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blank468 · 3 months

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Describe Bakugo’s development in short words

If you were to ask me how would I describe Bakugo’s development in short words, it would come across as being boring and predictable. Let’s start with the fact that despite being a secondary character, Bakugo has no real purpose/contribution in the main story line. His involvement with Deku and OFA doesn’t amount to anything other than mindless yelling, guilt tripping, and just him treating it as a competition to try and surpass Deku when he unlocks his other quirks. The only reason he’s involved in a lot of what’s going on is because of his popularity. He started gaining popularity when he won the Sports festival and because everyone like the stereotypical angry rival trope. He can be replaced by literally any other character and nothing would change.

It’s basically a pattern whenever Bakugo is involved with something.

- Bakugo will treat others beneath him and continue to call the extras.

- Whatever is going in the story if it’s a fight between the villains or something school related, he’ll treat it as a competition.

- He’ll either verbally attack Deku and everyone around them or get physical to get what he wants.

- Deku won’t see this as an issue and continue to gush over Bakugo about how he’s a good friend and the idea of him being the symbol of victory

-Anyone that calls out his horrible behavior will do a complete 180 and talk about how whatever he said either makes sense or to give some baseless excuse about how he changed

- Aizawa, All Might and or anyone in UA will make some claim about how his some kind of an inspiration for 1A and Bakugo is trying harder than everyone else(completely ignoring all of 1A’s accomplishments and improvements throughout their first year)

- After winning or coming out on top whatever Bakugo will take his win for granted and will act like it doesn’t mean anything while acting aggressive when someone compliments him

- What ever punishment or consequences he gets(not matter how fatal is) will be minor and the story will find to way to have him come out at top without any struggle

- The story will have characters feel bad, guilty for Bakugo for something so minuscule and or try to punish them in a similar manner like Bakugo (A recent example of the story punishing characters because of Bakugo’s actions is in the Card OVA. I didn’t bother watching it because I knew it was just a product plug for training cards but from what I viewed from other people’s discussions, the match between Deku and Bakugo ends with a tie. Apparently Bakugo threw another hissy fit and not only destroyed the card game but blew up the dorm with everyone inside. Instead of punishing Bakugo for destroying public property and potentially injuring his classmates, Aizawa decides to punish all of Class 1A and ban them from playing any other games in the dorm.)

I know everyone has their own interpretation on how they feel about Bakugo and that’s perfectly fine. I don’t have problem if you like him, but Bakugo is written as if everything he did or stood for never mattered. Izuku, Class 1A , UA and by extension Horikoshi, wants the audience to believe that all the positive aspects about his character somehow outweigh the negatives and we’re supposed to accept that Bakugo has fully grown while at the same time instantly forgiving him for being a spiteful and petty bully. No matter what happens to him, he’ll still come out on top as if what he went through wasn’t consequential or lethal. He’s constantly giving wins and random asspulls to favor him despite either doing the bare minimum of his supposed development or not doing anything at all. Bakugo in the eyes of others will always be seen as the true MVP and is the one that always has to win. He’s nothing but a pet under the care of his creator who will go out of his way to make every other character look bad and pathetic than they already are; including the main protagonist.

#bnha critical #mha critical #anti bakugo katsuki #anti bakugou #anti katsuki bakugou #bakugo critical

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theheirofthesharingan · 13 days

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"Boruto seems to be more about SS than Boruto himself. There's just too much content on SS (or is it just my Twitter feed being stuffed with it? Idk)" Sorry I know this isn't a Sasuke blog but this is an SSer/S*kura fan issue. Idk what about her triggers this obsession but if you google image search "Naruto", you mainly get naruto or like the show's characters, but if you google "Sasuke" it's mostly SS art or the same 3 moments of the anime where they're in the same frame. Even more annoying for me personally is that you cant go on a tag for any Uchiha character without seeing ship art for them with Sakura (Itachi I think suffers from this the most because not only does he not even acknowledge she exists in canon outside of knowing she's a member of team 7, they fundamentally have nothing in common and arent compatible in even the loosest interpretations of their characters). It's baffling to me, and honestly extremely annoying.

I don't really go to Google for Naruto content, because I know it's going to piss me off one way or the other, so I keep my interaction with the fandom to the absolute minimum, that too on Tumblr and a little bit on Twitter. People on Twitter also said the same that it's her they find the most whenever they look for Sasuke related posts on Twitter and Twitter algorithm seems to recommend her posts to them. I noticed the same on my own feed. And I'd rather have Sasuke, Itachi, Kakashi, Naurto, Akatsuki on my Twitter feed, not her and her happy little family.

The issue with her ships is that she's shallow and the people she's shipped with have depth in them, so the connection never seems genuine. Not with Sasuke, not with Itachi, not with Sasori, or with anyone else. Her pairing with Itachi infuriates me as much as SS does. She would literally have to be a different person for me to remotely like her with any Uchiha or with the Akatsuki members. She isn't a shippable character with her canon personality.

A lot of her fans keep complaining about us loving Itachi over her without realizing we're not loving him because of his morality or because we think of him as an angel, but because he contributes so much to the story without eating up the space someone else deserved. You remove him from the story and majority of the story falls flat. On top of that, he's well-written. Audience will be inclined towards characters like that naturally. He has a likeable personality and his mystery makes you want to know more of him. Why would we not love him?

Half of her fans hate him and the other half ships him with her or sees him as a cheerleader for SS even though - like you said - he never acknowledged she existed other than being a part of Team 7. Maybe it's just self-inserts living their fantasies, because how can you look at her and go "Itachi needs to be shipped with her."

Makes no sense to me.

#itachi #itachi uchiha #anti sakura #anti sakura haruno #ask #anon

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where-them-kinomiya-at · 7 months

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G-Revolution Rant

If you’re a huge fan of g-revolution, I’d suggest you don’t read this post because in no way do I have any intentions of offending any fans. This is basically a critique.

I was thinking a lot about this today and I had to vent a little. I’m only going to list one of the very many problems I have with g-rev ore else it’s going be a long ass list.

Alright let’s begin. So apart from the two major problems of:

1) the awful dub censorship (trust me, the previous two seasons did not nearly have a censorship this bad)

and

2) the nerfing of every character (+a million other stuff),

I have another issue with this season regarding the entire concept of Tyson being the ‘world champ’. As someone who’s favourite is Tyson, this shouldn’t offend any of his fans because this is entirely the fault of the PLOT and has nothing to do with his overall character.

G-Revolution gives us this awful perception of Tyson being the exclusive ‘world champ’ when he’s literally not. If they changed that concept to him being something like the ‘strongest rival/ ultimate rival’ etc, it would’ve made everything so much better.

When Tyson is confronting Ray and Max about leaving the team, he says something like ‘I’ve won the championships twice in a row and now you want your turn’. I hoped that the Japanese version would have a different dialogue but that wasn’t the case.

I think the creators forgot that both Max and Tyson were tag-team champions last year. Sure, Max’s performance wasn’t that good in the 2002 finals, but that does not exclusively make Tyson the ‘world champ’. Also what about Ray? The creators forgot how essential Ray’s victory against Bryan was in the 2001 finals.

Ray and Tyson were the ones who brought the victory to the team, but it’s not like they both were exclusively the world champs. V-Force did not do this bullshit of only Tyson being the world champ. In that season, each and every one of the BBA team faced the pressure of being the world champions. But G-Revolution ruined this entirely.

Episodes 20 and 21 of G-Revolution focus on Tyson’s pressure of being a ‘world champion’ which in my opinion should have been changed to something like ‘the pressure of being an overly STRONG opponent’. That’s what V-Force was about, where everyone was in desire of the power of the BBA team and they ALL faced the some or the other pressure in different ways. An example for Tyson:

This example speaking about Tyson’s insecurities was a much better one that what G-Revolution used.

In the dubbed version of the 25th episode of G-Revolution, Max says, ‘You’ve always underestimated me Tyson and now you’re going to pay the price for that.’ On one hand it sounds believable but then you realize that Tyson was literally the biggest supporter of Max in V-Force and even yelled at Ray and Kai for doubting him once. Ultimately, it’s the audience that underestimates him and the show itself makes Max look like a weak link when he really isn’t. I believe there was no such dialogue in the original Japanese version, but it’s kinda obvious that Tyson slightly underestimated him before and during the match when compared to Ray and Kai. Or perhaps it might have looked like that because Tyson had no particular beef with Max like he did with Ray and Kai, so the friendliness might have appeared like underestimation.

This one particularly had nothing to do with that concept but I just wanted to put it in there, because Max’s contributions last year were completely neglected and there was a major downfall in Max and Tyson’s friendship. It saddens me how the friendship went down the drain but it was bound to happen, given that it’s nothing but the repercussions of the world championships. I hope they we got to see more of the them in the second half but it just wasn’t enough.

This is the best way I could put my finger on the issue because my brain seriously malfunctions and I cannot focus on one thing at a time so I hope it all made sense.

#tyson granger #takao kinomiya #ray kon #rei kon #max tate #max mizuhara #beyblade g revolution #bakuten shoot beyblade

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cadybear420 · 1 month

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Cadybear's Reviews- Baby Bump

Welcome to the twenty-first official Cadybear's Reviews! Today I'll be talking about Baby Bump, which I have ranked on the "Gold Tier" at 8 stars out of a possible 10.

WHY DO PEOPLE HATE THIS SERIES!? WHY!? It’s FINE!

Okay, I can maybe see why people may not like it because, let’s be real, accidental pregnancy is a very overdone trope. And apparently there were a lot of parts that were originally problematic when the story was released and had to be re-written, but I wasn’t around for that and I know next to nothing about the original lines, so I can’t say much about them. But even now, how does it get ranked as being among the worst so often? Even if you think it’s bad, it’s really not that bad.

Like… I found it decent? I don’t think it’s nearly as bad as a lot of people have said it is. And I’m saying this as a GNC cis woman who experiences major genital dysphoria and absolutely REVILES the idea of becoming pregnant. Like, I would rather die than ever experience being pregnant. And yet I still quite enjoyed this story.

I guess it kind of helps that the book is very clearly a pregnancy book from the beginning, so I kind of went in knowing what to expect and thus not self-inserting as the MC at all. Unlike something like TRH, which is a continuation that suddenly introduces a “MC gets pregnant” plot to a non-pregnancy series… but that’s a subject for a different day.

I’ll be honest though, this story has a pretty awful start. In the flashback in B1 Ch1 where MC meets Mr. Covington, they try waaaayyyyy too hard to make the player swoon at the idea of having his babies. Like, did the guy they wanted to be MC’s baby daddy HAVE to be a celebrity company salesman, who is also the keynote speaker at MC’s graduation?

And don’t even get me started on the Clint fangirls, who feel like they were written by someone who’s only ever been surrounded by the “Facebook Mom” stereotype and has never met (and probably never will meet) a real horny woman in their entire life.

Literally, the scene is just all like “OMG LOOK!!! BIG FAMOUS CELEBRITY SALESMAN!!! OMG HE HAS *GASP* ABS!!! OH WOW, A MALE LI IN CHOICES WITH ABS AND BIG MUSCLES! THAT’S SO UNIQUE AND SPECIAL AND TOTALLY NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE!!! OMG ALL THE OTHER WOMEN ARE CHANTING OVER HIS ABS AND WANT TO HAVE HIS BABIES TOO!!! DON’T *YOU* WANT TO HAVE HIS BABIES TOO!?!?!?! AREN’T YOU SOOOOOO LUCKY THAT YOU’RE GOING TO BE HAVING HIS BABIES?!?!?!?!?!?!?”. Like, how much intelligence do you think your wlm audience has PB? Really trying to pander to the “Facebook Karen Mom” stereotype here, huh?

With that in mind, I guess I can understand why people may have gotten a bad impression of the book at first, because the story for how MC got pregnant in the first place (and her conflict with Cassandra in Book 1) feels straight out of one of those weird Instagram and Facebook ads.

But besides that, it was an okay series! I found it mostly cute and wholesome. Literally everything else was fine! There were even a few moments in Book 2 that made me cry, like when MC can record a sweet message for the babies with a plush bunny she can get from the Baby Baskets.

Besides maybe Book 1 Dr. Mariana Castillo who is just way too unserious (at least she gets better in Book 2), I honestly really liked the main cast. Even though MC is technically an outsider to the town, she still gets to be very driven and gets shit done rather than being the typical doe-eyed newbie who needs to be shown the ropes. Clint is a sweetheart and does get to be more than just “har dee har muscular celebrity salesman who knocks you up aren’t you soooo lucky” that they wanted him to be in the first chapter. Mayor Dixon is a nice mix of goofy and tsundere, and the female version Myra contributed to my bi awakening. Luisa is just a queen all around. MC’s sister… initially she could sometimes be a bit of a stereotypical “OMG girly girl talk best friend to talk exclusively about LI and diamond outfits” but she does become more than that too, and I really like her subplot with Bao. Speaking of, Bao is just the most absolute precious ever (and shame on PB for making him the sister’s LI and not one for MC /jk).

The antagonist characters were… kind of a mixed bag, I will admit. They were memorable, but also kind of stupid. Like I said before, Cassandra’s storyline in Book 1 just felt petty and cheap, plus I’m tired of straw loser villain female antagonists who exist solely to compete with the MC over the LI. It never got too overbearing, but it was still stupid. Book 2 Cassandra is great though.

Then there’s Craig, who wants to destroy everything MC and friends accomplish and take over Gracetown because… potatoes. I guess he’s alright as he is actually a threat in Book 2, but the townspeople can be pretty damn meek to him which is a little weird. But he was still a strong antagonist in that book. Book 1 Craig feels a lot more like he just exists to be an annoyance for the sake of being an annoyance, though.

Jebediah is a lot more compelling as an antagonist character, and I did expect the Covington family conflict to be incredibly boring but it turned out otherwise. He’s a jerk at first, but it’s nice to see how he does genuinely try to change throughout the storyline of Book 2.

Also, props to this for being one of only three Choices series ever (the others being OG HSS and ILITW) where the collectible system has some items that aren’t diamond-walled. The baby blanket collectibles are really cute, and it’s really refreshing to have a collectible system that isn’t “the first one is free and then the rest you have to pay for”. Like HSS, there are even some pieces that are determinant on your success in certain events. Why can’t more series do their collectibles like this??? (Oh right, because it requires actual effort).

Would I say it’s a good or accurate portrayal of pregnancy? IDK, I’m not an expert. But it’s fine if you just want a lighthearted pregnancy story to chill out to.

#choices stories you play #choices #choices game #choices stories we play fandom #choices stories we play #choices baby bump #baby bump #choices babu #babu #cadybear's reviews

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zalrb · 6 months

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I have some familiarity with The Boys, but not much. Isn’t the point that people, when they have godlike powers from being injected with Compound V, will abuse their power no matter what? It doesn’t matter to me that Homelander couldn’t consent to receiving Compound V as a baby when he was a fully cognizant adult when he commited atrocities.

So I think it’s an odd choice that the latest episode of Gen V is trying to have the audience sympathize with supes when the virus is the only line of defense that humans have against them. None of the main characters display any care or thought toward regular people; they just want to major in crimefighting at Godolkin and then because members of The Seven. They want fame and notoriety. All of them have suffered in some way, but they haven’t seemed to extend understanding and kindness as a result of that suffering, like when Andre accidentally ruptured that lady’s neck at the party, nobody seemed concerned about her and now it’s been forgotten. So I’m confused as to why the show expects me to feel bad for the characters, especially Sam, when I’ve seen the violence he’s capable and the lack of genuine remorse and not seeing him try to do better outside of Emma. I was honestly just watching for the mystery of The Woods, but now that that’s been revealed, what else is there?

Isn’t the point that people, when they have godlike powers from being injected with Compound V, will abuse their power no matter what? It doesn’t matter to me that Homelander couldn’t consent to receiving Compound V as a baby when he was a fully cognizant adult when he commited atrocities.

Honestly, one of the problems with The Boys is that it loses its own messaging and it muddles what it's trying to say (sound familiar?). But, like, we are supposed to believe that Homelander's upbringing contributes to his psychosis because he was raised like an experiment or an object without the warmth of a parent, hence his deeply disturbing obsession with milk, and then being in The Seven with Homelander at the helm and Vought as backing corrupts the other members like Maeve who has a conscience but has also done terrible things and she goes through her redemptive arc but then you have Starlight who is supposed to be "good" and doesn't allow herself to be corrupted after potentially going down that path in season 1 etc.

So I don't actually see the point of Gen V. Even when I thought the show was going to be about Marie wanting to be in The Seven to prove to her sister that she wasn't a monster, I thought the premise was flawed because The Seven is made up of supes who have literally committed crimes against humanity and are virtually indestructible so I was just like, wouldn't that just reinforce Annabeth's view of her? And then when we get to the school we see, as you said, Andre etc. getting high, Andre nearly killing someone and all of them only thinking about themselves and then when we meet the other students in the university, they're already pretty terrible so to turn around and be like Godolkin is the real villain has me like ... how? WE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THE SCHOOL. Or the characters. And how is this different than watching The Boys and Vought? I never cared about The Woods because in The Boys, they already had a storyline like that with the Sage Grove Centre where they experiment on civilians and then Lamplighter (a Supe) burns them alive to destroy evidence so The Woods just had me like, well, yeah, we've established that they experiment on people, why is this any different?

It would've been more interesting if they explored teens/young adults whatever having to deal with the fact that their parents juiced them with V as babies and they now have powers that actually ruin their lives and saddle them with trauma like Cate telling her brother to leave and never come back and him listening to her and then her parents turning on her, I would've rather see her deal with that in real time, see Marie dealing with killing her parents in real time, instead of The Boys 2.0 that has even less character development than The Boys.

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ufonaut · 1 year

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hi !! you said that u don’t rly believe in the entire conversation around superheroes + facism and i think i agree with u but i would love to hear more of ur thoughts abt that as someone who is more into older comics than anyone else i follow (afaik) and i think that brings a much needed perspective to the whole discussion. kind of an ironic ask cuz i am asking u to contribute to a conversation that both of us think is kind of pointless but i’m just interested in why u feel that way cuz i also feel that way !

hi!!!! no, this is a great, i think it's an interesting/much needed conversation to have and i've never gotten into it at length so forgive me if i'm less than articulate but basically my jumbled thoughts about this always come back to that alan moore interview that everybody & their mother loves quoting when discussing watchmen and related material

which is funny because i do, in some ways, agree with moore! it's just that what should be applied only to the monopoly marvel movies have on the current cinematic landscape & their status as glorified us military propaganda somehow ended up being applied to all comics & superhero media as a whole, which is ridiculous.

i feel like moore's primary issue is that in the years since watchmen he's lost his love of comics and basically became a rorschach level nihilist about the industry as a whole -- generally understandable as a result of that level of success but concerning when people without his specific circumstances echo these talking points. see, moore used to love comics, i mean he used to be out-of-his-mind-in-love with comics and you can tell that much from watchmen's text alone & the real (very much real!) comic book history found in the text pages and the in-universe pirate comic that could only come from a die hard fan of the medium. hell, you can't write a good deconstruction of the thing without knowing it inside and out but he's by no means the man he was then and his work has lost its appeal to me for this exact reason.

anyway, moving on from that, the general belief seems to be that superheroes are quasi-fascist to begin with -- cops, in effect -- and that their popularity is a sign of a downward slide into fascism and the worship of infantile stories that do not challenge your worldview and offer only comfort. like, this is what the superheroes & fascism conversation often comes down to and in keeping with the watchmen theme, i'll say that's also the most common & nonsensical complaint i've heard about doomsday clock (that and the fact that it doesn't revolve around one single subject ala the cold war in the og book, which is also nonsense). the thing is -- there's nuance here! it's completely nuts to say that an art medium created by jewish immigrants in the middle of wwii is a gateway to fascism, it's just nuts!

the golden age of comics did feature heroes that were idealized figures who respected the law, that's very much true, but there were also heroes who were believed to be criminals (like rex tyler, the 1940s hourman was a wanted man in his solo stories) and the justice society stood for things like hope & friendship but not an undying pledge to serve the us govt. above all, their politics were as explicitly anti-fascist as comics ever got because they were fighting literal nazis! i mean, my god, there was nothing childish about the stakes of that era of comics even if they were aimed at audiences of all ages!

and like, i suppose it's the silver age and not the golden one that most people are nostalgic for and it's the silver age that moore deconstructs in watchmen but that same nuance can be found there and by 1970 (a mere ten years into the silver age!) this exact discussion was being broadcast to the world by dc comics. hell, whatever can be said now about the bootlicker tendencies of the likes of hal jordan & similar characters, denny o'neil was already saying then:

(part of o'neil's 1983 introduction to the green lantern/green arrow volume collecting the infamous 1970s stories)

i guess what i'm getting at is that anybody who believes comic books cannot be challenging or liberating or political or sometimes downright revolutionary and anything in-between simply doesn't know comics! like film, like literature, like any art form, its values are up to its authors but the automatic connection between superheroes & fascism in the eyes of so many people is completely ridiculous and the public perception of the medium cannot be left up to mcu.

#SORRY THIS IS LIKE. RANDOM THOUGHTS. BUT I HOPE IT MAKES A TINY BIT AMOUNT OF SENSE AND YOU GET WHAT IM GETTING AT #AND ALSO TYSM FOR THIS #asks #manicpixiedreamkiller

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womanexile · 7 months

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With the risk of striking a nerve, and getting someone mad, and I've been terrified to say this cause I see Harry's fans praise him a lot for everything he does: I don't think that at the moment Harry is that good of an actor as some people claim him to be.

If Harry wants to continue acting I pray and hope to God he takes it seriously. His last two attempts were far from good (More like My Policeman, than his role in DWD was far from good). Don't Worry Darling was alright I guess but his performance compared to the others was lacking in some places. I bet Olivia's direction and badly written script also contributed in him not looking so great on screen. The woman chose controversy over quality and even released that stupid video where everyone criticized Harry's accent as a promo for people to talk about, even though I'm sure she knew he'd get made fun of. Everyone waits to see Harry's acting and then this is released as a first glimpse.🤦‍♀️ My Policeman was painful to get through to the end cause I could already see the headlines and essays on how he's not a good actor. Personally, I think both of these directors didn't care as much about the movies they were making in terms of quality (or if they did, then in my eyes as an audience member they failed), but rather its financial success and they just got Harry because well, Harry = money. (Yes, even My Policeman with that story I don't think was of great importance because similar stories have been told on screen already and in better ways. There was nothing revolutionary about it and it was boring)

I don't even know, does Harry take acting lessons? He has something in there, it just needs a lot of practice, and practicing on a movie set in a movie that's gonna come out for people to watch at the beginning of his acting career is not it. (I've seen some fans excuse him and say that he's new to acting and doesn't have much practice, but I don't think that should be excusable. If it was somebody else with no clout, they wouldn't have been hired and granted the permission to 'practice' their acting skills on a set where a lot of money are at stake. Instead, they would choose a better actor. The fact that he is Harry Styles plays a big role and he probably realizes it, but it didn't seem like he took it serious enough to where him being picked for a leading/co-leading role so early in his career would be justified. It looks bad and for his own good just throwing himself into this like that was the wrong professional move. On top of saying at Venice that he has no idea what he is doing when it comes to acting was screaming privilege and ignorance. He's not media trained as an actor) Because now it's going to be harder for him with 2 not well critically acclaimed movies under his belt. Eternals flopped too, so it's still a mystery if there's going to be a sequel...

It's just hard for me to watch him get ridiculed by people who are not his fans and are not perhaps as biased as his supporters to where they would be willing to gloss over the truth and pretend like he's perfect. If this was Taylor, she would've been shamed by her fans and they would let her know that it's not good. So, all that Harry can do no wrong talk is also getting a bit annoying.

I think with HS acting is that people had set very high expectations on him. So if he doesn’t deliver an Oscar worthy performance he failed. Do I think someone else could have played the roles better? Yes. But for literally his first acting gigs I thought he did very well. Do I think there is room for a lot of improvement? Yes. I think HS has a lot of potential when it comes to acting but he should start taking lessons if he wants to continue. I do think his performance in DWD was way better than My Policeman.

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chirpsythismorning · 1 year

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one of the birthdaygate doubter anons from earlier, no.1 please please please don't ever compare me to a mlvn ever again there are few more insulting things I could be told, no.2 I feel like I maybe didn't explain myself properly so I'm gonna try again?

a. I don't care too much about background details bc while I feel they're helpful little easter eggs for analyzing things I feel the more important thing to keep in mind is how something actually affects the narrative and characters, and that goes for any theories not bdaygate so I'm just saying you don't need to list out all the one off lines and stuff I WAS actually reading the birthdaygate posts originally I PROMISE I have seen a lot of the stuff

b. so I said that I don't think birthdaygate makes sense narratively, and that's an opinion that hasn't really changed. you compare it to how they're subtle about byler, but the way they're subtle about byler is just by not stating that it's an option, but it still follows standard friends to lovers tropes, and they've still set up narratives with an inevitable byler conclusion, such as will being the one who pushes mike to say ily to el, with HIS OWN feelings as a motivator. whereas with birthdaygate the clearest pointer aside from all the background details is just that it happens to be march 22nd? it feels like they left it way too up to chance that the audience would remember it's will's birthday. I didn't even remember, and I've always been a pretty avid st fan.

what I think they would've done is state in some way not just the date, but the significance of the date, that way you are certain that detail will have significance later in this season or the next, like how will lied about the painting so we know that has to fall apart eventually. they could've had a character other than mike joyce or jonathan mention that it's will's birthday. this could've totally been a throwaway line from dustin, or they could've shown it marked on someone's calendar, but instead they rely on you to remember a detail from 2 seasons ago that wasn't even the most important part of the scene it was in? this especially feels like an odd conflict to not even slightly mention in text until s5. this feels like something where at least the START of that narrative would have to happen in s4

and then even if you do still think this qualifies as properly setting up a plot point, (which is your prerogative and your opinion to have. and obviously one I don't agree with it just feels like an unusual writing choice to me and doesn't feel like the way they normally write things) i still don't see how this actually smoothly integrates into the story while positively contributing to character and plot development? like we are nearing the end of the story, while we probably don't know the fullest reach of vecna's powers, memory stealing still feels like one that comes out of left field, and a pretty large plot point to introduce in the last season when you're supposed to be wrapping things up. it also feels clunky for character development? what do we get out of this? like do we like birthdaygate just because it sounds cool or because it would actually be narratively satisfying for the story? because I just don't see it concluding well, that feels like WAY too big of a thing for him to have just stolen the memory of will's birthday for shits and giggles and then done nothing else, and it also would make other shit with character actions and stuff weird I think. how did they not forget his bday in the time between s2 and s3? sorry I'm starting to get off track point is I literally don't see what birthdaygate actually CONTRIBUTES to the narrative. like if it happens what's the point of it though

a. Technically Easter eggs aren't intended to be caught by everyone the moment that they appear. And so, if they're only willing to give us Easter eggs to hint at birthdaygate in s4, it's probably because they want to save that official revelation for s5, meaning bringing it up more blatantly, would make those easter eggs less exciting and the surprise in s5 pretty anti-climactic. Easter eggs are literally designed so that only a few people with keen eyes notice them at first, and it often requires those very people informing the majority who are not fixated enough to look into the details themselves.

Also a little side note, I decided to look up the origins of Easter eggs in popular media. A lot of it was related to coding and gaming, but there was a section on broadcast media, where they literally mention Stranger Things using the number on the Surfer Boy Pizza van in s4 promo to leave a 'special message'... Even the literal Wiki page for Easter eggs supports birthdaygate??? Like come on now!?

Yes these easter eggs are fun when analyzing specifically in terms of theorizing right now, but their true value lies in rewatch value in the future. Easter eggs make future revelations more satisfying, because anyone can argue something came out of nowhere, however, if there are 1, 2, 3, 4+ things hinting at it, then the argument it came out of nowhere becomes slightly flawed.

Details are extremely important. I wouldn’t personally discredit them by saying they're less important, even when compared to what is said outright, especially in ST case. More often than not, what is said outright isn’t always them informing us of the facts, sometimes it’s there to intentionally trick us or to subvert. We know this because the details often contradict what they’re outright telling us. They often SHOW instead of TELL, which is an important rule for filmmakers who want their audience to think a little bit. We should be paying attention to the details, as it’s likely it’ll be necessary for us to understand what’s to come. And so, if you're picking and choosing which details to care about, you are bound to miss a thing or two...

b. Though it's not exactly encouraged right now (for obvious reasons), I can guarantee that the promotion surrounding s5 is going to make a big emphasis on the importance of rewatching the show. It's very likely we're going to be seeing the actors and Duffer's themselves voicing how necessary it is that viewers rewatch the show to prepare for what's to come.

Byler for example is something that a lot of the ga doesn't see as happening, and it's mostly because they just haven't rewatched the show recently, either not since watching s4, or even more likely they've probably only watched the entire show once through.

Does that mean that if 99% of casuals viewers assume it's not happening because the signs weren't obvious enough, that byler endgame would be bad writing? Or that it’s bad writing bc rewatching is necessary to fully understand/appreciate it? No, I don't think so! Not at all! Because there is a lot of evidence in the details. It's just that it requires the viewer to watch it more than once, and also pay closer attention, to see it for themselves and believe it.

All of us are in this tag because we rewatched the show and paid attention to the details. We could be just as clueless as the rest of the audience if we only watched the show once and moved on. But something caught our attention, which lead us to looking deeper. It wasn't just handed to us on a silver platter.

In fact byler was almost handed to us in s4, only to suddenly be ripped away in the most gut-wrenching way, leaving pretty much all bylers to seriously doubt endgame post vol. 2 (some still indefinitely). Hell, the actors and creators themselves are still trying to convince us Milkvan is endgame! BUT the details!??!! The details are what made a lot of us rethink everything and that's when we slowly started to figure out that the answers were hidden in the details, despite what was outright said to us contradicting that.

Yes, a good portion of the audience is oblivious and in the dark about almost everything beyond the most basic outright narrative in front of them. But ST wasn't intended for viewers like that, nor was it intended for viewers to watch it like that indefinitely. Right now it's unfinished, and so the Duffer’s do get a kick out of people missing things. They're even known for lying about certain things because they don't want the audience to get too close to the surprises before it's revealed.

After all, there would be no fun in everyone knowing what's to come because they stated it outright. There is an appeal to the surprise factor while we're still waiting. But when it's complete, it will all come together and make sense. So when we do finally have the ending, that's when we'll be able to watch the show the way it was intended to be watched; from beginning to end, then rewatched, again and again, as much as we please, assuming we want to see all the hints we missed in the details for ourselves.

When it comes to needing a bigger hint about the date, I think I understand your frustration. You think that if they were to explore birthdaygate at all, it would need to be brought up in the narrative in a way that everyone watching would be able to go OMG they forgot, and for it to be an in canon concept in s4, before they delve into it officially in s5.

However, I disagree.

Having someone, say Dustin or Lucas mention it, in a one off comment, would have taken away the excitement that is bound to come from them exploring that concept in early s5, potentially even s5 opener early...

I don't want to get into all the rumors and speculation, but there is quite a bit of potential evidence that they filmed scenes we haven't seen yet, because of BTS related to Noah and Will's character potentially, which circulated during s4 promotion ie. him filming at rink-o-mania in his blue plaid, the actor for lonnie being at the table read, noah and his body double in different costumes near a baseball field...

Another thing people completely overlook, is that the Duffer's themselves have admitted that s5 opens in a way that starts right off where s4 ended. They even went far as revealing they know how it starts, and they have no intention of changing it.. It's almost like parts of it might already be set in stone (filmed)?

Do I personally think Birthdaygate is going to be revealed in early s5, potentially even s5 opener early? Yes. Is that 100% likely, obviously not.

Maybe that's why it's easier for me to digest it and give it a lot more consideration? Like why bring it up blatantly in s4, if the plan was for it to open s5? It would also create a lot of hype for the final season once it is revealed, either by hinting it in s5 promo or in the first 10 minutes of the final season.

Quite frankly, a lot of fans are losing hope in the show's credibility because of the Duffer's admitting to forgetting Will's birthday. And so upon the revelation they didn't forget, that it was actually a big ploy to not spoil that revelation coming at the start of s5, would mean all the details are mostly likely intentional. And everyone coming to that realization, going back and watching, is going to lose their shit.

I don't think it's a reach to assume that all that extra time they had allowed them to be able to leave hints, put there intentionally so that when we do have the whole story, we can look back both impressed with their attention to detail, but also slightly embarrassed because we doubted them in the first place. Because the details are so fucking obvious that it's kind of insulting to buy into the lie at all.

Now onto your final point: memory stealing.

You say Vecna being capable of ‘stealing’ memories would be coming out of left field and so I urge you, and everyone honestly, to rewatch the show because…

In case you forgot or don't remember, s2 had an entire plot focused on Will and memories.

As the Mindflayer gained more control over Will, it caused him to lose his short-term memory. People like Bob, Hopper and Dr. Owens, who he didn't have strong connections (memories!!) with, he no longer recognized by name:

Although Mike encouraged Will to look at the bright side of things, that he could technically be a super spy with his ability to see/feel what the Mindflayer was feeling, even having access to his now-memories (I wonder if they could make it any more obvious how important memories are?), it also came with cons.

As the Mindflayer started to gain more control of Will, his short-term memories started slipping. Those parts of him were being taken over and hijacked. The only thing that allowed Will to keep fighting on, despite him barely holding on by the end of s2, was those important memories he shared with Joyce, Jonathan and Mike.

And so how does birthdaygate fit into that?

Well, this is where it gets kind of epic.

At the end of 4x07, we see El manage to defeat Peter (Henry). Though this wasn't present day, this was back in 1979, before Vecna ever had a plan for Will.

His original plan at that time, was to presumably get El to join him. He took someone who was feeling weak and made them an offer he thought they couldn't refuse. Because I mean, El's life was pretty shit at that time, like god awful. And so she was the perfect contender in his eyes. And not only that but she was presumably powerful.

And what did El do exactly to succeed in defeating him?

Well, she recalled the day she was born (her birthday).

The love from her mother she experienced in that moment, and the power she gained from that love, was much stronger than any power Henry had from all of his bitterness and hate he felt.

And so, is it possible Henry learned something that day? That maybe, if he were to try this again, but to instead get Will to join him, that he might need to rethink his approach?

How can he prevent Will from having the power to fight on?

How can he prevent Will from using his happiest moments to save the day again?

By taking them away all together? By erasing them? Stealing them? Whatever you want to call it, I think how exactly that will play out remains to be seen.

I don't have all the answers. I'm not the Duffers and I don't claim to have all the answers about how this will play out.

I don't think that takes away from the evidence though and the implications of what this kind of event would cause Will to feel, and us the audience to feel watching it play out.

Seeing Will suffer as much as he has, and this now topping it off? Vecna now using it all against him to join him? We're going to be feeling for him tremendously. Whether he joins him or not (by choice or not by choice), is going to be fucking incredible to see play out.

#stranger things #will byers #birthdaygate #stranger things 5 #byler #st5 headcanon #also sorry for comparing you to a milkvan anon that was uncalled for no one deserves that

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guardianspirits13 · 2 years

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Let me rant about Moon Knight for a bit!

(It’s about the acting. Just the acting.)

So I’ve been thinking a lot about Moon Knight recently…

For some context, I watched the whole show about 2 weeks ago and it has become a pretty typical obsession. One problem with this, however, is that ADHD has a tendency to turn my piqued interests into hyperfixation, wherein I enjoy a piece of media and my brain gets very excited about its new source of dopamine and tries to leech it for all it’s worth. This means that as long as the thing continues to give me dopamine, it will consume my waking hours as I think, watch, draw, write, and do just about anything else I can with it. Normally creating art and analysis are the best ways for me to combat hyperfixation so I have something to channel this extra excitement into, and so I’ll eventually run out of things to draw and write so my brain can chill out and get back to its normal life. However, within these hyperfixations, there is usually one element that I will cling on to that becomes the center of my interest. Usually it’s a character, sometimes a specific episode or scene. In Moon Knight, it was Steven…at first.

But as I’ve continued to explore the interviews, behind-the-scenes, and an ungodly amount of edits and scene compilations for this show, I have realized that my interest has shifted a bit off the content of the show itself, and onto something different. What is it?

It’s the acting.

The f u c k i n g acting. In this fucking show. Specifically Oscar Isaac.

It absolutely baffles me how the characters of Marc and Steven were distinguished in the most subtle of ways, and the immense focus demanded by this level of a performance just blows me away. Like let me explain- I knew little to nothing about Oscar Isaac when I watched this show. I knew he was the guy from Star Wars that I kinda liked when I watched one of the newer movies like three years ago. It took me two full episodes of Moon Knight to un-confuse him with Rami Malek (I saw museum and Egypt and my brain was like hey that guy looks similar. Sincere apologies). Since watching Moon Knight I’ve seen a variety of interviews with him and I still struggle to wrap my mind around the fact that this is the same guy that played Steven. And Marc. (And Jake). Looking at any given frame of Steven in particular, I have to squint just to see the resemblance. And I know you’re thinking, ‘oh it’s the hair, it’s the outfit’ yeah. Sure. That contributes something, but nope. It’s the acting.

As a kid I thought 80% of being a good actor was memorizing your lines and expressing emotions you didn’t actually feel. As an adult I’d toss in character studies, posing, and staging. But it is only after watching this show that I have realized how damn important mannerisms are, and how much utter focus it takes to not only memorize and deliver lines in a believable way, but to be aware and in control of every part of your body down to the muscles in your face. Maybe it’s just my ADHD speaking, but having so much control and awareness of yourself that you can quite literally become the character you are playing, to the point where the actor’s own mannerisms and personality become barely discernible, is just astonishing. Like the scenes when Steven and Marc are switching back and forth and they change into the other before your eyes and yet still look so distinctly like their own self? Wow. And perhaps this degree of acting is more common than I realize, and it just stands out to me more in this instance due to the nature of the show, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that I not only noticed how good the acting was, but the performance left a lasting impression on me. Even more than the characters themselves- the emotions, expressions, and mannerisms connected with me on a level deeper than I care to admit.

Slight detour (you can skip if you want) but I have a theory about audience awareness of acting ability- it’s an inverted bell curve. Stick with me now. When you’re watching something with bad acting, you know because it lacks immersion. You lack investment in the performance so your brain goes meta and is like ‘haha these actors are so bad’. For most movies and shows, the performances fall in the middle. They’re good enough that they feel natural, believable, and fully integrated into the scene, but nothing about the acting particularly stands out. Now on the far end of the spectrum, there are things along the lines of… Midsommar? Get Out? (I don’t watch the Oscars but you get the idea). And of course, Moon Knight. This might just be me, (thus the theorizing) but if a performance is almost so good that it becomes uncomfortable to watch, my brain checks me out of the immersion so I can sit back and realize that it’s not real, and is just in fact some damn good acting. It’s kind of like the uncanny valley. I’m now realizing that this does primarily apply to sad/scary/intense films that stretch the limits of human emotions, but my point still stands. Kinda.

Anyways- back to the main event!

Perhaps even more incredible to me is the entirety of episode 5, where Marc and Steven are in separate bodies and bouncing dialogue off each other. First off, hats off to the special effects team and whoever else was responsible for the editing because that was just about seamless. Second off , I repeat myself yet again: the a c t i n g. In one of the interviews I watched Oscar did briefly discuss the extensive planning that had to go into those scenes, such as figuring out which character to film first, but I cannot imagine how much focus and just plain skill it takes to act out both characters in these scenes individually, not to mention the emotional intensity written into most of them. Even with someone reading off opposing lines offscreen or acting as a stand-in, the chemistry between these two characters in the final release is flawless. Episode 5 probably had some of the best directed, written, and performed scenes in the entire MCU- they hit you hard and stick with you long after they’re over. They give you food for thought. They certainly gave me food for thought.

AND DID I MENTION IT’S THE SAME FUCKING ACTOR???

Ahem. Let me breathe here for a second.

As previously mentioned, it might well be the case that all of the particular things I’m citing that make this show so great appear more frequently than I realize in other media, and the structure of Moon Knight just happens to allow them to shine more brightly. I don’t care. This is the one that stuck with me, and that’s all the difference. The production, writing, direction, and editing on this show is all phenomenal and in my opinion some of the best use Marvel has ever gotten out of their practically infinite budget, despite barely being half the CGI-fest of their other properties.

Incredible job to everyone who made this show a reality, as I will be revisiting it for years to come.

ALSO GIVE OSCAR ISAAC HIS FUCKING EMMY YOU COWARDS!

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uh-velkommen · 1 year

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Fall Out Boy So Much (for) Stardust

~First Impressions~ Review: First let's talk about what everyone else is saying and then I'll go track by track. "Love From The Other Side was misleading" "The album is very 80s inspired" "We're getting Folie A Deux 2.0" "Disappointing." While yes, LFTOS may be more in your face than the others, it was the "omg Guitars!" people who misled themselves. FOB is my top favorite band so I know better than to make inferences based on the first single. Yes it feels very 80s with the rhythmic drums, uppity messages, and what has to be direct references to other earlier artists but lucky for me, my favorite genre is that 80s influenced happy guitar music and one can't help but to compare this album to Patrick Stump's solo album Soul Punk. The evolution feels natural; Soul Punk - ambitious but underdeveloped, Mania - well produced but wrong audience, So Much (for) Stardust - right ideas right execution. I was hoping for a Folie 2.0 actually, it's my favorite album and I think we've evolved enough to appreciate another bass riddled, poetic, solemn-happy album. This is definitely not another Folie. If anything it's a Mania 2.0 but there's some moments in songs, some lines that remind me of Folie. That's the beauty with this band, you can really feel everyone's contribution to this album. Pete's lyrics unchanged from the early days, Patrick's soul made futuristic, and of course Andy and Joe's experienced-rock artistry. The songs are cohesive and the lyrics bounce well between gleeful and nostalgic however, I would like to hear more from the guys about the message they were wanting to get across this time around. Lastly, if I had to pick a single gripe with this album, it would be that its not what I needed the moment that I first listened. When listening to new albums, I look for two things "Does it make me dance and/or does it completely enthrall me?" At the exact same time, Babymetal dropped their new album The Other One and after a still listen to SMFS, I found myself bobbing along to Babymetal. This doesn't mean it's not a dance album. I just wasn't in the mood for an 80s jam. Now if you asked me to describe the album in one word or put me on the spot, I don't hate it and I don't love it YET. I enjoyed listening to it and my one word would be, "It's creative."

Track by track listed below.

When I was putting this together I used emojis to remember my train of thought. See if you can decipher them and if they're ones you would've used lol.

Love from the Other Side (I didn't even think to put an emoji here) What can I say, it's a good song. I've had more time to sit with this one. Learned the words, the bass line, and all of Patrick's vocal inflections. There's nothing new that can be said.

Heartbreak Feels So Good🎈🫂 When this song first came out I remember feeling my heart drop. I was freshly surrounded by the idea that this album would finally be a rock album and then I heard the opening which sounds a little too much like Let Me Love You by DJ Snake and Justin Bieber and I immediately thought, "Oh God, another Mania." But that mentality conflicts with the actual grit of the song (Also, I enjoy Mania). It feels like a heartbreak song. Like a "Remembering the good times, the bad times, and having a cry over what it used to be." Like a Jet Pack Blues or Favorite Record. It's catchy, it's good, and it's relatable.

Hold Me Like a Grudge👑😀 Again, the opening sounds too much like Another One Bites The Dust for it to be non-coincidental. The descriptive word I got for this is "fun." (Future me here, there's literally a line that goes, "You put the "fun" into dysfunction" This was not intentional). I like the way the lyrics are sung, like half of this album borders on being raps. It's got the same sentiment as early FOB with the, "You can hate me but my life is glitter" idea and it's a certified bop, solid song.

Fake Out🍬💋 It's sweet. Cute. Kisses. Lovey, lovely. I like it, I don't know what else to say.

Heaven, Iowa��‍🎤 This song is a full blown power ballad. It's beautiful. It kinda tricks you starting off slow but the slow build is worth the pay off. I love the melancholic or maybe nostalgic instrumentals. You know, I was scared of this being another City In A Garden (I don't know, if I see a location in the title and think "Not another song about Chicago" Chicago isn't even in Iowa???) This is one of the standout tracks on this album.

So Good Right Now (co-writer: Robert Byrd) This might be the shortest song on here at two minutes and fifty-eight seconds and instead of an emoji, I'm leaving you with this information. Clearly influenced by the vocalizations of Little Bitty Pretty One and the try-hard feel-good vibes makes the fact that they credited multiple writers on this one laughable. Half of it is just repeating the "So good right now" and while a quick little break from the songs with messages is totally excusable it's definitely the weakest of the whole album.

The Pink Seashell❓️What is this. What does it mean, how does it relate to the album's story? After the whole "red-herring" promotional material, the Pink Seashell Beach homage here is hilarious. It reminds me of the lyric, "The time my dad caught me a horseshoe-crab and I asked if throwing it back into the sea would bring our luck back," (This Shipped (Gold) Standard).

I Am My Own Muse🎸SMASH ALL THE GUITARS WE GOT TO THROW THIS YEAR AWAY. I like this song. No really you can't go wrong with an orchestral instrumental. It's catchy, it's eerie, it's demanding. The violins ARE the moment. It's great.

Flu Game🐒 I also really like this song because it reminds me of Fall Out Boy's cover of I Wan'na Be Like You (I'm so obsessed with the live version) and that one part from One & Only by Timbaland. The swinging drum beat and the funky nanananana's. The cocky lyrics, the ATTITUDE, the harmonies. It feels so Patrick Stump. This is a song I wanna sing at the top of my lungs.

Baby Annihilation📝 So I heard ONE person say this before listening to this "song" and it kinda warped my perception. The spoken poetry at the end of 20 Dollar Nose bleed was brilliant. It worked with the tone of the album, it was unique and original for FOB, and what makes their lyrics so great is Pete's poetic inclination. However, 15 years later, a grown man reading a mediocre poem unaccompanied, unexpected, unwarranted, is not as edgy and impactful as it could have been. (Update I forgot about Get Busy Living and im starting to change my mind). I think what would have made this work is if they stuck to one spoken part, one intermission, either this or The Pink Seashell. OR space the two songs out more evenly. These should act as segues into a new part of the album's story. The second half of the album is just as strong as the first so these breaks feel unnecessary (Disclaimer: I could read and enjoy Pete's poetry for days on end but let's not kill the momentum here)

The Kintsugi Kid (Ten Years) 🔟🕙 This song feels like an ode to the mmrs and its a sweet somber one. It's also 100% an 80s movie-prom dance-song choice-moment and the dog barking at the end is adorable and reminds me of something (It's gotta be a movie reference but I can't place it (Also I'm pretty sure it's a human girl impersonating a dog, though I imagine it's the dog on the album cover)). However, this is where you learn that I hate slow songs on albums and this is the slowest one rhythmically. Sure if it comes on in a random playlist I am more likely to enjoy it but as of right now I have no strong opinions. I will say as we're nearing the end of the album, one might start to get weary. There are a lot of songs on this album so I find that slow songs have better luck near the middle point of the album.

What a Time to Be Alive🎥 This one totally feels like it should be playing during a montage or ending sequence in a teen-family movie. The song feels like a happy "what a time to be alive, everything is so sweet" but it's Fall Out Boy and it's pandemic themed so it for sure is a "what a time to be alive, this shit sucks."

So Much (for) Stardust 👍FAV FAV FAV The instrumental at the beginning reminds me of early 2000s RnB ballads. It feels like another "Nobody wants to hear you sing about tragedy," (Disloyal Order of Water Buffaloes). It's the, "yeah we're famous but look at what we lost on the way, what we had to sacrifice, was it worth it?" It's the Folie mentality and I eat it up every time. It works so well with this band when you know about all the struggles they dealt with in their personal lives. Pete's Bipolar Disorder and the various affairs and tabloids, Patrick's modesty, weight, solo career, hair line (dude?), Joe's mental health and his role in the band, and Andy's... I don't know, Andy is just there. It's no secret that the fame was hard on them so FOB, you guys are all wrong, I want to hear you sing about tragedy. Not to mention the choir that comes in at the end and Patrick's ability to riff and belt and just get jiggy with the rhythm is freakin' gorgeous. This song is the most perfect icing on this cake. It's a beautiful fade out and the repetition of the "You were the sunshine of my lifetime, what would you trade the pain for? I'm not sure," is pure excellency. What a wrap around. This song balances despair with hope. It's melancholic, it's upbeat, it's desperate yet it comes across like anyone could feel the same emotions. And let me also just say I'm so happy they featured a classic Pete Pun™ in the song (and album) title. I've read nearly all of dear Peter's livejournals and blog posts and he does this so often that it's endearing to see in 2023.

I wanna rate this album a strong 8.5/10 <3

#Fall Out Boy #Fob #so much for stardust #so much (for) stardust #smfs #music #me #review

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marciabrady · 2 years

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Hi marciabrady, I just wanted to pop in and say how much I appreciate you standing up for classic Disney films. I love Sleeping Beauty so much everything from the artistry of every frame, the music being from the ballet, Mary Costa's wonderful voice in Once Upon A Dream, all the voices were wonderful I can't imagine anyone else especially Philip he adds a lot to Once Upon A Dream, to the character animations being just so inhumanly elegant and smooth especially for Aurora, how kind and dutiful and romantic and gorgeous she is, how maternal and proactive the fairies are, how strong and determined and charming Philip is, how deliciously evil Maleficent is, its simply one of the greatest films of all time period. It makes me so sad to see the studio that is built on stories like this go back to "fix them" and in the process tarnish the story and their reputation. It feels like nowadays people can't appreciate fairy tales and try to suck the charm and magic from them. Not every women has to be a rebellious warrior or go "screw the patriarchy" because she doesn't need a man and is an independent girlboss. Some characters have a quiet strength to them, and thats okay. Sorry this got really ramble-y but thx and again, I love your blog!

Thank you so much!! I really appreciate receiving this and getting to hear from someone who enjoys the multitudes of artistry that went into crafting the original movies.

I completely agree with you about how the studios have given into hating on their own works because of bad-faith criticisms from people who will never like these movies. Like they are not the audience to pander to. Ngl it was a little gratifying to hear Elle Fanning repent in some of her interviews for the second Maleficent movie and say Aurora was her own person and had her own personality and she didn't have to be a warrior to be strong, and she actually spoke about the value Aurora had (unlike the press for the first film where she just kept saying Aurora was nothing but a pretty princess and her job was to deepen that. It's too bad Elle's Aurora was so inferior to the original). Unfortunately, this is not only affecting the production of these cursed live action remakes, but I feel like it's greatly contributing the homogenization and the commercialization of art. Which, I understand all films to some extent have always had an element of being commercialized, but...it's just getting so bad and I feel like it's really desecrating what was once the American artform. I think the Disney Renaissance really, if it continued with the same creative team, could've gone on to produce Walt-era level worthy films, and I'm genuinely hoping we can return one day. Walt wanted animation to become a genre, not just "for children" and I think over the past twenty years, we've literally made these films only for children.

I'm hoping to make a difference with the appreciation posts I do so that people out there can see the values these original characters have and see how nuanced and different and unique they are and return to that form, or at least vary their own style a little bit instead of sticking with the same thing. I know responses to criticisms used to garner a lot of attention, but I think I might stick with making appreciation posts from now on. We'll see. Whatever it is, like I mentioned I think this is an issue that's affecting so much of our life and how we see each other, and I'm not content with just writing about it on my personal anymore. I'm hoping I'll be able to write an article somewhere, to garner new audiences and hopefully change the minds of many people or at least spark a conversation. I just genuinely am horrified that this redundant rhetoric is persisting and I really hope I can make a difference.

#ask #anonymous #thank you so much though seriously #my ims are always open for you <3

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tarysande · 3 years

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Oh no, I've been thinking.

Okay, I can't stop thinking about something ending-related. I don't know this for certain, but based on previous statements and such, it feels like the writers were always aiming for a bittersweet ending. Like, no matter what else happened or how the story evolved, come hell (lol) or high water, that ending couldn't just be happy. For reasons. I guess.

Now, I don't mind a bittersweet ending ... if it makes sense for the ending to be bittersweet.

I critique stories for a living. I'm literally taking a break from the developmental edit of someone's novel to write this post. And the persistent thought that bugs me about the Rory setup is that it is so artificial. Time travel is a pain in the narrative ass. Time travel suddenly introduced in the sixth season of a show that has never touched on time travel? As an editor, I probably would've pointed out that time travel for the purpose of angst, especially time travel without rules that make sense ("I don't know anything about time travel! Except I do know you have to take the most painful path!"), seemingly introduced as a final ploy to make that bittersweet ending work ... well, to me, it breaks the narrative contract they established with the audience. Your audience is going to be confused. An editor's job is to alert the writer to any potential confusion so it can be fixed before the story goes to print, etc. Confused audiences get mad, annoyed, frustrated. They feel hurt. They put down the book and don't pick it up again. Usually, writers don't want that. But they're so close to their work that they need a completely outside perspective to say, "Hey, I'm not sure you realize this, but..."

I mean, I keep referring to Rory as "deus ex daughter" because in literary terms, she is a blatant deus ex machina. Rory is the god in the machine of the Bittersweet Ending.

Now, I loved a lot of S6. I did. My overall feeling about the season is not negative. But ... I can't stop thinking about why the things I didn't like REALLY didn't work for me.

I loved the emotional growth we saw in Lucifer and Chloe facilitated by the question of parenting and parental love. I did. And I would have loved to see a lot of those notes hit not with an angel kid out of nowhere ... but with the daughter already in the picture. Especially because it would have circumvented the icky idea that a child has to be one's flesh and blood to induce such feelings. I also understand that coronavirus and Scarlett's age and schedule made this difficult. But I just can't swallow that the only way to wrap up the story of this show--a show about found family, non-traditional family, friendship, connection, FREE WILL, love in all its many shapes and forms and colors ... was to introduce a brand new character via a device (time travel) that fails to make sense almost every time it's used, no matter the medium. (And then had only that brand new character be there when her mother died. Don't even get me started. Ugh.)

If time travel was always going to be on the table, couldn't we have found a more plausible way to use it with the characters we already knew, loved, and had spent four or five seasons with? A time-travelling older Trixie, say? If you're going to use the impossible device, just ... twist it another way to make it work.

Okay. Okay. So, leaving Trixie aside for now just like the show did, let's say we leave everything about the season the same, even Rory. Do you know what ending makes more narrative sense?

Future Rory sacrificing herself by NOT forcing Lucifer to make a cruel and impossible "choice" so the baby that might have been her grows up with a family that loves her. Chloe's already pregnant. That's not going to be undone. And this nonsense of a "closed time loop" falls apart if you side-eye it for even a few seconds. The Rory who came from the future never exists except in the memories of those she met when she came back from that future. Chloe and Lucifer lose that daughter even as they gain the new one whose existence is not a tool of unrelenting fate because wow this show has always been about free will what the heck happened there yikes. And a choice made under the duress Chloe and Lucifer were under, forced out of them, and forcing them to "choose" a life apart for *handwave* Reasons has nothing to do with free will. A "choice" made at gunpoint is not a real choice. Future Rory basically bullied them into ensuring she got to exist--something, quite frankly, neither her parents would have done.

Instead, how much more appropriately bittersweet is it if Chloe and Lucifer lose that child while gaining one who, because of that angry time-travelling version, will never suffer as she did.

Also as an editor: the groundwork for my version is already laid, by the way. It should have been Rory learning about the importance of free will over fate. The importance of personal sacrifice. The importance of not thinking your young self knows best ... because experience and therapy will help rid you of that self-centered world view. That's the contract the writers made with us with this show. And Chloe and Lucifer have already BEEN THERE AND DONE THAT. (See: the end of S4.)

Furthermore, this season finally HAD Chloe and Lucifer DEAL WITH the only thing that actually would have contributed to a narrative, characterization-based reason for Lucifer to disappear: His history of running and his putting Chloe on a pedestal. Once they really talked that out, his "disappearance" became a Rory-induced trauma of inexplicable fate that flies in the face of all the progress Lucifer made over six seasons. (I would rather have had more of that and less of mysterious disappearing oh no plot.)

And I'm sorry, the "Once you get to Hell you're going to work 24/7" excuse given for why Lucifer won't be around and why he can't make time for Chloe until she's DEAD(????!???) is ... it's lame. If AMENADIEL AS GOD can make time for his kid's birthday party, I refuse to believe Lucifer can't work out some Hell/Earth-work/life balance. Never mind that in the show about partnerships, the Bittersweet Ending just ... destroyed it. Chloe was planning on being God's consultant; she could have helped Lucifer solve Hell's Trauma Mysteries (it's what she did with Jimmy, setting up that yeah, Lucifer could do it alone like he accidentally did with Lee, but doing it with HIS TRUTHSEEKING PARTNER would be more effective). Just as Lucifer could have continued helping HER solve some of the problems within "that corrupt little organization" of hers.

tl;dr: I think the writers fixated so completely on their version of Bittersweet that they missed all the foreshadowing, groundwork, and clues that were right there, already built into the story, poised for a different kind of ending than the one they once imagined. That's why so many parts of it feel almost-but-not-quite right and why these aspects are so off-putting. That's why it's just not ... organic. It's something squeezed into a box it grew out of ages ago.

Ironically, certain elements of this season involved the writers insisting on the FATE they decided long ago instead of letting the story and the characters have the FREE WILL to choose a different, more fitting, more organic ending--one that had long-since evolved past that original flavor of Bittersweet.

#lucifer on netflix #lucifer morningstar #chloe decker #trixie espinoza #aurora morningstar #deckerstar #lucifer meta #lucifer thoughts #lucifer spoilers #lucifer s6 #lucifer s6 spoilers #lucifer critical #i criticize from a place of love #i really do

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i-dreamed-i-had-a-son · 3 years

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The main theme I've picked up on on FATWS is the bait-and-switch. What I mean by this is that the directors love, and have done a great job of, muddying the motivations of the characters so that it's hard to tell what they really want. Alternatively, they introduce a character to us one way (sympathetic or antagonizing) and then go about flipping our interpretation of that character on its head.

For example, Sharon had been set up to be completely changed from who she was when we last saw her--she's crooked now, unsympathetic, and mean--but then she unexpectedly has that final scene where she gets into the car. I think that scene is supposed to tell us that there is more to Sharon than this new, angry crook--to get us asking, "Oh! Was that all an act? Is she a spy? Is she actually not evil?" without providing definitive answers. This keeps us invested and opitimistic, but not confident in what will happen, which makes us curious, which in turn makes us more invested.

They do something similar with Zemo, introducing him as an antagonist (I mean, his first words are literally him trying to trigger Bucky, and Bucky looks so scared but don't get me started) and showing that he's manipulative and dangerous. But then, throughout the episode, he becomes a valuable connection, and doesn't take the chance he has to run away. We start wondering if maybe we don't have to be as worried about him as we were initially--but, they continue to include moments, like the glee he takes in Bucky's "performance" as the Winter Soldier, or how easily he dehumanizes him, or how he tries to make Sam suspicious of him, or, or, etc., to further destabilize our interpretation of him. We're not supposed to know what to think--we're just supposed to be on our toes.

They repeat this pattern, although not in exactly the same way, at least two other times in the show. We are introduced to a character that we initially do not like, but then the show intentionally humanizes them, sometimes spending a significant amount of time doing so. Both Walker and Morgenthau were introduced as antagonists, but then we learn that this is because we don't know much about them. We get an insight into who they are and why they are doing what they do, and they begin to make more sense (which we don't quite get with Zemo--he remains mysterious, so we never fully trust him). We begin to think, "You know, maybe they're not so bad after all." And then almost immediately the rug is yanked out from under us, as we see Walker become openly hostile towards Sam and Bucky, and Morgenthau blow up a building with people still inside. The narrative goes out of its way to explicitly frame these actions as wrong, and this makes our understanding of the characters even more muddied--are they good or are they bad? We've been wrong both times we thought we knew. By this point, we're almost wondering if we can trust our understanding of anyone in the show.

The one character we're never given reason to doubt is Sam. His motivations are very clear. He's explicit with his goals. We know him. We trust him. And because of this, he becomes our window into the series. He is our connection point, and serves to some degree as a representation of us; we share his perspective. And this is what they have indicated they will use to pull the final rug out from under us.

I'm not talking about making us not trust Sam--no, I'm talking about someone they've already been subtly telling us not to trust: Bucky. They've been doing this in two ways, the first of which is through the other examples above, and the second of which is through Sam.

The first way they cause us to doubt Bucky is by destabilizing our interpretation of the other characters with a dark side (as all but Sam have). Because we don't know what to expect from Zemo (who seems deceptively more trustworthy than before), or Sharon (who had been good but now isn't...but maybe she is?), and because we've been proven "wrong" about Walker and Morgenthau (by forcing us to change how we think of them not once, but twice), and because the overarching theme of these contrasts is that it is very possible for a character to seem both good and bad, when it comes to Bucky, we're completely flying blind.

Additionally, while we know Bucky's past, we don't really know him now (just as he doesn't fully know himself). We don't know what he's capable of, or what he's willing to do, and as we've been shown, neither does he; his distrust of himself is something we pick up on, too. It, along with everything else, contributes to a growing unease about Bucky's ability to avoid falling back into being the Winter Soldier.

Not only that, Sam (who we relate to and interpret the events of the series through) is simultaneously growing more and more uneasy about Bucky. He asks him several times if he's alright (and gets no real response to this); he sees Bucky pushing his limits by speaking to Zemo alone, and sees him make reckless decisions by setting him free without talking to Sam about it; he sees Bucky becoming more openly hostile, not just to Zemo ("Touch that again and I'll kill you") but towards Sam himself (with Bucky's comment about beating Walker and taking the shield for hismelf). He begins disagreeing with Bucky more. All of these things contribute to a small but growing distance between them.

This is furthered by Sam witnessing Zemo's subtle comments that are intended to trigger Bucky (dehumanizing him at every chance), and also Zemo's intentional comments to Sam ("Didn't take much for him to fall back into form..."). Zemo is trying to cause division between them, and combined with everything else that Sam has to deal with, everything else that he has no experience with and can't control, Sam isn't feeling very stable at the moment. And neither are we. Just like us, he doesn't know for sure that he can trust Bucky, and that is something we as the audience pick up on, which serves to bolster our own growing anxiety about the situation.

In short, at this point, we don't know how things will turn out. We can't feel comfortable or secure predicting what will happen, because we're being told on all fronts that nothing is certain. All we can do, like Sam, is plunge forward, and hope against hope that everything will be ok--knowing all along what we've been told (literally): The Winter Soldier isn't as far below the surface as we think. And I can't think of a better way than that to keep people invested in, and thinking about, your show.

#marvel #fatws #tfatws #fatws spoilers #tfatws spoilers #the falcon and the winter soldier #meta #bucky barnes #sam wilson #sharon carter #helmut zemo #john walker #karli morgenthau #my meta posts #quality meta seal of approval #not to hype my own post up i just put that on all meta posts so that i can find them #kay can i just catch my breath for a second #yes that penultimate sentence is a paraphrase of a quote from this episode 👀👀

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immaturityofthomasastruc · 3 years

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Chloe doesn't deserve redemption. Saying "Oh, Chloe's just a wittle kid she doesn't know any better uwu" in response to her abuse of her closest friend and mistreatment of literally everyone around her is so irresponsible and false. Teenagers DO know better. Hell even little kids know better. "Don't be an asshole to your peers" is a very basic concept and isn't hard to figure out on your own once you see that your negative actions turn good people away and make them dislike you.

And even if Chloe wasn't "taught" how to be nice, she HAS been confronted with her behavior and been given good examples through the kind people around her. She CHOOSES to ignore them and continues being mean because she's hateful and thinks she's better than everyone else. That's it. It's not deep.

Instead of worrying about Chloe, I think we should show more sympathy for her victims. Namely Sabrina, who's caught in a toxic and abusive friendship that is likely to affect her self-esteem for years to come.

As I have previously stated in the past, teenagers are idiots. What matters is the ability adults have to reach out to them and help them change for the better. Chloe has done several bad things throughout the show, but the problem is that not all of them are properly addressed. The subway incident in "Queen Wasp" and her working with Hawkmoth in "Miracle Queen" are never mentioned outside of those episodes. Instead, we're supposed to see her being mean to others or taking control of a student film as proof that she's an irredeemable monster. If the writers wanted to show the audience how bad all of Chloe's actions were, she should have faced more consequences for the really bad instances instead of sweeping those events under the table.

Yes, some people have tried to call out Chloe for her actions, but that's really all they do. Nobody ever really reaches out to help Chloe change other than saying something along the lines of "Hey, you're kind of mean. Stop it." All Adrien does is lightly scold Chloe for what she did in "Despair Bear" and went back to enabling her by the end of the episode. Miss Bustier showed some kindness to Chloe, but never confronted her on her actions, which I believe contributed to the negative reputation she has among the fandom. Even when Ladybug has every reason to go off on Chloe for betraying everyone, she just sternly tells her that she can't get the Bee Miraculous again. If you want to help someone change, you need to do more than just tell them to change. I had some anger issues growing up, and it was thanks to the intervention of my parents and some of my teachers that I was able to get them under control. They helped me to find ways to cope with feelings like these and helped me become a better person. They didn't just tell me to stop being angry and leave it at that. I'm not trying to blame the other characters for what happened to Chloe, but I just don't think it's accurate to say that they tried everything to help Chloe change her ways.

As for Sabrina, the show never really takes Chloe's treatment of her seriously, and like with "Queen Wasp" and "Miracle Queen", is rarely ever acknowledged. And again, Chloe is never really called out for it even though everyone has a good reason to. We're simply told it's bad by Astruc on Twitter while nothing is done in the show to help out Sabrina, because again, the other characters don't confront Chloe on stuff like this.

I'm not trying to say that you are wrong for saying all of this, and I hope you can at least consider my argument here. I am simply a person who likes to see the best in others, and believes that change is possible if the right actions are taken.

#immaturity of thomas astruc #iota #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug salt #chloe bourgeois #queen bee #queen b #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #adrien agreste #cat noir #chat noir #caline bustier #sabrina raincomprix

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iamanartichoke · 3 years

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Another totally unprompted ask, on the assumption that you are definitely no longer in need of them… another thing I’m trying to work out about Loki characterisation in preparation for perpetrating fic torture on him is how suicidal the poor sod is most of the time. This is another thing I’ve seen referred to a lot but only in passing. Though obviously this is a pretty triggery topic, so ignore if you want.

I am always in need of totally unprompted asks, otherwise I just assume no one wants to talk to me lmao

So, hoo boy. I have been mulling over this for, apparently, three days now bc there's just ... there's a lot to unpack here. Putting under a cut for obviously triggery content and also for length bc fml.

In my opinion, the response to "how suicidal is Loki most of the time" is "very, but whether or not he wants to do anything about it varies from moment to moment" (see what I did there? I'll see myself out). In other words, I have always had a headcanon that Loki is consistently, passively suicidal. This is a headcanon that comes straight from TDW, bc I'm certain that Loki never had any intention of surviving their mission. And that could be a whole other post, really, but the point is that even though this is a TDW-centric headcanon, I have come to adopt it as applying to Loki in general as well, not just in those specific circumstances.

When I say passively suicidal, I mean that Loki is just sort of ambivalent about the value of his own life. He feels like he doesn't deserve to be alive, and feels like there's little point in being alive. Which - I don't mean to sound all gloom and doom, like, poor uwu emo Loki (and I kinda hate that I have to pause to disclaim that, no, I don't just have a fixation on Loki being depressed for funsies/the aesthetic/whatever); I think that this mindset stems from really complicated places that I'm not sure I can articulate, but I will try.

I view Loki as someone who suffers from a severe inferiority complex, and I feel like it stems from being abandoned as an infant. Loki's life started with a traumatic event and, even if he doesn't remember the event itself, the feelings he experienced stayed in his subconscious. Feelings of loss, of fear, of despair and abandonment, of suffering - these are all feelings that burrowed into his bones and lived there for his entire life, feelings that colored how Loki viewed himself as a person as well as how he compared to the people around him.

Keep in mind that Loki didn't know he was abandoned until the events of Thor 1, obviously. We don't really know how old Loki is, in human years, but I have always assumed that he and Thor were at least adults (not teenagers), maybe the equivalent of early twenties - and the reason I bring that up is because it means Loki made it all the way to adulthood carrying the weight of a trauma that he did not remember or even knew had happened, so to him, there was no real reason for how wrong he felt. There was no explanation for the feelings of loss, of neglect, of fear. So on top of struggling with those feelings, Loki was also burdened with the alienation that comes with wondering why one can't just be like everyone else, why one can't just "snap out" of depression, why one's sense of self-worth has always been lacking.

So imagine what it's like to grow up as Loki. He was traumatized as an infant. The trauma has been with him his entire life, along with the confusion/alienation of not understanding why he feels the way that he does, and then on top of that, his basic personality lends itself toward introspection and isolation, so he likely felt even further removed from Thor and from his peers. Loki's too smart for his own good, and he's got an enormous capacity to feel and I feel like this is a combination that works against him as much as it does for him, bc it probably means he spent a lot of time examining himself and identifying all of his perceived flaws - and then berating himself for said flaws.

People with depression are probably pretty familiar with the bully that lives in your head, the one who is always there to remind you that you're stupid, or ugly, or that nobody likes you, or that you have nothing of value to contribute to anyone, etc. Loki's no different; he's got that bully in his head, too. Add onto this the fact that his brother is literally perfect, that he feels his father doesn't love him (or love him as much), that his interests in things like magic are looked down on in his culture, and that he's a prince (meaning that along with the privilege comes pressure, and being in the public eye, knowing that everyone around him is comparing him to Thor as much as he compares himself to Thor, well.) and you have a total clusterfuck of a mindset, and Loki's been existing inside of that clusterfuck for nearly all of his life.

I always go back to the quote where, when filming I think the vault scene, Kenneth Branagh directs Tom by saying, "This is the moment where the thin steel rod holding your brain together snaps." And it's such a significant moment for Loki bc this is where it all crumbles for him, learning the truth, but I also fixate on the "thin steel rod" part of the quote bc that's not how one would describe a healthy, stable person's mind. The implication, to me, has always been that Loki wasn't that stable to start with due to his general upbringing, his internal struggles, and his personality, so of course the devastation of learning he's adopted, and Jotun, would send him over the edge. One doesn't go from zero to 60; one doesn't fall over the edge unless they were balancing fairly close to it in the first place. And to me, the "thin steel rod" basically equals the aforementioned clusterfuck of a mindset.

THE POINT IS. (Holy shit, I ramble.) This is the foundation on which I'm basing my headcanon that Loki neither values his life nor feels as if he even deserves to live it - bc his default mindset is one of inferiority, of loss, of pain. And I think that going from being a general unstable person pre-canon to being passively suicidal post-canon is a thing that happened because, somewhere between the vault in Thor 1 and the dungeons in TDW, Loki just stopped caring.

Life is exhausting for everyone, but even moreso when your mental load becomes more than you can carry. Loki is exhausted. His experience is that things just keep getting worse and worse for him - he's never been valued, he's always been found wanting. He discovers that he was literally thrown away as an infant, unwanted and left to die, and things haven't gotten much better for him since then. Everything that can go wrong, does go wrong. His plans spin out of control. He's unable to prove his worth and his value and when he is, in fact, rejected, he literally tries to kill himself (only to survive and end up in an even worse situation).

It all just continually goes downhill, and Loki is fucking exhausted. He's done. He has no hope that anything is ever going to change - he will never be valued or even seen, he's unable to connect to anyone, he has no family (aside from Thor, but their relationship is so fraught with pain). As far as he's concerned, his life has been nothing but a waste since he was born and if no one else values it, why should he?

So - passively suicidal. He places no value on his life, and doesn't shy away from situations that could cost him his life. It's possible that the only reason he's not actively suicidal is bc his previous attempt not only failed but led to such a horrible situation that he's probably too afraid to intentionally seek out death again. He doesn't want to fail and end up worse off for it.

And - not that you asked this in particular, but - my biggest disappointment in the series is that none of what I've just written is addressed in a satisfying way (to me). That is, we don't get any real explicit acknowledgement of the trauma of Loki's abandonment as a baby or how that affected his mental health growing up; we don't get to explore how devastated he was to learn of his adoption; we don't ever see him reconcile his ingrained belief that jotuns are monstrous savages with the fact that he is jotun. He says "I betrayed everyone I loved, but I'm different now" and we're supposed to infer what he means without Loki actually articulating why he feels that he's the only one who should be held responsible for all these things that had happened or what "I've changed" even means to him (aside from not betraying Sylvie).

I would have liked to see these things addressed for a lot of reasons, but one of those reasons is that I would want to see how Loki comes to terms with all of his issues and his pain enough that he stops being passively suicidal. We never get to see that; after TDW, the time that passes allows for Loki to kinda chill, resulting in the Ragnarok version, but if there was any real healing or recovering going on, it was happening off-screen, with the audience expected to just go with "yeah Loki was going through it for awhile but he's kinda better now."

Furthermore, much of what I've written here is based on prime Loki's development through TDW, but doesn't account for series Loki's split from that timeline nor the theme of "Lokis survive" that's so prevalent in the series. So I don't think the "passively suicidal" headcanon is really appropriate for series Loki but, at the same time, I'd like to have seen why. I'd like to have seen Loki learning to value his life, or where the "we survive" mindset comes from, since that's not really been a thing before now. (Out of universe, I suspect it comes from the context of Loki just not dying whenever he tries to, but since TDW and IW haven't happened, and Loki didn't intend to survive his fall from the bifrost, framing Loki as an innate survivor doesn't really make sense, but to be fair, I'm just being picky.)

So, yeah. I'm not saying Loki doesn't experience growth or development in the series, I'm just saying that his arc left much unsaid and, furthermore, framing his growth as "wanting a throne to not wanting a throne" without addressing that Loki doesn't actually want the power of the throne, he wants the value and self-worth he associates with the throne, is - well, again, unsatisfying. Not bad, but it leaves viewers like me wanting bc we're cognizant of how much more could have been done.

I ... am going to end this now. This is probably nonsensical and all over the place, so I'm very sorry, and I'm sure this is why I don't get meta-starter asks lmfao bc no one's out here trying to read my dissertation submission for a Ph.D in Loki, but well, sometimes it just be like that.

Thank you for the ask and the opportunity to ramble.

#asks #charlotte replies #loki pokey artichokey #loki series #loki series criticism #loki meta #tw suicidal ideation #tw suicide attempt #tw suicide #tw mental health #tw depression #i spent two fucking hours on this yet i still feel like it's rambly nonsense #i hit stream-of-consciousness at some point and just went with it #and now i'm too lazy to revise #so i'm sorry #this'll probably only get like 10 notes anyway bc that's how it be on tumblr #put effort in and get little validation; put no effort in and everyone loses their minds

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