#it’s really frustrating because you can see the pieces of how this season should have gone that were completely missed

[pablitogavii]

Massage

I saw that Gavi didn't play today due to some back problems so there was an idea that sparked in my mind. Hope you enjoy the story more than the game :)

Pablo was in very much a bad mood after the game not even wanting to eat dinner but going straight to the hotel room with you.

Even after the virus outbreak, Pablo hasn't really felt all that well during training his back hurting him lots afterwards.

"He should have put me in!" Pablo said while laying in the bed staring at his phone and probably all the horrible comments from disappointed fans.

"He knows best amor.." you say knowing that Xavi just wanted to make sure Pablo recovers before El Classico and the beginning of the season.

"5:3! They humiliated us!" Pablo spat tossing his phone to the side and running his hands through his hair in frustration. You finished brushing your teeth and joined him in bed taking his phone and putting it on charge for tomorrow.

"I'm sorry you lost amor..and although there isn't much I can do about that, I might be able to help with your back?" you moved closer to him kissing his lips and then don his jaw and neck and he smiled nodding his head.

"Fix me doctora.." Pablo smirked and you blushed knowing how much he adored that you wanted to be a doctor in the future and always called you 'a rockstar' because of it.

"Lay on your stomach amor." you say and he moved closer kissing your lips with a little bit more force.

"Mm it's my favorite position when you're on your stomach princesa.." he whispered into your ear making your face burn in embarrassment as you slapped his shoulder and told him to stop messing around.

He finally stopped teasing you, and went to lay down after taking off his t-shirt. You grabbed some lotion and began massaging his back gently not applying to much force as to not hurt him further.

"How is this amor??" you ask after a few minutes hearing Pablo moaning in pleasure glad that he was relaxing and you could help in any way.

"Sooo good princesa..gracias" he said and you smiled leaning down and kissing the back of his neck which made goosebumps appear on the skin of his arm and that made you smirk.

"Are you cold Pablito...or am I making you feel too good??" you whisper into his ear seeing his smirk grow as he grabbed you with his strong arms flipping you over and hovering above you.

"it's not such a good idea to tease me when I'm angry preciosa.." his voice was low and so freaking sexy that you felt your mind scream at you to pull him down and kiss his lips..and you did just that.

"Or what?" you challenge seeing his eyes darken in lust as his hands gripped your thighs so tightly there will definitely be marks left in the morning.

"Or I will thank you for fixing my back by breaking yours.." he smirked kissing your neck as you moaned into his ear and snaked your legs around his torso..maybe there is another way to make your boy relax tonight.

"Are you sure you're in the mood for this right now??" And your back?" you asked after about fifteen minutes of heated make out session you shared and Pablo only smirked more.

"I'm always in the mood for you princesa.." he winked "but you're right, I should rest my back.." he said chuckling when he saw your disappointed eyes.

"So come here.." he flipped you back this time laying back and having you straddle his lap while moving his hands behind his head.

"Um.." you were shy when it came to intimacy only ever doing it with Pablo and usually being the one he dominates. But now he wanted you to take charge and that was a bit scary.

"Now you're going to be a good girl for papi..and ride him..while he rests his back" Pablo's voice was dark and your cheeks were red but you only nodded leaning in and kissing his lips again while you discarded each other's clothes piece by piece.

"J..joder amor! Keep bouncing like that!" Pablo's voice was raspy and it only turned you on more while you moved on his cock moaning when he gripped your ass making himself go even deeper.

"My good girl! My best girl! Making me feel so much better after a loss! F..fuck! I'm keeping you with me forever! Mine! All fucking mine!" he spoke nod moving his hips to match yours speeding up his pace until you both were chasing your orgasms.

"Oh..My..God..Pablo! I'm gonna cum baby..p.please" you were pleading and he loved to hear it grabbing your hair pulling it back while sucking on your neck which was enough to send you over your edge together with him.

While you were both catching your breath, you fell on top of him and he held you there as you listened to his even heartbeat. You tried to move but he wouldn't let you holding you against himself tightly.

"Let me stay inside of you amor..fuck I need this so badly!" he groaned and you blushed nodding your head and getting more comfortable leaving a few wet kisses on his hot skin.

"I love you so much Pablito!" you sigh finally calming down feeling yourself getting sleepy. Pablo kissed the top of your head holding you tightly with his strong arms.

"And I love you mi chica perfecta.." he replied before you both fell asleep as close to each other as possible enjoying the shared warmth you felt.

It was a sad loss :( Better luck next time!

#pablo gavi x you #fc barca #fc barcelona #fc barça #gavi #gavigif #pablo gavi x y/n #pablo gavi x reader #pablo gavi icons #pablo gavi #pablo martín páez gavira #pablo gavira #gavira #gavi x vini #gavi x yn #gavi x you #gavi x reader #pablogavixreadersmut #pablogavixreaderfluff

[thinkingaboutjaedyn]

the fall of the mountain [a.thompson x reader]

prompt: the pressure of being a pro gets to alyssa and her way of expressing that comes out more aggressive than it should. good thing you are here for her.

author notes: had to write something for my #2 wifey in the uswnt, so thank you to the person who asked for alyssa angst+comfort and fuck you to tumblr for making me delete that ask. hope y'all enjoy this!

alyssa's hands are clenching tightly on the steering wheel as she drives. you can see her poking her tongue though her cheek which is one of her many habits when she is stressed. you two just came from an angel city game with alyssa obviously being a starter for the game and you being there to help a seasoned journalist to cover the game. it was apart of your internship to help out and edit sports pieces.

the game didn't go the way angel city wanted with the portland thorns beating them six to four. you can just see the wheels spinning in alyssa's head about what she could have done to prevent the win; why she couldn't find another opportunity to secure a goal.

"we can stop and get takeout if you want? my treat," you say quietly. testing the waters to see how badly your girlfriend was feeling. she is silent for a moment until y'all reach a red light, looking over at you. "i don't really care so.." she shrugs before going back to focusing on the road. her words are so nonchalant and cold. they make you frown, but you hold out on asking her about her feelings for when you two reach her apartment.

the interaction settling in your mind as you press the chinese food place number and hold up the phone to your ear.

after getting the food, arriving at alyssa's place, and eating the food, your girlfriend still hasn't said more than two words to you. thank you is the only thing she said once you paid and got the food earlier.

the silence from her is starting to get concerning, so you decide it's time for you to get a peek into her mind.

"lyss, can you just talk to me?" you say as you place a hand on her leg. she's sitting beside you on the couch and all her attention is focused on whatever netflix show is playing on the tv. the american player moves away from your touch, giving you a quick glance. "talk to you about what?" alyssa murmurs.

"you know what. the game, how you're feeling, why you're being so cold to me..." you try to scoot closer to her, but once again she moves away. that annoys you so much that you sigh heavily.

"there is nothing to talk about," alyssa replies. the lack of expression sitting on her face doesn't her eyes. you can see the regret and sadness swirling around in her eyes. seeing her so closed off makes you feel so frustrated. not with her, but more with the unknown reason she is feeling that way that she isn't telling you. "obviously it is if you are acting like this" you snap at her. the words come out before you could even think.

alyssa stands before glaring at you, "acting like what? you're mad at me because i won't talk to you about the game? this isn't some press conference, so honestly i don't have to tell you shit!"

you are taken back by her words, standing up to meet her face to face. "i'm not asking from a reporter standpoint. i'm asking as your girlfriend cause you know partners tell each other things instead of acting all moody like a toddler!" you shout back at her. half of the words you say you don't even mean but being treated like you basically don't exist since the game isn't helping you act rational.

alyssa and you go back & forth for several more minutes. each sentence said being a shot at the other. the loss of the game is weighing down on alyssa's mind as she voices out all her anger at you and you aren't being much better. giving back your girlfriend just as much aggression.

"you wouldn't understand anything about what i have to go through. you're just some college student right now and i'm out here playing infront of thousands of people, it's not the same!" she says before finally storming out of the living room and down the hall to her bedroom. you still stand in the living room not even sure of what to do. the heat of the moment cools down and finally you realize how shitty what just happened was. you and alyssa just had a bad argument right after a game loss that you knew alyssa was feeling bad about it.

you walk around the couch to go to the counter, grabbing the keys to alyssa's car and leaving out of the door. on your way to buy a few things to make up for the argument. hopefully alyssa is ready to apologize too when you come back

when you come back to the apartment it's around ten. a small bouquet of flowers along with alyssa's favorite candy are in your hands as you walk inside and close the door shut with your body. you slip your shoes off before walking to alyssa's bedroom. the only sound in the apartment being the tv that was left on from earlier and your footsteps.

the door to the bedroom is slightly left open so it's easy for you to just walk in. frowning once you see alyssa laying under her blankets, a vanilla scented candle burning on her desk. that's the only light in the room as you walk inside. sitting down beside her.

"lyss?" you say softly as you look at her. she is still not facing you, but you can tell she is awake.

"hm?" she mumbles.

"can you face me, baby?"

the american player turns over, letting out a small smile as she spots the goodies in your hands. you sit down the candy on the bed before giving her the bouquet of tulips. "thank you..." alyssa says softly as she accepts the flowers. turning back around to set them aside on the nightstand before coming back to face you. instead of laying down, she sits up so you two are actually at the same face level.

you decide to apologize first, "i'm sorry for snapping at you and all the things i said while we were arguing. i didn't mean any of it, i was just so frustrated you were closing yourself off to me."

alyssa sighs heavily before speaking, "no, i'm the one who should be sorry. you were right when you said we are supposed to tell each other our problems. i didn't mean not one thing i said, you aren't just some college student. you're going places, y/n.." she looks at you to see how you are reacting before continuing, "it's just.. i feel like i don't deserve any of this. i couldn't even help get another goal in the net."

hearing the loathing in alyssa's tone makes you pull her close. all the feelings that have been building up in alyssa's chest since the end of the match spill out as she lets the tears that have been waiting in her eyes out. you rub gentle circles on her back as she cries into your shoulder.

"i was the number one pick from the draft, but it doesn't feel like it. sometimes i feel like i don't play like it. than it's not just games, but we have press conferences after and i have to sit in a chair with a bunch of reporters asking questions that i feel too tired to even answer. it's just all too much," she says into your shoulder. you stay silent, just letting her get everything out. in that moment you realize just how different the amount of pressure is on you compared to alyssa. when she fails, there are hundreds of eyes that follow. when you fail, it's your own personal hurdle.

you two just enjoy the embrace of one another for a few more moments with alyssa still sniffling a bit. once you hear her go silent, you pull back just enough to look at her. the american player just tries to lean back onto you, but you keep her away.

you hold her face in your hands, looking at the tear stains on that gorgeous face of hers. "you know you're a great player, baby. everyone else can see it too, that's why you were the number one pick right out of highschool and that's why you were called up for the national team. that's why people expect so much from you," you chuckle as alyssa starts to let out a shy smile. "however that doesn't mean you have to hold all this weight on your shoulders. i'm here for you, your teammates are here for you, and your family is too. everything is a team effort, lyss, so don't ever blame just yourself" you let go of her face before pulling her back into your arms.

she laughs into your shoulder as she holds onto you. "now i feel like that argument was so stupid," alyssa says.

"i mean duh but something good came out of it so it's whatever" you say back. alyssa pulls you down onto the pillows and you happily let her. smiling as she nuzzles up to your neck. "yeah.. well, that was too much crying for one day. i'm sleepy.." she mumbles, seemly already half asleep. you don't realize how exhausted you are until alyssa mentions her own sleepiness, so you just fall silent and let yourself drift off to sleep too.

#alyssa thompson x reader #alyssa thompson #uswnt x reader #uswnt #woso x reader #woso fanfics

[inbarfink]

The interpersonal conflicts between the two Membrane siblings is an incredibly important part of Invader Zim’s comedy, and also its emotional core and the characterization of these two kids. With Gaz, this tends to be, like, the primary way she interacts with episode plots. For Dib, his interactions with Gaz tend to bring out his more Zim-like traits and are the main refutation for his Terminal Case of Main Character Syndrome. 

But, also, I see a lot of assertions about their dynamic in the show that are often… kinda not very accurate? Anything from ‘Gaz beats up Dib on a regular basis’, to ‘all of Gaz’s actions are Perfectly Reasonable' to 'Gaz used to be Perfectly Reasonable and then Season 2 Flanderized her'. So, I think I want to do something a bit more… comprehensive for them.

So here is...

My Big Overview of Dib and Gaz!!

I’m going to try and go over each and every one of their conflicts in the show, go over who was most likely (the most) in the wrong, how the other reacted to it, if there’s an escalation, if it feels consistent with other episodes, how I personally see their motivations… obviously like every analysis of a piece of media it’s going to be at least kinda subjective, so I would love to hear how your view of The Siblings differ from my own - but I’m going to try and be as comprehensive and well-reasoned and balanced as I can be. 

"The Nightmare Begins"

Gaz doesn’t get a lot in the first IZ episode, but she does get this!

Gaz: Dib drank the last soda. He will pay!

So, okay, it’s not entirely clear if Gaz has a good reason to be mad at Dib or not. Like, yeah, as we’re going to get to with other episodes - Dib might have a Problem of eating things that belong to Gaz. But the implication here is that this was everyone’s Soda, and she’s just mad that Dib finished it. But like, someone had to drink that last soda at some point, right? 

Gaz’s anger could be justified, if, for example, she explicitly asked Dib to leave one last soda for her or if Dib already drank the majority of it… but that's all speculation. From what actually exists in canon (which is just this one line), it seems rather unfair.

But also it doesn’t matter that much, because while Gaz expresses frustration and, like, a desire for horrible vengeance - she (as far as we know, at least) doesn’t really do anything about it. She just gets herself a juice and once Dib comes home she’s just talking to him like normal (that is to say, somewhat derisively, but not openly hostile).

So really, regardless of whether drinking the last soda is a legitimate grievance or not - all Gaz did was express a minor and petty frustration in a kinda melodramatic way without doing anything about it. She didn't even do it to Dib's face!

"Nanozim"

The first proper Gaz episode! And with it, a lot more Dib-Gaz interactions! And the introduction of one of Gaz’s major grievances with her brother… that she finds him annoying. 

Dib: Maybe they'll let me host the show. My own episode! Gaz: I'm only 13 levels away from finishing this game so I either finish the game or make you wish I was never born.

Now, Dib should have the right to be as Weird as he damn pleases. Buuut… Gaz also should have the right to be left alone and Not be Bothered by people she finds grating. So while getting mad at Dib for just existing and doing his thing near her would be unfair, Dib is explicitly trying to talk to her - and she’s got the right to not want to participate in the conversation. Especially if she’s also trying to do her own Thing at the same time. 

Note that she only really speaks out when the conversation really turns into stroking Dib’s own ego, that’s when she decides that talking to him is not worth risking her Gamer Time. And, much like with ‘the Nightmare Begins’, despite the harshness of her words - she doesn’t really do anything and Dib doesn’t really react. Making it seem like Gaz is prone to over-dramatic proclamations of vengeance but she doesn’t have much bite.

Hell, when Dib starts shoving his hands in her face while she plays. She’s not aware, or at least she doesn't acknowledge, that his behavior is legitimately out of his control. But all that leads too is… another empty threat and her leaving the living room to get away from him. 

Gaz: I'm letting you live this time, Dib, but only because I'm still getting through this last level.

And when she shows up again, we have a bit of a Turnabout! This time, Gaz is the one trying to initiate a conversation and Dib is the one brushing her off so he can focus. 

Gaz: Is that Zim? Is this an online game? Dib: Gaz, please. I need to concentrate.

And actually, in that case, both of them were more ‘justified’. In the sense that at least Gaz was trying to talk to Dib on what she thought was a shared interest - a game he likes and she thinks looks interesting. In contrast to Dib only wanting to talk about something only he is interested in and how great he is and all the praise he’s going to get. And Dib obviously had very good reasons to take the ‘game’ very seriously and choosing to focus over small-talk with his sister.

The problem being that Dib's pride blinds him to the obvious solution of letting his über-gamer sister who can’t be hurt from the inside by Zim take the wheel. From Gaz’s perspective he is actually more reasonable than reality, because she thinks he’s not sharing a cool game he found with her because he want to play it, rather than risking his own life because he feels the need to be the one who best Zim.

And she’s being a bit of a pushy backseat gamer herself, but not really, like, more than standards for lil gaming kids. And she doesn’t actually do anything but ask to play up until Dib is literally unable too. Although she does push him aside.

Then she unknowingly saved his life, and knowingly helped him humiliate Zim. And… should we count Gaz calling the game ‘stupid’ when she thought it was actually very important to Dib as another example of her insulting him? I dunno, all-in-all both Membrane Siblings acted relatively grounded and reasonable in IZ Character Standards. Like, this is pretty standard Mildly Jerkish Sibling Behavior from both of them.

"Parent Teacher Night"

Gaz laughed at Dib when Zim splashed him with punch

Although she also laughed at Dib splashing Zim with punch. 

So really, this isn’t really specific antagonism against Dib - she just really finds petty minor acts of assholery funny regardless of who's doing them. Although I guess you can argue that she should 'side' with her brother.

"Dark Harvest"

Yet another classic example of ‘Dib bothers Gaz by ranting about something she doesn’t care about, and Gaz retaliate by being uninterested’

Dib: Incredible! You see Gaz, to defeat my enemy I must study my enemy, then become my enemy, then move in with my enemy, then wear my enemy's clothes then- Gaz: You're in my light.

There’s not even, like a toothless violent threat here this time, she’s just making it clear that she’s not interested in a way that's kinda rude.

"The Wettening"

Since I am here to discuss the antagonism between Gaz and Dib, I won’t go into much detail into this iconic scene

Outside of it being yet another demonstration of how often Gaz’s threats of physical violence usually seem more like toothless edgelordism than anything you should take seriously.

Gaz: If you wanna keep all your limbs, Zim, you will put me down, you will put me down NOW!

Our actual main focus here (outside of some mild snark from Gaz that Dib didn’t even pay much mind to)

Gaz: I'm leaving with or without you, Dib. Preferably without you.

Is what happens right after that Zim Umbrella Situation - Gaz is all set to actually make her threat a bit more than just talk

And then Dib splashes Zim and Gaz is caught in the ‘crossfire’.

And, y’know, Gaz doesn’t give a shit about Zim and Dib’s rivalry - she doesn’t see Zim as a threat and just sees Dib’s ‘fate of the world’ work as a selfish way to stroke his own ego. So while being splashed by a puddle is a relatively small slight (at least if you’re not Zim), it’s the reasoning and the fact that Dib shows no remorse or even really acknowledges what he did to Gaz that, I think, is what really sets her off.

Gaz: THAT was your fate of the world work!?! Jumping in a puddle!?! You do realize I'm gonna have to destroy you now. Dib: It was worth it. Score one for the human race! Score nothing for the Zim... thingy race. Gaz: I will destroy you.

So after this little threat, we don't really see much more antagonism from her outside of the usual snarky comments and general hostility to Dib trying to share his interests with her.

Until after Zim has delivered his ultimate defeat. That is when Gaz also unleashes her revenge.

Throwing a single water balloon at Dib.

This is really one of my favorite Gaz Revenge Moments of the entire show, because on one hand her anger is understandable and her way of getting back at Dib is technically perfectly proportional. He splashed her, she splashed him back. But the timing of when she does it just adds this angle of rubbing salt on Dib’s wounds that just makes it hurts so much more without her actually having to do anything extra.

"Battle-Dib"

Now, this is actually where you can say that there was a shift in Gaz’s character. Because while Dib eating her pizza right out of her hands was undeniably a Dick Move. I think that he clearly knew what he was doing since he did guess at that was what Gaz was upset about (he just couldn’t remember the food right)

Dib: Gaz! Help me! I'm sorry about your tacos or whatever, just help me...

It just feels like Dib thinks that being a ‘hero saving the world from the alien menace’ entitles him to his sister’s pizza, and Gaz - who refuses to see Zim as a legitimate threat to Earth’s existence and/or humanity's freedom - would obviously be enraged by this mindset.

And like, if you frame it as “Dib stole Gaz’s pizza, so she ruined his chances to get a permission slip from their dad”, it wouldn’t actually be all that bad. Again, Gaz doesn’t see Zim as a meaningful threat, and thus she sees Dib’s battles against him not as a heroic duty but a self-indulgent hobby. So she’s just screwing with the stupid thing he does for fun (and his own ego), not anything actually important.

But… the problem is that ‘ruining Dib’s permission slip’ wasn’t a one-and-done thing. In the process of ruining Dib’s attempt to get his permission slip signed, Gaz also got him tasered

And beat up in a variety of interesting ways

And dragged off forcibly by security.

So, like, even from Gaz’s perspective where Dib’s conflicts with Zim just Do Not Matter, this is way past the point that Pizza Vengeance can justify any of this. This is the first time we’ve got not just angry and snarky Gaz who makes a lot of threats but generally acts mean but proportionally so - but legit a ‘will destroy you over the slightest provocation’ Gaz.

Since this is still pretty early in the show's run, I wonder if this shift is just, like, what was always intended for Gaz’s characterization. Like, that from the get-go they wanted her to be this disproportionally vengeful and they just couldn't incorporate her actually fulfilling any of her threats into an episode's plot until then. OR if was an attempt to just make her more involved in episode plots and ‘wackier’ and more flawed (especially since this is a very rare occasion where Gaz doesn’t just deliver a Karmic Punishment, but also suffers one).

Especially, since this ‘change’ doesn’t necessarily stick to all, or even most, or her subsequent appearances. 

"Planet Jackers"

Dib: Gaz, there's an alien in the house! Gaz: You mean besides you?

Really just a tiny and pretty standard interaction, between these two. A snarky and mean-spirited comment against Dib when he bothers her about something she doesn’t see as important and doesn’t want to get involved in. Pretty much the baseline for these two.

"Rise of the Zitboy"

With this one it’s really clear that we’re back to the ‘classic’ Dib-Gaz dynamic despite the 'shift' in 'Battle-Dib'. Like, Gaz is trying to do her own thing, Dib is trying to initiate a conversation about the Thing She Doesn’t Care About (Zim) and she’s just trying her best to Not Engage. Only now, instead of her usual Game Slave, it’s a book!

If anything this is toned-down from her baseline, since she doesn’t even say anything mean or threatening, she just tries as hard as possible to ignore him and hopes he gets the hint (he does not).

"Bad, Bad Rubber Piggy"

Gaz is shown exacerbated by her brother’s actions during the first flashback, but outside of a light snarky comment to herself she doesn’t really do anything.

Gaz: Not again.

Now back in the present, we see a sort of inversion of the Dib-Gaz conflicts of “the Nightmare Begins” and “Battle-Dib” by having Dib complain to Gaz about her eating something he wanted to eat!

Dib: Hey Gaz, did you eat all the cereal? I was gonna have this for breakfast tomorrow, you know! Gaz: You think you own all the cereal. Well, you know what Dib? You don't. You just don't. Dib: Look, all I'm saying is if you're going to--

If the implication in these two previous episodes is that Dib eating Gaz’s food is a regular occurrence - then she is pretty justified by acting so appalled by his comment. It’s just plain selfish hypocrisy! Or… maybe this scene implies that the Membrane Siblings ‘stealing’ food from each other and getting angry at the other for doing this is something that they both do regularly. Which, like…okay, finishing a shared box of cereal before the second person could is still not anywhere near snatching a pizza a person was planning to eat right out of their fucking hand. But at the very least it makes both her reaction to Dib finishing the soda and her defensiveness here feel a lot less justified. 

And then when the time-shift happened…Well, I’ve seen some people suggest that Gaz’s non-hostile and even, like, kinda-audibly-concerned reaction to Dib’s questions about his past accidents suggest that in this timeline Gaz is a lot kinder to her poor injured brother.

Gaz: Tricycle accident when you were 3, don't you remember?

And while this is a plausible explanation. (It’s especially consistent with her ‘Enter the Florpus’ characterization. She says she’s Mean to her brother because she knows he’s strong enough to take it, but obviously Piggy Timeline Dib is not strong enough to take it). 

But I don’t actually think it’s a needed explanation. Like, even at her most extreme and petty - Gaz has always been mean in reaction to Dib. Whatever it’s just being Annoying at her or stealing her food right off her hands, and whatever this reaction is proportional to the slight or totally vengeful and unreasonable - Gaz’s meanness is almost always directed at Dib as a reaction to something. So I don’t think it’s that unthinkable for Prime Timeline Gaz to also react so amiably to Dib asking her a question that she doesn’t find horribly obnoxious.

Especially since even in the Piggy timeline, Gaz is still not beyond wanting to ignore Dib

Gaz: Dib, shhh. They're gonna show the bats eating a cow!

Or go for a snarky comment when he offers her an obvious opening.

Dib: And have my plans always been this lame? Gaz: Ooooh yeah.

Although it is maybe notable that the second Past Sequence where she is present

Is actually the closest we see of Gaz express, like, genuine concern when her brother is bodily harmed. Which is notable compared to other episodes, including…

"Bloaty's Pizza Hog"

Now, here’s a Real Proper Gaz Focus Episode, and as such, it’s naturally very important to her characterization. 

First things first, it’s the one to explicitly establish the fact that Gaz does not see Zim as a threat and therefore she sees Dib’s obsession with defeating him not as a serious world-saving undertaking, but as a frivolous hobby on kinda the same level as Dib sees her video-game obsession.

Dib: Don't you care that Zim's trying to destroy all mankind? Huh? Gaz: But he's so bad at it.

And that perspective, of course, informs a lot of my analysis of Gaz’s behavior through the post even before we got to this episode. I think it’s actually pretty interesting because you can totally see the internal logic that justifies that perspective - Zim is often the main person throwing a wrench into his own plans, and Dib’s motivations for positioning himself as a hero standing against his evil are partially self-serving (something that’s very easy for Gaz to see since she’s lived with him trying to play out self-aggrandizing fantasies all of her life). 

But from our wider perspective as the audience, we know that sometimes Zim can be a genuine threat to the people of Earth (if not legitimately dangerously close to destroying/conquering it, at least causing a lot of localized havoc and mayhem with his schemes) and that Dib’s efforts of stopping him are not entirely in-vain, and that his reasons are… not entirely just fueled by his own ego. And from Dib’s own biased perspective Zim is always a threat just one step from destroying all mankind if not for Dib's intervention which is obviously Altruistic and Heroic. So it’s very much a matter of their different perspectives and views of the Zim-Dib rivalry causing further conflicts between the two siblings. 

I mean, on a smaller scale that is why Gaz is so upset whenever Dib is bothering her when she’s trying to do something for fun. You know, kinda like here-

Both of these activities, fighting aliens and drawing little piggies, are equally frivolous in her eyes. But by constantly distracting her with talks about the Stupid Shit He Does for Fun Dib is kinda putting his silly hobbies as more important than her silly hobbies and thus his own needs above her own - which is what always gets her so upset. (But again, upset, but not doing anything but be a Bit Creepy About It).

But of course, the interesting thing about this episode is that this time, Dib’s Frivolous Hobby isn’t just interrupting Gaz’s Frivolous Hobby - it’s actually interrupting something a lot more important and with much more urgent stakes. Family Dinner Night.

Gaz: You know Dad's taking us out tonight. I picked Bloaty's. Dib: This is bigger than pizza, Gaz! This is the fate of all mankind! Gaz: You and your mankind... Dib: Uh-huh. Whatever. Look, if I'm not home in time, call this number and tell them the Mothman is caught in the spider's web. Dib: They'll know what you mean. But, like I said, I'll probably be back before the Mysteries theme song starts.

Even after being told that dad is taking them to dinner… I think Gaz is very much trying to imply “this is important to me, don’t mess it up” without being directly, emotionally honest about it. And Dib’s just totally not even considering it. Like yeah, from his perspective he is going on an Important Heroic Mission that must be worth anything else he could be doing with his time, but... he is also primarily worried about not missing his favorite TV Show and reduces the idea of Family Dinner Night to just 'pizza'.

And like, this is a very complicated family situation, isn’t it? It is understandable if Dib isn’t gang-ho about having dinner with his dad, considering what their relationship is like. And maybe the fact that he couldn’t take Gaz’s hint about this being Very Important to Her isn’t, like, entirely up to his sense of self-absorption but also to his general social inaptitude (and his Autistic Swag). But I can also understand why this is so important to Gaz and why she would still read Dib’s behavior as just pure selfishness and part of a pattern of disregarding her feelings.

(There's certainly some sort of Funky Neverending Loop of, like, Dib disregards Gaz's feelings, Gaz expresses her feelings about it in the most repressed, abrasive and/or mean way possible, Dib continues to Not Get It and disregard Gaz's feelings. Like, how much is Dib Not Getting It the fault of Gaz always letting out her feelings in exclusively in the form of snarky comments and edgy threats and how much has Gaz learned to express herself in this way as a coping mechanism due to Dib always walking over her wants and needs? It's hard to say)

So when Dib ignores (from her POV of the situation. Again, maybe Dib just legit missed the subtext) her honest desire to spend time with their dad for a change, she first reacts by… trying to abandon Dib. Instead of calling the Swollen Eyeballs as backup for him, she just destroys the number and tries to go to dinner without him.

Which… okay, this can be a dick move which is kinda way out of proportions of what Dib actually did. But remember that Gaz’s perspective refuses to see Zim as a threat. So she doesn’t see it necessarily as abandoning Dib to death, but just as an inconvenience. He’ll get out eventually on his own, he’s ‘strong enough to take it’, and that means she doesn’t need to bother with lending him a hand. “Well, if he doesn’t care about Family Night Out then he doesn’t get to go. And also he doesn’t get to watch his stupid ass show!”. Like she was thinking about it as wasting his time and not necessarily leaving him to die.

But also, like, this episode goes to great lengths to establish that Gaz is only saving Dib for the sake of her getting to eat dinner with her dad for once, and not out of concern for him. And while she might not believe Zim is actually capable of killing him, she is also pretty blasé about the idea that he’ll be harmed or tortured… unless it interferes with Bloaty’s with dad, of course.

Look at her big ol’ eyes, it’s not just an ‘eh, he can get himself out on his own’ mindset - she was looking forward to seeing him suffer horribly!

Dib himself is still being kind of a Jerk throughout the episode, even in an emergency he’s still thinking about how his little sneak-in plan will affect him in the most superficial ways.

Dib: There you are, Gaz! Looks like you'll have to tape the show for me, I made it in! 

Dib: Gaz, make sure you don't record over any old episodes.

Like, this isn't even a 'Dib thinks saving the world is more important than Family Dinner Night. But Gaz doesn't think the world is actually in danger so think this is just frivolous ego stroking even though we know Zim can be a genuine danger and Dib's goals are at least kinda genuinely heroic' thing when you consider these lines. Even in a dangerous situation where the world is at stake, Dib can still find the brainspace to worry about his silly TV show but not about the possibility he'd deny his sister the precious little time they have to spend with their dad.

You can argue that trying to stop Zim is actually more important than Family Dinner Night and Dib is in the right. But Dib's dialogue also puts Mysterious Mysteries as being more important than Family Dinner Night. Because that at least gets some sort of acknowledgement from him. Gaz's only chance to go to her favorite restaurant with her favorite person in the world doesn't even get a "sorry, Gaz, but I have an Important Duty to do!", he just totally ignores it.

And generally through the episode he's ignoring and understating Gaz’s desires - even after she did actually told him right to his face what she wants.

Gaz: Come home now, Dib! Your weird obsessions are not gonna mess today up for me. I just want to go out and eat with Dad, that's all! Stop playing with Zim and get back here.

Gaz: All I want is to have some pizza...hang out with Dad, and not have your weirdness mess up my day.

So at this point this stops being some sort of misunderstanding and really starts seeming more like Dib not even trying to understand his sister’s motivations.

Dib: Come on, Gaz! You'd sacrifice the entire planet just for some pizza!?!

Which… makes sense as something that will aggravate her, especially in regards to something as emotionally important as getting to hang out with her father for once. But still, letting him get tortured is, like, maybe a tad disproportionate as an outlet for these frustrations? 

But I think it's still notable that while the angle of disproportionate response to technically-legitimate-grievances is similar, in contrast to her very active acts of sabotage back in “Battle-Dib”, she only really ‘gets back’ at Dib here through inaction when Zim is hurting him (and maybe being a bit abrasive to Dib during her rescue, but Dib was also a very annoying rescuee so that one I think does kinda balances out.)

"Bolognius Maximus"

Okay, back to the simpler and shorter interactions now. We once again see Dib initiate ‘conversations’ with Gaz about subjects she finds annoying and uninteresting. 

Dib: They try and say it's just a regular mountain range on the Martian surface, and it's just a trick of the light, but come on! It is so a monkey face.

And this time all Gaz does is casually ignore him.

When things start getting odd with the dogs and all, she only reacts with a snarky comment. But at this point it’s not even entirely clear to Dib that something very very wrong is happening. So I dunno who would expect Gaz to be worried about this?

Now, later in the episode, when Dib is very obviously turning into a bologna, Gaz still doesn’t give a shit.

Which I think actually matches up very well with her ‘Zim is not a threat, none of the things he’s doing/planning to do will actually pan out’ outlook. Like, lowkey she is pretty sure that this new Wacky Zim Scheme is gonna go up in flames and return everything to normal so there’s no need for her concern or interest and she can just casually enjoy the free bologna. Which is actually a fun character beat because usually the show leans toward Gaz’s attitude being kinda right - but this time she was very much in the wrong.

And like, if 'Bloaty's Pizza Hog' gave me a chance to talk about how Dib's tendency to see the Inherent Importance of everything he is interested in over any of Gaz's needs and desires might not just be a difference in perspective or miscommunication but also has an element of trying to rationalize his own selfishness - I think it's only fair for me to note this can also go the other way around.

It's easy to see Gaz's total dismissal of Zim's threat potential as just her being... you know, grounded and rational enough to see things as they are. But there might be her own emotional bias in play in here motivated by her own resentment with her brother and her own selfish desire to totally ignore and disregard him. Maybe on some level, she just can't allow anything that Dib cares about to be actually worth paying attention to, even when it seems to be literally life-threatening?

"Game Slave 2"

Obviously this episode has a lot of Gaz content, some that can invite a lot of discussion about how proportionate or disproportionate her reactions are - but we are going to focus specifically on her interactions with Dib, of course. Starting with…

Dib: Come on! Bigfoot would never say that! Gaz: Why do you have to read that in here? I'm trying to play a game! Dib: Mysterious Mysteries is on in five minutes!

This is actually really the first time where Gaz is directly, explicitly annoyed by Dib just sort of being around here. Usually her exasperation is fueled by him trying to talk to her about all kinds of Alien Stuff she just doesn’t care about, or trying to drag her into his world-saving adventures against her will, or stealing her food - but here is just doing His Own Thing in her vicinity. Like, the living room is a Shared Space, he has just as much of a right to hang out there as Gaz does. 

If anything, he has more of a right to be there since he’s waiting for his show to come on while Gaz is playing her handheld video game. So if Dib reading his magazine and complaining that Bigfoot Would Not Fucking Say That is bothering her so much - then she should probably just go to her room. Then again, she doesn’t do much other than verbally complain once and it was probably more about venting out her frustrations about the game than Dib himself.

But then…

Dib: I've been waiting all night to see this! She can wait to get her stupid game! Prof. Membrane: Son, video games develop hand eye coordination, and make kids into better human beings! Dib: Okay... But only after the show is over. Gaz: You stink!

So on some level this is just the same sort cycle of conflict that is always going around these two. Both of them prioritize their own hobbies (and this time it IS Dib’s hobby, there’s not much subjectivity around this. This isn’t about saving the human race from anyone’s point of view, just about a show he wants to watch) and thinks the other one is frivolous and selfish for caring about their hobbies more. But also… in this specific context Dib is the One Being a Dick.

Just like before I sided with Dib because Gaz can play the game in her room…. We know the Membranes have a way to record shows on their TV. That came up in literally the previous episode! Dib could’ve just set his VCR to record and ‘Mysterious Mysteries’ will be waiting for him when he gets back from the mall - but Gaz’s console launch is an actual time sensitive matter. (Plus ‘Mysterious Mysteries’ is aired on, like, a weekly basis. Consoles do not release in this frequency). 

So Gaz had every reason to be upset with Dib when they did get to the mall and see, like Gaz and any Gamer watching could’ve predicted, that a-half-an-hour delay in getting to the big launch event can screw up a lot.

Dib: It was a… really good episode…

And maybe I’m reading too much into it, but Dib’s reaction also feels pretty telling. You know, instead of giving Gaz any sort of apology, he’s being defensive by saying that hey, at least the MM episode was worth it? Like it is still kinda centering his interests and desires over Gaz’s.

And Gaz’s retaliation for it is…honestly relatively mild? 

Gaz: Hey, Dib. I think I saw a Chupacabra or something going into that parking garage. Dib: A Chupacabra? But there isn't a goat to feed on for miles!

She just gets him out of her way so she can be left alone in line in peace, and probably hoping to waste his time on the fake Chupacabra - a tit-for-tat revenge for getting her time wasted. Which… okay, it’s unclear if she knew about how large and labyrinthine the mall’s parking lot actually was and about, you know, the colony of horrible rat people. But still, Dib was already out of the building by the time Gaz finished Murdering a Fellow Child.

At worst, he wasted like a couple of hours that he didn’t have any specific plans for anyways. 

Really, since this episode gives us a glimpse into how Gaz deals with People She Finds Annoying Who Are Not Dib... it actually kinda gives the impression that Gaz... like, not just that she doesn't hate Dib specifically and will aim a similar amount of ire at any random person who annoys her in a similar way. But also maybe that she goes easy on Dib, compared to how she delt with Iggins. Which is... probably the closest we'll get in this entire journey to an indication that Gaz has any level of care towards Dib.

"Battle of the Planets"

Dib: DAD! Gaz! Come see this! Professor Membrane: Please! No more foolishness, son! Gaz: Your voice is stupid!

Dib tries to get Gaz involved in something she doesn’t care about, she insults him. Pretty standard.

"Mysterious Mysteries"

Okay, so, the first thing I want to note is the lil’ babies scene.

It seems like a really inconsequential gag but this is actually, like, an extremely rare occurrence of Gaz being mean to Dib without anything even resembling a provocation. Like, at least in that little scene at the start of ‘Game Slave 2’ she was venting because of her frustrations with the game and it was just a light grumble. This is really like the most classic inarguable example of Gaz bullying Dib.

Especially when compared to both her version of the Story and her general behavior in the ‘present day’ of the episode. Like, is portraying Dib in her version of the story as a barely coherent moron kind of Mean? Yeah, sure it was. But is it any more insulting to the actual person that it’s depicting than Dib depicting Gaz as his helpless adoring sidekick? Especially as her interview implies that she did find Dib’s version of events legitimately insulting in it's inaccuracy?

Gaz: My stupid brother did drag me out to look for stupid Zim. He didn't make that part up.

Maybe Gaz deliberately exaggerated Dib’s (and Zim’s) stupidity in her version of the story out of spite of how Dib framed her on national TV. Maybe just like Dib seemed to be genuinely under the belief that his version of Gaz is a decent reflection of reality, Gaz literally just thinks of Dib as this stupid and annoying. Either way, it’s a really an equally-matched kind of sibling assholery. 

Also, speaking of Gaz’s version of events... obviously it’s not entirely clear what really happened - but I do think, when it comes to like characterization and the general tone of Invader Zim, Gaz's retelling is at least pretty reliable on two fronts; why she was there-

And why did the video cut out when it did.

So while Dib’s interactions with Gaz had that undercurrent of, like, him always putting his own interests above her own for a long time - this really is the most obvious example. Literally forcibly dragging her out of whatever she was doing for the sake of getting an extra ‘eyewitness’ to his video. And so she responded with a little force of her own.

Again, this is all from Gaz’s story, and she does tend to give out exaggerated threats of violence that she doesn’t always carry out - so I don’t think it’s out of the question for her to also retroactively make up/exaggerate the acts of violence she commits. But since this kick in the shins is by far the most probable cause for the video cutting out that we have, I am going to assume that it did happen in reality on some level. And it is a very notable example of Gaz actually inflicting direct physical violence on Dib - until now, her preferred methods of inflicting pain on him were a lot less direct. 

And while kicking people in the shins is wrong, it was still in reaction to Dib forcibly dragging her along - which was probably a lot less painful, but also took a lot more time. You can argue this still follows a sort of tit-for-tat logic that a lot of Gaz's retaliations do... but also, with Gaz's second scene in this episode literally being the most Unambiguous Case of her being Mean to Dib for Now Reason

In this episode more than anything, it might be fair to assume Gaz just wanted to hurt Dib and humiliate him on National TV and there's nothing more to it.

(Also, of course, Gaz refusing to corroborate Dib’s story is one of the main reasons why he failed in that episode. But as I mentioned many times before, Gaz refuses to see that rivalry as anything serious or with more stakes than her video games. In her mind, this is about as bad, or maybe even less bad, then dragging her out to waste time by participating in this stupid show in the first place.)

"Future Dib"

Okay, so most of the other Gaz and “Dib” interactions in this episode kinda follow a unified-if-winding thread of thought so I want to start with the one that I have kind of a separate Point about:

While Gaz’s reaction was very disproportionate and unnecessarily violent, I think it’s also interesting to note that the thing that set her off was “Dib” putting his hand around her. It’s actually part of a recurring implied piece of characterization that Gaz hates being touched. 

Dib: Everyone, hold hands again. Gaz: Yeah! Your lives depend on it! Poonchy: Okay! Hold my hand. Gaz: No way! Be serious!

Since Dib very very rarely ever touches Gaz, and, y’know, has known her all of her life - avoiding physical touch is probably an established boundary between them. So while that doesn’t fully justify the intensity of Gaz’s reaction, that does explain both why that set her off so much and why that’s really the moment where she starts to notice “Dib” is really acting strangely. He was really violating a boundary that he should’ve known by now.

(Going back for a sec, actually, her ‘dramatic re-enactment’ in Mysterious Mysteries also has the Dib Actor dragging the Gaz Actor by the arm. So that’s probably another reason why Gaz reacted kinda violently then as well)

So Gaz giving out more edgelordy threats to (who she thinks is) Dib is pretty standard at this point, but there is something very unique about it in this episode. This is the first time since ‘Battle-Dib’ where she actively acts on these threats to such a literal degree. And this is also combined with the ‘Mysterious Mysteries’ trend of being much more directly violent.

Like, Gaz explicitly only realized she was dealing with a Dib Robot Replica after choking it out so hard it’s eye popped out. All of this violence and pain, she was intending to inflict it on the real Dib. This is about as bad or maybe worse than everything she put Dib through back in ‘Battle-Dib’. And she's doing it with her own two hands this time.

Plus, the reason that she’s reacting like this isn’t because Dib was stealing her Pizza or being generally inconsiderate to her - it’s really just for being weird and annoying (which, in this context, means ‘start to scream randomly and freak out’). So that feels a lot less justified. 

Then, of course, her reaction to finding out that she has been beating up a robot half-to-death is to use it as a replacement for her brother. Which has several different implications going on here about Gaz’s relationship to Dib:

First things first, I want to note that this episode ends with the implication that Gaz left Dib to be stuck in that cell for, like, the rest of his life until he died of old age or something?

I mean, yeah, obviously it is a ‘non canon’ jokey ending that gets totally ignored by the next episode. But the way I always took these snapback ending is as, like, obviously they probably didn’t actually happen in whatever passes for ‘canon’ in Invader Zim - but the events are still indicative of what would’ve happened in terms of worldbuilding and character actions. So while this episode isn’t telling us that Dib has literally died of old age after spending his entire life being beat up by a monkey for Zim’s amusement. This episode is telling us that if that did happen, Gaz would make no effort to save him, ever.

This is notable because of how it contrasts with the previous episodes, or at least my interpretation of them. Like I said, my assumption has always been that Gaz doesn’t care about the Zim-Dib rivalry and sees it as frivolous nonsense because she doesn’t see Zim as a threat. And thus, her general refusal to help her brother was less about outright hatred of him and waiting to see him gone/hurt, and more about just thinking he can handle that walking joke on his own and there’s no need for her to waste her Precious Gaming Time on this. 

This is very much supported by ‘Enter the Florpus’, both in what Gaz literally tells Dib right to his face and in the sense that when Zim does prove to be a credible threat to her world and to her family - she joins forces with her brother with minimal complaints. But of course, ETF Characterization don’t always apply to 2001 Series Characterization so while I prefer this reading partially because it allows ETF Gaz to feel more consistent with Main Show Gaz - I also I feel that Main Show has enough implications to point to this characterization and motivations on it’s own and I want to draw attention to it. 

But here… this is Gaz theoretically ignoring Dib’s plight for literal decades. At this point this isn’t something that can be explained as ‘she doesn’t think she needs to bother with it’. Like, at some point it should’ve been clear to her that even if Zim isn’t a threat to Earth, he is certainly torturing Dib somewhere. This really seems to be direct evidence toward the idea that Gaz just doesn’t not like her brother at all and wishes that he was gone. 

And also I want to discuss what exactly Gaz turned the Robot Dib into - an abusable servant. Something that fulfills her needs while passively enduring her random acts of cruelty.

So… is this what she would like Dib to be? Like, maybe I’m just looking at it from the totally wrong angle. Maybe it’s just a matter of ‘well, if you have a Robot Servant, you’d obviously want it to serve you. And if you’re an angsty preteen with anger issues, you’d like to have something vaguely human-shaped but non-sapient to take your frustrations on’. Maybe it’s got nothing to do with Dib. But… like, this Robot is still Dib-Shaped. So I feel like the implication is that she’s using Robot Dib as a proxy of what she would also do with Dib if he was, like, mind-controlled or something?

And that’s… not really the vibe I’ve gotten from Gaz’s interactions with Dib so far? I mean, maybe I won’t go as far as to say that she actually likes him - but I thought about it more in the sense that she just wanted Dib to leave her alone most of the time. That for her an ideal situation would be more if he did his own thing and she did her own thing without his ‘weirdness’ barging in and bothering her all the time. 

This is just really… I think that might be the ‘Meanest’ Gaz has ever been in my book. Like I know that there’s Another Certain Episode that people often put up as “The One Where Gaz is Really Mean to Dib” but I think that it's more Complicated than some people give it credit for. So, like, I’ll get there when I get there. But here we actually have the Gaz who physically attacks Dib over the slightest provocation and, like, actively hates him. 

It’s really one of those things that make me, like, kinda question my analysis so far. I mean, is this meant to be another attempt to shift Gaz’s character because meaner and more violent characters are more fun and wacky to write? Is it just a matter of the IZ writers prioritizing wacky escalation and cartoon violence and Dib suffering over giving Gaz consistent motivations? Or have I been just totally overly generous in my analysis so far? Like, maybe I was totally off the mark trying to look at which of Dib's actions seem to set Gaz off?Maybe we were supposed to understand that Gaz was always beating Dib to a pulp off-screen since the start?

But... I dwelled on these thoughts for a while and I think that my usual read of Gaz’s character is maybe not consistent with this episode, but it is consistent with a majority of the episodes she was featured in. Which is not something I can necessarily say for a reading that just centers ‘Future-Dib’ above all else. This level of physical violence here is still very unusual for her, even in episodes where she is more cruel to Dib.

(And the idea that she just legit hates her brother and wishes he was gone… honestly, yeah, that can go either way...)

"Abducted"

Especially considering this is the very next episode with any sort of Dib-Gaz interaction! 

Gaz just walking off while Dib is being, well, abducted can work pretty well if you assume that Gazthinks that obviously whatever is flying this thing

Is some sort of incompetent idiot and she doesn’t need to bother with the annoyance of saving Dib because he can handle it on his own (and she would probably be right).

But… it can also work just as well if you assume she doesn’t give a shit about Dib and would be happy if he’s gone forever.

"Dib's Wonderful Life of Doom"

Dib: How I am I still the only one who sees Zim's an alien? I mean, come on! Come on! COME ON! Gaz: Why do you have to have a head? Dib: Gaz! I want you to see this. Today, things are gonna change. I'm gonna do… something! I'm not just gonna sit back and watch Zim get away with his… his… things he do! Dib: I mean— Gaz: "Things he "DO"? What's your problem?

And we’re back to Gaz not being directly violent or even threatening violence, but just being snarky in a kinda mean way. Still, there’s maybe less of the justification for her exacerbation with Dib this time. Because this time he wasn't technically bothering her at all! Dib was lecturing another kid before she started insulting him. I think the implication was that she felt he was embarrassing her, but I still feel like that's a lot less justified.

Still, it’s not like her words seem to significantly hurt Dib, and she is at least able to share a laugh about Zim’s ridiculous behavior with him. (although with ‘Parent-Teacher Night’, there is also the implication that she would’ve also laughed at Dib in any sort of inverted scenario).

"Tak: The Hideous New Girl"

So for Dib and Gaz’s first interaction in this episode, we have this:

And well, kinda like the ‘Wonderful Life of Doom’ interaction, what Gaz does here is pretty mild in the grand scheme of things- but her reasoning also feels not very justified.

I mean, yeah, she was annoyed by the sound of them yelling, that sucks. But Dib has a right to yell in the shared living space of his own house. But… also, I suspect that she sprayed him with the soda less as a punishment for being annoying and more as a direct result of what he said just before. 

Dib: Thanks, Gaz. He was really…

She wanted to make it clear that she was not shooing Zim out to help him. She did it for her own sake. Because Dib keeps making this mistake of thinking of Gaz as his sidekick and that her goals and wants align with his and obviously that causes her a lot of exasperation and wasted time. So I think she was more lashing out at this hypothetical future scenario than just Dib annoying her in the present.

Next up, we have the scene by the Evil Weenie Stand.

Gaz: Be quiet. I wanted to let you know that my brother is trying to break into this building through some secret entrance. Weenie Clerk: We... we have chili beans. Gaz: I just though it'd be funny to see him get beaten up by security.

So, Gaz actively trying to get Dib grievously injured just because it’s funny is actually... kind of an unusual thing for her. Like, as I’ve said previously, she’s usually a very reactive character. Even when her actions are at their most disproportionate and least justifiable, they are usually at least somewhat motivated by Dib’s actions… unless the implication is that the reason why she’s here in the first place is because Dib dragged her out here to be his lookout and she's looking at a way to get back at him for that.

That scenario feels most likely to me, and obviously that wouldn't justify ratting out Dib and enjoying his pain - to me it's kinda on the same level as getting Dib tasered and dragged off by security for stealing her Pizza... But also it's notable that this time, she actually gives up on the idea pretty quickly. If you wanna be charitable to Gaz, you can say she wasn't really serious about the security thing and was just making an edgelordy joke and honestly... with her characterization, I think it could go either way...

Interestingly, once she gets a decent look at Tak and her plans, Gaz becomes a lot more cooperative. I mean, she still grumbles about the idea of saving the Earth. But, like, she doesn’t argue when Dib says the disk is ‘theirs’ when she was the one who found it and she doesn't put up any resistance about joining Dib in seeing Zim’s base. Compared to how previously she’d at best be really abrasive about it and at worst would have tried to actively sabotage Dib and/or cause him physical pain as revenge for prioritizing himself and wasting her time. 

That works very well with the idea that Gaz’s whole problem with Dib’s obsession is that she just doesn’t see Zim as a threat. Obviously after coming face-to-face with Tak, she can see she is much more of a Legitimate Threat to Earth than Zim is. So even if she’s not necessarily emotionally invested in saving the world, she can tolerate it a lot better if she can see that it is indeed something more than Dib’s extremely self-indulgent ego-stroking hobby. 

"Backseat Drivers From Beyond the Stars"

Gaz finds Dib annoying, Gaz goes to vent to her dad about it, Gaz is told to give her brother another chance, Gaz finds Dib annoying again and just leaves. This is a very Mild Gaz compared to what we had in the previous few episodes, closer to my initial read of her. Like, she doesn’t even insult Dib to his face this time. She finds him annoying, so she leaves!

"Dibship Rising"

Well, I… have made the decision to not discuss Gaz’s attempt to destroy all mankind in length, even though Dib is, in fact, technically part of ‘all mankind’. I just think this scene is more about her relationship with her dad then it is about Dib.

Gaz: That didn't wipe out all life as we know it! YOU LIED TO ME, DAD!!

The actual crux of Dib and Gaz’s interactions in this episode are once again - Dib’s obsession with halting the Irken Invasion of Earth has led him to also inconvenience Gaz (this time, by causing a lot of noise and being late to dinner), and Gaz is, like, mildly abrasive as a result and ignores him a lot.

"The Voting of the Doomed"

Dib: Willy's a drooling moron! As sole defender of Earth, I've got to do something! Gaz: I wish Willy was my brother.

Yet another case of Gaz insulting Dib unprompted (since he was talking to himself rather than to her. She just happened to be within listening range.) And also another implication that her problem with her brother is that he’s embarrassing? I think that’s how we’re supposed to read that line? "Willy would be a better brother than you cause he's less embarrassing!"

"Gaz, Taster of Pork"

Okay, now this is the big one. This is the episode that I’ve seen a lot of people in the fandom cite as being, like, the One Where Gaz is Really Cruel to Dib. And, like, I’m not gonna pretend like Dib doesn’t suffer a Lot in this episode (maybe even past the point that I find it particularly funny to rewatch) - but also the dynamic going on is a bit more complicated than just ‘cruelty’? 

Because this is also probably also the episode where Dib is at his most asshole to Gaz as well. I mean, he literally used her as a guinea pig (... pun not intended) to experiment with a spell he thought might be beneficial but was worried about the consequences for himself if it wasn’t… but apparently did not extend that worry to his sister - and thus, the entire conflict of this episode. Like Gaz is entirely in the right to be mad about being ‘blessed’ with Pig-Sense without her consent. Both with Dib’s false narrative about wanting to give her superpowers for her own sake

Dib: No! I only did it to give you super powers because you're the greatest sister ever!

And when she does actually learn the truth.

Dib: cast the spell on her because I wanted to see what it would do before trying it on myself!

Like, maybe that doesn’t perfectly justify taking and destroying Dib’s personal property, or potentially shoving mashed potatoes into his eyes, or repeatedly threatening him with her man-eating plushies, or encouraging a Pig Demon to punish him in some terrible supernatural Pig Demon way...

(While it would certainly be too much to ask Gaz to forgive Dib on the spot and advocate for him when she just found out he’s been lying about his motivations all along and used her as a guinea pig. The dialogue implications of this scene is that the Shadow Hog wouldn’t have done anything to Dib without Gaz’s encouragement.)

It's still important to remember that what Dib did to her was pretty terrible on it's own and was entirely unprovoked!

Then there are a few other factors to consider here, like Gaz’s constant violent threats towards Dib. Which I usually just chalk up to being edgelordy venting unless there is a clear indication of Gaz acting or considering acting on them (like with the mashed potatoes example above) because in most episodes Gaz is mostly all-talk and Dib usually does not take them seriously. But here… although we don’t see Gaz do even like a quarter of what she threatened to do to Dib - we do see Dib acting as if the threats are 100% real and serious. 

Zim: I'm going to destroy you all, Dib! Today! I've got it all set up. Dib: Uh huh, that's nice, Zim. It can't be worse than what my sister's gonna do.

Which does make them feel a lot more 'concrete’ than in most episodes. Like maybe she would’ve beaten him up if they did fail to cure her or if the Shadow Hog wasn’t there to offer an Alternative Punishment Method for him?

But like… I think it’s closer to a proportional response than getting him tasered for stealing pizza or literally beating (a robot she thought was) him with her own two hands because he yelled in an annoying way? Like, what Dib did was really shitty and Gaz has a right to be upset about that on some level!

Then there is the other complicating factor - Membrane. Like, while Dib was Not Having a Good Time in that episode - up until that last sequence with the Shadow Hog, Gaz was suffering a lot more for a much longer period of time. The ‘Pig Mouth’ curse has cost her not just her ability to eat most foods but also most of her hobbies, her freedom, her privacy, her dignity. And it’s clear that she blames Dib - the catalyst of this whole event - for everything that has stemmed from it.

Gaz: You will pay, Dib! You will pay!

But even though what Dib did was certainly a Dick Move… like, it is Membrane and his scientist team that really did the worst by Gaz. Dib only turned to his dad out of a sincere belief he could help, Membrane was the one who decided to announce Gaz’s condition to the world and quarantined her for life and sold the rights to make a goddam movie out of her.

So if Gaz is lashing out at the mistreatment she suffered throughout this episode, she should be at least just as mad at her father as she is with her brother, right? But instead she seems to be totally chill with him, just eating pizza together. Even though his apology for her is honestly as shitty and self-justifying as anything Dib would’ve come up with.

Professor Membrane: Sorry about imprisoning you and turning you into a media freak, honey! It was in the name of science and... hey, where's your brother?

So I think that might imply that Gaz has a massive bias against her brother, causing her to channel a lot of unrelated frustrations just at him.

…Or maybe more likely a massive bias in favor of her dad. You know, she does love him a lot - to the point that ‘getting to actually spend time with him’ is like one of the few things that can get her motivated to get Involved in an episode’s plot. And she also has some serious reasons to be frustrated with him (in this episode especially, but also outside of it). And instead of trying to, like, untangle the complicated contrasting emotions she feels about her dad (a process which would be complicated and hard for anyone, but especially for an extremely emotionally repressed 11 years old), she just channels all of the negative ones unto Dib whenever possible.

Which, like, doesn’t make blaming Dib for things he didn’t actually do more justifiable, but it does make her motivations for doing so more complex than just “idk she hates Dib like everyone else does”

"The Most Horrible X-mas Ever"

And our very last Dib-Gaz conflict for the post! (I didn’t expect it to run this long I swear) Starring Bitey the Vampire!

Dib: You stare at that dog every Christmas, Gaz! Come on, already! It's creepy. Gaz: Three Christmases ago, that dog ate the head off Bitey the Vampire! You said so yourself! I haven't forgotten. Dib: Well, fixing an alien spaceship is hard enough without you distracting me.

The interesting thing about this conflict is how similar it is to ‘Gaz, Taster of Pork’. We once again have Dib being an inconsiderate dick to Gaz for the sake of an experiment and then lying about it to try and avoid her ire, knowing that her reaction would be both violent and extreme. Just this time instead of Gaz herself, it’s her treasured sentimental possession.

Dib: Okay, Gaz. I think it's time I told you. The dog's innocent! I used Bitey the Vampire for a teleporter experiment and switched his head onto a fly's body!

Which, you know, at least he isn't overriding Gaz's bodily anatomy this time but... like... Dib must've had so many other options for his 'Teleporter Experiment'! I guess that without specific details we can't know for sure, but I really can't think of any real justification why he would have to use his sister's doll for this experiment and not one of his own toys or even, like, buy something cheapo from the dollar store or something? Maybe you can come up with some explanation of why it had to be Bitey, but it really feels like another demonstration of Dib's thoughtlessness and inconsideration.

I almost wonder, if, y’know, the show wasn’t cut so short - if this was a deliberate attempt to emphasize this aspect of the Dib-Gaz dynamic for the episodes going forwards. You know, give some more justification and context to Gaz’s anger at Dib - even as her responses to it continue to escalate. 

Although I guess beating Dib up like that in retaliation to ruining one of her beloved childhood toys and then lying about it for years isn’t like… the most disproportionate thing Gaz has done? I mean it is kinda bad, but also she has certainly done worse during the course of this list!

Also a quick shout-out to Dib complaining about Gaz distracting him by just like… standing in his vicinity quietly - when Gaz’s most common problem with Dib is him distracting her by talking at her constantly and generally being actually disruptive to her concentration.

(Some more general points in this episode are Gaz once again trying to abandon Dib at what he feels is mortal danger. Which, like most of these interactions could be read as her just underestimating Zim and thus not thinking he is in actual danger... or just legitimately not caring if her brother lives or dies. And Dib trying to take credit for Gaz repairing the ship, and threatening him with More Violence over it. First one is a pretty common sight at this point and the letter is a pretty quick interaction when they're both pretty jerky to each other.)

So… what is the main thing that I feel like I’ve learned from making such an extensive analysis? Well, I think in a way, all of those General Fandom Conceptions of Gaz that I talked about at the start… none of them were fully accurate, but also none of them are, like, entirely inaccurate either. 

You know, sometimes Gaz’s reactions come off as mostly harmless edgelordisms, and sometimes they’re totally disproportionate and/or violent, sometimes her behavior comes off as reasonable or at least understandable, and sometimes she’s just another person in Dib’s life who wants to punish him for being weird. And there was an escalation in her actions over time, but it wasn’t really just in Season 2 - and it coincides with a whole lot of factors that make it more complicated than just ‘Flanderization’; the increased focus on both Dib’s negative traits and the comedy of his suffering, a general need for escalation with newer plots, and a need for her to be more involved in narratives - especially as her initial role as Someone Dib Can Talk To has become kind redundant as the writers have become more comfortable with the idea that Dib can just talk to himself like a weirdo. 

The most… uncharitable reading is that Gaz’s characterization is just plain inconsistent. The writers didn’t have as clear of a vision of who she is compared to Zim or Dib, or maybe they just didn’t care enough to keep her in-line with the vision of what she was supposed to be - so her level of meanness, violence and hatred towards her brother just kinda fluctuate depending on the needs of the narrative or the joke, or what aspect of Dib's character they wanted to highlight. 

Y’know, even though this was always meant to be an analysis of both Dib and Gaz’s relationship with each other - it also became a bit of a Gaz Character Analysis along the way. Because Dib’s slights against Gaz can fluctuate on levels of intensity, but they are very consistent in terms of reasoning and motivation. It is pretty much always a result of Dib’s Terminal Case of Main Character Syndrome … but also about his social isolation and general inability to communicate with others and the fact that Gaz, even at her meanest, is still more likely to tolerate him talking about his interests than basically anyone else in the world

You know, I do want to emphasize that Dib’s inconsiderate attitude can also be understandable and relatable in his own way, just like Gaz’s reactions to him. I ended up focusing on Gaz more and more as I was writing this post because I kinda assumed Dib’s motivations were more self-evident in the fandom both because he’s more of a main character and because he’s more open about his emotions compared to Gaz. And also… because it would’ve been too repetitive to go over “Yeah, Dib has a problem remembering other people have needs and interiority but he is also deeply lonely and desperate for positive attention” for basically every episode. Meanwhile, Gaz’s reasonings seem to… fluctuate a lot more. 

I think my reading of the situation is a bit more positive than just ‘Gaz was written in a careless and inconsistent way’, because inconsistency… can also be a deliberate character trait. You know, a lot of people are kinda inconsistent in their reactions to things. There’s no reason why Gaz can’t just be characterized by her capriciousness. Especially when you consider the angle that she’s misdirecting some of her anger at her father or the world in general at Dib - so you’ve got maybe like a baseline of mild annoyance which is what she actually feels towards her brother in a vacuum. But every so often she is so much crueler because she is using him as a vector for a bunch of other frustrations and stress, some vaguely related to him, some not at all.

I think even the kinder Gaz we see in ‘Enter the Florpus’ can fit into that, if you take her words here not as just a statement of how she’s been all this time…

Gaz: Oh, uh, normally, you crying on the floor is hilarious, but come on. Dib: It's all my fault, Gaz. Why aren't you saying I told you so? Gaz: 'Cause making fun of you is no fun when you're this sad. You're my brother, man. I only torment you because I know you can handle it. I've done way worse than throwing you in a space prison. This is nothing. Get up!

And more of her, now seeing her obnoxious brother at his lowest point, suddenly coming to a realization that she doesn’t hate him as much as she thought she did.

And… okay, another challenge in analyzing all of these interactions is… I’ve been trying to look at all of the Membrane Sibling’s faults and flaws from as balanced a perspective as I can muster - but it’s also important to remember the context in which they exist. When I call out Dib or Gaz for being assholes, this is not necessarily a condemnation of their character. ‘Invader Zim’ is a show all about Flawed Messed-Up Assholes. And it’s also fundamentally a comedy show about the entertainment value in cruelty. If Dib wasn’t sometimes a selfish little egomaniac and Gaz wasn’t an asshole prone to violent acts of ‘revenge’... they just wouldn’t be good ‘Invader Zim’ characters, you know?

Really, between all the different episodes and all the times Gaz was more or less justified, more or less cruel… I think the overall picture that is painted of two very imperfect kids having understandable-but-also-shitty-reactions to the bad hand they were dealt by the world. Dib’s sometimes selfish disregard for Gaz’s interests and wants is maybe understandable considering how basically no one cares about him so… he might as well care about himself, right? And Gaz’s frustration with this disregard and constant egoism is also understandable… but also at some point it becomes kinda disproportionate. And sometimes it becomes really disproportionate.

And that’s just like… that’s just what the Membrane siblings are.  

#invader zim #iz #iz analysis #dib membrane #iz dib #dib iz #dib invader zim #iz dib membrane #invader zim dib #gaz membrane #gaz iz #gaz invader zim #iz gaz #iz gaz membrane #invader zim gaz

[inhuman-obey-me]

levi + 🚪 no mc please!

"I feel a sickness for a home I’ve never been." - Leviathan

"YES, I got the last piece of the set!" Leviathan shouts excitedly to himself, happily setting the new piece to his gear before inputting a dance command.

The little avatar on his screen begins to bop around, moving its arms cheerfully to no particular music as if to show off the new jacket it's wearing. The blurry pixels that make up the character's face look like they're smiling, just like the Avatar of Envy is, beaming from his seat as he reaches up to stretch for the first time in hours.

Messages from his guildmates start rolling in, too, filling the chat with, "YOOO CONGRATS" and "omg sooo jealous" and "looks AMAZING, man!!"

Ah, satisfaction.

And then, killing his elation just as quickly -- "alright, I think that's it for me tonight."

"Wait, some of you still need another drop from this dungeon though, right? Let's not stop yet," Levi types frantically. For the first time all night, he notices his eyes stinging from the strain of playing for so many hours straight, but he's desperate not to log off. If anything, his chest is starting to constrict at the thought, full of panic at the idea of ending already.

The others, however, are done. They collectively decide this is a good place to stop for the night, and one by one, he watches his teammates' avatars disappear from the screen, leaving his character alone in the field, still dancing away.

And, just like that, the night's distraction is over. Groaning with frustration, he scrolls idly through his quest list, checking for something, anything to still do. A dungeon, a raid, maybe some limited-time seasonal event? Of course, he's already completed all the most fun quests though, and the only things still available for him to handle alone are mindless, repetitive tasks. Boring.

He closes out the game too, dropping his head into his hands in defeat. He should get some sleep anyway, admittedly. Lucifer will be mad if he oversleeps come morning, after all.

It's just, the moment he turns around, he'll have to see that same damn room again -- his new one, with its jellyfish lamps and porcelain white tub for a bed. He'd been excited about it at first, since he'd gotten to decorate it with all his otaku paraphernalia, and the fish tank walls really did cast a lovely blue glow over everything. His figurines look great in their displays, and his entire manga collection is neatly organized on the shelves, just how he likes it.

It's a good room. It's got all of his favorite things. It's very distinctly his -- no more of the dusty old guest rooms of the Demon Lord's Castle, each one indistinguishable from all the others.

He should like it.

But that doesn't change what the room is: new. This is his new room, in a new house, in this new realm, with a new body, having to make a new home, and it's all because he's not welcome in his old one anymore. The Celestial Realm cast them out, and he'll never see his old room in the Celestial Palace again. He'll never get to stay in that nice, comfortable, familiar place anymore, and the thought makes him deeply envious of his past self who got to enjoy his time there so obliviously, never even realizing that those days would come to an end!

Then again, if he's honest with himself -- wasn't he the same way back then, too?

It's just a sickness for a home that's never been. Truthfully, he didn't feel any more comfortable in his skin as an angel than he does as a demon. Having his brothers with him is what makes a place home more than anything else, but even they don't really understand him.

No one does.

But there's always escaping into his games, his anime, his manga. In those, he can imagine himself as the hero. He doesn't have to think about what a sad, pathetic demon he is now. He doesn't have to think about being a demon at all. He can be whatever he wants to be, wherever he wants to be.

And where he wants to be right now, is not here. Anything would be better than thinking about all this again. Late night be damned, he's not ready to face this yet.

Screw it, he's not going to sleep. He boots up another game.

#obey me #obey me! #obey me swd #obey me shall we date #omswd #obey me nightbringer #omnb #obey me levi #obey me leviathan #om! levi #om! leviathan #leviathan angst #obey me angst #obey me fic #obey me drabble #writings #drabble #4000 follower celebration #mod chaos in the devildom

[ilovedthestars]

and also just. the way ambiguity in relationships is assumed to be romantic, too. see, i wrote that whole post a while back about how I loved ambiguous fictional relationships, with deep devotion but no clear label as to the type of relationship. i called it love as in significance--that's where my tag comes from. love as in being important to someone, in whatever form that takes.

and what I said then about how this applies to romance still applies--when I'm reading about a fictional romance, I'll be much more engaged with one that feels built on that foundation of significance than one that isn't. flirting, the trappings of modern courtship, those feel empty to me without the feeling that these characters already matter to each other. (this is why in real life I'm so perplexed by things like dating apps, or people who actively seek out romance with strangers--I just personally can't fathom the idea of wanting that kind of closeness with someone you don't already know and care for.)

but in regards to ambiguity....I feel like I've been burned a little. I loved ambiguity because it meant you could take many things away from it. other people could see romance, but I could see the kind of deeply devoted platonic relationship that, let's be honest, is incredibly rare in fiction. but I'm starting to feel frustrated by the way ambiguity is assumed to be romance, without an explicit statement that it's not. (I've joked about the obligatory "no hetero" moments that have to be inserted into the start of a piece of media that has a male and a female protagonist with any kind of relationship other than romance--the "not with those lips" moment in the D&D movie, for example. It's funny, and i appreciate it being made very clear, but it's kind of sad that it has to be.)

and...okay, there's an elephant in the room that i really should acknowledge. I was talking about it in that first post, but I made a point of never mentioning it, although i'm sure plenty of people guessed.

I haven't watched Good Omens season two. I'm not sure if I'm ever going to. When I first wrote about my love for ambiguous relationships back in February of 2023, Aziraphale and Crowley were at the top of my list. When I wrote about how ambiguity left room for anyone to see themselves represented, and how i wished that a little more space was left for aro voices, I was talking about them. I was frustrated by people who saw that ambiguity as "queerbaiting"--didn't they see that the story was already queer, that Aziraphale and Crowley cared so deeply for each other, and whether they kissed or not wouldn't change anything?

But they did kiss. And it did change something. I don't feel like there's a place left for me anymore. And there's social pressure to celebrate, to be happy for another canon queer love story on TV, and god I'd love to celebrate that, but I can't help but feel a little betrayed by a story that I thought would leave space for me.

(and yes, a kiss doesn't have to mean romance--but in this, in hollywood, it's assumed to. the creators and the audience both understand it as such, unless someone stops to say no, we're friends who kiss each other the mouth, we're subverting your expectations. because the expectations are inescapable.)

I've been trying to give myself the space to feel upset about this. To remember that aro stories are queer stories too. And I think I'm raising my standards. I'll take ambiguity--I'll take any carved-out space I can find. But I'm not sure I trust it anymore. I want explicitly platonic relationships with the level of love and devotion and care usually reserved for romance. I want to read and watch and listen to stories about people who are significant to each other without romance even being in the picture. I want love that isn't synonymous with romance. I'm going to stop feeling like I have to settle for anything less.

#stars has thoughts #aro thoughts #love as in significance #platonic love #amatonormativity #aphobia #sorry for not tagging this go2 spoilers but it's been a while and i think everyone's either seen it or given up avoiding spoilers #and i frankly don't want to put this anywhere near a good omens tag #also: as usual this is a complaint about broader media trends that can't be solved by a few counter examples #BUT i will still take media recs especially from fellow aspecs #i need more platonic love stories in my life

[vestaclinicpod]

Audio Drama Sunday - 14th April ✨

Oh my god, the audio sure did drama this week!!  

👻 @tellnotalespod (S2E7.5) HOW did none of us put this together sooner?! Oh my god, what an absolutely INCREDIBLE little twist. I love the undercurrent of hopeful resilience in Tell No Tales (Leo is going to get with the programme really soon 🤞) and I am screaming, crying and throwing up imagining the end of season reunion 😭 HOWEVER, don’t think I missed for a second that Riley is asking for another packet of painkillers . . . it would be so like him to think that 16 paracetamol is two doses of paracetamol but still! He needs to be okay!!

🌲 @hellofromthehallowoods (147) hhhhh what a GOOD episode. There’s something different about the horror of season 4 that I want someone with a literature degree to talk to me about for hours. Can we please talk about how the murder victim had a treble clef carved into them . . . i.e. the symbol at the start of a piece of music. It’S SO CLEVER I love the intricate details of this show!!!!! And, can we also talk about how emotional I feel about Clem (namer of everything) is in love with Shelby (has a cat named Cat). There’s something in that which is giving me palpitations. 

🦀 @thesiltverses (39) You wouldn’t think one would be happy to have silt in their ears, but I am!! I’ve missed this story so much and I loved the twist in this episode. Carson has practically wrapped Shrue in a bow and handed them to Carpenter and Hayward. I can’t WAIT for that conversation. 

🧳 Travelling Light @monstrousproductions (17) Oh this is so beautiful! Do humans do this with ice?? I think we should 1000% do this with ice! I don’t have voting privileges (yet 💸) but I think they should go easy on their foes in the snowball fight. I would love to see how adorably smug Óli is if allowed to win 🥺

🤴 Inco @itmeblog (S3E20-34) If anyone takes SAWA away from Nova again I am going to throw HANDS. I’ve always considered SAWA to be endearingly overbearing with her prompts to Nova but we got such a good glimpse of how vital she is in the library/archives and I love her 😭

♦️@grottopod (8) Grotto finale! I loved the music at the start of this episode and it was so satisfying to hear David get to express some of his frustrations. Season two sounds like it’s going to be wild. 

⚔️ @camlannpod (7) This episode KILLED me. Here are the quotes that made me scream: “GWEN: You can’t love the mental illness out of someone.”  (10/10, true, valid, hurts) “PERRY: Eat a dick, Kay.” (11/10 the crowd goes WILD) “RHIANNON: (calling to the group as they leave) Cousin. About your lover. You didn’t fail him. You just needed more time.” (1/10 OW?????? OW OW WHY? OW!!!!) “MORGAN: You’re just as bad as Arthur. Worse. At least he was honest about it.” (??/10 JAW ON THE FLOOR) I need this podcast forever 🥺

🖥️ The Magnus Protocol (11) Oooh I liked this episode!! I love it when you’re left to fill in the blanks in a horror story - my mind is still whirring through so many awful scenarios. 

🍎 @notquitedeadpod (XXXIV-XXXV) ah! I’ve accidentally caught up to Not Quite Dead! What will my Sunday afternoons look like now?? There were so many moments in these eps which made me laugh but I’m mostly just so in awe of how complex and real these characters are. Neige genuinely feels 10000 years old and shaped by the trauma of each of them. I need to check the release schedule because I cannot wait for more!! 

Have a good week of listening, everyone! 🌈

#audio drama sunday #tell no tales #hfth spoilers #tsv spoilers #travelling light #inco #tmagp spoilers #camlann #not quite dead #the grotto

[tgammsideblog]

Darryl and neurodivergency

Darryl is the younger brother of Molly Mcgee, who is often characterized as mischievous and a troublemaker. Some episodes have subplots that involve him making deals with other people or getting into some shenanigans, like ¨A Period Piece¨ or ¨I Wanna Dance With Some-Ollie¨. However, it is clear that not all his behaviour is considered totally intentional, as he wants to be good but he struggles understanding how. This struggle with understanding social norms is heavily implied to come from his own neurodivergency

In this post i'm going to discuss how Darryl is written as a neurodivergent character mainly using the episode 2-B from Season 2 ¨Double, Double, Darryl & Trouble¨ and how it explores the relationship he has with his family and how he views himself.

First, what is neurodivergency?

From dictionary.cambridge.org defines neurodivergency as: ¨having or related to a type of brain that is often considered as different from what is usual¨.

So, from my perspective, this means people who have their brains wired in way that is considered ¨different¨ from the norm. This doesn't mean that there is something wrong with the person, it just means that they may operate or think in a unique way or they have a different way of learning new things. A person who is neurodivergent can carry out their daily lives just like a person who isn't neurodivergent does.

Now, why do i describe Darryl as neurodivergent?

Well, it has been mentioned by some people in the crew how Darryl's brain is wired in a different way from the rest of the Mcgee family. Bob Roth, one of the creators of the show, described Darryl on his twitter as ¨Darryl isn't evil or sadistic. He wants to do good. He thinks he's doing good. But his ways of getting their are really are just... off.¨

Sam King, the person who directed the episode ¨Double, Double, Darryl & Trouble¨ talked about how the plot of the episode is based on how she and her sister had neurodivergences that affected how both of them did at school. She talked about how Darryl struggles with what is expected of him or how he shouldn't change completely who he is to be ¨good¨.

Having this in mind, it is clear that Darryl written as a neurodivergent was intentional from the crew and the writers' part. This means that Darryl is intended to be read as this and it is an aspect that should be considered when it comes to analysing his character.

How does the episode ¨Double, Double, Darryl & Trouble¨ tackles this theme?

The episode starts with Darryl getting caught for making a giant graffiti mocking the school principal Connor. Connor talks to Sharon and Pete about this, both who are disappointed at Darryl's behaviour. As a punishment, Darryl has to clean up the wall and miss the recess.

However, once Pete and Sharon get on their car, they start laughing of their son's pranks. They praise his artist talent and believe that his humor is hilarious. This goes to show that while they both try to be firm with Darryl, they still like him for who he is and enjoy his pranks even though it puts him on trouble with school.

Back to Darryl, he gets the idea of becoming a wraith and letting his shell (body) to clean up the graffiti on the wall while he has fun flying around as a ghost. He later persuades Molly into letting him be a wraith for the rest of the day while his shell body goes to class, with the argument of how he (his shell) is behaving good like his family and the principal want him to be.

During these scenes you can see Darryl getting frustrated with the idea of how almost everyone around him wants him to be a well behaved and model student. He doesn't fully understand how to be that and why his behaviour is wrong because his own morality works differently from other kids. When he tries to be good he often can get things wrong and do things that weren't expected of him. Darryl has some struggle understanding social norms and being able to differentiate between what is good and bad.

I think this is a feeling plenty of neurodivergent people can relate to. The idea of not getting what things were wrong and how growing up adults around us wouldn't explain why those things wrong. Or saying things that were inappropriate without meaning to because we thought we were just being honest. And we could get angry with people around us for not explaining things well or us just not understading the situation. At least it is something i can personally relate in my experience as teenager.

Another thing that is worth of analyzing is the role the Scratch plays in this episode. Scratch always had this sort of uncle relationship with Darryl and you can see that they were already getting along in early episodes from Season 1 such as ¨Getting the (Band)Shell Back Together¨ and ¨No Good Deed¨. Both have similar personalities that involve getting in trouble and being mischevious. Because of this, Darryl feels like he can be more himself around Scratch than he is with the rest of the Mcgees. Scratch seems to accept him more for who he is or put less pressure in him to be ¨good¨. It's not surprising to see why they are usually seen hanging out together. However, Scratch can be a bad influence to Darryl and encourage bad behaviour and habits from him. So, this is the downside of them hanging out together since while Darryl feels like he can be himself around Scratch, the blue ghost isn't the best role model for him.

And in ¨Double, Double, Darryl & Trouble¨ Scratch is the one that encourages the most for Darryl to stay as a wraith. In the song sequence Darryl and Scratch play all kind of pranks to the teachers and students in school while Darryl's shell behaves like a model student, which becomes important for Darryl's conflict later in the episode.

When Molly, Scratch and Darryl go back home, Molly notices that Darryl is still a wraith and orders him to return to his human body. Darryl refuses to go back to normal since he says that ¨he feels more alive as a ghost¨. He doesn't have those social pressures he gets all the time and he is hanging out with someone who he feels like he can be himself freely.

In that moment Sharon and Pete call Darryl about how the school principal called them. Darryl's shell goes to Pete and Sharon while Darryl listens to the conversation. It turns out that the principal called because ¨Darryl¨ has been behaving well all day. Both Pete and Sharon tell ¨Darryl¨ how proud they are of him, making Darryl feel insecure about his relationship with his family.

He later talks to Scratch about he feels like his family likes more his shell than they like the real him. Scratch ties to convince Darryl that this isn't the case, only for them to hear Molly complementing the shell's behaviour. In response Darryl gets really angry and decides to stay ghost ¨foverer¨ if their family ¨loves the shell more than they love him¨.

Before Darryl decides to run away from home and stay as a ghost, he listens to Pete and Sharon being worried about him. They talk about how ¨Darryl lost his spark¨ and think they did something wrong as parents. Darryl then realizes that his parents like him for who he is and that he misunderstood the whole situation.

I think this conflict that Darryl has about feeling misunderstood and unwanted by his family it is something a lot of neurodivergent people experienced growing up. About not feeling good enough for your family and that you are letting them down. That there is something wrong with oneself and that your family secretly hates you for that. This is something that Darryl probably has felt multiple times before this episode. He feels different from the rest of his family. He believes that they don't accept him for who he is and mainly see him as a troublemaker. It isn't suprising to see why he lashed out when he saw his shell being praised by his parents and Molly, despite that wasn't the real him.

After some shenanigans involving Darryl rescuing his body from a garbage truck and almost falling into an incinerator, Darryl goes back to his human body and returns to his home. He has a conversation with Pete and Sharon about how he can't be this perfectly well behaved son, how sometimes he is going to get into trouble and they have to accept that. Both of them tell Darryl that they love him as he is, even with the problems he usually gets into.

In the end Darryl understands that his family accept him as who he is and they only want what the best for him. They want him to grow into a good person and not fall into the wrong path. Although he may struggle with understanding certain social norms, that doesn't mean that he should completely change who he is as a person.

In conclusion, the point of the episode is that if someone is neurodivergent or has way of behaving that is different from what it is expected, that person shouldn't have to become another person and leave behind who they are to be accepted. They can still be themselves while looking for a way to become better people. Because a person shouldn't have to completely change their personality to please others.

#the ghost and molly mcgee #darryl mcgee #double double darryl and trouble #tgamm season 2 #tgamm analysis #molly mcgee #scratch mcgee

[melonteee]

If nothing else, OPLA’s marketing campaign was downright diabolical. Because the community shift from skepticism to outright hostility towards that same skepticism really started when the show runner went onto that YouTube Reverie a couple years before the show came out. Not only was that the first time the showrunner began doing similar “interviews” with YouTubers (who are, generally speaking, The Worst interviewers), not only is it where many of the common talking points in defense of the show originated from (most notably “It can’t be a 1:1 adaptation” in response to any changes), but he told all these YouTubers that he was *such* a Big Fan of all of them - even the ones who were critical of the live action - and that he was using their videos as inspiration for writing the live action episodes.

Now, I’m not saying that the showrunner was lying when he said those things. But I do think that such a move meant there were no boundaries and a MASSIVE conflict of interest between someone who should be considered a representative for Netflix and creators and fans with huge reach in the fanbase. Because suddenly the OPLA was getting reframed not as another Netflix product, but as a really expensive fan film (that Netflix happened to be funding) - a fan film that Fans Like Them were having an indirect hand in helping create because the showrunner was also a fan of them. Combine that with how heavily it was pushed that Oda had to approve everything, and the whole thing started gaining this undercurrent of the live action adaptation almost being an endorsement of their interpretation of the source material… even as it became more obvious OPLA would deviate heavily from that same source material. But that sentiment only got more pronounced as those same YouTubers started getting opportunities to privately tour the sets and some even spoke to the writers that led to being labeled as unofficial-official consultants. Now, with another One Piece YouTuber from the same Reverie that the showrunner took part in a member of the season 2 writers room, there’s kinda this unspoken atmosphere surrounding that corner of the community that if you heap enough praise onto this adaptation, you too could be scouted for the next season and get endorsed (maybe even meet) Oda too!

It would be funny that the whole thing was that such a painfully transparent move on the showrunner’s part (most blatant example being that he hosted an anime podcast that totally wasn’t made just to endorse the show guys! He just wanted to talk to all his friends about anime and just HAPPENED to make the last episode the same day the live action aired!) if it hadn’t been so effective.

Like I said: diabolical.

I can't speak on whether or not those YouTubers are good interviewers, because I literally cannot blame them for jumping at the opportunity since the early stages WERE exciting and I have no doubt they were barred from asking certain questions. But my opinion is...perhaps stick to journalists for interviews since that's their job hh.

But god the marketing was absolutely insane. Was having Iñaki meeting Oda and putting a hat on his head, AS WELL as Mayumi Tanaka, not insanely performative to anyone else? Does anyone seriously think Oda willingly asked to do this and 'pass down' the hat for a project we KNOW he was continuously not listened to for 😭 all I can see is Netflix doing the MOST to make One Piece fans side with them, and it WORKED!

When the live action came out it got INSANELY review bombed. It'd only been ten minutes since the episodes had come out and the final episode already had hundreds of reviews and hundreds of 10/10s. Netflix did all they could to make sure NO ONE cared to look at this critically, and it's so frustrating that it worked cause I can't even have a reasonable conversation about why this adaptation simply did not work as an adaptation without tons of people biting my head off.

I've said it before but I will never forget the shift of people questioning why the hell this live action was being made, and why the hell the Merry looked like that (la Merry had been leaked) because...guys she looked like shit!! There's no colour or personality in it and she just looks creepy as hell.

And that's what everyone was originally saying! But suddenly you have the show runner reaching out to YouTubers, you have the announcement that Oda's approving EVERYTHING (we know for a fact he didn't), and suddenly the public opinion shifted like THAT!

Honestly if anyone wants an a grade course in how you market to a loyal fandom, just look at what Netflix did! Because EVERYONE can have their own opinion and say they liked it, but as an ADAPTATION? I stand my ground in saying it failed miserably. Because the fact people who NEVER saw the animanga are coming out of the live action with DIFFERENT perceptions of the story and characters- to the point you are genuinely talking about two different characters - the adaptation has failed.

Because, yes, an adaptation can't be 1:1, Matt Owens is correct. But what he DIDN'T say, is when you adapt something, what you need to keep in mind is fidelity. If your goal for an adaptation IS to bring an existing property into a new medium, and WANTING to replicate the characters and EXPRESS the same story - which the producers said this would be MULTIPLE times! - you better damn well hope the non One Piece watchers can jump from the live action to the manga/anime and go "Oh! Yes this is the Luffy that was presented to me in the live action!"

And they don't, especially not with other characters. The amount of non One Piece fans who then picked up the anime and were SHOCKED at just how focused on Sanji and Usopp were in the original should speak volumes, should it not?

Again, you can like the live action! I think it did its job in essentially being an advertisement for the original One Piece. But as a story and an adaptation of One Piece, it just failed. And I simply hate being unable to bring anything into question because Netflix's insane marketing has made this environment of "it's good cause I said so and everything's fine, shut up" 😭😭

It's genuinely an insanely good example of anime to live action adaptation and why, in my opinion, it just doesn't work. But I can't go into any kind of depth about that in a long form video essay the way I'd like to because my anxiety would go off the charts - even if I speak reasonably about it, because of the air created from Netflix's insane marketing. I just think it's kinda sad hhh

#ask #melonask #oplatalks

[heyclickadee]

Some Hunter thoughts I can’t articulate worth shit right now but I’m going to try anyway:

There’s something about how much more withdrawn Hunter is and yet doesn’t just disappear out of everyone’s lives in season two, and I don’t know what. He’s still making calls, mostly to not get involved and keep their heads down, but those are still decisions, still trying to keep what’s left of his family safe, still trying to find ways to put food on the table, still being Omega’s dad and having an active presence in her life. He’s still going through the motions of his role.

But he doesn’t talk much, not even to Omega. All those sweet one-one-one conversations he had with her last season aren’t nearly as much of a thing. Part of that’s just because of the practicalities of storytelling; this season had more emphasis on Omega’s relationships with Echo and Tech, so a lot of those one-on-one parent-child conversations went to either Echo in the first half of the season, and Tech in the second. In fact, the only direct parent-child conversation Hunter has with Omega this season (not the only conversation he has with her, just the only one that’s one of those, “Something difficult’s happening, let me help you talk it out,” talks) is is the one at the very end of the season for which neither Echo nor Tech are present, because Echo needed to be alone and Tech’s…MIA. But it’s more than just the shift in character focus.

A lot of the Omega side of The Bad Batch story is told from Omega’s point of view. Not exclusively, there are definitely a lot of scenes and even entire episodes from other perspectives, and Crosshair is pretty much the point of view character of all the Crosshair stuff, of course, and it’s not the same as it would be if the Bad Batch were a first person novel with Omega as the narrator character, but the show does hover around Omega’s perspective a lot, at least. And one thing I do kind of like about this is that it means there’s stuff happening that we don’t see, or that we’re not seeing right now, anyway. Even if we didn’t assume that Hunter, Wrecker, Tech, and Echo were having conversations out of Omega’s earshot, we’re given enough context clues and bits and pieces (and one occasion the entirety) of conversations Omega does overhear to know that that’s the case and to sometimes get the gist of what those conversations were about. The shift in Tech’s attitude from “Replacements” to “Cornered” (from being hellbent on finishing that brain scanner, which they would need if they did go back and get Crosshair, and being the first to pipe up and say that Crosshair’s chip is probably influencing his actions in one episode to sadly noting that Crosshair won’t be needing his comm device in the next) implies that the group had a conversation about the Crosshair situation that Omega (and we) didn’t hear—or that Wrecker, Tech, and Echo realized that Hunter wasn’t going to talk about it and discussed that amongst themselves. We can guess from the interactions between Hunter and Echo this season (as well as that, “Remember what I said,” line which is so frustrating in the best way because what?? What did Hunter say to Echo???) that the, “We should be doing more,” conversation didn’t stop with the one Omega overheard.

The conversations Omega—and by extension, we—don’t hear are probably mostly the more adult ones. And by adult, I guess I should clarify—I don’t necessarily mean the “adult” in that sense, though those conversations probably happen, too. I mostly mean the difficult conversations, about the darker side of the war, how bad their situation could get, Echo deciding to leave, how close they are to flat broke, how many meals they’re going to have to skip so at least Omega can go to sleep with a full belly, that sort of thing. It’s not that they’re trying to keep Omega in the dark, exactly. Their lifestyle doesn’t allow for that luxury. But they are trying, and Hunter’s really the one trying the hardest, to build Omega a childhood out of whatever scraps they can. And part of that, for Hunter, anyway, means keeping some conversations out of Omega’s earshot.

And honestly the last few paragraphs are just a long winded way to say that because a lot of the show hovers around Omega’s perspective, if we see Hunter talking to and around Omega less, that probably means he is talking to her less in universe. This is probably off base, but I kind of think the reason is pretty similar to the reasoning I gave for why they have some conversations out of Omega’s earshot above. Hunter’s really just…not having a good time in season two; he’s depressed at best and his hunker-down-and-ignore-the-star-war-of-it-all attitude comes across as a mix of guilt (over the Crosshair situation) and trauma response. He’s lost and buckling under the pressure to lead his squad in through this strange new reality, and I honestly think that he just doesn’t want Omega to know how bad things in his head are, because she’s a child and he’s her dad/big brother and it is not her responsibility to deal with his problems (1). But he’s so, so bad at faking things, and Omega’s a perceptive kid, so instead of keeping up appearances and trying to pretend that everything’s fine all the time, he withdraws. Just a little bit.

And don’t get me wrong, it’s not a season three Kanan Jarrus situation, where Kanan has to adjust to a new disability and can’t, so he falls off the face of the map (2). Hunter’s still extremely present in Omega’s life, still quizzing her on her homework, still making sure he’s there to catch her when she throws herself off a ledge, still there to look all sad and jealous when Omega starts copying Phee but trusting Omega enough not get in the way of her make a new friend, still there to grab Omega and make sure she doesn’t die in the cable car crash, and so on. He’s always sure to be there whenever she needs him. He just…doesn’t talk with her as much. He moves a quarter-step into the background. And I have some kind of feeling about that, but I’m not sure what it is.

1. This is totally off topic, but this actually one of the things I really liked about Stephen Universe, just…in reverse. I had a hard time getting into the first few seasons of the show (I know, I’m sorry) because the adult characters all sort of talked to Stephen—and each other, but mostly Stephen—like they were all trying to win at therapy, and it kind of drove me crazy. Aaaaaaand then I got to the movie and Future and it turned out that that was kind of the point. Every adult in Stephen’s life sort of used him as a live-in therapist, and it really messed him up and made it difficult to heal from his own trauma.

2. Just to be clear, I’m not dogging on Kanan here.

#the bad batch #hunter bad batch #this is way too many words for me to say ‘Hunter doesn’t talk as much in season two and I like it but also I am #sad? #am I sad about it? #melancholy? #it’s something #I don’t even know what I’m doing here with this

[halliescomut]

Naughty Babe Ramble

There's gonna be spoilers up to episode 4...just so you're aware.

I've been really stuck thinking about this past episode and sort of where we are about half-way through. I know for a lot of people, Naughty Babe is just silly fun, and there's also plenty who just wave it off as campy semi-BS. And while the show is certainly set up to be more silly than serious, I really have been engrossed by the new glimpses we've gotten into Yi and Diao now that they're at the center.

I loved them as a couple in the Cutie Pie series, though I had some concerns, mostly things that I've been able to abandon now that we've gotten a bit more insight into Yi's mind specifically. Cutie Pie is very much Kuea's perspective, and therefore pretty knowledgeable of Diao's personality, but less so of Yi.

And while I was somewhat suspicious of what we were going to see after the trailers, knowing about the whole amnesia thing, I'm actually pretty satisfied overall. Both because the amnesia didn't last for the whole season, but also because they clearly recognize that Diao knows Yi well enough to figure out he's lying. Like I do agree that both Lian and his dad would figure it out first, just because Yi doesn't hide so much from them, but I was concerned they would set Diao up to look a bit like an imbecile, and he is so not.

I'm gonna start by talking about Diao, mostly because he's my favorite, but also because if we recognize that this show is mostly Yi's perspective, then I'm so happy they're still showing Diao as feisty, and cute. He's still shown as a little shy, but I think he's definitely guarded around Yi, especially right in this time, so it makes sense, that he sort of reads it that way. One of my favorite things about Diao in Cutie Pie was that he was clearly just as strong-willed and self-aware as Kuea, but where Kuea is more brash, Diao is just a tad softer. But his softness isn't weakness (I fucking hate when people think that) and we're continually given glimpses of his strength, both mentally and physically.

His practice and teaching of Taekwondo is clearly part of that, it's a martial arts style that has a heavy focus on meditation and mindfulness, but also philosophy of how you should behave as a citizen of humanity. It's also listed often as a potentially good option for self-defense in those that are of smaller stature (which Diao is). It's a martial art that I think is well-matched to the character, in that it's both strong and elegant, with a focus on moral character.

The series so far shows Diao as mainly admirable...which is great, but it also speaks to what Diao is so frustrated by. He's not a piece of art, he doesn't want to be set on a pedestal and admired, he wants to be loved. He's been clear in his passion to Yi in the past, but it's Yi's that's stuck in his own head about what if's and so they aren't able to progress. And so now we're 3 years in the future, and Diao's wondering if he read everything all wrong.

So moving on to hia Yi...I know you're trying, but god, do I wish that you would just get it together. I understand that the root of his behavior is all fear. He's afraid that the past coming to light, and his connection to Diao's trauma will cause DIao to hate him...and dude...if you pulled your head out of your ass and actually took in the person that Diao has become you'd see that it would never happen. I know he's drowning in the guilt of what happened with the tiger/puma/dog/jackalope (depending on when and where the story's being told)...but if you think Diao would learn that and not recognize that you were a 15 year old child who made a horrible mistake??? Diao has so much empathy, and Yi knows that, but he's still can't comprehend that that empathy also extends to him for some reason.

As flawed as the man is, and honestly as poorly as he sees himself sometimes, though usually glossed over by the sheen of narcissism, he can be such a good man. In all of this universe, I've always been a bit meh on Max's acting, I'll be honest. He's fine, but I've always felt like because his character was so staid that I wasn't engaged, especially when Zee and Nunew and Nat were given so much more expression and emotion. But this last couple of episodes really, but especially number four, he has really been doing some great work.

He's both solidified a lot of aspects of the character as well as bringing new depth. The nightmares talk and panic attack scene were really so good. Him just laying there as Diao talks about his nightmares and his eyes are just full of so many different emotions. and then when the panic attack really kicks in, his overall concern is not disturbing Diao. You don't have to have an internal monologue to know exactly where this panic attack comes from, and it's portrayed really well in my opinion. Of course everyone's experience will differ, but my sister has an anxiety disorder, and really her feelings as she's described them and her physical condition as I've watched her experience these attacks...they match up pretty well.

In a lot of ways I do feel like we are seeing a little bit of the same character arc for the couple here that we saw for Lian and Kuea in Cutie Pie, with both Lian and Yi afraid that somehow they're being selfish in wanting their relationships with Kuea and Diao respectively. I think it's something that stems from their age difference, this knowing that there is a lot of opportunity out there for them, and are they sort of clipping their wings? It's a bit different for Kuea and Diao, but it does boil down to both wanting to be truly seen for who they are. For Kuea it was about reconciling his 'true self' and knowing that Lian loved him still. With Diao, I think it's about being seen as himself, but also being seen as someone worthy of being a true partner to Yi, to stand beside him. I think Yi's tendency to coddle him and lie to him has caused him to assume that Yi doesn't believe he's capable of handling the truth. And in a bit of a match to Kuea, since they've always been these sort of biddable, polite people (which is based around the cultural expectations especially in relation to their age difference), will there still be love and affection if they're assertive of their own needs/desires? For Kuea the answer was clearly yes, which Diao knows, but I think Lian was also a lot easier to read for Diao than Yi. It's also complicated by the fact that Diao is also afraid of what he might see, and so I think he chooses not to.

My last little part isn't really about character, but more about how wildly uncomfortable I was watching the interactions between Diao's family and Yi and Diao. It was both awkward and insanely infuriating. I felt so insulted on Yi's behalf, watching this family treat him like little more than an open wallet. And don't even get me started on Diao, the way I know he was so embarrassed by their behavior, not just because it's so icky, but also because it makes him wonder "Does hia Yi think that I'm in this for his money??" I also kind of hated it because hia Yi clearly values family, and I know for certain that he's glad that his own father has such strong love and affection for Diao, to not be seen equally by Diao's family probably really hurts.

(I'm sorry this was such a ramble, but I have a lot of random feelings about the show.)

#Naughty Babe the series #Hia Yi x Kon Diao #Yi x Diao #Max x nat #MaxNat #Max Nattapol #Nat Natasitt #Thai BL

[fanficfanattic]

💙: How do they show love when they’re busy, drained, or otherwise unable to show it to the degree they usually do?

?? Regale us with your wisdom please!!

OMG. THIS WAS NOT MEANT TO GO TO THIS LMAO. IT’S FINE. I’M FINE. Lolol.

Roy Was Never Loaned Out (and what that means for season one)

Ask

So I have been kicking this around for ages in absolutely self-indulgent terrible Call Out Post style conversational vignettes. But the missing piece to that puzzle just occurred to me.

Ted knows so little about Football that I am fairly sure that he doesn’t actually know what On Loan means. Let alone what that means for Jamie. And we obviously have no idea the background history for most of the players. But we know that there is no way in hell that Roy was ever loaned out.

So feasibly there is no one there who really gets what it means. Probably Cartwright did for how little that’s worth. But the general idea is that Richmond is not Jamie’s club. He might actually still be getting paid through them rather than Richmond. Man City is his home club. If he’d still been at Richmond, he wouldn’t have been able to play the relegation match.

Ted doesn’t seem to fully grasp the specifics of Jamie’s loan contract. Rebecca certainly wouldn’t have gone out of her way to get Ted up to speed on HR shit. So he was pulling from his existing coaching experience which was at the collegiate level. With students.

He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know about the dynamics of it all. And he does not give much evidence to indicate he sought that out before barbecue-saucing his way in. Like jfc Ted. What the fuck?

Was Jamie a prick and a little shit? Yes, absolutely. (I love him, your honor).

But was he probably confused as fuck about why Ted kept trying to integrate him into a team he wouldn’t be with a few months later? YES! Absolutely!

And this fits into the greater Mind Games concept. Like obviously Jamie’s dad gave him the strongest foundation for that trauma issue. But I’d put money down that he didn’t think Pep was doing that with him. And Roy was straightforward so he didn’t have anything from that end.

Just mysterious Beard. And mental Lasso. And score the goals but pass so others score the goals. Like his contract wouldn’t say Score X Amount of Goals. But the Man City reason behind the loan would suggest scoring goals is the quickest way to moving up the ladder at his home club.

Anyway I have a lot of thoughts, thanks!

Some snippets of the self-indulgent nonsense under the cut.

Multiple Snippets from the cleverly titled Mind Games

“I know how to physically pass a ball. It’s how we get to the box. But I don’t just magically find meself standing there! I put meself in position to take the shot. You know, on purpose! If I’m where I’m supposed to be, with the ball, why am I passing? For fun? To manipulate someone else’s stats? To risk possession switching?”

“No! I’m not done yet, Roy, cause you don’t fucking see it yet, do you?

Not passing to me is more important to you than scoring goals. And you have the gall to act surprised that I don’t rely on you to get me the ball? That I take it from midfield to the box all on me own?

I’m doing everything I can to put points on the table so y’all don’t get regulated! A team I’m not even really on! Why do I care more about that than you? The captain!

Where you stand at the end of this season shouldn’t matter to me because at the end of it, I go back to me actual club. Man City. You might be familiar with them? You play against them in a couple of weeks. Which I am contractually not allowed to play during. Since Man City is me actual club! Remember that?

And I don’t tell anyone where they should be for me to pass to. That’s what you’re supposed to do instead of pretending there are only 10 people on the pitch.

You won’t visualize and tell us where to be. So we have to do that ourselves. And if I am the one telling me where to go, I’ll always choose to go do me fucking job. Which is score!”

It’s frustrating as fuck and Roy’s the only other person who can tell how messed up this is. And you aren’t listening to him any more than me, cause he keeps telling you to stop making me your playmaker! Do you know how fucked it is that the two players who hate each other most are the only two actually in sync?

#jamie tartt #ted lasso #roy kent #tw james tartt #mind games

[franklespine]

They really didn't do enough with the sam seeing visions and thinking that they're from God, when really they're from Lucifer plotline in s11, because holy crap that was good. There is something that is just so devastatingly fascinating about sam, desperate to believe in a force greater than himself, and for that force of divine intervention and purity to have chosen him. Then to have these visions show him his deepest and most central traumatic wound, to lead him back towards this suffering. Oh the TURMOIL.

Sam has always craved purity - he has always wanted desperately to belong, to be pure like everyone else. The little kid who thought he could never go on a holy quest because he wasn't clean enough, who went on to find out about the demon blood fed to him when he was an infant and thinking this is the puzzle piece he was missing - this is the answer to why he feels the way he does - he is impure and wretched on a biological level. He is filled with self-doubt in s1-2 as to his powers and what this means for him, clawing at faith (faith in Dean and their policy of saving people as much as faith in a religious sense) to feel stabalised. He is frustrated and angry in s4 at this demon blood in him, the fact that there is something innately evil in him that he can never 'rip out' or 'scrub clean'. Then by the time s8 rolls around he LEAPS at the chance to purify himself. Yeah, cause that's healthy. All of this is to say that when sam gets his first vision after praying in the hospital chapel, he wants so desperately to believe that it is God who has looked down on him and thought him worthy. That, for once, the divine have been the ones to put their faith in him, not the devil.

And then the reveal. It was never God. It was never something holy.

Evil has kept its claws in him since he was six months old and he will never be clean of it. It was the devil all along. This realisation is crushing and I will never get over Sam's face as he realises, wide eyed with shock and horror as a tears spills out of his eye. Devastating.

But yet the deep seeded horror of this plotline is so underexplored. Like, call me biased but I would have really stretched this idea out a few more episodes at LEAST. Place more emphasis on this moral conundrum between wanting to have faith and yet this faith asking you to do something no person should ever go through.

In fact, I loved the first few episodes of s11, they had me on the edge of my seat. The black veined virus thing?? Amazing - I want more. It would have been cool to have seen this be a continuous thing across the whole season. Like if the season slowly devolved into this kind of wrought post-apocalyptic thing. Ik that probably wouldn't work but I would have loved to see it. And creepy baby Amara and that exorcism stuff - so cool. Anyway, this post is kind of a mess, but I just loved how s11 started; the darker tone, the boys completely out of their depth, the idea of this biblical plague that makes people 'unclean, in the biblical sense' - super fun ideas. It's not that I didn't like where s11 ended up, but I just feel like at some point the tone completely changed and it just got a bit... goofy. I blame Lucifer, mainly (and chuck). Every scene with Lucifer and Sam I was pulling my hair out cause WHY IS SAM SO CALM?? This guy literally tortured him for centuries and had him so dreadfully freaked out at the start of the season and now its like yeah whatever. And it's not like I expected it to take centre stage or anything but in theory, the idea that the Winchester's bestest bestie Cas is possessed by Lucifer, who they actually now need to stop Amara should have been some crazy psycho horror shit. Sam should have been seeing Lucifer's mannerisms like second nature, thinking he's going crazy. Dean should be worried that Sam's is going off his rocker and yet also feeling something so fundamentally off with Cas. But they just didn't feel the need to delve into that whatsoever I guess.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I really loved the ideas, particularly surrounding Sam, that were going on at the start of s11. I think using this as a springboard would have been a really interesting exploration of character for him, and Dean too as he is forced to confront how Sam's relationship with faith and purity differs from his own, and then ultimately a revaluation of the way he sees him. I mean, he wasn't exactly supportive once he found out Sam having demon blood had some side effects. Even when he didn't know about Sam drinking demon blood or Ruby, even when Sam was truly just saving people he called him a monster, told him that if he didn't know him, he's want to hunt him. Crazy times.

#supernatural #sam winchester #spn #dean winchester #castiel #lucifer #spn s11 #poor sammy #I have similar ideas about the s7 beginning #The start of s7 is just amazing I love it also #shit just keeps happening #there is nothing like the pit in your stomach that falls when at the end of the second episode sam and dean are in the ambulance #sam's passed out dean w a broken leg and dean goes which hospital are you taking us to? and the paramedic is like sixous falls #the place where the leviathans are #just damn #and then the escape from the hospital?? #omg there is nothing like the true vulnerable horror in which Dean scrambles out of the hospital like another one of my favourite scenes #the tension as he drags himself out of there on crutches #leviathan doctors hot on his tail #wow

[cecilysass]

20 Fanfic Questions

Thanks for the tag (days and days ago now) @randomfoggytiger.

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 21 as of today, which is kind of wild. (I have some on Gossamer, too, because: old.)

2. What's your total AO3 words count?306,501. Working on another longer-ish one that will bump that up.

3. What fandoms do you write for?The X-Files by and large. One time I wrote a fic for a very popular fandom of the 00s I never actually posted, and now I feel differently about that fandom and never will. I can imagine a world where I might write for another fandom, but I am pretty XF-centric right now.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?Chicken Dinner, Pause, The Boy on the Beach, The Kaleidoscope, Unobserved.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?I do respond to comments, but not all the time. I get behind in responding, and then I have to not respond to any of them to make it consistent, if that makes any sense at all? (Because someone might wonder—why did she respond to that comment and not to mine?) I know, I know, I'm sorry.  I honestly love every single comment, and I prefer to respond to them. When I have my life together, I have had great conversations in comments before. 

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?As I read over my work, I have not done a lot of angsty endings, although I have plenty of angst. I have a very old fic written the summer between season 7 and 8 called Opposition and Synthesis (one of many post-Requiem fics) that is on Gossamer and ends angsty, but that’s not a widely read piece any more, lol. I would say of my more recent work, probably Ice Water ends the angstiest. 

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I have lots of happy endings. I couldn’t say.

8. Do you get hate on fics?Nooooo, not per se. I have gotten very critical comments from people who are disappointed by the turn the fic has taken, or comments taking issue with my interpretation of canon. I remember someone didn’t like the idea of Scully going on dates at all in the break-up era, and they complained about that in the comments on End of Story. That’s a difference in headcanon, so sometimes it’s frustrating when people feel theirs should prevail. But I haven’t really received what I would call “hate” exactly (so far) for which I am grateful.

9. Do you write smut. If so what kind? I have, but it’s not my favorite. It’s completely hypocritical of me because I like to read it, but it’s not my most comfortable area of writing. I think it’s a problem of not being terribly visual.  I do feel sometimes it’s necessary to a story, and my betas peer pressure me into including it sometimes, too.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?I haven’t. 

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? No.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes. People translated some of my fic into Russian one time.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before? No. I would like to do that. 

14. What's your all-time favourite ship? Mulder and Scully. Duh.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? Okay, I have told this story a few times, so bear with me if you’ve heard it, but I had a WIP I hadn’t finished between 2000-ish and 2021. That’s right. Twenty years. It would be very reasonable to assume I was never finishing that fic, as the first two parts had been up on Gossamer for years and I had not been seen or heard from in decades. Then during the pandemic I came back to thinking about the show, and when I came back to the fandom there were oddly people who still knew my fic. And I remembered this WIP and still had some of the ancient Word files of later chapters on my Google drive, so I decided to make a little project of finishing it and posting it to AO3. And now it’s finished. (It’s called Bloodline. You can read it and see if you can tell where the narrative is written 20 years apart.)  So I don’t believe in doubting you’ll ever finish WIPs. Never say never.

16. What are your writing strengths? I think dialogue. I would not have said plotting when I restarted this hobby, but I do think I have gotten better at plotting. And I do plan things out. I do a lot of research.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Smut. Logistics in moving around in general – like when someone is standing or sitting and how they move from one place in the room to the other. I write in present tense a lot but past tense sometimes, so sometimes I mess up tense absent-mindedly. I’m also a very slow writer who rewrites a lot. When I see people get a prompt and then post the fic a few days later, my mind is blown, because I could absolutely never. People who do Fictober also have my deep respect, because that would be a very, very hard thing for me.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I would only do it very sparingly or with extensive help, as I’m not a fluent speaker in anything but English. I could probably write a little French or Spanish dialogue to understand (I think I did write a tiny bit of Spanish dialogue in We’re Not Here To Get Involved In Personal Problems). But I would really want a more fluent speaker to look it over if I were doing any significant amount.

19. First fandom you wrote for? The X-Files, really, if you don’t count that middle school Victoria Holt romance novel sequel I wrote for English class.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written? I’m going to choose three, okay? Is that egotistical? I’m sorry if so. I’ve always really liked Jackson Van De Kamp’s Not-So-Final Repose. It’s not perfect, but it’s quirky and fantastical and sentimental and has a special place in my heart. It’s also more like a play, which is probably one of the genres my writing is most influenced by. I also really like The Boy on the Beach, which took a year to write and involved so, so much research, which was fun and a positive experience. Finally, I like How To Eat Pleasant Holiday Meals With Co-Workers, which was a prompt for a holiday exchange (early MSR Thanksgiving) that I expanded into a series of Thanksgivings over the years. I ended up really enjoying imagining each of those Thanksgivings, especially the last one. That last one is my forever post-revival headcanon now lol.

Would anyone like to do this? I'm going to tag @mollybecameanengineer if she hasn't yet, but anyone should.

#fanfic questions

[haldenlith]

Okay, no, I'm not done ranting about my misgivings about Mara and Crow's writing as of late. I've been sitting here stewing, and I might as well shout into the void about it.

It's true, I've never liked Mara as a person, because she was condescending, arrogant, and manipulative, especially after Forsaken and scouring through everything lore wise, and seeing how she treated Uldren as just another tool in her toolkit, and was... basically abusive.

But I did think she was interesting as a character. My biggest problems with her weren't ever with her, per se, but with how the universe reacted to her. Or didn't react to her, rather. It seemed like everyone was always, all the time, blind to her actions. It was frustrating. Zavala was the only character, it seemed, that ever seemed leery of her. It was refreshing to have our Ghost yell at her when he did, even if we got shouted down by her afterwards. It was nice to see (well, read) Jolyon stand up to her. It was hella refreshing to have Ikora clap back at her, especially after Mara had spent so much time blaming The Guardian for Uldren's death, with the response of, "No Mara, you did that shit." It was nice to see the universe react to her. She finally felt, to me, like she was a part of the big web of characters and stories, and not just some detached side character. She felt... real, I guess? I still didn't like. Still didn't trust her. But still, she felt a part of everything now.

And sure, I hollered and flailed and was like "STAY AWAY FROM CROW", and was unsurprised when she was like "oh he's a blank slate, I can use that." And I even thought it was interesting when attempts at reconciliation started to happen, because we had the dilemma of "Is she genuinely trying to be a sister to Crow? Or is she just trying to yank him back into the fold, back into her toolbox?". Buuuut... then Season of the Seraph happened.

You see, her reaching out to Eramis felt... strange to me. As far as I could tell, she didn't really know Eramis, had no ties to her, anything. Eramis was just another Eliksni that fought against her and subsequently ended up in the Prison of Elders. Mara had no reason to reach out to her to be all "aren't you tired?" and trying to convince Eramis to "see reason." It all felt really out of character, to me. It'd be one thing if it was Eido or Mithrax, or even Crow (given his bleeding heart nature towards Eliksni), but Mara? Queen "I'm playing 4D Chess with Everyone Around Me"? That little point didn't sit right with me.

And ever since then, it's felt like they've been taking sandpaper to her character and filing off all the sharp points and edges. The most egregious was how apparently sad and broken up she was over Amanda Holliday's death and just like... ?????? WHY WOULD SHE CARE? (Then again, the writing during Defiance was hot garbage...) This is the same woman that led hundreds of her own people to their death without them knowing for the sake of a scheme to steal power from Oryx. She isn't going to care about some random human mechanic. The most I could see her doing is diplomatically, but coldly acknowledging it was a tragedy, but also reminding us that we've got shit to do.

And now she's all soft and sweet with Crow? After literal centuries of being cold to him? It makes no sense. It feels like they're trying extra hard to make her "likeable".

"But they're trying to reconcile the twins and their family arc." Okay, I get that. I hear you, but wouldn't it not only make more sense, but also be more interesting, if we had Mara having an issue of still trying to manipulate Crow and seeing him as a chess piece to move about the cosmic board, but also grappling with the hurt and confusion of "Why is my brother upset with me? He's supposed to love me. He's my brother. I am his sister. I'm only doing what's best for him." Like at this point, I feel like there should be a sort of cognitive dissonance or something that we, the player, can see, but perhaps Mara cannot.

It feels like they smoothed away her flaw of being unable to really relate and understand normal people for the sake of quickly fixing the Crow/Mara relationship. If it hadn't been for previous Mara-interactions with characters, I'd normally sit and wonder if Mara was being manipulative when she comes to Crow and is like "Oh I'm so sad and pained that you must endure Riven after what she did to you." It'd have been a situation of "oh is she being genuine, or is she being manipulative and saying what Crow wants to hear, just like Riven has pointed out?" But shit, now I honestly feel like they meant for her to be genuine.

AND SPEAKING OF CROW... We just spent a whole ass character arc of him reconciling with his past, with his flaws, with how he was used by Mara, and with how he was finally well aware that he was used and how destructive and abusive their sibling relationship was, and now he's just... suddenly cool with everything?

I recall him being very leery and distrusting of her. It's a point that was hammered on multiple times throughout his arc, along with the theme of him reconciling with his dark past (which was largely caused just as much by her as it was Riven). As I said in the other post, it would've made way more sense for Crow to be very cautious in response to Mara's mother-henning. "I understand why you're overprotective, BUT that's still not okay, and I still don't feel like I can trust you." And so on. Sure, there are signs of potential reconciliation there, but also signs of the self awareness he's attained, of realizing that sometimes, no matter how strong your bond is with family, maybe you simply can't trust them.

It just feels like whiplash to go from anger and distrust and perhaps even a little fear and realizing "hey my sister really, really, really fucked me up" to "yeah we've got this unbreakable bond and we're so cool now" in the span of two years-ish? Instead of real reconciliation between the siblings, it feels like history repeating itself and ignoring the whole point of his arc.

All that aside, it also feels like his character is getting very beaten into a box of tricks. As I said before, the amount of time they were spending on him, building him up, made him feel like he was going to play a very important role in the story. But now? He feels like the side character that's trotted out for misery and pain points and then shoved back into a box. We've yet to see him really come into his own, outside of the work he did during his introduction in Season of the Hunt. He feels SO VERY underutilized when you think about his skillset and abilities.

He has literal centuries of knowledge stashed in that dense skull of his. He's got some degree of mechanical genius, given that he built the crow-drones and the Wrathborn lures. He was the first person to successfully figure out how to get in AND OUT of The Black Garden, and live to tell the tale, with only the help of his pal Jolyon. No Light, no fancy Awoken space magic. He was Mara's fucking spy master, and it was at least insinuated that he was pretty good at it.

Aaaaaaaand... Crow's been just an errand boy and scout... this whole time. *sigh* It feels like they're afraid to let him do anything (they being the writers).

I just... their writing bugs me lately. It almost feels like they swapped writing teams and someone has to pick up where someone else left off, but without clear notes or anything, so they're just riffing it. Sort of. Sort of, because Mara just feels more and more sanitized, to me, and Crow is feeling minimized to being a man-pain party trick.

#haldie rants #destiny 2 spoilers #because I do mention season of the wish spoilers #long post

[vyla-and-the-pods]

Vyla's Sunday wrap-up!

Hello lovely people on my screen! I've been getting really into podcasts these last few weeks since finishing Wolf 359 and I am DYING to talk about them! This is my way to talk about what I've been listening to this week and dumping my thoughts since I do not have friends that listen to podcasts lol

Cry Havoc! Ask Questions Later (ep 14) (minor spoilers)

I'm a die-hard Cry Havoc! fan. It's one of the few podcasts I've caught within the first few episodes and it is quickly one I will jump to every time a new episode comes out. Who would've thought a workplace comedy set in ancient Rome would be so good! The humor is dry and mostly situational and works so well.

This episode had a bit more heart than Cry Havoc! has had before and it worked so well! Listening to Octavia and Charmian have a serious discussion that helped further their relationship beyond "ooh haha sexy morally grey lesbians" was really refreshing and nice to see such character growth within just a few episodes.

And the entire plague plot with Gaius and Mark was a great way to balance it out. I love Cry Havoc!'s style of humor. My only qualm is I couldn't find a transcript for this episode but I might've been looking in the wrong place.

Arden (eps 1-4)

GUYS I LOVE ARDEN SO MUCH!!!

This is also a Shakespeare inspired piece! Season 1 is inspired by Romeo and Juliet, which I realized embarrassingly late in, and the little R&J easter eggs I have been picking up are really cool and make me feel like I remembered something from 9th grade English haha.

I used to looove true crime podcasts but I got uncomfortable by how the hosts would discuss the killers and victims so Arden, as a fake true crime podcast, is a great middle ground! I heard season 3 is coming out soon so hopefully I can catch up in time! I love Bea and Brenda's banter and honestly the two just need to kiss or something, but I digress. The writers make this a really compelling story and even though only one aspect of the cold case is examined per episode I am hooked and not at all bored or frustrated when we divert to Bea and Brenda's side convos. I have listened to this when going to bed and gotten scared once or twice, and for a fake true crime podcast I consider that a win!

Wolf 359 (finale)

I don't have the word count to say everything I want to say about Wolf 359. If you know me you might have seen the post I made about finishing Wolf 359 this week and how it was just so world alterting for me because I've been listening to it on and off for about 8 years. It really is the end of an era. It didn't go down the way I thought it would and it was a very bittersweet ending. I feel like everything was tied up well but I do have some questions about Bob. I am going to miss Lovelace, and Eiffel and...everybody! Maybe not Kepler. Truly is an end of an era for me. I was podcast-hungover the whole day.

Stellar Firma (ep 1)

I gave the first episode of Stellar Frima a try, I'm a big Rusty Quill fan so I had high hopes but guys, I don't think this is for me. The pilot episode didn't click for me the way I thought it would and it just didn't seem my speed. What do you guys think about Stellar Firma? Should I give it another shot?

Malevolent (ep 6)

Malevolent is another show I'm trying to get into since everybody loves it but the pace just feels so slow to me right now. I know more overarching plot points develop later on so I'm willing to stick this one out. I like malevolent but it just feels like all the places and things they're doing right now are building toward something I'm not at yet and that's just frustrating.

Time:bombs (1 -3)

What better way to get me out of my Wolf 359 hangover than a podcast made by the Wolf 359 folks? This one came recommended to me by anon so thank you whoever you are! I listened to the entire podcast (3 episodes) in one day and loved it! I miss you Radio Bob. I hope you're doing well. Humor was elite but what else should I have expected from Gabriel Urbina? I loved the character development they were capable of in 3 episodes. I can see myself relistening to this soon!

The Kingmaker Histories (prologue....ep 0?)

another podcast I heard had a new season coming out soon. I don't know how I feel; about fantasy podcasts but I liked season 1 of The Two Princes so I have high hopes. I only listened to the prologue so far and haven't even met the MC so I don't have many opinions yet.

Liminal Criminals (ep 1)

I listened to the first episode twice. It was so funny. Few podcast make me actually laugh out loud. I interrupted my roommate making dinner to tell her about this because I kept laughing. The dry voice the narrator has while he explains the most ABSURD FAKE TRUE CRIME sold this for me. "Mr. Breadsticks stays. Mr. Breadsticks stays. I will kill you with a fork. Mr. Breadsticks stays." is my discord status and no one understands me. I hope the rest of these episodes are as funny.

Alright well that's my week! Thanks for dealing with my ramblings folks! Tell me your thoughts on these shows, what's worth it what's not? I'll be shitposting about some of these shows throughout the week, but we'll see what the Pod Gods hold. Til next week lovely people!

~Vyla

#cry havoc! ask questions later #cry havoc #liminal criminals #arden podcast #arden #the kingmaker histories #time:bombs #malevolent #wolf 359 #stellar firma #fiction podcast #audio drama #audio fiction #podcast #podcast recommendations #Vyla's sunday wrap up

[mrbensonmum]

TV Shows - CSI: Las Vegas VII

I had to take a little writing break because my wrists were starting to feel the strain from all the writing (I have to write a lot for uni, and I also need to fill up my own page). But of course, I didn't stop watching CSI: Las Vegas, and that's why we're already in the middle of Season Four!

You can tell by now that the characters have become very well-established and developed. Many of them don't seem as young and inexperienced anymore, and that even applies to Greg. I find him the most interesting here because he has developed to the point where he's even taken out into the field, and we know that he'll soon leave the lab and go into the field. He hasn't left behind his outgoing nature but has used it to progress. His exceptional knowledge about various things also comes in handy!

Nick and Sara are now applying for a higher CSI class, and they are overshadowed by Catherine, as Grissom assigns her an important case. She brings in Greg, which further frustrates Nick and Sara. However, by the end of this episode, you can see that, due to past episodes, it's no longer just a team here but rather friends in a somewhat familial relationship (even their time together during breaks or after cases shows this). Because it's patched up, you understand why it was Catherine and why she brought in Greg. (Nick and Sara have another story connecting them, but that's more related to the actors, but more on that later!)

At the beginning, it was still a bit rough, and sometimes even a bit rough when switching between cases. But this is absolutely not criticism at this point, just an observation. Because this has also been ironed out more and more, and you always switch at just the right moment, so one case doesn't "wear out," and you have to immediately deal with the other one. As a viewer, you're always kept on your toes, which is good because with crime series that handle only one case, this can sometimes be very exhausting over the intended 45 minutes. This danger rarely exists here.

One of the big mysteries of the series has now also been revealed; we know who Catherine's father is. The casino mogul Sam Brown! Catherine found this out about Greg with a not entirely legal DNA investigation, and of course, Sam Brown immediately tried to bribe her after being acquitted of a murder case. I vaguely remember that there's still a lot to happen here, and I'm curious how the gaps in my memories will be filled. Don't worry, otherwise, I won't get on any Catherine rage train today. Since the episode with her ex-husband and daughter, she has been reformed, and you can see that in her character, which is calmer and even more grounded. Although there are still outbursts sometimes, but that's human!

What we're increasingly seeing now is the famous CSI effect. I've worked with people in the lab for a long time, and it's fascinating what you notice in such a series. It starts with the absolutely wrong use of gloves because when you wear them and work with materials, you absolutely don't touch anything else and don't even touch your hair; it would all contaminate. Then also the quick processing of analyses through various devices, including DNA comparisons. Yes, the operation of the devices is okay, and the devices are real, but everything is very much accelerated, which of course also happens in terms of storytelling. But normally, such analyses would take much longer than shown here. What's really interesting is the many reports that this was actually demanded in the real world by law enforcement agencies because, as you could see here, it's possible. There are also statistics showing that the number of students enrolled in scientific studies has increased. This shows what power and impact such a series can have when it's well done.

I'm considering whether I should also make a post about the music. I wanted to do that with Dr. House, but then I forgot. Because the individual pieces chosen are really good, plus then some scores contribute a lot to the mood of the series and to individual scenes.

Oh, come on, here's a little preview. In the first season and in the famous roller coaster scene of Grissom (the end of season one), you can hear this song, and as far as series go, it's one of my absolute favorites.

#csi #csi las vegas #crime scene investigation #nick stokes #catherine willows #gil grissom #warrick brown #sara sidle #greg sanders #csi vegas #csi lv #tvshow #tv show #tv shows #Youtube