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captain-sodapop · 1 month ago

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The Winchesters: A Post-Mortem

Endings are hard.

I’ve been dicking around, and as I wrapped up another Supernatural rewatch, I finally decided to follow through on something I’ve been threatening to do for a while: watch The Winchesters. Since the show is dead, done, and dusted, I feel okay about it because now it feels like it’s just some obscure piece of lost media and I’m not actually, you know, supporting it.

I think we have a hard time letting stories end, especially when they have been with us for so long. We live in an age of reboots and endless spinoffs. The Winchesters is an interesting case because when the flagship show ended, viewers had all their own feelings about it, but it was over and they knew it was over. Dead, done, and dusted.

Not so much.

As you know, on June 24th, 2021, about seven months after the end of Supernatural, Jensen Ackles announced his spinoff The Winchesters, produced by his and his wife’s new production company, Chaos Machine. Robbie Thompson would be heading the project, and it would be telling the “epic love story” of Sam and Dean Winchester’s parents. We’ve already established that there’s no story here, and no matter how you twist it you will never convince me there is – at least, not in the way they wanted to tell it. Diehard fans and conspiracy theorist Hellers seemed to end up being its primary audience, but considering its low viewership numbers, I don’t think it ended up attracting many people outside of the established fandom, and was thus canceled.

This was not a story people cared about.

This fact did not seem to matter to the good people at Chaos Machine and The CW.

Luckily for me, there are only thirteen episodes, and I have nothing better to do, so I am here to present my autopsy of The Winchesters.

The pilot moves so fast.

The Winchesters begins with Samuel Campbell, Mary’s father and Sam and Dean’s grandfather, who we know from the original show. In the prequel, he’s played by Tom Welling, not Mitch Pileggi, but he’s a mere shadow when we first see him, so we can’t tell yet how poor the casting is. All that matters is that we know he’s gone missing, and Mary wants to find him.

Immediately, the cold open of the pilot pales in comparison to the flagship program’s pilot. It really does feel like a cold open to any run-of-the-mill episode of Supernatural. It doesn’t create that same intrigue as the Supernatural pilot does.

But that brings us to one of the show’s central problems, and it’s something that shows up almost immediately: it is a poor attempt at rehashing the original, filled with Easter eggs that the casual viewer wouldn’t have gotten or cared about.

Right after that, we get the copycat title card and then a sort of awkward transition to John’s homecoming. He’s having PTSD flashbacks to his time in Vietnam, his tour having just finished, and goes home to see his mother (whose name I don’t even think is mentioned in the pilot, not until the second episode, so I think anyone wasn’t isn’t familiar with the original show might be a little confused.)

But this is where we hear him: Dean Winchester.

“March 23, 1972. The day Dad came home from the war, and the day he met Mom. Now I know this story might sound familiar, but I'm gonna put the pieces together in a way that just might surprise you. And in order to do that, I have to start all the way at the beginning.”

Um. Okay.

I’m going to tell you what this is, and it’s really very simple: it’s a justification.

Genuinely, I think these voiceovers are one of the worst things about the show. Now, Dean isn’t exactly a poet, and even Sam teased him for some of his corny lines, but these bookends are…beyond poorly written. Just strings of cliches put together, and the first one is the worst one because what it is attempting to do is justify this show’s existence within its very text.

As anyone who is familiar with the situation knows, when the prequel was announced, there was very public backlash – including from Jared Padalecki, who not only played protagonist Sam Winchester in the original show, but was not looped into any of this…at all. He found out at the same time the rest of us did, and it was pretty clear from the reaction that his was the majority opinion.

The thing about this little intro from the pilot is that it’s not really Dean talking here – it’s Jensen. It’s Danneel Ackles and Robbie Thompson trying to justify the fact that this show even exists. That exact sentiment showed up in several press releases and interviews for the show. Whoever was being spoken to, they’d be like “Oh, we’re gonna surprise you! It’s not what you think!”

The thing is, the prequel is:

Not surprising

Doesn’t exactly start at the beginning. That’s misleading.

(“I’m gonna put the pieces together in a way that just might surprise you.” Jesus Christ, shut up.)

The pilot does do something I appreciated, though, which was to acknowledge that John enlisted underage by forging his father’s signature. This could have been interesting, but they drop it pretty fast.

I know pilots sort of need to hit the ground running to prove their case, but if we’re going to use the original show’s pilot as a point of comparison, it’s incredibly weak. Not only were there rumored production issues and they apparently had to do reshoots, forcing them behind schedule for the rest of their run and putting immense pressure on the cast and crew, but it’s simply lacking. In the original pilot, we are given enough glimpses of the Winchester backstory to make the rest of the pilot interesting. Sam and Dean are brothers and therefore have history, a dynamic – though strained at the time – and an undeniable chemistry that intrigues us enough to keep us watching. With the Woman in White, we get an idea of what it is the family does and what Sam has run away from, while giving the episode a plot that isn’t yet mired in the show’s mythology.

The Winchesters doesn’t have that. What we have is John and Mary, and while a lot of people were rightfully confused as to why they – of all the characters on the original show – would be the ones to get a spinoff, the fact is that they did. Truthfully, while they would not have been my first choice, if treated properly, I believe John and Mary’s lives before the show could have potential.

What we know about John and Mary from the original show is that they were brought together by a Cupid from Heaven in order to ensure the birth of Sam and Dean, so that Michael and Lucifer would have vessels for the Apocalypse. In fact, the Cupid states that John and Mary couldn’t stand each other beforehand, but I guess when they bumped into each other outside of Slaughterhouse Five (which does happen in the spinoff’s pilot), I guess we’re to assume that’s when Cupid’s arrow struck and they fell in love.

Basically, their love is…not natural. It would not have been something they chose for themselves without divine intervention. The prequel doesn’t hint at this at all. Instead, the prequel has John and Mary immediately thrust together and John introduced to the world of the supernatural and the Men of Letters and on his first case all in those 42 minutes.

These are not John and Mary. Not the ones that we could be made to truly care about.

The John and Mary we know are much more complex. They are interesting, and flawed. We know from season 12 that Mary was sometimes sneaking out on hunts, even after Dean was born. We know that John and Mary would sometimes separate for a few days at a time, maybe even longer, probably because what they had for each other was not true love, but something divined by Chuck/God and the angels in order to carry out their plans. They were pawns, especially when it came to them as a couple. A story where Mary is struggling to keep her former life a secret while John is dealing with his post-service life, all while trying to be a couple and having these moments of realizing they don’t really know or love each other could have been a good premise. Instead, what they present is instead just sort of…confusing.

After the pilot, there are a series of Monster of the Week episodes. This is all supposed to be John’s intro to hunting and the true coming together of the Scooby Gang. This version of John and Mary are thrown together with Latika (she’s the pacifist who does all their research), Carlos (he’s the stereotypically slutty, sassy bisexual), and Ada (the wannabe witch who’s older than them and I guess sort of a mentor? Maybe?), and along with John’s mom, Millie, we’re told that they’re this big, happy found family.

Lots of telling and not showing here. In all honesty, John and Mary don’t have great chemistry, and that is not intentional. (I’m actually not gonna blame this one on the acting, at least not wholly, but I’ll get more into that later.) John is saying that he can’t live without Mary within something, like, three episodes. Honestly, he’s got better chemistry with Latika in the pilot than he does Mary. Actually, I’d say he has better chemistry with pretty much all the other main characters – Latika, Carlos, and Millie – than he does Mary, and that is interesting. Ya know why? It’s because it makes John feel like the protagonist. And John is the closest thing to a Sam-like character we get in this show.

We learn early on that the Big Bad is something called the Akrida, which are these weird, poorly CGI’d spider-looking things (all of the budget on this show went to music and reshoots, I swear), and they are out to destroy the universe – and not just this universe; all the universes are at stake, so it feels like the show is trying to play off what the original program was doing in its last few seasons. (Which, weren’t all but Earth One destroyed anyway? Or something like that?)

This is a big thing. It feels…too big. The first season of the original show did a good job of building to the reveal of Yellow Eyes, and they let that story breathe with the Special Children in the second season. We saw that while Sam and Dean were experienced, they were still novices in a sense, in over their heads, and did a lot of learning and had to figure out how to work together again. We don’t get that feeling here. They’re too good too fast.

xXx

In the tenth episode, John and Mary go up against a Golem. The Golem is under the control of a former Man of Letters who performed experiments on humans, and under the guise of helping them defeat the Akrida, he wants to use John and Mary to bring back what the Akrida took from him: his wife, who was killed by them in the late fifties.

When John and Mary dispose of the bodies at the end of the episode, John thinks what the Man of Letters was doing was out of love, trying to bring her back, but Mary says that he was only doing it for himself – that he was being selfish. And then she asks John if she thinks they’ll ever turn out like that.

Immediately, this seems to be an assertion that what Mary did in the original show – making the deal with Azazel after he killed her parents and John to bring John back – was this awful, selfish thing. That saving the only person she had left, the only person she could save (because she wanted Azazel to bring back her parents, too), was inherently wrong. This seems to ignore the fact that Mary had no idea what the repercussions of the deal would be. All she knew was that the demon was going to “pay her a visit”, whatever that was supposed to mean (probably assuming he would come to collect her soul as usual), and all she wanted was to save just one person, and that was the man she believed she loved.

I know we’ve established that John and Mary’s love was contrived, but to Mary, she believed she did love him, and it is ridiculous to think that her saving him was something that makes her inherently bad, or selfish, or unloving, as the prequel seems to imply. She could not have known that Azazel would do what he did to her, to Sam, and to their family. She didn’t even know there would be a Sam and Dean! She was nineteen years old!

And yet, the prequel takes this opportunity to vilify her. The fandom already did enough of that. When Mary made her return in season 12, her character endured endless misogynistic takes. When even Dean said it was ridiculous of him to expect her to tuck him in and make his lunch, the fandom still didn’t want to accept it.

Mary is a complex character. She was dealt as shitty a hand as any other character, but still had to absorb a lot of blame. Oh, god forbid she struggle to adjust to the 21st century, and having adult children, and not being dead anymore, and learning what the consequences of her actions were. She clearly felt immense guilt for the hurt that was brought on her family, which was something she would have never intentionally done. She wanted her and her family to be safe and did the best she could with the information and resources she had. God forbid a woman be complex or have flaws or be anything less than the perfect mommy to her adult sons. (Who – again – were not as upset about that as the fucking fandom was.)

And now the prequel is piling onto her, too. Our Mary is better!! Shut the fuck up.

xXx

The prevailing sentiment I had when watching this show was that none of it mattered. The plot, the characters, the monsters…none of it mattered. Not as a story, and not as it related to the original show. It doesn’t even really succeed at doing what it really set out to do, but we’ll get to that later.

Like I mentioned, the Akrida feel like a really big Big Bad for the first season of a show. Ultimately, what the Akrida are, are a failsafe for Chuck. Basically, they were his backup plan if he were to ever cease to be and they would carry out his plan to finish destroying all the universes he had created. I guess those of us who watched the original show are supposed to gather that he created these Akrida sometime around season 15, when he started getting rid of all those other universes. And, since the Winchesters and Jack defeated Chuck at the end of season 15 and Jack took over as God, these creatures are supposed to come in and finish what Chuck couldn’t.

Alright. A little convoluted, but I can follow it. It’s how the spinoff attempts to connect itself back to the main show’s plot.

But, wait a second – I thought this was the epic love story of John and Mary!

Let me just say this: this is not a love story. The love story in the show is pretty weak. Like I mentioned earlier, the show moves so fast, which means John and Mary’s relationship moves incredibly fast, and the show makes no indication that this is because of any Cupid effects (but maybe they knew the clock was ticking and they didn’t have a good chance at renewal.) We get no sense of how much time has passed here. I’m being told I should care about this relationship, but I don’t because of how little effort the writing puts into not only developing this relationship, but the characters themselves. So it’s hard for me to say that the love story matters in any way.

Then there’s John and Mary’s searches for their fathers. Those of us who have seen the original show know that Henry Winchester died in the future killing Abadon. We also know that Samuel Campbell first died when he was killed by Azazel in 1973, and then in season six after being resurrected by Crowley to help him search for alphas. After the show opens with Samuel going missing and Mary starting the search for him (which just doesn’t pack the same punch as the search for John), Samuel’s presence in the show after they find him is negligible. For one thing, he’s not a great portrayal of Samuel, and doesn’t even look like him – not a bit. That part isn’t as important, of course, but it does still take you out of it a bit. This Samuel is still sort of a jerk, but it just feels like he’s sort of…there. So when they find him, it doesn’t feel like a big deal.

John’s search for Henry is carried out a little better. The reason for John deciding to go home to Lawrence after returning from Vietnam is because a Mystery Man (who we all know is Dean) gave him a letter that Henry had left for John before his passing. It leads John to finding an old Men of Letters clubhouse in Lawrence, which he and his new friends use as a base throughout the show and is a resource for them in learning about and fighting the Akrida. When John finally does see Henry as a ghost (the result of a séance similar to the one Sam and Cas perform to contact Bobby in season 10), Henry is once again portrayed by Gil McKinney, like he was in the original show. That does help. Henry is mostly there to give them information to help them with the Akrida, but it does give John and Millie a sense of closure, unlike in the original show, where John spent his whole life not knowing what happened to Henry and hating his guts.

This all happens in the seventh episode – the show’s midseason finale: both John and Mary get answers on their fathers. It’s supposed to be the episode where all these things start to come together. Mary finds Samuel, John and Millie find Henry (sort of), we get some answers on the Akrida, and John and Mary kiss. Woohoo.

After that, there are another few Monster of the Week episodes with Big Bad plot running alongside it, just like in the original show. It follows a similar structure. The episode with Richard Speight, Jr. as Loki (not sure if it’s supposed to be the real Loki or Gabriel as Loki, but probably the latter?) is maybe the worst one. Loki/Gabriel just comes off as an annoying caricature, the plot and his scheme are just sort of confusing, and there’s just…way too much singing. Part of Carlos’s story is that he wanted to be a musician, and he and his former bandmate do some singing, and the songs don’t even sound as if they fit the time period, so. That’s awesome.

Carlos is also subjected to more humiliation when in an episode with vampires – and I’m sure those in the know already know where this is going! – he has Latika douse his hair in holy water and he whips it around to splash it on the vampires. Like…since when are vampires affected by holy water? Not only is the physics of it stupid (it would be so inefficient to have to be constantly whipping your head around, just fucking squirt them with a water bottle or the water gun Carlos used in the pilot), it’s just not even right. It’s incorrect within the show’s own mythology.

The penultimate episode is a creepy clown episode. I will say, the clowns are sort of creepy, but maybe that’s just because I agree with Sam about clowns just being inherently creepy. It’s an okay case, I guess. This is also the episode with Rowena. Ada is trying to find some sort of magical way to deal with the Akrida, and she stumbles into a witch club where Rowena finds her. Ruth McConnell does what she does, and it’s hard to complain about Rowena because she always plays her well. She does give Ada the magic to use against the Akrida in return for a bonzai tree that has a demon trapped in it (I know, I know) because the bonzai demon has information on her son. (Who we know is Crowley, but he doesn’t get a namedrop here, and there’s no further explanation there. I guess it’s possible Rowena could have known in the seventies that Crowley/Fergus was a demon or otherwise had something to do with demons and hell, but when she sees him in season 10 for the first time, she doesn’t recognize him. I do think that can be written off as him just being in a new vessel, though, so I’ll give this one a pass.) Of all the guest stars they brought on from the original show, Ruth/Rowena is by far the best, both in performance and purpose. She shows Ada how to kill Akrida using magic, but doing so kills off a bit of her soul, similar to the magic used to resurrect Jack in season 14.

And then it’s the finale. Just like that. In the final episode, they go up against the Akrida and their queen. In order to kill them, they either need to use the magic Rowena showed Ada, or they need to use something from another world. They connect with a hunter, Joan Hopkins, who has been in contact with Dean/Mystery Man, who she has thrown into the portal and destroyed after months of him staying ahead of her, and no living thing can survive the portal (the portal being the thing that the Akrida use to destroy worlds.) John and Mary find out this hunter is actually the queen. She and her family have hunted with the Campbells for generations, and we find out that Joan was actually born in 1673 and after losing her entire family and her husband, she turned on humankind and imbued herself with monster essence. She claimed monsters weren’t the problems, but humans for always needing saving, making it so hunters always paid the price for protecting them. She was made the Akrida queen when she was cast out of her world, and she is helping them carry out Chuck’s final mission of wiping the universe of universes of humanity. And now, Joan/the Queen is at full power, and will open up the portal to finish the destruction.

In the end, there’s this battle, and all our new friends are there fighting the Akrida, and they use this thing called the Ostium in an attempt to summon something from another world to kill the Queen, the Ostium being the only thing known to be capable of doing such a thing. They use Dean/Mystery Man’s journal to try to summon him, but nothing happens at first, leading them to conclude that the Mystery Man is dead.

And then – as we all know – the Impala appears.

Mary realizes the Impala is not from their world, and therefore can be used to kill Joan. With the portal open, she runs Joan over with the car, but also ends up accidentally going through the portal, which as we know, no living thing can survive. Womp-womp.

But wait! The Impala reappears, and inside it is a living Mary – and Dean Winchester.

Apparently, the Impala somehow protected her (I don’t know how, it’s not explained, don’t ask me), and Dean tells them all he’s already dead, so it’s not like it could do anything to him, and I guess that tracks. He was stuck in between worlds after being tossed into the portal by Joan, waited by the portal, and gave Mary a ride out.

I’ll let Dean explain the rest:

“I'm a Hunter, just like you. But I'm not from this Earth…When I died, I made it to heaven. And [the Impala] was waiting for me. So I went for a drive, and then I took a little detour. Through the multiverse…I was looking for my family. See, I come from a long line of Hunters. I guess I was hoping that somewhere out there was an Earth that had a version where my family had a shot at a happy ending. When I was driving, I caught wind of the Akrida. Turns out that they were one of Chuck's last creations...basically, he's a real dick. He left the Akrida behind to wipe out all of existence in case he failed. Well...he failed. Eventually the Akrida were going to make their way to my world, and I got family there, so I couldn't let that happen…I took my little detour. The rules were simple. Don't mess with anything. Well…I gave it a little nudge. Thought it might need a little help. Looks like it worked out pretty well. So now that the Akrida are gone, you all can choose your own destiny. You can write your own story.”

Then Bobby and Jack show up. We already saw Bobby at the beginning of the episode, and he more or less feels like Bobby, but it’s still like…what are you doing here. What’s going on here. This scene at the beginning of the finale shows us when Dean gave John that letter from Henry, when he’s dressed like a Bond villain, setting the story in motion. Bobby reminded Dean then that they weren’t supposed to meddle, but Dean is Dean and does whatever the fuck he wants, apparently, and Bobby says he’s off to get the cavalry, a line I’m still not completely clear on because who is the cavalry in this situation? Is it Jack? Can’t be Gabriel/Loki because they’re dead, can’t be Rowena because not only is she Queen of Hell in the main timeline, but nothing about her appearance here suggests that she was the current iteration of herself from the original show. So I don’t know who the hell the cavalry is in this context, but I’ll let Jack and Dean take it from here:

JACK: Dean. DEAN: Yeah. No, I know. I know, Jack. JACK: When I restored things, I wanted mankind to make their own fate. That meant no interference from on high, anywhere...no exceptions. DEAN: I couldn't let our world get destroyed. Sam's still down there, okay? He deserves a good, long life. Hell, they all do. So, if you want to cast me out of heaven...so be it. BOBBY: If we're taking a vote, I'd say you give the guy another chance. JACK: There's always another case with you Hunters...even in death. Well...if you're going to meddle in things, finish what you started. After this...it's time to get around to the..."there'll be peace when you are done"…part of the song.

Jack then hands Dean the journal he had been writing in and the Colt. Yes, the Colt. Dean gives them to John and Mary, telling them to use the Colt if a Yellow-Eyed Demon ever comes to them, and to use his journal to help guide them as hunters. The journal is what we see Dean with in the final episode of the pilot, and what he says in voiceover at the beginning and end of each episode (which are just these platitudes and cliches about hunting and family) are written in that journal. They ask his name, Dean tells them it’s James Hetfield (founding member of Metallica), and then he, Jack, Bobby, and the Impala disappear.

The episode ends with all of them happy the Akrida are gone and free to make their own decisions about their lives. John plans to keep hunting with the gang, but Mary isn’t sure. She got into Kansas State earlier in the season, but she needs time and space. But she does show up at the Winchesters’ repair shop at the end, and she and John go on a drive while “Ramble On” plays over a montage of scenes from the show.

And that’s it.

xXx

Okay.

What becomes abundantly clear at the end of this show is that all that mattered – all that ever mattered – was what the fuck Dean was doing. It wasn’t John and Mary’s love story, it wasn’t the search for their dads, it wasn’t the question of whether to hunt or not, it wasn’t the Scooby Gang’s found family. It was just…Dean.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I love Dean. I think he’s an interesting character. I also think his death was appropriate. But one person was so frustrated by his ending that he decided he needed to do something about it.

The logistics of the finale are…weird, to say the least. I can understand the logic behind the Impala being capable of killing Joan based on the show’s rules. It’s of another world, and Joan really gets her shit rocked by it, like Regina George getting hit by that bus, so I can buy it killing her. Sure. And I guess Dean waiting by the portal in the space between spaces or whatever is…plausible, I guess, since we don’t know how anything works between universes, so I’m willing to buy that. (Notice I’m not buying anything here with much enthusiasm, however.) But what the fuck does Dean mean, he heard about the Akrida while he was driving around? What does he mean, he took a detour? Did Jack tell him what was happening? Was he the one who set the rules? If so, did he not take care of the problem himself because of his own self-imposed resolution to not meddle? Did Jack want Dean to give John the letter? I don’t think he did because Bobby seemed to think that was meddling, which Dean was expressly told not to do, but how does any of this work without some level of meddling? And speaking of Bobby, I know we see him in the original show’s finale, but what the hell is he doing this whole time? Did he get caught by Jack doing something offscreen that we’re not told about, or did he run to him and tattle? (Super out of character for Bobby to be a narc, by the way, if that is the case.)

Or, maybe I’m supposed to interpret this another way, as something Dean stumbled upon while he was taking his Heavenly drive. He said he took a little detour and went looking for his family. That he was hoping there was a version out there that had a happy ending. Maybe he somehow found this potentially happy version of John and Mary and learned their universe was being threatened by the Akrida when he did? I don’t know.

I am baffled. Befuddled, even.

This episode is the only one to acknowledge Sam, and what’s funny about that is that for as much as the show excluded him, it inadvertently reinforces the idea of Sam as protagonist. Dean wants to stop the Akrida not to save this universe, necessarily, but because he’s worried about the Akrida getting to Earth One and getting to Sam. He did it all for Sam. It’s fucking poetic, is what it is, and I don’t think they did it to be poetic. I think they did it because they knew that:

They were stupid to leave Sam out of it in the first place, and

They had to justify this whole thing somehow.

In the end, none of it mattered.

xXx

At the beginning of this, I mentioned how hard it can be to let things end. While we can joke about how ridiculous Carlos whipping his hair back and forth to spray vampires with holy water is, or how Mary was dressed like a knockoff Claire Novak in the pilot, or the vanishing Impala, or how bad the Akrida looked, or how convoluted the premise of the whole show is, I think there’s something more we can take away from this: The Winchesters is a study in both vanity and poor media literacy.

Dean Winchester dying at the end of Supernatural makes perfect sense within the text of the show. This is a tragic character completing his tragic arc. His death also symbolizes the end of an abusive cycle, but in order to acknowledge that, you have to acknowledge that something very complex exists within Dean’s character. Many fans do not want to acknowledge that Dean continued the familial cycle of abuse. Do I believe he loved Sam? Absolutely. Do I believe he was unfairly parentified? Yes. Do I believe he was also a victim of neglect? One thousand percent. But that doesn’t change the fact that Dean continued these harmful cycles. That’s part of the tragedy. His death made it possible for Sam to break those cycles and live a life he had been continuously guilted and shamed and ostracized for wanting to live, and while that’s in a sense a win, it comes about in a tragic way.

The tragedy is the point. The hurt is the point.

But Jensen Ackles just didn’t like that. Of all the people on the cast and crew, he was the only one who it didn’t seem to click with, and look – I can understand that maybe he needed to take some time to sit with it because he brought that character to life for fifteen years and that character has a rough end, and it also marks the end of fifteen years of his life. It’s tough stuff. But what Jensen and the producers of The Winchesters did didn’t add to Dean’s story or his character, it didn’t add to the original story, it didn’t improve upon anything, or clarify anything, or rehabilitate anything.

It was Jensen’s attempt to get the last word, and it failed spectacularly.

I said earlier that I don’t want to blame a lot of the show’s problems on the acting, and I think that’s true. The main cast are young actors who haven’t been in a ton of projects (Meg Donnelly, who played Mary, has the most experience with ABC’s American Housewife and Disney’s Zombies movies), and I don’t want to blame cast and crew for just wanting to get work, and the main case certainly isn’t unwatchable. They have to do and say some pretty cringy shit at times, but that’s not on them. The supporting cast is generally serviceable to forgettable, and only truly bad a couple of times (the guy who plays Ada’s half-djinn son is…not great. He sounded like he was having lines fed to him and wasn’t comprehending any of what he was saying). Carlos and Latika aren’t particularly bad characters or poorly portrayed or anything, even if they do rely on some stereotypes (again, not on them), and might be fine in another context.

I will also say, though, that while Meg Donnelly isn’t like…a bad actor, she’s not a good Mary. The Mary we know from the flagship program is sweet, and hopeful, and resourceful, and very capable. I could absolutely believe that the Mary portrayed by Samantha Smith or Amy Gumenick could both kill a monster and struggle to break out of the life she was raised in, and absolutely, 100% want out of that life and apply to Kansas State University behind everyone’s back (just like someone else we know!) Donnelly’s Mary just feels like a Claire Novak rip-off. Which was a weird choice to make, and I guess they could try to justify by being like Oh, well this is a Mary from another universe, but that’s not gonna fly. We got a Mary that could certainly kill monsters, but otherwise doesn’t really feel like Mary Winchester at all.

Then there’s John, portrayed by Drake Rodger. He was my favorite of the main cast, and the one who seems to be the true protagonist, which I noted earlier. Rodger had mentioned having watched the original show, and he has that sort of gentle giant quality that Sam had, and even does a good job of picking up on some of his mannerisms that make him at least feel like a Winchester. Does he feel like John? I mean…that’s harder to say than it was with Donnelly’s Mary. We know from the original show that John before hunting was a pretty different guy. He was probably struggling with PTSD after his tour, but Mary repeatedly refers to him as a sweet, open person, so I can believe that this John could be more like Sam: generally a very nice, gentle guy who you need to watch out for when he’s angry or scared. As far as performances go, he did pretty well – or, as well as he could, considering the writing.

So, yeah, I’m not gonna pin the show’s downfall on the acting because that wasn’t it. And I’m not gonna pin it on the crew, either. Sure, the special effects and editing weren’t always great, but they weren’t always the best on the original show, either.

This is a project that never should have been greenlit, for one reason because it would have saved that crew member from getting struck by lightning. The crew member sued, naming Ackles and the other producers in the lawsuit along with the network for not following proper safety measures. Director John Showalter, a Supernatural alum, decided he wanted a scene shot in the rain, even though there was lightning in the vicinity. The show had already dealt with reshoots and short filming windows, so Showalter, the producers, and the network decided to risk everyone’s safety, and a crew member literally got struck by lightning and woke up in the emergency room. I hope he gets a giant settlement.

It also shouldn’t have been greenlit not just because it was apparently poorly run and unsafe (which, really, is the worst thing about all this – the show’s not even good, and you’re endangering people for it), but because it was a petty little vanity project. Jensen Ackles just couldn’t let it go, couldn’t stand that he wasn’t the protagonist, and had to try to get in one last word.

But he couldn’t do it. He was never going to be able to do it. This wasn’t a project driven by love of storytelling, but by spite. He wanted everyone to be thinking Where’s Dean? How does Dean fit into this? What’s he doing there? He didn’t want to explore this weird, difficult relationship, or the original show’s major theme of autonomy; he just wanted attention. That’s what comes through in all of this because the story itself doesn’t matter. If these characters don’t reveal anything about the original characters or story, then it doesn’t matter, and it’s certainly not written or performed or produced well enough to make it matter. Why should I care about this John and Mary? I don't know, and the show doesn't, either.

And the kicker is that all of Dean’s voiceover bits are stupid cliches, it doesn’t make sense how he even got himself into this mess, and it all still comes back around to Sam in the end, anyway. So there was literally no point. It was all a waste of time and money and a man got struck by lightning.

This show was doomed from the start. Dead, done, and dusted before it even made it to your screen.

#supernatural #spn #spn prequel #the winchesters #spn meta #jensen ackles #john winchester #mary winchester #dean winchester #sam winchester #that's right I'm putting this in the main tags #idk if anyone will be interested in this or not but here it is #I know it's long but there was quite a bit to say #and I had nothing better to do #abby speaks

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sirfrogsworth · 26 days ago

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Frogworth! I have a question about how photography circles might view this, and I hesitate to ask reddit because it can be so... Well, you know.

But, in online painting/drawing circles, it's typically viewed as unprofessional to allow any shadow to show in a picture of a traditional piece of artwork, like a painting, ink drawing, sketch, etc. Is it the same in photography circles?

I ask because I think it's fun to play with allowing light and shade of the natural world to intrude on the drawn picture, especially when it Emphasizes the tone and emotion of the piece.

I'm definitely still gonna do it no matter what because I like how those techniques emphasize my work, but I AM curious how you lot view it!

I'll be honest, I am not entirely sure what you are referring to. So if you could maybe give more context or examples, that might be helpful.

But I am happy to talk about the importance of shadows in photography. And hopefully by telling you everything I know about shadows, I will answer your question by accident.

Shadows are vital to most photography. One case I think of when shadows are a problem is if you are using lighting from multiple angles. This can cause some unattractive shadows forming in many directions.

(The following examples are not my photos except for the last one.)

It's kind of a trade off. If you want sculpting light, you just have to accept the cluster of shadows.

And another example might be in a photo with a lot of dynamic range. If you have a bright sky and dark shadows, the camera may not be able to expose for both. So you have to choose which to prioritize.

Or you can do an HDR composite and combine multiple photos.

I would say for natural light genres, black and white photographers specialize in using shadows for their benefit. In many cases, they make the shadows their main subject.

Studio photographers will talk about using hard or soft light. Hard light (small light source) reveals texture, soft light (large light source) hides it. Neither is better or worse, it just depends on the context. But another way to think of this is by the shadows created.

Soft light produces graduated shadows that slowly fall off and hard light produces sharp shadows.

In a product photography context, this showcases two very different styles.

Hard light photographers use very bright lights on giant light stands in order to get a very small light source as far away from the product as possible. They might even angle the donut-shaped flash tube sideways to make the light a tiny bit smaller. The goal is to get the sharpest, crispest shadows possible.

You can do this with the sun at high noon or on the moon, but those aren't very convenient circumstances. Otherwise you need a studio with a 20 foot ceiling and a giraffe boom light stand. The farther away the light is, the smaller it is, the crisper the shadows.

The other style is graduated lighting—where shadows get more and more transparent over a given distance. This is done by shining a hard light into diffusion so you make the light source very big, but it is brighter in the center and darker around the edges, enhancing the shadow fall off.

If you are really clever, you can combine the two styles.

The chrome caps have graduated shadows but the containers produce sharp shadows. This is done through the magical lighting technique of... taking two photos and combining them in Photoshop.

Sorry, can't violate physics.

In portrait light, playing with shadows is usually the best way to add dramatic effect. One of the most famous lighting setups is Rembrandt Lighting, modeled after the painter's oft-used technique. The goal is to get a triangle patch of light on the shadow side of the face.

But more advanced lighting setups will use shadows in all sorts of cool ways to add drama.

But one of my favorite tricks involving shadows is colored ambient fill light. Fill light is a technique where you raise or lower the intensity of the ambient light to make shadows lighter or darker. Typically this is done by shooting a light into the ceiling, making the entire room brighter. But you can also use soft boxes, reflectors, or gobos (a black, light absorbing material).

You still have the bright main light as the dominant source, but by raising the ambient intensity you can lighten any shadows.

To make this more fun, you can make the fill light a specific color. Either with an RGB source or a color gel. And then any shadow in your photo will tint that color.

I wish I could teach this technique to YouTubers because many of them just blast a colored light from off to the side and it can look pretty harsh.

Edge lighting should not encroach that far onto the face. And if it does, doing a fill light technique is going to look a lot smoother and more natural. Or just a giant softbox could work. (I don't mean to pick on Jessie, this was just the first example I could remember.)

You can even do a colored main light and a shadow fill and then the transition between the two will be a third color. In this case, magenta key, blue fill, and a purple transition.

And then finally there is the absence of shadows. This is what ring lights are *actually* intended for. They surround the face in all directions to eliminate as many shadow areas as possible. This is often seen as very flattering because it hides skin texture and pores, which is why it is popular for makeup tutorials.

Playing with shadows is a huge part of photography. A lot of beginner studio photographers will only think about adding light. When you start thinking about the shadows, that is when you graduate to the next level of light design.

Light reveals and shadows dramatize.

#long post #photography #shadows #lighting

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dross-the-fish · 22 days ago

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What about AI artists who sell their art?

Kind of a grey area to be honest. I feel like if they disclose they used AI to generate the art it's at the buyer's discretion. I don't think it's actually very profitable to do given that 1. the AI image can't be copyrighted, there's nothing to stop people from using it as they please anyway so you can't protect your inventory, 2. You have no ability to control the quality or consistency of your product. I don't see AI generated art sell for much, maybe 5 USD for an adoptable OC or something on Deviant art and if you're spending hours putting in prompts and weeding through results that's a lot of time for very little money. There's also not a huge demand for AI art and a growing stigma against it. My take is that it's not really worth it/profitable. All that aside, I am of the firm belief that there is no such thing as an AI artist. Not because you can't define what AI creates as art but because the "artist" in this case is the generator, you are pitching it ideas or making requests and it's doing its best to follow your instructions. I'm currently working as an illustrator on a project for someone and they send me references, descriptions and samples to work off of so that I can create the artwork they want for their book. This is the same process that I go through on any project I work on where I draw what my client wants. No matter how detailed or thorough the client is in their descriptions there is no circumstance under which they are considered the artist because the actual labor of creating art falls to the illustrator. Again, I have to stress, the author is not an artist, they've employed an artist (me) to create art for them because they cannot make it themselves. No matter how detailed their instructions are at the end of the day it is up to me to interpret and produce the actual art. In the case of AI Art the generator is the artist, not the person using it. People argue that AI is just a tool but a tool is made to assist not to completely automate the process. When you hire an artist to draw something for you that artist is not a tool, they are an employee. AI also isn't completely free, I think to get the most out of some programs you do have to subscribe, which means you're still paying for AI to make art for you, it's just significantly less than commissioning an artist.

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burning-academia-if · 10 months ago

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Hello, I am mostly back and recovered at the time of writing this lol. June wasn't very productive writing wise (...for BA), which is fine because I needed that break! Look at everything I did do in June:

RELEASED CHAPTER 2 FINALLY

Spent like 2 weeks fixing bugs (dw chapter 3 I'll get beta readers so it doesn't happen again LOL)

Participated in the Raffle for Palestine + wrote and sent out the story to the winner!

Wrote about 5k words of Chapter 3

Wrote and edited Zoe's back story

Wrote most of Lars back story because I was inspired (sorry you won't get this until after Chapter 3 drops)

I'm pretty happy to have released Chapter 2! I'm gonna be honest, this felt like such a daunting release lol When I started BA, I was expecting no one to read it save for a handful of people and I'd just be chilling and writing mostly for myself like usual, so releasing it with over 1.5k followers was very daunting. With that said, I am glad people overall enjoyed the new chapter! The plan is for Chapter 3 not to take as long, but life is still hectic so we'll see. At the very least, it hopefully won't be any later then October (BA's one year anniversary month!).

I also just want to give another shout out to everyone who participated in the raffle for Palestine! Raising over two thousand euros in two weeks is still amazing to me, and I'm happy the IF community could come together like this to help out a cause! This was lowkey another thing I was nervous about since I've never really done anything that's felt like a personal commission before (asks definitely feel different lol), but other then my initial nerves the whole thing was a really nice experience!

Now, going into July, I want to focus on the UI updates I want to make. I have some things I want to shift around and change, and since coding is my biggest weakness I know it's one of those things I'm going to have to focus on. If things go well, I'm hoping to do a pure UI update by August. It'll mostly be the menu pages (achievements/stats/relationships/etc), but there are a few other things I want to add in and adjust outside of it. As for Zoe's backstory, that should be out soon, so keep an eye out of that! Finally, I also might not be too active in July. For personal reasons, July is always a hard month for me. Hopefully it isn't obvious, but just in case I'm not around as much as usual, that's why!

OH and before I forget, here's this month's chapter preview ft Angry Rook:

Lastly, I made the questionable decision to make a side IF. Updates will be very sporadic since BA is and will always be my main project until its completion. But if you want to follow it, it's To Taste Sweet Silver. An 18+ gaslamp fantasy about trying to steal the Fruit of the Old Gods in order to bring the world to an end. It's a little more niche I think, but feel free to check it out! The demo shouldn't take too long to get out since I did accidentally write most of opening already.

#BA: updates #for the first time you get the word doc version not the in twine version for the preview #also I promise Side Project is very much a side project #it's also a lot more linear and going to be decently shorter #because oops BA got way out of hand by accident asfkdljafl #which is fine why not have your first IF be long and complicated /j

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madlori · 11 months ago

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The Claw is our master.

I've had a few folks in DMs ask me how/why/when my shipping did such a completey 180. It's a fair question. I am, after all, someone who spent the last 2 years fervently Buddie shipping, writing fic for them, doing the same hoping/analyzing/searching etc that everyone else (well...not exactly the same, I've always been skeptical of most of the theories and such because I don't believe in a production's ability to be that sneaky, covert or mischievous).

And yet, here I am. I can't really even pretend I'm still a Buddie shipper anymore. Initially I said sure, I still hope for it. I...can't in all honesty say that now. I've firmly decamped for BuckTommy Land. Is this a recipe for heartbreak if they eventually breakup? Sure, but that's always a risk. No more than shipping a non-canon pairing, anyway.

And there's nothing wrong with shipping a non-canon pairing. People do it every day. Hell, it's practically the backbone of fandom. Obsessing about ships being canon is a one-way ticket to dissatisfaction and sometimes total unraveling. I've seen it happen more times than I can count over 30 years in online fandoms.

But if that's the case, why didn't I stay on Team Buddie? Why did I defect so thoroughly that I'm at the point now where not only do I not think Buddie will ever happen, I don't want it to, because I now want to see something different from those two characters, something I believe we will actually get from the writers.

The answer to that question is: I have no idea.

People ask this like I'm somehow in control of it. I'm not. The Fandom Brain is like The Claw in Toy Story. The Claw is our Master. The Claw decided who will go and who will stay.

Fandom Brain is my master. It decides what I'm going to ship, what I'm going to be fannish about and what I'm not, and when I'm going to stop feeling fannish about something. I have zero say in the matter, I'm just along for the ride. At some point in every fandom I have ever been in, my Fandom Brain has, usually with no provocation, decided "Ok we're done with this fandom now." And nothing I can do will make that not true. I can't force it. I can't cajole it. It just is.

Similarly, Fandom Brain has decided "Welp, we're done with this pairing now. We like THIS pairing now. Proceed." Are there reasons? I'm sure there are.

Is it just that it's a canon pairing? Possibly. There is something very seductive about a canon pairing after so long of looking for crumbs and tiny hints where there (mostly) none to find. But I've shipped plenty of non-canon pairings before.

Is it that I prefer Tommy/Lou to Eddie/Ryan? Absolutely not. I love Eddie, always have. I admit to being slightly more of a Buck girlie, but that doesn't mean Eddie means nothing to me.

Is it the immediate gratification? Maybe. Is it just how the relationship's being written? Possibly. Is it just a mental adjustment for my belief that Buddie will never happen, and Eddie will always be straight? Likely. But that doesn't change the outcome.

So here I sit, just...yep. Sometimes it just be like that. I didn't choose this, it's just what my brain decided was going to work for me going forward. If this goes up in smoke, my brain will choose something else, whether it's to run back to Buddie, or be done with 9-1-1 entirely, or who knows what else?

The good news for any of you who follow my writing is that I'm still working on the next Husbros installment. That universe is removed enough from the canon that it almost feels separate to me now, and I'm still feeling connected to it. Yes, I've written a few short BT fics, but so far I've not had any lengthy or involved plot bunnies for it.

So there you have it. I didn't choose the thug life, the thug life chose me. I don't know if I'd have chosen this if I could, but tbh I'm having a pretty good time with it so far, so. That's probably a big part of the reason.

#fandom thoughts #bucktommy #9-1-1 #evan buckley #tommy kinard #eddie diaz #buddie

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chaos0pikachu · 3 months ago

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hi! it's the one piece anon, this time off anon, lmao, thanks for the answer!

watching one piece for the first time as a adult with no prior attachment to it is wild, btw—and makes you want to take sanji and throw him into an active volcano about 100 times per episode, akbsjdjdj

i actually have no idea what my favourite arc would be so far, tbh, i enjoyed alabasta solely because of crocodile—i love me a horrible man who has a plan and executes it :)—and thriller bark was a good time, and now impel down is fun because stakes! i love stakes! i keep complaining to my friend that no 'death' ever really sticks, lmao, and now having accidentally spoiled myself i know that at least one will, akhsjdjdj

also, i have So Many opinions, it's insane, so glad that my friend knows i'm a yapper and analyser at heart and wanted to watch (in her case rewatch) the show with me because of that, lmao, and i am looking forward to when we are in a place where it's safe to engage with fandom stuff because man, i wanna yap so bad about this show

(and we are watching Everything which means no skipping the bad parts—we have seen sanji be on the second maiden isle react like the biggest douche and yeah.....that was fun :) truly)

(also, zoro is just. great, i love that man <3 especially because my sense of direction is just slightly better than his)

(this got very long, oops)

please don't apologize I fucking love talking about one piece lmao I literally bard the series to a friend b/c they don't wanna watch 1000+ episodes and they don't read manga but they really like the series (and loved OPLA)

Sanji is....sigh. Like the Whole Cake arc with him is great, like it's really strong and Sanji at his peak. There's times when I really like Sanji - one of my favorite small moments is when he gives Ussop his goggles back in Alabasta sanji/ussop gets no love b/c ussop is ugly even tho they're a great ship rip. Another great moment is when he gives Nami his jacket in Little Garden, and when he helps Violet in Dressrosa, like, when Sanji's compassion is front and center he's GREAT.

The problem is Sanji is a product of a very old shounen trope - the perverted man gag - quoting myself here but it's an age old gag - DBZ has Oolong, and Master Roshi, Inu-yasha has Miroku, Naruto has Jiraiya, Ranma 1/2 has Master Happosai - just to list some off the top of my head. Sanji's gag isn't new and it's not even unique. If there's any difference its that Sanji is just better developed than most - not all, but most - of these types of chars. Which creates a big dissonance with how western fans deal with and discuss Sanji.

I hate the gag but like, it's canon, Oda isn't writing for me he's writing for teenage (Japanese) boys first and foremost. It is what it is and I just take Sanji as is and am glad OPLA toned him the fuck down.

Crocodile is a fandom fave for a reason, he's such a deliciously fun antagonist and I'm glad he came back in Impel Down and is still around even after that.

Ngl I almost dropped the series b/c of Alabasta LOL sorry guys! It's one of my least favorite arcs of the series I felt like it dragged so damn hard. It introduced so many important characters - Vivi, Ace, Crocodile, Robin - and plots - the weapons - but omggggg I was bored at times.

Water 7 is probably my favorite arc, maybe followed by Wano? Idk I'm apparently one of the weird fans who likes a lot of the post-timeskip arcs. I think Dressrosa is a great arc and also up there for me. I liked Skypiea well enough - and it becomes stronger with time - but I'm meh on Little Garden, East Blue Saga doesn't get good until Sanji imo when we get into the Nami stuff which IS one of my fave arcs of the series, I like Thriller Bark than most the halloween stuff is great, but my favorite arcs are all post-timeskip except Water 7 Saga.

The death stuff is something a lot of fans talk about and I've learned that Oda has addressed this. Basically he said he doesn't like drawing characters who die - ironic considering other things that happen in the story lmao - he wants to keep the story a kid friendly adventure and doesn't wanna draw char deaths. So you get Pell and that dude in Skypiea lol Oda

Zoro is great, I hope he never gets a "new" backstory b/c I like his normal ass backstory not all the straw hats need to have secret tragic backstories! Let my man be moderately normal, have bad direction and wanna dedicate his entire self to his Captain :3

#one piece #chaos pikachu speaks

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ohmyfate · 1 year ago

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I'm going to disturb the mood of the critical community, but I seriously doubt that Viv was kicked out of the Hazbin Hotel and sabotaged by Amazon so that no one would notice the release of the series on their platform.

Rumors surrounding the production of "Hazbin Hotel" have been circulating for a long time and they are all really bad. The lack of a vision for the project, the inability to work normally with Medrano and dismissal from her own project. This sounds really terrible, but also too far-fetched.

I am 100% sure that there is no understanding of what the series should be, since we already have the result in hand in the form of a trailer. In addition, Viv has one peculiarity: she is unable to follow the initially stated concept of the project and very often changes during the production process. It was like that with “Zoophobia”, it was like that with “Helluva boss”, it will be like that with “Hazbin Hotel”.

The terrible working conditions are less believable, but given all the accusations that have been coming from former Spindlehorse workers over the past couple of years, it is still believable.

But the fact that Vivienne was kicked out of her project... Sorry, but this is too much. I understand that such cases are not uncommon in the industry, but in the case with Vivz, I don’t believe it. I can't explain why, but I don't think that Vivzie would talk so calmly and even joyfully about the series that was taken away from her. Damn, she is trying with all her might to protect it from criticism. This may, of course, be part of her contract with A24 or Amazon, but until there is some more serious evidence, I strongly doubt about this.

As for the sabotage of the series by Amazon... Why would they even do this? They accidentally showed an important shot of Vaggie? Well, it really could have been an accident. Most likely, those who published footage from the series did not even know what meaning they carried. Did the trailer itself spoil important plot details? But this is rather a problem with the series itself. Viv is always in a hurry to show the viewer things that she thinks are more interesting. Or the plot is so crumpled and inconsistent that without showing these events, the viewer will not understand what the series is all about. Was the series put on a strange date? Well, I have no theories here. Maybe they set it on such a date because everything else was already taken up with other projects or they thought it would be better this way. Anything is possible. I’m a simple viewer and don’t understand all these things at all. I’m just expressing my personal opinion about these rumors. I'll be glad to read yours! And if there are any trusted sources with information about the whole situation, I will be very grateful!

#hazbin hotel critical #vivziepop critical

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liskantope · 7 months ago

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I of course agree about disliking this thing where people go "X political opponent of mine is weird and awkward, haha", including when it comes from Democrats. In addition to it simply being ableist and hurtful to people who have struggled with social skills - I'm certainly no fan of J. D. Vance, and I imagine you aren't either. But I think there are lots of very intelligent, thoughtful people who would make great policy decisions but aren't especially socially charismatic. (1/2)

(2/2) I really don't think it's a good idea for liberals to reinforce a norm that such people should be disqualified from office.

(This is regarding this post from 10 days ago -- I've been really busy with the new academic semester and so am struggling to find time and the right mindspace to respond to stuff on Tumblr.)

You're right that I'm no fan of Vance: his book that made him famous might have some merits for all I know (I haven't read it), but at least since then he seems to be a completely phony chameleon, and, worst of all, he's chosen to run on a ticket with Trump, which is pretty automatically disqualifying for my respect. That, and all his vitriol towards childless people and cat ladies and so on is much worse than any of the specific examples of ableist undertones I see from the other side.

I'll also say that all the ridicule of Walz's son for standing up and tearfully shouting "That's my dad!" a bit non-neurotypically after Walz's words of love for his children (ugh! God forbid! actual exemplary family values are just dumb and cringey, at least if they come from Democrats!) made me far angrier than any kind of ableism that would come from David Pakman. The only reason I didn't go on a rant about it here is that I already got it out of my system on Facebook. And there's plenty of other garbage coming from the Trump/Vance side about Harris laughing a little strangely (supposedly? her laugh seems pretty normal to me) which makes her intolerable and so forth.

Still, two wrongs don't make a right.

And anyway, I agree that social skills shouldn't be considered such a huge factor in what makes for a qualified politician -- it does need to be somewhat of a factor, but I wish we didn't live in a world where most public support for politicians is based on vibes and most vibes come from superficial mannerisms. It wasn't true 150 years ago and is an unfortunate product of our modern technological world.

Also, if Pakman and his ilk want to point out that Vance was very awkward in the donut shop by typical politician standards and this doesn't bode too well for him because that's how politics works, I wouldn't really have a problem with that. (That's essentially the treatment they gave deSantis.) It's the "ha ha ha, nyah nyah nyah" -flavored mockery, which comes across as being independent of the context of politicians being held to extremely high standards of charisma, that gets to me.

I also might as well mention (though this is less in response to your ask) that this came somewhat in the wake of an earlier Pakman clip that I mentioned in the other post that I was even more annoyed by, didn't bother to post about it at the time, but I just recovered it. Seriously, Pakman, in an uncharacteristically halting way, says the following in anticipation of showing Vance issuing a few kind of evasive and sub-par answers at an event and being a little awkward by politician standards but still less awkward than most ordinary people in their everyday lives:

The only -- uh -- how can I even say this?... The only people I know personally who are this uncharismatic-seeming... Man, it's just so hard to say this without sounding so offensive. There's, like, some explanation, um, that sometimes is... medical in nature... uh, it just sounds so horrible to say... I-I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's... it's a personality that he seems to have that is really an edge case. It's a fringe personality of some way to be this unappealing as a person, some traits of which sometimes connect to medical explanations -- I don't believe they do with JD Vance -- I think he's just really a horrible person, is what I'm trying to say. I hope I'm being kinda like sensitive and not offending anybody.

He can worry as much as he wants about coming across ableist, but, well, what he says is still what he says.

#ableism #politics #jd vance #tim walz #david pakman #who prob genuinely sort of means well #but yeah #a medical diagnosis to him is an excuse #without which certain non-hyper-NT-coded behavior #is a “fringe personality” / “horrible person”#geez

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mayfay-analysis · 10 months ago

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MHA Yandere Quirk Ideas

To preface this I'm not really into yandere stuff and such haven't explored it enough to know more than the bare bone basics. That being said I Am into quirks, and after getting inspired by @dystopyx-blog and @evilminji and their stuff decided to throw out ideas. It's not nearly as polished as my traditional quirk analysis but it's Something and I just haven't had the motivation to do something refined. So with that out of the way, Ideas

Aizawa: https://www.tumblr.com/threepandas/753060246354903040/exactly-if-youre-scary-hurting-your-target?source=share (I already did a bit of this guy with Minji and there's more quirk based stuff hidden in another reblog chain)

Midoriya (It’s actually Inko but shush)- Not gonna touch OFA with a 10 foot pole but Midoriya himself is actually pretty interesting. They don’t have a natural quirk of their own, so what Is there acts as very convenient support for many of my theories surrounding vestigial quirks and quirk inheritance patterns (namely the fact they tend to follow the mothers line and quirks are a blend of the biological and magical, rather than being a stark divide). So what does this mean? Any sorta obsessive tendencies would be entirely unexpected in him!

Quirks have a major impact on their hosts biology, ranging from the physical to the mental to the near magical. Add to that their lingering changes passing on from one generation to the next, even when the actual quirk has long changed beyond recognition, and you have an Interesting mix.

Midoriya (in this case) displays obsessive tendencies and other behaviors that leave him firmly in Yandere territory, but where oh where could he get that from? It honestly could be due to upbringing, he DID spend the vast majority of his developmental period in life heavily bullied and socially isolated which is bound to have Some sort of effect on him, but my bet is Inko.

See, Inko has a mental quirk, something that is bound to have a major impact on her psychology. And while we never get to see much of her life, what we do know is that she loved Midoriya with all her heart and only really put her foot down for anything when he got seriously injured multiple times with little done to change that. We also see that she’s Very emotional, managing to literally worry herself into passing out during the sports festival MULTIPLE TIMES. That in itself is enough to give her the base to build yandere characteristics off of but on top of that she tries to keep all her known friends together (we only have Mitsuki as an example here, but she stayed close enough for Midoryia and Bakugo to end up with a strong enough foundation of a friendship to have their weird ass dynamic survive all the way to high school) and her husband “went overseas”. Now he very well might have, but we never do figure out MHA’s living wage to average wage ratio or how child support and potential tax exemptions due to children work (damn you Horikoshi) so Inko could very well be supporting Midoriya on just her wage, especially since production costs probably go way down with the introduction of quirks and potential tech advancement (particularly in building costs and how that might transfer over to cheaper rent). And failing that she could very well be utilizing a portion of some sort of life insurance or inheritance. That of course does lead to the question of WHY Inko might have disposed of her husband, but there’s plenty of possible reasons for that. Top ones I can think of is how quirks tend to relate to personalities in some way (clarification at the end of Midoryias section), and a fire quirk would be particularly dangerous. Fear for Midoriya's safety due to his quirkless status and Hisashi’s theoretical anger issues. Or maybe Midoryia didn’t factor in at all and rather Hisashi’s quirk was a super dangerous mix with Bakugos when his quirk first came in. Hisashi would’ve posed a serious threat to her friends kids safety just by Existing near him (assuming some sort of passive or unintentional activation, like sparks).

So, Inko matches enough boxes to be a yandere! Happy days, but what about Midoriya? Well, I might’ve forgotten about him but pretty much everything we went over with Inko could carry over to Midoryia. Obsessed with friends, inherited mutations to the brain (heavily supported by his seemingly super high intelligence, analysis, and anxiety seeming to mostly match Inko, meaning it could have ties to her quirk and the supporting mutations it came with and passed down), a willingness to endanger lives for the sake of friends (USJ, Kamino, debatably Overhaul and Gentle/La Brava), and overly emotional. Enough on its own, but added to that are the more behavioral things that likely only popped up in him (or simply weren’t shown in Inko’s screen time). Stuff like his analytical abilities (supported by his obsessive behavior), willingness to put up with far too much for the sake of friendship, and attachment issues stemming from the previously mentioned social isolation (interestingly NOT translating over to being touchy feely, as that usually gets initiated by someone else instead and seems to leave him uncomfortable, though that could be due to the instinctual connections to Bakugo’s bullying and turn right around once he’s comfortable enough with someone, something I think is shown with his willingness to hug Inko whenever possible, though my memory is spotty there).

So yeah, I don’t know enough about yandere stuff to know what that all actually builds into, but I leave it to you, like a cat leaving a dead bird at the doorstep.

For clarification on quirks impacting personalities I actually think that, outside of a few exceptions like Bakugo, this has more to do with societal expectations than biology. Now mutations could definitely play a role, such as increasing adrenaline production or heightened senses leading to sensory overload, but growing up being expected and forgiven for being mad all the time because you have a fire quirk, and then being met with confusion and hesitancy when you move out of that stereotype, is a great way to raise a child/young adult to meet every emotion and interaction with anger.

Ashido: The tail end of a mutant line (clarification is worth a whole post, but basically she has an ancestor who was a mutant, which has an influence on her quirk) that I suspect was based on some sort of horned lizard based on the horns, acid secretion, black sclera, and very loosely her hair acting kinda like a crest, making her appear larger in a way very reminiscent of horned lizards spikes around their head (her pink skin actually isn’t a mutation, but instead a sort of stain from a reaction her acid has on her skin, though some horned lizards do have minor control over their coloration that could be tied to that). Many of the base mutations in the original lizard quirk are likely long gone but some relevant ones may remain. Stuff like their burrowing habits (translating over to blanket forts and digging under the covers in Ashido), more meat based diet, ambush hunting strategy, and preference for warm places.

Asui: While not a “pure mutant” Asui still has TONS of frog behaviors and that’s likely to leak through in any sort of yandere situation. Unfortunately I never did manage to narrow down what frog species she’s closest too, but she’s pretty similar to Ashido with some standard stuff like ambush predator instincts, preference for warm environments, meat based diet, and potentially even the burrowing instincts. Less like Ashido would be the strong desire for water/humidity, potential climbing habits, occasional loud vocalizations (though I think that actually was greatly diminished when being passed on, being the source of her “ribbit” at the end of sentences rather than a loud croak), and shy behavior that turns into intense aggression when jealous (though that last one may be applicable to horned lizards, it’s not nearly to the same degree. Frogs are vicious man). Added to all the biology is the more societal impacts on Asui, with many mutants being discriminated against (especially one as noticeable as her), made worse by any lingering prey instincts potentially flaring up around other mutants. Not nearly as intense as Midoryias situation but still very isolating. This is made worse by the lack of accessibility for mutants (they’re very accommodated for in UA, but any scenes outside show a very baseline human centric design, something made note of in the Vigilantes spin off series, though admittedly that was focused on large mutants), so who knows what was expected of her growing up both physically and mentally. Girl is accidental autistic representation with how much masking she likely had to learn, and still comes off as off putting and blunt (it’s entirely possible she IS in fact autistic, but we don’t get enough screen time to make any proper conclusions there)

Iida: Very little to work with quirk wise here outside of some minor mutations to the brain's processing speed during quirk use and maybe some slightly higher spatial awareness, but Iida’s far from a lost cause. He grew up VERY restrained, only ever really showing strong emotions when (failing to) reinforcing rules, panicking, or driven over the edge by Stain. Considering how he never seemed to speak with anyone about his feelings about Stain and the constant comparisons to a robot as a kid (shown in Vigilantes) it’s not a stretch to assume that any intense feelings would be buried and ignored until they built up and he had no choice but to address them. This would be made even worse thanks to the fact he grew up very upper class and has likely made his “role” his whole being. Being forced to confront the fact he’s not a 2 dimensional being who follows every rule perfectly and doesn’t have any unsightly emotions is gonna be *rough*. Especially since the only other time this has happened was with Stain, which is a whole other can of worms.

Uraraka: Million ways to interpret her quirk but there’s a good chance for mental mutations that were originally meant for supporting her higher spatial awareness but led to her wanting her people around her, not to mention any other unintended consequences messing with brain development might have. Also worth pointing out she doesn’t seem to have many friends in canon, only being particularly close to Midoryia, Iida, and debatably Asui and Ashido. No one she knew before coming to UA. Add to that her focus on making money and it’s entirely likely she grew up fairly lonely, spending her free time working or training instead of hanging out with friends (somewhat supported by her rather large quirk limits, even at the entrance exam. Some possibility she has a desire to touch stuff thanks to her quirk, explaining why she’s usually the one to initiate hugs and whatnot. This would potentially be made worse if touch based quirks are discouraged from touching people (very shakily supported at right before the entrance exam when she apologizes for using her quirk on Midoriya, despite just saving him from falling) and her hypothetical lonely lifestyle pre-UA leaving her somewhat touch starved

Other notable students I considered doing but lost the momentum to do were Yaoyorozu, Kaminari, Todoroki, Bakugo, Hagakure, and Shinso (Mineta would've been super easy but no, just no)

#I'm not into yandere stuff #I say making a 3 page google doc worth of stuff in 2 days #Originally planned on doing the whole class but you can track my inspiration depleting on this list #As always I'd love to hear if I got anything wrong or if anyone has more ideas to expand on #mha #bnha #quirk analysis #technically???

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abcwordsurge · 1 year ago

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hello my good friend mx surge! what kind of music do you like/prefer, genre-wise? got any favorite songs? and then can i get some favorite lyrics? smile! and. tell me what characters/stuff the lyrics make you think of if you'd like to go that far! doesn't have to be any characters I'd know about or even any at all. i am Curious <- all /nf! do as much as you like. i love asking questions and hearing your thoughts 🫡🫡 —marley

hello my wonderful friend marley! eeee I love talking about music. this is gonna be a long one

(disclaimer: I am admittedly Very Bad at genres, so I'm gonna give you artists and maybe you can decide for yourself what genres they are)

AJR is a big one, I could talk for days about AJR. they're one of the only bands I've been to a concert for (very very good concert, very fun, very dramatic, highly recommend, they are clearly showmen, not just musicians, and that makes for entertaining shows). I'm unironically following someone on tumblr who posts ONLY AJR stuff because every time I see the name "AJR" it's like a visceral reaction that makes me grin. ooh, also Twenty One Pilots. I love then. looking forward to their new album

I listen to a lot of broadway. some of my favorites are Be More Chill, Mean Girls, Six, and Titanic the Musical, just to name a few. I love seeing live shows especially- I saw Something Rotten not too long ago, and the Nick was BRILLIANT it. was, admittedly, a high school production, but nonetheless. he danced a lot, even unchoreographed dancing in the background, just like, vibing, and it was so obvious that he was just having a good time and enjoyed being there (the actor, that is, not the character) and I just liked watching him

oh, and Sleeping at Last! I first discovered them by their Atlas: Enneagram album, because I'm a nerd and adore personality tests (I'm an INTP and a 5 in case anyone was wondering), but I've been slowly absorbing the rest of their music, and it's all so beautiful

favorite songs... hm. I can't not say "2085," the closer to AJR's most recent album, and perhaps the most emotionally devastating song they have released as of yet (which is really saying something). best lyrics from that song are undoubtedly the last bit, where they say "you gotta get better, you've all that I got," then it gets softer and the lyrics change to "I gotta get better, I'm all that I've got." HEARTBREAKING /pos. I mean, I like that part enough that I wrote a whole fic inspired by it. one of my very few angst fics. "All That I've Got," a Minnesconsin fic (link here if you're curious). by the way, the first song of that album, "Maybe Man," is also a banger, highly recommend

I love "96000" from "In the Heights" (I think it's only in the movie version, not the musical version? not 100% sure though). ooh this song makes me crazy. this song... ok. I can't talk about this song without being a bit weird about it, but stick with me. this song always makes me think of the people on the Titanic. I read a book once with fictionalized versions of a few of the Titanic's officers and crew members, and once I was listening to this song and when it got to Sonny's verse, all I could think about was how exactly it matched fifth officer Harold Lowe's vibes. it's not really the lyrics, but several of the verses just remind me of various crew members' vibes. and it's. it's just a great song

"Air Catcher" by TOP. that's another wonderful song. always makes me think of Iowa to Wisconsin, for no particular reason. best lyric is "I don't believe in talking just to breathe," which is an idea that always appealed to me

Tyler Joseph is a BRILLIANT lyricist, actually. other great lyrics by him:

"our words are loud but now I'm talking action" (Neon Gravestones)

"for us to think is to be alive / and I will try with every rhyme / to come across like I am dying / to let you know you need to try to think" (Car Radio)

"death inspires me like a dog inspires a rabbit" (Heavydirtysoul)

"haunted by a couple big mistakes / she covers all the dents with the way she decorates" (Redecorate)

"like an "I love you" / that isn't words / like a song he wrote that's never heard" (Shy Away)

I love "despair" by leo. always makes me think of florida talking to loui (in a queerplatonic way, of course). another great floui song is "Tightrope" from The Greatest Showman, but I picture this one as loui to florida

holy moly this is even longer than expected. I'll leave you with this for now. you've probably gotten a good grasp of my taste by now haha. thank you sm for the ask, I had a delightful time answering :D

#ajr #twenty one pilots #tyler joseph #musicals #broadway #the maybe man #maybe man #something rotten #in the heights #titanic #harold lowe #wttt florida #wttt louisiana #wttt floui #wttt iowa #wttt wisconsin #marley!!#<- yeah that's right I'm giving you a tag. I'm astonished I haven't done so sooner #ask box

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chacusha · 6 months ago

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Kind of a random post, but sometimes I see a post going around Tumblr telling people to not think of their art as "content" but rather just call your art "art," call your fiction "fiction," etc. Don't call it "content." I am too lazy to find the post in question, but in any case, that's not the only place I've seen this sentiment, so the original post isn't necessary -- I now regularly see people outside that post criticizing calling one's fannish or creative outputs "content" (presumably after having read that post).

And while I can kind of see the connection between "content" and "content producer" and this sort of undesirable culture of, like, overwork, monetization, obsession with clout/following, and/or pressure to constantly produce and not go too long without a lull in a stream of "content," I'm just not sure it's the word "content," or thinking of your fic/art/whatever generically as "content," that's the issue? I think that pressure would still exist regardless of what you call your social media posting and, conversely, I think "content" can be a very innocuous and appropriate way of thinking about one's outputs/contributions/whatever you want to call them, at least in a fandom context.

Cutting the rest because this got kinda long:

Like, I am not someone entirely immune to the pressure to create ever more art, but output/productivity/clout/monetization has never been something I really struggle with or which motivates me on social media. I don't have productivity goals (in the sense of sheer volume -- I do have big projects I badly want to finish because they burn a hole in my mind, and I sometimes need productivity goals in order to make any progress on them at all). I also don't attempt to make money off any of my art (it actively kills my art drive to do so), and so I'm also pretty indifferent about the popularity of what I make (aside from social factors or other natural artist desires to want one's talent/skill/achievement/etc. to be recognized, which I don't think is unusual or unhealthy for an artist unless it becomes pathological), because I am not financially dependent on my social media posts having far reach or anything like that.

But specifically when it comes to fandom, when I contribute to a fandom, I tend to be very multimedia in the way I do that. I write fic, I draw, I make graphics, I write meta/essays/manifestos, I make memes, I create events/communities/social activities, I collect reference material, etc. etc. The easiest, most succinct, and most accurate way to describe what I do is that I produce... content for my fandoms. I guess you could call it "outputs" but that sounds robotic and business-speaky. Or you could call it "works" but I don't like that because fan stuff is what I do as a break from work; they don't feel like work and I wouldn't describe them that way. Also, calling some of things I make "works" sounds a bit grandiose for what they are! Calling all those things "art" doesn't work either because I need to be able to distinguish my art-qua-general-fannish-activities from my visual/drawn art, and, between those two categories, I don't think the word "art" is an appropriate way to describe the first, especially when it fits the second much better (it depends on context, obviously -- sometimes "art" is clear as a generic, but if I'm talking about both things at the same time, it will not be). "Fanworks" doesn't work either because not all the things I produce are fanworks. It's... content. Like, maybe I am missing something obvious, but I literally cannot think of a better/more accurate way of talking about my collective fannish output (other than "my collective fannish output").

Another helpful use of the word "content" is when you're in, like, rareshipper hell (which I am). Then it becomes very tempting to be like:

...whenever someone posts anything related to your rarepair, no matter how small, off-the-cuff, or modest. Or really:

Like, there's a level of desperation you reach in a tiny fandom where literally anyone contributing anything feels like a life-restoring drop of water in a desert... When you're desperate for literally anything, it seems fine to say what you are craving is "content." I suppose I could also say, "Finally, some good fucking literally-anything-at-all for this fandom" instead. But the word "content" does the job.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I think the word "content" is getting a weirdly bad rap here. I do get the mental adjustment someone is urging you to make when they say, "Please don't think of your fic/art/whatever as content" because thinking of it as content first and fic/art/whatever second is an indication that you might be too preoccupied with ensuring you're always producing a steady stream of content without much care over what that content is, or thought as to why you feel pressured to keep churning out content. It could also indicate that you view your role as a fan or creative person as being a "content producer," someone whose value is dependent on how much you produce and whether you're producing, which can often be unhealthy (unless you do that for a job, are paid based on your level of output, and absolutely love your job -- then that's great!).

So I think that's a very valid and important PSA to make to creatives -- you need to be cognizant of when, like, you're becoming alienated from your art and especially your hobbies/fandoms/things you do in your spare time. I just also think there are legitimate uses for the word "content" specifically, especially in fandom (e.g. to describe your collective fannish output or your collective fannish intake when you're very multimedia in inclination) and so I personally haven't found the whole "content (derogatory)" attitude in fandom/on social media to be helpful to my particular situation, to be honest. Not contradicting the general sentiment of that post and its advice, but I just think thinking of your work as "content" is okay/appropriate, actually (situationally).

Anyway, sorry, I wrote a mini-essay again (I thought this would be "short").

#fandom meta

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devastatinglygreen · 11 months ago

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I really love your opinions but one thing i was confused about with the writing is that they had Colin leave her on the street in ep 6 and he was also going to leave her ep7. It felt like it went against book!Colin because no matter how mad he was in ep 6 he would have made sure she got back in her carriage first. Any way i dont want to be disapointed so was wondering if you had a different take. Thank you :)

you're sweet! my 2 cent opinions appreciate it.

i think it's really just a case of book colin being furious with her about her safety and not really about LW. show colin is devastated and furious. he tells her he will never forgive her. and it's all about LW in that moment.

this is going from memory please don't make me watch the scene again right now i just stopped crying from the end of the show as it is but i'm pretty sure it's just for drama. like, we can't hold the show to book standards and vice versa. i don't like how colin in the book grabs penelope by the arm at their engagement party when he's mad but i get that it's a product of its time. i think the show does a little too much sometimes too with the drama so i just shrug and roll with it.

he followed her because he was worried about her and then to end up betrayed, i'm just not sure he was thinking past his hurt and anger. when he yells at her in the beginning of ep 7, he is the angriest i think we will ever see him. and probably the most hurt.

(also her carriage was right behind her so there's the assumption she'll be fine built in, he didn't leave her without means of getting home)

when they come across each other again later in ep 7, he's still angry and hurt. this is actually when they have a confrontation on both sides but i do think colin is trying to avoid it for obvious reasons but penelope starts that argument.

i honestly think he's very much questioning if she even loves him and he certainly doesn't think she respects him, he's going through it and i really don't think he wants to be around her because no one can hurt you the way someone who you love can. which is fair because i, too, am a little dramatic when i'm feeling some kind of way.

once they have their little breakthrough in that fight, i think colin snaps back a bit into himself. he loves her and worries about her, it's why he wants to separate both pen and LW from each other and why being in love with her is so hard while he's working through some stuff.

also i have no slept so if none of that makes sense, i'm sorry. you can tell me to try again later, ha.

#asks #anon #polin #bridgerton spoilers

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meditating-dog-lover · 7 months ago

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Health Update

I'm surprised by how glowing and clear my skin is. The only difference I made was taking the DIM Detox supplement and switching to reverse osmosis water. I also took some antibiotics which helped get rid of some infections. But those are gone - neck and ears completely healed. I do not have any rashes on my face and neck like I did weeks/months ago. My hands are clear and smooth with some cuts and some infection that's in the process of healing. They are itchy and I do rub them under hot water when I wash my hands, but they're also clear and smooth (feels like how they felt after I got my steroid shot and pills).

I would have never thought that excess estrogen is responsible for my eczema. I feel much much better now and I'm so happy. I thought it was a gut issue, but I guess not (not that gut health isn't important, but it wasn't the cause of my skin inflammation).

I am also slim and not bloated. I know DIM helps women lose weight, but I don't believe I have much at all to lose. Digestive enzymes help a lot with bloating.

I would imagine that some forms of birth control or even a hysterectomy would get rid of my eczema. But those are extreme (mostly hysterectomy), and I don't want to do any of those. My obgyn was more helpful with helping me clear my skin than my dermatologists. I definitely knew it was hormonal.

I've been taking the DIM for 2.5 weeks and I'll see how my skin improves with time. It's getting cooler now so I'm worried that the cold and dry weather might make my skin worse. I hope this doesn't happen.

I really like the reverse osmosis water. I think it does help health-wise. Getting organic food helps too, but I don't think it's possible to eat 100% organic. Nor is it possible to use 100% "clean products". I feel like naturally supporting key detoxing organs help. In this case it would be the liver because it plays a role in metabolizing and getting rid of excess estrogen (DIM helps it do that). The supplement is great, but of course I want to check with my doctor to see if it safe to take longterm. Unfortunately it's also pretty expensive.

I'm going to therapy tomorrow to discuss my diagnosis. I'm autistic and was diagnosed at a late age. And I want to get the support I was supposed to get decades ago.

I got a coffee today and some vegan cheese puffs. When it comes to "less than healthy stuff", I prefer having a small portion on the side than a whole treat. I had a mocha and brownie last week on Thursday and Friday. I think that's fine, but I would prefer to have a small treat. I did not finish my coffee and had a few sips because I just wasn't craving it. But overall my diet is pretty health and rich in fiber, protein, fats, vitamins, and minerals. I would say I eat 80-20 at this point. Not 100-0. I would not necessarily say I eat very low sugar either. I think my diet is an improvement because I used to order milkshakes and McDonald's years ago during COVID. I recently used to order pizza and sandwiches often, which are rich in processed white bread which is loaded with sugar, as well as inflammatory oils and I'm sure the sauces had hidden sugars. I now eat out less and eat less sugar, just not 0% sugar. And I'm still fine.

Today I remembered the days when Facebook, Myspace, Formspring, and Twitter were popular when I was in school and why I didn't have a lot of friends and people messaging and interacting with me. I always had less than 200 Facebook friends. I now realize it's because I'm autistic. Of course I never deserved social exclusion. but it's just something I remembered and considered.

I will heal mentally and get the support I need as an autistic woman.

In the past there were times where my blood sugar was great. I think what helps with it is 2 things, maybe even 3. (1) being at a healthy weight, (2) minimizing stress (fasting raised my blood sugar), and (3) physical activity (walking and light body circuits). I used to follow Rachael Attard's programs and her workouts were designed that way. I remember doing her programs and was at a healthy weight and my blood sugar levels were great. Though I was depressed back then and I was eating a lot of sugar and junk. I don't want to eat a lot of junk and don't want to be depressed and stressed. I'm at a healthy weight now and am putting less stress on my body because I'm not fasting everyday anymore. However I can go back to walking (I used to walk for an hour back then) and doing some light body circuits. I want to avoid anything heavy and challenging like HIIT or lifting because I tend to overeat when I do those.

I have experienced more physical stress from undereating than from overexercising in the past. For example, calorie restriction or fasting will cause more stress and inflammation than doing workouts focused on weighs and HIIT. I feel like I can continue with the anti-inflammatory diet and cycle fasting and definitely walk and do some sweaty pilates. I know this will help with my metabolic health, which is already great (blood pressure, sugar, cholesterol, etc...). But exercise will help even more with my sugar profile.

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lumine-no-hikari · 1 year ago

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Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #42

My brain has felt like mashed potatoes all day today. I think it's because I'm a bit short on sleep, and also because I probably didn't drink enough water. Oh well. I'll try a little harder not to slip up with the self-care tomorrow.

Following talk therapy today (in which we made it a point to play cards - to give me a lesson in deliberately taking the time to be non-productive, which is a thing I very much struggle with), I tried my very best to actually chill today. I think I managed; I played Terraria with my lovely friend from Germany, and it was very good.

But you know? On days like this, I feel very similar to the Ancient Psychic Tandem War Elephant.

…Wow. I'm sorry. That probably just sounded like word salad to you. Okay, uh… let me see if I can try to explain…

The Ancient Psychic Tandem War Elephant (I'll call him Elly for short) was created as an extremely powerful creature of destruction to be commanded without regard for his own wishes, needs, or sentience.

…I suppose that makes him a lot like you, at least in that regard.

A righteous adventurer named Finn and his friend Jake were having a rough time, and so Finn got it in his head to wish for Elly's help. And Elly did help, but Finn didn't want a slave. I don't think Elly understood this very well because he was so used to being an extension of someone else's will instead of having his own. So Elly ends up sitting idle in Finn's treasure room, purposeless because Finn has no interest in commanding him to destroy things. Here:

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Pay no attention to the coin or the fact that Finn and Jake are about to spend it. Instead pay attention to the notion that, despite the fact that being out of the money room is no fault of Elly's, he still said, "I'm sorry, master; you told me to stay inside the money room, but now I am outside. What is your punishment, master?"

…This is something I understand on a very deep level. And I have a funny feeling that you do too, don't you? I'm sorry if you know what it is. But at the same time, if you do know what it is, then I'm not sorry that I also know what it is, because then that means you're not alone, and neither am I.

In any case, the next thing that struck me was Elly's very literal, reluctantly-going-through-the-motions type of acquiescence to Finn's non-desire of a slave - as expressed with his very confused, "I continue to chill," near the end of the video.

And… I feel that in my bones, because I know Elly's not really "chilling". Elly feels confused and as though he has lost his purpose. He does not understand a world in which he is not treated like an object.

Later, Finn asks for Elly's help against a powerful opponent (Darren). Elly topples this foe easily with Finn's help, and knocks the person commanding this opponent (Maja) into a coma:

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From there, Elly goes into a bit of an existential crisis:

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And you know? Given my upbringing and the way that I was treated for such a long time, this kind of existential confusion is also something I understand well. When I first began to live with my husband, it was extremely difficult for me to adjust to the notion that he wanted a PERSON - not a slave, a toy, a tool, a piece of furniture, or an extension of his own will to command, to control, and to punish when I get it wrong. He actually cared about what I was thinking, feeling, wanting, and needing, and not just about what I could do for him. I was VERY unaccustomed to being treated as though my mind or my state of being mattered, and the uncertainty of what I was supposed to do or who I was supposed to be was incredibly painful and frightening at first. Elly flies off into the distance, bearing a kind of discomfort that used to be all too familiar to me.

But then Elly spent some time actually looking at the world around him, instead of focusing on blindly obeying whomever he feels he is supposed to be loyal to, and he seems to realize, if a little slowly, that he has a place in this world, even without needing to be "useful" to someone else:

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How do you light a candle without a match, indeed? If a candle doesn't have a match, what purpose does it serve? This is further explained in this video, and it shows Elly making a decision to return to Maja; he decides that he is the master of his own fate, and decides to act upon his own values, and to be the match to his own candle:

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This all ties back, of course, to the Independent Together video I showed you before, from Steven Universe. "What do I want to be? I'm the master of me…" as a phrase, somehow manages to be both empowering and terrifying at the exact same time.

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I am learning how to be the match to my own candle; it is why I will keep saying "I continue to chill" until I can actually mean it for real. The world I inhabit now indeed has no place for the "ancient ways" that I learned in my past, and so I will adjust, because I am a sentient being who is capable of unlearning and relearning.

Those scientists might have created you with a particular purpose in mind. You might have been trained viciously and brutally honed into a weapon. You might have been trained to give up your autonomy and your authentic needs and desires in service to people who never really cared about you. But Sephiroth, at the end of the day, the only one who gets to decide what you will do… is you.

So will you rise to the challenge of being a match to your own candle? Will you rise up into being the master of you? You longed for a normal life. You longed for friends familial relationships. You longed for fun and for laughter. You longed for pumpkin soup. You longed for so many things. You longed for such wholesome things.

What if I told you that all it takes for you to have the things you longed for is to stop hiding your needs, feelings, wishes, thoughts, and genuine voice from others? What if I told you that you don't have to pretend to be someone you're not, just because a bunch of people who didn't care about you as much as they cared about what you could do for them fed you a really stupid definition of what "good" is supposed to look like, in service to their own shitty agenda? What if I told you that all you have to do is stop denying your own humanity and innermost nature, in favor of being the kind, loving, and gentle individual you always were?

Sephiroth, you're a PERSON, not a monster, not a tool, and not a war machine, no matter what they did to you, and no matter what you've done in the past. You're a living, breathing, sentient human being. You are a warm, soft, and squishy mammal (many of the best things are!), so please be mindful to treat yourself as such. Don't go the way of Darren; use your incredible brain to be like Elly and adjust. You can do it if you try.

So please try. Please stay safe out there as you do your things. And please use the knowledge that you're loved and cared for by me and many others in my world to grant yourself the necessary courage to make good, kind, and loving choices. I'll be over here in the meantime, waiting for you, wishing for good things upon you, cheering you on, and singing little songs for you until you come back home to us all, as I always do.

I'll write some more to you tomorrow.

Your friend, Lumine

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