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anderscim · 9 months

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✦ another (even wilder) theory with bagel

similar to my teruko theory, this one also has a lot of room for rebuttal. to be honest, a lot of the evidence i have for this is quite flimsy (_ _;)

this theory is mainly about mai akasaki’s connection to the cast, and how it relates to the killing game in general.

take this with a grain of salt as always

//spoilers for up to chapter 2 part 1 of drdt

//additional spoilers for bonus content, such as the bonus episodes and the new “literature girl insane” MV

there shouldn’t be any tally5 spoilers if i’m not wrong ( ・∇・)

here’s one question i have for you all: how many members in the cast, right now, actually know mai akasaki?

it’s definitely implied in the bonus episodes and the quotes on her character page that she’s connected with everyone in the current cast, but there was a paradox i noticed—if it even is one, that is (-.-;)—that led me to think that this question…may actually be a lot more complicated than it seems.

let’s bring up the bonus episodes first. min’s bonus episode is definitely during their time at hope’s peak. they’re literally at the school, studying about it, discussing min’s “role” as an ultimate compared to the other students, etc. basically, many details point to min and “unnamed classmate” (who is presumably mai, based on the flowers in the dialogue box of the bonus episodes matching up with those on mai’s tattoo) being students of hope’s peak academy in the united states. though there’s no physical evidence or exact basis for this, i would personally like to think that xander’s bonus episode is placed during spring break at the academy. he is talking to his “classmate,” after all—and in that case, it would also chronologically line up with min’s (whose bonus episode takes place a week before spring break).

presumably, the other bonus episodes will follow a similar pattern, and we will see mai/UC talking to other members of the DRDT cast to get to know them more. i will assume this means that the whole cast, not just min and xander, have been to hope’s peak before—and attended class as students there. after all, it would be the only way the bonus episodes would make sense.

however, the dialogue from the first few episodes of the series suggests something else.

as implied from the dialogue, all of the students believe they are only entering the entrance ceremony of hope’s peak as freshmen, and had no previous affiliation with the school. including xander.

obviously, this means that at the very least, their memories have been tampered with to remove anything regarding their experience at hope’s peak academy.

— sorry, very quick side tangent (*'▽'*) going by this theory, if the drdt cast genuinely went to hope’s peak, it’s very likely that they had to do a bunch of paperwork and submit a lot of information for their enrollment—which probably includes medical information and any accommodations that were necessary for their well-being. additionally, if we assume that the cast attended hope’s peak for a year or a few years, it’s likely that whoever the mastermind is, they had the time to know the rest of their classmates well enough to be able to identify their preferences either way, this would actually be a pretty strong explanation as to why many components of their environment seem to be extremely fine-tuned to their preferences and necessities, despite no recollection of sharing that information with anyone involved in the killing game. though i bet this was already obvious, i felt like it was something i probably should bring up.

—

in that case, however—how would it affect their memories with mai?

as i can’t exactly speculate for the other students, i’m going to trace back to what i know. at the very least, it seems to be implied that min only met mai after being admitted into hope’s peak academy. min essentially drove her entire life around schoolwork, and studying for the “ultimate contest for eminent students,” the test that allowed min to receive her title—it’s likely that before then, she never surrounded herself with friends nor had any time for herself to explore her own hobbies. which probably means that she wasn’t acquainted with mai before enrolling into hope’s peak.

her backstory is really sad, by the way. i really wish she lived longer ( ´△｀)

as for when it comes to the other characters, i would like to remind you that hope’s peak scouts across the country for their students—so it’s more logical to assume that many of them resided in hometowns that were very far away from each other. so unless mai’s talent was the ultimate traveler or something, i think it would be very improbable for her to know everyone in the cast before their admittance into hope’s peak.

taking this into account, and assuming that the cast’s memories of hope’s peak were completely erased, there’s a possibility that the cast doesn’t remember mai akasaki, despite her connections with them. the only exception would be teruko, who clearly remembers mai—and seems to have been helped by her when enrolling into the academy in the first place, pointed out by this theory here by @laly-481.

…or at least, that’s what i thought at first—until someone decided to kick in the door while holding a new music video.

i guess in that case, the biggest question i should answer is this—why does david remember mai?

getting into very, very wild theory territory here. take what i’m about to say with a grain of salt assuming that the music video is really a reflection of david’s worldview and thought process, please ignore the fact that i’m acting like the antithesis of occam’s razor right now, then there’s no reason for mai akasaki to be featured in the video—much less have a photo of her placed in a wooden frame—if he didn’t remember her.

yet, there she is, on the right:

she even has a little description about how she was “someone dearly loved,” which fits perfectly with her character and the secret quotes on her profile page.

this is indicative of the fact that david remembers mai—and knows her well enough to even make an accurate statement about her. but, how?

obviously there’s the simpler explanation of “david knew mai before they went to hope’s peak,” which is of course a totally valid explanation—however, some details about the new music video made me consider a possible, different theory.

a grain of salt? more like, a mountain of salt from here on out

when i was watching the “literature girl insane” music video earlier, i noticed something interesting about this frame:

here, xander doesn’t have his eyepatch. though i’m not throwing away the possibility that this was just a technical error on the artist’s side—personally, this could be a indication that david knew xander before the killing game.

seeing as all of the cast are connected by the unnamed “classmate,” after all, it’s a likely possibility that the current participants of the killing game were originally in the same class at hope’s peak academy. which means, they all probably knew each other before this whole killing game went down.

in an earlier theory, i talked about how xander may have been the person in the opening prologue cutscene, and how he probably had his eye injured at that time. given that the person speaking during that scene is aware of the killing game (and is expressing their desire to end it), this event likely happened right before the killing game started—otherwise, it would be pretty imprudent for the mastermind to announce it and then wait for an entire month to set up everything, then make everyone fall unconscious, then remove their memories, etc.

what i’m trying to get here is that the cast, had they still retained their memories from hope’s peak, would definitely remember xander with both eyes. however, we know this to not be the case—from his introduction, we all see that xander had already lost his right eye from the beginning of the killing game. therefore, for david to remember xander from before he got his eye injury, he must’ve had at least some partial memory of hope’s peak—otherwise, it would be highly unlikely. this would give a possible explanation as to why the frame of xander without his eyepatch appears in the “literature girl insane” music video. and maybe give a possible explanation as to why david cared about xander despite only knowing him for ~three days. and defended him passionately during the first trial even after a lot of evidence pointed to him attacking teruko.

this also would explain why david remembers mai—assuming they were in the same class, since mai likely had incredibly close connections with the cast (including david), it’s more than likely that david cared about mai and possibly (vaguely) remembered her even after having his memories tampered with.

well, the “no-eyepatch” deduction completely hinges on the assumption that xander didn’t like, take off his eyepatch in front of david like he did with teruko, so i may be completely wrong about this. however, it is interesting that such a small detail was included in the mv.

so is this one:

i don’t know how it is for you guys, but that fork seems suspiciously similar to the fork in the prologue (which i theorized to be the item that caused the injury to xander’s right eye). additionally, the fork literally stabbing the “face” of the clock is… quite symbolic. it may be just me. i’m not sure. (-_-;) though, it could suggest that david remembers that scene—and perhaps knows about the “possible escape” of killing teruko? i highly doubt he was the one who wrote the note (rather i think that was xander himself), but it may account for that 2nd vote for teruko in the first trial.

my personal (unhinged) theory (with really no way to back it up) is that david may have retained partial memories of his experience at hope’s peak—but probably only a little, definitely not all of them. this may explain why he remembers mai and seems to recall xander before his eye injury (despite xander seemingly not remembering that they’ve met before)—but hasn’t called out the true mastermind nor seems to remember an escape yet. also, though his current behavior in the 2nd trial may imply that he’s trying to end the killing game early via wrong vote, i personally think he’s just breaking down and acting suicidal without that objective in mind, based on his actions.

little side note at the end: it would be absolutely amazing (and ironic) if the two people with the most distant character relationships with the rest of the cast (as of now) happened to remember the single person that had the closest relationships to all of them.

minor clarification/add-on: i just realized that i never said this, really sorry about that. m(_ _)m but basically, i don’t think david has any sort of clear memories regarding xander and mai at hope’s peak—rather, when i say “partial memories” i meant more along the lines of “vague nostalgia you can’t quite place.” he might somewhat recognize their faces at most, but likely not any clear sequences of events. and honestly, what i wanted to talk about more in regards to this theory is more about the fact that only teruko (and maybe david) remember mai in the first place—the rest of the cast probably can’t, with the way their memories were wiped.

uh, this was quite the ride. i truly felt like the antithesis of occam’s razor as i was writing this

however—this theory likely has a lot of points that can be argued against, as well as many other possibilities i didn’t consider. please, don’t be afraid to drop them in your reblogs or comments, i would love to read them!

and as always, take this with a (larger than usual) grain of salt

#bagel’s train of thought #drdt #danganronpa despair time #despair time #mai akasaki #david chiem #xander matthews #fangan #fanganronpa #welcome to “i make random connections and lots of assumptions hourly”#this was definitely fun to make though #i’m probably wildly wrong about all of this #…why is this 1.7k words (￣￣)#sorry about that last part by the way. it’s incredibly disorganized #min jeung #(kinda)#(i talked about her a little)

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leafykat · 2 months

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ATLA LIVE ACTION RANT/MANIFESTO

After watching it I started typing and couldn't stop. Sorry it's really really long and probably not very coherent.

(Since I wrote this, Big Joel put up a vid on his side channel talking about his thoughts on the first episode and he had a lot of points I agree with so watch that too if you’re interested) <- eta: ok jk sorry it already got taken off youtube it's only on his patreon now

I really dislike starting the story with the beginning of the war. It's like they don’t trust the audience enough to care about the protagonists without laying out all the Big Important World Context out right at the start, or they don’t trust us enough to understand non-linear storytelling. I’m trying really hard not to just hate on changes simply for being different than the show I grew up with, because god knows I have my own issues with it. There are scenes that are nearly shot-for-shot, line-for-line remakes of the original, which makes the parts they change really jarring and frustrating. I don't mind the way they combined some episodes or storylines or changed some details, like, June being the one who hits on Iroh instead of the other way around, but other changes just feel like they either miss something fundamental (to me) about the characters or the story or are just… arbitrary, which is almost worse.

One thing that REALLY frustrated me right from the start was that Aang wasn’t actually trying to run away. He goes flying to “clear his head” and gets caught in a storm coincidentally right as he says “ok Appa let’s head home”. Why? Everyone treats him like a coward anyway. Everyone is way meaner to him than in the cartoon about something that, in this version of the story, objectively was not his fault. Why? In the cartoon, he feels intense shame that he wasn’t there for everyone, even though he was twelve and about to be taken from the only person that wanted him to have a childhood, and he got so overwhelmed and scared by what the world expected from him that he tried to run away from it. In the live action, he gets to reunite with the spirit of Gyatso, who says, “you couldn’t have done anything if you had stayed. You just would have died,” (paraphrasing bc I can’t be bothered to give it more views just to get exact quotes) which is fine, I don’t think he needed a spirit world reunion with Gyatso but I can accept it. But if that’s what that gives Aang closure, what is the point of changing him to be less responsible for disappearing? In the cartoon Katara is the one who reassures Aang and helps him process his guilt, representing the people of the present who he can still help. The live action has the voice of the past, the people that he’s ‘failed’, reaching forward in time to absolve him of any sins. And remember that in this version he literally was trying to go home. It just feels like they’re trying to remove moral complexity from his character.

Less importantly (except to me maybe) I think that showing us the Air Temple pre-genocide removes impact of seeing it for the first time in the cartoon. I loved Aang hyping it up to Katara and Sokka, unwilling to believe that it could have fallen. It almost makes the viewer think maybe some of them could have survived in secret. Then, the contrast between his idyllic memories and reality start to sink in. It was an incredibly hard-hitting moment, dulled in live action by the audience having seen exactly what happened to the temple already (including an incredibly hamfisted “you can’t beat us while we have the power of the comet!” line from who I think was Sozin.) I think Momo is pretty cute though.

Another thing that pissed me off was the way they handled the Agni Kai: They combine Zuko's duels with Zhao and Ozai into one, where Zuko not only fights back against his father but gets an opportunity to deliver (presumably) a winning blow and hesitates. This choice weakens important aspects of his backstory and, to me, flattens his relationship with Ozai: 1) That he was never a prodigy firebender like Azula, feeding the inferiority complex that Ozai fostered 2) The Agni Kai was meant to be public humiliation, meant to teach Zuko ‘respect’. It was in front of hundreds of people, and it was a thirteen-year-old child against a full grown firebending master. Zuko prostrates himself and begs his father for mercy. His refusal to even fight embarrasses Ozai by exemplifying the 'weakness' Zuko's mother 'instilled' in him. In his duel with Zhao, Zuko makes a conscious choice to be merciful despite Zhao telling him to “do it” and kill him. Despite knowing how the fire nation views it as weakness, as cowardice, especially in this specific setting. It foreshadows his later choices, and shows his innate kindness. Combining the two duels doesn't allow us to see that parallel nor that growth. Reducing his act of mercy to a mere hesitation in the moment of victory, furthermore, reduces his agency.

In fact, the adaptation softens a lot of Zuko's role as an antagonist, giving most of his actually villainous actions from the cartoon to other characters. They keep him capturing Aang in the South Pole, but Zhao leads the attack on Kyoshi village, they remove the episode with the pirates (s1e9), combine aspects of episode s1e15 ‘Bato of the Water Tribe’ with ‘the Blue Spirit’ (s1e13) and ‘the winter solstice’ (s1e7/8) removing three instances of Zuko capturing or attacking Aang in favor of one with Zhao capturing and Zuko rescuing him. But I guess they add a fight in Omashu. Look, this is inevitable as a result of combining 20 episodes into 8. I don’t really mind streamlining a lot of these episodes, nor removing others (having episodes like ‘the great divide’ and ‘the fortuneteller’ only referenced as rumors Zuko hears in a bar is cute, to be honest), though the change to the Bato episode where Sokka merely has a flashback of his father implying he thinks Sokka is an incompetent warrior is a really unnecessary and bad change, to me. But they took out almost every instance of Zuko posing an actual threat to Aang and replaced it with one fight scene in Omashu. To me, what it feels like is the show runners know Zuko is going to become a Good Guy and thus they don’t want to make him act too Bad.

On the topic of Kyoshi island: giving Aang a reason to go there aside from wanting to ride the giant Koi, whatever. Removing Sokka’s chauvinism, okay, I guess. But it ends up replaced with extremely awkward flirting between him and Suki that feels motivated by nothing beyond each being the first non-relative young adult of their preferred gender either one has ever met. Whether or not you want to have Sokka start off sexist, and that could be a whole conversation on its own, him humbling himself enough to ask Suki for instruction was an important moment of growth for him that he doesn’t really have in this version. And they don’t even put Sokka in the dress and makeup!!! BOO! Also minor moment but I think it’s also sus for the show to have Suki remove her makeup as soon as it’s time for her to be a love interest and then just not wear it again. BOO!! She looked really cool though. It’s not like I think her first appearance in the cartoon is full of depth or whatever, and I think the cartoon turned her into a cardboard cutout as soon as she became a love interest, but it’s like the live action clipped through a wall straight to my least favorite parts of s3 Suki. It’s just disappointing. I also don’t like Aang being able to just talk to Kyoshi and his other past lives so easily but that might just be my cartoon-purist talking.

I didn’t mind putting Jet and Teo into Omashu, even though I think Danny Pudi’s ‘I had no choice’ justification for working for the Fire Nation holds up less well when he’s in a position of privilege in an Earth Kingdom stronghold as opposed to protecting a community of refugees in an isolated air temple. I don’t think they needed to add the Cave of Lovers plot from season 2 into the mix though. Not only that, but to rework that plotline so that 1) Aang isn’t even there, 2) it’s Sokka’s idea to put out their lights and follow the crystals, 3) that’s not actually The Solution 4) badgermoles can sense…. Emotions???????? Sorry that’s so fucking stupid it makes me angry. They include the legend where Oma and Shu learned earthbending from the badgermoles, so why would these giant creatures have learned to sense human emotion instead of the pre-existing explanation from the cartoon: sensing the world through the earth. You know, the thing that connects them to Toph’s earthbending. I guess setting up stuff as far away as… next season… isn’t important. They used the stuff from the season 2 episode “the swamp” for aspects of the winter solstice plot anyway, which is where Aang originally had a vision of Toph and thus was able to identify her as an earthbender in spite of her appearance. I guess they can come up with something else, but it’s just a decision that feels arbitrary. Sokka could have had his flashback without the spirit vision, but since this is before he meets and loses Yue they needed something, I guess. At this point I’m describing these changes not necessarily because I think they’re inherently bad but because I want to describe how fragile this jenga tower is getting, and how unnecessary they feel.

Ultimately it’s like… the things they’re the most faithful to are all the most surface-level easter egg references, while missing or changing the actual soul of the source material. Gran Gran gives the opening monologue word-for-word because Fans Will Get It. They include Bumi’s rock candy trick and lettuce leaf joke but make him resentful and angry at Aang for no reason I can understand. Sokka isn’t sexist anymore, he just has issues where his dad apparently thinks he ‘shouldn’t have lives in his hands’. Ozai is… wait- is he tearing up while he scars Zuko’s face?

I know we all love Daniel Dae Kim but we did not need Ozai so much this season, let alone Azula, let alone Mai and Ty Lee. We especially didn’t need a scene where Ozai praises Zuko to Azula while belittling her. For the record, because people defending this scene seem to think the issue is that the rest of us fail to understand that Ozai is playing his children against each other: That is not the issue. It’s that he did not play his children against each other in this specific way. He uses Azula to show Zuko how much he fails to measure up and threaten his position as heir, and he uses the example of Zuko’s failure to keep Azula in line. If she’s good enough and Zuko is bad enough maybe she’ll become heir. After all, that’s what happened to Ozai and Iroh. They are allowed to change this dynamic in adaptation but personally I think it’s a change for the worse, and the shot of tears in his eyes as he abuses his son lends credibility to an interpretation that maybe he does want Zuko to succeed. Lol. The cartoon focuses on Iroh’s reaction, his inability to watch, instead of Ozai’s… emotional conflict? Or whatever.

Katara and Sokka getting stuck in the spirit world as a replacement for their fever in The Blue Spirit is fine, I think condensing that plot and the winter solstice works decently. It’s fine that they changed Aang’s motivation for finding Roku to be getting info on how to save his friends instead of getting crucial info about Sozin’s Comet. After all, they clumsily introduced that in episode 1. It’s honestly fine (Read with as much cope in my voice as you want.) Combining that with Zuko’s half of The Storm is also…. Okay, even if I’ve already described why I don’t like how they adapted Zuko’s backstory. What frustrates me is that The Storm parallels Aang and Zuko’s backstories in a way that works really well with the events in The Blue Spirit. In fact, they’re back-to-back episodes. But the live action has moved Aang’s backstory to the beginning of the first episode. So instead of getting to see how they’re both constrained by the roles and times they were born into, and how heavily others’ expectations weigh on both of them, we have to have Aang explicitly spell it out for us. Rewatching these two episodes of the cartoon I was just really struck by how efficient the storytelling is. All Aang has to say after he’s saved Zuko is that he misses his friend from the Fire Nation, and that he wonders if he and Zuko could have been friends if they’d been born into a different time. All Zuko has to do is attack him in response. Because we’ve just seen why they can’t be friends in this time, in this world. The live action has to create some plot point about Aang having stolen Zuko’s diary, and Zuko having researched Airbender culture or something. They bond a little bit over brushes before Aang goes like ‘why don’t you turn against your family?’ The conversation (before that part) is cute, just like, not a good replacement for trusting the audience.

I guess once we’ve gotten this far it doesn’t matter much that Katara and Sokka have been captured by Koh, because of course they were. Yeah, they changed how it works, yeah, now he steals your face once you’ve succumbed to despair or something. Whatever. At this point it feels like nitpicking to point out that what made Koh so scary was that he would steal your face if you showed him any emotion at all. Who cares anymore.

^ok I wrote most of that before having seen the last two episodes, which cover the last three episodes of the first season of the cartoon. Dude it got even worse somehow. It’s been a couple days and my friends and I rewatched all of s1 of the original show in the meantime.

First of all, the changes to the dynamic between Hahn, Sokka, and Yue were completely inexplicable to me. Yue gets nominally ‘empowered’ in the sense that she’s no longer trapped in an arranged marriage to a total shithead, but at the same time they made Hahn seem like a… genuinely good guy? He’s humble, asks Sokka for his expertise, and nobly accepts that Yue broke up with him. When asked about it, Yue says ‘he’s great, he’s just not the guy of my dreams’, before kissing Sokka. (They also reveal that she was the sexy fox spirit that flirted with Sokka in the spirit world —I didn’t mention it before because I didn’t think it mattered at the time— so I guess we are meant to believe that Sokka is the boy of her dreams. Which we know from these two and a half conversations that manage to be way less cute than the awkward/shy flirting from the original show.) Even if they wanted to completely change Hahn’s character, Yue’s conflict in the original show was between her heart and what she saw as her responsibility to her people. They could just as easily have kept that element: that she isn’t in love with Hahn, but that for Political Reasons can’t just break things off. That’s way more interesting! But I do love a forbidden romance, so maybe that’s just me. The adaptation does say that they were at one point betrothed, which raises more questions than it answers. If both of their parents were anticipating this marriage so much that they set it up years in advance, why were they okay with her just breaking things off because she didn’t like him like that? Are arranged marriages in the Northern Water Tribe (I’m so sorry I forgot the name they gave it in this adaptation) purely meant to be love matches? There’s no financial or political element at all? Even for a princess? Whatever. Hahn still dies, this time it’s just offscreen. This time I’m actually a little sad for him, if just for his wasted potential.

They actually take out the engagement necklace stuff altogether, including the history between Pakku and Katara’s grandma, and the story of how and why she fled. I don’t really know why but maybe they thought “you lost the so-called love of your life to backward practices” was a weak reason to change his mind. So instead they have it that he doesn’t change his mind but it turns out Katara doesn’t need a master anyway because she’s already good enough to be a master! Despite not having been able to waterbend ‘more than a thimbleful’ before meeting Aang, and us not really getting to see her train at all. Gran Gran gave her the waterbending scroll she stole from the pirates in the cartoon, so I guess we can assume that contained everything you’d ever need to know. She loses the fight but wins the hearts and minds of the people. The women of the tribe support her when she goes against Pakku and go “we want to fight too!” Oh, did I mention this is all after they realize the Fire Navy is at their doorstep, so it’s less a fight about the right to learn waterbending than about the right to fight in war. And then again the issue of Katara needing to learn from Pakku is sidestepped by her magically being good enough now on her own. I don’t actually mind the change to include other women from the North standing up against sexism but to be honest I don’t understand taking out the betrothal stuff. It was a deliberate parallel in the cartoon- women trapped in loveless arranged marriages and also forbidden from learning any waterbending aside from healing. But whatever, it’s a choice. I can live with it.

What I don’t like is the way they’ve undermined Katara’s journey in season 1. Aang teaches Katara how to waterbend at first, and she also doesn’t learn to heal on her own before an elder shows her how to do it. In the cartoon, she’s been trying and figuring things out on her own all her life. Her hunger to find someone to teach her is a major motivator for why she wants to go to the North Pole. We see her struggle, get intensely frustrated and jealous that Aang picks up waterbending more naturally than she does, and work really hard at it. Her dedication and hard work are what Pakku eventually praises about her when he teaches her. He compares her to Aang, who is naturally talented but distracted. This is after an indeterminate amount of time, but whatever, condensed timeline, 8 episodes, whatever. We don’t even see Aang waterbend at all this season, which is kind of wild to me. I guess if you take out the Summer Solstice Comet deadline to master all four elements (which they did) Aang doesn’t really need to rush. Instead they kind of just have Aang have a thing of like “I have my friends to help me” which is….. ok….. Oh wait, is this why they don’t care that much about foreshadowing Toph? Are they just not gonna bother having Aang learn the elements and just have her show up and join them for whatever reason? Is that why they just totally removed ‘The Deserter’? Wait sorry, I’m assuming they’re planning that far in advance at all, my bad.

Okay also like I have to talk about this because it bothers me so much. Zhao was handled so badly. Whatever, have a Fire sage just give him the moon/ocean spirit exposition in a flashback instead of the way it unfolded in the cartoon (I guess we’re already not bothering to set up the great library since the gaang already met wan shi tong, I guess that’s… fine… Appa can get captured a different way, if they’re even going to bother with that plotline in season 2. If they’re even going to do a season 2.) Sure, the moon and ocean spirits are only in the physical realm and vulnerable for ‘only one night’ now as opposed to permanently. Zhao knows this but not that they’re fish. Okay. Whatever. Blah blah blah. Those are personal nitpicks. But what really gets me is that in the end, Iroh and Zuko kill Zhao. Or rather, Zuko doesn’t finish him off, Zhao tries to attack when his back is turned, and Iroh finishes him off (similar to the way their Agni Kai in the cartoon plays out.) In the cartoon, Zhao and Zuko are fighting, Aang-as-Ocean-Spirit grabs Zhao, and Zuko reaches out to try and help Zhao, which Zhao refuses. He chooses to meet his fate at the hands of the spirits he provoked rather than swallow his pride. This is such a good conclusion to Zhao’s character! The live action also fails to set Zhao up as a formidable firebender, which is also not strictly necessary but I think complements other elements of his character well. His first episode in the cartoon includes the Agni Kai between him and Zuko, establishing Zhao both as a firebending master and as someone who values his ambition and pride above all else. In s1e16, ‘the deserter’ we see him as the embodiment of fire’s destructive hunger: he is baited into destroying his own ships in his desire to “win” his fight with Aang. He gloats of how his siege of the North Pole will earn him a place in the history books, and to win he is willing to kill the moon, against Iroh’s exhortations. In the live action, we get a weird revelation that he was working with Azula, and she was the mastermind behind a lot of his plans? Huh? He also “reveals” that Ozai was only ever using Zuko to “motivate his sister”, which is both incredibly heavy-handed and completely redundant. I guess I should mention that the finale has a couple scenes thrown in where Azula is doing firebending training to pass some kind of arbitrary Test Ozai has set for her, while Mai and Ty Lee watch and tell her that her dad is like, being way too hard on her and she knows he’s manipulating her right? Thanks girls!

Anyway, I guess since the live-action completely removed the golden child/failure dynamic between Azula and Zuko we needed something to replace it. The “my father always said Azula was born lucky. He said I was lucky to be born” line summed up that relationship dynamic nicely. Oh well, who needs it. Instead Zuko is good enough to have beaten Ozai in a duel at 13, but Ozai decided he was weak for hesitating. Meanwhile Azula is struggling to meet his expectations. He banished his heir on a mission that, for the last hundred years, was considered a complete dead-end, so that he could, uhhhhh, Motivate her when he miraculously started succeeding. Masterful gambit, sir. Okay sorry to harp on that again. Back to Zhao. Actually, what else is there to say. He has a couple funny lines but he’s just not the same guy at all on either a superficial or deeper level. It’s so disappointing. It’s also just a really weak choice to make Iroh and Zuko responsible for his death. Maybe they couldn’t figure out how to make the special effects look good when the ocean spirit picked him up. It just misses the point of Zhao’s ultimate tragedy, to me. The man so lacking in self-control, so ambitious, so assured in his own superiority, that he saw the spirits themselves as his prey. To be destroyed by the forces he tried to destroy is so poetic! Instead let’s water down Zuko’s mercy and Iroh’s pacifism.

This is all I can remember at this point aside from nitpicks. Do I think the Koh vs Kuruk backstory needed to be spelled out like that? No. Did we need to almost have Momo DIE to get Sokka and Yue to the oasis? Not really. I don’t think the way Zhao “assassinated” Zuko in the live action made as much sense, but we took out the pirates so oh well.

When you get to a certain point I guess the question becomes ‘how much can you change in an adaptation and still call it an adaptation’. What do adaptations owe to their source material? Where does the spirit of a story reside? If the same plot beats happen, does it matter if characters are different? If the characters are faithful, does it matter if events are moved around? If the destination is the same, how much does it matter how you get there? What do I personally want to see in a ‘live-action’ adaptation of Avatar, this show that I loved so much growing up? Well, assuming that “don’t make one” isn’t a possibility, I would have preferred they follow more in One Piece’s footsteps. That adaptation wasn’t perfect either, and it condensed around 100 chapters of manga into 8 hours, but it really felt like it got the characters right. Avatar had a tough job too, but it condensed 7 hours 40 minutes of cartoon into 8 hours of- wait. No. Well at least we got the cabbage merchant.

#u guys dont even know how much the original shaped my adolescence....#for that reason i was probably the most annoying person possible to watch the remake with #thank u to my friends

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exhaustedwerewolf · 11 months

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still slowly catching up on cr3 and it’s making me so sad that after ashton reunites with the group in e45 they mention being interrogated not once but twice, including more specifically:

“The next thing I know, we were unconscious, tied up in the kitchen, and there was some interrogation on their end, not ours… They were starting to ask me about who I was and what was happening and what was going on and there was some punching, which I'm fine with, but.”

like. I know ashton tends to get squirrely about anything they perceive as pity but christ, guys. are we really just going to skim over that? being tied to a chair and beaten for information (alone) is very different to being on your feet in a (group) fight. talisein’s acting here absolutely betrays ashton feels unsettled and vulnerable and is trying to hide it but also seems to be looking for cues from the rest of the group to how they should respond. I feel like this is a pattern w/ BH and ashton specifically, like when they got impaled on the skyship and the group firstly didn’t notice, and then after they’d removed the debris, let him walk away by himself and (unbeknownst to them) collapse on the floor by the bed. there’s also that conversation ashton has with fearne (can’t remember the ep or exact quotes to find the transcript) where she mentions she wasn’t “really watching” them get the shit kicked out of them at the party and he’s surprised himself by how much it hurts to hear that. they think it’s their job to take pain for the group which is upsetting enough, especially from a character already in chronic pain, but what makes it “worth it” for ashton is other people acknowledging it, which is also fucked up, but BH also aren’t doing that, and neither are they hitting pause and going “woah, hey, are you actually okay?” and giving ashton permission to actually check in with themselves and/or admit they’re not.

#critical role #cr #critical role campaign 3 #ashton greymoore

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lizardrosen · 1 month

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How Is It that the Clouds Still Hang on You

Bridgertons performing Hamlet, part one! This wouldn't have been possible without @glintglimmergleam!

Pre-play, Anthony’s Hamlet is the eternal student, the idle rich somewhere between seventeen and thirty who still doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up. First sons really only have one job, and that’s to someday be their fathers; and Hamlet, like Anthony, is sure he’s getting it wrong no matter what he does. Anthony at least has the estate and his younger siblings to look after, but Hamlet only has the vague notion of someday being king, and looking through the script for hints of who Hamlet used to be, Anthony thinks for the first time that the prince must have been lonely even before his father died.

His only recourse was to take nothing seriously and sell himself as the clown of any group, and he usually managed to believe what he was selling and even enjoy himself. When Claudius popped in between the election and his hopes, those hopes curdled inside of him and he started putting up firmer, spikier walls, where before there was only wordplay and multi-layered classics references. (Anthony is actually hopeless at this kind of thing; he had to ask Benedict about “When Roscius was an actor in Rome” and “Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!” but what was he going to do, not make Hamlet a classics nerd??)

Gregory memorizes the roles with the most lines first, of course, so he’s already gotten the bantering rhythm down for playing both halves of a comedy duo attempting to be spies. “My lord, you once did love me” is regret for the distance in age with his oldest brother, and the distance in social status for Rosencrantz and Hamlet. Osric, he unlocks when he decides this vain and silly courtier idolizes both Laertes and Hamlet in much the same way that Gregory looks up to his oldest brothers, so he and Benedict talk about it and come to the conclusion that Laertes might trust Osric enough to ask him to help kill Hamlet, but Osric would never go along with it, which means that in this production Laertes didn’t tell him what he was getting Hamlet into.

Now he has to bring the soldiers on the watchtower to life. He whirls as if to face an unexpected noise, and answers himself rapid-fire.

— Who’s there! — Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold thyself! — Long live the king! — Barnardo? — He.

It’s almost a knock-knock joke but the truth is that no one in this play really knows who’s there or if they can be trusted, and it’s an uncertainty hidden in plain sight right from the opening lines. For this dialogue to work, it has to be two people meeting in the dark and he can’t just play both roles like he does for Ros and Guil.

“Hey, Daphne, my favorite sister, how would you like the second speaking role in Hamlet?”

“Hold still, your collar’s askew, I need to fix it. Only the second role?” she asks. “Not the first?”

“Daaaph, cut it out, my shirt is fine! And Barnardo can pretty much be combined with Marcellus and not much will change because they’re both there to back up Horatio’s story, and he’s there to back up theirs. Francisco’s more like Gertrude, he never gets to see the ghost.”

“Not a mouse stirring,” she quotes. “But he’s wrong about that and so is the queen — there’s so much more stirring in her kingdom than she’ll allow herself to see. Yes, I think you’re right about giving me Francisco. You’ll make a good director for next year’s play.”

“Titus Andronicus?” he asks with a bloodthirsty grin.

“Well, we’ll talk about it.”

At first Francesca has trouble deciding how to distinguish Claudius from his dead brother — are they more alike or more different? No face paint for the ghost, she decides, and in fact they should have almost the exact same costume with perhaps a different colored sash, and it’ll depend on how she carries herself.

Claudius is personable and popular except when he’s alone and the thought of his own sin wraps around his neck, while King Hamlet has forgotten everything but the purgation of his sins, and the vengeance he must see visited on his killer before he may rest. The ghost is not all there, still half in the fires of hell, but he also has a supernatural gravity that snaps all the attention in a room to him. It’s a kind of authority Claudius wishes he could project, but as good at public speaking as he is, he always seems a little bit desperate and out of his depth, so he turns up the charm even more.

Francesca finds what they have in common, too, more than either would care to admit. “Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatched” says one; “my crown, mine own ambition, and my queen,” says the other. Both kings save Gertrude for last, which could either mean that she’s an afterthought or that she was the most important thing to lose or gain.

Francesca is a Bridgerton which means she’s a romantic, so she decides it’s the latter. They both just really love their wife, enough to kill a man, enough to tell Hamlet not to contrive against his mother aught, enough to come back from the dead for a few more moments in her bedchamber, enough to send Hamlet away to be executed in England instead of imprisoned in Denmark simply because Gertrude asked.

By the time Claudius gives his speech about marrying Gertrude, Hamlet has a permanent clench to his jaw whenever he’s in public or in the same room as Claudius — that shouldn’t be too hard, says Eloise, since that’s his default expression, and Benedict, who’s probably seen Anthony laugh more than anyone else, has to agree with her. But when he’s left alone, though forbidden to go to Wittenberg, he can at least relax enough to stop trying to hold back the things he shouldn’t say in front of the nobles. “How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable, seem to me all the uses of the world!” is just full of bitter laughter, giving in to the cosmic joke that Nothing Matters. But his aspect changes completely when he sees Horatio, and he picks Hyacinth up to spin her around, even though she’s almost gotten too heavy for that.

Hamlet cannot believe that Horatio would lie to him about a ghost, or tell him anything until he’s sure of what he’s seen, but he still warns himself not to hope too hard, in case nothing comes of it, it’s something he wishes he had not seen. And despite the dull but persistent heartbeat of “nothing matters, nothing matters,” always singing at the back of his head, his father’s spirit does appear, and when Hamlet follows, he learns that there is a meaning — an awful, perfidious one, but still.

So what if he has to kill a man (so what if Anthony had to decide, eleven years ago whether they should try to save his mother or his sister), at least it’s a purpose, and when he wipes clean the tables of his memory he can fall backwards into his prior persona of taking nothing seriously, but now with the bitter armor of actually not caring what happens next.

#my writing #bridgerton #hamlet #osric #claudius #the viscount's men #<- i now have a tag for them and added it to my previous posts on the subject :D #this goes up to the end of act one; part two will be all about ophelia

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straight4joekeery · 1 year

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Teach Me How To Love In Your Own Lyrics

(Part four)

Prev. Part one

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Steve, STEVE”

“What? What’s wrong?” He panicked. Oh. Oh no. He’s back. But there’s no way. Surely after 7 years he couldn-

“It’s 10 o’clock!”

Oh. “Huh?”

“It is TEN and I have to be at the airport by ELEVEN!! We over slept!”

“Shi-” he wasn’t gonna hear the end of this one.

“HURRY GET UP, LETS GO!!” Steve hopped out of Eddie’s bed without any delay.“We stayed up ‘PARTYING’,” he air quotes, “out of all things” Steve grabbed a few bags that he was sure Eddie needed and set them in the living room. “We’re gonna be late I knew it. I’m gonna miss my flight. I can’t go on tour. Oh my god I can’t go on-“

“Eddie it’s fine. I promise. We will make it and you will survive. Just go put these in my car.” He handed him some luggage and sent him on his way. He threw on some ‘airport appropriate clothes’ and fixed his already perfect hair. He grabbed the remaining bags locked the doors and ran so fast you would have thought a serial killer was chasing him. Eddie ran to take the bags so Steve could start the car. He still had the same exact stupid red Beamer. (Hey, it still ran fine so no complaints here.) Eddie jumped in the car before yelling at Steve to go. “Okay! Okay! Who’s house first?”

“I had a really strong feeling that this was going to happen,” nice going Steve, “so I told them to all go to Jeff’s.” Perfect only one stop. The airport was only about 20 minutes away so they should be fine. People in Hawkins don’t really have lives outside of work so the roads were empty. So Steve sped. What? It was only like 42 miles over the speed limit.

Eddie was visibly nervous. He was shaking really badly and you’d think he was trying to pry his nails off with his teeth. “Hey,” Steve placed his hand on Eddie’s leg to try to get him to calm down, “it’s going to be alright. On the bright side at least we woke up before eleven.” It made Eddie smile a bit so he’d mark that as a ‘you rule’.

“Thanks Steve,” Eddie grinned, “if we don’t make it you’ll drive us to cali right?” He joked. Steve didn’t know that though.

“Probably, when’s your first concert? Would we make it in time? That’s like a 3 day drive right,” you could see the gears turning to try to figure out the distance.

“Steve I was kidding,” oh, “you’d actually do that though?”

“For you? Of course I would,” he’d drive across the world for Eddie actually, but he’d never admit that. He smiled looking Eddie’s way. Oh no. He just realized he hadn’t taken his hand away yet. He removed it quickly. But not to quickly. That would probably make it even weirder. Eddie probably hated him now. When he comes back from tour he probably won’t talk to him. What? Why is he so worried about this? It’s even weirder that he freaking out. I mean, it’s just bros doing bro things. I mean after all they’re just friends. Right?

“It’s this street right here,” Eddie pointed at a street sign, snapping him out of his thoughts. It read, “Shirley road.”

“Okay,” Steve turned. He saw his band mates waiting out side and pulled up to them. He got out and took their bags.

“Thank god!” Jeff yelled

“We thought you’d never come!” Freddie said while he shoved his suitcase in Steve’s arms. Gareth just gave him a death glare as he handed Steve his stuff. Sometimes Gareth can be scary absolutely horrifying. Steve saw his face and checked his own pulse to make sure Gareth didn’t just explode him with his mind or something. They all jumped in the car simultaneously yelling at Steve and Eddie.

“I’m sorry!!” Eddie yelped, “you realize this tour means as much to me as it does to you. Now just please be quiet,” Eddie paused, “and hey why don’t you thank Steve for being so so generous and driving us?” Oh. That was… sweet? He obviously started blushing like a schoolgirl.

“Sorry,” Freddie mumbled

“Sorry Steve,” Jeff said. Jeff was the nicest one out of the three, so you could tell he meant it. Gareth said nothing. He however would not say anything about because he would 100% be murdered in his sleep.

“It’s no problem at all,” he smiled at Eddie. Eddie tried to smile back but he’s so stressed again he kinda forgot how. Of course this sends Steve into another spiral. He’s still mad at him isn’t he? Oh my god Steve you’re so stupid. He grips onto the steering wheel until in knuckles go white.

They spent the next 10 minutes of the ride in silence besides the tape that Eddie put in before they left.

“Sooo, how’s everyone feeling?” Steve said to break the silence. Freddie and Jeff agreed they were both super excited. Gareth… still wasn’t speaking.

“Honestly? I’m terrified.” Eddie said with another fake smile.

“Why? You guys are great.”

“It’s not that I think we’re gonna do bad! I know we’re going to be amazing! I don’t know. 3 months is kinda a long time,” he sighed loudly, “I get like horribly homesick,” he frowned.

“I’m sorry,” he didn’t want him to be sad, he had to cheer him up at least a little, “did I tell you literally all of my students love you guys? James is going to your concert.”

“James? The one that you said like never speaks?”

“Yeah,” he laughed, “was very passionate about you. Almost passed out when I said you guys went to Hawkins high.” And… oh thank the lords above who have blessed him on this fine evening (morning? He didn’t even know anymore.) This not only made Eddie smile but also Gareth. Steve might live to see another day after all!! “We made it!” Steve says as they pulled into the airport. He checked the time and, 11:10 they can’t easily make it (because they are so so cool and famous and are practically Royalty) but they have to run. Thankfully, tsa doesn’t take hours here.

“Okay rockstars! Let’s goooo!” Gareth spoke for the first time. They all scrambled out of the Beamer and ran to the trunk. Steve popped it open and grabbed a handful of random luggage. There was… a lot, all instruments considered. Once everything was out they all ran. Steve walked with them as far as he could without a ticket.

“Hey man, sorry for being… rude?” Gareth said putting his bag on the luggage belt.

Steve laughed, “it’s fine. I’d be mad at me too.” Gareth actually smiled at him. Oh thank the heavens above he doesn’t hate him. “And uh.. good luck. You’re gonna do great.”

“Thanks dude,” he said as he was walking away.

“Hey,” said Eddie from behind

“Hi.”

Eddie took a long deep breath before walking up to Steve and wrapping his arms around his neck. “I’m gonna miss you. Like a lot.”

“Yeah? Me too. A lot,” he laughed as he wrapped his arms around the other man’s waist. Although neither would ever admit it, they were both crying.

“Okay I have to go or I’m gonna be late,” he backed up. He sniffled and wiped his tears away, “see you in… three months,” he said rolling his eyes.

“Three months,” he sighed, “bye Eds.” He pulled him in for one last hug. (What? It’s not weird. They are friends. And plus he’s leaving for THREE MONTHS.)

“Bye Stevie,” they stayed like that for a while until Gareth yelled at them, “Okay now I really have to go,” he laughed. They said goodbye one last time before Eddie ran. He turned around before walking up to tsa to wave. Steve waved back.

He had to go. He ran back to that stupid car and opened the stupid door. He sat down in the stupid seat and closed the door. He stared to cry. He cried his stupid eyes out until he couldn’t breathe.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” he muttered to himself. This is the first time Steve had actually cried since he was eight. Why? Why was he doing this?

He remembered back to his dads words, “kid quit your crying!” He yelled, “crying is for emotional sissies who will never be able to care for themselves. You will get nowhere from crying. It won’t magically make your problems away!” God he hated him. But he was right. Crying wasn’t going to make Eddie come back. He felt so pointless without him. He was his other half since the day Robin left. He missed her. If she was here she would tell him that everything was going to be okay.

This was so stupid. Steve was so stupid. He was crying for nothing. Speaking of, why on earth was he crying. He didn’t cry when Robin left permanently, why is he crying now. He thinks. And thinks. Thinks about how they are different. They aren’t? Because remember Steve and Eddie are JUST friends. Steve cried more at the stupid thought. Why? Why is this hurting him? It’s not like he wants them to be more then friends. (Right?) That’s weird. Plus Eddie isn’t gay.

“YOUR’E SO STUPID,” he yells to the top of his stupid lungs. He has to remind himself that they are just friends again. Plus he Eddie wouldn’t want that. Because it’s the truth. The stupid stupid truth. Right?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

MWAHHAHAHHA. FEAST MY CHILDREN. Im so evil. My goal is making at least 2 people cry. If you didn’t? Don’t fret! There’s still more 😉. Anyways. This one’s pretty goooooddd. Part count is still 9 or 10. So so sad for little baby Steve. Anywayssssss comment or reblog if you want to be tagged! I will say I hope you enjoyed but if you did you’re a psychopath 😘. Also lmk if I made any mistakes I only read over this once. Also don’t come at me for the airport anatomy. I haven’t been in one in a year and it was also 5 in the morning so I was very much not awake.

I’m also really sorry if you asked to be tagged and didn’t get tagged, tumblr is like not letting me tag a good portion of my people. if you are not able to be tagged I will message you! Let me know if you don’t want me to do that if this happens. (Also make sure you have your tags on!)

Tag list: @idea-less-author @queerbeansworld @asbealthgn @vecnuthy @jehneeg @steve-themom-harrington @bird-with-pencils @artiststarme @piningapple @lfaewrites @azreadytodie @thequeenrainacorn @pastel-dreamscape @importanttimemachinenerd @swagaliciousmarie @mightbeasleep @krazyperson @milkshakeflower @fando-random @bumblebeecuttlefishes @swimmingbirdrunningrock

Also it’s so annoying that I only get 30 tags. That’s where I truly express myself :(

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tennessoui · 2 years

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ok i went to dig for that prompt lol but how about

“You’re such a bitch.” or

“Can you shut up” or something like that i forgot the exact quote.

but for Sugar daddy Anakin 🙏🙏

ps ur writing is so amazing and wonderful and omg it keeps me awake at night i enjoy rereading all the tags especially 😂 ♥️

hey hi hello!!!! ok this is set in the sugar daddy anakin au (a silly au where anakin and obi-wan meet and anakin tries to be obi-wan's sugar daddy, but obi-wan is the worst sugar baby in the world but they get there + fall in love.) this is like six months after they meet and a month or two after they officially get together

(1.1k) (slightly nsfw)

Obi-Wan stands and stretches, carefully sliding a bookmark in between the pages of his novel before leaving it gently on the side table and looking around.

Anakin is still outside on the balcony, pacing back and forth in angry, short steps, one hand holding his phone to his ear while the other drags through his curls again and again in agitation.

Obi-Wan frowns at the sight. That should be his job.

When he checks his watch, he frowns even harder. Anakin has been out there for two and a half hours now, pacing and arguing, resting his body on the railing as he stares intently out at the snowy woods around them while he listens to whatever his supervisor is trying to tell him, before he flies into motion again.

The glass of the cabin is thick enough that no cold gets in. No sound does either, but Obi-Wan can imagine what’s being said.

Anakin had groaned in such annoyance when the phone call had interrupted their bout of morning sex, thumping his head against Obi-Wan’s chest before gingerly separating their bodies with a That’s my workphone, baby, I gotta take it.

Obi-Wan had understood, of course. Work is work, and Anakin is apparently a very important man.

But they’re on vacation. Their first vacation as a couple in fact, the first time Anakin has successfully convinced Obi-Wan to let him take him somewhere that requires a plane. It’s a big deal. They’d been planning for months.

And Anakin deserves a vacation, one where he doesn’t have to have his workphone next to him at all hours of the day. And goddammit, Anakin had rented a huge fucking cabin, two whole floors with two different fireplaces, and Obi-Wan deserves to be fucked in front of both of them.

Anakin’s hand rakes through his hair again, and Obi-Wan studies the flush that’s working over his cheeks. It’s cold outside.

Obi-Wan scoffs at the observation. Of course it’s cold outside, Anakin had chosen ski country for the express purpose of it being cold enough that Obi-Wan would not want to leave the comfort of their cabin much. Only to ski a few times and only because Anakin is looking forward to teaching him. It’s not snowing now, of course, but the sky is gray with the promise of it.

Why can’t Anakin just take the call from inside? Obi-Wan would be fine with overhearing it, it’s not like he understands any of that tech gibberish anyway. But he wants to be around him.

It’s mortifying, how much he craves it. They’ve only been together for half a year. Will it get worse? Will Obi-Wan only grow more insatiable from here?

He leaves the sitting room in favor of ducking into their bedroom and rummaging through Anakin’s suitcase. He hadn’t watched him pack or anything, but his lover is very, very predictable. And—yes.

There, gently folded and placed in the corner of the suitcase is the atrocious blue scarf that Obi-Wan had made Anakin for his birthday, a month ago.

Reluctantly now that he’s seen it again, he lifts it out of the suitcase and stands. It really is ugliest thing he’s ever seen, but knowing his boyfriend, Anakin probably hasn’t packed any other scarves.

Knowing Anakin, he’s probably thrown out all his other ones, even the pure cashmere ones.

Anakin is still angrily pacing when Obi-Wan makes it back into the lounge, but Obi-Wan slides the glass door open carefully anyway.

“I don’t care if they’re demanding we have the product ready for the fucking general,” Anakin’s voice snaps out, harsh and heavy and certainly never a tone Obi-Wan has ever heard him use. “It’s not happening. Code takes fucking time, alright, and I don’t have my laptop on me. I’m not your supervisor. You need to get your office together before you come—”

Obi-Wan steps up to be next to him and kisses his cheek lightly in greeting. He was right. Anakin is cold. The motion makes Anakin’s eyes snap to his and his eyebrows turn down in a guilty expression.

“I’m sorry, baby,” he tells him with a twist of his mouth. A second later, his eyes go distant as someone says something else on the phone. “Not, of course I wasn’t talking to you, fucker.”

Obi-Wan can’t help the way the laugh bubbles up and out of his mouth and he leans forward and rubs their noses together gently before unwinding the scarf from his hands and wrapping it carefully around his lover’s neck. The glitter of the diamond encrusted watch Anakin had gotten him for a one month anniversary present fills the corner of his vision, but he can’t bring himself to look far from the awe-struck look in his partner’s eyes.

Anakin always gets that look on his face when Obi-Wan does something sweet, unexpected and unasked for. It makes Obi-Wan’s chest feel tight every time, because it proves his belief over and over again that Anakin has been surrounded by nice things for most of his life. But not necessarily nice people.

Anakin is one of the best people Obi-Wan knows. He deserves the nicest people.

Task complete, he steps back and smiles at him. Anakin stares back, mouth slightly parted, hand gripping his phone.

He deserves the nicest people, but somehow he ended up with Obi-Wan.

And Obi-Wan has discovered something about himself since he’s met Anakin: when he’s allowed to want things, with the expectation that they will be given, he wants fiercely and selfishly. He wants meanly and hungrily.

He turns around to go back inside and slowly rucks up his sweater and undershirt before tossing them blindly behind him, hopefully at Anakin. Safely inside the cabin, he turns to his lover to see the man loosely holding his clothes, phone still pressed to his ear but entire focus drilling into Obi-Wan, stupid fucking blue scarf wrapped around his neck.

Obi-Wan smirks and lets his hands fall to the waistband of his sweatpants, arching his eyebrows in something like a challenge.

Anakin is taking a step forward before he even realizes it. But then the speaker on the other line must say something enough to snag his attention because he’s glowering angrily again, in Obi-Wan’s direction but not directed at him.

Obi-Wan still shivers though, which is a reaction he’ll decipher later.

“Can you shut up?” Anakin snarls into the phone. “No, fuck. I’m hanging up. If you call me in the next ten hours, I’m throwing my phone off this fucking mountain and you can tell your boss I said exactly that. We both know he can’t fucking touch me.”

He hangs up without even looking at the phone again, eyes pinned to Obi-Wan like he’s magnetizing.

“Ten hours?” Obi-Wan tries to tease, but it comes out much too breathy. “That’s ambitious.”

“It was an underestimation,” Anakin tells him, right before he pounces.

#asks #prompt fill #sugar daddy anakin au #sometimes i just wanna write aggressive hotshot businessman anakin #for no other reason than all those words i just wrote and how much they appeal to me #also to obi-wan obviously #also you know anakin has an engagement ring in his toiletries bag #because he's Like That

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writingwife-83 · 1 year

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Hi,

You know what, I don't think I've seen people discussing Mycroft's admission that the Holmes children had their abilities tested.

Who were these people and what was their aim?

How did they find out about the Holmes children? And what were they testing, exactly? Intelligence? Intuition?

And in a way it almost implies that their powers of deduction are not so much skills perfected over a lifetime, but an innate ability they were born with.

It makes me wonder if Mark Gatiss/Stephen Moffat intended it as just as a little bit of fun to get fans, a little teasing hint that the Holmes are psychic. For a time they were at the heart of Doctor Who, and Gatiss has a passion for ghost stories and such, so it seems like something they would enjoy thinking about.

And, having seen the Jeremy Brett series, it would also a be small nod to that. In the later episodes of Brett's run the writing sometimes became a little odd, with talks of "third eyes" and visions of the future. Not unlike Eurus, maybe?

Do you have any thoughts on this?

Thanks

This is an interesting question, and I definitely have opinions. (This gets long 😅) I have to start by saying though, that I cannot for the life of me find the actual quote where Mycroft says that about all of them having their abilities tested as children. I would have liked to see the exact wording and context of the line, but I’ll still do my best.

Being a parent, specifically of a special needs son, Mycroft saying that doesn’t really make me blink. Evaluations of children are done all the time, for lots of reasons. It could be due to a learning disability, behavior problems, emotional issues, etc. But it’s easy to imagine their children also being evaluated simply for being very obviously advanced. The full scope of an evaluation includes general intelligence and cognitive ability, but also would include a psychological evaluation. It’s super easy to imagine the Holmes kids having that done, either because their parents requested it or because the school system recommended it. So in a way I’d say that was an incredibly realistic thing for Mycroft to say. And I’m guessing that was right before he said that Eurus was found to be a genius, beyond Newton. Which, again, makes the whole thing make sense.

So all of that is the reasoning for me saying, I definitely don’t think that statement was indicating anything in the realm of supernatural abilities in the Holmes kids. But in addition to me feeling pretty strongly that Mofftiss wasn’t hinting at anything like that, for me personally, I would just hate for that to be canon.

I love me some superheroes and characters who have superhuman abilities and stuff. That has its place and it’s fun! But imo there’s so much of that. Which is what makes the “normal” humans who have amazing abilities more special. Batman, for instance. One of the biggest reasons I love Batman is that he has no physical special abilities! No super strength or speed or mind control or whatever. Yes he has loads of money lol, but he’s smart. So he uses his intelligence and resources and drive to work for him. If anyone ever made a version of Batman where he is superhuman in some way, I’d hate that. (Which is exactly why I hated the live action remake of Mulan. They took a regular young woman who did something incredibly brave and self sacrificing and very easily could have been killed, and turned her into someone who went to war with special powers?? Thanks for killing the most meaningful part of the story lol.)

Sherlock, Mycroft, and Eurus are incredibly unique and special. And I do agree with you that partly that is something they were born with. Genetics are wild lol. But to me, what’s truly special about them is that they’re not superhuman. They took gifts they were born with and as they grew they fine tuned them into something that most people could barely comprehend. It’s almost unbelievable… but not quite. They’re still only human and it’s still just the amazing human mind at work. And I absolutely love that. 👌☺️

#wifey answers things #Sherlock meta #sherlock #mycroft holmes #eurus holmes #no hate to anyone who enjoys a hc where the Holmes have some sort of superhuman ability #that’s just not for me

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max--phillips · 1 year

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Ok but do you have any advice for us bimbos *affectionate* when we go to a car mechanic bc it always feels like I go for one simple issue, and end up being told there's almost a dozen issues with my car 💀 when do u kno ur being swindled?😭

Yeah actually I do!! Because it’s happened to me before!

So, best case scenario is they tell you the thing you were worried about isn’t actually an issue and they try to direct you to an entirely different, unrelated problem. For instance: with my first car, which was a piece of shit to begin with, I had some transmission issues at one point and went to a transmission shop to have them look. At my. Transmission. Just the transmission. And a little while later the guy comes out and he’s like “yeah idk your transmission fluid was a little dark but it doesn’t smell burnt or anything so it’s probably fine. The issue you really have is that your entire front end is fucked and needs to be rebuilt.”

At which point you do the same thing you would do to a doctor trying to tell you to lose weight as a magic solution to all your problems (but you gotta kinda stroke their ego a little bit). “That’s a fair observation, and I’ll definitely take a quote on that, but I don’t think that has anything to do with the issue I came in for. Can you please help me figure out why my transmission was slipping/what that noise is/why it’s vibrating so much/whatever?”

At that point if they push back with “it’s probably just a fluke” or “I didn’t see anything wrong with it” ask for a second opinion, either have the same mechanic take another pass at it or ask if there’s another mechanic in the shop who can take a look. If they still give you shit, just take the quote for the work they apparently did want to do and find another shop. Any quotes they give you are indeed just quotes; you never have to talk to them again if you don’t want to. Just don’t pay for anything if all they did was a diagnostic and didn’t actually do any work!! Unless they explicitly tell you diagnostics cost money, which the vast majority of shops don’t do.

Worst case scenario is they start throwing all sorts of technical terms at you for issues that might be related to your main concern. At that point, you’re unfortunately going to need to do some legwork. Ask them for a quote for the work they’re suggesting. Most of the technical BS that they’ve thrown at you should be on the quote. Then take your car to another shop. Do not tell them that you’ve been to another shop or have a quote elsewhere. If they give you the exact same technical BS, chances are fairly good that they’re actually on to something. If they give you an entirely new batch of technical BS, you know they’re probably just fucking with you. There’s still probably some overlap between the two quotes; figure out what that overlap is, and that’s likely the work that actually needs to be done. Honestly, you might take it to a third shop just to rule out that one of the two shops was on to something & the other was just bullshitting you.

Some other various tips:

Read the reviews online! If there are a ton of complaints about being overcharged for unnecessary work, don’t go there!

Ask your friends! Chances are good someone you know knows a guy. If you’re still worried they might try to swindle you, bring the friend who recommended them to you with you!

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. This means do preventative maintenance on your car. Get your oil changed (highly recommend getting full synthetic, you can usually go about 5k miles between oil changes), get your tires balanced and rotated. There are some special maintenance things for higher-mileage vehicles (ie with 100,000 miles or more); you can usually find that kind of thing in your owner’s manual.

Speaking of oil changes: for the love of god stop going to overpriced ass chain shops (Take 5, Valvoline Instant Oil Change, Jiffy Lube, etc). Literally go to Walmart (as long as your Walmart has an auto center) and ask for a full synthetic oil change. This will be just as good & not cost nearly as much.

If you must go to another shop to get your oil changed and/or tires balanced and rotated, they’ll probably try to sell you wiper blades. You can say no. You should say no. Buy them at Walmart, on Amazon, or from RockAuto. They will be a million times cheaper. And they’re very easy to change; most of the packaging comes with instructions, but YouTube is your friend—just search your year make & model and “how to change wiper blades.” (Ex: how to change wiper blades on 2013 Honda Civic.)

(If they try to sell you anything else, you can say no to that, too. An oil change is just oil & your oil filter. If they’re nice they might also top off your coolant and windshield wiper fluid. You don’t need to have them replace your cabin air filter or wiper blades or anything (although if your car is always stinky and you can’t figure out why you might wanna replace the cabin air filter bc it can help with that))

Know the penny trick for your tire treads!

If they try to sell you tires and Lincoln’s head is still pretty covered, they’re bullshitting you.

(Tires usually last about 10k miles unless something wack happens like you pop one or something)

(I can make a post about what to do when you get a flat tire if y’all want??)

Uhhhhhh that’s all I got rn, hopefully this is helpful!! If anyone else wants to chime in please do!!

#tori answers questions #max answers questions #anonymous #i have opinions about cars #advice

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juniperhillpatient · 1 year

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Favorite ship from Wednesday?

Ooh there are a lot of good options! I have to say my favorite is Wenclair (Wednesday/Enid) (basic I know that’s most people’s favorite but they’re so cuuuttee 🥺)

Spoilers below as I explain why (& talk about other ships I like) but basically TLDR I love the opposites attract black / pink dichotomy but there’s also more to it :)

I like them because they had a lot of conflict over their different personalities & outlooks but ultimately neither of them changed who they were as people to fit the other, although they did push each other’s character development. After their brief friend breakup Enid doesn’t say “I’ll stop doing this if you stop doing this” she says “I’m not going to change to fit what you want me to be, but we work.” (That’s not an exact quote, but essentially.) Enid struggled to accept herself as she was & consistently was pushed to change by her mom. But with Wednesday, she could be herself even if that was very different from Wednesday. It was to save Wednesday that Enid finally transformed! That’s romance babe. Enid’s arc was about self acceptance & bravery & she couldn’t have gotten there without Wednesday.

You could argue that Enid pushed Wednesday to change, but I think opening up a modicum more than she did at the start was good for Wednesday. She’s not a different person with a new personality & her sharp edges blunted at the end, but she has learned to let people in a little more. That hug was the emotional catharsis of the show.

I like this ship the most but I don’t think that’s where the writers are going with romantic arcs & that’s fine. I also love it as a friendship & there’s always fandom for the romantic stuff.

I think Wednesday & Tyler actually had real chemistry & I think it’s heavily hinted at that although Tyler was ultimately working for evil, his feelings for Wednesday were real. The Hyde doesn’t really go after Wednesday & even saves her life. Because Tyler was a slave & his reasons for being evil were both ambiguous & complicated, I think there’s a strong chance he could be redeemed in season 2 & I would enjoy that along with some more of his & Wednesday’s dynamic. I loved the dance scene between them & always looked forward to their coffee shop Not Dates. The picnic & “horror movie” he set up for her was so cute.

Also, another good ship is Wednesday x Bianca. Bianca was such an interesting character. Her conflict with her mother actually seems to parallel Wednesday’s conflict with Mortician - their mothers want them to be more like carbon copies, or so they feel. Also, Bianca, like Wednesday is isolated from her peers. Bianca can’t really get close to anyone without questioning if it’s real because of her siren song. But Wednesday outwardly treated Bianca like a rival early on & their camaraderie was built over time & not based on Wednesday becoming a simp or anything. I love the idea of this ship & just exploring Bianca more. Of course the show will likely not go in a romantic direction with them either & that’s fine but I do hope their frienemyship gets more screen time in a potential season 2!

I have nothing to say about Gorgon dude who’s name I forget that had a thing with Enid or Xavier because they were just such bland forgettable characters to me sorry lol

So you asked my favorite & it’s Wenclair but I think there’s plenty of good options! It was such a fun show & shipping wasn’t at the top of my mind when i actually watched but it’s fun to think about now!

#wenclair #wednesday x tyler #wednesday x bianca #wednesday netflix #wednesday netflix spoilers #asks #anon #answered

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mangoisms · 5 months

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How much money do you think Tim has in his account? How rich is this man

okay this answer is a very long and boring mostly canon answer with a few liberties taken

TL;DR basically, on his own, he isn’t worth crazy amounts (like bruce) but still has a decent amount of money (jack’s leftover funds) that i personally hc he doesn’t use out of sentimentality, in addition to money earned from his work with WE that he probably does use or store away idk but MOST OF ALL, i think he relies on bruce and is fine with this

and if you want the long answer with direct quotes.. read on 😼

SO. we know that in robin (1993) #100 jack breaks the news to tim that they are ‘broke’ (his exact words) and they need to sell drake manor, tim’s car, and a bunch of other stuff. moreover, they’re letting go of mrs. mac and sending her back to ireland with the 50k that alfred paid for tim’s car (since redbird was secretly high tech and obviously couldn’t just be sold off to anyone).

who knows what they do with the rest of that 50k, though, because an international flight, while expensive is probably less expensive then than now and shouldn’t cost that much, especially if it’s one way. but idk maybe they put her in first class? i still don’t think it should be that much. in either case, i’m unsure if they let her have the rest (which seems likely) or if they keep it for themselves. i’m assuming this (as in their sudden change in socioeconomic status) is all coming because jack hasn’t been managing the company or their own finances correctly, so who knows maybe he used it to pay off debt or something.

this isn’t also taking into consideration what $50k USD was worth then vs now… google says somewhere between $83k-$85k so genuinely, not shabby at all. it makes tim’s bemoaning over all of this (and jack saying they’re ‘broke’) just a little more silly. (including this even more annoying moment from tim where he is again bemoaning how they’ve been knocked down from “upper upper class” to “upper middle class” which isn’t a bad situation At All and how they’re “as close to poor as we’ve ever been” like no! you aren’t!)

like, okay, who knows the year this is set in but robin (1993) #100 was published in 2002, so let’s go with that. new jersey’s median household income in 2002 was around $58k, but that number is only adjusted for 2003 inflation, so right now, that would seem to be $97k, which is again not bad. and this is just median. if anything, the current median household income (for NJ) right now is $92k and shit is WAY more expensive now, so, if that was happening now, i could say, okay, alright, i can see how this might be a bit worrying. but back in 2002??? absolutely not. especially in gotham. they were fine. thoroughly upper middle class. ANYWAY!!!

all of this to say, jack did leave a considerable amount of money for tim but it wasn’t anything crazy. in robin (1993) #134, there is a will reading and as far as money goes, the lawyer says: “First of all, your father left you some money-- split pretty evenly between you and his second wife. Even with his recent financial setbacks, it’s quite a sum. Neither of you is rich mind you, but it’s a substantial amount.”

this is sort of ambiguous but not really. i don’t know what numbers to put down for this either but it’s nothing too shabby, you know? they were, like i said, comfortably upper middle class. the funny thing is, i see tim as someone who wouldn’t use these funds. not out of a sense of being frugal—not a word i would ever use to describe him, actually—but maybe more so out of sentimentality. especially when bruce is footing the bill for So Much.

like in robin (1993) #131, at steph’s funeral, tim tells bruce he’s moving himself and dana to blüdhaven and putting dana in a grief counseling program that is “very prestigious and incredibly expensive.”

he specifically says to bruce, “I told them [the clinic] to expect an anonymous donation, from a wealthy philanthropist, to cover the cost. Know anyone like that, Bruce?” and bruce responds, “Do you even need to ask?”

this is before the will reading so you could say, oh they have the funds, he just doesn’t know/doesn’t have access but i don’t think that’s the case, because his robin’s nest is also conveniently located in a building owned by WE so he doesn’t need to pay rent and i’m very certain that bruce covered the expenses of him getting the nest set up with its tech since alfred was there with him as well helping.

basically, i think tim relied on bruce and bruce probably had a card or some kind of joint account that he gave to tim at some point saying to use it whenever he needed. i think he would use it initially for robin stuff, then get more comfortable with other expenses. so essentially. he’s freeloading. but like idk tax the rich and tim’s not technically rich on his own so net gain. maybe.

i suppose around red robin 2009 he would start making his own money because of the neon knights stuff. don’t know how long that ran for (like how many months) but i think his position would nonetheless be very well-paying. i don’t know how long, following red robin 2009, he worked there, because naturally, the longer he did the more money he got.

so. genuinely. on his own? i don’t think he’s as rich as bruce. with bruce behind him? billionaire. sure. why not. you could also maybeeee argue that bruce would set him up with some idk investments that he could get money from. or maybe even just dump cash into his count on a yearly basis. but above all, i don’t see tim as someone shying away from taking advantage of his access to bruce’s money so he would be fine with this arrangement. so. yeah

sorry if this answer was not as exciting as you’d like it to be 💔

#this may not be the fun answer you wanted and i am very sorry for that BUT it was fun to write #because i do think about this #at present in canon i don’t think there would ever be a point in which bruce pulls his support #even in the worst case scenario. i’m not sure #if anything he might rely on his money as something of an apology #or making up for whatever he did to tim #and i don’t think tim has hangups about using his funds either #particularly if it’s in the name of The Mission or for the sake of someone he loves (like dana and the treatment)#so. yeah #inbox #anonymous #dc meta: tim

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rachelsfav-queer · 6 months

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I'm actually genuinely curious to know and I don't mean to come off as rude or anything, sorry if I do, but could you explain how Wednesday is a mama's girl? (I saw her more as a daddy's girl than mama's girl.)

Hi! Thank you for the ask! Don’t worry, I don’t find this rude at all!

(WARNING: RANT AHEAD! TLDR AT THE BOTTOM!!)

Honestly, Wednesday being a Mama’s girl isn’t actually my wording, but rather taken from a post I saw quite a few hours before posting, so I really don’t have much of a chance at finding it again lol. Especially since I just woke up 😅

But, anyway! The post I’m referring to both now, and in my other post, actually gets me a little upset (fine… a lot upset, really). I can’t remember exactly but I believe it had pictures of Wednesday cuddling and hugging Morticia from the 1964 sitcom and the caption said (again from what I remember, so not an exact quote) “Wednesday has always been a Mama’s girl, no matter what Burton tries to do.” In reference to the Netflix series, where Wednesday is often antagonistic to her mother and her family, and totally touch-averse.

Now, remembering my post earlier, you might be able to see why it upset me so much. I’m well aware that it probably wasn’t Mr. Burton’s exact goal to have Wednesday be autistic-coded in the Netflix series, but it doesn’t change the fact that she almost 100% is (along with Enid Sinclair being autistic & ADHD-coded). A lot of Wednesday’s behaviors and traits shown through the show are commonly seen in autistic people. Therefore, me and a lot of other autistic people along with some of the Neurodivergent community have been able to see themselves, and connect deeply with this “new version” of the character.

But, unfortunately at the same time, another large part of the fandom for the show and The Addams Family in general, have taken to criticizing this change, claiming that this version is horribly unfaithful to the source material, not recognizing that the Addams Family lore has been changed quite a lot already in EVERY ADAPTATION SINCE THE ORIGINAL COMIC BY CHARLES ADDAMS!!!! And what’s most infuriating to me is that most of these people completely disregard the ways that Wednesday shows her affection to her family in the show. Because it’s totally disrespectful to the point of the Addams Family (kinda like how the animated movies made Morticia’s love for her children conditional).

The point of the Addams Family is to break the typical image of what society deems “normal” and so to try and expect every adaptation of it to be perfectly loyal to the original source material, it kinda defeats the point, doesn’t it? The Netflix series is a modern adaptation that shows this kooky and spooky little family defying the social norms of today, just like the sitcom did back in the 60s and how the 90s movies did the same for their time. Wednesday now reflects Gen Z’s sarcastic and oftentimes dark view of the current world in the most brutally honest way possible, not holding back or coloring over it like most of my generation is expected to do.

And the fact that people refuse to see that? It’s heartbreaking because they’re missing out on a damn good, funny and entertaining adaptation of this classic American comedy series. That’s the problem with today’s chronically online society, everybody watches things looking for something to criticize, LOOKING FOR FLAWS IN EVERYTHING!!!

What happened to watching things, JUST TO WATCH THEM?!? When did enjoying media stop being about having fun and instead turn into this? This, hypercritical behavior of everything that doesn’t fit this impossible standard of perfection?

Anyway! Sorry, I went on a tangent lol!

Tldr: Wednesday being a Mama’s girl isn’t my terminology, but rather from a post here on Tumblr that I can’t find. People have horrible media literacy these days and look at everything two dimensionally. Wednesday from the Netflix series is actually the same Wednesday she’s always been, just adapted for the modern day.

#wednesday 2022 #wednesday series #wednesday netflix #autistic wednesday addams #the addams family #morticia addams #wednesday addams

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nicklloydnow · 6 months

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“Each day in Jocktober, which takes place in October, Opie & Anthony producer Sam Roberts picks a different radio show from around the country and then the show spends an hour diagnosing exactly what makes that oh-so-zany “morning zoo”-style show so shitty. Jocktober is like if Warner Herzog or the Coen Brothers spent a month each year just attacking movies like Paul Blart and Mortdecai – but also explaining the conventions of why they are so bad. Wouldn’t that make the film industry better? Wouldn’t it at least be entertaining? At least one of those things, yes.

Exaggerating the characteristics of drive-time radio, interrogating the conventions of the radio industry, is a way to ask: Why do people act this way? If this sounds familiar to improv people, it should: the goals are exactly the same, they just go about it in different ways. The work of improv is to excavate some truth of a situation and then heighten it to show why it’s funny, like some kind of fiendish archeological dig. Opie and Anthony, on the other hand, prefer to throw the entire situation into a giant rock tumbler to shake the dirt off of it and leave the fossils of truth at the end. Sure, some delicate things might get broken, but if they were that delicate, then how valuable were they in the first place?

The public at large pigeonholes Opie & Anthony as those terrible zany “morning zoo”-style DJs. But there’s a difference. Gregg “Opie” Hughes gives a shit when it’s done badly. Around the tenth day of every Jocktober, Opie and, to a lesser extent, the rest of the crew, kind of reach a point where it’s not longer even fun to mock these shows. Like Radiohead turning its back on Creep, it hurts them too much. Radio hosts, by and large, the targets of Jocktober, do nothing but play Creep. (…)

Prepburger and other services like it license content, like The Fugitive and War of the Roses, and the other, smaller, refillable formats that allow shows to comment on topical events, to any radio show who can pay. That’s why every morning show in every market is indistinguishable white noise. They’re literally saying the exact same thing. It’s like that part of Going Clear that talks about L. Ron Hubbard as a sci-fi writer where he’s like “never write any character who has not appeared in that magazine before. Realism or originality is the enemy,” or something like that, I wasn’t listening that hard.

One element that continues to be at the heart of a lot of programming philosophies is localness. With the advent of huge national radio shows like Howard Stern and Opie and Anthony, smaller market shows were forced to use what they had to stay relevant. They literally did stuff like hang up signs in studios that reminded jocks to “Stay Local” and talk about the stuff in the town, or inject specifics about the nearby highway, or talk about local news stories. Which is fine, but can come at the cost of prioritizing actually stimulating conversation. Focusing on trying to work the name of the local mall into your story is completely missing the point that people don’t give a shit what specific you use, the important thing is you’re talking about things that are honest and immediate and you’re good at talking.

(…)

Nothing encapsulates what Jocktober is about better than the name itself. “Jocktober” refers to the seemingly universal cliché where every radio show calls the month of October “Rocktober” and makes all these loud promos about it and hypes it up and makes this huge deal about how they play [radio station bro voice – you know the one] the most rock out of any station and October is going to rock so hard. But then they just PLAY EXACTLY THE SAME FUCKING SONGS THEY NORMALLY DO. The sound and fury, etc. To quote Anthony Cumia circa 2009: “There’s all this energy… but it’s all wasted energy. It’s like sitting in your driveway in neutral and just gassing it.”

(…)

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the first ever Jocktober episode was actually and explicitly inspired by a jock on some other show chastising O&A for, “not [having] anything to talk about, so they just talk about their real lives.”

And so, like NutraSweet, Jocktober was invented by accident. Even die-hard Pests might forget that when The Show went after 97.1 ZHT’s Morning Zoo on October 1, 2008, it was based on bad intelligence from a listener, that Frankie and Danger Boy were “talking shit” about the show.

The damage was done. Opie & Anthony had “napalmed the wrong village” as Anthony replacement Jim Norton put it.

But in the process, they realized that there were a lot of little villages out there that deserved napalming. Enough, in fact, to sustain the heady fall tradition of Jocktober for the next six or seven years… depending on how you count.

Anthony and Jim Norton supplied the bulk of the comedic voice, historically, and Opie was the point guard who kept things on track, but Jocktober really gave Opie’s voice a time to shine. He’s a student of radio and prides himself on knowing its history and the theory behind why it works, so he particularly hates seeing it done badly. And he’s usually thought of as almost the heart of the show, where Anthony or Jim make the really dirty, cutting jokes about child molesting or how fat/skinny/old/young/famous/washed up/etc. someone is. But there are moments every once in a while where Opie is suddenly just enormously cruel and you realize… this show has no heart. When the moral compass of the show blows up, Jocktober is like a some kind of Bermuda Triangle nightmare.

(…)

The early years of Jocktober, starting in 2008, was a very particular era for shock jocks. Satellite radio allowed them to be out from under the thumb of the FCC, but it was still before the Internet progressed to the point where personalities are really accountable for what they say. All these shows were just lost to the ether, but now everyone knows that everything’s permanent and the internet is forever. For that reason, I’d argue that there’s two distinct periods of Jocktober: 2008-2011 and 2011-present.

It was during the first period, 2008-2011, when they really learned how to effectively use social media as a tool for mischief. In the Jocktober of 2008, there were some mentions of sending “pictures of roosters” to email addresses and administrators of the official sites of different stations, as well as the long-standing tradition of listeners bombarding any station mentioned on-air with horrific phone calls.

But soon enough, Opie and Anthony walking into the studio was basically like the pilots in Pacific Rim climbing into those huge robots. They could get on mic and command their huge social media following to destroy whatever target they pleased. So each day in Jocktober would go like this: they’d announce the name of that day’s show, and then the clock started until “phase 1 is complete,” which means the show was forced to disable posts on their Facebook wall. Then began phase two, where listeners would leave the most vile, disgusting jokes and pictures on the comments of the Facebook wall. That went on until Phase 2 was complete—as in, the entire Facebook page had to be deleted.

This seems like it took place back in some era when cyberbullying was a more innocent thing. Maybe “innocent” is the wrong word for spamming a Facebook page with hundreds of pictures of a man eating shit or a terrifying bus accident, but there was certainly a time when you could say “hey, just unplug the computer if it’s too much!!” and really believe it. But as we entered the more recent era, though, social media began to fragment even more and bleed into people’s “real” lives, until finally, coincidentally very near Jocktober 2014, the whole GamerGate thing happened and everyone kind of realized, hey, maybe even radio station cyberbullying isn’t just good clean fun.

(…)

On the last day of Jocktober, Opie & Anthony turned the focus on themselves, because after all, they’d be just as hacky as Terry Clifford if they didn’t call out their own shortcomings. This usually consisted of listening to some old shows from their Boston days or early in New York and pointing out flaws. Personally, I have to say that one definite flaw in the Opie & Anthony Show was that one of them liked to go on racist tirades that ended up on the front page of the newspapers.

But this isn’t about Anthony, it’s about Jocktober. And if you’re saying that he shouldn’t be on the radio anymore, then here is some good news for you: he’s not. Jocktober remains a fascinating cultural artifact. I was listening to one of these shows with a friend once and her reaction was, “How can you listen to these? It’s… so funny.” I think she meant just how decadent the kind of humor is in O&A in general, and then Jocktober in particular. They’re responding to this shitty, watered down entertainment, so they purposely make their show the most sugary, rich product possible. It was like they were getting mad that someone’s Kool-Aid is weak and doesn’t have enough sugar, so you dump 10x too much sugar in it. Jocktober was the most high-proof, premium-grade version of O&A’s cartoon-cruel comedic voice possible. (…)

Shortly after Anthony got fired in July of 2014, comedian and frequent guest Joe DeRosa compared the freedom of speech to the right to eat as much candy as you wanted. Sure, the thinking goes, knock yourself out, but if you eat too much, eventually you’re going to get sick. Looking through this lens, SiriusXM’s decision to fire Anthony was like Bloomberg’s decision to ban large sodas. Sure, you can drink this sweet, decadent soda, but it’s in the interest of everyone concerned that you don’t literally drink all of it.

Probably good thinking. But if you are so inclined, every episode of Jocktober is right here.”

#opie and anthony #jocktober #jim norton #sam roberts #radio #satellite radio #sirius xm

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nolanhollogay · 8 months

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💌 when they watch their partner go on about something they’re really passionate about, and even though they don’t really understand anything they’re saying, they still hang on to every word because they love the look of bright-eyed excitement the other gets + jjedgar!!!

when ur adhd4adhd>>>

Despite what other people may think, Edgar was very talkative. Like, he could ramble non stop for twenty minutes without noticing the time going by, and still have more to say after that, that's how talkative he was. Growing up his mother told him that he didn't have to use all his words at once, but he never really followed that advice. He'd gotten much more restrained as he got older, keeping his thoughts to himself more often than not, but sometimes there were still moments where he just couldn't stop.

"Okay, so, like, I know that reading isn't your thing, and that's fine. But I need to tell you about this book I just read before I explode," he started, looking up at JJ, who was scrolling on his phone. His head was in his lap, where it had been for the past ten minutes as he struggled to contain himself.

JJ nodded, silently giving him permission.

Edgar smiled, sucking in a breath before he launched into his explanation.

"It's a book Tía Jasmine got me for my birthday called "Aristotle and Dante Discover The Secrets of The Universe". It's set in '87 and it's about this boy Aristotle – though he goes by Ari – and it follows him meeting this guy, Dante, and it's about, like, growing up and figuring out who you are, right?"

JJ nodded, watching him intently. Edgar fought the urge to squirm under his gaze. The way JJ looked at him sometimes was like he was looking inside of him.

"But Ari is shy and he doesn't talk to anybody and he's kind of.. not mean but not, like, friendly, and Dante is the exact opposite of him. He's outgoing and he's really nice. And they have opposite families too, Ari's family don't really talk and Dante's parents think he's the best thing in the world."

JJ laughed. "Sounds like us."

Edgar slapped his shoulder in his excitement. "No, exactly! And, get this, they fall in love."

"Hell yeah."

"There's this scene where Dante is about to get hit by a car, so Ari pushes him out of the way and gets hit instead, and everyone is, like, subtly like, "Ari, that's kinda gay." And he's like, "Nuh uh. He's just my best friend." And–"

"I would definitely get hit by a car for you," JJ said, seriously.

Edgar glared at him. "Don't you even think about it. If you try something like that I'm breaking up with you."

JJ scoffed. "I'm not gonna go outta my way to get hit by a car. But I'm just saying if the opportunity should ever come up.."

Edgar huffed, rolling his eyes. "Eres ridículo," he muttered, earning a smile. JJ loved when he was annoying enough that Edgar had to switch languages. "Anyways, as I was saying before you interrupted me. There's this quote – I loved it so much that I wrote it down –" He hopped up out of his bed, dislodging JJ's hand from where it'd been running through his hair.

It took five minutes and three loops around his room, but he found his notebook, buried under a stack of books he wanted to read next. Triumphantly, he got back into bed, sitting in JJ's lap just because he could. JJ wrapped his arms around his waist, resting his chin on his shoulder so he could watch him flip to his last used page.

"And it seemed to me that Dante's face was a map of the world. A world without any darkness," he read, "Wow, a world without darkness. How beautiful was that? And, okay, this is, like, so corny and you have permission to make fun of me, but when I read that I thought of you."

JJ's eyebrows crinkled in confusion. "Of me?"

Edgar nodded. "Yeah. When I think of you, you remind me that the world is good. I know that's corny or whatever but–"

"That's not corny," JJ said, cutting him off. "It's nice. I feel that way about you too."

Edgar held his face between his palms, kissing him.

"Keep telling me about this book," JJ said, when they pulled away.

Edgar bit his lip to hide his smile. "Seriously? Because I feel like I've been talking your ear off."

JJ nodded. "I like it. I like knowing about the books you read and stuff, even though I probably won't get all the themes and symbols and shit. You're cute when you're all excited."

Edgar kissed him again, smiling against his mouth.

#edgar ramirez #edgar asks #asks #jjedgar #my writing #leaf tag 🌿#sawfties

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ogsherlockholmes · 2 years

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Charles Augustus Milverton

I said I wasn’t finished talking about this story because it is literally perfect

Surprisingly for me, I’m going to skip over the whole ‘Watson and Sherlock regularly go for evening walks together’ and go to the actual plot because it is very interesting. CAM is a really well-written villain, I don’t like him of course because he’s kind of creepy, but that’s essentially the point of him. Compared to the other ACD villains, he’s one of the ‘better’ ones, if you can use that term. Moving on to how this woman came and SHOT him, repeatedly might I add, whilst saying ‘You will ruin no more lives as you ruined mine. You will wring no more hearts as you wrung mine. I will free the world of a poisonous thing. Take that, you hound, and that! - and that!- and that!’. Then GRINDS HER HEEL IN HIS FACE. And gets away with it all.

Do people say girl boss on here because girl boss.

I’m not sure what her names was (I don’t know if it was implied she was Lady Bracknell) but she’s my favourite character from the short stories and I am very annoyed that I haven’t seen her in an adaptation yet. (Please tell me if she was in one).

Whilst she’s murdering him, Sherlock and Watson are just watching behind a curtain, like ‘yep, okay, she’s good, we’ll leave her to it.’ At the end they see her picture in a shop. Basically Sherlock’s reaction:

Moving on to...the beginning, I might have interpreted it wrong, but I’m pretty sure it’s implied that Watson is fully prepared to smash Milverton with a fucking chair because Sherlock wants to stop him from leaving.

‘I picked up a chair, but Holmes shook his head and I laid it down again.’

Then the greatest scene probably ever written in the entire canon, when Sherlock casually says he’s engaged and about to become a criminal.

This is a quick summary:

Sherlock: You don’t think I’m the type of person to get married?

Watson: No (sad because if Sherlock was he would have married him)

Sherlock: I’m engaged.

Watson: ...I mean great-

Sherlock: To Milverton’s housemaid

Watson: W H A T

Sherlock: Well, yeah, I need information. She wasn’t my type but anyway. Also I’m going to rob Milverton

Watson: THATS EVEN WORSE

Sherlock: I’ve thought it through, it’s fine

Then in the funniest passage where Sherlock thinks if he says ‘morally justifiable’ enough it will convince Watson. And it works.

[Exact quote this time I promise]

“Well, I don’t like it; but I suppose it must be,” said I. “When do we start?” “You are not coming.” “Then you are not going,” said I. “I give you my word of honour—and I never broke it in my life—that I will take a cab straight to the police station and give you away unless you let me share this adventure with you.” “You can’t help me.” “How do you know that? You can’t tell what may happen. Anyway, my resolution is taken. Other people beside you have self-respect and even reputations.”

Also, when Sherlock agrees:

“Well, well, my dear fellow, be it so. We have shared the same room for some years, and it would be amusing if we ended by sharing the same cell. You know, Watson, I don’t mind confessing to you that I have always had an idea that I would have made a highly efficient criminal. This is the chance of my lifetime in that direction.”

I hate to be that person (I don’t) but ‘room’ in singular. Also I like how Watson is literally confessing to all the readers in the canon for robbery. Mr ‘oh I can’t discuss that case because it’s too sensitive soz guys’ goes into extreme detail about how they would rob the house, with Sherlock being very thorough and prepared.

Anyway, I’ve already made a post about Sherlock and Watson literally holding hands as they break into a house, as you do, but for shits and giggles I’ll just write them out again.

‘He seized my hand in the darkness.‘

‘Still holding my hand in one of his.’

‘“I don’t like it,” he whispered, putting his lips to my very ear.’

‘I felt Holmes’s hand steal into mine.‘

(They’re in a greenhouse for some of these quotes, and I’m not entirely sure on this, but I think I remember seeing that greenhouses can be a metaphor for homosexuality? Sorry if I’m wrong, I might just be making this up.)

As I’ve said, they watch Milverton be blasted to hell by the original girl boss, as I will now be referring to her, and they escape. Sherlock jumps over a garden wall, naturally, and Watson tries to follow but someone catches his leg so he kicks them.

The next day, Sherlock and Watson casually have breakfast like the married couple they are, and Lestrade visits. This is the gist of the scene:

Lestrade: We need your help, someone’s been murdered.

Sherlock: oH mY gOd ReAlLy? oH nO!

Lestrage: Yeah, Charles Augustus Milverton. We already know one of the murderers though [describes Watson]

Sherlock: HA HA HA IT COULD BE WATSON LOL okay it’s not, jokes ha ha- I’m not helping, I don’t like Milverton, I feel sorry for the criminals, not him.

Sherlock at the end of the story pretending he gives a shit:

#I could recreate this entire case in memes #sherlock is a drama queen #watson being a protective husband again I see #what was acd thinking when he wrote this #the original girl boss i love her #acd #sherlock #johnlock #watson #acd canon

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