#and to the fans that have kept it so relevant and popular with so so so much support. and for so long too!

[writingquestionsanswered]

What's "Filler" vs What's Relevant

Anonymous asked: How do you know when something is “filler” that needs to be deleted, or if it can be kept? I often see advice saying "your characters should talk about nothing but the plot... no frivolous banter or silly arguments, because it's useless, self-indulgent, filler-fluff." But then I watch or see things and it's like, hm... there sure are a lot of things happening here that aren't plot relevant, yet the audience adores it. For example, in a popular episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender, called "The Tales of Ba Sing Se," nothing relevant to the main plot (stopping Fire Lord Ozai) happens. Instead, characters shop and go to a spa, rebuild a zoo, and go on a date. Part of the episode is even dedicated to one character's running off after having a nightmare. Nothing that we learn or that happens in the episode is ever relevant again as far as I recall, yet 19 years later, people still talk about how much they love that episode. So, I’m really confused as to what counts as useless filler/fluff vs what's important information. How do you tell the difference?

[Ask edited for length...]

First, it's important to note that a Nickelodeon cartoon from twenty years ago is not a great measuring stick for how to write fiction in 2024. ATLA, from what I've heard, is an amazing TV show, full of heart and top-notch character development. But it was also a cartoon created for and written to be enjoyed by children as young as age seven (the low end of Nickelodeon's demographic at the time), so it was following different guidelines from what you'd be following if you're trying to write a short story, novella, or book.

Case in point, the ATLA episode "The Tales of Ba Sing Se" is what's known in television as a "vignette," which uses short, self-contained stories unified by concept and theme to explore character relationships, growth, world-building, and to expand on themes that are important to the overall story. So, while the episode may not have contained plot-relevant elements, as get a glimpse into the minutiae of the characters' daily lives in Ba Sing Se, the characters and their relationships are still pushed forward, even if in only the tiniest ways.

And, again, this is a TV show with 61 episodes, not a short story, novel, or book, all of which are structured differently than a TV show.

On the Subject of "Fluff"

I want to be clear about the fact that if you're writing fan-fiction, fluff is just fine. And even if you're writing original fiction, you can get away with a little bit of fluff... you just need to be clever about it...

Filler, Fluff, or Relevant?

If something is absolutely necessary to move the story forward or understand it, it's plot relevant.

If something doesn't move the story forward and isn't critical to the reader's understanding of the story, but it helps them understand the characters or world in a way they didn't before, it's probably fluff that's been dressed up in a plot relevant costume. (That's the "you need to be clever about it" bit from above, which we'll get to in a second...)

If something isn't necessary to move the story forward or understand it, and it doesn't add anything to the reader's understanding of the characters or world, it's filler. It's just words on a page that serve no purpose, and it should be cut.

On the Subject of "Moving the Story Forward"

To clarify, in case anyone is wondering, "moving the story forward" means advancing the plot from one scene to the next scene. In other words, to use The Hunger Games as an example, Prim's name being drawn in the Reaping moves the story forward, because it forces Katniss to volunteer in her place. It moves the story from Katniss being a bystander at the Reaping to being a tribute. Another example, using Twilight, when Tyler's van skids into the parking lot and almost smashed into Bella, it forces Edward to use his otherworldly vampire strength to save her, which confirms in her mind that he's not human. It moves the story from Bella being curious about this weird boy at school to realizing he is something else and wanting to know more.

Dressing Up Fluff to Make it Relevant

Let's say you're writing a story about a young woman who stayed in her small town and went to community college while her high school besties went off to a college she couldn't afford, and now they've returned and she's trying to maintain these important friendships while struggling with feelings of resentment, jealousy, and feeling left behind.

Now, let's also say you have an idea for a really cute scene where your protagonist and one of these friends goes to a museum together for an afternoon. And as it stands, nothing plot relevant happens in this scene and it doesn't add anything to the reader's understanding of the characters or world. It's just something silly and fun you think would be cute in your story. How can you turn it from fluff to relevant?

To start with, look at your character's internal conflict... wanting to maintain the friendship while struggling with jealousy and feeling left behind. What could happen in the museum that could play on that? Maybe they stop in front of a reproduction of the Venus de Milo and the friend starts talking about the semester abroad she and the other friends did in Paris. This is a perfect place to explore the protagonist's feelings of jealousy and being left behind. If the character talks about her thoughts and feelings in that moment, either inside her head or with the friend, it gives you a chance to expand upon these feelings, explore why they're happening, and even to add further conflict. Maybe she confronts the friend and it doesn't go over well. Or, maybe she lies about something to feel better about herself, and that creates problems later.

Another option would be to look at the next plot point that needs to happen. Is there some way this scene can be used as a stepping stone between two existing scenes? Could something be added to this scene that raises the stakes or or makes the next scene more interesting?

While I'm sure there are some scenes you just can't make relevant no matter how hard you try, usually you can find a way if you just take the time to brainstorm and try out different ideas.

One Last Note...

On the rare occasion you end up with a fluff scene that has no relevance and can't be made to have relevance no matter how hard you try, write it anyway. Then, take it out, save it someplace safe, and hang onto it. These kinds of stories make GREAT incentives for things like newsletter sign-ups, subscription perks, web site bonuses, etc.

I hope that helps! ♥

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[aroaceleovaldez]

Mark Oshiro confuses me a little bit not going to lie. In the press tour for the first book all they ever talked about was how Nico is their son and Will is fine I guess. Then they said like 2 weeks before TSATS came out that they didn't understand Will's character at all and it's one of the main reasons why Will has so little POV.

Possibly unpopular opinion but I don't think it's a good, encouraging sign when the writer admits to not really caring about the deuteragonist or not even having a sense of how to write them...

Yeah, no. If you have no interest in 1/2 of the POV characters of your book, you REALLY shouldn't be writing it (or at least, not have that be a main character). Especially when the main way TSATS could have been improved is if it was primarily Will-centric instead of Nico-centric. Will basically had next to no established character prior to TSATS! He was practically a blank slate! But all the new stuff we got for Will in TSATS was so clearly disinterested and had no regard for his previously established traits (or the established timeline/canon). Which is annoying because fleshing out Will would have been the PERFECT opportunity to actually incorporate a lot of the topics that Mark Oshiro specializes in as a sensitivity reader, which was the ENTIRE REASON THEY WERE BROUGHT ON AS A CO-AUTHOR!!!!

As TSATS stands, there is no reason for Mark Oshiro specifically to have been the co-author instead of someone else. It's so clearly just a PR move from RR following the huge backlash Rick received due to his response to criticism on how he wrote Piper and Samirah (and Reyna and etc etc). This was immediately following Rick saying he wasn't going to write what would become TSATS because "it [wasn't his] place to." Most of the topics that Mark Oshiro specializes in either weren't relevant at all to TSATS or written very poorly (to downright offensively) in TSATS, so either Mark Oshiro wasn't doing their job or was not able to do their job for some reason, but either way it basically makes the theoretical justification for Mark Oshiro being the co-author/sensitivity reader irrelevant.

With Will, it was HUGE fanon back in the day for him to be trans. Trans!Will and photokinesis!Will were basically the two biggest headcanons for him (both largely popularized by Cherryandsisters). We know Rick is aware of this old fanon because he canonized photokinesis!Will. If we had gotten trans!Will, that would have been great! And then made sense why we specifically got a trans co-author! (Instead, if anything, TSATS canonized Will being cis.) If we had gotten Will being latino, that would have been amazing!!!! And also then made sense as to why they chose Mark Oshiro for the job as a latinx author/sensitivity-reader, versus potentially choosing an Italian co-author since Nico being Italian/Venetian was emphasized so much in the book (and done poorly! Yknow what they could have done to fix that? GOTTEN A SENSITIVITY READER FOR IT)! Based on the themes and focuses actually present in the book, it would have been most logical to get a queer, neurodivergent, Italian co-author or sensitivity reader who specializes in those three topics at least. But we didn't! So why was Mark Oshiro chosen instead when they only specialize in one of those topics? PR reasons. It's blatantly entirely PR reasons and no actual thought or care was put into this book (or, likely, TSATS 2 either).

It doesn't help that we're also actively being told that the published version of TSATS was a rough draft. Or that their editor blatantly isn't doing her job. Or that "The Sun And The Star" was the working title that they just kept cause they didn't bother to make an actual title. And that the final version is full of explicitly last-minute scenes that weren't checked over at all (the final Bianca scene, for one). Or the ACTIVELY ADMITTING TO SOURCING IDEAS AND INFORMATION FROM FANS! That last one is kind of important because at this level of publishing that is a HUGE no-no for legal reasons. You can get into a lot of trouble for that and there is a reason why it is Ye Olde Fandom Law to never try to pitch your ideas or headcanons to the source creator(s) and keep fandom separate from the creators. There is a REASON why Rick Riordan is so distant from the community these days and it's for PROTECTION AGAINST LEGAL REPERCUSSION. Mark Oshiro being the exact opposite while also ACTIVELY ACKNOWLEDGING sourcing concepts from fans does not bode well! It has to do with copyright stuff.

It's just. So. Sighhhhhhhh >->o <- me lying on the floor about all of this. It's sad being able to see the glimmer of what could have been at the very least a decent book underneath all this. If anyone involved in the process had actually cared just the tiniest amount.

[lostinthesasuke]

do you think sasuke is religious or upholds his clan's religious practices? i was rereading and in the part where they go to resucitate the hokages orochimaru says "there's nothing left of the uchiha's nakano shrine", to which sasuke answers "the exterior doesn't matter" and it got me wondering

HI YES thank you so much for sending this ask. it's very close to me. elaborated a Lot under the cut but tl;dr - yes.

he is religious in the only way he remembers how to be. preserving Uchiha tradition and culture is deeply important to him. when he said the exterior of Nakano shrine didn't matter, sure he was referring to the fact that there was a hidden underground level... but it meant much more than that.

genocide doesn't just claim lives, it claims languages and religions and every facet of culture. konoha has been known to participate in the censorship and eradication of culture. this assimilation functions as an extension of genocide.

by virtue of being a survivor, i think sasuke feels an obligation to "carry the torch". since he was so young when the massacre occurred, it's likely a lot of practice and customs have been lost altogether. this is distressing to him. even during his character introduction at 12 years old, his clans "restoration" was first and foremost in his mind. to me this statement was never about re-population as many people interpret, but about justice, pride, and culture.

he feels as though the Uchiha name has been "tainted" and it is his responsibility to "purify" it. but what that means to him shifts over time.

the Uchiha clan's religion is obviously based on and deeply tied to the Shinto religion, just like the clan's jutsu and kekkei genkai. many Uchiha jutsu are named after Shinto deities.

this part i am not going to delve into too much yet because one day i will probably write a paper about it, but one of the tenets of Shinto belief is the importance of purity. Shinto practice and customs are regionally variant but the practice of purification is central. death is considered to be extremely impure. this context is deeply relevant to Sasuke's belief system and the way he thinks about himself and his clan.

it is likely that the uchiha religion is closed, evidenced by nakano shrine being kept a secret. sasuke not only has to contend with the fact that the remaining pieces of his culture are guarded and hidden, requiring the use of high-level dojutsu to decipher, but also that any of it may have been altered. the revelation that the stone tablet was altered in order to facilitate madara's manipulation and further subjugation of the uchiha was destabilizing. sasuke has to put the pieces of his religion back together with mostly his memories to rely on.

many parallels can be drawn between sasuke and the sun goddess Amaterasu. when she is betrayed by her brother Susanoo, she withdraws into a cave and plunges the world into darkness. Susanoo conspires to manipulate her into leaving the cave, and then binds her.

this gender reversal is sort of fascinating. Amaterasu and Susanoo contradict the popular notions about the sun and moon and the masculine and feminine. of course this reminds me of sasuke as well, because everything does.

sasuke is typically associated with the waning crescent, the phase just before a new moon, and itachi with a full moon. since sasuke is associated with the moon, the yin, and the feminine, it would logically follow that he would be passive like water; low like a valley. however, he subverts this expectation.

i believe this is a big part of why he makes so many people uncomfortable. he is fire and lightning and he is not a perfect victim.

after speaking to the kage and revealing the secrets of Nakano shrine, he resolves himself to burn the world down and be reborn like a phoenix. like the waning crescent before a new moon.

he is not "pure" the way itachi expects, kishimoto states, or many fans anticipate. he has strong convictions and he is confident. he is not apologetic and he is impossible to ignore.

the first time we ever see sasuke associated with the sun is after he learns the truth about the massacre. he leaves his cave. he sheds hebi and becomes taka, predator instead of prey. he is ready to spill as much blood as it takes.

i have many ideas about what Uchiha religious customs might look like, and many of them concern fire. the uchiwa fan that stokes the flames is their crest. they are seen as fully fledged members of the clan once they can perform katon jutsu. the shrine that houses the Uchiha's patron deity has eternal flames lit.

drawing from my own religion, one of my favorite metas draws a parallel between the Uchiha fire affinity and

אש תמיד (Aish tamid)

which means eternal flame. (sorry for line break, tumblr hates right to left languages). Aish tamid refers to the flame in the temple of Jerusalem that was always kept alight before its desecration by the greeks. just like the torches located in Nakano shrine.

the greeks attempted to hellenize and extinguish Jewish culture. they outlawed observance of Shabbat and circumcision, spat in the face of kashrut by sacrificing pigs in the temple, and even built statues of their gods within. the Jewish people rebelled against them and the flame was rekindled.

rebellion, justice, and pride in culture is in the spirit of fire. unending, always enduring. Sasuke and the Uchiha clan embody this, their crests always emblazoned on their clothes even at the cost of armor. from Madara's rage, to the coup, to Sasuke's revenge, justice is an integral component to the Uchiha ethos.

to me this is a really interesting contrast to the will of fire. the will of fire is the ideal of nationalism-- putting the state before the self. this idea is lauded as heroism. it was originated by the senju, no wonder.

meanwhile, the uchiha clan with their fire affinity and deeply spiritual connection to flame are seen as transgressors. they are seen as disruptive to the ideal of the "will of fire" due to their strong cultural identity. they refuse to assimilate into the dominant culture. they prioritize their love and familial bonds with each other over konoha's interests.

naruto wiki im going to kill you

they are labeled with the opposing "curse of hatred".

it is no surprise then that itachi was praised for his strong "will of fire" for carrying out the massacre-- putting the well-being of the state over the lives of his family. groomed into following the senju doctrine and abandoning his own culture. assimilated and outcast.

in modern culture Aish tamid is kept alight by the continuation of religious practice- praying and studying Torah keep the flame burning. "The exterior doesn't matter". the flame is already burning within Sasuke.

sasuke carries on whatever pieces of his culture he remembers, and he prays in the dark, and he thinks of his mother with her hands clasped at the kamidana, and he visits shrines often on his journey. he lights incense and he burns brightly. and he walks on.

[hysteriaww]

You get kai and bonnie so much together and individually everything you say fits them in canon so well it's too bad the writers really fumbled with them because when kai showed up he was a breath of fresh air and the best part about him is he's all about bonnie that was new and realistic bonkai was their last shot at getting the vampire diaries interest back up again

AH thank you so much for this lovely message, you're so sweet!! Yes, it really is such a shame the writers fumbled Bonkai bc it rly did seem like they had some great ideas there in the beginning, but the execution fell flat :( I feel like Kai was a breath of fresh air not just for us fans but also the cast & crew! U could rly feel their spark of new excitement for a dying show when kai showed up bc i think they all sensed that he was unique and different from the tired, recycled plotlines they'd had since S4.

Ian in particular seemed much more interested in his scenes when Kai was around (and much more lifeless when he wasn't) and Bonnie ofc was *given* much more interesting scenes when Kai was around, compared to prior seasons. Even Alaric & Jo, who started S6 as rick's new boring romance of the season, became relevant, layered and interesting bc of their links to Kai. Like rick loved to play the hero & act like damon was morally beneath him in S6 but his need to protect Jo from Kai brought out a selfish streak that made him go behind Jo & her fam's back to make shady deals w Damon & Kai as long as it kept Jo safe! Even Jo was revealed to be quite crafty considering her backstory of how she tricked & betrayed Kai in 1994, which made her much more interesting than her early role as rick's bland gf.

Even Liv & Luke were (im sorry) SO BORING in S5 but 1000x more interesting in S6 once their story got linked to Kai. His existence single-handedly linked so many disjointed characters & plotlines from previous seasons (like why'd they even bring Rick back after dying in S3? His relationship w Jo (and by extension, Kai) was the only thing that made him relevant for the rest of the goddamn show)! Even the Heretics were introduced to the show through KAI & the gemini/siphoner lore and fully lost steam as soon as Kai wasn't there to make 'em interesting!

As for Kai's links to Bonnie, ya i agree she rly was their last chance to make things interesting bc they'd already given Elena & Caroline "dark" romances that fans were too attached to to accept anything else (see: Delena being forced to stay together; Steroline forever being overshadowed in most fans' minds by Klaroline) so giving Elena & Caroline new pairings would've disappointed fans, whereas Bonnie was a blank slate they could've gone WILD with bc none of her canon pairings had strongly attached fans... yet they gave Elena & Caroline new romances anyway and scrapped Bon's romance with Kai :)))

That is what felt malicious. In S6 alone, they gave Elena who ALREADY HAD DAMON the new guy Liam, then gave Caroline the same guy Liam, Enzo (briefly) AND Stefan, whereas Bon *almost* got Kai & *fully* lost Jeremy in S6. ??? Any writer who paid half as much attention to her fans as Plague did (considering how much ott fan-service she wrote into tvd & how many twitter fights she got into w fans whose ships she disapproved of) HAD to have known her fans wouldn't accept Caroline/Enzo, Care/Stef, Care/Liam or Elena/Liam as much as they loved Care/Klaus & Elena/Damon. Yet she did it anyway bc she preferred LOSING FANS to giving Bonnie someone interesting!

She even planned Kai to be Bon's love interest in S6 bc she thought he wouldn't be popular w fans & instantly torpedoed that once she noticed fans' love for him bc, as I said before, Plague PAID ATTENTION to her fans' reactions. So fans having lukewarm feelings about Steroline was enough to get 'em married, but fans LIKING Kai was enough to get Bonkai axed. It's a common joke that Plague saw Caroline as her self-insert (neurotic, hyper-organized blonde control-freak) which is why she dated more men than even Elena. But I think a large chunk of tvd's white teen girl fans saw Care as a self-insert too (bc w each subsequent season, Caroline was increasingly written & designed that way, which is why fans turned on tvd's original self-insert, Elena, & worshipped Care instead).

Her "im never the one, im not perfect like elena" insecurities made her a blank canvas for (white) girls to see themselves in, which is why she wins Miss Mystic Falls, why she's a privileged Founding Fam member, why she gets to dress fancy & go to Mikaelson balls that have nothing to do w her, why she gets ALL the men, why she becomes the 1st vampire to be pregnant, why she gets to marry Stefan (then instantly lose him so she can go kiss Klaus in the spin-off), why she gets to be tvd's last vampire standing, why she repeatedly gets to have her cake and eat it too. By presenting Elena as "perfect/ideal" & Caroline as an "underdog," fans naturally sympathized more with Care's "struggle" (even tho she repeatedly got EVERYTHING!) Based on this, Plague refused to let ppl like Klaus date Bonnie (which would've made sense) but shoved him w Caroline (which didn't make narrative sense) bc that gave her & white fans the chance to see themselves in Care & feel like THEY were dating Klaus.

(Btw I wanna add that I actually do like & enjoy Caroline! This is a critique of the shadiness that went into *writing* Caroline, not a critique of Caroline herself)

Similarly, Kai was allowed to want Bonnie as long as fans didn't like him, but once he got popular, Plague killed Bonkai bc she believed that she & her (white) fans wouldn't be able to see themselves in Bonnie and feel like THEY were the ones dating Kai. But Kai was not Klaus, Stefan, Damon, Enzo or Kol. His character was CONCEIVED w Bonnie in mind to the point that erasing his obsession w her would make him not even feel like KAI anymore. And that wouldn't work bc fans wanted gucci kai, not walmart kai. Also, his general personality quirks were just not the type that would vibe w Caroline. Chris Wood said it himself, "Kai likes to be the one who talks, he doesn't like to listen, so I think Caroline might make him wanna snap her neck & move on" bc Caroline ALSO likes to talk. So writing him w Care would change Kai too much & writing him w Elena was not an option bc Delena was set in stone & Nina was leaving. So, how'd plague have her cake & eat it too? She refused to let Bon have Kai, and bc there was no other white girl who made sense for him, she kept Kai eternally single so white fans could eternally imagine themselves w him.

And uk what's the worst part? I don't believe all white fans would've necessarily struggled to see themselves in Bonnie if she'd dated Kai. I think Bonnie being the ACTUAL underdog struggler of the show made her very relatable to people, regardless of what your race is (esp bc tvd rarely addressed her race or centered any plotlines on it). I think Plague's own subconscious biases just made it impossible for her to fathom seeing herself in a PoC character, which is why she wrongly assumed all her majority white fans worked the same way & letting Bonkai happen would've disappointed them & made them stop watching. (But that being said, even if it was just a "business decision" to her... isn't it funny how disappointing masses of white klaroline fans didn't stop her from tossing Care at stef, enzo, whoever she wanted, but ONLY stopped her when it came to Bonnie's ships (bc she was looking for excuses to scrap 'em anyway)? Oh plagueee ur biases are showing, girlieee)

[voltronisanobsession]

Platonic! Voltron x Tiktok Obsessed Reader

Just another silly headcanon I thought of, i kinda get lost in the sauce when I’m scrolling through tiktok so i was inspired to do this😍🙏 enjoy my guys xoxo💋

Let’s imagine that tiktok is still a relevant thing during this time since this show is set in the future😻

Even before leaving Earth, Reader was very obsessed with tiktok. Phone opened on the app already, you probably had like a couple hours stacked on it. It was the only thing that kept you from dying of boredom

So when leaving the planet, you were DEVASTATED to see that your phone was quite literally useless in space

No charger, no wifi, and no more silly videos to entertain you

The most you had was your camera but the battery was a major problem

The team notices your more dazed-off look during meetings and on missions, often seeing you fiddle with your phone and just swiping through all your apps

That's until you go to Pidge to see if she can work some magic which SHE IS ABLE TO DO (so slay of her tbh)

She explains that she was able to route the phones connection to the electric waves from nearby planets but you stopped listening at that point

You’re both amazed when you reboot the app to see it completely different, yet similar to what it was before, only now it was filled with many different kinds aliens and their own videos

You are able to see the different environments and types of aliens that are scattered across the universe which was super cool to you!!!!

Cue you literally recording EVERYTHING the team does, let it be missions, meetings, or even fights which starts pissing Keith off a bit (bro feels like you’re not taking the whole voltron thing seriously💀💀)

It doesn’t bother you though since now you’re able to drag Lance and Hunk to do different kinds of trends that are popular on the new app

You manage to build up a small fan base because of the videos on your account, many people loving seeing the life of a paladin of Voltron😻‼️‼️

At one point you manage to get all of the paladins and Coran to do mini “get to know the team” videos (which I imagine are like the short videos on YouTube if you know which ones I mean)

Keith thinks the readers whole tiktok account is dumb and ‘useless’ in his words but is completely in shock when you get recognized by many people when visiting new planets because of your popularity

Shiro I think might find the whole thing a bit strange but he definitely entertains your ideas and involves himself with your account. You make him feel young when you force him to do one of the trends that is popular during that time

Allura doesn’t fully understand what the app is used for and see no real use for it until she realizes that your spreading the word of Voltron around. Then she does start forcing herself into your videos, which you don’t really mind (she loves being in your videos but is really awkward💔)

Lance is the one who is with you in most of your videos, often doing dance trends or mini vlogs with you. He loves how people also know him and enjoys the popularity he has with your followers😜 Has stolen your phone just to have Lance one on ones with your followers

Hunk is another one who usually is dragged into any shenanigans you and Lance are up to, whether it’s pranking one of the paladins or teaching your followers how to cook meals (he loves the compliments people give him when they try his recipes out)

Pidge RARELY is in any of your videos, mostly because she doesn’t like having a camera shoved up her face randomly. But she sometimes does do one of your dumb videos when she’s bored and has nothing to do, which leads to you featuring her more often

Keith is a fan favorite honestly, the people love his sarcastic and brooding attitude, which he claims he doesn’t have. He doesn’t mind being in your videos but he’s most of the time standing like a wall not knowing what to do with himself💀💀 (he enjoys being included with you guys though💔)

Coran LOVES being in your videos since he feels like the main character in them! He’s actually stolen your phone multiple times just so he could post some videos of himself, he loves the attention he gets by being Voltrons secondhand man hehe

Overall, the team grew to enjoy your funny and inclusive videos, it helps them break out of the serious routine they’ve gotten used to while in space :D

[thenameisgul]

The thing with Castiel is that he had a lot of storylines that had potential to develop, but were cut short for whatever reason I don't understand: like Godtiel, humancas. For example, with humancas, an entire season could be devoted to exploiting that, it could be a separate storyline unrelated to Sam or Dean, he could meet other angels and have to solve problems himself. etc. But no, they abandoned it after a few episodes, for what? to make Dean not look like an asshole for abandoning Cas when he was most vulnerable, so as not to divert the audience's attention away from two brothers? I have a feeling the writers kept Cas/Misha around because of his popularity with fans, but never gave him the status he deserved for a character with so much potential and importance to the story line. I'm only in ss10 and heard that Cas is treated even worse in the later seasons, I don't know if I should continue watching or not.

if there's one thing I realized pretty early on when I was finally watching season 7 after a decade long break, was that in the Supernatural universe, there was no other character that was as interesting and multifaceted as Castiel.

The second thing I realized was that it was not a very good thing for the showrunners to have a supporting character be like that when your entire show revolves around two brothers.

The reason they killed off Castiel in early season 7 was because they wanted the show to go back to being about Sam and Dean and with Apocalypse over, they didn't know what to do with Castiel. But clearly, he was too popular and they brought him back because the network itself told them to bring him back.

Now, a good writer would've been able to find a balance to keep Cas' story relevant and entangled with the Winchesters, as they did in season 6 but with Kripke leaving the show and new management in the writer's room, that didn't happen.

I almost, almost get it? Like, you have your story, you have your lead characters and people love them but suddenly you bring a supporting character who becomes an instant fan favorite, who's, debatably, a lot more interesting because of the history you gave him but never intended to explore and now he's sticking around so you just don't know what to do to make him not take over the narrative? You make him weak.

Cas couldn't have stayed the badass, powerful angel who's lived for a millennia because then that'll require the show to have villians even more powerful than that to be any competition and that leaves the Winchesters irrelevant.

So they tamed him down alot, which in itself wouldn't have been such a bad thing, especially if they went with the human!cas arc for longer like you said but to do that would've meant they couldn't use Cas as an easy way out of all winchester's problems and they needed that too so 🤷‍♀️

My main problem with all of that, mostly comes from the fact that, and I may be wrong here, but it seemed like the writers actively resented misha/castiel for being popular. Like he was, in misha's words "a foil to the boys" and while the writers couldn't let him go because the show would lose ratings, they actively diminished him. The random demeaning comments about Castiel from other characters, especially, from dean seemed a little too pointed. Not to mention how the producers actually publicly said 'misha wasnt a good actor' when he's literally one of the best actors on the show!

So yeah, if supernatural had better writers, or atleast if they kept hold of the good ones (because there were some good ones) they could've given Cas and the show a better story.

I hate to say it but they did it to Sam too. Sam was such an complex character but they just stopped trying after a while with his character. So I guess it was a theme with these writers.

And as a Castiel fan, its frustrating, I gotta say that. But you know what the best part is? that no matter what they did, how dumb the storyline they gave him he still came out as the most interesting character every time. So there you go.

So I'd say watch the show, its really good when it gets good or maybe just open Misha's page on Supernatural wiki and only watch his episodes if that's your thing because tbh, you wouldn't miss much if you left the rest. lol

[tenebriskukris]

Oshi No Ko Chapter 156 - My Thoughts/Analysis

This manga certainly has some incredible pacing. Incredibly horrible, I mean. Spoilers for Oshi No Ko Chapter 156 below. 

Mem-Cho and Frill? Sure, I’ll bite. Let’s see what these two are up to. Surely there aren’t any hanging plot threads that were established in the last chapter as pressing matters. Cutting away to these two better have some relevance to the greater plot or I’m going to riot. 

Mem’s popular enough to have media people stalking her? That’s somewhat of a surprise. I was expecting something like this to happen after Kana got caught with Shima a few arcs ago. After figuring out that the new B-Komachi was vulnerable to media attention I’m surprised that something like this was only happening now. 

This talk about celebrity culture and such is so hamfisted it’s kind of amazing that the manga gets away with it. It doesn’t have the writing chops to justify just slamming that info out on a plate as often as it has. I understand it has to do this to convey some of the more technical aspects of the industry to the average viewer but the way the manga does it in this chapter so far lacks more than a bit of finesse. You’ve basically set up Frill in this chapter to be the mouthpiece of this industry infodump without giving thought to the prior scene. 

The world is becoming an increasingly difficult place to protect the private lives and peace of celebrities. It’s one of the downsides of fame, if you ask me. When a person reaches a certain amount of popularity there’ll always be people who want to find that new scoop and dig up some more info. In a way, it’s surprising that Mem is only focusing on her secret getting leaked to the public now instead of a few dozen chapters ago when B-Komachi was getting more and more popular. But that’s the fate of side characters in this manga, I suppose.

But…my age though. Of course, Mem is smarter than Kana in this aspect. A scandal that Kana tripped into is worse than Mem lying about her age all this time. It’s arguably even expected in the industry from what Miyako had mentioned to Mem before all the way back in the start of the manga. She’d certainly lose fans by doing that but it wouldn’t be as dealbreaking as Kana stumbling onto a potentially career ending situation.

This kind of suspicion is what spoils your heart the most. That’s just how being a public figure and content creator is these days. Mem is fortunate that most of her friend group were her friends first and then her coworkers second. Personal grievances and chasing fame and stepping into controversy can break these kinds of relationships faster than sending a hasty tweet on a social networking site. 

But Miyako always protects me with all her might. Miyako best mom as usual. It would be a lot nicer if we were to actually see Miyako protect Ruby from people rather than infodump it to us but at this point the manga is more than content to speedrun through important bits of the story to get to the ending.

So isn’t it wrong of you to apologize to us? Ruby, I think the words you’re looking for are “We should be the ones apologizing to you for putting you in this situation”. Funny to see that both twins’ communication skills need a little bit of work. There isn’t anyone to blame for this situation—both Ichigo Productions as well as Mem herself were completely fine with employing Mem despite knowing her age was higher than what she portrayed herself as. This was a secret that couldn’t be kept under wraps forever. It’s just fortunate that Mem has now carved out a decent fanbase for herself before her secret was threatened. 

Huh, we’re being thrown straight to Mem admitting that she’s older than she looks on a livestream. Might’ve been worth exploring this plot point a few dozen chapters back instead of throwing it at the reader during the final arc. As with so many plot points in this manga, it lacks a hell of a lot of setup for a much greater return.

A self proclaimed college girl? Wonder if she’s actually going to try to attempt to get into college or is this just another facade. It’s funny because Mem herself also poked fun at Kana and herself a few arcs ago for not being able to go to college in the first place. With the Japanese college workload I’m not sure it’d be possible to continue being both an idol and a student but if there are high schools that cater to up and coming stars then I suppose it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility.

Oh Mem, being defensive of her age. Never change. 

Offense is a good defense. Not sure how accurate this is to real life, but the ebbs of the Japanese entertainment industry likely differ in some respects from how it’s done in other countries, so I can’t comment with any degree of certainty on how this situation would actually work in real life.

That was a very cute chapter. Short and sweet. Any time we get to see these side characters shine is a treat. They were very sorely underused during this whole bloody series, in my opinion. We barely got any insight on so many of the side characters that showed up for the movie arc who were basically there to deliver short one liners and look pretty. Giving them screentime at the last arc of the series definitely isn’t the way to go—especially with what happened in the last few chapters.

Of course, I’ve been avoiding the elephant in the room for most of this chapter. We just got finished with a massive revelation in the last chapter with Hikaru and Nino and now we’re cutting away to a Mem chapter??? Objectively this chapter was about on par with the average Oshi No Ko chapter—in which there’s nothing wrong with it but a couple of nagging details that could’ve made a so-so chapter look alot better—but the timing of this chapter is just blargh.

This chapter could’ve been so easily placed before the timeskip that was mentioned a few chapters back. It would’ve kept the pace of the movie arc that was already starting to wrap up and give the reader a better sense that time was passing before we were thrown towards that massive flashback. As it stands now this chapter is symptomatic of one of the manga’s main issues. It’s inability to keep both its pacing and atmosphere steady.

After the revelations that were sprung on the reader last chapter, there are plenty of plot points that were needed to be touched on. Aqua and Ruby talking about current events and dealing with the DVDs—surely that has to be relevant enough to be shown on screen. Aqua and Akane both independently pegging Nino as Hikaru’s accomplice. Hell, even Hikaru himself dealing with Ai’s last wishes and the aftermath of the movie. As nice as it was to see the side characters get some spotlight, now is absolutely not the time to be touching on them after what we got in the last chapter. 

We deal with some of the most emotionally draining chapters of the series and then set up what is essentially a side character as the new villain of the series—and the next chapter after that is what is basically almost filler? It kills the atmosphere and the pacing of the chapters before it in a way that feels too much like driving a vehicle into a gutter. Again, this chapter would’ve been completely fine if it was placed before we got the Hikaru-Aqua confrontation and before the movie timeskip.

The counterargument here is that this chapter is meant to serve as a break after all the excitement that was present during the last chapter. Which is a fairly weak argument all things considered, since it is the final arc of the series. By this time most if not all of the lingering plot threads should’ve been tied up and all that remains are a couple of key reveals that determine what happens when the pieces all fall. If there are any reveals left to unveil, then they should’ve been sufficiently hinted at beforehand. What is needed in a final arc to set these characters onto a predictable but narratively satisfying joyride to the finale and keep that ride going without breaking stride. This chapter fails miserably at that.

Wrapping up the plot points of these side characters isn’t worth disjointing the pacing from the main plot. As much as I love to see Mem waddle about in this half baked world, it definitely wasn’t worth this distraction from the main event when we’re so close to the finish line. 

[eelfuneral]

After dealing with my emotions surrounding the season finale and looking at the situation from an objective point of view, I have a very strong suspicion that we have not seen the last of Tech. From both a marketing and storytelling standpoint, it makes the most sense to have this be a misdirection. This post runs a bit long, so I am going to elaborate under the cut.

First off, let’s talk marketing. Star Wars is a huge, merchandise-driven franchise, and The Bad Batch is an extremely successful part of it. It is so successful, in fact, that it remained relevant and popular while the Mandalorian, an absolute juggernaut of a show, was airing! I have also heard, anecdotally, that Disneyland has a hard time keeping Bad Batch merch in stock because it is so damn popular. Tech himself is a fan favorite and major money maker, and D/LF knows this. He is such a fan-favorite that he was frequently featured as the focal point for social media marketing for season 2, and his adorable armor is practically designed to make action figures of him sell. My point is, it wouldn’t make financial sense to kill a main character that sells so much merchandise off so early in the run of a series. Bear in mind that we are only on the second season of the show!

So why bother with leaving the audience on a cliffhanger where Tech appears dead? Two words come to mind: social media. Having a fan favorite’s fate be left up in the air is a great way to generate debate and discussion across social media platforms and keep your show trending for a long time. Trending topics have more eyes on them and often spark the curiosity of people who did not know about them before. Contemporary show runners know that a social media presence is yet another way to advertise a show, and TBB’s has been heavily marketed via social media anyways.

Having Tech’s death be a fake-out also makes sense plot-wise. First off, we didn’t see a body, and television shows often do this when they want to hint that a character may not actually be dead. This is especially true in Star Wars, where characters have survived immolation, explosions, and being cut in half. Big, main character deaths in Star Wars don’t tend to happen until the very end, and we are not quite there yet. We also don’t see much of Tech’s fall, meaning that he could have gotten dislodged from the tram car by an obstacle like a tree or fallen into water.

Second, Hemlock, a character who has been established as a dishonest manipulator of clones, was the one to break the news of Tech’s “death” by giving Hunter Tech’s goggles. As many others have established, Tech’s goggles are the most delicate part of his kit and they have an intact strap. They also sit underneath his helmet, so they would likely have to have been physically removed via human intervention. Hemlock would also see Tech, an enhanced clone, as an irresistible test subject, and Hemlock having Tech gives the writers an easy way to get into the facility where Omega and Crosshair are being kept. If I were a writer who wanted to have one of my super-soldier characters get captured and later help other characters break out of a laboratory with him, then I would go with the genius hacker/engineer.

Having Tech survive would also give us a nice parallel to the first two episodes of season 2. Tech fell and sustained a serious injury from being crushed by a box in a way that could foreshadow his current predicament. A big deal was also made about having a seriously injured Tech rescue Omega, so having a similar thing happen with higher stakes in season 3 would be a nice callback, and Star Wars LOVES callbacks.

Finally, Tech appearing to be dead, seeing the horrors of the Empire’s experiments, and returning to his family would bring additional emotional weight and character development. Losing Tech and then having him come back and tell them about what is happening to other clones just might be the push that Wrecker and Hunter need to join Echo and Rex in their fight against the Empire. Since we are in the very middle of the story, the stakes will have to be raised even further to get to the climax in the final season, and having The Bad Batch actively fight the Empire would be a good way to build up to that. Additionally, this kind of a plot would further reinforce how close this little family is by showing how lost they are without each other and how intense their emotions are when reunited, and that would make whatever happens to them at the very end (happy, sad, or bittersweet) that much more poignant.

And about those tweets from the Kiner Brothers: don’t take them as confirmation of anything. The score is one of the last things that gets added to television shows, so it is very unlikely that they have seen season 3. They also would not tell us over Twitter if they knew Tech’s fate, because they likely would have had to have signed an NDA and The Mouse is infamously paranoid about leaking spoilers. They also reiterated that they are not in the writers’ room in a recent Q&A.

[abyssalshriek]

what kind of music would your agents listen to?

I'm no expert of music, so I apologize if I'm not using proper music terminology. Also, this is long, so answered under the read more:

Captain 3: They like video game music, mainly boss themes. When listening to this music, sometimes they reminisce about the days when they were healthier and could take on real bosses. When thinking of these moments, sometimes they think of the enemies they faced as the bosses, and sometimes they think of themself as the boss.

They also like to make remixes of music, and they post their favorites online under their DJ alias. They don't intend to pursue this as a career, just as a hobby. They get a solid amount of views, with their most popular remix getting almost a million views (it has about five times the views of their second most popular remix).

They learned to expect remixes of their friends' songs (Squid Sisters and Off the Hook) to be copyright claimed, and sometimes even taken down. They still post them occasionally, though.

Their favorite song changes a lot, but when asked, they will claim its one of the Squid Sisters' songs (usually Calamari Inkantation) because they're their close friends.

Agent 4: For the most part, she prefers songs that are calmer, lower energy. She also likes listening to Marie's songs because of how close they are, and because Marie has a lot of songs that fit this vibe. It's usually songs like this she listens to when she draws.

She also likes songs she can sing along to. Like Captain 3, she has no intent of pursuing this as a career, but she did get singing lessons from one of her friends for a while.

She does listen to pop music, too. When listening to mainstream music that doesn't have Marie in it, her go-to is Off the Hook. She was actually a little starstruck when she first met them. No one noticed because this nervousness was indistinguishable from her normal nervousness around strangers.

Her favorite song is Tidal Rush. The first time she saved Callie was one of the few times, before she started treating her mental health, that she felt truly happy with and proud of herself, so this song is nostalgic because of that.

Eight: Her tastes lean more towards mainstream music. Partially because she likes how it sounds, but also because she thinks it helps her immerse herself in Inkling culture. She thinks it helped her with learning the language, too. She will listen to songs in any language.

She isn't a musician herself. Many of her friends (the Captain, Pearl, Marina) tried teaching her some, but she never took anything far past the basics. She will still happily try playing music, uncaring of how good or bad it sounds. She will help the Captain write song lyrics using her experience with poetry. The Captain rarely posts these because neither of them can sing very well.

It might not be her favorite to listen to, but she will always say the Calamari Inkantation is her favorite song because of how it changed her life. Her favorite to listen to is Now or Never, with her preferred cover changing a lot.

New Agent 3: They say they will listen to anything. Really, they will listen to anything with lots of energy. Slower songs, or even songs with some calmer moments, aren't their preference. The Squid Sisters gave them an early preview of Wave Goodbye, and they smiled and said it was good, but they struggled to pay attention to it.

They like the music that plays in Turf War. They've learned to recognize them all by name as soon as a match starts, even the ones they aren't as a big a fan of.

They're favorite band is Damp Socks, and they may have (unintentionally) been rude when they met Off the Hook because they kept asking about the band they collabed with, rather than stuff relevant to them. Off the Hook didn't mind, though. They were glad the rising stars they worked with were getting attention.

They want to learn an instrument, but they can never settle on one, often going back-and-forth between the handful they own. They are best with the drums, but they worry it isn't as impressive of an instrument, so they don't play it as much as they should.

(Bonus) Little Buddy: Little Buddy hasn't worked out their tastes yet. When they are in control of what song they listen to, they decide in the first two seconds whether or not they want to hear the whole thing. Agent 3 still hasn't figured out what the pattern might be to what songs they will and won't give a try.

[chosetherose]

Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus immediately hit me as being strongly sonically reminiscent of a song by The Smiths. which might just be a case of, well there are only so many chords in the world and patterns end up repeating. but I’d like to ponder what I think the connection could mean, in case it is in fact an intentional reference.

It sounds like the song ‘Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want’ which is as the title sounds, a straightforward heartfelt plea that the narrator’s luck will change for once in his life: ‘See the life I’ve had, can make a good man turn bad’. In Taylor’s song as soon as I heard the notes of the piano motif, and particularly the strumming pattern of the guitar, my mind kept itching for it to lead into the instrumental from the end of the Smiths song, as if they have a similar chord progression or something. maybe someone more musically minded can explain what I’m hearing? I looked up the chords and both songs are a lot of Fmaj, C and G, but many songs share chords and sound totally different so it feels like there’s more that I can’t articulate.

Some context for those not familiar: the songwriter and lead singer of British 80s band The Smiths was Morrissey. he’s since done some imo bad solo stuff and veered alarmingly right wing as he’s aged, much to the distress of Smiths fans who initially admired him for using his cutting wit to be outspokenly left wing, pro-animal rights, anti-Margaret Thatcher etc.

For decades he didn’t explicitly come out, but was vaguely assumed to be gay because of his lyrics (e.g. songs like This Charming Man and Hand in Glove). since he wasn’t out or labelled a ’gay singer’ he was able to become this very popular symbol amongst straight men for championing an alternative, soft, intellectual masculinity for them to identify with. known for his depressing (but also clever and humorous) poetic lyrics, and performing holding bouquets of flowers. I’ve seen a video where blokes from the audience surge up out of the crowd one by one to kiss his cheek while he sings, as if he’s their deity of allowing men to get in touch with their feelings.

Around 2013 he came out as bi / ‘attracted to a small number of humans’ in a memoir. the tone of the press around it is like ‘Morrissey finally kind of admits he’s gay, eye-roll no surprise’. The thing is, he’s no one’s bi hero because by the time he came out he’d gained his current reputation as a rude dickhead whose politics have devolved into anti-immigrant bigotry among other heartless bad takes. the press like to use his song title ‘Big Mouth Strikes Again’ as a headline when he chimes off, he has the total opposite of Taylor’s cautious approach to voicing opinions publicly.

Again, I don’t know if Taylor’s making this musical reference intentionally, or if hearing the connection is just a me thing. but it’s interesting that Morrissey’s career is defined by being a beloved sexually ambiguous poet who became so different from his early persona and politics that many fans who worshipped him now talk about separating art from artist in order to keep enjoying the songs they love. both his similarities and differences to Taylor strike me as thematically relevant to our TTPD discussions.

Or perhaps just hearing the lyrics to Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want can help add a dimension of understanding to Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus. Taylor’s wistful tone of voice and longing ‘what if’ lyrics certainly fit the sentiment, and thinking about the two songs together adds to the depth of her weariness and desperation. I hope someone talented also picks up on the similarities because I’d love to hear a mashup some day.

Anon, I’m really impressed by all the thought you put into this. What an interesting back story for Taylor to potentially connect to.

It’s all way over my head though - I didn’t know of this song before your ask - so I’m hoping others will chime in.

[antoschauniverse]

I don't know why but when I think of D, I imagine that he smells like boiled cabbage mixed with weed. He looks unkempt and homeless, so I can't imagine a good smell. I think the image that solidified that smell for me was the orangey-brown "suit" he wore to one of the premieres of RTC. His hair was shabby, he looked somewhat bloated and just dirty. He' s like a cabbage patch gramp (not kid).

Poor old kept woman (she may be in her 30's but has a 40's look). She gets the old man and didn't get to enjoy the youthful and eye candy of young-er D. He went downhill around 2019. What happened?

Everything is simple. The eleventh season of the X-Files premiered on January, 2018. David's main series with a huge fan base and a huge salary. What happened after that? Nothing. Since 2019, David has been starring in supporting roles in low-budget films that have not been successful. Who, besides David's hardcore fans, will remember The Bubble or The Pet Cemetery: Blood Ties? Even the film by Meg Ryan, where David played the main role, was not a success. David is a good writer, but there are quite a few such writers and if it weren't for the fans, I doubt his books would have become so famous. But even the fans don't save the situation. David unsuccessfully tried to sell his books to studios for film adaptation. Truly Like Lightning - remained a project, Bucky F*cking Dent David filmed as a low-budget project,but I have not heard that the film was a great success. The music tours, which attract fewer and fewer viewers, are David's attempt to stay relevant and deceive himself that he still continues to be popular, as in the 90s. Pay attention to the title of David's podcast. David is not a fool and he understands that he has been failing all these years. But as I wrote, he's no fool, and that's why David prefers to talk about his failures, which happened a long time ago. But even this podcast has become one of many that already exist. And I feel that David is already tired of doing a job where the main characters are his guests, but not himself. David was tired of another not super popular project. It's possible that Gillian's participation can give the project some impetus, but it will be a one-time surge of interest in the podcast. And it is worth noting that when a man has a woman next to him who is completely dependent on him, then a man does not need to make any effort to look better. A kept woman is a dependent figure, without the right to vote, who can be replaced at any moment if she says something that David does not like and it does not matter what it will be: appearance, lifestyle, habits or desires of sugar daddy

[jessthetea]

The sad part about all this is Jess can say she had a relationship with Liam and he's no longer here to refute it. She can make up all kinds of stories now.

One of the lowest things someone can do is claim a connection with someone who’s no longer here to confirm or deny it—especially hinting at some kind of close relationship, whether as a friend, a partner, or even a “manager” (as she’s long listed on her website without proof). Liam can’t comment on any of it now, which is pretty telling.

It’s also worth noting that if she was supposedly his manager in 2017 or 2018, there’s no record of it on her social media. Jess’s fans might argue, “She doesn’t have to post proof,” but considering Liam’s popularity at the time—like MGK’s, for instance, who she has plenty of photos with—you’d expect at least one picture or reference back then. Clearly, he was “okay” being in photos with her since she has one now, so why not post it when it was supposedly happening?

Instead, she kept this connection to herself until after his passing, and she didn’t tag any relevant accounts or receive acknowledgment from anyone in his circle. Whatever connection she did have with him, it seems she didn’t feel comfortable making it public until now, which says a lot about how “professional” it likely wasn’t.

[thisisyourprincipalspeaking]

Love your questions! I’ll place your questions to me in pink! 😉

why do you think he couldn't go down that kind of career path otherwise? (i have my own thoughts but i'm interested in yours)

- I think many of us have witnessed the multiple insecurities this man has unintentionally let everyone know he battles. Anyone belittling themselves in a “joking” way multiple times is very telling. Being confident isn’t arrogant, but talking down on yourself all the time shows insecurity. I believe he’s scared and I know he deals with anxiety issues so I can only hope he works on himself, seeks counseling, etc to reach his fullest potential one day. He’s very talented but his fans can’t want more for him than he wants for himself. As so many have stated, from our limited perspective, it’s like he said screw improving his craft and personal development and went straight for a perceived “easy” route. FAIL!

in your opinion has this been beneficial in that way thus far? or would he have had the same recent opportunities regardless of his relationship status?

- this is hard to say because as we all know or can assume …..being successful in Hollywood isn’t about sole talent unless you are top tier talent level wise, thus you don’t have to resort to silly pr stunts, but as time goes by even some of the most talented are resorting to pr related things just to stay relevant. I will say that when it comes to getting roles THAT is where I think it’s not as easy as many like to believe. I don’t know if Chris panicked, thought this was a good business move, had his agency persuade or threatened his career, studios didn’t see it for him outside of Marvel, etc. (all assumptions of course). I just know when award season draws near, many single stars who are in top related or relevant projects……magically gain significant others around award season and I don’t know Hollywood’s unwritten rules, but I think it’s sad that their personal lives become part of deciding if something, that should be solely based on talent, is obtainable for them or not. The fact Chris and her magically popped up around award party season doesn’t leave my mind either.

Now where would he be currently had he stayed single or kept his private life……ACTUALLY private. Idk. What I do know is popularity wise he’d be in a much better place and maybe that would have helped Jinx or ASP or whatever else he’s promoted the past few years. Now majority of the fandom quit or barely care and he’s got a slew of projects coming out that could be great or bomb and if they bomb, no telling what may happen regarding this shitfest, but by that time this fandom may no longer exist. 🤪

do you feel like there hasn't been enough time for this to show fruit just yet and we will potentially see more later?

- at this point, I see no benefit. He/his team dropped the ball big time. If this is real, there should not have been any trolling, 7482893 of irrelevant articles, orchestrated pap shots, mess, etc he simply could have posted her to his IG grid, turned comments off and went about his business. Ironically this would’ve given them more attention, appeared natural than the Central Park horror show they used to debut this mess. He had a great position and huge fanbase, well large enough to get him trending with every post. Too late now though unless they end this, disassociate from her but again they are “married”: she’ll be known as his first wife unless they have a plan to make this disappear 🙄 and regroup his career, but even then the trust is broken. They instead squandered that and whatever benefits he had or has just seems wasted. I still refuse to believe this isn’t a pr stunt because you can’t tell me a bunch of adult collectively thought THIS was the best option to debut his personal relationship if legit. Too much crap has happened even with two “weddings”. It either shows his team is incompetent and since he’s in charge that means he agreed to this mess or CAA has more power than we know. Either way Chris comes off as the complete opposite of what everyone has come to love/like him for.

- Will this ever end, not sure maybe not for a long while or not at all. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I will say anything can happen at this point so I’d just suggest those heavily invested in this just walk away until this ends or is confirmed to be legit in a way I refuse to waste time typing. But even if this never ends, I don’t see Chris returning to his once loved and respected status among fans nor the general public. Even if the age gap were the only issues, he shows he has issues. A mature man isn’t marrying a twenty something yr old, period. He’s lucky the general population isn’t aware of EVERYTHING His fandom is aware of …..but maybe this would have needed sooner if the backlash was that dire and huge.

I expected better from this man, but this is also a huge example as to why we shouldn’t place expectations on other humans let alone ones we don’t actually know nor should we put them on pedestals which is why Hollywood thrives unfortunately.

Hope this answers some stuff, just my random thoughts & opinions, fell free to ask anymore questions. 😎☺️

thank you for coming back and answering my questions, nonnie. i do agree with you on some points.

i do think celebrities can hide their true selves when needed. and we have seen some celebrities do this for long periods of time over the years. but i also will not give leniency to a celebrity, with lots of money, access and the ability to get help (therapy) if they want it. many many people have anxiety, depression, or other mental health concerns and function every day. he has anxiety? okay. but that is not a crutch i will give him as a multimillionaire who chose his path and has money for therapy, treatment, physicians, etc. many others do not have that luxury and still go about their daily lives.

one reason i can see this being "real" is because of how messy it is. her friends are trash and troll. that's obvious. she's lazy and gets access to many rooms more talented, more hard working, or more accomplished actors don't because of this association and she's done nothing with it. if it's real, his team didn't get a say. they just got told to make it known to the public and make it look okay. if that's what happened. okay. there is no professional on earth who could work with this scenario and make it look okay.

but thank you, nonnie. i do enjoy seeing your thoughts! please come back any time!

[bookshop]

no one cares about avatar unless there's an airbender attached

I wrote this absolutely unhinged comment in response to Adam Burnas's attempt to quantify Avatar's cultural impact on Ryan Broderick's Garbage Day newsletter, only to realize that I couldn't even post it after I was done, so I hope you all like some salty thoughts on fandom and geek culture and cartoon-inspired rap lyrics and my experience as an internet culture reporter leading me to conclude that truly no one gives a fuck about James Cameron's Avatar.

Hi, Adam, I apologize for the length of this comment and for being a bit negative here, but a) I had MANY THOUGHTS!!! and b) you shaded the beloved fandom I was actively in for nearly a decade, so I have to protest.

Inception's strong AO3 presence is far and away reflective not just of the fact that it happened to have two hot guys in it, but of the film's overall cultural staying power. Within the fanfiction community, Inception fic has a reputation for being very smart and complex and layered and really playing around with both the film's worldbuilding and its metanarratives. Seeing it written off as "hurh hurh handsome boys" felt super dismissive and unnecessary.

I also felt like your read on the rap lyrics you were searching was also somewhat perfunctory and dismissive. For example, Space Jam's cultural resonance within rap lyrics also aligns with that of MANY other animated works (I wrote a whole article once for ex on how popular Dragonball Z is with hip-hop artists), and I think there's likely a lot more going on there than just people dropping Nike references, especially given how objectively popular Space Jam is with 90s kids. You seemed exhausted by having to sort through a bunch of random Nike mentions, but I feel like there's probably something deeper in there to find.

Again, seeing all of this cultural saturation summed up as "cartoons and sexy boys" felt really dismissive, especially when you're also trying to get us to take seriously the argument that references to Avatar as primarily "something big and blue" make a case for it having cultural staying power as a film/world/artwork.

Why? To me, those references strongly suggest that the collective cultural understanding of Avatar that's being spread is of a big blue bloated empty film whose contents are negligible. Nothing to do with the film or its characters or its world, but as a collectively understood white elephant.

As for the data, you spent a lot of time telling us that Avatar *is* culturally relevant to some people, somewhere, while showing us data that consistently suggests the opposite. I kept waiting for you to look at the relevance of Avatar in your chosen categories *over time* to see both how it fared compared to your other films and how much it waned or rose in the cultural conversation as time went on. That you didn't do this seems like a huge gap in any attempt to quantify its cultural impact and staying power.

You also say at one point that Avatar is "exactly where it should be" which feels like a strange assumption. Why *should* it belong anywhere at all in the cultural mix, and what factors have granted it such a place? I would have enjoyed some interrogation of that idea.

You say that Avatar is a movie that isn't made to perform well as a GIF. Really? It's a dazzling visual feast, a CGI spectacle, the kind of thing GIFs would surely enhance. You don't really consider that maybe its failure to succeed in such a visual medium despite it being such a visual film is an especially telling failure.

And you don't make any attempt to find and qualitatively examine another avenue -- fanart is the obvious medium that comes to mind -- by which fans of the film could really respond to the film's visuals and world in a way that both reflects their appreciation for the movie and helps boost its cultural impact.

I'm also really surprised you didn't look for Avatar memes on KnowYourMeme etc? If Avatar has no real memes to speak of (other than people mocking its use of Papyrus font, which arguably counts!), isn't that another giant sign that its cultural impact is negligible?

For that matter, why not look on Reddit to see how many subreddits are dedicated to Avatar (the first film), and how active they were in the years prior to the second film's production?

As an internet culture reporter, if I were tasked with writing this article, this is how I would report this out. You repeatedly assert that Avatar must be meaningful to certain communities or platforms, but then never show us which/where those communities are. So I'm honestly less convinced that Avatar is a cultural icon now than I was before looking at all your data.

Also! "But it also begs the question, where are all the people saying no one ever talks about Gravity or Mr. & Mrs. Smith or Hancock?"

... Dude people DO talk about Mr. & Mrs. Smith constantly, that movie has had significant cultural staying power haha. But also none of these other films made a zillion box office dollars which is the main factor that you have to consider in comparing them to the one movie that did. For so many of them to have more quantifiable data in their favor than Avatar is astonishing.

Crucially, the communities that you identify as ones that would be meaningful contributors to the film's lasting relevance are ones that gravitate towards the types of genres of which you seem dismissive. That certainly matters in terms of impact! Certainly on Tumblr, which is still one of the biggest fuelers of cultural conversations that travel far beyond Tumblr itself, Goncharov is already bigger and more significant to the community by orders of magnitude than Avatar ever was.

And I think it's hugely significant that the Goncharov memers chose Avatar, the big, blue, bloated, fully mainstream, pretty but essentially empty movie, to contrast Goncharov with. That says a huge amount about what type of stories and art and forms of creation people in those communities value and aspire to make more of.

That sense of transformativity may be difficult to quantify, but I think it's doable. I just think you probably won't get there searching Genius for lyrics mentioning "Jake Scully."

And honestly, I don't think you'll get there at all with Avatar. I just don't think, ultimately, there's anything there to find.

[nite-puff]

I feel you so much on the Mondo thing... Where every character falls into some kinda category based on how liked they are (there are the ones everyone likes, ones everyone hates, the underrated characters, etc.), Mondo's sort of floating off in this innocuous void?? Obviously he has a cult following and he has his haters, but most of the fandom just kinda doesn't even care?? It's complete indifference, and the only reason he isn't considered an underrated character is because he's in one of the much more popular ships. Other than some characters from dr3, I kinda consider him to be the MOST underrated character. Because with characters like Hiro and Akane, at least people KNOW they're underrated. People actively look at them and think "there's more to them that we don't get to see", but with Mondo, most of his major lore details are handed to you right in chapter 2. He is made REMARKABLY easy to understand, and I don't consider that to be a writing flaw in the slightest. But I think as a result of this people just look at him, go "alright, I've seen all there is to see", and then move on without much further consideration. Then with Mondo enjoyers themselves, the line between those who like him as an individual versus those who like him as an add-on to Kiyotaka or even Chihiro is clear as day, to the point where you see people get some really surface level characterization wrong (Like I hate to be that guy but people don't make Mondo nearly the level of sopping wet beast roaming around in the middle of the target parking lot all alone as they should). Then the people who actually care about the guy write 90 page essays on him. Like there's no in-between.

YES YES I 100% AGREE!!!

I remember seeing this Instagram post back in 2021 when Danganronpa kinda had that popularity resurgence (aka when I joined the fandom). It was one of those “starter pack”memes and went something like “‘Characters the fandom doesn’t care about unless it’s shipping’ starter pack” and Mondo was part of it. And I no joke thought, “Oh wow, they included Mondo,” like I was completely expecting for him to be overlooked.

It’s rare nowadays to find a character or trial or what-have-you that’s actually underrated when it comes to the mainline DR games. Most that were probably underrated at some point just kept being talked about how underrated they were until they weren’t really considered underrated anymore.

But Mondo is underrated and no one really talks about it because no one cares. At least, outside of his small group of fans.

There’s so much analysis and deep dives you can do with him from masculinity, to negative stigmas, to repressed and untreated mental disorders. Like, he’s one of the few characters who was written to have a mental disorder (ptsd, albeit with some negative stereotypes). He’s a scared kid hiding behind the mask of a fearless leader, and the game does a great job at showing that. But no one talks about it.

And that lack of talk amongst the fandom is what eventually led to the fanon Mondo we have today. No one really wanted to analyze what he brought to the table and so people just started viewing him as the surface level macho bad boy stereotype that he was WRITTEN TO SUBVERT.

I do think that there’s some sort of devolution from that version of him that’s been happening the past couple of years with those fans who would “write 90 page essays of him” coming into the scene, and that’s great. Love that for him. I’m glad that, while he’s not nearly talked about enough, there’s been a slight increase of interest of him as an individual character and not as a ship or foil.

Anyways yeah, “Make Mondo Relevant in the Fandom 2023.” Let’s make it happen.

[herefortarlos]

Hello!

I love seeing your excitement around the fandom and a special thanks for all the support you give me in the tags! I was what made you start watching lone star? What made you keep watching lone star? What’s your favorite part of fandom?

Awwww, hello, Jen!! Haha, I am very happy to know that you enjoy my fangirling and hopefully don't find it annoying 😆.

So what clued me into 911 Lone Star, was seeing random clips from the show when I would be bored and scroll through FB and Instragram's videos section. The scenes that I remember the best are of course the racist neighbor and "Sure ma'am but I am a homosexual." And Paul's, "but I am trans, though." And then the corn silo scene and Marjan popping up and having lost her hijab, and everyone gathering around to protect her modesty. I loved knowing there was a show out there that had, from the brief bits I saw, canon gay, trans and Muslim characters!! Then I bought Hulu in late 2022, specifically to watch the movie Julie and Julia, then I watched all of Modern Family. And then I was like, well, I still have this service for the end of the month, and I saw Lone Star was on it and I have not looked back 😂 I wish Hulu kept track of it, because I don't know how I consumed 3 seasons of Lone Star so quickly while also working.

Tarlos and TK, then later Carlos, when we finally got more of him in season 2, were big reasons I kept watching. I also genuinely like all of the characters! I did not think I would love Judd as much as I did, big, stereotypical Texas man, but is not like you thought at all! Owen and TK's relationship is one of my favorite things too, such a loving father-son relationship, without the toxic masculinity is so refreshing! Getting Tommy in season 2 was such a big improvement too!!

I could go on and on about the characters, but another huge reason I fell in love with the show was because it actually had a trans black man, played by a trans male actor, a gay Latino man, played by a gay actor, and of course the fandom didn't find out about Ronen until 2021, but I learned watching in 2022, was a gay man, played by a bisexual actor!! Representation matters and as a queer person, I was so happy to see a show actually put in the effort to try and cast accordingly!! Even now, when I try to get friends to watch the show, I always start by gushing about tarlos, of course, and then secondly talk about the casting!

Finally, my FAVORITE part of the fandom has to be all of our amazingly talented writers and the stories they provide to keep Tarlos alive, interesting and relevant, especially during longer than expected hiatuses. I have been reading fanfic for various fandoms since 2012? And I appreciate all the work and effort writers put in to provide us fans with more content, without expecting anything in return, so the least I can do is comment on fics and reblog works here with my unhinged tags 😂

Also, I really appreciate how active the fandom is on Tumblr and I loveee saving and liking posts, specifically based on different people's tags 😆 As my name suggests, I made a new Tumblr for Tarlos in January 2023 I believe, so very recent. The last time I was on Tumblr was 2019, after it quickly declined in popularity, and all the previous artists and writers I followed left for Twitter. The fact that I fell in love with a show and couple enough to seek out a community for it definitely says a lot about it! When I fall in love with characters or a couple, I will hyper fixate on them for a minimum of 2 years, and hopefully this obsession lasts longer because of this active fandom and the fact that Lone Star is still ongoing and providing new material, as soon as these dumb companies decide to actually pay their workers a decent living wage anyway.

Phew, time to go find some lunch 😂 Thank you for the ask, Jen, and if you ever need a beta I'm your girl ❤️ But regardless, you can definitely expect me to reblog and express my love for the next fic you tease! I am not going to survive when Meet you After Dark drops!