#but lie doesnt really have enough depth to put it on the same level as sunmi's heroine

[noellashes]

hiiiiiiii! feel free to ignore this ask but what do you like about noelashe? :0 I really like them too but I don't exactly know why myself... the parallels perhaps? the care? the potential? either way, I'm asking you how you feel about them! And I hope you have a wonderful day! :)

so so sorry for the late response but

anon you don't understand how long ive been waiting for someone to ask me this exact question

this may be extremely long depending on how much i feel like talking about so i apologize

spoilers inbound after this point!!

there are many, many reasons ive fallen in love with them and their dynamic, but ill try to condense them into a more readable format

the sections will be as follows:

 their parallels and how they compliment each other

their kindness and affection towards each other

how they treat the other differently to the others in the mansion

more surface level dynamic things i like

the things that got me attached to them in the first place

parallels!

i feel like every noelashe fan understands their parallels somewhat but im insane so im gonna go in depth

they match and contrast each other in so so many different ways, down to even design (i actually made a post about that before it shouldnt be too hard to find)

their personalities are one thing, energetic and tired, extroverted and introverted, loud and shy, cruel and kind, fake and genuine, manipulative and naïve, i could go on but thatd be WAY too long so i'll just mention these

but thats just on the surface, they actually match each other a LOT more than you think

how ashe is more introverted than what meets the eye, not liking people out of distrust, and noel being tons more talkative and social, adoring people and barely being able to hate anyone

noel being smarter than he appears, willing to lie and manipulate for what he wants, and ashe being really easy to fool sometimes, immediately believing anything he thinks can bring back his family

and of course the obvious, their wishes

the same wish, the same pain, they go through such similar trauma with different ways of dealing with it

or so you think, their coping is very similar and this is acknowledged in sirius's conclusion, the only real difference being if theyre violent or not. noel, has sworn off harming people but he's still not above using backhanded methods for his goals. ashe, despite doing awful things for his wants, still has noble(ish) reasons for why he does these things

neither are entirely innocent, but neither are completely guilty

they both just want the people they care for to live peacefully, alive

but both do some pretty fucked up things for this wish, noel lies to sirius and uses dorothy as a ploy, ashe well- i think we all know. ashe commits multiple varied crimes that range from theft to murder and noel's own negligence can be considered a crime in some cases.

they have an understanding no one else does and it creates a lot of interest towards them and develops them as individuals too

kindness

they care so much for each other its insane

noel has trouble seeing ashe as anything but kind and ashe cant help but feel attached to noel even if he doesnt want to, which makes them get close each time and it makes them feel for each other a LOT more than they need to

the times where noel is sick and ashe takes care of him, ashe saying he lied so noel wont feel bad, noel letting ashe confide in him and ashe even trusting him enough to say his worries in the first place, the list goes on

they just have an instant bond bc they want someone to care and help them (even if both have trouble admitting it) and they want to help each other, which just makes them care more

it always ends in kindness between the two and it's one of the ways we get a happy ending

special treatment

i could put this in the kindness section but i think it deserves its own section bc its so damn cute

it does have a little less to go over tho as it doesn't happen much

im also gonna start adding screenshots and such

noel seems to really admire ashe and his abilities so much more than anyone else its adorable

hes so amazed by him literally just cooking and he doesnt comment on anything to do with precise stuff that isnt smth ashe does, i may be wrong but i dont think ive ever seen him comment on smth like sirius drawing talismans which is highly specific but will ALWAYS think about how impressed he is with ashe

he also just

treats ashe in a similar way to claire, like he just casually says ashe saved him which is such a strong word to him with no thought and he LITERALLY SAYS HE TRUSTS HIM UNCONSCIOUSLY BC HE REMINDS HIM OF CLAIRE if that doesnt say smth i dont know what does

and ashe always opens up to noel so much more than anyone else like noel has gotten ashe to talk about himself unlike anyone else, the only other character he talked to about things was claire (technically sirius too but he was drunk off his ass so im not counting it) and that was like once he doesnt even say anything that isnt surface level

ashe also just refuses to harm noel and i dont think anyone has noticed this before

it makes sense if his killings are during the day bc noel literally just isnt there but some other times he has no excuse

HE MOVES TO THE SIDE HERE EVEN IF WHERE HE WAS STANDING GAVE HIM A CLEARER SHOT TO CLAIRE YOU CANT TELL ME IT WASNT SO HE DELIBERATELY MISSES NOEL

ALSO HE COULDVE TRIED AGAIN OR GONE AFTER HIM BUT NO HE JUST GOES "missed one!" AND CALLS IT A DAY IF THATS NOT PROOF HE DOESNT WANNA HURT NOEL I DONT KNOW WHAT IS

surface level things

as much as i love the incredible lengths of their relationship, i also like more simple things that im just gonna put into a little list

theyre so sun and moon guys

BLACK CAT AND GOLDEN RETRIEVER BFS

their color palettes look nice together

babygirl and wet cat

loves to cook and fucking awful at cooking

smartass x dumbass

mutual healing

their symbols being hearts and stars those look so cute together

"i care about you!!" "why??", mutually

little bitch and sweetheart

both are affectionate but neither can handle it

emotionally repressed x the one who wants them to grow again

bfs who rant about their interests

same trauma

very strange guy x doesnt care

"im a disgusting monster" "HOW?"

the black and white good evil thing is very aesthetically pleasing for them

angel and devil (kinda)

why i fell in love with them

theres a lot of reasons why i love them but theres a few very specific things that got me attached

most obvious is that theyre both my favorites, im extremely attached to ashe and i loved him from the start, i didnt start liking noel until a tiny bit later but he very quickly gained my love

i also relate to them both heavily so seeing them care so much for each other gave me comfort

its a huge pattern that most of my ships are of the character i got immediately attached to and relate to and other character i relate to who cares about the first character

the fate line. its just so gay i was like "thats kinda gay" and while i didnt always think of it like it was super important it always stuck in my head like "yeah i could ship them"

but the real thing that started this all was the wine scene

its when i realized how much they cared for each other and then the floodgates opened, and here we are now!!

its still by far my favorite scene of the two it just makes me so happy its so adorable

conclusion

i have an extreme love for noelashe and just seeing them can make my entire mood better

i dont think many people have analyzed them as much as me so its sad to see how much stuff with them goes unnoticed

theyre genuinely so great for each other, platonic, romantic or anything in between, they deserve to be happy with each other

im so sorry for this being so long and maybe really hard to understand but i adore them so much

if you read this all thank you so much!! have a great day

#uso rambles #witchs heart #ashe bradley #noel levine #noelashe #im so insane for them #noelashe the world

[sanstropfremir]

Hello I've been meaning to ask if you ever saw the 2017 taemin and jimin (b//tee/ss) collab stage and what your thoughts are on it. People like to debate over who was the "better dancer " which I feel technically isn't to fair to the b&*ts member cause taemin had MANY years to perfect his craft plus had lik a few solo stuff under his belt. For me personally I prefer taemin dance style. Some think that jimin's dance style is more off beat or like emotionally raw? While taemin is more technical but doesn't lose his "face". I'm curious on your thoughts! 💖

hello!!! i have seen it, yes! i agree that i don't really think the comparison is fair, because taemin does have that much more experience but also because they have different style bases. taemin's popping base means that he tends towards sharper and more defined movements that have clear finish points and geometric shapes. and he's fast. jimin has a base much closer and more heavily influenced by contemporary, so he's less focused on stopping his lines in the same way. however i will say this is not necessarily good contemporary practice, but i'm gonna come back to that. jimin is also not very fast. this is not a fault of contemporary practice either, although it does usually tend to be a balladic style. i think there's become a bit of a false equivalency that has happened when a general audience engages with an 'emotional' performance, and that is that emotion and technique are somehow mutually exclusive. that to have a more 'emotional' performance the dancer has to 'break' technique in some way, because apparently if you're really feeling the feelings, technique doesn't matter. i think this has happened for two reasons. the first is reality/competition television and its manipulative editing, and the second is that the 'carelessness' or break makes the performer seem more relatable. we've all fucked something up in the heat of the moment. and although i don't think this line of thinking is totally invalid, i do think that it does kinda defeat the point of performance unless used in very specific circumstances. most of the time you aren't supposed to see the performer underneath the performance. kpop is one of the few forms where that is almost...encouraged? in a way?? it's an art form that's born from cult of personality, so audience engagement with any of the work supersedes the preface of storytelling and goes straight to the admiration of the performer themselves. it's not about how well they can tell a story, its about how well the audience perceives them performing. and i am specifically aiming this at fanbases, not at the idols themselves. a truly exceptional artist doesn't need to sacrifice technique to tell a good story.

and i think here is where we see the main crux of the difference between taemin and jimin as performers: taemin has both an artistic and an idol persona. we know and understand him to do solo work that has a separate artistic meaning to just him being an idol. even though this performance was pre-move, i would still say this applies, because he's hot off press your number, where he's acting in a story based mv. jimin on the other hand just has his idol persona. he's not known for creating the same kind of storytelling that taemin is. while i was drafting this response i got two different asks about bts so i'm gonna save the longer discussion about their brand for those, since this is already getting upwards in the wordcount.

now lets bring it back in to dance specifically; there's a couple things i want to elabourate on. first and foremost, jimin isn't fast enough to keep up with taemin in this choreo. it's much more in line with taemin's style and honestly most idol dancers would have trouble keeping up with taemin. secondly, i said previously that jimin's casual line finishes are not good contemporary practice, and that's true. contemporary does have more emphasis on fluidity and fluid shapes rather than strict geometric ones, but good contemporary has very pointed stops when they're there. and luckily, there's some neat examples that i can use to better illustrate what i'm talking about. byeongkwan from a.c.e has actually done a cover of lie, specifically of the section that jimin does here, AND he precedes it by doing a cover of want!! which hello!!! how much more perfect an example can i get!! byeongkwan has base in hiphop, he's a huge taemin fan, plus he has fantastic body isolation, and if a.c.e can do anything its dance really fucking fast. you can see in the way that he dances want he keeps all the transitions very very fluid, there's very little stop points between positions because that's how taemin dances it; its all about being as fluid as possible, but it still requires a rigidity of form that means that you cannot slack. there's no place here for an errant uncontrolled hand: breaking the technique is breaking the performance. and then watch how he changes that approach going into lie. he has very clear and very fast stops; when he's still, he's still: there's no overshoot on his movements, he's purposeful in his placement.

my other example is taemin has very kindly done a full contemporary routine, just me and you, as a vcr from the ngda beyond live. it's fucking incredible and i full on wept watching it for the first time during the concert. it's an excellent example of good contemporary that doesn't sacrifice technique and is still extremely emotional. also like, not to bring this routine up again for the nth time but ten and winwin's lovely is another great example (this link is a live performance this time). the both of them are have very strong shape creation and i've talked about ten briefly before as a contemporary based dancer but here let me quickly draw your attention to winwin's HANDS. look at them!!!! he has training in chinese traditional dance which has extremely specific hand positions and you can see it; his placements and positions are so specific!!! he's so nice to watch!!!

ok this got longer than i expected but i think i've covered most of my main points pertaining to this specific collab; when i finish the other asks about bts i'll edit a link in here: part two, and part three.

#875 #group analysis #kpop questions #kpop analysis #i gotta give winwin some love because i never talk about him and i think he has a lot of potential #also i LOVE traditional dance in like every form #i realize now that i throw a lot of dance terms around do people know what i mean when i say contemporary??? #im pretty sure there's a few of you here who have dance experience but if i start saying some shit and dont provide examples #please ask me to clarify i will not be offended #jimin is a fine dancer but honestly he's kinda lazy in form #and i dont really like the lie choreo its honestly kinda ugly for a contemporary choreo #and not in a fun way. in a simplistic and uninteresting and very literal way #like yes you are telling a very clear story with the song and contemporary is balladic #but you could probably stand to hit the nail a few less times with the hammer #i think watching byeongkwan's cover kind of exposes how boring the choreo is and how its 'power' just hinges on jimin #which isnt like.....in the fun way that sunmi's choreos hinge on her or how taemin's choreos hinge on him #like idols can correctly cover those choreos theyre just really hard because they have tough concepts that require actual performance #but lie doesnt really have enough depth to put it on the same level as sunmi's heroine #(where dancing it badly is the point) #(but the choreo still looks good if done well) #idk its definitely my personal opinion but if your choreo looks bad if its danced well i think the choreo fails #i dont think he's a bad dancer he just doesn't impress me? #like if i had to pick a dancer from the group i'd 100% pick jhope/hoseok he's a little bit more interesting to watch #obviously its likely jimin has improved since 2017 but i havent really seen a lot that gives me any indication of that? #and tbh line finishes are pretty hard to fix esp this far into a career. kai's never managed to fix his #text #answers #anon thank u for sending me a sparkle heart emoji those are my favourite

[darlington-v]

I know different interpretations of a work are generally enriching and cool... but c!dream villan interpretations is like how to tell me you only watch Tommy without saying you only watch tommy.... which would be fine but its not a great place to be making statements about the whole nature of the dsmp lol

Wild speculation, but sometimes I wonder if like, because the dsmp didn't really start as a narrative, and a lot of fans don't nessecarily enter it expecting a narrative, but then there is one and the fandom is really discourse heavy and everyone is sort of excpeted to have an opinion while maybe not expecting to form one from the begining or not having a ton of experience with narrative in a way that would "expect" them to have an opinion or not take things at face value??, I don't know if I explained that well at all... and I don't really even think thats right nessecarily... but like wow sometimes some of the takes about power and government and villany...

Honestly, it makes sense!!!

I think something interesting is like.... looking at how animatics have shaped the like tone and culture of the fandom essentially. Like, an interesting fact that I didn't really fully grasp until SUPER recently is like...

c!Wilbur out the gate admits he is manipulating c!Tommy. Like his first youtube video on the Dream SMP he admits his goal is to manipulate c!Tommy and people like c!Tommy into helping him achieve a potion ("drug") empire to monopolize on potions because there were a lot of people on the server who like to min-max, which is to put all of your effort into this one specific skill essentially. so like... i know minecraft doesnt have a skill tree but if it did, it would be putting all your points into that one specific branch of a skill tree. So he wanted to exploit the labor of all the TommyInnits to.... maintain a Potion Empire.

THIS IS A LONG POST BC I GOT CARRIED AWAY SO BUCKLE UP

And I don't think a lot of the fandom who joined later on knows this. I certainly didn't until like a week or so ago? Like... I knew c!Wilbur had been manipulative from the start because I'm a mod of (shameless self promo incoming) @dsmpanalysis and we have a lot of different POVs in that mod team and discord and we talk about it really frequently. I joined the fandom as someone who was really big on L'manburg ESPECIALLY crimeboys, and have turned into.... *gestures vaguely to my blog*

And ngl I owe a lot of it to @1-michibiki-1 in terms of c!Dream "Apologism" but all of the mods there have expanded my thoughts and views on the storylines of this narrative.

My application consisted of like largely essays about like... how I think Dream was the villain but he was meant to be the villain because you don't get any insight into his character WHICH.... IS A FAIR ASSUMPTION AT FIRST GLANCE. People are easily villainized when you cannot get a glimpse into their thought process. It's easy to dwindle someone down into this flat character and starting out I knew Dream didn't stream the SMP on purpose.

And I personally came to the conclusion of "Oh! So Dream is supposed to be the villain." However as the story continued and I learned more about what Dream went through I began to realize that... it's more than likely a form of a red herring. My opinions on this were immediately solidified when I watched Ranboo's 2 MIL stream because both Ranboo AND Dream agree on enjoying red herrings.

There have been MANY times were Dream has said that c!Dream is a complex character and he's not a wholly evil guy and there have been times where the narrative has honestly just proved that.

Anyways, what's important though was that... I learned most of this from other people who were more focused on c!Dream rather than myself. Eventually I shifted from c!Tommy to c!Ranboo and c!Techno after c!Tommy betrayed c!Techno and I began to realize.... everything I learned before hopping in wasn't exactly what it seemed.

Part of this is because I'm older, I heavily identify with c!Techno's sense of loyalty and philosophies on government, but I especially identify with the anguish c!Techno voiced in... a lot of lore but especially the lore around Doomsday.

I'm not 16 anymore. I don't always feel wronged by adults, or older people in my case, whenever they absolutely have done something wrong by me, but I do feel wronged by my close friends. I also felt like c!Tommy's sense of loyalty didn't line up with mine after what felt like him constantly flip-flopping and refusing to understand c!Techno's morals on government didn't line up with his.

In short, it was easier to identify with Tommy in these animatics versus in the actual stream content because c!Tommy is played by a 16 year old. I'm not a teenager and my line of thinking doesn't entirely line up with people that age anymore. It's harder to place myself in the same shoes of someone's OC who is played closer to their actual age, because I'm not that age.

Regardless, I was still on the c!Dream is a villain train. I wasn't ever like... c!Dream is repulsive I hate him, but I was like omg hot villain lad go brrr.

Even when the first like... mellohi, panic room, Ranboo lore stream popped up I thought "Oh! c!Ranboo corruption arc?"

And I was excited because I really wanted this shy, nervous character to turn into villain buddies with his good pal c!Dream. I'm a total sucker for villains and corruption arcs and all that good shit.

SO I STARTED GETTING REALLY INTERESTED IN ENDERSMILE. I'VE BEEN ON ENDERSMILE SQUAD OUT THE GATE. NOT THE SAME WAY I AM NOW, BUT I'VE ALWAYS WANTED THEM TO TEAM UP.

So... upon not really keeping up with c!Dream and being relatively??? indifferent? I don't think I started arguments on c!Dream back then, but I might have. But I remember like... starting to participate more whenever c!Dream came up and looking more into Dream's character BUT ESPECIALLY TALKING WITH OUR SERVER'S C!DREAM SPECIALIST MICHI ABOUT DREAM A LOT MORE.

And because Michi has been a watcher since day one and was a DTeam fan rather than a SBI fan, she was able to provide me with more information on how the server worked pre-Tommy but especially pre-Wilbur.

Now, you could definitely argue well Michi probably has clear bias but it made sense to me when I looked back on how the storyline had been constructed and was going along, and everyone in the server talks a lot about our own biases and how we want people to maybe not lean so hard on them. Michi would also provide like anecdotes on what had happened and I'm sure links were probably provided at one point but the point was I felt like Michi had no reason to lie or manipulate how the story was told and if she did, eventually someone would have pointed it out because... Group of like... right now it's around 20 or more analysts but I don't remember how many at the time there were. POINT BEING, WE'VE ALL GOT POINTS TO PROVE AND IN MY EXPERIENCE NOT MANY OF US HAVE BEEN SHY TO PROVE THEM.

So if anyone ever had any differing opinions they would be talked about and we literally had and still have discussions.

REGARDLESS.... I DIDN'T FACT CHECK IN DEPTH BECAUSE I THOUGHT PEER REVIEW WAS ENOUGH WHEN YOU HAVE LIKE HOURS UPON HOURS OF STREAMS TO WATCH.

Anyways. Eventually I started paying closer attention and looking more into c!Dream lore but only recently have I started to triple check before speaking about c!Wilbur lore because I know everyone has biases and while I did trust everyone's thoughts and analysis in the discord, whenever I make essays I typically like it to be largely air tight and if theres a mistake, I want it to be because I forgot not because I just trusted what was said. Plus, I wanted to get down to the specifics of how Wilbur had always started with manipulation on the mind.

SO I WATCHED HIS FIRST VIDEO ON THE DREAM SMP.

AND WHAT I WAS NOT BY ANY MEANS EXPECTING WAS WILBUR TO SAY WORD FOR WORD, VERBATIM,

"SO WHY DON'T I START AN INDUSTRY WHERE I USE THE TOMMYINNITS OF THE WORLD TO WORK FOR ME, TO CREATE THINGS THAT THE MIN-MAXERS OF THE WORLD WILL WANT."

Like... this is in no way an attempt to like hardcore villainize c!Wilbur like everyone does Dream, it's just more so to like REALLY outline how far off a lot of fandom interpretation of c!Wilbur is....

Because of SBI focused animatics.

Now, when I joined I watched A LOT of animatics that really highlighted like... Wilbur being this self-loathing JD-esque, "I destroyed it because I had to because the world was against me because no one loved us, Tommy" type of character. At least... that's what it came across as.

And it definitely highlighted the fact that Tommy was a victim, which he is. He is undoubtedly a victim and no not even any dream apologist can change my mind otherwise. Tommy, despite being an instigator sometimes, didn't deserve the abuse he received.

But these animatics never shown the fact that c!Wilbur started L'manburg as a shady ploy to exploit people like c!Tommy and vilify c!Dream so he could have power.

And that was easy because Dream and Tommy had wars before. They had spars and pranks and here's the plan to take back my disks and here's the plan to out smart the thieving little child etc etc.

And all of the animatics I watched never mentioned this. Neither did the recaps though. The recaps gave the events flat out, there didn't sound like there was bias, and honestly I don't really know if there was rather than like... a lack of nuance. And it's hard to provide a recap with that much nuance in a short period of time for a youtube video, to be perfectly fair.

However, this creates a perfect formula for entirely rewriting the history of a server. c!Wilbur quite literally fucking succeeded TO A META LEVEL. He slandered and ran smear campaigns against Dream and like he even does that with Sapnap in the beginning. But what's crazy is that it transferred over into the meta! Most of this fandom understands Wilbur as a victim of mental illness, and yeah maybe? He definitely wasn't mentally well by the end of pogtopia, but he never started out with honorable intentions. L'manburg was never a victim, only its citizens. The TommyInnits of the world.

I just think it's like... such an interesting case study. Because this is like... an opinion like shared by at least half of the fandom, but the vilifying of c!Dream is shared by MOST of the fandom I would argue. Which is like even more crazy for me because that was c!Wilbur's goal!!!

LIKE I GO INSANE WHEN I THINK OF THIS BECAUSE HIS REACH IS JUST TOO POWERFUL. HE'S NOT EVEN ENTIRELY REAL, JUST A MANIPULATIVE PERSONA OF SOME BRITISH GUY.

And I mean... maybe people who have watched Wilbur's video on the SMP still maintain this idea that Wilbur wasn't always the bad guy, but honestly... I wouldn't be surprised if their introduction was still an animatic. Like bias is hard to check and I'm not going to lie I could have sworn I watched both Wilbur's AND Tommy's video on the SMP in the beginning and yet I STILL was a ride or die for tragic yet on some level still honorable Wilbur and a resilient Tommy.

Like... upon watching Wilbur's first video... possibly again I was surprised because I thought I did watch it like right before I even started watching the streams and yet I was still so invested in c!Wilbur as this tortured anti-hero.

It took 6 months of... not being in an echo chamber, full of multiple different people of different ages, different stream POVS, and people who joined the fandom at different points in time.

IDK IF THIS WAS EVEN ENTIRELY RELEVANT IT JUST FELT TANGENTIALLY RELEVANT AND THIS WAS SOMETHING I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT FOR A HOT MINUTE AFTER LIKE WATCHING WILBUR'S FIRST VIDEO AGAIN.

TLDR;

SBI CENTRIC ANIMATICS HAD A LASTING AFFECT ON THIS FANDOM AS IT'S HARD TO GO BACK AND ACTUALLY CHECK THE NARRATIVE FOR SOLID FACTS FOR YOUR OWN INTERPRETATION BASED ON THE FACT THAT THIS NARRATIVE SPANS OVER HUNDREDS OF HOURS WORTH OF TWITCH STREAMS.

#asks #anon #dream smp #dsmp #dsmp analysis #dream smp analysis #dsmp meta #dream smp meta #my analysis #long post

[ofcowardiceandkings]

I think you mentioned listening to podcasts? Do you have any favorites to reccommend? I've run out of content :(

that i do !

im not entirely sure what kind of podcast you'd be interested in but i'll throw out a few of the goodies in my huge library of stuff , i'll miss out a few of the HUGE podcasts that have been all over tumblr though

a LOT of it is true crime or human interest stuff , or history because im nerd ,, and a few of these dont have nearly enough attention so [shrug] i'll try to keep this short i guess lol this isnt EVERYTHING ive got in my library or listened series' by any measure

i AM gonna pop a shout to both Stuff You Missed in History Class and Stuff You Should Know from iHeartRadio because their HUGE archives have kept me from losing my mind many times over , and they cover a wide range of both important and wacky topics

BomBARDed (ongoing) this is the only fiction podcast i have happening right now really but its DAMN GOOD ONE .... it's an actual-play D&D 5E podcast in the DMs own musically-inspired world, focussed on a group of multiclass bards going to music school !! and all players (+DM) are members of the Texas band Lindby !! and they actually use and play music in the show with one original song an episode !! Kyle's worldbuilding and storycraft are truly incredible, and (Nick) Goodrich, (also Nick) Spurrier, and Ali's characters are in depth and interesting as well as an absolute powerhouse :') i actually made a piece for its first fanzine, Bardic Dreaming, which published earlier this year and is free to view now, all the players and the community are super wholesome its just very good overall 💙

History & Humans;

Fall of Civilisations (ongoing) legit one of my favourite podcast finds, im so glad my youtube autoplayed one of these ... it took me like 2 hours to realise it was 1) not the same as what was playing before and 2) had been on for 2 hours and wasnt near finished lmao. anyway, this is a series by historical fiction writer Paul Cooper, and is honest to all thats good one of the best documentary series ive encountered in years - and ive consumed a LOT of documentaries. it covered the downfall of various civilisations through history, and the episodes run from an hour to FOUR hours depending on the topic. its so chill to listen to and just get done, but over the pandemic all of the episodes have been given full movie-quality video versions too on youtube if youre more of a visual person.

Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast (on series break) yeah that says that lol ... its a SUPER niche topic but its very interesting and treated very well despite being kind of comical at times, the hosts are just naturally funny lol ... it delves around from the history of cannibalism in whole regions to specific incidents as recently as the 1970s, and of course the first episode is about the Donner Party, and it covers things ive never heard of despite being kind of important ?? anyway Alix and Carmella are good eggs

Sawbones (ongoing) i probably dont need to mention much here other than say that Justin and Sydnee saved me from being SO BORED sooo often, the history of medicine is wacky as hell and its what most of my history GCSE was on so [shrugs]

Cautionary Tales (on series break) this was a wild-card find lol ... it's by Tim Harford "the undercover economist" who writes for the Financial Times, and its topics kind of weave modern topics and science with how to learn from historical errors ... its a bit weird but well worth a go, also each series has a few celebrity guest voice actors which is pretty awesome

Ephemeral (ongoing) this is a very strange but thought provoking series about sounds and other things just barely saved. topics include the last castrato, the hello girls, hand-stamped records, the spread of kīkā kila music, and acoustic fossils of wild places.

Neat! The Boozecast (ongoing) history and bartending whats not to like lol ... hosted by Teylor Smirl and now their dad Tommy, they're just digging around in how important booze is to human culture

True Crime (white collar and weirdness);

Swindled (ongoing) this is an amazing show full stop. A Concerned Citizen details some of the most impactful and unruly things to happen in white collar and corporate crime. very factually accurate but given the sheer bullshit of the topics the deadpan snarking is [chefs kiss] absolutely warranted ..

American Scandal (on series break) this one is a series within a series type, and spends a few episodes at a time poking holes in some of America's biggest scandals, from a dramatised but fact-based point of view. such as what the hell was going on with Enron, how big tobacco was forced to own up to covering its own ass, how Iran-Contra happened, etc. it also now has a sister show called British Scandal, which does the same thing for British cases but with a slightly different format.

Missing in Alaska (finished) this was a fascinating series, a deep dive into what happened to two US government officials who disappeared on a small chartered flight in Alaska in 1972. it goes some really strange places, but it actually turned up a lot of previously unknown information through the audience. John Walczak's new series in a new feed is Missing on 9/11 which looks into what happened to Dr Sneha Philip.

Pretend (ongoing) Host Javier Leiva holds interviews with anyone living a lie, or who have been touched by them. con artists, snake oil salesmen, former cult members, catfishing victims, anyone and everyone.

Power: The Maxwells (finished) hosted by journalist Tara Palmeri, the story of media tycoon Robert Maxwell from nothing to empire to mysterious death and the scandals uncovered after he was gone.

Lets Talk About Sects (ongoing) Sarah Steele covering cults from around the world, in particular those in Australia - where she is from. She often has former members on the show to share their stories, and share knowledge of how they left. each story has the relevant content warnings at the start of each episode.

Brainwashed (finished) investigation of the CIA's covert mind control experiments, centred on the experiments performed at a hospital in Montreal, and its cultural impact.

Dr Death (2 series finished) two series investigating huge cases of fraud and medical malpractice, and how they were brought to a stop. series 1 covers Dr Duntsch and his horribly butchered neurosurgery, series 2 covers Dr Fata and his fraudulent cancer clinic

The Immaculate Deception (finished) untangling the weird and disturbing fertility fraud of Dr Jan Karbaat, who fathered children himself through his fertility clinic, and the impact of his deception. later episodes also touch on other similar cases.

True Crime (Violent/General);

The Casual Criminalist (ongoing) Simon Whistler of-the-many-youtube-channels cold reads a script about the case of the day, with some of his daft commentary thrown in.

Southern Fried True Crime (ongoing) Crimes from the American South hosted by Erica Kelley, she puts all the facts out there but refreshingly for true crime she doesnt hesitate to tell you if she thinks someone is human garbage lol

They Walk Among Us (ongoing) probably one of the most popular UK crime podcasts, very measured and well put together, not weird or annoying about it either.

All Crime No Cattle (ongoing, feed slowed down for now) specifically about crimes from Texas, hosted by Erin and Shay, they're very sensitive hosts and a lot of the cases they cover shed light on why the Texas criminal system is how it is or show an impact at a national level

Canadian True Crime (ongoing) Canadian crime from an Aussie who's lived there for a decade, Kristi is again a sensitive and measured host covering some important topics

True Crime (Violent/Deep Dive);

Hitman (finished) journalist Jasmyn Morris digs around in the sticky tangle around a book published by fringe publisher Paladin Press, and its apparent use as a blueprint in the killing of a mother, her friend and her 8 year old boy for financial gain.

Camp Hell: Anneewakee (ongoing) this series is exploring how a wilderness camp "correctional facility" was endorsed by the Georgia care and juvenile reform system, despite widespread abuses and shady practices the whole time. warning for csa and child cruelty throughout.

True Crime Bullshit (on series break) this one is a huge huge rabbithole but a very interesting one where the host Josh Hallmark has spent years digging into the life and potential crimes of Israel Keyes. Keyes is often mentioned as a serial killer with no pattern, but in picking it apart thats not quite true, and has sparked some re-evaluations of missing persons cases and stumbling upon information the FBI has redacted organically. there's also a series in the middle looking into the crimes of Kelly Cochran

Forgotten: Women of Juárez (finished) this series looks into the huge numbers of missing women of Ciudad Juárez, the strange circumstances surrounding them, and the potential cover-ups and corruptions on both sides of the border, trying to give a voice to all of the forgotten women and girls and their families without answers. the series itself is finished, but a spanish language edition is being released every week now.

aaaaaand i'll call it there before i list everything lol, i hope you find something to plug your boredom hole with !!

#audio #rory's ramblings #podcasts #asks #anon #long post

[therewas-a-girl]

i was sitting here, thinking: 

so first, we have the break up last year framed as if oliver was ‘’’’caught’’’’ between two ‘’’’impossible’’’’ choices, even though the narrative was so flawed and hole-ridden that its logic did nto hold up to the faintest breeze. and that he was basically set up to lose everything either way and felicity punished him for this impossible choice by leaving him, and the narrative punished him further by making him lose fucking everything, and making us feel bad for him. while framing felicity’s choice in zero context from her pov. 

all the while, it feels like her choices have to be defended, because the show doesn’t bother to do so with even a fraction of the the same amount of time it uses on oliver. this in the end, amounts to felicity being portrayed as unfair on oliver.

i never thought so - but the show did, and that is what id fed me, and reinforced with her apology in 5.20

but  there is something else that bugs me. 

so felicity had sex with oliver, then told him she couldn’t be with him, that it didn’t change anything, because the real problem between them hadn’t changed. that she felt he didn’t trust her. 

then after this, she tells him she’s sorry she walked without giving them the chance to hash it out - that she wasn’t ready for that right now. (which i understand btw. i understand that her understanding this is actually character development for her, and that she is emotionally aware enough to get this about herself.)  BUT... wouldn’t talking about it give Oliver the chance to show her that maybe he does trust her. that something has changed? 

i just don’t see the logic. she wants to have his full trust but she cant even talk about what happened with them yet. which translates in, she wants something but she isn’t ready for it? 

i would get that, but i think that’s me trying to rationalize a stupid choice of the writers, that dont rly care about the character making sense, but that bend felicity’s choices to their plot.

then, she seemingly is never ready and tries to move on with billy. (im so rageful over this oh my god because it doesnt make narrative sense at all - billy i mean. and just for the record, i liked the guy - which is why im so angry that he was just there because prometheus needed to frame olvier into killing him. aka another felicity line of narrative that is about oliver. its becoming increasingly clear - the way the story itself is set up proves this) without ever hashing things out with oliver or even telling him that ‘look here my dude, i know we left things up in the air in the summer, but im really never gonna be ready for that talk and i really think we should close this deal, cause i cant do it.’ 

but she did not do that. because that makes perfect sense. felicity ‘i am so confrontational that i cant wait five minutes for the party to be over to ask you about why you haven't proposed, and i cant give you space even though i know you yourself just found out about your kid’ smoak. that felicity smoak... doesn’t face oliver about this new resolution she made. doesn’t tell him. cause she is now, apparently, just as much non-confrontational as oliver is about all emotionally difficult decisions. 

where is the consistency, i just can’t find it. ‘am i missing the point or is it not there’: a saga on me and arrow’s writing. 

dont even get me started on the fact that this whole s5 arc was built around felicity losing billy and her reaction to THAT, instead of... idk, acknowledging the trauma and the hurt that she has been through, acknowledging its effect on her, on her understanding of the world, on the way she now makes her choices; acknowledging that she might have the PTSD that these fuckers advertised shamelessly and that was never shown. 

no... it’s just because of billy and the fact that he died. 

which is horrible that he did, but its also really fucking reductive of felicity’s feelings over it all - over everything. her shooting, her being shoved in a gas chamber, her losing a dear friend, her losing her father again, her feeling responsible for thousands of deaths. 

and then i see people being angry that this was about billy because - why billy right? he was insignificant! why couldn’t her emotional collapse onto herself, her isolation and change have been about OLIVER instead!!!!

like... do people even see felicity at all? 

i have no words. none. 

at the beginning of s5b, i was linked to an article promising felicity’s arc and its importance and how great it would be for her character. how important it would be for arrow this season - and i said to the friends who linked me that i was cautious, because i know how arrow works. arrow seemed to prove me wrong till 5.20, and i felt so fucking good to be wrong. it felt wonderful.

and then 5.20 happened 

im just sitting here wondering, does that ^ -- the dismissal of felicity’s arc as sth caused by ‘i lost my brand new bf pain’ and her change built on this flimsy excuse just so that she could tell oliver ‘yeah sorry, i judged you, you made the right call in doing what you did, i totally understand that now’, basically PROVING that that is how arrow sees their relationship... - proving that the whole framing of the break up in s4 as felicity being a non-compromising, blind judgmental douche and oliver being the one who was being punished for something he had no choice on; this whole thing was in fact, not accidental or a poor execution, but deliberate. ... -- does that really upset nobody, just because we have softcore porn images of olicity kissing? 

i saw no even ground between oliver and felicity in 5.20. i saw  felicity’s potential emotional depth being skewed and felicity admitting to all the blame in their break up. 

meaning that all that fantasizing i did about these two people being people that made mistakes - its not a lie, exactly. but it’s not the narrative the show supports. it’s simply not. 

‘arrow’s’ narrative is - -  felicity was wrong. she wasn’t emotionally mature enough, she hadn’t gone through enough ‘emotional pain/suffering’ to really be on oliver’s level, to really understand his choices, his reasons. she wasn't his equal. and she needed to be hurt and lost and alone so that she could understand him. felicity smoak, as she is, as she was conceived to be, is not enough, you see, for the emotionally complicated hero.

and this whole thing.. i wish i was smart enough to put into words why this kind of vision repulses me so. it reminds me of this article i read once about how fundamentally differently women and men gain their hero status in stories. how women are not allowed to just find the magic sword and go on an adventure. there has to be pain involved. and not the kind of pain that means you’re going places - but debasement, humiliation. negation of the identity the woman has, in order to grasp at something ‘higher’, something ‘more’ that she was not. some expansion of her mind that she was not capable of before. 

i find it so alienating, i cant even put it into words. 

it makes me feel the same way reading joss wheadon’s idea of the wonder woman movie made me feel: dirty. 

#personal #felicity smoak #felicity smoak thoughts #arrow thoughts #arrow criticism #i still cant put the full measure of my thoughts into words and how angry and disspointed i am #but i will never FUCKING NEVER be here for that kind of narrative. ever. fuck that shit. #SHITE #for the record - i dont care that oliver didnt explicitly apologize. i dont need him to do that. its not about that. #i care that felicity had to #and teh message that sends and teh way it frames both their actions.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

I finished it. real real sad over John b macklemore not gonna lie. dude wasn't perfect like he was rough around the edges and kind of a dick but like. he was a troubled queer dude and I have a lot of sympathy for that like his love life... made me so sad and he fucking had mercury poisoning like fuck... and then his land just getting bought up by k3 lumber like I know Rita had some depth to her but fuck Rita for that in particular. also do you think Tyler found the gold? (1/ ?)

right like….i dont remember which episode it was but that they were kind of putting together the picture of john being this guy who’s life was centered around how aggressively he cared. like how pissed he gets that other ppl DONT care abt things, and his insistence that everyone sucks and needs to be better, like as self righteous and misguided as it could be, its still part of that intent where he wants to help people in the ways he thinks is necessary. like i think personally i couldnt have been patient enough to interact with him, and i mean it seems like thats kind of a theme lol…like it isnt like theres not a bunch of parts of him that are A Good Person & generous & caring and all, but on this interpersonal individual level and how he channeled things, it’s definitely not the best sometimes

like for one thing he seems like the kind of person who is overly self assured and has a really narrow perspective. like his immediate assumption about a person or situation is what he thinks of as immediately true. he’s got all these judgments he’s doling out, big and small. i couldnt have the patience for that for very long. and he still has a narrow perspective on some things obviously, like he wants a broad range of information but not necessarily other peoples experiences of analyses of things. and yknow still some white dude from alabama and his bigotry even if his “big picture” thoughts on things weren’t as awful as it was obvious was common in that town

like yknow it feels like olan sums up so many things abt john lol. like he recognized how much of a genius and how talented he was, and he never fully wrote him off although there was always shit that kept him from thinking abt being able to like, seriously be in a relationship with him. i feel like i really got what he was saying about how john wouldnt listen to him abt brokeback mtn being good or that he should see it lol coz im like. i get excited abt shit i really like & if someone waves that off or insults it i wouldnt forgive them, like theres so much of this over the top assurance in his own initial opinions and disregard for others’ that he wasnt gonna believe olan even though olan had seen it and john hadnt. and then that he finally did read the short story and liked it, like dude yeah some more of that. he’s got his own thoughts about everything but its like he feels too superior with them. and like he’s still right even if he makes friends mad, like it cant just be him or whatever.

like it wasnt just that he was weird or that he had weird interests or anything that struck me as why he was always so lonely lmao like not that im saying it was his fault or it was only One Thing, but those smaller issues of him could kinda be impossible to get past, but at the same time a lot of ppl seemed like they werent willing to cut him off entirely or write him off cuz of all the other shit about him, he really was like, so unusual in all these ways and clearly it wasnt like there was a shortage of conversation to be had with him

anyways yeah it seems really counterproductive that he was born where he was and couldnt get out. like, not fitting in at all at school, being like what sounds like someone would call bi but i doubt he’d’ve grown up w that kinda language available even if it wasnt shittown alabama—but it does sound like he preferred men and that it was such a bad place for that, like relationships couldnt even be a factor for anyone around there hardly b/c being openly together was hardly an option, one night trysts was all that was really relevant. but it was obvious he was always wanting to be with someone and he just didnt have a way to do that, and couldnt manage to really find anyone. it really is such a heavy subject to think of queer people just being in the wrong place and time to understand themselves and what they want and even if/when they do, not have access to it

uhh yeah one thing that made me the maddest abt tbe last ep was finding out k3 took the land. like how fuckin symbolic. and those shitty rich white supremacists who feel like they literally run the town, fuck them. i WAS never sure abt rita and charles coz like. the relatives who nobody’s seen hide nor hair of, suddenly turning up overnight and wanting to take over everything? thats textbook suspicious. and like sure they probably wouldnt know tyler but its weird they never seemed interested in like, even hearing him out that he mightve been close to john and ought to be involved. like it COULD all just be a misunderstanding between two distrustful parties but still

i mean its nice to know mary grace was getting better care it sounds like, but thats not exactly proof that all their intentions were good. i mean, the k3 thing was like, did you care abt what john wouldve wanted at all? coz he seems to have cared abt that land a lot. and definitely not cared for k3. and they werent ever much sympathetic abt the question of if john wanted tyler to have money. oh, and i hated her calling john’s suicide selfish, but i know unfortunately a lot of ppl do that and i hate whoever does it lol. but like one thing i couldnt get over was her wanting his freakin nipple rings. im like? for Sentimental Value???? you want his body’s nipple rings?????!!!!!!! which later when it was revealed that was probably this queerass sexual thing was just this whole other layer of ghjfhsvvgh

lorddd

the other suspicious thing on that end was johns list of contacts. that not everybody had been contacted. like, wtf happened there. maybe not some paid off conspiracy, but? still a pretty fuckin straightforward task that was ridiculously bungled

Aanyway lord the mercury poisoning angle at the end i was like !!!! fuck is this the new thread now!! cuz it had kind of been mentioned before yknow, the firegilding or whatever, and now he’s doing that all the time suddenly w/o protection or ventilation and im like holy shit. this guy is maybe one of the only people in the world who’s doing this and just poisoning himself via this ancient art, for this fuckin genius he has for clock repair. which is so specialized, like, this dude is probably one of the best in the world. but he’s doing his own thing and that doesnt involve not inhaling mercury. and the fact that he made his own cyanide which was also something used for the clocks, i’m like, these Parallels. this irony. how is this real

i honestly dont know about the gold!!! like, i really feel like he had some, for starters, but the fact people werent even sure if he was a millionaire or he was broke is wild. i was suspicious abt those gates in the crawlspaces, idk what they were for even if not treasure hunts. the maze just feels like so obvious, and the theory abt the doghouse too….and saying there mightve been gold in the freezer that was taken….man. i am not sure what to think. or if he left like honest treasure hunt clues or if it was just buried scattered around w no trail to follow. man. hearing that come up, like maybe this guy has a secret hidden treasure with clues? im like this is so unreal. but i could believe he really did

#ok obvs this was meant to be privately published and i thought it had been #free access to some of my Take i guess #my take on the nip piercing scandal