#it’s hard to understand how many things I disliked bc I was cast as a lady in them

[onioneyez]

Everything’s a spectrum so I’m doing a chart to try and understand my aromanticism 😌

#under the hounds category so far was hand holding in public #and sharing a bedroom in a goodnight dear way #I will figure this out! #now’s the time to strike while my brain is malleable from no sleep #nowhere to hide now thoughts!!! #besides the inherent fogginess of a spectrum #it’s hard to understand how many things I disliked bc I was cast as a lady in them #but also there’s an element of cringing away from feeling owned and subsumed #(vocab word of the day) #gets me feeling like the asshole bad boy in a romantic comedy who doesn’t like to be trapped/put labels on things #but not for everything! #which is the tricky part #🙄 I have so much love but there are also the hounds #aromantic #onion’s nightttime thoughts

[i-want-my-iwtv]

I don’t understand why VC fans that are genuinely upset about and deeply dislike the stuff they’re finding out about the AMC show keep…. engaging with AMC IWTV content and posting about it? Like, I’m sure it’s not fun for them and it’s certainly not fun for the people who are enjoying the show…. Like, clearly this show isn’t going to magically turn into something they like, why keep baiting themselves?

These kinds of asks are so, so, so hard! Writing a short response feels too limited, but writing a lot feels like I’m doing too much...  if this makes anyone at least consider the issue(s) in a different light, then it was worth the effort.

And you know, answering this shouldn’t be so hard, we’re talking about fictional vampires, can we all keep that in mind? It’s sad that this is the heart of so much tension right now.

People are not going to stop criticizing media. That much is true. We can try to unpack why they do, and I will take a small stab at it in this response.

Okay so here are my TL:DR main points:

1) Curate your experience.  People are not going to stop criticizing media. You can stop yourself from seeing it, though. The block button is your personal bouncer! Or, use Xkit’s blacklist feature which is more of a softblock.

2) I still say it's unfair to call the criticism vs. praise all purely a binary. There's a spectrum of feeling that isn't linear, bc you can like some changes and not like others. 

3) People criticize media, and everything in VC. People are criticizing this bc they are getting smtg they didn't expect, and want to say so. Rollin Jones has even invited criticism, as a person in the film industry, he knows his work product is subject to criticism!

4) Criticism of VC in general, including about the show, from what I’ve seen on Tumblr, is meant more as intellectual exercise and a way to find like-minded people. How many decades have we criticized VC? “VC is a trilogy!”, or “X is a problematic character and you can’t like him!” or “Anne Rice endorses the problematic content she writes in real life, it’s propaganda!” People are seeking other like-minded people, and they make their arguments. Whether this comes from deeply disliking/upset by their topic, it varies a lot, but I would say that some of the criticism could be that, but some is coming from other emotional states, some more neutral than negative. Some is curiosity more than a negative place. Some people really enjoy criticizing things! Academic fans, for sure.

5) People who enjoy the AMC show: Try not to take criticism of the show as a personal attack. If you’re hurt by that criticism, block the person! From what I’ve seen, criticism is often disclaimered with “this is only my opinion.” Even if it is intended as a personal attack, it’s words on a screen. Nothing more. “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” - Eleanor Roosevelt. People have to control their feelings and emotions because each person is responsible for their own feelings and emotions.

6) Engagement is engagement, negative or positive, and that’s ratings for the show. Content that draws engagement must be compelling to do both! After all, the opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference. People don’t engage with content that’s boring. So the AMC show, at the very least, doesn’t appear to have committed the sin of being boring, and that’s a crime, canonically.

Rollin Jones: [X geffenplayhouse, Aug 20, 2015]:

“If there’s any problem with me as a writer, it’s that I’m crippled by, ‘Oh, I don’t wanna bore them!’” he says. “Mostly, it’s fun. There’s no other reason to do it. Nobody’s getting rich off it. So you want to have some fun, drink with some actors after, make sure one or two of your cast are having sex with each other. You wanna have created some love.”

Interview with the Vampire:

~~~~~

1) Curate your experience

Ultimately, we're all sharing this space together, at least for now. Anyone who doesn't want to see IWTV AMC criticism, or, conversely, anyone who doesn't want to see ppl enjoying it, the block feature is your personal bouncer! I also use Xkit’s Blacklist feature, which is a friendlier softblock.

2) I still say it's unfair to call the criticism vs. praise all purely a binary.

Some people love the changes AMC is making and some people don't, but I still say it's unfair to call it all purely a binary. There's a spectrum of feeling that isn't linear, bc you can like some changes and not like others.* Personally, I get why they had to age Claudia up, bc of the child actor labor laws, I assume that was of the issues back in 1994, too (tho, they did audition a ton of 5-6 yr olds, and none of them could act as well as Kirsten, so I think talent was - and is! - still a bigger factor than canon compliance for that role, it is for me, anyway, if I was casting that character).

*Obviously, there will always be the outliers who well and truly want a book-accurate adaptation and those who want a completely revamped version (pun intended!) that brings the story up to more current issues and morality. Neither can be totally satisfied bc the visual medium is necessarily different than the act of reading! Even the original LOTR trilogy, widely praised for canon-compliance, still changed things. I haven’t seen anyone on tumblr really seriously deeply upset about that, we all know here that that’s impossible. There are probably people on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube who think 100% canon compliance is possible, and to them, I say, Wow you must be fun at parties 😅.

3) People criticize media, and everything in VC.

People who don't express their criticism/opinions are essentially accepting what they're given. 

Re: fictional content, people who are served something that isn't up to their expectations criticize it. "I ordered X and it's not X!" You know? We want to know why it's not what we expected, was it an intentional change, like someone decided to give me blueberry pancakes when I ordered chocolate chip? Maybe I should prefer blueberry pancakes, bc fruit is the healthier option, but it's still not what I expected, and maybe I dislike the texture of fruit in bread. Maybe I'm allergic to blueberries. IDK! But people instinctively want to say something so that the people who made the item are at least aware, and whether the criticism is in good faith, or whether the creators listen and/or accept the criticism or not, well, that's up to them. 

Anne Rice herself was famous for not accepting criticism, but that hasn’t stopped the fandom from criticizing VC canon itself for decades. More on that in a bit.

Rollin Jones said he’ll take criticism [X, Den of Geek article, July 22, 2022]:

What fan backlash are you predicting?

Look, if you can make it through these first seven episodes, I’ll be back at Comic-Con next year, and if you’re still upset with me, I will set myself up at a booth, and you can kick me in the shins. I’ll be there for you. I really do think [the fans] will be surprised at how we are constantly going back to the book.

We’ll see, I’m open to being pleasantly surprised. I’m ready to see this cover band rework and play these beloved songs, so to speak. Johnny Cash did such a moving cover of Trent Reznor’s “Hurt” that Trent said it was Johnny’s song now. 

Once Johnny Cash covers your song– it’s not your song anymore.

Here’s a few more Johnny Cash covered and commentary about them. 

4) Criticism of VC in general, including about the show, from what I’ve seen on Tumblr, is meant more as intellectual exercise and a way to find like-minded people. 

Criticism of the show is an intellectual exercise, especially in a fandom full of ficwriters and fanartists, we’re challenged with our own creative choices, I write fic, we want to know the reasons for the changes to canon. We like to speculate. And we have our own taste. Are these blueberry pancakes better than chocolate chip? If not, why not? Ultimately, maybe it’s a flavor preference, maybe you just prefer fruit and I prefer chocolate, but we can still talk about the merits and faults. I don’t think of this as “baiting” oneself. More on that later. If people can talk about specific reasons they’re enjoying the show, the other side of the coin can certainly be that people want to talk about the specific reasons why they dislike the show.

It’s also a way of finding like-minded people. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people state "VC is a trilogy!" in a way that was clearly intended to fish for more people who agreed with them, which is totally normal fandom behavior. Or how many times people have critiqued Antonio Banderas' Armand being aged up and not auburn-haired; they wanted a canon-compliant Armand, and they were disappointed with what they were served, no matter how pleased other people were with Antonio's performance. It doesn't matter that some people loved him! Other people didn't like it, they criticized it, and they continue to do so, as is their right. Personally, I loved Antonio's performance but I'm not a huge Armand fan, I'm fine with saying that I'm not as invested in him as the disappointed fans are/were. 

I also disagree that it's not fun for people to criticize AMC, bc it's fun for other people to criticize things! We've been doing it in VC fandom for decades. I’m pretty sure that the  "VC is a trilogy!" advocates have fun saying so, because they’ve kept it up for years. 

I confess I don’t really know what “baiting themselves” means. I assume it means tormenting themselves? Trying to be angry about it? Well, people do that, too. In our fandom, there's always room for more sadists and masochists! 😂

5) People who enjoy the AMC show: Try not to take criticism of the show as a personal attack.

I think one of the major fandom problems we have is this feeling that disagreement = attack. There’s a lot of tension right now. There are people who want to escalate it. Even if the criticism is an attack, please try not to engage with it, seek like-minded people to enjoy the show with <3

6) Engagement is engagement, negative or positive, and that’s ratings for the show. Kind of already explained this one!

#ask #anon #vampire chronicles #interview with the vampire #iwtv amc #advice #on fandom #on criticism #quote #actual quote #boredom is the one true crime #rollin jones #articles #long post

[togamicrying]

honey you e got a big storm coming

35, 39, 47, 48, 51, 56, 83 hee hee

MAPLE.

35. A character who should’ve got more character development?

like. sooooo many of them lol. can i say the entire cast of v3? because honest to god that's my answer -- even my faves in v3 leave Something to be desired

beyond that, i actually think that thh and gbd do a really good job of stretching characters to their maximum narrative utility before killing them off, and i do feel like in both games the most narratively flexible ones are the ones who live. i think if i had to say anyone from those games it'd probably be leon or sayaka just because the way the free time events work in trigger happy havoc work mean they get like three events and then they die and you never get to know more lmfaoo (but even then i still don't think their characters are Lacking in the way that the v3 cast is for me. sorry for being a v3 hater lol)

39. Smartest murder plan?

komaeda's, obviously LMFAO. god every time i replay sdr2 chapter 5 im struck by it all over again. like they literally had to guess!! even with nanami revealing herself! even then! they still had to be like well. hope his luck actually worked out! king popped off and the entire trial is SO good for advancing the plot and tying off hinata's dynamics with BOTH komaeda and nanami! the moment of sickening clarity when hinata realizes that he DOES understand how komaeda's brain works, and knows what his intentions really were? nanami and hinata's final goodbye? uuuugh sdr2 chapter 5 i love youuuuu.

rest under the cut bc Long.

47. A headcanon you have about a character?

*pushes two million unfinished drafts of Togami Headcanons to the side* i am going to talk about komaru. i think she's a butch lesbian and every time she's depicted as feminine in fanart my soul dies a little even though butch komaru exists solely in my head. i also think she's really sporty, but i've talked about that elsewhere hehe.

ok i'll talk about togami a little bit. it's 100% projection but i think he's agender. not in a way where he like. actively thinks about it -- even at Full Self-Actualization i'm not sure if i ever see him actually realizing it and actively thinking about himself in that way -- but i just dont think he as any particular connection to being a *man* outside of how it plays into his attraction to other men/his family's expectations of producing heirs. like he just kind of is how he is and doesn't feel compelled to make any particular effort to present as masculine. i could make a joke here about his gender just being Togami, but genuinely i do think that rings true. he's not a boy or a girl but a secret third thing (byakuya togami™️) does this make sense. like. to anyone (<- projecting and insane) whatever. i think he would look nice in a floor length skirt.

48. Favourite OST?

i... usually play the games on silent :X legit i know like 3 songs including mr monokumas lesson. just tried to remember what beautiful days sounded like and the wii sports theme is what my brain supplied (<- embarrassed)

i WILL say that i think drv3 has the best opening track of any of the games. its so jazzy and fun hehe

51. Character you thought you were gonna dislike but loved in the end?

mmm. hard to say, honestly? it's been so many years since i formed first impressions of the thh and gbd casts that i kind of dont even remember what i first thought of them? i have a lot of v3 characters who i thought i would like and wound up feeling kind of ehh about, but that's not the question lol

i think, Big Terrible Writing Choice aside, i was really surprised by how much i wound up actually *liking* korekiyo? like okay OBVIOUSLY they took his character in a terrible direction but before that when he's just like, a weird little freak? that ruled lol

in terms of characters that i've had full turnarounds in opinion over the course of 2012-2022? i remember not particularly liking/caring about kirigiri, sayaka, fukawa, souda, or gundam when i first read the playthroughs of their games, and now they're some of my favorites hehe. but that's less about me going *into* the games thinking i wouldnt like them -- because in both cases i went in completely blind -- and more about them growing on me like a fungus over successive playthroughs lol

56. Best free time events?

ok. take this with a grain of salt because i'm stalled out in my sdr2 replay rn so i haven't redone the free time events for that game in awhile/haven't done any v3 ftes besides maki's and ouma's because im a hater.

i think kirigiri has really good fte's. i love that she gets a little sillay in them and how subtle her progression from "why are you talking to me" to "i care deeply about you" is. i also really appreciate how the game cutting her off as an option for free time at certain points serves to make that progression feel really natural with the game's actual plot. love you miss kirigiri.

mondo's are really great as well, he's such a fun guy to interact with and him talking about wanting to be a carpenter and loving his stupid tiny dog and being too nervous to ask girls out all add such levity to his character and make it SO sad when he dies. like damn that biker gang leader trapped in a murder game really is just like. some guy in high school :-( i also loved that they brought him wanting to be a carpenter back in dr:s! made my heart soar uuuuugh i love you mondo, sorry i never ever talk about you

komaeda gets an honorable mention for his botched love confession. buddy you did So Bad.

83. Least favourite chapter?

[staring myself down in the mirror] i will not hate on v3 this time i will not hate on v3 this time i will not hate on--

chapter 4 of v3 was soooo boring guys. i hated the virtual world and idk if it was just me but the controls for it were just. nightmarish. whatever lets talk about the games i do like.

i also agree with @ovidiomedes about thh's c3 kind of dragging. it's one of my favorite trials, but the actual chapter is. really slow lol. i think part of that is due to the anticipation of chapters 4-6 which are some of my all time favorites across all three games, but i think it has larger narrative problems that contribute to that dragging feeling ://

#op #asks #THANK YOUUU MAPLE THIS WAS SO FUN

[rahleeyah]

So I have SO MUCH second hand embarrassment and anxiety over people commenting to the new show runner. Like walrus was one thing bc he was so ugh, but cmon people! 🫠

Like for one, it’s crazy what people say to him on his Instagram. People have no shame. Leave the man alone, especially when the comments are negative in nature.

Secondly, I wish the comments would just stop, mostly the negative ones as mentioned, bc just like m, he will pull away from the fandom OR start responding in a negative way. Also, could the fandom cause some negative consequences? 🤷🏻‍♀️

People are also veryyyy flip floppy. (I.e. the news about kelli today) Unless you are a diehard rollisi, there is no room to complain. No one should be taking this out on the new show runner when he doesn’t make those decisions? Esp when everyone was all over him until recently and praising him.

We all wanted eo, and if rumors are true and this is the way to get that, im personally ok with it? The way I’m looking at it is there have been SO MANY arrivals and departures over the years of cast members and characters and this would just be the latest one. Although Amanda has been there for 12 years, that is usually the exception and not the rule.

Wasn’t it canon that the average to be in svu was like 2-4 years bc of the nature of the job? It makes sense for her to want to see her girls grow up and have a more steady work/life balance and get out of svu (major speculation on my part here). Bring in some new blood, characters, diversity, story lines, etc.

Although disclaimer: I am indifferent to the Amanda Rollins character. I do not love her nor dislike her. I would for sure feel different if it was someone I had more of an attachment to, admittedly 😂

I know you stay out of the drama, but I just needed to vent. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk lol.

Congrats to you anon for being the one to break the kelli news to me, literally got this message and had to be like "hang on babe lemme check twitter real quick" so thank you for that. lemme try to hit this in order.

yeah first up i'm not gonna tell anyone else what to do but engaging with the showrunner directly is never gonna be something i wanna do. i firmly believe that fandom and creators are happiest when we stay in our respective corners but. again. that's just me and what i prefer and what i would do. i don't check david's insta so i don't see what people post there, except for what gets reposted other places.

i wouldn't worry about the fandom causing negative consequences. like. these people have a job to do. they get some negative comments, they get lots of positive ones, they go to work, they do their job. fandom sometimes overestimates its own impact; no amount of comments on insta is gonna change the plan for tptb. if that was the case they'd have thrown out eo bc of the people on fb. for good or bad, they're gonna do what they're gonna do.

i agree no one should take this out on mr david as it obviously wasn't his call, and the responses of his that i have seen have been graceful. i understand that people are upset - were we not all devastated when chris left the show? - but like, that upset needs to be directed at the people who are responsible.

i don't see any connection between kelli leaving and eo. i have a hard time imagining they were sitting around going "we can't do eo unless we get rid of a cast member." that just doesn't make sense. yes losing a long time cast member frees up some $$ but they are bringing in new people and i promise they are gonna find ways to spend what's left of that money that aren't solely eo. the math isn't mathing. and the only people i've seen make that particular connection aren't making the most reasoned arguments in general.

they try to say early on that most people only last two years in svu which is laughable now considering how long most of the cast has been there. i do think they need some fresh blood - still salty about losing kat, tbh - if only bc these characters have been there for so long and new perspectives are necessary from time to time. 1.0 didn't shake up the cast too much after s2 but they had new adas all the time and that kind of helped keep things fresh,

i'm not sure what i want rollins's reasons for leaving to be. i don't really see her wanting to leave svu, tbh, i think it would have made more sense for carisi to go work with a different branch and amanda stay on in svu to avoid the conflict of interest but obvi that's not what they're doing. i'm wondering how much of carisi we're going to continue to see after kelli's exit and if they will use carisi to keep amanda alive and fresh for us even when she's not there.

idk anon it's a lot

#anonymous #e.o asks #s.vu

[kazueezuki]

about me（^人^）

intro: kazue, he/she. | birthday: sept. 10

languages: english, french, vietnamese, japanese (a bit rusty, i can speak and understand it at a survival level)

more: introvert, (digital) artist, voice actor amateur, aspiring photographer & cosplayer, video editor, genshin lore player and soundtrack enjoyer <3

genshin: started nov. ‘20 | ar 57

likes

anime: a lot but my faves include bsd, vnc, pandora hearts, link click, violet evergarden, hyouka, charlotte, tbhk, black butler

jpop/vocaloid; fav artists: tuyu, ¿?shimon, syudou, fuji kaze, trigger, zool, ado, vflower, kanaria, kenshi yonezu, yoh kamiyama, gakupo, ayase, deco*27

more: drawing, cleaning, listening to music, studying during nighttime, goofy ppl, scaramouche, sleeping (something i don’t get to do often bc of school </3)

dislikes

proshipping: please slay away from me

messy workspaces: yes, your room has to be organized and shiny, id gladly help u clean if you don’t mind

celery, brussels sprout, eggplant, pepper: was forced to eat these atrocities too many times in my life, never again.

society standards: they’re utterly messed up, i hate how most older generations still aren’t every open to changes and how judging people in society still are

games/fandoms/communities

games: genshin, sekai, tears of themis, enstars, obey me (left in 2021 tho), idolish7, hypnosismic, mahoyaku, crk, legend of zelda, paradox live

anime/manga: a lot.

streaming/content creators: tuonto, ant, dish, bwaap, atsu, sykkuno, shoto (vtuber), nijisanji, hololive (a tiny bit)

more: seiyuu industry, milgram (musical project)

genshin faves

monstadt: amber, venti, kaeya, mona, albedo, fischl, mika

liyue: xiao, beidou, hu tao, shenhe, ganyu

inazuma: i love them all sm but ayaka, ayato, kazuha, ei, yae, thoma, heizou, itto (we’re besties)

sumeru: its so hard to decide without naming the entire cast uegh; collei, cyno, candace, nahida, wanderer (scara)

npcs: teppei (yes), kazari (inazuma cleansing ritual), liben (gossip girly pop we stan), madame ping, nadia & vlad (fatui couple), ruu, chizuru (inazuma test of courage event), signora

fav character backstories (as a lore enjoyer)

the archons/gods: the entire thing about the archon war, fallen gods, celestia, primordial one, islaroth IS SO INTERESTING LIKE HELLO?? I CANT WAIT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT IT

scaramouche & ei: of course, it’s all about misunderstanding and emotions but their lore is just so beautiful in some way

kaeya: we still don’t know much about his background as a character from khaenriah but I’m so excited to discover more about him, especially what he was sent to mondstadt for

dainsleif: my memory’s fuzzy since it’s been a while since I’ve last seen him in-game, but i do want to know more about literally just the entirety of khaenriah, the art of khemia, its location and so on, he’s such a key character in khaenriah lore

the twin siblings: what exactly happened after their separation as they got interrupted by the unknown god? what is the “truth of the world” that the traveler’s sibling discovered and how did that end up with them being the abyss order’s leader? there’s so many questions surrounding the background of the twins that make them all the more intriguing

there may have been a few errors in my interpretations here, but i haven’t been playing genshin as much as i used to and my lore knowledge is starting to erode as well, i’ll do my best to catch up <3

december 25, 2022

#about myself #intro post

[isaacathom]

my friends been trying to get me to watch ds9 for ages, and after a several month hiatus ive finally started watching again, and it sort of helped me clarify a bit of why ive found it so hard to get 'in'. its a combo of so many things.

i preceeded watching ds9 by watching 95% of tng (skipping a few episodes, ie The Naked Now). and that means that part of me, however unfairly, is comparing tng at its peak (like seasons 3-5 or so) to ds9 s1. and that is unfair! bc s1 of tng also isnt that good! but i watched that with no expectations of quality, and now that i know what star trek CAN be, s1 of ds9 is a bit weak. not bad! just finding its footing.

relatedly, ds9s pilot sucks shit. i dont like it. its a two episode character study and somehow i come out of it feeling like i understand sisko less than i did after the first episode. also just personally i dont find religion an interesting plot, especially on a character who... isnt... part of that religion. (compare sisko in the pilot to kira in Battle Lines. THATS the good shit. battle lines is a really good episode imho)

everyone kept telling me ds9 was really good so a weak s1 is. unfortunate

i just have not found an 'in' to liking Dax. she just doesnt interest me. the most interesting shes been so far is the few times when she and sisko are just like. bantering? bc its when you get a sense that she has literally anything going on that isnt just her job. to that, she has the unfortunate job of being the Main Science Gal (vs Obrien being the Engineering guy, and Bashir being the Medical Guy). and that means shes being compared to Data. And im sorry but Data's my fucking blorbo, my hometown boy, my perfectly aged wine, and so on. she never had a chance.

related to the way people have tried to sell me on ds9, whenever ive mentioned my lack of investment in Dax, ive been assured that she gets better. Particularly once Worf shows up and they start a relationship. and while im certain that will be good - i like worf! hes not my blorbo but, yknow, he's my guy - it sucks to me that dax only gets more interesting once a man shows up and she enters a romantic arc. that sours me a little pre-emptively

and theres probably arent really fair criticisms? im sure if i wanted i could try to properly unpack why the ds9 pilot failed for me and started me on a bad foot for the whole series beyond just 'religion plot boring', maybe more into the vein of 'its weird that sisko is the chosen one when he has no connection to this religion, this region, or this culture', or present a nuanced critique of why a heavily character focused episode is a choice that doesnt work for me when its the start of a series with an ensemble cast, but 🤷. and my dislike of dax definitely isnt fair.

but i feel like i gotta unpack it in some capacity as a way to help me get over the growing pains and find where ds9 hits its stride. because there has been some good stuff! odo and quark are exceptional together, with an excellent dynamic that already is more than just one note, with a usual rhythm and the ways it interacts with the episode plots to bring the two closer together and further apart.

when bashir isnt being horny, he's great! he was the character i was most excited to see, weirdly enough, bc im a sucker for a hot man with a british accent and man! bashir! and he's got good potential to be interesting, and i know he will be, even outside of the widely accepted pairing with the cardassian guy (which, thats a lil cringe but in a cute way instead of a bad way, like when hes trying to flirt with dax, bc that shits bad)

and there have been really good episodes so far, i think! Battle Lines is really good, bc it explores aspects of Kira's character and how her religion is important to her, and also Kai Opaka is a really good character. I liked The Nagus as a way to get a bit more into Quark's head and the ways he is similar to and different from his companions and peers. that shits good. I think Progress was really interesting. I also enjoyed If Wishes Were Horses, minus the bit with the two dax's. like yea the scene was funny but i also wanted to smother my boy bashir with a pillow. stop! being! horny! and so on.

idk. i needed to get words out to unpack myself. i wanna give myself the chance to enjoy the show. i already forewarned my friends that i was probably not going to get as far as Voyager (which. well. mixed bag. also theyre the bastards who do the fucking holodeck thing with the village and *smashes the ship* stop that) but i do want to watch ds9. i am excited for it. i just need to get into it.

#star trek ds9 stuff #it was unfortunate that my first ep back was Dramatis Personae though #bc the whole premise of that episode is that everyone but Odo has their character warped by Some Bullshit #and its like. i dont remember yalls regular character so this is very strange #but ive heard The Duet is good and it looks interesting from the premise so im down

[shinjaeha]

ipytm ep 3 (thoughts + spoilers)

this is going to be a tough post for me to do bc honestly...this ep just left me feeling so run down. i know that the cast and crew have always strived for realism and authenticity with this series, but this one was just a lot to take in :/ my thoughts are gonna be even more all over the place than usual but idec at this point. having to rewatch this ep again is really fucking hard (even harder than itsay ep 4 bc even though that makes my heart ache, i still feel some sense of satisfaction from the development we get...this just leaves me feeling defeated in every way).

you know the drill: not an analysis, just me ranting as usual bc free therapy (and boy do i need it after this one)!! i had so many feelings watching this ep (esp towards teh but what’s new), so here goes.

we begin with the drama students rehearsing for jai’s new play, and the introduction of the plum wine which will be the recurring motif in this whole ep. the use of the plum wine in this also kind of reminds me of how teh initially disliked coconuts until he started falling in love with oh-aew and started to like them instead...i’m guessing that’s the parallel they’re trying to draw with the plum wine comparison in this.

teh’s having a hard time getting into character (which we already know from last ep was always going to be one of the toughest challenges for him as an actor). his character in the play is supposed to have a sex scene, but he’s struggling with this bc he can’t put himself in his character (akin’s) shoes, so jai ends rehearsals early.

jai gives them all logbooks which he basically wants them to treat as diaries where they’ll write everything they feel/learn and hand it back to him (he’ll be the only one reading them). ngl this already had me feeling kind of yikes (esp now as i rewatch this knowing how everything went down) since jai already has inside knowledge about teh’s feelings on his relationship with oh-aew which he can take advantage of :/ more on that later though...

it’s sad to me that so much time has passed since teh’s argument with khim and he's STILL avoiding her. khim was someone that he respected immensely (and was such a great mentor for him) so it just sucks to see that their relationship has deteriorated so much since the first two eps. teh might have had his reconciliation moment with oh-aew last ep, but there’s still a lot that he’s not ready or willing to address yet.

i understand that teh’s just encouraging jai about his work when he tells him to stop having others comment on it, but at the same time, i disagree with him bc i think it IS important to get other peoples’ opinion about your work. how else will you ever be able to see things from other perspectives if you don’t?

anyway, teh tells jai he’s seeing a play, and jai asks teh if he’s bringing oh-aew...the look on teh’s face is telling enough that things aren’t going great between them (at least on his end). this brings us to the logbook scene, where teh’s homework for the day is to write about the similarities and differences between himself and his character in the play. this gets teh to reflect on how he feels his relationship with oh-aew is changing, or specifically, how oh-aew seems to be changing so much that teh feels like he’s becoming someone else entirely...and does that mean that he still loves him the same?

i feel like this is a fairly common issue with people that have been in a relationship for a while (and this is their third year together now), so i understand how teh might start having doubts. it’s nothing that oh-aew’s done, it’s just that sometimes all these small changes can keep mounting up to the point that they feel much bigger than they actually are. oh-aew’s really just doing what everyone else does, which is grow and change as they get older, but teh’s still stuck in the past trying to hold onto what they used to have instead of evolving with oh-aew. the way teh picks at all these little changes of oh-aew does make me think that he’s self-sabotaging himself. he’s just so afraid and insecure that oh-aew will change so much he leaves him, that he has to nitpick at reasons why oh-aew’s the one that’s growing away from him (though when we watch the whole ep we know that that’s not the case at all). it’s like a ‘if i push him away first, then he won’t push me away’ sort of self-defence mechanism. either way, teh’s a constant overthinker...and he’s always been his own biggest enemy since the start, so it makes perfect sense to me that he would do this to himself here too.

i know that they’ve been together for years at this point, so things are not quite as exciting as they used to be, but it hurts to see oh-aew be so happy about getting an A for his class, and teh be so unenthused about it. oh-aew has to basically beg teh to give him attention and praise. remember when teh used to get so worried when oh-aew did badly in chinese class...and now it’s like whatever to him just bc he’s not tutoring him/they’re not in the same major anymore :((( i know it’s prob both bc teh’s still hurting that oh-aew transferred majors, and from seeing oh-aew succeed while he feels like he’s failing, but still...

also, not inviting him to see the play with him bc he thought oh-aew wouldn’t be interested/oh-aew kept falling asleep whenever they saw plays together ;;; i get the reasoning from both povs, but it still is nice to be asked :(

so one thing i have to say about the progression of their relationship here is that i just feel this huge disconnect from last ep and this ep?? i know it’s bc of the time skip (since it’s a year later basically), but to go from the end of ep 2, where they’re promising to love each other forever, and then to teh feeling disillusioned/as though he’s falling out of love with oh-aew basically right after that?? it’s so jarring. i feel like we lose so much with these time skips bc the transition from ep 2 to ep 3 is never really shown, so there’s this lack of flow there. like we’ve skipped a step entirely and something’s missing. this is the disadvantage of only focussing on one year per ep since there’s not enough time to explore as much character and relationship development when we’re only seeing an hour long snippet of an entire year. it just makes things feel superficial since so much of what we should be seeing is missing...and we basically have to fill in all the gaps ourselves.

okay, back to oh-aew ranting to his friends about how he feels like his relationship with teh is fading away bc they don’t have the same interests anymore, but also wondering if that’s just normal for long-term relationships. bless that boy that came to ask oh-aew for his ig :’) at least he knows that he’s wanted and has options, even if he obv turns him down bc of teh (for now).

plug and mangpong are dating!!!!!!! and mangpong does a horrible job of trying to hide it 😂 sidenote, but i love the way pp delivers lines sometimes (like the “just shocked”), he’s so cute. plug and mangpong’s legs touching...and the wave of nostalgia that came over me (and oh-aew) during that ;;; oh-aew seeing their blossoming relationship would make him reminisce back to his own experience of falling in love with teh...when everything was still so fluttery and new. so when teh texts him about using his car to help jai move, he looks happy. like he wants to rekindle those feelings again too.

that being said, it’s kind of sad to me how even jai shows more interest in oh-aew’s major than teh (when he asks him for his opinion on how to get people interested in his play). oh-aew’s got some good ideas and is more than willing to help (esp since he wants to connect and find a common interest with teh again). also, just bc oh-aew doesn’t want to be an actor anymore doesn’t mean that he’s completely uninterested in it. god, watching this part again hurts bc oh-aew looks so happy and optimistic. he worked so hard to help teh (and jai) only for them to betray him like that. it made me mad originally, but now it just breaks my heart :(

jai’s running acting classes again for his play, and this time it’s a workshop to help them tap into their feelings. it’s like an intimacy exercise where they give one another consent to touch certain body parts. teh is still struggling a lot with this. i think teh craves intimacy, but as he doesn’t feel that connection in his personal life to oh-aew anymore, so it’s difficult for him to draw on his experiences. he can’t even remember the first time he had sex with oh-aew properly anymore. as usual, teh’s too in his own head to just go with the flow and ~feel things (which isn’t new since teh’s had problems with this since itsay), but it’s def something that he’ll need to learn how to do if he wants to become an actor. he’s trying, but the fact that he can’t get to that place makes him feel even more insecure than ever that he might never be able to get there. imo one of the reasons teh works so hard, and is as driven and ambitious as he is, is that he’s afraid that he’ll never be good enough. he puts so much pressure on himself, and the issue with that is that he’ll never be able to live up to his expectations that way.

teh is also very much alone now. oh-aew has his group of friends to talk to about his relationship with teh, but teh just has jai at this point. he’s pushed khim away...and he and oh-aew aren’t communicating effectively (which is also why they’re on SUCH different wavelengths in terms of where their relationship is at), so there’s literally only jai for him to talk to about all his relationship issues. and to me at least, jai seems to have ulterior motives (particularly when you consider that the subject matter of his play is pretty much the same thing that teh’s going through rn). it’s times like this when i do feel kind of bad for teh, but then again, he brought this upon himself the way that he almost always does...and it leaves me frustrated instead.

jai kissing his professor though...also their conversation?? i have QUESTIONS...

that whole interaction with teh when jai catches him spying on him and the professor was SO awkward. idk what it is about teh but i have never encountered a character that has given me as much secondhand embarrassment as he does. when he starts touching the bars and avoiding eye contact i just- why, teh why?????

moving on, i’m thinking there’s prob more to that scene that we don’t know about bc jai’s shifty like that...but it’s purpose is also to shift teh’s perception of jai. before this, he pretty much just saw jai as his friend and mentor, but seeing him kiss someone else pushes him to think of jai in another less platonic light. like the first spark of attraction.

the both of them go to see the mime show (babymime), and i know that the point of this is so teh can learn to just feel and let go the way that the mimes in this play do, but idk it’s just kind of funny to me the contrast between the last scene and this one. 

the leg touching scene again but this time with teh and jai...thanks, i hate it :/// 

teh’s already feeling like he and oh-aew’s interests are making them drift apart, so by connecting with jai, it’s that initial feeling of attraction that he used to feel with oh-aew all those years ago. jai is that cool senior that he respects...he’s goal-oriented and has so much in common with him (in a way that he feels that oh-aew doesn’t anymore), so it doesn’t altogether surprise me that teh latches onto jai in this way. esp when all their conversations revolve around what teh’s most passionate about, and what dreams they’re striving towards in the future.

it doesn’t surprise me bc teh’s affections shifted in a similar way from tarn to oh-aew when he was first starting to realise his feelings for oh-aew too (though at least he and tarn were never officially dating during that time...)

there’s a genuineness to the way teh praises and encourages jai that isn’t there when he’s doing the same to oh-aew :( and that coupled with teh lying to oh-aew about him having dinner with jai while oh-aew is at home, completely oblivious, painstakingly photoshopping his boyfriend’s face on the poster of the play TO HELP TEH instead of doing his own uni work, makes me so fucking upset for oh-aew.

it’s interesting to see how different their personalities are even when it comes to something as simple as the way they read their texts. oh-aew is so ready to accept whatever teh tells him at face value, but teh overthinks everything to the point where he jumps to a certain conclusion in his head about it instead.

but yeah, it’s just really tough to see oh-aew try so hard for teh, only to see teh do nothing back for oh-aew in return. there’s only so much one side can give. it’s the absolute lack of effort on teh’s part to even try to make things work with oh-aew that is the most frustrating thing of all. oh-aew is carrying their entire relationship rn and it makes me feel all “and for what?? why should he even bother??” about it.

sneaking to sit at the river with jai is like this forbidden, new experience, so it just enhances that feeling of attraction that teh is already feeling towards jai. and esp when he starts telling him about his previous relationship with james, the significance of the plum wine, and how jai ended up breaking up with him. since it’s reflective of teh’s own experiences atm (even in how he kind of self-sabotages himself to push people/oh-aew away first), he clearly takes it to heart. and it makes him want to do an even better job since the play is an autobiographical one for jai. not to mention, teh supposedly being the only one that jai told his story to makes him feel ‘special’......and we all know how teh likes feeling as though he’s special to someone. you can see it in how dejected he is when he thinks jai only told him his story bc he wanted him to get into character better, but perks up the moment jai says he actually told him bc teh’s been doing such a good job (and to encourage him). like i mentioned before, teh’s already feeling vulnerable and isolated from everybody else, so hearing any sort of praise (and esp when it’s from someone that he looks up to as much as jai), is going to pull him in.

when they were hiding from the security guard i was like ughhh i know where this is heading and i. don’t. like. it........

the problem is that i know where teh stands on this. like i know that there’s some attraction on his end. but i don’t know where jai stands. is he intentionally manipulating teh’s feelings for his play? is there any sincerity there? i think it’s obvious that he can tell teh is attracted to him from the glance that they share in this scene, but i can’t get a handle on what he actually wants (which i guess is the point of making his character as mysterious as it is but still). and if he can tell, and he doesn’t actually like teh back in that way, it makes the end scene even more yikes imo.

hmmm teh lying in the pool trying to recreate that feeling right before their first kiss when the both of them just let everything go and sank down into the water. that’s how you KNOW the next scene is supposed to be angsty...bc just like how their first underwater kiss had a sense of sadness to it bc they were hiding, their first (on screen) sex scene has that same sense of sadness, only this time it’s bc teh’s using his attraction to jai/his method actor desire to get into character to fuel the sex instead of bc he genuinely just wants to have sex with oh-aew. and if his reasoning for the sex is bc of that, then his task to recreate their first sexual experience will never live up to the actual first time they had sex (when they BOTH wanted it, and there were no other factors involved).

that’s not to say i don’t think teh doesn’t love oh-aew anymore. i think that there HAS to be some level of love still there amidst all of the confusion, but it feels a lot more like he’s testing his love/attraction to oh-aew during this scene (sort of like how he did with tarn in itsay) than a proper ‘love scene’. like he’s trying to reconfirm his feelings, whilst using oh-aew as inspiration for his role at the same time. it makes my heart ache that this is the first love scene we get from them this series, and it’s marred by the context of what we know is going on in teh’s head. like i said, it’s this permeating sadness throughout...and just knowing that oh-aew has absolutely NO IDEA what’s going on with teh and why he suddenly wants to have sex makes it worse. oh-aew’s been trying to make things work, and in his mind, teh spontaneously coming over like this prob makes him think that things are getting better between them since this is also the closest thing to teh showing any sort of initiative to work on their relationship in this ep so far...

and that’s not also taking away how beautifully this whole scene is shot. i’ve always loved the way that teh and oh-aew play and flirt with each other (bkpp’s chemistry is honestly unparalleled!!) so it was nice to see them be kind of playful before they started kissing again (if you ignore how sad this scene really is). i LOVE the inter-splicing between their first time on the beach and the present. the way the score swells, and little moments where you can see their feet and fingers interlocked on the beach. it gives you such a visceral visual (and totally takes me back to itsay days when that sort of imagery was used a lot more). i just hate that since we know the truth, this scene is more uncomfortable than satisfying despite how nicely shot it is.

i wish we got more domestic moments from them. i know their relationship has sort of grown past those initial moments of flirtation, but it truly makes me sad that we don’t get to see more of them as a couple in general in ipytm. moments like this where they’re lying in bed cuddling each other are so few and far between that i always feel like i have to cherish every little fleeting piece of fluff that i can get. even if idek if this can really be called fluff since the context sort of ruins it.

oh-aew’s still got his heart attack bag :’)))

he was soooooo happy when he met up with his friends 😭 but also, how the hell is it possible for teachers to move deadlines up like that. i FEEL that panic... poor oh-aew...

teh’s in rehearsals again and this time he’s wearing his moon shirt which...i do NOT need those ep 3 itsay vibes rn when i was already dreading this last ten minutes with everything i have in me :((( but anyway, jai’s brought plum wine to class and we know that teh doesn’t usually drink, but he does this time. he tells teh that the taste will change over time (it symbolises the ageing of the relationship process), and teh says it’s a pity he won’t get to taste it next time since jai wants to go abroad to study. then teh tells him he’s worked on the acting exercise and wants to try it out with jai, and i feel like we all knew where it was going to go from here.........

they really had to hammer it in with him missing oh-aew’s call too huh :/

as soon as they started the touching/intimacy exercise again i was just waiting for the catch. even on this rewatch i’m still sitting here chanting “don’t do it teh don’t do it” knowing full well that he kisses jai and there’s no changing that. but then when they cut to oh-aew walking up the stairs with the posters and you hear just how much time he’s sacrificed to help teh/jai on this...sacrificing time EVEN NOW just to go over to their uni to give them the posters when he has a presentation due tomorrow that he and his friends still haven’t finished working on...it’s just heartbreaking knowing what he’s going to end up walking in on.

whether it’s itsay or ipytm, teh’s default state is confusion. so while i think that there’s a certain amount of attraction towards jai there of course, i kind of get the feeling that he’s confusing his feelings of connection with jai (bc of their shared interests and passion) with him falling in love with jai. i feel like his attraction to jai reminds him of what it was like when he was first attracted to oh-aew, and since things have changed so much between him and oh-aew, it’s like he wants to recreate and capture that feeling again with jai (which is also why he wears the moon shirt...he wore that during itsay ep 3 beach scene, which was the moment when the attraction really started to burn between him and oh-aew). he can’t feel that same spark with oh-aew anymore, so he transfers his feelings to jai since, at this point in time, he feels closer to jai than anyone else. instead of growing alongside oh-aew, it’s like he’s choosing to revert back to a time when he was happier.

we know that teh has always been the type of person that will act on his impulses when he feels them. that’s WHY it was so hard to watch...bc i knew while watching that last scene, he was never going to restrain himself or put a stop to those feelings bleeding over into action. and esp not when it could benefit him in some way with his acting too.

in the end, it just makes me so devastated for oh-aew. and i really hope that he doesn’t let this go bc he thinks it’s just teh method acting or getting into character or whatever...i know that teh’s feeling a lot of conflicting things rn, but that’s not an excuse. he really fucked this one up.

the thing is, it’s not that i don’t think teh is capable of acting this way (i’ve seen a few people say that this is ooc for him, but it really isn’t? this confusion and impulsiveness has always been a part of his character from the very start...he was always the one that had the most trouble dealing with his feelings out of the two of them), but the time skips don’t do him any favours bc we lose all those moments that take him to what he’s currently feeling. when we don’t have those moments, then it’s a lot harder to sympathise with him. in itsay, bc we always knew how teh got from point a to point b, even if he did frustrating/silly things, i always understood where he was coming from. i always felt for him. i GOT his struggles, which was why i was always able to empathise with what he was going through. in ipytm, he just comes off as unlikeable bc of how superficial his feelings seem (from what we’re being shown on screen at least).

falling out of love with your significant other/starting to feel things for someone else is obv a fairly common experience, so i don’t blame teh for FEELING like this, but it’s how he treats oh-aew throughout this that doesn’t sit right with me. even if you feel like you’re falling out of love with someone, or that they’ve changed since the first time you fell in love with them, you’d think there’d be some motivation to at least TRY to make things work with them before giving up. we never see that from teh at all. instead, he just see him becoming infatuated with jai (so we barely see teh/oh-aew together in the first place). and while i can see now that a lot of this is due to his own insecurities and inadequacies, it’s also just so disrespectful to oh-aew who's the one that we see putting in all this time and effort (it calls back to their whole “don’t give my time to others” scene in itsay bc we see oh-aew giving so much of his time to teh through helping him out with his play, while teh’s giving that time that should be for oh-aew to jai now). no matter his reasoning, watching teh act that way towards oh-aew does make it increasingly hard to root for him. there’s just too big a disparity in how the two of them choose to act and devote their time to their relationship.

what’s frustrating is that in itsay, teh would fuck up but he would always try to make amends with oh-aew in some way. he would always come forward to try to sort things out after...but there’s nothing here. even after their dinner fight in ep 2, it’s OH-AEW that reaches out to him first (even though it’s teh’s fault that they fought in the first place). where’s that boy that dressed up in his old school uniform in order to talk to oh-aew at his school? or made a whole chinese idioms scrapbook for oh-aew? or gave up his uni admission for oh-aew? i understand that characters and motivations change (and he was obv hopped up on his first love with oh-aew at the time), but it’s just really, really sad to see teh keep messing up and not even try to meet oh-aew halfway with this. yes, you can fuck up, but there are only so many times you can keep fucking up before it starts to look more like a pattern of shitty behaviour than a few forgivable missteps.

another issue is that there’s been so much focus on teh and his flaws that a lot of the time oh-aew comes off as a side character to teh’s story. previously, i understood that since teh was grappling with his sexuality. it made sense that his journey was the primary focus of the plot and character development. but i always felt that there was more room to explore oh-aew’s story (and i thought that we would get a lot more of that in ipytm...esp after ep 1), but it just feels like we kind of skimmed past all of oh-aew’s growth and struggles adjusting to bangkok/uni life so we could turn the attention back to teh again. i just hate that we never get to see more of how oh-aew’s changed in teh’s eyes (other than the surface level things like his hair, new car and major), and that we never get to see more of oh-aew’s life when it’s not related to teh in general. i hope that we’ll get more of oh-aew in the last two eps, but i really don’t know what they’ll give us anymore.

at this point, i don’t even want them as endgame anymore given everything that’s happened in the recent ep. and it pains me so much to say that bc teh/oh-aew are so immensely important to me, but they’re just in such different places in life. and teh esp has so much more growing to do (i think i said this last week too? teh...). oh-aew deserves to be with someone that can see his worth as he is (that won’t cheat on him for one!!). i just want him to be with someone that can make him happy. what i wanted most for them out of this was for the two of them to grow to a better place (together and as individuals), and while i still want that for them as individuals, it’s hard for me to want them to be happy together anymore. at least for the time being.

i’m kind of at a loss for how they’re gonna work through this (and i genuinely want oh-aew to be able to explore his options too...particularly with someone that will actually treat him better than teh’s treating him atm). so at this point it’s kind of looking to me like a break up is inevitable? but i do think it’s necessary  for both of them rn. i feel so heartbroken about it though...like ipytm is actually making ME go through the breakup...breaking up with all my beloved itsay teh/oh-aew memories :((( anyway, i think a break up is also conveniently the best time to put a time skip tbh...so we’ll see if that does end up happening now in future eps.

this one took such a long time to write up bc i wrote like a quarter of this RIGHT after i finished watching the ep (so you can clearly tell which parts were me right after the ep, and which parts were me after i had some time to sit on what happened 😂), but i thought it was best to take a bit of a break. i didn’t rewatch it again until i calmed down a little and sorted out my thoughts some more (though i know this is still pretty messy). but yeah, i’m still very much interested in watching how they things are going to progress from here...but i can’t deny how sad i’ve been feeling after this.

#i promised you the moon #ipytm #text #i feel like i always need to rewatch ipytm eps bc i'm so HEATED during the first watch #but then by the second one i've usually calmed down so much more #like i obv still have a lot of things that i'm not super happy with (and rewatching this again didn't really bring me joy) but still #i get so invested in itsay/ipytm that sometimes i just gotta take myself out of the situation and go live my life for a bit #i was meant to post this yesterday bc it's been sitting in my drafts for too long but i just woke up (it's 2am) so what better time hah

[jade-doodles-questionmark]

How do you feel about Alexander Hamilton?

Thank u for this ask! I'm gonna answer all the questions in that list just for fun :D

Here's an obvious disclaimer that I'm only talking about how he is portrayed in the musical, since I am no expert in history. This kind of mental gymnastics is part of the experience of being in the fandom LOL

How I feel about this character

I like him!

Stories where people from humble beginnings are able to go against all odds and make a better life for themselves through their hard work is always extremely romantic and empowering, no matter how often they don't portray the entire truth in reality. Nonetheless, Alexander's ascension in social class is definitely a story that many, including me, recognized from real life & family history. This does make me feel more empathetic toward his character.

undercut are all the other questions:

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Eliza and Angelica, mostly. I like hamliza bc Helpless is a cute song, just as I like hamgelica bc Satisfied is a LIT song. I also LOVE relationships with the possibility of a lot of bantering, so that's another point for hamgelica.

Again, I'm a multi-shipper, so I'm also very open to almost all the other ships with him as long as the portrayal is not OOC. I only talked about hamliza and hamgelica because these two are the fav.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

With that being said, I also LOVE the idea of Angelica & Alexander being good friends with a lot of shared passions. I love the idea of Alexander being friends with most of the characters in the musical. I love relationships with a lot of banters and shittalks in general, and the main cast seems like a group that would have a lot of those.

My unpopular opinion about this character

I... dislike the portrayal of him (or any character) as “uwu traumatized boi” in some fanfics, even though I understand that in these fics it’s sometimes the writers trying to deal with their own difficulty in life. 

This is in no way a new take, but his early experience of poverty most definitely left scars & shaped how he went about his life later. I think bc of the taste of poverty, he was eager to leave his original social class & cut ties to his origins. The thought that he may be back to where he started must’ve really bothered him. You can say he’s egoistic - grasping all the resources and every single possibility to social ascension is how he made it up there in the first place.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

There’s really none -  he’s the center of the musical and his plot line is quite complete. If I have to say something, though, the second act kind of progresses a bit too fast for me..

#hamilton #alexander hamilton #not art #thank you for this ask!!

[bthump]

What do you think about the point in the story we are at now? Would you say you like the direction Miura is going in or not? What are the things you dislike about Berserk as it is now?

lol this is hard to answer because it’s so heavily dependent on what happens next. I think we’re at a point where everything could start coming together in a way that really appeals to me or where everything could just fall apart and I’ll have to accept that this is no longer a story I’m particularly interested in.

Though I am slightly leaning towards the former right now, whether that’s based on real evidence or mostly blind optimism I’m not entirely sure lol.

Basically I think it’ll depend on a) whether Moonlight Boy becomes a major motivational plot point or turns out to be more of a red herring or brief inciting factor in the shift to a new arc, and b) whether Guts and the rpg group overcome the imminent challenge they’ll face thanks to their personal growth and friendship or whether it’ll fuck them up.

But the reasons I’m feeling tentatively optimistic right now are:

all the foreshadowing re Guts losing himself to the armour and wreaking some havok, which has to happen at some point lbr

fetus as the focal point of Casca’s traumatic memories and symbolizing her thorn-covered heart, which to me screams sacrifice material, which would be the only thing that could make it time sharing Griffith’s body interesting to me (ie what happens to Griffith if it’s sacrificed?)

I’m gonna link this post because I’m still mostly feeling the basics of this theory, ie Skull Knight and Elfhelm in cahoots plotting to use the behelit to entrap the godhand, at Guts and Casca’s expense. Plus another possible way for Moonlight Boy to come to nothing is if it’s a manipulation of Danann’s.

I think Guts is purposefully being written as emotionally distanced from the rpg group, which is a good sign for the power of friendship not saving him yet, and there are also aspects of Guts+rpg group that parallel Griffith+Hawks in the golden age (eg Farnese’s feelings for Guts being paralleled to Casca’s feelings for Griffith, Guts gaining followers who compare him to fire, etc) which also gives me hope that tragedy will strike.

Miura’s little bait and switch wrt Guts and Casca’s relationship that honestly felt like gentle mockery of people who wanted them to immediately get together lol. Yk Casca getting sent out in a pretty dress to meet Guts complete with romantic double page spread and having a breakdown, then changing into pants and cutting her hair and saying how much better it is, and not being able to look at Guts now.

Also more recently, Guts at a loss now that he’s brought Casca’s sanity back and it didn’t actually solve any of his issues. “The hell do I do now?” “You have reached the end of your journey. It is not always a happy thing.” I’ve been worried for a while that Guts’ complex issues have been dropped and we’re meant to see him taking Casca to Elfhelm as him genuinely growing past them, and that one moment was such a huge relief when I read it lol. It really suggests to me that this sidequest was always about Guts trying to find a distraction to avoid dealing with his actual issues (fear/trauma, insecurity, love/hate feelings for Griffith, regret, etc), and those are going to make a return sooner rather than later.

Miura implying in interviews that we’re not all that close to the end, so there’ll probably be at least one more arc after Elfhelm, which gives me more hope that this whole rpg arc will lead to some amount of narrative-shaking tragedy and we’ll get some interesting stuff after.

this parallel with the climax of the Millenium Falcon arc and my firm belief that it has to come full circle.

other stuff like complex apostle characters, the lost chapter worldbuilding, schierke suggesting that her elemental guardians are holy see angels alongside implications that holy see angels are the godhand. Basically my hopes for worldbuilding that doesn’t boil down to good spirit world vs evil spirit world.

all the little suggestions that NGriff isn’t as emotionless as he’d like to be that have nothing to do with a demon fetus giving a shit about its parents

So I guess my answer is that I do like the direction I hope Miura’s going in, but there’s also enough counter evidence that I may be wrong about that direction.

So some of the things I dislike about Berserk now are:

Moonlight Boy and the Fear that he will derail everything and the plot will soon revolve around, idk, Guts and Casca trying to free their kid’s soul bringing them closer together or some awful shit like that.

Moonlight Boy and the Fear that Miura is actually going to ignore the absolutely incredible foundation he wrote in the Golden Age to support the hints of Griffith’s current capacity for emotion in favour of pinning it all on a magic baby.

I have some lowkey fears that Guts “bleeding” for Casca is gonna be a thing, largely based on me recently re-reading the scene where Farnese gets upset about everything Guts has done for her while bathing her. Like yk, maybe Casca will remember Guts saving her and warm up to him... tho in all honesty I can’t actually think of an example of Guts being the one to save her post-Eclipse lmao, he fucks it up every time. Maybe when he first put on the armour and killed an apostle in front of her or w/e, yk. Some shit like that. Like I can come up with 50 counter arguments but those only work if you accept the basic premise that Berserk will be good, yk?

The fear that we are meant to understand that Guts has overcome most of his flaws throughout the Millenium Falcon/Fantasia arcs and will get a big moment to demonstrate that and overcome the armour or save Casca or whatever.

And less speculatively and more generally, like many people I’m not a fan of the current art style, I think the larger cast on Guts’ side is causing some poor writing and not helping the pacing issues (and tbh I think Berserk is paced fairly well up until the boat stuff), I don’t like the lighter more comedic tone right now bc I got into Berserk for the grimdark vibe and tragedy and characters succumbing to their fatal flaws and making huge mistakes and I miss that a lot. I’m not saying Berserk can’t be light and funny and campy but I prefer that Black Swordsman or Conviction Arc style where it’s offset by a lot of fucked up shit, or Golden Age style where there’s an underlying sense of dread bc we already know shit’s going to go wrong, yk? If shit does get dark soon I might end up being a lot less critical of the current tone on re-read tbf.

So basically to sum up:

hopes: tragedy, character flaws that haven’t been dealt with yet coming home to roost, Moonlight Boy becomes a non-issue.

fears: power of friendship staves off tragedy, slower gtsca romance, moonbaby affects plot and emotions, guts’ flaws get brushed under the rug instead of fucking him over

I can argue that the former makes a lot more sense than the latter, but I’ve been burned a lot in my life and I know a lot of fans would argue the latter makes more sense than the former so yk, everyone has their biases including me and idk how blinded I am by those biases lol.

Anyway ty for asking!

#Anonymous #a #ask #theme: speculation #theme: critique #arc: f #theme: opinion

[captain-sodapop]

actually genuinely curious whether destiel antis are this way bc they’re homophobic or can’t get over the toxicity of the ship bc i def understand their latter but no one even,,, addresses it in their hate??

Hi!

I mean, let’s be real: for some of them, it’s definitely homophobia.  Not a valid reason for not liking destiel, and certainly not why I don’t ship it.  However, I do not know of anyone in my immediate circle who dislikes it for that reason.  In fact, I would be shocked if that were the case, considering so many of my friends on here ship sastiel, deanxbenny, jodyxdonna, dreamhunter, etc.  For me - and I think the majority of others (at least, I hope) it has nothing to do with it being an mlm ship.  There are other reasons why I don’t ship them (under the cut because it got pretty long):

1) I just...don’t like it?  Like, it’s that simple.  I’m not into seeing Dean and Cas together romantically.  From what I can tell, most of the general audience falls in this category, too.  I obviously don’t think it’s inherently wrong to ship it, and I try not to generalize.  i follow and have followers who ship destiel, and they’re lovely people!  I’m personally just not into it.  I literally cannot picture a romantic or sexual relationship between these two characters. 

2) There are certainly toxic elements to it, like you mentioned, and I think a lot of people notice this.  Nobody on this show is perfect, but it’s hard for me to look at Dean and Cas - who argue and belittle each other more than Cas or Sam, or Cas and Jack - and be like “oh yeah that’s true love.”  And often it’s Dean and his temper getting in the way of this.  Not to mention that Dean only recently forgave Cas for what happened to his mother, and that “apology” in 15x09 wasn’t really an apology for his previous behavior.  Yes, it was good to see Dean admit to having a horrible temper and let Cas know that he cares about him and forgives him, but it wasn’t truly an apology.  I just think that for as much as I enjoy their friendship, their relationship with each other doesn’t suit romance.  Look at Sam and Cas - I don’t ship sastiel, either, really, but I can see that their relationship is much more relaxed and understanding.  Plus there’s the fact that Dean (and Sam, of course, but he clearly wasn’t 100% on board and regretted it almost instantly) manipulated Jack and was willing to kill him, and Cas...Jack was Cas’s kid first, beloved and wanted, and even if Dean and Cas can be friends again, how do you even move on from that, really?  There are more examples of the more toxic element, but I’m already sorta getting long-winded here.

3) I ship Cas with other people, and so do others, so they just prefer him with someone else.  Totally cool, too.

4) I firmly and enthusiastically agree that people should have whatever headcanons they want and ship just about whatever they want (I also am firmly and enthusiastically against any pedophillic or incestuous ships, just so you know).  You think Dean is bi?  Awesome!  Sam is trans?  Love it!  Angels are on the autism spectrum?  I can totally see it!  Headcanons and shipping can make interacting with a text more personal and fun.  And text can definitely be open to interpretation, so it’s not even necessarily wrong to interpret Dean as bisexual.  But the way I read canon, Dean is straight.  I have never seen him express sexual or romantic interest in another man.  I’ve seen him acknowledge that another man is attractive, sure, but that’s normal.  I can admit that another woman is attractive, but still not want to be with her.  So for me, unless it’s explicitly stated in canon in these last seven episodes, I think it’s canon that Dean is straight and wouldn’t be interested in Cas anyway.  We can agree to disagree - I certainly welcome it! - but I’m someone who adheres pretty strictly to canon, usually.  And that’s how I see the canon.

5) One of the things I think supernatural has done better than a lot of other shows is show that families and friendships come in many forms.  To me, Team Free Will is a unit, and it would feel weird to me if any of them became romantically involved with each other, as if the dynamic had been thrown off-balance.  Same reason I don’t ship any of the boys in The Outsiders together - they’re a band of brothers, not necessarily related by blood, but a found family.  So when Dean says to Cas that he and Sam view Cas as a brother, then a romantic relationship between any of them would just feel...off to me.  

6) Finally, looking at the story and the character arcs and considering the character games, I do not see Dean ending up in a romantic relationship, or even wanting it.  Casual sex?  Yep.  A home?  Yep yep.  A family?  Yes, yes, yes a thousand times.  But a family, like I said above, can look like many things.  I also can’t see Cas ending up in a romantic relationship or wanting one (even though I ship megstiel.)  It’s just not where their stories seem to be headed.  Sam?  Sure.  I think the show is setting up him and Eileen to share some sort of romantic relationship in some capacity (which - woohoo!  At least on my end.)  But even then, that’s up in the air.  Romance is honestly the least of the characters’ - and especially the story’s - worries.  They have many much more pressing matters to attend to that need to be resolved first before any real talk of romance.

7) I feel like I should mention this even though it doesn’t have to do with the ship or the characters directly, but on the whole?  The destiel community is incredibly toxic.  Harassing cast and crew, harassing fans who disagree with them, superiority complexes, fetishization, unwillingness to listen to outside perspectives, believing their read of canon is the be-all end-all, and a dynamic that to me is eerily similar to the old Harry Potter fandom’s Inner Circle (of Cassandra Clare and msscribe fame).  This obviously doesn’t apply to every individual who ships destiel, but in general I don’t find the whole group pleasant to interact with or very welcoming.  It kinda turns you off the ship to know that’s the community you’re dealing with, and if/when destiel doesn’t go canon?  The toxicity will increase tenfold.  Hell, it’ll increase even if it does because their egos will go through the roof.  

I hope that clears some things up for you.  Once again, the fact that it’s an mlm ship IS NOT THE PROBLEM.  If anyone says that’s why they don’t ship it, fuck ‘em.  And there are many individual destiel shippers who are wonderful and I love interacting with, and are very understanding and accepting and non-toxic.  But these are the reasons I don’t ship it, so I’m sorry if I haven’t made that clear in the past.  I think a lot of people share the same reasoning, too, so I’m sorry if they haven’t made that clear either.  I know I sometimes get caught up in the wank and making jokes, and so do others, and our reasons for not shipping it can get lost in that.  I’m not trying to make any personal attacks.

But thank you for asking this, and I hope this cleared some things up for you!

#hope this helps! #supernatural #destiel #anti destiel #dean winchester #castiel #abby speaks

[jonathanrook]

legally i have to give you intern 2

em you have awoken an ungodly beast inside me so i need to warn everyone that this post is. incomprehensible. but so is mymusic so i guess we're all used to it.

How I feel about this character:

i watched mymusic as it was airing/running/coming out specifically bc i'm a jack stannie, and as a kid melvin was my second favorite character (w scene being in first, obvs) for mostly that reason. he basically hovered around this ranking until my most recent rewatch in the summer of 2020, which was actually spurred by some events in my personal life that vaguely reminded me of scene's season two arc w jeff, and i thought it'd been a funny/nostalgic way to get my mind off things.

(i want to side note here that -- i know you didn't ask, but -- i love jeff. i have since i was a kid. like, obviously not as a person but i think he's honestly the best written character in the series, w indie close in second. idk what it says about the f*nes that their most interesting and well rounded characters are the villains, but i digress. to this day i'm salty that jeff never got added to the theme song and wasn't really included in promotional merch.)

however, in said rewatch, certain things about how he was written started to really get under my skin, and certain moments in particular have really stuck out to me in a negative way. like, for the entirety of season one and a good chunk of season two he's one person, and then he leaves mymusic and we have an entirely different person, but not in a nuanced character building sort of way.

i've said a few of these points before but i'll repeat them here regardless. at the risk of sounding like i've put on a tin-foil hat, it's my sneaking suspicion that scindie was supposed to be endgame, but since fan reception to it was pretty neutral, and scenechart stans were, at the very least, more vocal, changes were made to the intended finale, which is why in the last scene he's basically just. indie. like, if everything about the show was exactly the same but indie was the one who had ended up w scene in the end that would have made so much more sense since a) scene had a crush on indie that he/everyone knew about and b) indie was kind of a dick despite the half-assed attempts at redemption, so both combined make it slightly less weird/out-of-nowhere that he kisses her w/o her consent (since, even though like. implied consent is not real at worst and a fuzzy subject at best but you could argue that scene would want indie to kiss her); and this isn't even taking into consideration that c) melvin is heavily queer-coded in both seasons, with his friendship with nerdcore being, dare i say, homoerotic at times, and his arc about leaving the company and changing his name mirroring nerdcore's almost perfectly (with nerdcore being a character who b*nny [at least] has all but confirmed is actually gay).

i've also been on the fence about melvin's behavior in that final scene making more sense for indie's character being an intentional decision as a way of shoe-horning in a theme about the lasting effects of abuse/cycles of abuse/the corruption of power but i also don't think the f*nes are smart enough for that. however, for the sake of defending my straw theory, i also point to the scene where indie comes to visit the acid factory after melvin told him to shut up, and we see melvin use reggie as a foot-stool, going as far as to say that it feels good to do so (which, in all honesty, i think is a bit that was entirely improvised, since the f*nes were "notorious for never saying cut" [paraphrased from a bts video], but work w me here). he's also given a seltzer mug that perfectly resembles indie's kombucha mug. in these moment melvin is directly emulating the behavior of his previous abuser, purposefully or not, literal moments after being promoted to an equal position of authority, which was totally just included as a joke, but could also be argued is meant to show that he's becoming indie; or, if we acknowledge that the f*nes have no fucking clue what they're doing and were just directing like chickens with their heads cut off, it at least shows that melvin's new position of power is leading him to understand where indie was coming from, which is supported by their conversation in the finale.

the following contains a couple brief mentions of irl sexual assault so if that's something you'd like to avoid skip to the next section!

HOWEVER, that alone isn't what i have a problem with, since i think melvin is completely justified in being a dick to indie (and also reggie enthusiastically consents to being used as an ottoman so good for him i guess). the issue comes completely in how he treats scene in the scenes where the f*nes clearly thought what they were writing was super romantic. like, the fact that the only thing he's got hung on his cubicle wall is a single picture of scene taken from the fucking opening credits (like. how hard would it have been to have. literally any other photo[s] esp since there's an abundance of cute bts pics of the cast in costume that could have been put there) and him scrolling through her twitter at work really creep me out (and at the risk of oversharing the weird, like, social media stalking angle really fucks w me bc that may or may not have been the exact fucking thing i was trying to escape in rewatching mymusic in the first place). also, having him sexually assault scene as a means of comforting her after she had just been sexually assaulted in the same way by someone else was... a choice (which is also, uh, personally familiar).

again, i recognize that demonizing melvin wasn't what the f*nes were trying to do here, and i perhaps seem hypocritical for opening liking jeff, but what makes jeff work is he's intentionally "the bad guy." having melvin do the same things as indie and jeff uncritically only proves further that the f*nes can't write for shit, and ruins his character which had, up until he quit mymusic, been unironically good. like, it's obviously not beneficial that the exact asshole things he does are personally triggering, but the character would still be a mess and i would still dislike him regardless.

i want to say though that jack delivers a surprisingly great performance despite how shoddily his character is constructed and how little experience he has as an actor. like, it's clear he was having a lot of fun on set and i would love to see him in something, like, good; i think he could pull off even like, guest television roles, which is a lot more than can be said for other youtubers.

-----

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

nerdchart should have been canon i'm sorry. i know that close, nonromantic male friendships are valuable, esp between queer men, but also gd wouldn't it have been baller to have a canon interracial mlm ship. like. c'mon. and they could have been such a good friends to lovers story! we already got to see how melvin was the only person nerdcore could really be himself around so it would have been so cool if melvin's self-advocacy arc/flowchart arc had revolved more around nerdcore with a little role-reversal! and then they kiss! like god intended!

also i ship him and indie bc i'm a grubby little gremlin man ohoho. enemies w weird sexual tension? sign me up. not even enemies to lovers i'm not saying this one should have been canon i just love the vibes. do you think melvin and indie ever explored each other's bod-- *gunshot*

-----

My non-romantic OTP for this character:

i wish him and scene had just been bros. god remember in season one when they were just bros that was the life.

alternatively, i wish we'd seen more bonding w him and metal, as a means of reconciling that. uh. moment from season one. along similar lines i would have loved to see him get closer w rayna in a similar way to how she bonded w nerdcore in season two. i think that could have also worked to show how she'd grown between the two seasons.

-----

My unpopular opinion about this character:

HIM. AND. SCENE. SHOULD. HAVE. JUST. BEEN. BROS. (though i think my general dislike of him is pretty unpopular, lmao).

when the show was coming out i don't think it's unfair to say that scenechart/scenetern 2 was the most popular ship (aside from potentially techstep whatever) but luckily we're all gay and have better taste now. unfortunately i totally fell into this camp and scenechart was even my otp for years (until it was arguably more unfortunately usurped by reddie in 2019) and i didn't even realise that it's a hot mess until, again, the summer of 2020.

when actually watching the show the choices the f*nes made in regards to how the ship actually became canon are so odd and out of place, too? okay, so, on one hand everyone just shipped scenechart bc it was the whitest hettiest ship in the show (esp in season two when idol left) aside from scindie (and we already discussed what's wrong w that). but, on the other hand, lainey and jack clearly also just got along? and i suspect that lainey probably also admired jack's work and was happy to be working with him bc we have so many shots throughout even the first season when the ship wasn't the intended endgame of lainey scene looking really fondly at jack melvin at times when it doesn't make much sense at all, esp since she's smitten w indie? this trend continues into the second season which arguably works but it still seems really out of place for him to be the one to ultimately make the first move on her since it's clear she was the one crushing this whole time and also he's gay! this bitch is gay what the fuck!!

-----

One thing I wish had happened with this character in canon:

at this point i'm struggling to think of anything i haven't covered yet. oops.

i've talked at length before about how he should have been a woman/lesbian, but the tl;dr is that it would have solved a lot of the queer-coding "problems" that just didn't get resolved in the show. if he'd been a lesbian then not only would the friendship w nerdcore still made sense, but scenechart would have as well (not even mentioning that both of scene's other relationships w men make a lot of sense as comphet anyway).

#long post #this took me an hour to write i literally had to get a snack in the middle of it #mymusicshow #mymusic show #question #mlentertainment #also having a character named scene when you have to write about scenes like. in a story is an absolute bitch

[gayregis]

tbh as a polish person genuinely vibing with any kind of mostly english speaking witcher fandom is kinda hard bc theres just. so many small mistakes and just a feeling of Wrongness in the translation that couldve been fully avoided? like using womanizer instead of whoremonger for dandelion or saying comrade instead of friend etc and like im mad bc with some more effort it couldve been done way better and actually carried over more of the og atmosphere for international readers And It Didnt

i agree with you from the ‘can only read the english translations’ side. i feel like definitely the official UK translations shifted a lot of the meanings, of course i do not know how it is in every single scene, but from the lengthy posts i’ve read on reddit, some posts i’ve read on tumblr, and conversations i’ve had with mutuals over discord, plus just generally reading the books and saying to myself “wait, this doesn’t sound... cohesive?” i agree that are are a lot of changes that shift the perspective. 

one part of this is the deliberate mistranslation of general vocabulary used with the intention (i think) to give a more “medieval-ish fantasy” vibe to the work. i feel like david and danusia really went for some british slang that gives it a more “english medieval” feel (or at least, how medieval england is conceived of in the modern english-speaking imagination), when more widely-known words without such specific connotations (for the speaker and for the subject) would be more appropriate. 

for example, i have heard that a lot of the translations of “maiden” or “wench” are more akin to “girl/woman” in the original text. another example is “comely lad” VS “pretty boy,” two translations (the former official, the latter fan-translated) that mean the same thing essentially but the former one is “brit-ified” (to me, at least). and i know that sometimes the translators chose specific words to keep a “peasant-speak” vibe with the usage of specific language, for example, with milva, but instead of being confined to peasantry, it extends across a lot of characters. 

another part is figures of speech that don’t translate over due to being polish-specific idioms, or being reliant on the polish grammar structure. imo the translators are too eager to replace these with english figures of speech/idioms. a lot of the time when polish fans have pointed this out and said, this is different in the original text, the original idiom is so-and-so, which basically means this-and-this, i am able to understand the translated idiom, when it is in context. 

for example, i believe that in the english version of baptism of fire dandelion says to regis, “was it just you and your shadow?” and regis replies, “worse, i don’t even cast one.” but in the original text, the exchange goes something more like “were you drinking to the mirror?” “worse, i don’t even show up in mirrors.” the idiom “drinking to the mirror” meaning drinking alone does not exist in english, but it would have been at least a little obvious to me as a reader what the meaning of the idiom is. i suppose it is up to preference, but i would prefer to have the original figures of speech kept intact, with a little footnote at the bottom included for explaining context / what its meaning is.

another part is cultural references and history that end up getting lost. references to other works, etc. 

an example is in the edge of the world when torque says “good night” at the end to geralt and dandelion. without knowing the phrase, “where the devil says goodnight,” this is completely meaningless. and context about polish/broader european history is mostly also lost on a non-polish audience, because it is not something that is basic knowledge.

it doesn’t just extend to polish references, for example, regis quotes cicero quoting one of the seven sages, “omnia mea mecum porto,” basically “all that’s mine i carry with me,” which ig is a nod to how regis is a philosopher and lives simply, is a humanist, etc.

and this isn’t even beginning to touch all of the arthurian stuff he put in there.

mostly, i end up being clueless because i do not know what the original text was, and i know that if i could see the original text, i would not understand it and would need it explained to me. 

i guess a positive side of this is that i like uncovering what was originally said and hearing it explained, scouring the internet for someone who has addressed a specific passage or something... it helps foster some conversation, kind of like two kids comparing christmas presents - what’s in your translation? what’s in your translation? what’s in the original text? - it is fun to see everyone start posting pictures and screenshots of their books, like trying to unravel a mystery as a group, and i enjoy that, especially when there are more international translations than just polish original and english translation, i like seeing the czech, russian, spanish, french translations and then learning things from these languages/cultures/countries because they showed up in the text.

on the other hand, it hinders discussion because if people are operating on different translations, they will have widely different perspectives of the characters based upon what the characters said or how they were described. you are not the only person i’ve heard express this sentiment, and agreed that it’s difficult to “genuinely vibe” across language barriers regarding the series. polish geralt is a totally different character from english geralt, from what i’ve heard, to summarize it.

and even if you do research as an english-speaking person to find out the mistranslations, the meanings behind certain phrases or references, etc., you still will probably never understand it fully, nor will you uncover everything there is to uncover. 

i dislike leaving it like this, but it kind of “is what it is” with the language barriers and translations. a lot of the original atmosphere wasn’t and possibly will never be fully translated over (in some cases, it may be impossible). i would say don’t feel like you “have” to engage with every fan of the witcher books, if you feel you don’t vibe with english speaking witcher fandom that is okay and i hope that no one would judge you for it, everyone should hang out and talk with who they want to hang out and talk with. but i also get the disappointment because you want to connect, but there is just a lack of understanding. it shouldn’t be the burden to fall on you to be like, hey guys actually in the original text this scene is different / you’re misinterpreting this-- but if you ever want to say or make posts like this, i think this would be great and a contribution to the community. i would also say idk if it is possible if the interpretations are extremely different, but some broader themes like family, love, humanity, etc. imo do join the fans of the books in some way or another, big or small, despite how wonky the translations get. and finally, i want to say i am not here to give advice or consolation, because i certanly don’t know what can be done about this, i just want to respond to this and say that you’re not alone.

#it must be extremely frustrating and i think a lot of eng-speaking fans come into the fandom thinking the official translations are translat #(if they are not already familiar with how translations work and that they are usually not perfect or 1:1 translation) #i think a degree of humility is needed but that is difficult to find among many eng-speakers in the us/uk/canada/aus lmao #the witcher #anon #ask

[in-this-body-of-mine]

To The Bone (2017) - Analysis and Charting

Let’s go! I’m NOT excited because life is hard but what better way to distract myself than to do this kind of shit. No one cares, anyways.

Since this is the first one, let me tell you what we’re gonna do here. I’ll include the IMDB summary, a summary with spoilers, the placements in the chart, we’ll go over each item (also, spoilers abound) and finally my review and final thoughts. Yes, it’s gonna be long. Read at your own risk.

IMDB summary:  A young woman, dealing with anorexia, meets an unconventional doctor who challenges her to face her condition and embrace life.

Summary with spoilers: Lily Collins plays Ellen/Eli and from the start of the movie she is on the brink of her disease. She was just kicked out of a recovery center and she gets an appointment with a ~cool unconventional doctor~ played by Keanu Reeves. She goes into ANOTHER inpatient treatment home to be treated by him. Shit happens, she seems to be getting better somehow, but then she spirals down, runs away, and after a... near death experience (I wish this was an euphemism) she decides to try recovery again and goes back to the treatment home. That’s where the movie ends.

Chart placements!

Now for each item:

White: Ellen or Eli is played by Lily Collins, who once played Sandra Bullock’s daughter in that movie were she was a Karen. It doesn’t get whiter than that.

Female: She changes her name to Eli mid film (which is how I’ll be calling her here bc we respect chosen names in this household) but she still seems to identify as female and be referred to as such, so here we have it. We do have a guy in the treatment home, but we’ll come back to him later.

Teenager/Young adult: I’m pretty sure she is 19 but every review I see says she’s 20. Either way, she dropped out of college even though she just started it. The actress, however, was 28 at the time the movie was released.

Wealthy/seemingly well-off: Her family has the money to send her to inpatient a bunch of times, and they make a point to mention how they have connections so she didn’t have to wait in line to see this new doctor. Case closed.

Skinny actress from the start: As we know, Lily Collins is already thin and she did struggle with anorexia in the past. Why, however, did she lose weight for this movie? They said it was her decision “to make the character more authentic”. As if not being skin and bones wouldn’t be enough. As if eating disorders don’t come in every size. They shouldn’t let her. The need to shock people is a very dangerous sign to me.

No distinctive personality or hobbies/interests: I’m glad Eli has a thing she loves. It’s not super present, but it’s there, and it’s plot relevant. She loves art and in the story, she had a tumblr (look, it’s us!) where she shared drawings related to her ED and a girl liked her drawings so much that, when she killed herself, she mentioned Eli by name in a note. But that isn’t really explored too much and I kind of got disappointed by that.

Good student: We don’t really know about that... and I don’t think it matter, it’s ok.

Seemingly irrelevant love interest: Why? Just why do we need Luke? Luke is the only guy in the home, and we can SEE that he’s only there to be Eli’s love interest. He wasn’t needed. None of the important plot points have anything to do with him. Make her date a girl. Make her date NO ONE. This is about eating disorders. She could have closer friends in the house. Why was this necessary. Her whole speech about how love is a lie could come from a friendship but no. They had to shove pretty white boy there.

Daddy issues (sometimes coupled with mommy issues): I find this extremely funny but her dad isn’t in the movie. At all. He’s alive and well, but he makes a point to never come home when Eli is even awake. I don’t think they cast an actor for that. As for mothers, she has three, and it’s a trip. Her stepmom on her dad’s side is very out of touch but she wants what’s best for Eli, but she really hates Eli’s biological mom. Bio mom, in turn, is described as a “bipolar lesbian” and the stereotypes are just... ugh. Bio mom has a wife and she is a bit weird too. They sent Eli to live with her absent dad bc “they couldn’t deal with it anymore”. This brings us to a great scene where we can see Eli shrinking in her seat and when the psychiatrist asks her what she is feeling she says “I’m sorry I’m not a person anymore. I’m a problem.” And that’s great to see. But at the same time, I hate that her whole issue in this movie seems to come from her family and anorexia is just a thing that happened, with some vague references to control. 

*Triggering event*: We never see it and it’s okay - but I kind of wanted some more explorations of motives because we have ZERO.

Anorexia as diagnosis: As I always say, what is even the point of making a cool looking movie about EDs if your protagonist is not only anorexic, but also terminally anorexic? Ugh. That’s the only portrayal of anorexia that happens in media and I’m fucking tired.

Checklist of habits (manual for those looking for one): I mean, I mark this down but as I always say: everything is a manual if you’re looking for one. But if you’re doing more than not eating or purging or exercising I’ll judge it as a new tip. A lot of us already thought of/did most of them probably. But the marking remains.

Inpatient treatment (or extended hospital stay): As I said, she is kicked out of one treatment center and goes straight into another. What fucks me up is that the movie HAS other characters with other diagnosis, but we never see anything about them. We don’t see their journey. We only know Luke is a dancer bc he is the love interest. We only know Megan is pregnant and then she’s not bc this sends Eli in a spiral. We only know Kendra is not straight bc she makes a joke about it (and Doctor Beckham follows with a horrible joke about conversion therapy). Did you notice Ciara Bravo was in this movie? I didn’t on first viewing. She has like two lines. The whole movie is centered around Eli and every scene in the house feels like all the other patients only care about her too.

Emotional tipping point: Megan loses her baby and for some reason this affects Eli. Luke kisses Eli and for some reason she’s pissed. At that point, I was annoyed. She has a bad session with Doctor Beckham who basically tells her to grow a pair and stop complaining (which is insensitive as a doctor, but as a person I wanted to do the same) and she decides to quit and leave. She has to go to her mother’s home and I’m supposed to care. Stepmom is mad but doctor says she needs to hit rock bottom. She weights like 70 pounds dude. Rock bottom was about ten pounds ago, next stop is a coffin, mate.

Mom hugs: And here we have the emotional turn around of the movie and it’s just... make it make sense. She goes to her bio mom’s ranch. Her stepmom # 2 tells they’ll have therapy with horses (?). Eli goes sleep in a tent and bio mom cries and says she accepts if Eli wants to die. Very supportive I guess. They have this weird bonding moment where the mom feeds her a bottle like a baby and look, if you liked that, good for you, but I don’t get what I was supposed to feel about it (but that’s mom hug #1). She goes on a hike next morning and... dies? Either way she has an out of body experience where she talks to Luke and sees how she looks - which is weird to me. Didn’t we go over this in the beggining of the movie? Didn’t we establish that she does know what she looks like and doesn’t care? But still she seems shocked and they have a cryptical conversation and she wakes up. And just like that, she’s ok now. She meets up with the other stepmom (mom hug # 2) and goes back to the home.

Happy ending: In the last scene Eli is back to the home and we understand she’s going to try to recover for real this time. I’m okay with that specifically, I think it would be bad if they pretended she just got better with no relapses and everything is fine, but it’s a hopeful ending. Despite the fact that we have no idea if she won’t have a fit and leave in two days and that we never know anything about anyone else and Megan, who lost the baby, never comes back. It’s fine. At that point, I didn’t expect much.

Analysis: I was hesitant to be critical bc this movie was based on the real life experiences of the director and Lily Collins. But fuck it, this is my circus and I’ll clown as much as I want. While I do understand that, I have a lot of thoughts.

Mainly, I need to say that while I understand this is her story, this is a story that was told so many times. I’m tired.

The general public that wants to defend the movie says “well you can’t tell ALL stories”, and while I agree, these people probably only saw this movie about the subject. If you HAVE (or had) and eating disorder, you probably saw tons. And they ALL tell the same story. Which is why I started that chart in the first place.

This movie does have good moments. I do like the acting, I saw people complaining about Keanu Reeves performance - but I do know these were people who disliked the movie entirely. I think his performance was great, Lily Collins performance was great, and their chemistry was great. The best scenes in the movie happened between the two of them. The one thing that I LOVED was their first interaction when he calls her on her bullshit. “You’re not thin, you scare people, and I think you like that.” YES. I never heard anyone talk about that. And I guess I’ll never will, bc the movie itself never talk about this again either. Also when she justifies the tumblr where her art triggered a girl so much, she says that she was just drawing what she knows, he calmly tells her that she can draw, but she doesn’t have to share it online tho. I liked their interactions because often ED patients are treated with silk gloves (is that the expression?) and sometimes there is a need for some though love. I also love Liana Liberato who plays her sister and that’s about it.

The problem with the doctor ends up being: what’s his method? How are you going to cure her? The method makes no sense. I don’t see the reasoning. I don’t think anyone does. And somehow it works and she goes back there. 

I think my major problem with the movie is that it has the same issues every ED portrayal before it. It’s the same story again. I think it shines the most in the whole “it’s not about food, it’s about control!”. It IS about food though. For a lot of people, it is. Maybe not for this director or for Lily Collins, but for so many people it is about food. It’s about control as well, and it is possible that there is other factors related to it, but you can’t chalk it all up to a control issue and pretend it’s just whatever. If the food didn’t matter, it wouldn’t be an eating disorder.

Because of that, we have this heavy focus on her family issues and nothing to do with food. We have people trying to rationalize - maybe it’s bc your mom is a lesbian, maybe it’s bc i didn’t bond with you as a baby - and all that does is to make her lesbian bipolar mother seem like a crazy asshole and her dad seem like an absent asshole as if this is the only factor here. Give me SOMETHING. Any connection to food. Any sense. Nope. She just won’t eat bc her family is fucked up. Hoe, that’s all of us.

And I think the movie unintentionally DOES glamourize anorexia. Subtly, yes, but it does. Eli has SUCH an easy time refusing food. She doesn’t seem to think about food as much as she thinks about herself and her family and Luke and being annoying. She knows a bunch of calories and she overexercises. Idk.  Not to mention that moment when Kendra asks her about purging and she says “it’s not her thing”. I mean. It is no one’s thing. No one likes it. It’s a compulsion. And if you have anorexia that severe and you are not with a feeding tube, you do eat every now and then, and you do have purging mechanisms. If she had said she prefers overexercising as a purging mechanism than to throw up, I would believe her. But the movie acts as if she just never eats ever and somehow she’s still standing. Give her a feeding tube then. It would be more believable.

I know it sounds kind of ranty, but my point here is: this extremely anorexic girl, that looks like a sack of bones, and gets that by never eating and doing crunches all the time, it is the wet dream of a fatphobic society with a 71 billion weight loss industry. This is the dreamy and frugal idea of anorexia that people have when they are deep into the illness - not when they recovered as the people involved say they did. I get that this is a very personal project. But it’s flawed. It doesn’t do anyone any favors. It just tells the same story, for the millionth time, but since this time it was in a big platform, more people saw it, and it was better done, with a better budget and with a good enough resolution so I can see every bone in Lily Collins body.

Anyway, that’s it for today. If you read all of that, thanks. Since this is Netflix, I’m assuming everyone saw, but the other movies are out there and if you need liks, hit me up. Be back soon.

#eating disorders #eds #pro ana #not pro and you know the rest #to the bone #thinspo #thinspiration #ed things #eds in media #thinsppi #anorekcia

[animaniachan]

A3! Act 3 Episode 9 Summary

Please read through this note before you start reading the summary!

whhhhew, finally finished episode 9 and THE EMOTIONS ARE ROLLING-😭😭

but ofc being the maniac that i am ive decided to provide a full summary of episode 9 for those who are interested!

Be warned that this is MAJOR STORY SPOILERS so i would recommend you be at least finished act 2 and all the events leading up to it before you read this. Otherwise you’ll probably have a hard time understanding the full context of things.

The last note I want to make is that this won’t be a detail-for-detail summary! I still want to keep things decently vague so people can still have the joy of experiencing the story for themselves while still providing adequate information to clear up any confusions and speculations. This summary will basically be a rough outline of the story that highlights some of the major events that went on. This summary will follow the order of how the episode played out, all the events will be listed in order.

Ofc, if anybody has any specific questions regarding the story that they want clarified or just simply want to discuss episode 9: always feel free to shoot in an ask or dm me! I’m always happy to provide with information and/or rant about these precious boys!

Well, without further ado, here y’all go~~

WARNING: EXTREMELY LONG POST AND MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD~

the new groups of people now are the following:

High schoolers- Yuki/Muku/Azami/Kumon

Yosei University- Juza/Tsuzuru/Tenma/Taichi

Amabi- Kazunari/Banri

Adult group is still adult group~~

Apparently Tenma’s parents decided it would be a good idea to let him attend university so it was decided on the spot that he would be going through exams. He had to get Chikage to tutor to barely scrape by passing bc of how busy he was. Taichi on the other hand....Tsumugi the GOAT-

Omi now works as a professional photographer through a job his friend introduced him to.

Masumi decided to go to Fuyou University which is Tasuku and Tsumugi’s old university to study. Misumi’s brother, Madoka, also studies there. Although Madoka does not look like it, he’s actually 19... I know...

Azami decided to attend the same high school as Kumon which warms my heart honestly bc it just showed how good of friends they’ve become <3~~ Here’s his new uniform look <333

not sure how i feel about the red hoodie but eh, boy can pull it off so it doesn’t matter aha~

Guy is apparently opening up a new Zahra style bar with the help of the winter troupe members such as Homare who introduced him to an interior design company (same company that installed that brick wall in his room orz). Hisoka will also be helping out in Guy’s bar.

The entirety of Reni’s backstory (5 episodes in total) which describe his initial meeting with Yukio during high school to how they built Mankai together was described through the format of portraits (the autumn troupe signature). HIs backstories are basically just narrations of Act 3 1/2 if any of you read that when it was first posted.

Reni’s real name is apparently “Kamikizaka Reiji” and “Reni” is a nickname that Yukio gave him in high school bc Yukio thought that his real name was too hard to write out in kanji and pronounce lolol.

Reni keeps a journal which documents his time with Yukio (basically Act 3 1/2) in a safe in his office.

Kasumi’s nickname back in the day was apparently “Juriko”: stems from “Juliette” and “ko” which is a way to feminize someone’s name in Japanese. This was because he was the crossdresser that had to play Juliette in the OG spring troupe RomiJuri- heh.

 Shifuto is now the new “top” in GOD Troupe after Tasuku and Haruto who got demoted.

FRIEND ANGST BETWEEN AZAMI AND SHIFUTO HNGHHH and that’s all I’m willing to say oop-

GOD Troupe challenged Mankai to an act-off once again and this time appointed Tsumugi as the lead and Tasuku to be in the play and the theme as “devil” and thus...Devil Tsumugi was born.

The company was initially debating on whether to accept the challenge or not but Tsumugi and Taichi desperately wanted to show Reni who they have become as an actor and prove him wrong on all the things he’s said to them. Basically, everyone who was casted for this play had their own reasons on why they wanted to act.

Misumi’s dad’s name is revealed to be “Kusumi” which literally means nine-points/sides and I- top 10 betrayals? I was certain that his name will have something to do with a square but apparently not-

Although it was briefly revealed during Sky Pirates, Misumi’s dad is the official script writer for GOD Troupe. However, it is shown here that he has absolutely no talent in writing so what he does is get Madoka to act as his ghostwriter and write for him.

Hence this birthed Madoka’s complex of wanting to write in his own free will and not under the control of his father. Since everything he writes gets “edited” by his father but everything his father edited gets rejected by Reni and so Madoka has to fix it himself anyways.

Returning to backstory, Reni revealed that Yukio legit went to visit Misumi’s grandpa (Hakkaku) as a senior high school student to ask him for a script. As a note, Hakkaku was already a very famous script writer at that time and age wise he is about what both their dads would be. Ofc he was refused many times but Yukio wouldn’t give up and would not stop pestering Hakkaku until he finally caved in.

Honestly I loved the autumn and winter troupe dynamic throughout this entire episode- just the way they supported Taichi and Tsumugi is just-

Kumon had to act as the mediator between Azami and Shifuto to try and recover their friendship and the entire process was hilarious.

Yukio and Reni were actually Yuzo and Kasumi’s high school seniors at Nanakusa High. Yuzo was the “ghost member” that was only member of drama club in-name only that was mentioned earlier.

NAMIKAWA DAISUKE’S VOICE IN KASUMI- *deaded counter x1* as a tiny side note: i realized half way through that Tezuka (Reni), Sanada (Yuzo), and Ootori (Kasumi) were in the same high school together bc of their seiyuus. This is for my TeniPuri fans out there haha~~

During their last performance in high school, Yukio and Reni got boycotted by the other junior members right before their play. Reni ended up forcing a reluctant Yukio to go at speak act out the monologue Hakkaku provided for them and everybody ended up being overwhelmed by Yukio’s performance.

This is what ended up making Reni dedicate his post high school life creating Mankai with Yukio, he wants to see Yukio act on stage again. He describes Yukio’s acting as “someone who was chosen by God” and even went as far as using his own money his parents gave him when they kicked him out (strict family bs) to build the initial theatre while they both worked part-time. Reni was the one who designed the entire theatre according to Yukio’s wishes to “make it long lasting”. However, Yukio revealed to him that he has no desire to stand on stage again and instead wants to make others “full bloom”, this invoked a sense of betrayal in Reni.

Reni was also the one who recruited Syu, his childhood friend, into the theatre. From there on, Yuzo and Kasumi also joined. Kasumi was revealed to also be garbage at acting at first but Yukio appointed him as lead for their first play nonetheless.

There is apparently some outside force wanting to ruin Mankai as they even went as far as stealing a part of Tsuzuru’s script and provided it to Misumi’s dad who ended up plagiarizing. It is later revealed that Reni had nothing to do with this so it is currently unknown who the main perpetrator is.

 In order to get a better grasp on his devil character, Tsumugi opted to spend one day with each of the other winter troupe members (Homare, Hisoka, and Azuma) individually. This is to get more insight from people who had lived such different lives and accumulated such different experiences. Honestly, one of the most heartwarming moments ever.

MY ANGST MAN IS HERE WITH HIS FIRST APPEARANCE!!! SAKURAI TAKAHIRO’S VOICE OMGGGGG *deaded counter x2*

He met Tsumugi in front of the GOD Theatre and asked him to “save” Reni.

On the day of the performance, Tsumugi and Taichi decided to walk to the theatre. They met Banri and Juza along the way who were planning to do a street act to release some energy. On their way, they ended up being surrounded by numerous punks who were presumably sent by the same outside force who stole Tsuzuru’s script.

The night before the actual performance, the plagiarism was revealed to both sides and both sides were just as much caught off guard by this. Reni, however, refused to change the direction of the play since it was too risky as the performance is the next day. However, Shifuto refused to act out something that is plagiarized since he promised Azami that they would have a “fair fight like men”.

And so, he managed to convince Haruto to use Madoka’s script that he has written for the first time according to free will and changed the entire play in one night. With the help of Haruto’s authority, they managed to do it in time. (I’ve failed to mention this until now but these three has been building up chemistry all through out this episode and im so down for them tbh)

Banri told Juza to take Tsumugi and Taichi and go ahead while he stays behind to try and buy some time alone against all the men. Just when Banri was in a tight spot due to power in number...

BAM THIS OLD MAN COMES IN AND SAVES THE DAY!! by now y’all already know... YASUMOTO HIROKI’S VOICE HAAAAAAAAAH *deaded counter x3*

After Banri revealed to Zen that he was autumn troupe leader of Mankai, Zen gave him a card of his restaurant, “Gentiana” and promised to treat them to a meal there afterwards.

Costume reveal for GOD Troupe. Honestly, I love the chemistry that was built throughout this episode between Shifuto, Haruto, and Madoka. Haruto really did give out redeeming qualities and i don’t dislike him as much as before aha (even tho he is still a snob) and I acknowledge him as a character. Madoka’s script consisted of two characters and basically talks about two estranged brothers (his way of writing down his guilt for towards Misumi)

Costume reveal for Mankai as many of you probably have seen already- devil tsumugi and sexy tasuku is just-

 In terms of actual in-game plays, this was the second play that I’ve actually cried at, the first being Clockwork. Super emotional and well-written play and certainly it draws a lot of parallels to Sympathy for the Angel.

SAME RENI...JUST-SAME. TT

After the performances...i won’t reveal who won and by how much but Reni did officially apologize for all his past actions as he was reminded of his passion for acting through this play. Izumi thought this too but it is hard to 100% forgive him bc of the pain he’s brought on all the members.

He revealed why he quit Mankai, it was bc he and Yukio had become so divided that if he had stayed, the entire balance of Mankai would fall to ruins. He actually came to the conclusion to leave after being trapped in the time loop with Yukio for about three days aha~

Reni decided to create GOD Troupe bc he wanted them to win the Fleur Awards first and crush Mankai, that way, he may have the chance one day to accepted a lost Yukio in his troupe as an actor and not a director (obsessed much my dude??)

The last part of the episode is Reni wanting to talk to Izumi about the Ikaruga family and being invited to Mankai Dorms as a result. There he reminisced the days with the OGs before we are left with a cliffhanger-

Even though he only talked for two lines but ONO DAISUUUUKE~~~ *deaded counter x4*

The very last scenes showcased how the OGs are starting to come back together as they will be getting involved with the new Mankai members.

THIS OLD MAN LEGIT WENT AND HELPED THEM PICK CABBAGE I-

LOOK AT THIS EXPRESSION HE IS SO PRECIOUS-

~❀❀❀~

that concludes the rough summary of episode 9! i...this was an ordeal to get through aha and sorry for it ended up being such a long post...It was inevitable bc this episode consisted of 39 chapters. 

Honestly im so dead by the end of this that i didnt have the heart to check for any grammar mistakes so there’re probably quite a few that i ask you kindly to just ignore~ 🥺🥺

now, time to dig a hole and cry until episode 10 comes out...☠️😇😭

#BigDead.jpg #ill record my funeral #SO MANY EMOTIONS I- #THIS WAS SUCH A GOOD EP THO~~ #yona translates #a3! #a3! translation #a3! game #act! addict! actors! #act addict actors #japanese voice actors #japanese version #act 3 #act 3 spoilers #a3! tsumugi #a3! azami #a3! taichi #a3! tasuku #hinamori kasumi #hyuga hiro #kuryu zen #otomiya syu

[gra-sonas]

I saw one of the interviews that said M/M/A was what the fans deserved. Honestly it's sort of expected to have something of "shock value" is shows now but how do you think RNM read their fandom's reaction so badly because I don't think it went down quite how they expected(!) or did they have an inkling this could happen? I have no idea but just wondered if you could shed some light because I've never seen something so divisive before!

I don’t think they expected the kind of backlash they got. At all. The way Heather’s been talking about it in interviews, they seemed to genuinely believe that people would be excited, and that this was something fans wanted.

Not everyone, sure, but I doubt they had any idea how many people wouldn’t like it, would even be triggered by it (which is what’s been dismissed pretty hard bc apparently shitty audio’s somehow the audience’s fault, and anyone with triggers should’ve just waited for others to watch and tell them if any trigger-y stuff would be in the episode 😑).

What I don’t understand is how any of them thought this is something the majority of fans would like and be on board with? Reactions last year have been a very clear indication that most people didn’t want this love triangle in the first place, and that Michael’s choice was mostly disliked.

The lack of build up, the fact that it was one of Alex’s (supposedly) best friends, that Alex was the one being left alone at the end of S1 - none of it was received well. Fans were upset and angry, and no, they weren’t just mad bc of their ship. It’s just such a lazy excuse to dismiss any criticism with “These are just angry shippers.”

I would like to think they had good intentions when they were filming S1 and thought this would work, but it turned out, it didn’t. It SO did not work. Apparently they ignored all critical and negative feedback from last year though, and decided to make things exceptionally worse this season.

I just... if consumers tell a company they don’t like the scent of their product, do you think the company would be hellbent on making the scent people don’t like even more intense? Dismissing feedback so completely makes no sense unless you’re exceptionally petty and have none of your own money to lose, I guess.

Of course, consumers don’t get to dictate company decisions, just like viewers don’t get to decide on how a TV show should be written. But if a large percentage of your audience tells you they didn’t like what you did in one season, and list a number of valid reasons, maybe, just maybe it would’ve been a good idea to look at them and take some of them into account?

Some things in regards to the S1 triangle mess could’ve been fixed early on in S2, instead they decided on the nuclear option and ultimately let it all go up in flames in 2x06.

One previously already side-lined and underdeveloped female character ruined for a lot of people (bc of her behavior and the fact that there were zero repercussions, not just in that episode, it’s a long list of decisions the writers made for the character since 1x09, 2x06 was just the straw that broke the camel’s back), a ship torn apart (for some irredeemably), a lot of people not just upset but many severely triggered, one fan favorite character walking off in tears.

If I was a show runner, this is NOT the reaction I’d want my work to cause. I understand that they’re working in a bubble most of the time, the scripts inform them better about character motivations, they talk about these scenes in the writers room, with the actors, they film scenes from different angles, sometimes they even film a different outcome of a scene, and during the editing process it’s all thrown together to make a 42 minute episode.

As an audience, we only get to see the final product, though. We don’t get to read the scripts (unless snippets are shared with us for gas lighting reasons), we don’t usually get outtakes or hear cast/writers/directors talk about their [character’s] intentions other than in interviews.

What we got in the aftermath, was a show runner dismissing all valid criticism, basically gas lighting a rather large group of people. There’s being defensive, and then there’s that.

I know she got a lot of flak, and not everyone voiced their criticism in the most eloquent way, and some people were downright rude. Being rude is never okay, and I get that it can be hard to make a difference between rude people and people bringing up their concerns and worries more calmly, when there are so many people reaching out.

But if it’s that overwhelming, taking a step back from social media until things have calmed down should be the approach, instead of lashing out at everyone who doesn’t shower the episode in praise. 😑

I don’t know where the show will go from here, whether ratings will be affected next week and in the following weeks. But I know I have lost what little faith I had left in the person in charge of the show. I never reached out to her (I just don’t see the point), but as someone heavily affected by this episode, seeing my reaction being so rudely dismissed, hurt more than I thought it would.

Any hopes I had that the rather diverse S2 writers room would be an influence for the better, also evaporated. It’s become pretty clear that there’s just one person making all the decisions. That’s why expect that the rest of the show will mostly be the same kind of all-over-the-place-and-time-jumpy clusterfuck we’ve seen so far.

#nonnie asks #the dismissal is what hurts most tbh #and no matter what she says #there was no 'enthusiastic consent' on screen #tyler's an exceptional actor #if they'd asked for 'enthusiastic consent' #he would've delivered #rnm 2x06

[bekahdoesnerdshit]

ask Two for the angst ones this time: 13 for raini, 5 (possibly will be pertinent come the end of this minicampaign) & 29 (she literally has Any Weapon w/ her pact so it's fititng) for ayen, 7 & 10 (hehe I know there's trauma in this one) for cog, and then mix and match 4, 17, 18 between Caspian, Ryker, and Brilliance bc I don't know them as well and I would Like To

My life is just below readmores now, I guess. Will I ever learn to shut the fuck up? No! And that is a promise 

Raini

13. What does it take to make your character cry? Oh boy. Raini definitely isn’t a big crier, because she a) doesn’t really let herself get to that point and b) hard pivots into “angry” over “upset” and she isn’t an angry crier. She’s cried twice in game so far, and probably not many times before that. In both in game cases -and likely the always alluded to but never seen “before times”- the catalyst for her crying was being overwhelmed. In a good way, bad way, whatever, but that’s the trigger. Just- Looking at something, not knowing what else to do but let yourself cry about it, and not seeing any reason to stop yourself.  (shfjsdjkfh the funny answer is: during sex. But can you IMAGINE jskdfskjdf)

Ayen

5. Would they ever turn on someone they just met in order to save themselves? Oh for sure. Without question. Not without guilt, in fairness, but without question. She’s pretty well adjusted, pretty “go with the flow”, but she did grow up in a pretty cutthroat world. She was spared from having to make those kinds of brutal decisions from a super young age by Shadow Mom, but she definitely saw the fallout of those choices and learned that, while it’s all well and good to do the “right” thing, it’s much more important to do the right thing for you. If that means condemning some stranger to die so you and yours don’t have to? So be it. Better people have done worse, because that’s sometimes just how things go.  I’ll be honest! This character decision was a completely on the fly one when we were having that debate in the library about what we should do with the information we learned in the library. But I stand by it. In character, Ayen 1000% sees whatever’s going on as Not Her Business. It’s fucked up, sure! But, you know. Not her monkeys, not her circus.  29. What is their weapon of choice, and what weapon do they dislike using the most? Bro I love that Ayen doesn’t have A Specific Weapon SO much. Especially because Pact of the Blade specifically makes it so that, whatever weapon she summons, she’s proficient in while wielding it. So she sees somebody using a weapon, goes “oh! cool!” and summons it herself, and then just. Intuitively knows how to use is. How fucking funny is that conceptually??  Her go to if things are serious or she doesn’t have time to pick something obscure is a longsword. Dad uses a greatsword, and a longsword is pretty close to that! Image how cool they looked fighting off assholes, back to back, with two bigass swords? Is that the only reason it’s her favorite? No of course not!!!! That would- that would be silly. And childish. Swords are just cool is all.  She hasn’t used any in game, but I think she honestly just doesn’t like any kind of polearm. It’s like, is it technically safer to be a little further from your enemy? Sure. Does it give you a small tactical advantage? Maybe so. But they’re so uglyyyy and they look weird and you have to use both hands and the balance is weird and >:( Spears can stay because you can throw them but you’re on thin fucking ice.

Cog

7. If your character was allowed to murder one person without any consequences, who would it be and why? Thank GOD Alex I wanted this one for Cog SO bad!!! Valentine WastelandGame! If you can read this! You’re a dead motherfucker!! This is for a variety of reasons including but not limited to: - Is responsible for the deaths of at least 3 separate world leaders! Uh oh!  - Asked for my blood one time! To do Science on! Not cool! - Ace doesn’t like him. Enough said.  - Called Ace “hotheaded” and “brutish” keep his NAME out of your MOUTH - Is fucking Maelo’s ex I think? Honestly I lost that plot on that one a little bit - Keeps taking Sunny on dates! We’re protective and Jealous?? Hard to say! We don’t have time to unpack this one let’s keep moving - Is convinced aliens exist? And are coming to attack the world? OKAY  - Talks in fucking circles about philosophy and the greater meaning of “good” and “evil” in the context of the world. Like, no sir! Good is when you help people and evil is when you kill them! Except unless it’s me killing you which is going to happen because I can cast Finger of Death now and you better believe that spell has your fucking name on it. Freak boy. - Just like. Eats straight raw steak. Not Evil but really weird and probably not great for you? - Overall just a very bad slimy manipulative and stinky dude. 0/10 I’m gonna put an arcane bullet in his skull. Like. Everything Valentine does, everything she learns about him, convinces Cog more and more that the world would be a better, safer place if he wasn’t allowed to exist in it anymore. She was kinda neutral on the guy until he gave his grand speech in Cormir about how the only way to save the world is to ‘conquer and subdue it’ and tried to talk her in circles enough that she had to agree with him or seem like a hypocrite. Since then, it’s been a slow creep from “I don’t trust this man and don’t want to work with him again, even if it makes our lives harder” to “he’s dangerous and needs to be stopped” to “...if given the opportunity, I would kill him myself”. And now that she has our new friend the Shadow Demon whispering in her ear, telling her that “the world will tremble and change before her” and that she should “stride boldly, and fear not the consequences that may follow” honestly? The next time we see Valentine, he might be in trouble!  10. What were the character’s parents like? What was the affect the parents had on the character? Oh, is there trauma in this one? Is there? Alex? Is there? Maybe so!! We’re gonna talk about Cog’s dad first, because he’s a) still alive and b) I KNOW you’re fishing for more mom angst. Cog’s dad name is Conrad Grace! He’s the head of Lafaroh’s town guard, whatever that means for a town of maybe a hundred people. I feel like his day to day really consists more of making rounds to check on people than dealing with criminals, although he likely has to break up the occasional disagreement or toss somebody in the drunk tank for the night. He’s also in charge of making sure the Guardians -the gods that live deep in the swamp outside Lafaroh and protect the town in exchange for food, building supplies, the occasional corpse, and other resources- get their offerings (This is Important, because he does Stop doing that soon). He married into he Grace family (that’s RIGHT he took his wife’s last name because it’s 2021 and he’s Woke not because her family like runs the town okay moving on), initially because I genuinely believe he fell in love! They were probably pretty young, because Lafaroh is very much a Deep South Swamp Town Analogue, but I don’t think it was just a social power move. The most important Conrad fact? He told Cog that he became disillusioned with the Church when she left home, because he couldn’t imagine continuing to support something he could now see had so clearly been hurting her. And I, Rebekah, a homosexual who has had Words with my Christian parents about the way their religion has hurt me? OH buddy we were a little bit of a mess about it. DM Ryan! Don’t you know I’m projecting!! Please be more careful! (Editor’s Note: This is the moment that made me realize I was projecting. Whoopso!!) Cog’s mom name is Charlotte Grace Sr. because, I guess, we’re freaks. I hate that this makes Cog technically a junior because the thought of anyone calling her Charlotte Jr. makes me break out in hives, but it is, technically, correct. The distinction while Cog was growing up was, instead, “Charlotte” and “Charlotte Olivia” because, again, we’re southern as hell. Charlotte Sr. is, unsurprisingly, the head of Lafaroh’s church, which means she very much has more actual power than her husband does. She did love Cog, I think, but in a way that very much more felt like someone guarding an investment than raising a child, especially when Cog became a teenager. She had high, exacting expectations, and grew more distant from Cog the older she got. Whether this was an unintentional side-effect of Charlotte Sr. becoming more engrossed in the preparations necessary to allow Cog to become the “Conduit”, or whether it was a purposeful decision because she knew she would lose her daughter and wanted the sacrifice to hurt less is unclear. Cog’s dad is kinda just a dude, but we KNOW this bitch has mommy issues. I also think an important distinction to draw between the two is that while I’m willing to give Conrad the benefit of the doubt and say that he may have just wanted Cog to stay in Lafaroh when they party returned because he was worried about his daughter and wanted her home, Charlotte Sr. wanted Cog there because it was Where She Was Supposed To Be, because she had a destiny to fulfill. More than that, when Charlotte Sr. found out that Conrad had stopped sending supplies to the Guardians when Cog left and had instead been selling them to Bandits to get money to rebuild the town, she was not nearly so understanding. She accused him of heresy, and ordered for him to be, uh. Flayed alive. Which wasn’t great. It’s what got her killed ultimately; Cog had to choose between her parents, and after watching her Mama summon a shadow demon that very nearly choked the life out of Sunny? It was a choice with only one possible outcome. 

Caspian

18. Would society call your character a good guy or a bad guy? What would they say they are? Caspian is. Caspian is Just a person. Like she is just out here doing her best, trying not to get killed by, idk. Pirates or ghosts or w/e. This is an endeavor that, statistically, could be going a lot better.  I think the more interesting angle to look at this question from is the fact that she’s a monk from a well known monastery, and that there’s Expectations on how she conducts herself in the world as a result of that. She is Just A Person, but that’s not good enough. Not when she’s running around wearing Pelor’s holy symbol, representing his monastery, reflecting on him. For a long time, I think Caspian resented the expectation that put on her! Why can’t she just be a kid? Just a person? She didn’t ask to be raised by these monks in this kind of life. But when she left home and realized how suddenly lonely she was, there were quiet, sad moments it was easy to soften with prayer. Rekindling her relationship with her god was her way of staying connected to home, and I think it also made her want to go from being Just a Person to actually wanting to take pride in being a Good Person.  And then her campaign lasted for two fucking seconds lmao so it didn’t even matter hahah! :)

Ryker

4. Has your character ever been hurt or betrayed by someone they thought they could depend on? What happened? YEAH BOY rye-bread got his SHIT handed to him lmaoooo His whole “why are you adventuring?” deal is that he fell in love with the noblewoman he was hired to escort across the country to her betrothed’s estate, and she played him like a fucking fiddle and convinced him -after her wedding, after she was pregnant with her husband’s first child and therefore heir- that she was in love with him too. But of course, because she was married, her husband would never let them be happy together. She talked Ryker into killing her husband, and promised to meet him the night he did it with horses and supplies for both of them. Anyone reading along at home with even a shred of common sense probably just said, “uh oh!” And uh oh indeed; she fully sold his ass out. There’s something emotionally devastating about slipping out of the bedroom of the man you just killed, his blood still on your hands, to find the woman you love standing between two enormous guards, but I can’t quite put my finger on what.  Ryker figured out her plan in the following days he spent in a cell, awaiting execution. She didn’t love her husband, but by playing the role of grieving widow and anxious mother-to-be she could ingratiate herself with his family enough to be allowed to take control of the estate while her son, the true heir, grew up to run it. It was cruel, and clean, and if Ryker hadn’t managed to escape it would have gone off without a hitch.

Brilliance 

17. Is your character afraid of death? Why/why not? Brilliance isn’t afraid of death, she’s afraid for what she’d leave behind. One of the songs on her playlist really leans into this (and I’m very excited to be posting her playlist soon! Stay tuned!), because she is terrified of what her death might do to Sienna. She never planned to become an adventurer, much less travel to the Hells to try and save an entire city. She was content, more than content, to guard Sune’s church, to help the people that came seeking her goddess’ blessing and guidance. When her city faced a sudden influx of refugees from Elturel after its destruction, she was even happy to volunteer to help the Flaming Fist keep order and root out would-be troublemakers. She never meant to get caught up in a job that would take her out of her home city, much less out of her home plane entirely. Every fight she got into in Hell, every time it seemed like she may be staring down something that might kill her, Brilliance had to swallow down the overwhelming guilt of knowing that if she died here Sienna would never know what happened to her. The image of Sienna, worried and pacing, looking toward the door to their apartment every time there was so much as a whisper in the hallway, desperate for any sign that Brilliance had come home-- It wasn’t delusions of self-importance or self-preservation that had Brilliance taking Glasya’s deal to save her from the narzugon’s clutches; it was the image of Sienna collapsing onto their bed and sobbing because she finally admitted to herself that Brilliance was never coming home. Still. Sienna needs her, but her party needs her too. They’re counting on her to be there for them, to take the big hits that they can’t handle. First one in, last one out; she doesn’t leave until everyone else is safe. She wants to survive, she wants to go home and marry the woman she loves, but she couldn’t live with herself if she did it at the cost of the life of someone who was depending on her. Brilliance isn’t afraid of death; she would die for her party members, even the ones she doesn’t particularly like. She just knows exactly what the cost of her death would be. 

#sometimes.........i am a prose boy. sometimes....i write answers like 7 for cog. depends #rainivere #amnesia campaign #ayen morwraek #creepy campaign #cog #wasteland campaign #caspian #gos #ryker #brilliance #dia #syn-odics #answered #also idk if i've mentioned it before but it's very important to me that y'all know the bit about it being 2021 wasn't a joke #canonically wasteland game takes place in 2021 so folks things are Really gonna go to shit in the next four months lmao #uh oh!! #word count: 2633 #mine