#[my]screencaps

[lupinescribbler]

Been thinking recently about this oddly specific trope of a character being emotionally vulnerable or honest in order to be able to connect with a kid they empathize with. I have slightly mixed feelings about it. On one hand it can be overdone, to where the child feels like a cardboard cutout just to elaborate on the protagonist’s traumatic backstory, but there are also a lot of cases that I liked it or thought it was done in an impactful way.

so I figured I’d walk through a handful of examples of this trope (does it have a name???) and give my personal thoughts on each. Spoilers for the episodes referenced of course. Because of image limit this will be part 1 of 2 and I’ll link the second when I get it up.

Supernatural S01E03.

This is one of my favorite iterations of this. Lucas's turmoil, fear, and mutism were portrayed with enough effort and thoughtfulness for him not to just feel like a cardboard cutout, and the way Dean interacted with him felt in-character while still showing a softer side to him. There's also a strong plot reason (Lucas being the only eye-witness) to drive their interactions, making each scene feel like it was striving for an important purpose instead of just ham-fisting 'traumatic backstory' angst.

The scene in the park is what really starts it off. The guy who couldn't name three children he knew a couple scenes earlier, has to try to coax answers out of a traumatized mute kid about said trauma. We see Dean meeting Lucas where he is (draws with him), tries to identify what Lucas might be feeling, ("Well, maybe you don't think anyone will listen to you.") reassures ("I want you to know that I will.") and doesn't push it when Lucas seems unforthcoming.

While this scene overall is very soft and endearing, we get very little of Dean talking explicitly about his own trauma, just one vague line "When I was your age, I saw something." The whole scene is about what Lucas is feeling. Dean's feelings are there too, the audience is already supposed to be drawing parallels, but they are kept on the peripheral.

Then later in the episode we get the next Lucas and Dean scene. We've watched someone else die, upping the stakes. Here is where we really get the emotional vulnerability from Dean in a few blunt, heartbreaking, lines. Even more than that, we get a glimpse at Dean's why. Why the bravado, why he is the way he is. We also have this whole confession observed by Dean's younger brother, which -- trust me as an older sibling -- is excruciating.

Overall I think this works because a) Dean has a strong reason to be this emotionally vulnerable, there are literally lives resting on his ability to get through to Lucas. b) it had the space to be built up in multiple scenes throughout an entire episode and c) Dean is the exact type of character that needs some sort of push to be this emotionally vulnerable and earnest, so the trope just fits.

Magnum PI S01E01

This one is what I'd consider a slightly meh version of the trope. Not trying to offend anyone who found this scene specifically meaningful, but it fell flat to me. The intro joking about the dogs was good, Magnum trying to comfort his dead friend’s son was a good idea, but the “when I was your age, I lost my dad too” kinda lost me. I get he was trying to empathize with the kid, but it ended up feeling like the show was just trying to be like “look! He has a dead dad!”. Additionally the character of this kid felt flat and I don’t remember if he ever even cropped back up in the story outside of this episode or ever had a shred of personality.

In my opinion it might have worked better if they’d had Magnum talk about Nuzo instead of his father. Nuzo is the person both he and the kid cared about and lost, and while it still might have felt cheesy I think it would have felt more anchored to what the rest of the episode is about and helped to get the audience to empathize even more with the grief over a dead friend that drove the whole narrative for the pilot.

I really enjoyed the show overall, don’t get me wrong, and I’ll have another example of this trope in part two of this which — spoilers — I enjoyed a lot.

Would love to hear other people’s opinions of this if anyone sees it, and I invite disagreement.

[akito-shinonome-daily]

🎤 day 279 🎵

➥ today’s akito is from akito and the rest of the solid heart class from the 2023 april fools event in the lost one’s weeping 3DMV!!

[margflower]

[adastra-sf]

The Robot Uprising Began in 1979

edit: based on a real article, but with a dash of satire

source: X

On January 25, 1979, Robert Williams became the first person (on record at least) to be killed by a robot, but it was far from the last fatality at the hands of a robotic system.

Williams was a 25-year-old employee at the Ford Motor Company casting plant in Flat Rock, Michigan. On that infamous day, he was working with a parts-retrieval system that moved castings and other materials from one part of the factory to another. 

The robot identified the employee as in its way and, thus, a threat to its mission, and calculated that the most efficient way to eliminate the threat was to remove the worker with extreme prejudice.

"Using its very powerful hydraulic arm, the robot smashed the surprised worker into the operating machine, killing him instantly, after which it resumed its duties without further interference."

A news report about the legal battle suggests the killer robot continued working while Williams lay dead for 30 minutes until fellow workers realized what had happened. 

Many more deaths of this ilk have continued to pile up. A 2023 study identified that robots have killed at least 41 people in the USA between 1992 and 2017, with almost half of the fatalities in the Midwest, a region bursting with heavy industry and manufacturing.

For now, the companies that own these murderbots are held responsible for their actions. However, as AI grows increasingly ubiquitous and potentially uncontrollable, how might robot murders become ever-more complicated, and whom will we hold responsible as their decision-making becomes more self-driven and opaque?

[scrawledjournals]

some josh from the reveal

[bleedingspiral]

Silent Hill 4: The Room (2004)

[mckitterick]

What Really Happened During the Atlanta Presidential Debate

This (very long but deeply informative) exposé of American journalistic failure reveals not only the malice they've shown toward Biden but also their inexplicable gentleness toward the other candidate who'd almost certainly put them all out of their jobs.

Not reported anywhere I've seen is how badly tRump's mind has been failing (perhaps because they're so used to his mental instability) or that he spouted 602 lies in 40 minutes during the debate (perhaps because he's known to have told more than 30,000 lies while he occupied the White House). And we've never seen a full accounting of why Biden was tired that night (as anyone would be, regardless of age, after such a harrowing week).

Rather than talking about the 34-times-over felon's (who's also facing 54 more felonies) horrific performance during the debate, or that tRump's physical and mental health are far worse than Biden’s (who's about the same age, btw), the mainstream press is only talking about how tired Biden was after a grueling week of actual work.

And let us not forget the ableism inherent in mocking a stutterer rather than exposing the other candidate's actual mock-worthy performance - a guy who presents as a malignant narcissistic sociopath and career criminal who’d be unemployable and likely unhoused if not for a $400 million inheritance from his likely-KKK dad, who constantly lies to hide the fact he was born between third base and home, and who's lost more money than he's ever "earned."

Check out the deeply researched article for the full story of journalistic malpractice: X

[cheesybadgers]

Buddie + Home Truths

Bonus:

[multi-fandom-imagine]

[lupinescribbler]

New mood just dropped: Gus standing uncomfortably in the background while Shawn and Lassiter… manhandle each other?

[silvermoon424]

[margflower]

[toreii]

Bi-Han | ❄️ – MK1 Khaos Reigns DLC trailer

[scrawledjournals]

<3

[bleedingspiral]

Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988)