#there was that episode where she tried to blind me and people in my family pretend it didn't happen

[sunofmoon]

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#here's a little rant that no one asked for #me and my dad never had a very solid relationship #the fact that he lives far away and only calls me on sunday night says a lot about it #and well there's also the fact that his wife hates me #she already committed all kinds of psychological violence with me and i was just a child #there was that episode where she tried to blind me and people in my family pretend it didn't happen #despite all this he never defended me #when i needed him the most he was never there for me #in fact he was never present at any significant moment in my life #but when he decided to separate the only person he dumped his problems on was me #i was always there to give him support and advice even though i knew he didn't deserve it #now he decided to try to save his marriage and return to the woman who hates me #and just forgot me again and discarded me #bc he never called me again to see if I was okay #besides ignoring my message #idk why i even care #i should have realized a long time ago that i'm not a priority in my father's life

[bunnakit]

last twilight ep 10 thoughts, feelings, etc

back at it again at the krispy kreme friends. i cried this episode for so, so many different reasons. i'll also show you guys my raw reactions at the end of this, the insanity you guys don't see because i want you to respect me a little.

i didn't make one of these last week because i felt like that episode didn't need any words. some things you just need to feel and to talk about them cheapens what it truly is. that's not to say i didn't absolutely love everyone's posts and meta, i just thought anything i had to say could be felt in the episode itself and i didn't need to fumble my way through it.

Day is so at peace with what is going on and it's so beautiful to see, but the fact that he has to comfort his mother, that she's held onto this delusion that magically everything is going to be okay, is pretty irksome. she's had bare minimum a year, i think nearly two at this point, to accept the truth and she just hasn't and now it's biting her in the ass. but once again, this is something so realistic. i literally JUST dealt with this myself with my mother-in-law in October. once again P'Aof captures the truth of people and our natures.

and it's no wonder things have been so strained between Day and Night. she constantly forces Night to be Day's jailer, to escort him to his cell because the warden said so. it's a horrible position for her to put Night in and it's no wonder he feels so alone and abandoned by his family. it's no wonder Day resents him. Night is trying so hard to make them both love him again and he's been trapped in the middle of a war of attrition and paying penance for something that is in no way shape or form his fault. and then to later learn she HAS blamed Night? it's a horrible situation for him to be in, something he never deserved.

this was so sexy of Mhok, as most things are. you should have been there. it should have been you doing that for your SON. you should have taken the time to be there for him, to see that sight with him, to give him what he wants. but you weren't. you never are.

Day's mom stresses about Day's safety but safety is about so much more than a physical state of being. Mhok has done so much to ensure Day's mental safety and well being, he's done so much to improve Day's every day life. but that doesn't matter to her because she always refused to acknowledge things had gotten that bad. in another life Day never met Mhok and i wonder if things took a dark turn. i don't think Day was on a good trajectory.

here we reach bunn cries phase 1. i was so worried here that Mhok meant their entire relationship but i'm glad to see he just meant this chapter. they've started a new book together; no longer one about a caretaker and his charge but a man and his lover. what a gorgeous way to convey that journey. P'Aof i love you, do you know?

Night, i know i wasn't sure about you for a long time but you've really become one of my favorite people this episode. even Night can see his mom taking away Day's agency, can see her taking away everything Day has become this last year. he doesn't want his brother to disappear again, he just got him back.

god Day's bravery here. he's become so confident, so self assured, because Mhok taught him that he could be, that his blindness didn't make him weak. i know i say it every week lately but i'm so PROUD.

FINALLY SOMEONE SAYS IT. the way she took his phone away INFURIATED ME. you're taking away an important tool of freedom and agency from your FULL GROWN ADULT SON. where the fuck do you get off? and talking about doing things her way under her roof. if it was me i would be out of that house so fucking fast, staying with literally anyone else. the tragic thing is Day doesn't have that option. his disability has left him a victim of his mom's bullshit, given her a huge way to control him. it's disgusting, i'm sorry. i've tried to give her the benefit of the doubt for so long but she went way, way too far this episode.

even Night is sick of her shit and knows this is fucked up. Night once again i'm so sorry i doubted you. he knows how good Mhok is for Day and how good they are for each other. Mhok has only ever been kind to Night and i think that has gone a long way in Night's defense of him as well - not that i think he wouldn't have done it without that but i certainly think it has helped.

and what a fucking breakthrough this was. Day once again telling someone 'i see you.' Day is so good at seeing people once he lets go of his preconceived notions an biases. i can't imagine what a relief this was to Night to know it wasn't just his perception of the situation but something other people see and acknowledge. and he brushes it off, says it's because Day's a crying baby, but they both know that's not all of it.

bunn cries phase 2 is here. i BURST into ugly tears at this moment. it wouldn't be bunn meta if i didn't share a personal anecdote so here we go.

ANECDOTE START ->

i mentioned in my last post, prior to episode 9, that my dad was shit. i'm talking had me, an infant, in the middle of a meth den, in the middle of a raid level of bad. one of my earliest memories is a police officer kneeling down and talking to me while i colored in a coloring book and they searched the apartment. (my mom had no idea until a few years ago when a family friend shared this story. he protected me, thank fucking god.) my real dad went on to get clean (as far as i know) but was emotionally abusive among a whole slew of other issues.

when i was two years old my stepdad came into my life. he would've been just 27 at the time. he fell in love with my mom but wasn't sure if he wanted the responsibility of a kid. my mom said okay and broke up with him. they spent months miserable without each other (they've both told me their sides of this story) until my dad said okay, i can do this, and came back. and you know what? he was amazing. he didn't always get it right but he tried. he stayed up and read me The Hobbit and did silly voices for the dwarves and sang the songs and tucked me into bed and he loved me. (we have matching tattoos from that exact copy of The Hobbit, which i still have tucked away safe.)

we butt heads SO MUCH my teenage years. he had a temper and i was depressed and angry and dealing with so much teenage bullshit. but he still took me to breakfast every sunday, just the two of us, and we'd go see movies together. sundays were our day. he always called me his kid and people joked that somehow magically my mom had his kid before even meeting him. we even look alike. we have all the same tastes.

now as an adult we get along really well. (we still butt heads but it's bc we're exactly alike.) he and my mom have been together almost 30 years. he recently came into my office, a little tipsy, and hugged me and spent almost an entire hour telling me how much he loves me, how proud he is of me, how grateful he is that he had me as his kid, how having me is better than any blood child they could've had. (they tried for years but my parents were never able to have any kids.)

<- ANECDOTE END

some of the best family in the world is those that choose to be your family. i was never his responsibility, not really, but he put everything into being my dad. from just this little statement from Night i see so much of my dad in this moment and i couldn't fucking take it.

Night, i love you. i love you so much. he says it so effortlessly, so confidently. what a man.

so i acknowledge here that their mother is finally starting to get it. she's starting to get things right. she even makes Night's favorite food and makes sure he knows he's loved. she takes the time to try and understand Day, to blindfold herself like Mhok did, etc. and i acknowledge it takes people their own time to come to terms with things, to accept things, and maybe her journey of acceptance was a little longer than others.

however.

this scene shows that she always had the option to cancel. she could have always done this for Day. she could have been there. she could have taken him to the mountain and seen the sunset with him. i have to wonder if Mhok's comment really got to her, i have to believe it did. i think she finally realized that she can no longer be the one that's blind. she has to see reality. it's a big step for her and i'm happy but i'm still so annoyed it took this long for it to happen. but hey - parents fuck up. they do. they fuck us up, even if they don't mean to. once again it's something very, very real from P'Aof, even if i don't like it.

my first knee jerk reaction to this moment was wow, she's infantilizing Day again, but then i sat and really thought about it. in the context of this moment, i think this is okay. sometimes it's just nice to be cared for and Day seems completely receptive to it. fuck, i'm 31 and sometimes i just go curl up with my mom and let her pet my hair, sometimes she makes me my favorite food because she knows i had a bad day, sometimes she babies me a little because she knows i'm having a bad day with my disability.

not everything is infantilization. sometimes it's love and care, the only way they know how. sometimes all you want is a parent's familiar love from years ago. so in the context of everything, i think this was a really nice moment to see, Day taking comfort in his mom's love again.

and despite everything Day still managed to see Mhok, to show him he cares, he thought of him, and wouldn't leave him alone. and then he gives him an oven mitt he made himself, he painted himself, because Mhok took him to learn to paint without his sight. they're so fucking beautiful, so kind and gentle and loving to each other. they're so fucking considerate. Day says you're my sun, i believe in you, i'm proud of you, i support you all in one seemingly simple gift.

i'm reserving my thoughts from the preview for next week but i highly doubt things are going to turn out the way they seem to be teasing. i'll wait to see what happens.

as always thank you so much for reading my rambling bullshit. smooches, take care of yourselves, drink water, take your meds, eat something.

tag loves: @nutcasewithaknife @benkaaoi @callipigio @infinitelyprecious

oh yeah here are my raw reactions before i take the time to really think about everything i've watched.

#bunn meta #last twilight #last twilight the series #mhokday #morkday #userjamiec #I'M BACK BITCHES

[timeagainreviews]

A Foot in Two Worlds: 73 Yards

My third-grade lunch buddy was a girl named Kendra. We used to love chatting about movies and television. My favourite topic was Batman. Hers was Full House. However, one morning, instead of gushing over Stephanie Tanner, she told me about a movie she and her brother had watched over the weekend. The movie was 1989’s “Clownhouse,” and she was a bit traumatised by it. And because of her vivid description, so was I. Honestly, I don’t remember anything past her saying “It’s about these kids who see clowns watching them through their windows,” because I never stopped thinking about that sentence, for years. While I’ve still never actually seen Clownhouse, nor do I experience coulrophobia, the idea of being watched from a distance still creeps me out. I still close the blinds at night.

Initially, I wanted to compare “73 Yards,” to something like “It Follows,” or even “The Immortal Snail.” Both scenarios entail being tracked by a slow but relentless pursuer who kills you if it ever catches up to you. But “73 Yards,” isn’t so much a story about being pursued. It’s about feeling watched. It’s about feeling judged. It’s about feeling abandoned. It preys on our fear of being the subject of gossip. That people could spread lies about us that scare away our loved ones. The fear that maybe they’re right. Maybe we don’t deserve love. It’s about the ambiguity that sits within our hearts. The liminal threshold between us at our best and us at our worst. But it’s not just about the wicked and the divine, but also body and spirit. A foot in both worlds.

Doctor Who currently has a foot in both worlds. The Doctor steps on a science fictiony land mine one week, and the next week he’s stepping on fairy circles. A recurring theme in this new season is “look before you leap.” Or ‘watch your step.” Ruby steps on a butterfly in the past and changes species. The Doctor steps on a land mine and almost dies. And now, the Doctor steps on a fairy circle and disappears. The Doctor is learning to have a healthy respect for the new supernatural powers coursing through the Whoniverse. At least he would if he remembered anything from this adventure. Not even Ruby will learn a lesson here, so was it worth it?

After last week’s “Boom,” I was game for whatever Russell T Davies had in store for the future. The trailer for “73 Yards,” gave us very little to go on, and in hindsight, it’s pretty easy to see why. This was a Doctor-lite episode and therefore not a lot of footage to share that wouldn’t also spoil this being a Ruby-centric story. But I was ready for it. Ruby has been suffering a bit from underdevelopment as a character. I even saw a Chibnall stan on Twitter saying so, which is quite extreme when you consider how underdeveloped Yaz was. In Ruby’s case, however, it’s hard to pinpoint what it is about her that’s underdeveloped. She’s got a great family dynamic. She’s nurturing. She plays in a band. But who is she? Like River Song before her, her character arc is starting to affect her character development. And my interest is waning.

After the Doctor steps onto the fairy circle and disappears, Ruby unsuccessfully tries the TARDIS doors. She then checks around the other side to see if he’s having a pee. This may be the first time the show has canonically mentioned the Doctor goes to the bathroom. It’s funny to think of the great Time Lord having a slash off the edge of a cliff. The Doctor seems to do a lot of important things on cliff edges these days. Failing to find the Doctor, it’s then that Ruby notices a strange old woman standing under a creepy old tree from 73 yards away making some sort of hand gestures. However, the closer she walks toward the woman, the further she appears away.

The mechanism of how the woman moves is hidden by editing, but it feels like something Ruby would notice quickly. I don’t imagine Ruby walking closer would cause the woman to start backing up physically like that Community episode where Professor Duncan got a restraining order on Chang and used it like he had force powers. Instead, they cut back to the woman and she’s simply further away. Ruby is conveniently looking for footing every time, so she fails to see this. But if you started walking toward someone and they started hovering backwards, wouldn’t you find that weird? It’s not like she doesn’t sense something weird pretty early on. She even asks the woman if the Doctor’s disappearance has anything to do with her. She even asks the hiker (yet another character played by Susan Twist) if she can see the old woman.

Something I found interesting about the Susan Twist scene was that whoever her character is, she’s not immune to the effects of the old woman. Either that, or she’s lying. Either way, it feels important that we were shown her having the same reaction to the woman as everyone else. If she’s a magical trickster, she’s not an invincible one, or maybe she’s not magical at all. We’ve learned very little about Susan Twist’s character(s), but this indicates that she’s not fully in charge of the situation if she can be scared off like that. What’s frustrating is that the first time a character looks at her and says “Hey don’t I know you from somewhere?” it’s in an aborted timeline. I would have expected the Doctor to have made the connection after the ambulance screens in “Boom,” matched the woman from Space Babies, but maybe he’s been distracted by clothes.

By this point in the episode, I’ve been fully drawn in. Ruby finds her way to the small village of Glyngatwg and a pub called “Y Pren Marw,” which translates to “The Dead Wood.” I thought this might have been a reference to the weird tree on the cliff, but the illustration on the pub sign looked more like an oak tree, so I doubt it. Another name they could have used for the pub could have been “The Gaslight Inn,” because man oh man did they gaslight the hell out of Ruby. They keep accusing her of thinking they’re yokels for asking pretty innocuous questions. Asking if you can pay with your phone is perfectly reasonable. There’s a chippy in my village that does the best fish n chips in the area, but I never use them because they haven’t got a card machine and I don’t carry cash. I don’t imagine the owner of the chippy goes home every night in his Fred Flintstone car because of it. Maybe they’re worried they really are yokels. Either way, five quid for a Coke and abusive staff? What’s their Trip Advisor score? Negative six?

The only non-yokel in the pub is Enid and that’s solely because she’s played by Siân Phillips, who could never be mistaken for common. She was easily the highlight of the episode for me, sitting elegantly at the bar in her fashionable hat. Of all of the patrons at the bar, she’s the one I believe would coin the Latin phrase “semper distans,” to describe the way the old woman follows but never approaches. If only she could have taught Isaac Newton the word “gravitas.” Beyond being incredibly rude, I rather enjoyed the patrons of Y Pren Marw. They reminded me of characters you would have found in classic Doctor Who. The pub scenes reminded me a lot of “The Dæmons,” or “Terror of the Zygons.” But more than anything, this episode reminded me of “The Stones of Blood,” wherein things start like folk horror and end in a more mundane setting.

After Ruby’s unwanted follower scares away one of the pub’s most faithful patrons, she’s forced to head back to London, which is about where the episode starts to lose steam. Up until that moment, I was expecting a sort of witch coven or worse to spring up in the sleepy village of Glyngatwg. I was ready to call it RTD’s best ever. But now we’re back in London where the biggest mystery is Mrs Flood, and she’s really only there to remind us she exists. But that’s not to say a piece of Glyngatwg didn’t leave with Ruby, and it’s not to say I disliked the story’s ending. But there was a noticeable drop in excitement the moment Ruby boarded that train.

I found it odd that Carla and Cherry were badmouthing the Doctor in his absence. Cherry was ready to jump his bones the last time they spoke and now he’s good for nothing. I get that they want to support Ruby, but like, what if he’s hurt somewhere? All I’m saying is that if I ever go missing, please don’t send Carla and Cherry to find me. After telling Carla about the old woman, Ruby’s deepest fears are realised. Like Susan Twist and Josh before her, talking to the old woman causes her to abandon Ruby. The look Carla gives Ruby from the cab as it drives away is the last way anyone would want to be looked at by their loved one. It wasn’t a look of fear, it was a look of disgust.

It’s that look of disgust that really started to make me think of another story from the Whoniverse- “The Curse of Clyde Langer,” a Sarah Jane Adventures episode written by Phil Ford. In it, Clyde’s name becomes cursed and anyone who hears or reads it becomes irrationally opposed to Clyde. His friends and family disown him and it’s Clyde against the world, which is wild because Clyde’s one of my favourite characters in all of Doctor Who. Who could hate that precious cinnamon roll? Even further, who could forget that episode? Well, it turns out Davies was kinda hoping the answer would be you. I’m not saying Davies is out of ideas, but he seems to be “remixing,” a lot of what has come before. More on that in a moment.

After losing her family, Ruby gets on with life, but not before being given a spark of hope in the form of Kate Lethbridge-Stewart. We even learn some things about the old woman from Kate. We establish that yes, it is always 73 yards away. And no matter how close a person gets to her, she always looks as in focus as a person with 20/20 vision would see her from 73 yards. We also learn that the old woman’s “powers” work via headset, as Kate breaks contact with Ruby, leaving her devastated from losing yet another lifeline.

An interesting factoid about that scene is that Kate and Ruby were sitting across from “The House of Pi,” and Pi Day is the 73rd day of a non-leap year. Why do I know this? Because I went into a bit of a rabbit hole trying to learn about the number 73 yesterday. I looked into its mathematical significance. I learned it’s Sheldon Cooper’s favourite number. I looked it up in terms of numerology. I read the 73rd Psalm. There are 73 books in the Catholic Bible. But none of it felt significant. Then my dumbass googled whether RTD had explained the number, and he claimed it was as simple as going outside and measuring the distance from which people’s faces began to blur. Right. Well, that’s disappointing, albeit creative.

We’re treated to a montage of Ruby getting on with her life throughout the next couple of decades. Like the rest of us, her age starts to show itself with long hair and big glasses. I mentioned earlier that Ruby suffers a bit from a lack of character development and this montage does nothing to help that. She grows up into possibly one of the most boring people they could have made her. Her queer group of friends she has a band with seem to have disappeared. Her dating life is painfully heteronormative. She didn’t date a single woman throughout that time? She would have learned by now not to encourage her friends to talk to the old woman, and due to the perception filter, it’s not like anyone seemed to mind her anyhow. I’m just saying, if someone as normie as her started wearing a political shirt for the nuclear war-hungry Albion Party, I’d look at her and say “Pssh. Figures.”

Speaking of the Albion Party, it’s time we started talking about Harold Saxon. Oh, sorry, I meant Roger ap Gwilliam. The episode implies that Roger is the trickster “Mad Jack" who had escaped the fairy circle after the Doctor stepped on it. But Davies is remixing the classics, or as LCD Soundsystem puts it- “Shut up and play the hits.” He even mistreats women in the same way as the Master. I took this to be Doctor Who’s flimsy attempt at a comment on the MeToo movement. It would work better if ap Gwilliam was more than a moustache-twirling miscreant. Especially because Ruby throws poor Marti to the lions by not warning her away from Roger. If this is a MeToo story, Ruby is an enabler, which is not a great look. But she apologises so I guess it’s ok. Don’t worry Marti, your trauma gets erased anyhow.

While the campaigners prepare for a press conference for Roger ap Gwilliam to announce that Britain has purchased Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, Ruby realises she’s out of time and needs to act now. Using her semper distans friend to her advantage, Ruby backs 73 yards away from Roger and sends him cowering and eventually resigning from his position as prime minister. Ruby expects this to be the end of the old woman, but she remains with her until the day she’s on her deathbed, at which point, the old woman changes from her perspective to Ruby’s. As the old woman, Ruby sees her young self and is able to call out to her and warn her about the fairy circle. That’s what happened, right?

Well, maybe? The biggest curveball comes in the form of the old woman herself. Because while Ruby does age to the ripe old age of 80, the actress playing her is Amanda Walker. The actress playing the woman is Hilary Hobson. Set pictures have also revealed Hobson in make-up that appears to be scarring going up the left side of her face. And those hand gestures of hers? Sign language. Eagle-eyed viewers have roughly translated her signing as “Bless you. Thank you so much, that's so kind of you. When you gave me that little thing, it was just so precious. How am I ever going to repay you? But we will think of something.” Perhaps this scarred woman is someone the Doctor and Ruby have yet to meet. Perhaps she repays them by warning them away from the fairy circle and saving both the Doctor and Ruby from a bizarre fate.

People seem divided by this episode in a major way, which is pretty normal for Doctor Who. But one of the more irritating takeaways I’ve seen is that the episode doesn’t make any sense. That’s only sort of true. There are some bootstrap paradox things occurring, which if you haven’t accepted as a reality of Doctor Who at this point, what are you even doing here? But what does the old woman say to Ruby? Where does the Doctor go? How does she travel back in time to the clifftops of Glyngatwg? Forgetting completely that we’re in a Doctor Who era which has introduced magic in a real way. But that’s a bit hand-wavy, can’t we do better? Well, they do mention that the TARDIS’s perception filter parked so close to the fairy circle might affect how people ignore the old woman. I liked this because it implies that the TARDIS and magic are somewhat compatible and therefore opens up new avenues for storytelling. You could also imply that if the TARDIS could affect the fairy circle, perhaps it can affect the TARDIS in turn. Maybe people reject Ruby because the warding spell placed on Mad Jack is affecting Ruby. Maybe Ruby needed to be in a position where she was so friendless that she would join the conservative party.

The episode may not have explicitly explained things, but it gives us enough of a vague framework to form an idea. As a fan of David Lynch, I am rather happy to exist in that liminal space. To straddle the cusp between the known and the unknown. It leaves an air of mystery, or as David Lynch would say “room to dream.” I will however slightly come down on the episode for its rather bland ending compared to its strong start. I don’t agree with the people who said it nosedives toward the end. But I would be lying if I said I lost a lot of interest the moment Ruby left Glyngatwg. Earlier, I compared the story to “The Stones of Blood,” but where the two stories differ is that when “The Stones of Blood,” changes its setting from the occult folk horror of the Cornish countryside, it replaces it with something equally strange.

That isn’t to say the jump to the year 2046 isn’t interesting. I’d be very curious to see how this story plays over the next few years. It acts as speculative fiction and the bizarre reality of speculative fiction is that it occasionally becomes mundane in hindsight. What once sounded unreasonable now feels painfully obvious. HBO’s “The Leftovers” hits different after the pandemic. Richard Kelly’s loony “Southand Tales,” feels tame after the 2016 election. Therein, I fear the day Roger ap Gwilliam becomes something more than a cartoonish depiction of British politicians. Partly because of the implied threat of nuclear devastation, but also because 2046 feels like a rather generous timeframe.

#Doctor Who #73 Yards #Russell T Davies #Millie Gibson #Ruby Sunday #Ncuti Gatwa #Fifteenth Doctor #Roger ap Gwilliam #Aneurin Barnard #Siân Phillips #Susan Twist #Kate Lethbridge-Stewart #Hilary Hobson #Amanda Walker #UNIT #Gemma Redgrave #timeagainreviews

[saecoyle]

spoilers warnings // opinion abt the first part

what I like :

Penelope being an absolute sweetheart and terribly socially akward but not being turned ridiculed, like a lot of "not-like-other-girls" fiction. Penelope is different than the ton as she's not sticking out but she makes it clear that she is a very common girl in her wants and desire, that she is just more introverted and has had less help from her family.

Her relationship with her mom getting deeper as well as their conflict. Love that!

Francesca being a really agreable character and her silent affection towards John is adorable. Definitly looking for more of them in the second part.

I actually enjoy the subplot of both Eloïse and Cressida, the season is really centering on the cracks of the ton's idea of normalcy before going further than the Londonian society in others books which is a great thing. It adresses that in an universe like Bridgerton there's a difficulty for the young misses in market to bond and form friendship because they're in constant competition, but also it doesn't take away the flaws of each-characters, making them whole. The three girls does not only compete with themselves but they also envy each one thing for each-other and are blind to the other person's issue, but at the end of the day the ton ends up being an issue for all of them in one way or another.

Violette and Agatha's brother, very cute, love their different views on marriage and their equal love for their children.

Colin is actually not a non-playable-character! Still feels a lil bit uncomplete to me but hey, it's only four episodes, it might come as well. I do really empathize with him with his awkwardness in episode three and four and hope for more as for later. Also they need to get him a more fluffy wig in the sense that : episode 3 with the wind, thank you.

what I disliked :

The constant threesomes (okay, only two) but I don't like lesbianism being used as porn content for men, even though if it means what it means (Colin is not content with one sexual or romantic partner if it's not Pen ect ect…) as a lesbian it is still icky to me. (Also I know that the few mlm scenes we've had caters to 'everyone' because straight women tends to love gay men but they're also more deeper than sex workers having to shag in front of rich nobles.)

The part 2 teaser, in genereal the fact that L.W will be revealed in this season and that the main conflict will be Penelope lying to Colin. But it's mostly because I've read the books and I hold Penelope and her work's dear in my heart I have issues about how it was handled. Personal preferences I guess.

Benedict's plot, not interesting, love the actress (very pretty) but in general I feel like theyre running in circles with him to keep the hype until they've made all their seasons and then his. Just not interested in it.

THAT half moment in the carriage scene where Pen tries to put her hands in his hair but it feels very weird bc in the book I felt it as unconcious and passionate and his hair being so stiff + the weird look turned me off so bad…sorry I know a lot of people like that scene in its entirety but it's the only part I had issues with.

I'm sad that we don't get news on Queen Charlotte's family situation bc it really intrigued me, I'm not surprised that the universe feels kind of flat.

things I am neutral about :

Kanthony not being that present, well it's not their seasons! I always have issues with ennemies turned lovers in the sense that they become boring very fast if theyre straight ((sorry)) and I do like them so I'm glad I didn't have the time to get bored by them, it also means more Francesca plot, more Creloise so I am truly fine with it.

The Mondrich getting nobles traits, I just wished it focused on the son too. Maybe about how pressured he would be as a young guy, ect, but there's still time.

Oh and it took me a MOMENT to understand the logistic of him f*ngering her, at first I thought he was just pleasing her outside and I was like "but the logistic? does he just gets out of the carriage with wet fingers and goes tell his mom he's getting married?" But it seems that yes. So… Okay.

The pregnancy race, idk it just feels obvious that Pen at the end of the day might win bc one will have a girl or one will be too late ect… I do find the commentaries about sexuality funny, and if it means more Finch and Philippa I'm fine with it.

general opinion for now :

I have been warmed up to be hyped by the season for a while now so there is not a real surprise that i'm appreciating the main romance as they're the only one I read the book and had seen across fandom in laws. Now the four next episode can make it more than great or sadly make my appreciation downgrade, it'll be a different experience that I've had with the other seasons bc I binged all of it and only had a overall opinion on the entirety of the show. Looking for the rest!

#bridgerton #bridgerton season 3 #colin bridgerton #penelope featherington #polin #colin x penelope #thoughts

[anxresi]

Saw this comment in an unrelated Youtube video...

...And thought it applied very nicely to Chloe.

We’re supposed to think of her as being ‘privileged’ and ‘refusing to give it up’ (as Thomas Astruc unceasingly reminds us), so she’s worthy of hatred and scorn and can never be a superhero again (naturally, ‘golden boy’ Adrien is A Special Case Who Must Be Exempt). 

But when the writers are brainwashing you to behave worse and worse every episode to a truly pathetic degree, stripping you of all friends and family en route, before finally forcing you to live abroad with an abusive woman who’ll make your life nothing short of hell on Earth...

That doesn’t sound very ‘privileged’ to me. In many ways, she’s the unluckiest person on the show: shoved into a never-ending inescapable hellscape where positive character traits are discarded on a whim, hitherto unknown siblings turn up out of nowhere to steal every bit of agency from you, and each new appearance plumbs new depths in humiliation and degradation (Remember Queen Banana, everyone? In fact, I’d rather not).

Know what I think? Short of being ‘privileged’, the reason why Chloe still has so many fans that seem to grow even as the writers heap indignity upon embarrassment upon her, is because we’re not blind to her undeniable status as a writer’s punchbag. Or a Butt Monkey/Chew Toy, for all my fellow TV Tropers out there (Hi!!).

The same way Zoe is made out to be the Greatest Most Awesome Thing EVA by her shilling fellow cast members despite all evidence to the contrary (gurl, get some semblance of a personality already), we’re lectured non-stop about why ‘we should hate Chloe’ and ‘how we’re bad people for liking her and why we should feel bad now’ by the production crew. 

What they forget though, is that there are plenty of people who will ALWAYS be willing to cheer for the underdog... and what individual in the show could that word describe, apart from Chloe? Everyone in Paris hates her... no-one expects anything of her... she’s not even any good as a villain... even her own CREATOR can’t stand her (and THAT’S putting it mildly).

So, in-between ruining her character several times over, never giving her a break no matter what happens next, and even treating UNREPENTANT LIARS, CORRUPT POLITICIANS and ADULT TERRORISTS WHO TRIED TO MURDER PEOPLE far better than her, what else can I add...?

Privileged, my ass.

#miraculous #ladybug #miraculous ladybug #ml salt #chloe bourgeois #ml leaks #chloe #marinette dupain cheng #marinette #disney #zoe lee

[your-anime-boyfriend]

Last wednesday I ended "Oshi no Ko" (2023) and I have A LOT to say... I LOVED IT.

I have to say I didn't expect an hour episode (no one did I think), but it's a great way to introduce this anime because the first episode is about Hoshino Ai, her life and what happened before everything. We got to meet her, we got to love her and we got to SUFFER.

I cried a river IN THE FIRST EPISODE... Well deserved the best score in MAL.

In the following episode we know what happened after Ai's Death. We have this new version of Aqua, which is horrible because he lost all hope, and we have Ruby, blinded by her brightful future.

Next up, we meet the new cast, and everything flows. Oshi no Ko shows how it works in the idols industry. They have to go where they don't want to because it's work, they have to do things they don't want because it's work, they have to be real, be fake, have a smile, don't smoke, don't drink, be happy, etc. It's really exhausting.

Every character has something relatable:

Arima Kana. She started as a genius kid in acting. She's really good, but she discovered that it doesn't matter how good you are, they drop you when there's a new star. Because of this, she overthinks a lot and she has a very mature point of view, that's why she goes for the best option to survive. She was that much in the entertainment industry for a reason. She also thinks she doesn't deserve nice things (as Taylor'd said), but she's very nice, really amazing in general.

There are a lot of Arima Kanas, it's really sad.

Kurokane Akane. Akane tried to be real in a show, she didn't shine because her personality isn't that brightful. When she had an accident with another actress people went for the throat. She was bullied almost 'til death, she tried to kill herself, but Aqua avoided that. People was SO MEAN, that she wanted to die. It's a relatable story, in East Asia countries it takes one story (verified or not) to destroy someone's career.

MEM. She wanted to be someone, but she couldn't due to her family. She had to support them, and when she was able to pursue her dreams, she was too old. Agencies don't usually go for trainees of more than 20. Finally, she got to debut with B Komachi. I'm so happy for her.

Aqua learned things tended to discover his father, so he knows who killed Ai. He enters the entertainment industry because this would help him in his plans.

Ruby wanted to be an idol, and she did. She's very optimistic, I guess it's because she didn't witness Ai's death. Ruby is the opposite of Aqua, she has dreams and she's hungry to fulfill them.

Hoshino Ai. She died too soon, but she's so relatable for me. She thought she could never love someone, she lied her fans everytime because she want them to be happy, she did her best always. She never lied to Aqua and Ruby, but it's so sad that she realised she loves them when she's dying. I think she died in a horrible way, but I think it's lovely to hear Ai saying "it's not a lie, I love you" to Ruby and Aqua.

And now, this has to end. BUT-

Let's talk about IDOL by YOASOBI... HOW CAN THEY MAKE SUCH A MASTERPIECE AND SLEEP LIKE NOTHING HAPPENED???

The music is brilliant, it is "sparkling", like a pop/idol song; the lyrics are amazing: the chorus is what everyone thinks "she's the most powerful Idol", there's a part like... distorted, with the bad opinions people who don't like her say, and we end with Ai's thoughts, she thought she could never fall in love with someone, and she did with her sons "this isn't a lie, I love you". I was devasteted when I read it.

My decision is...10 out 10! And well deserved, It went #1 in My Anime List after his first episode for a reason.

#anime #anime quotes #manga #oshi no ko #my star #hoshino ai #hoshino ruby #hoshino aquamarine #kurokawa akane #arima kana #mem cho #yoasobi #idol #yoasobi idol

[tarisilmarwen]

Rebels Rewatch: "Homecoming"

Hera's daddy issues, and lots of fanservice for TCW fans.

Oh hey, one of my husband's favorite episodes!

Three guesses as to why.

Yep it's because of the Quasar Fire-class cruiser-carrier.

Anyway, the need for such a thing is demonstrated right with this opening scene, with an ill-fated A-wing getting blown up as it tries to dock.

The A-wings get a raw deal in this show, seems like any time they need a fighter to blow up they do an A-wing.

:(

You know by now Hera's started to get to know the pilots under her command, so every loss is a little bit more personal now.

Kanan being silently supportive as Hera goes to call home.

Cham appears and cue TCW fans freaking out.

Not sure why we forwent the fanfare this episode, I don't think the circumstances are quite serious enough for it.

Kanan acting all cutely nervous to be meeting Hera's father kjhkjds.

And him getting everyone's names wrong lol, look at their faces. They're all just like, "Dad. Dad, that's not my name."

Numa introduced and though I have only seen the episode where she appears once I understand TCW fandom's base instinct to sob uncontrollably at how big she's gotten.

Cham being all, "NO I won't let you have this carrier I have to BLOW IT UP as a SYMBOL of RYLOTH RESISTANCE!" is absolutely annoying, Sato and Hera are saints for putting up with it.

I love the immediate cut to Ezra helping Hera tune Chopper up, implying he did his whole "follow you out of concern" routine and got invited to stay. :)

This is becoming a familiar sight isn't it? Ezra's role as heart of the team, peacemaker, counselor, and "bridge" is particularly emphasized this season. Not surprising, we collect most of our finale-important assets and allies this season.

Hngh that vulnerable little, "More important than family?" Fandom sometimes like to portray Mira and Ephraim as workaholics who had no time for Ezra between their broadcasts and resistance but this little line here, that Ezra would be so quietly horrified at the idea of rebellion being more important than one's own family, suggests otherwise.

Also! "Well, there's nothing more important to me." Throw that shade baby boy, love you for it.

Hhhmgngnll shut uuuuuuuuup Cham. When Ezra was preoccupied with concern over his homeworld he wasn't nearly so obnoxious. And, you know, actually accepted that other people and other worlds need help too.

Hera slipping back into her Rylothi accent when talking to her father. <3

Kanan implying his grandmaster Mace Windu talked to him about Clone Wars adventures. <3

Hera's absolutely sour sulk face. XD

This whole scene really, Gobi teasing Hera about "your Jedi", Kanan gushing about Cham, Hera cutting her father off with the doors twice.

It has all the vibes of "surly adult daughter reluctantly visiting estranged home to show off the grandkids and being annoyed that husband and dad get along so well".

Kanan's fake accent here is kind of amazing.

Hera's devotion to authenticity dislodges and reveals the supply of grenades in Numa's sack. Honestly, Cham reminds me a little bit of Saw with how obsessive he is about his own personal cause. He and Saw are both fighting for a good reason, true, but their attachments--Cham to Ryloth's freedom in particular, Saw to being right about the Death Star stopping the Empire from inflicting more loss at all costs--have blinded them, made them single-minded and selfish, hostile to others and uncaring about their plight.

Ezra, on the other hand, though he's always very worried for his world, his people, still is able to put them aside in order to do things for the wider cause, still able to access his compassion for people outside of his immediate circle.

(This would take a brief backslide in Season 3 after Malachor but come back with internal character development at the beginning of Season 4.)

Lol I knew as soon as that mouse droid got trapped that it would be used later.

Synchronized Force Push FTW.

And I love this moment where they throw each other forward, it's so awesome. Been a while since we've heard the Main Titles theme used to denote heroism too.

Ezra bouncing excitedly once he pulls off the Mind Trick, like Kanan knew he could aww.

Hera's double-take lol.

"I must destroy this ship for Ryloth!" Oh take a chill pill.

This is another case of, "Wow, that's a fast turnaround." but it's way less egregious than Ketsu's turn, since there are multiple other voices chiming in in support of Hera after her speech and all Cham does is take a step back and let Hera have the floor, he doesn't actually help until later.

Sounds like a muted version of the TIE Fighter Attack track here.

Right, so, this moment is touching and all but pulling harder on the yoke wouldn't actually do anything, this is orbit not atmosphere.

Imperial theme here, and then a snippet of "Shenanigans".

Ezra has an idea! Bet Sabine loves it because it involves blowing stuff up lol.

Love the teamwork here with this moment.

Eyyyyy everyone wins! The Rebels get the carrier, Cham gets his symbolic firey ship explosion of justice, way to go Ezra, that was a good idea, nice "bridging".

Hugs! <3

An almost Stargate-esque cue here (no surprise, Kiner worked on Stargate SG-1) which... it's not Hera's theme I don't think, at least I can't find another occurrence in "Wings of the Master". Cham's maybe? It definitely sounds like a leitmotif.

Aaaaaand a nice moneyshot of our spacefamily.

Another quality Hera-focused episode, expanding on her backstory without contradicting what we already knew. (Which I've already talked about was a bit of a problem with Sabine and "Blood Sisters".) Hera doesn't really develop much but then, again, she never really needed to. Still nice to see her reconcile with her father.

Another variation on the Friendship Fetch Quest--though Cham reappears later he's not a crucial asset to the finale like the other allies we gain this season, and once more the most important gain this episode is a ship. That Quasar carrier is going become a familiar marker and staple of the Phoenix Cell and we're going to get very used to seeing it in establishing shots... which makes the great big hero moment in "Zero Hour" it gets hurt a LOT more.

Honestly it's worth watching just for how seamlessly synchronized Kanan and Ezra are getting in combat. :)

#star wars #star wars rebels #ezra bridger #space dad and his precious pumpkin child #rebels rewatch #liveblog #kanan x hera

[anotherclassicpretence]

Okay, random Star Wars: Rebels ramble, feel free to skip, because it is really long and mostly praise that someone's probably already described better than me. Also, spoilers for seasons 1-3.

Rebels is so good? Genuinely the first and only Star Wars media that truly drove me crazy 'cause the writing, the score (Force theme I love you and how you're subtle but potent in every instance), the characters, even the art style? Made me cry actual tears with their moments of brilliance.

TCW is so widely considered the superior one but the "The Last Battle" episode in Rebels made me have more feelings about the Clone Wars than all 7 seasons of TCW. Like, that little homage to the show with the end logo and score? Had me crying, the futility and destruction wrought on the entirety of the galaxy by that war only affected me after that episode. It gave a lot of emotional context to the events of TCW, I felt a weird fondness for the TCW characters after this episode. Also, captain Rex in Rebels is dealt with beautifully.

All the "big-shot" characters are dealt with well, actually. Ahsoka, Vader, Obi-wan, even Maul- none of them seem overdone, or like they're stealing the show, but their lines are powerful. The final few minutes of the S2 finale, where there's a montage of everyone's fate, and then the fade-out on a hopeful note despite the horror of everything? Made me have incoherent thoughts.

Vader walking out completely exhausted, the lightsaber mark on his helmet, limping physically and emotionally? I felt that scene- I felt the pain and conflict in his heart even in that simple walk- in the way he tried to negotiate with Ahsoka, in that uncertainty in his eye before he suppressed Anakin again, in the way (someone else has pointed this out, borrowing it) he says "revenge is not the jedi way"- it's not a taunt, not really a tactic to make her back down- it's a final lesson to his apprentice. And then, that walking out with the owl (I guess it's an owl) having its happy little flutter over the devastation of that planet? Showed me how powerful yet broken Vader is.

Even Ahsoka's "I won't leave you"- it's not with any real hope that he'll turn. It's a way to seal a gushing wound she knows will never heal otherwise. Her guilt is a factor, but so is the jedi way she claims to have left. She will stand by her loyalty to Anakin, even if it kills her. And implying that it does kill her, but still showing her silhouette in the blinding light for a second? dfjiwrgbju I know she comes back, because spoilers from Mandalorian, but I'm beyond excited to see how.

The Spectres have my heart, every single one, and I love how all of them are taken seriously. I won't get started on any of them cause I won't be able to stop. They seem realer, more human, more attached to each other; more like a family, in a nutshell, than any group in TCW (for me, at least). The slow unravelling of their personal histories is done realistically, and the absence of OP heroes whose lightsabers can cut through a thousand droids kinda... elevates the plots? All the Spectres use their respective skills, their plans are dynamic and refreshing because of the different approaches they take, and each episode explores different planets and peoples with a closeness that I feel was absent in TCW. They aren't just tactically judged- we feel an affinity for the Rebels' cause through their respect for the people they help. The Ghosts of Geonosis episodes, with the last surviving native and the egg, are a nice example of this.

S2's finale, with Ezra's temptation and Kanan's blinding, sets up S3's conflicts beautifully, while still showing that the family's love for each other will carry them through, together. The fact that their responsibilities have grown, their risks and reach expanded, their individual demons demanding resolutions- all of it prophetizes danger, but hope that goodness will prevail- which in my opinion is the point of all of Star Wars.

It also sets up the Rebellion and the Empire as each other's foils, and does it well- it gets too on-the-nose sometimes (Saw Gerrera episode) but I think the episode where Zeb and Agent Kallus are stuck on the ice moon maintains subtlety while driving this point home. Kallus isn't bereft of honor, he's not inherently cruel, and he starts off with good intentions, but the Empire's way of doing things is calculated to quash any and all warmth or camaraderie. Kallus watching Zeb getting rescued by his team, with all their concern and joy, and contrasting that with the cold welcome he himself receives, the dreary and desolate quarters that are his home- it truly makes his defection believable, and it endeared his character to me. His changing relationship with his own sense of duty was conveyed in a lucid but not overt manner. Also, on the subject of foils, someone had mentioned that Kanan and the GI are such a pair, which I didn't really see, but I think S3 is doing a good job of setting Hera and Thrawn as each other's foils, with their approach to, or rather philosophy of, leadership- both are effective, but one will ultimately best the other. No, I'm not completely basing this off the screen cutting back and forth to their faces during part 1 of the S3 finale, why do you ask?

For the point of camaraderie, you also have the examples of Imperial training- no referring to each other with names, "there are no friendships here", the encouragement of disdain for each other- it portrays how many of the Imperials have had so much of their humanity taken away that believing in the Empire's grand vision is all they have left to console themselves. On the other hand, we have the Rebels treating even Chopper as a sadistic and cranky crew member. The droid double agent episode? Love. This can't be Chopper, he's too polite. They actually name the Attolan base after him.

Also, S3 gave us Grand Admiral Thrawn. Gold star. Stupendous. Villain of the year. I know he's going to wreck shit in the S3 finale, cannot wait to want to punch him. The politeness, the level-headedness, the cold, calculated cruelty; this guy is Competent, and his voice actor has my undying respect. Impeccable example of a voice "so soft you can hear the ice settling on his tongue". I'm starting to feel bad for how his accurate deductions never work out because everyone implementing them simply isn't on his level. Alsoo this may completely change with S4, but there's this quote someone used about Julius Caesar- "he is a man of violence, but not a violent man"- which I think describes S3 Thrawn pretty well.

After TCW's episodic cardboard villains, and the other extreme of invincible master deceiver Sidious, Rebels' Thrawn and Callus (first 2 seasons) manage to be an actual recurring threat whose plans are clever enough to challenge the heroes. Whenever Vader shows up, you can see why he's feared- not just for his prowess in conflict, but for his intelligence and perception- the crumbling Imperial resistance on Lothal in S1 suddenly does everything right when Vader shows up. He's only thwarted by having two ships collapse on him, and Ezra's reaction makes it clear that he Did Not expect Vader to brush that off, or survive at all.

Also, character arcs? Maul's despondency and craving for solace, for revenge against the Sith, whose ways he can nevertheless not give up? Kanan's growing acceptance of the Rebellion's bigger purpose and his own reconciliation with the Force and his changing identity as a jedi and teacher? Accomplishing the mark of a true master- trusting their apprentice and letting go because he knows he's done his part teaching? Ezra is... too long for this post. Also, Sabine and Zeb's reconciliation with their family/planet? All the Rebels restoring each others' faith? Even the minor characters- Fenn Rau, Hondo, Callus (don't mind me, this guy just became my blorbo, I absolutely cannot with him in the ice moon episode)- they're all fleshed out really well.

In summary (as if I've actually structured this) Rebels has a lot more heart than other SW media for me- the emotional beats which often fell flat in TCW worked on me here. Every time the Spectres made a decision saying "you are my home, you are my family"- it felt earned. I was genuinely upset even when the Phantom was destroyed. S4 better not come for the Ghost. Rebels really captured the humanity of the galaxy with these touches of how the Rebellion came together- the episode with the B-wing prototype, the squadron team-ups, the local recruits throwing off the yoke of the Empire. The success of the show, I think, was they made it small-scale. The little details took up entire episodes, and I personally couldn't stop watching.

On the subject of ships- Kanan and Hera activated the rijwasbkgie switch in my head that I had, until now, only observed in you fine bloggers.

Just to mention stuff I didn't like- the Inquisitors were cool, but ultimately forgettable. When the Seventh Sister opened her helmet I legit thought BARRISS OFFEE???? for a second, but alas, it was not to be. Also, Azmorigan- slimy, unnecessary, looks and acts like the vibe of the Denethor tomato scene come to life.

To conclude, if you like Star Wars, watch Rebels, especially if you've already watched TCW. I watched in that order (skipped Bad Batch because I'm not sure I'll like it) and it made TCW's points about violence and courage more poignant for me. Also, you get to see a badass character use the Darksaber right when you thought she couldn't get any more badass, and Kanan Jarrus offering free therapy via training to everyone, including, fortunately, himself. The lightsaber duels are to die for; Twilight of the Apprentice boasts probably the best-choreographed duelling in all of Star Wars- the Inquisitors against the jedi (and Ahsoka) and Maul, blind! Kanan defeating Maul, and the Ahsoka/Vader fight that I'm completely normal about? Poetic cinema.

#star wars #swr #star wars rebels #spectres #thrawn #ezra bridger #hera syndulla #kanan jarrus #ghost crew #sabine wren #zeb orrelios #chopper

[daylander1000]

Hi, I've recently discovered your fic and I absolutely love it! I'm currently reading chapter 8 and Aemond's list is such a great idea. He reminds me of Arya, but your version of him is even more interesting and likeable imho. Just one thing, I believe that the bastards born in KL/the Crownlands are called Waters, so the names of Aemond's nephews on the list would be Jacaerys and Lucerys Waters, not Rivers. This is not a criticism or anything, just a tiny detail a nerd like me noticed😅. Anyway, I'm in love with your writing and would like to know what is your opinion on Alicent in HotD. Her interactions and characterization in SWHHW is just what I imagined her to be as a mother, especially to Aemond after the eye loss. As for the show, I mostly liked her characterization until episode 8 and the whole "you'll make a fine queen" thing. After that I had mixed feelings about the route they decided to take with her.

Also, how did you get introduced to Rhaemond? Hints from the show, Tumblr...? It is an interesting ship with a lot of potential, but sadly not as popular as some others, at least not yet. Thanks in advance for your answer and for giving me something good to read:))

Nerds together, strong!

(sorry x1000 for taking so long to respond. Exams are done but I picked up an eyestrain 😒 This was half-answered in my drafts for a week? Very sorry.)

Criticism is fine! It's good! I mean, I would love 100% total praise, but I am honestly amazed that people love this. My ego is well pleased. 😅 Thank you (and everyone) for reading! Like, I would love to say that I write for the simple joy of it, but no. Readers make it worth doing.

I will confess that I didn't research this properly. I went with Harwin Strong > Riverlands > Rivers, but yeah. I've been out of the fandom for a minute and did not think it through. I have to edit this when I'm done so hopefully I remember to fix it. Will make a note.

My view on Alicent... Honestly, I'm almost at a point where I feel like any criticism of any non-Rhaenyra character is unfair because imo the writers aren't actually trying to create characters, they just contort everyone else to fit whichever role they need for Rhaenyra's plot, but okay, pros and cons? What I like versus dislike?

She's too apologetic, for one thing. I like the green dress scene, but it's so rare to see her show some teeth. I get it, that she really doesn't have all that much power, especially after Driftmark when she's watching her husband try to get their son to snitch on her so that he could have her tongue cut out, or have her tried for treason or killed or set aside or whatever Viserys was angling for in that scene, but I still wish she had a more proactive personality. More like Cersei, Catelyn, Margaery, Brienne, etc.

No way is Catelyn being gaslit into apologizing for being angry that Bran got pushed through a window, you know? Cersei might apologize but she'd also probably leave half the city blind by the time she's done getting her vengeance. I wanted some of that.

Half the fandom hates her for wanting Aegon on the throne instead of Rhaenyra and my problem is that she's not doing enough to make that happen. Everyone's living the grimdark life, playing the game of thrones, while she's a high fantasy damsel queen. They make her a sort of 'Trapped In the Wrong Genre'/'Not Built For This' character like Sansa and it's kinda hard to watch tbh.

I mean, she's more of a Good Wife™ than Alicia in the actual show named Good Wife. Rhaenyra wants to put Jace on the throne, and presumably Daemon, the family serial killer, would want to have his own son take the throne, either way, all Alicent's children and grandchildren will have to be killed to fully secure the throne since Westeros plays by Best Claim Wins but also Keep What You Kill rules. Why isn't she leading the charge to prevent that?

From her perspective she has witnessed the destruction of House Velaryon. Laenor, Laena and Vaemond dead, Baela and Rhaena, Daemon's own daughters disinherited and dismissed for Luke, the boy who cut her son's eye out without so much as a slap on the wrist. What does she think is waiting for her children and grandchildren under Queen Rhaenyra, King Daemon and then King Jace and Master of the Tides Luke?

It's not like she doesn't know how Rhaenyra feels about her children. When someone calls for your still bleeding child to be tortured - there's not a lot to misinterpret about that. Fans can be like "No, that happened a whole episode ago. Get over it! She meant to say gently questioned with cookies and tickles! Rhaenyra would never!" but Alicent isn't supposed to be a fan of Rhaenyra in the show.

Post time-skip, she's like “water under the bridge” when only minutes ago they were accusing her of poisoning the king. You cannot "water under the bridge" your enemies throwing you, your father and your children into highway traffic at every opportunity.

It's like they wrote her to be the show's butt-monkey. Daemon and Viserys literally laughing at her when she's just trying to be cordial, Rhaenys of all people gets to give her that "you have failed feminism" speech, Rhaenyra gets her “now they see you" moment...

Not even sure if butt-monkey is the right trope. She might be more of a Chew Toy? I don't understand why they're this determined to make her a permanent victim. With Sansa, there was the sense that she was being punished in a way for getting Ned killed, for being naive, childish, etc... Ned gets punished for his rigidity... People get "punished" in asoiaf world, but it's like Alicent's being punished for "seducing" grown ass Viserys? For not buying in wholesale to her Hightower inferiority and the natural order of Targaryen supremacy?

I don't understand the desire by the writers and the showrunners to keep kicking a character who is down and has never been up.

When you have one opponent being OP, the other one is usually powerful in some other equivalent way. Like superman has physical power but Lex gets social power and genius intellect.

Dr Manhattan is near omniscient/omnipotent but Ozy is smart enough to plan for that.

You would think it's supposed to be Aegon v Rhaenyra because they're both Viserys' Dragonrider children who stand to inherit, but S1 is entirely Alicent v Rhaenyra where Rhaenyra has

physical power in a dragon,

political power in being the named heir and Viserys' clear favorite with Corlys in her pocket,

childbirthing power (5 sons to Laena and Aemma's 0, and Alicent's 1, 2 or 3 depending on how you count it), and

social power with Daemon and Rhaenys killing for her without hesitation (or repercussion). Even Baela who barely knows her eagerly wants to go fight for her.

What does Alicent have to balance it out?

Instead of giving her the cunning tactician card, they make her dependent on Larys the Clubfoot with a Foot Fetish™

God, I'm ranting again.

I hate how Laena was written too, as a "Daemon's trying his best" Good Wife™ but it's hard to think about them as actual characters outside of simply being Rhaenyra's foils so of course I had to fix it up a little in swhhw.😅 It's mostly a fix-it fic for Rhaena, but if I were doing one for Laena or Alicent, I don't think Rhaena and Aemond would have even been born. I'm talking about serious murders from Day 1. 🤣 As soon as Aegon was born, we're going directly into a Queen Regent Single Mom Era and Vhagar is being fed on pedigree prince meat.

I hate HotD with the passion of a thousand sons, but I have a soft spot in my heart for the black characters and the ND/disabled/maimed characters.

Alicent already had my empathy from the beginning. I don't nail pick, but I hair-pull (BFRBs are a bitch) so, it's near impossible for me to be on the side of the Kool Kidz laughing at her, just personally speaking, regardless of how inconsistent/incoherent she's written.

I try to really avoid a lot of the discourse on hotd because of how ableist it is, but you still see so much of it. All the r-words thrown out for Aegon and Helaena, all the eye jokes on Aemond and the idea that Alicent has inferior/disabled children and grandchildren who should be killed... Like, in 2023, it's just sad that this is still a thing, but I'm always going to be team weirdos (endearing).

And being Team Rhaemond... I have a longer post where someone else asked me about it but it generally boils down to Tumblr and AO3. Basically:

The fanart on here... The Aemond fanart and headcanons are hilarious. Rhaena fanart is harder to come by but it exists.

The dinner staredown gifs. I completely misread that scene. I honestly thought Aemond was looking at Rhaena because I thought the kid was Joff. (I am moderately faceblind and I couldn't really tell them apart on first watch). I was also just kinda generally confused by how they were all sitting down to dinner to feast after Vaemond's murder earlier that day.

Rhaena's is painfully underwritten. I've never seen a character more in need of fanfiction than Rhaena.

This pic: (not mine, I just found it on Google but the original has Aegon in it. it's like a fanart "cover" of a real behind the scenes photo of Ewan and Phoebe and Bethany... )

The lack of Daemon-free Laena fics. I went to AO3 looking for Laena fics but I can't read Daemyra. I tried, but I can't and maybe 90% of Laena fics are actually Daemyra fics, so to avoid that I had to filter out daemon and Rhaenyra so I was left with nothing. And then I tried Baela, but they were only Jace x Cregan fics with more Daemyra. And then searching Rhaena led me to Rhaemond, and there were like 20 fics or so and I read them all, and then I came here for more fics but realized that between the Sirius Black tag and the Velaryon Strong!Reader tag and Visenya lives/Daemon's OC daughter that it would be near impossible to get an actual black reader, Velaryon reader, Rhaena, Baela or woc OC fic, and I was like "FFS, how did this fandom get worse? This is 2023!" and I decided on shipping rhaemond out of spite.

[violettedouceur]

Why MLB is slowly failing and how I would fix that

First of all I haven't seen much of the recent episodes, but I have seen plenty of shares of bs because I have been following it since airing.

Thomas loves to put labels on his fans when they give him criticism so now I am labeling him as the main culprit for the failure and hot garbage that his show is becoming.

The premise is gone, there isn't a singular idea that this show tries to show. I can't describe the newer seasons with one sentence. ( Or a lot for that matter)

The main premise of this show was that Marinette was an ordinary girl that had to fight between her two lives. Which would prevail was the main question.

Now it's just... Nothing. Thomas completely destroyed every single redeemable quality of this show because he is so overly emotionally invested that he became blind.

If I was writing it, I would still have a singular premise for every season first - hero Vs self, second self vs tribe, third - the breaking point, fourth - the redemption.

Marinette's growing obsession should have been addressed way earlier.

Adrienette and now LadyNoir have literally no personal boundaries, no respect, no understanding of each other. It's an idealised fantasy.

If it was me I would use Alya as foreshadowing that what Marinette is doing is not right. Then I would take a secondary character which would be unexpected like Juleka. She doesn't speak often so the audience would listen to her words better. Same for Marinette.

I would make Marinette question whether or not she actually likes Adrien or does she do all that because of lack of self and self-fulfilment.

I would make Marinette start more self reflecting even getting away from Adrien not only to build up the suspense but also make people believe that she is truly questioning and realising

Adrien desperately needs a suspenseful moment where he truly chooses who he wants to be and what is important for him.

I would make also him question who he is and what he wants. Does he want to still be a model? Is satisfying his overly strict father satisfying him.

I would make Adrien run away from his home to get more freedom, not only physical but of thought. He literally has a beat friend with a good home - easiest way to build a suspense and to make such a decision more meaningful

My god THEY ARE LITERALLY ALL TEENAGERS, make them act like it. They act like 12 y.o children. Make Adrien try to oppose his father, to actually have option of his own wants, dreams of his own. Personality even.

Chloe had the amazing opportunity to defy stereotypes BUT THOMAS IS TOO FAR IN HIS OWN PRIDE TO ADMIT HIS WRITING ISN'T ON PAR ANYMORE

I wouls make her father have a new lover so Chloe could feel left out and maybe try to do some bad things to his new lover but ending up in guilt and rethinking whether or not all that bs with tricks and manipulating is even worth it.

What does Chloe like, what does she want to pursue, what are her passions? I would make Chloe realise that she is really insecure and secretly want to be more like Marinette - with stable family, hobbies and friends who she doesn't force to be with her.

And probably make her redemption visible through her hobbies - wanting to be a biker or helping people, a gardener or anything showing an ounce of personality really.

This obviously is not all I would do but I think the post would be too long to read. Thomas is a bad writer and it shows through his one dimensional portrayal of those characters

#mlb memes #mlb #mlb comics #mlb reveal #marrinette cheng #adrienne agreste #adrinette #ladynoir #miraculous ladybug #the miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir #nino #lucas #chloe burgeois #kagami tsuguri #mlb felix #writing #mlb nino #animation

[charlotte-of-wales]

H&M Documentary Review: Episode 4

(my commentary in italics)

- Starting off with them talking about the wedding

- Meghan says it was her suggestion to have Charles walk her down the aisle and Charles agreed. Says she lost a father in all this.

- The designer for her wedding dress says everything had to be perfect because the world was watching....ironic considering the dress didn’t even fit properly

- Harry says there’s an expectation on him having a public wedding because “he is Diana’s boy” hmmmm no babes it’s because you’re Charles’ boy, in direct line to the throne and living on public dime. He sounds quite angry when he says it too. 

- They talk about how monumental it was to have a gospel choir at the wedding, with Serena Williams saying how incredible it was to have Meghan’s culture represented like that. Harry quickly mentions that they had Charles’ help with that when it was *literally* his idea. 

- Shot of William looking very happy at the wedding. Shouldn’t have included that one babes doesn’t fit your narrative.

- LOTS of pics of the wedding, including one of Catherine.

- videos of them in their “cottage” in Kensington Palace. They tried to make it relatable in a way because they were living on a cottage but like....that’s still on palace grounds what’s your point

- very awkward video of Meghan dancing at said cottage and now I wish I was blind

- praise after praise after praise for Queen Elizabeth II. Meghan says she saw her as Harry’s grandmother, not the Queen of England, and she loved having a grandmother figure in her life. Says she has a lot of respect for the Queen. This is so wild to me because do they not see the irony in saying this when she was the head of the institution they so clearly hate. The narrative that William and Charles were the villains and making the decisions in her place is wild and it’s wild that people don’t see the irony and hypocrisy.

- bits about Grenfell Fire

- “Harry and Meghan are the superstars of the British Royal Family” *eyeroll*

- They had to announce the pregnancy because Meghan started to show. That’s what loose dresses and patterns are for but I digress.

- they got these random friends of Meghan talking about the inner workings of the family and it bothers me so much

- ohhh there we go, the Palace was threatened because they were so popular. “Bigger than William and Kate” oh please

- They show a headline saying that polls show Harry is now more popular than the Queen and I’m pretty sure that never happened lmfao The Queen was always the more popular royal followed by W&C then H&M

- Also Harry says it becomes a problem when the married-in royal becomes more popular than the royal by blood.......but like your brother is doing just fine with his wife who is more popular than him. It’s obvious they’re going for the Diana narrative but it’s bs. 

- they bring up this Telegraph headline where after Remembrance - an event where all senior members of the family were at - Meghan was front and center on the front page. Again, Catherine is usually front and center in the media even when other royals are in attendance......very silly point to make. 

- there we go, Diana comparisons. AND the BBC interview. 

- Tabloids critizing Meghan for every little thing yeah they do that buddy they’ve been doing it for decades get with the program

- “is avocado a fruit?” gosh negative braincells in this man’s head I fear

- comparing headlights that Meghan and Catherine got. 

- Harry: “if you don’t see the difference and understand why it’s being reported that way then I can’t help you” *they both laugh* babes if you needed to talk a Holocaust survivor to realize dressing up as a n*zi was bad then I can’t help you either

- WHY IS THIS WHITE MAN LECTURING ME ABOUT RACISM IM LOSING MY MIND

- talking about Meghan’s suicidal tendencies

- GOD this man can’t take responsibility for a single thing. Yeah, he wasn’t able to give his wife the support she needed but but but he was trained to put the monarchy first, just admit you’re a shitty husband and go

- Meghan says she wanted to go somewhere to get help but she wasn’t allowed to because they were concerned about how that would look for the institution. The same institution whose members have openly discussed getting professional help for their mental health. Next. 

- Harry: “if you strip all that away and say the treatment of Meghan in the press was the same as the other female members of the family; so do we still believe she should have just sucked it up like other members of the family” Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying

- “No one would have private conversations with the editors saying: enough” YEAH BECAUSE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS EXISTS GENIUS

- He is talking about the palace playing a dirty game with the media, not as dirty as you selling your family and private pictures of your children to whoever is willing to give you more money bestie

- “So if the comms team want to be able to remove a negative story about their principle, they will trade and give you something about someone else’s principle” 

- this man is bitter and angry and he needs some serious help

- Harry claims him and William saw what was going on with his dad’s comms office and made an agreement it would never happen to their office. Accuses William’s office of breaking that agreement. 

- sorry but Harry the moral superiority card is so dumb to me. Even if William’s team planted stories against Harry and Meghan in the media 1. Sussex’s camp did the same to the Waleses 2. How is this doc, the Oprah interview, the book any better? You hate the media so much and yet you’re feeding into it. Be for real.

- Meghan says everything was controlled and she couldn’t even text her friend a photo and ughhh it’s a known fact the royals have access to their own phones and whats app groupchats maybe you have shitty friends who can’t be trusted Meg

- Meghan’s friends get on my nerves lmfao the dramaaa god 

- “one of my closest friends who happened to be the editor of People’s magazine” girl shush

- Talking about the NYC baby shower now

- not Jessica lmfaoo I can’t

- complaining about the attention of the baby shower as if there wasn’t a thousand ways to avoid it

- Meghan talks about women like it’s straight out of a girl boss 2013 pinterest feminism quote. 

- Meghan says the party was thrown with her friends’ own money (not tax payer money) even though most of the items were gifted to them. Alright. Twist your truth bestie. 

- talking about Archie being a “black prince” yeaaaaaaah

- they brought Archie’s former nanny???? again I know more about this boy than George

- talking about the South African documentary

- Meghan was aware of a pro Meghan hashtag on twitter but noooo they don’t check social media 

- Harry says no one in the family had openly talked about struggling apart from one person (his mother) my brother in Christ YES THEY HAVE

- Harry implies they didn’t get support from the family in the fallout from the South African doc and that made them consider their options (aka leaving the family)

This one was boring, full of lies and weird narratives. Not looking forward to the rest but either way gotta go back to packing! See y’all soon. 

#susx doc

[eviltiddyproductions]

Alchemy of Souls, Part 1, Episode 1

[I’ve written this so sincerely LMAO I have an exam to study for 😭✋]

ahahah we literally start with the subtitles saying ‘ominous music playing’

nooo that growling thing behind the door actually scared the fuck out of me WOAH

what in the marvel just happen??? like where did this superhero man come from and also what are these cuts 😂😭 whiplash !!!

Monster person fight back ???! 

ummm did this mom bring those 2 food to offer them AS FOOD to her demon son? what’s going on 🤨

the son’s dementor era omg he just took his mom’s soul?! 😭 he said:

rip to the dementor son but also the way his body sort of fell into the ocean, it looked smaller and smaller and looked like a little toy 😭

this place is so gloomy woah

hmmm maybe it’s time for me to google what alchemy actually means, ahh got it

if my king asked me to switch bodies i’d say give me a day and never come back. the mage is clearly better than me

you could screenshot so much of this show and make it your wallpaper

so I guess the baby gets the mage’s genes 🧬

the king looked a little too old for this bride woah. everyday we thank we are not in the Middle Ages 🙏

why is my man dying already ?!? also the king looks so bothered ‘why are you bothering me with your yelling I’m trying to have sex? 🤨’

I have no idea what happened because they dropped a title card and Netflix didn’t bother to translate

MAGIC ELEMENTAL FIGHTING I REPEAT MAGIC ELEMENTAL FIGHTING. I love this 😭‼️‼️‼️

SISTER NO! my girl got hit

people were not helpful at all lmaooo Naksu dragged an unsuspecting girl and everyone was like

I have no idea what this show is about or what it’s doing but I already love it so much. Like them training to shape water or I guess make water move as they want to. I love these things !!!

Whoever they’re yelling at has earrings and blonde hair and is adorable! I love it 😂 I guess we’re not being period specific after all (to be fair they’re doing spells and soul shifting, they can have blonde hair)

Oh the old man has blush !!!

how did she shift into the girl she pushed lol I thought she was playing I guess she might be blind? oh she’s not.

they were going to sell this girl ?!?! <///3 history is always cruel to women 😭

wait are we not going to see more of warrior Naksu? I miss that girl.

But also she’s so hilarious here 💀💀💀

Naksu was vegetarian ??? sometimes we win

The lady talking to her is so cute 😭🫶

I’m not even writing anything meaningful here lmao just jotting down anything like if I look back at this I’ll be so confused.

Four Seasons, beautiful beautiful women, unfortunate name

also I thought they were going to say the blondie earring man was going to be cool as the water. he’s hot like summer 😭

I love all of them woah.

My girl means revenge and I am on her side !!!

not sure about later but lady is such a sweetheart

he recognised her in someone else’s body so fast ??? like he saw her put a crab leg to his neck and was like Naksu 😭? he’s so #real

it’s been 30 minutes and I am already being looped into a love triangle 😭 but he’s cute so why not

that’s why she kept the bird whistle !!! the younger version of the guy kinda (KINDA gave haechan from NCT)

I found the crab leg guy cuter though but that also might be due to the heavy tumblr gif bias

‘menacing music playing’ I love the subtitles here 😂😂😂

I trained her to be the ultimate assassin. Oh it’s giving the garden from Spy Family. Naksu x Yor Agenda (or me just babbling anything, ignore me)

I love how seriously she inspects everything. It’s giving me Mr Queen when Bonghwan travelled and was like 🤨🤨🤨 at everything. But I also love how everytime she tries something in this new body she fails 😭💖

My dumbass just always assumes Kdrama actors are older why is our lead only 24??? woah (takes a little break for an existential crisis to process this information) he reminds me of Dew from F4 a lil.

Now I know where I saw her childhood bird whistle crush!!! I just saw his thumbnail for Hybe lol I think he might be releasing a song.

The lead actress is 33 ??? And that’s on good genes woah! she’s so cute 😭 the way I’m just saying anything like cut to the next episode and who knows Naksu would start shape shifting.

LMAO her going ‘what is wrong with this guy is he not in love with me’ as soon as he starts messing with her. 💀

Oh he’s making her work WORK Alexa play 9-5 by Dolly Parton 😭

I adore her because she’s changed her ‘when I get my energy I will kill this person first’ like 3 times already

he’s got a nice voice, I register, as I see him getting sucked in a bathtub whirlpool

I forget how bad it used to be for the pre photography people like at most you’ve got a painting of your loved one. AT MOST. a painting on something as fragile and flimsy as a paper.

the child actor looks nothing like our lead oh no 😭😭😭

I thought he was going to think about his mom but I guess he’s still thinking about unlocking the spell

my girl is just searching in the loudest way possible LMAO

Hiding under the bed 😭😭😭 she’s so #number1assasinbutatwhatcost

girl we all knew he was awake

awww she decided to be here on the worst day. everyone is so loud and everyone is awake. they’ll be on guard now 😩

now what did they set fire too?!

oh that’s her teacher!!!

now how did he get in without his amulet but also I knew he’d save her by pulling her away. just felt it in my bones 🦴

also thought that the guy who was chasing her would just jump from one of the roofs of the houses

#alchemy of souls #episode 1

[prosopagn0sis-a]

raging daddy issues and where do they come from

let me preface by saying: erik hahn aka wulf stalker is not a character that belongs to me, but i do write him ocassionally as a part of fate's threads, and he is deeply connected both to fate's and prometheus' backstory in their original lore. he was created and developed by my friend and became an adoptive father of the silly little blorbo you see me writing today. erik was based on a clone lore from eve online and his first ever appearance was in a ttrpg based on fallout (we later switched to neuroshima and then adapted our characters to other systems). i have the permission for writing him and developing his story.

erik had a hive mind with all other eriks up to the point of the cloning machine breaking. they shared views, opinions and memories — their most important one being meeting the fate and taking care of her since she was seven years old. the original and very first wulf stalker was collecting teddy bears alongside heads of his enemies... and had a ghoul-ish body due to fallout-inspired radiation, but later on another wulf killed him and took care of fate. essentially, they were the same person, but they knew they couldn't coexist in the same universe. wulfs hunted other wulfs, basically, and the whole character started as a psychopath.

so now you see: erik hahn is not a good father by default.

through the years of taking care of his daughter he tried the best to his abilities to be a decent parent, but failed on so many levels that at the age of fifteen fate sees their relationship as a transaction more than anything even remotely familial, progressively losing the sense of being a family but still believing they're allies. it's easy, he provides for her, and she takes care of everything else. but she wasn't taught to do everything else by erik, no; she had to learn every skill all by herself (except for strictly military-related abilities like combat or marksmanship).

so we have a seven year old freshly rescued from abusive household and an adult who cannot make himself an espresso without burning the whole kitchen. the seven year old is a genius and picks up on the adult's inability to function and starts taking care of every chore possible — cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, budgeting, planning, everything. it started simple, then became more and more advanced. erik starting off as mercenary was traveling a lot, so fate lacked any socializing with people her age, but also claimed she doesn't need it and wulf believed her and let her chose to be a loner as much as she wanted to. he gave her free hand on most subjects and topics, only deepening the psychopathy of her as a whole.

wulf stalker did fund face blindness research and provided money and housing during his travels, but that was it. literally. everything else was in fate's hands and she gladly took care of it.

i don't know if you understand, so let me summarize. a grown ass man is unable of taking care of himself, so a seven yeard old girl starts doing this for him and continues that for at least ten more years.

but fate's also a genius, so erik utilizes her intelligence during his missions and operations, desensitizing her to themes of violence, gore and murder while continously training her to eventually do what he does best. a child, and then a teenager, raised around mercenaries and military because wulf stalker didn't know better. but that is not an excuse.

erik never provided much emotional support nor physical contact. never taught fate actually useful life skills that aren't connected to killing, like driving a car for example. erik brought a child to military bases so the only socialization fate has ever gotten were grown men ready to take a bullet and feed lead whoever was on the opposite side of the battlefield. these were her only companions. this is why her relationship with men is so complicated and based on sexualizing herself.

after fate's kidnapping episode, wulf literally caged her inside safehouses and military bases and never left her unsupervised, but he's almost never present, so she's left without the only person she truly trusts with her safety in armed strangers' hands. in all verses except for the resident evil one, her abduction was random and not tied to erik's line of work.

to  sum  it  all  up:  erik  had  no  idea  how  to  raise  a  child,  never  put  effort  into  educating  himself  on  that  matter  and  oftentimes  avoided  his  responsibilities  by  leaving  fate  under  stragers'  supervision  in  secluded  and  well  guarded  areas  while  also  continously  training  her  in  his  line  of  work  to  have  a  cunning  and  intelligent  helper  filling  in  the  gaps  in  his  skillset,  at  the  same  time  being  completely  dependent  on  the  girl's  general  life  abilities  and  expecting  for  her  to  take  care  of  everything  besides  making  money.

#fate: character study #fate: past #i didn't trim the post on purpose #GO AND READ IT #will write some more about erik later on :3

[nyc-uws]

The philosopher who warned us about loneliness and totalitarianism

Revisiting Hannah Arendt’s ideas about social isolation and mass resentment.

By Sean Illing May 8, 2022

If you asked me to name the most important political theorist of the 20th century, my answer would be Hannah Arendt.

You could make arguments for other philosophers — John Rawls comes to mind — but I always come back to Arendt. She’s probably best known for her reporting on the 1961 trial of Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann, and for coining the phrase “the banality of evil,” a controversial claim about how ordinary people can commit extraordinarily evil acts.

Like all the great thinkers from the past, Arendt understood her world better than most, and she remains an invaluable voice today. Arendt was born into a German-Jewish family in 1906, and she lived in East Prussia until she was forced to flee the Nazis in 1933. She then lived in Paris for the next eight years until the Nazis invaded France, at which point she fled a second time to the United States, where she lived the rest of her life as a professor and a public intellectual.

Arendt’s life and thought were shaped by her refugee experiences and by the horrors of the Holocaust. In massively ambitious books like The Origins of Totalitarianism and The Human Condition, she tried to make sense of the political pathologies of the 20th century. Reading her today can be a little disorienting. On the one hand, the way she writes, the regimes she describes, the technologies she’s worried about — it all feels very distant, from a totally different world, and she does have blind spots, namely on identity and race, that are glaring today.

And yet, at the same time, the threats she identifies and her insights about our inner lives seem as relevant today as they were 70 years ago. After Donald Trump was elected in 2016, her 1951 book on totalitarianism was selling at 16 times its normal rate.

So I reached out to Lyndsey Stonebridge, a humanities professor at the University of Birmingham, for a recent episode of Vox Conversations. Stonebridge has written two books about Arendt’s legacy and just finished a third about her life and ideas, coming out early next year. We talk about the relationship between loneliness and totalitarianism, what it means to really think, and what happens when the space for genuine political participation disappears.

Below is an excerpt, edited for length and clarity. As always, there’s much more in the full podcast, so listen and follow Vox Conversations on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Sean Illing

Arendt was a political theorist who spent a lot of time thinking about loneliness, which seems like a subject for psychology, not political theory. Why did Arendt consider loneliness to be a political problem?

Lyndsey Stonebridge

It’s important not to separate loneliness from the material conditions that produce it. She’s talking about things like the disillusionment of people with the elites who are running Europe, unemployment, the end of the bourgeois dream, inflation — all these things. And like other thinkers, she understood loneliness as this peculiarly modern problem. It’s a problem that comes with individualism. It’s a problem that comes with capitalism. It’s a problem that comes with modernity.

https://www.vox.com/vox-conversations-podcast/23048597/vox-conversations-hannah-arendt-totalitarianism-the-philosophers

[chelleztjs18]

Hello you mrs. hater of frogs honey nut cheerio lefty eyebag 😌

Yes, I really want to know where they get the breads from so I can order it and make it into garlic bread for pasta days 😂🤤

Well, the headache went away this morning. But it's starting to show up again now. Maybe it's too much light. This new place has really nice lighting but it's very bright.

I wanted to add, the part 4 ending also reminded me how Love just killed the sister in season 2 of you. Not as gory as how you described lol now don't go boosting my ego about what I said hahaha maybe that can be in the epilogue.. or give us a cliffhanger in the epilogue.. I'm going to throw my phone if that happens just kidding 🤣

Or what if, R actually becomes tired of Nat, even though R was very much in love with her, R still doesn't know the true meaning of it. So, they grew tired of Natasha and tries to get rid of her and makes her the suspect in all of the killings/missing people that have happened. Dun dun dun.

Anyways.

You don't like eggplant? What other vegetables don't you like to eat? Besides onions.

I like pork the most but don't eat it as much. I also only just eat chicken breast or the thighs. But they have to be baked or grilled. If I have fried chicken, I like it extra crispy 🤤

Great all this food talk is making me hungry hahaha and I just had sandwich and chips! When you do your fasting, do you plan on what to eat or do like a meal prep thing? Or just eat whatever there is in the fridge or pantry?

Ahahahahahaha why did you have to describe the frog like that?? Act like the sexiest animal 🤣🤣 it makes me think that they are posing on their side with a half smirk.

Yeah see, it's the food poisoning part that scares me about oysters. I think I've heard too many stories like that for me not to want to try it at all. My cousin, who loves baked oysters, would always post about it when she orders it. It has cheese on top and all that, and I'm here just gagging at the thought of how it would slide down your throat like mucus... 😒

If you like squid, do you like calamari?

Ah I see. So you wear dresses when you go to formal events?

I am the same when it comes with shoes. As long as it's comfortable, I will wear it. But I really like my converse or vans.

What was your favorite subject in school?

- CuriousGeorge

Hello bread lovers righty eyebag!

Oh so u like garlic bread? My husband's family think it's funny n weird that i dont like garlic bread. 😅

Oh no that sucks.. yeah maybe light can be the culprit too.. maybe u can try get a curtain or blinds that can block the light. I personally dont like too much light in my house or room.

Ah yeah i remember that episode of You. So in thay chapter 4 ,u think that it's pretty gory? I personally i feel like it's not gory enough. 😅 i wish i could make it more gory.

Oooh my god! Ur idea is brilliant! How R try to frame Nat because she is bored n try to get rid of Nat.. oh my god! Why didnt i think that. But i think it's a whole nother level of plot n need a hell of writing skill to make it happen. N my skill is still far away from that. Hats off on the idea though! Maybe someday if u finally message me in person u can help me brainstorming.🤭😁 anyway, r u sure u r not a writer? 🤭 haha.

No, i dont like eggplants. I also dont like crispy stem vegies like brocoli, carrots, brussel sprouts1. I love leafy vegies. Hope my answer makes sense?

For fried food i like it crispy but not too much batter. When i break the fasting,i usually just eat whatever i have to minimize what i eat.

Ahaha but it was true.. just google frog legs, u'll see what i meant. I looks like legs with muscles n trying to be sexy. Haha. Ew a frog posting like that with a smirk? 😅

Oh yeah, to me oysters r gross. Some people eat with lots of lemon juice to kinda "cook" it but then again a no for me because i dont like sour.

Yes i love calamari..

Yes mostly i wear dress for formal event. When i used to work at the travel/tourism industry, i used to wear either short skirt with button shirt, but mostly i wear pants with button shirt n sometimes with vest or jacket suit, with high heels.

Ah i see. I like converse / vans shoes, they r canvas shoes right? Keds brands have same style of shoes. So u might want to check it out.

I loooove french subjects, english and biology. Whats urs?

Cheerio!

#chellez answers #ask answered #anon answered #curious george anon

[getoutofmyjaneway]

Since Star Trek Voyager is Leaving Netflix, Here are 10 Episodes that you Should Watch Before the End of September

1. The Cloud

The Cloud is a great example of the early dynamic between the main cast. This bottle episode shows a very Star Trek episode dealing with some space creature they accidently harm, and being oh so very Starfleet, they assist. That, of course, is not why you watch this episode. It has some pretty great comedic moments, the iconic “There’s coffee in that nebula,” moment, and (if you can over look the cringy and incorrect portrayal of Native American culture) great moments that will let you better get to know the character we love.

2. Tuvix

Tuvix is was created when there was a transporter accident fused Neelix, Tuvok, and some plants together to create a new single sentient being. Tuvix loves being himself but ultimately it was decided by Captain Janeway that they would be separated back into there original beings. This episode is not only thought provoking, but has been the basis for many discussions of morality on a broader level. It is an interesting thought experiment that is so very Star Trek in nature - it is a don’t miss in my book.

3. Before and After

You remember Kes yes? She was definitely not given the most to do throughout the run of Voyager, but this is her best story by far. This story sees Kes aging backwards through death to birth, giving us a full picture of her life. This also brings us some of the very seldomly seen foreshadowing in the series, eluding to the Year of Hell (we’ll talk about that soon) and Tom and B’Elanna’s relationship. This is how I choose to remember Kes (we don’t talk about Furry).

4. Year of Hell Part 1 and 2

Yeah you knew this was going to be on here. There is a reason this is on most peoples lists of top Voyager episodes. And yes, I know I am cheating by putting both episodes on the same spot on my list, but like Janeway, I make my own rules. This is the most action packed two-parter in the series, serving as a kind of what-if scenario if the Voyager crew went down a more dangerous path. It ultimately ends with the ever present “Voyager-Rest-Button” but this is the best use of it. This is the most bad-ass episode by a long shot, also giving great character interactions, as well as commentary of grief and family.

5. Living Witness

This one is for all of my TNG lovers out there, you will love this one. Living Witness sees the Doctor’s program ending up in an alien museum in the distant future where an exhibit shows the species interactions with the crew of the Voyager. It is up to the Doctor to clear the name of his crew, and himself. This is amazing commentary of how history can be warped by those that recount it. Of course I also enjoy the absolutely savage portrayal of the Voyager crew - you can tell they had a good time with this one. Overall, this is a story you could only see on Voyager and is excellently done.

6. Timeless

This episode is iconic. If you have seen media referencing Voyager, you have most likely seen the image of the Voyager crashing into an ice planet in some amazing for its time CGI (that holds put pretty dang well even today). This is a strong episode for both Chakotay and Kim, two of Voyagers other most under used characters, seeing them try and create a slipstream with the Delta Flyer to get home. While the Delta Flyer is ultimately successful in this, the Voyager and the rest of the crew ends up dead. Chakotay and Kim take it upon themselves to change the events of the accident.

7. Counterpoint

There is a reason that this is Kate Mulgrew’s favorite episode (other then the fact that she gets to kiss an alien). This is Janeway at her absolute best - intelligent, cunning, and a master of her craft. This sees Janeway help a group of telepaths cross a region of space where a xenophobic ruling body does not allow them. After frequent inspections, Janeway takes in a defector from the xenophobic race, who tries to get her to divulge her secrets. She, however, was always one step ahead of him in a brilliant power play that I can only describe as spicy.

8. Someone to Watch Over Me

Someone to Watch Over Me is a story about what it means to be human, a theme often discussed in Star Trek. This sees the Doctor, a hologram, show Seven, a woman rebuilding her sense of self after spending most of her life in the borg collective, teach her what he has learned about relationships. It’s like the blind leading the blind, or in a more Star Trek example, the blind teaching an Andriod how to paint. Throughout their time together, they both seem to teach each other a lot - Seven gains many incites into how to be more human and the Doctor learns what it is like to be in love. A heartwarming episode.

9. Collective

Members of Voyager’s senior staff are abducted by the borg... children. Five who have been separated and awoken from there maturation chamber struggle between being borg and being individuals. This is, however, not a borg story, it is a story about being human. As Seven was saved from the collected, she went through a transformation under the guidance of her friends family and now it is time for her to help these children in the same way.

10. The Void

After becoming trapped in a Void with no way of escape, they soon find that ever ship is out for their own in this region, everyone stealing what they need to survive. It becomes a battle of morals - do you take back from those who have stolen from you and then some? Do you use what has been stolen from others for your personal gain? Where do you draw the line for the sake of survive. The Voyager spearheads a mini federation type alliance of sorts, finding strength in unity and numbers, and, in the end, it is the understanding of others that allows for the Voyager and the members of the alliance to escape

These are not necessarily the best episodes of Voyager, but I think these are episodes that you can watch on their own with no other knowledge of Voyager to really get a feel for the series and the characters. Of course, I would love to know what other episodes you would include. Personally, I would have loved to include episodes like Course: Oblivion, Author Author, and Dark Frontier, but out of context, these episodes will give that Voyager flavor we all know an love.

#Star trek #star trek voyager #long post #netflix