manda-panda-monium

#sappy New Years post #Liam edition lol #anyways I love you all to death #I think Lex was the first one to do this?#Which tracks bc she usually starts the train of amazing #but I just felt like hey gratitude time!#not stranger things #Liam speaks up

43 notes · View notes

myaphelion · 1 year

Text

“He’s Just Ken”: An Analysis of Plastic Professionals

so the barbie movie posters led me down a rabbit hole that i’m thrilled to share with y’all. i wondered... is ken really “just ken”? what are his careers like, as opposed to the eternal, ever-working barbie? and how is ken gendered in opposition to and in company with the plastic princess?

part one: career statistics, or, grind on my mind

the era i chose to focus on for this was 1980-2000. this is for a couple reasons--it’s the barbie era i’m most familiar with, it has a good amount of documentation, and most importantly, ken is present throughout all 20 years. if i focused on the earlier years of barbie, ken doesn’t show up until partway through; if i focused on the 2000s-2020s, say, ken is missing for a good handful of those years as well. in addition, these 20 years were the ones where barbie’s jobs became more of a focus; the early barbie years were far more focused on the fashion dream, and it was in the early 80s that the “we girls can do anything” slogan showed that mattel was pushing the brand to be about career and life goals, too.

let’s take a look at the charts...

these are the approximate numbers of barbie dolls released every year from 1980-2000, along with which dolls had a career and which dolls did not. i was a little loose with the data; “ballerina” counts as a career, while “princess” does not. in addition, i counted any doll named Barbie; this includes barbies who are of different ethnicities. barbie’s friends like kira and siblings like stacey did not count.

looking at this chart, it’s pretty clear that dolls without careers outnumber the ones with them. however, this is the case for most playline dolls, and one must also take into account the amount of collector’s releases that naturally tend more towards designer fashion instead. 1998 is an interesting year because there was a line of NBA basketball barbies released; this jacked up the career number significantly. sports is absolutely a job!

now, let’s have a look at ken:

less ken dolls are released yearly. this is just a fact. as much as it’s a joke, ken really is a barbie accessory, and he has been for a long time. he’s no gi joe with his own line--he’s meant to be barbie’s boyfriend, not really his own person. what’s interesting, however, is the proportion of ken dolls with careers vs. barbie dolls. even taking into account the fact less ken dolls are released, more ken dolls have careers than barbie dolls.

here, let me show you some pie charts for a better idea:

“this still isn’t a fair comparison!” i hear you cry. i get it! i understand! it was very bizarre for me to see this, too. proportionally, 6% isn’t a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but it’s still... weird to see ken having a greater number of dolls with careers than barbie.

which led me to look at the second part of this analysis.

part two: gender roles, or, i am a girl like you

barbie and ken are heavily gendered in a societally-’appropriate’ fashion. this is obvious from the brand’s marketing, from the girl toys aisle being named the ‘pink aisle’ in honour of the famed ‘barbie pink’, from how much the barbie line focuses on fashion and style. but... the careers barbie and ken have. how much are these gendered, exactly?

n.b.: i’m trans and queer so the next few categories might seem weird to some, but i grew up in a ciscentric society with a ciscentric view of gender roles, so here we are.

i divided the job categories into three types: traditionally masculine jobs: things like the army, an astronaut, a doctor. if your first image when you think of the job is a man, it goes here. traditionally feminine jobs: things like a skater, a ballerina, a teacher. same as above--if you think of a woman first, it goes here. gender neutral jobs: this might be a hazy category, but jobs like singer/rock star, veterinarian, and movie star go here. these jobs are less or entirely ungendered in north american society, and therefore one might think of a man or woman equally.

charts again!

(i totally changed the fem jobs to pink because well. it’s barbie)

this is where things got interesting for me. barbie and ken both have a very high percentage of traditionally masculine jobs. It’s less surprising that ken has more neutral-leaning jobs than feminine, and barbie has more feminine than neutral, but the amount of traditionally masculine jobs barbie herself has surprised me. despite knowing full well how many jobs barbie has had over the years, it still surprised me that jobs like paratrooper and doctor dominated over jobs like fashion designer and ballet dancer.

part three: conclusions, or, there’s nothing we can’t do

so what can we draw from this?

firstly: ken may be an accessory, but he isn’t really just ken. proportionally, he has about the same number of jobs as barbie per release, if not more. he’s not the himbo hanging off barbie’s arm we’ve all been led to believe he is by the memes and jokes, even if it is still funny to call him barbie’s trophy husband/boyfriend. he might be ‘just ken’, but ‘just ken’ is as capable as barbie is on his best days.

secondly: barbie herself is not as highly gendered in terms of workplace environments as one might think. she’s a legally blonde type; she might be pink and pretty, but that doesn’t mean she’s to be underestimated. mattel has given her a higher percentage of traditionally masculine jobs than might be usual for a playline doll directed at girls, and i genuinely have to applaud them for that. barbie is for every girl, even the ones who don’t have traditionally feminine interests.

thirdly: they better use this info in the barbie movie

references and works used

Sarasohn-Kahn, Jane, and Jane Sarasohn-Kahn. Contemporary Barbie Dolls: 1980 and Beyond. Antique Trader Books, 1998.

Toy Sisters. Toy Sisters: "Pink Aisle" Toy Guides, 11 Sept. 2022, https://www.toysisters.com/.

#barbie #barbie dolls #barbie movie #toy essay #jesus this took a bit

24 notes · View notes

whovianwatchingstartrek · 8 months

Text

A Whovian Watches Star Trek for the First Time: Part 050 - Archer Captured and T'Pol Down Bad

Star Trek: Enterprise - Season 2 Episode 25 - Bounty

Getting close to the end of Season 2, meaning I'm more or less halfway through Enterprise.

The episode begins with a visitor desperate to talk to Archer. Specifically, someone who belongs to a new species called the Tellarites. He seems pleasant enough, but that's soon revealed to be a ruse, even still in the cold open, as a stuns Trip and then kidnaps Archer.

This episode is a follow up to Judgement! The Tellarite has been hired to return Archer after his prison break. Unfortunately it doesn't follow up on the Kolos stuff, but it does touch on a few of the issues of the Klingon justice system. Archer does a good job trying to play on the Tellarite's emotions to let him go, but it doesn't work. The action in Archer's half of the episode is good, especially his escape from the Klingon ship, and I like that Archer found a solution that works for both him and the Tellarite.

Trip is left in command of Enterprise as T'Pol is stuck in Decon with Phlox. We've had a few of these weird scenes in Decon, and they've all been really awkward, but this one is a new level. Weird leg shots aside, T'Pol is starting to show signs of paranoia, aggression and later horniness. At first I thought it might have been symptom of whatever pathogen is infecting her and phlox, but apparently it's part of the Vulcan mating cycle, and if she doesn't mate, she'll die. If you asked me to pick which members of the crew would be the first two to end up sleeping together, T'Pol and Phlox would not have been my first guess at any point in the series. The Vulcan 7 year mating cycle had been mentioned a few times before, I really wasn't expecting this. T'Pol is an attractive woman, and she does make my bisexual brain do things, but I really do have to question the motives behind the writer's choice to have an episode that is essentially dedicated Sweaty T'Pol running around Enterprise in her underwear while Horny out of her mind.

I feel like this one could have done with a couple redrafts particularly around it's B-Plot, but it was well put together. It just felt bizarre to watch.

Comparing my Enjoyment of this Episode with a Doctor Who Universe Story of the Same Title

Doctor Who - Tales From the TARDIS Volume 2 - Bounty

It's an audio story without it's own cover art, I don't have an image to put here, so I'm just throwing in a random image of the Eighth Doctor

So, Bounty exists in a weird place it's a short audio original story, that's the only original story on a release that mostly consists of adaptations of other Doctor Who works.

It's set early on in the Sam era of the Eighth Doctor Adventure novels, specifically immediately after the first book in that range. The thing with narrated audio books like this is, you've only got one actor to sell the whole story, and Paul McGann, who is normally a brilliant Actor, really doesn't sound enthusiastic about this one. Whether or not it was that or the absolute lack of plot in the short story, getting through this one felt like a chore. Basically, an Alien steals the TARDIS Key, and a not very interesting chase across a beach happens. Not much to chew on, really. No interesting character work, because a random side audio story can't really do anything with the EDA characters, those books were still being written at the time. Not much world building, not much insightful commentary. This one was definitely a dud, and I think Paul McGann Narrating it agrees.

As weird as Enterprise's Bounty was, it at least made me feel something, it at least was entertaining. I can't say the same about Tales from the TARDIS's Bounty.

Some day, I'll get a Star Trek episode that shares a title with a good Doctor Who story.

#whovian watching star trek #star trek #star trek enterprise #star trek ent #star trek: enterprise #enterprise #ent

9 notes · View notes

altschmerzes · 1 year

Note

Thoughts on the new ted lasso episode?????? I have so many conflicting opinions re: zava

well first of all this is how i enjoyed it:

i will be repeating the experience weekly. cannot more highly recommend cosymode ted lasso.

as for the episode itself- [shrieks into my hands] i'm gonna put some thoughts under a cut, both generally and re: zava specifically, thank you for asking. these thoughts are not going to be at all organized and mostly composed in run-on sentences i am so sorry.

IM ALSO.... CONFLICTED ON ZAVA I THINK though it's interesting bc as i was watching the episode i kept getting like, OUTRAGEOUSLY distracted by..... [checks notes] not knowing what his first name is. this is not a joke. it was ACTIVELY distracting for me. i kept telling myself sometimes people are like this. like cher. you don't need to know his first name. and then two minutes later someone would mention him again and i'd be like What Is The Man's Fucking Name Though. it was so bizarre lmaooo.

honestly re: the man himself i'm like!! idk!!! jamie is clearly already way in his feelings about this and i can only imagine it's going to get worse which is gonna be. fucking delicious if we actually get to spend some time with and unpack it because 'i feel like i'm being replaced and i'm getting anxious/upset/lashing out about it' is one of my favourite sources of Angst Plots. we shall see. i am as always a combination of hopeful and anxious.

the dude playing him really did a great job striking a very specific and identifiable vibe for someone who had like Three Lines of dialogue and whose face we saw clearly like once.

i feel like i have two diverging paths in front of me with this guy's arc and it's either gonna be 'i'm riveted and having a great time' or 'please get this dude out of my face' and no in-between

and now for some general thoughts:

didn't realize this was the chelsea episode and somehow still had 'chelsea dagger' on repeat while cleaning up and getting ready to go cosymode. (i am stealing that song from its association with the chicago hockey team. it whips too hard to be left to them.) enjoyed the accidental reference when i turned on the tv and saw the title. also kept remembering a couple irl friends who are chelsea fans and having myself a giggle.

speaking of 'great time' vs 'get this out of my face' how relieved am i that they've now bait-and-switched me TWICE with fucking. love triangle bullshit. with roy and keeley and jamie. when he followed roy and not keeley i was like. oh thank fuck. the ensuing scene was both very sweet and very funny. they are welcome to continue bait and switching me on this as long as the switch Continues To Happen but if this goes in a Direction i am not gonna be thrilled.

something is brewing with keeley's company. it's not gonna....... go well, i think. something is gonna come to a head there, i got the feeling from the drop, and i'm not sure what or how yet but something's gonna give with that. all those scenes have this weird like. tension to them that i can't quite put my finger on and im intrigued to see where it goes.

i actually really like the CFO woman? she seems like a very interesting character and i think she and keeley could balance each other very well.

my jamie and dani besties agenda is flourishing. so is dani's hair. it's fantastic and i want to braid it.

oh speaking of hair back to zava for a second. beard pulled up the footage of him and i literally said out loud, pronouncing the letters not the word 'motherfucker': "oh this mf has my haircut"

AND SPEAKING OF DANI when he said "fuck off trent crimm" i think i shriek-laughed so hard the whole block heard me. dani my fucking beloved. i adore you.

y'know who else had a good episode here? isaac. his body language thing was so good. it made me laugh and also was a SPECTACULAR look into him as a person. every time we get a scrap of characterization on one of the secondary richmond player characters i dance around like the soot sprites with the candies in that ghibli movie i can't recall the title of off the dome.

i probably overblow this in my head, right, because everyone thinks their own perspective is like Super Unique or something but i really do think being an enormous irl sports fan is enhancing the experience i'm having with this show so much. watching the fans unfurl that banner for roy and cheer for him like that was like... immediately a half dozen welcome back tribute videos and player homecomings i've watched raced through my head and i was literally in actual physical tears. both bc of what was happening on screen and bc of All The Rest Of That in my head.

speaking of. oh my gd my heart hurt so much for roy as soon as he pulled that fucking. newspaper clipping from his wallet. i liked that he ripped it up at the end but i do wish it had come a little harder. he's been carrying that thing around for 20 years i'd have liked to see a biiiiit more of a battle over letting it go. still. holy shit and the bit at the end? about leaving chelsea? winded me. WINDED ME.

to be honest this was a rough one for him all around. i cannot imagine everyone i know making my breakup front page news in THEIR life too. which is like- they mean well and it's obviously coming from a good place and the people talking to him directly - jamie, ted, etc - are like. trying to be kind and supportive but if i were him i'd want to run away and also die in a hole about it so. big #felt that whole thing. even so, i do also have to say-

the roy's hyperbolic violence/threats thing is Back With A Vengeance! we know how i feel about this. i had a whole post about how i feel about this. it's a Bit, i know, it's a goof, this being a comedy show and roy being The Angry One but still i just. i feel like they take it a liiiiiittle past the pale in this ep, in general and also with jamie specifically. roy flying at him in the locker room during the big 'who's on first' round robin was a Bit Much for me - and i know i harp on this a lot but i maintain my stance here - given their history to this point. ted saying to roy near the end of the episode that like, he needed to get his act together or he'd be ruining more than one match was a good touch that did a lot to defuse some of my unease with this running thread but. it was still there and i was still a little [oh boy.gif] about it.

anyway so now i'm knee-deep in a fic about That.

overall it was spectacular, i really enjoyed it. knocked out of the park episode thank you so much.

i have many more discrete thoughts but i have to clip it here my keyboard is starting to lag lmaoooo

#gav gab #gav answers #ted lasso spoilers

20 notes · View notes

captain-aralias · 1 year

Text

Aralias's fic year in review, 2022

not going to write anything new in the next 3 days, so here's my 2022 round-up. thanks @dragoneggos for tagging me into yours <3

fics i wrote alone:

Restoration Ecology - Explicit, 51k

Hopelessly Miscast - Explicit, 24k

We all fall down - Mature, 18k, based on art by @technetiumai

Thank Magic (Thank Niamh) - Explicit, Brobelove, 2.5k

Unintended - Teen, 47k, based on art by @asticou

Work It - Explicit, 4k

Simon Snow and the Third Gate - Teen, 5k, Unpublished, with art by @cutestkilla

7 fics of which 6 published, 151.5k words

fics i wrote with others:

We Were Always More - Teen, 9k (5k? mine), with @facewithoutheart

Call Me Maybe - Teen, 12k (<1k mine), with @forabeatofadrum

Shiver - Mature, 8k (<1k mine), with @facewithoutheart

Birthday Man - Explicit, 38k (<1k mine), with the Carry On Discord, join here

Seven Minutes - Mature, 6.5k (3k mine), with @facewithoutheart

about 8k mine - in total, call it 160k words this year.

some questions under the cut

although first, in a break from tradition, i thought i'd play back what i said i was going to write in 2022 at the end of 2021:

finish restoration ecology.

some sort of smut for dem.

???

might be time to write my vampire simon fic, not sure. the moment might have passed, and i might push it back and push it back until once again it doesn’t happen.

i was thinking i’d quite like to write a thing where they get together at watford and it’s not because magic made them do it… and it’s not 50k+ words long, either. there have to be other ways.

maybe some more experiments, like - i like the idea of them becoming friends after watford not boyfriends. a. few people started writing this and it’s interesting and fun - i dont have an idea for it.

i do have an idea for the agatha-baz bodyswap. i guess i might write that. nothing the people like more than dubcon het sex, am i right?? (i mean, maybe some people). i’m trying to not think about this story until marta posts hers, and until i’ve written restoration ecology - see above. but yeah, i feel like there’s some quite significant impetus behind this one in my brain… (magic made them do it at watford, eh? it’s my favourite.)

(full 2021 answers)

i failed at vampire simon - that's basically never going to happen. i didn't write a watford get together that wasn't about magic, but i DID write a friends to lovers, the agatha-baz bodyswap, and restoration ecology! so - i consider that a win.

Best/worst title?

best title is 'Restoration Ecology', although i'm also a big fan of 'Shiver' - which i did not come up with. worst title is 'Thank Magic, Thank Niamh' - like RE, it’s a quote from the text, but one works on multiple levels, the other is just.... to do with niamh? i mean, i tried a bit harder than that. it's kind of to do with how agatha prefers niamh to magic, and that's the point of the story.... but yeah. it's poor. sorry brobelove.

also - no offense discord, but 'birthday man' is a bizarre title 😂 it absolutely makes sense in context, but seems weird before you read the fic. (i wrote the summary of this fic, which is why it's super generic like all of mine)

Best/worst summary?

all the summaries i wrote this year are at least all right! the brobelove one is actively good (phew). the best is probably restoration ecology again, although someone told me at some point they were worried about reading it in case baz really had ruined simon's life at some point (that was just simon being dramatic in the summary, it's ok).

'We all fall down' has a classic aralias-friendly summary i.e. [quote sets up normal situation] ; [now something else is happening]. it's elegant and (i think) intriguing, and only doesn't get to be the best summary of the year because it's so reminiscent of every snowbaz hanahaki summary ever...

Baz has been hopelessly in love with Simon Snow for years, he thought it was killing him. Now it really is.

worst - Work It is clearly phoned in (though it does the job). but i'm going to go for a surprise choice of the 'Unintended' summary, which i never really liked. it describes the premise of the fic but not very elegantly. i think i wrote it in the few hours before posting chapter 1, which is usually not a good sign.

Best/worst first line?

excluding the ones i didn't write...

best is probably 'Well. This is Awkward' - from the brobelove, although 'Friendship is magic' (Unintended) is also good fun and plays off later, obvs, in a way i totally planned...

also, a shout out to 'Call Me Maybe':

By the time I get off the plane, I already have three missed calls from Penelope and a voicemail.

i thought that was a good beginning.

worst - 'There’s music playing when I get home.' (Work It)

interestingly, that beginnning is also dull... on purpose. as i was thinking 'i always open fics in media res, lemme do something different. so this sentence has nothing to do with the rest of the fic (except that the music is 'work it', i guess) unlike all my other first lines. and it ends up on the worst first line podium! harsh.

Best/worst last line?

best - “I’m Agatha Wellbelove.” (Hopelessly Miscast)

boom! i dont know if people even noticed the chapter titles, i tend not to notice chapter titles, but this is a call back to that, as well as her feeling so secure in her own body. that's why it gets top spot even though i wrote a few not-crap endings this year. (n.b. for new readers, i tend to dislike my endings/writing endings.)

i really really like the ending of 'We Were Always More' - i wrote this kiss for simon way earlier in the narrative and then thought 'wait, this is classic ending material', and it works super well. even 'Work It', which is kind of doomed to be the fic that isn't as good as most of the others... has a solid ending.

i wrote a crap ending for 'We all fall down' - but fixed it at the last minute!! 'Spring's come early' works.

'restoration ecology'............. would probably end up in last place (what???) because it's a classic lazy aralias ending, but i've just remembered Third Gate fizzles out much much more obviously at the moment, so - that's the worst.

i still have time to make that one work, though.

Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?

interestingly, the answer is - far far fewer fics.... than i thought i had written this year/than i thought i would write. but quite a few more words than i usually write, despite that.

i wrote.... 4 big chunky fics of which 2 were very chunky.

and clearly - see above - the content was approximately what i predicted! although i had no idea it would fall out like this.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?

brobelove is the obvious answer here - although the fact that it's queer means that it's not so unlikely - particularly after i ended up spending so much time with agatha in 'hopelessly miscast'.

i didn't expect that fic to end up so much about her, either.

What’s your favourite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.

i answered this question recently, the answer is 'restoration ecology' :) but as i say, lots of good stories this year, i thought.

Okay, NOW your most popular story.

RE is still more popular than 'Unintended' but maybe not forever.

Story most underappreciated by the universe?

hmm.... maybe 'work it' but it's a throwaway wingfic, so i feel like it got the attention it deserved.

Call Me Maybe is probably the answer - it's genuinely BRILLIANT, i was overwhelmed when i saw what had been done with this premise. i wrote the opening, so it's my fault if people are not being sucked in. and i know it's because it's agatha gen fic but i would love more people to read it.

Story that could have been better?

'work it' - but did it need to be much better? i mean, i definitely rushed the end/the sex, because the deadline was approaching...... but there is sex. and there are wings.

the beginning of 'restoration ecology' still bugs me, too. so much exposition - it only gets good when they're having sex. and then there's exposition again, and we have to wait for the sex again.

Sexiest story?

i only really wrote porn this year... and 'unintended'! probably the answer is 'restoration ecology', although if you like strap-ons, and who doesn't, perhaps you would like the brobelove.

Saddest story?

usually i have no answer for this, but ...... actually i think arguably 'restoration ecology' OR 'we all fall down' qualify, even though i can't really sustain angst without wanting to put in some jokes and simon saying 'everything's going to be ok now'.

restoration ecology is about healing, so it has to start fairly bleak and hopeless - and i think baz's breakdown is pretty sad, even though by the time we know about it, everything's basically ok for him.

meanwhile 'we all fall down' is about how baz is dying beautifully and simon can't love him ..... it definitely is the winner of this category, even though as i recall it, they mostly spend time holding hands and talking about how much they like each other. so it's not that sad.

Most fun?

'we were always more'! aka amnesia baz. how could anything else be the winner when i got to write a baz who purrs and wets flannels for simon? facewithoutheart is a writer of extreme range, but one end of that range is being extremely funny, and this set up is all her.

Story with single sweetest moment?

not sure....... my instinct says it's one of these:

1 - restoration ecology, partners. “Is that better, sweetheart?” (btw, i like that i just dropped these endearments in without comment and we have to wait a whole chapter for simon to tell us he's in love with baz)

2 - we all fall down, “It did work,” I agree. “Which means my father and stepmother were bound in holy matrimony by Buzz Lightyear.” although the sex is very reminscent of what i like about the Wales sex in RE

3 - Unintended chapter 5: Baz smiles. Swallows. Presses his forehead against mine. “Then marry me.”

Hardest story to write?

i find it very amusing that last year i was whinging about restoration ecology, but by the time i was doing the ao3 wrapped ask meme this month i'd forgotten it was hard to write at the beginning. it was hard. but then it was easy for the end.

this year's hardest story was.......... Simon Snow and the Third Gate.

it's not it's fault - it had too much plot, no romance arc (although i accidentally made baz the second main character despite saying i wouldnt) and i was in deep pregnancy first trimester tiredness.

'Unintended' also took months longer than i wanted it to. first chapter was quite easy, but later chapters where simon was more in his feels took.... more than the 2 weeks-per-chapter that i wanted them to take. a lot more.

Easiest/most fun story to write?

since i've remembered RE was a ballache at the beginning, gotta be 'Hopelessly Miscast'. i wrote a chapter of that a week, i think, and it's genuinely really good! i enjoyed it a lot.

'birthday man' was also really easy - i was a bit worried about it, but it's so free-ing to know that you don't need to finish what you started, and by the time i wrote anything, i felt confident enough not to have to write that much either. (by which i mean: there was a bit of me that wanted to be like 'is my bit the best??' which would have stressed me out. what i actually wrote is not the best bit, it's a bridge. but it's fine. i enjoyed writing it.)

Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?

'hopelessly miscast' made me think i could write agatha and really enjoy it. that's almost certainly why i ended up writing the strap-on fic later.

Most overdue story?

'Unintended' - it wasn't really overdue, but i wanted it to be finished months earlier than it was. but i think it was ok. it gave time for asticou to make art, which was lovely.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

yes! there was that bit in the middle of the year where i signed up for too many things. two CORBs and WIP fest - it was probably too much, but i like all the things we made! so i guess i learned - it's fine?

my other major risks were things like saying 'i don't know if i can keep posting every week!!' from this i learned - i can do it. for a while. but not always - i shouldn't beat myself up for 'unintended' not being written in 5 weeks.

the other major risk i thought i took was writing the baz-as-agatha sex. i think if i'd been less established as a writer in this fandom i would have been more worried about how it would go down. as it was, i was still a bit worried, but i also put up the framework of consent early on, and people were so nice about chapter 1 that it turned out fine. i feel other people have done lots more risque things this year than anyone has done so far (this is not really up there) - and it's been good! well done, fandom.

This year’s theme and the story that demonstrates it most:

i can think of two obvious ones.

the first is - collaboration!!! i barely wrote any collab stuff before this year, and yet this post has a huge list of things i either wrote with other people, or wrote based off art. i'm going to choose 'Seven Minutes' as the exemplar (even though it's probably 'Birthday Man') because it's the one that i asked to do, off the back of all the other collaborations going really well.

the other theme i noticed this year is ........ they aren't together but they're still kissing/having sex from almost the beginning of the story. i dont know whether there's a better name for that, but i didn't do it on purpose. i just like a slow burn AND for there to be sex. now i've noticed it, you'd think i would try and stop, but the only fic i know for sure that i will write next year is exactly this.

it's also a collaboration :)

What are your fic writing goals for next year?

let's keep it simple.

i want to:

a) fix up the ending of Third Gate b) write the strangers to lovers fic for/with @krisrix

if i do nothing else before the baby in May, but i do those two things, then we'll be ok.

otherwise, twigs_in_my_hair and i will hopefully write something together, watford era, her idea, but it's right up my street.

i think anything else is probably too ambitious! but if there's something you'd like me to write, or you want to work on something together, please do ask - i might say it's not possible or a project is not for me, but at the moment it feels like a good way to get me to possibly write! (and collaborating works well, as it means there's definitely someone to bounce ideas off/i know i have someone to pick up the slack if necessary.)

see y'all in 2023!

#carry on #my content

45 notes · View notes

sapphire-weapon · 1 year

Note

Do you have any alternate career ideas that you like for Leon? Like if he stopped being a cop as you said in your other ask or was magically released from the government. I'm not necessarily expecting a happy answer here but... (have you talked about this before? Weird deja vu suddenly...)

I kind of like the idea that he'd be good with dogs so I like to imagine him as a dog trainer. :)

I haven't talked about this, no, so idk man maybe I was still nerding out over Leon in a past life LMAO

Canonically, Leon has always been very technologically savvy, and there's just something about his personality in RE2make that just makes me feel like he was kind of an A/V nerd in school AND I DON'T KNOW WHY TBH.

Like, my brain is just like "there's no possible fucking way that Leon goddamn Kennedy -- ESPECIALLY Remake Leon -- made it all the way through college and never once worked tech or did camera work or editing on a student film. that's just not fucking possible." probably because i, myself, was a criminal justice major who did a lot of acting in college and i was not the only one and i know exactly the type of personality that doublefists those particular interests LMAO so many of the tech guys i knew were double majoring or at the very least minoring in political science or law or also criminal justice for some reason, it was so weird.

and now i'm for some reason imagining that one of the student films he helped shoot or edit was a porno and idk why. it just seems like the kind of bizarre circumstance he'd get himself into and doesn't know how because his life is just Like That

So, if there was no outbreak and Leon quit his job in the RPD, I could see him being a systems engineer with a secret dream of actually becoming a film editor but having absolutely no idea how to even start getting into something like that.

I also think it's possible that he'd consider going back to school and studying law with the intention of being a defense attorney -- because that's a way for him to actually help protect people in a way that doesn't feed the system.

Now, if Leon was to have never been kidnapped by the CIA but Raccoon City still happened, I think that'd be a little different -- because he doesn't come out of Raccoon City the same person he was going into it, so I don't see him leaning back on secondary interests he'd had in school.

Plus, he has a surprise daughter now LMAO

I imagine that he would've just taken Sherry back to his parents' house and tried to figure out a plan from there while he waited for word from Claire about Chris's whereabouts. (And, honestly, I think that's the reason why Leon insists that Claire goes off on her own to begin with?? He can get Sherry to somewhere safe -- he can take her to his parents -- and then, from there, he'd be able to focus on helping Claire fuck up Umbrella's shit.)

And in this particular scenario, I don't think Leon would be eager to jump right back onto the front lines. He's not ex-military like Chris and Jill, so he probably wouldn't see himself as a natural combatant. I can almost see him wanting to use the investigation skills he learned in police academy to pursue something like investigative journalism and help in the takedown of Umbrella that way.

Unless, of course, Chris put a hand on his shoulder, looked him dead in the eyes, and said in a firm but sincere voice, "We could really use a man like you out there."

Then, Leon's heart would melt and his "I'm a good boy 🥺" sense would activate, and he'd be joining up with the BSAA two days later.

And if he were to be released from his deal with the government at some point after his training was already finished, he would probably just up and join the BSAA on his own -- because, at least there, he'd be with friends and have a support system and wouldn't be chained by the neck to a government he didn't trust in order to do work he didn't always necessarily agree with.

#resident evil #leon kennedy

9 notes · View notes

annebrontesrequiem · 5 months

Note

history mental break request: what's the weirdest thing you can tell us about the Salem witch trials?

(I currently don’t have all my books with me so sorry if the citations aren’t v specific for this post)

Tw: Animal death

Unfortunately the Salem Witch Trials have been so so talked about the shock factor of a lot of stuff has prolly gone out of popular culture. To me the weirdest thing is probably that they killed some dogs over it.

The exact amount is hard to pin down - which is also kind of funny. I first read about this in Rosalyn Schanzer’s Witches: The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem, which said three dogs were killed:

(p. 6) Alas the index on this book is terrible (it’s really a middle grade book), and I cannot remember if she said anything else on the matter.

I wish I had Stacy Schiff’s book (The Witches: Salem, 1692) on me rn, but unfortunately I don’t so instead I went to the internet. And I was semi-successful.

In Erin Blakemoor’s article for History, “Women Weren’t the Only Victim of Salem’s Witch Trials,” Blakemoor claims the number is only two saying:

Men weren’t the only unexpected victims of the Salem Witch Trials: So were dogs, two of which were killed during the scare. One was shot to death when a girl who suffered from convulsions accused it of bewitching her. Another, supposedly a victim of accused men who fled from Salem before they could be tried and arrested, was put to death.

Blakemoor cites Schiff for the second case, but the link pulls up a Google Books search which doesn’t seem to work. However, if Schiff does indeed mention only two, I’d believe her.

Blakemoor also cites Marilynne K. Roach’s The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege, which claims:

After a Salem Village dog began acting strangely, the bewitched girls said that Mr. John Bradstreet’s spirit rose and tormented the beast. The dog, though considered a victim, was killed. (p. 307)

Though this link is in the wrong spot on Blakemoor’s article, it’s a valid source and explains at least one of the incidents. Poor dog.

The other sources I saw from a quick skim through said two, so that seems to be the general consensus. Though I’m sure if I went back and looked through the books I’ve read I’d have more to say about it.

Whatever the number, I think this is really interesting. Though the Devil was associated with a black dog, the dog itself was usually considered ‘spectral evidence.’ That being, only the afflicted could see it. The Devil didn’t posses a dog, he became a dog. And the Devil was not a part of the mere physical world, but the world beyond that. The same applies with other animal ‘familiars,’ (again associated with being the Devil) such as yellow birds. Shifting the blame to real dogs is a deviation from the usual lore that at this point was widely accepted throughout Europe (though there were of course regional differences always). If I had time I’d also go to James VI’s Daemonologie, but I’m sorry I’m not reading that rn (maybe later). Suffice to say, weird. But the Salem Witch Trials deviated a good amount from European Witch Trials - even as the colonies were still, just that a colony.

So, I think that’s the weirdest fact. Though, I gotta say what is really weird is actually reading the court records. You can read it online and it’s both heartbreaking and bizarre. I think now it’s impossible to truly understand the mindset of the villagers - partly because the amount of belief varied and vacillated wildly - but if the accusers did not believe, they did at least do a very good job pretending.

So… yeah. Hope this was weird enough.

(And to my fellow history nerds, if I fucked smthing up feel free to tell me I love to learn. Same if you have a weirder fact. Chime in!)

#salem witch trials #history #17th century #history mental break #(for finding purposes)#asks #anon #animal death

4 notes · View notes