#I dont know if anyone has done this but here
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dayra-zaria · 20 days ago
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Hey, yes, hello I offer the idea of a Sheith au in these trying times Keith is a cowboy obi and and owns a ranch he got when his father past and is still half Galra, Shiro needed a change if scenery and became a ranch had.
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mipexch · 6 months ago
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been thinking about something wicked a little too much lately. no harm in romanticizing the ominous dreadful unstoppable force
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starrysharks · 1 year ago
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hotel manager
#zeno's art#i'm not sure if i should tag the show itself as i'm not a fan but i guess its “fan”art so i will#hazbin hotel#charlie hazbin hotel#vivziepop#i was bored and wanted to draw something#my main goal here was to create a design that looked distinct and could (potentially) be moderately easy to animate#of course based on charlie's character i added as many angel images as possible through the hair and bowtie#(i know white on white is a character design sin but i wanted to show the angel wing detail ;w;)#also to express the personality and juxtaposition of a sweet devil her horns are supposed to curve into a heart shape#of course the garterbelts are upside-down/st peters crosses because of her satanic themes#i also tried to go harder into the goat theme but its still subtle i think#i actually think the goat theme is really interesting because of the story of the sheep and the goats in the bible#but i cant remember if it was actually something intended in her original design#i'm not going to draw anyone else so dont even anticipate that#this was basically a cooldown? ok i think i'm rambling now#goodbye#ok edit to say it clearly: i am not a fan of vivziepop or her work. i just wanted to redesign charlie as a cooldown/exercise for fun#because i used to be a fan of the character before i wised up about what vivzie had and has done#and before i matured and noticed the cracks and fundamental flaws in her works#so yea i dont support her at all and this redesign is critical i guess#also the reason why the tag “vivziepop” is there in the first place is so that anyone who has that tag silenced can scroll past#without seeing anything related to her work. in case that clears anything up#its the same reason why i tag “long post” and “food” and the like
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bigskydreaming · 6 months ago
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Imagine if you were a gay or bi man who tried a certain firefighter show because of all the attention it was getting for one of its mains having a later in life bi awakening.....and between seasons you ventured into its fandom in search of material to tide you over til the next one. And you're greeted by a deluge of posts and fics that are just cheerfully homophobic towards one half of the newly out bi character's canon relationship on the basis of 'well he's not the RIGHT gay guy' and pushing the idea that actually its fine to cheat on him because Reasons and he's sexually predacious based on......behind the scenes implications people have divined like they're reading fucking tea leaves.
But don't get it twisted....this fandom, like all fandoms, really cares about representation!
Sorry not sorry, but we really need to kill this idea that fandoms are welcoming and inviting and inherently progressive when they're frequently insular and reductive as fuck. Every single fandom I've been in has had major trends of people doubling down on their own headcanons and fanon interpretations of the characters and willfully enacting trends aimed at running off people who like the 'wrong' characters (usually characters marginalized along one or multiple axes), like the characters in the 'wrong ways' or other bullshit.
Scott is a Bad Friend fics overtaking Teen Wolf fandom was not incidental, it was a FEATURE of the fandom, because the vast majority of that fandom did not want to share its space with anyone who had the nerve to like its main character. Survivors complaining about or criticizing the prevalance of rape fics in a certain fandom has in my experience always led to a reactionary UPTICK in those fics, with gems like 'this character can, will, must be raped' in the tags making it crystal clear that some of these fics exist because how fucking DARE anyone try and push forth a narrative not agreed upon by Fandom Main.
I could cite examples for so many other fandoms, with the commonalities always being that vast majorities in these fandoms are explicitly reacting defensively to being asked to be more mindful of fandom trends revolving around or exacerbating racism, homophobia, transphobia, rape or abuse apologia, ableism, etc....
With the most prolific fucking rallying cry across countless fandoms being "No the fuck we will NOT be doing that," because lolololol.....
Fandom is an inherently progressive space, didn't you hear?
#anyway this has been on my mind in general for a few weeks now#and its more about fandoms just being fandoms#and like....what if they werent though#these patterns migrate from one to another as fans migrate from fandom to fandom bringing their bullshit with them#like do people never get tired of just trying to call DIBS and claim fandoms for themselves while shutting out anyone else#who might have a lot to fucking offer if you werent being so gd intent on staking a claim instead of sharing perspectives#and exploring new possibilities?#and I know not everyone links certain problems with racist homophobic and other behaviors to my own issues with dark fic and rape and#abuse apologia but I do inherently see it as sharing large portions of venn diagrams even though I do not consider being a survivor to be#something that demarcates privilege in the way that axes of identity do#as its situationally based rather than inherently identity based#but the way it can affect and shape large parts of peoples' identities begets commonalities#but my point is just.....a big part of why I so often lump it in is specifically because of how people react to these things or#defend against criticism across the board#like most people know my stance on censorship and how my blood boils when its people who are throwing accusations of#censorship at those raising criticisms....#but the point is just.....think about what censorship actually IS in all practical senses of the word#its about shutting down conversations. limiting the flow of information the sharing of perspectives and experiences#THATS WHAT MAKES IT BAD#now......what about criticism inherently lends itself to any of those things if you DONT accept as a foregone conclusion that criticism#is only ever offered up in bad faith and meant as a silencing tactic#instead of just a request or offered avenue of ways for things to be done better rather than not at all?#who is ACTUALLY out here trying to shut down convos and limit possibilities?#is it really the people being critical of fandom behaviors and trends?#or the ones doubling down at the first hint of any criticism and aggressively ramping up how frequently and visibly they engage in#the criticized behaviors in efforts to drive people away or as a silencing tactic of their own?#just saying
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conspicuous-clown-car · 7 months ago
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okay so, let me make it 100% clear, I DO NOT SUPPORT DISNEY OR ANY OTHER COMPANY THAT GIVES MONEY TO IS-NOT-REAL OR SUPPORTS THE GENOCIDE.
i get that giving positive attention to anything disney related could cause someone who doesnt care about the boycott to give disney their money BUT GUESS WHAT!! I CANT STOP WHAT OTHER PEOPLE DO!!! AND INSIDE OUT 2 IS ALREADY POPULAR AS FUCK
so think whatever you want about me, ive wasted enough mental energy stressing over one person, im tired. im gonna blorbo post. dont like? block.
in the words of an anon, im going to enjoy that weird little orange Thang to my hearts content, thank you, free Palestine
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anyways im gonna ramble about her, spoilers below ig
Anxiety's anxiety attack gave me a visceral reaction and literally made me cry because of how similar it was to how i experience anxiety/panic attacks, and i just relate to her so much in general with her planning and obsession to be perfect and in control. i also really appreciate how she wasnt seen as a fully "bad" emotion either, and that sometimes anxiety can be necessary and helpful. i just really enjoy her as a character because when i was younger it was rare to see anxiety/panic attacks in kids movies, and at that time i was dealing regular and debilitating anxiety/panic attacks and severe anxiety in general, like to the point that i was agoraphobic. it made me wish i had this movie when i was a kid to know i wasn't broken, but it makes me happy that kids have this movie now. but yea anxiety is a comfort character now, i will literally MAKE a plushie of her if i get more obsessed with her
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tomwambsgays · 2 years ago
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roy was asked to fill in for ted at the press conference without any talking points or anything (based on this)
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artuurle · 25 days ago
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the issue with most of my creative process being very "in the moment" is i end up with a bunch of doodles for things i then decide isnt "canon" to things or i get REALLY DERAILED, so last night i drew some love and loss au doodles that kinda occur later on. Huzzle sweep.
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The last one above is traveling to another god domain really hurriedly looks like in my head to be 100% clear. mini rift <3. no time for flair we needs to GO NOWS.
if you cannot tell I love drawing huzzle a lot. my cunty lamp <3
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xxplastic-cubexx · 3 months ago
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Pet store clerk gives Charles a bag of free treats for his ""dog"" all while Charles can feel Erik Looming in the BG
the real mortifying day is after months of getting small bags of dog treats one day the bag of dog treats has like. perfectly normal human candies/pastries or something inside
Of Course charles is confused and impulsively asks what it is/how it's different from the usual only for the clerk to reply theyre Whatever Erik's Favorite Treat Is and its that day forward erik is adamant they just do their shopping online
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here-there-be-drag0ns · 4 months ago
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i was terrified thinking my riptide hyperfix was dying
turns out i just needed to relisten to the black rose pirates oneshot
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oceanwithouthermoon · 10 months ago
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i think its weird that i have to make this disclaimer but the internet is crazy so wtvr,, anyway,,
if i say i dont like something, that doesnt mean "that thing is bad and nobody should post it.."
i swear literally every time i even mention that i dislike something, people will go "wow does that mean u fucking hate me cuz i post that thing? ur a fucking stupid bitch and all ur opinions r wrong" LIKE ?? er.. no. just because i say i dont like certain characterizations of certain characters (the saiki k fandom is CRAZY about this cuz i can state an opinion on literally any character and a group of people will still go 'well only we're allowed to post our opinions about them because we're always right!1!1!'), or certain ship tropes (mentioned my hatred of toxic yaoi maybe once or twice on here months ago and people STILL get mad at me as if i said toxic yaoi lovers r evil or something), or certain ships, or WHATEVER, does not mean that i HATE the people who are posting them or that i think they shouldnt post them at all, NO, im just posting about my personal tastes on my personal blog and it would be extremely weird and hypocritical if i decided that i was the ONLY person that was allowed to do that,,
i think the only reason people assume that is because there are a lot of other people on here who ARE like that, and a lot of people toe the line between posting that they dont like something and posting that they think everyone who likes that thing is stupid, annoying, and wrong,, so i guess all i can say is, sorry for whatever made you make these assumptions but they arent true about me so plz leave me alone ʘ‿ʘ ur doing the same thing to me that ur accusing me of but i didnt do it in the first place so ur just actively being a dick for no reason
#crazy that the mindset some people on here have is that theyre the only ones allowed to post their opinions#ive repeated this a lot on this blog but i rlly think people forget that the person on the other side of the screen is in fact a person#if ur harassing people and publicly making fun of them then ur just as bad as any real life bully#that shit isnt as funny or harmless as u like to pretend it is#not once have i ever targetted anyone or went on someones blog to harass them over my opinion#yet people think its fine to do the same to me and treat it as if its like. revenge or something#like ? me saying 'i dont like toxic yaoi' is not equivalent to someone going on someone elses page and going 'how tf do u like toxic yaoi'#I DONT CARE !! all ive ever done is sit in my own little bubble and had opinions and that makes people mad#honestly though the people who will publicly talk and post abt it are significantly meaner#and i want to act like im not bothered by it because i know most of them r just angry that someone has a different opinion#and they want all their followers to bandwagon off of them (idk why maybe for validation or whatever-same reasons anyone would bully)#but seriously if u actually do think that something i said was out of line and crossed thise boundaries- just fucking tell me ?#im a person bro. ur solution to disagreeing with me shouldnt be 'lol im gonna post abt this and make everyone harass them'#have a conversation with me dude i dont bite ? if u cant talk to me like a person then just dont fucking say anything wtf#its so cowardly to be like 'well no i didnt wanna say anything to u cuz i didnt wanna be rude.. so instead i publicly made fun of u!'#LIKE WHATTTT STOPPPPP </3333#ok anyway this post wasnt supposed to get THAT serious.#MY POINT IS just be considerate of other people and dont base ur hatred off of assumptions#ur deflecting the blame onto someone else because u dont want to admit that ur just a fucking bully lol#being inconsiderate on here is something ive also been guilty of back when i first joined the fandom and was clueless#but grown ass adults who have been on here way longer r still doing that shit which is crazy#and i cant say anything because they have so much leverage over me and idk if its on purpose or if they dont even realize#ok im putting fandom tags cuz i want people to see this sorry. this is my one post thats actually targetted but its at a lot of people#so if u look at this and think 'hey i do that' pls evaluate urself<3#i mean its also targetted at everyone who does this anonomously so i dont know who it is OKOK IM DONE BYE SORRY HOPE THIS IS UNDERSTANDABLE#watch nobody read this fr#saiki k#tdlosk#the disastrous life of saiki k.#meows post
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phagodyke · 4 months ago
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the masculine urge to take a saucepan off thr draining board and bash myself repeatedly over the head with it until I pass out and no longer have to experience feeling Bad 😍
#struggling to tolerate this one ngl its fucking dire this weekend. i just cant do this man#thr things i would fucking do for attention please. just one person to notice and care in the slighest i feel like im losing my fucking#mind out here how does every single person who has ever mattered to me in my lifr see me in distress and choose to ignore it or maybe they#dont even recognise im ij distress in the first place i dont know whats worse i dont think i hide it well at all im just so done#listen like ultimately its fucking fine. i will get myself through it like ive gotten myself through everything else in my fuckijg life#i dont even feel bad that often these days im doing so so so much better and its so much more tolerable to only have to deal with this#once or twice a week instead of it being a struggle every single day like i dont think i could go back to feeling like that again ever i#dont know how i managed to get througyh it before jesus fucking christ. but i can deal with it i can deal with this#ik ill feel fine tomorrow. its just thr fact im so desperately fucking alone with it that makes it so much worse than it has to be#i fucking hate repression i hate being so incapable of expressing myself that its easier for me to injure myself than it is to talk about#how i feel to anyone i hate being trapped in this stupif fucking torture labyrinth and not knowing how to get out of it and never being#given a single avenue anything to hold onto i hate having to do it alone every single fucking time and when i do try i just freeze out#entirely i cant form a coherent thought my brain enters total fucking shutdown pure static white noise fuzz and i dont know why please#its so unfair i dont think its that much to want a little comfort. just once just for someone to stay with me while i cry it doesnt have#to be more than that i just dont want to be alone like this i just want to feel safe around someone just close to someone just once#and well ill survive without it bc i always have i guess. so far at least. and there are many things im grateful for and i do in general#feel pretty okay my life is pretty good at times even. i feel so pathetic and stupid and ashamed for even feeling like this#but do i have to go my entire life without ever experiencing any kind of real intimacy with another person emotionally that is#i mean physical is nice too and they go hand in hand in some ways but i just want to feel seen and safe over anything.im tired#i feel like i try.but not hard enough i know its all my fault really but i dont know how to try any harder but nothing will ever change if#i dont i cant expect anyone to do anything if i cant rven communicate in thr first place. oh i dont want to think about it anymore#i have a headache from crhing and its not even 8pm ugh. okay. well it is what it is.#ill breathe until i calm down and then tidy up whatever i left in the kitchen and get my work stuff ready for tmr#and polish my boots maybe. and read and go to bed at 9:30 i think. and ill feel fine in the morning#my fault for thinking about it earlier i know i shouldve nipped it earlier on its such an easy spiral to fall into i need to get better#it happens. okay anyway. no cause for concern im good guys. weakly thumbs up at the camera all covered in blood#my period is late actually thats probably all this is lmao. makes sense thinking abt it#cant wait for it to finally start and all earthly desire to leave my body so i never experience pain again amen#.vent#ignore this sorry for being mentally ill im not even that mentally ill anymore so no excuse rly ummmm. bit embarrassing innit.
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riiviir · 3 months ago
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hey guys so I just started reading Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott and OMG AHSBNSBSBSNSNBSHZHSHDBFHGGHFHGRJ2KSHSBSNSK AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I LOVE THINKING ABOUT THE RELATIVITY BETWEEN DIMENSIONS!!!!!!
#probably the nerdiest thing i will ever read in my entire life but I AM SO HAPPY#Its the unabridged and corrected 1992 republication btw. if you wanna get specific#the only book in which i have actually decided to read the introductory notes and i do NOT regret it because the editor's one IMMEDIATELY#brought up the “oh but surely the second dimension has thickness how else would flatlanders see anything” AND GAVE A REALLY GOOD ANSWER.#which i cannot tell you here. bc it is several paragraphs long and idk how i would shorten it. i would hit tag limit. if thats a thing.#anyways. I'm only a little bit into the first part which basically explains how Flatland works as a society so i haven't even gotten to the#sphere yet but OH MAN I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO EXCITED ABOUT A ROUND OBJECT IN MY LIFE#IM LOSING IT OVER THIS BOOK AAAA :D#me: im so glad i dont have a math class during my senior year! now i dont have to learn anything math-related!#also me: but what if i started studying a complex and almost entirely theoretical part of geometry#bc YEAH i didn't just buy this book bc of gravity falls. I BOUGHT IT BC IVE BEEN RESEARCHING THE 4TH DIMENSION WOOOOOOO!!!!!#one thing i will say i dont like. introductory note suggests the the 4th dimension might be time. this is ok tho bc its followed up with#also saying that time is not a spatial dimension and exist across the 0 1st 2nd and 3rd dimensions which. that epuld mean we live in 4d#already. so. i was worried for a second but THANK YOU THANK YOU OH MY GOD PEOPLE TRYING TO SAY “OH THE 4TH DIMENSION IS TIME” I HATE THAT SO#MUCH AAAAGGHHHH AT LEAST RECOGNIZE ITS NOT SPATIAL!!! TIME IS NOT A SPATIAL DIMENSION!!!!!!! IF IT WAS THEN 4D TRAVEL AND TIME TRAVEL WPULD#BE FHE SAME THING AND DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY MUCH COOLER POSSIBILITIES WPULD BE THROWN AWAY IF THAT WAS THAT CASE!!!!! AND. AND. IF THE 4TH#DIMENSION IS TIME. THEN WHATS THE 5TH?? 6TH?? YPU CANT KEEP GOINF ON FOREVER LIKE THAT. YPURE JUST MAKEING MORE 3D WORLSS WITH STUFF IN#ADDITION TO TIME. INTERESTING BUT THAY IS NOT ABOHT HIGHRER DIEMSBSJSNSBAKAJSHDHDHHDHDHDJ#sorry for the rant. jsut. agh i want a spatial 4th dimension. i dont think tesseracts exist through time that would just be an aged cube#anyways yeahhh i love the 4th dimension. new hyperfixation or new special interest? ill have to wait and see. anyways i have done it i have#an oc whos 4 dimensional now and she is the coolest ever i love her#but yeah this book is sosososo good i am literally gonna bring it to school to read instead of draw bc i would lose it if i didn't#10/10 would recommend to anyone who wants to Think
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deus-ex-mona · 4 months ago
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up next on chapter 36 of idol sengen… _(:3 」∠)_
#(my toxic trait is that i’ll complain about my work endlessly but still end up doing it anyway… eventually.)#there’s rant 1 (ft. a need to deduce what asuna is saying in full) and rant 2 (which is available in full but still…)#there’s also another mona-rambling session in chapter 38… that im not touching with a 50 foot pole#(all you need to know for that mona-rambling [about frusu] is that mona’s frusu oshi is all of them)#(and that she thinks miyu is like *the* pinnacle of centres in idol groups)#(also someone won a junior dance competition but idk who bc it’s obscured lmao)#can i outsource these panels for a corn chip lmaoooo#m. maybe i should’ve actually worked on this while i was still unemployed last month huh…#bc excuse me company wdymmmmmm im starting work next monday?? the interview was just this monday hello?#ig the interviewer was legit when she said ‘so if i asked you if you can start work next monday—’ huh…#sigh… maybe ch 36 next month then… i’ll do my best over the weekend thoughhhhh#seriously though why is this volume so text heavy l m a o i really wanna get to chapter 40 but…#and then there’s the hard to clean text boxes which… aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa#…though i guess i should just count myself lucky that the chapters are still short enough to fit into a single post (with the image limits)#but dang. i just realised that my manga sengen thing has a page on manga updates lmao#who put it there lmaooooo and why is it only up till vol 2? wait. no. what. why does it link to manga.dex#bc dang. someone really had the time to dl the thing image by image? no wonder why they stopped after vol 2…#guess i might as well say why i dont want people to reupload my tls… since we’re in the final stretch and all#so. aside from the obvious ‘idw the creators to find out about it’… i probably made a ton of mistakes while tling it. esp in the early chaps#so i’d like to. y’know. have the chance to update the tls where possible. i’ve done that a couple of times already tbh.#like with rippei’s name post-vol 4 release. and some of the typesetting is p. gross in the early chaps tbvh#i swear tling idol sengen has made me incredibly conscious of grammar and typesetting like you wouldnt believe#esp with official tls… fan tls will always be perfect to me no matter how wonky the wording bc it’s hard but honest work yk#official tls (esp a.i tls) get no concessions from me bc it’s their job that they’re getting paid to do yk.#in any case (if you’ve read this far) if you see any mistakes in the tl please lemme know~~~ please dont hold back on your criticisms ok~~~?#just sound ‘em out in dms here or sth. don’t worry~~~ i won’t eat y’all if you try to correct me~~~~~ unless you’re the md reuploader (jk)#and ik i disabled comments on the other blog (or tried to at least) but that’s bc idw bots to flood the comments bc that’s annoying as he—#anyways sorry for the idol sengen wait (if anyone was waiting for it…) i’ll improve on my work ethic… tomorrow. maybe.
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24-guy · 1 year ago
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3070 words later. I present to you...
What was the deal with the grill brush?
An amateur essay on “Just for Once” from Nerdy Prudes Must Die by J
When listening to the soundtrack for Nerdy Prudes Must Die (NPMD), I realized that the song that was hitting me most was, unexpectedly, Just for Once. This was odd to me because one could argue that, of all the songs in the musical, Just for Once isn’t that emotional of a song. Especially since it was sung by a side character like Ruth. But since this instance, every time I listened to it, I was struck with the desire to sit and properly delve into the lyrics and try to understand what exactly it was about it that made it so emotional to me. My aim in writing this is to understand how this song develops Ruth’s character further than her initial portrayal.
To do this, we need to take what we already know about Ruth and put it into context. Before this song happens, we have seen Ruth, as a character, in five of the nine songs, with Just for Once being the tenth song in the musical. This feels important to note as this is a significant amount of time to get to know Ruth and her character as well as her motivations and story through the musical.
Ruth is one of the two characters that open the musical. The first is a fellow nerd, Richie, who sings that he is dead. The stage is set in red lighting. When Ruth joins as a second voice to follow up his line, the context stays the same. We know from the first song of the musical that Ruth is going to die. As the performance continues, we go into a bigger piece with the students of Hatchetfield High School singing about how much school sucks. This doesn’t tell us much about her character, so let’s move on.
Literal monster is a song where the nerds of Hatchetfield High sing about their bully, Max Jägerman. Ruth’s part in this is telling us that she is a nerd and that she gets bullied. She has both solo and group lines that tell the audience and the listener that they aren’t enthusiastic about the bullying stopping. However, one of the lines in the part after the first chorus gives us our first hint into Ruth’s main character trait, she is extremely sexual.
The musical continues after this to see our main trio of nerds at a library. Peter, Richie and Ruth are working together on a thermodynamics paper. Here, we get another line that cements Ruth’s main trait being that she is extremely lonely, and that comes across in often uncomfortable moments. This scene we also get told that Ruth craves contact enough that she will talk telemarketers into hanging up the phone, and that she sees Peter getting a call from one as “lucky”. As the scene continues, we see that Ruth doesn’t seem to understand personal space and is nosey as she asks Peter about what Stephanie Lauter – a popular girl from school – is talking to him about. There is some minor things to note from this scene too, like how she references Star Wars and how she initially agrees that Peter shouldn’t get his hopes up about Stephanie because they’re too different in the social hierarchy in school.
Our next proper character moment happens when Ruth, Richie and Stephanie go to the boy’s bathroom to find Peter after he didn’t show up to study at a restaurant with Stephanie. Here, she remarks how the boys are lucky because they can all watch each other go to the toilet thanks to the urinals not having walls between them.
Our last major scene with Ruth and new traits to note, is during the set-up and consequence of a prank that the nerds, Stephanie and a girl called Grace play on their bully, Max. During the set-up we see that Ruth’s history of bullying leads her to lash out at Stephanie for calling them nerds, going into too much detail about her allergy to deodorant. It helps to solidify Ruth as someone who tends to make people uncomfortable with her lack of a vocal filter. In a later moment during the same setting, Ruth is talking to a telemarketer and gets hung up on. When Ruth talks about her nervousness about pulling off the prank, Stephanie comforts her. This leads to Ruth saying that Stephanie is nice, and that she might be in love with her. This helps us understand that Ruth probably doesn’t understand a lot of what she’s feeling, considering that earlier on she seemed almost negatively inclined towards Stephanie. In a moment between Richie and Peter, we get further confirmation that Ruth is “thirsty” all the time, and that it would be easy to sleep with her and then leave her because of it. When the prank goes wrong, with Max fighting against the perceived ghost and skeleton, we see that Ruth – in the skeleton costume – seems flattered and happy with the praise from Max.
So, to recap. In the lead up to Just for Once, we can understand that Ruth is an anxious character. She doesn’t think too highly of herself or her fellow nerds and will only really push for them to try to get ahead if someone else seems to be reaching out with them to support them. We know that she is touch starved enough that someone being kind and touching her shoulder is enough to make her think that she is in love with someone and that, because of this, she will take any human contact that she can – even if its salespeople on the phone.
With this foundation, we can now talk about how Just for Once expands our view of Ruth as a character.
In the opening before the song, we find that Ruth thinks she can perform on stage better than one of her classmates. This leads into our “musical in a musical” song that is a staple of StarKid shows. This song is supposed to be sung within the context of the musical “The Barbecue Monologues” that exists within the Hatchetfield universe, but I think it can do well at telling us a lot about Ruth’s character as she did decide to sing this song over any of the others that possibly exist within the rest of the production.
The first hint that the song means more to Ruth than immediately apparent is during the end of the second verse, where Ruth sings “And life is fine, if only it were mine.” While it may be because the character that she’s singing for is discontent with life, we have also seen that Ruth doesn’t really fit in outside of the nerd friend group she’s found herself in. We can speculate that she also feels like life isn’t hers to hold. She may feel like she would enjoy life, if only it was something that she could enjoy, seeing as for so long before this point in her story, she was being bullied.
Before this, she sings about how the character has “installed a new bay window” and that they were shopping “for shutters to obstruct the view”. I think that this implies that Ruth understands that having improvements to her life is something that she should want (after Max’s death, the bullying stops entirely), and that she can see the appeal of, but she still wants something to conceal the view of the outside, or even stop the outside from seeing who she is on the inside.
The chorus is the main tell that this song goes deeper than surface level to me. Ruth sings that “just for once I’d be the centre of attention, just for once, remember what a life could be, just for once I feel the light inside the burning of a candle, living just for once…” I’m going to take apart this chorus piece by piece to explain what I think each part means.
The opening line states, “just for once I’d be the centre of attention,” and this lines up with what we know already about Ruth’s character. She has demonstrated already that she craves attention and affection. We have seen her reaction to being praised for her performance as the skeleton in the prank to Max. Ruth wants to be loved, and to have her performance praised. She wants to be the lead of a play.
The next is “just for once, remember what a life could be” this feels like it’s reiterating my point where Ruth wants to remember what her life could mean if there was never any bullying that happened as it has warped her view of what life is. She now has a downplayed life where there’s no point in standing up to people because what’s the point if they all have more worth in your school than you do?
The second to last part is “just for once I’d feel the light inside the burning of a candle” and I think that this means that she wants to feel the light of the spotlight on her, that she wants to be in the spotlight. The way candles are always described is as calm, dancing flames. She wants to be like the flames on candles, to be seen as a delicate but bright focal point of the entire picture.
The final line of the chorus is “living just for once” and it is repeated halfway after the initial singing of it. This, again, just gives the impression that Ruth doesn’t think she was ever really living. She wants to live a good, happy life. But she can’t.
There is a line in the third verse that states “and I was not unhappy about the attention I ensnared, judge me”. This is referring to the character she’s singing for losing their hair after chemotherapy. It can also be read as Ruth not being unhappy about the attention she possibly got after the news of Richie’s death got around. After all, they were both nerds, and in a superficial school like Hatchetfield High even if they weren’t friends, she’d probably get some attention thanks to the apologies gained. This isn’t to say that she was happy, or even neutral, about Richie’s death. This is me pointing out that she would have gotten some of that attention she craved from the loss of her friend.
The following lines don’t stand out to me as anything personal as they start to feel more like the story that she’s singing about is getting across comes in. But the chorus changes again, so I’ll cover those lines too.
The first of these lines is “just for once my life could be just what I wanted”. Here it feels, again, like Ruth wants her life to be something specific, that she could just be better, and be more confident, popular, whatever.
The following is “just for once I’d feel the spark that I once knew”. This introduces another piece of information when it comes to Ruth’s character; she used to know what it felt like to be like this, to perform. She has felt that spark of being on stage, like she is while singing this, and she wants to feel that spark again.
The next is a similar line to one in the first, with a single word changed. “Just for once I’d feel the fight inside the burning of a candle”. This doesn’t change a lot about the implications of the line, but it does give the feeling that she feels like she could be ready to fight for wanting this. She wants this bad enough that, just for once, she’s ready to fight for it.
“Something more than I can handle” is the last line before we have a “just for once” and I feel like this calls again to her wanting to be in that spotlight. She wants to be in the spotlight, even if she knows that she can’t handle the pressure it puts her under for doing so. This marks a turning point in the song where the tone shifts, paralleling what Ruth may be going through with realizing she might not be ready to handle the pressure that being on stage could cause.
The first line of this section is “Should I flip the burgers now? Should I double check its well done on the outside not within?” This is filled with confusion about what she is doing. Ruth’s character has been placed to supervise something they don’t know what they’re looking for when it comes to checking it’s fine to flip the burgers. I believe this parallels Ruth’s hesitance and uncertainty when it comes to navigating a space like theatre, or high school, where she does know what to look for in theory. But in practice she falters, consumed by insecurity and self-doubt, potentially ruining her reputation/ ”burgers” if she does one thing wrong.
Breaking up the lines in this portion of the song are painful sounding “oh”s that sound like pleading to whoever is listening.
“Should I let the coals burn out? Should I let the years cook my body down in front of him?” Is the following line. And, again, this feels like a parallel between the character’s doubt about themselves and their health struggles with getting cancer at a reasonably early age, and Ruth’s doubts about her popularity and lack of connection, feeling like her life is over even though she’s only eighteen years old and her life is barely properly begun. She feels undesirable now, how is she going to feel when she’s older?
This next part of the song, while just repeating the line “Just for once”, has a portion of the music playing that is a leitmotif that has shown up in a lot of the songs before this point. Most noticeably, it takes centre stage first during the song “Cooler Than I Think I Am”. It plays over the top of a part of the chorus where Peter – the lead singer – sings the line “I’m not a loser”. This is brought up again during the titular song “Nerdy Prudes Must Die”, where Max is about to kill Richie, and Richie sings the line as a last-ditch effort to prove he’s no longer a loser, Max shouldn’t kill him. This musical idea is used as a point where the nerds are breaking out of their set place in Hatchetfield High’s social hierarchy. Richie uses it as a beg to be spared. The music behind Ruth’s vocals use it to foreshadow her demise at the end of this song thanks to the use of it in Richie’s number. It sets hope up and dread in the audience when they remember that Ruth was alongside Richie in the opening number singing about how they were dead.
The final part of the song doesn’t seem like it’s a part of the song from the in-universe musical at all. Ruth sings about how a family is borrowing her tap shoes. It’s melancholy in tone, and she continues, singing how it’s “no bother, I never ever use them”. And in a heart-wrenching moment, she says “I used to dance”, before repeating “I used to dance” like she’s about to cry.
I think that moment of the song is the most plain about Ruth’s feelings. I think she did used to dance, and that she did lend her tap shoes to someone because her anxiety stops her from performing anymore. This is a sad moment that lingers slightly before we return to spoken dialogue for the end.
“I found your grill brush, Maurie. It was right here, all along.” Right. The grill brush. This is one of the main reasons I wanted to write this in depth look at Just for Once, because I feel like the grill brush holds more meaning than it first appears. When it is first mentioned, the character of Maurie is looking for the grill brush and Ruth’s character gives a sarcastic comment about how they used it to brush their hair that morning. We know this is even more of a joke thanks to the later lines describing the chemotherapy. However, this ending says that the brush was there the whole time.
I think that the grill brush is symbolizing Ruth and her ability to perform. Given the initial response, it would make sense for the parallel to be how Ruth wants to perform but can’t because, well, she’s herself. She’s nerdy little Ruth who makes sexual remarks and Star Wars references and has anxiety so bad she quit dancing even in her free time. But, after this performance she does while the rest of the cast for The Barbeque Monologues are taking a break, she has more than enough ability to act on stage if the pressure isn’t there. She can do it. So why does she sound so sad when she says, “It was right here, all along…”? Because she knows that even if she can perform, she can’t do it with an audience thanks to her anxiety and self-doubt.
So where does this leave us with Ruth’s character after watching this performance? We now know that Ruth, despite initial appearances, is an aspiring actor with the ability to act but her anxiety is holding her back. She’s performed willingly on stage, but when she knows there is no audience to watch her perform. Even though she wants attention and to have the comfort of people seeing her, she still wants to have the ability of shutting everything out, letting herself be a secret because that’s what she’s used to.
Just for Once feels so sad because it’s an “I want” song that ends with the lead dying. The audience listens to her story, her wants and desires, and knows that she is going to die before the end of the musical because that is what we were told with the opening number. Just for Once is a song that Ruth sings to herself because she can let herself be selfish, and she can let herself want to be the centre of attention when she’s stood on stage alone with nobody to judge her.
Maybe if she survived, she would be able to gain the courage to handle the pressure she feels when she’s stood up on that stage.
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mumintroll · 5 months ago
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is it fail loser behaviour to give up on yr year abroad after 1 week. i know everyone says it gets better but they havent had lifelong crippling anxiety
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fudge24-7 · 9 months ago
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Ok while I do agree what caine did is messed up, I don't see anyone coming to his defense with this point, and I feel like it should be considered more
Tadc spoilers ahead for episode 2 if you don't have the tags filtered:
Caine didn't have any way to know gumigoo was centient, I know it was easy to forget that when we as the audience could clearly see it, I did too for a moment but, when you think about it, he didn't see gumigoo become self aware like we did. Like he's said he only has eyes on the circus, and while I don't 100% trust every word he says, the fact he didn't just close the portal the moment gumigoo approached, or hell intervene the moment pomni mentioned bringing him back, Instead just seeming surprised when he noticed gumigoo there, it shows to me that he really doesn't see what happens there, so he most likely didn't know. from his perspective pomni just got way too attached to a character he created, he had no way to know why she did or that he was more then what he made him now
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