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cassthecringe · 3 years

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loving you may mean losing you but i dont mind (jotakak playlist)

dont talk to me about the title of this thing im embarrassed enough

anyway but okay so!!!! very excited to share this!!!! this has been in the works since september but my picky ass finally found an adequate amount of songs so here it is!!!!!! my jotakak playlist (:

special thanks to my lovely and wonderful friend jade for helping me finish this this thing <3

track list nd why i picked the songs that i did under the break!

1. the predatory wasp of the palisades is out to get us! by sufjan stevens i chose this song because it’s all about internalized homophobia and being in love with your best friend as a kid which RLLY resonates w jotakak imo. esp cause in the song, stevens’ friend ends up leaving abruptly, leaving stevens to wonder about what couldve blossomed if they had stuck together and worked through the difficulties together, which JOTARO....THAT IS JOTARO-CORE esp cause kak also “leaves” (dies). so this song was a v obvious choice for me and in fact this song is what inspired me to create this playlist in the first place

2. we are beautiful, we are doomed by los campesinos! this song is abt being in love with someone but you both have ur issues so it’s kind of a mess. considering jotaro and kakyoin’s (to point it quite frankly) trauma and the fact that both of them do jack shit to try and cope with it healthily, this song DEFINITELY fits them. esp cause this song mentions physical fighting and the imagery that goes with it (”he got his teeth fixed/im gonna break them”, “i’ve got a fist on fire”, etc) and the entirety of the bridge/last verse rlly gives me these two’s vibes so! ya (:

3. love love love by of monsters and men this song is the singer feeling like shes completely unworthy of being loved by this important person in her life, particularly because she has NO idea how to show affection and love the (for lack of better word) “acceptable” way, or any way at all really. this REALLY has jotaro vibes cause he is one repressed motherfucker and as we see the entirety of his story, jotaro is full of love he loves so much it’s just he has no idea how to properly express it cause he’s scared essentially. but that didn’t stop people from loving him, in this case, that being kakyoin. hhhhHHh

4. ribs by lorde this song is about being scared of growing up but due to the lyrics being written the way they are, i kinda spin the interpretation of it to be the fear jotaro and kakyoin had on the crusade to egypt, as they were the youngest and didnt know if they’d make it back and everything is just incredibly overwhelming there is so much going on all the time those 50 days. i can do a full analysis on why but that would be kinda long LMAO. for now let’s leave it at they have a very Unique fear of growing up but it still fits with the lyrics. particularly the last bit of the song with the “youre the only friend i need” verses,,,makes me think of these two...

5. can i call you tonight? by dayglow i interpret this song to be about trying to figure out what, exactly, your feelings are for this very specific and important person in your life. since jotaro and kakyoin r both repressed and also suckers of internalized homophobia, i think they fit that theme very well. particularly with the whole “i feel like we’re close, but maybe we’re not actually? what are we?” theme going on in the lyrics, this whole song makes me think of jotaro and kakyoin figuring out their intense and sudden (cause again only 50 days but also, those 50 days had So Much going on) feelings for each other. also the “now i’m no longer alone” line in the chorus HHHHHHH that’s them

6. la la la love song by toshinobu kubota ft naomi campbell SO I KNOW THIS SONG IS KINDA JUST FLUFF but we need some light-hearted moments in this thing hjgg;. ALSO toshinobu kubota is canonically jotaro’s favorite musician so i wanted to reference that and this was my fav love song of his that i’ve found so far so (: also the “you are my shining star” line,,,heh

7. truce by twenty one pilots so this song is very soft. it’s about tending to wounds and taking a moment before continuing to push on. it makes me think abt jotaro and kakyoin taking care of each other on the journey (for example the lovers arc/n’doul fight). also the whole “stay alive, stay alive for me/you will die, but now your life is free/take pride in what is sure to die” makes me go fucking nuts that is. that fits these two to a T fuck

8. this side of paradise by coyote theory this song has big “two lonely people are in love with each other for the first time” vibes and OHHHHHHHHHH THAT’S JOTAKAK.... there are a lot of little lines that make me specifically think abt these two, such as “love so strong it makes me feel weak” (jotaro-core...), “if you’re lonely come be lonely with me”, “i’ll be yours if you’ll be mine” (wanting some security while ur in love for the first time is common but especially for these two i think it works spectacularly) but yea this song as a whole is just...ohhh them. theyre in lvoe HK;FNJFL

9. i saw you in a dream by the japanese house EVERY. SINGLE. LINE. OF THIS SONG IS POST-EGYPT JOTARO. EVERY SINGLE LINE. and the ghost the singer talks about seeing? they hadnt changed at all? they were such a pretty vision, a perfect hallucination? BRUH... just listen i could do a whole analysis on this song it all just fits jotaro mourning kakyoin throughout the years so so so so well it makes me feel nuts holy shit i just. literally every line. every line fits i am not joking. i cried when i first heard this song LMAO

10. video games by the young professionals SO LMAO obviously kakyoin’s epic gamer moves are being referenced but beyond that i interpret this song to just be the fun parts of being in love esp when ur young (backed up with the “kissing in the blue dark” and the “watching all our friends fall” lines). also the chorus just makes me want to cry cause just, happy jotakak moments PLEASE. “the world was built for two only worth living if somebody is loving you, and baby now you do” THEYRE NOT ALONE ANYMORE THEY FOUDN EACH OTHER IM GONAN WAILLLLLLL oh my god. im nuts theynkjNJKNJF also “i heard that you like the bad girls” please. these two shitty teenagers

11. ikanaide by sohta ft. yuki kaai this song is abt not wanting someone u love to leave u cause youll miss them obviously but also ur scared of how the time will change you and if it’ll make you unrecognizable eventually. big post-egypt jotaro vibes 😔 especially cause one part of the chorus translates to “i shouldnt cry, i shouldnt cry, but the truth is i want to say dont go” and im jus like OHHHHH NO IT’S JOTARO FINDING OUT KAKYOIN DIED jkfnNKJFNJDhkld

12. therefore you and me by eve ALRIGHT. god this song is one hell of a doozy. i interpret this song to mean being sincerely in love but youre in the wrong place/wrong time. considering the uh Whole Situation in part 3 there were definitely better times to fall in love for these two. jotaro and kakyoin try to be happy w the moments they do have (i think the second verse in particular adds to this sentiment what with the selfish ghosts part) but they want a better environment understandably so theyre also just kinda ignoring things until they can properly care for a relationship. but well...who knows if theyll live to make it to that better environment ):

13. mayonaka no door/stay with me by miki matsubara this song is a v sweet sentiment abt like “it’s not just heat of the moment!! i do care about u a lot!!” and asking the person u have feelings for to stick around. big kakyoin and jotaro vibes as it would be easy to call what they have a fling considering how relatively short of a timeframe they had but i genuinely think their relationship was deeper than just that and this song nicely reflects such. “jotaro and i will share a room cause we’re both students” fuckin head ass

14. a thousand years by sting oh sting.... so since sting is kakyoin’s favorite musician canonically i had to add one of his songs here as well but beyond just that i do think this song fits them!! it kinda gives me big “if not in this life, then the next” vibes which is a big uhhh thing for jotakak. they may be doomed to tragedy but the moments they have together make the tragedy worth enduring ironically i feel like this song is mostly from jotaro’s pov considering i dont think he ever completely got over kakyoin and this song def has that kinda sentiment but hey it fits them...

15. mr loverman by ricky montgomery SO FUNNY STORY i actually REALLY. REALLY didnt wanna add this song at first cause i felt it wouldve been...idk too cliche? i guess? and i was ALL kinds of picky when choosing songs for this playlist HOWEVER. eventually i relistened to it and read the lyrics while thinking specifically abt jotakak and it actually rlly does fit quite well KJDFN; another jotaro mourning song ): it’s not just the chorus tho the whole song fits jotaro immediately post-egypt but also i feel like some time around part 4 this sentiment would come back to him cause Yknow. Gays In Morioh and the mess of his family life back in america. it just aches for him cause while he’s happy josuke is happy he wishes he couldve had that for him and kakyoin too but yea jus ... them

16. you by petit biscuit an instrumental?? in a ship playlist?? yes that’s right much like mr loverman i was hesitant to put this song in cause it’s harder to justify since i dont rlly know much abt music (and not to b controversial but interpreting lyrics and interpreting music r two different things) however i really think the vibes of this song fit jotakak. it’s got a somber melody but the keys of the piano are high which im taking to mean “light in the dark” which. jotaro and kakyoin (along w the rest of the crusaders) were each other’s lights in the dark. also the ending samples a conference/lecture talking about space flight and like. star platinum. space symbolism. jotaro. yeah

17. saturn by sleeping at last MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. this song is all about losing someone very close and important to you, but reflecting on the good they brought into your life rather than the pain of losing them. this song also has HEAVY space imagery which stardust crusaders is absolutely chalk fucking full of so also it’s a very philosophical song and considering that jotaro and kakyoin are both Nerds and both got a nice view of the stars/space in the desert with each other, im sure they had conversations similar to the one highlighted in the song. i think it’s a good note to end the playlist on cause kakyoin is dead and jotaro is the survivor but it’s not a mourning song so much as jotaro taking the love he had for kakyoin and pushing forward with it allll th way into part 6

but yeah that’s the tracklist! i might add or take away a song or two but this is mostly it (: hope yall enjoy!

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aqvarius · 4 years

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With people comparing Namba and Matsunaga (both older, both have an ex which feels redundant plot wise, and having moments of being laid back but also stern), which of the two do you think is the better?(Though I'm not sure if rmd will go beyond the 2nd epilogue since all the backlash from LC and we'll probably never see any more character development from each guy)

hmmmMMMM okay so i still have thoughts about the future of rmd (which i’m still working on slowly to try and get all my Thoughts in order) pending for another ask BUT i actually still haven’t read namba’s adversaries so i feel like i can maybe make a decent comparison without namba having too much advantage

so matsunaga and namba are REALLY similar. the sad thing is that matsunaga’s history with his ex should tie into the plot but it really doesn’t (or rather the link between ex and the plot comes out of literally nowhere) unless you’ve read all the right heart scenes (i’m just presuming this, it might also come out of nowhere even if you’ve read all the heart scenes and also i don’t know which ones exactly bc i didn’t wanna spend any hearts on this route lol).

CUT FOR BIG SPOILERS

i do actually think that matsunaga’s route had more potential to weave in some more complex themes but ultimately ended up being a bit more basic(?) in terms of its core message. while yes, it is groundbreaking for voltage for them to write a bi love interest, i felt the way they tackled sexuality in this route wasn’t the most thoughtful. i mean, for the patient to basically go nuts (honestly don’t even remember his name bc this route made so little impact on me and i didn’t enjoy it enough to save screenshots lol) and murder his ex because he chose to preserve his public image as a celebrity and date a woman just felt like (1) not the most thoughtful character construction for a non-straight character and (2) just a way to (dare i say tokenistically) shoehorn in matsunaga’s sexuality without making it a genuinely impactful part of his personality and the development of his relationship with the mc.

for one, i have to reiterate that it really did come out of nowhere. most of the route focussed on matsunaga’s health issues (frankly unnecessary imo). for me it felt like the health issue thing was a way for matsunaga’s backstory (particularly in relation to kasumi) to be written in, and then the thing with his ex was the way for his character to relate somewhat to a seemingly unrelated case (the actual medical/patient case aspect of the route), but they honestly threw that in so last minute and it was such a passing thing as well? like i feel like matsunaga’s route and his character were developed more from the whole downplaying his health issues thing than his sexuality. however, because the climax of the route was about the patient going berserk, they kind of were like let’s diffuse this situation with a dramatic reveal about matsunaga’s sexuality and that GENUINELY felt like all that was used for. like all of the “getting closer” moments were related to his health issues or hanging out the pomeranian lol.

also honestly the ways in which both the patient and the female patient dealt with the singer’s death was exactly the same (i.e. wanting to die bc what’s the point in living if he’s no longer there) so i didn’t really see the point of there being two of them aside from setting up for a more dramatic ~gasp the singer was bi~ moment which in itself was just a setup for a more dramatic ~gasp matsunaga is bi~ moment right at the end. i also felt like they could have addressed the idea of fear of social discrimination in a more nuanced and thoughtful way? essentially i wasn’t a fan of the whole “he was afraid of being in a publicly gay relationship with me so i killed him bc he broke up with me to be with a woman” thing. and in my opinion, matsunaga contributed NOTHING to that entire theme aside from just saying “i had a boyfriend and we broke up for the same reasons except i didn’t become a murderer” which like........ you could have used this opportunity to actually explore the pain and difficulty of needing to hide your relationship because of social taboo or being discarded because your partner chose public image over you rather than just write this character off as a vengeful gay ex vs the good bi guy (matsunaga who just accepts injustices like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ que sera sera). i thought it would have been a stronger and more sophisticated story had they either focussed on either one theme or the other in this one route (health/life expectancy issues vs sexuality) instead of kind of having both be treated a little half-heartedly. the feeling i got was that the first step to getting closer (and i say this laughingly bc honestly the distance between them even after 30 chapters is GAPING) was the pomeranian and then the topic that gave their relationship a little more depth than “we’re just hanging out with your dog” was the revelation of his health issues.

also the idea that people live on through your memories of them felt a little like... overdone/simple? or that it was lacking a more sophisticated engagement with the idea of death, legacy and memories. i’ve read school life shoujo manga that deals with that theme in a more interesting way. so for me, it felt a little ingenuine that it was treated by as a perspective or way of thinking about death that was like a mindblowing new way to look at life ahead, especially since the characters involved are in their 20s, not early teens.

so anyway i think that matsunaga has potentially a deeper character? namba has more or less ‘healed’ or at least learnt to cope with his issues enough that you wouldn’t know anything is up but it’s clear that matsunaga still has a lot of personal issues to work through, so there was genuine potential to overcome some of that boss-subordinate power imbalance through having genuine connection between just humans or to develop him as a character whose prioritisation of others is maybe a flaw. i just think that they crammed so many things in that none of it really got addressed or developed properly lol.

i will say that i find matsunaga is way less fun than namba? namba is more of a “my pace” kind of guy - he’s more random/eccentric which i enjoy. matsunaga’s persona is more just like a regular nice guy? you would NEVER find matsunaga just on the street in costume pretending to be a fortune teller for no reason but to give you random love advice?

but on that same note, i definitely feel less chemistry between matsunaga and his mc compared to namba. maybe this is just bc i only read matsunaga’s normal ending in which she confesses and asks him out and he literally SAYS NO AND IT ENDS WITH HER GETTING REJECTED (and i’m p sure they still aren’t together even in the happy ending or the epilogue), but the whole time i feel like there was only ever a parent-child relationship between them. i never felt like matsunaga treated her any different than how he treats literally anyone else in the EICU. i actually think he treats kasumi the best out of everyone, including his mc. the weird thing is that rmd actually had way more time and potential - i mean they literally SET THE TWO CHARACTERS UP IN AN EXPLICITLY ROMANTIC CONTEXT and there was still NEGATIVE amounts of romantic chemistry??? HOW? namba and his mc literally were in a boss-subordinate dynamic the entire time and they still had more chemistry and genuine interpersonal connection without it feeling like the mc is a small pet vying for her owner’s attention the entire time while also somehow simultaneously trying to mother him? i’m not kidding when i say that namba and his mc are more fun in 10 chapters than matsunaga and his mc are in THIRTY.

ALSO namba’s (consistent lol) berating of his mc makes sense with his character and the context and is justified every time because his mc is a thoughtless noob (but one with potential that he sees his old self in). on the other hand, matsunaga has one moment when he scolds his mc for... some reason... but because she’s supposed to be this superstar student, she doesn’t really make the mistakes that allow her those learning opportunities. and then matsunaga basically just lets her do whatever she wants re: dealing with patients.

oh and also the plot of namba’s route is better.

in short, matsunaga’s route had potential but i feel like the missed potential and the lack of thoughtfulness in cramming in too many themes and not making the most of them are huge negative factors. namba has a more fun character, there is SO much more romantic chemistry between him and his mc, the plot is better and more interesting and has a twist without it feeling forced, namba’s comments about his age/their age gap make more sense for his character, his sprite is more attractive (lmaoooo), the relationship development is more organic, even the moments of rejection feel both more earned and heartbreaking. tl;dr: namba wins

ALSO sorry it took me so long to reply!! i’m still half in and out of tumblr

#Anonymous #snow answers #eiichi matsunaga #jin namba #romance md: always on call #rmdaoc #romance md #her love in the force #hlitf #voltage inc #voltage otome #otome game #otome romance #love 365 #love 365 find your story #love choice

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unproduciblesmackdown · 5 years

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thinking about jared kleinman hating himself and not being able to directly express affection for evan and totally being in love with him but even less able to directly express that, not only just because of the terrible communication of every single character but also because jared probably is assuming he’d be rejected by evan if he let on how he really feels / would find out that evan doesn’t feel similarly towards him.......knowing about evan’s supposedly hetero crush for however long evan’s been telling him about it...........having evan value this nonexistent friendship more than his actual relationship with jared and shutting jared out when jared’s trying to get closer............seeing evan try to believe his relationship with zoe could work and be Real and the fact that the scene which cements that Jared Is Upset With Evan starts off with jared inviting evan to come over and drink and ends with jared leaving after seeing zoe come over and kiss evan...................the fact that the good for you argument Arguably would seem to convey to jared that evan really doesn’t genuinely care about him on any level.............that jared is this kid already doing badly too at the start of everything and then he gets his Deep Insecurities(tm) confirmed and his crush kind of discards him even before gfy but then gfy is jared’s last ditch effort to change things by doing his best to get as close to directly addressing his issues as he can and the guy who he’s totally in love with and who’s his only friend only like, doubles and triples down on discarding jared..........

the fact that anyone interprets jared getting lashed out at in that scene as just like, some form of equilibrium in that this is just his comeuppance for Being A Bad Friend b/c that’s totally all his character is, is The Bad Friend.........it amazes me.......like jared wasn’t the one always approaching evan from the start, literally, evan doesn’t seek jared out, jared walks up to evan to talk with him......jared trying to take the chance to involve himself in evan’s life by offering up his computer skills, b/c speaking of equilibrium evan is jared’s only friend just the same as jared is evan’s only friend and thus every bit of evan’s loneliness must also be present in jared..........jared doing everything he does just for evan’s sake and to back him up and even when tcp starts up which isn’t just evan doing what he has to to get through this scrape anymore but is about trying to add on to the situation and build something entirely out of his own lies for the sake of what evan thinks can be good about said lies and jared backs him on this too and at the start of act 2 we see him still doing emails, offering to be more involved in tcp...........even after being pushed away jared’s still trying to follow evan and trying to be closer to him b/c when he’s making the rosh hashanah invitation he’s already got most of the bitterness he brings into gfy but he’s setting that aside and reaching out..............jared modifies “friends” to “family friends” and deflects the implication of having any Real attachment to evan and people are like “wow how cruel he’s the worst” but later on we learn that apparently prior to that evan was indirectly calling jared Not A Friend if he was spending junior year saying that he has no friends and even later on than that evan tells us that he knows he’s jared’s only friend so it’s not that evan truly internally believed that jared didn’t consider him a friend, it’s just that evan wasn’t satisfied with jared’s friendship, which frankly would’ve been true even if jared Had been better at being the kind of For Forever-y friend evan apparently wanted (see: my Hit Argument “jared kleinman and michael mell have such similar roles you fools”) and it’s fine evan isn’t thrilled with jared’s failure to directly verbalize any affection and attempts to hold him at arm’s length (which, my god, the hand on the shoulder during the “we’re family friends” bit.....not only is it gay, it’s...a visual metaphor??) but what evan does in gfy is not like, just the fair and just reaction to jared’s failures......it’s the same as it was with alana just before......evan implies that alana doesn’t genuinely care about the nature of what they’re doing with tcp, and he doesn’t say it because it’s true, he says it because if it WAS true, he wouldn’t have to be the one in the wrong because at least he does care about the potential good tcp can do. and when evan lashes out at jared it’s because he can’t handle feeling like he’s in the wrong right now and he’s been shutting jared out and so now he’s just doing what he can to shut down everything jared’s saying just because in this moment evan is having this crisis where he’s In It deeper than ever and it’s about to fall apart and he needs to believe he’s definitely been in the right but all the ways he’s been neglecting and resenting the people who are Really in his life but on the wrong side of the divide between “my world of lies” and “the fantasy world in which i’m playing a part born of my world of lies and i’m trying to believe that i can stay here and it can be genuine because IF this had all been true it would be totally fine right”

like we’re obviously not meant to think jared’s a great friend, obviously we’re meant to know evan’s not happy with jared’s friendship, but jared doesn’t ever do to evan what evan does to jared in gfy.........evan’s not dealing out harsh truths, he’s just trying to lie to himself harder than ever in this last ditch effort and also convince himself he’s justified in and capable of leaving his reality-based life behind and pretend he’s impervious to what everyone’s dealing at him in gfy..........we know heidi and alana and jared are flawed and that none of their relationships with evan are perfect and evan hasn’t been happy with these relationships but that doesn’t mean the gfy scene is about how evan is just finally fairly giving them what they all deserve. he’s not telling the truth, he’s just lashing out at them to protect himself from the truth. he basically tells jared that he has to help evan yet has no right to be acknowledged as a friend even though evan knows jared does consider him a friend...........like, what kind of messed up message is that to throw at someone? and he’s not doing it because he’s fed up with jared in any overarching way, he’s doing it because jared’s fed up with how evan’s been treating him recently and evan can’t deal with that conflict right now. evan cutting down jared’s version of saying “you should remember i’m your friend” with “no, and i know i’m your only friend so you don’t have any other options either, and instead of the stuff you did to help me with the emails and tcp being reason to remember you’re my friend, it’s just reason you have to continue to help me with that stuff because you’re just complicit” is like........truly giving him the message that he doesn’t care about jared in any capacity, and that’s in no way equivalent to or the natural consequence of jared saying “yeah we’re friends but only because our moms are friends” or teasing evan at any point or failing to be especially supportive.............neither jared nor evan are supposed to be amazing friends to each other and evan is definitely not supposed to be this beacon of purity, and if anything what jared says about stuff is always meant to be these perceptions that are more accurate re: reality than the stuff evan says is.........everyone who reacts to canon as “evan had pure motivations at all times and was a perfect, unselfish, doesn’t-even-think-things-that-aren’t-nice soul from the very beginning; meanwhile jared was a jerk who likes to be mean and doesn’t appreciate how perfect evan is and doesn’t deserve him and when evan is mean to him it’s because it’s the harsh truth that jared has earned” is wild and so wrong in so many ways

like, all the seniors are so similar, evan only has jared as his friend, jared only has evan as his friend, evan is deeply unhappy and in a bad place at the start of the play, jared is deeply unhappy and in a bad place at the start of the play, evan is dealing with unrequited love, jared is dealing with unrequited love for someone he actually knows, evan hates himself, jared hates himself...................like, my essay comparing the sympathy given evan and the (lack of) sympathy given jared is forthcoming (also with the understanding that the sympathy often given evan is pretty much just as wrong, seeing as it’s not helpful to interpret the self-destructive traits resulting from anxiety as Pureheartedness)

like ugh jared is unhappy and lonely and is in love with evan and is afraid of loving evan because he hates himself and imo thinks that evan can’t love him back because evan is in love with someone for (i was going to say that evan is in love with someone for traits so unlike jared’s but actually it’s like....never really explained why evan actually likes zoe. what’s up with “if i could tell her” doing absolutely nothing to say why evan likes zoe in the first place; what’s up with “only us” doing absolutely nothing to say why zoe likes evan. either zoe/evan wishes it had what jeremy/christine has or we truly are meant to view the whole relationship as indisputably unfounded)......at least evan is in love with a girl and desperately going “no homo” at jared which, sure you could just think that evan might assume zoe would think it’s too weird to date her dead brother’s secret gay high school lover, but still, jared’s the one out here trying to come out to evan and telling him there is nothing unrealistic about the love that one man feels for another and it’s something quite beautiful, and evan is the one acting weird about it..........not exactly the kind of thing to inspire confidence to confess your secret gay high school crush. and sure jared can’t directly communicate his attachment to evan in words, but he communicates it in the things he does. and is it more Significant that jared doesn’t want to sign evan’s cast (which, the whole cast-signing exercise isn’t some objective Friendship Test anyways, it’s just serving the purpose of a Personal Worth Litmus from evan’s unvoiced perspective) or that jared goes to great lengths to back up evan’s lie for no personal benefit to himself other than feeling closer to evan, and that jared supports evan on tcp despite there definitely being no further personal benefit, and that jared keeps trying to remain close to evan through emails and trying to offer his help with tcp instead if that’s more relevant and trying to invite him over and feeling bitter that evan doesn’t want to give him the time of day anymore now that he’s got something new and not even real..........but he wouldn’t sign evan’s cast so none of that counts for anything and he deserves gfy then huh

like yeah evan doesn’t HAVE to consider jared a friend. but again it’s only convenient for evan himself to decide to invoke that during gfy and never prior. it would be fair if after the opening scene with jared evan decided “okay that proves that jared isn’t my friend” (or okay maybe not really “”fair”” because it doesn’t Actually prove that; it’s only by evan’s own standards of what friendship ~should~ look like that he considers his interaction with evan to be a Letdown, same as how he considers his interaction with alana to be a Letdown) but yeah he could decide not to consider jared a friend after that for whatever reason because he doesn’t really need a Valid Enough reason, if you don’t wanna be friends with someone you don’t have to be friends with them. but evan then is Repeatedly video calling jared to vent the wild shit going on with him and says he’s doing it because jared’s his only friend, which is understandable but it’s evan choosing to continue at least behaving like jared really is his friend whether or not he considers him to be one, and evan letting jared help with the emails for a Genuinely Nominal Fee is clearly a result of jared considering them to be friends in a way that just so happens to also be convenient to evan in this issue, and jared helping with tcp for no other reason than it’s what evan wants to do is jared considering them to be friends in a way that happens to be convenient to evan in that matter, and evan just assuming that jared will continue to provide emails and back tcp in perpetuity?? doesn’t line up with any idea that evan is truly considering them to be Not Friends and is behaving in a way that reflects that. everything jared does is in support of evan and the way jared is repaid is just by getting to be more closely involved with evan, but even before act 1 is over, even by sincerely me, evan is trying to leave jared behind, thus negating what motivates jared, yet is expecting jared to continue to help him despite sabotaging jared’s motivation for doing so.

like, evan is benefitting from jared’s desire to deepen their relationship, and it’s not that evan Has to consider himself closer to jared just because that’s what jared wants, but like.........he just doesn’t treat jared fairly. he can believe that $20 is enough compensation, he can believe that it’s none of his concern what’s motivating jared to write the emails and be involved in tcp, he Could plausibly be totally ignorant of the fact that jared was helping him because he considered evan to be his friend, and if that was the case he Could believe he’s innocent of taking advantage of that. and imo in good for you this is what evan’s kind of trying to pretend is true because if it WAS true then evan’s not in the wrong. and just like everything else, if it IS true, or at least if nobody knows it’s NOT true, it COULD be fine and possible for him to live out this fantasy where he’s this weird connor substitute but also....dating zoe....and leaving behind his imperfect mom and imperfect friends but not needing to feel guilty about it. he’s arguing with jared in gfy as if it’s true that evan wasn’t aware the whole time that jared was helping him because evan’s his only friend, as if jared was and should be helping only because the fact he chose to help in the first place means he’s in it as deep as evan. but evan WAS aware that jared was helping him for a reason, and that reason wasn’t $20. the whole time evan knew that jared was helping him b/c evan was his friend. and no evan didn’t Have to be a friend for jared in return b/c he never agreed that he should owe jared that, but evan Was knowingly benefitting from jared’s desire for evan to be his friend, and that’s undeniably messed up. and imo evan Knows This and feels conflicted and guilty about it and that’s why in gfy, when he’s trying to convince himself he can still be the good guy and none of these people who are angry at him are justified, he points out that jared would be alone without evan (reducing jared’s desire to be closer to evan as selfishness) and that jared would be in just as much shit as evan if the truth came out (also trying to force jared’s motivation to continue backing the lies into the frame of selfishness)...........like to argue that at that point evan is bein righteous b/c he Just Doesn’t Owe Jared Anything is at least acknowledging that evan’s basically been like....platonically Leading Jared On. if he had truly been ignorant that jared wanted to be his friend then it would still be a bit conveniently self-serving for him to be satisfied accepting jared’s help without knowing jared’s motivation for doing so........and if he had known that jared truly considered him a friend as he implies he knew all along then he Did take advantage of that by Again Conveniently allowing jared to operate under that assumption because it benefitted evan. if he stopped considering jared a friend then he shouldn’t have done that. it’s passive and at worst it’s lying by omission but it’s still not solely jared’s fault if he were trying to be friends with evan when evan didn’t want to be friends with him. evan was letting jared pursue this friendship because it helped him. if he didn’t want to be friends with jared, he should’ve tried to figure out why jared wanted to help him, and if he knew it was because jared Did want to be his friend, he should have refused that help. and evan Did know that it was because jared wanted evan to be his friend, but he didn’t refuse the help. tldr what i’m trying to say is that any way you look at it, it’s not that jared has some inalienable right to evan’s friendship, but jared Did have reason to feel he’d been played by evan, and evan knew that jared wanted evan’s friendship and if there was any justified time to pull the “you only want to be my friend because you have nobody else and so no, i don’t have to consider you or treat you like a friend” move, it was after (or before) jared’s first appearance and before evan videocalled jared to vent “because you’re my only (family) friend”

ugh like of course evan has Reasons he has grievances with heidi and alana and jared but gfy isn’t about evan being justified as it is about the other three being justified in their anger at evan, while evan is the one trying to justify himself. it’s not that evan is 100% In The Wrong in all ways in that scene but it’s like....definitely Peak Evan’s Wrongness. and reacting not by abandoning the lies but to double down on them b/c he thinks he truly can’t handle abandoning the lies is what dooms him to Words Fail. classic ev

UGH anyways it’s just that jared does get used and does get evan accusing him of having no real feelings in all of this and seeming to reject any of jared’s feelings for him in particular, and he loses his only friend, and he’s heartbroken, and evan lets him go but jared never stops keeping the truth a secret, and that’s just the last we get to know about him

like god......thinking about jared hating himself, and thinking about jared crying during good for you..................jesus christ

i mean, we only see things from evan’s perspective, and when jared disappears from evan’s literal or figurative field of vision, he disappears to the audience too. we don’t see jared at home in his bedroom, we don’t hear jared’s inner conflicts through solos, we just glimpse him through sincerely me and “if you only say the word from across the silence your voice is heard” and his gfy solo lines.......like, it’s so centered around evan that jared and alana irony of ironies do just ultimately Disappear..........how much is deh’s Final Form still haunted by the Untitled PPL Project origins where evan was presumably Our Sympathetic Hero and everyone else was dumbass cautionary-tale jerks worth our headshaking or tsks or contempt...........saying it wasn’t even until after the arena stage run that jared was given the Emotional Journey that extends into act 2..............like, the domination of evan’s perspective continues even though the other characters are fleshed out and sympathetic and all meant to be conflicted and flawed to fairly equal degrees. and that’s not necessarily Bad, especially for a main character with reason to be really caught up in his own head, but it certainly means that anyone who interprets evan’s perspective as Righteous and The Moral Standard within the material is going to negatively judge literally all the other characters as officially in the wrong, as they all end up at odds with evan at some point

it’s just like....people don’t afford jared the same assumption of interiority as they do evan. people assume that what’s on the surface, that the deflective nature of how jared communicates, is a true reflection of the whole of jared’s being. people act like the character is light and doesn’t carry real emotional weight and that “i know you think this is all a big joke” must be true, and that jared responds in increased frustration because.........he totally thinks it’s all a big joke. jared is so similar to evan, just like the other two seniors are, and jared only has one friend and we don’t even have evidence that evan consistently calls jared a friend, and all the evidence of the distance between jared and evan is evidence of jared’s isolation just as much as evan’s, but it’s like people just don’t think that has as much importance, because jared’s joking around about jerking off, he’s clearly fine!! if he only had one friend and Truly valued evan, the only way he could show that would be to prostrate himself before evan and weep upon seeing him!! acting like he doesn’t care about being close to evan because he’s totally so fine and confident and has so many friends should be taken at face value as true!

ugh like we sympathize with evan for being afraid of people, but jared is afraid of people too, but where evan is trying to protect himself by being as inoffensive and inobtrusive as possible, jared is trying to protect himself by acting like he just isn’t scared of anyone at all and can’t be hurt because he doesn’t care. and evan’s suffering is justifiably given recognition, but jared just gets ignored and dismissed as a jerk, despite suffering in the same way. we aren’t told that jared is diagnosed with an anxiety disorder or with anything else, and we aren’t ever told that jared ever tried to kill himself, but this isn’t because these kinds of things couldn’t possibly be relevant, but rather because we just aren’t told much about jared at all. we only learn about jared through jared, who mostly only interacts with evan and is never onstage without evan also being onstage, who deflects all the time, who never tells his parents anything true about himself. nobody really knew connor and evan feels like nobody really knows him and nobody seems to really know jared and we sure don’t have any evidence of anyone really knowing alana. and in the end jared is left with no friends at all and this fresh rejection and parents who he thinks have no idea that they don’t know anything true about him, and he was not doing well when he first appeared, and his whole journey was a desperate attempt to improve things, and it left him even worse off than when he started, and we see jared as this light jokey role reducible to “memes & rude”??

that’s at least less horrifying a reaction than reducing him to “a jerk who gets his comeuppance.” like, again, jared is a highschooler in an awful place at the start of the play, canonically so so similar to alana and evan and connor, and connor kills himself and we sympathize with how horribly evan is suffering and the seriousness of the suffering of anyone in similar situations..............and jared is one of those people, one of those teenagers tcp is supposed to address, he’s a 17 year-old who IS similarly suffering, and we interpret him as...just a jerk. someone who causes all his own problems because he’s not nice enough and who deserves what he gets in the course of events; someone who is so similar to evan but ends up feeling rejected by his only friend, betrayed by his own attempts to have a realer relationship and be closer to someone in a more genuine way, without any reason to believe he at least has the emotional support of his parents who don’t know anything about him..........and we just feel this is what he deserves because he teases evan too much and didn’t sign his cast and called them family friends.

and even the sympathy given evan is pretty messed up like i mentioned earlier because it’s REALLY not useful to interpret his anxiety as being Too Pure For This World. it’s not even who he really is - see: evan being himself around jared during sincerely me; aka not being at all quiet and polite and inobtrusive - see: evan clearly not being accurate when he tries to make a good impression on zoe by saying he doesn’t even think things that aren’t nice. evan doesn’t exhibit those anxious defensive behaviors because he Wants to, he acts that way because he’s scared of people and trying to avoid being hurt. saying that this is Pure And Soft is messed up and just reinforces some notion that evan needs to stay that way rather than be a happier person by learning how Not to feel like he always has to act nice and avoid any conflict and not speak up or stand up for himself. saying that these kinds of perspectives, when you’re scared of everyone and expecting to be hurt by the world for existing if you don’t protect yourself by trying to give people zero reason to take objection to anything you do or even notice you exist at all, is just Purity and Kindhearted Selflessness is really just a harmful concept. it says that people dealing with that should continue to suffer just as they are and that for their experience with this to improve would necessarily involve them becoming worse as people - meaner and more selfish and less deserving of sympathy.

meanwhile, jared’s way of reacting to his fear that he’s going to be hurt by anyone and everyone just for existing happens to be less appealing to people. evan tries to get through life by hoping nobody directs any attention to him, jared is trying to get through it by controlling the way people give him attention, by sending out a signal that also says “there’s no reason to mess with me,” except that instead of like how evan is trying to please and placate everyone, jared is trying to pretend he’s confident and doesn’t care and he’s trying to withhold access to his real emotions from absolutely everyone. he’s trying to deny his real desires even to himself and keep them buried and hidden, but these desires are so desperate that he can’t, because he’s trying to pretend he’s fine, but he’s really really really not. but he’s just a jerk because he makes fun of his friend and isn’t nice enough to evan within the parameters of what evan wants that to look like. jared’s whole motivation throughout the show is his being in love with evan, but people really are gonna believe that jared’s just doing everything because his sole driving force truly is “it’s all a joke haha”.......jared and alana both try to act fine and unaffected, and everyone just immediately accept that. when they have the slightest amount of conflict with evan or behave in ways that we as the audience know aren’t evan’s ideal hope for how they’d act, they’re jerks and/or bullying evan and pushing him around, because god knows where people get this idea that evan’s constantly completely passive and just gets pushed into the position he finds himself in by other people, but absolutely nothing in canon material supports that. jared and alana are the ones backing evan up during disappear, and they’re the ones who end up disappearing after that, and we just go “who? oh yeah those two. w/e they’re fine”

like, irl people really don’t know what it looks like when people aren’t nt, what it looks like when they’re affected by something traumatic, what it looks like when they’ve been isolated and left to deal with awful things on their own and are struggling and aren’t coping in ways that appeal to others and they just get painted as weird and unpleasant and generally bad. and really this real-world ignorance and these misconceptions are Emergent in how people react to reflections of these issues in media / through media analysis. pretty wild that connor and alana and jared can all be reduced to Jerks depending on who you ask!! even that evan sometimes gets called a jerk because someone has noticed that he’s struggling horribly AND he’s also not REALLY Pure And Goldenhearted And Selfless, so therefore he doesn’t Deserve to be sympathetic b/c he’s anxious and suicidal, since the only people who deserve sympathy for these uncomfortable and inconvenient things are people who are Otherwise Perfect and have earned being regarded as Unjustly Afflicted with these issues and worthy of our pity

when people have to struggle to navigate terrible stuff by themselves, they don’t always figure out the right way to do it by 17 years of age!!! none of the deh seniors are actually Good at coping with their lives yet! they’re all trying but they’re self-sabotaging and are really just isolated further by the ways they try to interact with others. they’re isolated and the ways they desperately try to deal with that just isolate them further. like, this shit is real. and the fact that people reacting to these experiences depicted via fictional teenagers is not heartening for how they might understand these kinds of experiences in like, actual life. the way jared acts Doesn’t indicate that he’s totally fine but people truly take it at face value and think jared isn’t affected by things and doesn’t have emotional depth and only cares about being funny and clever. jared keeps people at a distance and acts rude or uncaring as a way to protect himself because he’s scared of people’s ability to hurt him, not because he’s malicious and likes to hurt people’s feelings, but people really just think he’s an asshole who deserves to be hurt in return, because i guess even if he WAS just always trying to be an asshole for his own amusement, we absolutely want the treatment a highschooler receives to be “vengeance,” i guess. it’s just really messed up that not only do most people not have any idea what reactions to things like deep and pervasive fear and depression and stress and sadness and self-loathing actually look like, but so often when they unknowingly see it, if the manifestations come across as too Mean or Unpleasant or Annoying or Offputting, they think the person deserves to be punished and treated badly / with hostility and that you can speculate on how these traits must reflect the deficiencies of someone’s internal worth and the quality of their character.

like, idk, demeanor is really so so overrated as a measure of what someone’s really like. it’s so often misread but also given disproportionate weight as a reflection of who they really are. i think a fair amount about these two segments i heard: one about Triage where a doctor talks about these two patients and one was very warm and friendly and everyone loved her and one was less pleasant and standoffish, and when the former was having respiratory problems when oxygen was strictly rationed, the attendees considered breaking the rules to give her oxygen (which in the end wasn’t necessary, it cleared up without it) and the doctor was wondering if they’d have been moved to consider that for the less popular patient as well. and the second story where Professional Scientists got to go on the plane that flies in parabolas so that when its at the peak of the arc you experience weightlessness, and you get to go on the plane because you’re doing serious experiments and everything you bring on board has to pass inspection and be justified as Necessary and everything is very planned out and you can’t fool around and you have to conduct all your experiments and the point is it’s all very serious - and the guy was talking about how they all get on the plane taking it very seriously and prepared to conduct theyir serious experiments, but when the first moment of weightlessness came everybody was laughing and clearly having a blast, and had that reaction pretty much each time. but they also stuck to the plan and conducted their serious experiments. and the idea was that “taking things seriously” doesn’t require a solemn demeanor, wipe that smile off your face. and i’m annoyed with the Frequent but unfounded trope in fics where jared communicates things in a humorous way pretty much all the time like in canon but then the fact that he’s still being dryly humorous in a ~serious moment~ leads to him being admonished because he won’t Be Serious or Take This Seriously.

i’m also annoyed with the frequent, unfounded fic trope where jared gets the “jared, you ignorant slut” treatment b/c he has never known True Pain and only evan and connor Get It and jared’s just some nt asshole who truly thinks everything’s a joke, alana generally also does not know sadness either of course

like relevantly enough, though i relate to jared more, in terms of how i react to Issues i guess i’m kind of most like evan (and a bit like alana i guess), and back in the day when i was earlier along in the process of dragging myself out of the depths of self-loathing (pretty singlehandedly though i wasn’t totally isolated from anyone supportive, which is always helpful) i sort of had this “joke” about it that i was learning how to become meaner lol.............because the ~selfless~ and Nice and Pleasant thing was obviously to think you deserve the worse and should accept whatever terrible treatment you get as Also Deserved and should keep your head down and in every interaction should be as pleasant and nice and convenient and inobtrusive as possible. i pushed myself to believe that i at least didn’t deserve to be suicidal through being contrarian and “mean” and embracing that i didn’t have to care if anyone disagreed. even thinking about the concept that i deserved to stand up for myself was like, Being Mean lol.......thinking about ways in which my experiences dealing with other people made me miserable sometimes finally started to make more sense when i looked at it through a lens of “maybe i wasn’t always getting amazing treatment from everyone ever”..........thinking about my own perspective having as much inherent validity as anyone else’s was like, the undeserved entitlement of it all, lol......like i definitely thought of it and talked about it all as Being Meaner, and i was being humorous, but also not really in an Absurd way b/c i knew and i know that people really do think that like, self-flagellation and only deserving to ascend out of self-hatred if someone else notices you’re experiencing that and deems you worthy of redemption and generally reacting to pain by being a sweet innocent lamb who is utterly bemused by everything All Equals being Nice and Lovely and Worthy Of Pity. and that if you’re not that lamb and you’re not initially pleasant and you’re offputting because you don’t expect other people to treat you well then like, other people aren’t going to treat you well and they’re going to write you off and dismiss you or change how they react to you versus how they react to someone who they think Acts Better and thus Is better............people will see types of behavior that indicate someone is suffering and they’ll either go “wow so kind and pure and not worthy of attention b/c their behavior is inoffensive and they avoid attention anyways and don’t get in the way” or “this person is terrible and they can’t possibly deserve sympathy or a second thought about their inner world because this is proof they don’t have one or it’s Bad and so i’ll either want to punish or ignore them”

this isn’t my first rodeo of “teenage character clearly needs help and people don’t notice this at all and/or inaccurately judges their intentions and motivations and writes them off as a jerk” and the consistency in this kind of Interpretation is always so heartening, really

and don’t even get me started on people calling jared “abusive” or even implying it....not my first rodeo on this either.....but, first of all, same as above, people REALLY don’t know what it Actually looks like when someone’s experienced abuse, and the fact that there’s this tendency irl (and in the emergent reflection of these misconceptions in reaction to / analysis of media) to interpret qualities and experiences and tendencies that are associated with having gone through abuse as people being weird / jerkish / annoying / exhausting etc is.....great. and while i could just say “jared is not abusive and never try to argue that he is” and leave it at that, a real quick example of some observances of why this is the case: jared doesn’t try to control evan. he doesn’t try to undermine evan’s decisions. he doesn’t undermine evan’s emotions. when jared’s unhappy with evan, he’s not trying to force evan to do what he wants, he’s trying to change His Own behavior to get what he wants. when he fights with evan, it’s a back and forth. evan isn’t afraid or even hesitant to argue with jared at any point, and even asserts himself over jared sometimes (whereas jared truly never asserts himself over anyone and avoids real, direct conflict whenever he can). when jared feels rejected and is completely upset with evan in gfy, he just leaves and we’re never told he tries to interact with evan again. look at how they confront each other, whether in gfy or sincerely me. look at how jared tries to get what he wants, and look at how he reacts when he doesn’t get it. he doesn’t try to control what evan can do or demand irrefutable power in any and every situation which he’ll back up with retribution...........evan and jared’s relationship is obviously not in its ideal state and this is coming from both ends. they way they treat each other isn’t always fair and kind and considerate, but it has nothing in the least to do with abuse, even if you think they’re conclusively bad for each other. it’s genuinely harmful to misuse the word abuse and create misinformation about it by doing so, and speaking of taking things seriously: stop doing this. don’t talk definitively about it even in passing if you don’t know what you’re talking about, take it seriously. don’t just try to bolster the authority of your opinion by being all “i’m over here with real criticisms like ‘this is abusive’ while everyone else is faffing around just saying ‘it’s not great, it’s not the healthiest’ like an idiot.” genuinely stop it

ugh....

well anyways i guess i don’t have to Get Around to finally writing that “comparing the way jared and evan are afforded sympathy” essay because this is about as close as i’ll get to it. god i hope i didn’t leave out any major obvious points

tl;dr *thinks about jared crying during good for you*

#long post //////#deh #kleinsen #everything is about kleinsen always #because that's all deh really is #jared is in love with evan and That's What Happens

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mswyrr · 5 years

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more captain marvel thoughts

Rather than thinking she was “flat” I thought Carol’s quiet confidence was incredibly persuasive. A lot of the time people make “strong” female leads super pushy and in your face and that’s fine. I mean, I find it sometimes obnoxious actually - like, to me that kind of pushiness is a sign of weakness rather than strength. Whether the lead is female or male. But it’s an okay choice. But her quiet, watchful confidence felt organic as the behavior of someone with a lot of power and experience who has no need to show off. Who’s on “enemy”/uncertain territory and sussing things out. Especially in the scenes in the facility where she’s watching things play out and making choices about her buddy partnership with Fury.

There’s real nuances to her confusion and grief even as her training and competence carries her along. I would have loved more with her family, but what we got was good.

Being in the position where your best friend is your emergency contact/next of kin is itself a pretty... non-standard family thing. And canonically that was Carol’s life situation. It’s something I’ve had to wrestle over because I don’t have bio family I can fully rely on due to various reasons. Anyway, it really hit me that Maria was the one who had Carol’s possessions after her death - she was Carol’s next of kin and the Rambeaus are Carol’s family. There’s limits to how much these films are willing to depict in terms of queerness - but that resonated with my queer experience in a way that felt very grounded and made me tear up, honestly. That’s a queer experience of life (though straight people make and find themselves in non-traditional families too for various reasons) and I really felt Carol as a hero whose life resonates with my own struggles - and I appreciated that.

I’m well aware they’re highly unlikely to make explicit in canon that she’s queer in the films - but the handling of things here worked for me. I hope we see more of Maria and Monica in future films. That the core of her as a member of the Rambeau family continues to ground her emotional life. It was the deepest we saw into her emotionally... and as much as, yes, I was okay with her quiet competence, they do need to dig deeper on future films.

NICK FURY. Man, I hope we get to see Carol interact with him in her next movie - their friendship/buddy team up was great. They’re wary of each other but they get each other’s measure pretty quick too. They’re a certain kind of soldier and they’re people of honor and that’s a lot in common to work from. Again, rather quietly: I like the parts where you can sense their minds clicking away as they’re figuring each other out underneath the surface banter.

It’s so great that Talos reuniting with his wife and daughter is there - it makes this implied parallel with Carol reuniting with Maria and Monica that, again... is a lot, within the limits of what these movies are willing to do. I love that the family of humans who embrace and make peace with the family of the Skrull survivors is majority African American. It’s a lovely note. This is NOT a film where human = white and alien = metaphor for race or something. Humanity is diverse.

I don’t need a 2 hour popcorn flick to try to tell me what I should think about the US military so I have no problem with the way the film studiously avoided commenting on earth/us politics at all... and in the story of a Navy Pilot finding out she’s participating in something imperialist and apologizing and trying to repair that there’s.... not dots connected, exactly, but they’re evoking a feeling an audience member can mull over, that’s all. About how when someone makes themselves a tool of a particular government that can go a lot of places. I don’t need more than that. And, frankly? I’d find it offensive if a Disney movie tried to tell me what to think about these issues. It’s not their place as a mega-corporation to do that. And they were NOT as rah-rah US military as some people claim IMO: it was entirely a background thing. They focused on Kree politics/imperialism, as they should. And the sexism/homophobia of the US military loomed in the background quietly too.

Speaking of 2 hours - I liked that it moved along nicely. Sure, that gave it the sense of not digging as deep as it might have, but it almost felt like a prologue to Carol’s story? Hopefully the next film (with the Endgame etc etc plot stuff accomplished) can go much deeper. Probably on Carol’s relationship with grown Monica.

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #captain marvel #my meta

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billlybutcher · 5 years

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ohhh may i ask what you didn't like about the first season? fyi i never read the comics and i think the story kinda dragged at times (esp. abt the hazel&chacha bits??), and ik i'm gonna be lynched for this but i think ellen page was pretty meh as vanya...but since you've read the comics i'm curious abt what you think

yes, you can absolutely ask but the answer may be long...and keep in mind this is from the perspective of someone who not only has read the comics, but has been completely enamored with them since ‘07...i’ll start with hazel & cha-cha since you mentioned them and because it’s a Big One for me. (this is going under a cut because it’s long as hell, and i’m prone to rambling)

steve blackman, the showrunner, was so excited to bring H&CC into s1 and yet what he essentially did was create two OC’s. on one hand, i get. in the comics they have very little depth, but the few key traits they do have were essentially erased. they became bland, joyless versions of some of the most iconic characters in the whole series. the more time i spend with tuatv the less i give a sh*t about hazel/agnes (and it was already part of the show that dragged for me). i’m annoyed they massively revamped these characters, but i’m disgusted by the way they made the White Man redeemable and Loving and Soft, while focusing on the hyperviolent, revenge-seeking black woman trying to ruin the Quirky White Indie Couple. i’m annoyed they ruined the love and camaraderie between comics H&CC in favor of a forced romance subplot that they used to fill time. i’m mad that hazel got a second chance and a few layers worth of depth while cha-cha started and ended with “she likes murder!” with about one second worth of deeper characterization before it gets shit on again. either give both characters the same care and attention or keep them both as Gleeful Assassins, prioritizing and humanizing the white man while reducing the black woman to harmful tropes at the same time without even hope for something more is UGLY.

moving on to vanya because you also mentioned her (and i’m bitter) i love ellen page and i think she did an amazing job in the show. and i like tv!vanya for what she is, but it didn’t feel much like vanya to me and while i work really hard to keep the show separate from the comics and enjoy both for what they bring to the table, i wish i saw more of that character on screen. that’s essentially the base of a lot of my issues with the show as a comics fan...in so many ways it doesn’t /fee/ like the comics at all. and that’s a bummer for me, because i spent over a decade imagining what this adaptation would look like. i could go into detail here and make a list of specific things that disappointed me re: character details, personality changes, world building, etc. but it would be long and tedious and it’s just as easy to say that it wasn’t what i hoped it would be. (not that i don’t love the show, i do!!!! but coming from this specific perspective, some of these things are just hard to accept, and a lot of the changes i’m just not a fan of, no matter how hard i try to be. some of them make sense and some of them just didn’t need to be done imo...). overall i feel like the show lost a lot of the magic from the comics, and certainly much of its uniqueness.

as for some Bigger, more Tangible issues i have with the overall narrative of the show itself:

dave. listen, i was ecstatic when i read that klaus was going to have a canon boyfriend, but this isn’t what i expected nor what i wanted. you want to talk about Bury Your Gays? this is a pretty significant example, and dave doesn’t even have any actual characterization out of fanon and/or what the actor had to make up for himself to give any semblance of life to that relationship (or the idea of it). in the end he was simply fodder to klaus’ arc and while i respect any/all fans who try to salvage this and make the best of it, it really did Nothing for me at all besides make me angry.

EUDORA PATCH. similar to above, another example of a harmful and ultimately unneeded trope to fuel diego’s pain and personal tragedy which he’s already full up on. another new addition to the story i was excited to see on screen that really just ultimately left me bitter.

to be fair, both of these could be fixed or at least revisited via time travel, but i’m still cautious about being hopeful. i feel like the chances of seeing dave again might be higher than that of patch bc of certain details of the Dallas arc that might land them back in the 60s, but STILL. a season with this kind of thing back-to-back just ain’t cute.

on a different level, i have such a big problem with how the plot is revealed in this show, specifically re: pogo. let me say this, if your entire plot can be avoided by ONE CHARACTER revealing some truth then it’s...Not Great...and the fact that pogo has THREE bombshell pieces of news that are littered off one after the other and significantly drive the story just feels lazy, frankly. and the more i watch it the more i hate it. (also i feel like they missed the opportunity to make the audience really /care/ and /feel/ for pogo. maybe instead of all that time with hazel/agnes they could’ve added in more flashbacks to reveal character rs’s for ALL the kids and their parents/guardian figures hmm just a thought...)

give me time and i can think of more, but i guess (barring some of the more petty issues i have regarding certain choice changes from the comics) these are mostly the Big Ones i feel toward the show.

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psi-psina · 6 years

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Feelings ATM about The Insulated World after a week of digestion and being able to frame a slightly dispassionate thought about it rather than being totally overwhelmed by the sheer emotion of it-

I love this fucking album, just to be totally clear. It rips.

Dir en grey are a one-in-a-lifetime band and no other WILL EVER APPROACH. The mixed-up sensations of utter wretchedness and despair and that lucid, beautiful CRYSTAL CLEAR hope are completely overwhelming. Like, please just drown me.

As an organic concept album, it’s legitimately perfect.

The production really is a BIG step down from the last few releases, but for me it doesn’t hinder my ability to listen or feel the songs, especially because I’ve heard how half of them POP live already. The mix is underwhelming and the ‘muddiness’ does Toshiya and Shinya a bigger disservice than Kaoru and Die imo, the bass and drums are more to the front than ever but also somehow have LESS IMPACT?? How, guys. :( I’ve already said i like that THICK guitar sound (i guess i listen to a lot of murky depressed shit so TBH i just like it?), but the mix is SERIOUSLY underwhelming. :( I would like these dudes to NOT work with Dir en grey again, thnks.

This album being a representation of (or response to?) the absolute failure to achieve the ‘light’ they were searching for through Arche makes it frankly perfect. It genuinely feels like this album is the only possible way they could (or would) have followed up Arche as the band Dir en grey. Arche is still their creative culmination. The Pinnacle of The Divine Trinity and their best album. :) Trying to ‘top’ it in this state would be an act of utter hubris that they are way too self-aware to commit lmao. So I wonder what this next ‘phase’ might bring, when/if they start experimenting/pushing towards new ground again. I wonder if they will plateau for a while? From the sounds of it Kyo will certainly not but he is one of five

The directness with which Kyo exposes himself on this album really takes centre stage for me tbh. Musically, I feel Kyo and Kaoru the most strongly on this album (with one exception in Aka, which is Kyo and Die fucking soaring together), the other members feel somewhat muted (purely in contrast to their previous albums). I partially blame this on the fucking mix, but I also feel like it goes (deliberately?) deeper.

I was really pleased with how well Ningen wo Kaburu and Utafumi fit into the album. That’s one of the things they’ve been so hit and miss with. I've never been able to appreciate Hageyami as part of DSS :/

Aka

The bass in Aka

The dual guitar solo’s in Aka

The way Aka builds that wall of longing up and each time when you think it might RELEASE YOU they TURN AWAY FROM IT AND THEN IT JUST ENDS LIKE THAT! No other band...will ever, do this to me.

I can’t talk about the lyrics

The way so many of the songs just end musically mid-sentence with a god damn semi-colon, leaving you with the feeling of being cut-off and incomplete and HUNGRY. ;_;

I genuinely wonder how heavily they culled the material they had for this album.

Keigaku no Yoku is a perfect song that NEEDS to be MIXED PROPERLY.

The only thing about the album that is disappointing to me is the 2nd disk. I get that they were heavily pressed with this deadline and most likely just ran out of time but the 2nd disk feels totally tacked on and pointless, and not at all ‘part’ of the album in the way the previous releases have. We have been so spoiled in this area over the last 10 years so this album coming along with another three pretty pointless-sounding ‘re-makes’ of old songs, and three random live-takes of old songs was always gonna deeply disappoint me. Never knew I could LONG for their weird-ass remixes this much. :( Even just a demo/early version of Ranunculus would have been cool, to hear how they developed it. One unplugged? One remix? I honestly would have appreciated a 2nd disk with 3 tracks ala TMOAB more, AND i still woulda paid ¥9000 for it. 😑 At least I have no issue with the re-makes which is a relief, because after Vestige I was fully prepared to DESPISE them. Kigan is fine and in some ways it’s superior, but it also holds precisely zero interest as a ‘new’ version of the song, particularly as something stand-alone outside the realm of Kisou. Like I don’t feel particularly compelled to listen to it tbh. I knew The Deeper Vileness and Riyuu would only be tweaked so I was hoping they might experiment a bit on Kigan and turn it into something that would feel like it ‘belonged’ in it’s new home. ALAS. The Deeper Vileness still SLAPS and I’m mostly just pleading that this might mean they will play it live in April. Riyuu is the one I actually like the most as a ‘remake’. The muted, dispassionate chorus and sound of it now along with Kyo changing ‘boku’ to ‘ore’ and the additional lines....it is so upsetting to my heart. Anyway I do really like Riyuu.

Arche was so deeply satisfying and full and complete, when I listened to it there was so much (of it) to digest it left no room to consider anything else. I feel like TIW is so easy to embrace partly because after Arche I could literally not imagine where they could even go. This album now has left me feeling really hungry in a way that only Dir en grey...could make me feel. :/

I can’t wait to hear the rest of it live, and I especially can’t wait to get destroyed by Keibetsu to hajimari again.

#dir en grey #the insulated world

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 6 years

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I’ve never asked this but, how come you don’t enjoy Ultimate Spider-Man? Personally I thought it was Bendis at his best.

It’s a few things.

I do not like how people treat it as interchangeable with616 continuity or pretend what applies to one applies to the other. Like peoplewere pointing to the Kitty Pryde annual as a good example of what you could doif Spider-Man wasn’t married, ignoring how 616 and Ult Peter are not the samebecause they’ve been through different experiences but also diverge in certainpersonality traits too, or at least the emphasis upon them. 616 Peter has moreserious guilt attacks and feels anxiety more acutely than Ultimate Peter, buthis humour is also subtly different.

Frankly Bendis’Spider-Man humour dialogue had nothing on the best of the 616 writersespecially Stan. This applies even more to other characters. Ultimate Mary Janeis a fine and dandy character unto herself but her backstory and personality isseriously different as is the way she and Peter connect to one another, even ifthe end result of her role is similar. Norman and Venom and Doc Ock similar areat best riffing upon aspects of their 616 selves and are frankly nowhere nearas meaty.

For all the praise Bendis got for ‘fixing’ Eddie Brock andVenom by not making him an alien, setting him up before he goes evil and givinghim a different motivation to hate Peter, when he actually BECOMES Venom he’sjust a gnarling growling monster for the most part whereas 616 Venom if nothingelse had a personality. I could go on all day aboutthe changes Bendis made and how it made the characters lesser than what theywere before.

And you could sit there and say that hey it’s an AU so whyis that a problem.

Well the problem is it was never intended as an AU whereshit is different for the sake of it in the first place.

It was intended as a modern retelling of the Spider-Manmythology using the benefit of hindsight and filtering everything through thelens of him being in high school.

But almost immediately it began changing stuff for the sakeof changing stuff thus invalidating that point.

More frustrating though is that fans and Marvel treat the seriesas though it actually was the former as opposed to just being basically Bendis’personal AU spin on everything and talked it up as these amazing Spider-Manstories when they were literally just remakes of the older stuff.

If you want to see a modern retelling of the Spider-Manmythology using the benefit of hindsight and filtering everything through thelens of him being in high school the Spec cartoon is an example of that andwhilst it took cues from Ultimate fundamentally that was Lee/Ditko justupdated.

But my two biggest gripes come from Bendis messing withimportant foundational stuff to Spider-Man like making Nick Fury a huge dealand making Richard Parker a really important aspect of the series.

Peter’s parents being spies is dumb, no lie. But it can kindof work on account of them being dead, him not remembering them, them beingessentially irrelevant to him and them not being his parents in the importantsense of raising him anyway.

Uncle Ben is Peter’s Dad end of story.

In Ultimate though Bendis made Nick Fury a super spy head ofthis super spy organization an important character who can have a major shapingimpact upon Spider-Man’s life and arguably is a dark father figure. He also inthe Venom arc, Carnage arc, the Clone Saga and a few other places hyped upRichard’s (but noticeably not Mary’s) importance. Ultimate Peter is aSpider-Man who’s defined in an important way by the legacy of his biologicalfather, not Uncle Ben. To the point where Richard was the guy who originallysaid gr8 pwr=gr8 resp and Uncle Ben just passes it on to Peter.

That is...no. You do NOT do that *glares at Webb movies*.

Spider-Man is defined by Uncle Ben first and foremost andshould be relatively down to Earth and normal, so spies or super spies shouldn’tfactor in in a huge way at all.

But Bendis didn’t do that and then he’s called the bestSpider-Man writer of the 21st century and USM the best Spider-Manseries of the 21st century. He didn’t do any of that whilst alsocreating less developed and nuanced versions of all the other characters.

I mean my God how can your take on Spider-Man be definitivewhen Jameson is barely in it and Bendis’ self-insert OC Kenny Kong gets morepanel time than Flash Thompson, the character who is literally on the firstpage of Amazing Fantasy #15.

He even went a step further and made Aunt May Peter’sbiological aunt because IIRC she was Mary’s sister, which is both overly neatimo and more poignantly takes away from the positive family message of theoriginal story. That blood doesn’t make family because 616 Aunt May had 0 bloodties to Peter but she adored him as her son.

And then on top of all of that the decompression.

I.Effing. HATE. Decompression.

I loathe it. I despise it. I would kill it if I could.

Decompression was talked up as being this thing that had tohappen because comics were more cinematic but the truth is they weren’t, BENDISHIMSELF was the person who made them more cinematic because of the impact he hadand no one seemed to sit back and ask if it was even a good idea.

Decompression stories allegedly allow the stories more roomto breath and flow organically whilst also allowing writers to go deeper.

But in practice in USM and the majority of 2000s-2010s booksusing decompression aren’t like that.

They just take what would’ve been 1-2 issues worth of plotin the 1990s or 1980s and artificially stretch it out to pad for a trade.Basically a trade is the equivalent of what an issue or 2 of a 1980s comicwould’ve been.

Meaning you are spending more money for less content perissue or way more money for essentially the same content (not helped in USM’scase by it being mostly remixes of the old stuff anyway).

It’s not even more layered or nuanced or has deeper themesand stuff, it doesn’t even use the extra space for more action. Kraven’s LastHunt does all that but more stuff actually happens in that story than youraverage arc of USM or most 21st century decompressed arcs.

Issue to issue it actually destroys the flow of a storybecause whilst a 1980s multi parter would’ve had it’s own beginning middle andend per issue, that isn’t the case for USM and similar such decompressedstories.

If a decompressed arc was a 2 hour movie then issue 1 of 6would basically be giving you the first 20 minutes of a movie and asking you toremember it for 2-4 weeks until the next 20 minutes and on and on for the restof the arc. That is a horrible way to experience a story but that’s the point,because it wasn’t written to be consumed that way, it was written for you tobuy the trade i.e. the complete movie and consume the whole story in one hit.

Plus I heavily suspect decompression was employed as a wayfor the companies to justify doing less work per year. If every story is 6 partsthen a monthly series only needs to come up with 2 stories per year not at most12.

Like compare and contrast just how much characterdevelopment and raw plot occurs between USM #1-100 and say the first 100 issuesof Claremont’s X-Men. Or Spider-Girl #1-100. The differences are truly stark.

The ultimate (no pun intended) proof in the pudding for meis Bendis’ Daredevil run vs Frank Miller’s.

Bendis DD run is acclaimed, beloved considered one of thebest runs for the character ever. Miller’s run however despite being farshorter and not employing decompression is still regarded as THE best, with plots from it forming the basis ofevery Daredevil adaptation since then, including the Netflix show. So Bendisusing decompression and having much more time and issues to work his magicstill wound up doing something not AS good not AS nuanced or fleshed out asMiller did with a different style and less time and issues.

How can that be possible if decompression allowes you to doall this stuff? Because decompression sucks shit is how and because in comicsits less about the space you have but how you use it.

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lilanbex · 7 years

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Evolution of Disney Channel: Andi Mack Part 1

Why exactly is Andi Mack something completely new for this channel?

I’ve been thinking about writing this for awhile and held off on it because I wanted the first season to finish first, but I’m going to separate it into parts and start off with production and get deeper into storyline/plot elements in a later post when I get the chance to look back at the season as a whole.

I’m planning to take a look back at older Disney Channel shows, but realistically if I make any comparisons I’m going to look mainly at shows coming after 2010 and probably Lizzie McGuire.

It’s a long post so get ready but TL;DR this show uses the best of Disney’s production techniques and then keeps pushing the boundaries by taking risks that are paying off.

Single-Camera

Disney Channel’s first original series Flash Forward (1995-1997) was interestingly geared towards preteens/teens and was produced as a single-camera show in Canada. It really wasn’t until the early 2000s that the multi-cam sitcom with a laugh track most of us are used to became popular on DC starting with That’s So Raven (2003-2007). But after that, there was a huge shift into the multi-cam format with Suite Life/Hannah Montana/WOWP taking over, getting a ton of recognition, and with people referring back to that era as “Old Disney”/”When Disney was good” now. With multi-cams on the rise, single-cam shows became much less popular– until JONAS/JONAS LA (2009-2010), the last single-cam was Phil of the Future (2004-2006). After JONAS, there was nearly a seven year gap until Stuck in the Middle (2016-) and right now SITM is the only other single-cam airing alongside Andi Mack. Why is this a trend on the channel? Multi-cam shows are easier to produce, less expensive to make, and you can make more episodes faster, but it usually also means filming in front of an audience/including a laugh track. Since the multi-cam shows of the mid 2000s did so amazingly well and cable programming was at its peak, it’s not a surprise that DC continued to use it, but I’d argue that there was a significant decrease in quality in DC multi-cams 2010 onwards especially after Good Luck Charlie (2010-2014) finished. DC has avoided going into single-cam these past few years so the only similar kids shows with the same emotional intelligence I can compare this format to are from Amazon like Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street (2014-2016). I’m not going to get into the logistics but here’s more information about the single-cam vs. multi-cam debate.

For Andi Mack, I think the single-cam format has helped to make it more realistic and elevates the overall quality for cinematography. In terms of the storyline, I really think format particularly works well because the show isn’t just a comedy but really finds a good balance with the drama, which works much better with single-cam. I mean, I don’t think Bex’s reveal in the pilot could’ve worked any other way.

This single-cam format extends to where the show shoots, which brings me to:

Filming On-Location

The first season of Andi Mack was shot in Salt Lake City and this article sums up a bit about how that affects the look of the series. Correct me if I’m wrong, but other than international series/DCOMs/special episodes, this is really the first modern Disney Channel original series shot entirely outside of studios in California. Even the other single-cams JONAS and SITM, are filmed in studios around Hollywood. The shots we get of the characters walking down the hallway feel real because they were shot at a real middle school. The extras in the background? Real middle school kids from the town. The salon for the Fringe that Bex works at is a real salon that they used. With filming on location, we get a much richer look into Andi’s world that isn’t limited to a traditional set that a Disney Channel living room usually looks like. Using actual places helps capture movement and we get to see Andi live her life rather than be told she does certain activities because we see her and Jonah at Ultimate practice, Buffy running a race, Bex at work, and conversations between the Good Hair Crew in a booth at the Spoon.

Another plus? Andi Mack filmed outside of LA makes this show feel more special because the cast and crew can actually go and focus on making the show for a few months. I’m really glad they were able to just go do their thing and spend time with each other working on this project. (But I can’t attest to this so maybe ask @persongoingfast). With a multi-cam that shoots in front of a live audience, spoilers are bound to come out months ahead of time and for Andi Mack, the plot twists are integral to the show. The fandom cultivated out of interactions at live tapings can also get downright vicious, which is why filming in SLC has probably helped Andi Mack remain relatively peaceful and friendly. Just refer back to Girl Meets World (2014-2017)’s twitter fandom even a year ago. IMO, it’s healthier for a young cast to focus on filming rather than how each interaction with a fan at a live taping can be misconstrued and then made viral over Twitter and Instagram. Even if it means that Andi Mack is less known and has a quieter fandom, it feel much more like the show can stand as its own piece of work rather than become about the actors as celebrity figures, but we’ll see how this looks like in the coming seasons.

Women Leading this Show!

Terri Minsky and Michelle Manning are the EPs at the helm of the show and aside from SITM, modern Disney Channel shows just don’t have women occupying these positions and that’s really unfortunate when it comes to creating programming geared towards girls that are focused on coming-of-age stories. Frankly, I think this is something where GMW struggled with at times to capture a girl’s perspective that wasn’t too heavy handed with morality.

Seven of the nine Andi Mack episodes that have aired have been written by women. Do they need more women of color on staff? Yes. Do they need more women (of color) directors? Yes. Andi Mack is still very early on in its series trajectory so hopefully the show can also push for more diverse creators in seasons to come. Feel free to disagree with me on this but I think a creative’s identity plays a huge role into how they go forward with all aspects of a project so women being at the forefront of a show about mother/daughter relationships is really important.

Serialization

Last, I want to talk about the structure of “last time/next time on Andi Mack” and how serialization makes this show a first for DC. Disney Channel sitcoms usually air out of order. Even Lizzie McGuire (2001-2004) did and it tried to follow Lizzie growing up. It didn’t matter as much for nonserialized shows for the most part because each episode can usually stand on its own with individual slice of life stories. Other than the awkwardness of an actor being taller/voice dropping in an earlier episode than the next, it doesn’t drastically change the story. Most coming-of-age/family oriented shows on the channel follow a general school year structure, but otherwise you didn’t need to know what happened in the previous episode to make sense of a different one. Sure, this makes it easier for DC to put episodes on repeat throughout the day, but doesn’t have the same payoff of following through with something serialized, which is now more popular with Netlfix and binge watching.

Andi Mack requires the audience then to follow along with the series to get the satisfaction of knowing where the story’s going because you’re not going to get it at the end of every episode. With only 13 half hour episodes in the season, serialization is necessary for this show to even create a viable storyline in the first place. Particularly for a series aimed at kids/teens, I think it’s smart to show that issues aren’t always solved at the end of 22 minutes and that’s okay. Also in heightening the stakes at the end of each episode, it shows that younger kids don’t necessarily have to resort to watching more adult shows outside of their demo to get more exciting drama in their programming, but that DC can be a bit edgier and still be age-appropriate.

That’s it for part 1 but I’m quickly realizing I have so much more I want to look into the show beyond the story itself like costume choices, Mack Chat, and the parallels to the Lizzie/Miranda/Gordo dynamic in comparison to other DC friendships over the years but that’ll have to wait!

#andi mack #disney channel #terri minsky #television #peyton elizabeth lee #lilan bowden #sofia wylie #joshua rush #asher angel #lauren tom

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