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olderthannetfic · 1 year

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I’m this anon who asked about radical feminist/trans debates. I appreciate your response and those of your commenters, particularly @elfwreck who described a long evolution of discourse that I’ve missed. I’ve not been intentionally dense…just a woman and working mother who’s been busy as hell for about the last 15 years and focused on getting through the day. I’ve always supported gay rights, never gave it a second thought. With my kids older and more time on my hands, I started exploring fanfic and have been drawn in. One thing led to another and I find myself down tumblr rabbit holes with women raising questions about girls sports and the dangers of HRT for teens and whether lesbians are allowed to not like dicks, with responses that generally amount to “die terf”. I start researching online and find academic papers and news articles, but find essentially a similar message to you and your commenters: “radical feminists are obviously wrong and not to be taken seriously”. No addressing the questions I’ve seen raised. I get the point—one side is indefensible and I missed the boat on seeing the discussion play out many years ago. I suppose I was looking for a short cut through social media which feels silly in retrospect. Regardless, the radical feminists are out there making intellectual arguments across social media on a range of topics, including men in general, misogyny, porn, prostitution. In all likelihood the post that first pulled me in to their viewpoints related to the imbalance between women and their husbands with respect to child raising, housework, and expressing anger over daily aggravations, which rang completely true to my personal experience and that of other women I know. Likely why I now find myself caught up in fanfic escapism. Anyhow, I’ll dig in deeper to academic literature on the intersection of women’s rights, gay rights, and trans rights because I finding myself caring to know this history now.

It happens.

A lot of the roots of current feminist debate are in the Feminist Sex Wars of the 80s. Those were about differing ideas around protecting women and the implications of pornography.

(TBH, part of how very old arguments are able to rear their ugly heads again is that this shit is old enough that the youth weren't born yet during those debates.)

While not about trans stuff per se, some of the ideas about embattled women whose territory is being encroached on link back to there. The "argument", to the extent that the anti-trans side has one, tends to be about defending women's spaces. Many of these arguments are coming from a place of genuine fear. (Maybe not realistic fear, but I believe them that they're traumatized and reacting accordingly.) Some, however, are malicious indoctrination.

There have been efforts (sometimes admitted to publicly, often not) to literally infiltrate young lefty spaces with this kind of rhetoric. It's the queer and female youth version of gamer boys getting indoctrinated by the alt right. So people on my blog have very limited patience for anything that gives this shit the time of day.

I don't think there's a particularly good shortcut since it's the culmination of decades of fighting.

But where I'd start would be by saying that a lot of the arguments sound good on the surface but boil down to "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" traps.

If someone on social media is still hung up on "But BDSM is abuse! A woman cannot meaningfully consent because [bullshit we fought about in the 80s]", we have nothing to say to each other.

The anti-kink and anti-trusting people when they say they consent attitudes tend to go hand-in-hand with suspicion of trans people and refusal to let people define their own identities.

Misogyny and unfair work distributions are absolutely real, but there's a certain "war on women" rhetoric that's about as legit as the "war on Christmas".

The "other" side agrees about a lot of the basics, like the fact that a lot of dudes really need to hold up their end of relationships better when both partners work and nobody should be solely in charge of the house.

But some feminist classic like the comic You should've asked is not on "The Feminist Side" as opposed to "The Trans Side". Regular feminism doesn't take issue with trans people. Lots of regular feminism accepts that women are kinky and horny and like impure things.

These feminist basics are often used as a strawman ("Our opponents disagree with this basic idea they clearly do not actually disagree with!") and as camouflage for much stupider ideas, like the notion that trans women would choose to be a demographic that gets murdered in bathrooms a lot. It's not cis women who are in danger from trans women! That's complete horseshit.

A lot of the talk of embattled lesbian space actually means "Oh no, some butches came out as trans men eventually, and we have to acknowledge bisexual women now".

Re the HRT thing... Yes, there are dangers to prescribing kids and teens hormones. A family should go into the process with a clear understanding of the effects on bone density and such. These risks can be managed the same as menopausal women manage bone density risks. These are not horrific and unknown problems: they're commonplace medical issues we've dealt with before in other contexts. They don't have to be a big deal unless a kid has some pre-existing bone disorder or something.

The part the transphobes don't tell you is that the biggest danger to trans teens is suicide.

Depending on which study you look at, something like 80% of trans youth have serious suicidal thoughts and maybe half make an actual attempt. Lots of teens have issues, but these rates are staggeringly higher than for cis peers, even cis gay peers who also tend to have higher rates than cis het teens.

Forcing someone to go through the body horror of the wrong puberty is... well... not great for their mental health. So a lot of medical professionals are understandably eager to treat kids and teens early because of the huge lasting mental toll. Taking hormones early can also result in an adult body that passes better. And perhaps people shouldn't have to pass as cis to be treated how they want to be treated, but we live in the real world.

Some people do start treatment and then regret it. That's reality. But it's a small percentage, and the issue is often that they're nonbinary and weren't presented with any options other than cis of their assigned sex at birth or transsexual in the 90s sense where you want the full top and bottom surgeries and you're still very binary. I know people who've detransitioned to a degree, but they're not like "Ah yes, I was 100% cis and a fool!" There was generally something going on, just something harder to pin down.

(In fact, most of the "evidence" of people regretting transition are from contexts where the only way to socially transition and get your government ID changed and so on was to do the full medical transition. The regretters would most likely have preferred something in the middle but were not allowed access to what they needed by punitive laws.)

A bunch of alarmist dickheads want to tell you that trans youth don't know their own minds and that everything will be safer and healthier if they just wait to get treatment. In most cases, this is completely untrue.

There used to be far more psychiatric roadblocks to getting physical medical treatment. What the haters want is for these to return. But they didn't deter trans people back then, and they're not going to now.

Re the dicks thing... People roll their eyes because it's such an old canard. Nobody thinks lesbians should be required to like dicks. Nobody thinks lesbians should be required to date trans women either.

But lots of trans women get bottom surgery and don't even have a penis. In any case, whether they get surgery or not, reducing them to a body part is the kind of bio-essentialist nonsense feminism normally strives to debunk.

These arguments boil down to "Have penis, will rape".

Re sports... Trans women don't end up being the issue. In practice, when there's a lot of scrutiny, what happens is that black cis women are seen as literally not female enough and racist shitheads demand that their hormone levels be tested and they be branded Not Female for testosterone levels or something.

Whatever this kind of regulation is intended to do, in practice, it establishes a correct way to be female, and that way is to have a body that conforms to a particular "feminine", white beauty standard.

The athletes who end up being attacked are sometimes intersex, which they may not even have known. Sometimes, they're just taller and stronger than other women. Often, they don't look normative enough to a bunch of creeps because they're too black.

The assholes cover it up with a good line of patter, but that's where this ends: treating black women like freaks.

The bottom line is that anti-trans supposed feminists try to pretend they speak for feminists in general and that there are two major sides locked in conflict.

In fact, they're fringe weirdos who've gained new prominence, particularly in the UK with the backing of JKR, and the rest of the feminists are over here going "This shit again? Jesus!"

I don't waste time debating their "intellectual" arguments on social media for the same reason I don't debate eugenics-preaching racists or fundie religious nuts.

Hence the lack of good resources on "both sides".

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camgirlsurvivalguide · 1 year

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Get Off Your Ass and Start Shaking It

Tough love for creators who need a push

I need to get my head out of my ass and start believing in myself again, so I’m writing this for myself - but sharing it for anyone who might benefit from seeing it. Enjoy a little slap from yours truly - free of charge.

1. Accept that you’re starting from “scratch”.

The internet is different now. Sex work is different now. If you’re an OG, it’s important to recognize that burnout isn’t just OnlyFans burnout - it’s industry burnout. We didn’t get a chance to catch our breath between having had ManyVids and MFC and then OnlyFans and now the biggest bitch of them all, visibility on social media. Our tweets used to show up and now they don’t. Our followers used to see us on Instagram, and now they don’t. We can cry about this all we like (and I do so frequently because it’s more healthy than just bottling it all up), but tears won’t pay the bills, baby. Time to pull up your socks and get moving.

2. Do your best not to overthink it.

There are a million and one theories on how to do things “right”, when in reality, sometimes a single Reel about absolutely nothing with zero effort involved will hit the algorithm and pop the fuck off. Strategizing can be good, but staying up to date with the theories surrounding advertising should be inspiring, not crippling. We’re doing away with creation paralysis. Brush yourself off, and focus on making content to the best of your ability. Who cares if it’s only selfies and low effort shit for now? People will pay for pretty much anything, and if you have any semblance of a following, they want to see what you put out even if it’s not “to your standards”.

3. Switch up your routine.

This sounds brutal because it is, but this is what I’ve been doing as of late: and it’s helping. You’ll come up with justifiable reasons why this may not be right for you - but ask yourself if what you’re doing right now is right for you. Are you achieving what you want to achieve with the routine you have? Do you even have a routine? This is tough love, but it’s meant to be a realistic look at where you’re at, followed by support to get you to where you want to be.

A month ago I started plugging my phone in across the room and setting an alarm for 5:30am. I have to physically get up to turn it off. It’s a brutal way of waking up (even though the alarm I have is all peaceful and cute, but still) - but it gets me up. I have my robe and slippers waiting for me, and I do not allow myself to get back into bed. I do my best work in the morning after coffee and before my first meal of the day. I’m not saying you need to work with this timeline, but if you’re a sleep-until-nooner, set your alarm for 10am. If you’re a work-later-on, set an alarm for when you need to start work - and then get your ass up. It’s hard to build a routine but much easier to maintain it once the habits are in place, so have a little faith in yourself. I don’t care how many times I’ve started, hit the ground running, and then crashed and burned, because guess what happened while I was running? I made money. Focus more on the positives of when you are functional, rather than moaning about the times when you’re not. If you’re in this industry it means you have, at some point or another, made it work for you. You can do it again.

I get out of bed at 5:30am, rinse off in the shower, make my coffee and do a beauty routine that makes me feel really fucking pretty. Sure, messy hair and an instagram filter can do just fine, and again - any content is better than no content - but I feel my best after dry brushing my skin (hello cellulite and the obvious signs of ageing, lol) and then applying a really nice smelling lotion all over my body. I have been listening to Ariana Grande instead of my usual lofi (or just fucking silence, which also isn’t great for my motivation levels). Pump yourself the fuck up. You’re a bad bitch under the weight of all of this self imposed pressure and comparison, you just need to wake that energy up again, and you can do it. Take your meds and drink your water. After coffee I’m in my most positive state to work through my inbox. Yeah, a neglected inbox on OnlyFans is going to take a hot fucking minute to get through but once you actually do it, it’ll be easier moving forward. Buck up, baby - you can do hard things, and the payoff will be worth it.

Setting actual times to get shit done is helping me immensely. I work on OnlyFans until noon. At noon, my second alarm goes off and I get up and eat and stretch and do something other than look at my phone. Most importantly: PAT YOURSELF ON THE FUCKING BACK! If you’ve done something more than you did the day before or the week before or the month before, you’re moving. You’re going. You’re doing. Our nasty little brains can always tell us we could be making more of ourselves but you know what, fuck that shit. Focus on doing 1% more than you did the day before. Rome wasn’t built in a day and again: you’re starting fresh from this moment forward. Kick the shit out of that voice in your head that wants to compare you to other people or, worse, compare you to what you “used to be able to do”. Fuck it, whatever, we are where we are - all we can do is work with that and make the most of it.

4. Schedule, schedule, schedule

Instagram allows you to schedule posts. If you do your makeup to shoot for OnlyFans, make two or three reels. Schedule them to post over the next few days. If you manage to shoot a few photos for OnlyFans, make a semi-SFW one and queue that up as well. Places like TweetDeck will allow you to even schedule Twitter posts in advance. Pound an energy drink (or take your meds, if you need that extra focus as I know many of us do) and get ‘er done. That way you can focus on working for shit down the line rather than trying to do everything day by day. OnlyFans lets you queue, so utilize it! Setting aside even one day to sit in your grubby sweatpants and just hammer out scheduling can be so fucking advantageous not only to building your success, but to strengthening your confidence and mental health.

I’m not going to blatantly call justifiable reasons excuses, but sometimes you need to really look at what your internal monologue is saying and whether or not it’s advantageous. If you’re depressed as shit, there are so many strategies out there to get you moving even while you’re depressed. If you’re ADHD or neurodivergent, there are strategies for you, too. The playing field is not level and if you’re starting from a rough point in your life, working will be really hard - but what’s the alternative? Not working, and making it even harder? I know you know this already, but you’re probably using this knowledge to beat yourself senseless. Stop. Even for one day, actively shout (out loud or into a pillow, whatever) at the nasty voice in your head that tells you that you’re too limited by your current position to crawl out of the hole you feel like you’re in. You can handle a scheduling day. Tell yourself, over and over again, that you can handle it. Even if you take breaks every hour to screech like a banshee or cry onto your keyboard, you can push through it. Send it. I believe in you in the same way I push myself to believe in myself. It’s not easy for any of us - but nothing ever is.

This isn’t bullshit coming from someone who’s doing well. I struggle so, so much. This shit is a grind for me, too. I berate myself and compare myself and am so fucking self critical that it can be immobilizing - but I have to smack some sense into myself once in a while and remind myself that I can grind even when I feel like I can’t. Sometimes I lean into being outright delusional. I love lucky girl syndrome. Shove your head into the clouds and pretend that you’re the absolute best version of yourself, even if you feel like absolute dogshit. The vibes may not last long, but if they last long enough for you to make something happen, then you’re pulling off that 1% improvement that you’re striving for.

5. Plan for breaks

Give yourself a light at the end of the tunnel, whether it’s relaxing at the end of the day or planning a “do absolutely nothing but lay around” day at the end of the week. As much as it may feel like you’re staring into an abysmal black hole demanding you to do more and more forever and ever, you’re not. You can hustle while taking breaks: in fact, you need to take breaks to make the hustle happen. Just be cautious not to let the downtime turn into a downturn. I put a limit on my rest periods because I am prone to lying face down and just … not getting back up, for weeks or months on end. Saturdays are my sleep in days. Sundays are my do nothing (except for a lil chores or whatever) days. Then I’m back to the grindstone on Monday, knowing that after my “end work day” alarm goes off, I can simply vibe out.

6. Stop looking at the numbers for now

Analytics are great, but also … not great. Story only got 500 views even though you have thousands of followers? It’s still 500 views. Reel didn’t hit the explore page? Whatever, at least a few people saw it. Recent PPV only sold once? It’s more money than you had before you released it. The best way to handle the restart period is to just focus on output and let any number motivate you to keep on keeping on. Everyone started somewhere. The biggest accounts started at 0 followers and the most successful OnlyFans pages started at 0 subscribers. You started from nothing, too.

7. Revisit your dreams

Do not stop yourself from dreaming big. What do you want? You can have it. Setbacks are setbacks, not finish lines. A break is a break, not an end. Write your dreams out and put them somewhere you can see them and fucking CELEBRATE every step you take toward them. If you need to start small to feel good about yourself, then do that. If your goal is to post once a week, push yourself to make that happen. If your goal is to make a certain amount of money in a week, do what you need to do to make that happen, whether it’s more posts, more messaging or more advertising. I like to set my goals small but keep my dreams big. I want to buy a condo, which is a big dream, but in order to do that, achieving all my little goals will put me closer to that every time I cross it off my “to do” list.

8. Fucking believe in yourself, goddamnit

You can do it. You can do it. You CAN do it. Do what you need to do, as your unique and individual little self, to put the systems that support you in place. Trust that you can rely on yourself. Even if that trust is frail for now, it will build as you build yourself up. Berating yourself isn’t helping, is it? I didn’t think so. You’re beautiful, interesting, worthy and so fucking capable, even on days where you think you aren’t. We’re in this together.

#camgirl survival guide

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doomednarrative · 1 year

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one thing i rlly like about your plaga leon au is that you actually give a realistic and in character reason for it to happen. it makes sense and it’s compelling. a lot of those aus don’t have as much thought put into them besides “leon’s basically a verdugo now” which just leaves more annoying questions. like what happened to ashley? did the cult’s plan work? what about ada, or krauser? nobody thinks of that they just want leon to have mandibles and kiss luis. that’s fine in art but when constructing a world you need more than that lol anyway this is half a rant and half praise of you 🩵

One thing about me personally is even if I write au stuff, I Want and Need it to be possible within the realm of canon as far as "Does this logically work within the limitations of the story the canon is trying to tell/work within the lore" and "Does this actually work for a character and match up with their motivations and ideals?" I will never do something Solely for the sake of shipping, even if it might look fun.

The whole point of why I (and Claire and Ethan) went with the plaga au in the first place is because A. It's just fun to see what an impact that would have on the rest of Leon's story and what unique challenges it presents for him in the future, B. It does actually give an explanation as to how he manages to survive so much stuff in 4 because he's got something biological on his side and thus helps him to save Ashley with some more ease, and C. Leon has a track record history of letting himself get hurt or putting himself in more danger if it means keeping other people safe. So writing out the exact plaga we gave him and that motivation for actually taking it on for himself Makes Sense within the realm of sticking to his usual motives and such.

Ever with the au changes we made because of the remake, the biggest part of why Leon takes on the plaga is Because he's trying to save Ashley. It isn't about Him, it's about what will give her the best chance of survival, his own future consequences be damned. If this time can be different, if he can actually manage to save Ashley and get her home safe and remover her parasite in time, then whatever sacrifices he makes are worth it to him, and that's in line with everything we ever see him do. He takes those risks Very frequently, like a good example being the opening of 6 where he tells Helena they're making time to save that one guy's daughter even tho it's in vain in the end. He knows he wouldn't be able to live with more loss on his conscience if he refused to help.

I have seen a few au's that do take this kinda stuff into account, like @polarspaz's stuff has Leon take on a prototype of Luis's work because the stress of fighting has made his Plaga develop faster, and taking the prototype means he'll be mutated but regain control of himself without the hallucinations and the hivemind stuff, so that also increases his chances of getting Ashley home safe and allows him to save Luis later on as well. @alvivaarts also has an au fic, Simulation Swarm, that I've been reading on and off where Leon and Ashley both get their plagas removed but because it was so late stage in the game, they Both still end up with some permanent mutations that Luis is trying to research how to reverse for them, and it basically becomes a group effort kinda thing to look out for each other after the worlds turned on them.

So like, there IS ways to do this au that you can still have your fun while actually making it Work in universe y'know? And without throwing Ashley out with the trash because if there's anythng that infuriates me more is when people just make these au's and then don't include her in it at all. That shit makes me so mad when she's so central to the entire story and would absolutely be tied up in any decisions Leon makes during the course of 4. If it's not to the benefit of trying to get them both to safety then Why would he do it in the first place y'know?? She's important to him, he's not going to discard her like that.

Anyways that's more of a long winded answer than I meant to give but anytime you ask me about this au I will take it as a chance to go off on a tangent ~

#this is something that clearly bothers me a lot too sid rest assured #and its stuff im constantly thinking about when i write my fics and backstory for it all #i love infected aus but if im gonna do them im doing them Properly #ask #answered #kief rambles about resident evil #plaga leon au

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professorchaos · 1 year

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🔥 kenny :)

HI! THIS IS VERY LATE. APOLOGIES.

send me a 🔥 (and a topic) for a hot take!

something i have been noticing more and more frequently lately and which i have therefore been thinking about more than usual is how annoying i find it how canonical stereotypes of poverty are reflected and worsened by the fandom.

what i mean by this is that i have seen more and more interpretations of kenny which highlight only his most stereotypical and arguably more "negative" traits, some of which are genuinely not even canon. for example, kenny being dirty and/or smelly; being scruffy and sloppily dressed; being completely broke and willing to do absolutely anything for money...

don't get me wrong. kenny's family are poor. kenny is willing to do most things for money, as emphasised most notably in "fat camp", where he performs numerous disgusting stunts for quick cash and fame, and "the city part of town", where he works a shitty underpaid job to buy a doll for his sister. but even in south park, this is all framed as exploitative - i think we only have to look so far as the joke about sexual exploitation in "fat camp" to explore how and why this is the case, and reflected in a realistic setting in fanworks it is utterly bizarre to see this exploitation played off as something characteristic of who he is as a person rather than a horrific circumstance of his upbringing, a circumstance of society and of capitalism.

kenny's family, like most families in poverty, are not struggling to a point where they can never afford nice things. he's the first of his friends to get a PSP. even in a very recent episode, we saw stuart taking his kids out for ice cream - a far cry from the shitty, poor-as-a-character-trait, always-abusive and always-drunk fanon interpretation of his character!

kenny also definitely cares about his appearance! unlike his siblings and parents, he is always shown as clean and unmarked. i would imagine that he goes to great efforts to keep his face and clothing clean and to protect himself from obvious injury. i think that he cares about his family's image, despite his differences with his parents - he doesn't want to be "the poor kid", a walking stereotype, a charity case. sure, he might play into it when it suits him, but that's different, isn't it? he makes elaborate, beautiful costumes every time there's an opportunity, and he chooses characters to play that do not scream "i want to be a rat boy look at me rolling around in the dirt" to me.

that is an aspect of his character, sure. kid gets high on cat pee and plays with wild possums. he likes jokes about sex and eats weird shit. he's a little gross. no more, though, i think, than his peers... than kyle, who talks to his own shit... to butters, who prods at cow pats... to eric, who thinks about blood and guts every time he closes his eyes and collects semen samples from his friends... kids being gross is just kids being gross. i mean, they're gross. so i don't think it's wrong to make kenny a gross kid, but i do think it's bizarre to make kenny a gross kid and kyle a cleanly little germaphobe (classism and antisemitism 2-in-1, yayyy)!

i dunno, i've just felt recently that... some of these interpretations of kenny that have been cropping up are really not based in canon at all? they feel like they came straight out of mid-2000s south park yaoi! which, you know. everyone do your own thing, i guess. but i really need people to be more aware of the classist tropes they are playing into, of what in the show the are watching is classist and also of how they are interpreting commentary on poverty and class.

#i would say more but it feels rambling already... i dont know if it makes that much sense....#ive been thinking about this so much recently... interacting with my friends who grew up like. better off i guess and #listening to the way they talk with disgust about things which are just so normal it... makes me so mad #kenny mccormick

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unproduciblesmackdown · 9 months

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had a hell of a time (good) bit ago watching elemental and feeling things including enjoying a film, great ride, i love a metaphor & anything vignettey (just living life, alongside but also including the [this is about the metaphor] threads), i do love it when a couple of fun people have an enriching dynamic that they enjoy and huaaaghwgh (good) & i liked the premise metaphor exactly as is for what it is for what it did with it & i liked overlaps & resonances w/other experiences i saw ppl perceive. i liked the way i was going oh my god that painting looks the way i feel b/c like navigating a complementary dynamic where what's holding one person back is what helps the other person along, vice versa, no interaction or relationship that develops by like having some [theoretically your trait/quality/behavior] contained in the other person, rather it being an interaction within yourself, such that i was going "i have this interaction Within Myself, right now, in life currently like always and the past years but also past months especially really, it's ongoing, i'm going Oh Goddamn Omg" scintillating to see it externalized as a conversation imagined by others. and also still different / more capacious on both ends than "wow Exactly that." feeling things going ohh my god. music is going for it so Noticeably. hot air balloon scene And track changing me with an immediate Resonance

easier when having fun but i was also like continually so hype gasping about intrigued about pointing at art direction decisions & execution and one especial element i was sooo noting was the use of Color b/c it's Really colorful like rainbow palette nigh constant noticeable saturation, And it was atmospheric, always readily visibly parsed, varying in styles but cohesive. the backgrounds babey, with obvious priority for working with a vivacious orange and/or blue. oh and the related use of Light like different visuals for different glows and just different effects and waugh....i collected mostly a bunch of bgs to point at often for that "look at the color design & atmosphere" but also so much more & foreground things big time too. semitransparent characters like bitch. the physics of fluid dynamics. optics like refraction like my God. i'm mclosing it and that these effects would be sooo prohibitively intensive w/o computer but it's so impressive w/computer and that Stylistic Decisions were made all over, it's clearly not ever simply just "oh this is what it'd 'realistically' look like if uhhh someone was made of fire or water" even as realism Based effects were employed for style and fun and our lives. the use of of course 2D animation / art conventions for style and effect and fun & our lives!!! maybe ember a bit too but wade has a whole like 2D style profile so the [curved droplet] shape always faces the camera, how are we doing that it's so cool & i love to see it. not to mention being transparent but also like clearly not!! first time i've properly thought about how inside of mouth 3D animation has Ever worked lmao

cut so i can go on & on (^ that's brevity up there lol) & post mostly various backgrounds to gesticulate at what i notice abt the use of color like oh my god. and some other things. laughed, cried, lived & loved like for real lol

oh my god

and like immediate intro theme going "oh my god blue and orange making Purple (magenta, pink) oh my god we're doing Additive Light with that holy shit yes"

so extra [!!!] about city nighttime shots especially. and the details of all the building designs, it's all the shit like i haven't even sat and Studied any given shot for all small elements like that but that you know they're There so that it looks this complex and "realistic" like you know the attention & effort is there & you get the Overall Effect baby. also the way purple/green are employed to contrast with blue/orange often. the Glows here, the Bluer upper half and the Oranger lower half that both also have some purplishness to them, the Green bridge breaking it up / spanning this

the colors in closeups even. first of all the expressions styles are after my own heart & got it, and i'm sure i'll go on & on more there. pull mouths down do the m upper lip n lower lip lines combo, you know what i mean, i Love it. wavy flowy design vs more triangular / ending in peaks/corners design for your water vs fire aesthetiques. i think that's [heat creating refraction in the air] effect like lord. the pink blue purple here. the slight shadow framing the pic for better contrast, the pink / glow around ember, wade slightly Glows from within too, the constant wave refraction there. okay obsessed again with both sorta transparent and fluid Figures like you've got the outermost layers. you've got the Inside. you've got the silhouettes and the lines that are "drawn," reddish outlines of flame shapes and constant highlight "outlines" for water so it never "realistically" blends in with everything / just Is clear and is impossible to easily parse. that those silhouettes are constantly Flowing and responding to motion / pressure as well. i can only imagine. oh and the colors again that the Glow for fire is often a Soft gradient, but there's this like, slightly convex polygonal style of "glow" / Light in backgrounds a lot and it works great for style and contrast with the important Soft Glow from fire and even also water, again the slight inner glow there too. and again the mutual [pull mouths down] expressiveness lol so much fun. the Elasticity is fantastic, same with like 2D style Movement like invoking a smear frame for example like fuck yes it's about What Works it's about style & effect & what things like lighting color faces can do that aren't just aiming for "be peak realistic" like clearly it isn't. note the sharper line of shadow in the upper corner with a deeper blue. we framing

oh this one was to point out "look at how you can see the full spectrum rainbow in the wave surface light refraction oh my fucking god" not to mention of course In Motion the shapes, the effect, some bubbles and flow for flare and seeing that constant Light Outline, the cyan leaning aqua that's put in along with the overall slight blue not b/c it's "realistic" but b/c it's what works baby the artistic design choices fuck like hell. and only when i took this one frame was it like oh my fucking god look at these split second flame shames flowing off of ember there above her head especially. all the more stylization required for fire without it being like, "realistically" mostly transparent, overly bright, not very strongly delineated / silhouetted....the shape, color, flow of flames on the "inside," outermost breaking off shapes & "outline" as well augh god. and look at the purples in the background's left side

AUGH the night city backgrounds. pottery burn haha yeah the blue orange AND purple my god!!!! it's thematic ([blue + orange = purple] b/w the blue & orange characters) and it fucks like hell holy shit!!!!!

meanwhile the green & purple here with One orange element getting to stand out / not that much blue either, but more ultramarine style than aquamarine, and LOOK AT THE MOON!!! the surface!!! check out that Polygonal glow around it and the green/purple there too!!!

and the use of bokeh. immaculate, not holding back, after my heart. the Purple/Pink additive light properties coming into play!! her reflection is more simply orange(tm) sometimes and i would presume it tends purpler when we are getting [emotionally connecting / recognition of the self through the other] but oh my god heaving overhead like a hero this additive light blue+orange=purple ingenious and stylistically fucking like hell choice. and again their "outlines" working so well while also retaining enough softness/fluidity to be part of them as a whole. everything is so cool

there's the mouth shape i was talking about. you see the slight m upper lip simply n lower lip and resultant (idk like a video game controller?) shape lol. flexible expressive asymmetry. the closeup transparency of [can always see the other side of shirt collar]. green bg for contrast while also incorporating the orange glow. the full spectrum rainbow refraction just also an immaculate and probably characterfully relevant lmao as a bonus. also hell of cute moments wauugh yes, fun, dying thanks

the additive light!!! (how magenta/purple/pink the reflection of Orange is off the Blue like employing what's realistic in another context for what fucks aesthetically & carries symbolism. like wade wouldn't Realistically be constantly [surface wave refractions] but it fucks like hell. also wouldn't be someone made of fire or water but it fucks like hell & embodies a central metaphorical layer to the literal material). also look at that curtain from deep purplish red to deep bluer purple!!! the line of bright blue!!! the glow in the Background with sharper polygonal lines / corners to contrast with the visual effects of glows elsewhere!!! wade default =3 as [wavy featured] and inherent =3 vs ember's more flame tipped => (not pictured)

ohh this one for rainbow color / out of focus usage and b/c it's like how the semi transparency but only So Much + constant outline of Highlights / constant inner glow and visible infusion of like aquamarine / bright turquoise cerulean color helps a water guy stay perfectly Visible / parsable. also besides ember being green, an effect subtly pictured at any given point: like cinders continually rising off fire but depicted so much like Sparkles :') there's so much colors and highlights and choices after my own sensibilities out here like i love a shoulder swoop design that flows right into the arms from the neck from the head. and that's exactly what we get precisely b/c it has so much flow!!! ember's like whole head Flaring out from her neck, terminal points like tips, or sources, of flames. Styles

the bokeh!! the blues and pinks and purples!!!

ouuwaah

UGH obviously in motion the like arcing falling curtains of water, the shimmering....the purple into pink into dusky orange!!! the little bit of contribution of the turquoise light aaa wahooo, ofc what the bridge adds in Composition for this & that previous shot

lmao this is b/c Wavy Scribble Squiggle Mouth again the design choices after my own heart. the constant extra wobbliness to Mouth Outline obviously works great to emphasize [water design] but it also works great b/c i love it

every shot of the background with this beach is gongious like jesus christ. the closeup of sand is like that looks amazing and So soft. look at the wavy swoopy shapiness of the clouds, look at the [in this shot] faintly detectable Polygonal outlines of Glow from the sun. feel free to look at that water like i said every shot of this, wrow. tasked with Pretty Beach Sunset and coming through big time

expressive design contrast, glow contrasts, refracting, silhouettes, those flame shapes breaking off again epic hot wheels style fuck yes....and the bg!!! look at the purple to muted purple pink sky, the atmospheric distancing on layers of buildings that goes from blue to purple!! the dimmer purple / blue / teal on the ground in the foreground here UGH the COLOR USE

ooh i was so Noticing the like, full ultramarine blue here, like it's been used Before in any night environments but the way here it's brighter, making it like "okay yeah night but more Lit Up. also the visual variety of [water curtain] textures there, the area of Pink, the Yellow that hasn't previously shown up too much but might be saved for associations with tension / "danger" lol. also love the "straightup a pool" designs lol wish i was swimming

oh the orange + blue = purple on display here / translating Outlines

amazing sequence and again look at the Purple shadows the Blues the Oranges the Greens!!!! aughhh again like So colorful and so bright but also ofc dimmed, atmospheric, balanced, waughhh!!!

oh my god what can i say. "bisexuality" for one but and also fr like the pink of the sky vs deep purple, lighter with more blue in the water, the streak of oranger light, pink atmospheric haze....augh!!!

speaking of "and then really vivid striking colors in another overall palette we haven't seen before" the teal & golden yellow for this shot was new & noticeable. the yellow of problems, but not too bad lol, looking at that Contrast with the blue on the outer pool edge there. i wanna take a swim yippee....but fr like holding some colors more in reservation, finding new combinations, as Ever how bright the bgs are but atmospheric, non overwhelming of other elements, i Love it

bokeh!!!! colors!!!!!!!

bokeh!!!!!! colors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

fucking roy g biv like yes gorgeous. nice tree evocative bridge. composition. lots of lights and colors but the distribution being so balanced, but organic, broken up in all the right ways and all encompassing....the bright orange lights in shadowed blue/purple buildings in the upper left corner, leading down to the path of lights across the center of everything....ugh incredible great

out of focus bg, the lights, the purples, the blue/Green, look at everything on the right side ugh lovely, the slight Shapes of glows, can see that arc in the right side as well, the emotional relevance of all the colors and glows as this bg dims / desaturates a second later

and so similarly here, the Purple, the Glows....like the use of both the perfect balance of soft edges/borders but no sacrifice in clarity

oh and i suppose there's then any amount of spoilers following but like, in part only b/c i point them out as as much but also like. it's about the journey lmfao you see two screenshots, containing some information, well you've seen it all

and to pad that out i'll also note without screenshots about it like bringing in a very like Clear for Compositional Effect sort of Danger Yellow again twice over, with the harshest like chartreuse leaning yellow yet for it, v much a color that it'd just take more effort to fit into a palette / would have to be kind of the color centerpiece, vs the orange/blue/purple here

(but also not to say yellow was never used otherwise....some perfectly harmless golds, paler lighting like just Daytime vibe, constant presence w/fire of course. so the Particulars of a hazard yellow are all the more notable)

the COLORS....look at that orange that pink red the pink reflections the Purples....the just deep slightly slightly purple red in the bg and how like smoothed over / Immediate that background is to just make everything close & present!! the flame textures going!!! water textures going!!! cinders as points of light!! the colors the orange purple pink blue UGHH it's amazing they're really off the shits with it in every scene

spoilers they do kiss about it and i was like smacking hand to forehead like oh my god and they did another "breaking out a new Light thing" when we've glowed and refracted within and without, lit up or dimmed, sparkled, reflected, used further styles in environmental lighting....answer was Lens Flare rainbow refracting glow like goddamn!!! and again like putting In the purple, but also the blue, the orange, the out & out more cerulean / aquamarine that is not gonna simply come from elsewhere in the environment. nice commitment to also having someone smile into a kiss lmao we've all been like i Will make this work. i'm still just like ugh the focus on and variety of Light too, the backgrounds' like soft polygon/hexagon glow "fields," straightforward soft/even gradient glows, wave pattern refraction, refraction also separating light into rainbows, remember water is a lens, stylized light of fire, bokeh, additive color mixing....holding on to & breaking out Cinematic LENS FLARE is fr like ohhh my god they're just fucking On It, got this, here's another effect for you

i also have a gif b/c i couldn't note anyone's fluid dynamics / flowing / Interacting physics enough, and little moments giving that some extra flair are a delight, but holy shit a highlight i'm instantly obsessed with forever, now if there's something and nobody pours themself, i'm out

oh we sloshing!! all the water physics going on here to fantastic effect but also all working within the confines of "and it's some guy." immaculate joke 5 sec later around the "i am Not an inspector" line just What a delight. the vision....the manifestation of effort, craft....i'm not kidding at all i'm like okay forever treasuring [pours yourself] clip and if someone doesn't get it it's like it's called joie de vivre, panache, taking all kinds. some sloshheads out here

again i had a delightful time at the cinema (figuratively. i didn't go anywhere. though i did go "oh fuck re: even the idea of seeing plenty of this in theater format" like i was going oh Shit at visuals and music and every damn thing enough already, can only imagine) i was like bitch i love ppl living life vignettesquely with the emotional arcs aids of metaphor, symbolism. i love the styles and designs and i love paying attention to details and going damn how they'd do that, i love technical shit, noting techniques that are centered around 2D derived visuals, about aesthetic effect & visual purpose....i was going "oh my god same. lately, always, ongoing. oh my god it's me always crying at everything, but also never at anything, and also just sometimes at some things. it's me with the Temper it's me with one like everyone else but not about to let it out at all / not be making room for anyone else's. me like 'just powering through like arghhh' me like 'that, but [a puddle]' liable to spontaneously interact with randos by just doing your own thing, also [dying] and beloathed at that, going with the flow trying to carpe diem it, having these conversations and navigations like just as one person lmao, and also ofc it's different" lol like oh damn okay. and twentysomethings popular with the nebkids like wow in real life....and just having a great time entirely straightforwardly and expecting as much but also being increasingly delighted and surprised and going "wow my aesthetique sensibilities piqued" and going "wow okay a journey" and like Gasp at details and loving the overall effects and little moments and shots and entire deal. did weep repeatedly, when you slosh, when you soggy....delighted a lot, along for the ride having fun for the whole way, so much abt [bummed 20somethings who are nevertheless very vivacious Feeling Things, including About feeling things] and the way that's given sooo much space, Saturating things even, maybe with light & color....i liked it a bunch, [aaaaaa], great time, thinking about feeling things and feeling about it and about thinking about it & so on & so forth too like man hang on a second. and the soundtrack. and the character designs Overall there did i mention?? so cute & fun. wobbly wavy shivery tapering having Flow in the lines / shapes of silhouettes in different ways just like flow in [fluid dynamics] of flame or water in different ways. there's a lot i can say but i just mostly did the backgrounds / color / lighting noncomprehensive slideshow lol. i was very engaged like oh wahoo yippee aaa then mfs let's go and keep going

#i'm big on like rainbow lot of color constant saturation....Yet; Atmosphere / skilled balance in application/usage #i don't have the restraint (or like full knowledge / experience lol) to Use it myself but i Love when i see it used lol. Very colorful here #and i had thoughts & feelings & a good time so that made it easier to be like oh whee AND look at that background. mf we sloshing #nonzero spoilers via largely contextless static images; many wide shots / environments; really doesn't matter much #but i guess if you're like ''i specifically want to know Nothing at All'' like well then there are images in there #like 65% me going ''and look at that purple. oh my God the green blue & blue green. Orange''#b/c like wrow....#pixar elemental #films to whisper to myself like omg. like me. right now #btw it's kind of long post inside there. but For Me; typically so lol #can't say shit in thirty tags!! esp when i had a great time i liked it i was like oh my god #can't even say that shit in regular text which is why i mostly talk about colorful backgrounds lmfao. and even Then!! and so on so forth #and hand over heart like omg when by yourself you're a bit too much; but together; you're a bit too much together ;w;#like wow just like me; me; & still me!!! and not caring about what's all ''too much'' like it's about the me & me actually thanks #(and ofc the premise / central metaphor/conflict there as is; vulnerable cultural identity that needs to be maintained but uh oh)#speaking of uh oh look who's underway in the tags!! i'm heading myself off now lmao. time for half past 3 am Night Sandwich

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spiritcc · 2 years

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Now the same pyramid scheme top 5 but with men

the amount of Writing man damn!!!

yea i mean. big surprise. innokenty smoktunovsky who was already covered just yesterday + what to watch i've done a few years ago, most links dead anyway at this point i bet, there really isnt anything to cover left besides my ever-expanding commentary on the acting thanks to the arrival of cherk. what i still havent mentioned is до будущей весны that i love despite never watching because he was literally upstaged by a baby. dont fucking care for him if i come to this movie it's always for the baby.

also yea we all know, cherkasov. you should've been here to witness our history that spans over 5 years, the sudden rise to the top is actually shocking. but i just Knew, Felt it as early as 2 years ago even, i'd do similar annual lists elsewhere and they'd ask for best actor of the year, i'd shrug and be compelled to put cherk in there and dont really know why. but it felt right and look at it all now huh. at this point in my investigation i think he's not second best, but is on the same plain as smoktun standing on the other side of it due to different approaches, but also c'est la vie that he got fucked over by himself, and by the times of cinematic styles back then, and then also by post-stalin government. i also think a top five of his doesnt tell shit about The Range, it all comes together when you also consider his other works that are barely watchable so F

1. what do you think that time he got tasked with playing A SINGLE STRAND OF SEAWEED in sadko while still working in operetta with shalyapin. i am actually in love. "i was told to play a strand of seaweed, and im sure you couldnt even see me from where i was on stage, but i got down to business anyway" my god we used to have Real Theater Shalyapin as Sadko: AAAAAAAAAA OOOOO LET ME THE FUCK OUTTTT Octopus: blblblblblblbllb Sea queen to the sea king: when are we getting a sea divorce Cherkasov in the background:

the fucking TRAGEDY that i wasnt there to see it what the FUCK, literally his best role full stop. he peaked before he even started. 2. everything else, sure :/ just as powerful :// i mean yea second best for me is spring always, as per my tradition of loving scrungly non-consequential roles. sometimes it shouldn't take much ye know, but thats where the best effort hides. it's a rare work of his that is realistic and not like theatrical or stylised (re: ivan) and his character there is simply peak man, one of the most guys, a walking dream. AND it's all silley! and love is there! literally what else do you fucking want! watch spring now i've fixed the subs too!!! 3. all remains to people maybe? strange to me because yea i just subbed it and watched it all wrong so it never had the desired effect on me. thats the closest we got to new bullshit-free cinema style with him and i just appreciate it, plus his character is very charming n all and the movie itself is Nice. maybe it's even more telling if you know the backstory, after stalin's death he as a fave got an avalanche of shit thrown over him and by 1963 when all remains to people was made, he didnt have a single movie in 7 years, because all that time and DURING production he was actively shat on by fucking pyriev specifically as well who for some reason tried his utter hardest to make sure his career dies. cherk has outlived his abilities, his style is too theatrical, he no longer can act, like the shit pyriev was spewing shocked the director of the film. my man tovstonogov rescued it all (STAN BDT WATCH HANUMA) and all that time cherk was aware of what was happening and was shaking like a leaf with nerves. imagine being like a five times decorated most famous actor currently shaking about being accepted. but cherk never had any grievances towards anyone during this period, and look at what came out. accused of outliving his own self and being locked in theatrics. and he did all remains to people. maybe it's telling. 4. the children of captain grant bc pog anel <3 his only crime was not being on screen enough, that's where his kiddie theater + pantomime skills come in and he's just so scrungly <333 the plasticity of it all you could hardly believe he then was hawk-like unmoving ivan. plus cherk is a fucking devastating crier it just hits so fucking hard when he does it, and pog anel does cry and oof. 5. debating with myself but peter the great because LMAOOOOO. the utter fucking chaos of it all. dude literally pissing crying every time he's on screen he's SO pathetic SO just scrungly again i just keep coming back to it. The Range, smoktun's been so quiet since this dropped

3. oleg basilashvili aka bas. i keep these next two mostly to myself because some blorbos are for the eyes but some are for the heart only and you do not get to learn more.

1. CONTROVERSIAL but say a word for the poor hussar, solely, and i mean solely, because it was my sudden bas awakening. out of nowhere he upstaged gaft who i watched this movie for and the rest is history. the movie is so mid and i kept it out of ryazanov month on purpose even, and his character is once again Scrunge, but his performance of a pathetic little bitch was just... i dont know it awakened things in me. 2. ez, guess it's station for two fellas, also a lot of good acting to look at plus wow. peak malewife archetype i think ryazanov reached the height of it with this film. soooo pathetic omg <3 im so glad my sudden bas awakening lead me first to autumn marathon that i actually hate with every fibre of my being, which then forced me to say fuck to my sleep and watch 2 hours of station and believe in Life again, the ways this movie shook me is something i always chase with cinema. 3. master and margarita sure, his voland is tired, blabla not like in the book everything, but man he's cool. the more i rewatch the series the more i appreciate him, just the presence alone. 4. the play i saw life in bdt with freindlich, legit thought WOAA SMOKTUN LEVEL there. the play had so many funny moments, his character talks with a youngster who's like "yea we suck face" he's like what. the kid is like "well, we kiss" and right at the end of the play, the literal final line after he almost died on freindlich was like "well, dear, should we, as they say, SUCK FACE??" [thunderous applause] what scenes. 5. lmaoo fine. autumn marathon. i hate is so much. that counts as a memorable emotion innit. nobody gets to say the movie is bad in my presence and when bas is involved. but god i fucking hate it. soo bad.

4. valentin gaft actually <3 i even have two poetry books of his, he is not just scrungly he is The Scrunge himself and also oh my!

1. THE WIZARDS???? AT LAST????? my god peak gaft movie that he hated, the comedy of it all he's so great!! a great example of a villain who's just a little meow meow, love satan with my whole heart also best movie ever!!! 2. an orphan of kazan because he genuinely smiles there, also the movie is Nice. you cant just skip straight to it, you have to Work to see gaft smile 3. hello im your aunt, all he does is drink up and square up!!!! movie's fucking iconic and im glad he's just there to contribute to it, im just so glad he was a part of my childhood without me realising, i Feel my faves in my fucking bones. also boom and he shows off his muscles and everyone is shook. 4. my dearly beloved detective i guess, lester is soooo iconic and fuking NOBODY appreciates it here it drives me insane. HE'S GOT THE BEST FUCKING ONE LINERS IN THERE NOBODY CARES ABOUT HOLMES WATSON WHATEVER TF!!!! year ten of me being lester's only fan 5. i could've said 12, i could've said garage, i could've said voland, but i will say those two weird ass shows where he shares scenes with his wife because holy shit :'))

5. bro man i dont know even, i do have a post that summarises all my faves at the time and with some of them, the fling is defs over or we're just Normal about it. they are now in the lesser bucket so let me instead list all the times somebody i was watchin the movie for got upstaged by somebody else entirely

1. tikh got upstaged by yank in to kill a dragon and how else, the second he got literally groped by yank it was all over for the old man. 2. smoktun being upstaged by a baby what a classic 3. cherk's last movie where he was for .24 seconds anyway that got stolen completely by strzhelchik as nikolay the first, a lot of Feelings were reconsidered this month 4. bas for gaft rip

#nikolay cherkasov #shaking how this appears in this blog now #oleg basilashvili #innokenty smoktunovsky #valentin gaft

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saturoslurper69 · 1 month

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alright you vultures here's your food

guy who idolized me *checks calendar* a year ago got his bubble popped when he realized all along he was an immature manchild to me.

in between the admissions hes paranoid and delusional, hes sending himself anonymous threats saying theyre from me. and people still buy it.

and now we got some new accusations under my belt. im jealous! im obsessive!

lmao. just lmao, your therapist or even worse your internet friends fucked with your head so hard you are Gone

i can sleep and hold, and love, a real man next to me, and i never had to settle on pretending id find a partner.

also, wasnt my main f/o for that fandom a woman? to the point ess and candide's ship was on google images? LOL

OH WAIT, in fact didnt a storyboard artist like my ship so much, and it fucked with you so bad you made vent art for it? hmm.

but IM jealous?? 2+2=5??

and wait didnt your lackey bark at me for thinking all this nonsense was over fandom shit? is it or isnt it? are you mad im an asshole or do you think im upset you....buy commissions? can y'all make up your mind on what we're upset over here? like im begging yall to realize the longer this drags on the more stupid and barrel scraping this shit is getting.

but its whatever, the cold truth, is the narrative of someone who physically disgusted me from day one to the point i had a sticky note over his pfp is hilarious, yeah bro ill get myself obsessed again when i eat some bad shrimp.

no really its very hard to look at when you cant get the time for anything about who you are unless my name is pulled, get a new gimmick.

and realistically, from the bottom of my heart, i do believe theres a third party sending these anons to fuck with us, to drag it on further. and hes giving them what they want because with this guy it is /guaranteed/ he will react and blow it out of proportion after all hes "like that" isnt he?

i know theres a cycle where I get asks I delete, then 2-3 days later, i get random shit in my inbox "are you going to doxx him? are you going to attack him? are you going to burn his crops!?" which triggers another scratch fight. of nothingness, nothing gets done. except what the people want, online adrenaline rush, clicking back and forth between our profiles shallow breathing whats gonna be posted next.

but even if its someone else sending these anons. i got a little file full of shit i never did since "was mean to me" didnt have enough oomph for a callout and frick frack and fuck comes out of the woodwork saying i called him a scammer or rigged him during an election idk, my comedic attittude about all this just emphasizes how much i dont care anymore.

but hey i can mark up the failed effort to get me kicked out of flight school and these anons i get talking about hurting my nephews and hoping my sister will overdose to him and his goons. fuck it why not. see how easy it is?

to state, amidst the chaos, i thought talking on a throwaway account, something i can do and do again nullified the purpose of ever needing anon. (i understand in saying this, could give the third party ideas, but i mean, the 3-4 online people i rarely talked to dont talk to me ever now so what else do you want from me, i dont know if this/these individual(s) are driven by some twisted moral standing or a sense of vigilantism but i promise, speaking from no place of emotion, youre doing more hurt to this guy fucking with him than you are making me worry about my online reputation)

i did Not use tumblr back then when any of this happened, not to mention anon hate has never been my style. im sorry but i have cooler ways to be a dick, you know this. i think its not hard to say "ess is loud, bold, aggressive, no filter, etc." at least acknowledge That as the truth and use it against me instead of whatever is happening here.

i went to his personal dms, fucked with his friends who tried to jump in, all using my name. i wasnt worried about people knowing it was me, i already knew it was too late and it didnt matter. trying to cover myself wouldnt have even been something i was concerned with because it was impossible. nor would i have cared really, at the time, i wanted everyone right then and there to know it was me and what i was doing, even on my main account i was going off.

this part i was trying to frantically explain, in a moment of vulnerability i will never Ever fucking allow myself to be put under again, it had been conveniently cropped out of the apology i sent to him. (yes, the one i took back, because if everyone hated it, bitched about me for not following the 10 commandments to an online apology and he genuinely didnt want it, why would i leave it up at that point. like seriously.

good thing i have the capacity to block, at this point its just a display over who needs that sweet online drama adrenaline for a sense fullfillment and who doesnt.

everyone in my life has told me "what can you do to him he hasnt done to himself" once i tell them the story and yeah....

yeah..

but yeah this message is for the keyboard squad but mainly for the fence sitters who stick by waiting for a conclusion or some form of closure. there isnt gonna be one. ive done all the work on my half creating better social spaces in real environments. i understand i wasnt great to someone. ONE. and ever since then ive been doing my work.

needless to say, im gonna parrot this, and say ive graduated flight school last month and ive found freelance work as a private aviatior, ive been talking to a therapist, am staying medicated, and ive built myself up and have become an active member in my community and will be looking into EMT training shortly so i can be a better street medic.

and im sorry, genuinely from the bottom of my heart, there are people who exist stuck in this time tunnel reliving the same day over and over. you can buzzword and slam your fists out of this and dig your heels in refusing the reality here, but ive wrote this understanding the audience this is talking too has no sense of rationality left. ive done my work, a fuckton of hard work after fucking up and hitting rock bottom and i cant let you nor your friend's inability to move on, doom me to being the same "evil" (that got a laugh from me) person.

im not scared of getting screenshotted, angry dms, anons, my posts analyzed with test tubes and beakers, take me to kiwifarms officer. this whole place could hate me and ill just go "youre all wrong, sorry"

in fact i dont even want an answer to any of these questions, this is just my final statement on the situation because im breaking this cycle. its not an 8 anymore, its a 0.

and as for the one which coat tailed this situation between me one and other person to try and dogpile the drama. our situation is entirely different from what happened here. like you can spread whatever narrative and half truths you need but you and i alone will only ever know the truth about what happened, and you can sleep on that. you have never been an afterthought to me outside of busting out laughing at a walmart whenever i see "anti-frizz" serum. i just hope you dont gotta go lay down after reading that.

#vent

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casspurrjoybell-25 · 3 months

Text

The Healer of Shakkara - Book One

*Warning Adult Content*

Chapter 19 - Flight - Part 1

Remembering as much as he could from his view above the trees, Galen pointed them in what he hoped was the right direction and they set off, single-file with Iksthanis in the lead.

The gigantic man plowed through the dense boughs as if through grass, heedless of scratches and cuts.

Behind him, Behn helped clear away what obstacles remained.

Zenír came next, one hand looped through a strap on Behn's pack and Galen guided him from behind.

Sevhalim followed Galen, with Triss, Rea and Obi bringing up the rear.

From above, the land had appeared to fall away at a gentle slope towards the edge of the pines... below it looked much different.

There were more small ravines to cross... not deep but steep and slippery.

After sliding down one side, they scrambled to scale the other and what cost them dearly in effort and time often brought them only a stone's throw closer to their goal.

Meanwhile, the woods echoed with eerie calls... high wailing howls and low clicking growls and the flashes of white grew nearer and more frequent.

The barrowlings were closing in.

Already weary with fear and lack of sleep, everyone fell at least once and everyone helped their comrades as best they could.

Zenír needed the most assistance, being unable to see the hand and foot-holds the others reached for so easily.

Near the top of another narrow gully, he took hold of a protruding root which proved too thin and broke in his hand.

He fell, knocking Galen and Sevhalim down with him.

They landed in a heap at the bottom but the drop was only about twice a man's height and they were unharmed.

Galen and Sev picked themselves up quickly but Zenír remained where he was.

"Zen? Are you hurt?" Sev asked, bending over him where he sat.

Zenír shook his head.

"I am not injured."

"Then get up. I know you are tired. We all are. But we must..."

"I'm slowing you down, Sev," Zenír said quietly.

"You need to get the p'yrha to safety. I..."

"Oh, no you don't," Iksthanis slid back down to the bottom, grabbed Zenír's arm and hauled him to his feet.

"Don't you dare. You've paid enough, Zen. Don't make me pay, too."

Galen didn't know what they spoke of but there seemed to be some private understanding between the pair.

Zenír's face twisted with a mix of pain and grief but he shook his head.

"I'm not after redemption, 'Thanis," he said softly, his gaze fixed somewhere over the other man's shoulder.

"I'm being realistic."

"You want realistic? Okay."

Before the smaller man knew what was happening, Iksthanis had him on his back, arms looped around his neck and legs locked around his waist.

"Hold on," he said and in a few quick movements, scaled the wall of the ravine again.

"How's that for realistic?" he huffed, setting Zenír on his feet again.

"You need help, you ask for it, Zen. None of this 'leave me behind' shit. Understand?"

Zenír nodded, eyes angled at the ground and Iksthanis gave a snort of approval before turning and blazing on through the brush.

The rest scaled the wall easily enough and Behn took Zenír's hand and looped it through the straps of his pack once more.

"Come on," he said gently.

"Let's go."

As Galen reached the top of the ravine's edge and witnessed this, he smiled.

Behn was a good friend to all, he reflected and they were lucky to have him at their sides.

Meanwhile, it seemed there might be something stronger than friendship between Iksthanis and Zenír.

Before he had time to ponder what that might be, Iksthanis gave a shout of surprise.

"A path? In the Pinedark?" Rea asked, voicing the question on everyone's mind.

What Iksthanis had stumbled upon and what had given rise to his cry was, indeed, a path and it appeared to lead in exactly the direction they meant to go.

"Do the barrowlings make paths?" Obi asked, studying the cleared ground and hard-packed earth with care.

The path was three paces wide and while winding, ran in an overall westerly direction through the pines.

"No," Sev said.

"They do not but we have little time to puzzle out who would and why. For the moment, let us take what the Goddess has placed in our way and hope it is a blessing."

A shriek echoed through the pines and they saw they had little other choice... many pale shapes now moved, just visible in the gloom.

"They're gathering for an attack," Rea said, nocking an arrow on her bowstring but not drawing it.

Triss did the same.

"Let's move," Sev said.

"No running, now. Fast movement might trigger them. Iksy, Obi... how are the torches?"

"Out cold," Iksthanis said.

"Mine's still lit," said Obi. "Sort of."

He blew on the remnants of smoldering fabric, making it glow a dull orange.

"Get me some flames," Sev ordered.

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twinstarlovers · 2 years

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Honestly fuck the original version, the slowed version sounds so much more….. sentimental? Idk but you get what I mean. Omg I’m getting emotional. The lyrics are hitting different rn. It’s 4am lol, I just woke up. Idk it reminds me of me & then “paradise” is like our wedding.

“When she was just a girl she expected the world

But it flew away from her reach

So she ran away in her sleep

Dreamed of paradise”

Ahhh… this is lowkey kinda literal. When life was hard for me or when I was depressed, I would escape by going to the dream world & no matter how many times I woke up I’d force myself to go back to sleep. It got bad to the point where I was disoriented whenever I was awake like I felt i never felt present. Ahhh.. what a time.

But hmmm I have no idea how ima NOT cry on our wedding. There’s no point of doing makeup like fr. Ima use dollar bills as tissues to be dramatic LMFAO

Bye the universe better give us like 5 million dollars. You told me once you wanted to a big wedding but I said I wanted a small wedding. I say a small wedding because I feel like a small wedding is so much more intimate but at the same time I get the whole big wedding cus I’m extra too. We can have 2 weddings but as I said the universe better give us fucking money cus I CARE ABOUT THE DETAILS & my mf dresses. I ain’t wearing one but if I have to fine 🙄. Idk how that wedding shit works but you ain’t seeing me till the wedding that day. Do people see each other the previous day? Idk. But honestly fuck a makeup artist too cus like I ain’t tryna look like a whole different person & look like I have 10 pounds of makeup on my face like yeahhhhh no. Dudeeee HOW TF ARE WE GONNA DO THIS. The universe NEEDA BLESSSSS. I showed you my ideas but like ugh. This is realistic but unrealistic at the same time but I would have 10 different weddings like all in different weddings because one place is not enough but it will do. But bro I honestly think people gonna have to come in a lil boat like in a tunnel like I told you about & there’s a lil slide show of us or like pics hanging & bunch of lights & they gotta go through the tunnel to get there CUS FUCK. I want that book entrance thing too. I want a magical forest kinda wedding or like a…. “starry night” (headass) wedding. Ooooo you know what we can just change the colors & all the lights like every hour the place looks new like you get what I’m saying. OOOOOOOOOOO YES. Dude ima cryyyy omg. My eyes rn are like 🥺. Lolllll. We gonna plan our wedding as soon as we together! We gonna have a big book of ideas. Btw we gotta save everything we ever do like fuck a phone! We need a Polaroid & a video camera & we take it everywhere. We needa keep our concert tickets & shit too & we gotta make a big ass scrap book. Omgggg yes. BROOOOOOO I giggled because why was I imagining our sex tape accidentally popping up on the slideshow at the wedding 💀💀 nah I’m so dead omg. We need a drug table fr fr. & drug goodie bags LMFAOOOOO. I think goodie bags will have to be personal tho. Like ima put in effort. More so a gift actually. Ima cry omg noooo. Why am I thinking of us writing a card together to your bff & putting it in her lil gift bag or whatever. I’m so emotional this is ugly af. Why do I feel like we gonna be cracking up during the first dance or whatever tho 💀. I’ve always thought about that. I feel like we would be talking about how awkward it is that we are being stared at. Aw. Would I want my parents there tho? Yes & no. Honestly they would leave early because this will get to chaotic or like they won’t fw some of the shit we into. They are gonna be ashamed of me so I feel like I would tell them ahead of time that they can & WILL leave early. I wish they could be there but they won’t be supportive & I don’t want that energy at my wedding. Ew I wanna cry now because I imagine partying & in the middle of it I realize they are gone & me wishing they could’ve stayed & just been a supportive family but whatever. Ew I’m actually crying. I need to stop thinking this far cus this is self sabotage… right? Idk this is so unnecessary but broooo I say so much shit ew. But anyways… bye Lamo 🧸💕💘 lmfaooo the ending of the song is rn, perfect. But yes byeeee have a nice day ☺️💖. Quack quack 🤭🐥💗. You a cute Mamo 🥹☺️🐥💘. Wait bro I think I was lucid dreaming for the first time cus I just woke up & in my dream I was like this is so vivid, I’m dreaming rn & I was looking around but then I went back to dreaming dreaming & forgot LOL but anyways I miss you dovey! 🕊️byeeee I love you I love you forever 🪐💗♾️ 444 rn 👀 okay bye fr fr 🙄🤭💗💗

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phoenixyfriend · 3 years

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Fake Sith TCW Trio

I have another fucked up time-travel AU! Who’s surprised? (Nobody.)

So like. Have you guys read that one fic where Luke and his students go back in time and pretend to be Sith Lords and are super hammy about it? (Sith Lord Swell by AMournfulHowlInTheNight)

This AU has contributions by @atagotiak, @the-lunar-system, @purronronner, @gelpenss, @creepingthroughthistidalwave, and @thisarenotarealblog.

I want TCW trio (plus Rex and Cody) to go back to several years pre-TPM and, since the Council DEFINITELY won't believe them about the Sith being back... they'll force the issue.

Anakin is weirdly excited about things and building up their backstory.

Anakin: Okay so I can definitely be a Maul type, with the unhinged ranting and manic laughter, Obi-Wan can be the whole Refined Rich Guy type like Dooku, where you can't even tell he's evil until he starts talking about getting out the eyeball scoops, maybe toss in a bit of mad science stuff? Ahsoka could play up like Ventress OR, oh oh, she can be the Light Side Child we need to PROTECT who's publicly begging us to return to the Light after our big dramatic Falls where we murdered like eighty people to save her, and-- Obi-Wan: Why are you never this enthusiastic about actual undercover missions. Ahsoka: Did you just have all this ready to go, or...? Anakin: WE COULD GET YELLOW CONTACT LENSES FOR ME.

Obi-Wan: How's my evil laugh?

Anakin going “Okay.. so if any of us need to murder someone to sell the bit it should be me, I think I could handle it the best. Why? No reason.”

Obi-Wan: I'm not sure a complete Fall could come from protecting Ahsoka, really-- Anakin: No, no, it could.

Obi-Wan: Surely you’d hold back because you realize neither of us want that for you. Anakin: Uh. Sure. Definitely.

Obi-Wan points out that none of them can channel the dark side to Prove they're Sith and Anakin just goes "Okay, give me like two seconds to stew in my negativity and--right, you can stop staring in horror, please."

Anakin rambles on that they can TOTALLY make the galaxy a better place while playing at being Sith! He's got a whole LIST of slave empires to "take over" and disassemble!

Anakin has a whole excited spiel about how EVIL soldiers and assistants are minions, in this case partly because Cody and Rex are too good at what they do to be mooks. Cody could pull off evil minion very well. Facial scar? Looks good in black? Quietly competent and sarcastic?

He also pushes for Obi-Wan to lounge in a fancy throne with a glass of wine while Anakin stalks the shadows and Ahsoka hangs out on the window ledge. The disaster lineage is dramatic, okay, Anakin’s just leaning into it, he’d appreciate it if everyone stopped looking at him like that.

Qui-Gon, surprisingly, ends up a skeptic about all of this. Everyone is freaking out about the Sith and he’s like “y’know I’m not even sure they’re darksiders.”

Some Jedi, possibly Qui-Gon for his conspiracy board, gets in a real risky situation and one of the Fake Sith saves them, but also panics and kinda drops character for a bit.

Jedi: You saved me! Why’d you do that? Anakin: I uh... just wanted the pleasure of killing you myself?

"You saved me. Why?" "Mmmm. Jedi." [walks away]

Qui-Gon: [trying to figure out what is up with these people semi-competently (from his perspective) pretending to be Sith] Dooku: [trying to protect Qui-Gon from Sith influence]

The gang is the most successful at pretending to be Sith to Dooku. Sure, they’re not gonna punish him for something he hasn’t done, but it’s not hard to act menacing and angry around him.

(They really do have so much fun irritating the heck out of Dooku. He hasn’t Fallen yet, but they want to keep an eye out.)

At some point, future Obi-Wan definitely drops that little tidbit of "What, you didn't think the Banites were the only Sith running around did you? You... didn't even know about the Banites. How... disappointing."

They REGULARLY use Ahsoka as an excuse to be marginally less terrible. They claim that if Ahsoka pouts, they stop. ‘Soka also uses them as an excuse for why she’s a lil feral. (To be fair, that one is accurate. She was already a lil feral before but it’s not like they did anything to stop it.) Ahsoka gets her "breaking into people's offices" jollies by bugging Nute Gunray's office.

The Jedi keep trying to Rescue Ahsoka.

Rex and Cody end up in real beskar, there's a whole Thing with Mandalore and Jango and Satine.

Obi-Wan is CONSISTENTLY worried about Anakin Falling for real, which... hey, at least he knows to be worried about Anakin Falling. Step up from canon, really.

Anakin is WAY too into killing the Hutts but like. It does... technically sell the bit.

Obi-Wan: Sure, I’m not sad that they’re dead, especially because we’re not connected to the Republic, so we don’t need to worry about starting a war and all that. But. Anakin is disturbingly cheerful about this. Rex: Wasn't he a Hutt slave? Obi-Wan: Well yes, but-- Rex: I'd kill Nala Se if I could get away with it.

Cody and Rex are very supportive of Anakin's murderous intentions.

Obi-Wan does understand anger, even killing someone in anger. Like Maul (the first time at least) and D’nar and a few others. All the same, like... y’know. The level of bloodthirst from the others is a little off-putting.

At one point, Anakin accidentally addresses young Obi-Wan by name, despite never having met before, and to cover it up, he... panic-flirts. He panics, and so he flirts, with young Obi-Wan.

(He will later blame this on old Obi-Wan, because he had to pick up the habit of flirting with the enemy from somewhere.)

Anakin vaguely implies that he's a wee bit obsessed with young Obi, and that the padawan should "get used to being the target of a dark-sider's interests," because he’s scrambling for Ominous Shit and, well, future Obi-Wan was pretty frequently a fixation point for darksiders, right?

The second he gets out, he just starts screaming into a bucket while Rex pats him on the back.

For the next however many terrible months, possibly years, he has to keep up the act while having an ongoing meltdown about how That's My Dad As A Twenty-Something.

(It doesn't help that young Obi-Wan reflexively flirted back.)

Old Obi-Wan, meanwhile, is just very "you dug this hole yourself, padawan."

There is an argument at the beginning about Obi-Wan’s outfit. If he’s gonna be a Sith, he can’t just go around in beige, but he’s like “I like this and it’s comfy.” Sure, he’s changed clothes for undercover stuff, but that’s always been temporary, y’know? He likes his beige.

We have a number of options.

My first instinct? Beige linen three piece suit, like a southern lawyer. "Now I may just be a simple Outer Rim force adept--"

And, of course, you can TOTALLY make the beige sinister: he’s impersonating a Jedi! Jedi impersonation would also explain why nobody has a red saber.

“Sure is good that the Jedi don’t seem to realize most of the galaxy doesn’t know red sabers are different and bad.” “Shhhh, stop poking holes in our story where a Jedi might overhear.”

Like.... if you do enough doublethink, it works! How would a Sith hide? In plain sight. Also, it’s a GREAT way (if they were actually assholes) to try to slander the Jedi name.

(Anakin and Ahsoka still think he could stand to put a little more effort in. Add a splash of color, for pity's sake!)

Though tbh part of me is like “What if Old Obi wore, like... a split skirt suit...” Victorian womenswear inspired because he misses his robes, but he has to look Professional, and like he's MOCKING Jedi instead of BEING one, so he wears a vintage-y split skirt thing over his leggings. Ends up looking a lot like what Ventress had for a while, but Beige. I also keep wanting to put him regency menswear.

Anyway. Obi-Wan’s wardrobe aside...

Anakin builds up his Tatoo accent again. It helps him with the (mostly true) "slavery helped me fall" backstory.

Either Cody or Rex offhandedly mentions being made to serve them (the Fake Sith) and now the Jedi are somewhat concerned about brainwashing. Are these Mandos the victims here?

“No like. Literally made for this. In a lab.” This is even more horrifying. So...

On the one hand good! The Jedi should be scared about Sith! On the other hand... it makes the Jedi more determined to stop them, specifically. They keep on getting in the way, just, all the time, and they’re not investigating the actual Sith problem, which is decidedly not great since the Team doesn’t actually know who’s a real Sith right now, except Maul, and who even knows where that guy is.

Obi-Wan, at some point: Do you think we've succeeded at this ruse... a little TOO well? Anakin: I don't follow. Obi-Wan, gesturing at the truly obnoxious amount of wealth they've collected, including "trophies" of their kills: Really? Because I'm a little worried! Anakin, planning out a battle to take on Nar Shadda: ...I'm not.

"How many people do we realistically we need to take over Hutt Space? Apparently... five."

(Mostly because Anakin is ridiculously op.)

ANAKIN AND YOUNG OBI GET KIDNAPPED BY PIRATES TOGETHER. It's tradition.

Anakin: Okay, so, I need to get really angry about something to pass as a Sith... time to think about my WIFE and how I'll NEVER SEE HER AGAIN.

Since Anakin’s life never goes as planned... this does not work. Instead of getting properly angry, he makes himself sad. There are tears. There is wailing. There’s a distraught rant or two. Young Obi ends up awkwardly trying to comfort him.

“Oh no, this… Sith?? Is crying on me. What do I do???”

Later on, when the Council wants intel: "So... one of the Sith cried on me about his wife. I think she's dead? He wasn't very clear about it but it, uh... it sounded like it might have contributed to his Fall. Also the relationship was a little unhealthy? He basically worshiped the ground she walked on and kept ranting about how he would have given her the galaxy on a platinum platter of she'd only asked, but that might be new and inspired by the Dark."

One of the random Jedi is REALLY good at detecting the truth Through The Force, and asks Anakin how he Fell...

Anakin just. Tells the Tuskens story.

They don't get pinged as lying, but oh boy does old Obi have a LOT of questions for Anakin once they're in private.

There are other things happening to help sell the ruse. Some of them are necessary! Some of them are... not.

Obi-Wan: What's the best way to show we're rich and kind of evil, but like... classy about it? Anakin, immediately: I sit on the floor next to the throne, leaning against it, and you call me pet names while stroking my hair, and then when you need something killed I get to do it for you and then I go back to the floor and you thank me for the directed violence, and then you go back to Negotiations with criminals while I’m sitting there covered in blood. Obi-Wan: ...is there something you want to TELL us, or...?

"You're all going to get a glimpse of something normally kept hidden about me." "Anakin, you don't have to do that." "No, I'm gonna."

(Anakin has decided hes going to peel his kink tomato to sell this ruse, and the others are slightly uncomfortable with that.)

Anakin: Okay, I cannot keep flirting with you. Young Obi: Wait, what? But that's the best part of any time we run into you! Anakin: You look WAY too much like my Master did when I met him. Obi: O...kay? If someone looked like my master when HE was young, I'd-- Anakin: My Sith Master half-raised me. He's basically my dad. Obi: ... Anakin: What's that look for? Obi: I mean, you spend a lot of time lounging at his feet, and, like, given how much you hate slavery, I... kind of assumed it was a kink thing? Anakin, brightly: Oh no, I just have a LOT of trauma. And neuroses. Snips says they’re neuroses.

Young Obi is a little upset because he was actually getting REALLY into Flirting With The Enemy and was hoping it would go somewhere. He mopes to Qui-Gon about it. Qui-Gon isn't sure whether to be proud about Obi breaking rules, or worried over Obi-Wan falling for a Fake Sith.

(As Tia put it: "You enjoy making young Obi-Wan have a completely unrequited crush on Anakin, don’t you?")

Fortunately, one of those attractive Young Mando boys very kindly helped him tape up his ribs this one time, and has thus caught his eye...

I feel like having Cody date Young Obi would court an entirely different kind of (internet) drama because clone ages, but whatever.

Also please imagine an element of "so I'm dating the genetic identical of my boss... who's dating the man I'm a genetic identical of..."

(It's probably not actually Jangobi but man would that be funny and also stupid.)

Somehow Young Obi figures out that the "Sith Master" is a future him before he realizes that they're not actually dark. In his defense, Anakin was pretty convincing. Especially with the wife rant. It makes HIM more obsessed with Anakin, in a reversal of the implied earlier dynamic, which is all kinds of weird. Less romantic but like. Still weird.

"Future Me Scares Me" with Extra stupid. "Future Me Annoys Me." "Future Me acts like grandmaster Dooku, but more sass." "Future Me raised a really hot evil guy that refuses to bang Present Me." "Future Me might be a Sith, but I'm getting more and more convinced he's just fucking with us all." "Future Me is really rocking that beard, and I can't BELIEVE we figured out a way around the babyface."

"I’m kinda concerned about the whole evil thing, but I’m also glad that I know I’ll stay hot as I get older."

Quinlan approves of the priorities.

Also a lot of interactions with older Obi are very Anakin: [does/says something deeply unhinged] Obi-Wan: So, do you want to…. Talk about that? Maybe? Anakin: What’s there to talk about?? I’m fine, everything’s fine! Anyways how about those plans for tracking down Maul?

Anakin later, like way after the ruse is lifted, just blankly tells everyone that he did Fall, once, and Older Obi made him get therapy about it after the truth came out between the two of them a few months into the Fake Sith thing.

Where'd they find a therapist? I'm sure there's one SOMEWHERE around. Denon and Herdessa are close enough, and they've done enough "your criminal empire now belongs to me" that they can pay well. They make sure to find one that takes confidentiality real seriously.

It's all very "we need some more time to unpack all that."

Therapy helps get Anakin to figure out Sheev’s whole deal. They don't necessarily figure out he’s a Sith from it, but they figure out he’s sketchy and they need to look into that more. Obi-Wan probably already thought he was sketchy, but the whole active gaslighting campaign was a little surprising. They realize that he kinda benefited a lot from a lot of Sith plots and they still probably don’t think he’s a Sith but Obi-Wan is definitely starting to think he’s working with one.

"Okay, we're already bugging Gunray, should we bug Palpatine just to be safe?"

They get away with a lot of slicing because Anakin is a technical genius from twenty years in the future.

The reasons they're so good at Taking Over Hutt Space: 1. They know parts of the future. 2. They have superpowers and FAR less reason to not use them, now that their actions aren't going to reflect on the Republic. 3. They have Cody and Rex, who are two of the greatest military minds in the galaxy, and know EXACTLY how to wage a war that covers a solid third of the galaxy, starting from a position of relative weakness. 4. Anakin's charisma is scary high, and his knowledge of slave culture means they gain a lot of trust from the people they free, and they just... keep acquiring volunteers for the army they didn't plan to have. Obi-Wan doesn't know what to do. He thinks they might have started a cult?

In his defense, Dooku sort of started a cult, and Komari got kidnapped by a cult, brainwashed into joining it properly, and then took it over as head figure of said cult. It's practically tradition!

Comics Vader is the central figure of like three different cults, it was really just inevitable.

Anakin: Aw, don't worry master, it's not a cult, it's a revolution! Ahsoka: They're worshiping him, though. Anakin: ...it's still a revolution! Just... with some misunderstandings.

Also, if they got wind of people trying to keep people from being able to leave and other culty stuff like that, they’d probably put a stop to it pretty damn quick.

Names! Time for names. As per usual, it's easiest to keep track of Obi-Wan's alternate Older Self by just calling him Ben.

Darth Ben.

Ahsoka: You should be Darth Boring. Obi-Wan: I can still make you run laps, you know.

Anakin: The Force is telling me to call myself Darth Vader. Obi-Wan: ...why? Anakin: I dunno, but it sounds cool, I'll run with it.

Someone: Ben has all the answers; we shouldn’t question him, ever. Ben: One time I lost a planet, and a five-year-old found it for me.

More options: Going with the "evil word with the prefix 'in' chopped off" that we get with Sidious and Vader: Darth Surrectus (as in insurrection) Just random Latin words: Darth Temporus (time) Darth Commenticius (fake)

Anyway, back to Nonsense:

Maul goes after young Obi early, because the Fake Sith are really invested in this one random Padawan (Sidious is saying he might be a cousin of the false Sith Master? They do look similar enough) so someone needs to investigate. Naturally, Anakin shows up with some wild screeching to fight Maul, and when someone questions why he got involved it gets very "Kenobi is MINE!" and like. Okay. So.

Anakin means it in a very Sith "to toy with" and "to torture" way, or the ‘my chosen opponent!’ way, just the same kind of Obsession as Maul had with Obi-Wan in the original timeline. Unfortunately, Anakin’s a weird-ass person who flirts with Young Obi against his own better judgement, so there's some awkward "Like... your boyfriend?" from young Obi. Anakin just screeches in SOME emotion that nobody wants to interpret, and couldn't even if they wanted to, and starts whacking away at Maul again.

(Anakin hasn't explained the "you look exactly like my dad, sorry, it's just too weird" thing yet, and he is HAVING MANY REGRETS.)

There's definitely at least one instance where a person asks Anakin if he's planning on dating That One Jedi Twink, or at least banging out the tension. At that point in time, Anakin doesn't actually know who the fuck they're talking about, because "Obi-Wan + Twink = Does Not Compute" for dear, dense Ani, and instead he just ends up ranting about how he is LOYAL TO THE MEMORY OF HIS LATE WIFE, how DARE anyone so much as INSINUATE that he would TARNISH HER PERFECT MEMORY and UNWAVERING KINDNESS and WHOLESOME BEING, and the person who asked doesn't end up lightsabered but they do end up with a LOT to tell whoever they're reporting to.

Young Obi-Wan definitely hears Anakin mutter the phrase “something to discuss with my therapist later” a few times, and he’s a little bewildered because darksiders definitely don’t seem like the type of people to go to therapy. They’re the type of people to need therapy, sure, but not the type to go to therapy.

I think it would be very fun for Young Obi to continue sighing over Anakin (who's pretending to be fine with it and even flirting back because he's in too deep to stop and hasn't worked up the courage to explain the elephant in the room) while Anakin is covered in grease and infodumping while having a slightly manic hyperfocus on engine repairs while the two of them Somehow got stranded together in the middle of bumfuck nowhere (it's Plagueis's doing, he finds the interactions between THESE two in particular to be the most informative regarding the fake Sith).

Anakin, at some point while stranded with young Obi-Wan, and having actually started unpacking some stuff in therapy, though he’s def still got a ways to go: I’m pretty sure Ben cares about me. He acts like he cares, like he’ll do stuff like put extra blankets in my quarters in the spaceship because I get cold real easily or track down those droid parts I need for a project and he always has my back in a fight but y’know it’d be nice to hear him say he loves me once in a while. Especially because we kinda had a rough start and idk I don’t think he wanted me around at first.

And uh. Obi-Wan definitely relates to that a bit too much, y’know?

I want to say that Young Obi ends up mentioning All That to one of the clones or Ahsoka later, because they seem probably invested in Anakin's well-being, even if Ben is, well, a Sith, so Obi-Wan's a little worried the man's affection really is fake, but at least Ahsoka...

(Ironic, given what Anakin's actual eventual Sith would-be-Master was like.)

Young Obi mentions Anakin’s most recent rant to Ahsoka, and she just goes "Wait, is that why Skyguy likes to sit by the throne and get called pet names?" "Uh... I don't... know... but it sounds like all of you have a LOT to unpack there, Miss Apprentice."

Later on: "Master Kenobi, you need to tell Skyguy you love him 'cause apparently he's been having a lot of emotions about you not telling him you care and he's been talking to mini-you about it whenever they get stuck together and--"

Young Obi-Wan is just constantly the "Now we don't have time to unpack all of that" John Mulaney gif. Anakin in particular is a mess, and young Obi-Wan slowly goes from "I want to date that" to "I want to study that" about him.

Obi-Wan gets stuck somewhere with Ben, tries to small talk, gets on the topic of Vader, and spills the drama. He gets an awkward “Thank you for bringing that to my attention.”

It’s followed by a fairly frustrated “I try, but Anakin refuses to communicate his needs to me, and it feels like I’m always falling short.”

At least one member of the group is in therapy, probably all of them, but they’re still using young Obi as a sounding board for all this stuff. On the bright side, this is probably good for impressing the importance of good communication on Obi-Wan.

Good for Obi-Wan! And... whatever Padawan he eventually has.

As for baby Anakin, who is approximately age four, I want to go with "Anakin decides to be his own uncle, and Shmi just rolls with it because fuck it, she’s not a slave anymore, and a Fake Sith is a solid defense against anyone trying to re-enslave them."

[This is a backstory I've had them use before (see here and here).]

Seeing Big Ani and Little Ani in the same space might be what finally pings the "oh shit, that's future me" thing for Obi-Wan... you know, if he’s ever allowed close enough to see Little Ani in the first place.

Little Ani stays with the fake-Sith and is sorta jointly trained by all of them, and young Obi-Wan teaches little 'Soka at the Temple. Ani and 'Soka still end up friends somehow, but it is fairly different.

Every time little Ani addresses Old Obi as "Dad," it's just like ten kinds of awkward. The one time someone tried to explain that Ben wasn't his new dad, Shmi glared them down. She is of the opinion that, all the gods be damned, Ani deserves to refer to the most mature man in his life, who raised another him in another timeline already, as a father.

Ani doesn't NEED a father, Shmi herself is more than enough, but he does deserve to have this if he wants it.

An alternative conclusion to the time travel is uh. So the Mandalorians are genetically identical (give or take a hair gene) and really resemble Jango Fett, though whether anyone notices that is up in the air. Then the three ‘Sith’ (two fake Sith and their morality chain tag-along) have three younger, identical copies show up….

It could be really weird cloning shenanigans. Now, it makes no sense that they’d make clones, and stagger their production like that, and leave them as babies on various planets for Jedi to find. IDK what reasons Obi-Wan would come up with for that, but it’s a fun little detour before he gets to time travel.

There's a really painful moment (for the audience, who know about canon Vader) where someone tries to convince Ahsoka to leave the Sith and she's just like "no way, they'd never hurt me!” Then she clarifies that “someone has to keep them from doing stupid Sith shit whenever they get bored, you know?"

A bunch of Jedi probably think she’s delusional, but the few that have seen her get into trouble that is legitimately too much for her, which isn't often, have then seen Anakin show up like the devil himself to save her, and it's like. Oh. This is why she isn't scared of them hurting her.

We’ve discussed how Anakin does get concerningly in character with the fake Sith thing. However, Anakin and Ahsoka are, just once in a while, surprised by how Ben gets sometimes when playing the bad guy.

After all, he stabbed a dude with a fork and threatened to eat him during his time as Hardeen…

He has the same dramatic streak as all the rest of the lineage. He can be vindictive and creepy and scary as fuck.

HOWEVER:

Obi-Wan: I know I'm supposed to be playing at evil right now, but how do we feel about me making that evil a little... fruity? Ahsoka: Fruity, master? Anakin, who knows where this is going: [buries face in hands] Obi-Wan: You know, the... [limp wrist] Ahsoka: ... Obi-Wan: I mean, I'm already bisexual and well-groomed, I can play it up.

What’s the point of being evil if you can’t be flamboyant?

Anyway, I had to put in a lot of thought for what to do with Rex and Cody, because there's a solid place for them in terms of strategy, but it doesn't do much to give them independent narrative arcs, and 'young Obi-Wan has a crush' isn't much of an arc, you know?

So, basic info first: Cody, Rex, and Anakin all hold the rank of General in this AU because, like... who else is gonna. Ahsoka remains a commander because everyone declares her Baby, and also to keep up the "I'm a morality chain" ruse.

Cody maintains a very stern and unyielding public persona, but the second they're behind closed doors, he's roughhousing with his little brother.

Rex has some fun pretending to be a sadist whenever he and Anakin have to team up, because hamming it up as an evil bastard in front of Jedi is actually really fun... but usually, he's a competent fucking professional.

Because here's the thing: someone has to be.

They both kind of hate the army they've gotten, because these people don't even have proper trigger discipline, let alone any actual discipline.

This army? Tragic. They hate it. Give them the clones.

They have to be drill sergeants for months before they have anything worth sending onto the field.

I think that might be how/when they end up reaching out to Jango. Like, the first inroad is absolutely "we're your clones from the future and you were a Shit Dad so you owe us," but then they actually talk him around into letting the Fake Sith hire him. He brings along all the Mandalorians he can get to answer his calls, and on suggestion from Those Mando Twins, joins the army Ben doesn't even want.

Darth Boring doesn't want an army! Unfortunately, Cody thinks that's stupid as hell, and is overruling Ben so they can actually work on this 'cleaning up the galaxy of slavery' thing with actual resources.

Cody and Rex are super competent, and it shows in their horrified disdain for the state of their troops.

Rex: Fucking natborns. Anyone who isn't in the know: What's a natborn? Rex: [leaves without answering] People: WHAT'S A NATBORN???

(I'm assuming that the word smush is harder to parse in Basic.)

I think young Obi-Wan's new crush on Cody should also be unrequited. Cody's just like... bemused. Very "Okay, then, that sure is an Affection you've decided on."

Cody and Anakin both: Sorry, it’d just be too weird. Obi-Wan: Why would it be too weird? Cody and Anakin: Reasons.

Rex has to deal with the "whyyyyy" from both his brother and his (former?) General.

Young Obi-Wan just likes cute boys that fight good! Is that so wrong???

Ahsoka: So since we're not officially Jedi anymore-- Obi-Wan: We're still Je-- Ahsoka: Can we date? Can I date now? I want to date someone before we go back to the Code. It's a classic life experience for most teenage girls, and I want to Have That Experience before we're back at the Temple. Obi-Wan: You're not... you can date, Ahsoka, that's not actually banned by the Code. I mean, you'd have to keep it casual, but-- Ahsoka: I CAN DATE!!!

(Great priorities, Ahsoka.)

An idea I'm toying with is that one of the clones ends up Legally Engaged to Satine for political reasons, and young Obi-Wan is just like ???? because not only can he not date the hot boys, but one of said hot boys has become Mr. Steal Yo Girl.

Young Obi-Wan is suffering, and Quinlan is the worst friend ever because Quinlan is laughing at him.

There is obviously the question of

"How would Satine ever end up agreeing to that, given what their public personas are like and all that? She puts duty ahead of personal feelings but all indications are that it’s a terrible decision both ways." (as stated by Tia)

Which, yes, I forgot to actually say that I was imagining Jango had declared "those twins" his heirs after telling people they were his younger* cousins. Because reasons.

* Jango is about 27 when they land in the past, and I’m going to say the accelerated aging ended after hitting physically twenty because no, I don’t want to deal with that. As far as anyone knows, Cody and Rex are about five years younger than Jango. They’re less than year apart, which isn’t very visible, and most people assume they’re identical twins (except Rex’s hair), and that Cody just looks slightly older because of the scar.

Darth Boring had convinced Satine that the way to keeping Mandalore peaceful was to work with Jango (because Darth Boring, which is not his actual title but it is what Ahsoka insists on calling him in private, has a vested interest in keeping Mandalore and all interested parties calm), and he... maybe accidentally set up a political marriage between her and one of the clones.

It wasn't on purpose! Satine never married in his timeline, okay, he didn't expect her to ever get married here, either! He didn't even suggest it! This just happened!

(I want to say that Cody would be more competent at having a political marriage? But IDK.)

Do I do the Satine thing? It has potential, but also it's a bit of a cop-out. Do I have Cody be a diplomatic representative for their pseudo-Sith empire? He could be, but I think he'd hate it. Do I have Rex date one the Chaos Entities (Anakin or Ahsoka), or is that too repetitive with my other works? THERE'S JUST TOO MUCH GOING ON.

Part of me wants Quinlan to get a crush on Cody, and the crush gets bigger specifically in response to the fact that Cody refuses to take him seriously and/or just doesn't give him the time of day.

Based on their one interaction in TCW, they probably let get along ok. Cody maybe likes him back, buuuuuuut internally he's just a little "you were tolerable at almost-forty; early twenties you is obnoxious."

Just imagine the absolutely puppyish attempts at gaining approval and Impressing The Hot Mando General. Quinlan keeps having vague daydreams of seducing someone to the side of the Light. He really leans into the bodice ripper fantasies of saving someone evil with the power of love! (And also the power of really good sex.)

Bant looks at Quin and Obi and wants to throw them both into the nearest pond because they're idiots, but on this topic they are the same flavor of idiot. She considers calling up Reeft and Garen to help her knock some sense into them.

Quinlan: Can I volunteer to go undercover to the Sith? The Council: No. Quinlan: ...what if I-- The Council: No.

Tholme tries to get Qui-Gon to commiserate over their Padawans getting obsessed with Hot Sith Boys, but Qui-Gon just finds the whole thing funny. He knows from the chats he has with Ben that Anakin feels so completely, utterly, incredibly awkward about all of this.

(Ben continues to hold to "Anakin brought this on himself.")

(Ben also “kidnaps” Qui-Gon a lot.)

Also, hey, at least Quinlan isn’t actually into hot Sith boys! He’s into hot Sith minions which is... probably a step up. At least Cody’s not a Sith himself!

It's a step in some direction but Tholme has no idea which one.

(Quinlan sees Cody in dress uniform once and just keeps the mental image for Ages. It’s in his dreams. Sometimes said dreams overflow to Tholme via Force Mind Magic and Quinlan wakes up to someone smacking his face with a pillow.)

Arguably, Quin's also a lot more romantic about his crush than Obi-Wan is, in this case. Quinlan: I want to save him... Obi-Wan: Hey, hey, cute boy. Look at me. Let’s bang.

Cody: There are currently two future Jedi generals having some form of absurd romantic fixation in my direction. I don't know how to feel about this. Rex: Bed them. Cody: ...I'm not saying that's not eventually an option, but one of them is the younger Kenobi, and I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that. Rex: Pat him on the head like a tooka and then bed his friend, it'll be funny.

I think the Quinlan thing and also general exasperation of leading an absolutely useless army can function pretty solidly as the basis for Cody, but I have another idea for Rex now.

Komari is currently brainwashed in a cult, yes? So.

I keep bouncing around back and forth on what to do with Rex, but part of me suddenly really likes the idea of, after Team Fake Sith finds and dissolves the cult (as one does), and takes Komari into custody (because she's dangerous and deeply unwell), Rex kind of ends up her touchstone to being a decent person. He’s not a morality chain, and it’s not really a redeemed-through-love thing, just This Is A Solid Dude who doesn't pity her or thinks she's irredeemable (however you choose to define such a thing), but actually relates to the kind of conditions living like that can involve, and just kind of...

I don’t know. I think Rex's arc in this AU could be very heavily grounded in something to the effect of "You're not the worst darksider I've met. You're not the only person who was in a cult. You're not even the only former Jedi I know that's committed awful, horrible crimes. My question is just this: What are you going to do moving forward?"

Later Anakin: Wait, who do we know that was in a cult? Rex: What did you think Kamino was?

(Rex isn't as chill as he'd like her to think, but he's trying, and she's fairly reliant on the Force to understand emotions, and is currently in nullifying cuffs, so he can bluff.)

Komari needs someone solid and dependable to rely on for at least conversation, and I think Rex needs to feel needed.

I’m not sure if it’d be romance or friendship, but I think there's a solid basis to work with, potentially.

Per Tia:

One thing about Rex and shipping is like. If you want to do Rexwalker again that's fine, but if you're worried about repetitiveness but still want to like. Ship him in a non-political-convenience way. Rexsoka here actually would be different than your other stuff.

I'm trying to figure out if I can make it work because Ahsoka thematically fits very much into a little sister shaped hole here? She feels younger than in other works, despite not actually being younger than she is in, say, Commander Buir. In those other fics, she has some time alone to function and prove herself independently of Anakin and Obi-Wan.

I usually pluck Ahsoka out at sixteen if I'm pulling her from TCW, so she's got most of her competence but hasn't gotten quite all the trauma yet. Commander Buir, in particular, also has baby-shaped Anakin for contrast.

That said, I can see a decent source of narrative conflict in her wanting to experiment with romance and all that, and Anakin trying to tell her she's too young.

A year into this whole time-travel mess, she wants to give the dating thing a shot, and it spirals into "You were only two years older than me when you got married!"

I think I could build a plot out of Ahsoka wanting to do these things, and Anakin as an audience insert not quite processing that she's old enough to make these decisions. If she's choosing to date Rex, whose age works out as being close to hers when one takes into account Kamino fuckery, and whom she trusts absolutely, it’s arguably extra weird for Anakin to be upset with it.

"Senator Amidala was five years older than you, and you married her when you were nineteen and had only really known her for a week! I can go on a date with a guy we both know is one of the most trustworthy people alive if I want, Skyguy!"

I can definitely see Ahsoka getting annoyed with Anakin being overbearing and controlling at some point before that unrelated to romance, too. It’s not exactly a new fault of his.

My god, just imagine someone snidely asking Anakin "where's your little shadow?" and Anakin, being Himself and also a Fake Sith, has an emotional breakdown about how Ahsoka yelled at him for micromanaging her and not trusting her to make her own decisions in life and so she got herself a multi-month solo mission from Ben that Anakin isn't allowed to know any details about, and--

It's another one of those "oh, you have PROBLEMS problems with your mental health" incidents for the Jedi to add to the file, because Anakin having emotionally charged rants about his issues at seemingly terrible times is how they get a lot of information.

Some of the rants are planned.

Many of them, actually.

They want the Jedi to know these things.

Just, well. Anakin.

He really is a little Like That.

On that note, I'm low-key imagining that Anakin gets put on mood stabilizers by the therapist in this context, and he's doing good! He's handling his issues! He's--been captured with Obi-Wan the Younger again and his medication was confiscated.

Anakin is... not great. He's a little out of practice managing his unmedicated self, and when adding withdrawal symptoms onto that... poor Anakin.

(Poor Obi-Wan.)

I think it would be best if Anakin makes a bunch of ominous blustery comments at their captors about how they won't like what's coming to them if they take his belongings (AKA the fanny pack that has his backup pills), and then Obi-Wan just gets to watch Anakin get more and more erratic, because like. Yes, Anakin is using the Force to compensate, but unfortunately he's mostly cut off, and the stress of the situation is pushing him away from depression and into the beginnings of a manic episode.

Anakin is aware of his issues to the point where he's mostly managing, and he keeps asking Obi-Wan "would it make sense for me to [slightly deranged, very impulsive action]," and Obi-Wan realizes he's being the morality sounding board for the Hot Sith because ??? reasons?????

Eventually, Anakin does flop back in bed and dramatically throws his arm over his eyes, and says he needs his meds back, he's absolutely going to lose it, and Obi-Wan tentatively asks what kind of medication. There are levels to worry about. Mild allergy medication is one thing, but heart medication that needs to be taken every four hours is another, you know? He wants to know how much panic is appropriate.

Anakin lets him know that it's Psychiatric In Nature. Obi-Wan suddenly realizes that he really, really, really doesn't want to know what a properly erratic, unmedicated Anakin is like.

(An unmedicated Anakin really isn't nearly as bad as Obi-Wan fears. Anakin's been dealing with this for a while, and knows what his issues are and some of how to deal with them. He'd need to be running on no sleep and higher levels of stress, or to have been drugged with something meant to increase his aggression, to really lose his shit and do something worthy of Vader. RotS levels of stress and sleep deprivation is required to pull RotS levels of manic paranoid delusion.)

Tia asked:

How long does it take the Jedi in general to catch on to how like. They have opportunities. But these Sith never seem to harm any Jedi. And it’s not just like, the past timeline parts of the disaster lineage. They probably get opportunities to hurt other Jedi. Ones that are less skilled at saber work. And more importantly ones that they don’t seem weirdly interested in."

I'm not sure, really. The Jedi don't spend as much time in the Outer Rim as they could, and that's where the Team operates, so actually running into them by accident is unlikely for anyone other than Shadows.

Fortunately, it's really easy to toy with Shadows with the excuse of "I want to see how long it takes before you Fall with us."

I do want like... okay. Here’s the mental image:

Qui-Gon calls them out on being Fake Sith pretty quickly, so Ben just sort of eyes him, dramatically, and orders out "Leave us" to all non-team people. The threat of torture is implied but not stated. He gestures with wine to keep in character. He definitely makes sure Young Obi-Wan is ushered out, so it's just five time travelers, Qui-Gon Jinn, and Ahsoka's immortal force birb.

"...so, what's the reason for the farce, Obi-Wan?" "How in all the hells did you figure it out so quickly?"

(Qui-Gon cheated a bit. He could feel the broken training bond that was never properly severed due to Traumatic Death Of A Master on Ben's end)

Ben didn't realize he'd feel it! Young Obi-Wan can't feel his older self or a training bond with Anakin or Ahsoka, so why could Qui-Gon?

IDK if there would be anything on the level of crying and hugging it out, but I think it would be very funny if, every time young Obi and Anakin are getting captured by pirates or something, Ben and Qui-Gon are just having a nice afternoon tea and checking their watches to see if their respective walking bundles of neuroses are done with their adventure yet.

The Council is So Done, because Qui-Gon continues to insist that they're Not That Bad, but every time anyone other than Qui-Gon brings up the friendship, Ben laughs and makes a comment about how absolutely gullible Master Jinn is.

Obi-Wan is skeptical of his own experiences with Anakin, at least, if only because he's skeptical about Anakin's everything.

"I don't know if Vader is telling me the truth. I don't know if he's telling himself the truth. I don't think he's a great source of information even when he thinks he's being honest."

Anakin could tell Obi-Wan the full and complete truth, and Obi-Wan would worriedly put a hand to his forehead and start doing tests for hallucinations and paranoid delusions. In his defense, this is a very reasonable assumption to make with an individual like Anakin. It's just also not accurate, this time. I don’t know if Anakin hallucinates in canon without a weird inciting incident like Force Nonsense or getting drugged by the enemy, but paranoid delusion is pretty much all of RotS.

"I’m your time-traveling padawan who’s pretending to be a Sith to catch some other Sith who’re going to start a galactic civil war and those Mandalorians you like are from a clone army based on a template of Jango Fett made to serve the Jedi (because that’s totally something he’d sign up for), and one of the Sith is your grandmaster but he doesn’t seem to have fallen yet, it’s probably fine," is hard to believe.

Honestly, even if he seemed stable before saying that, which he doesn’t, it’s all real far fetched. There's a lot going on and Obi-Wan wouldn't even begin to believe it without evidence.

I've had it in my head that he and Bant and Quinlan have been gossiping about the mess for months if not years about these idiots, and at one point it became common knowledge that Ben was a Kenobi, and Bant convinced them (since the two were among the most likely in the entire Order to encounter the Fake Sith) to get a DNA sample, probably hair or blood since that's easiest so they can figure out HOW these two are related, if they are, and then there's a whole big thing.

Bant: No, no, this must be contaminated, it's coming up as Obi-Wan! Are you sure you didn't accidentally grab some of your own hairs? I know it's a little long for most of your hair, but the braid-- Quinlan: Wait, they keep claiming stuff about cloning, right? Maybe someone's a clone? Check for artificial telomeres! Bant: ...okay, so, there aren't any artificial telomeres, but the ones from apparently-Ben are... a lot shorter... um... I don't know what to do with this. It's like I have two samples from the same person, twenty years apart. Quinlan: Obi-Wan, what's that face? Why are you-- Obi-Wan: Vader told me he was a time-traveler. I thought it was the fever talking, but...

That’s how he finds out that Ben is future-him before finding out about how he’s not evil!

"Master Jinn... I think... I think the Sith controlling the Outer Rim is me from the future." "Oh, you finally figured it out?" "I AM HAVING A CRISIS HERE."

Obi-Wan, after a few hours of dazed realization, runs screaming to Quinlan and Bant like 'GUYS GUYS THIS EXPLAINS WHY VADER KEPT SAYING IT WAS WEIRD AND THAT I LOOK LIKE HIS MASTER AND THAT IT WOULD BE LIKE DATING HIS DAD.'

You know, the important stuff.

I think Qui-Gon tells him that Ben isn't evil because, like, That Sure Is A Crisis Obi-Wan's Having. He could hold off for shits and giggles, sure, but Obi-Wan’s on the edge of something Really Concerning, mentally. Best help calm him down on at least one or two things.

Obi-Wan’s maybe still a little skeptical until he confronts them over it. Because their Sith act was real good and also like. Maybe Qui-Gon just wants to believe the best of his Padawan, y’know?

Quinlan runs into Ben before Obi-Wan does, after this whole mess, and gets to observe as money changes hands and people act like sore winners about bets made for When Does Obi-Wan Figure It Out.

Anakin was saying 'soon' because he really didn't think the fever-fueled rant would be discounted as easily as it was.

Cody was of the opinion that it would take at least a few more years since they're actually pretty damn good at this whole schtick.

Quinlan: Wow, he's... going to be really disappointed that you have such a low opinion of his intelligence. Cody, gesturing at Ben: Experience. Darth Ben: ಠ_ಠ

Cody just rattles off some of the Extremely Stupid Shit that Ben's done in their time working together.

Rex cheerily offers up "You didn't even realize General Skywalker was married, sir! And they weren't subtle!" "I knew they were together, I just didn--" "Everyone knew they were together, sir. Everyone."

(Rex had the lowest opinion of their deductive capabilities. He claims it would have taken until Baby Ahsoka showed up at the Jedi Temple.)

-Once Obi-Wan accepts that they're decent people after all- Obi-Wan: Wow, Anakin, you're real good at acting unhinged! Anakin: Haha. Yeah. Thanks?

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howtofightwrite · 2 years

Note

there is a character by the name of Saito Hajime in Rurouni Kenshin (or Samurai X) (also the author is terrible person) who is notable for having a single move with minor variation depending on the situation, that being a highly exaggerated charging sword thrust, and supposedly based on a technique practiced by the actual Saito Hajime in real life where you take an extra step and let go of the right hand to extend your reach during a stab. This got me wondering, when and how should one blur the line between realistic and stylistic? And is there a merit to "master one technique to perfection" ala "I fear the man who trained one kick a thousand times"?

Bruce Lee’s line, “I fear the man who trained one kick a thousand times” isn’t actually related to one trick ponies or people who practice and master one technique. What it actually means is, “I fear the person who has mastered the basics more than the person who went out and learned all the flashy, superficial shit.” People who come from a martial arts backgrounds and have been in martial arts schools all know the kind of person Lee is referring to. In the real world, you can’t create a workable fighting style off one single technique, no matter how good that technique is. Lee’s quote doesn’t exist to validate Shounen anime’s obsession with the one trick pony. (There’s a reason why One Punch Man is brilliant and hilarious satire.)

That said, the Signature Technique has it’s place, every martial arts practitioner is going to have techniques they gravitate towards, like better, and, as a result, practice more than others. This becomes the best technique in their arsenal because they put the most effort into it, and, in the end, they can become over reliant on it. They might even neglect other, crucial techniques they need to be successful.

You see this one all the time in real life with martial artists from different schools. A good example is Taekwondo practitioners who spar regularly, most of them can’t guard their face for the life of them because TKD sparring is almost totally kick based. (This is because you get 2 points if you land with a kick to the body versus one with hands. Hands to the head is 2, but with a kick is 3.) Instead, their hands will gravitate down or they’ll grab their pant legs and hike them up to lift the hem out of the way of their feet. This is bad, they know its bad, and they do it anyway.

As for when to blur the line between reality and fiction, you answered your own question when you were looking into the real Saito Hajime and a technique he was said to practice. It’s right here, from your question, of what made Saito’s technique unique, “an extra step and let go of the right hand to extend your reach during a stab.“

This, right here, is the reality that justifies the fiction. The justification isn’t actually that this technique was real. The detail alone justifies every artistic decision built off of it. Realism is in the ability to explain what is happening and why in detail.

Part of what makes Saito Hajime feel so real as a character is his ability to explain his technique, his methodology, and his beliefs to the audience. The details of Saito’s technique elevate it and these details resonate with our understanding of reality. As we, the audience, gain understanding, the technique feels more plausible. More importantly, we, the audience, see Saito’s singularly focused, unrelenting, determined personality reflected in his technique and this helps us understand his character better. Our newly formed understanding further cements the character as a “real” person in the context of the narrative.

Saito is a master class in how to marry a character’s identity to their martial combat style and an excellent example of how to manifest that philosophy through the techniques they practice.

Saito is the only character in Rurouni Kenshin who singularly practices one simple technique. The other characters have specialties and preferences, but they all practice a range of different attacks or use different body parts to execute variations on a technique. Not Saito, Saito has one technique with extremely minor variation and he would not be believable at all if his character did not support this decision 110%. Saito’s technique represents his black and white worldview, his religious adherence to the Shinsengumi code, “Aku Soku Zan” or “Slay Evil Immediately.” The thrust itself is beautiful poetry for Saito because the thrust requires total, unflinching commitment without reservation or hesitation. By putting his whole life on the line for one brilliant strike, Saito slays evil immediately.

Saito’s extreme specialization is the artistic rendition of “show, don’t tell” or “exposit, don’t explain.”

You can’t get to where Saito is without understanding the risks involved with certain techniques and building a character’s personality around their decision to take those risks. This is why reality is important because real world applications for techniques inform their meaning and that meaning travels into fiction. You don’t need a background in iaijutsu or kenjutsu to grasp the risks involved in Saito’s thrust. However, understanding can be helpful to recognize the way he commits his whole body into the strike means any mistake or miscalculation will get him fucked. This plays into the high risk, high reward nature of his combat style. That high risk approach is where the narrative builds tension into his fights. Rurouni Kenshin’s narrative never forgets extremes have their costs.

You can go a long way with detail and a functional martial philosophy to justify a character’s actions/beliefs within the story. You need reality to provide the little technical details to make your stylistic desires functional and believable. Saito’s technique enhances his believability but only because the technique itself can be drawn so realistically from the historical record. This is to say, you need to understand violence to effectively write violence, or, at the very least, be able to draw from the experiences of others in your own research to effectively create the simulacra.

TLDR: A detailed lie is better than incoherent gibberish.

Remember, though, One Trick Ponies aren’t believable alone. They can be made believable by a narrative that supports them. Kenshin’s Saito can get away with a lot because he isn’t the narrative’s main character, he doesn’t have to bear the burden of consistently facing new challenges, coming up with new approaches, or revealing new techniques to keep audience engagement. He can show up, do his thing, fight a couple of enemies, make a few small changes, and leave. This gives Saito more freedom to have a singular focus than a character who has to shoulder multiple story arcs across two hundred or three hundred chapters.

While it’s not a discussion I want to get into right now, there’s a larger conversation to be had about marrying a character’s martial combat style, techniques, and perspective to the culture within the narrative. (If you’re looking for inspiration to snarf, Saito is not a character who is going to travel well outside of Japan because the details supporting his approach to violence are uniquely Japanese, including his “one holy technique” approach. The Japanese have a very ceremonial, very formalized, almost religious approach to combat that you don’t see outside of Japan.)

The real Saito’s technique had actual practical applications within the sphere of the Japanese sword arts. The goal of his technique was to gain greater reach over his opponent. Saito sacrificed power by losing the second hand but gained reach, meaning that in a head to head he could hit his opponent sooner while his opponent came up short or he’d have more mobility in his upper body to turn sideways and avoid taking their sword strike to his upper body. Basically, he sacrificed power for reach and upper body flexibility/mobility much like a rapier duelist. He likely utilized the second step as a way to gain momentum and minimize the power lost by giving up the second hand. Sacrificing the second hand also freed it up for maintaining balance, meaning he could move more quickly. A body on a 45 degree angle maintains balance better than a body that’s forward facing. (He also didn’t have to puncture or punch through armor, so that’s there too.)

This strike demonstrates a mentality of someone looking to gain an extreme advantage over their opponent and, given his reputation, probably did exactly that. It’s a battlefield mentality, a survival calculus, “how can I do the most damage to my enemy while taking the least amount of damage possible (preferably no damage.)” This is the mindset of a real person who wants to live. As you can see, that’s a very different application than the fictional Saito but the real world usually requires more cunning and flexibility. You’re also seeing the reasoning for why the rapier overtook the longsword. The stronger attack doesn’t equal the more effective one. What matters is what your power does to your opponent rather than the simple factor of power you possess.

If you want to see a Japanese creator whose characters do get approximated and successfully adapted into Western media (in part because they were adapted from Western media), I’d suggest looking at the Hollywood adaptations of Kurosawa’s work.

Everyone blends style and reality from formalism to realism. You find the place between the two lines that fits your narrative and works for you and you live there. The only way to figure out where you fall on the spectrum is through trial and error. Failure is part of learning.

-Michi

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#Michi answers #writing advice #writing reference #writing tips #rurouni kenshin

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mahoushojoe · 3 years

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hmmmmmm thinking about zia rashid

first of all...holy shit, why is her name zia? there is not a single person in egypt named zia. zia is supposedly a girl born in a rural village in upper egypt. zia is just. not a name she would have. it's not egyptian. as far as i know it's not even middle eastern. like, sometimes people really nitpick stuff when criticizing these things online but this really isn't a nitpick, like. just common sense! common sense and respect for the culture and heritage you're exploiting for your cash cow franchise. the bare minimum. you didn't even have to deeply research Common Girl Names In Upper Egypt. You could have just named her, like, Sara or something, and it would have worked just fine.

like the reason the name is such a big deal is that zia is one of like, two egyptians in a series ABOUT egypt, and yet she's just...not. she doesn't feel egyptian. through her we know nothing about egyptian culture. her name is a Not Like Other Girls name. we don't know whether she's muslim or coptic. she's the Egyptian Rep but she's just Not Egyptian, and the fact that she has the personality of a piece of cardboard doesn't help. it feels like egyptian characters are often purposely distanced from being egyptian in media like this because a) the writers don't want to put in the effort to research and b) it would force them to confront the colonial implications of the media they're writing.

her village is like, comically orientalist- rick could have looked at a map of egypt and known that absolutely nowhere in egypt do they have places named in formal arabic like that. it's called village of the red sand, right? it's given this long mysterious sounding formal arabic name as a result, and just... it's not how egyptian place names works and it's also not how any place name would work, period. a more realistic thing would be if rick had put in the work to at least get an IDEA of the egyptian dialect of arabic -better yet, the UPPER egyptian dialect. Like if the village was called Raml Ahmar it would have been like. Believable. Grounded. And like, in Zia's childhood, supposedly this entire village gets like eaten by sand or something, and... there. Nobody notices. Like if something like that happened in the US it would be a huge deal and everyone would know about it, but since egypt is this like, Desert Of Mystery, things like this just happen and nobody cares I guess.

zia herself isn't even in the books like 60% of the time. like she's either a puppet or like, in a magical coma or something, and when she IS there she's this like Quiet Strong Girl Of Few Words so she doesn't really have a personality beyond being a #girlboss. she is very open to going on dates with a boy and KISSING him at some point even though a girl from upper egypt wouldn't be caught DEAD publically doing those kinds of things, culturally speaking. on that note, zia doesn't know what a mall is. egypt has malls. zia lives in cairo iirc and cairo does, in fact, have several LARGE malls. so all this converges to show zia as this Mysterious Girl From The Third World(tm) and again, as mentioned before, to distance her from her being egyptian.

so like these all seem like nitpicky details, but they all converge to send a message: rick does not care about egyptian culture enough to research it. since the people of modern egypt are poor and brown and all the cool ancient stuff can be conveniently stolen and whitewashed, egypt has no value to him besides being an occasional setting. and it rubs salt in the already gaping colonial wound left by the british and the french and the ottomans and whoever else took a chunk out of us and left us to bleed- which is: exploit egypt for the artifacts and degrade and disrespect the rest.

i'm gonna be honest- i wasn't expecting perfect egyptian rep from a white american man and i wasn't looking for it from him either. but what grates on me is disrespect. what grates on me is laziness. tkc is probably gonna be a lot of kids' introduction to egypt and this is the message it leaves in their head; this is the mindset, that egypt is worthless and only the ancient artifacts are worth taking seriously. and then that devolves into the way tourists and expats arrive here asking to be treated like royalty and treating the locals like shit and paying them pennies. it devolves into museums refusing to give us OUR artifacts that they LOOTED during imperialism. it devolves into the microaggressions i face on the internet every day, where I cannot talk about the serious problems this country faces every day without some annoying american making a king tut reference or whatever. tkc isn't the reason behind all of this, it's far from the only media that has ever done this, it's not even the worst offender. but it feels bad to constantly see the blatant disrespect people have for you and your heritage and it feels bad to constantlyq have it relegated to a joke pop culture reference and it feels bad to be constantly spoken over.

again: im not waiting for representation from riordan or his ilk. i don't need his crumbs. but the disappointment i felt when reading about zia was real, and so was my irritation at her characterization and the way it's supposed to represent me.

tl;dr when you write a book about a colonized and exploited country and people, please afford them a little fucking respect. the bare fucking minimum. this is why i'm not at all excited for the upcoming tkc adaptation and for my own sake i won't be engaging in it, although i dread the upcoming pop culture wave that will happen as a result.

#tkc #the kane chronicles #zia rashid #egypt #rrcrit #rr crit #rick riordan #rick riordan critical #tkc crit #tkc critical #there better not be derailments and other foolishness in the notes i SWEAR to god

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aforrestofstuff · 3 years

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Chapter 149 Expert Review Time

Hey gamers what’s up time for another CHAPTER 👏 REVIEW 👏

It was looking kinda bleak last time for pretty much everyone so I’m hoping things improved this time around, but it seems Murata and ONE are kinda going through their “I’m going to put my characters through the MOST” phase so… that feels unlikely. But nevertheless… still excited to see my favorite boys.

The 10000th Psychic Sister cover. Murata, I’m begging you. There’s literally like 30 other characters to choose from. I know you like drawing boobs but imma need you to put the pencil down for a minute and take a walk because this just ain’t IT.

“Summer is coming” it is July. Summer has been here for ten years. I’m so fucking hot all the time. Everything has been evaporated out of me and I’m literally a raisin.

The Psychic Sisters covers are just so devoid of life a lot of the time… I wouldn’t mind if it was them fighting or engaging in everyday activities but when they’re posed for the camera and deliberately placed there to look sexy it just sucks all the human out of them. The cover/splash page is a great chance to show characters in a new light!!! It’s mostly set away from the story so you can do whatever you want! Choosing to make 80 fanservice covers is just wasted opportunity for what could be additional character development. It’s gotten to a point where even the smegma-slinging bitchboys on Reddit are complaining about the excessive sexy covers…. When PussySlayer384756 complains that there’s too much tittage being shown, that’s how you KNOW we’ve got a problem. Now, idk how the fan climate is in Japan but I can’t imagine they’re feeling much different over there either.

Also, her anatomy is… janky. Her tit is bigger than her head, her belly is too long, and she’s got like 4 spare ribs. Like, I’m by no means an art expert but it doesn’t take a chef to know the soup is shit, you know what I mean? I feel like page after page of Murata drawing obscene muscle men has made him rusty on what should be (somewhat) normal-looking people.

Darkshine learns what TRUE peak male performance looks like.

You’ve gotta wonder how Darkshine even got to the S-Class to begin with when he pussies out of nearly every single fight… except the one where the opponent was literal water. Everyone says that he just joined the association for additional validation, and I believe it… this boy is not cut out for actual hero-ing. 99% Of the time HE’S the one who needs a hero.

It kinda bothers me how useless he’s been post-Garou fight, especially when we spent like an entire chapter trying to console his ass. I get that’s part of his character and development… but it’s begun to slow things down. We get it. We don’t need to see him be insecure every time a new enemy pops up. One was enough. We would’ve gotten the same effect if he just sat out the entire time post-consolation, because everything that’s happened to him on the surface has been kinda redundant.

Here comes the boooyyy 🎶🎶

Nice callback. I’m glad Metal Bat is finally here. Bitch runs slow as fuck.

It’s nice to see him act on his own agency instead of orders from the hero association. He’s clearly much happier when helping out on his own accord, and has a ton of initiative too. The chapter he got with just he and King meeting up and slingshotting themselves to the fight was really a breath of fresh air from all of the fighting. It’s moments like these where ONE remembers that people like OPM for the characters, and not necessarily the pretty action sequences. I really like this duo. I like Metal Bat. I like it when they’re given time to be themselves and not just vessels for the next fight scene.

I know I said I wanted the heroes to die but Murata I’m begging you please don’t kill the child. You can kill Puri, though. I hate that fucker.

Child Emperor regularly visiting and eating with Bofoi even despite being his lab assistant would be a lot cuter if Bofoi wasn’t the human equivalent to a dog turd. I might’ve overstated that… seems like Bofoi is just using him as an errand boy. The clear lack of respect he has for CE is very indicative of his character and is not necessarily a bad thing plot-wise, but I would still like to beat him with a cane. Additionally, it’s clear that he’s not going to help the heroes here. At least, I don’t think so. His “fuck them kids” attitude seems to be a pretty big pillar in the building of his character and I doubt ONE would jeopardize that just because he’s written himself into a corner. Oh, well. We’ll see.

It’s very sweet that even when near death, CE still thinks of Zombieman. Aaaaghh it’s so GOOD when the characters actually LIKE each other. I know realistically not everyone is gonna be friends but man… it would be a lot cooler if we got more insight on their chemistry. Pleaz have more Metal Bat-and-King-esque chapters. I wanna see how everyone gets along.

Also, the concept of Puri just manifesting drilling powers and carving through solid rock with nothing else but pure strength and determination is so funny. A little convenient, sure, but I really don’t care because it’s actually done well. Their reunion scene is hilarious. More stuff like this pleaz….

I don’t even know what to say about Genos here. Dude, I know you made an oath to protect Tatsumaki or whatever, but there’s no shame in a good bail. You can’t even bail anymore because your damn legs are gone. See, this is what happens when you make promises. The secret to keeping your legs intact is doing the bare minimum. Hope this helps ❤️

He’s making a valiant effort but… I’m afraid he just ain’t gonna do much while roleplaying as a worm. Maybe he’ll make a chrysalis and come out as a butterfly. Wait, that’s caterpillars. Fuck. TATSUMAKI IS A GONER, BRO. WE NEED YOU TO BE THE DEUTERAGONIST!! IF YOU DIE WE LOSE 70% OF MERCH SALES NOOOOOOOO

Local man has a heart attack in front of thousands of little monsters and somehow saves the world, more at 5.

King I’m begging you please get that shit checked out that’s not NORMAL.

Yeah, I like this conclusion. Very tasteful cliffhanger. I mean we know King ain’t gonna do shit but SOMEHOW black sperm is gonna get punted like the little cumstain he is. Can’t wait to see the events that unfold next chapter… it seems like every scene that involves King turns out to be really funny and I’m super looking forward to black sperm seeing Jesus.

Also, a little off-topic but I just really like the way Murata inked his pants. Got a real comic book feel to it. I mean, he’s just really good at drawing clothes overall (save for Fubuki’s body-tight dress that is 100% not how women’s clothing works but I digress). Fucker understands fabric physics like I understand how to make a bomb ass chicken parm. I respect it.

In conclusion, lower everyone’s expectations of you and you might get to keep your arms and legs. This has been Life Lessons from Forrest. You now owe me 50$.

#one punch man #opm #zombieman #metal bat #child emperor #king #manga spoilers #I mean not really it’s been out for like two weeks now (I think)#Genos #Tatsumaki #puri puri prisoner #meta

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hopeswriting · 3 years

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prince of tennis is so funny. it starts with fairly realistic tennis as far as i can tell (by which i mean i know exactly nothing about tennis just to be perfectly transparent here lol), exaggerated to make it look badass of course, but the techniques are all explained and all around everything looks believable enough.

and then by the end of the manga there's suddenly devil mode where a guy feels so much bloodlust his eyes and whole body turns red because?? and it exponentially improves his skills somehow, and another guy can deprive his opponent from their senses with his playing style because he's the child of god so obviously it's a given he can do that, and also very visible tangible auras that let them see in the future, and at least by that point we still have somewhat explanations of how the fuck they're doing all that.

but then new prince of tennis takes it to another level entirely, and very tellingly we're not explained shit anymore. these guys can destroy walls with the strenght of their swings, or send their opponent flying, literally flying all the way out of the tennis grounds and more, and they play with one ball but can make it look like ten somehow, and there's black aura involved now too, and demons, and power from other dimensions, and like.

it's never ever acknowledged. none of it is ever fucking explained. their skills are clearly in the magical/supernatural realm now, but you're just supposed to nod along and go "yep, this is tennis, believable tennis i could definitely learn to do too with time and efforts, totally. just your everyday tennis i could witness if i were to turn the tv on a tennis match, absolutely, i believe all of you guys, keep up the good work". and it's so funny when you stop to think about it??

tho don't get me wrong it works, it's good and i love it, it's fun to read, but also. it just sends me how no one ever blinks at it in universe, even the ones that aren't tennis players akdksld.

#tenipuri #prince of tennis #new prince of tennis #shin tennis no oujisama #shinteni #i'm around where that 'power from another dimension' is introduced #so not sure what it'll end up actually meaning but still #my point still stands lol #add to that they're all just a bunch of middle schoolers #tenipuri is just SO extra even for a sports manga it's so funny zjekdjdl

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chainofclovers · 3 years

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Ted Lasso 2x8 thoughts

I am so lucky that the creators of Ted Lasso decided to make this entire show specifically for me. #blessed

If last week felt like a bit of breathing room (albeit tense, poignant, character-progressing breathing room) with distinct narrative lines, this week’s episode was a chaotic yet tightly-written swirl of pain and hope and sadness! No neat subject headers for this one, y’all. Just my brain and heart in the inadequate form of a bulleted list. It is the medium available to me at this time.

I am going to remember the moment when Ted calls Sharon and tells her his father killed himself for the rest of my life.

(I could say a bunch of stuff about his face and what he says and how he tries to hide his tears from Beard right after and how insanely much I adore this character and ahhhhhhhh but I’m just going to leave that scene there in our collective memories.)

Jamie. JAMIE. Higgins has given some great advice about love on this show, but his musings about his up-and-down relationship with his own father were not helpful in the context of Jamie’s dad, who is an abusive piece of shit. I really adore that all of the main AFC Richmond staff members are realistically a bit hit-or-miss with their advice and life philosophies (some are mostly miss this season, of course).

And I am completely in awe of the moment when Jamie punches his father. The way he just stands there after Beard kicks his dad out of the locker room. The way you can hear a pin drop. And Roy—Roy who is learning in so many areas of his life about his influence on people, learning that the things he needs aren’t necessarily the same as the things other people need—is the one to cross the room and hug him. Hold him, really, with the tenderness Ted used when he hugged Rebecca outside the gala in 1x4. God.

I’ve thought a lot about how s1 was about giving people a soft place to land. There’s always an angel there when you need one. There’s always an opportunity to be kind. If you look for someone, you find them. If you look for the good in someone, you find the good. And as everyone works through their individual journeys in s2, that can’t always be the case anymore. But there are still so many moments of angels on this show, and it’s not about chance and serendipity and fate [not that it was about that in s1] but about the effort it takes to become someone who can be there for someone else. Or who can be there for yourself. I’m so proud of Jamie for physically fighting back against his father. I’m so proud of Roy for being the one who recognized what Jamie needed.

I have every feeling in the world about how Ted is almost totally frozen both times (s1 and s2) he witnesses Jamie’s father abusing him. In s1, he was still there for Jamie after, and I have every reason to believe he’ll be there for Jamie after this incident as well, but that frozen stance HURTS. He’s in so deep with his pain about his own father that it’s like he physically cannot snap out of it to act in the moment. It seems entirely outside of his control, and it breaks my heart, because Ted wants so badly to be a good father, a good coach, a good friend, a good partner, a good patient. He’s there for people in all kinds of ways, even in his current less-than-capable state. He takes care of Sharon post-concussion and even gets her a new bike! During the disastrous match at Wembley his coaching is ineffectual and everything is chaos but he’s the last one standing on the pitch! But this really awful thing keeps happening to Jamie and Ted is just…frozen in the face of it. Like one of those nightmares where you’re running in place.

The frozen-in-place nightmare also kind of applies to the way the total separation between Ted and Rebecca feels, too. I have never for a moment doubted the writers’ intentions in setting these characters up as soulmates on parallel journeys, and I’m actually really digging (on a story level) how disconnected they are right now. It is IMPRESSIVE that their absence in each other’s lives feels like such a glaring loss, one we cannot forget even as there are so many other things happening onscreen. It is 100% not just shipper goggles making me process information about Ted while thinking about Rebecca and information about Rebecca while thinking about Ted. I know there are a lot of really angry and frustrated people in the fandom right now (both T/R shippers and T/R antis and non-shipping fans who don’t get why s2 is different from s1) and while I understand being frustrated by choices characters make, and frustrated by the feelings the show makes us feel that we just want to feel more of or less of, I continue to agree with pretty much every narrative choice happening right now.

Agreeing with the narrative like this?! This is such a unique experience for me as a viewer—to feel like I’m on a ride that is at once absolutely wild and incredibly sensible and well-crafted, and to feel simultaneously completely invested and anticipatory and speculative but also totally willing to trust where it goes. I long for Ted and Beard to really talk. I long for Ted and Rebecca to stop missing each other. I long for Roy to have a serious conversation with Ted about what’s happening with him. I long for Keeley to find a vocation, something that drives her beyond her projects. I long for so many things! But I wouldn’t long for them if this show was less good. If the show was less good, I wouldn’t have a wish list a mile long because I wouldn’t be so attuned to the details and potential lurking in every scene. THIS IS SUCH A GOOD SHOW, I CANNOT HANDLE IT, I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

(To that end, a great deal of the Ted Lasso tag and so many Twitter reactions reactions to the show feel super stressful right now and I am kind of just trying not to look?! I love this fandom so much because of the amazing conversations that happen and because of brilliant fic and because there are some awesome people I never would have encountered were it not for this show. That little bubble is wonderful and I’d stay in this fandom no matter what in order to keep experiencing those things. But fans’ catastrophic reactions to every little thing that happens, every little choice a character makes that isn’t the “perfect” choice? The takeaway that the writers—on this show of all shows—wake up in the morning ready for another day of torturing shippers rather than another day of writing a beautiful story they genuinely want to write? I do not enjoy those parts at all. I would like to opt out of those parts. I’m having such a magical experience watching this show and talking about this show and listening about this show and writing about this show with a variety of people who feel all kinds of ways. I truly wish I could somehow transfer the energy of this experience onto all the people who are hating it right now. I don’t mind at all that people are having vastly different reactions to this show and are sharing their honest feelings, including the really angry ones (I can appreciate something and disagree with it!), and I get that sometimes the language of fannish reactions is intentionally, ironically hyperbolic. But there feels like this very serious trend of people legitimately thinking writers on this show are targeting shippers and have lost respect for their characters, and I just feel like an alien from another planet when I see that stuff. I guess I just feel like people make art because they want their art to be visible to other people and to themselves, but that doesn’t typically involve specifically catering to or torturing a subset of that audience?)

I am more fascinated by Sharon Fieldstone than ever before. I have been running through every single action with her and Ted so many times. The confirmation that she’s living in club-provided housing (that could not look more different from Ted’s club-provided flat). Ted clearly noticing the many bottles. Sharon’s face while she tries to casually recycle them. (Sharon could legitimately have a more problematic relationship with alcohol than Ted does, and I find that extremely interesting and am very curious to find out what happens there.) Sharon leaving him voice notes while she’s concussed, probably because she’d been thinking about him shortly before the accident. The way Ted calls her and does all the funny voices and it’s not frustrating like all the times he uses his silliness and allusions to deflect during their prior conversations because this time, those behaviors are just a part of him showing care for another person. The way they stretch each other, and Ted is still wrong about the things he’s been wrong about, but they both grow all the same.

While it is pretty much impossible for me to imagine that this show would include an actual romantic relationship between Ted and Sharon (it would be beyond unethical even if they could write it well, and Sharon in particular is so professional and committed to her work, and it would erase so much of the powerful message about the importance of seeking therapy from a professional who is not your friend or partner, and I would totally hate it), watching this episode was the first moment I had this queasy little feeling that it’s possible that Ted could end up developing really complicated feelings about Sharon since, at this point, he’s been honest with her about things he’s hardly spoken about before and you can really form an attachment to people you feel safe with in a new way. (I mean, I’m sure Michelle knows what happened with Ted’s father, but I’m not even certain if Beard does.) He’s so broken right now, and Sharon is such a great person and so different from anyone else in his life (even though Rebecca is also different, and Beard is also different, and Roy is also different, and so on), that I could see things getting really fuzzy for him. I continue to have faith in the way the storylines on this show are handled. I’m just. Putting this here.

(In saying that, though, I also wanna make it really clear that I don’t just automatically assume anytime a new female character is introduced that they’re going to end up becoming a romantic complication. Like, Phoebe is allowed to have a teacher who is an attractive woman and AFC Richmond is allowed to have a sports psychologist who is an attractive woman and Keeley is allowed to talk to Jamie Tartt without it threatening what she has with Roy and all these people can exist as human beings without the introduction of romantic drama.)

Isaac gives every player one haircut per season, OH MY GOD. The JOY during the haircut scene. YES.

KEELEY AND REBECCA. Their text thread. The affirming video call right before Rebecca goes into the restaurant. The way Keeley sits all snuggled up against Rebecca in her office.

I was pretty thoroughly spoiled for the Sam and Rebecca plot through 2x8, and I was bracing for something far more problematic and tortured than what happens in this episode. The words I would use to describe their scenes: awkward, cute, cringy, and understandable. There are a million reasons why this relationship isn’t sustainable, but I felt completely understanding of both their choices here. This show has a lot of thesis statements, but I keep going back to the idea from 2x1 that there are people who enter your life to help you get to the next point, and I think it’s entirely possible that Sam and Rebecca will mutually be that for each other.

I find comparisons between Rupert and Rebecca super upsetting. There are absolutely meaningful things to say about the irony of ending up in a situation with an uncomfortable resemblance to certain taboo elements of an ex’s situation. But that ex is abusive and manipulative and cruel and Rebecca has exhibited NONE of those behaviors, and it makes me really sad to think that people feel that the writers on this show have betrayed Rebecca in giving her this storyline.

As always, I reserve the right to keep blathering about this show. I’ve had a headache for a couple of days, but my head is also so full of 2x8 thoughts that I couldn’t keep them in even if the circumstances for writing this were not ideal. I kind of hate that I’ve included frustrated fandom thoughts within the analysis of what I felt was an absolutely gorgeous, complicated, heartbreaking, near-perfect episode of television, but if ya can’t be a little dramatic on your own tumblr while you’re feeling raw and under the weather, where can ya?

#ted lasso #ted lasso s2 spoilers #meta by me #ted lasso 2x8 #a lesbian watches ted lasso #cw: suicide mention #cw: alcohol abuse mention

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