#my opinion or feelings on something can literally change within minutes

[tsykku]

I am having q!tubbo brain rot so have a slice of it.

I am so curious as to which direction Tubbo will take his character. Because nothing what q!tubbo does seems malicious or sometimes even intentional yet so many people take issue with him or his behaviour. And he is somewhat aware of that while at the same time, completely oblivious as to why or how deep the conflict goes.

You have the federation who cannot stand his arse. Who we know is paying extra attention to Tubbo and wants to arrest him the minute he even does something slightly illegal. While they have not arrested him yet, it is only a matter of time. So what do they do in the meantime? They use him as a scapegoat to nerf certain game mechanics or punish him extra harshly in comparison to others who did the exact same things or worse. Yet for some reason, the other qsmp members are under the impression that Tubbo never gets punished and that he is solely to blame for the create nerf, breeding animosity.

Then next, you have the antagonistic fights with Etoiles which started carefree and rather playful but now have been escalating in q!Etoiles telling the codes that Tubbo works with the federation. To be honest, Tubbo is absolutely partly to blame for this one with his cheeky comments to Etoiles about losing his fight with the code. However, it adds another dynamic layer of conflict to the situation.

Finally, you have the vendetta of Bad and Aypierre against Tubbo due to the controversial Tubhole. You can argue all day long about the logistics of Tubhole and whether Bad and Pierre are valid in their objections against it. But the facts remain that it is within Tubbo's rights to do so and that they have not given him the grace period to let him make it into a good build. It literally is still a work in process that has been going on for less than 24 Minecraft hours. And even if it turns out to be ugly, the fact that Tubbo has been building the Tubhole with only create machines is fucking cool and makes it worth it (in my opinion). Moreover, Bad and Pierre both have similar big projects and their concern that it is different because of the close proximity to spawn feels a bit hypocritical as there are other (big) projects near spawn that cause similar amounts of lag.

And now this vendetta has gone from convincing other islanders of how Tubbo must be stopped to them framing Tubbo for the kidnapping of Ron to Fred. A being that everyone on the island at this point knows is important to Tubbo. A relationship which is one of the only ones Tubbo has left, besides the morning crew. We already know how much the relationship between Fred and Tubbo affects Tubbo's emotions so what will losing Fred or their trust do to him?

So now you have this huge cluster of events that puts q!Tubbo in a situation where everyone is against him, the federation, the code entities and most of the islanders as well. An exception can be made for the morning crew however they do not seem to take Tubbo or his concerns seriously, treating it like the mischief and matters of a kid.

And most interestingly, it is still not clear what makes Tubbo so special. Is it his use of create mod? Aypierre, Ramon and Dapper do something similar. Is it his curiosity and distrust of the federation? Cellbit, Badboyhalo en Bagi are right there with him. Is it his apparent greed or selfishness with regard to resources? It is not like he has never shared them or that gathering resources is sole motivation. Is it his knowledge of Minecraft mechanics to break the lore/server? Philza and his fourth wall breaking say hello as does Aypierre. Is it his age then? His relentless attitude to anything that catches his attention? His endless curiosity?

It will be so interesting to see where all these points of contention will lead to and how q!Tubbo will react to it or change as a result of it. Currently, his only concerns are the potential romance with Fred and finishing the Tubhole so that he can get along with everyone again. So he clearly does not know yet how much trouble he truly is in or how the cards are stacked against him...

#qsmp #tubbo #q!tubbo #character analysis

[therainscene]

Much of the supernatural horror that Will has to contend with works extremely well as a metaphor for his issues -- the Upside Down is the closet, the monsters represent homophobia, his powers are as repressed as he is, yadda yadda -- and in my opinion, this makes him a relatively easy character to analyze. Being able to draw on the supernatural stuff just gives you a lot more material to work with.

Mike, though? A goddamn enigma. He’s often present when supernatural stuff is happening, but he doesn’t interact with it to anywhere near the degree that Will does, and it’s much harder to fold him into the allegory being told here without reducing him to “Will’s love interest”.

And that’s interesting, don’t you think?

That the “stereotypical” gay boy who attracts homophobes like moths to a flame has had his issues laid out in code since the beginning? Whereas the straight-passing one, who’s so deep in the closet he’s probably not even out to himself yet, is so hard to read that most of the GA assume his bizarre personality change in S3 was a symptom of bad writing?

Figuring yourself out as a queer is a challenge even today, and part of the reason it’s so challenging is because heteronormativity steamrolls right over our right to know that being queer is a valid option.

The closet isn’t a queer space -- it’s a queer-shaped void within a heteronormative space.

Stranger Things is full of examples of this:

Will isn’t shy about expressing his disgust at the thought of dating girls, but he’s dealing with a lot of childhood trauma so he’s just a late bloomer, right?

Will is jealous and upset about his new step-sister’s relationship with the boy he’s been attached to at the hip since he was five, but it must be because he’s in love with her or otherwise misses his platonic buddy, right?

El’s character arc is about freeing herself from toxic relationships with men, but her infatuation with the boy who puts her on a pedestal is the one exception to that, right?

Robin shows zero romantic interest in men before coming out, but she and Steve just vibe so well it’s reasonable to assume they’re love interests, right?

Vickie paused Fast Times at fifty-three minutes five seconds, but she has a boyfriend so she must be straight, right?

Over and over, the show presents us with an ambiguously queer situation and dares us to assume it’ll end heteronormatively.

If this were any other show I’d call it queerbaiting... but these situations just keep ending in a non-heteronormative way, all while symbolically dancing around Mike.

Granted, “non-heteronormative” doesn’t necessarily equal gay -- El’s arc is more about independence and forging healthy platonic relationships than about replacing men with women -- but she’s still on the path to breaking out of comphet, which is rather a queer act regardless of whether she's literally queer herself.

But I’m digressing.

We’ve seen how Will is visibly queer and struggles with the trauma of being abused for it, and how his closet is symbolized by the existence of a literal alternate dimension full of monsters.

But Mike is invisible, so his closet isn’t represented by a metaphor at all, but by something more meta than that -- it’s etched out in the negative space formed by the narrative itself. Only the audience can see it, and then only if we’re paying attention, tracing the edges of the story and feeling out the shape it results in.

These two different approaches in depicting the struggle of being closeted remind me of drowning.

In films, drowning is a noisy and dramatic affair, easy to identify.

But in real life, drowning doesn’t look like what we think it does -- it’s silent and resembles calm water play. All too often, drowning victims will quietly slip under and succumb helplessly to the depths...

...right under everyone’s noses.

#stranger things #byler #mike wheeler #will byers #el hopper #my analysis

[punksocks]

Astrology Analysis: You - Joe and his many loves

I heard the people loud and clear! I was a bit intimidated by this at first but as a longtime fan of the show my astrology opinion soon flowed pretty easily. Please enjoy and let me know what you think!

**You is a dark show, most of the placements here are underdeveloped/extreme shadow versions, please don’t feel disrespected if any of your placements appear here

*** major spoilers below (for every season!)

Joe:

Virgo rising: He’s able to appear as calm, intelligent, helpful, and overall more “normal” than someone who murders so much should be able to (he barely gets away with presenting like this and for some people he just irks them, but not as much as say a Scorpio rising would). People tend to want to believe he’s good within the universe of the show, even when he gets caught red handed. He’s also so analytical, he finds out everything about anyone he interacts with and takes note of all their responses. He tries to stay subtle and use information to connect the dots and he catalogs all the information he finds out to use later. He’s communicative in a very minimalist way too, no matter how much information he’s gathering on those around him.

Scorpio Sun: Like no one has guessed this before lol, but he’s really the poster child for a nightmare Scorpio boyfriend (on like extreme mode lol). He’s intense and attractive, and his ego is tied to possessing his partner. He needs to be in control and keeping them safe….but his view of what this means is distorted by his own ego and (later? Always??) psychosis. He’s a f*ckin menace. He’s such a if I can’t have you no one will dude, and he’s so frickin jealous my god. And he’s been cheated on before and he loses it when it comes down to it. But he’s cheated on/with his romantic interests before too. He’s very emotionally charged about the situations at hand and like a toxic water sign he never takes real responsibility for his actions.

Cancer Moon: I struggled a bit here because he’s so tied up emotionally but can easily falter when his idealized version of his love interests doesn’t work out. He’s both super fixated and fickle. Bc he’s a psycho… But who does that work for? I personally thought Cancer moon. He’s got deep mommy issues and he acts like a guy that has moon square his mars, an unfortunately common trait in domestic ab*sers. He’s constantly emotionally battling his anger and his s*x drive, and that he has a violent time actually working out his anger when it comes down to it (so many m*rders). He’s able to be very sweet one minute but literally k*ll the next. And he has a loose set of standards for his violent actions that screamed water moon to me (didn’t k*ll Love because she was pregnant… but that didn’t matter so much after she had his baby oml). Also, he frequently sees himself as the victim of circumstances he created which is kind of Cancer’s thing, especially in a man’s chart.

Virgo Mercury (conjunct rising): He communicates as efficiently as possible while overthinking and over analyzing every word in his head. He’s intelligent and good enough at analyzing literature that he’s able to bluff his way into being a literary professor (also he’s a white guy that’s why). He lies a lot but not in the way Beck does, he usually lies by telling as little as possible or changing minor details, which seems like a more virgo Mercury way to do it. He also moves really in a wirey frenetic way, especially when he’s scheming or fighting to get himself out of a corner he’s backed into.

Scorpio Venus (conjunct Pluto): (sorry Venus conjunct Pluto gang, it’s not you it’s him lol) he’s drawn to very passionate and beautiful women. Stunning s*xiness/attractiveness is an important precursor to a romantic fixation for him. Like he very frequently goes after one of the most complimented women in the room, but like in a Venus ruled way many of his love interests have something darker going on he wants to rescue them from. (He kind of breezes past Kate at first and she’s very pretty ofc but the least complimented on her looks in the show out of all his love interests so far). The more passion comes through, and the more “trials” (bad communication, rivals gotten rid of, cheating, etch) that are “passed” in the relationship, the more connected he feels to the women he’s interested in. I say trials in quotes because if things are going that sideways y’all should probably just breakup (I’m a Sagittarius Venus, no man is about to become my problem lol). And I say passed in quotes because he manipulates the situation as much as he can for his desired outcome (from stalking and stealing phones, to k*lling romantic rivals). He also stalks his love interests every time, on all their public profiles, just to find out who they present themselves to be, and this can be a habit in the most tame Scorpio Venus/Venus conjunct Pluto people lowkey. But he’ll escalate immediately to stalking them in person and getting copies of their itenerary and breaking into their phones and getting keepsakes of their things (oml his teeth jar, I’ll never forget). He’s very emotional and possessive and projects onto his romantic interests pretty much as soon as he says hello. Pluto just turns this intensity up as much as it can.

Aries Mars: because of all the m*rders. But lemme not skip ahead lol. He’s a chaser, he “competes” with rival love interests, and he loves his twisted art of winning a woman over. He acts on impulse s*xually. He’s super competitive but mostly in relationships and making sure he comes out on top romantically. He finished super fast the first time he got with Beck (sorry Aries mars, no shade). He reacts impulsively to most situations and violently when he feels threatened physically or emotionally. I feel like water mars can be overwhelming because they really feel anger and can act unpredictably but Joe is so freaking impulsive Aries mars just fit right, even with all this methodical Scorpio in his chart he’ll just take someone out without a plan because they say the wrong thing to him. Also again, moon square mars can be dangerous if underdeveloped in a man’s chart. Lots of explosive/ab*sive tendencies.

Scorpio Stellium: he needed to work on resolving his trauma and looking inwardly to figure out his emotional insecurities before getting all tied up in his possessive and wild ways, but oops that was like good healing advice before all the stalking and m*rder began.

Beck:

(My Beck section stayed empty the longest lol oh no)

Sagittarius Rising: Beck is lighthearted and fun, she likes to approach people in her life through a worldly attitude. She likes to come off as philosophical and like she’s enjoying all the little adventures in life. She puts a deal of effort into coming off as interesting. But she tends to sort of just attract abundance in her life, she has a lot of friends/romantic partners that tend to support her and her goals monetarily or otherwise.

Gemini Sun: She’s smart and vivacious. She takes pride in her writing skills and has a deep interest in “making it” as a writer. She also lies a lot, in major ways (infidelity and the death of a parent). Duplicity shows up in different ways for all Geminis but Beck has a lot of faces she shows to different people and ways she carries herself only in certain situations. Everyone knows a different version of her depending on who they are in her life. (Joe does not like this later on)

Pisces moon: (ok I changed this after I started it lol. Twice! When I tell you I struggled…) i had to refresh my memory on Beck’s emotional state oml. Ok ok I went through a few moons and I settled on Pisces moon, because she has such a fairytale/disillusionment arch with her whole season. She longs for the perfect romance and she really wants a knight in shining armor but she ends up idealizing her partners and her friends through this distorted lens and so she gets guys that are kind of douchey and has endgame with a total psycho. There’s a lot of infidelity and lies too. She wants to appear to be more magnetic and like “worldly” than she is and will often distort the truth to do so. (Her moon would square her ascendant and sun leading to identity issues) And of course Joe projects his idealized version of Beck onto her (Joe and guys like him are gonna project lol but this placement only enhances that)

(Also, Local Capricorn moon struggles to explain emotional motivations, lol that’s how it goes)

Libra Mercury: Beck writes and communicates in a creative and flowery way. She uses her words to come off as intelligent and balanced. She gets backlash from her professor for coming off as too superficial and lacking depth in her writing. She charms her way in and out of situations (until she can’t- Venus ruled meet pluto ruled). Her writing seems to align most easily with her how she thinks of herself(Sun trine Mercury).

Pisces Venus: at first I wrote this line as a joke but this is the only way I can think to explain it actually—— Beck does get very attached but also doesn’t? It’s that very specific Pisces/12th house placement vibe. Like people that are both emotionally involved and vulnerable but are like detached at the same time. Like tethered to everyone and nothing all at once. She’s sort of lost in how she identifies herself and constantly terns to be another way (I notice this quite a bit with Pisces placements). Also again she embellishes her past and lies about her present, and has a distorted view of her friends and romantic relationships that even she can’t seem to see through until the end.

Sagittarius Mars: ok for a few reasons. Beck doesn’t really have a textbook type (I feel like Sagittarius mars/Venus are less likely to have a set type and more likely to be attracted to personalities). She’s attracted to Joe when he comes off as cultured and interesting. When he gets overshadowed by her friends she starts to shrug him off. She has a passionate s*xual appetite and tends to have a few people she’s seeing at once. She also has a tinge of not like other girls energy I find to be common in Mars rising women.

Love:

Libra rising: She comes across as a gentle, affable beauty. A lovely, community minded person that’s able to balance it all with her friends and her partner. She’s social, creative, and enterprising without coming off as imposing. No one sees all of that darkness she’s got bubbling beneath the surface, until she chooses to bring it out.

(As a Scorpio rising/Libra 12th house I think I subconsciously associate Libra/Venus ruled with hiding something under a very pleasant nature lol that’s my bias)

Cancer sun: she’s so invested in her family. Her ego is aligned with caring for others, especially those that are close to her in her family. She committed her first acts of violence to protect her brother (at least that’s how she tells it). She loves her son and her sibling fiercely and does the most work to keep them at ease. She uses her dark inclination in guise of protection. She’s manipulative and has fooled many people into trusting/underestimating her, by the time they realize she’s not on their side it’s too late.

Scorpio moon (conjunct Venus): she’s so in love!! Don’t betray her or she’s gonna get ya!! Fr though Love loves with her whole twisted heart, so she also feels betrayed and protects her loved ones with her whole twisted heart. Not a woman to be trifled with, (so ofc Joe trifles with her.

Pisces Mercury: I think she’s a better liar than Joe. She just constructs a truth all her own. She tells the stories she wants to because that’s exactly what she believes happened (Moon and Sun trine Mercury). Most people truly don’t see through her lies or feel the need to look through what she’s telling them

Scorpio Venus (conjunct Pluto): (I’m sorry scorpio Venus folks, I’m like trying to be cool here lol, it’s not a bad placement.) Joe and Love just both came into the relationship hot and passionate and jealous and possessive, lol. I really do think that Joe and Love mirror each other and I love how the writers handled their mad love. She takes on his problems as her problems, including k*liking anyone in Joe’s (I.e their) way. And once Joe made Love jealous, she did not hesitate to take Natalie out. So much passion and possessiveness and assuming that love in a relationship is forged through intensity and pain (their cheating, arguing, Joe’s probable emotional ab*se), definitely giving shadow Scorpio Venus being amped up 1000% by that Scorpio Pluto.

Pisces Mars: Unconventional because this is a passive aggressive placement but mutables can be m*rderous pretty commonly (I cannot tell you why lol just so many serial killer charts are peppered with mutable signs) and I’m going off of a few things. Love is in love with Joe, she falls for him when he projects being a total sentimental romantic (since Love is a femme, mars can show her type). She also cheats on Joe as she gets disillusioned. She’s usually pretty fluid even opening up their marriage to bring the sparks back. She also also does get that anger out indirectly…. through m*rder!! Lol

Candace:

Leo Rising: She often attracts attention but also chases it. She’s charismatic enough to be the front man in a band and to make Beck jealous. She’s flirty and fun.

Aries Sun: Impulsive and charismatic. She clashes with people around her. She is a great frontman for her band. There’s a lot of impulsivity in how she goes after Joe (sis needed a plan and her only plan was get him lol)

Scorpio moon: feels deeply and is very protective of how she feels. she’s very invested in getting revenge on Joe (which is fair he was a shit for trying to k*ll her). If she was the protagonist of any other tale I’m sure she would’ve gotten payback. But she follows him across country to torture him herself when all else fails and nothing can be done to hold him accountable. (Also moon square rising for how at odds she was with people believing the depth of her trauma and what was done to her and how much people projected onto her.)

Scorpio Mercury: She can’t really get a lot of people to believe her, and idk but I feel like Scorpio placements are the least likely to be believed when it comes to water placements. She lies to keep her revenge plan going but she has trouble faking it and keeping up with the lies. She communicates with intensity and pointedly. She fights to try to reveal the truth (unfortunately it doesn’t work out great).

Sagittarius Venus: she actually is pretty worldly and very charming. She’s enthusiastic in her relationships, but rarely in love. Pretty untethered in that we’re not really dating we’re just having fun sagittarius Venus sort of way. She cheats on Joe because she’s not serious about him. She gets mad and tries to leave when Joe gets too possessive and controlling of her of her.

Scorpio Mars: this was hard, I feel like I got everything else easy. I’m going with Scorpio mars because she was very much into revenge before reason. She went out of her way to try to expose Joe instead of just calling the cops when she had the upper hand and it backfired. She’s also protective in her quest for truth. At the heart of her revenge motives, she’s concerned that Joe is going to hurt other people. She also was attracted to Joe’s passion and intensity and how much of a romantic he seemed to be. (She got tired of him and went to someone more connected)

Marienne:

(Omg poor Marienne right?? Christ, just minding her own business and pulled into mess…)

Scorpio Rising: She’s very alluring and has a kind of dark tinge to her appearance. She’s very perceptive and will call out someone out if they’re faking any behavior around her. She’s able to sense when something’s off with other people.

Virgo Sun: Marienne, for all her troubles, she works to stay grounded. She makes sure she does better for the sake of her daughter and her future. She bounces back through constant adversity and holds down a structured, healthy, and supportive routine. One of her big journeys in life seems to deal with her aligning her head and her heart (sun opposition moon).

Pisces Moon: She’s emotionally in tuned to her daughter and creates a loving environment for her. She’s very creative as well and her heart is in her work. She has struggled with addiction and keeps clean out of efforts to make a better life for her and her daughter. She has a lot of men lie to her and project onto her and deceive her in an effort to get close to her.

Virgo Mercury: intelligent and capable. When Joe is out of his depth on missing white woman syndrome (immediately, he’s out of his depth immediately lol) she swiftly corrects him.

Taurus Venus (trine Mercury): charming with her words. She writes and illustrates story books. Most people are attracted by her creativity and her calm nature.

Gemini Mars (square moon): just attracting (and unconsciously being attracted to) very duplicitous men. Both Joe and her ex try/tried to come off as intellectual and rational to get close to her before their ab*sive sides came out. She also fights her battles with her wits and knows how much to say and when to say it in dangerous situations.

*bonus: strong Lilith placements- Lilith conjunction/square/opposition 1st or 7th or 10th house (maybe in virgo): I’m totally becoming the Lilith lady lol, but nothing explains guys getting *weird* like Lilith does. Marienne has to have a significant Lilith placement in her chart. Her ab*sive ex husband trying to destroy her life unless she submits to him, but then Joe comes in to save her. Oops he’s actually obsessed with her and he travels across the ocean to track her down (he’s Joe, but even this is a lot for him) and he refuses to accept how desperately he’s trying to chain her to him to the point where Joe’s personality literally splits so he can keep Marienne under lock and key? Marienne already knew, in that exhausted way, that she had to make herself truly inaccessible in order to escape this obsession. It’s giving strong Lilith and bringing out the worst in bad guys.

Kate:

Capricorn Rising: She really seems to have her shit together and she takes no bs from anyone. And her dad is super rich so she grew up in luxury.

Pisces Sun: I said Aries before because she really didn’t like Joe and let him know it in the beginning. But I say Pisces because she seems to mirror some element of her environment. I had a friend say that since Pisces were the last zodiac sign they tended to be able to embody a lot of traits of other signs. I also have noticed that Pisces placements tend to have personalities that are mailable to the people around them. Kate acts different around her cultivated group of friends and her dad for example. Yet it runs so deep that she seems to have a different set of morals around different groups as well.

Aquarius Moon: Shes a bit…detached. She poisoned a bunch of kids and saw it as a means to an end, then she remade herself into a humanitarian to atone for her sins. But she’s fallen for Joe after he’s done some pretty inhumane things to “save” her. And now she’s perfectly happy to clean Joe’s record and take over her dad’s evil company. she’s pretty apt to take on her own morality and that reminds me of underdeveloped Aquarius moons. This is no shade to Saturn moons (I’m a Saturn moon too) but there’s something emotionally lacking from her lack of horror at finding out her boyfriend is a serial m*rderer and a bunch of the other wild sh*t she surrounds herself with. I thought about Capricorn moon but I couldn’t find any structure/career climbing in her overall actions. Aquarius seemed to fit better, especially with how at one point she really prided herself on being the most morally aware of her friends and saw her involvement in the arts as such a benevolent thing.

(Also lowkey I feel like a Capricorn moon would’ve sensed if their parents were pulling strings for them and wouldn’t be down with how randomly m*rderous Joe could be. Not the moral issue, not in this show, but the not knowing who he’s going to k*ll next issue— just like Kate’s dad ran into)

Mercury Capricorn: She communicates in a directly to the point sort of way. She’s verbally sharp and sort of pokes at Joe no matter how she feels about him. She tends to tell her friends how to hey their shit together.

Gemini Venus: She’s very clever and witty and all of her flirting/foreplay is bantering and screwing with Joe’s head by baiting him. She also knows all of her friends’ secrets.(is that an astrology observation?) Gemini placements tend to have a knack for getting information out of people)

Virgo Mars: Actually seems to go from annoyed by to attracted to Joe when he’s coming in to help her. She also is corrective when she’s upset. She handles her upsetting emotions in strategic way until she’s cornered.

Bonus - Rhys (major season 4 spoiler):

(He was basically Joe’s love in the latest season— bc he loves himself!! But the real Rhys…Poor guy! Oml)

I have no idea bc he was an hallucination for 98%(??) of his screen time lol, but at minimum I’d say Capricorn Neptune in the 1st house. He came across as knowledgeable and in control and very ambitious. A lot of people related to his life story as he told it, a story of rags to riches… and he had a terrible stalker that projected a completely different personality onto him. And that’s all I got for the real Rhys.

#astro observations #astro notes #astroblr #astro community #you #you show #hello you #scorpio venus #scorpio #gemini #Pisces #neptune #lilith astrology

[archivalofsins]

So, before I watch the short music video and analyze the hell out of it let me put up my thoughts on the thumbnail and the gifs. I haven't been in the best mood for a minute and have been physically sick as well. So, I've mostly been talking to friends in private about my thoughts on the information.

Good news for all of those reading discussion is how I flush out ideas and opinions. So, I now have a lot.

First the thumbnail,

We believe that the thumbnail is a direct progression of the first one and meant to mirror it. Better highlighting the nuances of the situation.

The window replacing the mirror behind him in the original thumbnail.

The mannequin parts take the place of the broken walls.

The train seats taking the place of the couch and support bars taking the place of the armrest, while being vaguely similar to the staff we see The Fool card carrying-

this continues that caged in or surrounded feeling from his first music video thumbnail. Making the audience contemplate whether he's stuck in here with us or if we're stuck in here with him. A feeling that both of his thumbnail images subtly give off well.

The mannequin is split into pieces but there only seems to be pieces enough for one. Something I and @doctorbunny discussed. At which point I brought up that the thumbnail can be taken as a visual reference to the line,

"Maybe it’s ok to try to keep on living split in half, make that heart beat."

As it visually shows, trying to live his life as normal by doing his commute with these, possibly disjointed/at odds aspects of himself, constantly at his side. Reminded him of the division within himself. A good illustration of how living with a dissociation can be in my opinion.

Mikoto's clothes here are different as well. I do believe this is the other one going to work, and we will be seeing the trauma that Mikoto suffered to lead him to this point. Just as we did with Amane. I also spoke briefly about enjoying how the series confirmed this hinted at concept all the way back from trial one.

We've also discussed dissociative identity disorder here in regards to the other characters before. The information from that post can be applied here in regards to Mikoto's new outfit. As we've gone over before alters can have different body language and speaking habits. However, in that post we went over the myths around switching being incredibly noticeable and how the changes are not as drastic as one would believe.

Now of course, the problem can be exacerbated by how much stress one is under. However, for the most part the point is not having people notice a change has occurred. So, alters try to mirror the one who fronts the most when out depending on who they're around or where they are. Of course, this is different for everyone.

However, a change of clothes isn't enough to really make someone go oh you've changed drastically anymore. Unless the change is really out there, which it's usually not. So, using clothes and accessories to give a better understanding of the other we haven't seen is a great stylistic choice.

However, this isn't the only differentiating feature. There are also eyebags. As we discussed in another post people with dissociative identity disorder tend to be lethargic or really tired.

X

However, just because people with dissociative identity disorder are tired and probably would rather not bother with getting in a verbal argument let alone go through the trouble of killing another person, they'll still defend themselves if necessary. Because dissociative disorders form as a response and defense to trauma. So, there's no saying what will happen when some is exposed to that trauma that caused it a second time.

Also, literally anyone is capable of committing murder even though no one should do it. The bags could be being used to differentiate between them throughout the second mv.

We can also see he has his bat in his hands here in the thumbnail. This is all important when it comes to discussing the gifs that have been released. Ah, almost forgot many have been saying that the thumbnail is a fisheye shot but we believe it to be an arc shot because Mikoto himself does not have the distortion that would come with a fisheye lens shot.

Here's some information on the arc shot.

In the gifs we see that instead of the diamond shaped earring Mikoto is wearing earrings that more so resemble tires. It would be cool if all the objects within the tarot cards were variations of things associated with each of them. Explaining why the deck was split in half near the end of MeMe.

As the tires are reminiscent to the wheel of fortune, and as such, could be being used to highlight how little control over their life the other had. Yet that's not the only interesting thing. Instead of wielding his bat like in the thumbnail, Mikoto is shown holding his tote bag with no bat in sight within the gif of him sitting on the train.

This implies that he won't only be stuck within the train in his mental space but displayed on it in reality. Something that goes into what we speculated about the train being related to trauma they may have experienced. I discussed this with @candckirby in private.

Where I posited that the space in MeMe was as destroyed as it was because Mikoto had a problem with enclosed spaces for one reason or another. Plus, the fact that his mental space may be taking on the form of this train could imply that he's been forced to relive that trauma in a way. In the gifs from today that I saw I noted that Mikoto's swing looked odd with them.

We both ended up agreeing it could be a one-handed far back wind up swing. Yet, I still had some doubts because the bat being used is clearly not Mikoto's at least not the one he uses in the thumbnail. As it seems to be drawn with rust on it and the one he has in the thumbnail is devoid of that. The bat could degrade over the course of the video though. Just from that and how the bat was angled behind him along with his posture it didn't seem as though he was swinging it in that way.

All in all, it's too short of an image to fully parse out. However, at first glance it appeared he was being attacked from behind while attacking forward. The gif where Mikoto is yelling out shows that they'll more than likely be using the lack of eyebags and presences of them to differentiate between them. Something I find interesting mostly due to the lack of them during most of MeMe and he very intentional covering of eyes in certain scenes during that mv.

Which leads me to believe that the other one was there, and the eyes were obscured for that purpose. Outside of that my favorite of the gifs was personally the chase scene. I really liked the expression work throughout all of them. Yeah, that's it.

It's not really a lot but I'm tired and sick so cut me a bit of slack- they said making late excuses for their weak delivery hours if not days after all this information dropped. Well at least we wrote something.

#milgram #mikoto kayano #gunsli rambles

[melonteee]

I've seen a ton of people on the internet praise the One Piece live action adaptation to high heavens and back and it's just confusing to me. I've even seen people claim that the anime adaptation "CURSE" is broken. Which like, for me, yes and no. Does it look good? For the most part yes but appearances does not make it an automatically good adaptation.

I've recently discovered your content last year and I thoroughly enjoy what you make and agree with your opinions on a lot of things. So when I found your responses to a few asks regarding what your opinions are with the adaptation my enthusiasm did take a bit of a nose dive. But I did want to watch it for myself so I can make my own opinions and see if I agree with yours or not.

20 minutes in and, oh boy, is it something. I can absolutely see what you mean when you say that this show is struggling with being faithful to the source material and trying to be its own thing. One moment they're trying to do their own original content and the next they're trying to shove things about one piece into your face and make you say "oh look it's One Piece!"

And the characters! The interactions between Koby and Luffy felt off. Some moments it feels like I'm watching Luffy and the next he's doing and saying things that Luffy wouldn't do. And that entire time he's shoving down Koby's throat that "you should be free" "Alvida shouldn't be telling you what to do" "If I was a pirate and I did that I wouldn't have left my Island". It's true that he does embody the sense of freedom but he doesn't blatantly tell someone it. He does it completely subtle and unknowingly. It felt like he was trying to shove the theme of freedom down my throat.

And not only does Koby not even tell us what his dream is, but he doesn't even earn inspiration to be braver or stand up to Alvida. Luffy does. And he does it in such a snarky way that it feels purposeful rather than Luffy just saying that without thinking and it happens to be mean.

Don't even get me started on Luffy's backstory and Zoro's introduction.

I know I've only seen the FIRST 20 minutes of the FIRST episode but if this is how it's going to end up being for the rest of the season I'm not going to feel too eager to watch it. There are some things I like but they're far in between each other.

Yeah there's a real issue within the first episode regarding that, when Luffy is being an ORIGINAL Netflix Luffy, he works great! It's a fun and charming version! But then they have him say lines straight from the manga, and they have him trying to replicate manga Luffy, but at this point - Netflix Luffy and manga Luffy are two different characters. So they got Netflix Luffy being aware, and then they shove in manga Luffy being an impulsive, goofy idiot. And suddenly you're stuck with this blaringly obvious contrast of character, and it feels like you're seeing two different people.

It literally works fine as a show, but their struggle in knowing what to keep and what to change has just left them with this weird Frankenstein Luffy that is and isn't himself, and same can be said for Zoro and Nami. It felt like a push and pull and I felt weird about it lmao

From the first episode alone, I would honestly say that this series fails as a One Piece adaptation, but works fine as a One Piece inspiration. I'd hesitate to call this "the live action version" when it feels less like an adaptation and more like an interpretation.

#ask

[mgnifiqueyoo]

— "better than him."

requested by: anon [💙] pairing: yeonjun x fem!reader song recommendation: everyone who falls in love – has someone else they’re thinking of (cian ducrot) lowercase is intended…

— short a/n: i've written a few txt stuff here so it really feels nostalgic to write about yeonjun! (thank you to the person who requested this,, i really loved writing this djnddjknd). in short, this oneshot absolutely got me kicking my feet. it has enemies/rivals to lovers themes and also a bit of angst (a few cursing too)! no nsfw themes as well so don't worry! ^^

[ total words: 3.3k ]

click here to support me on ko-fi! ☕ click on this g.form link to request!

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“... ugh, you're here already?”

you had just stepped into the practice room, earphones plugged in yet you could still hear his voice as if it pierced through your ears… so annoyingly. “yeah? because i'm an actual responsible contestant, what about you?” it felt like all the nerves in your head were pulled upwards as you didn't even hesitate to snap back at him, which he also seemed to expect.

the first conversation you two have for today is already a mess, isn't that wonderful?

“because i'm an actual responsible contestant- blah, blah, blah… you're all talk,” he spat back with a sly smirk on his face, which you noticed without even looking twice. “besides, i bet you're just doing that to impress coach youngjun.”

“so what? it's not like i'm committing a crime or something.”

“that's understandable.”

yeonjun backed down, which you found was surprising, especially how quick it took him this time. usually, it'd take him days before taking your opinions into consideration. ‘i guess this is what happens when you're stuck with me for more than a week now,’ you thought to yourself, chuckling afterwards.

on the other hand, your supposed dance partner was making a face. in the simplest words, he heard the way you chuckled and he didn't like it. “just because i'm putting up with you, that doesn't mean you get to be all,” he paused for a bit, pointing his fingers sharply at the small smile that formed within your glossed, hot pink lips. “... smiley.” he stared at you with squinted eyes as you did the same in return. 

“oh? but i actually don't care so there's that.” your shoulders rose up in a snappish, almost unbothered manner that it made him grimace. — and oh, this is how it is to be around an equal… in an academy filled with such rivalry. isn't it a pleasant feeling? most of the time, it wasn't.

but now, you knew you can just deal with the personal feelings later on. yeonjun's not so bad to spend time with; if you think about it, he's not even close to the worst students of the academy.

it's better to be told these things face to face rather than not knowing who your real enemy is. “did you already stretch before i got here?” you changed the topic, focusing on the purpose of being stuck in this room with him as he nodded condescendingly, his eyes twitching with every second – how lovely? not.

“alright, then. give me ten minutes to prep,” you said, tying your hair up in a high ponytail that wasn't really neatly kept. but you didn't care anyway. it's just practice, not the competition itself. 

yeonjun, on the other hand, was just watching you closely, leaning his back against the wall with a look of either disapproval or curiosity. — either way, it didn't matter to you.

“... what?”

“just watching you feels like a hate crime to me.”

at first, you couldn't really care less about what he thought of you literally stretching. just like what he said earlier, you're “all talk” but in reality, he's the one who talks a lot. you never even said a word when you walked into the room; you barely even noticed he was there.

but even though you knew that he's contradicting himself, you actually had no idea why he did.

 “alright! good morning, you two.” a voice greeted from the now opened door, followed by a few claps. coach youngjun finally entered the room and broke the silence alongside the pianist, who immediately made her way to the keyboard at the corner to play one of the most well-known compositions with another musician who sat next to the bass drum next to him, ready to intensify the supposed solemn piece.

“good morning, mr. choi.” you both bowed down, greeting him back with respect as if the two of you weren't even bickering at first. and as soon as the coach had looked away, yeonjun already shared a fair glance at you – which seemed more like a warning rather than good luck. 

but that look of his quickly vanished when the coach had his eyes on you both once more. “so? should we start?” mr. choi clasped his hands together with a small smile on his face as both of you gave him a single nod in unison; it's like the two of you were actually getting along even though the truth is so far from that. “then, i guess you two should show me what you got so far.”

without thinking at least twice, you and yeonjun were at the center of the dance floor. you were now forgetting everything about yourself, taking in deep breaths as the music played; to you, it felt as if you've put aside all the things you thought about yeonjun – he's meant to be the apple of your eye by now, which is a little difficult to take in but that golden medal is what you're looking forward to.

being one of the best dancers the academy has, every single opportunity pushes you to reach what you want to be. you strive to be better. you have to be better no matter how big or small the stage could be.

because after all, that's what you wanted.

“you're going a little faster, y/n! slow down!” the coach sounded irritated as you widened your eyes mid-performance, trying to force more grace into every move you made despite the drum’s beats becoming louder with every second. — it didn't necessarily mean that you looked awful but interpreting the character was important; you seemed more like odile rather than odette. 

and to youngjun, that was quite uncomfortable to watch.

“yeonjun, you're stiff! move like you're in love with her!” the comments that pointed out all imperfections only stopped when the music did as well. 

you didn't want those words to get in your head… but you're slowly losing it.

“... that was underwhelming,” youngjun stated, his brows knitted in the way like he's trying his best to understand what just happened in that run. it was eight o'clock in the morning and god, he couldn't believe how mediocre that performance was. “i expected better actually… what was that? why did you two… look so tense? it just doesn't make sense.”

you weren't the only one that faced such high standards and you could just feel how yeonjun felt so upset about the coach's disappointment. “both of you were supposed to resemble lovers– lovers, you hear me? and what i just saw are like children learning how to dance for the first time. it's unpleasant, yeonjun. we can't show up next month like this.”

“well, she's a messy dancer. it'd probably take a while before we fix this.” that was your last straw, causing you to clear your throat to get his attention.

“me? a messy dancer? excuse me but maybe if you weren't so dense, then we would've presented a better performance.” you fought back, not letting him talk badly about you in front of the coach. in return, he chuckled, shaking his head. “really? i'm the one with the problem here? oh, just shut it, y/n. you don't even know what control is-”

“that's enough!”

you and your horrible dance partner turned your heads towards the coach once again, slowly realizing how stupid that petty argument was. “i'm going to leave you both alone and when i come back, this better be fixed or we're not pushing through.”

that last part was enough for the two of you to take this seriously as he left the room first, the pianist later following his footsteps as she made sure not to turn the situation worse by saying anything. the drummer, on the other hand, was aloof to it, minding his own business as he left the room, shutting the door closed.

“good fucking job, choi yeonjun.”

“as if you didn’t say shit about me either.”

you rolled your eyes, crossing your arms as you maintained distance from him. this was the most stupid thing you’ve ever participated in. — no, not the competition, of course but definitely the fact that you retaliated over yeonjun’s comments. well, to be fair, it wasn’t just you who messed up the first run! what you said back was just the truth.

but that also didn’t mean that you didn’t take part in making the performance weirdly underwhelming. “you know, you should try to shut your mouth sometimes, y/n. it’d save you air, just saying.”

“how about you fucking try that yourself? i wouldn’t say anything back if you stopped talking for once,” you interrupted him. like what the coach yelled earlier, this was enough. you’ve had enough. “you think this is just a game to you? it isn’t. so why aren’t you taking this seriously as much as i do?”

yeonjun stood there for a bit, not a single word leaving his mouth at all as he had his gaze at you and only you. “... you don’t think i’m taking this seriously?”

“well, maybe i would if you weren’t being such a bitch!” you can’t help but scream at his face, letting out a low growl after as you walked away, scratching the top of your head with both hands. as much as you thought you were handling this well, you were actually just dragging yourself down. — this was so out of control that it reminded you of something that was left in the past.

“you’re just like him.”

“... like who now?”

you let out a chuckle once more, turning around to look at him in the eye. “remember jihoon park? the one who left me in the bus during last year’s competition? yeah, you’re not too far from him.” when you told him those words, fire ignited in his eyes as he was barely a step away from protesting. 

yeonjun couldn’t accept it.

he was sure he was nothing like him.

absolutely nothing.

“you think i'm just like him? you think i can be someone so careless? for the record, i care about this performance as well!” yeonjun was furious. he couldn't stand thinking about how you thought of him; close to that infamous dance partner who was once called an ace. “so, tell me! how am i even close to that asshole?”

you let out another chuckle, one that's deeper this time as you shook your head. “you wouldn't get it even if i explained it to you,” you answered sharply, getting closer to his face with a smug look. “so don't bother learning about it, okay?”

“oh, now, you're not telling me… how convenient,” he was letting his sarcasm roll off his tongue like it was natural. but deep inside his head, he wanted to know. he needed to know what it was that made him so similar to jihoon park; your beloved ex-boyfriend. — so that he could change it. “... if you want this to be fixed, then i need to know at least the tip of the iceberg.”

“why do you care?” to yeonjun, it seemed as if you were angry at him. yet in reality, you were just so confused. why did he care about this so much? when did he start caring about this thing between you both so much? after all, you thought it was some game to him.

“why do i care? well, give me a reason why i shouldn't,” he taunted, sounding as “mad” as you did even though that was so far from the truth and you had nothing. for the first time, you had nothing against what yeonjun asked for. “and if you can't give me at least one, then i don't see the problem in caring about you.”

you held your palms up loosely, later putting them down as you shook your head once again. “no… let's not talk about it.”

“what?”

“i don't want to talk about it!”

and yeonjun laughed, not because he thought it was funny but more likely because he found it unbelievable that someone as bold as you are would avoid to talk about some ungrateful boy. “... why did you let him do that?” he questioned, still finding it so surreal that jihoon had made you feel so worthless when he left you in that bus, ashamed of yourself. “actually, i have a better question, why him? you know you deserve better, right?- god, you’re freaking me out.”

you couldn’t believe what you were hearing from him. it’s not totally something that was unexpected but you never saw this conversation coming. — he cared and he never denied that he still does. 

“really? after all the things i told you, you still think i deserve someone better than him? are you out of your mind?” you tried thinking of it as some joke but after looking into yeonjun’s eyes, you just couldn’t. in fact, you shouldn’t even. it was no joke. there was no punchline!

“of course, i do… you wouldn’t be such an irritating dance partner if he hadn’t treated you like such an embarrassment,” yeonjun admitted, walking towards the space beside you as the two of you were now leaning against the same wall, standing next to each other. “no one deserves to be left behind because he felt like you weren’t enough.”

“so, you knew about what he told me?”

“oh? everyone did. they talked about it all the time.”

it took you a moment before you nodded in response, completely startled by how these things just showed up now. — and somehow, in the end, yeonjun was the only one who told you the truth that you needed to hear from at least one of your closest friends, who happened to be rivals now. 

but that’s what hybe academy’s all about, right? rivalry. survival of the fittest. everything around you must be considered competition.

there are no friends.

just foes.

the dancer takes your hand in his, leading you to the center of the room as you tilt your head to the side, surprised. “come on? let’s go back to square one.”

“... this quickly?” you felt your shoulders rise up as he let go of your hand, positioning himself with a better posture, making himself ready for another round. 

“you wanna prove mr. choi wrong? let’s start dancing then, odette.”

you took a few seconds before you decided that it’s best to become the white, pure swan. after that poor performance earlier, yeonjun knew the exact words to convince you into dancing with him yet again. “... 5… 6… 7… 8.” he counted as the young, skillful dancer in him disappeared, fading away to the prince, whom odette loved with all her heart. 

there was nothing but love in those eyes that it made you wonder if you none of it was at least real. 

you made your way towards him, elegance lining your every step as if air had taken control of your “weightless” body; feather-like in other words. you kept your chin up, giving him a slight nod as your fingertips touched his wrist as well as his shoulder, causing him to give you a smile – which wasn’t in the choreography. 

“what are you doing?”

“you’re perfect.”

those words, despite being encouraging, also turned distracting for you as you twirled into the dancefloor with him, a lost and stiff stare being visible, especially with all these mirrors around the two of you. “watch your tempo,” yeonjun still found the chance to remind you about the things you must remember. “you’re doing awesome. keep it up!” 

the music in your minds soon fell silent as both of you looked straight into the mirror, hand in hand before bowing down to the imaginary audience. or was it all imaginary? because now, it seemed that you were also the audience of such a beautiful, quiet yet emotional performance.

not even the emptiest dancefloor could make it as cold and empty as it was earlier.

“i wasn’t lying earlier.” you didn’t know what he meant, causing you to look back at him, squinting your eyes in confusion. “lying about what? that i’m a messy dancer?” after such a petty fight, you finally found it comfortable to joke around with him as he laughed back, shaking his head while his eyes were still on himself in the mirror.

but then, those same eyes laid on your reflection, his plump lips slowly curling into a tiny, almost unseen smile. “no… no, it’s not that.”

“then, what is it?”

he turned his head to look at you, his smile becoming more noticeable as his eyes twinkled under the bright lights on the ceiling. “... you.”

“... well, what about me?”

for a quick second, he took a deep breath, his smile disappearing for a while but he didn’t seem to be upset about something you’d never know. instead, he came closer to you, standing next to you with your shoulders brushing against each other. his pinky finger grazes over yours, slowly wrapping it around as if he’s about to swear a promise for you. “... you’re perfect.”

words like that were new to you as you gasped silently, facing him with disbelief in your eyes.

“you’re not doing enough.”

“i don’t know why i’m doing this with you. all you think about is yourself.”

“forget the contest. fuck you, y/n.”

jihoon’s words were engraved in your mind, always coming back when someone tells you the nicest things you’ve never heard from him. all you ever wanted from him were words of encouragement but all he did was crush you. — and it ended with that last sentence, completely leaving you behind as you arrived to the venue with no one next to you.

shame was in your veins. until now, it was still there; pumping through the stream of blood, like poision had entered every part of you.

“what?” you uttered, uncertain of what yeonjun meant when he told you those two words, causing him to finally take your entire wrist in his grip, pulling you close to him as his other hand traced the side of your face with his knuckles softly. 

“kiss me,” he said, his voice trembling, equally as nervous as you were. but the difference? he couldn’t hold back the truth he avoided to face for so long. “stop thinking about jihoon and kiss me.” the tone of yeonjun’s voice danced around the tightrope that’d lead to either furiousness and frustration.

but then, you brought your palms to both sides of his face, your lips getting lost to his own as you reached the point where you realized… that you really did deserve better.

and maybe both of you had a rough start; all because of the denial that the past caused. 

in the back of your head, you wondered how could this take place; how could you kiss him just after such an argument? how could you bring your lips against his after that embarrassing, childish bickering in front of the coach? — if it weren’t for denial, you would’ve done this earlier than you could ever imagine.

something about his so-called hatred already came off as some denied admiration.

after all, who wouldn’t want to hold you like this?

moments after, he pulled away from the deepening kiss, remembering that practice was supposed to be the number one priority, not this… yet it was too good to let go, wasn’t it? 

he stared at you for a minute that felt like hours of silence for you as your heart raced just by thinking about the possibilities of what could’ve been going on inside his head. — was this mistake? did he think that this was a mistake? you didn’t know. you had no clue. and of course, that wave of shame was starting to wash over the weak shore inside your head.

“i’m staring to think that kissing you after the performance would be a good idea,” yeonjun cracked a joke, making you smile as you shook your head at him, finding him silly over it. “... but seriously! it would be a win-win situation if we won, which is expected, and i get to do what every guy at school would sell their souls for.”

“you’re crazy, do you want us to get eliminated? that’s foul play, yeonjun.”

“well? do you not want to kiss me?”

“... actually, you just changed my mind about that.”

#txt reactions #choi yeonjun #txt yeonjun #txt #txt imagines #tomorrow x together #txt drabbles #txt scenarios #tomorrow x together drabbles #tomorrow x together imagines #tomorrow x together scenarios #tomorrow x together reactions #tomorrow x together yeonjun #yeonjun #yeonjun imagines #choi yeonjun imagines #choi yeonjun scenarios #choi yeonjun drabbles #choi yeonjun reactions #yeonjun scenarios #yeonjun drabbles #yeonjun timestamps #yeonjun x reader #txt choi yeonjun #tomorrow x together choi yeonjun #rivals to lovers #choi yeonjun oneshot #txt oneshots #tomorrow x together oneshots #mgnifiqueyoo

[jess-the-vampire]

I see all people talking about Belos problems only, and make no mistake I will talk about it too. There’s many things you can say about what character he is and how show plays with him. But let’s talk about other things for a moment.

Am I the only one who thinks that the whole Collectors vs Titans thing is just stupid? Okay, maybe stupid is too much, but it’s just very strange.

In WaD Collector tells us that he and his siblings were doing they cosmic stuff, then his siblings find out about Titans and that they can fight off their magic, they send Collector to little titans, he played with them, then his siblings came and took them all(despite the fact that Collector’s magic doesn’t work on Titan, which didn’t stop him from cast illusions on King somehow), Collector, for some reason didn’t follow them, and then Papa Tita Lyn came, looked around, didn’t saw his kids, saw the Collector and immediately thought that “Well there’s no one here so I guess you did something to my children, so I will put in a space dish.”. And they just left in on that. I thought “okay, it’s collector’s perspective, let’s hear what will Titan say.”, and then Titan is just “Whoops! I attacked the wrong person!”.

Excuse me, what? So he literally just attacked poor kid because there was no one else around to attack? And when exactly he realised he attacked wrong guy? They show that Titan sits in In Between Realm and in season 2 they showed us that Collector was there too. Did they like talked there and Titan was like “Oh, you DIDN’T do anything with my kids, it was your evil relatives? Well that’s pretty awkward now, that I put you in a space dish. But I’m dead now so I can’t pull you out. Sorry!”.

The most baffling thing is that expect us to just accept that he make a mistake and we must forgive him, because at least he was genuine in his desire to protect his kids. The kids that were already taken away.

ok, so i have mixed opinions on the titan and collectors storyline.

now, i do think the concept as far as worldbuilding goes, is really cool. It implies a larger world outside of the titan the show resides on and i adore the designs of both creatures within this universe. I think having this battle among gods that happened eons ago and led to the world in which the isles resides in is something that does add to some of the characters. I love the collector cult, i love that eda's owl beast was a victim of this war who carries resentment to this day about it, i don't even mind king being tied into it.

I think the show set all this up, pretty neat in s2.

But i think it fell off for me in s3.

Like you can kinda tell collector was not supposed to be in the show because really, you could of removed him and changed a few things around and the story could work just fine, king realizing he's a titan can still be used....but this battle among gods really is something that feels a lot more last minute and his relationship with collector wasn't vital to his character that it NEEDED to be there.

it's not like the wittebane story were most of the characters feel ingrained into it, with parallels, and carrying mementos that belonged to them, and living in the same towns, and most of them being distantly related to them.

And i was invested enough in the titan and collector drama, but i really don't think they stuck the landing for me.

WAD especially felt like a mess of a lot of weird inconsistencies and character actions, and it's probably why i sadly didn't automatically click with it like most of the fans seemed to. And while i've talked about belos regarding that, collector and titan dad are probably the other characters that i would say are a mess in this finale.

Now see, i can accept using magic ON titans, i think the assumption is that they only repel collector magic with magic, so if king isn't using magic he's more vulnerable. Granted, i think titan dad's existence has made titan magic more confusing and a lot more overpowered that if we DO get more toh content, we might run into more issues.

i don't wanna drag this post TOO long tho, so if you want me to list all the confusing details that aren't clear or consistent with titan magic you can ask later.

point being, i have less an issue that the collectors got them as much as that this scenario happened and that despite this, and despite knowing the cult, and also being sad about king talking about the titans being wiped out....that the show then says he doesn't understand the concept of death? Like for his arc in WAD to work, you have to believe he doesn't know how death works, but then he has moments like these were you have to ask how? If he thinks they can be saved you think he'd have a different reaction, you'd think he'd try to revive them, why would he feel guilty over them being "Wiped out" if he has no idea what that means and he knows it can be fixed in his head. His whole arc rests on this detail and a lot sorta bungles it.

Like they have this whole scene where collector is supposed to think king is out to get him (As kinda pointless as it was really), but like....if collector doesn't get death....what does he think king means by "Permanent solution" that he gets so upset about it? Cause he heard king say no imprisonment so like....?????

not to mention the chapter about genocide he scribbled out, like what does he think genocide is if he doesn't get death? why does he get so upset about it?

you can totally have this story about an immortal god who learns about death, but with all these extra details it becomes harder to understand why collector doesn't get it and it becomes a bit hard to believe. Is he meant to be in denial? it doesn't seem like that was the intent?

collector also is the point where you notice the trend for redeeming characters in this show tends to be revealing they were just manipulated the whole time, making them a lovable goofball, and them being in the gang. It was fine when it's just a couple times, but it does wear out it's welcome when you realize a lot of them don't get too really account for their actions all to much.

Collector does apologize, but really that's the extent of it outside of turning people back, he just kinda leaves everyone to deal with part of his mess. it would of been nice to have one villian who admits they are at fault without it being blamed on someone else and gets screentime to repent. (Lilith is the closest but she is mostly gone after s1)

now, in PT's case, we never see the scene itself to know how it came off, and i think the intention is for him to come off flawed so him attacking collector in rage could kinda work. But it also is contrasted by his scenes treating him as objectively right outside of this one thing, so even tho the attempt was to turn him into just a dude capable of mistakes, the show kinda still ended up leaning on him being a bit too perfect still for me.

Which doubly is weird because yeah, him being in the inbetween opens a WHOLE can of worms, like how come he doesn't use those cubes ever to talk to anyone on the show? If he has control over showing glyphs, why did ne never do it to anyone besides luz? is it just because of king because he didn't do it for eda? Also how come the other dead titans aren't there with him? Like is this an adult titan thing because some of the skulls looked like they could be from some adults?

The whole thing makes it sound like he didn't care to help until his son was involved, and even then, when he found someone he liked to ask to help.

and hey, i could be cool with the idea the titan is a bit selfish and just cares about who she cares about, and not most other citizens of the isles, but it doesn't come off like that was the intent either.

and yeah, it does raise the question why the titan never just....talked to collector in his prison? like how much power does he have in that place? am i supposed to believe she can't move from that spot? Can he not use the cubes to talk to collector? there's no clear concept of the limits in this episode so you just ask why TD doesn't do certain things the show never proves he can't do.

introducing a figure in this way recontextualizes the whole show now, so now you have to think back and wonder more things like this knowing this info.

i think had we seen titan dad do it in a flashback, and maybe it was a moment of anger and non thinking it could work actually, but we don't get that so that leaves us to think many different things and those all can give us different opinions on her character.

so i think we both have issues, but different kinds of issues.

#toh #the owl house

[kytedevlin]

The End

Playing with a new graphic. As for my opinion on the series. This is its only logical conclusion in my opinion. This isn't any hate for boruto as I have only seen parts, Though suffice to say it, im uninterested and have no plans on watching it either. To me the show ended after the infinite tsukiyomi, despite all of the growth that our favorite characters go through thats just something to powerful to not succumb to. The type of storyline created afterwards is very pleasing to the fanbase, to pleasing. It is literally everything a happy ending should be, atleast until borutos characters are revealed. But that is just it boruto is strange in that way, its world is oddly familiar yet completely ignorant of the fact that the ninja world is a world stricken with the turmoil from conflicting interests. It is the same world, nothing has changed, everyone is a bit friendlier but they will eventually be put at odds friends or not. As for the actual events of the infinite tsukuyomi, it happened, it cannot be undone, any remaining and logical enemies were already handled, rinnegan captured, byakugan eliminated, they literally ignored the byakugans power the entire series, the only thing stronger than sharingan, then captured the strongest doujutsu of them all. and then spliced the ultimate, pain and blood soaked path of the sharingan, with the deadly, strange, and self sacrificing, disease of a doujutsu. The Byakugan received no growth and all of its strong users killed making it virtually ineffective. Byakugan remains un weaponized throughout the entirety of the war. Despite all the hindered plans, the knowledge gained, and prophecy discovered. They just abandoned it entirely. Now that being said, its not that the characters didn't grow or finally get that reciprocation they needed but it ends once its tsukuyomi is activated, everything else is a delusion within a delusion only getting close enough to the lives they used to live, as they get closer to their bodies death, which my assumption would be by starvation. And possibly even turning them into another form of zetsu at best...or worst? The ninjas could never live in a world without chakra or violence, it is simply to alien. So they are given lives, just close enough, without any of the effects on the actual world to make them feel at ease. Boruto and his life are just the makings of someones fantasy, whose? Hinatas? Sakuras? Who knows. But it can't be someone who knows of Narutos Bloodlines. He is related to everyone down the line, the uzumakis being a precursor to many of the strongest bloodlines and kekkai genkai wielding users. None of his children remotely resemble their ancestors and are almost carbon copy naruto 2 and hinata 2. They completely forgoe all of narutos natural blood rites. And their possibilities. As the rest of the students formed of the relationships are also in some ways a means to an end. While sakura and sasuke end up together sasuke is always away because neither of the two will ever know him that well. Hinata never really did, and sakura also really has no idea who he is. Only Naruto, Orochimaru, juugo, karin, suigetsu, and kabuto know who he is. He has virtually no personality at all going forward. Liking sakura fine, marrying and having a kid with her? The fanbase raped his entire character. The person whose memory is being conceived can only be someone who knows basic information about him and his demeanor. Aside from me getting away from my point and poking holes in boruto, its probably not a bad series. But I also don't believe that naruto had to continue. How the prophecy was told, how it was stretched all the way to the end, how at every juncture it continued unimpeded, how it reached the absolute maxim of its potential. Only to be broken in a few moments? Not even in the same decade, at the minimum. A century in the making and not for a century less is all i can say. Try going to sleep for 2 minutes. Tell me how much time passes afterwards. Anyways thats the block limit. And hopefully i can let my piece rest. Feel free to take yours.

#infinite tsukuyomi #naruto fanart #naruto art #sharingan #naruto shippuden #uchiha clan #hyuuga clan #rinnegan

[littledreamling]

An Analysis of Power Dynamics Through the Ages (Part 2)

Part 1 | Part 2

The sequel, and we'll jump right back into the thick of it where I left off in part 1 so (again) without further ado, part 2:

1889

The sixth meeting. The worst meeting. You already know the drill, clothes first. Dream arrives very fashionably in his standard all-black, though the top hat is a particularly nice touch. It's important to note that Hob is back to his symbolic brown; he's gotten back in touch with his roots and he's found his empathy for humanity again. He's been humbled by his wrongdoings and growing through his acknowledgement of them. Interestingly, grey has been added to his wardrobe, a color associated with neutrality, balance, and (interestingly) loss. This could symbolize Hob's position between states; he is neither human nor Endless, but something in between, something old enough to see the big picture yet still inherently tied to humanity. It could also be foreshadowing, though I'm sure I don't have to spell out exactly what is looming on the horizon.

I'll preface the rest of this by saying that the power dynamics in this meeting shift repeatedly and rapidly, almost between sentences. This entire scene is both Hob and Dream (whether consciously or not) vying for some semblance of control in the situation, and we'll see that when I get into their actual conversation, but first, let's talk about Lou (though not as in-depth as I could, because this is going to be long enough as it is, but I love Lou and her place in the story). Lou is the first person that Dream sees during this meeting and she (in my opinion, though I'd love to discuss it with anyone willing) represents everything that Dream sees humanity as; quick to startle, quick to flirt, quick to anger, slightly flighty, and greatly damaged by fellow humans. And right off the bat, she puts Dream in a fairly uncomfortable position. Between her fear, flirtatiousness, and fury, it's pretty obvious that Dream doesn't know how to get past her (he's a King, he expects people to get out of the way when he walks up to them; the fact that she physically blocks his path is quite the insult, one that he's not prepared to deal with). He tries to assuage her fears and politely decline her advances, but neither of those work. I'd love to have seen what he would've tried next if Hob hadn't have stepped in, but that's the important part. Hob steps in. One could almost (without too much head tilting or squinting) see it as a rescue. He literally gets rid of a physical barrier to Dream's entrance into the tavern, one that Dream couldn't have gotten around himself (at least not within the confines of his experience and comfort with humans in the Waking). That automatically starts this meeting with Hob in a place of power.

It's a place of power that Dream almost immediately tries to take back. He already feels like he's on the back foot because of his interaction with Lou and his inability to deal with the situation himself, so he falls back on his reliable source of control: his knowledge, a cosmic knowledge that he knows no one else can compete with. There is power in knowing things that no one else does, and Dream knows everything about Louise Baldwin. It's a not-so-subtle grab for power, and it almost works. For a minute, Hob is in awe again. For a minute, Dream is back in control. But then he fucks himself over, because instead of giving even an inkling of who he is and how he knows such things (because god forbid Hob know anything about him), he changes the subject. Not once, but twice. He fumbles the ball by sidestepping Hob's questions, inadvertently showing a sort of weakness. But Hob allows it (because Hob allows everything his stranger does, for a great many reasons that I could speculate wildly on, but that's for another post). I want to emphasize, though, that this isn't Dream taking power, this is Hob giving power. He allows Dream to "brag" (though I'm not sure if that's the right word) about Lady Johanna's success in the task he gave her (for those who don't know, COMIC SPOILERS, that task was finding his son's head, the only part of his body that is still intact. Just a fun little fact for you all) instead of pressing where he very obviously has Dream in a corner.

And then he gets philosophical. And this is a big change. We've seen Hob at his proudest, at his simplest, at his most desperate. He's bragged about his money and raved about new inventions and made very questionable decisions. We've seen the best and worst of him, but never before has he been philosophical, at least not to Dream. And this is very important in a pretty subtle way: it shows that Hob (while still very much counting himself as a part of humanity) is starting to distance himself from his fellow man. He can't reasonably be considered equal to all humans, and I think this is the first time Dream really sees it. Remember when I said that Lou was everything Dream sees humanity as? Hob has grown out of almost everything on that list. No longer is he quick to startle. No longer is he quick to flirt. No longer is he quick to anger. He's not flighty and, despite the considerable damage that humanity has done to him, he's not resentful. He's understanding. He's empathetic. He's a good person. And suddenly, he's the wise one here. He's the one with knowledge. And Dream doesn't like it. Dream is used to being the smartest one in the room by a long shot and for the first time, Hob has more wisdom than him. Despite Hob's attempt to keep the conversation personable, to laugh at a self-deprecating joke with someone who he considers his friend (and has for the past 300 years), it's an undeniable and complete shift.

Dream tries one last grab for power, though I don't think it's a conscious decision (in fact, I know it's not): he points out the change in Hob. It's a reminder that, no matter how old Hob gets, no matter how separated he gets from humanity, no matter how objectively he can view the world and the people in it, Dream will always be able to do it more. He'll always be older, he'll always have more perspective, he'll always be able to take a bigger step back and see a far larger picture than Hob will ever be able to. And Hob allows that, too, because he knows that Dream is right. Hob is intrinsically human and he'll never be able to separate himself from that and everything that comes with it.

And if you stop it right there, it's a perfect episode. But then Hob flips the script again. He says "I think it's you that's changed" and that, my friends, is the first nail in the coffin. This is where Dream's defensiveness starts, and it's not because Hob dares to call him a friend. It's because all of the vulnerability that has been building in Dream, between Lou and his unwillingness to reveal anything about himself and Hob's newfound wisdom, is suddenly coming to a boil. He feels seen and he hates it. Hob had definitive control now. The conversation is his and Dream knows it.

The second nail in the coffin is Hob's body language. He leans in as he speaks, wanting to get closer to his stranger, wanting to share this with him, wanting to confide in him, but all Dream sees is an approaching predator, coming for his newly exposed underbelly.

The third nail: "I think I know why we still meet here, century after century." Hobs dares to presume to know anything about their arrangement. Hob dares to presume to know anything about Dream. It's a shockingly forward statement to make from Dream's perspective, considering the fact that Dream hasn't told Hob anything. Hob doesn't even know his life was a wager, nothing more, nothing less. So the fact that he's assuming things about Dream and his motives is... bold, to say the least. This is the point of no return as well; no mater what Hob says after this, the conversation is going south. There's no stopping this trainwreck.

The fourth nail: "I think you're here for something else." This is the same as above just... worse. Hob is straight up questioning Dream's motives. He's saying "I know you've told me that this is your only reasoning, but I think you're full of shit" and the fact that he's right only makes it worse. We can already see Dream shutting down by this point. He inclines his head, trying to maintain some dignity, and his voice has an edge of caution to it. It's giving strong "I heard what you said but I'm going to say 'what?' to give you the chance to chance to take it back because we both know you didn't mean to say that" vibes, except Hob definitely did mean to say it and it's far too late to back out now.

The fifth nail: you already know what it is. "Friendship. I think you're lonely." At it's core, this is an offer, not a judgement, but Dream cannot see it that way. He's too vulnerable, too exposed to be able to hear the kinship in Hob's voice, to see the loneliness that's painted across Hob's face, a light mirror. And his only defense mechanism is anger. He dons his rage like a suit of armor because it's infinitely better than the raw sensation of being flayed alive by Hob's gaze and his words and the stinging accuracy of both. Because Dream is a King. He's an Endless. He's only slightly younger than Time. He holds the entire human unconscious within himself. He is Above and humanity is Below, as much as he likes to preach to Desire otherwise. And Hob, despite just having proven himself otherwise, is most conveniently placed back into the grouping of humanity in Dream's mind. Dream is Above and Hob is Below, yet Hob is insisting on stepping up to Dream's level. It's an outrageous notion and fairly insulting to boot. (Aside: I want to clarify that I am in no way excusing Dream's actions, but when we start to see this situation from his perspective, when we acknowledge his feeling of powerlessness, we can start to understand at least where he's coming from, even if we don't agree with it)

The sixth and final nail: "Yes. Yes, I do." Hob doubles down. He doubles down hard. He has ripped the floor right out from under Dream and then he throws in a kick for good measure. If the third nail was the point of no return, the sixth nail is the burial. It's the end. Dream cannot stand to stay exposed for any longer; there is no option but to leave. In the moment, leaving seems like taking power back. Once again, he is dictating the parameters of the meeting, specifically when it ends, but he is at the mercy of his pride, and his pride is not his power. He just doesn't see this yet, and won't for about 100 years. In fact, neither of them have power in this moment. They are both simply passengers, reduced to watching the inevitable collision. Both feel hopelessly out of control; Dream feels skinned alive under Hob's scrutiny and Hob is watching the only constant he's ever had walk away. Power has crumbled in the face of anger. A hopeless situation.

1998

The meeting that never was. Hob is again wearing grey, leaning heavily into the sense of loss. He's shed his brown and the surety that comes with it. He's apprehensive about this meeting, or at least he's not excited about it. I'm not sure he even expects Dream to show up. Even when he says "I'm actually waiting for someone," his face screams doubt. He's watching the door like a hawk, but he's known his stranger's pride for too long to really be hopeful. And as the day drags on into night, that doubt, that sinking knowledge that his stranger is sticking to his guns, only grows worse. All the while, the lighting in the scene highlights just how out of place he is. London outside is (predictably) incredibly grey; the sky, the buildings in the background, the river, whereas everything in the White Horse is warm; from the sun slanting through the windows to the clothes around him to the orange glow of the lamps. The White Horse has always been a place of comfort for Hob, of warmth and security, but he's brought some of that outer greyness to it. He's a grey smudge smack in the middle, alone, ageless, other. He's irreparably separated from everything around him and he's realizing it. In fact, it's the point of the entire scene. This is Hob losing everything.

From Hob's perspective, Dream has the upper hand during this non-meeting, specifically because it is a non-meeting. He can't know that Dream couldn't make it, he simply thinks that Dream has abandoned him (I could write a whole separate post about the theme of abandonment in this show but that's for another time), therefore giving Dream the upper hand. Dream once again sets the parameters for their meetings; when he deigns to grace Hob with his presence, they meet, but this time he hasn't, so they aren't meeting. Simple as that (it isn't, but again, Hob has no way of knowing that). And Hob blames himself. He's let Dream's prideful and scornful words actually take residence in his mind and his heart, shaping the way he feels about himself and their relationship. He calls himself an idiot and puts the entirety of the blame onto his own shoulders, simply because he's given Dream the power to influence him in that way.

And then the other shoe drops, and Hob is losing the White Horse too. This is the ultimate loss of control in this scene. Hob has lost not one, but both of the constants in his life within a single day. Even if Dream decides to change his mind, there is nowhere left for them. It is truly the end of an era. For Hob, it must've felt like the end of everything. His entire life, at least everything in his life that has withstood the test of time, is falling like sand through his fingers.

2022

The meeting that never should've been. At this point, I could just copy/paste the post that @cuubism made about the shift in power pre- and post-imprisonment, but I'll at least attempt to put my own spin on it (you should go read their post though, it's a fantastic take).

This is probably the most dressed down we ever see Dream (begging Neil to give us shirtless-and-robe Dream from the comics next season). Every other century, he's been dressed in whatever that century deems to be formal wear, and so has Hob. They've always dressed up for each other. For this meeting, all of that formality, all of the layers of pride and distance and secrecy have been stripped away. Dream is (and I really shouldn't have to say this anymore) in all black once more, but his clothes are loose, especially around his neck and torso. He's relaxed the vice grip of his own making, he’s shed the rigidity he’s always forced himself to adhere to. He is approaching Hob only as himself, nothing more. He knows that he has lost all right to aloofness when he stormed out 133 years ago. His pride is bitter on his tongue but he's swallowing it nonetheless. Hob, for his part, is back to his brown. He's grounded again; he's found stability in this new life he's made for himself in the wake of their missed meeting. He's back to where he's truly comfortable, he’s found who he is outside of Dream, and he's donned his signature color to reflect that.

I’m going to split the behavior during this meeting into two categories; the power that Hob has over Dream, and the power that Dream has over Hob, because (contrary to popular belief) Dream does have power here, albeit not a lot. It’s a very subtle and nuanced scene in terms of everything power dynamics so I want to make sure I can include everything I want to in a somewhat concise way.

First, Hob’s power. When talking about power and control in their 2022 meeting, most would assume that Hob has all of it in the palm of his hand, and with good reason. Dream has essentially forfeited any upper hand he’s ever had and he knows it. There’s a hesitance with which he approaches the New Inn that shows this - he isn’t sure Hob will be there, he isn’t sure how Hob will receive him even if he is (miraculously) there. Hob could’ve fucked off to literally anywhere else in the world; without his meetings with his Stranger, Hob doesn’t have any concrete and lasting reason to stay in London (the fact that he presumably stayed in one place for 33 years is… telling, especially after the 1600’s and everything he went through because he stayed in one place for too long, but we’ll get there in a bit), but there he is! Dream turns the corner in the New Inn and Hob is right there, with his papers and his pint and his steadfast (brown! Again!) hope and loyalty. Hob holds a lot of the power in this situation and it's extremely evident. Dream is the one "crawling back" (though I think Hob would protest greatly at that description, especially after finding out why Dream couldn't make it in 1989). He’s fully admitting that he was wrong all those years ago (I could go on for another seven paragraphs about Dream’s inability to apologize verbally, but he definitely still apologizes to the people who he wrongs, he just does it through his actions instead. But that’s another post, I don’t have room here lmao) and he knows that Hob has every right to use that power against him. While 1689 was the ultimate humbling of Hob Gadling, 2022 is the ultimate humbling of Dream of the Endless. He's admitting defeat and surrendering, knowing that the power in Hob's hands could utterly destroy him. For the first time in his life, he's trusting Hob. There is no regaining control here, there is only reconnecting and for the first time, that is all that matters to Dream.

And thus, we've come full circle. I could wax poetic about how this meeting is a mirror of their first meeting, but @mimisempai beat me to it and said it way better than I ever could’ve in this post, so you should go read it! Anyway, Dream approaches his human stranger friend quite literally with his heart on his sleeve. For the last century, he has been utterly powerless, stripped of everything that made him an Endless, everything that gave him any modicum of control, and now he’s back to that. Even worse (maybe worse isn’t the right word, more meaningfully might be a better way of putting it) he is giving that power to Hob. And Hob. Hob uses all of this extraordinary power for… acceptance. Warmth. Comfort. Kindness. Welcoming. He could abuse the power that he has, he could’ve gotten angry or insulted or flat out left, and maybe in a different century, he would’ve, but he’s grown and changed, just like Dream said he had in 1889. This is a kinder, gentler Hob than we’ve ever seen before. Yes, he opens with a slight tease, a little sass, but the open joy on his face betrays the meaning behind his words. And thus, he actually gives some power back to Dream.

Now, I think Dream is not entirely without power in this scene, even from the very beginning. Yes, Hob is the one (as @cuubism says) arranging the meeting, Hob is unquestionably in control for the first time, but we also have to remember that… Hob could’ve left at any time. He didn’t have to stay in London (and now I’m circling back around to my earlier point) but he did. He stayed, and he stayed for Dream. That in and of itself is a power that Dream has over Hob; he is such an important part of Hob’s life that Hob would face the threat of discovery and risk his own life (because drowning in 1689 was bad, but I can’t even imagine what modern society would do to him if word got out about an actual, honest-to-god immortal) to make sure that his Stranger had a place to come back to, on the off chance that he ever changed his mind. But that is a power that is given by Hob, not one that Dream inherently has over him, which is also a sort of power that Hob has. It’s such a weird exchange and power play between them that, for the first time, they find themselves on somewhat even footing. There’s an understanding of a sorts; Dream knows that Hob could’ve been cruel but wasn’t and Hob knows that Dream could’ve kept him waiting forever but didn’t. They’ve both shown a piece of their hearts simply by showing up, and that mutual vulnerability is something they’ve never shared before, something that sets them up to actually begin to understand each other. For once, they see eye to eye, or as close to eye to eye as they ever have, and they’re taking the first (long-awaited) step towards true friendship

#the sandman #sandman netflix #dream of the endless #morpheus #hob gadling #sandman neil gaiman #neil gaiman

[bloomingdead]

“I was kidding about being a ship hater but I also want to blast Ereloy fans with my eye beams and insult their favorite character character by calling him ugly.” Whatever, dude. If you want to remain toxic and bitter, that’s on you.

bruh took everything i said out of context and harped on my ugly erend joke (he is). i do wanna blast u diehards w my eye beams!!! gtfo of here! erend is still one of my favorite characters, and he's obviously the closest friend aloy has at this point (maybe other than her sister but imo they're still working on bringing closeness to their relationship).

people really seem to think that because i find shipping him with aloy inappropriate, and you guys greasy for doing it, that i must hate him. i don't. he's charming, with a way about him that's hard to ignore (himbo energy). he tries his best to be there for the people he cares about and loves super hard. he's great at public speaking and rallying people to his cause, whatever that may be in the moment. he's incredibly loyal to his job even if that means bending avad's requests to fit what he deems most important in the moment. plus avad respects him so much that he doesn't care!! and his underlings on the vanguard will NOT let go of the crush he had in hzd, to his humiliation as we see the confrontation with aloy followed by his drunkenness at barren light. he has good taste in music, the soul of a metalhead, and a heart of gold. he lost his sister as aloy came into his life, and there's every context clue to show that this crush fizzled out as he came to respect aloy more as an equal. he said something along the lines of "i thought i was a bigshot talking to a pretty girl from a tiny tribe... now i see i was lucky just to get a minute of your time" and the ereloys takes this as some proclamation of love when to me and many others it comes off as a transition within their relationship towards mutual respect and appreciation.

let's be real about who's truly bitter. you old bitches who keep trying to ship aloy with a man at least 10 years her senior, or those of us who just want to enjoy the game for what it is without diehard shippers telling us what was literally written into the story by its creators is wrong. just because he's age appropriate for you doesn't mean it's okay that you project so much onto aloy that you can't remember she's at most 20yo. or the contrary, you're so fuckin young that you can't see how inappropriate it is because they all seem like old ass adults to you. it just gives "you're really mature for your age" vibes. ew. not to mention, as one of my lovely anons did, that this spike in hetero ship content for aloy happened AFTER seyka was introduced. >inb4 "a BiSeXuAl WoMaN iN a ReLaTiOnShIp WiTh A sTr8 mAn Is sTiLl QuEeR" bffr, as a (now out&proud lesbian, i must add) woman who's dated hetero men in the past, does that man know he's in a queer relationship or consider it to be one because his girl is? in the case of erend and the nuances in his character which are intended to relate to a type of man we all know, (that you guys bulldoze with your hc's,) fuck the fuck no. most cishet men don't.

this is the kind of discourse we get when fanon becomes more important to people than what's literally written into the story. i love erend! yeah i am a little irritated that people started popping their horussies out for their favorite (hetero) ship after we got a canon (GAY) romance in the game. if you guys had any critical thinking skills/media literacy, you'd have gotten the point by now that even if aloy isn't a lesbian, she's never going to end up with your favorite male character. you'd also understand why the gayshippers are irritated with you guys doing this in the wake of homophobic review bombing. because now we know aloy is capable of romantic feelings and no one but seyka has brought that side out of her so far. you can call it bad writing all you want, it's my opinion vs yours. doesn't change the direction the series is going in terms of aloy's romantic future.

#hfw #asks #anon #literally so done with you fanon bitches

[veebs-hates-video-games]

I'm glad I waited until the last minute to figure out how I felt about the games I played this year because there were some surprise changes right up until the end. I think I managed to get most things I played this year that weren't just demos onto a list and will have opinions on them.

There will potentially be too many to tag properly, but maybe I'll try linking the game titles to the tags and see how that goes, which should bring up any previous posts about them with more detail (although I still haven't finished updating all the old posts to the new tags yet as of writing this so they might not all work right away).

Also except for the final category stuff within each group isn't really in any particular order, and there's no hard boundary between some of the categories where I think everything in one is definitively better than everything in another (e.g. I think Aria of Sorrow is better than at least some of the stuff in the "pleasantly surprised category", but I liked it exactly as much as I expected to so it is where it is).

So starting from the worst:

Fate/EXTELLA LINK was the least fun I had with a game all year. It's like what if a Musou game felt worse to play and also had an extremely uncomfortable level of pandering to weebs and their waifus in the writing. Blech.

Diablo 2: Resurrected is literally unplayable without creating an account and being online even though D2 has always had offline single player. They don't actually mention this. I only have it because it was cheaper to get the bundle with D2 and D3 than D3 by itself.

Super Mario 3D World is the least fun I've had with a Mario game in literally decades. 3D movement with a fixed camera is awful. I still like the full 3D games and the 2D ones, but this is nope for me.

Pendula Swing is honestly probably fine on a different platform (read: with a mouse and keyboard), but the Switch version is borderline unplayable. The idea seemed interesting but it was so clunky I couldn't get into it.

Ys Origin just hasn't aged well. I played it a long time ago and it was in the "fine, I guess" category, but trying to replay it after some of the newer ones (which will be further down the list) was rough.

And then games that were mostly just disappointing to me:

Diablo 3 is one of those things everyone kept saying at least feels the best to play out of all the modern ARPGs for years, so I finally gave in and tried it to see what all the fuss was about. It feels like Torchlight 2.5 with a bigger budget and was kind of uninspiring overall.

The Outer Worlds was something I was really hopeful about, but I just didn't find anything at all about it enjoyable.

Pokemon Picross is just a bunch of free-to-play bullshit ruining something that could've been fun. The world is better off with the eShop shut down so no one can play it anymore.

Persona 5 Royal is another one I was really looking forward to that I just did not click with at all. The first few hours were full of minor annoyances and did very little to win me over.

AI: The Somnium Files had potential and sounded interesting, but moon logic for solving puzzles should've stayed in the 90s and I could do without all the random horniness.

The World Ends With You: Final Remix and NEO: The World Ends With You are frustrating because they have so many interesting ideas and a neat presentation but just aren't any fun to play, especially the first one.

Tales of Vesperia just hasn't aged super well I think. I know there are people who like it, and I was looking forward to it, but I think I would've had to play it closer to stuff like Tales of Symphonia to appreciate it.

Inscryption is not my thing at all. It's a shame because I loved Pony Island, but I just couldn't get into this one.

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is a Donkey Kong Country game, which have always been just ok to me. I should've remembered that and not bought into the hype over the years.

Next is stuff I liked the idea of but didn't really like playing enough to stick with it:

Titanfall 2 has really neat movement and stuff, and I've heard the later levels do some interesting stuff, but beyond that the actual combat wasn't really my thing.

Ori and the Blind Forest had too many frustrating bits to keep me playing through the parts I did like.

Disgaea 4 seemed fun and like it had a lot of potential, but I always find that kind of SRPG way too fiddly, ever since I tried the original Final Fantasy Tactics.

Marenian Tavern Story: Patty and the Hungry God is just a worse version of Blacksmith of the Sand Kingdom (see later on the list), which is understandable because they made it first.

Bravely Default I mostly played a couple years ago, but this year I put another dozen hours in and finally gave up on it. I really like a lot of stuff about it, but there were just too many things that frustrated or annoyed me.

They Bleed Pixels seems like fun and has some good pixel art (mostly the story stuff outside the gameplay segments), but I don't think it's for me.

Hero Hours Contract is an amazing idea and I love almost everything about it except for actually playing it.

Luckslinger took forever for me to get around to. The idea of luck being a consumable resource you have to manage is really neat, but I wasn't really enjoying the actual game, even if "pixel art hip hop spaghetti western" sounds great on paper.

Carto is one I don't really have anything against beyond apparently glitching it into an unrecoverable state and not being invested enough to start over.

Cris Tales is another one of those ones where I like a lot of stuff about it except for actually playing it.

Anarcute was a lot of fun for a little while, but it started introducing more elements I tend to not really like. Definitely one of the cuter games on the list with one of the best theme songs though.

Followed by things I had mixed feelings on or the "fine, I guess" category:

PixelJunk Eden 2 was fun enough, but they changed things from the original in a way that seems to be to make it more suitable for mobile, and I feel like most of them made it worse.

Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars didn't quite stick the landing. I loved the idea of everything being cards on a table with a single narrator/GM running everything, and the world and characters were interesting enough for a while. It didn't quite hold up for me all the way through to the end though.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is...better than Breath of the Wild, at least? It's smoothed over a lot of my biggest annoyances with that, and it's amazing that half the stuff in it even works at all, but it still doesn't feel like Zelda to me and has been pretty low priority to get back to and finish.

Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness and the Secret Hideout has one of the worst openings of any game I've played in years and absolutely awful pacing. It did seem to finally have opened up and gotten potentially rather good where I left off (and might get back to one of these days), but it shouldn't take half a dozen hours for that.

Yoku's Island Express is a clever idea and was a pretty good time for a while, but it's also one of the buggiest things I've played in the past year, and that's what drove me to stop playing.

Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age is frustrating to go back to. I loved the demo when I played it a couple years ago, but redoing everything now because I'm playing the full game on a different platform kinda sucks because of how slow the start is.

Will Die Alone has an interesting premise and way of interacting with it, but it stops short of quite saying as much with it as I would've liked.

Chaos;Head Noah had so much potential that kind of got wasted in the end. I really liked a lot of stuff about it along the way, but it's also kind of a mess. Hopefully when I get around to Steins;Gate they'll have learned to do it better because the anime for that one was great.

I'LL KILL HER is basically an interactive comic book, and the main strength is the art. The rest is fine I guess. Every content warning for this one.

Murder by Numbers is a constant mix of mildly amusing and mildly annoying. I hope they can even things out if they make more games in the future.

And then games that were pretty good but not my favorites:

Kuukiyomi: Consider It is a silly idea and doesn't overstay its welcome. I haven't felt an urge to play the sequels so far though.

Theatrhythm Final Bar Line is definitely the best in the series and has tons of great music, but I still have some issues with this style of music/rhythm game that keep me from completely loving it.

Cadence of Hyrule was kind of annoying when I first started playing the demo, but once I got the hang of it I had a pretty good time mostly. The huge difficulty spike at the end left me less happy with it than I was for most of the game though.

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow is probably the best game in this category, much better than most of the others, and my favorite Castlevania game, but it's a little short of being one of my favorites overall this year.

Syrup and the Ultimate Sweet is probably my second favorite in thie category and rather cute and silly.

One Night: Burlesque is the "worst" game in this category and doesn't entirely succeed at what it's trying to do, but I appreciate the effort and the overall vibes.

Gunma's Ambition -You and Me Are Gunma- is literally just a single joke drawn out for like an hour, but they lean into it enough to make it work.

LOUD: My Road to Fame has a couple weird design decisions that make it a bit frustrating toward the end, but up until then it's a surprisingly fun music/rhythm game with decent original music.

Lara Croft GO has some pretty decent puzzles in it and is probably my second favorite Tomb Raider game at this point, but I also had some Issues with it that held it back a little bit.

Next are the ones that I was pleasantly surprised by that were better than I expected:

Pixel Puzzle Makeout League was not what I expected. I figured it would just be picross with a silly dating sim on top, but I had no idea about the themes and ideas it would go into, and the entire ending section of the game in general was great and totally unexpected.

Blacksmith of the Sand Kingdom really surprised me. I had zero expectations going in, and while it isn't quite great at anything it's good to very good at a lot of things and was pretty satisfying in the end.

Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is the most Zelda-like game I've played this year (with close competition from another game down the list), and an actual Zelda game came out this year. Exactly as long as it needed to be and went in a more interesting direction than I thought it would.

Majotori is something I accidentally stumbled on because it was on a list of games that at least tangentially have lesbians in them, and it's delightfully silly.

Death end re;Quest really surpassed my expectations, even if I have significant enough issues with it that it's hard to recommend without caveats. it did some surprisingly interesting things though, and I keep thinking about it from time to time.

Rabisco+ was an impulse purchase because it randomly came up and was very cheap and I had no idea what was going on in the cover art. It turned out to be a short but pretty fun arcade-style puzzle game.

Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana was the first Ys game I played since Ys Origin first came out in English, and the series has really come a long way since then and is much better these days.

Demong Hunter was basically an impulse joke purchase because I had to know what makes a demong different from a demon. I still have no idea, but this was way better than I expected from what initially seemed like a cheap mobile game.

Ys IX: Monstrum Nox wasn't quite as good overall as the previous game in the series, but I still had a lot of fun with Goth Adol, and all the new movement abilities added a lot to it.

Perfect Gold did a surprisingly decent job of having flawed characters who worked through problems in their relationship without making them annoying or unlikable like often happens.

Trigger Witch is the other most Zelda-like game I played this year. I totally grabbed it because of the cover art and it was on sale, but it's a pretty solid twin-stick shooter mixed with the LttP/LA era of Zelda.

Will You Snail? was pretty unknown to me before I started playing because I somehow avoided anyone else playing it or talking about it, but it turned out to be a pretty good precision platformer with a fun gimmick, which is hard to pull off for me because I can be kinda picky about how platformers feel to play for some reason.

Vivid Knight managed to absorb nearly all my game time until I finished it, which I did not see coming. I did eventually start to see the cracks in the systems and stopped enjoying it as much, but up until then I got pretty wrapped up in it.

And finally the ones that were probably my favorites, not necessarily in order but with the best generally toward the end:

Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition and Xenoblade Chronicles: Future Connected would be more toward the top of the list except this was a replay so I'm disqualifying it. I played the Wii version originally, and they sure did improve almost everything in an already great game in this version.

Bowser's Fury was about as enjoyable as Super Mario 3D World was unenjoyable. I'm not sure it would quite work for a full size Mario game, but there were some good ideas in this one.

Trials of Mana really polished up an older game that I thought was kind of underwhelming back in the day and turned it into something I had a great time with. Between this and the recent announcement of the new game I'm cautiously optimistic about something good in the Mana series finally happening for the first time since the PS1.

Harvestella really caught me off guard. I was expecting a farming sim with some Final Fantasy-style nonsense on top, and it turned out to be 85% JRPG with a story I liked more than anything FF has done in years.

Can Androids Pray is the most last minute addition to this list on December 30th. When a short story (in any medium) really focuses in on a single relationship or conversation or event or idea so well that it implies the existence of the entire rest of the universe around that my brain just starts vibrating. This is one of those.

The House in Fata Morgana takes a long road to get to its ending and the characters earn every step of the way there. It also surprised me by being a totally different flavor of queer than I expected.

Unpacking wins the award for best vibes. I had a lot of feelings about this one, probably including some they weren't expecting people to have when they made it, and it does a better job telling a story than most stuff on this list despite having no visible characters and almost zero dialogue.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim I think wins for my favorite story/writing this year. People said it was a great sci-fi story, and not just for a video game, and they were right.

Fire Emblem Engage is the winner for my favorite gameplay. They absolutely nailed a lot of the mechanics and systems on the game design side of things, and it's my favorite Fire Emblem game at this point.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed gets this spot for my favorite overall. They polished the already great gameplay of XC3, introduced some great new characters and brought back some old ones, and managed to expand on a lot of the story from the entire trilogy and tie up a bunch of stuff all at the same time.

And I guess that's finally that. There were some pretty big disappointments for me, but there were even more really great games I played and ones I had no idea I'd like as much as I did. I think I'm just going to tag stuff in the final two categories (since that's what'll fit) and call it a day.

#xenoblade chronicles 3: future redeemed #fire emblem engage #13 sentinels: aegis rim #unpacking #the house in fata morgana #can androids pray #harvestella #trials of mana #bowser's fury #xenoblade chronicles: definitive edition #xenoblade chronicles: future connected #vivid knight #will you snail? #trigger witch #perfect gold #ys ix: monstrum nox #demong hunter #ys viii: lacrimosa of dana #rabisco+ #death end re;quest #majotori #turnip boy commits tax evasion #blacksmith of the sand kingdom #pixel puzzle makeout league

[sadaveniren]

Hey can I get your opinion on bg? I like that you're an old-timer (fandom wise lol) and your views are interesting to read. Anyway Louis has made it clear time and time again that he is very aware of what goes on in fandom and what people's thoughts are. He must know that a majority of his fanbase is put off by all the freddie talk. Add to that the fact that it's really not doing anything for him promo wise. So even if he can't end it yet for whatever reason, why do you think there's been this big ramp up and an insistence of talking about him in interviews? When he could have just kept quiet like he did for years?

Lol what I would give to fucking know the answers to these questions.

So as an old timer (like… I was literally online when the OG BG article dropped. I saw that “9 weeks along” written out in the article with my own eyes before they changed it within the first 30 or so minutes of BG) I want to emphasize that nothing else matters because Briana was never pregnant. Everything since the very first pic of them together (“this is for the Sun”) has been fake. Nothing else matters whenever you go back and hit that inevitable point of “Briana was never pregnant”.

But back to your question. Why? Hilariously it almost feels like Louis sorta gave an answer to this today when he talked about the radio stations he goes to that don’t play his music. Sometimes he does shit he doesn’t benefit from, and maybe doesn’t like, to get to do what he wants. I can’t even begin to imagine how complicated Louis’ life is and everything he has to balance. Maybe mentioning the kid was a trade off for being “single” and losing having to talk about Eleanor or get a new public girlfriend. Maybe if he’s seen with the kid he gets to talk about OTB being an LGBT anthem. Maybe he gets to pursue an edgier sound, or add something to the album, or a dozen other little things he might want in exchange for something that at the end of the day he doesn’t think is that big of a deal.

I’ll be completely honest, up until today’s interview the mentions of Freddie hadn’t even registered to me. Louis’ promo was going so swell. As someone who was here for 2016 and 5:20pm Tuesday pap walk pics and 2017 with the whole “his girlfriend, his son” non-stop, I can tell you. This is so different. It’s nothing. What happened today was definitely a change from how it had been going but tbh I think Louis wanted to give as open and honest an interview as possible so I think he might have just been like “don’t ask me about Harry Styles and everything else is fair game” not knowing what Zach was going to run with 🤷🏼‍♀️

I have no clue if this is going to end up going anywhere. It would be excellent if BG could just fucking end already. But if this is the new status quo, as long as Louis looks happy and he’s enjoying his music, I’m gonna trust that he knows what he’s doing with his life.

#answered

[sexwithamanda]

Maybe it's okay not to know.

Hello, this is my first post on this new blog, it might be for myself, but someone might come across it and think the same as I do.

I recently have found myself entirely enveloped in the idea of putting effort into people, places, and things that matter more to me than others. I know that we all struggle to find our purpose in this world and have people in our lives who shape us into who we are.

We take bits and pieces of those people that matter to us and we run with all the great parts hopefully. And try to leave the bad parts away.

Here I am to say particularly, that I don't know exactly who I am, I am consistently changing into a better version of who I was yesterday. Living in the moment, and the craziest way possible is the dream I want. To be alive willfully, entirely, in my own element.

It's okay if right now you may be feeling overwhelmed. It happens, and it is the part of us that holds our hearts down in the most imperfect way. It lets us know that what we are doing is a risk, but it is a risk worth taking. I have spent so much time trying to please the needs of others, trying to uphold the love and thought of others' opinions. To remind me at the end of the day the only thing that matters is my own happiness.

So is it okay to not know? Yes. Is it fine to just be in one route for a very long time? Yes. Is it okay to be a maybe right now or forever? Yes.

I am no expert on the willingness to change, but it needs to be natural, organic, and kind in the ways that forgo being an experience worthy of remembering.

My favorite form of art is writing, words have the power to be spoken in speeches that change the minds of millions of words written in books that change the outlook of things we had thought to be wrong or right. I think one way of art that gets swept past is the beauty that is within drawing art, and it helps me transition into telling you that I got a tattoo that is a one-of-a-kind design from one of my friends. He is talented, and literally one of the kindest people I've ever met. The design is a dagger with a snake wrapped around it with flowers surrounding it. I originally wanted the tattoo only because I thought it would look cool, which in term is a reason in itself but now as I look at it more. I think the reason why I am so attached to this piece of art is that, although the dagger is seemingly to be dangerous, it represents my heart. The snake is wrapped around it trying to protect it so it doesn't attack. When I look at the flowers I can see now that it represents all of the love and softness I possess as a person. I love this tattoo, and once I showed it to my mother, she screamed at me on the phone for 30 minutes. Told me that I was ruining my skin, making it dirty. I told her that she did not need to agree with it, but accept that I loved it, and be happy for me. She couldn't handle it, her narcissism was showing. She said that my life was a direct representation of them as people. No. I am my own person.

She then proceeds to block me on Facebook, and then on her phone immediately after. This is maybe the 3rd time this has happened within the last 3 years. I don't feel anything initially. I feel like de ja vu.

I've seen this narrative before, how she is upset for a while, could be a year, maybe a couple months. Where she needs space to process how my life has no correlation to hers.

I think the reason why I need to constantly remind myself that it is okay to not know. It is because I grew up in a household where love is conditional. My good grades and my good behavior are what gave me the love that I deserved all along. When I deserved it unconditionally.

When it was good it was good, when I wanted something, or did something that was deemed bad I would get into trouble, have love ripped from me, and have verbal abuse instead of understanding.

And she would temporarily pretend to be a "good, understanding" parent as I grew older. And then the cycle continues and that's why I said the energy I have for this feud she has with made-up rules that she deems to be of value. When in reality I am no longer a kid, it's weird seeing other people's parents.

Some parents are normal, and allow their children to be who they are.

Here I am being who I am, with no apologies. It's okay to not know.

This is just a lil reminder to myself, to you, that your life is more important than you know. Do what you need to do to make yourself happy.

Mahal Kita,

Amanda <3

#everything everywhere all at once #happy #love #nationalpoetryday #blog #personal #update #toxic #relationships

[mishkakagehishka]

have. have you listened to the nrw song because oh my fucking god. oh my fucking god

so.

Okej i'm gonna dump my opinions on both Acanthe and Uruwashi no Nightingale. first of all, the instrumental break of the full version of Acanthe around the 3rd minute. I want that injected directly into my bloodstream twice a day. And the part right after where the melody changes almost completely for like half a minute before the instrumental fades a bit and the two sing so softly, so softly. Mika's voice.... and the ending where they go "ooo↗️↗️ooooo! Eien wo!" yeah. Yeah. I agree. I wholly agree. What are they feeding them, they literally ate, their voices harmonised so beautifully together throughout the whole song, but at the end especially. Something, something, they're a proper unit, now, no longer a lead and a backup dancer slash a puppeteer and a doll, but teammates.

AS FOR THE NEW SONG. WITHIN THE 2ND SECOND (english language <333) I WAS READY TO ASCEND. The instrumental is so pretty, the song is so pretty, it's like. It's beautiful. I have trouble processing lyrics in songs, but what i have managed to hear i loved. "The world's awakening" stood out but I can't wait to read the lyrics when they actually come out, I'm looking forward to seeing what it's about. I think I just really want to take this song's gender, though, it's so.... does english have "bell-like" as an adjective for pretty sounds, bc that's what it is to me. Bell-like, clear, beautiful but the feel of something fragile, like decorated glass. Shu's part around the climax, though, somewhere around the 3rd minute.... caught me off-guard. AND ONCE AGAIN when the instruments fade out and we're left with their voices softening? Mika during that part. MIKA. MISHKA, MISHKITSA, MISHKITCHICHITSA.....

The beginning made me ascend and the ending put me straight in my grave. Their harmonisation, the way they can Hold those long notes, just. Yeah. Oh, how beautiful a day it is to be a ValkyrieP

#the only parts of the lyrics i could somewhat pick out are Mika's ''nightingale ah nightingale with that singing voice'' #and shu's ''nightingale ah nightingale let's sing together'' #i have to say this is just in general a problem of mine i need to have lyrics pulled up when listening to songs in english too #but i can't even find the lyrics in japanese yet😔 #I'M FEELIN KINDA OVERWHELMED THO LMFAO TWO VALK SONGS + BTS COMEBACK SOON + EUROVISION TONIGHT HDBWBENDJDJS #ensemble stars #asks

[jen290302]

Film Adaption Shoot Days

We decided that we would need three shoot days, in order to get the footage we would need and also work around the actors schedules. We shot Day 1 at Jacks which was mainly things in Annes room and the final scene, Day 2 in my stairwell with all the hallway scenes and Day 3 we shot outside in the morning and then did the voiceover/James Skidder scenes in the afternoon. After the shoot in retrospect, we possibly could have shot it in two days as there was a lot of sitting about, maybe I was just feeling like that as a lot of our shots are montage that required no sound. (In the edit it was discovered that we actually did want sound for some of the shots, which is frustrating..make note to record sound for everyyyyy take, even if it is not needed at the time).

In terms of actual shooting everything went as well as it could on the day, it is hard writing this in retrospect of the edit/sound design as I am now aware of so many issues that we were so blissfully unaware of straight after the shoot. We had lovely weather, which was good as we were quite reliant on the sun coming out as it is a big part of our narrative, so in that respect we were very lucky. On set the slates did get quite confusing…I think we needed to find a better way to name the montage shots as it got incredibly confusing!!! On the days a lot of shots got cut as we thought we would be running low for time, but we actually ended up finishing early on a lot of the days. I think cutting the shots was actually quite detrimental as it did not give a lot of room in the edit. 

The cast were really friendly and lovely and easy to work with, as was our crew. For the most part we got a long really well, I think I did a good job of staying in my lane sound wise as I feel a lot of times on set I can sometimes step on toes with ideas/opinions which can sometimes be useful but I am aware it can sometimes become a too many cooks spoil the broth situation so I kept to myself and focused on sound. Some of the big problems for me on set were the trains passing by in the garden scenes as well as wildlife and birds and the many people coming out into their gardens near Jacks to enjoy the weather. I am glad we decided to move into my stairwell as there was a lot less traffic noises, it still did prove difficult though as the mic picks up what feels like literally every sound, so even people closing doors and talking within their flats was getting picked up on the mic. Blocking and space also proved difficult in the stairwell as there was so many crew and not enough room. I enjoyed having everyone film at mine- although stressful- I set my kitchen up as the green room with some snacks and my bedroom was used to kit/cast changing. Another problem I had was when we were recording the narration aspect there was a lot of traffic being picked up as we were filming so close to a window of a main road. (I will get into this in my post-production blogpost as I thought it was going to be a nightmare). 

I enjoy doing sound so much but I find it so hard to hold the boom pole for extended periods of time as well as doing the levels too, outside in particular I found difficult and when holding the boom when the pole is so long can be extremely tiring. My arms were hurting for days. Being on set doing sound does not feel as creative as I would like my role to be on set, its more of a do-what-your-told and when situation which I am happy with but I missed putting creative input into shots ect. On set I also do not like to come across bossy so it is hard for me to tell everyone to be quiet to do levels ect. So this is something I need to work on as a lot fo the time I was asking to have a couple more minutes on sound and everyone would talk over me which made it hard. 

Overall, I think we all worked really well together on set, this is one of the most ‘professional’ and organised sets I have been on that has been run by our course, so this was refreshing. I enjoyed working with everyone in my group and well done everyone!!!!!! 

#filmadaptation

[markusdevblog]

a look at three "spooky" pieces of music

A Hat in Time's "Subcon Forest" Length: 11:07 Subcon Forest is a type of world in which several game stages make the setting. The forest itself is a wide and varied stage with various sub-environments, with the common throughline of ghosts or lost spirits inhabiting the forest. it has the general theme of eerieness. the music follows suit. This being the longest track of the three, it begs the question of why this platformer stage needed an 11-minute long track. investigating further, I looked at the other tracks from the game, and discovered it was the second longest track included, being short around 3 minutes of a different track named "Alpine Skyline". only a handful of the tracks have this amount of length, staying usually within the range of 1 to 5 minutes in length. I am additionally confused since the "Subcon Forest" world contains many smaller tracks for specific areas within the world such as "The Fire Spirits" and "Subcon Village". my main theory as to why these tracks have such length is that either these stages warranted more atmospheric tracks, or that it was felt that this world was particularly large and needed more variation in the music to help it from becoming stale, it could also be a combination of the two, but I wonder if this explains the variety of tracks found in "Subcon Forest". the track does contain a little motif or leitmotif that is used in a different more upbeat and shorter track, however, the leitmotif is used sparingly throughout the entire duration of the track. the track tries to strike a balance between sounding like a little retro game alongside some melodic instruments that hum along to the little beat. of what I can discern a keyboard, something like a maraca, deep drum, xylophone, a synth and various sounds that may or may not be intended to be diegetic are used here. there are other sounds here present but I couldn't describe it much better than stick and chain sounds. at 6 minutes in I hear an instrument that I recognize, the waterphone. this instrument is not used a lot in the track and understandably so, it's a disturbing sounding instrument. the track uses a variety of instruments that it cycles through as it goes on, and as it goes on, the later half of the song is much more dreamlike or ethereal if you're feeling zesty, rather than leaning melodic like the first half of the song.

The Simpsons Hit & Run's "Halloween Havoc" Length: 02:30 Level 7 is an homage to The Simpsons long standing treehouse of horror episodes. which is inherently Halloween themed, and as such the the connected music is very much affected. we have spooky keys, xylophones reminiscent of bones, an orchestra which I think is more simpsons than horror, horns, an organ, and possibly the strangest addition which is the electric guitar. this is likely the most complicated track I have chosen since it modulates and changes itself the most i'd say. quite short really and at least from the video i found on youtube and footage of the game i can pretty easily tell where the track loops. now i don't know if that is evidence of poor work but it is something that sticks out to me. the object of this track is maybe clearest to me here: reference the simpsons and have some crazy Halloween banger come on when you're homer driving over civilians, it really sells the energy that was intended in my opinion, and i love the song. nothing about it really is meant to scare unlike the other two tracks which is very exemplar of the "spooky" vibe. horror, but not quite scary.

World of Warcraft's "Duskwood" Length: 03:33 Duskwood is the levelling zone that I believe is for 10 to 15-level players, quite literally the bluntest example of "X, but what if it was creepy". so much so the main town is called Darkshire. one of WoW's most famous towns, goldshire, is only a 40-minute in-game walk away. however, this town is its evil counterpart DARKshire. great stuff. super atmospheric, this track has wind sounds for the entire duration to show how dark and spooky it is. But it mostly sticks to orchestral instruments, using cellos, violins, harps and maybe some woodwinds. it seems short to me, and warrants further investigation of this track In-game. when it comes to atmospheric like this I don't understand why you wouldn't want a longer track, I'll have to see. the track is slow and methodical despite it's length.