#so i paraphrased bc i started thinking about it and i had more thoughts but i didn’t want to keep rambling to her

[rowenabean]

.

#just saw a post that was like 'if you have religious or moral objections that stop you from providing certain types of medical care maybe #you shouldn't work in healthcare' (paraphrased) and... #what a way to look at the world tbh #like. they're talking about me i think - i am a conscientious objector when it comes to euthanasia #(which granted has come up exactly twice and both cases in a theoretical capacity only this is not a frequent request to me) #and... i am also a good doctor #last week i told someone that her weight doesn't matter to her health with receipts to prove it and she cried #no one had ever told her that before #and that was something that came from me specifically. that was something i would not trust all of the GPs in my practice - a practice of #excellent and compassionate GPs! - to say #i am verifiably doing good in my job that is coming from specifically who i am as a person #i cannot put that down when it comes to issues i care deeply about #fundamentally the fact that i cannot put it down is what makes me a good doctor #i think that's what i'm trying to get at #the reason that i do well by my patients is that i practice out of my values and my ethics #if i did not stand on that core i would not stand at all #so you can't have it both ways. you can't have engaged and active and compassionate healthcare providers without sometimes those engaged an #active providers having things they do not feel comfortable doing #and it is to everyone's service if they are up front about it and do not try to hide (i am suspicious of people who try to hide this) #i am literally figuring this all out as i type hence the v long tag ramble and also being nowhere near the post that started this train #(honestly in med school we talked so much about ethics as like. abortion! euthanasia! trans rights! and the ethics in practice is the littl #things. do you apologise when you mess up. how do you manage a consult with your patient with paranoid dementia and her child in the same #room at one time - or one by one bc that's fraught too. (that one's on top i had one of those today.) how do you act with grace when #you're a bit stressed and your patient is a bit stressed and the nurse wants to add five more things to your book. the day to day ethics is #SUCH a bigger thing when you come to actual practice.) #this is obviously entirely about me and leans on the fact that i largely do think i am doing a good job i am really feeling my own way #to a Thought. but i think to a certain extent it is generalisable

[january-glooms]

someone once told me that im their idol, but i am a deeply flawed person and i feel like at times the word "perfect" pops up when talking about idols, and i kind of hate the word perfect, there is no such thing as perfect nothing and no one can or will ever be perfect and while we as humans strive for the unattainable, i believe that striving for perfection while a good goal can be incredibly detrimental to one's health and sometimes even their goal

so no, i don’t see myself as someone worth being idolized, i used to associate it with being put on a pedestal, i recognize now tho that it means that someone simply thinks i have or do something that makes them think i want to be able to do that too

when i think of idols, i think of people put under immense pressure, they are expected to be perfect, that there is no room for mistakes and i despise that

people deserve to be able to be themselves, not some sort of magic image that you have built up in your head of them, they deserve the opportunity to make mistakes, no one is or ever will be perfect

#i was talking to felicia about something like this #so i paraphrased bc i started thinking about it and i had more thoughts but i didn’t want to keep rambling to her #bc it wasn’t that important to the convo and i felt like it didn’t fit with the moment and my thoughts were jumbled anyways #noëmi’s rambling nook #this was written about me but also abt kpop idols and western celebrities and just any person in society bc anyone can be idolized #be it science or some form of art #if you do something that inspires someone else you’ve reached it...that's the goal of being an idol being an inspiration and spreading joy #through whatever media you use doesn’t matter which one #words #ramble #thoughts

[knightsickness]

saltburn thoughts full spoilers

felix pretending that he doesn’t realise the house is remarkable during the tour, part of the showing off is how casual it is - telling elsbeth to be normal about ollie even as felix also definitely does not treat him like an equal

my poor pitiable friend i get to dress and tote around and show the good life and he’ll be so so pathetically grateful it reminds me how great i am how great my life is. this is not conscious on felix’s part felix doesn’t really think

generous and magnanimous, most sympathetic lens taken advantage of but also amusing himself with a charity case. let me reconnect you with your addict mother ollie that’s a scene i should be there for

his and farleigh’s relationship started as this, and soured when farleigh stopped being happy with table scraps, or being a pity-pet - prouder than ollie, less willing to debase himself

felix has had other toys like this, symbiotic playing between him and venetia - he brings them home, doesn’t tell them not to fuck her, and she immediately tries to (paraphrasing but ‘venetia’s been draping herself everywhere hoping you’ll stumble on her’) knowing that he will entirely break off the friendship in disgust at how disrespectful it was to fuck his sister. this in the context of the strange sexualsocial play where felix his sister and his cousin all hang out naked in a field enough it’s an expectation for guests it seems reasonable ollie thought there were fewer sexual boundaries

nobody pays attention to venetia, her addiction and eating disorder are treated as mildly embarrassing but her parents won’t talk to her about it bc it would mean acknowledging there was a problem (seen in later can’t accept felix’s death trying to wake him up and get him warm even though farleigh and venetia clearly already see he’s dead, or not telling the police about farleigh having cocaine) and her hypersexuality and instigating are an arm of that

felix and ollie inherently unequal relationship, king and his favourite - unlike pamela, who appears interesting but fails to captivate them, ollie dedicates an immense amount of effort to keeping felix’s attention, to staying amusing and necessary

bathtub scene both prostrating himself to felix part of the eating him theme and a sexual violation echoed at his grave

party costumes - felix is an angel clearly supposed to evoke luhrman’s juliet (complete with death by poison) both his innocence and his imminent death. otherworldly almost dionysian figure he isn’t a touchable human guy he’s a god everyone appeases because he’s perfect. interesting that they don’t really show his body he’s just wings everybody else’s anguish is centred. not a move to demystify him they could have shown his corpse they could have shown him next to the vomit they don’t we never properly see the body

farleigh is bottom but removes the head to taunt ollie. foolish guy turned into an ass dealing with powers he doesn’t understand possible foreshadowing him as the guy ollie frames for giving felix coke (mule pun?)

sidebar love the scene where ollie tries to manipulate him and misunderstands his motivations farleigh’s such a bitter interesting guy and he was right about everything MY final girl

framed as in the wrong bc he’s contrasted to perfect felix, arguing w him, but is in the right - felix calls him more spoiled than they are, and he is spoiled, but gilded cage nowhere else to go and his parents don’t get anything felix is not reliable. he’s right to point out felix likes ollie more because he’s a less complicated easier to pity pet he’s right that ollie is fake and he’s right that the family don’t see the servants as people besides their charming butler (both clearly beneath them a kind of loyal dog and a class marker they enjoy having. complain he’s creepy but like can you imagine being wealthy enough to not only inherit a butler but to not like having a butler to find him annoying) and is hyperaware outside of the main family unit everyone else staying at saltburn is closer to servant status paid and fed to jester

ollie’s antlers clearly supposed to position him as the devil to felix’s angel but slightly obfuscated by also making him a deer - part of his pathological lying layers of deception, or idea of the pop-wendigo as cannibal as part of his i’m a vampire/you ate him up and licked the fucking plate relationship w the family

teddybear on felix’s coffin both superficially heartwrenching and on any second thought completely hollow - as if he was a little boy, and in a way he was, but it’s a strange gesture as if his parents were burying a much younger child. they don’t know he was poisoned they think he died of an overdose mixing cocaine and alcohol while hooking up with a girl

ollie fucking felix’s grave-dirt as an explicit parallel to ollie scraping on the ground to lick his cum out of a drain - the most touchable felix has ever been is as a body, in the ground, where ollie can cum into the dirt on top of him and it will be there forever. death as an equaliser final end to their king-favourite power differential

didn’t hate the ending but do think he should have only killed felix i think every subsequent death lessened the vicious hatelove obsession of felix’s death which removed the gloss from the house and makes all its ridiculous out of touch evil dreamworld inhabitants small and desperate their golden boy eldest is gone. tragic ridiculousness of putting the name felix river catton on a headstone

ideal ending to me still a subversion of farleigh’s cruel ‘this is the best thing to ever happen to you and when it’s over you’ll think about it forever but this is our life we’ll stay here we LIVE in saltburn’ (he’s more part of the family than anyone else but he’s still exilable - even he knows it isn’t really a we situation) in which ollie does leave and he leaves them all miserable in saltburn forever living with felix all over the walls a hundred portraits of him all clinging onto that last summer. he can forget but they live in saltburn

#saltburn #saltburn spoilers #oliver quick #felix catton #venetia catton #farleigh start

[cleromancy]

jasons got so much black and white thinking at times like. if Bruce can't do this for me he never loved me. if Bruce never loved me i am unlovable. if im unlovable i might as well be hated for something ive done instead of something i am...

its that last one thats the only thing that really keeps me firmly in camp shrodingers felipe... like i vehemently disagree that jason having done it is like "proof" he was ~already bad~ or ~too damaged~ or whatever the fuck dumbshit. like morally speaking jason weighed this mans life over the life of his next victim and made a choice and while you don't have to agree with him, or judy koslosky for that matter (batman 422, jason goes on to paraphrase her in lost days)... like, come on. it was explicit that the law and batman couldn't touch him, he bragged he was gonna do it again, jasons options as presented to him were "let him" or "kill him".

but the reason i continue to like the ambiguity there about whether or not jason did kill the guy is because bruces reaction... i mean my god, compare and contrast ollies reaction when 16-year-old *mia* thought she had to kill someone while ollie visibly disagreed-- ga 39:

ga 40:

^ btw this is also one reason OF MANY why i kill and eat anyone who compares ollie negatively to bruce. fava beans nice chianti etcetera etcetera

(dinah also reams him out about it more in this same issue while they're breaking up. read green arrow 2001 🔫)

anyway. fuckin buce by contrast

batman (1940) 424

batman 425

just to start. (ditf starts at issue 426 btw.) (also god starlin is such a hack. Bruce directly causes the deaths of 3 people in 425-- two by jumping out of the way of gunfire so they hit each other, one by accidentally knocking over an unstable pile of cars. but sure, Jason's the one who can't handle it.)

anyway. all this just to say that if jason truly did not kill felipe but bruce believed he did and that leads directly to him feeling so unloved that he runs away to find his birth mom and yknow. gets murdered bc she sold him out bc, from his perspective, *she* also found him unlovable...

jason todd should have killed more people 🤷

#dc #text #like if youre gonna get blamed for it anyway. Why Fucking Not #anyway i keep thinking about bruce fucking shock collaring jason in gotham war to punish him for #having previously done Bad Things #so now bruce doesn't have to feel bad about it anymore #or worry jason will do it again #because he chemically lobotomized him. LMAO #meta #jason #mia

[leafykat]

ATLA LIVE ACTION RANT/MANIFESTO

After watching it I started typing and couldn't stop. Sorry it's really really long and probably not very coherent.

(Since I wrote this, Big Joel put up a vid on his side channel talking about his thoughts on the first episode and he had a lot of points I agree with so watch that too if you’re interested) <- eta: ok jk sorry it already got taken off youtube it's only on his patreon now

I really dislike starting the story with the beginning of the war. It's like they don’t trust the audience enough to care about the protagonists without laying out all the Big Important World Context out right at the start, or they don’t trust us enough to understand non-linear storytelling. I’m trying really hard not to just hate on changes simply for being different than the show I grew up with, because god knows I have my own issues with it. There are scenes that are nearly shot-for-shot, line-for-line remakes of the original, which makes the parts they change really jarring and frustrating. I don't mind the way they combined some episodes or storylines or changed some details, like, June being the one who hits on Iroh instead of the other way around, but other changes just feel like they either miss something fundamental (to me) about the characters or the story or are just… arbitrary, which is almost worse.

One thing that REALLY frustrated me right from the start was that Aang wasn’t actually trying to run away. He goes flying to “clear his head” and gets caught in a storm coincidentally right as he says “ok Appa let’s head home”. Why? Everyone treats him like a coward anyway. Everyone is way meaner to him than in the cartoon about something that, in this version of the story, objectively was not his fault. Why? In the cartoon, he feels intense shame that he wasn’t there for everyone, even though he was twelve and about to be taken from the only person that wanted him to have a childhood, and he got so overwhelmed and scared by what the world expected from him that he tried to run away from it. In the live action, he gets to reunite with the spirit of Gyatso, who says, “you couldn’t have done anything if you had stayed. You just would have died,” (paraphrasing bc I can’t be bothered to give it more views just to get exact quotes) which is fine, I don’t think he needed a spirit world reunion with Gyatso but I can accept it. But if that’s what that gives Aang closure, what is the point of changing him to be less responsible for disappearing? In the cartoon Katara is the one who reassures Aang and helps him process his guilt, representing the people of the present who he can still help. The live action has the voice of the past, the people that he’s ‘failed’, reaching forward in time to absolve him of any sins. And remember that in this version he literally was trying to go home. It just feels like they’re trying to remove moral complexity from his character.

Less importantly (except to me maybe) I think that showing us the Air Temple pre-genocide removes impact of seeing it for the first time in the cartoon. I loved Aang hyping it up to Katara and Sokka, unwilling to believe that it could have fallen. It almost makes the viewer think maybe some of them could have survived in secret. Then, the contrast between his idyllic memories and reality start to sink in. It was an incredibly hard-hitting moment, dulled in live action by the audience having seen exactly what happened to the temple already (including an incredibly hamfisted “you can’t beat us while we have the power of the comet!” line from who I think was Sozin.) I think Momo is pretty cute though.

Another thing that pissed me off was the way they handled the Agni Kai: They combine Zuko's duels with Zhao and Ozai into one, where Zuko not only fights back against his father but gets an opportunity to deliver (presumably) a winning blow and hesitates. This choice weakens important aspects of his backstory and, to me, flattens his relationship with Ozai: 1) That he was never a prodigy firebender like Azula, feeding the inferiority complex that Ozai fostered 2) The Agni Kai was meant to be public humiliation, meant to teach Zuko ‘respect’. It was in front of hundreds of people, and it was a thirteen-year-old child against a full grown firebending master. Zuko prostrates himself and begs his father for mercy. His refusal to even fight embarrasses Ozai by exemplifying the 'weakness' Zuko's mother 'instilled' in him. In his duel with Zhao, Zuko makes a conscious choice to be merciful despite Zhao telling him to “do it” and kill him. Despite knowing how the fire nation views it as weakness, as cowardice, especially in this specific setting. It foreshadows his later choices, and shows his innate kindness. Combining the two duels doesn't allow us to see that parallel nor that growth. Reducing his act of mercy to a mere hesitation in the moment of victory, furthermore, reduces his agency.

In fact, the adaptation softens a lot of Zuko's role as an antagonist, giving most of his actually villainous actions from the cartoon to other characters. They keep him capturing Aang in the South Pole, but Zhao leads the attack on Kyoshi village, they remove the episode with the pirates (s1e9), combine aspects of episode s1e15 ‘Bato of the Water Tribe’ with ‘the Blue Spirit’ (s1e13) and ‘the winter solstice’ (s1e7/8) removing three instances of Zuko capturing or attacking Aang in favor of one with Zhao capturing and Zuko rescuing him. But I guess they add a fight in Omashu. Look, this is inevitable as a result of combining 20 episodes into 8. I don’t really mind streamlining a lot of these episodes, nor removing others (having episodes like ‘the great divide’ and ‘the fortuneteller’ only referenced as rumors Zuko hears in a bar is cute, to be honest), though the change to the Bato episode where Sokka merely has a flashback of his father implying he thinks Sokka is an incompetent warrior is a really unnecessary and bad change, to me. But they took out almost every instance of Zuko posing an actual threat to Aang and replaced it with one fight scene in Omashu. To me, what it feels like is the show runners know Zuko is going to become a Good Guy and thus they don’t want to make him act too Bad.

On the topic of Kyoshi island: giving Aang a reason to go there aside from wanting to ride the giant Koi, whatever. Removing Sokka’s chauvinism, okay, I guess. But it ends up replaced with extremely awkward flirting between him and Suki that feels motivated by nothing beyond each being the first non-relative young adult of their preferred gender either one has ever met. Whether or not you want to have Sokka start off sexist, and that could be a whole conversation on its own, him humbling himself enough to ask Suki for instruction was an important moment of growth for him that he doesn’t really have in this version. And they don’t even put Sokka in the dress and makeup!!! BOO! Also minor moment but I think it’s also sus for the show to have Suki remove her makeup as soon as it’s time for her to be a love interest and then just not wear it again. BOO!! She looked really cool though. It’s not like I think her first appearance in the cartoon is full of depth or whatever, and I think the cartoon turned her into a cardboard cutout as soon as she became a love interest, but it’s like the live action clipped through a wall straight to my least favorite parts of s3 Suki. It’s just disappointing. I also don’t like Aang being able to just talk to Kyoshi and his other past lives so easily but that might just be my cartoon-purist talking.

I didn’t mind putting Jet and Teo into Omashu, even though I think Danny Pudi’s ‘I had no choice’ justification for working for the Fire Nation holds up less well when he’s in a position of privilege in an Earth Kingdom stronghold as opposed to protecting a community of refugees in an isolated air temple. I don’t think they needed to add the Cave of Lovers plot from season 2 into the mix though. Not only that, but to rework that plotline so that 1) Aang isn’t even there, 2) it’s Sokka’s idea to put out their lights and follow the crystals, 3) that’s not actually The Solution 4) badgermoles can sense…. Emotions???????? Sorry that’s so fucking stupid it makes me angry. They include the legend where Oma and Shu learned earthbending from the badgermoles, so why would these giant creatures have learned to sense human emotion instead of the pre-existing explanation from the cartoon: sensing the world through the earth. You know, the thing that connects them to Toph’s earthbending. I guess setting up stuff as far away as… next season… isn’t important. They used the stuff from the season 2 episode “the swamp” for aspects of the winter solstice plot anyway, which is where Aang originally had a vision of Toph and thus was able to identify her as an earthbender in spite of her appearance. I guess they can come up with something else, but it’s just a decision that feels arbitrary. Sokka could have had his flashback without the spirit vision, but since this is before he meets and loses Yue they needed something, I guess. At this point I’m describing these changes not necessarily because I think they’re inherently bad but because I want to describe how fragile this jenga tower is getting, and how unnecessary they feel.

Ultimately it’s like… the things they’re the most faithful to are all the most surface-level easter egg references, while missing or changing the actual soul of the source material. Gran Gran gives the opening monologue word-for-word because Fans Will Get It. They include Bumi’s rock candy trick and lettuce leaf joke but make him resentful and angry at Aang for no reason I can understand. Sokka isn’t sexist anymore, he just has issues where his dad apparently thinks he ‘shouldn’t have lives in his hands’. Ozai is… wait- is he tearing up while he scars Zuko’s face?

I know we all love Daniel Dae Kim but we did not need Ozai so much this season, let alone Azula, let alone Mai and Ty Lee. We especially didn’t need a scene where Ozai praises Zuko to Azula while belittling her. For the record, because people defending this scene seem to think the issue is that the rest of us fail to understand that Ozai is playing his children against each other: That is not the issue. It’s that he did not play his children against each other in this specific way. He uses Azula to show Zuko how much he fails to measure up and threaten his position as heir, and he uses the example of Zuko’s failure to keep Azula in line. If she’s good enough and Zuko is bad enough maybe she’ll become heir. After all, that’s what happened to Ozai and Iroh. They are allowed to change this dynamic in adaptation but personally I think it’s a change for the worse, and the shot of tears in his eyes as he abuses his son lends credibility to an interpretation that maybe he does want Zuko to succeed. Lol. The cartoon focuses on Iroh’s reaction, his inability to watch, instead of Ozai’s… emotional conflict? Or whatever.

Katara and Sokka getting stuck in the spirit world as a replacement for their fever in The Blue Spirit is fine, I think condensing that plot and the winter solstice works decently. It’s fine that they changed Aang’s motivation for finding Roku to be getting info on how to save his friends instead of getting crucial info about Sozin’s Comet. After all, they clumsily introduced that in episode 1. It’s honestly fine (Read with as much cope in my voice as you want.) Combining that with Zuko’s half of The Storm is also…. Okay, even if I’ve already described why I don’t like how they adapted Zuko’s backstory. What frustrates me is that The Storm parallels Aang and Zuko’s backstories in a way that works really well with the events in The Blue Spirit. In fact, they’re back-to-back episodes. But the live action has moved Aang’s backstory to the beginning of the first episode. So instead of getting to see how they’re both constrained by the roles and times they were born into, and how heavily others’ expectations weigh on both of them, we have to have Aang explicitly spell it out for us. Rewatching these two episodes of the cartoon I was just really struck by how efficient the storytelling is. All Aang has to say after he’s saved Zuko is that he misses his friend from the Fire Nation, and that he wonders if he and Zuko could have been friends if they’d been born into a different time. All Zuko has to do is attack him in response. Because we’ve just seen why they can’t be friends in this time, in this world. The live action has to create some plot point about Aang having stolen Zuko’s diary, and Zuko having researched Airbender culture or something. They bond a little bit over brushes before Aang goes like ‘why don’t you turn against your family?’ The conversation (before that part) is cute, just like, not a good replacement for trusting the audience.

I guess once we’ve gotten this far it doesn’t matter much that Katara and Sokka have been captured by Koh, because of course they were. Yeah, they changed how it works, yeah, now he steals your face once you’ve succumbed to despair or something. Whatever. At this point it feels like nitpicking to point out that what made Koh so scary was that he would steal your face if you showed him any emotion at all. Who cares anymore.

^ok I wrote most of that before having seen the last two episodes, which cover the last three episodes of the first season of the cartoon. Dude it got even worse somehow. It’s been a couple days and my friends and I rewatched all of s1 of the original show in the meantime.

First of all, the changes to the dynamic between Hahn, Sokka, and Yue were completely inexplicable to me. Yue gets nominally ‘empowered’ in the sense that she’s no longer trapped in an arranged marriage to a total shithead, but at the same time they made Hahn seem like a… genuinely good guy? He’s humble, asks Sokka for his expertise, and nobly accepts that Yue broke up with him. When asked about it, Yue says ‘he’s great, he’s just not the guy of my dreams’, before kissing Sokka. (They also reveal that she was the sexy fox spirit that flirted with Sokka in the spirit world —I didn’t mention it before because I didn’t think it mattered at the time— so I guess we are meant to believe that Sokka is the boy of her dreams. Which we know from these two and a half conversations that manage to be way less cute than the awkward/shy flirting from the original show.) Even if they wanted to completely change Hahn’s character, Yue’s conflict in the original show was between her heart and what she saw as her responsibility to her people. They could just as easily have kept that element: that she isn’t in love with Hahn, but that for Political Reasons can’t just break things off. That’s way more interesting! But I do love a forbidden romance, so maybe that’s just me. The adaptation does say that they were at one point betrothed, which raises more questions than it answers. If both of their parents were anticipating this marriage so much that they set it up years in advance, why were they okay with her just breaking things off because she didn’t like him like that? Are arranged marriages in the Northern Water Tribe (I’m so sorry I forgot the name they gave it in this adaptation) purely meant to be love matches? There’s no financial or political element at all? Even for a princess? Whatever. Hahn still dies, this time it’s just offscreen. This time I’m actually a little sad for him, if just for his wasted potential.

They actually take out the engagement necklace stuff altogether, including the history between Pakku and Katara’s grandma, and the story of how and why she fled. I don’t really know why but maybe they thought “you lost the so-called love of your life to backward practices” was a weak reason to change his mind. So instead they have it that he doesn’t change his mind but it turns out Katara doesn’t need a master anyway because she’s already good enough to be a master! Despite not having been able to waterbend ‘more than a thimbleful’ before meeting Aang, and us not really getting to see her train at all. Gran Gran gave her the waterbending scroll she stole from the pirates in the cartoon, so I guess we can assume that contained everything you’d ever need to know. She loses the fight but wins the hearts and minds of the people. The women of the tribe support her when she goes against Pakku and go “we want to fight too!” Oh, did I mention this is all after they realize the Fire Navy is at their doorstep, so it’s less a fight about the right to learn waterbending than about the right to fight in war. And then again the issue of Katara needing to learn from Pakku is sidestepped by her magically being good enough now on her own. I don’t actually mind the change to include other women from the North standing up against sexism but to be honest I don’t understand taking out the betrothal stuff. It was a deliberate parallel in the cartoon- women trapped in loveless arranged marriages and also forbidden from learning any waterbending aside from healing. But whatever, it’s a choice. I can live with it.

What I don’t like is the way they’ve undermined Katara’s journey in season 1. Aang teaches Katara how to waterbend at first, and she also doesn’t learn to heal on her own before an elder shows her how to do it. In the cartoon, she’s been trying and figuring things out on her own all her life. Her hunger to find someone to teach her is a major motivator for why she wants to go to the North Pole. We see her struggle, get intensely frustrated and jealous that Aang picks up waterbending more naturally than she does, and work really hard at it. Her dedication and hard work are what Pakku eventually praises about her when he teaches her. He compares her to Aang, who is naturally talented but distracted. This is after an indeterminate amount of time, but whatever, condensed timeline, 8 episodes, whatever. We don’t even see Aang waterbend at all this season, which is kind of wild to me. I guess if you take out the Summer Solstice Comet deadline to master all four elements (which they did) Aang doesn’t really need to rush. Instead they kind of just have Aang have a thing of like “I have my friends to help me” which is….. ok….. Oh wait, is this why they don’t care that much about foreshadowing Toph? Are they just not gonna bother having Aang learn the elements and just have her show up and join them for whatever reason? Is that why they just totally removed ‘The Deserter’? Wait sorry, I’m assuming they’re planning that far in advance at all, my bad.

Okay also like I have to talk about this because it bothers me so much. Zhao was handled so badly. Whatever, have a Fire sage just give him the moon/ocean spirit exposition in a flashback instead of the way it unfolded in the cartoon (I guess we’re already not bothering to set up the great library since the gaang already met wan shi tong, I guess that’s… fine… Appa can get captured a different way, if they’re even going to bother with that plotline in season 2. If they’re even going to do a season 2.) Sure, the moon and ocean spirits are only in the physical realm and vulnerable for ‘only one night’ now as opposed to permanently. Zhao knows this but not that they’re fish. Okay. Whatever. Blah blah blah. Those are personal nitpicks. But what really gets me is that in the end, Iroh and Zuko kill Zhao. Or rather, Zuko doesn’t finish him off, Zhao tries to attack when his back is turned, and Iroh finishes him off (similar to the way their Agni Kai in the cartoon plays out.) In the cartoon, Zhao and Zuko are fighting, Aang-as-Ocean-Spirit grabs Zhao, and Zuko reaches out to try and help Zhao, which Zhao refuses. He chooses to meet his fate at the hands of the spirits he provoked rather than swallow his pride. This is such a good conclusion to Zhao’s character! The live action also fails to set Zhao up as a formidable firebender, which is also not strictly necessary but I think complements other elements of his character well. His first episode in the cartoon includes the Agni Kai between him and Zuko, establishing Zhao both as a firebending master and as someone who values his ambition and pride above all else. In s1e16, ‘the deserter’ we see him as the embodiment of fire’s destructive hunger: he is baited into destroying his own ships in his desire to “win” his fight with Aang. He gloats of how his siege of the North Pole will earn him a place in the history books, and to win he is willing to kill the moon, against Iroh’s exhortations. In the live action, we get a weird revelation that he was working with Azula, and she was the mastermind behind a lot of his plans? Huh? He also “reveals” that Ozai was only ever using Zuko to “motivate his sister”, which is both incredibly heavy-handed and completely redundant. I guess I should mention that the finale has a couple scenes thrown in where Azula is doing firebending training to pass some kind of arbitrary Test Ozai has set for her, while Mai and Ty Lee watch and tell her that her dad is like, being way too hard on her and she knows he’s manipulating her right? Thanks girls!

Anyway, I guess since the live-action completely removed the golden child/failure dynamic between Azula and Zuko we needed something to replace it. The “my father always said Azula was born lucky. He said I was lucky to be born” line summed up that relationship dynamic nicely. Oh well, who needs it. Instead Zuko is good enough to have beaten Ozai in a duel at 13, but Ozai decided he was weak for hesitating. Meanwhile Azula is struggling to meet his expectations. He banished his heir on a mission that, for the last hundred years, was considered a complete dead-end, so that he could, uhhhhh, Motivate her when he miraculously started succeeding. Masterful gambit, sir. Okay sorry to harp on that again. Back to Zhao. Actually, what else is there to say. He has a couple funny lines but he’s just not the same guy at all on either a superficial or deeper level. It’s so disappointing. It’s also just a really weak choice to make Iroh and Zuko responsible for his death. Maybe they couldn’t figure out how to make the special effects look good when the ocean spirit picked him up. It just misses the point of Zhao’s ultimate tragedy, to me. The man so lacking in self-control, so ambitious, so assured in his own superiority, that he saw the spirits themselves as his prey. To be destroyed by the forces he tried to destroy is so poetic! Instead let’s water down Zuko’s mercy and Iroh’s pacifism.

This is all I can remember at this point aside from nitpicks. Do I think the Koh vs Kuruk backstory needed to be spelled out like that? No. Did we need to almost have Momo DIE to get Sokka and Yue to the oasis? Not really. I don’t think the way Zhao “assassinated” Zuko in the live action made as much sense, but we took out the pirates so oh well.

When you get to a certain point I guess the question becomes ‘how much can you change in an adaptation and still call it an adaptation’. What do adaptations owe to their source material? Where does the spirit of a story reside? If the same plot beats happen, does it matter if characters are different? If the characters are faithful, does it matter if events are moved around? If the destination is the same, how much does it matter how you get there? What do I personally want to see in a ‘live-action’ adaptation of Avatar, this show that I loved so much growing up? Well, assuming that “don’t make one” isn’t a possibility, I would have preferred they follow more in One Piece’s footsteps. That adaptation wasn’t perfect either, and it condensed around 100 chapters of manga into 8 hours, but it really felt like it got the characters right. Avatar had a tough job too, but it condensed 7 hours 40 minutes of cartoon into 8 hours of- wait. No. Well at least we got the cabbage merchant.

#u guys dont even know how much the original shaped my adolescence.... #for that reason i was probably the most annoying person possible to watch the remake with #thank u to my friends

[f1-stuff]

mal, do you have any thoughts about the general cattiness of fred's comments about carlos and their strategy vs. his pace today? it feels like such a sharp 180 over how defensive fred was last week, but it really... felt like fred hung him out to dry this weekend. or are we all reading too much into it, and everything is business as usual in maranello?

I do have some thoughts on this tbh

I think that his comments are probably a mix of his genuine honest opinion, what the data/lap times were telling him, disappointment for the team not getting P2 in the Constructors', and the comments themselves sounding harsher than he maybe intended bc of both him being ESL and people's paraphrasing online making it sound worse than it really was.

If you read what he said in its entirety or watch his interviews with Sky, he clarifies that he does not think they lost the Constructors' in this last race, and that really they lost it bc of mistakes/incidents over the course of the season (which is true). Also, that they've performed much better in the second half of the season, so Carlos' lack of pace today was a surprise and something they need to analyze in the tests Tuesday. I don't think he entirely meant it as a 'Carlos performed badly,' and more as a 'the pace of his car was poor,' the blame being on the car/setup and not the driver.

I have no doubt that Fred knows how talented and skilled Carlos is, but he's also an honest man. Sometimes, we love that! Sometimes, it can come across quite harsh. But I still appreciate his honesty over the alternative. However, I do think that he avoided taking any responsibility for the strategy (which undoubtedly did not help Carlos). He probably should've never started on hard tyres, but I think an aggressive one-stop strategy (hard-medium or medium-hard) would've been better than whatever the heck they did instead. That way, cars on track would be forced to overtake Carlos, rather than the other way around.

More than Fred's comments though, I was disappointed by Ferrari's race report, the wording of which was honestly...abysmal imo.

Not only does this practically lay the blame on Carlos for losing the Constructors' for them, it also fails to acknowledge that he's the race winner in question for Ferrari this year. It gives the credit to "the team" for that win, when I would argue that it was Carlos' driving and clever DRS strategy that won him that race, not his team.

I also took issue with this paragraph:

It doesn't highlight (or even mention) Carlos' efforts or struggles whatsoever. (I want to stress that I agree that Charles tried everything, and that he had an amazing drive. He isn't to blame for the wording here. The P2 all came down to him in the end bc of the position the team and the car put their drivers in this year.)

I agree that Carlos struggled in this race (his pace dropped off from Stroll in front of him by a lot, although he came back at times), but it wasn't all on him, and I expected more support from his team, especially when he was able to claw his way up from P18 to P6 last race in Vegas. It wasn't a good weekend in Abu Dhabi for him, but drivers have bad weekends sometimes. Maybe if the strategy team or the car had less bad weekends, then this off-week for Carlos wouldn't have been such a hard hit.

Anyway, in the end, it might just be lack of awareness on the team's side, in terms of how their statements come across. I'm glad they're showing support for Charles after a rough season for him, and I think it's fair for Fred to be frank with Carlos if he's done a poor job, but it doesn't need to be shared with the media. If he must, then he should also take accountability on the team side. That's just my opinion 🤷🏻‍♀️

#please no one come to my asks to fight with me over this lol #I feel like all of this is pretty...objectively correct? But I'm aware I can't *really* be objective when it comes to carlos and charles lo #anon #ask #Abu Dhabi GP '23 #2023 #if i set aside my emotions carlos was slow this weekend (and crashed in FP2) #but that doesn't mean his pace was entirely his fault (meaning his setup just didn't suit this track/conditions as much)

[toomuchracket]

The detail of Ross holding his hand open for reader to squeeze as she walked past… I’m obsessed. I have 2 things to say.

Ross’s girlfriend in a girl group. They release a song and the lyrics are very much about Ross (talks about his height. How big he is. How GOOD he is in bed). And Matty delights in quoting the lyrics to Ross on stage. I like the idea of Ross posting a pic of him and his gf to ig w a caption related to the song.

My other thing to say is pls can you write a whole blurb ab subtle PDA between u and Ross, similar to the hand open thing bc oh my god that ruined me.

this has so much potential to be another ross universe... much to think about and Ponder hmmmmmm. also initial thingy can be found here! and yes i'll answer both things here

first part: obsessed with this, and obsessed with the thought that you rocked up to a writing session the day after the best sex of your life and went "i have an idea". also obsessed with you having to tell ross about the fact that you've written a song about him (not for the first time, to be fair) and how sexy he is, because if he's not cool with it then it'll go unreleased - he blushes like crazy when he reads the lyrics, but he secretly loves it, and even from a rough demo he's like "no this is a hit you have to release this song babe". i'm not going to attempt to write it, but i'm imagining the lyrics being chock-full of sex references (charli's like "this makes my banana split lyric look TAME" when she hears them), with a lot of them being really quite intricate metaphors and some others just like on the vibe of "yeah i'm getting bent over daily" - george and matty are simultaneously scandalised, jealous of how good these lyrics are ("we've been writing sex shit like this for twenty years and you outdo us with it on your first attempt smh"), and deeply deeply in love with the song and the way it's constructed/performed. as you said, matty (who is a known stan of your band btw) relishes the opportunity to pester ross with the lyrics onstage; when he introduces/credits the band, he starts singing one of the lyrics from it before he says ross's name, and ross just smirks and raises his eyebrows while the crowd go nuts (like i said, ross secretly loves it). and the fans (and your friends) go even more nuts when ross posts a pic of you and him all sexy and ready for date night on insta with the lyrics referenced or paraphrased in the caption - the best thing about it, though, is that he posts it the morning after date night, from bed, where the two of you are curled up sweaty and exhausted after a looooooong moment of ross proving your lyrics right lmao

second part: i think the subtle pda thing started because you and ross didn't make your relationship public until you had been together for a while, for whatever reason, but the nature of your job meant you guys would run into each other at events and you needed a little way to show affection while still maintaining your privacy. little squeezes of thighs under tables, three little tiny taps on the other's hand to say "i love you" when passing drinks to each other, trapping the other's leg between yours under the table to keep them close... a lot of stuff like that. and there were less subtle moments as you got drunker - ross resting his head on your shoulder to snuggle you under the guise of being tipsy and tired, asking about new developments in each other's careers (that you already know about lol) in order to give yourselves excuses to give long "congratulatory" hugs, cheek kisses hello and goodbye that accidentally seem to land on the corners of lips. obviously now you're openly a thing, you don't need to do all that, but the quick little touches are great for red carpets and moments where you have to be a bit more professional as members of your respective groups. but you can't go without touching ross, and he's the same with you - you just love each other too much to let it go unaddressed at any point lol <3

#mads muses #mads answers asks #ross asks #fluff asks #girlband gf

[wowowwild]

Ok so I've played through all of the first game now so I'm just going to ramble on for a bit. I was previously familiar with all but the last case.

Tbh if you don't go in a wrightworth shipper you aren't very likely to come out as one. The first game has it's moments, but I'm hoping the following games are more concrete bc I wouldn't want wrightworth to be athing at this juncture. Miles has too much personal development going on, he's not ready for that. Also, different than I was expecting: Miles seems more into Phoenix than vice versa and I thought it would be the other way around. Phoenix has that undying optimism for Miles (which may be hurting their case actually), but it's not convincing as romantic interest for me. Not that I would say it's impossible he's interested, it just hasn't developed much yet.

I like the overall theme/lens to view through of leaving, being left, and choosing to stay (my personal interpretation, and I am in now way writing a complete thesis paper here).

The first instance is in Mia's death. You could argue Phoenix's choosing to stay starts with Larry, but I think Mia's death is where it really takes off. Mia's death is a consequence of her choosing to stay (she chose her patch and stuck to it), and the consequence of her death is leaving. Phoenix and Mays are the most notable of those left behind. Phoenix is the one with the power in this situation and he chooses to stay (with Maya). He consistently chooses to stay with Miles, his belief unwavering.

We learn that Miles left and is choosing at first to stay leaving. In the Powers case he seems to be beginning to be choosing to stay and makes the decision more thoroughly during his own trials. His decision to stay with Phoenix and his morals. At the end (we all know what happens next) he chooses to stay by leaving.

At the end of Miles' cases, Maya leaves, but her leaving is really more about staying. She is leaving now so she can stay later, more staying by leaving.

Ema and Lana have the benefit of doing the leaving staying arc over the course of a single case. Lana left her morals and subsequently her sister but Ema chose to stay and so Lana had a place to come back to. Ema assures her during the trial that no matter what they'll still be sisters and showing once again she is staying. Had Ema chose to leave, Lana would be in jail and their relationship would never recover. Had Lana chosen to stay leaving the result would be much the same.

Rip to Gummy in RFtA. Phoenix is constantly roasting him, the guy (temporarily) loses his job, he has the worst timing imaginable. Love my boy.

I really like Angel Starr and Jake Marshall. They're such compelling characters and their gimmicks are fun. I feel like no one talks about them but at some point in the future expect many reblogs featuring them (idk when anything will pop out of my queue, it's got close to 500 in it so i keep having to up how many it posts daily)

Phoenix really sets up the 'Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth chooses death' with his 'you can either let what happened kill the prosecutor in you or let it grow' paraphrasing obviously bc I cannot be bothered to find the exact words but I knew as soon as I saw it.

I need someone to get Larry some help. idk if anyone can help him, but someone ought to try.

Not actually related to my playthrough but I got a 'let the parrot take the stand' shirt and it's my nee favorite article of clothing.

I don't have any other thoughts off the top of my head so that's it for now, but my other statements i started live blogging are under (#game posting) and I have decided I will continue to live blog as I go through JFA

#ace attorney #miles edgeworth #phoenix wright #wrightworth #maya fey #dick gumshoe #mia fey #larry butz #lana skye #ema skye #angel starr #jake marshall #game posting #pwaa

[this-strange-obsession]

Rant #4002746 (post-rant note: this is pretty lengthy boys and I’m not sorry bc it needs to be said)

(God I rant too much about this comic, but honestly this is the only place I can do that)

Okay, so, once again seeing a fairly common opinion among the fandom which I don’t agree with, so you all know what time it is!! That’s right! Another of my stupid piping hot takes!!

This episode is the result of the idea that Jekyll deserves all the hate and that he’s the bad guy in the story, blah blah blah. I know, I know, I’m just defending him because I relate to him to an alarming degree, BUT. I also think that everyone forgets that the rest of the characters we see in TGS aren’t exactly saints either.

I saw someone else point this out, but I didn’t know if everyone forgot or decided to ignore it, but Robert said some shitty stuff to Jekyll. And the thing is, he didn’t even do it as a one-off thing. I’ve warmed up to Robert, but I still don’t entirely like him. The biggest thing is obviously the whole breakup scene. And we could argue here that Jekyll interpreted incorrectly, HOWEVER. While Lanyon himself didn’t recite verbatim what was said, he still admitted it was “venomous” and he was lashing out.

Idk who needs to hear this, because it’s a very important thing to remember irl we tend to forget, but somebody taking their anger/stress out on their partner- physically OR verbally- IS NOT OKAY. In ANY situation.

It is NOT excusable. Regardless of the fact Lanyon was breaking up with Jekyll, especially BECAUSE he was breaking up with Jekyll, he has no right to yell or berate his partner the way he did. That’s the whole theme of this comic- not understanding how to communicate in a healthy way. It’s not just a problem Jekyll has and everyone is forgetting that.

You are allowed to be emotional in that scenario. You are allowed to be angry. But you have to understand how to feel angry in a way that doesn’t hurt anybody, whether that’s you or the people around you. You collect your thoughts beforehand, and at least somewhat try to articulate what you want to say. You blend the emotion with the logic, not just rid yourself of one or the other.

Lanyon did none of that. He was kind of self-destructing and in doing so, he pierced Jekyll with stray shrapnel. That was so not okay. And that’s me getting upset over the general description of the breakup. The fact that Lanyon essentially told Jekyll he was expendable?? Absolutely not. No. I was LIVID when I read that.

I don’t give a fuck, Lanyon in that moment was a piece of shit, and I hate him for it. And I’m even paraphrasing here, the actual quote was something closer to, “why would anybody give up their future prospects for someone like you?” OH MY FUCKING GODDD. “SOMEONE LIKE YOU?” “SOMEONE LIKE YOU????” OH HELL NO.

That’s not even touching on the fact that we can assume from how Jekyll described everything, this was his first gay relationship. This was the first time he acted on his “sinful desires.” And the way it ends is like this?

Once again, I relate to Jekyll a painful amount, and while it didn’t go exactly like this, it threw me back to the last argument me and my best friend had. Our relationship was… complicated. We liked each other, but it always seemed to be off. They would get into a relationship when I was acknowledging my feelings, and when I was repressing them, my best friend would starting pursuing me. At one point, we had a sort of unspoken thing going on where we both understood our feelings and we were VERY obviously gay for each other and even got a little too touchy for “just two good friends” frequently. But we never made it official. Over the last few months of the friendship, they became more distant and withdrawn. I confronted them about it, we had a huge and messy argument, and they said some really uncalled-for things. I have really bad mommy issues (TM), and they said something that really crossed the line.

I know I was no saint during our friendship or the argument, but jesus christ, there are just some things you should never say to people. And the fact that it was my closest friend and first queer crush/situationship(?) who said it? Of course I developed trust issues and trouble communicating my true feelings, like??

..Idk that just hit a nerve and I hate that people act like either of them are the victim. Again, I’m not saying Jekyll is completely innocent, but he’s also not completely guilty.

It’s not even JUST the breakup scene I hate. Lanyon is STILL kind of an asshole and enables Jekyll’s whole glass scientist complex. During the ball (I can’t remember the reason for it exactly, I think it was just for keeping appearances and connections.) when Jekyll was having horrible hallucinations and acting completely unlike himself, all Lanyon did was reinforce that idea that Jekyll just needs to pretend like he’s someone he isn’t.

If y’all don’t remember, Jekyll ran outside in the middle of the party because he was seeing a lot of disturbing shit and Moreau’s ghost grabbed him. When Lanyon found him, Jekyll was fervently babbling about Moreau following and judging him because he knows Jekyll’s “rotten on the inside.”

So how does Lanyon console him? He just starts his spiel about how it doesn’t matter if Jekyll is actually rotten on the inside, as long as he’s decent on the outside.

BRUH, I’M—

AHHHHHHHHH

..ehem..

I KNOW he immediately backpedals by saying Jekyll is the most decent guy he knows, but in that context, in Jekyll’s eyes, he was interpreting that as, “you are the most OUTWARDLY decent guy I know.” So that did jack-shit for Jekyll’s sanity because as much as Lanyon could have meant it about his personality, he didn’t execute it very well!?

There’s other little things I hate about him, such as the whole thing where instead of just fucking asking for an open and honest conversation, he goes behind Jekyll’s back and snoops in his office for answers. The thought of asking only occurs to him after this when Lucy points it out.

Idk, I like Lanyon as a character, I do- it’s just that I feel like we let him off the hook far too easily anytime he says or does something wrong just because he’s doing what he thinks is best for Jekyll.

There are better ways to go about supporting someone you care about. And it’s driven home a thousand times over that healthy communication is not a phrase these idiots have in their vocabulary, but I guess that keeps going way over some people’s heads and it’s been so goddamn frustrating seeing them drag Jekyll for things OTHER FUCKING CHARACTERS DO.

#the glass scientists #jekyll x lanyon #this is a callout post #their relationship needs to be addressed properly #so does every other character in tgs tbh #idc i’m calling out every one of these mfs #no one is safe lmao

[terrainofheartfelt]

Oooooh I’d love to hear some of your natessa thoughts! Your fic has been making me remember why I liked them so much

lmaooo whoops I started answering this immediately and then I had to do Work or something, and then time really got away from me BUT! here we are <333

it's reminded me too!! lol. but really spending time having to actually think about them and how they fit together has made me discover some stuff that I really love about their dynamic that maybe I felt, but was never cognizant enough to articulate it before.

for me, they hit something similar to date, but in a different way, and it's profound in a different kind of way, if that makes sense. which essentially boils down to this: Vanessa gives Nate the space and permission to take himself seriously, and Nate gives her the space and permission to take herself less seriously.

Leila's articulated this well before, how parallel their journeys end up being, not in literal circumstances, but in the emotional state they are in when they first connect. They've both grown up with parents who -- to varying degrees -- emotionally neglect their kids

obviously I would rate anne and howard archibald as Worse, but Vanessa must have decided to move back to New York and in with her sister for a reason, and I have to assume that at least one of those is that she felt unhappy and smothered and trapped by her parent's expectations, much like how Nate feels. but what's interesting is that they are outwardly on the opposite ends of the spectrum, like the vdb expectation was that Nate go to an Ivy at all costs, and Vanessa nearly didn't take the SAT because of her families opposition to privatized higher education. She tells Nate not going to college is the expectation of her parents.

I wouldn't say that the Abramses (and really we only meet Gabriella) are wrong for pointing out the system's faults, but from what we see, they put the onus of saving the world and being So Very Virtuous All the Time on Vanessa's shoulders, to the degree that she feels like a failure if she doesn't live up to those ideals. When Dan tells Gabriella "She loves you, she does, I just think she wishes you spent half the time listening to her that you do strangers" (I'm paraphrasing bc I don't feel like looking at the quote) It is a little bit of March Parents Syndrome, if that makes sense, they put so much time and energy into saving the world and assuming that their kids will be just fine that they kind of...fail to check in and make sure they're fine.

So Vanessa holds herself to this standard that she always be unassailable. and then we have Nate, who has all this pressure on him, but it isn't focused pressure, he doesn't have direction, and every time he makes an effort to find it, he's essentially told not to worry his pretty little head about it. the unspoken collective assumption is that he isn't smart enough or capable enough, so his parents and grandparents and blair and chuck all try to smooth his way at some point, probably not knowing that they're diminishing him. (I think you just said this to me in fic comments, but when chip says "your only problem is worrying whose hair is shinier.") Because he's beautiful, and not conventionally intelligent, Nate is written off, but Vanessa never does that.

and, while I was thinking about this response, I thought (yet again) of that speech serena gives in s4 when she's "trying to choose" between dan and nate, and she decides, "I guess I just need to find someone who gives me what I get from both of them." and the more I thought about it, I think that's Vanessa for Nate. Like Blair, she challenges him and brings him out of his intellectual comfort zone, and like Serena, she doesn't come to him with any expectations of The Great Golden Boy. He's just Nate with her. A good guy, but Vanessa doesn't have "good guy blinders" that keep her from calling him out when he needs it, just because he's relatively better than most men.

So, that is the core of what I really love about them. Vanessa challenges Nate, but not in a way that makes him feel small or stupid, like the VDBs do, but in a way that shows that she sees him and what he could be, and that he doesn't necessarily need to stay in the feedback loop he's known his whole life. And Vanessa, who is working so hard all of the time, Nate gives her permission to relax, to find joy without having to pick it apart for all its problems first. They complement and settle into each other in a way that I don't think any other partner they have in the show does.

#thank you for asking S!!!! #I am feeling very natessa endgame in this chili's tonight #asks #strideofpride #gg meta #natessa #it's loving vanessa hours #natie 💫💫💫 #natessa cutenessa #if nobody got me i know tumblr user strideofpride got me

[rahleeyah]

I laughed when you said you regret reading the opinions on Twitter. I did too. I was wondering if we all watched the same show. So many people saying we got no EO. Like huh? Yes SVU was about Amanda but the EO was there.

Mirror Effect. Olivia was watching Amanda deal with PTSD. She wasn’t only seeing things from an ‘I’ve been through that too’ point of view. But she also saw how it was affecting Carisi and her kids. Amanda wasn’t taking therapy seriously and her actions was scaring the people in her life who love her. You can’t convince me that she wasn’t seeing Elliot in Amanda’s behavior.

And the being alone and learning to love yourself line that has people upset. That wasn’t just about her. That was about Elliot too. And Olivia saying that doesn’t mean the writers won’t flip things and have them move a bit faster. We just don’t know.

Then on OC. The show has often taken their titles from movies. Catch Me If You Can. A movie about a man who is always on the run. Taking on different personalities. That has been Elliot since Kathy was killed. In the bar, he saw the news story about the death of the cop with a wife and 5 kids. It hit too close to home. He looked in the mirror and finally saw Elliot Stabler. (Mirror Effect!) With so much pent up negative emotions, he did what he does when he can’t deal. He uses his fist. Hopefully this will lead to him going to therapy.

I feel like we are going to get EO but it’s not always going to be so in our face. We may get it in a more subtle ways until they can put Chris and Mariska together. This weeks episodes felt like progress to me. David is doing a great job working with the OC writers. People just need to be patient. The season just started! Lol

i've been thinking about this a lot, bc it's been three episodes, and i have seen people say they're disappointed in the lack of eo, when i've been living bc it already feels like so much more than what we were getting in the non-crossover episodes last season.

and the thing is, i wrote a post about this and then deleted it but i'm gonna say it here - it does feel like we're watching different shows, bc we are. everybody is going to bring different expectations and different backgrounds to the show, and those different perspectives will result in wildly different interpretations. a line i think is a positive for eo is seen as a negative by others; which one of us is right? ultimately, i think it doesn't matter. i don't think capital R Right is something we can be. i may disagree with people, but isn't a lot of this subjective? to paraphrase the dude, it's just, like, my opinion, man. so i do try to pull myself back. i'm don't manage it every time bc i'm not perfect but i do try to just. live and let live.

NOW that being said you raised some really interesting points about the epis i wanna talk about lmao

i find it really interesting bc i was so focused on the ways amanda's behavior reminded me of olivia - down to the scene of carisi disarming her at home just like cassidy had to do, to the point where i had to gif it - that i didn't make the connection between amanda's behavior and elliot's until you mentioned it. and what's really interesting to me about this is that both of those things are true - that you can draw a parallel between amanda and liv and amanda and elliot - and bc a=b and b=c, a also equals c. i wrote a lot right after elliot came back about the parallels between his ptsd and olivia's. and there's no way olivia hasn't noticed that connection, both to elliot and amanda. so it's a connective thread that's really fun to spin around in my head like a marble.

i wrote a post about the learning to love yourself line so i won't rehash my thoughts but - yes. exactly. AND we have no idea how fast the writers are planning to move things. we are getting episode four this week like this baby is just getting started we have such a long way to go and 2/3 of this shit isn't even filmed yet lmao

AND anon your mind!!! the mirror effect/elliot seeing his face in the mirror, what a connection! i am honeslty super excited about this season bc the shows are actually being written as if they exist in the same universe for once! the svu ME turning up on oc! nods to eo on both svu and oc! benson and stabler both getting mini mes to train! it feels so cohesive and that is so exciting to me.

i absolutely think we are getting progress. and subtle is how l&o has ALWAYS done relationships. no one knows when liv and tucker officially got together. liv fucked cassidy in the s13 finale/s14 opener and it was such a tease, we only saw her naked in a bed with two wine glasses on the table and someone in the shower, only got a little tiny nod from cassidy to reveal that something was going on. kurt moss appears out of thin air and vanishes just as quickly. a possible romantic something with bayard ellis was teased but never outright explained. this is not a show that hands us things. we have to pick apart the nuances. and the nuances say eo is full steam ahead, so i'm not mad at it.

#anonymous #e.o asks #s.vu

[hurlockomega]

alistair for the ask game 😌

BLESS YOU. Also I apologize for the rant in advance.

first impression: honestly i thought he was a little annoying at first? i thought this was just some strange, funny frat boy assigned to me by handsome beard man, but then all of a sudden halfway through lothering im heart eyes in a wheat field?? i was like how tf did we get here i thought i didn't care about you?? so then i talk to him some more in camp and i find out he has Childhood Trauma™ and he's a little awkward and then i was in deep so fast. 13 years later i'm still here. mentally i'm still in that wheat field in lothering talking to this man about griffons.

impression now: first of all i would go to war for this man, my socially inept disaster boy. he's only grown on me more over the years and it's not stopping i love him so much. he's kind, he has a good heart, he's patient, he's petty, he's hilarious, he's childish (he's 19 he's forgiven) he's smart, he's insecure, i love him, i love him, i love him. i romance this dude once a year. i am beyond help.

favorite moments: god where to start. Uhhhhhh. paraphrased bc idr exactly: - when he mimicks morrigan's voice in the swamp. "First it's [I like you], then zap, frog time." - Put on a dress and dance the Remigold scene at Duncan's campfire - "Now that the warm, fuzzy part of the day is over with we can get back to the ritual dismemberments. Oh, wait, it's not Tuesday, is it?" - When he goes "Yeeeeees???" when you click on him at like 80 approval and he's romanced - "The reason I said I was lucky." line before u enter Redcliffe (after he tells u about his father) - "Why do they call it a 'brothel?' There's no broth, is there?" - When u enter the Denerim market and he goes "You can get almost anything here. I once got pickpocketed." - His banter with Dog. - Any of his nervous rambling.

idea for a story: Listen. I have So Many. I write him every day. It's Zevistair/surana hours all day every day in this house. He's one of the mains in my 200k+ words personal fic I use for creative therapy writing. I also want to write warden Alistair meeting Anders in Awakening together with a Surana or Amell that knows Anders. I'm also working on a modern AU dog walking fic. I want to write dialogue for him visiting the kennels when you sneak into Redcliffe castle. What if he had the warden's Sloth dream in the Tower, with Duncan. I want to write his first weeks as king. Stuff like that. unpopular opinion: Idk if it's still unpopular to think this but Alistair is biracial and brown. That is not a white man and Bioware whitewashed him to hell and back. Also he is bisexual. One Hundred percent. He gets so jealous when a male warden doesn't romance him (it's the most obvious when u romance Morrigan, but when u romance Zev he basically admits it when u ask him directly.) Again, idk if these opinions are still unpopular bc i exist in a carefully constructed echo chamber.

favorite relationship: romantic: Tabristair, Zevistair, Suranastair. non romantic: Sten, Duncan, Leliana.

favorite headcanon: This man is ND. Sometimes I write him more autistic leaning, sometimes adhd. Either way this man is ND. Also he is bi, but I consider that canon.

#alistair #cheese man #loml etc #ask meme

[killerandhealerqueen]

sleep over saturday :3

I’ll tell a story and then you can say one if you want

so a not so crush but feeling realization epiphany story after graduation-

when I was in high school I was best friends with the kpop drama lover who was negative and toxic BUT I would always bring her cereal and whatever breakfast was in school since she was always late and walk her to class bc that was what best friends did every day (?) and one school field trip as seniors we sat together and on the way home we listened to k-hip hop and fell asleep on each other, we even got her mat and laid on the floor in the middle of the hallway and used her umbrella to block people from getting near us while waiting for the bell to ring, she brought homemade gimbap for me and I always brought her lunch while I went to play basketball, it was a weird relationship we had but she showed me kpop (my first song was dope by bts and call me baby by exo) and dramas (the heirs was my first) and I’m thankful to her but she also scarred me so…yay for love :/

Oooof...that's rough.

Kind of reminds me of my story with my ex-boyfriend, whom I was friends with for 13 years. We started off as friends and it was great, we bickered and fought like an old married couple and everyone thought we were a couple because of how much we talked and shit until one day he decided that we should date. I wanted to stay friends but I did like him, so I agreed. It was fine for a while, nothing really changed, until a movie/birthday date where we kissed (he tried to do a french kiss and I was not having it). I immediately pulled away and then said I had to go to the bathroom where I then proceeded to wash my mouth out with soap. After that, we just kind of brushed it off, and we did try to do more dates, but I didn't particularly like holding hands (my hands got too clammy) and every kiss after was like super brief and then one day/evening when I was at his house, in his room, (which I had done a thousand times before) he kept trying to get closer and alarm bells were going off in my head so I said nope and went upstairs. He kept trying me to go back downstairs but I refused, which he was not happy about but I trust my gut and my alarm bells.

Later on, the late night skypes (which were like ridiculously late for high school students at the time) and the texts got to be too much until one day he was like "I want to see your boobs" and I'm like aw hell nah. I wasn't comfortable with that and I told him and after that, everything just sort of went fucking south. We pretty much broke up over text where he said that I was kind of like a guinea pig for "the one" (to paraphrase, I don't remember the actual text, it was like 5-6 years ago).

But yeah. Fun times. He did try to say that everything was my fault and tried to spread rumors (I think?) to a group of our mutual friends but jokes on fucking him because they all believed me and not him so ha!

(I also checked on him recently, just to see how he was doing and he still doesn't have his bachelors degree while I'm over here busting my ass to finish grad school with a masters and two graduate certificates...god, I am so lucky I didn't end up with him)

sleepover saturday | send me whatever

#sass answers #han edition #sleepover saturday

[firebirdsdaughter]

So…

… I think part of Neal’s problem is that even when he’s not on a con, he acts like he is.

For ex. rewatching Honour Among Thieves and I genuinely don’t think he planned it—or if he was supposed to have planned it, no one told Matt Bomer, which would kinda defeat the purpose. My rationale being that even though no one is watching him, he reacts in genuine surprise to how fast the FBI shows up at the end. Also he had no reason to hide the plan from Mozzie, who would support it, and instead we only see him brooding about the theft—although one could argue that that’s bc of the show’s habit of only showing selective scenes to hide the whole plan, yaddyada…

But I just don’t think he was planning that far ahead. I think he was genuinely upset and stressed about the blackmail and upset at the idea of going behind Peter’s back that he didn’t think that far ahead.

But I also can’t blame Peter for thinking he might have—bc honestly what he should have done, even after she framed him, was just tell Peter. Explain that Abigail was blackmailing him into the job, and hell, they might’ve even helped and made it a bonafide sting. But he doesn’t. Bc Neal doesn’t tell people things outside of emergency circumstances, and it seems to be a habit he can’t break. The fact that he kept this from Peter obviously makes Peter suspicious, bc it makes it seem like Neal planned it. But he didn’t. He defaulted to ‘fixing’ it himself, yet another habit he can’t seem to kick, the not relying on people.

I love the show, and this ep was actually well done on both sides, but at times I do agree that they try to force drama between Neal and Peter a little. I appreciated reading an interview by one of the show runners noting that they were struggling w/ that, which I think become visible a few times bc, to paraphrase ‘why are you still being a jerk to this guy who has done so much for you?’ Matt Bomer makes Neal likeable even in some of his more obnoxious moments (usually when they start going on about how wonderful being a thief is and I’m like… kinda sucks from here, but okay?), but there are occasions were I feel like Neal behaves suspiciously and then gets upset that Peter suspects him of something (not you s3, you and your character development are wonderful and I’m glad you’re here), or Peter gets made to be a bit overly nasty just to cause drama.

Honestly, my memories of the later seasons are kinda blurry, esp towards the end, but from what I’ve seen from other people, they are on good terms at the end, and the whole finale actually isn’t Neal running away to ‘live the high crime life’ again (like I originally thought, hence why I hadn’t really watched it) and is more along the lines of guerrilla witness protection? Bc faking your death and fleeing the city bc you’re trying to protect the people you love from a violent gang is one thing, but ‘waaaaahhh I wanna go back to stealing and using people and only caring about money’ is… Another. If it’s the former, I actually love that, bc it’d show how he’d changed from the start of the show to really start valuing people, whereas the second one just feels like ‘lol conman cool guys.’ Also makes the whole storage container thing (which I do know about) more of a promise of return than a farewell, bc I really dislike the latter.

I don’t care about Neal who only wants adrenaline rushes and money and lying to people bc it’s fun. I care about Neal who is intelligent and maybe a bit vain, impulsive and well meaning, faster talker, quirky, loves his adoptive parents and really needs to meet his new baby brother.

Like if you’re never gonna show me big Neal holding baby Neal, at least let me pretend it could happen eventually.

#White Collar #anyway Neal's a dumbass and I hate the whole 'high life of crime' schtick #Mozzie's lucky he's likeable the rest of the time bc every time he gets on about 'people like us' or whatever #I just #ugh #I hate elitists who wanna prove they're smarter than everyone #like I hated the Gordon Taylor guy I think he's shallow #and I think that shoulda been a comparison made between him and Neal #bc I don't want Neal at the end to be 'look he's a full conman' #I want him to be a better man #not a t swift reference I mean that literally #it's not as interesting if you have your protag just get everything #and it's annoying to just revert them back to the start bc some people think deceiving others is 'cool' #so like I said #I'd rather know it's Neal trying to protect his family and friends than running away from being 'tied down' by… people caring about him??? #Adopt a Felon 101

[bcofl0ve]

I never heard how you got a Barbie PR internship because of Austin blog. Did you put Austin Butler blog in a resume? I would love to hear this story if you are comfortable with sharing.

i had an internship at an agency that did PR for it! i helped with other movies too, just highlight barbie bc i mean…it’s barbie! in my cover letter i talked in professional speak about becoming interested in entertainment pr through running a celebrity update blog (i didn’t say the celebrity, i think i said something about he was a 2022 blockbuster star but that’s it) and tracking awards season which was my ‘first exposure’ to how important PR is to the film industry and how i was interested in becoming a part of that. my application with the cover letter got me an interview, which alone made me want to cry bc my employment background is all politics and social services, so i didn’t have any experience which i knew would make it harder to get my foot in the door. during my interview they asked me to talk more about how i became interested in pr when it’s not my background and i essentially expanded on what i said in my cover letter. they told me (paraphrasing, i was nervous and kinda blacked out haha) they thought that was unique and interesting…and then a week later i got the position.

i’m not comfy saying the agency i was at but it was a small one i hadn’t heard of before i found the job posting. not every aspect of a film campaign is run by huge agencies like WME/Entertainment 360 etc and you don’t have to start at the top to get your foot in the door!

the entertainment writing gig was more or less the same deal except i talked about how keeping up with entertainment journos/writers to track awards season made me interested in that world. though i have/had quite a bit of writing experience, it was just all politics focused not entertainment focused.

both things i found through the website entertainment careers, which i highly highly recommend! i have to spend the next two summers doing strictly legal internships bc of school so i don’t know when i’ll be back in the entertainment/pr world but i have two things i can put on my resume and for that i’m grateful!

#mollie talks about her life

[evilpenguinrika]

well i caved and decided to add the Archer class for Leo because I think having him be a Bard (once I hit lvl30 of Archer class) would be fitting.

Like sure, character backstory wise, Leo would read up on grimoires that Hope and Josie would have (as well as grimoires from Freya) and maybe even learned some of the bare basics or just watched Hope and Josie because he's the only Mikaelson kid that isn't a supernatural creature and is purely human. But he wants to do his best to research and learn so he could hopefully help his three older (supernatural) siblings one day should they need it. Which is why I figured the Scholar (and Astrologian--and I guess Summoner as well but my reasoning for Summoner needs to be tweaked. And I guess I need to expand more on why Astrologian would also be perfect for him--ALSO MACHINIST TOO MAYBE) job would be perfect for him in FFXIV. And he doesn't like seeing the people he loves hurt or injured bc of what happened when he was five before he got adopted by Hope and Josie (you can read about that here!) so it's a bonus that the Scholar job is categorized as a Healer (also more on scholar bc it's 1:13 am as i am typing this and my brain is not cooperating with me and they have a little blurb about the Scholar anyways that makes more sense to read than if I attempt to paraphrase)

But then came a thought.

In my very first Hosie fic, Sad Bedroom Eyes, I think i had Leo be really into plays and theatre and performance and stuff. And then I thought "Oh yeah, Bard would fit really well with his character, and maybe he'd be really into the performing arts when he gets older as well".

And in FFXIV, the starting class for Bards is an Archer. And then I had another thought: wasn't Josie and Lizzie's dad like, a vampire hunter or whatever? Had all these weapons and shit at his disposal. I think--character backstory wise--it would also make sense for Leo to want to learn how to fight if he is to ever support and protect his siblings. So he'd for sure go to grandpa Alaric and be like "grandpa can you teach me how to fight with all those cool weapons you have" or something idk.

Like ok, obviously Hope and Josie would not be happy their youngest is trying to learn how to fight. I mean maybe Hope would be happy to hear Leo wants to be able to hold his own and maybe learn how to defend himself--but the sole purpose of learning how to fight with weapons is to protect them and his siblings? His family that are all supernaturals???? His mom who is a Tribrid???? His other mom who is a Siphoner but also a Gemini witch and also pretty strong????? And not to mention his siblings, a Tribrid, a Werewolf, and a Siphoner--all equally strong and powerful????? Leo, honey, it's okay. YOu don't HAVE to learn to fight to protect them???

But Leo wants to anyways because this is his family and he NEVER EVER wants to lose them like he did with his other parents.

Because aside from learning magic despite not being a witch, he'd probably be able to find some creative way to incorporate what he knows of magic/potions (I like to think Leo is more potions-focused than spells since, again, he's human and maybe there are some potion spells that don't necessarily REQUIRE magic? idk i could be wrong, i never watched TVD, only TO and LGCS so feel free to correct me) into how he fights with weapons or something.

So that's why I caved and had Leo--in the game of FFXIV--pick up the Archer class and then hopefully later, become a Bard (since Bards still uses bows and arrows in the game).

#hosie #hosie fankids #hosie endgame #legacies hosie #welp this is the end of my late night musings #eprika rambles #rika plays ffxiv #hosie ffxiv au