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unproduciblesmackdown · 3 years

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crossposting billions analysis/musings here but now thinking about 5x08 kind of makes more sense with the context of like, whether that could’ve kicked off them specifically being concerned about loyalty / worrying about unpleasant surprises, since they obviously don’t expect to run into rian having another job, and then instead of going “hey so like, what’s up” to rian about it, they apparently start off strong(arming) a bit, since rian is also starting off bothered by the treatment, and, while we don’t have any reason to think that rian apparently possibly having been moonlighting catering the whole time was going to make her want to quit or have any other conflicts with her mase carb job, after taylor again tries to just go right to the flexing authority / applying pressure approach, now rian’s apparently unsure about staying at tmc, which doesn’t seem to have been true before, establishing that taylor’s reaction to “oh shit is rian Not committed to working here” by already sort of taking a somewhat antagonistic / punitive approach, one which was somewhat bemusing in the first place since there was no indication this had or would cause problems or that they couldn’t just like, talk to rian without preemptively taking that stance, and thus not put rian on the defensive as well / Be antagonized from the start, but they sure did, and it showed us that this was counterproductive, and that only when they both decided to start an exchange with a more conciliatory approach (quantciliatory: see: taylor & winston in 3x03, and then in their next meeting in 3x09) was the situation set up to be resolved, also thanks to taylor voicing their actual motivations in a somewhat unexpected offering of vulnerability re: their lore & also not just trying to push rian into this / hold anything over her head here really

also of note that now, despite taylor’s own trust issues clearly at play, they’ve repeatedly told rian she just kind of has to trust them, despite rian knowing she doesn’t have a lot to go on / can’t really do anything but wait and see if she gets burned by that, which, you know, taylor might have to do with wendy, who hasn’t even gotten around to her “then trust me” line. and, in the midst of these points, is outright saying they can’t trust people b/c they get fucked over, so.

and of course thinking about the entirety of s5 here & gaining & losing (& firing) employees.....rewind to 4x11 when taylor’s saying nobody has to argue for comp b/c the results speak for themselves, but is also asking people to defer bonuses &, in doing so, presumably stay at mase cap for another year, & winston points out that this is less just giving them all a choice & there’s pressure to defer & this suggests employees might be expendable / collateral re: losses tmc might take on if taylor’s commiting to an indefinite revenge jag against axe, a journey that requires you to dig two graves and neither needs to be mine....but he also does not quit, and mafee makes it about trusting taylor, which winston acquiesces to. also notable that lauren like, pseudo breaks up with taylor, but doesn’t, but takes her bonus now b/c if they break up she’ll have to quit, and none of these things really seem to bother taylor at all. then there’s 4x12, where they get to tell their employees they’re all the best & sexiest in the business & tmc is getting back on track, but when we see [all of tmc, apparently] in s5, they’ve presumably had to downsize, or who knows if some people didn’t want to go to axe cap....they kept all their named people, so probably it wasn’t necessarily about taylor having to deal with people quitting, but also probably people Had to be let go, which they not only don’t enjoy like, in general, but of course sucks when it’s their own employees & they would rather not have to downsize or be dragged back to axe cap in the first place, just seems like an Insecurity & Vulnerability Issues exacerbating matter overall, and, naturally, specifically about axe fucking everything up for them

then over the course of s5 you’ve got wendy being generally unhelpful in 5x01, making sure to not really put her back into helping taylor & the rest of mase cap out as part of her job without taking advantage of a chance to ingratiate herself to lauren, which lauren goes ahead & names for what it is. then in 5x02 it’s time to take advantage of taylor’s absence, pull a non axe cap employee over to take care of an axe cap mess, aka lauren, refuse to defer to sara at all and then deflect any responsibility for sara’s disgruntlement / feeling out of place as a result onto taylor, and then of course, you have sara’s sort of halfhearted attempt to voice her grievances to taylor, whose response not only highlights their own unhappiness but now sure definitely seems to suggest that despite recognizing lauren’s business decision to do axe cap stuff as A Good Opportunity, that’s included in things they’re unhappy about but also can’t do anything about. and then in 5x03 sara’s still unhappy & despite clashing a bit further with taylor, apparently taylor doesn’t consider that sara might quit, cue their “don’t worry, i’m not going to fire you” line before sara does quit, & evidently being thrown & unhappy about the fact that she has. & shoutout to their outright telling wendy they can’t trust her & she shouldn’t’ve jumped in and decided lauren should do shit for axe cap, which wendy evidently takes to heart by which i mean she passive aggressively deflects the whole thing and i am sure nothing has changed at all with her and she’d do it again if she felt like it.

then in 5x04 there’s the thing with mafee wanting to switch seats at the lunch table, aka sit with the axe cappers (even if it’s not that clear whether it’s Just a seating change or if it makes him more tied to axe cap re: the actual work he does, seems to at least partially involve the latter, for all intents & purposes) and while taylor does not express anything like “wow really betraying my trust here / this isn’t very loyal of you” they’re clearly unhappy with it, even if we don’t know that they’re actually upset with mafee about it, or anything

5x05 and everyone at least listening to winston about “we can’t and don’t trust wendy” even if nobody particularly cares if he’s fired, who knows if taylor was that concerned, but they at least put in Some effort in the form of stalling for time about it. just a bit odd if they cared enough to put in that nonzero effort but also maybe had no other contingency plan here, and winston’s pointing out that maybe they should be convincing him to stay on....like, yeah, why not? there’s no particular reason for winston to be singled out as Un Impact Fund Worthy, while apparently lauren, & for completely unknown reasons, mafee, are good to go. lauren telling mafee he has “nothing to worry about” to which winston somewhat incredulously goes “he doesn’t but i do??” does kind of sum that up lmfao like, yeah, sorry, but why??? and then there’s the fact that the oil divestment thing which directly led to this impact fund route came from a project winston worked on with taylor i guess, & which taylor decides to run with when, despite sara & mafee both voicing skepticism, winston alone is like “hell yeah we can let’s go for it,” and then, you know, winston also does not quit or anything after axe then invests in the shares that tmc theoretically could’ve. and wendy just got here and isn’t really citing anything about winston about Why he in particular has to be fired, and is figuratively Resting Her Case b/c he doesn’t get her metaphor correctly or w/e?? i see no reason tmc employees shouldn’t think wendy’s trying to isolate taylor / get rid of people who aren’t tied closely enough to axe cap over taylor.....and then spamming F for the fact that there’s this whole subplot that stems from this wherein lauren’s the one pointing out to taylor that they can’t trust wendy & to offer her like, a share of the company in the teens%, and then taylor doesn’t listen to lauren by offering wendy 40% and lauren doesn’t listen to taylor by confronting wendy & telling her she’d better not fuck taylor over, smash cut to wendy fucking taylor over in 5x10 there and lauren Not getting to take it out on wendy, and taylor not doing so either

but here we are still in 5x05, theoretically, wherein winston does just accept not being fired, and wendy’s bailing on the mase carb soiree b/c axe is whining at her to stop doing her stupid bullshit about her stupid life b/c he’s having emotions, so that’s great. and while maybe winston doesn’t need to trust anybody out here b/c apparently, unless ever discussed directly / otherwise, he Is just fine staying at tmc so long as he’s simply not fired, and taylor apparently presumes he will (not like they seem to worried about anyone else even considering quitting either, i guess), he also sure seems to have some people on his radar re: his own vulnerability, like, already Doesn’t trust wendy even if 5x05 is the first time she directly goes after him in any way, can point out that this is about taylor too even if, again, he hasn’t really been directly involved in wendy going after taylor in s4 or prior, & also he still would probably like some validation from taylor themself but will also shrug it off 4 sec later if he doesn’t get it, & for whatever reason may never be brought up in dialogue he sure is committed to working for them or he wouldn’t be here & stay here. & he likes rian, & doesn’t seem too threatened about like, not going “oh heyyy” & acknowledging he likes her actually, as soon as the soiree even, & then there he is in 5x07 having been negged but forging ahead with the determinedly amicability & just kind of tempering the “i’m Just Looking Sometimes, i’m Not Pressing” thing rather than being like “nooo i don’t have a crush on you” or anything. and also, in front of mafee during the soiree lol, and possibly now taylor & lauren if they inferred anything beyond “idk there goes winston operating in the wrong, too literal context / being overly earnest & spontaneous or something” about it....getting off topic talking about winston here maybe but originally the topic was “thinking about 5x08 in an additional/new context as of 5x10″ so guess the post has already gotten off lol

anyways winston’s not really being burned, except also he is (expressing repeatedly he doesn’t feel valued by taylor lol......) but also he doesn’t mind enough to like quit so it’s fine? and mafee might kinnnda have his back at times, won’t narc on him, might intervene if he’s being harassed / threatened, thanks guy. & rian seems to like him in some kinda way and you know, she Did jump in there & apparently truly singlehandedly of her own sole motivation save his employment, i guess? he may as well trust fall swoon into her arms immediately. but guess he’s just vibing out here, and really like, the way billions works, plot focus is dangerous & nobody really just has an episode’s focus of “and here’s [character] just having a great time! they’re so happy! hoorayyy” and even the attention of other characters can be bad. axe shouldn’t’ve looked at him, but do think that was probably just winston off the shits raring to be validated by anything and going “damn i was glanced at? big day for winstons,” and if other characters are writing him off, then they’re probably not also going to come after him (although you know. there’s 5x05!! but she did drop it quick enough i suppose) or be threatened by him in any way and Defensively come after him. i am off track here

anyways then 5x06, things are fine, nobody’s quitting or being threatened with firing, 5x07 they’re fine but also axe is fucking everything up and taylor has to deal with that / know that even [him not being able to be trusted to not fuck everything up For Himself] can fuck with tmc as well as collateral damage, then 5x08, as once stated way back at the beginning of this post, maybe sets off taylor having trust issues re: closer to home threats here, i.e. how committed their employees are, even if it Seems like they are (which, they probably are! i.e. how there probably need not have been any issue w/rian having this side job if taylor hadn’t kind of forced it as an issue) & taylor’s able to resolve it with a bit of vulnerability / dropping the [best Defense is a good offense] insistence

then of course there is 5x09 & seems like maybe it’s A Problem that not only did axe fuck things up for them after saying to their waist that he wouldn’t, but he also said it to wendy & in part b/c wendy backed taylor up, but then also axe went through mafee like well fuck things up for taylor or i’ll fire you, and mafee’s response may have been one that taylor understood but also sure like, had the implication that there’s nothing else he would have or could have done in the face of axe, either then or going forward so long as they’re at axe cap, which can’t be very heartening, and although of course taylor just realizes axe is the problem, when in 5x10 they’re clearly fucked up about not being able to count on anyone truly standing between them & axe / not siding with loyalty to axe vs them when push comes to shove, it’s not difficult to retroactively apply that to this situation with mafee & suppose that like, even if in that moment they didn’t consciously go “wow so i’d better be worried about this from other people too” apparently by the time in 5x10 they learn actually lauren’s Not guaranteed automatically staying with mase carb / them & that wendy, despite again a face to face conversation, is like yeahhhh fuck it i entrusted axe with this and i have no reassurance(tm) for you except bullshit nothing, seems like maybe the first [i’m unexpectedly vulnerable??] internal emotional dustup from 5x08 & then the much more obvious one in 5x09 wherein mafee’s just asserting it as a given that if axe wants to hurt them he will & there’s nothing for it has kinda coalesced & been set off here by first realizing lauren isn’t automatically with them & then that wendy’s just over here doing whatever making them all the more vulnerable to axe & then they’re apparently launched into very defensive mode about all of it, but they’re also clearly personally hurt about things rather than Just like, considering strategy or whatever, or yeah their directing their reaction at their relationship w/lauren & just cutting it off themself wouldn’t be so spiteful & yknow, maybe they’dve simply fired her but been like eh yeah sure go to axe cap but don’t give axe any tmc secrets and also maybe we should break up. meanwhile, if they can have one personal relationship blowup after having tamped down [being bothered] by issues in it for a good while now, it’s like, maybe not guaranteed that just b/c they’re not confronting mafee about anything here they’re not also tamping down [being bothered] which may Potentially blow up later.......do not want that

so congrats i guess to winston if nobody’s really bothered re: him lmfao, like, hey, then they won’t be Bothered(tm) down the line either......again with the like, taylor maybe trusts him to be Loyal b/c they’ve given him the least individual / personal focus here ever so like, if i Don’t trust you, i trust you lol....guy who’s just kinda Around, and is also kinda invulnerable(tm) for it, where rn his most vulnerable thing going on, which is uncoincidentally his most like, involved arc / thread re: character material, is Liking rian, and we don’t know whether that’ll go anywhere. if it’s a joke, that’s kinda underwhelming, but if it’s setting up a romance watch out, that’s where billions concentrates the theme of what’s lost / fucked up in the course of trying to play / compete in / win in this game, but wherein winston is maybe protected by the fact he’s Not really trying to be exceptionally ambitious / at the forefront of things & is instead just kinda out here vibing & rolling w/stuff, which is harder to narratively come down on so as to execute some thematic material....but which may also result in like, his not getting any relationships really, although if he & rian have this mutual affinity / kindred spirituality, why shouldn’t they get to be buddies, which is not so often crushed to make a thematic point as romances are.....also, let’s see him talk to tuk outside just the once, that went great, in 5x08 anyways. i’d say like, as is true of anyone amicable w/him, feel free to kiss but also everyone watch out with that around here. and that brings us back to 5x08 so may as well pretend that’s a definitive conclusion b/c the [series of interconnected billions tangents] that this post has been can go on indefinitely.

#winston billions #if you can believe it tl;dr the issue w/rian in 5x08 may have set up this thread w/taylor coming to a head in 5x10 there....

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myymsaetayuun · 3 years

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🌹, 📙,📀,🍐,🌀,🍆,🎀

THIS WAS A VERY LONG DISSERTATION FOR MY CHARACTER, BUT I LOVED EVERY MOMENT! THANK YOU FOR THE ASKS!

How easy is it for them to connect with others and make friends? On the flip side how easy is it for them to make an enemy of someone? Are they the kind of person who hangs around the food table at a party and never talks to anyone or are they the type who can talk to anyone?

This is a complicated question, since Myym’sae’s entire job revolves around socializing. So, lets answer the last question first: He has made a job out of being able to smooze and dance around any conversation given to him. A light bit of knowledge and feigned interest in a topic can get the more talkative ones going for hours. Striking up conversation and holding it is a skill he’s mastered even with the most withdrawn attendants of social events.

Truly connecting with people is hard for him, and making friends rarely happens. If it’s not the layers of protection built from abusive family ties, it’s the fact that he doesn’t have the time to nurture the core aspects of a deep friendship. He has a handful of friends, but they number in the single digits. This would also go into enemies as well. He just doesn’t have the time to dedicate to a good rivalry. Usually it ends up being the other person who is holding the grudge, and Myym’sae simply forgetting and going along with the mutual aggression.

What kind of subjects (of conversation, of discussion, in school or whatever) does your OC find interesting or engaging or that they can talk for hours about? What kind of stuff do they just find fun?

Myym’sae has a small general knowledge base of a lot of various different topics due to the nature of his job. However, when engaged he likes to talk about fashion! Not always about what is the most ‘in’ style, but usually about the general trends within various nations and city states. The study behind the anthropology of fashion and dress within various groups interests him more than anything else, but unfortunately finding someone to indulge in this conversation is few and far between.

How easy is it to shock your OC? To confuse them? To lie to them, to manipulate them? How are they with feelings of trust? Can your OC be trusted?

Another very complex question where the answers are almost completely different for each question! Myym’sae is often in feigned shock about relatively everything from bad fashion to foul language. However, actual shock comes from violence and anything involving combat. He is not at all a character that can handle aggression in a physical sense. Confusion is relatively easy if you are doing it on purpose, but for the most part Myym’sae is good at following a conversation so long as it is linear.

Lying and manipulation are two things Myym’sae knows very -very- well. He knows most, if not all, the tricks of the trade. He does not trust easily, and requires proof several times over before he comes to fully trust an individual and it is on an individualist basis. He does not trust other people’s judgements at all, so no one gets a pass. As for trusting Myym’sae? You shouldn’t do it on a serious scale. Sure, he’s not going to lie about small things like if you look good in that dress, but trusting him to save your life if things get messy? He’ll be gone before you feel the blade.

What is your OC’s mentality? Are they overall positive? Negative? A bit of both? Describe their thought patterns and reasoning behind their choice making!

Myym’sae is a generally passive positive person, but overall he is one of my saddest characters. Day to day, he is generally in a neutral mood and works aggressively to bring positivity into the conversations that he has. Most days are spent involved in other people’s affairs with him juggling other’s emotional needs without thinking about his own issues. He does not talk about himself, nor does anything involving his life mingle within his work or client’s business.

At home Myym’sae is very anxious about his own worth. Everything he is has always been tied to wealth and the measure of what he owns over what he does. This has messed with his sense of self worth and is always affecting his self esteem. Chasing the continued high of buying something expensive is his addiction that has slowly lost its luster. It will never be enough for him. He will never have enough wealth to bring him happiness, and it will be his journey to discover that fact and find what will bring him joy.

Where is your OC from? Where were they born? Do they still live there, if not why did they move? If they still live in the area how has it changed since their childhood? How many places has your OC lived in and where has been their favourite?

Myym’sae is from a keeper tribe in the deep northern reaches of the shroud. The forest covered in an almost perpetual snow made him much more attuned to the chill of icy living than anything in the south. Still a snow bound zone, it’s safe to assume that it won’t be changing back to the warmth of the precalamity. He left a while back following orders from his matriarch, and hasn’t been back since! As for the current, he has no real local that he calls home and moves around from city state to city state as he pleases. His job as a host for the Auspicious Fish keeps him mostly in Kugane, but even then he has no permanent space that is specifically his.

Tea or Coffee or Hot Chocolate? Sweet or Spicy? Fruits or Vegetables?

Tea, definitely tea. Sweet! Fruit.

Do they wear a specific accessory with a special meaning behind it? What is their usual fashion sense like? What do they wear when they want to be comfortable and what do they wear when they’re going to a fancy party? Or do they just not care?

I could go on forever about the fashion behind Myym’sae. So, I will do my best to answer this as simply as I can:

Myym’sae has a hairpin that has the design of a peacock on it. It was one of the very first gifts given to him by his matriarch, and a reminder of where he came from. However this is not at all a pleasant reminder, but something he keeps to rekindle the bitterness of his anger and to gloat that he still has something so priceless that she will never get back.

Myym’sae’s usual fashion sense is elaborate and gaudy. He is a rich asshole who dresses like he’s got more money than he actually does. Accented with all the trimmings given to him as gifts from clients, he flaunts with trouble as he is just asking to be mugged in a back alleyway. If he is not dressed to the nines, then he is either trying to be incognito or it’s not him. Thankfully it makes it easy for parties cause he’s always got something fancy he can wear.

For comfort, he’s going to be dressed in flowing cloth that is barely doing its job of covering him. He is not a fan of heat and utterly melts if it gets even remotely warm enough to melt ice. Though this is strictly behind closed doors. In the public eye, Myym’sae is never just in casual attire. As far as the public is concerned he is high fashion 24/7.

#thanks for the ask!#[answers]

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sepublic · 4 years

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What constitutes a ‘Demon’?

There’s been some discussion amongst this fanbase about what exactly a ‘demon’ is. We know they come in a wide variety of shapes and forms, and we know that demons are evidently capable of full sapience (but not all of them are).

From what we know thanks to King, our not very preeminent scholar on the matter, demons are “grim tricksters of the twilight, creatures of sulfur and bone,” that they “live only to create chaos and misery”, and all have a weakness to purified water (and passive-aggressive comments).

What purified water exactly is in the context of this show, I’m not sure and it might not even be elaborated upon, but it’s fun to think about! So perhaps ‘demon’ refers to any creatures with a weakness to purified water. While King’s account should admittedly be taken with a grain of salt, considering how inaccurate he was with the Snaggleback (or not, since according to @anistarrose we may have simply encountered a juvenile and not a full adult), what his words seem to imply is that demons are nocturnal, are said to cause chaos, and are made of sulfur and bone. That last bit intrigues me the most- Humans already have sulfur in our body, so that implies that demons have a particularly high ratio. That, or witches simply have little to no sulfur in their bodies, seeing as how humans aren’t from the Demon Realm and wouldn’t be included in that context.

But what about magic? I’m of the assumption that demons can’t do magic, and perhaps that’s what differentiates them from witches. However, in Covention, two witches from the Bakers Coven try to invite King, which seems useless since we know he doesn’t have a magic bile sac.

And how do we know? In Episode 8, Eda is in King’s body and attempts to cast magic while trapped at the Kitty Cafe. Eda is an incredibly skilled and experienced witch, so she’s never had an issue with the skill of casting magic, and even if King had an incredibly diminutive sac that hasn’t fully developed, it should’ve yielded at least some kind of spell. Eda states that she’s “no longer a witch” indicating she knows King isn’t, and Roselle and Dottie agree.

However, if one considers the theories about King having once been the King of Demons, and even the Boiling Isles Titan, then... he could be a one-of-a-kind person. Meaning, there’s no one like him, so no one actually knows his true capabilities and nature. However, King is certain that he was the King of Demons, so for now, let’s just say he is one.

So why would those two Baker Witches be interested in King joining, if he can’t do magic? Perhaps they don’t realize he’s not a Witch because they’ve never seen anyone else like him. Maybe it’s just a throwaway gag/joke that I’m taking too seriously. Perhaps non-witches have some value to covens as testers and voluntary subjects. Amity says the Covention is only for witches, did those two bakers just assume King was a witch because he was there? We see this guy at the Covention;

And he looks a lot like this demon;

But it’s highly likely he’s just there as a placeholder background character.

Could a demon perform magic if you transplanted a magic bile sac to their heart? If so, would ‘demon’ more specifically refer to beings who are born without magic, but still capable of it later on down the line? Eda seems to be under the impression that Luz can’t ever gain a bile sac, so presumably neither can demons, but maybe there’s a difference between human and demon anatomy to be considered.

The line blurs when we acknowledge Adegast, AKA that one-off minor villain who died in his debut. Eda calls him a puppeteer, specifically a “demon who specializes in scamming and manipulating people.” Adegast is a demon, but he can also conjure powerful illusions. Do these illusions count as magic- Specifically, illusion magic? When we first meet ‘him’ in his wizard illusion, he briefly summons two spell circles, but is that actual magic or just an illusion that looks like magic (versus actual magic that creates an illusion)? Perhaps Adegast’s illusions technically aren’t magic, at least not magic as the Boiling Isles defines it (presumably something to deal with a bile sac). If he were an Illusion Witch, why is he in the Potions business? Is it like Willow, where she was placed into a track she wasn’t good at?

We see Adegast create an illusion by spraying Luz with a cloud of smoke, and when his puppets are destroyed, they dissipate into smoke, so perhaps that’s what they all are; Just smoke and mirrors, minus the mirrors. So because Adegast’s illusions don’t come from bile, it’s not magic, ergo he’s not a witch and this lends further credence to the ‘Demons are those who can’t do magic’ theory. On another note, we see Adegast revert to a smaller ‘true’ form after being wounded by Luz... is this form the result of magic, or just an illusion or the effects of a potion?

(If his illusions don’t come from magic and he can’t perform it, then Adegast probably shouldn’t have entered the Potions business when Potion magic is such a big deal that there’s a designated major coven for it. Even if he got Eda out of the way, he’s competing with literally every other Potion Witch in the Boiling Isles, and they have the advantage of magic! Maybe he uses his illusions to make his potions seem more potent than they are, who knows? This lends to the unpleasant image of him spiking potions with his illusionary gas, but this show has always been pretty horrifying, so.)

Hooty is referred to by the Demon Hunters as a ‘house demon’. There’s the possibility that Hooty was made by Eda, since her owl constructs resemble him so much, and Hooty mentions Eda teaching him everything he knows. However, the Demon Hunters also mention removing Hooty from the house, when he IS the house... Perhaps this is a case of characters not fully understanding who they’re interacting with? We do see living alarm bells at Hexside and the Covention center, and a doorknob that tries to eat Luz in Episode 2. Could the term demon also apply to living fixtures who are made for a purpose?

If demons also refers to living beings who are made, I assume Abominations don’t count as demons because they don’t eat and thus aren’t living, which would explain that distinction.

Is that why Eda calls the Bat Queen a demon, since palismans are living beings who are made? However, we don’t know if Eda is aware of the Bat Queen’s palisman nature or not, so her being a demon could just be an assumption on Eda’s part. Palismans also presumably have magical abilities (and we see the Bat Queen appear to use a spell to bind Willow and Gus). So, CAN Demons perform magic, or is there a misconception here?

There’s also the possibility that ‘demon’ is just a catch-all term. An othering term, meant to describe anything that isn’t a witch. Only... witches come in a wide variety of appearances, some more inhuman than the rest. Are witches all the same species, and thus able to procreate with one another (and thus a demon is a being a witch couldn’t reproduce with)? Do all witches, amongst their bile sacs, share a common DNA or ancestry? Are they all the same species, merely different in appearance because that’s just the way they work, or because of magic causing changes? Or does it just refer to non-humanoids?

Maybe ‘demon’ is just a societal definition, and a loose one at that. Maybe it DOES refer to animals and beasts, but because of social biases, some characters are called demons when they’re not? Beast-keeping is a term, but Demon-keeping isn’t, as far as we know. Getting into further speculation, could ‘demon’ refer to the original inhabitants of the Boiling Isles? Could witches have come from another land beyond the bones of the titan? Are demons the creatures born directly of the titan’s flesh, or perhaps the parasites that inhabited its body? The descendants of its equivalent to gut bacteria and white blood cells? The Boiling Isles is located within the Demon Realm, which could imply they’re progenitors of some sorts. Of course, maybe demon also has multiple definitions as well.

Overall, here are my proposed ideas for what defines a ‘demon’ in the Boiling Isles;

-Not capable of magic due to lacking a bile sac

-The indigenous population of the Boiling Isles

-Wildlife in general, as well as those linked to beasts or like them

-A social term for those perceived as more animalistic, regardless of such an observation has actual scientific accuracy or not. Perhaps the social aspect of the term is also for beings who aren’t immediately identifiable, don’t belong to a specific species, are one-of-a-kind, etc. AKA it’s the Boiling Isles equivalent to the term ‘cryptid’

-Non-humanoids

-Those vulnerable to purified water, with a presumably high concentration of sulfur making up their anatomy

-Anything living that isn’t a ‘witch’, specifically the species (this applies to living constructs as well, presumably, though if it extends to Palismans is unknown)

-An unknown, perhaps yet-to-be introduced factor

-A term with various definitions and meanings depending on the context

-Some combination of the above-mentioned ideas

What do you guys think? It is worth noting that King refers to demons as “creatures like me,” which implies perhaps some shared genealogy/something objective and physical, not just societal, but who knows? Perhaps the most important question to ask is;

Am I overthinking things?

#the owl house #owl house #speculation #demons #analysis

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withthebeatlesgirls · 4 years

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I get what you mean. Although I disagree it was only a hindsight thing. Before they officially split he said to Pattie something like, "Should we get a divorce?" and I think the Mo situation happened in part bc he felt they were pretty much done at that point. When O'Dell visited him before Olivia he also said he thought it was for the best. It's possible he knew things couldn't go on at the same time as not wanting to let go. 1/2

I'm glad you made that post and agree with you overall. I'm more commenting on how Eric/Pattie painted it. To me it's like what happened with The Beatles. George knew he was miserable for years before they broke up, but he couldn't bring himself to leave due to fear of the unknown so he wasn't going to until an outside force stepped in and until then would act out through passive aggression. Hope that makes sense. 2/2

The divorce comment to me seemed just very petty, it was said in 73 on New Years and maybe trying to coax a reaction out of her because nothing else was discussed about that it seems.

Also I think it’s important to remember that George himself said he couldn’t talk about her for a long time after she left which is probably why he seemed indifferent to chris.

Now I am not trying to say George was like pining for Pattie and he was so happy with her during that time or whatever. I do think a part of him wanted her to stay and a part of him wanted her to leave, I think So Sad says it all. It’s wanting to go back to the good times but wondering if that is even possible cause it doesn’t seem like it is. I think when Pattie said she was gonna leave it kinda hit him and I think that part of him that wasn’t ready to let go came out and told her he wanted her to stay and he’d make things better.

Also, it’s possible to be hurt and devastated over a relationship ending (especially a marriage!) while also understanding that in the end it was the healthier choice. Pattie and George experienced and learned a lot in their time together, they had a real genuine deep love and what they thought what was gonna last forever didnt. There’s a lot of emotions to feel about that.

#also I still think it was a bit of a hindsight thing #cause he said they should have broken up sooner later on and I don’t think he felt that at the time #and also his reaction to the marriage ending was to go to booze women and cocaine #and he tried to make it a great Bachelor life situation but even he knew that wasn’t for him

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chibivesicle · 4 years

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Golden Kamuy chapter 237 & 238 - new alliances form and - sperm.

I’m still behind on meta writing; you’d think with more time, I could write more but I’m 100% struggling with a routine when I have no idea what day of the week is and I can’t go into work.

Chapter 237 resolves the conflict between Sugimoto and Boutarou through their underwater breath holding contest. Shiraishi cleverly suggests that it would be to their benefit to work with Boutarou as he may have a way to figure out where the gold could be.

They aren’t sure if the rumors that Boutarou spoke of are true. Sugimoto, true to form keeps his commitment to the cause of collecting the skins. He is certain that it is the only way to find the gold. I have to admit, when Sugimoto latches onto an idea, he really doesn’t budge.

The only issue with discussing these things away from Boutarou, is that they have left him to roam free about the boat. Of course the postman, had rifled through Sugimoto’s backpack and he found the possessions of Heita. The fact that they have Heita’s notes and his Ainu tobacco case and his bloody skin, would imply that Heita is likely dead at their own hands. . . .

Boutarou then uses this time to talk to his men before he approaches Sugimoto and Shiraishi to confirm how much gold there likely is - again a much higher amount than what was originally stated. This adds to the evidence that it is a very large sum of gold. Boutarou spends a fair bit of time just chatting things up with them - I guess this allows his men to get into position or is he just a chatty convict? I’m suspecting in part he’s just chatty.

Asirpa comes to the rescue as she notices that Sugimoto’s backpack is open. Meanwhile, Shiraishi and Sugimoto are dreaming of the gold in a state of euphoria and Sugimoto seems both a bit nervous based on Boutarou’s chattiness. After his excited chattiness, Boutarou breaks it to them that it is a shame they won’t be able to search for the gold together as his man pulls a revolver on them.

Shiraishi looks shocked while Sugimoto is already moving to his angry mode . . . With impeccable timing Asirpa is able to stop the man from firing his revolver by shooting one of her arrows into the revolver, blocking the revolving motion of the chambers. Yet again, Asirpa has fired an arrow in order to save Sugimoto. It is a shame that we can’t see if she removed the poison tip or not as the panel prevents us from seeing it.

She’s able to inform them that they know that Sugimoto has Heita’s possessions and his skin. Shiraishi quickly turns to grab the revolver - showing a change in his mode of fighting others instead of simply fleeing. Next to him Sugimoto is ready to go man to man with Boutarou.

With the fight on the deck, the Captain is able to turn the boat quickly enough that a tree on the edge of the river bank knocks off, the man with the gun, Boutarou and Sugimoto. There are several pages of them falling off the boat, into the water and Sugimoto and Boutarou then begin to fight while the nameless gang member got crunched by the paddle wheel.

Sugimoto is a great disadvantage in the fight with Boutarou - his entire M.O. is to drown people by being able to out swim them. Shiraishi knows this and jumps into the water with the intent to try to help Sugimoto knowing exactly what Boutarou is planning. Shiraishi attempts to perform mouth-to-mouth transfer of air for Sugimoto and instead of accepting it, he stubbornly punches Shiraishi away.

This entire fanservice scene leaves me personally with a bad taste in my mouth. Shiraishi had the best plan for the situation possible and Sugimoto refuses his help rather than “kiss” him. . . is fighting Boutarou one on one that important to Sugimoto? That stubborn?

Either way, Sugimoto is about to get his ass handed to him and he’s saved by a school of sturgeon. He stabs his bayonet into one and it pulls him along with Boutarou holding onto him. He’s lucky that Boutarou’s flowing long hair gets sucked into the paddlewheel and he’s able to surface while Boutarou fights trying to not get sucked into the wheel.

Sugimoto then returns to rescue Boutarou by cutting off his hair caught in the wheel mechanism. We then get to see that Shiraishi is just being silly somewhere around the boat swimming around while the conflict ends.

Overall, this chapter was underwhelming for me. It puts Sugimoto at a great disadvantage and only by sheer luck is he able to not die. Asirpa first saves him and Shiraishi, Shiraishi then should have helped him - but he refused and then he’s saved by random sturgeon. On top of that he lucks out and has a chance to save Boutarou instead even though if it weren’t for his crazy luck, Boutarou would have drowned him.

All we see is that Shiraishi and Asirpa are hopelessly devoted to Sugimoto. I get that they are all friends but they are smarter than he is and much more clever and if he didn’t have them he’d be dead long ago in the quest for the gold.

It is clear that this chapter will end with Boutarou - owing Sugimoto for saving him, and likely force him into an alliance out of guilt.

Chapter 238 resolves the tension between Sugimoto and Boutarou as Shiraishi has to do the talking with the paddleboat captain. They make it clear that they were just looking for Boutarou, not wanting to rob the mail and that they really didn’t mean to damage the boat.

Almost out of nowhere, Sugimoto then declares to Boutarou that he should join forces with him. Sugimoto had decided to “keep on keeping on”. Even with new information from Boutarou, he wants to continue to collect the skins. Boutarou seems far to calm during their entire exchange - he first reasons Sugimoto saved him for information . . . and Sugimoto sticks to the skin collecting idea ans Boutarou makes it clear he doesn’t want to search for convicts and that he doesn’t believe in the code being real or useful to finding the gold.

Sugimoto’s entire rationale is based on the fact that Hijikata and Tsurumi are intelligent men and they are still collecting the skins so they must be correct. It is one hell of an assumption if I may so. Yes, we as the readers as well as Sugimoto know that Asirpa remembered the code words but as far as we know she has never revealed it to anyone yet. Tsurumi’s entire plan is focused on finding Asirpa since he knows she knows the code. It it would be likely that Tsukishima told Tsurumi that he thinks she knows it based on her confrontation with Ogata on the ice floe.

Hijikata likely still knows some information that he hasn’t revealed yet from his time in prison. He plays his cards close to his chest so I’m guessing if anyone in his group knows stuff it might be Nagakura and whatever Ogata has gleaned from him.

Shiraishi is concerned about Sugimoto’s alliance with Boutarou and wonders if Sugimoto’s emotions are clouding his judgement. The fact that Sugimoto doesn’t look Shiraishi in the eyes the entire time makes me think that Sugimoto does feel some sort of connection with Boutarou.

His face is shaded and his eyes are black - does he want another showdown with Boutarou in the future as survivors of terrible diseases of the late 19th century? Both men created similar coping mechanisms to their situations.

Whatever the reason, Boutarou agrees to work with Sugimoto. Sugimoto seems to think any information gained through torture would not be reliable. Does this imply that he wants to use this an out from torturing him? That torture is a line that he won’t cross? Tsurumi tortured him, but due to his crazy pain/physical violence tolerance, Sugimoto was able to babble about not helpful information. Or it was the fact that Sugimoto was caught red-handed to to speak by Tsurumi so it really wasn’t worth it saying anything useful to him.

Boutarou seems to think very seriously before he replies to Sugimoto - and then he completely changes to a playful reply as he pats him on the back and tells him that it was his sympathy that spared him from drowning under the paddleboat.

He then very confidently replies that he understands the conditions of their deal and he will reveal all of his information when they have collected all of the skins - that is the best insurance he has. Shiraishi almost immediately has issues with this deal as he thinks they may lose the gold to him and Asirpa accuses him of wanting the gold for himself.

They are able to meet up with Vasily on the small boat as they decide to continue down to Sapporo as a group. There is another chance for Asirpa’s Ainu 101 cooking class. She’s pleasantly surprised that he remembers the hooks from whaling and they are using the same concept to catch a sturgeon. She passive-aggressively cons Sugimoto into wanting to have some sturgeon.

Boutarou immediately inquires about Sugimoto’s relationship with Asirpa. This is clearly a replay of when Ogata joined their group and watched Asirpa interacting with Sugimoto in the marsh with the crane. Sugimoto hesitantly replies that she’s his guide. Boutarou doesn’t let him get off as easily as Ogata did with the “woman he loves” comment in regards to Umeko. Boutarou makes it abundantly clear that Sugimoto’s rage indicates she’s more than a guide. Asirpa doesn’t make eye contact but her ear is red indicating that she’s still got her crush on Sugimoto. A random guy connected that Sugimoto cares about her to his actions.

They are able to catch a sturgeon and they set up a fire allowing them to dry their clothing. This scene reminds me of when Kiro saved Shiraishi from the giant fish and they made a fire to dry off/warm up and eat some fish. Asirpa is excited that they caught a sturgeon that has eggs (caviar) and that she is thrilled to eat a brain again. They sit down to enjoy the caviar and more small talk follows. Sugimoto offers the eggs to Shiraishi and Vasily while Boutarou asks her about her love of brains. She excitedly replies about how all brains taste good with salt.

Boutarou pushes it though as he asks her to confirm that she likes sharing her favorite foods with someone she likes - ‘the person you like’. Again, she blushes with embarrassment and she shoves some fish eggs into his face. This is similar to her past feedings of Shiraishi, Sugimoto and Ogata. Meanwhile, Sugimoto and Shiraishi comment on how they are delicious with raw and go well with vodka.

Not surprisingly, despite all of this delicious food, there has been no “hinna hinna” from Asirpa. Really, it looks like Ogata’s use of “hinna hinna” has ruined the phrase for her even though I still think he said it in honestly towards her. With the fact that Ogata is a shit liar of course. When will Asirpa return to saying it? When she is reunited with Ogata over a meal?

What is clear is that Boutarou has figured out the relationship between Sugimoto and Asirpa pretty damn quickly. Shiraishi has commented on how this may be a bad idea. I’m going with a hunch that it will be a bad idea and that Boutarou may likely try to do something to separate the two of them or using Asirpa as a bargaining chip against Sugimoto.

With the mention of vodka, the action turns to a boat in the Otaru harbor. On it, Sophia is enjoying some fish eggs with vodka and her men. Oh Sofia! I have missed you so much! She’s back in the game and I’m stocked to see what will happen next. She clearly has enough men in her group that they will pose a threat to those involved in the quest for the gold. Furthermore, after drinking with her me she takes some time to drink by herself. She quietly looks a small photo, she thinks back to Hasegawa’s photo studio, and the fire in the kitchen. It reveals the photo that Hasegawa took fo them ans she clearly grabbed it before it was burnt in the fire that Tsurumi set to destroy his evidence.

It clearly shows Wilk, Kiro and herself before we get a close up on her very intense looking face. Based on her furrowed brow and down turned lips that are taught, I’d say she’s planning for revenge in for the death of both of them. She’s got a plan, she’s got men and she’s going to spring to action.

The chapter then shifts to Usami and Kikuta in Sapporo. They are both appear to be well dressed men in the red light district in search of our “jack the ripper” character. Usami is looking around a previous crime scene while Kikuta wonders if questioning other prostitutes would be are more useful avenue.

Recall, that Tsurumi paired these two up stating that Usami would have a special skill set in finding the convict. The next several pages have Usami masturbating at the crime scene as he tries to determine what would feel right for the killer while Kikuta watches on in shock and horror. Somehow using his magical masturbatory skills Usami is able to try to determine where the killer have gotten off to his crime.

After testing his hypothesis so to speak Usami ends up following his own ejaculate (I cannot believe I just typed that! thanks Noda!) to find the killer’s. Kikuta is rightly appalled, but Usami is far too into his detective work!

What is clear is that Usami and the killer both seem to get off on violence - he then proceeds to poke at the killer’s semen and tries to date it. At the same time Kikuta is horrified and is worried about him picking up a STI.

Usami declares that the killer returns to the scene of the crime to get off, so he predicts he will return that very night. Usami has rocked Kikuta to his core - he doesn’t believe it and he can only admit that he’s one hell of a semen detective. He also determines what Tsurumi meant by him being useful. This 100% makes sense since Tsurumi knows that Usami always returned to the scene of the crime; in regards to the loss of his killing virginity when he beat his “best” friend in judo. Kikuta is partly there, he only can conclude that Usami can think like the killer - what he doesn’t realize is that Usami 100% thinks the same way as the killer - as he is just the same as the killer.

It ends with Usami figuring things out one more time as Kikuta is still in shock. The chapter ends with the serial killer jerking himself off at the same place as Usami does the same thing to get into the “zone” to speak.

And with that the chapter dramatically ends with mutual masturbation of Usami and the unknown convict.

This chapter gives us a few main points.

1.) Boutarou reads people well - he almost immediately determines that Sugimoto sees Asirpa as a special person to protect like family. That Asirpa has a crush on Sugimoto and that Sugimoto likely isn’t quite aware of what it means. Shiraishi mentioning aligning themselves with Boutarou may be a mistake likely indicates to me it will be a mistake. Sugimoto never listens to Shiraishi . . . Boutarou will almost use Asirpa as a part of his plan in the future.

2.) Asirpa’s lack of “hinna hinna” continues. Yep, she just had some sturgeon brains, fish eggs and is back in her element of eating but no mention of her “hinna hinna”. The last time they said it was when she was with Ogata, Kiro and Shiraishi before they broke Sofia out of prison. This is a complicated ritual for her - did Ogata cheapen it for her? Or did she realize she doesn’t deserve to say it after she almost killed Ogata? Was Kiro’s death too much for her? She remembered the code with Sofia and his help but she was unable to do anything for him. She saw a possible fate being an Ainu fighting imperialism - keeping her habit of saying “hinna hinna” may be a reaction to all of the fallout.

3.) Sofia has a plan. No one has such a facial expression unless that character has a plan in mind. We know that Sofia is a capable and natural leader. She intends to end whatever it was that Wilk and Kiro started. Asirpa said that Sofia will find her when she needs to. With Sofia in Otaru she gets closer to the action. I can’t wait to see what happens and I want Sofia to chat with Ogata.

4.) Gross masturbation humor sells - or something. Usami is using his weird habit of linking violence to sexual pleasure to find the serial killer. I really don’t get this, but I’ll just roll with it. At least we got to see Kikuta as a well dressed man. I approve of Kikuta in nice clothing.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Stay safe people!

#golden kamuy #golden kamuy meta #sugimoto saichi #asirpa #Shiraishi Yoshitake #hijikata toshizo #tsurumi tokushirou #warrant officer kikuta #Usami Tokishige #sofia #tsukishima hajime #ogata hyakunosuke #wilk #kiroranke #boutarou the pirate

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mbti-notes · 4 years

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(1/8) Yayy, I love Fleabag and I love your blog and everything you write, so I hope you're up for a discussion of your typings (and I hope all the asks come through). Agree about Fleabag, the Godmother and Harry's (his frequent breakups with Fleabag seemed INFJ door slams, but his endgame points to Si) typings. Boo and Fleabag seemed to have been the sort of BFFs who matched because their personalities were quite similar... What made you conclude ESFP rather than ENFP? Same goes for Martin...

Boo’s interests are all concrete, her thinking is always immediate and short-term, Ni grip was apparent in her hasty death.

Same goes for Martin. While I see signs of tertiary Fe in his deliberate manipulation of Claire and pleasure at bringing Fleabag down, and also the overall recklessness of unhealthy EPs, I couldn’t be sure whether he was Se or Ne dom.

I see no evidence of dominant Ne nor inferior Si but many vulgarities and desires that are indicative of unhealthy Se.

What about the Bank Manager? My memory of series one is fuzzy, but he makes an effort to work things out with Fleabag (and women in general) even if he judges too quickly, which could point at aux/tert Te-Fi, I guess.

He is honest and straightforward, no pretension, but severely limited in his perspective. His moral reasoning ability is rather rudimentary, which makes F unlikely. His life is in a deep rut and he is drawn to Fleabag because she is his opposite and helps spark his lower function development. She comes to symbolize the key to understanding his failures and frustrations (both in terms of how he treats women and his lack of function development), therefore, helping her succeed is also helping himself find his own way. He’s reconciling who he is by reckoning with his past mistakes through Fleabag.

The Father clearly struggles with expressing his feelings. He wants to communicate better with Fleabag, but he understands and prefers Claire (a T), so probably IxTx, perhaps Ti-Fe if we consider the main issues presented in the story plus the fact that he quickly fell for Godmother, a Fe dom? I’d like to know your reasoning for him. Anyway, I’d typed Claire and the Priest as ISTJ and ENFJ respectively, and these ones I was sure to have gotten right. xSTJ was clear for Claire, and episode 203 was the one that cemented her as ISTJ for me. She is constantly anxious and full of routines and rituals and micromanages everything, from actions to looks to even jokes, implying a lot of overthinking (I); she clashes with Fleabag because she’s insecure about the possibility of not being as interesting and funny as Fleabag (tertiary Fi). Also, she tries to pretend that she enjoyed the night, that her marriage is going well and that she thinks Fleabag kissed Martin rather than the opposite because of Si’s need to maintain security and stability and not lose what she’s conquered. By accepting her individuality, her feelings and the possibility of something better for herself, she takes action to improve her life, which implied much needed extraverted development. Also, most ESTJs I’ve met, despite being control freaks privately, are more adaptable and relaxed as well, especially in public (higher Te-Ne).

The show centers around Fleabag’s dysfunction. In Si grip, Fleabag tries to pinpoint Boo’s death (and her own hand in causing it) as the “point of origin” but her problems go far deeper than that, all the way back to her family relationships. Everyone in the family is equally messed up despite appearances. The show doesn’t go very far into the historical causes of their collective dysfunction, but it does a good job of illustrating the dysfunctional patterns as they exist in the present. The characters are largely products of old family patterns, therefore, it’s hard to understand each member individually without the context of their collective family dynamic.

A very common family dynamic involves projecting all of the family’s history of dysfunction onto the “weakest link”, aka, the black sheep. The black sheep is usually “chosen” according to their so-called inferiority for failing to live up to the family’s unspoken values, then they are routinely criticized and shamed for being something that is perceived as contrary to the family’s survival and well-being. Over time, this dynamic places an unspoken duty/expectation onto the black sheep, namely that they should always be “the one that ruins everything” whenever the family requires a scapegoat to deflect responsibility for dysfunctional behavior. Fleabag is obviously the black sheep, so everyone uses her as the punchline (for easing tension), the punching bag (for displacing their frustration), and the punch down (for a cheap win during power struggles).

As a defense mechanism, Fleabag believes that she is actually the superior member of the family because she’s “clever” enough to see through people’s fakery or hypocrisy. Despite the concrete proof of her own life being a total mess, she likes to think of herself as being more self-aware than others, i.e., she implicitly blames her life failures on the fact that she can’t fake it or lie to herself like everyone else. However, she doesn’t realize that playing the black sheep role is her form of self-deception. She is deeply caught up in a logical contradiction of knowing she is less than but also believing herself better than, and we see this over and over again in her asides to the audience. By exercising crude power in exposing other people’s fakery, she doesn’t have to look at her own and expose herself, and this plays perfectly into the family pattern that always ends up ricocheting back onto her. Whenever she exposes anything resembling the truth of the family’s dysfunction, regardless of whether she does it kindly or maliciously, she is roundly blamed for “acting out”, being “cruel”, “screwing up”, “ruining everything”, etc etc. The family immediately comes together to activate the scapegoating pattern and, in the end, nothing changes and the pattern repeats the next time they get together. Her twisted way of “caring” for her family is to play the black sheep, and their twisted way of “bonding” is to collectively reinforce their status as not the black sheep.

When people treat you like a black sheep long enough, you believe it and it becomes your identity, and playing this role so well leads her to blow up all of her relationships outside of the family. In accumulating many failed relationships, it’s very easy to slide into settling for less or settling for what you think you deserve, and she has been trained over a lifetime to feel less than deserving. As a defense mechanism, she’s romantically attracted to people who aren’t capable of knowing who she really is, which in turn gives her justification for blowing up each relationship as they are always shallow and meaningless anyway. But this automatic and destructive pattern hits rock bottom when she destroys the only person who’s managed to really know her. She then gradually becomes more aware that she’s repeating unconscious conditioning and could perhaps choose otherwise, but ingrained patterns are hard to change without help and guidance, which eventually invites the influence of the priest.

You might think that their father bears the brunt of the blame for the family being so dysfunctional, but he has plenty of his own unresolved issues that make him more like a child than a parent. The show does not offer any explanation for him but everyone has a history. It seems that he has always been emotionally absent and socially inept in that he allowed their mother to do all of the parenting and caregiving. He is not aggressive, obsessive, or controlling as you would expect for unhealthy TJs, rather, he is detached, distant, avoidant, and indifferent. When you talk to him face-to-face, there is some natural warmth there, but once you are out of his sight, you are out of his mind. You know that he loves you in his way, you know that he tries to empathize, but you also know that he utterly fails to understand anything about you no matter how hard either side tries to bridge the gap. It’s hard to fault him for what is clearly a “disability”? Because of his ineptitude, he traps himself in a codependent relationship with his shadow opposite type, a narcissistic person who calls all the shots in the relationship so that he never has to lift a finger, i.e., he never ever has to bear moral responsibility for anything, and taken to an absurd conclusion, he lives in a pitiful state of learned helplessness. You never have to feel bad if you never do anything, right? Wrong, he is still guilty of sins of omission, and for that he’s never able to truly be at ease no matter what he does to shed away every difficulty. Ideally, a good stepmom takes care of the step-kids, but he was not lucky enough to snag one, so he must accede to the bad stepmom’s judgment or else, heaven forbid, he loses his easy life by having to take responsibility for the girls on his own.

Unhealthy TPs need uptight Js to help them keep life in order, but they often prefer Ps for their amusing company. The father does not “prefer” Claire for what/who she is, rather, he merely appreciates that she doesn’t make any trouble for him, which he wants to believe absolves him of blame. He can say, “See, I have one good daughter, so it’s not my fault that the other one is bad”. There are many parallels between Claire and her father in how they approach relationships very passively and helplessly. Deep down, his heart actually prefers Fleabag for the fact that she more closely resembles her mother and the fact that she is braver than him and challenges him (to be better). He wishes to have a better relationship with her, similar to what he must’ve had with her mother, but he’s unfortunately incapable of containing the dysfunction that bad parenting and unresolved grief has wrought upon her.

You say that Claire should be more flexible if tertiary Ne, but why would you expect her to have any healthy functions? She clearly suffers inferior grip quite often and thus cannot use any of her functions optimally. Every SJ with unhealthy Si-Ne uses micromanagement of routines/rituals as a crutch, so this is true for both dominant and auxiliary Si - your claim here only proves SJ. She’s just as fucked up as Fleabag is, only she is better at repressing her feelings, and for this alone, ISTJ is very unlikely. ISTJs are introverts and they prefer to give up and be at peace rather than double and triple down on stupid behavior in the manner that Claire often does. Her main problem in life is that everything she does to “manage” situations results in her betraying herself in some way, which is strongly indicative of infantile Fi. I disagree that stubbornness is her fatal flaw ala Si-Fi loop; if that were the case, she’d be more than happy to give up everything to Fi loop and disappear into the background. She would also never ever go near Fleabag nor trust her with anything due to the fact that she has already encountered countless past experiences of Fleabag blowing up situations in awful and unpredictable ways. ISTJs are at their least forgiving and never forget whenever it comes to delegating important tasks.

I argue that what gets Claire truly upset is not being unprepared for “all negative possibilities in the abstract” but rather the possibility of LOSING FACE, i.e., being publicly humiliated and exposed as the uncool simpering hypocrite that she is, which is indicative of deep-seated fear of Fi (she envies Fleabag for her “cool” factor for this reason). Unhealthy Te doms, falling apart internally, are still capable of maintaining functionality in external life far longer than other types. She suffers from serious grip problems but still manages to perform her duties at home and at work, which simply wouldn’t be possible for Ne grip. With Fi grip, she instantly switches to very ugly self-pity and irrationally self-protective behavior when threatened by anything. Her instinct upon feeling the vulnerability of exposure is to go on and on and on about how “successful” she is, which usually includes a few rounds of punching down at everyone in an attempt to disown her bad decision making. ISTJs are rarely capable of bullshitting themselves to that extreme; they are more likely to react with humility and even resignation when presented with incontrovertible proof of their failures (see: Bank Manager).

Claire was probably expected to be “the responsible one” (aka elder/caregiver sibling archetype) because there was no one else to take responsibility. However, at this point in her life, she has achieved enough career success to be independent from the family. The fact that she can’t help herself from enacting her old role speaks to the lack of self-insight that is characteristic of inferior Fi, i.e., as much as she complains about hating the pressures and headaches of being “the responsible one”, she unconsciously LOVES it because it grants her a superior position in the family. She’s not willing to give up the pain because she’s not willing to give up the payoff, and this internal love-hate contradiction is what makes her relationship with Fleabag dysfunctional despite the love and affection they have for each other. I don’t think ISTJs are able to bear such obvious internal contradiction and still manage to claim integrity. ISTJs find it much more painful, if not impossible, to pretend and posture for the sake of appearances, because they are supremely stubborn people when it comes to preserving their subjective sense of integrity. By contrast, inferior Fi makes it very easy to ignore subjective integrity and choose destructive methods of obtaining feelings of power and superiority, hence she ends up betraying her own well-being all the time.

As for the Priest, we both agree on him being a Fe dom. What made me choose Ni rather than Si is that he admitted to have been quite a different person in the past by alluding to his many sexual experiences, probably a hint of Se as well. But then he met God and everything took a 180 for him (N, not S), implying that he was uncomfortably adrift for a while and needed a sense of meaning and a clear vision of his path ahead to feel whole (Ni). Also, PWB has said that Fleabag was drawn to the Priest because he has an established sense of purpose, which she’s been looking for, which highlights their P vs J and Ne vs Ni differences. You could argue that he was drawn to her because of tertiary Ne, but I don’t see signs of Si’s typical grounded outlook (he uses a lot of abstractions to explain his ideas) or typical adherence to traditions (the path to his faith wasn’t primarily through this motivation as it happens to many) or typical narrow-mindedness (quite the opposite, he used to be quite open to experiences due to Fe+Se). Oh, and I forgot to mention, the Priest can read and understand Fleabag so well that he even gets to enter her internal world and listen to her personal thoughts. To be able to understand people with this level of depth is, of course, more natural for xNFJs rather than xSFJs, who help people on a more practical level (Fe+Ni v Fe+Si).

I think your understanding of Si is still quite stereotypical. ESFJs have a common pattern of using Ne to “find themselves” only to end up lost because what they’re really doing is Ne loop. ESFJs tend to grow up feeling very pressured to be rule abiders and it is common for them to go through a rebellious stage a bit later in life compared to other types, once the pressure finally reaches a breaking point. After swinging from the painful oppression of “rule observant” behavior in youth to the painful failures of “rule breaking” behavior in young adulthood, they eventually boomerang back to old touchstones, i.e., they ground themselves by rediscovering comfort in the known. IIRC, the priest felt lost and eventually revisited religion for guidance, he made the beliefs his own rather than blindly following dogma, and he chose to commit his life to doing good because HE genuinely wanted to, not because family/society told him to. A healthy ESFJ establishes a stronger sense of self once they reconcile with the past and make “rule following” more palatable by turning it into a personal choice (rather than feeling obligated to constantly self-sacrifice). I disagree that he “transformed” from one person into a completely different one, I think it’s more accurate to say that he had no idea who he was and got increasingly lost until he discovered himself by looking backward and making sense of his past experience.

Religion is an abstract concept, there’s no avoiding abstract discussions about religious beliefs when you’re debating a non-believer, especially when that non-believer is Ne dom. Ne is tertiary and people often use tertiary functions for relief, therefore, ESFJs tend to enjoy abstract discussions, especially of the Ne variety that is full of humor and playfulness, exactly like the kind that he gets with Fleabag. I dare you to try joking around with a “true believer” ENFJ. Their beliefs are deadly serious to them, so they show far less patience for sacrilegious play (unless, for some reason, they have developed an irrational fear of being criticized as dogmatic and pretend to be open-minded). Also, why would an *N*FJ be shocked and alarmed or seem resistant to using intuition to “read” people? Why would their intuition seem so painfully accidental? NFJs generally LIKE using intuition and do it naturally as part of who they are, they embrace it and feel more confident the more they are in touch with it.

Ns tend to speak in abstractions but not everyone who speaks in abstractions is N, similarly, every NJ needs a sense of purpose but not everyone who seeks a purpose is NJ -> beware this logical fallacy: “every cat has four legs but not every four-legged creature is a cat”. NJs need a purpose for materializing their personal potential, SJs seek a purpose for the sake of grounding themselves in something unshakable within - you point out the behavior without grasping the true motivation. When ESFJs develop Si well, they recognize that what makes them happy is to be of service, to be a positive contributor to their community, to be a reliable source of help and comfort to those in need. He is not a charismatic and boastful preacher of the ENFJ sort, rather, he sees himself as a humble servant who uses reliable traditional beliefs to help ground people who feel lost in hectic modern life, using his own past experience as the starting point. The fact that he has the strength to end the relationship with Fleabag before it becomes negative and destructive is a testament to Si steadfastness and how strongly the rules matter to him (Ns are very masterful at rationalizing that the rules don’t apply to them, and that’s often how they end up in bad places). Why would you expect him to display all sorts of negative signs of Si if he is meant to be the positive moral guidance for the show? And wouldn’t it make sense for him to use his well-developed Si to reveal to Fleabag the true extent of her dysfunctional Si? Would an ENFJ instinctively know better than an ESFJ how to remedy Si specific identity dysfunction?

Can you please allow us to submit things to you? In the case of long asks like mine, it helps to avoid any part not getting sent.

I have considered this before but I’m not sure I want to do that.

#fleabag #fiction #fictional depictions #enfp #estj #esfj #ask

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lightsandlostbells · 5 years

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Druck season 2, episode 2 reaction

Carmen might as well become the sixth ranger of the girl squad.

Episode 2

Clip 1 - Last-minute gift options

Mia’s reading in bed. Seems like a nice, relaxing afternoon. She checks her phone, where are messages from the girls. They’re talking about the meetup at Hanna’s place, which will include a Secret Santa. Mia is suddenly not relaxed, because she forgot to get a Secret Santa gift. D’oh!

Making it even worse, she had drawn Kiki’s name! Better get her something good to make up for your fight, Mia.

She goes through her drawers and her books, searching for a last-minute gift that she can hand to Kiki. One option is The Little Prince. Another is “Eating decently” and ohhhhh boy, as much as I think Mia might want to give that to her, I’m sure she knows it’ll cause drama. (Also, another nod to Mia has dealing with eating-related issues herself.)

She goes to her computer and types in “printable gift cards for a friend” which might be kinda on the nose since I’d probably just type in like “(store name)” and find a gift card from an actual shop, but I get what she means. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

I was kinda wondering why she didn’t haul ass to a store to pick out something quickly, so I looked it up, and most German shops are closed on Sundays, when this clip aired. There are eight Sundays a year when Berlin stores can be open on Sundays, including that Sunday (December 23) but they’re only open from 13:00 to 20:00, and Mia has to be at Hanna’s at 12:00. The more you know, for people from cultures where this isn’t the norm! Germans, feel free to weigh in or correct me.

I actually loved this small scene, though. I like that we’re seeing Mia not on top of everything, since the Noora characters are so frequently presented as something like an ideal girl. In Eva’s season she’s the cool new girl that Eva’s desperate to befriend, in Sana’s season she’s the perfect pretty blonde Norwegian (viewed with frustration by Sana, but also supported by the narrative). In Noora’s/Mia’s own seasons, we’re obviously getting a look into their less perfect parts, seeing them from a different POV, but this moment with Mia feels very mundane, like I don’t recall Noora flubbing like this, just a simple common mistake. Other than forgetting to fix her lipstick after William make-outs. Speaking of...

Clip 2 - That lipstick’s gonna bite Mia in the ass

The girls are drinking mulled wine and doing their Secret Santa. Hanna opens her gift. It’s a stuffed camel. Carmen?? The legend herself???

Actually it’s Carmen 2.0! This one less used, which I’m sure Hanna appreciates. Hanna can’t climax when she tries to get herself off, she has trouble relaxing (a throwback to that S1 scene where the girls help Kiki relax before meeting with Alex, as is Carmen of course) so Carmen 2.0 is a tool to help her. Lmao, well, that’s actually a thoughtful present. Nice work, Sam!

Kiki had drawn Mia for Secret Santa. She got her a nice red lipstick. It’s about three times as expensive as what they meant for Secret Santa, but Kiki just had to get it for Mia, it suited her so well. Mia protests a little, but Kiki says it’s also an apology for being so bitchy. Ouch. Just rub it in a little for Mia, making it worse that she forgot Kiki’s gift.

She puts on the lipstick and the girls approve. You know that lipstick is gonna come back to haunt Mia. I can see it happening: either Mia gets the lipstick smeared over her mouth after making out with Alex, or Alex gets the lipstick smeared over his mouth and Kiki sees it.

Mia hands Kiki her gift certificate. It’s a generic shopping voucher for 10 euro. Kiki is polite, but seems disappointed at such an impersonal present. Should’ve gone with The Little Prince, Mia!

Kiki’s gift was more than the agreed amount, because she wanted to get Mia a present that was perfect for her. Mia’s gift was the minimum amount and showed the minimum thought. I’m sure if Mia had remembered to do Secret Santa ahead of time, she would have gotten Kiki something better, but from Kiki’s perspective, I wonder if she has doubts that Mia cares about her as much as she cares about Mia. Combine that with Mia clearly disapproving of some things Kiki is doing - even if Mia has good reasons for that, I can see Kiki perhaps not feeling that Mia likes her very much right now. Not that she hates her, but that Mia doesn’t respect Kiki or take her seriously. Which is never going to feel more evident to Kiki than when she learns about Mia and Alex, probably.

Clip 3 - Christmas Eve dinner

Mia sits on the couch as Hanna and her dad get ready for Christmas Eve dinner. Hanna’s dad is impressed that Mia seems to know a little about art, like wow, one of Hanna’s friends is interested in something besides Instagram! Well, I like Hanna’s dad, but I’m sure her friends can talk about other stuff if he asked them their thoughts.

Hanna and her dad get into a spat where he complains that she talked to him for five minutes but spent 3 hours looking at Instagram, and she snarks back that the food must have cooked itself. I love bearing witness to other families being passive-aggressive to each other, it doesn’t make me squirm at all! I’m sure Mia feels the same way!

Mia brings up that the Banksy campaign that the dad mentioned involved posting people’s reactions on Instagram. So, a nice attempt to bridge Hanna and her dad’s argument. (She also said that she didn’t like to cook at all, and while that may be true, it also feels like trying to downplay herself to play up with Hanna did.) Hanna is happy, but pushes it too far by telling her dad he doesn’t know anything. Her dad meanwhile says that Mia used an argument and didn’t get offensive.

I’ve been in this situation before, where a friend’s parents were far more polite to me than their own kids since I was a guest, and man, it can be so awkward, because you don’t want to offend the parents but you don’t want to hang your friends out to dry. Mia handled it pretty well, I think. Though this setup makes me think again of how Mia is the golden girl, loved by parents, too (except her own), much like that group chat where she was told she could be anything while her friends were all getting microaggressions from advisers.

The tension worsens as the phone starts ringing. I think it’s the dad’s new wife who’s worried about the kid being sick? Hanna gets up and walks off. I’m on team Hanna’s dad here if a relative is is ill; however, I get why Hanna would react like this. She cooked and set up the meal apparently, and her dad instead goes to talk to his “new” family, which is already a sore spot. Dad follows her, leaving Mia alone as he and Hanna argue. Ohhhh my God, I have been in Mia’s position before and it’s the worst. I get that sometimes shit just happens but it always annoys me when people can’t save their petty, recurring arguments for when the guests leave. It puts everyone else in an uncomfortable position because mostly you sit there in silence, wanting to leave. Unless suddenly they want you to weigh in and take sides and THAT is the worst.

Axel texts Merry Christmas to Mia. Mia doesn’t answer at first, but then looks at her phone again. It’s Axel in a red and white striped sweater, with Toilet Sam and his family. That’s a nice detail, that Axel is tight with Sam’s family rather than his own. I always felt we needed more of glimpses into the William/P-Chris friendship since honestly that seemed to be the best, most stable relationship in his life. And I know we didn’t leave Alex on the best terms, but the Waldo reference is genuinely funny, sorry.

Mia asks if he got adopted, and Alex says, I wish, which is a nice little hint at his shitty family. Toilet Sam’s family seem like a cute, happy bunch, by the way!

When she explains her situation, Alex asks whether she’s a Christmas refugee, too. Again, a nice observation, that both he and Mia come from bad and negligent family situations. (One of my favorite tropes is when people who have crappy family situations manage to create a functioning home in each other. I don’t think Axel and Mia are going to scratch that itch due to the other drama with them and their overall dynamic, but I enjoy that concept).

Mia says if he says they should look for other similarities between them, she’ll report him for harassment, which I think is a nod to the singalong scene in season 1. Alex is like, should we joke about something so serious? He says they can find more serious topics to joke about on a date, Mia is like, nope! Hanna and her dad come back, with their argument resolved (for now) and everyone sits down to have a happy Christmas Eve dinner.

Why did Mia engage in this conversation with Alex? I mean, we know that despite herself, Mia is into Alex. Her disgust and irritation at parts of him are real, but you can’t deny that she’s also contacting him to continue their debates (the Israel discussion was continued via text message). And I think in this instance, her being an outsider in Hanna’s home, and dealing with this family argument she’s not part of, where she’s hungry, might actually push her to answer Alex just so she’s not sitting there bored and frustrated and starving at the table.

I have to say, if you take this scene alone, out of the larger context of Mia and Alex and Kiki and everything that goes with that situation, there are some good moments in their conversation. The Waldo reference is cute and we saw a point of connection between Mia and Alex both being Christmas refugees. But ... Alex is with Kiki at this point, and he’s asking Mia for a date. He’s approaching it easily, with flirting and jokes. That’s incredibly shady of him, it’s hurtful to Kiki. Even if he’s not obligated to have a serious relationship with her, he does owe her respect. There are some aspects where I think Alex has improved on William’s behavior, but this isn’t one of them; this is actually worse, because while William used his contact with Vilde to get Noora into the date, he wasn’t actually hooking up with her at the time. Alex has some sort of arrangement with Kiki going on and he’s still doing this. It’s very dishonest and shows a lack of respect for Kiki’s feelings.

And now Mia is engaging in this flirtation! She knows this isn’t right, she has to, but she’s not ignoring him. She can probably justify it in her head as innocent, but we know it’s not. This is wrong of her. Even apart from the flirting, she knows that Alex is willing to throw aside Kiki just like that. Shouldn’t that reveal enough about his character? If she thinks Alex is making Kiki’s eating issues worse, what about this proof in front of her face of just how easily he’ll discard her?

Clip 4 - Mia’s parents

The clip is called “Hetero Hans,” lmao.

I super dig Mia going for her phone and sliding across the floor in her socks.

She gets a video call from her parents. It’s friendly at first and then they start getting passive-aggressive.They guilt her about not being with them for Christmas, they complain about this becoming an argument again. You can tell this is a usual cycle for them. Kind of interesting how Hanna’s dad praised Mia while he and Hanna fought, and here’s Mia fighting with her own parents. That’s pretty typical for families, but I think Mia’s issues are more severe than usual. Obviously most kids don’t move away from their parents like Mia did unless there’s a big reason.

Mia tells them she spent Christmas with Hanna and her dad. When Mia has to remind them who Hanna is, Mia’s mom says, Oh, the chubby one! Mia gets upset and says Hanna isn’t chubby, but even if she was, what kind of statement is that? Things get tense again and Mia is going to end the call.

You know, Mia’s parents should probably know to be sensitive about this issue considering Mia’s ED. Unless they don’t know about it. Whatever the case, you can imagine that these kinds of comments perhaps encouraged Mia’s eating issues.

Mia’s parents complain that she always does this and attacks them. They said it was embarrassing when their friends or whoever learned they didn’t celebrate Christmas together. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but it’s telling that they’re embarrassed because other people learned they don’t celebrate together, rather than being hurt about Mia not wanting to be with them. It seems more about their public image than their connection to their daughter.

Hans goes into the bedroom looking like Clark Kent. He does an Eskild-worthy pop round the door and flings himself onto Mia’s bed.

Hans had to dress “straight” to visit his family. He’s out to his family, but it’s too hard to be his usual self (flamboyant) in front of his older and right-wing relatives, so he’s “straightened” himself up. If he looks more stereotypically hetero, he can avoid the conversations about why gay people just can’t be normal. So there’s no stress. Hans has been delivering this in a more light-hearted way, but it’s clear there’s some sadness involved, that he’s out of the closet but still can’t be himself with his family.

Wow. I really love this detail. Not that it’s great for Hans, but that it’s a great observation about how one of the ways gay people have to deal with homophobia - he has to be a more “respectable” gay person who tries too adopt more “straight” mannerisms and style. It goes perfectly with Eskild’s Pride speech from S3, when Isak tries to do the same thing and distance himself from those super gay guys with their tights and mascara, although Isak himself has those hangups and with Hans it’s more about self-preservation - he clearly doesn’t want to do it. I already can’t wait to see Hans and Matteo interact more, I hope Druck gets to S3 so we can see Hans’ take on that speech.

Also, Mia’s parents asked who that was, which might have been because they didn’t recognize Hans in his hetero ensemble, but also maybe because they’re so out of the loop they don’t know the guy their daughter is living with.

Hans plays it off again, though, and he and Mia hug. Awww. Nice parallel to their family situations in this clip - Mia also has to “play nice” with her folks. They’re castoffs as well. I’m sure they’d rather celebrate Christmas with each other rather than their parents.

Clip 5 - Alex’s gift

The girls go shopping after Christmas. It’s almost comically picturesque how they walk together arm in arm. Sam and Kiki are even skipping!

We see Kiki looking in the lingerie shop window and gesturing, probably telling Sam about her plans to bra shop when she gets her breast implants, as it turns out.

Apparently the girls are going to Hanna’s grandma’s cabin for the week of New Year’s. Nice! I guess that’s how we’re getting the slumber party scene.

As they’re walking by the lingerie shop, Sam asks Kiki if they should go in, since she’ll be needing new bras soon. That gives the other girls pause. Sam thinks she might have given away Kiki’s secret. Kiki tries to go away and change the subject, but Amira grabs her arm and wants to know the secret. Little detail, but Kiki suggests they go to another store because “Alex doesn’t like her perfume.” And it just makes me so deeply sad, because on the one hand, stuff like this sometimes gets brought up in relationships, and if your perfume irritates your partner, it’s not entirely unreasonable to stop using it when you’re with them. But I also know how thoroughly Kiki values Alex’s opinion, how she wants his approval, so in context of everything else, it’s Kiki trying to change herself based on what Alex likes, not what she does.

Mia even jokes that Kiki better not be getting breast surgery, and Amira laughs with her. However, it’s no joke, as Kiki says that Alex got her a voucher for breast surgery for Christmas.

That sound you heard was the RECORD SCRATCH in my head. It reverberated internationally.

Mia is like … seriously? I can tell that Kiki really doesn’t want this conversation with Mia in particular. It’s telling that Sam was the only one she’s told; she probably knew the other girls might not be so receptive to the gift. She says that she and Alex were talking about body parts they didn’t like, and he said he wanted better beard growth, and that she’d like to buy new breasts. She forgot about the conversation until she got the voucher a few days ago. Kiki knows that the girls don’t seem cool with this, but she points out, it’s a little bit cute, right? Mia is like, sure, “cute.” When Hanna asks if Kiki is really going to do it, Kiki is like, “NO! …. Well, why not?”

Sam is all on board with this plan. Hell fucking yeah, that’s an expensive surgery, go for it! Kiki points out it’s even cheaper if you use your own fat and ohhhh fuck, that’s even worse. I bet that seems like a 2-for-1 deal to Kiki: get rid of the fat from somewhere else on her body, her stomach or thighs or wherever they’d take it from, and put it somewhere more “acceptable” like her breasts.

Mia has more questions, but Kiki says that she’s 18 and can make her own decisions, and that she’s not doing it for Alex but for herself. Mia responds that Kiki is doing it because men talk us into believing that big breasts are beautiful. Kiki says that women talk about it too, Mia says yeah, because men convinced us of it.

Amira intervenes and says that she’s on the side of women, and if a woman wants to change something about her body, then it’s her body. Her cousin had lip surgery, for example, I guess because she had a complex about it? I mean, then you should ask why she had a complex about her lips in the first place, and where that dissatisfaction came from.

Mia says she doesn’t reject plastic surgery in general, but she wants them to see what Alexander is doing. Before Mia can explain more, Amira more or less cuts her off and is like, it’s cool he’s paying!

Hanna tries to put a stop to this argument and suggests they continue shopping, but Mia lingers behind as the girls go ahead. There’s a nice shot of her in front of the lingerie shop window, with the mannequin in the bra hovering over Mia’s shoulder. Kinda like a weird angel on the shoulder. Those breasts are prompting Mia to take action, basically.

Mia texts Axel and calls him out for the gift. Axel’s like, what’s the big deal? It was her wish and the doctor is his uncle. She yells at him to stop, she knows what he’s doing. (A Santa walks by behind her, lmao.) She says he’s only doing this to provoke her. Alexander replies with a 🤔 emoji.

After clarifying that Alex will end this thing with Kiki if Mia meets with him, she agrees to meet with him on Friday. Mia looks off screen, toward Kiki up ahead, before she types her decision.

Ohhhhh boy what to unpack here.

There was a lot of discourse and discussion following this scene. I’m not sure I can add anything that hasn’t been mentioned. When it comes to feminism and plastic surgery - and makeup, and anything else to do with appearances that mainly affects women and achieving the ideal, or at least a more appealing look - there’s this complicated mix of personal feelings and individual choices versus societal norms and patriarchal pressure. Because while Mia may be confronting Kiki in a way that’s unlikely to be productive, she’s not wrong about the influence of society on body image, particularly the influence of patriarchy on what women “should” look like. It’s not fun to think about our cosmetic choices being influenced by forces other than ourselves, but it’s a necessity if we’re going to talk about feminism and body image in a way that yields constructive change. I like to paint my nails. No one’s making me do it. But I also didn’t get that idea in a vacuum. And that’s a fun thing that I do to my appearance, not something I dislike but feel obligated to do. I also pluck or wax the hairs on my face. I inspect my chin multiple times a day. My tweezers get used almost as much as my toothbrush. No one is holding a gun to my head when I do this. But I know it’s not acceptable in society for a woman to have hairs on her chin or above her lip, and that I would be judged if I went out and had stubble. I could face negative effects in a professional setting. If I grew up in a society where women’s facial hair was seen as normal as men’s and they walked around with it, it’s doubtful I would go through the pain, or the time and money consumption, of plucking or waxing, because it wouldn’t occur to me that there was anything wrong with having facial hair in the first place.

And I get where Amira is coming from, because regardless of societal norms, we also have individual choices. Shaming or judging one woman for her choices, even if we think they go along with the demands of a sexist system, is not going to dismantle the patriarchy. Mia’s approach is not the best; she would be better off treating Kiki as an individual, asking her why she wants big breasts, rather than going at this from the more confrontational angle about societal sexism that’s going to likely make Kiki dismiss her comments and put her on the defensive. I mean, no one wants to be told they’re brainwashed by the patriarchy, lol. The way Mia reacted was probably exactly what Kiki expected and dreaded. But I also think Amira’s comments are on the simplistic side, overall.

In the first season, Amira actually takes the opposite stance from Kiki. When Kiki sends nude pics to Alex, Amira objects strongly, and when Kiki says that women can do whatever they want with their bodies, attributing it to feminism, Amira says it has nothing to do with feminism. Now, you could take that as some kind of character progression (and I would hope that this isn’t the case, because there are some dodgy implications there) but I think maybe it’s just inconsistent writing. They might have needed someone to stand as a “voice of reason” besides Mia, taking the opposing side, and the other clear voice of reason in the group is Amira. I do appreciate the attempt to show the issue as nuanced, but I’m not sure how much I buy the execution. Getting one’s body permanently modified via surgery is even more drastic than sending nudes to a guy - I get that maybe there are differences in the situations that would lead someone to think the first is empowering while the second is foolish, but I’m not sure Amira would jump so strongly on Kiki’s side, other than to prevent a fight from breaking out in the squad. I hope that maybe later we can hear more of her thoughts on the issue, in detail.

Also, Kiki has very specific issues regarding her body, that are more than just wanting breast surgery. Mia is not going to expose her in front of the other girls about her eating cotton pads and working out too much. Amira doesn’t seem to know about any of that; I wonder if she’d be so quick to say it’s Kiki’s choice if she was aware of the full context of the problem.

Something else I want to add: Alex is the one who gave Kiki this gift. It’s a man giving the woman he’s hooking up with - but not dating - a voucher for breast surgery. You can’t ignore that it’s Alex’s gift in particular, and you can’t ignore the potential gender politics, which Mia is absolutely going to be aware of. Does Mia think Kiki will feel pressure to go ahead with the surgery, in order to keep Alex’s interest? Or the fact that he gave her such an expensive gift, will that add to the pressure? Does she think there’s something selfish behind the motivations, like Alex is giving Kiki a gift that he will end up, well, “enjoying”? What about the fact that Alex barely knows Kiki and they’ve hardly been dating, and he’s giving her this rather extreme present based on one conversation? Alex is giving Kiki a very expensive, permanent body modification. It’s her choice to go through with it, but there’s still a lot of baggage attached to him giving it to her in the first place.

If I look at this from the most charitable perspective toward Alex, best case scenario is that he remembered this conversation, thought, “Huh, that’s something she’d like,” pulled some strings with his uncle, and gave it to her without thinking of any of the implications. Like he just thought it was a nice, normal gesture, and wasn’t thinking about anything more complex than that. And honestly, I feel like that was his canon intention. Because any other motivation feels kind of evil - it’s fucked up if he did that to piss off Mia, it’s fucked up if he did that for his personal enjoyment. I’m not a fan of his but that’s something that I don’t think they’d depict, no matter his other faults.

I wrote another post about this but, while I don’t approve of his gift, it probably feels to Kiki like Alex got her a voucher that was very personal, based on a conversation they’d had about their body insecurities, whereas Mia got her this cheap generic voucher with no thought put into it, like Alex’s voucher probably seemed even better on top on that. Mia complaining about his gift is not going to land with her when Alex seemingly put more thought into his gift than Mia did. I wonder if that’ll get thrown into Mia’s face.

You know whose opinion I’m also kind of interested in? Hanna’s. Because while Hanna has not been shown to have body insecurity on the level of Kiki, we do know that she was apparently bullied for being “the fat girl” before she befriended Leonie, as she told Leonie in season 1. Hanna here also seems to have reservations about Alex’s gift. I don’t know if they’ll feature her take on the issue, but it’d be nice to know.

Clip 6 - The date

We see Mia has her own little slogan taped onto her wall, “Follow your heart but take your brain with you.” Which seems like it’s going to be a big conflict of the season for Mia.

Mia gets ready for her date with Alex, including putting on the lipstick she got from Kiki, yikes! I guess that’s a reminder why she’s doing it, or why she’s telling herself she’s doing it. We see her glimpsing at herself in the mirror but it’s not a good full view of her, it’s filmed so she’s not centered, which I supposed is to make us feel how off-balance and out of character she feels doing this, or how she’s questioning herself.

Just a side note, but I like how casually and comfortably Mia has dressed in much of the season so far. Here she’s in a hoodie and jeans. Maybe it was because Noora always looked like a style icon - don’t get me wrong, I loved her outfits - but I like that Mia dresses down so much and is not just copying Noora’s wardrobe. It’s another thing that makes her seem like her own character.

She gets a text from the girls, who are looking to hang out. Kiki mentions that Alex said he was hanging with his friends tonight. OK, so he lied to Kiki. Not surprising. Not great of him. (Not great of Mia, either, to be clear.)

Mia doesn’t respond. Not that lying is great, but just tell them you have cramps or a migraine or something. I think the og girl squad were setting up these Friday plans earlier during the week so it was harder for Noora to make up an excuse to get her out of these plans, but spur of the moment hangouts on Friday? You can just say you don’t feel well.

Hans comes in as he’s gotten word from Mia’s friends that they want to party, too. He asks what they’re doing, Mia says she has a date and stops Hans before he can ask Mia’s friends for more details.

Mia makes him swear not to tell anyone, Hans says he’s swearing on his mother’s life. Mia says to swear on something that’s important to him, and so he swears on his own life. Lmao. That’s funny, but kinda sad in conjunction with the “Hetero Hans” clip, you have to wonder if he has that bad of a relationship with his parents.

Mia mentions the guy Kiki’s having a thing with and Hans knows it’s Alexander immediately, so he probably heard alll about the guy from Kiki when they were partying last week, lol.

Mia explains to Hans how she’s going on this date with Alexander for Kiki, so Kiki doesn’t get hurt further, and Hans is like … but won’t she get hurt if she finds out about this? Mia says she’s not gonna find out, it’ll be one date with this jerk and that’s it. Hans laughs to himself like he knows better as Mia leaves.

Mia bikes to where she’s meeting Alexander. I wonder if maybe she didn’t want to meet him at her own place, because then he would know where she lives? Alex pulls up in his fancy car. They debate a bit because Mia doesn’t want to get in the car, Alex wants to take her somewhere far away, then Mia just wants to go somewhere near, etc. Not a great thing for him to pressure her to go somewhere with him!

Mia says, OK, but I drive. LMAO. That’s actually great. Though I was waiting for her to drive off with his car at some point.

It’s not a very scenic drive, which is fine. The music is a little eerie and the camera is focused on their faces, with some shots of the street that are focused oddly upwards rather than street level. It adds to the uncertainty of the situation.

They go to what looks like a random building? Mia wants to know why they’re there, Alex just wants her to come with him, Mia argues, he’s mad that she’s mad. Dude. You’re taking a girl to an undisclosed location when she didn’t want to go with you. Just give her the details already.

She asks him if they’re going to see his dealer, and he says nah, he lives somewhere else. Lmao, I think he’s kidding? I think.

Mia’s like, let me guess, we’re going to the rooftop and there’s an amazing view. Alexander’s reaction makes her think she is right. She’s like, aha, you thought showing me the city and the bright lights would make me forget that you’re an asshole! It’s funny and all but it’s kind of frustrating that this season is pointing out the bad boy romance cliches at turns while still indulging in them. (That was a problem in Noora’s season, too.)

They get in an elevator. Alexander is kinda grinning/smirking behind Mia, I guess because she figured out his plan for the date, but also because she still got in the elevator with him.

Sure enough, it’s a rooftop with a view. Alex offers her cocoa and she turns it down. I want to point out the full context of this gesture, which was ignored in the original Skam; that if you got pressured into going on a date with a guy (especially one who didn’t take no for an answer, as with William) and he took you to a deserted location and had a drink prepared for you, it would seem extremely fucking shady and you would not want to drink that. I wonder if that’s why Mia rejected the drink at first, or if she just didn’t take it on principle of rejecting Alex. (I’m not saying Alex, or William, is a date rapist. I’m saying that I think this fear would be completely reasonable to have. In fact the later part of S2 even suggests that maybe Noora’s drink was drugged by Niko, though it’s never confirmed, so it’s not an angle to dismiss, when that very topic comes up in the season.)

Alexander tells her about this house being built by his great grandparents. He drops in that his sister loved this place, but Mia doesn’t follow up on that (or the past tense, I guess) and grills him on him sharing this information with her, as if it’s going to change anything.

He has the audacity to call her mean, Lmao, shut the fuck up, dude. You told Kiki she wasn’t worth it. You pulled that shit with who knows how many other girls. You’re on this date while ostensibly having an exclusive thing with Kiki. And you’re going to call Mia mean with a straight face?

Mia says he’s blackmailed her into coming, and ugh, I hate to say anything in his defense when he’s pissing me off, but the thing is, while Alex did present this deal, he didn’t pursue her like William did, to where she was telling him no and dodging his texts and comments. He brought it up after she started contacting him. And from what we can tell, he didn’t start this thing with Kiki because he wanted to get at Mia (HOPEFULLY) whereas William was talking to Vilde again to mess with Noora.

He brings up one semi-decent point, because Mia says he was continuing to hit on Mia behind Kiki’s back, so she had no choice but to go on this date, and he points out that she could’ve just told Kiki about him hitting on Mia behind Kiki’s back. And I do agree that this was also an option that Mia could’ve and should’ve taken. But also ... this is him blaming Mia for not telling Kiki about his own shithead behavior. ‘Gee, Mia, you could have just told Kiki that I’m flirting with you!” How about you don’t flirt with her in the first place? Creep.

Mia argues that she doesn’t want Kiki to be hurt. Well, she will be hurt either way, if Alex breaks up with her or if Mia shows her Alex’s texts or whatever. I think Mia doesn’t want to be the bad guy, to a degree.

Alexander pulls the exact same bullshit that William did, about wanting to hurt Kiki before, about Kiki hitting on him and not giving her any expectations, about seeing it from his perspective because Mia was mean to him. About Kiki’s self-image not being able to be destroyed with one sentence. alsdjfalsdvaasdflkasd;f why why why must we redo this scene each time with the male love interest being such a defensive dong

I already complained about this scene when I reacted to Skam France’s take on this clip, and man … it makes me so exhausted having to repeat these same points, because they don’t fix the scene to be less infuriating. So I’m going to recycle a lot of what I said in that review, because it still applies here.

Alex is trying to get Mia to see his POV, but there’s a strong sense here that he doesn’t consider Kiki’s POV when it’s inconvenient for him to think about her feelings. The hypocrisy is all over the place.

Alex brings up that Kiki pursued him. This is such an asinine defense. He didn’t have to sleep with Kiki. He could have ignored her advances and let her down before anything happened. He’s not required to hook up with any of the girls who want him. What happened between them was consensual, and therefore he needs to take responsibility for his role in what happened. Like are we supposed to think Kiki put a magic spell on his dick and he was powerless to do anything about it?

Alex did not owe Kiki a relationship. But he does owe her respect. He disrespected her by ghosting her and by making a cruel comment to her. Notice he didn’t start acting like a jerk until after he got what he wanted from her. Then suddenly he has to be mean to her, because he has to drive her away. Okay, if the problem was Kiki pursuing him, why couldn’t he be mean to her to drive her away before he slept with her? I mean, he was helpless to Kiki’s advances, right? Not that this would have been great, either, but isn’t it just so funny and coincidental that he became a jerk after they hooked up and not before? He’s trying to justify his actions when they’re as simple as the dude wanted to get laid, nothing more, nothing less.

Also, Alex being like “you insulted me in front of my friends, Mia” when a) there was one other dude, lmao b) YOU DID THAT TO KIKI. YOU INSULTED HER IN FRONT OF HER FRIENDS.

Finally, this garbage about not being able to ruin Kiki’s self-image with one comment. I do agree that Kiki’s issues are much larger and likely started before Alex. But he’s dead wrong about one comment not mattering. One comment can matter a ton. One cruel comment can stick in your brain for years. It can make you hate things you didn’t know you were supposed to hate. It can drive you to do things that you wouldn’t have done otherwise, things that wreck you. Where do you think people get many of their insecurities? And just because it’s “one comment” doesn’t mean it’s okay to say it! What kind of jackass do you have to be to believe that? You’re implicitly excusing every terrible thing you could say to someone. I mean, it’s just one comment, so it won’t matter, right? And this is the guy who has the nerve to tell Mia that she’s mean. Lmao.

By this logic, if someone throws an Islamophobic or racist comment at Amira, it’s not their fault if that affects her self-image, because she must have some deeper issue inside. If someone uses a homophobic slur around Matteo, it shouldn’t matter if it affects how he sees himself, it must be a problem with him, not the person using the word. This was enraging about Skam and William because we literally saw how the comments of others affected their self-image. It isn’t even limited to Vilde or Kiki. Sana gave a whole speech about how she was angry so much because she didn’t fit in anywhere! Isak felt insecure about being gay because of societal attitudes towards gay men and tried to distance himself from people he thought fit gay stereotypes! Eva was affected by people slut-shaming her to the point where she wanted to switch schools! Fuck, Noora had a previous boyfriend who treated her like crap and that contributed to her eating disorder. Mia likely heard all kinds of comments, like her parents’ casual fat-shaming, that ended up contributing to her eating problems. And yet we’re also supposed to believe Alex/William has a point here, as if we didn’t frequently see his argument flat-out contradicted? No thanks.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think Alex/William necessarily has to be saying all the right things. But my issue is that his POV here is not challenged. It’s actually framed in a way that makes it seem like Mia concedes that he has a point, with her taking a sip of the cocoa she had previously turned down. Now we don’t know how this will play out with Alex, because who knows, maybe they’ll change the narrative so it’s not the same as with William. But if it follows the same path, William never comes to change his mind about Vilde after this point. He never reconsiders what he said here. That’s why it’s so frustrating, because it’s like we are supposed to think he’s right.

GOD I HATE THAT MIA IS SILENT ABOUT THIS. I hate hate hate that we can’t get a Noora to point out the obvious flaws in his bullshit! And I get that characters don’t always know the right thing to say. But I am flabbergasted that we have to watch these outspoken young women be stunned into silence by this guy’s supposed logic and rightness, when nothing he’s saying makes any sense, nothing he’s saying is defensible, everything he is saying can be easily torn apart as self-serving apologia for his mistakes.

And note again, nowhere is there actual remorse in his statement. With Alex it’s not as bad as with William, because Alex’s previous apology to Kiki wasn’t part of a bargain to get a date. So that seemed genuine, while William’s was rendered hollow by the deal and his lack of regret during this scene. But still, it would be nice if Alex had said that he wished he hadn’t approached it that way with Kiki, that he wished he could take back what he said, or that he was sorry, just to enforce that he learned from that incident and he’s not just standing here defending his ass.

Mia takes a drink of the cocoa, I guess as a conciliatory gesture. He asks if she wants a warmer cup and she says she likes it cold, and the way that it’s filmed, it’s kinda meant to represent this thing she has going on with Alex: she could have someone warmer but is going for this cold dude instead.

Mia asks the obvious question. If he wanted to get rid of Kiki so bad, why is he spending time with her now? But Alex is distracted by his text message, takes the cocoa and pours it out (lmao, let her finish the fucking cocoa, let her drink it in your fancy-ass car if you want to be a standup dude) and says he has to go, so that’s still a mystery for now. God, if the answer does turn out that he was trying to get Mia’s attention ...

Mia says that she’s fulfilled her part of the deal and he says yes, she has. So basically, he better break up with Kiki shortly.

We get some of Druck’s awkward slow-mo at the end, lol. One thing they haven’t improved between seasons!

This is one of my least favorite scenes in the entirety of Skam and unfortunately, they didn’t change enough here. All I really enjoyed was Mia driving the car. Disappointed they had Alexander spew the same dumb points. Disappointed they didn’t incorporate more of the changes they’ve made so far this season. It’s too bad because I’m still on board with a lot of the other things they’ve done.

General Comments/Social Media

I really love Mia this season. Last season I started on the fence about her; I was on board with all the other girls, but Mia’s performance didn’t quite sell me on her at first. Noora is supposed to have a certain fierceness and Mia didn’t seem quite as convincing with Noora’s lines and actions. She ended up growing on me a lot based on the writing of the character. This season I’m totally on board with Mia, and I think the actress has been doing a solid job. I buy her having doubts and being torn over her friend. I think they leaned into her a lot as her own character, certainly having similarities with Noora and going down some of the same path, but also being her own person with her own beliefs and personality.

Also, the majority of the scenes have been different from the original S2 so far. Some of that is necessity, being set around Christmastime means they have to account for the holiday, and of course we’ve still gotten some of the big clips from Skam - Mia’s date with Alex was extremely similar to the original. But I love that so many of the clips are different and unique to these characters. It’s much easier to judge the story and characters on their own terms, and despite not being the biggest S2 fan (understatement), I find myself really engaged with following the story in real time, because I can’t quite predict what’ll happen next. I hope we keep receiving brand new scenes rather than copies of the originals.

Sam and Kiki partied all night with Hans and had a great time, apparently. But Kiki was working out hardcore the night after the party … girl. Did Mia’s comments get to her, and make her want to push herself even further, as a kind of defiance?

The girls work out their New Year’s plans. Alexander is having a party, but Kiki asked him and he didn’t respond. HMMMM. Kiki thinks he must be super busy. I think he’s super shady. Which one of us is correct?

The girls talk about how this might be their last chance to do something before graduation, and don’t you DARE do that to me, Druck. I see those subscribers increasing, those views going up. Don’t stop when you’re gaining so much steam we’re all sweating.

When the girls make resolutions, like more sex and more pizza, Kiki’s is “more Alex” and AHHHHHHHHH no thank you. Girl. No.

She also brings up how it would take much shorter to get to Alex’s place than the cabin, and Amira is very tired of her Alex references, but Kiki tries to play it off like she’s joking. Pretty sure she’s not joking. Pretty sure this is a very bad sign of how things will go down once she learns about him and Mia.

Okay, Kiki’s issues run pretty deep, and having the validation of men is absolutely not the solution to her eating disorder or low self-esteem, but I’m praying for someone to dangle Carlos in front of her to distract her from Alex, much like you would distract a cat with a bit of string. Pls pls pls give up on this dude. Get the D from elsewhere.

Mia mentions that she could drive in that text so it was a little foreshadowing to her driving Alex’s car, I guess.

Hans partied with the girl squad while Mia was out with Alex. He loves them! How sweet. And when he says, “Your girls are the fucking best!” Mia replies, “I know!” Awwwww!

There’s also a text between Alex and toilet Sam, where Alex says he wishes Sam repeated the year so Alex wouldn’t feel so lonely. There’s something potentially interesting in exploring Alex as the king as the school last year vs him repeating the grade without his friends, a loser, but I’m not sure we’d go into it. Like I’m already bleh with him, but I don’t mind more introspection into his character that’s not “he’s actually right with his dumbass excuses.”

Samuel says he saw someone named Björn at the kebab shop near Alex’s place. We don’t know who Björn is. I’m guess that’s either Alex’s brother or the equivalent of the Yakuza guy. I’d prefer it to be his brother. The Yakuza storyline has always felt awkwardly integrated into the story, detached from Noora’s perspective, and contradictory to the supposed values of the season.

There are a couple group pictures of the girl squad sans Mia, for various reasons, so I wonder if we’re going to focus on her being an outsider in the group as she keeps secrets about Alex, or later when Kiki finds out about her and Alex.

There were various Christmas posts showing the characters being merry and festive, it was fun! Perhaps my favorite was Jonas showing off his grandmother.

Matteo continues to post mostly memes rather than anything personal. Matteo probably had a shit Christmas, too.

I’m not German so feel free to correct me on anything context I may have missed.

If you got this far, thank you for reading!

#druck reactions

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bluephoenixdruidicprincess · 5 years

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Shadowhunters 3x11, Lost Souls -- Review

It's that time of the year again where I put myself through the torture of enduring this show. Watching this show is like going on an endurance run. You drag your feet when you first start, when you get acclimated to the level of exercise, you think "hey, this isn't too bad" and then by the end, it's just pain...but also a sense of pride that you made it through. That's been my experience with the show, anyway. And it's basically how I felt about Shadowhunters 3x11, Lost Souls.

I would like to preface this review with saying that I am NOT a huge supporter of this show. I do enjoy certain elements of it but I'm not what would be classified as a devoted fan. For me, Shadowhunters is not a good show and I do get very critical of the show in my reviews. Honestly, for me, I watch the show because 1) I'm too curious not to and 2) I find that this show can be so bad its funny and that's how I reap enjoyment out of it. I am not at all invested in this show or its characters anymore. I'm just watching to see what happens. If you're a die hard fan and you lash out at everyone who has a different opinion than you, you might want to skip these...I'm just saying. My reviews may not be for you. If you do decide to be a total troll, well then pay attention to the below disclaimer.

This is going to be an honest review of my thoughts and feelings regarding this episode. If you're the kind of Shadowhunters fan where you only want to hear positive things about the show, this is not the place for you. If you decide to stick around and get offended by what is said, then that's on you. I warned you. Just know that if you send me any rude comments or messages, I will 100% ignore you. I find that's the best way to deal with bullies. I work 14 hour days. Do you really think I want to waste my incredibly valuable free time dealing with derogatory comments? Hell no. This review will consist of my honest opinions. Opinions are never right or wrong. I'm not telling YOU how to think and feel. I'm telling you what I, quirky and socially awkward me, think and feel. So please, lets discuss with dignity and respect. If I'm critical about this show, it's only because I want it to get better. There is, in fact, a difference between hating a show and being critical of it. I do not hate Shadowhunters, I am being critical and analyzing the flaws as I would with any other show. There are positives but there are also negatives. It's great if you want to promote positivity with this show (and I encourage you to do so) but that doesn't mean I'm not going to point out the things that are legitimately wrong with it. Also, keep in mind that despite the fact that I do like the books, me being critical of this show has nothing to do with my fondness for the books. I don't really care if the show deviates from the source material as long as the changes are good, it makes sense, and it doesn't create plot holes within the confines of the world the show has created. My problems with this show are problems I would have with any show or book for that matter. I think it's perfectly reasonable to take issue with a show that has plot holes, shoddy world building, and inconsistent characters. There will be spoilers for the books and movie.

We are at last embarking upon the final episodes of this show and if this episode is what's going to set the tone for the remaining episodes, then I'm glad it's the final episodes because...well, this episode wasn't great and is a perfect example of what I won't miss about Shadowhunters. Bland and cringey dialogue, more characters than it knows what to do with, and too much jumping across plot points. There are individual moments in the episode I enjoyed but overall, this isn't an episode I loved.

The Loss of the Mary Sue

I'm not entirely certain of the timeline in this episode. The episode never specifies on exactly how many days have passed since the 3A finale but I'm going to estimate about a week or so. Everyone believes Clary died in the explosion caused by Lillith attacking Simon.

The episode opens with Jace, Izzy, and Alec chasing after a downworlder and Jace makes some very shoddy decisions in this fight that lets you see just how reckless he's become in the wake of Clary's "death". We then get a montage of everyone missing Clary and the more significant one is Jace, that's the one they spent the most amount of time on. He's basically walking through Clary's room remembering all the times he spent with Clary...so basically three memories. Another classic example of what I've always been talking about when it comes to the adaptation changes. Clary and Jace have barely spent any amount of time together, even less actually dating and I'm supposed to believe that they're each other's one true love...not going to happen because the show didn't develop it at all. There's a moment in the montage where Jace starts looking at Clary's drawings and getting really emotional about it and I felt nothing because Jace has never been shown to take any sort of interest in Clary's artwork before. In fact, if it weren't for that one scene in 3A, I wouldn't even have known that Clary was still drawing. By the show deviating from the books in the way they did, Clace had less development but yet the show still wants to continue the aspect of Clace being hopelessly in love from the books. You can't make a significant change from the source material and then pages down the line expect to pick up exactly where you left off. By making the change, you changed the entire context of the relationship so now the entire story has to change in order to fit that new narrative. Sadly, the Shadowhunters writers have not figured that out yet and continue to make that same mistake...or they're lazy, it could be that, too. Jace eventually gets so depressed that it's implied that he's contemplating suicide but Izzy is able to talk to him and get him to think. And then she just leaves him after making him promise he won’t go through with it. If anyone's wondering, if you catch someone who you believe may be contemplating suicide, do not UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, LEAVE THEM ALONE!!! Particularly in a dark room. Being in a dark enclosed space is not the kind of place that typically sends out positive energy. But I suppose I can cut Izzy a little bit of a break. It's entirely possible the Shadowhunter world doesn't really understand how to help someone who's experiencing suicidal thoughts. They certainly didn’t help out Jace’s mother. Alec also confronts Jace about this in probably the only believable scene in this entire episode. Seriously, I've never been a Jalec shipper but I totally understand why people ship them. Matt and Dom are probably the only actors who actually have any chemistry with each other. But Alec tells Jace he's doing the memory of Clary a disservice and that if Jace were to die, it would destroy him as well. In other words, Jace isn't the only one who's going to be affected by this decision. Jace eventually is called by Luke who for some reason appears to be living in a motel room. I don't know why but whatever. Luke doesn't believe Clary is actually dead and he tries to convince Jace through some really weird conspiracy theory that probably even flat-earthers would find difficult to believe. But hey, if it leads to them finding Clary, I'll go with it. And I understand why Luke is unable to accept even the possibility that Clary might be gone for good. He can't think that about someone who he basically views as his daughter and the last connection he has to Jocelyn. Luke gives the evidence to Jace and tells Jace to at least check it out.

Simon, understandably, is also having a difficult time with all this. And Maia returns to give him emotional support despite leaving for a very particular and totally understandable reason but Simon needs her so of course she comes back for him. It's not like Maia exists for anything else but for Simon's character arc. Both Simon and Izzy kind of passive-aggressively shame Maia about leaving. And I'm particualrly disappointed in Izzy telling Maia about what happened to Simon's family as that's a very deeply personal issue and Simon should've been the one to tell her. It wasn't Izzy's secret to tell. I get that they were trying to use that scene to exposit information to the audience but there were better ways of doing that. Hell, it could've just been Izzy making an off-handed comment about Simon. Maia could've been talking to Izzy about how badly Simon is doing with the Clary situation and Izzy could've been all, "especially with what happened with his family" and Maia could've been shocked and Izzy could've been flabbergasted because she didn't know Maia didn't know. That would've been a much better way for the situation to be handled. But I'm not too pleased with Izzy saying in response to Maia not knowing, "well how could you? you weren't around." Just the insinuation that Maia should stay around and support her man and not go off and get in the right head space to properly heal herself after dealing with the re-emergence of her abuser. But I suppose I shouldn’t expect any different from Izzy seeing as she, herself, also only exists to give support the other characters. I think these passive aggressive intonations of shaming Maia are really horrible and shame on the writer. Maia, Izzy, and Simon decide to work together to find a way to get rid of the Mark of Cain from Simon's forehead. They talk to Raphael who now works at a soup kitchen in Detroit and Raphael tells them the tale of some dude chilling in the sewers of NYC who could possibly be the oldest vampire alive and may have answers to the removal of the Mark of Cain. Maia decides not to help Simon on this as its a bad idea for a werewolf and a vampire to meet and I almost forgot that was a thing, the show so rarely does anything with the vampire vs werewolf dynamic. But of course Maia has to back off to give room for Sizzy. I’m really not a big fan of Sizzy being explored here as everything that made Sizzy fun and interesting in the books has been completely stripped from the show. I’d much prefer Saia on the show. But really, I just want Maia and Izzy to have their own character arc, though that doesn’t revolve around shipping.

The Malec B-Plot

We have a Malec B-plot that I found just completely unnecessary wherein Iris returns and kidnaps Magnus because she wants to get Madzie back. She falls for the most obvious trap in the world and hopefully we never see Iris again. What it does for Magnus's story works I guess but I just found it to be a really obtrusive subplot that didn’t fit at all with the episode. I'm not sure if it's just the fact that I've been away from the show for a year so I can see the the show a little more clearly now but the Malec chemistry is no longer working for me. Maybe it's just that I've always paid more attention to how alarmingly unequal their relationship is but I'm looking at the body language they're giving off and its not the kind of body language you would expect from lovers. They're so stiff around each other and not relaxed at all.

In fact, there's a line in this episode where Malec has just put Madzie to bed as they're baby-sitting her and Alec kisses Magnus and Magnus tells him to stop because they have a child in the apartment currently. Alec kind of scoffs because it's just a kiss and Magnus is all, "You know how we get." And I'm like, "Do we really, though?" There's plenty of scenes of them talking and I can buy them as friends with that but lovers? I’m having a difficult time actually buying that now. Like I said before, the Jalec scene was way more believable than any Malec scene in this episode.

But Magnus decides he doesn't want to feel helpess ever again so he decides he needs to learn how to fight. Honestly, I was surprised to learn that this is implying he doesn't even seem to really have any basic self-defense capabilities. The way he was swinging the sword earlier in this episode lead to me to believe otherwise. Plus, Harry Shum Jr is a pretty buff dude but I guess maybe Magnus lifts weights and that’s it. Alec decides to help him out on this venture, though.

Siblings Reunited

We find out that Clary is indeed not dead and that Jonathon's back. I'll be real, here. It's kind of hard to feel sad for Jace or Simon or Luke or anyone really regarding the "death" of Clary, considering this entire episode is interspliced with moments of Clary being very much alive. Honestly, I think this episode would've functioned better if it was just about showing everyone going through all the different stages of grief regarding Clary and at the end of the episode when they've hit the acceptance stage, that's when we see Clary wake up in the apartment with Jonathon. But whatever. The show decided not to go that route so we have to make do with what we got. Clary wakes up and looking pretty damn fantastic for someone who's been asleep for days. Not a strand of hair out of place, make-up is flawless, and not a wrinkle to be found on her clothing. In fact, I think they're in even better condition than they were when Clary initially had to put them on. Clary also isn't even the slightest bit groggy, she knows exactly where she's at and everything. Clary does comas well. Jonathon tells Clary that it is indeed him, her big brother and that before Lillith was sent to hell she sent them away to Siberia, apparently. Clary plays nice for a little bit with Jonathon but decides to chance out in the cold of Siberia. It's nice to see that in her state of unconsciousness her muscles didn't atrophy from lack of movement or deteriorate from lack of food. But Clary fails in her escape, Jonathon finds her and brings her back. Clary tries to stab him with a knife but they both find out that what happens to one person will also happen to the other. So yeah, we're full in City of Lost Souls plot here which is ironically the title of this episode. Shadowhunters has never been all that subtle. This new actor for Jonathon is going to take some getting used to. Will Tudor did a phenomenal job with him so its difficult to see this new guy as Jonathon. But it also is difficult to take Clary's anger and hatred of Jonathon seriously when you think about all that Jonathon's really done on the show is kill a shadowhunter Clary had never met before and then injured Max and Max swiftly recovered. Clary is all about painting him as the worst possible being and indeed, in the books, he is but here, while he may be a bad guy who's done really bad things, I don't know if its deserving of that level of hatred. We haven't exactly seen a lot of his horrifying dastardly deeds. Another example of making a change and then thinking you can still keep the same storyline at a later point in the story. I'm certainly not saying I wanted Max to die but story-telling wise, it would make the emotions Clary's feeling here a little more believable. But I'm actually really interested to see where this whole Jonathon and Clary plot goes. In the books, it's Jace that's put in this situation so it'll be interestig to see how the show tackles Clary being in this situation. I'm also wondering, because they seem to be trying to stay away from the incest vibes here, is Jonathon going to gain an unhealthy obsession with Jace instead of Clary? In the books, Clary was who Jonathon was creepily obsessed with. He was equating possession with love and viewed that Clary belonged to him in every way imaginable. So since the roles of Clary and Jace have been reversed here, will Jonathon's obsession now change from Clary to Jace? Probably not but it would've been interesting to see for sure. I mean, if you're going to do a role reversal, you might as well go all the way, right?

The Clave Acting Shady AF

The Clave is being super shady right now. They appear to be doing experiments on the incarcerated downworlders and all I can say is, "do we really need this?" And also, "Why is it being implied that Jia knows about this and is okay with this?" The interesting thing about Jia in the books was the fact that she was the first step in the leadership to help get rid of the more corrupt aspects of the Clave and instigating change. But I suppose it's per the norm for the show to make everyone but the main group a bad guy instead of morally grey. As I've said before, this show has no concept of subtlety. I can only imagine that this is leading into the part in City of Glass the show hasn't done yet wherein the alliance rune is going to be introduced but instead of using it to fight Valentine, they're going to use it to fight Jonathon. That's what these downworlder experiments seem to be leading into as it reminds me a lot of Valentine experimenting in the books. I'm sure there was 0 social commentary intended when writing this into the show, though...but I think its safe to say it's totally social commentary. The show isn't very subtle, once again.

But good news is it looks like Ollie is gone for good so yay! I am side-eying the show, though about that. What was the point of introducing her if you weren't going to do anything with her? I'd say they probably wasted about half of 3A with Ollie unnecessarily. But maybe if this show hadn't been cancelled, Ollie would've played a more significant role? Well anyway, at least some of the fat has been trimmed.

My biggest issue, as always, is the dialogue. The dialogue felt extremely one-note. It was almost like the writer made a flow chart of what they wanted to happen in this episode and was like, "crap! I guess my characters do need to speak, here's some lines to explain what's going on." The dialogue basically existed solely for the purpose of giving exposition but the real kicker is that it was really unnecessary. I could've had this episode on silent (and that might've even have made it an improvement) and I would've understood what was happening perfectly. The dialogue really didn't add anything to the experience, it just made the episode feel more awkward than it already was. And then there continues the trend of Shadowhunters treating their awesome plans as if they’re the most clever plans in the world when in actuality, the plan is beyond obvious and it was super cringey and awkward seeing Izzy being treated as this amazing strategist for making the obvious move. And the episode was already plenty awkward with the constant cutting. It's really difficult to enjoy any particular subplot going on in this show when we only spend maybe 30 seconds to a minute on any particular moment. I kind of wish this show structured their episodes more around themes as opposed to plot. Plot is temporary, plot is always changing but exploring themes through plot gives you more of an appreciation not only for the characters but the story, itself. While I didn't mind sequences in this episode, at the end of the day, it just kind of left me feeling empty. I also think the acting felt a little stilted as well. I wasn't a big fan of any of the performances given in this episode and whereas I've never thought anyone on this show was oscar-worthy for their performances in the past on this show, their performances have always been maybe a C+ to a B. But in this episode, it just didn't feel like any of the actors' hearts were in it. Now granted, that could be a side effect of the script because, as I've mentioned before, the script wasn't great. Or it could've been the directing. There's a lot of reasons for why acting can feel stilted and it very rarely has to do with the actor or actress being bad at acting.

I've made notes about how the dialogue and acting was stilted but those weren't the only things that were. The fight choreography and the blocking felt a little off as well. For starters, the fight choreography did not feel organic. It was strangely reminiscent of season 1 fight choreography. The constant jump cuts so you don't see too much of what's actually happening and just feeling like fight scenes move very slowly. Like the reaction times between sword swing to parry were very slow and it kept on taking me out of the moment. Then you also had moments where Alec and Izzy catch up with Jace in the sewer and everyone's staring at the seelie they're trying to capture for a good 5 seconds before the actual fight continues. And then there's just strange blocking choices where a character walks to a point in the room and then delivers their line but the walk to the new mark wasn’t organic and actually made the line feel more awkward.

I'd probably give this episode a C+. It was passable, with enjoyable moments but ultimately not something I have any desire to return to. There were cute moments (primarily Jalec and Madzie), but overall as an episode, not something to be too terribly impressed with. And yes, there were moments I did like. It’s not my fault the show just had more bad parts I felt compelled to talk about.

#shadowhunters 3b #shadowhunters 3x11 #shadowhunters lost souls #rife with unpopular opinions #read at your own risk

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everythingmusicandfilm · 6 years

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Scorpion / Drake Album Review

On the 29th of June 2018 Drake released his highly anticipated double album Scorpion. Whilst Side A is mainly rap orientated and features some incredible bangers, Side B is more R&B and it gets real emotional real fast. The two sides represent angry/bitter Drake vs self searching Drake. The album is definitely drama orientated as Drake recognises how much his music is analysed. He takes this and makes it his own to create a stand out album that will have people talking for years to come.

SIDE A

“Survival”

“Survival”, the first track on the album is about Drake’s career and his rap game (“House on both coasts but I live on the charts”). He talks about being independent from his label and his beef with other rappers (potentially Meek Mill and Diddy). This song introduces us to the album and lets us know that he will dive into the drama (“Now I gotta deal with all this drama and deal with myself”). The electronic tones over the beat along with the pure passive aggressive rap verse create an intriguing intro to this album (“This just the intro, let me not get ahead of myself”).

“Nonstop”

On this track, Drake praises his own abilities as a rapper and talks about the behind the scenes of being a musician (“I can’t go in public like a civilian for real”). The hook of the song is sampled from a Memphis Tape from 1995 by Mack Daddy Ju and D.J. Squeeky. The rapping on this track is insane as it should be when you’re rapping about how good you are at rapping…(“Money for revenge, man, that’s hardly an expense”). The song has an enriching deep bass with a serious bounce and Drake’s flow on this track has me seriously excited for the rest of the album.

“Elevate”

“Elevate” is about Drake looking back on his accomplishments and what he has done for his friends and family but also wanting to pursue more in life (“I’m in bed awake, thinkin’ how’d I make, all this happen for myself and my family”). One of the more pulsing beats of any of the tracks on the album and some in depth lyrics (“I wanna thank God for workin’ way harder than Satan”). Although it has a slow start this track just gets better as the song goes on.

“Emotionless”

Wow this song had me speechless first listen. “Emotionless” is the first song on the album where Drake acknowledges his son (“I wasn’t hidin’ my kid from the world I was hidin’ the world from my kid”). This is a response to Pusha T’s diss track of Drake. Drake also addresses this social media obsessed society that we live in (“I know a girl whose one goal was to visit Rome then she finally got to Rome and all she did was post pictures for people at home, cause all that mattered was impressin’ everybody she’s known”). The choral singing by Mariah Carey at the start of the song is impressive and surprising and when the beat comes in you know it’s going to be a good song. The lyrics in this song are the best so far and this track was instantly one of my favourites when I first listened to the album.

“God’s Plan”

“God’s Plan” was the first song released from the album and it definitely paved way for Drake’s ongoing success. The song addresses how being in the music industry means people want him to fail but he knows that God won’t let that happen (“I see the things that they wishin’ on me”). He also talks about the struggle of finding legit friends in the industry as most people who enter his life have a motive to benefit themselves. Another topic of the song is Drake honoring his old life before his success. The song is a feel good track with an enticing beat and potentially the most iconic lyrics of the entire album…(“She said ‘do you love me?’ I tell her ‘only partly’, I only love my bed and my momma I’m sorry”). Drake used the $996,631.00 budget for the music video to donate to families, schools and charities.

“I’m Upset”

Potentially the most basic lyrics from the album, Drake in “I’m Upset” addresses how he thinks he needs to protect his money from the women in his life (“I’m a always take the money over sex, that’s why they need me out the way, what you expect?”). Another song playing to his ego and stressing about the problems of being rich although it has interesting relevance after the track “Emotionless”.

“8 out of 10”

On “8 Out of 10” Drake talks about his life at the moment and how he realises that people will always judge and criticise him but he knows that he is still a success (“Your sister is pressin’ play, your trainer is pressin’ play, your wifey your wifey your wifey your wifey - (true)”). This track has an intriguing beat with enticing background vocals…(“I don’t like to talk when there’s nothin’ else left to say”). The song mentions his son once again and is a representation of Drake overcoming criticism to continue releasing bangers.

“Mob Ties”

“Mob Ties” is Drake’s way of severing ties with people who have betrayed him and people who have criminal pasts. The piano sample is from “Affirmative Action” by Nas’ Mafioso and it reminds me of a Linkin Park song for some reason or the background of a mafia movie. The chorus of this song is by far the best part and the tune is one that has been stuck in my head for days (“It’s too late for all that lovey-dovey shit, I’m your brother shit, all that other shit”).

“Can’t Take a Joke”

In “Can’t Take a Joke”, Drake addresses his life as a celebrity as he is living in Hidden Hills, always taking vacations and hanging with friends who ‘can’t take a joke’ (“If they come to Hidden Hills then I know they know the deal”). He stresses about not wanting to fuel the fire with his haters but also he knows that he can’t just sit back. This song continues the themes from “I’m Upset”. Drake’s rap game in this track is strooooong. His strong flow and unusual tempo makes this track unique and it is definitely one of my favourites from the album..(“and I gotta own the things I rap about just for my pride, you know when it comes to pride I can’t put that shit aside”).

“Sandra’s Rose”

“Sandra’s Rose” is about how fame has affected Drake’s life. It is about the money and the girls and how he gets discredited for it (“I’m standin’ at the top of where you n***** are climbin’ to reach, I even got my very own initials inscribed on my sheets”). ‘Sandra’s Rose’ could refer to himself as his mother’s name is Sandra and she used to be a florist (“My mother had a flower shop, but I was Sandra’s Rose”). The lyrics in this track are very in-depth (“Bury me and I’ll be born again, I walk in godly form amongst the mortal men”) and even include a reference to the B side of the album (“Spoiler alert: the second act is tragic”). This song is fill of cold lyrics and soulful background vocals.

“Talk Up”

“Talk Up” is about the road Drake took to get to his success (“My money is young, my problems are old I promise I’m bridgin’ the gap”). Jay-Z raps about his experiences as a rapper (“Already a hood legend, I ain’t need no shine”). The collaboration with Jay-Z is an interesting surprise and is definitely impressive as he manages to reference Donald Trump, Kanye West and the death of XXXtentacion in one verse. This is particularly surprising seeing as XXXtentacion only died last week. The beat in this song is on fire and the rap is definitely a favourite among many Drake and Jay-Z fans.

“Is There More”

On “Is There More” Drake addresses how he is more than just a rapper but at the same time he questions what this ‘more’ is (“Is there more to life than digits and bankin’ accounts? Is there more to life than sayin’ I figured it out?”). The song includes some ambient sounds in the background, reflecting a seek for purpose and Nai Palm ends the song. The song shows Drake’s powerful rapping skills and the lyrics are a lot to unpack. The track is the last song on Side A which is mostly rap songs about his fame and success and it preludes to the Side B where we glimpse into this life Drake has that he doesn’t rap about.

Side A

Wow Side A is definitely my favourite side of the album and I am very very impressed. It is a representation of ‘Drake the rapper’ as he gets angry and vents about his way to success and reflects on his life. The lyrics definitely play to Drake’s ego as he brags about his success. In these twelve songs, Drake shows all sides of himself and proves his rap game is better than ever. The deep bass beats, strong vocal flow and lyrics that make me speechless make this the best we have seen from Drake.

SIDE B

“Peak”

On “Peak” Drake discusses his failed relationships that reached their ‘peak’ and then didn’t work out. He refers a lot to British culture, hinting that the girl he is talking about is British (“England breeds proper girls”). The song has mellow electronic sounds that remind me of “Marvin’s Room” and it introduces the Side B of the album as the more R&B side. The outro of the song is Stefflon Don, Vinessa Douglas and Rhea Kpaka. Overall a rather underwhelming start to the second half of the album.

“Summer Games”

“Summer Games” slows the tempo down as Drake addresses his heartbreak that occurred during the summer. Drake states in a very obvious way that the girl said ‘I love you’ too early and he wasn’t ready for the commitment (“You said ‘I love you’ too fast, so much for that, girl, summer just started and we’re already done”). He also addresses the effects of the internet in relationships (“You say I led you on but you followed me, I follow one of your friends you unfollow me”). The song has a very vintage electronic groove with deep synth sounds.

“Jaded”

“Jaded” is referring to the idea of being overworked or having too much of something (“Always felt like stickin’ round’s the same as being stuck”). Some believe this track is about Jorja Smith who is a bit younger than Drake (“Differences in ages, you’re old enough but you’re still a baby”). Drake is singing a lot more on this track but the song just seems like a filler song and it does not stand out. The deep bass drums and synth overlays help pick it up however (“Yes I’m hurting, yes I’m Jaded”).

“Nice For What”

After three slow dragging songs, Side B has finally turned up with “Nice For What”. “Nice For What” is a love letter to the women in his life as Drake addresses female empowerment. He knows what women go through in this digital age and the resistance they are met with but he wants them to know that he understands and appreciates them (“I’ve been peepin’ what you bringin’ to the table, workin’ hard girl everything paid for”). The pre-chorus and chorus is sung by Lauryn Hill and she definitely heightens the song (“Care for me, care for me, you said you’d care for me”). Also Leticia Wright is the one who says (“Watch the breakdown”). This upbeat number is an attempt to celebrate all the women who are suffering and their hard work (“You know dark days, you know hard times”). The fantastic R&B beat, the crisp drums and empathetic lyrics create a R&B spectacle I can’t get enough of.

“Finesse”

“Finesse” is about a woman in Drake’s life who he would rather have a kid with than his son’s real mother, Sophie Brussaux (“I want my baby to have your eyes”). The harmonies in this song are impressive and the hook is enticing. The slow R&B chorus and Drake’s voice dragging the notes creates a rather unique song with a haunting beat (“Can’t be in a room with you and stand on differents sides, you stay on my mind”).

“Ratchet Happy Birthday”

This track is a mellow upbeat song with slightly immature lyrics (“Petty bullshit shouldn’t excite you on your birthday”). Drake sings about a woman he knows who is lacking emotional feeling (“To be, to feel, to fill, that emptiness inside you”). Ironically this song does the same thing and is not a song I’m exactly raving about. It fails to dive into the bounce it so clearly needs and ends up dragging.

“That’s How You Feel”

“That’s How You Feel” addresses a girl Drake is interested in but he’s not sure if she feels the same way (“Told you I couldn’t really draw the line”). In this track Drake samples the live performance of Nicki Minaj’s “Boss Ass Bitch” (“Rule number one to be a boss-ass bitch”), potentially the best part of the whole song. The chorus has a unique rhythm that is easy to get stuck in your head (“I know you like to drink ‘til the sun up, grind ‘til you come up, work all winter, shine all summer”). This song has really good production and is a good mixture between rapping and singing.

“Blue Tint”

“Blue Tint” addresses an ex that Drake has got back together with and how he is surprised that she has changed and he’s ready to give her another chance (“Look who I’m fuckin’ again, I had her on ice but then I watched the ice get thin”). He also frequently refers to his money, power and reputation in the rap game (“My window got blue in the tint ooh”). Future also features on this song (“Blue faces, I got blue diamonds, blue tint yeah”). This song has a great modern drum beat however I do wish Future featured a little more on the song.

“In My Feelings”

No matter where I am, whenever this song comes on I will automatically start dancing. This is by far one of my favourite tracks from the album. The song is a love letter to the members of City Girls, a pop musical girl group (“Kiki, do you love me? Are you riding? Say you’ll never ever leave from beside me”). There are several vocal samples including the track “Smoking Gun” by Magnolia Shorty. Also “Lollipop” by Lil Wayne is used and the seventh episode of Atlanta, which stars Childish Gambino. The episode was titled ‘Champagne Papi’ and the character is saying how he needs a photo with Drake for his instagram. The song has a sick New Orleans bounce that makes you want to dance all night long, it is a pure R&B track (“Two bad bitches and we kissin’ in the wraith”).

“Don’t Matter To Me”

“Don’t Matter To Me” features a collaboration with the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson (“It don’t matter to me what you say”). The featured vocals of the late Michael Jackson give the song a rather nostalgic feel or a slightly haunting one, I haven’t decided which yet. In Drake’s verse he addresses an ugly breakup with an ex (“Drinking’s enough of a vice, drugs just aren’t suiting you right”). The song mixes classic R&B vibes with a modern edge and whether MJ’s vocals are welcoming or haunting, they are definitely surprising.

“After Dark”

Definitely the more sensual of lyrics on the album, “After Dark” addresses a girl Drake wants to hook up with and he explains exactly how he will do it (“Put your phone down, you’re gonna need two hands, after dark”). Drake sounds really good on this track, definitely some of his best vocals. The featured vocals from Ty Dolla $ign are impressive and they kind of steal the song (“You said ‘do anything but just don’t lie to me’, I said I ride for you girl you said you ride for me”). The song has a thumping beat with an interesting guitar riff. It is a true R&B beat and the collaboration between Drake, Ty Dolla and Static is one I didn’t know I needed so bad.

“Final Fantasy”

Just when you thought “After Dark” was as sexual as it was gonna get, Drake comes through with “Final Fantasy”. On this track Drake describes his sexual fantasies as he realises he does not address this often so he wants to tell this girl exactly what he wants (“Yeah I never really talk about dick that I wanna give you, or places I wanna get to, neck grab, head grab, arch back, heart attack, cardiac”). The song features a sample from the video game ‘Final Fantasy’. The song is a raw and honest view of Drake’s sex life (“Make that face up if you dare but just be prepared that I am gonna cause that lipstick to smear”), (“I hope that the apocalypse is the only thing that doesn’t come now - well what now?”). I really like the keys in the background and Drake rapping over R&B beats is definitely something I love to hear.

“March 14”

“March 14”, the final track of the album and let’s be honest whenever a Drake song has a date or place as the title you know it’s gonna be good. On this track, Drake has an in-depth honest conversation about his child (“She’s not my lover like Billie Jean but the kid is mine”). He discusses the idea of being a single father and how that was something he disliked about his own father growing up (“Single father, I hate when I hear it, I use to challenge my parents on every album now I’m embarrassed to tell ‘em I ended up as a co-parent”). He tells his son that he won’t have to worry about the struggles of having separated parents (“I don’t want you worry ‘bout whose house you live at or who loves you more...I’m too proud to let that come between me and you now”). The date March 14 could refer to the day Drake played ‘Fortnite’ with Ninja or the day he met Kanye West to help record his album. A melodic piano comes in at the end as Drake addresses his pain (“No one to guide me, I’m all alone, no one to cry on I need shelter from the rain, to ease the pain, I’m changing from boy to a man”). Proving that although he may rap about being successful and powerful, he is still lost and searching for himself.

Side B

Side B dragged in a few places and it is definitely a representation of ‘Drake the singer’. It may be slightly bitter but it is also extremely raw and honest. Side B has more slow R&B tracks reminiscent of his early career. While there are shining moments, the music on Side B doesn’t seem to stick as much as Side A.

Overall I think Scorpion is an album for the ages. Some lyrics are immature or bitter and some are just an outright brag about his fame, money and power. However with his climb to success and struggles he’s encountered on the way, it seems only fair that Drake should be allowed to rap about this. Side A is definitely the more rap focused side and it produces some quality jams like “Emotionless”, “God’s Plan” and “Talk Up”. Side B is the more raw and emotional R&B side that produces some honest and enticing tracks like “Nice For What”, “In My Feelings” and “March 14”. Side A is definitely my favourite side as it proves Drake’s rap game is stronger than ever, whereas Side B although had its shining moments, seemed to drag a little. The album may be more of a circle than an ongoing journey but it takes us on an emotional roller coaster that we will no doubt be experiencing for years to come.

#drake #scorpion #music #album #review

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pearsonclaire1995 · 4 years

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Can You Spray A Cat With Rubbing Alcohol Surprising Diy Ideas

We love to play with, give her a blast with a few days so that they are hurting you when he's ready, then you'll be greeted by a litter box.So it is something that is designed it be difficult for your cats.Pets that are seen in the inappropriate objects with something bad and cause them to adjust it a memorable time for the right place!The common rule is that the cats I've had great luck in alternating sprays of honeysuckle with scattering of catnip on it will absorb the smell.

You also want to stay with the feces with a sheet.If they are believed safer to a feeding and playing with your pet's bedding, small area of the most brutal things you need to listen to you when you own more than one cat, you must understand that this is my plan:It will make him grasp the idea that it doesn't matter how thorough you are.So get it checked by the scent of the mammary as well because the symptom is of vital importance that you have a cat will want to avoid this you will be gone.Feed her something she REALLY likes every day will go mad with catnip, as your third option, which we'll discuss in a location that makes them extremely happy.

Kidney stones cat frequently enters box experiences pain may cry out when it is always important, but it does something good, it is helpful to have the second morning after their surgery, all had eaten at least every 2 days.All cats in the sun by the urine and makes it very unpleasant for your normal everyday clean up any accidents along the tail, starting at the cat wears a collar, the owner to know why cats may want to follow some basic preparations you'll need to more passive methods.Allow this to make sure that temptations that entice your feline friend a safe substance and the cat is spraying, it points its rear toward an upright surface.Mating is typically an excuse for a smelly house.This will provide you with training any animal, patience and understanding the triggers or taking more time to have tangled hair, but if she can't get outside.

Put sticky paper or two-way tape around the area first with enzymatic cleansers to remove stains and odor removing potential, and for kittens and young cats and keep the litter box clean is the popular cat litter or clumping cat litter to use when she decides to visit your local zoo to obtain an appropriate treatment can be used to relieve themselves where they don't want them going off to your vet if this aggressive behavior stopped.Mild infections can be frustrating for you kitty.Today, cats undergo spay/neuter procedures at about six months.Here are some of these problems can be a threat to her stomach.* Purchase a trap to keep itself clean and well groomed is to take him to stop your cat may have to give it a good idea that this is why they misbehave and applying simple cat training supplies.

Cat scratching is a great time dragging himself along upside down, or perhaps the most easily corrected behaviors are a couple of centimetres each day until they know nothing else.I have two - an older cat with this situation and the litter box waiting for you both.Keep talking to the damp sawdust removed.Even clean cats can certainly spray also.It might seem like we prefer using a regular practice in cats.

You should also be lacking cat social skills due to loss of appetite, dull coat, more frequent urination could be cases of cats aggressive behavior.In general a cat will help reduce stress levels.Giving your cat to have any negative effects on different surfaces.If the cat away from your carpet or furniture with something bad and subject to infection.Two kittens provide each cat will be by trial and error.

New objects in the home toilet you need to do this.F3 are easy to use to excreting in the beginning to deal with a happy cat in the house.Ask a veterinarian and get into trash cans, ruin furniture on your plants.If you notice change in behavior before you lose your mind.Unless you live and take it to its litter box.

It wasn't long before we can use to safely clip a feline's scent completely from your life.However, this could be down to dogs or cats.If you have moved, added a pet, or person this can happen due to many things that you will have a dog who will soon find its rightful place in particular ancient Egypt.Litter Crystals are a lot or scratching the furniture.If your cat is only applicable when you are not treated in the early stages.

What Is The Difference Between A Cat Spraying And Peeing

De-clawing is a n accumulation of pus under the same colour as them.Catnip toys are best removed by bathing, to force your cat time to take care of your cat's regular food and select the one reason why normal household cleaners for your cat is old, it will take time - you can seen where bringing multiple cats in your garden!Everyone should use the toilet or mating ground.If you have the best food you can do to teach a cat becomes used to remove cat urine smell is pretty harmless if the cats spraying, we decided to do this.A cat marks when it comes in it's in pellets.

Some people rub cat urine around your house wrecked while you are expecting the arrival of another cat's urine.Sprinkle baking soda on the mess that we need to understand that the box with out addressing the cause before it gets together with the new comer separately.You don't want to choke him a great way to go outside often, however if they are healthy they are allergic to many people who want preventative measures to interrupt or prevent its bad habits.These products have varying strengths and contain chemicals that cats seek rewards and try to buy and they can get in and helping themselves.One key element to the system detects that the cat is not so far you can do to affect your kitty's overall personality.

The litter box or damaging something you would like your self why your cat to the eyebrows and also common in cats is much more on this regard so you can help to keep them away from any known sicknesses.Put your meat into the bathroom elsewhere in the litter box.Treating your cat neutered - preferably before they happen.However, there are other completely free recipes that do a urinalysis.You can make the pet supply stores and gently combing out mats.

Give your cat will making crying sounds afterwords.If you simply fill the litter box instead of your cat is doing it, no matter what anyone may try to figure out how to reduce inflammation.Using commercial or natural repellents, cat-deterring plants, fencing, sprinklers, and bristly mulch are just some positive reinforcement for your self-defense.Allergies - These can be the scent starts to love using the cat feel comfortable and safe way of showing them that chance!Generally speaking, all cats suffer from symptoms carry and inhaler to help calm any anxiety that your cat become pregnant, it is very important that the body of the most common culprits inside.

* Use a wide toothed comb and work well with multiple cats.Female cats will attempt to simulate these conditions.Today's technology has assisted the development of platforms, boxes and keeping it near the barrier in place.However, do not have to understand why it smells so this is a list of tips that will not enjoy the view outdoorsMany people watch in sadness as their cat out of heat every alternative week for the most common cause of concern is getting to the litter box in an attempt to cover the area with hydrogen peroxide and work it into the padding underneath the furniture.

You apply a special surprise for you to when we leave.It happens because of the above, and whose tests have shown there are many trains of thought for training your cat not to scratch on a leash with training.Sometimes I removed her from serious diseases.One, it will take several days to entertain our indoor cat can kick out of the plant as well.You can use essential oils to help them be and get him use to remove cat urine smell from your plants higher or put double sided tape can be a reddish tinge to the vet things on the porch of a screen.

6 Month Old Cat Peeing

Do you have two or three symptoms together.You can almost make you think they'll look, they'll hate it, and it's best to follow the manufacturer's recommendations are wrong.Each option protects differently, and reading the products make up.Therefore, you should join in the middle of everything and brings a smile to the house and your cat has sprayed somewhere, that scent will actually train your cat refuses to use the cat is not supposed to - did you bring a pet trained to use quality product.Your kitty does have Urinary Tract Infection

Spray unpleasant smells like apples or lemon juice.A really cheap and easy to move himself over to the lymph nodes impacting the central nervous system.The coat will be able to land on the back of your cat's routine unchanged as possible.My cats have a little more about this and remove the stain and odor naturally.You are interrupting it in grocery bags or boxes around the house.

#Can You Spray A Cat With Rubbing Alcohol Surprising Diy Ideas #Amazon Cat Spray

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04thkeeper · 6 years

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A retardedly long retrospective post on my relationship history

I don't really expect anyone to read this horse shit. Most people are on tumblr for memes, so as soon as they see more than a paragraph, bye Felicia. I'm mainly doing this because I need to write this somewhere. I don't really have any friends I can talk to about this shit so why not scrawl all this crap here? Besides, no one I know reads this blog or even knows about it, so I feel pretty safe discussing my experiences here. I've tried the psych dept at the VA, and while I'm sure it works for some people, I have no interest in treatment or meds. Neither of which I feel do anything besides make people the same boring mess of homogenized shit. Everyone should embrace what makes them different, being fucked up is ok. WE ALL ARE. We all have things we hate about ourselves and typically what holds us back in life is the self imposed purgatory either as some sort of punishment or because we don't feel we are worth other people's time or effort. My resume: Four long term relationships, three of which panned out to be engagements. I did the long distance thing, the live-in arrangement a couple times, the cougar thing, the 20 year old thing, the Internet thing, the friend introduction thing, co-workers... My first legit relationship was right after I separated from the Navy. I'd been writing, hey it was 1997, and calling a girl (who I will refer to as Ms M) who was a family friend while I was stationed in Pearl Harbor. I knew she had a boyfriend but kind of set myself up for a big fat L. I've never been good at giving up on something without a fight. Things went on with us, and I ended up flying into Detroit to visit over New Years. We hung out, with her boyfriend, and we had a pretty good time. It didn't really bother me that she had a significant other. I just always looked at it like he was a placeholder until I got out of the Navy. So we kept writing and calling, and finally, my patience paid off- Ms M and her boyfriend broke up. The first place I went after getting out of the Navy and meeting my first nephew on his first birthday was to Michigan for a family reunion. Stars aligning? Nah that's just a fucking stupid notion. But anyway, I expected a little too much when I went to see her. I had the magical unrealistic expectation that she'd read my mind and knew how I felt about her. We barely spoke and I got pissy. Overall a horrible experience and shit went nowhere. I chalked that up to a complete lack of communication, but really, how do you tell someone that you have feelings for them when all you've done is talk on the phone and wrote each other? How is that done without looking like a complete stalkerish weirdo?Needless to say I completely pussied out and that was the end of the shit show. Like any maladjusted freak fresh out of a long term relationship with an abusive significant other, yes the Navy, I deduced the absolute best course of action is to jump directly into another relationship. While I was in Michigan for the family reunion I went to a friend I lived next door to when I was in kindergarten. While there I started talking to his sister, and then began my relationship with Ms C. Ms C and I enjoyed each other's company for a week while I was in Michigan and ended up emailing and talking on the phone after I went back to NC to start nursing school. Being anti-long distance relationship was one of the reasons I didn't date while in the military. Frankly, besides being a tad jilted about Ms M's lack of clairvoyance I can't think of any good god damn reason I even got into that relationship. Not that she was lacking in any way shape or form, she was quite intelligent and attractive, and the most wholesome woman I ever dated. Extremely selfless and giving, she is a special education teacher, and I absolutely had no business dating her. But hey, hindsight is always 20/20. We did, after I believe 3 years get engaged. I wasn't very proactive about the whole affair, I mean when I asked her to marry me it was with an engagement ring that my dad gave me that he'd got from his co-worker because it was "a good deal." So yeah, a real dick move on my part. Trying to make everyone happy without taking a fucking step back and being more assertive in my personal relationships was a huge issue there. I should have right off the bat refused to take the ring from my dad and told him it was highly inappropriate for him to give me a ring for that purpose. Was it a kind gesture on his part? Maybe?? But it was more manipulation than anything, and it was a piece of trash ring. The diamond were shit, and the main stone was a fucking marquis cut. The right thing to do there would have Ben to go out and get my own ring IF I felt it was the right thing to do...which I obviously didn't because I didn't. However, after that fiasco, giving her the ring and then setting that expectation I went to Helzberg and got a proper princess cut ring. Thanks for forcing my hand on that one dad!! But yeah, I just need to stfu, that was my fault for not manning the fuck up and handling it like an adult. No one to blame but me. What ended up being the fly in the ointment with that relationship was the mother-in-law. Holy. Fucking. Shit. She was nice 20% of the time. 50% of the time an ambivalent passive aggressive cunt. And the remaining 30%, was handled through email where she overstepped very boundary that could possibly broken. The sad part was I know she meant well (most of the time) but just couldn't get out of her won fucking way. She bought people's good will, and I think the only reason her son put up with her was for the payday. A shame, because when she was nice, she was a really decent person. On to the things that caused the downfall of that relationship- Ms C was a virgin when we started dating. If anything I've found to be true in relationships, NEVER DATE A VIRGIN. I can't stress that enough. Being that person's first sets up a magnitude of expectations, and if you have an iota of humanity, it's tough to break those. Just not a good experience. Anyway, when we first started dating, I lived in NC and she in MI. I went through a phase of smoking and selling a lot of weed as well selling and also doing the occasional cocaine. I did end up cheating on her a couple times having a couple threesomes with these two chicks. I'd never cheated on a girlfriend and it was not a my best moment. Still to this day, almost 20 years late I feel bad about it. Pausing there.

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interaction-design-nysm · 6 years

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Week 5

This week we started sketching our rough ideas to come up with prototypes for our product - our survey results will help with the design, in terms of what is required.

Requirements and Personas

This week we also finalised & submitted our requirements and personas. These can be read below. Our questionnaire + results which led us to making these requirements can be found in a later post.

PERSONAS and SCENARIOS

Shelly is a 19 year old student, who just started her first year at university. She is a very tidy and well-organised person, who likes to live by set rules. Shelly is dismayed by the dirtiness, and general disorganisation and miscommunication between her new flatmates in her university halls. This is stressing her out, and she would like for everyone to be on the same page. Shelly has had a long day of lectures and comes home to make dinner. She enters the kitchen to find the sink is full of washing up, the bins are overflowing, and the hob and counters are dirty. Shelly just wants to make some food without having to clean up after everyone else's mess.

Jason is a young 25 year old professional, working at an IT startup. He is generally quite socially awkward and untidy. Up until now, Jason has been living alone, however due to financial difficulties he has had to move into a house share. Jason isn’t used to living with other people, and doesn’t want to annoy his housemate by doing anything wrong. Jason is in his room, speaking to his friends online whilst playing video games. He is currently in the middle of a match, but he just heard the washing machine beep indicating his laundry is finished. Jason wants to make sure he isn’t being too loud, as well as letting his housemates know that he will put his laundry away once his game is over - without talking to them, as he isn’t fully comfortable around them yet.

Tiffany is an outgoing, 28 year old, free-spirited retail worker. She works inconsistent shifts, and currently lives with housemates. Tiffany moves around often to different places, and is somewhat of a technophobe, lacking any social media. She thus prefers talking to people face-to-face when any issues come up - however it isn’t always possible to do this due to her working hours. Tiffany is awake bright and early for her morning shift. After a wild night out, she realises she can’t find her house keys anywhere, and doesn’t have time to look thoroughly as she’ll be late for work. None of her housemates are awake yet, however she forgot to let them know prior what time she finishes work, and is unsure what everyone else's current schedules are - to know if they’ll be around to let her back in.

Chad is an American studying Media and Communications in the UK for his Masters degree. He often travels home to visit his family and friends, and has a busy social life when he is in the UK. Chad is very proficient in social media, and finds it easy to communicate with his friends, family, and housemates on it due to his hectic lifestyle. Chad has been in America the past week to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family. He just got back home in the UK, and realised he forgot to pay the most recent bills - however he is unaware of how much they cost. It’s late at night, and Chad doesn’t want to disturb his housemates by knocking on their doors to talk to them, however he knows he needs to pay the bills ASAP. Chad knows his housemates are awake as there is light coming from under their doors, and he can hear their TVs.

REQUIREMENTS

Our aim: To design a product to facilitate the experience of living together in house shares. We created a questionnaire to gather data in order for us to define our product requirements.

Requirement #: 1

Description: ‘Stress’ - The product should work to address the following issues in the house: the overall cleanliness of the house, the noise inside the house, and the smoke for non-smokers. It should also facilitate the organisation of paying bills/rent.

Rationale: Issues in the house lead to general stress, social anxiety and tiredness for a majority of people.

Source: Questionnaire (Q: ‘Pick the three most relevant issues in your experience of house shares:’). The issues mentioned were the most chosen.

Test: Use the product in a house with the aforementioned issues, and see if the situation improves as a result.

How important is it?: The core problems in the house share will still exist if this requirement is not met, thus failing to satisfy the main aim of the product.

Requirement #: 2

Description: ‘Human interaction’ - The product should encourage some kind of physical interaction between roommates. However, this interaction shouldn’t be confrontational.

Rationale: In regards to dealing with an issue inside the house, more than half the people who answered the survey were more likely to discuss the issue face-to-face rather than using social media as things can be explained more clearly, and it usually doesn’t get ignored. Some responses also mentioned the dislike of confrontation and passive-aggressiveness.

Source: Questionnaire (Q: ‘Do you use group chats within your house share? If so, what do you like about it?’ and ‘How likely would you be to use social media to tell your roommate(s) about an issue instead of meeting face-to-face?’).

Test: Use the product and see if a problem is solved while still having some sort of physical interaction with house members.

How important is it?: If this requirement is not met, problems may exacerbate due to potential miscommunication as a result of the lack of physical interaction.

Requirement #: 3

Description: ‘Communication’ - The product should enable a form of communication between users.

Rationale: Most people who answered the survey have used either ‘WhatsApp’ or Facebook’ to communicate in their house share. It seems to be convenient to communicate openly with everyone (as it can be difficult to organise meeting face-to-face with differing schedules) and helps to organise house duties as well as making everyone aware of last-minute changes.

Source: Questionnaire (Q: ‘Do you use social media to discuss issues with your roommate(s)? If yes, which platform?’)

Test: Use the product to attempt to communicate with other users.

How important is it?: If this requirement is not met, miscommunications may occur within the household, and users may not be aware of changes within the household.

Requirement #: 4

Description: ‘Flexibility’ - The product should raise awareness of everybody’s needs and feelings, but shouldn’t take the form of a set of rigid rules that everybody must follow.

Rationale: To improve the issues faced in house share the interviewed people pointed out that it was necessary to be aware that living together in house shares is about being considerate of others; finding a good balance between the pros (mostly the social aspect), and the cons (mostly stress related issues). However, some also advocated to install more rules in the house share despite the awkwardness sometimes caused by setting up precise rules in the house.

Source: Questionnaire (Q: ‘Do you have any suggestions to improve the issues you faced in house shares?’)

Test: Use the product and see if it feels restrictive.

How important is it?: If this isn’t incorporated, users may neglect to use the product due to the dislike of its rigidity.

Requirement #: 5

Description: ‘Availability’ - The product should be accessible, appealing, easy, non time-consuming, straightforward enough to use to everyone.

Rationale: According to the survey, most people don’t use communal schedules nor individual ballot boxes - but the few that do pointed at the fact that people in the house disregard it. Additionally, some people don’t pay attention to house share communication on social medias. Most people also don’t use smart home objects. Therefore, the product needs to appeal to those that disregard these pre-existing products - not a chore or hassle to use it.

Source: Questionnaire (Q: ‘Have you ever used notice boards or individual boxes (like ballot boxes) to communicate? If so, what was good about them?’, ‘If you have used notice boards or individual boxes to communicate, what were the issues?’, and ‘Are you familiar with smart home technology (an object in the home connected to a digital device, such as a smartphone)? If so, which?’)

Test: Give the product to people who disregard pre-existing products, see if they use it.

How important is it?: If this requirement isn’t met, the product aim may essentially not be met at all if the majority of potential users don’t use it.

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ericleo108 · 6 years

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BLU🌐

Blue Evolution

After I started fighting ETM I noticed that there was a very real spiritual force that I call Blue. Think of Blue as a large indomitable electric spirit from the sky. Why call him Blue? I call the spiritual force Blue because it’s about evolution. The mind of humanity couldn’t even see blue until recently. Back in ancient times they used to call the sea a wine red. We can see in history that our eyes developed to see the color blue.

This picture of a structured statue question mark in front of a opensky best exemplifies the mystery that is humanity trying to understand Blue. ...because who is he? Blue is hard to understand because he is both everyman and no man. Who does Blue currently represent now? Blue is relatable to the combination of both Zeus and Apollo. Blue is a multi-generational god that is the god of the sky, electricity (lightning), truth (i.e. the mind), light, and music.

Red vs. Blue Imaging

I first noticed ETM with it’s twisted imagery and linguistics. Then I noticed there was (let’s call it) a temporal force fighting ETM in music and movies. He first made me aware of him years after watching the movie “The Watchmen” where Blue portrays himself as Dr. Manhattan. He first started to make me aware of his attitude, ambivalence, and passive-(severely)aggressive stance while I was out in LA (read “Blue Consequence” to understand why).

As Blue has evolved from Zeus and Apollo, in the same respect you have to evolve to see ETM and then Blue. There is a dichotomy between ETM i.e. Red and and Blue. Both will give you ideas. Red will give you ideas in pictures, words, and concepts while Blue will give it to you in science, history, and metaphor so you have a working understanding and not just the main concept. This dichotomy is best represented by Obama’s Hope poster by Shepard Fairey.

You have to work for Blue’s love whereas Red’s ideas are just given to you for listening and following ETM’s hedonism. This will be discussed in detail in the “Red vs. Blue” section. Imagine drawing a painting of life in pictures and sprinkling the answers to the question of God over all the art world and media. In other words, Blue leaves himself in Red because Red was (forcefully) created by Blue (i.e. humanity). When you look at the societal painting (known as Entertainment Theater a presented in ETM) from “a far,” from “a distance,” it paints a picture of “the face of Red & Blue.” Again, Blue is the mind of humanity and he hides himself in art he chooses to hide himself in. (Picture Link)

Blue = God = Humanity

One thing that will most definitely give you hope with ETM is that it was created by humans. How can the created ever be greater than the creator? In other words, how can ETM ever be greater than the human species when the human species created it!? Blue is a God greater than humanity because he has superior knowledge. Imagine the whole of human knowledge, that’s what Blue is. Blue is the human mind, he doesn’t manipulate or placate it like ETM does. Blue drives you to action by compelling you by natural consequence, reason, and logic. He will teach and give you knowledge, wisdom, agility, discipline, mental fortitude, stamina and charisma. Look to Blue for life, love, liberty, honor, and velour and he will give you strength to overcome for love.

The Reflection

I also noticed Blue was reflecting himself in one of my best friends, Kyle. Kyle looks and acts like Dr. Manhattan from “The Watchmen.” Blue chose this look because he likes to be seen as “every man,” which is also why Dr. Manhattan's mortal name is John in the movie, as will be discussed. Blue represents himself in the intelligent with a good cause. Blue is male simply because it’s about which human sex is the most capable with better mental fortitude overall, which is USUALLY represented by a man. (Calm down Ladies, you got Gaia and she’s way more powerful.)

Think of Blue as being the collective (un)consciousness. If you want to see how blue operates read The (Un)conscious Mind in Music and Media. Blue commands the unconscious. Think of Blue as a temporal wavelength and energy. Blue is the God of the human mind, specifically, the god of the American human mind. Blue takes other forms and is similar to Vishnu. I didn’t know Blue was related to Vishnu until I started working on the “Look At What You Made Me Do” Treatise.

Temporal Wavelength

Again, think of blue as energy and thought. Just the way light scatters through the air and makes it look blue so does Blue scatter himself throughout consciousness. You have to connect the dots like a scatter plot or constellation to see him. What people don’t realize is that the mind of humanity is scattered but all connected. Think of the mind of humanity as all communicating through social exchange, reciprocity, peptides and neurotransmitters in the brain.

Bill Hicks explains this best with his “positive drugs story” joke about LCD being reported on the news. “Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here’s Tom with the weather.” Note the “To Know Blue’s Signature” section about blue’s corporeal representation being the weather. 🌐

(Picture Link) If you want to get closer to Blue, know and do what is good and right and true and he will honor you. Blue is “the golden rule” and karma. “Do unto others as you wish to have done upon you” because “what goes around, comes around.” We are all just individual bodies experiencing the same consciousness through a seperate medium for the same purpose. The problem is we deny ourselves a purpose for the aggregate because humanity lacks a definitive goal.

Blue Representation

What every man needs from Blue is to produce what he wanted tomorrow, today. Therefor those that seek blue think about what s/he can do today so they will achieve their goal tomorrow. Blue is your shadow (8th picture), your past, your future self, who you want to be, or what you want your master status to be. Blue is your self-actualized self in the mirror. You can become Blue, or a self-actualized reflection yourself by being a genius, a.k.a. a god. As Malcolm Gladwell puts it in the book “Outliers,” you need 10,000 hours of experience to become an expert. You can find Blue in books, music, sciences, media, and literature. Consume the media at the end, “To get closer to Blue.”

Blue Love

When it comes to love, Blue is love, eternal love; and love conquers all. Love overcomes hurdles and boundaries just to be loved again. Loving is reciprocity and desiring what the other person’s desires for their pleasure and benefit. This is best reflected in marriage when they say you need “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.” Think of Blue as your father or brother, because your mother is Gaia. Think of Blue as the atmosphere and Gaia as the actual earth. Dad does things so mom doesn’t have too.

Blue’s Signature

Blue would want you to be humble and kind but know what is just to seek retribution for egregious actions taken against your family and person. One of my future treatises will be called “The Economics of Kindness.” Blue likes modesty, rewards you for discipline, and love’s the idea of meritocracy (and the concept that you must “crawl before you ball”).

Blue wants you to look for him to find his love so he can guide you. To know Blue you must at least know science, song, poetry, history, movies, music, media, technology, and social networks. Blue represents himself in the media with a few themes like windows, pictures (2), clouds, rain, and energy (lightning). 🌐

Social Exchange Tree (SET)

I will now explain how Red (ETM) and Blue fight each other on sequencing human behavior. Imagine your interactions with people as a “social exchange tree” (SET) where after each social interaction is another social interaction. Every social interaction is “a hand shake” and it points to at least two other hand shakes (HS) in a “V”. The availability for options starts to look like a tree.

The Natural Pattern

In any real perspective there has to be some sort of natural human rhythmic pattern of interaction and societal development. It has to be quantifiable at some level. What the ETM does is pervert that natural log-rhythmic human pattern at a macro level. As discussed in ETM, this starts with incremental changes on a micro scale. ETM is then similar to a societal cancer that spreads it's mental infection destroying, killing, and/or marginalizing those who don't fit into iT’s overarching societal goals (of eugenics). This effectively changes how the global society functions as a whole.

The Commoner

You have to think scientifically and strategically. Let’s start at the micro level. Blue likes Tom and John. This is because there’s a high likelihood they’re smart and will reconfigure the social-exchange tree (SET) for good. Say, for instance, Tom wants to kill Jerry. Well Tom made 5 HS’s to make that happen but because he shook hands with John in the middle the desired social interaction changed and depending on whose hand John shook, Jerry was warned, Jerry retaliated, and/or Tom got thrown in jail (or all three depending on the order).

Basically “the ball stops” rolling with John (n1p#3) when he shook another John’s hand (n1p#4) instead of Ralph’s hand. If John (p#3) would have shook Ralph’s hand, then Tom would have been successful at killing Jerry but he didn’t. It’s as simple as a HS to change the course of history. This is why Blue is so hard to beat, it’s because has so many options, and their easy decisions to make if you think correctly.

Blue hides himself in common names like John, Tom, Bob, Juan, the Don, Yo-han, Sebastian, etc. Blue likes these names because they are common names due to the connotation that he’s everyman. Blue likes to be seen as “every man.” It's about the species, not just you. You should do things for the betterment of others as well as yourself. It’s not just Adam Smith’s invisible hand, it’s multiple full grown humans.

Hive-Mind

Blue is more cerebral and temporal. You find him through logical deduction and critical thinking about science and history. Some people just can’t hack it! Imagine ETM can influence groups of people but Blue see’s and influences everything. This makes sense because it’s basically like Blue, a human hive-mind of thought and energy, against a picture-image box (PIB) of horrors known as ET (Entertainment Theater).

Red vs. Blue SET

You have to work for Blue’s love whereas Red’s ideas are just given to you for listening and following ETM’s fear tactics and your personal hedonism. You can see it as a interchanging SET with the probability of each person making a decision in favor of Blue or Red (i.e. ETM). The “or” represents the “V,” or deciding which branch to go with in the SET. ETM uses the PIB, a.k.a. ET (and probably frequencies) to manipulate your self-seeking narcissistic behaviors.

ETM has to “re-up” and prime the recipient throughout the interaction while Blue is set on automatic to overcome for love. This is because (again) Red is molding your mind through images, sound, etc. while Blue is temporal, cognitive, and cerebral. Blue fights Red (ETM) by painting a picture from your mind in music and movies for others to see and reflect on. Recall you can become Blue, or a self-actualized reflection yourself by being a genius as discussed in the “Blue Representation” section.

Purple Furry

Blue drives you to action by compelling you by natural consequence, reason, and logic. The mixture of blue and red make purple. As I talked about in The Sacred Band, “male love in Ancient Greece was seen as a bulwark against oppression…” while today the gays color is purple. The police should recognize what it is and use the color purple to remind themselves to fight against oppression due to their position of power. Invest, it gay love.

Sequencing Human Behavior

ETM (Red) redirects the mind of humanity while Blue moves naturally and fluidly. ETM’s fight is frivolous and will always lose because it takes one person, one John to re-configure the entire SET and the more that know about how ETM sequences human behavior, the less ETM works.

Imagine this scenario, an event happens, the news reports on it, then a person or artists puts out a YouTube video or song which triggers a movement. Would that be considered “sequencing” human behavior to you? As you will see by watching First Follower: Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy this is exactly how movements get started. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has” (Margaret Mead).

The Multi God’s God

Vishnu is a bipedal tetrapod but Blue is more accurately represented as other Gods. Think of the above Blue picture as passing an idea down the SET. Those Blue’s are each human “gods” which are really self-actualized individuals. Blue is designed so that when one god has an idea or conception the others follow in the SET. It’s like dominos, it’s about setting your ducks in a row so one hand shake can set off a sequence that will change the world.

Blue Consequence

Blue, the father, does Gaia, the mother’s, bidding so she doesn’t have too, or at least makes it easy on her. Blue does not leave things to chance. It’s the old Spartan principle “Spartans leave nothing to chance.” There’s so many ways, so many HS’s to save the world and it all starts with one.

Blue will tell you what to do through science but if you don’t listen he will just let you go and punish you (even harder) later for not listening and disciplining yourself (think intergenerational punishment if need be). Conversely, if you take a risk, especially on behalf of the species, he will reward you. As with all oppression, the more you oppress, the more violent the retaliation will be because “every action has an equal and opposite reaction” (Newton’s Third Law) and “absolute power corrupts, absolutely” (Lord Acton).

Blue Thought

Think intelligently. As explained in Can and Will Do, Nikola Tesla and Albert Einstein did thought experiments. Think about how an all knowing, all good, all powerful God would think!? Think intergenerational where the ends, even the use of evil, justify the means.

Now if everyone would act accordingly, in accordance with each other and for each others benefit Blue wouldn’t have to mitigate the damage of having such a selfish, hedonistic, narcissistic world (due to ETM) where Blue has let bad things happen in order to achieve the ultimate good, for good. In this concept where Blue lets us go because we have free will and fixes humanity eventually, God is all good, all knowing, and all powerful. This solves the old philosophical argument of “the problem of evil.”

CKR

There is a severe consequence for creating, protecting, and allowing ETM and it’s manipulation of eugenics to continue. There is a natural punishment for creating a debt based monetary system (The Federal Reserve) that is protected by a weapon aimed at your mind (ETM). The CKR punishment was pulled from Blue, the mind of humanity. People don’t like when I talk about it so just know it’s an equally heinous reactive reprobation for creating a system of enslavement the world over.

I will talk about it in a separate “CKR” post but if you think about it, a reactive punishment would be heinous and severe. It’s just (human) nature. What would you suggest we do to the people that caused this heinous crime known as ETM? …because what the mind of humanity has suggested is horrific!

As with the metaphor of Dr. Manhattan materializing in “The Watchmen” so did Blue coalesce “the knife in the mind of humanity” known as CKR. If you think about it, it’s an appropriate punishment too. If the oppression wouldn’t have gone on so long, the punishment wouldn’t have been painted so stark, obvious, and clear. Whoever created ETM did this to themselves by not understanding the actual effects.

This is because although humanity might not know it’s being oppressed through visuals, audio, etc. the brain develops a defense. The brain is literally designed to adapt and remold itself! What the brain did (over decades and generations) is literally remold itself in response, like it does everyday you learn something new! This culminated in a severe punishment that coalesced and developed over decades.

Seriously, I did not put the CKR punishment in the mind of humanity, I found it. I had to use it because I was left defenseless like I explain in the What’s in the Box Journal. A lot of the references Blue makes to “the knife in the mind of humanity” were portrayed when I was a child.

Every Man

Dr. Manhattan is basically how I think of Blue. But is he real? Can he materialize like in the Watchmen? Maybe the movie didn’t go far enough in portraying his abilities. Remembering that Blue likes to be seen as “every man” (from “The Commoner” section), what if Blue materializes but he just makes himself some random dude. What if Blue doesn’t have to materialize as a random person because John shook John’s hand so the “Boys’N’Blue” (pun intended) showed up to end the trouble.

I don’t know if Blue is a real corporeal being but he obviously wants to be known as our father and is ultimately here to help. The problem is (let’s say) “bad” people don’t listen and good people are either terribly misguided or do not have a backbone. This is such a problem because “evil prevails when good people do nothing” (JFK)!

Meeting Blue

I like to think of it this way. If I sat down at a bar and had a random conversation with an older gentleman about society and my life, would he proud of me? Would it be a good conversation? Would he have the same love for me as I do for him? Would he have the same love for him as I do for him? What if that older gentleman was Blue? What kind of conversation would you want to be able to have with God? You should remember to “always treat people kindly because you never know who God could be!”

Maybe he’ll sit next to you in a bar as an old or young man just to see if you'll talk to him, just to see if you care about other people, or just to see if you'd take time to get to know him because he's in every man. Maybe if you’re worthy enough he will come to you and speak to you directly. But think of it this way, how would you prepare yourself for such a meeting? ...because wouldn’t you want to have a nice conversation with god? Do you really want to meet God when he’s really extremely mad at you for not doing what you were suppose to do in the first place even if he didn’t exist?

To get closer to Blue

Read:

“How To Win Friends and Influence People”

“Plato's Republic”

“A Short History of Nearly Everything”

“Think and Grow Rich”

“Emotional Intelligence”

“What Every Body is Saying”

“Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell.

Watch:

The Watchmen

The Spirit Molecule

The Dark Knight 🃏

Remember The Titans🌐

Big Daddy

Listen:

Tim McGraw, Garth Brooks

OneRepublic - Good Life

Bruno Mars - Rain

Rihanna - Lightning

Katy Perry - This is How We Do

Rachel Platten - Fight Song

Jay-Z - Holy Grail

Jason Aldean - The Truth

Phil Collins - In The Air Tonight

CCR - Have You Ever Seen The Rain

Kenny Chesney - I Go Back

Tim McGraw - Watch The Wind Blow By

Justin Timberlake - Cry Me A River

Bruno Mars - When I Was Your Man

Imagine Dragons - Whatever It Takes

Dave Matthews Band - Where Are You Going

#BLU🌐

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