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desicat-writer · 1 month

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I noticed you're harsher on Bangel (which is better) than Spuffy. Which is stupid since Spike was a stalker and willing to rape her.

I don't particularly care if Bangel is better or worse than Spuffy.

Canon punishes Spike for his behavior a lot of the times in the same episode. It's important to me in the ye old times of one episode a week era, that characters who behave badly experience consequences for their behavior immediately.

Example for Spike is when he is caught sniffing around Buffy's room, Riley kicks him out into the sun. The blanket is an afterthought.

Example for Angelus's big consequence was getting stabbed and sent to hell. This was after episodes of killing and tormenting. What specifically was wrong gets lost with that much time in between.

For Angel we see him doing the best he can and he has the best intentions. But his behavior is still grooming behavior. (He can see her but she can't see him). The narrative never calls out how destructive this can be to a teenage girl. Or an adult woman. To me this makes Angel feel unsafe to watch at times. Especially before I could articulate the dangers of a groomer who didn't realize they were being abusive.

Bangel has an unparalleled intensity to it. S2 is my favorite season for a reason. Angel's grows into a person that tells Buffy about his choices even if he does not include her in the decision making process. That is a sign of respect and care from him.

As far as why I knock Angel more than Spike? Spike feels safer to watch because of the immediacy of his consequences. Also In general people are more willing to have the complex conversation about Spike. I get to work through the reactions I've had when Spike made that "dimpled knees" comment in harsh light of day.

That has not happened with Angel. Usually with Angel the reaction is black or white and I have the experience of being shut down from a longer conversation. So I'm here on my soap box, having it with myself.

#spuffy #bangel #but also #anti spuffy #anti bangel #btvs meta #viewer experience #spoilers #i hate and love all ships #just shut up and kiss already #or stab eachother

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biggest-gaudiest-patronuses · 5 months

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the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

#due to the Great Data Decay academics write viciously argumentative articles on which episodes aired in what order #at conferences professors have known to engage in physically violent altercations whilst debating the air date number of household viewers #90% of the couch gags have been lost and there is a billion dollar trade in counterfeit “lost copies”#serious note: i'll be honest i always assumed it was english imperialism that made shakespeare so inescapable in the 19th/20th cent #like his writing should have become obscure at the same level of his contemporaries #but british imperialists needed an ENGLISH LANGUAGE (and BRITISH) writer to venerate #and shakespeare wrote so many damn things that there was a humongous body of work just sitting there waiting to be culturally exploited...#i know it didn't happen like this but i imagine a English Parliament House Committee Member For The Education Of The Masses or something #cartoonishly stumbling over a dusty cobwebbed crate labelled the Complete Works of Shakespeare #and going 'Eureka! this shall make excellent propoganda for fabricating a national identity in a time of great social unrest.#it will be a cornerstone of our elitist educational institutions for centuries to come! long live our decaying empire!'#'what good fortune that this used to be accessible and entertaining to mainstream illiterate audience members...#..but now we can strip that away and make it a difficult & alienating foundation of a Classical Education! just like the latin language :)'#anyway maybe there's no such thing as the 'greatest writer of x language' in ANY language?#maybe there are just different styles and yes levels of expertise and skill but also a high degree of subjectivity #and variance in the way that we as individuals and members of different cultures/time periods experience any work of media #and that's okay! and should be acknowledged!!! and allow us to give ourselves permission to broaden our horizons #and explore the stories of marginalized/underappreciated creators #instead of worshiping the List of Top 10 Best (aka Most Famous) Whatevers Of All Time/A Certain Time Period #anyways things are famous for a reason and that reason has little to do with innate “value”#and much more to do with how it plays into the interests of powerful institutions motivated to influence our shared cultural narratives #so i'm not saying 'stop teaching shakespeare'. but like...maybe classrooms should stop using it as busy work that (by accident or designs)#happens to alienate a large number of students who could otherwise be engaging critically with works that feel more relevant to their world #(by merit of not being 4 centuries old or lacking necessary historical context or requiring untaught translation skills)#and yeah...MAYBE our educational institutions could spend less time/money on shakespeare critical analysis and more on...#...any of thousands of underfunded areas of literary research i literally (pun!) don't know where to begin #oh and p.s. the modern publishing world is in shambles and it would be neat if schoolwork could include modern works?#beautiful complicated socially relevant works of literature are published every year. it's not just the 'classics' that have value #and actually modern publications are probably an easier way for students to learn the basics. since lesson plans don't have to include the #important historical/cultural context many teens need for 20+ year old media (which is older than their entire lived experience fyi)

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5ftboy · 1 year

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How is Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves different from other blockbuster action films?

#justice smith #dungeons and dragons honor among thieves #dndhat #dndhatedit #justicesmithedit #mine **#there's so much joy to be had over content that allows viewers to have wonder and *like* things #without immediately being teased or even shamed for being invested in a make-believe world #*especially* because the experience of playing dnd is entirely about imagination & sincerity #it's about committing to your character and committing to a story with your friends !!!#and i am endeared ( clearly )#1k **#5k **#10k **

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medicalunprofessional · 3 months

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just a game!

#psychonauts #fred bonaparte #crispin whytehead #nightmaretheater #Yearrppp…Ohh i really like this one. Alor #Time on canvas: 7 hours #(and likely more; i made a few other canvases trying to figurr out poses and deleted em)#really channeling vocaloid amvs for this one… if you feel me……#ugh. Ughhh. Ughhh… ive been thinking abt them alot lately #was rewathing the vault viewer archive. Goddamn #So real. I think the gaming experience was bad for both of them. If you get me.#like. fred ofc. But. Something happened to crispin too.#he looks so absent minded and unsmug at the start. He was truly twisted!!! Man!#on top of. You know. Being locked in an asylum. As much as a villain crispin is i still feel sympathy for him #I think he was struggling. for control. Of his life..Maybe

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probatiostudies · 5 months

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gentle reminder that the second round of purgatory is only 5 days, monday thru friday, and assuming it’s like the first round, then players can log out and log back in when they want before their daily play time is up. that all being said, the egg children are not in danger. they are not missing. their lives are not on the line. any parents returning to purgatory legitimately have the weekend to give cookies, and if they log back into the server during the week then people grinding for cookies will have everything ready for them to do the quests quickly. there’s a system in place already, what with the breeding always happening downstairs at spawn and the items in the bakery’s barrel. not to mention, players like philza who aren’t returning to purgatory are quite stacked with cookies! there’s genuinely no need to worry, this second round of purgatory is more for folks to go hard if they want, and there’s a lot of friend groups that have been invited. just enjoy the content if it floats your boat!

#qsmp #qsmp purgatory 2 #ik chatters like to backseat a lot when it comes to the eggs #i get the attachment but fr try to not let that interrupt the actual gamer’s and viewers’ experience #qsmp fandom discourse #<- just in case

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markantonys · 7 months

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i already made a joke post about it but genuinely, the whole "wot s1 sucked, which was 100% the show's fault and not the source material's, but now s2 is so much better! shocking! who could've seen that coming!" narrative is SO annoying

like, the eye of the world is boring as shit! it's generic as shit! of COURSE an entire season based on it is not going to be the most groundbreaking or thrilling fantasy television you've ever seen in your life! how on EARTH can the readers who've been saying for decades that the books don't start to hit their stride until book 2 or 3 or 4 fail to grasp the correlation with season 2 being better than season 1? but even so, s1 alone IS more groundbreaking and thrilling than book 1 alone, because the showrunners knew that book 1 is boring and generic as shit and did their absolute damnedest to pull in as many unique elements from later books as they could conceivably fit in this early on.

second, s1 had to do a HUGE amount of heavy lifting in terms of setting up characters, relationships, lore, and worldbuilding. s1 did all this groundwork so that s2 could have the payoff you're enjoying so much, s1 constructed the basic building blocks so that s2 could explore the more advanced concepts you're gushing over. s1 ran so that s2 could soar! put some respect on its name!

third, stakes tend to get higher, characters to get deeper, and plotlines to get more exciting as you go along in a story. this is how stories work. why are you shocked that s1 only built the basic foundation of the story and s2 has the space to grow and deepen that story? that's how stories work, that's how TV works, and that's most certainly how the WOT books work.

fourth, practical constraints s1 had that s2 had less of

budget: s1 was starting from scratch, whereas s2 had more budget to spare since some things could be reused from s1 AND it got a bigger budget than s1 in the first place.

experience: second seasons almost universally tend to be better than pilot seasons, simply because everyone involved in making the show has gotten into the groove and solidified how they want to do this thing. this is how television works.

covid: it should go without saying that s1 would have been One Million Times more difficult and expensive to make than s2 due to covid stuff. whatever effect we may think covid had on s1, the true effect was probably astronomically higher than what we imagine. the majority of "looks too cheap" "looks too empty" complaints likely come down to this (notice that most of those complaints are about episodes 6-8 and not the early episodes; 6 was filmed pre-covid, yes, but i wouldn't be surprised if some covid-related restrictions were starting to rear their heads before production was officially shut down).

the worst part is the people who end their above-mentioned take with "they must have listened to audience criticism of s1 and made changes accordingly." [moiraine voice] the arrogance. s2 had already been written and filming was WELL underway (if not finished or close to finished?) by the time s1 even started airing. if you're impressed by what a great season they've delivered, the credit for that lies entirely with the people who made the show, not your stupid ass.

#justice for s1!! 'every single viewer found it boring and a disappointment' your experiences are not universal!!!#will i deny that s2 is better quality in just about every respect? certainly not #but s1 did a damn good job with the job it was supposed to do even if that job is not as ~exciting~ as s2's job #and THE big difference is that THE SOURCE MATERIAL FOR S2 IS BETTER!!!!!#WHY are any readers shocked that a TGH&TDR-based season is better than an EOTW-based season. make it make sense #wot

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mllenugget · 2 months

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"But when does a comet become a meteor ?

When does the reason become the blame ?

When does a man become a monster ?"

During Purgatory q!Cellbit was an absolute dickhead as well as the most unsufferable lesbophobic (/j) twin brother ever

He bullied the characters I usually follow and I had an absolute blast watching every second of it

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Don't forget to support the admins that were wronged, and also women, and also do your daily click

ooo,, me duele la cabeza

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[Flashing imagery & bright colours warning under the cut !]

[alt txt : video compiling different wips of the drawing above along with the song "Just a Man" by Jorge Rivera-Herrans playing- end]

#qsmp #q!cellbit #qsmp cellbit #qsmp purgatory #cellbit fanart #my art #qsmp bolas #blood #scar #me : hey i wanna try my hands at painting again :D #also me : *two seconds in suddenly remembering why I dont like painting*#i only recently realized i had a different experience as a viewer watching Purgatory because I had the tag blocked to avoid spoilers #so apart from seeing occasional fanarts i didnt interact with the fandom at all during the whole thing #but by seeing everyone's testimonies about their own feelings it looks like I dodged something even worse #I am sssooo so sorry for everyone jc #wip #art process #mcyt

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zeb-z · 6 months

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also can I just say. the difference between the joy of fit and bagi having a full day with blue, getting acquainted with the base, reuniting with their loved ones, all relieved to have more materials and more of a team - and then the absolute misery of etoiles and roier, moving the few valuable possessions red has to a new base that got immediately discovered anyway, losing all their gear, getting it back, then burning it themselves before killing eachother, is just so fucking funny. the new blues had freshman orientation while the new reds had a trial by fire canon event

#fit and pac had their flirting and Tubbo rolling his eyes and bad getting a flower from forever and bagi being like omg this base is awesome #meanwhile etoiles and roier get the bolas experience - bbh somehow always there killing you losing your gear starting over killing yourself #baghera said it first thing - oh today is a bolas day. today is a eat the potato day. and they didn’t understand at first. now they do #blue had their own fair share of worries and set backs but let’s be honest with ourselves for a moment. even in their perspective #red was SUFFERING. real bolas moment #it’s so funny. welcome to the team! take your shoes off at the door make sure you leave if you’ve got a bounty #vs welcome to the team! take this gas mask and pick a god to pray to. misery loves company at least we’re together!group suicide in an hour #like blue viewers. they were not lying when they were talking about their gear. full enchants? mending??????? lmao #the best stuff they god was from bad’s corpse. Roier and etoiles came with what they had from green. now that’s all gone too #when bad went through their shit like ‘aw they moved already :(‘ no they didn’t. I promise you they didn’t. and all you missed were some #stashed away diamonds and baghera’s crazy amount of chainsaws #mcyt #qsmp #qsmp purgatory #z speaks

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chirpsythismorning · 1 year

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There isn't much discourse about how Mike went from saying that El was a weapon in s1, even encouraging the others to use El's powers when she was still recuperating after finding Will in the void, to then in s3 accusing the others of being reckless with her powers, saying she's risking her life for no reason.

Now, I want to make clear that I'm not bashing Mike here, this has less to do with what he's doing being right or wrong. What this is about is how Mike went from doing something himself, to calling out other people for doing it, without acknowledging that fact and why the writers chose to frame it all this way.

You might think it's insignificant, but these two following scenes are clearly being paralleled to each other. And so the fact that Mike himself is acknowledging this as something to be critical of, makes me wonder what exactly is going on in his mind...

I want to preface this scene from s1 by saying that Mike is giving very off vibes here. I know that I certainly viewed this scene as romantic the first time I saw it, but since rewatching it recently, I was getting completely different vibes.

They literally make a point to focus on Mike being distracted, on the verge of impatience. Then, the way El reacts upon Mike getting up abruptly, gives this feeling of uncertainty about Mike's consideration for her in this moment, as she's clearly not what's on the top of his mind right now. And it just makes you wonder, are we truly supposed to be feeling peak romance rn?

I never realized how out of place this scene was until now (or is it...). It's just such an odd choice to have El resting her head on Mike's shoulder for comfort, only for Mike to cut it short with him being distracted, and with Dustin and El looking awkwardly at Mike like "Okay?...", then followed by a scene where he's trying to convince the others to use El's powers to help.

Here we have s1 Mike displaying behavior that s3 Mike was calling out the others for displaying:

Here we have Lucas, who was very, very critical of El being dangerous ALL of s1, and yet now in complete contrast to that, he is showing more consideration and common sense for El's well being than Mike, the supposed love (at first sight) interest ...

'That's the most important thing, remember?'

A question, followed by Mike just standing there in silence, like he's only just now really thinking about El being safe as their main priority... This is something that combined with everything else unfolding over the course of this season and the seasons after, that makes Mike's behavior a whole lot easier to understand.

I'll have to make several other posts about this, because there are a lot of aspects to it, but for now I'm just going to focus on these two parallels.

Here we have what happens in s3, with Mike being critical of the others doing something he himself literally did in s1:

In fact, how careless all of you are.

THIS. When Mike makes it a big deal to call out everyone for doing something he himself has already done, he's outright admitting that it's something that he believes is wrong, and by not even slightly acknowledging his role in doing something similar in the past, it's very likely that he feels guilty about it.

This was probably his way of trying to make it right, by standing up for El in a way that he didn't before because he was treating her like some superhero and not a real person back then.

It's just that the word love slipped out, in the heat of the moment. And El, upon overhearing this, is seeing this development of Mike herself, with s1 Mike going from, yes being more kind and considerate than the other 2 boys in the beginning, but still sort of expecting stuff from her without her being able to verbally agree to it, to now having developed and changed to saying that one of his big priorities is her safety.

El is taking this as being evidence he went from not loving her, to loving her. Another reason why it's pretty obvious El didn't believe Mike's monologue, bc she herself witnessed Mike develop his apparent romantic feelings for her over time, and so him saying it was love at first sight, was probably the catalyst that made it abundantly clear to her that he wasn't being truthful, bc she knows it's not the truth. She's not stupid.

Again this isn't about Mike doing this back then or even the others doing it now as being bad vs. good, this is about the writers going about it this way, sending a message that Mike feels guilt, enough to try to make things right, but is apparently not ready to unpack the actual guilt that is beneath the surface which lead him to this point.

And then there's this scene, which... it's actually terrifying how obvious it is they instructed Sadie and Caleb to lean out of that shot with Will and Mike reacting to El entering the room... Like... It's SOO obvious when you watch it now what they're trying to hint at without saying it.

Not only are they hinting at Will's feelings, because that is part of it, they're also hinting at Mike's internal struggle. Will is always on the back of his mind whether he's willing to address it or not. And all while that is happening, he is feeling unaddressed guilt about how he treated El when they first met and spent that one week together helping her run away from the bad guys while also looking for Will, something Mike viewed as being worthy of El using her powers...

I'll have to make the other posts regarding this soon, because it all starts to click what's going on with Mike when you look at all of these things together.

While Mike is just a kid like pretty much everyone else in this story, and while he didn't mean any harm by asking El to help them find Will (none of them did), I think that's kind of the whole point?

I think that he got lucky superman landed on his doorstep, who just so happened to be in danger herself, giving him his own purpose to help her too, with her needing him as well, and so it became a situation where they both needed each other.

But because El could literally not speak, it's not like she could really voice her feelings about things they were doing, beyond yes and no. She had Lucas sort of being critical of her, with Mike encouraging El to do things that would make the others see her as being worthy of sticking around so they can find Will. It goes without saying she felt obligated to do these things, even if they didn't outright tell her she had to or else. We literally see almost all of these scenes with her doing stuff for the others being instantly juxtaposed with scenes of Brenner doing the same. It's not the same scale of severity, but it is an acknowledgment that although she is outside of the lab, she still feels like her powers are what define her and it's all people want from her.

I think what it comes down to, is that in that moment when she is sacrificing herself to the demogorgan at the end of s1, we are seeing in real time Mike realizing what he and the other's have been asking of her this whole time, without outright asking her.

And you can literally see the retaliation and devastation hit him all at once. The instant regret, where he's backtracking and El stops him from even trying.

'Goodbye Mike' singles him out, because while he was the one out of the three that showed her the most kindness from the start, he was also the one who at the end of it all, was still expecting her to risk her life for them...

And that just makes it hit so much harder when you think about how that made Mike feel in that moment.

And then in s2 how that impacts Mike and his journey going forward.

His breakdown at the end of s2 upon her return.

His behavior in s3-4, in relation to him juggling his relationship with Will and El, now that they are both in his life at the same time.

It all starts to make sense.

I won't go too much into it because those other posts are bound to be long with a bunch of pictures too!

But on that note, there's at least one thing Mike isn't acknowledging, and it's literally what led up to the unintentional love confession that then led us to 10 more episodes of miscommunication because of it...

It's going to be important for him to address this guilt for him to fulfill his arc and to also close off his expectations that he has to have a romantic relationship with El in order to keep her in his life at all.

The audience themselves seeing this and being forced to face it is also going to make it a lot easier for them understand why Mike did what he did, not only because he's a queer kid in the 80's who has every reason to doubt and repress, but also because he understandably feels sort of indebted to El after everything.

It's more complex than him just falling out of love with her and falling in love with Will because of XYZ.

I think there is a lot of guilt and shame and trauma connected to their meeting and the events that followed. And addressing that is going to give a lot of closure to the ending of the story and also the beginning.

#byler #stranger things #mike wheeler #i feel like mikes arc always comes off as convoluted to most viewers bc they’re missing the whole picture #like this is literally canon #Mike went from doing something to saying other people doing it was wrong without acknowledging his role in that from the beginning #and so ppl using that development as aww he loves her now…#doesn’t even work when apparently he loved her since the moment he saw her…#not being willing to pay attention to how they are building up mikes arc #dancing around all of his actions with #everyone makes mistakes bc they’re children and that’s okay #and just leave it at that…#bc yes obviously all of the characters should be able to make mistakes and be forgiven #but were ignoring the elephant in the room here #it’s canon Mike feels guilt for how he treated el in s1 yet he hasn’t acknowledged it…#instead of acknowledging his history of doing something similar #he’s pointed out everyone else doing it as if they’re doing something wrong he himself would never do…#as if he doesn’t have first hand experience #they could have actually made this moment romantic and genuine IF they wanted to #they could have had mike open up about how he used to do that #but after getting to know el and realize she is her own person #it made him think differently and he wants to do better by her #then maybe when she confronted him in front of everyone he could have said it again or asked to be alone to say it to her directly #and to apologize for how he acted in the past by expecting stuff of her #and THATS why he is extra cautious now #and then got her reaction #instead they give fans the impression Mike is the ideal male love interest #who is perfect for el #with this moment being one of their top reasons #and it’s a scene where he avoids confronting series long built up guilt…

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