#I could show more examples but you get the point
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I definitely think a lot of this is really interesting now that I'm rewatching the show again to write my fanfictions...
Katara definitely had her faults (and it was kinda wrong of her to tell her older brother that he didn't love their mother as much, especially because he most likely had more memories of her alive in comparison), but she was still a 14-year-old girl thrust into adult responsibility in the middle of a war. She is misunderstood a lot of the time from a fan's perspective because (in all honesty) a lot of us watched the show as kids and either thought she was super cool or super annoying. I even only started to find Katara annoying after I was older--and that was mainly because in times when she did attempt to "solve" things or "fix" something she wasn't mature enough yet to understand how to handle it responsibly. Sokka was a lot like this too, and we see him getting blamed a lot less. Both of them were standing in as leaders in their tribe during the war, and both of them left. Sure, the Avatar showed up, but even Aang was running away from responsibility until he realized he had to face the consequences of his actions!
Past this point is a lot of me talking about how I'm addressing a lot of this in my fan works, so check it out if you're interested!
I think a lot of my thoughts on this topic stem from the fact that I want to explore the emotional and responsibility commitments the characters of ATLA have weighing on them. In the AU I'm writing, for example, the characters (set in canon) are aged up and a lot of them have more people they are attached to. Since this was a Katara-centric post, I'll also include what I have in mind for my Katara fic.
Growing Pains centers around the letters Katara sends home to her and Sokka's childhood friend, Mali. He was the oldest of the boys left behind by the tribe because he just didn't quite make the age cut, and now serves as a hunter and protector for the tribe. He was definitely upset when his friends left him, but he knew that if they were to travel with the Avatar he had to stay and protect their tribe. Katara sends her letters detailing the stories of her adventures to Mali but soon realizes that she left a lot behind at home for what was turning out to be a perilous and risk-filled adventure.
And on the Aang side of things (because let's face it, a twelve-year-old boy having childish immaturity and the weight of the world on their shoulders is NOT the best combination), I wanted to explore more of his energy and experience of learning maturity after hardship in a Book 3 and post-war fic titled Spitfire.
Spitfire centers around one of Zuko's childhood friends (an OC because I think he deserved friends he could actually trust prior to joining the Gaang) named Soru coming to terms with the fact that he never truly was against the Avatar even though he's from the Fire Nation. Escapism at its finest--truly. As Aang has to come to terms with the new reality the world is entering after the defeat of Fire Lord Ozai, he has to learn how to deal with the weight of the political aspect of society the rest of his friends (and former enemies for that matter) were already wrapped up in.
All in all, I really think exploring aspects of the characters of such a beloved show that aren't really addressed is such an interesting thing to do. I applaud all other ATLA writers on the platform (and any platform) for either just sticking to canon or coming to terms with the flaws that are either over-exaggerated or under-represented in fanfiction, but I am not one of you! I want to explore the inklings of depth we get from this fun show, especially since I'm approaching this from a perspective in which the characters are older and arguably have more responsibility on their shoulders.
I'd really appreciate it if anyone would check out my stories (will be posted on here and ao3) or at least show interest in them! I've worked really hard to put all the details together behind the scenes, so any support or showing you enjoy my works/ideas is greatly appreciated!
I just watched Avatar for the first time all the way through, and yeah, it’s great, but the one thing that surprised me was how different Katara was compared to the fandom interpretation I’d seen and internalized before watching.
Like, before you watch Avatar, you’ve seen all these memes about Katara and her mom, and based on those memes, you assume it’s one of those lines you have to get used to hearing at least once every episode. But then you watch the show and realize that she only talks about her mom maybe five or six times per season and you also realize she only brings her up when she’s trying to comfort someone or empathize with them because that’s how she processes her grief and that’s one way she connects with people.

Or you hear the infamous line, “then you didn’t love [our mother] the way I did” and you prepare yourself for one of the worst character assassinations ever only to see the scene after nearly three seasons worth of context and realize she was kinda right. She’s been the mother, the nurturer, the comforter. She’s been patient, gentle, and accommodating where everyone else has gotten to be insensible and reckless and childish, and the one moment where she allows herself to feel her grief, suddenly she’s this evil bitch and not, y’know, a 14 year old girl whose been thrusted into adulthood in a way no other character has. A 14 year old girl who should be allowed immaturity and raw emotion and anger instead of the patience and grace she’s been forced to extend to every character without even the smallest amount of gratitude or even consideration in return.
Or you see all of the clips where Katara puts Aang in the “friendzone” and you expect to have this wishy washy back and forth where Aang is putting his feelings out there only to have Katara neither commit nor express any clear reciprocation or rejection. Then you watch and realize that, as cute as the ship is initially, that there’s never a point where Aang returns any comfort or grace to Katara despite her always doing this for him to the point of coddling. That for as much as Aang says he loves her, he never seems to outgrow his perception of her so he can recognize her as someone who feels grief, anger, and pain as much as she expresses love, kindness, and maturity. And instead of having moments where he learns to see her beyond her strength or compassion, you’re instead given moments where Aang forces his feelings onto her, both romantic and non-romantic, and Katara is expected to just…shoulder those feelings the way she shoulders everyone else’s.
Katara is the most misunderstood character in the show. As much as people recognize the complexities of Zuko, Sokka, and Azula, they struggle to do the same for Katara because they see her struggles as somehow lesser, and therefore, less deserving of sympathy. They can handle her so long as she’s being endlessly patient and loving and kind, but the moment her endless love, patience, and kindness runs out, she’s suddenly this annoying bitch who can’t shut up about her mother or reciprocate Aang’s feelings. But Katara’s trauma does matter as much as anyone else’s. No, she wasn’t banished from her kingdom. No, she didn’t lose her entire community, and no, she isn’t the only one who lost her mother. But the difference between her and everyone else whose experienced loss because of the Fire Nation is that she’s never given time to process her trauma. Aang gets to lean on Katara constantly. Toph gets to express her feelings to Katara, and yeah, Sokka also lost their mother, but unlike Katara, he isn’t put in the position of being a substitute for everyone’s parent. He even admits that he sees his sister as a mother. The only characters who ever comfort Katara or allow her to vent is Zuko and her father and that’s, like, three scenes in a show where the other characters are consistently given opportunities to seek out Katara for unconditional support.
The fandom interpretation of Katara has been so bastardized that even those who haven’t watched the show know her for this fanon version and not for who she is. She’s such an interesting character beyond her fandom limitations, though. She’s brave, hot-headed, and hopeful as well as gentle and caring. She wishes to learn waterbending, not only because she wants to fight in the war, but because she wants to continue her culture’s practices because, and people often forget this, she also lost an entire subculture within her already fractured tribe. And she wants to defeat the Fire Nation both because of her deep love and empathy for other people, but also because she wants to avenge her mother. But because some of the fans have reduced Katara to a bitch who constantly whines about her mother and friendzones Aang, you wouldn’t know any of this, and it sucks because she’s the only character whose been dumbed down to such an extent.
#avatar the last airbender#avatar#katara#atla#atla aang#aang#avatar aang#fanfic writing#fic writing#writing#understanding characters#mey's atlaverse#just an opinion#really appreciate it#atla katara
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Using the Vertex Persona Chart as a Relocation Chart



In a birth chart, the vertex is a point in the chart that represents fated situations and encounters. Basically, there's no way around it, whether it's a good or bad encounter. No matter what path you are on, you will end up in that situation or meeting that certain someone. I apologize if this sounds scary. This is a very sensitive point and moves fast in a birth chart, so you need your accurate birth time to calculate yours.
Persona charts offer deeper looks into the placements in our birth charts, to get a better understanding of other placements besides the sun. In persona charts, the point or planet is the star and everything else is revolving around it. A vertex persona chart can show you a deeper look of what's fated to occur in your life.
I saw an astrology post on here from a while ago about how you can use your vertex persona chart as a relocation chart and astrocartography chart to see what you are meant to experience in certain locations. Unfortunately, I lost the damn post, but the credit for this idea goes to them. I will tag them when I find it again.
But the idea makes a lot of sense. When I look at mine, I can now see why I was drawn to certain places, why I struggle a bit in my current location, why I have a lot of friends from certain locations, etc.
But first, let me teach you how to generate your vertex persona chart as a birth chart to get your relocation chart and astrocartography chart.
I didn't feel like typing it all out and taking many screenshots, so hopefully this video will help y'all!
A Few Examples
Venus in the 1st House - This location will attract beauty, love, and admiration into your environment. You will embody Venusian qualities more strongly when you move here. Relationships, personal style, and self worth will play a big role in your experience in this location. It can also indicate a boost in attractiveness, social appeal, and a desire to form new connections.
North Node in the 8th House - Your growth in this location is meant to revolve around deep emotional and financial transformations. You will be pushed towards intense experiences that may involve relationships, shared finances, occult studies, or psychological growth. You could meet people who challenge you to face your fears, embrace vulnerability, and evolve spiritually. Inheritances, joint finances, and powerful connections will change your life path.
Jupiter in the 10th House - This location will expand your reputation and career significantly. This will bring major opportunities, status growth, and leadership roles. You will become more well known, respected, and fortunate in your career. You could achieve something big in the public light.
Sun in the 3rd House - Your identity will be tied to learning, networking, speaking, and writing. You will become involved in media, education, or build strong social circles in your local community. You could be active in your immediate environment, commuting and traveling often. This could also indicate a stronger bond with siblings or neighbors in this new location.
Mars in the 11th House - A lot of your energy will be directed towards friendships, social movements, and group projects. You may become involved in activism, networking, and building a strong social presence (could do it online too). There could be conflicts or competitive dynamics within friend groups, but the potential for leadership is big. You may feel driven to pursue big goals through collaborations or technology-related ventures.
Thank you for reading! I will create more parts in the future to do more detailed explanations for placements in the vertex persona chart being used as a relocation chart. In the meantime, if you have questions, feel free to ask of course!
written by: @selenepsyche. do not steal or i'll smite you. entertainment purposes only.
#astrology#astro observations#birth chart#astrology observations#relocation chart#vertex persona chart#relocation astrology
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If you are losing your mind at the possibilities of the Misha Collins on The Boys S5 news (I think the JPad appearance was already in discussions previously), and you haven't seen The Boys I think there's some context non-viewers need to know. Whether it be before they start watching the show as a whole, or if they plan to speculate or watch clips when S5 airs.
I cannot under-stress how this is this is the most deranged show I have ever seen.
To that point (and these are just some spoiler-y highlights):
I don't say "most deranged show I've ever seen on tv", not just because it's on Amazon. This show could never air on cable tv, unless it was edited beyond recognition.
Sure, it'll throw you one-off insane sight gags, like Butcher brandishing a baby with laser vision to laser their attackers to death. It also will go for long-run arcs you'd never see on network tv, like the Aquaman-type's multiple season, bestiality-arc, which isn't relegated to just one type of sea life.
Speaking of sea life - PETA was outraged by this show a few years back when one character was shown eating a living octopus on camera. This show has about an average of 1 violent crime to sea life per season.
I'm not actually sure any of our heroes have made it through an entire episode without being covered in blood at some point. If they have, then they have probably experienced or stumbled into some uncomfortable sexual experience.
This show has basically no qualms showing the amount of kinky shit people with unique powers, near-indestructible bodies, and almost no moral qualms will get up to.
I strongly recommend against drinking milk at any point while you watch this show. You will probably regret it.
You think live bees and real glass from SPN are bad? This show had an episode take place predominantly at an orgy. It was filmed while Covid was going strong, so people kept thinking they were grabbing hand sanitizer, and they actually had squirted lube on their hands because there was so many bottles of both everywhere.
To be clear, the orgy itself served mostly the purpose of a comics callback, and happened mainly in the background while our main characters acted. It was also inexplicably the emotional crux of the season.
Jensen Ackles will do some of the best nuanced acting with micro expressions you've seen talking about his toxic relationship with his father. This will be preceded by an episode where he's found jerking off while insisting he needs more lube to fuck the elderly women masturbating on the bed behind him.
Kripke will not hesitate to make allusions to SPN in the worst way. One of the first scenes our heroes talk with Ackles's character, he's classic Dean, eating takeout in a hotel room, and sure, he's drinking some liquor. But at the same time, he's making racist/sexist comments and crushing up pills with a giant hunting knife so he can snort them.
Kripke tends to be particularly cruel to former SPN actors - On the spin-off show Gen V, one of them had his dick exploded. And on this most recent season of The Boys, he had the actor who played Chuck/God, use his superpowers to pleasure himself naked onscreen and then his character was murdered multiple times over. They made at least two references to his SPN role too, from walking in on him saying "my god" in French, to saying he was up in heaven pleasuring himself now.
I could keep going and going with examples and probably never run out. But here's my point.
This is one of the best satires I've ever seen. It's sharp and outrageously funny, and so timely. But it's also the best show I can never recommend to anyone if I'm not sure they're a little bit of a terrible person, too.
So yes, we might get sort sort of AU Destiel onscreen. We'll almost certainly get more SPN references than we ever wanted.
But if you think for one second that Kripke isn't also going to put Jared and/or Misha in the most uncomfortable scenes that you can imagine (or more likely, the ones you can't), think again.
And that in all reality, as much as we speculate, it's likely none of us are ready for what we're actually going to get onscreen.
#for my money - i think misha is going to get the brunt of kripke's cruelty#destiel or otherwise#that man is far more unhinged (or at least game for crazy) than jared#the boys#the boys amazon#jensen ackles#eric kripke#misha collins#jared padalecki#destiel#spn#supernatural#the boys s5#the boys season 5#soldier boy#the boys tv#the boys tv show
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⁸ walk 'em like a dog!



୨ৎ
"you can't teach an old dog new tricks" applied to everyone... well, except you! schlatt was only twenty-five, but he was truly an old dog. more like an old grumpy cat, actually. he was set in his old ways, but you were determined to change some of these bad habits. for example, you managed to get him into the habit of making sure to floss before bed every night. he even credited you in his theweeklyslap video for "helping him develop actually not shitty habits". you beamed with pride when he showed you.
for example, during streams, you'd managed to squeeze into his room and shove a vegetable in his mouth. you kept a list on the fridge of vegetables and fruits, and checked each one with a box that schlatt seemed to actually not hate. so far, you had watermelon and broccoli ticked off. you were working on blueberries today! his door creaked open during his minecraft stream, and you tip-toed behind him.
he guffawed. "i can see ya, y'know. i might be getting older, but i'm not fuckin' blind yet." spinning his chair around, he gave you a little noogie. his viewers could not, for the life of them, understand why this was his main form of affection. but it was. he'd get you in a playful headlock, messing up your hair lovingly.
in return, you'd whine that he was attempting to murder you "and that's illegal", you'd quip, eventually guilting him into eating something healthy. today you popped a blueberry in his mouth, and he let out a surprised hum.
"not awful."
you gasp, playfully poking his cheek. "no way. jschlatt can eat a vegetable?! clip this, guys!"
or, for example, lessons in being polite. especially to women. after a recent clip blew up that showed him in an... interesting light (it sounded like you were tied up in his basement against your free will), you pointed out gently that was the wrong way to put it. "mine is like, a personal possession. and that's not what i am, right?"
"obviously." he blinks, guffawing. "you're you. a person. like, a helluva one, too." he grins, "promise it won't happen again."
"good." i kiss his cheek.
"are you still angry? how do i make it up to you?"
you pop a blueberry in his mouth. "eat up!"
#fanfic#fluffy fanfic#jschlatt fanfic#jschlatt x you#schlatt x reader#schlatt x y/n#celeb crush#jschlatt fluff#schlatt#schlatt x you
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Hello. I want to introduce an interesting concept that I read about recently called "casteism." It defines the systemic hierarchies in places like the United States. It's going to take race and racism out of the picture for a second. Let's take the US as an example, since I live there.
In America, the dominant caste- those with the most historical legal and societal privilege- are white people. If we want to go further into that, we can define castes in other areas as well, such as gender or sexuality. For example, a heterosexual white man is the most privileged and represented in the United States (always has been able to vote marry, own property, not be considered property, etc.), whereas a queer Black woman is among the least privileged and represented. These hierarchies were instituted a couple hundred years ago with the institution of slavery in the USA, and its our job in the modern age to recognize where the biases we grow up with come from and how we can overcome them.
I don't know if or not you're American, but Tumblr has a huge amount of USAmericans on it and a lot of the shows discussed in this post are American, so lets say it applies.
So, consider this. Was the only representation for white men in media as an insulting caricature of a criminal, thug, idiot, or submissive caretaker to someone "more important?" If you call the cops on a white man for taking a walk in his own neighborhood, does he get shot for it? Did white men used to only be allowed into the country as property? The answer is no, because white men are in the dominant caste in America, and always have been.
So, you were raised in this caste system where white people have always been considered to be above other races, or are influenced by it. There exists messaging and systemic issues everywhere in the US that drill that system into our heads from a young age. Cops and judges are more likely to arrest and convict Black youths for the same crimes that a white kid is given a slap on the wrist for- especially if they are less well off and unable to afford a good lawyer, as is often the case. The convicted person is then behind on education, unable to get a job beyond minimum wage positions, and the cycle of poverty continues.
This does not, and let me really emphasize this to you, occur with white people.
So, let's cycle back around. You said:
"while the comic is about people discriminating against shows with a female lead by focusing on the white guy, the comic implies the show is already discriminative."
So the show is "discriminating" against the white guy by...not having a white guy as the focus?? Help me understand what you're saying here, seriously. If writers and showrunners are able to win the fight to put a non-white woman in the leading role of a show, a role that is just handed to white men and has been for hundreds of years, that's discriminating against the hypothetical white guy by not being about him?
"If somebody is racist towards a white guy, that's fine, because a specific few that aren't even alive anymore were bad people? Well then we can also justify racism against black people, as there have been a handful that've killed and stolen."
How and why do you think that's what racism is??? You think racism happens because someone in their entire race was a bad person at some point??? The issue in the United States is that it used to be legal to OWN SLAVES, and after slavery was abolished (except in prisons) there were still systemic injustices. I could go on for hours on this subject, but I won't right now.
So, okay, let's wrap back around to "That's the exact same attitude biphobes and aphobes have, claiming there's no discrimination against bisexual people or asexual people."
Hi. I'm asexual. No it's not. Your argument for making something not be about the white guy is actually akin to "straight pride." Heterosexuals are part of the dominant caste. Bisexuals and asexuals are not. Discrimination exists because they are different from the dominant caste (straight), just like discrimination existing towards non-white people because they are different from the dominant caste (white), or discrimination existing towards women, intersex, genderqueer, trans, or nonbinary people because they are different from the dominant caste (cis male).
In conclusion, members of the dominant caste who are not and have never been systemically discriminated against don't experience discrimination. I'm white. White people don't experience discrimination for being white. Consistently overlooking non-white, non-male, and/or queer characters in favor of a white male character is an issue in fandom spaces (and other ones, good lord. I'm thinking of the Barbie Oscars).
Others please chime and correct me if anything in this response is wrong concerning systemic racism and everything. I read about a lot of this recently in a book called Caste by Isabel Wilkerson, and I recommend it if you want to read more on America's caste system and how Nazi Germany referenced it when drafting the Nuremberg Laws.
If you comment something stupid and/or unnecessary on this I will reply with critical thinking questions.
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Microphone and ADHD: yet another very rambly analysis
GUESS WHO’S WRITING LONG TUMBLR POSTS ABOUT MIC AGAIN!!!!
i’ve been trying to formulate this post in my brain for a while and i’m finally writing it. I should add a disclaimer here: while i’ve done my own research for this, i’m also mostly writing from my own experience, which a) obviously every case of adhd is different, and b) while adhd is my only diagnosis at present, there are various other things that i’m questioning and in the process of being evaluated for which might also bleed into my experiences with adhd. If there are any issues please feel free to point them out! Also i don’t want to imply that if you don’t have adhd you can’t relate to mic, i’m just discussing the things i personally am seeing in canon. Also also, if this is weird and disjointed and rambly, well, you signed up to read a very long post by someone from adhd about blorbo from their shows.
I think what first comes to mind with Mic and ADHD traits for me is her impulsivity. This is something we see trip her up again and again—for example, when she yells at Fan in Tri Your Best, not considering how the noise could boost him into the air and ahead of her, or in Mazed and Confused, when she calls after Knife in the maze without realizing that Test Tube is in there as well. (And yes, she didn’t hear Baseball say that Test Tube was in there, but if she’d thought before she’d acted she might have considered looking around to make sure there were no Bright Lights missing as well.) Hell, another example I noticed was that during Mine Your Own Business, when Taco and Knife are arguing, Mic physically shoves Knife into the gem, and like, not gently, either—he slams into it pretty hard. It’s been pretty well established at this point that Mic is very averse to physical violence, and she definitely wouldn’t do anything like that intentionally, but the fact of the matter is, when she’s stressed like that, she just kind of makes a snap action without using her head.
This also ties into my second point, her difficulties with emotional regulation, which is something that’s very common with ADHD. I kind of struggle to describe how this shows up in Mic, because honestly, a lot of her seemingly overblown reactions are more of a “straw that breaks the camel’s back” type of situation where she takes so much shit from her teammates that obviously, who wouldn’t be upset? However, I do think it’s fair to say that she’s someone who’s quite easily frustrated, and can have a tendency to lash out quite harshly when she’s in this state. For example, in A Kick In The Right Direction, she’s pissed off about being relegated to goalie, which is fair, but she takes this out on Dough, who wasn’t involved in this decision, just because he happens to be near her, and she’s, like…pretty mean about it, too? Like, when he says he’s bored she says “so am I but not enough to talk to you” and then later flat out tells him to jump off a bridge. Yes, this second one was after he was distracting her and the Bright Lights got a goal past her, but still, it does feel like a pretty dramatic reaction. Especially as in general, Mic’s demeanor is friendly and outgoing, she clearly is someone who cares a lot about others’ well-being, and she’s just a nice person all around, but when something gets under her skin she’s immediately on the defensive and says stuff like this.
Also, just in general, Mic is very outwardly emotional. It’s one of the ways the narrative contrasts her with Taco, who for much of the story is incapable of giving up her facade, whereas Microphone is incapable of not wearing her heart on her sleeve. You can usually at any given time tell from Mic’s expressions and tone exactly what she’s feeling. This is especially noticeable as she’s frequently in a position where she has to lie, and she is…not good at it. Some of the time she falls back on the aforementioned defensiveness—for example, in Alternate Reality Show, when Suitcase asks what she’s painting and she replies, “Uh, zilch! Why are you picking today to talk to me for the first time ever?” and when Knife immediately after asks why she was late, she says, “I got other places to be? What’s it to you?” A lot of the time, though, she just gets all nervous and awkward. Adorable, undeniably, but not helpful when she’s in the position she’s in. (I was very charmed to find that she keeps this trait even after the game, what with her telling Taco to act natural and then going “Heyyyyy!!!! I, uh, found someone! :))))” as if that’s at all acting natural. Never change.) Mic feels everything very strongly, and she can’t naturally hide that like Taco can.
I also wanted to bring up Mic’s extreme sensitivity to negative feedback, or what’s often referred to as Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria—which, yes, I know that isn’t actually technically a diagnostic trait, but I would say it’s kind of an offshoot of emotional dysregulation combined with a response to being ostracised for being neurodivergent in a shitty ableist world. A lot of the time when Mic shows the traits I’ve mentioned here, and they trip her up, her teammates show her very little patience and compassion. (Baseball and Nickel are particularly guilty of this—Cheesy does it as well, but he also apologizes to her and it seems like they get along afterwards. Baseball, however, will be on thin ice until I hear a goddamn apology from him.) And while she tends to respond to their disparagement with anger externally, as mentioned above, it also clearly really upsets her in a deeper way. For all the amount she takes it out on others, she takes it out on herself tenfold: look at the words she uses to describe herself in her diary. “Annoying, harmful, random, useless, insignificant, loser.” This treatment, along with her previously mentioned sensitive emotions, make her very reactive to any form of perceived criticism or failure. Even in the finale, when she’s been through her own arc and had a while to heal from the toxic environment of the show, the image shown in the red line game shows that this is still what upsets her the most—the idea of being ignored and rejected by others.
I think this also goes the other way—she’s so sick of being disparaged that it turns into a desperation for approval and connection. This is kind of the foundation of her entire arc. I noticed this one moment in Mazed and Confused, where Taco offers to help her out and Mic says “Really? You would help me out?” as though she’s completely shocked by the idea of someone offering her help. Which makes sense—the only person who’s actually been there for her is Soap. And one could ask, why does Mic stay in her alliance with Taco? Clearly she realizes, deep down, that what she’s doing is unethical. Mic is someone who has a strong moral code that I think in most circumstances she’d care about more than the money. (Yes, I know, I know, the twist, but it’s been proven several times that contestants are more than capable of putting other things above the game. Look at Marshmallow, Clover, Lightbulb, and obviously, eventually Mic herself!) But I don’t think what keeps her pushing her cognitive dissonance down is actually anything about the money. It’s the approval she gets. Baseball, who as I’ve said is normally quite hard on her, compliments her when she does something right as a result of her cheating, and in so doing cements in her mind that cheating=people liking her. She also gets approval from Taco, which fuels this even more. And as this alliance goes on, it transforms into…well, I don’t know if I’d call it a friendship, per se, but it seems that Mic really does value Taco’s company and wants to connect with her on a more personal level, rather than just as a means to an end. This just muddies matters further, as Mic now has not only approval at stake, but also one of the few actual relationships she has in the game. It takes Taco killing two people in front of her for her to decide that’s not worth it.
I think I maybe got a little sidetracked from my point there, as I am very much wont to do, but I think this leads Mic to display some kinds of masking behavior. One facet of this is politeness/friendliness—and this is not to say that Mic isn’t genuinely an outgoing, friendly person. In my own experience, masking isn’t as cut and dry as “not acting like yourself”---rather, it’s often more putting certain, more socially acceptable aspects of one’s personality forward and suppressing the less acceptable ones. Her politeness also comes off as very stilted to me. For example, in Theft and Battery, where she says, “Guys, not to sound rude, but didn’t MePhone5S and 5C just try to kill MePhone4? Didn't this guy create them? Why would he support us if he just tried to kill us?” It seems like a weird thing to have to tack “not to sound rude” onto—it’s a completely valid and truthful point. But she’s so used to being perceived as rude that it seems she feels like she has to say that. There’s also another example I already talked about in a different post but will go back over here—in Mine Your Own Business, when Mic and Taco are trying to sneak past Knife, but Mic sneezes and then follows it up with “Sorry! ‘Scuse me!” Which, as Taco points out, isn’t something people normally do. And immediately Mic falls back on her other defense mechanism, lashing out. If you listen to what she’s saying when they’re arguing, it’s “What was I supposed to say, ‘bless me’ and bless myself? You’re the one who’s always trying to be proper, what’s your problem?” I think this moment says a lot about her—when she knows she’s messed up, she tries to cover for it with politeness, but she also doesn’t quite get the social rules right. It’s very much something that’s put on, not that comes naturally to her. (This is where I realized she has many parallels with my other favorite Cabby, but that’s a whole different can of worms.)
However, she also masks in kind of the other direction, that is, putting others down to boost herself up. The Grand Slams are not the healthiest of teams, to put it lightly, and Mic mimics the behavior she sees in others that brings them social success. For example, when she jokes to Baseball about not wanting to “pull a Balloon—” Balloon being unpopular as he is, she knows other people will find mocking him funny. And it works! Baseball laughs! She tries this again later, when she says to Knife “talk about emotional baggage” in regards to Suitcase, but this time he doesn’t respond well. Mic seems genuinely surprised at this—this method has worked for her before, so she’s put off by the fact that it doesn’t work this time. And I should say—this isn’t something Taco tells her to do. She does it entirely of her own volition.
Actually, looking at this more, it seems more like part of something she mostly does during her alliance with Taco—an unaffected, jokey front she tends to put on when she’s lying or messing with people, to…limited success, as discussed earlier, but I think she also uses it when she’s lying to herself, or trying to convince herself that what she or Taco is doing isn’t wrong. I had a few examples in mind. The first is in Kick the Bucket, right after the Nickel and Balloon double elimination, when she says, “Well, ha, what a lively experience! Well, not much to gain from sitting around and doing nothing. See ya!” It’s oddly nonchalant when clearly everyone around her is upset, and we see her look concerned for a second beforehand before she goes into this. I interpret that as her…kind of seeing that what just happened messed things up for a lot of people and that it was her fault, but she’s not ready to accept that truth yet. She also uses this affect throughout Mine Your Own Business—both with Taco, as an attempt to get her to open up, and with Knife, I think in some ways trying to mimic what Taco did to recruit her in order to do the same with him. Neither of these are successful. Knife being Knife, he’s someone who’s very able to see right through people (figuratively speaking, that is, because now people can literally see right through him! Get it? Because he’s a ghost? Please imagine the sound of Cheesy slapping his knee from somewhere in the distance). He plants seeds of doubt in Mic’s mind by telling her about Pickle—and she’s still not ready for those seeds to grow, but they certainly are there. In fact, the next time we see her use this behavior, it’s in Hatching the Plan, when she jokes that Taco will “inevitably drop me too or whatever.” She says it casually, but clearly what Knife said is still on her mind, and she’s trying to convince herself that what happened to Pickle won’t happen to her even though she doesn’t at all believe herself. I also think looking at this behavior has really clarified my view of her in the movie—at first I was frustrated at how she seemed much more calm and collected than I would have expected her to, both about the general horrors happening to everyone, and specifically about Taco. I talked about those criticisms in another post, and I do still stand by them to some extent, I would have written her differently. But I don’t think it’s as incongruent with her character as I did before—in fact, I think there’s plenty of precedent for her masking like that in situations of greatly conflicted emotion. (Oddly enough, I think it’s something she has in common with Taco, but Taco’s just better with it.) I kind of doubt she was quite mentally ready to reconnect with Taco yet, but in such a dire situation she doesn’t have time to process all that, so she just kind of shoves that to the back of her brain. Not to say that I don’t think she genuinely cares for Taco, but I do think there’s a lot of processing she hasn’t done yet about her that will hopefully be a topic of discussion later please please please AE please for me???? Anyways, I do think this is a response to her aforementioned emotional dysregulation tending to create problems for her, and it’s definitely a masking technique in my eyes.
I also want to touch briefly on Microphone and Soap’s friendship, because while it’s not evidence for my point exactly, per se, I do think it’s relevant. While unfortunately pretty stereotypical representation, I would say it’s generally considered true that Soap is coded as having OCD. Now I’m not going to say that all neurodivergent people can easily be friends with one another, I know that’s not true. However, looking at the scene we see with the two of them in Rain On Your Charade, it certainly plays a part in this specific friendship. Mic helps Soap cope with her compulsions, and Soap is the only person at this time who really values Mic and doesn’t see her as a burden just because she’s accident-prone.
One minor thing I also wanted to point out was how it’s pretty common for people with ADHD to struggle with controlling our voices, including the tone, speed, and…well, volume. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve had people tell me that I’m talking loudly and I didn’t even realize it. I trust I don’t have to explain how this point is relevant to Mic, and it does very much fit.
There was one specific line that inspired me to write this post, from Everything’s A-OJ: “I’m trying harder than anyone else, so why do I always lose?” One of the diagnostic traits for ADHD is described as making “careless mistakes” in activities, and I never have particularly loved that phrasing. It may look careless on the outside, because it’s often mistakes that other people can easily avoid, but when you have a disorder that affects your attention, impulse control, memory, executive function, et cetera et cetera et cetera, you doing your best might look like someone else half-assing it. Not to get too personal on my blorbo post, but I keep thinking about this one teacher I had in middle school who, when I messed something up in a class, said “oh, that’s such a Clonnie move!” I’m sure she doesn’t remember that, but I do, because when you hear over and over again that people associate you with making mistakes, that shit sticks with you, and eventually when nothing you do helps you start to feel like you’re the mistake. That’s why Mic as a character resonates with me so much. God willing AnimationEpic will bring my girl back because I would like to see how Mic heals from that mindset as time goes on and where she goes from here.
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Hey Gina, one of the things I love about being a larrie, especially here on tumblr, is that we always try to get and keep accurate, up-to-date info, and we even debunk things ourselves or are more critical of things presented as ‘proof’ or ‘signs.’
Even though many things have been debunked, there are some that, in my opinion, are undeniable and keep me here after all this time:
1. The history, patterns, and parallels in both Harry’s and Louis’ music. I know song analysis is subjective, but what can’t be denied is how their songs tell the same story from two different perspectives (themes like home, love, and devotion in a relationship that’s been through a lot). There are also clear references to each other in their songs, but you only catch them if you know their story. I’d say Keep Driving, Satellite, Daylight, IICF, Sweet Creature, Defenceless, Habit, Too Young, The Greatest, and WAOYF scream Larry the most.
2. Some things just don’t make sense without considering their relationship. For example, Harry getting super emotional on his first tour when singing IICF, Sweet Creature, or Still the One (which he also sang in 2022) or Louis wearing a giant H when debuting his first album.
3. RBB and SBB happened.
4. The kind of people Harry and Louis are. If someone assumes everything public about their love lives is real, I honestly don’t understand how anyone could be a fan of people who show that behavior. Yes, we don’t know them personally, and everyone has their flaws, but I think their flaws lie elsewhere (like Harry being a people-pleaser or mixing work with friendships, which I think has caused him problems). At the end of the day, they’ve both shown over time to be completely different from how the media portrays them or their public images suggest.
I just wanted to say that, sorry if it was a bit long:).
That’s okay, love. I agree with your points. There’s plenty we’ve been wrong about over the last decade and a half. But there’s also plenty that feels super solid.
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"You're overanalysing Byler!"
There is no such thing as so-called overanalysis. Media consumption is complex, and I can't believe how hard it is to get people to understand that what they are seeing isn't IT, y'know? Consuming a TV show is much more than simply accepting the content at face value.
Lately, we've seen this decline in media literacy. Milevens saying things like 'but Mike literally loves El' and that post where someone on tiktok was like 'wdym El hates being called a superhero? she literally calls herself one!'. And I'm sick of all intellectual conversation from people who are trying to understand, people who even have degrees in film studies and cinematography, being dumbed down to 'overanalysis'.
People watching Stranger Things sometimes completely miss the point. You don't need to get the point to enjoy the show and that's okay, but don't tell me I'm overanalysing things because I believe the show is about outcasts of society.
If media literacy is lacking (which it is), then overanalysis is good. I believe it could be a took to correct or balance out the passive consumption of media.
"But this post about xyz is definitely not what the author/writers intended!!! "
Hear me out: Analysis doesn't need to necessarily align with author's intent.
Media like Stranger Things is definitely designed with multiple layers of meaning and can be interpreted in many different ways. But there is also media that may not be as 'deep' or may not be as well thought-out. Even with ST, there are some scenes just there for fun or fan service and doesn't necessarily need analysing. BUT media always, no matter what, operates within a larger cultural, historical, and ideological context, which influences how it is understood.
For example, the intent behind a commercial may be to sell a product, but the analysis might focus on cultural stereotypes, gender roles etc. that the ad perpetuates, even if this wasn't the advertiser's explicit goal.
Using Stranger Things, Jancy sometimes parallels Byler. This isn't always the writer's intent, they did not necessarily purposefully have them be similar in some ways because they wanted the viewers to go "oh wait they're a similar couple, they should be together". But it's still good to analyse, because it tells you something deeper about the romantic tropes of the show.
In this way, overanalysis can reveal things about ourselves, things about the media that reflects how it interacts with our worldview in nuanced ways. It can still reveal things about the outcome of the media. We need overanalysis of unintentional meaning to reveal the intentional meaning.
The role of the audience in interpreting media isn't just trying to figure out what the author's or writer's original intent is. It can uncover far more than that, and helps us to gain meaning and specialty from the things we watch without it becoming a waste of time.
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Beth was a great Character, you're just misogynistic
Sorry for the title, just want ya'll to read this.
TW: mention of, SA, violence, abuse,
Why Beth is an amazing character and could have been even better:
Female experience in the Apocalypse:
We don't focus enough on it, especially in The Walking Dead. We got hints throughout the show. For example the issue with Lori and Birth specifically the talk about her losing the baby with Hershel.
Second Maggie's experience with the Governor. And even though that storyline was well executed to a certain degree. We do not get the full ramifications after her conflict with Glenn was resolved. Yes once more the Female Experience was focused on the man not the woman. Even though the show called Glenn out on his behaviour, it still was about a man feeling angry instead of a woman going through something traumatic.
So, Beth's experience would have been important going forward. Since she did experience attempted rape. How would she react to people in charge like someone aggressive, loud, outspoken, and unpredictable like Dawn and Gorman?
How would she take Abraham's unpredictability and outspokenness? How would she deal with the socially inappropriate comments Eugene makes?
(Again this is not about the men and “oh but they wouldn't do anything” or he is “harmless” etc.) This is about a trauma response.
So what trauma did Beth experience?
Firstly she was taken against her will, most likely forcefully in some way (her arm was broken). Her agency was taken, her free will, and the (somewhat) security of her surroundings, mainly her family member Daryl who she knows she can trust.
So she is kidnapped, put in an unfamiliar environment, unfamiliar people, and she has no idea how to navigate such a situation since she has never been in this situation. The situation mainly being, can she trust them? Can she trust what they are saying? Who are these people? How does it work here and what are their intentions?
The disorientation she must have felt waking up in that environment must have been traumatic. We see with the camera work if we look at Beth's timeline. Her last words are "I’m not leaving you”. Cut to the car speeding away, cut to Beth waking up in an unfamiliar place. These cuts are very abrupt, confusing, and scary. It serves the purpose of confusing the viewer. (What happened to Beth? I think Daryl put it best “she was just gone") and it makes the viewer anxious, nervous, and the need to know what is going on. So we can imagine that Beth feels these things too.
Furthermore, the show makes a point to show that the world is not what it used to be. I mean the Team Family lived in a prison after all. So having Beth wake up visually in a clean room. Her face clean, her hair brushed out nicely, and professional medical care is like a break from the (her true) reality Beth lived in. Another point is the music and the way she wakes up. It is almost like a dream sequence. Like she had just been in an accident, but all is well now since she is in the hospital. Almost like a sleeping beauty type of deal (but modernized).
To sum up, her first Trauma is the shift of reality, specifically of her surroundings. The funeral home was not safe, it was a trap. She is no longer with family, but her agency, which she had to a certain point (cannot control things like walkers, or people attacking their home) is taken completely away. Lastly, the new surroundings differ from what she knows from the outside. It is like back at the farm “we were fooling ourselves into thinking we were safe” and “you don't know what it is like out there,” but Beth does know now. And even though Grady likes to pretend that the outside world did not touch the hospital, it did. Maybe not in the sense of walkers, people looting the place, dirt everywhere, but the mentality presented to us, the question of “Survival of the Fittest” is present in Grady. We see this theory of survival of the fittest through the first 4 seasons, but not in this scenario where people deliberately want the weak to enslave them and claim it is saving them.
Where do we see Survival of the Fittest?
Randall and Dale
Is this a world for kids?
Disability: Hershel losing his leg
The Governor and the way he manipulates the “weak” residents of Woodberry and takes out the “fittest” f.ex. the military guys.
Does sickness discrimination against the weak and the strong? (The flu storyline)
So now we have Beth's storyline mixed with the question survival of the fittest. Beth is constantly underestimated and Dawn constantly says/tries to show that Beth is not strong. I don't want to focus on how this can be used to your advantage but the mental tool it can take on you. This is a form of demeaning people, keeping them in “their place”. It fucks with your head when things in your past (suicide scar) is used against you, your appearance (Beth is skinny, with big blue eyes and generally deemed innocent and non threatening looking). She outright says “I am strong” but no one believes her. Which is a form of silencing therefore further taking her agency away from her. At one point does Beth start to believe this? would it take months or years for this kind of gaslighting to have an effect? This can be compared to Daryl’s inner monologue in Season 2 when Merle tells him “no one is ever going to love you but me little brother” which we can guess as viewers is something he was told/taught for years and Daryl believed it.
Now this could have been interesting to see in Alexandria. Before everything happened with the fall of the Farm and the Barn incident. (Even to an extent the prison era) Beth would have fit in perfectly in Alexandrias society. The sweet farmer's daughter who takes care of a child that is not hers, helps out with chores, sings, reads the Bible, and hopes for summer picnics and birthdays (which in no way is a bad thing, I love that side of Beth!). Now she has encountered Grady, a place that was from the appearance like the old world and Beth was believed to fit in - so is Alexandria. How does she handle the constant shift of what she's supposed to believe the world is? Is it like Grady? The road from Atlanta to D.C.? Or is it like Alexandria? Could it be like all three or could Alexandria be just another “false” hope?
To sum up, the Trauma of being taken out of one surrounding and what you believe the world is like and being put in another with different rules and she has no idea how to navigate them since she does not know them and does not have any protection from her family being there. (Grady's system of running things is so vastly different from the Prison, also let's call Grady's system what it is: Slavery. They kidnap people and make them work “work of what you owe and then you can leave” “I haven't seen it work like that”)
Now to the people: Beth has experienced different kinds of traumas with the people in Grady.
Gaslighting (“you were alone, we saved you, you owe us, you are not strong,...”)
Physical abuse (Dawn hitting her, her scars on her face, bruising, a cast on her arm)
Mental abuse (the doctor making her kill someone and then claiming she messed up (also falls into the category of gaslighting, having to rely on the same doctor to not get SAd by Gorman))
Sexual abuse (that is mostly the female experience. He is in charge therefore in a position of power, he is older, and she is just a weak young woman) the abuse was: the fear of it happening, the lollipop incident (yes that is a traumatic event), the constant watching from Gorman, how trivialize it is by the police officers “laughed about the poor girl getting raped”, the top person in charge does nothing to stop it (“ you know what is happening here and you let it happen”), and then the SA in Dawn's office)
How is it that we never get to see this female struggle? This (more often) female fear and trauma? Michonne and Andrea traveled alone, but this fear never comes up. We have one mention of an incident where Randell tells the story of the two teenage girls. But honestly my biggest fear in this world would be traveling alone as a woman and encountering men. It is already bad nowadays. Can you imagine this in an Apocalypse?
So why do we ignore this very real fear women face? Why do we kill the one character who actually has a storyline, who focuses on this female fear and female trauma, without any connection to a man or the typical motherhood storyline TWD does?
Why not show that this was ACTUALLY traumatic. Since we even see Beth smile at Dawn after getting SA, killing him, and then leaving the office to go escape? I am glad Beth could put on a smile so Dawn wouldn't know but why do we never see Beth scared, look around her, keep an eye on the door while she sleeps, even trying to lock the door in some way so no one can get in while she sleeps. Why do we not see a far away look when she is trying to first process what happened. There are soo many trauma responses, and everyone is valid in the way they respond to trauma. So why do we not take trauma into account in female storyline? This is my biggest issue with TWD. Lori got one scene of her crying after Shane SAd her and then it was back to the love triangle (which is absolutely disgusting). Why did Rosita not get to be angry with Eugene like Abraham? There are so many storylines even when the woman is involved that focuses on the male response instead.
Let Beth be human, with human responses and more than just another dead girl. Show me how she would cope with her personal space being violated, the perception of personhood being breached. Could she react aggressively when Eugene makes a socially inappropriate comment. Would she be tense, nervous, keep an eye out for him? How about Abraham's imposing statue? What about men in Alexandria? Could she struggle socializing with men? Keeping to the people she knows and clinging to the safety they once represented to her like Glenn, Rick, Carl and Daryl. They are the men that never did anything to her. Or could she even pull away there and struggle to come to terms that they are safe but also men. And men had not been safe for women in Grady.
How could Beth respond to Deanna knowing how Dawn presented herself. Would she be uneasy? Would she be able to tell that Deanna is not like Dawn since she knows the signs of a bad leader because of Dawn.
I am just mad how we ignore this big (and unique to TWD) storyline of a young woman witnessing her father get beheaded, her home destroyed, her relationship with Daryl, her kidnapping, enslavement, physical/mental/sexual abuse? All that just to further other people's storylines for a couple of episodes just to forget about Beth after that.
What do you think? Comment below
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I am quite sure my reading comprehension skills are totally fine and I have better things to show for it than arguing on the internet. I also don’t think I’m misunderstanding anything or taking it out of context. What I think is that you refuse to engage with my arguments, which I don’t really care about, because as I said I just wanna talk about crowferi.
Just because Ferid thinks about how he yearns for desire for women and strength doesn’t mean that it was his strongest desire as a human. Vampire’s yearn for many forms of humanity, for example death (like Ferid getting suicidal or Crowley being glad his life ended). Also Ferid isn’t getting stronger just for the sake of it but to carry out his plan. If he was, he wouldn’t have agreed to work with Guren, who now appears to have some type of authority over him. In the chapters where Ferid’s time as a human was showed it was quite clear that he was mostly interested in finding the reason for living. He was studying philosophy and he killed his parents not to gain more power but so that he could travel the world and learn more.
And your way of “explaining” vampire relationship was basically repeating your point and not engaging with any of my arguments against it. I don’t “absolutely know that it’s right” because when I entered the fandom I have already read Vassalord and knew about IWTV so I perceived Ferid’s and Crowley’s relationship the same way I did to characters in that works, I’ve never thought of them as brothers and I was surprised when I found out there are even people who believe so, as I stated previously, because there have never been claims like that in fandoms of any other vampire media I had been in.
I’ve never said their relationship wasn’t abusive, but it doesn’t change the fact it was meaningful. If you go outside you’ll notice that people aren’t perfect and do bad things to others. A ship doesn’t have to be perfect and sanitized to be good, if you can’t handle it don’t think about it, it’s really that easy. And me shipping crowferi doesn’t invalidates people who have been abused because, setting aside everything else, Ferid and Crowley are in fact not real.
I’m real tho, which may seem absurd to you, and so are most crowferi shippers, that is people who you enjoy telling to kill themselves, over the fact you disagree about something. You seem to be very keen on assuring yourself that you’re a good person, so I’m going to tell you one thing. Dehumanization is the first step towards not being in fact a good person, because if you’re ready to dehumanize a person, even over something you think is completely reasonable, eventually you’ll fine with anybody being dehumanized.
Also just because somebody can see that two characters relationship isn’t sexual doesn’t mean they can’t write smut about them? I’m pretty sure that’s how a lot of fanfiction was created, as a matter of fact. This is what transformative works mean.
The comment about being a non-religious person and saying omfg is so random, like I’m pretty sure it’s religious people who usually shouldn’t say god’s name while swearing. I’m non-religious too but I say it all the time, which I probably wouldn’t if I was religious because in many religions it’s forbidden.
And anyway tysm, I would actually love for love like crowferi to find me!
kami's rage
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Hatchetfield is the best fandom ever because wdym your favourite character is a lawyer that barely has any lines, gets kicked in the balls, kills a man, joins a cult and then disappears from the series entirely, what the hell, sure
#I love how a majority of the fandom hyperfixates on characters with barely any content#I could show more examples but you get the point#gary goldstein attorney at law#gary goldstein#black friday musical#black friday starkid#hatchetfield#hatchetverse#starkid
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i feel like im not making any sense but does anyone else feel like there are stories that let u run with them and ones that spell everything out for you
#im reading that post that says artists are directors of audience reaction and not its dictator:#'you cannot guarantee that everyone viewing your work will react as you are trying t make them react. a good artist knows that this is what#allows work to breath. by definition you cannot have art where the viewer brings nothing to the table ... this is why you have to let go of#the urge to plainly state in text exactly how you think the work should be interpreted ... its better to be misinterpreted sometimes than#to talk down to your audience. you wont even gain any control that way; people will still develop their opinions no matter what you do#im thinking abt this again cuz i was thinking maybe the thing that lets adventure time work so well the way it does is cuz it doesnt#take itself too seriously that it gives the audience enough room to fuck with subtext and then fuck with them back yknow. i think it was#mentioned somewhere that they werent even planning to run with the postapocalyptic elements that are hinted in the show but changed their#mind after the one off with the frozen businessmen and dominoed into marcy and simons backstory. on the other side there are stories that#explain too much to let the story speak for itself and i think it ends up having to do more with the crew trying to lead ppl in a certain#direction than expand on what they have and i see a lot of this with miraculous. like when interviews and tweets are used as word of god in#arguments and it becomes a little stifling to play around with it knowing the creator can just interject. u can say its the crews effort to#engage with its audience but it feels more like micromanaging. and none of this is to say there ISNT room for stories that spell things out#theyre just suited for different things. if sesame street tried abstract approaches to themes and nuance itd be counterproductive#a lot of things fly over my head so i need help picking things apart to get it- but it doesnt have to be from the story itself. ive picked#picked up or built on my own interpretations listening to other ppl share their thoughts which creates conversation around the same thing#sometimes stories will spell things out for you without being so obvious abt it that it feels like its woven into the text. my fav example#for this might be ATLA using younger characters as its main cast but instead of feeling like its dumbed down for kids to understand why war#is bad its framed from a childs point of view so younger audiences can pick up on it by relating to the characters. maybe an 8 year old#wont get how geopolitics works but at least they get 'hey the world is a little more complicated than everyone vs. fire nation'. same for#steven universe bc its like theyre trying to describe and put feelings into words that kids might not have so they have smth to start with#especially with the metaphors around relationships bc even if it looks unfamiliar as a kid now maybe the hope is for it to be smth you can#look back to. thats why it feels like these shows grew up with me.. instead of saving difficult topics for 'when im ready for it'#as if its preparing me for high school it gave me smth to turn in my hands and revisit again and again as i grow. stories that never#treated u as dumb all along. just someone who could learn and come back to it as many times as u need to. i loved SU for the longest time#but i felt guilty for enjoying it hearing the way ppl bash it. bc i was a kid and thought other ppl understood it better than me and made#feel bad for leaning into the message of paying forward kindness and not questioning why steven didnt punish the diamonds or hold them#accountable. but im rewatching it now and going oh. i still love this show and what it was trying to teach me#yapping#diary
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thinking about ch0mpkin's evil evbo post (evilbo, if you will) and going "How can I align this with My Interests (the axes)" and the answer is Very easily actually
#thoughts in tags.....#when the cookie crumbles#pciv#pvp civilization#you know. evbo leaving behind everything he knows for his friend and going along with The Plan#constantly telling himself its for the greater good its for the greater good#but the longer he goes on the worse it gets#and both tabi and clown force him to stop diagetically monologuing somehow because otherwise he'll blow their cover#so he just gets quieter and quieter and withdraws more and more#to the point where even tabi is thinking like “damn maybe i Should've killed him in sword civ...” but he's here now#another thing is i think evbo would 100% buy and sneak another video journal machine out and when tabi finds out she Flips Her Lid#clown is less concerned because he wasn't With them so he doesn't know like tabi does that he spends So Much Time On This Shit#not knowing that (like minute said) video journaling is the biggest reason evbo is able to take in so much new info and maintain himself#and if they straight up take it away from him he's going to get Even Worse#i think clown doesn't see it as much of an issue despite tabi's major objections because he'd literally be talking about their plan On Air#and that tape goes somewhere and is Seen by someone (plus if someone else sees their cover is gone cuz video journals are sword only)#but in his eyes that means the only people who will ever see it are the diamond swords in their ivory tower who can't leave anyways#so why worry? if anything it shows them what they're (the axes) doing to their (the swords) little golden boy and they can't stop it#another thing i thought about is that they would definitely hold killing evbo over his head like. Constantly#and evbo's fear of dying isn't the same because he never died to tabi's axe so he doesn't know zam is waiting for him (which is also funny)#so instead it takes a spin of tabi saying “ill kill you and let you respawn in sword civ and you'll stay there with your regrets”#because even if zam Wasn't still waiting for him he kinda ditched the diamond swords so uh... kinda lost your sense of kinship there#a-NOTHER point of interest: guardfriend#since guards can access all civilizations they'd definitely want to take advantage of his connections and relation with evbo#especially since unless evbo spills the beans he most likely wouldn't know the eternal sword was taken and tabi is the one who took it#let alone that she (and clown by extension‚ but to throw off suspicion he doesn't show up around guard) is a natural born axr#so they can defo use what trust those two have to get places easier#but if he ends up getting in the way... [makes a chopping gesture across my throat]#could even do it in Front of evbo as an example of what happens to those who stand between them and their mission#holy shit this is the first time ive ever hit 30 tags. wtf
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this is a genuine question not at all meant as a rude gotcha, but I feel like I've seen lots of people cite the relatively low barrier of entry as a huge advantage of podcasts as a medium, "if you have access to decent audio tech you can make a podcast" etc etc. So where does the need to sell a script come in? Is it a financial thing, and IP thing, something else?
this doesn't read like a rude gotcha at all, it's a really good question! there is a much lower barrier to entry when it comes to podcasts compared to tv, film, theater, etc. (though not as low as writing a book if we're talking about hard resources - you can technically write a book with just a laptop and a dream and then self publish! though as a writer who has written a lot of scripts and four books (3 published) writing a book is a much bigger psychological burden imo lol).
the need to sell a script, for me, is entirely a financial thing. if I had the money to produce podcasts at the level I want to entirely independently, I would! I know how to do it! but, unfortunately, I really only have the funds to produce something like @breakerwhiskey - a single narrator daily podcast that I make entirely on my own.
and that show is actually a great example of just how low the barrier is: I actually record the whole thing on a CB radio I got off of ebay for 30 bucks, my editing software is $50/month (I do a lot of editing, so this is an expense that isn't just for that show) and there are no hosting costs for it. the only thing it truly costs me is time and effort.
not every show I want to make is single narrator. a lot of the shows I've made involve large casts, full sound design, other writers, studio recording, scoring, and sometimes full cast albums (my first show, The Bright Sessions had all of those). I've worked on shows that have had budgets of 100 dollars and worked on shows that cost nearly half a million dollars. if anyone is curious about the nitty gritty of budgets, I made a huge amount of public, free resources about making audio drama earlier this year that has example budgets in these ranges!
back in the beginning of my career, I asked actors to work for free or sound designers to work for a tiny fee, because I was doing it all for free and we were all starting out. I don't like doing that anymore. so even if I'm making a show with only a few actors and a single sound designer...well, if you want an experienced sound designer and to pay everyone fairly (which I do!), it's going to cost you at least a few thousand dollars. when you're already writing something for free, it can be hard to justify spending that kind of money. I've sound designed in the past - and will be doing so again in the near future for another indie show of mine - but I'm not very good at it. that's usually the biggest expense that I want to have covered by an outside budget.
but if I'm being really honest, I want to be paid to write! while I do a lot of things - direct, produce, act, consult, etc. - writing is my main love and I want it to be the majority of my income. I'm really fortunate to be a full-time creative and I still do a lot of work independently for no money, but when I have a show that would be too expensive to produce on my own, ideally I want someone else footing the bill and paying me to write the scripts.
I love that audio fiction has the low barrier to entry it does, because I think hobbyists are incredible - it is a beautiful and generous thing to provide your labor freely to something creative and then share it with the world - but the barrier to being a professional audio drama writer is certainly higher. I'm very lucky to already be there, but, as every creative will tell you, even after you've had several successes and established yourself in the field, it can still be hard to make a living!
anyway, I hope this answers your question! I love talking about this stuff, so if anyone else is curious about this kind of thing, please ask away.
#lauren writes things#audio fiction#producing#also I say I don't like doing it anymore#but that's exactly what briggon andrew and I are working on#it's gonna be a show where we just split profits equally bc I can't afford to pay them lol#and I'll be sound designing it myself#so apologies in advance#also my GOD lauren can you be succinct once in your GODDAMN LIFE#why are all my posts so long i'm so sorry#also I don't get into it in this post#but using my book example as a jumping off point#obviously it is MUCH more complicated than that#bc self publishing/promoting/etc.#and writing the book in the first place!#is an ENORMOUS effort#as is making an audio drama!#also the grand irony in this#is that the show i was referencing in my original post is a show i first came up with to do independently lol#a two person show for briggon and andrew in fact#and then I happened to mention it to some producers I know and they liked it#so that's a show I COULD make for no money!#but they want to pitch it out and there's no harm in asking around#and in the meantime i just came up with another show for briggon and andrew haha#lauren answers things
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Ngl youtube videos suddenly got me slowly turning into a Justin Russo hater.
#like mainly later seasons him#early seasons him is fine#but like i guess plot wise you could argue he becomes more iffy because you know the competition will be soon#and justin does want to become the family wizard#as for some reason this show still never fully tackled the fucked up shit of the idea that wizard siblings have to grow up studying magic#only for one or two or whatever number siblings to lose it to one sibling in a competition#like stevie was the closest we got to that#but like it still dont make it less bad with how justin was#like the worst example i can name is him literally refusing to save alex whose his sister btw and shes always dropped shit to save him#because he wants to project onto her that she purposely fucked up his chances to get back into the competition via#pushing the students to take the test only for them to be failed because bad guy being bad guy in reality#and basically blames her for the failure and such as a result and acts like its all an act when she is mad on the students behalf and shit#and his students have to drag him kicking and screaming just to save her from the bad guy's shit#and there's also the competition itself where harper and zeke get grabbed by a creature during it#but alex has to convince her brothers to save the two and thats just cold already on justins end with zeke#but cause they took too long they all lose the competition and magic#and both brothers especially justin proceed to treat alex like shit even during work hours meaning#fucking over family business just to get at alex#and when the dad ultimately almost sells the place justin STILL blames alex#like she was the only one working fully max was being max and justin was being a little bitch to her#aka the infamous refusing to make her orders only max's and when he does he throws the sandwich at her#and cause she was holding drinks at the time and didnt see it coming the drinks went on a customer#and also throwing table trash into her already full bin shes carrying around while cleaning tables#and therefore messing it up for her like#and alex's logo...well from sounds of shit thats just justin again being a hateful bitch to his sister with zero consquiences#even one commenter pointing how he sadistically smiled while telling her all her friends hate her#like dear god if the show was doing this to make everyone root for alex its working i hate later season justin#gonna be interesting if hes matured or not as an adult
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rewatching bbc merlin really has me like buzzing in my mind with so many thoughts. Like I'm kinda watching it backwards atm going from S5 to S4, I think I will jump around 3, 2, and 1 but just,,,, there is so much especially in S5 that makes me !!!!!!!
Honestly, I feel like this fandom has to give the writers more credit. Like they did a damn good job, and to me, it's such a good tragedy. Especially how S5 plays out, it takes everything and just tears you down, and down, and down. It's perfect, perfect with flaws! But still perfect
#bbc merlin#merlin#yeah idk on that note about the writers - this fandom is way too harsh#like i know we all have ideas on how it should have gone#but i think we lose how it's still a story that they planned from the start to end like that#they did their job they set up from the beginning and it is good as a tragedy imo as someone who has studied tragedies#hot take but the characterisations are consistent - i mean like as consistent as they get for a 5 series show#they did better than most and i dont feel like any characters get like their previous characterisation assassinated#that includes Arthur and Morgana btw they clearly have arcs that work well and where Arthur's is a slower progression - Morgana's is like a#lit match - slow at first but when it gets going it's going and then gone - it's wonderful#i mean look at s5 it literally starts by talking about Arthur's bane aka his fatal flaw aka his hamartia#which is himself and i dont think it's as much as the overdone hubris but rather Arthur's love and trust for others - but that like in many#tragedies can be debated#okay something else that can be debated is the peripeteia - i think a good example of it is the Disir episode because that's when Arthur's#fate becomes sealed anything after that point is fruitless because the Triple Goddess has decided he must die because of his rejection of#the Old Religion - it's a reversal of fortune in a sense that Mordred is alive to play his part in Arthur's death - as Merlin puts it. You#could see it more as Merlin's peripeteia rather than Arthur's but still#if we wanna debate it more Arthur's peripeteia would probablyyyy be when Mordred stabs him because that's when his death becomes imminent#it's a reversal of fortune because he's dying from that point forward rather than a strong king he is a man dying#the anagnorisis is another point to make. You could say for Arthur his anagnorisis is all of the finale - like this constant realisation of#Merlin and his magic and realising all that he missed all that he didnt see and now it's too late because he's dying#I'd say Merlin's anagnorisis comes with the whole Mordred and Kara ordeal and how he realises his mistake and how it's gonna cause the#downfall of not just himself but Arthur too#then catharsis - see i think it's the only part where the tragedy falters because do we get catharsis from Arthur's death and Merlin's#immortality - where he's still at the lake centuries later?#i think in some ways yes and in other ways no because I don't think BBC Merlin is following an Aristotle's tragedy#i think catharsis comes more from Morgana's half of the tragedy - seeing her die - and i think further catharsis comes from knowing it's no#over forever that there will be a second chance for redemption for both Merlin and Arthur#but it is a more difficult one for sure#anyway point is that S5 specifically has a tragedy storyline that is very well done and we should credit that more tbh
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